Floor Statements

Two hundred years ago, James Madison, on the House floor, gave the following speech, and he said: ``If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare and are the soul and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish, they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Nation.''

What Madison said sarcastically 200 years ago is actually before us in bill form today. Madison concluded by saying: ``Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the foundations and transmute the very nature of limited government established by the people of America.''

Now, are the sponsors of this bill sincere? Yes. Are the goals of this program good? Yes. Would this program be beneficial for kids? Yes. Should the Federal Government take the initiative to introduce it? No. If we view the different responsibility levels of government, someone has to stand up and say, stop, we are not a school board.

There is also a practical reality of this legislation. The most common response to top-down mandates of teachers who have to implement it is, this too shall pass, which simply means the potential grants in the future may be good, but a buy-in has to come at a local level, which means the advocates of this program should be taking their initiative to every local district where they can get that buy-in from those who have to implement it. It will take a lot more time and work, but it is much more effective in the long run because the reporting requirements that will be mandated on every district in this Nation by this bill will produce more resentment than reform.

This bill is well-intentioned, it has all sorts of good motives; but because of that, it is too important to allow it to remain at the Federal level. It must be done in the districts where it will actually have some impact.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize one of Utah's great medical institutions, McKay-Dee Hospital, as it celebrates 100 years of service.

Founded by Annie Taylor Dee in Ogden, Utah, its goal was to bring medical services to underserved areas. In

1915, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints assumed ownership of the Dee Hospital, and under the leadership of David O. McKay expanded services for even more residents. In 1976, the LDS church relinquished control of the McKay-Dee Hospital network to the not-for- profit Intermountain Healthcare, leaving it with the charge to become a model of health care excellence.

Taking this charge of excellence to heart, tens of thousands of hardworking individuals have devoted their lives to healing patients at the three hospitals that have become the Intermountain McKay-Dee Hospital and Medical Center, and their efforts have been recognized as a national model for providing quality and affordable health care.

Mr. Speaker, I ask you and my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Intermountain McKay-Dee Hospital for its 100 years of dedicated service.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the President moves to Florida to salvage or to attempt to salvage a deteriorating political situation caused by accepting NASA Deputy Director Garver's poor decision to cancel Constellation.

Constellation consists at least of two parts: the Orion capsule for the astronauts designed to be 10 times safer

than the space shuttle, and the Aries rocket to send into space. But the alleged savings are more than offset by unintended consequences, because the industrial base that builds the rocket to put people towards the moon also builds the rockets to shoot down incoming missiles from North Korea, Iran, and other bad guys. And if you take the space component away, the defense side costs doubles, triples, maybe even more. And the Augustine report, which this administration is not following, noted this potential industrial-based problem, but NASA either refused to pay attention or chose to ignore the warning.

Regardless, the solution to escalating defense costs and to maintaining the dominance in space will be dependent upon fully funding the Constellation program. And, Mr. President, anything less than that is totally unacceptable.

Well, I appreciate my good friend from Missouri bringing this issue up to us again, especially now that we're talking about missiles.

One of the things President Reagan once said is: Was the United States ever involved in a war because we were too strong? The answer is no. But what we're also talking about here is sometimes--as I was an old school teacher--when we're young and naive, we tend to overlook details, and those details could be devastating. For example, Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo not because he was outmaneuvered at Waterloo. He was not. He lost it because they overlooked a detail. They didn't bring a bag of nails. At that time, when you overtook the enemy artillery, you would dismantle it by driving a nail through the firing mechanism so it would be useless.

When Napoleon overran the British artillery, they didn't bring any nails with them. Consequently, the British recaptured that artillery and it wreaked havoc on Napoleon's forces. And every book of what would have happened always has a chapter of what would have happened if they had actually brought the nails.

Now, let me turn that analogy slightly into the situation we are in right now, because I think this administration is missing a lot of bags of nails that are out there. One in particular deals with our missile program in the future if, indeed, the direction we're going is not the right direction and we want to change that.

You and I were here with several other Members last year a long time talking about our missile defense system, because last year we cut the potential of a mobile missile defense system, KEI. We stopped the ground-based missile defense system that we had, and we were complaining that that was probably an inopportune time.

One of the nails that we are now missing is what happens if we don't look at the unintended consequences of our actions. I'm going to say how this thing kind of turns together, and sometimes I think this administration is not realizing how everything in government relates.

Last year, when we stopped the ground-based missiles and stopped the KEI, among other things that we did, we put the industrial base in disarray. Now I'm coming back to the old industrial base argument because I'm using it again and again. This year, NASA, space exploration, which you think has nothing to do with defense, but space exploration is trying to take this product, the Ares rocket, which was labeled our best innovation of last year, and they want to cancel the production.

Now, that ties together as a bag of nails simply because the people who work in the companies that produce this rocket also produce the missiles. So the rockets that are built to send a guy to the moon are built by the same kinds of people who build the rockets to stop a North Korean or Iranian or some other rogue missile from coming into this country. And if we devastate the industrial base, we don't have the capacity to change our projection and fix this problem if, indeed, it takes place, and we increase the cost to the defense of this country significantly because of it. Let me give you one example.

Just the oxidizer that starts the propulsion concept in our motors, that, because of the cuts last year to our missile system, has gone from $5 to $12 a pound. It's a fixed cost to produce this stuff, and we use it by the ton. And when you cut down the amount you use, the company then has to make a profit, so they charge more per unit. So we've gone from $5 to $12.

If, indeed, you stop the Ares 1 program in our space program, who uses this stuff significantly, that cost will either double or triple or be even more. So it means to produce the same motors we need to just maintain where we are, we are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars--maybe running into the billions of dollars--without having done anything to improve our status. We will spend more money. We will not have a better product, and if we want to turn around and change that, we don't have the industrial base yet. If we fire all those people who are making these kinds of rockets, we don't have anywhere to turn for our own defense system.

The Department of Defense has recognized that. The Navy has said that they are fearful that the increased cost for them could be 10 to 20 percent. They don't know where the increase can stand if, indeed, we go along and cancel our space program.

Yes. And our ICBMs, for example, need to stay there until the year 2030. That's their planned life. But what happens if you do one of those solid rocket motors and you pull it out to do the inspection and there is a problem with it? Where are the experts to go in and find out what went wrong, and how do you solve that problem in the future? Where are the niche suppliers who are no longer in the market? This is one of those things.

So I'm talking about nails for the future of our missile defense system that are being lost because we simply didn't think ahead--or this administration didn't think ahead.

DOD sent us a report last year that said if you slowed down Constellation, it would have a significant negative impact. Secretary for Acquisitions in the Department of Defense said that this industrial base is not our birthright. If we lose this industrial base, we may never get it back. And all of them are saying--General Keller said the same thing, that he is not comfortable with the direction we're going because the cost overruns that will come to the defense system simply means, obviously, NASA and Department of Defense did not talk one with another.

The Augustine Commission report that was supposedly giving a report on what we would do with our space in the future said, This is a problem. The industrial base situation is a significant problem if, indeed, you stop the Constellation program. You need to work that ahead. NASA did not do it. They either chose to ignore it or they didn't study the report very closely. Those are the nails we have.

So you have those pictures up there of what we are going to do with North Korean potential missiles that were in striking distance of the United States; Iranian missiles that could come within striking distance in the future but are definitely within striking distance of Europe now. And what is even more terrifying is if one of those countries--

and I don't think it would be beyond the realm of possibility--were to give their devices to some rogue player, not necessarily another nation, but some rogue player, and obviously have them aimed at the United States, and we, because we decided not to think through situations and think ahead of what we're doing, for either naivete, being new, or simply ideological reasons, we have lost the nails to make sure that we continue to defend this particular country.

I agree totally with the gentleman from Missouri, who is such a leader on the Armed Services Committee. Part of the problem, nuclear soft power notwithstanding, we are talking about the overall defense of this country, and in area after area we tend to be weakening our position.

I agree with the gentleman that we should not have scaled back in our laser technology. I agree definitely that last year we made a mistake when we cut the kinetic energy intercourse program, those mobile rockets aimed to stop missiles coming at us. I agree that we made a mistake when we limited the number of ground-based missiles that we had, ready to go. The silos ready to be filled, we just simply stopped it, artificially, arbitrarily, and that puts us in a weaker situation.

I am also concerned that when you add to what they're talking about doing about on the Constellation program for NASA, it's not just about the manned space flights. It's also the impact that has on the industrial base that prohibits us from ever changing course in any of these other particular areas. It is all part and parcel with what I think is perhaps a very cavalier approach to the defense of this country that time after time after time overlooks the details and how those details interact and puts us at a more vulnerable situation.

Once again, no one will ever attack us because we are too strong. They could attack us because we have failed to bring a bag of nails into battle with us.

I don't have the expertise right here to go through some of the details. Obviously, you're ahead of me on those particular ones; but it still goes back to the basic approach that, even if the Russians are legitimate in these treaties and even if they live up to them, we live in a world where it is not just necessarily the Russians for whom we have to be prepared and that, even if we make a treaty with the Russians, the North Koreans and the Iranians are not necessarily going to be cowed by us.

They could easily transport some of their stuff to nations closer to us, which makes it even more deadly for us.

So what we have to do is make sure that, when we look at what we are doing vis-a-vis the Russians, we have to put it in the context of: Are we able to defend ourselves against all sorts of rogue players who are out there, not just the Russians or the Chinese? That's why the decisions we made this year, based on the decisions we made last year, I think, put us in a weaker position to say, yes, we could defend ourselves against the rogue nations as well.

From Syria to Hezbollah.

As we move forward with this proposed treaty, but also as we look to the overall military budget, which, I think, is what you're talking about as well and especially our missile defense, let us make sure that we have not left some detail uncovered. I hope that, in the future, they're not writing those ``what would have been'' books about the United States because we simply failed to be prepared and because we failed to look at the details of our situation.

So I appreciate the gentleman for bringing this issue to the floor. It is a significant issue, and it's one that this Nation should take seriously--looking at how we're dealing in the future not just with our nuclear posture but also with our missile defense posture. Indeed, if we're going to have to spend almost billions of dollars to maintain, that's money that comes out of the combat veteran and the combat ground forces that we have. That also is unacceptable.

So I appreciate being allowed to participate with you for a short period of time.

Mr. Speaker, Lori Garver is the number two administrator at NASA, who is a political appointee that has been given credit as the prime author of the program to cut the Constellation.

In a speech in Maryland a fortnight ago, she said, ``NASA has changed their goals,'' and seemed to indicate that the new goals of NASA will be to end poverty and hunger, create world peace, education, save the environment, and, in a note of bitter irony, create new jobs.

It would seem that Ms. Garver perhaps should look at her door and realize that, since 1958, the goal of NASA has been space: to be first in space science, first in space exploration, first in man flights. And the Constellation program is the program that works, with an emphasis on human safety to accomplish this.

Ms. Garver's plan would cede control of the heavens to the Russians and the Chinese, probably for most our lifetime, and has the unintended consequence of hurting education, aerospace, ironically enough defense, and jobs.

Mr. Speaker, we can and should do better.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I, as well as many who are here on the floor, am just pleased to be here on a Saturday morning to discuss the bill that is the significance and the reason why we are here, and also the side-view of being able to count the number of arm splints that we see today so we can be part of an historical occasion.

This bill I do think happens to be one of the metaphors perhaps for this entire session as we begin this weekend reality play that definitely does fit into the theater of the absurd. This is a good program, but there is much common good for which we could have found a great deal of common support had this bill been allowed to have some bipartisanship with it.

Both the ranking member of the full committee and the ranking member of the subcommittee had amendments that had been proposed in the committee that were withdrawn under the assumption that they would be worked upon and added to the final bill when it came here to the floor. That was not simply the case. So what could have been an easy bill to pass with common assumptions to it that would have been one of the things that could have been done in a bipartisan way has now been turned into something that has a partisan flavor to it, as the only rule bill that we have for this weekend so far simply because of the standards that we have had in this proposal. This is indeed a metaphor for what we are doing and what we have been doing for much of this session.

I do have some concerns, Madam Speaker, for this bill in three basic areas. First of all, the concept of funding and fiscal responsibility. Secondly, the concept of curriculum that will be involved in this program. And third, what I would probably call is the genealogy of this particular program.

One of the amendments and one of the requests that we had is that this bill should be sunsetted in some particular way. In fact, there will be an amendment that will be brought to the floor to add a sunset provision to this particular bill. This bill as currently administered spends $12 million a year. For some people, that is considered a lot of money. Around here, I realize that is simply a rounding error. But what it does, if you pass this particular bill, it takes off the cap that caps this program at $12 million a year and allows it to be funded at any level one assumes. The CBO made the assumption that would be $120 million over 5 years. How they reached that assumption no one really knows.

One of the things we should do if we were fiscally responsible would be to make sure that there was a specific cap on this program and that there was a sunset provision so it could be reviewed. One of the things we all realize around this country, especially as we talk about the increasing deficit of this country, is that there are some things that the Federal Government must do. Defense of this country is one of the things we must do. There are some things we should never do. And there are some things that fall into those limited categories of it would be nice to do if it meets with our priorities and we have the means to provide them. Providing for the Park Service, healthy forests is one of those things we should do. But it must be set in the environment of how much money we have and where our priorities lie.

Having kids being groomed to be future managers is a nice thing to do on

these public lands if it fits into our priorities. And that is why this program should be reviewed at a regular basis by Congress. Once these types of programs are passed on indefinitely and become embodied within the budget itself, it is never reviewed by this body again, which is our function and our responsibility.

If anything was done in a self-executing rule, the amendment we will talk about later to actually put a cap on this program and make sure that we review it on a regular basis, that should have been self- executing because it is our responsibility as Congress, and we should not abrogate that particular responsibility.

The second concern I have is what I call the curriculum of this particular program. It has been portrayed by groups to us that this is like a new version of the CCC coming along trying to make changes and improvements in public lands. If that were the case, we would probably have very little concern about it. But that is not necessarily what will be allowed if this bill actually goes into effect. See, when this program was originally started the goal was to have kids working on projects that would benefit specially our Forest Service and public lands. But unfortunately as this is now altered, there is no guarantee of where the funds will go and what the priorities may be, which is one of the things we simply wanted. Keep the program doing what the program was intended to do.

This time the government will send money, much of which will be handled by the Student Conservation Association. They will be the ones who will facilitate programs and give grants. How it's structured no one knows. Because once again, instead of ensuring that this is done to the betterment of public lands, this allows for money to go to political issues under the guise of some kind of conservationship. For indeed, this group has had an agenda in the past which has been anti- affordable energy, anti-coal fired plants, pro-higher taxes and energy costs.

Our staff had the opportunity of looking on the Web site of this particular group. They sponsored a conference here in Washington several years ago sponsored by the National Park Service, some funding from the National Park Service in which the curriculum for that conference was not just about how we improve our public lands, but also how one stages protests, how one can do a sit-in to prevent a timber harvest from taking place. In fact, as you look at their Web site their organizing chart lists to start small and then grow and make it fun in the process.

Now, once again, that is not what this program was intended to do, nor should it be the program. And there are no prohibitions to say that this program will not evolve into that form. Had they simply added amendments we wanted to say what the purposes and the directions of this program were, once again it would be a very good bipartisan bill. But that was not allowed. It was not allowed by leadership here or in the Rules Committee to take that place and form.

This Student Conservation Association once again has taken a great deal of stimulus funds that were added in the stimulus bill. In each of those, once again, there was much that was involved that was advocacy outside building our public lands. One of the funds got 18 grand into my community to assist in building a public library so that they could associate at the refuge center with conservation efforts. One hundred twenty thousand dollars was given to this group so they could go to New England and show legal techniques and practices of how they could use the legal system to reach goals that they had. That is political activism, which is not what this program was about, not to which this program should evolve into itself.

One of the things, Madam Speaker, that was funded as part of this program is the Mo Udall Legacy bus tour. Actually, it was a 54-day bus tour promoted by the National Park Service. You can see their logos all the way around here, as well as Department of Interior, to promote sustainability in biodiesel buses. According to the kids, it was a wonderful 54-day trip. However, most of them actually said how great it was as they visited microbreweries in every one of those areas, especially biodiversified microbreweries.

Actually, I don't know how successful this tour was. I don't drink anything harder than Dr. Pepper, so I am going to ask some of the rest of you around here to see if their touring, their visiting to all of the bars they had in the cities in which they went on this particular trip really was worthwhile in making that particular kind of evaluation.

Nice trip. There is nothing wrong with these guys doing this as long as they do it on their own dime; not on the government's dime under the guise of creating some kind of better lands for our public services.

National Park Services, which will be in charge of the oversight of this, does not have a great record in that. In 2007, the IG in the Department of the Interior came up with this in one park service- managed job corps center--$3 million of misreported expenditures and $200,000 of improper charges. And that is the oversight that we're going to have. Those types of things should have been added to the bill.

We asked those to be added to the bill. It would have solved the problem of this particular bill, but they weren't done; therefore, we're here complaining about something which should have been and could have been a great program of bipartisan support, and it isn't.

Let me talk about the genealogy, for, indeed, this Student Conservation Association that will be managing this new program was an offspring created by the National Park Conservation Association, the godfather of this program, a special interest group with a history of what I consider to be extreme agendas--a history of filing lawsuits against this government, filing lawsuits against the Second Amendment rights, efforts to restrict hunting and recreation that are currently permitted on public lands, and presently involved in a national courtroom crusade to destroy the benefits of coal-fired plants with letters, with testimony. Once again, their motives may be pure, fine. It's okay to do that, but not on the government dime. And this bill is written so loosely that it is not clear if any money goes indirectly or directly back to this point to do it.

This bill, when originally established, this program, when originally established, was there to inspire use and needs and build needed programs on public lands. When this program was originally established, by law, it's highest priority was to generate a new generation of land managers trained specifically to improve public lands and specifically to implement the bipartisan Healthy Forest Restoration Act.

That was, under the current system, the highest priority: to help our lands, stop catastrophic fires, to improve our forests. It was managed for that. Seventy-five percent of the money went to that particular issue. That is what should be done.

But once again, in committee, when we said let's restate that at least as one of the important criteria--because, you see, when this bill was written, they removed anything that related to healthy forests from the language. Reinstate that. We actually said, Why don't you reinstate it so at least 50 percent of this goes to improving the forests of this country? And that wasn't allowed either.

So there is no criteria. There is no reference once again to the purpose of this bill originally, which was to make sure that we had a healthy forest. Instead, we have an open-ended bill that could do anything, that could go anywhere, that may make any kind of function.

And see, Madam Speaker, all of this could have been avoided. These are not tough issues. This is not one of the bills that is going to make or break the Republic. It could be avoided if simply the Democrat majority had decided to try and do something in a bipartisan way. If they said, These are your objections. Let's draft something to make sure that your restrictions are what we do as well. We didn't need to be here.

As I said, the committee promised that they would work on this before it came to the floor. I was not privy to those negotiations. I don't know where it went down, but something happened that did not need to happen.

And the Rules Committee, we once again took these amendments to the

Rules Committee and, in their typical fashion, the Rules Committee dropped all of them except for two. That didn't need to take place. Typical of what we're doing around here is simply trying to push things through when we don't need to do it. If we had really had a spirit of bipartisanship, this is something that could easily be accomplished.

So you can sit back, if this happens to pass today, and simply tell yourself it could have been great. It could have been a united bill. It could have been something which we all could say of which we are now proud. But because of the process that we are using, that does not take place. In fact, Madam Speaker, what we are doing here is duplicative.

AmeriCorps, if you look on their enacting legislation on page 22 and page 24, everything this program--which was designed to help public lands, especially healthy forests--everything this is now opened up to do is done by AmeriCorps. It's part of their program. Why not funnel all of the money there and avoid the duplication?

What we are doing now is building a program that has no latitudes, no restrictions on what their options are, no restrictions on their funding. This is a hole so wide you could drive a Toyota Prius through it because there is nothing involved that could stop it. That is not the way you do good legislation. This is not the way you do good legislation. But it could be, and it should have been.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from Arizona, my good friend, wrong on all the issues, but still a great guy, if he has any other speakers?

I will reserve.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The first gentlelady from California who spoke talked about how important it was to start this program. May I reiterate, once again, we are not starting anything new. We have a program. All we are doing is changing things in that program. The current program has specific dollar amounts going which will be reviewed and specific programmatic responsibility, all of which were stripped out in this particular version.

The gentlelady from Texas, actually, I appreciate everything she said, she was right on. Everything for which she argued that is necessary is what the original program was intended to do. The problem we have is--and we could have easily, easily gone along with the expansion of this program if they had actually allowed us to come up with some kind of limitations, because unfortunately, as I mentioned before, what we have now done with this program, 75 percent of which was to go to make sure that we have healthy forests, where the actual priority was to go to help public lands, is you have taken out all that language and we have simply replicated AmeriCorps.

Once again, go on to the language of the legislation that created that document. On page 22 they list what they can do. It's exactly the same thing that has now opened up this possibility. Page 24, where can they go? Exactly the same thing. All we are doing is making a duplicate of a program that's already there when we have a good program with a specific goal, a specific recommendation, and we have taken out those specifics.

Now I suggested that there is plenty of opportunity for abuse in this particular program if you don't try and limit it to what we want it to accomplish, because we all agree on what we want it to accomplish. The unfortunate thing is the language in this bill doesn't say that. It doesn't specify that. And so indeed we can have instead people going in there to provide not jobs, but to provide internships for people to go in and have them assist professional staff in identifying problems, formulating legal strategies to address those problems, providing legal education and direct response representation, engaging in policy development.

There is nothing wrong with doing that, but not on the government dime. I don't have a problem with having a tour of this country talking about sustainability of processes and having drinking parties and all. That's fine, but not on the government dime. I don't mind actually having an agency that has a program here in Washington sponsored by the National Park Service, but not if it's going to teach people how to lead protests and sit-ins, not on the government dime. You can do all of these, but not subsidized by government funding. And that's what should be specified, that those type of activities should be beyond the opportunity and beyond the appropriation and beyond the concept of this program. That is what should have been in the bill. And had we done that, we would also all be singing Kumbaya or anything else that you want to with that.

But this bill, as I said before, is somewhat of a metaphor for everything that we have been doing for a large part of this session. It's simply, once again, a bill that there were assurances made in the committee that amendments would be applied to this bill. For whatever reason, they are not. Instead, we are standing up here protesting a bill which should have been and could have been a great piece of legislation to move us forward towards a common goal, but for whatever reason it was not allowed to be written in that form.

We are standing here on a bill that actually presents itself with a visual of why we need systemic change in this body. If the vast majority of Members were here on the floor to hear what these arguments are, I think they would say, yes, this is a logical limitation, it should be there. But as you look around, the vast majority of Members are not on this floor right now. So far too often we do things in a vacuum of understanding, which is why this body needs systemic change in the process that we use to reach conclusions.

Nothing, nothing more than the changes, nothing more than the process we are going through this weekend, reeks of the need for some kind of systemic change. Because if we did that systemic change and the expectation were the people were here to listen to the debate, they were there in the committees to hear the testimony, there were there in the committees to be part of the markup process, I am still convinced that we could have a better product and a bipartisan product.

But the process does not encourage that. The process encourages the exact opposite. We have a process that has evolved in the wrong direction, and if anything else, this weekend should show that we need systemic change in the process.

This bill, this program, is still a decent program. And with some limitations on the amount of spending, some review on a regular period, and some limitations on what the product will be, what the kids will be working on as they go through these internships, we could have a very, very good positive program. And I hope before this bill actually goes all the way through the system, those kinds of limitations are put back in the bill so we can have something of which we can actually be proud.

I urge defeat of this bill until those changes are made.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment made in order under the rule.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This is a very simple amendment, an easily understandable one. It simply has two parts to it.

Number one is you continue the funding authorization that is in the current law; and, number two, you add a 5-year sunset period in there.

As I said earlier when we were talking about the base bill, there is nothing wrong with the things that we should be doing, but there is something wrong when we refuse to periodically exercise our legislative responsibility to review those things that we are currently doing.

We do it all the time. The Endangered Species Act has a sunset, FLPMA has a sunset, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act has a sunset, all of which are designed to have us come back here and reevaluate what we are doing to make sure that our priorities have stayed the same. There is nothing wrong with a sunset. In fact, it should be standard fare in most of our pieces of legislation.

If we are now creating this bill, which replicates AmeriCorps one more time, there is nothing wrong with saying let's review it every 5 years to make sure we are still going on the path we originally determined.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, once again, the process here is that it is not about whether a program is popular or not. The Endangered Species Act has popularity within certain groups. Obviously, higher ed has popularity and elementary education has popularity. The issue here is, do we adequately review these particular programs to see where we are and what our priorities ought to be? And if we don't, we have a tendency of losing those in the morass of the rest of the body, the plethora of legislation, the plethora of organizations that we simply have.

This does not technically sunset the program. It sunsets the authorization for the appropriations for the program; the program goes on until further action is taken by this particular body, but it is the sequence that we use to try and see should we redo, should we continue, should we at least reevaluate what we are supposed to be.

When we don't do those kinds of reevaluations, we abrogate legislative responsibility, and we pass it on to an executive branch which sometimes, well, always, has somewhat of a checkered response in its oversight responsibilities in these particular areas.

Madam Speaker, this is the right thing to do. It is one of the things that could easily turn a bill that is right now partisan into a bipartisan bill so we don't have to look back and say what we did we could have done so much better. I urge approval of the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and pay tribute to a fine American, Ed Pace, on an occasion when he and his business have received the International Circle of Excellence Award for 2009.

His business, Lake City Trucks, is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has grown from two locations to one of the largest International truck dealers in North America today. His entrepreneurial leadership has helped Lake City Trucks to expand to 11 locations across three states with 305 employees in Utah, Idaho and Oregon. Ed began his career with International Harvester in 1971 and served in several capacities before purchasing his first International dealership in 1991.

Ed has achieved recognition through many years of hard work and service to his industry and community. As an industry leader, Ed has held numerous positions of responsibility in organizations, including former chairman of the International Dealer Council and former co-chair of the International Dealer Development and Systems Board. He is active in his community, where he supports a variety of charities, including the Barth Syndrome Foundation, the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Utah and Idaho, Toys for Tots, the Christmas Tree Auction and the Food Banks of Utah and Idaho.

Through his commitment to hard work and outstanding customer service, he has built an economically vital business of which he can be justly proud. Madam Speaker, I ask you and my colleagues to join with me in congratulating Ed Pace for his record of accomplishment and for his many contributions to his community, state and nation.

Madam Speaker, it is very difficult to criticize a bill that is still being put together behind closed doors. But we do know that it is more about consolidation of power in Washington than about real health reform for the American people. We also know that a poor process always equals poor public policy, and the procedural shenanigans being proposed by the Speaker and Democratic leaders to slip this past the American people make all of Lucy Ricardo's schemes to be a part of Ricky's show look like clear and logical plans of action. This also would be a comedy if it wasn't such a tragedy for the American people.

Madam Speaker, my State has already instituted real health care solutions that deal with our demographics and give people options in the State of Utah. All of our efforts will be destroyed if this one- size-fits-all, trillion-dollar tragedy is actually passed here on the House floor.

Mr. Speaker, you know, we, as Americans, have a responsibility to protect our environment and to protect our homeland, and unfortunately we are failing at both.

Our border patrol has done a wonderful job in the urban areas of this country; however, in rural areas, where the United States Federal Government owns about 40 percent of the land from California to Texas, we seem to not be doing quite as well, and that now becomes the prime area where evil groups like drug cartels and human traffickers and potential terrorists are now entering into this country.

The rules, the regulations, and our interpretations of the law are prohibiting our Border Patrol from actually fulfilling their functions. We have gaps, not only gaps in the fence, but gaps in our virtual fence, gaps in our monitoring that allow these groups to have open access--drug cartels, human trafficking cartels, potential terrorists-- undetected and unfettered into this country.

Secretary Salazar is currently at the border. On Saturday, he will be at the Chris Eggle Visitors Center. Chris Eggle is a Border Patrol agent who was shot and killed in the line of duty at Oregon Pipe National Monument back in August of 2002. He was pursuing a drug cartel hit squad who had fled across these open areas into the United States after committing a string of murders in Mexico.

These people we are talking about who are illegally coming into this country are those who are bringing massive amounts of illegal drugs into this country, who are involved in human trafficking--illegally coming into this country--who are involved in unthinkable acts of aggression, and especially violence against women.

We have wilderness law protection that is supposedly there to protect the sanctity of the land; unfortunately, in some of our laws or interpretation of those laws about wilderness area we are actually opening up this land to some of those evil people who are coming across. And in so doing, they are destroying the wilderness characteristics we are trying to protect. What it means is that we are destroying that which we wish to protect.

Therefore, I am asking Secretary Salazar for four items in his visit when he sees firsthand the problems we have on our southern border.

Number one, I am asking him to end the Department of the Interior's requirement that the Department of Homeland Security must negotiate access and seek permission before entering onto Interior lands to enforce the law and secure the border.

Two, I want him to acknowledge that Department of the Interior policies have contributed to severe environmental damage and destruction by hampering Homeland Security from fulfilling their job to stop organized crime, drug and human traffickers, and potential terrorists from crossing the border through protected natural areas.

Three, I want him to stop impeding Border Patrol access to public lands, including wilderness areas, for the purpose of siting and building electronic surveillance.

And, four, I want to end the Department of the Interior's practice of extorting mitigation funds from Homeland Security. Money appropriated for border security should only be spent on making our borders secure, not diverted to unrelated Interior spending projects.

To secure our borders, we must do so to stop the evils of drug traffic, human trafficking, and potential terrorism. Common sense tells us that should be our goal; common sense tells us we should agree to that particular goal.

I thank my good friend from Texas for yielding me some time on this significant issue. I have read some of the comments that have been made in the past, saying, You're a conservative. NASA is saying in this new budget that they want to commercialize and privatize the program. Why aren't you supporting that? I have to admit, I think it comes down to an issue of semantics. When I think of privatization, I make three assumptions: It will cost the taxpayer less money, there will be a smaller government force in use, and there will be a better product.

I think, as the gentleman from Texas would agree with me, this plan that NASA has put forward doesn't do any

of those. Indeed, it costs more for a NASA budget. It increases the cost that the taxpayer will be spending on NASA. There are no Federal jobs that will be eliminated, only private-sector jobs, to the tune of about 30,000 jobs nationwide of scientists, engineers, mathematicians, those kinds of jobs that we don't really want to lose and we're trying to encourage young students to go into, and there is not a better product.

As the gentleman from Texas said, it was ironic that the other day the Constellation Program passed their predesign review, which means after expensive engineering and technical checks, they passed everything. There is nothing technologically wrong with Constellation. It is ready to go forward. Ironically enough, on that very same day, one of the alternatives that the NASA administration would like us to fund was having a test on their engine, and it was a total failure. Ironically, NASA didn't publicize either of those events--the engine failure or the complete success in the predesign and review of Constellation.

So let me just spend a moment and talk about these commercial startup enterprises that NASA administrators are telling us they want to transfer all American taxpayer moneys into going into this direction. These are programs like Rocketplane Kistler, which after a 14-month review or alliance with NASA, was terminated because it failed to meet any of its goals. Or, SpaceX, which over 8 years working with NASA and being funded by taxpayer money, has had a 40 percent success rate. The Falcon 9 was supposed to be ready for flight in 2009. It's not there yet. It is now scheduled for sometime in 2010, but that was the engine failure that I talked about that happened this very week. They are behind. They have already received $158 million of tax money, but obligations of NASA run in the multibillions of dollars.

Orbital, another of those companies, is 7 months late on all of their assignments, which means if you actually look in the proposed budget, there is $312 million assigned to a category called: Additional incentives for commercial cargo providers. If you want to take the spin off of it, it's a bailout for these companies who are not meeting their deadlines, who are not providing the product.

After $600 million to these kind of companies, NASA can clearly say they have no hardware to show for it. They have no services that have been delivered with it. There are no intellectual property rights. And this is what certain administrators within NASA call the ``bold new direction for this country.'' It is ludicrous.

When the Columbia accident occurred--and was a tragic event all of us mourned--there was an intense study to find out what went wrong and how to prevent it. And they came up with two goals: that if there is an entity that's going to be successful, they have to first have a clear goal of what their mission is. And second, they have to have an ultimate emphasis on safety.

Let me talk about safety for just a moment, because the Bowman report, as much as we may not like it, clearly said the Federal Government's supervision in this area produces a safer project. But in that report as well there was a mandatory report given by the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel after that Columbia accident. In the report in 2008, in which the current chairman--General Bolden was a member--as well as this year's report, at no time were they supportive of making entrepreneurial commercial options the primary means of U.S. human spaceflight.

So what were they supportive of? Well, Constellation. Time magazine this year--actually I'm sorry, the end of last year--came up with their 50 Great Inventions of the Year. And what was the invention they rated number one? Ares, the Ares rocket which is part of the Constellation program. That's what they did.

In the official report to NASA, it says, The simplicity of the Ares design makes the mature Ares 1 clearly superior to all other vehicles no matter what choice of qualification method. Even accounting for error bars on method and model inputs, Ares 1 is superior to all other options with more than a 90 percent confidence.

In short, results suggest that the Ares 1 launch vehicle is clearly the safest launch vehicle option and the only one that can meet the goal post-Columbia of having a launch vehicle that was 100 times safer than the space shuttle which it was designed to replace. What they are doing, simply, is Constellation is meeting the goals.

Now, once again, the goals are somewhat nebulous. If you don't have a goal, almost anything you appropriate can meet your goal. And I am suggesting that the NASA administrators right now do not have a clear goal.

Deputy Administrator Garver gave a speech today over in Maryland in which she said that the President's budget should be approved by Congress because it will enable NASA to align with the priorities of the Nation. And those priorities, these key national priorities that I am referring to are: economic development, ending poverty, hunger and creating jobs; international leadership in geopolitics, or world peace; education; and environment.

Now, I hate to say anything, but in 1958 when NASA was started, their goal was to--and I will quote, Provide for research into problems of flight within and outside Earth's atmosphere and to ensure that the United States conducts activities in space devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of humankind. Nearly 50 years later, NASA proudly pledges to redefine what is possible for the benefit of all humankind by using NASA's unique competencies in scientific and engineering systems to fulfill the agency's purpose, to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.

And environment. I think at some time, Ms. Garver needs to explain what she meant, as this is the priority of NASA now when, in reality, this should have been the priority of NASA. And once again, if you have those goals, I think it makes sense to take away the program that everyone who knows what they are talking about says is clearly the best innovation we have and the only way of supplanting the space shuttle with safe vehicle mechanisms for the future and for manned space flight. But once again, if your goals are to eliminate anything that deals with the traditional role of NASA, then perhaps those goals aren't significant whatsoever.

I have one last area, and if the gentleman from Texas has time, I would like to go into that or I could wait if you would like to.

Let me try one last thing. We talk a lot about the industrial base. It's a term that maybe not a lot of people understand. As I define the industrial base, I simply want to say that the kinds of people, the kinds of jobs that put a man on a rocket and shoot him to the Moon are the same kinds of people and the same kinds of jobs that build our missile defense against those who wish to attack this country. That is our industrial base.

Last year, this country engaged in some significant--and I think unwise--decreases in our military missile defense system, and it had the effect of putting our industrial base in disarray.

However, if now NASA goes through with this, I think, unwise and naive approach of canceling Constellation, it is going to destroy that industrial base, which means not only will you not have the ability of putting a man in space very quickly with a program that works. If, indeed, our projections of the threat of countries like North Korea and Iran are underestimated, we will have no capacity to ramp up for a missile defense future.

Now, what that simply means is--and the Pentagon has recognized this--last year, three different reports came to us. In April of last year, the Defense Department report to Congress on the solid rocket motor industrial base said, If there was a delay in Constellation, it would have a negative impact on our defense system. Next month after that, there was another report. This time the solid rocket motor capabilities report to Congress in June which had a different conclusion. This report said, If there was a delay in Constellation, there would be a significant negative impact on the military capabilities of this country.

Later, the Assistant Secretary for Defense for Acquisitions sent us a letter in which he simply said that the technological base in the world is not a birthright which means several years ago the Air Force dropped all of its military missile plants to build these projects. We are relying on the private sector, and it's into the birthright. It's about certain kinds of jobs, very rare kinds of skills that are not easily replicated in the commercial world. And if we allow them to erode, it would be difficult to rebuild.

Please.

If you would yield, I will try to come up with that because, indeed, the deputy administrator of NASA said that she did have consultations. But one she said she consulted is the very same person who said that if it's allowed to erode, it would be difficult to rebuild.

I'm on the Armed Services Committee, and we had the opportunity to question Secretary Gates when he came in. I asked if there was any consultation. He said no. I asked the same thing of the Air Force chief, if they had had any consultation. His response was over this entire issue--and I added the Minuteman III issue as well--We recognize not just the Minuteman challenge going forth but a broader industrial base issue which we're going to have to wrestle with this year. So we do not right now have a long-term solution to that in hand, which means that the Defense Department was caught unaware.

There was no communication between NASA and Defense. If, indeed, there was, then clearly NASA was not listening to what was being told to them because we have had a year of comment from the Defense Department and from the Pentagon, saying that this is a significant issue, that if, indeed, North Korea and Iran have a greater capacity than we think, and you've destroy the industrial base, we do not have the capacity to react to it and defend this country.

Now, what we are simply doing in this program is not just dismantling our manned space mission. We're not just losing the ability to go up to the Moon and beyond. We are also destroying our defense capability at the same time, and that is a consequence of this rash and naive proposal that has to be fully explored, and this Congress needs to address because it is the future of this country.

This NASA opinion, in my estimation, is nothing more than managing America's decline in the world, and that is not the role we should be doing. That is not the purpose of this country. That's not the purpose of this Congress. This Congress needs to make the clear statement that NASA is going on the wrong approach. It has to have a proper goal for its mission. It has to properly fund its goal for its mission. This, the Constellation, is the solution to the space shuttle and beyond.

It is not wise for us to take our 30,000 best scientists and engineers and give them pink slips.

One thing you said as well, when John Kennedy gave us the challenge to go to the Moon, those people who started to study engineering, science, and math, it skyrocketed because there was a challenge. There was a mission there.

NASA is talking about all kinds of programs to encourage kids to get excited about space with their summer school programs. They instituted a new computer simulation game so students could pretend to go up to the space shuttle. I am contending to you, it is cruel to excite these kids about this future when you give them no realistic way of exercising that dream because we have stopped the mechanism of doing it.

Once again, as we should have learned out of Columbia, we have to put safety first. This program is not. And secondly, we have to have a clear goal. If we don't do those two things, we are courting another disaster. This plan of certain NASA administrators is courting another national disaster.

To my understanding, that has not taken place because those other commercial endeavors are not far enough along in their testing and their success pattern to be to that stage. Once again, it goes back to why we should keep Constellation. It was designed to have that factor of safety. That was the purpose for its design. That is its simplicity. For example, there has to be a way of escaping. That is the Orion capsule, where people will be kept. It has to have an escape process. None of the other commercial ventures have any kind of plan or design for that component yet, and it is a long, long way away.

I would just like to echo what you have said in all of these particular areas. It is important that we move forward. I think it is common sense that we do not cede space to the Russians and the Chinese. The United States has been a leader in this area. It has been very productive for us. We ought to ensure that our goal is to be number one and to continue to be a leader.

Having our astronauts standing on the edge of space trying to catch a Russian taxi where the meter will say $51 million as soon as they sit down is not the way America becomes a leader in this particular world. We have the ability to do the right thing. It is planned. We need to follow through with the original plan and not change courses right now to an experiment that is unproven and has a history of failure.

I appreciate the gentleman for allowing me to join him tonight. This is an important issue for all of us, and it is important for America's future.

Madam Speaker, NASA recently announced and unveiled a new interactive computer simulation that allows kids to pretend to be going to the space station, the Moon, Mars and beyond. They said it would excite young people.

Sometimes, though, our new NASA administrators are too shy. What they failed to announce is that also the preliminary design review on Constellation was finished successfully, which means that after exhaustive scientific and technical review, there are no technical issues that can stop Constellation from doing that for which it was designed, to replace the space shuttle with a flight capacity that is 10 times safer than the space shuttle.

You see, Madam Speaker, it is nice to come up with computer games to inspire kids, but it is also cruel to stop the only programs that can make those dreams a reality. There is nothing technically that can stop Constellation from fulfilling its mission, except politics. Thanks,

I appreciate being able to join the gentleman from Missouri here, and I appreciate his efforts so far in explaining the differences in these particular bills.

I want to echo that I agree with you that we are in a precarious situation. There are those who would tell us that the most important thing we could do right now is to pass something. A lot of bad pieces of legislation and policy changes have happened when we have simply passed something that was there. Our goal on this particular issue should be to pass the right type of reform, not just something. Until we get the right type of reform, we should never actually quit looking to form a way that is best in providing options and choices to the American people.

I am assuming, when you started, that you talked about some of the four supposed, alleged, Republican proposals that were added today. You know, when I first saw that, I thought somebody was pulling my leg. It was a joke. I find it ludicrous and somewhat insulting to the American people that there are actually those who believe, if you take a $1 trillion program which transfers power from the American people to bureaucrats in Washington, by adding more spending for a few studies and for a few small, little tweaks here and there, that that's actually better and that that's going to buy people's support.

I think one of the things, maybe, we have done too long in both Houses of this Chamber, perhaps with both parties, is we've spoken too long about it. We've been giving speech after speech as if that's going to convince Americans to go along with this program. What we should do now is listen to the reasons Americans have complaints about the core program that is before us.

I appreciate what you're doing up there. You're going through some of the core problems in this particular bill--that a few little add-ons, which cost even more money, are not going to sell this core problem issue.

If I could say just one more thing--go ahead.

I've actually been trying to think of a lot of metaphors here, and I don't think any of them really work terribly well.

Except I do remember one time when my oldest kid was about 3 or 4. He had been given a candy bar and was supposed to participate in a program, and he didn't want to go up and join the other kids in the program. So I took his candy bar away. I said, If you go up there and perform, I'll give you a candy bar. Of course, he was dumb enough to accept that, and he waddled right up there and did the program, and I gave him his candy bar back.

I hope that people don't think, just by giving me my candy bar back, I'm going to buy this program, because the program hasn't changed. It is still fundamentally flawed.

A reporter just asked me, Don't you think these bills should have an up-down vote? Well, here in the House, everything is an up-down vote.

Also, the bills that have been introduced by Representative Shadegg and by Representative Price have a different approach to solving the problem and to reforming our system, which is based on giving power to the people so that people can make choices. Representative Akin, I think they deserve

an up-down vote in this body as well. Instead, they have been prohibited from even being discussed in committee or on the floor.

Yes. I would simply suggest to the leaders of our Congress and to the President, instead of saying, If you have ideas, give them to me, and I'll make a choice on whether they're good or not, put the ideas on the floor.

Put those ideas on the floor, and let all of those ideas be fully debated in front of the American people. Give an up-down vote on every idea that's out there. Just perhaps, just perhaps, we will find that there is a needed reform to our health care system that actually meets the needs of the American people, that does not cost them out of existence, that does not cut jobs, and that does not move power away from the people back here to Washington. It allows people and their doctors to chart their own futures.

I have said it a couple of times when I've talked to you on the floor here on this issue: the State of Utah launched last year a reform of the health care system based on Utah's unique demographics. We have the youngest State in the Nation. Our median age is younger. We also have probably more small businesses which don't provide insurance than in most States. We need something specifically for our need, and we have launched a program that is well designed with fundamentals. It still needs to be tweaked, and it still needs to be worked on, but it is based on our needs and on our demographics. If either the Senate or the House bill, these one-size-fits-all programs, were to pass in any form, it would totally destroy what the State is trying to accomplish.

We are not the only ones with brilliance here. We are not the only ones who care about people. We should be partnering with States to come up with new and creative ideas to meet the individual needs of our people in their individual areas, and we flat out are not allowing that to take place.

Well, I think the gentleman has also brought the other chart down here, which you probably used earlier, which is how the system would be structured. Now, when the first bill was presented by our good friends on the other side, that was the structure. I hate to say this. Over all the times we've just discussed it, that typical Washington approach of convoluted, complex patterns and about people making decisions hasn't changed at all. As we have come through and have supposedly come up with this new idea that has a few tweaks from the Republican side, there has been no compromise on the basic problem, which is that structure.

I think you're absolutely right, and I think that's one of the reasons a lot of people have changed their opinions. A lot of people have grave concerns about this type of a program, a one-size-fits-all, Washington-based program.

I've also had some other people calling me, a lot of people with grave concerns and with a great deal of anger over everything that's going on. There are some who have simply asked, ``Why can't you just sit down and compromise? Why can't you work things out?'' I think I join with you in saying I am more than happy to sit down and work with anybody who will work with me.

The bottom line is we have not been allowed to work together, which is why I was saying earlier to let those other ideas, the other bills, have an up-down vote as well. Bring them to the floor and allow a true debate on all ideas. Don't siphon the ideas down to what is allowable by the leaders of Congress. Allow us to actually work together. As I think you intimated, there are some things, certain provisions, on which both Republicans and Democrats do agree. Let them stand by themselves and see what we can actually accomplish without taking an idea on which we basically all agree and then adding 10 or 15 bad ideas on which we fundamentally disagree and saying, Okay, it's take it or leave it.

I would be very hesitant to try and ascribe any motives as to why things happened the way they did.

What we do know is, historically, when major changes of policy have taken place, even when they have been hotly debated, even sometimes when cloture has been approached over in the Senate, the final product has had a lot of majority and minority votes coming together.

It was not this divisive of an issue that was trying to be pushed through in, once again, a very partisan and divisive way.

I think you are right. What Republicans are saying is there are other ideas that still have to be out there, and what is more important for us is to do the system and do the reform the right way the first time. It is very difficult once something is established to go back and fix it. It is best to do it right the first time, and we are not doing that here.

If I could get the gentleman to yield for just one second.

I think it is well to reemphasize that fact that not everyone will get what they want in this particular program. I was told that once again today, the President, in his remarks, said, if you like your plan, you keep your plan; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

Now, if that line sounds familiar, it is because it was a staple in the rhetoric for all of last year, with a couple of problems. I have been told that media outlets like the Associated Press and ABC News debunked that claim, showing that that cacophony of programs and lines going through, that that simply was not the case. And the White House then said, well, we are not taking that line literally, and eventually it was removed.

It is coming back now, but it still is not accurate. The problem is, if you like what you have, you may not end up keeping what you like. You may end up being told what to do, which is the problem every time when you try and transfer power from individuals back to Washington to tell us what is best for us. We sometimes may not agree. And that is the sad part.

That is the fundamental problem that a few tweaks around the edges can't solve. But that is a significant problem. And I think the gentleman from Missouri hit the nail on the head when he said this is one of those fundamental issues, which is why this program should not be forced through, but you should back up and start again with something that doesn't have that premise of Washington being empowered to tell us how we will live our lives.

There are 8,000 State legislators out there, all of whom are bright, all of whom can come up with programs for their States. Allow the States to be the laboratory of democracy that Louis Brandeis used to talk about. We can do better. We can do better. This is not good enough for us to force through, just so we can say we did something. There is a better approach to it.

I yield back.

If I could maybe add to that, because I think you have hit on one of the things I think is essential if we are really going to reform the health care system, because we do have two problems. One is people being covered by insurance, but the second one is the overall cost of the system. If you don't address both of those problems, you haven't really done a good health reform.

Coverage of individuals, being covered and having the costs overall. Because even if you have insurance, it still is very expensive, and the costs keep going up. So we have to deal with both of them.

A key element, a crucial element that everyone within the medical community will tell you, is if we don't do cost reform dealing with tort issues, if we don't deal with the massive amount of litigation that forces doctors to do more and more procedures just so they are covered just in case someone decides to sue them, we will never actually get a handle on the costs of health care that keep going up.

Once again, the President has said in past speeches he is willing to look at that. But in one of the four proposals he seemed to add as a sweetener to this deal, it was not to actually have malpractice resolutions, but simply to study alternative malpractice resolutions.

Now, that ain't it. A study, we have been doing that for a long time. We know what the problem is.

So adding that as something to improve the system doesn't improve the system at all. It is nothing. What we need to do is actually implement those. And you are right. Once again, even my home State, the legislature once again is addressing on a State issue that concept of tort reform and litigation limitations. It is essential, and we need to do that.

That is one of the issues on which I think both parties could easily come together and make a resolution, if we were allowed to discuss real litigation reform. But, once again, that is not on the table. That is not discussable on the floor, if ``discussable'' is a word, which it probably isn't.

If I could add just one element to that concept of $250,000, because I agree with you, if $250,000 was a salaried employee, that's pretty good money. The only problem is, in all of these equations it applies to the business world as well, in which almost every small businessman is grossing at least $250,000. I know in my district--once again, I said Utah has more small businesses on average than most States do. And in my district, almost 98 percent of those, according to the IRS, will have a bottom line that's above $250,000. So it means the taxes that are imposed are also imposed to the business community. It's one of the reasons why the State of Utah, when they looked at a reform for health care in the State of Utah, tried to come up with a policy that would give a consistent number to small business so they knew how to plan for what the health care cost would be and can come up with a defined contribution level they could give their employees, who could then go to the exchange and buy something that fits into what they need. But that consistency is extremely important.

It's very difficult for small business to provide health care for their employees when they don't know what the escalating and skyrocketing, almost roller coaster costs, will be to them. They cannot plan for that so they basically don't do it at all. And if indeed we add a tax to them at this stage of the game, that means we are making it even harder for the business community to recover, to provide jobs, to grow our economy, and to get people working again. That's why when we say this thing hurts job performance, that's why it hurts job performance. It can be devastating to job creation.

That means there will be an extended cost of doing business associated with this particular plan. Even though when we say anyone making over $250,000 will not be taxed, it will be taxed. Once again, if that was simply a salaried employee--a salaried employee--that sounds pretty good. But that covers almost all the businesses we have who are small in this country, and large as well.

Once again, it does go to the point we tried to make a little bit earlier. The Shadegg bill, the Price bill, the other Republicans' bills that should have been allowed to be debated, they don't have any of those provisions. So that negative anti-job aspect that is definitely a part of this bill if it's pushed through does not necessarily have to be there if you simply allowed the other ideas to be debated, discussed openly here on the floor.

The gentleman from Missouri also has those last two points on your chart, which reemphasizes the very statements that you were just making.

At times we have talked in the past about this concept of constitutionality in two ways. One, that it violates the concepts of federalism. But the second one deals with specifically the commerce clause. I think that's been brought to our attention before. That even in court cases, and maybe somebody will correct me here when it's his turn, in court cases there are usually two principles that are involved on whether the commerce clause is justifiably used. One: Does it have an impact on interstate commerce? I think everybody admits this would have an impact on interstate commerce. But the second is: Is there a willing participant in this program? This is why this is different, because for the first time you are threatening to fine people, throw them in jail, for not doing anything. For doing nothing. I don't know how many negatives I put in those sentences. But for someone just living their life who does not want to participate, they will now be fined for doing that. The government has never done that. And that is what I think exacerbates and expands the commerce clause beyond recognition and beyond fairness to individuals at the same time.

I appreciate the gentleman from Texas not only for his insights he is going to present on this particular bill, but you have a special talent that I think the gentleman from Missouri and I did not have a little bit earlier in this with a legal background. First of all, I appreciate you bringing up the fact that there is bipartisanship in their concern for this particular bill.

I also appreciate the fact that sometimes we present arguments and I need to have a specific legal expert explaining them to me.

We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that apparently in his speech today, the President once again said, If you like your plan you can keep your plan. If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. That if you are on an insurance company right now and you are happy with that, it will not change. And maybe I can ask you now as an attorney, as someone who reads this stuff for a living and tries to understand the gobbledygook that we always pass, if you can tell me if that is really accurate. Is it indeed the fact that if you like your plan you will be able to stay on that plan? And insurers who have private insurance plans will be able to maintain that commitment to people if either the Senate or the House version were to pass?

If I can add a follow-up question to that, in the law that is proposed to be passed, either the House or the Senate version, does it allow me to maintain my insurance in the present form if I want to maintain that insurance in the present form?

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Sylvia Prothro Hebert of Park City. Sylvia has been selected as a 2009 Great Comebacks Recipient for the West Region. This program honors annually a group of individuals who are living with intestinal diseases or recovering from ostomy surgery.

At age 9, Sylvia Prothro Hebert was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. At first Sylvia managed her symptoms with medication but flare-ups became a constant companion during college. Her weight dropped to 89 pounds, teeth loosened and hair fell out. At age 21, her intestines were punctured during a colonoscopy and she underwent ostomy surgery. ``I awoke with this `thing' on my side and was in shock--I thought my life was over,'' says Sylvia.

Since her diagnosis, Sylvia has triumphed over her illness, soaring to new heights to fulfill her dream of becoming a flight attendant--and by her records--the first Delta flight attendant with an ileostomy!

Today, Sylvia, 42, lives in Park City, UT with her husband Paul and their children, Reese, 5, Garrett, 3\1/2\, Renee, 1\1/2\. In addition to skiing, Sylvia has completed two half-marathons and a triathlon. ``I feel healthier and happier than I've ever felt in my life,'' says Sylvia. ``Ostomy surgery gave me freedom to do things I wanted--it's great to be alive.''

I would like to congratulate Sylvia on her recent recognition as a 2009 Great Comebacks recipient.