Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, last week, the House took an extraordinary first step by creating jobs in the form of unleashing a new generation of energy technology built right here in America.

Whether we agree on any other issue, each of us is committed to keeping this country safe, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act is essential to our national security.

The bill that passed the House marks a critical first step to creating clean energy incentives that will spur the development of new technologies, create jobs, and fuel our economic national recovery.

While I was home last week in south Florida, I had the chance to meet with Yann Brandt and his colleagues at Advanced Green Technologies. As a solar panel designer and distributor, AGT is on the cutting edge of alternative energy technologies and is creating jobs as we speak. That's exactly the kind of innovative local business this legislation will support.

I am confident that Florida can be a national leader, as well as the rest of the country, on clean energy technology. This bill gives our business leaders the tools they need to create jobs and compete in the next great American industry.

Madam Speaker, I submit a record of how I would have voted on June 18 and 26, 2009 when I was unavoidably detained.

Had I voted, I would have voted ``yes'' on rollcall No. 383, ``yes'' on rollcall No. 390, ``yes'' on rollcall No. 400, ``yes'' on rollcall No. 406, and ``no'' on rollcall No. 472.

I thank the gentleman and the chairman for his leadership and the opportunity to engage in a brief colloquy.

I rise today to ask for your help in improving the care of our wounded warriors. Later this week, I will introduce the Wounded Warrior K-9 Corps Act to establish a program for organizations that provide wounded warriors and disabled veterans with service animals, like physical therapy dogs and guide dogs. There are several organizations around the country that train animals to work with disabled soldiers and veterans. These organizations, like many not-for-profit organizations, are struggling at this moment to collect necessary resources in these difficult economic times. The difference between these organizations and others is that they're giving our soldiers and veterans a service that they have earned. I applaud their private fundraising, and at the same time I realize that this is our responsibility as well. Mr. Chairman, this legislation will allow the government to keep its promise to America's disabled soldiers and veterans and help them retain an excellent quality of life after their service. Thanks to modern medicine, more and more of our brave men and women are able to sustain wounds that may have been fatal in the past. This is a blessing, but it also requires new tools to allow them to return to civilian working life. I have seen these programs in action. I have witnessed the growth of these veterans and wounded soldiers after working with a guide dog or animal that can assist them with physical therapy and lifetime care and support. These programs succeed, and I believe every American who puts on a uniform and risks their lives for our country should have the full support of this Congress in this mission.

I thank the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2647.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H. Res. 560 and would like to thank our chairman Mr. Berman and my colleague Mr. Pence for bringing this bipartisan statement forward which supports our American view of the events in Iran.

The Iranian people deserve a democracy that counts every vote and treats its citizens with the utmost dignity. They deserve to trust their own government. However, these are not free and fair elections by any stretch of the imagination, and it is our imperative to speak out whenever and wherever freedom is suppressed, whether by our allies or by our foes.

Frankly, we have honest differences with the Iranian government, no matter who is elected. Any Iranian government that seeks a nuclear weapon and spreads state-sponsored terrorism is a threat to the United States and our allies. That is why the United States has not taken either side in this conflict. It is for the Iranians to choose who leads them. Indeed, this struggle belongs to them.

However, the message we send today is the world is watching. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the passage of H. Res. 493, a resolution to honor the 85th anniversary of Hillel: the Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.

I would like to thank Congressman Tim Johnson for co-authoring this resolution with me. Congressman Johnson's district is the home of the first Hillel, founded in 1923.

As my colleagues know well, Hillel is the world's largest Jewish college campus organization, serving students on over 500 campuses around the world.

Last night, with dozens of house parties and celebrations, Hillel celebrated its 85th anniversary.

Hillel has been an important partner to universities by providing resources, programs and other forms of support to the entire campus community. Hillel members, professional staff and lay leaders have educated students about American values and have helped them to provide leadership for causes, including the civil rights movement, the campaign to free Soviet Jewry, the effort to stop the genocide in Darfur, and the promotion of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

I would like to recognize Wayne Firestone, the President of Hillel, originally from South Florida and a University of Miami Hillel alumnus, for his tireless work on behalf of the many causes that Hillel students advance. I would also like to commend Josh Kram, originally from South Florida and a Hillel alumnus at the University of Florida, for helping to coordinate a successful birthday celebration.

Hillel is an important institution that has provided numerous benefits to young people and their communities. It is only appropriate that on this anniversary, Congress recognize Hillel's achievements in giving back to this country and the world.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Madam Speaker, by the end of this year, we hope to pass a comprehensive energy bill which will help this country move forward on clean, renewable, American energy, and certainly, will help fuel our economic recovery.

As co-Chair of the New Democratic Coalition on Energy, I believe now is the time for a robust, market-based approach to approach our Nation's energy needs. We have to pass legislation that will make smart investments in alternative energy, and I think every American understands the common sense behind that. These are the kinds of things that will make us more viable and competitive, not only here in the United States but abroad, for our American companies.

It's also clear, as we know as we get into this energy debate, this is about our national security; the fact that we continue to import 60- plus percent of our oil from countries outside the United States, many of which, particularly in the Middle East, are not our friends and are funding our enemies.

We also know it's about, as I said, job creation, and it's also about good environmental policy.

Now, you've heard a lot about this energy bill so far. You may continue to hear a lot about it, and you hear studies on one side that say we're going to lose jobs; the other side saying we're going to create jobs. But I think there's quite a remarkable thing that's going on right now as I've worked on this with many other Members, on both the Democrat and Republican side.

There's a coalition of people out there, interested groups, that have come together and said we support the energy bill that is currently being presented by Congress. And I just want to name some of the companies and some of the groups because it just doesn't sound like the normal groups that would come together: BP, big oil company; Dow Chemical; ConocoPhillips, General Electric. You've got the entire labor union movement supporting this. You've got the League of Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club.

Now, I know not everyone's familiar with every one of these organizations, but suffice it to say, you have got some very large corporate businesses that have their view of the world and certainly the necessity to having an efficient energy policy. You've got some environmental groups that have come together and said, you know, we like this, this makes some sense to us. And you've got labor which doesn't always necessarily but sometimes agrees with the other two groups.

So what I like to think when I hear a study from this organization, sometimes I've heard of that organization, sometimes I haven't, and you have got another group that comes and says the opposite, I like to think of common sense when it comes to coming together and putting together logical and efficient legislation.

The fact that these three sort of disparate groups have come together and said, yeah, we support this, I think something is going on here that we should take a close look at and certainly consider in supporting.

I want to talk specifically about the jobs that will be created by this because I had a very unique conversation with the president of the largest utility company from Florida where I'm from. He was telling me they're building the largest solar plant in the world in Florida. Now, we like to call ourselves The Sunshine State, so we think that's a good place for it, but there are already a lot of solar plants in other parts of the world.

But they're building this in Florida, and what he told me was they were very unhappy about the fact that when they're building this huge plant, hundreds of millions of dollars, they're going to have to import the mirrors--that's the components to build the solar plant--from Germany. I said, Why is that? And he said, Well, we don't build them in the United States. There aren't the kind of incentives for businesses to do that here; but if you did build them in Florida or Georgia or California or Ohio, we would buy them here because they would be far less expensive. Just the shipping costs overseas of this very fragile equipment adds such an expensive piece to the equation.

That, to me, strikes at the heart of this whole point. Why aren't we doing everything we can to create these kinds of jobs in the United States and creating the incentives? Well, the good news is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which we passed--that's the recovery bill--a few months ago has the kind of tax incentives and many of the components to begin to encourage this type of industry for creating jobs in the United States. I want these jobs to be in Florida or other parts of the United States because they're good quality jobs and will support a good industry.

Another area which I think we talked about, you know, nationally is wind power. A big part of what's going on around the world right now, a lot of that is built overseas, but here's another good example. A typical wind turbine has 8,000 parts and is made of 250 tons of steel. Americans make steel. We fabricate. We assemble. We can deliver that to a wind farm in the United States at far less of a cost than if it was done overseas. And guess what, you can't outsource the labor or the people that put these things together and install them. You can't do it from overseas. So, again, an idea whose time has come.

The great thing about this energy bill is this is the kind of forward-thinking that will create the next generation of jobs, whether it's wind or wave

or solar or any combination of things that will make this country more energy secure, smarter, more efficient, and will advance us into the next generation of not only energy but make this country very strong from a national security point of view and a jobs point of view.

So I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this bill, move this country forward, and make us more secure.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 529, a bipartisan resolution that I authored with Mr. Pence, Mr. Waxman, Mr. Smith and Mr. Engel, and I thank the Speaker for promptly bringing it to the floor today with the input and guidance from many other Members of this Chamber, as well as the bipartisan Congressional Task Force Against Anti-Semitism.

I rise today in great sorrow as this Nation mourns the loss of Officer Stephen T. Johns, who was killed in the line of duty yesterday at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at the hands of a hateful white supremacist.

Today I offer condolences to the family of Officer Johns and condemn in the strongest possible way the vicious attack on the Holocaust Memorial Museum and all that it represents.

The museum is a place of reflection, an expression of the adage ``never again.'' The museum seeks a world without racism, anti- Semitism, Holocaust denial and intolerance.

The target may have been the museum and Jews, but this vicious attack hurt all Americans. A hate crime in every sense, this attack violates all of us. Acts of hatred and violence cannot and will not be tolerated in our country. Today, the lessons of the Holocaust are more relevant than ever before. Officer Johns died protecting those values, and he is a hero to all of us.

Americans stand today together to redouble our commitment to advance the mission of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, to advance Holocaust education and fight against anti-Semitism, racism, hatred and intolerance in the United States and throughout the world. Only by standing together can we begin to heal and fight against future acts of hatred.

I thank both the Democrat and Republican leadership of the House, Mr. Rahall and Mr. Hastings, for their support. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

I thank the gentleman from Washington and the gentleman from West Virginia for giving us the opportunity, as well as the Speaker, for allowing us to very promptly bring this to the attention of the House.

I thank the Members, the Democrat and Republican Members, who have all been here today, as well as the entire Chamber for reacting and acknowledging this horrific act. Again, we just acknowledge and extend our condolences to the family.

We rededicate ourselves to the necessity of teaching, of educating our public in the United States and around the world about what happens when racism and intolerance are allowed to fester from generation to generation, and we know that we will commit ourselves to continue that education process to the lessons of the Holocaust and the lessons of, unfortunately, what happened yesterday to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

I thank the Congressman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the rule and the underlying legislation, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of 2009. This bill will allow us to advance our foreign policy and our national security goals, and I believe very strongly in those goals.

I would also like to briefly speak about one provision in the bill that will help to ensure the safety of many Americans. As many of us know, June 1 is the beginning of hurricane season, and there are many ways to be prepared. Hurricane hunter planes, used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and by the Air Force, fly into hurricane areas to more accurately predict where a hurricane is going. However, certain countries are not allowing these planes to fly into their airspace. If one country obstructs our hurricane preparedness efforts, it could be the difference between life and death. This legislation puts in place measures so that the State Department can resolve this issue as soon as possible and can help protect our Americans.

I would like to thank the chairman for allowing us to work on this issue and on all of the others with me and with others. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise to oppose the gentlelady's amendment. I respectfully disagree that the purpose of today's bill is to do anything other than to improve the quality of the diplomatic efforts that our men and women around the world are doing. I think that this is exactly what the direction of this bill does, and I think it does it in the right, efficient way.

This particular amendment would disallow an important film called Fateful Harvest, a documentary that exposes the poppy trade that the Taliban has used to imprison the Afghan people, from broad distribution. It is true

that current law forbids the Voice of America from releasing its products in the United States, and the original intention of that provision was that a U.S. Government agency should not be able to brainwash Americans or put things out there that would not be considered objective information. Further, domestic companies were concerned. They didn't want to have to compete with a not-for-profit government-funded entity. It does require an act of Congress to waive this law. But, let's be clear, Congress has waived this provision 100 times in the past number of years for domestic releases, including the award-winning ``John F. Kennedy: Years of Lightning, Day of Drums'' in 1965.

This particular movie, Fateful Harvest, is important for any American who's concerned about our national security. In a time when some Americans question the presence of American troops in Afghanistan, this film makes the case that American efforts help the Afghan people transition away from poppies to other agriculture helps in our fight against the Taliban. I personally saw the efforts that our men and women on the ground are doing in Afghanistan, when I was there a number of months ago, in trying to switch from poppies to pomegranates, to wheat and other products.

As we help Afghanistan transition their economy, we will undermine the Taliban. Most Americans cannot see this for themselves. That is why the release of this film is so important. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise today to also oppose the gentlewoman's amendment. The underlying legislation contains commonsense provisions to ensure we are making the most use of our taxpayer funds in our diplomatic mission. There are a wide variety of opinions about how effective our diplomatic positions have been, and we appreciate the men and women in the diplomatic corps.

But we can do better in terms of, as the gentleman said, getting a better bang for our buck. Creating a Lessons Learned Center will allow the State Department and USAID to be more efficient in their spending and reduce duplicative efforts. We have already identified mountains of duplicative efforts.

This is part of a larger strategy in the legislation to ensure accountability in our diplomatic efforts and on behalf of our taxpayers. It also includes a quadrennial review of our national plan for U.S. diplomacy and development programs, just like the Defense Department does every 4 years.

This, to me, is exactly what we should be doing in this bill as we are beginning a new way of looking at our diplomatic efforts.

So, again, I appreciate the gentlewoman's effort, but I think this is fundamentally a crucial part of this piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

Madam Speaker, it is an honor to be here today to talk in this House about energy. This is a moment in time when, I think, most Americans understand this great opportunity we have to really turn things around for our future in this country. It's about three principal elements that aren't just tied to the high cost of gasoline. It's about national security; it's about a better environment; and probably, as one of the most important things for this moment, it's about jobs. It's about a new economy.

We'll just talk about national security. I think all of us understand very clearly, every American, no matter where one is from, the fact that importing oil is the basis for a lot of the dependency that we have. Sixty percent or so of the oil that we take in the United States comes from outside the United States. We depend, unfortunately, on many countries that are, at best, not our friends and that are, at worst, our mortal enemies, who fund terrorism and threats against the United States and against our allies around the world. The sooner that we can take oil out of the centerpiece of our natural resource dependency, the better. That's not to say we don't have oil in the United States and that, yes, we're going to drill more and all that kind of thing. What I'm talking about is the fact that much of our oil comes from places around the world, from the Middle East, from Venezuela and from other places that are not stable places for us to depend on this.

Number 2 is our economy. We know that we have a great opportunity in terms of this next generation of jobs to be created relating to alternative energy and to the various kinds of alternative energies that are out there right now that are being developed by our scientists, by our engineers, and by our businesspeople.

There is one thing that, I think, is just incredible and that I'll just give by way of an example because we know about solar and wind and a lot of other things. I'm from Florida, and I was speaking to one of our utility companies the other day, and they're talking about building the largest solar plant in the world in Florida. Over the years, we've heard, Oh, well, there isn't enough sun or maybe other things. Well, now there is a general recognition that anywhere in the United States there are great opportunities for solar. The technology is moving along, and we need to continue to incent that continued higher level of development of battery storage for solar and things like that.

One of the things he said to me is, in building this plant, they have to import the mirrors--these are the pieces of equipment to hold the solar and to capture the power--from Germany. Hundreds of millions of dollars of this product have to come in from Germany because we don't produce it here in the United States.

Why? Why don't we produce it? Why isn't that a job opportunity that is based right here?

I think that one of the things that's going on right now in the investment recovery act that we've put together and other things that, I think, all of us share, Democrats and Republicans and as Americans, is the idea that, if we're going to talk about energy, we have to incentivize business and industry and the engineers in our universities to develop the science, to develop the entrepreneurship, to give the tax incentives for investment for that type of energy in the United States, and to build the equipment here in the United States.

There is no reason. It costs a lot of money to ship fragile mirrors over from Germany. We can build it here. We can build it better. We can probably export it and can compete with the rest of the world.

I think that's a pretty exciting opportunity, and there are so many other areas. In my district off the coast of Florida, most of you have heard of the gulf stream. That's that perpetual current, 24/7, 365 days a year, that runs up and down up to north along the east coast. Well, right now, one of our local universities, Florida Atlantic University, is developing technology where they can put turbines in the Atlantic Ocean and capture that energy.

I don't know if this is going to work long-term, but that's the kind of American ingenuity that we're looking for, and we as a government and private sector, our scientists, our entrepreneurs, we need to work together to capture that and build on that.

And of course, there's the environment. We all understand that, and there is something going on in the world on climate. People can have different opinions. I think most scientists agree there's something going on, and whatever we can do in the United States and around the world to provide leadership to reduce the impact of CO2 and other things, it's good for all of us.

I live in a coastal area, 75 miles on the Atlantic Ocean, some of the most beautiful areas in the world. We obviously are very sensitive to the hurricane activity, to the rise of the Atlantic Ocean, things like that, but I think we all understand there's an environmental issue at the same time.

So what are we doing here in Washington? We're working very collectively, and there are a lot of business and industry actively supporting some of the various ideas that are coming forward to work on this in a very productive way to make sure that the United States is leading the world in these areas of alternative energy.

And we're debating a bill right now and I know our colleagues are asking for comments from back home. We obviously want to do it in a way that allows for appropriate levels of transition for our industries who are dependent on old fuel sources to move to new fuel sources. We need to work together to make sure that the system eases in a way that is economically competitive. That's what we need to do. At the same time, we ought to be encouraging as much as we can getting these products into play.

So I'm very excited about the fact that we can build a new energy future, and I look forward to working with all of our Members to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen) for yielding me time, and I also want to commend him for his leadership on this important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 410, a resolution I introduced with my friend from South Carolina, the Honorable Henry Brown, along with the distinguished co-Chairs of the Congressional Boating Caucus, the Honorable Gene Taylor from Mississippi and the Honorable Candice Miller from Michigan.

Our resolution highlights the important contributions of the recreational boating community and the boating industry as to the quality of our lives and as to our continued economic prosperity. I urge President Obama to issue a proclamation calling upon the American people to observe July 1 as National Boating Day.

Boating is a famous symbol for south Florida, where I come from, and for other parts around the country. Millions of residents in our community and tourists take to the waters of south Florida to boat, to fish, to dive, to snorkel, and to view scenic tours along our pristine coastline and along our unique intercoastal waterway. Palm Beach County alone has over 40,000 registered boaters. Fort Lauderdale's majestic canals have earned it the nickname ``the Venice of America.''

The significance of the boating community is not only symbolic. The industry is a major economic engine in Florida, responsible for over $2.8 billion in direct sales and for 30,000 jobs State-wide. In my district alone, there are over 34,000 registered boats. The industry produces $193 million, and it employs over 2,000 of my constituents.

As everyone here knows, the contributions of the boating community extend far beyond the Sunshine State. The boating community includes 59 million people and 13.6 million registered boats throughout the United States. In addition, the recreational boating industry provides more than $37 billion in sales and in services to the U.S. economy, and it provides over 300,000 jobs throughout our country.

One need only look at the geographic diversity among members of the Congressional Boating Caucus, of which I am a proud member, to measure the broad influence and contributions of the boating community and of the boating industry. Members come from 33 States, including Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and West Virginia.

Clearly, boating is not just a coastal pastime. It is an American pastime. Boating also brings us closer to our natural resources and treasures. I strongly believe that an appreciation for environmental stewardship comes through an interaction with nature. For example, it's hard to comprehend the beauty of our coral reefs until you see it under water with your own eyes through a boat. Once you do, you begin to understand their importance and the need to protect them for the continued health of our oceans.

Boating gives us these cherished opportunities to commune with nature, and it should be no surprise that boaters can be impassioned stewards of the environment, teaching future generations of boaters to have a healthy respect and appreciation for our natural resources.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 410, and I thank the gentleman from Washington again for bringing H. Res. 410 to the floor.

I urge its passage.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 109, recognizing the 20th anniversary of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in our nation's capital. The Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure has not only raised substantial funds for breast cancer research, but serves as a day to pay tribute to the loved ones we've lost, empower those who have survived, and support those who continue to battle this disease. Like many other Americans, my family has been touched by breast cancer. But due to advances in treatment, greater awareness, and increases in early detection, we can now fight this disease head on and bring new hope to the mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and friends that are diagnosed each year.

Susan G. Komen unfortunately lost her battle with breast cancer, but her story and her sister's perseverance to put an end to breast cancer once and for all has helped advance research, educate women on the importance of early detection, and bring men and women from all walks of life together to share their stories and struggles with this disease. I was proud to cosponsor this resolution, and participate in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in my own community in Florida.

I'd like to thank my colleague, Congressman Donnelly, for introducing this important legislation and urge adoption of the resolution.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the gentleman from Connecticut and his characterization of ``wise sage words.'' I will try not to disappoint you.

It is a pleasure to be here tonight with Members of the House to talk about health care. This is something that obviously touches every one of us, as 300 million Americans face health care issues every day. Some of us don't have to think about them from year to year other than maybe just a minor incident or you have to go to see a doctor from time to time. Others face literally chronic and life-threatening health situations every day, and it hangs over you. It hangs over you as just an emotional and physical thing as it relates to your body or your family, one of the members of your family. It relates to and hangs over you because of the costs and the threat of that overwhelming cost and impact on your family's wherewithal and to be able to do it. Certainly from the business community side, we hear from our small businesses. I know in South Florida, where I come from, we're a small business State, and so many small businesses with five employees, people who are self- employed, 10 employees, 50 employees, they go through the same experience year after year, double-digit increases with no experiences, nothing that went on during the year that was a major cost factor that set off these double-digit increases. And what happens is, they then have to make a decision: What can I cut back? We are in difficult times right now. Do I increase the copayments? Do I increase the deductible? Do I cut back on the scope of care? Businesses want to provide health care. It creates loyalty from the employees to the business. It creates a healthy employee and someone who is able to come to work every day, someone who you've invested a lot in to train that employee. You also have large businesses that can compete internationally. They know that the costs of producing something with that added double-digit increase of health care cost impacts the cost of the product that they are selling worldwide and competing with other countries which somehow integrate the cost of their health care into their government operations or just in a lower cost way.

We now have a dynamic in place here that's been around, but I think it has finally hit the point where there is a coalition of people all across America that are saying, we need change. And we don't want nipping around the edges. We don't want some small little thing that isn't going to make a difference. We have fundamental problems. We have cost problems. We have coverage problems in some cases, pre-existing conditions. I know anybody this in this room I can speak to and people listening tonight, everyone could talk about a family member, a neighbor, a friend who has breast cancer or some other chronic condition that when you need that insurance the most is when it will be unavailable to you because if you change jobs or you are getting a new policy, they will be excluding coverage from that pre-existing condition when you need it the most. So the notion of insurance and spreading the risk among our whole population, which it's supposed to do, is what has somehow gotten away from the insurance system as we know it, and that's wrong.

So where are we? We're at a place where I think Americans say and want and know that they want to have something that's stable, something that will be there for them. They're willing to pay a fair price for it. They want to be able to compete in their businesses. And the good news is our President, many Members of the United States House of Representatives and the Senate want to do something about it, and we're getting great support from across the country. We have got to get it right, but I think there's a tremendous amount of opportunity here.

Let's talk just very briefly about what some of those notions are, those principles that we're going to create this plan. There are a lot of ideas out there right now. We can certainly invite Americans to talk to their Representatives and give us some input on what you think.

Number one, I think one of the most important things is this notion of restoring the doctor-patient relationship. We have a lot of doctors. Dr. Kagen is a doctor. I see our friend from Pennsylvania who is going to speak in a few minutes. She has a doctor, I believe, as a husband and a son. There are a lot of doctors in the Schwartz family. And I think as patients we know the best thing we can do is have a long-term relationship with a doctor who knows my family history, knows my history. Not that I have to change jobs and change doctors, or my plan knocks this doctor off the panel, I have to find somebody else. So let's go back to the notion of having a doctor-patient relationship whose decisions are not dictated by people who are outside of the medical field, insurance companies, managed care, et cetera. Let's put that in place.

Number two, let's make sure that as we go forward that people who like what they have in the insurance world can keep it. I mean, there are a lot of people who like what they have. I wasn't out here criticizing everybody. Some people are very comfortable with the plan that they have. They should be able to keep it. Nobody is saying you shouldn't be able to have it. Keep it. It's good. Let's stick with it. We want to provide tax credits to small businesses and individuals to make coverage affordable. In other words, again, it's not mandatory as we know it right now. So encourage businesses by doing it with tax credits to make it affordable. We want to certainly end this practice of eliminating pre-existing conditions from coverage. Spreading the risk is a very simple principle that could be done with a pen, and we're all set. So that's a principle that has to go in there.

We want to make sure that whatever we put forward invests in preventive and well care medical coverage. I take

Lipitor or I take something for cholesterol. It's a family history thing. A lot of people take it. It's just something that keeps me healthy. If I didn't take it, I would have cholesterol. Dr. Kagen could probably tell me how I should change my diet. I do run. I try to keep in shape. But the bottom line is, I take it as a preventive tool. There are lots of other tools and things that we can take, plus exercise programs and other things. But we should incentivize behavior through our health insurance scenario. Just the last couple of items before I turn it back to my colleagues, we want to ensure that we're using science-based information, that when decisions are made, it's based on science and not some of these nonscience-based concepts. I mean, science really relates to the best individualized treatment and care.

Then, of course, we have to crack down on the waste, fraud and abuse. There's a lot of money in this current system here that is a lot of waste. We have to fix all that, you know, wring it tight so we can make sure that that money is being spent directly on health care. These are principles--and there are others that we're working on--that I think most Americans approve of and support. I think this is the construct by which the various ideas are being discussed here in Washington and are part of that discussion. There may be details which we may not all agree 100 percent on, but this is something that the time has come. The time has come for peace of mind for every American, for every business to know that we'll have a stable health care system that will support Medicaid, support Medicare, and on the private side, very important, most of us will get our care from the private side. We'll have that opportunity to know that it's cost-effective, and it will give us that necessary coverage.

I thank the gentleman from Connecticut who brought us together tonight. I know being from South Florida and having a tremendous amount of senior citizens who depend on a good quality health care system and a whole lot of families that are very interested in making sure their families are covered as well, we're working to make sure that we take care of them the right way here.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

I think that's an excellent point. And again, if we think about what insurance is supposed to do, it is supposed to spread the risk. Yet the experiences that small businesses have with 8 employees or 1 self-

employed or 10 is they get a different pricing than somebody who's negotiating for 10,000 people. A major corporation that negotiates for 10,000 or 100,000 lives has a much--we call it the economy of scale, but it is also the insurance company saying, All right, we have a large group. We can spread the risk.

Well, why should that be any different than you take your small business and your small business, and in Fort Lauderdale where I'm from or Delray Beach or wherever, you've got all these small businesses, 8 and 20 and 110, and let them combine together and purchase policies. And that is just a basic right of free enterprise to be able to do that.

I'm going to toss out another idea because, again, a lot of this thinking that we're talking about is common sense. It's not out-of-the- box thinking; it's just common sense.

When I was in the Florida legislature a number of years ago, we were looking at various ways to fix the health system, because, unfortunately, despite your good efforts and others for the last number of years, nothing was really happening of any major consequence. And we said, Well, what if we allow people to purchase into the State of Florida health insurance plan?

Or let's use the Federal system. We have hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in our Federal system. Okay? Members of Congress and everybody else gets to buy this, and it's a typical plan. The government pays a piece of the premium and we pay a piece of the premium. Okay? What if we allow people to buy into the Federal plan? Okay. Not on the Federal Government's dime. No subsidy whatsoever. Whatever the cost is, the administration and the policy and everything else, purchase into that.

Well, we did some research on this to the State of Florida plan, which is not that much different than the Federal plan, and we found that if you take a small business that was trying to buy a policy, the same policy, apples and apples, the price was almost twice what it would cost if they paid the full out-of-pocket cost in the State of Florida plan.

Now, of course, our friends in the insurance industry were not interested in supporting that because they like the idea of the small groups buying individually. And they said, Well, it's going to change the risk assessment.

You know, where there's a will, there's a way. That's my attitude about this whole thing. So again, I think as we're going through this discussion, maybe we can talk. I know some of the Members of the Senate and some House Members. I think that just may be another way of offering alternatives, options to people. Let them purchase into a large plan like the Federal Government plan.

Again, the U.S. taxpayer is not subsidizing it. Whatever the cost is, it is. But you get the benefit of a large plan that lots of people are in and you can spread the risk.

So, again, to me the excitement right now is lots of good ideas are coming forward, and I think we're going to be able to get there, and let's just engage the American people in the right answers.

Would the gentleman yield for 1 second?

I want to make it perfectly clear, if I didn't make this, when I say State of Florida or Federal Government, the State of Florida doesn't own an insurance company. It could be Blue Cross or United, any combination of private companies. So it's the Federal Government through our Blue Cross or whatever it may be. It's private companies offering the insurance. But the beauty, of course, is the spreading of the risk.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2352, the Job Creation through Entrepreneurship Act of 2009. This legislation comes at a critical time, as small businesses across the country are struggling to access credit and make payroll.

This legislation will create new small business development programs to increase access to credit, provide training on contract procurement and green entrepreneurship and offer additional guidance to veteran- owned small businesses veterans looking to start their own businesses upon returning home from service. This legislation will play a critical role in putting Americans back to work and helping established small businesses grow during these tough economic times.

I represent South Florida, which has 1.1 million small businesses-- one of the highest concentrations of small businesses in the country. Unfortunately, in 2008, SBA loans in South Florida fell approximately 40 percent--10 percent higher the national average. I've met with countless small business owners in my district who, despite strong credit and responsible lending histories cannot access credit at a reasonable rate. These new and enhanced entrepreneurial development programs will serve as a lifeline for small business owners in my home state of Florida, and throughout the country. By providing one-on-one counseling, continued guidance and support for potential entrepreneurs and struggling small business owners, we can help our small business community weather these tough economic times, increase sales and get our economy back on track.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation,