Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Robert Tillsley of Franklin Lakes, New Jersey for his dedicated support to the Boy Scouts of Northern New Jersey as well as Ramapo College and the members of the community of Bergen County. Tonight, Mr. Tillsley is being honored by the Iaoapogh Mountains District of the Northern New Jersey Council of the Boy Scouts for his commitment to improving the local community. This district serves more than 3,000 youth, guided by 1,000 adult volunteers through 32 Cub Packs, 26 Boy Scout Troops and 6 Venture Crews.

Robert T. Tillsley has been a member and friend of scouting for his entire life. He started as a member of Troop 55 in Paterson, New Jersey, and worked his way up from Patrol Leader to become Junior Assistant Scoutmaster. In November of 1960, he achieved the honor of Eagle Scout and has consistently held true to its creeds--``once an Eagle Scout, always an Eagle Scout.''

Mr. Tillsley also supports a variety of commendable organizations outside of the Boy Scouts. He serves as the chairman of the Foundation Board of Governors at Ramapo College and has chaired several board committees over the years. He has worked with McBride Corporate Real Estate since 1988 where he started as a Senior Vice President responsible for the marketing of multi-tenant office buildings and then moved on to

McBride's National Services division to serve as President in 1994. His responsibilities include the oversight of national services, customer service, database implementation, maintaining relationships, and implementation of marketing services for the division. He is an active member of the Society of Industrial & Office Realtors, the Industrial & Office Real Estate Brokers Association of Metropolitan New York, and CORFAC International--a worldwide commercial real estate network through which he has spoken at numerous global conferences and serves as an Executive Committee member.

As Boy Scouting founder Lord Baden Powel once said, ``It is the spirit within, not the veneer without, which makes a man.'' Robert Tillsley's spirit can be seen in his laudable educational and business pursuits on behalf of the Boy Scouts of America throughout the 5th district of New Jersey; I join with his family, friends, and community in celebrating this momentous occasion.

Madam Speaker, this evening, the Franklin School in Bergenfield will celebrate 100 years of exceptional education offered in New Jersey's 5th District. Erected in 1908, Franklin School arose to meet the need for a notable educational facility within this expanding community in Bergen County. Its humble beginnings were made up of a $15,000 budget and only 10 students grades K-12. Since then, Franklin School has grown to a diverse group of 365 students from grades K-5 that captures the excellence of what Bergen County students have to offer. With a dedicated teaching staff, Franklin School has found new and exciting strategies for enabling its students to excel in all areas of their instruction. Their mission is to put children first and this directive has given incentive to provide the student body with the necessary tools and guidance to obtain success. With laptop labs to teach communication skills, learning centers to further judge and improve performance, and performance measures put in place to continually improve all educational offerings delivered to those who attend, Franklin School has established the gold standard in educational offerings.

The Franklin School is an exceptional educational facility that has nurtured and sent forth successful students for the past 100 years. I am proud of its accomplishments and expect great things from those who have been offered invaluable guidance from this notable school. Because of committed administrators and selfless teachers who have put their time and effort into the educational program offered to their students, Franklin School has made this community in my district a better place. I wish all the very best to the Franklin School and all its staff and students in their next 100 years to come.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of the legislation, and I commend my colleague on the other side of the aisle as well for his work on this piece as well and his support.

If you look to the legislation, page 2, I think this is an interesting portion and it really cuts to the quick of what we're talking about with regard to credit unions. It says: whereas credit unions operate with the credo, not for profit, not for charity, but for service and have consistently reflected this philosophical tradition and the cooperative spirit of people helping people that gave birth to the Federal Credit Union Act.

Well, when you think about it, that is exactly what the credit union industry is in this country: not for profit, not for charity but for service. And when I think of my district back in the great State of New Jersey in the Fifth Congressional District and the credit unions that are in that area, whether it was the very first credit union that I ever joined when I worked for Selective Insurance Company many years ago and the services that they provided to the employees of that company or other credit unions that have grown up over time in the various counties in northwest New Jersey and across the State of New Jersey, working to fill a particular niche for their members that perhaps were not being met by the rest of the industries for these individuals, they were doing so in a manner that was not for profit, the people coming together and saying that there is a need to be fulfilled and that they were going to make sure that they served it.

Now, it's interesting as I come to the floor here to speak to the benefits of credit unions that our country has seen over the last several decades. I just returned from meeting with officials from the European Union and also from Great Britain where they, right now, in light of all the financial difficulties they are experiencing in their financial markets, are looking across the Atlantic to see whether they can learn some things from us to see what they can do to provide, A, some services and, B, some stability to their markets as well.

And you know what the number one thing that the Conservative Party, the folks who I met with over there, said that they wanted to do and that was in Great Britain was to provide credit unions for the people of that country.

So they have a problem that's a little bit different from our country and that is that we have the traditional entrepreneurial spirit in the banking industry, that we have so many banks across the country, which is a good thing that provides services from the small individual right up to the large. They don't have it quite as extensively as we do in this country, and so they have a need even greater than we do to provide that niche marketplace for the individual.

So they will be looking to the United States to take the lead in this area and probably emulate much of what we have already learned and instituted with regard to the solvency issues and the prudential regulation issues and the like in that industry. So it's good to come back to the United States and say that in this area we have been a leader on this matter, and I stand in support of this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I now yield such time as he may consume to Mr. Royce.

Mr. Speaker, I would just close then by thanking the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) for taking the lead role as the Republican sponsor of this legislation and also for his work in the past with regard and on behalf of credit unions as well and also for making the significant point that he just did, which is, with regard to this time of financial crisis, that the American public could look to the resounding, strong support of the credit unions. So I thank Mr. Royce for his lead role, and I appreciate the role Mr. Himes as well has played in bringing this legislation to the floor.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking several people who played a significant role in getting us to where we are today, starting, of course, with the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore), who is the sponsor of the bill. He has exhibited tremendous leadership and persistence as well, as he indicated, in moving this legislation to the floor today, and so he should be commended for his hard work.

I would also like to congratulate the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Brown-Waite), for she was the Republican lead sponsor on this bill in the last two Congresses, and she has worked tirelessly on this very important issue. So I am pleased now to have the opportunity to take up the mantle from Ms. Brown-Waite and to move this legislation forward.

Finally, I would like to thank the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and specifically Dr. Theresa Vaughan for their efforts in working closely with all of the interested parties.

Now, I believe that the inclusive and deliberative process that this legislation has undergone should serve, really, as a model as we continue to work on revamping and modernizing other aspects of our financial regulatory framework. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2571, the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act of 2009, will reform and will streamline the regulation of the nonadmitted--that's surplus lines--insurance market as well as the reinsurance market.

Title I, which addresses the surplus lines market, will reduce regulatory overlap, and will clarify where the appropriate taxing authority really should lie with each market transaction. It also will establish the NAIC's eligibility requirements as a standard for the participation in the surplus lines marketplace. These provisions will basically increase efficiency. They will work to reduce transaction costs, and they will work to improve access to the entire market for our consumers.

Now, if we go into Title II legislation, that section addresses several important areas within the reinsurance market. What the bill will do is create a procedure to establish a single solvency regulator for each reinsurer, eliminate the extraterritorial application of State law with regards to reinsurance, and it also will provide for a more meaningful and really a simplified process in determining the credit for reinsurance that the companies will receive. So both the surplus lines and the reinsurance titles are vital to promoting further harmonization for transactions occurring across State lines and eliminating unnecessary redtape, which basically will help to reduce costs for consumers.

So in this increasingly complex world, it is essential that consumers and businesses be able to purchase insurance from risks outside of their traditional realm. And I believe this legislation will further increase efficiency and reduce costs for these very important transactions.

Similar variations of this legislation, as Mr. Moore indicated, have passed the House in the last two Congresses by unanimous votes, and it is my hope that this bipartisan legislation will once again pass today unanimously. So I ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I also yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss one aspect of health care reform that, unfortunately, has not received a lot of attention by the Democrat majority. That is the issue of medical liability reform.

Recently, I spent a couple of days in my district in New Jersey touring hospitals, physician group practices, and long-term care facilities. When talking to the physicians at these facilities, I asked them, ``What issue would you most like to see addressed in health care reform legislation?'' In every single facility I visited, medical liability reform was either at or near the top of the list.

We know that the surge in malpractice lawsuits over the past 30 years has had a profoundly negative impact on the practice of medicine. And while, obviously, I feel that patients should be compensated for gross negligence by physicians, there is little doubt that our current tort system is broken. More than 60 percent of liability claims against physicians are dropped, withdrawn, or dismissed without payment. In 2007, the average cost of defending these claims was $18,000 per case.

This has pushed the cost of liability insurance through the roof. The American Medical Association (AMA) has listed my home state of New Jersey as a ``crisis state'' for medical liability. Doctors face liability insurance premium increases that far outpace the already high rate of medical inflation. Some high-risk specialties, such as obstetrics or emergency, face annual premiums of over $100,000 per year. According to a survey conducted by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the lack of affordable liability insurance forced 70 percent of OB/GYNs to make changes to their practice. Liability concerns also forced between seven to eight percent of OB/GYNs to stop practicing obstetrics.

But more important than the direct costs of our tort system are the indirect costs. One pediatrician I spoke to said that he would ``just like to practice medicine without feeling like a lawyer was looking over my shoulder all the time.'' The anxiety that our physicians face from confronting potential lawsuits seriously affects the doctor- patient relationship. Additionally, it drives up the cost of health care by encouraging the practice of ``defensive medicine.'' The AMA estimates that defensive medicine adds somewhere between $84--$151 Billion per year in health care costs to our system. As another doctor I met with said, ``I can waste money like you've never seen. When someone comes into my hospital and needs treatment, I can order every test, every procedure known to man, simply to protect myself from a lawsuit.''

Even President Obama, in his recent address to the AMA has admitted that medical liability is a serious issue. But despite the support of the President, the medical establishment, and the overwhelming majority of Americans, of the 1,018 pages of H.R. 3200, the America's Affordable Health Choices Act, there is not a single page on medical liability reform.

Madam Speaker, this issue is simply too important for us not to address. Any serious attempt to reform our health care system must reform medical liability.

In a few moments I'll be submitting an amendment to this bill, but before I do that, I just want to talk about someone else's comment on this bill. This is Nell Minow of the Corporate Library, someone who has been influential and involved in this issue for some period of time, as you may know, someone who no one would consider a conservative on this issue. And she just did a blog on this recently where she says, The House Financial Services Committee has recently approved this legislation. She recognizes why this is coming up, and she says, The impulse is understandable, but the standard is unworkable. What does inappropriate mean? What, while we're at it, does risk-taking mean? And the most terrifying question is, who gets to decide what they mean?

Chairman Barney Frank warned earlier this month, she reminds us, and he did so again just recently, that recent news of compensation of Wall Street shows that some financial leaders yearn for the stirring years of yesteryear, and demonstrates a need to adopt legislation on executive pay. But it's a question of empowering the shareholder to decide the question of appropriate level of pay and not by the regulators.

She concludes by saying, Who is in the best position to evaluate and respond to badly designed pay packages? As someone who is very proud of 8 years of serving in government, she says she has the most utmost respect for politicians and bureaucrats, but she also recognizes their limits. The government, therefore, should not be micromanaging pay. Instead, and this is what Republicans suggest, remove the obstacles that currently prevent oversight from those who are best qualified and motivated to manage the risk, the shareholders.

Mr. Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

I yield myself 4 minutes at this time.

Mr. Speaker, the American public truly should be outraged when they read the front page headlines nowadays with regard to bonuses and pay.

In The Wall Street Journal today, it's a bank bonus tab of $33 billion. You have to read the second headline, though, to realize that the $33 billion is going to the banks that received, basically, the taxpayer bailouts. The bottom line on all of this is that there is nothing in this legislation that would have prohibited this from going forward.

Now, the other side of the aisle on the floor today repeatedly says, Well, the Republican side simply has no alternative; it is just the party of ``no.'' Well, we know that that's not true. On the legislation before us today, with regard to executive compensation, both in committees and through Rules, the Republicans have proposed a number of substantive proposals, which I'll go through right now, which would address the underlying problems that we're trying to address here.

So, if you will permit me, I will now address the three or four main points in this substitute which would get at these points that, I think, outrage America with regard to compensation but which do so in a fair and just manner.

Firstly, in the underlying bill, it allows for a non-binding shareholder vote on executive compensation every year.

We propose instead that such vote should occur every 3 years. Why is that? All the expert testimony we've heard so far says that Wall Street focuses too much on the short term--on the year, on the 6 months, on the three-quarters or on the end of the quarter. Why then when compensation packages usually go longer than 1 year, usually go for 3 years, would we be requiring a vote that would once again refocus the attention on 1 year, a short period of time, as opposed to being in line with the 3-year longer time frame? So we suggest that a 3-year vote would be much more appropriate than a 1-year.

Secondly, as to the shareholders and whom we trust with these decisions, we suggest, if we are going to trust the shareholders to be making these decisions, should we not also trust them to make the decision as to whether or not to have such votes on executive compensation in the future?

So our amendment would suggest that a substitute would allow for a two-thirds vote of shareholders to opt out of the shareholder triennial advisory vote if they are so inclined. We know that this has been a position taken by a number of institutions and companies in the past because they've said that we do not want to have such power, that we do not want to involve ourselves in such decision-making.

We know that it is right now as well because we have a letter from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters which points out the very real reason of why this is. You know, they hold something like 3,603 different companies in their portfolio. They said if they were going to have to make this decision either every 1 year or every 3 years--and considering the due diligence that they would have to engage in--this commitment would be a severe challenge to their fiduciary responsibilities. So, if they want to opt out of this, shouldn't we give them that ability if two-thirds of the voters decide to do so?

Thirdly, State law. The other side of the aisle speaks about State law and about hypocrisy on this issue. Should we be preempting State law in this situation or, as to those States that have already engaged in this area, should they not be able to speak up and have their voices heard and not be preempted by the Federal Government?

Fourthly, and most importantly, is section 4. This section goes well beyond what the administration has already talked about. The administration says they do not really like what this section is in the bill and that they did not propose this section.

So our substitute says that we should be deleting section 4 of the bill, which would allow government bureaucrats rather than shareholders. The bottom line on this one is: Who is it that the other side really trusts to make these decisions? Is it the shareholders, as we saw in the first three sections of this bill, who would make the decisions, and that we would suggest they should be in the position to make the decisions, or is it the bureaucrats whom they think should be able to make these decisions? Is it the same bureaucrats, in the past, over at the SEC, who totally missed the whole Madoff situation, who should be making decisions as opposed to the stockholders? Is it the same bureaucrats who were the regulators for AIG and who totally missed that situation? Is that who they trust instead?

So we would suggest all four points are substantive amendments to this, and we would appreciate their consideration.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to a leader

in advocating for those free-market principles that made this country as great as it is, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling.)

I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining and who will be closing?

Parliamentary inquiry.

As far as the procedure for determining who closes, is it not the author of the amendment?

I yield myself the remaining 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the final question, I guess, is who do we trust. Who do we trust to deal with the situation of pay?

The gentleman just spoke on the floor with regard to protecting the interests of his constituents. You know, it doesn't really matter who your constituents are, whether they are the CEO at the top of the ladder, someone in between, the receptionist, anywhere along the line as far as pay scale, this bill will affect them and will affect their ability as far as what their compensation is. It will affect the ability of the Federal Government to dictate what their compensation will be. Government bureaucrats will be making those decisions in the future as opposed to the people involved with the company. Large income or small, bureaucrats will be the ones at hand to make those final decisions.

The odd thing about this legislation, as we read through it and as you look at our amendment to try to address this problem, is that the underlying bill gives with one hand and takes with the other. As has been previously indicated, it gives with one hand in a tacit approach to say that the shareholders should be able to make these decisions, but then it takes that right back again when it says, then, When the government decides that those shareholders made an incorrect decision, some bureaucrat at the SEC or the Federal Reserve or someplace else will overrule that decision and take that power away from them.

It says in the committee, on the one hand, that States should have some say in some aspects of financial service regulation matters, such as with the VFPA, where they do not want to preempt State rights, but here they want to step in and preempt those States, States that may have had a long history of dealing with such situations as executive pay compensation, or States that may want to address it in the future, but the underlying bill says that they will preempt that.

That is why we have come up with an alternative. We have come up with a solution. We are not the ``party of no,'' we are the party of reform, a party that says we should address this on a longer period of time, a party that says that we should allow the shareholders to be able to decide these issues, a party that says that when it comes to compensation, the Federal Government should not be intermeddling.

Now, there was an article in The New York Times recently. It quoted from Alan Blinder, a Princeton economist and former Vice Chairman of the Fed who wrote recently for the Wall Street Journal with regard to this. He said, The executives, lawyers, and accountants who design compensation systems are imaginative, skilled, and definitely not disinterested. Congress and government bureaucrats won't beat them at their own game. Congress has tried to do this in the past when they set the issue with regard to deductibility for executive compensation at $1 million. It had the unintended consequence of setting $1 million as the floor, and Wall Street then went from compensation packages greatly exceeding this. We may well see the same thing with this underlying legislation as well.

In the headlines that I started the hour out with, Bank Bonuses $33 Billion, money that is actually coming from the very taxpayers who are watching us here right now, this underlying legislation will not change that. Despite the fact that the gentleman from Texas tried to limit this legislation to try to address this legislation to situations as TARP companies, this legislation will not solve this. Our substitute will.

Our substitute will return the power to the individual. It will return the power to the corporation and, most importantly, return the power to the shareholder and take it from the government bureaucrat.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Can the Chair indicate how much time is remaining?

Yes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the gentleman from Massachusetts for working with the respective parties in order to ameliorate any situation that is going on outside of this area. And just as the gentleman says, it's nothing on your side of the aisle in the Chambers today at fault, and I guess we would say the same thing for those who are sitting here right now as well.

I left my last comments with the question of who do you trust and what do we need to do in order to address this situation. I will step back from that for a moment to look to the larger issue here that we are trying to uncover.

I commend the gentleman for the number of hearings that we have had over the last several weeks to try to delve into the various matters that dealt with the fiscal crisis we are currently facing in this country.

One of the takeaways, though, that I have had from those myriad of hearings that we have had is that the underlying concern of the Members of the House on both sides of the aisle is to try to get at the root cause of what was it that actually brought us to the current financial situation that we find in this country today.

We have heard a number of experts from think tanks, from Wall Street, from across the country expound upon where they believe what the underlying cause was. We have heard some who said it was with regard to GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the fact that there was excessive leverage there allowed this to occur. There was someone who just spoke on the other side of the aisle who is in the chair right now who said that it was all due to deregulation, although I always raise the question whether or not they could cite those specific actions by Congress of deregulation other than the issue of Gramm-Leach-Bliley with regard to deregulation. And we have heard other areas as far as excesses both by government and Wall Street.

But through all those debates, I have yet to recall anyone who could provide any factual evidence, any factual proof, other than just their opinion, that the underlying cause was because of excessive pay by various corporations in this country. No one, certainly, brought up the idea that the problems that brought us here were due to excessive pay outside of the financial sector. So then we have to look at the underlying legislation and answer the question, what is it we are trying to get to here?

In the major portion of the legislation, which goes to allowing shareholders' rights to vote with regard to executive compensation outside of the financial sector, no evidence whatsoever that that brought us to the situation. So we ask why is that even in the underlying bill?

Now, we do try to attempt to reform it, inasmuch as that is all we can do at this point, by putting on a 3-year extension as opposed to a 1-year period of time. We also tried to reform their idea to say that States that have already looked into these issues should have the prerogative to continue with their legislation, that they are more knowledgeable, they have been more engaged, they follow the trends more in their States in their corporations in this area.

So we tried to reform and improve the legislation in that area as well. We also tried to reform it in a last way to say that, for those corporations that say that we have looked at this situation, our shareholders have digested the information and realize it would not be to the benefit of the corporation or the shareholders themselves, and over two-thirds of those shareholders say that they do not want to engage in setting pay but rather would allow it to return to where it has always historically been in this country, and that is by management and by the directors, we put that in the legislation as well.

But, still, the underlying bill takes all those powers away from the shareholders, from the management, from the directors, and it does so without any evidence that they were at all a cause of the problem.

Now, section 4 does, arguably, go to financial institutions, and it goes to those institutions that, arguably, could be, some would say, a cause of our current situation. But we already had regulation in place for most of those financial institutions. We already had regulators who were supposed to be doing their job. We had regulators over at SEC with regard to the Madoff situation. And, unfortunately, we know all too well they failed in that job. Despite the fact that there was testimony that evidence was presented to them, handed to them, documenting why that Madoff situation was out there and why the SEC should be involved, the regulators missed it.

We saw it as well with regard to regulators missing it over at AIG as well. Those regulators had authority to regulate those institutions as well, but did they do so? No. They missed it completely with regard to the whole AIG situation.

Now, the other side of the aisle seems to say that that was then and this is now, that the same regulators who missed Madoff, the same regulators who missed AIG, the same regulators who missed executive compensation and other problems in the past, now, all of a sudden, we are going to expand it even further and say we are going to give those regulators even broader authority for financial institutions, however they may be defined in the future, because this bill realizes that it may be expanded further. They now entrust those regulators.

We would conclude that we should trust the shareholders, the American people, more than we should trust the bureaucrats.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 3326, FY 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act:

1. Project Name--Lightweight Munitions and Surveillance System for Unmanned Air and Ground Vehicles

Requesting Member--Scott Garrett

Bill Number--H.R. 3326, FY 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act

Account--RDT&E (Army), Shipboard Systems Component Development

Requesting Entity--Imperial Machine & Tool Company, 8 West Crisman Road, Columbia, NJ 07832

Description of the Project--The Hybrid Projectile program's goal is to produce low-cost guided munitions capable of reaching targets faster than a traditional UAV. These munitions will be more efficient and effective than current guided projectiles of the same caliber with larger payloads and the ability to change targets or be recalled mid- flight. With additional taxpayer funding, current early phase research can be accelerated, completed, and transferred to other caliber weapons. The Hybrid Projectile program will offer a wide range of forward-looking, advanced weapons and surveillance capabilities to not only Army personnel, but also members of all branches of the Armed Services.

Description of the Spending Plan--($4,800,000)

$900,000--Design/Study: Design and study costs are associated with the intense engneering and drafting of the various hybrid projectiles. Imperial dedicates personnel solely to this project.

$1,100,000--Personnel/Salaries: This cost is for the salaries of employees at Imperial Machine & Tool Co. and subcontractors (if required) that will be working on the program for FY10.

$800,000--Equipment: Equipment purchases are associated with hardware and electronics necessary to continue development of Hybrid Projectiles. Imperial Machine & Tool Co. owns state of the art manufacturing equipment. Therefore, there are no capital equipment purchases necessary.

$2,000,000--Manufacturing: This allows for the advanced manufacturing of hybrid projectiles through novel machining practices and cutting edge technology.

Total--$4,800,000.

2. Project Name--Landing Craft Composite Lift Fan

Requesting Member--Scott Garrett

Bill Number--H.R. 3326, FY 2010 Department of Defense Appropriations Act

Account--RDT&E (Navy) Weapons and Munitions Advanced Technology

Requesting Entity--Curtiss-Wright Flow Control/Engineered Pump Division, 222 Cameron Drive, Suite 200, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865

Description of the Project--This project will support the design, development, and manufacture of two sets of prototype composite material lift fans for application on current and next generation Navy landing craft vessels. The initiative will address an ongoing problem the Navy has been experiencing with current generation metal lift fan blades that have to be replaced every few months at a cost of approximately $1.4 million a year. This technology will extend the life of landing craft lift fans, reducing failures, maintenance, and life cycle costs. The proposed fan improvement utilizes state of the art composite materials, fiber-reinforced matrix composites. Similar composite materials have proven themselves in pumps used in sea water applications onboard U.S. Naval Ships. This funding would complete the development of landing craft composite lift fan initiated in FY09, providing final design and production ready capability to replace current generation landing craft lift fans.

Description of the Spending Plan--($1,500,000)

$750,000--prototype installation on Navy LCAC

$525,000--US Navy testing of prototype on LCAC

$225,000--final design modifications as identified in testing

Total--$1,500,000.

Mr. Speaker, in an interview in The New York Times earlier this year, President Obama discussed the difficult decision that he and his family faced to replace his grandmother's hip after she broke it after she was terminally diagnosed with cancer. In that interview, he said, ``Whether, in the aggregate society making those decisions to give my grandmother or everyone else's aging parents a hip replacement when they're terminally ill is a sustainable model, is a very difficult decision. There is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place.''

With all due respect, Mr. President, I think that this is a conversation that would be best left between the doctor and the patient. We don't need a government plan. We don't need government bureaucrats standing in the way of this relationship. We don't need them out their rationing out what care is best in this relationship. And so I, for one, reject the idea that government bureaucrats will make better decisions about health care than the doctors and the patient. So any proposal that seeks to ration care in such a way should be opposed, and I will do so every single time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 3293, FY 2010 Labor-HHS Appropriations Act, 2010:

Project Name: Health Education and Professional Development Center,

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support for the amendment offered by the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Frelinghuysen, to require that the FAA restrict the use of any funding for the implementation of the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia metropolitan area airspace redesign.

I have no issue with improving the quality of air travel; I agree that flight delays are a serious problem, particularly at New York-area airports. I simply want to ensure that a fair and appropriate balance is reached between the quality of flight in the air and the quality of life on the ground.

For many years now, I have fought the FAA on its current plan to redraw the airspace over New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. It would redirect thousands of flights per year over the houses of many of my constituents. This increased aircraft noise affects peoples daily lives in many ways. It is more than a nuisance. Aircraft noise can adversely affect children in schools; the elderly in nursing facilities; and families in their homes. Additionally, these homes may decrease in value as a result of this aircraft noise.

Proponents of the airspace redesign have long maintained that it is necessary to redesign the airspace because a significant portion of the delays in our national airspace derive from the tri-state area. We have long maintained that redesigning the airspace in the way the FAA is proposing would have very little effect on delays but would adversely affect the lives of thousands of people.

There is still time for the FAA to achieve a balance in this process between the needs of those in the air and those on the ground. This amendment would force the FAA to delay implementation of the redesign plan and find an alternative that would achieve a better balance between competing interests. I strongly support the gentleman's amendment, and urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today thrilled that the majority has finally decided to focus on their own recklessness, their out-of-control spending. So by bringing a statutory PAYGO bill now to the floor, we can definitely now conclude that, if they were left to their own devices, the Democrats would run this country's finances into the ground. I think it's basically an admission of guilt on their part that they simply cannot help themselves.

Frankly, I find it a little disingenuous that the majority is now raising the banner of fiscal responsibility, after hearing on this floor that the Republicans were the ones who were reckless when we were voting against their $800 billion stimulus bill. It's a little hard to listen to their calls now for spending restraint 4\1/2\ months after the Democrats passed, and the President signed, a $410 billion omnibus appropriation bill that contained over 9,000 earmarks.

So, lest we forget, earlier this year the House Democrats rammed a budget through this Congress that would double the national debt in 5 years, triple it in 10 years. This is spending that is already on the books, and PAYGO will do absolutely nothing to stop it.

Furthermore, their proposal now is seriously flawed. First of all, it only applies to increases or reductions in tax rates and any new or expanded entitlement programs. It basically does absolutely nothing, nothing to address the tidal wave of entitlement spending that we all know is coming in the very near future.

It also does absolutely nothing to address the waste, the fraud, the abuse of the taxpayer dollars that we have seen through the discretionary appropriation process.

So, basically, enacting their PAYGO at this point is really a little bit like closing the barn door after the horses have all gotten out.

Still, in conclusion, I want to come to this floor and say that I applaud the Democrats for their newfound interest in spending restraint. And if we truly want to do this and work in a bipartisan consensus on this issue, then I think we will achieve what we all seek.

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of this year, the administration and Speaker Pelosi had this House pass a 1,500-page stimulus bill which no one in either body was able to read before they passed it that spent $800 billion which we did not have, all because they promised that it would create new jobs. In fact, they said it would actually either create or save 2 to 3 million new jobs.

Their economic policy adviser at the White House said it would mean an immediate start of creating new jobs and eliminating losing jobs. Even Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was on the floor saying this would be an immediate jolt to the economy, the immediate creation of jobs.

Well, it is 5 or 6 months later, and where are we? I just heard from Chairman Bernanke. He says he can't assess where we are right now. But if you look at the numbers, if you look at the chart that I have here, the Democrat projection with stimulus had we done something was here. What actually happened, we have seen as far as jobs, more job losses, more job losses, more job losses, February, March, April, May and June, more job losses. We have lost several million jobs since the stimulus was passed.

The administration misread the American economy. The administration misread the American public. The American public knows that we need to go in the right direction.

We spend too much, we borrow too much and we tax too much.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 3183--Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010:

1. Project Name--Greenwood Lake Watershed Restoration, NY & NJ Requesting Member--Scott Garrett

Bill Number--H.R. 3183, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account--Army Corps of Engineers, General Investigations

Requesting Entity--Greenwood Lake Commission, 26 Rocky Point Rd, P.O. Box 83, Hewitt, NJ 07421

Description of the Project--Funds will be used to restore water quality and recreational opportunities to the lake by removing hazardous debris.

Description of the Spending Plan--($100,000)

$100,000 is for the final removal of stumps and similar hazardous debris from the Greenwood Lake bottom. All preparatory work has been done.

Total--$100,000

Mr. Speaker, back in January of this year, this administration issued a report called, ``The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,'' the stimulus. This study said that ``a key goal of the administration is that it should save or create 3 million jobs by the end of 2010.''

When this Congress passed the stimulus and spent $800 billion, they said, We will start adding jobs rather than losing them. As a matter of fact, Majority Leader Hoyer said, There will be an immediate jolt in jobs. This will be creating jobs immediately.

Let's see, it has been 5 months since the bill passed. Here is a chart. The blue line shows what they predicted. The red line shows the loss of jobs that actually occurred. Millions of jobs have been lost despite their spending $800 billion of the taxpayers' money. And now Vice President Biden has the temerity to say, Well, we misread the economy.

Well, do you know what, Mr. Speaker? Every single Republican did not misread the economy. That is why every single Republican voted against that $800 billion stimulus, because we knew that it would spend too much, that it would borrow too much, and that it would eventually tax too much of the American taxpayer.

I have an amendment at the desk.

My amendment seeks to increase funding for the Grants For Construction of State Veterans Cemeteries account by $4 million and decrease funding for the Grants for Construction, Minor Projects account by $4 million.

I have met with a number of veterans in my district for a period of time, and one of the topics we have discussed at length was funding for our veterans cemeteries. There are basically two types of veterans cemeteries: Federal and State. When the original Federal cemeteries began to run out of room, the Federal Government created an optional program, the State Cemetery Grant Program that is administered by the Veterans Administration.

The Veterans Administration provides funding for State Cemeteries through this grant program. And all pending projects are evaluated by the VA and ranked in priority of order. This is not an earmarked program. It is a competitive type and ranking process.

The current priority list, however, shows there are $151 million worth of projects where the State matching funds are in place and ready to go. In other words, there are at present more than $150 million worth of unfunded State Cemetery Projects waiting for the Federal matching grant.

Yet the appropriations bill that we now consider provides only $42 million. Of course the very first priority for the State Cemetery Program is to provide funding for new cemeteries and existing cemeteries that are in need right now. However, this means that many cemeteries which require expansion, and improvement projects will not receive the funding if we keep it at the current level.

To make matters worse, the program has been underfunded for years even though the number of World War II veterans needing interments will increase rapidly.

My State of New Jersey is home to the BGWC Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery. This cemetery has two improvement projects that are waiting for Federal funding.

I communicated this with several VA officials in New Jersey, and they agreed that there is a need for an overall increase in the annual budget for this program, and my amendment would do just that. My amendment will simultaneously decrease the Grants for Construction for Minor Projects. It basically means we will put the money today for the use of the veterans that need it today and deal later with some administrative changes and costs like that.

Before the gentleman sits down, I wanted to say thank you to the gentleman on the area of cemeteries and dealing with our heroes in the past for the work we have done together here, and the comments he made years ago in the Budget Committee dealing with the situation of spouses of our veterans as well and making sure that they are adequately taken care of as well. Besides this matter that is before us today, I just want to say thanks for your work in those areas as well.

I yield back the balance of my time.