Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss subjects of homeland security and border security as it relates to my District 22 in Texas, which is Houston, Sugar Land, and Clear Lake. That includes two distinct assets. One is Johnson Space Center, and one is Ellington Fields.

These two important assets require some additional funding that would have been discussed had the process allowed for a little more opportunity. But because of the lack of regular order, they may not be addressed in the continuing resolution that will be brought up either today or tomorrow.

On a positive note, there will be a Predator squadron placed at Ellington Field, but on a more concerning note, we may lose our F-16 jets, which provides excellent homeland security for petrochemical products that are made in our area, the Port of Houston, NASA, and the Texas Medical Center.

It is my hope that these two assets, both Johnson Space Center and Ellington Field, will be adequately funded in the very near future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill, H.R. 6111--Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.

This bill will open 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to new oil and natural gas production. This bill is more narrow in scope than the bill that passed the House in June and I believe that more still needs to be done to increase access to our Nation's oil and natural gas resources. But this bill is a good step and I am happy to support its passage.

Folks in my district near Houston, Texas understand the oil and gas business since Houston has long been headquarters to several of the world's largest oil and gas producing companies. Unfortunately, today the U.S. imports nearly 60 percent of our oil from foreign countries including more than 1 million barrels of crude oil per day from Venezuela which is run by a socialist who has made no secret of his dislike of capitalism and his disrespect for our President.

America holds vast resources of oil which can be accessed in an environmentally friendly manner with today's modern drilling technology. Reliance on foreign energy sources, if allowed to continue, will not only undermine our economy and our standard of living but will weaken our national security as we become more and more dependent on foreign sources to fulfill our energy needs.

Working Americans do not want to find themselves over a barrel, especially trapped over a barrel of foreign oil. Working Americans want energy independence. I do not believe the goals of environmental protection and energy independence are mutually exclusive but are actually mutually dependent. I believe that it is critical, now more than ever, that all domestic sources of energy should be explored including the Outer Continental Shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska, and the Atlantic.

I am also pleased that this bill dedicates 37.5 percent of the newly generated revenues to coastal States, including Texas, for beach restoration and 12.5 percent to the Land and Water Conservation Fund State assistance program. This program funds the creation and upkeep of local and State parks, open spaces, and resource conservation in all 50 States. Not only will this bill help obtain energy independence, but it should result in recreation and conservation benefits for the American people. Over 40,000 local and state park and recreation projects have been aided by the LWEF in the 40-year history of the program since its inception in 1965.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support passage of H.R. 6111--Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 and urge my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of it.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the sentiments of my colleague from Tennessee and also extend the welcome of the House of Representatives to the First Lady of Azerbaijan, Dr. Mehriban Aliyeva, to Washington.

The House of Representatives recognizes the strategic relationship the United States has with Azerbaijan. We know that its troops stand with us in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, that it supports our efforts toward combating global terrorism, and that it plays a key role in providing a secure and dependable energy supply to the West. The Caspian Sea Republic is rapidly modernizing, in large part due to its offshore sector and the opening earlier this year of the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan gas pipeline and Baku-Erzerum natural gas pipeline. The country experienced 26 percent growth in 2005 and is expected to surpass 30 percent growth this year. This phenomenal growth is allowing Azerbaijan the opportunity to make significant investments in its future, in many respects. Here in the United States, and I might add in my home district, in particular, we are acutely aware of the importance in investing in our own future through efforts to develop new sources of energy for our own use and those of our global friends.

We also recognize Azerbaijan as an emerging democracy that is working hard to improve the social, political and economic opportunities of its predominately Muslim population. As an aspiring NATO and EU member, as well as a member of the Council of Europe, the largest governmental human rights organization calling for its members to harmonize human rights protection laws and regulations and compelling compliance with them, the success of initiatives in these areas is an example for other Caucasus and Central Asian countries.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity of the visit of Azerbaijan's First Lady to draw special attention to the strides it is making in areas of particular importance to me as a doctor. Not only is the First Lady of Azerbaijan an elected member of the Azerbaijani Parliament and chair of its Azerbaijan-U.S. Interparliamentary Friendship Working Group, but she is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, the largest regional nonprofit NGO in the Caucasus, and herself a Moscow-trained ophthalmologist.

As a doctor myself, I am particularly aware of the opportunities and responsibilities that we have as physician leaders to take medical knowledge and apply it in ways that benefit the greater good. I applaud the way Dr. Aliyeva has used her training and respected position for philanthropic and charitable works through the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in the areas of education, health care, science, humanitarian aid, international relations and culture. I am aware that the Foundation has been intimately involved in the construction and refurbishment of Azerbaijani hospitals and the international exchange of new medical technologies and commend those efforts.

I've also learned that Houston, too, has played a direct role in advancing medical technology in Azerbaijan and the region through various programs over the years with Texas Medical Center institutions. In 1998, Baylor College of Medicine's world-renowned heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey traveled to Baku to assess the country's cardiovascular needs and the state of its health care. I understand that Dr. DeBakey met with President Aliyev in Baku after having previously met him in Houston, and I would imagine that Mrs. Aliyeva personally appreciates the importance of sharing medical technologies across borders as her husband is a heart attack survivor himself.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to welcome First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva to Washington on behalf of the House of Representatives. I commend a fellow doctor, parliamentarian, wife and mother on her personal commitment to advancing health care and women's initiatives in her country and the Caspian Region. Welcome to Washington, Dr. Aliyeva.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the First Lady of Azerbaijan, Dr. Mehriban Aliyev, and several individuals of her Parliament who were traveling with her. They were received in the office of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who hosted a reception for the First Lady of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan is a growing democracy and one that has a strategic relationship with the United States, in that it shares troops with the United States and other countries in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and they support the efforts to work combating global terrorism. They also help to play a key role in securing dependable energy supplies to countries, including the United States.

The Caspian Sea Republic of Azerbaijan is rapidly modernizing and developing its offshore energy sector, including gas pipelines, which have been very beneficial to its economic growth.

Here in the United States, I would add that my district in Houston, Sugar Land is particularly aware of the importance of developing new sources of energy and expanding our global reach for energy production for our country.

We also recognize that as an emerging democracy, Azerbaijan would like to be a member of NATO and EU and is a current member of the Council of Europe, which seeks to harmonize human rights and the goals of all humans.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that the First Lady of Azerbaijan is also a physician, and we share the greater good. It was an honor to receive her as well as to welcome Melanne Verveer and Vital Voices at that reception.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Congressman from Texas, Dr. Michael Burgess, for yielding.

I appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak in support of the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Phil Gingrey's, House Resolution 934, which encourages the creation of a week that would be dedicated to the support and development of advance directives.

Advance directives are a legal document that every American should explore and hopefully will find useful. An advance directive is something that has been very helpful in my own family since I lost a spouse to cancer and then subsequently lost my father to cancer.

Now, the advance directives that come into play are something that would not take over unless the individual lost consciousness and went into a coma. Other than that, a person is able to call their own shots and make their own decisions. But if a person slips into coma, an advance directive can be very helpful in telling your family and your physicians and hospital staff in advance how you want to be taken care of. And this is very important, Mr. Speaker, and very important for all of us that we take the time to help clarify those decisions before a person slips into a coma and is unable to communicate.

Providing a family physician and the family members an advance directive can reduce confusion and reduce guesswork about what you really want for your treatment during end-of-life time if you should slip into a coma. Since illness can come unexpectedly and not all of us have the chance to make those wishes known personally, an advance directive can be very useful and can remain in a drawer or with your family physician, in your file, so that you can be at ease knowing you have made that kind of decision known in advance.

Once again I would like to thank the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Phil Gingrey, for bringing this resolution to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act. This bill is designed to provide information to women who are seeking late-term abortions.

As a physician who believes in the sanctity of life, I would rather be voting to ban abortions that are late term, but this bill is a step in the right direction.

And also, as a physician who has practiced for over 20 years, I support informed consent, and this is really what the bill is about. It is about giving women the information that their unborn fetus can experience pain. And the growing body of evidence suggests strongly, and this body of evidence is growing and has grown from the time I have been in medical school till now, that supports that fetuses do feel pain. And it gives women the option, the same kind of option that we have whenever our tooth is going to be extracted. Do you want anesthesia for that? The same kind of option whenever you have a skin biopsy. Do you want anesthesia for that? So it is an informed opportunity for the woman to make this decision. And if anesthesia is now routinely given to women when their fetus is undergoing surgery, it is appropriate to allow them the same choices now.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Sergeant Mitchel Thomas Mutz who was killed while defending our Nation on November 15, 2006, in Iraq.

Sergeant Mutz was on his second tour of duty in Iraq, rendering faithful, conscientious service to the United States Army and to the people of the United States of America. Sergeant Mutz will be remembered for his commendable service and the dedication he had to this great Nation.

Sergeant Mutz was 23 years old. He was a native of Falls City, Texas, and the loving son of Bobby and Dixie Mutz, brother of Nathan and his wife, Shawna, and the grandson of Elizabeth Mutz.

Mr. Mutz faithfully served our Nation in the 1st Battalion, 12th Calvary Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.

He is from the area where I was born. And when I was home for Thanksgiving, that Saturday, my husband and

I joined the procession of watching where the coffin and the family proceeded through the small town of Poth, Texas, and the people turned out in droves to pay their respects to the family. Veterans, firefighters, law enforcement, patriot guard riders, teachers, farmers and just regular citizens did the best that they could to reduce the pain of Mr. Mutz's family.

Our thoughts, our prayers, and our love go out to the family, as well as to all of the soldiers and our servicemen and women who are protecting our great country. We love you and we respect you.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the opportunity to address this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 1070 and express my support with the Members of the House of Representatives that Americans should employ people who have served our country. We should actively engage with employers and the American public at large to hire members and former members of the Armed Forces, especially those who have been wounded in service to our country and are facing a transition into civilian life.

I am a physician and have had the opportunity to work in veterans hospitals across the country. I will tell you that there is no group of people more dedicated and more committed to the American way of life and our great country than people who have served in our military. Who knows more about hard work than the people who have worked hard in the military, the men and women in our Armed Forces who have spent time abroad and have faced danger in the battle zones in places like Afghanistan and Iraq?

After serving our country, these men and women deserve a right to find gainful employment and to support themselves and their families. These individuals have sacrificed so much so that all of us can enjoy our freedom, the freedoms that we hold dear.

I suggest that a college degree is very important to an employer and has value and intrinsic value, but also service in the military has that experiential value that an employer can find very, very important when selecting a valuable worker.

I have worked with organizations like Marine for Life and with an individual in the Houston area named Sergeant Tony Martin who helps find Marines jobs when they return from active service. These groups are to be supported. Look them up. Seek them out.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support the passage of House Resolution 1070, and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of it.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1176, and I say that because of the experience in my district where we are seeing an increase in children who are suffering from obesity and an increase in propensity to see dropouts in school. And youth athletics is an opportunity for children to stay in school and to stay active and stay fit.

We need to support more opportunities for youth athletics and youth sports. And one of the deterrents for those youth activities in sports is the increase in lawsuits that are being lodged against board members who are in rulemaking positions.

This resolution will go a great distance in protecting parents and grandparents and family members who want to join in and to provide athletic opportunities for their children and who are fearful of being caught up in lawsuits that stem, not from intentional criminal activities, but from inadvertent rulemaking problems.

So protecting and immunizing parents, grandparents and family members who want to participate in setting standards and rules for their children is the right thing to do. It will help our children, in the long run, stay in school, stay fit, and become good American citizens.

So I think that we should not lose sight of the goal of this bill and make sure that we see that it is in the best interests of our children to pass it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak regarding a subject that is very important to my constituents in Congressional District 22 of Texas and has great national interest as well. This consideration is regarding much needed reform on our Nation's immigration policies, especially those policies that regard such sanctuary cities, as they are known.

As you are aware, my colleague from Texas, Congressman John Culberson, led a successful effort to place an amendment in a recent bill that passed the House of Representatives but has not come forward through the Senate, and this bill disallows Federal funding to those cities who do not provide information to Federal immigration officers regarding illegal aliens. Cities such as Houston, cities that operate under general orders such as that signed by a police chief, those orders that prevent police officers from asking about the immigration status of criminals who commit claim C misdemeanors. Such sanctuary policies have contributed to rising crime rates and to, unfortunately, deaths of police officers, such as the death of Police Officer Rodney Johnson in Houston, who was killed this year by an illegal immigrant, one who had been arrested three times and deported once but then subsequently returned to Texas.

Americans are indeed saddened at the loss of our troops in the war in Iraq and also the war conducted across the world against terrorists. We have lost almost 2,900 troops in the war in Iraq. But this figure has to be placed into perspective. We have been given information by Representatives Steve King, Republican from Iowa, who used data from the Government Accountability Office, the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta, and AAA Foundation, that says that 12 Americans are murdered every day by illegal aliens and 13 Americans are estimated to be killed by illegal aliens who are driving while intoxicated. This gives us a total of almost 4,700 Americans who are murdered annually by illegal aliens. These statistics must not go unrecognized. They call out for action.

Americans also are losing their property rights. Those rights are being trampled in favor of the rights of illegal aliens. Recently a jury awarded $210,000 in damages against a rancher who was attempting to protect his property against trespassing by individuals that he thought were illegal aliens but turned out not to be, but he was really attempting to defend his property. He will ultimately be required to pay $98,000 for trying to defend his property against trespassers. What about his rights? Ranchers have been put on notice that if they attempt to prevent armed trespassers from crossing their property, they could face financial ruin with charges of civil rights violations, especially if those trespassers happen to be illegal aliens.

This is not right. Legal is legal and illegal is illegal. Illegal immigrants should not be accorded more rights than American citizens.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue to the constituents in the congressional district in my part of Texas, Southeast Texas, District 22. Tackling the problem of illegal immigration will require full cooperation of all of our government resources, local, State, and Federal, and I call on this body to work diligently to help us solve this situation. We are all Americans and we must pull together to address difficult issues such as this. Taxpayers demand accountability from elected officials across our country, and they have made it clear that they will not tolerate uncooperative or inefficient use of government resources and their tax dollars.

I would like to urge you to work hard to ensure that this important provision that deals with sanctuary city policies is included in any version of immigration bills that do progress into law through this body.

Thank you very much, Dr. Price. I appreciate you

bringing the subject up for the people at home so that they can understand where their Medicare premiums are going and how the Medicare dollars are being spent.

I want to also thank Congressman Dr. Gingrey, Dr. Boustany, Dr. Burgess and a number of the other physician Congress Members who have worked very diligently to bring this issue to the floor and ask the American people for their support and understanding of how to make health care more accessible to our seniors.

I think that having family members, like many of us, who are under the Medicare program, it is easy to see how Medicare has become more and more complex over the years and how each time there is one of these actions that you detailed chronologically, 1965 when it was implemented it was much simpler and easier. There were also fewer seniors at that time to cover. Then as time passed, the government looked for ways to reduce expenditures, reduce spending, but at the same time we saw other pressures coming to bear on the senior population.

We saw the fact that more and more people are living longer. They are having vigorous, active lives; and they want to have access to activities that will allow them to enhance those lives. They are working longer. They are active in sports.

In order to achieve that and to make sure that they can participate fully, and that is what I want when I hit those years as well, it requires a lot of work on the part of the physicians and the health care industry. That means that they have to have access to physicians; they have to have access to primary care doctors. And I was one of those before I was a specialist. I went through that residency. I know how hard that is, to take care of the whole person and to work and interrelate with a specialist. It is very difficult, and it requires the right kind of individual to do that.

We need to support it. And the primary care doctors are the ones who get hit sometimes the hardest. In your graph that you showed on which doctors are going to receive a little tiny bit more with that 5 percent cut, and the vast majority, 95 percent are going to get cut, quite frequently it is the primary care doctors who get stuck in that. And we want to encourage people to go into primary care and take that loving hand who will help our seniors.

But those patients are more complicated. They require more medical care when they do get sick, and they require more specialists to bring them out of those medical crises and restore them back to their health so they can get back to the business of living full quality lives.

I have been a physician for over 20 years, and I have watched as the Medicare situation has gone really from a situation of more and more complicated and the reimbursements now are going down, down, down. I have watched it, how it affects my father and my mother.

My father, who recently passed away, was lucky enough to receive veterans benefits. That really moved him out of the Medicare arena and allowed him to have access to the benefits he deserved through the VA.

My mother, on the other hand, has witnessed something that I hope others never have to see, but she actually has had a physician, a primary care doctor in a small town in south Texas, go bankrupt, go out of business.

That is shocking, to think that someone who has spent all the years that this doctor did in training and becoming a quality physician could then lose their practice. It is predominantly because in a small town in south Texas many of the younger people who have private insurance, some of them move away. And who are left? A lot of the seniors.

Now, it is not to say that is all that is left, but whenever that balance of having a larger and larger Medicare practice goes out of kilt, sometimes the physician can't even keep their doors open because there are so many patients who are there, complicated, elderly patients who need that care, and they can't get the reimbursement to keep those doors open, to pay their staff, to keep the lights on and to pay the rising medical malpractice insurance that goes along with it these days.

So the notion, knowing that that already happened to my mother and she lost that doctor who she really trusted and he went out of business, knowing that that happened before this cut goes into place, I shudder to think what will happen across small towns all over the Nation if they are visited with a 5 percent cut, not only in 2007, but then a large cut in 2008 and another cut in 2009. What will that do to the primary care doctors who are trying to give that care across the small towns of our country? We can't let that happen.

So I really support you today, Dr. Price, in asking the colleagues here on the floor, give the physicians an opportunity to continue to deliver care to the seniors. Don't make it so hard that they have to limit the flow of the seniors who are coming in their doors.

That will happen first. They won't out and out quit, but they will start to limit the numbers that they take. And that is also very disabling to a senior, when they call and say, do you take Medicare, don't make it so that they hear on the other end, I am sorry, we can't see you. That is not right, and we need to open the doors so that more seniors can have access to health care.

I join you in asking for that, and I hope that our colleagues will find a way to fix this situation and allow the seniors across the country to continue to receive the very best health care that is available in the world.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. Speaker, Congressional District 22 in Texas remains faithful to conservative principles.

I am Dr. Shelley Sekula Gibbs, and I am the newly elected Member of Congress from Congressional District 22. The people in my district are hardworking individuals who believe in conservative principles, such as the sanctity of life; traditional marriage between one man and one woman; the right to bear arms; smaller, more efficient government; making tax cuts permanent; winning the war on terror; and opposing a cut-and-run strategy; and stopping illegal immigration while streamlining legal immigration.

The families in Congressional District 22 of Texas want better transportation options, a solid energy policy with energy independence, affordable health insurance, and lower health care costs through the free market. They want affordable, quality education for their children from pre-K to college that is under local control, and strong homeland security to prevent terrorist attacks on our home soil.

One of my district's primary ways in which to prevent a terrorist attack is to be a hard target. The Houston area has all major assets that are attractive to terrorists to attack, as identified by the FBI, including petrochemical facilities that produce 50 percent of the petrochemicals in our Nation and 25 percent of our country's gasoline. The Port of Houston is close to our area and in the city. It is close to our district and in the city, and it is the largest foreign tonnage port in the Nation.

We have NASA's Johnson Space Center there, which is the home of manned space flight. We rely on the 147th Texas Air National Guard with its squadrons of F-16s at Ellington Field to maintain our air defense and make us a hard target. Passing a military appropriations bill today helps us secure our defense, but the fate of the 147th Texas Air National Guard remains uncertain but of critical importance to the people in my district.

Terrorists must not be given an opportunity to bring our great country down, and we must maintain our vigilance. In the BRAC process, some communities were awarded more military infrastructure while others were reduced. Some have turned down those military assets. Florida recently was unwilling to accept naval facilities from Virginia Beach, Virginia. But we in Houston, we hope that our F-16s will be replaced by newer, more technologically advanced jets, and that our squadron will not be relocated. We are eager to maintain the Texas Air National Guard and look for support on this issue.

In other words, Mr. Speaker, the people in my district want our country to be faithful to the principles that you and the leadership of the Republican party have promoted through your years as the Speaker of the House of this auspicious body.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for your guidance, your patience and your rock-solid commitment to conservative values on behalf of our great country. And I want to thank you and my colleagues for an appointment to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and to the Workforce and Education Committee. I commit to working very hard and rolling up my sleeves for our great district and our great country.

May God continue to bless the United States of America, and our men and women in uniform.

My name is Shelley Sekula Gibbs. I am the new Congressmember from Texas Congressional District 22.

As the winner of the special election, I promise to roll up my sleeves and work hard over the next 2 months to move our country forward and to support the hardworking people in my district who have put their faith in me.

Some of the key issues for my district are:

Reducing the size of government and lowering taxes; to help seniors in their search for more choice and security in health care and have a stable source of funding for Medicare; to enhance Ellington Field as the linchpin of homeland security for the Houston region; to also help fund NASA/Johnson Space Center, the return to the Moon and onward to our voyage to Mars. Space is at the epicenter of our Nation's future.

As a physician, wife and mother who respects life from conception to natural death, I look for ways to support the sanctity of life.

Texas shares a long border with our neighboring country Mexico. I will work to honor my commitment to the people of my district by seeking ways to stop illegal immigration while streamlining the process of legal immigration.

I look forward to serving the district and the opportunity to serve my Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House for 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the kind gentleman from Texas, the dean of our Texas congressional delegation, for his remarks and the warm welcome that I received here today. He is a wonderful example of the type of Congress Member that I hope to emulate while serving in this body.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the great people of the 22nd Congressional District who elected me for the confidence that they have placed in me in representing their values and allowing me to serve them for the remainder of the 109th Congress. I would also like to thank the Speaker and the rest of my colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives. I look forward to getting to know them and to know each of you and work on the initiatives that will help strengthen our country.

Most of all, I would like to thank the volunteers and the hard workers who have helped me, as well as my family and especially my husband, Robert, who is joining us today, as well as my son, Michael.

Thanks to their unyielding support throughout the last 3 months of our lives and those of my two daughters who are not here, Elyse and Mallory, and all of the people who have worked so hard on my campaign, I am now able to address this auspicious body.

During my time in the House of Representatives, I will ensure that my constituents receive the first-rate representation that they deserve. There are only a few weeks left until the session is over, and there is much work to be done, but I will work with my colleagues to guarantee that we do whatever is necessary to move this Nation forward and address the critical issues facing our country, including health care-- as you would imagine, being a physician, I have very big concerns

about that--illegal immigration, and the war on terror.

Again to my colleagues in the House and all of those in public service, I would like to thank you for your service to our country. I am proud to be among you today, and, together, I am confident that we will meet the challenges that the future will bring our great country.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 38 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, November 14, 2006, at 10 a.m., for morning hour debate.