Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, as a co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans, I rise to question the necessity for consideration of H. Res. 306, urging the Republic of Turkey to safeguard its Christian heritage and to return confiscated church properties, especially in light of recent developments undertaken by the Turkish government. The current government of Turkey has taken steps to deal with the issue of religious properties.

By amending its Law on Foundations in August 2011, Turkey's statute has been improved and expanded, providing that the ``immovable properties, cemeteries and fountains'' of non-Muslim religious entities--referred to as community foundations in Turkey--recorded in Turkey's 1936 Declaration, and ``registered in the name of Turkish public institutions,'' will be returned to the entities upon request. Additionally, provisions are made for the Turkish Treasury or the Directorate General of Foundations to compensate non-Muslim entities for properties that are currently registered in the name of third parties. Accordingly, those communities for whom the law is applicable will be able to have their properties registered in their own names, or be compensated.

In addition to this great step forward, Turkey has eased its citizenship requirements for Orthodox senior clergy, and in compliance with the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, returned to the Ecumenical Patriarchate its orphanage on the Princes' Islands.

Praising the Turkish government on September 13, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, ``We have also seen Turkey take serious steps to improve the climate for religious tolerance. The Turkish government issued a decree in August that invited non-Muslims to reclaim churches and synagogues that were confiscated 75 years ago. I applaud Prime Minister Erdogan's very important commitment in doing so.''

H. Res 306 was first introduced on June 15, 2011, and does not recognize the developments on the ground since that time, nor does it take a regional approach to these questions. If Turkey is singled out, it should be for praise regarding progress that has been made.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes or such time as I may consume, whichever comes first.

I rise in support of H.R. 1264, which designates the property between the United States courthouse and the Ed Jones Federal Building in Jackson, Tennessee, as the M.D. Anderson Plaza. Ed Jones was the Congressman who preceded Mr. Fincher in that district, who preceded Mr. Tanner. He had the slogan, ``Ed Jones--the heart of the district with the district at his heart.'' Quite a fine man. This bill also authorizes the placement of a historical marker and a statue on the grounds recognizing the achievements and the philanthropic good deeds of M.D. Anderson.

Born in 1873 in Jackson, Mr. Anderson, who was known as M.D. Anderson, was a successful businessman, farmer, and philanthropist. He went to college in Memphis--smart man he was to go to Memphis. It was then called Southern Baptist, but I believe it became Union, then Jackson, Tennessee. After he was in Memphis and had that opportunity, he moved back to Jackson and went to work in his family-owned business--a good choice. He went into the cotton business with his older brother, Frank, and with Frank's brothers-in-law, and they became the largest cotton company in the world, according to Fortune magazine in 1945.

In 1936 M.D. Anderson created a charitable foundation that bore his name and funded it with an initial investment of $300,000--a considerable amount of money at that time, not a bad amount of money today. After his death, the trustees of M.D. Anderson's

estate directed an additional $19 million towards his foundation, which helped create M.D. Anderson's lasting legacy by providing seed funds for the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which is one of the world's leaders in cancer research and treatments.

Thankfully, people I know have had the opportunity to be treated there. It's a great clinic, and it's the best place to go if you've got cancer and have that opportunity to be treated by the world's greatest professionals there in Houston.

M.D. Anderson is considered to be the father of the institution, and because the charitable foundation matched the initial State funds for a Texas-based cancer research and treatment center, he is given that appellation. His charitable foundation has also funded and supported libraries and college buildings, including ones at Lambuth College in Jackson, now known as the Lambuth University of Memphis. It has funded planetariums also in the city of Jackson and in his adopted hometown of Houston, Texas.

Given his lasting and significant contributions to his community and, really, to the world, with the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, which is the finest cancer clinic, I suspect, in the world, it's fitting that we honor his commitment by giving the plaza between the two Federal buildings his name. Some might question our taking the time of this Congress, on this floor, to do this when we have so many things going on, but this is the type of activity that will, hopefully, inspire others to use their good fortune and/or good works to help others who are in situations as dire as having cancer. M.D. Anderson did that.

So it's a commendable piece of legislation, and I'm happy that Mr. Fincher brought to it the floor. I'm happy to support it, and I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1264 in memorializing this gentleman.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the people of Morocco for the free and fair Parliamentary election that took place on November 25, 2011. Participation rates were 20 percent higher than the previous election held in 2007. The Justice and Development Party (PJD), a moderate Islamist party, secured the largest number of seats in the new Parliament. Morocco's King Mohammed VI, in line with the new constitution, has already tasked the leader of the PJD, as Head of Government, to form a new coalition government. This election marks the first time the Moroccan people have gone to the polls within the framework of the new constitution. With this election, Morocco has crossed yet another major milestone in its democratic progress. I extend my warm wishes to the King of Morocco for his leadership and the Moroccan people for their achievements so far and hope they continue on the path of reform and progress.

I appreciate the time, but I don't appreciate the relocation. I am from Tennessee, the Volunteer State, and from Memphis, in particular. But it is appropriate, I guess, that we be a little confused with States because listening to the debate on the floor, it's obvious we're a little confused about history and Presidents, too, for President Obama has been Bush-whacked here on the floor of the House.

It's not the Obama economy, it's the Bush economy that President Obama saved from going into the second Great Depression that this country would have suffered in 100 years, saved it from depression with great actions at a time of bipartisan action that helped save this country from the Great Depression that it was otherwise looking at. I think we need to commend President Obama and not Bush-whack him when we get the chance here in the partisan discussions.

This bill that has been brought up, H.R. 10, the REINS Act, would rein in government. It would rein in the opportunity for regulations that are promulgated by experts in our agencies, experts who have years of expertise in subject matters, in order to come up with rules and regulations to implement the laws that we pass.

Now, I am proud to be a Member of the United States Congress. I know that we have good men and women in this House and that most of the people are very good men and women. But right now, Congress has a 9 percent approval rating. This bill would tell the American public that it should take the expertise of the people who are in the agencies and in the administration and turn it over to the 435 Members of Congress-- 535 when including those in the Senate--the least approved government body that exists.

On the one hand, they decry Congress, and their candidate Mr. Perry wants us to work half time, but this bill would make us the super- regulatory commission. We would have to approve every regulation by a positive vote in the House and by a positive vote in the Senate. We would have to do it and have the President sign it within 70 days of promulgation. We'd only have every other Thursday to do this, and we'd only have debate of 30 minutes on each side. So you'd take the least respected body of government in the entire United States of America-- maybe of the entire world--and give it a very limited amount of time to make all of the rules and regulations for the biggest government in the world.

Talk about clean air. We wouldn't have it. You'd have more dirty rain. The REINS Act--it should be called the Acid Rain Act. It's raining outside. It's raining prevarications, fabrications, and canards upon us, none of which are appropriate for this body or for the American people.

We've had several bills dealing with regulation in this session, all of which basically tend to emasculate government. These bills take away the people's rights to clean air, clean water, safe products, and to occupational safety and health hazard protection, all of which are almost second nature to the American public.

I'd ask us to defeat this bill and to protect our environment and our workers.

I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia for yielding the time.

I rise in opposition to this particular bill. It's not that I am, indeed, in favor of any of the particular drugs that are here; but just like Mrs. Adams, my colleague from Florida mentioned, the State of Florida has already criminalized it, as many States have, and it's really a State issue.

It seems interesting. When the subject du jour comes up, the item of the day, there is a rush to action and a rush to forget States' rights. There is a desire on gun bills to overlook the States and to have a Federal law on the interstate shipment of guns or on the interstate transportation of guns by people with permits. In this situation, drugs that should be criminalized are criminalized at the State level, but all of a sudden we're doing it more at the Federal level.

This bill would place more than 40 chemical compounds on Schedule I, the most punitive and restrictive schedule, without any independent scientific evidence that doing so is necessary or warranted. It is a rush to legislate before we know all the facts.

This bill essentially bans these substances without any study whatsoever. I've read the press reports of young people who have been harmed by these substances and by others, and I'm very sympathetic as that's certainly wrong; but we shouldn't legislate on the basis of anecdotal evidence. It's typical of the ``shoot first and ask questions later'' approach that we have taken to drug policy in this country for decades.

Our national drug policy should be driven by science, not politics. We've already gotten a well-deserved reputation here as a do-nothing Congress; but bills like this and our attitudes towards clean air, clean water, global climate change, and other environmental issues have made this the no-respect-for-science Congress as well.

The DEA has already taken steps to temporarily place certain synthetic substances on Schedule I while it conducts a review. If there is an emergency that requires temporarily scheduling the other substances in this bill, the DEA can review them and do that just as well.

But we shouldn't circumvent the process established in law. I don't think this is a responsible way to legislate. I know the sponsors of this bill know about the emergency review process because the bill doubles the length of time a bill can be put on emergency review on a schedule from 18 months to 3 years; it doubles it. Yet there's been no hearings or evidence that 18 months was insufficient, none whatsoever. It was just a knee-jerk way to respond to the issue du jour.

This is a very serious issue and deserves serious study and consideration before we act, as all bills before Congress should. I fear that this bill continues the misguided policies that we've created towards drugs in this country.

Just look at our experience with marijuana, which Congress placed on Schedule I in 1970. According to the criteria of the Controlled Substances Act, it supposedly has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.

Let's put aside for a minute the question of whether it has a potential for abuse. Certainly there's a lot of evidence that it does not. But I think thousands of people who depend on marijuana to treat the effects of such diseases as AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis would take issue with the notion that it has no medical use, and 15 or so States have legalized it for medical use. It increases appetite and eases pain in a way that has helped countless people in the last stages of life.

But we treat our approach to drugs as a law enforcement matter, not a scientific matter, and we've placed marijuana in Schedule I, the most restrictive schedule. Meanwhile, the scientific community is urging that we reschedule marijuana so we can continue to conduct important research and make it available to those in need.

Recently, the California Medical Association called for cannabis to be legalized and regulated, primarily so

that scientists can gain access to it and conduct further research. They advocated wider clinical research with accountable and quality- controlled production of cannabis. None of this can happen with the tight restrictions we've placed on cannabis. That's exactly the situation we may find ourselves in with the substances named in this bill.

I know that licenses are available for research in the Schedule I drugs, but there's no reason to make researchers go through such hoops. It is nearly as easy to get permission to do research on a Schedule I drug as it would be to go to the Vatican and ask for a grant to study birth control.

We don't know what medical benefits these substances may contain and we don't know the true risk they pose. Perhaps they belong in a lower schedule. And Schedule II would certainly deter young people from using them and others and set a penalty stage. But we have no idea. We just decided to throw the book and make it Schedule I.

Perhaps they shouldn't be scheduled at all. I suspect they should be scheduled, maybe Schedule II. But the scientists should decide this and not politicians. We have no basis to believe they belong in Schedule I. Haven't we learned from this Nation's 40-year experiment with the war on drugs?

Prohibition does not work. It is an expensive and counterproductive policy that fills up our prisons and places a mark on our citizens that can make jobs, housing, and education nearly impossible to obtain. We should focus our efforts on educating young people about the substances and continue to do research about their benefits and risks.

Instead of basing our drug policy on science, we are letting it be driven by politics. This bill continues that trend, and regrettably I must urge its defeat. We need to send this bill back to committee and take a careful, considerable review so that we can have Congress make this decision on a scientific basis with help from the scientists.

The DEA can use its emergency powers to temporarily schedule these substances while letting the scientific process play out. Let's put science first and politics second. Let's defeat this bill.

If we put science first and politics second, maybe we won't be in single figures in the public's mind as an organization that they support as an institution. Part of the 9 percent level is because we do things sometimes in a rush to judgment and politics and the issue du jour rather than allowing the scientific process and doing what is logically best for our Nation to prevail.

I urge the defeat of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Mr. David J. Cohn, a small business owner and philanthropist from Forrest City, Arkansas who passed away on November 26. Mr. Cohn was a proud member of Temple Israel in Memphis, whose compassion and devotion to helping the less fortunate was well-known to those who knew him.

Mr. Cohn was born September 30, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was the proud owner and operator of Forest City Grocery Company and Tobacco Superstore, until illness forced him to spend less time at work. He was also a member of the Arkansas Oil Marketers Association, Retail Tobacco Dealers of America, the Associated Wholesale Grocers and served as President of the Forrest City Country Club. Despite his obligations to his business and to his organizations, Mr. Cohn found time to give back to his community through charity and supporting local universities' athletic programs.

Mr. Cohn was a philanthropist and gave to many causes in Forrest City. He established endowments with the St. Francis Community Foundation including the David Cohn ``Wishes'' Endowment which grants wishes to those most in need as well as many nonprofits. This endowment was set up by his wife Marsha and their children as a birthday gift because they knew how important giving back to the community was to David. Mr. Cohn was a proud supporter of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks and was an ambassador for the University of Memphis Athletic Department.

David Cohn passed away at the young age of 56 years of age. David Cohn is survived by his wife of 26 years, Marsha, one son, Perry Partain, three daughters, Hannah Reeves, Emily Cohn and Kelli Cohn, as well as his mother, Suzanne Cohn, two sisters, a brother and a host of nephews and a caretaker. Mr. Cohn's commitments to his family and community will be missed. His was a life well lived.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and celebrate the life of John Colbert, better known as J. Blackfoot, a great soul singer and entertainer from the city of Memphis, Tennessee. J. Blackfoot was a special talent known for his unique vocal style. Born in Greenville, Mississippi, his family moved to Memphis when he was two. Colbert earned the nickname ``Blackfoot'' as a child because he would run barefoot through his neighborhood.

J. Blackfoot began his music career after meeting Johnny Bragg, founder of the 1950s-era music group ``Prisonaires.'' Together they recorded a ``behind-the-walls'' hit for Sun Records, after which J. Blackfoot embarked on a solo venture under his birth name. Strongly pursuing his love for music, he eventually found himself at Stax Records under the tutelage of songwriter/producer, David Porter.

In the late 1960s, J. Blackfoot auditioned at Stax Records where David Porter and his song writing partner, Isaac Hayes, initially wrote many solo songs for him to perform. When the R&B duo Sam and Dave left Stax, Porter and Hayes decided to fill the stylistic void. They paired J. Blackfoot with Norman West, Anita Lewis and Shelbra Bennett to create the ``Soul Children.'' They put out 7 albums over their decade long career and released 15 R&B hits.

In 1983, J. Blackfoot began a successful solo career, scoring many chart successes in both the U.S. and the U.K. He released several hit songs, including ``Taxi'' from the 1983 album City Slicker, which was perhaps his biggest solo career single. Over the last two decades, J. Blackfoot continued to record dozens of solo albums, performed at Stax- related events and reformed the ``Soul Children.''

J. Blackfoot passed away on November 30, 2011 at 65 years of age. Memphis, known for its rich musical heritage, mourns the loss of one of its unique voices. Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to join me in honoring the contributions J. Blackfoot made to the music community. As an artist and music maker, his was a life well lived.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume and am glad to be the Hoyt Wilhelm of the Judiciary Committee and to relieve the gentleman from Michigan, Chairman Conyers.

S. 1639, the Senate version of H.R. 2369, is a bipartisan bill which makes a minor change to the Federal charter of the American Legion. The American Legion, as we all know, is the Nation's largest veterans service organization, which was chartered after World War I, by Congress in 1919.

S. 1639, introduced by Senator Tester of Montana, a distinguished Member of the Senate, is the Senate companion of the bill introduced by the distinguished Representative and former defensive back from the Florida State Seminoles, Representative Altmire of Pennsylvania, who introduced H.R. 2369. He did a phenomenal job of getting 432 cosponsors--433 if including himself in the sponsorship. He can't be a cosponsor because he is ``the'' sponsor, which might make this the easiest suspension vote we've ever taken.

The change made by this bill simply reaffirms the organization's structure, which grants broad autonomy to the departments and posts throughout the country. While this is not a major change to the existing charter, it will help the American Legion carry out changes to the membership renewal process that were adopted by resolution at its national convention last year.

Senator Tester and Representative Altmire are responding to a call from the American Legion. I am proud to join with them, as just about everybody else is in this House; and I support the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I now yield 3 minutes and 7 seconds to the gentleman who represents the State of Pennsylvania (Mr. Altmire), an alumnus of Florida State University, who lost to the University of Tennessee in the national championship football game that I attended in Phoenix.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

S. 1541, the Senate version of H.R. 2815, is another bipartisan bill to revise the Federal charter of the Blue Star Mothers of America. The revisions implemented by the legislation once again reflect minor changes recently made to the organization's membership eligibility requirements.

The Blue Star Mothers of America, representing the mothers of military servicemen and -women, has been a federally chartered organization since 1960. The existing charter restricts member in three ways:

A, members must be birth mothers, adoptive mothers, or certain stepmothers;

B, members must be U.S. citizens currently living in the country; and

C, the corresponding serviceman or -woman must be currently serving in the Armed Forces or must have served in World War II or the Korean War.

Last year, at the organization's national convention, the group adopted a resolution expanding these eligibility criteria. A conforming amendment to the Federal charter is needed in order make these changes operable.

S. 1541, the Senate bill, was introduced by Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado. Its House companion was introduced by Representative Scott Tipton, also of Colorado.

The legislation makes three minor revisions to the organization's charter:

First, to expand the membership eligibility requirements to include foster mothers, grandmothers, female legal guardians, and all stepmothers;

Second, it expands membership to U.S. citizens living abroad;

Third, it expands eligibility to servicemen and -women who served in prior conflicts other than World War II and the Korean War.

Our men and women in the military need all the support we can offer, so I applaud this effort by the Blue Star Mothers to provide the circle of support that the organization can provide. They do much to remember our servicepeople, and I appreciate their efforts. I support these changes, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, the other day the Postmaster General said that first class mail wasn't going to be first class anymore; it wasn't going to be overnight; it might be 2 or 3 days.

Because of the problems we have with making the post office financially sufficient, there are ways they could accomplish this, and I've got a bill that allows them to go into other services to expand their revenue base, and there's also about $5 billion that's an issue concerning payments into a health fund that could be resolved.

The post office is almost as American as apple pie. A lot of people will switch to using the Internet to pay their bills and they'll never go back to the post office. I'm afraid that what's been recommended is penny-wise and pound-foolish, and a great American institution that serves many rural people and others without a lot of connectivity and fortune will suffer.

I wish the Postmaster General will reconsider his action. I have a ``Dear Colleague'' being circulated. I hope people will sign on and that we will save the U.S. Postal Service.

I want to thank the ranking member for the time.

I have a nice speech that was written by a fantastic staffer that I'm not going to use today because I've used it in the past. Most of the speeches today have been used--or parts of them--on the other bills we've had.

Because of what we've done this week and the wonderful gentlemen on the opposite side--Mr. Smith and Mr. Coble are two great, wonderful people who I think dearly of. They just have different philosophies than I have. Different perspectives.

These bills have been bills to basically be anti-government bills. That's what this Congress has been about. It's been about being anti- government, and it's been about defeating the President of the United States. These bills which we've got would destroy the Administrative Procedure Act and destroy the whole process of government that we've known for decades.

The fact is, President Bush had as many, if not more, rules than President Obama; but we didn't hear from the other side anything about the nefarious rulemaking process, the need for reform, the jobs that could be created by eliminating the rulemaking authority or stifling it and changing it, until President Obama became the President. We heard this morning from the other side that it's the administration that's at fault because of all the rules they've produced, and now they say some of rules can change. They say the administration is at fault for all the rules they passed. They made fewer rules than President Bush made. And there was silence on the other side. Silence.

All of a sudden there's a roar. This whole week, when we need jobs, when our economy needs job, when our people need unemployment compensation, unemployment insurance continued for the 99ers--not the 99 percent, although they're part of that--the 99ers in terms of weeks they get unemployment insurance; when we need the doctors and medical folks to get the Medicare fixed that we always put in to make sure that we continue to pay doctors a reasonable rate to treat our Medicare patients, we're not dealing with that. And when we need to be dealing with the payroll tax cut for the middle class, we're not dealing with that. We've spent a whole week on destroying government and being anti- government.

Rick Perry, one of the candidates for President on the other side, has talked about making Congress half time. How could we be half time when we're not accomplishing our jobs and creating jobs full-time?

As Mr. Conyers talked about, next week we've got the mother of all anti-government bills, the REINS Act, which really is reining in government, a bill that would require every rule to be passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by the President within 70 or 75 days before it goes into effect. That's Star Wars--or anti-Star Wars. It's really a big dark hole out there in the universe where all rules and regulations would go and die and never be seen again and just disappear.

Well, that's not the way government is supposed to work or should work. And if we had that, how could we work half time under President Perry? We'd have to be working time-and-a-half. And we know there's not enough money for overtime. And President Perry doesn't want us to do that. He wants us to get a separate job when we go home. We go back to San Antonio, we serve half time as a Congressman and half time we work at Walmart. That's what he's suggesting.

Who would really love this bill? The tobacco companies. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't have rules and regulations on tobacco and we didn't put little notices on tobacco that smoking can kill you; smoking can cause damage to infants; that pregnant women shouldn't drink or smoke. Tobacco companies would love this. Those rules and regulations, very burdensome, giving notice to people about the dangers of tobacco, which Europe has been doing forever and we need to put an end to because it costs us so much in medical costs and the lost of precious lives.

The polluters would love this. The destroyers and plunderers of our environment, they'd love it, because wow, Olly, Olly, in free, we can do whatever we want. Removal of mountains, drilling; more oil spills, less regulation.

In an emergency, the government can't even respond to clean up the mess. That's what they're talking about. It's all phrased in the tones of small business, small business, small business. Small business is wonderful. We do a lot with small business. Small business is a jobs creator. But this affects big business as well. And it's big business who is behind this, not small business. Small business is the front used to help the polluters, the tobacco companies, and the others that don't want to see regulations that protect the American public's food, air, water, transportation, and other areas.

The issue of judicial review has come up, and in this bill we give the courts more power than they otherwise had. The other side usually talks about the importance of the judicial branch simply being an equal partner; but in this position, the judicial branch could review any rule and regulation and make its own determination of cost-benefit analysis without expertise that the agencies have, and it would be the judiciary that had the final say. So it would give more power to the courts and more power, in fact, to the administration. The OIRA office in the White House would have more power than ever. So it's antithetical to much of which the other side argues about.

This is not a good bill. It's not good government. And I would ask that we all vote against it and we get back to the jobs that we should be for--creating jobs for the American people and getting us out of this deep, dark, long recession.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to honor an unsung hero of the Veterans Administration, Dr. Roger Gordon Smith, M.D. Dr. Smith was born on April 6, 1951, and just recently concluded his long career serving our nation's veterans on August 26th of this year.

Dr. Smith attended Battle Creek Central High School in Michigan, where he graduated in 1969. He earned his Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry with top honors from Howard University in 1973. He also earned his doctoral degree in medicine with scholastic honors from Howard University in 1977. Following that, he interned at Howard University Hospital until 1978, whereupon he obtained his license to practice medicine in the District of Columbia the following year.

With such an auspicious beginning to his career in medicine, one might have expected Dr. Smith to pursue a lucrative private practice. Instead, once he had paid off his medical school debts, Dr. Smith chose to apply his considerable talents toward a long career with the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee. There, he attended to the often difficult and complex needs of disabled and retired veterans, most of whom were just returning from Vietnam.

Upon beginning work with the VA, Dr. Smith quickly faced skepticism and bigotry from

some of his patients because of his race. Rather than letting this become a source of discouragement, Dr. Smith instead quietly and calmly carried out his vital work each day with warmth and good humor. He was known to have convinced more than a few patients to let go of their racial animus because of his professional demeanor and attentiveness to his patients' needs and concerns. Dr. Smith believes that it is a great privilege to be entrusted with the well being of our nation's veterans, and that commitment to service is reflected in the way he cared for our nation's wounded.

Among his colleagues, Dr. Smith's bedside manner was considered ``a thing of beauty.'' He was always open, accessible, and never made anyone feel like they were imposing a burden on his time. His calm manner under stress exerted a calming influence on those around him. As a resident teacher, Dr. Smith was sought-after by physicians-in- training for his professional enthusiasm and expertise. His patients regarded him as their primary care physician of choice, and considered his office in the VA ``the gold standard'' in healthcare. He took even the most mundane talks seriously whenever it concerned a veteran's well-being, listening carefully to every patient's story, dutifully tracking each patient's clinical needs, no matter how small.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in thanking Dr. Roger Gordon Smith for his dedication to his country, his service to our nation's wounded and the inspiration he has provided to his students and his colleagues. Dr. Smith's great achievement is three decades of daily service to our veterans, acting as the open hand of a grateful nation to our nation's wounded warriors. Dr. Smith is what every physician should strive to be.

I want to thank the ranking member for yielding time.

This bill amends the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, which requires agencies to engage in so much analysis and in so many new procedures that it basically befuddles the agencies in bringing forth any rules in the future. It is elimination by burdensome regulation. While it doesn't say it is eliminating rules, that's the effect of it. It subjects all major rules and other rules, those which have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities, to review by small business review panels.

The cumulative effect of these and other changes in H.R. 527 will be to undermine the ability of agencies to effectively regulate consumer health and product safety, environmental protection, workplace safety, and financial services industry misconduct, among other critical concerns.

We talk about small businesses. Small businesses are important, and they create more jobs than any other sector of our economy, but small businesses are made up of human beings. To paraphrase Mitt Romney, who said that corporations are people, small businesses are people, too. Small businesses are concerned about consumer health and product safety because they are the victims of it. Small businesses are concerned about environmental protection and workplace safety and food and drug safety and, certainly, about financial services industry misconduct, which almost brought this country to its knees in what could have been a depression but for the work of our great President and the Congress that worked with him at that time.

This bill does little to help small businesses shape or comply with Federal regulations. Right now, we can take for granted that the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the places we work, the planes we fly on, the cars we drive, and the bank accounts in which we put our savings are going to be safe because we have strong regulation; but if H.R. 527 is enacted, it will be harder, much more difficult, maybe impossible, to provide those protections for future generations.

H.R. 527 is based on the well-intentioned, but false, premise that regulations result in economically stifling costs.

In particular, proponents of H.R. 527, and of anti-regulatory legislation generally, of which we have seen an abundance in this Congress, repeatedly cite a thoroughly debunked study by economists Mark and Nicole Crain, which made the ridiculous claim that Federal regulations impose a $1.57 trillion cost on the economy.

Ridiculous? Why, you say. Because they even admitted, and the Congressional Research Service said, it failed to account for any benefits of regulation. There are indeed benefits of regulation and great--and the Office of Management and Budget said great benefits outweigh costs.

Moreover, the study was never intended to be a decisionmaking tool for lawmakers or Federal regulatory agencies to use in choosing the right level of regulation. But they still use that as the basis for this law.

So let's focus on the real facts.

H.R. 527 will bring agency rulemaking to a halt because of multiple layers of bureaucratic review and analysis that it adds to the rulemaking process. It is the de facto end of regulations.

As Sherwood Boehlert, a colleague of mine here in Congress, of the previous Congresses from the State of New York and a Republican and a long time chair of the House Science Committee, recently warned, this measure ignores history--Newt Gingrich--``ignores history, larding the system with additional reviews based on previous efforts that have slowed progress while helping nobody.''

Second, the bill clearly presents a serious threat to public health and safety for all Americans. It does this by eliminating the emergency authority that currently allows agencies to waive or delay certain analyses so they can expeditiously respond to national crises such as a massive oil spill, or a nationwide outbreak of food poisoning, or an emerging financial marketplace meltdown. We've experienced all of these.

The priority in the face of an emergency is to have emergency agencies to say, sorry, we can't do this. We have to conduct regulatory analysis first before we aid the American people.

H.R. 527 is simply chock full of crafty provisions to slow down rulemaking, requiring small business advocacy review panels to analyze rules promulgated by all agencies, and not just those from the three agencies for which review panels are currently required. Moreover, it would require review panels for all major rules, not just those that have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities. And this bill would force agencies to engage in seemingly endless, wasteful and speculative analysis, including assessment of all reasonably foreseeable, indirect--indirect--economic effects of a proposed rule.

I think we may see agencies purchasing crystal balls so they can comply with this inane requirement of looking into the future. As any first-year law student would know, it can take years of costly and time-consuming litigation to figure out exactly what is reasonably foreseeable and what is indirect. Where is Mr. Paul's graph?

While adding analytical requirements and opportunities for industry to disrupt rulemaking, H.R. 527 provides absolutely no assistance to business in complying with Federal regulations, which is what small business really needs. And for those of us who should really be worried about the national deficit, this bill has a hefty price tag. The most conservative estimates,

$80 million, and a more realistic estimate is $291 million over a 5- year period.

Thank you.

H.R. 527, like H.R. 3010, which we will also consider this week, is simply a wolf in sheep's clothing. What proponents seem to describe as commonsense revisions to current law actually would result in a dramatic overhaul of the rulemaking process, threatening agencies' ability to ensure basic health, safety, and other precautions.

I oppose this bill and urge my colleagues to do so. Also the cumulative effect of these and other bills would be to be undermine the ability of agencies to effectively regulate consumer health, work product safety, environment protection, financial services misconduct, and others. Right now we can take these for granted.

This is a dangerous bill, and I would ask our Members to vote against it and think about the safety of the public and the future. Small businesses are people, as Mr. Romney said about corporations, and those people also suffer from lack of regulation.

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

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My amendment would exempt from this particular bill the rules it has when it relates to food safety, workplace safety, consumer product safety, air quality, and water quality--things we all hold dear, things that will be jeopardized if this bill passes.

As I noted in my opening remarks, this threatens to halt agencies' ability to promulgate rules by adding analytical requirements and numerous opportunities for industry to challenge agency rulemaking. Yet you should be able to challenge agency rulemaking, but courts shouldn't be able to summarily throw them out based on a lack of knowledge that they have of an area in which the agencies are really expert, but that's what would happen.

The societal cost of enacting H.R. 527 would be to place public health and safety at risk. As we enter this holiday season, it would be well to remember that the reason we take for granted that the food we eat and the water we drink--and the drinks we drink--at all our holiday dinners and receptions won't kill us or sicken us is because of effective rulemaking. Likewise, because of strong regulations, we can take for granted that toys given to our children or grandchildren won't poison them; but the consequences of failing to regulate can be dire.

In 2006 24-year-old Jillian Castro became gravely ill after eating spinach tainted with E. coli bacteria. Her organs were rapidly deteriorating; her kidneys were failing; her red blood cells and platelets were dropping rapidly; and she nearly died.

According to the best available estimates by public health and food safety experts, millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths each year in this country can be traced to contaminated food.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that foodborne microorganisms have caused 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths. Many of these could be avoided with the proper regulations of food and drug. That's why I ask that food safety be eliminated from this

bill, because it will be expensive to treat these people, let alone the fact that they will die. The CDC estimates that salmonella alone affects a million people a year. Just today, the Food and Drug Administration issued a recall of grape tomatoes because of potential salmonella contamination.

Other recent examples of regulatory failure include the Listeria- tainted cantaloupes that killed 29 people across the country in October. Pedal entrapment issues that cause cars to accelerate unexpectedly resulted in Toyota's recall of nearly 2 million vehicles. There was Mattel's recall of nearly a million toys in 2007 because the toys were covered in lead paint. There are other examples of this.

Public health and safety precautions have been on the books for a long time and were passed with bipartisan support. The fact is there were more regulations during President Bush's term than there were overall in President Obama's when you calculate the time they've been in office. Yet there was no call to cut back when President Bush was in office. It's only since President Obama has been in office.

The Pure Food and Drug Act was enacted in 1906 by Teddy Roosevelt, then the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act in 1938. The Clean Air Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Act were enacted in 1970 when Richard Nixon was President. The Clean Water Act was enacted in 1977. They've served our country well for many years.

If H.R. 527 is enacted without adopting this amendment, we can no longer take protections from these harms for granted because, in the future, agencies will be hamstrung from passing regulations to protect the public.

I would urge us to pass this amendment and to protect our workers, our consumers, our small businesses, and our small business people when they eat their breakfasts, their lunches and their dinners, when they buy toys for their children and their grandchildren, when they drive their cars, and when they work in their workplaces.

I yield back the balance of my time and ask for a positive vote.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

I also rise in support of this bipartisan proposal that provides two small, technical fixes to our country's immigration laws.

The bill removes the so-called ``per-country'' limits from applying to employment-based green cards. Current immigration law provides 140,000 green cards annually to employment-based immigrants. The law, however, prevents any one country from receiving more than 7 percent-- or 9,800--of the total 140,000 visas. Because of this per-country limit, a country like India, with a population of 1.2 billion, is limited to the same number of visas as a country like Iceland, with a population of 300,000 and a lot of ice. This makes no sense and has resulted in decades-long backlogs for nationals from India, as well as China, and it makes it impossible for certain U.S. employers to attract and retain certain essential workers they need to help keep America competitive. Indeed, from India and China there are many people trained in STEM areas that we need in our country to keep competitive.

Eliminating the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants would level the playing field and treat everyone on a first-come, first-served basis. Because the bill does not provide additional green cards, it does not address the current overall backlogs. And that's unfortunate. But the bill does treat people and those backlogs more equitably. And to make sure that there are no unintended consequences, the elimination of the per-country limit is phased in slowly over 3 years.

The bill also raises the per-country limit for family-based immigrants from 7 percent to 15 percent. This would have a similar effect of making the treatment of such immigrants more equitable. These fixes are small, but they mean a great deal to the people they will help.

H.R. 3012 is supported by quite a few business groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, Compete America, and the American Council on International Personnel. It is supported by advocates for American and immigrant families, including the Asian American Justice Center and the National Immigration Law Center.

I, like my colleague on the other side, want to thank the people who are above me on the committee level, the chairman in particular, Chairman Smith; and the ranking member of our subcommittee, Zoe Lofgren, who has worked with Congressman Chaffetz, who has worked so hard on this bill, as has Chairman Smith, to get this bipartisan bill through the committee and to the floor.

It's important that we do get bipartisan bills through, and because of our chairman, we have that opportunity on occasion to do such a thing. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes and 56 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

I yield the gentleman as much time as he may consume.

I thank the gentleman from Virginia. I appreciate his statement, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 2192, the National Guard and Reservist Debt Relief Extension Act of 2011. This bipartisan legislation, which I introduced in June of this year with Mr. Forbes, Mr. Rohrabacher and others, ensures that certain members of the National Guard and Reserves who fall on hard economic times after their service to this country will continue to obtain bankruptcy relief without having to fill out the substantial paperwork required by the so-called means test under chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code.

H.R. 2192 simply extends the existing means test exception, which will expire in a few weeks if Congress fails to act, and act we should for our reservists and National Guardspeople who have put themselves in the line of fire for our country and our safeties and liberties.

Under the means test, a chapter 7 bankruptcy case is presumed to be an abuse of the bankruptcy process if it appears that the debtor has income in excess of certain thresholds.

The National Guard and Reservist Debt Relief Act of 2008 created an exception to the means test's presumption for members of the National Guard and Reserves who, after September 11, 2001, served on active duty or in a homeland defense activity for at least 90 days. The exception remains available for 540 days after the servicemember leaves the military.

The National Guard and Reservist Debt Relief Extension Act of 2011 would simply extend that exception until December 2015. This modest, but important exception to the means test allows qualifying members of the National Guard and Reserves to obtain chapter 7 bankruptcy relief without fulfilling the means test paperwork requirements.

Since September 11, 2001, more than 815,000 members of the National Guard and Reserves have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, with many having served multiple tours of duty.

As of August of this year, members of the National Guard and Reserves made up 43 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and represent more than 20 percent of those killed in action and 20 percent of those wounded in action. Many of these citizen warriors have been asked to disrupt their civilian lives with little notice to serve their country in active war zones, and like other veterans returning from war zones, they often have difficulty adjusting to civilian life.

It is estimated that approximately 40 percent of all Guard members will experience some sort of financial hardship and that 26 percent of Guard members had money problems related to their deployment into war zones.

H.R. 2192 is a meaningful way for our Nation to recognize the tremendous sacrifice made by National Guard and Reserve members who have served on active duty or homeland defense since

September 11, 2001, and may be suffering financial hardship. This bipartisan measure is in the tradition of the GI Bill, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and numerous other provisions of law enacted to benefit military veterans.

I thank Representatives Forbes and Rohrabacher, two members of the Republican Party who worked with me on this and helped cosponsor it, and Representatives Schakowsky and Nadler of my party for cosponsoring H.R. 2192. I also thank the Judiciary Chairman, Mr. Smith, the Ranking Member, Mr. Conyers, and the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law chairman, the distinguished Mr. Howard Coble, for their assistance in moving this bill.

This bill does indeed help Reservists and National Guardsmen in a special way. But it also shows that the previous bill that Mr. Chaffetz sponsored shows that we in the Judiciary Committee can work in a bipartisan manner, and that Congress can work, and that we should be at least in double digits.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2192, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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