Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, last night, the House of Representatives passed the Foreign Relations Authorization Act. Unfortunately, this bill opens a door that will jeopardize one of the fundamental principles that our country was founded upon: the right to life.

I am disturbed that the liberals in Congress want to allow taxpayer dollars to be spent on the promotion of abortion in foreign countries through the creation of the ``Office of Global Women's Issues.'' Secretary Clinton has acknowledged that this office will be used as a means to promote reproductive rights of women. She also testified before Congress that she believes that reproductive rights include abortion. I find it troubling that Secretary Clinton is forcing a pro abortion agenda on foreign nations, including countries with pro life laws. This pro abortion agenda by the State Department contradicts President Obama's statements that he wants to work toward reducing the number of abortions that are performed.

I applaud Congressman Chris Smith for offering an amendment that would have explicitly prohibited this Office from participating in abortion activity. His amendment would have also promoted maternal health, women's empowerment, and educational opportunities for women. While I supported his amendment, unfortunately it was rejected. If we establish this office, we should set guidelines that promote a culture of life, not a culture of abortion.

Secretary Clinton clearly expressed that she intends to promote and provide abortion through the Office of Global Women's Issues when she said: ``We happen to think that family planning is an important part of women's health and reproductive health includes access to abortion . . .'' and also that ``we are now an administration that will protect the rights of women, including their rights to reproductive health care.''

Unborn lives are the most defenseless lives, and it is our job to stand up and protect them. Under no circumstances should Americans be forced to fund abortions, either domestically or abroad.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's offer to yield time on this bill as this bill discusses the need to create healthy lifestyles for children. I think that something we should also be discussing here is the need to create economic opportunities for children, to make sure that our children not only are having a lifestyle that's healthy in school, teaching physical fitness, but also making sure that we are dealing with policies up here in Washington that allow them to have real opportunities when they get out of school.

There is one bill that is moving through this body right now, the cap-and-trade energy tax, that would severely jeopardize our children's opportunities to have a better life, to have the opportunities that we had in our life. And so as we are talking about legislation right now to create healthy lifestyles, I think we should also be looking at the policies that come out of this body that could actually create big impediments, impediments that would deny them opportunities when they graduate from school.

Let's talk about that cap-and-trade energy tax that is moving through. We just got a new, updated report by the Congressional Budget Office. The cap-and-trade energy tax that has been proposed imposes $846 billion in new taxes, taxes on energy that would affect every American, denying people the ability to buy healthy food for their children because they would be spending, according to the President's own budget director, $1,300 a year more in higher utility prices, not to mention how much more money they would be spending in higher gas prices at the pump, creating a greater dependence on Middle Eastern oil at a time when we need to be creating a national energy policy that is comprehensive, that uses our natural resources to create good jobs here in America, to fund and bridge us into those alternative sources of energy, like wind, like solar, like nuclear power, so that we can truly reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and give those young children an opportunity to have good jobs here in America, using American natural resources to propel them.

We have got an alternative bill called the American Energy Innovation Act, a bill that takes an all-of-the-above approach, that actually utilizes American natural resources, our oil, our natural gas. There are estimates that we have got almost 100 years of natural gas reserves here in this country. In fact, in Louisiana, the largest natural gas find in the history of our country occurred just 3 years ago. I know one of my colleagues will be talking about that. But we have got the ability here in our country to secure our energy independence. We've got legislation we have filed that would help us secure that energy independence, and they won't allow us a hearing on this bill because they are promoting this cap-and-trade energy tax, a tax on energy. Again, as we're talking about our young children, encouraging them to lead healthy lifestyles, we need to also be creating policies here that give them those opportunities so that they don't get out of school and have to go straight to the unemployment line.

Their bill, this cap-and-trade energy tax, and I have got a copy of it right here. There are 55 pages, 55 pages in their bill dedicated to job losses, to American jobs that will be lost due to a cap-and-trade energy tax. In fact, the National Association of Manufacturers has estimated the cap-and-trade energy tax would run 3 to 4 million jobs out of America to countries like China and India, who are just chomping at the bit to take our jobs.

So you would wonder why at a time when we are here discussing legislation to encourage our children to lead healthy lifestyles, as we should, there's also legislation moving through this Congress, pushed by the leadership in this Congress, that's trying to tax energy and run millions of jobs overseas to countries like China and India at a time when we are seeing record-level unemployment, over 9 percent. We broke the mark of 9 percent just in this last report, 9 percent unemployment in this country, at a time when so many people are cutting back because times are tough. And the answer that the leadership in Congress has is to promote a tax on energy, an $840 billion tax on energy that would run millions of jobs overseas.

The real irony, when they talk about the goal of reducing carbon emissions, the real irony is the countries that will be getting our jobs, China, to produce the same steel that's produced here in America today, will actually emit more carbon to produce the same steel because they don't have the current environmental regulations that we have here in America. So the real irony is that they would be running jobs overseas to countries that will actually emit more carbon.

Spain just did a study on cap-and-trade because they experimented with it for years. Spain, after finally realizing it was a bad idea, looked back and noticed that for every new job they

created in a ``green'' industry, they lost 2.2 regular jobs, and of those new jobs they created, 9 out of 10 of them were temporary jobs. So, in essence, they lost 20 jobs for every full-time job they created.

So we need to promote good policies, but we need to defeat this cap- and-trade energy tax.

I want to thank my colleague from California for yielding the time.

Madam Chairman, some of the greatest joys in my life were the two births of my daughter and son. Two years ago, my daughter, Madison, I was able to be there for the birth with my wife, one of the great joys of my life. And then just 4 weeks ago tomorrow, the birth of my baby boy, Harrison, and I was there as well. Just wonderful, wonderful times that every family should spend together. Those opportunities already exist today in law. There is nothing in this bill that either takes away or

gives the ability of parents to do that. They already have that right today, as they all should.

Why I rise in objection to this bill is it adds an extra $938 million in new entitlements, in new debt, money that we don't have in this country, to an already growing deficit. We're at a $1.9 trillion deficit this year alone. Projections are that in the next 5 years, this administration will double the national debt. And at what time do we stop and look out for those children? My son that was born 4 weeks ago, when do we look out for his future, his opportunity, so that he doesn't have to inherit another billion dollars in debt that this bill will give him?

I think it's very ironic in the same week that General Motors became ``Government Motors'' because of primarily health benefits, benefits that were added on and added on for employees to the point where the benefits of the employees bankrupted the company. And so what's Congress' answer to that? Congress' answer in the same week is to add more benefits at a time when people are losing their jobs, money that we don't have, almost a billion dollars. There used to be a saying ``a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.'' I think the public has spoken out. They said, Enough is enough. We've got to control spending and look out for our future generations.

I thank my friend for talking about this issue.

This cap-and-trade energy tax, this proposal that this administration and this leadership in Congress has brought forward--you're talking about the Spain study, and Spain is an interesting study because there are other countries that have gone down this road. So there are some good models to look at and see what is cap-and-trade, what has this national energy tax done to other countries, and you go to Europe and see the devastation to their economies.

And you look at Spain. They just did a study on the Spain experiment in cap-and-trade, and they came back with some numbers that showed, for every green job they created, they lost

2.2 regular jobs. And what's even more than that is that 9 out of 10 of those new jobs they created were temporary jobs.

So, in essence, for every one permanent new job they created with cap-and-trade energy tax, they lost 20 regular permanent jobs in their regular economy.

So if you look at what's happening here in the United States with this proposal, this cap-and-trade energy tax, it literally would run-- estimates by the National Association of Manufacturers say that it would run 3 to 4 million jobs, American jobs, run them overseas to countries like China, India, and Brazil that are not going to comply with this.

So the real irony is for those people who really do believe that we need to reduce carbon emissions--ultimately we all recognize that carbon emissions have the same effect if they're emitted in the United States or in China. And so the real irony is, if you want to reduce carbon emissions, if you support cap-and-trade, you're going to have an increase in worldwide carbon emissions because the jobs that are done here in the United States, for example, that produce steel, to produce steel in the United States, and that same steel is going to be produced in China, for example. The same steel produced in China will emit four times the amount of carbon that the steel in the United States would emit because we already have tougher environmental regulations in place.

So for the people that are trying to use cap-and-trade, this energy tax to reduce carbon emissions, you'll actually have an increase in carbon emissions because the jobs that are in America right now that will go overseas, that we will lose in our economy, the 3 to 4 million jobs we will lose in tough economic times while American consumers actually end up paying over $2,000 or $3,000 a year in their electricity bill, those jobs go to China.

Ultimately, we need a national energy policy. We don't have that in our country. So you've got very clear differences. The approach that we here that have been talking tonight support is a comprehensive national energy policy that understands that we've got our own national resources like oil, natural gas. We can develop clean coal technology. We can promote more nuclear, and we can use that to fund more solar and wind and other alternative sources of energy, but using our natural resources in America, not shipping jobs overseas like the cap-and-trade energy tax proposal by our colleagues on the Democratic side.

And reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil while creating good jobs here in America, as opposed to their plan which taxes people on their energy bills and runs jobs to countries like China and India that will emit more carbon for doing the exact same thing we do here.

So I yield back.

Again, what we're talking about here is this is a proposal that just passed out of committee 2 weeks ago, a very detrimental proposal to our Nation's economy, a proposal that threatens our energy security at a time when we've got proposals and solutions that we've presented that actually would allow America to have energy independence. So it is a true debate between the two parties where we have very different views.

Their proposal is this cap-and-trade energy tax which, literally, to that senior citizen who is on a fixed income--the President's own budget director, President Obama's own budget director, said this proposal, cap-and-trade energy tax, would add another $1,300 per year to that fixed income senior citizen's electricity bill. Now, I don't know how they're going to go explain that to people, that this is what they're trying to do to them as we're talking about a summer coming up where people want to run their air-conditioning to stay cool. They're going to just tell those people to turn the air-conditioning off.

When people start wondering why we're not developing our own natural resources, in my State of Louisiana and in Dr. Fleming's own district, my colleague from Louisiana, the largest natural gas find in the history of our country was found just 3 years ago in Haynesville, enough natural gas to supply all of our country's natural gas needs for 10 years.

And then in my colleague from Pennsylvania, Congressman Thompson's district, another find, the Marselles find, which could be even bigger. They're just discovering how big that find is, could be even bigger than the Haynesville find.

We've got kinds of natural resources: oil, natural gas, clean coal, not to mention the nuclear capability that Europe and other countries have gone to in large proportions, that we are denying by policy, and they're saying don't use our own natural resources, which then increases dependence on Middle Eastern oil. We're trying to put up a proposal here to say let's use our own natural resources, not send jobs to China and India like cap-and-trade, not raise people's electricity bills. We've got the ability to create our own energy independence and secure our future while creating good jobs, and that's the true difference right now between their cap-and-trade energy tax and our American Energy Solutions Act, which is a very different approach to a comprehensive energy national policy.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 284 I regret that I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote 284 on ordering the Previous Question on the Rule to provide consideration for H.R. 915-- FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

I want to thank my friend from Illinois on his leadership on this issue as well. As my other colleague said, this is one of those big battles that happens up here in Congress not too often, but at a time when we are facing very difficult times in our economy.

We are talking about different things that we can do to get our economy back on track. But for the last few years, a lot of us have been talking about what we need to do to really achieve energy independence, to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, stop sending billions of dollars to countries that don't like us, but also to really promote those alternatives in our own country so that we can get to that next level of generation of new energy sources.

So this bill, this cap-and-trade energy tax, comes before us. If you look at President Obama's own budget, President Obama's budget estimates that a cap-and-trade energy tax would generate $646 billion in new taxes on American families--something that would have a devastating impact.

The National Association of Manufacturers estimates 3 million to 4 million jobs would be lost. The President's own budget director says average American families would pay thousands of dollars more on their home utility bills. So I think as people look at this, they realize this is the wrong approach.

The good news is there is a better way to do this. We filed last year the American Energy Act, a bill to actually promote a comprehensive energy plan to get energy independence in America, but to get it by using our own natural resources; to explore our oil, our natural gas, which we keep finding more reserves throughout the country. Up in Shreveport, Louisiana, we found the largest natural gas reserve in the country's history.

So we have got those natural resources in our own country. Unfortunately, a lot of policies here stop us from using them. That could create hundreds of thousands of jobs, generate billions of dollars for our economy, and then you would use that money to promote and find and explore those alternative sources of energy like wind, like solar, to get those online; to encourage more conservation, as people are already doing.

But we also need to include clean coal technology and nuclear power. Nuclear is a source that emits no carbon. And so as we have heard from some of these studies, the Spain study is a really good indicator, a country that has gone down this cap-and-trade energy tax road and has realized how devastating it is to their economy.

That study that just came out in Spain that said for every green job they created, every permanent green job, they lost over 20 full-time jobs, because even the bulk of the jobs they created were temporary jobs. So for every job they created that was a permanent job, they lost 20 jobs in their economy. And they have realized it was a failure.

America surely shouldn't go down that road. That's why we are proposing these alternatives. There is a much better way--a way that we can achieve American energy independence by promoting the alternatives and using our natural resources that we have in this country to create good jobs, keep those jobs here, promote the alternative sources of energy, and reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership on this issue.

I thank my friend from Missouri for continuing to host these discussions where we can really talk about the policies, what happens here in Washington, how it affects people across the country.

But as we stand here today on the 100th day of President Obama's administration, it's going to become a tradition, as you said, going back to FDR--which there are a lot of ironic similarities to FDR in this administration--but that's when they started measuring Presidents by their first hundred days. A lot of people like doing letter grades for a President's first 100 days.

Some people stop at F. I actually use a different rating, and I have been asked, How do you rate President Obama's first hundred days? And I've said that I rate President Obama an ``L'' for ``liberal.''

Congressman Flake from Arizona, when we first had this conversation, and I agreed with him, and really, it's a characterization based on policy.

I think in terms of personality, clearly President Obama is one of the more articulate speakers in Presidents that we've had. I think President Reagan still rates up there as probably the top. Unfortunately, I don't think we have had anybody like Reagan since he left office and unfortunately passed away.

But in terms of policy--and I think this is really what really matters and that is what the American people are watching--it's this reckless spending. Spending at record levels. A budget that just passed today here on this House floor that all of us opposed but unfortunately passed, the largest budget in the history of our country, a budget that would double the national debt in 5 years, triple the national debt in 10 years.

I think if you look at what happened just a few weeks ago with these TEA parties, these taxpayer TEA parties, where hundreds of thousands of people showed up around the country. They weren't necessarily revolting against this President or revolting for a party or against a party. A lot of people really don't understand what happened in the media who were covering the TEA parties.

What really happened on that day back on April 15 was people across the country said--maybe some of them voted for the President, some of them voted against--but they said, We're very concerned about the direction of our country because of the reckless spending and borrowing that goes with it and what it would do to our future generations, to our kids and grandkids, where, literally, we will be borrowing this money from China, from India.

Will the gentleman yield.

I sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and for the last 2 weeks we've been having hearings on President Obama's cap-and- trade energy tax. A number of things have come out that Judge Carter and that you've mentioned that are very frightening that have not been conveyed to the American people, in fact, go directly against President Obama's pledge there that people making less than $250,000 would pay no new taxes. The President's own budget, again, a record budget, the largest in the history of our country, a bill that passed this House today, his budget has a line item in it that allocates $646 billion that would come in the form of new taxes from this cap-and-trade energy tax. Now, that is a tax on energy that every American family uses.

A few of the things that have come out in committee that have not been denied by anybody: Number one, the President's own budget director just a year ago was testifying before Congress, when he was the head of the Congressional Budget Office, he said this cap-and-trade scheme would roughly add $1,300 per year more to every American family's energy bill, their utility bill. That's a low estimate. We've had revised numbers that have gone over $3,000 per American family that they would pay in higher energy taxes if this cap-and-trade energy tax passed.

Fortunately, it has not. It's in committee still.

What you're talking about, and we touched on it a little earlier, over the last few years we've heard a lot of complaints about previous Republican Congresses and the spending. I was definitely one of those people that was not happy with some of that level of spending. In fact, if you look back in 2006, the last Republican Congress that we had, I was not here, but in that 2006 Congress, the deficit, the Federal deficit, was about $160 billion, a number I think that was too high, $160 billion. Today, just 3 years later, with a Democrat Congress and the White House, that deficit went from $160 billion in 2006 to what it is today, $1.9 trillion.

So for those of us who had concerns about the deficit 3 years ago that are voting against this reckless spending today, what I think is hypocritical is you hear some people complaining about the spending that went on 3 years ago when it was $160 billion, but yet they're voting for the spending today when it's $1.9 trillion of deficit just this year.

So I think the American people are watching all of this. Clearly they were watching it when they took to the streets on April 15 in those TEA parties and said enough is enough. We have got to stop this reckless spending because of what it's going to do to future generations. I have got a 2-year-old daughter, and my daughter, Madison, she's going to be the one, her generation is going to be the one, that's going to have to pay these bills.

And those of us that were here voting today, this is my voting card, and this is the card that Members of Congress use to cast their vote. Some people up here think that this is a credit card, that they can just rack up trillions of dollars of debt that the future generations of this country are going to have to pay. That's not responsible. Obviously that's what we are trying to stop.

You know, when we throw all of these numbers around, obviously the massive amounts of money--and when you talk about trillions of dollars, it's such a large number that it's hard for many to grasp just what that really means.

When we talk about the budget, and ultimately you look across this country, we are in tough economic times. Families across this country are actually cutting their budget. They are tightening their belts to live within their means.

And I think what frustrates most people is when they look at what's happening in Washington, whether we are talking about hundreds of billions in deficits or trillions in deficits, which, unfortunately, we are in today, they look at these numbers and they say, what's happening up there in Washington when we are tightening our belts, we are cutting back, Washington is actually mushrooming spending.

There is a lot of blame to go around. But when you look at what happened just a few weeks ago when the first budget came up for a vote here on this House floor, it didn't get any attention, but there was a balanced budget amendment that was proposed that day. Many of us proposed that amendment and voted for that amendment.

What's ironic is over 100 Republicans just 3 weeks ago voted to balance this Federal budget, to balance it.

And this is during the cries of many on the other side who were criticizing all the spending that went on. And as they were criticizing the spending, they were raising spending by 10 times what had happened under Republican administrations, not one Democrat voted for that balanced budget amendment that was proposed on the House floor while many of them turned around and voted for the largest budget in the history of the country.

I say that because people don't want to hear about the partisan politics. But what many people are being told by this administration, incorrectly, is that there are no alternatives proposed by the other side, and that the Republicans are the Party of ``No.'' They don't propose any alternatives, which is clearly disingenuous because we have proposed many alternatives. They have been the party, not only of ``no'' because they have opposed those alternatives, they have been the party of fiscal recklessness, fiscal irresponsibility, of spending large amounts of money that literally will double our national debt in just 5 years. That's what I think has gotten most Americans frustrated now is that they know what they are doing to take care of their business. They are cutting back, and they are watching this Democrat leadership in Congress and this administration spending record amounts of money, running up the debt and the deficit at record levels, and money at record levels that we know nobody can sustain. So I think when people look, they say, this has only been 100 days. We have already, today, as we stand here, added 20 percent to the national debt, money we can't even get back.

The stimulus bill alone added almost $1 trillion of new debt, and we are still seeing some of the wasteful, frivolous spending.

I thank again my friend from Missouri. You know, there are very critical areas of our economic problems that we have proposed alternative solutions to, three in particular I think that are critical to what is happening today that we presented to President Obama. Unfortunately, he hasn't taken them in the first 100 days. Hopefully he will take them in the next 100 days.

But if we talk about the overall economy, number one, the banking system, which is still holding back our economy; number two, energy policies, where we still don't have a comprehensive national energy policy; number three . . .

Well, if you start with the overall economy, one of the biggest things we can do, rather than just massively growing the size of government and adding trillions of dollars to our national debt, we can empower our middle-class families and our small businesses. We presented a bill to do just that, a bill that would actually cut taxes for middle-class families and for small businesses, who create the bulk of our jobs.

What some people on the other side have said is, it is the tax cuts that have gotten us into this problem. What they fail to recognize is history. Every time we cut taxes, you can go back to when John F. Kennedy cut taxes or when Ronald Reagan or George Bush cut taxes, revenues to the Federal Government actually increased. What was always wrong was that the Congress spent more money than came in from those tax cuts.

So tax cuts clearly have worked. It is the fiscal discipline in Congress that has always failed us. So maintain fiscal discipline, cut the taxes to get the economy back on track, go into the banking system--we had proposed alternatives that would actually get the banks working again.

The problem is fiscal discipline hasn't been maintained by Congress. For all of the new revenue that came into the Federal Government, Congress always went on to spend even more money. So that is one area you can address.

On the banking system, we still have major problems in our banking system, a lot of it created by irresponsible lending by groups like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who gave loans to people with no ability to pay, and they were encouraged by government. We need to end that.

On a comprehensive national energy policy, we can actually use our own natural resources, continue drilling for oil, natural gas, cleaning coal up and using nuclear power and take that extra revenue with those millions of jobs we would create and fund the alternative sources of energy, like wind and solar, to get us to that next level of jobs, rather than a cap-and-trade energy tax that would run millions of jobs out of our economy and also raise taxes on American families.

So we have presented these alternatives. In the first 100 days, unfortunately, President Obama has not worked with us to embrace any of these ideas, but hopefully that will change as more people become concerned about this record level of record spending.

Mr. Speaker, in the next 2 days we will be coming upon the 100 days, first 100 days of President Obama's Presidency, and the last few days we have already started to have some analysis, some discussion on those 100 days, what's happened, how does it compare to prior Presidents?

Of course, this is one of those traditions that seems to occur going back to the days of FDR. And I guess it's kind of ironic that a lot of these comparisons go back to FDR, because a lot of things that are happening today in our country have a lot of similarities to what happened back in the 1940s when FDR became President, when our country was in a depression, a depression that lasted for over 8 years. It didn't end until World War II got us out of it.

I think one of the things that seems to have symbolized the first 100 days more than anything has been the record levels of spending that's gone on here in Washington. All across our country we are facing tough economic times right now. Families are tightening their belts. Families are dealing with the problems that are existing in our economy, but they are doing it by trying to live within their own means.

I think one thing that's really symbolized this first 100 days has been the record levels of spending that's gone on with this new administration to run our country deeper into debt, adding more than 20 percent to the national debt in just the last 2\1/2\ months, and record levels of spending that I think have concerned many people across the country to the point where just a few weeks ago you saw thousands, hundreds of thousands of people taking the streets in these taxpayer TEA parties where people were literally showing up all throughout communities in this country to protest and send a signal. I think that they are frustrated with the record borrowing and spending and taxing, as well as these bailouts that are not working.

And so as we look at all of this, I think it hopefully is an indication that we need to pull back and refocus our country on those things that we truly need to take care of to address the problems that our country is facing and act in a fiscally responsible way to address those problems. So I think what we need to talk about now are the ways that the next 100 days can hopefully shape us in a different direction than first 100 days.

And as we look at some of these policies, we are debating right now in the Energy and Commerce Committee a major change in our Nation's energy policy. I think our Nation is severely lacking a national energy policy. There are good alternatives that are out there.

I am a cosponsor of a bill called the American Energy Act, which takes an all-of-the-above approach to fixing our national energy crisis, and a bill that would actually open up more areas of our own country's natural resources to drilling for oil, for natural gas, for developing clean coal technologies and then using that revenue not only to create good jobs and to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but to fund our ability to transfer into those alternative sources of energy like wind and solar power. But we also need to keep nuclear power as one of the components of a strong national energy policy.

On the other side of that, what we are seeing is the presentation of a bill called cap-and-trade. And the cap-and-trade energy tax is nothing short of that, a massive change of energy policy that the President has brought us in the first 100 days that would literally turn over our energy economy in this country to a Wall Street speculative market where companies would be limited in how much carbon they can emit in this country, but then they would have to pay taxes, in essence, on any more production that they would do.

Early estimates are this would raise $646 billion in new taxes, but it would saddle every American family in this country. Early estimates by the President's own budget director show that there would be over $1,300 a year more that every American family would pay in their own home energy bills, not in addition to all of the jobs that would be lost.

Early estimates by groups like the National Association of Manufacturers show that a cap-and-trade energy tax would literally ship 3 to 4 million jobs out of our country overseas to countries like China, India, Brazil and other nations that would not have the same kind of environmental regulations that we have today. So for people who are concerned about carbon emissions, the cap-and-trade energy tax wouldn't do anything to lower carbon emissions in the world.

What it would do is run off a lot of companies in the United States, ship those jobs, millions of jobs out to other countries like China, India, Brazil and others who will emit even more carbon. So it's a very counterproductive strategy from that standpoint but one that has a lot of support by some in Congress. And then hopefully there will be enough of us on this side to not only defeat that bill but then bring our alternative plan, like the American Energy Act, a plan that would put a comprehensive national policy in place to get our economy back on sound footing, but also to reduce our dependence on Middle Eastern oil, something that has been a problem for a long time, something that hasn't been addressed by Congress adequately, but one that can be.

And so while we are talking about and evaluating these first 100 days, there are a lot of things that we can do to look at how to move us to a better place in our country. And if you will look at what has been happening with the budget, one of the interesting conversations that we hear about is how much debt was run up in prior administrations.

Frankly, I was not a supporter of the debt back then. I surely am not a supporter of the debt that's being added to our children and grandchildren right now.

And if that debt was bad, which I agree it was, then these proposals, in fact, the President's own budget that's going to be coming up on a vote here on this House floor probably later this week, would double the national debt, double the national debt in just 5\1/2\ years.

And so just about a week ago the President had met with some of his economic advisors and his Cabinet, he pulled in his Cabinet and he said, I want you to go out and find--in a $3.5 trillion budget, he called all of his Cabinet members in and gave them the task of cutting $100 million. Now, I think we can all find ways to cut $100 million in the budget.

But to bring all your Cabinet members as a task to figure out how to go and cut $100 million, just to equate that to an average American family, that's like a family of four who makes $35,000 saying, let's sit around the table. We have got tough economic times. We need to cut our budget. A

family of four making $35,000, if the best they could do is come up with a way to cut $1, that would be the same equivalent of the President's challenge to cut $100 million out of a $3.5 trillion budget.

So I don't think any family would be celebrating after they found that $1 amongst all of their expenses, $1 they could cut out of their entire $35,000 budget. That's, so far, the best that this administration has been able to come up with.

I think we can do better. I think the American people are challenging us to do better. Some people that are here will talk about ways that we can do better and have some good ideas of their own.

Dr. Gingrey from Georgia is one of them, and, Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield to Dr. Gingrey of Georgia.

Well, I thank the gentleman and the doctor from Georgia. As you said, I am not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but I do enjoy serving with you on the Energy and Commerce Committee, where we do deal with the policies that actually address the health care issues in our country, which are very important.

One of our newest Members, somebody who I am proud to serve with in my State delegation, a new Member from Shreveport, Louisiana, who happens to be a doctor and a very able student on these issues, is my friend Dr.

Fleming, who I am going to yield time to now.

I thank the gentleman from Louisiana. I yield back to my friend from Georgia.

I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I think your concerns about a government-run system are very heartfelt. Obviously, we've got many other countries that have gone down that road and then have had the very bad experiences to show for it. I know what you all are doing here is a great service to be talking about alternative solutions, a better way to fix and to reform our health care system.

I will yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Dr. Murphy.

Before our committee just a few weeks ago, Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospital's Secretary, Secretary Levine, was testifying about exactly that problem about a Medicaid-type model being followed and used by Congress to replicate that throughout the country and the devastating impact it would have because, clearly, as you pointed out, there are serious drawbacks from having a Medicaid system. The lack of access to health care physicians is a big disincentive that many consumers would have if they found out that they were being shifted over to a system like Medicaid that's very broken right now, to have that system replicated for the entire country.

Again, I appreciate you pointing out these dangers, because before we go down that road, these are important things to lay out.

Somebody else that's going to help lay that out is our colleague, a doctor from Tennessee, Dr. Roe.

I appreciate your comments, and hopefully we can hear more from you about the TennCare experiment as well as the other ideas that you've got that make a lot of sense.

I yield back for a few moments to Dr. Gingrey, until we go to the other side of Georgia.

The chart you showed gives us a good indication why we have the physician shortage in this country. It is a crisis in health care, and in part because of not only the high cost of medical education, but then when so many get out, they realize that these types of payment methodologies actually inhibit their ability to make that back and ultimately be able to pay back those student loans. And so these types of programs have very dangerous consequences that we're seeing today.

Somebody else that can talk about that is our good friend from Georgia on the east side, as you said, Dr. Broun.

And Dr. Broun, I think the strength of the American system is the fact that the patient and the doctor, the two of them get to decide what their health care decision is

going to be, not some outside party, some government bureaucrat like we saw in the stimulus plan where they set up this health care czar, literally a Federal bureaucrat that would be able to interfere with the relationship between the doctor and the patient. Definitely the wrong road to go. That is why I think it is so important that you are bringing up this point.

And I will yield for one moment.

And reclaiming my time, that is why these policy changes can be so dangerous because they have serious ramifications if they are not done properly.

I want to go back for a moment to Dr. Roe before we wrap up with Dr. Gingrey.

Thank you, Dr. Roe.

I would like to have Dr. Gingrey wrap up this hour that we have had a great discussion on health care.

Madam Chair, I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio for yielding and especially for his leadership on bringing here to the floor a vote on a balanced budget. If you look, there is a clear contrast right now between the budget that President Obama presented and this budget that we are going to get to vote on.

If you look at the deficits over the last few years, represented by the blue figures, and in the current budget and the continuation of these runaway deficit spending budgets over the next few years, many of my friends on the other side have criticized this spending, these deficits, right here. Of course, many of them voted for these budgets that increased these deficits. I didn't vote for any of these budgets. And I'm tired of the runaway spending. But those same people who criticized these deficits are voting for this level of spending, these deficits, $1.9 trillion this year, deficits going out as far as the eye can see. In fact, if you look at the ultimate result of that runaway deficit spending, President Obama, in his first 5\1/2\ years, will double the national debt.

We have got to get control of runaway spending and these out-of- control debts that we are racking up for our children and grandchildren to pay off. And if you are wondering what the American people are telling us, do they want this runaway spending? No. All across the country, you are having these uprisings, taxpayer tea parties. Citizens out there are showing up in thousands at a time, two in my district on April 15, bringing tea bags saying, ``Enough is enough. Stop this runaway spending.''

We finally have a balanced budget that we will get to vote on. And for those people, and I know I reach out to my Blue Dog friends on the other side, anybody who says they are fiscally responsible has to vote for a balanced budget, because you cannot vote for the President's budget for this level of runaway spending and call yourself ``fiscally conservative.'' You just can't do it. Don't go back home and say you're fiscally conservative and come up here in Washington and spend trillions of dollars of our children's and grandchildren's money. This is money we don't have.

We have got to stop this madness. People across the country are saying just that. Four thousand people are showing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, or Orlando and saying ``stop.'' We have an alternative. I would urge my friends on both sides of the aisle to vote for a balanced budget.

Will the gentleman yield?

Then I would ask a parliamentary inquiry to the Chair.

The gentleman from Washington, rather than directing his question to the Chair, made a comment about me saying I would have voted for a bill that I would not have voted for. I would just ask the Chair, isn't it parliamentary procedure to direct questions or comments about people to the Chair, not to individual Members, especially when what they are saying is not accurate about that Member?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank my friend from Missouri for participating in helping lead this hour-long debate on the issue that is right now most important facing our country, and that is not only how to get out of this economic crisis that we're in, but how to sustain and get our country back on footing in terms of budget policy.

In many ways, we've got problems in our financial systems, but we've got big problems here in Washington as it relates to spending and borrowing and taxing.

This week, we're going to be voting on the President's budget. His budget resolution is on the floor later this week. It's a budget that causes us great concern because of its record levels of spending, record levels of borrowing, and record levels of taxing not only small businesses but every family in this country that uses energy on the energy cap-and-trade plan that just got filed yesterday--the President's cap-and-trade policy that adds a $646 billion tax increase which will fall on the backs of every American family.

So when we talk about all of these policies, let's look graphically at just what this means in terms of spending as it's relating to the past decades in our current national debt.

Right now, if you look at the trend over the last few years, the budget deficit was actually going down. It was still too high. For those of us who do not support deficit spending, it was still too high, but at least it was trending down towards getting back to a balanced budget.

Unfortunately, the first budget that President Obama filed increases deficit spending--actually, record levels. Next year would be a $1.9 trillion national deficit added to a record level of debt.

When we talk about the level of debt--and I think you're seeing across the country this budget has got a lot of people concerned, not only for what it does in the first year of spending, but this comes on top of the stimulus bill, that massive spending bill, over $800 billion of deficit spending that the President signed in his first few weeks in office. But then this budget thrown on top of that, when we look at what this means to future generations, this is where the real concern comes in.

This is a chart that actually shows since the history of our country since 1789, when George Washington took the oath of office, through the period of time that George W. Bush left the White House in January of this year. This country accumulated $10 trillion of national debt.

Now it's a level that I'm not comfortable with and many people are not comfortable with. But when you compare that with President Obama's budget, he mushrooms the national debt from $10 trillion, which is the national debt he inherited, to $23 trillion, when his budget that is going to be voted on late this week is taking effect.

Now, obviously you see graphically why so many of us oppose this record level of spending and borrowing. The fact that one President in just one budget resolution can double the national debt to do what it took 43 other Presidents to do in 220 years of our country's history, this President will double that number, to go from $100 trillion in national debt that all 43 previous President's accumulated, to going up to $23 trillion when President Obama's budget is fully implemented--if it's fully implemented.

That's what brings us here tonight--the fact that this budget resolution has not passed yet. It's a proposal. It's a proposal by the President that I don't support, that many of us don't support, and I'm not sure that a majority of us don't support it, because we will have a vote and there is a chance that this budget will pass. That's why we're trying to lay out these facts.

These are facts. These haven't been disputed. These are verified by the Office of Management and Budget, the Congressional Budget Office. Everybody that's looked at this has confirmed that the President's budget will more than double the national debt. Yet, we are presented with this vote later this week.

Those of us on the Republican side have presented an alternative budget. In fact, we've laid out a plan to get us back to surpluses; a plan that pays down, goes down on deficits--brings our deficits back down to where we're only spending as much money as we're taking in.

Just like American families across the country during these tough economic times--they are cutting back, they are making do with what they have--this Congress should do the same. This President should do the same. The Republican budget that we have laid out now will do just that.

It doesn't add new taxes. In fact, it cuts taxes so that small businesses can go out and hire more people. But then it responsibly spends to a level where we will finally have a balanced budget, something that is critical--for our country to spend within our means.

So my friend from Missouri I know has been talking about this same thing. I want to yield back to him some time so that he can further expound on it.

Reclaiming my time, I want to thank my colleague and friend from Missouri for laying out not only the stark realities but the optimistic tone that this is not something that has happened yet. This is an issue that the American people are recognizing when they see the concerns that they have, which are the same concerns that we have, that the President's budget spend too much, taxes too much, and borrows from our children and grandchildren--money that we don't have.

So why is this bad? Because the numbers that you showed, the numbers that we show right here on this chart, the fact that President Obama is doubling the national debt, something that took over 220 years and 43 Presidents to accumulate. He is more than doubling that with his record level of spending.

What's interesting is right now, just today, they started a summit in Europe. The President went to Europe today and he is going to be meeting with other world leaders in Europe.

Just last week, European leaders--now we're seeing American people all across the country speaking out against this record level of spending, recognizing the problems and dangers that it's going to pose not only to them in terms of higher interest rates, lost jobs, inflation, but also in terms of what we will be leaving to our children and grandchildren. All of this debt that would be saddled on the backs of future generations.

So Europe is actually taking notice. In fact, the Czech prime minister and the current European Union President, Mirek Topolanek, said last week that ``the biggest success of last week's EU summit was its refusal to copy the U.S. example. We need to read the history books and the lessons of history. And the biggest success of the EU is the refusal to go this way.''

You had the head of the European Union telling the President that he's spending too much money and that he's concerned about President Obama's spending. It's almost like when Otis, the town drunk, tells you he's concerned about your drinking problem.

I think you need to take notice when leaders in Europe are telling the United States that this President is spending too much money. I think that's very riveting. In fact, it's a major concern that a lot of us have.

That's why those of us on the Republican side and we invite our Democrats to join us in a bipartisan way to join with our budget resolution, not a budget that spends too much, borrows too much, and taxes too much, but a budget that actually balances the Federal budget, that does not raise taxes that will actually create jobs.

We filed this bill in a bipartisan way. We're reaching out to our Democratic colleagues to reject the path of doubling the national debt. So, hopefully, they'll join with us.

Somebody that is joining with us is my friend from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, who's on the Budget Committee and has been participating in some of these discussions and helping draft this alternative plan. So I yield time.

I want to thank my friend from Ohio. And when he talks about the hard work and doing the hard work, doing the right thing even when the easy way out might be more appealing, he has got a little bit of humility but he did that hard work and was a two-time national champion wrestler. So, somebody who has been wrestling with the budget. But he has got some good experience, and he speaks I think some very poignant words.

And when my friend from Ohio talked about those tea parties that are going on, when we talk about tea parties nowadays, it is not a couple people sitting around in sun dresses drinking hot tea; it is something that hearkens back to the days of our Revolution, the founding of our country when the Boston Tea Party was that symbol, that tipping point that many people had where they said enough is enough. And then they revolted against taxation.

What we are seeing today in the country is a similar revolt against the spending, not just the taxing, but the spending and the borrowing, where thousands of people--and these are events that are organized not by community organizers, not by government institutions. It is just regular citizens on their own, in many cases without much media attention, that are saying: We want to speak out against this spending. And thousands of people show up at these rallies.

In fact, on April 15, on tax day, which for many of us is not our most pleasant day we look forward to, but on that day we have got two of those tea parties in my district, in Covington, Louisiana, and in Metairie, Louisiana, because citizen activists said we want to speak out against this spending that is being proposed in Washington, D.C.

And I think the real sign of encouragement that they have is that since much of this hasn't happened, some of it has happened but much of this debt hasn't been added yet to the rolls; and before it does, they want to speak out so that we here in these halls in Congress hear those voices.

And we are hearing them here, and we are proposing an alternative. It is not just a matter of being opposed to something that we think is bad; we proposed an alternative and a balanced budget, a budget resolution that, unlike the President's, brings us down a road to increased national debt, doubling of the national debt, higher taxes. We actually have a budget that has no taxes, that actually cuts taxes for small businesses to create good middle-class jobs at a time when we need to be creating jobs, and actually gets spending under control, brings us to a balanced budget. That is something that we should all support, Democrats and Republicans.

And this is what the two proposals look like right here. President Obama's budget is in red, and you can see the graph continuing to go up in record spending and debt that is going to be increasing. And then you can see the Republican Budget, actually getting the spending under control and bringing it back down, bringing us to a balanced budget.

With that, I yield back to my friend from Missouri (Mr. Akin).

Again, I thank my friend from Missouri. And when you talk about the Founding Fathers and that great document, the U.S. Constitution, which I would argue is the second most important document ever written, next to the Bible. And when the Founding Fathers really talked about and articulated the foundation of our country when they were forming it, they really did believe in those things, and they sacrificed tremendously for that liberty, for that freedom, to create what has been the greatest experiment in democracy in the history of the world. And we still are that great democracy. And the reason we are here tonight is because we want to preserve that democracy, not just for ourselves, but for our children and for our grandchildren.

Every generation in this country has a fine tradition of passing on a better Nation than the one that they inherited. And many of us feel that if we go down this road, we would be in jeopardy of leaving a worse Nation behind. And so it is well worth fighting for those principles that our Founding Fathers talked about are critically important. It is why we were elected. It is why we took the oath of office here in this Chamber in January, to uphold the principles that that document articulates.

And when you look at this budget, when you look at the contrast, go back to World War II, and you will see this massive spike in public debt held as a percentage of GDP. And of course we were fighting a world war. We won World War II. And it was expensive. And as soon as World War II was over, we came out of it, and we got back to a regular level of spending. Then you see this massive spike, this red spike, which is representative of President Obama's budget contrasted by this green line, which is the Republican alternative.

This bill, this is an alternative budget resolution that we filed. Too often we hear, and some of our friends on the other side like to reinvent history and they say, ``the Republicans have no alternatives. They are just against the President's budget.'' I guess they don't know how to read this document. We have copies right here on the House floor, and we are distributing to them to anybody who wants to see it. In fact, it is on the Internet. You can go and look it up on the Internet and read the details of what we propose. And that is a budget that is balanced. That is an interesting concept here in Washington, D.C. these days. But it is a budget that we actually balance.

We don't raise taxes. In fact, we cut taxes for middle-class families and for small businesses to create jobs, to get our economy back on track, and so we can get control again on this runaway spending that so many people are speaking out about.

One of the other points that this budget does that concerns many of us is it borrows from Social Security. So what do these policies, what does ``deficit spending'' really mean? Well, first of all, last week when the Treasury Department went out to sell debt--on occasion, a few times a week, the Treasury Department actually goes out and sells debt. And last week they had a hiccup. There was a problem because some people weren't buying the debt at the levels they were expecting. And you saw the stock market tank that day. Unfortunately these days, we see a lot of tanks in the stock market as reactions to some of the things happening here where you have the Federal Government, literally the government trying to tell private companies like GM whom to hire as their corporate CEO. These are not healthy signs for our country. But that debt had a cost.

Another cost to that borrowing and deficit spending is that in just the first 4 years, in President Obama's first term, he will actually raid the Social Security trust fund of $910 billion taken away from Social Security. That is a cost of this deficit spending. That is why so many of us are speaking up against this deficit spending, because senior citizens out there who are on fixed incomes expect that obligation to be met by the Federal Government. Young people that are working today are paying in, paying those Social Security taxes. Some may be cynical and think they are not going to get anything for it. But it is an obligation that is made to them because they pay taxes into that system for that system to be there for them. And how is that system going to be there for them if this President in just 4 years raids the Social Security trust fund of $910 billion? These are real consequences to this runaway spending.

So as we talk about these things, I'm going to yield back to my friend from Ohio to share his thoughts.

I thank my friend from Ohio for joining us tonight. And the things he said are so true, that great entrepreneurial spirit that makes this the greatest country in the world where people literally envision the American Dream, where industrialists like Henry Ford revolutionized the auto industry and the manufacturing industry with the assembly line and changed the way Americans can get around and can see the country, people like Bill Gates who dropped out of college to pursue a dream and change the way all of us communicate, literally, our day-to-day lives. That entrepreneurial spirit is still out there. But people don't want it taken away by government literally coming in and trying to control all of these areas of our life with this cap-and- trade energy tax which would put a $600 billion tax on the production of energy in the United States, which would equate, by most estimates, to more than $3,000 per American family in higher energy costs.

That is part of this budget that we are talking about that spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much. It is why we are opposing it. It is why we are proposing an alternative budget, a budget that actually balances the Federal budget, that cuts taxes and that gets Americans back to work. We actually have this online. It is at gop.gov. We put it out there so that people can go see the details and compare it to what President Obama has proposed, which is a doubling of the national debt.

We have just a few minutes left. I want to have a final word shared with us by my friend from Missouri.

Thank you, again. I appreciate my friend from Missouri joining us in this hour debating and talking about what is at stake with this budget, the President's budget, that will be voted on here in this House Chamber later this week. The fact that one President with one budget, one 10-year budget proposal, can double the national debt what it took 43 Presidents in over 220 years in our country's history to rack up $10 trillion in debt, this President, one President with one budget proposal will more than double that. That is what is at stake here. That is why we are joining in this debate. That is why American people all across the country are going to these rallies, these tea parties, to speak up.

We all understand that there is a role government must play. But it has to be a limited role. It has to be a role that is based in fiscal responsibility, not just for us, but for future generations, for our children and grandchildren who want the same things, who want a better life. And that is why people come to this great country.

Again, when we talk about what is happening in Europe right now, the President is over there, it is very ironic that the Czech leader, the head of the European Union last week was lashing out, lashing out at the President on his spending proposal, expressing concern. And it must say a lot when leaders in Europe are concerned about the spending that is going on here.

But it is not just leaders in Europe. It is people all across this country. And some people have talked about the fiscal irresponsibility of Congresses past, both Republicans and Democrats, those of us who weren't there back then, those of us who didn't vote for those budgets. A lot of us came up here to fix those problems because we don't think it is responsible to spend money we don't have.

That is why I am the cosponsor of a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution so that we can force fiscal discipline in a place where unfortunately it doesn't exist right now. But it is not too late because this budget resolution hasn't passed yet. The vote will occur on this House floor later this week. And everybody will have to take a position. I know I will be voting against that budget because of what it does, not only to our generation, to our freedoms, but to future generations. And that is why I'm supporting the alternative, which is a budget that is balanced, a budget that actually cuts taxes to help get our economy back on track. These are proven principles. These are things that have not been tried and failed before. The only thing that we know that has been tried and failed in the past is massive spending. And you can go back to the Great Depression in the 1940s when the Federal Government spent and spent and spent. And even the Treasury Secretary under FDR said the spending didn't work, 8 years of spending, and there was higher unemployment.

Ultimately, we can fix this problem. But it starts with this vote on this budget resolution that we are trying to defeat later this week.

I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Speaker and the gentleman from Nebraska.

I rise in support of H.R. 1246, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act of 2009. This legislation was introduced by Representative Lois Capps and was passed by the House last Congress. The bill reforms the Public Health Service Act and reauthorizes the newborns and infants hearing loss program.

Not only does the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act reach out to cover more children, but it also provides the Secretary of Health and Human Services the ability to assist in recruitment, retention, education, and training of qualified personal and health care providers. These qualified health care providers will provide children, who have been identified with hearing loss through screening and detection, with adequate follow-up care.

In an effort to foster research and development in the area of early hearing detection and intervention, H.R. 1246 requires the director of the National Institutes of Health to establish a post-doctoral fellowship program. This program is intended to provide more information on how to better the lives of children through early intervention.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 1246.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no speakers for this legislation, so I would yield the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 756, the National Pain Care Policy Act of 2009. I want to commend Congresswoman Lois Capps and Congressman Mike Rogers for their bipartisan work on this bill.

The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 76.2 million Americans have suffered pain that lasts longer than 24 hours. Most painful conditions can be relieved with proper treatment and adequate pain management. This bill creates an interagency coordinating committee to coordinate all efforts within HHS and other Federal agencies related to pain research. This effort, along with efforts at the NIH via the pain consortium, will go a long way towards increasing research and awareness of chronic pain.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise today in support of H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act. Last Congress, the Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings on this issue that were deeply emotional, especially when testimony was presented by Melanie Blocker Stokes' mother. This bill highlights the need to increase awareness of postpartum depression and expand the knowledge of its terrible effects.

It is important to note that as many as 80 percent of women experience some mood disturbances after pregnancy. For most women, the symptoms are mild and go away on their own. But 10 to 20 percent of women develop a more disabling form of mood disorder called postpartum depression.

This legislation encourages the continuation of research being done by Federal agencies to determine the causes of postpartum depression and how it can better be treated. I stand in support of this legislation and hope that my colleagues will join me.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 479, the Wakefield Act.

This legislation was introduced by Representative Jim Matheson, and was passed by the House last Congress. The bill reforms the Public Health Service Act to improve emergency medicine services for children.

The Wakefield Act would authorize grants to States and medical schools to purchase equipment for children requiring trauma or critical care. About 31 million children and adolescents visit emergency rooms every year, and more than 90 percent of them are seen in general hospitals, not in children's hospitals that are best equipped to treat them.

The bill also requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to support projects that are based on scientific evidence, promote innovative technology, and provide information on health outcomes, including cost effectiveness. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 479.

Mr. Speaker, I have no speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in favor of H.R. 1259, and I would like to thank Mr. Upton of Michigan and Mr. Larsen of Washington for their work on this important legislation.

Dextromethorphan, or DXM as it is sometimes called, is an ingredient found in cough medicine. This ingredient relieves the coughing associated with a cold or the flu. Cough medicines containing this drug are common and can be obtained without a prescription.

While this drug can be safe and effective if used as directed, it can also be dangerous if taken improperly. The abuse of this drug can cause death as well as other serious adverse effects such as brain damage, seizure, loss of consciousness, and irregular heartbeat.

This legislation would allow the Secretary of Health and Human Services to prohibit the distribution of DXM that is in bulk form to any person not registered with the FDA. It is hoped that these restrictions on the distribution of DXM will lower the potential for its abuse while at the same time protecting access to these needed medications.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my friend from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

I yield back the balance of my time.