Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 109, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 110, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 111, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, the people of Southwestern Pennsylvania lost an icon when Frank Sarris, founder of Sarris Candies, passed away Monday. A half century ago when Frank presented his sweetheart Athena with a box of chocolates, a loving Greek-American family and a chocolate empire were born.

After giving Athena the chocolates, Frank kept thinking he could make a tastier product. He went to work in the basement of his Canonsburg home cooking up sweet desserts for friends and family. Word quickly spread of Frank's delicious concoctions. To keep up with the demand, Frank had to quit his day job as a forklift operator.

Once the people of Southwestern Pennsylvania tasted Sarris Candies, their collective sweet tooth could not be satisfied. Frank moved out of his basement and opened a shop next to his home. Eventually, he tore down his home, built a bigger chocolate factory, and moved into an apartment above it. As his chocolate delectables grew in popularity, Frank soon became known as ``Candy Man'' throughout Canonsburg and beyond.

The only son of Greek immigrants, Frank used his success to give back to the community. If there was a charitable event in Canonsburg, Frank could be counted on to donate chocolate or financial support. Children all across Pennsylvania sell Sarris Candies to raise money for school, sports, and clubs. And one does not have to travel far to find evidence of Frank's philanthropy. His legacy includes the Frank Sarris Outpatient Clinic to care for organ transplant patients, the Sarris Clinical Endowment to fund science research, and the Frank Sarris Public Library. In one way or another, Frank has touched the life of every person in Canonsburg.

Generations of Southwestern Pennsylvanians have tasted and loved Sarris Candies. Today, parents who grew up on Sarris Candies take their children to the Sarris Chocolate Factory and Ice Cream Parlour. You can see the eyes of each child light up when the homemade ice cream covered with Sarris toppings is placed before them. At that moment, each parent remembers what it is like to be a kid again.

Frank will be missed, but his memory will live on every time a person takes a bite from a Sarris candy bar or a small child walks in to the Ice Cream Parlour for the first time to order a sundae. Sweet dreams, Frank.

Mr. Speaker, in today's news, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, warned that huge deficits and borrowing place us at risk for high inflation and high interest rates.

Add this to the high unemployment, borrowing from China and buying huge amounts of oil from OPEC, and we have to recognize we've got a mess on our hands.

But there is a solution. We can create jobs and grow our economy without raising taxes. It is the bipartisan American Conservation and Clean Energy Independence Act, H.R. 2227. This bill uses the trillions of dollars from oil and gas exploration off our coast to drive conservation and new technologies to improve energy efficiency; develop clean-energy generation and infrastructure; rebuild America's inefficient transportation system; and clean our air and water. Not only will we be creating a clean energy future, but creating millions of good-paying jobs for years to come.

The news tells us of how things are, but that's not how it has to be. Join me in supporting the American Conservation and Clean Energy Independence Act.

Thank you, Ranking Member Ileana Ros- Lehtinen, for this opportunity to speak about this important issue of one of America's proud moments of how it helps when the world has need.

On January 12 of this year, we were shocked and saddened by the devastating earthquake in Haiti. More than 230,000 Haitians are dead, perhaps even more we will find, hundreds of thousands injured, a million left homeless. The world responded immediately with food, donations, and rescue workers, but among the first to respond were our military, particularly the crew of the USNS Comfort. This 894-foot-long floating Naval hospital set sail from Baltimore Harbor soon after the earthquake.

Members of the ship's crew, most of whom hailed from the Navy's hospitals in Maryland and Virginia, were soon on board and underway. By the 17th of January, the Comfort was making full speed towards Port-au- Prince. Before its arrival, the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier provided immediate relief to injured Haitians. Today, the 1,200-person Comfort crew, made up of over 550 civilian and uniformed doctors, nurses, and others, is providing the best possible care under very challenging circumstances.

With limited supplies but limitless compassion and skill, surgeons and nurses and a host of other specialties, obstetricians, pharmacists, pediatricians, and Navy personnel from the medical corps, the medical service corps, nursing corps and so many others were there to treat Haitians who came on board with wounds, fractures, and infections. The crew's superb performance is a testament to our Navy and our Marines who are confronting these very, very difficult challenges.

Even before the devastating earthquake of January 12 that took so many lives, Haiti was a country enduring many difficult problems. Nearly four-fifths of its people live in absolute poverty. It has less than 50 hospitals, some of which are only staffed by a pair of nurses and medical interns. The country has fewer than three physicians for every 10,000 people. By comparison, our country has nearly 100 doctors for every 10,000 people.

The absence of a medical infrastructure made treating Haitians even more challenging, where doctors in the pediatric ward estimated that a fifth of the children in their care had untreated, and in many cases previously undiagnosed, medical conditions.

The USNS Comfort docked near Port-au-Prince on January 20 with 250 medical beds, but the crew quickly realized it would serve as the primary place of treatment for a country with hundreds of thousands of injured people. The Comfort transformed itself into a thousand-bed facility, with 880 ward beds, 80 intensive care units, 20 post- anesthesia care unit beds, 12 operating rooms.

On the second day of the Comfort's mission, Lieutenant Commander Erika Beard-Irvine and Lieutenant Commander Shannon Lamb delivered a premature baby, a 4-pound, 5-ounce baby girl named Esther, whose mother during the earthquake, after a building collapsed upon her, had severe injuries. Her mother went without treatment, but surgeons couldn't repair her fractures without threatening the baby's life, so on that day they delivered a healthy baby. She was seven weeks early, but right on time for a ship that had never before witnessed an onboard delivery in its 22 years of service.

The Comfort already had infants aboard, brought to the ship by mothers unable to find post-natal care in Haiti. One of the ship's youngest male patients is Vinson, named for the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, where his mother gave birth to him.

At the end of its second day, the Comfort had seen 184 patients, a third of whom saw surgery. Said Lieutenant Commander Don D'Aurora, director of the ship's receiving ward and division officer of the emergency department at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda to the Baltimore Sun, quote, ``I saw more patients in six hours today than I would normally see in 24 hours back home. This is what we train for. This is what it is about for all of us.''

Even with the crew sleeping in shifts, helicopters dropping supplies from dawn until dusk, and the crew running around-the-clock operations at everything from the barber shop to the mess hall, wave after wave of critically injured patients pushed the limits of the Comfort's capabilities. Some were stories about senses of helplessness, physical pain, or feelings of despair and the loss of loved ones, but some provide inspiration.

Due to the work of a Port-au-Prince native, fireman Jean Rabel, a Navy translator aboard the Comfort, and Joe Fiscus of Rochester, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, Haitian national Antonio Jeanite was reunited with his 3-month-old daughter, Christ-Yarah, on February 2. He said, ``I am very happy. It has been seven days since I sent my daughter to another hospital.''

The Comfort's crew knows that someday its mission will end, the ship will return to Baltimore Harbor, and the best medical care in the Caribbean Sea will depart with it. That is why the Comfort is making arrangements with a stateside hospital for continuing care to treat seriously burned patients who require months of medical attention.

The Comfort has cared for over 2,000 Haitians, and much work remains to be done. I know that the crew and its able commander, Captain Jim Ware, are up to the task. I commend them for their diligence, and call for us to honor their unbreakable spirit by passing this resolution.

I would also like to recognize the crews of the Vinson (CVN-70); the USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43), a dock landing ship; the USS Bataan (LHD 5), a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship; the USS Carter Hall (LSD 50), another dock landing ship; and several other ships, the Higgins (DDG- 76), the Underwood (FFG-36), the Normandy (CG-60), the Bunker Hill (CG- 52), the Gunston Hall (LSD-44), the Grasp (T-ARS-51), and so many other Navy personnel and Marines who worked around the clock providing care to so many.

You know, when one of us feels overcome with doubt or confusion, let us think about those fatigued corpsmen and doctors and nurses aboard the Comfort who carefully and skillfully bring their patients back, sometimes from the brink of death, hours after hours of work with very little sleep, pushing themselves to the limits. Let's remember those sailors and Marines and Air Force personnel and Army soldiers who went to Haiti, establishing the logistics, rescuing patients, taking them out of broken buildings.

And one final story for us to remember. Rico Duprevil spent 13 days buried alive in the rubble of a collapsed house. His legs were crushed, his pelvis dislocated. He could not move.

He said, ``There was darkness all around, all of the time. I could not move inside. I could hear distant voices, but they could not hear mine.''

With only a few sips of water available, he stayed alive. Almost 2 weeks later he was discovered. He said, ``I was never scared because God was on my side. I survived by thinking of Him and praying. I thought about my family.''

He was taken to a local hospital for basic triage. A day later he arrived at Port-au-Prince for evaluation and possible transfer to the Comfort. Due to the quick collection of information by Captain Richard Sharpe, an on-site medical commander, he was transferred within just an hour to the proper ward care above the Comfort.

All of us are proud of the great work that so many do in their armed services. We oftentimes talk about them, but this is a great moment of pride for

our Nation. In particular, I'd like to salute my colleagues in the Navy where I serve, also at the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center, but thank the Navy, the Marines, the Army, the Air Force, the Coast Guard and all the civilians who reached out and showed the compassion that is one of America's bright moments, and show the world what America is all about. When the world needs us, when tragedy strikes, Americans gather together and support them. And today, we salute those Americans who have helped so many of those in need in Haiti.

Mr. Speaker, when the White House summit occurs at Blair House to talk about health care, I am disappointed that not a single Member of the House of Representatives who has a background in health care has been invited, despite the fact that Medicare and Medicaid alone spend several hundred billion dollars. It would be nice if someone who has actually diagnosed a patient, prescribed medication, or treated a patient would be there, but so be it, it's not.

But also, as the discussions are coming forth, there are great differences between what one is looking at and the other party may be looking at for interventions here. We cannot have a system that simply is based upon raising taxes to pay for a broken system. There are 31- some taxes that my friends on the other side of the aisle have proposed, such as taxing employers for providing health insurance, taxing them if they don't provide it, tax you if you own insurance, tax you if you don't. If you spend money on health care, charitable contributions, alcohol, mortgage interest, pollution, oil, prescription drugs, payroll, capital gains, smoking, health care, and now a tanning bed tax. This does not change the system. In fact, it is something that is akin to just saying ``take two taxes and call me in the morning.'' That is not real health care.

Now, Republicans have talked about a number of things, such as allowing people to choose plans across the country, to join groups. I also believe people should be allowed to choose a basic plan, that is, choose a plan that is what you need instead of the government telling you what you need. But most important of all is the number of quality reforms which are not being addressed yet. In a $2.5 trillion system, we waste from inefficiency, we waste from changes, perhaps between $800 billion and $1 trillion.

An article published by Wennberg, et al., in Health Affairs a couple of years ago described it well. Wennberg, Fisher, Skinner, and Bronner, all from Dartmouth University and Medical School, they said that part of the nature of the problem is the present value of projected lifetime Medicare costs for a 65-year-old in Los Angeles is $84,000 greater than for a 65-year-old in Seattle. The difference between Portland and Miami is $125,000 in a lifetime.

``Much of the health policy is based on the assumption that geographic variation and utilization is driven primarily by the local prevalence and severity of illness. In reality, prevalence of illness doesn't drive spending; only about 4 percent of the variation in Medicare spending among groups is associated with the regional variation in the prevalence of severe chronic illness.

``When we look at utilization,'' they go on to say, ``among academic medical centers which care for the sickest of the sick, we see the same pattern; equally sick patients receive different care depending upon which academic medical center they routinely use for care.''

I read on here: ``Higher spending might be justified if more intensive use of in-patient care resulted in better quality of care or better health outcomes, but it does not appear to do so. At the population level, research has shown that patients with severe chronic illness who live in communities where more intensive use of in-patient care is the norm do not have improved survival, quality of life, or access to life. Indeed, outcomes appear to be worse.''

They go on to propose a few changes here which are the things I have talked about at some length over time--that we need to make sure we are doing disease management. They say such things as, ``We recommend that the Federal Government fund a program of clinical research designed to transform the management of chronic illness to a system where care is based primarily on illness level, valid science, and patient preference.''

Detailed specification of the clinical pathways for caring for the chronically ill--for instance, when hospitalizing a patient with congestive heart failure, which patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease will benefit from steroids, when to schedule patients for a revisit, or when to refer to a specialist for additional diagnostic testing are all important. Unfortunately, in the bills proposed by the House and Senate, they cut the funding for the very things that could do that, Medicare Advantage, cutting out $500 billion from Medicare from the very programs that invest money in disease management where we can save money.

They go on to say as another strategy that the transition for Pay for Performance should be based upon cost-effective care. The endgame is the establishment of prospectively managed, cost-effective and coordinated care. The enrollment of patients and the cohorts for prospective care management requires risk adjustment methods that account not only for illness level, but also socioeconomic status, adherence patterns, and social supports. This care would be supported by adequate infrastructure, information technology systems, electronic medical records to provide clinical guidance through care coordination, and a program for monitoring quality and efficiency.

Mr. Speaker and my friends, we cannot continue to pay for a broken system. There is a lot of great health care in this country, but as long as we have a system that continues to say we will pay doctors for procedures, whatever that might be, as opposed to paying doctors or hospitals, which are helping to treat patients to get better, then we will continue to see costs spiral.

I hope that the House and Senate work on really reforming health care, on really reforming health care and pushing for coordinated care. That, my friends, is the answer of how we lower health care costs.

Remember September 11, 2001? Two planes hit the World Trade Center. One plane crashed into the Pentagon and another was stopped from hitting its targets in Washington by the brave action of its passengers. All together, thousands died--civilians and soldiers--in that terrorist attack of war.

Now, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of this act, and his four co-conspirators are to be tried for this act. But the administration wants to take them out of the detention facility at the Navy base Guantanamo and try them in a civilian court, not a military court. To sweeten the deal, the administration is offering $200 million in a cash for courtrooms deal.

No amount of Federal funds can compensate for the risk this trial would place on the people of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, or any other State that would seem to have jurisdiction. This unnecessarily jeopardizes the safety of the citizens, the jurors, and the judges in those communities.

Mohammed and his coconspirators should be tried not in a civilian court for the terrorist acts of war. The American people get it. They want them to be judged by a military court. Why doesn't Washington get it, too?

Mr. Speaker, since the $862 billion stimulus bill was signed into law last February, nearly 3 million more Americans have lost jobs. The projected deficit for this year is $1.3 trillion, second only to last year's $1.4 trillion. It's time to stop Washington's wild spending and start creating hometown jobs. Families want paychecks, not unemployment checks. That's why we introduced a bipartisan American Conservation and Clean Energy Independence Act, H.R. 2227, which opens up the U.S. coasts for environmentally responsible oil and gas exploration.

This bill produces 1.2 million new, good-paying jobs and an $8 trillion economic boost over 20 years. We will clean up America's waterways. We will clean our air by replacing old coal plants with new clean coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and geothermal energy generation. We will conserve energy by rebuilding our old infrastructure and a smart grid. Americans will modernize buildings to cut energy waste by 25 percent. We stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on OPEC oil. We stop borrowing from China, and we do all of this without raising a single tax.

Join me in supporting H.R. 2227 with new jobs for a new energy- independent America.

Madam Speaker, the veterans community in Southwestern Pennsylvania lost a dear friend last Wednesday with the passing of Sidney Singer. While we often talk in Congress about the veterans who have fought for our country and freedom, Mr. Singer fought for veterans. A veteran himself, having served in the Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1945, Sidney dedicated his life to helping homeless veterans. Many of who suffered from drug and alcohol addictions.

Because of Mr. Singer's vision and tireless efforts Veterans Place of Washington Boulevard was built for Pittsburgh's veterans. First opened in 1992, it started as a transitional housing project. Due to enormous success was expanded in 2003. The units provide a home for veterans as they recover and transition back into society.

Sydney knew that Veterans Place had to be more than just a place to live, but also a place for veterans to get back on their feet. This is why Veterans Place has a Service Center to give veterans job training, life skills, and alcohol and drug counseling.

Even in his final moments, Sydney's thoughts were with his fellow veterans. On his deathbed, Sydney described his vision to expand Veterans Place right down to the details of the kitchens.

While Sydney is no longer with us, his legacy will live on in Pittsburgh. He will continue to be with every veteran granted a new lease on life at Veterans Place.

Madam Speaker, the U.S. is $800 billion in debt to China, and yet Congress continues to spend, having to raise the debt limit time and time again.

We do not grow America's jobs by borrowing hundreds of billions from China, sending hundreds of billions of dollars to OPEC for oil, or taking hundreds of billions more from Americans in new taxes.

What we can do, however, is by using some of our oil off our coast, we can use it to create jobs, restore our environment, use conservation and new technologies to cut waste and improve energy efficiency, develop innovative, efficient, and clean energy generation in all sectors, and rebuild America's inefficient transportation and energy infrastructure.

By putting our resources to work, we put millions of Americans to work here at home, and all this can be done without raising taxes. I encourage my colleagues to join the effort by supporting and being cosponsors of H.R. 2227, the American Conservation and Clean Energy Independence Act. It's about new jobs for a new, clean America.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about H.R. 1110, the PHONE Act, which stands for Preventing Harassment through Outbound Number Enforcement. It will be voted on tomorrow. This bill addresses the growing and serious problems of caller ID fraud that allows the caller to hide their true identity to obtain personal information for use in identity theft and scams.

Answering your phone is like answering your door, you're letting someone into your home and you need to know that whoever that person says they are is true. Caller ID was originally designed to give you that information so you could decide to answer your phone and have the confidence that you were not taking a call that is unwanted, unsafe, or unknown. That is why I worked across the aisle with Representative Bobby Scott in introducing H.R. 1110, which was first introduced in the 109th Congress. Representative Scott took the lead in the 110th Congress, and now we are again working together in the 111th Congress to pass this very important bill. I thank Representative Scott for his leadership and teamwork in passing this public safety bill.

The legislation is aimed at preventing and prohibiting caller ID spoofing. Spoofing is made available with Internet services that will provide false numbers and even disguise your voice so you can easily fool the person on the other end of the phone. Criminals coax victims into giving up sensitive personal information by making it appear that a call is coming from a legitimate institution, such as a bank, doctor's office, government office, or even a family member.

Misleading caller ID information also allows the spoofer to cause a victim to accept a call they would otherwise avoid, leading to harassment. Even more serious potential dangers exist. A pedophile could stalk a child by stealing a school phone number or the phone number of a friend or child. A sexual predator could use a doctor's office phone number to call their victim.

The problems with caller ID spoofing are very real. Let me give you a few examples.

There are cases where criminals using stolen credit card numbers call a service such as Western Union. They program the caller ID to appear to originate from the cardholder's home and use the credit card number to order cash transfers.

Seniors have been misled into believing they missed jury duty. It appeared the local courthouse was calling and victims were asked for Social Security numbers to prevent prosecution. The calls seemed legitimate because the telephone number of the local courthouse showed up on caller ID.

In another example, a SWAT team surrounded a building after it appeared a call came from within stating that a woman was being held hostage when, in fact, the call was coming from another location. The SWAT team showed up expecting to face an armed perpetrator. Luckily, no one was hurt in this one instance, but one can easily imagine what could have happened if an unsuspecting bystander happened to be at that location; a series of misunderstandings could have ended up in tragedy. Unfortunately, this process called ``swatting'' has occurred dozens of times.

And just this month, there have been two serious cases of caller ID fraud in the news. In Columbia, Maryland, a teenager was arrested for making terrorist phone calls to his former school, calling in a bomb scare and telling school officials there was a student on campus with a gun. The teen used spoofing to make the phone number appear to be coming from Texas. Fortunately, the police were able to subpoena the phone records and arrest the teen.

In Brooklyn, New York, a woman used caller ID fraud to exact revenge on her husband and his pregnant girlfriend's newborn baby. She illegally obtained a prescription that would induce labor early and called the girlfriend, using spoofing, to make it appear that her obstetrician was calling. The woman, thinking she was under doctor's orders, took the medication and the baby was delivered 2 months premature. Police were able to track down the woman when she tried to deliver a poisonous mixture to the hospital disguised as milk, allegedly intending to kill the baby. The police arrested the woman, avoiding a devastating, tragic, and potentially fatal outcome that originated by using caller ID fraud. This could have been avoided if the caller had not used a fraudulent caller ID or if the police could have tracked down the perpetrator sooner.

This bill will make the act of caller ID fraud a felony, and criminals could see fines of up to $250,000 and jail time up to 5 years if convicted of using caller ID fraud in perpetrating another crime.

I urge all my colleagues to pass this PHONE Act, H.R. 1110, because criminals must know they cannot use this technology loophole to escape the law and cause further harm to our citizens.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 914, 915, 916, 917, and 918 I was unavoidably detained.

Had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 914; ``yea'' on rollcall No. 915; ``yea'' on rollcall No. 916; ``yea'' on rollcall No. 917; and ``aye'' on rollcall No. 918.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 896, 897, and 898 I was unavoidably detained.

Had I been present I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 896; ``nay'' on rollcall No. 897; and ``nay'' on rollcall No. 898.