Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

And I would also like to thank Chairman Miller and Ranking Member McKeon for assistance in putting a very important part into this bill.

Universities have no trouble finding parents when it comes time to ask for the tuition check. And, sadly, schools can find parents when tragedies occur, such as Virginia Tech, when it comes time to call a parent to give them bad news on what happened to their student. But one of the greatest fears parents have is their students' safety while they are at the university or college. And a while ago, when a gunman killed 32 people and wounded others, it was just one of the tragedies that occurs on campus. There are many other stories as well.

In my district in Pennsylvania, Charles and Debi Mahoney lost their son, Chuck, to suicide. And as he suffered from depression, his fraternity brothers, his ex-girlfriend, and college therapist, et cetera, all knew he was in danger and warned the college. But a legal barrier under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, known as FERPA, prevented the school from notifying Chuck's parents, who could have gotten him the help he needed.

Unfortunately, Chuck's story is not unusual. Each day an average of three college students commit suicide. While in college, 11 percent of men and 9 percent of women consider suicide. While they may not all act on their thoughts, we need to ensure schools are able to contact parents to get them the help they need not only for the safety of the child but also of others on campus.

Parents may be in the best position to help students suffering from significant mental illness by providing emotional support, medical history, coordinating care with various mental health and medical professionals, and long-term follow-up. Parents will be around long after the school is gone.

Today we are breaking down the legal barrier preventing schools from communicating with parents. Section 865 of the bill before us today is modeled after the Mental Health Security for America's Families in Education Act, H.R. 2220, which I authored. It will prevent future campus tragedies by requiring the Secretary of Education to clarify FERPA so schools can contact parents when a student is at risk of suicide, homicide, or physical assault. It will also protect schools acting in good faith from liability.

This is a good bill that will make college campuses safer. It will give families peace of mind.

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

We're gathered here today to debate or support H.R. 4848, a bill which extends that which Congress has passed before, and that was an important bill for its time. It's an important bill to extend for, in doing so, we acknowledge the innate value of helping those suffering from mental illness. We acknowledge in Congress that for those who suffer these afflictions, they may be relieved of that suffering through receiving necessary treatment.

In compassion, we as a body extend our hand in support of those who suffer the pains of mental illness. We acknowledge that their illnesses are real, and that the appropriate treatments give them hope to slough off the yoke of their illness and again become a fully productive member of our Nation, our workplace and our family.

The significance of this act may be overshadowed by other events of the day, but it is essential that we not fail to appreciate the value of this moment, not only in terms of what this bill does but what it does not do and, moreover, why we need to enact this law at all.

First to the reasons for this bill. As John Adams said, ``Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.''

He made that comment not because our Constitution is a vehicle to support any particular religion; rather, he noted the inherent inadequacies of any body of laws, and that they cannot replace the moral light that should guide us when no law has yet been writ to define that path.

Indeed, we cannot legislate common sense, we cannot mandate morality, and we cannot litigate compassion. We can, however, establish laws to define the limits of what can be tolerated. And where the laws do not apply, we hope that the goodness and faith that guides our hearts is sufficient to drive us to do the right thing.

Unfortunately, when it comes to dealing with mental illness, our society, our culture and our government has failed to do the right thing. We have spent billions, hundreds of billions, I dare say, over the years to help those with mental illness, but we have remained short-sighted at best, or blind at worst as to what we truly must do.

It is my wish that people would be personally guided by their own sense of justice and compassion to do the right thing in the treatment of mental illness. Instead, we remain willfully and woefully ignorant to the causes, the diagnoses, and the treatment of mental illness. We have denied its very existence, perhaps wasting our hope in the hope it would go away. We have instead tried to wish away its effects. We have minimized the impact, trivialized the causes, and criticized the patients. We have used words to make mental illness the butt of cruel jokes. We have used words like ``crazy'' or ``retarded'' or ``idiot,'' as if attaching a derogatory label would free us from the responsibility for helping or treating those with these illnesses.

I ask you: Would we use such disparaging remarks to describe persons with cancer, with diabetes, with heart disease? Could demeaning words make any of those diseases disappear or less painful? Can derisive words motivate someone to seek help? No, instead they drive the person further into the shadows to deny their own illness, to avoid treatment and not even help themselves.

In many ways, we have not advanced very far beyond the days of the Salem witch trials when those with mental illness were ignorantly tried as criminals, sentenced to death, or cruelly treated with torture.

Think this is not true today? Well, think again. Our prisons are filled with persons who suffer from mental illness. Our courts are packed with victims of child abuse or sex abuse. Our churches are filled with those who are praying to be relieved of the terrible strains befalling them. Families break up. Jobs are lost. Children fail in school and lives are lost from untreated mental illness. And yet we continue to deny it is there and place barriers between the patient and the cure.

In my many years of practicing psychology, I have never, never met a patient who was cured by denial. But denial is the common treatment for so many when it comes to acknowledging or treating mental illness.

Listen, you cannot whisper it away, for even in the silence, even in the darkness, mental illness cries out for help.

One in five Americans will suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. One in 10 young people suffer from mental illness severe enough to cause some form of impairment.

Untreated drug and alcohol addictions cost Americans $400 billion each year. A Rand study estimated that depression alone cost employers $51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost productivity.

Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the United States. More years of life are lost to suicide than any other single cause except heart disease and cancer.

Thirty thousand Americans commit suicide annually, and half a million attempt it. Among college students, three die each day from suicide.

The Federal Government estimates that about 12\1/2\ million people have alcohol problems. It costs businesses $134 billion a year in lost productivity.

Does treatment work to help people with mental illness? Yes, it does. Studies of depression in the workplace have shown thousands of dollars of savings per employee when they receive treatment.

We note that when 80 percent of health care costs are used to treat chronic illness, that the risk for depression doubles among those who are chronically ill and not receiving treatment. The cost doubles as well.

The combination of appropriate medication and treatments have been very effective in treating anxiety, depression, bipolar illness and behavior disorders. But when health plans do not pay for appropriate professional care, where does the treatment come from?

Seventy-five percent of psychiatric medications are prescribed by non-psychiatrists. Now look at that in the context of other illnesses. Would we tolerate it if 75 percent of insurance plans said that most babies would be delivered by people with minimal training? How about requiring that brain surgery is done by those who only had a few weeks of training in medical school. Would we accept that? We would not.

This bill extends what we have done before. It helps in a small but important way. But it does not move us to where we need to be. Perhaps the lesson here is that there are many things we need to do for ourselves, many things we need to do to reach out to others and help. But it does not cure the barriers. It does not identify which diagnoses need to be treated. We will need to do more. Eventually we as a Nation need to come to terms with what needs to be done. The cost savings of providing the right treatment are huge. The costs of continuing to provide the wrong care, or denying care, are massive.

As Benjamin Franklin said, ``By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.''

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the compassion and passion of my friend from Rhode Island who has been such a leader in mental health parity.

I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), another great leader whose heart goes out to those in need of mental health issues.

Madam Speaker, I am just inquiring how much time we have remaining.

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

Madam Speaker, one of the important points that we need to recognize as we address these issues of mental health and mental illness today are the causes. For so often, as I described earlier, when people are thinking about or talking about mental illness, we oftentimes do not understand that it really

is a problem of brain functioning. It's written off too often as the worried well of people complaining or malingering, when really we need to understand the following.

When we're talking about problems with heart disease, it's easy to look upon those problems, to look at X-rays and other tests and MRIs and see if the function of the heart is appropriate, if the valves are working, if the arteries and veins are blocked or free.

When we look at other illnesses throughout the body, there are so many tests which we have grown accustomed to, MRIs, CT scans, EKGs, et cetera. And we look at those things and we're able to see that something is wrong based upon the results of those tests.

One of the problems with mental illness, leading to the prejudices about mental illness, is that there are no tests like that. One cannot take an X-ray of the brain and say that the person has depression or anxiety disorder or bipolar illness. There have been multiple studies looking at patterns that may show up on some tests. But my point is this: Just because we cannot see it on a medical test like that does not mean it does not exist.

Back in the 1800s, Louis Pasteur described the microbes that finally led us to understand about germs and diseases. Before that, no one had any tests to look at that. It did not mean they didn't exist. That merely meant that we did not know that they were there. But it was a full century later before we found that one could treat diseases with antibiotics, and we're still learning more about it.

So, too, it is important we understand that so often when discussing these issues of mental illness treatment, people raise the question that you cannot really test for it. Now, those are areas that science and research are still needed to determine what we can do, but it does not mean they don't exist just because we cannot find those.

Instead, what we rely on is the comments made by persons themselves or watching the behavior of persons because, indeed, those are the indicators that tell us something is wrong with the function of the human brain. It is a neurological problem. It is a neurobehavioral exhibition of those problems. It is those problems that we have to understand that sometimes are treated with medication and sometimes are treated with counseling and sometimes both, but we have to make sure we understand that we cannot write these off with treatments just by ignoring them or just saying that someone else without treatment because an insurance plan will cover that is enough.

Many times cardiologists will tell us that they recognize when they give someone a diagnosis that it's terminal or severe, that many of those patients will themselves exhibit symptoms of depression, so they automatically write a prescription for an anti- depressant drug. That's not enough.

The comments I made before about how, when a person has a chronic illness, their health care costs can double if they have untreated depression, that alone should wake us up to understand that we need to be treating mental illness, not ignoring it. That alone should wake up employers to understand that improved productivity and lowered health care costs should be enough to motivate us to do that. That alone should be information that the Congressional Budget Office, who scores these bills, should tell us that there are scores that are important in terms of savings. Unfortunately, they don't tell us scores for prevention. And so it goes on.

These are things we need to be continuing to do, and that's why we will continue to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, many important things have been said by several Members, and passionately, on this bill. What we also have to remember, as we wrap this up, is somewhere in America there are people who are suffering in silence, there are children who are facing abuse, angry spouses who are attacking one another, anxious mothers struggling to care for their children, and, of course, throughout the workplace, as has been so carefully documented here, so many problems. It is important that we not only pass this bill strongly but also continue to work together.

I commend my colleague, Chairman Pallone, and the work that he does and to continue the work that he does in leading this. Myself and many Members from our side of the aisle continue to stand ready to make sure we work out any issues with regard to expanding issues of mental health parity. We know that all of us care deeply about those in need and all of us remain committed to helping those in need from our side of the aisle.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, while Congress and the President are talking about an economic stimulus package, remember that the high costs of energy are costing us our economy.

Oil and gas prices continue to climb. Our President asked Saudi leaders to produce more oil to bring prices down. Well, something is wrong here. OPEC controls the price, OPEC funds the process, and we end up funding both sides of the war on terror.

The trade imbalance grew in November to record levels, primarily from the high cost of imported oil. But Congress votes to block drilling for U.S. oil on the Atlantic Coast, the Gulf Coast, the Pacific Coast, the Western States and Alaska. Something is wrong here. We have hundreds of years of American coal to make electricity. We should fund research to clean up the coal, not ignore it.

In the meantime, energy costs go up, food costs go up, manufacturing jobs go down, the economy goes down. Something is wrong here. If we are serious about helping the economy, let's bring down the cost of energy. The best economic stimulus package is a job.

Madam Speaker, congratulations to Coach Ray Reitz and the Jeannette Jayhawks football team, who are the Class AA football champions, beating every team they played this year by more than 20 points. Senior quarterback Terrell Pryor, who is also USA Today's Offensive Player of the Year, scored five of the seven touchdowns in their 49-21 win. He is the first player in State history to eclipse both 4,000 yards rushing and 4,000 yards passing.

But Jeannette is champions in the classroom as well, with McKee Elementary being a Blue Ribbon school, and all their schools receiving the Keystone Achievement Recognition this year, and the school district getting the bronze medal. Great accomplishment for a small school district.

Congrats to the Jayhawks for excellence in the classroom and on the field.

I thank my distinguished ranking member.

In 2007, there have been 61 toy recalls, which translates to about 25 million toys. This number is up significantly from the 40 recalls of 5 million toys we had last year. And this is what we caught.

This bill will help protect consumers. The real culprits remain, however, the trading partners who refuse to abide by international standards, countries like China and others who have lax oversight, who happen to be the leading countries that are involved with these appalling rates. That's why this bill is so important, because it is up to us to set sound and safe standards and enforce them.

In addition, I am pleased the committee will be looking at further research to look at the issue of pet toys, pet toys that may themselves have lead and other toxic metals that are unregulated. Not only is this a concern in exposure for the family pet, but also because many of these toys themselves are inviting to children. Young children themselves may pick them up, put them in their mouth, and get these toxic substances on their hands.

As people do their shopping this holiday season, perhaps what we should be doing as a Nation, before this bill is signed by the President and goes into effect, instead of judging products by cheap prices, we should all be looking for quality and safety that comes from buying American products.

With that, I thank the committee.

Madam Speaker, over the last several months, and certainly over the last 2 weeks, Congress has had a number of accomplishments. Today we did a number of things that were important such as funding for our troops. We also improved toy safety. But there have been a number of other opportunities which, unfortunately, with the schedule that we missed, that we could have done and should have done and I hope next year we will do. And that is while we are looking at issues to improve health care and reduce health care costs, when we talk about Medicare or Medicaid or SCHIP, one of the things we should have done was really work to lower costs and save money and save lives.

We hear both sides of the aisle these days talking about the costs of everything: The national debt in the trillions, earmarks need to be reduced, health care is too expensive. But too often we keep talking about these problems or saying perhaps Congress can find a way to pay for these things. But shouldn't we look at how to fix the problem and not just finance it?

We had a solution in front of us that could have saved $50 billion in health care costs. But it didn't happen.

Earlier this year I introduced H.R. 1174, the Healthy Hospitals Act, which received strong bipartisan support. This legislation is a simple solution to lower costs associated with hospital- and health care- acquired infections.

The implementation of this bill is not expensive; it only requires hospitals to publicly disclose their hospital-acquired infection rates and follow simple cleanliness techniques that we already expect our caretakers to follow, things you assume that hospitals and clinics are doing, but, unfortunately, they are not always doing that: washing their hands, wearing gloves, sterilizing equipment before and after uses, testing patients for other diseases prior to treatment or admission to hospitals, giving antibiotics before and after surgery. These aren't

revolutionary ideas; they're just ideas that too often are not followed.

Well, how much of a difference does it really make letting the public know about hospital-acquired infection rates of individual hospitals? In my home State of Pennsylvania, to give a great example of what hospitals can do when they're held accountable for these infections, many hospitals, where they are now required by law to publicly post on the Internet their infection rates, have seen their rates drop to zero or near zero. Incredible, and a good story.

According to the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, the average charge of hospitalization in 2005 for a patient who became infected with a hospital-acquired infection was over $185,000, but the average charge for a patient without infection was $31,000. That's $31,000 versus $185,000, a difference of over $150,000 per patient. Doesn't that tell us what we can be doing to save money and save lives? Now, multiply that statistic by 49 other States and we see what happens. We need to seek areas where we can reduce costs.

Let me point out the grim statistics of this year as of today. This year's toll of health care acquired infections, such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections, or what's been called the ``super bug of methicillin-resistant infections,'' as of today, 1,934,246 cases, 87,010 deaths, and over $48 billion spent on infections people acquired when they go to the hospital or go to the doctor.

Twenty-two other States have taken some steps to reduce these, and we need to make sure we make this a universal system of recording.

I hope that we work this next year to emphasize patient choice, patient quality, and patient safety, and pass H.R. 1174.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the career of John Edward ``Hutch'' Hutchinson. Hutch has served as the Greensburg Fire Chief in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for the past 55 years.

The position of fire chief in Greensburg is an elected office. Since 1952, the residents of the community have resoundingly affirmed they appreciate Hutch's dedication to the job by reelecting him.

Since taking office, Hutch has made countless improvements to the department. His firefighters are all volunteers, highly trained and specialized. Hutch has developed a dive team, a swift water rescue, large foam and vent operations, a bloodhound team, and an air rescue team.

In 1997, the Greensburg Fire Department First Responders were prepared to handle a large community disaster, including attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. Few in 1997 could have seen the value in this forward-thinking for a volunteer department, yet it is essential knowledge for all firefighters today.

Under Hutch's leadership, the Greensburg Fire Department has assisted with natural disaster response nationwide. From helping rebuild a community playground in Alabama to clearing trees off roads in South Carolina, Hutch has turned the Greensburg Fire Department into a humanitarian outlet.

Hutch takes his job beyond the walls of the firehouse into the community. He established health and fitness centers for the community, firefighters, and City employees.

Hutch has developed burn prevention classes for the local elementary and middle schools. He has served on the local hospital board, the Greensburg YMCA Board, the aerobics center board, and the camp cadet board.

Though he's been in office for 55 years,

Hutch has no interest in slowing down. He calls himself ``a young kid''--and isn't that a wonderful attitude? Hutch refuses to let his age be a factor. He works out twice a day, 7 days a week, to ensure that he's not asking his firefighters to do anything he can't do himself.

It is my great honor to recognize the long career of John Edward ``Hutch'' Hutchinson, a man who has given immeasurable amounts to the city of Greensburg, to Pennsylvania, and to our nation during his five and a half decades of service as fire chief.

Madam Speaker, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a town in my congressional district, is lucky to have had their fire chief for 55 years. John Edward Hutchinson, who prefers to be known just as Hutch, first took office in 1952, and he has no intention of slowing down. Were he standing with me, he would say that he simply wants to help.

And help he has. From developing training programs and specialized teams in his department to establishing burn classes in local schools, Hutch has put in countless hours of service to the community.

But it's not just Southwestern Pennsylvania that has benefited from Hutch's time as fire chief. Hutch has organized his teams to assist the victims of natural disasters throughout the country from hurricanes to floods.

Hutch always shies from attention, but he deserves our recognition for 55 years of tireless service to the community.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 1141, H.R. 2085, McGee Creek Project Pipeline and Associated Facilities Conveyance Act, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes''.

Mr. Speaker, defective, unsafe products, toys with poisonous lead paint, American jobs going overseas lured by cheap labor and unfair trade practices, these issues concern every American. But all of us can take a stand this holiday season.

One way is that instead of judging products by cheap prices, look for quality and safety that comes with American products. This holiday season shoppers will be buying gifts made from all over the world, but let's make an extra effort to look for American products.

This Christmas check the label for ``Made in the USA'' and support jobs for hardworking Americans and American quality. ``Made in the USA'' may be the best gift ever this Christmas.

Mr. Speaker, over the next 40 years, electricity demand in the United States will double. We have to conserve. We have to make strides in efficiency and renewable energy, but we can't depend on renewable power alone. It would take 3,000 huge windmills or 11 square miles of solar collectors to equal the power output of one modern coal plant.

Even if we quadrupled the share of renewable power by 2050, we will still need coal for half of our electricity. To meet America's future energy needs, we will probably need to build 800 new coal plants over the next 40 years: 400 to replace the old, inefficient plants and 400 to meet the growth and demand. This translates to one coal plant every 2 to 3 weeks, even if we start in 2010.

Solving the problem will require clean coal technologies with zero emissions, including greenhouse gases. Let's solve American's energy problems by cleaning up America's abundant energy resources. This bill, however, will tax America's abundant supplies of coal, and that just doesn't make sense.

I thank the gentleman for yielding to me on this critically important issue about energy. As American families look into the next few months about how they are going to be paying their gas bills as the cold winter sets upon us, as natural gas prices go up, of how they will be paying their automobile costs as gasoline prices go up, as we look at such things as jobs such as chemical industry as was just outlined by my friend from New Mexico, it is extremely important that as Congress looks at facing an energy bill this week that we note not only what is in there but what we expect is not in the bill. And unless we take on a comprehensive energy policy in America, America will be facing more brownouts, more times when the power is not there. And in a world where other countries, such as China, are opening up a new coal-fired power plant every couple of weeks without the scrubbers and environmental controls we have on, they will be able to undercut us even further with our costs of manufacturing. Unless Congress takes sizable action to back up energy legislation that looks to the big picture of diversifying our energy production and help to lower costs for consumers, our problems will only multiply.

Now, I represent a district in Pennsylvania coal country, directly above the Pittsburgh coal seam. It extends throughout western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. Some geologists tell me that the Pittsburgh coal seam has been the most valuable mineral deposit in the world. It was responsible for the growth of the American steel industry, glass, chemical industry, it has some 50,000 jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania dependent on the coal industry, railroads, barges, trucking, so many other industries involved. It allowed for the development of modern railroads, river navigation networks. It remains a valuable resource that will be able to serve us for many years to come, perhaps 250 more years, long after the Mideast is dry in its oil wells.

Closing the mines in Pennsylvania would be like closing the beaches in Florida or closing the harbors in New Orleans. The country can't afford to stop using coal, either. It is a valuable economic resource for our region as other resources available in other parts of the country. So we have to take advantage of every possible resource to meet our energy demands. The messages today are quite simple. We cannot achieve energy independence without coal. We cannot achieve energy security without coal. And our coal must be clean coal, not the other option of no coal at all.

Now, listen to these numbers. They are quite compelling. Over the next 40 years or so, the electricity demand in the United States will double. These are the demands of people in their homes. They are also the demands of increasing jobs in this country. We will conserve, and we will have make great strides in efficiency. But with the growth in the population and improving quality of life, it all dictates that electricity demands will still increase substantially.

Coal accounts for about 50 percent of our electricity, and nonhydro renewables like solar and wind account for about 2 percent. We have already built as much hydroelectric as possible, and it is doubtful that people will want to see more large super dams built around the country. But even if we triple the share of renewable electricity, we will still need coal for close to half of our electricity in 2050. This means we will still have approximately to double the available coal capacity by 2050 just to meet demand.

Right now there are about 400 coal plants in the United States. Many of them are old and inefficient, outdated. Most or all of them will need to be replaced over the next 40 years. So just to maintain our current level, we are going to need to build about 400 plants to replace those. And then to meet the new electrical demands over the next 40 years, we are going to have to build an additional 400. That is 800 new coal-fired power plants between now and 2050. This is twice as many plants as have been built since the start of the Industrial Revolution. This translates to about one coal plant every 2 to 3 weeks, even if we start in 2010, just to maintain the current capacity. It is a huge demand. And we can do that in a way that has clean coal technology, zero emissions, if we will choose to make the investments. MIT said about $8 billion or so will be needed to meet those investments in real dollars. That seems a lot cheaper than it took us back in the 1960s to put someone on the Moon. In the meantime, China is adding about one or two coal plants a week and they are going to continue. They put cheap power in the plants without scrubbers. In the U.S., renewable technologies such as solar and wind are expanding rapidly and will continue to do so. But they simply cannot match coal in terms of delivered power.

Here are some examples. This past August, power from West Virginia's largest wind farm was available only about 10 percent of the time that it was actually needed. That is, the wind doesn't blow consistently every day. At 10 percent availability and 3 megawatts capacity, about 3,000 windmills would be needed to equal the useful output of just one coal plant. To completely replace coal with wind, we would need to build 1.2 million windmills by 2050. This assumes the utilities will actually be allowed to build all the new miles of transmission lines they will need. And will people want all those wind towers up?

Another area, the largest solar panel array in the United States is under construction at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. It is going to cover 140 acres of desert with 70,000 solar panels, but will produce only about 2 percent of the output of a modern coal-fired power plant. At that rate, we would have to destroy 11 square miles of beautiful southwestern Pennsylvania forest or consume this much valuable land from our farmers just to avoid building one coal plant.

The truth is, we need to increase the supply of all energy, coal, natural gas, nuclear and renewables. We can't afford to ignore any of them unless we are willing to put up with a series of brownouts and blackouts during times when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow. So the key to solving this problem includes developing clean coal technologies with zero emissions and zero greenhouse gases.

Another option is to switch to natural gas, and what we are hearing in the energy bill is there will be more push for doing that, as was outlined by my friend from New Mexico. As natural gas prices continue to soar, that is more jobs out of America that use chemical plants and more families' gas bills going up. Natural gas provides about 19 percent of our current electricity demand, and its use will also have to double by 2050 to maintain its current market share. About 90 percent of the electric generating capacity installed since the year 2000 has been natural gas-based, and natural gas is about three times more expensive than coal per kilowatt of electricity generated. This has increased the demand for natural gas and raised the price of both gas and electricity. The increased use of natural gas for electricity combined with our policies that place off-limits much of our domestic gas resources has caused us to be become a gas-importing nation when we could be a gas-exporting nation.

Congress has repeatedly made vast areas of our coastlines off-limits, thus embargoing our own resources from ourselves, boycotting our own resources, and all the while countries like Cuba drill closer to our shore than we are allowed to.

We used to be self-sufficient in natural gas, but not anymore. Most of our imported gas still comes from Canada, but this is declining. Imports of liquid natural gas, or LNG, are increasing rapidly. Not only does this move us farther away from independence, but it is unsustainable because demand for liquefied natural gas throughout the world, especially in Europe, is also increasing rapidly. Chemical companies which use natural gas as their primary feedstock to make such chemicals and fertilizers and other products and other industries that depend heavily on natural gas are going to move their operations overseas where gas is cheaper. When natural gas costs in Middle East or Russia are $1 per unit or less compared to $6 to $12 at a fluctuating cost line in the United States, it is easy to see why the decisions are being made.

Already we have lost 3.2 million manufacturing jobs, almost 20 percent of the total since the year 2000. Chemical companies consistently say that natural gas costs are far more important than labor costs when making their decision to move overseas. Worse yet, if greenhouse gas legislation becomes reality in its current form, natural gas will become by default the fuel of choice for electric utilities. The trends we have already seen will only become worse. Prices will soar.

In the mix of which energy source is the cheapest, hydro is probably the cheapest, but as we said before, we doubt if people will want to build several more dams and dam up beautiful valleys across America. Next cheapest is nuclear power followed by coal, wind, natural gas and solar.

But let me briefly talk about nuclear. We need to decide whether nuclear power can pick up the required electricity supply. Nuclear plants currently provide about 19 percent of our electricity, about 30 percent in Pennsylvania. There are about 100 nuclear power plants in operation in the United States today, but we can't just keep relicensing them forever. They are also getting old and worn and will need to be replaced. By 2050, we will have to replace just about all of the existing nuclear fleet. They are long past their prime and will need to close. This means that by 2050, we will have to build about 200 new nuclear power plants. That is 100 replacements and 100 new to meet the expected demands of 2050. The trouble is we haven't built a single nuclear power plant in the last 30 years, given all the delays and costs associated with nuclear construction. It is going to be difficult, if not impossible, to build plants in the U.S. at the rate needed. That is about five per year, about one every 2\1/2\ months starting in 2010. Although the operating costs for nuclear plants are about the same or slightly cheaper than coal, the capital costs are much higher and the lead times for construction and permitting are much longer. The nuclear operating costs also do not include the long-term costs of nuclear waste disposal or storage.

As with natural gas, the enactment of greenhouse gas legislation in what we are understanding is the current form, without working to help the nuclear is going to increase the demand for nuclear power and place further strain on resources and increase costs. So there we are, two of our biggest resources for producing electricity, coal and nuclear, are areas that Congress has got to deal with seriously.

We have 250, perhaps 300 years' worth of coal in the ground. Scientists are working on ways of making sure we have zero emissions coal, zero greenhouse gases, massively reduce that. Right now I know in Pennsylvania about 40 percent of our coal-fired power plants have no scrubbers, or inadequate scrubbers. Unfortunately, the way new source review works is if a company says let's work to improve efficiency, let's put in new turbines or other things that improve efficiency by a few percent, at that point, the government comes in and says, no, we now have to review everything you do, and if you don't take care of everything with all the scrubbers, you can't do it at all. The companies say, well, we were

thinking of spending 20, or 50 or $150 million on some upgrades but we don't have four or $500 million to take care of this one plant. So they hold off. That is not cleaning the air. That is not taking care of our needs.

What we have to do is look at ways of promoting the new technology, helping private business make those investments in new technology, but above all, meet our current and our future needs by addressing the issues of America's abundant supplies of coal and expanding the use of nuclear power which is clean. It is one of those areas we have to deal with seriously.

I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for yielding me this time and his leadership on working in these areas which is so important for America's energy security.

In Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, a town in my congressional district, Allegheny Police Detective Lawrence Carpico saved the life of 16-year-old Sarah Deiuliis, a victim of a school acquaintance, on October 31, 2007. Sarah had been lured into the woods by someone she considered a friend. When the young man attacked her with a hammer, she fended off her attacker and ran luckily into the path of Detective Carpico who happened upon the couple while walking a dog. Detective Carpico, who was off duty at the time, acted decisively and ushered the girl to safety and called for the assistance of on-duty officers and medics. For his actions, he will be presented with the Mount Lebanon Police Department's Chief's Award.

Likewise, let's recognize Sarah, who displayed extraordinary courage in the face of extreme danger. She fought back against her attacker using intelligence and quick thinking. For this, she will be recognized with the Survivor Award.

It is a great honor to represent such courageous citizens and to present

their story in this Chamber, and I commend both for their actions.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 1100, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 1103, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''