Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman from Nebraska.

That line through Canada, less than 800 miles long, to add an additional almost 10,000 miles to go through the Panama Canal to Shanghai doesn't make economic sense. And let's keep in mind, Canada is our neighbor. They are our friend, our most consistent and reliable ally, and I trust the way they are going to be working on many things with us.

But I also trust the workers who will work on this pipeline, American workers from here in the United States, well-trained people who have gone through good training programs as apprentices and journeymen. Construction of this pipeline will generate about $20 billion in economic output, perhaps $13 billion in direct work on the pipeline itself.

Now, some estimates have said that for every $1 billion you spend on infrastructure, it yields about 35,000 jobs. That's some jobs that go for manufacturing, that's some jobs that go for the actual construction, and some jobs that go for all the supports that help those workers as well as the places that they will spend money-- steamfitters and welders who make $45 to $50 an hour, operating engineers, laborers who will earn between $23 and $31 an hour.

And, yes, this is a time we need to do this, not with more delays and more problems, but at a time when we need jobs.

Let's keep this in mind too: Construction of this pipeline with oil from Canada is going to make us less dependent on OPEC. Right now we send $129 billion a year to OPEC. That's $129 billion in foreign aid which we do not have to send to those countries there, $129 billion which we wouldn't have to be spending on countries that sometimes turn around and use U.S. dollars against our soldiers and then we end up fighting for both sides on the war on terror.

This is what we need to keep in mind: This is a jobs bill; this is a bill dealing with a friend; and this is a bill that makes a lot of sense, and we shouldn't put more delays and restrictions on this because we have to get off of our addiction to OPEC oil.

Thank you, Dr. Gingrey.

I want to talk for about 5 minutes here on an issue that you brought up, Dr. Gingrey, about the $575 billion from the Medicare program that also cuts $135 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, forcing over 7 million seniors out of their current Medicare plan unless they pay more.

I wanted to help point out that while the President and others are out there saying we're trying to cut Medicare and what it does, nothing could be further from the truth. What we're trying to do here is show how if Medicare is handled differently--not by IPAB or a board of bureaucrats, but by letting the plans work and letting doctors work, they can drive down cost by improving quality.

Let me explain what happened in the Medicare Advantage program that was gutted in the health care bill that was passed out of the House. Well, seniors are able to make choices right now--with Medicare, they can get Medicare part D drug coverage and supplemental Medigap policies with the Medicare Advantage plan. What the Medicare Advantage plan does is allows some management of diseases that are chronic illnesses, which is very different from the current fee-for-service where somebody would get paid based upon the number of procedures they do. Under the regular Medicare fee-for-service plan, hospital readmission rates--that's 30 days post-discharge for the country--in 2007 was over 18 percent, but the average readmission rate across Medicare Advantage was 13.5 percent. Why? Because it allowed physicians and nurses to talk to the patient, to follow the patient, to work with the disease, to make sure whatever complication they had--an infection or heart disease or lung disease or an orthopedic problem--to pay that physician and staff to work for them.

Here is another interesting thing: The Medicare fee-for-service rate of preventable emergency department visits was 15.5 visits per 100 beneficiary months in 2007. But the average rate across Medicare Advantage plans and study was two visits per 100 beneficiary months--86 percent lower than Medicare's national average.

Here's another point: Actual cost for the drug plan we know, Medicare part D, comes out 40 percent under budget because insurers are forced to compete with each other. Now imagine this: Seniors can choose Medicare supplemental plans, and those plans compete for seniors' coverage. The drug plans compete for seniors' coverage. What happens if seniors are allowed to also choose their main Medicare plan? Well, listen to this additional issue about drugs: The Intercontinental Marketing Services, IMS--I should say this comes from the Deloitte & Touche Web site--the Institute for Healthcare Informatics study concluded: The average cost for drugs frequently used by Medicare prescription drug part D beneficiaries declined since the implementation of the program in 2006. Between January, 2006, and December, 2010, for the top ten therapeutic classes, part D drugs decreased by over one-third, from $1.50 to $1. The study projected that costs will continue to decline by 57 percent from 2006 to 2015, reaching 65 cents by the end of 2015. That's a massive decline. Why? Because plans are competing against each other. Plans innovate, they try and do things better and smarter, with better quality, and they ask seniors to choose their plan. Seniors then, by signing their name, can choose a plan that works for them.

Why not allow seniors to have Medicare choice with their major Medicare plan? Why not allow seniors to have Medicare Advantage instead of gutting the program? This is the very thing we're saying; by improving efficiencies and qualities within the program, a lot of cost can be reduced. It can't be reduced, however, by the status quo. As you pointed out, Dr. Gingrey, and my colleagues, keeping the status quo means there won't be Medicare. There will be Medicare for those currently on it. It won't be there for their children and certainly not for their grandchildren. We want to save Medicare, but you can't save it by the continued way it's being done now.

Quite frankly, the system that's being done out there now to frighten seniors, to say that if we don't simply pass this debt limit increase without strings attached, that seniors won't have Social Security or Medicare, this is such a falsehood. And it's a serious problem in two ways: One, it's serious because it's telling a falsehood to seniors; and two, it looks down upon seniors thinking that they're susceptible, not smart enough to figure out that this is false.

It is so important, and we want the American public to understand: We are trying to save Medicare because we do want it to be there for the future, but it means making it more efficient. And what's wrong with letting doctors be the ones who call the shots on improving care?

Offered By: Mr. Murphy of Pennsylvania

Amendment No. 27: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Madam Speaker, while deliberations continue on dealing with our $14.3 trillion debt and while deliberations continue on raising the debt ceiling, Americans are very concerned about where we're going.

June unemployment at 9.2 percent and a growth of only 18,000 jobs translates into a meager 360 jobs per State. Now, when you look at how many high school students graduated in June, that's 3.7 million. Colleges graduated 1.7 million. Those 360 jobs barely equal the size of a typical large American high school graduating class, and certainly barely covers students at one typical college per State with a typical major. No wonder Americans are worried about our economy when so many youth are entering the job market only to find there are no jobs.

So while our leaders on both sides of the aisle are deliberating-- and, unfortunately, too much of this immediately becomes a battle of words--let's keep in mind that one way to balance America's budget, one very important way to deal with America's debt, is to grow jobs. For each 1 percent decline in unemployment, it's $90 billion per year in Federal revenue. That's a decrease in unemployment compensation. That's an increase in Federal revenues. That's 1.5 million jobs for every 1 percent decline in unemployment.

Let me quote our colleague from across the building here, Senator Rubio, who said: This is not about increasing taxes; it's about increasing taxpayers. And this could do it.

Now, the cost per job in the failed stimulus bill was at least $278,000 based upon $660 billion spent. Of course, that number per job increases dramatically and rapidly if you include the interest paid on that stimulus bill, which takes us over the $1 trillion mark. That sort of approach is not going to work, and if we open our eyes, we can all honestly admit that. Increasing unemployment is not going to decrease the Federal debt or deficit. We have to grow our way out of this.

Now, a bill that I've introduced and that several colleagues in a bipartisan way have signed onto as cosponsors--and I ask my colleagues to join on as cosponsors--is H.R. 1861. This bill would allow us to say, instead of sending $129 billion a year to OPEC for foreign aid, to buy their oil, we drill for and we use our own. It would yield somewhere between $2.2 trillion and $3.7 trillion over a 30-year period in Federal revenues, not from raising taxes, but from using the standard royalties and lease agreements that come from this. It starts out as a crawl and increases to a walk and then into a run as this money comes through.

What we do in this bill is about growth in America. It isn't just talking about it. It's putting our money where our jobs are because it leads to 1.2 million jobs annually based upon estimates of the American Energy Alliance. That's jobs making steel, making steel pipes, wire, software, technology. It's jobs for the roughnecks. It's the steelworkers, the electricians and the laborers who work on these rigs. It's jobs for those who take this oil and convert it into gasoline, and it's jobs for those who have to put together all the infrastructure to make that happen.

Beyond that, what we do is we dedicate these funds into the infrastructure which America needs. According to the American Society for Civil Engineers, we need over $2 trillion to deal with our current infrastructure needs. Many

States find that 25 percent of their roads and bridges are structurally deficient, which is unsafe; but for every $1 billion we spend on our infrastructure, it yields 38,000 jobs. Those jobs are for operating engineers and laborers and carpenters or electricians and engineers and for those who make concrete and steel and all the things that go with what we need for our roads, our highways, our bridges, our locks, our dams, our water and sewer systems.

Let's grow our way back to prosperity. Let's stop saying we're going to send money to OPEC and watch them grow. Let's stop just pointing fingers and blaming and complaining about China. We have the tools here in America to make this happen. So, while our leaders are over at the White House, arguing about how to take care of the debt, let's not forget that, overall, Americans are saying that one way to grow out of this debt is to grow more jobs, to grow more taxpayers, not just to find ways of taxing them. We can do this.

Again, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 1861, where we can do this. Let's not talk about jobs, and let's not complain about it. Americans know when the wool is being pulled over their eyes, and Americans know when they're working. Let's truly help them out and get jobs back on the table.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 478, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, there are massive inefficiencies in Medicare that are causing the program to go bankrupt. One example is infusion therapy, or the intravenous delivery of medication administered to patients suffering from cancer or serious infection for which they cannot just take a pill. But it requires specialized equipment and supervision and often lasts several hours a day over a period of several weeks. It's very expensive for patients to get this care in a hospital.

Although private plans have been covering home infusion therapy for decades, Medicare still forces people to go to a hospital, where they also have increased risk for infection by going there, and it costs thousands of dollars for delivery, as opposed to hundreds of dollars when they get it at home.

That's why today, Representative Eliot Engel and I are reintroducing the Medicare Home Infusion Therapy Coverage Act, so patients can receive the same treatment in the comfort and convenience of their home at a lower cost. Our bill saves taxpayers money, about $6 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Speaker, our proof is that this is one more way we can find significant savings in Medicare, or simply wait for the program to go bankrupt. And I urge all of my colleagues to support our bill to give patients better quality and better care at lower costs.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from Alabama about some concerns about the Chemical Facilities Antiterrorism Standards, known as CFATS.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce has voted by more than two- thirds to favorably report to the House a bill to extend authorization for CFATS through fiscal year 2017. Our bill also contains authorizations for appropriations for the full 7 years, and that provision conforms to the majority leader's CutGo protocols. I recognize the need to fund the CFATS program for the next fiscal year, but I'm hoping that the gentleman will provide me with an indication of his support for the authorizing committee to get its job done on this matter.

I thank the chairman for his support.

Mr. Speaker, a gallon of gas is over $4, heading to $5. The average family spends $2,200 more on gas than they did 2 years ago. Fourteen million Americans are out of work and wondering how they are going to put food on the table. America's infrastructure is crumbling. A quarter of our bridges are structurally deficient.

The American Society of Civil Engineers says all our infrastructure needs are going to cost over $2 trillion for roads, bridges, water, sewer systems, airports, locks and dams. Where will we find the money?

Well, we send $100 billion each day to foreign nations for oil. OPEC exerts control over world oil prices and wants it to be $200 per barrel. We are 60 percent dependent on foreign oil, and climbing. As a country, we waste 20 to 40 percent of our energy in inefficient buildings and factories.

Mr. Speaker, we want clean air and water. We want to see our highways and bridges fixed. We want clean power plants, lower energy prices, and don't pollute our environment. But where will the money come from?

Today, my colleagues and I on the Energy Working Group are introducing the Infrastructure, Jobs, and Energy Independence Act, a bipartisan bill that for the first time brings forward a comprehensive plan to rebuild America, take back our energy future, and create millions of jobs. We can become energy independent, we can create these jobs, and we can do it all without raising taxes or adding to the national debt.

How? Well, America has enough offshore reserves to replace all oil imports from Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for the next 80 years and enough clean natural gas to power industry for the next 63 years. Yet the drilling moratorium means that instead of using our own resources to grow jobs, we are supporting the economies of unstable regimes that want to do us harm.

Our plan opens the door to the safe, responsible expansion of energy production off our coasts, where there is $8 trillion worth of economic output in oil and gas reserves offshore. Over 20 years, that translates to between $2.5 trillion and $3.7 trillion in new Federal revenues, from lease rights and royalties, without raising taxes.

That is $440 billion for infrastructure of our roads and bridges; $330 billion that we will invest in renewable energy sources and buildings and transportation; $220 billion for clean coal technology; $88 billion for environmental restoration to clean up our lakes, bays, rivers and streams; $66 billion in energy conservation; $110 billion for carbon-free technology and nuclear energy development; $66 billion to rebuild our water and sewer systems in small towns and big cities all across America; $44 billion for LIHEAP; and $660 billion for States that are producing; and also several hundred billion to pay down the national debt.

Mr. Speaker, there is a plan for jobs and energy in America, and this is the plan that estimates are will create about 1 million jobs each year, new jobs in building highways and bridges, new jobs in developing our energy resources. And we can do it all.

I ask my colleagues to support the Infrastructure, Jobs, and Energy Independence Act. Let's rebuild America, let's create jobs without raising taxes, let's stop borrowing from foreign nations, let's pay down our national debt, let's stop buying from OPEC, and let's use our rules and our laws to make sure we do all of this in a way that is environmentally sound so we can create jobs and have energy independence for this and the next generation.

Okay. Here we go.

When we discussed the cap-and-trade bill, it worked sort of like the Seinfeld show. George Costanza comes to Jerry and says, ``You know what we should do with this show, what it should be about?'' Jerry says, ``What?'' George says, ``It's about nothing.''

Here's how cap-and-trade works: Factory A has something coming out of its smokestack; Factory B doesn't. So Factory B sells their ``nothing'' to Factory A. Factory A adds that cost to the cost of their products. Sooner or later, they raise costs of electricity, raise costs of their products. They can't make it in America any more.

America figured this out long ago, and they said we're going to see energy prices go up, we're going to see jobs and income go down. We don't want it to work this way. We want clean air, clean land, and clean water. But the way these things are working is not what's going to make it happen.

So the American people say don't export our jobs, don't export our factories, don't export our manufacturing and then end up importing emissions from other countries. It's a global problem. It's something we have to deal with. But having the EPA do this without working through Congress isn't the way to make this happen.

Let's come up with a real solution here but not continue on down this road of exporting our jobs to other countries.

I thank you for yielding, Dr. Gingrey.

You know, all of us in the Doctors Caucus are people who have treated patients, and we know full well the value of quality health care. We also know what happens when bureaucracy gets

between the patient and the doctor, and you find yourself spending as much time worried about paperwork and forms and what the government is going to do than sometimes your dealing with your patient. That's not good health care. And that certainly isn't good health care reform.

All of us who are health care professionals know that the treatment should not be more harmful than the illness itself. And what happens with the health care bill that was passed, when you look at some of the parts of this and realize what it does to the patient, to taxes, to employers, to hospitals, to community health centers, to the cost of drugs, you have to conclude that we did not fix the problem; we financed the problem and it is growing and growing. And that's not the right direction.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

This bill, this act, actually creates about 1,900-plus new duties and responsibilities for the Secretary of Health. It has a hundred or more boards, panels, and commissions of people that we don't yet know who they are to write regulations that we don't yet know what they are.

We also know that despite the words about the goal, the actual means to get there and what happens isn't what is purported to be doing.

Let's look at, for example, we keep hearing about 35 million Americans will be covered. And yet, we also hear from various consulting firms that it won't be 9 million Americans that will lose their health insurance, it may be tens of millions of people who will lose their private insurance. So covering 35 million but perhaps the same or double that losing their insurance doesn't get us to where we need to be.

We also heard that health care costs were going to go down. I had someone from HHS from Philadelphia come to my office and they told me with a smile that wasn't it great that health care costs were only going up 2 or 3 percent. I asked this person if they bothered to talk to some of the employers in the State of Pennsylvania, because a lot of them told me their health care costs are going up 20 and 30 and 40 percent. I asked if they'd talked to some of the families whose children were covered on plans before that exclusively cover children to find out that those plans were not going to cover children any more because of the way the government decided to design those.

Our goal should be to treat. Our goal should be to help. Our goal should not be to stop at just rhetoric and say, ``We have good intentions, and therefore we have good outcomes.'' But good intentions don't make good outcomes.

Where we could be spending money is on some real reforms. One of the issues that we've been united on has been to help community health centers. One community health center in Pittsburgh that I visited with, the Squirrel Hill Health Center, treats about 700,000 individuals through more than 2.3 million visits annually. These community health centers in Pennsylvania, there are 45 in 67 counties--60 percent urban and 40 percent rural. Their patient base is 68 percent Medicaid, uninsured, and 93 percent of patients of incomes at or below the 200 percent of the Federal poverty level.

What is interesting is how much lower in costs those clinics throughout Pennsylvania, quite frankly throughout the Nation, could provide high-quality health care.

But what we've created is a couple of burdens. I found it interesting as part of the health care bill that one of the things we passed was an amendment that Congressman Gene Green, a Democrat from Texas, and I had authored to allow doctors to volunteer at community health centers. If Dr. Gingrey wanted to go to a community health center and volunteer, and if I wanted to and any of the other ones, we couldn't do it. And the reason being that those community health centers say, ``We can't afford to have you volunteer.'' Because in order to volunteer, they'd have to pay the medical malpractice costs instead of having them in the Federal Torts Claims Act--employees of those clinics can do that--and that adds to their costs. In the meantime, those clinics are short 10, 15, 20 percent of what they need in providers.

They are a tried and true method of bringing people together, people from a wide range of disciplines: OBGYNs, family practitioners, dentists, podiatrists, social workers, psychologists, to work. That's one of the many things we could be doing. But along those lines, there are a great many things that we can be doing.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 220, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 176, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, currently, U.S. families spend about $1 billion per day on imported oil. We import about 1.6 billion barrels from politically unstable nations with a corresponding instability in prices, which influences our dollars, our economy, and sometimes our soldiers having to look at defending these areas.

We are currently losing 220,000 barrels per day in domestic production because of the administration's moratorium on Gulf of Mexico oil rigs. This also means the government is losing almost $1.4 billion in revenue that we so sorely need. Keep in mind that each one cent increase in the price of gasoline costs American families $1 billion per year. That's money that is not going into our economy. Because 60 percent of our oil comes from foreign countries, it is money that is going into other economies.

Now, while this moratorium is taking place, at least 12 rigs have already departed from the gulf, some not to return, as they move these rigs to operate in other countries, which can cost $1 million a day. Four more are considering leaving. That's 6,000 jobs in jeopardy. Currently, more than 30 drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are idle; and even though the administration is now allowing just one of those rigs to move forward with exploration, all other exploration is still off limits with something of a permitorium, as they're looking at their permits all over again.

That is why yesterday I introduced the Safe Exploration Coming from Underwater Reserves of Energy Act, or the SECURE Act. This bill allows all of those Gulf of Mexico drilling permits to move safely forward, those which have already been approved by regulators. Keep in mind, all of these have been reviewed thoroughly. It takes a lot of time to do that, and they all follow strict regulations. There are no shortcuts on safety, and there is no bypassing environmental regulations. Quite frankly, I trust our environmental regulations to protect the environment more so than those of other countries.

What we have from the lost production of the domestic oil industry means we are increasingly dependent on those unstable foreign regimes to meet our needs, which puts our economy at risk should another spike in oil prices occur like the one we have now. Add to this and punctuate this with the recent unrest in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and whatever country may come next, which helps point out a lot of our vulnerability: the vulnerability of what happens if the Suez Canal is closed down even for a short period of time; the vulnerability that comes if Libyan oil production declines; the vulnerability that comes with Iran and its use of oil revenue to put pressure on other nations to support their efforts to develop

nuclear weapons, their threats to Israel and their threats to dominate the Mideast.

The cost of an arms race in the Mideast and an arms race in the world with new nuclear weapons far surpasses anything we can imagine--as are the revenues we can get from oil.

So I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill, the SECURE Act, so we can secure our own energy future, so we can lower gas prices, so we can create thousands of jobs right here at home: from drilling on these rigs, from developing the pipe, from building the rigs, from so many other supply chains of what we have in this Nation to do this, and above all, so we keep our domestic oil at home rather than pay for our own dollars to go to other nations.

We can drill for our oil and our own jobs, and we can boost our own economy; or we can continue to be dependent on unstable nations, rising prices and, sadly, paying for both sides of the war on terror. It is a sobering thought for Americans to think that every time they go to put gasoline in their tanks they're funding both sides of the war on terror.

That alone should be enough to make us change our approach. That alone should be enough to say let's use our oil and our resources instead of propping up the economies of other nations. That alone should be something that motivates us to make sure we are working on these issues. Hopefully, that means we can melt this moratorium on our own domestic oil production.

The choice is ours. I hope all of my colleagues will choose to support jobs of the United States of America as opposed to supporting those dollars that are just going to other countries.

Mr. Speaker, as a Member who represents the area of Pittsburgh that is also part of the Pittsburgh diocese, I would also like to welcome Cardinal Wuerl to the House of Representatives. He is a great leader in the faith community and a friend, and certainly a friend to everybody in the Nation now as well as those in the Pittsburgh region.

He began his career as an assistant pastor at Saint Rosalia Parish in Pittsburgh. There he became secretary to Pittsburgh Bishop John Wright. Then at Saint Paul's Seminary in Pittsburgh, he worked as a rector. In 1988, Bishop Wuerl was installed as the 11th Bishop of Pittsburgh, where he led 18 years. He led 800,000 Roman Catholics in 214 parishes throughout southwestern Pennsylvania.

I should say we also knew him from his television series called ``The Teaching of Christ,'' which was distributed throughout the Christian Associates cable channel, and his best-selling catechism of the same name, which is now I believe in its 30th year of publication, translated into over 10 languages.

I echo the comments made by our Speaker in terms of the Cardinal's leadership and the esteem we all hold him in. We are most grateful that he came here today and led us in prayer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

You know, we now have 29 million people in America who are either out of work or looking for work, and we also are facing a problem of trillions of deficit spending that affects those jobs. There's four pillars to what we need to do to turn our economy around.

One is the issue of cutting government spending and turning that deficit around. Two is to deal with making sure we're keeping taxes low and regulations fair that promote growth of jobs and not hinder that growth. We must also have trade enforcement law changes that allow us to grow in another way.

China alone, for example, is exploiting loopholes big enough to sail a freight ship through. They tax and embargo the export of raw materials and rare Earth minerals. They mandate local content requirement so American companies can't build in the U.S. and ship to China. They steal patents, copyrights, and reverse-engineer U.S. technology and products. They offer below-market government loans to their companies, and they manipulate their currency. All of this has created a great wall of illegal and unfair manufacturing trade practices, and we cannot sit by while they undermine our jobs.

But a fourth pillar has to do with how we need to grow our resources, an important issue for the Energy and Commerce Committee. While the Outer Continental Shelf of this country is off limits for oil drilling, we are passing by massive amounts of jobs and massive amounts of economy for our Nation.

If we were allowed to have drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, the Federal revenue alone, without borrowing money, without buying from OPEC, without increasing our trade deficits, would yield $2.5 trillion to $3.7 trillion in Federal revenue, and all of that based upon 1970s estimates of how much oil is out there.

In addition to that, even though there is not supposed to be a moratorium on drilling off the Gulf of Mexico, there is in effect a ``permatorium'' because all of these wells which previously have been permitted are now told they can't drill. Regulatory agencies dither, which means higher oil prices at the pump for American families, greater reliance on OPEC, and with the threats of Egypt and the worries about the Suez Canal, we are sitting by as American families wondering what's going to happen next. Let's deal with all these issues and grow American jobs.