Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise in favor of S. 313, the Animal Drug User Fee Act (``ADUFA''), sponsored in the House by my good friend from Michigan, Mr. Upton.

This legislation, modeled after the successful Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), is designed to decrease the review time of new animal drugs at the Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This legislation is essential to the health of pets and livestock, as well as food safety. CVM is currently experiencing sizable delays in its review of drug applications. These delays are problematic for CVM, drug sponsors, pet owners, veterinarians, and livestock producers.

Simply put, the CVM needs an infusion of funds to address review shortcomings. The slowdown of the approval process threatens to reduce the tools available to livestock and poultry producers to produce vibrant stock and to combat animal disease. The slowdown of the approval process also threatens the health and well being of family pets and zoo animals. Further, delays at CVM have a chilling effect on the animal health industry's investment in important research and development, threatening the pipeline of new products.

In conclusion, this is a very modest program, but one that is desperately needed. The pace of animal drug reviews has slowed in recent years and the FDA needs the proper resources to hire more reviewers. Please join me in supporting S. 313, The Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003.

Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, let me make the most important point here. Environmentalists for years have argued that we ought to have environmental laws that require the polluter to pay, that the polluter ought to be responsible for cleaning up his act and that the victims ought not be responsible for the actions of polluters. That is essentially what the EPA tried to do but was not allowed to do by the court and what we are trying to let the EPA do today.

The polluter in this case is the upwind polluter, the victim is the downwind community. What the Clinton administration and Carol Browner tried to do was to create flexibility in the EPA so that the downwind community did not have to pay to clean up the pollution in the upwind community. In other words, to make sure that the upwind community cleaned up its act so that it did not dump pollution on an innocent victim community who might end up having to pay for it.

So the idea was not to diminish the cleanliness of the air, it was not to exonerate anyone from their obligations

to clean their air. It was certainly not to allow the air to stay dirty. It was all about requiring the upwind polluter to get their act together, to clean up their act, and then to be able to count that together with the work done by the downwind community to reach clean air attainment. Now, that is fair.

Now, we have criticized the Clinton administration on this side many times for its action. In this case they were right. The EPA was right. The court, unfortunately, correctly, I think, said the EPA did not have the authority to do the right thing here.

What we are trying to do in the conference is make sure EPA has the authority to do the right thing and to make sure that the polluter does pay, that the innocent community downwind does not have to sacrifice because they are being dumped on by some upwind community.

Mr. Speaker, I urge this motion be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, let me make one last point. I respect the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson) so much. I hope she knows that. We are in a conference right now with the Senate. We are trying to fix this. This would be a terrible instruction. This would be a terrible instruction to every community in America that suffers because someone upwind of them is polluting their community. It would be a terrible instruction.

What we want to do in the conference committee with the Senate, and I hope we finish that bill soon, is bring Members back a chance to pass an energy policy that does enforce the idea that the polluter should be responsible to clean up their act first. We are going to try to bring that back to Members.

This instruction hurts us, even though it is nonbinding, and I would urge that we reject it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Johnson motion and urge my colleagues to vote against it.

I don't think any Member would disagree that the Clean Air Act has been extremely beneficial to America's environment over the last three decades. But as with any complex regulatory statute of its kind, there are times when the letter of the law either leads to unintended consequences or can give rise to conflicting interpretations.

This is precisely the situation that confronted the Clinton administration nearly a decade ago. In 1994, under the leadership of then-Administrator Carol Browner, the Environmental Protection Agency adopted a regulatory interpretation of the Air Act that allowed for some flexibility in applying ozone nonattainment dates. EPA issued additional guidance several years later, under which, in limited circumstances, the Agency would extend dates for downwind areas that suffered from pollution transport. The EPA then applied this guidance on a discretionary basis through approval of various state implementation plans.

Unfortunately,the courts threw out EPA's interpretations of the Air Act last year. So for the EPA's common-sense, flexible approach to nonattainment is to prevail across the country, Congress must codify it as part of the Clean Air Act.

As we debate this motion tonight, it is by no means clear when we will be able to get an energy conference report to the House floor. And that's largely because conferees are continuing to negotiate a number of key provisions, including whether we should include the ``bump up'' codification.

The motion before us is non-binding, Mr. Speaker. But I would not want for the House to be even symbolically constrained in its ability to negotiate with the other body, particularly when it comes to doing something like including a common-sense Clinton-era environmental regulation.

I want to make clear to my colleagues that the Clinton-era policy on bump up does not let downwind areas off the hook. In order to qualify: (1) An area must be the victim of pollution transported from another area that significantly contributes to nonattainment in the downwind area; (2) EPA must approve a plan that complies with all requirements of the Clean Air Act that are currently applicable to the area--as well as includes any additional measures needed to reach attainment by the date for the upwind area; and (3) the extension of any date must provide for attainment of Clean Air Act standards ``as expeditiously as practicable,'' but in no case later than the time in which upwind controls are in place.

The codification measure is fair and balanced. It prevents an unjust result--that a downwind area suffering from transported pollution is penalized for pollution that it does not generate. Many areas have made progress and are close to attaining--it makes no sense at this stage to impose additional penalties that will not advance attainment. In some cases, areas risk being classified as ``severe'' nonattainment even though they violated the 1 hour standard just a few times over 3 years and would otherwise be considered to be in ``marginal'' nonattainment.

At the end of the day, the codification of the Clinton bump up policy may actually be the most pro-environment thing we can do because it provides for the best possible course to reach attainment. The sooner we have it in place--regardless of how it gets to the President's desk--the better for our constituents living in these areas.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the motion.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall vote 567 I intended to vote ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, two and one-half years ago, Chairman Sensenbrenner and I agreed to work collectively to produce a database protection bill. Previous attempts at producing legislation resulted in various stalemates between the two Committees. When I took the gavel at Energy and Commerce and Chairman Sensenbrenner took over at the Judiciary Committee, we decided we would work through this issue in a different way. It has been a long process--it was no easy chore harmonizing a Judiciary-favored copyright approach and a Commerce- favored misappropriation approach.

The two Committees have worked amicably towards the bill we are introducing today. This is a credit to the members on both Committees, and I have been delighted to see the cooperation and respect between our two Committees grow over the last few years. I would like to commend Chairman Sensenbrenner, in particular, for his leadership and commitment through this process.

This bill is one of compromise. Through the course of the negotiations, I won some issues and lost some issues. As we move forward in the legislative process, I will continue to invest time and effort to improve the legislation and ensure my lingering concerns are addressed. In doing so, my focus will remain on protecting the free flow of information so important to our information economy. I look forward to working with the Judiciary Committee, my colleagues on the Energy and Commerce Committee, and all interested parties to improve this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the previous order of the House, I call up the bill (H.R. 3161) to ratify the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to establish a do-not-call registry, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, welcome to Groundhog Day, courtesy of a misguided court decision, soon to be overthrown, I believe, were we not acting today, but one that jeopardizes one of the most consumer-friendly regulations ever to come out of Washington in a long time. Just several months ago, President Bush signed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act into law. That law authorized the funding of the Federal Trade Commission's National Do-Not-Call registry, a concept so embraced by consumers in America that 50 million Americans have now signed up to be on that list since then. And, Mr. Speaker, Congress passes a law, and an agency then implements it. Nothing wrong, right? Wrong. One can imagine our surprise when we found out yesterday morning that a Federal court in Oklahoma, not California, Oklahoma, invalidated the FTC's do-not-call registry. And even more surprising was the judge's basis for the decision. He found the FTC did not have the statutory authority to create a national do-not-call list.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As I mentioned in February of this year, Congress passed the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act. Obviously, Congress would not have funded something that it thought was unauthorized. Indeed, back in 1994, Congress passed the Telemarketing Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, which gave the FTC power to regulate abusive telemarketing practices. Certainly, allowing consumers to sign up for a do-not-call list, to essentially opt out of an abusive telemarketing practice, is well within the mandate given to the FTC.

Make no mistake. The judge in this case is dead wrong, and I am sure his decision will, in turn, be overturned. In an abundance of caution, however, and I make perfectly clear to any and all who may have doubts, today we consider H.R. 3161. This bill specifically authorizes the FTC to create a national do-not-call list and explicitly ratifies the FTC's actions over the past year to implement that list. We should probably call the bill ``This Time We Really Mean It Act'' to cure any myopia in the judicial branch.

The bill leaves no doubt as to the intent of Congress. The FTC wants this list. The President of the United States wants this list, and more importantly, 50 million Americans, who are growing impatient about being interrupted at mealtime by unwanted and unnecessary harassing telemarketing calls,

want this list. And this Congress is going to make sure they have this list today.

Every consumer should have the right to choose whom they want to talk to. We allow consumers to opt out of junk mail. All they have to do is go down to the post office and tell the Postal Service they do not want junk mail coming to their house, and it does not come. They can choose not to answer a knock at the door. They can decide who enters their house and who communicates with them there. Consumers ought to have the power to say ``no'' to unwelcomed and unwanted telemarketing calls. Families ought to have the right to enjoy a little time together at the end of a day and no longer come home to find their answering machines jam filled with telemarketing calls.

Worst of all, they get that call and answer it, and there is nobody there. These new devices that rotary dial three, four, five, maybe 20 people at a time and the first one who answers, they hang up on all the rest, those are the worst to me. Americans are signing up to end that kind of abusive practice, and we need to give the FTC clear authority.

I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking Democrat on our committee and the dean of our House, because he and I have promised to do everything in our power to make sure that the do-not-call list becomes a reality, and he is here with me today to make sure we pass this bill.

Less than 1 week from today, on October 1, 2003, we hope to give Americans access to precisely what they have been asking for, a national do-not-call list, and today we are effectively hanging up on the telemarketers who have been bothering me at that precious hour of the day.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, let me again emphasize this is extraordinary. The court decision came out yesterday. The leadership of this House authorized this bill to the floor today. We are about to pass this bill, I believe the Senate is about to do the same thing, and, in all likelihood, we will have a bill on the President's desk this afternoon.

This Congress has often been called a slow and cumbersome beast, but I think you can see how fast this Congress is prepared to move when 50 million Americans are angry, and I cannot imagine more anger now, when 50 million Americans found out the national do-not-call list was put in jeopardy by a single judge in Oklahoma somewhere.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the senior gentleman from New Jersey, (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

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

do something very unusual on the House floor. As the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) knows, every now and then, we are accused of voting for bills we have not totally read. I am going to read the whole bill.

I want all the judges of America to pay close attention. I want you to tune in good. Turn up the volume a little bit and turn off your telephone and listen real carefully, because I am going to read the whole bill to you. Every judge in America, here it comes:

``(a) AUTHORITY. The Federal Trade Commission is authorized under section 3(a)3(A) of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act (15 U.S.C. 6102(A)(3)(A)) to implement and enforce a national do-not-call registry.''

Do you hear me? To implement and enforce a do-not-call registry.

``(b) RATIFICATION. The do-not-call registry provision of the Telemarketing Sales Rule, (16 C.F.R. 310.4(b)(1)(iii)), which was promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission, effective March 31, 2003, is ratified.''

Did you hear me, judges? Ratified.

When this bill passes today, when the Senate does the same thing, none of you judges ought to have any doubt. We really mean it, do you understand? We really mean it. We want the national do-not-call list to become law on October 1.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank my friend from Massachusetts for his compliments and, most importantly, for his extraordinary long- standing support for actions to protect consumers in America, and this is just one more step in that direction.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

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

In summation, let me again thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) for their extraordinary bipartisan cooperation in moving this as rapidly as we have. It is the sort of cooperation we always seem to get from our members on both sides of the aisle on the Committee on Energy and Commerce when we have a problem that clearly faces our country that is neither Democrat nor Republican, but is American. This is an American problem, and we are solving it as Americans in this House, and that is always a proud moment in this House when that occurs. I want to thank my colleagues for all of the courtesies and the help that we have gotten in moving this legislation forward.

The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) was correct in complimenting the chairman of the FTC, Mr. Muris. I want to also join in that compliment. The Federal Trade Commission, as the gentleman knows, took on what the FCC would not take on. We had originally given this authority to the Federal Communications Commission which declined to put together a national do-not-call list. Mr. Muris and the Federal Trade Commission decided to go forward with it with our help. So we authorized the money for them to proceed with the list. Only this judge seems to want to stand in the way of it, and this Congress now makes it very clear today that we want to give Americans this right.

I want to make a public apology. These harassing phone calls that come to us in the middle of the precious time we have with our family have gotten to a point of, I know, such aggravation that some of us react very badly to a call we get at a most inappropriate moment, and sometimes we are pretty ugly to a telemarketer who is bothering us or interrupting us. I hung up on the Ambassador's wife from Norway one day, thinking she was a telemarketer. She belongs to an international club with my wife, and we had to make great apologies afterwards because I thought I was being harassed by a telemarketer. Those sorts of things ought not happen in America. We ought not be caught in these awful circumstances where we are so aggravated that we are impolite to someone as important as an Ambassador's wife who was trying to make a call to my wife, and I apologize both to my wife and to her again publicly for my impatience.

But Americans are impatient, and they are tired of this kind of problem, and they want it fixed; and this legislation will fix it today. We have heard some of the passion on this floor. The passion that we feel about this issue is the passion that Americans feel about this issue. When 50 million Americans sign up as fast as they have, that tells us how passionately Americans feel about a national do-not- call list, and it is time to be implemented.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for those comments. In fact, we have been asked so many times, is this a free-speech issue. The United States Constitution gives you the right to speak; it does not give you the right to be heard. None of us have an obligation to listen if we do not want to. As a courtesy, we listen to one another in this House, hopefully we do, but nobody has an obligation to listen. The fact that Americans have the right not to be bothered by some speech they do not want to listen to is a right we ought to protect too. That is what we do today.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I can only tell the gentleman it was an embarrassing moment and, again, I apologize to both of them. But the gentleman knows we have heard this bill in committee, and he knows how absolutely aggravated people get with these calls. They seem to come at the worst moment. When you are just leaving the house, you are trying to get everything in the car and the phone rings, it could be your mother calling, your daughter, your son, somebody important; and you rush back in and it is one of these doggone calls. They always come at the exact wrong moment. I am not saying telemarketers are bad people. There are many good telemarketing firms, and for folks who want to receive these calls and take advantage of them, they will have that right under the bill. But it is just going to end the ones we do not want, the ones that aggravate us to the point where we do something as stupid as I did, for which I have apologized today a few times.

Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the House will unanimously pass a bi- partisan bill, H.R. 2854, which will dramatically improve uninsured children's access to health care. This bill reflects a compromise negotiated with the other Chamber, which is supported by Senators Grassley and Baucus, along with Health Subcommittee Chairman Mike Bilirakis, and Ranking Members John Dingell and Sherrod Brown.

H.R. 2854 will provide states with $2.7 billion to fund their SCHIP programs. The State Child Health Insurance Program is an extremely successful program that has enabled states to provide health coverage to over 5 million previously uninsured children. Under SCHIP each states gets a specified annual allotment of Federal dollars to be used to pay for children's health care, which the state can draw on for up to three years.

Due to initial delays that many states encountered in establishing their SCHIP programs, significant percentages of several states' allotments from fiscal years 1998 through 2001 have gone unused. H.R. 2854 will allow these states to retain a portion of these funds to enable them to provide additional coverage to uninsured children. Under H.R. 2954, states will be able to retain fiscal year 1998 and 1999 reallocated funds through the end of fiscal year 2004 and allows states to retain 50 percent of their unspent allotments for fiscal years 2000 and 2001.

In addition, the bill also allows ten states that had been unable to spend all of their SCHIP allotments because of high Medicaid income eligibility levels to use up to 20 percent of their SCHIP allotments to pay for providing coverage for eligible children.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6) to enhance energy conservation and research and development, to provide for security and diversity in the energy supply for the American people, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the amendment, and agree to a conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the strongest opposition possible to this motion to instruct. It is rather cleverly worded. It is cleverly worded because as we would expect from someone as talented as my friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), in parliamentary terms it says separate this issue from the rest of the energy bill and pass this issue, leaving to limbo, perhaps, the rest of the comprehensive energy bill.

It does precisely what we should never do and that is to ignore the fact that the blackout is just part of an awful energy situation that exists in this country. Oh, yeah, we just had a big blackout in the Northeast, but do not forget that just recently Alan Greenspan made four or five trips to this Hill to warn us of a natural gas crisis facing this country this winter.

We are paying twice as much for natural gas as we did this time last year. Petrochemical plants in my district are beginning to lay off workers and threatening to move their production to offshore facilities in other countries because we pay twice as much for natural gas in America as we do anywhere else in the world.

Has anybody noticed the price at the pump lately? Have my colleagues noticed the awful situation with gasoline prices? Do you think for a second that the problem in the Northeast is just a single, isolated problem in the whole energy situation our country faces?

On the contrary, the situation in the Northeast is just one of many enormous problems in our energy marketplace. Also, as my colleagues might recall exhibited was the awful situation of the California energy crisis just a few years ago.

In this country we face the possibility of huge natural gas price cost increases to consumers as winter approaches. We face the situation where low-income beneficiaries whom we are trying to help with LIHEAP funds may not be able to pay their energy costs this winter. We saw the price spikes in gasoline.

To strip off one piece of this bill for political expediency would not only be foolish, it would be disastrous.

The House and Senate have both finally passed comprehensive energy bills after a great deal of deliberation. The Senate passed the bill they passed last year. We improved our product. The conferees have just been named, and we have agreed to go to conference.

But my colleagues should know on the day the Senate passed that bill by unanimous consent, our staffs and the Senate committee and the House committee began work immediately, conforming the two bills.

And now that the conferees are appointed, we are going to bring in a conference report before the end of this month and vote on it on this House floor. We are going to pass the comprehensive energy title.

It will include, by the way, all the improvements that have been recommended in the transmission grids following the New York and Northeast blackouts. Those improvements were passed last April on this House floor and are contained in the comprehensive bill.

They include transmission incentives to build new transmission systems. They include new provisions on siting to make sure the Federal Government is involved in interstate siting of transmission lines so States cannot block interstate improvements to transmission facilities. It will eliminate the artificial barriers to the new investment grid called the Public Utility Holding Company Act. It will change the transmission tax treatment to create more favorable tax treatments to encourage people to invest in improvements in transmission grids so we do not have the problems we saw in California and now in the Northeast.

We passed, in this comprehensive energy bill, massive improvements in energy efficiency and conservation all designed to help reliability of our systems. Do my colleagues want to throw those away tonight?

Of course, H.R. 6 addresses all the urgent needs of the energy sector by increasing the production of oil and gas and other energy resources, particularly renewables, by dramatically increasing LIHEAP funding, by making significant investments in energy research and development including the President's Freedom Car Initiative.

Mr. Speaker, my committee has just conducted two very full days of hearings on the August blackouts. With the testimony from nearly 30 witnesses working with our Secretary of Energy, Mr. Abraham, and others, we will get to the bottom of what happened just a few weeks ago. But the overwhelming message I got from those hearings is that abundant, reliable energy sources are the lifeline of our economy.

If we walk away from all the policy improvements that this bill provides, we will be turning our backs on the people of this country, our economy, and a reliable and secure energy future for this country.

So I urge my colleagues to defeat this motion to instruct. While it is not binding, it is a wrong signal. It needs to be defeated tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

That was a wonderful speech, but what was not very clear and should be made clear is that enforceable reliability standards are in the House bill that was passed in this House 254 to 175, with 40 Democrat votes joining us and we passed it. It is in the Senate bill. It is already in the conference. We passed it last April.

Secondly, I want to remind my friend this is not the end of the conference. This is the first year of a 2-year Congress. We are going to get this bill done in the next few weeks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), my friend, a great gentleman from the Northeast, who knows a lot about energy because he is on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), a distinguished member of our Committee on Energy and Commerce, who is also a lieutenant colonel.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Resources of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), a distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce from the Northwest.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on both sides?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gillmor).

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted and honored to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), a subcommittee chairman, and one of the principal architects of this comprehensive energy plan we are trying to save tonight.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, it was February 2001 that I was honored to assume the role of chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of this great House. It was in August of that same year that our Committee on Energy and Commerce, together with the Committee on Ways and Means, Committee on Resources, Committee on Science, numerous committees of this body, helped to report to the floor a comprehensive energy bill for our country following the disaster in California, recognizing the disasters to come in the Northeast. It took the Senate almost 2 years to finally pass their version at the end of the conference when it was too late to finish the conference report.

This year in this Congress, this House had the wisdom to pass this bill as early as April of the first year of the Congress, and the Senate in just 7 short months has passed their version and now joins us tonight in a conference to finish the work.

Many, many votes have gone by since August of 2001. In fact, prior to that in committee, many votes were taken. I find it strange that on the night we finally appoint the conferees to finish this awesome task, on this night, my friend, the gentleman from Michigan, who was the main opponent of the comprehensive energy bill on the floor when we brought it here in April of this year, brings this motion to take one small piece of that bill and to leave, in fact, the rest behind. That is the game.

Is it a coincidence that every person who spoke on the other side voted against the comprehensive energy bill when we brought it to the floor? I do not think so. I think this is an effort to help derail the final passage of that great bill. We are not going to let them get away with that because this country cannot do without this comprehensive energy bill. It is critical for this country.

We had 13 recorded votes on the floor tonight. Thirteen times we came to this floor and we put our card into the electronic voting machine and we made a decision for this country. We are two votes away on the floor of this House and in the other body, one in this House, one in the other body, we are two votes away from finishing the most comprehensive energy package to help this country on its way again than we have ever been. When this conference brings its conference report before the end of the month to this floor and to the Senate, we are two votes away from putting it on the President's desk for final signature.

I know those of you who voted against it, those of you who were in the 175-Member minority who voted against the passage, would probably not like to see us finish, but this country wants us to finish. People in the Northeast who went through that blackout want us to do a comprehensive bill. The people in the Northwest, in California who had their problems a few years ago want us to do this bill. Americans who suffer with high energy prices want us to do this bill.

Let us reject this motion to do away with this bill and to simply pick it to death. I urge my colleagues to reject this motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 2854) to amend title XXI of the Social Security Act to extend the availability of allotments for fiscal years 1998 through 2001 under the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the Senate bill (S. 1015) to authorize grants through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for mosquito control programs to prevent mosquito-borne diseases, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the House is considering, hopefully for the final time, the Mosquito Abatement for Safety and Health Act (MASH).

Last summer, West Nile infected over 40 states in the nation. This record epidemic led to the deaths of 274 people and made seriously ill more than 4,000. While much of the press has focused on Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), it is important to point out that last year West Nile Virus led to more American deaths than the total caseload of SARS in this country. West Nile Virus is clearly an infectious disease that must be addressed in a coordinated fashion.

The House has passed the Mosquito Abatement for Safety and Health Act twice in the past year. I am pleased to announce that we have reached agreement with our Senate counterparts and are now planning to move forward legislation that is substantively the same as the MASH Act approved by the House in March, with of course, minor, but nonetheless improvements to the House bill.

The bill we are considering today will compliment the work the CDC already has underway. The MASH Act provides authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to states for the purpose of coordinating mosquito control programs, including assessment and mosquito control planning grants to political subdivisions. In addition to State grants, the MASH Act authorizes the CDC to award grants to political subdivisions of states for the operation of mosquito control programs.

The rapid outbreak of West Nile virus across America--which is fast outpacing the predictions of many scientists--has made it very difficult for our communities to adequately respond. The additional federal dollars we authorize through this legislation will assist states and localities with their immediate needs to combat West Nile virus. Notably, this legislation recognizes the importance of keeping mosquito control programs running at the local level, where they have historically operated. The bill also gives additional support to the CDC so it may provide training and technical assistance in the planning, development, and operation of mosquito control programs.

I would also like to personally thank my colleagues, Representative Chris John, for the leadership he has shown in advancing this legislation. I would also like to thank Senators Gregg, Frist, Breaux, Landrieu, and Kennedy and their staff for the extensive time they dedicated to this issue.

The Senate bill was ordered to be read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2854 and S. 1015, the two bills just passed.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 335, I call up the bill (H.R. 2427) to authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to promulgate regulations for the reimportation of prescription drugs, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) be permitted to control 15 minutes of the debate time allocated to me.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2427.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleague, the ranking member of our committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), in opposing this bill because it is dangerous.

This week the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and I and all of the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce had to face a horrible realization: This week we faced the parents of Steve Bechler, the 23-year-old pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles, who died of a heart attack at that young age taking ephedra tablets, tablets which we in 1994 voted to exempt from FDA safety regulations. I have got that on my conscience now. In 1994, you and I decided, those of you who were here with me, that safety did not matter when it came to ephedra.

Mr. Speaker, as the Justice Department criminal investigations are under way and as our own Committee's investigation is under way, we learned this week that over 17,000 serious events

have occurred as a result of the use of unregulated ephedra; young athletes, young people, dying, suffering strokes, heart attacks, like Steve Bechler, because we voted in 1994 to say that safety did not count when it came to ephedra.

And with this bill tonight, its authors I know well-intentioned, angry at the price of drugs in America, angry at Canada because they impose price controls that take advantage of our citizens, angry at those trade laws that let it happen, they are asking us tonight to do exactly what we did in 1994, to vote for a bill that says safety does not matter when it comes to drugs, that safety does not really count; that we are going to repeal tonight, if they get their way, the language that is in the law that says that FDA must certify the safety of any drugs that are imported into this country; to take away the language that says FDA must do those things appropriate to ensure that the drug supply in this country is never compromised; that bogus, counterfeit, diluted, old, rotten drugs are not permitted into this country.

I voted wrong in 1994. I am not going to vote wrong tonight. I will never vote to compromise safety again in the use of drugs or products for our young people and our old people and our citizens.

Tonight we will learn about those rotten drugs that are coming into this country from Canada, yes, and from a lot of other countries, transhipped through Canada. We will have the smoking gun for tonight to show what is about to happen if we open the door to that awful problem.

I urge Members, vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the packaging is held by a single company and the bill they have mandates a monopoly. We ought never do this in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), the distinguished chairman of our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that both the American Pharmacists Association and the Arkansas Pharmacists Association have sent letters in strong opposition to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), who knows the difference between a cancer drug and a strawberry.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Crane).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Will the Speaker announce how much time remains.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

(Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire once again as to the time allocations.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), chairman of the Committee on Rules.

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Current law allows importation. Current law contains 10 provisions to protect the safety of drug supplies in this country, 10 provisions protecting the safety of those drugs that are imported into this country. This bill that the Members are asked to vote on tonight strikes all 10 of those safety provisions, all 10.

I am going to show the Members tonight what we get if we pass this bill. What we are looking at now is a Web site of a Canadian prescription center where one can order prescriptions from Canada right now which would be legalized under this bill, illegal under current law because the FDA cannot verify the safety of drugs obtained on this Web site.

The FDA obtained some drugs on this Web site to just see what they could get. I want to show the Members what they got. What they got was this drug. This is a drug called Gabapentin. It is used as an antiseizure measure. It is to prevent seizures for people who have all kinds of seizures with all kinds of diseases. Do the Members know where it was made? It was made in India, not in Canada; and it came to an American over that Canadian Web site. And do the Members know what is in it? Nothing. It is water inside this package. And the folks who buy it in America at these cheap prices we are told they are going to get it for nothing except fake drugs.

Here is another set of drugs to look at. This is one is called Serostim. It is used by HIV/AIDS patients to prevent wasting. This is the authentic one; this is the fake one. The fake one contains nothing but pond water. Imagine giving that to an HIV/AIDS patient. Is the price, half price, quarter price worth it to take a drug like that?

I want to ask the Members something before we end this debate, and I have the greatest respect for those who bring this issue to the floor because I hate the fact that Canada and other countries take advantage of our patients in America, and we have to end those trade imbalances. We have to fight them. We do. We do. But I want to ask one question. If the Members vote to say that safety does not count and Americans increasingly buy these drugs full of nothing but pond water and diluted and old and rotten drugs, are they going to have to face the mother and father the way we faced them this week who said, Why is my son dead, because you did not put FDA regulations into place?

Vote down this bill. It is dangerous for every American. It needs to be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

(Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the backward thinking amendment that would reinstate antiquated local media ownership limitations. Republicans have long been awaiting a time to deregulate, since 1984, in fact; and the commission action on June 2 modifies all of its media ownership rules to comply with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, an act we all agreed upon, and the Court's interpretation of that act.

The FCC proceeding represents, in fact, the culmination of a deregulatory effort that had its birth in the Reagan administration. This amendment would stop in its tracks the reasonable deregulation of the new rules. It would bring back the outdated rules of the past.

In fact, under one interpretation of the Hinchey amendment, it would roll back existing exemptions that have been granted by the FCC over many years. Under one interpretation, for example, the exception that has been granted for satellite stations, where a station can own in joint ownership an unmanned TV station that is a satellite in a rural area, that exception would be rolled back and TV stations serving rural communities in America would have to shut down.

Under some interpretations of this amendment, assignments that have been made that were grandfathered for many years would be rolled back and companies would have to divest ownership they currently have in stations. In fact, under this amendment, the provisions of the FCC for so-called short-form assignments, what happens when companies reorganize themselves, would considerably be rolled back; and as a result, there could be divestitures argued under this amendment.

So this backwards-thinking amendment has the potential of even going back and undoing exemptions that have been granted by Democratic FCCs over the years to accommodate such things as the public interest requirements when a station goes bankrupt, becomes defunct, and has to be picked up by some other station.

Let me right the misconception that has been before this body and, unfortunately, pervaded the hearings at the Subcommittee on Appropriations. There are 1,340 television stations in America. Guess how many Viacom owns? The answer is 39; 2.9 percent. Guess how many Fox owns? The answer is 37, or 2.8 percent. Guess how many NBC owns? Twenty-nine, 2.2 percent. ABC owns 10, eight-tenths of one percent. In fact, if you combine all the network ownership of television stations, it comes to about 115, which is less than 10 percent of all the stations operating in America. You would think that the networks own them all, 90 percent of them, to hear the rhetoric around this debate.

The new rules that have been adopted by the FCC replace the old newspaper-broadcast-radio-TV cross-ownership rules, with the new set of rules that allow for different and targeted regulatory treatment, depending upon the market size.

It is a size system of regulation, replacing the old autocratic and, in many cases, arbitrary rules.

The new rules would allow economies of scale to be achieved on the local level, while ensuring a diversity of voices would be preserved by permitting, for the first time, common ownership of multiple stations in the largest markets or expanding the markets where duopolies are, in fact, permitted. But importantly, while it allows them to do this in the larger markets, it does not allow that to occur in the smaller markets. In fact, 73 markets enjoy no duopoly deregulatory relief whatsoever because they are the smaller markets in America. The FCC's extension record shows that co-owned stations competed more effectively with cable and satellite, improved the quality of the second station, and transitioned to digital quicker. All things said, the benefits flow to the public.

Remember, television stations do not compete against one another alone. They compete against pay-per-view cable and pay-per-view satellite; and if we weaken the capacity of over-the-air broadcast television to reach Americans economically and efficiently, we kill off one of the most important video outlets in America; and, therefore, we hurt, not help, over-the-air broadcasting.

Moreover, the amendment would prevent new markets from enjoying the clear localism and diversity public interest benefits. The commission found that their new rules will promote localism, because they increase the capacity of these stations to survive against these other important competitors.

The administration supports the FCC, and has urged Members to oppose efforts to roll back these rules that ensure that our Nation's free, over-the-air broadcasters can effectively compete against all of these new pay services. If all we want is pay services, the Hinchey amendment will take us there.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, let me take this time to first thank and express my appreciation on behalf of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to the chairman of the subcommittee who brings this bill before us today and to the ranking member from Indiana for the extraordinary cooperative spirit in which this subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations has worked with our authorizing committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, on so many issues of importance when it comes to funding the energy programs of our country that are under our committee's jurisdiction.

This is a great example of how the appropriators can and should work with authorizing committees. We just saw a point of order that was ruled by the chairman on behalf of our committee to strike language that would have legislated on this appropriation bill. We have had many discussions with the chairman and ranking member and our staffs over the past few days, and have worked through the bill to both approve those changes our committee agrees with the appropriators that should be included in this appropriation bill, and to find the language, such as the one we just objected to and might have been proposed authorizing language on an appropriation bill. The spirit by which that has been accomplished has been, I hope, an example for all the authorizing committees and the appropriators.

I want to thank the chairman again personally for the way in which he has approached us and asked us for these discussions and, in fact, worked with the ranking member for us to reach these agreements and these conclusions. I wish it was true of all the subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations. What occurred this week in another appropriations matter, where legislation was added that was strictly objected by the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and which has now produced a bill which will have very great difficulty moving through this House, is a bad example of that kind of relationship.

All of the authorizing chairmen that I work with on the committees of jurisdiction, who work very hard with the staffs, who are extraordinarily competent in these areas, and the Members who spend all their waking hours working in these committees in these specific authorizing areas are offended when legislation comes on an appropriation bill changing the policies or in some way affecting the policies that we so carefully try to work out for the benefit of this body, both on the Democratic and Republican side of the aisle. And when we find we do not have the cooperation of an appropriating committee, it really is disturbing.

This is a good example of how the process should work. I wanted to come to the floor to thank the chairman and the ranking member for showing, I hope, the other subcommittees of the Committee on Appropriations how it should be done, how it ought to be done, and how the relationship between authorizing and appropriating committees should, in fact, be a strong and cooperative and workable one.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and he makes a good point. I should also say that I speak for the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), all of whom were invited

into this process as authorizing chairmen to work with this Committee on Appropriations.

And, again, all of us want to thank the gentleman for the way in which he has approached the serious duties we have in authorizing the programs that the gentleman so diligently worked to correctly appropriate for. I thank the gentleman for that.

amendment offered by mr. tom davis of virginia

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of Tuesday, July 15, 2003, I call up the bill (H.R. 2122) to enhance research, development, procurement, and use of biomedical countermeasures to respond to public health threats affecting national security, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2122.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Today, Mr. Speaker, the House will address one of President Bush's top initiatives in the war against terror, Project Bioshield.

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely critical that America's public health emergency system be prepared to respond to new and emerging threats, and we are here today to take care of that job. This bipartisan legislation is about the safety and security of American families and of our country. America is stepping up to the profound threat of terrorism and other public health emergencies, and I am proud to report that H.R. 2122 combines smart policy and provides additional resources to prepare the Nation for bioterrorism threats and for other public health emergencies.

The chairman and ranking member of both the committees of jurisdiction and the Select Committee of Homeland Security have arrived at this consensus product that is before us today. I would like to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) for their cooperation and hard work on this bill. This bipartisan spirit is similar to last year's effort on the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act that Senator Kennedy and I had the privilege to move through the Congress last year.

Project Bioshield will spur the research and development of new vaccines, drugs, and other countermeasures to deal with these biological, chemical, nuclear or radiological agents that pose a material threat to our Nation's security. The list includes, among other dangerous agents, such things as anthrax, botulinum toxin, the plague, ebola, and other similar viruses, many of which lack any effective treatment or antidote today.

The bill before us accomplishes this goal by doing two important things. First, it provides the needed flexibility in a range of areas from government contracting rules to peer review to personnel matters in order to speed up government-sponsored research and development into these deadly agents. Second, it creates a special reserve fund of money for the government to purchase these countermeasures that may ultimately be developed in response to the President's call. Without this clear commitment of funding in future years, private sector companies that are capable of such development simply will not undertake the heavy investment and risk associated with developing products to deal with agents that do not affect significant populations today and hopefully never will.

At our urging, the House has already provided an advanced appropriations of $5.6 billion over the next 10 years for this purpose, and this is all consistent with our authorization in the House budget resolution.

The bill also provides new authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to authorize in times of emergency the use of unapproved products whose benefits in treating or preventing infection outweigh the risk. Under current law, the only way an individual can receive an unapproved product is pursuant to a clinical investigation. But in time of national emergency, when this Nation is under attack, it may be necessary to give such investigational drugs on a large scale basis to millions of Americans. H.R. 2122 provides that if there is such an emergency, and if no adequate alternative therapy is available, the Secretary can authorize the use of a drug, device, or vaccine in such a flexible manner.

While we have made improvements to the administration's initial proposal in certain areas, our bill stays close to that original proposal, granting all the additional flexibilities and authorities requested by the President and even expanding them in some cases to further encourage companies to heed our call for innovation.

Once again, I want to applaud the leadership of President Bush and the truly bipartisan work of this body across multiple committees of jurisdiction to protect our country and to promote public health security from the many new dangers that we face today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman is correct. Like you, I too want to ensure that unapproved products are available in times of emergency. And while we allow the FDA to make products available during such time of emergency, absent such emergency, current law applies. We do allow for the shipments of such therapies in limited circumstances, namely, where a physician authorizes the continued treatment of an individual who initially received the drug during an emergency. However, this is the only exception. Absent that, present law applies to these unapproved products.

The gentleman is absolutely correct. The Secretary should perform these reviews as expeditiously as possible once the R&D or procurement has started so as to prevent any exports of countermeasures or countermeasure R&D that could harm our U.S. national security.

Let me thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey). He raised a great number of concerns as we went true this process. I want to thank the gentleman for the way in which he worked with Members on both sides of the aisle so we cannot only take care of those concerns but produce a great product for the security of our country, and he has added immeasurably to that effort.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

The gentleman is absolutely correct. These provisions do not preempt the Public Buildings Act to the extent that it would otherwise apply to such activities.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, that is also correct. The Project Bioshield Act authorizes the construction of highly specialized laboratories, all of which I would expect to be biosafety level 3 or 4 laboratories unsuitable for general purpose use. Project Bioshield does not authorize the construction of ``public buildings'' as defined by the Public Buildings Act of 1959.

If the gentleman would continue to yield, that is also correct. The authority allows the Secretary to take control of these facilities only during, and as necessary to respond to, public health emergencies affecting national security. Under the Bioterrorism Response Act passed last year, a public health emergency can be declared by the Secretary for up to 90 days at a time; and although the Secretary may extend the designation for multiple 90-day periods, it is not the intention of this legislation to allow the Secretary to control a facility for the useful life of that facility.

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

(Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, I think we have a couple of other Members who need to do colloquies.

While we are waiting, I wanted to take this time, Mr. Speaker, to refer to a letter received today from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Tommy Thompson, dated July 16, 2003; and I want to place the letter in the Record at this point.

The Secretary of Health

and Human Services,

Washington, DC, July 16, 2003.

Hon. Billy Tauzin,

Chairman, Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Tauzin: Thank you for your leadership on H.R.

2122, the Project BioShield Act of 2003. This legislation is

a critical step toward strengthening our ability to protect

Americans against chemical, biological, radiological and

nuclear threats.

H.R. 2122 would: (1) speed the Government's ability to turn

promising scientific discoveries into necessary

countermeasures by one-third or more; (2) authorize funding

to purchase critical new countermeasures targeted against the

most worrisome threats; and (3) allow the Food and Drug

Administration to make promising treatments quickly available

to Americans in emergency situations.

I would like to address two issues that have arisen as the

House takes up this vital priority. First, I share

Representative Wamp's interest in building domestic capacity

to produce countermeasures. In implementing Project

BioShield, I will do everything in my power to purchase from

domestic sources. To have a secure supply, we must build

capacity within the United States and my department is

committed to achieving that objective. The essential purpose

of Project BioShield is to ensure we have necessary and

timely countermeasures. We cannot achieve this goal by

relying on foreign sources. Building a robust domestic

capacity to produce countermeasures is, therefore, at the

very heart of Project BioShield.

Second, I agree with Representative Jackson-Lee that the

Strategic National Stockpile must serve all areas of the

Nation, including rural areas. The Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention has positioned stockpile assets to

deliver needed medical supplies anywhere in the country

within 12 hours. I have a personal understanding of the

challenges that rural areas face and share Representative

Jackson-Lee's interest in rural America. My department is

pro-actively working with state and local health departments

to ensure the effective and timely delivery of stockpile

assets to both rural and urban parts our Nation.

If I can provide you or the members of the Committee with

any further information or if I can otherwise be of

assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Tommy G. Thompson.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to refer to it because the Secretary refers to several concerns raised by other Members of the House, of which I also share with him, and I think we will have a colloquy on one of those.

The first is a concern by the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) whose interest is in building domestic capacity to produce countermeasures; and, indeed, the Secretary indicates in his letter that it is indeed his desire to make sure those countermeasures are developed within this country. We cannot achieve the goal of securing our country if indeed we rely upon foreign sources for these measures; and, therefore, the building of robust domestic capacity to produce these countermeasures is at the very heart of the Bioshield Project.

I wanted to assure my friend, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp), that I share the Secretary's comments and his intentions in that regard.

Secondly, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) was concerned that strategic national stockpile must be developed in such a way as to serve rural areas of the country, not simply the urban areas of our country, because rural areas can be affected by these bioterrorism threats just as easily, obviously, as urban areas. The Secretary indicates that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has positioned stockpile assets anywhere in the country, delivery within 12 hours, in effect making sure that rural areas are not left out of the protection of this bill and the other bioterrorism bills that have passed the House and are part of the Centers for Disease Control stockpiles and distribution system.

So that those two concerns by our colleagues are addressed in this letter, and I wanted to share with those colleagues my agreement with the Secretary on both of those points.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

(Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, I insert at this point into the Record of these proceedings a statement of administration policy in strong support of this bill.

Executive Office of the President, Office of Management

and Budget,

Washington, DC, July 16, 2003.

Statement of Administration Policy

The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 2122,

Project BioShield Act of 2003. This bill would implement a

Presidential initiative to help spur the development and

availability of next generation countermeasures against

biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological weapons.

Specifically, H.R. 2122 would: (1) speed the Government's

ability to turn promising scientific discoveries into

necessary countermeasures by one-third or more; (2) authorize

funding to purchase critical new countermeasures targeted

against the most worrisome threats; and (3) allow the Food

and Drug Administration to make promising treatments quickly

available to Americans in emergency situations. Project

BioShield is critical for strengthening our ability to

protect Americans against biological, chemical, radiological,

and nuclear terrorist threats.

The Administration notes that provisions on submission of

legislative proposals, and of reports on options considered

and rejected, should reflect Constitutional principles

regarding Executive-originated legislative proposals and

protecting Executive deliberations.

Mr. Speaker, I again center Congress' attention on the concerns that our colleague from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp) raises regarding the lack of domestic capacity to develop and produce new vaccines and countermeasures, indeed the concern he has that we might end up relying upon foreign sources for these critical supplies.

Let me first say that I share that concern about our lack of a robust domestic vaccine industry. I know that the Secretary of Health and Human Services shares that concern.

I also know that one of the primary purposes behind Project Bioshield is to help the Nation address this important problem by giving incentives to all companies, but especially our domestic pharmaceutical companies, to invest in this capacity, in this vaccine antidote producing capacity so that we have domestic supplies and domestic countermeasures available without relying upon foreign sources to protect this country in case of a domestic attack.

I just read from the Secretary's letter his commitment to do exactly that, to use this Act to make sure that we incentivize the capacity of our country to produce those vaccines and those countermeasures, those antidotes, whatever may be required, in case of the unbelievable attack upon our country with some of these awful agents, and I am confident the Secretary will implement the Act with that goal in mind.

We obviously on the Committee on Energy and Commerce will aggressively oversight the implementation of this Act so that we are satisfied that we are, in fact, encouraging domestic corporations to compete for these contracts.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), a distinguished member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, who celebrates his birthday today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to speak to that.

New subsection (k) permits the President to waive, in writing, only the consent portion of the conditions of authorization set forth in section 564(e) with respect to armed services personnel, and only to the extent that complying with the requirement is not feasible, is contrary to the best interests of the personnel, or is not in the interest of national security.

It is not my intent that the President may ever waive pursuant to subsection (k) the other conditions. They are that the individual to whom the product is to be administered is informed, one, that the Secretary has authorized the emergency use of a product, and, two, about the significant known and potential benefits and risks of the use of the product. The committee intends, absent extraordinary circumstances, that such information be provided to individuals prior to receiving the unapproved product.

After the gentleman raised these issues with us, we took a closer look at the language, and I acknowledge that there is a crossreference in new section 564(k)(2) that could be confusing. I want to continue to work with the gentleman and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who I know cares deeply about this issue, along with you and many of us, to make sure that the final version of this bill from the conference that we will have with the Senate, I am sure, provides that our military are informed of the drugs that are given before these drugs are administered.

Let me also assure the gentleman from Connecticut that we understand the importance of the protections for military personnel receiving unapproved countermeasures contained in current law, title X, section 1107; and we intend the waiver authority in this bill to be used only in the very extraordinary circumstances that we describe in the bill.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I thank my friend and give him that assurance.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons).

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and will be happy to enter into a discussion with him.

Let me first thank him for the excellent statement he has made. I think the gentleman is correct. I think it is as important to our country as perhaps the Manhattan Project was. I remember when Speaker O'Neill used to remind this House that partisanship ended at the water's edge. He meant to tell us that when it came to protecting our country, we were not Democrats or Republicans, we were Americans. And where the water's edge used to be the boundary of the threats against our country, because of 9-11, we now understand the water's edge is no longer the boundary. Within our country we now face these potential threats.

So I thank the gentleman. And, indeed, the bill is designed to do exactly that, to balance those important elements of the equation and to make sure we incentivize the private marketplace, but also provide the public monies, $5.6 billion over 10 years, to make sure we have the available money in a trust fund, through our budget resolution, appropriated through our process, to make sure we can acquire those countermeasures, stockpile them, distribute them around the country, as the Secretary is prepared to do, to make sure that those countermeasures are available.

It also balances the need to build in our own country the capability of building those vaccines and countermeasures that otherwise would never be built. Because who would, in the private sector, want to build a vaccine for the plague today, without this particular legislation? So I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for that language. The neat thing about the way this bill has been processed is that all through the process Democrats and Republicans have assisted in building it into a much better bill. And the language the gentleman has added to the bill is an extraordinary addition to the bill, and I thank him for it.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask how much time is available on both sides at this point.

Mr. Speaker, I commended the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) previously, along with the ranking members for their extraordinary work we did together; and I now ask unanimous consent to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis) so that Chairman Davis can control the balance of that time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1) to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide for a voluntary program for prescription drug coverage under the Medicare Program, to modernize the Medicare Program, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow a deduction to individuals for amounts contributed to health savings security accounts and health savings accounts, to provide for the disposition of unused health benefits in cafeteria plans and flexible spending arrangements, and for other purposes, with Senate amendments thereto, disagree to the Senate amendments, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green) on behalf of the Committee on Ways and Means and ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to control that time.

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

Mr. Speaker, there were two visions of Medicare prescription drug bills before the House several weeks ago. The vision offered by the Democratic Party is revisited upon us today in this motion to instruct. That vision was one of simply a government program for prescription drugs. It was one that eliminated any real possibility of competitive reform. It was one that literally provided for the government to always make sure that prescription drugs were available. In short, it literally put the government in the business of deciding what prescription drugs, at what price and when they might be available for seniors.

There was another vision offered on the floor which was adopted by the House when it rejected overwhelmingly the Democratic vision. The vision that was offered on this side of the House that was finally approved in that long night of voting was a vision that literally said we are going to literally provide a $400 billion drug benefit for seniors. But, as part of the deal, we are also going to require Medicare itself to undergo reforms, to make sure that the Medicare system does not itself go bankrupt or bust the business of government as the years go by.

There were predictions, for example, that by the year 2070 if we did not accept the vision of reforming Medicare, of making sure that there were competitive choices available for consumers so that Medicare itself would become more and more efficient, less bureaucratic, more responsive to Medicare doctors and Medicare patients, if we did not do that by the year 2070, entitlements in this country would eat up every single dollar raised from taxpayers, leaving no money to operate this body, the Congress or the courts or the Defense Department or any other vital function of our government.

That is the choice we have again in this motion to instruct. The Democratic motion to instruct simply says, adopt that Democratic vision of a government-provided Medicare benefit only with no competition offered to that system and no tension between the private competition offered and the public system to ensure that the public system remains as intensely efficient as possible under the law. So in effect what this motion does is to strike the competitive features of the vision of Medicare reform adopted on the House floor and to rely instead upon government-backed, government-fallback medicine for Americans.

Let me state very clearly again. The vision adopted on the floor of the House was to provide $400 billion of government-provided Medicare prescription drug assistance to seniors, to seniors who wanted to stay within the Medicare program or seniors who might want to choose some other competitive private plan that would be offered under that vision. The vision adopted by the House was exactly that, competition, more stores in town, a government store and private stores as well. The vision rejected that is again offered on the floor of the House is government medicine only, government medicine without the competitive choices that seniors should have.

This motion to instruct should be rejected.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me reiterate again, the motion to instruct, to all Members of the House who are paying attention to this debate, basically says to the Senate and House conferees: accept the Senate language, take the Senate bill, take the Democratic vision that was rejected overwhelmingly on this House floor, and make it the conference report. It basically recedes to the Senate provisions and eliminates the basic competitive elements that were approved on this House floor in this historic vote just several weeks ago.

My friend from Wisconsin made the case, but let me make it again. The argument that we need to instruct the conferees to adopt the Senate provision because somehow the seniors who are sickest and eldest in our society are going to lose Medicare in 2010 is just absolutely wrong. The fact is that they are not going to be driven into a small class of people only covered by Medicare because, as my friend points out, the private plans we vision coming into effect have guaranteed issue. They cannot refuse anybody. So if their mother, grandmother, grandfather wants to take one of these private plans because they offer a better, more efficient system of health care than does the Government plan, they will have a right to take it. They cannot be denied no matter how old or how sick they are.

Secondly, I want to point out that the basic frame of the bill we passed a couple of weeks ago on the House floor said to the poorest in our society, those living below 135 percent of poverty that we are providing this new prescription drug benefit virtually free of charge. The only thing they pay is a copay on the drug, but the premiums are free. The deductibles are covered. In fact, we provide for the poorest in America the best benefit of any Medicare prescription drug plan that we had yet considered on the floor of the House until just 2 weeks ago. So the poorest are covered. Those who are the sickest who want to choose a better plan have guaranteed access to those plans under the bill we adopted on the House floor.

This motion to instruct is virtually, literally saying that we should reverse the votes we took on the House floor; we should approve that Democratic vision of the government trying to do it all in a system that is already failing because it is beginning to go bust and a system that is too bureaucratic and literally too complex for even the providers to follow today.

Our bill provides for bureaucratic reform, regulatory reform, guaranteed issue for seniors who are the sickest to choose whatever plan they want. And most importantly, it provides for free coverage in effect for all those living under poverty for this new prescription drug benefit program. So to argue that we have to adopt this motion to instruct for the oldest and the sickest and the poorest in our society is not quite accurate. On the contrary, the motion to instruct simply says go into debate with the Senate and yield in advance, give in to the Senate that there will be no competition in Medicare, give into the Senate that the government is going to be the provider of this new benefit and seniors will never have the kind of choices that Members of this body have in choosing the kind of health care plans that best suit them in their conditions, in their health care needs, in their particular problems as they find it and as they make choices in the future.

Let us reject this motion to instruct just as we rejected the Democratic vision on the floor several weeks ago.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me point out to my friend from California, the Committee on Energy and Commerce had a chance to look at the Senate- passed bill. My colleagues on the other side offered it in the markup of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and it was resoundingly rejected by the Committee on Energy and Commerce in markup.

I notice my friend did not choose to offer the Senate-passed bill as the final motion on the House floor on the debate just several weeks ago. Instead, they chose to offer their vision instead of the Senate- passed bill. Now you wonder why they claim the Senate-passed bill is such a great bill.

Let me also point out the problem I think of this whole Medicare debate and why this bill was so important and why for several Congresses now we have passed Medicare reform and a prescription drug benefits bill over to the other Chamber, never to see them become law. The problem is, why have Medicare prescription drugs not been added to Medicare many, many years ago?

Medicine changed many years ago. When Medicare first started, Medicare was all about taking a senior to a hospital and putting them in a hospital bed and caring for them in a hospital. We know that medicine has changed during that period of time. Medicare has not.

The whole purpose, the whole reason we have been in this massive, historic debate over Medicare prescription drugs is because no one in past decades before this majority came around chose to modernize Medicare with a prescription drug benefit; and without a prescription drug benefit, indeed Medicare is outdated. It is not up to the task of taking care of senior citizens today. It is built around a premise that we are going to put them all in the hospital. It is not built around the correct premise today that many seniors depend upon prescription drugs to maintain their health, to prevent the need to go to the hospital, to maintain their condition, to prevent the spread of disease that has begun to inflict their bodies, indeed, to make sure that those diseases are kept in some sort of control.

Prescription drugs is the way in which so many seniors depend upon health maintenance today. To claim that Medicare is not outdated, when for decades it has not been updated with a prescription drug benefit, is not only wrong, it is, I think, the reason we have had this great debate in this Chamber for the last several Congresses and the reason why this majority is so very proud to say that we finally passed a bill that really has a chance of becoming law.

We are going to go now into a conference with the Senate and we are going to debate the issues of whether competition should be a part of this program or whether the government should be the sole provider of this new benefit. We are going to debate in the Senate whether the reforms this House agreed upon are better than the Senate-passed bill which was rejected in the Committee on Energy and Commerce. I think we will win that debate. But we cannot win it if we give up with this motion to instruct and say we will take the Senate bill, which was already rejected in the Committee on Energy and Commerce and not even offered on the floor by my friends on the other side when they had the chance to do so.

The bottom line is this motion to instruct takes us backwards. It indeed says, well, Medicare, which has not been updated, which has not been modernized to take care of seniors' real needs today, will be the sole provider forever of health care needs for seniors, when we know that competitive choices ought to be available to them.

It says, we will count on the government always to be the provider of these new benefits, and that seniors will not have the choice of going to a better plan if they can find one and, in fact, if one is offered to them in their community. It says, even if we are putting up the cost of the premiums, they will not have that choice. That takes us backwards.

We ought not take a backwards step today in this Chamber. We ought to move forward, take on the Senate and defeat the Senate bill, as we did in committee in the conference, and come out with a better bill that looks much more like the House bill passed on the House floor several weeks ago.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself just 1 minute to respond to my good friend.

First of all, I am not sure who was in this Chamber way back when Medicare was first adopted by the House. I assume my friend, the dean of the House, was here, but I do not know of anybody else who was who currently serves in the Chamber. I can tell my colleagues there were no only dirty looks on this side when it comes to Medicare. We support Medicare, believe in it.

My mother depends upon it. As I have often said on this House floor, she is a three-time cancer survivor who loves Medicare. That is why when we wrote this bill we preserved her opportunity to remain in fee- for-service Medicare if she chooses. But I want to give her something else, and that is why this bill provides for competitive choices for her so that she can choose a premium-based insurance program if it is better for her. If she wants to stay under Medicare, she can. In either case, she gets the Medicare prescription drug benefit that was not available to her all of these years until this majority came forward and provided one in this bill.

Reject this motion to instruct. Let us go to the conference with the Senate and let us be hopeful and positive that we can negotiate with the Senate a version that will pass the House and Senate and get signed into law.

Seniors understand. They are tired of waiting. They are tired of this debate. They are ready for a law that gives them a prescription drug benefit, and so is my mother.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the final minute on our side.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to point out that while the bill we passed, passed by only one vote, without the nine brave Democratic votes who came with us 2 weeks ago to vote for a Medicare prescription drug reform bill to the Senate, that bill would not have passed. I want to thank those nine brave Democrats for standing tall against a lot of pressure to do the right thing.

Secondly, I want to point out that the Democratic vision that is literally represented by this motion to instruct was defeated when the substitute was offered on the House floor by 175 for to 255 votes against. It was soundly defeated. This vision of a government does it all. The government provides the benefit; and no one else, no competition, no reform was defeated.

Third, I want to point out that these are not my numbers. These are the actuaries who work for Medicare; the Medicare actuaries tell us by the year 2016 Medicare starts paying out more money than it is taking in. And the actual date on which insolvency occurs is 2026. That is what we are up against.

Defeat this motion to instruct. It is an old vision that was defeated on the

House floor. Support us going into conference with our new vision, which is a Medicare guaranteed benefit, fee-for-service for seniors whether they stay in Medicare or choose one of these new options. You defeat the new options, and you defeat those vital reforms as we go in to conference. Vote ``no'' on this motion to instruct.