Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on August 12, 2003, the Deluxe Hotel, a small business in Woonsocket, South Dakota, commemorated 100 years of family ownership and operation of the hotel.

The hotel itself is an original structure built in 1883--two months before there was a town of Woonsocket and six years before South Dakota became a state--by railroad supervisor, Charles H. Prior and his wife. On August 12, 1903, Joseph Lane and Margaret Kirby Brown bought the hotel for $2,250 in cash plus a Springfield, South Dakota hotel valued at $1,500.

Currently, J.L. and Margaret Brown's granddaughter--Delores Brown Bissel--owns and operates the hotel. She was born in the hotel in 1926, and has been involved in its operation ever since. The descendants of Joseph Lane and Margaret Kirby Brown gathered in Woonsocket on August 2nd to commemorate 100 years of family and business history.

Family-owned businesses, such as the Deluxe Hotel, are the backbone of many small, rural South Dakota communities. I congratulate the Brown Family for this remarkable milestone, and hope that this longstanding contribution to the Woonsocket community and surrounding area will continue far into the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit the following letter into the Congressional Record.

Business for Affordable Medicine,

Washington, DC, June 24, 2003.

Hon. Dennis Hastert,

Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Speaker Hastert: We urge you to pass legislation as

part of Medicare reform that will improve the Drug Price

Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act, and the patent

listing requirements under the Federal Food Drug, and

Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).

States spend billions of dollars annually and provide

prescription medicine to residents, state employees, and

retirees. Tax payers are forced to pay hundreds of millions

of dollars in excess costs for the medicine because of

loopholes in the Hatch-Waxman Act that restrict timely access

to lower-cost generic pharmaceuticals. As a result, BAM

members, including states, companies, and labor groups,

support changes to the Hatch-Waxman Act that will provide

greater pharmaceutical competition and more timely access to

generic.

Bipartisan legislation passed by the Senate last week will

provide all purchasers with greater access to generics, and

will produce hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for

federal and state programs. We urge the House to adopt

similar legislation as part of the effort by Congress to add

a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, and urge you to

resist changes or amendments that would weaken the most

important cost-savings provisions in the Senate bill.

Specifically, BAM supports the proposed limit of one 30-

month stay against FDA approval of generic products, as well

as provisions to prevent the use of ``late-listed'' patents--

those filed after generic applications are submitted--to

obtain additional stays. Litigation under the Hatch-Waxman

Act is increasingly tied to patents that have been listed

after the filing of generic applications, resulting in the

need for legislation to restrict the use of 30-month stays to

only those patents listed in the Orange Book prior to the

filing of related generic applications. We also support

changes to provisions in the law that allow drug

manufacturers to intentionally delay litigation on certain

drug patents until the end of any 30-month stay.

In addition we are concerned that consumers, taxpayers and

institutional purchasers have no standing under current law

to challenge abusive listing. As a result, all purchasers

have been forced at times to pay millions of dollars more

than necessary for products that should have faced more

timely competition from generics. We support efforts to

ensure generic manufacturers will be provided with the most

effective avenues possible for relief from unlawful listings.

BAM is committed to working with all members of Congress to

restore balance to the Hatch-Waxman Act and improve

pharmaceutical competition. We look forward to assisting your

efforts.

Sincerely,

Governor M.J. ``Mike'' Foster, Jr.,

Louisiana,

Governor Bob Wise,

West Virginia.

Governor Brad Henry,

Oklahoma.

Governor Bob Holden,

Missouri.

Governor Ronnie Musgrove,

Mississippi.

Governor Thomas Vilsack,

Iowa.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I have to apologize for this laryngitis I have this evening.

I asked myself as I sat here listening to my colleagues from Utah and from Idaho, why am I sitting down here this evening in an empty Chamber when I could be like everybody else and be someplace else? The fact of the matter is I am here because it is incredibly important that the people of America understand what we are doing to ourselves, because that is what it is. We are on a self-destructive tour that is

really bringing about the death of human beings. All we need is to have one of these fires in the West, like we have had in the last several years.

Now, I live in the State of South Dakota. The State of South Dakota in the year 2000, we had a couple of forest fires that burned 132,000 acres of the 1.2 million acres in the Black Hills National Forest. That is approximately 10 percent of the entire Black Hills burned down in 2000. We had 600 soldiers and airmen on Active Duty. We had all of the South Dakota Highway Patrol there. We had 150 local fire departments, all but one of them volunteer fire departments, from all over South Dakota. In addition to that, I called the Governor of Minnesota, the Governor of Wisconsin, the Governors of Nebraska, Montana, and Wyoming. I told them this was beyond our capability. I asked them for help, and they sent their fire trucks. The inmates in our State prison system put in 43,632 hours fighting these fires.

But I tell my colleagues what is more important. At a time during our Nation's destiny, at a time in our Nation's history when we need funding for schools, we need money for diabetes research and cancer research, we need money for Lou Gehrig disease research and muscular dystrophy, we need money for all kinds of things, we have spent $6 billion, $6 billion, in the last 3 years in this country just fighting the forest fires through the U.S. Forest Service. And that does not count the hundreds of millions and billions that have been spent by local governments, the time for volunteers, or I should say the volunteer farmers and ranchers and citizens who have never booked for their own time, utilizing their own equipment and their own resources to try to put these fires out in the West.

Now, the government, if it wants to, has the right to burn down its forests, but it does not have the right to burn private people's property. It did not have the right to kill 23 firefighters in this country last year. It did not have the right to burn down hundreds of homes, hundreds of homes in this country last year. And it does not have the right to destroy private property like they treat their own.

The reality of the situation is that for decades, every time we had insect infestation, we sprayed them and tried to kill the insects. Every time we had a fire, we tried to put it out. And all we did was allow the forest to do what these gentlemen call building the fuel loading per acre, building what is called the ladder fuels in the forest. The ladder fuels are where we have a fire down on the bed of the forest, but then they get so hot they climb up to the top of the trees where they are called crowning, and then they start racing from treetop to treetop.

We had a fire in the Black Hills in the year 2000, the Jasper fire, moved 10 miles in 1 day. Ten miles in one day. All the firemen could do was run for their lives. I gave an evacuation order for 64 square miles of the Black Hills of South Dakota. I was asked by the forest supervisor to evacuate an area 8 by 8; 64 square miles of people went running for their lives grabbing what they could. You should have seen the panic in their faces as all of a sudden they get the word to run for their lives. They race into their houses, some of them trying to grab papers, some trying to grab the parakeet, the cat or the dog; some frantically looking for their children and family members; all thinking this fire will be upon them in a moment's notice, and we not knowing which direction or where those fires are going to go.

For too long we have made political decisions in these forests. Before our committee came the representative for the Foresters of America. The representative for the Foresters of America testified on behalf of the State foresters, and what did he say? He said he represented every one of the 50 State professional foresters in the country. And every one of them, through their testimony, said they support, they support, this healthy forest initiative.

This initiative guarantees that the public has a right to be heard. As a matter of fact, a substantive decision cannot be made unless the public is given notice and an opportunity to be involved. What it does say is if you do not involve yourself in the decision process, then you cannot involve yourself in the appeal process. That has been the law in the civil jurisdictions of America since almost this country was founded. If you try a case in the civil courts, and you do not raise an issue, you cannot raise it for the first time on appeal. You have to raise it in what they call the trial court to raise it in the appellate court.

Well, we are setting up the same process administratively in this bill. We say if you have a comment, if you have an objection, if you are for it or against it or just want to be interested, you must participate and give your input into the decision, or you cannot be involved in the appellate process.

This comes about as a result of all the Western Governors, all of them, Democrat and Republican alike, standing shoulder to shoulder, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, New Mexico, Colorado, all coming together in a summit saying to the Federal officials, the Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Glickman at the time, and the Secretary of the Interior Mr. Babbitt that there has to be a better way. We all agreed with each other. And out of it came the healthy forest initiative that the Western Governors supported, and from that it moved forward to this legislation.

For too long the decisions have been made by judges. Judges should interpret the law. The decisions need to be made in a democracy by the majority, after consulting, after receiving input, after having suggestions and involvement by the minority. But the majority has to rule.

Mr. Speaker, the most important thing of all is what I have saved until now, and that is that when these forests burn, Mr. Speaker, like the fires from hell as they burn in the West, thousands and thousands of acres, all of that ash material in the air, look how it shortens the lives of people with emphysema. We have no records of how many people have had their life shortened and ended that have emphysema or bronchitis, or suffer from asthma, or suffer from lung cancer or sinus trouble or a whole host of the cardiovascular kinds of problems.

Imagine a little child, the family bringing him home at birth from the hospital, the excitement and the joy as all the extended family and the community gathers together in Rapid City, South Dakota; in Custer, South Dakota; Gillette, Wyoming; Boise, Idaho; Colorado Springs or Pikes Peak. And here you have this tiny child breathing all these contaminants, these carcinogens, these things that will inhibit the development of the lung tissue and affect the ability of this child to live.

For too long, we have played politics with our natural resources. For too long we have played politics with our, and I use the word, national resources. And for too long we have played politics with the lives of our elderly, our working people, and our children. So I have a great deal of pride to say that I come here to support this legislation. It is good legislation.

Mr. Speaker, let me also say that when it came out of our committee, when it passed out of the Committee on Agriculture, it was by a voice vote, a strong, strong bipartisan vote. Democrats and Republicans stood together from all over this country on that committee, and a significant majority of them voted ``aye'' when asked if they supported this legislation. So I am excited about this legislation. It is going to finally turn the corner. We have, the testimony was, 120 million acres. If you can imagine the size of that, the State of South Dakota is 80 million acres. So it is something that is almost twice the size of the State of South Dakota that is in danger of fires. And 70 million of those acres of forests throughout America, only the national forests, 70 million of them are in extreme danger of fire. This is wrong. This is unconscionable. This is immoral. This is something we can fix.

And so I ask you, Mr. Speaker, and I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of this Congress, support this bill. Vote to save our natural resources and our national resources. Vote to extend the lives of our people. Vote to stop spending all the money that we have to spend on these unhealthy forests. Vote to stop spending all the money that we waste on fires, and let us invest it in the children of America, the sick of America, the problems of America.

Yes, sir.

Sir, the fires in Idaho stink up the air and plug up the lungs in South Dakota and Minnesota.

And places east. All the way across the country. It affects the sunlight. It affects the haze that we get, the smell that we get. But more importantly, that haze is what we are breathing into the lungs of our sick people and our healthy people.

And our little children.

I think they care. I do not think they think about it. Because sometimes, especially in this country, we all get so driven that we are going to accomplish our objective our way that we ignore the needs of other people. It is the old expression, and in my State we say, those are the kind of people that say, it's my way or the highway. That is what we are dealing with. These are not crazy people. These are not screwballs. They are very bright people, but it is their way or no way.

Sir, all I want to do is save them. I am for saving the forests. I am 63 years old. I am out of here soon. But I have got grandchildren. I have got five grandchildren. These forests belong to them. Those forests are their heritage, and they are entitled to see them and not breathe them.

Sir, the forest fire in Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, you pick your State, Washington, Oregon, California, South Dakota, the forest fires there in the last several years, each of the years, those fires, it will take over 100 years to sequester the carbon back into the soil. Everybody knows that carbon dioxide, everybody knows the release of that carbon contributes to global warming. We hear that all the time with respect to smokestack industries and burning of coal and burning of petrochemicals. The fires in the West release a year's supply of automobiles. But the sequestration to get them back in the soil will take a century.

You not only get more mercury but now you have destroyed the watershed. You have destroyed the things in the hills that contribute to clean and healthy waters running into the streams. In Lead, South Dakota, in Deadwood, the home of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, Deadwood, the home of the largest gold mine in the western hemisphere, the old Homestake gold mine, the community of Deadwood had the Grisly Gulch fire that burned about 12,000 acres and only by the reason of the volunteer firemen and women because the Forest Service only sent three fire trucks for a fire that was racing into the communities of Lead and Deadwood. These fires were stopped by the volunteers. Then a couple of weeks later, 2 inches of rain came one evening and a river of muck came roaring down the hills, doing millions of dollars worth of damage with this muck and ash that was 2, 3, 4 feet deep in some spots.

But just as importantly, it now cleared away the hillside, so every time it rains, for dozens of years, every time it rains, you are going to have these waters racing down the hills into the valleys. But in addition to that, when you mix water with these ashes, you get lye. You get lye. When you take these little baby fish and these little fry, you kill them with lye. Lye is not good for human beings when they drink it. It is not a healthy substance. There are carcinogens in that. We have Federal laws that will put you in jail if you give cancer-causing ingredients to people. Yet no one seems to be bothered by giving cancer-causing ingredients to people as a result of forest fires. We cannot stop forest fires, but we can stop these kinds of forest fires by good forestry.

All I am asking for is best science. That is all I am asking for is best science.

I will not attack the environmental groups. I am an environmentalist.

My grandchildren drink the water. They bathe in it. Their food is cooked in it. I want it to be nothing but healthy. But the worst environment in the world, a lousy environment, is when you are cold and you are hungry and you are unemployed. That is a bad environment. That is what the West being burned up is doing to people.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to be extremely brief. This healthy forest initiative is an initiative that is incredibly important. It is not very often that we deal with things of that much substance. This is one of those opportunities. For too long we have made the forests into political issues where people fight with each other. The reality of the situation is every time we get that strong of emotions on all sides, usually we end up with a bad result. That is what we have here.

There is no one, there is no one, who says these forests are healthy, and when I say forests, I am talking about a couple hundred million acres of land in America, virtually the entire part of many of our States. In my State it is the Black Hills, which is the westernmost portion of the State. But there is no one who says these forests are being properly managed. There is no one who says we have been doing the right thing.

The arguments are what do we do to fix the problem, or do we just let God burn them down? It is okay to let God burn them down, but we are burning up people in the process. We are burning up people's homes in the process. We are destroying people's lives. We are shortening the lives of people. We are making it incredibly unhealthy for human beings. We are contributing to the wiping out of endangered species, be they plant life or be they animal life. So what we need to do is something different.

This is a reasonable approach that involves input from all corners of the philosophies. It preserves the right of anybody who does not like the decision to go to court, but more than anything else, it starts us on another track away from the track that we all agree has not worked.

For the sake of this country, for the sake of its resources, for the sake of our families, for the sake of endangered species, for the sake of our economy, and for the sake of our health, we need to pass this initiative.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 149) expressing support for the celebration of Patriot's Day and honoring the Nation's first patriots, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Con. Res. 149.

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

Mr. Speaker, House concurrent resolution 149 introduced by my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), expresses the support of this Congress for Patriots' Day and honors this Nation's first patriots.

April 19, 1775 was an incredibly unique day in the world. In Lexington, Massachusetts and in Concord, Massachusetts, we had individuals who had gathered, patriots, none of them paid, none of them in any organized sense, but they gathered together in Lexington and Concord, having made a determination that they would no longer yield to the tyranny and the oppression that they perceived from their masters.

As these people gathered, one of the places they gathered was Concord Bridge. Colonel Prescott was there with these patriots. And as the Red Coats advanced he said, ``Don't fire unless fired upon. But if we must have war, let it begin here.''

And then shortly thereafter was the shot that has been described as having been heard round the world, as these patriots stood their ground against the oncoming British professional infantry and refused to yield and refused to back up. As a result of their having taken that stand, the Revolutionary War went forward and ultimately, this band of patriots that gathered on that day at Lexington and Concord were really the impetus that drove the colonialists to move forward, and ultimately to create the freedom that we know in this country today.

Seven years later, the Revolutionary War was over. The surrender had taken place, but the important thing is that these people, Colonel Prescott, Paul Revere, William Dawes and the others, many of whom we do not even know their names, were individuals who had drawn the line in the sand and determined that never again would they yield to those kinds of forces and tyranny.

What is the point of this resolution? The point of this resolution is that today, in today's world, we have a responsibility to continue to be reminded about these kinds of patriots. Even today, in the Nation of Iraq, we have patriots from this country policing the streets of that country, assisting the individuals in Iraq to move forward towards a more democratic future.

The important thing that we all have to recognize is just as those patriots back in 1775, these individuals today are also volunteers. They are volunteers in our active Armed Forces and they are volunteers from our Reserves and our National Guard, and men and women from our various branches.

So I would like to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) for having brought this to our attention that we should focus on this. The gentleman from Massachusetts has done a service to all of us, and I ask my colleagues to unanimously consent to the passage of this resolution commemorating April 19 as Patriots' Day and every year forward on that particular day.

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

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

Once again, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. April 18, 1775: patriotism, sacrifice, and volunteerism, three of the basic principles that help create this country; things so important that a short time later they wrote in a document that there were self-evident truths: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They wrote in that same document that all men and women were created equal, something this country has struggled to bring to reality, but something this country fulfills as a mission every single day.

So in the spirit of how this country was founded, sacrifice, patriotism, volunteerism, the Minutemen were individuals willing to die and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for things that are more important than wealth or notoriety or publicity. That is the kind of tribute that we ought to continue to remind ourselves is our responsibility as Americans.

So, Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) for authoring this. I would urge all my colleagues to please support this resolution.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and clearly the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) for taking the leadership to move forward on this.

Mr. Speaker, it is an unusual day in America when people can look to the Congress and understand that we may really solve a problem. If we can agree on something being a problem, it should not be hard to fix it. The debate ought to be around what does it take to bring about a solution, but we have to agree there is a problem.

There is no question but that when one charges more for a monopoly like the Postal Service, when one charges more money for something than one is supposed to, then that is an unfair tax on the people, just as if the Congress had passed the tax. Two, it has a stifling effect on the economy and all of those businesses, but just as importantly, all of those individual human beings that use the Postal Service for everything from mailing their monthly bills to mailing out anniversary and Christmas cards. Three, they have not been able to figure out in the past how to take care of funding the Civil Service Retirement System adequately.

It is a red letter day when the Republicans and Democrats can come together on a bill that they agree solves a problem.

Mr. Speaker, that is what we have here today. We have had anthrax in the Postal Service, we have had the situation of rate increases in the Postal Service, we have had the situation in the Postal Service where we are dealing with a down economy, but this is a real shot in the arm for this organization. One, we are going to be able to use the excess monies to go into funding the operational aspects for fiscal years 03, 04 and 05. The second thing we are going to be able to do is to fix the Civil Service Retirement System. And the third thing we are going to be able to do is to move the Postal Service more towards a sound financial setting.

I have heard from the mail carriers, I have heard from the postmasters, I have heard from the newspaper organizations and the magazine organizations. The one group that I have not heard from are the consumers of America, the individual people, because they have not been aware that this problem has been going forward.

So, Mr. Speaker, it is really an exciting day, truly an exciting day when people can come together in this Congress, in this House, and solve problems.

Now, having said that, I think we all have to recognize that this gives the Postal Service a couple additional years of opportunity to look at their organization, to look at the things they have to do, to make this a more efficient, more effective service. It is the largest single business in this country. There is no business bigger. We always talk about the Fortune 500 or the top 100 or whatever. There is no business in this Nation that is as large as the U.S. Postal Service in terms of its economic impact, its economic might, and its economic power. It can also be an economic drag, because this Nation cannot run without that service.

So to the extent that we are able to find billions of dollars and move them into the operational side, move them into the side to reduce the capital expenditure demands for increased funding, there is no question but what that does is give us the ability to be able to more effectively deal with the economy of this country.

This is a couple billion dollars a year, but the cumulative effect would have been $70 billion, 7 followed by 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0. As Senator Dirksen once said, If you take a billion here and a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.

So what we are doing today is taking the first giant step towards solving a real money problem for the American people. What we are doing today is starting the long-range fix of the problem in the Postal Service to the benefit of the employees, to the benefit of the consumers, to the benefit of the users, and to the benefit of the economy of America.

I say to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis), I sincerely applaud you as the chairman of the committee that has drafted this in the first couple of months in the Congress. The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) has done the same thing. They have come together in a committee that had historically a lot of contention. They have come together to move forward on something that is for the good of all of the people of this great country, and so I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. McHugh) for having planted the seed and kept the tree nurtured until the others could seize upon it.

This is a red letter day for the people of America, and I urge my colleagues to support it unanimously.

Mr. Speaker, I would like, today, to recognize the following high school class in Marion, South Dakota.

On April 26, 2003, more than 1200 students from across the United States will visit Washington, D.C. to compete in the national finals of the We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution program, the most extensive educational program in the country developed specifically to educate young people about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Administered by the Center for Civic Education, the We the People program is funded by the U.S. Department of Education by act of Congress.

I am proud to announce that the class from Marion High School from Marion will represent the state of South Dakota in this national event. These young scholars have worked conscientiously to reach the national finals by participating at local and statewide competitions. As a result of their experience they have gained a deep knowledge and understanding of the fundamental principles and values of our constitutional democracy.

The three-day We the People national competition is modeled after hearings in the United States Congress. The hearings consist of oral presentations by high school students before a panel of adult judges on constitutional topics. The students are given an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge while they evaluate, take, and defend positions on relevant historical and contemporary issues. Their testimony is followed by a period of questioning by the judges who probe the students' depth of understanding and ability to apply their constitutional knowledge.

The We the People program provides curricular materials at upper elementary, middle, and high school levels. The curriculum not only enhances students' understanding of the institutions of American constitutional democracy, it also helps them identify the contemporary relevance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Critical thinking exercises, problem-solving activities, and cooperative learning techniques help develop participatory skills necessary for students to become active, responsible citizens.

Independent studies by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) revealed that students enrolled in the We the People program at upper elementary, middle, and high school levels ``significantly outperformed comparison students on every topic of the tests taken.'' Another study by Richard Brody at Stanford University discovered that students involved in the We the People program develop greater commitment to democratic principles and values than do students using traditional textbooks and approaches. Researchers at the Council for Basic Education noted, ``[T]eachers feel excited and renewed. . . . Students are enthusiastic about what they have been able to accomplish, especially in terms of their ability to carry out a reasoned argument. They have become energized about their place as citizens of the United States.

The class from Marion High School is currently preparing for their participation in the national competition in Washington, D.C. It is inspiring to see these young people advocate the fundamental ideals and principles of our government, ideas that identify us as a people and bind us together as a nation. It is important for future generations to understand these values and principles which we hold as standards in our endeavor to preserve and realize the promise of our constitutional democracy. I wish these young ``constitutional experts'' the best of luck at the We the People national finals.