my time the gentleman from georgia reserves the balance of his time the gentleman from arizona is recognized i reserve the balance of my time provides the leadership the coordination and support services for fire prevention and control which is critical i mean we still lose one hundred firefighters on average every year that certainly is unacceptable to any of us on this floor and we need to work even harder to make sure that our firefighters have the resources and the wherewithal to do the job we asked them to do if you remember the fire act we passed before nine eleven this was a response to the very basic needs of fire the thirty two thousand fire departments throughout the united states and the one million firefighters that legislation broke ground because it was a response to needs that we've neglected we can expect that every local community in this country have the resources has the resources to supply and provide the training and the equipment and the state of the art to the fire departments throughout america and so that fire act is been so successful there is literally three and a half billion dollars in applications in the fire act and it's your menace amount of applications for  safer every year and we have devised those of us on both sides of the aisle probably the best format of how to judge the competitive applications we have asked the firefighters to step up to the plate judge by their peers but the fired ministration is partner with all of these peer fire fighters who review the applications this is a very unusual and fire act and say for bill this is very unusual the money goes directly to the departments so that the states cannot skim and the local government cannot skim so this is a real competition and i believe that's how all federal funds should use should be used that's my own personal opinion i the fire administration has been a true partner for thirty four years the roles and responsibilities of the fire service have evolved the one point one million men and woman in fire and emergency services three hundred and over three hundred sixteen thousand career firefighters almost three hundred seventeen thousand and eight one minute one minute thank you i cannot express how important this is all the competitors that existed before two thousand we've gotten out of it and and working together the career firefighters and the volunteer firefighters this is very important legislation that is going to save lives and isn't this what we're here for to do what we can on a federal level realizing it's always going to be do local efforts that are going to meet most important but we have a responsibility and it seems to me today mr chairman that we're stepping up to the plate and i want to commend members of both sides the good doctor and my good friend from the from the southwest part of the country this has brought us together this legislation and it is good legislation and i thank you and i yield gentleman from new jersey as time has expired the ch recognizes the gentleman from georgia mr chairman i will continue to raise our my time generally continues to reserve chairman time mr chairman may i ask is remaining the gentleman from arizona time remaining as eighteen minutes and the gentleman from georgia his time remaining is twenty two minutes thank mister this chairman i would like to gentleman a i would like to know as much time as he may consume to miss richardson gentle lady from california generally viewed from california is recognized and for such time as she may want to consume thank you mr chairman i write in strong support today of h r forty eight forty seven which is the united states fire ministration reauthorization act this reauthorization of this vital legislation demonstrates congress commitment to enhance the protection of our citizens throughout this great nation to prevent any harm that might come to loss of life or property due to devastation caused by fires are included in this legislation is an amendment that i offered at a full committee markup that i'd like to reiterate and clarify at this time inclusive in h r forty eight forty seven is an m it is in an amendment that does not create a new standalone loan course regarding port and marine firefighting in fact much effort was taken by my staff the republican side committee staff as well as the various agencies to ensure that we would take conscious action in not creating additional costs for the agencies and our programs that are right now really not funded to the levels we would like to see the intent of the amendment is to take the unique content of port and marine firefighting activity and to incorporate that information into existing classes why you might ask this congress is goal of using  manner resources that we have we also want to integrate information to best prepare our firefighters to respond to disasters and you might ask the question why in the united states alone we have over one hundred twenty six shipping ports all of which are critical to the movement of goods and the general health of our economy the volatility of the products that are being shipped and the new increased size of these shipping vessels causes problems to our fire our fighters in terms of responding so when you consider a district such as mine that borders along the port of long beach and also the port of los angeles one of the things that we learned in the wake of katrina we learned in the san diego fire and we also learned with september eleventh is that firefighters are brothers and sisters you might have role firefighters who respond to an urban disaster likewise urban firefighters might be called to respond to a rural disaster and so one of the things that we've learned in these incredible complex disasters that we've had over the last couple years is that in operability the ability for rural and urban firefighters to have the same information and to be prepared in the midst of a disaster because it's one thing to play monday night quarterback when you know everything can be planned in advance but when we have a disaster it is too late at that point for our firefighters to be trained on how do you respond to an extended vessel or how do you expect respond to an  disaster or how do you respond to anything else that might be occurring and so with that it is my pleasure to work with we had a great leadership by mr mitchell here in this after effort of the bill because we never know what our firefighters might be facing i unfortunately lost a firefighter in california just last week so i would be remiss at this moment not to think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle representative bartlett representative roy bach or for their support of this amendment i entend through conference with staff and the appropriate members of the department of homeland security u s f a's administration and the superintendent of the fire academy to ensure that we had the right curricula that can be incorporated that can benefit all firefighters to ultimately protect our citizens in a better in a better way and in closing i want to commend again our colleague representative mitchell for his leadership on this issue and also our chairman gorton for his commitment on the science and technology committee to move beyond all the limits and the challenges that we have and to make sure that americans are protected every day i encourage my colleagues to support this bill and with that mr chairman i yield back the balance of my time generally from california as time has expired the chair recognizes the gentleman from georgia mr chairman i don't have a speaker at this time i anticipate a speaker but so that i will go ahead and continue to reserve the balance amount that in general will continue to reserve the balance of his time the gentleman from arizona has recognized mr chairman i would like to yield as much time as he may consume to mr ruef to gentleman from oregon he's the chairman of the technology and innovation subcommittee and i want to thank chairman move for moving his bill so quickly to the subcommittee i thank you general recognizes the gentleman from oregon and is given as much time as you may want to have i thank the gentleman and mr speaker first of all i'd like to recognize the leadership of the gentleman from arizona mr mitchell for working diligently on this important piece of legislation for working reaching across the aisle and working with the gentleman from georgia and for his leadership in shaping this important piece of legislation in fact it was indeed through efforts like this that congress first formed the united states fire administration in one thousand nine hundred seventy four because of then reports that there were over twelve thousand deaths each year in this country and over three hundred thousand fire injuries and through the five work of the u s f a a and others we have been fortunate to see that number drop dramatically we're now much safer nation thanks improved awareness of fire safety practices increased use of smoke detectors and sprinklers and other fire safety measures still about three thousand people die each year fires and ten thousand people more are injured we also still see too many firefighters die in the line of duty and i want to recognize mr pascrell the gentleman from new jersey for his diligent work over many years to decrease that unconscionable number we have a lot more work to do the u s f a a supports local fire departments in a variety of ways it offers training and career development  thousands of mid level firefighters fire chiefs and other emergency management officials u s f a a is a great way for the federal government to help coordinate efforts for local firefighters a also devolves fire education and awareness curricula to be used in training citizens across the country it aims these messages at groups which suffer the highest fire casualties such as the young and the elderly while congress is working to reauthorize and build on this important program the president unfortunately is cutting the budget for us f a a indeed the president's fiscal  nine budget cuts u s f a a by more than five percent as firefighters learn to response new issues such as fires in the wild land urban interface terrorist events and harmful materials students we need to provide sufficient funds to train and prepare them for these situations firefighters risk their lives we day so that they can put project hours passing this legislation is one way that we can not only show but tangibly demonstrate our deep appreciation i urge my colleagues to vote yes on the underlying bill again recognize the leadership of the gentleman from arizona mr mitchell and yield back to him the balance of my time the gentleman from arizona ules back the balance of time that you're not recognized gentleman from georgia mr chairman at this time far wonderful friends and fearful enemies and i'm sure that's been said a lot of times today and we know the terrible devastation that that can bring these both of these can bring thousands of people die in the united states every year due to fire and many more are injured the toll would be even higher if it weren't for the dedication and the service of our nation's firemen and women i don't know how you can say enough about our nation firefighters i would say this it's kind of a shame the took a nine eleven for people to really fully appreciate firefighters and men and women that defend us and defend our property and our l this think they're crazy for the country and it and it's good for this congress down around them every chance we get and that's why i'm very pleased to comedian science and technology has taken the time to deliberate and produce a bill that will greatly contribute to the well as the rest of the colleagues own committee for their work and i of course urge passage of h r forty eight forty seven and yield back the balance of my time after once again saying that it's unusual that it would take some kind of devastation like we had and our sister state over here to really bring the full appreciation of men and women who day and night faced the fires and face protection of our property and  goods and i'm honored to be a part of recognizing them and saying to them one more time from the bottom of our hearts we thank you with appreciate what you're doing and we look forward to the fact that you're going to be able to continue to do that and with that i utah for such time as he may want to consume but once again the science committee brings to the house floor a bill that makes sense that was developed in a bipartisan way it's a great tradition of this committee and i think members on both sides on that committee know what a great committee this work on and to thank congressman michel in particular for taking the lead on this issue because his approach really fits into the science committee approach about how we look at issues and we try to work together in a bipartisan way to make progress and and that's why i'm happy to stand up and offer my support for this bill today in the grand scheme of things one of the reasons why i think this is incredibly portland is that the united states has one of the highest fire related death rates among all industrialized nations think about that with all the technology we have in this country all the safety measures we still rank so poorly among industrialized nations in terms of fire related deaths and this legislation takes a step in terms of trying to address that problem now i come from my western state the state of utah and in the west we have particular danger in terms of forest fires this legislation fully fund the national fire incident reporting system which is going to help the u s fired ministration prevent future forest fires currently we're only able to capture data from fifty percent of wildfires which just is not enough by improving the instant reporting system the u s fired ministration will be able to speed up the report and data journey a more comprehensive database in practical terms that's go mean better analysis greater fire prevention and fewer lives lost and in particular this bill if an acted will expand the program to training in wild land urban interface areas and this is an issue that's particularly important in western states where as population growth has taken place there has been greater development of housing that's moved more into where the forests exist and that's a critical problem during these wild fire incidents is how we deal with fire issues in that very sensitive area most of my congressional district faces this problem and my congressional district is not unusual compared to most of the west i believe better training in terms of this wild land urban has been a leader on this issue as well and again the science committee as usual comes up with a bill that makes sense i'm sure it will be adopted today and i urge all my colleagues to support the bill i get that my time the gentleman from utah he is back the balance of his time the gentleman from georgia is recognized mr chairman if i might ask my good friend from arizona how much time for us all does he have left and head does they have additional speakers  the gentleman from arizona the time remaining for him is eight minutes and the gentleman from georgia the balance of time remaining for him is to see him twenty minutes how much damage said mr chairman twenty and a half minutes well i want to say the gentleman's from arizona if you need additional time we would be glad to yield ten minutes if you needed if you have additional speakers thank you we have some additional have come and said before this this body we made significant strides in reducing fire related deaths and injuries since congress first created this agency in the one nine hundred seventy but again as we've noted and everyone has all the speakers have voted there are still more than three thousand americans that die every year from fires and many more injured and despite the the decreases in the number of fires the cost of continually rising and fact it's roughly the same cost the damage the fires roughly the same cost as caused by hurricanes we know that the fire service provides critical assistance to protect our communities fro emergency events from house fire to terrorist events to natural disasters firefighters as we've noted are not only the first on the scene but many times the last to leave as the wildfires in california last fall demonstrated the fire service plays a vital role in protecting our communities and that's why we introduce h r forty eight forty seven to reauthorize the u s five ministration and provide additional resources to our nation firefighters the u s five ministration is an invaluable resource for over one point three million firefighters and emergency personnel around the country through training educational materials that a collection and other services use me the u s f a a price tools in leadership to firefighters in communities that they serve h r forty eight forty seven  a funding it's critical work until the fiscal year two thousand and twelve this bill will ensure that our firefighters are trained to handle modern day challenges facing it ace first responders including as we have mentioned before fire fighting in the wild land urban interface responding to hazardous material inside that's the deal supported by it we've got this sort of whole list of these before all of these national associations that deal with fire fighting this bill is a product of bipartisan collaboration and had considerable input from fire service community we encourage you to help support firefighters in your district by ensuring that everyone have the resources they need by supporting this important legislation and yes i will reserve the balance of my time the gentleman from arizona reserves the balance of his time to recognize gentleman from there was a significant fire and of course as he was pulled from the burning vehicle sustained severe severe injuries to his person from the fire and he described you know that that fire had inflicted upon his body and and then the scarring of course one of water a brave i wish i could remember his name mr speaker because it was talk about a profile in courage but it just made me think about as we've been discussing here today and you talk about what these firefighters do and how important they are and actually as we know forty percent of the work load in operation iraqi and enduring freedom has been carried by our guard and reserve many of whom are firefighters who you know there have been trying to fight god for that and i and i'm  of i want to look into this further and i'm sure that our military our regular army and marine corps they're all well trained in that but that just goes to show you how important it is not just to save a life but try in regard to the fact that the latest year that we had numbers that was still something like thirty seven thirty eight hundred people that lose their laps every year in fires in this country will you know what that's that's about the number four thousand now that of also their labs in in this four and a half five year war and of course they're practically three thousand labs lost many of them from fire  firefighters themselves all nine eleven and so it just it just brings home the message that that fire is a is an awful thing it is an awful thing it might not kid you immediately like one of these higher powered projectiles but it can certainly destroy one's life and so what we're talking about here today is so important and that's why this bill is so important i just wanted to make those remarks mr chairman and  i don't have additional speakers waiting for time but i would like to reserve the balance of my time and i still might be offered to yield to mr mitchell if you need some more minutes the gentleman from georgia reserves the balance of his time efforts he's put into this bill the gentleman from are gone is recognized for such time as you may consider thank you mr chairman and again i would like to recognize the leadership of the gentleman from arizona for working so october at at the subcommittee level and then we had a full committee markup and the bill was drafted infocom consultation with with both the majority and minority members and majority and minorit is very very important i also want to draw attention to the sections of the bill that directs the u s f a a to educate local fire departments about voluntary consensus standards for fire fighters health and safety and many fire groups especially the international association of firefighters very strongly believe that here instead the standards can help reduce the number of firefighters who die each year in the line of duty this bill has been endorsed by the international association of fire chiefs the international association of firefighters the national volunteer fire council the national fire protection association the international association of arson investigators the north american fire training directors the international fire service training association and the congressional fire services institute and i would like to specifically thank all the firefighters from home in oregon who helped me with this legislation in shaping it and bringing it to this point on the house floor and with that i would have again like to commend the gentleman from arizona mr mitchell for his leadership on this important legislation and yield back the balance of time gentlemen to organise time as you have back the balance of his time as the chair not recognize gentleman from georgia chairman i'll continue to reserve judgment continues to reserve the balance of his time the gentleman from arizona has recognized thank you mr chairman i would like to yield as much time as i may consume to mr miller the gentleman from north carolina gentleman from north carolina is recognized for s destructive but we have made great strides under this program in one thousand seventy three there were more than six thousand americans to die each year in far as another hundred thousand were injured because of  largely because of this program in the training and other support we are now about to the point we're about sixteen thousand a year are injured and between three and thirty five hundred die each year that is obviously too much but is remarkable progress and among the most dangerous work that anyone can do is fighting fires that the number of deaths each year among firefighters is is it's is a large number and even more injured every year a great many firefighters never complete their term of service before qualifying for retirement because they suffer from disabling injuries this bill does provide for additional materials as well as giving advanced training in emergency medical services in it does as mr lou just pointed out a moment ago provide for moving towards a voluntary consensus for firefighters health and safety  this will help reduce that number of firefighters who die each year who suffer from from grievous injury use in doing very courageous work in protecting us and protecting our property and on it now you'll back not on the gentleman who's the chairman of the homeland security committee chair will remind the general from arizona he has one and a half minutes left i think it's time and then there's chair of the chair recognizes the gentleman from mississippi thank you very much mr speaker and must speak out rise today in strong support of the underlying bill which reauthorize is one of the most effective agencies in the department of homeland security h r forty forty seven provides seventy million dollars annually to the fight ministration through two thousand and twelve to ensure long term funding stability for this critical agency and like to thank the gentleman from arizona mitchell and a cham and other science and technology committee mr gordon for their leadership on this issue and for working with me to bring this legislation to the floor today mr speaker the statistics a sobering every year over one hundred firefighters died in the line of duty in two thousand and five the national fire protection association reported three thousand six hundred seventy five civilian deaths nearly eighteen thousand civilian fire injuries and over ten billion dollars in direct losses due to fire the united states fact administration plays a critical leadership role in leading local fire departments to dramatically reduce these numbers so mr speaker i along with all the other speakers who have come before you and supported this legislation encourages its passage gentleman speaker we have no further speakers the chair well your mind the gentleman from arizona that all of his time has  mr chairman i move from georgia i have i have no no other speakers on this side and i'll i will i am prepared to close for our side i don't know if it's possible for me to and one half minutes well i would be happy in this chairman if it if the chair would allow to yield a up to five minutes for the gentleman from arizona to close but i i want to make my closing remarks of course before that beckley becky dead bellenger there see them literally every week in the district in the great work that they do and it makes me awfully proud to to be up here representing not only them but the othe of the eight counties in my district they know that we're fighting to help them protect us and that's a a comforting feeling h r forty eight forty seven is a very good  this is the least that we in this body can do to support our nation's fire services and i want to again say i hope that we'll have as many members that are present today close to four hundred thirty i hope voting yes for forty eight forty seven support this bill and at this hour i'm prepared to yield the remaining are as much time as the gentleman from arizona needs for the purpose of his closing most of the chair recognizes the gentleman from arizona thank you mr speaker and i first would like to to things to gingrey and all of his staff for the support they've given this important piece of legislation it's the least we can do here in congress is provide the resources necessary for our first responders to react the educationists involved the training operatively in areas that are very important like in arizona california where there is a wildfire urban interface i said earlier the we've had a very wet winter in arizona which means it's good and bad it brings out the wildflowers and it brings out a lot of bring but at the same time in the lower elevations it brings out a lot of dry tender which will just really is very dangerous this time here so i would like to thank everyone the staff some both sides of the committee chairman the subcommittee chairman everyone who dealt with this particular issue and i did want to thank all the firefighters the professional people who are involved who gave us what they felt is necessary to move this bill forward and to give them the tools that they need this piece of legislation will last until two thousand and twelve at that time of course we will have more him put hopefully we won't have as many disasters as type of disasters but there will be new things that we need to learn and train for so i appreciate again everyone and their effort in this and i know that the people around this country who are protected by these ferocious binders also appreciate what we are doing for them today thank you the chairman recognizes the hills the time all time has expired for both the gentleman from arizona as well as a gentleman from georgia all time for general debaters expired in lieu of the amendment of the nature of a substitute printed in the bill as shelby in order to consider as an original bill for the purpose of amendment under the five minute rule an amendment in the nature of a substitute printed in part of a house report one one zero dash five six three that amendment in the nature of a substitute shall be considered re to that amendment shall be in order except those printed in part b of the report each amendment may be offered only in the order printed in the report may be offered only by a member designated in the report shall be considered read debatable for the time specified in the report it will be divided and controlled by the proponent and i'll phone it shall not be subject to amendment and shall not be subject to a demand for a division of the question speaker mr speaker the reorder ization act of two thousand and eight which would provide this amendment provides that the national fire academy training program could train fire service personnel in response tactics and strategies for dealing with national catastrophes including terrorist caused national catastrophes and incidents that involve weapons of mass destruction i want to thank the co sponsor of the underlying bill representative harry mitchell from arizona for presenting a very strong piece of legislation that will reauthorize the united states fire ministration for another five years also want to thank the chairman of the science committee congressman gorton for his leadership in considering all the necessary elements of this legislation with the end result being a strong comprehensive bill the underlying bill clear that this is a small price to pay when considering the thousands of lives we lose each year to fire emergencies and the billions of dollars we spent to fight them throughout my years in congress have always been passionate for funding our nation's fire departments and firefighters the fire and safety grants safer grants that this congress has provided and the funds supplied through this reauthorization i feel especially strong about this reauthorization because it also includes provisions that help guide the fiery cademy on how to best train our nation's firefighters for the added in the increased challenges they face every day my amendment addresses this huge issue by simply updating the training program at the national fire academy to include national catastrophes related to terrorism we saw on nine eleven our nation's heroic firefighters were among the first responders on the scene trying desperately to rescue as many people as possible and that horrific act of terror clearly we all understand that the responsibilities of our nation's firefighters became greater on that day as they now have to train for emergency response to catastrophic terrorist attacks including the forboding threat of incidents involving weapons of mass destruction many of these types of courses already exist at the fire academy but the future of these critical courses for firefighters should never be put in doubt and need to be codify my meme it simply puts these practices into law and all the work and i reserve the balance of my time is to speak the gentleman reserves a balance of his time harry is there any member who seeks recognition in opposition to the proposed amendment mr chairman the gentleman from georgia has recognized this chairman the men and women of our nation's fire services are among the very first responders to an extraordinary wide range of accidents injuries and disasters and the gentleman from new jersey he knows as well as anybody in this body he was right they are his district right they are very close  attack unlike the the murtha building attack at oklahoma city which was an incidence of domestic violence by our own if you will homegrown terrorist s this situation that occurred on nine eleven is the reason why i'm sure the gentleman from new jersey has brought forth this good amendment and he is so right to point out that firefighters will also be the first to the scene when many of these catastrophes hopefully it won't occur in this country again we've been blessed i think that meant a lot of hard work on th part part of this congress of this ministry action to protect our country on our soil from another terrorist attack thank god so far it hasn't happened but that doesn't mean you don't trying for and prepare for first job of course always is to heroically save lives but fire service of all also will act to minimize the damage and property loss that a terrorist strike or ensuing events may call as i mean  is as the amendment addresses that there may be biological weapons of mass destruction and there could have been all right and the two planes maybe another plane with a terrorist coming into the city and parachutes with with nuclear or biological weapons say or in gas attack god knows what could have happened in the subways of new york city so the united states fired ministration works hand in glove with our with the components of the department of homeland security mr chairman thompson is here on the floor right now to yes the terrorist to mince natural disasters and of course the the daily accidents and fires that occur in communities across country mr chairman i wholeheartedly support the gentleman's amendment i urge all my colleagues and i expect all my colleagues to support his amendment and i reserve the balance of my gender from georgia reserves the balance of his time the chair will remind the gentleman from new jersey that he has two minutes remaining mr chairman i want to thank my friend from georgia and i would like to yield thirty seconds to the gentleman from arizona mr mitchell the gentleman from arizona is recognized for thirty six artifacts i thank  chairman i also want to say thank you to mr gingrey for his support of this event which we know will make this a much stronger bill and a better bill so i thank you very much for the amendment and all the support that it's receiving now you  back to balance my time this gives me a tremendous sense of honor to introduce also the gentleman from mississippi my good friend who is also the chairman of the homeland security committee no one no one has worked harder to bring all of the agencies together in a separate to protect our country and to protect our families and our neighborhoods and gentleman mister please y committee on homeland security must pass quayle the gentleman from patterson new jersey is a leader on the committee and in congress on first responder issues as a formal volunteer firefighter and graduate of the missi the fact cademy partners with existing local and state training of haddam is to reach more force responders pascoe oil amendment addresses one key area of training terrorism response training specifically to mimic seeks to ensure that fire service personnel get training on response tactics and strategies for dealing with terrorist calls national catastrophes and incidents that involve weapons of mass destruction such incidents can be very complex and require a response from many public safety agencies across multiple jurisdictions today the fact cademy have a terrorism curriculum in place will ensure this continuation it has been nearly seven years since the attacks of nine eleven and thankfully we have not been attacked since i have a mr speaker the threat is still very real as members of congress it's our collective responsibility to ensure that responders in our communities are fully trained equipped and staffed to answer the call once again i encourage my colleagues to support the past grayle amendment as well as the underlying bill are you back to balance of my time the all time is expired the question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from the those in favor please say i those opposed please say no independent of the chair the ayes have it remember it is adopted  posed each will control five minutes the chair recognizes gentleman from idaho thank you mr chairman mr chairman firefighting is a high risk high consequence activity and agencies that are involved in managing wild land urban interface has always had strong firefighter safety and training programs firefighter safety is their highest priority in fact the one nine five federal fire policy since the order of priorities for a while and firefighters as number one publics and firefighter safety number two protection of resources number three protection of property the safety health and welfare of firefighters and the general public are becoming increasingly linked to the decline in health of forested ecosystems the most effective means of reducing burgeoning fire suppression cos protecting community values restoring forest and grassland health and improving firefighter safety is an aggressive field treatment program how land managers apply the fuels reduction program will have the greatest impact on the safety of wild land firefighters threats to human life are compounded by the fact that more and more people are living in homes near fire prone forests placing themselves in the firefighters who try to protect them at greater risk my minute allows administrator of the united states fired ministration to develop and distribute information on importance of clearing biomass from provides the best possible recommendations as we come upon what many are predicting to be another deadly and costly fire season this information will be as vital as ever we must provide our federal employees who are the best in the world all the tools they need to keep our communities and themselves safe from catastrophic wildfires that says federal hazardous feels reduction program can be a very good thing for while firefighters if it is done properly the program can reduce the most extreme of the hazardous feels and make the working environment for our land firefighters much safer the federal government has invested millions of dollars in a hazardous feels reduction program to mitigate the risk costs and consequences while fair across the millions of acres of publicly owned land the knowledge gained as a relative effectiveness of different types of treatments and the overall effectiveness of those treatments will be of much greater value when much greater value for protecting and promoting firefighter safety when that information is shared united states fired ministration should be an important vehicle for disseminating this information and this memo it will help to make that a really a reality with that mr chairman i reserve the thank the gentleman do i understand the germans amendment is designed specifically to increase firefighters safety within the wildland urban interface jim that's correct i thank the gentleman  i further understand that the gentleman's amendment does not intend to expand the clearing of file masts beyond current force managed practices outside of the wild land urban interface mr  chairman and gentlemen this is intended to promote sharing of information that doesn't have anything to actually to do with the actual clearing of the biomass it just deals with the information that's gained and it would be in the wild land urban interface  for the results of that feels treatment so it would be focused if the gentleman would yield i would you it would be focused all that information or other things to be done would be focused on the  urban and interface that's the purpose of this m m m i think the gentleman and the german with further yield the language that it's been traditionally used it refers to fuel load and the gentleman's amendment  i believe sometimes uses biomass and the gentleman is sometimes referred to fuel load that does this gentleman is the gentleman using biomass in this sense in the traditional sense that fuel load has been used in similar legislation the gentleman from georgia is recognized just as chairman i wanted to ask unanimous consent for a couple of minutes to speak on behalf of the amendment if we could  y missed chairman in this decade while land fires have consumed fifty million acres in this country while the term while land fires it brings to mind uninhabited areas  nation's parks bars and rural areas while land fires have done tremendous damage to urban and suburban development as well i think that was the reason for the colloquy between mr wu from oregon and m sally from at a hoe last fall western states were hit particularly hard about wild land fires that encroached into developing areas and destroyed homes and business in the lab lee goods the amendment offered by the gentleman from  addresses that concern an amendment allows the administrative us f a a to develop and distribute information on the importance of clearing in these areas bio mass materials from federal lands not out in the interior of a national park and that was a point that was made in the car mccoy the amendment requires usfsa f a a to work in consultation of course whether the federal agencies to ensure that u s f a a provides the best possible recommendations removing hazardous fuels biomass materials from federal farson lands will help to prevent and more importantly to limit these these farce fires as they begin to encroach on urban areas so we if you leave these materials  susceptible to forest fires the consequences as mrs salley point out can be disastrous so mr chairman i support hold hardly his amendment or as my colleagues do the same a year back the gentleman it is now in order to consider him a number three printed in part b of house report one one zero dollars five six three for what purpose does the gentleman from rhode island seek recognition member oppose each will control five minutes which it recognizes the gentleman from rhode island that you mr chairman i rise to introduce an amendment that highlights the critical importance of deploying fire sprinklers in all commercial buildings my amendment encourages the installation of fire sprinklers in commercial buildings and supports educational programs about installing them in residential buildings as well five years ago tragedy struck my home state of rhode island when a fire tore through the station nightclub in west warwick it was certainly a terrible wakening for all of us about the importance of fire safety that fire which killed one hundred people other safety devices that we can prevent a tragedy like the one in west warwick from ever occurring again there's no question that fire sprinklers save lives in fact the national fire protection association has no record of a fire killing more than two people in a public building equipped with a fully operational automatic fire sprinkler system so to this and i've introduced a piece of legislation called the the fire sprinkle incentive act h r seventy fifty two which would abandon amend the internal revenue code a divide an incentive to business owners for retrofitting existing buildings with life saving sprinklers decides which right now has one hundred fourteen co sponsors will reduce the tax depreciation time for retrofitting sprinklers in nonresidential real property from thirty nine years down to only five so significant  warn the house occupants of a fire they cannot contain or extinguish the fire fire sprinkler system for by the mains to limit our growth and therefore save lives and property and we already mentioned elect in billion dollars a year i  think in property damage thirty six hundred lives lost every year studies about the u s s a is shown that the installation of residential fire sprinkler systems could site thousands of labs and millions of dollars in property taxes bottom line so together with their federal partners us f a a has reported a potential eighty two percent reduction in fire deaths of fire sprinklers along with smoke alarms were installed in all residential dwellings where the cost of a home sprinkler system in new construction be an estimated as low as a dollar fifty a square foot or as low as one percent of the total cost of the house and of course many insurance companies offering discounts of up to fifteen percent on house that contain ability of residential sprinkler system so this chairman i wholeheartedly support the gentleman's amendment and i urge my colleagues to do the same and i yell back not ten gentlemen he was back the balance of his time critical work on this too often neglected issue of fire sprinklers and i applaud this amendment for encouraging the installation of fire sprinklers and all commercial buildings and supporting educational programs about installing them in residential buildings very critical issue here we must take every opportunity to promote the use of fire sprinklers as the gentleman from georgia just pointed out which is why we introduced the campus fire safety legislation to require mandatory responses and you know every university now every college every community college whether it is a college building or a dormitory any building connected to the university or institution has an obligation to tell the parents and the students what is their record on fire safety no student should be sent to any university any university or any college unless their parents and they themselves know what the record is if there are sprinklers installed if there are smoke detectors installed we cannot look we lost we lost three killed and the scene all fire in new jersey fifty eight were injured since two thousand one hundred eight people have died on and campus fires there are twenty campus related fire deaths in the last two years and mr speaker i want to bring the attention to everyone and this is part of the educational process i want to thank the gentleman from rhode island for and you do see mr memon it makes sense and i hope adopted in the committee of the whole chairman of the committee of the whole house on the save the union reports its committee has had under consideration the bill h r forty eight forty seven and pursuant to house resolution ten seventy one reports a bill back to the house with an amendment adopted in the committee of the whole under the rule the previous question is order moved to recommit the bill h r four a four seven to the committee on science and technology with instructions to report the same back to the house forthwith with the following amendment page five lines sixteen after the dash insert one page five line twenty three strike otherwise and insert otherwise so long as the state or local government in which such fire service training program operates provides that any fire fighter or rescue personnel entity or organization including a governmental or enter governmental entity providing inspection services or advice on a voluntary basis without expectation of compensation regarding proper installation use defects or recalls of infant and child safety seat shall not be liable for any act or admission omission and connection with providing such services or advice that results in harm to an infant or child page seven after line six insert the following new paragraph to that portion of paragraph one added by amendment made by this subsection that appears after otherwise shall take effect and sacrifices of firefighters and yes it's our firefighters who often volunteer to help protect our greatest asset our children yet they they face a growing threat of liability lawsuits related to the proper installation of car seats each year nearly twenty five hundred children under the age of fourteen die in car accidents and more than two hundred thousand are injured in motor vehicle accidents in two thousand and five half of those who died were not restrained according to the national institute of highway safety children that are restrained in child seats have an eighty percent lower risk of fatal injury the good news is that we're doing better as a country in using child seats and saving lives this may have something to do with the fact that all fifty states in the district of columbia now have child restraint laws on the books yet it's estimated that twenty five percent of kids are still not restrained we're making great progress in ensuring child safety seats are used to protect our nation's greatest asset however even though more children are using child safety seats improper installation or improper use of a child safety seat can have the same fatal consequence as a new mom this is a scary reality and i think like many new parents i fear that we haven't installed our child safety seats properly a recent study in six states on the misuse of child restraint systems concluded that nearly seventy five percent of child seats had at least one critical misuse in an effort to reduce the misuse of child safety seats many fire departments send personnel to a thirty two hour four day course on the proper insulation and use once these personnel have been trained they're able to provide inspection services or advice on a voluntary basis regarding the proper installation in use when my husband and i had coal last year we were advised to have a fire department ensure our seat was properly installed but i've also heard the stories of people being denied by their local fire department due to liability concerns one example was in eaton rapids where new parents john and carol durrell like many parents were nervous about the new responsibility for the health and safety of their new baby and it began with that first ride home from the hospital they had a pretty good idea how to strap their rear facing him think car seat into the back seat of their car but they didn't like the idea of guessing they sought help from the people at the local medical center but those folks declined they were afraid that if they told us how to do it then there would be a problem we'd sue them so this the medical staffers suggested that they seek help from the fire department so on the way home from the hospital they stopped by the fire station and the woman wanted to help but couldn't it's a liability issue she said refuel referring the family to the local police they called the police department but the person they spoke to said again it's a liability thing this is an important service that can help save the life of a child however the fear is that some departments and communities may be unwilling to offer this lifesaving service because of fear liability the motion to recommit i offer today would help remedy the situation it would protect fire departments that wish to offer this service to the public the language requires states or local governments covered under the provisions of this bill to protect their properly trained firefighters from liability and lawsuits when they offer inspection and advice regarding car seat use this motion to recommit give states two years to provide protection for our firefighters this service the firefighters are offering is too valuable to let it go get bogged down by the threat of lawsuits we should not allow trial lawyers to hijack the safety of our children i yield back the balance of my time  burned the only thing they say was their lives and the clothes on their back today seventy years later whenever my mother hears a fire engine or sees a fire truck she tells me that story about how her house burned almost in a trance it is a very traumatic experience when a family goes through something like this that's a reason that our committee worked in a bipartisan way to try to come forth with a very good deal that would help to save lives saved property and help our firefighters do a better job of hopefully shielding some other families from that trauma that my mother i went through and it's really unfortunate after all of that work that the gentle lady would come forth with a mischievous amendment has had no discussion we don't know anything about is there a law building problem or not we don't know whether or not this is one defect states their own law building these whether this is going to preempt it the gentle lady had an opportunity if this was such an important issue to markup where again it passed out unanimously but there was no effort or yesterday could have gone to the rules committee and asked to have a rule and be allowed to submit their the amendment so we could have a discussion even here at this late date but there was no effort quite frankly i think this is a game of gotcha it's an insult to the democrats republicans on the senate committee who worked hard to put this good bill together it's an insult to the firefighters who are trying to do their job every day and they need these fun is they these training it's an insult to all of those individuals and an organizations that co sponsored or rather that endorse this veil like the international association of fire chiefs the international association of firefighters the national voluntary fire council the national fire protection association the international association of arson investigators the national american fire training directors international fire services training associations congressional fire service as a toot they endorse this bill because it's a good deal a bill that will help firefighters do their job it is very unfortunate that we're trying to play these games at the last moment this is  speaker recommend that we vote down this amendment that we know nothing about and we move forward with this good bill and i yield back the balance of my time gentleman yield back the balance of his time without objection from the previous question is ordered question is on the motion to recommit those in favor say aye those opposed say no and always have it mr speaker asked for the challenge will reduce to five minutes the minimum time of any electronic vote on the passage of on the question of pass two votes now on fire administration programs authorizing two hundred ninety three million dollars for the us fire administration through the year two thousand and twelve the us fired ministration a part of fema a vote on final passage is expected to wrap up the series house house right now boating on a procedural motion a motion to recommit it's a part of the common procedure in the house seeks to return the bill to committee this is going to be a fifteen minute vote and then depending on the outcome of this vote a vote on final passage is we are anticipating that these will be the last votes of the day and of the week in the house a group of house and senate leaders are right now taking part in a commemoration of the life of dr martin luther king jr that  event is actually wrapping up right now dr king assassinated forty years ago tomorrow second place in statuary hall of the u s capitol it's being led by house speaker nancy pelosi and we want to let you know that we are taping that event we do plan to bring it to a little bit later in the meantime before speaker pelosi attended the king tribute this morning she held her weekly briefing and howard berman the chair of the foreign affairs committee also joining us is the chair of the democratic caucus rahm emanuel these leaders will comment on the iraq war's impact on our ability to fight the war on terrorism  afghanistan are built our military's capability to protect america's interest where the ever they are threatened our reputation in the world to keep to make and keep the peace and on our economy the comments come in advance of next week's congressional testimony from general petraeus and from ambassador crocker on the situation in iraq when we are as we lead up to that of hearings it is important to keep in mind the testimony the recent testimony of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff admiral mullen when he was asked what are the main things the military can't do because of high force levels in iraq he responded well what immediately comes to mind is additional forces for afghanistan and i said afghanistan is an economy of force campaign and they have force requirements there that can aren't currently that we can't currently meet so having forces in iraq dash at the levels that they are at doesn't allow us to fill the need that we have in afghanistan and terms of our capability our military capability the impact of the war in iraq imo mullen said so should we be in a position where more troops are removed from iraq the possibility of sending additional troops again into afghanistan where we where we need them clearly certainly is a possibility but it's really going to be based on the availability of troops we don't have troops particularly in brigade combat team size sitting on the shelf ready to go address that further we also cannot lose sight of the impact the iraq war's impact on america's economy which is another source of the strength of our country this president has taken us into a war that is taking us steeply into debt that can take us into recession chairman bernanke he testified yesterday the recession is possible even by his term nobel prize winning laureate joseph stiglitz has said the iraq adventure has seriously weakened the u s economy whose woes go far beyond the loose mortgage lending you can't spend three trillion dollars he said on a failed war and not feel the pain at home americans are most certainly feeling the economic pain as they struggle to keep up with rising cost of health care education gasoline and groceries more troubling economic news arrives nearly every day consumer prices for stable such as milk bread in eggs rose by the largest amount in seventeen years think of this our troops our military units in iraq are paying through about three dollars twenty five cents a gallon of gas proximately what we pay in the u s that's our military units in iraq while iraqis are paying one dollar and thirty six cents a gallon for gas at the pump this is a raw deal for america's taxpayers and it's really hard to explain in addition to that think of this the iraqis have a multi billion dollar surplus we have a several hundred billion dollars deficit and yet we are paying for the reconstruction of iraq they are not and we are not meeting our infrastructure needs here in america we have spent more than forty five billion dollars on the and reconstruction projects in iraq all of this adds up to american dream possibly slipping away for many families some of us their jobs some are losing their homes some are not but all are facing the rising cost and have to make some very careful decisions about how they maintain standard of living which is slipping for merit many americans it's clearly that to have a new direction in america we need a new direction in iraq and with that i'm very pleased to yield distinguished chairman of the armed services committee champion for america's men and women in uniform an expert on the military readiness of our troops a hero to all of us who care about national security wherever they are i'm proud of them they are magnificent we should always keep that in mind they are a suburban the contribution that they will make not just today but in decades ahead will be monumental  what they do for our country i have two thoughts that keep me awake at night the first is the lack of reading those of our united states ground forces this is public record testimony not just from general cody this last few days but over a period of time and of course the briefings and the discussions and the observations that we've made wherever we are this ng with our troops and our forces so apparent that this stretch and strain is like never before i hope we get don't get to the point that got to during his time as chief of staff of the army when he spoke about the hollow army of his day i'm terribly worried about this and the iraq war is the major strain there on with one hundred  fifty eight thousand troops there as we speak the second is afghanistan we forgot that's where the attack originated on september the eleventh thousands of americans died as a result of the efforts from al qaeda the terrorists in the afghanistan and and of course the pakistan area it should the our number one priority and sadly it's not an roll mullen chairman joint chiefs recently said in prepared testimony in my judgment the most likely near term attack on united states will come from al qaeda about way of these safe havens meaning afghanistan and pakistan we must reverse the priorities as to where america's national security interests are now regarding the upcoming hearing with course will brag on the troops as well as the leadership that general petraeus has given it's the rockies that are laying themselves down they have hand as a result of this so called surge space within which to get their political act together for reconciliation  the various laws that should have been passed and have not for e of the required benchmarks stanleys by the iraqi government and by the way adopted by the president on january the seventh  in a year ago as as the benchmarks regarding success three of the eighteen have been met and how disappointing that is so what do we do our young people are out there trying to glue this together militarily and with some success bless their heart but the iraqis are not stepping up to the plate as they should and americans should yesterday thank you very much madam speaker brand new after being here twenty six years trying to one issue about these hearings that there are broad issues about costs readiness the role in afghanistan that these are not to write witnesses to have response there is a broader question of policy in judgment hoping we will focus on the situation we face right now last year and i was very happy about this we saw a meaningful reduction in violence and that presented an opportunity to build a build up of national reconciliation that was the underlying premise of the surge it seems that the iraqis have largely frittered away the iraqi parliament has pas legislation in recent weeks notably at the bath of vacation law in a provincial powers law but according to many experts these laws are ambiguous will result in and it's very unclear whether they will ever serving in the government experts of have told the number of us all we can say is the iraqis of pass some laws whose titles correspond to some of the benchmarks but there's virtually no content to these laws the purpose of the surge was to create political space for iraqis to make meaningful strides towards national reconciliation sectarian to karina's and sadly remains the dominant force in iraq and the sacrifices involved in getting us to this point have don't seem to have put us much closer to the goal these are the questions we want basher crocker and general petraeus to address and just one closing personal thought one thing that does seem clear is this strategically apart from all the other considerations of casualties in costs in afghanistan the most disturbing role they played in dealing with the inadequacy of the government's own campaign down there i think is something we want to explore and so these are the kinds of issues and many others will be addressing those hearings on thursday afternoon country but also as the new recruits and the strain that is put on our families and our capability of meeting other security concerns around the country which is another the world rather which is another costs associated with this war which these hearings will have to delve into which is not only in afghanistan but in the korean peninsula there's a cost that iraq is very sickly draining america's security its armed forces and also as a speaker said earlier our economy you know in every war you know presidents in the past have built and strengthened america at home before we even talked about the marshall plan roosevelt launched the g i bill right here at home to make sure america was strong while we were talking about helping korea president eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system to strengthen america here at home at the height of the cold war president candidate he launched a mission to put a man on the moon yet look at what president bush has done this is a president ited states that while he has expanded hospitals in iraq twenty hospitals in iraq eighty new clinics he's vetoed a children's health care bill for ten million children and his own budget proposes one hundred seventy eight billion dollars cuts in medicare and medicaid while we are building sixty seven hundred sixty seven hundred schools in iraq and training sixty thousand teachers in iraq the president's budget here at home cuts funding for education and teacher training programs and reading programs and in fact food does not fully fund the leave no child behind program this is the first president history in the middle of a war has asked america united states to sacrifice more for its own economic good and its own strength here at home and that has not been the tradition or the practice in the past and as the speaker noted iraq is running a surplus they have not invested as they said they would do in their own reconstruction we've put forty five billion dollars of taxpayer money into iraq's reconstruction while our education our health care and our physical infrastructure and our environment are all running huge deficits as it relates to the obligations and needs that america has here at home so across the waterfront whether it's our national security our armed forces or our kind of me there are costs associated with this war they're having  on america to compete either on the national security or economically and part of the question is a part of the form next week will be not just to look at iraq but the cost associated with iraq to all our other obligations around the country around the country here and then also around the world thank you take any questions on this subject while our chairmen are here  we will probably as mr hoyer leader for leader has said majority leader he said will probably come up in may well be working on that in the weeks ahead right now our focus is on this testimony next week and what that tells us about  do want to know that many howards that is also is we both think the same thing but as you said talking about loans this was i don't think anybody should lose sight of this war was supposed to pay for itself and iraq's oil revenue was going to pay for reconstruction so before we get talking about whether it's a grant  alone remember the first pledge that they made it was clear that it was not supposed to be an expensive war is going to be a short war and more importantly iraq's oil revenue was going to pay for its own reconstruction and the statement made at the time was that the war would probably cost about fifty billion dollars which could easily be paid off by oil revenues the iraqi oil revenues and soon now we're in to the tune of trillions and they haven't paid for anything as they take in they sell about two hundred to about two million barrels of oil a day and you know what the cost of oil is they take in around two hundred million dollars a day in iraq and we spend over three hundred million dollars a day in iraq and we get no offset from the from their money madam speaker you say you just want to focus on the testimony what is it you expect to hear from general petraeus is there anything that he can say to appease you what do you what do you young men and young women in uniform so many of them have been there before two three four times and they know about guerrilla warfare and fighting this type of conflict and they're good they're getting good at it number three is the fact that you've had a turn of the shakes in the anbar province which has been helpful and decrease the violence there they have come over to to be of help to us and i think you those three factors militarily bode well for us but so what the iraqi government is sitting on its hands and has not done what it should have done and had the opportunity to do and that really bothers me and should bother every american i'm not sure what type of incentive  it would take to cause them to do their job we made it possible and yet you know living up to what they're supposed to do what i hope we don't hear from general petraeus next week is any glorification of what just happened in basra and a presentation that says that the iraqi forces went in there did the job violence is diminished mission accomplished but the fact is there  many questions to the a rise in relationship to bother first of all the word is that we they told us forty eight hours in advance only about the engagement why didn't we know don't we have an intelligence operation in iraq so i don't know what's worse they only gave us twenty four hours notice or we didn't know in the first place second of all they weren't winning this and gauge meant on their own it wasn't until the u came in to help that the resolution came about third of all the diminution of violence in iraq is in the hands of others it is beyond our control our fate or a stablished the terms under which he would freeze the the violence from his side terms probably dictated from iran and accepted like that by the all molecules government expected to be the last vote of the week in the house quickly the senate continues working this afternoon on the housing market stimulus plan that they hope will slow housing foreclosures and stimulate home sales democrats and republicans have been trading off amendments you can see the senate on c span two and the senate banking committee continuing its hearing on the nation's bailout of the investment banking firm bear stearns that is on cspan three right now while this vote is underway will go back to house speaker nancy pelosi is a weekly briefing part of the testimony and part of what we were saying here today's of and it goes to the heart of the question is the general petraeus and ambassador crocker can talk about iraq but there's an obligation in that hearing and beyond that hearing i know likes having one at one o'clock that same day what has happened to our troops what is happening in the korean peninsula as it relates to what is becoming increasingly as north korea threatening south korea are we ready to have everything that we need for that i could opens up i think almost every caucus he speaks that i'm going to get this wrong that of the last fourteen engagement i think was what twelve we didn't know or prepare for so the question is he general and embassador will talk about iraq you have to raise your sights up take the blinders off and then say what is the whole waterfront of issues associated with the cost of with iraq both to the military our national security and our ability to meet other threatening hotspots and i do think one of the other hot spots is also what's happening here at home economically there are costs associated with this war that won't just be answered by one chart on this what happened to the level of violence in iraq they go way beyond that and i hope that and you guys have done this in the past and as we get to this hearing we will not narrowing just drill down to the violence level and the chart with that shows but what else is not being met and are we ready to meet what we can see on the horizon is a remain as a relates to our national security our job under the constitution is to raise and maintain the military of the united states the national security is in our hands and it is in the hands of congress and it's a it's a broad area and  limited of course to iraq and i have pointed out in the last thirty one years there have been twelve military engagements in which our forces have been part  have been major in size panama desert storm the two in which were involved right now none of which were predictable and consequently you don't know what's around the corner that's the problem of readiness that's what concern s since everybody the one thing the one thing i know is the speaker all of us we want what is going on there to work we want the violence to be reduced we want to politicize the political reconciliation to take place we want a stability we want the defeat of extremist forces on all sides those are things we hope for but part of we have to also deal with what the reality is and ask the tough questions two and a half years ago one of the iraqi leaders came to my office and said this is what it's all going to be based on and i believe it's to happen soon people of good will in the middle moderate shiites moderate sunnis yarning come together in the middle to form an alliance on behalf of a united iraq against the extremists forces whether they are al qaeda insurgents former baptist insurgents or shiite militias that was two and a half years ago i'd like embassador crocker to tell me there's some evidence that i just have missed that that is what is going on course we've been talking about more attention to afghanistan that's going to have to come to pass if that's going to be a solid outcome that just has to for we really have to look at the overall next kerry situation i can't stress again the tough situation we're in readiness wise across the board and i'm not just talking  about afghanistan i'm talking about wherever our interest may be we have troops all over the world and they're good they're professional product but you can only stretch military so cannot be a justification for the policy of more troops more time more money violence goes down we need more troops more time more money violence goes up we need more troops more time more money not every event in iraq and iraq can be a it can't get us into a position which are four hundred twelve and the nays are none the bill is passed without objection a motion to reconsider is laid on the table for what purpose the gentleman for louisiana that mr speaker i ask  unanimous consent that i may be here after be considered to be the first sponsor of h r forty three twelve a bill originally introduced by representative baker of louisiana for the purposes of adding co sponsors and requesting reprintings pursuant to claw seven of route rules twelve what abject ambers place take your conversations off the floor members for what purpose the gentleman from missouri rice misspeak or i asked to address the house for one minute for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule that objection thank the speaker the speaker i believe the house is still not in are correct members the house will be an order members don't want to think a lot of the body in particular twelve thirty for morning air and two p m for legislative business with votes postponed until six thirty p m on wednesday and thursday the house will meet it ten a m for legislative business on friday no votes are expected we will consider several bills under suspension of the rules including several important public health bills h r twenty four sixty four the wakefield act and h r twelve thirty seven as the tala g proficiency improvement act the finalist bills and spencer the rules will be announced by the close of business tomorrow in addition we will consider a chart to a one one two zero one six the national landscape conservation systems act and h r twenty five thirty seven a bill to amend the federal water pollution control  the late into beach monitoring i think the gentleman for that i have a couple of questions of things that we we haven't discussed first of all the other supplemental budget i know what general  petraeus is in washington next week and i believe embassador crocker the president sent up a supplemental request in february of last year by approximately june of this year and we're told that the army will run out of money and that by july their ability to use transport they already will be exhausted i wonder what points in conjunction with their following the patris visits next week there's the committees will be meeting to discuss substantive policy but also to discuss the supplemental appropriation bill it would be my expectation is that bill would be on the floor either  the end of april or the first week in may we are cognisant as the gentleman indicated of the june period so we want to move this before that is significant for that debate so that there will not be a lag i thank you gentlemen for that and i think that date is important and we need to be sure and be aware of it as we move through this process is as you are  as as a spending bill i know as the this administration comes to an end i'm confident that the white house has had lots of requests from the administration side for additional spending which i believe they have held the line on are we going to be able to gentlemen have a sense of whether this bill will be able to be contained to the defense supplemental or will it possibly get bigger than that and i'd yield i thank the gentleman feeling well there are obviously needs in addition to a rack of that are being discussed and i would tell my friend that those discussions are ongoing a decision on what may or may not be ended in addition to the supplemental that  necessary for iraq to maybe other things that decision is not been made at this point but i do want to let the gentleman know that that that is under discussion as the gentleman would call last year when we passed a supplemental the war domestic  priorities that were also addressed in particular katrina as the gentleman level call and some other matters as well so that's under discussion well i do appreciate that and i just say for my friends information we certainly discourage the white house i think we're hoping that not only discourage them from moving forward with any new additions and i think they have decided not to do that and we'll be concerned about this going as quickly as possible and meeting these defense needs rather than being tied down another topic is housing on the other side of the building they've been talking about housing this week i know that the chairman frank has some proposals on housing and i really have two questions there one when do you anticipate some housing legislation on the floor and two would be do you expect that that housing legislation will follow the the paygo rules of this congress or those rules will be suspended for that housing discussion as you know strong proponents  and here do that in all but one instance last year we did not hear to it as you know with the stimulus package there was concern and obviously you don't want to stimulate and depressed at the same point in time  that and that was under discussion but i will tell you on the housing bill itself mr frank has been working on that with his committee maxine waters and others and with mr baucus and others on the committee and we would certainly hope to move a housing bill in the near term certainly no later than the latter part of this month or the very first days of the next month so that we could pass a bill that would give relief to those who are either been foreclosed upon or are on the brink of foreclosure we believe that is essential for us to try to address what is a national problem and a very serious one and so will that will also go into the consideration i think of of how much money is needed how that will be paid for i think in that time frame there's a chance will be some administrative actions taken as well and that may be an important part of that debate i do know that this week mr bernanke he testified before the join economic committee and part of his testimony was that he thought that tax increases what would this would be the wrong time or any tax increases and i would hope we could maintain some openness on that pay go discussion as it relates to this this housing concern that people are facing audio from oh you know thank you very much for yelling i will say that over the last seven years the president's told us things are pretty good there was never a right time for revenue to be increased even in the times when the president was telling us the economy was robust we were growing we still weren't paying our bills we feel very strongly on this side of the aisle and mr in a cell phone conversation with me said one of the things we didn't want to do when you when our and and mr boehner and mitch blowsy were talking about the stimulus package one thing we did not want to do is exacerbate the long term debt that confronts us mr bernanke is very concerned about that certainly in the context of wanting to move quickly in an emergency way where we have an economy now that mr bernanke although he didn't say it was a recession he certainly gave the implication that we were on the brink of that we're very concerned about the economic policies very frankly that we think of led to that but i will say that  we have two concerns number one paying for what we buy not exacerbating the deficit but clearly we're concerned about getting relief to people that need it in the short term but my discussions with m yes tax cuts in the short term or more tax increases in the short term e thought were not helpful but he wanted to make it very clear that he thought making the debt worse over the long term  for international expenses or domestic expenses was not helpful to the economy in the long term i thank my friend for you know well i would say that on in terms of i wouldn't quarrel with the gentleman about not having a good time for tax increases since oh one and zero three but revenue actually has increased during that period of time i think in zero five zero zero six zero seven zero five zero six and zero seven we may have set records of increased revenue as a percentage over last year so use the term revenue i think you meant taxes because we did see some revenue increases during that time and they were significant i think fourteen over fourteen percent and f while five and double digits in the next two years i would yield i would yield i won't debate that now but i would be interested in doing discussing it at some point time because as you know in those years revenues fell short of the administration's projections in previous years so that although revenues did increase you're absolutely correct as revenues have every year over the last fifty except for two they'd increased less than the administration that projected well want what we don't want to this debate to fully even though on the projections even though we still  had deficits in those years which i regret for a number of reasons those deficits were always less at the end of the year than we had thought they were going to be at the beginning of the year because revenues exceeded that's what projections that's why the the deficit was less the third the last topic i think and then my last stop today is we're at a point in the congressional calendar we're it's least possible that under the t p a the trade promotion authority rules the president will send the colombia trade agreement up because of the number of days left that under t p a what require a vote during the calendar we put in place and i wonder if  gentleman has a sense of whether the colombia trade agreement process will go through the normal trade promotion authority process or if that process could possibly be shut off and i would yield i thank  the gentleman for the question we all agree this is an important agreement but as you know there are still major longstanding issues to be result of violence being one of them labor rights being another trade adjustment assistance which the gentleman referred to as another when the white house if it does choose to send the agreement we will discuss the full range of options available to us under the t p a and the house rules without objection thank you mr baker may fourteenth marks the sixtieth anniversary of israel's independence on behalf of the house republican israel caucus i rise today to honor the jewish state for  significant achievements over the past six decades israel has shared an important strategic relationship with our nation and today our countries are working more closely than ever before to defeat the common threat of terrorism research and development collaboration between our countries have produced security technologies that are now used to protect the lives of americans israelis and of people all over the world in fact israeli equipment is save the lives of hundreds of u s soldiers stationed in iraq and afghanistan and because of israel's desert location farmers an agricultural experts there have been forced to adapt their irrigation methods this research now benefits dry weather areas around the world all because israel discovered the way to make the desert bloom over the years i have had the great fortune to travel to israel four times and each trip has been marked by emotional and spiritual moments anyone who has traveled to israel feels a connection to the people and places there this is because  america shares a special bond with israel this bond will only become stronger in the next sixty years and i'm very humbled to be in this cell of ration i yield back the balance of my time for what purpose the gentleman from texas wri vouch for israel's contributions to the global community take lead agriculture techniques solar power generation sea water desalinization academia telecommunications and medical technology in my home state of texas we have an economic cooperative agreement with israel which is one of the oldest state to state relationships in our country israel success and innovative programs constantly serve as ideas for address the problems facing citizens in texas in the last sixty years as heroes face many struggles state of over seven million people committed to promoting human rights protecting the rule of law and to open fair and elections israel is truly an inspiration to people around the globe and i'd like to again congratulate israel the israeli people and join them and celebrate your six you mr speaker i rise today to express my strong opposition to the decision made by the united states air force to choose a foreign company for their new refueling tanker the recent air force decision to give the k c x tanker contract to airbus jeopardizes our national security we should not send a contract that could potentially be worth more than forty billion dollars to a foreign company when we have a viable american option additionally airbus is a company that receives european government subsidies boeing with the support of the government is currently fighting air bus at the world trade organization on the basis that they have an unfair advantage from these subsidies what message does this sound when our own government is fighting these subsidies on one hand and rewarding them with a forty billion dollar contract on the other this coma news tribune recently said the air force's job was to make a business decision now congress has to make a policy decision and there's room for a legitimate debate mr speaker i wholeheartedly agree and i yield back for purposes gentlemen from new york sa strong bond and ties between the united states and the state of israel we have shared values we have shared concerns and that we have had a wonderful close allied ally relationship for the past sixty years and we wanted to continue for another sixty and way beyond i think it's important at this time to reflect the fact that israel was created in the ashes of the holocaust and that the united states and israel sharing common bonds there is also a moral imperative for us to continue to stand by that beleaguered i think it's also important to say that we must not put pressure on israel to make unilateral concessions in her quest for peace it takes two to tango and we need to have both sides make concessions and work together let's remember that israel left gaza israel left southern lebanon she was willing to do a land for peace but instead got land for war so we have to be very careful not put pressure on israel celebrate her sixtieth anniversary and long may the close relations between our two countries continue i yield back for purposes of gentlewoman from texas recognized without objection the gentlewoman's recognize the speaker just a few minutes ago many of us gathered to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of dr martin luther king i'm always reminded that even in his death we celebrate his life and as i think of him i think of the sixtieth anniversary of israel for dr king was inspired a land that sought its freedom and so it is important that we are this nation state celebrated for peacefully living in the mideast and as i travel to israel there are more people that i meet that are peace loving and look forward to a time when they can live alongside of their brothers and sisters in peace let us thank them for the history that they have and as well what they give around the world it is important to take note that israel has trained those of us who are seeking a greater understanding of how to fight the war on terror how to have first responders they have certainly worked to be able to be a friend to the world so again let me congratulate israel on its sixtieth anniversary and most importantly the people of israel for its peace i might also acknowledge that we extend our hand of friendship  today we were able through the friends of scotland caucus to welcome the first minister of scotland alex salmond this was a great honor for me because he presented to the heritage golf  from the st andrews course this was presented to the trustees of the heritage golf tournament the members who are president john curry and bill miles and this is in recognition of the strong relationship that we have of the united states particularly the state of south carolina and scotland we were very pleased at the very first golf course located in north america was in south carolina in recognition of this we have the heritage golf classic which is held every year on april the fourteenth this year through the twentieth hilton head island and see ponce golf course sponsored by a virus and indeed the money raised for this goes for scholarships for persons in the low country this is an exciting time for those of us of scottish heritage of the speakers announced policy of january the eighteenth two thousand and seven and under a previous order of the house the following members are recognized for five minutes each this time a gentlewoman from california wha speaker mr speaker tomorrow is the fortieth anniversary of the death of martin luther king jr dr king was one of the world's greatest champions of peace he said we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed he often quoted president kennedy who said mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind unfortunately the ministration today seems to have a different point of view when it comes to war take for example president bush's video conference with our military and civilian personnel in afghanistan last month the president told them the following and i quote i must say i'm a little envious if i were slightly younger and not employed here i think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines in afghanistan it must be exciting for you in some ways romantic confronting danger unquote mr speaker i am shocked that the commander in chief believes that war is some sort of romantic adventure it isn't war is hell war as president kennedy said could put an end to all mankind just ask the millions of iraqis who have been forced to flee their homes since our occupation of their country began over five years ago the un recently reported that the number of internally displaced iraqis has soared to more than two point seven seven million people more than a million of them do not have adequate shelter more than three hundred thousand of them do not have access to clean water another two million iraqis have been forced to become refugees in other countries where they're called gassed and the conditions are as bad or worse because guests cannot go to work in a foreign country life isn't very good for iraqis who have stayed at home either a b c news has reported that sizable majority of iraqis say they they don't have electricity they don't have fuel clean water medical care or jobs and if anyone still thinks that war is a romantic adventure i urge them to learn about an organization called iraq veterans against the war recently this group held a four day conference where veterans of the conflicts of iraq and afghanistan spoke about their experiences these veterans gave very frank accounts of the bloodshed and destruction that they experienced or saw with their own eyes their descriptions of combat  heartbreaking they are too graphic to describe here let me just say that they did not agree with their commander in chief that their time on the front lines was a fantastic experience it was more like a living nightmare that may be with them for ever anyone who is interested can see videos of these veterans to testimony on the internet there you will see brave young american men and women who went into the military because they wanted to make our country and the world safer they were ready to sacrifice their lives for that cause but when they saw the consequences and the inconsistent seas and the horrors of this war they decided to speak out their men and women of conscience who now oppose policy in iraq because of the harm that it is doing to that country to their it people and to our own military that mr speaker is why we must move forward with the responsible redeployment of our troops out of iraq the administration will never do it obviously they've seen too many john wayne movies and must think that war is exciting it must be romantic something to be envied because that's what they say so it is up to us in congress to use our power of the purse to say we will give you the money to safely bring our troops out but we will not we will not give you another penny to continue with this occupation two thirds of the american people mr speaker think that the occupation was wrong to begin with there right so let us honor dr martin luther king let us honor the american people by doing what they know is gentleman from texas mr poe is recognized for five minutes thank you mr speaker as we talk about the war on the first front in iraq and afghanistan we must remember that there is another war going on on the second front and that is the border war between the united states and mexico all of the politicians are running for president this year talking about everything some things are just not important but one thing they're not talking about is the border war in south part of the united states between mexico and the united states two years ago two border agents by the name of ramos and campeon on were tried and convicted for doing their job in the texas mexico border what happened was that in february of two thousand and five ramos and coffee on came in contact with a drug dealer he came into the united states and fables texas most of america's never heard of this little small texas town he's driving a van he sees the border agents he turns around and he tries to run back to mexico he abandons the bant the van the border agents give chase an altercation occurred down the rio grande river bad shots were fired drug dealer disappears into mexico it turns out that the drug dealer had been shot by one of the border agents and it turns out that the van that he was driving had get this seven hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of drugs in the van so what is our government do and sort of try to find the drug dealer to prosecute him our government goes to mexico finds a drug dealer and promises them of promises him a back room deal a deal to testify against the border agents trying with the border agents unlawfully use their firearms even though they said they fired in self defense and then make a deal with him not to prosecute him for his drug smuggling if he testifies and he did testify against the border agents and two years ago they were convicted but unbeknown to the jury and what the u s attorney's office would not let the jury know is that while the trial before the trial took place this star witness back room deal witness brought in a nother load of drugs into the united states for money the u s attorney's office knew about it they didn't want the jury to know about it and they kept it out of the trial now the whole world knows that the u s attorney's office was deceitful in that trial those border agents are serving eleven twelve it because the u s attorney's office was deceitful in the trial and prosecution of these two border agents because they were relentless in prosecuting our government on the wrong side of the border war we're trying to hire more border agents and border agents people don't want to join the border patrol and one reason is it's because our government doesn't support them when alter taking takes place they side with the other guys that's going to side with our border agents and this is not the first time the u s attorney's office has been caught cheating in a agent by the name of david sipe was arrested by our government because he was in a fight an assault with a drug dealer down in texas and he's prosecuted for civil rights violation but it turns out in his trial the u s attorney's office hid evidence in that case as well but they got caught and that case was retried and the jury found david scott not guilty because the u s attorney's office once again didn't want the jury to know the truth about the person that came in contact with our border agent so it's time our government get on the right side of the border war defend our border patrol agents secure the border make sure that the war on the second front is one that people not be allowed to come into the united states illegally for any purpose especially drug smugglers and our government needs to quit taking the side of drug dealers from foreign countries and start side with the american border patrol because they're doing their job to protect the rest of us and that's just the way it is i yield back without objection thank you mr speaker next week the chief commander of u s forces the enron will be up here before congress general david petraeus and he will be reporting on the conduct of the war i can remember about a year ago quite a large delegation from our defense subcommittee spent some time with general petraeus in iraq and one statement he made at that time remains in my mind and i've shared it with every audience i've gone before he said victory equals one third military and two thirds good governance and diplomacy the two thirds is missing victory equals one third military and two thirds good governance and diplomacy in the two thirds is missing in iraq so where does that place our soldiers i've asked myself that every single minute of every single day since that discussion the good governance and the diplomacy are nowhere the president of our country says well i'm going to listen to my commanders in theater no no president bush is the commander in chief the military is doing their job but they can only do one third of the job the other two thirds rests on the top political leadership of this country and they and i would include every person in this room and we have not done our job because the political equation the good governance and diplomacy piece is totally missing and so more soldiers die more iraqis die and what is the vision what is the vision for alternate victory and exit of our troops there isn't any the president said mission was accomplished no the mission was just begun but there is no end game within iraq we have a corrupt and incapable state they have billions of dollars in their budget on span our money their money from oil they're not spending it yet the american people are going to be asked to appropriate another hundred seventy billion dollars here think about it my friend within iraq we broke the state two and a half million people thrown out of their homes within the country and another two and a half million fleeing for their lives to syria to jordan and you know what they'll never be citizens of those countries they're guests they're actually refugees we so it happened with the palestinians post world war two six hundred thousand of them still a refugee population with no homeland and look at the difficulty that has caused the world so you say well what is the mission are we winning the war on terrorism is america any more secure well we're having trouble in afghanistan the president had to beg nato for more forces in afghanistan we've now got over forty thousand troops their situation there is not getting any better in pakistan at the provincial level the worst elements are being elected maybe that isn't the right adjective but the those that are most anti american are being elected there is trouble between afghanistan and pakistan at the border in those provinces we don't have a solution there  turkey our closest ally in nato for years what's happening with elections at the provincial level they are mayors and so forth the most anti american individuals are being elected that's true in pakistan at the provincial level so you can say all you want to say about winning this war on terrorism but how do you win a war when the majority of people turn against this country and you say to our military you fix it you fix it general petraeus is testimony up here next week simply isn't enough we need to hear from the president of the united states not just passing the buck to well let the general tell me what to do you know what is he going to do to accomplish this mission and bring our troops home and begin to repair the image of the united states across a vast growing region of the world where we are losing friends every day from north africa from egypt all the way through to pakistan and afghanistan what are we going to do to correct the damage that is producing more terrorists more anti americanism and less resolution don't just place this burden on the backs of our brilliant military they have been asked to do everything this president has sent them to do but as general petraeus wisely told us a year ago victory means one third military and two thirds of good governance and diplomacy and the two thirds is missing and it has been missing and it is missing what can we do why can't the president take two of our exemplary ambassadors people like baker put him on same airplane send him over to a rack work with the neighboring countries of iraq give us a date certain in order to begin redeploying forces to an over the horizon position give us the time six months one year a year in three months let's have a plan there is no plan the only plan is to send more troops to keep extending deployments to put more burden on our military to ask our marines to become civilian officials within that country with a civilian workload when they're trained to be a strike force what kind of a solution is that it's asking too much of our military let's give them the respect their due but ask the person in charge as commander in chief to give america the plan for victory and all to mitt redeployment from that region and building back the kind of friendships with adjoining nations that will not give our children and grandchildren the burden fighting terrorism two decades more down the road mr speaker i yield back my any remaining time mr jones of north carolina mr speaker mr franks i believe is next and  speaker mr speaker one of the things that's made the united states in the world healthier than any period in the history of the world has been vaccinations vaccinations have stopped so many dread diseases from killing hundreds of thousands millions of people it's not even funny but while vaccines have saved so many lives there's also been some shortcomings in vaccines when i was chairman of the govern and oversight committee i held hearings on autism and we have gone from one in ten thousand children who are autistic to one in one hundred fifty we have an absolute epidemic of autism in this country and hundreds of thousands of families have been affected and they have nowhere to turn because of that we passed in the eighty's what was called the vaccine injury compensation fund and it was supposed to take care of families and people who were injured by vaccines and had nowhere to t well that was supposed to be a non confrontational system but unfortunately there have been nobody up until recently there's been paid out of the vaccine injury compensation fund and one of the reasons is because health and human services in the food and drug administration have said that the mercury in vaccines fifty percent of it isn't a preservative called them rosol the mercury in vaccines did not cause autism and there have been a lot of studies that have come out saying that the the vaccines was not a root cause of the autism crisis that we have in the country in fact in two thousand and four there was a report that said categorically that the somersault the merkin the vaccines was not a said it was in error and that there was no doubt that the mercury in the vaccinations was a contributing factor to the epidemic of autism that we have in this country well as a result of that and other information some of the test cases that have been raised are in progress right now have come before the special master and just recently young lady who was damaged by vaccinations the young lady from georgia hannah poling her case  before the special master and the justice department had five attorneys who said that this this young lady was not damaged in part by the mercury in the vaccinations this young lady got five vaccinations in one day most of which assault which is fifty percent ethylmercury and shortly thereafter she became autistic the same thing happened to my grandson he got nine shots in one day and within a short time he became autistic and i will go into all the details of what happens when you become autistic but it certainly is a tremendous change in the lives of not only the child but the entire family well anyhow this case went before the special master along with two other cases and just recently a decision was made in that case by the special master and in spite of the evidence quote unquote that was presented by the health and human services the f d a and the justice department the special master awarded damages to this family and said that this girl was damaged by the vaccination and the case was brought because this young lady took several shots five in one day that had mercury in them so this is the first case that shows in my opinion that the mercury  vaccines is a contributing factor to the epidemic of autism and that we have in this country now the reason i come before the floor tonight to talk about this is it's time that we got mercury out of all vaccinations we've been able to get out of most of the children's vaccinations but it's still in some i think it's in three or four now it needs to be out of all children's vaccinations and we have had an increase in the cases of all timers in this country and that's because in part in my opinion because mercury is in almost all of the adult vaccinations when you get a flu shot or almost any kind of a shot you're getting ethylmercury injected in your body now if we eat fish they tell us to be careful because there's mercury in the fish and it may cause neurological damage and yet we're injecting it into ourselves and into our children through vaccinations it's high time that the food and drug administration health and human services and the pharmaceutical industry decides we want vaccinations because they give us a better quality of life and makes us live longer and prevents us from getting diseases but we have to get mercury out of all vaccinations out of anything that goes into the human body and until we do that the problems with autism another neurological disease will continue to rise so i just like to say to my colleagues i hope you'll pay attention to this special order tonight we have to get mercury out of all vaccinations we can do it was single shot viles that will not require that preservatives and once we do that i think we'll have a much better quality of life and people be able to get vaccinations without worrying about becoming autistic thank you mr speaker your back about my time as watson from california went for his just three lard's i have a theory that mrs jews are said to earth to make us better human beings and if you go back in history jesus christ left early in his thirty's the kennedy brothers left early in their thirty's and martin luther king after he had done his work left us and so we are very fortunate to be able to participate in the service today honoring the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of dr martin luther king junior i would like to pay tribute to someone from the state of california who can be described as a diamond in the sky charles stone tona left this earth about two weeks ago and i presented his family with a congressional memorial certificate of recognition or as he was preceded in death by parents polly and jimmy thorne tona and god's son gary parker and whereas he leaves behind lifelong so many christine children three sean and charles victoria and arya smith chris bell and god's sons dionne dre anna jane and siblings jim sandra pamela and phono and also deborah and rarest as a musician artist and coach charles touch many lives a big hearted father figure who thrives on making others happy a legend never to be forgotten and be it we saw that charles stone tona be immortalized as a humanitarian who shared his life to make it better for his fellow man and left an outstanding lasting legacy for his family and friends may he rest in peace and may i just share  was written called a diamond in the sky and it's a tribute from his brothers jim and tim and also written by alice holmes mccaughey stand and take a bow as you leave us for the pure innocent heaven you have left us in this midst of a life what became a legend most you my brother the one who reached out to everyone you chose to engage to interact to love sharing and caring never too busy to do why you the original rock of our world has been called to your turn no rest with the lord you are supposed to let me know these things in advance after all i am your brother but it's all right as you sit with jesus mom dad and young gary men you know that you will always be loved and p m on thursday afternoon throughout the nation folks are finish in the day shift get ready to finish the day shift people who work the afternoon shift or get ready for work those that work the night shift are probably snoozing a little bit so they can get up in a few moments and start all over again this evening where's the house mr speaker the house is gone home the house has gone home now why is that important well we just finished two weeks at home talking to constituents about issues great and small they're concerned about a lot of things mr speaker they're concerned about gas prices they're concerned about the housing situation and in my district the six district of george i get constant questions about national security what is congress doing to make certain that our nation is safe and that's important because mr speaker today is the forty eight day the forty eighth day of a unilateral disarmament on behalf of the democrat leadership of the house of representatives why do i say that well mr speaker where the forty eight day now when the protect america act has been allowed to expire this isn't going to happen in the future this has happened this democrat leadership this speaker this democrat leadership has allowed the protect america act to expire i want to protect america act well it's an act portion of amendments that were adopted to the foreign intelligence surveillance act shortly after nine eleven and what it allows what this portion of it allows that was allowed to expire is for i have the united states our intelligence community to listen or intercept electronic communication or phone communication between a foreign individual in a foreign land talking to a foreign individual in a foreign land not an american citizen not on american soil that means mr speaker what they would be allowed to do is to listen to a potential terrorist or a terrorist talking to another potential terrorist or a terrorist outside the united states but as speaker i asked every single group that i spoke with at home for two weeks who believes that our intelligence community ought not have the authority to do that to listen to a terrorist talking to another terrorist outside the united states talking potentially about how to do you me and our nation harm didn't find a single individual didn't think that was the right thing to do but this leadership this speaker this democrat leadership has allowed that act to expire why because they believe that trial lawyers ought to have the ability to represent foreign individuals in the same way that the united states constitution protects americans mr speaker that's wrong many in my district and i believe also that it's  abrogation a duty it's a violation of the oath that we take as members of this house of representatives to uphold the constitution and put to protect and defend the united states of america mr speaker i call on this leadership i call on this speaker to allow this house to vote on the protect america act bill amendments that the senate passed sixty eight to twenty nine in a bipartisan way a bill that the majority of this house the majority democrats and republicans combined have said they will support if allowed to vote on the floor mr speaker this is essential to the protection of the unite states of america and to reverse the unilateral disarmament that has come about because of the leadership of the majority party as speaker i call on this leadership to bring this bill up as soon as we come back next week and do the people's business and i yield back the balance  my mr the facet from oregon has recognize lady jackets on their two thousand and eight n c double a division three women's basketball national championship and this their fourth consecutive parents in the tournament the lady jackets defeated the cy university falcons by a score of sixty eight to fifty fo of the national championship was a fitting into an unbelievable season for this rising basketball powerhouse from day one the women of the lady jackets were unwaveringly pursued excellence and in the end they had sheaves perfection the lady jackets finished with a record of thirty three and zero the only perfect record of any of the three thousand eight hundred twenty three mins and women's collegiate basketball teams in this country located in brownwood sexes howard payne university is a small school of fourteen hundred that i am honored to represent as division three at leats the members of the lady jackets team receive no scholarships or lucrative contracts for their collegiate exploits rather these women play for the thrill of competition and the glory of their achievements every minute of every team practice and every meeting and every game is endured simply for the love of basketball i'm proud to commend the lady jackie today not only for their victories but also for the dedication to their sport and to each other in the drive to be the best is by a great pleasure to extend my purchased personal congratulations to the team members tiffany warner katie seram stephanie brewer and the aka hall daphne pippins kimberly hoffman kills meyer and ms lindy hadfield who coached this year's team this season belongs to them as well while a coach's devotion to their team is often displayed simply in the wins column this perfect seat season speaks volumes about  ability to bring out the very best in their players and nurture the talents of their team mr speaker how disease walls that we work in are we rarely have an opportunity to witness perfection that which cannot be approved upon lest we forget that such a lest we forget what such accomplished look like the women of the lady jackets have reminded us that there are rare moments in time when imperfect individuals can work together to achieve perfect results i hope that by taking time to celebrate these small moments we can remind ourselves the importance of working together to seeks to achieve success and again lady jackets congratulations on a very unforgettable season and you'll back this joe miller from california bipartisan group of members of the house and senate just a few short hours ago here in the capitol where we were accompanied by martin luther king the third and we gathered to remember a day that tens of millions of americans will pause to remember to morrow that was the day that saw the assassination of the reverend dr martin luther king jr forty years ago i rise today as someone who as a nine year old boy was deeply inspired by the example of dr king and as a nine year old boy who was a was shaped by those tragic events about i also arise today as a hoosier and as a congressman representing muncie indiana because it may not be known to many mr speaker but both indiana and muncie indiana but in particular played a small role in the unfolding drama of that day april fourth one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and i will borrow generously from an article written by nick warner recently in the reflect on that connection muncie helped shape history after the king assassination because it was in muncie and at ball state university where senator robert kennedy was speaking and he was speaking at the men's gym which is now irving jim he was running for president of the united states and it was there after his speech as he was moving through the crowd that historians recall and record that he first learned of the as nation of martin luther king junior and as he went to the muncie airport and traveled from the muncie airport indianapolis robert kennedy would prepare what for all the world appeared to be an impromptu speech but one that perhaps he had been writing all of his life the speech that he would deliver to a stunned crowd in indianapolis that night and it was a speech that i rise today to remember it was humbling to me despite our differences on philosophy and politics to sit today on the same row with senator ted kennedy as we remembered the tragic events of that day  robert kennedy stood before a largely black audience at an outside park in indianapolis and he spoke these words quote i have some very sad news for all of you and i think sad news for all our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world and that is that martin luther king was shot and was killed tonight in memphis tennessee as nick warner wrote quote the crowd gassed and screamed but they remained fixed on kennedy as he continued speaking words that condemn violence and lawlessness he said and i had quote for those of you who are black considering the evidence evidently that there were white people who are responsible you can be filled with bitterness with hatred and a desire for revenge but he added what we need in the united states is not division what we need in the united states is not hatred what we need is not violence and lawlessness but love and wisdom compassion toward one another  gathered to return home tonight to say a prayer for the family of martin luther king yeah that's true but more importantly say a prayer for our country which all of us love a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which i spoke after he spoke these words rioting would break out in more than one hundred cities across the united states but indianapolis was peaceful robert kennedy would go on to a tragic end of his own but i rise today as an american shaped by the courage in the life of the reverend dr martin luther king jr and i will remember tomorrow with gratitude his example and i will also say very humbly that the words of robert kennedy years true today as ever and then muncie indiana and the state of indiana will always be proud of the small role we played as a backdrop to those historic and tragic events may the words of robert kennedy made the example of the reverend dr martin luther king jr continue to inspire our nation to aspire to a more perfect union and i yield back the speaker before i discuss the topic upon which i arise to speak i do want to join my colleagues and celebrating the reauthorization of the united states fire ministration act as a member of the homeland security committee since its origins after two thousand and one i am a direct witness of the work of our first responders around the nation it is important that we recognize the elements of this bill and the funding that is necessary to ensure a system of first responders that works yesterday i met with the chiefs of the fire departments of departments in my state of texas i salute them and through their efforts we were able to pass this bill i congratulate the sponsor and i believe that the national fire incident reporting system improvements that will come about are important the fire technology assistance and dissemination will be important that's reauthorize the encouraging of the adoption of standards for firefighter health and safety one of the ills that we're still dealing with after nine eleven people who have gotten sick after nine eleven and still not addressed and the coordination on fire service based emergency medical services important and as well the funding that will come about upwards of one hundred million dollars and certainly as i encourage them to work with the federal emergency management agency the work that we can do together congratulations on the reauthorization of this bill i stand as a strong supporter but i rise today as my colleagues have done to acknowledge the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of dr king that will be tomorrow and i head to memphis to commemorate that but i just got to speaking to a number of constituents from texas southern university and from pair of you am i asked them about presidential politics they were thoughtful and discussed with me the balance that they saw in the candidates that happened to be running in the democratic primary what i've seen as we watch this debate is really a call on the sensitivities of america race and gender we have seen the tensions and the divisiveness rather than focus on the message and mission of american hero like dr king who talked about unity and talked about as was said by his son today the horrible evil of racism and poverty and militarism but even in that voice he spoke of unity and so today i rise to call upon the candidates themselves that whoever will run to the mike the first call upon unity in america may find a surprising response from all the voters wherever they might be for americans are good people they extend themselves to the battlefields of afghanistan and iraq so that others might have freedom and democracy and i might imagine that out soldiers would look back on this divisiveness in the name calling and someone castigating one person because they're for one candidate over another and ask whether or not we truly understand freedom and democracy it is choice it is the ability to make your choice but yet it is ability to come together and you know by around the goodness of america i was glad to hear majority whip cliburn cite today that time is neutral as martin luther king said it is neutral because it says nothing it is what you do with it and what he reminded us is that people of ill will seem to use time more effectively than people of goodwill i truly believe that we have outstanding americans running for this office i will be pushing for the one that happens to be in my party strongly and enthusiastically but what i will come to this floor  this congress for is to join me in putting together a reconciliation commission in america not just because of the candidacy and the campaigns that we have seen but because americans are still sensitive about race and about gender two groups of people that have been disenfranchised in our history but yet we are blessed to be in america recognizing that many of us have made strides i am proud to stand here as an african american woman some might say i have double issues but i have double benefits double celebration but yet there are those who i believe would benefit from having this broad discussion this reconciliation in america about women who are disenfranchised until nine hundred twenty women who suffer from the lack of pay equity and those who are live on the minority umbrella who themselves still remain discriminated against in schools and jobs and in corporate america it's a speaker we can benefit from this wonderful debate and discourse between someone who is an african american male is a potential being present in the united states and a woman who has potential of being present in the united states why don't we celebrate in that difference and diversity why don't we call for unity america is greater than it is martin king has said it can be the promised land why don't we attempt to go there together i yield back mr franks mr dreier mr moran mr hunter under the speaker's announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from florida mr meek is recognized for sixty minutes as the designate of the majority leader thank you so very much mr speaker and it's not to come before the house once again i can share with you that  congresswoman sheila jackson lee just finished speaking about the wonderful ceremony that we had today but sad ceremony reflecting on the life of dr martin luther king some forty years later to see democrats and republicans standing side by side to have reflection from those that work for size beside dr king like our very own john lewis and a reid reflecting on the senate reflecting on he worked here in the capital of that time was a part of the crowd outside and others that shared stories of their time when dr king walked to earth  and his son dr martin luther king the third who reflected on his father's death and his memory and charged the house in the senate  to carry out efforts against poverty also to deal with the issue of war and conflict and and also looking at the very issue of making sure that we stand up for the least least of these that many of us are very very familiar with mr speaker at all so believe that it's important in that li have americans into as leaders of this great country of ours have americans remember the past but look forward and a forward leaning way to the future i had the opportunity to talk to the national association of black realtors or african american realtors over a union station just about thirty minutes ago i was there reminded me of a story and i shared it with them of when my mother served here in the house of representatives and i had the opportunity as a state legislator to come up to see her sworn in once again and while i was up here i had a chance to run into one of my good friends reverend jesse jackson and he spoke to a group of folks that were here that day when his son was sworn into congress for the first time and he said that he could help could not help but to getting motional and he got emotional when he was sharing with us how that experience was a moving experience for him because he reflected on the story of his father who fought in war two and after world war two was over came back into the united states but was taking the train going south and riding behind the prisoners of war when they went through  union station in slaughter couldn't help but reflect the fact that he saw the united states capitol but even though he fought on behalf of this country was felt that he did not move forward because he was behind prisoners of war in his own country and that god would have him live long enough for his son to become a member of congress is something of how it is an example of how this country can correct itself over time we still have a long way to go and a short time to get there and i share that with them because many of us are professionals and have an opportunity to take part in this democracy and be a part of the change in america and i can say that tomorrow will be a day for the country to to paul's and to recognize the contributions of one of the greatest americans ever walked the earth and as dr king i look forward to participating in that reflection like i did today with that mr speaker i would like to share just a few  a few thoughts with the house as we have now broken for the week and will be back next week and the business of the people in the united states of america will continue the new  direction democratic congress working with some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle or about solutions mr speaker and not just a conversation i think it's important for us to look at what has taken place under the capitol dome i was on the floor yesterday evening and i spoke to the members on how we're going to have to work together to be able to help everyday americans work through their real life issues that they're facing now long ago we knew of not only predatory lending practices but we also knew of the fact that there are a number of americans that are that are going to hit hard times in many pieces of legislation in the past off of this floor riding on the backs of everyday americans individuals that punch in and punch at every day those that tried to carry out the american dream by purchasing a home and getting their piece of the american pie and move for many americans that's the only savings they have a home is a way to be able to allow their blood in line wherever they may be and rural america urban america wherever their background may be of their citizen or resident of this country to be able to educate their children to be able to borrow money to be able to educate their children or to be able to allow their children to have something that they can call a piece of the rock or a piece of the american pie and i can tell you right now mr speaker that a number of those families and i mean they're in the millions are in jeopardy right now of losing the very thing that they can hold on to they may not own their car they may not necessarily have a lot of money but what they do have are homes and many of these individuals are up in a and they have fewer tomorrows and then they ha yesterday's and they're finding themselves in a situation of not having the financial means to be able to protect their home one of the cornerstones of public service is to make sure that we come up that we protect those individuals and that we make sure that those americans are not left behind and i do know that this congress in this in the past not this democratic congress but congress has before have attempted to stimulate the economy through tax breaks for the very super wealthy and the super rich saying that it will trickle down to the everyday american and that hasn't happened this is a perfect example that it has not happened this week the senate worked very hard leader others with senate bill twenty six thirty thirty six the keep families from facing foreclosures in their homes this new direction congress came here saying that we're here to represent the american people not just democrats not just independents not just republicans but the american people and we have done that we have been able to at measures into law expanding affordable mortgage loan opportunities through the through the federal housing administration for families that are in danger of losing their homes by creasing the f h a loan loan limits up to seven tax bill at the same time they're losing their homes to house a house resolution thirty six forty eight the mortgage forgive forgiveness and we also expand it expanded federal counseling for families in danger of losing their homes through through foreclosure through f y o a r m a spill appropriations bill i think it's important for us to talk about what we had in this congress versus what we haven't died but i can tell you that since i started out what has already happened and more has to happen because we still have individuals that are out there that are hurting is not enough in my district seventeen congressional district that we're going to have a foreclosure prevention workshop where we're going to have lenders and counselors there to be able to talk to them my constituents need more than that my american people need more than that and by the fact they voted for me on a given tuesday early one tuesday by federalizing me allowing me to come to congress and other members of congress to come here we're here to represent their bed best interest so we have to continue to move forward these are measures that have passed the house but have not become law strengthening consumer protection against risky housing loans in the future house resolution thirty thirty nine fifteen the mortgage reform and anti predatory lending and expanding affordable housing mortgage opportunities for families in danger of losing their homes through the federal housing administration reform which is h r eight hundred fifty two this bill passed both house and senate and supported by the white house and i say that has been held up by one senator due to his opposition to the to the temporary f h a loan limit increase at think it's important that everyone understands that this has to be a group effort that home and the district folks don't understand one individual having a problem with it but that's going back to the rules and and one of our chambers here in congress in crease the amount of the loan through h r fourteen twenty seven and it goes on and on and on of efforts that we have tried to pass here in the congress and become law but for some reason has not so next week the house under chairman frank leadership and the financial services committee will work very hard to address these issues through legislation it's also the at will put bringing forth contineu comprehensive legislation to address housing the housing crisis that we face here in america and the legislation will help stabilize the housing market which is the first step to rebounding our economy the measure will do many of the things that i just talked about that are holding that are held either in the legislative process or procedural new vors that have taken place or objection by the white house with also prevent the value as it relates to homes being the value of homes going down or work towards million americans losing their homes with the prediction last year with a prediction that two million will lose their homes this year imagine how home how back home america is going to look need to be small or large homes that are vacant and americans not able to receive loans to be able to buy those buy those homes enroll america homes vacant without having individuals able to move into those homes and you know they fall into disrepair and this ten billion dollars will stimulate the economy and that will increase american jobs it will there are not jobs overseas but it jobs right here at think it's very important that  we pay very close attention to this i want to commend the democratic leadership for continuing to push this this measure forward in the light of so many accomplishments that have taken place since the democratic congress has been put into place and i just want to mention just a few of them so that my time on the floor today just won't be about describing what our problem is in america but to talk about how we're making real change here in washington d c add been here six years absent more happened in the last year to nassau in the five years prior to this time four years prior to this congress the minimum wage increase that was signed into law that was passed in zero seven stem cell research enhanced me which is was sent to the president's desk but on june and june of june seven june will seven also we implemented all of the nine eleven commission recommendations which was  recommendations that were came out of a bipartisan commission they were all implemented by this house and by the senate was sent to the president he signed it also repealing subsidies of big oil reinvesting in renewable energy and i want to stop right there that's a major accomplishment and just yesterday i noticed said a number of the independent truck drivers went on strike and they went on strike because of the high cost of diesel feel and i can tell you mr speaker if we were doing the kind of things that this congress has done four years ago this country would not be as dependent on middle eastern oil as we are now on the president's response to what needed to happen two years ago or three years ago was america is addicted to oil well to talk about something and blame the american people saying we're addicted to oil is not an answer and not a solution and i can tell you this legislation that passed this house by two hundred sixty four to one sixty three is the kind of congress that the american people voted for to be able to lead this country and a new direction and to move this country in a new direction or matter of fact it's put it its way move this congress into a new direction which has happened and will continue to happen  we also making college more affordable i think that's very very important as one of the first pieces of legislation that we passed in this new congress to cut student loan rates in ha think it's very very important that we look at these measures as accomplishments and nodded wedges that will cut democrats from republicans because the american people ultimately counting on us to move in the right direction since we know what's going to happen next week and be one of the major actions that will take place when chairman frank will have a chance to start considering the market for his piece of legislation out of this committee we also have to reflect on the reports that will be receiving on the status of what's happening in iran as many of the members know that we had  violence as of recent that should not be shocking because one of the leaders of one of the insurgent groups over in iraq said they were going to take six months off to regroup the american people have put a lot of money on the well this congress has put a lot of money on the ground in iraq and i'm talking about outside of the money that we have supplied our and protect our troops and and the men and women that are over there that are civilians but i'm saying cash money on the streets and iran now here's what rupp comes in and here's where the leadership has to begin we have to start not only having the discussion we have to take action and making sure that we bring our men and women home and that we bring them home faster than what the president is looking to bring them home timeline and he's looking to bring them home at a back he's not looking to bring them home anytime soon and there is members of the senate is talking about one hundred years of what have you but i had the opportunity mr speaker and we broke for easter and members to go in spend two days at camp pendleton which is one of the largest marine bases we have in the country over on the west coast of this in california and i stayed on base purposely so that we would have an opportunity to interface with those that are in uniform and their families and of course to work gets around that there's a member of congress on base that's not an everyday event because there's only five hundred and so members of congress and i think that it's important that we have a chance to interface because i think that this congress needs to understand and the bush white house needs to understand that this is not just about by smart bombs it's not get by just buying vehicles it's not just about making sure that they have the ammunition that they need that the cab law that they need to protect themselves all of that is all of those things that i mentioned are very worthy and is the reason why we have the number one in the military on the face of earth but i think there's also a human side to this that we should be just as excited about trying to assist those individuals and that on the families and the human side of what's happening to our men and women in iraq when i first got on base mr speaker i noticed a billboard that was electronic billboard that had their with you are in need of counseling or if you're in need of a group therapy please call this number and i was pleased to see that because so many times we feel that the only injury that could possibly happen when we see one of our patriots come back is one of losing an arm or  leg or or those that have purple heart tags that are traveling throughout america but many of those injured or injuries from this conflict are between  the ears of the stress and also some of some of the concussion bombs that are going on over in iraq and these americans have fought vietnam longer and in korea and the other conflicts on and on and these americans are special because they are unique and that we have to make sure that we do we have to do is now let me just say this the democratic congress has made or that the v a received the highest or the most money in this ever received in the history of the republic of making the history of the v a i'm making sure that our men and women get what they need when they come back and as they continue to come back that's there for them we have to make sure that we take action as we look at this budget and as we have the debate about this war in iraq that we bring our men and women home more sooner than later now i've heard some members on the floor talk about things that iraqi children and women and men and boys and what have you that they don't have the opportunity to do or they didn't have the opportunity to do until we get well let me just share something with you it is good to have goodwill and all of those things throughout the world but right here in america mr speaker and as a member of congress that think it's important that we also understand that there they are americans right now women children boys men girls are our seniors that don't have because seventy billion one hundred billion two hundred billion on a ground in iraq and on and on and on and we're sitting here thinking and we have members running around here talking about we need earmark reform well guess what reform has happened there if you're marks in a worker and a previous republican congress and the congress before that and that we have disclosure americans can go on members web sites that can go and can see exactly what the requests that they're making you want to talk about reform or it's happened in the last fourteen months in a democratic new direction congress than any other time since i've been in congress and so we look at these issues in a stand here talking about a two hundred fifty dollars project that mr ryan talked about yesterday this e t a mandated project on a local government complaining about that meanwhile looking and not even paying attention to the mountain of debt that we have in this country that was built by the bush administration and its friends here in congress on the republican side but not even looking at the seventy billion dollars that individuals voted for to continue this this effort in iraq saying that we have to help the poor people of iraq now let me tell you something and may feel a little warm and fuzzy about seventy billion saying maybe that's right if that iraqi government was working under the same light that we were working under here i think it's important that we reflect on what's happening right here in america what's happening two blocks away from this capital that we have individuals that are in poverty we have individuals don't have health care not individual americans they don't have health care we have veterans that are sitting right out as i speak now in front of the lincoln memorial at the last outpost that are in need i was out there and as sometimes mr speaker remembers i take my children and we ride our bikes down the mall here and we pass by the washington monument and then we move on and we go by the war two memorial and then we go by we go down to reflection pool we go down in lincoln memorial and every time sometimes every now and then you'll get a gulf war one veteran that's out there and i start talking about health care and many i'm not even though i'm a member of congress so what have you what's happening at the v a what's happening with you in your everyday life and you would be shocked at how many times that i had been there in a very short time talking to them taking a break and they had pulled pills out of their hand out of their pocket into their hands it's time for them to take one of the cocktails they have to say to be able to deal with what they have to those demons they've been having to deal with all these years now i'm going to say those individuals allow us to salute one flag those individual allowed me to sit here as an american congressman and speak my mind and this democracy and i salute them beyond mentioning their their their commitment to this country and the fact that they're conrad some of them did not make it back which are also there in the various memorials that are on the mall i say all of this because members are taking this time likely and i shared many times that i've come to the floor as i move towards the close here mr mr speaker remembers that this time in our country is like no other time in the history of the republic w know foreign countries more money than we've ever owed them in the history of the republic some of the countries that we have concerns about security concerns about they have a part of the piece of the american pie because we've had an administration in the white house to say we got to give these tax cuts even we can't even afford them to individuals that are not even ask inform and that strategy failed because now we're in an economic downturn in maine just about housing is just a fact that jobs have not been created here jobs been shipped overseas and that that seems to be this kind of global piece of saying oh we need to do that because it is important we have a strong global economy i agree with that but it did think that we have to have a strong america so as we look at what our veterans are going true and the more and more veterans that are going to be passed on because of some of the bad decisions that have been made in the past doesn't mean that we have to continue to make those bad decisions it means that we should learn from those bad decisions and then have the kind of paradigm shift that democrats republicans and independents are looking for so i feel that as we continue to look at our time here in congress as we continue to look at our responsibility we have to take every livin moment to make sure that we bring about that change when i first got here we talk about not leaving the responsibility on our children and grandchildren now we can say not leaving a responsibility on our sales there was a time we thought the debt would kick today bearing the brunt of the bad decisions that were made and the path and decisions that are being made today by some members of congress luckily we have this new direction congress that are here to stand up on behalf of the american people and not the special interest so i say that mr speaker in the light of saying that i hope and i want to commend some of my friends on the republican side that have saw the lie that have gone to the wizard that yvette's of courage and they stepped out and they voted with members on the majority side to bring about the kind of paradigm shift but there are some that are here that are not willing to do that and that's fine because this far as i'm concerned the american people spoke in the last election and that's the reason why i can say i'm a member of the majority now and guess what some of them were republicans that were very frustrated with the fact fiscal responsibility was not carried out that decisions that we should have been made as relates to the war in iraq were not made that the economy was going sell that they didn't have what they used to have in their bank accounts investment in their family and their bloodline and no longer had it so they had to bring about the kind of change the american spirit will rise beyond partisan politics every time when this country is in jeopardy so when we come next around the next election mr speaker remembers i want you to reflect on an individual that's going to go on a given tuesday to vote for the kind of representation that she or he expects to have and if they don't see when i look at the report card because we have for twenty four hours channels that are dedicated to news a close to the news we have public television is dedicated gavel to gavel coverage of county commission and city commission and state legislators and also here in congress dedicated to the american people to take an opportunity to take a look at it we have our cyber space that's available and we used to have mr speaker a digital divide in this country to where that when i was in the state legislature was to where will the broadband where with the l lines go where we where they will will the phone company allow those lines to be put on by the cable company and now we move to the technology of of  blackberries and i phones and all of these things we're individuals get news like that when a report card is mailed to the home or when they look at those they go online or they look at television a listen to the radio they read the paper to find out where were you standing on these very issues that are before congress dealing with them the foreclosure of their home the economy health care for children as we look at s chip legislation which extracted of it's sugar but the leftovers of that turn into fuel to run those sugar mills and to be able to go in the tank of american of americans that are trying to make a living we start looking at that and we start looking at why we're paying per gallon for fuel as we pay for a gallon the milk we start looking at those issues that think they're going to look at him and say listen i'm an independent i'm going to have to vote for the folks at about the solution i'm a republican i'm going to have to vote for the folks that are about solution in my house i'm a democrat i'm going to have to vote for the folks that are willing to move this country in a new direction and evidence of spoken over the last fourteen to fifteen months that a new direction congress has moved in that direction and that through the fact that we have been empowered by the american people to lead this country in a new direction the president on bills that he said he would not sign had to sign because we kept that pressure on so i say all of this mr speaker and closing that what we're facing right now are real issues our responsibility is great historians will write about this time and congress and i share with the members i met effect as i begged the members to be on the right side of history and making the right decisions right now and i will close with the information that i received as april third as it reads writes in iraq four thousand eleven americans that are that have died in the line of duty total number wounded in action and return to duty sixteen thousand three hundred sixty four the total number of wounded in action and have not returned to duty is thirteen thousand two hundred sixty four as we break for the next couple of days and over the weekend come back hopefully with the heart in the mind to be about solution with that mr speaker i yield back the balance of my time thank you sir under the speaker's announced policy of january eighteenth two thousand and seven the gentleman from texas which i think the speaker most speakers been a long week we had a pretty tough legislative day today it's springtime in washington springtime brings lots of different groups to town myself farmers this week saw the fire firefighters first responders this week seem a personnel this week we also saw some my friends the american medical association this week and many of my friends from the texas medical association they came to capitol hill to discuss things that are important to them in health care and as i frequently do at the end of the day if i thought i'd come down here and talk a little bit about health care i'd like to call these little visits house calls now prior to coming to congress i was a practicing physician still licensed i'm not insured but in honor of my fellow physicians who are in here in town this week i brought a picture of a famous doctor now he's not a medical doctor he's a physicist this doctor albert einstein but i thought we'd have dr einstein accompany me on this house call this afternoon it's going to be a little talk about the role of healers the roles of physicians the roles that perhaps they should play in health care reform in america now dr einstein did a lot of famous things he did some things that were infamous as well he's well known for a number of quotes and one of my favorite quotes from albert einstein is insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result this time of course dr einstein was right and i want him to be with us today because that is a terrific theme for a little talk about how doctors and policymakers can together work on the things that should dictate health care reform in this country so if you would let's have a candid conversation about health care health care at the federal level health care at the provider will level now this is an election year in this country presidential election year happens every four years there's a lot of big discussions there's a lot of big debates in health care will be one of those big debates there's a broad national recognition that is needed in health care there's not a lot of consensus on how to achieve that now every one of the presidential candidates those who are still active in the race those who were active in the race and since dropped out everyone has their own i'd already has or had their own ideas won't surprise anyone here to know that members of congress also have their own ideas policymakers are focused on change that's good that's appropriate and as we learned this week by the visits from the doctors from the american medical association physicians are focused on change as well and they must be because after all in this country health care begins and ends with doctors without our doctors in fact there is no health care that means our doctor friends the ones who are in town this week have to be ones who take an active role in the process of transforming health care in this country we need them to take a leading role on creating the roadmap on reasonable for reform to go from where we are now to where we ought to be we depend upon our physician leaders because they are leaders and they act like leaders and they are proactive they are not reactive think about it for a minute when you're only in a reactive mode what you end up with are basically band aid solutions you think of the term death by a thousand  call this one death by a thousand scalpels because we were talking to doctors all week you don't refusing to do something meaningful about liability laws in this country putting the interests of trial lawyers ahead of patients that's  my home state of texas september of two thousand and three we acted sweeping liability reform as it affected the health care industry we got fair medical justice legislation out of our state legislature required a constitutional amendment to go into effect but it did pass under a vote of the people and as a consequence now some four or five years later texas is seeing the benefits from passing commonsense legislation that limited the amount of payments payouts for non economic damages in medical liability case basis because this texas law has made such a difference in my home state of texas who give you an example your two thousand and two the year i was first running for congress the number of medical liability insurers in my home state of texas had dwindled from seventeen down to two now you don't get much in the way of competitive bidding when you only have two insurance companies that are willing to write your business but all the rest had left the climate in texas was so hostile that no one wanted to go to that state to write insurance as a consequence you had doctors who had good doctors who were just simply unable to get insurance and stop practicing i met a young woman during one of the stops i made during my campaign in two thousand to a radiologist an interventional radiologist highly trained highly specialized trained by the state of texas state supported school so the taxpayers of texas had paid for a portion of her education and now barely three four five years out in practice she had lost her liability insurance she was not able to get another carrier to pick her up it was too risky she couldn't practice without it in her specialty and she became a full time mom no longer practicing interventional radiology at a time i would argue when our health care needs are doing nothing but increasing well that was wrong and the state legislature in texas recognized that that was wrong and got busy about changing it didn't come up with a new idea they copied an old idea in one nine hundred seventy four state of california passed a sweeping set of medical liability changes called the medical interest injury compensation reform act of one thousand nine hundred seventy four and with the caps on non economic damages they were able to tamp down the premium increases that doctors had seen over time and indeed when we pass that legislation in texas we have seen the same result it does work and it should be tried in more areas in fact i've introduced legislation similar to the texas legislature shouldn in the house of representatives thirty five zero nine is the number for anyone keeping score at home this bill actually scores a savings by the congressional budget office where in our budget time here in the springtime is washington as we always do in the spring of every year for scrapping around for every dollar we can find to pay for federal programs here's a gift i'll give to congress it's a five billion dollars gift this this bill would save over five years as estimated under the congressional budget office and it does the same things on a national scale as the texas legislature was able to deliver for their patients back home in texas one of the really unintended beneficiaries of this whole process was the small community based hospital the smaller not for profit community hospital had to hold many many hundreds of thousands of dollars millions of dollars in escrow against a potential bad outcome in a bad a bad offense in a in a liability case they have been able to back down those holdings and invest that money  just the things you want your community hospital to invest in nurses capital investment the result has been an expansion of medical care in texas since that bill was passed we've gone down to two liability insurers are now back up in excess of twenty and they have come back into the state without an increase in fees mild insurer of record texas medical liability trust has in fact reduced its liability premiums twenty two percent in aggregate since the passage of this law in two thousand and three so clearly it works remember our founding fathers said that the states should act as great laboratories for the nation and things that work in states ought to be then considered for use countrywide and indeed this is this is one of those concepts that that embodies that the principles here are on this on this chart pretty straightforward it does cap noneconomic damages in a medical liability suit two hundred fifty thousand dollars per physician two hundred fifty thousand dollars for the hospital two hundred fifty thousand dollars for a second hospital or nursing home if one is involved does allow for some peer biotic payments and it allows for good samaritan care very sensible straightforward legislation not complicated not a complicated bill and it does as intended it behaves as advertised and well that's one of the things in this congress we just heard a gentleman talking about solutions here is a solution i offered as a gift to the united states house of representatives going to save the five billion dollars over the next five years use it to spend that money somewhere else in the budget because goodness knows a three trillion dollars budget there's plenty of places you can spend money now another place where we apply just a band aid where we really need to do something major is in how we how we reimburse physicians for taking care of medicare patients physicians who are doing what we in congress have asked them to do that is take care of our medicare patients medicare one of the largest delivers of health care in the country indeed the world we've asked our doctors take care of our medicare patients our medicare patients are arguably some of the most complex patients they have multiple conditions multiple diseases frequently on multiple medications and we've asked medical community since nine hundred sixty five to provide care for these patients and what do we do in return when we pass legislation a number of years ago that reduces year over year the amount that we reimburse for that care well wait a minute that's counterintuitive that doesn't make any sense can you imagine a doctor a small businessman going into his banker with a business plan he says i'm going to i'm going to expand my business and i've got this this business plan and part of the business plan is going to make ten percent less every year year over year as far as the eye can see well even back in the subprime days no banker in his right mind is going to make a loan on that type of business plan how do we expect physicians across the country who are indeed small business owners how do we expect them to survive and we certainly can expect them to thrive in that it's environ it what we do this because we've created a condition called the sustainable growth rate formula and i put it up here on this on this poster and no i'm not going to go through it line by line it's available for anyone who wants to who wants to get a dig into the details on the on the web site for the center for medicare and medicaid services but just to demonstrate the complexity of this formula and to point out that going through all these calculations the final line in this formula is that you go back to one nine hundred ninety six and capture all of the money that you should have saved and added on to the end it's a formula that is destined to fail over time and until we in congress recognize that this formula is indeed destined to fail over time repeal it reverse it revise it yet rid of it stop the cuts stop the cuts pay the doctors what they're owed and get on with things currently in this country we have medicare divided into four parts and each part is mostly an integrated member of the whole we have part a b c and d part a deals with hospitalizations part b compensate physicians part c is medicare h m o s and party is drugs every part of medicare with the exception of the physician payment receives a cost of living adjustment year over year part d part b is different it is governed under the sustainable growth rate formula so whereas a hospital will receive ever increasing amounts of compensation because the cost of inputs increases because a drug company or h m o will receive an upgrade every year year over  year because the cost of doing business increases physician reimbursement will decline over time clearly clearly that is unsustainable now i've got a real problem here in congress i show this formula to any member of the house of representatives and although they recognize that patient access is a problem physicians are in peril although they recognize those feet there's this is very difficult to understand this very quickly goes into the too hard box in someone's mind and we're just not going to deal with it but congress must deal with this an example of how we don't deal with it was last december we were right up against a deadline cuts were going to go into effect january first if we didn't do something so at the last minute at the last minute we came to this house and we passed a bill that would delay these cuts by six months what an insult to the practicing physicians in america that that's all the time that's all the effort we would expand on this very important issue that affects virtually every aspect of their practice like and i say that because it's not just the medicare reimbursement that's affected but literally every private insurance company in this country pegs to medicare so if medicare does a five percent cut or a ten percent cut guess what happens to cigna blue cross blue shield united on down the line they will follow suit can't blame them for doing so it's the market price the price of doing business but as a consequence this house of representatives this congress exerts wage and price controls over health care in this country that that most of us here don't don't really have an understanding of which we don't have an understanding so december we passed a six months delay on putting phasing in the medicare cuts we've got to deal with that before the end of june well guess what it's the first of april half of that time has been consumed half of that time has been squandered and have we seen any meaningful effort in my committee the committee on energy and commerce which has jurisdiction over part b medicare now we haven't we did steroids hearings for crying out loud on baseball players this is the work we should be doing this is the work the american people sent us here to do we heard the other gentleman talk about solutions here's a solution we could wrap up we could wrap up and give to patients in america and they would be the better for it now one of the other things that happened in december which we didn't get done in a way sometimes that's a good thing that we don't get things done we talked a lot about trying to bring the architecture information technology in health care to bring it on up into the twenty first century it is a difficult it's a difficult concept for a lot of people to understand it's difficult for some people to understand why we don't just flip a switch and turn on the computer and make it happen one of the bills that we saw come to congress last december which didn't get passed was a bill that was going to mandate that physicians in the medicare program use electronic prescribing conceptually a good idea i'm a physician i'm left handed i've got bad handwriting i recognize that every year that goes by every year older i get my handwriting doesn't get any clearer so he prescribe in will remove some of those problems and yes it could reduce error rates yes it will immediately flag things like medicines that are in conflict with each other it will immediately flag things like allergies that a patient might have that may have slipped the doctor's mind as he just he or she jumps out that prescription so a good concept but what do we do with it here in congress we make  we come to them a medical community and say ok here's our grand plan for a prescribing first off we're going to give you two thousand dollars to invest in infrastructure practice two thousand dollars two thousand dollars should be any idea how much these programs cost and how much it cost to buy the infrastructure the architecture do the training far in excess of two thousand dollars ok and in addition to that if you do this prescribe a program we're going to give you a one percent bonus over time for doing this program but if you haven't done it in four years time we're going to come back with a ten percent penalty for every patient that you see well a one percent bonus i guess that's better than nothing but think about it for a minute in my practice if i saw a medicare patient return visit moderately complex and intensity on a good day if that was a fifty dollar a visit that reimbursed fifty dollars that would be a miracle in itself but let's do it that way because it makes the math easy and i'm not good at math so a fifty dollars patient visit and if i'm really moving  fun really on my game i can see four of those patients in an hour so that's a two hundred dollar hour that i've put in in the clinic that morning and we're going to get a one percent bonus for that so that means for each of those four patients i saw in that hour i'm going to get an extra fifty cents that's two dollars an hour increase well that's not a lot when you think about all of the extra work that goes into maintaining and training for the z perscribe in programs but what if i don't do it what's going to happen then in four years time we're going to come back with a ten percent reduction what does that ten percent reduction mean to that same hour of intensity that same hour of work applied four years later was ten percent reduction instead of now a two dollar increase i get a twenty dollars penalty for seeing those four patients but not using any prescribing if you couple that on top of the program ten percent cuts that are supposed to go in year over year is it any wonder is it any wonder that when you pick up a phone and try to make a new patient appointment in the doctor's office they say i'm sorry we're full i'm sorry we're not taking any new medicare patients and this is becoming a crisis for our seniors all because all because congress will not do the work for our physician community and for our patients and it's work we've asked our physicians to do since one thousand nine hundred eighty five we have asked them to participate in this program well let's stay on the concept of information technology for just a moment and i will tell you mr speaker i haven't always been a big fan of some of the advanced and higher information technology electronic medical records yeah those were good for someone else maybe not for me he prescribing i did it with a couple of different vendors in my private practice it never was all it was cracked up to be but the in august of two thousand and five late august of two thousand and five i changed my mind on this subject that changed my mind on this subject because a very harsh event that happened in america and that was the passage of hurricane katrina over the city of new orleans and we all know the story there the multiple breaches in the levees in the city flooded and one of the consequences of that city flooding was the flooding of one of the venerable old healthcare institutions in this country charity hospital in new orleans the basement was flooded for weeks guess what we have in our basements of our hospitals around the country that's where we put our medical records that's where we store these paper records so here is a visit in january of two thousand and six we did a field hearing on my one of my subcommittees on energy and commerce we went down into the basement of charity hospital in new orleans the room had been deal water prior to that visit i didn't even know de watered was a verb the room had been the watered and here is the medical records department now this black stuff that you see smudged on the charts and these are rows and rows of medical charts you can see the identifying patients numbers on the and this black material smudged on the charts is not circuit from a fire it's black mold that means that anyone who comes in here and pulls a record off the shelf is going to get along full of mold spores and clearly that is that these records because of that hazardous condition these records will never be accessed again and of course you can imagine this room was under water for weeks and weeks and weeks the effect of salt water brackish water on the that went to record these medical events these records were likely unreadable even if someone had been willing to hazard the mold spores to pull one off the shelf so all of this data is lost forever and we don't know what's in there perhaps a kidney transplant perhaps a premature birth perhaps just a well baby check absolutely impossible to tell this was so critical because when many of the people who left new orleans after that that storm after the the difficulties that were encountered in the aftermath a lot of those individuals came to dallas texas and they arrived on the parking lot at reunion arena where where they were to be triaged to receive health care if they needed housing get start to get their lives back on track there were many pay many people who arrived there who actually had significant medical conditions and it was very very difficult to obviously go back and access these records that were in fact underwater in the city of new orleans now there were some of the pharmacy some of the big chain pharmacies who arrived on the scene with a mobile truck and using the information that they could download off their central computer system they were able to recreate from patient's name and birthdate they were able to recreate medicine  lists and i would just tell you if you can get an accurate medicine list on a patient a lot of times you can know a great deal about their medical history given the types of medications they were on or if nothing else here was a verification that this was the end of hypertensive that this this was the type of diabetes medication that this patient was on it accelerated care for these patients and in an unbelievable fashion and these two series of events made me a believer in electronic medical records if you have an electronic medical record that stays with the patient that follows the patient throughout life that can be accessed by the patient be accessed by that patient's physicians if the patient gives permission if you have that capability that would have gone a long way towards the the rapid reinstitution of medical care for some patients who are who are frankly quite ill not just because their underlying medical condition made the middle but they were ill from spending several days in water up to their waists or in the superdome where there they lacked air conditioning and lacked access to some of the most basic facilities for for hygiene these were these were patients in distress because of their medical condition because of the conditions in which they had existed after the storm so how much better was it to be able to resume their care because there was the availability of at least a small amount of data that could be retrieved electronically if we had an electronic medical if a patient had their own medical record over which they had control much much more much much more facile to be able to treat those patients in that in that type of situation now we do hear a lot here in congress there are various bills and ideas out there as far as how to get how to get the health care community up to speed on electronic medical records or health information technology as you frequently hear are referred to here in congress as a big big study done a few years ago by rand people and they in this study they talk about the billions of dollars seventy seven billion dollars that can be saved over fifteen years if we go to electronic medical records model now that's a significant amount of money and the study is a very meaningful one very well thought out very well constructed most people don't go much deeper in more deeply into it than that but if you actually read take the trouble to read the rand study if you you know look into it most of those savings actually occur on out towards that fifteen thirty year of that study most of the investment in information architecture is going to be done on an individual basis and wasn't included in the cost or the benefit of the rand study so it's use the figure a little bit on the plus side because of that no allowance for training no allowance for maintenance but nevertheless still they do show a significant savings of a little by going to electronic medical records there's some a paragraph in the very last paragraph of the study they say for this world to go away and the electronic world to occur it is going to take incentives and they talk about incentives that they must begin early that is you want to be sure and make that incentive available so that you don't penalize someone for getting in early or more importantly you don't you don't reward a late adopter so the incentives have to be available early and the time limit that the same incentives are available the timeframe that the incentives are available has to be limited but the final point is the one that is always missed on the floor of this congress is and the benefits the incentives must be substantial i would submit to you that a one percent increase in a medicare patien compensation for an office visit for using a prescribe ing does not fall into the category of a substantial benefit and then as we so often do here in congress we go on and add insult to injury by saying and if you don't do it we're going to punish you here's a little carrot but a big stick if you don't do what we've asked you to do so i do think that the day will come we will see a great deal more adoption of electronic medical records some of the things i think we could do are encourage the private sector that is really light years light years ahead of the federal government on this perhaps with a little relaxation of some regulatory regimens called the stark provisions perhaps with at least some definition of what privacy is and what privacy means so people have some certainty about the systems that they're developing maybe a little bit on the liability side and true enough ask something from the private sector in return if it's insurance come an insurance company that's developing this model make certain that the information itself is owned by the patient and may travel with the patient from one if they transition from one company to another or they transition from one employer and they go to individually owned insurance make certain that that information is not lost in that transaction when the patient can control the information but i do believe if we'd put some of our partisan differences aside we could we could devise a scenario where this type of that would be conducive to to the development of this type of technology and again as the gentleman who was talking  talking about solutions these are the types of solutions that the american people want to see us working on again they're not really interested if we hold another hearing about steroids in baseball ball they are interested if we can provide them this type of value in their doctor patient interactions now one of the other concerns that i have when you hear people talk about health care and certainly when you hear people talk about it at the national scale is well why don't we expand the medicare program please be advised in my opinion the medicare program for all the good things that it does do has enough areas of uncertainty around it that i don't  number one i don't think it is the type of program that we want to be a place in which we want to be placing everyone but going back to the s g r formula i spend probably forty to sixty percent of my week dealing with problems that are brought about by difficulties administered through medicare medicaid s chip all of the federal systems that we have to provide health care in this country we are not doing a great job so at this point i don't see the value in rewarding the federal government by giving it a greater and greater share of health care in this country and i would simply ask the question does the private sector does the private sector have a role to play in the delivery of health care in the united states of america my answer to the question is yes and in fact a long hearing that we had today dealing with medicaid funding if you do not have the private sector you have no way to pay for medicare and medicaid because let's be honest medicare and medicaid do not pay the full cost of the care that's rendered hospitals physicians clinics across the country have to cross subsidize their medicare and medicaid populations with money from their private practices with money from the that they receive from the private sector so i would submit that the private sector does have a role to play in the delivery of health care in this country because at the very least right now we depend upon the excess payment from the private sector to fund the cross  medicare and medicaid one last thing about the physicians compensation let me talk about because in the senate i've been very critical of the way the current majority the current leadership handled the medicare reimbursement at the end of two thousand and seven but i must say at the end of two thousand and six when my side was in charge we didn't do a great deal better we decided to provide a one to one and a half percent increase in physician compensation if doctors were willing to undergo some quality reporting now quality reporting generally would be thought of as a good thing but again the incentive was so low as to not cover the cost of collecting the data and now after the first year and a half of this initiative called the physician quality reporting initiative started out life as p v r p and then became p q p q r i the results are pretty disappointing not the quality wasn't there the results are disappointing because it isn't worth the time of the doctors clinics around the country to participate in the program almost ninety thousand physicians across the country could have participated in a reporting program for asthma patients but in fact less than one hundred did again if incentives are going to work if incentives are going to be worthwhile they have to be meaningful if you provide a meaningless incentive then the person has to receive the incentive says this is information you really don't value so tell you what i'm not going to bother with that it's not worth it to me incentives will work they'll work if they're meaningful there won't work if they start early they will work if their time limited but they must above all else they must be substantial now again i referenced earlier that a physician's office is nothing more than a small business they need the resources to pay the overhead we heard a very moving story today in committee of a pediatrician who practice in alabama her patient population was seventy percent medicaid and she had reached a point in her practice where she wasn't covering overhead any longer she had to borrow from her savings in order to keep her practice open and from what she described just it sounds as if she had done all the things she could do to hold costs down  practice extended hours hired physician extended she had a physician's assistant working with her but the reality is because the payment for medicaid patients is so low for physicians the result is if they don't have a sufficient private population again to bring those earnings up they're not going to make it so a practice that is seventy percent medicaid in rural alabama apparently can't make it paying the overhead and trying to keep the doors open for again the very critically ill patients the disadvantaged patients the patients that we in congress have asked this doctor to take care of it is disappointing to say the least it's a travesty it's a tragedy that dr in that situation will only be able to keep that up so long there's only so many nights you can go home and explain to your family that once again you had to raise the retirement savings or raid the children's college fund simply to pay for operational expenses to keep the office open because if you are doing that bear in mind that position is not drawing a paycheck for those months or so it's difficult for doctors to build their businesses it's difficult to dock for doctors to pay their bills when the policies are very policies developed on the floor of this house are so detrimental to the practice of medicine and if we continue to accept these types of band aid solutions in liability in medicare in medicaid if we continue to accept those band aid solutions just like dr einstein said we're going to get the same results or worse doctors are leaving medicare as a result of the some of the activities taken on by this country it is time it is time for this congress to step up and do something new try something new i mean four and thirty five leaders elected by their respective constituents across the country four hundred thirty five leaders we need to lead we need to do the hard work take a short term a mid term and a long term approach to these problems and they're not insoluble they're hard to be sure they're complex they may require hours of work they may require some hard bargaining and at the end they may require some compromise but solutions are within our grasp but when we do stuff like a six month medicare payment fix we do more as than harm the physicians who we've asked to take care of our medical care patients we do more than harm our seniors who now pick up the phone and can't get find a doctor who will accept their medicare we actually harm the very credibility of this institution and we undermine the credibility of this institution when we take such short sighted approaches to very significant national problems and the american people correctly stand back and say what's going on and so is it any wonder that approval ratings of congress are at historic all time lows well to be certain there are health care policy reforms questions and goals that over time and with some thoughtful deliberation can result in successes but we're going to have some big questions we have to answer and it's one of the fortunate things about being in the middle of an election year because these things now get elevated to a national forum there's a national referendum if you will about the future of health care will have really some fairly i say expect some fairly different choices out there to make we'll have to ask ourselves how are we going to go through these changes and continue continue to value that interaction that takes place between the doctor the patient the treatment room after all that's the fundamental unit of production that occurs in this big vast machine that we call american medicine so how do we keep that relationship sacred and what do we do that delivers value to that relationship we're going hear a lot of talk about mandates we already have we hear people talk about individual mandates where every individual is required to buy health insurance we hear things about employer mandates where every employer is required to have health insurance to mandates work are they a good thing will they work in a free society how do you force everyone to do what you think is a good idea not to be done well it turns out it can be terribly difficult to do that in the history of mandates is get she to say the least a very good article in health affairs magazine color periodical called health affairs last november the title was consider it done talking about mandates that where they are we've reached the promise land and we're going to have mandates to require health insurance but even in that article as they go through the history of mandate in this country certainly raises some valuable questions about whether or not mandates will ultimately work and going back into the one nine hundred sixty s there was the helmet law brought to motorcycle riders by this united states congress and the outcry was so severe when members of congress went home from their constituents who were part of the motorcycle riding community that they very quickly came back and said well that's a states issue we're going to repeal that at the national level and it's your state legislature to or you're going to have to deal with that governor you'll have to deal with that is a problem and states have over the intervening forty years some states my home state of texas does not require a helmet some states do but congress very quickly found out that mandates can have some negative consequences well can you get one hundred percent compliance with a mandate some people argue that if the if the penalty for not complying is severe enough and well known enough that you will indeed get near that hundred percent compliance but think about it for a minute we're just a few weeks away from april fifteenth we've all got a pair income taxes there's a mandate everyone is aware of the income tax law in this country everyone is aware of the internal revenue service everyone is aware they may not be aware of the specific penalties but if they know that they don't do what they're supposed to do there is a very swift and sure penalty out there awaiting them from the internal revenue service and all of us know the story of al capone who was arrested not for being a bootlegger and doing bad things to people but arrested because he did not pay his income taxes so you would think with the mandate for paying federal income taxes that there would be near a one hundred percent compliance but the reality is you get about eighty five percent compliance you get about fifteen percent of people who decide not to follow the rules with the internal revenue service in fact you'll hear us talk about it on the house floor especially this time of year when taxes are due we're talking about budgets we're looking for more money you'll talk about the tack people on the floor of the house will talk  tax gap that is three hundred billion dollars and if we had that three hundred billion dollars we could do good and great things for the country we have the tax gap because we have fifteen percent of the people in this country who are willing to look at the penalties for not filing their income tax and say you know what i'm not going to file my income tax how many people do we have in this country without health insurance a lot it's about fifteen percent of the population we have three hundred million people in this country  than that now i think it's a couple of years old and how many people do we have without health insurance people argue about the number but around forty five million and that's about fifteen percent of what our of what our population is in this country we already have that compliance even without mandates or mandates going to take us to a higher level of compliance and what do we give up in terms of freedom if we go down the road of mandates but to me more importantly what's the flip side to mandates if you're not going to  ok well how are you going to get people to recognize that they should have health insurance well one thing you can do is work on the affordability side because no is no question if the bills get too high the employers going to say i'm not going to apply i'm not going to provide insurance for my employees any longer because it comes becomes cost prohibitive and if an individual looks at the individual markets as the cost is so high i'm not going to comply with that so certainly the affordability side is a big part of the equation but more importantly it's creating programs that people want it's creating programs that people recognize as delivering value back to their lives and we do have a little experience with this over the past five years we did a number of medicare reforms in two thousand and three provide medicare part d of medicare prescription drug benefit and there were those in this house who argued for this should be something that is mandated by the federal government completely controlled by the federal government there were others who argued that maybe it would be better to let companies compete for seniors for that business and they it was the argument that eventually prevailed and as a consequence we had with the rollout of medicare part d we had complaints because there's too many choices there's too many companies out there that are offering this and i can't make up my mind that cost ranges from ten dollars a month to fifty dollars a month and how in the world am i ever going to know what i'm supposed to do but after some of the louder rhetoric died down and people began to look at these programs indeed these were programs that delivered value to a segment of the population have never had an affordable prescription drug benefit available to them before and as a consequence the penetration with this benefit is extremely high in the medicare population and the overall satisfaction rate is also extremely high so that's a perhaps a model for us to consider when we talk about things about how do we provide insurance we tell everybody you've got to have it but they're going to be some people who just won't do it we make programs that are affordable and that appeal to people that people want people want to be able to provide protection for their families they want to be able to provide additional help if health care is needed in their families so that would be another way to approach it one of the great privileges of serving in the united states house of representatives you occasionally get to go places or meet people that you otherwise may not have gotten to meet and for me that hour came last fall when i had the opportunity to spend an hour with one of my hero dr michael de bakey down in houston many people know dr de bakey is a famous heart surgeon he was also the individual who developed the mobile army surgical hospital that has been responsible for the saving of so many lives and in our nation's conflicts over the last fifty years making him selfless going to turn one hundred years old this year it was a phenomenal ability to talk with an individual who has witnessed and lived through and directed the last century of medicine and many of the comments dr de bakey made to me were similar to th same same things that i wrestle with how do you provide mandates how do you require mandates in a free society wouldn't it be better to give people things to make available to people things that they would want and would willingly sign up for rather than forcing them into individual programs that really might not appeal to them one of the other things that dr de bakey said to me that gives me really gives me a lot of hope really gives me a lot of optimism and looking forward to the future because he said congress can do this congress is up to this task and he said he knew that because when he was a young man having just graduated from l s u i'm sorry graduated from tulane down in  new orleans louisiana as a young man after graduating from medical school he had to go to europe in order to get the credentials to be a research physician those credentials were not available to him at american institutions so he went to france and germany and did his studies there in order to get credentials to be seen as a credible researcher but that changed in the one nine hundred forty s and it changed because of the efforts of congress in funding research at the national institute of health and developing the types of programs that now allow america to be at the forefront of research across the globe and scientists come here to train come here to get those credentials those same credentials that dr de bakey had to cross the ocean to receive a half century ago so he told me congress can do this and i know congress can do this because they've done it in the past they've tackled big things and they've come to the right conclusion well i pray that he's right  i wouldn't be here if i didn't believe that he was right but it is going to be difficult to do that now i can't i can't make all of these things happen by myself and one of the reasons you're in congress is because you want to work with others well maybe that's not the reason you're in congress but nevertheless mr speaker you're in congress and you do work with others as the nature of this body has four hundred thirty four other individuals who have to be consulted whose vote has to be one before you're going to be able to see your policies become law so i will just tell you one of the things i've learned you can have the best ideas in the world and you can have all of the enthusiasm and all of the energy required to get those things over the over the line but if you don't have people working with you if you don't have people helping you it's going to be very difficult to get those things done so i'm very grateful with the legislation that i have to help reform the medicare payment formula the bill number fifty five forty five i do have help i've got help now over in the senate i've got help from the doctors the american medical association a very important to me i've got help from my doctors the texas medical association and i think together we can get this work done there's not a member of congress that i talk to when i ask them how things are going with their doctors back home who doesn't bring up the problems that their doctors bring into them about the medicare payment formula so the work the groundwork has been done and now it's up to us and this congress to get that to get that accomplished and a little preventive medicine will go a long way will go a long way in fixing some of these problems and if you know that two trains are coming at each other down the track and it looks like tragedies inevitable what do you do what does a responsible person do that they run down to the track and see if they can find the appropriate switch or warn somebody off to to avert the disaster or do you run home get your video camera so you'll be the first one to get it up on you tube i would submit the responsible thing to do is to try to avert the disaster and not simply document its destructive events let's just speak or as our time draws short in this week is going to draw to a close me just reflect on a couple of things from the last century of medicine the last century medicine i do feel i have some some interest in some ability to talk about that my father was a physician his father before him was a physician so between the three of us we pretty much occupied the last century in the delivery of health care and over the last century we saw some incredibly transformative things occur within the science of medicine and we saw some incredibly transformative things occur at a social level let the at the legislative level and you think back to what the state of medicine was coming into the end of the first decade of the last century what things were like coming up to one hundred ten medical schools across the country where the curriculum was so varied there was no standardization though the graduate of one medical school would could be well trained in the graduate of another medical school could we will fully inadequate we were right upon the time of intense scientific discovery had a seizure was coming into its own the ability to administer a blood transfusion the knowledge about blood banking was coming it's in into its own immunizations the whole science of immunology was just coming upon the scene and at the same time from congress a group of individuals were convened called the flexner commission they came up with a report called the flexner report which called for the standardization of medical school curricula across the country and that stabilization of medical school curricula allowed for the stable platform on which those scientific discoveries could be based and set the stage for some of the great scientific scientific breakthroughs that were yet to come and right around the corner some thirty years later we were engaged in the activities of the second world war a scientist in great britain had found an odd thing happened when he grew a mold on a petri dish and it inhibited the growth of bacteria and he discovered penicillin that was one hundred twenty eight but that was little more than a laboratory curiosity there wasn't really anything you could do with a on a commercial basis there certainly wasn't any patient application for this until american scientists discovered in the one nine hundred forty s how to produce this on a mass scale the cost came way down and the first antibiotic became commercially available and relatively cheaply to large numbers of people changed the course of things in the second world war this happened right before d day and think of the life and limb that was saved by the ability to fight infection reliably for the first time with a chemotherapeutic agent also around the same time cortisone had been discovered earlier but cortisone was one of those things was very rare very difficult to get the change out of the slaughterhouse very very labor intensive a physician another physician but a ph d chemist and gentlemen that we honored in this house last congress percy julian an african american scientist found a way to extract cortisone from soybeans well that changed the course suddenly this very potent anti inflammatory agent became readily available in large quantities at a relatively low cost on the social side in the one nine hundred forty s we saw some big changes in the practice of medicine because we were in the middle of the second world war president roosevelt wanted to keep down trouble from inflation so we put wage and price controls in place across the land employers wanted to keep the few employees who were still able to work for them they wanted to keep them coming to work so they said can we provide health insurance can we provide benefits store employees says we can't raise their their wages can we provide the benefits the supreme court ruled that that it indeed did not violate the spirit of the wage and price controls those benefits could be given to individuals and oh by the way they could be given with pretax dollars and that sets the stage for employer derived insurance and some people would argue has given us some of the difficulties that we now encounter sixty or seventy years later but nevertheless in the one nine hundred forty s we saw the first time commercially available large scale oddities of an antibiotic an anti inflammatory and health insurance and think of how the next several decades were changed in the one nine hundred sixty s we saw similar changes we saw for the first time reliable drugs to fight hypertension became available reliable and not psychotic became available and that their presence became available and in the midst of all of that scientific change there also occurred a big change in that this congress or this house of representatives passed a bill that we now know is the medicare bill in one thousand nine hundred eighty five when medicare was enacted and for the first time the federal government had a large footprint in health care in this country and of course it has grown significantly since that time in ways that probably most of the people who were on the floor of this house voted for that bill would never have imagined that it would spend in excess of three hundred billion dollars a year but that's where we find our selves and think of where we are now and just in the beginning the dawn of the twenty first century the human genome has been sequenced you can go online and find a place that for a little less than a thousand dollars will investigate your human genome will tell you your risk factors for disease like multiple sclerosis heart disease diabetes even just being overweight it's phenomenal to have that type of information literally at people's fingertips when i was a resident parklane hospital the hundred seventy s i never would have imagined that that it type of information would be available to people so cheaply and so easily never would have imagined that there was anything called the internet but nevertheless that information that can be so easily accessed we are indeed at a transfer made transformative time in medicine in this country i referenced information technology think of the speed of change of information technology how things are progressing and evolving so rapidly that it really isn't reasonable to ask the federal government to keep up and and moderate those changes we need to depend on the private sector to do that because it's happening so fast but as medicine is transformative congress by its very nature can't be transformative or transactional we take money from one group and we give it to the next that's what we do we collect the taxes we spend the money congress is inherently a transactional body but dr de bakey said congress can do this congress can participate in the transformation of delivering health care in this country well i think dr de bakey for his wise counsel i thank the american medical association for being out here this week it's not easy to give type take time away from their families their practices and their patients to come here and the interact with legislators such as myself and other members on both sides of the aisle to help explain and help us understand some of the very complex issues that they face on a day to day basis yes dealing with sick people but also dealing with this vast morass of regulations and rules that we lay at their feet every year and most of all i want the american people over this next year's time to focus on this grand debate that we're going to have at the national level your future is depend upon it certainly your children's future and your children's sure children's children's future is dependent upon it the decisions we make today think of the congress back in one thousand nine hundred eighty five enacted medicare had no idea what it would look like forty years hence the same things apply today the decisions we make on the floor of this body today thirty and forty years from now are going to look decidedly different and i would say help us to make the right kinds of decisions so that the american citizens thirty and forty years time from now will look back and say the hundred tenth congress stepped up and did the right thing was speaker it has been a a long week and with that i'm going to yield back the balance of my time fields as the balances of his time do i hear a