ok now i don't think  the committee will come to order welcome everyone to the subcommittee markup of the one hundred and eight eleven congress was going to notice i now cost structure prevented from passing those costs on to consumers the supreme court decision gives manufacturers the cover to strong arm discount merchant sustaining conducted by the department of justice estimated that elimination of the practice consumers one point two billion dollars congress responded by turning military with the passage we talk about health care it's corporate dominated that's why we get to universal single payer health care because the corporate influence  that would naturally operate to bring down the cost of medical care which have been going through the roof a decade or longer and  could be addressed by one of these newfangled mattresses that contour to your body when you go to sleep at night and so i've been trying to solve this problem doing a lot of shopping for mattresses and i was surprised to find that when i went to a particular door with a particular brand and there were multiple stores that carried the same when i went to multiple stores none of them all of them were quoting exactly the same price and so i made some inquiries about that and they said we have prohibited by the manufacturer  doing anything other than giving you this price because they won't give us this product unless we adhere to this price isn't that against the law and they is able to that price throughout the distribution channel because the stores that are distributing that product owned by the manufacturer they don't sell to anybody outside their own distribution channel that allows them to control their pricing their is the word distribute broad enough to limit manufacturers who have their own distribution channels from setting the prices for the i probably should have looked at that before i got to the markup but did not and so i raised the possibility that the broader than the author i'll be courteous i would assume nothing less i think i just want to put this in the perspective here it was mentioned that this is the anti competitive nature of what takes place in the market is somehow the seeds of capitalism i would respectfully suggest that it is a movement against what is supposed to be a free and open market where price dictates where consumers choices dictate where prices are and the whole policy reason behind legislation like this and what was a good supreme court decision beginning of the last century was appropriate unfortunately overturn in a close decision recently so i support this measure  would just take it a step further price fixing is anti competitive and on wanted for any legitimate purpose and there are those in the system who would manipulate that and work against what is really supposed to happen in a free market and that is to fix those prices and the fact that if you want to get around this you can have an ownership stake in the chain distributors those folks are crafting up to figure that out and in the end our purposes as we all know to protect the consumer as much as possible when when we do the opposite when we fix things or rig the game if they call were accused of messing with the market and the government should keep its hands out of it it's actually just the opposite here we have to get involved with tech the consumer because those rules are often violated by those who cloak themselves in it to make a profit so i'd support this and actually i think there has to be at least some concern registered with those who would work on vertical price fixing because they simply so i'm strongly in support of this measure and would look forward to working with  trying to the point i'm trying to raise here all i'm trying to do was understand what this was intended to do and make sure that it does what it was intended to do the competition between  taken i'm just dressing the concerns that when it comes to making profits people can be extraordinarily creative and we are of the mind to try to address that as this bill moves forward thank you so much this is not about medicine not about mattresses it's about whether or not manufacturers can have a selective distribution that may limit the amount of stores it may limit the variability of price but in fact they believe that that offset is fair to the consumer and to themselves if i understand this very short bill what it would do is it would say and i might mention that this would include by the way general motors ford chrysler these other companies they don't own their retailers but they want to do national advertising want to have  i believe mr chairman that it would be well served to look at this legislation and include a market power consideration now we can certainly have the discussion that if you have a life saving drug  the major manufacturers and retailers that will see that there's a balance in which we can put market power in the law and have all of us on board but i think when we look at an example  because i think the court ruled because of certain factors that often are forgotten if you have a product that requires service participation in a number of ways you can is that we want to make sure that we do this in a way that i think all of us are troubled by the supreme court decision but as we reversed the supreme court decision we need to do it in a way that doesn't go overboard in the opposite direction and i will agree with me that if we could just get an agreement to revisit and look at it questions and i think they are legitimate and i join with the gentleman saying that i'm happy to move it to the full committee based on a good faith effort to have this bipartisan nuancing of the bill to  bring down legitimate reasons that people might have agreements and warranty and other sometimes price related parts of their distribution and if i  overestimate the most credible estimates suggest that between eighty and one hundred twenty additional petitions may be filed which is only a one petition furthermore it has been noted in our hearing on eighty five sixty nine and by the american bar association that the best majority of the additional petitions filed will not be supported by government supplied counsel they will not receive a reply from the department of justice and will be summarily dismissed by the supreme court  limiting any potential burden or financial impact that a five sixty nine may have five sixty nine is supported by the american bar association the district of columbia bar association the last five sixty nine does not presently discuss how pending cases should be treated the manager's amendment addresses specifying that  antitrust rights and remedies to private parties under the interstate commerce commission and later the surface transportation board the number of class one railroads in this country has shrunk from  additional one point three billion every year a study released last month by the consumer federation of america found oligopolies in ninety four percent of the real  unwound as a result of the deal before we get into possible amendment is there any further discussion on the manager's amendment  the sponsor of the original legislation and the chair of the subcommittee for working through some concerns that i had expressed about what had previously been section nine of the original bill that public expression of intent and we wanted to make sure that if it was intended to be retroactive that was made explicit in the particular for working with us to try to clarify i think we've moved the bill and this language in a substantially more explicit and clear  direction even if it's not completely to the liking of everybody we need to be clear and what we're saying and if we can get further clarification between now and the full ball substantially i think the manager of men met in the nature of the subject is a substantial improvement over where where we were when we initially addressed this issue years it means that we're back in the saddle again and some of us may agree and disagree on some of the items that may come forward because you've opened the door for the question of looking way to the full committee but what i do want to emphasize how important looking at the railroad industry is because houston symbol is that of a railroad car  we were the center of railroads for the southwest we are dominated by a railroad many of the tracks are through my eighteenth congressional district and the  issue of non competitiveness also impacts how how railroads are neighbors in our community meeting how responsive they are to the community is not an issue per se but i wanted to be noted lack of businesses being able to get concrete the resources they needed for concrete because of the soul dominance of one particular railroad in our area and when those tracks were backed up they had no incentive to respond to the business community that was desperate for certain ingredients to move forward so when you do not have competition you do not have good business the business  practices when you do not have competition you do not have the treatment of neighborhood who have railtrack in their backyard so we're going even further on this question and i trust and i consider railroads a valuable asset asset of this country but when we look at the lack of competitiveness we look at the lack of good behavior and i hope to be able to look at this legislation as it impacts the chairman i look forward to working with you in the fall when on some amendments as we make our way through on the question of providing good behavior competition and i support the underlying bill and i support  amended is ordered reported favorably without objection a bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating amendments adopted and staff is authorized to make technical changes conforming changes i think the members of be committee mended or reported favorably without objection the bill will be reported as a single amendment in the nature of a substitute incorporating amendments adopted and staff is