Jason Altmire

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I have an amendment to the preamble at the desk.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material into the Record on the matters that were just considered.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, while the $700 billion Wall Street bailout that we are considering this week is proof of the failures of the economic policies of the past 8 years, we should not forget the policies that President Bush and the Republicans tried unsuccessfully to enact. Imagine what we might be facing now had Republicans been successful in privatizing Social Security and tying its benefits to the stock market. And it was none other than Senator John McCain who just this month said that the American health care system would be better off if it were run more like our banking and financial markets. Well, thankfully we didn't follow Republicans in tying Social Security to the stock market, and we didn't take Senator McCain's advice to run our health care system like we run our financial system. Mr. Speaker, our Nation simply cannot afford another 4 years of the same failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from New York. I know it is somewhat unusual to come down from the chair, but I did not want our colleagues to think nor certainly the American people watching tonight to think that New York has a monopoly on the Mike McNulty fan club, because I certainly count myself as does, I'm sure, every Member of this House in that group. I've told Michael before that I was a staffer on Capitol Hill in the early 1990s, and people always ask now and asked even then ``Why is it so infrequent that you see large groups of people in the Chamber? You know, you seem to be speaking. There's not a lot of people there.'' It's because people are back in their offices, and they're watching it on TV. At the staff level, you do the same thing. You pay attention to what's happening on the House floor. As a very young staffer, beginning in 1991, I learned about the House, and I learned about the procedures of the House by watching what was going on. In those days when the Democrats had control of Congress before the 14 years that they lost it, no one served in the chair more than Mr. McNulty. We enjoyed watching him, and I learned so much as a young staffer about this institution by watching Mr. McNulty in the chair. I just could not sit without thinking of the great, pleasant irony for me that, on this night when we're honoring Mr. McNulty, I was actually in the chair. So I wanted to come down and tell you that the spirit of Mr. McNulty is certainly going to live in this Chamber for a very, very long time and that the legacy lives on through his many legislative accomplishments and through, I'm sure, the countless--they have to number in the thousands--number of constituent services that you've provided over the years, the countless accomplishments. The spirit will remain within each of us who has had the honor to serve with him. So I did just want to take a few minutes to say, A, it's not just New York that holds you in high esteem tonight but that I'm a better person for having known Mr. McNulty and that I know I'm a better House Member for having known him. So I thank Mr. McNulty. I would yield my time back to Mr. Ackerman. Thank you for the opportunity.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, with all of the economic troubles on both Wall Street and Main Street, it's hard to believe that there are still people out there who think everything is going all right. On Monday, the stock market fell 500 points, the biggest fall since the terror attacks of September 11. Lehman Brothers, one of the world's oldest financial institutions, filed for bankruptcy while another financial giant, Merrill Lynch, was bailed out of trouble by Bank of America. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said this was part of a once-in-a-century crisis. I wish President Bush and Senator McCain felt that way. Stubbornly clinging to the belief that his economic policies are succeeding, President Bush described the events Monday as merely an adjustment. Senator McCain declared, once again, that the fundamentals of our economy are strong. Well, Madam Speaker, President Bush and Senator McCain have to be two of the only people in the country who think the economy is just fine. How can they fix the crisis when they don't even realize it exists?

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr Speaker, we are here tonight as part of the 30- Something Working Group. We will be joined tonight by several members of the working group, including Congressman Tim Ryan from Ohio. I believe Congressman Meek from Florida is going to be making an appearance, and anyone else who wants to join in that may be viewing us, certainly from their offices, is welcome to come down and join the discussion on a couple of issues that are facing this country and some things that are in the news this week and that we have dealt with in Congress this week. Number one, I am going to start with the economy. I don't think anyone can pick up a newspaper, watch a TV or do any reading of any kind without seeing that our economy is in crisis right now. The stock market on this day went down 450 points after going down more than 500 points the day before yesterday. We are in the position right now, as a Congress, and as a Nation, where we have some very difficult decisions to make. The administration came in and did their third major bailout of a major corporate institution this week with the AIG Insurance Company, and we are going to talk more about that. We are going to talk about the reasons why we got to where we are today. There is an instructive part of this whole thing to take a walk down memory lane and to see what the economy was like 8 years ago and what the economy is like today, and to discuss how we got from where we are, where we were then, to where we are today. We also have to talk about what's happening today, what is the crisis, what, exactly, is next. In some ways we don't know, but there are things that we can do immediately to take immediate action to prevent this crisis from getting worse. We are going to have a discussion about how we got here. We are going to have a discussion about what we do now. That might be the most important part. There is urgency to this. Then we are going to talk about the future. What are the long-term safeguards that we can put in place to make sure that this never happens again? That's, for many onlookers, the worst part of this whole process, the fact that we had safeguards in the market that were supposed to work, that were supposed to prevent this from happening, and those safeguards didn't work. Then, as it applies to the securities industry and some of the leveraging that was taking place in the market, we have the fact that it was a completely unregulated market. It was a free-for-all, and it wasn't that there was deregulation that took place, in many cases these were markets that were never regulated to begin with. It was a laissez-faire attitude that this administration had, and the free-for-all that took place that led us to where we are today and how are we going to fix that, moving forward into the future. So with regard to the economy, those are the three things we are going to do, talk about the mistakes that were made in the past that led us to where we are today, talk about what this Congress is going to do, hopefully in a bipartisan way, working with the administration, because there is nothing more important than getting this crisis solved. What are we going to do in the near term to solve the problem and move forward? Then, what are we going to do to ever prevent this from happening again. To begin that discussion, I would ask the participants in the debate to take a walk down memory lane with me while we talk about where the stock market was 8 years ago. I think that now, now that we are in the crisis we are in, it's fair to compare periods of time. Let's compare the past 8 years to the previous 8 years. In the 8 years of the Clinton administration, the stock market in this country went up 226 percent, 226 percent increase in 8 years. Now, what is that by the historical average? You say, I don't know, is that a lot, is that a little? What is 226 percent? Well, the historical average is an increase every year of 11 percent in the stock market, and that's the historical trend. It doesn't matter if you have a Republican president and a Democratic Congress, a Democratic president and a Republican Congress, both chambers represented by the same party, regardless of that, over time, no matter who is in control of the White House and the Congress, the average annual increase in the stock market is approximately 11 percent. In the 8 years in the 1990s, and the economic policies that we conducted in the 1990s, we had a 226 percent increase over 8 years. Pretty good. What's happened over the past 8 years, because we have had a dramatic shift in our economic policies over the past 8 years. We are going to talk about what some of those policies were. That's part of the subject matter that is at hand with the Presidential race, the fact that we have two candidates with very different views on the economy. One of them, Senator McCain, has been a part of Congress for 26 years, was involved in the economic policies of the past and wants to continue the policies of the past 8 years into the future. Let's talk about what were the policies of the past 8 years, and what was the impact? We are talking about the stock market. Well, the stock market today is almost exactly where it was 8 years ago. It's flat lined. It's gone up less than 1 percent. Now that's not 1 percent a year over 8 years, Mr. Speaker, that's less than 1 percent total over the course of the entire 8 years. The previous 8 years the stock market went up 226 percent. The next 8 years, the current administration's time in office, it's gone up less than 1 percent total over that entire period of time. It does not look like things are going very well moving towards the future. Hopefully that will correct itself, and we will see some gain in the stock market moving forward. The point is, the decisions that are made by this Congress, and the decisions that are made by whatever administration is in power, do have a very real impact on our economy. They make a difference. When you look at the fact that we have had 8 straight months of job losses, this administration, over the 8 years, is going to have the worst record of job creation of any presidential administration since Herbert Hoover. That's not a good record, 8 straight months of job losses. It does not look encouraging for the next several months. But it is the worst record of job creation over an 8-year period for any administration since Herbert Hoover's administration, and we all know what happened there. That's not good. Our financial industry is in crisis. It's in melt-down mode. Now we can turn that around. We can take steps, working as a Congress and working with the administration to turn it around, and we are going to make the difficult decisions that need to be made to put our house in order and get moving in the right direction. But when you look at what the mistakes were to get us to where we are today, let's take a look at the national debt, same deal. We will compare the previous 8 years to the current 8-year's administration, and I think that's a fair comparison. When President Clinton left office, we had just had 4 consecutive years of budget surpluses. Those surpluses were forecast as far as the eye can see. The Congressional Budget Office, which is an entity which scores over a period of years what the expected surplus is going to be, predicted that over the next 10 years, beginning in 2001 through 2010, we would have a surplus of more than $5.5 trillion. I would ask the participants that are here tonight, and anyone who might be paying attention to this debate tonight, to think about what the discussion was in the presidential election of 2000. We are a little less than 7 weeks away from a major election here in this country, presidential election, and you see what the debate is about. In the 2,000 debate between then Governor Bush and then Vice President Gore, the discussion was what are we going to do with this enormous surplus? We are awash in cash. We have a $5.5 trillion projected surplus over what were then the next 10 years. And we've just had 4 consecutive years of budget surplus. So the discussion was, are we going to pay down the debt? Are we going to shore up Social Security? What are we going to do with this money? Imagine what we could have done. We have had a debate on energy over the past several months, culminating with a vote last night in this House. What could we have done in the past 8 years with $5 trillion if we had chosen to dedicate that money to finding an alternative source of energy, getting us off of our dependence on foreign oil? There are any number of things that we could have used that surplus for. We could have nearly paid down the entire national debt. One of the largest line items in the Federal budget today is interest on the national debt, $240 billion for 1 year. What could we do with $240 billion if we had paid down the national debt and didn't have that line item in the budget? Well, that was 8 years ago. We are not having that discussion anymore because instead of those four straight budget surpluses we had at the end of the Clinton administration, we have had eight consecutive budget deficits. And the parting gift that President Bush is going to leave to this country as he leaves office is the largest single-year budget deficit in this Nation's history, more than $480 billion for 1 year. So we didn't have the $5.5 trillion surplus. No, we had a $4 trillion debt over the course of 8 years and counting, unfortunately, because now, instead of surpluses with no end in sight, we have deficits and debt with no end in sight because of the economic policies that have been conducted over the past 8 years. Part of the problem, among many problems that have developed with these policies, is the turmoil you are seeing in the market right now, is the stock market, the low U.S. dollar, which one of our previous speakers was talking about. We are going to get to that. I have talked about this before, and my colleagues in the 30- Somethings have heard me mention this before. If you had said to an economist as President Bush was taking the oath of office, ``We are expecting a $5.5 trillion surplus, but what would we need to do to have a $9 trillion swing from positive to negative in the debt? What would have to happen?'' That is going from $5 trillion in the positive to $4 trillion in the negative, a $9 trillion swing. If you asked what would we have to do from an economic perspective if we were trying to have a $9 trillion swing, what type of policies, well, any economist that you asked would have said that is impossible. You couldn't possibly mismanage the economy to such an extent you are going to have a $9 trillion swing. Well, unfortunately, we have. Now, I know there are those who will say, well, it wasn't the administration in the 1990s that were responsible for the enormous surpluses, it was the Republican Congress. And people who look at history might say it was President Bush the First who put into place pay-as-you-go budget scoring. And pay-as-you-go budget scoring is one of the factors that led to the record surpluses we had in the 1990s in contrast to the record deficits we had in the 1980s. Unfortunately, one of the things that one of the previous Congresses did right after President Bush took office was to do away with pay-as- you-go. What is pay-as-you-go? Pay-as-you-go budget scoring is what we do in our home checkbooks, what every American does in their bank accounts, and what every business in America does with their balance sheet. It is very simple. You have to have money on one side of the ledger if you want to spend it on the other. Unfortunately, we did away with that in this country after the 2001 turn of the administration, and that has led to decisions being made where nothing had to be paid for, just charge it to the credit card. Whatever spending you want to do, don't worry, we don't have to have an offset anymore because we don't have pay-as-you-go. So if you want to increase spending, put it on the credit card; somebody will take care of it. The problem is that eventually the bill comes due. This leads me to where we are today; the bill has come due. Anyone who has seen what happened with Wall Street over the past several months and certainly over the past few days can see that the bill has come due. And, unfortunately, it is the American taxpayer that is now going to have to pick up the bill. And because of the decisions that have been made to bail out the corporate executives and the big Wall Street financiers instead of middle-class Americans, it is middle-class families in this country that are going to have to pay the bill. It is middle-class families in this country that are going to get that bill in the mail while we are bailing out the big corporate executives. We are going to continue that discussion, but rather than give a monologue, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is here, and I would like to welcome him to the discussion and yield to him.

Mr. ALTMIRE. The gentleman sets me up perfectly because that is exactly the point I was going to try to make. When the gentleman from Ohio was talking about the policies of the past Congress and this administration and things like the energy bill of 2005, we have empirical evidence, what is the result when this Congress took action, passed, sent to the President and was signed into law? Well, gas prices skyrocketed, dramatically increased our dependence on foreign oil. So what is the impact on our economy by the economic policies that were carried out under this administration? You could not have more of a stark contrast in evidence, the way that the economy boomed in the 1990s and what we are seeing here in the last 8 years. As I mentioned earlier, the economy over the past 8 years is driven by the stock market, and the stock market is up less than 1 percent over 8 years, almost exactly today where it was 8 years ago. The point I was going to make is we can lament, as the gentleman and I have done many times, the policies of the past and look for ways that we can solve the problem moving forward. But let's not forget a crisis that was averted by the American people, a policy that was thankfully not carried out. This President, in the previous 6 years in Congress before the new session came in, tried desperately to privatize Social Security. President Bush, you'll remember, around 2004, 2005, and Vice President Cheney traveled all around the country with their dog-and-pony show and charts and graphs talking about Social Security, privatizing Social Security, putting some of the money that is supposed to go, as it has always gone, into the pockets of senior citizens and instead putting that in the private market. We already have ways to invest in the private market, and we certainly encourage people to do that. And one of the things that we are going to do moving forward is figure out a way to further incentivize private savings through 401(k)s and IRAs and all the rest. The point is that is not what Social Security is for. If there was ever any doubt that was a good idea, and the American people certainly cast judgment upon that, imagine, I would ask my colleagues when they go back home and talk to their constituents, imagine if you had to retire and you reached the age at which you were going to start to claim Social Security at some point in the past 8 years. If you were retiring in 2000 and that stock market had just gone up 226 percent over the past 8 years, boy, that was a great deal. That was quite an investment. It would have worked out just fine for you. But if you are one of the millions of Americans who would have qualified for retirement age in the past 8 years, maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all. You wouldn't have even got a cost-of-living adjustment. You would have flat-lined. And that's certainly unacceptable with our Social Security. I would yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. ALTMIRE. It's worth mentioning, both of the gentlemen, I'm sure, remember, early in this session of Congress, in the beginning of 2007, we wanted to work with President Bush on a way to stabilize and shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We, as a Congress, went to the administration and said, look, there's going to be trouble down the road if we don't take action. Will you work with us on that? And President Bush said, no, I'm not interested in that and I won't support that. So away we went. And then we came to the beginning of 2008, the economy starting to take a dramatic turn for the worse, so working together in fairness, in a bipartisan way, the House and Senate, with the administration, Republican and Democrat alike, and we put together very quickly a stimulus package to put money immediately in the hands of people who needed it, who were going to put it into the economy, get the economy jump-started, and it worked. If you look at the second quarter, we had an up tick in the economy because of the work that this Congress did. Well, part of the stimulus that was not included, we, again, went to the administration and said, you know what? Can we revisit that issue that we asked you about a year ago? Can we revisit the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issue, because we really see trouble on the way here if we don't act. Again we were told, well, we're not interested in including that in the stimulus. And guess what happened? Now there's a multibillion-dollar bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that's taken place. The government actually had to come in and take over those two GSEs.

Mr. ALTMIRE. The gentleman reminds me of a point, which I meant to bring up, that I'm amused when I hear the discussion about, is John McCain's economic policy identical to George Bush's economic policy? Is he a third term of George Bush? The fact is, readers of history will know, actually, if you go back and look at the economic policies of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, you'll find a lot of similarities in what happened over the previous 8 years, the mistakes that were made with the lack of regulation. I talked earlier that it wasn't, for the most part, deregulation. It was non-regulation. We didn't take regulation away that existed. There was just never any regulation at all; very similar to what took place in the 1920s, leading up to the calamity of the Great Depression. So I would ask readers of history and people who are interested in this subject, compare the economic policies that have led us to where we are today through President Bush and what Senator McCain is proposing to those three presidents I mentioned. And I would just say, before I transfer to Mr. Murphy from Connecticut, or Mr. Ryan, if you wanted to comment, but I get asked a lot recently, about bailouts of these three big companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and then AIG and Bear Stearns before; and what's the reason that we picked those while we let Lehman Brothers go under, and who's minding the store here, and why are these decisions being made, and who's next. What's the next shoe to drop is what you hear. This is a systemic problem. This is not a problem with individual financiers. This is not a problem that Bear Stearns had all on their own or AIG had all on their own or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This is a system-wide problem that needs to be dealt with, and we can't continue to take a piecemeal approach and decide on a day-by-day basis who survives and who doesn't. Well, Lehman Brothers, you can go under. We're sorry. But today we're going to bail out AIG, the next day. We can't continue down that road. We have to address the systemic root of the problem to prevent this from happening. The first thing is to stabilize. I'll go to Mr. Perlmutter, and then we'll go to Mr. Murphy from Connecticut.

Mr. ALTMIRE. And when I go back to western Pennsylvania and they hear the word ``regulation,'' small businesses and families, they get a little nervous, rightly, because in a lot of ways we are over-regulated in this country. And I want to just, before we close here, I want to make sure everybody understands what we're talking about. We're not talking about the small businesses. We're not talking about the small corner bank. We're talking about the huge Wall Street financier, the conglomerates, these people who are getting the $30 billion golden parachutes when the CEO gets canned. The small businesses in this country, the reason you're having trouble in the credit market right now, the reason you may not be able to get loans for capital development and whatever else it is that you're working on is because the intra-bank lending, the staple of our economy, bank-to-bank lending, is frozen. The credit market is in crisis and it's frozen, and that's affecting small businesses.

Mr. ALTMIRE. That's exactly what I want to clarify, and I thank the gentleman. We're talking about asking the big Wall Street firms to comply with the same rules and regulations that the small business, that the corner banks have to comply with. Now, it's not exactly the same, and we understand that. But I understand the fear that it strikes in the heart of ordinary Americans when we start talking about the word ``regulation.'' We are not talking about everyday Americans. We're talking about what happens at the absolute top of the food chain. These large banks and institutions that you see right now that are teetering on the brink, the Lehman Brothers of the world that are no longer part of the process now, and the ones that we have to come in and bail out with an $85 billion bailout at taxpayer expense, these are things we want to avoid. So that's what we're talking about. We are not talking about the small businesses and the corner banks.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman from Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), I thank Mr. Murphy from Connecticut, and I thank the Speaker for allowing us this time to discuss the economic crisis in this country. I think it's safe to say that this is not the last time the 30-Something Working Group will address this issue on the floor. And I would also say that I do look forward to my good friend Mr. Westmoreland, who is going to come after us, and I'm sure he's going to have something to say. He sat patiently through the entire hour and listened to us speak, and I know he comes from a different point of view. And I would encourage those interested in this topic to listen to what he has to say as well. We've had many conversations about this and the energy issue and other things. So we look forward to hearing him.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, for 6 years, the Republicans had control of Congress and of the White House, and for 6 years, the American people waited for them to do something to end our dependence on foreign oil, but despite their constant cry of ``drill, baby, drill,'' the Republicans didn't act on this issue when they had control, and 2 years ago, the American people voted for new leadership in Congress. Well, yesterday, that new leadership--the Democrats in this House-- answered the call by passing a landmark energy bill that triples the available territory for offshore drilling. Let me repeat that. The bill we passed yesterday triples the amount of territory in the Outer Continental Shelf that is available for drilling. Predictably, many in the minority demonstrated by their votes that they're more interested in having a political issue for the coming election than they are in actually solving the problem. While Democrats have taken decisive action by passing a comprehensive energy bill that includes an unprecedented expansion of offshore drilling, Republicans, as you will hear today, are still just talking.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. My friends on the other side of the aisle, those who stood in this darkened House Chamber for weeks asking Congress to return to vote on a drilling bill, will bemoan the fact that this bill is not identical to their bill, but no one in this House, Republican or Democrat, got everything in this bill that they wanted. Every one of us could find something we would like to take out, something that was left out that we would like to put in, or language that we would like to change. But that is how the legislative process works. The finished product is a result of give-and-take compromise put together in a way that can pass by majority vote. That is what we're here for, right? To pass an energy bill. But the truth is, Mr. Speaker, those on the other side have been a part of this process. For months, we've heard their cries of ``drill here, drill now.'' For months they have talked of nothing else. So here we are today taking up a bill that triples the territory that is available for offshore drilling. And during the 6 years the Republicans held control of both Congress and the White House, they had the chance to write the bill exactly as they wanted. And during those 6 years, they did nothing to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and nothing to advance their ``drill, baby, drill'' war chant. For 6 years the American people watched and waited for the Republicans to act but got nothing in return. So now it's our turn, and today we will pass a bill to expand offshore drilling. So to my Republican colleagues, I say their voices have been heard. Their views have been included. And they should take ``yes'' for an answer.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. When the D.C. City Council decided to ignore a ruling from the United States Supreme Court and when the District of Columbia decided to play games with the Constitution of the United States, it was they that brought us to the point where we are today, where congressional intervention is necessary to uphold the rights of Washington, D.C. citizens under the second amendment to the Constitution. As a signatory of the amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn the unconstitutional gun ban, I was outraged at the D.C. Council's new gun restrictions. So I joined with Mr. Childers of Mississippi to help craft the Second Amendment Enforcement Act, which is the text of the amendment we are debating here tonight. This bill repeals D.C.'s gun ban and permits law-abiding gun owners the right to keep their firearms in ways that will ensure their availability and use for self-defense. This amendment ensures that the intent of the Supreme Court and of the second amendment are upheld for all citizens, including those who live in the District of Columbia.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the chairman. This legislation designates the Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic at Hermitage, Pennsylvania, as the Michael A. Marzano Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic. I was pleased to join with my friend and colleague, Congressman Phil English, last year in introducing this legislation, which will pay tribute to the service and sacrifice of a true Western Pennsylvania hero, Marine Corps Sergeant Michael Marzano. A native of Greenville, Pennsylvania, Michael Marzano grew up with the dream of becoming a marine. Upon graduating from Sharon High School, Marzano applied to the U.S. Marine Corps and was initially denied entry because of a knee injury he suffered his senior year in high school. Determined to fulfill his dream, Marzano underwent surgery to correct the condition and continued to reapply to the U.S. Marine Corps until he was finally accepted 4 years later in 1999. In December 2004, now Sergeant Marzano reiterated his commitment to the Nation by volunteering for a tour of duty in Iraq. But tragically, on May 8, 2005, after serving only 2 months in Iraq, the 28-year-old Sergeant Michael Marzano was killed by a suicide bomber while taking part in an offensive against insurgents in the city of Haditha, al Anbar province, in Iraq. He was the first soldier from Mercer County, Pennsylvania, to give his life in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following the incident, which also claimed the lives of three other brave American servicemembers, Sergeant Marzano's commanding officer recalled Sergeant Marzano's leadership and bravery, stating, ``Many more lives were saved due to their sacrifice.'' Mr. Speaker, Michael Marzano is a true American hero and was a very special individual. By renaming this outpatient clinic, we will honor Sergeant Marzano's memory and recognize his bravery and sacrifice. Sergeant Marzano is representative of all those who have worn the uniform proudly, upheld the military's tradition of courage and faithful service, and once stood ready, if duty required, to make the ultimate sacrifice. I thank Chairman Filner for his willingness to bring this bill to the floor, and I especially thank my friend and colleague Congressman English for his leadership in introducing this legislation.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Milana Bizic. Ms. Bizic is a western Pennsylvania resident who was recently honored as the Serb National Federation Person of the Year. Ms. Bizic is known throughout the Serbian community as a person committed to preserving and celebrating Serbian culture. The granddaughter of Serbian immigrants, she is a lifelong member of the Serb National Federation, a contributing writer for the federation's magazine, Srbobran, and the author of a website dedicated to Serbian heritage. She has contributed time, talent, and financial resources to the Serb National Federation and the Serbian community. Ms. Bizic has said that her parents taught her to be American first, last, and always, but to remember her Serbian heritage. Ms. Bizic's award was presented by the Pittsburgh-based Serb National Federation, which was founded more than 100 years ago to help Serbian immigrants, and now provides Serbian Americans with the opportunity to share and celebrate their background. I am truly honored to have this opportunity to formally recognize Milana Bizic for her accomplishments and thank her for the role she plays in helping Serbians in western Pennsylvania and around the country remember and celebrate their heritage.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, while some in the minority party and in the Presidential race are trying to recast themselves as agents of change, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the Republicans controlled this House for the first 6 years of the Bush administration and in the past 2 years they have done little more than obstruct our attempts to correct the misguided policies of the past. In the past 8 years, the number of Americans living without health insurance has increased by more than 7 million. Today nearly one in nine children lack health insurance. After retaking control of Congress, we tried not once but twice to ensure that 10 million children had access to health care through the Children's Health Insurance Program, which serves families that are working hard and playing by the rules but can't afford health care for their kids. And although we were able to pass the bill through Congress, President Bush vetoed it twice and Senator McCain recently said that was the right decision. Mr. Speaker, we must work together to find ways to improve our health care system, especially for our children. More of the same just won't do.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Speaker, this bill is the next step in our efforts to make college more affordable and accessible for American families. I would like to take a moment to highlight four of the provisions I included in this bill.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. ALTMIRE. I yield myself such time as I may consume. My amendment serves to assist small businesses in implementing the changes made by this bill. Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and we must ensure that this legislation does not place additional undue burdens on the very entrepreneurs who continue to be the main source of job growth in our communities. My amendment provides an additional 6 months for the implementation of this Act for those small businesses, and the Department of Labor will be responsible for educating small businesses about the law and assisting them with compliance. The goals of this bill are laudable, and my amendment only seeks to guarantee that small businesses are not put at an unfair disadvantage when complying with this law. Through this amendment, we will give small businesses the time and resources they need to adjust to the changes brought on by this bill. I urge adoption of this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman. I could not be more proud of this bill that we are debating here today and that we are going to pass tonight. Last year, we provided $12 billion in increased funding for the VA health care system, the largest single year increase in the 77-year history of the VA. Today, we follow up with a $4.6 billion funding increase, representing an 11 percent increase over that high bar that we set last year. We are proving once again tonight in this Congress no group will stand ahead of our Nation's veterans when it comes time to make funding decisions. The increased funding allows for enrollment of Priority 8 veterans. Priority 8 veterans have not been enrolled since 2003, as part of the Bush administration's cost-cutting efforts, and approximately 50 percent of all uninsured veterans today are Priority 8 veterans. This bill will allow us to hire over 2,000 more claims processors to decrease that backlog that we have, which is now almost 400,000 cases, with 2,000 new claims processors. In western Pennsylvania, where I'm from, there's a 6,000-case backlog. Those claims remain unanswered. So we are going to clear that up with this funding today. In February, I testified before the House Budget Committee about the importance of increasing funding for our veterans' programs. I was pleased to vote on the floor of this House this year and last in favor of a budget resolution that met and exceeded the commitment that we have made to our Nation's veterans. I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill. I congratulate Chairman Edwards on his work on this. It's a bipartisan bill. We are all on this together.

Mr. ALTMIRE

Mr. ALTMIRE. I thank the gentleman, and I do congratulate him on his new niece as well.

Mr. ALTMIRE. And the gentleman is correct, and we were sitting here listening to some of the Members that came before us talk about the importance of supply, and there's a couple of issues. One is the fact that we are dealing with folks who are advocating increasing supply 10 and 20 years from now. The policies of drilling off the coasts and opening up new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf, opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, the first drop of oil does not come for 10 years. We don't achieve peak capacity in either of those areas for at least 20 years, according to the Department of Energy, President's Bush own Department of Energy. Those aren't our numbers; that's their numbers. So the issue of increasing supply--and they have a really nice slogan that they like to use: Drill here, drill now. And we'll see them wearing their buttons, and you hear some of the radio talk show hosts around the country: Drill here, drill now. And that's a great slogan, but that's not what ANWR is. That's not what opening up new areas of the Outer Continental Shelf is. If you are advocating that policy, if that's your energy policy, then your slogan ought to be: Drill here, drill in 10 years, drill in 20 years. So that's one side of the equation. But to what the gentleman talks about, if you're going to make the argument that the only way to solve this energy crisis is to increase the supply of oil, domestic supply, let's get more oil on to the market--and again, what they're advocating isn't doing it immediately-- but if you're saying we need to do it immediately, well, there is one way to do it immediately, and let's take a look at the history. The gentleman talked about, effective July 1, the 70,000 barrels a day every day that this country was placing into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now going into the private market, effective July 1. What's been the impact? Well, on July 7, which was that first day after the July 4 holidays, the price of gas was at an all-time high. I believe it was four-eleven-and-a-half, highest it's ever been. We're right now about 6 cents less than that, not a substantial decrease. But instead of the exponential increase that we had seen for months, trajectory of price straight up, we've now seen a very slight decrease, but a decrease nonetheless. Certainly, some stability in the market where none existed before as a direct result of the action this Congress took to begin withholding shipments in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and now we've seen the impact. It has reduced the price. Well, what do you think the impact would be instead of 70,000 barrels a day, how about taking 70 million barrels out of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, over a certain period of time, not all at once, but putting 70 million barrels into the market? You would see an amazing decrease in the price, as the gentleman knows, and that's what we advocated here today. And while we were sitting here listening to the Members that came before us, a couple of them in particular talked about how this Congress has done nothing advocating increasing supply. Well, today, not last week or last year, today before we came on the floor for this speech, this whole House took a vote a couple of hours ago on releasing 70 million barrels. You want to talk about now, that's now, 70 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, put it into the market. It would have an incredible effect, not only on decreasing gas prices because you have more supply, but maybe even more importantly, on these speculators who are betting on the price of oil continuing to go up and manipulating the price in the market, and that's a very real issue. It's a very big part of why gas prices have gone up as high as they have because of this market speculation. They wouldn't know how to react if we put 70 million barrels in a time sequence over time into the market. That would have real impact on their ability to continue to manipulate, and they would lower the cost in the market as well. It would have two impacts. And how do those Members who talk about increasing supply and the need of this Congress to do something about gas prices--it's all they talk about. Well, what did they do? Well, most all of them voted against it. We have the numbers here on the vote. 157 Republicans opposed that vote today. 157 voted against increasing domestic supply of oil. After all the lectures we've had to endurefor the last several months about how we need to put more oil in the market, we had a vote to do just that today. A hundred plus of them voted against it.

Mr. ALTMIRE.--in a way that we have never seen before in this country, where everything they want to do has to do with expanding our dependence on oil, making us more dependent.