Joe Barton

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Thank you, Dr. Burgess. Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in strongest possible support for H.R. 758, the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act. As you know, as our distinguished subcommittee chairman Congressman Pallone has already said, this bill will guarantee that every woman in America in need of a mastectomy and certain other procedures related to breast cancer will have access to such care and, with her doctor's consent, will be allowed to stay in the hospital for up to 48 hours after that operation has been conducted. This is an important protection for every woman in America; and as Congressman Pallone said, while it is allowed in some States, it's not allowed in other States. One of the things in this bill that I want to speak briefly about, Mr. Speaker, is that for the first time we put into Federal law a provision that says if an individual has a policy that's not a group policy but an individual policy and that individual has to have a procedure and the insurer, in looking into the primary procedure, discovers that there was some inadvertent omission of information on the person's health record that's not directly related to the procedure in question, then that person's health insurance coverage cannot be canceled. I had a situation in my district, Mr. Speaker, within the last several months where a woman had decided to move out of State to take care of her parents. And when she did that, she lost her group coverage and she converted her group plan to a private insurance plan. She moved, took care of her family, came back to Texas, and in a routine examination discovered that she had breast cancer. Her doctor recommended an immediate mastectomy. And when they went to schedule that, the insurance coverer began to go through her insurance application with a fine tooth comb and finally canceled it based on the proposition that she had failed to inform, in her private application, the fact that several years before she had been treated briefly for hypertension and taken some blood pressure medicine. She was no longer being treated and was no longer under medicine, but the fact that she failed to state on her original application that she had been in the past, the insurance carrier canceled her policy. Now this is a woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. As we all know, if the treatment option that is recommended by the doctor is a mastectomy, that should be done as quickly as possible, yet this insurance carrier looked for a reason and finally found a reason and canceled her policy. Under the bill before us, Mr. Speaker, that would no longer be possible. The coverage would continue in force. And if it was discovered that there was an intentional fraudulent omission, then the coverage could be canceled; but if that's not the case, if it's truly inadvertent, it's not directly related, then you cannot cancel the insurance policy. This bill and this amendment, if the other body passes it and it becomes law, literally can save tens of thousands of women's lives every year in America. So I am very honored to have played a small part in bringing this bill to the floor. And I am extremely pleased that the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, on a bipartisan basis, included my amendment that I have just spoken about. I urge this passage in the strongest possible terms. I thank my friend, Dr. Burgess from Texas, for yielding me time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Congresswoman Blackburn of Tennessee.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Murphy of Pennsylvania.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to reserve the balance of my time and yield back control of the Republican time to the distinguished ranking member of the Resources Committee, Mr. Young.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would recognize myself, Mr. Speaker, for 3\1/ 2\ minutes. Members of the House, we have before us a bill that proclaims to be one thing but which is, in reality, something entirely different. My good friend from Texas, the Honorable Gene Green, whose district has just been hit so hard by Hurricane Ike, made the point that under Republican majorities we only opened--his term was 8 million acres and this bill pretends to open 300 million so it's a better bill. Well, I would point out that if we put in the bill that you can drill anywhere in the Pacific Ocean beyond 200 miles or anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean beyond 200 miles, which is the international limit, that we could claim to open up for exploration literally billions of acres. The point is we don't have the technology in many cases to utilize that. And in any event, there is no prohibition now. What we need to do is have an energy development bill for America that makes it possible to develop the energy resources where we think we have the highest probability of actually finding and developing, in an environmentally and economically safe fashion, those resources. This bill doesn't do that. It simply doesn't do that. I would have liked in prior Congresses when I was chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee or subcommittee chairman of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee to have opened up more of our domestic energy resources. But in those Congresses, we literally didn't have the votes. We did have debate on the floor, we had amendments offered, we had an open process in committee and on the floor; but in some of those cases, we lost those votes. This bill, we're not allowed to even have the amendment. I offered a number of amendments to the Rules Committee last evening, and they were not made in order. This is a closed rule, you know. Why not have this as the base text and then have a number of amendments to see what the will of the House is? That would be a fair process. This is not a fair process. When the first title, section 101 of your bill, is a title called ``Prohibition on Leasing'' and in the very first paragraph, notwithstanding any other provision of the Outer Continental Shelf and several other laws, no leasing shall be allowed unless expressly authorized in this bill itself, that's not a pro-energy development bill. That's not a pro-energy development bill. So this is a bill that pretends to be one thing, Mr. Speaker, but in actuality is something completely different. If we had any kind of a regular process where the bill went through the gentleman's committee, the Resources Committee and the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee and the Agriculture Committee and the Science Committee so that we had these issues vetted, that would be a different thing. This is a 290-page bill. Nobody knows what is in the bill in its entirety. None of this has been vetted. I think it will come as a surprise to some Members of the majority that you have mandatory random drug testing in this bill. I don't know that everybody on the majority side--I happen to think that's one of the few good things in the bill. But it is in the bill. Now, I have participated in floor debates in prior Congresses where we tried to do mandatory drug testing, and huge majorities of the current majority opposed that. So, again, we've got a flawed process; we have a flawed bill. What we have is a title that pretends to be one thing and the substance of the bill is something else. We should vote this down and go back and have a bipartisan process. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I would point out for those States that are not coastal States, if they have Federal or State lands that have mineral development or hydrocarbon development, those States do get a royalty share if it's public. Now, if it's on private land, then the royalty goes to the private landowner, but if it's on public land-- State or Federal--and it's on an onshore State, there is a royalty that the Federal Government pays to the State. We are here this evening because this is the climactic day, apparently, or evening on whether we're going to have a domestic energy production program for America that comes out of this Congress. The bill before us pretends to be just that bill. The problem is in section 101. The first title of the bill is a leasing prohibition bill. There are so many prohibitions throughout the bill that, in point of fact, when you sort it all through, you have tax increases on coal because there's an existing coal tax that is set to expire in 2014, and it's extended to 2018. You have huge prohibitions against existing oil companies bidding on any of these new leases that might eventually come up. If you substitute Hollywood for Big Oil, that's like saying we won't let George Lucas or we won't let Steven Spielberg produce another movie because Star Wars or something like that made so much money the last time, which is simply silly. We want our major oil companies to be out there producing and developing these leases because they're the ones most likely to actually find something and to produce it in a cost-effective fashion. I would point out that, for every dollar of profit our major oil companies make, they pay 3\1/2\ times that in taxes. It's a 3-to-1 return to the taxpayer when an oil company actually finds, develops, produces, and sells energy for America. The bill before us has absolutely no permitting reform. As Congressman Shadegg has pointed out, if you eliminated all of the moratoria and just did that and really let any area that's in the public domain be leased, it still wouldn't be developed because the national environmental groups preemptively file these lawsuits. If you really want to have development and production, we have to do something on permitting reform, and that is not in this bill either. We really do need to be working together. Congressman Abercrombie and Congressman Peterson have developed a bipartisan bill that, I believe, has over 100 cosponsors, I would assume, equally divided between the Republicans and the Democrats. Very little of that bill is in this bill. We simply must stop posturing politically and must really start developing good, sound public policy. The way to do that, in my opinion, would be to defeat the base text, to vote for a motion to recommit or to send the whole thing back and start over, I guess, next week with a clean sheet of paper. Vote ``no'' on the bill that's before us.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from New Mexico. My comments on this last 1 minute are more on the process. I have spoken at length on the policy, or lack thereof. I thought it was ironic that we had Congressman Abercrombie and Congressman Peterson on the floor earlier speaking about their efforts to come up with a bipartisan compromise bill. I think they made a noble effort. I went to John Dingell, the chairman of the Energy Committee, and asked if he would like to work with me on the Energy and Commerce section of the bill; and he said that, quite frankly, he wasn't able to do that. I just asked Don Young if he was ever asked by Mr. Rahall to work on a bill in his committee, and Mr. Young said that never happened. My guess is that if I asked Jim McCrery, the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, if he was asked by Mr. Rangel, the chairman, that Mr. McCrery would also say that he was never asked. The point of fact is we have a 290-page bill that is being voted on the day after the evening it was introduced. There is no way you can have a substantive vetting, debate on this massive amount of legislation in less than a 24-hour period. And none of the relevant committees on a bipartisan basis have held a markup, have held a hearing, any kind of a legislative drafting session at all. And yet we are asking the 435 Members of this body and the delegates that are allowed to vote on the floor to vote on the most important domestic public policy issue before this Congress. That is not fair to the American people. It is a disservice to the process; and for that reason alone, the bill should be voted down.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. This is a terrible process, a closed system and a political sham. We should vote against the rule and then let those Democrats that wish to work with those Republicans that wish to to bring a bipartisan product to the floor that can be voted on. The day before the election in the last Congress, the price for gasoline in Texas was approximately $2 a gallon. The day Speaker Pelosi became Speaker, it was $2.33. Today it's pushing $4. If we don't do something about energy policy, it's going to go higher, not lower.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. First of all, all you need to know about this bill is the title of section 1 of the bill. This is title 1, section 1, section 101, prohibition on leasing. Prohibition on leasing. This is a pretend bill. This is a bill that has, once again, been put together in the dead of night. I was notified by my staff about 10:30 last evening that the Rules Committee was going to meet at approximately 10:45 in the evening. I'm not sure what time they did meet. We had prepared a number of amendments. We were led to believe that it might be a rule that if you had an amendment to the Rules Committee, it might be made in order. We were even led to believe there might be a Republican substitute made in order. So we were prepared for all of those, ``we'' being the Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Of course this is a closed rule, which means there are no amendments made in order. There is a motion to recommit. It is a 260-page bill. It has over 100 titles. If this bill were to become law, which it won't, but if it were, there wouldn't be one barrel of oil developed as a consequence of this bill because of title 1, section 1. This puts a permanent moratorium in place on any area that is currently not under lease unless you comply with the very specific instructions in this bill. And amongst those are if you have an existing lease in the Gulf of Mexico that was authorized under the Deep Royalty Relief Act, I believe, of 1998, you have to go in and renegotiate that lease before you can bid on any of these new leases. This is a bad bill. It is a terrible process.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, thank you, Congressman Latta, and thank you for hosting this Special Order. It's nice to be on the floor with the cameras on and with the microphones on. I was one of, I think, 135 Republican Members of the House who participated in what I called our American townhall meetings here on the floor during the August work period where we spoke to the tourists who were coming through the Capitol. We talked about the need for a comprehensive energy policy. We did it without the benefit of microphones and with the cameras off, just speaking extemporaneously to educate the American public and to keep a vigil for the American public for a real energy policy. I notice that our distinguished Speaker today held a press conference at which she announced yet another attempt to politically confuse the American people by putting a so-called ``energy package'' on the floor perhaps on Thursday, perhaps on Friday, perhaps some day next week. One of her aides, in response to a question from the press corps after that press conference, said--and I'm not going to say this is an exact quote--that they would never allow the Republican energy package to come onto the floor because it was too radical. Well, that must be a different definition of ``radical'' than is in Webster's Dictionary, because what the Republican energy package is is the radical notion that Americans, themselves, can develop American resources so that we have American-made energy/American-produced energy to keep America's families and America's factories humming and being productive. I don't think that's radical. I want to talk a little bit about a part of that energy policy, the Republican energy policy, which would be to allow drilling in ANWR, up in Alaska. I've been having my staff do a little bit of research, and I thought it might be beneficial to give the benefits of some of that research here to the Members on the floor and to others in the country. In 1910, almost 100 years ago--I think it was while Teddy Roosevelt was President--the Congress passed a law for the development of American resources. That law stated that the Presidents and Congresses could set aside certain portions of Federal lands for different purposes if they felt that there might be some economic development potential in these Federal lands. It was called the Pickett Act. So, in 1924, they decided to create what we now call the Alaska Naval Petroleum Reserve. Now, there is a reason they picked this part of Alaska, which is to the west of Prudhoe Bay, fronting on the Arctic Ocean. Here is the scientific basis on which they picked the Alaska Naval Petroleum Reserve in 1924. New England whaling ships, as they had gone after whales in the Arctic Ocean, noticed that there were some oil seeps. So, based on that scientific evidence, they set up the Alaska Naval Petroleum Reserve. They didn't have the benefit of modern seismic geology or of any satellite photography or of any of the 3-D seismic differentiation that we have today. Some New England whaling ships, as they went ashore to look for water and things of this sort, noticed some oil seeps. Okay. Fast forward to 1960. Alaska becomes a State, and the Alaska congressional-senatorial delegations decided that we needed to preserve some of these Alaskan lands. Alaska had been a territory. Now Alaska becomes a State. So they passed an act in 1960 that created to the east of Prudhoe Bay an area that we now call ANWR. Now, of course, there was a little bit more science available in 1960. So, when they set up the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, they were searching for oil, and they had discovered in what we now call Prudhoe Bay a specific geologic formation that they thought had the potential to find some oil. It turns out they found the largest oil field on the North American continent that has been discovered here today, and so they wanted to set up a wildlife reserve. They already had the petroleum reserve to the west of Prudhoe Bay, so they decided they needed a wildlife reserve, and they set up what we call ANWR, but they had done enough scientific exploration that they knew there was an area that might have a lot of oil and/or gas. It was called section 1102. So, when they created this reserve for wildlife, they put a section in the law that said, in this area, we want to really do some exploration activity to see if there might be something that could be developed commercially. Lo and behold, when they did that exploration activity of the discovery well, which was, I believe, drilled by Texaco, which is yet to be made public--it's proprietary information-- there is enough that is known, we think, of that one area, of this one little section that is 3 square miles, that there could be 11 billion barrels of oil. Now, as to the Alaska Naval Petroleum Reserve to the west of Prudhoe Bay, Speaker Pelosi and her Democratic friends have said we can drill over there; we can drill over there, but in the area that's now called ANWR to the east of Prudhoe Bay, you can't drill over there; you can't drill over there. There's no ecological difference. There's no environmental difference. There's really no wildlife habitat difference. Just by happenstance, in the 1920s, we set up the petroleum reserve because whaling ships had seen oil seeps. In the 1950s and early 1960s when we created ANWR, as we were creating the wildlife reserve, we did carve out this section 1102 because we thought that might have some potential, and it appears it has huge potential, but today, we can't drill there because of moratoria that have been put in place in the last 30 years. Now the question is: If we can only drill one well in America next year, where would it be? Would you drill down in Congressman Carter's district in Texas? in Mr. Latta's district in Ohio? in Mr. Broun's district in Georgia? in my district in Texas? Mr. Carter and I represent a State in which we've drilled 2 million wells since 1895, 2 million. The probability of finding an 11 billion- barrel oil field in Texas by drilling one more well is one in 2 million. That's not very good odds. The probability of finding a major oil field in Ohio where they've drilled several hundred thousand wells is a little bit better. It's still not great. The probability of finding a major oil field in Georgia by drilling one well next year--I don't know how many wells have been drilled in Georgia. It's probably several thousand--is not too great. If you drill one well in ANWR, you've got an almost 100 percent chance of finding a well that will produce tens of thousands of barrels a day, millions of barrels a year, billions of barrels over the life of the field, but we can't do it because, in the 1920s, we said the petroleum reserve is to the west of Prudhoe Bay. In the 1960s, we said the wildlife reserve is to the east. Even in section 1102, we put a moratorium in place. Now the question to Mr. Latta and to the Members of the House: Is it radical to say let's drill up in ANWR? Let's see. I don't think that's radical. Is it radical to drill in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which even the Democrats are beginning to think might make some sense? Is it radical to see what's off the Atlantic coast? Do you know how much exploration, how much seismic, how much geologic exploration we're doing off the Atlantic coast? Nada. Zero. None. The Canadians are producing north of Maine. The Cubans are trying, and the Chinese are looking to produce south of Florida, but we've put the entire Atlantic coast off limits. Is it radical to at least see what's out there? I don't think that's radical. Is it radical to try to develop our 2 trillion oil shale reserves, the 2 trillion barrels in Wyoming and in Colorado and in Utah? I don't think so. So, Mr. Latta, if I were the Speaker, which I'm not, instead of these political flimflams that we've had now for the last year, here is what I would do--and I ask my colleagues: Is this a radical proposal? I would pick a group of Republicans and Democrats who are respected in both parties. Let them put together a bipartisan proposal. Then on the proposals that cause the most angst in the liberal left of the Democratic Caucus, pick a conservative Democrat and a pro-energy Republican, and let them offer an amendment to the base package. Bring it to the floor. You don't have to bring the Republican bill to the floor. Bring this bipartisan bill with some amendments where we're not sure of the outcome, and let the House vote. Now, in prior Democratic-controlled Congresses, that's basically why the energy packages were put together. They weren't put together by the Speaker's aides in a back room with no hearings and with no process. It was put together. It was bipartisan. It would come to the floor with amendments. When we elect the Speaker for this body, the majority of the House-- which right now is Democrat--elects that Speaker. It's what we did with Newt Gingrich. It's what we did with Denny Hastert when the Republicans were the majority. It's what the Democrats have done with the distinguished lady from San Francisco, Ms. Pelosi. That Speaker has an obligation to, in this case, her party, the Democrats, but the Speaker also has an obligation to the American people. The Constitution and the rules of the House do not say that, once you get to be Speaker, you can only let bills come to the floor of which you know the outcome and that fit the political profile of the majority within your caucus. Let's let there be a real debate on the floor in the next 3 weeks. Let's let there be real amendments. Let's see where the votes are. Now, my guess is the American people are smarter than the Speaker and the Speaker's staff. They want a commonsense, comprehensive energy policy that develops American-made energy for American use in the United States. We'll win those votes, I believe--``we'' being the American people-- if we get them. If we don't, as Leader Boehner has said, the Republicans are not going to accept a facade. We want the real deal. We want the real policies debated and voted on on this floor before we break for the elections in November. If we do that, Mr. Latta, the American people will win. Over time, energy prices will come down, and our economy will continue to grow. I'm glad to participate in this Special Order. I appreciate the time. With that, I would yield back to you.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I think we've seen in the debate today that when the Congress does decide to work in a cooperative spirit, the end product is a product that's worthy of support by all Members on both sides of the aisle, in most cases regardless of their philosophical affiliation. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a necessary and vital part of our effort here in the United States to make sure that the products that are sold to the American public are the safest in the world. The emphasis on this bill, in addition to reauthorizing the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has really been to beef up the standards and the enforcement authority and the technical ability of the CPSC for children's toys and children's products. As Congresswoman Schakowsky pointed out, there are some very specific things in this bill that should provide over the years, as it is implemented, the prohibition of some of the unwanted tragedies that we unfortunately have seen in the past, and in her case on the crib issue that she's been so diligent in bringing forward. We increase the number of commissioners; we increase the budget of the commission; we create a new laboratory; we in certain cases ban certain products, specifically three-wheel ATVs that are coming into the country; we require a study on four-wheel ATVs. As we have said on numerous occasions, for the first time we prohibit certain phthalates from being used in children's products, and we require a science-based study on three other phthalates. We have the toughest standard for lead in the world today. By any definition, this is a strong bill. It is a pro-consumer bill. But yet it is also a bill that will allow the manufacturers of children's products to have the ability to manufacture in a safe way and to market in a safe way these products to the American public. Finally, Madam Speaker, I want to say something about the distinguished chairman of the committee, Chairman Dingell. I am not a person who normally initially is willing to compromise. I don't think if you ask a Member of this body who's been in it very long who knows me does Joe Barton change his mind very often, I think the answer you would get is ``not frequently.'' But it became apparent as we went to conference with the Senate that compromise was going to be a necessity. On the issue of phthalates, being a registered professional engineer, I was not a believer that we should automatically ban the number of phthalates that the other body's bill did and I was not somebody who was really seriously interested in finding a compromise. My position was the House position, which was we don't do single products. We should leave that up--if the science shows it should be banned later on, so be it. Chairman Dingell came to me and said, ``You're going to have to take another look at that.'' And I said, ``Mr. Chairman, I don't want to. I don't think we need to take another look at it.'' And he said, ``Joe, I really hope that you will find it in your heart to really study this phthalate issue.'' And because of my respect for John Dingell, I promised him that I would do that. And I spent the next week, both at the staff level and in phone conversations, with the leading scientists in the United States that actually manufacture and distribute the product, studying that issue. And as a consequence of that, since I am an engineer, if the facts say something, you've got to look at the facts. And I was convinced, based on those conversations from the staff on the minority side and some of the scientists that there was some doubt and there was some reason on certain of the phthalates, that there should be a prohibition. And we put forward a proposal from the minority side to Chairman Dingell. He massaged it. He put forward a position as a conference. It was not accepted, but it was a starting point for negotiations, and Congresswoman DeGette got into the discussion. She went to Mr. Waxman. Mr. Waxman went to the other body, to Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein, and the result is we actually have a conference report that is a good compromise. So I want to commend all of those, but I especially want to commend John Dingell because he is the dean of the House. He has served in this body over half a century, and if he had not had the wisdom and the leadership to say that you had to try to find a compromise, we wouldn't be here. We would, on my side, be rallying support to sustain a Presidential veto, and on the majority side, be trying to make sure that this got the two-thirds vote. So, Madam Speaker and Members of the body, I have the utmost admiration for Chairman Dingell, and I have the utmost respect for the institution, of the process of the House of Representatives, and that shows in this bill. Vote for the conference report. I yield back my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself an additional 1 minute. And I do want to give, as I said, in the conference, Congresswoman DeGette should get the Henry Kissinger award for diplomacy because she actually was apparently shuttling between my office, Chairman Dingell's office, Mr. Waxman's office and maybe even Congresswoman Schakowsky's office. That was a tremendous amount of effort on her part, and it does show that when there is trust and bipartisan willingness to cooperate and, as Lyndon Johnson, the great former President and Member of this body once said, ``There is nothing that is not compromisable.'' And certainly, this conference report shows that that is a true statement. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Madam Speaker, in previous comments I have thanked the committee staffs. On this occasion, I want to thank some of our friends at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I want to thank Cheri Falvey, who is general counsel; Gib Mullan, who is the director of compliance; Lowell Martin, the deputy general counsel; Quin Dodd, chief of staff to Acting Chairman Nord; Jack Horner, director of congressional relations. They've all worked very hard on this legislation. We also want to thank some of our hearing witnesses: Dr. Marilyn Wind, who is a pharmacologist who testified before the other body; Dr. Michael Babich, a chemist, who testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee. Some of our database presenters were Pat Weddle, who is director of IT services, and DeWayne Ray, deputy CIO. Some of the laboratory people who talked to us about how to detect lead: Dr. Joel Recht. And finally some of the staff, some of the Commission staffers who worked with us on the budget numbers: Mr. Ed Quist, who is the director of financial management of CPSC; and N.J. Scheers, director of planning and budget. Those are some of the staff people in the CPSC and the witnesses who helped us prepare this legislation. We should commend them for their efforts. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I am prepared to close. I am also prepared to yield some of my time to Chairman Dingell if he needs additional time. At this point in time, though, I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, could I inquire as to the time on each side.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I want to yield myself 2 minutes. Madam Speaker, I hope I can get that quote and frame it, that I was right. It is good to know that I have been right about something in this Congress. I will take that home and show it to my family and my children, and maybe they will appreciate me a little bit more. I want to keep going through some of the substance on the conference report, Madam Speaker. I want to talk now, in this little segment, about the chemical compound called phthalates. Phthalates are the product, compound that are used in plastics to make them soft. There has been some evidence in the last several years that, in large quantities, in certain products, if a child were to ingest them, that it could cause problems in the development of that child in their teenage years. The science is uncertain, but there is growing concern. Some States have begun to ban these products. The European Union has banned certain of these phthalates and, as a result, in the other body, the Senate bill had a prohibition based on a California standard on a large number of these particular compounds. I didn't believe then, and I am still uncertain whether it is necessary to specifically ban these compounds because they have been used in products for a large number of years and there is no known instance of any kind of a phthalate poisoning or phthalate deformity in humans. Having said that, when Congresswoman Diana DeGette came to my office unannounced as I was trying to gather support to sustain a veto of what I thought would be a different bill, I did agree to work with Mr. Waxman and Senator Boxer in the other body and come up with a compromise. I must also say that Chairman Dingell was instrumental in that, as he counseled me, in only the way that Chairman Dingell can, about the need for bipartisan compromise. The result is the bill before us where three specific phthalates are banned outright, and another three are temporarily prohibited while we do a comprehensive scientific study. That is the essence of compromise.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, first let me say how delighted I am to see my good friend Bobby Rush back on the floor. We have missed him, but in his recovery from his situation, he has been a strong conferee. He hasn't known how strong he has been, I am sure, but he has been a stalwart in bringing this conference report to the floor, and we are delighted he is on the floor to taste the fruits of victory, which is well deserved because of his leadership on this issue at the subcommittee and on the conference. Madam Speaker, we have a rare thing before us. We have a conference report that has actually gone through the regular process. I want to commend my good friend, John Dingell of Michigan, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, for his extremely positive leadership on this issue. I want to compliment all of the House conferees: Mr. Waxman, Ms. DeGette, Ms. Schakowsky and Mr. Rush on the majority side, and Mr. Whitfield and Mr. Stearns on the minority side. The House conferees, under Mr. Dingell's leadership, have met numerous times at the principal level and uncounted times at the staff level. The negotiations on this conference have not been easy. They have not been simplistic. They have been tense and hard-fought. On more than one occasion I have felt like getting up and walking away. I hate to admit it, with Mr. Rush being a minister, but I have thought bad thoughts about some of the conferees. But having said that, the end product is worthy of support by everybody. This conference report shows how the House of Representatives should work. We took an issue that is not an easy issue. Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Rush had a legislative hearing. They had a subcommittee markup. We had a full committee markup. We brought a bill to the floor. We had a motion to recommit. Mr. Dingell then got the House conferees together to make sure that we had a unified House position, and, when we couldn't, he kept bringing us together until we could. As has been pointed out, the leadership of the staffs on both sides have worked together. Under the conference chairman's leadership, Senator Inouye of Hawaii, the conference actually met. The Senate made proposals, the House responded, and vice a versa. The end result is a conference report that I believe every House conferee signed, and, as far as I know, every Senate conferee signed. So that is a rarity, Madam Speaker, but the result is going to be a bill on the suspension calendar which for once deserves to be on the suspension calendar. I fully expect to get the same sort of vote on the conference report that we got on the House bill, and I believe the House bill, that passed something like 407-0 or 407-1, I am hopeful that this bill will pass with that same margin. Now let me talk about what is actually in the bill. This is a strong bill. It gives the Consumer Product Safety Commission added authority to inspect and test children's toys. It creates for the first time a national laboratory that is headed by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It gives States the right to set up independent laboratories in the State or to do third-party testing of products. It sets the toughest lead standards in the world for products that are going to be used by our children. Because of Senator Stevens' leadership in the other body, it bans three-wheel ATVs from the American market. These insidious products are products that have begun to creep back into the market after the lapse of the consent agreement between the industry and the Justice Department that this body helped negotiate when I was a junior Member 15 or 20 years ago. It requires a rulemaking for four-wheel ATVs. On a chemical compound called phthalates, it outlaws three specific phthalates that there is adequate evidence that they might be harmful in children's products. It sets up a science-based study on three other phthalates that gives the CPSC the authority to also outlaw them if the science shows that they should be. But it does also require that there be real science, that we don't ban or outlaw products on no science or bad science. There has to be reputable science that is peer-reviewed. I want to commend Mr. Waxman, who was one of the House conferees. He and I disagreed on a number of issues, but we also agreed that we should try to find compromise. And we did; the bill reflects that. One of the main reasons that we have a conference report is because Chairman Waxman was willing to compromise, and I want to compliment him for doing that. I could go on and on, Madam Speaker, and I will during the course of the debate, but let me simply say that this bill represents the Congress at its best. It represents a tough issue where we used the process, where we gave everybody a voice. Chairman Dingell has been exemplary in allowing the minority to participate and to provide input and ideas. This is not the perfect bill that I would have had if I had been the only conferee. But it is a very, very good bill. It is a strong bill. It will protect America's children, it is worthy of support, and I hope that every Member this body votes in the affirmative for the bill later this afternoon. Madam Speaker, with thanks, I want to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. BARTON of Texas

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I want to yield 1 minute to our distinguished minority leader from the Buckeye State of Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I wish to recognize a distinguished Member from the great State of North Carolina, a great former professional quarterback, member of the Democratic baseball team, Mr. Shuler, for 1 minute.