Steve Cohen

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond. The gentleman from Houston mentions this is a ``victims' rights bill,'' but all the victims' rights organizations are against it. There is something wrong. Something smells, and it is not Denmark.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My amendment ensures that H.R. 982 will not apply to trusts that have an internal claims audit program to ensure that claims are valid and supported. Proponents of H.R. 982 argue that its reporting and other information-sharing requirements are necessary in order to ensure that asbestos victims are not committing fraud by recovering money both from trusts and through the tort system, thereby ``double dipping.'' While proponents of the bill have yet to point to any empirical evidence of endemic fraud within the asbestos trust claims process, H.R. 982, if enacted, will impose unnecessary burdens and costs on trusts and will expose claimants' private information to the unnecessary risk of inappropriate exposure, exposure that their loved ones have already suffered from. H.R. 982's additional requirements on trusts will raise their administrative costs significantly. Money used to pay these costs ultimately means less money to compensate asbestos victims. This is particularly problematic in light of the fact that defendants can already obtain the information they want using existing discovery tools without undermining compensation for legitimate claims. The reporting requirements in H.R. 982 also raise privacy concerns. This provision requires that a claimant's name and exposure history be made part of a bankruptcy court's public docket, meaning that anyone can access such information for any purpose, including purposes that have nothing to do with compensation for asbestos exposure. I recognize that the bill specifically prohibits trusts from making public any medical records or full Social Security numbers, although it does require the last four digits of the Social Security number to be used. I also recognize that limited additional privacy protection is available under rule 107 of the Bankruptcy Code. Nonetheless, these measures are insufficient to fully protect the claimant's privacy. As noted by my colleagues, once out in public, such information can be used for any purpose. Potential employers, insurance companies, lenders, and even those who may seek to harm an asbestos victim in some way can have access to this information without the victim's permission or knowledge. In light of these concerns, and notwithstanding the lack of any evidence of systemic fraud, my amendment ensures that to the extent that a trust already has measures in place to ferret out potential fraudulent claims, it should not have to bear the costs, burdens, and privacy risks presented by H.R. 982's requirements. If, in fact, proponents of H.R. 982 are primarily concerned about potential fraud in the asbestos trust claims process, then they should have little trouble supporting this amendment that recognizes processes already in place to address fraud while also addressing some of the concerns of those who oppose the bill. Accordingly, I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, we had one witness; the majority had three witnesses. Ours had to try to explain the legal effects. The fact is the proponents of the bill who claim it is for the victims should have had the right to have the victims be there. The special procedure they had was an in camera hearing not on the record. That is not right. If you want to propose something for the victims, you give them an opportunity to testify on the record--and they all opposed the bill to a one.

Mr. COHEN. In private.

Mr. COHEN. Would you explain to me then why the victims were never allowed to testify on the record in this Congress and were never given an opportunity even though the subcommittee chairman valiantly and heroically tried to rectify that?

Mr. COHEN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, there is one fact that is indisputable, and that is the procedure by which this particular bill came to the floor. It is a procedure whereby the majority had three witnesses and the minority had one, and none of the witnesses were victims. There are two major asbestos victims' groups. They would be the people most interested in preserving the funds for victims--the Asbestos Cancer Victims' Rights Campaign and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization. One is headed up by the widow of a former Member of this House, Mrs. Vento. Her husband, Congressman Bruce Vento, died of mesothelioma. They oppose this bill, but the fact is, indisputably, that they were not allowed to testify. If this bill, indeed, were for the victims, the victims should have had an opportunity to testify. The chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Bachus, of which I am the ranking member, valiantly tried to rectify that error by allowing them to testify, but he was overruled. The fact is that the procedure that brought this bill to the floor was flawed. Accordingly, I submit that the bill should be flawed because the victims should have had the opportunity to speak. If it is for the victims, if it is for preserving funds, the people who are proponents shouldn't have been afraid of the victims' organizations going on record and giving testimony and testifying. This whole proceeding today is conceived in an attack on the victims--not allowing the victims to speak and not allowing transparency in the hearing process. This is allegedly about transparency. It is not. It is about covering up and not allowing freedom of speech from the people who are most affected--those who had loved ones die from mesothelioma.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the PREEMIE Act reauthorization, which will be considered in the House under suspensions later today. I am grateful for the support of my Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander, who has brought this legislation in the Senate, and I cosponsored a House version of it. I am also the sponsor of the NEWBORN Act, a bill aimed at reducing infant mortality rates around our country that will be introduced soon. My interest in this is because this is important for our future. America, unfortunately, is way back in the countries on infant mortality. Memphis, unfortunately, is a leader in that situation where we have a tremendously high infant mortality rate that rivals Third World countries. The PREEMIE Act's many provisions aimed at reducing the rate of infant mortality are vital to having a better Nation. Like the PREEMIE Act, the Affordable Care Act has made great strides in advancing this agenda by requiring maternity coverage in all health plans. The United States has a long way to go, but legislation like the PREEMIE Act, the NEWBORN Act, and the Affordable Care Act can put the United States on the right track where it needs to be in the rates of premature births and infant mortality.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, last Friday, I became aware of the death of a great United States Congressman, Bill Young, from Florida. Mr. Young was the senior Republican Member, who served in this House since 1970. He was a gentle soul, congenial, friendly--always nice to me. I asked him to join with me in the Tourette Syndrome Caucus, and he did. He was one of the founding members. He was a leader in seeking funds for biomedical research, which doubled during the time in which he was the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He understood earmarks were the responsibility of this Congress, and he fought for them and supported them. He was close friends with John Murtha, and I was proud to serve and to know both of them. Both men were in the military reserve, and both men towards the end of their careers recognized that war was wrong in places where they had previously been for it--John Murtha in Iraq, and, in 2012, Mr. Young said that it is time to get out of Afghanistan. A great leader has passed. His funeral will be tomorrow in the State of Florida. I was proud to know him. This country was fortunate to have him serve in this body.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President of the United States had the House Democratic Caucus in the East Room for a discussion. Today he will have the Republican caucus, and he will also have the Democratic Senators. Mr. Speaker, I hope all the Republicans go engage the President, because the President gave such a clear and convincing argument about why what is going on is wrong and has to stop. If the President is told by the minority party in one of the Houses to get a funding bill passed to fund the government that he has to repeal some act, where does that stop? If we get a continuing resolution, and this one was until December 15, and they ask the President to abolish the landmark legislation that he signed and that this Congress passed a few sessions ago, the next thing could be, well, we are not going to continue the government again unless you repeal the EPA, or we are not going to do it unless you repeal the Fair Labor Standards Act, or maybe 6 months down the line we are not going to repeal it unless you and Vice President Biden both resign. You can't give in to these types of tactics to have bills repealed because of a minority within a minority of one branch of government and not go through the regular order of the House passing, the Senate passing, the President signing or vetoing, and then let the Court decide if it is constitutional, which has happened with the Affordable Care Act. The President made it clear that he wants to work with both sides; but he is not going to give in to these types of tactics because it wouldn't be fair, not only for him but for the next President and the next President and for the United States of America. Presidents and the country should not be held ransom by the demands of one group, and the President is standing for the Presidency and for the country and for the Constitution. The Affordable Care Act is not going to be repealed, and the other party knows that. Now they have proposed working on entitlements and long-term deficit reduction. The President will talk to them, engage in dialogue; and hopefully after the Republicans attend and listen to the President today, they will see that this has been a mistake for the American people and a mistake for their political party and they will end this shutdown, reopen government, pass a continuing resolution, and pass a debt ceiling, even if for only 4 or 6 weeks, which the pundits think may happen. It will get us out of this crisis. And hopefully the minority group within the Republican caucus will let the Republican Party continue to be what it had been in the past, a party of business, and not a party that was anti-business and threatening a debt ceiling issue and a default on our debt which would be catastrophic to the national markets and world markets. Hopefully, within those 6 weeks of dialogue with the President and the leaders of Congress, they can come to some agreements, and we won't have this type of brinksmanship again. The President is a convincing individual. He is very knowledgeable, he has great people working for him, and he is looking out for the future of this country. This shutdown was totally avoidable. The continuing resolution, which was only going to be to November 15 on the Senate side and December 15 on the House side, accepted the House of Representative's budget figures, which was the Paul Ryan budget. The Paul Ryan budget is anathema to Democrats. We don't like it. It has got cuts to so many services that are important to people in this country: cuts to Head Start; cuts to SNAP payments, formerly known as food stamps; cuts to veterans; cuts to programs that help people get through the day; energy programs when it gets cold to help you pay your utility bills. These cuts are anathema to us, but we accepted them to keep the government going. The Democrats in the Senate accepted them, the Democrats in the House, the President. But the House Republicans who put that figure out and got accepted, that wasn't enough. They had said, all right, now you have got to repeal, abolish, and/or change to the point of trying to get to abolishment of the most important bill that has been passed in this House of Representatives since 1965 when the Civil Rights Act and Medicaid and Medicare were passed. It is not going to happen. We are the last industrialized country on the face of the Earth to have national health insurance. It is the right thing to do; and it is folly for Governors and the States that haven't allowed the Medicaid expansion to go forward to do that and I hope they would. I hope the Republicans come to their senses and we end this shutdown.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, just as Mr. Doggett has said as to the absurdity, I'm not sure if this is Joseph Heller or if it's Fellini. The Tea Party Republicans came here because they were concerned about the debt. The debt, Mr. Speaker, was caused by Reagan and Bush. Look at the records. Reagan and Bush caused the debt. Now they've shut down their government like an arsonist sets a fire, and they're coming around, acting like they're firefighters who are trying to rescue the children who they didn't realize were in the building and who couldn't get help from the NIH for their cancer treatments and the veterans they're going to rescue who couldn't go to the memorials and the Federal workers who aren't getting paid. It is like a Fellini movie. There is apparently a wall between the Tea Party Republicans and the mainstream Republicans, who would like to move this country forward. Mr. Speaker, tear down that wall.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Madam Speaker, this afternoon, I was supposed to be in Memphis with the head of the faith-based group from Washington. Because of the sequester, she wasn't able to travel. Because of the shutdown, I'm here. So we had 42 pastors come to my office with the navigators in Memphis, and we talked about the Affordable Care Act and how to sign up people in the community and what the Affordable Care Act did. It was a very beneficial program in telling people in the community how to sign people up for needed and important health care. I wish others would do the same thing. It would be constructive. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. We need to help our citizens get adjusted, get involved, and get the benefits.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I take umbrage at this whole process. In September of 1954, I came down with polio, which affects me to this day. The vaccine which was helped developed by the National Institutes of Health didn't become available until about 6 months later. I've asked Mr. Kingston, I've asked people in this House for 6 months, I've spoken on this floor, I've written editorials to fund the National Institutes of Health to find cures for cancer and heart disease and stroke and diabetes and Parkinson's. They can do it, but it's cut by the sequester by $1.6 billion and not once have the Republicans said, We'll fund it and we'll find cures to disease. We'll use this, our ``Department of Defense'' for human beings, and fund it at the level it should be so that other people like me won't get a disease 6 months earlier than the cure was available. They haven't come forth once. These are crocodile tears. This is politics. It's not trying to cure people. It's not trying to stop illness and create cures. And I really object to this being used politically. I spoke 6 months ago to put the money back and find cures, and I got nowhere.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I'll tell you how indefensible it is. The provision that said that Congresspeople and their staffs were kept out of the Federal insurance plans and put into the exchanges was drafted by Charles Grassley, a Republican from Ohio, who said, on September 26, that he never intended that to take away the employer subsidies that congressional staffers have gotten for years and years and years, like every other employee in America. The Republican who drafted this himself said: That's not correct. It's not right. The Republicans have lied about health care, saying ObamaCare was the government takeover of health care. PolitiFact said it was the biggest lie of the year. They said there were death panels--biggest lie of the year. This will give them a triumvirate, the three biggest lies of the year. They're lying about their own employees, their own health plan. The fact is they were the only people in the country to be put out of the plan they were in and had their subsidies taken away. It's cruel and wrong. They deserve health care, too.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, quite a day--first day of the government shutdown. Americans come to Washington to see the Lincoln Memorial, visit the Smithsonian, go to the National Zoo. They go to New York to see the Statue of Liberty--``give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for freedom.'' Go to national parks--the treasures of our country--closed. Services tapered down. No new patients at the National Institutes of Health. This should not be in America. Government shutdowns are wrong, and they're bad for our country. Now, let's think a little bit about how we got here. We got here because the job of the Congress, according to the Constitution, is to come up with a budget and appropriate monies. The Republicans have had a budget, and the Democrats in the House have asked month after month after month after month to have a conference committee appointed so that we could work with the Senate and come up with a budget. And the Republicans--even though we had bills, letters, requests--no conference, no, no, no, no, no. Now, beyond the last minute, beyond midnight last night, when all of their failed attempts to get the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--and that's what it is, it's an affordable care act and a patient protection act--abolished; passed 3 years ago; 43rd attempt. Reality: it's not going to happen. It's the law of the land. And one day it will be seen, like Social Security and Medicare, as one of the three greatest laws ever passed by this Congress. But they've tried everything they can to stop it: defund it, put it off a year, come up with different prevarications. At the last minute after midnight they say: We want a conference committee. They can get a conference committee if they come with a clean continuing resolution. And what's in their continuing resolution? A budget of $986 billion. The Ryan figures were less. That's what they wanted. It's not what the Democrats wanted. The Democrats want a higher budget. This cuts 17 percent from Health and Human Services, programs the government offers to people in need, the safety net, people who more than ever need SNAP payments, need Meals on Wheels, need assistance. We accepted their lower figure for a continuing resolution. Even then it wasn't enough. They put it in all these proposals and abolished the health care bill. You know, when the Republicans came to power about 3\1/2\ years ago, one of the things they told the American people: We're going to be different. We're not going to have bills that combine different subjects. You know all you people don't like that, these bills with different subjects that come back from the Senate or pass the House with amendments. We're not going to do that. Then they come with bills that are the budget, a continuing resolution, along with abolishing ObamaCare. That's against what they said they would do. They said they were concerned about the debt, and they have offsets-- no bill could pass without an offset; nothing could contribute to the deficit. Yet they brought a bill, a continuing resolution, but abolishing the medical device tax, costing the government $30 billion. No offset. In the history on ObamaCare, they have been cited by PolitiFact twice for having the governmental ``Lie of the Year.'' One is they said there were death panels, panels that simply said that end-of-life discussions could be covered by government payments, a proposal that Republicans put forward--I believe with Senator Grassley and a gentleman from Louisiana. They also said it was a government takeover of health care. It's not a government takeover; it's insurance. It's the plan Mitt Romney put into effect, Bob Dole championed, Richard Nixon championed. It's a Republican plan. Most Democrats would have preferred a single payer, certainly a public option. They're not satisfied with that. Now they're talking about a special deal that Congress people get. Shame on them. I, for one, don't take Federal insurance. I have a different program. But for the people in Congress and their staffers, because of an amendment Senator Grassley put in the bill, they go into the exchanges and they leave their Federal health care plan they've been in. It was subsidized, like employers subsidize health care. Now it is no longer. It's unfortunate. My time has run out. The government has run out.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased today that the House just passed H.R. 1961. It gives the Delta Queen another opportunity to go up and down the Mississippi River. The Delta Queen is a national treasure that, for 80 years, took passengers up and down the river and, of course, stopped in my hometown of Memphis. On its last trip, about 3 or 4 years ago, I was there to witness the Queen's last trip. And it was an emotional time for a lot of Memphians who really revere the river and the traffic thereon. There were issues about safety; but those issues, I think, are satisfied, the concerns of people. There were ocean standards put to a riverboat, which were improper. The unions that opposed this in the past came to be for it. The bill passed, and it's important that it did. The Delta Queen is a safe vessel that will provide a wonderful experience for people traveling up and down the Mississippi River, America's greater river. It's a treasure, a piece of history. It's also economic development for the region. So I thank my colleagues for supporting both the Delta Queen and the communities along the river; and I look forward to a nice trip on the Delta Queen one time, and a julep to boot.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the draconian cuts to SNAP, a lifeline that millions of Americans rely on. Republicans want to slash nearly $40 billion from SNAP and take food out of the mouths of nearly 4 million Americans, including 68,000 of my constituents. These drastic cuts will harm children, seniors, veterans, and Americans living in cities like Memphis with chronically high unemployment, all in the name of rooting out fraud. It's interesting that Republicans see fraud and abuse in the SNAP program sometimes, but they seem to ignore the billions of dollars of fraud and abuse at the Pentagon. According to one estimate, hundreds of defense contractors that defrauded the U.S. military and taxpayers received more than $1.1 trillion in Pentagon contracts during the past decade. Where is the outrage across the aisle and the demands for better oversight for defense contracting? Instead of fixing problems for the contractors who might be fraudulently taking billions of taxpayer dollars, they're focusing on making it harder for the families who are struggling to receive a little extra help. We need to be finding ways to reduce poverty in our communities, not cutting programs that work, like SNAP. I urge my colleagues to vote against the rule and oppose the bill.

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record the story of Naquila, a mother from Little Rock, Arkansas, just west of Memphis, a face of hunger in America.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, today is 9/11. We've all talked about it. When I think about 9/11 I mostly think about--I think about the victims, obviously, but the first responders who were also victims-- firemen and policemen in New York City and that area who rushed into harm's way and lost their lives trying to protect others. We appreciate it and thank those heroic fire people and police people. But sometimes I don't think we keep them in our minds like we should. They're public employees, they're middle class Americans. They're having a tough time, and we need to always appreciate the sacrifices they make to people that keep our liberty here in this country and keep us safe from crime and from horrific circumstances. I thank the first responders. I appreciate what they did on 9/11 and what they do every day.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I was at the White House meeting with the Vice President and was unable to vote on rollcall votes 450, 451, and 452. If present, I would have voted ``aye'' on H.R. 1155, H.R. 2747, and S. 130.

Mr. COHEN

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time so we can get to the next program on C-SPAN quicker.

Mr. COHEN. Once again, this just takes it to another level. It's not just the rules, but then the rules of the rules. Really what this bill is about is a messaging opportunity. We're supposed to be legislating. The reality is that we don't legislate in Congress; we message. One side says, We're for business. We're against regulations. We're against rules. We want to create enterprise by destroying rules and regulations. The other side, which is my side, says, We're for consumers. We're for safety. We're for protection. We're for health and clean water and clear air. We think that the government process works because it saves people; it saves their lives. We go back and forth. This would effectively destroy the opportunity to have rules and regulations passed at all. It's not going to get through the Senate, so what it is is a messaging opportunity for us to fill up C-SPAN. It's unfortunate because we should be legislating about jobs and about the sequester. We ought to be talking about benefits that the government does provide, but right now sequestration is taking away important jobs in the Defense Department, moneys from the National Institutes of Health, which would protect people's lives in the long run with treatments and cures that we need, and the next generation will benefit greater than us; yet we're here talking about something that is not going to happen. It is really unfortunate, because we should be legislating, and this bill just gets us into the weeds, gets us down into the regulations. It's like we're going to strangle the ``bureaucrats.'' But the bureaucrats are the experts who come up with the safety provisions that say your children's toys are going to be safe and your car is going to have brakes and work in the proper manner and your airplane is not going to fall out of the sky when it's not near the airport. Those are important things to the American people, and if you don't have rules and regulations by experts that can be implemented, we're going to have a lot of accidents. That's why this is a very bad bill and a bad amendment and a bad use of the public's time. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. COHEN. In what I'm sure is no surprise to the Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.