Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) mentioned the VA. I assume she is aware as a veteran that the VA negotiates on behalf of all of America's veterans, and they have negotiated prices and the extortionate cost of pharmaceuticals of about 60 percent. That is how we can afford to give them very inexpensive medications with a very small copayment. Those are similar to the reductions in Canada, about 50-60 percent, but the Republicans have prohibited in this legislation that the government should negotiate on behalf of the 40 million people in Medicare any reduction in the price of pharmaceuticals at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry. This bill also prohibits the importation of drugs from Canada. They say, no, it does not do that, we are going to give the authority of the Secretary of HHS to reimport the drugs, but guess what he has already said, he will not do it because they are not safe. But, in fact, arguably drugs, U.S. manufactured, FDA-approved drugs are safer when they come back from Canada because their supply chain is left corrupt in Canada because it is controlled by the government and because they negotiate 50-60 percent reductions in the price. The gentlewoman talks about competition. Guess what, the insurance industry who the gentlewoman wants to subsidize with $20 billion is exempt from antitrust law. They can throw out any senior at any time. We may get a 1-year plan from a company, but it is like every other form of insurance in America today, file one claim, next year you are back in the Medicare fee-for-service plan where the premiums have gone up because the industry has cherry picked people out until they need the service. They will give them a service grudgingly until the end of year until they can cut them off. The people in my district know HMOs, they know them really well. The HMOs pulled out. They said we are not making enough money in southern Oregon, we are pulling out of southern Oregon, and they did. Now, there are no options. So we are going to put people back into the plans and the graces of the private insurance industry, after giving them a $20 billion subsidy without subjecting them to antitrust law and exempting them from any negotiation by the government to reduce the price of pharmaceuticals. This is a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry, plain and simple.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, previous to today's debate the House has spoken definitively on what the American people want and today are only getting price relief on their prescription drugs by importing from Canada. Yet, through stealth maneuvers, the Republican majority, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and the White House, is going to close the border. They are about to say, to quote the FDA Commissioner, the FDA cannot guarantee the safety of Canadian drugs. Well, guess what? They cannot guarantee the safety of American drugs. In fact, it is well documented that the supply chain is more broken in the United States of America than it is in Canada where there is more government control. That was totally a specious argument that they have drug out here to try and protect one thing: Not the safety of the American public and our seniors, not their health. I will tell you what jeopardizes their health: When they cannot afford the drugs they need for a chronic or an acute condition. There are tens of thousands of seniors and others across America in that condition. No, there is only one issue here. There is only one thing to protect, and it is not the safety of America's seniors; it is not the sanctity and the quality of our drug supply, because it is already compromised by phony closed-door pharmacies and hundreds of other loopholes that are getting counterfeit drugs, as is well documented, into the system in our country. Not in Canada. Their system works a lot better. They are reimporting FDA-approved drugs through Canada, and we know they are probably really American drugs. Here there are a lot of counterfeit drugs being made available though phony wholesalers. No, there is one thing that is being protected. Well, two things. One is the obscene prices and profits of the pharmaceutical industry; and two is political campaign contributions to the White House and Republicans. That is what is being protected.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, here it is, the long-awaited, secretly negotiated energy bill, a bill carefully designed to perpetuate our dependence on foreign oil, brokered by national, international, multinational conglomerates which will be subsidized to the tune of $25 billion by United States taxpayers; the Enron provision to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act, guaranteeing a new round of mergers, speculation and rip-offs of electric consumers. I can see only one benefit in this bill. It is huge, it is heavy, it is made of paper. If we take and send a copy to every American taxpayer and consumer, they can throw it in the wood stove or the fireplace and get a little bit of warmth, but that will be the only benefit they get out of this legislation.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Christmas has come early for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, and it is going to be presented as a very large and complex piece of legislation that as yet no rank and file Member of Congress, no Democrat on this side of the Hill, has been able to review, and it will be voted on later this week. It is being cast as simply a pharmaceutical benefit for seniors and some sort of a revision of Medicare to make it competitive and so on and so forth. But what it really is is legislation that was written by and for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, the most powerful lobbies in this country and the most generous of campaign contributors, particularly to the President and the Republican Party; and it is first and foremost designed to protect their profits. In fact, perhaps we should call it the ``Pharmaceutical Promotion and Profits Protection Act.'' That would be an apt title. Boston University School of Public Health has analyzed the bill and they said, 61 percent of the benefits will flow as increased profits to the pharmaceutical industry. The bill specifically prohibits the Government of the United States of America, on behalf of America's seniors and, indeed, all of the American people, to do anything to lower the extortionate price of prescription drugs in the United States. In fact, it closes the door on the importation of prescription drugs from Canada, which is the only relief that many Americans are able to find today. Oh, they say, well, we do not close the door; we are going to give the authority to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to certify whether or not American-manufactured, FDA-approved pharmaceuticals that have had a short vacation in Canada, where their price goes down by 50 percent or more, would be safe if they flowed back into the United States. And, of course, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in his wisdom, has already said that he will not find them to be safe, just to reassure the industry. So they will give him a power which he will not use, or which he has already arbitrarily decided. In fact, it is arguable that the chain of custody of drugs in Canada is safer than in the United States of America, and it would be arguable that, in fact, those drugs would be safer than those that are sometimes made available in the system here because of unregulated, unlicensed pharmacies, and phoney, closed-door pharmacies and other things that were exposed recently in a series by the Washington Post. But nonetheless, we are going to act to protect here, and what we are really protecting, the Congress will vote, and I am sure the House will vote; the President is proposing and the conference committee has proposed to protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. Then, not to leave out the insurance industry, because they are almost as generous in their campaign contributions, we are going to set up a new market for them where we will subsidize the private health insurance industry to create competition. Now, is that not ironic? The only industry in the United States of America exempted from antitrust law, an industry which can, and does, legally fix prices, collude with their so-called competitors, and, you know, collude also to determine who they might cover or not cover, we are going to bring about competition by subsidizing them. There are quite a few seniors in my district that have a rather bitter taste in their mouths about the HMO Medicare+Choice and all these other foolhardy things that have been levied upon them. Those companies walked away one day and left them high and dry. And under this bill they will be able to walk away again and leave people high and dry or they will be able to choose the people they want to cover and tell the rest of them to go over to the Medicare fee-for-service plan which will be more expensive. It will get ever more expensive because all the low-risk people will be moved out and taken by the insurance industry and these subsidized plans until they become high risk, until they have to actually file a claim. That is the way the insurance industry works in America today: they will cover you until you ask them to cover something that you have been paying premiums for. And the next time renewal comes up, sorry, we will not renew you. This does not go on just in health care; it is going on in homeowners and car insurance and everything else. But it is particularly egregious in the area of health care. This bill is going to do nothing to rectify that problem. Let us look at what the great benefits will be. In the first year, next year, there will be discount cards that will come out before the election so the President can say he did something for people, which will be to give a discount, maybe as much as 15 to 25 percent. That means that seniors will only have to pay 50 to 75 percent more than they would have to pay for those drugs imported from Canada. Oh, what a benefit that is. No, but it is a wonderful windfall for the pharmaceutical industry. They will still be paying prices higher than people covered by other private insurance plans, as are Federal employees, as am I, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and many others; but they will get that juicy 15 to 25 percent discount. Then the big plan kicks in in 2007. Why 2007? Because people, if it went into effect sooner, if it was such a great deal, people might figure out what a turkey it is before the next election. So they will dangle it out there 4 years in the future and say this will be really great, you just wait. It is so complicated, few people can figure it out. But here are a couple of numbers. A person who pays $1,000 for pharmaceuticals under this great plan would only pay $945 for their pharmaceuticals after they did their premiums and co-payments and deductibles. They would get a benefit of $55 on an annual $1,000 prescription drug benefit. Well, let us look at someone who has much bigger costs. Someone who pays $3,700, $300 a month. Their benefit would be a grand total of $855. Only about, you know, half of that they could get purchasing the drugs from Canada. This is a sham.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the disabled veterans tax: more than one- half million disabled veterans, career military, have their disability benefits offset dollar for dollar against their retirement. What does that mean? It means a retired master sergeant, 100 percent disabled, is taxed at a rate of 50 percent. Now, the President rushed through relief for millionaires who had to pay a tax of 35 percent on the dividends they clipped off their stocks, and this House accommodated that, but he says there is no money to help out those disabled veterans. We cannot afford, the President says, to offset or reduce that tax or eliminate that unfair tax on our disabled veterans. Well, that is pretty strange when we can do that for millionaires and billionaires; but somehow, as Veterans' Day comes upon us, we can only give a tiny bit of relief phased in over 10 years to some of these veterans who are subjected to this outrageous tax, despite the fact that almost every Member of the House is a sponsor of a bill to totally repeal it. But they are afraid to put their names from the Republican side on a petition to force that bill to the floor of the House. Sign the petition. Have the guts to deliver for your veterans.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, recent incidents and undercover investigations have highlighted deficiencies in our nation's aviation security system. It is important, however, to remember how much things have improved since September 11th. How soon we forget about security on the cheap. It was only a few years ago that the screener of the year testified before the Aviation Subcommittee that he was only able to keep his job because he had additional income and wasn't dependent upon his screener salary. McDonalds was considered a step up for most screeners, turnover was 400 percent at some airports, and private security companies even had felons screening passengers and luggage. After September 11th, everything changed. We now have dedicated, well-paid professionals protecting the traveling public each and every day. I want to take a moment to thank the hard working employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) who have dedicated themselves to improving security at our nation's airports. I recently received an e-mail from Daniel Bernath, a TSA employee at Portland International Airport, that I would like to insert in the Record. It was nice meeting with you for a few moments as you got your plane ticket at United Airlines at PDX. I'm the TSA officer who thanked you for your work in aviation security. . . . As TSA officers we see the holes and potential problems in aviation security and are troubled by them. I have reported several to my superiors at TSA . . . The TSA officers are proud to be serving our country even though the job is extremely physically tiring and dangerous (we are looking for explosives, knives and guns, and up to one third of us have been injured . . . one suffered a heart attack last month, another TSA officer suffered a stroke at PDX). I have no trouble falling asleep at night because, I, like all TSA officers, am completely physically exhausted at the end of my watch. . . . The TSA rank and file is a very impressive bunch and I am proud to be one of them and again wear my country's uniform and I hope that your fellow Congressmen are proud of us too; we are all highly educated--many have college degrees (I have a juris doctor), many have management experience and we are all there after 9.11 to protect our fellow Americans. We are there to defend our country and unlike the screeners before the attack, it is not just ``a job'' to us. At least three times a day a fellow American will watch me search her bag and say ``we're really glad the TSA is here--thank you.'' I remind them that we took an oath to protect the United States and point to our TSA emblem which has 9 stars and 11 stripes in the flag, symbolizing the reason for our creation and our mission that it never happen again; the attack on the United States on 9.11. I think our physical presence and professional demeanor helps our fellow Americans feel comfortable about flying again . . . Daniel A. Bernath TSA at PDX.'' Mr. Bernath's e-mail says it best, ``the TSA rank and file is a very impressive bunch, I am proud to be one of them and again wear my country's uniform and I hope that your fellow Congressmen are proud of us too.'' I agree with Mr. Bernath, TSA employees are an impressive bunch and, although there is always room for improvement, I am very proud of the work they are doing. I want to thank Mr. Bernath and his fellow TSA employees who come to work each day dedicated to protecting the flying public. I hope my colleagues in Congress will join me in doing all we can to make sure they succeed in this mission.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, the Forest Counties Payments Committee was created by Congress in 2000 to make recommendations and report on certain payments to counties. Perhaps most important, the committee was charged with monitoring and submitting a report on payments made under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-determination Act (Pub. L. 106-393), also known as ``County Payments'' legislation. But the Committee and the payments were created by different pieces of legislation and were erroneously set to expire at different times. This bill will correct that error and extend the authorization of the Committee so that it expires with the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-determination Act. County Payments legislation has provided rural counties in the West with some level of economic certainty following the precipitous decline in timber revenue from federal land. These payments have been critical for education funding in rural school districts that were once timber- dependent. In addition, payments have been used for road maintenance, successful community policing programs, vital search and rescue equipment, noxious weed control, collaborative forest health projects, and the restoration of important fish habitat, just to name a few benefits. The committee submitted its Report to Congress on County Payments legislation in February. The report provided invaluable information about the implementation of the County Payments legislation, and recommendations for reauthorization. Unfortunately, Congress has yet to act to reauthorize this important law. As Congress prepares to reauthorize it, hopefully in the next year, the Committee's expertise and advice on the law will be vital to ensuring Congress acts in the best interest of those in need of County Payments funding. Approving this bill to authorize the Forest Counties Payments Committee throughout the duration of the County Payments law will make sure that happens. I urge the bill's adoption.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose the Fiscal Year 2004 Interior appropriations bill conference report for a number of reasons. I applaud the committee for approving $400 million to reimburse accounts that the Forest Service borrowed from to fight this past Summer's forest fires. Unfortunately, the Forest Service borrowed $695 million this year to fight fires. This appropriations bill leaves the public land management accounts that were borrowed from in the hole by nearly $300 million--and most of these accounts were underfunded to begin with. Accounts that the Forest Service borrowed from this fire season include the fuel reduction, law enforcement, forest research, recreation, forest jobs programs, fish habitat enhancement, and road and trail maintenance, among many others. These accounts represent some of the most important public lands management programs the federal government funds, and they will be reimbursed at just 57 cents on the dollar. One of the most important is the fuel reduction account. Even if Congress fully reimburses the fuel reduction account, fuel reduction projects get delayed and pushed to the next year when the accounts are once again robbed. For the safety of our communities and the health of our forests, this cycle cannot continue. This cycle of robbing other accounts is perpetuated every year by not adequately funding wildland fire suppression. The Forest Service borrowed almost $700 million this year, in what was a below average fire year. This appropriations bill has a $289 million increase over last year, but it's not near enough. Regardless of how severe next year's fire season is, this bill guarantees that the Forest Service will have to borrow yet again because Congress is not stepping to the plate and sufficiently funding fire suppression. In addition to under-funding firefighting, this appropriations bill has a wholly inadequate increase for hazardous fuel reduction projects. The build-up of hazardous fuels in our national forests is a problem brought about by nearly a century of forest mismanagement. It is a problem with a multi-billion dollar price tag to fix, but so far the President and the Congress have been unwilling to put up the money. This appropriations bill does nothing to rectify the dismal record of under-funding fuel reduction. The project in the Metolius basin, the location President Bush originally planned to visit during his August trip to Oregon, is an excellent example why restoring forest health will require a substantial investment. The Metolius project is on relatively flat ground, with sufficient road access, and a substantial amount of large, commercial Ponderosa pine. The project will log more than 20 million boardfeet of timber. Yet, even with that commercial return, it will still cost the Forest Service $400 an acre to complete the project. It's clear that even under optimal conditions, with ample commercial timber, it is impossible to clear the large amounts of brush and small trees necessary in successful fuel reduction projects, without spending substantial sums of money. In contrast, the nearby area where the Davis Butte fire burned is more typical than the Metolius and provides a better picture of the real costs of fuel reduction. Visiting the Davis Butte fire one can see where dense stands of lodge-pole pine provided ladder-fuel for the fire to climb into the crowns of the ponderosa. It is essential that these types of trees be removed, unfortunately, they have little or no commercial value. They may have some value as pulp, mulch, or hog fuel, but most of the vegetation would have to be burned, or chipped and left on-site. This type of treatment would be in line with the Pacific Northwest Research Station study that was conducted on the Klamath National Forest that estimated cost of fuel reduction at $1,685 an acre. So not only can we pretend that fuel reduction won't cost anything--as the President has done thus far with his ``Healthy Forest Initiative''--we can't pretend that it will be cheap. There is a multi-billion forest health problem that needs a significant federal investment, but this bill does not make that funding commitment. Another glaring problem with this appropriations bill is that it includes a fifteen month extension of the Recreational Fee Demonstration program. This program was created by a rider to the 1996 Interior appropriations, and has been extended numerous times through appropriations riders, without ever having gone through the appropriate authorizing process. It is well past time to end these back-door extensions and allow the Resources Committee to do its job. Under this program, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Parks Service can charge citizens fees to recreate on public land, including primitive trails and unimproved campgrounds. Charging citizens a stealth tax for hiking in the woods, walking on the beach, or picnicking with their family is unfair and punitive. It is appropriate to charge a modest fee for campgrounds or boat launches to pay for facilities and upkeep. But to charge a fee to park a car on the side of a logging road or at a trail head turns our public lands into the king's domain. Beyond my philosophical objections, the mismanagement of the program by the Forest Service is staggering. The program was created to address the maintenance backlog on public land facilities, but only 50 cents of every dollar collected goes toward maintaining or improving our public lands. The rest is eaten up by administrative and collection costs. Fifty percent overhead costs does not make an effective government program. And a recent investigation by the General Accounting Office (GAO) found that in 2001--the last year for which data is available--the Forest Service erroneously used $10 million in appropriated funds to bolster the program. The Forest Service did not report these additional costs to Congress in their annual report. Nor did they report $2.8 million of other administrative and vendor costs. This kind of deceptive representation in the Forest Service's annual report on the effectiveness of the program is disgraceful. In addition, it is entirely unclear whether the program is actually fulfilling its purpose of reducing the maintenance backlog on forest system lands. The GAO states that ``the Forest Service does not have a process for measuring the impact of fee demonstration expenditures on reducing the deferred maintenance problem. In addition, the GAO found that the Forest Service has yet to reliably estimate its deferred maintenance needs. Why would Congress continue to renew a program through an appropriations rider when the beneficiaries of the program don't know to what extent it's working, or even to what extent it's needed? It is time to end the Forest Service's abuse of the Recreational Fee Demonstration program, but this appropriations bill perpetuates the abuse by again extending the program, this time by more than a year. Finally, this bill negates a federal court's decision that Native American tribes have a right to a full accounting of their own trust monies and assets. I find it hard to believe that this Congress would support an appropriations rider that amounts to an unjust taking of properly without just compensation or due process of law. Last year this House overwhelmingly voted to strip a similar provision that would have kept the Department of Interior from conducting a complete accounting of the Indian trust fund. Rectifying the historic mismanagement of the Indian trust fund is one of the most critical issues facing Native American tribes, and is simply a matter of justice. This appropriations bill will surely delay the resolution of the Indian trust fund accounting for years. This Interior appropriations bill conference report woefully under- funds wildland firefighting and hazardous fuel reduction projects. In addition, it extends an unwarranted recreation tax on the American people, and denies Native Americans a full accounting of their trust accounts. For these reasons I urge my colleagues to oppose the report.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, November 11, Veterans' Day, more than 130,000 of our troops are in Iraq and at risk, thousands more in Afghanistan and elsewhere and around the world; and here at home we have 25.3 million veterans, 376,000 in my State. What are we doing in celebration of Veterans' Day? Well, unfortunately, the Congress has done little. In fact, I would say this is the most antiveteran Congress under the most antiveteran administration in recent history. Mr. Speaker, 150,000 veterans have waited 6 months or longer for basic health care appointments; 14,000 veterans have been waiting 15 months or longer for their expedited disability claims; 560,000 disabled veterans are subject to the disabled veterans tax. Yes, that is right. They are taxed because they are disabled veterans. It is a special tax levied on them. The President refused to spend $275 million in emergency money, but they have figured out a way to cut down the waiting list for health care. We can thank President Bush for that. His administration actually cut off 164,000 veterans from eligibility for health care this year, those who do not have service-connected disabilities but make as little as $25,000 a year. He did find a way to reduce the waiting list by eliminating the eligibility of yet another group of veterans. Not the first time this administration has done that, not the last. They proposed to double the drug copayment for veterans from $7 to $15. That was the President's and the Republican majority's proposal in this House. Luckily, it has not gone forward. Finally, the House majority Republicans in their budget resolution cut $14 billion over the next 10 years from veterans programs. Now, to focus particularly on the disabled veterans tax, it is odd in a Congress that can borrow money, which is what we are doing because we are running deficits, that can borrow money to give each millionaire an average tax cut of $93,000, that can borrow money to relieve the horrible burden from people who invest for a living, do not work for wages, but invest for a living, of paying taxes on the dividends on their dividend-paying stocks. Not too many of these vets that are disqualified have dividend-paying stocks. In fact, most Americans do not have dividend-paying stocks. But that investor class, they are going to get exempted from paying that horrible burden. The millionaires, $93,000. We are going to borrow the money to give them that benefit. But somehow we cannot repeal a tax on disabled veterans which says that they will be offset dollar for dollar their veterans disability benefit which they earned against their military retirement pay. These are people who gave a career, a lifetime in service for their country, and somehow we cannot do that. Now, there is a bill pending that would actually repeal the entire tax. We tried to do this last year. The President threatened to veto the bill. He said we cannot simply afford to take care of those veterans. We can afford as much or more per year to exempt people who earn dividends on stock. We can afford as much or more per year to give millionaires an average of $93,000 each in tax relief, but somehow we cannot afford that for our disabled veterans. In fact, for the lifetime of these veterans, it would cost $40 billion. Now, that is still a lot of money here. That is almost half as much money as the Congress borrowed just the other day to send to Iraq. That is a lot of money. But somehow the President says we cannot afford $40 billion to deliver on our promises to these veterans for their lifetime for their disabilities. There are, in fact, in the House 373 cosponsors of the bill. Then what is the problem? That is almost the entire House of Representatives on the bill. Well, the Republican leadership is the problem. They will not let the bill come up. And, of course, the President is a problem because he is threatening to veto the bill because we cannot afford to take care of these disabled veterans. Now, there is a way to bring a bill to the floor when the Republican leaders refuse to bring a bill to do away with the disability tax on veterans. It is called a discharge petition. Need 218 people to sign it. Force the bill to the floor of the House over the objections of the Republican leadership. 203 people have signed it. Only two of those are Republicans. There are 158 Republicans who put their name on this bill, go home and tell their disabled veterans they want to help them, but they will not sign the discharge petition. They will not force the bill to the floor of the House. Now, that would be a wonderful gift for our veterans for Veterans' Day if just another 15 Republicans who are cosponsors of the bill, claiming credit for it, have the guts to come down here and sign the petition, which is right behind me, to recognize our veterans properly for their service to our Nation. Now that would be a real Veterans' Day celebration.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, Veterans Day, November 11, 150,000 veterans will have waited 6 months or longer for appointments for medical care; 14,000 veterans have been waiting 15 months or longer for expedited disability claims; 560,000 disabled veterans will be forced to pay the disabled veterans tax. It does not have to be this way. But we are confronted with the most anti-veteran, anti-veteran administration in Congress in history. The President refused to spend $275 million in emergency money. He cut off veterans' health care for 160,000 Category 8 veterans. Although there are 373 cosponsors to do away with the disability tax, the President has threatened to veto the bill if we do away with the veterans' disability tax, and Republican leaders refuse to bring up that bill here in the House. It would be better to celebrate Veterans Day with actions that delivered on our promises to veterans than laudatory words; but I fear that we will just hear words and not see actions from this Congress and this administration.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, inaction is not an option for this Congress. We must have this legislation as well as some other essential legislation before we leave town. I feel strongly about that. I felt more strongly, or as strongly, a year ago when what was previously the largest fire in recent Western history burned between my district and the district of the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the Biscuit Fire. We entered into discussions last fall and came very close to bringing a bill forward into the House. Unfortunately, the clock ran out because of the elections. This year we are not operating under the imperative of pending elections. We can stay here as long as we need, and we should, to get this legislation done. The Senate bill is not a perfect bill. It is not the bill that I would have written, but it is, in my opinion, in a number of areas, which I will touch on briefly, far superior to the House bill; and it does have a statement of support from the administration. So we know that if we were to just take up that bill and pass it from the desk, which is no longer an option having gone to conference, that we could enact it into law. So hopefully there lie the seeds of an agreement here. Why do I feel that the Senate bill is superior? What I say briefly, and it is hard to quantify things around here a lot, but the Senate bill is 760 million times better than the House bill. Someone may say, how did you come up with that number? The Senate bill included a $760 million annual authorization to do the fuels treatment. Why is that important? This is something that cannot be done for nothing. The House bill omitted any new funding for fuels treatment. The national fire plan, which is supposed to deal with these fuels issues, is chronically underfunded as the gentleman from California mentioned previously. So is firefighting. So every year the Forest Service is confronted with major fires; they then freeze and begin to borrow from other accounts and almost every year they borrow from the national fire plan fuel treatment accounts. So instead of acting to prevent future fires, we borrow the money to pay for current firefighting because we always start the year underfunded on firefighting. This year was no exception. And despite the actions last week on other legislation, the Forest Service is still going to have to eat $300 million of those fire costs out of its budget, which means reductions in recreation and in fuel reduction and other programs that are already underfunded. So we need a substantial sum of dedicated funds to deal with this problem. The only good study out there was done at the Northwest Research Station in Oregon. They said, looking at the Klamath forest, which is fairly typical of a lot of the intermountain forests, dry, not a lot of commercial value in there but a tremendous amount of fuel accumulation, that after backing out the commercial value of anything removed, it would still cost $1,684 an acre to do the work. If they say there is 20 million acres that are critical and need work, that would be $34 billion. So the Senate bill, at $760 million a year, does not get all the way there, but it gets us down the road. It would provide for a big boost in rural communities for jobs to get people out there and do the work, because it would not pretend that we can do this for nothing. Further, even more instructive, the President was to go to the Metolius basin to hold a press conference regarding the fuel reduction legislation this year. He could not because of a fire. But that Metolius thinning project was to be conducted of large trees of substantial commercial value in an area that is already eroded and virtually flat. But even given all that and given the fact there was going to be 20 million board feet of high-value commercial timber taken out of that fuel reduction, it was still going to cost a net of $400 an acre for the Forest Service. So that just underlines the point that even in the areas where there is viable commercial timber to be removed, unless they remove it all, which would not make a lot of sense in terms of protecting the values of the forest and the old fire- resistant trees, they are not going to be able to do it without paying for the work. That would cost $400 an acre. So inclusion for an authorization for funding hopefully at the Senate level, maybe even higher, would be absolutely essential to pass a bill that is going to get the job done. Two other issues. I do not totally trust the government to always do what is right, no matter who is sitting in the White House. I did not trust the Clinton Administration to always do what was right. I do not trust this administration to always do what is right. And removing any right of meaningful appeal or judicial review is not an option, as far as I am concerned, in actions that affect public resources and the public generally, and the Senate bill does a much better job of preserving people's right to appeal and to go to court, but limits it so that there will not be frivolous appeals. It requires meaningful participation. And I believe if we adopted something like the Senate bill that there would be few, if any, appeals. And very few, if this is done right, successful appeals that would delay projects. So the bottom line here is we do have the possibility of getting a bill done this year, and I believe we must get a bill done this year. It must include robust funding. That will not only begin to move us forward in dealing with this huge backlog of fuels accumulation and doing it the right way, leaving the large, old fire-resistant trees, returning the forests to more of a presettlement condition, a natural condition, but it will also put rural communities to work, and it will avoid sometime down the road, and unfortunately not immediately, some of these absolutely massive fires and massive costs that are incurred with the fires because after these forests are treated, fires can become more of a natural regime, and we will not have to fight them as aggressively. They will not present the threats to life and property that they do today. So I am supporting this resolution with the hope that before this Congress leaves that we will have a viable bill that can be passed by both Houses by a large bipartisan majority and signed by the President of the United States, so we can begin this absolutely vital work before the next fire season. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his indulgence.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. There we have it. As the gentleman said earlier in the debate, it does not interfere in the legal proceedings, and certainly we cannot do that. But what this amendment does, and this has nothing to do with the BRAC process or Federal excess property, a museum established under this section may not be located on any property that is condemned or taken after December 31, 1999. The land that was formerly a military base BRAC process does not meet that definition. By eminent domain. That is the key here. There is a group of people who are targeted. They are targeted. Families are targeted, living on this property. They do not want to give up their homes. An elderly couple. Their son and daughter-in-law and others who live on this property and have lived there for years, they do not want to give it up. This is simple. The Coast Guard has many options on where to put this museum and many adjacent and in the city of New London. It does not have to be on property that was condemned for that purpose. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, in the previous exchange, I did not get a definitive answer. He read from something from the Coast Guard that says they are neutral on this. If someone else condemns the land and the museum is built there, they will accept it. That is what that letter says. That is the bottom line here. We are not protecting these families who have lived on that land for nearly a century and do not want to give it up. An 87-year-old woman and her husband, a merchant mariner from World War II. I would just like a simple answer. I know the gentleman does not generally support eminent domain, he added something with his own family, but the question is simple. Would the gentleman agree, will he stand up and say ``yes'' in response to the question, will the gentleman say that this museum should not be built on property taken from these families in New London, Connecticut, by eminent domain, yes or no. It is a simple question.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I guess maybe we could establish at least one point here. I would ask the gentleman from Connecticut if he would agree that the museum should not be placed on property that is condemned for that purpose.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, the point here is that this says that a private entity will build this museum and then gift it to the Federal Government for operation. This is ultimately going to be an official museum of the United States Coast Guard, a Federal museum. This amendment does not interfere in the litigation for a taking. If this local development corporation indeed has the right under Connecticut law and the United States Constitution to take the land and throw these people off their property, they will have that right as determined by the courts. All this amendment says is that this Coast Guard museum, which is going to be a Coast Guard facility in the future after it is built and gifted to the Federal Government and the Coast Guard, will not be built on land that was condemned for that purpose, throwing families out of their homes. It is very simple. That is the issue before this Congress.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, as was discussed earlier, there were issues that arose. At least in my case I was contacted by an attorney representing a number of homeowners, Mr. Scott Bullock of the Institute for Justice, after the committee mark. I have discussed this with a number of members of the committee. This is a simple amendment, and there seems to be some consensus on the objective. The problem is that the bill has no statement regarding the issue of eminent domain. It is silent on that issue. In fact, that was confirmed in a letter that I received today from the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, which says the bill does not address the issue of eminent domain and we believe it should be left to the local judicial process. Certainly condemnation of property in New London, Connecticut, should be left to the local judicial process; but the issue of whether or not a Federal facility, the Coast Guard Museum, might be sited on property taken by eminent domain is the business of this Congress and this committee. I feel strongly about this issue. We have families that have lived for generations on this site. I have letters from five people who are affected homeowners, but this is from the son of one: ``My great- grandmother's family moved to this neighborhood from northern Italy in the 1890s. My mother was born in her house at 87 Wabach Street in 1918, never lived anywhere else. She married my father, a merchant marine in World War II in 1945. They have lived in the house for 56 years. She has seen three of her four children die in this property, including her first. These houses are not simply buildings on a plot of land, but home for her with a lifetime of memories. I live with my wife, son, and niece in a home right next door.'' The letter has other sections that are pertinent. I will just read one other letter: ``I hope all Members of Congress will recognize that if the Coast Guard Museum is ultimately built on property that has been taken through eminent domain, it will be forever tainted. There is no honor in kicking my mother, an 85-year-old woman, or my father, who fought for this country in World War II, out of the only home she has ever known to make room for a museum that celebrates the past, present, and future of the Coast Guard, a service whose history is steeped in honor and integrity.'' That is the issue before this body. It is quite simple. The bill is silent on this issue. A proceeding has begun locally, and that is up to the local jurisdiction to take this property by eminent domain with the idea that the museum would be sited there. The commandant of the Coast Guard, I have been told, says they do not want to take property by eminent domain. I would hope it would also mean that they do not want the museum to ever be sited on property that was taken by eminent domain with the intent of them moving there, and this would just make that clear. This amendment would say any property condemned or taken after December 31, 1999, by eminent domain by the Federal Government, State or local government, or any other person acting under a delegation of authority. And that is what has happened in Connecticut; the local government has delegated to a development group the authority to take this property by eminent domain. It is pending in the courts of Connecticut. If we do not adopt this amendment, the museum could end up on property that was taken from families who have lived there for generations by a local corporation, if it is upheld by the State courts to site the museum. There seems to be broad consensus on the objective. I offered to the gentleman whose project this is, and it is a meritorious project, and I congratulate him on that, to make this a friendly amendment since he agrees he does not want eminent domain used. I said I would be happy if we could do it as a friendly amendment. The gentleman does not want to do that. I hope the gentleman will explain why, and if he wants to contest that the bill somehow restricts eminent domain, I hope he cites from a specific section of the bill because I have read the only section that pertains to this. There is no mention of restriction on siting this museum on property taken by eminent domain, and it seems to me there is no good reason why we should not adopt this amendment. I would hope the committee would move forward and look at it as a friendly amendment and adopt it.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Reserving the right to object, Madam Chairman, if the gentleman will give me the courtesy of an additional 2 minutes to respond, I would be happy not to object. Madam Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I am pleased we are taking up this bill today. For too many years the needs of the Coast Guard were neglected as we failed year after year to pass authorizing bills, and the amount of funds to the Coast Guard for their mission were inadequate. Their mission, of course, today, is even more difficult than it was then; but I think that this bill is beginning to recognize the need for more funds, the need for better housing allowances, the need of fulfilling that expanded mission. So I am pleased to stand in general support of the bill before the House. I mean, the Coast Guard is crucial to my District. I represent more than half the Oregon coast, difficult port entrances, still an active fishing fleet and pleasure boats, and the Coast Guard is called upon many times to conduct rescues at the risk of their own life and also to do fisheries enforcement, drug interdiction and now, of course, the whole new emphasis on homeland security and all the problems in that. There are two issues where I would raise concerns. The first, I will have an amendment on later, and that is the potential that the Coast Guard museum, which I support the idea of a Coast Guard museum, could be sited on property taken by eminent domain, and I think Congress should speak clearly on that issue, and I will have an amendment on that later. The other is something I have raised with the Commandant in hearings, and it is just a general note of concern to other Members of Congress. I feel that the Coast Guard is doing an excellent job in its mission of homeland security, but the one place where I would fault them is as our lead negotiator with the International Maritime Organization. The International Maritime Organization works by consensus, and often I feel rather than us setting down a hard marker and saying, this is where the rest of the world has to go on shipping, crew certification and safety issues, the Coast Guard gets much too involved in bargaining. We should lead by example with world standards. It is not enough to say, well, we always have port/State control issues where we can board these ships once they get here. No, we do not want those ships on the ocean at all. We do not want ships out there where we do not know who the owners are. We do not want ships out there where we do not know who the crews are, and we do not want ships out there when we do not know what the cargoes are. Those are extraordinary threats both to the safety, the environment as with the New Carissa incident in my district. We had a totally incompetent foreign skipper, who did everything in defiance of good practice and managed to put his ship on the beach, spilling a tremendous amount of bunker fuel, causing an environmental disaster, and the ship is still there. He skipped out of the country before we could put him in jail unfortunately, but I do not think he will be coming back, but there are other skippers like that out there, not to say there are not many good ones. But we need better crew certification requirements. We cannot have these paper schools that issue certificates. That is what we have got today. We are allowing to say, well, these schools exist in the Philippines. There is no one that goes around to certify that the schools exist, certify the curriculum, certify people have gone through the curriculum. We do not know who the crew members are. We do not have noncounterfeitable ID cards. We do not have a way of knowing better what the cargo is. The Coast Guard is just starting to work on these things, and they are not taking the toughest position they could in the International Maritime Organization to secure our borders, our security and our safety, and I just want to urge them to redouble their efforts and set a higher standard to protect the homeland of the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the last word.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman that preceded me in the well is correct. We should all celebrate Veterans' Day. In fact, we should celebrate Veterans' Day and honor Veterans' Day every day in this Chamber. But I do remember on the night that the war began in Iraq, we passed a resolution supporting the troops and an hour later we passed a budget that cut $2 billion out of the veterans budget. I do remember that the President proposed doubling the prescription drug fee for veterans. I do remember that our veterans, the Democrats have offered a proposal to stop taxing disabled veterans, the disabled veterans tax. The President has threatened to veto any legislation which contains that. So although the gentleman can rattle off those great statistics, that is not the experience of the veterans in my district. They are waiting longer to get minimal service. Fewer of them can get service. They have now established a new Category 8 of veterans who cannot get service even if they have served with valor in combat. It is one thing to get up here and spout statistics and that, but the reality is can your veterans get the service they need that we promised when they need it; and the answer is for many, no.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, next week is November 11. And often, I believe, in this Chamber we pay lip service to our veterans; and we fail to deliver on solid votes and programs that would better demonstrate our recognition of their sacrifice and service. And this year, unfortunately with the budget and the appropriations passed, is no exception. I was astonished earlier today when a colleague from the Republican majority stood up to pretend to document how great things are for our veterans, all these new services and things we are providing. I am hearing a very different assessment from my veterans and their dependents. And facts are stubborn things. Here are some real facts, unlike what we heard earlier today: 150,000 veterans are waiting 6 months or longer for appointments; 14,000 veterans have been waiting 15 months or longer for their ``expedited'' disability claims; 560,000 disabled veterans are subject to the disabled veterans tax, something we have tried to rectify. We have 373 cosponsors. There are only 435 people here. If 373 people want something, we should be able to do it, should we not? That is a super, super, super majority. But guess what. The Republican leadership, under urging from the President and Secretary Rumsfeld and threats of veto from the President, are refusing to bring up a repeal of the disabled veterans tax. We can have tax breaks for people who do not work for a living, the investor class. We can have tax breaks for whole hosts of people and things. But we cannot have tax relief for disabled veterans. Is that not extraordinary? President Bush refused to spend $275 million in emergency money for veterans health care provided by Congress in the fiscal year 2002 supplemental appropriations bill. But of course he wants to do everything he can to recognize the service of our veterans and our young men and women. January 8 of this year, the Bush administration cut off VA health care for 164,000 veterans. They put them in a new category called Category 8. They are wealthy veterans just like the wealthy people they are giving tax breaks to. Well, not quite. The wealthy people the Bush administration is raining tax breaks on earn over $311,000 a year. But these vets are wealthy. They do not deserve that veterans health care, according to the Bush administration. They earn $25,000 a year. They should pay for their own health care. The President's budget also proposed doubling the prescription drug copayment from $7 to $15 for veterans, the ones who are still able to qualify, and a $250 enrollment fee on another category, Category 7 and 8. These could be people with low incomes, distinguished service, but under the Bush administration, we just cannot quite afford to give them the service we promised when they enlisted. Now we either believe in the all-volunteer military or we do not. And we are either going to recognize the sacrifice and service of veterans or we will not. And if we do not, probably the next generation is not going to want to enlist for what is a very tough and today very bloody and dangerous job because they are not quite sure of the promise that we will take care of them and we will take care of their families and their dependents. A few other problems. Rather than funding the VA, the Bush administration sent a memo to regional VA facilities that forbid Veterans Administration employees from proactively informing veterans about the services available to them in order to reduce the number of veterans using VA facilities. That is supportive. Is that not great? In March, House Republicans voted in favor of their budget resolution that cut $14 billion, ``B'' billion dollars, from mandatory veterans benefits over 10 years, including veterans pensions, education and other benefits. That was an hour after we voted to support the troops in Iraq. Maybe it would have been a better message if we just had not bothered with the words, but had duly voted for the money. But, no, the Republican majority, pushed by President Bush, could not vote for that money, and that budget passed by one vote. The House Republican budget resolution also cut $14 billion from veterans health care and other discretionary veterans programs. The Republican budget also included the President's proposal to impose a $250 enrollment fee on our veterans for the free health care that they were promised. The Republican budget also included the President's proposal to double the prescription drug copayment from $7 to $15. The President had already raised it from $2 to $7, but, hey, we need money. We have got to send a lot of money over to Iraq, and we cannot ask them to pay any of it back, so we have to double the prescription drug benefit fee for our veterans. Now, the House VA-HUD appropriations bill funded VA at the level requested by the President, which was $1.8 billion below the House Republicans' own budget, and it was $3.3 billion below the level requested by national veterans organizations in their independent budget proposal. Let us really celebrate Veterans' Day, and give them the services they earned and need, and pay for them.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this issue. It is a funny thing here, we are being told that the Republicans want to inject competition into the insurance market. Well, if they really want to do that, why do they not support my bill to lift the antitrust exemption from the insurance industry? The only industries in America exempt from antitrust law who can and do get together in private resorts on an annual basis to collude, to fix prices and red line out a whole bunch of potential clients is the insurance industry and, of course, professional sports. These are the only industries in America in a country of capitalism and competition who are exempt from any restriction on collusion. Now we are going to throw our seniors onto the tender mercies of this collusive, anticompetitive industry. Oh, that is great. My seniors already had this experience. We had Medicare+Choice, HMOs. Oh, this is going to be great. You are going to get more benefits than under fee- for-service. Well, the companies were not able to collude and set the prices quite high enough to satisfy their profits, so they up and left with very little notice. My seniors were left in the cold. Now what we are going to do is not only recreate that structure which has already failed the seniors of America once, to throw them on the mercies of an anticompetitive and collusive industry that does not give a darn about them, but now we are going to jigger it even a little more so it can destroy the Medicare fee-for-service plan, to which my seniors returned when they were screwed by the insurance industry. That is right; they were screwed. Suddenly you do not have an HMO plan any more, tough luck, we do not care. They could at least go back to Medicare fee-for-service. But under this plan, it is beautiful. They are not going to have that option anymore because it is going to undermine the fee-for-service plans. It is a little thing called adverse selection. We are going to let the private, anticompetitive, collusive insurance industry cherry- pick the people they want to cover for as long as they might want to cover them. You can get a policy for a year; but if you get sick, next year we are not going to renew your policy. That is the way this industry works. Mr. Speaker, Members need to talk to their constituents. It is happening to people who are young, people with small businesses. Someone gets sick, we cannot renew your policy. Or we can renew your policy, only there is a 400 percent increase in premiums. That is what they are going to do to seniors because this thing is even more dastardly because it is going to destroy the core problem because we will leave the oldest, the sickest, and the ones that the collusive insurance industry does not want to cover over here in the Medicare fee-for-service, and make them pay more for it. We are going to make them pay more for it. So this is a great option for seniors. Either the collusive industry that does not want to cover people who are sick or incurring costs will offer you a deal, or you can go back over here to Medicare which we have undermined and jacked the premiums up dramatically. That is the so-called choice in competition that the Republicans are offering the seniors of America. Mr. Speaker, this is just an incredible travesty for this House and for the people's Representatives to even pretend that this somehow is going to improve coverage for our seniors.