John Fleming

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. Of course, all of us here today talking are physicians of different specialties. Most of us were actually here during the ObamaCare debate. We actually began that in 2009. It actually went in to law, it was signed into law March 23, 2010. The interesting thing about this law--the Affordable Care Act, which I refer to as the Unaffordable Care Act, but lovingly and affectionately known as ObamaCare--is the fact that what it does is it adds 15 million more Americans on to Medicaid, which already way underreimburses physicians, which means most doctors don't accept that as payment, and it adds another 15 million Americans to a system that's already stressed. Ultimately, what's going to happen is you're going to have more Americans carrying more cards that entitle them to health care, but it really will entitle them only to a waiting line--a waiting list--just as we see today with Canada and Great Britain. Let's talk for a moment about the promises. You know, Washington, Mr. Speaker, has a reputation for making promises it can't keep, and indeed that applies to ObamaCare. First of all, the President said if you like your plan, you can keep it. Well, we know that's not true. We know now that you're going to get whatever plan and mandates that go with it, and you'll have to pay the cost that goes with it. ObamaCare will not add one dime to our deficits. The CBO has now come back to show that the early estimates were way out of line. It's going to add billions of dollars to our deficit, and I think that's really an underestimation. ``No Federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and Federal conscience laws will remain in place.'' Federal conscience laws have been totally gutted. We know that, for instance, Hobby Lobby will be fined to the tune of millions of dollars as a result of its unwillingness to pay for abortifacients--that is, pills that can cause an abortion--and other things that are against the conscience of those who are in management and ownership there. President Obama said, ``I will protect Medicare.'' Well, if he's going to protect Medicare, why did he take $716 billion out of Medicare to fund ObamaCare? He says that's savings. Well, if we can save that kind of money out of Medicare over 30 or 40 years, why didn't we do it once? We didn't because we can't without changing it structurally. It will simply be cuts to services. ObamaCare will not raise any of your taxes. Mr. Speaker, ObamaCare includes 21 new taxes. And they're not just on rich people; about half of them are on the middle class. I'll just give you an example of one very nasty tax that's coming your way. If you're a business owner, there is a tax--3.8 percent--on unearned income, which includes capital gains, dividends, rents, royalties and interest, which means that you're going to get hit hard and very hard. And then also a device tax on revenues--not on profits-- which those who make everything from tongue blades to artificial hearts tell us will drive them out of this country into another country. And we'll have to buy back those devices, killing tens of thousands--maybe hundreds of thousands--of American jobs. ObamaCare will ``lower your premiums by $2,500 per family per year.'' Mr. Speaker, no one has told me their premiums have gone down as a result of ObamaCare. In fact, in most cases, it's gone up $3,000. That's a net of $5,500 change, and many of them are expected to double and even triple as a result of ObamaCare. You can't just keep adding mandates to insurance and expect not to have to pay for them. That's just the simple truth. What about IPAB? We heard some discussion about the Independent Payment Advisory Board, and it's really straightforward what they do: they take out of the hands of Congress our ability to find more efficient ways and ways to limit costs to Medicare patients. In fact, it's a 15-member board that's appointed by the President--not necessarily health care providers--who will have more power than Congress itself. It will actually be able to determine what gets paid for, how much it gets paid for, what type of doctors/providers will be paid for their services to Medicare patients. Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely the beginning of rationing and long lines for health care. One other point before I yield back. Let me quote something that's already been referred to today in our discussion. Senator Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who helped author ObamaCare, before a hearing, out of frustration, he asked Secretary Sebelius, he said, we've got all kind of problems, aren't you going to help us on this? Here's a quote from Senator Baucus--who shortly after this decided to retire. He said: I am very concerned that not enough is being done so far. Very concerned. When I'm home, small businesses have no idea what to do, what to expect. They don't know what affordability rules are, they don't know what penalties may apply. I just see a huge train wreck coming down. You and I have discussed this many times and I don't see any results yet. And we've yet to hear a good answer, a reasonable answer from Secretary Sebelius on how this has come together. We know that much of this has to be implemented really by October and finished by the first of January of 2014, and nobody knows what's going to happen, how it's going to happen. Business owners today are looking at, should they have 50 employees or less than 50 employees? What kind of penalties are they going to have to pay, which is not tax deductible. There is nothing but chaos across America among small businesses. Even parts of ObamaCare have already either been repealed or just simply dropped. The CLASS Act, long-term care, which was unworkable and is not going to help fund it. A very onerous 1099 tax reporting requirement has been dropped. So, little by little, this bill is beginning to fall apart. I'll just say, finally, that this train wreck not only is coming down, but the wheels are falling off the train. So with that, I would like to yield back to the gentleman and certainly stick around for more discussion.

Mr. FLEMING. Your experience is exactly the same as mine when it comes to blood disorders, blood cancers, solid tumors in children. That used to be a death warrant when you and I were in medical school. Today, the vast majority of those children survive and live a happy life. Yet, what we see today is some of the oldest chemotherapeutic agents, some that are 60 years old--and of course the patents have run out a long time ago--are in severe short supply because, again, the heavy boot of government on the neck of industry that can't produce these at a rate that can meet up with demand. So it's important that we begin to pull back on this now, because we're going to be in the same situation as Canada and Great Britain, who have government-run health care, where early diagnosis, early treatment and using the best chemotherapeutic agents shows up in their statistics. Their death rates from cancer are much higher than ours are.

Mr. FLEMING. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FLEMING. I just want to expand a moment on what you were talking about small business is critical. I'm a small business owner myself, apart from my medical practice. We employ around 500 employees. Many of them are entry level. Businesses and business owners across America, at this very moment, are in a state of panic. Mr. Speaker, businesses across the country are, at this moment because of ObamaCare, in a state of panic. The reason is because of what you said. They're calculating if they have more than 50 employees, they've got to ratchet below them if they can. They've got to know how much of the punishment--or penalty, I really should say, but it's more like punishment--they can absorb for those employees that they can't afford to pay for their insurance. This is having a direct impact on our economy and on job creation. This is something that's critical going forward what this is doing to small business, which, arguably, employs about 75 percent of Americans.

Mr. FLEMING. I just want to put an asterisk to your comment about employment. We met with Mort Zuckerman, economist and editor of U.S. News & World Report. He says that much of the ``growth'' in jobs reports that you see is actually people reentering the job market, but they're actually getting part-time jobs instead of full-time jobs and, in some cases, getting a second or third part-time job so that we're actually seeing an inflation of the actual number. So ObamaCare--and I would argue Obamanomics in general--is actually taking us to not only an underemployed society but to an unemployed and underemployed society, and much of it is from ObamaCare.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is, indeed, a pleasure to be here tonight to talk about a very, very important subject, and that is the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Before I do, I do want to mention a couple of things about the previous Special Order of my friends on the other side of the aisle who were talking about, for instance, Medicare and coverage under Medicare and ObamaCare, pointing out that insurance companies are not as good as the government in terms of denying care. I would suggest to my friends that at least you can change your insurance companies. You cannot change your government. So I see that as a fatal flaw, among many, with ObamaCare. Also, a lot of time was spent talking about income disparity. I absolutely agree with my friends that the rich are getting richer and that the poor are getting poorer in America--but President Barack Obama has been our President for the last nearly 5 years. It's his policies that are creating that situation. In fact, unemployment levels among minorities, particularly Hispanics and African Americans, are at historically high levels. It is because of the policies of Obamanomics, ObamaCare regulations, Dodd-Frank, and the excessive spending that has been occurring in Washington that have led to this problem. Then, finally, my friends talked about the fact that the President has submitted a couple of jobs bills and that we've refused to take them up or to pass them. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that these jobs bills are nothing more than mini-stimulus bills which passed this House, under Democrat control, in the first 2 years of the President's first term. What did we get as a result? Only more deficits and more debt. We did not get an improvement of the jobs picture. On the other hand, in the last term, under a Republican-controlled House, we passed 33 jobs bills, and the President and the Senate, controlled by Democrats, would not take up even a single one. One of them included diverting revenue from energy on Federal lands to rebuilding bridges and highways, the very infrastructure that they're talking about. So again I would submit, Mr. Speaker, and to our friends on the other side of the aisle, that perhaps they need to update their talking points. They're giving the same ones they gave in 2009 at the beginning of the Obama administration. Now we're nearly 5 years down the road in the second Obama term, and the policies we're living under and have been the Obama economic policies, not Republican policies, and certainly not President Bush. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to talk about Kermit Gosnell. The mayor of Philadelphia says that Dr. Kermit Gosnell is an aberration, an outlier, a rare case. Gosnell, of course, is the abortionist in Philadelphia who is awaiting a verdict on charges of killing four babies and a woman, though we know that there were many more. Philadelphia's mayor said of these atrocities, ``This is a highly unusual situation.'' Perhaps it's no wonder why some see Gosnell as an aberration. His clinic was inspected only three times in 31 years, and it was never inspected from 1993 to 2010. The gruesome discovery of multiple body parts from aborted babies, blood splattered on the walls, and other deplorable conditions were discovered only by accident. I want to point out that I think we know what Dr. Gosnell was all about. He was not about elevated principles of doing right for women, women's health and this sort of thing. Mr. Speaker, it was about money, and you'll see why. Despite the fact that this had been going on for 31 years, it went undiscovered. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration entered the clinic with the correct belief that Gosnell was running an illegal prescription drug business selling OxyContin and many other highly addictive drugs. He was writing about 1,900 prescriptions a month, and customers were picking them up in a takeout fashion. Again, it was not about elevated principles and women's health; it was about money. Law enforcement had no idea, until they raided Gosnell's clinic in 2010, that the pill mill he was running by day was a gruesome abortion mill by night. Gosnell had been performing late-term abortions for decades, and his procedures caused so much harm to women that he was being hit with malpractice lawsuits. You see, in late term, doing those kind of abortions, it is very damaging to the womb. In many cases, they use sharp instruments to literally cut up the little baby, to puncture the skull. That's very damaging to the womb, and, of course, women can have excessive bleeding, a perforated uterus. These things lead to complications and, of course, lawsuits. So it is a sad irony, but abortion supporters have argued for years that making abortion legal protects women from the kind of butchery performed by doctors like Gosnell. But you see, Dr. Gosnell, after having literally dozens of lawsuits, he decided that it was safer for Gosnell--not for the women--to stop trying to kill the babies in the womb. He just went ahead and induced labor in late term and then killed the baby shortly thereafter the birth. How did he do it? He did what he referred to as ``snipping.'' He would thrust a pair of scissors in the base of the skull, in the back of the neck, clip the spinal cord, destroy the lower part of the brain and make the baby stop breathing. In fact, witnesses said that in a number of cases, the late-term babies, but somewhat premature but certainly well enough mature to have survived outside of the womb, would be there breathing before he did his heinous acts, or in some cases were actually crying. I know we'd like to wish that Kermit Gosnell was an aberration. In fact, I hope there's a day when we look back and see the practice of abortion itself as a horrible aberration in a culture that should defend life and protect the innocent. Since Bill Clinton first said it in 1996, the pro-abortion side has been telling us that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare, yet there are still more than a million abortions each year in the United States. We know that they're never safe for the unborn child because the child dies, of course. And as we can see, they're often dangerous for the women involved not only during the procedure, but shortly thereafter and often long term. We know statistics tell us that the infertility rate down the road, suicide rate, depression and many other scales by which we measure quality of life are all diminished after abortions. And the more abortions, the worse the outcomes. How many other Gosnells work in secret without inspections or regulations, as in this case? Perhaps they're not really so rare. Take, for example, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who was responsible for the abortion procedure earlier this year in Maryland that ended with the death of a 29-year-old woman who was 33 weeks pregnant. Carhart had another patient die after a similar procedure in 2005. In Muskegon, Michigan, details are just surfacing about another abortionist who is accused of leaving the decapitated head of an unborn child inside a woman's womb after rupturing her uterus and nearly taking her life. The Michigan State Legislature is investigating why the State Board of Medicine did not pursue earlier complaints about this same doctor. You see, what we're finding in many cases is that the medical agencies who are responsible for oversight are turning their heads when it comes to the issue of abortion. They're all about inspecting hospitals and doctors' offices; but when it comes to abortion, they don't want to even go there, apparently. In recent weeks, we've seen undercover videos from the group Live Action showing doctors and medical personnel at abortion clinics with a callous and even heinous disregard for life. In the most recent video, a woman who is at 23 weeks gestation in her pregnancy asked if there was any chance her baby might be born alive and could she take it home if it is. A clinic counselor assures her that it is not likely to happen and says that if the child happens to be born alive during the abortion procedure, the medical staff will make no efforts to preserve the child's life but will allow it simply to die. That's no surprise, considering the Planned Parenthood representative who testified about the late-term abortions in March before a Florida State House subcommittee. When asked what Planned Parenthood would want to happen if a baby was born alive and still struggling to live after a botched abortion, she said, ``We believe that any decisions that's made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.'' When pressed further about what Planned Parenthood physicians do if a baby is alive and moving and breathing on the table, she answered, ``I do not have that information.'' Doesn't that sound familiar? Remember that President Obama was once asked, ``When does life begin?'' of course implying, does it begin at conception? His answer was it was above his pay grade. Mr. Speaker, if it's above the President's pay grade, where do we go from there? Certainly Planned Parenthood doesn't know the answer either. I can tell you I do. I'm a physician. It's called the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, a Federal law that was enacted in 2002, that extends legal protections to any infant born alive during an attempted abortion. There shouldn't be any doubt or any question about what to do with that baby. It is a life that is to be preserved. Remember, Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in this country. So if a Planned Parenthood representative in Florida thinks it's okay for the family to decide to let the child die, is there really any doubt that there are many more cases like Kermit Gosnell? Beyond cases of infanticide, badly injured women, and even women who have died during abortions, there has been an increase in the number of reports of dangerous and filthy conditions at abortion clinics. State officials in Delaware are investigating Planned Parenthood of Delaware for unsafe and unsanitary conditions. In Virginia, again, elaboration here, there are many different examples of problems. In Virginia, an abortion clinic closed this month because it didn't want to operate under new safety standards and proper inspections that have been long overdue in the Commonwealth. Virginia's State Legislature and the State's Board of Health overwhelmingly saw the need for commonsense rules, like making sure doorways are wide enough for an emergency gurney to pass through so a patient can be taken to an ambulance in case of an emergency. Sadly, the abortion industry, with its focus on bottom-line profits-- and remember Kermit Gosnell. He ran a pill mill during the day and performed late-term abortions at night. We know what he was all about. It was not elevated principles. It was not women's health. It was all about the almighty dollar. What the Gosnell case and these others have helped to expose is the sad truth that some States simply look the other way while abortion clinics run amuck and the health and lives of women are endangered. Let's be clear: there's no such thing as a safe abortion. Not only does the pregnant woman face emotional and physical risks, up to and including death, but each abortion is the ending of an innocent human life. So, how is it that we have a Humane Society for animals but we don't have a humane society for the most vulnerable and innocent humans, babies? Why is it that the media and many Americans go crazy over the treatment of wild and domesticated animals, yet seem to turn a deaf ear to the silent screams emanating from inside the womb of millions of young women. Mr. Speaker, what can be done about such alleged murderers as Gosnell? How many more Gosnells are out there damaging wombs and killing babies? If we wait on the media and State health care officials to find them, we may have to wait many years while many deaths occur. Therefore, I call on State legislatures and Governors to write ironclad laws and regulations to protect mothers and infants from these heinous acts, State regulators to ensure that abortion clinics and abortionists are adhering completely to every rule and law now in place and the many more that will be established in the future, we hope. And, I call on prosecutors and judges to make sure that abortionists and abortion clinics that break the law and that defy the Born-Alive Act face the full measure of law. Finally, we stand today with our national conscience stirred by the Gosnell trial to stop and look again at life in the womb. Kermit Gosnell was killing babies who could otherwise survive had they been given the chance. But his trial is merely scratching the surface of the greater reality that medical technology has been showing us now for more than a decade: the life that is developing in the womb is a baby. It is a growing and developing child that feels pain, we know scientifically, as early as 20 weeks gestation, midpregnancy, and maybe even earlier. And destroying that life is extremely painful to the baby and should not--that is, abortion--be an option. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, the American people have just finished the annual aggravation of tax preparation. Every year, individuals and businesses spend more than 6 billion hours and about $168 billion just to meet the filing requirements of the IRS. Among those hit hardest by our 4-million-word Tax Code are senior citizens. Many live on fixed incomes and have common forms of income, like dividends, Social Security benefits, and IRA distributions; yet they face the high cost of compliance. That's why I introduced the Seniors' Tax Simplification Act. This commonsense bill--and it is bipartisan--would create one simple form, much like the popular 1040EZ form. It would be used for the relatively simple tax filing situations that are common for seniors anyway. Creating a no-nonsense 1040SR form would reduce compliance costs for seniors and lessen the burden of the tax season for them. The Seniors' Tax Simplification Act is a straightforward, no-cost bill that has bipartisan support and has been endorsed by many senior citizen groups and deserves a vote in this House.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. I certainly want to thank my good friend from New Jersey for all the great work that you've done on this and the work you continue to do. I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that just hearing about this trial--and quite frankly, I haven't heard about it on TV. If I weren't informed about it in leading up to this Special Order, I wouldn't know about the Gosnell trial--one in which, I think, it is really sickening just to hear the facts. It's interesting. This country has reached a point in which we have focused so much on the humane treatment of animals--that is, to treat animals like humans. Then that leaves the question: Why do we not treat people like people? Why don't we treat humans humanely? I think that is an important question. What do people say who themselves have survived abortion? I was at a meeting several months ago, and I met two fantastic mothers, mothers of children today. As to one of them, her mom, while she was still pregnant with her, attempted to have an abortion, but for whatever reason, she never could get around to it. She couldn't get it lined up or whatever, and eventually, she just ended up not having the abortion. Of course, this beautiful lady was eventually born, and now she has grown up to be an adult, and is very productive and very beautiful and herself has children. Of course, if you asked her, Well, what do you think about your mother's attempt to have an abortion of you while you were still in the womb? she would say--speaking, I think, for millions of unborn today and unborn in the past--Let me live. Give me an opportunity--I, the innocent unborn--to live. Give me a chance to live in society. I met another beautiful lady at this meeting. Her mother, while still pregnant with her, late term, actually attempted to have a saline abortion. It was a botched abortion. It didn't work. By that I mean she was born alive and remained alive. And, fortunately for her, the health care workers decided to go ahead and revive and resuscitate her. And, of course, we know that saline abortions, if you have a child that survives, it scalds the skin. It creates injury to that baby. But she was treated, and she grew up to be a beautiful woman who married and who had children. If you asked her today, she would tell you she speaks for the millions of the unborn, both in the past and those who are killed in the womb today: Yes, let me live. Give me a chance to live. Well, what about the question of infanticide? That's really what we're talking about in the Gosnell case. These babies, for whatever reason, he certainly wasn't a good enough doctor to accomplish the abortion while the babies were still in the womb, and then has to go on and do something I think most Americans would consider murder, and that is infanticide. In most places, perhaps all places in America today, infanticide is murder. But the question is: Do you realize there are two bioethicists in Australia who have recently proposed a concept called ``post-delivery abortion?'' Of course, we know that to be infanticide. Once the baby is born, if you kill the baby, that's infanticide. But they want to do a little wordsmithing and call it something else--post-delivery abortion. What they mean is this: if the baby is born and there's something about the baby that you're dissatisfied with, maybe it has an abnormality of some sort, maybe it's going to cost some money for a heart deformity or a facial deformity, maybe it's born with a genetic defect, that you should have, as a mother, the option of killing that baby even outside of the womb. There has even been a hint that perhaps taking a baby's life, even up to the age of conscious life, which can be, I don't know, a year or even more, would be still incongruent with the concept of post-delivery abortion. So you see, Mr. Speaker, this is a slippery slope. Once you get past the fact that life begins at conception, and of course with today's technology, infants born as early as age 22 weeks, certainly 24 weeks, often survive at a time when they couldn't in the past. This has become an extremely slippery slope to the point where there are many out there who would actually turn their backs on life even after the point of delivery. Well, Mr. Speaker, what about the lives of the women themselves? I'm a physician, and I've seen women after they've had an abortion. I can even think of a couple of cases in my practice when of course I would never send a lady for an abortion, but I was forced to treat a lady after an abortion because she was treated by an itinerant physician who comes into town, does a bunch of abortions, leaves town, and says if you have any complications, go see your family doctor. Well, of course, that is sickening for me. That means I am involuntarily participating, at least tacitly, in treating a lady who has had complications from an abortion. This really goes to show you to the point with Dr. Gosnell just how unfeeling and inhumane the whole consideration is. But what drives people to do this? Well, we know if you look at studies, it's about money. It's all about money, Mr. Speaker. They make millions of dollars. I think in the case of Dr. Gosnell, he became a multimillionaire because of all of the many abortions he provided over the years. But, again, back to the women. What happens to the women who have abortions? Well, these are some things that we know. Once a woman has an abortion, her chance of having a future miscarriage goes up. And so now we're talking about miscarriages, stillborn, and the issue of infertility. Rate of suicides, they're higher in women who have had abortions. What about the rate of other complications, rates of depression and other things? We know they're all higher. The outcomes in the future lives of young women, and even not-so-young women who undergo abortions, Mr. Speaker, are really not very positive. So why would we encourage this? And certainly we know that a woman who gets an abortion a first time is far more likely to get a second and a third abortion, and oftentimes it really becomes a form of birth control. So, in summary, Mr. Speaker, I stand up with my colleagues today to speak out against the fact that not only are we seeing abortion continue, the taking of innocent life through this Nation, but even the mere consideration of ending the life of an infant after birth, either because of a botched abortion or even deliberately just because there is some dissatisfaction with the outcome. I think is really horrible and something we should be ashamed of. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, if we can give consideration and humane treatment to animals, should we not do this for our own as well? So, again, I rise in support of my colleagues on this very important issue. I do think that if we can't do it on a Federal level, we need to move forward in our States, such as my own State of Louisiana, where we have developed certain requirements, elevated requirements of accountability for doctors who provide abortions so that they can't just fly in and fly out and leave a mess. They have to have certain credentials and maintain hospital privileges perhaps; create limitations after so many weeks can an abortion actually be done. Let's do away with late-term abortions, again, an abominable act. We know through studies that the unborn feel pain at least as early as 20 weeks gestation, and maybe earlier. Certain States, such as Arkansas, recently passed laws against late- term abortions. And, again, in my home State of Louisiana, we have a cooling-off period where you have to think about this. Think one more time, just think for 24 hours, maybe even pray about it: Is this something I really want to go forward with, end the life of my progeny? And certainly the requirement of an ultrasound, at least a requirement of the option of seeing your baby before you terminate its poor life. Once again, I thank my colleagues. It is certainly a privilege and an honor to speak on what is, I think, one of the most important issues that we have in America.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Speaker, the Obama administration's assault on religious freedom must stop. The so-called HHS mandate established under ObamaCare forces individuals, charities, and businesses to buy health insurance that includes coverage for drugs which may destroy human life. This week a Federal judge stopped the enforcement of the HHS mandate against the founder of Domino's Pizza, the former founder. Like many other companies, Domino's Farms Corporation, the company which was granted this injunction, offers health insurance to its employees, but not coverage for drugs that could destroy human life. To do so would violate the religious rights and beliefs of the company's owners. That injunction is a victory, but no one should have to battle the Federal Government in court to stop it from infringing on religious values. That's why I am proud to introduce with my colleagues, Diane Black and Jeff Fortenberry, the Health Care Conscience Rights Act, a bill that rests on the bedrock principle that our government must not force people to violate their religious and moral beliefs. I ask everyone to sign on today and support this bill.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, today, I am reintroducing, along with a number of our colleagues, the National Wildlife Refuge Review Act. This legislation is necessary because under current law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can administratively create a national wildlife refuge regardless of size, location or support from the local communities without any input from the Congress. There may have been some logic in granting this federal agency an unfettered ability to establish a national wildlife refuge in 1903 when the first was created by President Theodore Roosevelt. However, with our national debt exceeding $16.5 trillion, it is now imperative that the Congress carefully review each significant expenditure of our tax dollars. During the past four years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has administratively established more than ten national wildlife refuges including two in Kansas and Florida that involve more than 1 million acres of private property and a price tag exceeding $1 billion. Under current law, the Service first establishes these refuges and then comes to the Congress seeking funds to actually obtain the lands through either fee title or conservation easements. On October 25, 2011, the Service testified before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs and stated that requiring a Congressional authorization would ``Impede the Service's ability to be strategic, flexible, nimble and responsive to strategically grow the Refuge System.'' Mr. Speaker, this is the same federal agency that has an operations and maintenance backlog exceeding $3 billion, with dozens of refuges infested by invasive species, with overgrown trails and full of potholed roads. By their own admission, they lack the financial resources to fix more than 3,300 mission critical projects. During the past two years, it has become increasingly clear that the Service is incapable of effectively managing what they already own. The Congress has a responsibility to curb their insatiable appetite for property acquisition. For far too long, this agency has placed too much emphasis on growing the refuge system rather than maintaining it. What I am suggesting is neither a new or radical idea. In fact, under current law, no Administration can create or expand a national park, a wilderness area, a national forest, a Wild and Scenic River, a National Heritage Area or a National Conservation Area; construct a Bureau of Reclamation Water Recycling project; modify the Coastal Barrier Resources System; or remove property from the National Wildlife Refuge System. The House Natural Resources Committee routinely considers dozens of these types of bills each year. It is also important to note that Congress has legislatively created more than 60 national wildlife refuges throughout the United States. In my own Congressional District, the Red River National Wildlife Refuge was established by an Act of Congress. In fact, including public hearings, Committee markups and action in both the House and the Senate, it took exactly six months to get this legislation to President Bill Clinton, who signed the bill into law on October 13, 2000. Even by the standards articulated by the Fish and Wildlife Service, this period of time demonstrated that the Congress can act swiftly when there is public support for the establishment of a specific refuge. Under my bill, all new national wildlife refuges established after January 3, 2013 would require a Congressional authorization. This bill does not affect the existing 560 refuges, nor does it require that additions to these units obtain Congressional approval. This is a modest and commonsense solution. It is past time for the Congress to exercise its oversight responsibility before the Fish and Wildlife Service creates huge new financial burdens on taxpayers. As the Chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs, I can assure my colleagues that there is nothing inherently unique or urgent about the establishment of a new refuge that requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to unilaterally act on its own, while putting our taxpayers on the financial hook for billions in land acquisition costs. I urge my colleagues to join in this important effort to protect the taxpayers of the United States by cosponsoring the National Wildlife Refuge Review Act.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to H.R. 444, the PLAN Act, introduced by my colleague, Dr. Tom Price. Dr. Price's bill is straightforward: if the President's budget doesn't balance, tell us when it will and what policies he will use to get us there. My amendment adds a requirement that the President's supplemental budget, as required by the PLAN Act, must include proposals to consolidate duplicative agency functions and programs. Here's the good news: Reducing duplication in government is low- hanging fruit. There's bipartisan agreement on this. Even the President in his State of the Union address in 2011 talked about the desire to consolidate the different agencies that oversee salmon. Now, it's true that the President does submit a document as part of the budget, called, Cuts, Consolidations, and Savings; but in last year's budget, these savings only amounted to $24 billion, a tiny percentage, 2.2 percent, of our annual trillion-dollar shortfall. That is woefully inadequate. My amendment would require the President to go back to the drawing board within the context of the PLAN Act, which asks the President to tell us when his budget will balance and how he will get us there. We are now in receipt of two reports from the GAO that identify opportunities to reduce duplication and overlap in government programs, and we anticipate the third annual report to be released in just a few weeks. The first report identified 81 areas of duplication, and the executive branch and Congress responded with only limited action on many of those areas. The second report identified an additional 51 areas. In addition, Senator Tom Coburn has produced a helpful report that points out some very obvious ways we could consolidate government programs and reduce government spending. Suggestions from both of these sources should be added to the President's proposals for cuts. Surely, we can come to some bipartisan agreement about cutting government programs that are duplicative, obsolete, or wasteful aspects. Sometimes the cause of this is special interests: businesses or industry groups that are arguing for a particular program that benefits them, or a geographic area that benefits from a program that others can't take advantage of, or a group that is adept at leveraging identity politics to protect special preferences. Other times, Congress is its own worst enemy, bickering over jurisdiction and bringing goodies back home. Regardless of where the problem is, we need to fix it. This is a start in the process, but unfortunately we can't actually force consolidations in this bill. I will be introducing legislation in the coming weeks to do just that: force the elimination or consolidation of duplicative agencies through a BRAC-like process that is fair and bipartisan. The Realign and Eliminate Duplicative Unnecessary Costly Excess in Government Act, otherwise known as the REDUCE Government Act for short, creates a six-member, evenly split bipartisan commission selected by the congressional leadership and the President. The commission will use resources from GAO and standard program evaluation tools to come up with a list of duplicative, ineffective, and wasteful programs and a plan to consolidate or eliminate those programs. After submitting a list to the President, Congress will have 45 days to pass a resolution of disapproval. After that, the consolidation goes into effect. This process mirrors the highly successful, nonpolitical Base Realignment and Closure process, otherwise known as BRAC, used to take politics out of the highly sensitive and politically charged military basing process. With clear, transparent criteria, a nonpartisan agenda, and a streamlined process for action, the BRAC Commission has been able to do what Congress or the President has never been able to do before. Clearly, with our spending problem, we need a mechanism like this to set in motion the reduction in the growth of government. In the meantime, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and allow it to be debated in the full House. While I would hope the President would do this, we can't leave it to chance. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLEMING. I want to thank the gentleman from Maryland for agreeing with what is really common sense. We all, I think, want to squeeze out waste in government and certainly take away the duplication that's behind much of it. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman, my good friend from New Jersey, for all the great work that you've done in this area and many others, protecting children; and we're all grateful to you for doing that. Mr. Speaker, 40 years ago, when the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision was handed down, I was just a college student taking premed courses with a desire to pursue my goal of being a doctor one day. That was when Roe v. Wade was passed, and hardly anybody even noticed what a landmark decision that was that has led now to the death of over 55 million unborn innocents in this country. Today, after 36 years as a family physician and having delivered hundreds of babies, I know now more than ever that life begins at conception. Over the decades, medical technology has only served to confirm what we know. Ultrasound has given us a powerful window into the womb that shows us a small, intricately developing human being. We know now through DNA that every little baby, every little embryo, is a unique blueprint in history. Protecting these pre-born children must be our first priority. That's what I strive to do as a family physician in Louisiana, looking after expectant mothers and their soon-to-be-born babies. As a Congressman, my aim has been unchanged. Abortion is an attack on the very creed that I follow as a physician: first, do no harm. As a Member of Congress, I've stood firm against abortion, against laws that have infringed on the conscience protections of medical providers who want nothing to do with abortion, and I have consistently opposed the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion services. Many think that at the termination of a pregnancy that the problem goes away, but nothing could be further from the truth. We know through studies that young women who have abortions are more likely to have depression, more likely to commit suicide, and more likely to have future miscarriages and problems with their pregnancy. Mr. Speaker, the problems do not end with the termination of an innocent life. The abortion epidemic has cost 55 million children their lives. This is a national tragedy, and it must stop; and on this heartbreaking anniversary today, 40 years after Roe v. Wade, I'm more committed than ever to defending the lives of the unborn.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chairman, yes. I ask unanimous consent to correct a misspelled word from ``steward,'' ending in ``d'' to ``Stewart,'' ending in ``t.''

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk. I also have a unanimous consent for a technical correction of that amendment.

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chairman, my amendment to the Frelinghuysen amendment will strike $9.8 million of spending on buildings and seawalls on uninhabited islands within the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. The Stewart McKinney refuge is a complex of 10 separate units composed of over 800 acres that are stretched across the Connecticut shoreline. My amendment specifically addresses the request of the Fish and Wildlife Service to spend nearly $10 million to rebuild buildings and a seawall on one of the 10 units known as the Outer Island. The Service acquired this property through a private donation in 1995. Since that time, as a result of a memorandum of understanding, the island has been managed by Southern Connecticut State University, which provides access and guided educational activities to visiting school groups during the summer months, which is the only time Outer Island is actually open. In fact, the Southern Connecticut State University Web site is clear: All schools, university, community, and civic associations or other parties interested in participating in educational activities on Outer Island must have prior approval of the Connecticut State University System coordinators. While the Fish and Wildlife Service has no staff on Outer Island, the university utilizes paid interns and faculty coordinators to supervise the educational programming. An occasional kayaker may stop and have lunch on the island; but if you want to visit the Outer Island, you must coordinate your visit with the university and not with the Fish and Wildlife Service. In addition, the university received a $250,000 grant from the Long Island Sound Fund. Madam Chairman, last Friday members of my staff met with representatives of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Service has confirmed that they do not charge the university for what amounts to almost the exclusive use of the island. Furthermore, the Service did not provide at any time any analysis or breakdown on how they will spend $9.8 million of our taxpayers' money. In fact, the only information they provided was a one-line explanation that the money will be used to remove debris deposited by storm floodwaters and to repair seawalls and buildings. Frankly, this is totally inadequate. As the chairman of the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs, my subcommittee has jurisdiction over the Fish and Wildlife Service. I intend to conduct our annual budget hearing in March of this year. This request does not belong in an emergency spending bill, and the money should not be in any way appropriated until we get a better understanding of how the $9.8 million will be spent. I am also interested in hearing why this Service does not charge the university for using the island and why they should not be assessed a portion of the repair costs, which benefits them far more than the general public or certainly the taxpayers of the United States. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chair, the gentlelady is correct: after we got more information on this, the nearly $10 million is actually only $2 million when it comes to the Outer Island. However, the gentlelady is incorrect: the university informed us that the vast amount of damage actually came from Hurricane Irene and not from Sandy. Now as to the other $8 million, it goes to about six different islands that are rarely, if ever, touched by humans. It is for coastline restoration. So what you have is basically $10 million, $2 million of which is to repair damage from a previous hurricane for which there has not been a request. It is uninhabited island, rarely touched or used except in the summertime, and the rest of the islands are virtually never touched or used. Madam Chair, this is an emergency bill. There's no emergency here. And whatever dollars we use are going to be borrowed from China and put onto the debt. So as a result of that, this does not fit the definition in any way, shape, or form of being an emergency. I would suggest to the Chamber today that we focus on the emergency. There are a lot of people hurting with this disaster, and we should put our money where it needs to be. We can go through regular order through my subcommittee and address all of the work needs that need to go on here. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chair, I would again disagree with the gentlelady. I would have to say that, unfortunately, it is our grandchildren who are being held hostage. Now they have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars each in future debt from the spending we do today. Needless to say, we need to take care of the problem. We need to take care of the emergency, and we need to take care of the people who are hurt. But for heaven's sake, we should not be spending money restoring coastlines on islands that nobody ever goes to. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLEMING. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. For 2 years, President Obama and Democrats have clamored for a so-called ``balanced approach'' to fix the budget deficit by raising taxes in exchange for entitlement reform. We must reform entitlements. We know that, without reform, Medicare becomes insolvent in just 10 years. Then there's welfare. For the first year ever, we spent over $1 trillion on welfare, and food stamp usage is up now to 15 percent of the population. All of this is creating annual trillion- dollar deficits, which, along with anemic economic growth and stubbornly high unemployment, means 23 million Americans still have no jobs. Now some Republicans say they'd consider a balanced approach, but how much revenue is gathered from the tax increases proposed by Democrats? About $80 billion a year. That's barely enough to run Washington for 8 days. Mr. Speaker, we are less than 4 weeks from falling off the fiscal cliff. It's time for Democrats to come to the table with something more than job-killing taxes. If they have serious ideas for entitlement reform, the American people deserve to hear them. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the reason we haven't heard Democrat ideas for entitlement reform may be because they have no plans to cut or to reform entitlement spending at all. This is just another game from their playbook--raise taxes and increase spending, as always.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, I was not present to vote for rollcall 537 and rollcall 538 due to flight delays from storm systems moving through the area. Had I been present I would have voted ``no'' on S. 679, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act of 2011, and ``yes'' on H.R. 828, the Federal Employee Tax Accountability Act of 2011.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. I want to thank the committee chairman for allowing me to speak. First, I would like to agree with the gentleman from New Jersey. He is absolutely correct that oil production has increased in recent years and that our dependence on oil has actually decreased over the same period of time. But why? Because of the private sector. The private sector industry has been out there and has been drilling in new areas like North Dakota and in my own home State of Louisiana. It's the private sector that's driving this. It's producing more oil than we ever have, and there is much more that we can have. On the other hand, on public lands, which have been under the control of the President, we have seen a reduction of 15 percent. So there is no way in the world we could give our President, President Obama, credit for that unless, of course, we said, Well, indeed, the private sector didn't build it--he did. But I really don't think that's the case. Mr. Chairman, I stand in support of H.R. 6082. What we are seeing in President Obama's lease plan is a study in contrasts. When demand for energy was up and prices were spiking in 2008, the Bush administration opened more areas for drilling. That's just commonsense economics. Here we are 4 years later with high energy prices again, and this President's solution is to propose a plan that opens no new areas of drilling. The Obama administration pounced on the BP spill 2 years ago to ratchet down our Nation's ability to drill for oil, and then it dragged its feet in issuing new drilling permits. All the while, taxpayer dollars were being thrown at failed wind and solar energy projects like Solyndra and many others too numerous to name today.

Mr. FLEMING. This legislation is smart policy and is a return to common sense. Our country needs energy, and it needs jobs. The President's plan doesn't help, but H.R. 6082 does. It will open areas for drilling that never should have been closed off, and that will lead to more jobs and more cost-effective energy for Americans.

Mr. FLEMING

Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, by any reasonable measure, America has the best health care system in the world. Certainly the many world leaders who come here for treatment are a testament to that very fact. However, over recent decades, a slow but steady government takeover of health care by growing entitlements has crowded out the private marketplace, creating an inefficient system whose costs are now completely out of control. As a family physician who was elected to Congress in 2008, I came here to bring consumer choices, transparency, and efficiency back into our health care system, putting health care decisions back into the exam room where they belong. Instead, Democrats passed ObamaCare without even one Republican vote. It essentially doubles down on the cost, inefficiencies, and lack of accessibility to good health care that already existed, and puts Washington fully in control of your health care decisions that will ultimately lead to yet another large, unaffordable entitlement system.