Jim Greenwood

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, it is fitting that this new hour follows that last 5-minute presentation which was a perfectly classic example of partisan rhetoric aimed more to gain political favor than to shed light on an issue. What we are going to do for the next hour is exactly the opposite, that is, my colleagues from the Committee on Energy and Commerce are going to talk about how we can, in bipartisan fashion, deal with the corporate malaise, the corporate scandals that have rocked our country to make sure that American investors are in better shape and enjoy more confidence in the market in the future. We are here to talk about the best way to ensure corporate accountability, restore investor confidence in our markets, and build a 21st-century model of corporate governance that will give us an honest, open, transparent and efficient marketplace. Before I am joined by my other colleagues, I want to describe the challenges we in Congress, the administration, and the overwhelming number of honest men and women who run our country's publicly traded companies face in this effort. I want to begin by placing our work in the larger context of the remarkable events that have occurred in the executive suites of some of America's largest corporations and the unsettling erosion in corporate accountability. What we have been witness to this year with the collapse of WorldCom, Adelphia Corporation, Tyco International, ImClone, Enron, and Global Crossing is almost beyond comprehension. Certainly the markets themselves remain confused. The Standards & Poor stock index is down 17 percent since the year began, and as Business Week reported, ``The inability of investors to distinguish honest companies from dishonest ones have caused them to sit on the sidelines. They are not buying.'' More disturbing, however, is the behavior of overseas investors. They are getting out. They are selling off their holdings and driving down the dollar, which has slipped 9 percent against the Euro since February. Clearly we need in bipartisan fashion to take every reasonable and prudent step to restore confidence in our markets. But in doing that, we need to remember that this decline in the character of corporate governance did not occur overnight. What we are now experiencing are the terrible costs of the 1990s corporate culture that placed too high a premium on the effort to do well at the expense of doing what is right. Look at the evidence. While there will probably be nearly 250 corporate earnings restatements this year, the number has been mounting since the mid-1990s. For example, while there were 157 financial restatements last year, there were nearly 200 in 1999, and 100 in 1998. The cost to investors has been high. It is estimated in a just-released study that these restatements resulted in total market value losses of $31.2 billion in 2000, but 1998 and 1999 restatements which accounted for market value losses of roughly $18 billion and $24 billion respectively were disturbing as well. This brings me to a remark of one of our witnesses, Professor Bala Dharan of Rice University. He made it 2 weeks ago at our first hearing on the reform of the Financial Standards Accounting Board. When I asked if perhaps the boards of directors of our largest companies were too busy at the shrimp bowl to pay attention to their duties, his reply was that they were either ``snoring or ignoring.'' Then he went on to make what I believe was a chilling and sobering observation. Commenting on the events that led to the unraveling of firms like WorldCom, Tyco, and Enron he said, ``What is going on is that this is a case that involves an enormous number of people, and that is why I refer to them as financial engineering rather than just accounting. In order to do this, you also have to have the compliance of lawyers and investment bankers from the outside.'' He then concluded, ``We are witnessing a comprehensive approach to financial engineering that has been going on for the last 5-10 years.'' This is what we are confronting in our markets and in too many executive suites, a complex web of self-dealing and private arrangements which were conceived in a culture poisoned by a downward spiral in corporate ethics and management character. This spectacular explosion of the Enron supernova brought all this to light in a dramatic fashion, but it did not happen overnight, nor can we hope to restore the integrity of our markets and the character of the men and women who run America's publicly traded companies without a long-term commitment to comprehensive reform in a wide array of areas. We believe that our Republican approach both in the Congress and the White House embraces nearly all of the steps needed to accomplish our goal. We also believe that there is broad agreement by the members of both parties on nearly all the critical issues that need to be addressed. I would be remiss if I did not mention that there will be a temptation in this political year to play up partisan differences by Members on both sides of the aisle. The heated rhetoric of the past few days has convinced me, and no doubt many others, that there are some in this body who are more interested in acquiring political capital than in protecting the financial capital of America's investors. As we are a political body, nobody should be surprised at this. But I am asking my colleagues to remember this: what we are dealing with is very large, and it is about so much more than money or crime or greed, although there has been plenty of that. We must restore investor confidence and market integrity in the most potent weapon in democracy's arsenal, free markets directed by a free people. This is a sobering task, and my hope is that each of us will bring the level of seriousness and cooperation to it that allows us to achieve our common goal. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass).

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I yield to the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the man who has been leading us in all of these investigations, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin).

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the full committee for his remarkable remarks. I recognize and yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for his contributions in this Special Order, as well as his very excellent contributions in the leadership of his subcommittee. Mr. Speaker, to underscore the importance of this issue, I would like to make a few more remarks. America's place in the world, our leadership place in the world, is derived in many respects from the character of our people. It is derived in large measure from the nature and the beauty of our Constitution; but it is also derived in no small manner from our wealth, from our economy, the strength of our economy. Our wealth as a Nation is the wealth that produced the military apparatus that fought wars and preserved democracy, that overcame Communism, that just liberated Afghanistan. Our wealth as a Nation is the wealth that is used to pull people from poverty into middle-class luxuries. Our wealth as a Nation is the wealth that enables us to find cures for diseases. Also, our wealth is derived from our marketplace. Our wealth is derived because our marketplace is extraordinary in its ability to allow Americans to use their savings, and we are not good at savings in this country. Compared to the rest of the world, we save very little. But our marketplace is so efficient that the relatively meager savings of America can be used in the marketplace so that investment goes to the most productive companies and to the brightest ideas. That has enabled us to create a level of productivity that is unrivaled in the world, even by those nations that save far more money than we do, because we have this efficient market. Now, the efficiency of that market is completely dependent upon the notion that investors can, on a regular basis, look at the independently audited financial statements of companies and make a decision about where they want to make their investments. They want to make their investments in companies that are doing well, that are showing progress, that are showing profit, that are showing promise. They get to make a decision. They get to decide if they want to take a lot of risk in the marketplace. If they think they have analyzed a company and it has a promising product, if it has not made it yet, but may emerge and may solve a problem in this country; or they may take a high risk; or they may decide to take a little bit of risk and invest more modestly. But they do that based on their ability to trust the audited financial statements that these companies put out pursuant to law. Now, what has happened? What has created this problem? What has created this problem is that the companies that we have seen in the headlines of America's newspapers are companies who refused to abide by the simple premise that they have a responsibility to issue audited financial statements that can be believed. They have decided to do what is called ``managing revenues,'' not just reporting their revenues, not just saying to their auditing committee, how much money did we make this year, what were our revenues, but saying to their auditors and accountants, how can we boost those revenues above what they really were? How can we phony up the numbers? Why did they do this? They did this because, particularly in a market which was heavily invested and experiencing this bubble, they did it because they knew if their revenues began to fall, if they did not meet expectations, investors might take their money and go elsewhere. That is one reason they did it. Another reason they did it in some of the worst cases is because corporate executives had stock options, and they knew if they could push the revenues up way beyond where they really were, if they could report revenues way beyond the actual revenues of the company, that the stock prices would follow, and then they could cash out, sell their stock at a very high price, and yet leave a company or leave the rest of the investors with a company that really was a phony company and a false company and a company that did not have the value that they had reported in their own financial statements. This is not the first time that this kind of thing has happened in our history. We went through a savings and loan debacle which cost the American taxpayers and investors billions of dollars. We went through problems with junk bonds. I was reading a book over the last week called ``Financial Shenanigans.'' There was a story, a true story, about a man whose business was vegetable oil. He was bringing in, or allegedly bringing in, boatloads of vegetable oil to this repository. He would impress his investors with all of the vegetable oil that he had accumulated; and they were investing in this product, in this market that he had. What they did not know was that he had a vast system of underground piping that pumped water into the tanks. The vegetable oil was just a thin veneer that sat on the top of the water. So the researchers and analysts and underwriters would come, and he would take the tops off of his tanks and say, Look how much vegetable oil I have, millions of gallons of vegetable oil, when in fact it was all a phony scheme. This is not unlike what we have seen in the marketplace here. The kind of reforms that we take here in a bipartisan fashion are going to have to have the effect on this corporate greed that ultimately happened when they let the water out of the tanks on this gentleman's vegetable oil barrels. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the full committee.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman, for joining us again on this Special Order. Mr. Speaker, there has been a fear, a nervousness, that if we continued these investigations, if we brought these corporate moguls before our Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, that somehow that would rock the markets and it would shake the confidence of the investors and make things worse instead of better. We thought long and hard about that in our subcommittee, but we decided to continue on with our investigations and to continue to pursue these matters because we cannot, we cannot get the reforms that are required to protect the investor in this country until we lance the boil. We have to pick the scab. We have to open the wound, look at it, allow it to be seen by the American people, to show the American people that the United States Congress understands that this cannot stand and it will not stand, and that we will move to make reforms. There are those who want to do too little. I think, frankly, some of the most conservative Members of the Congress want to do too little. They are afraid that these reforms are too much of an invasion into the private sector. They are not. The marketplace of this country that drives our economy, that provides our wealth and provides our greatness, does not spring up like Topsy. It is the result of the laws and the regulations that we impose on the marketplace to keep it honest, to maintain its integrity so that investors can make smart decisions, so money can move efficiently to smart ideas and efficient companies and products, and make us wealthy as a result. There are those who would do too much. There are those who would create a new Department of Auditing and make sure that every auditor in every company was a Federal employee. That would be bureaucratic and costly and invasive and wrong. So we do have to find the middle way. We do have to find that which separates the most liberal Members of Congress from the most conservative Members of Congress, and I think we are well on our way. I think the legislation that we passed in this House in April, the bill of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), was the middle way. I think what Mr. Sarbanes did yesterday with 100 percent support in the Senate represents the middle way. I think the President's bold remarks of 2 days ago were right on and illustrated the things that the executive branch particularly needs to do to bring us these reforms. The only thing we need to worry about now is what we began this Special Order with, and that is the fear of partisanship. If Members of Congress and if political consultants and if leaders in political parties decide that, rather than solve this problem, rather than do the things that we need to do in a bipartisan fashion to restore confidence in the marketplace, they want to exploit this issue, create fear among the American people, try to cast false blame on particular individuals in the Congress or in the White House or elsewhere, then we will fail. Then we will fail to meet our obligation to the American people and solve this problem. When this Congress, the 107th Congress of this country's history, concludes its work at the end of this year, I think two things must occur. We must be able, as we wish each other well for the holidays, clap each other on the back and say I think, number one, we have done everything we could in a bipartisan fashion to win the war on terrorism and provide security for America's people, and, secondly, we must say, as we leave this body for our Christmas holidays, I think that we have done everything we possibly could in bipartisan fashion to restore the confidence in the marketplace that this country so relies upon, that we did that in bipartisan fashion and that we can feel good about beginning a new year with growth in the economy and with security for the American people, not only physical security but economic security as well.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 273 I was unavoidably detained by duties related to my investigation of Worldcom in a interview room without audible vote notification bells. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I do not have a single new thing to say about this issue because it has all been said over and over again. But as I have been sitting listening to the debate for these last 2 hours and looking at it and listening to the howling and the shrieking and the bellowing and the clattering of pans, I could think of nothing more than the ancient times when there was an eclipse; and as the sun was eclipsed the ancients ran out and made some noise. For decades, the Democrats claimed to be the party that represented and cared for the seniors. They did nothing for the prescription drug benefit. Finally, our plan is eclipsing their stature; and they cannot stand it; and they are bellowing and howling. When the sun comes up tomorrow morning, we will have passed the first prescription drug plan in the history of this program. The howling will silence, and the seniors will have something to be proud of. And I am proud of you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 259, 260 and 261, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on all 3 measures.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, one of the important changes that we made in this law as it came through the committee was some language that I worked out in a bipartisan fashion that goes to an issue that I think is perhaps the most critical area that needs treatment in the prevention of child abuse. Today, children are born all over this country to mothers who have substance abuse problems. Their mothers are alcoholic or their mothers are drug addicts. These babies are born in hospitals, they are frequently underweight, they are frequently frail. Much money and effort is devoted to bringing them to health. These children do not meet any definition of child abuse, and probably they should not, but what happens is they are sent home from hospitals every day in this country and it is only a matter of time in so many instances until they return back to the hospital abused, bruised, beaten, and sometimes deceased. That is because we have not developed a system in this country to identify these children and intervene in their lives. The amendments that we put in this bill for the first time require the States to set up programs so that when these children are born to these addicted families that there is intervention, and the social workers can come in and meet with the mother and establish a safe plan of care. If the child can go home safely, so be it. They will have visiting nurses and hopefully substance abuse treatment and all of the rest. In those cases where the mother is refusing or unable or unwilling to get help to protect her child, to mother properly, to parent properly, or where the home situation is just too chaotic and too violent for the child to be safe, then there can be intervention and the child can be placed in foster care. Over and over again, the newspapers of our country are replete with these cases of terribly, terribly abused, battered, sexually abused and sometimes beaten-to-death children who could have been saved if only we had intervened when we knew there was a problem, when we could see that this child was born to a dysfunctional family where substance abuse is the issue. Now we will be able to do that. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer), and all Republicans and Democrats who have worked with me to get this amendment in. I think if we get this all the way through the Senate and signed by the President, we will see a significant reduction in child abuse and we will be glad for the effort.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Care by Celebrating Children Day on April 26, a day set aside to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of children that make the world a better place for us all. Today, we invite every adult to visit their child in school, where they will learn about and admire the ways in which those children grow every day. By distinguishing their efforts and accomplishments, this day helps to raise the self-esteem of the children, builds bridges between the community and the school, introduces the children to role models, and teaches the children about their value to the community. It is also my privilege to introduce Ms. Gail Delevich in conjunction with this day. Ms. Delevich is an elementary school teacher in the Central Bucks School District, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She spearheaded this initiative at her elementary school, after she was disheartened at the multitude of negative media coverage of American schools in the wake of the Columbine tragedy and other episodes of school violence. Rather than chastise students or criticize our education system as inadequate to prevent violence, this day celebrates children and their accomplishments as students, athletes, artists and young leaders. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey have already declared a day each April as Care by Celebrating Children Day, and I present this remark in hope of expanding the day's recognition to the national level. I hope that this day, which honors, celebrates, and encourages our children, our most precious resource, will empower children to believe in themselves, working hard to prepare for their future and for the future of our Nation.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 125th birthday of The ADVANCE of Bucks County newspaper. Founded in Hulmeville, Pennsylvania in 1877, the ADVANCE has provided hometown news to its readers in a weekly paper continuously for the past 125 years. The ADVANCE has been a part of my family's required reading for as long as I can remember. My father's career as a township supervisor and the local district justice were covered, and when my younger brother was riding a pony and it ran away with him, his picture made the paper! I still depend on the ADVANCE for hometown news, to learn about local community issues and upcoming events. I would like to offer my heartiest congratulations to Editor Nancy Pickering and the rest of the staff at the ADVANCE, past and present.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I also thank him for his diligent leadership on this very complex issue. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the bill. There are many parallels between what happened in the cellular industry and what is happening in the high-speed data marketplace. The slow rollout of cellular service in the 1980s was related to continuing regulation of the service. That regulatory phase cost consumers and the economy billions of dollars. Significant deregulation since then, however, has increased subscribership and lowered consumer costs. Wireless growth was actually very slow at first. By the end of 1988, there were approximately 2 million cellular subscribers in the entire United States. The FCC made an effort to significantly deregulate cellular service in 1988. This first of two significant deregulatory events in the cellular industry helped make wireless telecommunications the ubiquitous service it is today. In December, 1988, the average monthly cellular bill was $98.02 for the 2 million plus subscribers. Within 4 years of the FCC's deregulatory effort, cellular subscribership reached 11 million, while the subscriber's average monthly bill dropped by nearly 30 percent. Congress undertook the second major deregulatory effort in 1993 and to a great extent deregulated the cellular telephone industry. From 1993 to 1998, wireless telephone subscribership rose from 16 million to 69 million, while the average monthly bill has dropped by nearly 50 percent. Adoption of H.R. 1542 will permit telephone companies to provide DSL technologies at a more rapid pace, with the same results deregulation of the cellular industry produced, more consumers accessing the technology for lower costs.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I oppose the Ney substitute because I believe it and the amendment thereto to follow will kill our crusade against soft money, and our crusade against soft money has to win if our democracy is to prevail. There are those who say that soft money, corporate money, labor money is really about philosophy. It is not about corruption. It is about how these organizations support the parties of their choice with their dollars. For the last 2 months I have spent most of my time investigating the Enron scandal. Just to give an example of what Enron did to further its philosophy, in March of 2000 it gave $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee. The next month in April it gave $75,000 to the Republican National Committee. In May it gave $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee. In June it gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee. And the day before that, it had given $50,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Committee. Mr. Chairman, this is not about philosophy, this is about access and influence; and it corrupts our process. If a Member of this body went to Enron and called them on the phone and said, I would like a check for $50,000 or cash for $50,000, that Member would go to jail for corruption as he or she should. If Enron Corporation gave $50,000 to one of our congressional campaigns, we would go to jail, as we should, because that is corrupt. But somehow if the same Member of Congress goes over to the Democratic Committee or Republican Committee and picks up the phone and says, I need a check for $50,000 for my party so we can get our people elected, that is not corruption? The American people know that is corruption. It does corrupt the process. I have listened to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle lament that without these dollars they cannot get reelected. I remember on Take Your Daughter to Work Day a few years ago I brought my 12-year-old daughter down, and at a Republican National Committee function we were talking about the money we had to raise and how costly it was going to be, and she tapped me on the shoulder and whispered into my ear, and she said, ``Everybody should just do what is right, and if you do what is right, the people will elect you.'' Mr. Chairman, Members should do what is really right and vote for Shays-Meehan.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the chairman of the full committee for yielding me this time and I also thank him for his support throughout this progress on this important piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, this bill, as has been mentioned by the chairman, passed just about a month ago by the overwhelming margin of 338 to 86 in this House and, in fact, it passed in the Senate unanimously. So today we pass the Senate version of this bill so we can get it to the President so we can continue to provide these health benefits for children. It passed by that overwhelming majority because there is wide agreement on just about every facet of this issue. There is universal agreement, no one debates the question, that for decades; in fact, for all of the health history of this country, we have had a serious problem in trying to get pharmaceutical companies to test their products on children so that pediatricians and other doctors and specialists can prescribe these medications in ways that benefit children particularly and take into consideration of the different physiology and the different size and weight of children. Everyone agrees to that. Everyone agrees that since 1997 when we enacted this Better Pharmaceuticals for Children bill, there has been a dramatic and unanticipated flurry of these studies, about 400 of them, which the pediatric community and all of these organizations, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Children's Hospitals, the Elizabeth Glazier Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the March of Dimes, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and on and on, all of these groups universally acknowledge and agree that this has been a saviour in providing good medical information to physicians. There has been one area of dispute, and that area of dispute is what is the proper incentive to give the pharmaceutical companies in order to get them to provide these studies. What we say in the bill is if the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, asks a pharmaceutical company, please provide clinical trials for children for your product, and the company does that study, and we have that information available, we have a clean, simple, neat incentive, and that is, you will gain 6 months of additional exclusivity; when the 6 months is over, in comes generic competition and the prices go down. Now the opponents of this bill have suggested a series of rather Rube Goldberg complicated, unworkable and unfair alternatives to this plan. We have looked at them; and overwhelmingly, the Food and Drug Administration has said to us, we do not want to get involved in those kinds of complicated schemes that are unworkable and unmanageable for us. What we have is working; it is working well. Let us not fix something that is not broken. Let us not quarrel with success. Let us provide another overwhelming vote in support of this legislation for children. Today, Mr. Speaker, I am happy that the House is considering S. 1789, the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act. This bill is the essence of bipartisan policy. It originally passed the House by a vote of 338-86 on November 15, and the Senate passed it by unanimous consent yesterday. Chairman Tauzin, and Chairman Bilirakis, thank you for your leadership and hard work in moving this bill from committee to the floor and for achieving a unified bill with the Senate. Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to have worked with Ms. Eshoo and the 16 other members of the minority who have cosponsored this legislation. Mr. Speaker, this is public policy at its best. Over 400 studies are currently underway to fulfill 200 study requests from FDA. Contrast this with the change that from the prior 6 years, when only 11 studies had been done. As the Food and Drug Administration itself said in its report to Congress, the Better Pharmaceuticals for Children Act has had ``unprecedented success,'' and ``the pediatric exclusivity provision has done more to generate clinical studies and useful prescribing information than any other regulatory or legislative process to date.'' This Act has helped get drugs to kids who need them, let us better understand how drugs work in kids, and also know when we should and should not be giving kids certain drugs. Or as Linda Suydam, the FDA representative who testified in front of the Health subcommittee earlier this year pointed out, ``The results speak for themselves.'' Let me give you an example of how this has worked. Take Lodine, which treats Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. This drug did not have safety and effectiveness in children prior to this program. With the studies, we have determined a new indication for children 6-16 years in age and recommended a higher dosage in younger children. Contrast this with the traditional mindset of just ``taking the pill and breaking it in half'' to determine the dosage for children. This has been a fantastic law. And we can do better. Six of the 10 most used drugs by children have not been studies because they are off-patent. This bill provide the funds for the studies to be completed on those off-patent drugs that are used so often to treat our children. Furthermore, we have developed a foundation to provide resources for the completion of these studies that will have so much value. Some will argue that this is a Republican bill, helping drug companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. This bill, which I am proud to work on with Ms. Eshoo, is the very essence of bipartisanship. It passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 41-6. And this bill has had more Democrat cosponsors than Republican, including several members of the committee. Some of my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle will try to suggest that this bill is both costly and helps blockbuster drugs stay- off competition. This provision is not about blockbuster drugs. Over half of the 38 drugs that have been granted exclusivity do not even make the list of top 200 selling drugs. Simply put, this bill is good policy. It is sound, it is tested. It is tried. It works. We need to reauthorize pediatric exclusivity. We need to send the bill to the President for his signature. America's kid's are counting on it. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on S. 1789 I would like to clarify a point regarding a provision in this legislation. It is my understanding regarding section 15 that the eleven voting members of the pediatric subcommittee of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee, cited in section 15(2)(A) shall be drawn from the pediatric oncology specialists listed in (2)(B) of the bill.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I very much thank my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), and my colleague, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), for putting together this special order. I represent Bucks County in Pennsylvania, and we lost far more than our share of citizens on September 11. We lost at least 12, and I want to talk about a couple of them, if I have time. It was a rain-soaked day not too long ago when we had a ceremony for those who were killed just from one little township in my area, in Lower Makefield Township. And as we sat out in a park, and all of the families of those who were lost sat and watched and listened to the speakers, and I was among them, a little girl, 4 or 5 years old, her name was Michaela Havlish, came off her chair in the front row. She had lost her daddy. But she stood and sort of danced around and spun around and looked up at the rain coming down. Family members were trying to get her to sit down, but to me she was a wonderful symbol of innocence and the hope that this country still holds. Her father was Donald G. Havlish, Jr., and some of what I will refer to now came from the New York Times. The day of September 11 was this little girl's first day in preschool, and it was going to be a big deal and she could not wait for her father to come home from work that night so she could tell him about it, but her father never came for. Donald G. Havlish, Jr., 53, was a senior vice president of Aon Consulting, and he was among those killed in the World Trade Center. That first day, Fiona Havlish told Michaela that ``Daddy's building was in an accident, a big accident, and nobody knows where Daddy is.'' Later, she changed the explanation to he is up in heaven guarding us. The couple was married in 1993 after a 5-year courtship. Don was a great stepdad to Fiona's two children, now 18 and 20. Yet at nearly 50, he never expected to have another shot at parenthood. He called Michaela, who will turn 4 on October 17, ``my little miracle.'' After Michaela was born, he made a point to ask business associates about their families, encouraging them to focus on what was important. Havlish stopped taking trips overnight. He had a law degree from Duquesne University, but made his living as a broker of insurance, arranging corporate benefits packages. The commute from their home in Yardley, Pennsylvania, to the World Trade Center took up to 90 minutes each way. He made it a point to get home by 7 every night so he could have the evening with his family. Since September 11, Fiona has not been back to her job as a visiting nurse. She holds her days together by making lists of everything that needs to be accomplished. Her loss drags at her like an undertow, yet she is determined to keep her husband's memory alive for her daughter and herself. She says, ``I was very lucky. I got to fall in love at first sight, and I got to stay in love the whole time.'' I also want to talk about William (Bill) Godshalk. His parents are friends of mine. I have known them for years. They are civic leaders in their community. James and Grace Godshalk had 5 children. The one that they lost was William. He was the wildest of them all. At 10 years of age, he played shortstop in Little League. Once he caught a ball, but he dropped it when the base runner ran into his glove. Well, he attacked the other player. His father walked on the field and pulled his son back, and his father said, ``He needed me, and I needed him so much.'' James Godshalk taught his son sports, and in the process taught him how to calm himself. But Bill Godshalk kept his wild and adventurous heart even as a 35-years-old vice president at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in the World Trade Center, said his fiancee. At the memorial service for his son, James Godshalk, was reminded of a verse by James Whitcomb Riley: ``Old man never had much to say 'ceptin to Bill, and Bill was the wildest boy he had, and the old man jes' wrapped up in him!'' That is Bill Godshalk, and he will be missed enormously. I want to briefly talk about Louis Nacke. His first wedding anniversary would have been September 16. He was on Flight 93 on what would have been his first wedding anniversary, and he was feted with his favorite food and wine by the family he left behind. He would have wanted it this way, said his father-in-law, Robert Weisberg, and I spoke with Mr. Weisberg on the phone after September 11. ``It was very poignant, and we will always remember him.'' Nacke was 42. He lived in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and he was killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Nacke and his wife, Amy, had been living with Weisberg, Nacke's father-in-law, while they waited for their home to be built. He was a voracious weight lifter and a proactive guy who oversaw operations in K-B Toys warehouse in Clinton, New Jersey. He really did not want to go. He was not much of a flyer. Maybe 2 or 3 times a year he would fly. Timing was just unbelievable, said his father-in-law. Mr. Weisberg wishes he could turn back the clock. Those who knew Louis Nacke knew, because he was such a physical go- getter, they have no doubt that he was among those who rushed the cabin and one of the real heroes of September 11. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for organizing this Special Order.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time, and I thank him for his great support in moving this legislation to the floor tonight. It has been a good debate; but I think at the end of the debate it is time to get our focus back on what this bill is about. It is about children. That is why it is called the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act. In the history of medicine in America, we could never figure out a way to get the drug companies to do studies on children, delicate children, children who get sick from taking drugs. We could never find a way to get these studies done so we could bring the benefits of modern medicine that the elderly enjoy, that the middle-aged enjoy, fully to the children of America. It could not be done. In 1997, my Democratic proponent of this bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I, wrote legislation that did that. We broke the impasse after all of those years, and we have just begun to reap the benefits from it. The children of America have just begun to reap the benefits from it. The Federal Food and Drug Administration said, ``The pediatric exclusivity provision has done more to generate clinical studies and useful prescribing information for the pediatric population than any other regulatory or legislative process to date,'' period. That practically says it all. But there are two arguments that have been raised. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) raises a relatively arcane argument about labeling. This bill is all about labeling. This bill is about making sure that when a doctor sees a sick child and a doctor thinks medicine is good for that child, the doctor can open the box, pull out the pills, read the label and find what is the best dosage for children. How do we do that? We do that by creating an incentive for these studies to be done. And when the pediatric exclusivity is determined has nothing to do with how the product is marketed. The fact of the matter is, we give them 6 months exclusivity, and in return, we get decades and decades and decades of good knowledge about how to make sick children well. You can take my word for that, or you can take the word of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) on that, or you can take the words of the General Accounting Office, which said ``The pediatric exclusivity provision has been successful in encouraging drug sponsors to generate needed information about how drugs worked in children. The infrastructure for conducting pediatric trials has been greatly strengthened.'' Now, there is a second argument. The second argument is this question about are we paying the drug companies too much to do these tests? The basic premise of the bill is this: If the FDA asks you to study your drug on children and you do the study, you add 6 months to your patent before it expires. It is the same for everyone. Now, the tortured logic of the opposition is, here is what we should do: If your drug is so successful in reducing suffering in America, so successful in curing the disease, you get penalized; now, if you have a drug that is not so successful, not a lot of people take it, it does not seem to be all that popular with the medical community, well, we will let you make more. We want to penalize success, and to penalize these companies for easing the pain and the suffering of Americans through the products they make is ridiculous. We ought to all get behind this bill, like every children's health group in America has, and support it overwhelmingly because it deserves that kind of support. Today, Mr. Speaker, I am happy that the House is considering H.R. 2887, the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act. This bill is the essence of bipartisan policy. It was reported out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 41-6, and the Health Subcommittee by a vote of 24-5. Chairman Tauzin and Chairman Bilirakis thank you for your leadership in moving this bill from committee to the floor. Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to have worked with Ms. Eshoo and the 16 other members of the minority who have cosponsored this legislation. H.R. 2887 represents public policy at its best. There are now 197 drugs being studied that are undergoing 400 studies with respect to how these drugs affect kids. Contrast this with the change from the prior 6 years, when only 11 studies had been done. As the Food and Drug Administration itself said in its report to Congress, the Better Pharmaceuticals for Children Act has had ``unprecedented success,'' and ``the pediatric exclusivity provision had done more to generate clinical studies and useful prescribing information than any other regulatory or legislative process to date.'' This act has helped get drugs to kids who need them, let us better understand how drugs work in kids, and also know when we should and should not be giving kids certain drugs. Or as Linda Suydam, the FDA representative who testified before the Health Subcommittee earlier this year pointed out, ``The results speak for themselves.'' Let me give an example of how this has worked: Take LODINE, which is prescribed for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. This drug did not have safety and effectiveness in children established prior to this program. With the studies, we have determined a new indication for children 6-16 years in age and recommended a higher dosage in younger children. Contrast this with the traditional mindset of just ``taking the pill and breaking it in half'' to determine the dosage for children. This has been an incredibly effective law. But we can do even better. Six of the 10 most used drugs by children have not been studied because they are off-patient. This bill will provide the funds for the studies to be completed on those off-patient drugs that are used so often to treat our children. Furthermore, we have developed a foundation to provide resources for the completion of these studies that will have so much value. Some will argue that this is a Republican bill, helping drug companies. Nothing could be further from the truth. This bill, which I am proud to work on with Ms. Eshoo, is the very essence of bipartisanship. It passed out of the subcommittee by a vote of 24-5. And today, we have more Democrat cosponsors than Republican, including several members of the committee. Some of my colleagues on the opposite side of the aisle will try to suggest that this bill is both costly and helps blockbuster drugs stay- off competition. This provision is not about blockbuster drugs. Over half of the 38 drugs that have been granted exclusivity do not even make the list of top 200 selling drugs. Simply put, this bill is good policy. It is sound. It is tested. It is tried. It works. We need to reauthorize pediatric exclusivity. Vote yes on H.R. 2887.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, rapid population growth and urbanization have become catalysts for many serious environmental problems and are applying substantial pressures on infrastructure, manifested in pollution, transportation, health, sanitation and public safety problems. This situation makes urbanization an issue that we cannot afford to ignore. Cities and urban areas today occupy only 2 percent of the earth's land, but contain half of the world's population and consume 75 percent of its resources. It is therefore important for us to recognize the problems associated with rapid population growth and urbanization. Governor Ridge has proclaimed the week of October 21-27, 2001 as World Population Awareness Week in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and I would like to support the Governor in this effort by entering his proclamation into the Congressional Record. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Governor's Office, Proclamation, World Population Awareness Week, October 21-27, 2001 Whereas, the 21st Century offers enormous environmental and societal challenges for governments at all levels; and Whereas, these challenges call for innovative leadership to ensure resource conservation, protection of open space, waste prevention, sanitation management to provide quality of life. These challenges are inextricably linked to patterns of considerable demographic change; and Whereas, world population is projected to increase by almost 80 million per year with 98 percent of population growth predicted to occur in the least developed countries of the world. This growth can lead to disease, hunger and starvation; and Whereas, demographic problems are not limited to the under developed nations. These problems are also a reality in the United States in other industrialized nations. Therefore, I, Tom Ridge, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do hereby proclaim October 21-27, 2001, as World Population Awareness Week in Pennsylvania. I encourage all citizens to reflect upon these challenges and seek rational, humanitarian and community-based solutions. Given under my hand and the Seal of the Government, at the City of Harrisburg on this eleventh day of July in the year of our Lord two thousand and one of the Commonwealth the two hundred and twenty-sixth. Tom Ridge, Governor.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, on September 11 when America was attacked, nearly every American had the same response and that was that we needed to immediately defend our people and defend our Nation against this evil, and the Congress, including this House, immediately after that attack, authorized force, military force to accomplish that end. Our military force are the airplanes and the aircraft carriers and the smart bombs and the weapons that we have, but that military force is nothing except for the men and women in our Armed Services, volunteers all, who fly those airplanes, who drive those ships, who leap out of airplanes with parachutes and are prepared to serve their country. Last weekend, we lost our first two fine American young military personnel, and one of those fine soldiers was from my district. His name was Kristofor Stonesifer, and he is the son of Rick and Ruth Stonesifer from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Mr. Stonesifer, Jr., was a pretty extraordinary young man. He knew from a very young age that what he wanted to do was to be the best combat soldier this country had to offer. He left his service in ROTC because he wanted a greater challenge, and when he joined the Army Rangers, he found that challenge indeed. This was a young man who was aboard a helicopter in Pakistan, prepared to extract our special forces, when as we know tragically that helicopter crashed and he lost his life. Mr. Speaker, we will undoubtedly lose more lives in this, what will probably be a protracted war, but the first of them was among the finest young men that we had to offer, and I on behalf of the House would like to extend my condolences and our condolences to his parents and remind ourselves as a House of Representatives, as a Congress and as a Nation that it is only because of the likes of Kristofor Stonesifer and his willingness to train and prepare for battle that we, in fact, can authorize force and can have a force that will prevail and will protect this country.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I thank the Women's Caucus and all of the sponsors of this special order for taking the time. I wanted to just briefly reflect on what the advances that we have made in breast cancer have meant to our family. My older sister, Alice, has just been through all of this. She will kill me for saying she is older, but she is just a tad older than I am, I look older. She went through the screening. She learned she had a lump. She had the surgery. She had the chemo. She had the radiation, lost all of her hair but never lost her courage, never lost her character, never lost her love of life; and she has come through it remarkably well. So well that she is now pursuing an advanced degree and living as active and rich and full a life as ever she has. Had it not been for the money that we have sunk into research in so many ways, I do not think that my sister, Alice, would be with us at this time; and on behalf of her family and my family and our whole clan, I wanted to express our gratitude to researchers and the doctors and recommit myself to continuing to support whatever is necessary in terms of financial resources to continue that research so that not only may our family enjoy the blessings of a cure for breast cancer but millions of others may as well.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. I thank the chairman of the committee for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, I rise to offer my strong support for the Bioterrorism Enforcement Act of 2001. This legislation grew out of an oversight hearing held by the committee in May of 1999 which exposed serious gaps in our Federal criminal and regulatory laws governing deadly biological agents, such as anthrax, the plague, smallpox and botulism toxin. If anyone ever doubted the need for tighter controls on these agents, the tragic events of the past several weeks should put any such doubts to rest once and for all. Because these agents can be so deadly if they fall into the wrong hands, the Federal Government has a responsibility to ensure that only those individuals with a legitimate need to possess and work with such agents can do so. At the same time, we must ensure that the important research work going on with these agents, to develop vaccines or other treatments, for example, can continue, with appropriate safeguards. I would like to elaborate on this point with respect to the bill's prohibition on certain classes of foreign nationals from accessing such agents here in the United States. The bill prohibits all aliens from doing so, with the exception of those lawfully admitted here for permanent residence. I understand that many in the pharmaceutical, research and academic communities rely on foreign nationals to conduct research, although it is unclear how many of these foreigners actually work with the most deadly agents covered by this bill. I know that some in those communities would want us to limit the prohibition to only those foreigners from terrorist-sponsoring states. The problem with that approach is that very few states are on that list, and it does not include many of the nations whose nationals were represented among the September 11 hijackers. Nevertheless, the bill contains a provision that would grant the Secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, in consultation with the Attorney General, the ability to issue waivers for certain aliens or classes of aliens that would otherwise be restricted under this bill if the Secretary determines that such waivers would be in the best interests of the United States. I believe that is a fair compromise. I would also like to mention one other aspect of this bill that I think is very important. The bill contains a provision that would exempt from mandatory disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act certain information collected under this new regulatory regime, such as the locations of those agents or the identity of those working with them. This is a narrow exception to the otherwise free flow of unclassified information, one that is warranted by the sensitive nature of this data, and is similar to what this Congress did 2 years ago with respect to worst-case chemical accident data collected by the Environmental Protection Agency. Again, this represents a fair compromise among the competing interests at issue here. I thank the gentleman for yielding time for me to speak on this important, and unfortunately very timely, issue. I am honored to have worked with the gentleman on the legislation that the House will consider today.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Bucks County Housing Group and the Bucks County Community College Students in Free Enterprise for the remarkable achievements of the Wheelz 2 Work Program. This innovative program provides donated cars to clients receiving services through the Bucks County's Homeless Assistance Program. As many of you are well aware, reliable transportation is critical to clients pursuing education, training, and employment as a means of securing self-sufficiency and permanent housing. The Wheelz 2 Work Program fills this need in addition to providing the community a tangible opportunity to be involved in a family's success. The program helps establish a long-term solution by providing a key element that allows people to maintain employment and/or advance in education. Of significant achievement is the donation of the program's 100th car this October 2001. Nancy Lawrence of Pipersville is donating her 1985 Honda Accord to Housing Group client Michelle Heintz. Ms. Heintz, a single mother with a 3-year-old child, recently graduated from a medical assistant training program. Thanks to the highly successful Wheelz to Work Program, Ms. Heintz will now have a reliable way to get to work. Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) is a nonprofit organization that gives students the tools to learn the free enterprise system in a real working situation. SIFE challenges students on more than 700 college campuses worldwide to take what their learning in the classroom and use this knowledge to better local communities. Bucks County Community College SIFE students launched the Wheelz 2 Work in 1995 as an integral part of its community outreach activities. These students have brought extraordinary energy and leadership to the partnership with the Bucks County Housing Group on behalf of the agency's housing clients. The Bucks County Housing Group is a private, nonprofit social service agency that provides comprehensive continuum of housing programs for homeless and low-income families throughout Bucks County. Founded in 1979 in response to the increase in the number of homeless families in the county, the Housing Group has worked cooperatively with both the public and private sectors to develop and expand essential services. At present, the Housing Group operates four homeless shelters, two transitional housing programs, a food pantry program and owns and operates three apartment complexes. In addition, the agency offers a First-time Homebuyers' Program and a Homeowners' Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program. The Bucks County Housing Group and the BCCC Students in Free Enterprise have substantially improved the quality of life for 100 families in their county through their exemplary collaborative efforts. They will continue their important effort to reach out to many others. For this I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring these two organizations for outstanding service to the community.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1900.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1900, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2001. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention was created by Congress in 1974 to help communities and States prevent and control delinquency and to improve their juvenile justice systems. The nature and extent of juvenile delinquency has changed considerably since the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention was created, and this reauthorization has taken that into account. This office has not been reauthorized since 1994, although a similar bill has passed this House by overwhelming margins at least twice since then. This year we have an opportunity for both the House and the Senate to pass this legislation and get it to the President for his signature. I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) for their good work in marking H.R. 1900 up through the Subcommittee on Select Education and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for their able assistance in reporting the bill from the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) for joining me in introducing this legislation. This bill is virtually the same legislation the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and I successfully negotiated on a bipartisan basis last Congress. We are looking forward to having the House and the Senate pass this measure so after 6 years of hard work, the reauthorization of this act can become law. I want to particularly emphasize the spirit of bipartisanship my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), has put into this measure from the beginning. Tough issues have not been easily resolved; but day after day, week after week, year after year the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and his able staff have been extraordinarily good natured and willing to wrestle these controversies to the ground. I thank my legislative director, Judy Borger, who has worked tirelessly on this legislation for years. As all of the Members know, we do the talking and we do some of the thinking in terms of concept, and then it is the staff that works the 12- and 16- and 24-hour days hammering out the language and doing all of the detail work that finally makes it possible. I also thank Denise Fort from the staff of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), who has worked equally tirelessly, as wells as Bob Sweet and Chris Anne Pierce from our committee. H.R. 1900 is designed to assist States and local communities to develop strategies to combat juvenile crime through a wide range of prevention and intervention programs. This legislation acknowledges that most successful solutions to juvenile crime are developed at the State and local levels of government by those individuals who understand the unique characteristics of youth in their areas. By combining the current discretionary programs into a prevention block grant to the States, and allowing States and local communities discretion in how such funds are used, we allow the local officials to use their own good judgment, and based upon the realities of each situation, and yet we have not given them so much flexibility that harm could be done to the children. It is an extraordinarily difficult task to create a juvenile justice system in each of the States and in each of the counties that can respond to the very, very different young people in our society who get caught up in the law. But I believe that this bipartisan bill represents good policy. The bill successfully strikes a balance in dealing with children who grow up and come before the juvenile justice system who are already very dangerous and vicious criminals, and other children who come before the juvenile justice system who are harmless and scared and running away from abuse at home. We dealt with very sensitive issues like the deinstitutionalization of status offenders, how to assure that juveniles who need to be temporarily housed with adults be held out of sight and sound of adults, how to address the overrepresentation of minorities in the juvenile justice system, and determining the correct balance between block-granting funds to the States and keeping some strings attached. We added language directing the States to give priority in funding to programs and activities that are based on rigorous, systematic, and objective research that is scientifically based; and we found a way to provide the additional flexibility that our local officials need, still protect society from dangerous teenagers while protecting scared kids from overly harsh kids in the juvenile justice system. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 1900. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. GREENWOOD. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1900) to amend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to provide quality prevention programs and accountability programs relating to juvenile delinquency; and for other purposes, as amended.