Andy Harris

Mr. HARRIS

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, what is disingenuous is trying to make an argument that somehow this bill falls within current statute. The Budget Control Act is the controlling statutory authority, and this bill is 14 percent above the Budget Control Act. Now, most people might think a move to restore the congressional action to lawfulness is actually a good thing. In fact, maybe Americans watching who have to live by a budget in their households actually wonder why we can't do it here. They look at a trillion-dollar deficit and they say: Wait a minute. I can't do that in my household. Why does Congress do it to the country? The gentlewoman from Connecticut, the gentleman from New York, they share something in common with Maryland: We are where Lyme disease is endemic. No question about it, it is a problem. My problem is not with CDC dealing with Lyme disease. With this amendment, we are now up to $28 million taken from the same source. This pretend bottomless fund that all we have to do is we can draw all we need out of this fund is not the way budgeting works. It is not the way budgeting works in any family. It is not the way budgeting should work here on Capitol Hill. And, again, I remind my colleagues, people look at how Congress operates in wonder--not awe, wonder. They figure: Why can't Congress run the country like I have to run my household? It is because we don't choose priorities here. We say this is important, and it is, but we fail to do what all the families in America do when they decide something is more important. They choose something that is less important and forgo spending money on that. So that is the deficit in this amendment. This amendment is a worthy cause. Lyme disease is a terrible disease, as the gentleman from New York knows. We are not even sure how to diagnose it. Chronic Lyme disease is an enigma to scientists and to medicine. It should be a priority. But coupled with that priority is finding something else that is of lower priority and deciding not to spend as much there and to spend more here. So that is why, reluctantly, I urge the body, if they pass the other amendments that we have chosen--that is, considered since 1 a.m., the last time we met--this would make $28 million out of that mythical bottomless fund that all these good ideas are funded from. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chairwoman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chairwoman, the Trump administration followed the law. I know that for Congress here, we don't really like to follow the law. We think we make it for everybody else, and we don't have to follow it. In fact, the bill we are discussing today doesn't follow the Budget Control Act. It pretends that the law doesn't exist. Now, the Trump administration did the appropriate thing and said: You know what? The law does exist. The reason why we get into trouble, and why America looks at what Congress does, the profligate spending that we have, the trillion-dollar deficits, and the $22 trillion debt is because in some cases like this, we just don't follow the law. The President says: No, we should return to the law. If the Congress thinks we ought to spend more, then pass a bill that changes the Budget Control Act. But, Madam Chairwoman, I would suggest that if the President had not followed the law, the complaint would be: The President is not following the law. You are damned if you do. You are damned if you don't. The President follows the Budget Control Act, submits a budget consistent with that, and then gets blamed by the majority for following the law, not playing make-believe budgets. Madam Chairwoman, our families can't do make-believe budgets. They have a certain amount of money and they have to stay within that budget. But I guess we are Congress. We are different. We can make believe. This is why we have a 9 percent approval rating, because Americans look at what we do here in Congress and say: This isn't the real world. This education is important. There is no question about it, but we have to place priorities. I reluctantly oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chairwoman, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chairwoman, I won't take 3 minutes. We obviously have a lot of work to do this morning and did a lot of work last night. Part of the American Dream--and my parents as well came to this country--and it is amazing that the children of immigrants can sit on this floor, but they came to this country because there is a rule of law in this country. The law right now says, under the Budget Control Act, that we should be spending much less than this bill suggests overall. The Trump administration proposed spending within the law. Now, that law is not a Trump administration law. That law was actually signed by the last President with the majority controlling the Senate. It was a bipartisan agreement, the Budget Control Act. But again, we pretend that it just doesn't exist. This is part of the problem. Americans look at us and say: Wait a minute. You expect us to live by the law? In fact, you insist that we live by the law, and now talk about imagination, this is really imaginary because we are presenting a proposal here today that spends tens and tens of billions of dollars more than the law says we are authorized to spend. That is astounding. No wonder we have a 9 percent approval rating. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, let's get a handle on exactly what this amendment does. This amendment says that we are going to take one of the most controversial areas of research--controversial regarding the ethics of the research--and we are going to say the Federal Government can't determine whether it is ethical. Madam Chair, we have a construct for this. This construct was developed by Mr. Waxman two decades ago in a piece of statute signed by President Clinton that said that when you submit research for funding to the HHS Department, and it is a topic around which there are ethical questions--and there are ethical questions--that the Secretary can choose to seat a panel, not a sham panel, but a panel that consists of attorneys, ethicists, practicing physicians, theologians, and scientists with substantial accomplishments in biomedical and behavioral research. That doesn't sound too sham to me. It is a panel that is going to review it because, Madam Chair, without that, the only review this gets with regard to, for instance, an institutional review board is at the institution that stands to gain the funding when the project is funded. It is because of that conflict of interest that the Congress thoughtfully said, in statute, that we ought to have a mechanism to consider the ethics. Madam Chair, we are going to hear about all kinds of things done with fetal tissue. Yes, they were done decades and decades ago. Those vaccines were done on cell lines that have been around for a long time. Can there be some research that might benefit from fetal tissue? Sure, there can be. But we should always make the determination of whether it is ethical. How can we stand in good conscience and say that we are going to take, on the basis of ethics, one of the most controversial areas of research and wall it off and say that the Federal Government can't consider ethics? Oh, my gosh, that is a step way too far. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, are comments supposed to be addressed to the Chair?

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time remains.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, before I came to Congress, I was a medical scientist. I actually held NIH grants. So, Madam Chair, I find it a little unusual that someone would criticize my opinion on medical science and dismiss it. But we live in a strange world. That is why the American people look at Congress and wonder what is going on. The fact of the matter is that it is not a Trump administration policy that issues where ethics are involved should go to a committee convened to consider that. Madam Chair, I have had things go before IRBs, institutional review boards, at institutions. It is a good first step, and the peer-review process at NIH is probably a good second step. But for some issues like fetal tissue research, where we saw fetal tissue marketed--brains, $800 plus tax--we think it is not at all unreasonable that the Federal Government, before spending a dime of taxpayer money--because, remember, the President's policy does nothing about funding it. It just says taxpayer dollars shouldn't be used unless we have considered the ethics. My gosh, there is nothing wrong with that. The fact of the matter is that Americans don't want their tax dollars spent on things that are unethical, and this is the way that we can determine whether it is ethical. Again, this has not been set up by the Trump administration. This is Mr. Waxman, who will never be confused with a Republican, and signed by President Clinton. I will remind the gentleman that this issue has been discussed in committee for a few years. The committee has come down on both sides of it because this is a controversial issue, and controversial issues are best left to the experts just like this ethics committee statute states. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, even though I don't oppose the amendment, I rise in opposition.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for this. This is a real problem that we have. As a physician, I will tell you, we haven't gotten this right yet. Again, I am an anesthesiologist, and I have been taking care of patients for 30 years, three decades. What we still find is that we have people who prescribe narcotics and opioids. We know, by the way, Madam Chair, that if someone is given a 10-day supply of opioids for an outpatient operation, there is a 10 percent chance that they will be addicted 1 year afterward. Yesterday, my son had an outpatient operation, and he got a prescription for 50 opioid pills. I am sitting there thinking, oh my God, is there an alternative? We were taught for years that if you go to the emergency room and you have a broken bone, you are going to get sent out with a narcotic prescription. Then they did a study that shows that alternating Tylenol with ibuprofen, acetaminophen with ibuprofen, is just as good as the narcotic. My God, for decades, we have been giving people narcotics, unaware that we were committing a certain number of them to a terrible life. And I appreciate the gentleman's passion about it, because we had good news in Maryland yesterday, for the first time, the number of deaths from overdoses went down. But the number of overdoses continues to increase. We got better at preventing the deaths. Now we have to get better at preventing the addiction and treating the addiction. Madam Chair, this amendment goes a long way toward that. I reserve the balance of my time

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, it is already the rule. We are wasting our time here today. These are reported. The hypocrisy of coming to the floor and claiming to be for the children, while opposing the President's supplemental budget that actually will take care of these children. The Members who are going to vote and who support this opposed the President's funding request to actually take care of the thousands of children who are crossing the border every week. Without that money, you can't take care of these children. So the proponents of this amendment--again, this is a totally unnecessary amendment because this is already the policy of the administration. This is make-believe. This administration reports the deaths. It is the hypocritical proponents of the amendment who oppose funding to take care of children on the border for purely political purposes. If they really want to take care of the children on the border, this bill would have included a supplemental appropriation to take care of those children. In fact, that amendment was considered in committee and along party lines rejected. The majority rejected money to take care of the children and now come to the floor and claim to be for the children. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Meadows).

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is, let's stop the charades. This is already an administration policy. I understand the desire to score political points against this President, a president who has come to Congress and said that we need more money because of the flood of children across the border. There were 145,000 people who crossed the border last month, including thousands and thousands of children--he needs money to take care of them--and the majority refuses to bring this bill to the floor. In fact, in a motion to recommit, they voted against it and in committee they voted against it. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HARRIS

Mr. HARRIS. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.