Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2498, The Cardiac Arrest Survivors Act which includes language based on a bill I introduced in March together with my colleague from New Jersey and Co- Chairman of the Bipartisan Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease, Chris Smith. Our bill, ``The Alzheimer's Clinical Research and Training Awards Act of 2000'' creates a new clinical research program at NIH to improve the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease. Mr. Speaker, I want to say a special word of thanks to Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley for accepting the Alzheimer's provision as part of this legislation. This important public health bill is a feather in his health care cap as he prepares to retire from this body, and I thank him. I would also like to thank the Ranking Member of the Commerce Committee John Dingell, and Senators Kennedy and Frist in the other body, for constructing a strong bipartisan public health bill. Alzheimer's Disease is on track to become the epidemic of the 21st Century. Today 4 million Americans are afflicted and by 2050 it is estimated that this number will increase to 14 million. That's right Mr. Speaker, 14 million Americans will face the devastation of losing their independence, their personality, and their memory--the very threads of life that gives one his or her identity. Funding for basic research to find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease is important and I'm pleased that this year's funding levels will increase to over $550 million. But there's no way to know when a cure will present itself--it could be in two years or ten years or twenty years. In the meantime people are suffering. A recent study conducted at the Oregon Health Sciences University indicated that 65% of patients with probable dementia are going undiagnosed. This study highlights the crucial need to improve recognition and assessment of dementia patients. The language included in H.R. 2498 addresses this need. The Alzhiemer's Clinical Research and Training Awards program is designed to compliment the 30 Alzheimer's Research Centers across our nation which currently focus on basic research and are administered through the National Institutes on Aging at NIH. During my own personal experience with my mother's Alzheimer's disease, top Alzheimer's researchers and clinicians underscored the crucial need for providing a bridge between Alzheimer's laboratory research and new methods of diagnosis, treatment and prevention. This program provides awards to junior and mid-level physicians to focus their careers on Alzheimer's and to train as physician scientist specialists to improve and apply cutting edge research to Alzheimer's patients. Researching a cure for tomorrow is critical, but we also need to do better in treating those suffering with Alzheimer's Disease today. The Alzheimer's Clinical Research and Training Awards program takes a first step in doing the very best we can in providing cutting edge diagnosis, treatment and prevention for those who are and will be effected by the epidemic of the 21st century.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, if you take a look at the back of your Social Security card, you will see the statement: improper use of this card and/or number by the numberholder or by any other person is punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both. Now, the premise of the Amy Boyer bill was supposed to be that we would ensure that we protected against a felon purchasing any one of our family's Social Security numbers and then using it in a way, as did the stalker of Amy Boyer, to kill her, or to do anything even less severe than that that just interfered with the privacy of the families of our country. What has happened, however, is that the bill has now been amended by the Senate and sent back to us, although we never agreed with this, and here is what the back of the card is going to say from now on: improper use of this card and/or number by the numberholder or by any other person is not punishable by fine, by punishment, by imprisonment, or by anything. You can do whatever you want with America's Social Security numbers. So something that was originally intended to protect people like Amy Boyer, a 21-year-old young woman, and everyone else in our country like her has now been transmogrified by the direct mail industry, by every other institution in America that wants to turn each one of our family members into a product marketed as though we have no privacy rights, no ability to protect our own information, and use the Social Security number, the government-provided Social Security number, as the clue to every single person's privacy in our country. We should reject this Senate provision. On the House side, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), we all agree on what should be the protection. There really is not a debate on the House side. But just because it is the last minute of the session, we should not accept something that turns privacy in our country on its head.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I would complete the debate by thanking the majority for their patient consideration of this legislation. It is very important that it pass this year; and I want to compliment them for reaching this conclusion, which I think is ultimately going to benefit our country greatly in protecting us against the per se antitrust violations which the OPEC nations engage in but because we have no legal authority to do anything about it. Only by the establishment and ultimate deployment of a Strategic Petroleum Reserve or a regional home heating oil reserve are we able to protect the American consumers. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall), all the members who worked on it, especially the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), deserve all the credit in the world for the successful conclusion.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is a very, very important piece of legislation. The bill that we are considering today in fact authorizes several very important discrete provisions which are collectively going to really give tremendous amount of protection to the American people. First of all, this legislation reauthorizes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It reauthorizes it all the way to September 30, 2003. The authorization for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve expired back in March of this year, and we have been operating without that specific authorization. Now, why is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve important? Well, as we saw only a few weeks ago, when the President of the United States announced that he was going to deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, engage in a swap of about 30 million barrels of oil, the price of crude oil dropped from $38 a barrel to down to $32 a barrel. Now, that shows up in tremendous benefits for consumers all across the country, not only in home heating oil, but also in gasoline long term. In fact, analysts predicted that if the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had not been deployed, in other words, if the President had not made it clear that he was going to pare down the OPEC nations by deploying the weapon that we have in our country, this 570 million- barrel Strategic Petroleum Reserve, then the price of a barrel of crude oil would have gone up to $42 to $44 a barrel. So, without question, this is a critical weapon to be used on behalf of American consumers all across the country and it has been successful. In fact, without question, in the absence of that Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we would have been held hostage over the last month to the whims of OPEC nations. But because we have it, Saudi Arabia and others have now said quite clearly that they will increase production as a way of ensuring that the extra oil is in the marketplace because they understand that if we do deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve then their oil becomes that much less valuable. Secondly, there is a provision built into the bill which creates a regional Home Heating Oil Reserve. Now, this is the language which originated in the House language which I authored earlier this year. It is language which will for the first time legally authorize the construction of a Home Heating Oil Reserve. I am very glad that we have been able to reach a workable consensus with the Senate that will allow this to be put in place on a permanent basis. Now, let me tell my colleagues briefly why this is so important to families in the Northeast. Last winter was one of the mildest winters in the history of the Northeast, but despite that we saw dramatic price bites in home heating oil prices during a very brief cold snap in the end of January and the beginning of February. So that makes it very, very difficult if it is a mild winter for an ordinary family up in the Northeast to be able to project what their home heating oil bills might be during a more difficult winter. This year we are on the verge of another crisis. The National Weather Service predicts a colder winter than last year, a return to the Northeastern winters that make Texas an attractive place to be during the winter. On top of that, stocks of home heating oil in New England are more than 70 percent below last year's levels, and that adds up to high prices for consumers throughout the Northeast. In fact, in Massachusetts, winter heating bills will be $900 for an average customer in the Northeast. That is $140 more than last year. The families in the Northeast should not have to choose between heating and eating. To help address those supply shortfalls and price spikes, the Secretary established a 2 million-barrel Home Heating Oil Reserve in the Northeast under the existing EPCA provisions. The issue, however, traces its roots all the way back to 1990 when Congressman Carlos Moorhead from California and Norman Lent from New York and I authored an amendment to EPCA which created on an interim basis a federally sponsored regional Home Heating Oil Reserve. Today we put this reserve on a permanent basis. Specifically, we first authorized the establishment of a Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve of up to 2 million barrels. Two, we authorized the Secretary of Energy to purchase, contract for, or lease storage facilities for the Reserve. Three, we established conditions under which a release from the Reserve would be triggered. Four, we required the Secretary to submit a report to the President and Congress describing DOE's plans for setting up the Reserve and acquiring petroleum distillate for the Reserve. Five, we establish an account in the Treasury into which funds appropriated to fund the Reserve would be deposited, which could then be withdrawn from the account by DOE to operate the Reserve. And six, we authorize appropriations for the operation of the Reserve through 2003. So it is a great provision. Finally, the third EPCA-related provision involves the classic Austin-Boston piece of legislation that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) included as an amendment along with my home heating oil language in the House version of the bill. This provision says that when the price of stripper well goes below $15 a barrel, the Department of Energy has the authority to purchase this oil to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This helps to keep the price of stripper well oil high enough so that there is an incentive for that industry to continue to make the proper investment in maintaining these wells as viable sources of energy for our country. Finally, the bill would also include several extraneous matters: changes to the Federal Energy Management Program, changes to the weatherization grants program, establishing a heating oil research checkoff program, and giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to delegate regulatory authority over small hydroelectric projects to the State of Alaska. Of these additional provisions, only the last one is controversial. Senator Murkowski has added the Alaska hydroelectric provisions to the bill that the administration and the environmental community have concerns about. It exempts hydropower projects of five megawatts or less from FERC hydropower licensing requirements, including environmental mitigation conditions imposed on licenses. I believe it is unfortunate that this unrelated provision should be included in a bill dealing with a potential crisis that could affect families in the Northeast and across our entire country. However, the bill generally deals with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the regional Home Heating Oil Reserve. Both of these provisions are critical to the long-term economic and national security interests of our country. I urge a very strong yes vote from every Member of this body.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) has spent so much time explaining to me the value of stripper wells that at least for the purpose of discussing that issue I become a member of the Texas delegation because of the excellent educational work that he has done on me over the last 20 years and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), whose amendment it was, that ultimately was included in that legislation. In turn, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci), by the way, formerly a part of Massachusetts, has been the most articulate advocate for the creation of a regional home heating oil reserve. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci).

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may hereafter be considered as the primary sponsor of H.R. 1239, a bill originally introduced by Representative Bruce Vento of Minnesota, for the purpose of adding cosponsors and requesting reprintings under clause 7 of rule XII.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, H.R. 4541. I reluctantly intend to vote for this bill today, despite the fact that I have some very serious concerns about both the process that has brought this bill to the floor and some of its provisions. Let me speak first to the process. In the Commerce Committee, Democratic members worked cooperatively with the Republican majority to craft a bipartisan bill that addressed investor protection, market integrity, and competitive parity issues raised by the original Agriculture Committee version of the bill. As a result, we passed our bill with unanimous bipartisan support. Following that action, we stood ready to work with members of the Banking and Agriculture Committees to reconcile our three different versions of the bll and prepare it for House floor action. But after just a few bipartisan staff meetings, the Democratic staff was told that Democrats would henceforth be excluded from all future meetings, and that the Republican majority leader was going to take the lead in drafting the bill. What's more, we were also told the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee was invited into those negotiations--despite the fact that this bill comes within the Agriculture Committee's jurisdiction over in the Senate and the Senate has not even passed a CEA bill. In fact, the Senate Agriculture Committee decided not to include the swaps provisions sought by the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee when the committee reported S. 2697, because these proposals were viewed as so controversial. We then went through a period of several weeks in which the Republican majority staff caucused behind closed doors. The product that resulted from those negotiations was so seriously flawed that it was opposed by Treasury, the SEC, the CFTC, the New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ, and all of the Nation's stock and options exchanges, the entire mutual fund industry, and even some of the commodities exchanges. Democrats, the administration, the CFTC, and the SEC suggested a number of changes to fix the many flaws in this language, and over the last several days many of them have been accepted. That is a good thing. But I would say to the majority, if you had simply continued to work with us and to allow our staffs to meet with your staffs, we could have resolved our differences over this bill weeks ago. We shouldn't have had to communicate our concerns through e- mails and third parties. We really should be allowing our staffs to meet and talk to each other. Having said that, let me turn to the substance of this bill. There are two principal areas I want to focus on--legal certainty and single stock futures. With regard to legal certainly, I frankly think this whole issue is overblown. Congress added provisions to the Futures Trading Practices Act of 1992 that give the CFTC the authority to exempt over-the-counter swaps and other derivatives from the Commodities Exchange Act--without having to even determine whether such products were futures. I served as a conferee when we worked out this language, and it was strongly supported by the financial services industry. Now we are told we need to fix the ``fix'' we made to the law back then. But, I would note that when former CFTC Chair Brooksley Born opened up the issue of whether these exclusions should be modified, she was quickly crushed. The other financial regulators immediately condemned her for even raising the issue and the Congress quickly attached a rider to an appropriations bill to block her from moving forward. The swaps industry was never in any real danger of having contracts invalidated on the basis of the courts declaring them to be illegal futures. They were only in danger of having the CFTC ``think'' about whether to narrow or change their exemptions. But the CFTC was barred from doing even that! What we are doing in this bill is saying--O.K.--we are going to take OTC swaps between ``eligible contract participants'' out of the CEA. They are excluded from the act. Now, I don't have any problem with that. If the swaps dealers feel more comfortable with a statutory exclusion for sophisticated counterparties instead of CFTC exemptive authority, and the Agriculture Committee is willing to agree to an exclusion that makes sense, that's fine with me. However, I am not willing to allow ``legal certainty'' to become a guise for sweeping exemptions from the antifraud or market manipulation provisions of the securities laws. That is simply not acceptable. While some earlier drafts of this bill would have done precisely that, the bill we are considering today does not. That is a good thing, and that is why I am willing to support the legal certainty language today. However, I do have some concerns about how we have defined ``eligible contract participant''--that is, the sophisticated institutions that will be allowed to play in the swaps market with little or no regulation. The bill before us today lowers the threshold for who will is an ``eligible contract participant'' far below what the Commerce Committee had allowed. I fear that this could create a potential regulatory gap for retail swap participants that ultimately must be addressed. The term ``eligible contract participant'' now includes some individuals and entities, who should be treated as retail investors-- those who own and invest on a discretionary basis less than $50 million in investments. These are less sophisticated institutions and individuals, and they are more vulnerable to fraud or abusive sales practices in connection with these very complex financial instruments. If Banker's Trust can fool Procter and Gamble and Gibson Greetings about the value of their swaps what chance does a small municipal treasurer or a small business user of one of these products have? For example, under one part of this definition, an individual with total assets in excess of only $5 million who uses a swap to manage certain risks is an ``eligible contract participant'' for that swap. I think that threshold is simply too low. I don't believe that removal of these retail swap participants from the protections of the CEA makes sense, unless the bill makes clear that other regulatory protections will apply. To this end, the Commerce Committee version of H.R. 4541 would have required that certain individuals or entities who own and invest on a discretionary basis less than $50 million in investments, and who otherwise would meet the definition of ``eligible contract participant,'' would not be ``eligible contract participants'' unless the counterparty for their transaction was a regulated entity, such as a broker-dealer or a bank. That helps assure that they are not doing business with some totally fly-by-night entity, but with someone who is subject to some level of federal oversight and supervision. It is not a guarantee that the investor still won't be ripped off. But it helps make it less likely. The bill we are considering today weakens this requirement. The Commerce provision only applies to governmental entities as opposed to individual investors; the threshold for application of the provision to such entities is lowered to $25 million; and the list of permissible counterparties to the swap is expanded to include some unregulated entities. I believe the original Commerce Committee investor protection provision should be fully restored. Moreover, the bill should clarify explicitly that counterparties who may enter into transactions with retail ``eligible contract participants'' are subject for such transactions to the antifraud authority of their primary regulators. I also have some concerns with the breadth of the exemption in section 106 of this bill, and its potential anticompetitive and anticonsumer effects. There may be less anticompetitive ways to address an energy swaps exemption in a way that provides for fair competition and adequate consumer protections in this market. Such a result would be in the public interest. What is currently in the bill is not, and I would hope that it could be fixed as this bill moves forward. Let met now turn to the provisions of this bill that would allow the trading of stock futures. These new Now, I have serious reservations about the impact of single stock futures on our securities markets. In all likelihood, these products are going to be used principally by day traders and other speculators. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with speculation. It can be an important source of liquidity in the financial markets. But one of the purposes of the federal securities laws has traditionally been to control excessive speculation and excessive and artificial volatility in the markets, and to limit the potential for markets to be manipulated or used to carry out insider trading or other fraudulent schemes. I am concerned about the prospect for single stock futures to contribute to speculation, volatility, market manipulation, insider trading, and other frauds. That is why it is so important for the Congress to make sure that if these products are permitted, that they are regulated as securities and are subject to the same types of antifraud and sales practice rules that are otherwise applied to other securities. I think that this bill, if the SEC and the CFTC properly administer it, can do that. First, with respect to excessive speculation, the current bill provides that the margin treatment of stock futures must be consistent with the margin treatment for comparable exchange-traded options. This ensures that (1) stock futures margin levels will not be set at dangerously low levels and (2) stock futures will not have unfair competitive advantage vis-a-vis stock options. The bill provides that the margin requirements for security future products shall be consistent with the margin requirements for comparable option contracts traded on a securities exchange registered under section 6(a) of the Exchange Act of 1934. A provision in the bill directs that initial and maintenance margin levels for a security future product shall not be lower than the lowest level of margin, exclusive of premium, required for any comparable option contract traded on any exchange registered pursuant to section 6(a) of the Exchange Act of 1934. In that provision, the term lowest is used to clarify that in the potential case where margin levels are different across the options exchanges, security future product margin levels can be based off the margin levels of the options exchange that has the lowest margin levels among all the options exchanges. It does not permit security future product margin levels to be based on option maintenance margin levels. If this provision were to be applied today, the required initial margin level for security future products would be 20 percent, which is the uniform initial margin level for short at-the- money equity options traded on U.S. options exchanges. Second, with respect to market volatility, the bill subjects single stock futures to the same rules that cover other securities, including circuit breakers and market emergency requirements. Third, with respect to fraud and manipulation, the bill subjects single stock futures to the same type of rules that are in place for all other securities. These include the prohibitions against manipulation, controlling person liability for aiding and abetting, and liability for insider trading. Fourth, among the bill's most important provisions are those requiring the National Futures Association to adopt sales practice and advertising rules comparable to those of the National Association of Securities Dealers. Under the bill, the NEA will submit rule changes related to sale practices to the SEC for the Commission's review. Because investors can use single stock futures as a substitute for the underlying stock, they will expect and should receive the same types of protections they receive for their stock purchases. It is significant that in its new role, the NFA will be subject to SEC oversight as a limited purpose national securities association. The SEC is very familiar with the sales practice rules necessary to protect investors. I expect the NFA to work closely with the SEC to ensure such protections apply to all investors in security futures products regardless of the type of intermediary--broker-dealer or futures commission merchant--that offers the product. Fifth, the bill applies important consumer and investor protections found in the Investment Company Act of 1940 to pools of single stock futures. This ensures that investors in pools of single stock futures will enjoy the same protections as other investors in other funds that invest in securities. In addition to these provisions, the bill also addresses a number of other important matters. It allows for coordinated clearance and settlement of single stock futures. It assures that securities futures are subject to the same transaction fees applicable to other securities. It requires decimal trading. And it provides Treasury with the authority to write rules to assure tax parity, so that single stock futures do not have tax advantages over stock options. In addition to these provisions, the bill represents a substantial change from the status quo in which the SEC and the CFTC have shared responsibility for ensuring that all futures contracts on securities indexes meet requirements designed to ensure, among other things, that they are not readily susceptible to manipulation. This bill gives the CFTC the sole responsibility for ensuring that index futures contracts within their exclusive jurisdiction meet the standards set forth in this bill. Most important among these requirements is that a future on a security index not be readily susceptible to manipulation. Because the futures contract potentially could be used to manipulate the market for the securities underlying an index, it is critical that the CFTC be vigilant in this responsibility. Relying solely on the market trading the product to assess whether it meets the statutory requirements is not enough. In particular, the CFTC should consider the depth and liquidity of the secondary market, as well as the market capitalization, of those securities underlying an index futures contract. Perhaps even more importantly, the CFTC should require that a market that wants to offer futures on securities indexes to U.S. investors--whether it is a U.S. or foreign market--have a surveillance sharing agreement with the market or markets that trade securities underlying the futures contract. The CFTC should require that these surveillance agreements authorize the exchange of information between the markets about trades, the clearing of those trades, and the identification of specific customers. This information should also be available to the regulators of those markets. Finally, if a foreign market or regulator is unable or unwilling to share information with U.S. law enforcement agencies when needed, they should not be granted the privilege of selling their futures contracts to our citizens. There is one other important matter that I had hoped would be satisfactorily resolved today, but unfortunately, it has not. Last night, the Republican staff deleted language that appeared in earlier drafts that would have amended section 15(i)(6)(A) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to clarify that single-stock futures, futures based on narrow stock indices, and options on such futures contracts (``security futures products'') are not ``new hybrid products''. I believe that this deleted language should have been reinserted into the legislation. Let me explain why. Currently, a new hybrid product is defined as a product that was not regulated as a security prior to November 12, 1999, and that is not an identified banking product under section 206 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley act. Unless an amendment to the definition is made, security futures products potentially would fall within this definition. Section 15(i) of the 1934 act provides that the Securities and Exchange Commission must consult with the Federal Reserve Board before commencing a rulemaking concerning the imposition of broker-dealer registration requirements with respect to new hybrid products. Section 15(i) also empowers the Federal Reserve Board to challenge such a rulemaking in court. This provision was never intended to apply to situations where the Congress has decided by law to expand the definition of securities. What we are doing today in this bill is establishing a comprehensive regulatory system for the regulation of security futures products. Under this system, it is clear that intermediaries that trade securities futures products must register with the H.R. 4541 rests on a system of joint regulation. That means that both the SEC and the CFTC are assigned specific tasks designed to maintain fair and orderly markets for these security futures products. Amending the language on page 170 to exclude securities regulation of security futures only because they are sold by banks would create an anomalous result. A bank selling securities futures could register with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant but, unlike other entities, it might not have to notice register with the SEC. Effectively, half of the regulatory framework that the SEC and CFTC negotiated over with the Congress for many months would disappear. There is no public interest to be served in eliminating SEC oversight over issues such as insider trading frauds, market manipulation, and customer sales practice rules just because a bank traded the security. The role of the Federal Reserve Board with respect to new hybrid products would be at odds with the regulatory structure for security futures products under H.R. 4541. There is no reason to undermine the structure of H.R. 4541 by giving the Federal Reserve Board a role in the regulation of broker-dealers that trade securities futures products. If this provision remains in the bill, I believe that in order to comply with the intent of Congress, as expressed in title II of this bill, the SEC would have to proceed by rule to require all bank Futures Commission Merchants seeking to sell single stock futures to, at minimum, notice register with the SEC. In addition, the CFTC would have to bar bank futures commission merchants from selling the product unless they have notice registered with the SEC. This is a convoluted way of dealing with a drafting problem that we could and should fix right now, but it is the only way to prevent gaping loopholes from opening up that could harm investors. Because there has been an effort over the last several days to address some of the concerns that Democrats have had about tax parity, swaps language in section 107 of the bill, mutual fund language, and numerous other important provisions, I am reluctantly going to vote for this bill today. It is not the bill I would have crafted. It still contains some serious flaws. But it is a much better bill than the bill that passed out of the Agriculture Committee. However, I must also say that if, when this bill goes over to the other body, some of the outrageous and anticonsumer provisions that were deleted from the House bill in recent days are to be restored, or other equally objectionable new provisions are added, I will fight hard to defeat this bill. And so, I would suggest to the financial services industry and to the administration, if you really want to get this bill done this year, you need to forcefully resist anticonsumer or anticompetitive changes to the legal certainty language, the tax parity language, the single stock futures language, and instead strengthen the consumer and market integrity and competitive provisions of the bill in the manner I have just described. I look forward to working with Members on the other side of the aisle and in the other body to achieve that goal. And I hope that we can have more of a direct dialog on this bill as it moves forward than we have had over the last few weeks.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding me the time, and I thank him for the excellent work that he has contributed to this product, along with the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Leach), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) and all across the spectrum of the House and the Senate. Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant support for this bill today, because of the fact that I still have some very serious concerns about both the process that has brought this bill to the floor and some of its provisions. Mr. Speaker, to the extent to which the bill has been made minimally acceptable to those of us on the Committee on Commerce who work for it, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and I, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) who has spent a lot of time on this bill, I want to thank especially Consuela Washington for her excellent work and Jeff Duncan, from my staff, and the staff of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) for their excellent work in trying to improve this piece of legislation, as best as it could have been improved and still pass the House floor. What we are doing in this bill is saying, okay, we are going to take OTC swaps between eligible contract participants out of the CEA. They are excluded from the act. Now, I do not have any problem with that. If the swap dealers feel more comfortable with a statutory exclusion for sophisticated counterparties instead of the CFTC exemptive authority and the Committee on Agriculture is willing to agree to an exclusion that makes sense, that is fine with me. However, I am not willing to allow legal certainty to become a guise for sweeping exemptions from the antifraud or market manipulation provisions of the securities laws. I do not think that is wise. Mr. Speaker, while some earlier drafts of this bill would have done precisely that, the bill we are considering today does not, and that is a good thing. That is why I am willing to support the legal certainty language today. However, I do have some concern about how we have defined eligible contract participants, that is, the sophisticated institutions that will be allowed to play in the swaps market with little or no regulation, I might add. The bill before us today lowers the threshold for who will be an eligible contract participant far below what the Committee on Commerce had allowed. By the way, we agreed upon that, Democrat and Republican, from the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), that was our standard. I feel that this will now create a regulatory gap for retail swap participants that ultimately must be addressed. For example, under one part of this definition, an individual with total assets in excess of only $5 million who uses a swap to manage certain risks is an eligible contract participant for that swap. I think that threshold is simply too low. I believe that the original Committee on Commerce investor protection provisions should have been fully restored. Moreover, the bill should clarify explicitly that counterparties who may enter into transactions with retail-eligible contract participants are subject for such transactions to the antifraud authority of their primary regulators. Mr. Speaker, let me turn to the provisions of this bill that would allow the trading of stock futures. These new products that would trade on exchanges and compete directly with stocks and stock options. Now, I have serious reservations about the impact of single stock futures on our securities markets, and in all likelihood these products are going to be used principally by day traders and other speculators. There is nothing inherently wrong with speculation. It can be an important source of liquidity in the financial markets, but one of the purposes of the Federal securities laws has traditionally been to control excessive speculation and excessive and artificial volatility in the markets and to limit the potential for markets to be manipulated or used to carry out insider trading or other fraudulent schemes. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill. I hope it receives its support of the full House. It is much better than it had been, but there could have been greater consumer protections built in.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer a few brief additional comments on the so-called ``TREAD Act,'' which passed the House last week in order to clarify the intent of one key provision that was added after committee consideration. The legislation as it arrived on the floor included a provision addressing child restraints. This was a provision that Representative Shimkus (R-IL) had promoted and a subject in which we engaged in a colloquy at the Commerce Committee markup on the bill. I am very pleased that this provision was added to the legislation as it was deliberated on the House floor. Mr. Speaker, it has become increasingly apparent that child restraints are too often marketed for children who are larger and heavier than the anthropomorphic test dummies used by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the sled tests that the agency utilizes. This was highlighted for the Commerce Committee members through the work performed by Consumer Reports magazine. Its independent testing demonstrated that child restraints tested with a child at the highest weight recommended by the manufacturer of that product failed. The House added the provision dealing with child restraints to the TREAD Act specifically to encourage NHTSA to allow child restraints to be marketed for children at specific weights only if the restraint has been tested at that weight, even its this means adding weights to a dummy during testing. Although NHTSA's standard specifies that child restraints be tested at an impact of 30 mph, the Consumer Reports investigation uncovered that tests are regularly conducted at speeds as low as 27.6 mph. This 3-mph differential mean that only 81 percent as much energy is going into the crash. Again, the Consumer Reports' testing indicated child restraint failures when testing was carried out at 30 mph. As a result, I strongly encourage NHTSA to require testing be carried out at speeds of 27.9 to 30.3. American families will be better served by such testing and I thank the Speaker for the opportunity to include these views in the Congressional Record as part of the legislative history on this particular provision of the TREAD Act.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the so-called ``TREAD Act'' and I want to commend Chairman Bliley, Chairman Tauzin, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Mr. Dingell, Mr. Luther, and the many Commerce Committee colleagues who have worked very hard on this bill for bringing this legislation to the floor at this time. Hopefully, with time running out we can convince the Senate to similarly take up legislation on this issue and we can get a bill to the President's desk before Congress adjourns. This legislation was initially prompted by the Firestone recall of some of the over 6 million tires used primarily on the Ford Explorer. As has become readily apparent during the course of our congressional investigation, both Firestone and Ford knew that there were problems years before they told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) or the American public. This legislation has many provisions designed to enable NHTSA to perform its job better and new measures to increase the safety of American motorists and give consumers needed information. The bill includes an increase in civil penalties, consumer protections against the resale of defective or recalled tires, and a mandate to NHTSA to update the tire safety standards, which haven't been updated since 1968. In addition, I successfully amended the bill in Committee to require NHTSA to conduct dynamic testing for rollovers. The fact is that these SUVs, minivans, light trucks represented in 1997 some 46 percent of all new vehicle sales in the United States and they are obviously very popular vehicles. Mr. Speaker, according to NHTSA, rollovers are the second most common type of fatal crash after head-on crashes for all cars--but it is the most common type of fatal crash for light trucks, which includes SUVs, pickup trucks and minivans. And we know today that sport utility vehicles have a 3 times higher probability of rolling over than passenger cars due to their higher center of gravity. And we also know that although traffic deaths reached an all time record low last year, rollover deaths continued to climb--to over 10,000 fatalities last year. In addition to fatalities, rollovers cause 55,000-60,000 serious injuries each year. In my view, given the nature of the types of vehicles on our roadways and auto showrooms today, this dynamic rollover testing is overdue and I believe it will enhance information available to consumers purchasing vehicles for the families. The rollover amendment I successfully added to the bill in Committee tasks NHTSA with the duty to develop, as part of a rulemaking, a consumer information program that best disseminates the dynamic rollover test results to the public. Obviously it will do little good to the consuming public if the rollover test results are not publicized and disseminated widely. Information is the consumer's best friend--and I believe that consumers would be well-served when contemplating SUV purchases, for instance, at the showroom, to have such test results readily available to them. In addition, informational brochures and Internet websites can also be a valuable resource for consumer information. As the rollover provision makes clear, the rollover test requirement does not apply to recreational vehicles designed to provide temporary residential accommodations. My intent in offering this provision was to deal primarily with SUVs, minivans, light trucks--those vehicles that many consumers are purchasing today that have a elevated center of gravity, giving these vehicles a proclivity to rollover in certain circumstances. Nor is this provision intended to apply to multiple stage vehicles such as specialized delivery trucks or custom van conversions produced in extremely limited quantities. These multistage production vehicles are produced by small volume customizer operations. This production ``niche'' is filled by small producers who buy incomplete vehicles (chassis) from the large vehicle manufacturers and mount a specialized body and related equipment on these limited volume vehicles. Specialized delivery vehicles below the 10,000 lbs. gross vehicle weight rating such as ambulances, bread trucks and other custom made, work-related vehicles do not have a mass market and are not the focus of this provision. In addition, I also amended the legislation during Commerce Committee consideration to add a requirement that tire pressure warning systems become standard in vehicles. Such a standard could help save lives, help conserve fuel, and prolong the integrity of tires. When NHTSA looked at this issue in 1979 and 1980, it decided at that time that the technology was too expensive. In the last 20 years, there has been significant development in this technology and the cost is much less. In 1981, NHTSA thought that it would cost around $15 per vehicle and today our information is that it may cost merely $2.50 per car--for all 4 tires. So this technology is but a fraction of the cost that it was when this was last formally considered by NHTSA. For example, new technology allows modifications to the antilock brake system to measure the spin rate of the wheel and this is the technology that has now become a standard feature on the 2000 Sienna van. As I understand it, the way the technology works is that the device monitors each tire and relays information to a warning mechanism inside the car. When the monitor finds a tire that is under-inflated the warning light or sound comes on to indicate a tire pressure problem-- just as a warning light flashes when a motorist's brake fluid runs low today. I believe this modest safety addition will save many lives. It is a provision that responds to the testimony we received from the industry that they expect American motorists to be cognizant of the tire pressure of their vehicles, adjusting it from time to time to insure proper inflation. This is life-saving technology and I am heartened to see that this mandate for in-vehicle, tire pressure monitoring devices is now part of this legislation as it is considered today on the Floor. In addition, the bill contains a third amendment which I authored, the ``early warning'' provision. For the first time, companies dealing with NHTSA will be on notice that they must report information bearing on public safety much earlier than they have in the past. In particular, manufacturers will have to report incidents involving fatalities or serious injuries alleged, or proven, to have been caused by a possible defect. This provision applies both within the United States and in foreign countries where the product sold in that country is also sold in the United States. Everything we have heard in the last four weeks indicates we desperately need this type of provision. I have worked hard with the Republican majority to arrive at a workable and effective provision and the legislation we bring to the Floor now incorporates this important safety improvement. Finally, I believe we need to look at other provisions and other issues more closely as we proceed on this bill as well as other NHTSA- related bills in the future. For instance, I believe Congress must ensure that NHTSA has sufficient financial and personnel resources to fully gauge important safety issues as they materialize. In the case of the Firestone/Ford fiasco the agency maintains it did not have sufficient information to trigger an investigation sooner. Additional staffing and funding for NHTSA earlier may have helped NHTSA notice a problem sooner and thus have saved lives. After all, protecting the public and making sure that the agency charged with automotive safety issues has the resources to do its job is really where the ``rubber meets the road'' on this policy issue and I hope that we can rectify any deficiencies in such funding before Congress adjourns this year. I again want to commend Chairman Bliley, Chairman Tauzin, Chairman Upton, Ranking Member John Dingell, Representatives Luther, Green, and other colleagues who have worked very hard on this bill and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman very much, and I thank him for holding this very important special order. Mr. Speaker, on September 29 of this year, Governor Bush of Texas, attempting to reassure the public that there was no choice to make between oil production and preserving wilderness waxed eloquent on the subject of the Arctic Refuge. ``We should open up a small fraction of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for responsible oil and gas exploration. The Vice President says he would rather protect this refuge than gain the energy. But this is a false choice. We can do both,'' said Mr. Bush, ``taking out the energy and leaving only footprints.'' Leaving only footprints. A wonderful image, is it not, leaving only footprints in the Arctic Refuge? Like Robert Frost and his little cat's feet or Robinson Crusoe discovering he was not alone when he spied the telltale footprints of Friday on the shore of sand before the high tide washed them away. An image of footprints in the Arctic Refuge that the petroleum industry would leave and would love to have linger in our minds, these footprints of Friday or cat's paws in the sand, children walking along the beach. Footprints. It is against the law, of course, as we know, to drill for oil in the Arctic Refuge and the only way that will ever change is if the industry manages to get Congress to change the law. They are very resourceful, this industry. They have put together a dream ticket in the person of an oilman for President and an oilman for Vice President. And now they are engaging in industrial strength poetry as they try to win a license to destroy the wilderness of one of the last places on God-created Earth that man has yet to try to improve. So Governor Bush says his plans would only impact about 8 percent of the refuge. Well, it turns out that what they want to drill is in the biological heart of the refuge, where polar bears den and caribou give birth. Imagine your doctor telling you, ``This won't hurt. We're only going to drill in a small fraction of your body, only about 8 percent, only around the region of your heart, only that 8 percent of your body. That is the only place we're going to operate. Don't worry, we won't touch the rest of you. Only that 8 percent. The heart.'' The heart of this refuge. Now, let us take a look at the industrial footprints that have already been left on the North Slope by environmentally sensitive oil companies which want to drill in the heart of the refuge. These pictures are from Dead Horse and from Prudhoe Bay. They are part of a vast industrial complex that generates on average one toxic spill a day of oil or chemicals or industrial waste of some kind. It seeps into the tundra and becomes part of a new and improved North Slope as it is viewed by the oil industry. This energy sacrifice zone already spews more nitrogen oxide pollution into the Arctic each year than the city of Washington, D.C. That is all of the pollution created in Washington, D.C. is not as great as the pollution created by these sites already in this Arctic North Slope area. As we can see, the drilling for oil takes a huge amount of equipment for roads, for pipes, for wells, for pumping. All the trappings of a massive industrial undertaking have been hauled or flown or barged to the North Slope around Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay. The companies have been able to afford to bring everything in to such a remote location because today they are making money. But guess what? Tomorrow it will still be there, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. All this stuff never leaves. The roads, the pipes, the dry holes, the bulldozers, the spent wells, the gravel pits, it all stays. And together, it makes up a footprint that can only be described as a world-class mess, and it is going to stay that way because once the industry starts making money up there, the last thing they are going to do is to go into debt in order to clean it up. The industrial footprint extends for miles. When it is overlayed on the refuge, we can see that it would end any notion of this treasured corner of God Almighty's earth remaining wild, untrammeled, and untouched. Let me finish by noting that this is Federal land that has been set aside for all of the people of the United States. It does not belong to the oil companies. It does not belong to just one State. It is a public wilderness treasure. We are all the trustees. As far as I am concerned, we are going to have to work as hard as we can in order to make sure that this incomparable wilderness is not touched. There are plenty of other places that can be explored in Alaska; and as Joe Lieberman said in his debate, if we just increase fuel efficiency of an automobile three miles a gallon, it would produce more oil than all of this Arctic wilderness. Let me conclude and compliment the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for holding this important special order. I think all of these issues have to be discussed.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I over the last 20 years have come to know the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) very well. Yes, we do share several things in common. He is Irish Catholic, as am I. Mary Virginia, his wife, is Irish Catholic. What are the odds of two Irish Catholics being in Richmond? I think it is pretty slight. So his good fortune on this planet has obviously been marked by that greatest of all achievements in his life, his marriage to Mary Virginia, and the family which they created. I know that he in his public life is animated by the values that his mother and father instilled in him. I know that he tries every day in our committee to ensure that those principles are in fact fulfilled. I know that those values are animated by the Jesuit education which he was able to obtain at Georgetown University, the same Jesuit education which I have. As we know, the Jesuits can educate in a way in which liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans can both be proud. That is the greatness of the Jesuit tradition. I appreciate that. If there were two incidents that come to mind when I think of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), they are these. When Richmond was under a desegregation order in the 1970s, it would be almost impossible to find a more difficult situation in a more difficult State to effectuate the desegregation of a school system. If I was going to pick one person who could preside over the delicate job of implementing a desegregation order in a southern city, I would pick the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley), because I am sure that then, as we all know now, he is the one person who, with fairness and honesty, can deal with all sides in a deliberation. We know that the Richmond story turned out to be a success, a model. In my own career, I think that while less sensitive, from the perspective of the 1990s in this Congress, when history looks back, they will say that the most important piece of legislation which passed was the 1996 Telecommunications Act. It was not just one piece of legislation, it was 20 pieces of legislation in one. It dealt with every aspect of telecommunications, computer, Internet, satellite, cable, in our country. It rewrote all the laws. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) presided over that in the Committee on Commerce on this House floor and in the conference committee with the Senate. The bill is not perfect, we all know that. Nothing is. But a lot of times when people are doing comparisons, they let the perfect be the enemy of the very good. This is a very good bill. By the year 2000, we have something which stands in testament to the success of that bill. We call it today the NASDAQ. The NASDAQ is nothing more now than the compilation of all the companies that have been the product of that 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) stand at the front of the line of those who deserve the credit for that becoming a new blueprint for our country. The rest of the world has not caught up. It is difficult to change laws in a way that creates a competitive climate that allows for any entrepreneur or any company to believe that if they can raise the money and they have a good idea, that they can successfully compete in a modern telecommunications environment. That is why we right now are number one looking over our shoulder at number two, three, and four in the world in all of these areas. It is not that we are number one necessarily in every area, but in totality we clearly are the world leader. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) was the principal author of that piece of legislation. I stand in admiration for his great contribution to the only on that issue. I mention it because it stands first among all, but it does not mean that there were not dozens of others that we could go down the litany and talk about here this evening. It is only to serve as an example of the type of historic leadership which he has given in his hometown and here in Washington throughout his lifetime, and again, as I say, always animated by the values of his parents, his wife, Mary Virginia, and the Jesuits. As he leaves, this place, having been enriched by his presence, will be able to I think congratulate him on a successful career of historic proportions, and know that we will not see his like again. I thank the gentleman for holding this special order.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express some concerns about the Conference Report on the FY2001 National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 4205. This bill would do many positive things for our nation's veterans and defense workers. It would provide a 3.7% pay increase for military personnel. It would provide lifetime health care for military retirees and their eligible family members beginning in FY2002. It also authorizes a compensation plan for personnel made ill by exposure to toxic or radioactive materials when working on nuclear weapons programs. I fully support these efforts to help the men and women who have served our nation. There is, however, one provision in this Defense Authorization Act that I find extremely troubling. The bill requires the Secretary of Defense in conjunction with the Secretary of Energy to conduct a study relating to the destruction of hardened and deeply buried targets possibly using a low-yield nuclear weapon. This report could be the first step in a program to develop a new nuclear weapon, likely requiring a new round of nuclear weapon testing. I am troubled by the inclusion of this provision for two reasons: (1) current law prohibits the research and development of such devices and (2) this report could be the precursor to renewed testing of nuclear weapons, undermining the United States efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. I am not alone in my concerns about this provision. Twenty-seven Representatives and myself signed a letter to House Armed Services Ranking Member Skelton saying that he should not consider a nuclear option because it has far greater implications that would undermine our national security. The precedent on this issue is clear: the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1994 (Section 3136 of Public Law 103-160) prohibits the Secretary of Energy from conducting research on and development for the production of new low-yield warheads. The new report language represents the first step toward ending that ban on research and development and could ultimately lead to efforts to renew nuclear testing. As a hint of the events to come, the new provision would authorize ``limited research and development that may be necessary to perform those assessments.'' Furthermore, this language undermines United States' international nuclear arms control and nonproliferation efforts. The United States is seeking to end nuclear weapons programs in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, Iran and Iraq, and to restrain Indian and Pakistan from further testing and development of nuclear weapons. Restricting the ability to test new weapons is an important tool in preventing these nations from actually completing work on a new weapon. Enforcing this moratorium requires considerable international cooperation and pressure spearheaded by the United States government. This provision on low-yield nuclear weapons sends a troubling signal that not only is the United States unwilling to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but the U.S. may consider a resumption in testing. This will give the green light to nations with fledgling nuclear weapons programs to begin openly testing. The implications for our national security are far more threatening from this action than from the failure to develop such a low-yield nuclear weapon. If existing weapons do not provide the United States with the ability to deal with hardened targets, conventional, not nuclear munitions should be considered. To put it simply: the Secretary of Energy--and the nuclear weapons research at his disposal--should not take part in this process. Unfortunately, this conference report does not eliminate that involvement, but rather requires the Secretary to participate in this study. Such an important decision should be made openly and not in the guise of a reporting requirement that also happens to authorize limited research necessary to conduct the required assessment. This is nothing more than a nonproliferation wolf in report's clothing. I urge Members to consider carefully the implications of such a proposal. Because of this provision and the authorization for continued testing of a failed National Missile Defense program, I must oppose this conference report.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I think my wife is calling me here. I will not answer it at this time. Hon, I will be calling you back in just a second. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can pass this TREAD bill this year so we do not have to come back. I wanted to make sure that everyone understand how important it is that we move together to pass this legislation this year.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to engage the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) in this colloquy. Second, in the same section in the subsection entitled ``information in the possession of manufacturer,'' we provide that the Secretary may not require a manufacturer to maintain and submit records respecting information not in the possession of the manufacturer. Concern has been expressed that this provision not become a loophole for unscrupulous manufacturers who might be willing to destroy a record in order to demonstrate that it is no longer in its possession. Would the gentleman agree that it is in the Secretary's discretion to require a manufacturer to maintain records that are in fact in the manufacturer's possession and that it would be a violation of such a requirement to destroy such a record?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan very much for yielding me this time. I too want to go down the litany of saints who have participated in the construction of this piece of legislation, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Luther) on our side along with many others, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bliley) and many others on the other side. This has been a piece of legislation which obviously has had to move very quickly. I thank the majority for their cooperation, including three amendments that I was particularly interested in: Dynamic testing so that we would be able to ensure that there is a better understanding of exactly what happens to these vehicles under road conditions rather than some static test that really does not test the full capabilities of vehicles; ensuring that there is a warning system in vehicles in the event that there is a problem with pressure of a tire that could cause a danger to those who are using the car or any vehicle; and an early warning system as well so that there is ample notification that there could be defects in any of these products. What I would like to do right now is to rise to engage the gentleman from Louisiana in a colloquy in order to provide some clarification concerning two matters of particular concerns to the public. First, under the section entitled ``early warning requirements,'' we provide for the reporting of new information to NHTSA generally at an earlier stage than the stage when an actual recall takes place based on the finding of a defect. To protect the confidentiality of this new early stage information, the bill provides in Section 2(b) in the subsection titled ``disclosure'' that such information shall be treated as confidential unless the Secretary makes a finding that its disclosure would assist in ensuring public safety, but with respect to information that NHTSA currently requires be disclosed to the public it is my understanding of the committee's intention that we not provide manufacturers with the ability to hide from public disclosure information which under current law must be disclosed. Would the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) agree that this special disclosure provision for new early stage information is not intended to protect from disclosure that is currently disclosed under existing law such as information about actual defects or recalls?

Mr. MARKEY. I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. There is unanimous agreement on the Democratic side that this is a very good resolution. It is something that does, in fact, capture the sense of the Congress and the American people that more has to be done in order to ensure that these kinds of predatory practices do not endanger the children of the country. My hope is that in the next Congress, we can actually begin to pass concrete legislation that can ensure that we do more to protect the privacy of all children within our country, especially those that are still left unprotected because they are over the age of 12. I thank all who were involved, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode), and all on our side as well. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate the authors of this very well thought out House resolution. As we move deeper and deeper into the Internet era, we reach the Dickensian conclusion that it is the best of wires and it is the worst of wires simultaneously, that it has the ability to enable and to ennoble but it also has the ability to degrade and to debase. It is this duality of personality that we are talking about here today. This resolution is one that basically urges all citizens of the country, parents and educators, librarians, law enforcement officials, everyone in our society to take a more active role in supporting educational programs that help to make Internet surfing safe for young people in our country and to generally support all of the programs in our country that promote Internet safety. It is a straightforward, common sense resolution. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green), a good Democratic Member, added language to this bill which also commends the law enforcement community for everything that they are doing to help to promote an environment in which children are not exploited online. We all know that we have a child online privacy act that protects children 12 and under in terms of their privacy as they use commercial online sites, but we do not have any laws protecting anyone over the age of 12. And we cannot really say honestly that a 13- , a 14-, a 15-, a 16-year-old is not in need of legal protection as well. I think that the next Congress is going to be addressing those issues. But generally speaking, I think that since these children are in a situation with a new technology, in many instances with more knowledge than their parents have, then it is critical for us to continue to reemphasize how important it is that we increase these educational programs so that the children of the country derive all of the positive benefits from the new technology while minimizing this unfortunate side effect which all too often is insinuating itself into the homes of families all across the country. I commend the authors of this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. He is noted for his generosity, and once again that is being exemplified here by his activities on the floor. This is really a sad day when we are listening to Members of the House of Representatives tell every other Member that we should not have any judgment on a piece of legislation; we should just listen to the Senate. Now, the gentleman from Pennsylvania would never, under any circumstances, have the Senate make every decision about every highway, every dam, every railroad in the United States. But he is out here today telling us that for pipeline safety, these pipes that go past homes and playgrounds all over the United States, that we should listen to the Senate. Since when did they become so wise? The bill before us fails to repeal the cost-benefit provision put into the 1996 reauthorization bill. I opposed these provisions then and support their repeal now. Keeping that section on the book's allows for paralysis by analysis. The pipeline companies just squeeze these smaller communities and individual neighborhood groups to death because they cannot get over this huge procedural obstacle which is built into the existing piece of legislation. Secondly, the bill does not meaningfully address the Department of Transportation's failure to enact many of the proposed safety recommendations issued by the National Transportation Safety Board. Here is what the National Transportation Safety Board, Chairman Jim Hall, said in the Boston Globe on March 5, 1999. He said that he would give the Office of Pipeline Safety a big fat F, F, on everything that it has done regarding the safety of pipelines in our country. We are reauthorizing a bill with that kind of a grade being attached to it by the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board? And moreover, the bill itself rejects the amendment which I tried to make in committee which would have held the Department's feet to the fire so they had deadlines that they had to meet in order to ensure there was public safety. Who opposes this bill? I will tell my colleagues who opposes it. The Environmental Defense Fund, the National Resources Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters. In fact, the League of Conservation Voters is going to make this one of the votes for the year to get our grade. That is how important it is to them. So, please, reject this and do the House of Representatives the honor of being allowed to deal with the subject itself and not allowing the Senate to do our thinking for us. Mr. Speaker, submitted, as follows, for the Record, is a letter from the League of Conservation Voters regarding this matter: League of Conservation Voters, Washington, October 6, 2000. Re Oppose S. 2438, The Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2000 U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representative: The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is the bipartisan, political voice of the national environmental community. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scoreboard, which details the voting records of Members of Congress on environmental legislation. The Scoreboard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the press. LCV urges you to oppose S. 2438, the ``Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2000.'' S. 2438 does not contain any of the elements that are needed to significantly improve the safety of natural gas and oil pipelines. According to the General Accounting Office, approximately four major pipeline accidents occur each week. The GAO also found that major accidents are increasing by approximately 4% annually at the same time that DOT's Office of Pipeline Safety's fines against the industry are declining: currently, only one in 25 violators receives a proposed fine. Oil pipelines spill over 6 million gallons annually, an amount equal to more than half of the Exxon Valdez release, and average spill size has been increasing since 1993 to over 44,000 gallons in 1999. LCV believes that legislation to address pipeline safety issues must include the following three elements: 1. Strong regulatory standards (including pipeline testing type and frequency, leak detection requirements, etc.), and effective enforcement of those standards; 2. Expanded liability for releases; and, 3. Public accountability through right-to-know reporting and establishment and funding of regional advisory councils (similar to the councils in Alaska created by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990). Several bills introduced in the House (H.R. 3558, 4792, and 5361) contain some or all of these critical pipeline safety provisions. In addition, LCV believes it is essential to remove the cost-benefit provisions put into section 60102(b) of the pipeline statute during its 1996 reauthorization, which are designed to prevent enactment of new safety and environmental protection regulations by requiring those regulations to meet economic and judicial tests that no other federal agency's standards must meet. We urge you to vote no on S. 2438 and to pass a bill that is more protective of the environment and the public's health. LCV's Political Advisory Committee will consider including votes on these votes on these issues in compiling LCV's 2000 Scorecard: If you need more information, please call Betsy Loyless in my office at 202/785-8683. Sincerely, Deb Callahan, President.