Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, watch out, Grandma. Watch out, Grandpa. The GOP doctors are on their way, and boy, do they have a prescription for you. Every senior citizen gets three bitter pills to swallow: Pill number one is a half-dose of dollars. The Republicans provide less than half the money that Democrats provide to seniors in their plan so that they will not be burdened by the soaring cost of prescription drugs, but the Republicans will not allow a vote on that plan. Pill number two is a poison pill for Medicare. The Republicans are diverting Medicare funds into risky private drug plans with no maximum premiums and no guaranteed coverage in a cynical drive to privatize the Medicare program. But they will not allow a vote to prevent the privatization of Medicare. Pill number three is a privacy piracy. The Republicans allow the pharmaceutical fat cats to exploit Grandma and Grandpa's sensitive medical secrets in marketing schemes without their knowledge or consent, and they will not allow a vote to protect that privacy, which is inside of the Democratic bill. ``GOP,'' it used to stand for ``Grand Old Party.'' ``GOP'' now stands for ``get old people.'' Vote ``no'' on the Republican plan tonight.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. The motion which I am offering at this time on behalf of myself, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and many other Members is to ensure that as the Members of the House now meet with members of the Senate on the energy bill, that the Members from the House be instructed that none of the expenditures inside of the bill, as it is finally produced, using the number which is now in the House bill, $34 billion worth of subsidies, should be paid for out of the Social Security or Medicare trust fund. The bulk of the subsidies in the bill go to the oil, to the gas, to the coal, to the nuclear industries. Some of it goes to the renewable industries. That is all fine, but it should not come out of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. Senior citizens in our country have worked too long and too hard in building those trust funds so they can be there to provide both for the income retirement guarantee and for the health care guarantee. Otherwise we will see a cutback in the quality of health care which senior citizens get and a cutback in the amount of money they will have on a daily or weekly basis to pay for the necessities in their life. So this is the critical moment where we begin to decide whether or not we are going to be tough on the squandering of the trust funds. We have already seen over the last several weeks votes that now will extend the estate tax benefits to the wealthiest people in our country. There are going to be efforts coming up later on this week to do the same thing when it comes to the marriage penalty deductions. What about the senior citizens? What about the people who built this country? What about the greatest generation? My colleagues do not have a surplus to do all those other things until they are sure they are not taking it out of the Social Security and Medicare trust fund. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

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

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of the time. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and I and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), all of us want an energy bill. All of us know that we need a new energy plan for our country. That is not what this debate is over. This debate is over who is going to pay for the energy bill. Now, last summer, August 1, we raised this issue. The Republicans contended that they could vote for a $1.7 trillion tax cut, and the President said, do not worry, there is plenty of money left over for Social Security, plenty of money left over for Medicare. And the Republicans on the House floor said, what is your problem? There is a surplus. There is plenty of money. Let us pass this energy bill now. Now, we hear the chairman of the Committee on the Budget out here on the floor saying, the surplus is gone, all gone. Now, the Democrats said that last August 1, but it is kind of like the dog ate my homework. Al Qaeda ate the surplus. Now, we were saying this on August 1. It is gone. Now, what are we told? Do not worry. Who cares if we have deficits? Who cares? Grandma cares. Grandpa cares. Because there is only one other place to go: the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. What this energy bill does is set up an oil rig on top of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, and it begins to drill into those trust funds. That is why they care, because grandma and grandpa were told last summer, do not worry; there is plenty of money. Instead, a pipeline is being constructed into their pockets. They are being tipped upside down and the money from their trust funds is going to be shaken out onto this House floor and transferred over to the oil, to the gas, to the nuclear, to the coal industries. Now, we can all debate on whether or not they deserve subsidies, but I think we should all agree, it should not come out of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds for the greatest generation. That is not an energy plan that comports with the crisis that we are in. It is patriotic to fight al Qaeda. It is patriotic to fight terrorists. It is not patriotic to take the money out of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. We must find that money from some other place in our country, and the majority and the President have a responsibility to promote that plan. They have yet to do so. Vote for the Markey-Stenholm resolution rejecting the plundering of the Medicare and Social Security trust funds.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm).

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

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the litany of saints has been mentioned of staffers who have worked on this bill. I would like to add just two more: one is Jeff Duncan, who is my legislative staff director; the other is Kristen Kulinowski, who is in the gallery right now with her mother and father and husband, who worked on the provision that will provide for the Federal Government to give to the States or to local communities who request it the potassium iodide which would serve as the antidote to thyroid cancer which is the very real and greatest danger in the event of a successful attack of a bioterrorist group at a nuclear power plant or an unwanted accident at a power plant. And so this is a huge step forward, which I believe is going to really increase public health and safety. I want to thank the majority for their great assistance on this and thank all the people in the minority as well for their great help. Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend the conferees for their hard work on this important bill. H.R. 3448 includes a provision of mine that will take an important step toward protecting public health in the event of an act of terrorism at our Nation's nuclear power plants. I thank Mr. Tauzin for working with me in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to include a provision on stockpiling potassium iodide to protect public health in the event of a successful terrorist attack against a nuclear power plant. Potassium iodide is a safe and effective drug that protects the thyroid gland by saturating it with a safe form of iodine so that it cannot absorb the radioactive iodine produced during the plant's normal operation. My provision, which was adopted in committee and passed by the House with broad bipartisan support, will provide greater protection of public health than existing programs. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a voluntary program that provides States with free potassium iodide for people within 10 miles. However, a State must submit a formal request to the NRC to get the free pills, and some States have refused to do so. My provision allowed States or local governments to request potassium iodide for people within 20 miles of these plants, thus expanding the radius of protection beyond the 10-mile emergency planning zone, and would have allowed local governments to request this important protection even if the State had refused to accept the NRC's offer. The bioterrorism bill that was passed by the Senate had no potassium iodide provision, so we worked together in conference committee to produce the amended provision under consideration today in title 1, section 127. This amended provision directs the President to provide potassium iodide to States and local governments, and provides a mechanism for local governments to request the pills where the State has not done so. The local government is eligible to request potassium iodide from the President only if the State government does not have a plan for stockpiling or has a plan that does not go beyond 10 miles. The local government must first petition the State to modify the State's plan to include the population requested by the local government. If the State does not modify its plan, the local government must submit a stockpiling and distribution plan to the State and the State must certify that the local government's plan is not inconsistent with the State's emergency plans. In addition, the conferees agreed to commission a study by the National Academies on the most effective and safe way to distribute and administer potassium iodide on a mass scale. I wish to make clear that this study will not consider the overall safety and efficacy of potassium iodide as a medical preventative to thyroid diseases caused by exposure to radioactive iodine. The Food and Drug Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Agency, and Federal Emergency Management Agency have all concluded that potassium iodide is safe and effective. In fact, the FDA has stated that the risks of radiation-induced thyroid cancer in children so far outweigh the negligible risk of side effects, that it is better for a child to take a full adult dose than to take no potassium iodide at all. Thus, the study will only address how best to incorporate potassium iodide into a comprehensive emergency plan that may include evacuation and sheltering. One thing I would like the National Academies study to consider is whether a 20-mile radius goes far enough to protect people in the event of a core melt-through plus breach of containment. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's own documents show a significant risk to the thyroid as far away as 200 miles from the plant in such a scenario, yet the official evacuation zone only extends to 10 miles. The NRC disputes this documentation yet has failed to produce for me any new studies that justify the 10-mile zone. The Chernobyl accident resulted in increased thyroid cancers hundreds of miles from the plant. I would strongly recommend the National Academies study whether 20 miles is sufficient. While this provision doesn't go as far as I would like, it is an important first step in expanding the radius of protection from nuclear terrorism. I thank all the members of the conference committee who worked on this bill and I urge my colleagues to vote for its passage. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. The goal of this legislation is to try to harness the best of the new technology and to put it at the fingertips of kids and parents and teachers across the country. One of the things we have to remember about technology and innovation is that the technology itself is neither good nor bad in and of itself. It only becomes so after it is animated by human values. The great truth of the Information Age is that the wondrous wire that brings cyberspace into the home or the school or the business will have a certain Dickensian quality to it. It will be both the best of wires and the worst of wires simultaneously. The Internet can debilitate and debase core values, but it also can educate and ennoble us as well. The bill is designed to create a haven, a cyberspace playground to ennoble, educate and entertain children 12 and under in a safe and secure way. It is an additional tool that we can put into the hands of parents, and then each parent who decides to do so can use it as another weapon to fight off the debasing effect that parts of our culture can have upon children as they are growing up. It is about time that Congress and the Federal Government put something on the books that gives this kind of a tool to the parents of the country. My friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), already went down the litany of saints, the staff who worked on this bill: Kelly Zerzan, Will Nordwind, Brendan Kelsay, Mike O'Rielly, and on my staff, Collin Crowell, who worked very closely with the majority in crafting this bill, and he mentioned Courtney Anderson on their side. My mother was a Courtney, and she always told me that the Courtneys are very intelligent people. And we have Courtney Johnson on our side who worked with Courtney Anderson on this bill, and I just did not want there to be a Courtney intelligence gap that opened up between the Democrats and Republicans on this bill. We were equally represented by these highly- intelligent people. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Again I want to recommend to all the Members that they support this legislation. It is a real step forward in giving parents a tool they can use to protect their kids under 12 when they are on-line. The sooner we pass this is the sooner we can put this additional protection in place. I want to thank again the majority for their cooperation in working with us in a way in which we can craft a bill that we can honestly recommend to every Member, Democrat, Republican, liberal or conservative, that will move forward to help the families in our country. 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 in strong support of this bill. I am an original co-sponsor, along with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus), of this legislation as well as many other Members. I want to commend the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and everyone else who is involved with this excellent process that has led to a consensus, a bipartisan proposal. The bill was approved unanimously by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and I want to congratulate the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) for his fine work in the processing of this legislation. It is, in fact, a very good bill. As many parents today know, the Internet often appears to be a veritable jungle of websites. When a child logs on to search for games, stories or educational material, search engines often churn up pages for kids laden with pornography, violence or other content that is simply not appropriate for young children. To give children their own playground on the Internet and to facilitate the easier browsing and filtering of contents that many parents desire, we have introduced H.R. 3833, the Dot Kids Implementation and Efficiency Act. This bill directs the Department of Commerce through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration to accelerate the creation of a dot kids domain by making it a secondary domain under our Nation's country code top level domain which is dot U.S. The Department of Commerce awarded a free contract last October to authorize private sector management and commercialization of dot U.S. Therefore, what we are talking about here today is the creation of a place on the Internet for websites that end in dot kids-dot U.S.; for example, www.example.Kids.U.S. The proposed ``dot kids'' domain will be a cyber space sanctuary for content that is suitable for kids and will be an area devoid of content that is harmful to such minors. I want to address at this point very briefly some of the free speech concerns that any endeavor of this type will inevitably raise. First, let me emphasize how this approach departs from previous congressional activities in this policy area. First, the proposed legislation will not subject all of the Internet communications to a harmful-to-minors standard. If you are in Tennessee, Taiwan, or Timbuktu, you can publish or speak any content you want on the Internet. This proposal does not affect your ability to do so on a dot com, dot net, dot org or anywhere else. This proposal now only addresses a subset of Internet commerce, the dot U.S. space. Moreover, it does not even curtail speech through the entirety of the dot U.S. country code domain. If you are in Providence, Rhode Island or Provo, Utah, under this bill you are free to exercise your constitutional rights and this legislation contains no proposal which would subject anyone utilizing the dot U.S. space to a standard suitable only for kids. Speech more appropriate for adults or teenagers will not be affected by this bill and can appear anywhere else in the dot U.S. domain. The bill solely stipulates that if you want to operate in the dot kids areas, a subset of dot U.S. country code domain, you have entered a kid-friendly zone, a green light district, where the content is suitable for children 12 and under. The dot kids proposal is not aimed at censoring Internet contents, per se; rather, it is crafted to help organize content suitable for kids in a safe and secure cyber zone where the risk of young children clicking outside of that zone to suitable contents or being preyed upon or exploited online by adults posing as kids is vastly diminished. Organizing kid-friendly contents in this manner will enhance the effectiveness of filtering software and enable parents to set their children's browsers so their kids only surf within the dot kids domain. I also want to emphasize that use of the dot kids domain is not compulsory. Signing up for a dot kids domain or parents sending their kids to websites in that location remains completely voluntary and the free choice of both speakers and parents. Finally, I want to note that this bill is not meant in any way to diminish or thwart the many laudable private sector efforts to create new and affirmative ways for kids to have a safe and educational online experience. Our efforts here today are meant to supplement, not supplant, initiatives underway elsewhere by ensuring that our dot kids country code reflects our public interest goals as a society in a way that hopefully can harness the best of advanced technology for kids across the country. Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus) for his leadership on this legislation, and I want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) for his excellent work in this area. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Silicon Valley, California (Ms. Eshoo).

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment that is before the House that I would hope as the staffs talk right now we might be able to work out some form of a compromise on; but pending that, the subject is around the whole subject of a robust nuclear earth penetrator. Now this weapon is one which is contemplated being used as a nuclear weapon to be a bunker buster, but potentially bigger than that, in fact, and will breach this psychological and political barrier that we have established in the world for 57 years that nuclear weapons are not usable. What my amendment says is that there should be a permanent prohibition; that is, that no funds should be available to the Department of Energy for any development, testing or engineering of a nuclear earth penetrator weapon. The objective, of course, is to say if we moved to that phase of testing, unfortunately, it would most likely result in a breach of the test ban accommodation which has been lived with by the United States and the Soviet Union and the rest of the world for the last 15 years or so. Since we already have a generation of nuclear earth penetrating weapons, it seems to me it does not make a lot of sense for us to run the risk of sending a signal to the rest of the world that we are trying to dissuade from using these weapons towards the goal of just improving one to make it more usable, but at the same time because of the sensitivity of our relations with Russia, amongst others, in terms of their nuclear testing, but every other country in the world that we are trying to convince that nuclear weapons are unusable, that as we cross this nuclear Rubicon we are sending a very strong signal that the weapons are usable. So my amendment seeks to stop the testing, stop any engineering or development of such a weapon. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Rule. The Republican attack on our Nation's environmental laws in this bill reminds me of the old quote from a U.S. officer during the Tet Offensive--``We had to destroy the village in order to save it.'' Here, we have a situation where the military has told us that it can assure readiness without the exemptions being sought by the Republicans. Down at Fort Bragg, for example, the Army has been working with the environmental community to protect endangered birds and set aside additional land outside of the base for wildlife habitat. Readiness has not suffered--just ask the Taliban and Al Queda. In fact, the environmental laws provide exemptions for activities necessary for national security. And to date, no exemption has ever been sought by our Armed forces. In fact the most damning word the Air Force could conjure up to describe the effect of current law is ``subtle.'' And the Marine Corp admitted that the Fish and Wildlife Service is ``sympathetic'' to DOD's needs. Our military personnel are well-trained and ready for action and they have successfully coexisted with environmental laws for the past 3 decades. Nevertheless, in this legislation the Republican Majority says we must destroy the environment in order to save America from the terrorist threat. The Republicans have chosen to grant the DOD broad exemptions from our environmental laws wrapped in the cloak of national security and military readiness. What is really happening here is that those people committed to dismantling the environmental laws that protect public health and the environment can't do it directly because the public outcry would be too great. So, instead they wrapped up their arguments in the cloak of national security and tried to pass off despoiling the environment and threatening endangered species as necessary because of the war on terrorism. Don't be fooled by the new national security wrapping. This is the same old package--the elimination of laws inconvenient to some but crucial for protecting public and environmental health. I urge you to defeat the previous question. Let's defeat this gag Rule that prevents us from considering an amendment to delete these anti-environmental riders.