Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2269 is a bill that is sort of sitting out here, and there does not seem to be much interest. There are not many people over here, but this is a very important bill. American industry has moved away from fixed benefit pension systems and given people 401(k)s. People on this floor, we have 401(k)s, those of us who came after a certain date. We do not have a fixed benefit for all of our money. We have to put it in the stock market and see what happens. In 1974, we set up a restriction that the advice investors got had to come from somebody that was disinterested. In the last few years, the stock market has gone crazy and everybody has been watching their 401(k) go up, up, up. Somebody must have gotten the idea that they were left out of the process, so they came with this piece of legislation. This legislation eliminates workers' protections. All of us want our workers to have people give them some advice, but we also know something about human nature. Human nature says if I am going to recommend something that is in my interest or something that is not in my interest, but might be good for workers, I have a tension. I have a conflict whether I recommend investors buy my product or whether investors buy the product over here that might be better for them. Members know everybody is not above slanting things. Everybody wants an advantage, as long it comes to them. What the present law does is prevent somebody who is offering a product from benefiting from it. What this piece of legislation does is say, we are going to let anybody give advice, no criteria whatsoever for what they know about, financial instruments or anything else. They can recommend, if they work in the trust department of a bank, they can make a recommendation; and the American workers are putting their pension, a substantial portion of what their future pension is, in the hands of people who have a vested interest in directing them in a particular direction. Mr. Speaker, that, in my view, is not responsible on the part of Congress. I do not think we should be doing this. We have an alternative which the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) will put forward that corrects this. Members say included in this there is disclosure. I do not know how many Members in this Congress can honestly say that they have ever read any contract they have been involved in, such as a life insurance policy, automobile insurance policy, a policy related to homeowners insurance and whatever information that is given about investments. Do Members read all of the way down that Charlie Brown, who is making the investment offerings or giving advice, also makes 3 percent on everything that is bought from XYZ Company? How many Members see that? Would it be the requirement that the person making the advice say, I want to bring investor's attention to page 3, line 1, that says I am going to make money off this if I recommend XYZ Company. There is nothing like that in this bill. My belief is that this is a bad piece of legislation; if we do not adopt the Rangel-Andrews amendment or the alternative, we will be doing a disservice to the American people. I do not know how many Members have been getting advice on their 401(k)s in this place, but I bet there are not very many Members who have made much money in the last little while. Probably they would have been smarter to get out of stocks and into government securities. Who was telling us that? Nobody. That is what we are saying to the workers out there. Workers are going to have somebody who is running a company who says buy the stock in our company, put that in your 401(k). Of course, if the company goes belly up or whatever, we do some financial shenanigans like Enron has done and the investor gets clobbered, too bad. The investor has Enron stock, right, while the guys at the top are doing all kinds of things that are getting them in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I think the advice should come from somebody who does not have a vested interest. I think we should all vote against this bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce). (Mr. LaFALCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. The 120-some members of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian- Americans are very excited to have the Prime Minister here in Washington, D.C. We just had a wonderful lunch where we greeted him, and we look forward to having a positive relationship develop to an even deeper level. The 11th of September was a day that jolted us all, and almost immediately Prime Minister Vajpayee was on the phone to the United States putting out his hand in help, offering bases, something that had never happened before. This is a major sea change in the relationship between India and the United States. I think all the Members of Congress who understand the importance of a stable Central and South Asia understand the strength that Prime Minister Vajpayee has brought to that area. He reached out to his neighbor, Pakistan, and took a bus trip to Pakistan, the first time an Indian Prime Minister had done that in the whole history of India-Pakistan relations. He is a man who walks the talk of peace, and he has become our friend; and we are very glad to have him here.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer special recognition to my constituent, Dr. Millie L. Russell, for her selfless service to the citizens of Seattle and the State of Washington. Dr. Russell has dedicated her life to creating an educational system that reflects the diversity of our community in the Pacific Northwest. Her investments of her talents and skills are immeasurable, and it is my privilege to thank her for her years of service. Dr. Russell has made considerable contributions to education both inside and outside of the classroom. Dr. Russell is an Assistant to the Vice-President for the Office of Minority Affairs Educational Opportunity Program at the University of Washington where she also lectures in biology. Dr. Russell is a member of and holds several leadership positions in the Washington State Association of Black Professionals in Health Care, the Seattle/Mombasa Sister City Association, the National Association of Medical Minority Education, African American Dollars for Scholars Foundation and many others. For many years, she has served on the panel of community members who assist me with interviews of young candidates for appointment to our country's military academies. Mr. Speaker, Dr. Russell has been an enormous asset to the schools of Washington State. Her contributions to the community and her selflessness will not go unnoticed. The thousands of students and professionals she has touched are grateful for the guidance and leadership she has shown. I join them and all her friends and colleagues on this ``Dr. Millie Russell Day'' in my district in thanking Dr. Russell for her service and in wishing her all the best for the future.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I remember last January how excited I was when President Bush stood right here and told us he did not believe that a tax code should pick winners and losers. The gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) said there are real benefits for real people. She said they will be eligible for them. The money will be put out there, and they might get them. Mr. Speaker, if I came out here with a bill that guaranteed that everybody get unemployment insurance and health care coverage when they were laid off, and I also wanted to give $25 billion to the governors of this country to distribute to whatever corporations they wanted to, Members would laugh me off this floor. My colleagues give the guarantees to the corporations, and then Members put the workers out there sort of to hope that the governors have the money or the legislature gets in session. Everybody here who has been a member of a State legislature knows that you cannot get these unemployment benefits out without changes in State law. For anybody to say that this is an immediate benefit is simply missing the entire point. We spent already out here, we gave $15 billion to the airline industry. What did we get? We got 75,000 people laid off. We were told, with very solemn faces, we will get to the problems of the workers. What do we get here as the solemn promise to the workers? $9 billion. If you look at the State of Texas, they have not got enough money in their unemployment insurance to cover workers for 3 months. I know why the President ran for President. He wanted to get out of Texas before a problem ever got there. But what we have is this bill now, and this is our promise. Now we are giving $151 billion. If you take the same figures from the last bill, I guess we will get another 750,000 people unemployed. You are giving this money back, this $25 billion goes back to the corporations that have done well. They had to pay the AMT because they were doing so well they were not paying any taxes whatsoever. If I said I was going to give 15 years of taxes back to people making $25,000 a year, you would say he has lost his mind. They live in this country, they deserve to pay for it, but no, not if you are a big corporation. And big corporations are not job-creating machines. They are money- making machines for stockholders. Incidentally they may produce some service but there they are, and we give them all this money back, and if there is not a stock dividend that goes to all the companies that get this, I will be very, very surprised. Vote against this. It is not fair. There is no tax equity in it. There is no guarantee for workers. It is all for people at the top on the list of 15 corporations.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the real casualty, it looks like, from the 11th of September was the democracy that this House represents. We were told we could have unlimited 1-minutes today, and suddenly they do not want to have us talk. They do not want to have us talk in hearings. They do not want to bring in people to tell us what these bills are going to do, so today you are going to be faced with a bill that had 1 hour of hearings. Nobody came and told us any of the facts about what was in the bill. So we are going to go out when we go home this weekend and tell our friends and neighbors in our district, buy war bonds so you can give $1.4 billion to IBM, buy war bonds so you can give $2.3 billion to the Ford Motor Company. That is going to stimulate the economy, folks. That really is. Without one hearing. What else do we have to do but talk? We do not have an office. We do not have staff. We do not have anything else, but we cannot talk in the House of the people. That is shameful. You ought to vote against that tax bill on no other reason than that alone.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I would like to include the following statement in the official Record. I have the highest regard for Dr. Ayensu, and would like to commend this body's attention to his work. As Dr. Ayensu has rightly stated, the lack of surveillance is a significant problem in the struggle against HIV/AIDS in Africa. If we are to truly overcome this disease, we must heed people like Dr. Ayensu. I hope that my colleagues find his work as beneficial as I have. The Benefits of Mass HIV/AIDS Testing and Counseling for Vulnerable Populations My name is Edward S. Ayensu. I am President of the Pan African Union for Science and Technology, Chairman of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of Ghana, Member of the Independent Inspection Panel of the World Bank and formerly a Director and Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. The fearsome prospect that HIV/AIDS can inadvertently be transmitted to any one of us--regardless of our social and economic standing--requires that decision makers the world over should make a political commitment to help halt this, the most formidable plague of all time. As an African whose continent is experiencing untold levels of human suffering because of AIDS, I would like to offer an observation which is based on extensive field experience. Many people are dying needlessly in Africa and in other developing countries because a large percentage of people in these societies have no means of knowing their HIV-status. Knowledge of one's HIV status provides a powerful stimulus towards self-protection. For those who test HIV-negative, the realization that they are yet to be attacked by the virus results in a strong determination to remain forever free of the disease through the accepted means of self-protection. For individuals who test positive, there is generated a powerful restraint on infecting others. The net outcome is a dramatic check in HIV-spread. Based on our current knowledge of the disease, it is evident that early diagnosis of the infection has enormous benefits for both HIV-negative and HIV-positive individuals. A key line of defense against the rapid spread of the disease accordingly is to ensure that everybody in a vulnerable community is tested as soon as possible--certainly long before the disease begins to break down the immune system and the external manifestation of its dreadful effects set in. It is therefore absolutely essential that we employ the best and the most efficient and practical ultra rapid test kits available today to undertake a mass Shielded Testing and Counseling Program. Most of the currently available tests for HIV are laboratory based and unsuitable for mass testing in the field where the required infrastructure may not be available. However, most of the available rapid tests are not suitable partly because of an unacceptably high percentage of false positives and negatives, and also because of the need for unwieldy logistical support services such as refrigeration. First and foremost the assay must be for blood, serum or plasma and must be stable at temperatures ranging from -20 deg.C to +45 deg.C. This is particularly important because the high HIV prone areas are in pan tropical regions of the world and in countries where the rural communities do not have refrigeration facilities for tests that require it. The test has to be fool proof in its performance with built- in controls to avoid misinterpretations. It must be designed not to produce false-positive and false-negative results. The sensitivity and specificity must be 100 per cent. It must be suitable for mass testing (e.g. up to 1000 people per day with a team of four persons administering the test and serving as counselors). It must be a test that is suitable for clinics, doctors' offices and rural areas where medical infrastructure does not exist. The cost must be lower than the costs for laboratory tests. Finally, it must enable the use of simple pictorial instructions so that uninstructed persons can perform it. For HIV-positive individuals, the heightened awareness of the possible onset of opportunistic diseases enables the latter to be quickly addressed. It further enables the individual to assume a new lifestyle (including good nutritional habits and sufficient exercise) and to take medication that reduces the viral load in the blood. The knowledge of being diagnosed HIV positive will enable the individual to avoid transmitting the virus to others. It will also help the person to develop long-term plans for his or her future and dependents. The problem of arresting the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS is by no means confined to the developing countries. There are, however, highly vulnerable communities (sometimes enclaves) in the developed countries, where the HIV/AIDS transmission is largely heterosexual, and the communities in question are relatively speaking, socially deprived or disadvantaged. It is therefore necessary that the current spread of the disease be viewed as a universal problem, which knows no boundary and requires the collective effort of us all to contain it.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise against the bill. Mr. Speaker, today, Congress blew an ideal opportunity to continue the bipartisan unity it had so nobly demonstrated during the past ten days. This bill could have provided critical aid to an industry in deep financial crisis as well as to their laid-off workers. Instead, Congress is handing airline executives golden parachutes while over 90,000 American workers--to date--are left without so much as a safety net! Congress may have blown an opportunity but the Republicans have demonstrated their opportunistic aims. They neatly wrapped this one- sided bill in a patriotic package, enveloped not by the American flag mind you, but with the American Airlines logo. There is no question that the airlines desperately need this bailout, but why should the government shoulder the brunt of the responsibility--to resuscitate an industry that has shown its true colors--how they feel about unemployment insurance, job training, health benefits for their displaced workforce and safety. Does anyone here seriously believe that the American public will seriously consider returning to the airways when they can't really be sure that these planes are safe or even properly maintained. There isn't any money in this bill that ensures the future safety of our citizens. After all, isn't this an industry that resists government regulation and abhors collective bargaining agreements. And now they are asking us to bail them out! I cannot, in good conscience, vote in support of legislation that doesn't include a package of worker relief benefits. It's time our leadership got their priorities straight. They should have brought a more responsible bill to the floor for our consideration and not wasted this body's precious time.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, Las Vegas is offering flights for $1 to come to Las Vegas, and nobody is taking them. Now, even the gamblers know that the planes are not safe; and we ought to do something, as we are doing with this motion to recommit. But, more important than that, imagine what you would be like if you had a $15,000 or a $20,000 or $30,000 job and you suddenly lost your health insurance, and you had a kid who had some problems, or you had cancer, or you had a husband or wife who had some problems, and you had no way in your unemployment insurance to pay for your COBRA. When I left the State Department to run for Congress, I had to pick up my own under COBRA. Suddenly you have health insurance benefits and they cost $750 a month. You cannot do that on unemployment. Vote for the resolution.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, there is an old Arab adage, ``Vengeance is best served cold.'' The procedure we are dealing with here is red hot. Our history is replete with chaos created by our government going off half-cocked. I was involved in the Vietnam War. I saw the casualties. I was on the floor here when we went to war against Saddam Hussein. And the feeling here today, as I listen to it, is that most people think that Osama bin Laden is involved in this. Now, if we kill him, will the threat from the other operatives be over? Sadly, I am afraid not. We want to have an appropriate response, a cold, carefully planned and calculated response. In the art of warfare, there is something you must learn from your enemy. That particular enemy in this case did not undertake this mission on the spur of the moment. Their plan evolved over months and months and months. Let me make an important point here: I strongly believe that America should respond and severely punish those responsible for these heinous acts. But we must move carefully. Bin Laden, if he is the one, used his brains, not his strength. We, too, should use our brains, not just our strength and power. Your brains must be your strength. Think about it for a minute. Watch who kills the most prey, the bull or the lion. Because the lion is quiet and watching, does not mean he is asleep. I will support this, but I will also reserve the right as Gaylord Nelson and Ernest Gruening and Wayne Morse did, the right to vote against funding if the President is not careful and does not plan carefully.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, for the first time in 187 years, we have been attacked in the continental United States. In 1814, during the War of 1812, both the White House and the Capitol were set on fire and nearly totally destroyed. In the time between, buttressed by two enormous oceans, Americans felt an enormous sense of security. Today, that feeling is gone. It will be a very, very long time before we feel safe again, like before! We grieve--not only for the thousands who died yesterday--but for ourselves. Our natural human response is--first denial--then apathy--and then rage. The United States is the greatest, most powerful nation in the world--a nation that cannot allow itself to react irresponsibly, against innocent people, out of an act of rage. America must be careful in its response. Our prayers go out to the victims and families of the thousands who were senselessly killed and injured. Our nation is committed to eradicating terrorism and bringing those who orchestrated this atrocity to justice. We must not act in haste--by rushing to act out our vengeance against fellow Americans--because America is the world's greatest melting pot, and in today's society, we simply cannot guess at an individual's country of natural origin by their appearance. We have to make sure that we make war on terrorism--not on Arabs! We must make a further distinction between the war on terrorism and the war on Americans of Near or South Asian descent. There have been many references to a second Pearl Harbor, and while the shock and anger certainly are similar and warranted, that anger should not be directed towards our neighbors in ethnic communities across the country. We do not need the attitudes that will lead to a second wave of internment camps. We must set an example to the world. Americans will not lower themselves to the mentality of a lynch mob. We must not make a mistake in our response.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution. There has been such a long period now between our war on Vietnam and now that I think it is only appropriate to have a trade agreement which symbolizes how far our two countries have come. It was not very long ago that President Carter and President Ford were unable to establish any kind of relationship with Vietnam, accordingly, the first Bush Administration got more positive responses to their attempts to begin a new relationship. This set the stage for President Clinton in 1994 to order the lifting the trade embargo against Vietnam. The following year the two countries established ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations. And former Congressman Peterson who had been held as a POW in Vietnam was sent as our first ambassador. I think it says a lot about the need for healing that we have the Vietnam Trade Agreement before us today. Of course, it would not have occurred if the Vietnamese had not become sensitized to our need to return American bodies to their families. And to also have yearly reports made on their progress on human rights--a subject we will discuss later today. But it is here! A bilateral trade agreement which took almost five years to craft. When one goes to Vietnam one expects to be confronted as an American for what took place during the war but 50% of the population were not alive at that time. This is really an old country with very young population who do not see Americans in the same light as their parents and want to establish a new relationship with us. They are eager to open up their country to trade even though to this day there is disagreement between the economic hard-liners and those who want to really open up the Nation. This agreement will do that. Although we do not export much to Vietnam and vice versa at the present time, this is a young and vibrant nation that wants to participate in global economics. They have a high literacy rate and the desire to open up their markets. And American industry wants to sell them lots of goods. Who would have thought that all these years later that our war with Vietnam would result in what could be a highly productive relationship. I believe this is the beginning of a whole new era.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I will ask the gentleman from Texas, the days the House will be in session, will they be pro forma sessions, no legislation will be brought up?

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to come to the well tonight to talk a little bit about an issue that has gotten a lot of attention here on the floor, lots of talk and lots of rhetoric, and that is the whole question of embryonic stem cell research. I am a physician and I know firsthand about taking care of these people; I know about health and the issues of morality, and I have devoted my life to trying to improve the health and well-being of individuals, both in the Congress and in the legislature, as well as in my office. As a physician, I was trained almost 40 years ago, and I am amazed by the medical progress which has occurred over the last few decades. It is hard to believe that in 1924, the President of the United States' son died because he was playing tennis, he developed a blister on his heel, got an infection, and died. That certainly was before antibiotics; it could not happen today. The last 50 years have seen an absolute explosion of medical technology and knowledge in this whole arena. In the new millennium, the issue that is of the most importance and the most promise is the whole area of stem cells. These are the most primary, primitive cells in the human body that start out as one cell and they become human beings. When we think about the things that can be done with stem cells, the possibilities are unlimited, although our knowledge is limited at this point. We have to be able to imagine a day when somebody like Lou Gehrig would have a stem cell treatment that would allow him to live. People like that are hopeless at this point, and stem cell research gives them some hope. I have taken care of people like this, with Parkinson's disease, with Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's Chorea, paralysis, blindness, diabetes, and spinal cord injuries. I put this picture up of Christopher Reeve, Superman, who was riding a horse, broke his neck, and is now paralyzed. This young girl next to him is also paralyzed. These are the people we are talking about finding some help for. Right now, there is no help for either one of them, no hope that they will ever be able to walk again. Stem cells, as I say, are the most undifferentiated cells. When given the proper signals, they become any specialized cell in the body: brain, blood, liver, lung. The opportunities are unlimited. There are three sources of these stem cells: adult stem cells; that is, stem cells we would get out of my body or any other adult's body that are operating in the bone marrow to produce blood or something like that; fetal stem cells, that is in babies that are in the womb and/or developing fetuses that are in the womb and for one reason or another are born either naturally or some other way because of an elective procedure; or the third way is from embryos. Now, how does an embryo come about? People sort of say, where do they come from? Our research right now under the National Institutes of Health in embryonic research is controlled by very strict guidelines. This administration stepped in and stopped what has been going on in this country for the last 8 years. The question we have to ask ourselves is, why is this? Now, my belief is that it has nothing to do with science, it really is a moratorium on for political reasons. Let me explain why I say that. The embryonic stem cells come from in vitro fertilization clinics. There are people out there who try to have children in the normal manner and it does not work, so they go to a clinic, and the woman goes through a procedure by which she creates a number of eggs. They are extracted from her body and put in a test tube. The man puts his semen in the test tube, and we start a baby to develop. Now, that baby, the doctor harvests, and that is the term they use, harvests three eggs, so you have three test tubes. You put these eggs in there and you fertilize them and you start out a child. When the time comes for the woman to get pregnant, they take one of those and put it in the woman's uterus, and hopefully it takes. If the first one takes, we now only have two left. The question is, what do we do with those? We can throw them away, or we can let them be used for this research. My belief is that the possibilities are so great that we must continue this research. Throughout history, people have resisted scientific advancement. History is replete with examples of fundamentalist, religious leaders issuing scientific decisions based on absolutely no evidence. I want to talk today about embryonic stem cell research. There has been a lot of rhetoric out there denying its therapeutic potential, questioning its morality, focusing on adult stem cells, and so on. I am a physician. I know first-hand about health and morality. I have devoted my life to improving the health and well-being of people--on an individual level as a practicing physician, and through health policy-- both in the Washington State legislature and here in Congress. As a physician who trained roughly 40 years ago, I am amazed by the medical progress just over the past few decades. In the first half of this century, an infected blister could kill, as it did to President Coolidge's 16-year-old son in 1924, following a tennis match at the White House. The last 50 years have borne witness to such an explosion of scientific and medical advances that have saved countless lives and alleviated human suffering. As we enter the new millennium, stem cell research is the wave of the future in biomedical research. So much of what I learned in medical school has changed. The untreatable afflictions can be treated, if we just allow science to progress. Imagine the day when Lou Gehrig's Disease is not associated with a miserable and certain death. Think about diabetic children no longer requiring multiple pin-pricks throughout each and every day for the rest of his/her life in order to survive. Picture paralyzed individuals standing up and walking away from their wheelchairs. I have taken care of patients with many of these afflictions. I have friends who have suffered and some that have died. Embryonic stem cell research offers unprecedented promise for these and so many devastating diseases and disabilities--Parkinson's disease, ALS, Huntington's Chorea, paralysis, blindness, diabetes--the list is endless. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which, given the proper signal, are potentially capable of becoming any specialized cell, such as a brain or blood cell. As such, their potential for saving lives is unlimited. There are three sources of stem cells--adult, fetal and embryo. Under the Clinton Administration, the National Institutes of Health issued explicit guidelines for research involving stem cells derived from embryos. The guidelines provide stringent requirements that enable scientists to conduct stem cell research within the constraints of careful federal oversight and standards. Currently, the administration has placed a moratorium on these NIH guidelines and is deciding whether or not to shut the doors on the most promising biomedical research of our time. Throughout history, people have resisted scientific advancement. History is replete with examples of fundamentalist, religious leaders issuing scientific decisions based on absolutely no evidence. It is deja vu all over again today with this current Administration as they inject politics into the single most promising biomedical research of the century. The Administration unfortunately is not committed to research that would hasten medical discoveries, but rather holds science hostage to the Catholic vote. As several New York Times articles report, Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser is concerned about the views of the Catholic Church because Catholic voters are seen as such a swing vote in the elections. The Administration has degraded medical research and the tremendous potential of embryonic stem cell research into an anti-abortion debate. We cannot allow the current Administration to withdraw federal support for embryonic stem cell research. It is unconscionable that purely political considerations are obstructing medical discoveries that could help the 120,000 children and one million adults with Type I diabetes; the 500,000 individuals suffering from Parkinson's disease; the 200,000 living day-to-day with the disabling effects of spinal chord injuries; and millions more. Without a microscope, one cannot even see what this debate is all about. The center of the controversy is a microscopic, days old cluster of cells--this is the embryo. It is stored in this test tube. It is an egg fertilized by a sperm and stored frozen in one of these--is this life? I have a question for those who oppose embryonic stem cell research on supposedly ``moral grounds''--if you were to pass a home that was on fire and there was a seven year old child in this home, would you risk your life to save that child? I imagine the answer would be yes. If, on the other hand, you passed a fertility clinic that was on fire, would you risk your life to save an embryo? Save one of these test tube? Embryonic stem cells are developmentally the earliest of all stem cells, and, therefore, they have the greatest potential to become different body cells--greater than adult stem cells. The embryonic stem cell is a unique type of cell that holds the key to cures for so many devastating diseases and afflictions. This is perhaps the first time ever that a solitary source offers so much promise for a multitude of different illnesses. Limiting crucial research to adult stem cells, a position suggested by the White House and many of my colleagues, is foolishly shortsighted. In fact, the general consensus shared among numerous scientists at a recent National Academy of Science workshop on stem cells was that the evidence for the broad potential of adult stem cells is at best scant. Despite some reports of success, it is certainly unclear whether adult stem cells have the same promise as embryonic stem cells. First of all, cells for all tissue types have not yet been found in the adult human. Second, genetic disorders would be present in the patient's adult stem cells. Third, all evidence suggests that adult stem cells lack the same capacity to multiply as do embryonic stem cells. Another compromise suggested by the White House would permit such research but limit it to the very few cell lines already in existence. Not only is this utterly foolish because there is not nearly enough cell lines to make a significant contribution, but it is also hypocritical. These cell lines were most likely not derived in compliance with the NIH guidelines. As the administration is seemingly preoccupied with the morality and ethics of this subject, they may end up advocating research on cell lines that were most likely not derived with any ethical oversight. Another one of my colleagues has been circulating a Dear Colleague that suggests there is another alternative--that it is possible to remove the embryonic stem cell without destroying the embryo. He refers to a conference attended to by Members and staff at NIH. I was at that conference. The scientists made it abundantly clear that we lack this technology today, and rather, it is years away. We do not have years to waste while we wait. Some of my colleagues have tried to convince us that there is no clinical evidence to support human embryonic stem cell research. Well of course not, there is a federal moratorium on the research! These cells were only recently isolated, the first grant applications were due at NIH last March, and then the administration placed everything on hold. If they ever allow the research to proceed with full urgency, there will be clinical success. Furthermore, my colleagues are regrettably misleading and not up-to- date with the scientific literature. There are in fact numerous studies using animal models that demonstrate the tremendous therapeutic promise of embryonic stem cells. These findings challenge much of what I learned in medical school. For instance, medical dogma for decades accepted no hope for so many neurological disorders. For example, scientists have been able to transform embryonic stem cells derived from mice into the type of neuron that is defective with Parkinson's disease. We know that these neurons work when placed in animals. That is, when these neurons, which were originally derived from embryonic stem cells, are injected into an animal model of Parkinson's, the animal improves. Have any doubts? Here is the scientific paper that describes these promising results. Similarly, researchers have transformed embryonic stem cells into the cell which, when defective causes MS. When this cell was implanted into an animal model with MS, the abnormality was repaired. And here is a scientific paper that demonstrates those findings. Both of these examples demonstrate the therapeutic potential of embryonic stem cells. Researchers have taken embryonic stem cells and turned them into a desired cell that works. These cells are implanted into animal models with different illnesses, and the animals get better. Lets turn to diabetes. This paper describes a study whereby embryonic stem cells are transformed into pancreatic islet stem cells. These islet cells responded to sugar in the right way by producing insulin. For those who say the evidence is lacking, I say, get your head out of the sand. The evidence most definitely is out there. The prevailing expert scientific opinion supports a thorough investigation of stem cells from all sources. Even the recently released NIH report recognized the unique potential of embryonic stem cells. But for the White house, it is not about advancing scientific discovery. Instead, their concern for the ``swing vote'' is their modus operandi. For them, this debate is unfortunately about the next election. Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos that are produced during in vitro fertilization, a process that creates many more fertilized eggs than are implanted into women trying to become pregnant. Unused embryos are stored frozen in test tubes and eventually thrown away. Embryonic stem cell research would use only these excess embryos, obtained from fertility clinics and with consent from the donors. In other words, if the research were not performed, these embryos would be discarded. And how many embryos would be ``saved'' if the research did not take place? The answer is none. Opponents argue for embryonic adoption. But for the most part, the vast majority of couples do not want to donate their genes to strangers. No policy made in the White House or in Congress will result in these couples changing their minds. Thus, we are having a debate over whether to perform life-saving research or to dispose of the embryos and abandon the greatest hope for a cure for so many devastating illnesses. Those opposed to embryonic stem cell research assert that their position is based on ethical and moral grounds. But what is so ethical or moral about prohibiting research to alleviate human suffering? It is utterly hypocritical and outrageous that the opposition remains silent over the fact that these embryos are thrown away in fertility clinics, but conveys such fury over saving them to perform vital life-saving research. How can we compare the importance of a group of cells smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence with the poor quality of life and decreased life expectancy for young children with insulin-dependent diabetes? In fact, it is completely amoral to deny access to the single most promising research of today. The Administration lacks support from many members of its own party, with several conservative pro-life Republicans openly supportive of embryonic stem cell research. When Orin Hatch insists that a frozen embryo stored in a refrigerator in a clinic is not equivalent to an embryo or a fetus in the womb, the Administration's facade of having a commitment to promote innovative medical research is completely undermined. Banning federal funding for such embryonic stem cell research would not eliminate it. Ironically, such research would then take place in the private market without the benefit of ethical regulation. Under the Clinton Administration, the National Institute of Health issued explicit guidelines for embryonic stem cell research. The guidelines provide stringent requirements that enable scientists to conduct research within the constraints of careful federal oversight. Prohibiting federal support for embryonic stem cell research will severely impede medical progress. Federal support is critical because it would greatly expand resources. Not only would the government provide crucial funding, but public support also enables multiple parties to simultaneously pursue critical research, thereby increasing the chances for significant discoveries over a shorter period of time. Without federal support, scientific advances would be held hostage to exclusivity rights held by a single entity in the private market. Furthermore, very few NIH grants were received this past March because investigators fear that the guidelines will be overturned. Without federal support, scientists who work with embryonic stem cells must create a separate lab for such work if they hope to ever receive NIH grants for other areas of research. This is to avoid the possibility of ``contaminating'' equipment for sanctioned research with that of embryonic stem cell research. The ramifications of banning this research will therefore be felt in scientific discoveries far beyond the stem cell debate. Actually, we are already witnessing the consequences, as the exodus of our best and brightest minds has begun. A few weeks ago, UCSF (University of California at San Francisco) lost a leading stem cell researcher who moved to Cambridge, England. He left so that he can proceed with his work. As the university's chancellor for medical affairs said: ``If federal support for stem cell research is not forthcoming, the risk exists that talented scientists will leave academic centers to seek opportunities in the private sector or even overseas.'' America has been on the forefront of scientific discovery. The administration is jeopardizing our position and taking us several steps backward to assuage the fundamentalist attitudes of the minority. The White House is currently ``reviewing'' the matter; in other words, they are assessing the polls and the impact of any decision on the 2004 elections. It is not secret that Mr. Rove has consulted the National Conference of Catholic Bishops on this issue. Enough time has been wasted. The Administration must act now to separate political aspirations from scientific discovery. ``A responsible leader is someone who makes decisions based upon principle, not based upon polls or focus groups.'' The New York Times reminds us that President Bush spoke these words a few days before Election Day. Perhaps someone should remind the President. I implore my colleagues and this administration to support embryonic stem cell research. Furthermore, I urge you to support my bill--``The Stem Cell Research Act of 2001'' (H.R. 2059). This bill not only supports this crucial research, but it also advocates for federal support of the derivation process itself. That is, instead of relying on private companies to derive the stem cells, we must support and fund this process as well. I want to close in the issue of morality. Here is a real-life picture of what we are talking about. This is a picture of an embryo, magnified several thousand times. This area here, between the 8 and 10 o`clock position is the area from which stem cells are obtained. It actually contains about 100 cells. There are more cells in a drop of blood from a pin-prick than there are in this one section of the photo. And here is Mr. Christopher Reeve with a young child--both of whom who were tragically paralyzed. Are we going to ignore Mr. Reeve and this child? I fervently believe that the moral obligation is to help these individuals and the millions of Americans who are suffering from debilitating illnesses and disabilities. We must focus on those already born who urgently await medical progress. For the first time ever, cures for so many afflictions that historically have been considered hopeless are now on the horizon. The fact is that embryonic stem cells come from cells that were destined to be discarded in any case. It is high time to separate politics from science.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, in January when George II was appointed by the Supreme Court, the oil dynasty took this country over again. The real issue of the tax cut, that was a minor issue, but today is a big deal. We have had five sets of elves working in five different places, never talking to each other, with half-day notice when they are going to have a bill, who put together something which we gave to the Committee on Rules, and last night, in the middle of the night, they put it out here on the floor. They were offered 143 amendments. They chose 16, of which three were from the Democrats, as though the Democrats had nothing to say about this whole thing. Mr. Chairman, we have had an interesting crisis created in this country in energy, so we have to have an energy policy. So we have an energy policy in process, but then the prices go down. The Wall Street Journal yesterday told the truth: ``Major oil companies struggle to spend huge hoards of cash. Shell oil is sitting on $11 billion they do not know what to do with. Yet, in this bill, we have to give them $12 billion more.'' Bad enough as that is, we are not even paying for it. This is not a real bill; this is a PR piece for Republicans going home to their districts to say, We passed a comprehensive energy bill in the House of Representatives. They will all do it; they will each pick a piece they like. The folks back home should understand, none of this is paid for. It is all smoke and mirrors. When we come back in the fall, I do not know what they are planning to knock out to come up with $33 billion more. They threw a few things in for solar and a few things here and there, and they are going to stand up and tell us all about the electric cars and all this stuff. But the bulk of it, $20 billion out of the $33 billion, goes to the guys who have hordes of cash they do not know what to do with, and they are driving our electric prices on the west coast out of sight. Mr. Chairman, when are we really going to have a discussion? Maybe we will have to get a new President who is not appointed.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, so much to say. Mr. Speaker, I am here to vote for the Jordan treaty, but the world will little note nor long remember what we do here today. But what was important about today was the President of the United States showed his hand. He is not trustworthy. He will take an agreement, and when it is being out here on the floor he will then write a letter and undo it. Now, let us give them trade promotion authority, shall we? He will go and negotiate, he will bring a treaty in here, we will vote for it, and as we vote ``aye'' or ``no,'' he will be putting in the mailbox at the White House a letter to somebody saying, ``I didn't mean it, guys. This does not really count. You know we didn't really mean what's in this.'' Watch and remember what happened with those letters on this issue. Vote for this but do not forget.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I, like the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), want to say right off the bat that none of us believe in cloning of human beings. Nobody on either side. We get this values argument. None of us believe in that. So stop that. The second thing is that we are here today to talk about a political issue. This is not a scientific issue. I am a doctor, and we will have another doctor get up here and tell us a lot of doctor stuff, but the real issue is a political one here. We are like the 16th century Spanish king who went to the Pope and asked him if it was all right for human beings to drink coffee. The coffee bean had been brought from the New World. It had a drug in it that made people get kind of excited and it was a great political controversy about whether or not it was right to drink coffee. And so the Spanish king went to the Pope and said, Pope, is it all right. Well, we had that just the other day, and the Pope said, this is not right. The Pope also told Galileo to quit making those marks in his notebook. The Earth is the center of the universe, he said. We all know that. The Bible says it. What is it this stuff where you say the sun is the center of our universe? That is wrong. Now, here we are making a decision like we were the house of cardinals on a religious issue when, in fact, scientists are struggling to find out how human beings actually work. We have mixed stem cells together with cloning all to confuse people. Everybody on this floor knows that the best way to stop something is to confuse people, and we have had confusion on this issue because basically people want it to be a value-laden issue that attracts one group of voters against others. That is all this is about, all this confusion. This business about a few cells and working and figuring out how we can deal with diseases that affect everybody in this room, there is nobody who does not know somebody with juvenile diabetes or Alzheimer's disease or has had a spinal cord injury and is unable to walk, or who has Parkinsonism. There is nobody here. And my dear friends putting this bill forward say there is no way, no matter how it happens, that we want to help them if it involves a human cell. Now, my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is going to get up here and tell us we have a section in this bill that says scientific research is not stopped. Read it. It says we can use monkey cells and put them into people who have Alzheimer's, or we can use hippopotamus cells and put them into people who have diabetes, but we cannot use a human cell. And even more so if the British or the Germans, who are more enlightened, do it and we bring it over. If the doctor gets the material from Germany or from England or some other place and gives it to my colleague's mother, he is subject to 10 years in prison and a fine of not less than $1 million running up to twice whatever the value of it is. Now, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) is upset that there is licensing in the amendment, which I will vote for; not because I think we need it but because we have to have it as an antidote to this awful piece of legislation that is here. But the gentleman from Wisconsin says the free enterprise system is here. I thought he believed in the free enterprise system. Would the gentleman want that bill to say let us give it to the National Institutes of Health to make money; make it a government program? No, no, no, he would not want that. Well, who is going to manufacture this if it comes some day to that point? It says the NIH can license at some point down the road. Mr. Speaker, I think that the Greenwood amendment is necessary to stop this papal event that we are having here today.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor today to speak about something that really bothers me. This country has a constant debate within its political body about what role we in the United States will play with respect to the rest of the world. The battle between being an internationalist and being an isolationist is something that has gone on in this country, back and forth. Our decisions in the 1920s in this body to pass the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was a way of erecting barriers around the United States and ultimately led to the depression in 1929. Those of us who consider themselves to be both free and fair traders have had great hope in our decision nationally to deal in trade with the whole world as a way of preventing countries from getting into wars. If one is trading with somebody it is much less likely that one is going to involve oneself in some kind of destructive war that will destroy one's own resources as well as those of the country with which one is dealing. Beginning with the installation of the President by the Supreme Court of the United States, a new isolationism has begun to set in in this country and most people are not paying much attention to it or they are not putting it together and seeing the whole picture. This isolationism is not one of economics but one of which the United States is isolating itself from the rest of the world in terms of public opinion about the problems which face the entire globe. And our country willy-nilly goes along deciding we are going to do it our own way. Never mind anybody else. We will do it our own way. Now, in 1972 they created a convention to prevent the spread of biological warfare, 1972. It has been there for 30 years. But this administration went to the U.N. and said we refuse to be involved in finding any way to enforce that convention. It is the same government that says that we are going to bomb the living daylights out of and sanction Iraq because they are creating biological weapons. If you refuse yourself to be allowed to be inspected on that issue, how can you stand and take a public position in that world and say, but they cannot do it and we are going to isolate them until we stop them. It is simply the United States saying we are bigger than they are, we can do whatever we want. Recently within the last week or so, the Japanese and the European Union decided they were going to try and save the globe from global warming. They came to an agreement, a sort of Kyoto II if you will, because the United States walked away and said we will not be a part of this. We are not going to do anything. We will not worry about global warming. We will continue to do what we have always done. We are 5 percent of the world's population using 25 percent of the energy in the world and producing the largest portion of the global- damaging chemicals in our air. But the rest of the world has said, well, okay, if the United States wants to sit over there on the sidelines we will try to save it without them. We isolated ourselves. The President does not believe in the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He said we have to begin putting up a missile shield because we are really afraid of Korea and we are afraid of Iraq and we are afraid of these rogue countries. We are going to spend 50, $70 billion trying to prevent one missile if it ever should come from one of these countries and, in the process, tear up the treaty that said we are not going to have more missiles. I do not think the problem is going to come from Korea or some other rogue country, North Korea. The problems are the old Soviet Union and Russia and the Chinese and some of these countries. It is much better to have an anti-ballistic missile treaty in place that is gradually bringing the number of missiles down. To say we are going to prepare for the fact that there is going to be an escalation is simply to set it in motion. The minute we put up a shield everybody is going to say we have to arm because the Americans have a shield up and they can zing us any time they want. We will set off back into the Cold War. It is like George Bush won, when the Cold War ended, and they did not know what to do so now they will create Cold War II. That is what is going on here. The CTBT Treaty, the Confidential Test Ban Treaty, the United States will not sign that. Why should anyone else? People get all excited when the Indians do it or the Pakistanis do it. Why? The United States of America will not say we will stop. Where do we have the moral authority to tell anybody else? We have isolated ourselves into a position of moral authority, but we cloak it in a kind of funny way with we will tell all the rest of the world what to do but do not tell us anything. That is not going to work.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise to also oppose the rule. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey) and I must read different things, but let me tell you why. This place passed out a tax cut way out there and now everybody stands up and says, ``We don't have enough money to do what's necessary.'' We are in such a fix that the leadership from Texas has to bring us out here and put us under martial law. Why? Because they want to have $1.3 billion in relief to Texas. Now, yesterday on the Foreign Ops bill, we could pass all this money, 300 and some odd million dollars to wipe out drugs in Colombia. But in this bill, because we need $1.3 billion, we take $310 million in drug money, fighting drugs, out of the public housing in this country. We worry about it in Colombia but not in our own cities. We wipe out AmeriCorps for $445 million. We are getting closer to that $1.3. The issue here is what is an emergency. The White House says that what goes on in India, where they knocked down 100,000 houses and 30,000 people died, we can give them $5 million. That is how much the great and generous and rich United States can do. In El Salvador, where they have had the worst earthquake in history, we give them nothing. So now the message here is to those Ecuadorians and San Salvadorans is get in a bus and get to Texas, because if there is any problem, it will get taken care of in Texas. The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) says that West Virginia has a few problems. Folks, get in the car and get to Texas, because that is what we are going to take care of. We are not going to take care of anything else. We are not going to take care of CDBG. We are cutting money out of there. Of course we passed this community money into the churches so we all better write a letter to our churches, send more money, because you are not going to get it from the Congress.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that really is a very central issue that we ought to be discussing on many levels. That is the question of what relationship we are going to have with the rest of the world. I am one of those people who was involved in the Vietnam War, not in- country, but I saw what happened; and there are lots of reasons why we ought to keep them isolated. Yesterday we had an argument here about Cuba. We have tried to isolate them. We have isolated them for 50 years. It has not done any good. We tried it with China. It did not do any good. We finally opened up to them. Now we have the Vietnamese. Let us isolate them, and somehow they will change. It will not do any good. The only way we are going to get anything done is when we begin to embrace and involve yourself with them. Nobody who is going to vote against this resolution is in agreement with communism. We do not agree with what the Vietnamese government is doing, but we have a difference of opinion about how we involve ourselves in bringing about that change. My colleagues talk about the terrible Communist government and all these awful things. The next issue we are going to do on the floor here, sort of an irony, is that we are going to come out and pass a martial law rule in the House of Representatives. The rules of the House are to protect the minority, and we do not have any problem standing up here and running over the minorities, and then we stand back and say, those awful people over there in that country who run over those minorities. So we have to be careful about being consistent. If we do not want to deal with China, I can understand that; and there were some of my colleagues who are very consistent. They do not want to deal with China. They do not want to deal with Vietnam. They do not want to deal with Cuba. Those people I can understand. But the ones who pick and choose really need to do some thinking. Why are we having this martial law in the next issue up here? The reason we are having it is because the leadership of the House wants to deal with a crisis. There is a real crisis out there. They have had a hurricaine in Texas. So we have to come out here and ram through help for people in Texas. The White House says we should not do anything for the Indians. A hundred thousand houses flattened. Thirty thousand people killed. The United States can give $5 million to India, and that is fine. I heard one of my colleagues say, we cannot let down the Montagnards. They were our allies. What about the people in El Salvador who we dragged through a whole war? Now they have an earthquake, the worst earthquake in the history of El Salvador, and the White House says, no, we are not going to help these El Salvadorans. They are living in the wrong place. They should have moved to Texas or Florida or somewhere we would help them. The question of how we are going to relate and how we are going to get our people into these countries and how we are going to bring about change is a very complicated one. I was in China when China was very tight, back in 1977. I have seen enormous changes. Has it gone far enough? No, it has not. Has Vietnam changed? Yes. Far enough? No. But the question is, at this point should we step back and say these folks are not doing it our way enough so we are not going to deal with them? My view is nothing works that way. That is why I will vote to oppose this resolution. Not because I endorse communism or anything about that regime, but because we will never bring about any change simply by forcing, trying unilaterally for the United States to economically squeeze them into our mold. They will get there because the forces that we have are very powerful, and they will bring it about. Vote against this kind of resolution.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Reclaiming my time, I understand the gentleman's point, but the fact is the message has been sent and received. We have heard the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) already talk about it. That is going to be dealt with. But taking this money out of the bank is only going to cripple their ability to aid small businesses. Big businesses can take risks. They do. It is nice to have the comfort of the Export-Import Bank. But little businesses who make a deal in some country, in Africa or Asia, are very much at risk and they need the capital. I do not see, unless you want to say that the Export- Import Bank cannot lend to any industry that is in competition with the United States, anything made in the United States, why pick on steel? Why should you protect steel? I do not think that you should protect steel any more than you should protect anybody else. We can do that in the authorizing bill.