Buck McKeon

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield now 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Someone on the other side said this bill isn't about equal pay for equal work, but I know others have said it is about equal pay for equal work. I have Mr. Hoyer's statement here, the majority leader, and he began his statement saying equal pay for equal work. That is the principle that we are talking about. The Paycheck Fairness Act is a clever name. Who doesn't support paycheck fairness? Unfortunately, that is not what this bill is offering. No, Mr. Chairman. If this bill becomes law, it will make the system fundamentally unfair by putting the interests of the trial lawyers above the interests of the workers. As I mentioned earlier, we did try to offer an amendment. I don't think it was totally out of line to think that we should maybe limit the trial lawyers working on these cases to $2,000 an hour. But every Democrat voted against that. And then they didn't let that amendment be placed in order to discuss here on the floor. I am sorry that we weren't able to do that. This bill will expose family businesses to unlimited liability even if there is no intentional discrimination. The Democrats' fig leaf amendment doesn't change the fact that trial lawyers stand to receive a big payday by lowering the bar on costly jury awards. This bill will encourage class-action lawsuits, treating the EPA as a litigation factory. This bill will make it harder for businesses to defend against legal challenges, inviting unscrupulous trial lawyers. I say unscrupulous; I have many good friends who are trial lawyers, and I exclude them from that definition. But the unscrupulous ones will pursue baseless claims. Now we know what the bill would do. But what about what it fails to do? It doesn't prohibit discrimination under the law. We did that 45 years ago, as Mr. Price so eloquently explained. It doesn't offer working women new flexibility so that they can balance work and home. Mrs. McMorris Rodgers had a bill earlier that she wanted to present that she has never been given the chance to do so. But it would give women the opportunity to take compensatory time, the same as government workers can do now. If you work overtime, you can be paid time-and-a- half in cash; but if you want to take that time in compensatory time, we do not give people the opportunity to do that. We should do that. It certainly doesn't do anything to bring down the price of gasoline, which is the number one issue many working families are struggling with today. Mr. Chairman, this is a bad bill. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose it. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will not oppose this amendment. I do want to make clear that as the gentlelady spoke, the Chamber of Commerce supports her amendment, not the bill. They are opposed, as I am, to the underlying bill. I want to be clear that adoption or defeat will not change my position on the underlying bill. The so-called Paycheck Fairness Act, which we're debating today, has nothing to do with making paychecks fairer and everything to do with lining the pockets of trial lawyers. The gentlelady's amendment tinkers at the margins of just one of the bill's fundamental flaws. Whether adopted or not, it does not change my strong opposition or the Chamber of Commerce's strong opposition to the underlying bill. The gentlelady's amendment would appear to limit the circumstances in which a plaintiff can recover punitive damages under the bill to those situations where he or she can show that an employer acted with malice or reckless indifference. First, let me point out that nowhere in the Fair Labor Standards Act or Equal Pay Act is this standard of proof, malice, or reckless indifference used. It's an entirely new concept to this statute and one which will no doubt and to no one's great surprise encourage extended litigation to determine its meaning in the context of the Equal Pay Act. Even more telling is what the gentlelady's amendment does not do. It does not limit compensatory or punitive damages but still puts employers at risk for unlimited punitive and compensatory damage awards, remedies far beyond those contained in title VII, nor does it require that the plaintiff show the employer engaged in intentional discrimination. Presumably now an employer can be slapped with a multimillion-dollar punitive fine if a jury finds that he or she was indifferent, whatever that means. When all is said and done, the amendment does little, if anything, to address the radical expansion of liability and the payback to trial lawyers contained in the bill. I'm excited to see what lawyers will do with that in front of a judge discussing indifference and how that pertains to the law. The gentlelady's amendment provides the most modest limitations of the bill's dramatic expansion of liability that one could imagine. Now some limitation may be better than none at all, but this fig leaf does not come close to addressing core problems in the bill. I will not oppose the amendment, but I remain strongly opposed to the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the Republican time in opposition.

Mr. McKEON. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will not oppose this amendment. I don't know that any Member of the House would or could. It is simply a restatement of current law. I strongly believe that every employer and every worker should comply with our Nation's immigration laws. Indeed, I have long argued that our immigration laws need to be strengthened, that we need to get serious about reasserting control of our borders, enforcing the laws that are on the books and enhancing those laws which are failing if we truly want to secure our borders. No one is as committed to those goals as I am. That said, that is a debate for another day, and not the issue presented to us in this bill. We are not debating the question of immigration reform, but rather, whether we should adopt a trial lawyer bonanza under the guise of ``paycheck fairness.'' As I have said before, this bill does nothing to promote fairness in pay, and everything to invite costly, and often frivolous, litigation. Whether the gentleman's amendment is adopted today or not, that fact will not change. This is an ill-conceived bill, based on flawed and demonstrably false economic theories, and sure to lead to unintended consequences for workers and employers. The gentleman's amendment is inoffensive, but it is not particularly meaningful. I will not oppose the amendment, but it does not change my strong opposition to the underlying bill, nor my intention to vote ``no'' on final passage. I would like to address the gentlelady that spoke on the amendment just before. When she concluded her statement, she commented on her fact of having been a small businesswoman and running a family business. I had the same experience for many years before I came here to Congress. It's good to see other small businesspeople come to Congress, and I appreciate her amendment that she presented. And I also want to restate again the fact that, even though the Chamber did support her amendment, that we're strongly opposed to the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think that we have heard in this debate today, 70 percent, 77 percent, over and over and over and over. And when we had a hearing last year, we had a lot of different figures that were given. It seems to me that it is important to have an outside source look at this, and I think the Secretary of Labor should do this study so that we don't do more harm than good. I think this is a good amendment. I thank the gentleman for offering it, and I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the Republican time to speak in opposition.

Mr. McKEON. I will not oppose the gentleman's amendment. As I understand it, the gentleman's amendment does two things: First, it provides a 6-month delay in the effective date of the bill; and second, it directs the Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to develop materials to assist small businesses in complying with the law's new requirements. I do not object to either of these provisions. Indeed, I have always believed that we should do all we can, all that we should to assist small businesses which are the backbone of our economy and the leading source of job growth in our Nation. Frankly, I would say that the gentleman's approach is a decidedly second-best option. As we just heard in debate on the prior amendment, I would support delaying implementation of the key provisions of this bill until we have a full understanding of its impact on jobs and on the recruiting and hiring of employees. If Members genuinely want to make sure the businesses, particularly small businesses, are not unfairly penalized by this legislation, they will, I hope, support the amendment previously offered by my colleague, Mr. Price, which will do just that. I will also say there is a certain irony here. While the gentleman's amendment purports to help small businesses, what it fails to do is address fundamental flaws in the underlying bill, core issues which leave me to strongly oppose this legislation today. As I have said before and I expect I will say again before debate is concluded, the underlying bill offers little to benefit working women and families while threatening to wreck havoc on workers and employers by expanding liability and encouraging costly lawsuits. Nothing in the gentleman's amendment changes that simple fact. I will not oppose the gentleman's amendment, but I would advise Members to not kid themselves into thinking that compliance assistance for small business in any real way addresses core failings in the underlying bill. Whether this amendment is adopted or not, I remain opposed to H.R. 1338 and urge my colleague to join me in voting ``no'' on final passage. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, again, it sounds like we are talking equal pay for equal work, and, again, I support that. I oppose discrimination. I support equal pay for equal job. If we are saying that nurses should make the same as doctors, if the doctor is a female and the nurse is a male, should they make the some money? Or if the doctor is a male and the nurse is a female, should they make the same money? No. I think all nurses should make the same money. Doctors should make the same money if they are doing the same work. Not even all doctors make the same. Some surgeons make more than others, depending on their specialty, depending on what they do. We understand that in our economy what the work does decides on what the pay is. I think if you take everybody working and divide up all of their pay, and you have more women that are serving in occupations that pay less, as my good friend just pointed out, women didn't have I guess the same opportunities in the past as they do now, and so if you took those figures and you had more women working in lower-paid fields, that is how you get the 77 percent discrepancy. But if you took all of the same jobs, added up what they are paid, maybe 40 years ago, 50 years ago there was a lot more discrimination than now, but I think now if you look across the field and equal pay for equal job, you would find there is, if anything, very little difference. Should it be no difference? You bet. And I think you would probably find in some occupations you have women making more than men. And I guess men should probably claim discrimination in that case, but I don't think they should. I think the reason women are paid more is they are probably worth more. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the Republican time to speak on the amendment.

Mr. McKEON. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will not oppose the gentlelady's amendment, but I wish to make clear, as with the other Democratic amendments to this bill that we are likely to debate today, this amendment makes the most minor of improvements to a fundamentally flawed bill. I will not oppose the amendment, but its adoption does not change my strong opposition to the underlying bill. As I understand the gentlelady's amendment, it would strike from the underlying bill a provision which would extend the Equal Pay Act to cover not only employees, but even applicants for employment. I agree that striking this provision is the right thing to do. Under current law, and since 1963, the Equal Pay Act has required that employers pay equal wages earned for equal work performed. It is hard to imagine how the law was ever meant to cover the payment of wages which have not yet been earned for work that has not yet been done. Frankly, the provision should not have been included in the bill in the first place, and I support its deletion. That said, I stress again that this change is, at best, cosmetic and too little too late to address the fundamental flaws in the underlying bill. Put more simply, this amendment is the equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig. At the end of the day, it doesn't change things much. You know where I got that from. I will not oppose the amendment, but I remain opposed to the bill. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman that spoke earlier, a good friend of mine from California, said that I gave a long description of equal pay for equal job, and I thought that that is kind of what the debate was about. People keep talking about wanting equal pay for equal job. They want to have the same pay for the woman as for the man for the same job. Now, if we are just talking about we want just women paid the same as men for whatever job, then that is kind of the figures being used. But I think most of us know, we fly a lot, the pilot usually makes more than the flight attendant. Whether the flight attendant is male or female, they are paid the same. The pilot, whether he is male or female, they are paid the same. But the pilot is not paid the same as the flight attendant. We understand that, and I think that is probably not what we are arguing about here, but it seems like that is the way the debate is going. I support equal pay for the same job, men, women. With this bill, apparently the debate is equal pay for men and women, and I thought that is what we were talking about, because that is what the debate is. But as the gentlewoman said, that is not what this bill does. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the Republican time to speak on the amendment.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve my time.

Mr. McKEON. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. How much time do we have left?

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, let me yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to put it on the record that I like women. I have been married almost 46 years, and we have three daughters and we have three sons, and I would not want the daughters to be discriminated against, I would not want my sons to be discriminated against. I wish we could do something here that would end for all time all discrimination. Unfortunately, I guess when there are people involved in different things, some of them will tend to discriminate. That is why the law was passed in 1963, to level all pay. I want to just on the record make sure that everybody understands when we throw everybody into a pot and then add up all of their salaries, we are not talking about equal pay for equal jobs. One of the things that we learned when we had the hearing last year, when we are talking about actual people and actual jobs, is that many women ended up going into, after graduating from college, many of them go into teaching, many of them go into social work. Many men go into jobs, some of them go into teaching. If they go into teaching, they are hired, they make the same exact wage. If the men go into social work and women go into social work, they make the same wage. But if a person goes into banking at a level that pays higher or into law at a level that pays higher, again, a woman going into law will make the same as a man. But when they throw all of these jobs into the same pile, that is where you get some differentiation in the pay. Again, if we could just hold to equal pay, same job, same pay, I am totally supportive of that. That is what the law says, and that is what we should enforce. And the numbers that I quoted earlier, the pay is almost exactly the same. Where there is some discrimination, we should go after it, we should enforce the law. That is what I would encourage us to do. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. I yield now to the subcommittee ranking member, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Ric Keller, 4 minutes.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it took us 5 long years to get here today on the cusp of the first comprehensive renewal of Federal higher education programs in a decade. I am here to tell you that sometimes what we say is true; good things do come to those who wait. I want to begin by thanking Chairman Miller, chairman of the full committee, and Representatives Hinojosa and Keller, the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, for their strong efforts on this product that we have here today. The four of us have worked as equal partners in this endeavor, not always agreeing, but never losing sight of our shared commitment to making higher education in this country more accessible, affordable, and accountable. Representative Castle has also been a close partner of mine in the effort to reign in college costs, and I want to recognize him for his commitment. Of course, the House did not do this alone. Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi have worked equally hard, and I want to thank them and recognize them for their efforts. Although Senator Kennedy was not able to be here in Washington for our final conference meeting yesterday, he has had a profound impact on the legislation, and he remains in our thoughts. Senator Mikulski filled in for him and did a yeoman's job and we want to thank her for her efforts. We know how important higher education is, both to individuals and to our Nation. A college degree can be a ticket to the middle class. It helps individuals prepare for good jobs, and allows them to pursue new skills in a changing economy. Higher education also has important societal benefits. College education citizens are healthier, more civically-minded, have lower unemployment rates, and use fewer government benefits. An educated citizenry is also vital to maintaining our competitive edge in a changing world. Because higher education is so important, we have made it a priority to ensure all Americans have access to a quality, affordable college education. In addition to making close to $100 billion in financial aid available to students, the Federal Government also spends billions of dollars each year on aid to institutions, support for college access programs, investments in research and development, and many other avenues that support higher education. Despite the considerable Federal investment, or perhaps, in part, because of it, colleges and universities have increased tuition and fees year in and year out. The increases have come in good economic times and in bad, whether enrollments are surging or holding steady. It seems the only thing consistent about college costs is that they are going up, and going up rapidly. With this bill, we hope to change that. Our principles for reform are based on the idea that by giving good information to consumers, we can empower them to exert influence on the marketplace. Through the power of sunshine and transparency, we are lifting the veil on college costs and holding institutions of higher learning accountable for their role in the cost equation. Those principles of sunshine and transparency are hallmarks of this bill, and not just in the area of college costs. We are also letting the sun shine in on college operations and quality through enhanced institutional disclosure and a more transparent accreditation process. There are numerous positive reforms in this bill, too many even for me to name. Of course, it is not a perfect bill. No bill is. I am particularly concerned about the number of new programs created in the conference report. Rather than trying to micromanage from Washington by creating a brandnew program for every possible contingency, we should focus on less red tape and greater local flexibility. However, on the whole, this bill is an achievement of persistence and commitment. It updates programs to meet the needs of students in the 21st century. It recognizes the value of for-profit institutions of higher education. It promotes distance education, a mode of delivery that becomes more important every day as gas prices force students to limit their commuting to and from school. And, it uses the power of sunshine and transparency to transform all aspects of our higher education system. Above all else, this bill offers real solutions to the college cost crisis. I thank Members on both sides of the aisle for their commitment to this cause. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. My good friend the majority leader mentioned trial lawyers. I'm not a lawyer. I know we have a lot of them here in the House, and I am not particularly against lawyers. I think they perform a good service. One of the things that we did in subcommittee is we thought maybe we should be able to limit trial lawyers' pay when they take some of these claims, and we even had an amendment that we presented that we would limit the trial lawyers to $2,000 an hour. We thought maybe that would be reasonable. Every Democrat voted against that. And when we took it to the Rules Committee to bring it here to the floor, we were denied the opportunity of discussing that here on the floor. So maybe that's why the other side feels that we are against trial lawyers, because we wanted to limit their pay to $2,000 an hour. Anyway, we were not able to discuss that here and we won't be able to have that amendment here today. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield 3 minutes at this time to the ranking member on the subcommittee over this issue, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson).