Buck McKeon

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, and yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, while it is not a perfect bill, I do believe it contains a number of important improvements over prior versions of this legislation, including that which I supported a little over a year ago on the House floor. More importantly, it marks a commitment by this Congress to ensure that the laws of the United States protect American workers and health care consumers from discrimination on the basis of their genetic makeup. Because that goal is so critical, I will vote for this bill today, and urge my colleagues to do likewise. Before I turn to the substance of my remarks, I would like to commend my colleague and fellow Member on the Committee on Education and Labor, Representative Judy Biggert, for her years of work and dedication on this important issue. She has been persistent and effective on so many issues that have come before this committee and this Congress and she should be commended for adding this important bill to her list of legislative accomplishments. I also want to commend the gentlewoman from New York, the distinguished Chair of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, who has been Mrs. Biggert's partner in this effort. As I noted during our committee's consideration of this bill last year, I believe the title of the legislation before us, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, embodies a proposition that all Members of our committee and indeed our Congress would endorse. Simply put, no employee should face discrimination on the basis of his or her genetic makeup or on any other characteristic other than his or her ability to do the job. Similarly, no employee should risk his or her health insurance status simply because of the possibility that they might some day develop an illness. This bill was drafted with those fundamental principles in mind, and I believe that through the legislative process, we have taken steps toward ensuring that the bill we send the President today ensures that those principles are fulfilled, while minimizing the potential for unintended consequences. I would take this opportunity to point out a number of improvements in the bill that I think merit attention. Foremost, I am pleased that the bill we will send today to the White House for President Bush to sign embodies the same logic as a past executive order issued by President Clinton to ensure that this legislation would not inadvertently serve as a broad new Federal mandate requiring all insurance plans and employers to cover all treatments related to genetic-related conditions. That is exactly the type of unintended consequences we were seeking to avoid, and I am pleased we were able to work this out. Second, I would highlight a provision in the legislation that ensures that employers who are currently subject to a number of confidentiality and recordkeeping requirements under law are not burdened by yet another redundant set of paperwork requirements. The bill before us today provides that, with respect to genetic information, if an employer maintains employee records and treats them as it does confidential medical records under the Americans With Disabilities Act, it is in compliance with this new genetics law. Third, I applaud a significant improvement in the bill; namely, its extension of genetic nondiscrimination protection to all Americans. One of the issues raised during our committee's consideration of the bill was concern that the bill's protections did not adequately extend to cover children in utero or at early stages of development, or in connection with in vitro fertilization and other technologies. I am very pleased that the final bill before us addresses this issue to the satisfaction of all Members on both sides of the aisle who worked in good faith to ensure the broadest protections possible. The Senate amendment we consider today contains a number of other improvements over prior versions, including important provisions relating to those who participate in genetic clinical testing, providing for use of genetic information in matters of public health safety, and ensuring the most focused scheme of remedies possible. These changes represent issues we were able to work through over the past year and which demonstrate how the legislative process is meant to work. We were presented with well-intentioned legislation, heard meaningful testimony on it and its potential impact on employers and employees alike, raised and debated legitimate concerns, and worked through to bridge the gap between where we began and where we stand today. I thank the staff from both sides of the aisle and in both chambers for making this a reality. Before concluding my remarks, I would be remiss if I did not note for the record that I am still concerned that this bill is in some respects potentially overbroad. While we all agree with the goal of nondiscrimination I discussed earlier, the facts remain that we are poised today to adopt a sweeping new expansion to Federal Civil Rights scheme, the most expansive change since the adoption of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. As we send this bill to the President to sign into law, I would urge my colleagues to join me in remaining vigilant in the months to come in monitoring the administration of this new law to ensure that it addresses the problems it is intended to correct, and does not simply become yet another bureaucratic burden on employers or a lottery ticket for plaintiffs' lawyers. In that same light, as courts and administrative agencies interpret and enforce these laws, I would urge them to heed the intent of Congress; namely, that this bill's most egregious penalties must be reserved for the most egregious violations of the law. If experience under this new law shows that this is not the case, I trust my colleagues will join me in supporting swift action to correct any mistakes we have made. With that, I will conclude my comments. As I noted at the outset of my remarks, our actions today will ensure that the law of the United States protects American workers and health care consumers from discrimination on the basis of their genetic makeup, a goal I think is shared by every Member of this House. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I yield the balance of my time to the gentlelady from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) and ask unanimous consent that she be allowed to control the remainder of the time.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 340. This resolution makes technical corrections to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, commonly known as GINA, the act that we just passed. Specifically, this resolution will clarify the use of genetic information at forensic laboratories used by law enforcement agencies. This technical correction ensures the Department of Defense will be able to use genetic information to identify the remains of American servicemen and women. The recent DNA identification of Staff Sergeant Matt Maupin, missing since his capture in Iraq in 2004, offers us a painful reminder of why genetic information may be needed to identify the heroic men and women who give their lives in service to this Nation. This is a simple, yet necessary change to a bill that enjoys the support of a vast majority of this body. Adoption of this resolution will allow this legislation to move forward. The GINA bill marks a commitment by this Congress to ensure that the law protects American workers and health care consumers from discrimination on the basis of their genetic makeup. Because that goal is so critical, I support this resolution today, and urge my colleagues to do likewise. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5715, and yield myself such time as I may consume. I am pleased to be here just 2 weeks after the House voted overwhelmingly in support of this effort to restore confidence in our student loan program. Today we will give final approval to this measure and send it to the President for his signature. It is not often that Congress acts so nimbly to respond to a current market challenge, and I welcome this show of bipartisan cooperation. I hope it is a sign of things to come. When we debated this bill on the floor 2 weeks ago, I noted that while it is a good start, it is not a complete solution. That continues to be true today. I am particularly interested in exploring a more market-oriented solution to what is obviously a market-based problem. I am hopeful that the administration will pursue steps such as an intervention by the Federal Financing Bank, along with the other proposals that have been offered to restore balance. Still, the steps taken under this bill are important preliminary measures, and I look forward to their swift enactment. The original bill passed by the House focused on restoring stability to an uncertain market and offering reassurances to students and their families. We did that by establishing the U.S. Department of Education as a temporary backstop to purchase loans and inject modest amounts of liquidity into the market in order to ensure lenders can make new loans in the coming school year. We also offered new loan availability and flexibility, and we called on the Federal financial authorities to exercise their authority to stabilize the market. I appreciate that the other Chamber chose to move quickly on our bill, rather than taking up a competing bill that would have slowed down this important assistance to students and families. However, some important improvements were made as this bill moved through the other body, and I want to highlight those here today. In early 2005 and early 2006, Congress approved a budget reconciliation measure that created two new grant programs to help low- income students pursuing a college education. Those two new programs are the Academic Competitiveness Grant and the SMART Grant. These grant programs are meant to promote student academic achievement, particularly in fields that are vital to our continued competitiveness in a changing world. During the committee deliberations on a comprehensive renewal of the Higher Education Act, Representative Rob Bishop took a leadership role in clarifying the role of States and not the Federal Government in establishing rigorous high school curricula. The purpose of the Academic Competitiveness Grant was to encourage students to pursue challenging course work to prepare for college, but it was never intended to usurp State and local responsibility for establishing curricula. I am pleased we were able to incorporate his proposed changes into the bill that is moving today. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, but I would be remiss if I did not highlight what I believe to be the root causes of the current difficulties in our financial markets. Last year, Federal support for the loan program was slashed, forcing loan providers to scale back on benefits and reevaluate their future participation in the program. This year, disruption in the capital markets have reduced liquidity and shaken investor and consumer confidence. I appreciate the steps taken in this bill to begin to stabilize a program that has been badly shaken. I am especially pleased that this bill contains no net cost to the American taxpayer and that it does not force colleges and universities to embrace the government-run Direct Loan Program that the vast majority have already rejected. I will remain vigilant in protecting against any efforts to capitalize on the current situation by imposing a big government monopoly on student loans. In fact, it is because I did not support a big government intervention that I favor the bill before us. The fact is that if we fail to act now, we may be forced to take on much greater government role in the future. We made a commitment more than four decades ago that there are national benefits to an affordable, accessible, higher education system. What we are doing today is restating that commitment and sending a signal to students and families that we continue to believe in this program that has opened the door of higher education to so many millions of aspiring young Americans. Mr. Speaker, this is a good bill that deserves our support. I want to thank Chairman Miller, along with the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, Representatives Hinojosa and Keller, for their leadership on this issue. I would also like to recognize the staff for their hard work as well. I urge all my colleagues to join me in support of this measure. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

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

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Higher Education.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to echo the words of others that have spoken here today, and thank Chairman Miller, thank Mr. Hinojosa again, Mr. Keller, and especially Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Renzi on the other side for working very closely and deciding to take up our bill, because this could have been delayed. They moved expeditiously, and now we will be able to get this to the President's desk. And, hopefully, the concerns that I have felt for several months now will never come to bear; that we will go through this year, and students will be able to get their loans and we will do this without any hiccups. But, if not, this will be a big help as we move forward. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), who represents constituents that work in this sugar factory, and has been dealing with this problem now for 3 months. I am happy to yield him 4 minutes.

Mr. McKEON. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. McKEON. I thank the gentleman for yielding and I am pleased to lend my support to this amendment. As Representative Wilson has made clear, this amendment will ensure OSHA takes the necessary steps to protect workers against the hazards of combustible dust. It demands an aggressive investigation into the Imperial Sugar refinery, it requires that OSHA utilize the findings of its National Emphasis Program on dust hazards, and it calls for a comprehensive, inclusive and effective standard to be established if it becomes clear that existing safeguards are not protecting workers. The amendment fulfills our shared commitment to workplace safety, and it does so without undermining the credibility of the rulemaking process. I urge its adoption.

Mr. McKEON. Madam Chairman, although the changes in this amendment are modest, they are a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, they simply do not go far enough. Specifically, this amendment includes a cosmetic change to the requirement that OSHA include National Fire Protection Association standards among its new mandates. As Chairman Miller knows, the NFPA standards are voluntary guidelines that offer a far more complex, stringent protocol that may be adopted in whole or in part by industry participants. These guidelines play an important role as voluntary practices that can enhance safety efforts, but they are entirely inappropriate as a replacement for effective OSHA rulemaking. So while I appreciate that this amendment removes a direct mandate for a specific NFPA standard, I remain deeply concerned that the amendment retains the requirement that OSHA include relevant and appropriate NFPA standards in the final rule. I fear that this may be a distinction without a difference. The amendment includes other modest improvements, including a more reasonable time frame for implementation of the engineering controls in the interim standard. It also clarifies that the final rule would be developed under more normal and inclusive procedures. Both of these steps improve the underlying bill, but because they fail to fully address concerns about the bill's abbreviated timeline, they are half measures at best. However, I do appreciate the gentleman's efforts, and I will support the amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Madam Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the bill, although I do not expect to oppose it.

Mr. McKEON. Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON. Madam Chairman, I yield to the subcommittee ranking member that has jurisdiction over this issue, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), such time as he may consume.

Mr. McKEON. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in opposition to the bill at this time and in this form. Consideration of this bill is a somber occurrence. It reminds us that less than 3 months ago, workers at the Imperial Sugar refinery in Port Wentworth, Georgia, lost their lives to a tragic workplace accident. Even today many others remain injured. As with any workplace accident of this magnitude, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, was dispatched to the scene to investigate what went wrong. Preliminary reports indicate that the explosion was linked to combustible dust, a known hazard for which at least 17 OSHA standards currently apply. OSHA has 6 months to complete its investigation, a time frame that I think is appropriate for any injury of this seriousness. I expect that investigation to provide us a thorough, candid examination of exactly what went wrong so that steps can be taken to prevent such an accident in the future. Among the first questions OSHA needs to answer is whether existing safety guidelines were followed at the Imperial refinery. This question is fundamental. It will tell us whether the cause of this accident was a lack of sufficient safety standards or a failure to follow the standards that exist. The bill before us today presumes that current safety standards were insufficient. But the truth is we don't yet know whether that is the case. Less than 3 months after the accident, OSHA has not even had an opportunity to complete its investigation. We cannot possibly provide effective new safety standards when we don't know which standards, if any, we're lacking. I understand why we're here today. Like Chairman Miller; Representatives Barrow and Kingston, who represent the refinery and surrounding areas; and all Members of this body, I grieve for the workers who lost their lives. But making an end run around a proven process for establishing workplace safety guidelines is the wrong answer at the wrong time. The bill before us proposes a highly proscriptive regulatory mandate in an excruciatingly compressed time frame. More concerning still, OSHA, the agency that would be responsible for implementing these new requirements, does not believe this bill will produce the most effective safety measures. Of course, this is not to say that we should do nothing in the face of such an accident. To the contrary. I believe OSHA has a responsibility to complete a thorough, aggressive investigation of the accident at the Imperial Sugar refinery to determine its causes and consider whether additional regulatory guidance is needed. If it becomes clear that existing standards are ineffective, OSHA should move forward with a robust regulatory process that provides clearer, more effective guidance on combustible dust. I want to be clear on this point. This bill at this time, and in this form, is not the only opportunity to strengthen safety standards for combustible dust. OSHA itself has not ruled out additional regulations if it becomes clear that the 17 existing standards that apply to workplaces with combustible dust hazards are not effective or clear enough to protect workers. The danger of combustible dust in the workplace is a serious concern, and I am committed to appropriate and effective safety measures. That is why we plan to offer an alternative proposal today that calls for a more comprehensive approach that would include stakeholder input and expertise in any regulatory action that may be needed. We had hoped to see another amendment made in order, as proposed by Representative Kingston. Because of the compressed timetable in the bill, OSHA will not have to take into account economic feasibility of the standard. Mr. Kingston's amendment would have simply asked that a study on the job losses resulting from the standard be reported to Congress. Surely it would not have been too much to ask whether Congress was exacerbating job losses in an already weakening economy. But, unfortunately, that amendment was not made in order. Still, I continue to believe we can work together in good faith to protect worker safety without undermining the proven road to developing effective, enforceable safety protections. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McKEON

Mr. McKEON. I thank the gentleman. And as Mr. Davis said earlier, in the meetings that he held with his people in his district he heard some of these same problems, some of the same complaints. And that is why we really need to reauthorize the bill to fix those problems. I have been here now almost 16 years, and I have yet to see a perfect bill. And when a bill is passed, by the time it goes through the process here and finally is passed and signed into law, and then the regulators get their shot at it, write the regulations, and then by the time it is implemented throughout 50 States across this great country, it doesn't necessarily finish up the way you started out or even to achieve the goals that you had. And so we have a process where every 5 years on our committee we look at the bill again and we go through a reauthorization process, and say, what did we do wrong? What can we do to fix this? What can we do to make it better? And you brought up the point, special needs students. Definitely something needs to be done there. I remember visiting a school in my district and going into a special needs class and seeing a student there that was carried in on a gurney. And the teachers, the caregivers there that day spent their time just making sure that the child is given the things that are needed for life; they fed him through a tube. There wasn't much education going on there. I think that was a very important program, but maybe it should be considered a help program to give the parents a little relief at that time. But, to say that that child is going to learn to read, common sense would dictate that is not the fact. So, we have a 3 percent waiver for some of those students. Maybe that should have been larger. But that is what we addressed through the reauthorization, and that is why it is very important we get that done. I would like to yield now to the gentlelady, Mrs. Foxx, who has been a teacher, been a college administrator, and done a lot of things in education.

Mr. McKEON. Thank you very much, and I would like to yield now to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. McKEON. I am happy to yield to another member of the committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

Mr. McKEON. Let me just say No Child Left Behind I think has made a good improvement for the purpose that it was originally passed for. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965 to help, as was stated earlier, the have-nots, to help them get up to where the haves are. The test scores show that since No Child Left Behind has been put in, we have the highest testing for African American and Hispanic children in the history of the testing. A lot of things have been misunderstood about NCLB. What it was was a law that said we want kids to learn basic math and we want them to learn to read, and the States set the standards and implement the bills. Some States went much further, and the Federal Government got blamed for what we actually did. The important thing is that we get it reauthorized, that we fix the problems that have been mentioned many times here tonight. I thank the Speaker for his patience, and those who have been listening, I thank them and I think we will follow up with another one of these because there is much more to be said about education and the reauthorization of the ESEA, better known recently as No Child Left Behind.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order this evening.

Mr. McKEON. Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to have this opportunity to discuss an issue that's important to every single American family: the quality of our Nation's schools. Twenty-five years ago this week, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its landmark report entitled ``A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.'' I would like to read an excerpt from the opening of that report: ``Our Nation is at risk. Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world . . . While we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur. Others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments.'' Again, this report was written 25 years ago. And some of the things we're going to talk about tonight are about what little improvement we have made in that 25 years. When this report was released, it sent shock waves through our educational system. For the first time, we recognized the threat of educational failure as a threat to our national security. And to be frank, I don't think that was overstating the case. I have personally traveled to China with other Members of Congress and seen the progress they are making scientifically, technologically, and, yes, educationally. And China is not alone. All around the world, nations are realizing that educational excellence today will mean competitive dominance tomorrow. ``A Nation at Risk'' was issued nearly two decades after enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The ESEA, which was the precursor of No Child Left Behind, dramatically increased Federal funding for education. Unfortunately, it didn't link that funding to a demand for results. From 1965 until enactment of No Child Left Behind in 2002, the Federal Government spent more than $227 billion on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Yet despite that considerable investment, academic achievement flatlined during that time period. As you can see here, the graph shows the amount of money appropriated year by year, and the blue flat line is the test results during that period. This is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to the taxpayers, being asked to fork over their hard-earned dollars to a bloated Federal bureaucracy that fails to produce results. It is unacceptable to parents, who should be empowered to seek out a quality educational experience for their children. And it is unacceptable to our citizenry as a whole, who deserve an educational system that strengthens our prospects for the future. ``A Nation at Risk'' outlined dire consequences if we, as a nation, failed to improve our schools. In the quarter century since that report was issued, we have seen a number of positive education reform movements, each of which, if allowed to succeed, could make a real difference to students. I would like to discuss just a few of those reform movements now. First, A Nation at Risk energized those who support educational freedom. There are many that believe a lack of competition in our public schools is a major force behind their stubborn lack of improvement. Rather than permitting the educational establishment to maintain its stranglehold on educational options, we need to give parents the right to decide how their children will best be educated. Another key education reform principle that emerged in the wake of A Nation at Risk was the drive to improve teacher quality. In fact, an entire section of the report was dedicated to improving teacher quality. In 1983, the report highlighted a shortage in highly qualified teachers of key subjects like math, science, and key foreign languages. It also called for innovative strategies like performance-based pay to recruit and retain effective teachers. Twenty-five years later, we are still facing a shortage of teachers in these critical subjects, and we are still fighting to be able to treat teachers as the professionals that they are by rewarding them for their performance. Perhaps the most fundamental education reform movement that has come about in the years since A Nation at Risk is the No Child Left Behind Act. That is because NCLB sought to change the expectations at the very core of our education system. Instead of accepting mediocrity, NCLB demands that every child in America be given the opportunity to succeed. You know, it's a real indictment of the educational system of the past that it was considered radical to expect every child to merely be able to read and do basic math. But that is the mentality that NCLB is trying to change. Unfortunately, despite these and many other efforts to improve our Nation's schools, we are still a long way from educational excellence. And so I would submit that our Nation is still at risk. We have an education establishment that puts preservation of the system above elevation of the student. We have children trapped in chronically under-performing schools and parents with little or no ability to send them elsewhere. We have teachers leaving the profession because they are frustrated with a system that fails to recognize and reward success. And we have a majority in Congress that has refused to take the next step toward education reform by making much needed reforms to No Child Left Behind. Tonight, some of my friends and I on the Education Committee are going to take a look at A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later. From where I sit, the education landscape in this country is often disappointing, yet hopeful as well. Reformers from all ideological perspectives continue to push for better schools, greater education reform, and a commitment to competitiveness that will allow us to thrive in the 21st century and beyond. Education reform is a daunting challenge, but one that cannot be ignored. I would like to give the time now to a good friend from Delaware, the ranking member over the Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education, Mr. Castle.

Mr. McKEON. The gentleman didn't mention that he used to be Governor of Delaware and had occasion to visit every school. I have had the opportunity to visit his district a couple of times and it's always a real pleasure. It's interesting to be able to drive across the whole State in less time than it takes me to get from one part of my district to another. Ms. Biggert, a member of the committee from the State of Illinois, I yield time to you.

Mr. McKEON. Thank you very much. I really learned from your remarks. I knew you were an attorney, but I didn't know how the rest of your family had been benefited from education. It is good to learn about each other, and, again, as you said, the importance of education, to get on the ladder to climb to achieve the American dream. We here tonight, all of us, want to see that every child in America has the full opportunity to achieve their full potential. Now let's hear from Mr. Davis, the gentleman from Tennessee. I am glad to have you with us.

Mr. McKEON. Thank you. Now I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Walberg).