George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2567.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that people would support this motion to recommit. This is fundamental and basic. It is about whether or not people will have coverage that works for them when they or a member of their family becomes sick. CBO has looked at this legislation three times, and three times they have determined that almost 8 million people who today have health care coverage that is good coverage, they will be stripped of that coverage and put into these AHPs. In fact, they expect that 90 percent of the new enrollees will be people who come out of better plans who will lose that coverage that people have fought hard for in almost every State in this Union, to have those kinds of health care protections that our three colleagues just spoke about in support of this motion to recommit. I would urge the House to support the motion to recommit and reject this legislation that is harmful to the health care coverage of millions of Americans and their families.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I submit a motion to recommit along with my colleagues on the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), and the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum). This motion shows exactly what the issue is about. It is about the minimum standard of health care protection for all Americans, including those who work for small businesses. Mr. Speaker, all employees, including the employees of small employers, may need access to pregnancy, to well-child care, to cancer treatment, mental health treatment, or even diabetes treatment. We should not encourage insurers to offer bare-bones treatment that does not protect anyone. Everyone gets sick at some point in their lives, and everyone will need access to a meaningful package of benefits. That is why I am offering this motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I am, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I must say the Republicans are on a roll here. Last week they voted in the Committee on Education and the Workforce to raise the cost of education to those students seeking a higher education by raising the cost of the loans that they will seek to finance that education. In this legislation what we see them doing is taking away vital health benefits that millions of Americans currently have but will lose if this legislation is passed. And later this week they are going to bring an energy to the bill to the floor of the Congress that The Wall Street Journal says will raise the price of gasoline. What is it that the middle class did to them to make them so angry at them? They raise the cost of their education, they take away their health care benefits, and now they are going to increase the price of gasoline. Do the Members know what the price of gasoline is in California? It is $2.67, $2.77, $2.87 a gallon. Do the Members know how hard people have struggled in these States to have minimum health care benefits so that they can have a mammogram, so they can have diabetes testing, and now they are going to take that away. And now they raise the cost of college education. It just does not make any sense. The theory is that Congress should be trying to extend meaningful health care coverage to families and to making sure that they have benefits that, in fact, are there when they need them. But that is not what this legislation does. This legislation overrides all of the hard work that was done in 40 or 45 States to make sure that people would have access to well baby care, to make sure that they would have access to maternity benefits, to make sure that they would have access to mammograms, crucial services that families need. This legislation says not necessarily so, they do not get that, on the theory that we have heard argued here that some plan is better than no plan. But a plan without benefits is not worth much at all. And why would one keep paying premiums even if they are low premiums if they do not get the coverage that their family needs? The point is for the people running that plan, that can turn out to be very profitable. That is why they do not want the insurance commissioners involved, because at some point the insurance commissioners would do what they have done in the past. They would blow the whistle on people running plans where they take premiums from middle-class workers, but they do not give the benefit that they want. The record is replete with that, replete with that in State after State after State. But that is stripped out of this legislation. This legislation should be rejected because it just is not the benefits that people need. What we ought to be doing is extending that kind of universal access to plans that provide people the benefits. The Congressional Budget Office in its most recent report, April of this year, analyzed the legislation two other times and concluded that 8\1/2\ million workers would end up in AHPs under this bill, and over 90 percent of them would come from existing health care plans where in all likelihood their benefits are better. The CBO looked at it once, it looked at it twice, it looked at it three times, and it said that is their conclusion. This means that millions of Americans, working Americans today with health insurance, under this plan would get stripped of the health care coverage that they now have and that they need, that they need. They are talking about trying to cover a couple hundred thousand people. That is their argument, but they are going to strip the health care benefits away from almost 8 million people that have this kind of coverage. It is unacceptable. We ought to reject this. Later this week we ought to reject the energy bill, and maybe we can do something to keep people in decent health care plans, lower their energy costs, and, when the higher ed bill comes, reject that, and we can save them some money on a college education.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, Americans must have thought that the world was turned upside down the other day when they turned on their TV in the morning and they saw former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was convicted of lying to the House of Representatives and fined $300,000, calling Joe Wilson, who President George Bush the first called a great patriot for standing up to Saddam Hussein; here was a convicted liar Newt Gingrich calling Joe Wilson a liar. Something is terribly wrong with that picture. The question of Karl Rove's continuation in the White House is not a question just of a legal matter. It is of ethical and moral consequences. Does the President continue to rely on the advice and keep employed in the White House a man who sought to destroy the reputations and perhaps put in danger a CIA agent and her contacts and her fellow workers? Does the President continue to employ that person recognizing that that was done for the sole purposes of trying to get retribution because they provided the evidence that what the White House said about weapons of mass destruction was not accurate, it was not truthful, in fact, it turned out to be a lie?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank him so much for his service to this committee and for his constant support of workers' rights, workers' health and safety, and the protection of their families if they are injured on the job. The Occupational Safety and Health Act has substantially improved the safety of the American workplace to the benefit of the American worker. Far fewer workers are killed or injured today than was the case before the law was enacted. Despite this progress, too many Americans continue to be sick or injured or killed in workplace accidents that could or should have been avoided. Every day, 15 workers are killed on the job. Another estimated 50,000 to 60,000 die every year due to occupational illnesses. Hundreds of thousands of workers face serious injuries on the job every year. Liberty Mutual, the largest workers' compensation insurance company, estimates that the direct cost of occupational injuries and illnesses is $1 billion a week. Two major workplace tragedies, one in Texas this year and the other in Ohio last year, underscore the need to strengthen, not weaken, the health and safety laws of this country. On March 23 of this year, a huge explosion at the BP Amoco Texas City refinery killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. Although BP initially blamed contract workers for the explosion, it now appears that faulty equipment played a major role in this catastrophic blast. As it turns out, the BP Amoco refinery in Texas City has been a repeat safety violator. Repeat safety violations also played a key role in the deaths of four iron workers when a massive bridge crane collapsed near Toledo, Ohio, in 2004. The contractor Fru-Con failed to address urgent issues with anchoring the crane properly raised by the crane's European manufacturers. OSHA fined Fru-Con $280,000 and cited the contractor for willful safety violations. Rather than taking decisive action on behalf of hardworking employees, like increasing the minimum wage, stopping runaway pension terminations or expanding access to health care, these bills do nothing more than jeopardize the health and safety protections of employees on the job. H.R. 742 significantly diminishes the protections of Occupational Safety and Health by discouraging OSHA from even enforcing the Occupational Health and Safety Act and punishing taxpayers unless the agency, like Perry Mason, can win every case. That simply is not going to happen, and this bill weakens workers' protections. H.R. 740 unnecessarily expands the size of the Occupational Health and Safety Review Commission, and H.R. 741 weakens the fundamental responsibilities of the Secretary of Labor. It contorts the law and confuses enforcement responsibilities of both the Secretary and the review commission. Finally, H.R. 739 creates a legal loophole for employers' obligations to meet the 15-day deadline for contesting an OSHA citation or notice of a failure to abate a hazard. The deadline for an employer's response was set at the 15-day mark to encourage both a timely correction of cited workplace hazards and expediting the handling of cases. The commission already has the authority to review any missed deadlines on a case-by-case basis in a manner that protects both employers and workers. We have an obligation to help hardworking Americans and their families to have a safe and healthy workplace. These bills do the opposite. Taken together, these bills will significantly weaken OSHA enforcement laws, and I urge my colleagues to oppose H.R. 742, 741, 740 and 739.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me this time. And I must say that never have I seen a resolution that demonstrates so completely the lack of understanding by the other side of what is necessary to maintain and improve America's competitiveness in the world economy. They go through all of their whereases, but when they get to the therefores, this resolution does nothing, does nothing. They ignore what those people who are on the cutting edge of trying to improve America's competitiveness, those companies that are on the cutting edge of competing in a world economy, their recommendations, one of the first of which is to fully fund No Child Left Behind. They are $40 billion behind the curve. But that is what the American Electronics Association says should be done first and foremost in education. Improve math and science teaching, you do nothing to improve math and science teaching. They go on to say support research and development. The permanent, the permanent R&D tax credit, not the year-to-year funding that you provide, but the permanent, so companies can count on this, can make their economic decisions, can make their financial decisions. Improve the business climate, the stock options, which your side failed to provide for. Stop having the raids on the patent and trademark offices of the United States Government to fund the general fund. The fact of the matter is that this provides nothing, provides nothing that the industries that are on the cutting edge identify as their most important objectives, their most important priorities, and that is to provide for a dramatic and sustained improved investment in education; a dramatic and sustained improvement in the R&D of this country, nondefense related, basic R&D on a permanent basis, something you have not done in 6 years. And also they recommend, after doubling the National Science Foundation, a sustained effort at doubling the National Science Foundation. You thought it was a one-time target, and now you are cutting. You thought sequencing the human genome was a one-time event. That is the beginning, not the end of the story. That is the beginning, is the doubling of the National Science Foundation, then maintaining it. What we are talking about and what the companies have constantly recommended to us is a sustained effort and investment in education, in innovation, in health care. Universal access to health care, universal access to affordable health care, something not discussed in this resolution, something not done in the 6 years. More people are without health care now than in the 5 years that this administration has been in office. This resolution so completely misses the mark that we wonder why we would spend an hour of our time on the floor dealing with this when there are such important items. The problem is that the other side of the aisle already voted for a budget that does not make the R&D tax credit permanent, voted for a budget that cuts higher education, voted for a budget that cuts elementary secondary education. A budget that does not even get close to funding No Child Left Behind, as, again, the companies who are out there competing, not the political rhetoric on the floor, but what they have made after years of discussion. It does not even get close to an immigration policy that allows our universities to continue to attract the highly skilled students that we were before 9/11. That is not working. Those young people now are going to India. They are going to China. They are going to France. They are going to Germany. The are going to England, and they are not coming to the United States because this administration failed to take that action. Finally, the protection of our intellectual properties. The protection of our intellectual properties is so terribly important. We continue to see them hijacked on a daily basis from the automotive industry, to the film industry, to the music industry, to the computer industry, and the effort has not yet been made. That is the report on what has happened over the last 4 or 5 years in this country. That is the report of what this Republican-led Congress has done. And what does the Republican-led Congress do? They give us a resolution with a lot of ``whereases,'' a lot of ``whereases.'' No action, just ``whereases.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, for his leadership on the Committee on Rules, and for being such a stalwart on behalf of worker protections. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to defeat the previous question on the rule and allow this body to have an up-or-down vote on an increase in the minimum wage. By refusing to take up this bill over the past 9 years, the leadership of the House must take responsibility for what effectively is a repeal of the national minimum wage. American workers are long overdue a raise. Real wages are declining for the first time in more than a decade, while prices of health care, gasoline, and other necessities are rising, making it even more urgent that we raise the minimum wage now. The minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997. That is $5.15 an hour since 1997, and that is what this Congress has done to the American worker. Every American deserves a decent wage for the work they do, and most Americans agree that we should raise the minimum wage. They see it as a matter of fairness for their fellow workers. Unfortunately, the Republican Congress disagrees, and the Republican Congress disrespects workers and violates the will of the people when it refuses to increase the minimum wage. We ought to respect workers by guaranteeing them a fair wage. Work should be the path out of poverty, but millions of Americans work full time every day all year long and still live at poverty because they work at the Federal minimum wage. The failure of Congress has pushed millions of America's most vulnerable workers into poverty or near poverty. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005 we present today as an alternative to these bills which roll back health and safety protections would in fact raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three steps, $5.85, 60 days after enactment of the bill; $6.55 one year later; and $7.25 one year after that. This would reverse the trend we now see where the number of Americans in poverty has increased by 4.3 million since President Bush took office. Nearly 36 million people live in poverty, including 1 million children. A recent report by the Center of Economic Policy Research shows that most minimum wage workers make a significant contribution to total family income. Half of them are between the ages of 25 and 54. Many workers find themselves trapped in minimum wage jobs; more than one- third of 25-to-50-year-old workers in minimum wage jobs are still earning a minimum wage after 3 years. Another report from the Children's Defense Fund finds that the annual income of a single parent working full time at minimum wage covers only 40 percent of the estimated cost of raising two children; 7\1/2\ million workers will directly benefit from minimum wage increases. More than 84 percent of those workers are 20 years old or older, 45 percent are married or have children, 60 percent work full time, 59 percent are white, 13 percent are black, and 23 percent are Hispanic, with 57 percent women and 94 percent, of course, not protected by union representation. In the past 8 years, Members of Congress have had a COLA seven times. In those same 8 years, minimum wage workers have not gotten a single raise. They continue to earn $10,700 a year for working all year, all day long. Mr. Speaker, we should vote against the previous question so that we will have an opportunity to offer this up-or-down vote on the minimum wage, one that is sorely overdue and one that has been kept from the American public, despite its overwhelming support by the Republican leadership of this Congress.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I have a point of personal privilege. Mr. Chairman, I believe, under the traditions of the House, the Chair is the Speaker of the Who1e House, and the Chair has an obligation to call the vote in the manner in which the vote was arrived at under the voice vote. It is not a question of whether the ayes or the noes will prevail on a recorded vote. The question is what happened on the floor at that particular time. In this instance, the yeas prevailed, and the Chair said the noes prevailed. A number of years ago, we had very heated debates on this floor from the Republican side, from Mr. Walker, because they felt that they were insulted, especially when cameras came into this Chamber, that the Chair would call votes against their interests when they clearly prevailed on the voice. The Chair was admonished by the Speaker of the House, and we went back to what was the traditionally fair point of view. So I would ask the Chair in the future, and future Chairs, to recognize that the Chair is calling the event that takes place in front of the Chair on the floor, not what the Chair perceives to be, and may be correctly so, the outcome of the vote later on in the day when the recorded vote is taken. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote on the Chair's ruling.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Ms. Diana Jorgenson, a friend, constant supporter and advocate for the Contra Costa community, as she retires. Diana has a long history dedicated to improving the lives of families in my district and we are all beneficiaries of her service. Diana's long career in mental health and disability services began after she received her Masters of Social Work from the University of California at Berkeley in 1968. From there, she went on to work in the Mental Health Agency in San Francisco and was liaison to Sonoma Development Center. She continued her work at the agency until 1971, when she moved to the Golden Gate Regional Center. From 1973-1975 while her husband was in graduate school, Diana put her skills to work at the Family Service Agency in Honolulu, Hawaii, later returning to the Golden Gate Regional Center and serving as head of the Concord Office. It was in this role she played a major part in establishing the Regional Center of the East Bay, sharing the dream of integrating persons with developmental disabilities into the community. By 1978, Diana had taken on the role of Manager and Acting Director of Client Services. From there she moved to the San Francisco School and facilitated services for the Visually Handicapped Program. Diana also provided services for the County Office of Education in both the Special Education Division and George Miller Center West. The Developmental Disability Council welcomed her as a member in 1982 and for five years Diana worked simultaneously for Richmond Unified School District's as a mental health specialist and in the DD Council. For the past ten years Diana has worked tirelessly as staff to the Development Disability Council of Contra Costa as well as the Director of the Medically Vulnerable Infant Program for Contra Costa County. Her role has been vital in the Home Visiting Strategy for First Five and the Consultation and Response Team for home visitors. Diana has served on the Board of the Infant Development Association for twenty-five years and was at one time the State Chair. For four years she also provided training on working with young children exposed to drugs. Mr. Speaker, Diana has made monumental contributions in the world of social work world and I am pleased to recognize her many accomplishments. Today, I am proud to commend her for her service to the community, her dedication to those in need and her commitment to the people of Contra Costa County. In recognizing Diana's great contributions, I would also like to wish her a happy and healthy retirement.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for offering this amendment. This is an outrageous practice that the government entered into in secret with Wal-Mart so that those employees who were concerned and want to file a labor grievance or a child labor protection law grievance with Wal-Mart who thought they were talking to the Department of Labor now find that they are talking directly to the Wal-Mart corporation. So where do they get the protection in filing these complaints? You say, Well, they don't need it because Wal-Mart is a good employer and Wal-Mart is going to take care of them. Wal-Mart is a repeat serial offender and has been found guilty of violating wage-and-hour laws, immigration laws, child labor laws, discrimination laws, pay-equity laws and worker-safety laws. And this is the corporation that you give 15 days' notice to, that you give this kind of special privilege to? As the gentlewoman from Connecticut pointed out, the violations of child labor are ongoing. All Wal-Mart does is get a heads-up and finds out who is complaining against them who is employed by them. How are these employees supposed to register their complaints with this corporation under this agreement? It is an outrageous violation of these workers' rights.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. And first and foremost, we must understand that this amendment that is being offered has no impact on this process. These tribes will not know whether or not they are violating the law or not violating the law. This amendment does nothing for that. The law as is currently interpreted continues to go forward. What this amendment does is suggest that somehow that those workers on a reservation, working in a casino, who are not enrolled members of that tribe have no rights; have no rights. In California they do, under a compromise that was worked out. Last year we were working out a compromise for the first time ever. We had labor and the union and tribes sit down together. They left the room because this amendment was offered last year, and nobody has come back because this amendment continues to be dangled as somehow it is the answer to the concerns that they have. This amendment does not answer a single concern. It just kicks the can down the road, and people are still in limbo if they are seeking to work out an arrangement for those tribal lands and for labor relations on those tribal lands. That has not happened. We were engaged in those historic conversations when the gentleman offered this amendment last year. And nobody has come back to the table since then.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote on my amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I believe, under the traditions of the House, the Chair is the Speaker of the Whole House, and the Chair has an obligation to call the vote in the manner in which the vote was arrived at under the voice vote. It is not a question of whether the ayes or the noes will prevail on a recorded vote. The question is what happened on the floor at that particular time. In this instance, the yeas prevailed, and the Chair said the noes prevailed. A number of years ago, we had very heated debates on this floor from the Republican side, from Mr. Walker, because they felt that they were insulted, especially when cameras came into this Chamber, that the Chair would call votes against their interests when they clearly prevailed on the voice. The Chair was admonished by the Speaker of the House, and we went back to what was the traditionally fair point of view. So I would ask the Chair in the future, and future Chairs, to recognize that the Chair is calling the event that takes place in front of the Chair on the floor, not what the Chair perceives to be, and may be correctly so, the outcome of the vote later on in the day when the recorded vote is taken. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote on the Chair's ruling.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I would just like to make the point this does not turn over any court decisions. United has yet to file a business plan with the creditors committee. The fact of the matter is this is the only opportunity we are going to have to have them go back and negotiate and try to use private systems to solve this problem before they come to the taxpayers. So this does not tamper with any court decisions or with the ability of United to go forward.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Just 18 days before United dumped its pension plans into the PBGC, the PBGC wrote and said that it would be in the best interest of the participants and the pension plan insurance program would be best served by the continuance of the flight attendants pension plan. United got up in the middle of the night, unilaterally threw this in. What we are trying to tell United is go to the marketplace, go look for private solutions to this debt, get this debt covered, people do it all the time. Companies do it all the time, countries do it all the time, before they come to the taxpayer. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is right. We may very well be looking at the opening night act of a new savings and loan scandal because we let these people come in, because they unilaterally decided termination was their first choice, going to the taxpayer was their first choice. It should be their last choice. This amendment simply says go back to the bargaining table and exhaust all of their remedies before they come to the taxpayer. Vote for the Miller-Schakowsky-Crowley amendment and take care of people who play by the rules.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).