Tom Osborne

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentleman for his comments and his commitment to mentoring. Ofttimes we hear the complaint ``too busy,'' and yet I have found the time over the last 4 years, sometimes it is Saturday, sometimes it is a Monday, sometimes it is Friday, to meet regularly with a mentoree. I mentor a young person and also several members from my office have been mentoring here on Capitol Hill. So, again, I would urge my colleagues to encourage their office staff to do the same.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to especially thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman Smith), the gentleman from Connecticut (Chairman Simmons), and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez) for their work on this bill. It is an excellent piece of legislation. Mr. Speaker, the biggest veterans health care issue in my district, which is largely rural, is access. We have a great many veterans who are driving hundreds of miles and sometimes many hours to a clinic; and as a result, many of them, particularly the oldest and the sickest, simply cannot get there. They do not have access. Also, of course, they are facing waiting lists sometimes of several months. Mr. Speaker, what I did was I submitted legislation to provide vouchers for health care to local hospitals. That legislation is not in this particular bill. However, this legislation expresses the sense of Congress that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should take steps to ensure that an appropriate mix of facilities and clinical staff is available for health care for veterans residing in rural areas. I really applaud members for getting that in there, because I think that is badly needed. In addition, the legislation also contains a requirement that 120 days after the date of enactment of this legislation, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs shall submit to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs of the Senate and the House a report describing the steps the Secretary is taking to improve access to health care for veterans residing in rural areas. So I applaud Members for getting that in there and also requiring at least a 120-day report. We appreciate this. I would like to thank my colleagues for including these important provisions, and thank them for this bill. I urge support.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act. Today, this House will consider landmark legislation to help our Nation's seniors afford their prescription medications. I am particularly pleased with the generous assistance this legislation provides for the low-income seniors in my district. Those seniors with incomes below 135 percent of poverty (individuals with incomes under $12,123 and couples under $16,362) will be eligible for a prescription drug discount card that immediately applies $600 annually toward the purchase of their medicines and covers up to 90 percent of their prescription drug costs. Seniors with incomes between 135 and 150 percent of the federal poverty level ($12,123-$13,470 for individuals and $16,632-$18,180 for couples) could ultimately have 85% of their drug costs covered. Beginning in 2006, seniors without coverage would have the option to join a Medicare plan that requires a $35 monthly premium and would cut seniors' yearly drug costs roughly in half. For example, a senior without any drug coverage and monthly drug costs of $200 would save more than $1,700 each year. Seniors with no drug coverage and monthly drug costs of $800 would save nearly $5,900 on drug costs each year. In addition, seniors would be protected against high out-of-pockets costs with Medicare covering as much as 95% of drug costs over $3,600 each year. Mr. Speaker, this legislation also provides a historic opportunity to help strengthen the rural health care delivery system with billions of dollars in additional Medicare payments. For far too long, Medicare has short-changed rural health care providers in my district, which threatens seniors' access to care. This legislation eliminates many of the disparities that exist between rural and urban physicians, hospitals, and other health care providers. Finally, this bill includes important cost-containment provisions. These accounting safeguards will alert future Congresses and Presidents if the expenditures of the entire Medicare program exceed 45 percent of total Medicare spending so they can address the problem. This may not be a perfect bill, but it is a good bill, and I urge my colleagues to support the Medicare conference report.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 253, which is a reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program, introduced by my colleagues Congressmen Doug Bereuter and Earl Blumenauer. The legislation reauthorizes the National Flood Insurance Program and reforms it to ensure the availability of flood insurance while reducing the amount of money spent on frequently flooded properties. H.R. 253 creates a pilot program to mitigate the severe repetitive loss properties in the National Flood Insurance Program and sets up an equitable process for the treatment of policyholders who refuse mitigation. This legislation also uses the existing Flood Mitigation Assistance Program to further mitigate repetitive claims properties. H.R. 253 authorizes funds to be transferred from the National Flood Insurance Fund into the National Mitigation Fund for both the pilot program and the FMA program for purposes of mitigation. Mr. Speaker, numerous communities in my district participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, including the community of North Platte, NE. This community is surrounded by the North and South Platte rivers which merge together to form the Platte River east of North Platte. The citizens in North Platte have been paying substantial premiums for flood insurance without experiencing the flood events that other communities encounter. In fact, collectively they have paid over a $1 million in premiums each year, but collected a total of $26,000 in settlements. While the citizens of North Platte are grateful the program exists in the event that the 100-year flood does come, many residents are upset with the skyrocketing premiums for flood insurance. A $170,000 home in 1993 would have had a flood insurance premium of over $200. In 2003, that same property is costing over $1,000 in flood insurance premiums. Mr. Speaker, I believe this legislation will reduce the number of repetitive claims in areas that are frequently flooded, so communities like North Platte will not continue to subsidize those communities by paying higher premiums. I ask that my colleagues support this important legislation.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House passed an energy bill, the first comprehensive energy bill that we have had in more than a decade. It is now being considered by the other body. I would like to talk about just one small part of the energy bill and that is the ethanol industry. Sometimes this is controversial. Many times people feel that this is simply a giveaway to the Midwest and particularly to farmers, but I would like to take another look at this. It is true that the ethanol tax credit is 52 cents a gallon. In 2003, we produced 2.7 billion gallons of ethanol, so that amounts to a $1.4 billion tax incentive. Of course, that is a cost to the taxpayer. But that is not the end of the story. The ethanol industry increases the demand for corn by roughly 10 to 15 percent and as most people understand, when the demand goes up, it also drives the price up. What happens is that we, because of the ethanol industry, increase the price of corn by a minimum of five to 10 cents per bushel, and in 2002 it is estimated that the price of corn increased by roughly 40 to 50 cents per bushel. As prices rise, farm price supports decrease. For instance, if a bushel of corn brings $1.50 a bushel, the price support at $1.50 is 82 cents in the farm bill. If the price goes to $2.70, there is zero price support. As a result, what we have found is that the increase in price driven by ethanol decreases the cost of the farm bill by roughly $1 billion. As a matter of fact, higher commodity prices in 2002 reduced farm bill spending by roughly $3 billion along with the drought. In 2003, the farm bill is going to be reduced by roughly $6 billion from projected cost. That is a 25 to 30 percent less costly farm bill than what we had anticipated. In addition, and this is something that is really important, ethanol is projected to lower gas prices by 6.6 cents per gallon based on 2002 prices. What that does, it translates into a $3.3 billion annual savings to consumers. On the one side, we have a $1.4 billion tax incentive which costs the taxpayers, but on the other side we have a $1 billion tax saving in the farm bill and we also have a $3.3 billion saving at the pump. So the net saving of the ethanol part of the farm bill and a part of the energy bill is roughly $3 billion. In addition, ethanol reduces dependence on foreign oil, equal to about what we received from Iraq before the war; reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 12 to 19 percent; reduces carbon dioxide by 35 percent; provides 192,000 new jobs in the United States; improves the U.S. trade balance by $2 billion; increases net farm income by $4.5 billion annually; and it can be produced from corn stalks, rice straw, waste products and switchgrass, so it is not confined to the Midwest States. As a matter of fact, we have some ethanol plants being developed now in California. It also increases the octane in fuel because of higher combustion rates. Then I would like to mention also the fact that it can be used in diesel fuel to increase energy efficiency. It can be used to produce fuel cells. And also it produces high protein livestock feed as a by- product. The last thing I would like to mention is something that is very much misunderstood. We often hear people say, it takes more energy to produce ethanol than it yields. Actually for every BTU of fossil fuel used to produce ethanol, that is, to plant the corn, to till it, cultivate it, harvest it and process it, for every 1 BTU, British Thermal Unit, you get $1.389 BTUs of energy. In contrast, for gasoline for every BTU you get .808 BTUs, and for MTBE you get .675 BTUs of energy. You have a much higher yield. You say, where does this come from? Basically, it comes from the fact that the corn absorbs the sun and this extra energy comes from the sun. It is very energy efficient, and we think it is going to be a tremendous benefit to the U.S. economy as we move forward and as we go from 2.7 billion gallons of ethanol to roughly 5 billion within the next few years.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor of similar House legislation, I encourage my colleagues to support S. 1685, the Basic Pilot Extension Act of 2003. This important legislation would extend for five years the Basic Pilot Verification Program, which is a voluntary program that employers use in conjunction with the Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship Services (BCIS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to confirm employment eligibility in my home state of Nebraska, among others. This pilot, which started in November 1997, involves verification checks of the SSA and the BCIS databases of all newly hired employees regardless of citizenship. Unfortunately, the Basic Pilot program is scheduled to terminate on November 30th of this year. The agricultural economy of Nebraska's Third District relies heavily on immigrant labor. Employers across my district have told me that they want to comply with the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which made it unlawful for employers to knowingly hire or employ aliens not eligible to work, and required employers to verify documents of new workers. However, a simple visual check of these documents by employers will not tell them if these are in fact counterfeit documents, and that this potential new hire is in fact an illegal alien. I have heard from many business people in the Third District about their need for the Basic Pilot program. Employers need the appropriate tools to ensure that they are indeed hiring eligible workers, and S. 1685 would allow employers in all states to opt to participate in the program. By checking the new hire's documents against the BCIS and SSA databases, the Basic Pilot program allows employers to feel more confident about their new hire. I thank my colleague, Representative Calvert, for his hard work on this issue in the House and I urge my colleagues to support S. 1685.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) for introducing this resolution. John Wooden's coaching accomplishments have already been mentioned, and I do not need to go over those a whole lot; but I would just like to have people think for a minute how difficult it would be when there are over 200 Division I teams to be the top team, the one that came out on top in the national tournament 10 times, seven times in a row. Mathematically, that is almost impossible. So his win-loss record was amazing, 88 wins in a row. When you think of the home court advantage in basketball, to have won half of those away from home is remarkable. But that is really not why I wanted to speak about John. As far as I am concerned, John Wooden is the greatest coach that I have known in any sport, in any era. And the reason I say this is not based on his wins and losses, but rather it is based on his philosophy of coaching, the way he did it and the fact that he was a consummate teacher. His attention to detail was amazing. And it ranged from showing his players how to put their socks on. Now, that seems like a strange thing to do, but every year he would show them personally how to put on two pairs of socks so they would not get blisters and would not get wrinkles. That is where it started, and then it went on to how to dribble, how to pass, how to shoot, how to bend your knees on a free-throw. So tremendous attention to detail. And then, of course, he went on to his pyramid for success, which was essentially the building blocks for success, which so many corporations and businesses have incorporated at the present time. So, essentially, it was the base: the loyalty, perseverance, teamwork, integrity, and on up the line to what led to success. But one principle that influenced me more than any other issue in coaching was simply this: he said that he never talked about winning to his players. Now, that is amazing, a coach who had coached that long never mentioned the word winning, never talked about it. He quoted Cerventes, and Cerventes said this: ``The journey is more important than the end.'' And what he meant here was that the process, the thing that you do every day, is the important thing. Not the end result. So how to dribble, shoot, pass. In coaching football, to block and tackle, maximum effort, unselfishness, teamwork, discipline. And doing it every day at every moment was the key to what he was all about. So his commitment to fundamentals and daily discipline and team chemistry and his caring for his players led to the wins, but that was not the important thing to him. I guess now that I am out of coaching, I understand even better what he was talking about. Because it really is not the rings, it is not the trophies, it is not the championships that you remember. The thing that you really remember is the relationships, the personal growth of your players, their character development, their shared struggles, and sometimes the spiritual growth you see in those players. Just a couple of weeks ago I pulled out one of John Wooden's tapes that he had made at age 92, and it was amazing the clarity and the attention to detail that he had at age 92. Certainly every bit as sharp as he was when he was 40 or 45. So this man has had a tremendous impact on a whole generation of coaches and players that has gone beyond what anybody else has ever done. So I am pleased to just have a chance to say a word or two about him and certainly support the resolution.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3209) to amend the Reclamation Project Authorization Act of 1972 to clarify the acreage for which the North Loup division is authorized to provide irrigation water under the Missouri River Basin project.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3209 is a bill I introduced to clarify the amount of acreage for which the North Loup Division is authorized under the Missouri River Basin Project. This bill provides for a technical correction by inserting the word ``approximately'' on the amount of acreage authorized under the project. Under current law, irrigators must cite the specific amount of irrigated acreage served under the North Loup project. Conflicting Federal and State statutes for reporting irrigable service areas, conversion of irrigated ground to right-of-ways, land conservation programs and habitat easements are causing ever-changing and misunderstood adjustments to irrigated acreage. This bill allows for more flexibility in determining the amount of irrigated acreage. This is not a new concept and would bring consistency to the act, as well as to contracts between the irrigation districts and the United States. I urge my colleagues to support this noncontroversial bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1732) to amend the Reclamation Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in the Williamson County, Texas, Water Recycling and Reuse Project, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1732, offered by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to participate in the design, planning and construction of facilities to reclaim and reuse water in Williamson County, Texas. Williamson County is one of the fastest growing counties in the State of Texas. The Texas Water Development Board has concluded that existing water wells are being overdrawn, and surface water supplies are not meeting current drinking water demands. This bill will allow the communities to stretch potable water resources by replacing drinking water with recycled water on parks, golf courses and school grounds. This bill is a commonsense solution for communities that want to safeguard drinking water supplies for future generations. I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 1066) to correct a technical error from Unit T-07 of the John H. Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, S. 1066 introduced by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison will remove 19 acres of private property that has been mistakenly included within the Coastal Barrier Resources System. An identical bill, H.R. 154, has been proposed by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul). I compliment him for his leadership on behalf of this measure. Specifically, the Matagorda dunes subdivision in Matagorda, Texas, was placed into the system despite the fact that a full complement of infrastructure, including roads and electricity, existed prior to 1977 and that it exceeded the number of structures per acre rule that is required for inclusion under the act. For more than 20 years, these homeowners were told they were not within the system and therefore eligible for both Federal flood insurance and State wind insurance. These policies have now been canceled, and it is essential that this mistake be corrected so that their property can be protected from any future flooding problems. It is difficult, if not impossible, to sell coastal property or obtain a home mortgage without access to Federal flood insurance. During the hearing before the Committee on Resources on this legislation, the administration expressed strong support and a local county judge testified, ``A mistake was made 21 years ago that placed this little subdivision in CBRA. It does not matter who made the mistake, but now since the mistake has come to light, please help us fix it.'' Finally, the House version of this bill was unanimously approved by the Committee on Resources. I urge my colleagues to support Senate 1066. I again compliment the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Paul) for representing his constituents in such an effective way. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1648) to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to convey certain water distribution systems of the Cachuma Project, California, to the Carpinteria Valley Water District and the Montecito Water District.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This bill authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to transfer specific water distribution systems of the Cachuma Project of the Carpinteria Valley Water District and the Montecito Water District in Santa Barbara County, California. While this transfer would only apply to land and facilities and would not affect the repayment obligations of the Federal Government, it will help simplify the operation and maintenance of the districts' water delivery systems and eliminate unnecessary paperwork. Both districts have worked through all Federal requirements and need only to complete the process with an act of Congress. Transfers such as those included in this bill help shrink the size and budget of Federal Government and help our communities manage our water resources in a more efficient manner. I urge my colleagues to support this consensus bill. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.