Frank Pallone

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call the attention of my colleagues to a friend and constituent of the Sixth District of New Jersey. Mrs. Norma Brito Todd, who at 82 years of age, works as the director and coordinator of Lunch Break Inc. in Red Bank, New Jersey is being honored as New Jersey's Outstanding Older Worker. Mrs. Todd was born in Long Branch, New Jersey on October 6, 1920. She was one of five children born to Joseph Brito, a real estate broker, and Lucy Brito, a homemaker. She grew up in Red Bank and attended River Street School and Red Bank High School. Norma began her college education at North Carolina State College in Durham, NC. She completed her studies at Cortez Peters Business School in Washington, DC. She graduated in 1944. In Washington, Norma met and shortly thereafter married James Richard Todd. Together they embarked on a thirty-five year career and never- ending adventure in the U.S. Foreign Service, which took them all over the world. Some of their stops over the course of these thirty-five years included: Cairo, Egypt, where Norma helped administer anti-cholera injections and taught hygiene to local townspeople. Norma had ample time to evacuate, but she chose to remain at her husband's side and assist during this epidemic. The Todd's older daughter, Cynthia, was born in Cairo. Tel Aviv, Israel, Norma helped her husband distribute Social Security checks to retired Americans living in remote places in Israel. The Todd's second daughter, Coralle, was born during their stay in Israel. Now at 81 years of age, Mrs. Norma Todd is the Director and Coordinator of the Lunch Break Program in Red Bank. She has held this position since 1983. She arrives at the center each morning at seven, stating that she needs a little peaceful time to herself before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. Norma's colleagues describe her as: a mother, a teacher, a friend, or just a shoulder to cry on to those in the community who find themselves in need. She has a sparkle in her eye, and a bounce in her gait. Norma's life mission has always been to help those in need, both young and old. She has always devoted her time to her family and to public service. She has never measured her success by money but rather by her accomplishments throughout the world. It is with great satisfaction and appreciation that I ask my colleagues to join with me and commend the extraordinary contributions of Mrs. Norma Brito Todd.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the Armenia Republic on the nation's 11th anniversary of independence. On Saturday, September 21, citizens of Armenia as well as people of Armenian descent here in the United States and around the world celebrate their independence from the former Soviet Union. I traveled to Armenia along with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), who is also in the House Chamber this evening, during the August recess, my fifth trip there since independence, and I witnessed firsthand the spirit and determination of the Armenian people. Their spirit has to be strong, Mr. Speaker, because they have suffered a dual, coordinated blockade by Armenia's two hostile neighbors, Azerbaijan and Turkey, for the preponderance of the young country's life. Despite this overwhelming burden, Armenia is currently poised to become a full-fledged member of the World Trade Organization and has identified joining the European Union to be its next priority. Mr. Speaker, the United States has a fundamental national interest in bringing about stability in the strategically located Caucasus region and in supporting those emerging nations like Armenia that share our values. I was very pleased to see that Armenia was one of the first countries to pledge military and logistical assistance after September 11 and continue to hope that all parties that contribute in the war on terrorism can use that coordination as a catalyst for direct cooperation. Mr. Speaker, it was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that allowed the Armenian people to reestablish a state and a nation, to create a society where their language, culture, religion and other institutions would prosper. The people of Armenia have endeavored to build a free and proud nation based on the principles of democracy and a market economy. The tiny, landlocked Republic of Armenia is surrounded by hostile neighbors. Even in the face of this enmity, Armenia continues to implement economic and democratic reforms. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have publicly noted Armenia's economic progress in recent years. Despite this progress under special and difficult circumstances, I saw firsthand that the economic reality of daily life for the people of the Republic of Armenia continues to be extremely hard. Mr. Speaker, I hope that the Republics of Turkey and Azerbaijan will respond positively to Armenia's repeated offers to normalize relations. Specifically, I hope that Turkey will allow for the exchange of diplomats and allow the free flow of goods and people across the borders. And I hope that, with the active participation of the United States, we will resolve the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict in a manner that guarantees the security and self-determination of the people of Karabagh. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I wish the Armenia people well on the occasion of their independence day and, more importantly, in their ongoing effort to establish good relations with their neighbors and their effort to build a vibrant democracy so that their children may prosper in the homeland of their ancestors.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on my two colleagues. The gentlewoman from North Carolina talked in great detail about why we need a prescription drug benefit for seniors and why it should be under Medicare as an expansion of Medicare, and my colleague from Ohio talked about the cost of prescription drugs and how the brand-name drug companies essentially have put on a program, a lobbying campaign, a very effective one to try to prevent any kind of changes in the law that would allow for generic drugs or other kinds of measures that would reduce costs, not only for seniors but for all Americans; and I think those two discussions by my colleagues really are at the heart of the issue. When it comes to prescription drugs, we need a benefit program under Medicare for senior citizens and those eligible for Medicare; and at the same time, we need to address the issue of costs and bring down costs for all Americans because increasingly more and more people cannot afford to pay for prescription drugs and go without. And I also add, the real problem here is the brand-name drug companies. They are artificially keeping the price of prescription drugs high in order to make even more profit than they would normally make. Let me say, the Democrats in the House of Representatives, my colleagues on the Democratic side, have proposed an answer to both of these problems, both to the benefit and to the costs. At the time when the Republicans and the Republican leadership were trying to move a prescription drug bill that would simply privatize the program and say, well, we will give people some money, senior citizens, and maybe they can go out and buy a prescription drug policy in the private sector. The Democrats were saying that would not work, and we came up with a prescription drug program under Medicare. We basically said that just like under Medicare now, they can pay so much per month in a premium to get their doctor bills paid. Most seniors pay a premium, so much per month under what is called part B of Medicare; and after the first $100 deductible, 80 percent of the costs of their doctor bills are paid for by the Federal Government. We propose, as Democrats, doing the same thing with prescription drugs. A senior would pay about a $25 per-month premium. They would have a $100 deductible for the first $100 in drugs; and after that, 80 percent of the costs would be paid for by the Federal Government for all the prescription drug needs up to $2,500 a year, at which time everything would be paid for at 100 percent by the Federal Government. What we did in our Medicare benefit program in our proposal, by contrast to the Republicans, is we said the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be mandated to negotiate lower prices for all the seniors that were in the Medicare program, about 30 to 40 million seniors. Following up on what the Federal Government does with the Veterans Administration or with the military, we said the Secretary of Health and Human Services would be mandated to bring down costs for prescription drugs in the Medicare program because he would have the power to negotiate. We estimate that would bring down the cost of prescription drugs maybe 30, 40 percent over what they are now. The Republicans totally rejected the idea of expanding Medicare to include prescription drugs. They just want people to go out and buy their own private health insurance, and they put in their bill which passed the House of Representatives that the head of the Medicare program or the head of the prescription drug program that they were proposing would not have any authority to negotiate price reductions, in fact, would be forbidden from doing so. Why are they doing this? They are doing this because they do not want anything to negatively impact the drug companies. What the drug companies have been doing in this House of Representatives is very clear. From the very beginning they were giving huge amounts of money to the Republicans. They had a big fund raiser for them one night a couple of months ago when we were actually having these bills in committee being marked up, when they wrote the bill, the Republican bill, to make sure it was not an expansion of Medicare and did not impact costs in any way for drugs; and then they started putting up ads on TV where they promoted the Republican candidates for Congress or the Republican incumbents who voted for their own drug bill and said that people should vote for them because they are doing a very good job and providing people with a prescription drug benefit, which is simply not true. We heard that this year United Seniors, which is basically a front for PHARMA, for the prescription name drug industry has pumped another 10, or I do not know how many, millions of dollars into an ad campaign. The bottom line is that the drug companies are going to do whatever they can with their Republican allies in Congress to make sure the issue of price is not addressed. What are the Democrats saying about price? We heard my colleague from Ohio. He has introduced a bill similar to what passed the Senate that basically tries to encourage generic drugs by eliminating some of the barriers that the name-brand drug companies have put in place that make it more difficult under the patent system for generic drugs to come to market.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this evening, and it is certainly not the first time, I am coming to the floor to talk about the need for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, and also to deal with the rising costs for prescription drugs. I think this Congress has an obligation before we adjourn in another month or so to address both issues because the bottom line is that not only more senior, more Americans are facing rising prescription drug costs, and I think it is primarily due to the fact that the brand name drug industry is trying to control prices in a way to make sure they receive maximum profits and influence the United States Congress both in terms of political contributions, influence the public with TV ads, all of which make it very difficult to address the issue and the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit and some sort of effort to control prices or at least bring prices down because of the impact that it is having on our health care system. Mr. Speaker, I do not need to tell any American about the rising cost of prescription drugs. As the cost goes up, more and more Americans are not able to afford their medicine. That has an impact because, as we know, certainly in the last 20 years, certainly in the last generation, prescription drug medications have become a preventive measure. In other words, if you are able to take certain prescription drugs, you do not need to be hospitalized or go to a nursing home or have some sort of radical medical procedures. Prescription drugs essentially are a form of prevention, a more serious interference in terms of medical care. I just think that it is very unfortunate that we do not address the problem of rising cost and what it means for the average American, particularly for the average senior. I wanted to start out this evening by giving some information about the level of price increases. This is an analysis that was done by Families U.S.A. just a couple of months ago in June of this year. It says that the prices of the 50 most prescribed drugs rose on average by nearly 3 times the rate of inflation last year. The study analyzed price increases for the 50 most commonly prescribed drugs for seniors for the last year, and that is January 2001 through January 2002, and then for the past 5 years and before that the last 10 years. The report found that nearly three-quarters, 36 out of 50, of these drugs rose at least 1.5 times the rate of inflation, while one-third, 8 out of 50, rose 3 more times the rate of inflation. The drugs that experienced the largest price increases were the following, and I am not going to get into all of the details, but it gives some incredible examples. Demadex and Premarin rose nearly 7 times the rate of inflation. Plavix rose more than 6 times the rate of inflation. Zestril, Lipitor, and Combivent rose more than 5 times the rate of inflation. The interesting thing about it is that if we compare price increases of generic versions of these same brand name drugs, and this is what the report did, the report showed that the brand name drugs rose 4.5 times faster than the rate of price increases for generic drugs, 8.1 percent versus 1.8 percent, and 10 of the 50 most prescribed drugs for seniors are generic, and the average annual price for those drugs was $375. Nine of these 10 drugs did not increase in price at all. The point that that makes, and I think it is particularly important in light of the Democrats making a push in the next few days to try to get a bill brought up in committee that seeks to encourage more generic drugs, is that the brand name drug prices were increasing rapidly, whereas generic drugs were not. When we talk about generic drugs, a lot of people are familiar with generics and understand what it means, but a lot of people are not. What we have found repeatedly is that if we can bring a generic drug to market, in other words, if the patent for the brand name drug expires and you can have a number of companies selling a generic drug in lieu of the patent drug, that will significantly bring down costs. Generics are one way of bringing down costs, and that also needs to be addressed by this Congress. What are the Republicans and the Democrats doing about this problem? We know we have a problem of price increases with prescription drugs. We know that Medicare right now does not include any kind of prescription drug benefit unless you happen to be in an HMO, and many of the HMOs have dropped seniors in the last couple of years. So what is the Congress doing about it? Well, the Democrats have really come up with a very simple solution. The Democrats have proposed basically expanding Medicare to provide a prescription drug benefit. Those Members who are familiar with Medicare know that under part B of Medicare, which takes care of the doctors' bills, basically what seniors do, and 99 percent of the seniors do this when they participate in Medicare, they pay a monthly premium, so much a month. It is usually $45-50 a month, and they pay a deductible of $100 for their first doctor bill. But after that, 80 percent of the doctors' bills are paid for by the Federal Government under Medicare, and they pay 20 percent up to a certain amount when the government pays 100 percent. The Democrats proposed and we have legislation that would accomplish the same goal and do it in the same way, provide a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that was guaranteed, that was universal, that all seniors and everyone eligible for Medicare would take advantage of, and essentially you would pay $25 a month premium, you would have a deductible of $100, and after that 80 percent of your prescription drug costs would be paid for by Medicare by the Federal Government. There would be a 20 percent copay. And after someone had shelled out $2,500 out of pocket, if that were the case in paying the 20 percent, then all of their prescription drug bills would be paid for 100 percent, modeled after what we do now for doctor bills. It makes sense. It is very simple. Medicare has been a very successful program. Given that more and more seniors do not have access or have problems paying for prescription drugs, this would seem to be a logical solution. It is certainly logical, certainly reasonable; but the problem is that the Republican leadership in the House, because they are so much in the pockets of the brand-name drug companies, would not even consider something like that. When the Democrats tried to bring it up as a substitute to the Republican bill, they ruled it out of order. They would not let it come up. What have the Republicans proposed instead of a simple expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs? They have talked about the need for privatization. In the same way that President Bush has talked for privatizing Medicare as a whole, the Republican leadership in the House has moved a bill and passed a bill, because they have the majority, they have the votes, to simply provide private health insurance or try to encourage seniors to seek out private health insurance that would cover their prescription drugs, basically give seniors a certain amount of money like a voucher so that they could go shop around and see if they could find a private insurance plan that would pay for prescription drugs. I would venture to suggest to my colleagues that this is the most absurd idea; and the reason I say that is because if the private sector was able to effectively provide prescription drug benefits in the same way that people thought that maybe the private sector would be able to provide for health insurance for seniors in general, then we would not need a government program. The reason that we have Medicare in general to pay for hospital bills, to pay for doctor bills, is because when seniors prior to Medicare, 30, 40 years ago, tried to go out to buy private health insurance to pay for their medical bills, they could not find it because they were too high risk. They were using too much health care. They could not find a health insurance policy that would provide the coverage. And so that is why we started Medicare as a government program. Not because we were socialists and wanted a government program; but because, practically speaking, seniors could not find health insurance, they could not buy it. It was not available. So now why would we want to do the same thing, why would we want to suggest to seniors that they go out and try to buy health insurance privately that just covers prescription drugs? That is even less likely to be available because most seniors use prescription drugs and anybody who knows the way insurance operates, the private sector knows, that private insurance companies only want to provide insurance to low-risk individuals. They do not want to provide insurance where everybody who is covered by the policy is going to take advantage of the benefit and need the prescription drugs, because they cannot make any money if they sell insurance that provides that kind of a benefit. So the Republican proposal is essentially absurd from the get-go because it will never work, because if there was private insurance available, seniors would just go out and buy it and they cannot buy it because it is not available. I would venture to say to my colleagues that what is really going on here is that the Republicans are doing the bidding of the brand-name drug companies. The brand-name drug companies do not want a Medicare benefit, and they do not want anything that would interfere in the rising price and cost and profits that they make from selling prescription drugs. Even if it means selling it to fewer and fewer people, they are making more and more of a profit. In case anyone doubts what I say, I just wanted to point out very briefly this evening, and I have done this before, some of the things that are going on with the brand-name drug companies to accomplish their goal of preventing a real prescription drug benefit that would be meaningful to seniors. On the day when the Republican bill that I talked about, the privatization bill, was brought up and considered in the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has jurisdiction over prescription drugs and that I am a member of, there was a fundraiser for the Republican National Committee the same night; and because the drug companies were so involved in the fundraiser for the Republican National Committee, the committee actually broke at 5 o'clock and carried over its business to the next day because all the Republicans had to go to this fundraiser where they would get money from the prescription drug industry. This is an article from The Washington Post on that day in June, and the headline says: ``Drug Firms Among Big Donors at GOP Event.'' ``Pharmaceutical companies are among 21 donors paying $250,000 each for red-carpet treatment at tonight's GOP fundraising gala starring President Bush, two days after Republicans unveiled a prescription drug plan the industry is backing, according to GOP officials. ``Drug companies, in particular, have made a rich investment at tonight's event.'' It goes on to describe all the money that they were giving, but the article further on says that ``every company giving money to the event has business before Congress. But the juxtaposition of the prescription drug debate on Capitol Hill and drug companies helping underwrite a major fundraiser highlights the tight relationship lawmakers have with groups seeking to influence the work before them. ``A senior House GOP leadership aide said yesterday that Republicans are working hard behind the scenes on behalf of PhRMA,'' that is the pharmaceutical company trade group, ``to make sure that the party's prescription drug plan for the elderly suits drug companies.'' What was going on here was that the big drug companies were not only giving to the Republican campaign coffers, they were writing the bill. They wanted to make sure that the bill that was written by the Republicans that came out of committee and came to the floor was a bill that suited them and suited them because either it would not work because it was the privatization proposal that does not work or at least would guarantee that there was no effort to reduce or have any influence over prices. And if anyone doubts that, I will read a little section from the Republican prescription drug bill that is entitled ``Noninterference.'' Basically what it says is that the administrator of their program, of their prescription drug program, could not in any way try to reduce prices. I will just read you some sections. This is the actual bill. It says that ``the administrator of the program may not require a particular formulary or institute a price structure for the reimbursement of covered outpatient care; two, interfere in any way with negotiations between PDP sponsors and Medicare+Choice organizations and drug manufacturers, wholesalers or other suppliers of covered outpatient drugs; and, three, and this is most important, otherwise interfere with the competitive nature of providing such coverage through such sponsors and organizations.'' So what they did with this noninterference clause in their bill, and I know it is a little bureaucratic there, but the bottom line is it says that you cannot interfere in anything that would deal with pricing, with price structure. Remember, I mentioned before that the Democratic bill expands Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. It does not operate with the private sector. It simply expands Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. We do the opposite with regard to the cost issue. In the Democratic bill we say that the Secretary of Health and Human Services must, is mandated, to negotiate and reduce prices, because the idea now is that there are going to be 30 or 40 million seniors in the Medicare program who now have this prescription drug benefit; and if the Secretary of Health and Human Services negotiates for them, he can bring down prices maybe 30, 40 percent because he now has the power to negotiate for all these 30, 40 million senior citizens. This is what happens now with the VA. The Veterans' Administration does this. They negotiate for the veterans in order to bring down prices. The military does this, the Army, Navy. They all negotiate on behalf of the military personnel to bring down prices so they get a really good price for their prescription drugs. That is what the Democrats do in their bill. The Republicans say, You cannot do that. We do not want you to do that. Not only did the drug companies give all this money to the Republicans, not only did they write the bill to make sure that they were protected in the sense that there would be no effort to reduce price, but also they started running ads almost immediately after the Republican bill passed the House of Representatives touting the fact that certain Republicans who were running in tough races this November to be reelected, that those Republicans had voted for the Republican bill and how wonderful they were and how wonderful they were to their senior constituents because they voted for this bill. Amazingly, if you think about it, you give money to prevent the good bill from coming up, you make sure that your bill is the one that is written, and then you go out on the airwaves and you pay for advertisers who tell the American public that the person who voted for this pharmaceutical boondoggle is doing the right thing and in some way is some sort of a hero. But this is exactly what was done. There is a report that I have, and this was actually done by Public Citizen, another nonprofit group. They pointed out in the report issued in July of this year that United Seniors Association, which is the group that is running these ads telling you how wonderful the Congressmen are that voted for the Republican bill, is basically nothing but a front group for the drug industry. Drug companies gave that organization that runs these ads and pretends to be sort of neutral $10 million initially to push the drug bill favored by the industry. In fact, the information I have, which is really new information, this week, says that not only has this alleged senior group that is being underwritten or financed by PhRMA, by the drug companies, not only did they start running the ads in June or July after the Republican bill passed here, but they have continued to run ads and now as of, I guess this is dated yesterday, September 16, which I am going to read you now, they are just pumping even more money into these ads. This is a ``Daily Health Report'' from the Kaiser Network, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Kaiser Network. It says that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association, that is PhRMA, the drug companies' trade group, has contributed millions of dollars in recent months for political ads in several States with tight congressional races. For example, the industry group has provided the United Seniors Association, which runs the ads, with more than $8 million for ads promoting about two dozen House candidates who support the House-passed GOP drug bill which includes the prescription drug benefit. The commercials began running last week in about 20 regions where Republicans face tough races this fall. The ads are tailored to each race, stating that the candidate understands the need to assist seniors with health care costs and supports adding meaningful drug coverage for all seniors. The ads end by encouraging viewers to call their respective Congressman and urge him to keep fighting for his bill. The association's campaign, which also includes Internet and direct mailing efforts, is supported by a general education grant from PhRMA. In addition, another group, the 60 Plus Association, has been running radio and newspaper advertising in selected States backing the GOP- backed drug bill. The National Journal reports that both groups are helping Republican candidates and drug companies by promoting industry- backed legislation. I do not want to keep going on, but the other thing that we found is that not only are the drug companies financing these ads telling people to support candidates that support their bill but now they are also putting pressure on companies to not support an alternative bill which the Democrats are pushing in particular this week that would make it easier for generics to come to market. This is from the same report, from the Kaiser Network. It says that in other prescription drug news, pressure from the pharmaceutical industry has forced several companies to drop their support of a Senate-passed bill, S. 812, that would ease market entry of generic drugs, according to a Washington Post editorial from yesterday. Earlier this month, Georgia-Pacific and Verizon Communications left or reduced their roles in Business for Affordable Medicine, a coalition lobbying for easier access to generic drugs, after brand-name drug makers threatened to end contracts with the companies. Georgia-Pacific asked to not be listed on the coalition's Web site after receiving pressure from Eli Lilly, and Verizon left the coalition recently after being pressed by Wyeth. Since then, Marriott International quit the coalition and UPS has asked to be removed from the Web site. ``Given that all these companies stand to benefit from lower drug prices, it's a fair guess that drug company pressure had something to do with their decisions,'' The Washington Post stated, concluding that it is a ``worrying sign'' that the ``eminently reasonable reform'' passed by the Senate ``faces tough sledding in the House, whose Members now have to choose between affordable medicines and placating the drug lobby.'' Let me explain a little bit what this generic drug bill is that the Democrats are pushing now, again in an effort to try to reduce costs. What basically has been happening is that brand-name companies get a patent for a particular drug, a prescription drug when they develop it, when they do the research and they develop it. They are able to seek a patent and gain a patent where they have so many years where they exclusively can sell the drug because they produced it, or they researched and developed it. The reason that that patent is given is because it is basically incentive for a company or an individual to develop a new miracle drug. But after so many years when this exclusivity runs out, the theory is that the drug companies benefited greatly and made a lot of profit on the drug, then generic companies, basically any company can come in and produce a similar generic drug which obviously is sold for significantly less and is one way of trying to reduce costs for prescription drugs.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the House floor this afternoon to express my deep concerns regarding the upcoming elections in Kashmir, which begin on September 16. Mr. Speaker, I would like to first make it clear that Kashmir is a state within India, which is the largest democracy in the world. Given that India has operated under the traditions of democracy since independence, I am confident that Indian officials and their electoral commission are doing everything possible to ensure that the elections proceed under free and fair circumstances. In fact, this week myself and some of my colleagues who are members of the India Caucus met on a bipartisan basis, I should say, with the external minister, Sinha; and he told us very dramatically that the Indian Government, together with the electoral commission, are doing everything possible to make sure that these elections are held in free and fair circumstances. They have learned some of the lessons from the past about how to improve the voter turnout and to make sure that violence is not committed against those who would choose to exercise their right to vote. However, my concern stems not only from increased infiltration of terrorists at the Kashmiri line of control, but also from the surge of violence in the Kashmir region by Islamic fundamentalists, whose primary purpose is to thwart the elections in Kashmir. It is no coincidence that the new wave of infiltration at the border and the specific violence aimed at candidates running in Kashmir are occurring now just days prior to the beginnings of the election. On a near-daily basis for over a year, we have been witnessing cross-border terrorism in Kashmir that has led to countless murders of Indian army officials and innocent civilians. This leads me to believe that there is very little possibility that infiltration by Islamic militants at the Kashmir line of control has subsided, even though President Musharraf of Pakistan pledged that infiltration would decrease several months ago. Mr. Speaker, increased cross-border activity, augmented by targeted attacks against those running in the elections, and President Musharraf's calling the elections a sham, are cause for serious alarm. Just yesterday, it was reported that a candidate, a Kashmiri state government minister, along with seven others, was killed by militants. This was the second murder of a candidate in less than a week and is the most recent addition to a string of murders by militants that have killed 40 political workers in the past several weeks. Militants have vowed to escalate violence prior to the election in an effort to disrupt the elections, and they go so far as to say that they will attempt to kill anyone who participates. Mr. Speaker, unless there is a clear directive from the Pakistani President to the militants to end this violence surrounding the elections, and an acknowledgment from President Musharraf that these elections are not to be interfered with, and that they should proceed free and fair, it is unclear to me what type of outcome there will be between now and the conclusion of the elections. The elections go, Mr. Speaker, from September 16 until sometime in October. I would urge President Musharraf of Pakistan to take a leadership role and to ensure India that the elections can take place without any threat of violence. I urge the Bush administration to put more pressure on Musharraf to end cross-border infiltration and not condone interference at the polls in Kashmir. Mr. Speaker, I mention that when the Indian external minister, Mr. Sinha, was here, he spoke to our Secretary of State, Mr. Powell, and asked him to do whatever he could to put pressure on Musharraf to make sure that the elections in Kashmir are not interfered with. But, of course, the concern is whether Musharraf is going to carry through. He has to be made to uphold his commitments to ending terrorism, and the first step he can take is to do everything in his power to ensure that cross-border terrorism into Kashmir ceases and that the elections in Kashmir take place freely and fairly, without the threat of violence to the candidates or Kashmiri voters.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for those words. Mr. Speaker, I see other colleagues joining me, and I am very pleased to see that, and I just wanted to talk a little bit more about the Long Branch ceremony this morning and Middletown last night, if I could. I was really happy this morning in Long Branch because there were so many young people there, about 4,000 people, as I said, maybe from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade from my home community. I think they were listening very attentively to the various speeches being made and they understood that the people who lost their lives on September 11 really were heroes to the American way. The most important thing I think we need to do as we continue to commemorate September 11, and in Long Branch actually said they plan on doing the ceremony every September 11 because they wanted to teach, if you will, the students and the young people about the significance of September 11, that it is important that from now on, not only today, but in the future, that we continue to commemorate the day and we continue to commemorate those people who lost their lives and the heroes that tried to help the victims, the firefighters, the police, because if we forget it, then we are not paying proper respect to them, and we must continue to point out that this democracy that we live in and the freedoms that we so cherish are not easily come by, that people continue to sacrifice for them. Obviously we must continue to do what we can here in Congress with the President and Congress jointly to make sure that the terrorists do not have the opportunity to do this type of terrible act again. If I could just mention a little more about Middletown last night, because it was so significant. As I said, in Middletown there were 36 men and women who lost their lives in the World Trade Center on September 11. I mentioned the article that was in the New York Times, and there was a lot of news stories and national attention that was focused on Middletown over the last year because so many people died proportionately for the size of the town. But in the middle of all the descriptions in the news media about the suffering, about the people who died and their families, there was also much said about the pride of the community, the fact that the community came together in untold ways, that residents were helping each other in time of need, and that the community banded together not only to help the families of people who died but also to send firefighters and police to help the efforts on September 11 and in the aftermath. And I guess I just wanted to say this evening, if I could, how proud I was last night to be able to say that I represent a community like Middletown and to also have the opportunity to participate in the groundbreaking for another wonderful community effort there, the Middletown Memorial Garden. Let me just explain a little bit about what went on last night. Each of the elected representatives spoke briefly, and then they had relatives of the victims who spoke and then they proceeded over to this new memorial garden where each of the relatives was given a shovel to shovel some of the dirt before the garden started to be put together. And of the speakers, every one of them was overwhelming in terms of what they said and the significance of what they said, but in particular I can remember a little girl, I do not know, I think she probably was about 9 or 10 years old, maybe a little younger or a little older, and of course she reminded me of my own daughter. I have one daughter who is 9 years old. And she spoke about her father. She basically read a letter, I guess in a sense she was writing a letter to dad, and it was such a moving experience. And after that all the relatives, I think about 170 or so relatives that proceeded over to this garden to do the shoveling of the groundbreaking, and there were little kids 2 years old, 3 years old all the way up to teenagers. It was such an overwhelming experience. I want to say in conclusion before I yield to my colleagues, the loss is always going to be there. There is no way to get away from the loss for all these relatives of what they lost on September 11, but I think if we do not forget the people who gave their lives, if we continue to commemorate their activities, if we do things like the Middletown Memorial Garden or the ceremonies like were held at Long Branch High School this morning, then we are doing what is necessary to make sure that we never forget what happened and the significance of what happened. We need to be reminded ultimately that this battle against those who would defy America and defy America's values is never ending and that we have to be constantly vigilant in order to protect our democracy and our freedoms. And that is why I think today was so significant to me, not only to the two ceremonies that I attended over the last 24 hours, but because I feel in general that people after a year really understand the significance of what happened on September 11 and are determined to keep in mind the lessons of that day. Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel), and I know he had many of his own constituents who died and suffered that day as well. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PALLONE. I thank the gentleman for adding that. He is right, that we can even go beyond that. My understanding, I hope I am not wrong, was that the plane that went down in Pennsylvania was actually headed for California, so there were probably some of the constituents from the district of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi). We know there were even foreign nationals that perished in the World Trade Center, so the tragedy was truly not only American in that there were so many people from all parts of the country, but even people from other parts of the world. This was something that happened not only to New York and New Jersey, but to the country and even to the world. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article from the New York Times of September 9, 2002. The article referred to is as follows: [From the New York Times, Sept. 9, 2002] Emerging From Cocoon of Grief (By Andrew Jacobs) Middletown, N.J., Sept. 6.--Even now, a year after her husband, Louis, disappeared at the World Trade Center, Barbara Minervino struggles with the competing pulls of rejoining the living or remaining curled up in the shelter of her cream yellow ranch home with its comforting memories and distracting mounds of 9/11-related paperwork. A photographic shrine to her husband still dominates the living room and she refuses to touch the Yankee ticket stubs and the $15 he left on a nightstand the final evening of his life. But she is also increasingly drawn into the world, both by necessity, and in recent months, the realization that she can survive as a 54-year-old widow with limited skills. ``It devastates me that I was able to live without Lou for the last year,'' she said, sitting in Redheads, a strip-mall restaurant where hundreds of mourners gathered last year after her husband's memorial service. ``I didn't change a light bulb for 29 years. I didn't buy a bedspread without consulting him.'' In contrast to the unrelieved grimness of the past months, there is now a hint of levity in her voice when she talks about the road ahead. ``I still don't know where I'm going, but I feel like I'm a butterfly about to come out of the cocoon,'' she said. ``With the grace that God gives me, I look forward to October and what my place is in the world.'' Since losing 36 residents on Sept. 11, this centerless hodgepodge of look-alike ranch homes and waterfront estates has become a national symbol of devastating loss and communal caretaking. Over the past year, Vanity Fair, ``Dateline NBC'' and a score of newspapers discovered that tragedy had transformed this anonymous, disjointed suburb into a model of selfless do-goodism. Local volunteers distributed more than $700,000 in cash and services to the stricken families, and many neighbors, once strangers, delivered home-cooked meals to make sure no grieving survivor would have to cook during those first terrible months. Lawn services, mechanics and plumbers donated their time, ensuring that no one would have to worry about the mundane aspects of suburban living. In a way, this community has discovered itself in its grief. But as it crosses the first anniversary, Middletown, like Mrs. Minervino, is struggling with opposing impulses: the urge to move past the trauma of last September and the need to remember. And while both impulses have enormous force, both the individuals and the town seem intent, finally, on moving on. ``Some days, I just want a normal life like other women,'' said Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband, Ronald. ``I want to go food shopping. I want to bake an apple pie. I don't want to be a 9/11 widow for the rest of my life.'' Of course, Sept. 11 this year will be more about looking back than looking forward. By 8:46 on Wednesday morning, when the bells begin to toll at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, the camera crews from MSNBC, CBS and Australian television will already be broadcasting live, showcasing this township's resilience in the face of excruciating loss. Shopping malls will fly their flags at half-staff, police officers will shroud their badges in black and residents will gather for commemorative events at a fishing pier, a half-dozen churches and the Middletown train station, where township officials will break ground on a four-acre park honoring the local residents who died. ``Not an hour goes by when you don't think about it,'' said the police chief, John Pollinger, choking on emotion as he pulled his car into a drive-through teller. ``I think all of us here have been changed, changed forever.'' But neither patriotism nor civic boosterism can stop the intrusions of daily life. Mounting job losses have taken a toll on many families. The battle over a proposed megamall, dormant in the first few months after the terror attacks, has reignited with more fury than before. And although a tentative contract agreement reached Thursday means schools opened without labor strife, there is lingering bitterness from an ugly strike in December that sent 228 instructors to jail. Since then, more than 100 teachers, about one-eighth of the district's total, have left the community for other jobs or early retirement. The district's embattled superintendent moved on as well. ``There are deep and painful wounds that no glossing over, no platitudes, can undo,'' said the union's president, Diane Swaim, a middle school teacher who has lived here most of her life. While many families say the public outpouring of kindness helped them endure a nightmarish year, they recognize that the unlimited benevolence cannot last forever. The meals stopped coming with the onset of summer, when many families went away on vacation, and several women said they have sensed a waning tolerance for outward displays of grief. ``After a very long year, people expect us to move on, to get on, to try to live life,'' Mrs. Minervino said. To many family members, moving forward remains painful. Brittany Chevalier, 16, who lost her 26-year-old brother, Swede, worries that school administrators and teachers will no longer make allowances for the days she is too distraught to come to school or too upset to complete an assignment. ``They were understanding on the six-month anniversary, and they'll understand if I don't come to school on Sept. 11,'' she said, ``but they'll start to think I'm being ridiculous when the year-and-a-half anniversary arrives. I guess I'm afraid people are just going to forget and that the world will just go back to normal.'' But the pull toward moving on is the dominant impulse, even for the bereaved. During the past year, Patricia Wotton was so distracted by grief she became emotionally detached from her two children, Dorothea, nearly 3, and Rod, who is named for his father, who died a week before he was born. ``It was too painful interacting with them,'' she said, ``It reminded me of what I lost. Besides, I was so focused on breathing.'' Over time, Dorothea began to act out aggressively, much of it directed at her fragile brother, who was born prematurely and spent his first month in intensive care. Last month, Dorothea's therapist warned that Ms. Wotton's inattention was compounding her daughter's trauma. It was those blunt words, Ms. Wotton said, that helped her cross an invisible line. In a burst of activity, she opened her backyard swimming pool, planted some tomato plants in the garden that was once her husband's domain and started to talk baby talk to her son. She even visited ground zero, which helped her realize that her husband was really, truly gone. ``I saw where the south tower was and finally understood he couldn't have survived such hatred,'' she said. In an outgrowth of her newfound strength, she has begun a campaign aimed at winning extended health coverage from her husband's former employer, Fiduciary Trust, which plans to cut off all medical benefits in December. Last month she appeared with Diane Sawyer on ABC's ``Primetime Thursday,'' and now other networks are clamoring for an appearance. ``I have this big open wound, but it's starting to form a tiny scab,'' she said. ``I still feel the pain, but I'm doing what my husband would have expected of me.'' For Elaine Chevalier, Brittany's mother, the journey back to everyday life has been powered by the earthly distractions of work and the spiritual nourishment that comes from intense faith. Those first catatonic months have given way to busy days managing commercial real estate in and around Middletown. But Ms. Chevalier says her true salvation has been her church and its support group. The crystallizing moment came one night last year in a dream, which featured Swede, the angel Raphael and her son's yellow Labrador retriever, Holly, who had also just died. ``I'm trying to heal by thinking about my son in a different way, trying to think of him as a spiritual being,'' she said, sitting in the family's soaring great room with Brittany by her side. ``Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn't cut it.'' As she crosses the one-year mark, Ms. Chevalier believes she is entering a new phase of her life, one marked by self- reliance. (She is also seeking a divorce from her husband of 30 years). ``The community has been so wonderful to us,'' she said, ``but people can't feel sorry for us and cater to us forever.'' It has been a busy year for the dozens of volunteers who came together to spoil the grieving families of Middletown. Besides raising $200,000 in cash, the group, Favor, made sure every family received overflowing gift baskets to mark Thanksgiving, Christmas, the depths of winter and the beginning of summer. In June, the group decided it had done its job, and announced that it would disband. Several of the organizers, who set aside work and the demands of family, said it was time to return to their former lives. But Favor will not be fading away any time soon. The renewed flood of news media attention that began in recent weeks has sparked a fresh round of philanthropy, including that of a Texas millionaire who has offered scholarships to the 61 children who lost a parent last September. At the very least, Allyson Gilbert, the group's executive director, said she and others have decided to put together one more gift basket, something small and simple, perhaps a tray of home-baked cookies crowned by a teddy bear. The baskets, she said, will probably arrive a week or two after Sept. 11, when the commemorative events and televised anniversary specials are through. ``They don't need us to deliver these huge food baskets or big checks anymore,'' she said. ``I think they just need a reminder that we're thinking about them, that we have not forgotten, and that we're not going to go away.''

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) for what he said, and I know that there were a lot of New Jersey people at Ground Zero. I think the governor of New Jersey also spoke or read the Declaration of Independence, if I am not mistaken. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), our Democratic whip.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to use the full hour this evening, unless some of my colleagues come in and would like to share some of the time. I did want to take to the floor this evening on the evening of September 11 to basically talk about the meaning of September 11 to me and particularly to my constituents in New Jersey. I wanted to particularly make reference to two events that I participated in in the last 24 hours. Last evening, after the House adjourned during the day for votes, I went up to Middletown, New Jersey, which is a town in my district, in Monmouth County, that suffered more deaths in the World Trade Center building during the attack on September 11 than any other town in New Jersey or maybe in the whole metropolitan area. There was a memorial service, a dedication of a garden in memory of the 36 residents of Middletown who died on September 11. It was a very moving ceremony. We had relatives of the victims who made speeches. I would like to talk about it a little more. The other event I went to this morning was at my own high school in Long Branch, New Jersey, where the entire student body from kindergarten, I believe, all the way to 12th grade, to the graduating seniors, showed up at the football stadium for a service. I think we must have had probably over 4,000 people there this morning. It also was very moving. I would like to sort of comment on both of those ceremonies in light of what happened last year. Mr. Speaker, last September 11 I actually was in the Capitol. Many of us know that on Mondays and Tuesdays we schedule at 9 a.m. what we call morning hour, which is very similar to the special orders that we have at the end of the day. It is an opportunity between 9 and 10 a.m. for Members of Congress to come down and give 5-minute speeches on whatever topic they desire. It is not part of the votes of the House. It is an opportunity to talk about issues or really any kind of event that you want to talk about that day. Before morning hour on the Democratic side we have a meeting, what we call a message meeting in the morning that I chair, along with the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), and that usually starts at 8:30 in the morning. So on that morning of September 11 last year we started at 8:30, maybe it was a little later, with a message meeting, and then we came up to the floor, some of us, including myself, to do the 5 minutes for morning hour. I do not know exactly what time it was, probably maybe about 9:15 or 9:20, when I finished my 5-minute speech for morning hour that I walked out of this Chamber and walked over to the leader's office, the office of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), and discovered that the World Trade Center had been attacked. It was on the TV. The only reason I bring this up is because over the weekend there was a report in the news media about how certain informers for al Qaeda and the Taliban had indicated that the plane that went down in Pennsylvania on September 11 last year was actually headed for the Capitol, for the United States Capitol. This morning when I was at the ceremony at Long Branch High School, the superintendent of schools, who was the MC for the ceremony, Mr. Joseph Ferraina, mentioned in his opening remarks that the people who died on September 11 basically gave their lives so that others might live. I thought about that statement this morning, and, of course, it has a tremendous symbolic meaning, but it also had a literal meaning in a sense for me, because it is very likely that if those brave Americans who had decided to try to fight the terrorists and bring down that plane into a field in Pennsylvania had not made the decision to try to struggle and overcome the terrorists, that that plane would have headed for the Capitol and I would have been right here on the House floor and probably died as a result or could have died as a result of that attack. So those people literally, literally, were giving their lives so that Members of Congress like myself and my colleagues could live. It is an amazing thing to think about, that they were willing to sacrifice so that that plane would not come here and hit the United States Capitol. But I also thought this morning that they were not only giving their lives for other Americans, possibly myself and my colleagues, but they were also sacrificing their lives, they were essentially martyrs for the cause of America in a more symbolic way. When I say the cause of America, what do I mean? I mean democracy. I mean the freedom of speech, the freedom to assemble, the freedom of religion that we find so sacred. My wife mentioned to me this morning that the Americans who were on that plane that ended up crashing in Pennsylvania, because they were in contact with others on the ground, they were using cell phones and were able to contact other people while they were on the plane, and they found out that the World Trade Center had been attacked, that the Pentagon had been attacked, and they decided, because of those attacks, that they would take a vote and they would vote amongst themselves on the plane as to whether or not they would try to overcome the terrorists in order to veer the plane away from, in this case, the Capitol or whatever else they thought landmark it might be used by the terrorists to attack. I thought it was terribly significant that they voted, because here we are this morning in Long Branch, yesterday in Middletown, today on the floor in Washington, talking about the meaning of democracy and how the people who lost their lives were really martyrs for the American way for democracy. Lo and behold, they were taking a vote to decide whether to overcome the terrorists, which is probably, I guess, the most basic manifestation of what democracy is about, taking a vote. I am sure that the terrorists that hijacked the plane were not taking any votes because, unlike the Americans who were willing to give their lives on that plane, they did not believe in a democratic process. They did not believe in the American way, the values that we believe in. They basically had a very different ideology, and their ideology, whatever it was, said that it was okay for them to hijack the plane, to kill innocent civilians for what would appear to be some sort of fundamentalist religious cause. I think that we cannot forget the fact that so many Americans who lost their lives on September 11, including the 36 in Middletown, the town that I went to last night in my district, even though they were giving their lives for the American way, for American values, that the effect on their families, the effect on their relatives, is devastating. It is nice to say that someone is a martyr. It is a glorious thing. But, at the same time, it is very hard to be the relative of the martyr, because your husband or your wife or your daughter or your son is no longer there. There is the huge void, if you will, that lingers. I am sure it lingers a year later or lingers 10 years later. It is never really filled. Mr. Speaker, I will introduce into the record an article that was in the New York Times, I think it was on September 7, just a couple of days ago, that talks about Middletown, New Jersey, and the grief and the difficulty that the relatives and the survivors of the victims of September 11 have been going through. I put it in the record, Mr. Speaker, not because I want to dwell on the grief. The title of the article in the New York Times is ``Emerging From Cocoon of Grief,'' but because I think it is important for us to understand that as much as we talk about these victims and their families, or these heroes, I should say, and their families, in the sense that they gave so much and they are so important and they are so significant for us to comment on, that they still were people whose families now are having problems because of a void that has been left behind. I think this article kinds of sums it all up. It sums up their courage and what they had to face, but also sums up what they face in the future. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to a courageous struggle that is taking place on the island of Cuba. While Fidel Castro maintains his stranglehold on freedom of expression, association, and assembly, a growing number of nonviolent dissidents are speaking out to demand civil liberties and basic human rights for Cuba's 11 million citizens. However, being brave enough to stand up to the regime can come at great personal cost. Opponents of the state are subject to punishments ranging from harassment and loss of employment to beatings and imprisonment. According to the best estimates of human rights groups, Cuban democracy groups, government and nongovernment organizations, there are over 400 political dissidents now languishing in Cuban jails. No other country of Cuba's size has held so many political prisoners for so long and under such cruel circumstances. I am proud, Mr. Speaker, to be a member of Cuba Libertad's Congressional Cuban Prisoners Initiative. The initiative is a bipartisan effort to promote respect for human rights and democratic change in Cuba. Twelve prisoners have been selected to serve as symbols for the more than 400 men and women who are suffering in Cuban prisons for the expression of their political beliefs. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight one such prisoner, Mayda Barbara Jordan. Mayda was one of hundreds of Cubans who sought freedom during the 1994 dissident uprising known as the Maleconazo, where hundreds of Cubans took to the streets to demand liberty. Mayda was arrested along with her sister for participating in this mass protest and trying to provide a better life for her family. Her crime? The Cuban government calls it piracy. Her charge reflects the Cuban government's policy of sentencing dissidents for serious criminal acts in an effort to deny the existence of political prisoners. Mayda is a mother of two young children and is suffering from the 8th year of a 15-year prison sentence. Mayda has served time in solitary confinement and has been denied family visits for continuing to voice dissent against the regime and refusing to undergo reeducation. Her sentence is meant to dissuade others from protesting or leaving Cuba. I urge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to join with me and demand the release of Mayda and all of Cuba's estimated 400 political prisoners. Through our efforts and those of such groups as Cuba Libertad, we can draw attention to the continuing atrocities against political prisoners in Cuba and let Castro know that we will not remain silent while these individuals are beaten, tortured and denied access to medical care. Mayda Jordan and all those advocating for freedom and democracy in Cuba need international recognition for their courageous struggle. Their lives and the birth of a new democratic Cuba depend on it, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Arkansas, my colleague, for everything that he said, because I think he is right on point on this issue of prescription drugs. But the two things that the gentleman stressed the most, or that I picked up the most, and they are clearly linked, and one is the effort on the part of the pharmaceutical industry to try to scuttle, in my opinion, both any effort in the House or in the Senate to address price, to try to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, and even the effort to scuttle a Medicare benefit, which the gentleman talked about and which we continue to stress. I just want to go through if I could a couple of those things, because the gentleman, first of all, mentioned the Washington Post article which was that day in, I guess it was in June, the night of June 19 when the GOP had the big fundraiser, the very day that we were in the Committee on Commerce and voting on a prescription drug benefit and we actually had to adjourn at 5 o'clock so that they could go to the Republican fundraiser. There was an article the next day, or actually it was that same day, and I am just going to read a couple of highlights of it. It says, ``Drug Firms Among Big Donors at GOP Event.'' It said, ``Pharmaceutical companies are among 21 donors paying $250,000 each for red-carpet treatment at tonight's GOP fundraising gala staring President Bush, two days after Republicans unveiled a prescription drug plan the industry is backing, according to GOP officials.'' This is not Democrats talking. It says, ``Drug companies, in particular, have made a rich investment into tonight's event. Robert Ingram, GlaxoSmithKline PLC's chief operating officer, is the chief corporate fundraiser for the gala; his company gave at least $250,000. Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America,'' that is PhRMA, a trade group funded by the brand name companies, ``kicked in $250,000, too.'' It says, ``PhRMA is also helping underwrite a television ad campaign touting the GOP's prescription drug plan.'' I am going to talk about that a little bit too. It goes on to talk about the different companies that contributed. But it said, ``Every company giving money to the event has business before Congress. But the juxtaposition of the prescription drug debate on Capitol Hill and drug companies helping to underwrite a major fundraiser highlights the tight relationship lawmakers have with groups seeking to influence them. ``A senior House GOP leadership aide said yesterday that Republicans are working hard behind the scenes on behalf of PhRMA to make sure,'' I mean that says it all. That is what it is all about. As the gentleman said, the sad thing about it is, what really went on here in June was that PhRMA and the drug companies got together and decided what they wanted the prescription drug bill to be. They were determined that it was not going to be an expansion of Medicare; it was just going to be an effort to maybe get people to go out to find private insurance. But most importantly, it would determine that it would not address price. The gentleman and I have talked before, and I am just going to mention again that in that Republican bill, they went so far at the request of the pharmaceutical companies to actually write into the law that there could not be any effort to address price. I just want to read this noninterference clause that is in the Republican bill. It says, the administrator of the program ``may not (i) require a particular formulary or institute a price structure for the reimbursement of covered outpatient drugs; (ii), interfere in any way with negotiations between PDP sponsors and Medicare+Choice organizations and drug manufacturers; and (iii), otherwise interfere with the competitive nature of providing such coverage.'' Basically, what they say with this language is that there cannot be any discussion of price. There cannot be any effort on the part of the Federal agency that deals with this program to deal with price. Mr. Speaker, we did the opposite in our bill, and the gentleman mentioned that too. We said, in the Democratic bill, we specifically mandated that the Secretary of Health and Human Services negotiate, because now he is going to have 30 million, 40 million seniors, negotiate to bring the prices down, because he is now going to have tremendous power, having all of these seniors, so that he can negotiate with the drug companies just like we do with the Veterans Administration or with the military, and we can bring prices down maybe 30, 40 percent. That is just one way to do it. There are all kinds of ways to do it. I talked about the generic bill before, that is a way to do it. Reimportation is a way to do it. But the Republicans do not want to do anything on the issue of price because basically they are in the pockets of this name brand drug industry. The other thing the gentleman mentioned and I will just mention briefly is this data that came out that showed that the big drug companies spent almost 2\1/2\ times as much on marketing/advertising/ administration as they spent on R&D. So the gentleman said, and he is right; sure, there is no question that these drug companies are coming up with miracle drugs, but that is less, 2\1/2\ times less than what they spend on the marketing and the advertising. This was done by FamiliesUSA, and it says, ``U.S. drug companies that market the 50 most often prescribed drugs to seniors spent almost 2\1/ 2\ times as much on marketing/advertising/administration as they spent on R&D,'' according to the analysis. It goes into for each company the percentage of revenue spent on marketing and spent on R&D. Just a few, like Merck spent 13 percent on marketing/advertising, 5 percent on R&D. Pfizer, 35 percent on marketing/advertising; 15 percent on R&D. Bristol-Myers spent 27 on marketing/advertising; 12 percent on R&D. I mean these are facts, there is no way to get around it. The thing that really bothers me, though, is the fact that we went home for this August break, but before that the Republicans passed this fake bill at the request of the pharmaceuticals that does not even address price. And what did they do? They went out and they started, started even before we left, but it was in full force in August, this huge TV ad campaign, the so-called issue ads, but they are just really campaign ads, and they spent millions of dollars on these Republican candidates, only the ones that voted for the bill, voted for their bill, for the drug companies' bill, and so they influenced the policy writing the bill, getting the bill passed, and then rewarding the people who voted for it by spending millions of dollars on advertising to get them reelected. They have been doing it with this United Seniors Association, which is basically just a shell, I guess we could call it, for the drug industry. So I am saying the same thing the gentleman has already said, but it is just upsetting, because we are back here now, we are taking the time here in Special Orders trying to explain all of this and, meanwhile, these ads are going on, multimillions of dollars saying just the opposite, 30 seconds, 1-minute ads. I do not know how we even succeed in getting the word out about what is really happening about here, but there is no question that we have to try, and that is why I appreciate the gentleman being here, once again. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to spend a little time just talking a bit more, if I could, about what the Democrats in the House have in mind for a Medicare prescription drug benefit and how that contrasts so much with the Republican proposal that passed the House. As I said before, what the Democrats have been saying is that the only effective way to provide a meaningful prescription drug benefit for seniors is if we simply expand Medicare, which has been a very successful program, probably one of the most successful Federal programs that ever existed, and we include a prescription drug benefit within the confines of the Medicare program. Now, what we have put forward, and this was the Democratic alternative to the Republican bill, as I said before, is very much modeled on Part D. Seniors now under Medicare get their hospital coverage under part A, and under part B of Medicare, they pay a premium of so much a month, and they get 80 percent of their doctor bills covered by Medicare, by the Federal program. Now, the House Democratic proposal adds a new Part D to Medicare that provides a similar voluntary prescription drug coverage for all Medicare beneficiaries beginning in 2005. The premium is $25 a month, the deductible is $100 a year, just like Part B; the coinsurance is 20 percent, the beneficiary pays 20 percent, and Medicare pays 80 percent, and basically, it is a $2,000 out-of-pocket limit. After you have spent $2,000 out-of-pocket, because of the copayment, then the rest of your prescription drug bills are paid by the Federal Government 100 percent. For those who are low income, those seniors who cannot afford the premium, again, just like Part B, beneficiaries with incomes up to 150 percent of poverty pay no premium or cost-sharing; beneficiaries with incomes between 150 to 175 percent of poverty pay no cost-sharing and receive assistance. So depending on your income, the Federal Government would actually pay for the premium or a certain part of the premium. But again, it is a 20 percent a month premium, so most seniors would pay the premium and they would get the benefit, just like they do with the current Part B under Medicare. Now, the amazing thing to me, and I do not want to keep stressing it all night, but the amazing thing to me is that during the August break I kept hearing the President of the United States constantly talk about the need to privatize not only a prescription drug program, which would be an expansion of Medicare, but actually talk about privatizing Medicare itself. He had a forum, I think it was in Waco, Texas around the middle of August, where he talked about, it was sort of an economic forum primarily, but he also talked about Medicare, and he said that he thought Medicare should be privatized. So what we are seeing on the part of the Republican leadership and the President is that they basically do not like Medicare. Not only would they not expand Medicare to cover prescription drugs, they do not like the traditional Medicare that we have now and that has been such a successful program that so many seniors depend upon. Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time that I have come to the floor to point out that so many in the Republican Party historically have been critical of Medicare itself, let alone expanding Medicare for prescription drugs. Despite Medicare's effectiveness at improving the health of America's seniors and the disabled, there are many Republicans that continue to oppose it. Former Speaker Gingrich once said that Medicare would wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it. Even as recently as 1995, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), who is the Republican majority leader now in the House of Representatives, called Medicare a program I would have no part of in a free world. Of course, the program is too popular to repeal, so instead the House Republican leadership has implemented a budget plan that is projected to raid all of the Medicare surplus. So what we are seeing here now with the Republican budget and with the Republican economic policy is that we go back into debt and we start borrowing from Social Security, we borrow from Medicare and, ultimately, these very good social programs, one a pension program, Social Security, and another a health care program, Medicare, eventually have no money, or have less and less money, and then we take that argument to say, well, if they have no money, we better come up with something else and we better privatize the program. It is unbelievable to me that this is the way that they are proceeding. So even though I wanted to stress the prescription drug program tonight, I cannot help but point out that this is part of a larger effort on the President's part and on the Republican leadership's part to talk about privatizing Medicare as well as Social Security. I think that the most important point that I can end with tonight is to point out that as Democrats we feel that it is our obligation to not only continue with a strong Medicare program, as well as a strong Social Security program, but that we need to build on those programs, and that is why when we talk about a prescription drug plan we want it to be part of Medicare, an expansion of Medicare, because that has been a very successful program. It is the only way to guarantee that every senior not only gets health care, but gets a prescription drug plan. If you privatize prescription drugs as a benefit, you have no guarantee that people in any particular part of the country are going to have access to health insurance because they probably will not be able to buy it. It will not be for sale. If you include it as part of Medicare, you guarantee that every senior is going to have access to a good prescription drug program. The last point I will make is that not only do we need to provide a benefit for seniors, we need to address the rising cost of prescription drugs, and whether that means that we, in the context of Medicare, give the Secretary negotiating power to bring prices down through negotiations over the cost of drugs, or it means that we deal with the generic issue, as I mentioned before, and plug up a lot of loopholes so that it is easier to bring generic drugs to market, or we allow reimportation as a last resort from Canada or other countries, we need to get at this price issue. I am just so upset over the fact that the Republican leadership in the House refuses to address the price issue. We are going to continue to make the price issue an important point and try to get something passed here on that issue as well as the benefit before we adjourn this Congress in October.

Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, I wanted to take to the floor this evening to talk once again about the prescription drug issue, both the problem in terms of more and more Americans not being able to afford the price of prescription drugs and the need to provide an expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drugs under Medicare for America's seniors and disabled. I want to start out by saying that during the August break when I had a number of town meetings and forums and open houses at my district offices in New Jersey, this was the number one issue that my constituents came to me and talked about. Interestingly enough, it was not just the seniors who wanted to see Medicare expanded to include prescription drugs and wanted a benefit, but it was also a lot of younger people who expressed concerns about the rising cost of prescription drugs and their inability to pay for them. It amazes me that we are now back, and it is September, September 4. We have in the House of Representatives, the Congress as a whole, probably a month or 6 weeks or so at the most before we adjourn. Yet we are stuck in the fact that at this point there is no reason to believe that either a prescription drug benefit or a mechanism to control the price of prescription drugs is likely to pass before we adjourn. I think that that is a tragedy. I think there is nothing more important for us to do between now and the adjournment of this House sometime in October than to try to address both of these issues. I have talked many times about the need for a Medicare benefit that includes prescription drugs. Democrats in the House, unlike the Republicans, have taken the position and put forward a proposal that would expand Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit. Basically, we have talked about it, and we have put forward a bill that would create a new Medicare program, very similar to what we have now for part B in Medicare that pays for seniors' doctors' bills and that simply says that seniors would pay so much a month, about $25, and 80 percent of the cost of their prescription drugs would be paid for by Medicare, by the Federal Government. There would be a $100 deductible. The first $100 you would have to pay out of pocket. After that, 80 percent of the costs would be paid for; and there would be a 20 percent copay, very similar to what seniors now have under Medicare for the payment of their doctor bills. The sad thing about it is that the Republicans in the House refuse to do that. Basically, what they have said is they want a privatization plan. I was very upset to see that during the course of the August break, President Bush repeatedly talked not only about the need to have a private drug benefit but also about privatizing Medicare and Social Security in general. Here we face a situation where our Federal budget is once again in deficit, and we are spending money from the Social Security trust fund to pay for other expenses of the government and the President continues to talk about privatizing Social Security as well as Medicare; and the Republicans push for a private program, saying, Well, we'll give the seniors some money and maybe they can go out and find a prescription drug plan in the private sector. They do not want to expand Medicare to provide a benefit. I would call upon my colleagues in the House, let us get together and let us push for a Medicare benefit, for a prescription drug program that really will make a difference. What is happening in the Senate is interesting as well. Over in the Senate they passed legislation on a bipartisan basis that would try to address the issue of price in some significant ways, most important, by plugging up some of the loopholes in the brand-name industry, in the patent system, whereby many of the name-brand companies have been able to prevent generic drugs from coming to market by expanding their patents and taking advantage of loopholes in the patent laws to make it more difficult to sell a generic drug when a patent should expire. I know it is a difficult concept, but the bottom line is that one way to reduce prices in a significant way is to pass the bill, the Schumer- McCain bill, that passed the Senate and take it up here in the House and pass that bill or a similar bill in the House that would make it more difficult for these brand-name drug companies to extend their patents or to come up with another drug that is similar and say that generics could not come to market. We feel that we can make a difference, that maybe 40 percent of the cost of prescription drugs could be saved if some of these loopholes were cleared up and we were able to encourage the use of generics. The Senate also passed as part of the same bill the allowance for reimportation through Canada as a method of bringing drug costs down. We need to address this as well. The House should take up the Senate bill that deals with generics, that deals with the reimportation and simply pass it, or in other ways we have to deal with the price issue as well. There are many ways to deal with that, and I think we can talk about them more this evening. But the bottom line is this inaction, where the House passes this privatization of Medicare and tries to seek to provide a Medicare benefit through some kind of private insurance is not going to pass the Senate, and it should not because it is not going to be meaningful; and the idea of expanding generics and providing for reimportation as some method of bringing drug costs down is something that we should pass in the House and at least try to get something accomplished between now and the end of this session. I see one of my colleagues who has been so much a part of this debate all year, the gentleman from Arkansas, who owns a pharmacy and who is very familiar with some of the problems that seniors face with prescription drugs and I know who also has a very good bill on a bipartisan basis with, I guess, one of our colleagues from Missouri (Mrs. Emerson). He is working very hard to come up with a prescription drug benefit as well along the lines of what I discussed earlier. I am pleased to see him here and I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to once again draw attention to important developments in Fidel Castro's continued oppression of the Cuban people. Needless to say, this summer has proved to be a memorable one for Fidel Castro. It began on Friday, May 10, when over 11,000 citizens of Cuba took a courageous stand and petitioned the Cuban National Assembly to hold a nationwide referendum vote on guarantees of human rights and civil liberties. Named for the 19th-century priest and Cuban independence hero, Padre Felix Varela, the Varela Project was the first-ever peaceful challenge to Castro's four-decade long control of the island. Varela received no funding or support from foreign organizations or foreign governments and is a grassroots effort by the Cuban people to call on their government to provide them with internationally accepted standards of human and civil rights. In an attempt to negate the effects of Varela, Castro scrambled to respond. Exactly one month to the day that Varela was delivered to the Assembly, Castro and his regime organized mass demonstrations all over Cuba in a sign of so called ``support'' for Cuba's socialist form of government. Castro began his own petition effort that asks members of the Cuban National Assembly to adopt an amendment to the Cuban constitution that stipulates that Cuba is a ``socialist state of workers, independent and sovereign, organized with all and for the good of all, as a unified democratic republic, for the enjoyment of political liberty, social justice, individual and collective well-being and human solidarity.'' Castro has supposedly ``obtained'' the signatures of approximately 98% of Cuba's voting population. However, Castro's poorly veiled attempt to erase the impact of the Varela Project has only backfired. As we near the middle of summer, Castro continues to strong-arm Cuban citizens into signing his petition, and word of the Varela Project continues to spread. Oswaldo Paya, Varela's organizer, continues to collect signatures and continues to garner the world's attention for his efforts. It is critical that we continue to draw attention to and commend the efforts of Paya, his fellow organizers and all those who have signed Project Varela. Castro cannot continue to hide behind his forced petition and continue to ignore Project Varela. If Castro is so assured of his having the support of the Cuban people, then he must schedule a referendum on Varela's reforms and allow the true voices of the Cuban people to be heard.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to express my warm regards towards the Honorable Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. His visit this week to the United States, the first visit by a Sri Lankan leader since a civil war broke out 19 years ago, confirmed that Sri Lanka is a valued friend and partner of the United States and an important ally in the campaign against international terrorism. The United States and Sri Lanka have enjoyed a strong friendship based on common values such as democracy and religious freedom. For the past 19 years, there has been civil strife between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that has unfortunately cost an estimated 65,000 lives and displaced an estimated 1,000,000 lives. In a breakthrough brokered by Norway, the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an agreement on a cease-fire was signed by both parties and went into effect February 23, 2002. These peace talks are set to begin in August in Thailand and at this time, I would like to commend the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka for his great effort to steer his country towards peace talks and for working on resolving the current conflict at the negotiating table with LTTE leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. I applaud the Prime Minister's belief that a comprehensive and lasting peace solution is a priority and I support his denunciation of all political violence and acts of terrorism in Sri Lanka. During talks this week between President Bush and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, the Prime Minister emphasized that consistent U.S. diplomacy and international assistance will be critical in ensuring peace in Sri Lanka. In addition, the Prime Minister requested expansion of a military training program and improved economic ties between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. As the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan Americans, I would like to express my willingness for the U.S. to play a constructive role in supporting the peace process. In addition, I plan to encourage the Bush administration to take the steps necessary to support Sri Lanka during the peace process and to take the steps necessary to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Sri Lanka. Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged by the leadership and dedication to peace so clearly exemplified by Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. I am pleased that his visit to the U.S. was a success and it is now time for the U.S. to proceed and actively support peace and reparation in Sri Lanka.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to condemn the recent sectarian violence, that has occurred in Northern Ireland over the past several weeks. It is quite obvious to me that the parties who are organizing these attacks are hoping that they can derail the 1998 Good Friday Peace Accord. Mr. Speaker, as you may know, for the first time since January, an individual was killed in Belfast due to sectarian violence. This murder was one of several coordinated acts of violence which occurred Monday evening. At different points throughout the night, several young men were shot at in Catholic neighborhoods. All acts were credited to the Ulster Defense Association, also know as the Red Hand Defenders. Late Monday evening, Gerald Lawler, a Catholic teenager was walking home from a local Belfast pub, when he was suddenly shot to death in a drive-by attack. His crime: he was a 19 year-old Catholic walking home from a predominately Catholic bar, in a predominately Catholic neighborhood. He was killed solely because of his religion. According to news reports he wasn't even active politically. This attack occurred only days after the Irish Republic Army (IRA) issued an unprecedented public apology for civilian deaths which occurred over the more than 30 year conflict. This surprise gesture was an obvious sign that the IRA and other Catholic groups want to work to ensure the survival of the new government of Northern Ireland. By apologizing the IRA takes a significant step in showing the world that they are ready to obey the guidelines of the '98 accords. Unfortunately, extremist groups on the other side of the conflict do not feel the same way. The murder of Gerald Lawler Monday night by the UDA confirms that loyalist groups refuse to give equality to Catholics, called for in the Good Friday Accords. These extremist groups feel that by once again escalating the conflict they can destroy the accords and the power- sharing government thus reverting back to sectarian Protestant control. Yesterday (Wednesday), Prime Minister Blair called for an end of the violence in Northern Ireland and vowed to toughen its enforcement of paramilitary cease-fires. To enforce these cease-fires, Blair plans to deploy hundreds of extra police and soldiers to spearhead a campaign to keep the peace. While I am encouraged by Prime Minister Blair's comments, I am worried that an increase in British police and military personnel will do little to stem the violence. In the past, when the offenders of cease-fires were groups which are loyal to the crown, the police frequently turned a blind eye to the violence, refusing to arrest and prosecute offenses against Catholics. This only caused the conflict to escalate rather than encourage peace. I call on Prime Minister Blair and First Minister David Trimble, the Protestant government leader, to take real steps to stop the violence. They need to find all the perpetrators of the violence in the North, especially those which occurred most recently, and take appropriate legal action against them. For the Good Friday accord to be successful all parties in Northern Ireland must stop the sectarian violence. The conflict in Ireland between Catholic and Protestants is centuries old. However, for the first time a real solution, which is equitable to all sides, has been reached and is in the early stages of working. Now both sides need to come together and stop any and all sectarian violence and allow for true democracy to work.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise on the House floor this evening to discuss the sale of the Israeli Arrow Weapon System to India. According to several reports, Mr. Speaker, there is support within the Pentagon and support from Israel to make the sale of the Arrow Weapon System a reality. However, Secretary Powell and the State Department are preparing to express objection to India's purchase of this missile defense system from Israel, due to the current military standoff between India and Pakistan. I sent a letter today to Secretary Powell, requesting that the Secretary not delay or oppose India's purchase of this missile defense system from Israel. I strongly believe that the State Department's support for the Arrow Weapon System sale to India would further solidify the new defense relationship between the United States and India. For the past several months, the U.S. and India have participated in numerous joint military exercises which have fostered a strong defense relationship between the two countries, which share democratic interests and have been working together well against global terrorism. In addition, the Arrow Weapon System was created to defend against short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, India's interest in the Arrow Weapon System is to improve missile defense, not offense, which is a key factor regarding this sale that needs to be considered. There have also been reports that indicate that India is preparing to buy parts from the United States for military equipment such as helicopters, jets and radar systems. The sale of this equipment was initially delayed due to sanctions imposed on India in May 1998. Those sanctions have been lifted for nearly one year and I requested that the sale of this equipment not be delayed as well due to the current situation between India and Pakistan. Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that during Secretary Powell's trip to India this week, he will voice approval of this Israeli sale to India. This is a positive step for U.S.-India relations and because of the defensive nature of this defense system, the U.S. should not delay this sale due to the conflict between India and Pakistan. July 23, 2002. Hon. Colin Powell, Secretary, U.S. Department of State, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Secretary: I am writing today to urge you not to delay the sale of the Israeli Arrow Weapon System to India. According to several reports, there is support within the Pentagon and support from Israel to make this sale a reality. However, I understand that during your upcoming trip to India, you are preparing to express your objection to India's purchase of this missile defense system from Israel, due to the current military standoff between India and Pakistan. I strongly believe that the State Department's support for the Arrow Weapon System sale to India would further solidify the new defense relationship between the United States and India. For the past several months, the US and India have participated in numerous joint military exercises which have fostered a strong defense relationship between the two countries, which share democratic interests and have been working together well against global terrorism. In addition, the Arrow Weapon System was created to defend against short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles. Therefore, India's interest in the Arrow Weapon System is to improve missile defense, not offense, which is a key factor regarding this sale that needs to be considered. There have also been reports that indicate that India is preparing to buy parts from the United States for military equipment such as helicopters, jets and radar systems. The sale of this equipment was initially delayed due to sanctions imposed on India in May 1998. Those sanctions have been lifted for nearly one year and I request that the sale of this equipment not be delayed due to the current situation between India and Pakistan. I am hoping that during your trip this week, you will voice approval of this Israeli sale to India and I thank you for taking my views into consideration. Sincerely, Frank Pallone, Jr.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the bill and in opposition to any amendments that prohibit funds from being used to administer or enforce the ban on travel to Cuba or to enforce the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Mr. Chairman, I have said in the past doing business with Cuba means doing business with Castro. So long as Castro maintains his stranglehold on every aspect of Cuban life, lifting any aspect of the embargo or allowing Americans to travel to Cuba would mean subsidizing Castro. Contrary to popular belief, increased tourist travel to the island would not increase purposeful contact with the Cuban people and instead contributes to unacceptable practices of slave labor and racism. Canadians and Europeans have been traveling to Cuba for years, and yet there has been no measurable impact on or change in Castro's control over the people. Furthermore, 98 percent of Cuban citizens are forbidden even entry into the tourist areas, which is Fidel Castro's way of denying foreigners the ability to gain a glimpse into the reality of Cuban life. Those Cubans who do work at the resorts are forbidden to engage in certain types of conversations with foreigners, including any mention of Cuba's political situation, the U.S. embargo, and other such issues. Citizens who work at the resorts are employed by a state employment agency run by the Castro regime. The foreign resorts pay the workers' wages to the state agency in dollars, but the workers receive only pesos. Therefore between 95 and 97 percent of a workers' wages are kept by Castro. Mr. Chairman, most Cuban tourist operations are run by the Cuban military and internal security services. These so-called companies funnel money directly into the regime, earning them the hard currency necessary to perpetuate their repressive policies. Expanding tourism was the key to Castro's survival after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tourism has helped to feed the personal fortunes of the Castro family and provide the necessary government revenues that Cuba's deteriorating sugar industry and failing state enterprises simply cannot. Mr. Chairman, by lifting these sanctions, with nothing in exchange from the Cuban Government, we would be betraying the very people that these policies were designed to help. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to join with me and oppose any amendments that lift travel restrictions or lift the embargo and to remain committed to their support and the U.S. Government's support for the Cuban people. introduction

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, more information comes out every day about the influence of the drug industry, both on the White House and on Congress, in terms of what kind of prescription drug plan we pass here in the House and in the other body, which is currently debating the bill. I do not bring up the information about the links between the prescription drug industry because of any desire to defame them, but only because I am very concerned that their amount of influence that they exert here basically skews the dialogue and what we pass in a way that is not beneficial to the average Americans. The bottom line is that Democrats in the House a few weeks ago, when the Republicans passed the prescription drug bill, were very critical of the Republican bill because it was basically giving money to private insurers in the hope that they would offer drug-only policies to senior citizens. There was nothing in the Republican prescription drug bill that passed the House that would guarantee a prescription drug benefit for seniors. There was no guarantee, and there was no absolutely effort on the Republican part to address the issue of price, which is the main problem most Americans face now, that the price of drug continues to rise. What Democrats said then and continue to say is that we need a prescription drug benefit under Medicare that guarantees the plan a benefit, a generous benefit, 80 percent of the cost paid for by the Federal Government, that guarantees that benefit to every American, or to every senior, I should say, to everyone who is eligible for Medicare, and that is basically under Medicare, an expansion of Medicare, and that addresses the issue of price by saying that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will basically negotiate for the 30 or 40 million Americans who are under Medicare to reduce price maybe 30 or 40 percent. Now, the reason that the Democratic bill did not get a chance, and the reason the Republican bill, which is private subsidies for insurance companies, passed, is not only because the Republicans are in the majority, but because of the influence of the prescription drug industry. They wanted a bill that provided a subsidy to the private insurance companies and not a Medicare benefit, and the prescription drug industry wanted to make sure that there was nothing in the Republican bill that would reduce prices. I say that because more and more information comes out on a daily basis about the influence of the prescription drug industry. Soon after the House passed the Republican bill, the President released a study by the Department of Health and Human Services that basically said that the only way to go was to give money to private insurers; that a Medicare benefit and a program that controlled cost would actually hurt research and development of new drugs. This was in The Washington Post on Thursday, July 11. It said, ``The Bush administration plans to issue a study today suggesting that any new prescription drug coverage for older Americans must rely on the private sector to provide it, warning that too much government regulation could hinder access to promising new therapies. The report described effective drug therapies, and says that cost containment efforts would fail.'' The bottom line is, who put out this report? We find out that the former vice president of policy for PHRMA, the prescription drug trade group, is in charge of Secretary Thompson's planning department. This is the same department that generated this study warning that a drug benefit delivered through Medicare would devastate R&D and harm seniors. It is simply not true. It is because of the influence of the prescription drug industry, and even the policymakers in the White House that used to work for them, that now we have both the industry and the advertisements paid for by the prescription drug industry and the people at the White House coming out and saying, go to the private sector; do not do a Medicare benefit, do not control costs. Now, by contrast to that prejudiced, if you will, study that came out from the White House, and essentially from former PHRMA people, Families USA did a report just last week issued on July 17. Their report showed that U.S. drug companies that market the 50 most prescribed drugs to seniors spent almost 2\1/2\ times as much on marketing, advertising and administration as they spend on research and development in 2001. The report essentially debunks President Bush's recent assertion through that study of HHS, and the drug companies' claims, that rising and fast-rising drug prices are needed to support R&D. So if we look at the facts, we find out that it is not that the brand name drug companies need more money because they are going to do more R&D and come up with better drugs, it is because they are spending so much on marketing and advertising and administration, and also paying their CEOs very high salaries. That is the reason why they want the higher drug prices. We must point this out on a regular basis.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, tonight I want to join my colleagues on the House floor, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), to remember a horrific act taken by Turkey against the citizens of Cyprus 28 years ago. On July 28, 1974, the nation of Turkey violated international law when it brutally invaded the sovereign Republic of Cyprus. Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of September 11 and the horrific acts of terror that were inflicted upon thousands of innocent Americans in New York and Washington, it is important that this Congress and the American people recognize the events in Cyprus 28 years ago as an act of terror. Turkey illegally used American-supplied airplanes, bombs, and tanks in an act of terror against the people of Cyprus. This terror did not end with the invasion of the island. Instead, more than 200,000 people were forcibly displaced from their homes and a large number of Cypriot people who were captured during the invasion are still missing today. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights rebuked the Turkish government when the court overwhelmingly found them guilty of massive human rights violations over the last 28 years in a scathing 146-page decision. In the case of Cyprus v. Turkey, the court concluded Turkey has not done enough to investigate the whereabouts of Greek-Cypriot missing persons who disappeared during life-threatening situations after the occupation. The court also found Turkey guilty of refusing to allow the return of any displaced Greek-Cypriots to their homes in Northern Cyprus. Families continue to be separated by the 113-mile barbed wire fence that runs across the island. Mr. Speaker, it is expected that by the end of this year, Cyprus will be approved for accession into the European Union. The United States has strongly supported the Cyprus EU bid. EU membership will bring significant benefits to both the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Last year, a bipartisan House Resolution was introduced in the House expressing the sense of Congress that security, reconciliation, and prosperity for all Cypriots can be best achieved within the context of membership in the European Union, which will provide significant rights and obligations for all Cypriots, and for other purposes. I am hopeful that this Congress will approve that resolution as a strong sign of support for Cyprus's accession to the European Union. Officials from the EU continue to reiterate that a peace settlement is not a precondition to Cyprus's accession to the European Union. Regardless of whether or not an agreement is reached, the entire island of Cyprus will be recognized as one country within the European Union. Ideally, a settlement will be reached later on this year. Now, we know that hopes of a settlement continue, but at the end of discussions last month, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Clerides, said the peace talks with Turkish Cypriot leader Denktash were at a deadlock and that large differences remain. Mr. Speaker, the time has come for the Bush administration to apply pressure on the Turkish side and, in particular, on the Turkish government so that they can convince Turkish Cypriot leader Denktash to alter his current uncompromising stance. It is time for Denktash to negotiate in good faith in order to reach a comprehensive settlement within the framework provided for by the relevant United Nations Security Council's resolutions. These resolutions establish a bizonal, bicommunal federation with a single international personality and sovereignty and a single citizenship for all of Cyprus.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my outrage over the continued infiltration by Pakistani-backed militants and the line of control in Kashmir and the continued blatant terrorist attacks on innocent women and children in Jammu and Kashmir. About a month ago, President Musharraf of Pakistan acquiesced and promised to end infiltration of militants who were openly supported politically and morally by Pakistan. India had been willing to honor Musharraf's promise by giving him a chance to act on his word and waiting until October to assess the infiltration situation at the Line of Control. But much to everyone's dismay, this brutal killing in this war-torn region is going on unabated, despite Musharraf's promises. This past weekend's savage attack has left 27 civilians dead and wounded another 30 civilians. Another attack today wounded 13 people in Kashmir. I do not think there is any justification for such violence. Mr. Speaker, infiltration by militants at the border and terrorism in Kashmir needs to be stopped in order for peace and stability to be reinstated in this fragile region of the world. However, every step Musharraf is taking is, in fact, turning Pakistan in the opposite direction of achieving any sense of peace or stability, and, most importantly, achieving democracy. Mr. Speaker, President Musharraf has proposed changes to the constitution that are of grave concern. The underlying strategy behind his guise of transitioning to democracy is, in fact, to restructure the Pakistani government to protect his dictatorship. Through over 70 proposed amendments, he is attempting to rewrite Pakistan's constitution in order to empower his branch of government over other branches of the Pakistani government. In addition, Musharraf would also be giving the constitutional power to dissolve the parliament, dismiss and appoint a prime minister, and establish a national security council as a constitutional body. The latest piece of his proposal is to require members of parliament to hold university degrees which would disqualify 98 percent of Pakistan's 144 million citizens, but also would disallow over half of the politicians serving in the last parliament from holding office again. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the use of American resources provided in economic and military aid to an antidemocratic Pakistani regime. In October 2001, Congress passed a bill, S. 1465, which granted the President authority to waive all sanctions against Pakistan, including sanctions against Pakistan that prohibited aid to a nation whose democratically elected government was deposed. I introduced legislation today that reinstates the democracy sanctions, because I think it is necessary to implement measures that encourage Pakistan to transition back to democracy. I have written to President Bush and I have requested that he and his administration, particularly Secretary Colin Powell, who will be visiting the region over the next 2 weeks, to take these violent actions by Pakistan into consideration for any future talks with Musharraf, and that the United States use its influence to encourage a return to democracy in Pakistan.

Mr. PALLONE

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I have a great deal of respect for my colleagues who have been speaking so far this morning.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Chairman, again I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for those who have spoken so far. I know that they are well intentioned, but I am very disturbed by some of the comments and the procedure that we are following this morning. Let me say that I understand perfectly what the gentleman from Alaska said, but this is a debate that really does not belong here. I know we are dealing with money and trust reform, and one could argue that somehow it is appropriations related, but I think the very fact that there is such a debate, and so many questions about what we should be doing with the trust funds means that it should not be done on an appropriations bill. There should be a hearing, or perhaps a series of hearings that are being held in the Committee on Resources, in the authorizing committee, not here on the floor, when we are dealing with this larger bill. I think it is a huge mistake. The very nature of the debate shows it is a mistake, and why we should support the amendment offered by the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall). Beyond that, I was very disturbed by some of the comments the gentleman from Arizona made. He talked about how we have spent a million here or a million there in order to try to deal with this trust issue. But we are talking about a scandal, I use the term ``scandal'' because that is what it is, that affects about $10 billion in funds that may or may not be owed, depending on the amount, to American Indians. We have had problems over the last few weeks and the last few months with the corporate scandals and the accountants that we have had in Enron and WorldCom and everything else, and everybody on a bipartisan basis has been on this floor saying that we have to take responsibility and the CEOs have to take responsibility and do the right thing to make sure that the accounting is proper. Why is that any different for the Federal Government? Why is it any different for this Congress? This Congress has the same responsibility. I am not interested in whether the employees at the Interior Department are going to be harmed in some way, or whether or not they are going to have to go out and get a lawyer in some way because of something they may have done wrong. We are talking about people who historically have been harmed by this Congress. We have a special burden here. There are 100 or 200 years of harm to American Indians, and they do not trust us. I understand why they do not trust us, because of the things that have happened historically with this Congress and with the Federal Government. There is a special burden here, a special burden that goes beyond the Enrons and the WorldComs, so they do not think that everything that they do and everything that Congress does is going to harm them and be discriminatory against them. I know it is very easy for us to say here that we have to worry about this money and we have to worry about that money, but I think for us to suggest here today that we are going to have some sort of cutoff pre- 1985, or we are going to have some sort of cutoff after the year 2000, and say that we are going to limit the accounting or what the liability should be without having consultation with American Indian tribes is a huge mistake. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) mentioned that there is now a task force within the tribes in the American Indian community that is sitting down with the Interior Department, with Members of Congress, with our Committee on Resources, and talking about a process that we should go about, in consultation with them, to decide how to deal with this essentially accounting issue. We need the time for that task force to sit down, to come back to the authorizing committee, the Committee on Resources, and discuss what should be done so that American Indians do not continue to be harmed. It is not fair for us in this little debate today, even though my friends are well-intentioned, and I am not suggesting they are not, it is not fair for us in this half hour or hour of debate to make cutoffs and arbitrarily decide what we want to do, even if it is for monetary reasons, because there is too much money involved, there is too much of a history of discrimination involved. And given what we have seen with the corporate sector over the last few weeks and the last few months, I think we have a particular responsibility as elected officials and as representatives of the Federal Government to not do the same things in trying to protect the CEOs or, in this case, the government officials who have the responsibility to deal with this issue. It is wrong to have that discussion here. This amendment should be passed, if for no other reason than this is not the forum and this is not the time to be taking this action.

Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.