F. Sensenbrenner

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\2/3\ minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). (Mr. STENHOLM asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn). (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, I think there is a little bit of confusion around about the noneconomic damage limit. There is a specific provision in H.R. 5 that says no provision of this act shall be construed to preempt any State law whether effective before, on, or after the date of enactment of this act that specifies a particular amount of compensatory or punitive damages or the total amount of damages in a health care lawsuit, regardless of whether or not such monetary amount is greater or lesser than that that is provided under this act. Now, every one of the 50 States is free to adjust the $250,000 limit on noneconomic damages upwards or downwards by enactment of the State legislature. My State limits it at $350,000. This is not touched by the HEALTH Act whatsoever. So if anybody thinks that this act is a straitjacket, the legislature is free to change it. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. We have heard an awful lot about the impact on insurance premiums, and I just want to read from the CBO estimate, the cost of this bill. The CBO estimates that under this bill premiums for medical malpractice insurance ultimately would be an average of 25 to 30 percent lower than what they would be under the current law. However, other factors noted above may affect future premiums, possibly obscuring the anticipated effect of the legislation. The effect of H.R. 5 would vary substantially across States, depending upon the extent to which a State already limits malpractice litigation. There would be almost no effect in malpractice premiums at about one-fifth of the States, while reductions in premiums would be substantially larger than the overall average at about one-third of the States. What this means is that the reduction in premiums will be much greater in the States where there is a crisis, and what this bill does is that it provides access to medical care in States where high risk specialists are closing their practices because they cannot make enough money to support themselves and to pay their liability insurance premiums. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, this merely moves offshore what this bill bans in the United States. What it will do is create a huge financial incentive for those people and companies in foreign countries to take advantage of Americans. I do not think that we should be giving foreign companies that kind of financial advantage. If it is wrong to do here, we should prohibit the importation of these materials.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Would it be true that the quicker the Members take their seats and calm down, the quicker we can vote and get to the airport?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), the author of the bill.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, there is a snowstorm bearing down on this city. There are numerous Members who have asked me to speed this debate up so that they can get out of town and not be marooned here. I would ask the gentleman from Florida to have compassion on those Members and withdraw his unanimous consent request. If he persists, I am constrained to object.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Pennsylvania is way off base, and I can tell my colleagues from my own family experience how far off base he is. My mother died of Alzheimer's disease. For the last year and a half of her life, she did not know who I was, she did not know who my wife was, she did not know who my sister was, or who my kids were. And to insinuate that those of us who disagree with the gentleman's amendment are Luddites and insensitive is flat-out wrong. Furthermore, my beloved wife, who I have been married to for almost 26 years, has had a spinal cord injury. She has no sensitivity below her waist. She is a wonderful woman. She has given me two wonderful children, and we have lived day by day and minute by minute with that kind of a condition; and she and I are both in favor of what the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon) is trying to do because there is an ethical issue and there is a moral issue involved in this, which many people want to turn their backs on. But in my family we have to live with it every day and every minute, and we will until death do us part. Now, the whole issue on this amendment, to get back to my initial remarks, is the policing of what is done with the cloned embryos that the Greenwood amendment allows. 99.99 percent of the people that do the experimentation on cloned embryos may do it in an entirely ethical manner. But all we need is one unethical person to implant a cloned embryo in utero and we have a cloned baby. And once that unethical person plants the cloned embryo in utero and it starts developing as a fetus, what does that gentleman's amendment do about it? Absolutely nothing. Are we going to throw somebody in jail for doing that? Are we going to throw the mother in jail for doing that? No way. The baby is going to be born, and we are going to have a cloned human being. Again, Bill Clinton's bioethics panel said: ``The commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.'' Your substitute does not deal with this issue at all. That is why it is fatally flawed. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the debate on whether or not human embryos should be cloned is one that goes across religious lines, it goes across philosophical lines, and it goes across political lines; and I certainly can respect those who come down on the other side of this piece of legislation. But this amendment in the nature of a substitute is the equivalent of a political knuckle ball thrown into the debate on whether or not human embryos should be cloned. In June of 1997, President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Committee issued its report entitled ``Cloning Human Beings.'' I referred to this in the general debate, but I want to refer to this again because this is the crux of the argument against the Greenwood substitute. The executive summary of President Clinton's blue ribbon commission states in part: ``The commission began its discussions fully recognizing that any effort in humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term.'' The whole question around the Greenwood substitute amendment is how to police the cloned human embryos once they are created. Sure, some of them may be used for purposes that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) described in his eloquent opening statement, but others can be implanted in utero and be developed to term. And what does the government do in that case when somebody for whatever purpose they want to announces that they have developed a cloned human being? This substitute is a big mistake for a number of reasons, and it should not be supported. Most notably it would make the prohibitions against human cloning virtually impossible to enforce, as I have just described. It would foster the creation of cloned human embryos through the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency of the Federal Government; and it would trump States that wish to prohibit cloning. As I have already stated, allowing the creation of cloned embryos by law would enable anyone to attempt to clone a human being. While most individuals do not have the scientific capacity to clone human embryos, once they have been cloned, there has been no mechanism for tracking them and to determine what use those cloned human embryos are being put to. In fact, one would logically expect an organization to authorize the cloned human embryos pursuant to this substitute to be prepared to produce an abundance of cloned embryos for research. Meanwhile, those without the capabilities to clone human embryos could easily implant any one of the legally cloned embryos if they had the opportunity and a child would develop. The fact is any legislative effort in order to be effective to prohibit cloning must allow enforcement to occur before the cloned embryo is implanted. Otherwise, it is too late, and that is the big deficiency of the Greenwood substitute. The substitute attempts to draw a distinction between necessary scientific research in human cloning by authorizing the Department of Health and Human Services to administer a quasi-registry, quasi because the embryos are not in the custody of HHS. They are maintained by private individuals. However, let us be clear that the crux of this substitute is to invoke a debate on stem cell research. A political knuckle ball in this debate on stem cell research is a red herring. Just read the bill. First, therapeutic cloning does not exist, not even for experimental tests on animals. Second, the substitute would require authorized researchers to destroy unused embryos, the first Federal mandate of its kind and a step that is extremely controversial. Third, H.R. 534 within its text allows for research using stem cells. Again, the bill does not prohibit stem cell research, notwithstanding the allegations by those who are opposed to it. Currently, private organizations are able to conduct unfettered research on embryonic stem cells. Further, in August 2001, President Bush announced that Federal funds could be used for research on existing stem cell lines. H.R. 534 would do nothing to hinder that research. The bill would also not affect research using adult stem cells. Adult stem cells are the other area of stem cell research which is much less controversial and which has been successful in over 45 clinical trials. In fact, adult stem cells have been utilized to treat multiple sclerosis, bone marrow disorders, leukemia, anemia, and cartilage defects, and immuno-deficiency in children. Adult stem cells have been extracted from bone marrow, blood, skeletal muscle, the gastrointestinal tract, the placenta, and brain tissue to form bone marrow, bone, cartilage, tendon, muscle, fat, liver, brain, nerve, blood, heart and other cells. H.R. 534 would not interfere with this work. It would not interfere with this work. But it prohibits the production of cloned embryos. It is a cloning bill, not a stem cell research bill. Fourth, the substitute prohibits States from adopting laws that prohibit or more strictly regulate cloning within their borders. It is a Federal preemption. Try telling any of our constituents that they cannot ban human cloning through their State legislatures and I will tell you they will disagree. Finally, Mr. Chairman, the substitute contains a 10-year sunset provision. If this were to be enacted, Congress would have to go through this debate once again before the sunset occurs. The ethical and moral objections to human cloning will not change 10 years from now or 50 years from now or forever. However, the proponents of human cloning will continue to fight for their right to produce human clones in America, and authorizing a subsequent ban on human cloning could become even more controversial. That is why Members on both sides of the aisle should rise in opposition to the substitute, defeat it, and pass H.R. 534. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.