Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague if he has further speakers? If not, I am prepared to close.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, the weight of this decision falls heavily on this Chamber. Instead of following regular order, the majority's insistence on governing by crisis has once more taken over, and we are thrown into disarray. The Iran agreement is the best option that we have to curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. People who know--nuclear scientists, ambassadors, people of the military--have all said, including Colin Powell, I may add, that this is a good bill, this is a good negotiation that will help to keep us safe. The work ahead will be arduous, and it is going to take coordination with our international partners who also negotiated this agreement with us, but peace is always preferable to war. I urge my colleagues to support the agreement and vote ``no'' on this rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in recognition of the 95th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, granting voting rights for women. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in marking August 26, known as Women's Equality Day, a significant landmark in American history as we acknowledge, honor and celebrate the vast and vital contributions that women have made to our country. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other dedicated supporters for women's equality convened the First Women's Rights Convention in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. They advocated for the right to own property, protection from domestic violence, and other social reforms that promoted equality, including voting, and never wavered in that pursuit. Stanton wrote a Declaration of Sentiments that called for ``all men and women'' to be recognized as created equal under the law, thus beginning the 72-year struggle for suffrage that ended in 1920. 2015 is the Bicentennial year for Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was born November 12, 1815 in Johnstown, New York. Celebrations of her extraordinary life are taking place throughout the year. Stanton met Susan B. Anthony in 1851 and they began a 50-year partnership advocating for suffrage and women's equality; however both women did not live to see the passage of the 19th Amendment. As the mother of seven children, Mrs. Stanton can be proud of the legacy she left to her descendants, one of whom is today spearheading a committee tasked with placing a new statue of these two amazing leaders in New York. They gave a voice to millions of women and changed history forever following Anthony's vow that ``failure is impossible.'' A unique crossroad of history resides at 77th and Central Park West in New York City with statues of two U.S. Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt astride a horse outside the American Museum of Natural History and Abraham Lincoln who stands on the steps of the New-York Historical Society. Near Lincoln is a statue of abolitionist Frederick Douglass symbolically carrying books at a building that safeguards history. I am pleased to announce that permission was granted in May 2015 for a suffragist statue to be installed at the West 77th Street entrance to Central Park. It will be the very first statue of a woman in this park's 160-year history. New York City Park Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver awarded this site for a statue of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, pioneering leaders of the women's suffrage movement. Included in the sculpture design are the names of many remarkable women instrumental in the fight toward winning the vote. Its installation in September 2017 will coincide with New York State's Centennial of women's voting rights. The New-York Historical Society announced that in the transformation of its fourth floor there would be a new Center for the Study of Women's History that will present special exhibitions, as well as public and scholarly programs. Over 50 million visitors each year are welcomed to New York City, with over half reporting they spend time in Central Park. Placing the Stanton and Anthony statue at this highly visible locale that resonates social justice will undoubtedly draw local residents and visitors of all nations to history lessons that include the story of the equal rights and suffrage movements in America. I ask, Mr. Speaker, that we give tribute on August 26, 2015, the 95th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, to the early suffragists who were steadfast in their pursuit of equality for all citizens, which is a sacred trust that we must continue to support today.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Call vote numbers 467, 468, and 469. Had I been present, I would have voted aye on each.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize the 2015 National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America. Each summer, Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute brings together some of the finest young musicians from across the country to form the prestigious National Youth Orchestra. The musicians, ranging from ages 16-19 years old, undergo a comprehensive audition process; the 114 talented, dedicated musicians who are selected reflect the breadth, diversity and quality of young musicians in the United States. After an intensive two-week training residency at State University of New York Purchase College with faculty from some of the country's finest professional orchestras, the players travel the world on an annual tour to top music capitals. Our musicians have the opportunity to interact with local young musicians and sightsee wherever they travel, and they inspire their audiences with their music-making. In its inaugural season in 2013, the Orchestra traveled to Russia and the UK. This year, from July 10-26, they will travel from New York City to China. In Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and four other cities, the Orchestra will share their talent with Chinese audiences while experiencing firsthand the richness of China's culture and history. As musical ambassadors for America, the orchestra will strengthen ties between citizens of the US and the People's Republic of China through culture. I am thrilled to announce this summer's performers include two young musicians from my own Congressional district. Martine Thomas, 17, plays viola with the Rochester Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra's inaugural summer tour in 2013, and this will be her second appearance with the group. She enjoys spending her weekends busking at a farmers market and performing at assisted living centers. Additionally, Helen Wong, 17, plays violin and attends Webster Schroeder High School is a performer in this years National Youth Orchestra. She enjoys performing piano and violin at senior centers and churches in her free time. Participating in the arts can have incredible benefits on our nation's students. From higher test scores to better behavior, stronger critical thinking skills, and better decision making skills. Team building skills along that these students will cultivate in the orchestra are essential to today's interconnected workplace. Again, I would like to congratulate all of the young musicians of the 2015 National Youth Orchestra and wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed Roll Call vote number 434. Had I been present, I would have voted aye.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am the Ranking Member of the Rules Committee. Rules, as you know, is the process committee. Whether you are a majority or a minority member, you have rights, but they have been trampled on and abused with increasing regularity under this majority, and we have two glaring examples of that just today. Mr. Speaker, this bill is important to all of us, and we all agree on the importance of putting more money into major research in the United States, we are falling behind other countries in finding the cures and the innovation for which we have been known for centuries. This is an important step that we are taking. This is a critically important bill, but process matters. Mr. Speaker, after the Energy and Commerce Committee had voted out this bill unanimously, major changes were made with no committee input at all. They include a reduction of the amount of money that the committee had said would be put into the National Institutes of Health by $1.250 billion, a very substantial sum. They added some policy riders that literally made no sense. Why in the world would you put an abortion rider on a bill for medical research? As far as I know, the NIH and most medical universities doing this research do not perform abortion procedures. It was simply a way, again, to mollify members and make them vote for this bill. Mr. Speaker, despite the importance of this bill, despite the fact that it came out of committee unanimously, despite the fact that so many people have worked on it, and despite the fact that good things were in it, the process was completely changed after it was over by rewriting major portions of it. That doesn't appear anywhere in the rules of the House. Now, let's also think about what happened here last night during the debate on the Interior bill, which was considered under an open rule. After the Ranking Member, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, had yielded back her time, a new amendment was offered at the request of Republican leadership in order to pick up enough votes to ensure final passage. This new amendment sought to undo two already adopted amendments that would restrict the display of the Confederate flags in National Park Service cemeteries. These amendments were initially noncontroversial-- as they should have remained. In fact, they were adopted by voice vote. However, following a revolt by Members of the Republican Conference, Republican leadership offered this new amendment without any warning in order to gain more votes. In the end, the Majority pulled the entire bill in order to avoid taking a vote on their effort to place Confederate flags in U.S. cemeteries. Mr. Speaker, and then this morning the Majority chose to send Leader Pelosi's resolution to committee in order to avoid taking a vote on it. Her resolution would have required the removal of state flags containing the Confederate battle flag from the House wing of the Capitol, unless the flag is flown by an individual Member. Mr. McGovern stated quite precisely that the resolution will die in committee--we will never see that one again. Unfortunately, that's what happens here, but Mr. Speaker, it is time it was stopped. I was born in a border State, in Kentucky. I lived there most of my life. I was educated there. I never saw a Confederate flag in all those years. These battle flags that they are putting up appeared in the South after the civil rights legislation. They were the products of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats. That is when they started to bloom all over. It is a symbol of pure hate or fear. It needs to go.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment which directs the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, to study whether incentivizing the use of new antibiotics, which the underlying bill does, will lead to antibiotic resistance and cause these lifesaving drugs to be less effective. Section 2123 of the 21st Century Cures Act authorizes additional payments to hospitals for using newly developed antibiotics. Of course, the reason we need new antibiotics is that we have frittered away one of the greatest medical achievements of the 21st century by overusing the ones that we already have and hastening the development of bacterial resistance. I fear that paying hospitals more to use a new generation of antibiotics will just repeat the cycle of overuse and develop more drug-resistant superbugs. Quite simply, the taxpayers should not foot the bill for practices that are making antibiotics less effective. This amendment directs the CDC to study the effect the bill would have on drugs that are part of the foundation of modern medicine. I urge my colleagues, many of whom have expressed their alarm at the rise of antibiotic resistance, to support the amendment. I am certainly not alone in my concern about this section of the bill. I know there are several Members, myself included, who will feel safer if section 2123 was removed entirely. A recent report from the United Kingdom review on antimicrobial resistance, led by brilliant economist Jim O'Neill, noted that increasing reimbursements for new antibiotics risks undermining ``good infection control and antibiotic stewardship practices within hospitals.'' The study required by this amendment will provide valuable data on the link between efforts to incentivize development of new antibiotics and the development of resistance to make sure we don't repeat the cycle. Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear about what is at stake here. Worldwide, antibiotic-resistant infections already kill 700,000 people every year. If we don't act now, by the year 2050, according to Mr. O'Neill's study, the annual death toll will rise to 10 million a year, and the costs will be $100 trillion. The World Health Organization has told us that the very future of medicine is at stake. Without antibiotics, modern medical advances such as joint replacements and organ transplants would be impossible, and even the routine procedures such as dental work and caesarean sections would be too risky to perform. We have to remember that our urgent need for new antibiotics is due to our widespread misuse and overuse of the current antibiotics that led to the crisis of antibiotic resistance. We have to cure that before we use new antibiotics. Mr. Chairman, 30 to 50 percent of the antibiotics prescribed to humans are unnecessary, but 80 percent of the antibiotics produced in the United States are used on industrial farms where they are routinely fed to healthy animals. It is an absolute recipe for creating antibiotic resistance. We can't afford to keep using such precious, live-saving resources so thoughtlessly. The changes in how our current antibiotics are used are desperately needed. Unfortunately, my amendment doesn't do what I would really like to do, which would be to protect eight classes of antibiotics just for use in human health by not allowing their use on the farm except for sick animals. Remember, as I said before, these antibiotics, 80 percent, are fed to well animals every single day. However, the amendment will ensure that we can know whether incentives to develop new antibiotics continue the problem of resistance. Having effective antibiotic for humans is too important not to get this right. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I very much want to thank Mr. Upton for his graciousness in accepting this, and I look forward to working with him further on this issue. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas, Congressman Gene Green.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, this is a very important day for me, as a member of the Rules Committee. Rules, as you know, is the process committee. I want to spend my time discussing the process that has been going on here. The process that rules have in the House is to really make certain that fairness is presented to all parties. Whether you are a majority or a minority, you have your rights, but they have been trampled on and abused with increasing regularity under this majority, and we have two glaring examples of that just today. We have glaring examples every day, but let me bring up these two. Mr. Speaker, this bill is critically important to all of us, and as everybody has spoken before makes it clear--and we all agree on the importance of putting more money into major research in the United States--we are falling behind other countries in finding the cures and the innovation for which we have been known for centuries. This is an important step that we are taking. This is a critically important bill, but process matters. Mr. Speaker, after the committee had voted out this bill unanimously, major changes were made with no committee input at all. They include reduction of the amount of money that the committee had said would be put into the National Institutes of Health by $1.025 billion, a very substantial sum. They added some policy riders that literally made no sense. Why in the world would you put an abortion rider on a thing for medical research? As far as I know, the NIH and most medical universities doing this research do not perform abortion procedures. It was simply a way, again, to mollify people and make somebody think that, if they vote for this bill, they are doing something that is impossible to do. But like Alice in Wonderland, we are all trained here to try to believe six impossible things before breakfast because we are confronted with them daily. Another one is that they changed the pay-fors, which is critically important to everything that we do.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. So, Mr. Speaker, despite the importance of this bill, despite the fact that it came out of committee unanimously, despite the fact that so many people have worked on it, and despite the fact that good things were in it, the process was completely changed after it was over by rewriting major portions of it. That doesn't appear anywhere in the rules of the House. Now, not only that, let's think about what happened here this morning. Last night on the Interior bill, which is an open rule, after the Democrat who was up, Betty McCollum of Minnesota, had yielded back her time, after the time had been yielded on both sides and the vote had been taken, suddenly another amendment appears at the request, as Mr. McGovern has said, of the Republican leadership. So they suddenly come up with this. Ms. McCollum was not informed in any way. She had absolutely no knowledge of what was going to happen. That may not break a specific rule of the House, but it sure does break etiquette. You do not come out onto the floor to try to fool people who are on the other side.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, what happened here this morning, obviously, I think Mr. McGovern has stated it precisely. Without the ability to have that amendment, without that crazy amendment, frankly, that resolution--as far as I am concerned, once you send them back to committee, you are sending them to interment--we will never see that one again. But they had to have that in order to get the votes to pass the bill. That is the kind of horse trading and all the things that go on here. After all the process and procedure that belongs to the Congress of the United States, and has for centuries, has been absolutely abused, as I said earlier, and trampled on on a regular basis, Mr. Speaker, it is time we stopped it. Nothing happened here today except to make this place look stupid. I was born in a border State, in Kentucky. All my life I have lived there. I was educated there, and I was married there. I never saw a Confederate flag in all the years of my life. These battle flags that they are putting up appeared in the South after the civil rights legislation. They were the products of Strom Thurmond and the Dixiecrats. That is when they started to bloom all over. It is a symbol of pure hate and revenge or whatever else they want to call it. It needs to go.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. It is the equivalent to my having the German Government flying the swastika over the Bundestag.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me the time, but the procedural jockeying that has unfolded before us does a disservice to our Chamber, to our economy, and to our Nation. Mr. Speaker, without opportunity for Members to offer amendments, without clear consideration, and without, certainly, robust debate, the bills have bounced from one Chamber to another, jumped back and forth between in every iteration that can be cooked up. The procedural machinations do deep disservice not only to the bills, but to the people it will impact, and I think even to the House of Representatives. Thomas Jefferson, who authored the legislative manual that guides our procedure, would be pained to see the path by which these trade packages have come to the floor. From beginning to end, Members of this body have been shut out, shut out from reading the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that has now been fast-tracked, and we are not being able to discuss it with our constituents. It is not just the American Representatives that have been silenced, either. The trade deal is upending legislative bodies across the world, and particularly in another great democracy involved in this agreement--Australia. The people's representatives in Australia could not look at this bill, even though they had great concern that PhRMA was going to do great harm to their own health system in Australia as well as in New Zealand. They couldn't even go to see about that unless they signed a paper that they would not discuss it for 4 years. So, two of the great democracies on the planet working on this trade bill, the United States and Australia, basically shut out the people's representatives from knowing what it is that we are even talking about today. Mr. Speaker, I insert for the Record the text of an article about the Australians, an article from The Guardian from June 11, titled, ``Leaked Trade Deal Terms Prompt Fears for Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.'' [From the Guardian, June 11, 2015] (Gabrielle Chan) The leak of new information on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) shows the mega-trade deal could provide more ways for multinational corporations to influence Australia's control of its pharmaceutical regulations. Revealed via Wikileaks, the annexe on ``transparency and procedural fairness for pharmaceutical products and medical devices'' uncovered the draft agreements regarding medicines between the 12 TPPA member countries. The leak comes as US Republican leaders announced a vote on Friday that may provide Barack Obama a fast-track authority to complete the agreement with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The countries represent 40% of the world's economy. The leaked text, dated December 2014, laid out the draft rules for member countries regarding medicines under national health care programs, in Australia's case, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). The TPP has yet to be signed off. The Abbott government has argued the trade deal will provide access for Australian products to other markets. But it requires Australia to trade off regulations that stop access by other countries and particularly multinational companies to the Australian market. Critics have suggested the deal, which is likely to include Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses, will allow big corporations to sue Australian governments. Philip Morris International is currently challenging the former Labor government's tobacco plain packaging laws under a Hong Kong trade treaty ISDS. Trade experts leaped on the rare information release regarding the secret but wide-ranging trade deal. Deborah Gleeson, a lecturer at the school of psychology and public health at La Trobe University, said the inclusion of an annexe on health ``serves no useful public interest purpose''. ``It sets a terrible precedent for using regional trade deals to tamper with other countries' health systems and could circumscribe the options available to developing countries seeking to introduce pharmaceutical coverage programs in future,'' Gleeson said. Jane Kelsey of the faculty of law of the University of Auckland described the annexe as one of the most controversial parts of the TPP in her analysis. She said the US pharmaceutical industry was using the trade agreement to target New Zealand's Pharmaceutical Management Agency (Pharmac), equivalent to the PBS. ``This `transparency' annexe seeks to erode the processes and decisions of agencies that decide which medicines and medical devices to subsidise the public money and by how much,'' Kelsey said. ``This leaked text shows the TPP will severely erode Pharmac's ability to continue to deliver affordable medicines and medical devices as it has for the past two decades. ``That will mean fewer medicines are subsidised, or people will pay more as co-payments or more of the health budget will go to pay for medicines instead of other activities or the health budget will have to expand beyond the cap. ``Whatever the outcome, the big global pharmaceutical companies will win and the poorest and most vulnerable New Zealanders will lose.'' AMA president Brian Owler said while doctors were very concerned at the possible effects on Australia's healthcare systems, they were constantly dismissed by the trade minister Andrew Robb. ``When we have raised concerns about the effects on health, the only response is `we are not going to undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme','' said Owler. ``We are worried about the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism and there are issues in terms of patents that would affect pharmaceutical prices. ``The problem is our concerns have been dismissed by the trade minister but we do not know what is in the text.'' However, Robb said on Thursday that the government would not accept anything that would adversely affect the PBS, the health system more generally, or increase the price of medicines for Australians. ``It's perhaps time to look at the enormous benefits that will flow from a more seamless trade and investment environment across 12 countries representing 40 percent of global GDP,'' Robb said. ``New levels of market access and common sets of trading rules will help support growth, create new jobs and result in higher living standards.'' Parliamentarians were offered the chance to see the TPP draft by Robb if they agreed to a four year non-disclosure agreement. A cross-party parliamentary working group has formed, including Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, Labor MP Melissa Parke and independent senator Nick Xenophon. Whish-Wilson, who has not seen the draft as he refused to agree to the terms of the agreement, said the latest leak suggested the Australian PBS could be undermined. ``These negotiations are happening behind closed doors, without the scrutiny of the parliament,'' he said. ``At the very least, the Australian people deserve to be reassured that the government won't allow any deal which drives up the public health costs for Australian taxpayers such as further subsidising important new medicines including biologics.'' During the most recent senate estimates in the past fortnight, Whish-Wilson questioned officials from the department of foreign affairs and trade about the strategic importance of the TPP to the United States. The secretary of Dfat, Peter Varghese, said the whole purpose was to indicate a ``ramped up US presence in Asia''. ``The conclusion of the TPP is important to the United States in terms of its rebalance, because it is an important step in relation to the economic engagement of the United States with the region, and the whole purpose of the re- balance was to indicate a ramped up US presence in Asia, and a recognition of the importance of Asia in broader US geostrategic thinking,'' Varghese said. ``We in Australia have never seen the TPP as an instrument for locking anybody out--in fact, quite the contrary.'' The trade minister's office was contacted for comment.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. So the two great democracies are now being cut out, and the 750,000 people that I represent in western New York have been silenced because I don't go see a trade bill if I can't discuss it with them. There has been no regular order and absolutely no Member input, with the exception of the Committee on Ways and Means. Now, the Senate had plenty of opportunity for amendments, and they were plentiful. Many of them were accepted. They also had robust debate, but not the House of Representatives. The opportunity in the Committee on Ways and Means to offer amendments did not result in acceptance of any Democratic amendments. Over the last 3 weeks, the Democrats and Republicans, alike, came to the Committee on Rules with ideas to try to make the trade package better. They ranged from currency manipulation to labor standards to environmental fixes to the investor-state dispute settlement, but one by one they were shut out. Perhaps one of the most critical is the investor-state dispute settlement, where three lawyers will be allowed to adjudicate all cases brought against any of the participating countries, in many cases resulting against change in their laws. I should note that the House of Representatives, in fear of all this, has already voted to do away with country of origin labeling. What is more, on the third rule that we have had in so many weeks on trade, we are being asked to vote on two separate bills packaged into one vote. On one hand, we have Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA; on the other hand, we have the African Growth and Opportunity Act, or AGOA, which most of us have supported. The other part of this is a bill that was trounced in the House of Representatives. We find ourselves in the position of supporting the African Growth and Opportunity Act at the same time of a vote that most of us have voted against, the TAA. Linking these two bills together is untenable and goes again the mores of the Chamber. And as we see, when the process is strained, the bills suffer, but most of all, the people we represent suffer. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute. What the gentleman said sounds wonderful, and so we are all going to have an opportunity to do it, but we have not been in on the negotiation. All we know about it is what has come through WikiLeaks, that it is being negotiated mainly by financial services and pharmaceutical companies. Once we pass fast trade and it has passed both Houses, once that is done, the administration can do the trade bill itself in perfect secrecy, and we will not know it until it comes to the House. At that point, all we can do is vote up or down. It is my sincere hope that we vote it down. I am now pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).