Pete Stark

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the Supplemental Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2002. The Republicans have created a bill that throws important priorities in with a laundry list of poor choices. I can't in good conscience vote for a bill that in one breath provides billions in new funding for defense while cutting a reasonable investment in America's infrastructure and public housing. I can't support a bill that authorizes spending--to the tune of $29.8 billion--that the President already said he would veto. It is critical that we make funding for transportation safety available as quickly as possible. But we can't be effective if we don't provide the funding the Transportation Safety Administration says it needs. The Secretary of Transportation says passage of this bill will delay the installation of screening and detection systems needed to keep weapons and explosives off our airlines. This bill opens the door for U.S. military involvement in Colombia, moving us one step closer to being mired in a civil war there. I cannot support this, just as I have always opposed the United States giving funding to other nations to purchase weapons that might be used to wage war or harm innocent civilians. This bill also withholds funding for critical UN family planning efforts that are vital in combating poverty and hunger throughout the world. I do support a great deal of what is funded in this bill. We must crack down on corporate fraud. We should make college more affordable for all Americans by boosting Pell Grant funding. We need to do more to help the victims of domestic violence and assist poor mothers and their children. We should assist local communities and first responders in their emergency preparedness efforts. We ought to boost the security of our transportation systems and at our ports. America should also be a responsible force abroad as well by helping Afghanistan rebuild, giving needed humanitarian aid to refugees, and providing support to vital global health care initiatives like the fight against HIV/AIDS. I support all of these important endeavors. But, unfortunately, this bill is far too flawed to gain my vote. I urge my Republican colleagues to think about what our priorities should be and consider the consequences this bill imposes on our nation's and the world's future.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, I continue to suggest that this is a waste of money. Three and a half million or more people have long-term care, they will get no benefit from this. In its final year we will spend $561 million to get 100,000 people more in. That is a marginal benefit. If we really wanted to have long-term care, we might redesign a Federal program much like Social Security that people would like, they could afford. It is a social insurance program; and as it is with MSAs and with Medicare+Choice, these are failed programs. They are not working. Companies that issue them are going broke. People are not signing up. Why we continue to beat these dead horses and waste good taxpayers' money year after year escapes me. I would hope we could come back. We recognize that there is a problem. Let us solve it in a way that is more than campaign rhetoric. Let us solve it with a program that does the job for all Americans regardless of their income, and then we can be proud of our work. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I hardly know where to begin. This bill is, at best, unnecessary, and, at worst, it is a wasteful expenditure of $5.5 billion, which will accomplish very little except add to the repeated Republican program of giving huge benefits to the wealthy and doing very little for the average American. This bill is designed to turn a bunch of sow's ears into silk purses. The goal of expanding the purchase of long-term care insurance sounds like a positive one, if people really believe that long-term care insurance was any good as offered by the insurance industry today. Very few people are purchasing it. It is a dud in the market. We are, in this bill, attempting to help or bail out the long-term care insurance industry. But I wonder if that is a wise expenditure of the public's money? We are having trouble finding the money to pay, say, for prescription drugs. Why are we trying to get people to purchase something they do not need? Mr. Speaker, I believe firmly that we need to do something about the long-term care issue, but we have had precious little debate as to whether private insurance is the right approach. Even if you think it is a good idea to promote the purchase of private long-term care insurance, the real question is whether or not this bill before us today will do any good. There are, as the distinguished gentleman from Arizona pointed out, three major components to this bill. There is the long-term care tax deduction. It allows individuals with incomes below $40,000, and actually the full benefit is available for individuals up to $20,000, and then phases out by $40,000, it will give them very slowly over 10 years a deduction, and the most value it will provide these people is 7.5 cents on every dollar of long-term care premium they pay. Now, mind you, you are talking about individuals with $20,000 worth of income. It is questionable whether those people are even buying life insurance. The average amount of life insurance in this country is less than $8,000. Why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle think that people who already are under-insured and are young enough to afford this would begin to buy long-term care insurance escapes me. But let us suppose that the bill works as the Joint Tax Committee has informed us they think it might. In the year 2003, what would happen? Six thousand people would newly purchase long-term care insurance, and, of course, we would spend $19 million to get them to do that. That is approximately $3,200 per insured person of your hard-earned taxpayer money to just get these 6,000 people to buy policies, and I am not sure we would all agree that the policies are any good. It gets better. Why, in 2004, you would get 12,000 people, and it would cost them only $1,000 that year. But in 2005, you get 18,000 people, and it costs $7,780 a person. That is more than the premiums. Now, why are we wasting the taxpayer's money? This is some insurance salesman run amuck and writing a bill, which even the insurance salesmen, if you triple their commissions, they would not get that much money. It is a terribly inefficient way. The net result is let us get all the way out to 2012, when this turkey is full grown and ready for the table. In 2012, the Joint Tax Committee estimates that 100,000 people will become new purchasers of long-term care insurance at a modest cost of $561 million. That is $5,600 a person. Now, you guys are going to bribe people with $5,600 to buy long-term care insurance, which most of the people supporting this, I wish they would raise their hands, I do not buy long-term care insurance and I bet none of my Republican colleagues have purchased the long-term care insurance, which is now available through the House of Representatives. That is another turkey. If we are not buying it, why should we be spending the taxpayer's money to encourage the public to buy in? Now, the bill gets better, of course. We have an additional personal exemption for caregivers. This sounds nice. It allows the taxpayer caring for a chronically ill loved one to get an additional personal exemption to defray some of the cost. It phases in very slowly, starting with a $500 exemption in 2003 and eventually going to $2,500. But it mostly benefits wealthy people anyway, because if you do not have any tax liability, this personal exemption does little or nothing for you. Of course, the third one is the grandfather gobbler of all turkeys, and that is Medicare MSAs, which were written into law right after we wrote in Medicare+Choice. This one is so successful that not one, not one company offers them, not one person has ever asked to buy one. They just do not exist. They are zip, zero, nada. This is the turkey of all turkeys. Then what they are going to do is allow Medicare beneficiaries, people my age, Mr. Speaker, to take $6,000 a year and deduct it, which nobody else can do, and pop it into an IRA, and save it there and let the income accumulate tax free, and when it is all done, I can spend it on anything I want with no penalties. I do not have to spend it on health care. It is a new $6,000 IRA only for us old fogies. Now, if you are trying to encourage my children to save for long-term care, maybe we could do something like that for them. But why give it to me? Long-term care is far too expensive. I should have already saved by now. So what you have here is a grand campaign scheme which throws away $5.5 billion of the taxpayer's money on something that is next to worthless, that only benefits insurance companies who have a bankrupt product that they cannot sell. So here we go again, the Republicans subsidizing large corporations to the disadvantage of the poor and the disadvantage of the taxpayers to accomplish precious little. The bill will go nowhere. You will see it on campaign statements if it passes muster today. But I hope it does not. It is useless, it is worthless, and it is a tremendous waste of the taxpayer's money. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Mrs. Thurman).

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kleczka).

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I think that if that were the case, and I do not know, somebody would have some idea, it is certainly not secret. I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas).

Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. It is my understanding that the gentleman from Virginia will be offering an amendment to reduce the amount of funds for the Joint Committee on Taxation of which I am a Member. The issue at hand is the production of a report that may or may not be complete but which the general public, through reports in the press, suspects is complete. There are several issues involved here, but the principal issue is that a joint committee with the long record of serving on a bipartisan, bicameral nature should not selectively withhold information from Members. I rather suspect that the rules of the House give any Member of the House a right to go in and look at committee records. That is generally the case, and in the absence of any rules prohibiting that, it could be done. It might raise a question of personal privilege in the House. It ought not to. Regardless of who has requested the reports or regardless of what the reports will say, it does not translate into legislation. It ought not to disadvantage anyone. Much of the information that is of an exciting nature has already been made public in Forbes magazine. Whether it is accurate or not, we do not know. But for us to begin on a partisan basis to withhold information that is produced by joint committees, whether it is the Congressional Budget Office or GAO or the joint committee, I think takes us down a road that we should all be very hesitant to travel. While the gentleman from Virginia's amendment is a harsh remedy, it could easily be solved by the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, who also serves as chair of the Joint Committee on Taxation, agreeing to make that report available, at least to members of the Joint Committee on Taxation. I am sure, given that kind of an assurance, the gentleman from Virginia would withhold. That would seem to me to be a way to resolve it and not start a precedent in the House of withholding information because someone has the power to do it. I think it is a bad precedent. I am not sure the information we are talking about is going to make huge changes in the tax law, but I think we are all entitled to it. I urge my colleagues to think about supporting the gentleman from Virginia's amendment on the basis of not changing a long-held precedent in the House of being able to rely on jointly produced, bipartisan, bicameral information that is useful to all of us.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, as I say, that may very well be the solution to the gentleman's concern, that if Members were able to look at wherever the product is, it might satisfy the concerns that if there is something secret and untoward being held there, it might very well be the solution.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me this time. I was wondering if the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means would indulge me for an inquiry which might put this to rest. I must plead that I am not familiar with all of the details; I did not read the Forbes article, so I am not sure what is purported to be in the report. But it is my understanding that Members of the House and certainly members of the committee, which he and I are, have the right to go in and look at committee files. Is that the gentleman's understanding?

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Medicare Market Acquisition Drug Price Act of 2002. This bill would correct a long- standing and well-documented problem with the way Medicare pays for the few outpatient prescription drugs it covers today. This bill would save taxpayers billions of dollars, without compromising Medicare beneficiaries' access to cancer treatment or other services. Congress should enact this bill immediately. This problem must be resolved--this year--whether or not we succeed in creating a new Medicare prescription drug benefit. Due to pharmaceutical industry efforts, this problem was not addressed in the prescription drug legislation recently introduced and passed by the House Republican leadership. Despite their neglect of the issue, I believe there is bi-partisan consensus that Medicare should not continue to pay exorbitant prices for prescription drugs. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill. Medicare currently pays for only a limited number of outpatient drugs, generally ones that a patient cannot self-administer, such as chemotherapy drugs. Medicare spends over $5 billion every year on these drugs. Under current rules, Medicare vastly over-pays for these drugs, because it bases payments on the artificially high ``average wholesale price'' (AWP) reported by the drug's manufacturer--regardless of the actual price a provider pays for the drug. There is abundant evidence that drug manufacturers have boosted their own drug sales and increased their profits, at great taxpayer expense, by manipulating the AWP of their drugs. Simply put, drug manufacturers report inflated prices, sell providers the drugs for much less, and then encourage providers to bill Medicare for the maximum allowable amount--95 percent of the inflated AWP reported by the manufacturer. This bill offers a straightforward solution to this problem. It would require Medicare payments to be based on the actual market prices at which manufacturers sell their drugs. This price, called the average acquisition price, would be verifiable. The Secretary would have the authority to audit drug companies' reports. Drug companies would be subject to steep fines for deliberately filing false or incomplete information. Mr. Speaker, the current Medicare AWP rules are a sham and must be changed. Consider the following: The General Accounting Office has described the AWP as ``neither `average' nor `wholesale;' it is simply a number assigned by the product's manufacturer.'' The GAO found that Medicare's payments for physician-administered outpatient drugs were at least $532 million higher than providers' potential acquisition costs in 2000. Similarly, the GAO found that Medicare paid at least $483 million more for supplier-billed drugs than suppliers' potential acquisition costs in 2000. Some drugs were available at prices averaging just 15 percent of the manufacturer's reported AWP, while Medicare continued to pay 95 percent of AWP. The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services found that Medicare could save $761 million per year by paying the actual wholesale prices available to physicians and suppliers for just 24 of the outpatient drugs currently covered by Medicare. Numerous states, consumer groups, and private health plans have sued drug manufacturers for fraudulently inflating Medicare drug prices. These suits follow on the heels of a record Medicare and Medicaid fraud settlement by TAP Pharmaceutical Products. In October 2001, TAP pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate federal law. TAP agreed to pay $875 million--the largest criminal fine ever levied by the government for health care fraud--to settle the suit, in which the government alleged the company artificially inflated the AWP of the company's prostate cancer drug Lupron. Drug manufacturers have resisted efforts to investigate this problem. For example, last summer the GAO continued its investigation into AWP on Congress' behalf and requested drug price information from many manufacturers. One pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, refused to comply with GAO's request until this January, when GAO subpoenaed the company's CEO, Henry McKinnell. Mr. Speaker, the problem is well known. The solution is straightforward. Both the GAO and the OIG have recommended that we revise Medicare's drug payment policies to reflect actual market prices, accounting for rebates and other discounts available from manufacturers. That is exactly what this bill does. Manufacturers would be required to report the actual average market acquisition prices for their drugs as a condition for Medicare coverage of those drugs. Each manufacturer would have to certify the accuracy of its reports and the Secretary of HHS would be empowered to audit price information to verify the accuracy of the reports. Drug manufacturers would be subject to unlimited civil monetary penalties for filing false reports and would be subject to a penalty of $100,000 for each day they fail to provide timely information. The bill is also carefully crafted to ensure that the reimbursement revisions will not adversely impact Medicare beneficiaries' access to care. First, to ensure these drugs are available in areas of the country where providers must purchase covered drugs at prices above the average, the actual reimbursement level to providers would be set 5 percent above the average acquisition price. Second, Medicare would pay dispensing fees to reflect differences in the costs of dispensing different drugs and biologics. Third, the bill would ensure continued access to cancer treatment. Oncologists have argued that inflated AWP reimbursements are necessary to compensate for the administration of cancer medicines. This bill would correct this anomaly by revising Medicare payments for oncology services to appropriately account for these indirect costs, in accordance with GAO recommendations. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely hope that Congress will act to provide a meaningful Medicare prescription drug benefit this year. On top of the many other serious concerns I have with the drug benefit passed by the Republican leadership, I am deeply disappointed that it did not address the abuses of the current AWP system. We must not shirk our responsibility to ensure that Medicare properly pays for the limited outpatient prescription drugs it already covers. There is no need for taxpayers to continue to fill pharmaceutical companies' coffers with the ill-gotten gains of the current AWP system. I hope all of my colleagues will join me in passing this important legislation.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a group of my colleagues to introduce a resolution recommending the use of fair trade coffee by the Congress, the Judicial Branch, and the Executive Branch. This resolution requires very little effort from us and yet would promote efforts to assure a decent standard of living to poor coffee farmers around the world. Small Coffee farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia consistently do not receive a living wage for their coffee. In fact, many farmers receive an amount that is less than the cost of production. Millions of small farmers earn only 5-10 percent of the final retail price of their coffee due to the interference of coffee middlemen who take a huge cut from the sales. This creates a cycle of debt and poverty in the lives of the farmers. These farmers must constantly borrow money from the coffee middlemen to stay afloat, and yet they can never make enough money to support their families, let alone get out of debt. As a major purchaser of coffee, the U.S. has a responsibility to ensure that the producers of that coffee are adequately compensated for their work. And as the Congress, we can do our part to ensure that we pay a fair price for the coffee that is purchased for our own use. Starbuck's has successfully brought fair trade coffee to their shops. In addition, Starbucks currently brews it for retail sale and makes the beans available for purchase. The use of fair trade coffee is already being implemented in some of the House of Representatives cafeterias, but we need to do more. Transfair USA is a non-profit U.S. based organization that certifies coffee is ``fair trade'' by placing a seal upon all the bags that qualify. In order to determine if the coffee is fair trade, representatives visit the farms in the countries in which the coffee is grown in addition to monitoring the sale and distribution within the U.S. The criteria for fair trade coffee are as follows: (1) Coffee importers agree to purchase from the small farmers included on the international trade register; (2) farmers are guaranteed a minimum ``fair trade price'' of $1.26 per pound for their coffee; (3) coffee importers provide a certain amount of credit to farmers against future sales to help the farmers stay out of debt to coffee middlemen; (4) importers and roasters agree to develop longterm relationships with producer groups that cut out the coffee middlemen. Fair trade coffee has been sold since 1988 in Europe, which has imported 30 million pounds this year, as compared to the 7 million pounds imported by the U.S. Fair trade coffee currently represents 5 percent of the Swiss and Dutch markets. It is time for the U.S. to show that we are interested in supporting the 800,000 small coffee farmers that currently benefit from the fair trade relationship. The story of Blanca Rosa Molina provides testament to the benefits of fair trade coffee. She has been working in the Nicaraguan coffee industry since she was a little girl. The money she received from fair trade coffee allowed her to receive an education and provide for her family. In her own words, ``I always give thanks to fair trade coffee because if it hadn't been for fair trade, I wouldn't have sold my coffee. I wouldn't have been able to pay for my studies.'' Blanca now holds an undergraduate degree in engineering and a graduate degree in rural development and sustainable agriculture. With stories like this, the choice as to purchase fair trade coffee is an obvious one. Fair trade coffee is no more expensive than gourmet coffee, but provides so many benefits to the producers that it is hard to justify not buying it. There is also still plenty of coffee to go around. 165- 170 million pounds of fair trade coffee are being produced each year, but only 35 million pounds have been sold worldwide. There is a strong supply of fair trade coffee; all that is currently needed are purchasers like the House of Representatives. The Resolution we are introducing today recommends that Congress, the Judicial Branch and the Executive Branch exclusively purchase fair trade coffee for all of their offices and events. It sends an important message about the willingness of our Federal Government to aid farmers in other countries by supporting family farms and in turn promoting better labor practices world-wide.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the ESRD Quality Improvement Act. To address the life and death importance of quality dialysis therapy for End Stage Renal Disease patients, this legislation would codify and build upon existing quality improvement efforts in a variety of ways including the addition of recognition for outstanding clinical outcomes and sanctions for chronically substandard care. The 340,000 ESRD patients are the only Medicare enrollees eligible for coverage due to a specific medical diagnosis. ESRD patients have lost full kidney function and must undergo a kidney transplant or weekly dialysis treatments to survive. This chronically ill group of beneficiaries presents Congress with a special responsibility with regard to assuring quality and safe care. As the dominant purchaser of dialysis services, the Medicare Program must demand improvement of deficient practices. Unfortunately, there is evidence that substandard care is being delivered at some Medicare funded sites. In 2000, the Inspector General noted numerous instances of poor care and an oversight system that is fragmented and lacks sufficient accountability. The GAO reported that in 1999, only 1 in 9 dialysis facilities underwent an unannounced inspection and that in 1998, almost 1 in 2 dialysis facilities had not been inspected within three years. A February 2002 Arizona Republic article further highlights the need for enhancements to the dialysis quality infrastructure. The article illustrates some patients are receiving weekly dialysis in atrocious conditions--unacceptable practices reported include poor or absent staff training, incorrect operation of dialysis machines, unclean facilities, neglected quality controls, and mission documentation. The full article is attached. I'm pleased to note that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is currently making improvements in the quality of the ESRD Program such as the implementation of health outcomes standards and data system to assess quality of services. I regret it has taken so long to move forward with these efforts and I believe some deficiencies remain. This bill does not delay or interfere with the current quality initiatives, and in fact, builds upon them. Currently, there only minimal ESRD quality assurance provisions in statute or regulation. The act would establish in statute a quality oversight role for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In addition, a quality coordination function with certain duties delineated for the regional ESRD Quality Networks. The Networks are contracted by CMS to administer the ESRD program and serve as a liaison between dialysis provider and the Department. The Network quality functions delineated in the bill include training and technical assistance for providers, data collection and analysis, establishing national performance standards, conducting peer reviews, monitoring patient satisfaction, and disseminating of best practices. In coordination with existing HHS and Network goals, ESRD Clinical Performance Measures are to be developed to serve as performance standards to which patient and facility clinical outcomes can be compared. The bill also requires the HHS Secretary to implement an information system to link service providers, Networks, and the Department and maintain national database that generates clinical profiles on the performance of dialysis facilities and providers. To provide incentives for high quality care and promote the exchange of best practices, awards for high achievement will be issued to top performing dialysis providers and facilities. To eliminate harmful care, provider and facility sanctions for substandard services are created. Conditions of participation in the Medicare program for providers and facilities would be expanded to incorporate the terms of the CQI and QA Programs established in the bill. Also, to further support the quality provision of the bill, a per-treatment fee of 0.50 cents shall be paid to the Networks by the HHS Secretary during the initial 30-month period for which dialysis facilities are currently exempted. Consistent with the current process, dialysis facilities would continue to pay the 0.50 per-treatment fee beginning in the 31st month. It is my hope that Congress, CMS and the ESRD provider community will react positively to the introduction of this bill. We need to work together to assure all ESRD facilities funded by Medicare are doing no harm. Please join me in this effort by agreeing to cosponsor the ESRD Continuous Quality Improvement act.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, on July 28, 2002, the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District will rename their theater in honor of Board Member Douglas F. Morrisson. In his 40 years of service, Douglas Morrisson has honorably served the park and recreation field on the local, regional, state, and national levels. Douglas Morrisson was first elected to the Board of Directors of the Hayward Area Recreation and Park District in November of 1962. Since then, he has been re-elected to nine consecutive four-year terms. This year, his 40th year of service, he is serving as vice-president of the District. The Hayward Area Recreation and Park District has seen unprecedented growth during Douglas Morrisson's tenure. The District boasts beautiful parks and fine recreation facilities, including community parks, swim centers, linear parks, playgrounds, community centers, athletic fields, and senior centers. Additionally, the park district has gone beyond traditional park features to include special interest facilities for theater, art, nature study, camping and golf. A graduate of San Jose University and a former high school teacher, Douglas Morrisson is currently an independent business owner. In the past he has served in the leadership of many park and recreation organizations, notably as President of the California Association of Parks and Recreation Commissioners and Board Members and President and Vice-President of the Commissioners and Board Members Branch of the National Park and Recreation Association. He is the recipient of the 1993 California Association of Recreation and Park Districts Outstanding Board member award and the 1993 California Special Districts Association Outstanding Board Member Award. In the community, Douglas Morrisson has been active as a board member of the Castro Valley Fire District, and a member of the Hayward Rotary Club. He has served as chairperson and vice-chairperson of the Alameda County Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and as President and board member of the Hayward Sun Gallery. In 1999 he received the city of Hayward's Mayor's Award. I am honored to join the colleagues of Douglas Morrisson in commending him for his 40 years of service to the city of Hayward. Douglas Morrisson's dedicated work with the Park District has provided every member of the Hayward community spectacular state-or-the-art park facilities to enjoy.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the 19th Annual Fremont Festival of the Arts sponsored by the Fremont Chamber of Commerce. The two-day Festival, to be held on July 27 and 28, 2002, is expected to attract over 450,000 attendees and has become a model of success for the modern festival. This single event provides some $400,000 in contributions to non-profits for the betterment of communities in Fremont, California. Over 800 artists, 40 culinary selections and 20 musical groups will be featured at the Festival. Three thousand volunteers give willingly of their time to contribute to the Festival's success. It takes generous and concerned individuals, such as the volunteers, to reach out and make a difference, ensuring promise and opportunity for this and future generations. It also takes the support of business sponsors and patrons to ensure the success of the Festival. The Festival typifies the spirit of community service, which is alive and thriving in Fremont. I am proud to salute the efforts of this year's Festival Chairman, David M. O'Hara and Fremont Chamber of Commerce CEO Cindy Bonilor, the organizers, the volunteers, the sponsors and the patrons of the Fremont Festival of the Arts for their generous and inspiring efforts to ensure continued success.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, the following editorial was written by my fellow colleague from California, Representative George Miller. It was published in The Los Angeles Times on June 20, 2002 under the title, ``Damming the Money Stream of the Water Profiteers.'' I commend Representative Miller for eloquently addressing the issue of water rights in California. I support the conviction that California's water belongs to all Californians. We should not allow big agribusiness to profit off antiquated government subsidies at the expense of California's water-strapped communities and family farms. The following is a reprinted version of Mr. Miller's editorial: [From the Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2002] Damming the Money Stream of the Water Profiteers (By George Miller) Californians who recently learned a very expensive lesson about futures trading from Enron Corp. may soon get a second dose of market manipulation, this time courtesy of the federal government. Instead of watching out for the water needs--and pocketbooks--of taxpayers, the Department of the Interior may soon sign long-term water contracts that provide multimillion-dollar windfalls to agricultural corporations at the expense of cities and consumers. A hundred years ago, Congress made a bargain with farmers in the dry West: Taxpayers would subsidize dams, canals and water to promote settlement and irrigate family farms. In return, farmers would have to repay only a fraction of the true cost of the investment. The subsidies were locked into long-term contracts that the Interior Department signed with water districts promising to deliver millions of acre-feet. Yet for decades, some reclamation beneficiaries in California's Central Valley have been farming the taxpayers as much as the land. Huge companies maneuvered to capture the multibillion- dollar subsidy intended for family farmers, leading Congress to close the loopholes and reduce the subsidies that encourage overuse of water resources. Now the original water contracts are expiring, and Interior must negotiate new contracts under much tighter terms dictated by a historic 1992 water reform law. Given the growing demand for water throughout the state, some of these giant farm operations have a new scheme for enriching themselves at public expense: Instead of using subsidized water for growing crops, they want to sell some of their government-provided water back to the government--or to water-short cities or farms--for huge profits. Bennett Raley, who is in charge of the federal water program at the Interior Department, approves. ``We believe in the free market,'' Raley says. ``It's their water.'' Well, actually, it isn't ``their'' water. The water originates in the mountains and the rivers of this great state. It belongs not to any particular contractor or farmer but to all the people of California, who paid for its development, storage and delivery with costly subsidies. The Interior Department's customers enjoy the use of the water only because of their contracts with the government, and those contracts now need to be renegotiated. The government signed contracts to provide subsidized water for food and fiber production, not to award a public resource to a particular group that could convert it into an annuity for personal profit. If there is a market in California for $1,000 an acre-foot--and there is--why would any responsible federal official sign a 25-year contract to sell water to farming concerns that will resell it for a profit of 800% or 1,000%? If the water market is that healthy, why shouldn't the taxpayers, who built and subsidized the projects in the first place, get to sell the water for a large profit? If the contractor's intent in signing a new contract is merely to market a portion of the water, then, learning from the Enron example, we should not be concentrating public resources in the hands of a few private individuals. Yet farming interests, many with long-standing ties to the Bush administration, are pressuring federal officials to sign new contracts that deliver them control of vast amounts of water. Water is already an overcommitted resource in California, with competing interests divided among cities, agriculture, industry and the environment. Global warming has raised concerns of diminished Sierra snowpacks and runoffs in the future, which would reduce our ability to fill our reservoirs. Surely this is not the time for responsible government officials to commit water to one group of contractors and force the rest of the state to cut deals that enrich private interests from the sale of public resources. Doesn't it make sense for Raley and his co-workers at the Interior Department to use great caution in deciding how much of the public's subsidized water to include in those new contracts, instead of promising vast volumes that irrigators will turn around and resell--perhaps even to the government-- at a huge profit? It's not their water, Mr. Raley, unless you give it away.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 4635, the Arming Pilots Against Terrorism Act. In responding to the horrific tragedy of September 11th, we've spent billions to put sensible measures in place to ensure the safety of our airlines and the airports they serve. We've implemented strict new standards for screening passengers and their baggage. We've beefed up security personnel, dispatched sky marshals to guard domestic flights, and reinforced cockpit doors to protect our pilots from dangerous intruders. These important security precautions are working and our skies are safer than they've ever been. Yet, we're confronted today with legislation that would have us take the unnecessary step of arming pilots. After all we've done to make it nearly impossible for anyone to carry dangerous weapons on any plane, why would we put guns in every cockpit? The gun lobby is peddling the illusion that having guns in the cockpit will boost the safety of our skies. But, in fact, arming pilots would only add a dangerously unpredictable element to air travel that endangers pilots, flight attendants, and passengers alike. Giving guns to pilots doesn't make us any safer. It only increases the chances for disaster. This is why the President, with the support of a broad consensus of safety experts, law enforcement and all the major airlines, acted to prohibit guns being carried by pilots. We ought to vote today to reinforce this sound judgment and reaffirm the common sense notion that pilots are trained to fly not shoot. Let's not turn the Red Carpet Room into the OK Corral or our planes into shooting galleries. I strongly urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dr. Murray Ross for his 14 years of service to the U.S. Congress at both the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the Congressional Budget Office. MedPAC is the advisory panel to Congress that provides guidance on Medicare payment policies. Dr. Ross has served with distinction as MedPAC's founding executive director, providing outstanding policy analysis and exceptional service to Members of Congress and their staff. Before MedPAC, he served as unit chief for the Health Cost Estimates Unit of the Congressional Budget Office, directing his staff in developing key spending and cost estimates for the Congress. Prior to becoming the director of the health unit, Dr. Ross served as a principal analyst in CBO's Health and Human Resources Division, providing important analyses of health reform and income security policies. While I may not have always agreed with the advice and analysis received from MedPAC or CBO during his tenure, I speak for many when I say that we always knew Murray was shooting straight with us and doing his best to see that we were provided accurate information in a timely manner. It is with pleasure that I join the congressional and health policy communities in commending Murray Ross for his service to the Congress and America, in thanking him for his professionalism, and in wishing him well in his new endeavors. I also welcome Murray to the San Francisco Bay area and look forward to working with him to improve health care in my home community.

Mr. STARK

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, pending recognizing the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 2 minutes, I would just like to remind the Members that the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery) recalls that it was the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) who voted in committee not to increase money for nursing homes. She voted against eliminating co-pays for home health care. She voted against limiting the premiums to seniors, and she voted against giving seniors a choice of going to any pharmacy. So much for her concern for the seniors.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Ross), who understands why the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and the National Retail Federation and other pharmacy groups have said they consider a vote for the Republican bill to be a vote against the professional pharmacy and pharmacists.

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), who realizes that the National Community Pharmacists Association states that the Republican bill penalizes beneficiaries desiring to continue their trusted relationship with their pharmacists and access to valuable pharmacist services. (Mr. TANNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin).

Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 25 seconds to remind the gentleman from Arizona that he should tell the seniors in Mesa that he has lined his own pockets with a benefit for Members of Congress which is 50 percent more generous than what he is willing to give the seniors in his home State, and that he and the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) voted against eliminating cost sharing for preventive benefits for seniors. Now that again shows us how much they care for the seniors in Hartford or in Florida or in Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson).