Steve Scalise

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. On the heels of the failed stimulus bill that added another roughly $1 trillion of debt to our Nation's debt, also leading to about another two million people losing their jobs in this country and then that cap-and-trade energy tax proposal that literally would run millions of jobs out of our country, most Americans across our Nation are saying, Where are the jobs? And, instead, the latest proposal by President Obama and Speaker Pelosi is this attempt to mandate a government takeover of our health care system. And, you know, the President goes out and he gives these speeches. And he says under his plan if you like the plan that you have, you can keep it. Well, unfortunately, I don't think the President has read his bill because if you look right here in section 102 of the bill, it says that the government health care czar is going to be able to take away your health care plan even if you like it. It's right here in the bill. Another part, Mr. Speaker, of what the President says is anybody who makes under $250,000 a year won't pay anymore in new taxes. Once again, maybe the President hasn't read his own bill, but in his health care bill right here in section 401, tax on individuals without acceptable health care, $29 billion in new taxes. Read the bill.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on Congressionally-directed project funding, I am submitting the following information regarding project funding I requested for Southeast Louisiana as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations bill. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill Account: Information Technology Development Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Address of Requesting Entity: 2251 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70145 Description of Request: I have secured $2,500,000 for Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). It will fund a 3D modeling simulation which will allow NASA and DOD to model their manufacturing and testing complexes, facilities, and processes prior to deployment. Modeling prior to development reduces initial costs and minimizes ongoing production. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill Account: Enterprise Information Technology Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Address of Requesting Entity: 2251 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70145 Description of Request: I have secured $7,500,000 for Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). The funds will be used for sustaining critical joint Navy/University information systems research and technology transfer in partnership with the University of New Orleans and local small businesses and industry. Funding will update the current operations environment at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Defense Appropriations Bill Account: Special Operating Forces Underwater Systems Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Address of Requesting Entity: Naval Special Warfare, San Diego, CA 92135 Description of Request: I have secured $1,000,000 for Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). It will fund a new generation submersible, capable of conducting insertion & extraction of Special Operation Forces personnel and/or their payloads. Technology services would be headquartered in Mandeville, Louisiana. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I thank my colleague from Baton Rouge for yielding me 2 minutes, and it's also good to follow up my colleague from Lafayette rising in support of this resolution commending the 2009 LSU Tigers for their national championship winning the College World Series. As a proud alumnus of LSU, I was very excited to see them regain the prominence that they had under Skip Burtman, who won five national championship College World Series during his tenure as the head coach, probably one of the greatest baseball coaches in the history of college baseball. And now to have turned the program over to Paul Maneri, who just in his third year won the national title, winning this College World Series in Omaha, a place that many people from Baton Rouge and fans of LSU all throughout the country enjoy going to, and enjoy celebrating national championships like now. They did with the sixth national championship, making them number two behind all college teams in the history of college baseball. So there were a number of notable achievements. Of course, you've got to congratulate the coaches and the players, and the entire LSU community for what they've done, but there were some distinctions. Chad Jones and Jared Mitchell became the first two teammates who actually won a BCS national championship being on the 2007 football national championship team and also being on the team that won the College World Series. So some notable achievements there. And the entire LSU faculty, of course. The LSU program generates hundreds of thousands of dollars that go back to the academic programs and the great academics at LSU as well. So, again, I thank my colleague. I'm proud to cosponsor this resolution, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it. Geaux (go) Tigers.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Well, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee. I appreciate your leadership on this issue and the fact that you are willing to come here tonight and talk about some of these challenges that our country's facing. And when you look across our country today, people are facing many challenges. But I think what's even more concerning to people when they look here in Washington, and they look at what's happening in the Congress, and they look at what this administration is doing, I think it's frightening people across the country. The fact that they see these policies that are being proposed, and some of these policies that have actually passed. In January, when President Obama took the oath of office, one of his first steps was to pass this unprecedented spending bill that he called the stimulus bill and he rammed it through Congress, a bill that everybody knows that nobody that voted for the bill had time to read because they rammed it through so fast, because they said it needed to pass because it was going to stop unemployment from reaching 8 percent. Well, now we're at 9\1/2\ percent unemployment, and that number is climbing. The problem is our deficit is climbing even higher. We exceeded a trillion dollars in deficit just a week ago. Unprecedented in our country's history. And people are looking at that and saying, Why is it that every American family is cutting back to manage and live within their means? State governments have been cutting their budgets to live within their means. Why is it that Washington and Congress, especially, is spending money out of control at a rate that is unprecedented, and it cannot be contained? And then they look at the policies. And I think that's what's concerning people especially today. And they look at this crazy energy proposal, this cap-and-trade energy tax and this proposal to have a government takeover of our health care system. And clearly reforms need to be made to health care, but there is bipartisan agreement on a number of reforms that can be made to allow people to have the portability so if they move from one job to another, they can take their health care with them. But a real competition in health care or address pre-existing conditions, there is bipartisan agreement on all of those issues. Not one of those is in the President's bill because he chose to go it alone. He said, I don't need to work with Republicans. And in fact, he's not even working with moderate Democrats. He's decided to go with the most far extreme leftists that want to just have a government takeover of health care where, literally, a bureaucrat in Washington that's not elected, didn't even go through a Senate confirmation, can have the ability to tell you which doctor you can see or even if you can get an operation. And we've seen the devastating results in countries like Canada, in England, where they've done the exact same thing. And now those people who have the means in those countries come to America to get health care. Because even with our flaws--and we've got flaws in our system that need to be worked out--but even with our flaws, we have the best medical care in the world. And yet they want to destroy that system by having a government take it over and then add $800 billion of new taxes on the backs of American families. And if that wasn't enough, that leads us into the topic that I know my friend from Tennessee really started off talking about, and that's energy. This cap-and-trade energy tax that actually passed this House, and I sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee and we debated that for weeks, and I strongly opposed their bill because their bill doesn't address the energy problems in our country. We don't have an energy policy in America. Imagine that. The greatest country in the history of the world, the most industrialized nation in the world, doesn't have a true energy policy. We've got the ability to create a comprehensive energy policy that actually eliminates our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And we filed a bill. Some people would lead you to believe there is no alternative out there. It's just this cap-and-trade energy tax or nothing. Well, there is a different approach. There was an approach called the American Energy Act, which I'm proud to be a co-sponsor of. I know my friend from Tennessee is a cosponsor of. It's an all-of-the-above policy. It says yes, we should pursue those alternative sources of energy like wind and solar power. But unfortunately, those technologies aren't advanced enough yet. You can't run your car or house on wind or solar. You surely couldn't run a hospital on wind and solar because they're intermittent sources of energy, and so you need some other forms to keep power generating in this country. And so yes, you have coal production and we should advance the technologies to make clean coal technology. But you also need advance nuclear power; nuclear power emits zero carbon. It's a zero carbon emission source of energy. Eighty percent of Europe is on nuclear power now. It wasn't on their bill. They discouraged it. We need to move towards those other alternatives. We also need to recognize the existing types of energies we have in our country, and that's oil and natural gas. It's also some of the new sources and technologies that we have, like these tar sands in the Midwest which right now are prohibited from being explored by Federal policy. In fact, if you go into the Gulf of Mexico, there are many areas there where there are huge reserves of oil and natural gas that are banned from even being explored. I've taken a few Members out to the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago. We went out to the largest natural gas exploration facility in the country. It's called Independence Hub. Nine hundred million cubic feet of gas a day. Actually represents 2 percent of our entire country's natural gas needs. It's out there in the Gulf of Mexico, and they have greater capacity. In fact, we keep finding more and more reserves of natural gas every day. In north Louisiana, I'm proud to have gone out and visited the area in Shreveport, Louisiana, called Hainesville. Hainesville shale find is the largest new find of natural gas in our country's history. It was just found 3 years ago, and we continue to find more and more reserves like that. So there are all kind of natural resources that our country can use, and yet Federal policy blocks it. And the only answer President Obama gives us is this cap-and-trade energy tax--which actually limits our ability to explore American resource of energy and gives greater power to those oil OPEC barons in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East that don't like our way of life. So we've got to get a comprehensive energy policy, and we've got to move away from this idea of taxing businesses, taxing families, raising electricity costs--which their bill does--and go to a policy that adopts a comprehensive, all- of-the-above approach. So here at this time I'm going to yield back to my friend from Tennessee. But we're talking in the same week that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and Collins landed on the Moon, the Apollo 11 mission. The 40th anniversary this week. I had the honor of meeting them. True American heroes. When I talked to Neil Armstrong earlier this week, what I told him was, What you did, what your crew did and what all of the NASA officials did, they inspired a Nation because they showed us what the greatness of America can be if we truly set our minds in a bipartisan way. And back then under President Kennedy when he said and set that objective that we were going to go to the Moon by the end of the 1960s, the entire country came together, Republicans and Democrats. We can do that again. But President Obama's got to set aside the bipartisanship and this extreme radical policy, and we can get there.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank my friend Mr. Akin from Missouri for yielding and for hosting this hour to talk about health care. Just earlier tonight, we heard President Obama talking about the latest rendition of his story to the American people about what this bill does and doesn't do. I think what you're seeing across the country, though, is people have now started to see the details of the bill. I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee where we've been debating this bill for a few weeks now. We finally got the text of the bill just a few days ago. In fact, we had a hearing with the Congressional Budget Office last week. The day after the chairman of the committee finally released to the public the details of the bill, when we were talking to the head of the CBO about what the cost of this is to the American people, the head of the CBO acknowledged he didn't even have the opportunity to read the bill, but as he started to go through it----

Mr. SCALISE. Their bill allows this health care czar to ration health care on Americans, and so American people are looking at this--and small business. And I talk to small business all the time. I just talked to one a little while ago who watched the President's speech and he said, One of the things that we're sick and tired of is all of these new taxes that they keep adding onto the backs of working people and all of these new mandates that government keeps adding onto the backs of people that are taking away their rights, taking away their health care. And they see it in this bill. And they give all the speeches they want and all the assurances. The problem is, in the bill, they take away those rights.

Mr. SCALISE. Well, you know, I think it is changing every day, and the sad part of it is what's not necessarily changing are the details. What is changing is the rhetoric. Every day they seem to come out and say something just to try to appease the American people. When the American people start looking at the details of this bill, they realize this bill gives a government bureaucrat, this new health care czar they're creating--we're not even talking about Cabinet Secretary post, somebody who is actually confirmed by the Senate. We're talking about a Federal bureaucrat, a health care czar, gives this health care czar the ability to take away your insurance if you like it. And so the President will go give a speech and say if you like what you have, you can keep it. The problem is his bill gives the bureaucrat the ability to take your health care away.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. So 12 times in the last Congress alone they waived PAYGO by a simple majority vote. I had an amendment last night in the Rules Committee to require a three-fifths vote to say if you really want to install fiscal discipline, then put a high bar so you can't just waive it every time you want to spend money you don't have. Guess what? Not one person on the other side supported that amendment. I've cosponsored a constitutional amendment that requires that we balance our Federal budget. Many States have a similar fiscal discipline that's placed in their constitutions. Unfortunately, we don't have anything like that here in Washington, and the results are that this Congress is spending at unprecedented levels that's led to these debts. And one other hidden secret about PAYGO. It is allowed to cut spending. Some people around here don't know what cutting spending means; they just keep growing spending. But when PAYGO has been used, 34 times in the last Congress it was used not to cut spending but to raise taxes. So once again, not only is PAYGO a hoax, it doesn't stop spending from being out of control at all because it's been waived every time they wanted to spend money, like in the stimulus bill, but 34 times in the last 2 years, PAYGO was used to raise taxes on American families. And so if you wonder why your tax burden keeps going up and up and up and then you've got this thing called PAYGO that sounds really good and you hear all of these Fourth of July speeches on the other side about fiscal discipline, well, fiscal discipline to them means raising taxes on American families or just waiving it when you feel like spending money that you don't have. The American people deserve better. They deserve honesty and transparency in their government, not some bill that purports to be about fiscal discipline and yet can be waived any time they want to just look the other way. And judging by history, they've waived it every time they wanted to spend money that this country doesn't have. We can hear about George Bush all day and about Republicans. For the last 2\1/2\ years the Democrats have been running Congress. Nancy Pelosi has been the Speaker. Harry Reid has been the Senate President and Barack Obama today is the President, and in the last 6 months we've seen spending at unprecedented levels with a $1.2 trillion deficit. PAYGO is a hoax. Let's get real fiscal discipline.

Mr. SCALISE. I want to thank the gentleman from California for yielding time and for the comments that he made earlier against the bill and the rule. And I rise, as well, in opposition to the bill because this bill, this PAYGO bill as it's dubbed, does nothing to control spending. I strongly believe we need to get our fiscal house in order. I think if you look at the actions of this administration since President Obama became President in January and Speaker Pelosi continued her reign, and she has been in office for 2\1/2\ years now as the Speaker, Harry Reid over in the Senate as well, you have seen spending get out of control here in this Congress, and it's done so under PAYGO. The PAYGO rule that they are trying to put into law has gotten us to a point today where we're facing a $1.8 trillion, with a ``T,'' deficit. Just last week the Federal deficit this year exceeded $1 trillion. These are numbers that have never been seen before in the history of our country, and it all happened under this rule that we're hearing all of these Fourth of July speeches about how great PAYGO is and how PAYGO is going to require fiscal responsibility. We have PAYGO today, and it has given us a $1.8 trillion deficit this year. And so what I proposed in the Rules Committee last night was an actual ability to require some strict discipline on PAYGO by taking out the exemptions, the loopholes. You would ask yourself if we've got PAYGO, and if the people on the other side that are talking about it and they say how wonderful it's going to be, well, if it's so good, how could it have yielded us a $1.8 trillion deficit? That's because PAYGO is a hoax. PAYGO is waived every time they want to spend money that we don't have. So they simply waive it. In fact, in the stimulus bill earlier this year, the largest spending bill in the history of our country, $787 billion of money that we don't have, it was rammed through Congress. Not one person who voted for it had the opportunity to read it, but the President said it had to be done quickly because it's going to create millions of jobs. Well, we've seen now that is a failure. Where are the jobs? Two million more Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus bill passed. And the bill passed without the funding in place, without any kind of offsets, no cuts at all; in fact, $787 billion of new spending under the PAYGO rule. So you would ask yourself if PAYGO is so good, how could a $787 billion unfunded bill pass under that rule? Well, that's because they simply waived the rule. It's right here in the rule that they passed on the stimulus bill. Many of the people that are coauthors of this bill were happy to vote to waive it, and they were able to waive it with a simple majority vote. And this bill that they're talking about today has the same language that still allows PAYGO to be waived any time they feel like looking the other way. And you would say, Oh, they wouldn't do that. Well, sorry to tell you, in the last Congress, 12 times they waived PAYGO.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. There are a lot of statements that have been made by the administration, all of which contradict each other. I think the American people are catching on to the fact that the administration has these focus groups and that they say things that people want to hear. Yet they do the opposite. Just last week, Vice President Biden said we have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt. Now, any American who balances his budget, which is every American family, knows that's a ludicrous statement; but it's the way that they're governing, and it's the way that this bill approaches this. In fact, as we've been talking about how much will this bill cost, how much will this government takeover cost, in the Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this week, they had amendments to the bill to actually add even more costs. What are those costs? What is that additional spending that the Vice President talks about that they need to implement to keep from going bankrupt? They added another $250 million. There was one amendment that a Member on the Democratic side offered in the committee which would create a program that would allow the Federal Government, through this government takeover of health care, to create a new program to allow for individual organizations like Planned Parenthood--and we asked if Planned Parenthood and if groups like ACORN would be able to access this program, and they said yes. It would allow groups like Planned Parenthood to have access to $250 million in a new Federal program-- money we don't have--to teach teenage girls how to use condoms. By the way, this would be without the permission of their parents. So imagine you're looking at this budget deficit spiraling out of control and at this spending in Washington spiraling out of control, and the President brings this government takeover of health care and says, We're not going to pass a bill that doesn't control costs. Yet there was an amendment that they passed. Not one Republican voted for this amendment. Those of us who are pro-life were highly offended by it, but the amendment passed. It's in the bill. It creates a separate $250 million taxpayer-funded program to allow groups like Planned Parenthood to teach your daughter, without your permission, how to use condoms. It's in their bill to take over health care. That's what's going on with this bill. The American people are seeing this. That's why they're trying to ram this bill through by the end of next week, without the American people being able to read the bill, because they know when people read this stuff, they're going to revolt. They should because this is a horrible idea. I yield back.

Mr. SCALISE. There's one other thing that the President will do with his government takeover of health care if he truly does want to make it revenue-neutral, which it's not. Right now, this bill adds hundreds of billions of dollars to the deficit, and the number grows every day. The number is in the $200 billion range right now, but we know, by the end of this week, it's probably going to be higher. What the President will do is ration care. In this bill, he has got this health care czar--it's in his bill--with the power to ration care. So if he is going to control costs to make sure that it doesn't cost any more, well, we already know he added about $800 billion in new taxes, so every American family and every small businessperson knows they're going to see massive tax increases. That's bad enough. That's going to lead to millions of jobs lost in this country. Even with all of that, his bill costs so much over $1 trillion that he still doesn't have enough money to make the two ends meet. So, if he truly lives up to his word, then the way he does that is the same way that Canada, England and any other country that has a government-run system does it. They ration care.

Mr. SCALISE. Again, I thank my friend for yielding. When we really talk about the numbers, there are lots of big numbers being thrown around, billions and billions of dollars. The CBO, Congressional Budget Office, has already said that the promises of savings--and President Obama has promised lots of savings--as he's read the bill, he's said the promises of savings don't exist. So you hear the President talking about we're going to squeeze all these savings out. The problem is the bill doesn't yield any savings. What it yields is an increase in Federal spending to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, over $800 billion in new taxes. But this is the bureaucracy that they create. I think when you really start talking about why the American people, as they're looking at this plan, are turning against this government takeover of health care, this is what really I think offends the American people. This is an organizational chart of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi's proposal to have a government takeover of health care, and I think what frightens people the most--and there are a lot of things about this bill that frighten people across America. The fact that you would have a bureaucrat to ration care. But I think what is the most offensive, even above the tax increases and above the hundreds of billions of dollars in spending of money that we don't have, is the fact that they're proposing in their bill--this is the doctor and this is the patient. Look at all of the bureaucracy that their bill is placing in between you, the consumer, the patient, and your doctor. We've got two doctors here tonight joining us from Georgia and Louisiana, and when you look at this organizational chart of President Obama and Speaker Pelosi's proposal to have a government takeover of health care, what offends people the most is the fact that they're placing all of these new Federal bureaucracies, including a health care czar, in between you and your doctor. And people know, when you look at Canada, when you look at England, people know what that led to. And in fact, just Monday of this week, Monday of this week, a tragic story. A 22-year-old man, 22-year-old man in England died because of England's government-run health care system, very similar to this proposal, denied the ability for that 22-year-old to get a liver transplant. His 44-year-old mother testified how horrible the system is that they have in England, a system that would allow a 22-year-old man to die because they denied him treatment. This is the exact same structure. All these Federal bureaucrats unelected here in Washington, D.C., coming in between you, the patient, and your doctor. This is offensive. This is why this is such a horrible idea. We need reforms, but we surely don't need this. I yield back.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on Congressionally-directed project funding, I am submitting the following information regarding project funding I requested for Southeast Louisiana as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act Account: Federal Highway Administration, Delta Regional Transportation Development Program Name of Requesting Entity: Regional Planning Commission Address of Requesting Entity: 1340 Poydras Street, Ste. 2100, New Orleans, LA 70112 Description of Request: I have secured $400,000 for the Regional Planning Commission. The project entails the construction of a new interchange at I-12 & LA Highway 1088. The Project is needed to alleviate severe congestion along LA Highway 59 & the Mandeville/Abita Springs roadway networks. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act Account: Federal Highway Administration, Delta Regional Transportation Development Program Name of Requesting Entity: Regional Planning Commission Address of Requesting Entity: 1340 Poydras Street, Ste. 2100, New Orleans, LA 70112 Description of Request: I have secured $400,000 for the Regional Planning Commission. The funding is to upgrade transportation and drainage on Clearview Parkway (LA Highway 3152) at the interchange area with Earhart Expressway (LA Highway 3139) in the Elmwood area of Jefferson. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act Account: Housing and Urban Development, Economic Development Initiatives Name of Requesting Entity: South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission Address of Requesting Entity: 1340 Poydras Street, Ste. 2100, New Orleans, LA 70112 Description of Request: I have secured $100,000 for the South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission. The funding will provide for a bulk- head along the southern end of the facility adjacent to the North Pass Channel. The area is vulnerable to tidal surges and unpredictable/ irregular weather patterns and the damages must be eliminated in order to utilize the facility. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on Congressionally-directed project funding, I am submitting the following information regarding project funding I requested for Southeast Louisiana as part of the Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 Account: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center Address of Requesting Entity: 4950 Essen Lane, Baton Rouge, LA 70809 Description of Request: I have secured $350,000 for the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center. Mary Bird Perkins (MBP) Cancer Center is the only independent, nonprofit cancer treatment, education and research center in Louisiana providing state of the art radiation therapy to all community residents. Outreach services are provided through the Center's CARE Network which provides cancer support services, awareness and education activities, and research and education initiatives. Funding will allow MBP to continue expansion of the CARE network services. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 Account: Employment and Training Administration (ETA)--Training & Employment Services Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Southeastern Louisiana University Address of Requesting Entity: SLU Box 10784, Dyson Hall, Room 106, Hammond, LA 70402 Description of Request: I have secured $150,000 for Southeastern Louisiana University. Southeastern Louisiana University can expand its initiative to provide economic and workforce development, community planning, and smart growth assistance to meet the needs of post-Katrina Southeast Louisiana. The facility houses several economic, business development organizations and community planning resources. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 Account: Employment and Training Administration (ETA)--Training & Employment Services Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Tulane University Address of Requesting Entity: 6823 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70118 Description of Request: I have secured $250,000 for Tulane University. The funding is for the establishment of a Community Health Worker Training Institute as a component of the Tulane/ RAND Center for Health & Society in Louisiana. The Institute will benefit the region in three key areas: reduced healthcare costs, increased worker productivity, and job creation. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project. Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Scalise Bill Number: Fiscal Year 2010 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010 Account: Employment and Training Administration (ETA)--Training & Employment Services Legal Name of Requesting Entity: West Jefferson Medical Center Address of Requesting Entity: 1101 Medical Center Boulevard, Marrero, LA 70072 Description of Request: I have secured $100,000 for West Jefferson Medical Center. The funding is for the emergency electrical system upgrade and adds on-site electrical generation capacity to power the entire facility with on-site diesel fuel for up to seven days. West Jefferson can continue to provide emergency or urgent care throughout this facility. I certify that neither I nor my spouse has any financial interest in this project.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I would yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I again rise in support of the legislation dealing with hydroelectric power. I think it is important, as we are talking about energy, that we really talk about the need to get a comprehensive national energy policy in our country. It is not just enough to promote hydroelectric power. It is not just enough to look at any one significant source of power. We need to look at all of the resources in our land. In fact, the inscription by Daniel Webster right above the Speaker's rostrum talks about the need to explore the resources of our land. Unfortunately, there are many Federal laws and barriers in place that prevent us from doing just that. This cap-and- trade national energy tax imposes even more barriers. In addition to imposing significant taxes on to the backs of American people in the form of higher utility rates and bureaucratic regulations, it will run millions of jobs out of this country. That's not the right approach. What we need is a comprehensive energy policy. I'm proud to be a cosponsor, with many other of my colleagues, of the American Energy Act, a bill that we filed earlier this year to take that comprehensive approach to a national energy policy, one that looks at all of the alternatives. We explore more technologies for wind, for solar, for hydroelectric and for nuclear power. We use our natural resources, like oil and natural gas, to get to that bridge to fund those other alternatives. We use the things that we have here today to get us to those technologies that aren't yet readily available to power our homes or to run our cars. But hopefully one day, through the use of these technologies, we will advance the utilization of the natural resources we have in our country to create jobs. Our bill would actually create jobs and generate billions of dollars to the Federal Government, not by raising taxes, but by actually creating more economic opportunities by creating jobs and getting people back to work so that they can contribute and pay into and pay down this debt as opposed to raising the debt and running off jobs. So I would hope that we would support and get to a place where we can actually get agreement in a bipartisan way to pass a bipartisan bill like the American Energy Act that actually takes a comprehensive approach to solving our national energy needs and reducing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil--rather than this tax approach, this cap-and-trade energy tax that actually would make countries in Europe, the Middle East and China more powerful and put America further at risk--so we can get our strengthened energy policy and we can get energy independence. But we need to have a bipartisan approach, not this cap-and-trade energy tax that literally would run millions of jobs out of our country. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. I'm prepared to close.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2938, a bill that extends the timeline to bring this hydroelectric power plant project in Illinois on line. It gives them another up to 6 years, and ultimately, this would be the decision of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. But as they're going through the process right now of permitting and approval, this provides them an additional 6 years to make sure that the project has enough time to get approved and completed and bring this new power source on line. I would like to yield 3 minutes to my friend from Oregon (Mr. Walden).

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. It's important that we continue working to find the causes and the treatments, education, and make sure that we are researching properly to find cures for diseases like diabetes. The broader question of health care reform--I think my friend from Georgia did a really good job of talking about the challenges and the concerns that so many over on this side have of this proposal that's before us. Not here in this bill, but being debated here in this Congress in these coming weeks, this week, last week, this proposal to have a government takeover of our health care system. I think it shows that while there are definitely ways to approach this in a bipartisan fashion, where there are many areas of health care reform that many of us agree need to be made to improve outcomes, to improve access, to focus on that narrow group of people who don't have access to care. I think the real danger is going down the road of a government takeover where government literally is interfering in the relationship between a doctor and their patient, as this bill would do, the bill that's been filed by the administration, by some of the members of this Democratic leadership. I think there's real problems, and we can only look at the neighbors that have gone down the same road. Look at Canada. Canada has a government-run health care system. Many people with the means from Canada come to America to get good care. The same thing in England. There was a tragic story in England, which has a government-run system. Just yesterday, there was a young man, a 22-year-old, who died because he was not allowed to get a liver transplant. ``He did not qualify for a donor liver under strict NHS rules.'' His own mother said, ``These rules are really unfair.'' They have a government-run system that's very similar to the proposal that's being pushed by the President to have this government takeover of health care. We actually had an amendment in committee last night in the Energy and Commerce Committee that would have prohibited a government-run system from having a bureaucrat interfere in the relationship between a patient and their doctor. Unfortunately, our amendment was defeated. So clearly it shows that a government-run system would allow a doctor-patient relationship to be interfered with by a government bureaucrat here in Washington. That's not health care reform. That's rationing of health care. So we need to, hopefully, go back to the table and have a true bipartisan debate because there are many proposals that are on the table, bills that have been filed--I'm cosponsor of a number of them that actually address some of the problems that exist in health care-- to allow companies to pool together so they can get the same buying power as a small business, as a large business does; to allow individuals to buy insurance across State lines so they don't have to rely on their employer if they don't like their employer's plan; and then also open up and address those areas of waste, fraud, and abuse that exist. That's what we're concerned about. I do think it's very important that we raise awareness and education for diseases like diabetes. And I do want again to thank the gentleman with the ``good arm'' from California for his leadership on this issue because he has, I think, taken this issue and approached it in a good bipartisan way. Hopefully, we can do the same with the broader area of health care reform. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE. I yield 2 additional minutes to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Broun).

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Res. 69. I want to congratulate the gentleman from California on his leadership on this bill, building a bipartisan coalition to bring it to the floor under suspension. I want to recognize the 23.6 million Americans that suffer from diabetes. Diabetes can lead to serious complications and premature death, but people with diabetes can take steps to control the disease and lower the risk of complications. The Centers for Disease Control has stated that progression to diabetes among those with pre-diabetes is not inevitable and that studies have shown that people with pre-diabetes who lose weight and increase their physical activity can prevent or delay diabetes and return their blood glucose levels to normal. Through regular exercise and a steady diet, Americans can get to a healthier state of living and avoid diabetes, and that's what we're trying to raise awareness about. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, right now Americans all across the country are dealing with this tough economy, many by tightening their belts and by managing their family budgets. Unfortunately, they are looking to Washington, and they are seeing this Congress that is being run by people that don't get what the American people are dealing with across the country. Spending is out of control here in Washington by this administration and by this Congress. Look at the proposals that we are debating today. Health care in America needs reforms. But with all of the problems that exist, we still have some of the best medical care in the world. In fact, people that live in countries that have a government-run plan and who have the means, come to America to get care because in those countries, government takeover of health care has led directly to rationing of care. And so what are we facing today? We are facing a plan by the President, Speaker Pelosi and others here to have a government takeover of America's health care system. When you read this bill, and you hear all of this great rhetoric, you hear the President saying that if you like the plan you have, you can keep it. The problem is, the bill doesn't allow you to keep your health care plan. There is actually a section in their government takeover that allows a health care czar, some bureaucrat in Washington that was never elected to anything, to be able to take away your health care if they don't think that it complies with these new Federal requirements. So if you like what you have, this health care czar can take it away from you. In fact, if you're uninsured--and all we hear about is the uninsured and that we need to address the problem of the uninsured, and I agree. The thing is when you really break down the numbers and when you look at who is really uninsured, you get to a number of about 7 million people. Once you strip away the illegal aliens and you take away the people who choose not to get health care who are currently eligible, you end up with 7 million Americans. That is a number we can address without blowing up all of the things that work for over 300 million Americans. But in their plan, they actually tax some of those very people that are uninsured. The Congressional Budget Office just gave testimony last week. Unfortunately the chairman of the committee threw the public out of the meeting. It was a secretive meeting that they wouldn't even allow the public to come into. I guess after they heard the testimony, you can see why, because the testimony said, number one, that the costs in this bill are out of control. All of the savings that we heard, that were promised, don't even exist. That's the Congressional Budget Office's testimony. But then they talked about the taxes, over $580 billion in new taxes on businesses in their health care bill. There's over $240 billion of penalties that would be applied to American families that maybe don't go along with this new government takeover of health care. There's $29 billion of taxes on uninsured people in their bill. The Congressional Budget Office gave the specific testimony that this bill, this government takeover of health care, adds $29 billion in new taxes on the backs of uninsured Americans. And this is as they're running around saying that they want to help uninsured Americans. I know a lot of uninsured Americans out there that don't think $29 billion of new taxes on their backs is the kind of help that they want. When you look at this bill, you start to realize that what they're doing, what they're proposing, is the very government takeover where rationing of care would exist, where a government bureaucrat can get in between the relationship of you and your doctor. It's the same thing that's happened in Canada, it's the same thing that's happened in England, where unfortunately just yesterday we saw the story of a 22-year-old who was denied lifesaving care, denied a transplant by this government bureaucracy that exists in England that rations care. I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee where this bill is currently being debated. We were in committee till 12:30 in the morning last night. We had an amendment that would have prohibited a Federal bureaucrat in Washington from interfering between the relationship of an American citizen and their doctor. That's the most sacrosanct relationship that should exist. Nobody should come between the relationship between you and your doctor. Yet they voted down that amendment. So clearly this is about rationing. Their proposal is not about reforming health care, because there's bipartisan agreement on the reforms that need to be made to address the real problems that exist in health care. What their bill is about is a government takeover. It's growing government more. It's adding more to the Federal deficit. Hundreds of billions of dollars by CBO testimony would be added to the Federal deficit, at a time when Americans are saying, Congress, Washington, control spending. Get a grip. People saw that the stimulus didn't work. There are no jobs. This bill is a horrible idea. Government should not be taking over our health care system and interfering in the relationship between us and our doctor.

Mr. SCALISE

Mr. SCALISE. Mr. Speaker, Americans all across the country are asking, where are the jobs? When President Obama brought the stimulus plan before the American people, he said it needed to be rammed down their throats quickly. He didn't allow people even the opportunity to read it. Not one Member who voted for the bill even had the opportunity to read it. But he said, don't worry. Just trust me. It will create millions of jobs. Well, now 6 months later, 2 million more Americans have lost their jobs since President Obama took the oath of office. And what's their answer? They're talking about another stimulus bill. In fact, just last week, Vice President Joe Biden said, We have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt. The American people are starting to understand what's going on here with this Congress, the liberals that are running this place. They realize all they're doing is taxing and spending, and they're not creating jobs. They're running jobs off. The cap-and-trade energy tax would lose 3 million jobs to countries like China. And then they come back with this plan to have a government takeover of our health care system, a plan that would add another $800 billion of new taxes on the backs of American people and run off even more jobs. The American people know what's going on here. They want jobs, not these crazy liberal policies.