Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), a distinguished member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time and the right to close.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess). (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 1.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I do not yield.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) or his designee, and ask unanimous consent that he may control that time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me join in expressing the sorrow of the folks in Louisiana for your loss in South Carolina. We will pray for his soul. Mr. Speaker, the Democratic substitute in this debate can be summed up rather easily. According to CBO, it will spend over a trillion dollars. It busts the budget. Therefore, it is on the floor with a budget waiver. It at the same time excludes and does not contain any of the reforms that the base bill includes, that are designed to save Medicare from failure, from insolvency. I am not predicting Medicare's failure or insolvency. CBO is. CRS is. Everyone who has estimated the strength of our Medicare system predicts very soon, in our lifetimes, it will go insolvent. None of the reforms that are designed to save Medicare from insolvency are here. In fact, the Democratic substitute piles on a trillion dollars' worth of expenses to the Medicare system with no reforms to make sure the system is saved. When I mentioned earlier that you ought to test the credibility of arguments on this floor by what is said and what is fact and what is of record, let me take you back to the statements of the distinguished gentlewoman from California who criticized the base bill because CBO said it might mean that as much as 30 percent or so of employers might drop their retiree coverage under the base bill in favor of the plans we offer. CBO estimated the Democratic substitute, too, on that point. How credible is an argument against the base bill that complains about a potential 30 percent loss of employer coverage when CBO estimates that 100 percent of employers will drop retiree coverage under the Democratic substitute? That all taxpayer dollars will be used to substitute private dollars? And the Medicare system, already crushed and about to go into insolvency, will have to assume all that responsibility, too? If you really believe in Medicare, why would you burden it so? Why would you eliminate private coverage in America, as CBO estimates would happen under the Democratic substitute? This substitute busts our budget. It purports to provide more drug coverage than the base bill but no reforms, it does not save Medicare; and on top of that it virtually eliminates private retiree coverage in America. Why would we want to go that direction? We rejected that direction during the Clinton years when Mrs. Clinton presented us with one-size-fits-all health care for all Americans. We recognized then that if you do not have the competitive choices in America in health care, just as we do with so many other services, that things go bad in this country and that sooner or later the crushing weight of benefits added upon benefits added upon benefits means the working people of America have to pay more and more and more taxes. In fact, it is estimated that within 70 years, if we do not begin today making decisions like we ask the House to make, entitlements in America will eat up every tax dollar paid into the Treasury by every citizen in America, and we will have no money for any other function in this country. That is where this substitute takes us, and that is why we need to reject it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood), the chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, it is almost like Minister of Information Baghdad Bob just arrived here. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I want to illustrate one of the real inadequacies of the Democratic substitute. In the main bill we reformed something called average wholesale price. I hope everyone knows what that is. I am going to illustrate it for you tonight. Under average wholesale price systems built into Medicare by the Democratic Party all these years, this is what happens. A person goes in for cancer therapy, a senior citizen, and the doctor needs a drug that costs $10; so the doctor buys a chemotherapy drug for $10. The patient ought to have to pay $2 under that, 20 percent co-pay under law. But that is not what happens. Under the average wholesale price system devised by Democratic administrations in the past under Medicare, this is what happens. The government has a phony average wholesale price posted. It might be $200 for that drug that only costs the doctor $10, and the poor patient has to put up 20 percent, not of the $10 but 20 percent of the $200. The patient puts up $40 for a drug that only costs the doctor $10 when the patient should have put up $2. That is called the average wholesale price system. It is rotten. It stinks. Our bill gets rid of it. And we replace it by reimbursing oncologists in America for not one time what their practice expense really ought to be reimbursed under the law, but we double it. We give them $430 million, twice what CMS estimates they ought to get. So we get rid of this stinky system that is charging American seniors 20 percent of phoney prices and costing the government Medicare system tens of times what the drugs are really costing the doctors, and we replace it with a rational, a rational reimbursement system. Now, the Democrats try to settle that system too. Let me tell my colleagues what they do in their substitute. They substitute this average wholesale price system with a system of reimbursement that, according to CBO estimates, is going to cost $14 billion over 10 years; and it is going to cost seniors another $3 billion of copays. We ought to reject that solution.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), our fighter pilot commander extraordinaire.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that despite what you may have heard on the floor tonight, our basic package contains $27.2 billion of assistance to rural health care. That is the largest package of rural health care we have ever voted on all the times we have voted on Medicare prescription drugs. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. (Mr. UPTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how many minutes are left for each one of the four who have allocated time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, we reserve the balance of our time. If anyone wants to use some more time at this time would be a good time to do it.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, in order to close this historic debate, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), the distinguished Speaker of our whole House.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness and great appreciation that I rise today to commemorate the retirement of someone who has been a treasure to the United States Congress for the last 28 years. Ms. Francie de Peyster will be retiring from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on June 30, 2003, after many years of distinguished leadership and of tireless dedication to improving our Nation's public health. Ms. de Peyster's prestigious career in public service began right here in the House of Representatives for what is now my committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee. She worked for more than five years for Representative Tim Lee Carter on the staff of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Following her tenure in the House, Ms. de Peyster went to work for the CDC in its Washington office in 1980. Ms. de Peyster became Deputy Director of the CDC/Washington office in 1984. In June 2001, she received the Secretary of Health and Human Services' Award for Distinguished Service. And just last year, she worked closely with my Committee as we drafted and passed into law one of the most important public health and national security initiatives in recent history--the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. Ms. de Peyster's professionalism, civility, experience, and dedication will be greatly missed by her friends and colleagues in the Senate and the House, and we will remain eternally grateful for her outstanding contributions to this Nation. I know all my colleagues would want to join me in expressing our sincerest thanks and wishes of happiness to Francie as she enters retirement.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 2312) to amend the Communications Satellite of 1962 to provide for the orderly dilution of the ownership interest in Inmarsat by former signatories to the Inmarsat Operating Agreement, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2312, which will extend the deadline for Inmarsat to conduct the initial public offering required of it by the ORBIT satellite privatization law. H.R. 2312, introduced by Representatives Shimkus and Markey, is unopposed. The ORBIT Act was enacted in March of 2000 to promote a competitive market for satellite communications through privatization of inter- governmental organizations, one of which is Inmarsat. The Federal Commications Commission has since found that Inmarsat has indeed satisfied the privatization criteria of the ORBIT Act. In addition, ORBIT called on Inmarsat to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) by a date certain--December 31, 2001. However, as that December 2001 deadline approached, it became quite apparent that the volatility in the financial markets in general, and the telecommunications sector specifically, necessitated a grant of additional time within which Inmarsat could conduct its statutorily mandated IPO. As a result, Congress took the prudent step of including language in the Commerce-Justice-State FY 2002 Appropriations bill to provide an additional year to conduct the IPO, and also provide the FCC the ability to grant a six-month extension if warranted by market conditions. This action was non-controversial. Unfortunately, the market conditions have not improved to a point where it would be reasonable to require the IPO and the current deadline (June 30, 2003) is now less than a month away. H.R. 2312, the ORBIT Technical Corrections Act, allows Inmarsat until June 30, 2004, to conduct its IPO. The purpose of this IPO requirement was to substantilly dilute the ownership of the privatized Inmarsat by its former owners, many of which are foreign governmental entities, so as to further ensure its independence. I fully supported this goal when we enacted ORBIT, and still do today. Indeed, the action we take today, in my view, is consistent with this policy objective. If forced to move ahead with an IPO at this time, Inmarsat will probably receive a reduced price for its shares offered. Foreign entities that still own significant portions of Inmarsat would likely be discouraged from offering their ownership interests for sale. Instead of resulting in substantial dilution of prior owners as envisioned by the ORBIT Act, a current year IPO might not achieve much dilution whatsoever. In that instance, Inmarsat would have complied with the procedural requirement of ORBIT without the substantive result that we in Congress sought: dilution of previous government owners. Given the state of the markets, the only way to ensure the dilution sought by ORBIT is to allow Inmarsat to further delay its IPO. That result is good public policy that is also good for the long-term health of the satellite communications industry. The health of the satellite communications industry and ORBIT's implementation are important to the Committee on Energy and Commerce. We are currently exploring the possibility of holdings hearings on the state of the industry in the future. At the appropriate time, we need to examine ORBIT's implementation, and the efficiency of the existing regulatory regime. For instance, New Skies Satellites has fulfilled the requirements of ORBIT and now is a fully independent competitor in the international satellite marketplace. Some have questioned whether it makes sense to hold New Skies to a continuing list of regulatory restrictions and requirements. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Committee to ensure that current law reflects the current realities of the satellite industry. However, today we need to enact H.R. 2312. I thank my collleagues for their support and I urge the prompt passage of this legislation. The bill was ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, was read the third time, and passed, and a motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2312, the bill just passed.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton); and I want to congratulate him on his hard work and the work product that we debate here on the House floor today. I particularly also want to congratulate and thank my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey), the ranking member of the subcommittee, and my dear friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the dean of our House and the ranking Democrat on the full committee, for the extraordinary cooperation that has been shown on this and so many pieces of legislation that our Committee on Energy and Commerce brings to the floor in the course of a year. This is one of those rare occasions where the administration, the Democrats and Republicans are all on the same page. We all agree this is of vital importance to the national economy, to the advancement of important wireless technologies for the good of our consumers in America and for the good of the lead that our Nation has played in world telecommunications technologies and commerce. This is one area where we can immediately begin to assist the Nation's economy in recovering, where we can immediately begin to do something to advance the cause of third-generation wireless technologies, the video and data links that are going to provide new services, equipment and products, built in America, made by American hands and used by Americans to advance the progress of their lives and their social contact with one another. This is a good day for America, because we have come together and realized that all the handicaps, all the internecine battles that may have been fought between agencies and those in the private sector who wanted spectrum to begin to develop these new technologies, all of these fights about who is going to pay the relocation costs to get the spectrum made available to have these things happen in our country are now being resolved by this relocation trust fund, a concept that says the trust fund is going to be there to make sure the relocation costs are taken care of so the FCC can move these new and exciting technologies to the forefront so Americans can enjoy them and our economy can grow again. This is a good day, but I want to point out to Members how without this kind of legislation things go wrong. We passed a bill on this House floor, again with the extraordinary bipartisan support of our friends on the Democratic side of our committee in this House and with the President's support, called E911. E911 is a concept that says when a person makes an emergency 911 call, it would be good to know where they are calling from; and when they are using a mobile telephone it would be certainly extraordinarily helpful if the person who received the 911 call could identify the location of the caller, because often the call is made in times of distress, an accident on the highway, a mugging in a park, a call of distress made by a citizen who is lost or in trouble on the highway and needs assistance, someone who has been seriously injured and cannot get help, cannot leave the automobile. One of my dearest friends a few years ago was in an automobile accident in the middle of the night. His car got flipped off the road, and he landed in one of those wonderful Louisiana marshes on the side of the road and no one could see him on the highway. He spent the night there, crushed, bleeding, broken, until a garbage truck driver spotted him from the highway the next morning. He nearly died. He went through incredible, horrible operations that might have been avoided if only E911 were in place, where he could have picked up his mobile phone in that car, called 911, and immediately somebody could have known where he was and an ambulance could have come to his rescue. That is what E911 is all about. E911 is literally taking the ``search'' out of ``search and rescue'' and making our mobile systems work much more efficiently so we can, in that first incredible hour where we can save lives and save limbs on the highway, we get to the person who has been injured, who made the call, and we rescue them. In that important 20 minutes when someone's child is being abducted, or a house is being broken into and somebody sees it on the highway and calls from a mobile unit, we can immediately identify that location. When those kind of things are happening in our society, when we pass a bill to facilitate this kind of technology, and we find out that the funds that are derived from the telecommunications companies to pay for the deployment of this service are being diverted by State and local governments to other purposes, even when 911 is not deployed in our communities, we should get upset. So today I take this opportunity to congratulate the House on moving forward on this Spectrum Relocation Fund and emphasizing how important it is to get the ball rolling on these new technologies and also call upon our colleagues at the State and local level to stop raiding those E911 funds. They are set up, like this relocation fund, to get that technology deployed. In the E911 case, it is not just to get a technology that is going to enrich our entertainment values or satisfy our need for information exchanges and mobile services. In E911 it is going to mean somebody's life. It may mean someone you love survives. It may mean my friend would not have had to go through all of those operations and not have had to spend the night broken and wounded in the swamps of Louisiana waiting for rescue. That is how important it is. So I hope, and I know my friends on the other side agree with me on this, we need to urge our friends at the State and local governments to take a good example from what we are doing on this relocation fund and make sure the funds that have been allocated to deploy E911 are used to deploy E911, not to cover deficit problems at a State or local government or divert it to other purposes. E911 funds ought to be used to deploy E911. Americans ought to demand it. Any State and local government that is diverting those funds ought to be put on notice today that you are taking a chance on somebody's life when you do not deploy those services. Here today, this House, this Congress, this government says that if we have government spectrum that we can make available to important uses like this, we are going to set up a relocation fund to make sure nobody touches it. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) of the Committee on the Budget, who helped make this suspension day possible for us by helping approve this bill. I want to thank the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), because the appropriators and budget chairmen have surrendered the right to control this money. This money is going to be in this fund to do what it was intended to do. They did the right thing when they approved this legislation. I want to again thank the Defense Department and the head of our Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), for working with us, because in so many cases the spectrum we are talking about is now under the control of the Defense Department. That is the spectrum that might make the new generation of wireless services available for Americans. I want to thank all of them for working with us on this legislation. This is the best example of Democrats and Republicans, of government agencies, of the White House, of everybody agreeing that we can do something good for the American economy, great for telecom resurgence in this country, great for new consumer services, great for all who produce and develop and work for the technology companies that make these incredible products available to us in America and to people all over the world. This is a good day for this House and for this government and for this country, and I urge approval of this legislation.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter). It is my understanding that the bill before the House contains three sections that are largely based upon H.R. 2122, the Project BioShield Act which the Committee on Energy and Commerce ordered reported just last week; is that correct?

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

Mr. TAUZIN. The Committee on Energy and Commerce worked in a bipartisan fashion at the request of the President to report a strong BioShield bill. We expect the bill to be on the floor very shortly. However, just this week I learned similar DOD provisions have been incorporated in the bill that may not be wholly consistent with our efforts in this area. We accomplished many of the gentleman's objectives in our bill. Because my committee will not have a chance to work its will on the gentleman's BioShield provisions, may I have his assurance that he will work with me as the bill heads to conference to ensure that any provisions agreed to there are properly drafted and not inconsistent with the President's proposed program?