Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, our Speaker will be closing on behalf of this side.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, although I am going to speak in support.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Rodriguez).

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Madam Speaker, Nutria is a rodent native to South America. They weigh approximately 18 pounds and resemble a beaver. In the 1930's, they were introduced into Louisiana. Studies indicate that female nutria are capable of producing up to 15 young per year. By 1943, they were well established in our state. The population of nutria in Louisiana reached levels of 20 million--many times higher than any other state in the country. The preferred habitat of this rodent is wetland areas. They often dig intricate tunnel and burrow systems in their home range. Nutria have been known to eat rice, sugarcane, fruit and nut trees and seedlings of bald cypress, but prefer wetlands plants. Studies suggest that they waste 90 percent of plant material while feeding on the base and root system. This root system ``holds'' our fragile wetlands areas together. When the root systems are destroyed, so are the wetlands. Researchers in Louisiana have fenced off areas of wetland plants in known nutria breeding areas. The protected area have had wetlands plants exceed six feet in height, while the unprotected areas have literally turned into mud, and eventually, open water. Between 2000 and 2001, the area of marsh converted to open water increased by over 4500 acres as a results of nutria damage. These rodents have damaged or destroyed over 100,000 acres in Louisiana. The State of Louisiana has spent millions of dollars responding to this crisis. Nutria have been used as a source of fur, their meat has been placed on numerous restaurant menus and marketed by Louisiana's top chefs, they have been used as a food source for alligators in farming operations and the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans used them in their animal feed. In 2001 dollars, pelts sold at levels as high as $31 each in 1931, $23 each in 1977, and today, $2.18 per pelt. In the late 1970's, trappers removed up to 1.9 million nutria per year. More recently, despite the best efforts of the state, only 987 trapping licenses were sold and less than 30,000 nutria were taken. The American alligator is the most significant natural predator of nutria. In Louisiana, where alligator are most abundant, nutria comprise up to 60 percent of alligator diet. However, efforts to control the growing nutria population with alligator have proven insufficient. In fact, efforts to increase the alligator population to control nutria only resulted in a decrease of nutria in the alligator's diet and an increase in nutria trappers in alligator's diets. I am happy to join my friend from Maryland, Congressman Gilchrest, in this effort to protect our fragile wetland areas from future destruction by passage of H.R. 273. As you know, more endangered species depend upon the habitat provided by wetlands than any other environment for survival. In coastal areas, each mile of vegetated wetland also reduces storm surge by one foot-- protecting these areas will save FEMA money in future natural disasters. This bill recognizes the wetland destruction caused by nutria in Louisiana and authorizes the Department of Interior to become a partner in our state's ongoing efforts to prevent further damage to inland and coastal wetland areas as a result of nutria.

Mr. TAUZIN

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

Mr. TAUZIN. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I will be happy to just object and not have any extension, if the gentleman wants to argue about a couple of minutes.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to briefly set the record straight. There has been extraordinary negotiations with the minority on this bill, over 2 weeks of it. The administration brought this bill to us as an emergency. It called upon us immediately to give authority to provide these benefits to people who would volunteer to vaccinate American citizens in the event of an attack of smallpox in this country, which could come at any time, as we know, particularly as hostilities are engaged in the Middle East and Iraq. It brought it to us as an emergency and we took over 2 weeks to negotiate. And we negotiated over a dozen changes, I am told. The most important change we made was to bring up that disability cap from $50,000 a year, that out-of-work cap, to the same level we provide for policemen and firemen in this country. And, Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) that this is a supplemental program, just as that program is. It is on top of. It is full secondary coverage of medical benefits with no deductibles. That is a lot better than most plans. It is primary lump sum disability and death benefit that, under the Federal Public Safety Officers and Employees is equal to $262,000. It is secondary coverage for temporary and partial disability from $50,000 a year, again we raised it from the administration provision, all the way up to the $262,000 level. It is on top of disability benefits under Social Security; on top of the benefits available in the State Employee or Private Disability Benefits, and we still preserve the right to sue in Federal torts claim court. Doggone right we are behind those volunteers. Doggone right this is an emergency. But we took 2 weeks, and I took it with a great deal of pain on my conscience because I thought every night, when we were negotiating this thing with our colleagues over here, I thought every night, what happens if tomorrow we get hit and we have not passed this bill yet and we do not have enough volunteers out there to vaccinate all of America. What happens if every day I take negotiating with the other side is a day we put our country at risk. And I suffered every night with that thought for 2 weeks. We have negotiated this bill to a point that it ought to get passed today. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess).

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, why do we not take such time as the gentleman consumed. I think the gentlewoman yielded the gentleman 2 minutes. And what time did the gentleman just use, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest, instead, that we add an additional 2 minutes to each side, in fairness. So, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that each side be granted 2 additional minutes to make up for the inaccurate call of the Chair.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge all Members to support H.R. 1463, the Smallpox Emergency Personnel Protection Act of 2003, a critical bill introduced by the vice chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Burr). In January of this year, our HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson called on health personnel and emergency responders from across the Nation to join smallpox emergency response teams in order to ensure that our country was better prepared to deal with any outbreak of this deadly disease caused by terrorists or rogue regimes such as Iraq. These patriots have been asked to volunteer to get the smallpox vaccine now so that they can administer the vaccine to the public should the need arise. Since then, roughly 25,000 American volunteers have indeed volunteered for this vaccine. These health personnel and emergency responders are indeed to be saluted for their service to the country. However, we do not need tens of thousands of Americans to respond, we need hundreds of thousands, if not millions; and we need these many, many Americans, health personnel, and emergency first responders to heed the Secretary's call. The legislation before us today, which was requested by the administration, provides incentive for such individuals to roll up their sleeves and get a shot. The bill does a number of important things: First, it provides for a total disability and death benefit equal to the amount payable under the Public Safety Officers Benefit, the PSOB, the existing Federal program that currently pays $262,000 in a lump sum, indexed for inflation, to public safety officers who are killed or totally disabled in the line of duty. Given the sacrifice that we are asking from these smallpox volunteers, a small number of whom may indeed suffer severe adverse reactions which could include death, it makes sense to provide these similar benefits. But this bill goes further than the PSOB. It also provides coverage for all reasonable and necessary medical expenses that are incurred by individuals who are vaccinated and suffer adverse effects, to the extent that such expenses are not picked up by their own individual primary health insurance. The bill provides also lost employment income if an individual misses more than 5 days of work due to adverse effects of the vaccine. Under this benefit, the individual could receive up to 75 percent of his monthly salary and up to $50,000 a year in supplemental wages capped at the maximum amount of the PSO death benefit. It is important to emphasize that the death and total disability benefits are additive to any other death or disability benefit the individual is already entitled to under Social Security, under State and local government, under employers, or under private insurance plans. And the lost wage income under this program, while secondary to other similar benefits the person may have, supplements those benefits to the extent the Federal program is more generous. For example, many States and employers have much lower annual and lifetime caps on workers' compensation benefits, which means the higher Federal figures in our bill would supplement those other benefits. And finally, the legislation provides most sensible and noncontroversial technical amendments to last year's Homeland Security Bill to provide better liability protections to the hospitals, doctors, nurses, and public health officials at the State and local levels who we are asking to participate in this most important program. I must say I am disappointed, however, that despite the good faith efforts on both sides of the aisle, and they have been good faith efforts, we are not able to reach a bipartisan agreement on the package. I strongly disagree that there should be any doubt as to the commitment of the administration or the commitment of the Congress to pay these benefits to injured volunteers as these bills become due. I also disagree with the notion that the $262,000 caps for disability and lost wages do not in fact provide a sufficient compensation package. If these caps are good enough for our public police officers and our firefighters who die in the line of duty, then I submit to you that indeed they are good enough for this program as well. A few people have in fact died after taking the vaccine, although we do not know they died as a result of vaccine. But either way, we should not delay in establishing a compensation program that would help with these people, simply because we cannot agree right now on whether a $262,000 figure is sufficient or not. We still need to provide, we need to move forward with this incentive to make sure people are adequately vaccinated to meet this threat. Now, let us get the help to the people who need it now. If we find out down the road that the program is inadequate or certain respects need to be changed, we can always fix it later. This is an emergency. This will make sure that we have the people available, ready to vaccinate all of America if, God forbid, the worst should happen and we suffer a smallpox attack. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Otherwise, I ask unanimous consent that each side be accorded 2 additional minutes to make up for the error of the Chair.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1463) to provide benefits for certain individuals with injuries resulting from administration of a smallpox vaccine, and for other purposes.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 1463.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Let me address the two principal objections to this bill. The first is that some of the first responders would like more coverage. They would like more coverage than we currently provide for police officers and firefighters who take the chances to go out and fight fires and sacrifice their lives, to go out and fight the criminal elements on the street and take the bullets and sometimes die and sometimes end up disabled and have a lifetime of lost wages. They would like to have more benefits than those individuals. But this is not a management- labor union discussion. This is an emergency. When the other side asked for time, for 2 weeks to work with us in a bipartisan fashion to up the benefits comparable to what police and firemen have, we did that. It is now in the bill. The other objection they raise is that, well, this is not due process. We have taken this bill to the floor under suspension. We are not taking it through all the committees of jurisdiction. How many committees claim jurisdiction on this bill, Mr. Speaker? Let us start with the Committee on Education and the Workforce. We heard from the chairman who instead worked with us cooperatively to get this bill to the floor. Judiciary could have a claim on this bill. Judiciary worked with us cooperatively to get this bill to the floor. Appropriations could certainly have a claim on this bill, but they have worked with us to get this bill to the floor. Why have all the committees worked with us to get this bill to the floor without all the markups and all the committees that might have jurisdiction on it? Because they know the emergency. They understand how important it is to get this bill done and signed by the President immediately. We have all been briefed. We have all been briefed about the danger of smallpox terrorism. We have all been briefed about how easy it would be for a country like Iraq, which we know probably has smallpox virus, to slip it into this country, to expose someone and then begin exposing our general population. They know that in 2 weeks, everyone once exposed becomes a carrier and exposes more people and that second- and third- and fourth-generation exposure occurs and we lose 30 percent of the population of America potentially. They know the danger. They know the emergency. Every committee has cooperated with us. For 2 weeks we negotiated with the other side, a fair negotiation to get this bill in a way that you could accept it. We made a dozen changes, raised the amount of the benefits, changed the percentages to 75 percent for those with dependents. We built a program as good as any program for anyone in the Federal service, and we built it as good as the policemen and firemen. But that is not enough. Enough is never enough. But we do not have time to quibble about what is enough here. Do not come to this floor saying that no one supports this bill in the health care community. Let me read to my colleagues the supporters: The American Hospital Association, people who will be on the front line taking care of all these people infected with smallpox if we are not careful; the American Medical Association, the doctors who have to deliver the care; the American College of Emergency Physicians who are going to meet every sick person coming in with smallpox to an emergency room; the Alliance of Specialty Medicines, representing 160,000 physicians, among many others who support this bill. This is an emergency. The administration, the Homeland Security Office, have told us we need to give this benefit to those people who will volunteer to take this vaccine to protect themselves and then to protect us. No one is coerced to do this. This bill does not mandate a single person take the vaccine. It simply gives the same rich mix of benefits to those who will volunteer to take this vaccine and protect the rest of us, to be ready to go into action to prevent the second- and third- and fourth-generation exposures that could wipe out so many in this country. It simply says to them, if you volunteer, we give you this coverage. If you volunteer, if you want to be one of those who serve this country in this special way, you get the benefits of this bill. This bill needs to get passed now. It is an emergency. That is why it is on suspension. We ought to have the courage to pass it. If it does not pass today, it is only because somebody on the other side thinks enough is never enough and you want to quibble about numbers when the country is at stake. Mr. Speaker, this bill ought to get passed. It needs to get passed now.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. I do, Mr. Speaker. I first yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Gibbons) for a colloquy.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Subparagraph 11(c)(1) says: ``Any State law, whether effective before, on, or after the dates of the enactment of this Act that specifies a particular monetary amount of compensatory or punitive damages, or the total amount of damages, that may be awarded in a health care lawsuit, regardless of whether such monetary amount is greater or lesser than is provided under this Act.'' Nevada's $350,000 cap generally fits the terms of this subparagraph and would generally apply. The handling of the exceptions is not specifically stated in the legislation. I would be prepared to work with the gentleman to discuss these exceptions as we move further in the process of this legislation.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, the Dingell motion offers us a different solution than H.R. 5. Interestingly enough, not a single one of the 175 health care organizations and associations, doctors across America, endorses that solution. But they have all endorsed H.R. 5. And let me explain to you why the doctors and the health care organizations have not endorsed the Dingell solution and have endorsed H.R. 5. By the way, the Committee on Energy and Commerce took a vote on the general substance of this motion to recommit and voted 30 to 20 against it and it was not a party line vote. Let me tell you why it was defeated, why so many organizations opposed it. Because what it generally offers is not insurance reform but a Federal commission, another bureaucracy to study the problem and to make recommendations one day to us. We have studied this problem ad infinitum. We have held numerous hearings. The States have experienced this problem going back 25 years and they have offered us a solution. We are following their lead after 25 years of experience. Do we really need another Federal commission? No insurance reform, just a commission? And then to solve the problem of high malpractice liability coverage, this is the Dingell motion to recommit solution, not a single limitation at all on recoveries, unlimited recoveries as in current law, not a single cap on any kind of damages. Instead we get an attorney's certificate of merit. An attorney's certificate of merit. We get the trial lawyer to say, I think I have got a good lawsuit, and that is the solution. Mr. Speaker, when an attorney signs a petition, when he signs the most egregiously incorrect, horribly drafted, when he signs the most inappropriate false petition, when he signs his name on it he is attesting to the validity of that petition. It may be a bad petition. It may be the most horrible lawsuit ever filed. It may get dismissed on the first motion to have it dismissed, but when he signed his name on it, he said it was a good petition. So what does the Democratic motion to recommit tell us? We are going to solve this problem in America by having the same attorney sign a certificate that he has got a good suit, that he has got a good petition. Wow, that will really solve the problem. I think you see why now that solution has been rejected by 175 organizations representing the doctors, the nurses, all the organizations across America who are crying to us for relief, who are telling us we are tired of petitions signed by lawyers that have no merit, that drive up medical malpractice suits, that drive us out of business and deprive the citizens of our country needed medical care when their loved ones need it the most. They are crying to us for help and the victims that came to us in our committee room and said, for God's sake, it is horrible when somebody commits a medical error, but it is also terrible when the doctor is not there when my child is sick, when my husband has been horribly mutilated in an automobile accident, when my daughter is trying to deliver her first child and there is no doctor there willing to do it because the cost of liability insurance is too high. They are crying to us to do something today. The motion to recommit tells us, well, let us just trust the lawyers and create a Federal commission. Whoopie-ding. What do we tell those victims when we said all we did was trust the lawyers and created another Federal commission? I did not come here to create new Federal commissions to tell us what the problems were and what the solutions were. I came here like the rest of you, to figure out what the problems were and to solve them. H.R. 5 solves this program and deserves to be passed. This motion to recommit needs to go down.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 5. I am joined by every major medical association representing the doctors of America across this country and across the very specialty organizations that are so deeply affected by the rising cost of medical malpractice insurance that many of them are leaving the practice that they were trained to do. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) for drafting this legislation. I certainly thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) and the staff of the Committee on the Judiciary for working so closely with the staff of the Committee on Energy and Commerce to advance the cause of this very important bill. We will hear many stories today about the victims and how they are harmed in the health care system. And, of course, we cannot dispute the fact that many doctors make human errors. In fact, yesterday we indicated that the To Err Is Human report encouraged us to pass a medical errors bill, which we passed yesterday on the floor, which is designed to begin sharing information to reduce the number of those errors and to make sure that doctors are not hauled into court every time they help one another when trying to reduce the number of errors in the system. We know there are victims of medical errors, but we do not often hear about the victims of the medical malpractice system gone awry. They are the victims who get denied access to health care in very critical moments because some doctor could not get his insurance renewed because premiums were too high, some doctor left the practice, some medical clinic, some institute closed down in the community, the stories we heard from victims yesterday here in Washington, D.C. One wife and children were here talking about how the husband and father was in a horrible automobile accident and went to the hospital, only to find out the neurosurgeon who should have been there to help him had lost coverage 4 days earlier and was no longer at the hospital to service them. That gentleman suffers massive brain disabilities as a result of not having someone there to serve him. Many pregnant women look forward to a natural childbirth, only to find out that doctors are increasingly recommending C-sections, and doctors who deliver babies are getting out of the business because they cannot afford the skyrocketing liability coverage policies that they need. 60 Minutes did a piece on one of those doctors who gave his whole life, his career to delivering babies. He cannot do it any more. He is doing prenatal work now because he cannot afford the awful cost of liability coverage. So not only are these doctors harmed because they cannot practice the professions they love and worked so hard to learn, but the patients that come to them are increasingly being harmed. Doctors are moving from one community to another, moving to States that have liability protection because they have learned that they cannot afford the liability coverage in the community they were raised and educated in. They have to move from Mississippi to Louisiana, for example, and Mississippi loses the availability of those good physicians. Those hidden victims, patients who cannot get care, who suffer from a lack of access to health care, are just as real, just as injured as any victim who has been injured by medical error or malpractice in this country. We have to do something about this. It is a broken system. When the health care system breaks down, it is our responsibility to make sure that we fix it, and we fix it so it does not just work in California or Louisiana, it works across America. Our families are spread all over. My children are living in all kinds of States. I want them to be able to walk into a hospital and find somebody ready to serve them. I do not want them to walk into a hospital in Mississippi and find out a needed doctor is not there. That is the task we have before us today. As we move this legislation forward, we will complete the task we started yesterday, on the one hand beginning to cure that awful problem of medical errors within the system, errors which produce injury, and recovery is possible under our legal laws; and, secondly, to make sure that the legal liability system is fixed. What are we doing here? We are recommending to the Congress and to the Nation nothing more, nothing less than the experience of the great State of California, which in 1975 adopted the law upon which H.R. 5 is based, a law which has kept liability premiums in California at one- third the increase level which has been experienced across the country. The other side of the aisle have been debating whether this will reduce insurance premiums. I tell them, go to CBO. CBO has estimated a 25 to 30 percent reduction in insurance costs across America if we pass H.R. 5. Mr. Speaker, guess what, my State will not get that benefit. We already have the benefit of lower premiums because of reforms like this. Those premium reductions will go to States that do not have the benefit of a State law like California and Louisiana. Therefore, the reductions in premiums are likely to be higher in those States where there are no caps on liabilities. One final thought. For those Members that are arguing that we are somehow capping the entire liability award, we are doing what California did with a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature: We are only capping the noneconomic damages. That is the only thing we are capping. We are capping it at $250,000, but we are telling California and Massachusetts and Louisiana, or any other State in the Nation, if they do not like that cap, they can adopt their own cap. They can adopt a higher or lower cap. This legislation preserves for the States the right to adopt the cap that works for them. But this legislation for the first time will say to everyone in this country, we are all entitled to have a health care professional available to us when we need it who otherwise would not be here because of a liability system that is so broken that it drives decent health care workers out of business and out of their professions at our loss. Mr. Speaker, this legislation has to get passed and has to get passed soon. I urge Members to adopt this legislation today. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Speaker, we would not help this debate by arguing that the other side is catering to trial lawyers. That is not going to help this debate. Let us argue on the facts for a change. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) may not agree with what happened in California, but this is what Senator Feinstein said. ``I believe MICRA is the reason rates have gone down.'' That is a California Senator talking about her State. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).