Billy Tauzin

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, it is time for the balanced budget amendment. The time is right. It is our responsibility to present it to the American public. For too long many of my colleagues have sought to protect the pork that has become too heavy a burden for the American people to bear. The time for scare tactics is over, Mr. Speaker. If opponents of the balanced budget amendment really want to protect the American family and its future, they need to end this constant pattern of false and destructive rhetoric and help us do what is right for the country. Mr. Speaker, the arguments our opponents are using are simply wrong and they know they are wrong. The balanced budget amendment will not force cuts in Social Security. In fact, the balanced budget amendment is the only hope to save the program in the long run. Let me say it again: No one intends to cut or to touch Social Security. Mr. Speaker, funding for the collection and analysis of the striped bass, however, may have to get reeled in. Mr. Speaker, we must all act responsibly for the good of the American people we were sent here to represent.

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. 624 and to insert extraneous material into the Record on the bill.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained for the last vote. If I were here, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 3871.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Chairman Bliley and Chairman Bilirakis, I bring to the floor H.R. 3871 and urge support of the measure. H.R. 3871 amends title 19 of the Social Security Act to extend 3 existing 75-25 percent waivers of section 1903. Section 1903 is the section of the current Medicaid law that requires that Medicaid beneficiaries constitute less than 75 percent of the membership of any prepaid health maintenance organization. A present, a number of States and health plans are operating under federally approved waivers of this section. The bill we are considering today extends those 75-25 waivers held by 3 of these plans: Health Partners of Philadelphia, Fidelis Health Plan of New York, and Managed Healthcare Systems of New York. Health Partners of Philadelphia is a not-for-profit voluntary health maintenance organization comprised of local teaching hospitals. It is independently licensed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and fully accredited by the National Committee for Quality Assurance. It serves approximately 87,000 Medicaid recipients and 250 commercially enrolled individuals in Philadelphia and the surrounding area. While Health Partners' chief focus is on primary care, health education and prevention, it also provides transportation services, expanded vision and dental benefits, multilingual capability, 24-hour access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, as well as home visits for new and expectant mothers and fathers. Fidelis Health Plan, operated by the Catholic Health Services Plan of Brooklyn and Queens, was established by the Catholic medical center which serves those two areas. The principal focus of the care provided by Fidelis to its 19,960 Medicaid recipients is primarily in preventive care as well as health education. Enrollees elect their own primary care practitioner who serves as personal provider and coordinates the primary and specialty care they receive through the plan. Finally, Managed Healthcare Systems of New York, a minority- controlled managed care company founded in 1994, serves nearly 39,000 enrollees in Brooklyn and Queens. MHS' primary and preventive care and health education services are conducted with the use of mobile health vans, a school-based health center, an after-school learning center, newly established primary care clinics, as well as community outreach efforts for pregnancy, asthma, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. I urge my colleagues to support this noncontroversial measure so that we can continue to improve the services that Medicaid beneficiaries receive. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for his efforts and those of the minority in bringing this bill forward. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. TAUZIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3871) to waive temporarily the Medicaid enrollment composition rule for certain health maintenance organizations.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, let me first thank Chairman Schaefer for shepherding this bill to the House floor today and for all his extraordinary cooperation and support, and I particularly want to say the same thing for the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Pallone, the ranking minority member, who has been a sponsor and a very good friend for many years and a very strong supporter of this effort. I want to thank the gentleman for all his personal efforts in making this a bipartisan bill that has broad, in fact, bipartisan support from nearly 231 cosponsors in the House, Democrats and Republicans coming together behind a bill that makes just good common sense. This bill has 34 cosponsors in the U.S. Senate, led by Senator Domenici. It has large support in this body. It is similar to the bill we offered in the last Congress. It was not acted upon before the Congress adjourned. We learned from last Congress' efforts and we have made improvements in this bill. Propane, as the Speaker knows, is an incredibly important fuel for many Americans--60 million Americans use propane. It is economical and it is environmentally sound. It is used by 7.7 million homes for cooking and hot water heating. It is used by one-half of all American farmers to dry crops, power tractors, and warm greenhouses, and it is used for recreational purposes by tens of millions of people for outdoor cooking, camping, and recreational vehicles. It is one of the very few fuels that does not receive Federal money in support of education, research, safety, and marketing efforts. And so this bill represents the best example of private funded research programs in America. It simply gives the propane industry, from the producers to the marketers and suppliers, an opportunity themselves to put together a research, education, safety, and marketing program for this critically important fuel for America. Again, it is a bill that has broad support not only in the industry but among so many Americans and so many Members of this House and the body on the other side. I want to thank the chairman of the committee for bringing it forward, and I particularly again want to single out the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] for his extraordinary efforts in cooperation, and urge adoption of the bill. general leave

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bill, and congratulate the chairman of the subcommittee for an excellent bill, and the ranking minority member for the cooperation that has brought this forward. Mr. Speaker, I rise mainly to express some concern regarding activities that the FTC is now engaged in reviewing and approving the Time Warner-Turner broadcast merger proposal. The concern is one that is shared by quite a number of people, particularly those living in rural areas serviced by small cable companies. The concern has to do with the question of whether or not those consumers living in areas, particularly rural areas serviced by small cable companies, will have access to programming that this Congress has so often stated should be available to all Americans. The concern is that with this merger, indeed, will Time Warner-Turner make available under the program access guidelines that this Congress has spoken to in several acts now, the cable bill of 1992, and the most recent telecommunications bill of 1996, will in fact those programs be made available to small cable companies in those rural areas. The concern is one that has been expressed in a letter to Chairman Pitofsky authorized by the SCBA, the organization representing those small cable companies. It is expressed in a letter to the chairman issued by the Small Business Administration, dated August 14, 1996, in which the Small Business Administration points out the fact that Time Warner's Prime Star, the direct broadcast satellite television system, will be in direct competition with those small cable companies in rural areas, and the SBA has raised the question of whether or not this new combination will in fact act in a way that is in fact anticompetitive and will not make programming available to those small cable companies that face competition from Prime Star, which is, indeed, owned by this new proposed merger. The concern has also been expressed on the Senate side in a letter that Senator Exon sent to the chairman in which he pointed out that the success of competition in video services depends upon program access, that if any system, be it a small cable company or a satellite company, cannot get the program, that consumers are denied competitive choices. We have fought this battle on the floor of the House in 1992 and successfully restated, over a Presidential veto, the intention that program access is the foundation of competition in this area. We again expressed it in the 1996 Telecommunications Act, where program access is the foundation to competition and to consumer choice. I simply wanted to raise that concern here today with the FTC, and to hopefully continue dialoguing on this topic. When consumers have choice, when they have program access, to choose from two different suppliers, prices, services, competition, all of those things work to the benefit of the marketplace. When consumers are denied choice because some providers cannot buy the programs, then competition does not work, consumers suffer from higher prices and less quality service. It is critical, and I hope the FTC pays attention to this notion in approving the Time Warner-Turner merger, that that program access be maintained so consumers in rural areas serviced by small cable companies will continue to have the same kind of choices that other Americans have to choose between a satellite distributor or a landline cable company for the incredibly desirable cable programming that in now important to the American consumer's menu. With those concerns expressed, I hope we will continue this dialog. I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for the time to express those concerns, and hope that in fact the FTC will listen and continue to talk to us about them.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Shuster and his committee for the excellent work they have done on this bill. I want to particularly call to the chairman's attention language in the bill that is extremely vital for safety, health, hurricane protection, and environmental protection matters dealing with the Parish of Terrebonne in the heart of the Third District of Louisiana. Terrebonne in French means good Earth. Yet it is threatened more and more every day by saltwater intrusion. Parish residents' safe drinking water has been threatened by rising levels of salinity. Hurricane threats to the community have been largely accumulating as a result of damage and erosion to its coastal barriers and to its coastal marshlands. One particular problem involves the Houma Navigation Canal which is a direct outlet to the Gulf of Mexico. As salinity levels rush into this canal, some 200,000 acres of sensitive marshlands are being destroyed and salinity levels are increasingly putting at risk the drinking water of the communities. My understanding is that this bill will allow the corps to separate from its 3-to-5-year work on the entire Morganza, LA, to the Gulf of Mexico feasibility study the central issue of a lock structure, which the corps has already identified, under its reconnaissance and feasibility studies, as a necessary feature in its overall plans; that will permit the independent study of this lock structure in the hopes of hastening its authorization and completion; and that this particular project has been recommended not only by the State of Louisiana but by the Federal task force of the Coastal Wetlands Planning and Protection Restoration Act, the Federal act designed to protect those sensitive coastal wetlands. It is my understanding that that language is included. Yet because the corps may not finish this independent study by December, the bill does not yet contain an authorization to proceed with this lock structure; is that correct, Mr. Chairman?

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

Mr. TAUZIN. I would also assume that, if and when this independent study is completed, as we expect it will be, that we will have the full cooperation of the chairman of the committee in hastening the completion of this?

Mr. TAUZIN. I thank the chairman and appreciate his help on this.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Chairman, if you like everything on television to be pay per view, if you want to pay extra to see the Olympics every time you want to see any Olympic game, if you want to pay extra for baseball or for ER or for all the programs you enjoy on commercial broadcast television that is commonly called free television, vote with the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Frank]. That is the net result. If you charge the broadcasters extra taxes to broadcast those programs, they will charge everything pay per view. That is the net result. If you agree with Chairman Bliley and the former chairman, the gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Dingell, then vote ``no'' on this amendment to protect free TV. That is what it is all about.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in this brief minute to allow all of us collectively to share the joy and pride of all the LSU alumni across America with the extraordinary success of the LSU baseball program and the great success of Coach Skip Bertman, who has now brought the LSU Tigers the third championship of the College World Series this weekend. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to share with me the pride of this wonderful LSU team and this great coach who will now be the Olympic coach for the United States team in Atlanta. LSU. Go, Tigers.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow my friend from Minnesota, Mr. Gutknecht, to talk about the Medicare crisis in America. It is a crisis. It is upon us. The Medicare system is not about to go bankrupt, it will not soon go bankrupt, it is already falling into bankruptcy. The first quarter of this year, unexpectedly the Medicare system began slipping into bankruptcy. What does that mean? It means that the money coming into the system from your and my taxes is not enough to cover the money going out of the system, going out to pay the bills of seniors who need Medicare coverage. Why is there not enough money in the system? Is it because we are not paying enough taxes? No, it is because Medicare costs are running at three times the rate of inflation. The waste, fraud, and abuse is about to ruin a system critical to American seniors, my mother included. Mom just got out of the hospital in January, again from another serious problem. She has survived cancer twice. Last month she played in the Senior Olympics at home and won 5 medals--3 silver and two gold--one in javelin and one in shot put. She is a miracle. But Medicare has saved my mother, and it has saved countless of other mothers, fathers, grandparents of Members of this House and of citizens all over this country. Can we afford to let Medicare go bankrupt? I say no. Is it fair for anyone to scare seniors into resisting changes to reform Medicare to make it work? Is it fair to seniors to keep scaring them with Medicare cut language? The truth is if somebody does not fix Medicare soon, we will face three choices very soon. First, we will have to choose between not taking care of our seniors anymore--and we will not make that choice, we will always take care of our seniors in America. Or, second, we will have to choose to tax the dickens out of the younger generation, to double their payroll taxes to put more money in this bucket that has got a hole in it. Or, third, we are going to have to borrow and borrow and borrow on future generations to cover the bankruptcy that is upon us in Medicare. The biggest enemy of seniors in America is not those of us who are trying to fix Medicare, who are trying to give seniors more choices, who are trying to cut the waste, the fraud, the bureaucratic abuse, the mess we have in this system. The biggest enemy to Medicare and to seniors is not the Republican Party and those of us who have offered a plan to fix it. The biggest enemy of our seniors, the biggest enemy of Medicare is anyone who will try to scare seniors into doing nothing, because to do nothing means we face one of those three awful choices: to borrow our whole country into bankruptcy, to tax the dickens out of future generations, or to give up caring for our seniors, none of which are good options. We want to continue a sound and strong Medicare system for America's seniors, but to do so will take some courage around this place. It will take someone willing to say it is time to fix a problem before it goes bankrupt. It will take someone willing, literally in the White House, to address this issue instead of trying to scare seniors into believing that everybody is trying to cut their benefits or cut their program. Nothing could be further from the truth. The truth is Medicare is already going bankrupt as we speak tonight. If we do not show some courage around this place and fix that system for our seniors, if someone in the White House does not join us instead of trying to scare seniors across America, Medicare will indeed fail the seniors who depend upon it, my mother included. If all of you love your parents and your grandparents, as I know you must, as much as I love mine, then can we not join together and fix this problem while there is still a chance to fix it? Do we have to resort to partisan tactics and scare tactics just to resist each other politically? Or can we look beyond these political boundaries and fix the Medicare system for the seniors of our country, and preserve our children's opportunities to earn a decent living for themselves without getting taxed into oblivion? Those are the hard choices we face, but I came here to make hard choices. I came here to tell the truth and to face the difficult problems we have. This is one of the most difficult ones we have. Anybody who will scare seniors instead of facing this tough and difficult problem and curing the Medicare problems, taking care of the waste, fraud, and abuse that is ripping this system apart, anyone who is willing to scare seniors instead of doing that does not deserve to be reelected to any office in this land. Anyone who is willing to work for seniors, to repair the Medicare system, indeed deserves their trust and their confidence. It comes down to that. Do we have faith enough in each other, in our purpose here in Washington, to serve this Nation and to do the right thing for those who sent us here, to put partisan attacks and scare tactics behind us? I think we can and I think we should, but it will take someone in the White House to show a little more courage and a little less partisanship.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California for the time. Mr. Speaker, there are many things that may be uncertain about the marketplace, but let us talk about a few things that are certain. The administration, when it passed this 4.3-cent gas tax told us it would not really cost the consumer anything, and now, when we are about to repeal it, they say it will not really save the consumer anything. Let me be clear. Gasoline prices cost 4.3 cents more than they should because of the 4.3-cent a gallon tax. In 1981, the combined State, local and Federal taxes on gasoline was 13 cents. Today, the average in America is 39 cents. That is 26 cents more than it should be costing because of taxation. When we reduce taxes, we make gasoline cost less. When we raise taxes we make gasoline cost more. What could make more common sense? But if we really want to look at the price of gasoline, look at the fact today we are more dependent on foreign producers and refiners than ever before. We have not built a refinery in America for 20 years. And those who complain about gasoline prices should think about their votes to create moratoriums against drilling; think about their votes to prevent the production of hydrocarbons and refined products in America; think about the fact that today we are more dependent on Saddam Hussein and Iraq than we were yesterday; think about the fact that the price at the pump includes all of the cost, including our taxes, and includes the cost of escorting ships from the Persian Gulf, includes the cost of the Persian Gulf war, includes the lives of young Americans and the health of young Americans who had to go fight for somebody else's oil because we would not produce it in America. Yes, we should vote for this rule. We should, indeed, repeal this tax and make gasoline cost just a little less for Americans who depend too much on foreign produced oil.

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, I would respond to the gentleman that that was certainly part of it. Free markets make sense in America. We applaud them. We are pleased with them. My liberal friends who like gasoline taxes believe that the price of gasoline should be really high so Americans will not use it any more. That is their theory. So they keep adding taxes on it. Those of us who believe in the free markets know that if we produce more at home, if we produce more at home and not depend upon foreigners all the time, then we can really get prices we can depend upon. When we depend on somebody else to make our products, they set the prices and we may not like them. When we raise taxes on a product, we raise the prices to consumers. It is that simple.

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

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, what can we conclude about this Presidential veto? This is the second time the President has vetoed a tort reform bill passed by this House and Senate, passed by large numbers of both Republicans and Democrats. In fact, the last time he vetoed a tort reform bill we did, in fact, override his veto. What can we conclude about this veto? First of all, we can conclude the President must think this bill is extreme. The gentleman in the well who just spoke obviously agrees with him. But the Democratic Senator Rockefeller who supports the bill on the Senate side said special interests and raw political considerations of the White House have overridden sound policy judgment. Democratic Senator Lieberman who worked closely with the President throughout this process said, President Clinton is dead wrong about this bill. It must be reasonable. Let us look at the bill. It says that it is going to hold manufacturers primarily responsible instead of sellers. It says that it is going to reduce manufacturers' liability to the extent that a claimant has altered or misused a product. And it says that there is an absolute defense to drug and alcohol abuse. That certainly sounds reasonable to me. What can we conclude? The President is against all tort reform. We ought to override his veto.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Mr. Speaker, for over 70 years, the propane gas industry has been making significant contributions to American life with remarkable degrees of dependability, efficiency, and above all safety. To highlight the industry's sincere concern with safety, the National Propane Gas Association sponsors National Propane Safety Week, which is being held this year from May 6 to 10. Today I would like to recognize this focus on safety and bring it to the attention of my colleagues. Throughout the week, activities are being held to promote safety including safety demonstrations and antitampering messages, and public service announcements. Helpful tips on using gas grills, handling cylinders for recreational vehicles, what to do if a homeowner smells gas, and how to handle a pilot light that won't light, are also being shared. All across the country, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors regularly help in educating the over 60 million consumers of propane on the wise use of this gas. Consumers use this common fuel to heat their homes, and barns, dry their crops, and fuel their vehicles and machines. National Propane Safety Week plays an important role in reinforcing the safety education of those who already have access to this pertinent information, as well as making it available to those who do not. A home safety audit, called Gas Check, is another initiative strongly recommended by the National Propane Gas Association throughout Safety Week. This year's focus is on the importance of regular appliance system check-ups to ensure the safe operation of all gas-fueled household appliances. Attention to the safety needs of consumers like these should be recognized and appreciated. Mr. Speaker, I would like to stress my support for all of the propane dealers in my district who put safety first, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. I would also like to commend the National Propane Gas Association and its constituent dealers for their efforts to promote public awareness about propane safety issues through their sponsorship of and participation in National Propane Safety Week.

Mr. TAUZIN

Mr. TAUZIN. Yes.

Mr. TAUZIN. Or Taco Bell, I should not fail to mention Taco Bell--had instead of talking about the good quality of their products, of their tacos and their hamburgers, if they had instead for 10 years got on television and talked about how rotten and awful and cancer-causing these products were, people would not be choosing between Taco Bell and Burger King and McDonald's. They would turn off on the whole mess. They would not go to fast-food restaurants anymore. The point is, our politics has led us to that. Our negative campaigning and our politics has led us to the point where the American public has kind of turned off on so much of the process by which we get elected. Then we come to this Chamber and we confuse our role again. We think we are all campaigning still, and we get into these heated fights, these partisan debates, these acrimonious accusations. There is questioning of motives, this attribution of ill intent, all these things we do as though we are still campaigning and running negative ads against one another. The art of governing is something else. The art of governing is putting the election behind you and debating ideas, and seeing which ideas have force and which have power and which can compel a majority to support them, and which make better common sense for the good of all the people of our country. In that clash and debate of ideas, we ought not have this, the politics of negative campaigning, but somehow it has infiltrated into this room, and our negative campaigns go on for 2 years. We ought to somehow call that to Members' attentions, and as Americans ask one another to separate the campaigns and the negative, ugly politics from the art of governing.

Mr. TAUZIN. I think part of the problem, too, is that we fail to separate the politics of how we get here.