John Tierney

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, Congress did create a 3-year pilot program in the Truth in Regulating Act, the so-called TIRA act, of 2000. That required the General Accounting Office to report on economically significant rules, if asked by the chairman or the ranking minority member. Authorization for funding was included in the bill; but, unfortunately, during the entire 3-year pilot program, Congress never appropriated any money to fund the project. Because of this, the pilot program never happened. The bill before us today would make this pilot project permanent, oddly enough. The amendment of the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) would provide authorization of $5 million each year to fund the project; but the General Accounting Office has said it would need $8 million in actual funds, not just promised funds, in order to perform the extra work required in this provision. What the General Accounting Office really supports is making this provision a pilot project instead of making it permanent, which seems to make eminent sense, given the fact that the original pilot program was not able to be conducted. We should fund the pilot program and find out whether it even works before we make it permanent. Mr. Chairman, I submit for the Record a May 11, 2004, letter from the General Accounting Office comptroller, David Walker, to the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). In this letter, Mr. Walker writes, and I quote, ``If Congress wants TIRA to continue, we believe it should do so as a pilot project rather than as permanent authority.'' The entire letter is as follows, Mr. Chairman: United States General Accounting Office, Washington, DC, May 11, 2004. Hon. Tom Davis, Chairman, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives. Dear Mr. Chairman: The Truth in Regulating Act of 2000 (TIRA), Pub. L. No. 106-312, 114 Stat. 1248 (Oct. 17, 2000), became effective on January 15, 2001. (Codified at 5 U.S.C. Sec. 801 note.) TIRA contemplated a 3-year pilot project, during which GAO would perform independent evaluations of ``economically significant'' agency rules when requested by a chairman or ranking member of a committee of jurisdiction of either House of Congress. The independent evaluation would include an evaluation of the agency's analysis of the potential benefits, potential costs, and alternative approaches considered during the rulemaking proceeding. Under TIRA, GAO was required to report on our evaluations within 180 calendar days after we received a committee request. Section 6(b) of the Act, however, provided that the pilot project would continue only if, in each fiscal year, ``a specific annual appropriation not less than $5,200,000 or the pro-rated equivalent thereof shall have been made for the pilot project.'' Section 6(c) of the Act directed GAO to submit to Congress, before the conclusion of the 3-year period, ``a report reviewing the effectiveness of the pilot project and recommending whether or not Congress should permanently authorize the pilot project.'' During the 3-year period contemplated for the pilot project, Congress did not enact any specific appropriation to cover TIRA evaluations. The authority for the 3-year pilot project expired on January 15, 2004. On June 11, 2003, Congressman Ose introduced H.R. 2432 that, in section 5, would make TIRA's pilot permanent. In August 2003, GAO provided staff of Congressman Ose with amendments to H.R. 2432 to make clear that the same limitation enacted in TIRA would continue if H.R. 2432 was enacted, that is, GAO could not conduct any TIRA evaluations without a specific appropriation enacted by Congress. (GAO's proposed amendment enclosed.) The GAO has conducted no TIRA evaluation. Therefore, in our view, if Congress wants TIRA to continue, we believe it should do so as a pilot project rather than as a permanent authority. Moreover, we cannot support any proposal to make TIRA permanent, such as H.R. 2432, without the inclusion of language that makes clear that a specific appropriation must be enacted before GAO can conduct TIRA reviews. In a recent GAO report, we noted that the Office of Information and Regulatory Analysis within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reviewed approximately 600 ``economically significant'' rules a year since 1994. While realistically GAO would only be asked to review selected rules, any expansion of GAO's scope without additional dedicated resources would pose a serious problem for us, especially in light of what will likely be increasing budgetary constraints. It would also likely serve to adversely affect our ability to provide the same level of service to the Congress in connection with our existing statutory authorities. TIRA evaluations will require a significant amount of resources that cannot be absorbed within, for example, GAO's fiscal year 2004 appropriation, given the substantial present workload at GAO, our current backlog of pending requests, and the anticipated need for contracting for specialized expertise to assist us in our evaluations of particular rules. Accordingly, we respectfully request that H.R. 24321 be amended to condition GAO's obligation to conduct independent evaluations on the enactment of a separate and specific annual appropriation. To cover the cost of such work we propose an amendment to H.R. 2432 authorizing an annual appropriation of $8,000,000 for fiscal year 2005. Thank you for your consideration of this important matter. Sincerely yours, David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States. Enclosure. amendments to the truth in lending regulating act Section 5 of Public Law 106-312 is amending by striking everything after the heading and inserting the following: (a) There are authorized to be appropriated to the General Accounting Office to carry out this Act $8,000,000 for fiscal year 2005. (b) For each fiscal year thereafter, there are authorized to be appropriated an amount equal to the prior fiscal year's authorization plus an amount calculated by multiplying the prior year's authorization by the change in the Consumer Price Index as prepared by the Department of Labor for that fiscal year. Section 6 of Public Law 106-312 is amended by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following new subsection (b): (b)(1) Absent a specific annual line item appropriation in the General Accounting Office's appropriation for fiscal year 2005 of not less than $8,000,000 for this purpose, the General Accounting Office shall not conduct in fiscal year 2005 any independent evaluations as authorized by this Act. (2) Absent a specific annual line item appropriation in the General Accounting Office's appropriation for each fiscal year thereafter of not less than the amount authorized for that fiscal year by section 5(b) for that purpose, the General Accounting Office shall not conduct in that fiscal year any independent evaluations as authorized by this Act. The underlying bill that we are considering has other problems also, Mr. Chairman, and I will mention those briefly. One is the provision that would require targeted agencies to participate in a study on regulatory budgeting. And I talked a little about this in the last session we had. An agency with a regulatory budget faces an arbitrary cap on how much its regulations can cost industry. The benefits of regulation, such as saving lives or preventing injuries, are not even considered under such a regulatory budget. A study of regulatory budgeting may seem harmless enough, but it actually is not. It is one step down the path of regulatory budgeting that would be a step too far. The underlying bill requires every agency to submit every year to the Office of Management and Budget the annual costs and benefits of all rules and paperwork, to the extent feasible, for the entire agency and every program. Mr. Chairman, I am concerned the committee report states this provision, and I quote, ``requires Federal agencies to submit annual estimates of the costs and benefits associated with the Federal rules and paperwork for each of their agency programs.'' We have not offered an amendment to strike this provision because the committee majority informed us before we considered the bill that this provision is not intended to require agencies to conduct any extra cost-benefit evaluation beyond that which they already prepare. Expanding the use of cost-benefit analysis would divert resources from the work that agencies are supposed to be doing to carry out their core missions, and it would not add value or improve the quality of decision-making in the regulatory process. I could go on, Mr. Chairman, with the problems in this bill; but the bottom line is this bill does nothing to improve the regulatory process and could, in fact, result in a worsening of the regulatory process. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1\1/4\ minutes. Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate some of the things I may have touched on earlier and maybe one new point. The bill that we are talking about here today really does not reduce paperwork or improve the regulatory process. One of the problems it has, it talks about a study on regulatory budgeting, but yet it does not define the term ``regulatory budget.'' In prior hearings, the subcommittee chairman indicated he thought this was going to set a cap on the cost that an agency's combined regulations could impose on the public. An agency with a regulatory budget would then face an arbitrarily set cap on how much its regulations could cost industry in any given year; and under that system, no consideration whatsoever would be given to why the regulation was needed. Once the agency hit that cost cap, it cannot issue any more regulations even if another regulation is needed to save lives, prevent injuries, protect our environment, or improve homeland security. One good example of this is the EPA recently announced its new clean air, nonroad diesel rule that, according to the EPA, will cut emissions from industrial and other diesel-powered equipment by over 90 percent. If the EPA had a regulatory budget and had reached its cap for the year, it would not have been able to issue that rule, no matter how necessary the rule or how much pollution it would have cleaned up. That essentially is one of the major problems with this bill. Mr. Chairman, I think that we cannot allow that type of a study to even start down that path. We do not want to be measuring things just on costs, without factoring in safety obligations and other improvements in homeland security, our environment and preventing injuries. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, as I noted, under this administration, we have had the largest increases in the number of hours of paperwork burden ever. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Mrs. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, I continue to be amused by the railing on the other side of all this paperwork burden as if they did not understand that the cause of that was their own administration. The President ran on a platform of cutting back the regulatory burden on businesses; and if you go back in history during that period of time before 2000, you can see speech after speech telling us how terrible the paperwork burden was and what he was going to do to improve it. But the fact of the matter is if you look at the report done for the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and for me, it states clearly, ``The annual paperwork hours today is over 700 million burden hours higher than it was when President Bush took office.'' In the year 2000, it increased by 7.4 billion hours. In 2003 it went up to 8.1 billion hours. It is an increase of over 10 percent. The Internal Revenue Service accounts for more paperwork than any other Federal agency with 81 percent of the total paperwork burden hours. Yet that is exactly where most of the increases came. The largest sources of statutory increases in paperwork have been the recent tax law changes. They have been introduced and made a substantial additional complexity and burden for individuals and small businesses in filling out their tax forms. And that, Mr. Chairman, is the reason for the increase. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise to address H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004. We are talking about this bill today because House Republicans are concerned that they are being criticized for the millions of jobs that have been lost under this administration. House Republicans have decided that instead of taking action to create jobs, they would make a plan to talk about taking action to create jobs. Each week they have a different theme. This week they are talking about cutting red tape. The bill we are considering, however, does nothing to cut red tape. As we will hear later from the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), this bill does nothing to reduce the hours that Americans spend filling out paperwork. In fact, the hours Americans must spend filling out paperwork has increased dramatically under the Bush administration. This bill will also do nothing to improve the regulations issued by the Bush administration. In fact, some provisions of the bill will actually make the regulatory process worse. I have a letter that I would like to enter into the Record to appear after my statement, Mr. Chairman, from the League of Conservation Voters opposing this bill. This letter states, ``At best, this bill would result in a waste of money at a time when Federal resources are shrinking; at worst, it would contribute to a loss of vital protections for millions of Americans.'' The League of Conservation Voters also expresses in their letter support for an amendment the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I are offering that would establish an independent commission of distinguished experts to investigate the politicization of science in the regulatory process. The League of Conservation Voters thinks this is such an important issue that Members may find their votes in the League of Conservation Voters scorecard. Leading scientists, including 20 Nobel Laureates, have said the political and ideological distortion of science is a major block to effective government action on a wide range of health and environmental issues. This administration is injecting itself into the regulatory process to manipulate science and to manipulate agency regulations to suit industry. Over and over we hear about agency proposals that are rewritten by the Office of Management and Budget to fit the needs of industry without regard to the expertise of agency scientists and other experts. The administration's proposal on mercury pollution is one recent example. The gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) will describe these particular problems in more detail at a later time. We should not be here just talking about cutting red tape, Mr. Chairman. We should not be passing legislation that will weaken important regulatory protections that aim to ensure a safe and healthy environment for our children. What we should be doing is taking positive steps to make the regulatory process better for all Americans. League of Conservation Voters, May 18, 2004. Re: Oppose H.R. 2342, Support the Waxman (D-CA)/Tierney (D- MA) Amendment U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representatives: The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) is the political voice of the national environmental community. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of Members of Congress on environmental legislation. The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the press. LCV urges you to oppose H.R. 2432, which would require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to assess the feasibility of imposing regulatory budgeting on major agencies. Regulatory budgeting is a misguided concept that elevates the interests of regulated industries over all other considerations. At best, this bill would result in a waste of money at a time when federal resources are shrinking; at worst, it would contribute to a loss of vital protections for millions of Americans. Regulatory budgeting caps the costs that government can impose on the private sector each year, regardless of the need for public protections. Under this system, once the ``budgeted'' cap has been reached, agencies must cease fulfilling their mandates--polluters get a free pass, workplaces go unprotected, and hazardous foods move into commerce. OMB should be directed to account for actions that have taken place over the past three years as scores of critical safeguards have been weakened, rescinded, or abandoned in progress. LCV has noted with alarm the accumulating threat to public health and the environment caused by the rollback of regulations intended, to prevent destruction of the ozone layer, reduce air pollution, prevent neurological harm to children, reduce public exposure to toxins and contaminants, preserve crucial habitat for endangered species, ensure clean drinking water. LCV supports the Waxman-Tierney Amendment to create a Commission on Politicization of Science in the Regulatory Process. The Commission would evaluate regulatory activities to determine the extent to which political considerations have undermined the quality and use of the science, and report within 18 months. This commission will address concerns among scientists and government professionals that political considerations are unduly influencing regulatory decisions. Americans expect that the science used in development of regulations is not colored by politics. Please oppose H.R. 2432 and support the Waxman Amendment. LCV's Political Advisory Committee may consider including votes on this issue in compiling LCV's 2003 Scorecard. If you need more information, please call Betsy Loyless in my office at (202) 785-8683. Sincerely, Deb Callahan, President. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. I just say, Mr. Chairman, I think we have heard adequate reasons here why this bill comes up short in what would be a help in any sense in types of burden relief. It does have to be a situation where we are concerned about who is responsible. One of the colleagues on the other side of the aisle raised that issue that we should not be, but hopefully, we need to enlist the support of this administration and a majority here to help get the burden down, and this administration has had record increases in paperwork burdens, mostly because of the Internal Revenue Code changes that they have made, which have substantially added to that situation. Not only did it not address the recession and not address the job losses, which have been historic, it also failed to do anything about reducing paperwork burdens and, in fact, increased that substantially. So I think that this debate has made that clear, Mr. Chairman. I would advise folks to please read the report the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and I had done and introduced in the Record and vote against this bill.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition; and though I rise to claim the time in opposition, we do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, the so-called Small Business Health Fairness Act is a bill that is attractive to a few but it is sufficient for none, and it seems to be harmful for everyone else. While there are employers, workers and family members who do depend on health insurance, what they really need is solutions that are going to work for everybody and not just some empty promises. The Congressional Budget Office did an estimate on this proposed bill and estimated that approximately 4.6 million people might obtain some coverage through these proposed associated health plans but only about 330,000 of those people would be new customers. The fact of the matter is that there is not going to be the dramatic savings that is proposed here. That simply will not materialize. The Congressional Budget Office found that these AHP premiums would only be marginally less than the traditional health care plans. In fact, the Mercer Consulting STUDY that was done for the National Small Business Association found that premiums would increase by 23 percent for those outside the AHP market. It also found there would be an increase in the number of uninsured workers in small firms, an increase of a million people, as a result of this being implemented. The fact of the matter is that Americans would also lose their right to vital medical coverage, like OB-GYN and pediatrician services, cervical, colon, mammography and prostrate cancer screening, maternity benefits, well-care child services, and diabetes treatment. When we had witnesses testifying at the committee hearing, Mr. Speaker, we specifically asked the small business witness whether that is what she wanted to have happen to her company. And her testimony indicated clearly she did not, and she did not understand that was going to be the result of this bill passing. This bill is going to disallow a lot of State protections, and almost all the States have in protections for people under this bill. This House voted for a Federal Patients' Bill of Rights that would have recognized States' protections that are in place for insurance programs. Almost every single Member on both sides of the aisle voted for that legislation; yet this piece of legislation, the AHP bill, would peel that away and take away the State protections for all those things that people in small business want. As a person in a small business and representing a number of small businesses for over 22 years, I can tell you small business employers do not want an inferior policy for their employees. With respect to the question one of our colleagues on the other side raised about the distrust of the private sector, we are all very much in favor of the private sector, but most people are in favor of it being a balanced situation in this country. We understand unless there is some reasonable regulation, some private industries will go too far in one direction, as has happened in the past with programs similar to this, the so-called MEWAs that existed at one time that were replete with fraud, corruption, and solvency problems. This is a situation that has to be corrected. We cannot allow it to happen again here, and there is evidence in recent times that that is exactly what would happen with this bill. Mr. Speaker, small business owners and their employees deserve protections. They deserve to go to the emergency room. Women small business owners deserve to go to gynecologists without referral from another doctor. Why should we treat small business owners and employees like second-class citizens by giving them second-class health care? Instead of extending the patient protections to all Americans, this bill would roll back the limited protections that exist today. I think if we speak plainly, Mr. Speaker, this bill eliminates the State regulation of AHPs and is in fact an anti-patients' bill of rights. For this reason and the other reasons I have mentioned, and others have said, and the fact that over a thousand different organizations oppose this bill, including the National Governors Association, the Republican Governors Association, 41 State attorneys general, the National Small Business Administration, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, as well as a dozen other groups of labor business and consumer groups, I believe this is not a good bill for small business, it is not a good bill for the employees of small businesses. We can do better and we should.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio, and all of the other Members who are speaking on and cosponsored this resolution. As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) indicated, there is story after story that we could talk about the particular circumstances of a family and how their family is impacted by autism. Autism is a brain disorder that typically effects an individual's social interaction and communication. There are, as the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) said, 1.5 million Americans today who are affected by autism spectrum disorder. This is not just one typical set of circumstances, but a whole spectrum of circumstances and consequences suffered by individuals and families. Experts do not concur on the exact number of cases of autism spectrum disorder, but they agree autism is one of the fastest growing developmental disabilities in the United States. Spectrum disorders are considered the second most common developmental disorder that American children face today. And even so, many professionals, whether they are in the medical profession or the educational fields, are still unaware of best methods to diagnose or treat this particular disorder. What we do know is that once a diagnosis is made, initiating early intervention services significantly improves the people with autism and can reduce the level of funding and services needed later in life. Ten years ago, the Center for Disease Control estimated that 1 in every 10,000 children were affected by autism. More recently, the number was refined to 1 in every 250. This year the CDC estimated that the occurrence of autism is closer to 1 in 166. We sent it back to CDC when we first got that number because we were astounded it would be that high, but on reflection and review of their numbers, they said it was closer to 1 in 166. Mr. Speaker, we have to commend families and parents and relatives of children with autism for their sacrifice and dedication in providing for those special needs. I have seen situations where parents are dealing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a child with extreme autism. In the subcommittee, so ably chaired by the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton), we have seen films of children with extreme autism. Some Members saw, for the first time, just how difficult it is to deal with autism and its consequences. My niece teaches special education in the State of Massachusetts. There are other teachers who talk to me regularly about the special needs and circumstances of children in their classes, and tell me every year the number of children with autism in their classes seems to grow. Autism does not discriminate by race or ethnicity, but it is four times more prevalent in males than females; and an estimated 50 children are diagnosed with autism every day. There is no known cure for autism, so it is imperative to learn why autism is reaching epidemic proportions across this country. Children do not follow any typical pattern of child development. For some, hints of future problems appear at birth, in others it becomes more noticeable as children slip behind children of their own age. The condition can be improved through behavioral and well-structured educational programs in some instances. Educational service programs are offered by the number of organizations. In my district, we are fortunate to have the North Shore ARC. We also have other programs of the May Foundation, May Center and Institute and the Shriver Center in Massachusetts. They deal with programs developed for children with autism spectrum disorder, providing a broad scope of services, support, advocacy, information, and referrals that are responsive to the needs of children with that disorder. It is thanks to their continuing efforts that some families are getting relief and support. But Congress has to recognize the significant financial costs for the specialized education and support services. According to the Centers For Disease Control, the cost of specialized treatment in a developmental center for people with autism is approximately $80,000 per individual per year. And the cost of special education programs for school-aged children with autism is often more than $30,000 per individual per year. The cost nationally of caring for persons affected by autism is estimated at more that $90 million a year. With these numbers in mind, Congress should fulfill the 30-year-old Federal commitment to provide States with part of the costs needed for education of children with disabilities under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. We can go further by making sure that the Centers For Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health have enough funding to find out the cause of this particular disease, to find how we might detect it earlier, treat it and prevent it. Again, I commend and thank all of my colleagues for cosponsoring this resolution, for their hard work in making sure that we do the Federal share in finding some solutions.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I join my fellow members of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian issues, and a large number of my colleagues, as we rightfully recognize, remember, and renounce the Armenian genocide. I rise today to speak on one of the most unspeakable acts that ever came to pass. Beginning in 1915, innocent and unsuspecting Armenians of all ages were led by Ottoman Empire officials from their villages to their brutal death. Such atrocities endured for eight years. By 1923, an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred. While this tragedy of incomprehensible proportions was being perpetrated, the world stood idle. Prominent nations remained silent in the face of skyrocketing death tolls in this corner of Europe. Today and throughout this month, as we reflect and remember the victims of the Armenian genocide, we must also repudiate our unresponsiveness to this horrible mass murder. Lastly, on behalf of the Sixth District of Massachusetts, I would like to praise the commitment and perseverance of Armenian-Americans, who have tirelessly labored to ensure that all know the tragic story and great sorrow of their people. Their efforts in this regard are laudable and serve as the best legacy they can leave to succeeding generations.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mention another mistake that President Bush has made: His mistake in forgetting that protecting our environment is a bipartisan effort that for 30 years has put people over polluters and public health over profits. President Bush forgot that both Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency were born in 1970, created from the bipartisan resolve to clean up and protect our environment. As we prepare to mark Earth Day on April 22, the unhappy consequences of the President's mistakes are clear. The Bush administration is undermining EPA's years of hard-won achievements in carrying out and enforcing our Nation's bipartisan environmental laws. EPA's mission is to protect human health and safeguard the natural environment, air, water and land. The Bush administration is retreating from EPA's mission and instead making politically driven decisions that benefit polluters at the expense of the American public. At a time when we should be strengthening our environmental protections, the Bush administration has taken steps to weaken our environmental protections and the enforcement of our existing environmental laws. Rolling back bipartisan environmental protection is President Bush's mistake, but it is not an accident. There is a deliberate, systematic three-step plan from this administration. Step one is to try to pass weak environmental legislation. Step two is to seek to weaken Agency regulations. And if all else fails, step three is to cut the enforcement budget to disable Agency compliance efforts. A quick review of the administration's failures to clean up air pollution highlight the trends. EPA should be taking action to clean up mercury pollution from power plants, but the Bush administration has failed to take that action. Mercury pollution has poisoned the fish in millions of acres of our lakes and thousands of miles of our streams. And according to EPA scientists, approximately 630,000 infants are born in the United States each year with blood mercury levels at an unsafe level. As required by the Clean Air Act in December of 2000, EPA determined that it was appropriate and necessary to regulate mercury emissions from power plants, the single largest source of mercury in the United States. But in December of 2003, when the Bush administration's EPA released its proposal for controlling mercury, it was shockingly inadequate. The Clean Air Act requires a much larger reduction in mercury pollution in much less time than the Bush EPA proposal. Tellingly the Bush proposal is exactly what the power industry wanted. In fact, parts of the administration's mercury proposal were literally copied from memos prepared by industry lobbyists. Last month's Los Angeles Times article revealed that EPA staff were not told to perform studies on the costs and public health benefits of more stringent mercury reduction proposals, even though such studies were requested by the expert panel tasked with recommending an appropriate regulation. Also shocking is that the White House apparently made considerable changes to the EPA's mercury proposal before its release, minimizing the health risk of mercury exposure. In addition, the Bush administration has failed to require power plants to install modern pollution controls. In August 2003, the Bush EPA finalized a rule that significantly weakens the Clean Air Act by allowing thousands of old power plants to make upgrades to their plants without installing pollution controls. If EPA's rule stands up to current legal challenges, these power plants and factories will be allowed to continue to pollute the air with no responsibility for the resulting damage to the American people. According to technical studies using EPA models, the result will be at least 4,300 premature deaths and at least 80,000 asthma attacks each year that could otherwise be prevented by simply requiring modern pollution controls. EPA should be taking action to address global warming, but the Bush administration has refused to address this important issue. A report by the U.S. National Research Council commissioned by the Bush administration confirmed that greenhouse gases are increasing the temperatures of the Earth's air and oceans primarily caused by human activity. There is overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases must be reduced in order to slow global warming, yet in March 2001, the Bush administration refused to take any responsibility for reducing global warming when it rejected the Kyoto Protocol. The administration then announced last summer that EPA does not have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, reversing a Bush campaign promise and a legal opinion issued by the EPA general counsel under the Clinton administration. Rather than taking real action, the Bush administration's answer to air pollution has been to introduce the so-called Clear Skies Initiative, which environmental experts say would actually result in weaker standards for controlling pollution from power plants than existing laws being enforced. The administration's failure to enforce environmental law extends beyond the Clean Air Act. The EPA's own research shows that polluters are egregiously violating the Clean Water Act. According to EPA data, 60 percent of large facilities across the country exceeded their Clean Water Act permit at least once between January of 2002 and June of 2003. Large facilities that exceed their permits are dumping on average six times more pollution into our waterways than they are allowed. In spite of these facts, EPA's enforcements of the Clean Water Act are declining. Mr. Speaker, we must take action to clean up our air and water pollution and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA must be empowered and provided the resources to carry out its mission. And this is one mistake that the Bush administration must correct, if not for ourselves, but for future generations who deserve the opportunity to look back on Earth Day 2004 from the perspective of a cleaner and stronger environment. Both Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were born in 1970, created from the need to clean up and protect our environment. While Earth Day draws public awareness, EPA is the federal agency ultimately responsible for the day-to-day protection of our environment. On this Earth Day, I think it fitting to examine the way the Bush Administration is undermining EPA's years of hard-won achievements in carrying out and enforcing our nation's bipartisan environmental laws. EPA's mission is to, ``protect human health and safeguard the natural environment-air, water, and land . . .'' The Bush Administration is retreating from EPA's mission and instead making politically driven decisions that benefit polluters at the expense of the American public. At a time when we should be strengthening our environmental protections, the Bush Administration has taken steps to weaken our environmental protections and the enforcement of our existing environmental laws. There seems to be a three-step plan from this Administration: try to pass weak environmental legislation, seek to weaken agency regulations and if all else fails, cut the enforcement budget to disable agency compliance efforts. A quick review of the Administration's failure to clean up air pollution highlights the trend. EPA should be taking action to clean up mercury pollution from power plants, but the Bush Administration has failed to do so. Mercury pollution has poisoned the fish in millions of acres of our lakes and thousands of miles of our streams. According to EPA scientists, approximately 630,000 infants are born in the United States each year with blood mercury levels at an unsafe level. As required by the Clean Air Act, in December 2000, EPA determined that it was appropriate and necessary to regulate mercury emissions from power plants, the single largest source of mercury in the United States. In December 2003, when EPA released its proposal for controlling mercury, it was shockingly inadequate. The Clean Air Act requires a much larger reduction in mercury pollution, in much less time, than EPA's proposal. Tellingly, this proposal is exactly what the power industry wanted. In fact, parts of the Administration's mercury proposal were literally copied from memos prepared by industry lobbyists. Last month's Los Angeles Times article revealed that EPA staff were told not to perform studies on the costs and public health benefits of more stringent mercury reduction proposals even though such studies were requested by the expert panel tasked with recommending an appropriate regulation. Also shocking is that the White House apparently made considerable changes to EPA's mercury proposal before its release, minimizing the health risks of mercury exposure. In addition, the Bush Administration has failed to require power plants to install modern pollution controls. In August 2003, EPA finalized a rule that significantly weakens the Clean Air Act by allowing thousands of old power plants to make upgrades to their plants without installing pollution controls. If EPA's rule stands up to current legal challenges, these power plants and factories will be allowed to continue polluting the air with no responsibility for the resulting damage to the American people. According to technical studies using EPA models, the result will be at least 4,300 premature deaths and at least 80,000 asthma attacks each year that could otherwise be prevented by simply requiring modern pollution controls. EPA should be taking action to address global warming but the Bush Administration has refused to address this important issue. A report by the U.S. National Research Council, commissioned by the Bush Administration, confirmed that greenhouse gases are increasing the temperatures of the earth's air and oceans, primarily caused by human activity. There is overwhelming evidence that greenhouse gases must be reduced in order to slow global warming. Yet, in March 2001, the Bush Administration refused to take any responsibility for reducing global warming when it rejected the Kyoto Protocol. The Administration then announced last summer that EPA does not have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, reversing a Bush campaign promise and a legal opinion issued by the EPA General Counsel under the Clinton Administration. Rather than taking real action, the Bush Administration's answer to air pollution has been to introduce its so-called ``Clear Skies'' initiative, which environmental experts say would actually result in weaker standards for controlling pollution from power plants than fully enforcing existing law. Bruce Buckheit, former Director of EPA's Air Enforcement Division, states he is, ``deeply troubled by the current state of federal environmental enforcement,'' and noted the program is now ``on life support.'' ``Commencing with the creation of the Office of Enforcement and Compliance in 1994 and accelerating in the 1996-2000 timeframe,'' Mr. Buckheit said, ``EPA was building a robust enforcement program that targeted and prosecuted the most serious environmental scofflaws. . . . These violations involved significant unlawful emissions with identifiable adverse health impacts. Appropriate resolution of these violations would result in a reduction in national pollution levels-- not by a few tons--but by several million tons per year and save thousands of lives each year.'' ``We were embarked on a vigorous program that was beginning to show results,'' Mr. Buckheit said. ``Within 90 days of the departure of the prior Administration, the Bush Administration began transmitting a clear message to industry that there was a new Sheriff in town--a Sheriff that did not intend to prosecute these kinds of cases.'' The Administration's failure to enforce environmental laws extends beyond the Clean Air Act. EPA's own research shows that polluters are egregiously violating the Clean Water Act. According to EPA data, 60 percent of large facilities across the country exceeded their Clean Water Act permit at least once between January of 2002 and June of 2003. Large facilities that exceed their permits are dumping, on average, six times more pollution into our waterways than what they are allowed. In spite of these facts, EPA's enforcement of the Clean Water Act is declining. For fiscal year 2005, the Administration proposes cutting EPA's overall budget by $606 million. This will result in over 2,600 fewer inspections for violations of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental laws than were conducted in fiscal year 2000. I commend EPA's dedicated professionals who have, through hard work, made significant progress in cleaning up air and water pollution. Unfortunately, I believe the Bush Administration is undermining the ability of EPA staff to do their jobs effectively. As Mr. Buckheit notes,EPA employees are ready and willing to enforce the law but ``the White House will not tolerate more than tokenism when it comes to environmental law enforcement.'' The Bush Administration continues to put the interests of polluters first, undercutting EPA's tools for protecting our air, water, and land. The federal government owes a responsibility to all Americans to strengthen, not weaken, our environment. We must take action to clean up air and water pollution and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. EPA must be empowered--and provided the resources--to carry out is mission. Future generation deserve the opportunity to look back at Earth Day 2004 from the perspective of a cleaner and stronger environment.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, as a proud member of the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic issues, I rise and join my colleagues in honoring the 183rd anniversary of Greek independence. This is an important occasion to pay special tribute to the Greek nation and its people. More than marking the independence achieved by the Greeks in 1821, today the House of Representatives celebrates the special relationship between Greece and the United States. We Americans owe a special debt of gratitude to the country upon which our democratic process is founded. Greece was the cradle of democracy, the birthplace of the civic engagement so inherent in our country's social fabric. Whenever we promote freedom, civil liberties, and self-determination, we pay testament to our shared values and common heritage. This year is particularly significant as the time when the Olympics return home. The 2004 Olympic Games in Athens will showcase both the prowess of the world's best athletes and the historical and cultural significance of a world-renowned city. Now more than ever, we look forward to seeing people from all over the globe come together in the spirit of peaceful competition, pursuing personal excellence, national pride and international cooperation. Today, in my district in Massachusetts, thousands of Greek American families will commemorate this occasion and partake in festivities that pay tribute to their heritage. I extend congratulations to them, to all the people of Greek descent in the United States, and to the people of Greece on this important holiday.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, the credibility of this administration abroad has been wounded severely because of the misleading representations about the reasons we went into that country; and no matter how we try to rewrite history, that fact will not go away. The administration's credibility at home has been shot. It is failing every day with the decreasing job market and the failure to do anything about it. This House must fight the loss of its credibility with respect, especially what has been going on with the Medicare measure that passed more recently. We now find out in today's papers and the last week's papers that the administration knew well ahead of time that this bill was going to cost substantially more than it represented it was going to cost; and in fact, a member of the administration was threatened with the loss of his job if he told Congress the facts, if he let people know the facts. We find that the chairman of one of the committees drafting the bill was offered a $2 million-a-year job by the industry that would benefit by $139 billion over the course of that bill; and we find that a Republican Member of this House now says that although he is not running, he was told that his son would get money or not get money for his campaign to succeed his father depending on the vote on that bill. Mr. Speaker, the credibility of this House is endangered. We need an investigation into those circumstances. We cannot afford to let the credibility of this institution go the way of the credibility of the administration.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in salute to America's troops and veterans, and urge my colleagues to honor their sacrifices not with lofty political rhetoric but with concrete budgetary reality. Sadly, we are denied that opportunity today. Instead, after waiting weeks for a budget and voting primarily on uncontested matters, receiving only this week a proposed budget that: Fails to appropriately address the sad state of our economy; Fails to propose policies that will create an environment for the maintenance and creation of jobs; Fails to clearly fund ongoing expenses related to the continuing military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq and fails to adequately fund force protective measures as well as first responder needs for homeland security; Fails to fund the President's own promises with respect to education mandates on local communities; Fails to even begin to deal with the nation's health care crisis; Proposes pilfering the Social Security surplus; and Forces enormous further debt burden on every one of our children. This Republican House leadership--I believe in cooperation with the White House--now proposes to politicize foreign policy for their own domestic political purposes. It's a disgrace! The self-promoted ``uniter not divider'' in the White House has at every opportunity slammed any effort at bi-partnership--this resolution is one more example. The White House has been complicit as House Republicans manipulate and distort rules and customs to wring every ounce of the democratic process out of the exercise of government here, while professing to support democracy worldwide. After shamelessly exploiting in TV advertisements the 9/11 tragedies and depicting victims (whose families the President would not honor by cooperating with the investigation into circumstances surrounding the incident as well as intelligence and government action and inaction leading up to and following 9/11) and first responders (who must continue to labor on the front lines without adequate communications, equipment, training, standards and support), this group of Republicans now allows four hours to debate a resolution the sole purpose of which is to create a dilemma for those who know the Administration's effort with respect to Iraq and with respect to fighting terror to be woefully inadequate. The resolution is structured with the appearance of supporting our troops, but is worded so that it could be argued--however wrong such an argument would be--that Congress endorsed the way this Administration has conducted itself with respect to Iraq. In essence, yet another false choice for Members: Vote for it, so disingenuous political operatives can claim the President is supported even in his misleading acts and his diversion of efforts from the fight against terrorists and his Administration's abject failures of planning for post-Saddam Iraq, or Subject oneself to even more disingenuous assertion by political hacks--for that is what they would be--who might assert a vote against the resolution was a vote against support and recognition for our troops. It is politics at its most base and vile level, yet this White House and this Republican majority promote it without hesitation. Well, it will not work! The American people--even with an all-too- slowly awakening media--is learning more each day that this President and this Republican majority have very little in the way of meaningful policy for America--and far too much politics aimed at benefiting their careers and ideological extremists. Whichever way people vote on this resolution, it will be clear to America that the President's and the Republican majority's hypocritical resolutions will not work any better than their tasteless advertisements. The American people deserve far better, and the Democrats stand ready with a vision and a plan to deliver it: Democrats are working to protect and defend America from those who plan attacks against our families and communities. Democrats are prepared to use military force to protect our security, our people, and our vital interests, and have an unswerving commitment to ensure that America's armed forces remain the best trained, best led, best equipped force for peace the world has ever known. Democrats applaud the troops who ousted Saddam in 20 days. We want to support them on their still dangerous mission, and believe we should be debating giving our troops the armor--body and vehicle--rifles, jammers and other equipment they need. It now appears that the President's rationale for war was flawed. CIA Director George Tenet admitted that the intelligence agencies never told the White House that Iraq posed an imminent threat. [Washington Post 3/10/04] Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix stated that the Bush Administration made up its mind that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction--and wasn't interested in evidence to the contrary. [AP, 3/ 12/04] But the President and the rest of the Administration said Iraq posed an ``urgent and unique threat,'' an ``immediate threat,'' a ``mortal threat,'' and an ``imminent threat'' to the people of the United States. [President Bush, 11/20/02; Secretary Rumsfeld, 11/14/02; Financial Times, 8/27/02; Press gaggle with Scott McClellan, 2/10/03] Democrats want a full accounting of the events leading up to the war in Iraq. Americans should be able to trust that what the President tells them is true--especially when it comes to the life and death decisions of war and peace. Our troops were sent to Iraq without enough of the equipment they depend on to do their jobs safely. Un-armored Humvees are falling victim to road-side bombs and rocket propelled grenades. Thousands of soldiers are forced to fight without body armor--and the President still failed to include enough funds in his budget to pay for operations in Iraq. Americans shouldn't have to continue to bear most of the burden of rebuilding Iraq alone. President Bush's dismissive treatment of our allies has left the United States primarily responsible for the heavy burden of stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq. A year after invading Iraq, we are seeing the price of the President's distorted priorities. American taxpayers are paying almost all the bills--a colossal $120 billion and rising. Most importantly, American soldiers are enduring almost all the casualties: over 550 Americans killed and thousands more wounded. Democrats want to work with our international allies. Democrats want to strengthen the capacity of America's intelligence gathering operation, and forge stronger international coalitions, to increase our ability to target and capture terrorists even before they act. Instead of alienating our allies, Democrats want to work with them and with international institutions so that we can prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and keep them out of the hands of terrorists. Democrats support a foreign policy that reflects American priorities. Democrats want to make America safer with a foreign policy that reflects American priorities--promoting political and economic freedom and human rights; cooperating with allies and friends; and respecting international law and institutions. Democrats want an honest accounting of the continued cost of the Iraq war. Top defense officials, including Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker, testified to Congress that the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will run out of money in September, leaving the military scrambling to cover as much as $19 billion in costs. [St. Petersburg Times, 2/11/04] Democrats want a detailed plan for future spending, so our troops are guaranteed to get the resources they need. Homeland security must be a priority. Democrats want to make sure that our firefighters and police officers get the tools they need to keep us safe here at home. But the Bush Administration and the Republicans' budgets fail to provide the funding we need to address our security concerns. Democrats want to connect local, state, and federal terrorist information systems to make sure that every cop on the beat has the information they need to keep our families safe. We want to provide firefighters, police officers, and emergency medical personnel with the equipment they need to communicate in a crisis. We want to protect the long stretches of our border that are currently unwatched and unprotected. And we want to help make sure states are prepared to respond to a bioterrorist attack. Part of winning the war on terror is taking care of those who helped us fight it. On the battlefield, our troops pledge to leave no soldier behind. Here at home, Democrats know that we must leave no veteran behind. We must ensure their health care, their pensions, and their survivor's benefits. But the Bush Administration wants to raise health care costs for over 1 million veterans, increasing co-payments and imposing new enrollment fees that will cost veterans $2 billion over five years. Unfortunately, in a disgraceful rebuke to democracy, the Republican majority has stubbornly refused to offer Democrats any opportunity to share our vision and plan with the American people--refusing an up-or- down vote on the Democrats' plan to salute our troops not just with lofty political rhetoric, but with concrete budgetary reality. What are they afraid of? Why are the Republicans cowed by the prospect of a fair debate? My colleagues, just because the Republican majority refuses us a democratic debate, you need not subject yourselves to the political antics of this most demeaning political ploy. Vote no, yes or present . . . whichever best allows you to share these comments and facts with the American people. What is important is that the American people know our troops are supported, and that their sacrifices and those of their families are appreciated and honored. They will know (quickly if the press is alert and perceptive; over time if left to their own diligent inquiries and pursuit of truth) that at a time of great national challenge and need for unity, this White House and their Republican majority once again sought to divide the nation, not unite it, and did so for crass, short-sighted, selfish benefit.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield for just a minute, and then I will give the floor back. While PhRMA was busy trying to contact the chairman's office to make an offer of some millions of dollars a year to work for them, the American people were having the deal cut out from underneath them. When we talk to seniors and say, look, if this is a good bill, when do you think it would start? Their answer is, immediately. This bill does not start until 2006, well after the next election. We know what that is all about. Negotiations for lower prices? Common sense. Why do people think the pharmaceutical companies have resisted prescription drugs in Medicare all this time? Because they thought for sure the next common-sense thing would be for that large group of 37 million people to be used as bargaining leverage to get a fairer price, as the free market would dictate and is done elsewhere. But with this majority in the House, the Republican majority in the House, the Republican majority in the Senate, and a Republican in the White House they can have it all. They can have all these new customers and clients and not have to worry about it because they got them to put in the bill that there would be no negotiation for a lower price. People can see right through that. They see through the gap, the fact that there is going to be a period of time when they are paying premiums and getting nothing in return, the so-called gap or doughnut hole. To figure out whether or not this bill is good for them, they need a calculator. And when they apply this bill to their circumstances, they find out it is not a good bill for them unless they are desperately poor or have such catastrophic costs it is unbelievable. To top it all off, about a third of today's retirees who get their health insurance and prescription coverage through their employer, the CBO assumes they are going to be dropped back to this plan and get less coverage for more cost than they did when they had their employers covering it. Mr. Speaker, that is why we are hearing that the administration is going to try to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money to try to make a silk purse out of this cow. Again, they should not be allowed to use taxpayer money to sell them a bad deal which they know is bad and try to change their mind.

Mr. TIERNEY. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Speaker. I think people are just outraged by what is going on in this administration and with the Republican majority in the House and Senate here. This is a bad bill to begin with, the prescription Medicare bill, the so-called Medicare reform bill, but when we add to that what can only be described as an affront or a blow to Congress' credibility, the aspect of finding the chairman, the man in charge of writing this legislation, actually closing the doors and excluding Democrats in the process, kept them out of any way of improving what turned out to be a terrible bill, ending up being offered over $2 million, if the stories are correct, $2 million a year from PhRMA, the organization that was out there lobbying for this bill, the organization that has over 600 lobbyists crawling around the Halls of Congress. If the rumors are true, then it is $2 million to the person who excluded Democrats from the process, that closed the doors, that negotiated the end of the bill, that formulated the bill that ended up giving, by some estimates, a $139 billion boondoggle to the prescription drug companies and manufacturers by putting in a provision that says the government cannot negotiate a better price. And all of this to the detriment of our seniors. I think people ought to be outraged. I know they are in my district. I can tell the gentleman from New Jersey that a couple from Beverly, Massachusetts, told me that they are seniors and they depend on Medicare; that the bill has to be killed, they said. Means testing, forcing them into HMOs, destroying Medicare forever was not worth the meager drug benefit they are going to get at the end of the day. Nothing was more important for them than to get rid of that bill and write another bill. Another couple from Hamilton, Massachusetts, wrote to me. The woman said, ``My husband and I are retired and our savings are rapidly declining because of prescription drug costs. To deny Americans the right to purchase legally prescribed drugs from Canada is counterproductive. We realize this bill is being driven by special interests exerting a stranglehold over this Nation's senior citizens, and that is particularly galling.'' They recognize that this bill should have done something, at least about reimportations of FDA-approved safely packaged and transported drugs; and it did nothing. Even though this House passed an independent bill instructing the FDA to do that in conference, again behind closed doors, with Democrats excluded, and with the chairman who is now said to be offered a $2 million-a-year job by the very people who get the most benefit out of this bill, the special interests, even with that, it just gets worse and worse. I had a pharmacist write me: ``Why aren't the pharmaceutical manufacturers asked to lower their costs to participate in the program?'' Pharmacies were asked. ``This is one of the reasons medications are cheaper in neighboring countries.'' Because in neighboring countries pharmaceutical companies are required to lower their prices. ``Drug companies must reduce their prices to consumers if they are going to participate in government programs.'' Unfortunately for him and other constituents in my district and my colleagues' districts, this is not happening under this bill. The Medicare reform legislation is nothing more than a cruel hoax on Americans. Let us remember back in the State of the Union address when the President brought with him a woman by the name of Elsie Blanton. He had Ms. Blanton up there in the gallery; and he said his spokespeople said, at that time of the State of the Union address, that Ms. Blanton is on Medicare, a supplemental policy that does not include prescription drug coverage. Ms. Blanton spends approximately $900 per month on prescription drugs when unable to obtain free samples from her doctors or the pharmaceutical companies. Ms. Blanton's prescription drug costs account for three quarters of her monthly income. Her monthly income is only $1,190 in Social Security benefits. Ms. Blanton's income is just above the 150 percent of the Federal poverty level for 2003. Now, supposedly, Ms. Blanton was there because she was an example of someone who was to benefit from this terrible bill. But according to the Center for American Progress, Elsie Blanton will not see any assistance for years under this bill. The new prescription drug benefit does not even begin until 2006. Ms. Blanton does not qualify for the $600 of interim assistance. So Ms. Blanton will continue to have to spend at least three quarters of her monthly income on prescription drugs for the next 2 years. In fact, because prescription drug costs rise faster than Social Security benefits, she will probably have to spend even more of her income on her medicines. She is going to have higher costs next year. She will have to pay more for her Medicare benefits next year, because higher payments to private plans and other changes are going to cause everyone's Medicare premium to go up. And the new law also raises the Medicare deductible. She will potentially have higher costs when the benefit does begin. She could save much less than promised once the new prescription drug benefit begins because premiums and the benefit design are largely left to private health insurers and pharmaceutical companies. It is at their discretion, the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies, that they will decide what benefits and what prescription drugs are in there. So higher premiums. The President had assumed Ms. Blanton would be able to get a drug benefit for a premium of $35 a month, but we know by reading the bill that, in fact, private insurers will set their own premiums, and they can be much higher than $35 a month. The President assumed that all of Ms. Blanton's medicines would be covered under the new benefit, but in fact there is no way to know that because we know that insurance companies and the pharmaceutical manufacturers will decide what drugs are covered. Even if the medicines Ms. Blanton needs are covered when she signs up for the plan, we know from reading the bill that that list can change at any time after she originally signs on. And if the medicines she needs are not covered, any money she spends out of her own pocket on those medicines will not count toward the benefits' out-of-pocket limit. She will go months without assistance, even after it kicks in. With monthly drug spending of $190 a year, assuming that all of her drugs are covered, Ms. Blanton will receive no assistance from March and through June of every year until she hits another higher limit. It is during that period of time, after March and before June, that she will be in that so-called donut hole or gap of benefits where she gets nothing at all, despite the fact that she continues to pay her premiums during that period. What will happen to Elsie Blanton should not happen to anybody in this country, particularly on a bill of this nature. And if that is the best the people that proposed this bill have to show Ms. Blanton, who has this terrible result, then this country is in a sorry way and seniors are being deprived. Never again should an industry be allowed to come in here and write a bill; should people that are now being offered $2 million a year by that industry be able to shut Democrats out of the process so they cannot improve the bill and write a bill that changes what the Senate had, changes what the House had; and after a so-called conference comes out with a bill that actually does worse for seniors, has them paying more for their prescription drugs and getting less benefits. Nevermore should that happen. If this continues to happen, and if what I heard earlier tonight, and what I think our colleague from Illinois is going to talk about, if this administration now has the audacity to take millions of dollars in taxpayer money and go out on the stump and on the TV and try to convince seniors who got a bad deal that they actually got a good deal, then we should have an investigation done and talk about the propriety of that, possibly violations of campaign laws, certainly violations of taxpayer rights, and get to the bottom of this. This is a bad bill, done in a bad way, by people benefiting from it getting too involved and people on the floor of this House potentially having an interest now in working for those same countries that made billions of dollars of benefits. It does not sound good, it does not look good, the American people do not feel it is right, and they have every right to be concerned. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his time.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, the original IDEA bill authorized this Congress to give up the 40 percent of the additional cost of educating a child with special needs so that communities would have some help with that burden even though it was their constitutional obligation to educate every child to 100 percent of that. For years Congress did not fulfill that commitment. They were at 9, 10, 11, or 12 percent. What were those years? Those years were the Reagan-Bush years. We were running deficits of incredible amounts, building up on our debt in this Nation; $295 billion of deficit in 1992 accumulated since 1980 to a point where we had a debt of almost $5 trillion. Congress could not do more. They were busy trying to pay off those bills. From 1993 to 2000 with a Democrat in the White House, Congress started to pay down those deficits, started to pay those bills; and around 1997 where the yellow number is upticking on that chart that the gentleman from Ohio was showing, that was when we finally got a grip on the deficit, and we finally were able to start putting some money towards the obligations of IDEA. In fact, we did it almost every year over the objections of the Republican majority and had to fight every year. This is the type of issue the Republican majority almost brought the House to a standstill on. But we managed to tick it up. We managed to bring those numbers up, with the objections of the Republicans in many instances, and started to do better. Now we have an opportunity in 2000, with a $5.6 trillion surplus projected over 10 years, to really reach that 40 percent level; and instead the Republican majority and the White House decided that is not where they want to spend the money. Despite the fact that the Republican ``Contract on America'' in the mid-1990s promised this was one of their 10 items, they have never come close; and we have had resolutions in this House where every single Democrat voted to fund IDEA and not a single Republican voted to do it. And when we had the chance with a $5.6 trillion surplus projected over 10 years, the majority in this House, the Republican majority, and the White House walked away from it and did not do it. And why does the gentlewoman from Connecticut come up with the number of $2.2 billion? Because it is the amount that Republicans promised. They put it in their budget very disingenuously as if they were going to do it. They put it in their authorization bill as if they might do it. And when Democrats on the Committee on Education and the Workforce tried to make that mandatory so they would have to do $2.2 billion, the Republicans would not vote for it. And now we know why they would not. They had no intention of doing it. 2.2 billion was the number they held publicly out in both the budget and their authorization; $1 billion is the amount they finally come in with in the end. And they claim it might be more than last year. Yes, a paltry amount more than last year. And again we are back to pushing, pushing, pushing, trying to make them meet their obligation. Why can we not do it? It is not because we would have to cut from every other part of the budget. It is because there is not much in every other part of the budget because the Republicans decided to give $1.3 trillion away in three rounds of tax cuts. The choices that were made, the Republican majority and the President and the White House decided money is not going to go to special education. They decided money is not going to go to No Child Left Behind. They decided no money is going to go to fix our roads and bridges, nor for the myriad of obligations the Federal Government has made to cities and states and towns. It is going to go, instead, to the wealthiest people in this country. That, my friends, is what is happening here. It is a canard to say we do not have the money. It was an intentional misappropriation. We need to do better in this Congress.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, today we are debating this Administration's request for an $87 billion bailout occasioned by its failed planning--or lack of planning for post-war Iraq. We are asked to pass this $87 billion despite the fact that the Bush Administration has not articulated a coherent and workable underlying strategy to accomplish our mission and bring our troops home safely and soon. It is either unwilling or incapable of doing so. The only way Congress can ensure for the American people that such a strategy exists and that it has a reasonable chance of success if by using its power of the purse. We are dealing with an Administration that already has a nearly $400 billion Department of Defense budget and that has already received one supplemental appropriation for some $63 billion. Yet it fails to explain how or why our forces had tens of thousands of men and women without the proper Kevlar breast plates, Humvees without proper armor, and rancid water for 80 percent of the troops, or how those conditions continued, even after they knew in June that people were dying and being injured. In addition, the Administration, in its zeal to get all the money now so it will not have to come back in 2004's election year to report to the American people, insinuates that a vote against this bailout is a vote against our troops and a vote to ``cut and run.'' Nothing could be further from the truth. The Administration's own figures show that this is just another dissembling of the facts. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon can stay in Iraq another 6 months without an additional penny in funds. But we have been prevented from seeking accountability from this administration as it asserts a need for ``emergency funds.'' Mr. Chairman, this Congress has a moral and practical responsibility to modify and condition these funds, and it is time to reject this ``rubber-stamped blank check'' and insist on the alternative that the Democrats want to put forward, but the majority and the administration have prohibited it from seeing the light of day. We must work to re-align the funds for necessary equipment and quality of life matters that the Administration failed to do; reform the Contract provisions to eliminate cronyism concerns-like no-bid, cost plus Halliburton deals; eliminate outrageous and unnecessary projects and over spending that comes at the expense of domestic needs; consider other funding options to lessen and leverage U.S. investments, entice foreign cooperation and have it share some costs through its oil reserves. We should do all this-and foremost, we should only approve this bailout if the Administration presents a coherent and workable underlying strategy to accomplish our mission and bring our troops home safely and soon.

Mr. TIERNEY

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Today we are debating the administration's request for an $87 billion bailout occasioned by its failed planning, or rather, its failure to plan, its lack of planning for postwar Iraq. We are asked to pass this $87 billion bailout despite the fact that the Bush administration has not yet articulated a coherent or workable underlying strategy to accomplish our mission and to bring our troops home safely and soon. It is either unwilling or incapable of doing so. The only way this Congress can ensure for the American people that such a strategy exists and that it has a reasonable chance of success is by using its power of the purse. We are dealing with an administration that has already had over $400 billion in its Department of Defense budget, and it has already received one supplemental appropriation of $63 billion. Yet it fails to explain how and why our forces had tens of thousands of men and women unprotected with the proper Kevlar breast plates, Humvees without proper armor, and rancid water for 80 percent of the troops, or how those conditions continued, even after they knew in June that people were dying and being injured. In addition, the administration, in its zeal to get all of the money now so it will not have to come back in 2004's election year to report to the American people, insinuates that a vote against this bailout is a vote against our troops and a vote to cut and run. Nothing could be further from the truth. The administration's own figures show that this is just another dissembling of the facts. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the Pentagon can stay in Iraq another 6 months without an additional penny in funds. But we have been prevented from seeking accountability from this administration as it asserts a need for emergency funds. Mr. Chairman, this Congress has a moral and practical responsibility to modify and condition these funds, and it is time to reject this rubber stamp blank check and insist on an alternative that the Democrats want to put forward, but the majority and the administration have prohibited it from seeing the light of day.