Fred Upton

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for his comments, and I believe that the House in the conference must oppose all detrimental riders, including those that were passed by the other body. I would just like to add as well that we were really under the gun when we introduced this motion yesterday. Under the House Rules, it has to be introduced when we are in session. Because the legislative activity yesterday went a little bit faster than usual, and we were in fear that the conference would be finished even last night or today, we had to be very quick in drafting this. I view this as a first step. I think we ought to go a lot further and take a lot of the junk out that the Senate put in. I would completely agree with the gentleman from New York with regard to the environmental riders and would hope that they would be stripped out. I know for me, as a Member, if they are not, I will be voting ``no'' when this bill comes back.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues, Representative Ed Towns and Representative Jo Ann Emerson, in introducing H.R. 1777, the Emergency Ambulance Services Assurance Act of 1999. This legislation will ensure that health care plans reimburse for emergency ambulance services when individuals had every reason to believe that they were experiencing an extremely serious condition requiring immediate emergency care. Some may ask why we are introducing this legislation when all of the major managed care reform bills that have been introduced in Congress already include emergency care provisions. But the fact is, these bills cover only what happens when the patient enters the emergency room. None of the bills ensures coverage for emergency ambulance services. It is our hope to use this separate bill to highlight this omission and to build support for including emergency ambulance services coverage in more comprehensive managed care reform proposals that may be moving through the legislative process. This legislation would ensure that individuals suffering what they had every reason to assume to be a potentially life-threatening condition requiring immediate medical attention or their family or caretakers don't have to phone their insurance plan before they call for an ambulance and don't have to worry about paying for the ambulance services should the condition later prove to be not as serious as the patient thought.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 7(c) of rule XXII, I hereby notify the House of my intention tomorrow to offer the following motion to instruct House conferees on H.R. 1141, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill. The form of the motion is as follows: Mr. UPTON Moves that the managers on the part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the 2 Houses on the Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 1141 be instructed to insist that no provision-- (1) not in H.R. 1141, when passed by the House, (2) not in H.R. 1664 when passed by the House or directly related to H.R. 1664, (3) not in the Senate amendment to H.R. 1141, as passed by the Senate, be agreed to by the managers on the part of the House.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, with me on the House floor I have a number of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat, who experienced a marvelous journey to Selma, Alabama, a few weeks ago to commemorate the 34th anniversary of the great march led by Dr. King and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) to end racism and bigotry across this country. We had nearly 20 Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle that traveled to Selma and Birmingham and Montgomery. What I would like to do is ask all of my colleagues who are here to take various stations and we could have a conversation on the floor without the formal proceeding of yielding to other Members. Madam Speaker, I guess I should first recognize my good friend and brother, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), elected the same year as I, who helped lead us on that march, as we did last year as well, giving so many of us the experience of walking in the shoes of those that had gone before. It was an experience that I have to say I will never forget.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, one of our great Members that accompanied us was the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton). I would be happy to hear some of her comments.

Mr. UPTON. I just want to again thank the Faith in Politics Institute and the wonderful leadership of Doug Tanner and a terrific staff who really planned hours and many weeks to get this thing done the right way, and it was done the right way, and I know that Members will be anxious to go next year and to expand our circles and to do whatever we can to help end the scourge of racism and bigotry across this land.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members, and we had many Members on the trip that were not here tonight, may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my special order.

Mr. UPTON. Does the gentleman from Georgia have the next hour? Is that right? I think we do, so we can go a few minutes, could we not? General Leave

Mr. UPTON. We had two Members from the great State of Michigan.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey).

Mr. UPTON. Just prior to the gentleman from Alabama giving his statement there just now, a number of us asked our friend Doug Tanner and some others, I know that based on our pilgrimage, there will be a lot of us that would like to cosponsor legislation to make that little park just across the river by the real start of the Edmund Pettis Bridge a national park, a national shrine. We are looking for you to lead that effort as it is in your district, congressional courtesy. But if you wait too much longer, you are going to have some other people. We are offering that up, but I know a lot of us here, Republicans and Democrats, would like to cosponsor that effort and help you see that become a reality. As people gave their remarkable tales here on the floor tonight and what it meant to them, for some reason, about a little more than a year ago, John Lewis and maybe Amo Houghton and a few others, Jay Dickey, Doug Tanner, sort of had me on a list, and we got together down in a little room in the Capitol, EF-100, and we talked about racism and what we could do. We can always pass the laws, but until something really happens at the grassroots, nothing is really going to happen. We talked about a number of different resolutions that we were offering up. I think the gentleman from Georgia then was in the middle of writing his book and how we could come together. A couple of weeks later, he asked me on the House floor if I might make the pilgrimage to Selma in 1998. When he gave me the weekend, March 6, the first weekend, I knew that I had major commitments back home in Michigan, that I could not do it, but somehow we juggled some things around and I flew down just for the day. I had never been to Alabama, ever. I flew down that Sunday morning, caught the first flight out at National Airport at 6 a.m. or whatever, terrible storm, got down just in time to hear John's sermon in the church. His sermon reflected a little bit on who would have guessed, me, John Lewis, 33 years later, coming here to preach in the same church where Dr. King had preached and seeing some of the changes but knowing we had so far to go. We walked across the bridge, we took a bus ride, we had a long discussion about racism and bigotry and what it meant in our own lives. We came back. The gentleman then came back to my district. We had a tough scene this last summer. We had the Klan come to my district for the first time that I can ever remember. They were not welcome. Yet they had the right to come. As you and I both met with a number of leaders in my hometown, we discussed how we ought to deal with it. You went back to really sort of the roots of what you wrote about in your book and your life, about nonviolence, how we ought to make it a nonevent, and we did. And in the end, they canceled their visit the day that they were supposed to come, though they came a few months later, and they found out that there was no welcome wagon out and people for the most part ignored them. The reaction was perfect. As we thought about this trip this year, and Amo Houghton was the cochair last year, the Republican cochair along with Jim Nicholson, our Republican national chairman and the former governor of Colorado last year as well, I was privileged to be asked to cochair this group and really spend a night or two in Alabama, to have listened to the stories of so many Members last year when they talked about their meeting with Governor Wallace. I can remember Sherrod Brown and you going to visit him literally in, I do not know if it was a hospital or his room, but he was not doing so well. Of course he has passed away today. And the white Members were not anxious to have their picture taken with him, thinking about all of the efforts that Governor Wallace had done at the schoolhouse door and everyplace else. Yet you had forgiven him, peace in your heart. He knew that he had erred, he had asked for forgiveness and in fact he came around. As we read your book, John, and listen to your words, your wonderful words about leading the nonviolent effort, to see the courageous struggle that you went through and to visit the sites, whether they be in Montgomery or Birmingham, to see where Rosa Parks was taken off that bus, to look in the church where Dr. King first spoke or first became a minister, to see the shrine in the basement of the four wonderful, beautiful little girls who were killed with a bomb on a Sunday, to go through that wonderful museum in Birmingham, to see really, to touch the jail cell, to see the bombed-out bus that you and others had ridden at some point, to walk through that park, to see the dogs with their fangs out and to learn from Bernard Lafayette that in fact one of the German shepherds had a gold-plated tooth that the police riled up when he charged those kids. We are so thankful for the work that you did to really help change America for the better. The reason that this pilgrimage was so important was for us to know where we are going, we have got to know where we have been. We know where we have been now, those of us that were not from there, and we know that we never ever want to go back. Yet there is work that we have to do. As Republicans and Democrats, as Members in this Chamber and the other and across the country, we have to make sure that there is no room in our hearts for hatred, for bigotry or racism. It is your footsteps and it is your leadership and it is your grace that allowed us to see the path that you took that helps give us the conviction and the courage and the perseverance to continue that path. We are so appreciative of that love and of that work, John.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Forbes), a very special member of the delegation who has always spoken against discrimination and bigotry.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) who was a great fellow to join us with his wife as well on the trip as we crossed the State.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) who joined us and helped us in every way.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry) was an active member with our group going down, and again, for me, was one of the first times I actually had a chance to have lengthy and decent conversations with a naval representative from Arkansas. It was terrific to have him on board, too.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, one of the individuals that we had wished had been with us for the full time but was with us for certainly a good part of it was the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey). All of us here participated in many discussions and conferences, not only with the White House but with other folks, not only in this town but across the country. The gentleman from Arkansas has been a special help on this, and his heart is big, and we appreciate that. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Dickey).

Mr. UPTON. We like having the gentleman from California on this side of the aisle. We will keep working on it.

Mr. UPTON. Madam Speaker, this was a great trip in that all of us here, 20 or so that went down on both sides of the aisle, I thought became much stronger friends as we renewed our commitment to end racism and bigotry and discrimination. And as much as we thought we knew each other on the trip, we always learn something new. I have been in a little prayer group with the gentleman from California (Mr. Filner), and it was only until we got on the bus and my wife and I were sitting in front of Bob and his wife and we sort of talked about our experiences that I thought when I was in the mid-'60s when this event really happened, I did not know about it. I was in fourth grade. I did not see that on the news. I did not watch the news when I was in the fourth grade. It came out in the description, as I was listening to the gentleman from California, and he was talking about a variety of different events and seeing different things unfold, that I learned that he had been a student in college and had seen some of the events and actually took it upon himself to come down and become, in essence, one of the Freedom Riders on one of those buses. I know that it was a marvelous experience for him. He actually spent some time in prison because of it. And this was his first trip back to Alabama since then. I would love to hear a little bit of the gentleman's thoughts firsthand tonight.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I do not vote for the supplemental bills very often, and I give great credit to the new chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and to our new Speaker, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert). Several weeks ago they began to figure out how they are going to get the votes to pass this bill, and they sort of looked at, I guess, the list of folks who have traditionally opposed these bills, and they called a meeting, and they said: Why? And I said: Well, my reasons are real easy; three of them: One, they are not usually emergency supplementals; ought to be regular order, they ought to go the regular process. Two, they are never paid for; and, three, there is usually so much pork in some of those bills that it makes us sick, and I said, ``O for three; that's why I vote against them,'' and, to the credit of the chairman of the committee they are really batting three for three. It is paid for, they whittled out some of the stuff that was in there that really was not an emergency, could be taken care of, and there was not a single bridge or armory or anything in there that someone might be able to call pork. For those reasons I am voting for this bill this afternoon, and I would not only encourage my colleagues to vote for this bill, but also send a warning to our friends on the other side of this building. As I understand it, their bill is already larger; as I understand it, their bill is not paid for; and third, we can start hearing those words ``su wee'' for the pork that some of the Members on that side of the body have put in this bill that has got to be taken out, and I hope that our passage of the bill this afternoon proves our point: Batting three for three; not even Sammy Sosa can do as well.