Henry Waxman

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, either this is April Fool's Day or the Republicans are trying to fool the House of Representatives and the country by attempting to pass this legislation. There is no truth in labeling whatsoever in H.R. 1255, the ``Government Shutdown Prevention Act of 2011.'' It will prevent no such thing. It will accomplish no such thing. Section 2 of the bill says that if the House has not received a message from the Senate stating, by next Wednesday, April 6, that the Senate has passed a spending bill for the balance of this fiscal year, then ``the provisions of H.R. 1, as passed by the House on February 19, 2011, are hereby enacted into law.'' Who are the authors of this bill kidding? The House passed H.R. 1. It lies defeated on the Senate floor, unloved and unwanted. The Senate voted against H.R. 1, 44-56. It did not even get 50 votes, much less 60. So what, exactly, is the point of this exercise today? It is obviously not to enact H.R. 1, because that is futile. With the vote on this bill today, we will in effect be passing H.R. 1 a second time. This is getting to be a pattern. Instead of finding bipartisan solutions to our pressing national problems, this Republican House seems stuck on a pointless partisan treadmill. H.R. 1 contained five amendments to defund the Affordable Care Act. Yesterday, the Energy and Commerce Committee passed five bills to remove funding for public health and doctor training programs under the Affordable Care Act. The majority passed 9 amendments in H.R. 1 that stop EPA from implementing climate change and pollution rules. And next week, we will vote on another bill doing the same thing. The majority passed an amendment to H.R. 1 that keeps the American people from the benefits of an open and free Internet. Next week, we will pass this again. The majority defunded all of public broadcasting in H.R. 1, and then defunded NPR on the House floor a couple weeks later. On this April Fool's Day, do you want to know the truth about all this frantic legislative activity? After three months on the job, we have not created one job--because of one simple fact. In three months, the Republican leadership has not passed one major bill of any consequence that has been enacted into law. That is the simple truth. They have failed to enact anything of consequence. And so with that shameful record, they come to the floor today with an illusion, a joke, a diversion, a cover-up for their failure. The Republicans have the votes to pass a bill that says their spending cuts and ideological amendments are hereby enacted if we pass this bill. But we are not enacting this bill, because under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution of the United States, this bill has to go to the Senate and be passed in identical form and then signed by the President. Madam Speaker, this is April Fool's Day, and this is a bill for fools. But the American people will not be fooled.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, Santa Monica Airport is a unique general aviation facility located in my congressional district. Each end of the bidirectional runway is abutted by steep hills, public streets, and densely populated neighborhoods, with homes as close as 250 feet. The airport has no runway safety areas. If a plane overshot the runway or failed to lift off upon departure, it could easily land in the neighborhood. The amendment I offer today is simple and straightforward. It urges the FAA to continue its discussion with the city of Santa Monica to identify a meaningful solution to address serious safety concerns at the Santa Monica Airport. For nearly a decade, I've joined the community, the city of Santa Monica and the Airport Administration to push the FAA to address this serious safety gap. While the FAA has had discussions with the city and presented a runway safety proposal, its response has simply fallen short. The FAA has acknowledged that its proposal is both insufficient to stop larger jets from an overrun and inadequate to prevent overshoots involving smaller planes. My constituents and the pilots and passengers who use Santa Monica Airport deserve better. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would be pleased to yield to the chairman of the committee.

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the chairman.

Mr. WAXMAN. I would be pleased to yield to the ranking member of the committee.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 28, which would require the removal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by December 31, 2011. Last Congress, I voted to give the President a year to plan for an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan. I also voted to defund military operations except for the minimum needed to safely withdraw. I am disappointed that those measures failed, but I am even more disappointed that the administration has not yet acted decisively to chart a clear course to bring our troops home. We are spending billions of dollars a month to prop up a corrupt Afghan government that has not proven capable to the challenges of governance. Flawed elections, rampant bribery, blatant nepotism, banking abuses, and a lack of accountability have crippled the best efforts of the international community to establish rule of law. After nearly a decade of conflict, it is time to step back, reevaluate, and correct our course. Thanks to the efforts and sacrifices made by our troops and coalition partners, we have seen successes in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan. CIA Director Leon Panetta has estimated that the number of al Qaeda operatives remaining in Afghanistan has substantially diminished. We should not minimize the gains our troops have made. But we must recognize that when open-ended nation building eclipses our original military objectives, we commit our blood and treasure to an uncertain, costly, and unconstrained course. Mr. Speaker, this is not a perfect bill. But I believe it is the best way to send a clear message. I applaud President Obama for disengaging us from Iraq. Now it is time to do the same from Afghanistan. Let's do what it takes to bring our troops home.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, with the passing of Elizabeth Taylor last week, America, and the world, lost much more than a great movie actress, more than a celebrated legend and cherished celebrity, and more than a woman of enduring beauty and appeal. We lost a champion fighter for the survival and dignity of those with HIV/AIDS. Of many causes which Elizabeth Taylor embraced, such as her support for the State of Israel and the Jewish people, it was her great courage and selfless commitment that defined her work to support every effort to find a cure for HIV/AIDS, and to protect the rights of every person living with HIV/AIDS. We forget how long and hard the struggle has been--precisely because of the heroic progress that has been made, medically and socially, in treating and living with HIV/AIDS. It's hard to remember, but in the early 1980s, people knew very little about AIDS. The nation went on a publicity roller-coaster, going from complacency to panic and back again. She was among a handful of people in those early days of the epidemic who managed to get us to the right level of urgency. One, obviously, was Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. Another was Tony Fauci at NIH. But many people got their most memorable information from an unexpected source--Elizabeth Taylor. Beginning with her concern for her friends who were sick, she became an ambassador for people living with AIDS, for their doctors, and for AIDS research. When the Reagan White House was refusing even to acknowledge that tens of thousands of Americans were sick and dying, she went public. To those who would shun our fellow citizens with HIV/AIDS, Elizabeth Taylor literally embraced them--showing us how to respond to a terrible illness that exacted a relentless toll on millions. And so it was Elizabeth Taylor who called us to account every day, as individuals and as a society, for the humanity of those with HIV/AIDS. Working with Dr. Mathilde Krim, Elizabeth Taylor championed the American Foundation for AIDS Research, a group that advocated for AIDS research and found funding for research that no one else was financing--functions it serves to this day. To her enduring credit, Ms. Taylor leveraged her unique celebrity to speak truth to power, going to the media, the Administration, and Congress to urge ongoing attention and funding to the epidemic. She testified before the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the House Commerce Committee about the need for research, prevention, education and treatment and about the Congress' responsibilities to find funds for them. Her efforts helped seal public support for the 1990 Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency (CARE) Act. She was a movie star. But she used her star power to do something that scientists, doctors, and public health officials could not have accomplished on their own. She made the nation stop, look, listen, and understand what was at stake for those with HIV/AIDS and for us as a society. In this way, Elizabeth Taylor helped motivate us to start doing needed work. For that we owe her more than movie-star fame. She may be remembered most for her screen roles. But it was her living role as a healer for which we owe Elizabeth Taylor a debt of profound gratitude--for lives improved and lives saved, for advances in treatment and prevention, and for the hope of one day finding a cure for HIV/AIDS.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes. I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1076. This bill will cripple National Public Radio, public radio stations, and programming that is vital to over 27 million Americans. We are now voting to deny the public access to one of our Nation's most credible sources of news coverage. CBO has scored this bill. It does not save a penny. This means that this legislation does not serve any fiscal purpose, but it does serve an ugly ideological one. This legislation is not about reforming NPR. It is about punishing NPR. We've held no hearings on this bill. It didn't get referred to the committee for consideration. It's being handled as if it were an emergency. We don't even know all the facts, but that's apparently no impediment. For decades, decisions on Federal support for public broadcasting have been made 2 years in advance to insulate public broadcasting from politically motivated interference. This bill removes that buffer. NPR is now exposed to the full force of the political winds that blow through the House of Representatives. That means the independence and objectivity that public broadcasting has tried so hard to uphold is now subject, clearly, to political interference. For those who complain that they don't want content to be one way or the other on the political spectrum, to be honest and fair, the right- wing Republicans are trying to impose their view of what NPR should be saying in the content of their programming. They will say that's not the case; but, Mr. Speaker, that is the case. There is no reason for this bill. It is vindictive, it is mean- spirited, it is going to hit the smallest stations in rural areas particularly hard. Public radio is indispensable for access to news that's hard to get, especially where broadband service is limited. I urge my colleagues to vote against this bill. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentlewoman from the State of California (Ms. Eshoo), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, be allowed to control the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, there is widespread bipartisan agreement that the 1099 reporting rules need revision. In fact, the agreement is so widespread that I'm mystified why we're having this debate. The Senate passed a repeal of this policy earlier this year on a bipartisan basis. The House, last year, failed to pass a repeal of the provision only because of Republican opposition. But now we all agree, let's repeal it. What's the hang-up? The hang-up is the Republicans want to pay for this business tax cut on the backs of lower- and middle-income families. This bill would increase taxes by $25 billion in total on families earning less than $110,000. Families with incomes around $90,000 per year could see increases in taxes of $3,000, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. This is a remarkable piece of legislation because it unwinds a near- unanimous agreement that we had last year. This policy wouldn't just increase taxes. It would discourage enrollment in health plans in health exchanges. Under the Republican proposal, people who are eligible for tax credits would have to think very hard as to whether they were estimating their income accurately. They are estimating this income in the beginning of the year, but later in the year, they may get a raise, they may get a promotion. They may even get a job. And then they could be hit with a huge repayment penalty for a simple mistake: a promotion or a new job. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that this deterrent effect would increase the number of uninsured by 266,000 people. Let's withdraw this pay-for and let's get something more reasonable. And under these circumstances, I cannot support the bill in its present form today, although I certainly support the changes in the 1099 reporting rules.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) who authored this particular provision in the consumer product safety legislation.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, my colleagues, this amendment would eliminate funding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC. The U.S. contributes only $2.3 million to the IPCC, and our $2.3 million contribution leverages a global science assessment institution with global outreach and global technical input, a process we could not carry out alone and one that could come to a halt without U.S. support. Their work on climate change is unparalleled. In its four assessment reports to date, they have brought together thousands of scientists around the world in disciplines ranging from atmospheric science, to forest ecology, to economics to provide objective and policy neutral information. The panel has attracted hundreds of the best U.S. scientists. In fact, a majority of the research that's reviewed is undertaken in U.S. institutions. The IPCC's work has been lauded by the U.S. Academy of Sciences and by the InterAcademy Council, a body comprised of the national academies of the world. In fact, in 2007 that organization won the Nobel Prize for its assessment work. This institution is a nonpartisan and technically extraordinarily sound organization. The Republican majority has already voted to prevent the EPA from using funds to regulate greenhouse gases. Now we're being asked to defund the work of international scientists to learn about the threat. Now, the assumption, I assume, is that there is no threat and, therefore, let's not study it. I think that is not a wise assumption. This is a very shortsighted proposal to cut these funds. It's like putting our heads in the sand, denying the science, and then stopping the scientists from working because they might come to a different conclusion than the Republican majority's ideology in believing that there is no such problem and therefore we don't need to know about it or do anything about it. If we're not going to do anything here at home, let's at least work internationally to understand the threat and to deal with other countries to combat it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I don't understand how the gentleman from Missouri can say that this is a nefarious group of people. After all, these are people who are scientists, who've won the Nobel Prize for their scientific activities. I used to think that people from Missouri were from the Show-Me State. Now I gather what this gentleman from Missouri is suggesting is ``I don't want to know about it.'' I don't think that is what the position ought to be of the United States Congress. Let's learn the facts and then decide what to do about it but not stop trying to know what the science is behind the global threats.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WAXMAN. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. I want to tell you a story. On December 22, 2008, in Kingston, Tennessee, a coal ash impoundment structurally failed, and they released 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic sludge. This sludge blanketed the Emory River and 300 acres of surrounding land, creating a Superfund site that could cost up to $825 million to remediate. If this coal ash had been stored safely, this tragedy would never have happened. The wastes are dangerous. What EPA has tried to do is to make sure that the hazardous waste is disposed of safely to protect the health of communities. And I find it somewhat amazing to hear the author of this amendment say that EPA is acting on an ideological agenda. How ideological do you have to be to act when you have an example of a terrible amount of coal ash poisoning areas and threatening drinking water? Is that ideological when they want to make sure that it's safeguarded and disposed of in a proper way? That's not ideological. That's the kind of thing we want EPA to do. So I would urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield myself 2 minutes. This amendment would deny the Consumer Product Safety Commission the implementation of a searchable public consumer safety information database. Now this database was part of a bill that passed this House by 424-1. We required a database, and CPSC is ready to release this database. It's based on similar successful databases run at the present time by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It would allow consumers to report harms associated with consumer products and then to research risks associated with these particular products. This is exactly what the American people want. They want information. They have a right to know. And, in fact, every opinion poll indicates this. This amendment is a ``keep the consumers in the dark'' amendment. Parents want to know if a toy is dangerous. This amendment would take away their right to go to a database that would give them this information. Now the claims against the database are pretty shocking. The manufacturers say, Well, this is going to be a problem because they're going to put things on the database that are trade secrets or inaccurate. This is simply not the case. There is a safeguard. In fact, there are safeguards after safeguards to protect manufacturers. The statute provides more procedural safeguards than any other public database at a Federal agency. Anonymous complaints are not allowed, only safety-related information will be included. Businesses get to see every report of harm before it is placed in the database. They have an opportunity to correct inaccurate information and to provide their own comments. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the ranking member of the subcommittee that has jurisdiction over this issue, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield).

Mr. WAXMAN. May I inquire of the Chair how much time each side has left?

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, in my last 30 seconds, let me just say this is an issue of the public's right to know. Let this database be available to them so they don't go buy a toy that they could have checked out on a Web site and found out that it was poisonous. I urge the defeat of this amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, you would think that EPA is about to regulate these fine particulate matter for the very first time, but that's not accurate. PM10 is already regulated because EPA had to set a standard to protect the public health. These small particulates can get into your lungs, and they can cause increased respiratory symptoms in children, and can cause premature death in people with heart and lung disease, so EPA sets a standard to protect the public health. What this amendment would do would be to stop EPA from setting a standard that might be tighter if the science dictates it. Once they set a standard, EPA does not regulate. EPA leaves it to the States to decide how they will meet that standard. EPA is already talking to the stakeholders in the agricultural communities. In the past, the vast majority of States has not required farms to take any action that would require reductions of this pollution. Instead, States have typically reduced particles from industrial processes. California and Arizona are addressing agricultural pollution by incorporating USDA-approved conservation measures in some areas. EPA does not target monitoring in rural areas. They are reaching out to their stakeholders. EPA should not be stopped by this amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentlelady for yielding to me to participate in this debate. It's really quite amazing, Mr. Chairman, the alternative reality that has been created on the Republican side. They never liked the health care bill--I think people know that already--but it is the law of the land. They tried to repeal it. They haven't been able to do it. But the health care bill passed. Under the laws of the United States, people have certain rights under this legislation. For example, insurers cannot drop people's coverage when they get sick. Seniors are saving money on prescription drugs. Young adults to 26 are getting back on their parents' insurance, and small businesses are receiving billions of dollars in tax credits to provide health care coverage. The Republicans said they like all of that. They like that. When they give us a bill, they're going to have all that in it. Meanwhile, they want to stop those things from happening under the existing law. Defunding amendments will end these benefits, putting health insurance companies back in charge of Americans' health care. We should realize, when we have a law, it should be implemented in a reasonable, responsive and efficient manner. States want it. Insurers want it. Businesses want it. Health care providers want it. Trying to starve a program so we cannot implement it in a reasonable manner is irresponsible. Defunding amendments offered in the guise of budget austerity is actually one step toward repealing the largest deficit cutter passed in the last decade, the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act, if this amendment passes, will be stopped. There will be no prohibition against discrimination for over 100 million Americans with preexisting conditions; no prohibition on insurance companies canceling your coverage when you get sick; no prohibition on lifetime caps and annual limits; no required coverage for young adults on their parents' policies; no assistance to seniors struggling to afford the cost of drugs in the doughnut hole and no free annual checkups in Medicare; and no tax credits for families and small businesses to pay for health insurance. The full impact of this legislation will happen in 2014, which will require the Department of Health and Human Services to put into place its implementation so that we can move on a clear, reasonable path to accomplishing these goals. The repeal or even this defunding proposal is a boon for insurance companies, but it is an enormous setback for American families. That's why I urge all Members to vote ``no'' on this amendment.