Dave Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, soon I will be introducing legislation to give incapacitated individuals their explicit due process rights of habeas corpus when a court orders their death by removal of nutrition, hydration and medical treatment. The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act gives incapacitated persons the same rights of due process available to death row inmates. The Act will open up an avenue of legal relief currently not clearly available to disabled and incapacitated individuals who are unable to speak for themselves. These individuals can become the subject of a court order affecting their death, such as the case of Terri Schiavo. Terri is a Florida woman who, at age 27, suffered a heart attack and experienced brain damage due to lack of oxygen. While in the hospital, tubes were inserted in her digestive system to provide nutrition and hydration and continue to keep her alive. Ten years after Terri's unfortunate condition occurred, her husband moved to have the feeding tubes removed intending to end her life. This occurred after Terri received nearly $1.5 million in jury awards and legal settlements. Fortunately for Terri, her parents intervened against the desire of Terri's husband and have stayed her death through legal maneuvering until last week. On Friday, February 25, Judge George Greer issued an order to remove the nutrition and hydration of Terri on Friday, March 18 at 1 p.m. This order will initiate the starvation death of Terri. To my knowledge, it is unprecedented in law. All through the Schiavo trial, Terri's parents and husband have been afforded counsel, yet Terri has never been afforded independent counsel, in a matter that will result in her life or death. Terri has had no voice of her own in these legal proceedings, something so fundamental to every adult American, even convicted murderers. The case of Terri Schiavo deserves a second look by an objective court. For example, despite the court's pronouncement that she is in a persistent vegetative state, evidence exists to the contrary. Terri is not in a coma as I would define it, and I am a physician. She is not on a respirator or other 24-hour-a-day medical equipment. Terri is responsive to stimuli, such as voices, touch and the presence of people. She can move her head and establish eye contact. Terri can smile, demonstrate facial expressions and cry. She can arch her back and move away or towards voices and people. Terri makes sounds and attempts to vocalize as a way of communication. As a physician who has cared for people in comas and who were considered in a persistent vegetative state, I have some experience in determining the degree of incapacitation of disabled individuals, and it is a travesty to countenance the notion of putting her to death somehow because she is not able to speak. Terri and similar incapacitated people should be afforded the same constitutional protection of due process as death row inmates whose lives hang in the balance in judicial proceedings. Because in cases like these, mistakes are not subject to correction, Terri and people similarly situated must have access to de novo review of their case and representation, just like any death row inmate gets. The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act, which I am going to introduce soon, explicitly recognizes in Federal law the due process protection of habeas corpus appeal for incapacitated individuals who are the subject of a court order to effect their death by removal of nutrition, hydration or medical treatment. It does not apply to circumstances where advanced medical directives are in effect. The Act simply provides a final avenue for review of the case to ensure that a incapacitated person's constitutional rights of due process are maintained and that justice is done. Now, we know that lawyers are going to file habeas corpus claims about this case, and that is not a surprise and nothing prohibits them from doing so. The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act is needed because the state of the law on this topic needs to be clarified. These cases are typically reserved for criminal cases. In civil cases like Terri's, the decision to even consider a habeas appeal is at the court's discretion. The Constitution in the 14th Amendment, however, gives Congress the express authority to protect the life of any person by directing the judiciary with respect to the guarantee of due process and equal protection under the law. That is what the Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act does. It tells the courts that the due process and equal protection rights of incapacitated persons are explicitly authorized under Federal habeas corpus statutes.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding me this time and providing me the opportunity to speak on this important issue. I want to commend the gentlewoman from California for her leadership in this arena. As I have spoken about many times on the floor of the House, prior to being elected to the Congress, I used to take care of AIDS patients; and I and my colleagues in the field began to see in the 1980s the very disturbing trend lines in the black community; and indeed now, today, those trend lines continue going up and up and up, and we have a very significant crisis. The President asked me several years ago to assist him in getting his African AIDS initiative through the House and getting it enacted into law, and I was very pleased to be able to help in that arena. I had the opportunity to go to Africa twice in 2003 to actually look at what was going on in Africa, what was working and what was not working. Since that time, I have met with many of the black ministers in my congressional district. Florida has had a problem with AIDS literally from the getgo. We were one of the States with the higher prevalence rates. Close to 95,000 people in Florida currently live with HIV or AIDS, which is about 10 or 11 percent of the national total. The Miami- Dade, Palm Beach, and Broward County areas tend to be the most adversely affected areas. African Americans, Haitians, and other people from the Caribbean islands make up a disproportionately high number. It is roughly half of all HIV/AIDS cases, but they are only 14 percent of the population. What is particularly disturbing, and I think the gentlewoman from California touched on this, is that black women are becoming disproportionately involved. Seventy-two percent of both HIV and AIDS cases in Florida's black community involve women. So this is a disproportionately large number of black Americans and a disproportionately large number of women. It is estimated that one in 47 black Floridians have HIV/AIDS compared to one in 176 Hispanics and one in 346 whites. CDC reports that HIV/AIDS transmission among African American men is mostly due to men having sex with men, but among African American women it is through heterosexual contact. Now, I can get into a lot of the medical details here, but it is really not the appropriate environment, so I will just throw out that from an epidemiologic perspective, part of the problem in the black community is similar to what was the problem in the gay community in the 1980s, and it is actually a phenomenon called ``concurrence.'' Until we can get at that issue appropriately, we are not going to really defeat this challenge. I was very glad that the gentlewoman mentioned ABC. There is too much of an emphasis on the C and not enough on the A and the B, and I encourage all of my colleagues to look at what happened in Uganda in the 1980s, the late 1980s and the early 1990s. They lowered their AIDS rate from 17 percent, 16 percent, down to about 5 or 6 percent with no condoms being shipped in from Europe and other places. No help from the United States, Europe, or NATO. The Ugandans did it on their own. And what was it? It was A, B, C, with an emphasis on abstinence. The statistics from this we should never discount. People are smarter than a lot of the experts give them credit for. You give them the facts, they can change their behavior. Faithfulness in marriage and abstinence education had a profound impact in Uganda. We need to stress that throughout the African continent; and most importantly, our pastors in the black communities need to start getting that out to their congregations and public health officials. I believe we can turn this challenge around. I commend the gentlewoman and the Black Caucus leadership on this issue. It is really a problem, and I think if we do more, we can get a lot of good things done. I used to take care of these patients. It is very, very tragic; and I believe that the costs associated with this are going to be huge in the years ahead. So if you are not motivated by compassion, look at the dollars. We should all be motivated, white, black, Democrat, Republican, to get engaged on this and do something.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and also support the nomination of Judge Alberto Gonzales to serve as Attorney General of the United States. Judge Gonzales has served as counsel to the President, a jurist on the Supreme Court of Texas, Secretary of State and chief elections officer in Texas, as well as then-Governor Bush's chief counsel. Before joining the Governor's staff, he was one of the first two minority partners with the law firm of Vinson & Elkins in Houston. Judge Gonzales is extremely qualified to serve as our Nation's Attorney General. Born in 1955 in San Antonio, Texas, to Maria and Pablo Gonzales, two Mexican-American migrant workers, Judge Gonzales learned firsthand the meaning of hard work, determination, and integrity at a young age. He was the first in his family to attend college, continued on to Harvard Law School, served in the United States Air Force, and later attended the U.S. Air Force Academy. Mr. Speaker, I have full confidence that upon Senate confirmation, Judge Gonzales will help protect Americans from terrorism while also protecting our rights as the Nation's chief law enforcement officer. He will continue working to bring those who commit corporate fraud to justice, reforming the FBI, and building on the Bush administration's success in reducing crime. It is an honor to support Judge Gonzales. He is an outstanding Mexican-American, an outstanding example of the American Dream, and we will be proud of his service to our Nation as our Attorney General.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in support of H. Res. 23, recognizing the contributions of Catholic schools. Catholic schools are recognized around the world as great institutions of learning, with a rich tradition of academic excellence. Teachers in Catholic schools see the potential in their students, and push them to achieve that potential, serving the needs of children across the socioeconomic spectrum. The secret for the success of Catholic schools is really no secret. They get parents involved in the process of educating their children, and they push the students to do their best, refusing to be satisfied with mediocrity. For Catholic schools, cultivating moral excellence in students is just as important as academic excellence, producing young adults that know right and wrong just as well as their multiplication tables. They instill an understanding of the intrinsic value of each and every individual, regardless of race, gender, color, or creed. Catholic schools serve more than 650,000 minority students each year, creating academically successful schools in many neighborhoods that have given up on children. And so, with H. Res. 23, let us express our gratitude to the hundreds of Catholic schools across the country, for their efforts to promote the moral and intellectual health of America's youth.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the foundation of American democracy is freedom. In particular, as Americans we are all free to choose or decline issues of conscience, but regarding abortion, choice is losing in a way that may surprise many people. Such is the case regarding physicians, hospitals and health plans that choose not to perform, pay for or refer for abortions. From Alaska to New Jersey, abortion advocacy groups are forcing health care entities to do the very thing they would not if they had the choice. Abortion advocates are using the courts, State and local agencies and laws to mandate that abortions be performed, paid for and referred for. In July of 2002, an Alaska court forced a community hospital to provide elective, non-life-threatening, late-term abortions contrary to its policy. In New Jersey, abortion advocacy groups urged the State of New Jersey to require a Catholic health system to build an abortion clinic on its premises. Last year, the State of New Mexico refused to approve a hospital lease because the hospital-owned system declined to perform elective abortions. Such coercion is wrong and should not be permitted, particularly with Federal taxpayer dollars. Roe v. Wade created a woman's right to an abortion. Today Federal law requires that an abortion be provided to a woman in a life-threatening situation, but in a perverse concerted effort, radical advocates for abortion are engaging in legislative and court efforts to coerce health care providers, health plans and clinics to provide, pay for and refer for elective, non-life-threatening abortions. In July of last year, I offered an amendment during committee consideration of the Labor-HHS appropriation bill to stop this coercion. This provision was included in the bill when it came to the floor of the House, to which no one objected. It was then included in the final consolidated appropriation bill for 2005. The Hyde-Weldon amendment is simple. It prevents Federal funding when courts and other government agencies force or require physicians, clinics and hospitals and health insurers to participate in elective abortions. My amendment in no way infringes on a woman's ability to seek and receive elective abortions. It simply states you cannot force the unwilling. The amendment does not apply to willing abortion providers. Hyde- Weldon allows any health care entity to participate in abortions in any way they choose. It simply prohibits coercion in nonlife-threatening situations. But there is the rub. People who call themselves prochoice want no tolerance afforded toward health care entities that desire their rights of conscience be respected. Sadly, radical abortion advocates only support choice on their terms and are more than willing to use the coercive power of government to advance their agenda. Their true mantra seems to be: safe, legal, and coerced. It is predictable that abortion advocates would look to the courts to enforce their bizarre notion that abortion should not be provided just by the willing but also the unwilling, and that is just what has happened today. In California, Attorney General Lockyer filed a lawsuit against the Hyde-Weldon amendment. He makes a number of assertions in the complaint, and I want to look at some of them right now. Interestingly, Mr. Lockyer seems to be eager to reserve the right of the State to coerce an unwilling health care provider to participate in an elective abortion, despite the fact their own State law prohibits them, and which my amendment attempts to provide such protection to all health care providers nationally. In the 26-page complaint, the California Attorney General fails to point to even one example of a single case supporting the assertion that the Hyde-Weldon amendment would somehow interfere with the State's desire to see abortion services offered as an emergency medical service. The complaint offers no specific case where an emergency situation required an abortion in which a health care provider refused on grounds of conscience. Why? Because it does not happen. The bulk of the rhetoric in the complaint is about this very speculative scenario. The question I have for the California Attorney General is: Prior to my amendment, was California compelling non-willing providers to perform emergency abortions? If no, then the Attorney General has nothing to fear from my amendment because that is all it addresses. If the answer is yes, then the Attorney General wishes to protect this practice as evidenced by his desire to litigate over it. In fact, if the answer is yes, the Attorney General is ready to subordinate all other spending priorities in his State to defend his position of coerced abortions. In this court filing he raises the notion that women will die because they will not have access to an abortion needed to save the life of the mother. Hyde-Weldon does nothing of the sort. It ensures that in situations where a mother's life is in danger a health care provider must act to protect the mother's life. In fact, Congress passed the Federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) forbidding critical-care health facilities to abandon patients in medical emergencies, and requires them to provide treatment to stabilize the medical condition of such patients-- particularly pregnant women. The bottom line is that this lawsuit seems to be more about politics and using the coercive power of the state for forced participation in abortion, rather than ensuring that pregnant women in emergency situations have access to life-saving care.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my frustration at the increasing disconnect between what the American people believe is critical for improving our national security and what those inside the Washington Beltway believe, particularly with regard to illegal immigration. On the floor for our consideration is legislation to enact portions of recommendations from the 9-11 Commission. Unfortunately, the bill omits significant 9-11 Commission recommendations regarding stricter enforcement of immigration laws and securing our borders. The 9-11 terrorists exploited our immigration system in order to carry out the murder of over three thousand Americans. Yet, today, due to opposition of these critical provisions by certain members of the U.S. Senate, the legislation before us today is silent on closing these immigration loopholes. The 9-11 Commissioners all have publicly called for Congress to enact serious immigration reform. The fact that illegal immigrants can enter our country and obtain driver licenses and ``game the system'' to remain concealed from law enforcement is an affront to all Americans and endangers our security. Does anyone think that our enemies will cease to look for and exploit weaknesses in our defenses? Does anyone think they will not look to continue exploiting the loopholes in our immigration laws? Does anyone think it makes us safer to keep the status quo? Today, is the day we should be passing these reforms, not next year, and not after the next terror attack. This bill will pass today, but it will do so with significant security gaps. I believe it is critical that we address the omissions from this bill as soon as possible. We cannot afford to put off these critical national security needs.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman for bringing this important rule to the floor. I would also like to join in the chorus of others commending the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). He has been an outstanding chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. I guess this is the gentleman's last bill as full committee chairman. I thank the gentleman for being a friend and a mentor to me, and I am certainly glad we are going to continue to have the gentleman on the committee. Several Members have risen to criticize the included Weldon language in this bill, and I want to clarify that this is the Weldon-Hyde language. This is a continuation of the Hyde policy of conscience protection. The reason I sought to include this provision in the bill is my experience as a physician, and I still see patients, is that the majority of nurses, technicians and doctors who claim to be pro-choice who claim to support Roe v. Wade always say to me that they would never want to participate in an abortion, perform an abortion, or be affiliated with doing an abortion. This provision is meant to protect health care entities from discrimination because they choose not to provide abortion services. The measure was adopted during the full committee consideration, and those who opposed it had an opportunity to call for a vote in committee and on the floor, and they did not. This provision is intended to protect the decisions of physicians, nurses, clinics, hospitals, medical centers, and even health insurance providers from being forced by the government to provide, refer, or pay for abortions. This is a reasonable Federal policy, one that was overwhelmingly approved by this very body by a vote of 229-189. The policy simply states that health care entities should not be forced to provide elective abortions, a practice to which a majority of health care providers object, and I can tell Members from personal experience, and which they will not perform as a matter of conscience. Forty-five States and the Federal Government protect the right of health care providers to decline participation in abortions, and abortion advocates are working to abolish these legal protections in the courts and through the regulatory process. Abortion advocates have launched a campaign to force hospitals and health care entities to provide, refer, and pay for abortions. Abortion advocates argue that the term ``health care entity'' only covers individuals and not institutions. Abortion advocates argue that because an entity receives Federal funds they are required to provide abortions. By twisting the law, they have successfully used the court and State and local governments to violate the objections to abortions of health care entities and providers. Let me give some examples of what I am talking about. In July 2002, an Alaskan court forced a community hospital to provide elective late-term abortions contrary to its policy and the sentiment of the community. In New Jersey, abortion advocacy groups urged the State of New Jersey to require a Catholic health system to build an abortion clinic on its premises to serve what they stated was a right of access to abortion. This year the State of New Mexico refused to approve a hospital lease because the community-owned hospital declined to perform elective abortions. This provision makes two simple changes in the existing law to prevent discrimination. It explicitly clarifies existing law to state that a health care entity includes a hospital, a health professional, a provider-sponsored organization, a health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan or any other kind of health care facility. It goes on further to state that existing law protects health care entities from discrimination based on three kinds of participation in abortion: performing, training and referring. This amendment strengthens existing law, and it is appropriate language for us to have in the bill. This provision only applies to health care entities that refuse to provide abortion services. Furthermore, the provision only affects instances when a government requires that a health care entity provide abortion services. Therefore, contrary to what has been said, this provision will not affect access to abortion, the provision of abortion-related information or services by willing providers or the ability of States to fulfill Federal Medicaid legislation. The right of conscience is fundamental to our American freedoms. We should guarantee this freedom by protecting all health care providers from being forced to perform, refer or pay for elective abortions. This is a good provision. I encourage all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. I thank Dr. Gingrey for his kind words. I must confess that he did not need a lot of mentoring. All his years in the State senate prepared him quite well for the busy work that we are about here. I just want to amplify a little bit on what our good friend, Dr. Burgess, the gentleman from Texas, was talking about, specifically the high cost of defensive medicine. As you mentioned, I was a full-time practicing internal medicine doctor. Actually, I still see patients about once a month in the veterans clinic on a voluntary basis in my district. As an internist, internal medicine specialist, I did a lot of diagnostic tests. A lot of people come in the office saying I hurt here, I hurt there, I can't breathe when I walk. You do a physical examination, and you typically send people off for studies and tests. I regularly on a daily basis practiced defensive medicine. I would do my history and physical, and I would come to a conclusion as to what I thought that patient most likely had and then there was always that little voice in the back of my mind, what if you are wrong? What if you miss something? What if you get sued? What will happen to you if you get sued? Will it hurt your practice? Will you lose patients? Will you lose your house? These are the kinds of things that go through your mind. What you do is you order extra tests. We had a special name for doing that. But I was one doctor in one town, and there are hundreds of thousands of doctors every day in America spending hundreds and thousands of dollars each. I was so glad Dr. Burgess mentioned that study out of Stanford University. That was the first study that conclusively showed that defensive medicine was real and it was very, very costly and that was that famous, a famous study now, that came out of Stanford University. They looked at expenses before medical malpractice and after medical malpractice for just two diagnostic codes, two different conditions, and showed a significant reduction in Medicare charges, and what is most important in this, no increase in what we call morbidity and mortality. In other words, the patients did fine, but the charges went down. They said at the end of that article, this is the first really good scientific study that shows that defensive medicine is real. And how much does it cost? Ladies and gentlemen, we are struggling in this body to figure out how are we going to keep Social Security solvent in the future and how are we going to keep Medicare solvent in the years ahead. Actually, Social Security gets talked about much more in the press, but the real problem is Medicare. Social Security will be solvent for a long time to come. Medicare could start going broke before the end of this decade. The crisis in Medicare is much more serious. What did that study show? It showed that defensive medicine costs us tens of billions, maybe as much as $50 billion, $75 billion a year just in the Medicare plan. How much money could we save over the next 5, 10 years if we on a national level can institute some kind of caps on all of this medical malpractice? Let me just say as well, the problem that we have in the State of Florida is very severe. I know there are many other States that are very severely affected, but I just want to share some statistics here. In 1975, in the State of Florida, there were 380 lawsuits for medical negligence allegations. Those 380 lawsuits resulted in $10.8 million of settlements. It cost $1.5 million for the insurers to defend. In the year 2000, the next year that we have good statistics on this, it went up to 880 lawsuits resulting in awards totaling $219 million. So we have a serious problem. This is not just a Florida problem. This is not just a Georgia problem. It is not just a Texas problem. This is a national problem. This body, the Congress of the United States, we are the fiduciaries of the Medicare plan, and we can save the Medicare plan by putting some reasonable caps on medical malpractice settlements. Every year that I have been here, and I have been here 10 years, going into my sixth term, we have passed some form of medical malpractice reform. Typically, we have passed this $250,000 cap on what we call pain and suffering claims, or noneconomic damages. The important thing there is that if people cannot work, they can be compensated for that. If they have medical bills, they can be compensated for that. And if they have pain and suffering, they can get $250,000. But gone are the days of these multimillion-dollar settlements for pain and suffering. And why do we have to do that? Because we all pay for it. I just want to share one other thing that is critically important. Most of the job creation in my congressional district over the last 10 years has been in the small business sector. When I meet small business men and women in my congressional district and I ask them, what are the problems that you are struggling with now, what can I help you with, invariably the first words that come out of their mouths is the high cost of health insurance for their employees and that many of them cannot afford to insure their employees anymore. What can we do to help them? Actually, one of the best things we can do is pass medical malpractice reform. I spoke earlier, Dr. Burgess spoke earlier, Dr. Gingrey spoke earlier about the high cost of defensive medicine. That drives up health insurance premiums. If you are a small business and you employ 10 people and it is costing you $600 a month per employee to insure all those employees, you can lower that premium if we can get reasonable and sensible caps on medical malpractice. What is going to happen there? It is going to make those businesses more competitive. It is going to make those businesses better able to hire more people. The other thing is there are a lot of small businesses that just have decided they cannot afford health insurance anymore. These are the people that I am most worried about, the working uninsured. These are people who end up using our emergency rooms for their health care services. How can we get some of these uninsured people insured? One of the things we can do is pass medical malpractice reform. This is not just a doctor issue. As a matter of fact, the doctors complain about it all the time, but they just pass the costs on to their patients. This is really a competitiveness issue for our Nation. This is about how do we deal with the uninsured. This is about how do we keep Medicare solvent. And it is a national crisis. I want to thank Dr. Gingrey for taking the lead on this issue. It is a critically important issue. If we can finally get something done in the next Congress, it will be good for the uninsured, it will be good for America, it will be good for OB-GYNs, one of the most aggressively assaulted specialties in the Nation, constantly being sued, many OB- GYNs getting out of the business of delivering babies. In many regions in the country, communities, they do not even have a doctor that delivers babies. They have to get in ambulances and drive or fly in helicopters to a town where there is a doctor who is willing to deliver babies. That is a sad state of affairs. It has been precipitated by the failure of the other body to really take this issue up and deal with it. We have passed it every year that I have been here. We need to do something about it in the 109th Congress. I thank the gentleman so much for his leadership on this. I really appreciate it.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I want to commend the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) for the outstanding work he did on this bill. I also want to commend the President. The initial submission the President had, there was not enough funds in there to take care of all the beaches that had been damaged in the State, and I forwarded the data to them, and I showed them the extent of the damage. The President's staff recognized that we obviously had a greater need, and they were willing to come along with the chairman. I think the system worked very, very well. I think the President and his people were very eager to make sure the people in Florida got what they needed, and it is going to take a while for us to recover from this hurricane, but these funds that the chairman has secured and everybody in this body and the other body and the President worked hard on is going to help get Florida back on track and all the other States that were damaged.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I want to commend him for bringing this work and this piece of legislation to the floor. The past 6 weeks for me in the congressional district I represent have been the worst 6 weeks that I have ever had to deal with. We had Charley rip through the west side of the district after devastating the southwest coast, Punta Gorda, Port Charlotte. It came up into Orlando and devastated the community of Kissimmee and St. Cloud, the community that I represent; 200,000 people without electrical power, hundreds of businesses destroyed, thousands of homes damaged or destroyed. I thought that was it for the season and then a few weeks later we had Frances, devastating the community of Vero Beach, Sabastian, Melbourne Beach, Melbourne. Again, leaving businesses destroyed, people unable to go into their homes. Tragically, it wreaked horrible damage at our Nation's space center, Kennedy Space Center, the vehicle assembly building badly damaged, a critical building that makes thermal installation tiles and blankets for the Space Shuttle, the roof torn off of it. I thought we had had enough. I thought that was basically it. And then to our shock and amazement Jeanne came through, a more powerful hurricane than Frances with higher sustained winds, leaving again hundreds of thousands of people without electrical power, shuttering businesses. There are thousands, literally, there are thousands of people in my congressional district who have had their homes destroyed, destroyed. You do not know what it is like to go to people's street and they have seen everything they have absolutely destroyed. This is very, very timely legislation. I very much appreciate the money that the President has put in for the beach renourishment, but I will just share with the chairman, I do not think this figure is adequate. I think my congressional district alone can consume two- thirds of that money. And I am looking forward to working with you. This is not about just a place for people to swim. It is not just about sea turtles having a place to lay their eggs. I have hotels that cannot open, people that cannot go to their jobs. This is very, very bad; and it is very, very timely we do this. I know there are a lot of people that have been devastated in the Carolinas and in Alabama and certainly in the gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Miller) district in the panhandle. I see he has come to the floor. I think his district is probably the worst hit in the State. I thank the chairman for his hard work. We are looking to him to be our hero again.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I come from the Sunshine State of Florida, and I rise tonight to shed a little sunshine, speak out some truth regarding the facts on stem cell research and specifically President Bush's position on stem cell research. And I would like to highlight some of the inaccuracies, misstatements and lack of candor that is coming from presidential candidate John Kerry. Senator Kerry's statements are notable for their sweeping inaccuracy. And as a physician who has formerly and still does take care of patients suffering from diseases like Alzheimer's and diabetes mellitus, I am very concerned that these statements are creating a false hope on the part of many people who suffer from these conditions. And, further, I am very disturbed by the fact that it appears as though the Senator is trying to exploit their suffering for his own personal political gain. Senator Kerry has repeatedly stated that he intends to lift the Bush ban on stem cell research. What he does not tell us is that there is no Bush ban on stem cell research. Indeed, just this past year, under the Bush administration, some $300 million has been spent on adult stem cell research, and on embryonic stem cell research, there has been about $35 million spent. The facts are simple, and they are basically this: This body, the Congress of the United States, passed a ban on Federal dollars being used for research that involves the destruction of a human embryo. Interestingly, Senator Kerry has voted for that, it is in the Labor, Health and Human Services bill, and he has voted for it I understand repeatedly; and that is where the ban is. It is actually in a bill this body passed and that Presidential candidate John Kerry actually voted for. He is now criticizing President Bush for something that he actually voted for. So what is the truth? What is really going on? Well, this body voted for no funding on any research that involves the destruction of a human embryo. When you do embryonic stem cell research in humans, you have to destroy a human embryo in order to do that research. You have to take stem cells out of that embryo and, in the process of doing that, you destroy it. This is not illegal in the United States. It is perfectly legal to do it. The debate is exclusively over Federal funding of it. Now, what President Clinton did is he played a very clever game around the intent of the law. He allowed these embryos to be destroyed in outside labs, and then the embryonic stem cells were shipped over to the NIH and he allowed Federal funding to be used for that. I, along with others, felt that President Clinton was violating the law when he was doing that. And we asked him to stop, and he did not. Ultimately, George Bush came into office, and this was one of the first significant biomedical issues that the Bush administration had to wrestle with, and the decision was made that they would stop doing that. They would essentially stop being complicit in violation of the law and they would comply with the law. So what is exactly the controversy here, you might say? Stem cell research, embryo stem cell research, what exactly is going on is very, very simple. We have been using adult stem cells, and adult stem cells are stem cells from our own bodies, in treating people with diseases for years and years and years and years. I have in this chart next to me on my left an example of a person who had bad rheumatoid arthritis, and this is something we call a rheumatoid nodule. They were treated with adult stem cells, and you can see in this photo that nodule clears up, the rheumatoid arthritis goes away. This is another chart of the same person. It may be a little bit hard to see, but this is before the treatment, the joints were very inflamed and red. You can see a nodule here on the thumb. Then after an adult stem cell treatment, it all clears up. There are some people who feel that these embryonic stem cells will be better at this kind of treatment, but it has never been done. Nobody has ever taken an embryonic stem cell and treated a human being for anything. What I believe Senator Kerry wants is he wants Federal dollars to be used for embryonic stem cell research in humans, even though it has never even been successfully done in animals. I think this is the wrong thing to do, and I think Mr. Kerry needs to retract some of these misstatements that he has been making.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the Special Order time of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole).

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, due to the devastation Hurricane Jeanne brought to my district, I was in Florida attending to official duties on Tuesday, September 28 and Wednesday, September 29 and was unable to be in Washington for recorded votes 473-479.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Pledge Protection Act because it upholds the rights of the overwhelming majority of American people who support the phrase ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance. H.R. 2028, of which I am a cosponsor, removes from the jurisdiction of the Federal courts questions regarding the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. It does so utilizing the powers of Congress clearly expressed in article III of the Constitution. Article III reserves for the Congress the power to regulate or completely eliminate the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction over a class of cases. Chief Justice Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court stated that the court has already erected ``a novel prudential principle in order to avoid reaching the merits of the constitutional claim'' that the phrase ``under God'' violates the Establishment Clause. It is clear from this precedent that the U.S. Supreme Court is most likely to rule the phrase ``under God'' unconstitutional should a case reach the high court. Liberal activist judges are consistently working to remove the mention of ``God'' from the public realm. As a Nation that affirms in its own Declaration of Independence that God is the source of our rights, it is absolutely appropriate for Congress to act on this important issue.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time, and I rise in opposition to the Oxley-Frank amendment. By accepting these cards as legitimate forms of identification, banks, State, and local governments are undermining the intent of the USA PATRIOT Act and our national security. The Mexican consulate is issuing matricula consular by aggressively marketing these documents, often to individuals living in the United States illegally. According to the October 21, 2002, report to Congress, in accordance with section 326(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act, serious weaknesses exist in the acceptance of foreign documents to verify identity. The Treasury report identified several problems related to foreign documents, including forgery, lack of uniformity, recognition, reliability, and legitimacy issues. Accepting matricula will provide safe harbor for foreign nationals residing in the United States illegally. The rule makes no distinction between non-U.S. persons who are here legally and those who are here illegally. Furthermore, it allows documents issued by any government, including a foreign government, to be utilized to verify identification. The rule would allow noncitizens who are in the U.S. illegally to utilize documents issued by a foreign government with the intended purpose of bypassing U.S. security laws. We should not allow this. Through the acceptance of matricula consular, significant immigration and national security policy would be undermined. It weakens the very mechanisms that Members of Congress put in place to prevent identity theft, fraud, and money laundering. Therefore, I rise in opposition to this amendment. I support the underlying bill with the original Culberson language.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise to congratulate the chairman. We have a difficult budget year this year; and he has managed to cobble together, I would have to say almost like a skilled surgeon, I may be the doctor on the committee, but he handled this with the dexterity of a skilled surgeon, balancing the critical issues of education, health, and research against the budget realities. Mr. Chairman, we are coming out of a recession. And to the gentleman of Wisconsin, I would simply say it is really unclear to me if we had not cut taxes that we would have more money in this bill. I think if we had not cut taxes, the economy would be in a worse slump and that we indeed would have less revenue, not more revenue. Conflicting priorities are always a challenge for the Congress. The gentleman from Ohio has achieved the right balance. I know it is not a perfect bill, but I think this is our best shot at getting this bill moving.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I know the gentleman from Wisconsin and I have discussed this issue in the past. The reason I think that was the right economic priority is because most of those people, at least in my congressional district, are small businessmen and women; and they take most of those funds and pump them back into their businesses, creating jobs. Most of the job growth has been in the small business sector, and I think it was the right thing to do.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise to support this legislation. Mr. Speaker an important and necessary provision is included in the bill that is intended to protect health care entities from discrimination because they choose not to provide abortion services. The amendment, adopted during full committee consideration, is intended to protect the decisions of physicians, nurses, clinics, hospitals, medical centers, and even health insurance providers from being forced by the government to provide, refer or pay for abortions. This is reasonable federal policy and one that was overwhelmingly approved by this very body by a vote of 229-189. The policy simply states that health care entities should not be forced to provide elective abortion--a practice to which a majority of health care providers object and which they will not perform as a matter of conscience. But while 45 States and the Federal Government protect the right of health care provider to decline involvement in abortion, abortion advocates are working to abolish these legal protections. Abortion advocates have launched a campaign to force hospitals and other health care entities to provide, refer, and pay for abortions. They argue that the term ``health care entity'' only covers individuals and not institutions. They have also argued that because an entity receives Federal funds they are required to provide abortions. By twisting the law they have successfully used the courts and State and local governments to violate the objections to abortions of health care entities and providers. This is why we need to strengthen Federal protections against discrimination based on objections to abortion. The right of conscience is fundamental to our American freedoms. We should guarantee this freedom by protecting all health care providers from being required to perform, refer, or pay for elective abortions. I urge my colleagues to support the language in the bill and support its passage.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 3313, The Marriage Protection Act. This bill prevents unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges from striking down the provision of the Defense of Marriage Act. The Defense of Marriage Act overwhelmingly passed in the House and the Senate and was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. H.R. 3313 simply provides that cases involving the section of Defense of Marriage Act--that protects states' rights--must be brought in state court. This brings valuable protection to the states and ensures that one state does not have to recognize a same sex marriage granted by another state. It also keeps federal courts from forcing states to recognize same- sex marriages that other states, such as Massachusetts, have legalized. This bill is a good first step, but what is ultimately needed in order to protect time-honored, traditional marriage is an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to pass this amendment last week. That vote was 48 to 50, with Senators John Kerry and John Edwards failing to vote. It fell short of the number needed to ensure passage so that the American people could consider a Constitutional Amendment. My constituents in Florida, and the majority of the American people, do not agree with a hand full of activist judges and courts that are redefining marriage in America. They do not agree with the demands of four unelected members of Massachusetts State Supreme Court who have overturned the laws of the State of Massachusetts and sanctioned same sex marriages. A family headed by a mother and a father has been a basic building block of society for thousands of years, and it is imperative that its integrity be successfully protected from those who wish to re-define marriage by trying to equate other relationships to that of traditional marriage between one man and one woman. Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of H.R. 3313.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am honored that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) would allow me the balance of the time, and thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) for yielding as well. Today, July 20, marks the 35th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing. President Kennedy set us on a race against the Soviet Union to land a man on the Moon and return them safely to Earth. America obviously rose to this challenge and succeeded beyond our expectations. All Apollo missions were comprised of a crew of three men. Apollo 11 had Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins. All three carried the hopes and prayers of a Nation on the greatest mission of exploration since the dawn of mankind. The Apollo lunar mission comprised of three main components: the massive Saturn 5 booster, the command module and the lunar module. The Saturn 5 was and still is the most powerful rocket ever built. At lift- off, it contained 5.6 million pounds of propellant. At 363 feet tall, the mighty Saturn 5 stood 60 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. One of the Saturn 5's main engines was more powerful than 30 diesel locomotives. Take that, Superman. On the morning of July 16, the Apollo 11 Saturn 5 lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center with a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust. Twelve minutes, later Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were in Earth orbit and well on their way to the Moon. After 1\1/2\ orbits, they broke away from Earth's gravity and Command Module Columbia and went off with the Lunar Lander Eagle on their great mission of exploration. President Nixon at the time heralded the mission as the most historic week since creation. Apollo not only enabled manned exploration of the Moon, but enabled the construction and operation ultimately of America's first space station, Skylab. The name of the command module was, of course, Columbia, the same name as our first Space Shuttle. In February of 2001 we lost Columbia and her brave crew. One of the findings of the Columbia Accident Review Board was that NASA needed a new overarching mission, much like it had during Apollo. President Bush has agreed, and we now have a vision for NASA that calls for picking up the mantle of Apollo and returning Americans to the Moon. First, we will return the Space Shuttle to flight, complete the International Space Station, and once again break away from low Earth orbit and return to the Moon. Today, with this resolution, we honor that great work of the past, and I am honored to be able to rise and speak in support of this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I just want to share one additional thing. I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to this position representing Florida's Space Coast, and one of the greatest honors and pleasures was to have the working people who made the Apollo program a success coming in to see me and the sense of tremendous pride they had in having been a part of that process. So we here today are not just honoring Aldrin and Armstrong and Collins, but all the people at Johnson Space Center and Marshall Space Flight Center, the rank-and-file people. I remember a great story. Once, I think it was President Johnson, asked a custodian at Johnson Space Center what he did, and he said, ``I am putting a man on the Moon.'' We are acknowledging that great anniversary today.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join with my colleague from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle to introduce the ``Clinical Research Act of 2004.'' This bill will address many of the problems confronting our Academic Health Centers as they attempt to leverage the enormous biomedical research gains made in the past century. Breakthroughs in basic biomedical sciences, including human genomics, biomedical engineering, molecular biology, and immunology, over the past five decades have provided an unprecedented supply of information for improving human health. As a member of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee I am proud to say that the remarkable strides that have been made in basic science would not have occurred without the support of Congress and the general public. While we realize that research may not produce results overnight, we, as stewards of the taxpayers' dollar have every right to expect that the fruits of that research will result in better treatments for patients. This requires a clinical research infrastructure capable of translating, in a systemic and rational way, the fruits of basic research into improved patient care. I, along with many of my colleagues in the Congress and the public in general, have become increasingly concerned that we have been too slow in getting improved patient therapies and interventions from the enormous investment we have made in basic research. Many in this Congress have expressed concern about the apparent disconnect between the promise of basic science and the delivery of better health care for the citizens of this country. Without strong Academic Health Centers capable of conducting clinical research the promise of improving the health of the American people will continue to elude us. Unfortunately, the clinical research environment in the Academic Health Centers is encumbered by rising costs, inadequate funding, mounting regulatory burdens, fragmented infrastructure, incompatible databases, and a shortage of both qualified investigators and willing study participants. This bill, through its clinical research support grants, infrastructure grants, and partnerships in clinical research grants will provide our Nation's Academic Health Centers with the resources they need and the opportunity to meet the public's expectations. This bill is specifically aimed at improving the translation of this new medical science knowledge to directly benefit those suffering from a wide array of diseases that impact all too many lives. If we are going to fully benefit from the enormous investment of taxpayer dollars in biomedical research it is important that we move this legislation forward. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. We all know that Castro was kept alive for decades by the Soviet regime, and they have collapsed. So how does he stay alive? One of the things he is doing is he is making a lot of money from people that are going back and forth and back and forth. There are Americans essentially vacationing down there, and to say, You cannot send packages, you cannot go at all, I mean, these are gross exaggerations. This is a very well-thought-out policy of the President of the United States, and we should support our President in this. And the Cuban Americans in my district, it amazes me for people to get up and say the Cuban Americans do not like this. The Cuban Americans in my district like this. They think it is a very good thing to do, that Castro is being helped by the previous policy and that this policy will be much, much better for our foreign policy interests, which happen to be to support freedom. And I think this is a very poorly thought out amendment. Vote against it. Support the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) in this.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce my colleagues in the House to a young lady by the name of Susan Fajt. I am going to rise later into the 5-minute rule and talk a little bit more about her case, but I have a picture here I just want to introduce everyone to that I took in my office yesterday. This lady was injured in a car wreck and could not walk or stand, and she underwent a stem cell treatment and she is now able to walk and stand. Quite miraculous. The main thing that I want it to point out, I know many people in this body have been led to believe this can only be done with embryonic stem cells. It actually cannot be done with embryonic stem cells. It was done with an adult stem cell. The stem cell was taken from her nose and she is continuing to improve. Only inside the beltway do people believe what is not true to be true and what is true to be what is not true. Adult stem cells allow people previously paralyzed to walk.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rose a short while ago, spoke for 1 minute about a brave young lady. She was in my office just yesterday, along with another brave young lady. This is Susan Fajt, and she was accompanied by Laura Dominguez. Both had suffered spinal cord injuries. Both ladies were injured in a car wreck. Laura's injury was in the neck, and this young lady's injury was in what we call T-6. It is the thoracic spine which is sort of the upper part of the chest, middle of the chest area. I practiced medicine for 15 years before I was elected to the House. I still see patients once a month. I used to take care of a lot of spinal cord injuries, and in the past it has been very hard and very difficult because there really was not very much that you could do. What both of these ladies had done, this is a new treatment, a new intervention; and it is not approved to be done in the United States. The place where it is currently being done is in Portugal by a Dr. Carlos Lima. One of the doctors working with Carlos Lima is an American doctor from Alabama, and what they do is stem cell transplant. They harvest the stem cells from the nose, what we call the olfactory mucosa, and place them in strips along the injured section of the spinal cord. This lady previously was confined to a wheelchair. She had no sensation from about the middle of her chest down, no muscle control in her lower body and in her legs. So she was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk; and with this intervention, she is now able to walk with braces on her legs, and we can see the braces down there, and with the assistance of a walker. Still obviously very handicapped, but she is actually continuing to show improvement. She and I talked at some length. She feels the same way that I do, that embryonic stem cell research should not be illegal, and it is not illegal in the United States. We hear around this town that we need to lift the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. There are no restrictions. The real debate in this town is because we destroy an embryo in the process of doing embryonic stem cell research, a lot of people feel that that is morally and ethically wrong and that it should not be funded by taxpayer dollars; and this is really what the debate is about in Washington. It is really about funding the destruction of more embryos because in reality the NIH today is funding some embryonic stem cell research. They are just not funding the further destruction of more embryos. What we will also hear over and over and over again is that embryonic stem cells have all the potential and the adult stem cells do not, and I have risen on this floor multiple times over the past 4 years pointing out to my colleagues that in the medical literature today we can read research articles reporting that diseases like multiple sclerosis and lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and even Parkinson's disease are being cured or significantly improved with adult stem cells. You cannot show me one article that embryonic stem cells have ever been used for anything like that. Indeed, you cannot even show me a good animal model where embryonic stem cells are successful in treating an animal with a disease. There is one study in rats showing that they may have some application in this arena here, but the embryonic stem cells are genetically unstable. They form tumors called teratomas. The real reason why so many people are excited about embryonic stem cell is because you cannot patent this procedure. You do this procedure, you cannot get rich; but if you can develop an embryonic stem cell that can do that, you can become perhaps one of the richest people in the world. I just rise to point out to my colleagues that adult stem cells are being used for incredible things, and Susan and Laura were both tremendously helped by adult stem cells. Nobody on the other side of this argument can get up on the floor of the House today with a picture like this using embryonic stem cells, and Susan and Laura both felt the same way, Laura did not have her braces with her so I could not get a shot of her standing up, that they do not want to make embryonic stem cells illegal, but they feel the same way that I do. They are insulted when people say adult stem cells have no potential.