Dave Weldon

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) for yielding. I rise in support of this underlying rule and in support of the underlying bill. This is the first full week of school in many areas of our country. In Florida, where I come from, they went back into school in August, but for millions of Americans things are really getting underway right now and they are being faced by significant costs. Particularly I want to address the people who have their children in public school. Many of these families have to buy gym clothes, as the gentleman from Washington State (Mr. McDermott) mentioned. Some of them have to pay yearbook fees, they have to pay fees for new software, lots of additional fees. I had one parent with two kids in public school tell me that they were out several hundred dollars in cheerleading fees and other fees. Obviously for people who have their children in private school, this is a much greater expense. This body spoke and this body voted, and the Senate approved it and it was signed into law; and we allowed a tax deduction of $3,000 for higher education. What this debate is really about is are we going to allow the same thing for K through 12 and why not? Why not? The gentleman from Washington State talked about putting more money into education for Washington. I have been here for 8 years now. When I got here, the education budget was $30 billion. What is it now, 48 billion or something like that? I want to address this issue of school construction. We could probably get a bill out of this body, but one of the things that holds this issue up is there are a lot of people on that side of the aisle that want to mandate that any school construction funds adhere to Davis-Bacon union work requirements; and in the State of Florida, this is going to drive up school construction costs by 30 percent. Frankly, for us in Florida, we do not want Federal money if it has those kinds of strings attached; and that gets me to what really is the issue here. We are trying to help families, and we are not trying to help rich families. This is targeted for the $20,000 to $40,000 range. We are specifically trying to help working families that have kids and have struggled making ends meet. Why should they send 30 cents to Washington for every 70 cents they spend on their kids' education? Give them the whole dollar to spend on their kids' education.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, on this first year anniversary, I extend my deepest sympathies to the families of the countless number of innocent victims of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the Pentagon, the World Trade Center, and in a desolate field in Pennsylvania. Nothing will ever repair the losses we suffered as a nation one year ago today. The history of the United States changed forever when nineteen terrorists hijacked four planes and killed three thousand Americans. While the events of that morning will forever play in our mind's eye, we endure and we are moving forward. As a united America, we have taken the needed steps to rebuild, to heal, to pursue justice, and to secure our borders. Since that time, I have been proud to vote for legislation to make our communities safer and our military stronger as we face the challenges of the new century. I commend President bush for his leadership and I commend the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces in the successful effort to oust the Taliban from power and hunt down those terrorists who perpetrated these acts of evil. I applaud those in our Armed Forces for their continued commitment to pursue those responsible for the attacks. The words spoken so long ago by President Lincoln seem to fit so eloquently at this moment in history. ``It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.'' As we humble ourselves before Him and pray for His guidance, may God continue to bless this great nation.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, why are we passing this bill? Why are we creating this Department of Homeland Security? As I see it, we are doing it because if we are ever attacked again, we want to be able to respond better; but more importantly, we never want to be attacked again. We also believe that this is going to be a very long fight. Why else would we be rearranging all of these agencies like this. We certainly would not be doing this if we thought that this was just going to last for a few short years. It is important to note that this is not primarily an issue of protecting real estate, although the damage to the Pentagon and the loss of the Twin Towers hurt us, and hurt us badly. What hurt us much, much more is the loss of lives. I knew someone who was killed September 11. Many Members knew people as well. Thousands of innocents are dead. We all agree, never again do we want to see Americans killed like we did on 9/11. I ask Members, what is the single most effective thing that we can do to prevent another terrorist attack on American soil. I think the answer is obvious, never let another terrorist into our Nation, a difficult task, granted, but nothing less than that should be our goal. It should be our mandate. I ask Members, what are we doing in this bill to respond to this mandate? Well, we are moving border patrol and INS into homeland security. We are moving the Customs Service, the Coast Guard, even APHIS. Why are we leaving the State Department's visa office, the very agency responsible for issuing all 19 of the September 11 terrorist visas, why are we leaving them out of the new department? Members will hear some of the reasons from some of the opponents to my amendment. I want to make two important points. We may hear that Colin Powell will be able to reform State's troubled visa office and give homeland security the priority it needs. Colin Powell is not going to be there forever. Deciding who we let into this country is arguably the most important homeland security function of all. Why leave this in the hands of diplomats? We may be fighting this battle for decades. The structural changes made in our government by Harry Truman provided the tools that were used throughout the Cold War by all Presidents who followed, Democrat and Republican alike. Should we leave the visa office out of the Department of Homeland Security simply because today we have a very capable person who understands security at the Department of State? I say that is not a valid reason. I will tell Members another reason why many people are fighting to move the Office of Visa Issuance into the Department of Homeland Security. The office next year will generate $630 million for the State Department. They do not spend that much money on visa services. Concerns about jurisdiction and money must not prevent us from doing what is best for our Nation. This amendment transfers the visa function to the Department of Homeland Security where it belongs, and provides singular management of the visa process. It allows for a 2-year transition period during which those foreign service officers currently on the visa line will remain there, and the State Department's current rotation system remains in place. It preserves the Secretary of State's authority to deny a visa for reasons of national interest, and it preserves the nonreviewability of visa refusals in the courts. It also provides for comprehensive training for visa officers. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller).

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire who has the right to close?

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, this body passed a bill creating a large bureaucracy to protect our airline security, so the argument that was just made, as far as I am concerned, is not really valid, particularly when you look at the fact that I do not create a new bureaucracy. I transfer the visa office to the Department of Homeland Security. What will happen if we do that? Well, some of the Department of State personnel will stay on in the new Department of Homeland Security, because they have been doing visa issues for years, and then the Department of Homeland Security will have to hire new people. The important thing they will do is they will hire people who are trained more like police officers, that have more security in mind. The people who are currently occupying these positions essentially are people who are interested in becoming diplomats. Is that the right thing? Do we want the people who screen who comes in to be people who really want to do diplomatic and economic policy? Finally, I want to say one important thing about the current supposed compromise. Under current law, the Justice Department under the Attorney General defines policy for visa issuance and the State Department carries it out. Under this supposed compromise, the Department of Homeland Security will define those policies and the State Department will carry it out. I do not really see the current language as going obviously far enough. In committee I managed to get an amendment through that at least gave the Department of Homeland Security Secretary the authority to deny a visa, which I would have to say is somewhat of an improvement. But it simply does not go far enough. The most effective thing we can do is transfer the visa office. I ask my colleagues again, why are we moving all of these other functions into the Department of Homeland Security and leaving this vital function out? I was in the Army. When you deploy to the field, protecting your perimeter was the most important thing. If you could not do that, you were not going to be able to be a fighting force. Protecting our borders is the most important thing. Vote yes on the Weldon amendment.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, as a physician, I find the practice of partial-birth abortion extremely disturbing. This is a gruesome practice where the abortionist delivers the entire child except the head. The head is left in the mother's womb until the abortionist kills the child by puncturing the back of the child's neck. If the baby's head were three inches further out of the birth canal, this practice would be recognized as murder under our court system. ``Critics of a partial-birth abortion ban have asserted that the ban could endanger the life and/or health of the mother, but such is not the case. Even the American Medical Association has said that the partial-birth abortion procedure is `not good medicine' and is `not medically indicated' in any situation. ``Congress has approved legislation to ban partial-birth abortions in the 104th, 105th, and the 106th Congresses with support by scores of Members who have never voted pro-life. Even many abortion supporters find this practice reprehensible. ``President Bush has said that he would sign a bill banning this practice. My hope is that the 107th Congress will give the President the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2002 for him to do just that. I'm hopeful that we will soon see progress in ending this gruesome practice. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing today and vote for this ban.''

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) is a Member whom I enjoy working with on a host of issues, and I fully understand the gentleman's passion for establishing good cost accounting standards. The cost accounting standard that we are trying to apply to the FEHBP program is a cost accounting standard that was essentially developed for defense contractors, and the issue that was brought up to us in the subcommittee, and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) mentioned that the authorizing committee opposes this amendment and supports the exemption, I am the chairman of that committee and this exemption was initially put in place by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) and continued by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough), and it has been continued by myself. The central issue here is we are trying to take cost accounting standards that were developed for defense contractors, and we are trying to apply them to the health care insurance industry. Now the real issue here is Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and that is really what we are talking about. Blue Cross/Blue Shield insures 80 million Americans, and 4 million of those Americans are Federal employees. A lot of those Federal employees live in many of the affiliated States within the Blue Cross/Blue Shield system. Nationwide it is 5 percent, 4 percent of the entire Blue Cross/Blue Shield workforce, but in some States it is even less than that, and they are not going to want to participate. The way I understand this works under the law within FEHBP, it is an all-or-none situation. It cannot be like Blue Cross/Blue Shield will stay in the system here in Washington, D.C. where they might have several hundred thousand employees, and let all of the affiliates in Oklahoma and Iowa withdraw. They have to participate nationally. Now some of the other insurance carriers, I think maybe virtually all of them, have complied with the standards. But as I understand it, for all of them, they only do business with FEHBP. Blue Cross/Blue Shield is in a very unique position. What I have been told is essentially that they will withdraw, that it will be too much of a burden on them to convert their entire system over to comply, to meet the requirements for this relatively small percentage of their business, and that they will withdraw. I guess we are going to try to call their bluff and see if they really will withdraw. But if they do withdraw, 4 million people are currently within the Blue Cross/Blue Shield FEHBP plan. Many of them are current Federal employees. Many of them are retirees. Some of them have been in Blue Cross/Blue Shield. And the important point I want to stress in all this is that OPM has testified to us that they have copious amounts of data, that they do not need more data. They did not say they had adequate levels of information. They said they have all the information they needed to verify that Blue Cross/Blue Shield within FEHBP is not skimming money away, that they are not engaging in any fraudulent behavior, that they have all of the insight that they need, and OPM has testified to us that they do not need this and that it is going to provide no additional information. We are all for good, solid, especially in this climate, good, solid accounting standards; but the agency in the Federal Government, the Office of Personnel Management, is telling us they have all the insight they need; they have more than enough insight. So the net effect of all this may be, even if you did apply it to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, no new information, and the net effect may be that millions of Federal employees and retirees may actually ultimately withdraw. I would encourage a ``no'' vote on the gentleman's amendment. I know his heart is in the right place, but having studied this through the subcommittee, I believe this exception should be kept in the current law. I strongly urge a ``no'' vote on the gentleman's amendment.

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

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I just want to raise a couple of points in response to some of the statements my friend from Ohio made but really just one in particular and, that is, as it relates to the Blue Cross/Blue Shield systems complying with the cost accounting standards within the Medicare plan, those are very distinct plans. In many cases the Medicare operation is actually housed in a wholly owned subsidiary and for some of these FEHBP plans, they have provider networks and they overlap with the products that they are offering employers in the region and it is not really an entirely separate system. This is the problem that you get into specifically with the Blues as it relates to FEHBP. They are taking on a Federal employee, and they are taking on somebody who works in industry; they are offering the same product, and really what you are essentially asking the Blues to do with your amendment is adopt this new standard nationwide for all of their 80 million customers in order to keep this 4 million people within their system. It would be very costly for them to develop a separate standard for the 4 million people in FEHBP. Frankly, I think what you are doing is essentially saying to them, are you going to do it? Are you going to withdraw?

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support this resolution. I want to particularly commend the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman, for bringing this resolution to the floor in a speedy fashion. The American people are crying out for action. Here we are in the midst of a war. Our homeland has been attacked. The faith that many Americans have had has been rekindled. And now we are faced with this overreaching, inappropriate act of a court that is misinterpreting our Constitution. There will be a lot of talk about the power of the judiciary versus the power of the legislative branch. But I would just like to remind all of our colleagues that the Constitution begins with ``we the people'' and that it has really vested in the American people the authority to make decisions, and they ultimately decide what will happen. I believe that today the American people are clearly crying out, ``Overturn this decision.''

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues in this body know, I practiced internal medicine for many years before coming to the House. Indeed, I still see patients about once a month at the veterans' clinic in my congressional district. I lived this problem on a daily basis. I practiced internal medicine. Mainly what I did was I wrote prescriptions mainly for senior citizens, and I dealt personally with the struggles that many of them face in paying for their drugs. My primary concern is getting a bill, and frankly I was very disappointed we did not get a bill 2 years ago, and I think the reason we did not get a bill is because some people thought they could capitalize on it in the campaign, and I have to honestly say this is deja vu all over again. We are starting out very, very poorly. I have heard that they have not had a chance. We had two committees mark up this bill. The Committee on Ways and Means spent 13 hours on it. They were in until 2 a.m. The Committee on Energy and Commerce went all night. We hear these claims that the pharmaceutical company is giving us all this money. Do I assume the Democratic party has never taken any pharmaceutical money? I will tell the Members what we need. We need a plan. We need some kind of plan, and this is step one. We have to go to conference with the Senate. Then we have to negotiate in conference, and many of you people who are over there demagogueing this issue are going to be in that conference committee. We are going to have plenty of opportunities to get a very, very good bill to help our seniors. But if we keep on with this attitude, I am going to tell my folks back home, forget it. It is going to be kicked off into the campaign again. People are going to hope they are going to get an advantage, and I do not think anybody is going to get an advantage, and the people who are going to suffer are the senior citizens. I want to say one other thing. We do not want a plan that stifles innovation. If you stifle innovation, I can tell you I used to write prescriptions for people and give them to them, new pills that kept them alive, and without those pills, they would have died.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to speak to the very disturbing trend that we have seen in the growing violence in the Middle East of Palestinian terrorists deliberately targeting Israeli children. As we all know, there has been a tremendous increase over the last 20 months in the number of deaths, fatalities and woundings from these suicide bombers, homicide bombers. But what is particularly disturbing is what I see as an emerging trend in all of this to specifically try to target children. I want to show to my colleagues here a picture and talk about these two young people. The first one I want to talk about is this baby over here, Shalhevet Pass. Shalhevet was literally in her stroller being pushed by her parents when a Palestinian sniper opened fire on the family. What is very, very disturbing about this particular incident is that, and this was based on the investigation after the event, it appeared as though the Palestinian sniper who was shooting at them from a hill specifically targeted the baby and targeted the baby first. This baby was shot by a gunshot wound to the head while in a stroller. The next one I want to talk about is this little girl right here, Danielle Shefi. A Palestinian gunman broke into the family home. The mother had retreated into the children's bedroom. She was with two brothers, and the Palestinian gunman first shot Danielle and killed Danielle, then proceeded to shoot the mother and the two brothers. The mother and two brothers managed to survive. If you look at some of the other trends in these Palestinian attacks, there was a suicide or homicide bomber who attacked a discotheque filled with young people. Over and over again it appears as though the Palestinians are specifically attacking children. The Palestinians tried to claim in their defense that the Israeli Defense Forces are just as bad, that they shoot Palestinian children and they made quite a big deal about a particular case. It involved the death of a 12-year-old Mohammed A-Dura during an exchange of gunfire between the Israeli Defense Forces and Palestinians. This little boy was killed. He got in the crossfire somehow. The Palestinians claim that the Israeli Defense Forces specifically targeted Mohammed. The IDF did a review. This is not part of Israeli policy, obviously, to attack children. They claimed, based on their review, that it was impossible for the Israeli Defense Forces to have killed this young boy. The Palestinians, of course, dismiss this as propaganda, but what was very interesting is German public television decided to do an independent review, and they based this on the ballistics, the angle of entry of the bullet into the boy, that it was impossible for the Israeli soldiers to have killed that boy, but that he was actually killed by the Palestinians. Some people may say this is hard to believe, that the Palestinians would shoot a Palestinian boy, but let us keep in mind that they sent a 10-year-old boy as a suicide bomber to try to blow up a bunch of buildings that ultimately collapsed and killed, I think, 13 Israeli Defense Forces. They have sent other teenage suicide bombers. It is very, very clear, at least in my opinion and based on my review of this issue, that they not only are targeting children, Israeli children, but they will even kill their own children for the purpose of furthering their political agenda. It is my opinion, Mr. Speaker, that this is reprehensible. This is horrible. This is beyond the pale. Some people will try to justify this, claiming that they have no choice, that they have to resort to this. We should never allow this sort of thing to go on. I think it is perfectly justifiable for the Israeli Government to reoccupy the Palestinian territories. Land for peace has not worked. It has actually led to even more violence. The Palestinians have to do what the President said. They need to abandon violence. They need to abandon these suicide attacks. They need to establish democracy before we will ever have lasting peace in the Middle East.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Subcommittee on Civil Service, Census and Agency Organization will begin examination of one of the most vital components of the President's homeland security proposal. Our homeland security starts abroad, and nothing is more important than who gets issued a visa. The issuance of visas can no longer be thought of as a mere diplomatic function. It is now a national security issue, and must be our first line of defense. While the President recognizes the importance of visa issuance and the obvious problems, the current proposed legislation does not go far enough. The entire visa program should be part of the proposed Homeland Security Department. The State Department views the issuance of visas as a diplomatic tool. The day is past when it should be viewed this way. It is now clearly a national security function. The fragmented approach, where the Secretary of Homeland Security issues regulations regarding visas, but actual operational control remains under the State Department, is not acceptable. Just as we work hard to prevent biological, chemical, or other weapons of mass destruction from making their way to our shores, so we must keep terrorists, deadly weapons in and of themselves, keep them from coming into our homeland. A strong visa issuance program is essential to achieve that objective. We are all too aware of the fact that 15 of the 19 September 11 terrorists had obtained ``appropriate'' visas. This is unacceptable. No longer can the issuing of visas be a diplomatic function; it must be a security function, with proper scrutiny only a trained agent can apply. Diplomats are trained to be diplomats. Visa issuance should not be about speed and service with a smile. Recent news reports have brought to light a program in Saudi Arabia called ``visa express.'' It allows private Saudi travel agents to process visa paperwork on behalf of Saudi residents. Three of the September 11 terrorists obtained their visas this way, never being interviewed by anyone in the consular office. When the program began, it was advertised as helping qualified applicants obtain U.S. visas quickly and easily. Applicants will no longer have to take time off from work, they said, no longer have to wait in long lines or under the hot sun in crowded waiting rooms. I am quoting from State Department documents. Here are some of the September 11 terrorists who came into this country under the visa express program. Salem Al-Hamzi, age 20, arrived in the United States with a tourist visa obtained through visa express. Here is another one: Khalid Al-Midhar, a 25-year-old gentleman. He was one of the people on Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. Here is another one: Abdulaziz Al-Omari, 28, arrived in the U.S. on a tourist visa in June of 2001, a pilot of the American Airlines Flight 111 that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centers. Now, under this program, the Saudi citizens just go to a Saudi travel agent, and they fill out a two-page form. They paid a fee and went home and waited for their visas to arrive in the mail. There was no interview with any American official. One senior consular affairs official describes the program as an open-door policy for terrorists to come into the United States. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that we have our priorities out of order here. This is not customer service; it is national security. Visa issuance must be in the homeland security system from top to bottom. This is the only way the Secretary of Homeland Security will be able to completely and thoroughly protect our borders, by preventing terrorists from ever making it into our homeland. We must change the culture of the way we issue visas. It is no longer sufficient for this process to be an entry-level position for a person at a college. It is simply too vital to our national security. Mr. Speaker, security begins abroad. I feel the burden is on the administration to prove to us why the Bureau of Consular Affairs is fragmented and a pseudo part of homeland security. Thus far, they have not convinced me of the need for this fragmentation in this area. I support putting all of consular affairs in homeland security.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Adult stem cells have been used in over 45 human clinical trials to treat human beings. Embryo stem cells have never been used successfully in any human clinical trial. Indeed, embryo stem cells have not really been used successfully in any animal clinical trial up until recently. There was a study recently published, and I need to give the advocates for embryo stem cell research at least an honest appraisal, there was recently a research article in an animal model of Parkinson's disease, I believe, in rats, where they showed improvement in response to embryo stem cells in that particular case. But hold that up against the tremendous amount of research that has been done with adult stem cells, and hold that up against this recent article that was just published in Nature showing the pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow, suggesting none of the ethical and moral issues associated with embryo stem cells. Certainly cloning needs to be brought into play. I will just point out, the advocates for embryo stem cell research may start quoting this recent article reported in Nature, using embryo stem cells to treat a rat model of Parkinson's disease as a reason they need to rush ahead with all of this. As I understand it, and I do not have the citation, there has been published, in abstract form at least, a case where an adult brain stem cell was used successfully to treat Parkinson's disease in a human being. The point I am raising here is the adult stem cell research is way ahead of the embryo stem cell research. The embryo stem cell research is quite hypothetical. It is even more hypothetical to say that we have to do cloning, that cloning is somehow necessary. What I honestly think is going on here, if the gentleman will continue to yield, is I think the research community and a lot of people in the scientific and biotechnology community know that therapeutic cloning is never likely to happen. What they really want to do, and this is speculation on my part, is they want to create cloned models of disease; in other words, taking somebody with a disease and making a clone of them, and then allow that clone to be used and manipulated in the lab so they can do research on that clone. Indeed, I think the reason the biotechnology industry is so interested in this is they see this as an opportunity to patent that, and, in effect, one would be patenting a human being, and then exploit that for monetary gain; basically be able to sell these clones as models of disease so people could try to do genetic manipulations on them, or pharmacologic manipulations on them in the lab. I just want to point out that this is the slippery slope. It is a big-time slippery slope. They talk about extracting stem cells from these things here, these embryos, and then growing them into the tissues that are needed. But there is excellent research that has been done in creating artificial wombs, and they have a very, very nice artificial womb that you can grow an embryo in up to 30 days, if I am not mistaken. So why would we not just take the fertilized egg, it would be much cheaper and quicker, put it in the artificial womb, grow it into the fetal stage, and then extract the tissue that is needed? We may say, well, they would never do that; that sounds so terrible. But a year ago when we were debating embryo stem cell research, many of the people advocating embryo stem cell research were saying they would never sanction or approve the creation of embryos for scientific exploitation and then destruction. But yet that is now the very thing they are advocating for. So I think this is a very, very serious slippery slope.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. I am.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to thank him for the support and assistance provided me and all of the others involved in passing the ban on human cloning out of the House of Representatives. The gentleman's involvement was extremely helpful. I also want to thank the gentleman for making arrangements for this Special Order. We continue to await action from the other body on this issue. As we all know, the bill to ban human cloning, which I had authored along with my colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), a Democrat, passed the House of Representatives now almost a year ago. It was July of 2001 that it passed. I just want to point out that that bill passed the House of Representatives by a 100-vote margin, I think it was 63 Democrats voting for it, and about 20 Republicans voting against it, so this is clearly not a Republican versus Democrat issue. It passed overwhelmingly, with a very, very clear bipartisan vote. I just want to underscore that the bill as it passed the House does not ban stem cell research. There are a lot of people that confuse these issues. I will admit they are complicated. I have a background in medicine and science, and it is easy for me to follow these things; but for lay people, it is very, very hard to sort out when are we talking about stem cell research and when we are talking about human cloning. Also, the bill does not ban cloning tissues; it does not ban animal cloning. It specifically bans human cloning. And for the sake of discussion tonight, I do want to review exactly what that is. It is what is called asexual reproduction. I have a chart here to my left. The top row here shows the normal fertilization where the sperm unites with the egg, it forms a single cell, a fertilized egg, or single cell embryo; and this next picture here shows a 3-day-old embryo and then a 5- to 7-day-old embryo. In human beings, humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 are resident in the sperm, 23 are resident in the nucleus of the egg. They come together, 23 plus 23 equals 46, creating a new human being. This is how we all begin our path through eternity here on Earth and beyond, as a uniting of 23 chromosomes from the sperm and the egg. In cloning, what is done is we take the egg and we either inactivate the nucleus with 23 chromosomes in it or, as shown in this particular diagram, we have removed it, so we create an egg that has no nucleus in it, no genetic material, no chromosomes. Then we take a donor cell, and in this diagram it is depicted like the skin cell, and we take the nucleus out of it. We call these somatic cells, and that is where the term ``somatic cell nuclear transfer'' comes from. The cells in our body, the skin cells, the cells in our heart, in our muscles, we call them somatic cells. Somatic means body. The process involves taking the nucleus out of that and putting the nucleus into the egg. When that is done, that is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. If the process works, 3 days later we have an embryo that is essentially indistinguishable from this embryo here, except this embryo here is a unique individual created by the combination of the chromosomes here. This embryo is actually the identical twin of the person who donated this cell. So if I were to donate my cell and somebody were to go through this procedure, this embryo developing would be my twin brother, my identical twin brother. That is why we call it cloning. This is the exact procedure that was used to create Dolly the sheep. What they did in that particular instance is they took an egg from one sheep, they deactivated the nucleus, they took an udder cell, which is essentially a breast duct cell, and extracted the nucleus from that, and they created a new sheep which was a clone of this one. And then once it grows in culture, we have to put it inside the womb of a surrogate mother and, ultimately, Dolly the sheep was to be produced. The reason I am going through all of this in exquisite detail is some people are trying to say this is not really cloning, that you are not really creating a human if you do this; and in humans they like to call it things like ``nuclear transfer.'' When we start playing language games like that, we are essentially trying to tell us all that Dolly is not a sheep. I mean if we do this with a person, we will get a person. It will start out like we all do as a baby and then grow up to become an adolescent. Now, what are some of the problems with this? Well, the number of problems are huge. They are absolutely gigantic. It took 270 tries to create Dolly the sheep. Many lambs were born with very, very severe birth defects. Many of the offspring amongst the five species that have been cloned so far emerged very, very large, very large placentas and umbilical chords. A woman might look 9 months pregnant when she is only 4\1/2\ months along. Also, very defective fetuses. Indeed, there was one research study that showed that all offspring from the procedure of cloning so far have genetic abnormalities. So this is human experimentation, and it is human experimentation of the absolute worst kind. Now, a lot of people feel that the solution to all of this is to just ban reproductive cloning, make it illegal to produce a baby, but allow researchers in the lab to produce these embryos unrestricted for research purposes. They even hold out that somehow this could be used in clinical medicine someday. I am a physician. I take care of patients with Alzheimer's disease, diabetes. I still see patients once a month. My father had diabetes, died of complications of diabetes. This is very, very fanciful science, to make claims that we must allow this research to proceed because it is going to lead to all of these ``cures.'' In my opinion, that is patently absurd. Indeed, what they really are talking about is extracting some of these cells out of these so-called cloned embryos and doing what they call therapeutic cloning where they claim they can grow replacement tissues for people that have diseases. One of the things that I have been arguing for, for well over a year now is that the arena of adult stem cells actually shows much more promise. Embryonic stem cells, there have been some problems in research studies where they tend to grow too much and actually can become tumor-like in their growth. We have been using adult stem cells in clinical research now for years, actually 20 years. There are some 50 clinical trials using adult stem cells. Indeed, just today, there was an article published in Nature, the most recent issue of Nature, and I think this came out of the University of Minnesota, that showed that they could get adult stem cells to become any tissue type, and they could get them to reproduce over and over and over again, essentially validating what people like myself have been saying for quite some time. The study is entitled ``Pluripotency of Mesenchymal, Stem Cells Derived From Adult Marrow.'' What they did in the study is they clearly showed that adult stem cells can reproduce and reproduce and reproduce as embryonic stem cells can, and that they can become any tissue type, essentially laying the debate to rest that one has to have embryonic stem cells.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. If the gentleman will continue to yield, yes, the gentleman brings up an extremely important point. The Nuremberg Code emerged in the aftermath of the atrocities committed by many physicians who were acting complicitly with the Nazis. A great deal of scientific information was obtained from some of that research; for example, how long can a human survive in very, very cold water. When I was in medical school, many physicians in training, and, as well, many of our professors, felt so strongly what was done was evil that we should not even use the information; that we should just throw the information away, that it was so bad. The Code, of course, emerged. The critical issue here is some people do not consider the embryo human because it does not have an organized central nervous system; it cannot respond to stimulation. But the critical issue here is where do we draw the line? It is human life; it is a developing human life. We all began that way. Just as a year ago, they were saying we would never create an embryo to extract stem cells from, we only want to use the excess embryos from the fertility lab. Now they are saying, oh, we have to create these embryos to cure all these diseases. The next step will be, we have to do continued research and allow these embryos to grow in the lab to the point where they are developing a nervous system. So to me, the safest thing and the best thing to do is to make it illegal to create a clone at the very beginning. I just want to point out, a lot of people who advocate cloning for research purposes, they all say, but I would never want to see reproductive cloning move ahead. I want to make a couple of points about that. If we have labs all over America creating cloned embryos, it will only be a matter of time before one of these embryos is implanted in a woman, because the implantation process occurs within the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. It would be impossible, and as a matter of fact, I have a letter from the Justice Department saying it would be impossible for them to police that. They would have to go into all these labs and keep track of all the embryos. It would be impossible for them as police agencies to know if a human embryo was replaced with an animal embryo and one was surreptitiously implanted in a woman. So the only way to effectively prevent this, in my opinion, is to ban it from the very, very beginning. Also, we took testimony in my committee where the representative from the professional association of doctors who treat infertility kept saying in his testimony, a Dr. Cowan, how they did not support reproductive cloning at this time. He said it twice. During the questioning period, I said to him, ``Why are you saying `at this time?' '' And he made it very, very clear to me in his response to my questioning that they would like embryo cloning to proceed and research cloning to proceed so they could work through all the technical problems in cloning, such as large fetuses, threat to the health of the mother, and once all those problems were worked through, they would like to be able to offer reproductive cloning to infertile couples. I thought that was a very, very significant statement, because it made it very, very clear to me that if we do not ban cloning at its very, very beginning, eventually we will have reproductive cloning. Either it will be done surreptitiously from embryos that have been spirited out of these labs and implanted in women, or it will be done openly by fertility experts. So if the American people do not want cloning, the best way to prevent cloning from occurring is to ban it in its very beginning. I want to just add one more thing, if the gentleman will continue to yield.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, many liberals voted for the cloning ban. I thought that was one of the unique features that emerged from the debate on human cloning here in the House of Representatives. We had people of very, very divergent opinion. We had some Christian people, some Jewish people, Democrats, Republicans; we had liberals and conservatives. Why is that? Why did people unite around this ban on human cloning? They came at it from different perspectives, and for many liberals it was a woman's rights issue. This is an incredibly important point. It is getting inadequate discussion, in my opinion. If we are going to allow research cloning to proceed, these labs are going to need hundreds and possibly thousands of eggs. Where are they going to get these eggs? They are going to get them from women. How do you get eggs from a woman? You have to expose them to drugs. You have to give them drugs to cause something called superovulation. One of these drugs that they use has a 30 percent incidence of causing depression. Then you have to anesthetize the woman to extract the eggs. Who will do that? What woman would put themselves through that, or submit themselves to exposure to a drug that has potential side effects including depression, and then submit to a general anesthetic to extract these eggs? We know who will do that: women who are desperate; poor women, women who are desperately in need of money. It will ultimately end up in exploitation of women. I just want to read this quote from Judy Norsigian. She is the author of a book, 2 million copies have been printed and sold, Our Bodies, Ourselves. She is prochoice. But what does she say? ``Because embryo cloning will compromise women's health, turn their eggs and wombs into commodities, compromise their reproductive autonomy, and, with virtual certainty, lead to the production of `experimental' human beings, we are convinced that the line must be drawn here.'' She was not alone. She was not the only person on the left who rose up. Stuart Newman and several others rose up and said, on this issue we agree with the conservatives, that human cloning should be banned. It is for that reason that we had such an extraordinary vote in the House of Representatives. I feel very, very strongly that if we cannot get the other body to act on this issue, we minimally need to make it illegal to patent a human clone. I feel also very, very strongly that this is not only unethical, it is unnecessary. The research data is showing more and more the huge, tremendous potential of adult stem cells, and that the embryo stem cells indeed may actually prove to be less advantageous to use. I honestly think as the science progresses on this that therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning by the scientific community will ultimately be abandoned, and that the ultimate place that many of these advocates of cloning want to go to is creating cloned models of human disease that can be manipulated in the lab for the development of genetic treatments and for the development of pharmacological agents, and that they ultimately want to patent these things so they can make money off of them. I think that is what is ultimately going to end up driving this whole debate in the United States.

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman; and I just want to add, under President Clinton, he established the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and they said, The commission began its discussions of cloning, fully recognizing that any efforts, any humans to transfer a somatic cell nucleus into an enucleated egg involves the creation of an embryo with the apparent potential to be implanted in utero and developed to term, what they mean by that is a baby, and that is really what this is all about. Is it a human life? What is going to happen to it? Are we going to create, exploit it and discard it? Are we going to allow them to be manufactured into human beings, the first man-created human in the history of the world? I say we do not cross that Orwellian line; we draw the line here, the line of morality and ethics and say, no, we do not want to go there.

Mr. WELDON of Florida

Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in support of the underlying legislation and in opposition to the amendment that will be offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) at a later time in this debate. This bill was originally introduced by the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker). I think it is an outstanding piece of legislation as drafted. It would allow small airports to use their Airport Improvement Program, AIP, grant money to build or equip an air traffic control tower that would be operated under the FAA's contract tower program. As everybody knows in America, Florida is one of the most rapidly growing States in the Nation, along with many others, including Nevada, Arizona, and Texas. In particular, in the State of Florida, central Florida is one of the more rapidly growing regions in the State. I happen to have two airports in my congressional district that are experiencing a tremendous increase in demand. Having labored for years to try to get funding through the routine system for another air traffic control tower in another city in my district, and I can just say that one of them is the Titusville-Cocoa area airport, and the other is the airport in Kissimmee that we really have problems with. We have problems in the State of Florida with building towers, replacing old antiquated towers with new towers, and I see this as a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel. I think it needs to be approved out of the House. I would strongly encourage, particularly all my colleagues who are in rapidly growing areas, to oppose the Oberstar amendment. In particular, I want to say that this really is, for me personally, about safety. We have a tremendous issue with small planes mixing in with commercial aircraft. We have had accidents in my congressional district where people have died. So I would highly encourage a ``no'' on the Oberstar amendment and support of the underlying legislation.