[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 100 (Monday, July 22, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H5048-H5050]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENSE OF THE HOUSE REGARDING IMPLEMENTATION OF MANDATORY STEROID
TESTING PROGRAM FOR MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to
the resolution (H. Res. 496) expressing the sense of the House of
Representatives that Major League Baseball and the Major League
Baseball Players Association should implement a mandatory steroid
testing program.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Res. 496
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of
Representatives that--
(1) Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball
Players Association should implement a mandatory steroid
testing program; and
(2) such a program would send a clear message to our
Nation's children that steroids are dangerous, illegal, and
morally offensive to our country's competitive spirit and one
of our most cherished sports.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis).
General Leave
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material on the
resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of H. Res. 496 which expresses
the sense of the House of Representatives that Major League Baseball
and the Major League Baseball Players Association should implement a
mandatory steroid testing program.
Baseball is our national pastime. I am a lifelong fan and proudly
hang pictures of my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates
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in my office and now have season tickets to Tampa Bay Devil Rays games.
As a fan, I know that whether professional players like it or not, they
are heroes to many of our children.
Recently, many players have made outstanding achievements on the
baseball field. Unfortunately, this has coincided with disturbing
reports of widespread steroid abuse. Unless we do something to change
the culture in major league baseball, children might believe that
steroid use is not only permissible but also desirable and can help an
individual perform at a higher level than they could without drugs. In
fact, some reports already indicate that steroid use is rising in
children.
As a baseball fan, I am concerned about the integrity of the game
that I love. As a grandparent, I am determined to ensure that my
grandchildren grow up in an environment where dangerous performance-
enhancing drugs are not a part of sports. This resolution, Mr. Speaker,
is a positive step in that direction. I urge my colleagues to support
it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
After years of rumors and whispering, numerous current and former
baseball players have recently alleged that a substantial number of
major league players are using, or have used, illegal anabolic steroids
to enhance their performance on the field. Steroids cause long-term
damage to the heart and liver, can cause strokes in otherwise healthy
people, and can cause career-ending injuries because a player's muscles
become too strong for their joints and their ligaments and their
tendons.
Recent allegations have placed the number of players using steroids
at widely varying percentage. One former player alleged 85 percent of
major league players have taken steroids at some point during their
careers. But even if the correct number, say, is only 5 percent, it
would mean that dozens of cheaters are sullying the sport, jeopardizing
their own health, and putting enormous pressure on other players to use
performance-enhancing drugs.
Unlike the use of illegal recreational drugs, the use of steroids can
actually and obviously make you a better ball player. So if a player
chooses not to use steroids, not to break the rules, he may be placing
himself at a competitive disadvantage.
{time} 1930
Technically, there is a commissioner's ban on steroid use. Without
any form of drug testing, this ban is meaningless.
In light of the recent allegations, both the union and the owners
have agreed to make this issue a negotiating point during their
upcoming labor negotiations. In past negotiations, the players' union
cited privacy concerns about drug testing. These are legitimate
concerns, Mr. Speaker, and reasonable people can disagree about how to
test players for steroid use. However, the other major sports leagues
in this country have successfully instituted drug testing policies that
are supported by both the owners and the players.
While baseball has many big issues on the agenda for its upcoming
negotiations, the league should also make time to find a mutually
agreeable way to test its players for steroids. The continuing use of
these illegal drugs is bad for the players who use them, bad for the
players who do not use them, and bad for baseball.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), the sponsor of this legislation.
Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman very
much for yielding me time, and I thank him for his efforts in bringing
this resolution to the floor.
I rise in strong support of H. Res. 496 and urge its unanimous
adoption.
I am not an expert on baseball, though I have played the game
enthusiastically at many periods in my life. I am not an expert on
baseball's contract disputes either. If this were merely an issue
between the players' union and owners, I would not have introduced this
resolution. But I am an expert on kids, and I know that children look
for heroes and emulate their heroes.
Nearly three million children worldwide play Little League baseball,
and these children look up to the players of the big leagues. Yet
baseball's failure to test for steroids, coupled with media reports of
steroid abuse in baseball, tells young people that drug use is not only
permissible, but desirable. This is exactly the wrong message to be
sending to our children, but it is getting through.
Recent studies have shown an alarming increase in steroid use among
children. One report said steroid use by high school boys was as high
as 12 percent. I am here today because Major League Baseball needs to
step up to the plate and put an end to steroid use for the sake of our
children, if not for the sake of the game.
Steroids are dangerous drugs with deadly consequences, such as heart
attack, stroke, and liver cancer. It is dead wrong to send the message
to our children that steroids can be used safely, when they are
dangerous to a person's health. It is dead wrong to send the message to
our kids that it is okay to cheat, and using steroids is cheating at
sports.
It is time for our Nation's most popular national pastime to send the
right message to our Nation's wonderful kids. Instituting mandatory,
random drug testing, as football and basketball have already done, is
the only way to signal that steroids have no place in professional
sports and no place in our kids' lives.
The Members of the House of Representatives represent more than 250
million Americans. Passing this resolution will send a wake-up call to
baseball that they need to clean up their act.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my friend, the
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel).
Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution urging
mandatory steroid testing in Major League Baseball. I rise as a Member
of this body, but, more importantly, as a father and as a huge baseball
fan, particularly of the New York Mets, which, I will take this
opportunity to add, play much better in the second half than in the
first half.
Mr. Speaker, all around us people are losing faith in their
politicians, their corporations and their retirements. We cannot let
them lose faith in America's national pastime, baseball. We cannot
allow the clouds of doubt and skepticism to hang over every at-bat by
every 40-home-run hitter.
Mr. Speaker, I grew up on Long Island worshipping Tom Seaver and
Jerry Koosman and Tommy Agee and Cleon Jones and Art Shamsky. I
started, I am very proud to announce, the Ron Swaboda fan club in my
neighborhood. I was the only member of the Ron Swaboda fan club in my
neighborhood, but that is what young people are supposed to do.
Instead, according to one report, 12 percent of high school boys are
taking steroids.
Baseball should be a field of dreams, and not a den of drugs. This
should not be just another collective bargaining issue, because
baseball is not just another business, like Enron or WorldCom. Baseball
is special and has a special historic obligation to lead by example, to
tell people who are young that you do not have to enhance your
performance by using drugs that are dangerous, illegal and morally
offensive; that you can excel the good old-fashioned way, with hard
work.
The only way that baseball can send a serious message that it will
not tolerate steroids is to institute mandatory drug testing for
steroids. I take this position as a Member of Congress, as a father,
and as a very proud fan of the New York Mets, much to the consternation
of my constituents on Long Island.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to
the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), our own coach.
Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H. Res. 496, sponsored by the
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson). I really appreciate her
leadership on this particular issue.
As other speakers have mentioned, there are a number of former major
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league baseball players who have indicated that steroid abuse is
widespread. Some have said 50 percent, some 60 percent. I do not know
what the exact figure is, but the perception is certainly there.
I guess recent records would lend some credibility to these
allegations, because in the first 125 years of major league baseball,
we had two players who hit 60 home runs or more. In the last 4 years,
we have had three players who have hit over 70 home runs. Home run
production has skyrocketed. Strength, size, speed has always increased.
So, again, we do not know the exact figures, we do not know the exact
facts, but, obviously, there is something going on here that is a
matter of concern.
I think the perception of steroid abuse is damaging, because the
National Football League, as has been pointed out, the National
Basketball Association, the Olympics and intercollegiate athletics have
tested for steroids for a number of years. It is hard to understand why
all of these people would test and be very much against steroids, while
Major League Baseball seems to turn their head. I cannot really
understand that.
I know the intercollegiate athletic scene the best. For an average
top football player in an intercollegiate athletic institution, you
will find that the NCAA will test twice a year, the conference will
come in and test twice a year, and the school will test two to three
times a year. All of these are random, unannounced tests. When that
happens, you will find that steroids abuse goes down and practically
disappears, because, if it is an oil-based steroid, it is detectable
for up to 12 months, and if it is a water-based steroid, it is
detectable for 3 to 4 weeks. So with that frequency of testing, it is
almost impossible to dodge the bullet, to use steroids and get away
with it. So we think this has worked very well.
In the late '70s and early '80s occasionally you would hear rumors
about this guy or that guy using steroids. He would gain weight and get
stronger. We had the testing capability from the middle '80s on. From
that time forward, we have seen practically no steroid abuse among NCAA
athletes, at least in the football arena. Of course, if a person is
caught using steroids, they are suspended automatically for at least 1
year.
There are three damaging issues regarding steroids. As has been
mentioned earlier, there are severe health implications, heart disease,
cancer, it caps growth of young people. But an adjunct to this is
psychological. Steroids greatly increase aggression. There is something
called ``steroid rage,'' where someone is irrationally angry all of a
sudden. This is something that can be caused by steroids. Suicide rates
generally go up with those using steroids, and certain psychotic events
occasionally occur as well.
Secondly, as has been mentioned earlier, there is the issue of
competitive advantage. The thing I would like to mention is if you are
a player and you are in a league where you think 30, 40, 50, 60 percent
of your colleagues are using steroids, you may not want to use
steroids, but you feel you have to use steroids in order to be
competitive. If you can play in the league 2 more years, that may be
several million dollars. If you can raise your home run average by 10 a
year, your batting average by 15 percent, that also translates into
huge contract increases. So I think we will find it is sort of a
situation that to be competitive, you have to keep ratcheting up the
steroid abuse.
The last thing I would mention, the reason I have really gotten
behind this resolution is the fact that there is no question that young
people look up to athletes, and if they see that home run production
skyrocketing, if they see these guys getting bigger and stronger and
faster and it seems as though the league is turning their head, we are
sending a very powerful message to these young people that it is okay
to do what you can get by with.
As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) mentioned earlier, we
really have had a crisis of confidence in so many areas of our society,
whether it be the clergy, whether it be politics, whether it be
business, and we really cannot afford to have this crisis of confidence
spread and affect our young people and particularly the game of Major
League Baseball, so I urge support of the resolution and want to thank
the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) for her work in this
area.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to
the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).
Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in favor of House Resolution 496,
expressing the sense of Congress that Major League Baseball should
implement a mandatory steroid drug testing program and ban the use of
the drug from the sport.
I really do not have much to add from the very compelling speeches
that we have heard here, but I am a mother of three actual high school
athletes, and I would like to talk about how I think professional
ballplayers' use and abuse of steroids has become a children's health
issue.
Mr. Speaker, recent studies have shown that steroid use among student
athletes is on the rise. Some studies have suggested as many as 12
percent of high school athletes use steroids. I believe that is a
frightening statistic. Other surveys have indicated that student
athletes are either unaware or unconvinced of the harmful effect of
steroid use. Amazingly, among high school seniors, disapproval of
steroids has dropped from 1997, where 91 percent of high school seniors
disapproved, to less than 86 percent in the year 2001, while the belief
that steroids pose a great risk has fallen from 67 percent to 59
percent in the year 2001.
These numbers are very troubling. Kids are learning that steroids are
acceptable and not dangerous, and from who are they learning this? They
are learning from those whose athletic performance is the highest
standard, those who are the role models, the professional athlete.
Either the youth of America is ignorant, or not concerned about the
side effects that have been mentioned here today, stunted growth,
infertility, loss of hair, increased risk of stroke, heart disease and
liver cancer. More than ever, kids are emulating what they see
professionals doing, and that is using and abusing steroids to enhance
their athletic performance.
Mr. Speaker, the fact that our children are copying this destructive
behavior should be appalling.
There is no doubt that parents, teachers and coaches need to take a
tough stance on this issue. All of us have a responsibility for our
children's health. But it is absolutely crucial that we have the help
of professional sports players and Major League Baseball to send a
strong and clear example that steroids have no place in America's
athletics.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time,
and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) that the House
suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 496.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor
thereof) the rules were suspended and the resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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