[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 6 (Tuesday, January 27, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H120-H124]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Neugebauer). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this evening I would like to talk about the 
Republican Medicare prescription drug bill that was signed into law by 
the President last year, which I consider a huge missed opportunity on 
behalf of the Congress because we really needed a meaningful 
prescription drug bill for seniors. That is not what we received. What 
we received really is nothing more than an attempt to privatize 
Medicare and not provide a meaningful prescription drug plan for 
seniors.
  I wanted to particularly highlight tonight the fact that on the 
Republican side of the aisle there now are a series of events that have 
occurred with regard to members of the administration, Members of this 
House of Representatives, who have, in my opinion, taken advantage of 
the situation and of their position relative to either negotiating or 
passing this prescription drug measure that highlight again the fact 
that special interests and the pharmaceutical companies and the HMOs 
and the insurance companies were basically out to pass a prescription 
drug bill that would not provide meaningful coverage; that would not 
lower costs; and that essentially creates a hoax on the American people 
that we are somehow doing something about the issue of prescription 
drugs for seniors.
  Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies and, yes, even our own 
Members of Congress and even a member of the administration continue to 
benefit personally from the fact that they were involved in these 
negotiations and now have taken jobs or opportunities in the private 
sector with those same prescription drug companies with whom they 
worked to negotiate what was essentially a bad bill.
  Before I get into some of the specifics in that regard, I just wanted 
to highlight again why I think this prescription drug measure was a 
missed opportunity and does not really do anything to help America's 
seniors. The bill, H.R. 1, in my opinion, simply weakens the Medicare 
program and falls short of meeting the prescription drug needs of 
seniors.
  H.R. 1, as we know, provides woefully inadequate prescription drug 
coverage due to a giant gap in coverage in which seniors receive no 
assistance with costs between $2,250 and $5,100 annually. About half of 
all seniors will not have drug coverage for part of the year, even 
though they will continue to pay monthly premiums.
  I would like to explain what I mean by that. The problem with the 
Republican bill, unlike with what the Democrats had proposed, is that 
the Republican bill basically makes you pay so much out of pocket for 
what you are getting back in your benefit that it is not even worth 
having; and since it is a voluntary program, I would venture to guess 
that when this bill finally goes

[[Page H121]]

into effect in a couple of years, most seniors would simply not opt for 
it because they have to pay out more than it is worth essentially. I 
have a little chart here that highlights what I mean.
  For example, if a senior in the course of a year were to run up a 
bill of about $1,000 for their prescription drug needs, under the 
Republican bill, they would have to pay $857.50 for $1,000 worth of 
coverage. If their annual drug costs were $2,000, they would be paying 
about $1,107 out of pocket. If their annual drug costs were $3,000, 
they would be paying $1,920 out of pocket; and if their annual drug 
costs were $5,000, they would be paying $3,920 out of pocket. You might 
say to yourself who in the world would want to take advantage of a bill 
that forces you to pay so much out of pocket to get a very meager 
amount back in coverage by the Federal Government? And that is really 
the point.
  The second thing that is so important about this Republican 
prescription drug measure, if you want to call it that, is that it does 
nothing to reduce the costs of prescription drugs. When you talk to 
most seniors, they will say that the biggest problem they face is the 
price of the actual cost of the prescription drugs. What the bill does 
is it prohibits Medicare from using the bargaining power of 40 million 
seniors to negotiate lower prices. In other words, all of the sudden, 
if you have a Medicare prescription drug program, you have about 40 
million seniors that the Medicare administration or the Secretary of 
Health and Human Services can go to the drug companies and say, look, I 
represent 40 million seniors, I am not going to buy prescription drugs 
from you, pharmaceutical company, unless you reduce the price; and 
since I represent all these people, I can buy a lot of drugs if you 
give me a good price.
  This is how you negotiate. We do this with the VA. We do this with 
the Defense Department for our United States military. But under the 
Republican Medicare prescription drug bill, the Federal Government, the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Medicare administrator was 
specifically forbidden from doing that kind of price negotiation to 
reduce prices. I mean, this is an outrage, but this is the reality.
  The other thing is that the Republican bill pushes seniors into 
private plans through either an HMO or a PPO. In other words, if they 
want to get the prescription drugs, they are probably going have to 
join an HMO in order to get any kind of benefit whatsoever, which means 
that they lose their choice of doctors. There are so many problems with 
the bill I do not want to get into all of the problems tonight because 
I want to kind of highlight how this relates to some of the people that 
were negotiating the bill and some of the people here in Congress, as 
well as within the Bush administration, that are benefiting from the 
fact that they were in charge of negotiating this very bad bill.
  I wanted to also point out that the Democrats had an alternative to 
the Republican plan that would have actually accomplished the goal of 
providing a good benefit, reducing the cost of prescription drugs. And 
would have been immediately available as opposed to available in 2 
years under the Republican proposal.
  What the Democrats proposed to do was to simply follow the lead of 
what we do now with part B. Most seniors know that they pay a premium 
of about $40, $50 a month under part B of Medicare. That covers their 
doctors' bills, and they have a $100 deductible. They have a 20 percent 
co-pay, but essentially it starts with the first prescription. There is 
no donut hole. There is no lack of coverage, and a certain amount at a 
catastrophic level, the government pays all the costs. Also, under the 
Democratic proposal we have specifically instructed the Medicare 
administrator and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to 
negotiate price reductions to reduce the costs of the prescription 
drugs. Very simple. You keep your doctor. You do not have to go through 
the HMO. Everybody's eligible for this prescription drug plan, and you 
pay a premium of about $25 a month.
  This is not what we got. This is not what the President signed into 
law. The bill that the President signed into law essentially, the 
Republican bill, says you are not going to get the coverage unless you 
go private, join an HMO or something like it. The coverage is very 
limited. You have to pay a tremendous amount out of pocket, the way I 
described; and there is actually a prohibition on the reduction or the 
negotiating of prices to try to bring the prices down.
  You might say to yourself, why did this happen? Why is it that the 
Republican proposal and the one that was signed into law is so bad, and 
why did it not just follow what we had done traditionally with Medicare 
with part B, for example, with your doctor bills, the way the Democrats 
had proposed? The answer, in my opinion, is very simple, and that is 
because this bill was written by the pharmaceutical companies and by 
the insurance companies. The insurance companies wanted to make sure 
that you had to go private with an HMO or something like it in order to 
get the benefit, and the pharmaceutical companies wanted to make sure 
that there were no cost controls whatsoever in this benefit so that 
they would not lose money essentially from having to lower the cost of 
their prescription drugs.
  This is what I would like to get into tonight, and I do not like to 
cast aspersions, but I do not think we have any choice. The irony of it 
is two of the key people or at least two of the key people that were 
involved in negotiating and working on this legislation have now or are 
about to either join the pharmaceutical companies and leave, in one 
case, Congress; or in the other case, the Medicare administrator has 
already left the Bush administration to join a law firm that represents 
the drug companies; and I just want to talk about that a little bit 
tonight.
  This is an article from today's Washington Post that says that the 
chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce on the House side, 
which is my committee that I serve on, the committee that had 
jurisdiction over the Medicare legislation, the gentleman from 
Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), I am reading from The Washington Post today, 
``is close to a decision to leave Congress to head the pharmaceutical 
industry's trade association after turning down an offer from Hollywood 
to succeed Jack Valenti as the movie industry's top lobbyist, sources 
in Washington and California said yesterday.''
  Tauzin telephoned Valenti and declined the offer from the Motion 
Picture Association, but The Washington Post goes on to say that he 
``is now considering an offer from the Pharmaceutical Research and 
Manufacturers of America, PhRMA, the trade group that represents trade 
giants such as Pfizer and Merck and Company.''
  He chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. ``He was one of 
the principal authors of the Medicare prescription drug bill that 
included several provisions expected to vastly expand the market for 
prescription drugs . . . in addition to adding hundreds of billions of 
dollars for drug benefits, the law bars the Federal Government from 
directly bargaining down the price of drugs, a provision PhRMA pressed 
for.''
  So the bottom line is PhRMA, representing the pharmaceutical 
companies, comes in here, negotiates with the committee to ban any kind 
of cost controls, any kind of negotiated prices. Now that the 
Republican chairman of the committee, a nice gentleman but nonetheless 
the Republican chairman of the committee, is likely, according to this, 
to take a job at PhRMA, the pharmaceutical trade company's top 
representative, the head of it.
  At some point, you have to say to yourself, Mr. Speaker, where does 
it end? Where does the special interests, in this case of the drug 
companies, I could probably use the same example with the HMOs and the 
insurance companies, where does their ability to influence legislation 
in what I consider a bad way because it in this case means there was no 
effort to negotiate prices and lower prices for seniors, where does 
their ability to influence what goes on here and when we have this 
revolving door, where they come in here and get the committee and the 
Congress to ban any kind of negotiated prices, and then the person who 
is the chairman of the committee decides maybe that he will go on to 
represent this trade group?

[[Page H122]]

  I want to use another example because I mentioned the Medicare 
administrator. The person who was the Medicare administrator within the 
Department of Health and Human Services at the time when this 
prescription drug bill was being debated and negotiated here in 
Congress, again under the Bush administration, a Republican by the name 
of Tom Scully, last month took a job with a law firm in an investment 
company that represents these pharmaceutical companies. So here we have 
again the top person in the Bush administration who is negotiating this 
bill, a bad bill, one that is not helping the senior citizens, after 
the bill is passed, leaves the Bush administration, the Medicare 
administrator position, and goes to work for a law firm that 
essentially represents these same pharmaceutical companies.

                              {time}  2015

  Now, it was interesting because there was an article, again in The 
Washington Post, about a week ago, January 14, that says, ``Now the 
White House has ordered Federal agencies to stop issuing ethics waivers 
that allow key officials to negotiate jobs while they are shaping 
policies important to potential private employers.'' So this was a memo 
that was issued by the White House Chief of Staff about a week ago 
saying that ``Effective immediately only the White House can approve 
such waivers.''
  The problem here is that Federal law bars Presidential appointees, 
such as Tom Scully, who is the Medicare Administrator, from discussing 
possible employment with firms involved in or hoping to be involved in 
matters handled by those officials. So Scully was negotiating the 
Medicare prescription drug bill in a way that helped the pharmaceutical 
companies and did a disservice to the senior citizens of this country 
by not allowing any kind of negotiated price reductions.
  There actually is Federal law that says that he cannot, while he 
holds that Medicare Administrator position, he cannot look for another 
job with a company or a law firm that is involved in those 
negotiations. But he can get a waiver, which was granted by the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services, a waiver to seek that job and 
talk to those companies to get a job at the same time that he is 
negotiating this Medicare prescription bill.
  The waiver was granted. And now they are saying, well, maybe it 
should not have been granted by the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services. In the future, we will only let the White House, I guess the 
President himself, grant those kind of waivers.
  Well, these waivers should not be allowed at all. It is outrageous, 
in my opinion, that the Medicare Administrator, who is negotiating and 
trying to come up with a prescription drug bill, is allowed to go out 
and seek a job at the same time with those same law firms or companies 
that he is now negotiating to put in a provision that would ban the 
ability to negotiate price reductions.
  He had a waiver so that he was allowed to do it. That was given by 
the same administration, the Bush administration, ultimately the White 
House as well, so that he could go about trying to look for a job with 
those same law firms or companies that were trying to get him to 
bargain for some provisions in the bill that were to their liking.
  I mean, where are we going with this whole issue of special interests 
and the ability of special interests to influence not only the White 
House and the Medicare Administrator who is working under the 
President, but also the Republican chairman of the committee that also 
has jurisdiction over this Medicare prescription drug bill? I do not 
know where it ends.
  I just want to give one more example, which I know has already been 
mentioned by others, but many of us remember the night here on the 
floor of the House of Representatives when we were voting on this 
Medicare prescription drug bill; and when the vote first took place and 
the 15 or 17 minutes were up, when we are supposed to vote and put our 
cards in the machines and post our names and how we voted up on the 
wall here, the bill had actually lost. There was a majority against the 
bill. An absolute majority was against the bill, so that the bill 
should have been defeated.
  But what the Republican leadership in the House here did, the 
Speaker, the majority leader, they spent the next 3 or 4 hours, I do 
not know how long it was, but it was at least 3 hours, twisting arms 
and trying to use whatever means they could to convince Republican 
Members to change their votes. And they actually were able to get 
enough to change their votes so that they switched the majority from 
defeating the bill to passing the bill several hours after the machines 
were supposed to close.
  I mean, there are all kinds of examples of the kinds of arm-twisting 
that was taking place and the kind of special interests that were being 
used. The Secretary of Health and Human Services was here on the floor 
twisting arms. I saw him personally. But I want to give the most 
egregious example, which has been mentioned before. In fact, in an 
effort to show how much the Republican leadership is willing to go to 
do the bidding of the special interests, in this case the 
pharmaceutical industry and the insurers, this is an editorial from The 
Washington Post on December 30, during our congressional recess. And I 
am not going to read the whole thing, but I want to read part of it, 
because I think it is part of this whole thing, and what I need to do 
to expose what is going on around here.
  It says, ``Mr. Smith Leaves Washington,'' talking about the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Smith), a Republican. It says, ``Something ugly 
happened to Representative Nick Smith on the long night of the House 
Medicare vote last month that seems beyond dispute. With his party 
lacking the votes to muscle the prescription drug bill through, Mr. 
Smith was subjected to intense and quite possibly criminal pressure to 
induce him to abandon his opposition to the Medicare bill. As Mr. Smith 
related it the next day, Members and groups offered financial and 
political support for his son Brad, who is running for his father's 
seat, if only he would vote for the bill. The first offer was to give 
him $100,000-plus for his campaign and endorsements by national GOP 
leadership, Mr. Smith elaborated a few days later. When he refused, he 
said he was threatened that, ``Well, if you do not change your vote, 
then some of us are going to work to make sure your son does not get 
into Congress.''
  Again, it goes on to talk about how the House Speaker was among those 
importuning the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) in the final hours 
of the Medicare vote. And, of course, The Washington Post goes on to 
say that ``The Justice Department should fully investigate the matter. 
If Justice declines to proceed, the ethics committee must step up to 
the plate.''
  To my knowledge, neither of those things has happened. But, again, I 
just want to highlight this because that prescription drug bill was so 
important to seniors and it was such a missed opportunity to do 
something that would have actually been helpful to seniors as opposed 
to doing something that only helps the insurance companies or the 
pharmaceutical companies. And you just get a little flavor of what goes 
on here and what contributed to the fact that this bad bill passed: 
arm-twisting to get Members to change their votes with threats of 
giving money or withholding donations from candidates, and members of 
the administration in charge of the Medicare program being offered jobs 
to work for the very companies that were pharmaceutical companies and 
their representatives that were benefiting from the legislation; and 
now the possibility, and we will find out, I guess, in a few days, of 
the Republican chairman of the committee that had jurisdiction actually 
going to become the chief representative of PhRMA, the trade group for 
these very same pharmaceutical interests. It is a very sad day, and the 
consequences to America's seniors are very bad.

  Just in case anybody has any doubt about why this bill is not good 
and what it means to the industry and what goes on around here, I just 
wanted to make reference to an editorial that was in The New York Times 
this Sunday. It says, ``Patches For the Drug Program.'' And I am not 
going to read it all, Mr. Speaker, but I want to read some relevant 
parts because I think it sums up the problem that we face.
  The New York Times says in the Sunday editorial, ``In the weeks since 
the Medicare prescription drug bill was

[[Page H123]]

signed into law, the changes that need to be made in this vital 
legislation have become increasingly apparent. It is not likely that 
Congress will act in a political year, but Democrats who criticize the 
bill should lay markers down now on what has to change, and those 
amendments should be brought up as soon as possible, either before or 
after the election.''
  They go on to say in The New York Times that ``Anyone who followed 
the rancorous congressional debate knows that the new program has a 
huge coverage gap, known as the doughnut hole, that exposes many 
beneficiaries to $3,600 in out-of-pocket costs before catastrophic 
coverage kicks in. That makes no sense from an insurance perspective, 
but was intended to keep the program's costs from getting out of 
control. Less well-known,'' and I have not even mentioned this, Mr. 
Speaker, ``is the likelihood that the drug coverage will actually 
become worse with each passing year. The premiums, deductibles and out-
of-pocket expenditures will all increase rapidly, tied to increases in 
per capita drug expenditures under Medicare. By 2013,'' about another 
10 years, ``for example, the out-of-pocket spending required before a 
person qualifies for catastrophic coverage will probably be $6,400 a 
year, well above the $3,600 required in the first year. That could be 
devastating for those struggling to survive on Social Security 
benefits.''
  It is so sad. I mean, what The New York Times is saying is what I 
talked about earlier in terms of out-of-pocket expenditures; that they 
are only going to get worse as time goes on. I do not think most people 
will even sign up for this when it goes into effect in 2 years because 
their out-of-pocket costs are so bad compared to what they would 
actually benefit. But what The New York Times is saying is that that 
differential is going to get even worse as time goes on.
  The New York Times editorial from Sunday goes on to talk about the 
drug pricing that I mentioned before. They say, ``Drug prices must also 
be controlled. Unfortunately, the most glaring fault in the bill is its 
failure to employ the strongest weapon for reining in drug costs. As 
the political price for passing the bill, congressional Republicans 
inserted language prohibiting the Medicare program from using its 
substantial market power to negotiate low prices from the drug 
companies. Instead, the program will rely on private insurance plans or 
pharmacy benefit managers to negotiate. That was a mistake. The ban on 
government intervention reflects the Republicans aversion to government 
price controls, but it is also testimony to the lobbying clout of the 
drug industry, a major patron of the Republican Party. Democratic 
leaders have introduced bills to allow Medicare to negotiate directly, 
but that will be a tough sell in a Republican Congress that opposes any 
changes before the law has had a chance to work. The AARP has now 
suggested that Congress should allow the government to negotiate drug 
prices if private efforts fail to produce big discounts.''
  Well, I do not have to go on. The New York Times is just confirming 
what I have said all along. This was nothing but a bone thrown to the 
pharmaceutical industry that did not want any kind of effort to 
negotiate lower prices; and now we see that the representatives, be 
they Members of the House, Republican Members, or members of the 
administration who were directly involved in these negotiations to make 
sure that there was this ban on any effort to lower prices, are now 
joining those same drug companies or the law firms that represent them.
  The special interests just reign supreme here in the Republican-
controlled Congress and in the White House. And worst of all, and this 
is the last thing I will mention on this subject, Mr. Speaker, I could 
not believe that on Saturday there was an article in The New York Times 
about how the Department of Health and Human Services is now stepping 
up efforts against drug imports. Those of us who were here back in 
November when we had this debate know full well that there was an 
effort that was successful on the part of mostly Democrats but also 
some Republicans to put into the Republican Medicare prescription drug 
bill a provision that would have allowed reimportation of drugs from 
Canada, if not from other countries, where the FDA has certified the 
production and the factory where the drugs are being produced. We 
actually were successful in getting language in the bill, believe it or 
not. I do not know how we did it, but we managed on a bipartisan basis 
to get language in the bill that would allow and legalize reimportation 
from Canada as a way of trying to reduce the prices of drugs.
  We know that in Canada, unlike in the United States, they negotiate 
price reductions on behalf of not only seniors but all their citizens, 
so the prices for the prescription drugs are significantly lower. But 
what this Bush administration does is, after the law passes, they say 
that they will refuse to certify that drugs being reimported from 
Canada are safe and, therefore, because they will not certify that 
those drugs are safe, they now say that it is still illegal to reimport 
the drugs from Canada. What the Bush administration is now doing, what 
the FDA is now doing, is basically trying to prevent the reimportation 
of the drugs.
  This is what was in The New York Times on Saturday, January 24. And, 
again, I just want to read some sections from it because it is 
unbelievable to me how far they will go to protect the pharmaceutical 
industry at the expense of the average senior in the United States who 
is trying to find some way, albeit even having to reimport the drugs 
from Canada, to try to reduce their drug prices, because they simply 
cannot afford to pay these steep prices for these prescription drugs.
  This article says that ``A second 'blitz' inspection by Federal drug 
and Customs officials of medicines imported from Canada has found that 
nearly all of almost 2,000 packages opened contained foreign versions 
of American pharmaceuticals that officials said might not be safe.'' 
And I use that, ``might not be safe.'' They are not saying they are not 
safe, they are saying they might not be safe. Well, what is the basis 
for their saying they might not be safe? Nothing. There is absolutely 
nothing in the article and nothing that they did to show that in fact 
these reimported drugs were not safe.
  In fact, in The New York Times article, it says, ``Asked if the pills 
reviewed in the latest survey that they were inspecting were unsafe, 
Dr. McClellan,'' who is the FDA Commissioner and a Bush appointee, 
answered, ``We just don't know because it's so hard to tell.'' Well, 
what kind of answer is that, Mr. Speaker?

                              {time}  2030

  Americans are trying to get drugs reimported from Canada, and there 
is every reason to believe they are safe, there is no reason to believe 
they are not; and they are seizing all these drugs. And when the 
commissioner is asked if they are safe, he said we do not know because 
it is so hard to tell. There is nothing in this article that indicates 
that they have found anything that indicates that these drugs are not 
safe. I think they are harassing those who are trying to do the 
reimportation.
  Mr. Speaker, Governors and mayors around the country, because they 
are so concerned about the cost of prescription drugs for their own 
citizens, for their seniors, are trying to come up with ways of 
providing a government program, either in the case of the mayors for 
their cities or Governors for their States, to reimport these drugs 
from Canada at a low cost. I do not have to give all of the examples 
here, but I think one of the States that has taken a lead on this is 
Illinois, which has talked about a major program to try to accomplish 
this goal.
  But what the Bush administration says, and this is again from the New 
York Times, the Bush administration is hoping to use a combination of 
aggressive inspections and pointed political advice to persuade local 
and State officials to back away from the border drug trade. This is 
Dr. McClellan that is being paraphrased. And the State officials who 
are trying to set up these programs are turning their heads because 
they do not know what to do. They think it is ridiculous what the FDA 
is trying to do. This is not even a partisan issue. Some of the 
Governors trying to set up the programs and that are objecting to what 
the Bush administration is doing on the Canadian reimportation issue 
are Republicans.

[[Page H124]]

  There is one quote here from Governor Tom Pawlenty, a Republican from 
Minnesota; and he says that the FDA will sue somebody or throw somebody 
in jail over this, the pharmaceutical companies choke off supply, or 
the FDA comes to their senses. He is very concerned about what the 
administration is trying to do to stop the supply of drugs going into 
Minnesota, which he believes are safe.
  It goes on and on and talks about all of the things that the FDA is 
trying to do to cut the supply; that the drug companies are sending 
fewer drugs to Canada and are trying to choke off the supply. 
Everything is being done to try to help the pharmaceutical companies 
not have to provide lower-cost drugs. The actions of my fellow 
Congressman and the Bush administration officials in this regard are 
just outrageous. I think it is imperative to keep speaking out against 
what is going on, against those Republican officials within the 
administration and in our case the chairman of our committee who are 
now taking jobs with these companies after they negotiated this 
legislation, this bad bill. Somehow the public has to be made aware, 
Mr. Speaker, of all these activities. I know that I am going to be back 
again on another night talking about this and have some of my 
colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle join with me.
  Before I close, I just wanted to move to another topic which is 
totally unrelated to this, but it is timely. I would like to take 5 
minutes to switch to this topic that relates to foreign policy, not 
only to U.S. foreign policy, but also to activities at the U.N.
  Tomorrow, President Bush is meeting with the Prime Minister of 
Turkey, and I know there are a number of things that they are going to 
discuss; but I would like to discuss this evening what I would like our 
President to do, which is to basically have President Bush exert 
pressure on the Turkish Government to convince the Turkish Cypriot 
leader, Rauf Denktash, to return to the negotiating table on Cyprus and 
truly work for a peace settlement over the Cyprus issue.
  I was in Cyprus this summer. Some may know that Cyprus is about to 
join the European Union as of May 1 of this year; but Cyprus is still a 
divided island. The Turkish Government invaded Cyprus in 1974. They 
occupy about a third of the northern part of the island; and every 
effort that has been made over the last few years, and it really came 
to the point where we thought there was really a possibility last 
spring that there would be an agreement between the Turkish Cypriot 
government and the Government of the Republic of Cyprus to unify the 
island and have the Turkish troops leave before Cyprus joined the 
European Union. So far that has not happened, but I still think there 
is an opportunity for that to happen.
  I would like to see if President Bush can put some pressure on the 
Turkish Prime Minister tomorrow to have him essentially exert some 
influence over the Turkish Cypriot government in the northern occupied 
part of Cyprus to come to agreement and unify the island under one 
government before Cyprus' accession to the European Union.
  This weekend, before his trip to the United States, the Turkish Prime 
Minister said he would allow the United Nations to ``fill in the 
blanks'' of a settlement to the Cyprus issue. The Prime Minister also 
urged U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan to appoint a new Cyprus negotiator and 
said he would urge the Turkish Cypriot leader to go along with 
settlement proposals. While these words are encouraging from the Prime 
Minister, one has to remember they were made right before his trip to 
the United States. In the past, Turkish leaders have made statements 
showing the importance of a peace settlement; but, unfortunately, these 
words have not translated into action.

  In fact, just days before Prime Minister Erdogan made this pledge, 
Denktash continued his intransigence, stating that the whole world is 
trying to take Cyprus away from the Turks. Denktash even joked in 
reference to the Turkish Government when he said, ``Come, give Cyprus 
away to the Greek Cypriots and get over with it.''
  Mr. Speaker, Denktash is not just going to listen to Turkish leaders. 
But Denktash's comments show an uneasiness with the perception that 
Turkey is finally willing to agree to a settlement with the framework 
created by the U.N. Now would be the perfect time for Turkey to exert 
pressure on Denktash and his government, and this is something that 
President Bush should strongly urge during his meeting tomorrow.
  At a time when Turkey is interested in joining the European Union, 
its lack of cooperation in the efforts to solve the Cyprus problem can 
only result in a setback for Turkey's candidacy. On May 1, Cyprus will 
join the European Union. Last week, the European Enlargement 
Commissioner, Genter Verheugen, warned that the status quo would damage 
everyone, whereas a solution would be a clear win/win situation for 
Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, and Europe as a whole. In an article in the 
Financial Times, it was pointed out by the European Enlargement 
Commissioner that ``the absence of a solution when we reach May 1 would 
deepen the island's division.'' He stressed that a settlement of the 
Cyprus problem does not constitute an additional criterion for Turkey's 
bid to join the European Union, but also questioned whether it would be 
likely that all 25 member states, including the Republic of Cyprus, 
will decide unanimously at the end of this year to start accession 
negotiations with Turkey as long as the island remains divided.
  Again, I would stress being particularly for Turkey, which wants to 
join and hopes by the end of this year that there will be some movement 
towards its own accession to the European Union. There is really very 
little time for Turkey to play a role to settle the Cyprus issue. I 
would hope with a little pressure from President Bush tomorrow, the 
Turkish Prime Minister will return to Ankara and stress to Denktash 
like never before the importance that the Turkish Cypriot leadership 
put aside unreasonable and unacceptable demands and finally negotiate 
in good faith with the leadership of the Republic of Cyprus.
  Ultimately, the victims of these shortsighted policies from Ankara 
and the Turkish Cypriot leadership are the people of Turkey and the 
Turkish Cypriot community, who will continue to be deprived of an 
opportunity to share in the economic, social, and other benefits of 
European Union membership.
  Again I would say that the statements made by the Turkish Prime 
Minister over the weekend and the Turkish military seem to indicate 
that they want the Turkish Cypriot government to move ahead with the 
settlement that could be accomplished possibly by May 1. But we have 
heard this before. I think the best course is if our President Bush can 
really make it clear to the Turkish Prime Minister tomorrow how 
important this is and how timely it is that some action be taken to 
achieve a unified Cyprus by May 1. I know that President Bush is 
interested in accomplishing this, and I hope that he does put 
sufficient pressure on the Prime Minister of Turkey so we can see some 
progress.

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