[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 22894-22901]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Meek) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, once again it is an honor to come 
to the floor. We would like to thank the Democratic leader as well as 
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), our Democratic whip, for 
allowing us to have this hour here to talk about the issues that are 
facing Americans and the issues that we feel should be brought to the 
forefront which are not being addressed.
  Tonight I am joined by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
and also by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan). I am glad to be joined 
by them once again because, as we have said before, we are going to 
come to the floor night after night to try to push the American agenda 
forward as best we can.
  As my colleagues know, being in the minority here in the House of 
Representatives does not bring about the kind of power one needs to be 
able to respond to the needs of Americans. But I can say that being in 
the minority and pointing out these issues of how we could do the job 
better than the majority side has done, I think is not only educational 
for the Members of this House but also should bring about some kind of 
change so that we can have better representation here in Washington, 
DC, especially representation in terms of legislation that passes from 
this floor and out of this Congress and on to the White House.

[[Page 22895]]

  We have been out for a week on the Columbus Day break, and I know the 
gentleman and his constituents have been getting lots of rain in New 
Jersey, so my prayers go out to your constituents and many others. 
Being from Florida, as you know we receive our fair share of good and 
bad weather. Mainly good, and so we want folks to come to Florida; but 
we know the Garden State has been hammered, along with other States 
around it, for quite a few days now. So I hope all is well with those 
counties that are trying to survive some of the flood waters.
  I think it is important to begin where we left off almost a week ago, 
Mr. Speaker, and to address the issue of having an independent 
commission for the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and making 
sure that not only are those Americans not forgotten but that we not 
forget the mistakes that took place during the aftermath of Hurricane 
Katrina so that they never happen again. Never again in the United 
States.
  I think it is important for us to also realize, Mr. Speaker, that it 
was not just a storm. It was the aftermath of the storm and the lack of 
governance on the front end, making sure that our levee systems were 
where they should have been and the issues as relates to those buffer 
islands in the gulf coast area, especially in Louisiana. Those issues 
should have been addressed by the Federal Government in making sure 
that we have the kind of buffer to protect one of our greatest U.S. 
cities.
  As my colleagues may know, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) 
and also the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) on our side of 
the aisle have introduced an independent commission bill that we have 
been working to get to the floor for some time now. I think that not 
only the Members but the American people need to realize that the power 
of this House, if we were in the majority, and this is not a partisan 
issue, but if we were in the majority, because there is a bill that is 
there that almost every Member, if not every Member from the Democratic 
Caucus, has signed on to this bill calling for a 9/11-like commission 
to deal with the issues that are facing the Katrina victims and to be 
able to analyze in an independent way outside of this process, outside 
of the partisanship, to make sure we do what we did for the 9/11 
victims, to give them their fair share of representation and insight; 
making sure that they are not dragged through the mud, becoming victims 
once again.
  Mr. Speaker, as we open our discussions here tonight, I also wanted 
to make sure that we deal with the issue of corruption and cronyism. 
When we left here over a week ago, we were dealing with that issue; and 
I wanted to make sure that we talk about that a little tonight with my 
colleagues.
  I also brought some articles with me that I think Members should be 
made aware of, and that we share with them the importance of governance 
and oversight. So there are a number of issues that we are going to 
talk about, and I just wanted to make some opening comments regarding 
those items, but I will be happy to yield to my colleagues at any time.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I want to welcome our newest 30-
something member joining us from New Jersey this evening; but before I 
get into it, I want to make an announcement. Since we left here last 
week, we had last week off, and since we left here, there has been an 
addition to the Ryan family. My brother and sister-in-law Carrie had a 
baby last Friday night on his birthday. Nicholas John Ryan. So I want 
to welcome him into the world officially, and say hello to his first 
two friends, Zack and Molly Leonard, who were all over to the house the 
other day, and I fed the baby for the first time the other day. So here 
I had the bottle, and I fed him. It was great.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Well, A, congratulations; and, B, because you 
were feeding the baby for the first time yesterday, I hope that you 
knew what to do when you were feeding the baby.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Well, see, I took a week and I watched. I was very 
timid. I did not want to make any mistakes, so I watched for a while. I 
watched my brother. I was being a little hesitant with the bottle, and 
my brother is like, jam it in there, you are not going to hurt the kid. 
So you pick up and gain a little confidence, and then I burped the kid. 
It was great. Bingo.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. There you go. Great uncle.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And the godfather. I am also going to be the 
godfather.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Two-fer.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Yes. So this is a lot of pressure. You think being 
a Member of Congress is a lot of pressure, try being the godfather to 
the first new baby in the family.
  So that for me has kind of changed my perspective, and it makes all 
of the stuff we talk about here that much more important because you 
begin to see the timetable, the effect our decisions have over the long 
term.
  I know a couple weeks ago when we left, we were talking about this 
administration, this Congress putting people in charge of key 
positions, in charge of key processes that need to happen here, whether 
it was in FEMA, Medicare, or regardless of what it is. There has been, 
over the past 5 to 10 years in this body and now in the executive 
branch, a host of cronyistic appointments to key positions. There have 
been people put in key positions, like FEMA, that have absolutely no 
experience whatsoever. All we are saying in this Chamber from the 
Democratic side is give us a chance to run this place. Give us an 
opportunity to be able to handle the levers of government and allow us 
to lead.
  That is the opportunity that we are asking the American people for, 
my good friends, because our colleagues who have had the levers of 
government over the past, since 1994 in the House and since 2000 in the 
White House and in the Senate, have not been able to govern. They just 
have not been able to do it.
  You do not have to look very far. Ask yourself sitting at home, what 
is going on here? I mean, we have higher energy costs, we have more 
people in poverty, we have tuition costs that have doubled, we have our 
FEMA administration that has been devastated financially. We have put 
cronies in key governmental positions. We are leaking information about 
CIA agents. I mean, what good is going on right now? Somebody please 
help me.
  We are bogged down in a war that is costing us $1.5 billion a week. I 
repeat, $1.5 billion a week. We are getting our clock cleaned by China. 
Delphi, the largest auto supplier in the country, filed for bankruptcy. 
They are asking their workers to take 60 percent pay cuts. I have over 
5,000 workers in my district, in Warren, Ohio. What positive is 
happening today due to the Republican leadership in the House, 
Republican leadership in the Senate, and the Republican leadership in 
the White House? I cannot seem to find anything.
  I think this country deserves a lot better, and I think we need to 
start talking about that, my good friends. This country deserves 
better. After September 11, this President had more political capital 
than any President probably since FDR after Pearl Harbor, and he asked 
the American people to go shopping. That is the best leadership you can 
come up with in the United States of America? We deserve a little 
better than that, I think.
  He did not start an alternative energy policy, not to fix the health 
care system that is a mess, not to take care of the millions and 
millions of young kids that live in poverty, not fund No Child Left 
Behind. What are we doing? The biggest leadership move is to ask the 
country to go shopping? What is that? That is terrible. That is 
terrible leadership.
  We have given this President the opportunity time and time and time 
again to lead, and he has not done it. He has not done it. And now the 
whole Delphi situation, which I am a little too intimate with because 
of the workers in my district. And General Motors. I have a General 
Motors plant in my district. Believe me, I understand why the 
corporations are doing what they are doing. The rising costs of health 
care are crippling the American businessperson. Crippling the 
corporation and the small businessperson.

[[Page 22896]]

  So now they are trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip in the form 
of asking middle-class citizens in the United States of America to get 
less health care or to pay for more health care, whether they are in a 
union or not in a union, instead of addressing the key issue, which is 
that the insurance lobby and the health care lobby and the 
pharmaceutical lobby which has a stranglehold around the United States 
Congress.
  Let us be honest. How about a little straight talk from the House 
floor tonight? Check it out. When you are passing the Medicare 
prescription drug bill, there are four lobbyists for every one Member 
of Congress; and I know I did not have a lobbyist, I did not have one, 
let alone four, so somebody had eight. Now, imagine that. When we get 
this health care issue under control, that will release a lot of 
potential that can get freed up, investments that could be made back in 
the United States of America.

                              {time}  2115

  For example, and I am sorry because we have been dealing with this 
for the last week, with the Delphi situation, this money that this 
corporation saves, and we all want to save Delphi. We want it to be a 
solvent company and we want them to maintain the work that they have in 
Ohio. Of course we do. The way the system is set up is any savings that 
they get, they are going to invest that money into China. That is what 
they are going to do. So the whole system is screwed up to where you 
are forcing corporations to invest into these other countries.
  Here we have an opportunity with this independent commission to 
oversee a problem with the government through FEMA, the problems that 
FEMA had, to oversee it in an independent manner like the 9/11 
Commission, and the Republican leadership put the kibosh on it. They 
put together a bust-out committee that is 11 Republicans, 9 Democrats, 
that is going to totally, totally, whitewash this thing. Get out the 
Brillo pads because they do not want the truth to come out. The 
Democrats will not have any subpoena power. Get a Republican Governor, 
a Democratic former Member of Congress, put together an independent 
commission and let us try to fix this problem. Let us try to fix this 
in a way that we are putting partisanship aside.
  Mr. Speaker, next we will hear from the newest member of the 30-
Somethings, and we charge him two sets of dues because he is almost 30-
Something twice.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many times I am going to 
have to endure these comments about my age.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I never say anything about the 
gentleman's age.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, that is because the gentleman is 
almost his age. Tell the American people how old you are.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I am 39.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. See, he graduates out of the 30-somethings next 
year. I am going to be a one-man show.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, since the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Ryan) is at the younger end, he wants to talk more about the older 
people that are involved and the wiser people. And I would say to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), we will not prolong it any 
more.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want you to know that one way to deal 
with the age problem is to hang out with the younger people so I feel 
younger.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. You are welcome here every time we are here, my 
friend.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, let me follow up on what the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Ryan) said because he certainly was right. We had a week when 
we were back in our districts doing things locally. I was thinking when 
I was listening to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) about three 
events that I attended in the last 48 hours in my district or nearby 
which point to this whole idea of what is good and what is the 
Republican leadership and what is President Bush doing because all I 
hear are complaints about his policies.
  For example, on Sunday, I went to a senior complex for a group of 
seniors that were meeting in Lakewood, New Jersey, which is a community 
just outside my district. It used to be in my district until 
redistricting a few years ago. What I heard was how expensive it is for 
seniors to buy their prescription drugs, and how they did not feel that 
the President's new program, which goes into effect in January, was 
going to help them in any way.
  One gentleman in particular, I remember, was one of these guys who 
was essentially forced into early retirement and promised a fairly 
generous health care plan that included prescription drugs. What he has 
found since he retired is that every year the cost goes up and the 
whole agreement, if you will, that was initially set out has 
essentially made it so he really cannot afford to buy the prescription 
drugs even though he has the coverage under a plan for his early 
retirement.
  The other seniors were talking how the Federal Government should 
negotiate price reductions like they do for the VA or the Department of 
Defense. My answer was that is what the Democrats wanted to do. The 
reason it did not become law was because the Republicans opposed it. I 
remember in the Committee on Energy and Commerce I had an amendment 
that would have required negotiated prices by the Medicare 
Administrator, and it was defeated on a party line vote.
  The bottom line is Republicans are so aligned with lobbyists and the 
cronyism they do not want to do anything that is going to be helpful to 
the average person. This prescription drug bill is a perfect example.
  In addition, all the seniors were saying as of October 1, all these 
different private drug plans are being promoted on television and they 
have no idea what they are all about. I said be very, very careful. Do 
not sign up for these things until you really look at the details 
because they may not be helpful to you.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to highlight that fact. This 
totally puts into perspective what happens down here under their 
leadership.
  We have a prescription drug bill that we spent $700-some billion over 
the next 10 years on, but we were told it was $400 billion. So that is 
another issue, to start a prescription drug Medicare program, and we 
are not doing anything to control the costs, whether it is 
reimportation from Canada or to allow the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services to buy in bulk.
  There would be every Medicare beneficiary behind that proposal. And 
you can say Merck, you want to negotiate this, we want 30 to 40 percent 
chopped off, and they would do it because they want the contract. We 
would not have to create a new bureaucracy. If people think the old 
Democrat Party wants to create a new bureaucracy, they are wrong. This 
is a progressive idea of giving the Administrator already in place the 
power. It is a progressive idea that makes sense, but you can only do 
it if you are not tied to the pharmaceutical lobby like our friends on 
the other side of the aisle.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I have ceased even referring to this 
program as Medicare because as far as I am concerned there is nothing 
Medicare about it. You said we need to show to the American people how 
we would do things differently because we want a chance to be in the 
majority and to run the country.
  Here we had a clear contrast. The fact of the matter is every 
Democrat, or maybe one or two that did not vote for a substitute, that 
basically would have been just like we do now with Medicare Part B, how 
seniors pay for their doctor bills, and that would have been under 
Medicare as a regular government program. They would have paid a $25 
premium per month, and had their choice of whatever prescription drugs 
they wanted. They would not have to go out privately and shop around. 
They would have had a $100 deductible and 80 percent of the cost paid 
for by the Federal Government, 20 percent copay. We already have it for 
Part B, and the Republicans rejected that to a person. There is clear 
contrast. This is the kind of thing we would do if we were in the 
majority and in charge.

[[Page 22897]]

  I want to use another example. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) 
talked about the rain and the storms in New Jersey. There was a senior 
complex in my district that was near a brook where a number of homes 
were completely destroyed and people had to be moved out. I went there 
this morning with the Army Corps of Engineers because the Corps has a 
project that would correct the situation that we would like to do. It 
would cost about $8 million to do it. What I am hearing from the Corps, 
we would like to do it but we have to see if we have the money.
  What happened with those levees in New Orleans is no different from 
what is happening around the country. We are not funding these 
infrastructure needs, whether flood control or whatever it happens to 
be. The reason, and I am going to go back to another forum, right after 
I met with the Corps this morning and talked about this flood control 
project which has been delayed for a number of years now, I met with 
students at Rutgers, a State university in my district, and we talked 
about the Iraq war.
  I started out talking about an exit strategy and what needed to be 
done. A lot of the students were talking about the cost of the war, not 
only cost in terms of the lives and the wounded, but also the cost of 
the actual dollars we were spending and the fact that because we were 
spending so much money on the Iraq war, we were not able to pay for a 
lot of domestic needs, whether it be student financial aid. They were 
stressing that, of course. But I was thinking about my flood control 
project which would have avoided all of the damage and all of the 
people who had to move out if it had been in place.
  The bottom line is we are spending all of this money on the Iraq war. 
The President does not have an exit strategy. He keeps talking about 
how everything is going to get better, and the cost is not only lives 
and the wounded, but also in terms of the dollars we are not spending 
here domestically, and we are not investing in the future to remain 
competitive with China and the other countries competing with us.
  People get this. I am not making this up. This is within the last 48 
hours at three different forums or opportunities I had to meet with my 
constituents, and this is what they are saying. They are not happy. 
They realize there are alternatives. The bottom line is some of those 
alternatives are easy, some are hard. Democrats are saying we have 
alternatives, whether it is prescription drugs or any of the other 
topics.
  Many of us voted against all these tax breaks that the President gave 
because we knew it would put us into debt and we would not have money 
to pay for a lot of the domestic programs, and most of the money went 
to the wealthy rather than the average person.
  One more thing, and that is when we were here last time, the week 
before being back in our districts, I think it was the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz) talking about the energy bill because 
the next day we voted on the Republican energy bill. She pointed out 
there was no benefit from this bill. It would not do anything to reduce 
gas prices or reduce our dependence on foreign oil. All of the things 
that people would like us to do, the Republicans were not doing.
  What it was doing, two things she mentioned, one was it was going to 
allow for offshore drilling off the coast of Florida and New Jersey, 
all these sensitive areas. The second thing the gentlewoman mentioned 
was it was going to weaken the Clean Air Act. Lo and behold, the 
interesting thing was the next day the Republicans took those 
provisions out of their energy bill because there was such a hue and 
cry. When they finally passed the energy bill, they barely were able to 
pass it. We had to wait an hour for them to get the votes.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Ninty minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. The bottom line is that this Republican majority is 
starting to fall apart because their policies are not good for the 
American people. Even some of the Republicans are starting to realize 
it and are not willing to vote for some of the junk bills that come to 
this floor with the Republican leadership.
  I just mention that because I think there is hope here. I left last 
Friday thinking maybe now because of yourselves getting on the floor, 
maybe because Democrats are speaking out and talking about why these 
Republican initiatives are not helpful, maybe people are starting to 
realize it. Maybe some Republicans are starting to realize it. That is 
why I admire what you are doing because I think it is making a 
difference.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) 
has been resilient in pushing us to get up to the floor once or twice a 
week. I just saw a poll last week that had 60 percent of the 
independent voters in the country are sick and tired of what has been 
going on in Washington, D.C.
  Mr. Wagner from General Motors said D.C. better do something about 
health care. We are not doing anything. What we are doing seems like we 
are doing something, but the energy bill is not really doing anything.
  The gentleman mentioned the $1.5 billion a week that we are spending 
in Iraq. I want to share one thing. This is a great article today in 
the Washington Post. The first line says it feels like the 1990s minus 
the good parts, all of the scandals that were going on, but the 
economy, energy costs and everything is bad.
  There was a proposal made, and talking about dealing with the 
Chinese, we need to offer, and that is what we are doing as Democrats, 
we just need to convince the American people that we are offering 
alternatives and do have ideas, whether it is prescription drugs or 
alternative energy.
  I want to share a proposal from the National Academies and it is a 
combination of a variety of different things to get our math scores up. 
Our math scores in 8th grade, we ranked 15th internationally and in the 
9th grade we ranked 24th internationally. We are not going to stimulate 
the economy if we do not have engineers and math and science majors, 
and the 30-Something Group is calling for a million new engineers and 
scientists over the next 10 years because we believe that is going to 
be the greatest stimulus.
  But let me share the proposal from the National Academies to spend 
money on math prizes for high schoolers, pay raises for math teachers 
and to boost Federal research funding by 10 percent annually for 7 
years. That would cost $10 billion a year. That is it. We are spending 
$1.5 billion a week in Iraq. The American people judge, $10 billion a 
year on increased Federal funding for research and development and 
targeted investments to increase math and science scores in the United 
States of America among K-12 school kids. That is what the Democrats 
want to do, versus $1.5 billion a week in Iraq, versus hundreds of 
thousands and millions and trillions of dollars over the next 10 years 
in tax cuts for people who make more than $600,000 a year.

                              {time}  2130

  Pick what they want. Democrats, increased funding for Pell grants to 
lower tuition costs. Republicans, cut taxes for the top 1 percent. 
Trillions.
  Democrats, fully fund No Child Left Behind, make sure every kid who 
is eligible for more funding, for afterschool tutoring, summer school, 
before school; Democrats are for full funding of that. Republicans, no. 
We have to give our tax cuts to our buddies.
  And that is the difference. Time and time again and over the course 
of the next year, we are just going to hammer the differences between 
the two parties.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) brought up some interesting points; and I can tell 
him, as a parent myself, this issue of No Child Left Behind, we would 
talk to our Republican leadership colleagues and they would say, well, 
that was a bipartisan bill and over on the opposite side, in the 
Senate, folks were having press conferences and bill-signing ceremonies 
and everything.
  But we believed that we were going to see full funding of No Child 
Left Behind and that this Congress would go down in history as the 
education Congress, and we are not even close to fulfilling our 
obligations. As a matter of

[[Page 22898]]

fact, we have about eight States that are suing the Federal Government 
over No Child Left Behind unfunded mandates. These are States. These 
are not other countries. These are States here in the United States 
that taxpayers pay money.
  We have a number of school districts that say, listen, if we can opt 
out of it, we want to opt out. We do not want to opt in. That is not a 
federalized education program to help local communities and chambers 
and all the other do-gooders in small communities and big communities 
who want to make sure they have an educated workforce. It is not that 
same theory.
  We have one other issue that is here. The gentleman mentioned the 
issue of the energy bill. I am glad that resurfaced because I am going 
to tell the Members the reason why that is important. The energy bill 
came to this floor, and for 90 minutes we sat and stood here on this 
floor waiting for the board to close. What we call the board here in 
Congress is a voting board. For several minutes, almost 1 hour. The 
bill was defeated. And, Mr. Speaker, I think this is where if I had a 
yellow flag and I was a referee or an official on the 40 yard line that 
I would actually throw a flag. I would have thrown the flag because the 
spirit of the rules were violated because when the board opens up and 
there are 15 minutes to vote, there are 15 minutes to vote, give or 
take 1 or 2 or 3. But when they say the board is open for 15 minutes 
and we will close it when we win, then that is a violation of the 
spirit of the rules of this House. And it feeds into the whole issue of 
the corruption and cronyism.
  I have two young children; and if there were a homework assignment 
that was due, and my wife and I have to sign their reading stuff and 
say that it is done, but it would not be fair if my children were to do 
their homework and there were two other children in the same classroom 
or in the same school that say, Well, I do not have to do my homework. 
I will just do it two nights from now because my father or my mother is 
a chairperson of the PTA and we have power like that. We can do it. 
That would not be fair to the children who actually did their homework.
  I use that analogy because I want to make sure that the Members and 
the American people understand what we are talking about. Yes, it is a 
bad thing dealing with children, but it is a horrible thing when we are 
talking about national policy for the greatest country on the face of 
the Earth, the shining example of democracy. Now, we salute one flag. 
And my colleagues heard me speak a couple of weeks ago about those 
Americans; and, yes, we think about those 2,000-plus individuals who 
have fallen in this war, but for those Americans who are still here who 
are voting for representation and fair play, they are individuals that 
are without limbs now.
  We have all gone to Walter Reed. We have all gone to these hospitals 
in our own communities, these VA hospitals, watching these men and 
women come back, half of their head blown off, legs and arms missing. 
And we are here and we walk through this door and we put our voting 
cards in these machines to represent them and the Americans that they 
fought for. And then we come to the floor because the majority did not 
get what they wanted when they wanted it, to say that they will hold 
this vote open as long as they have to to make sure that they twist 
enough arms on the Republican side because every Democrat voted against 
the bad policy, this bill.
  I do not even want to address it as an energy bill because basically 
it was just a giveaway to the industry. That is all it was. Everything, 
7 months prior, that could not go straight-faced into the ``energy 
bill'' at that time they got in this last time right before we took a 
break of the bill that just passed recently. And the reason why they 
got it: A, Hurricane Katrina came through. Hurricane Rita was on its 
way. The bill was already being marked up before Rita came, but it was 
on its way to help deal with the issue of price gouging and making sure 
that we are able to provide energy for our country and hopefully bring 
down the price of gas, and it did not do that. What it did was it raped 
our environmental laws. It raped the process of fair play in this 
institution.
  There are certain things, as Members of Congress, we cannot allow to 
happen on behalf of the institution. When the record books are opened, 
the annals of history of the 109th Congress, yes, there will be 
individuals that will be mentioned; but also it will be that day that 
we were on the floor and the spirit of the rules of the House were 
violated in the worst way, time after time again. Time after time 
again.
  The leadership from this side, Mr. Speaker, came to the floor with a 
parliamentary inquiry. The clock was at triple zero. Obviously, the 
measure did not pass, Mr. Speaker. Can we ask for the Speaker to call 
the vote? And each person was gaveled down for not making a 
parliamentary inquiry, and the Speaker said what he had to say at that 
particular time to keep it going. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Pelosi), Democratic leader, came to the floor, gaveled down for asking 
the question and then pointing out the fact this is what is wrong with 
Washington now, the culture of corruption and cronyism, not in the dark 
corners of Congress but under the lights on international, not 
national, but international television that we are willing to rape the 
spirit of the rules of this House and the spirit of fair play in 
America. Not something that we watched on cable television in some 
foreign land somewhere in a Third World country. Not there. But right 
here for the world to see. I would not say the hypocrisy of the 
democracy of everyday Americans, but because of the leaders who allowed 
it to happen here in this House.
  Mr. Speaker, last point, I just want to make sure that we understand, 
as Members of Congress, that we have a responsibility in the majority 
and minority. I take full responsibility for what took place, Mr. 
Speaker, here on this floor, yes. Did I do everything I could? Of 
course I did. Did I walk over to the other side of the aisle and talk 
to some of my friends over there that are level-minded individuals, who 
will go unnamed because we do not want them to receive any 
repercussions for speaking out, who said, I think that the vote should 
have been called. Well, you need to go tell your leadership that the 
vote needs to be called.
  I mean, we want to do it in a gentlemanly way. We call ourselves, Mr. 
Speaker, gentlemen and gentlewomen, respect for the institution, and 
still the vote was not called. I mean, individuals' arms were twisted. 
You vote, hurry up, and trying to call the vote while they went. And it 
almost happened once, and then the conscience kicked in of some Members 
and they changed their vote and it went back to a losing vote again, 
and they said we have to hold the board open another 20 minutes because 
we did not get our way.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, he is 
absolutely right. This is strictly an abuse of power. That is what is 
going on here. This is the majority, the Republican majority, abusing 
their power. And I think that last Friday was the perfect example of 
it. And it was not the first time. I have to say one thing that was 
interesting that he pointed out was that was the first time I remember 
that they did it in broad daylight, because if the gentleman remembers, 
most of the time when we had to deal with these major policy 
initiatives, which that was not, they waited until 3 or 4 o'clock in 
the morning so nobody was watching. And, of course, the best example of 
that was the Medicare prescription drug bill, which, as the gentleman 
knows, was voted on at 3 o'clock in the morning. We had to wait here 
for hours while they were twisting arms all night for that too and even 
lied about the fact of how much it was going to cost; otherwise they 
would have never passed it. Remember when they said it was only going 
to cost, I guess, 400 billion, and then it ended up being 600 or 700 
billion?
  We see this abuse of power constantly. I see it in my committee 
because what happens is when bills come to committee, they do not go to 
a subcommittee. They do not have a hearing. When the Democrats were in 
the majority, every time we had a bill that

[[Page 22899]]

we wanted to move, we had a hearing, sometimes several hearings, in the 
subcommittee. Then we would have a markup in the subcommittee. Then it 
would go to the full committee. Then it would go to the Committee on 
Rules. And at every point there was an opportunity not only for the 
majority but also for the minority to have some input into what went 
on.
  But that does not go on around here. A lot of bills just go to the 
floor without even having a hearing or even go into committee, and then 
they change it when they get to the Committee on Rules. They do not 
allow us the opportunity to offer an amendment or to offer a substitute 
so that our voice is not even heard. And what is going on, the reason 
why they have these closed votes and have to do this arm-twisting is 
because these are bad bills. These are not bills that are good for the 
average American, and they can barely get enough people to make a 
majority and they are even starting to lose some of their own 
Republicans.
  If the gentleman noticed, a lot of Republicans voted ``no'' on that 
energy bill, and then they had to twist their arms to get them to come 
back and barely pass the bill. This is happening all the time. It is an 
absolute abuse of power. It is not letting the minority have its say, 
not letting the minority have a voice. And I think it is very important 
that we get that out there.
  This is procedure and a lot of times people maybe listen and maybe 
they get bored or they yawn because they say this is just procedure, 
but in a democracy these kinds of procedures are very important. And 
when the Republicans are abusing the procedure, it is really bad.
  And I want to mention one more thing. I cannot help but mention it. 
The other day when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority 
leader, was forced to step down because of the indictment by the grand 
jury, a lot of people forgot that the only reason why that happened was 
because Democrats insisted that the Republicans go back to the original 
rules. They tried to change the rules of the Committee on Standards of 
Official Conduct at the beginning of this Congress to say that if 
somebody was indicted in leadership that they did not have to step 
down. And we came here, and the gentleman was part of it too, and 
insisted that we go back to the old rules, the bipartisan rules, that 
had that type of provision in it. And there were other changes as well 
that we insisted on.
  So, again, it is important that we speak out because we can make a 
difference and the public needs to understand the abuse of power and 
the cronyism that is going on here.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I just want to 
share something with the gentleman, because this is serious business 
when we come to the floor to talk about these issues. We always say we 
were elected to represent not only our constituents but also the 
American people. When they voted for us, they federalized us. They 
allowed us to come here to vote on policy and to create policy on 
behalf of the betterment of this country.
  The gentleman mentioned something and we do a lot of work here. We 
have information. We meet off the floor to be able to talk about some 
of these issues. The Washington Post Federal Page, I just want to take 
this and make sure everyone understands this is about saluting one 
flag. This is not about what side of the aisle we are on. But the 
reason why we point out the fact, Mr. Speaker, that the majority 
leadership has not taken leadership to lead us in a way that we should 
be led in fair play when we are saluting one flag on issues that are 
facing national security, I am on the Committee on Homeland Security 
and I am on the Committee on Armed Services with the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Ryan); and I can tell the Members right now that energy, as 
far as I am concerned, is a national security issue.

                              {time}  2145

  So when folks come to the floor not on behalf of the American people 
and national security but on behalf of special interests, I personally 
have a problem with it.
  I take the Federal Page from the Washington Post. This is actually 
from October 5. This story here talks about: Storms show system out of 
balance. GOP Congress has reduced agency oversight.
  I think it is important that we pay very close attention to not only 
this article. It names not only three Republicans, one on the other 
side of the body in the Senate and two here in this body. As a matter 
of fact, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) and the gentlewoman 
from Florida (Ms. Harris), two of my colleagues, called for hearings, 
Mr. Speaker, on FEMA, the money that was spent last year in Florida on 
counties that were not truly affected by the four storms that came 
through, the money that was just given out without any oversight, just 
simply, for the committees wrote a letter, which one I sent on, to have 
oversight hearings on FEMA. I agreed with that, yes, we should have 
oversight hearings. If something went wrong, that is the thing that the 
Congressperson does, call for oversight hearings.
  These are Members that are in the majority. These are not Democratic 
Members that have said we need to have oversight hearings. These are 
the Members in the majority side that said we need oversight hearings. 
Guess what. They did not happen, and this was last year. This was the 
story that they asked for the hearings last year. It still did not 
happen.
  The point I am making on this article, it goes on to say that it took 
an analysis of the first 6 months of Congress between 1983 and 1997, to 
make a comparison. This researcher found that both Chambers of Congress 
both reduced their numbers of hearings. Actually, in the House, there 
were 782 hearings in 1983 of oversight, and it went down in 1997 to 
287. In the Senate, they had 439 hearings on oversight, and in 1997 it 
went down to 175.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I want to 
say, because I have been here longer than the gentleman, and he has 
already told me that many times, the fact of the matter is I remember 
when the Democrats were in the majority. I was here from 1988 to 1994 
when we were in the majority. The core of our being in the majority was 
oversight. That is what we did. That was our life blood. We spent more 
time on oversight than anything else.
  I remember specifically in my committee, the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce, every one of the subcommittees had oversight on health care, 
environment, consumer issues, energy, you name it. That was our MO. For 
all practical purposes, the Republicans have eliminated any real 
oversight. So you are absolutely right.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We have said it 1 million times. Article I, Section 
1 of the U.S. Constitution creates the House of Representatives. The 
people of the country govern. Anything that is created from there we 
have oversight of, and that is the essence of this democracy. We try to 
represent the republic that we have. This is our job, overseeing FEMA.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Overseeing the Federal Government, but see, the 
issue that is so difficult here is the fact that this is our main job, 
and we are not doing it.
  It takes a while to get a culture. If it is corruption, it comes and 
it goes. When you have a culture of corruption and cronyism, that means 
two things. Someone has not been overseeing the rules. Someone has not 
been saying listen, no, I am sorry. We have the Department of 
Transportation. This is what you are supposed to be doing because we 
are the oversight committee of the Committee on Transportation and 
Infrastructure, and we have oversight over you and we are elected by 
the American people to make sure that your tax dollar is being spent in 
the appropriate way.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We write the checks out of this body. The checks 
come if you are going to write the checks but not oversight.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. This is what we have done, and in the aftermath 
of Hurricane Katrina, in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita. We are living 
with the

[[Page 22900]]

highest deficit in the history of the republic. We are standing and we 
are doing this, and what goes back to this article that I was 
addressing a little while ago, it talked about the fact that there is 
no checks and balances.
  I just want to remind the Members, since some might have maybe not 
fully focused on what is happening, the Senate is Republican-
controlled. The House is definitely Republican-controlled. The White 
House, we know for sure that it is under Republican control, and when 
we see the amount of money that is now having to be spent, I am just 
going to take Katrina. I do want to talk about health care, and I know 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) has the next hour, and I just want 
to talk a little bit about health care again.
  But I can tell you this, I am going to take Katrina for an instance, 
$200 billion plus. A big part of that is the fact that Louisiana or New 
Orleans were flooded, under water. Hundreds of thousands of Americans 
were displaced.
  Two things happened there. Americans died but two things happened 
there. There was a lack of governance, and I can tell you that if we 
had the right kind of oversight, if maybe that Army Corps of Engineers 
captain or commander would have gotten what he needed to do exactly 
what the National Hurricane Center called for or to do exactly what 
Members of Congress from that area asked for, or to say that since we 
are doing all of these strategic review of vulnerabilities, I am on 
Homeland Security so I know the language, since we are doing all of 
that and we did all these things when we knew when we were vulnerable, 
then we are supposed to respond to that, and we did not. That is where 
the lack of governance comes in.
  So this whole issue of oversight is a big issue, and if folks feel 
that it is not going to be in a community by you, it is already there. 
Katrina knocked the scab off of the Department of Homeland Security and 
others that have said that we are ready for anything that happens. It 
is a perfect example that we are not and we were not. Communities 
should not have to go through it to learn it, and we are the Congress 
and we are supposed to do better when we know better, and we know 
better, and we are not doing better because we are not willing to lead.
  On this side of the aisle, we are here at some couple of minutes 
before 10:00 saying that we are ready and willing to lead or share in 
the leadership. What is important here is that we allow a bipartisan 
nature in dealing with some of the issues that we pointed out here 
tonight, and that is not happening. That is where it comes in.
  So I am glad historically that the gentleman was able to share with 
us what happened when Democrats were in control, how many opportunities 
that the minority had an opportunity to be a part of legislation and 
inclusion.
  Mr. PALLONE. If I could just say, that is the other part that is so 
important is, again going back when the Democrats were in the majority, 
most legislation was done on a consensus, bipartisan basis. In other 
words, you would find in my committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Dingell), on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, who of course was 
the chairman, and legislation, if it was an energy bill, if it was a 
health care bill, he would start by going to the ranking member, the 
Republican man, the minority, and saying what input do you want into 
this bill and let us sit down and there would be meetings, and they 
would try to build a consensus on legislation.
  That does not happen anymore around here. I mean, it is very rare to 
see someone who is the chairman of the committee on the Republican side 
reaching out to the Democrat on the committee and saying let us see if 
we can work together and come to a consensus on a bill. That is why 
most of the time you did not have to have these situations where you 
would vote in the middle of the night and have to get people to change 
votes because, if the bill came to the floor most likely it was a 
consensus measure and most people voted for it.
  Some people may say not everything has to be that way, and not 
everything was that way, but the bottom line is when someone is 
elected, when you are elected or I am elected, our constituents send us 
down here. They do not expect us to just come down here and object to 
everything because we do not have input. They expect that we are going 
to have some input on what goes on, and to deny us that, which is what 
the Republican leadership does for the most part now, I think denies 
the basic principle of democracy.
  We are not supposed to be coming down here and just objecting. We are 
supposed to be part of what goes on, but we are not allowed to for the 
most part. We cannot bring up amendments or ask for hearings. So this 
is the problem.
  I just want to go back and say one more thing. The reason why the 
Republicans do not want the oversight and do not want the 
accountability is because they are doing bad things. The reason they do 
not want to have this bipartisan Katrina Commission is because they do 
not want the commission to come back and report that there were 
problems in what the FEMA Director and the administration did during 
the hurricane.
  It is pretty simple stuff, because if it is bipartisan and it has 
equal members and there is a lot of oversight, they are going to show 
what the problems were. They want to whitewash. That is the bottom 
line. That is why they do not want this independent commission. It is 
uncovering things.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Exactly. So they are picking their own personal 
political situation over what is best for the American people. Can you 
think of a better reason to take someone out of their leadership 
position?
  We all play politics here. We are just here. You get 435 people in a 
room, there is going to be politics. We understand that, but when you 
consistently and constantly pick your own personal political interests 
over the public interests, even if it means not getting to the bottom 
line, not getting to the kind of reforms that are going to be needed, 
then that is a real problem, I think, and I think the American people 
from the polls and from the people we talk to in our district seem to 
feel the same way.
  Mr. PALLONE. There was an editorial in the New York Times on 
September 26 about faking the Katrina inquiry. The last paragraph, if I 
could just read it, said this. It says, There is no way to whitewash a 
hurricane. A government dominated by one party should be disqualified 
from investigating itself. Just as President Bush repeatedly fought the 
creation of the 
9/11 Commission until public pressure forced him to yield, so should 
the public now demand the administration and Congress get real about 
Katrina.
  That is what we are getting with this Republican-dominated committee. 
It is just going to be another whitewash, and we cannot allow it. So I 
appreciate the opportunity.
  Mr. MEEK of Florida. I think what is important here are several 
points that the gentleman has already made.
  You have this chart here dealing with the whole gas price issue on 
the middle class, and I just want to take a couple of minutes of this 
hour just to talk a little bit more about what is called an energy 
bill.
  We had an alternative, and the reason why I call it an alternative to 
the gas or to the energy bill is the fact that we were in the majority 
and it would be called an energy bill dealing with price gouging and 
also making future investments and bringing out alternative fuels to be 
done by a certain date. Also, our alternative said if you price gouge, 
we are not talking about someone at the pump, we are talking about the 
oil industry that has soaring, through-the-roof profits in a time that 
we have individuals who cannot even make it to work now because they 
cannot afford to buy a tank of gas. They did not get an increase. Their 
employer did not say, listen, we are going to give you about three 
hundred more dollars a month so you can pay for gas. They did not say 
that.
  So we dealt with those individuals in our alternative by saying that 
if you price gouge the American people, not

[[Page 22901]]

only will it allow State Attorneys General to enforce the law, but you 
will pay serious fines, up to $3 million a day. Every day you price 
gouge, you pay. You do not get your profits and run off and the 
stockholders are happy. No, you are punished, and it not only dealt 
with gas. It dealt with oil and LP Gas and heating gas.
  I think it is important for folks to understand that we were for real 
about it, and the majority side was really defending the industry. I 
know we are going to have more time.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Let me do this, we want to give the e-mail address, 
[email protected].

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