[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 21934-21971]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 581 and rule 
XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House 
on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill, H.R. 3161.

                              {time}  1524


                     In the Committee of the Whole

  Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the 
Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of the bill 
(H.R. 3161) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, 
Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the 
fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, with Mr. 
Becerra in the chair.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the 
first time.
  The gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) and the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Kingston) each will control 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Connecticut.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I am pleased to present to the House for fiscal year 2008 the 
appropriations bill For Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration, and related agencies. I want to say ``thank you'' to 
Chairman David Obey for his dedication and leadership. It has been a 
very busy 7 months, and we have been fortunate to have Chairman Obey at 
the helm. A special ``thank you'' to my colleague, Congressman 
Kingston. It has been a pleasure to partner with him on this 
subcommittee, and I believe that we have accomplished a lot together. 
We are working to accomplish quite a lot today, with quite a wide-
ranging portfolio.
  This appropriation covers many subjects. Our top priority has always 
been to move with a clear purpose and direction towards several key 
goals: strengthening rural America, protecting public health, improving 
nutrition for more Americans, transforming our energy future, 
supporting conservation, investing in research, and, finally, enhancing 
oversight.
  It begins with our fiscal year 2008 mark providing total 
discretionary resources of $18.8 billion, $1 billion, or 5.7 percent, 
above 2007, and $987.4 million, or 5.5 percent, above the budget 
request. A full 95 percent of the increase above the budget request, or 
$940 million, is used to restore funding that was either eliminated or 
cut in the President's budget.
  Our first goal is strengthening rural America. Community development 
is a key link to rebuilding rural America, preserving infrastructure, 
building new opportunities, and confronting a tremendous gap when it 
comes to educational and medical resources. To help close that gap, the 
bill provides $52.8 million. That would double the broadband grant 
program which the President's budget request had eliminated. It 
provides $10 million more than the President requested for distance 
learning and telemedicine grants and includes $728.8 million to support 
community facilities, water and waste disposal systems, and business 
grants; $31.2 million for community facilities; $56.8 million for 
business and industry; and $70.3 million for waste and waste disposal 
programs.
  Clean water. Rural communities face tens of billions of dollars in 
costs for safe drinking water and wastewater treatment systems. To 
begin addressing these needs, the bill provides $500 million for rural 
water and waste disposal grants and $1 billion for water and waste 
direct loans.
  In housing, the community held a special hearing to discuss economic 
conditions in rural America with the USDA's Economic Research Service. 
A recent ERS report found that 302 of America's non-metro counties are 
``housing stressed.'' That is why we are making significant investments 
in rural housing, including $212.2 million to fund $5.1 billion in 
affordable loans to providing housing to low-income and moderate-income 
families in rural areas, providing approximately 38,000 single family 
home ownership opportunities.
  The President's budget eliminated direct loans and shifted funding to 
guaranteed loans with a 1 percent increase in fees, making these loans 
more expensive and less accessible for low-income families.
  Protecting public health was another of our priorities. The bill 
provides $1.7 billion for the Food and Drug Administration. That is 
$128.5 million over 2007 and $62 million over the budget request; in 
addition, $7 million in the manager's amendment in order for us to be 
able to inspect produce coming in from foreign countries.
  This is what the committee hopes will be the first step in the 
fundamental transformation and the regulation of food safety at FDA.

                              {time}  1530

  The committee directs the FDA to submit a plan to begin changing its 
approach to food safety when it submits the fiscal year 2009 budget, 
giving the committee time to review the plan before the funds to 
implement it become available on July 1, 2008.
  We can help with additional resources at FDA, but there also needs to 
be a corresponding commitment from management to perform its duties.
  When our pets began to die from contaminated pet food that originated 
in China, the news forced us to take a hard look at entire food safety 
systems abroad. Our renewed attention revealed inadequate protection 
and an increasingly global food supply system. The budget includes an 
additional $7 million, as I said, for FDA inspection of FDA imports. In 
addition, we address vacancies in Federal meat inspector positions. The 
bill fully funds the requested amount for the food safety and 
inspection service at $930 million.
  The bill also includes key language preventing the FDA from granting 
waivers of conflict of interest rules to voting members of the FDA 
advisory committee, and preventing USDA from establishing or 
implementing a rule allowing poultry products from China into the 
United States. The Chinese

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and others must be aware that trade cannot trump public health and that 
their regulations need to be strengthened to be considered an adequate 
trading partner.
  Another of our top priorities is improving nutrition. For many long 
years we have failed to meet our obligations, failed to act, while too 
many Americans have gone without adequate healthy food. One in eight 
families with a toddler, an infant, in the United States is ``food 
insecure''; that means that they are hungry. One in eight families with 
an infant.
  Forty percent of children in rural America are dependent upon food 
stamps. The progress we made on this issue with the farm bill last week 
represents real change, and this bill includes $39.8 billion for the 
Food Stamp program to meet increased participation and ensuring rising 
food prices do not diminish families' purchasing power.
  The bill also provides record funding for two fundamental food 
security programs which serve our country's most vulnerable population, 
the supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, 
WIC, and the Commodities Supplemental Food Program, CSFP. These efforts 
go hand in hand with ongoing initiatives, including $957.7 million for 
nutrition programs to confront our Nation's obesity crisis, instilling 
better eating habits in our children, giving them the tools and the 
choices to avoid diabetes and other dangerous health conditions. That 
includes $68.5 million for the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education 
Program, $26 million to expand the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable and 
Simplified Summer Food Programs to all States, and $10 million for 
specialty crops. What are specialty crops? They are related to healthy 
diets in this Nation; fruits and vegetables that are farmed in my part 
of the country, in the mid-Atlantic States, in California, crops that 
are so crucial nationwide from New England to the west coast.
  Our work continues with other chief goals. Energy independence. This 
bill makes investments across the spectrum to grow our economy, create 
new jobs, lower energy prices and address global warming. It promotes 
renewable energy and moves us down the path to energy independence, 
strengthening bioenergy and renewable energy research funded at $1.2 
billion, including loans and grants in rural areas. The conservation 
and stewardship of our lands will affect our children for years to 
come.
  This bill restores many of the programs slated for elimination in the 
President's request, including the Grazing Lands Conservation 
Initiative, the Wildlife Habitat Program, and watershed rehabilitation, 
and provides $979.4 million to continue assistance to landowners for 
conservation efforts on private lands.
  We also have an obligation to maintain agriculture's critical place 
at the forefront of groundbreaking research, maintaining our edge in 
crop development, competitiveness, trade, nutrition, food safety and 
even homeland security.
  The bill increases funds for research and education through USDA's 
Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service and the 
Agricultural Research Service.
  Finally, enhanced oversight. The committee is concerned about waste, 
fraud and abuse in key programs and has included language requested by 
the administration to allow the Risk Management Agency to use up $11.2 
million in mandatory crop insurance funds to strengthen its ability to 
oversee the program by maintaining and upgrading IT systems and other 
methods of detecting dubious claims.
  In closing, I think we should be excited about this bill, the goals 
that we set out to accomplish: strengthening rural America, protecting 
our public health, improving nutrition for more Americans, transforming 
our energy future, supporting conservation, investing in research, and 
finally, enhancing oversight.
  Most importantly, I believe it brings us back to our Nation's most 
fundamental principles; the strength of our communities. We have an 
obligation to get these things right. Let us assume that responsibility 
today, Mr. Chairman, and I'm pleased to submit this bill and I urge 
favorable consideration.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  I want to, first of all, start off by complimenting the Chair of the 
committee. We have had a number of hearings this year. We've had a lot 
of great oversight opportunities. I look forward to more. We've 
thoroughly reviewed this bill, and there's many things that we found 
agreement on. There are some things that we're going to have debate on 
today and things that we'll continue to debate as the bill goes through 
the process, but I want to commend Ms. DeLauro for a bill well put 
together. Also, I want to thank her staff, Martha Foley, Leslie 
Barrack, Diem-Lihn Jones, Adrienne Simmonson, Kelly Wade and Brian 
Ronholm, and thank them for everything that they've done. And on our 
side, Martin Delgado, Dave Gibbons. You'll note, on the Democrat side, 
I pronounced the Republican side with equal ineptitude as I do the 
Democrats. Jamie Swafford, Meg Gilley, Merritt Myers, Emily Watson, 
Heather McNatt, Elizabeth Davis and Jason Lawrence and Scott Stevens. 
We have a lot of folks who've helped. One of my friends on the floor 
said, Well, how many people does this take? And I said, Well, you know 
this is almost a $100 billion bill, so we all have to get involved in 
it.
  I also wanted to say something about Ray LaHood. Mr. LaHood is a 
great committee member. He's going to be leaving Congress at the end of 
this term and made that announcement this week, and I thought I'd be 
remiss if we didn't say something about Mr. LaHood. He is a great 
appropriator. He's a guy who had early on worked with the Hershey 
Retreat to bring more bipartisan civility to the floor. He was 
instrumental when I was Chair of the Leg branch subcommittee of getting 
the staff gym started. Indeed, I don't know if we would have it without 
him and all of his hard work.
  And also, when we were in majority, he stood and sat where you are, 
Mr. Chairman, many times guiding this House through hot debates and 
emotional issues, and we're all going to miss Mr. LaHood.
  I want to start off on the bill a little bit because so many people 
think of agriculture as just farming. And yet, if we look at the 
breakdown of this bill and we see this large blue part, the actual 
money in this bill, the majority of it goes to domestic food assistance 
programs. And it's appropriate that it is in the ag bill because so 
much of what we're talking about is national security, as seen through 
our food policy, but direct farming programs are in this more purplish 
area, and it's about 35 percent of the bill. We also have money for 
conservation, rural development for the FDA, the Food and Drug 
Administration, and foreign food assistance. But I think it's important 
for people to realize that this is not just a bill that affects the 
rural areas.
  I also want to point out that much of this bill our committee doesn't 
have the control over that we would like to. In fact, if you look at 
this bill, we have an expression here in Washington called ``mandatory 
and discretionary spending.'' Discretionary spending is spending that 
Congress itself can effect on an appropriate bill. Mandatory spending 
is what authorizing committees do. This would have been done through 
the farm bill, for example.
  Now, I don't like the term ``mandatory.'' I think it should be called 
automatic spending, maybe even lazy spending, maybe even unchallenged 
spending, since we debate it once every 5 years and then lock it up in 
a farm bill. I think that the mandatory portion of this budget, since 
it is almost 80 percent of the budget, should be opened up and debated. 
I think there's a lot of things in there that need more scrutiny. 
Indeed, of the $18 billion in the discretionary spending area, we have 
been scrutinized and we've had a good look at it.
  I want to make a couple of points. Number one, the bill at its 
current level will be vetoed. We do not have a veto-proof majority. 
This bill will pass today, but not by a veto-proof. The President has 
made it clear that at a

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5.9 percent increase over last year, he will veto it. I think it's 
important for us to realize this since this is a bipartisan body. This 
is not a veiled threat. The President has the votes to sustain the 
veto, and so that's what's going to happen. I think we would be better 
served getting together and bringing down the numbers on this bill.
  The second thing that I wanted to point out is there are a lot of 
issues that we're faced with in this House this week. One of them is 
the government health care program that's being pushed on the States 
and taking away a lot of their discretion. Another one is the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act. These bills are being pushed aside for 
this bill, and while I have a lot of passion for this bill, being an 
aggie myself, the reality is, this bill will leave the Chamber and it 
will sit over with the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee, for 
all intents and purposes, is defunct. We've been working hard. We've 
been working long in the House to pass our appropriation bills on time, 
and I commend Mr. Obey and the Democrat leadership to make sure that we 
get the bills over there.
  And yet, the reality is the Senate is going to sit on this bill, cram 
it into another bill, stuff it into a shoe box called an omnibus bill, 
and I think that's the wrong way to approach things. And at the same 
time, we're going to have other things that slide.
  Another thing I wanted to do is set the record straight on some of 
the nutrition programs, because we've had and heard from a number of 
people on the Rules Committee earlier today that this restores funding 
for important and critical child nutrition programs. And you would 
think that under Republican control, that the bill did not give any 
money for food and nutrition programs. And yet, if you look at this 
chart, Mr. Chairman, going back from 2001 on up to 2008, you can see 
there's simply a linear progression in nutrition funding that has taken 
place under Republicans mostly, and now under Democrats. But there's no 
huge dip. There's no great spike now that the Democrats are in charge. 
And it's important to set the record straight on that.
  In fact, I'm one, call me old fashioned, who doesn't think it's great 
to have lots and lots of people dependent on government programs. I 
think we should work to get people more independent, and I don't think 
that increasing these programs blindly makes sense. For example, the 
Commodity Supplemental Food Program, I don't follow the math on that. 
Last year the casework estimate was 490,000 people. The actual number 
to participate was 463,000. And yet this year, even though the 
projection's 464,000, the budget increase is $42 million for it, and I 
don't follow that logic at all. If the number of participants is going 
down, why is the spending going up? And the President actually had 
zeroed that out. Why did he do that? Does the President not care about 
hungry people? No, it's because they are eligible for food stamps. 
There's another program for them. Why have two bureaucracies doing 
basically the same thing, especially since you have electronic benefit 
transfer cards which are very simple to do, and those were some that 
this committee led in.
  The other thing that I wanted to point out on the subject of 
nutrition and hunger is it's interesting that we debated obesity a lot 
more than we have debated hunger. I think that's probably a good thing, 
but I think, on the other hand, it shows that there hasn't been this 
horrible hunger crisis under Republican rule.
  Another point I want to say about this bill, the farm service 
agencies, right now farm service agencies, there are 58 of them that 
have no staff. The Chair and I have agreed that these should be closed 
down. I think that's a step in the right direction; 139 of them have 
one employee and 338 have two employees and 515 have three employees.
  Now, I've heard it said about the VA that you can close down any 
veterans clinic you want in America as long as it's not located in a 
congressional district. Well, I guess the same is true with military 
bases, and it's true with FSA offices and other offices. We talk about 
wanting to balance the budget, but when it comes home to our own 
district, we all backpedal and say, no, we don't want anything closed.
  These decisions aren't easy, but we have to be leaders on this and 
not shirk our responsibility. I think this committee kind of worked 
through it, and I'm hoping that we're going to continue to work through 
it as the bill moves through the process.
  Renewable energy. There's so much right now in the rural areas from 
the subject of ethanol, biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol and other 
economies that we can go out and capitalize in and help bring 
alternative fuel to America.

                              {time}  1545

  In my home State of Georgia, there are about 5 or 6 ethanol plants. 
There are 121 of them nationally, but Georgia has on the drawing table 
right now to build another 80 ethanol plants just in our one State. 
That would put Georgia on the national leaders level. I am excited 
about that. Because if Georgia can do that, then certainly other States 
should be doing that; and I am glad that this bill puts a lot of 
investment into renewable energy.
  On broadband and distance learning, I think we all have a commitment 
to that. Two things that the Chair and I have agreed on that are very 
important is, one, we don't want the government programs to be 
competing with the private sector. If the private sector is already 
there, why put a government program out there? And, number two, for the 
retired stockbroker who has bought his mountain house on the top of the 
beautiful mountains in Colorado, why should we care if his laptop is 
hooked up or not? I don't think we have to waste taxpayer money so that 
he can check his stock quotes while he is in retirement.
  I also want to talk a little bit about a horse amendment that we 
have, some language in the bill that prohibits people who own horses 
from taking these horses across international lines. If you own a horse 
in America and this bill passes with the language that is in it, you 
will not be allowed to take that horse to Mexico or Canada for any 
purpose.
  Now, I understand that there are those who don't want horses to be 
slaughtered. Most of them are people who have never owned horses, who 
don't understand horse owners or who are intimidated by special 
interest groups in Washington. But the reality is sometimes you have to 
put a horse down, and since we have a problem with that in America, as 
outlawed by this Congress or the previous Congress, then this bill does 
give some flexibility to those people. But, in trying to close that 
loophole, what the committee did is they said now you can't take your 
horse out of the country and you can't bring one in. It is a ridiculous 
part of the language, and I am going to move to strike it.
  Another issue that I have some concerns about is drug reimportation. 
I think drug reimportation is a major policy shift, and I believe that 
we should have a vote on that.
  I commend the Chair in reducing the number of earmarks. The earmarks 
last year in the bill were about 4\1/2\ percent. We are starting out at 
about a 2 percent level. I think that is a great reduction not just in 
the dollar amount but in the number of earmarks.
  And one other area that I was disappointed in that I want to point 
out is risk-based inspection. This is where USDA inspectors go to food-
processing plants and, rather than dwell on all of them equally over 
time, they focus on the ones who are the bad actors, the ones who have 
the older equipment and the shoddy practices. They put more time there. 
It is a common business decision, and yet we are interfering with the 
USDA's right to do that. It is called ``risk-based inspection.'' I 
think it is very important to a good, clean, healthy food supply, and 
we have stopped RBI. I think that is a mistake.
  But, overall, there is a lot that's good in the bill. I look forward 
to the debate.
  Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Farr).

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  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairwoman for yielding to me.
  I am the only Californian that sits on the Agriculture Appropriations 
Committee, and I am very proud that this bill is in partnership with 
the progressive new provisions that were adopted last week in the farm 
bill. This spends the money to implement those provisions. As the Chair 
just said, this bill takes us in a new direction, a direction that 
rural America can be really proud of.
  Many people know California as the most populous State and think of 
our large metropolitan areas. But few know that California is the 
number one ag-producing State in the United States. Every one of the 58 
counties in California produces agriculture, from the smallest county 
in San Francisco, which has nursery and flower stock, to the most 
populous county in California, Los Angeles County, with row crops and 
cattle ranches.
  The new leadership in Congress has taken us in a new direction. That 
direction is good news for rural America. That is good news for fresh 
foods, for fresh vegetables and fresh fruits to get into the diet. This 
bill takes us in a new direction for consumers. A new direction so that 
people have choices. A new direction for green technology to be used in 
the energy field. A new direction for conservation to be a part of good 
management practices.
  I applaud the committee's new Chair for taking us in a new direction 
and the opportunity for farming in America to be economically viable. 
This is good because it preserves open space and preserves the rural 
character, which is such a strength of this country.
  For California, this is good news. Our agriculture is like our 
technology. It's changing, always changing. It needs to be state-of-
the-art of technology, of research, of university work. We are the 
leaders in organic growing, from wines to artichokes. I am proud to 
represent the part of California that is called the ``Salad Bowl 
Capital of the World.'' The farmers who implement the best management 
practices in caring not only for their farm workers, and there is a big 
discussion on that in issues with immigration, but we have the largest 
farm worker force in the United States and they are now getting paid 
good wages. In fact, a lot of them have their own health care plans, 
which most Americans don't have, and they have 401(k)s for their 
families and scholarships for their children to go to school. This is a 
new attitude about farm workers.
  I want to thank Congresswoman DeLauro, the Chair of this committee, 
for taking America into a new direction, a more healthy direction.
  Let's reject the reckless amendments to this bill that undermine the 
positive gains made for America. This is a good appropriations bill. I 
applaud the Chair, Mr. Obey, for bringing it to the floor and to the 
members of the committee, and I urge all my colleagues to adopt this 
bill.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Jackson).
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, let me first begin by 
congratulating the hardest-working Member of the Congress, Chairwoman 
Rosa DeLauro, for this outstanding bill.
  Mr. Chairman, as a new member of the Appropriations Agriculture 
Subcommittee, I rise to voice my strong support for H.R. 3161, the 
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and 
Related Agencies appropriations bill. Again, I want to congratulate 
Chairwoman DeLauro and the subcommittee staff for the product here 
before us today. I also want to thank Ranking Member Kingston of the 
minority subcommittee staff for working with us to produce this 
product.
  Over the past 8 months, I have learned a lot about agriculture 
policy. When asked why I serve on this subcommittee, considering my 
largely urban and suburban district, I quickly respond by saying this 
bill touches the lives of 647,000 residents of the Second District of 
Illinois. We all eat, we all want safe food, and we all want safe 
medicines.
  With the recent passage of the Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 
2007, our Nation's agriculture policy and spending reflects our growing 
investments not only in rural development and commodity programs but in 
nutrition, conservation, and renewable energy. We want to continue to 
support our farmers as well as feed the hungry, protect our Nation's 
food supply, and invest in research.
  One out of five Americans at some point in time in their lives will 
participate in at least one domestic food assistance program. Our 
nutrition programs serve as the first line of defense against combating 
hunger by helping low-income families purchase food. This bill 
illustrates Congress's commitment to protecting our country's most 
vulnerable populations. It accomplishes the following:
  It increases the Food Stamp Program by $1.7 billion and creates a $3 
billion contingency reserve, which helps feed over 26 million people 
annually. It restores the President's proposed cuts to the Commodity 
Supplemental Food Program and expands the program that serves over 
485,000 people monthly by adding five new States. It appropriates $5.6 
billion to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, 
Infants, and Children and restores State grants to help administer the 
program. It supports the expansion of the simplified summer school food 
program that provides up to two meals a day to children under the age 
of 18 during the summer.
  This bill also addresses a wide variety of needs, ranging from 
increased grants and loans for rural communities to fully funding the 
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.
  The increases in this bill are sensible, they are prudent, they 
reflect our priorities, reinforcing our commitment to feed the hungry, 
to house the needy, and to protect us all.
  I recommend that my colleagues vote against any amendments cutting 
these vital programs, and I strongly urge them to vote for this bill. 
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, let me just say that I think we kind of 
know where we are heading on various amendments. I look forward to that 
amendment.
  And, again, I have enjoyed working with you and the staff. You have a 
semi-good bill.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I, too, want to say thank you to my colleague, Mr. Kingston, in 
working with him; and it is not the first time we have had an 
opportunity to work together. We have been working together over the 
years.
  As I said, I am very proud of the bill and the goals that we set out 
and the direction that we set out to strengthen rural America and deal 
with our public health and nutrition, energy, conservation and looking 
at how we invest in our research.
  I look forward to the balance of our time and the amendment process, 
but I do, too, want to associate myself with my colleague from 
Georgia's remarks about our colleague on the committee, Mr. LaHood, who 
has been an outstanding member of this committee but has been an 
outstanding Member of the House of Representatives, someone you could 
always count on to speak his mind but to be fair and to do his best for 
his constituents and for this Nation.
  I also want to say thank you to the many staffers who have worked 
hour after hour on this bill to make today possible. As a former staff 
member, I know that these efforts don't come together by some alchemy, 
but it is because of the incredible hard work that people put into it 
over many, many hours.
  And let me thank Martha Foley, subcommittee Clerk; as well as Leslie 
Barrack; Diem-Lihn Jones; Adrienne Simmonson; Kelly Wade; Brian 
Ronholm, my staff. Also, Ashley Turton, my Chief of Staff; and Leticia 
Mederos, Legislative Director. I also want to say thank you to Martin 
Delgado, Dave Gibbons, and Jamie Swafford on the minority staff. I 
thank everyone for their time and their patience in putting this effort 
together.

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  I believe nothing could be more important for us to move forward on 
this bill and get it passed. I think it is in the best interest of this 
Nation.

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  Mr. RUSH. Mr. Chairman, today I rise to thank Chairman Peterson 
Chairman Baca, and members of the House Agriculture Committee for their 
continued commitment and interest in supporting our agriculture 
industry, producers--and specifically supporting modernization of the 
food stamp program, increasing access to fresh produce, particularly 
for low-income neighborhoods and working with the Congressional Black 
Caucus and urban Members to accommodate the needs of diverse 
communities.
  Throughout our Nation, we have a host of communities that are 
disconnected from accessing fresh fruits and vegetables. An increasing 
number of families are facing hunger and food insecurity: according to 
USDA's most recent data, more than 35 million Americans are unable to 
purchase food on a regular basis. Both sets of problems stem in part 
from the same cause: in urban as well as rural areas, too many low-
income families live in ``food deserts'' where access to fresh, healthy 
foods is lacking.
  I have worked with my fellow urban Members on a package of urban 
needs--ranging from making mandatory funds for the Community Food 
Project grant, increasing access to fresh fruits and produce, defining 
the term food desert, and creating a new Urban Health Enterprise grant 
program to strengthen links between producers to actual providers in 
urban communities.
  All but one of these amendments are included in the Manager's 
Amendment, and I thank the Chairman for working with us to ensure urban 
members have a stake in the farm bill.
  Mr. Chairman, although we still must find funding for the Community 
Food Projects grant; overall, the 2007 Farm Bill contains significant 
gains to promote access, expansion and education on nutrition.
  As you may know, with regard to nutrition, the bill modernizes the 
food stamp program by: 1. Requiring all states go to an electronic 
system; 2. Increasing the minimum food benefit of participants; 3. 
Indexing asset limits and excludes retirement and education accounts, 
and combat pay.
  The nutrition title extends and funds the Emergency Food Assistance 
Program to provide needed commodities to food banks and homeless 
shelters.
  And it expands the authority of the Senior Farmer's Market Nutrition 
Program and creates a demonstration project to evaluate strategies to 
address obesity among low-income communities.
  In conclusion Mr. Chairman, for far too many urban dwellers, the 
choice comes down to traveling long distances to buy groceries or 
shopping at expensive corner stores that often sell high-fat, high-
sugar convenience food and little or no fresh produce. The consequences 
are byproducts of poverty: diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
  In the interests of public health, cost-efficiency, and social 
justice, we should consider policies to increase the availability of 
and access to fresh fruits and vegetables in underserved neighborhoods 
and communities.
  I call on my colleagues to support the Farm Bill, because of the 
gains in nutrition the committee has included in this bill.
  In addition to supporting farmers and our agriculture industry; this 
bill increases healthy food options in our poorest communities, creates 
incentives for producers and retailers to provide foods that provide 
healthy food options, and increasing consumer education about healthy 
alternatives at school and home.
  Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Chairman, I rise to commend the Agriculture Sub-
committee Chairwoman, Ms. DeLauro, and the ranking Republican, Mr. 
Kingston. They have done a commendable job in putting this measure 
together in this first year in their respective positions.
  All along the way, Ms. DeLauro reached across the aisle to sound out 
the concern of the members on this side of the aisle--and the work 
product shows her bi-partisan efforts.
  While I do not agree with everything in the bill, I think it is a 
good product, all things considered. I especially want to thank the 
Chairwoman for her efforts to increase funding in the bill for the 
cooperative State research, education and extension service. The CSREES 
funding level was below the level where it should have been coming out 
of the subcommittee.
  After hearing the concerns of many members, Ms. DeLauro and Mr. 
Kingston closed ranks and fixed the problem. That funding gap was a 
particular issue to many members, especially those from rural, farming 
areas.
  I am pleased to note that the bill contains much in the way of 
agriculture research funding in a number of areas. This is important to 
many areas, particularly renewable fuels and food production science, 
to name two areas. The more we can make substantive progress in both of 
these areas, the better for the consumer and the farm community.
  I do want to point out a couple of areas where I think we can and 
should improve on the bill. First, there is a provision, section 746, 
which currently reads, ``no funds in this act may be used to authorize 
qualified health claims for conventional foods''.
  I understand that there will be an amendment later on that stipulates 
no funds for FDA will be used for this purpose. However, this amendment 
does not address the problem.
  If this provision, or a similar one, is intended to help FDA avoid 
wasted time and resources on frivolous petitions, it misses the mark. 
Nothing in the language removes FDA's responsibility to review these 
petitions, as required by law. The provision only denies final 
approval, or ``authorization'' of the use of valid claims.
  This is bad health policy, and it is bad fiscal policy, and I urge 
the chairwoman to relook at the provision in conference, lest its 
impact come back to haunt us.
  On another issue, the horse slaughter language, the provision, as 
written, is opposed by animal experts across the country--real experts, 
including veterinarians and others. The way the language is written, it 
precludes health inspections and certifications for the legal transport 
of horses, for example.
  Finally, I think, like some others on both sides of the aisle, that 
we have short-changed some necessary program areas, on occasion, in the 
past.
  But I also think that, as with some other bills, we are going a 
little far in adding extra spending. Too much spending can do as much 
damage as too little spending.
  It is important to remember that when we give agencies too much 
money, they spend more than they need to spend simply to hold their 
annual baseline intact. this is not a heal thy way to manage the 
Nation's resources.
  We have some discretion here, and we should use that discretion 
since, apparently, we have turned a blind eye to the serious and 
growing problem of out-of-control entitlements.
  In summary, let me, again, commend the gentlewoman from Connecticut. 
I think you have done a fine job, and I look forward to continuing to 
work with you to improve this bill as we go forward.
  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to rise in 
strong support of the H.R. 3161, the Agriculture, Rural Development, 
Food and Drug Administration, and related agencies appropriations bill 
for fiscal year 2008.
  As a member of this Subcommittee, I am extremely proud of the work of 
the Subcommittee and our members on both sides of the aisle, in 
crafting a bill which truly impacts and touches the lives of everyone 
who lives in this great Nation of ours, as well as millions of 
individuals around the world.
  Our bill invests in Rural America, providing funding to accommodate 
some $5.1 billion in affordable loans for low income families in rural 
areas, which will support approximately 38,000 single family 
homeownership opportunities.
  We invest in rural communities, by expanding resources devoted to 
economic development programs and access to broadband telecommunication 
services to bridge the digital divide in rural, underserved areas.
  We address the health care and emergency needs of rural areas, as 
well as providing support for the rebuilding of our Nation's rural 
infrastructure.
  We invest in the protection of the Nation's Public Health, by 
providing nearly $930 million for the Food Safety and Inspection 
Service as well as $1.7 billion for the Food and Drug Administration--
including increases to begin a transformation of food safety 
regulation, improving drug safety, monitor prescription drug 
advertisements and expanding the review of new generic drug 
applications.
  To fight hunger in America, our bill makes investments which will 
expand nutrition, providing $958 million for nutrition programs, 
including the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, Fresh 
Fruit and Vegetable program and the Simplified Summer Food program.
  We provide $5.6 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition 
Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which is expected to 
benefit over 8.4 million Americans over the next year.
  Not only does this bill provide the resources necessary to keep 
nearly 26 million of the nation's poorest from going hungry, we also 
expand Emergency Food Assistance Program, so that food banks, soup 
kitchens, and other emergency feeding sites have needed resources. The 
bill also expands the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program to all 50 
states.
  We invest in the transformation of our Energy Future, providing $1.2 
billion for renewable energy, which was $955.3 million above

[[Page 21950]]

2007 and $810.4 million above the President's request--and includes 
funding for bio-energy and renewable energy research and development, 
including loans and grants in rural areas. The resources provided will 
be key building blocks in the expansion of renewable fuel production 
needed to encourage American energy independence and protect our 
environment.
  We invest in Conservation, providing over $979 million for 
conservation efforts and community development. This bill restores many 
of the programs slated for major reductions in the president's request, 
including the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative, Resource 
Conservation and Development, and the watershed programs which are 
funded $75 million--more than double last year's levels.
  This investment will continue our efforts to improve both funding and 
access to conservation programs that take environmentally sensitive 
land out of farming and encourage environmentally friendly practices on 
working farmland.
  Finally, I would like to congratulate my Chairwoman, Rosa DeLauro, 
for the outstanding job she's done in stewarding and leading the 
important work of our Subcommitee.
  And I would be remiss if I did not recognize and thank the staff of 
Subcommittee--Martha Foley, Leslie Barrack, Adrienne Simonson, Diem-
Linh Joan and Kelly Wade of the Majority staff; and Martin Delgado, 
Jamie Swafford and Dave Gibbons on the Minority staff, and of course, 
Michael Reed, and Niki Newberry of my staff.
  This is a good bill, and I urge my colleagues to support the FY08 
Agriculture Appropriations bill.
  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, in accordance with House earmark reforms, 
I would like to place into the record a listing of Congressionally-
directed projects in my home state of Idaho that are contained within 
the report to the FY08 Agriculture, Rural Development and FDA 
Appropriations bill.
  I'd like to take just a few minutes to describe why I supported these 
projects and why they are valuable to the nation and its taxpayers.
  First, the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension 
Service (CSREES) grants included below are targeted to our nation's 
Land Grant Colleges. In the case of Idaho, these funds are used by the 
University of Idaho to conduct research on a variety of crops important 
to the Pacific Northwest. I have also supported research in Washington 
and Oregon because their research is invaluable to my constituents as 
well.
  In assessing the value of these requests, there are some important 
considerations that must be made. World labor standards and costs are 
far below those of the U.S. Our nation's farmers are subjected to far 
more stringent environmental regulations than those of many of our 
competitors. Input costs in the U.S. far surpass those of other 
nations. And energy prices, including farm diesel, are rising 
dramatically.
  So how can a U.S. farmer remain competitive in a global market? He 
can do it by achieving greater productivity and efficiency, increased 
yields, and better defenses against diseases. These are the very things 
that agriculture research funding delivers for U.S. producers--and for 
U.S. consumers.
  If you want to rely on foreign nations for our food in the way we 
rely on them for our oil, then by all means eliminate these important 
agriculture research programs. But if you believe, as I do, that 
maintaining a domestic capability to produce our food is a national 
security issue, then you ought to support these research programs and 
fight for their continuation.
  The second entity that receives the bulk of these funds is the 
Agriculture Research Service (ARS) and its stations across rural 
America. In Idaho, these institutions are conducting vital research 
into some of our most important crops--sugar, potatoes, small fruits, 
and aquaculture. I encourage all of my colleagues to visit an ARS 
station to see firsthand the value of this research. If you do, you 
will learn that these researchers are doing amazing things with very 
limited budgets. These projects are usually small in terms of their 
funding, but the benefits that flow from that research cannot be 
measured in dollars alone.
  Four of the projects below are funded through the Animal and Plant 
Health Inspection Service (APHIS). The first program, Potato Cyst 
Nematode (PCN) Detection and Eradication, provides funding that is 
critical to saving the potato industry, both in Idaho and across the 
nation. In August 2006, PCN was discovered in our country for the first 
time on approximately 1,000 acres in Eastern Idaho. PCN is a major pest 
of potato crops and is one of the most destructive and difficult pests 
to control. If left uncontrolled, this pest can result in devastating 
crop yield losses of up to 80 percent. Without this funding, the pest's 
significant risk of dispersion could lead to a devastating impact on 
our nation's agriculture production and exports.
  The Greater Yellowstone Brucellosis funding is particularly critical 
to my home state of Idaho. Idaho recently regained its Brucellosis 
Class Free Status and these funds are critical to continuing a 
management plan that will allow Idaho to maintain brucellosis free 
status.
  The Tri-State Predator control funding is hardly a handout to 
ranchers. The federal government forced wolf reintroduction on Idaho 
and other western states and it is duty-bound to pay for the deadly and 
gruesome impacts of this decision.
  The funding for the Nez Perce Bio-Control Center will enable the 
Center to utilize organism-rearing technology to improve mass rearing 
capabilities for biological control organisms, thus providing long-term 
management of invasive weeds.
  Another project on this list is the Idaho One-Plan. The Idaho One-
Plan is a unique collaboration of agencies, industries, and 
associations dedicated to assisting Idaho farmers and ranchers in their 
continuing natural resource stewardship responsibilities. The program 
was developed jointly with state and federal resource agencies, the 
University of Idaho Cooperative Extension program, the Environmental 
Protection Agency, and local commodity groups. It's a successful 
program that has enormous value to not only the Idaho agriculture 
community and the environment, but to other states that might be 
interested in a similar collaborative process.
  The final project is the Idaho Food Bank Facility Acquisition and 
Expansion Program. Currently, the Idaho Food Bank, located in 
Pocatello, Idaho, cannot process all of the donated food and often 
turns away delivery trucks and donations due to lack of space. An 
expansion of the food bank would allow more needy families in Eastern 
Idaho to utilize the food bank's services.
  Mr. Chairman, any effort to remove these projects from the bill would 
not only result in zero savings to taxpayers, it would stop dead these 
important efforts to enhance and protect our nation's food supply.
  I appreciate the opportunity to provide a list of Congressionally-
directed projects in my region and an explanation of my support for 
them.
  (1) $6,750,000 for APHIS Potato Cyst Nematode Detection and 
Eradication.
  (2) $854,000 for CSREES Increasing Shelf Life of Agricultural 
Commodities (WA, OR, ID).
  (3) $96,994 for ARS National Plant Germplasm Program--Aberdeen, ID.
  (4) $628,843 for ARS Aquaculture--Barley Sustainable Feeds--Aberdeen, 
ID.
  (5) $1,093,728 for ARS Aquaculture Rainbow Trout Research--Aberdeen, 
ID.
  (6) $99,000 for ARS Aquaculture Sustainable Feeds--Aberdeen, ID.
  (7) $756,000 for CSREES Aquaculture (WA, ID).
  (8) $728,000 for CSREES Barley for Rural Development (MT, ID).
  (9) $900,000 for APHIS Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis 
Committee.
  (10) $198,000 for NRCS Idaho One-Plan
  (11) $250,000 for APHIS Nez Perce Bio-Control Center.
  (12) $1,300,000 for APHIS Tri-State Predator Control in Montana, 
Idaho, and Wyoming.
  (13) $558,000 for CSREES Cool Season Legume Research (ID, WA, ND).
  (14) $446,000 for CSREES Grass Seed Cropping for Sustainable 
Agriculture Research (WA, OR, ID).
  (15) 439,000 for CSREES Small Fruit Research (OR, WA, ID).
  (16) $702,592 for ARS Sugarbeet Research--Kimberly, ID.
  (17) $634,000 for CSREES STEEP III Water Quality in the Northwest.
  (18) $6,371,000 for CSREES Wood Utilization (OR, MS, NC, MN, ME, MI, 
ID, TN, AK, WV).
  (19) $1,482,000 for CSREES Potato Research.
  (20) Idaho Food Bank Facility Acquisition and Expansion Program.
  Ms. ESHOO. Mr. Chairman, I rise to commend Chairwoman DeLauro for her 
excellent work on this bill and to address a specific issue that is of 
growing importance to my constituents.
  This March, the light brown apple moth (LBAM), an exotic pest native 
to Australia, was discovered in California. The moth has been damaging 
to growers in Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties in my 
district. In Santa Cruz County, nearly 6,000 moths have now been 
detected.
  This pest can affect a wide variety of plants, flowers, fruits and 
vegetables, and virtually any crop with a leaf is a potential host.
  In order to halt the spread of this pest, USDA has imposed a 
quarantine in California

[[Page 21951]]

counties where the moth has been found. Growers in these counties must 
subject their operations to a visual inspection to demonstrate that 
their facilities are not infested before they can be cleared to ship 
produce. For growers within 1.5 miles of a confirmed discovery of the 
moth, each shipment must be cleared by an inspection.
  Canada and Mexico have also placed restrictions on the import of 
California products.
  The quarantine and restrictions are a burden on growers in my 
district as well as on State and county agriculture officials, but it 
is a burden they recognize is necessary to prevent the further spread 
of the light brown apple moth.
  What is critical is adequate Federal support and funding for the 
eradication and inspection effort. The USDA provided $5 million for 
this effort at the outset and they are seeking an additional $12.5 
million through the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). The request has 
been pending with OMB for several weeks now and it needs to be 
approved.
  Even if the funding is released, it may only carry operations through 
the end of the year. In the coming years, it may take several million 
dollars more to ensure the job is complete.
  This was a relatively late breaking issue to be addressed in this 
appropriations bill, and I commend Chairwoman DeLauro for recognizing 
how serious it is and for including report language that calls on the 
USDA to secure all funds needed from the Commodity Credit Corporation 
to eradicate the light brown apple moth. In the Senate, $1 million is 
included within the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) 
specifically for this purpose.
  As we move forward with this bill and subsequent legislation to deal 
with agriculture disasters, I look forward to working with the 
Chairwoman and my colleague, Mr. Farr, to build on what is already in 
the House and Senate bills in order to ensure that sufficient funding 
is provided and that it is made available in a timely fashion.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the passage of H.R. 
3161, The 2008 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug 
Administration Appropriations bill. Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro has done 
excellent work to create fiscally and morally responsible legislation 
that reinvests in rural America, protects public health, improves 
nutritional standards for all Americans, all while transforming our 
future energy and conservation goals.
  This legislation represents a new direction in the way we invest in 
our families and our farmers. It is a direction towards improving the 
health and well-being of all communities and to implement policies 
which put middle and working-class families center-stage. In rural 
America, H.R. 3161 provides significant increases to grants and loans 
for critical community facilities, affordable loans for low and 
moderate-income families in rural areas, with no increase in fees, and 
substantially increases affordable loans and grants for farm worker 
housing. There is also a large increase in funding for affordable home 
loans in rural areas that will ultimately double the number of 
homeowners from the 2002 level, by 2010.
  In the areas of public health and nutrition, H.R. 3161 offers more 
than a billion dollars that will provide Americans with jobs in the 
food safety and inspection industry, improves food and drug safety 
regulations, and protects programs that feed women, infants, children, 
and the elderly. This bill increases funds for such programs as the 
Expanded Food and Nutrition Education, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable, and 
Simplified Summer Food programs that provide nutritious foods to 
children in low-income families, as well as specialty crop grants to 
encourage more fruit and vegetable consumption. Most importantly, in 
the Food Stamp Program, this bill not only increases funding to 
accommodate growing participation, but it excludes special pay for 
military personnel in eligibility determination, and rejects the 
administration's proposal to restrict eligibility for food stamps that 
will exclude needy families who are receiving certain other services.
  The Agriculture Committee has also taken into consideration our need 
for renewable energy and conservation by allocating over $2 billion in 
funding for renewable energy loans and grants to businesses to grow our 
economy, create new jobs, lower energy prices, and reduce global 
warming. Furthermore, H.R. 3161 provides resources for research, aid to 
farmers and ranchers, and loans to businesses. The bill also restores 
many programs the President would have cut or eliminated, including the 
Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative, Resource Conservation and 
Development, and the watershed programs.
  Mr. Chairman, I am extremely proud of my colleagues for their efforts 
in maintaining the lifeline of all Americans--our farms, nutrition, and 
energy policies.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of 
H.R. 3161, which strengthens our rural communities, while making sure 
that the American people have adequate, safe and nutritious food to 
eat. Let me commend the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee, Ms. DeLauro, 
for her exceptional leadership in crafting such extraordinary 
legislation to combat hunger, obesity and malnutrition in our nation 
and around the world. That is why I strongly support this bill.
  Mr. Chairman, H.R. 3161 allows us to reinvest in the often forgotten 
but most vitally important rural areas of America. H.R. 3161 is 
designed to sustain the vitality of rural America, as well as 
protecting public health and food safety, improving nutrition and 
healthy eating, and promoting renewable energy and conservation in 
America.
  Mr. Chairman, more than 3 million households in the rural America 
continue to have inadequate or no water or sewer service at all. H.R. 
3161 is the solution to this disparity in that it provides $500 million 
for rural water and waste disposal grants, a 14 percent increase over 
2007, and $1 billion for water and waste direct loans for the fiscal 
year.
  Mr. Chairman, recent food scares--about peanut butter and lettuce--
have made Americans nervous about where their food originates. H.R. 
3161 tackles these concerns and addresses the importance of food 
safety. This bill fully funds the Food Safety and Inspection Service at 
USDA, shifts funds to fill vacancies in federal meat inspector 
positions, invests in research, and funds a transformation of FDA food 
safety regulations. It also prohibits imported poultry products from 
China, and sets a timeline for USDA to implement critical country of 
origin labeling for our meat supply after 6 years of Republican delays.
  In addition, H.R. 3161 provides a special supplemental nutritional 
program for women, infants, and children other known as (WIC). This 
provision is so essential because it affords many women, especially 
women of color in lower income brackets, the opportunity to care for 
themselves and their newborns after birth. Without programs such as 
WIC, many mothers would not be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle 
during pregnancies and after childbirth. Because of WIC, mothers can 
afford their nutritional foods they need to sustain their pregnancies 
and avoid miscarriages, stillbirths and defects caused by 
malnourishment during pregnancy. H.R. 3161 invests $233.4 million (4 
percent) more than the President to feed more than 8 million pregnant 
women, mothers and children next year.
  Mr. Chairman, hunger is not a problem facing not only the 
international community faces, but it is also a problem in our own 
country. Many women, children, and the elderly should not wake and go 
to bed hungry in our great Nation, but tragically this happens all too 
often in the cities and villages and small towns of our great country.
  The commodity supplemental food program provides $500,000 monthly in 
the year 2007. H.R. 3161 increases funding in this area to allow people 
in five additional states to participate in the program and expand 
those getting food in states already in the program. In addition, under 
the Food Stamp Benefit provision, H.R. 3161 protects the most 
vulnerable and helpless; families of soldiers in combat. Like the 
recently passed Farm bill, the measure ensures that the families of 
soldiers in combat are not penalized under the Food Stamp program. It 
also rejects the Administration's proposal to restrict eligibility for 
food stamps by excluding needy families who are receiving certain other 
services.
  Mr. Chairman, let us remember that 1 in 3 American adults is 
overweight or obese and more than 9 million children are struggling 
with obesity. H.R. 3161 aims to improve the eating habits of Americans, 
particularly our children through programs that teach children about 
healthy eating. H.R. 3161 increases funding for nutrition programs, 
including the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, which 
broadens Fresh Fruit and Vegetable and Simplified Summer Food programs 
to all states to provide nutritious foods to children in low-income 
families, and specialty crop grants to encourage more fruit and 
vegetable consumption.
  Obesity is associated with 35 major diseases including chronic and 
life-threatening conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. 
It is important to keep our Nation healthy by providing access to high 
consumption of vegetables and fruits to the future of our great 
country, our children. By supporting H.R. 3161 we assure a healthy 
consumption of nutritional foods for children whose only crime is that 
their families are poor.
  Mr. Chairman, H.R. 3161 is essential because it addresses one of the 
most staggering causes of death in children: malnutrition. Malnutrition 
remains a significant problem worldwide, particularly among children. 
According to

[[Page 21952]]

the United Nations World Food Programme, severe acute malnutrition 
affects an estimated 20 million children under the age of five 
worldwide and is responsible in whole or in part for more than half of 
all deaths of children. Malnutrition kills approximately one million 
children each year, or an average of one every thirty seconds.
  These statistics are absolutely frightening and simply intolerable. 
They are also avoidable. The World Food Programme estimates that, when 
implemented on a large scale and combined with hospital treatment for 
children who suffer complications, a community-based approach to 
combating malnutrition could save the lives of hundreds of thousands of 
children each year.
   Mr. Chairman, H.R. 3161 recognizes the importance of helping our 
neighbors in combating the hunger. H.R. 3161 provides funding for the 
Foreign Agricultural Service in the amount of $159,136,000 and 
transfers of $4,985,000, for a total salaries and expenses level of 
$164,121,000, an increase of $2,817,000 above the amount available for 
fiscal year 2007 and a decrease of $9,073,000 below the budget request.
  In addition, H.R. 3161 permits the United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID) to use up to 25 percent of the funds 
appropriated for local or regional purchase of food to assist people 
threatened by a food security crisis.
  Mr. Chairman, if it were not for grants such as the McGovern-Dole 
International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program many 
foreigners would have no other choice than to leave their native 
country in pursuit of a better life. In my very own office, I have a 
future international human rights lawyer by the name of Onyinyechi 
Abigail Nwaohuocha, who recently traveled to Cambodia and witnessed 
firsthand the devastation caused by food shortage and underdeveloped 
agricultural programs.
  Mr. Chairman, H.R. 3161 reminds us that it is important for the 
United States to foster a relationship with other parts of the world, 
so that citizens of developing countries can also have basic rights 
such as sufficient amounts of food. The McGovern-Dole International 
Food program is funded in this bill in the amount of $100,000,000, an 
increase of $1,000,000 above the amount available for fiscal year 2007, 
and the same as the budget request.
  The George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food for Education and 
Child Nutrition Program fights child hunger and poverty by supporting 
school feeding operations, which provide nutritious meals to children 
in schools. This simple formula has been proven to be a success. 
Because of such programs, students are better able to concentrate and 
learn more quickly on a full stomach. Enrollment and attendance rates 
have skyrocketed as a result of school feeding programs, particularly 
among girls who are too often denied an education.
  Mr. Chairman, there are 110 million school-aged children suffering 
from hunger every day, and they are counting on America's leadership 
and generosity to provide them with an opportunity to break the cycle 
of poverty. This bill provides that leadership and generosity and it is 
for this reason that I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for its 
passage by an overwhelming margin.
  Ms. DeLAURO Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The CHAIRMAN. All time for general debate has expired.
  Pursuant to the rule, the bill shall be considered for amendment 
under the 5-minute rule.
  During consideration of the bill for amendment, the Chair may accord 
priority in recognition on the basis of whether the Member offering an 
amendment has caused it to be printed in the portion of the 
Congressional Record designated for that purpose. Those amendments will 
be considered read.
  The Clerk will read.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                               H.R. 3161

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the 
     following sums are appropriated, out of any money in the 
     Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for Agriculture, Rural 
     Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related 
     Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
     2008, and for other purposes, namely:

                                TITLE I

                         AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMS

                  Production, Processing and Marketing

                        Office of the Secretary

       For necessary expenses of the Office of the Secretary of 
     Agriculture, $5,505,000: Provided, That not to exceed $11,000 
     of this amount shall be available for official reception and 
     representation expenses, not otherwise provided for, as 
     determined by the Secretary.

                              {time}  1600

  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I start a period of time in which we're 
going to take opportunity to talk about SCHIP.
  I strike the last word to speak about the expansion legislation that 
was pulled from the Energy and Commerce Committee. Reportedly, it will 
be on the floor later this week, and I would like to highlight the 
damage it will do, if enacted. Specifically, I'd like to take this 
opportunity to speak about the very popular Medicare Advantage program.
  In Illinois, there are 1,715,548 Medicare beneficiaries. Of these, 
145,600, or 8 percent, have selected to receive their health care 
coverage through a Medicare Advantage plan. According to the Centers 
for Medicare and Medicaid Services, there are over 6,000 Medicare 
beneficiaries in my district that are currently enrolled in a Medicare 
Advantage program.
  One of the most troubling things I have heard about the Democrats' 
bill is actually from Peter Orzag, who is the Director of the 
Congressional Budget Office. The Director said that under the 
Democrats' bill, Medicare Advantage enrollment would fall by 
approximately 8.2 million currently to 5.5 million in 2012, a reduction 
of 33 percent from current enrollment levels.
  Medicare beneficiaries are among this Nation's most vulnerable 
citizens, and access to comprehensive high-quality affordable health 
care is imperative to their well-being. As we well know, the population 
of the United States over age 65 is growing rapidly. The average 
Medicare beneficiary is likely to have two or more chronic illnesses. 
Medicare beneficiaries should have choices for their health care 
coverage similar to those available to individuals under age 65. We 
should allow them to choose plans that best meet their unique health 
care needs and to help them coordinate their care, manage their 
illnesses, and reduce their out-of-pocket costs.
  On average, beneficiaries that choose a Medicare Advantage plan in 
Illinois are receiving over $60 in extra value each month from their 
plans. This extra value comes in the form of savings on cost sharing 
and out-of-pocket protections and on lower part D premiums, or 
additional benefits like coverage for vision and hearing. Beneficiaries 
in Medicare Advantage plans report better access to care, more usual 
sources of care, and more likelihood of seeking care when needed than 
beneficiaries in traditional fee-for-service operations.
  CMS has recently reported that beneficiaries in fee-for-service with 
no additional sources of coverage have more difficulty getting care and 
are less likely to have usual source of care than Medicare Advantage 
enrollees.
  All Medicare beneficiaries have access to a Medicare Advantage plan 
that does not require cost sharing for screenings for breast cancer, 
cervical cancer and prostate cancer. Recently, CMS has reported that 
Medicare Advantage enrollees are more likely to receive preventative 
services, such as immunizations, mammography, and screenings for 
colorectal and prostate cancers.
  Critics have implied that the Medicare Advantage program is 
contributing to the solvency problems facing the Medicare trust fund. 
However, these critics fail to recognize the extra value that Medicare 
Advantage plans provide that address the real drivers in increasing 
program costs. Medicare Advantage plans help control the volume and 
intensity of services used by beneficiaries in Medicare part A and part 
D by coordinating care, improving health outcomes, and monitoring 
enrollee usage.
  Medicare Advantage generates savings in the part D program by helping 
to drive down the average premium

[[Page 21953]]

paid by the government and beneficiaries, and by reducing Federal 
expenditures for beneficiaries eligible for low-income subsidies.
  Critics have further distorted the facts by offering information that 
claims to suggest a ``fairness gap'' between Medicare Advantage 
payments and the other providers. In fact, Medicare Advantage payment 
rates increase in direct proportion to the Federal Government's 
estimates of increases in per capita costs in the fee-for-service 
program.
  Some critics suggest that legislators must choose between providing 
comprehensive health coverage options to Illinois seniors through the 
Medicare Advantage program or providing coverage to Illinois uninsured 
children through SCHIP. Both programs play a crucial role in serving 
vulnerable populations. We should focus on devoting adequate resources 
to both SCHIP and Medicare Advantage, while working to maintain and 
strengthen all components of our Nation's health care safety net.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.


                 Amendment No. 3 Offered by Mr. Gingrey

  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
  The text of the amendment is as follows:

       Amendment No. 3 offered by Mr. Gingrey:
       Page 2, line 9, after the dollar amount, insert ``(reduced 
     by $50,050)''.

  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment reduces the necessary 
expenses of the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture by $50,050, a 
simple 1 percent; a 1 percent reduction in the expenses of the Office 
of the Secretary of Agriculture.
  Mr. Chairman, the amendment is not aimed necessarily at the Office of 
the Secretary of Agriculture, but it aims to make a simple 1 percent 
reduction in order to shrink the Federal deficit. Why is that 
necessary? Well, we should be paying for increased spending by reducing 
other Federal spending, that's the 1 percent I'm calling for, rather 
than raising taxes or putting the burden on our Medicare seniors, as we 
do in this proposed SCHIP reauthorization and expansion, Mr. Chairman.
  And as we all know, the Democratic majority, the Energy and Commerce 
Committee bill, which will be combined with the bill out of the Ways 
and Means Committee we will be dealing with in the next day or two on 
this floor, calls for a $50 billion increase over the next 5 years. 
Now, that's on top of the base program which, in the aggregate, was a 
$25 billion program over the last 5 years. We're not going to increase 
that by 10 percent, by 20 percent, by 50 percent, or even by 100 
percent. We're increasing it even more than that, going from $25 
billion, Mr. Chairman, to $75 billion.
  So, that's why I'm standing before the body today and saying, look, 
this is a small cut; this is a little bit of money. But a little bit of 
money here and a little bit of money there, I've got lots of amendments 
where we ought to cut other programs here 1 percent to try to pay for 
some of these things that we are doing that violate your own rules, 
your own PAYGO rules.
  Mr. Chairman, I will say this; this new SCHIP program, everything's 
got to have an acronym, doesn't it? And it sells well if it has a 
catchy little acronym. And the Democratic majority is calling this one, 
the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee came up with a nice, 
little cutesy acronym for this mass expansion called the CHAMP Act, 
Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act.
  Mr. Chairman, I've got an acronym for this bill which fits it a lot 
better, and that acronym is the ``CHUMP Act.'' That's what it is, the 
CHUMP Act, the Children's Health Unfunding Medicare Protection Act. 
Because, Mr. Chairman, what this bill calls for is to totally wreck, 
totally destroy Medicare Advantage. Medicare Advantage is that part of 
the Medicare program where some 8 million out of 41, 42 million seniors 
have chosen that health care delivery model because they know they get 
an opportunity for preventative health care, they get an opportunity to 
have a nurse practitioner, a physician assistant, or maybe even the 
doctor him- or herself looking at their health care needs and not just 
providing, as in traditional Medicare, episodic care where there is no 
coordination. And a lot of times patients, particularly our seniors 
with multiple systems diseases, will come home from one doctor with a 
handful of prescriptions and the next week they're going to another 
doctor with a handful of prescriptions.
  The Medicare Advantage program was designed to help prevent that, to 
put an emphasis on coordination, on connecting the dots so that we 
wouldn't duplicate services, or in some instances, Mr. Chairman, even 
provide a level of care or prescription that could be detrimental to 
the patient, that could be counterproductive.
  So, this is why I feel that my amendment, this small amendment to cut 
by 1 percent the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, is a move in 
the right direction to say, look, don't do this massive expansion of 
the SCHIP program; reauthorize it. We all want to reauthorize it. In 
fact, I think maybe what the President called for in his budget was a 
little bit on the low side. Maybe increasing it $1 billion a year is 
not quite enough, if indeed, Mr. Chairman, there are 6 million 
youngsters who are needy and do not have health insurance in this 
country.
  So, I ask my colleagues to support the amendment.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I think my colleague from Georgia maybe doesn't 
understand what bill is on the floor today. This is the Agriculture 
appropriations bill. There will be an opportunity to discuss SCHIP, and 
you can continue to do that, but let me just comment about your 
Agriculture appropriations amendment.
  The House bill includes funding for central administration offices to 
fund current staff. The only increase is for pay costs. And I might 
just tell you that for all of the staff offices in central 
administration, that the work that was done by the committee literally 
cut these offices by about 16 percent. So it was just pay and benefits.
  However, you should know I feel the obligation to mention these 
things to you, that any cuts in these offices will result in the 
reduction of headquarters staff, not the field staff, because that's 
the personnel that deals directly on a one-to-one basis with our 
farmers and with our ranchers so that they can access the system and be 
able to do what they need to do.
  Now, I'm going to give the gentleman an opportunity to withdraw his 
amendment, because I am prepared to accept your amendment, and I'm 
happy to accept your amendment.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman may state his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the Chair seeks to accept the amendment, then that 
ends the debate; correct?
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair will put the question on the amendment at the 
conclusion of the debate on the amendment.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The debate is over then; correct?
  Ms. DeLAURO. We have accepted the amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from North Carolina is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Chairman, I am happy that the Chair is accepting 
this amendment, but I would like to speak on it as an opportunity to 
speak about cutting government spending.
  Though it's just $50,500, that's far more than the median income in 
my district. I want the American taxpayers to know that this is an 
important step, and it's good that they're accepting a limitation on 
the rapid increase in spending within this legislation.
  There are a lot of good points that we have to consider here. We have 
to consider the totality of government spending when we're debating 
here on the

[[Page 21954]]

House floor. The government spending for this fiscal year is over $2.7 
trillion. To put that into perspective, Mr. Chairman, that is larger 
than all the economies of the world, except for two. It is far larger 
than even the Chinese economy, which is about $1.9 trillion.
  The reason why I bring this up is that when we're discussing each of 
these appropriations bills, we tend to focus on small parts of the 
appropriations process. We tend to focus on an amendment here, an 
amendment there, maybe increasing funding here and there and increasing 
funding in a particular appropriations bill. But we have to talk about 
what's that doing to the whole of the budget. And if we spend money 
here in the Department of Agriculture, we may not have that money to 
fund this SCHIP proposal that the Democrats are bringing to the floor 
at the end of this week.
  Now, to talk about that bill, what they're going to do is not simply 
cut government spending elsewhere in the budget, elsewhere in the 
government, reforming programs, eliminating programs that are 
ineffective and no longer cost-effective for the American taxpayers, 
but what they do is they go out and find new revenue and raise taxes 
under this SCHIP proposal.
  The Agriculture bill we have here today increases government 
spending, thereby forcing this new Democrat majority to go out and 
raise taxes for their new programs. And, Mr. Chairman, they've proposed 
a lot of new programs, this new Democrat majority, and what we have to 
do is focus on making sure we balance the budget. Now, balancing the 
budget, to me, as a fiscal conservative, does not mean going out and 
getting new revenue.

                              {time}  1615

  It means doing things, sensible things, such as the Congressman from 
Georgia, Mr. Gingrey, my good friend and colleague, is doing here. It 
cuts 1 percent out of the administrative budget of the Department of 
Agriculture, just 1 percent.
  I have an amendment that I would like to perfect. If 1 percent was 
acceptable to the Chair, I would like to see if maybe 2 percent would 
be acceptable and see where we can actually draw the line in cutting 
government spending, where the breaking point is in this House of 
Representatives. To that end, I think it is important that we have a 
discussion on what that proper number is.
  I know my colleague from Georgia may have another amendment similar 
to this next up, I hope, at which point I would like to see if we can 
actually go a little bit further in cutting government spending. Let's 
talk about not just the Agriculture appropriations bill, which is the 
key focus of today, but also the long-term consequences of our just 
having a narrow, myopic focus on the current bill on the floor. Let's 
talk about the totality of government spending, ways that we can reform 
the government, limit the government, and actually get back to what is 
sensible.
  We have a big debate going on right now about the war in Iraq. We 
have a big debate going on about children's health care. We have a big 
debate about whether or not the farm bill that we passed last week was 
the right thing to do and whether or not you should actually have a 
massive tax increase in order to implement the new programs within that 
formula. Many of us agree that that wasn't the right thing to do, but, 
unfortunately, the majority in the House did vote for that massive tax 
increase.
  It is important that we have a discussion on health care and 
agriculture and the long-term consequences of these issues going 
forward. Certainly, the bill today and the chairman's willingness to 
accept a 1 percent cut in the administrative budget is a step in the 
right direction. We can be thankful for that.
  I hope, as we go on in the debate, the Chair will be willing to 
accept other amendments that limit the rapid increase of funds going to 
the Department of Agriculture and we can actually rightsize the 
government. There are many on this side of the aisle who want to cut 
the size and scope of government. I know that the chairwoman has been 
willing to examine programs and reform those programs. I hope that she 
will be willing to accept many of the amendments we have here today.
  I also know my colleague from Georgia has a number of amendments like 
this. It is important that we discuss the long-term consequences of our 
failure to limit the growth of government.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important for Members on both 
sides of the aisle to understand what is going to transpire here. This 
is a filibuster masquerading as an amendment. This amendment cuts 
$50,000, a tiny, tiny symbolic sum, from the administrative account in 
question. But, as I see it, this is not a real amendment.
  What it means is that it simply affords those who offer it, under the 
guise of talking about spending, to really engage in delay and delay 
and delay. Because their goal, if they can, is to not have the House 
finish its appropriations business. Their goal, also, if they can, is 
to delay the SCHIP bill from coming to the floor and finally being 
passed by the House.
  So after we have seen this administration and their allies in this 
House borrow $1.2 trillion to pay for tax cuts and after we have seen 
them borrow another $600 billion to finance that misbegotten war in 
Iraq, now they pretend that they are contributing to the public good by 
offering to cut spending by $50,000; not $50 billion, but $50,000.
  This is, in plain language, a filibuster. It is the first of many 
amendments that are being offered by people who are so opposed to the 
SCHIP proposition, which will be before us tomorrow, that they would 
prefer to defend $50 billion in tax cuts for people making $1 million a 
year than they would to see 5 million more kids covered by health 
insurance in this country. That is really what is afoot here.
  Mr. Chairman, I find myself only mildly amused, because the subject 
really is serious. I find myself only mildly amused by the fact that, 3 
days ago, we had the President announce another large, massive increase 
in foreign aid which he wants us to provide yet this year.
  We also now increasingly are coming to understand that the President 
will be asking for an extension of the surge in Iraq, which will 
require him to ask the Congress to spend an extra $25 billion to $30 
billion above and beyond $140 billion he is planning to ask for in the 
supplemental already for this year for Iraq. So, yet, we are here mired 
today in this let's-pretend Potemkin debate over $50,000.
  We don't, on this side of the aisle, intend to get bogged down; at 
least, we don't intend to contribute to the bogging down. So we will 
let them drone on, drone on and drone on with their Lilliputian 
amendments.
  Meanwhile, we recognize what is happening: If the other side wants to 
delay the people's business for a while, all that means is that, in the 
end, our colleagues won't be going home on Friday, they won't be going 
home on Saturday, and we will still be having Sunday dinner together.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Tennessee is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. I thank the chairman, and I thank the gentleman from 
Georgia for his legislation to make a 1 percent reduction. We have got 
to start taking these first steps.
  Year after year, I feel there is a group of us that come down here 
talking about how we slow the growth of government, talking about how 
we make reductions in what the government spends and talking about the 
necessity to begin with those little, tiny savings, \1/4\ percent, \1/
2\ percent, a solid percent, that will yield a savings. We are talking 
about $5.5 million. I find it just amazing that we can't even find 
$50,000 in there. We can't agree to make that kind of reduction. There 
are ways to do this. That is something government should be doing.

[[Page 21955]]

  The gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned the SCHIP program. Indeed, in 
our Committee on Energy and Commerce, we have been quite disheartened 
that the SCHIP bill that he mentioned is not going through regular 
order. We didn't have a committee hearing in our Health Subcommittee. 
We would have welcomed that.
  There is nobody against health care for low-income children. What we 
have great concerns about is all the other stuff, all the pay-fors that 
are in this bill, all the expansion of policy, taking a block grant, 
moving it to an entitlement. It brings us back to the initial question 
with the gentleman's bill on this appropriations bill of making a 1 
percent reduction. There has to be a way to yield a savings that will 
pay for some of these things, because we can't take it out of Medicare 
Advantage.
  The SCHIP legislation that the gentleman mentioned would make an 
incredible reduction to Medicare Advantage. My goodness, we would see 
$193 billion in reductions to our Medicare Advantage program over a 10-
year period of time, which would be $15.3 billion in cuts to Medicare 
Part A for seniors. This would include skilled nursing facilities, 
rehab facilities, and long-term care hospitals. That would be one of 
the pay-fors in the SCHIP bill that the gentleman referenced.
  That is why the gentleman from Georgia has a great amendment that 
says, let's get going. In title 1, page 1 of this bill, let's start 
finding a way to make some reductions. $9.6 billion in cuts to Medicare 
Part D for seniors is in that bill, that SCHIP bill that didn't go 
through subcommittee, didn't get a complete markup in committee. It is 
going to be moved to the floor.
  So, there, again, the gentleman from Wisconsin's points on this bill 
is the reason we have this amendment to title 1, section 1 of this 
bill, to make that reduction in the Secretary's spending, $5.5 million. 
Certainly, we can find $50,000. $3.6 billion would be cut out of end-
stage renal disease in that bill. There has to be a way to start making 
reductions so that you're paying for the government that you are trying 
to spend, the money you are trying to spend, the government you are 
putting out there. There has got to be a way to pay for this. 
Unfortunately, that is not something that we are seeing considered.
  Mr. Chairman, $50,000 may not be much to the Secretary, but it is a 
lot to my constituents in Tennessee and especially those that are on 
Medicare Advantage.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last 
word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, I want to be clear. The 
gentlewoman may not be aware of it, but we have accepted this 
amendment. The majority has accepted Mr. Gingrey's first amendment for 
$50,000. The gentlewoman said that $50,000 is very important to her 
constituents. The majority has heard it. Therefore, we accept the 
amendment. I think we can dispose of this amendment and move forward.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. 
DeLauro), the chairwoman of the subcommittee.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I would just say we have accepted the 
amendment.
  Mr. Chairman, clearly, as the Chair of the committee pointed out, 
this is a filibuster to talk about another issue. Now, you can continue 
to do that. The sooner you stop filibustering, the sooner we can move 
on. We have accepted the amendment. But that is up to you.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time.
  The gentlewoman's constituents should be very proud that we have 
accepted the amendment. The $50,000 that is so important to her 
constituents, to all Americans, has been accepted. We can dispose of 
this and move forward.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized 5 minutes.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairwoman for 
accepting the amendment. It is a commonsense way to begin this process 
that lacks a lot of common sense.
  I wish to commend my colleague from Georgia for beginning the process 
of fiscal responsibility on this next appropriations bill. I would 
point out, however, that this bill spends $1.04 billion more than last 
year, an increase of 5.9 percent.
  Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that there aren't many folks across 
this Nation who got a 5.9 percent increase in their budget this year. 
So, I think that the amendment of my colleague from Georgia is an 
appropriate effort to try to begin the process of fiscal 
responsibility.
  Mr. Chairman, I stand here supporting this amendment because as we 
attempt, and thank goodness we have the support of the majority on this 
small attempt, to begin to decrease bureaucracy, we are faced with a 
significant and huge increase in bureaucracy coming later this week.
  I say that because my friend, the chairman of the committee, says, 
well, our goal here is to not finish the business. No, Mr. Chairman, 
our goal is to bring focus to an issue and to a bill that will not be 
allowed to get the focus that this bill gets. Because, as you know, Mr. 
Chairman, the rules of the House that will bring bills to the floor 
later this week will be of such a nature that Members of the House 
won't be able to come to the floor and talk about it. They won't be 
able to come to the floor and offer amendments in an open and 
deliberative process. They won't be able to exercise the right that 
they felt, and certainly their constituents felt, they would be given 
by being elected to this august body.

                              {time}  1630

  That is certainly going to be true for the children's health 
insurance bill, which really is a huge step in the direction of 
Washington-controlled bureaucratic health care.
  So it is appropriate that we appreciate the nexus between this bill, 
the Agriculture appropriations bill, and that. One is the process was 
so flawed on the health care bill that we like to commend our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle for bringing an appropriate 
process for appropriations bills. The other is that this is an attempt 
at fiscal responsibility, or at least a small step.
  I think it is important to appreciate what the original intent of the 
health insurance bill that was passed 10 years ago was, because we will 
not likely get that opportunity when that time arises later this week.
  The original attempt was to cover children who do not have health 
insurance between the level of income in their family from Medicaid to 
a low-income state, considered to be, in 1997, 200 percent of the 
poverty level. That is a noble purpose. It is a noble purpose to 
provide assistance for families who are unable to provide health 
insurance for their children.
  That legislation expires at the end of September. So we have a lot of 
time in order to be able to have an appropriate discussion and talk 
about what the changes ought to be as we move towards reauthorization. 
All of us believe that those children at the lower end of the economic 
scale ought to be able to have access to the finest health insurance.
  But the process, as my good friend from Tennessee mentioned, has been 
so remarkably flawed that that likely isn't going to be the case. In 
fact, we were given a bill late last week that was almost a ream of 
paper, 450-odd pages, that frankly doesn't include all that the 
majority plans to put into it because they haven't figured out how they 
are going to pay for it.
  But what they do know, they are going to cut Medicare to over $100 
billion. Over $100 billion they are going to cut Medicare, which is why 
this bill is so important, because we have to figure out how we are 
going to pay for that. I know on this side of the aisle we are 
interested in being responsible in our spending and making certain we 
are able to cover programs.
  On the other side of the aisle, Mr. Chairman, it appears their desire 
is to raise taxes in order to pay for programs. In this instance, 
though, they

[[Page 21956]]

are going to do what they alleged 10 years ago they ought not do, and 
that is to cut Medicare, cut Medicare to a huge degree so that 
literally millions of seniors across this Nation will see their 
Medicare program cut.
  In addition to that, there is a reported proposal on the other side 
that will increase taxes on every single American who has a health 
insurance policy. There will be a fee. They won't call it a tax; they 
will call it a fee to increase revenue to the Federal Government on 
every single American that has a health insurance policy.
  Mr. Chairman, I don't know about you, but in my district, that is 
what we call a tax. In my district we don't believe that new programs 
ought to be put in place and charged with new taxes. We believe that 
the Federal Government ought to spend wisely.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.


             Motion to Rise Offered by Mr. Price of Georgia

  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now 
rise.
  The CHAIRMAN. The question is on the motion to rise.
  The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the noes 
appeared to have it.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and 
pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.
  The CHAIRMAN. Evidently a quorum is not present.
  Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, the Chair will reduce to a 
minimum of 5 minutes the time within which a vote by electronic device, 
if ordered, will be taken on the pending question following the quorum 
call.
  Members will record their presence by electronic device.
  The call was taken by electronic device.

                             [Roll No. 775]

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Allen
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Barrett (SC)
     Barrow
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blumenauer
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Bordallo
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher
     Boustany
     Boyd (FL)
     Boyda (KS)
     Brady (PA)
     Brady (TX)
     Braley (IA)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown, Corrine
     Buchanan
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Butterfield
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Cantor
     Capito
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson
     Carter
     Castle
     Castor
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Coble
     Cohen
     Cole (OK)
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costello
     Courtney
     Cramer
     Crenshaw
     Crowley
     Cubin
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, David
     Davis, Lincoln
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly
     Doyle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ellison
     Ellsworth
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Faleomavaega
     Fallin
     Farr
     Fattah
     Feeney
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Flake
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Giffords
     Gilchrest
     Gillibrand
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gonzalez
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Gordon
     Granger
     Graves
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall (NY)
     Hall (TX)
     Hare
     Harman
     Hastert
     Hastings (FL)
     Hayes
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herseth Sandlin
     Higgins
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hirono
     Hobson
     Hodes
     Hoekstra
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Hulshof
     Hunter
     Inglis (SC)
     Inslee
     Israel
     Issa
     Jackson (IL)
     Jindal
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Jordan
     Kagen
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Keller
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Klein (FL)
     Kline (MN)
     Knollenberg
     Kucinich
     LaHood
     Lamborn
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Lynch
     Mahoney (FL)
     Maloney (NY)
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCaul (TX)
     McCollum (MN)
     McCotter
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McMorris Rodgers
     McNerney
     McNulty
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Mica
     Michaud
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, Gary
     Miller, George
     Mitchell
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy (CT)
     Murphy, Patrick
     Murphy, Tim
     Murtha
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Neugebauer
     Norton
     Nunes
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Pearce
     Pence
     Perlmutter
     Peterson (MN)
     Petri
     Pickering
     Platts
     Poe
     Pomeroy
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Price (NC)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Royce
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Salazar
     Sali
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sarbanes
     Saxton
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schmidt
     Schwartz
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Sensenbrenner
     Serrano
     Sessions
     Sestak
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Shimkus
     Shuler
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Sires
     Skelton
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Souder
     Space
     Spratt
     Stearns
     Stupak
     Sutton
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Tierney
     Towns
     Turner
     Udall (NM)
     Upton
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walberg
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh (NY)
     Walz (MN)
     Wamp
     Wasserman Schultz
     Watson
     Watt
     Weiner
     Welch (VT)
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wexler
     Wicker
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (OH)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Yarmuth
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                              {time}  1658

  The CHAIRMAN. Three hundred eighty-nine Members recording their 
presence by electronic device, a quorum is present, and the Committee 
will resume its business.


                             Recorded Vote

  The CHAIRMAN. Pending is the demand of the gentleman from Georgia for 
a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 172, 
noes 231, not voting 34, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 776]

                               AYES--172

     Akin
     Alexander
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Baker
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (UT)
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (SC)
     Buchanan
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Buyer
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Cantor
     Capito
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, David
     Davis, Tom
     Deal (GA)
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     Fallin
     Feeney
     Flake
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Hall (TX)
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayes
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hulshof
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Johnson (IL)
     Jones (NC)
     Jordan
     Keller
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kirk
     Kline (MN)
     Knollenberg
     Kuhl (NY)
     LaHood
     Lamborn
     LaTourette
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul (TX)
     McCotter
     McCrery
     McHenry
     McKeon
     McMorris Rodgers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mitchell
     Murphy, Tim
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Nunes
     Pearce
     Pence
     Petri
     Pickering
     Platts
     Poe
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ryan (WI)
     Sali
     Saxton
     Schmidt
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (TX)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh (NY)
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--231

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Allen
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bordallo
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boucher

[[Page 21957]]


     Boyd (FL)
     Boyda (KS)
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Calvert
     Capps
     Capuano
     Cardoza
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Castor
     Chandler
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis, Lincoln
     DeFazio
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly
     Doyle
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Ellsworth
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Faleomavaega
     Farr
     Fattah
     Ferguson
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Gallegly
     Giffords
     Gillibrand
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall (NY)
     Hare
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Herseth Sandlin
     Higgins
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hodes
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Hunter
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jindal
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kagen
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     Kingston
     Klein (FL)
     Kucinich
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Latham
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Mahoney (FL)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum (MN)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     McNulty
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (KS)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy (CT)
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Norton
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Perlmutter
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sestak
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Space
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stupak
     Sutton
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Towns
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Welch (VT)
     Wexler
     Wilson (OH)
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--34

     Aderholt
     Baird
     Bono
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Cannon
     Carson
     Christensen
     Clarke
     Davis (IL)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Delahunt
     English (PA)
     Fortuno
     Fossella
     Gohmert
     Inslee
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson, Sam
     Mack
     McHugh
     Murphy, Patrick
     Paul
     Peterson (PA)
     Pitts
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Royce
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Tancredo
     Tierney
     Udall (CO)
     Whitfield
     Wicker


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. LINDER (during the vote). Mr. Chairman, a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. LINDER. Is this a 5-minute vote that occurred because of a 
unanimous consent request?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will restate his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. LINDER. First of all, is this a 5-minute vote?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. LINDER. Is it the result of a unanimous consent request?
  The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, this is a 5-minute 
vote.
  Mr. LINDER. It is my understanding that any intervening business 
requires a 15-minute vote on the following vote under the rules of the 
House, and there was intervening business.
  The CHAIRMAN. The Chair will repeat that pursuant to clause 6(b)(3) 
of rule XVIII, this is a 5-minute vote.
  Voting will proceed.

                              {time}  1708

  So the motion to rise was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, in 1997, a Republican-led Congress passed 
the State Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, a program that 
combines the best of public and private approaches to delivering vital 
health care coverage to low-income children across the country.
  Today this program provides coverage to 6.6 million children and has 
lowered the insurance rate by nearly 25 percent. Unfortunately, our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided not to include us in 
crafting the reauthorization of SCHIP. In addition, it included many 
other provisions affecting Medicare, without any input from the 
minority.
  The legislation put forth by the Democrats has many problems, and I 
have serious reservations on how they propose to fund this legislation. 
Specifically, there are proposed funding streams in the bill passed out 
of the Ways and Means Committee that seek to take money out of end-
stage renal disease programs by establishing policies that are 
shortsighted and ill-advised.
  As currently structured, this proposal takes funding from among the 
sickest patients in the Medicare program, those who have end-stage 
renal disease, and reallocates it to a massive SCHIP expansion. As a 
member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I was pleased to learn 
that Chairman Dingell was prepared to offer an amended version of the 
CHAMP Act that did not include any end-stage renal disease cuts, and, 
as indicated by CBO score sheets of Chairman Dingell's amendment, that 
do not include entries for any end-stage renal disease provisions.
  It was unfortunate that the bill was discharged from the Energy and 
Commerce before amendments could be offered to strike these cuts, but I 
wholeheartedly agree that we should not be making cuts to end-stage 
renal disease, which treats some of the sickest patients in Medicare, 
to fund SCHIP expansion.
  As the CHAMP Act currently stands, my concerns with end-stage renal 
disease are twofold. First, the bill proposes to disrupt the market-
based average sales price reimbursement system that Congress worked 
hard to pass in the Medicare Modernization Act. This average sales 
price payment system was first implemented in the physician setting in 
2005 and the end-stage renal disease setting for all drugs in 2006.
  This system has been a great success across the board, and moving to 
reimbursement rates of ASP plus 6 percent has demonstrated significant 
savings. In fact, the Office of Inspector General estimated annual 
savings of $1 billion because of the shift from the old average 
wholesale price system to the ASP system in 2005.
  Starting in 2006, the average sales price system includes drugs used 
to treat anemia in end-stage renal disease patients, as well as all 
other end-stage renal disease drugs. MedPACs have noted a decline in 
end-stage renal disease drug spending since the implementation of the 
average sales price, and when looking at erythropoietin stimulant 
agents, which are biologics used to treat anemia in end-stage renal 
disease, specifically it is clear that the ASP has resulted in a 
reduction in the price of Medicare, which had previously paid for these 
biologics going from $10 under a statutory rate in 1994 to 2004.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, a point of order.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Isn't it true that the gentleman in the well 
should be addressing the underlying bill, and it's a violation of the 
rules if the remarks in the well do not address the underlying bill?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct. The gentleman speaking who 
has the time must confine his remarks to the pending question.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Chairman, a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. If there are cuts in one bill based upon increased 
spending in another, is that financial connection enough to continue to 
proceed?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman must maintain an ongoing nexus between 
the pending question and any broader policy issues.
  The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Starting in 2006, the average sales price system 
included

[[Page 21958]]

drugs used to treat anemia and end-stage renal disease patients as well 
as other end-stage renal disease drugs.
  Additionally, there are provisions in the bill that propose to 
institute a statutory price control rate. It would be a mistake to 
change a system that has reduced prices for this medicine by 6.8 
percent since the average sales price-based reimbursement system was 
implemented in January of 2006; 9 percent compared to what Medicare 
paid for the drug back in 1994 under a statutory price control rate.
  This market-based system is working to drive down prices for Medicare 
in Congress, and Congress shouldn't try to fix something that's not 
broken. Most importantly, I also question how a cut in payment would 
affect patient care. A payment cut may create financial incentives to 
reduce or ration clinically beneficial drugs.
  Dialysis providers may reduce their costs by providing fewer services 
and drugs, transferring patients to another setting of care, or 
discharging patients more quickly.
  Mr. Chairman, in 1997 a Republican-led Congress passed the State 
Children's Heath Insurance Program (SCHIP)--a progam that combines the 
best of public and private approaches to delivering vital health 
coverage to low-income children across this country.
  Today this program provides coverage to 6.6 million children and has 
lowered the uninsured rate by nearly 25 percent.
  Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decided 
not to include us in crafting the reauthorization of SCHIP and in 
addition, included many other provisions affecting Medicare without any 
input from the minority.
  The legislation put forth by the Democrats has many problems, and I 
have serious reservations on how they propose to fund this legislation.
  Specifically, there are proposed funding streams in the bill passed 
out of the Ways and Means Committee that seeks to take money out of the 
End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) program by establishing policies that 
are shortsighted and ill-advised.
  As currently structured, this proposal takes funding from among the 
sickest patients in the Medicare program, those that have ESRD, and 
reallocates it to a massive SCHIP expansion.
  As a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I was pleased to 
learn that Chairman Dingell was prepared to offer an amended version of 
the CHAMP Act that did not include any ESRD cuts as indicated by CBO 
score sheets of Chairman Dingell's amendment that do not include 
entries for any ESRD provisions.
  It was unfortunate that the bill was discharged from Energy and 
Commerce before amendments could be offered to strike these ESRD cuts, 
but I wholeheartedly agree that we should not be making cuts to the 
ESRD, which treats some of the sickest patients in Medicare, to fund 
SCHIP expansion.
  As the CHAMP Act currently stands, my concerns with the ESRD 
provisions are two-fold.
  First, the bill proposes to disrupt the market based Average Sales 
Price (ASP) reimbursement system that Congress worked hard to pass in 
the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA).
  This ASP payment system was first implemented in the physician 
setting in 2005, and the ESRD setting for all drugs in 2006.
  This system has been a great success across the board and moving to 
reimbursement rates at ASP+6 percent has demonstrated significant 
savings.
  In fact, the Office of the Inspector General estimated annual savings 
of $1 billion because of the shift from the old Average Wholesale Price 
(AWP) system to the ASP system in 2005.
  Starting in 2006, the ASP system included drugs used to treat anemia 
in ESRD patients, as well as all other ESRD drugs.
  MedPAC has noted a decline in ESRD drug spending since the 
implementation of ASP and when looking at Erythropoeitin Stimulating 
Agents (ESAs), which are biologics used to treat anemia, in ESRD 
specifically, it is clear that ASP has resulted in a reduction in the 
price Medicare had previously paid for these biologics--going from $10 
under a statutory rate from 1994-2004 to $9.10 today for one of these 
ESAs--EPOGEN. This is a 9 percent drop which represents real savings.
  Additionally, there are provisions in the bill that propose to 
institute a statutory price controlled rate that would distort the 
market and ASP system by establishing a cap which restricts Medicare 
payment at a statutory rate of $8.75 or ASP+2 percent, whichever is 
less.
  It would be a mistake to change a system that has reduced prices for 
this medicine by 6.8 percent since the ASP-based reimbursement system 
was implemented in January 2006 and by 9 percent compared to what 
Medicare paid for the drug back in 1994 under a statutory price 
controlled rate.
  This market-based system is working now to drive down prices for 
Medicare and Congress shouldn't try to fix something if it's not 
broken.
  Most importantly, I also question how a cut in payment would affect I 
patient care. A payment cut may create financial incentives to reduce 
or ration clinically beneficial drugs.
  Dialysis providers may reduce their costs by providing fewer services 
and drugs, transferring patients to another setting of care, or 
discharging patients more quickly.
  So when we are looking for ways to save money, a reduction in 
reimbursement levels could actually result in unintended consequences, 
such as increasing the number of ESRD patients who are hospitalized.
  Published studies show that patients who are under dialyzed or who 
are suffering from anemia are more likely to be hospitalized.
  Increases in hospitalization due to dialysis payment changes could 
end up being very costly to Medicare and taxpayers.
  This is just bad policy rationale.
  I am also concerned with a provision that would move to a fully 
bundled dialysis composite rate--that is bundling drugs and other 
separately billable services into a composite rate--for large dialysis 
providers beginning in 2010, and for all other dialysis providers by 
2013.
  Since passage of the MMA in 2003, CMS has tried to design and test a 
fully bundled payment system and has been unsuccessful.
  I believe that CMS must be given more time to study this issue and 
complete the bundling demonstration authorized in the MMA that it has 
been working to implement to ensure that all of the complex factors 
that go into a bundled payment are accounted for and that patient care 
and access are not harmed under a bundled payment system.
  Again, bundling may create financial incentives to reduce or ration 
care resulting in worse health outcomes.
  An insufficient Medicare payment could cause facilities to close 
their doors or result in poor patient outcomes.
  This underscores the need to test a bundled payment through a 
demonstration first before implementing.
  Congress and CMS should be fully informed on how to protect patient 
access and quality before implementing bundling system-wide.
  Although I am committed to the reauthorization of SCHIP I cannot 
support these types of cuts to Medicare.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the Democrats' SCHIP 
expansion in its current form.

                              {time}  1715


                             Point of Order

  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to renew the point of order of the 
previous point of order.
  The CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman stating a point of order that the 
gentleman is not confining his remarks to the pending question?
  Mr. WEINER. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct. The gentleman controlling the 
time must confine his remarks to the pending question. There must be an 
ongoing nexus between the pending question and any broader policy 
issues addressed by the gentleman controlling the time.
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, a point of parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Does the gentleman yield?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend. The gentleman from Illinois 
controls the time.
  Mr. SHIMKUS. If the gentleman from Illinois controls the time, I 
yield to my colleague from Georgia.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I appreciate my friend yielding.
  Isn't it true that the reason you are concerned about this bill is 
because of the amount of spending in this bill puts in jeopardy health 
care for our seniors?
  Mr. SHIMKUS. Especially in this debate, the end stage renal disease 
aspect; and that is the nexus.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, point of parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Does the gentleman seek to make a parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. WEINER. Mr. Chairman, just for future reference. Under the rules, 
Members who fail to oblige and follow rulings of the order of the 
Chair, what is

[[Page 21959]]

the sanction against them if they fail to do so?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman who controlled the time did properly 
confine his remarks.
  Mr. WEINER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. FARR. Mr. Chairman, the underlying amendment of the Agriculture 
appropriations bill, the amendment that is on the floor, strikes 
$50,050 from the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture, $50,050. We 
have now on this side accepted the amendment. The other side has used 
over 1 hour of procedural delay, which essentially has spent that 
$50,000 on the operation of the Capitol with no savings to the 
taxpayer; and I think that these people who get up and talk about 
fiscal responsibility ought to learn a little bit of oratorical 
responsibility.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. HINCHEY. I yield my time to Mr. Obey.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from California pointed out, 
we have now probably expended in terms of salaries for the clerks, the 
cost of air conditioning for the Chamber, the cost of lights for the 
Chamber, we have probably now expended more money than would be saved 
by this $50,000 amendment; and so what I think this amendment is about 
is something very different than in fact we are hearing from our 
friends.
  What I think this is about is that, last year, if you take a look at 
the appropriation bills that have been considered so far this year, 
last year, approximately 86 hours were spent debating those bills. This 
year, we have had about 152 hours expended debating the same bills. Why 
is that?
  Last year, there were 144 amendments offered by those on this side of 
the aisle then in the minority. This year, the now minority has offered 
339 amendments. So it is obvious to me what is going on.
  I don't think this debate is at all about either fiscal 
responsibility or the fact that the amendment purports to save $50,000. 
This is simply a device which allows the sponsors and the supporters to 
tie up the time of the House and eventually deny this House the ability 
to get its work done before it leaves for the August recess. That is 
what this is about. And all of the rhetoric to the contrary 
notwithstanding, I think every Member of the House knows that is what 
it is about.
  From the beginning, it has been apparent that there are a small 
number of Members on the other side of the aisle who would prefer to 
engage in filibuster by amendment, no matter what that means in terms 
of the quality of the debate, no matter what that means in terms of the 
inconvenience to Members, and no matter what that means in terms of the 
ability of this House to finish its business in a timely fashion.
  So let me simply say we will hear a lot of rhetoric tonight about 
fiscal responsibility. Keep in mind what the real debate is, and we 
will give all of that rhetoric the attention that it deserves, which is 
very little.
  Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.


   amendment offered by mr. mchenry to the amendment offered by mr. 
                                gingrey

  Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Chairman, I offer a second-degree amendment.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Amendment offered by Mr. McHenry to the amendment offered 
     by Mr. Gingrey:
       Strike ``$50,500'' and insert ``$100,100''.

  Mr. McHENRY. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is pretty simple. As the 
previous speaker said, the debate that we have had ongoing here on the 
House floor may cost taxpayer dollars. If we are going to have a debate 
about cutting spending, I am going to offer a second-degree to make 
sure the spending is a greater number to save the taxpayers more money 
so we can continue to have this debate.
  I appreciate the applause from one Member on the other side of the 
aisle. Two Members. So we have two members of the Democrat Caucus who 
wish to cut spending. Thank you both. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank 
them both.
  At this point, I yield to my colleague, the ranking member of the 
Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan from Wisconsin.
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I appreciate the applause.
  Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that we do everything we can to 
save money in light of the fact that we are creating a massive new 
entitlement program later this week with this bill that is coming to 
the floor. I think it is important that we show leadership at every 
facet of the Federal government. That is why this amendment, which now 
I believe saves $100,000 from the USDA Administrative Account Budget, 
is worth supporting, simply because of the fact that the new SCHIP bill 
opens a whole new open-ended entitlement.
  In the past, SCHIP has always been a program that was capped, that 
had an authorization. Now we have a program that has no income limits, 
that requires people to actually self-certify. If they say they are 
eligible, they are eligible. Anybody can get it. Warren Buffett's child 
could get SCHIP.
  More important to the fact is this, Mr. Chairman. The reason that it 
is important to save $100,000 from the USDA budget is it is going to 
cost a lot of money when this SCHIP bill passes and it pushes people 
out of private health insurance onto government health insurance. That 
is precisely what this will do.
  Eighty-nine percent of the children in families with incomes between 
300 percent and 400 percent of poverty and 95 percent of families above 
400 percent of poverty have private health insurance. What this bill 
will do is push those children out of the private health insurance that 
their parents and their employers are paying for and make taxpayers pay 
for that health insurance. This is an enormous, enormous expansion of 
our government program, which takes choice away from patients on health 
insurance and makes them take this government one-size-fits-all, 
bureaucratic-driven health care. And that is why we need to support 
removing $100,000 from the administrative budget from the USDA, because 
we have a long ways to go to save the money to pay for this bill.
  This bill, as it left the Ways and Means Committee, was $76 billion 
over the budget in that it violated the majority's PAYGO by $76 
billion. The bill that was brought to the Energy and Commerce Committee 
that wasn't reported out was $91 billion PAYGO noncompliant.
  Why is this, Mr. Chairman? Well, another reason why I think we need 
to save money by cutting $100,000 from the USDA's administrative budget 
is that they cut Medicare. Not just a little bit, but deeply. They raid 
the Medicare trust fund, and they cut and eviscerate the Medicare 
Advantage program.
  Mr. Chairman, I bet every one of us has done a town hall meeting 
whereby we have heard constituents when we are talking about Medicare 
say: You know what? You people in Congress ought to give us the same 
health insurance that you have.
  Mr. Chairman, that is exactly what Medicare Advantage is. Just like 
we as Members of Congress have, just like we in the Federal employment 
health benefit, we have the ability to choose among providers who are 
competing against each other for our benefit. We get to choose among 
providers. We have choice. That is exactly what we are giving to 
Medicare beneficiaries with the Medicare Advantage program.
  These plans compete against each other for the beneficiary's 
business, and each Medicare beneficiary gets to choose traditional 
Medicare or Medicare Advantage plan, and that active choice has driven 
down prices and has driven up quality and customer satisfaction.
  The bill coming to the floor this week will cut 3 million people off 
the Medicare Advantage program. It will say to all those people who 
chose to have this plan that gives them comprehensive Medicare 
coverage: No, you

[[Page 21960]]

have to have the one-size-fits-all government monopoly plan. You can't 
have this choice that looks like what Members of Congress have.
  That is why we need to cut $100,000 from the USDA budget, because all 
these deep Medicare cuts to pay for a massive expansion of a new 
entitlement program at a time when all these other programs are going 
bankrupt is a step in the wrong direction. That is why I urge adoption 
the gentleman's second-degree amendment, and I thank him for yielding 
me time.
  Mr. McHENRY. Reclaiming my time. I think it is also important to note 
that the SCHIP bill the gentleman speaks of raises taxes on tobacco, 
raises taxes on all health care plans in American, and I think 
important for us to talk about that later on this week.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I would just like to say what I stated earlier: That in 
fact what we did in the subcommittee is to cut the central office at 
the Agriculture Department by 16 percent. If that is not good enough 
for you, I accept this amendment. You have an opportunity to withdraw 
it, if you would like, but I am happy to accept it. Or you can sit and 
you can stand and you can continue just running your mouth here on the 
issue of the amendment. I have accepted it the second time around.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Georgia is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, a little while earlier when my amendment 
was introduced to cut the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture by 1 
percent, $50,000, the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee stood up and said, well, that is nothing. That is just pocket 
change, and it is a dilatory motion. It is meaningless. It is so 
insignificant in the big scope of things when we are talking about an 
$18 billion discretionary spending bill on the Agriculture 
appropriations bill that we are dealing with.
  Well, I thank now my colleague from North Carolina for doubling that 
1 percent cut to a 2 percent cut. So now I say to my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle, we are not talking about $50,000, we are 
talking about $100,000. And the chairman of the overall committee, Mr. 
Obey, is absolutely right. It is a small amount. But he is also right. 
I have several other amendments. He might call those pocket change as 
well and dilatory amendments. But the first thing you know when you add 
those up, Mr. Chairman, you are going to get to over $1 million.
  Now, on the floor of the House in this body inside the Beltway that 
may not be much money, but to the folks back in the 11th District of 
Georgia that I represent it becomes some significant money.
  But, again, the chairman is right. We are trying to make a point 
here. And I hope not just our colleagues in the Chamber are listening, 
and I know they are, but I hope the American people are listening as 
well. Because we do want to make a point, and that is what we are doing 
with Mr. McHenry's amendment to double the cut to 2 percent on this 
small section, that is what we are doing in my base amendment with the 
1 percent cut. We are saying, look, if you want to bring forth a bill, 
as you intend to do later this week, the so-called CHAMP Act, to 
massively increase spending that violates your own new PAYGO rules by 
$70 billion, as the ranking member of the Budget Committee just pointed 
out; then if you want to find the money to have these massive 
expansions, then you need to look at every other spending bill and set 
your priorities straight.

                              {time}  1730

  And let's say we're going to cut the money instead of doing it on the 
backs of our seniors. And that's why I say, you need a new acronym for 
this bill. It's not the CHAMP Act, Children's Health and Medicare 
Protection Act. No, it's the CHUMP Act, Children's Health Unfunds 
Medicare Protection, and for our neediest seniors. And that's why we're 
here; absolutely, that's why we're here. We don't want you to do that. 
We don't want you to hurt the seniors, the 3.5 million, a part of the 8 
million that get their Medicare through that Advantage option, because 
most of those seniors, Mr. Chairman, most of those seniors are our 
poorest seniors. They're in that category of income from $10,000 to 
$20,000. And those are the people who you are pushing off the Medicare 
program of choice, their program of choice.
  So anywhere we can find cuts, this amendment, the second-degree 
amendment, further amendments that we're going to offer, that's what we 
ought to do if we're going to have this massive increase in spending, 
which our side of the aisle feels like we should not do.
  Now, we could go home in August, Mr. Chairman, and say, on Thursday 
or Friday of this last week that we were in session, before the long 
break, the Democrats have destroyed Medicare for 3.5 million low-income 
seniors, and they've said they've done it in the interest of providing 
health care for children. But which children are we talking about?
  In their bill that's coming to the floor, with a closed rule, that we 
won't have an opportunity to amend, they want to cover children up to 
400, maybe even more, the sky is the limit, 400 percent of the Federal 
poverty level, $82,000 a year for a family of four or maybe it's 500 
percent or 600 percent. So what happens? Ninety percent of these 
children already have private health insurance. And so that's why we're 
here, and I support the second-degree amendment of the gentleman from 
North Carolina.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Mr. Chairman, I too join in supporting 
this amendment, and the gentleman from North Carolina for doing it, for 
saving so much money for the American taxpayer.
  Just prior to this we heard the chairman from the other side of the 
aisle, in essence, asking us in some ways to trample on our free speech 
rights in this House. And you know, when you do that, when you ask that 
we not speak on important issues here in this House for hours, for a 
period of time, and the other side of the aisle always points out that 
we're spending more time this year than we did in the past years trying 
to debate these issues. And I think the American public, quite honestly 
appreciates that, whether it's 86 hours or 186 hours. I think the 
American public looks to Congress to make sure that we spend their 
money appropriately, and looks for us to debate those issues 
appropriately as well.
  We, each Member of Congress, as we stand here, represents a little 
over 600,000 individuals, men, women and children, across this country 
in our respective districts. When we come to this floor and speak on 
this floor, we are representing their voices. We bring their voices 
from New Jersey to this floor.
  And so when the other side of the aisle says, oh, you go on too long 
over there in the minority, well they're saying that really to my 
constituents. They are complaining that my constituents' voice should 
be silenced. And I come to the floor right now and say, no, sir, my 
constituents voices will not be silenced. I will speak out when I can, 
where I can on behalf of the constituents of the Fifth District and the 
State of New Jersey as well.
  Now, I know that we're looking at a bill here with $18.6 billion. 
Right now we're looking at an amendment for $100,000. To us, and my 
constituents, that's a lot of money. And if it takes us an hour or two 
hours to debate this one amendment, to get consensus to save $100,000, 
well, that's a lot of money to my constituents, and they would say that 
hour or two hours of debate is well worth it.
  Now, maybe the other side of the aisle will disagree with me. Maybe 
the other side of the aisle doesn't care whether we spend 50,000, 
100,000 of our hard-earned tax dollars. And maybe they will accept the 
amendment as they did in the past, and if they do so,

[[Page 21961]]

the $100,000 amendment, we appreciate that.
  But you know, in that regard, this really is a bipartisan effort 
then. It is really two parties coming together to solve a problem. The 
one party, the majority party, comes to this floor, raises our taxes, 
increases our spending.
  The minority party, the Republicans, equally come to the floor, and 
we reach out our hand and work together. While the Democrats raise our 
taxes and raise the spending, we reach out a hand and say how about 
trying to bring that spending down just a little bit by $100,000, and 
by bipartisan effort we're able to get that down. So this is a 
bipartisan day, and I hope that we will see other amendments to 
increase that bipartisanship as well, as we try to rein in the spending 
that the other side has brought us.
  And when we talk about what the other side has brought us, and one of 
the reasons why we need to save this $100,000, just think of what we've 
gone through in the last few months already and just recently in the 
last couple weeks. We have seen taxpayers on the American taxpayers go 
up by over $400 billion in one of the first bills that House passed 
under the majority party of their budget.
  We have seen just recently them raising taxes again through the farm 
bill. And now with this underlying bill that we'll be looking at in a 
little bit on the SCHIP bill, another $60 billion in taxes.
  And let me add just one more tax increase that maybe Members of both 
sides of the aisle may be forgetting about. Just a few hours ago, as I 
look at the clock, I came out of Financial Services Committee, where 
we, or the majority party, added the last piece to the puzzle with 
regard to another tax increase on the American public, and that's the 
MTI. That's the mortgage tax increase. That's a tax increase on every 
family in America who needs to go out and get a mortgage to buy their 
first home or their second or an additional home as they move into it.
  Every family in America who will want to get out a mortgage in the 
future will now have to pay an MTI, a mortgage tax increase, thanks to 
the majority party in the legislation that is just finally put in 
place. So whether it is an increase in the budget taxes or the farm 
bill or the SCHIP or now an MTI as far as a tax increase as well, we're 
working with the other side of the aisle. As they raise taxes on the 
American family, we work with them here and there, to bring down the 
spending to a level that our taxpayers in our districts are able to 
abide by.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite 
number of words in support of the McHenry amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I want to rise in support of the 
McHenry amendment. And I want to compliment the subcommittee 
chairwoman, Ms. DeLauro, for her openness and bipartisanship in 
preparing the ag appropriation bill and working with Ranking Member 
Kingston.
  I asked Mr. Kingston, I said, have y'all held hearings on the bill? 
He said, yes, we held lots of hearings. I said, did you prepare a draft 
that was circulated in a timely fashion? He said, yes, we prepared a 
draft, circulated in a timely fashion. I said, was there an open markup 
where Members could offer amendments on both sides of the aisle? And he 
said, yes, there was an open markup. So I want to compliment you.
  Now, I want to contrast that to the SCHIP bill. We've had one hearing 
in the Energy and Commerce Committee in which SCHIP was the focus of 
Mr. Pallone's subcommittee. The bill came over the transom last Tuesday 
night at 11:36 p.m. The markup was scheduled, I believe, at 10 a.m. the 
next morning. Chairman Dingell did delay that until 4 o'clock the next 
afternoon, and then again delayed the actual markup after opening 
statements a little bit further.
  We didn't have any witnesses testify. We didn't have any open 
process. We didn't have a circulation of a draft. We got a 465-page 
bill at 11:36 last Tuesday evening. So that's, I mean, I'm in awe of 
Ms. DeLauro and the way she's operated her subcommittee, and Mr. Obey 
and the way he's operating the full appropriations committee, actually 
using the process. We're not doing that in the Energy and Commerce 
Committee or the Ways and Means Committee on the SCHIP bill.
  Now, I'm told, I don't know this for a fact.
  Mr. OBEY. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Sure, I'll yield.
  Mr. OBEY. The gentleman has complimented me for the way we have 
handled appropriations bills.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And that's a sincere compliment.
  Mr. OBEY. I appreciate the compliment. But let me suggest that I 
would appreciate it, if we have conducted ourselves the way the 
gentleman thinks we should, then I would appreciate that he would not 
visit his frustrations on other legislation on the appropriations 
process when we have produced bills in what you readily admit is the 
correct fashion. If you have an argument in your own bailiwick, it 
would be nice if you kept it there so that the House might get its work 
done.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I appreciate that gentleman's comment. But my 
response to the distinguished chairman of the full Appropriations 
Committee is, you've got to pick up your buckets where you stand. And 
this is our only forum.
  I'm told that the Rules Committee is going to meet at midnight or 1 
a.m. this morning to consider a same-day rule for SCHIP. Now, keep in 
mind, last Tuesday night at 11:36 p.m., after the House is through with 
its last vote of the day, we get a 465-page SCHIP bill that hasn't had 
any hearings on it, that hasn't had any witnesses on, that hasn't had a 
draft circulated. And now the Rules Committee is going to meet at 
midnight allegedly, or 1 o'clock this morning, to consider a same-day 
rule to consider that bill tomorrow.
  So I respect Mr. Obey and I respect Subcommittee Chairman DeLauro for 
doing the process the right way. But our only recourse, unfortunately, 
under the rules is to come out on this floor under the open rule to 
strike the requisite number of words to speak on the ag appropriation 
bill and then talk about the travesty that may be hoisted on the 
American public tomorrow in which a $227 billion cut in Medicare over 
the next 10 years is going to be voted on, with not one witness 
testifying in favor or opposition, not one draft that's been 
circulated, not any process at all.
  So I support the McHenry amendment, and I also support an open 
process on the largest health care issue that's going to be before this 
Congress this year.
  We should not have the Rules Committee vote tonight at midnight to 
bring a same-day rule. We ought to send the SCHIP bills back to the 
committee, have a normal process, and then bring them to the floor 
later this fall where we could have an open debate in the full House.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
  Mr. CULBERSON. I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CULBERSON. Mr. Chairman, I also rise in support of Mr. McHenry's 
amendment, but I also want to thank my ranking member, the subcommittee 
chairman here. I serve on the Appropriations Committee, and Chairman 
Obey is correct: the committee has done a good job of making sure we 
had bills in front of us and opportunity for debate.
  But I also want to reiterate Mr. Barton's point. He is absolutely 
right. The reason we're out here today and having this discussion is 
because we, each one of us, as Members of Congress have really a 
fiduciary, very deep and profound fiduciary responsibility to be good 
stewards of the taxpayers' dollars. And we're here debating an 
appropriations bill on how to spend those tax dollars. And the 
Agriculture Department has, an important part of its role is the 
taking, they have a role directly, for example, in the Texas Medical 
Center. And the nexus to this debate, Mr. Chairman, that I would 
certainly point out is, under this bill, the Department

[[Page 21962]]

of Agriculture, for example, helps maintain the children's nutrition 
program at the Baylor College of Medicine, which I'm proud to 
represent.
  The Agriculture Department, a key part of their responsibility is 
children's health. And it is highly relevant to talk about this 
Children's Health Insurance Program that the Democrat majority is 
attempting to shove through this Congress with very little debate, very 
little sunlight, which is always a dangerous sign. If they won't let 
you read the bill and they won't let you talk about it, it is sure 
going to contain serious problems. And I for one am deeply concerned 
about the tremendous expansion this bill proposes. The bill will, it is 
clear from what we have seen, take seniors off of Medicare and allow 
States to put illegal aliens on Medicare. The bill has no reasonable 
limits. The bill has no enforceable limits on age. The bill has no 
enforceable limits on income requirements. And the bill is also silent 
as to whether or not States can include illegal aliens in coverage. The 
bill will allow States to provide Medicare coverage at Federal 
taxpayers' expense to anyone the State chooses to cover.
  Now, imagine what that means in the State of California where the 
Governor has already advocated and the legislature has advocated 
providing health care coverage to illegal aliens. And I say that in the 
context, ladies and gentlemen, of the fact that all of us need to 
remember, every bill, every dollar we spend, that the Government 
Accountability Office has already calculated that in order to pay for 
the obligations of the Federal Government today, my overriding concern 
is that, in order to pay for the existing obligations of the Federal 
Government, the GAO has calculated, Mr. Farr, that each American would 
have to buy $155,000 worth of Treasury bills. That's how massive the 
existing obligations of the Federal Government are.

                              {time}  1745

  The existing obligations of the Federal Government are so massive 
that every living American would have to purchase $155,000 worth of 
Treasury bills, and that wouldn't even touch the national debt. That 
wouldn't even touch the interest on the national debt. And yet the 
Democrat majority has attempted to jam through a bill here that we 
don't even really know the ultimate cost.
  Mr. Barton estimates that if the States expand coverage as far as 
they could to pick up illegal aliens and people of any age group or 
income group, but if Mr. Barton is correct, and I think it is 
reasonable that there is no real way to calculate how much this bill 
costs, we are adding a monstrous and inexcusable financial debt on the 
back backs of our children.
  You are taking away Medicare coverage from seniors and allowing 
States to give it to illegal aliens. This is outrageous, it is 
unacceptable, it is unaffordable, and you are going to break the back 
of the taxpayers of this country.
  And I, for one, will stand at this microphone and all of us have an 
obligation to stand up here like Horatio at the gates of Rome. If this 
is the only place that I can stand and fight, I will stand and fight 
here as long as it takes to protect the Treasury and the taxpayers of 
this country from irresponsible, irresolute spendthrift practices of 
the majority of this House, and I won't stand for it.
  Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of 
words.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Michigan is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I rise with considerable regret, and I 
want to speak with affection and respect for my good friend and 
colleague from Texas (Mr. Barton), the senior member of the Republicans 
on the Committee on Energy and Commerce. He complained about the 
process in the Committee on Energy and Commerce.
  I would like the House and this committee to know that he was 
afforded, first of all, every bit of notice that is required by the 
rules of the House, that the proceedings which were conducted in that 
committee were conducted in an eminently fair and proper way in full 
accord with the rules and the proprieties of the House.
  I would also like him to know that I am sure he can recall that we 
sought his counsel as to how it was we could put something together 
which, in fact, would give him a process which would enable us to 
address the problem of SCHIP.
  I would like to remind him and this committee that SCHIP is going to 
expire on the 30th of September. That is an important date because at 
which time we are going to find that all of the kids, 6 million of 
them, who have coverage under SCHIP will lose that coverage if 
something is not done by the Congress of the United States. It is our 
purpose, given the fact that there will be a recess in this body during 
the month of August, to see to it that we have this measure ready for 
the floor in time that the business can be dealt with and that we can 
handle the matter in a way which will take care of these kids.
  The legislation was made available to my good friend and to my 
Republican colleagues on the committee as soon as it could be done 
after the necessary discussions were held to try to frame a proper 
piece of legislation and to address something that responsibility of a 
fiscal and financial character requires, and that is to deal with the 
pay-fors and how we will pay for the cost of this program. We have done 
so, and we have arranged that the payments will be a little different 
than the Senate bill, but they will be sensible.
  First of all, we will require that the Medicare Advantage plans pay 
their fair share but that they are not overpaid for the services which 
they are providing. Some of the less fortunate are getting 11 percent 
more than they are entitled to, some of the more fortunate are getting 
19 percent more than they are entitled to, and some of the most 
fortunate are getting 30 percent more than they are entitled to. It 
seemed like good sense to put them in a position where they could 
compete honestly with the other Medicare providers, and that is what we 
have done. We also have a modest increase in the tobacco tax.
  These are all issues which will be considered; and we offered my good 
friend and my Republican colleagues a chance to amend, debate, and to 
discuss this legislation.
  I would note for the benefit of my good friend from Texas that the 
rules do not require hearings and that on a number of occasions on 
important legislation in prior Congresses during his chairmanship and 
that of others of my very dear friends on the Republican side, the 
situation was conducted in a way in which there were no hearings and 
which legislation was brought directly to the committee and shot to the 
House floor in considerable haste. We protested this, but I have to say 
that, given the exigencies of the situation, the needs and the 
circumstances and the fact that the kids are very liable to lose their 
health care benefits and their insurance under SCHIP, we saw fit to 
bring the matter up.
  The House will, I hope and I think and I am informed, have this 
measure before us in the next little bit. We will do so with a full 
opportunity of everybody to debate it, to discuss where the money is 
coming from, what the benefits will be, and whether or not the 
legislation should be passed.
  It is my personal feeling that we have a chance here to not only save 
some 6 million kids who would lose all benefits, but under the 
legislation which has come out of the Ways and Means Committee and 
which was considered in the Committee on Energy and Commerce to cover 
not 6 million but 11 million kids that desperately need this, which 
will be important.
  I conclude with an expression of affection for my friend and 
colleague from Texas.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I spoke earlier on the second 
degree amendment of Mr. McHenry. Am

[[Page 21963]]

I allowed at this time to seek recognition to speak on the original 
amendment of Mr. Gingrey?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is permitted to seek recognition to speak 
on the original amendment.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Then, Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the 
requisite number of words on the Gingrey amendment.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would like to engage my 
distinguished chairman, the Honorable John Dingell of Michigan, in a 
colloquy, with his permission.
  Mr. DINGELL. I certainly am happy to do that with my dear friend, and 
I express again my respect and affection for the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. We have the utmost respect for each other, and 
that is sincere, and there is nothing artificial about that.
  Mr. Chairman, is it not true that the bill that was marked up or 
attempted to be marked up in your committee last week was given to the 
minority at 11:36 p.m. last Tuesday evening?


                             Point of Order

  Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin will state his point of 
order.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I thought that Members were required to be 
addressing the matter at hand.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct. The Members who are 
recognized should confine their remarks to the issue that is being 
debated.
  The gentleman from Texas may proceed.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I understand the rules, Mr. Chairman. I am going 
to try to comply with the rules.
  I support the Gingrey amendment just like I supported the McHenry 
amendment. I also believe that we should use as close an approximation 
of an open and fair process on the SCHIP reauthorization as we are 
using on the pending appropriations process; and I am informed by my 
staff that the SCHIP bill, which was 465 pages in length, was presented 
to minority staff at 11:36 p.m. last Tuesday evening; and I would like 
the distinguished chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee to 
indicate to me if that is a true statement.
  Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I am perfectly willing to hear the gentlemen 
debate this matter when their bill is on the floor. But the last time I 
looked, I thought an appropriations bill was on the floor; and, just 
for the heck of it, I would like us to stick to the rules and consider 
the matter before us. We have spent 2 hours on a nonsensical, symbolic 
amendment that has very little relationship to the bill; and it seems 
to me this House is getting considerably far afield.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. The gentleman 
who sought the time must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I understand the rules that we are 
operating under, and I am totally supportive of Mr. Gingrey's amendment 
on the Ag appropriations bill.
  I listened with interest to my committee chairman, Mr. Dingell, 
earlier when he rose to speak about the process in the Energy and 
Commerce Committee. He didn't talk about the Gingrey amendment. He 
didn't talk about anything dealing with the Ag appropriations. So I am 
simply trying to get some information from him about what he spoke of, 
and I think the rules of the Energy and Commerce Committee require a 
36-hour advance notice, and we weren't given that 36-hour notice on 
that bill.
  Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas will suspend.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. And I think the chairman knows it.
  Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman. I am not under the impression 
that the rules of the Energy and Commerce Committee are now before the 
House. I am under the impression that the Agriculture appropriations 
bill is before the House, and it would be nice if we could focus our 
discussion on that.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin stated a point of order, 
and he is correct. The gentleman from Texas, who has been recognized, 
must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I appreciate the chairman's courtesy.
  Mr. Chairman, I think the majority is embarrassed to have the 
question answered. I think the majority knows that we were not given 
the bill within the 36-hour window. We weren't even given it within a 
12-hour window.
  Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin will state his point of 
order.
  Mr. OBEY. The gentleman is not discussing the matter at hand.
  The CHAIRMAN. Once again, the gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. 
The gentleman from Texas must confine his remarks to the pending 
question.
  The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, I need an answer to this question, and I 
am at a loss about how to get that answer.
  I listened to my chairman explain his position. I would hope that we 
could give him a chance to respond to a few simple questions about what 
he just told the body.
  So my question is, did we get the bill within 36 hours?
  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, point of order. The gentleman can raise any 
question he wants with the gentleman from Michigan but not on an 
appropriation bill.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Wisconsin is correct. The gentleman 
from Texas must confine his remarks to the pending question.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I have a parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Is it within the rules of the bill that is under 
consideration now to go back and ask that previous comments be read to 
the body to see if they were germane to the pending question? Is that 
within the rules?
  The CHAIRMAN. That is not in order.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. That is not in order or it is in order?
  The CHAIRMAN. A Member wishing to address the propriety of those 
remarks must have been timely. The gentleman's present request would 
not be timely.
  The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas has 2 minutes remaining.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I would ask my distinguished 
chairman, who is the dean of the House, who has served in this body 
over 50 years, who will go down in its history as one of the most 
effective Members of the entire 200-plus years of the Congress, if the 
current process that we are apparently going to use on the SCHIP bill 
once we get through the Agriculture appropriation bill----


                             Point of Order

  Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, point of order. This is not a matter 
pertaining to the subject at hand.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. With all due respect, I think that does pertain 
to the subject at hand.

                              {time}  1800

  The CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Wisconsin have a point of 
order?
  Mr. OBEY. Yes, I do. The gentleman is not addressing the matter at 
hand. This is not the United States Senate where anything is possible.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct. The gentleman from Texas

[[Page 21964]]

must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  The gentleman from Texas is recognized.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I would like to yield to my distinguished 
chairman for any remarks he cares to make. How are the Tigers doing in 
the American League? What are his plans for the August break? If we 
can't talk about substantive issues because the majority is embarrassed 
to hear the answer, maybe we can discuss something else.
  Mr. OBEY. Point of order, Mr. Chairman.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. OBEY. Perhaps the gentleman can tell us what the name of the 
Secretary of Agriculture is. That would at least get us close at hand 
to the subject we are supposed to be debating.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Well, it's not David Obey.
  I am going to yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman, out of 
respect for the chairman's courtesies.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Chairman, I do want to speak in favor of the 
McHenry amendment. I think it is a vitally important amendment that we 
debate on this House floor today. Maybe the dollar amount is modest; 
the principle is huge. This is a body that spends too much of the 
people's money, and it has repercussions. And no matter how intensely 
our friends from the other side of the aisle want to prevent us from 
painting a picture for the American people on where their spending is 
leading, we feel compelled to speak out.
  Mr. Chairman, already this body is spending over $23,000 per American 
household. In real terms, it's one of the greatest amounts since World 
War II. Every appropriations bill that has come to the floor, 
practically every single one is spending more money than last year, way 
beyond the rate of inflation and beyond the ability of the family 
budget to pay for the excess in the Federal budget.
  So, now we have an Agriculture appropriations bill which is almost 6 
percent above last year. I assure you, the American people didn't get a 
6 percent raise, those who are expected to pay for it. And beyond the 6 
percent increase, the bill expands mandatory spending. Now, supposedly 
PAYGO is supposed to apply to this, but it doesn't because we have a 
PAYGO loophole. And this is a big, big loophole, Mr. Chairman. And we 
need to pay attention to more mandatory spending. Because already, 
simply with the government that we have today, before our friends on 
the other side of the aisle add on a massive increase in an SCHIP 
program that's going to be funded with tax increases and Medicare cuts, 
before they do that, we're already on automatic pilot to double taxes 
on the next generation. We're either going to double taxes on the next 
generation or there is not going to be any Federal Government to speak 
of, except Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. There will barely be 
any funds for anything else.
  And don't take my word for it, Madam Chair, take the word of the 
Office of Management and Budget, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, 
the conservative Heritage Foundation, the liberal Brookings Institute. 
So there is this train wreck coming on entitlement spending.
  We have a modest amendment that would reduce a little bit of spending 
in the Agriculture bill to take off that pressure, and instead the 
amendment is simply mocked. Well, we can't do that because we know if 
we don't pass this amendment, this modest amendment, to save money on 
the Agriculture appropriations bill, we know what it's leading to on 
SCHIP, a new permanent entitlement of almost $160 billion over 10 
years. I mean, Madam Chair, this is unconscionable, unconscionable on 
top of the burden that is already going to be placed upon future 
taxpayers.
  Now, we have so many Members who come to the floor and talk about, 
well, we have to be here for the least of these. Well, Madam Chair, I 
would posit that maybe the least of these are those who do not vote and 
those who have yet to be born. And so that is why we need the amendment 
passed by the gentleman from North Carolina to save this money, to take 
pressure off of creating this new huge permanent entitlement in SCHIP.
  We also need this amendment in this Ag bill to take the pressure off 
this huge cut in Medicare that the Democrat majority is now planning, 
as they seek to pit grandparents against their grandchildren in this 
massive SCHIP tax-spend-debt spiral. I mean, they're going to increase 
taxes, the tobacco taxes. I'm not a smoker. I used to be a volunteer in 
the American Cancer Society, but last I looked, it's still a legal 
activity. So taxes are going to fall on low- and moderate-income 
Americans as they seek to take away private insurance from others and 
put them onto a public insurance plan.
  We're looking again at cutting Medicare Advantage plans, almost 20 
percent of the people. We're going to have pressure to cut Medicare.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield for 
a question?
  Is the gentleman aware that we've accepted the amendment?
  Mr. HENSARLING. Madam Chair, do I control the time? If so, I have not 
yielded to the gentleman from Illinois.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN (Mrs. Tauscher). The gentleman from Texas 
controls the time.
  Mr. HENSARLING. I would urge the adoption of this amendment so that 
we can save some money here and prevent this massive raid on the 
Medicare trust fund that is coming in in this SCHIP bill.
  Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, I have a parliamentary 
inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, is there a particular 
parliamentary vehicle that, once an amendment has been accepted by the 
majority, that the amendment can then be disposed of?
  I don't know what the point is here. We've accepted the amendment. 
It's been asked. It's been answered. We accept it. We want to add it to 
the bill. We're prepared to move forward. We've accepted the amendment.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Chair will put the question on the amendment 
after 5-minute debate has been exhausted.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Louisiana is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. Madam Chairman, I also rise in support of the McHenry 
amendment. Clearly, we have to get some control over spending, and this 
Agriculture bill is no exception to this.
  As we look at this spending bill, as we've looked at the rest of 
them, we're continuing to spend more money, and it's a recipe for 
further tax increases. Furthermore, it's going to be at the expense of 
seniors. Here we are, we're looking at an SCHIP bill which, in my 
opinion, after looking at this to the extent I've been able to look at 
it, appears to be very irresponsibly crafted. In fact, I believe it to 
be a cruel hoax.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order, Madam Chairman.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chair, as I understand previous 
rulings from the Chair, that the gentleman must confine his remarks to 
the matter at hand, the Agriculture appropriations bill, and not the 
SCHIP bill, which will come before the Congress later this week.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Louisiana must confine his 
remarks to the pending question.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank the Chair.
  As I was saying, this bill continues to spend far too much money, as 
did all the previous appropriations bills we've voted upon, and it is 
going to put further pressure on the work that we desperately need to 
do.

[[Page 21965]]

  Looking at what we're going to go forward with as we look at health 
care, how are we going to pay for health care if we're putting all this 
money into overspending in these other bills? We have to get our 
priorities straight.
  If we're going to raise cigarette taxes, a diminishing source of 
revenue, to pay for a program that's expanding, and then we're also 
going to take one-time money from Medicare Advantage to pay for an 
expanded program, how is it that we're going to deal with our entire 
Federal budget? Again, this bill before us today is a big part of the 
problem.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Chair, I have sat here and have counted 
15 straight times that we have ruled on the central question of 
germaneness. We are here to talk about the Agriculture appropriations.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman have a point of order?
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. My point of order is, where is it in the rules 
to which this total disrespect for the Chair and the rulings of the 
Chair continues to be allowed? What is the point of having a rule?
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Chair, point of order.
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. May I have my point of order responded to?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. As the Chair has already ruled, the gentleman 
from Louisiana must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Chairman, point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Georgia may state his point 
of order.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Chairman, is it not true that we are talking about 
a spending bill----
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman stating a point of order or 
parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. GINGREY. The point of order, Madam Chairman, is, if there is 
spending and language in this bill that pertains to drugs, that 
pertains to health care, that pertains to the FDA and drug 
reimportation, then that makes this discussion of spending germane to 
the overall bill.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Chair has already ruled.
  The gentleman from Louisiana must maintain an ongoing nexus between 
the pending question and any broader policy issues.
  The gentleman from Louisiana may proceed.
  Mr. FARR. Madam Chair, parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Louisiana yield for a 
parliamentary inquiry?
  Mr. BOUSTANY. Madam Chair, reclaiming my time, I just want to say 
that we're talking about an Agriculture bill, a spending bill, and 
we're talking about money that is going to be spent. We're talking 
about money that is going to be spent in this that will not be 
available to spend on health care issues, particularly on a number of 
issues affecting rural seniors.
  Now, I have a rural district, it depends on agriculture, and as we go 
forward, we're going to hurt these seniors in these rural communities. 
If we cut over $200 billion in Medicare spending, I have 3,246 seniors 
in the Seventh Congressional District who are currently enrolled in the 
Medicare Advantage who are going to suffer. So I think we have to get 
our priorities straight as we go forward.
  Furthermore, as we look at payments for hospitals are being cut $2.7 
billion; in-patient rehabilitative services, $6.6 billion in cuts; 
payments for skilled nursing facilities, $6.5 billion in cuts; payments 
for certain drugs, $1.9 billion; in-State renal disease, $3.6 billion. 
These are seniors who are poor in my Seventh Congressional District, 
and because of the spending in this Agriculture bill, they can't take 
care of these problems.


                             Point of Order

  Ms. DeLAURO. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut will state her 
point of order.
  Ms. DeLAURO. It has been ruled over and over again on this floor that 
the gentleman has to keep his remarks in the context of the bill, the 
Agriculture appropriations bill that is being discussed.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Louisiana must confine his 
remarks to the pending question.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank the Chairwoman.
  Again, I state that I am supporting the McHenry amendment because I 
think it's an important step forward as we get some control over 
spending so we can set our priorities straight so we don't hurt rural 
seniors.
  I pointed out the numerous cuts that are going to be made to the 
3,246 seniors in the Seventh Congressional District alone.
  Madam Chair, when is the spending spree going to stop? When are we 
going to get control over this spending so that we can set our 
priorities straight?


                             Point of Order

  Mr. ISRAEL. Madam Chair, point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Madam Chair, we have been debating this amendment for 1 
hour. We accepted this amendment within that 1 hour.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman have a point of order?
  Mr. ISRAEL. Madam Chairman, how many times can our friends on the 
other side of the aisle raise nongermane issues after the Chair has 
ruled that they must confine their remarks to the underlying bill?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Chair will respond to points of order as 
they are made.
  The gentleman from Louisiana will continue.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank the Chair.
  Again, Agriculture spending is what we're talking about. But if we're 
spending excessive money in this Ag appropriations bill, it's going to 
hurt what we can do to take care of our seniors.
  Again, 3,246 seniors in the Louisiana Seventh Congressional District 
are going to be hurt by this situation. If we look at the SCHIP 
situation that we're faced with, we're going to have problems with cuts 
because we don't have money available because of the Agriculture bill.


                             Point of Order

  Ms. DeLAURO. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
  The gentlewoman from Connecticut.
  Ms. DeLAURO. My colleague is supposed to keep his comments to the 
business at hand before the Committee, not what business the House will 
consider in the coming days; is that not true, Madam Chair?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman is correct. The Chair has ruled 
that the gentleman from Louisiana must confine his remarks to the 
pending question.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. I thank the Chair.
  Furthermore, as we go forward with a bill that is increasing spending 
in Agriculture, I have seniors in my district who need motorized 
wheelchairs, and they may be forced to wait a month or more.

                              {time}  1815

  Again, because of the spending in this bill----
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman yield for a parliamentary 
inquiry?
  Mr. BOUSTANY. No.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Louisiana may continue.
  Mr. BOUSTANY. Furthermore, with the spending in this bill, it is 
going to reduce the amount of time that the government will rent oxygen 
equipment for seniors to up to 36 months. This is going to be a problem 
for my seniors. We have got to get control over this spending. The 
first step here is with the McHenry amendment.
  Furthermore, I think if we look at what has happened with agriculture 
spending, typically, much of the money that has been spent on 
agriculture doesn't even go to agriculture. It has gone to all kinds of 
other pet programs.
  Madam Chairman, we have to set our priorities straight here.

[[Page 21966]]

  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from North Carolina is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I appreciate very much the recognition.
  Madam Chairman, I think that the American people are probably getting 
a pretty good lesson on the effectiveness, or lack of effectiveness, of 
this Congress right now. Unfortunately for the institution, the lesson 
is driving home the poll numbers that show how little regard the 
American people have for the majority party right now. It is important 
that we have the opportunity to debate every one of these bills and 
that we have the opportunity to debate the amendments that are here.
  I rise in support of the amendment that my colleague from North 
Carolina has offered. I think, again, that it is important that we do 
that. It is also important that we have the ability to tie the 
amendments that are being offered to this agriculture bill to other 
issues. The majority party may not want to do that. However, it is very 
important that we do that, because these appropriations bills are all 
tied together.
  Last year, there was a great hue and cry from the majority party 
about how much money was being spent by the Republicans, what 
profligate spenders we were. Now that the Democrats are proposing 
spending all this money, it is negligible. $10 million is negligible. 
$5 million is negligible. It is insignificant. All kinds of words like 
that are being used.
  When we try to point out the connection between what is happening in 
this bill and with the amendments that we are offering to things like 
the SCHIP bill, then the majority party doesn't want us to do that.


                             Point of Order

  Ms. DeLAURO. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut will state her 
point of order.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Chairman, the gentlewoman's remarks need to be 
confined to the Agriculture appropriations bill. The amendment has been 
accepted, in case the gentlewoman did not know that.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut is correct. The 
gentlewoman from North Carolina must confine her remarks to the pending 
question.
  The gentlewoman will proceed.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Does the gentlewoman yield for a parliamentary 
inquiry?
  Ms. FOXX. Yes, I do.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Madam Chairman, isn't it within the rules of the 
House while debating a pending question to include references to 
extraneous material?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from North Carolina must 
maintain an ongoing nexus between the pending question and any broader 
policy issues.
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. But broader policy issues can be addressed.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. As long as the nexus is maintained.
  The gentlewoman from North Carolina may continue.
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I thank my colleague for seeking the 
clarification of this. I have been very confused about the majority 
party not wanting us to talk about the entire budget. This is one piece 
of an entire budget that this House is going to pass. I don't see how 
you can possibly say there is no nexus.
  Every spending bill in this Chamber is connected to every other 
spending bill, so how can you possibly say that they are not the same? 
You passed this huge budget with the largest tax increase in the 
history of this country. The budget sets the spending. I cannot 
understand why we can't talk about the budget and every other spending 
bill that we are going to deal with in conjunction with this spending 
bill, because they are all tied together.
  I would also like to point out to you that I guess while you are 
trying to speed us along you are raising all these points of order, 
which is simply slowing down the process. I find that somewhat amusing, 
too, as we are trying to move the process along.
  But it is important that we talk about our rural districts and what 
the SCHIP program would do to seniors. I have seniors who are going be 
hurt by this.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order. Madam Chairman, the 
gentlelady is engaged in irrelevant debate.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman will suspend.
  The gentleman from Illinois will state his point of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, the gentlewoman is engaged 
in irrelevant debate.
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Chairman, I just stated----
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, I would like a ruling on my 
point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman will suspend.
  The gentlewoman from North Carolina must confine her remarks to the 
pending question.
  The gentlewoman may proceed.
  Ms. FOXX. Well, I will say again that we passed one budget in this 
House that includes the money for all the spending bills. If there is 
one budget, then it would seem to me that all of the spending bills are 
tied to each other. Therefore, any spending bill has a connection to 
every other spending bill. So there is a nexus there, and talking about 
what is going to happen or what is being proposed in one spending bill 
is relevant to every other spending bill. I simply don't see how you 
can separate them.
  It is going to be especially clear to the American people that that 
is the case when an omnibus spending bill is brought here this fall and 
we are asked to vote for, again, the largest tax increase in the 
history of this country within the confines of a very, very large 
spending bill.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Madam Chairman, I ask to strike the requisite 
number of words.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Madam Chairman, I rise today on the McHenry 
amendment, which would cut $100,000 from the USDA, the Department of 
Agriculture. $100,000, that is the equivalent to what the out-of-pocket 
costs will be if you have a 10 percent cut in Medicare Advantage for 
poor health seniors in my State.


                             Point of Order

  Ms. DeLAURO. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut.
  Ms. DeLAURO. The gentleman is engaged in irrelevant debate and is not 
speaking about the issue at hand, the Agriculture appropriations bill.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. No, I actually was.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
  The gentleman from Oregon must confine his remarks to the pending 
question.
  The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I am trying to put what $100,000 means in 
perspective for people who may actually get hit with higher costs 
because of other policy changes coming down the road as part of this 
overall budget.
  I would also point out to my friends on the Democratic side of the 
aisle that the Agriculture appropriations bill also contains in it 
language related to drug reimportation; and, indeed, that is an issue 
in this bill before this House at this time.
  Certainly, if the Medicare Advantage plans are whacked in a rural 
district, then perhaps seniors may want to take advantage of that 
provision. I don't know. Because drug reimportation poses a whole set 
of different issues that can be problematic, if you have seen some of 
the polluted drugs coming in from China right now.
  So that is an issue that concerns me. Because if they lose their 
Medicare Advantage coverage that may help them

[[Page 21967]]

in that area, who knows what is left in terms of cuts in Medicare.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. OBEY. The House is not debating the issue of Medicare Advantage. 
The House is debating an Agriculture appropriations bill, and the 
gentleman has an obligation to stay on the subject.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will direct his remarks to the 
pending question.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman. Is there 
not in the underlying bill language dealing with drug importation?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Oregon must maintain an 
ongoing nexus between the pending question and any broad policy issues.
  The gentleman from Oregon may continue.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. So the policy here in this context would be 
related to drugs, because in the underlying bill is drug reimportation 
language.
  There is not? Okay. So you are telling me in the Agriculture 
appropriations bill there is no language in there that deals with drug 
importation. That is news, if you read the bill.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
  Currently pending the House has before it the amendment of the 
gentleman from North Carolina to the amendment of the gentleman from 
Georgia. That is the business that is pending. That is the question 
that the gentleman's remarks should be directed to.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. So you can't talk about anything else in the 
agriculture bill, just the $100,000 cut.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Chair has ruled that the gentleman should 
confine his remarks to the pending question, which is the McHenry 
amendment to the Gingrey amendment.


                             point of order

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Georgia has a point of order. 
Please state it.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Chairman, do the rules of this House apply 
the same to every Member of the House?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman stating a parliamentary inquiry 
or a point of order?
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. A parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Does the gentleman from Oregon yield for that 
purpose?
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I would be happy to yield.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. State your parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Do the rules of this House apply to every Member 
equally?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Madam Chairman, further parliamentary inquiry. Is 
it not true that the chairman of Energy and Commerce came to the floor 
and never mentioned the amendment that was being discussed?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is not stating a parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Further parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I continue to yield.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. The same parliamentary inquiry. Is it not true that 
when the gentleman that is chair of Energy and Commerce----
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Chair does not exercise initiative in this 
area but only rules on points of order as they are made.
  The gentleman from Oregon is recognized.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I will try and 
confine my remarks more to the McHenry amendment, which, as we know, 
would cut $100,000 out of the Department of Agriculture.
  Now, that $100,000 may not seem like a lot to many on this floor, but 
it may seem like a lot to a senior if they are going to lose their 
Medicare Advantage plan. But I know that is not the issue before us at 
this moment. The issue really is, how do you control spending in the 
Federal government?
  I think one of the ways you control spending in the Federal 
government is through the McHenry amendment. Because the McHenry 
amendment reduces Federal spending by $100,000, which may not seem like 
a lot to some and they may not want us to talk about how it could be 
used in other programs that may come before this House at a different 
time in a different way. But certainly, if you were going to lose your 
Medicare, you would be concerned about you might save $100,000 here 
that could be used somewhere else so you did not have to raise taxes 
on, say, health insurance.
  Saving $100,000 here is a good thing. It may not seem like a lot, but 
it is still a good thing. It reduces spending, and this government has 
had trouble reducing spending. We have spent a lot of time on this 
floor debating amounts that are even less than $100,000. I would like 
to see us go farther than that, because I also know in other committees 
there is debate going on about having to raise revenues to fund other 
programs.


                             point of order

  Ms. DeLAURO. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman will state her point of order.
  Ms. DeLAURO. The gentleman's remarks need to be confined to the issue 
at hand, the matter at hand. The amendment has to do with the Office of 
the Secretary of Agriculture.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. That is what I am speaking to, Madam Chairman. 
I am speaking to the $100,000 cut in the Office of the Secretary of 
Agriculture.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
  The gentleman will confine his remarks to the pending matter, which 
is the McHenry amendment.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. How am I not, Madam Chairman? How am I not 
confining my remarks? Could you delineate? Can you not talk about 
anything else, other than simply the words in the amendment?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman must confine his remarks to the 
pending question.
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. So I am. This amendment, if approved, would 
save $100,000. This amendment, if approved, would save $100,000. I 
would like to be able to put that in a broader context for my 
colleagues in terms of what that might mean to other spending and other 
situations around here where the Democrats have decided to raise----


                             point of order

  Ms. DeLAURO. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Is it not true that the issue is whether or not there is 
$50,000 or $100,000 that is to be cut, and that is the issue at hand, 
and that is the issue that ought to be addressed?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman is correct.
  Ms. DeLAURO. And it has been accepted.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The McHenry amendment to the Gingrey amendment 
is the pending question.

                              {time}  1830

  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Madam Chairman, I am speaking to the importance 
of cutting $100,000 rather than $50,000.
  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. GINGREY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding.
  Is it not true that these points of orders and parliamentary 
inquiries that keep coming from the other side are just dilatory 
tactics on their part to take away our ability to talk to the American 
people and to this body on a very important issue?

[[Page 21968]]


  Mr. WALDEN of Oregon. Well, it would seem to me that they have 
narrowed what we can say, trying to silence the minority, trying to 
silence Republicans from bringing to light certain issues we care 
about. We have been restricted now to simply talking about a dollar 
amount on one amendment.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's time has expired.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman from Connecticut has already 
spoken on the pending propositions.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ISRAEL. I yield to the distinguished chairwoman of the 
subcommittee.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Chairman, I thank the gentleman.
  I want to make the point that it is really laughable to talk about 
dilatory. It really is. It is now not an hour and a half, it is almost 
2\1/2\ hours on an amendment that has been accepted and a secondary 
amendment that has been accepted by the Committee for the Department of 
Agriculture. The cuts have been made.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Madam Chairman, point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman will suspend. The gentleman may 
state his point of order.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. As I understand the Chair's ruling before, 
individual Members must confine their comments to the amendment at 
hand.
  Ms. DeLAURO. That is exactly what I'm doing. The amendment at hand, 
the McHenry amendment, to increase the Gingrey amendment from $50,000 
to $100,000. We have debated it. It has been accepted.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Is there a ruling from the Chair?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentlewoman has confined her remarks to the 
pending question.
  Mr. ISRAEL. I yield back the balance of my time.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. Parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman may state it.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I have noticed that the Chair has qualitatively 
ruled on the nature of Members' comments on the floor as it relates to 
confining their comments to the amendment. I would suggest that is not 
an appropriate compliance with the rules of the House.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The Chair will respond to points of order as 
they are made.
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank the Chair.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey may state his 
parliamentary inquiry.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. When the Chair rules to a point of order 
with respect to limiting one's comments or debate to the underlying 
amendment that is before us at the time, is that time allowed to be 
discussed on something with respect to the amount of time in essence 
that we are discussing that bill or does the language only go to the 
underlying amendment?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from New Jersey, or any Member 
addressing the House on a particular pending question, must maintain an 
ongoing nexus between the pending question and any broader policy 
issues.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Further parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman may state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Is it a sufficient nexus to discuss the 
amount of time that an individual is taking to discuss the underlying 
amendment?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Broader issues could include the time being 
consumed by the Member.
  Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. Thank you.
  Mr. SHADEGG. I move to strike the last word.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SHADEGG. I rise in strong support of the McHenry amendment to 
reduce the budget of the Office of the Secretary by $101,000.
  The reason I support that amendment is because I do not support 
cutting the Medicare Advantage program by billions of dollars and 
hurting seniors.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois will state his point 
of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, the majority has accepted 
the McHenry amendment and the minority continues to engage in 
irrelevant debate.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona has confined his 
remarks to the pending amendment. The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you. I would rather cut the Secretary's budget by 
$101 billion as a way to save money than to cut the Medicare Advantage 
program because the Medicare Advantage program helps millions of 
Americans and thousands in my own congressional district. So as the 
Democrats propose to cut that program in their SCHIP bill, I believe it 
would be better to cut this program.
  I rise in support of the McHenry amendment to cut $101,000 from the 
Secretary's budget because the Medicare Advantage bill will cut 3 
million seniors' ability to collect their benefits through Medicare 
Advantage. That 3 million includes some of the poorest of seniors who 
are on Medicare Advantage, and I would rather cut $101,000 from the 
Secretary's budget than cut that money going to Medicare seniors who 
need it desperately.
  I support the amendment by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 
McHenry) to cut $101,000 from the budget of the Secretary of 
Agriculture because the other cut we are faced with is a $15 billion 
cut in part A, including a cut in benefits to skilled nursing 
facilities, as the Democrats propose to do in their SCHIP bill.
  I would rather cut the Department of Agriculture's budget than----


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
  The gentleman from Illinois will state his point of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. The majority has accepted the McHenry 
amendment and the minority continues to engage in irrelevant debate 
about the SCHIP program in another bill for another day.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona must confine his 
remarks to the pending question.
  The gentleman may proceed.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. SHADEGG. Parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman may state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. SHADEGG. I presume I can state my reason for supporting the 
amendment; is that correct?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman must keep his remarks to the 
pending question, and there must be a nexus between the pending 
question and broader policy issues.
  The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. SHADEGG. And I will continue to say that a $15 billion cut in 
skilled nursing facilities is, from my perspective, a bad idea, much 
worse than a $101,000 cut from the Secretary's budget. And, therefore, 
I rise in strong support of the McHenry amendment because I don't want 
to see skilled nursing cut as the Democrats propose to do in their 
SCHIP bill.
  I support the McHenry amendment which would cut $101,000 from the 
Secretary's budget because I don't support cutting rehabilitation 
facilities as the Democrats would do in their SCHIP bill.
  Indeed, I would much prefer to cut $100,000 from the Secretary's 
budget

[[Page 21969]]

than to cut, as the Democrats do in their SCHIP bill, rehabilitation 
facilities.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will suspend.
  The gentleman from Illinois will state his point of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, the majority has accepted 
the McHenry amendment and the minority continues to engage in 
irrelevant debate about a piece of legislation that will come up in a 
few days. We are discussing the Agriculture appropriations bill.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman must confine his remarks to the 
pending question.
  The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. SHADEGG. As I believe I have, quite skillfully.
  I do rise in very strong support of the McHenry amendment because I 
believe that cutting the Secretary's budget is a much better idea than 
cutting skilled nursing facilities.
  I believe it is a much better idea than cutting long-term hospital 
facilities, as the Democrats do in their SCHIP bill. And I think it 
would be much better to cut $100,000 from the Secretary of 
Agriculture's administrative budget than to cut, as the Democrats do, 
funding for long-term care by hospitals.
  It seems to me this is a simple debate: Where do we cut? I would much 
rather cut $100,000 from the budget of the Office of the Secretary than 
to cut $9 billion from Medicare plan B, including payments for oxygen, 
as the Democrats do in their SCHIP bill. It seems to me that kind of 
cut in their SCHIP bill is a bad idea. I would rather support the 
gentleman's amendment.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois will state his point 
of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Chairman, the gentleman sounds like a 
broken record. The majority has accepted the McHenry amendment and the 
minority continues to engage in irrelevant debate.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois will state his point 
of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. The majority has accepted the McHenry 
amendment, and the minority continues to engage in irrelevant debate.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. Is the gentleman making a point of order that 
the debate is irrelevant?
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I am making the point of order that the 
debate is absolutely irrelevant.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct. The gentleman from 
Arizona must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Chairman, I seek a clarification. What was the 
ruling of the Chair?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The point of order is correct. The gentleman 
from Arizona must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  Mr. SHADEGG. Precisely how did my remarks not----
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The pending question is the amendment by Mr. 
McHenry of North Carolina to the amendment by the gentleman from 
Georgia. That is the pending question.
  Mr. SHADEGG. And I thank the Chairman for her ruling, and I am 
pleased to say that each of my points have tried to explain that I 
support, adamantly support the amendment by the gentleman to cut 
$100,000 from the Secretary's budget because I don't favor these other 
cuts. I don't favor cutting the funding for end-stage renal disease 
programs. I would much rather cut the Department of Agriculture 
administrative budget than do as the Democrats would in their SCHIP 
bill, cut $3.6 billion from the end-stage renal disease program.
  It seems to me that the amendment of the gentleman from North 
Carolina to cut $100,000 from the administrative budget of the 
Secretary is a much-preferable method to achieve the savings that we 
need. In each of these instances, I believe that cutting the 
Secretary's budget would make much more sense than cutting the Medicare 
program.
  I have constituents in my district who would much rather see us cut 
the Ag budget than see us cut Medicare or see us cut end-stage renal 
disease or than see us cut oxygen therapy as is all done in the 
Democrats' SCHIP bill. For all of those reasons, I believe it is very 
important that we support the gentleman's amendment.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Point of order.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Illinois may state his point 
of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. The minority continues to engage in 
irrelevant debate.
  Mr. SHADEGG. There is nothing irrelevant about it.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Arizona will suspend.
  Does the gentleman make a point of order that the debate is 
irrelevant?
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I make the point of order that the debate is 
irrelevant.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman is correct. The gentleman from 
Arizona must confine his remarks to the pending question.
  Mr. SHADEGG. I appeal the ruling of the Chair.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The question is: Shall the decision of the Chair 
stand as the judgment of the Committee?
  The question was taken; and the Acting Chairman announced that the 
ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 220, 
noes 178, not voting 39, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 777]

                               AYES--220

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Baird
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bordallo
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boyd (FL)
     Boyda (KS)
     Brady (PA)
     Brown, Corrine
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson
     Castor
     Chandler
     Christensen
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Cummings
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis, Lincoln
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Ellsworth
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Faleomavaega
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Giffords
     Gillibrand
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall (NY)
     Hare
     Harman
     Hastings (FL)
     Herseth Sandlin
     Higgins
     Hill
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hodes
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (OH)
     Kagen
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     Klein (FL)
     Kucinich
     LaHood
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Mahoney (FL)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum (MN)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     McNulty
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Mitchell
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy (CT)
     Murphy, Patrick
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Norton
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Perlmutter
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sestak
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Space
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stupak
     Sutton
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Welch (VT)
     Wexler
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Yarmuth

                               NOES--178

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Baker
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)

[[Page 21970]]


     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (SC)
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Buchanan
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Capito
     Carter
     Castle
     Chabot
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, David
     Deal (GA)
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Ehlers
     Emerson
     English (PA)
     Everett
     Fallin
     Ferguson
     Flake
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gilchrest
     Gillmor
     Gingrey
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Hall (TX)
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hobson
     Hoekstra
     Hulshof
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Jindal
     Johnson (IL)
     Jones (NC)
     Jordan
     Keller
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline (MN)
     Knollenberg
     Kuhl (NY)
     Lamborn
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McKeon
     McMorris Rodgers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy, Tim
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Paul
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Ramstad
     Regula
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Reynolds
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Royce
     Sali
     Saxton
     Schmidt
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Turner
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh (NY)
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)
     Wolf
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)

                             NOT VOTING--39

     Allen
     Bishop (UT)
     Boucher
     Braley (IA)
     Buyer
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Cardoza
     Clarke
     Cohen
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     DeFazio
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Dicks
     Doyle
     Feeney
     Forbes
     Fortuno
     Fossella
     Hayes
     Hunter
     Johnson, Sam
     Marchant
     McCaul (TX)
     McCrery
     Miller, George
     Nunes
     Pickering
     Ryan (WI)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Smith (TX)
     Tancredo
     Udall (CO)
     Waters
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Wilson (OH)
     Wynn

                              {time}  1906

  Mr. PETRI changed his vote from ``aye'' to ``no.''
  Ms. KILPATRICK changed her vote from ``no'' to ``aye.''
  So the decision of the Chair stands as the judgment of the Committee.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. SHADEGG. Madam Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The gentleman will state his parliamentary 
inquiry.
  Mr. SHADEGG. As I understand the ruling of the Chair, it is 
appropriate for me to say I support the gentleman's amendment because I 
do not support cuts in skilled nursing facilities or cuts in 
rehabilitation facilities or cuts in long-term care hospitals or cuts 
in oxygen, or cuts in brachytherapy, or cuts in end-stage renal disease 
or cuts in Medicare Advantage; but that I cannot say which appear in 
their SCHIP bill. Is that correct?
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. It is permissible to identify as preferable an 
alternative object for funding. It is not permissible to dwell on the 
merits of that alternative object.
  The gentleman may proceed.
  Mr. SHADEGG. I thank you very much for your ruling.
  Madam Chairman, I do rise in support of the gentleman's amendment. I 
believe that we have to find the funding necessary for essential 
government programs and that cutting the Secretary of Agriculture is 
much better than cutting such programs as skilled nursing facilities, 
rehabilitation facilities, long-term care hospitals, oxygen under 
Medicare, brachytherapy under Medicare, end-stage renal disease funding 
under Medicare or Medicare Advantage.
  For those reasons, I rise in strong support of the gentleman's 
amendment.
  Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.


                  Motion to Rise Offered by Mr. Hoyer

  Mr. HOYER. Madam Chairman, I intend to ask for unanimous consent 
after the motion that I make and we rise, and then I will make a 
statement on the schedule that I perceive to be in front of us for such 
time as it may take to complete the business of the people of our 
country.
  I move that the Committee do now rise.
  The Acting CHAIRMAN. The question is on the motion to rise.
  The question was taken; and the Acting Chairman announced that the 
ayes appeared to have it.


                             Recorded Vote

  Mr. GINGREY. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
  A recorded vote was ordered.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 235, 
noes 153, not voting 49, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 778]

                               AYES--235

     Abercrombie
     Ackerman
     Altmire
     Andrews
     Arcuri
     Baca
     Baird
     Baker
     Baldwin
     Barrow
     Bean
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Berry
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Bonner
     Bordallo
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boyd (FL)
     Boyda (KS)
     Brady (PA)
     Brown, Corrine
     Brown-Waite, Ginny
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson
     Castle
     Castor
     Chabot
     Chandler
     Christensen
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Conyers
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Courtney
     Cramer
     Crowley
     Cuellar
     Davis (AL)
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     Davis, Lincoln
     DeGette
     Delahunt
     DeLauro
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Donnelly
     Edwards
     Ehlers
     Ellison
     Ellsworth
     Emanuel
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Etheridge
     Everett
     Faleomavaega
     Farr
     Fattah
     Filner
     Frank (MA)
     Giffords
     Gilchrest
     Gillibrand
     Gillmor
     Gonzalez
     Gordon
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hall (NY)
     Hare
     Hastings (FL)
     Herseth Sandlin
     Higgins
     Hill
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Hobson
     Hodes
     Holden
     Holt
     Honda
     Hooley
     Hoyer
     Inslee
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson-Lee (TX)
     Jefferson
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Jones (NC)
     Jones (OH)
     Kagen
     Kanjorski
     Kaptur
     Kennedy
     Kildee
     Kilpatrick
     Kind
     Klein (FL)
     Kucinich
     Lampson
     Langevin
     Lantos
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lipinski
     Loebsack
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lynch
     Mahoney (FL)
     Maloney (NY)
     Markey
     Marshall
     Matheson
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum (MN)
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McIntyre
     McNerney
     McNulty
     Meek (FL)
     Meeks (NY)
     Melancon
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Mitchell
     Mollohan
     Moore (KS)
     Moore (WI)
     Moran (VA)
     Murphy (CT)
     Murphy, Patrick
     Murtha
     Nadler
     Napolitano
     Neal (MA)
     Norton
     Oberstar
     Obey
     Olver
     Ortiz
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor
     Payne
     Perlmutter
     Peterson (MN)
     Pomeroy
     Price (NC)
     Rahall
     Ramstad
     Rangel
     Rehberg
     Rodriguez
     Ross
     Rothman
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Salazar
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schwartz
     Scott (GA)
     Scott (VA)
     Serrano
     Sestak
     Shea-Porter
     Sherman
     Shuler
     Sires
     Skelton
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Snyder
     Solis
     Space
     Spratt
     Stark
     Stupak
     Sutton
     Tanner
     Tauscher
     Taylor
     Terry
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Towns
     Udall (NM)
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Waters
     Watson
     Watt
     Waxman
     Weiner
     Welch (VT)
     Wexler
     Wilson (OH)
     Wolf
     Woolsey
     Wu
     Wynn
     Yarmuth
     Young (FL)

                               NOES--153

     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barrett (SC)
     Bartlett (MD)
     Barton (TX)
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Blackburn
     Blunt
     Boehner
     Bono
     Boozman
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Broun (GA)
     Brown (SC)
     Buchanan
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Camp (MI)
     Campbell (CA)
     Capito
     Carter
     Coble
     Cole (OK)
     Conaway
     Crenshaw
     Cubin
     Culberson
     Davis, David
     Deal (GA)
     Dent
     Diaz-Balart, M.
     Doolittle
     Drake
     Dreier
     Duncan
     Emerson
     English (PA)
     Fallin
     Feeney
     Flake
     Fortenberry
     Fossella
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Garrett (NJ)
     Gerlach
     Gohmert
     Goode
     Goodlatte
     Granger
     Graves
     Hall (TX)
     Hastert
     Hastings (WA)
     Heller
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Hoekstra
     Hulshof
     Inglis (SC)
     Issa
     Jindal
     Johnson (IL)
     Jordan
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kirk
     Kline (MN)
     Kuhl (NY)
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Lewis (CA)
     Lewis (KY)
     Linder
     LoBiondo
     Lucas
     Lungren, Daniel E.

[[Page 21971]]


     Mack
     Manzullo
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McHugh
     McKeon
     McMorris Rodgers
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Moran (KS)
     Murphy, Tim
     Musgrave
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson (PA)
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe
     Porter
     Price (GA)
     Pryce (OH)
     Putnam
     Radanovich
     Regula
     Reichert
     Renzi
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Royce
     Sali
     Saxton
     Schmidt
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shadegg
     Shays
     Shimkus
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Souder
     Stearns
     Sullivan
     Thornberry
     Tiahrt
     Tiberi
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden (OR)
     Walsh (NY)
     Wamp
     Weldon (FL)
     Weller
     Westmoreland
     Wilson (NM)
     Wilson (SC)

                             NOT VOTING--49

     Allen
     Bishop (UT)
     Boucher
     Braley (IA)
     Buyer
     Calvert
     Cannon
     Cantor
     Cardoza
     Clarke
     Cummings
     Davis (KY)
     Davis, Jo Ann
     Davis, Tom
     DeFazio
     Diaz-Balart, L.
     Dicks
     Doyle
     Ferguson
     Forbes
     Fortuno
     Gingrey
     Harman
     Hayes
     Hinchey
     Hunter
     Johnson, Sam
     Keller
     Knollenberg
     LaHood
     Lamborn
     Marchant
     McCaul (TX)
     McCrery
     Miller, George
     Nunes
     Paul
     Pickering
     Reyes
     Reynolds
     Ryan (WI)
     Smith (TX)
     Tancredo
     Turner
     Udall (CO)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Whitfield
     Wicker
     Young (AK)

                              {time}  1928

  Mr. BARRETT of South Carolina and Mr. PEARCE changed their vote from 
``aye'' to ``no.''
  So the motion to rise was agreed to.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.


                          personal explanation

  Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I was absent from the House floor during 
today's vote on H.R. 2831, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, 
which will protect women against pay discrimination and restore all 
employee's rights regarding nondiscriminatory pay. The legislation will 
reverse the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear by 
putting into statute widely accepted rules in employment discrimination 
law. I strongly support federal protections against pay discrimination; 
therefore, had I been present, I would have voted for H.R. 2831.
  Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. 
Tierney) having assumed the chair, Mrs. Tauscher, Acting Chairman of 
the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported 
that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 
3161) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food 
and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal 
year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, had come to no 
resolution thereon.

                          ____________________