[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Pages 22297-22303]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      THE 30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP'S HEALTH CARE AND ENERGY HOUR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kratovil). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be 
here. I will be joined shortly by a colleague of mine from Ohio (Mr. 
Boccieri) and maybe several others to talk about a variety of issues 
that I think are pressing the country right now and that we want to 
inform our constituents about and speak to the House of Representatives 
about. You know, I think it's important for us--and I think every time 
I've been on the floor in the past year or two, I follow some of our 
Republican colleagues, and I feel the need to just kind of clarify the 
record as to how we ended up getting to the spot we're at now.
  I realize that in a democracy like this, we always have the 
opportunity to criticize each other, and I think that the beautiful 
thing about this democracy is that, you know, we do have the 
opportunity to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and 
speak directly to the American people, live on TV, live to all of our 
other colleagues, and speak in a way that is pretty straightforward. 
That's a beautiful thing about this country. But if we look at where we 
are today, and if we look at where we were just 7 or 8 months ago, our 
economy was on the brink of collapse. Unemployment rates were climbing 
at unprecedented rates, where we were losing 600,000, 700,000 jobs a 
month. The stock market had crashed. The housing market had crashed. 
Our budget deficit just ballooned. And all of this was because of the 
policies, Mr. Speaker, that we had in this country from 2000 to 2008.
  And if it weren't for an election in 2006, we would have went further 
over the cliff. Those are the facts of the matter, and the facts of the 
matter are that during that time, the House, the Senate, the White 
House were all controlled by Republicans. And we got the Milton 
Friedman, supply-side, Ronald Reagan, cut taxes for the wealthiest 1 
percent of the people in the country and hope that health care would 
get fixed, energy would get fixed, and the economy would get fixed, and 
then people would get jobs at some point.
  Well, it's important for all of us to recognize that we don't have to 
go to some theoretical schoolbook to figure out if the supply side 
Republican neoconservative domestic and foreign policy program works. 
It has been implemented, and it has been an absolute failure on all 
accounts, by all measures. Our friends on the Republican side now who 
say, Oh, my God, this health care bill that the Democrats are trying to 
push is going to cost $800 billion, $900 billion over 10 years. But 
it's important for us to recognize that it was the Bush tax cuts, that 
went to primarily the top 1 percent of the people in the country, that 
cost $2.5 trillion over 10 years. So don't come to us about a health 
care bill that costs $800 billion or $900 billion, that would end up 
saving the country a bunch of money in the long run, end up fixing the 
health care problem, because you were the ones and they were the ones, 
Mr. Speaker, who were walking in lockstep, following George Bush right 
over the cliff, $2.5 trillion in tax cuts, primarily to the top 1 
percent over 10 years, bankrupted the country.
  Now all of a sudden everybody's concerned about the budget deficit. 
All of a sudden, everyone's concerned about borrowing money from China. 
What we're saying is, the investments that we are going to make are 
going to stop health care projections from growing at 9 percent a year 
and try to bring some justice to the system so that average people can 
afford health care, so that average people don't get sick and then try 
to go get health care and an insurance company says, We can't cover 
you. You have cancer. But my cancer's fixed, the patient says. But it 
hasn't been gone for 10 years, so we can't cover you.
  Or when we attempt to change the energy policy in this country--which 
my friend Mr. Boccieri has become an expert on because of his position 
in the military and his recognition of this as a national security 
issue--when we send $750 billion a year from the United States of 
America to Middle Eastern countries and foreign countries to buy oil--
countries who don't traditionally support our views, our values or our 
Democratic principles--we send this every year to them, money that goes 
out of our economy into these OPEC countries. Then a couple of years 
ago, Mr. Boccieri, we spent $115 billion or $120 billion out of our 
defense bill to escort Exxon-Mobil ships and big oil ships, coming into 
and out of the Persian Gulf.
  So all these tea baggers who want to stand up like they're the most 
patriotic people in the United States of America are saying, We 
shouldn't change our energy policy, We should just continue sending 
$115 billion a year out of our defense budget to escort these big oil 
ships in and out of the Persian Gulf. Is that pro-American? I don't 
believe it is. Is it pro-American to allow health care to grow at 9 
percent when our GDP grows at 3 percent so that insurance companies can 
make money hand over fist and deny American citizens coverage?
  I'm going to ask you a question: Where are the family values there, 
Mr. Speaker? That we want the government out. The only entity left to 
protect people who are getting screwed to the wall by the insurance 
companies is the government. We need to make rules to make sure that 
these people, these insurance companies stop hurting people. They're 
hurting people.
  Now I'm sorry, but we had to listen all August about all this 
nonsense that's going on. In Ohio's 17th Congressional District, we 
will have 1,600 families go bankrupt next year if we do absolutely 
nothing about health care. Now I'm sorry. That's not right. And if we 
have to act and maybe take on the insurance companies, then so be it. 
Let's clean this up, what's happened in this Congress and with this new 
President over the last 7 or 8 months, let's clean this whole thing up.
  We've taken on the big oil companies. We're taking on the big 
insurance companies. We're taking on the big pharmaceutical companies. 
Today we extended unemployment benefits for another 13 weeks so that 
average people who can't find a job will have a little peace of mind 
for 13 more weeks. That's what we've been doing. Our policies have been 
clear, Mr. Boccieri. We're not hiding behind them. We're trying to 
reduce our dependency on foreign oil, bring that investment back to the 
United States, take money out of the hands of the insurance companies, 
bring it back to the average people so that they have better health 
care, and transform our country, get us ready to go.
  We recognize that there are going to be some powerful interests that 
aren't going to be for this. But tough. Tough. You can't make money on 
the backs of human beings, of American citizens, and think it's okay 
because it's not.

[[Page 22298]]

And we are going to do something about it. You can scream and yell. I 
want to just ask one question. These people talk about, where's our 
liberty, where's our freedom? Well, first of all, we're giving you more 
choice in your health care. But where's our liberty? Where's the 
liberty and where's the freedom of the United States citizen that's 
sick and can't get health care? How free of a citizen are you? You're 
not free at all because you're sick. You're in your home. You're in a 
hospital. You're in a nursing home. There's no freedom there. So you 
can talk freedom all you want.
  I stood at the Canfield Fair, the biggest fair in Ohio, for 4 hours. 
For 4 hours I talked to every single person that came by that wanted to 
chat, and I had two people in 4 hours tell me they were against health 
care reform. Some wanted some clarification, some wanted to know 
exactly what was going on. But the people were for it. If we pass this, 
the people are going to recognize that we wanted the reform, the people 
voted for the reform, and the people got the reform.
  I yield to my friend from Canton, home of the Football Hall of Fame, 
the National First Ladies' Library.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. There's no question. Congressman Ryan has been a 
mainstay for supporting those types of projects throughout Ohio in his 
position on the Appropriations Committee. Congressman Ryan and I both 
came up together in the legislature. We cut our teeth together in the 
State capital, and now we're in Washington, trying to fight for our 
part of Ohio, to move our State and to move our country forward.
  The gentleman from Niles is correct that the two largest issues that 
confound our economy, confound our Nation and really threaten our long-
term competitiveness as a Nation are energy and health care. Energy and 
the fact that we bring more oil to the United States than any other 
country: 66.4 percent of our oil is imported from overseas, 40 percent 
comes from the Middle East alone. I talk to my friends who are still 
serving in the military in the Persian Gulf right now, and we often 
chat. I remind them of what we did as a country, the Greatest 
Generation, back in 1944 when we bombed the remaining Ploesti oil 
fields and we effectively cut off the German supply of oil. And they 
quickly transitioned to a synthetic fuel which is a derivative of coal.
  Ohio has a lot of coal. And we know that right now, the single-
largest user of energy in the United States is the Department of 
Defense. This is a matter of national security, and this Congress stood 
up and took bold initiative to take on the big powerful special 
interest groups that always challenge us and act as barriers to passing 
good, sound public policy. It is about time we put America first, and 
it's about time we put the American people first, and we put the 
special interests on the back burner, because we can no longer continue 
to operate the way we've been doing.
  We've seen what happens when we have an administration that really 
doesn't reflect on the amount of money that we're spending and the 
amount of money we're borrowing from overseas interests, doesn't 
reflect on the amount of oil and the amount of energy that we bring in 
from different countries. This is about putting America first. The 
gentleman is right; health care is affecting our long-term 
competitiveness as a Nation. I can't go to any small business in the 
16th Congressional District of Ohio or any large business, for that 
matter, and every governmental agency from the most local to the most 
Federal, has said the fastest-growing line item of their expenditure 
sheet is health care costs.

                              {time}  2130

  We know we spent $2.5 trillion every year on health care. There was 
an article, Congressman Ryan, that came out at the beginning of this 
year in the spring, and it said that one-third of that $2.5 trillion 
never reaches the doctors or patients. It's lost somewhere in the 
administration of the system, in the delivery of health care. So we're 
losing almost a trillion dollars in inefficient practices. And when you 
start peeling back that onion, really, quite frankly, where the fingers 
meet the onion, when you start peeling back that onion, you find out 
that insurance companies have over 15 percent administrative costs, 
administrative costs of 15 percent.
  I went back and spoke to some of my doctors, and it may shock some of 
the folks who are listening tonight, but I've got to tell you they said 
the most efficient payer out there is Medicare. Medicare, with 3 
percent, 3 percent overhead costs.
  There was a study that came out last year, Congressman Ryan and Mr. 
Speaker, that said that $84 billion is spent every year to block, deny, 
and screen people from seeing their doctor by the insurance companies, 
when it will only cost $77 billion to cover all those uninsured and 
underinsured people in our country. It would actually be cheaper. Keep 
the $77 billion, insure everybody, make sure that they have access. 
Let's help reduce our costs in the long run. That is sound public 
policy.
  Now I agree with what Congressman Ryan has said when he stood at his 
county fair in his district, that folks are concerned about the fact 
that this is going to be some encroachment on their own health care 
policy. Look, government has the role of setting the goalposts, of 
setting the out-of-bounds markers, of letting the free market act in 
between, but act as a good referee. When someone goes out of bounds, 
you throw the flag. And we ought to throw the flag right now, because 
we have citizens in this country who are being denied access to health 
care because they were sick before they got a new job, and to me, that 
makes absolutely no sense.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Reclaiming my time, I think it's important because 
we tell our seniors and they hear that there are going to be all of 
these cuts in Medicare. There's going to be savings in Medicare. 
There's actually going to be an increase in the benefits.
  I want to say two things, one about part D, which is the drug 
program. Right now if you qualify for Medicare and then you get part D 
up to like about $2,700, you're covered, and then coverage for your 
prescription drugs completely falls off and then it picks back up at 
$5,000 or so. I got a letter from a doctor in Warren or Howland that 
said, I have a patient. She used up all her $2,700. She now fell into 
the doughnut hole, so they had to change the drug that she had. I think 
it was diabetes. It was a diabetes drug. They had to change the 
prescription. They changed it after she got into the doughnut hole 
because they had to go to a cheaper drug. There was a reaction because 
of the change. They changed it again, changed it again. She ends up in 
the hospital.
  So what we're trying to say is by filling in this doughnut hole and 
paying just in this one instance, this woman, covering her for another 
thousand dollars or two would have saved the Medicare program thousands 
of dollars because she went from not qualifying anymore for part D, 
falling into the doughnut hole, to into the hospital.
  Now, let's use, as my grandmother used to say, our ``medulla 
abingatta,'' the Italian version. But let's use our brains. This makes 
no sense what we're doing here. It makes no sense and it's hurtful to 
the patient and it wastes money.
  But one of the main ways how we're going to save money and start to 
bend the cost curve on Medicare is in areas especially like ours in 
northeast Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Michigan, the older industrial 
States, we have people 50, 55 years old and they lose their job. So 
they lose their health care or they just lost their health care and 
they keep their job. We had a lady on one of our telephone town halls 
who kept her job and lost her health care, 60 years old.
  So when you're 60 or 55, you start saying, I don't know if I can 
really get insurance or afford it, so I'm going to wait this sucker 
out. I'm going to wait until I get into Medicare because they'll pay 
for it and then I'll be good. I can maybe get a supplemental, but most 
of it will be covered. So we have a population of Americans who are 
getting into the Medicare program sicker

[[Page 22299]]

than they need to be and sometimes chronically, which is really driving 
up the cost of Medicare.
  So what we're saying is we're paying for these people anyway because 
they're going into the Medicare program. But if we want to save money, 
wouldn't it be smarter to make sure that these people have some basic 
health care before they get into Medicare, because it will save us 
money because they'll get preventative care. They may not have cancer 
as bad. They may catch breast cancer early or cervical cancer early or 
prostate cancer early as opposed to letting it develop and then getting 
dumped into the Medicare program and costing everybody a bunch of 
money. This is basic ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. The gentleman is correct. I've seen more and more 
constituents coming into our office suggesting that they had health 
care insurance, that they had good private insurance, but when they got 
into that age group of 62 to 65, seemingly they were pushed off and 
pushed into the Medicare system, the government-run program, if you 
will, the Medicare system.
  To me, I think your insurance policy is something that you and your 
employer pay into for all these years, and then all of a sudden when 
you get to the age of where our seniors are when you're going to have 
to rely more and more on a very good health insurance program that 
you're going to be using it more because you may become ill or have to 
use it to see your doctor more often, this is the time when they push 
you into the Medicare program. Now, you should have some ownership of 
that policy. It should amount to something, as an annuity, or you 
should have some ownership like a whole life policy.
  But more than that, we ought to focus on what the guideposts are in 
this public policy debate on where we go with health care, Congressman 
Ryan. And I have always talked about, when I cross my district, the six 
Ps of health care. The first P is to make sure that all people have 
access to health care insurance. All people have access to health care 
insurance.
  I don't know if you know this, but in 2004 our Secretary of Health 
and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, flew to Iraq with one of many 
billion dollar checks in hand to make sure that every man, woman, and 
child in Iraq had universal health care coverage. So while Americans 
are sending their tax money to Washington so that we can send it to 
Iraq to make sure that when Iraqis get sick they can see their doctor, 
and I have constituents showing up in my district who say they can't 
see their doctor because of being denied because of a preexisting 
condition, something's got to change. We need to have this debate, 
Congressman Ryan, and that's why all people need to have access to 
affordable health care coverage.
  The second P is to make sure we have portability in our system. That 
factory worker in Canton, Ohio, that gets a pink slip, their health 
care effectively ends when they get that pink slip because they cannot 
afford the COBRA premiums, oftentimes as much as their own salary, to 
pay for coverage while they're unemployed or looking for another job. 
So they oftentimes go without health care. But if they were a diabetic 
and got rehired at another factory or another company, well, guess 
what. They're not going to have access to health care because they have 
a preexisting condition now. And when they have to show up at the 
hospital emergency room because they had no health care insurance in 
that time when they were unemployed or looking for new work, they cost 
all of us in the system five times more, and that's why we need 
portability and we need to end this practice of preexisting conditions.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Can I make a point on your second P there?
  When you talk to people, when you talk to educators that are talking 
to our kids that are going to high school, going to college, guidance 
counselors, what they tell these kids today is that you are going to 
have seven, eight, nine, ten different jobs throughout the course of 
your life. You need to have skills that are mobile because it's not 
going to be like the 1960s where you're going to go to a General Motors 
factory or you're going to go to Youngstown Sheet and Tube and you're 
going to work there for 40 years, get a retirement and you're done. 
It's over. You work for one employer your whole life. Our educators are 
telling our kids how many different jobs they're going to have to have.
  So does it make any sense to have a health care system that locks 
people into their employment because they have a spouse or they have a 
condition that some insurance company, some jerk that a doctor calls up 
to try to get coverage and the person at the insurance company says, 
Nope, sorry, we don't cover that? Well, it's in my policy. Sorry, we 
don't cover that. You are preventing people from going out and starting 
businesses because they're afraid they can't get any health care 
coverage. You're locking people into work that they may not like or 
enjoy when they have another opportunity elsewhere but they know they 
can't move because of this.
  The health care system needs to reflect the dynamism of the economy, 
and it doesn't now. So it's stifling creativity at a time where we need 
people to be out creating jobs and creating work.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. That's correct. So making sure that all people have 
access to health insurance, making sure that we end this discriminatory 
practice of preexisting conditions, and making sure that we have 
portability in our system so that workers can take their health care 
from job to job to job without any interruptions or without any 
distortions in their coverage.
  The forth P is to make sure that physicians, physicians, not bean 
counters or bureaucrats, are making the calls for health care.
  I had a woman show up in my office. She was crying. She was a middle 
class worker, showed that she had this condition and the doctor said 
that she needed to get an MRI. She knew she was going to have to pay 
some out-of-pocket expenses, so she went to her health care provider, 
her private insurance company, and they said, No, we don't want you to 
get an MRI. We want you to do therapy. So she went and did therapy, 
went back to her doctor with the results, and the doctor said, No, we 
need an MRI. She went back to her insurance company, and they said, No, 
you're going to do an X-ray, not an MRI.
  Now, to me, Congressman Ryan, that sounds like rationing of health 
care. Rationing of health care. Some bean counter at an insurance 
company somewhere is telling this person in my district what type of 
health care she can get. One out of every five individuals that asks to 
get some sort of health care coverage or some treatment is being denied 
by an insurance company, and that needs to be corrected. We don't need 
bean counters or bureaucrats deciding who is going to get health care. 
Physicians need to make that call.
  The fifth P is about prevention. And Congressman Ryan was a stellar, 
stellar athlete back in his day, could throw the football a mile.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Keep talking.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. He was a good athlete. And we know that prevention is 
worth so much. For every $1 that we spend on prevention, we can get, on 
average, and this is a conservative estimate, $3 in return. Prevention, 
living right, eating right, exercise, diet, and nutrition to help 
correct these chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma 
that costs 75 cents out of every health care dollar that we spend, 
prevention should be a big part of this discussion.
  Am I right?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Exactly. And right now we spend four cents of every 
health care dollar on prevention when we know that's the big saver.
  But there's a point that we all need to remember. We are fighting for 
the public option and whatever. Some people are for it, some aren't. I 
don't know if it will be in. Who knows. But we have to remember that if 
we have everybody covered and everybody is going to be covered by 
primarily private insurance, then the whole dynamic of the system 
changes. So we

[[Page 22300]]

say to the insurance companies, as you said, and I like that analogy 
that we set the ground rules basically. And States regulate insurance 
now, so we're going to say, Here's the goal line. Here's the end zone. 
Here are the goalposts. Here are the rules. And the rules that we want 
to change are that you can't be denied because you have a preexisting 
condition. If you have diabetes, heart disease, the insurance company 
has still got to cover you. There will be a cap on how much you can 
spend a year so you're not going to go bankrupt over a health care 
crisis.

                              {time}  2145

  But the dynamic that changes when every single person can have health 
care insurance and the insurance companies have to cover you where they 
can't shake you any more, because now the insurance companies are 
spending money saying let me see what you've got, and I shouldn't have 
called somebody a jerk because they are just trying to make a living, 
and so I apologize for that. But you call up and the game now is the 
insurance company tells you, sorry, you have a preexisting condition. 
They spend money hiring bureaucrats within their organization to deny 
people coverage.
  But this all changes if now I am the insurance company and I have to 
cover you. So now all of a sudden it is in my interest to make you 
well. So I'm going to spend money and time and energy and effort 
working with your employer, creating incentives for you to go work out, 
stop smoking, do things that are going to reduce your stress level, 
because I know stress is a killer. I am going to do things from an 
insurance company perspective to make you healthier. That is something 
that we have failed to talk about.
  Once everybody is covered and we all get married to our insurance 
company and they can't get rid of us, their incentive changes from 
denying you coverage and getting rid of you to making you healthy. That 
is part of this whole preventive thing that you are talking about.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. That is a good distinction, Mr. Ryan.
  Mr. Speaker, when you enact a policy that helps people live 
healthier, live longer with screenings--and I had someone in my 
district argue with me, that is going to cost money over the long run, 
enacting provisions that are going to require people to be screened. I 
argued with them that I believe if we let that go to a point where they 
have prostate cancer or some chronic disease that could have been 
prevented with early intervention, that is costing more money at the 
back end. That is not what this should be about. This should be about 
catching diseases early. It will help spawn research, in my opinion.
  The last ``P'' is probably the most significant, Mr. Speaker. I 
believe this is where perhaps some of my colleagues and I disagree. I 
will tell you that the last ``P'' is, How do we pay for this? How do we 
pay for this? We know, as Congressman Ryan said, there is a cost of 
doing nothing and then there is a cost of doing something. The cost of 
doing something should be enacting a public policy that takes money out 
of the system. We spend more than any industrialized country on health 
care, $2.5 trillion. It is almost 20 percent of our gross national 
product, more than any industrialized country. And yet we have nearly a 
trillion dollars of inefficient, wasted, bloated bureaucracy from bean 
counters, and even the government can be to blame as well.
  We have to find every efficiency we can within that system, draw that 
money out, and find a way to pay for these reforms. That's where I 
think the rubber meets the road in this debate, finding money within 
the system, taking every last dime out of an inefficient system and 
making it work for the American people, making it work for those people 
who go without health care insurance and worry every day, who are one 
accident, one medical emergency, one diagnosis away from complete, 
utter bankruptcy. And that has to change.
  We have a responsibility to set the goal posts, to set the out-of-
bound marker, let the free market operate in between, and throw the 
flag when we see a flagrant violation. And it is flagrant when we deny 
people health care because of a preexisting condition. It is flagrant 
when we don't allow people to take their health care from job to job. 
It is flagrant when we allow bean counters and bureaucrats to provide a 
prescription of health care rather than letting the physician do it. It 
is a flagrant foul when we don't enact some sort of prevention, some 
sort of ability that all people are going to have access to some 
preventive care; when we spend 4 cents out of every dollar on 
prevention, and then end up spending 75 cents out of every dollar on 
chronic diseases that can be managed like diabetes, asthma and heart 
disease. Those things can save us money with the right public policy.
  This should be the framework of our debate as we go forward.
  You know, Congressman Ryan, this is not a Democrat or a Republican 
issue or challenge. This is not a conservative or liberal challenge; 
this is an American challenge. And energy and health care deserve 
American solutions. So we are waiting for our friends on the other side 
of the aisle to come to the table and offer us solutions on how we fix 
this American problem.
  We can do this. America is much stronger than the challenges that 
confront us. We find our strength in challenges. We do these things not 
because they are easy but because they are hard, as John Kennedy said. 
That is where America has always found her strength.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Part of this prevention component is training our 
physicians in a way, first and foremost, having policies, and part of 
the rules of the game need to be making sure that physicians don't have 
to practice defensive medicine. That is one thing. Another is to make 
sure that our physicians are trained. The average physicians spends 7 
minutes with a patient. I think there are a lot of ways in which 
physicians can stop spending a lot of money on things that maybe they 
see as an opportunity that they need to cover their own rear ends, but 
also to spend some time and figure out that people have life-style 
issues that need to be changed. And that doctor and that patient should 
both be rewarded for improving their health.
  That is in this bill to make sure that you are not just getting 
rewarded for the tests that you run and paid for the tests that you 
run, but you are getting paid for making sure that the patient is 
healthier, comes less often, and doesn't come back to the hospital. All 
of these are incentives built into the system.
  But let's look at energy and health care in America in 2009.
  I think it is important for us to recognize that it may be easy to go 
over, Mr. Speaker, and bury our heads in the sand; and if you look at 
what our friends did when they were in control here, they basically 
continued to subsidize Big Oil to the tune of a couple of years ago 
$117 billion to protect Persian Gulf ships coming in and out of the 
Persian Gulf. So our carriers and our battleships are protecting these 
oil ships coming in and out of the Persian Gulf. Our money. So let's 
look at this.
  If we want to be competitive in the 21st century, we need to get that 
investment, that $750 billion that is going to these oil-producing 
countries, and get it back invested into coal, nuclear, drilling in 
America, oil shale, algae, the whole nine yards. Instead of the 
investment being somewhere else, we want the investment here. Instead 
of hiring oil workers in Saudi Arabia, we want them hiring coal workers 
in Ohio. And the technology in Ohio, the scrubbers and everything else 
getting manufactured in Ohio.
  So you take the energy investment back into the United States. You 
take all of the venture capitalists that sit in my office and say that 
they want to put money into this and that, private money, you take the 
energy money, $180 billion that we are putting into coal in the energy 
bill that passed here, along with a health care bill that will reduce 
costs for small businesses and allow them to reinvest back into their 
business, you have the recipe and the strategy for long-term economic 
growth.

[[Page 22301]]

  I know that may be hard to believe; but some of our friends, who will 
remain nameless, supported policies that said if we cut taxes for the 
top 1 percent, that that will lead to long-term economic growth. That 
if we deregulate Wall Street, that will lead to long-term economic 
growth. And all those things did was lead to an economic collapse that 
if we didn't have the social programs from the Great Depression in 
place, that would have led to the Great Depression, the second Great 
Depression in the United States.
  So, fortunately, we have moved off that track into a track of 
responsibility, sound fiscal policy, sound investments in the future, 
and a strategy to let businesses grow as we reduce their health care 
cost burden.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. The gentleman is correct: the two largest issues that 
confound our United States economy are health care and energy. This 
Chamber took bold action in trying to craft, in attempting to craft, a 
national energy policy that makes sense for our country. Energy 
efficiencies.
  You know, I had a hospital in my district, Mercy Hospital, that put 
some variable-speed fans in and carbon dioxide detectors. When you walk 
into a room, the lights will turn on when someone starts breathing. 
These types of efficiencies are saving them a million dollars a year, a 
million dollars every year. That is the type of efficiencies that we 
need with a national energy policy because we know that the cheapest 
energy is the energy that we never use.
  We passed an energy policy that moves away from our dependence on 
foreign oil and focuses on creating alternative forms of energy and in 
the long term creates jobs here in our country and increases our 
national security.
  One day we roll into a fuel station and have a choice between 
traditional gasoline, biofuels, ethanol, plug in our electric hybrid, 
or maybe drive by the gas station altogether because we have a fuel 
cell that allows us to get 100 miles to the gallon that was researched 
right in our part of Ohio. That is the type of choice and diversity 
that we need to make our country stronger.
  Or how about investing in alternative forms of energy, like what is 
happening in the 16th district, not only fuel cells and electric plug-
in hybrids; and at the Ohio State Ag Research and Development Center in 
Wayne County, we are researching these anaerobic digesters and making 
compressed natural gas out of our own waste and selling it back to the 
grid. This is the type of innovation that will make America stronger in 
the long term and increase our national security.
  Congressman Ryan and I have talked about this often, the fact that 80 
percent of the world's oil reserves are in the hands of governments and 
their respective national companies. Sixteen of the world's largest 20 
companies are state owned. State owned. And when we import 66.4 percent 
of our oil from overseas, and 40 percent from the Middle East. We know 
that makes our country vulnerable, very vulnerable. Knowing that if we 
just put 27 percent of the vehicles on the road today, if they were 
these gas electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius or the Ford Escape, we 
could end our dependency on oil from the Middle East.
  That is the type of energy policy we need; but yet we have big 
special interests here in Washington and around the country that are 
trying to prevent this from being enacted, a national energy policy 
that is about national security and creating jobs in our country, 
moving away from our dependence on foreign oil.
  We know that the amounts of alternative energy our Nation is able to 
produce are only limited by the amount of energy we are willing to 
invest here in Washington and across the 50 States of our great 
country.
  Now this bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, gets a lot 
of attention, but not for that name, Congressman Ryan, but for the name 
of cap-and-trade. Cap-and-trade.
  We heard from two court cases at the end of last year the fact that 
the EPA was going to regulate emissions, and we decided in the House we 
were going to allow a free-market approach to handle this rather than 
have the United States EPA regulate emissions in this country. That is 
going to make our American businesses stronger, by allowing the Midwest 
innovation to drive this instead of our dependence on foreign oil. The 
innovation of America is going to drive our future progress in this 
realm.
  But let's revisit what some of our colleagues have said about the 
cap-and-trade system, as they like to call this new energy solution 
that we are going to find for our country. It is about cap-and-trade, 
as John McCain has said. There will be incentives for people to reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions. It is a free-market approach. Let me repeat 
that, Congressman Ryan: it is a free-market approach. The Europeans are 
doing it. We did it in the case of addressing acid rain. If we do that, 
we will stimulate green technologies. There will be profit-making in 
the business arena. It won't cost the American taxpayer.

                              {time}  2200

  Joe Lieberman and I introduced a cap-and-trade proposal several years 
ago which would reduce greenhouse gases with a gradual reduction. We 
did the same thing with acid rain. This works. This really works. The 
Republican Presidential candidate last year introduced a cap-and-trade 
bill three times in the United States Congress because he believes it's 
a free market approach and that it won't cost the American taxpayers.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I had an interesting conversation with someone from 
Babcock the other day. They're in Barberton, Ohio. They're in your 
district, Congressman. They do a lot of defense work and a lot of work 
with the military.
  I asked the guy, What portion of your employers work on these kinds 
of ``green'' technologies?
  He said that half of their workers are employed, the engineers and 
other workers, on the issues of cleaning up the air--the scrubbers--the 
technology that goes into power plants and into other facilities to 
help clean some of the poison out of the air that was causing all kinds 
of health problems.
  There are industries that pop up to clean the air. These are economic 
development opportunities. Now, that $750 billion that goes abroad will 
come back to the United States. The money will be invested into 
windmills, into solar panels, into batteries, into new autos, into all 
kinds of different things.
  The other day, we were in Kent, at Alpha Micron. They're making a 
liquid crystal-based technology that is film on windows. It darkens 
when the sun comes out to keep the house cool in the summertime. They 
just opened up a manufacturing facility in Kent, Ohio. They have 45 
people working there now. Once this product catches on, there will be 
hundreds of people working there, making this special liquid crystal 
technology film that will be going into the homes to conserve energy.
  The economy will adapt. People will find ways to make money and to 
make profits off of these things. Yet, when you go to the gas tank, you 
might as well send the check to the OPEC countries. Now, let's be 
honest with each other. What we're saying is, when you stop at a gas 
station or whatever kind of station there's going to be in the next 
decade or two, we want that money staying in Ohio--in the Midwest, in 
America. So you send the $750 billion off. Then you pay your tax bill 
at the end of the year, and you send money to the Federal Government. 
Then you find out that the Defense Department is sending $120 billion 
of your tax dollars to escort oil ships that are going in and out of 
the Persian Gulf.
  Does this make any sense to anybody? This makes no sense what we're 
doing here. We've got to stop it. Then we send subsidies to the oil 
companies so that they can keep going. This doesn't make any sense. I'm 
sorry. I don't know any other way to say it. We need to stop doing 
this. It's going to have some disruption, and everyone is going to have 
to figure this out, but we have smoothed this over for over 20 years, 
and no one is jamming this down anybody's throat.

[[Page 22302]]

  These manufacturing facilities have all kinds of credits. We're 
holding harmless a lot of manufacturers, a lot of consumers. We'll see 
infinitesimal increases 10 years from now. It may be $100 a year, but 
the benefit is that $750 billion is going to come back to the United 
States and is going to get invested here. The Defense Department won't 
be spending money escorting oil ships in and out of the Persian Gulf.
  I mean let's stop this. This is insane. It doesn't make any sense. 
It's wasting all kinds of money. It's polluting the air. It's 
empowering countries that are on sand. Then they hate America, and we 
get tangled in all of these geopolitical problems that we don't need to 
be involved in. Let's invest the money back into the United States. I 
mean, do you want to talk about a pro-American position? There couldn't 
be a bigger one. You know that. You've been to Iraq four times, five 
times.
  This young man has flown in and out of here. By ``young,'' I mean 5 
years older than I, but he has flown in and out. He has flown soldiers 
back over here who have died while serving their country, and he's 
saying we can't keep doing this. John McCain, who served the country so 
nobly, said the same thing, that we can't keep doing this. Stop. That's 
what this is about.
  It's about leadership. It's not about just going down the same road 
and about doing what's comfortable. That doesn't get you anywhere. This 
is about leading. There is going to be a transition; but at the end of 
the day, you're going to provide a safer country for your kids, a less 
entangled geopolitical situation for our country, and you're going to 
create jobs in the United States. This is a win-win-win.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. Congressman, if you would yield, just yesterday, we had 
wonderful news in the 16th Congressional District. Rolls-Royce is 
anchoring its world headquarters for fuel-cell research in our part of 
Ohio. The robust research that they're doing on fuel cells is going to 
be anchored in our part of Ohio because we're beginning to take action 
where there was none previously. Let me just say this:
  Quite frankly, I believe that we will be judged in next year's 
elections by two measures--whether we acted or whether we did not, by 
action or inaction. Teddy Roosevelt said that the worst thing you can 
do in a moment of decision is nothing, and we know that the status quo 
is unsustainable with an energy policy in this country which continues 
to empower petro dictators who hold America hostage by our importing 
66.4 percent of oil from around the world. We're going to expand 
drilling in the United States here. We know that this will not be the 
answer to all of our energy woes here because we only have 3 percent of 
the world's oil reserves in the Northern Hemisphere, but we consume 24 
percent of the world's oil, so we've got to find diversity. We've got 
to find a way to become diverse Americans in our energy consumption, 
which will be by investing in these alternative energies. Whether it's 
switchgrass or algae or whether it's ethanol or biofuels or whether 
it's fuel cells, we've got to make this transition now because it is 
about our national security.
  So, next year, when we go before the voters, when we go before our 
citizens and our constituents, they are going to ask us: Did you act to 
make America stronger?
  All of us know we have relatives and friends, and friends of mine, 
who are still serving over in the Middle East right now. We are there, 
fighting for countries that provide us a whole lot of oil. In fact, 40 
percent of our oil comes from the Middle East. Like Rudolph Giuliani 
said last year, if 27 percent of the vehicles on the roads were gas-
electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius or the Ford Escape, we could end 
our dependency on oil in the Middle East. That is a goal we should all 
strive towards.
  Rudolph Giuliani said that we need to expand the use of hybrid 
vehicles and of clean coal--$324 million of research in clean coal in 
Ohio every year, Congressman Ryan, and in carbon sequestration. We have 
more coal reserves in the United States than we have oil reserves in 
Saudi Arabia. This should be a major national project. Let me echo that 
again in this Chamber. This should be a major national project. This is 
a matter of our national security. We've got to act, Congressman Ryan.
  Now, I graduated with a baseball degree, and I minored in economics 
in college, but let me tell you this: In 2003, our former President 
said this about a Department of Defense study: The risk of abrupt 
climate change should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. 
national security concern. The Department of Defense was saying this 
under our previous President.
  He also said that the economic disruptions associated with global 
climate change are projected by the CIA and by other intelligence 
experts to place increased pressure on weak nations that may be unable 
to provide the basic needs and to maintain order for their citizens.
  We've got our CIA saying this. We have our Department of Defense 
saying this. We've got every candidate running for President last year 
saying this is a matter of national security. What did we have? We had 
a vote along partisan lines.
  National security is about America. It's not a Democrat or Republican 
challenge. It's not a conservative or a liberal challenge. It's about 
making America stronger. When we invest in ourselves, we will become 
stronger. This is about our future and about our children's future. 
It's about creating jobs here in Ohio, Congressman Ryan, like we did 
with Rolls-Royce and like we will do with so many others that are 
beginning this burgeoning industry.

                              {time}  2210

  Having a diversity of energy, we should all agree, is going to make 
our country stronger. And these two long-term challenges of health care 
and of energy should be national projects, national projects that make 
our country stronger and protect our national security in the long run.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The thing is, too, with this manufacturing, this 
green manufacturing, we have Thomas Steel in Warren, Ohio, is now 
making the specialty steel. About 300 steelworkers signed a contract 
with a solar panel company from Toledo, a very exciting proposition, 
because when the solar panel industry takes off, a local steel company 
in Warren, Ohio, with United Steelworkers of America that have good 
health care benefits and a decent pension are going to benefit from 
this.
  And the more solar panels happen, the more steel they are going to 
buy from Warren, Ohio, the more steelworkers that are going to go to 
work. Ohio Star Forge on Mahoning Avenue, they make a bearing that goes 
into the windmill, 4,000 component parts. No, 8,000, 8,000 component 
parts that go in the windmill. That's what we do.
  Does anyone else have a better idea how to revive manufacturing in 
the United States of America than to have us supplying 8,000 component 
parts and 400 tons of steel that go into a windmill? Does anyone have 
anything better? Cut taxes for the rich people and hope it trickles 
down? That's not a manufacturing policy in the United States of 
America.
  But what we are doing here with the Volt at General Motors, with the 
new battery storage, the hybrids, we drove in a car the another day, 
Congressman Inslee and Israel and I, that went from California to 
Washington, D.C., on algae, on algae. Do you know how you grow the 
algae? You pump a bunch of CO2 in it and it grows the algae.
  So here you have an opportunity to learn, make cars that run on 
algae, grow the algae in places like Ohio that, unfortunately, or maybe 
fortunately, at some point, give off all this CO2, grow the 
algae, put it in cars, and we have a clean economy, and it's a new 
economy.
  And, let me tell you something, there is not a lot going on 
manufacturing-wise in the United States anymore. But if you take the 
$750 billion that we keep sending abroad to oil-producing countries and 
that money comes back to the United States, that's a heck of a lot of 
investment here to go into companies that are going to make these

[[Page 22303]]

8,000 component parts that are going to go into the windmills, that are 
going to make the 400 tons of steel that are going to go into the 
windmills and the cars and the solar panels and the biodiesel 
facilities. I haven't heard a better idea.
  It's nice to be against everything, but does anyone have another idea 
on how to get 750 billion that's going right out of the country back 
here?
  Come on, let's be smart. Let's keep our money in America. That's what 
this is all about. This is the most pro-American, pro-independence, 
pro-freedom, pro-liberty bill you could ever get your hands on because 
it directs investment into the United States of America and puts 
Americans back to work.
  You know, if you are refitting homes with insulation, with special 
roofing to capture rainwater, those are sheet metal workers. Those are 
carpenters. Those are building tradespeople that you and I live and 
work with every single day. Put them back to work. This is great.
  I don't see it, other than being against it.
  Mr. BOCCIERI. Well, they weren't against it last year. In fact, I 
point to my friend Mike Huckabee who suggested that a Nation that can't 
feed itself, a Nation that can't fuel itself, or a Nation that can't 
produce the weapons to fight for itself is a Nation forever enslaved. 
He also said that it's critical that for our own interests 
economically, and from a point on national security, that we commit to 
become energy independent and we commit to doing it within a decade.
  We sent a man to the Moon in a decade. I think in 20 years we could 
become energy independent. I believe we can. We have to take 
responsibility in our own House before we can expect others to do the 
same in theirs. It goes back to his basic concept of leadership, that 
leaders don't ask others to do what they are unwilling to do 
themselves. That's why leaders who ran for the office of the Presidency 
last year believe that a strong national energy policy is about making 
America stronger, relying on the innovation in the Midwest rather than 
relying on Middle East oil. That makes America stronger.
  In 1950, over half of the jobs in this country were in manufacturing. 
We are at 10 percent now because we exported our ability to produce and 
build things here. We are becoming the movers of wealth instead of the 
producers of wealth.
  Let's invest in something that we have to use every day, and that's 
energy. Let's invest in our own future, produce things here. Let's 
build windmills here. Let's let Timken in Canton, Ohio, make the roller 
bearings for these huge wind turbines. Let's let SARE Plastics in 
Alliance build the moldings and cast moldings for these wind turbines. 
Let's let fuel cells be developed at Rolls Royce so that we can put 
them in our cars and have them recharge batteries and use the solar 
panels that are developed in our part of Ohio recharge the batteries 
that are being developed in Medina County in my congressional district.
  Let's use that compressed natural gas now that we are using and 
researching at the Ohio State Agricultural Research Center in Wooster, 
Ohio. Let's use that compressed natural gas to turn our generators to 
heat and to produce electricity for our homes.
  That's the type of innovation and diversity of energy that will make 
America stronger in the long run and focus, focus on our economic 
interests as a country.
  As John Kennedy said, we do these things not because they are easy 
but because they are hard. Because they are hard. But we know that if 
we don't make this transition right now, decades later we will make 
America very, very vulnerable.
  When I go back and answer to my constituents, when I go back and 
answer to the people, I want to tell them I stood with them, and I 
stood with making America strong.

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