the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include tabular and extraneous material on h.r.

3326. >> mr. speaker, the house is not in order. >> mr. speaker, point of order, we cannot hear the gentleman's comments. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the chair asks all members to take their conversation from the floor so we may proceed with debate. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to house resolution 685 and rule 18, the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for the considering of h.r. 3326, the chair appoints the yom from wisconsin, ms. waled bin, to -- ms. build win to propre-side -- baldwin to preside over the

committee of the whole. the chair: the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for the consideration of h r. 3326, which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: a bill making appropriations for the department of defense for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2010, and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: purr -- the chair: pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered read the first time. the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. murtha, and the gentleman from florida, mr. young, each will control 30 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania. the gentleman will suspend. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. murtha: madam chair, yesterday, i was out at bethesda, i saw a young fellow

that was wounded two years ago. when he was wounded, his internal organs were outside the body for almost 10 days. and he's been putting up with that ever since, until he came back to bethesda and had an operation just recently where they were able to take the bag away that he had and restore his internal organs. that's what this bill is all about this defense bill is all about taking care of the troops. making sure they have what they need. bill young and i worked together, going to the hospitals, seeing the wounded. we listened to what they say and what they need. we listen to them at the bases. we have 37 hearings this year, 51 trips the staff made all over the country to visit the various installations, to find out what the problems were. i was out at fort carson where

the commanding officer, and this is not something that i'm divulging, this is something that's already known, his one boy was killed in iraq and his other son committed suicide before he was sworn in. so he's been emphasizing how do you reduce suicides in the military? the units came back, we've just found, have had some terrible problems with people, robberies and actually hodses, some of the actual units, at least allege think, that's what we've seen in the newspaper. these troops are under a tremendous strain. they're deployed too often. when i talked to 12 troop there is at fort carson and fort ben, they told me the biggest single problem is the long deployments and lack of time at home. jerry lewis, who was chairman of the subcommittee, and bill will tell you the same thing. we talked to the troops.

they talk about how they need more time at home, they need to spend some time at home. even when they're home, they're training. they don't have the opportunity to visit with their families as long as they would like. we've had hundreds of meetings with members of congress, hundreds of input from members of congress on the floor and in the committee room trying to make sure we put a bill together that was bipartisan. we've been partners in this thing the whole way through. we've tried to make sure in the thrust of this bill that's been for the department to start hiring more people and getting rid of the contractors. in other words get rid of contractors and hire people because contractors cost $44,000 more. we find that every time we turn around we find somebody at the lower level making all kinds of changes in that policy. we worry about it. in this bill, we have a number

of things we have done that help not only military families, but do research for long-term. we put the first money in, for instance, military pay we raised it .5% of the -- above the qusm first-class medical care is one of the things we stress. peer-reviewed research programs, $150 million for breast cancer research, $80 million for prostate cancer research, $30 million for orthopedic research. amazing thing, the military didn't have any money in for these kinds of things until we stepped in in the subcommittee, in the forefront of making sure that gets done. $472.4 billion for family advocacy programs. i could go on and on. i don't want to go too long in this debate, but let me -- let me reserve the balance of my time and --

the chair: the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. young: i yield myself such time as i might consume. i would like to state my support for this bill as mr. murtha, chairman murtha has said, the subcommittee worked together without any regard to politics or republican or democrat to build a legislative appropriations bill we thought would take care of training requirements for our military, equipment requirements for our military and force protection requirements for our military. we have did the best we could with the money we had available. we did it together and we did it in a totally nonpolitical way. so i rise in strong support of this bill pfment the -- there will likely be several amendment this is a we may not be table agree with. we'll talk about those a little

bit later. but one thing i wanted to mention was, we did the best we could with what we had to work with. we were -- we're under the president's budget request. our 302b allocation was reduced. we're over last year by about 4%. so that's a plus. it disturbs me a little bit, though, when i see that the foreign aid bill was 33% above last year's bill and our national defense appropriations bill is only 4% above last year's bill. but still, we did the best we could with what we had to work with. now, we will -- we will have amendments that will be offered, i suspect they're not going to be offered tonight. i suspect sometime tomorrow, they'll be offered. there will be some disagreement on some of those amendments. we'll discuss those laters. one thing i wanted to mention

is, air superiority. we're not going to have enough time on the amendment that's offered to deal with the future of air superiority for the american military. mr. murtha and i and many of our members have traveled to far-flung parts of the world where our troops were deployed. we have talked personally to thousands of our men and women in uniform, not only here at home but in places like korea, like bosnia, like kosovo, like afghanistan and iraq and kuwait and all these places. our soldiers tell us, we'll go anywhere, we'll fight whatever battle we're told to fight, but please make sure that if there's an airplane above the battlefield, that it belongs to the united states. that it does not belong to a threatening enemy. that's one of the things we

will be talking about with the issue of the f-22. the air superiority. f-22 is supposedly our air superiority aircraft. it will replace the f-15, which is today's tremendous airplane, but it's our air superiority aircraft. we cannot afford to take a chance and risk the lives of troops on the ground if we don't secure the air overhead. the defense department has suggested that with the limit of 187 new f-22's, our total of 187 f-22's, that this is a medium to high risk. for air superiority on the part of the united states. i think we ought to take that, despite the fact that there's a veto threat ongoing above the 187, if the defense department

believes that this is a medium to high risk, i think we ought to pay close attention to that. we'll talk more in detail about that when we deal with the amendment we expect to deal with. we were told that the joint strike fighter is coming onboard and will fill up the gap if we don't have enough f-22's. but to begin with, the joint strike fighter is a different mission aircraft than the f-22, just like the f-16 was a different mission aircraft than the f-15. but they were together in partnership. if the f-35, the strike fighter, is going to take up the gap we better do some serious thinking because the f-35 is not ready to fight. it is not ready to do its mission, let alone the mission of air superiority. we have spent some $37 billion in development of the joint strike fighter.

we have been in development and ready to go to production just now, this year, funding for production, but we started in 1997. to create this aircraft. here it is, 2009, the aircraft is still not ready to be deployed. how is that aircraft going to fill the gap, if we need fighters to maintain air superiority? but there's a lot more on this issue we'll talk about later, i just basically, the bill today provides for additional f-22's and that's the way we like it, i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from pennsylvania reserves. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from florida. mr. young: i would like to yield time to mr. lewis, former chairman of the subcommittee and ranking member on the full appropriations committee. the chair: how many minutes?

mr. young: two minutes. the chair: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. lewis: thank you, madam chair. i rise simply to express the house's deep appreciation for the work that mr. murtha and mr. young do together on behalf of our troops. it's a fabulous display of the way the place should work and i want to -- want to you know that i extends my congratulations. i have similar reservations, chairman murtha, that have been expressed by my colleague, mr. young, about the f 22. you know about my history when we chaired the committee and we examined that program very carefully. my difficulty is i can't project out there what the challenges are going to be, if china, for example, should join with russia and come online with tactical aircraft. we have to think ahead and i'm worried that we may not be doing that. with that, madam chair, i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: who seeks recognition?

the gentleman from florida voiced. mr. young: i'd be happy to yield at this time four minutes to the distinguished gentleman from new jersey, a very important member of the subcommittee, mr. frelinghuysen. the chair: the chair recognizes the gentleman from new jersey for four minls. mr. frelinghuysen: thank you. i thank the gentleman for yielding. i want to echo the comments of our ranking member, mr. young, and thank mr. murtha for a good bill and do i rise to support it. clearly if i'd written the bill i would have written it differently in certain areas. overall i wish our subcommittee could have done more but i recognize we did the best with the allocation we have. the bill is $3.5 billion short of the president's request. despite the fact we're engaged in two hard-fought wars in afghanistan and iraq that are hardly over. in fact, the president's obligated to a rather open-ended commitment in afghanistan where casualties have been rising.

and where more money may be needed. madam speaker, the first time america entangled the extremists overseas, sam adams was con confronted by bipartisans who supported -- chanted, millions for defense, not a penny for tribute. that was then and this is now. at a time when congress has found the will and the wallet in many ways to throw billions of borrowed dollars at every domestic program under the sun, some are finding ways to cut defense spending sometimely subtlely and sometimes not so subtlely. i tell my colleagues who have pledged to support a strong national defense that this bill is the high water mark, in fact. it's downhill from here. i do support reform of our military acquisition process he's which have come under examination. i do support secretary gates' program to re-examine our national security priorities in light of new irregular

challenges and threats that are proliferating well beyond iraq and afghanistan. take a look at a more belligerent russia. take a look at chinese capabilities in terms of their navy, their air, their cyberattacks. things that are happening on the korean peninsula, things that are happening in africa, things that are happening in our own hemisphere. i do worry about this administration's apparent obsession with this warism. i urge my colleagues to make sure we make enough investments today to ensure that we will be prepared to defend our interest get against all threats in years to come doifment support the legislation and as mr. murtha has said and mr. young, there's a pay increase in here for all of our troops, all volunteering, first class medical care, a lot more money, more money for ship building, more money for procurement of fighters, more money for mraps in afghanistan and importantly, $500 million

for the national guard equipment for both overseas and home state missions. mr. chairman, i wish we could restore cuts to our missile defense. i wish we could ensure that our f-22 assembly line could keep going. i wish we had an immediate substitute for our future combat system. these are important elements that need to be addressed. all in all this is a good bill. i congratulate the chairman for his leadership and the ranking member and i'm pleased to support it and i yield back. the chair: who seeks recognition? mr. murtha: how many more speakers does the gentleman have? how many more speakers does the gentleman have? mr. young: we have four more speakers for the general debate. mr. murtha: i recognize mr. kucinich for one minute. the chair: the gentleman from

ohio is recognized for one minute. mr. kucinich: i want to thank mr. murtha and the ranking member for the work that they've done for our country. and my remarks are in no way in disrespect of that. we're talking about $636 billion which will help, among other things, empower continuation of the war in iraq and afghanistan. we will have a brief debate here about $636 billion. the congress has been gripped by a debate over health care for months now. we really need to have a serious discussion and debate about both the war in iraq and afghanistan, that war which is causing casualties, the war is causing casualties to the troops that

mr. murtha is so dedicated to. we really need to look at that and figure out, when are we going to get out of there? we need to set a time to get out of iraq for real, not just so-called combat troops and leave detachments there, but get out of iraq for real and get out of afghanistan where the casualties are increasing. start coming back home and taking care of things here and plus up our military so we can be strong in defense but not causing our strength to be wasted in wars that are unnecessary. i really appreciate the work you do, mr. murtha. but i also tell that you we really need to have a much bigger debate about whether we should continue to be in that war. i'm going to vote against this bill. just on a principle, we should get out of iraq and afghanistan and i have the same love for those troops that you have. thank you. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. members are reminded to direct their comments through the chair. the gentleman from florida is

recognized. mr. young: i'm very pleased to yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from california, mr. calvert, who also is the ranking member of the select intelligence oversight panel. the the chair: the chair recognizes the gentleman from california for two minutes. mr. calvert: i'm certainly proud to support the 2010 defense appropriation bill. i represent four military installations, thousands of military personnel and their families, and i'm pleased this bill includes the $8.2 billion increase for military personnel accounts from last year. and it includes a $3 -- 3.4% pay raise which i support and certainly believe that our troops deserve. it also includes funding for three c.17's. i'm pleased with the additional procurement. and i believe that congress must continue to fund this additional aircraft. it's necessary for additional airlift capability. the c.17 aircraft plays an essential role on both the ongoing war on terror and humanitarian relief missions

around the world. these three c.17's will be a with welcome edition to the fleet which includes others attached to 452nd air mobility wing in my district in california. these will accelerate efforts to make sure america's airlift needs are met in upcoming years. i also support the removal of $100 million requested by the administration which would have been used to move detainees out of guantanamo bay detention facility. i commend the language in the bill which was truly the result of a bipartisan effort. it prevents a single detainee from being released or transferred until the administration produced an acceptable plan. one that includes an assessment of the risk to the american people, requires that our citizens be informed of any he transfers and will be ensured of their safety. it also requires the certification that any release or transfer of prisoners will not place our troops in harm's way or hinder their efforts abroad. language is similar to the bill 1069 which i introduced in

february of this year. i am hopeful that we can work this out in a planned process. again, i commend the subcommittee and the full committee chairman and ranking members for a bipartisan bill that immediate th meets the needs of our troops, provides funding for vital missions around the world. i thank you all and yield back the balance of my time. the chair: who seeks recognition? the gentleman from florida. mr. young: madam speaker, i yield two minutes now to the gentleman from georgia, mr. gingrey. the chair: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for two minutes. mr. gingrey: madam speaker, i rise today to discuss an issue vital to american air superiority, but first i want to thank chairman murtha and ranking member young for their tireless efforts in support of those who bravely defend us at home and abroad. while there is much to applaud in this bill i'm very concerned about any steps to remove advance prod curement funds for the f-22 rapper to.

currently h.r. 3326 contained $370 million for long lead supplies needed to procure 12 f-22 aircraft in fiscal year 11 -- 2011. this is absolutely critical. unfortunately, president obama and secretary gates have expended great capital in recent weeks to ensure that the f-22 program ends at 187 aircraft once and for all. however, their position is not driven by military requirements but rather by budget constraints. the facts are that the f-22 has a fly-away cost of $142 million and this is a 35% decrease since its inception and the next f-22 will actually be cheaper than the next joint strike fighter. madam speaker, is this how we should determine how best to defend our nation and ensure american air superiority? or should we rely on the results of over 30 air campaign studies conducted over the last 15 years that validate a requirement for

far more than 187 f-22 rapters to replace the original force of 800 f 15 eagles. we should also listen to those who fly these fighters, madam speaker. a june 9, 2009, letter from general john corley, the commander of air combat command, states that, at air combat command we have held the need for 381 f-22's to deliver a tailored package of air superiority to our commanders and provide a potent turn against potential adversaries. a fleet of 187 f-22's puts execution of our current national military strategy at risk in the near to midterm. general corley goes on to state that there are no studies that -- if the gentleman would yield an additional 30 -- mr. young: i yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. gingrey: general corley goes on to state that there are no

studies that demonstrate 187 f-22's are adequate to support our national military strategy. i ask unanimous consent to submit this letter for the record, madam speaker. the chair: without objection. mr. gingrey: i also ask to submit for the record that a let that are i sent to president obama and secretary gates and signed by 199 of my house colleagues that concludes that continued f-22 production is in the national economic interest of the united states and i ask unanimous consent to submit that letter, too. the chair: without objection, so ordered. mr. gingrey: madam speaker, i ask all my colleagues, reject the obama administration's posture on the f-22 and support continued f-22 production as we consider this bill. and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. young: -- mr. young: i yield now two minutes to the gentleman from georgia, dr. broun. the chair: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for two minutes. mr. broun: i thank the gentleman for yielding. yet again the democratic leadership has decided to close

down this process. i submitted an amendment to the rules committee to prohibit funding in this bill from being used to standardize ground combat uniforms across the military services. the house version of the defense authorization has language that was slipped in to require one standardized future ground combat uniform for the military. to eliminate the uniqueness of the branches. the marine corps has stated that a standardized ground uniform will negatively impact maustrin corps recruiting, retention and tactical deployment for deploying forces, unquote. given the unique and differing missions of each of the branches, i believe that the leadership of each service should maintain the flexibility to determine what uniform is best suited for the specific role for its members. i'm very disappointed that we have been denied the opportunity to debate my amendment here

today. i want to say i'm a strong supporter of h.r. 3326. as a marine, i am a marine, once a marine, always a marine, and also one who believes in a very strong national defense. i believe the founding fathers meant for a strong national defense to be the major function of the federal government. i applaud this bill and applaud the leaders on both sides for bringing us a strong bill. i want to say, i agree with my colleague, mr. gingrey, i believe firmly that we need to continue funding the f-22 and the c-17. i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks recognition? the gentleman from florida. >> i yield two minutes to the

gentleman from utah for two minutes. the chair: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. bishop: i thank the gentleman. putting this budget together is not an easy task and i'm mostly happy with the budget. i have a few concerns that deals with air superiority. i'm just an old history teacher, but i realize in the 1930's, the th country decided to save money by cuing back on p-22 construction. our bombers were suffering casualty rates over 20%. it was to the point where we suspended those runs until we could build enough fighters to accommodate the bombers we had. the bottom line is, we were unprepared for a future we had not anticipated. we don't have the luxury anymore to be in that type of

situation. that's why air superior toy is such an important element of our defense. two elements are necessary, one is tech nickal advancement, the other is production. the numbers we have is as important as the technology. we cannot afford to find ourselveses on the wrong side of history again. the world moves much too rapidly for that. i have a great deal of gratitude for the long hours put in for this budget. with one couple of exceptions there that have great concerns, i applaud the efforts. i would like us to look seriously at that particular element of air superiority one more time. i yield back. the chair: who seeks recognition? the gentleman from florida. mr. young: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman is recognized. mr. young: since we have talked so much about the f-22, i thought i'd compare, briefly, the history of the fighter aircraft. for example, the f-4, one of the major aircraft fighters in

the vietnam war, we produced over 4,000 of those airplanes, yet we're only talking about 187 of the f-22's. of the f-15's, we built 1,118 f-15's. we only have about half of them left today. they're being phased out. of the f-16, we built 2,230 f-16's. today we only have about half of those left. one day we will phase those out when joint strike fighter comes online. but the history of buying and building fighter aircraft and losing fighter aircraft when we were involved in hostilities is very, very telling. it again, we must say, it is important that our soldiers fighting on the ground have an american airplane overhead, not an enemy airplane with bombs and strafering -- and strafing

guns, etc. we'll discuss this more in detail when the amendment is offered, but at this point, i'm prepared to yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from florida yields back. the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized. mr. murtha: let me conclude by thanking bill young and all the work he did and the rest of the subcommittee and the work they did. let me reiterate, this is all about the troops taking care of, making sure they have what they need. we put the full amount that the president requested for the people in iraq and afghanistan and we made sure that they gave -- we gave them a pay raise and when i see those troop, whether it's in the field, at the bases whether i see them overseas, or i see the troops in the hospitals, i have such great adfirst for what they do. we're just trying to make sure they have everything they need. the f-22, as the gentleman

says, we'll argue that later. we'd have to have 222 votes in the house and 166 votes in the senate. you can see the position i'm in and the problems we'd have if we were to go forward. i want to make sure the planes we have are robustly funded. with that, i yield back the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman from pennsylvania yields back. mr. murtha: i move that the committee do now rise. the chair: the question son the motion that the committee do rise. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the committee rises.

the speaker pro tempore: madam chair. the chair: madam speaker, the committee of the whole house on the state of the union having had under consideration h.r. 3326, directs me to report that it has come to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the chairman of the committee of the whole house on the state of the union reports that the committee has had under consideration h.r. 3326 and has come to no resolution thereon.

for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania seek recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent to discharge the committee on house administration from further consideration of house resolution 682 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 682, honoring the memory and lasting legacy of sally crowe. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to consideration of the resolution? without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from pennsylvania rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on house administration be

discharged from further consideration of senate concurrent resolution 35 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title. the clerk: senate concurrent resolution 35, authorizing printing of the pocket version of the united states constitution. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the concurrent resolution? without objection, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsideration is laid on the table. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. johnson: i move to ask consideration that the committee of judiciary be discharged from further

consideration of senate bill 1107, the judicial survivors protection act of 2009 and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the bill. the clerk: senate 1107, an act to amend senate 1107 allowing judges to opt into the survivors annuity program. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the bill? objection, the bill is read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia rise? mr. johnson: yes, mr. speaker. i ask unanimous -- i rise to ask unanimous condition sent that the committee on judiciary be discharged from further consideration of senate concurrent resolution 29 and

ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the concurrent resolution. the clerk: senate concurrent resolution 29, expressing the sense of congress that john arthur "jack" johnson should receive a pardon for the radically motivated that unduly tarnished his reputation. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the concurrent resolution. >> mr. speaker. i reserve the right to object. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized on his reservation. mr. jackson: while it is not my intention to object to this bill, i want to thank representative peter king to offer this in the house. mr. speaker, jack johnson was the first african-american to win the world heavyweight boxing championship and was a trail blazer. after winning the world

heavyweight boxing championship in 1928, his continued wins bothered many. mr. speaker, i felt compelled to the come to the floor because one of the chief advocates of this legislation was the late vernon forrest, who came to this congress three years ago, met with members of the congress on the house, met with senator mccain in the senate, had a press conference in the swamp, to support this posthumous legislation on behalf of jack johnson. vernon forrest was shot eight times in the back, he'll be memorialized, i believe late they are week or sometime this weekend. i wanted to say on behalf of a grateful nation and grateful congress to the forrest family how grateful we were for his consciousness, for his

willingtons fight for something bigger than himself and for the extraordinary legacy he was left us all. i want to thank the judiciary committee and representative king for bringing this timely bill to the floor of the congress and as ken burns states, jack johnson's story was about freedom, one black man's insistence he be able to live a life nothing short of that of a free man. i withdraw my reservation and urge immediate pass odge of senate cohn resolution 1029. the speaker pro tempore: the concurrent resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. for what purpose does the gentlewoman from nevada speak recognition? >> i ask unanimous consent that the committee on homeland security be discharged from further consideration of house resolution 681 and if for -- and ask for its immediate consideration in the house. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: house resolution 681, expressing condolence to

the family and loved ones of agent robert rosas and standing in solidarity with the brave men and women of the united states border patrol as they remember the service and sacrifice of agent rosas and continue their mission to preserve and defend our borders. the speaker pro tempore: is there objection to the consideration of the resolution? without objection, the resolution is agreed to and the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: pure superintendent to clause 8 of rule 20, proceedings will resume on motions to suspend the rules previously postponed. votes will be taken in the following order. house resolution 508, h.r. 2093, house resolution 675, house concurrent resolution 159. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute votes. the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and agreeing to house resolution 508 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: house resolution 508, resolution expressing the sense of the house of representatives that the general aviation industry should be recognized for its contributions to the

united states. the speaker pro tempore: the question, will the house suspend the rules and agree to the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection the motion to reis -- to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and passing h.r. 2093 as amended which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: union calendar number 116, h.r. 2093, a bill to amend the federal water pollution control act relating to beach monitoring and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and pass the bill as amended. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on

the table. the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and agreeing to house resolution 675 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: house resolution 675, resolution condemning the july 17, 2009, terrorist bombings in indonesia and expressing condolences to the people of indonesia and the various other countries suffering casualties in the attacks. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the resolution is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the unfinished business is the question on suspending the rules and agreeing to house concurrent resolution 159 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: concurrent resolution

recognizing the fifth anniversary of the declaration by the united states congress of genocide in darfur, sudan. the speaker pro tempore: the question is, will the house suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the concurrent resolution is agreed to and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. the chair will entertain requests for one-minute speeches. for what purpose does the gentleman from ohio rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: so granted. >> thank you, mr. speaker. if you want to see where the stimulus package is creating and

saving jobs, come to cincinnati. yesterday the department of justice announced $17 million in grants for local law enforcement in nye district -- my district. these grants will help local governments that are struggling to maintain services. more than that, this fund something going to keep 66 full-time officers on the streets, creating -- protecting the people of greater sinls nat. some of the friends in my chamber has said that the stimulus isn't working. is ask the 66 officers whether the stimulus is working. ask their families. ask people in the neighborhoods they are protecting. public safety matters. and the stimsluss working to keep our community safe. thank you, mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from tennessee rise? >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to address the house for one minute. the speaker pro tempore: so approved. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i rise today to honor a member of my staff. mr. speaker, we all know the

vital role our staff members play in our individual offices and in the u.s. congress as a whole. my scheduler and office manager, amber, was instrumental in getting me a new member off the ground and running. i found out first-hand the success of the first few weeks has a huge impact on the months to follow. we succeed and it was due in large part to amber. amber's been essential to me but her contributions have reached far beyond the confines of moo i office. numerous times constituents have called with an urgent problem and because of amber they have found the solution that saved the day. she began her career working with my colleague and friend, joe wilson, from south carolina. amber was just as instrumental in south carolina's second district and i was very fortunate to get her into the tennessee delegation. amber and her huand, allen, and their son, alexander, are moving to ohio. this move will begin a new chapter in their lives and we wish them only the best and look forward to their future success. mr. speaker, we all will miss them greatly. thank you and i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. for what purpose does the gentlelady from florida rise? ms. ros-lehtinen: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today following legislative business and any special orders heretofore entered into, the following members may be permitted to address the house, revise and extend their remarks and include therein extraneous material. mr. diaz-balart, today for five minutes, mr. forbes, july 30, for five minutes, mr. olson today and july 30, five minutes. each. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. for what purpose does the gentlelady from nevada rise? titistitis mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent that today -- ms. titus: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous con -- consent that today following legislative business the following members may be permitted to address the house for five minutes. to revise and extend their remarks and include therein extraneous material.

mrs. wolsiff california for five minutes -- ms. woolsey of california for five minutes. mr. davis of illinois for five minutes. ms. kaptur of ohio for five minutes. and mr. grayson of florida for five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, and under a previous order of the house, the following members are recognized for five minutes each. members poe of texas, diaz-balart -- for what purpose does the gentlewoman from florida rise? ms. ros-lehtinen: i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: so granted. ms. ros-lehtinen: thank you. thank you, mr. speaker. yesterday the hosts of the "today show" profiled key west, the city in my congressional district. it is a city of natural beauty, coupled with a history that is quite unique. and while viewers were able to see the tv host ride rickshaws and tour many sites such as

earnest hemingway's home and i'm glad they featured my good friend from key west, there is another side of key west off of duval street that warrants attention. while key west is a great place to get a slice of key lime pie, it is also a city with high unemployment, high insurance rates and one of the largest homeless populations for its size. according to recent numbers, the florida keys has over 1,000 individuals who are homeless. the reality is that off of duval street there are struggling individuals and struggling families. thankfully there are several noteworthyy organizations that which serve the key's community with a selfless dedication to those at-risk individuals. one example, samuel's house. this is a beacon of hope for those who need help. founded in 1985, samuel's house provides a nurturing environment for homeless women and women with children. it also afford thems with resources that are beneficial to

their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. i had the privilege to meet with several staffers from samuel's house this with week here in d.c. and i heard the first-hand account from a mother whose daughter was saved due to the assistance and care provided to her by samuel's house. samuel's house also runs kathy's hope, another key west facility which provides permanent housing for women who are chronically homeless and in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. it is a safe haven where women can go through recovery while also remaining self-sufficient and pursuing their life goals to better themselves. key west is also blessed to have the southern most homeless assistance league, shal. it is a coalition dedicated to the special needs of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. shal provides grants to shelters

and organizations like samuel's house so that they can continue theigod work for all of us in the community. shal also provides housing assistance, medical assistance, substance abuse programs and job training resources to at-risk individuals and their families. i am grateful for the dedication and caring exhibited by their staff and they deserve our recognition. another problem unique to the florida keys is one of housing. we have a problem with nonconforming downstairs enclosures. through years of mismanagement and lax oversight by monroe county and fema, many keys' homeowners built what they considered legal downstairs enclosures. residents with nonconforming enclosures are denied the ability to acquire flood insurance. in an area with a long history of hurricanes and other severe weather events, this is intolerable. florida keys homeowners are required to bear the price of

mistakes made by the county and fema for structures that were issued permits and were legally constructed. this is a community which cannot afford the expense of renovating existing structures while they struggle to make ends meet week in and week out. while homeowners continue to struggle with onerous regulations, the issue of water quality is also a major concern for key west and the entire keys. the florida keys serves as the entry point to everglade national park. it's surrounded by the national marine sanctuary as well as one of the largest and most vibrant coral reef systems in the world. this is an area of national treasure and as such, ensuring the cleanliness of the waters surrounding these important ecosystems should be a national concern. since being elected to represent the florida keys in 2002, i have fought hard to bring federal funding from washington to the florida keys for its florida

keys wastewater project. to date, the area has received more than $35 million in congressionally appropriated dollars. i am pleased to note that construction has already started throughout the florida keys. and yes, while more federal fund something needed, i am thankful for the commitment made by fleast residents and elected officials to utilize existing federal funds in the near term. the florida keys is an area of great beauty, but we must be aware that even in paradise people go through struggles and through hard times. and these hardships take many faces. an individual on the brink of homelessness, a homeowner who is unable to obtain flood insurance due to a downstairs enclouseure or a community worrying about the clinliness -- cleanliness of their water supply. these are some of the daily trials and tribulations that keys residents sometimes face off of duval street. thank you, mr. speaker, for the

time. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the chair recognizes mrs. wolsiff california. -- ms. woolsey of california. mr. jones of north carolina. . mr. diaz-balart: claim my time out of order. i rise to condemn the brutal attack on the residents of iranian exiles by the iraqi police. yesterday, i learned that iraqi police forces are beating unarmed camp asrraff residents. i have been informed this has resulted in eight deaths and 400 injuries. these beatings are did he

plobble and the unjustifiable attack is under way. these iranian exiles are unarmed because they surrendered their weapons to united states forces in exchange for a guarantee of their security in 2003. they are protected persons under article 27 of the fourth geneva convention. the attack on these unarmed persons violates not only international law, but also basic human rights. the european parallelment and amnesty international and other international organizations have expressed deep concerns about the safety of these iranian exiles. furthermore, when united states forces withdrew from the camp, the united states and iraq signed an agreement that the iraqi government would guarantee their safety. the iraqi government is not keeping its promise and it's not upholding its obligations under international law. the iranian dictatorship's

finger prints are all over this attack. the residents are enemies of the iranian regime. they have been a vital source of intelligence information on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs and other important intelligence information. the iranian regime is putting immense pressure on the iraqi government to hand over the iranian exiles. in a meeting on february 28 of this year, the supreme leader urged the iraqi president to expel the iranian exiles immediately. this incursion by iraqi forces appears to be an ugly attempt by the iraqi government to apiece the iranian regime and may return these exiles to iran. that would be a condemnable and cowardly act. in a public statement, amnesty

international expressed profound concern that those iranian exiles would suffer torture and even death if forced to return. and the dictatorship of those who oppose them would mean almost certain death for the exiles and their families. we must do everything in our power to prevent an atropical stormity from taking place. the congressional human rights and democracy caucus, chairman and ranking member members on foreign affairs and parliament and european parallelment in search of justice and others have expressed deep concern over the treatment of the exiles at the hands of the iraqi government. today, iranian americans from around the united states have begun a hunger strike at the white house to demand that these attacks be stopped that abducted

residents be returned and the international groups such as the united nations and red cross who want to get into the camp be permit todd do so. i call on president obama to demand that the iraqi government put an end to this attack. we must not stand by and allow physical aggression against unarmed iranians in exile. we must stand with the pro-democracy advocates who work for the day when the people of iran can live free, free from fear and free from oppression and ensure that the protection that the iranian exiles were promised by the united states is given to them. and that this aggression cease. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: mr. davis from illinois. mr. moran from kansas.

>> i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order and claim the unallocated time for the purpose of a five-minute. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. bishop: the obama administration has gone to say they want to stop production f-22 for the air force. i have made a mistake and i have been reading some of the blogs and the comment boards and amazed at the analysis of this particular decision. so since tomorrow we are going to be debating and discussing the defense appropriation bill, i would like to take a few moments today and simply talk about this issue, the f-22 and the air force along four areas. one is the military necessity for this plane, two and three are the ways we keep our air superiority both by technology and the number of planes we have and timely the priorities and what it says about this particular nation. two years ago, the military was

unanimous when they came before us and said we need 381 f-22's and 250 put us at a moderate risk. secretary gates said we need 187 planes. what has changed? has the threat changed or the political climate that may have changed? in the last 15 years, there have been 30 independent, separate studies all of which say the same thing, 243 is the minimum number of f-22's we need and at that, our air superiority faces a moderate risk. air combat command has written a letter saying he needs at least 243 planes, if-22's and his command was not consulted when the decision to cap at 187 was made. the air national guard has written a letter saying we need at least 243 to 250 f-22's.

chief of the air force has said 243 is the minimum we need. and when asked in front of our committee is 187, that particular number a military decision of what we need or is it the political decision of what we can afford. he simply said it is what we think we can afford. the bottom line is that no where has there been any study conducted to say that 187 is the correct number. in fact, that number has been contradicted. general corly said that 187, the air combat command could not fulfill its air force function. is it a military decision? is -- does the military still want the f-22 and the answer is yes. secretary gates does not want the f-22. 187 f-22 is a political, not a military number. and the house has already voted

to maintain the higher number. should not back off in relationship to what the senate has particularly done. let me go to air superiority. the united states has had air superiority since the korean war and there are two aspects of that, technology as well as the numbers that we have. i hate to say this, but before we came to congress, there were air games that the united states engaged with the air force of india. we used f-15's. the only reason we won tho air games is because the ability of our pilots, not because we had the technology to do it. the technology level of the united states, as good as the 15's and 16'sr which are 30 years old, is that we still have the same technology advantage as a third world air force. the f-22 moves us tord in that technology debate. however, just having the technology doesn't work if you don't have the numbers. the russians are building their fifth generation and are

scheduled to build about 600 of their next generation fighters. they will only keep around 350 for themselves. you have to ask the logical question, what will they do with the others? they will sell them. where will they go? the bidders are venezuela and iran, countries that are not necessarily friends of ours, but countries that could become a problem with this new generation of fighter they buy from the russians. we are told that the f-35 is what we need. the f-35 is not a replacement for the f-22 and we won't even get an f-35 before the year 2014 and there is some indication that it may be the year 2016 before that takes place. what we are in a situation with this administration clearly puts $5 billion on programs like acorn but doesn't want to put $2 billion to continue production of the f-22, vital to the dens

of this particular country. is this plane militarily required? yes. is it useless? no. is it a cold war element? well, actually almost everything we have is a cold war element. we have improved them as time goes on. what we are dealing with now, mr. speaker, is the need that we need in 20 years and the f-22 is what we need for the future dens of this country. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? mr. hastings: i send to the desk a privileged report from the committee on rules for filing under the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the title of the resolution. the clerk: report to accompany house resolution 691, resolution providing for consideration of the bill h.r. 2749 to amend the federal food, drug and cosmetic act to imroff the safety of food in the global market and for other purposes.

the speaker pro tempore: referred to the house calendar and ordered printed. for what purpose does the gentleman from illinois rise? >> i ask unanimous consent to reclaim my time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. davis: thank you, mr. speaker. as we continue with the debate surrounding health reform, i wish to take a moment to recognize the anniversary of the enactment of medicare and medicaid into law. since july 30, 1965, when lyndon johnson signed the bill creating these fundamental health initiatives, these two programs have evolved together to meet the demands of medley vulnerable americans who may not have had access to medical attention otherwise. medicare and medicaid currently provide a lifeline to over 100 million americans. in my district, i can attest that medicare and medicaid

serves as an indispensible safety net for many constituents. the 7th congressional district of illinois includes some of the most medley underserved communities in america. since census data show that 24% of families and 44% of children under 18 live below the poverty line. in fact some communities in chicago's west side experience infant mortality rates comparable to third world countries. in the state of illinois, 14% of all residents are enrolled in medicare and 19% in medicaid. clearly these government health programs provide vital health care coverage to i will know when almost 1/5 of the state is covered by medicaid and 1/6 by medicare. indeed, illinois's mothers and

children are the biggest beneficiaries of medicaid. this federal program finances 40% of total births in illinois and helps ensure that one million children in illinois receive access to affordable health care. it is this commitment to our citizens that drives congress to work actively for comprehensive health reform. we must provide the public option within that reform. we must continue to support and expand community health centers as outstanding deliverers of primary care. these providers are proven to reap solid benefits to our patients' communities and state and local governments in terms of efficiency. for example, medicaid beneficiaries rely on health centers where 19% less likely to use the emergency department than medicaid beneficiaries using outpatient and

office-based physicians for care. health centers save the health care system between 9.9 million and 17.6 billion annually, a figure that will grow. and so i acknowledge the tremendous step that lyndon johnson took 44 years ago when he signed the medicare and medicaid bills into law as title 18 and 19 of the social security act. i also promise that we must continue to make use of these programs because they have served us well and will continue to do so. i thank you, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. ms. kaptur from ohio. mr. burton of indiana. mr. grayson of florida.

for what purpose does the gentleman from california rise? >> i rise to claim the time. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. bilbray: mr. speaker, on the 23 of this month, rosa lee rosas watch her husband go off to work with her son robert and 11 month old baby thinking that the next morning her husband agent rosas would be back at home with the family. sadly that wasn't to be. agent rosas was in the cam poe area of southern california serving the nation that he looked forward to serving for so long. a young man who had grown up in

the imperial valley area, had served as a reservist and looked forward to being a border patrol agent. while alone, he detected individuals crossing the board. somewhere in the process of confronting the illegals crossing the border, agent rosas was murdered by those illegals. . mr. speaker, agent rosas' situation, and more importantly, the situation of rosalie and the two children, is something that all americans should remember. that there are americans every day that are not only defending this country far, far away, but there are agents every day and every night that stand on the border, stand in port of entries, are throughout this country standing up and defending this country from incursions from across the border. and from foreign lands.

agent rosas died in the service of his country, was murdered in the service of his country and rosalie and the two kids will never be the same and neither should this country. mr. speaker, there are border patrol agents today that are in the sweltering heat of yuma, arizona, that are across the texas frontier, that confront smugglers every day in new mexico to san diego and they do not know which one of the individuals they're confronting is just an innocent illegal who happens to not realize that you can't come into this country illegally anymore, somebody that may not mean harm, but is being brought in by vicious, terrible smugglers who not only smuggle illegals but smuggle drugs. that agent doesn't know if the person they're confronting is

going to survendor -- surrender or draw a firearm and kill him immediately. agent rosas was shot in the head and killed but he was able to wound one of his assailants and the assailant later was detected as far up as northern california. and he was arrested there. with the cooperation of mexican officials we were able to apprehend individuals in mexico. but i think that more important than talking about the crime that was committed at our border, something i think all americans should have known was coming when we saw the violence that has occurred on the other side of the border for all too long, americans should have known this violence was going to cross over while we continued to turn a blind eye to the illegal activity along our border. because it just wasn't politically proper to raise the issue that crime and violence is

occurring along our frontier. no, the thing that i'd like to remember tonight is that agent rosas is just one of many that are out there in the terrible heat of the summer, the terrible cold of the winter, through rain and sleet and snow and whatever it takes, doing their duty, and doing it in a nation that tends not to recognize their true service. mr. speaker, we use the word hero a lot of times in this country and sadly we use it too often instead of using the word victim. but there's a big difference, mr. speaker, between a victim and a hero. a victim is someone who's at the wrong place at the wrong time and suffers for it. but a hero is someone who willfully puts themselves in harm's way at the wrong time and suffers for it. and i do not think we should as

a society ever forget the difference between a victim and a hero. agent rosas is a true hero, somebody who served this country, and we should also remember as his services are held this week that his services are in recognition of not only his sacrifice and his family's sacrifice, but of the sacrifice of the men and women around this country that defend us along our borders. i think it goes without saying that all of us in congress want to send out our heartfelt sympathies to rosalie and rob and alicia for their great loss and their great contribution by losing their father. i hope we all remember that their father -- there are fathers and mothers around this country that we ought to appreciate while they're alive and not just honor them when we lose them. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. mr. grayson from florida. mr. goal earth of texas -- mr.

gohmert of texas. ms. ros-lehtinen. mrs. bachmann of minnesota. mr. forbes of virginia. for what purpose does -- mr. paul of texas. mr. olson of texas. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentleman from missouri, mr. akin, is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. mr. akin: thank you, mr. speaker. i appreciate your recognizing us on a very interesting and important topic, something that i believe that anybody who pays much attention to what's happening in washington, d.c., is quite aware of. that's the subject of health

care, something that impacts every single american in our country, affects our budget and affects our family members and something of great interest. i would like to start tonight by just backing up, though, about four weeks or so to this very chamber that we're meeting in, that we're talking in today. it was here during a day that we were debating a bill, it was called cap and tax, and it was the largest tax increase in the history of our country. now, what happened right before that was of interest, because at 3:00 in the morning a 300-page amendment was passed to an 1,100-page bill and as we were debating this bill on the floor, because of the speed with which the democrats moved, we didn't even have a copy of the bill on the floor. you're supposed to have a copy at least so if somebody wants to check a fine point they can read

it. of course no one had read the 1,100-page bill and certainly what was happening right behind me at, we had people trying to put the bill and there's no copy on the floor. and the thing was passed with not, as i recall, a single republican voting for it. and democrats all voted for it. and so you would ask yourself, now, the public doesn't like it when we pass bills that we don't know what's in them or haven't read them and we've been embarrassed a number of times this year by at that same process. why do you pass a bill that people haven't had a chance to read or don't know what happened in the dark of night? i yield to my very good friend from michigan. please jump in. mr. hoekstra: i thank my colleague for yielding but i think the issue that we see in front, that you've highlighted with the cap and trade bill, actually goes and begins much earlier in the new congress and the new administration.

you know, it was only the second day of the new administration where the president indicated that we are going to close gitmo, we are going to close guantanamo, announced a whole series of task forces that were going to evaluate and present a plan as to how this was going to happen. the first thing, is you don't set a deadline without a plan. and the president is now finding out that perhaps he got out in front of himself because a couple of the task forces were supposed to report within the last couple of weeks and they've missed their deadlines. and the reason they've missed their deadlines is because as they started looking at closing guantanamo, an objective that president bush had before him, it's like, well, this is more difficult than what we thought and we may not be able to do it. so we had an objective without a plan and i'm not sure what's

going to happen here, but we may get to the same point where we get to january of 2010 and we won't be able to accomplish it. then you go again before cap and trade, $787 billion in a stimulus plan that was rushed through the house, rushed through the senate, made its way to the president's desk and he signed it. and here we are now, what, four months -- mr. akin: just reclaiming my time for a minute was that the stimulus plan -- minute, was that the stimulus plan that had the special bonuses for executives? there was a finger pointing deal of who put this in the dark of night? mr. hoekstra: $787 billion and i think the promise was something like, and this is going to ensure that the unemployment rate will not exceed $8% or 8.5% on a national basis. we're now at 9.5%. in michigan we're at 15.2%.

the money's going out a lot slower than what people anticipated. it's going to a lot of questionable projects that we are now starting to find out where this money is going. it's $787 billion on the backs of our kids and our grandkids. mr. akin: this is exactly the same bill, just to put this in perspective, this is a bill that if we didn't pass it, we might see unemployment at 8%, right? mr. hoekstra: same bill. and then you know -- mr. akin: nowen employment is whatever it is, 9%. mr. hoekstra: 9.5% and next week we'll see a new number and it will probably be somewhat higher. but with we -- and now we have, you know, we've seen higher unemployment numbers than what was promised under this bill, we see people questioning whether the bill is working or not. it's being spent out slower than what people expected it to be spent out and last month at the end of june, think about it, we have, for the first time,

exceeded a $1 trillion for a deficit for one year. and then we hurry true and we do cap and trade -- through and we do cap and trade which again is a, you can argue about the bill, but it was passed in -- it wasn't passed in the middle of the night although 350 pages of it were inserted in the middle of the night, and now we're in this mad rush to pass health care and every day we're hearing about, you know, there's going to be this new markup or that new markup and this affects 16% to 18% of the u.s. economy and it's going to be done without a full hearing. mr. akin: what you're saying is pretty incredible. what you're say something a bill that we've been working on for some number of weeks that's going to put the government in charge of all of health care in america, it's going to basically -- the government's going to be taking over, what is it, just under 20% of the u.s. economy? mr. hoekstra: will the gentleman yield? mr. akin: i yield to my friend

from louisiana. >> i appreciate my friend from missouri yielding. when president obama brought that stimulus bill and he said this would stave off the unemployment rate that was approaching 8%, now, of course at 9.5%, approaching 10%, added billions of dollars to our national debt, a real offshoot since the president passed his stimulus bill, two million more americans have lost their jobs. so we see more people unemployed in large part because of this big government approach like the stimulus bill, then that cap and trade energy tax that they brought and now we see this health care bill. you know, just a few days ago, and i'm on the energy and commerce committee, we were supposed to have another meeting tonight to take up amendments to this proposal by president obama and speaker pelosi, to have a government takeover of health care, a devastating approach to really addressing the problems that we can address in a very specific way instead of this government takeover, but now that they're short on votes and

they're definitely having problems getting the votes, which is, i think, in large part because americans across the country have started to see some of the details of this bill and they realize how bad of an approach it is, but just the other day, when they canceled the vote op the house floor that was supposed to occur this week, you saw the stock market actually take off and so american families out there who have retirement accounts and pension funds actually saw an increase not because of the policies of this administration working, but because americans finally saw that some of this big government approach, this government takeover of health care, actually is in trouble and that's what really got the economy back going again. mr. akin: just reclaiming my time. mr. scalise: their approach is hurting the economy instead of helping the economy. mr. akin: reclaiming my time in summary, then, we've been taking a look at the last six months and it has been a scary six months but we've seen a pattern, a pattern of rushing to spend a tremendous amount of money or rushing to tax the taxpayers with a hole lot.

without a lot of careful -- whole lot. without a lot of careful, of allowing people to be aware of what's in the bills. we have a pattern of a lot of fiscal mistakes. we have a pattern of unprecedented level of spend and taxation, but there's also the pattern of doing it in the dark of night. . . let's talk a little bit about who do you want to keep in the dark on this? who would be opposed to a government takeover of health care. that's where i would like to go because people are interested. hey, how would i want my congressman to vote or what's my position on this? well, there are a lot of groups of people going to be affected very seriously by this government takeover of health care and that's what we need to talk about. and i yield to the the gentleman from michigan. mr. hoekstra: i would put forth the premise that maybe we should

put health care aside for a period of time and look at this lrs 800 billion that we put on the backs of our kids. if we have committed $800 billion to stimulate the economy and it's not working -- mr. akin: unemployment is still going up. mr. hoekstra: maybe congress ought to stay in session and maybe instead of looking another massive program -- i'm not saying health care reform is not essential, but how we do it is important. but let's step back. maybe congress ought to stay in session for the month of august and look at the stimulus program, this $800 billion. and finish the half-backed ideas. too often we think here in washington that if we pass the bill, we have solved the problem. and in the business community,

if you get the agreement from the board of directors and say pete, you have the approval to move ahead with this new product launch. we will invest the $2 million to build this product to do the marketing campaign and you kind of walked away and say, well, i guess i got that one done. the board of directors would ask you, by the way, we are investing $5 million on this. we want an update every quarter and -- mr. akin: the purpose is to make sure we don't have unemployment and we have plenty of jobs. and here wer whatever it is, four, five months later and the board of directors, which is the public is saying, well, we're at 9% unemployment, which is a conservative number, and rising. and you guys just spent whatever it was, almost $800 billion to make sure this doesn't happen. mr. hoekstra: $800 billion of our money, the public's money to

deliver a result of 8% unemployment or less. you are clearly missing the targets. maybe you ought to go back and re-evaluate the $800 billion rather than talking about a second stimulus package, which is going to spend even more money. mr. akin: these are not republican targets, these are not our targets, but the president's target. he is saying 8%. he gets the stimulus bill and now it's 9%. mr. scalise: in louisiana, there is something called the rule of holes and what it says, if you find yourself in a hole, you stop digging. they brought the stimulus bill, $800 billion of debt for our children and grandchildren that has led to increased unemployment. clearly, their approach didn't work, as many of us predicted it wouldn't. you would think they would say, yes, we did something wrong and

look at republican alternative ideas and instead, they talk about spending even more money. the vice president, just two weeks ago said, they need to keep spending more money to keep from going bankrupt. but then they filed this bill to propose a government takeover of our health care system. this is a depiction of the actual organizational chart of their proposal. mr. hoekstra: that looks like a structure -- mr. scalise: i think the most and clearly we have reforms we need to make. commonsense ideas, allowing port built when someone leaves a job or removing discrimination from pre-existing conditions. i don't think it's fair if someone gets cancer, they can be discriminated against. we address that inur proposals. unfortunately, what they have proposed, this new system where you have dozens, literally --

mr. akin: i hate to interrupt, but i've got this chart up here and you've got that chart up there and the two charts aren't the same. and even though i don't like reading complicating charts, there's a red box on your chart that isn't on my chart. this is my understanding of the democrat proposal for health care, to take over 20% of the economy. and this is very much of a simplified chart of what is being proposed. you know, when the government takes something over, they have a lot of things to connect. and yet your chart has this big red box on it. i would like you to explain where that came from. mr. scalise: southern california we put this chart base odd their bill, the bill that president obama and speaker pelosi and many of the other liberals on are running congress. they create these bureaucracies. and i think the most important

relationship in health care is that relationship between the patient and the doctor. and look at what their bill does to create new federal bureaucratic agencies that come between the doctor and the patient. when we put this chart together to show what their bill does, the speaker censored this document and said we can't send this out to the public. i'm holding this up because we have the ability on the floor. but by the rule of the speaker, can't send this out to my constituents back home because people want to know what their bill does and they are trying to censor that information from being shown to the public, but the public is figuring out anyway and they see dozens of bureaucrats and a health care czar. mr. akin: reclaiming my time. what you're saying goes a little bit more than the health care debate. we are talking about the right to free speech. what you just said was, as a member of the u.s. congress from the state of louisiana, if you

would like to communicate to your constituents a flow chart of the bill the democrats proposed, they will not allow you to do that. if you were to send that to them, they would make you pay. mr. scalise: i represent 650,000 people in louisiana and they don't like what they see. what they see is government bureaucrats in washington telling them which doctor they can see or even if they can get a medical procedure and the ability by this new health care czar because you can't see, to ration care -- mr. akin: reclaiming my time. you are getting at the very heart of what i want to talk about. there is a reason to censor something. there is somebody who isn't going to like this bill. and i would like to yield to my friend -- the top guy on the

intelligence committee, we need to pay attention to him. mr. hoekstra: i think one of the things we need to be careful about, we keep talking about the bill and being a member of the energy and commerce committee, you know very well that the bill that you have today may be very different than the bill you will see tomorrow if you mark up, because there are all these negotiations going on behind closed doors, very limited groups that by the time you start working on this bill tomorrow, it may be a very, very different bill than what you think it is today. not only is it this bureaucracy, but something that is very much in flux out of the public eye and you may have to vote on that bill coming out of committee, which is going to be probably very, very different by maybe friday? mr. scalise: i sit on the committee and yet i'm not even privy to these secrettive backroom discussions.

this is coming from the administration that said they would be the most transparent in history. on this health care bill just two weeks ago, we had a hearing with the head of the congressional budget office talking about the cost of the bill. this is a bill in its current form adds $240 billion to our national debt and we're concerned about the cost. we had the head of the congressional budget office who came to our committee to talk about the cost. mr. akin: you are going awfully fast for us. the first thing you said was, if you don't like government bureaucracy and don't want a government bureaucrat between you and your doctor, you don't like this flow chart. you want something more simpler. you also said if you're worried about fiscal responsibility, you aren't going to like this bill, too, because you are worried about the government spending. this thing here, when they try to use every gimmick in the book, it is over $1 trillion in

spending. i would like to recognize my friend from california. you have been dealing with this chart and if you could share it because you have gotten into the details. what are we trying to hide here? mr. lungren: i appreciate the gentleman using my chart up here because we have tried to work this out with the majority in the past on the franking commission. we have attempted to allow members to be involved in vigorous and full debate, but not put out what would be considered campaign material. and all of a sudden the goal posts have been moved on us. this may not be of interest to the average sitson except for this fact, what we have presented is what we believe to be a reasonable interpretation of the bill as we know it now. now, i do know that there was

mention just a moment ago by the gentleman from michigan before he left that we're talking about the bill, and that can be a bit of a moving target. i just left my office and there were a group of reporters hanging outside my office, not for me, but for a meeting of the progressive democrats who are concerned about what the blue dogs are asking for on the democratic side and so maybe there will be some changes from what we have seen. but this is an accurate portrayal from our standpoint of the bureaucratic morasse that will come from the grand outlines of the bill as articulated by the president and the leadership of the house of representatives. so they objected to this diagram and censored it as we said, because they said we should call it the house democrat plan.

first of all, they said it wasn't true. and now we have shown it is a reasonable interpretation of the facts. secondly, they said there wasn't enough at try bution there and we said this is developed by the republicans. and they said, you say it's the democratic health plan, but not all democrats support the health plan. if they would give us the list of those democrats they have not yet been able to support it, we would be happy to talk to those individuals. mr. akin: just reclaiming my time. you have used a couple of terms. you talked about the franking commission. the franking commission is a group of republicans and democrats that meet together and when you're going to send a piece of mail to your district using government money to do the printing and mailing there's an agreement that it's reasonably accurate, it's not a political piece and trying to communicate

information. mr. lungren: we have limited the number of references you can make to yourself. there is so many times you can mention your name or say i. mr. akin: reclaiming my time. it is a fair stand so people can communicate with their constituents. first amendment, speaking to your constituents. mr. lungren: i have only been here 15 years, but in my 15 years spread over 30, i have not seen this happen before. mr. akin: where something was censored. mr. lungren: and when you compare it with those things that we have approved in the past on the democratic side, we had the controversy over president bush's recommendations to try and as he saw it, save social security and make recommendations for it. they very strongly criticized the president's package in terms that i would disagree with, but we on the republican side, on the franking commission did not

say you can't say that because we don't like the way you said it. when they talked about the prescription pharmacy section of medicare, the new section that came in. we approved of newsletters that went out that criticized the president's plan and said it didn't do what was needed to do by seniors. called it the republican majority plan. and they object to this. when i first came to congress, there was something raging at that time called the cold war and it reminded me of something. there is a word we don't see anymore and so i went and looked it up and tried to make sure people understand what it is samizdat and it is a system in the ussr by which

government-suppressed literature isp printed and distributed. what does that mean? that means that those people who were in disfavor to say the least with the government, were not allowed to publish anything that could be handed out, whether it was charged for or not. so the freedom underground, if you will, went and had their own printing and they would clandestinely put these things out so they could get their message of free speech. my suggestion is we retitle our particular american samizdat, freedom fighters here trying to express what we believe a reasonably intelligent analysis of a bill that's presented to

us, which is going to affect 18% of the economy of the united states, which is going to -- if it is enacted forever, at least for our lifetimes, cement the relationship you will have with your doctor and the relationship that government will have in that. . and our argument has been that that chart shows the interference of the government which will exist between you and your doctor with some 50-plus organizations, agencies, task forces, czars, bodies of different type. mr. akin: i'd like to also it go -- we've been joined this evening by my good friend, congressman bishop. be, and i'd like to recognize him -- bishop, and i'd like to recognize him. please proceed, i yield. mr. bishop: this is one of the few times i'm here without charts and i feel totally naked on the floor. i apologize for that but i also

appreciate the chart that was here in and any effort you can get to maybe publicize that because it speaks to the problem that we have if indeed this kind of expansion of the government takes place. that chart is the reason why the federal code of our laws cover 35 volumes, 1/6 of which is about the federal regular laces and the bureaucracy. but the federal regulations is a 200-volume document and why it has grown from john f. kennedy's time of 15,000 words to 77,000 words, why kennedy was able to appoint within two months about 300 officials that ran the bureaucracy, for george w. bush it took him almost a year because he had to do 3,300 officials appointed, having being subject to advise and consent from the senate. we have expanding this thing enormously and in this particular project, because my committee, unfortunately, spent 20 hours going through the organizational part, most of the

questions that our side of -- had of how this plan worked is, we will have to work that out. somehow the commission already solve that problem. let's give you one example and you can play with this one. in this plan is supposedly a position of a new national oms budman whose job is to meet with individuals to help them work through their health options. however, the law says that this oms budsman must speak in a linguistically appropriate manner. now, my problem was, what is a linguistically appropriate manner? it's not defined anywhere in the pages that are in that bill. it's someone's poetic idea of being politically correct, but when you don't have definitions it opens u.p.s. up to lawsuits -- opens us up to lawsuits glor and if we don't take the time and ability to answer these questions, some brewer contract -- bureaucrat in this case, the commissioner, is going to be able to make more and more

regulations. that's why the bureaucracy is sometimes called the unelected faceless people in washington because there is no interface between people and the bureaucracy. mr. akin: just reclaiming my time, what you've just said to us is again, when we take a look at why do you want to keep this thing secret, why would you want to sensor it and tell us we couldn't send a flow chart snout part of the reason is because when the american public sees things like that there are going to be people who are going to get worried about it, they're going vote no, particularly every single one of us that someday is going to get sick. and we're going to want a doctor to help us. and i'm not sure that we really want to have somebody going in between, in the government, some part of this organization second guessing the doctor the way the insurance companies do too much in our own day. so if you don't -- if you really like your doctor-patnt relationship, then this thing is -- that's why they're wanting to censor it. do you believe that's right? mr. bishop: i believe it is so.

but i will tell the gentleman from missouri that at least when they're interfering with your doctor they'll do it in aling which isity lick appropriate way. mr. akin: in other words, if you're like i am, an old geezer at 62 years of age and you need a new hip the way i do, they're going to say, we're putting you out the to pasture, take a few pain pills. they're going to say it in a really nice way at least. i hope it's linguistically appropriate. >> i just wanted to make one reference. i talked about the cold war a minute ago. it also reminds me what ronald reagan said when he was negotiating with the soviet union and they asked for trust and his response was, trust, but verify. and what we're here today is to be the verifiers for the american people. we're being asked to trust the bureaucracy to deliver medical care without interference. we're here to verify whether that is or is not true and to

deny us the opportunity to provide in a very easily understood way the information that undergirds this tremendous bureaucratic morass is unworthy of this place. we ought to be able to debate it vigorously and the american people ought to expect that we are looking out for them rather than for some formless bureaucracy that's going to take on dimensions that we can only imagine today. mr. akin: we've been joined this evening on the floor by a couple of very distinguished congressmen, a couple of my very good friends, the gentleman from texas, also the gentleman from indiana. i'm going to recognize the gentleman from texas who seems like he's got really something he's got to say. i'll go right back over to my friend, congressman pence from indiana, highly respected on the floor, for your perspective on this.

but the gentleman from texas, congressman gohmert, did you want to -- mr. gohmert: i appreciate the gentleman yielding. because in the discussion about what's linguistically appropriate and the discussion about how political supposedly it is, how politically inappropriate to have a chart that lists all the levels of bureaucracy that the new bill is going to propose, and how they think it may be a bit too political to say that it's government-run health care, well, i just went in -- mr. akin: reclaiming. what you just said i think is another censored phrase. government-run health care, we're not allowed to say that. and our constituents say, why don't you say something more and they're telling us if we print government-run health care then we can't -- then we have to pay for the mailing out of our own pocket? isn't that weird? mr. gohmert: that's what they're saying. i just went and printed this off speaker pelosi's own website and i apparently need help with

what's linguistically appropriate. you know, this is on the official speaker's website, under the title, honest leadership and open government, the first sentence is, the culture of corruption practiced under the republican controlled congress was an affront to the idea of a representative democracy and its consequences were devastating. now, i have a little trouble and i'm glad i'm here with such bright minds, including our wonderful chairman of the our conference, but how it is a little bit too political to use government resources to say the words government-run health care, but it is entirely appropriate for the speaker of the house to say the culture of corruption practiced under the republican controlled congress was anfront to the idea of representative democracy -- but that's not all.

led by the -- the house democrats, on the other hand, apparently there is this is not considered political, this statement, house democrats have acted to make this congress the most honest and open congress in history. well, besides being -- mr. akin: you have to be up at 3:00 in the morning to hear what's going on in committee, huh? mr. gohmert: let me -- yeah, let me just read another statement. with honest leadership and open government, america's leaders can once again focus on the needs -- mr. akin: reclaiming my time. you're talking about honest leadership and they're saying, as they take a look at this incredible flow chart, they're saying that if you've got a good relationship with your insurance company and your doctor and you like what you have, you can keep what you have. and yet listed in the bill is specific language that says you can't. that doesn't seem to me like they're following what the website says.

i'd like to recognize our conference chairman, maybe you can get us out of this because we're a little confused between the politically appropriate language that seems to be ok for democrats but not for republicans, to call this a democrat health plan. but i yield to my good friend from indiana. mr. pence: i thank the gentleman for yielding and, mr. speaker, i'd ask unanimous consent tos remain vice and extend my -- consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. pence: first let me commend the gentleman from missouri, mr. akin, for his work in bringing these important discussions to the floor of the house of representatives. judging from youtube, it appears people in missouri are pretty interested in the subject of health care reform and not surprisingly, in the show-me state, there seems to be a fair amount of skepticism out there about it. i'd like to speak to this whole business of government takeover, but i won't take more than just a couple of minutes of the gentleman's time. first, let me say emphatically

to anyone who might be looking in, mr. speaker, house republicans support health care reform. we've been calling for health savings accounts to be greatly expanded to small businesses around this country for years, we've been calling for association health plans that would allow people to pool together resources around the country the way federal employees do to purchase private health insurance. we've been talking about trying to end the age of defensive medicine by allowing for the adoption of a medical malpractice reform in this country. all these kind of changes we believe would reduce the cost of health insurance, reduce the cost of health care in this country in the long-term. what the democrat plan, even as it's being modified at this very hour, continues to include is the government-run insurance plan that would lead to a government takeover of our health care economy, paid for with nearly $1 trillion in tax increases. now, i saw the president of the united states today on the

television giving a speech, expressing with a rather uncharacteristic passion his frustration with two things, and i wanted to speak to those in the few minutes that i have. first, the president said, no one wants to have a government takeover of health care. well, i don't doubt the president doesn't want it to happen. but there's something about bureaucracy that when it is unleashed in certain ways it takes over areas of our economy. it's an unbroken truth of the history of governments around the world, that unchecked, unlimited government expands and whatever the president's intention, the reality is that should this government create a government-run insurance option to so-called compete with the private sector, that government option would compete with the private sector the way an alligator competes with a duck. it would consume it. and most americans know that.

now the other thing the president had a problem with -- mr. akin: just reclaiming my time a moment. what you just said is mirrored, as just a week or so ago, we had about 1,100 pages, the bill, started reading it, it said the commissioner shall. we go to another page, the commissioner shall. it goes to another page, the commissioner -- and we have page after page, the commissioner shall do this, the commissioner shall do that. it may not be his intention to have the government run it all, he could have called it the czar, we had some discussion whether it's a commissioner or a czar or a commiczar but it was one after the other pages. that's what the bill says. just to your point. but sorry to interrupt, i yield back. mr. pence: i thank the gentleman for yielding but let me say the other point the president expressed was that some of us and some independent organizations were trying to scare the american people by suggestioning that if the government introduces a government-run insurance option that you'll lose your health insurance. but the lumen group which has

been praised by democrats and republicans over the years, actually estimated 114 million americans would likely lose their health insurance if the democrat health care plan and the administration's plan were actually to be adopted. but why is that? now, to be perfectly fair, the president did make the point today at the podium that nothing in this plan will make people give up their private insurance. and i want to grant that point, mr. speaker, for anyone that might be looking in. that's not really the point, though. what the administration and some of our colleagues fail to understand is that as soon as uncle sam offers health insurance, a government health insurance, for every american employee for free, there's no -- almost no employer in america who's not going to sit their employees down during this worst resession in 25 years and say something like, look, i love you, we appreciate you being here, but we're trying to keep the lights on and the doors open at this business so, you know what? we're going to cancel the health insurance we have through this company and we're going to send

you down to uncle sam to apply for it. that's why the group and independent -- an independent organization, and common sense should tell the american people that if the government introduces an insurance program to compete with the private sector, tens of millions of americans will lose the health insurance they have. so whether it's the intention that we have a government takeover, the fact is, if we insist as the democrats in the congress and the administration are on a government option, even with the tweaks they're putting around the edges, reality is it will result in a government takeover because tens of millions of americans will be relegated to that new government program. that's why i really believe that we have to oppose this program, we have to scrap this government takeover with its $1 trillion tax increase and we have to start over and come around those bipartisan solutions that republicans are prepared to work on today. . .

mr. akin: i appreciate the gentleman. someone isn't going to say when the government offers something for free, you can bet that that insurance policy is going to go away. it isn't as though the ideas that are being advocated in this bill are particularly new. they have been tried in other places. here is one, massachusetts tried, basically everybody has to have insurance and the government is offering health care. and what was the end result? we don't have to re-invent the wheel. what happened was, massachusetts took a huge hit in -- financially. and the health care access is down because patients have to wait 70 days to see a doctor in boston. first of all as typical of red tape in government, you have to wait in a line, but it costs more money to wait in a line

because your health care costs in massachusetts are 133% more than what the average is. and so it's not like we haven't tried this before. it's been tried and yet we are going to try and do the same thing. it is tried over here in europe. and what happens in cancer? i'm a cancer survivor. i know a little bit about cancer because i survived it. i see my good friend from california, if you would like to jump in here, we would be delighted to yield you time. mr. lungren: i would like to follow up on what mr. pence said and that is if you are concerned that there is a possibility that a public option will lead to a government takeover you need look no further than what happened to the student loan program. what is happening now with this congress and this president? we are eliminating the private option and going totally to the

public option, which now becomes the public monopoly. mr. akin: can you get a private student loan now? mr. lungren: the way we are phasing them out, they will be basically the federal student loan program. mr. akin: it's like heny ford program, you can get any program you want as long as it's black. mr. lungren: we have a member of the other side of the aisle, a distinguished member of the other side of the aisle who in a town hall meeting admitted that this is going to lead to a public takeover of health care and said, yes, that is a good thing. mr. akin: a lot of them are quite happy with socialized health care. they acknowledge that. mr. lungren: you can't use that word. you can say it on the floor but can't say it in print. we're not allowed to say that.

we aren't allowed to say democratic health plan. we have been told that that is not allowed if we're going to print it and send it out to our constituents. the last thing i would say is this, i happen to be the son of a doctor. i would make rounds with him. i thought i was going to be a doctor until god sent me a strong message at notre dame against organic chemistry. mr. akin: i feel your pain, my friend. mr. lungren: i never lost the sense of service that my dad had as a doctor. and he taught me from my observation of the way he practiced medicine that the doctor-patient relationship was para mount. i heard him arguing with somebody who was employed by the insurance company on behalf of his patient.

i heard him arguing with the hospital. i heard him arguing with nurses if he didn't think they were doing a great job. i heard him praise the nurses, i heard him praise the hospital. his whole focus was on his patient. he was the patients' not only greatest doctor they could have, but he was their greatest advocate and that's what i don't want to lose in this or any other plan. mr. akin: you are talking right on. mr. lungren: i don't want the government to be my advocate but my doctor and my family be my advocate. listen to the interview by the president when asked about the 100-year-old woman, who was an extraordinary person with great fervor in her life and tremendous health and needed a pacemaker and her doctor thought

she should have it and called a specialist who would actually do the implantation of the pacemaker and he was skeptical and said i'm not going to do it on a 100-year-old lady. he examined her and his position was changed. she received it at 100 and is now a very active 105-year-old and it was presented to the president and it was said, mr. president, under your plan, well my 100-year-old mother still be able to have a pacemaker? and the president gave a long, long convoluted answer but at the end he said this, it may mean, it may mean that instead of some sort of surgical procedure, we give your mother a painkiller, pain pills. mr. akin: this isn't politically correct and i guess we never learned that well, we are

talking about government-rationed health care, aren't we? mr. lungren: you can limit costs in two ways, competition and rationing. competition means -- we need transparency, no doubt about that. we need to know what doctors are charging and infection rates and those sorts of things. but competition from dock tors and medical health care providers and insurance providers will give us tremendous options so we can make the decision and that tends to keep costs down. in a government system when you have a monopoly, there is only way, and that is called rationing. look at england, canada, france, look at all those other systems. mr. akin: that's what i would like to do. i would like to recognize my good friend from texas, congressman gohmert who is noted

for being -- in spite of his humble demeanor, an expert in knowing how to phrase things in a tactful way. mr. gohmert: i'm still perplexed and republicans aren't allowed to comment in anything that's a governmental resource. so i'm wondering if we phrase in any mailout or a website, if we say that the democrat-controlled congress is taking the nation in the wrong direction and too many americans are paying a heavy price for those wrong choices, including paying record costs for health care, i'm wondering if that would be something that would also be found objectionable as being a little too political. and i yield. mr. akin: seems like the basic

principle is that you respect your other colleagues and at the same time you can also tell the truth. that would be my idea of what the truth is, but i may not pass the political correctness test. mr. gohmert: let me just say that's on the speaker's website on the reverse. the republicans took the nation in the wrong direction and too many americans -- anyway, it sounds like if republicans said that about democrats, as my friend says it's probably true, but that would be politically inappropriate under the franking determination, but it's ok if the speaker does it apparently. mr. akin: i would like to take a look -- there are different ways to control costs and one of them is when the government does it, they ration health care or make various decisions to keep health costs down. here is a result of comparisons, five-year survivor rates for

cancers and this is the european average. they all have socialized medicine. here's the u.s. system, which is at least a free enterprise system. if you look at these different kinds of cancers, what you notice is that survival rates are a whole lot better in the u.s. than they are with the socialized systems. and i don't think that's a coincidence. that's a fact. the particular cancer i had here was called prostate cancer and let me -- here's prostate down here and you have the survival rate in the united states is at 90 something percent and in europe, it's 78%. if i had prostate cancer, which i did, i would want to be treated in america. and the british, the -- in

england, this is a 50% number. if i were sick, you could talk to me all about the government giving me free health care, but doesn't do me any good if i'm dead. this shows you what happens when we go to a government-run system. mr. lungren: this points out the difference where competition exists and monopoly by government exists and where monopoly by government exists, inevitably to try and control costs, you have to impose rationing. that's why you have these variations in survival rates among cancer patients because they are not getting the care in those other countries we get here and they're not getting them in a timely fashion. mr. akin: you know in cancer, they say, if you can diagnose it early, your probability of

success goes up. i think the socialized medical system says we'll give you a free c-section, ma'am, as long as you are willing to wait 12 months. mr. lungren: i had a hip replacement about a year and a half ago. under the rules that prevail in at least one of those countries, i would not have been able to have it because i'm not 65 years of age. and if i needed it at 80, i would have been too old. they have defined by age the category of people who can receive that operation. it's not just a limitation on time, how long it's going to be. and the point is if you look at our younger generation today, as active as they are in certain sports with repetitive actions affecting joipts, we're going to have younger people being in need of replacement of joints, knees and hips and that runs precisely contrary to what you see is available in these other

countries. that's why this debate is so important. if, in fact, as we believe that the plan presented by the majority would inevitably lead to government-run health care, these are the consequences. that's why we ought to be able to debate that. they can argue with us and say no, it's not government-run and we can argue how we believe it is, but at least let us have that debate so the people can see the consequences of our actions on their personal lives. mr. gohmert: thank you for yielding. i wanted to have time to ask my friend from california, did i sense that there is a concern that if someone with the federal bureaucracy saw you move agget letically before the hip replacement saying giving you a hip would be wasted?

mr. lungren: i will take that as a rhetorical question that needs no response. mr. akin: there is another colleague of ours, congressman rogers, from up in michigan. he told the story the other day that when he was 18 or 19 years old had bladder cancer. his doctor didn't know that and he had blood in the urine and went to his doctor who had known him and his family for some period of time and the statistical probability of his having bladder cancer at that age was almost nothing. and yet because he had that relation with his doctor, he didn't let it go, just like your father did, my friend. he didn't let that thing go. something about her sense, there's a problem here and checked it out and found out he had bladder cancer, treated it and he's a congressman now and this was some 40 years ago. but when you have the government

having these statistics saying it just fits in this category, he held up a calculator and said there's nothing in this government calculator that knows anything about health care. all it is is some government agent running statistics. there is a guy from canada that i just read about, and he was younger than your he was in his 50's and canada said, you can't have a hip replaceme because you are too old. he came to america and got it. good friend from texas. . mr. gohmert: the point is no government bureaucrat should ever be able to look at any american and say, i don't think you ought to get this treatment. i don't think you ought to get this surgery. that is the last thing you want is the government intervening. what has really gotten outrageous and got my attention is when we got the latest

numbers we could for 2007, and the total a medicare and medicaid tax dollars spent, and you divide it by the number of households in america is about 9,200 -- over 9,200 per household, you look at what president obama is proposing, c.b.o. says it will be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion. you divide that by 17 -- 117 million households estimated in america by a census, you have $10,000 more per household, for every household in america they are going to have to come up with to pay for this plan on top of the $9,200 in federal tax dollars they are playing now. mr. akin: every single household in america is going to get hit with an additional $10,000 per household to make this

transition to a socialized medical system that produces this kind of result? is that what you're saying? mr. gohmert: that's on top of the $9,200 average per household in america right now. mr. akin: you are already paying. mr. gohmert: $19,000 per household. mr. akin: take a look at this statement. this is an amendment that was offered to the democrat's health bill. nothing in this section shall be construed to allow any federal employee or political appointee to dictate how a medical provider practices medicine. i would say, i think that's something that a lot of of my constituents would say, i don't want some bureaucrat telling my doctor what he can do and can't do to take care of me. take a look at the vote when this thing was done in committee. you have here, this is an amendment that was proposed by dr. gingrey. he spent his life going to med school and taking care of patients. look at the vote. republicans, 23 votes saying, we

don't want to put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor. and zero voted against this. of the democrats, only one democrat voted for this amendment and 32 of them voted against that. now, i think a lot of people in main street america think, why can't we just get along as republicans and democrats and just solve problems? but this is a very fundamental difference between the two parties, isn't it? this is what we have been talking about. do we really want a federal bureaucrat? and what they just voted to say was, we think that in order to control costs you are going to have to let some federal bureaucrat make those decisions and tell a doctor and patient they can't get the care. i yield to my friend from california. mr. lungren: this makes about as much sense as the vice president's recent statement in order to avoid bankruptcy we have to spend more federal money. mr. akin: that's not intuitively

obvious. in order to avoid bankruptcy we have to spend more money. mr. lungren: the president is basically telling us by entering the federal government in the largest way in the history of the united states into medical care, it is going to cost less. and provide more accessibility. and i think that is -- what i'm find interesting my town hall meetings at home, teletown halls, discussion was people back home, they are not buying it because they know it just doesn't seem to make sense. just as the gentleman has pointed out to this amount, if in fact they are saying they are not going to put anything between you and your doctor, why would they reject an amendment which says just that? mr. akin: with only one exception of one democrat a. straight party-line vote saying, we want to put federal employees between your doctor and you as a patient. this is pretty serious stuff. this is very serious stuff to me because as i said, i came to congress, hi a poor health care plan -- i had a poor health care

plan, came to congress and found out there are some navy doctors in this building. those navy doctors gave me a physical. i felt bulletproof and everything at 52. i found out i was bulletproof and doing great except one detail. i had cancer. and the fact that they discovered that and that i was able to get treatment without some bureaucrat taking it away from me, that's the reason i'm alive today. i can understand why people are going to be very, very cautious about some government-run plan that produces results for people , something like what the european union is doing. i yield to my good friend from texas. mr. gohmert: i appreciate that. our time has expired. i appreciate being a part of this. this is too serious to let the bureaucrats control people's lives. i thank you. mr. akin: thank you very much. thank to you my many good friend who joined us here in the discussion. i think people understand this is a very serious issue. i think it's bettory go slow and make sure we get it right and don't mess it up as we have some

of the things that have been passed 3:00 in the morning. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the gentlewoman from ohio, ms. schmidt, is recognized for 60 minutes. ms. schmidt: thank you very much. mr. speaker, i rise today to continue to ask the question -- where are the jobs? well, i can tell you where they're not. they're not in my district in southern ohio. because i just got an announcement on monday night that really shocked me and made my blood boil. i found out that the department of of energy was going to strip

away thousands of jobs in my district. now, i just want to give you a little background. ohio is one of those states that has high unemployment. we are the seventh highest in the nation. but when you look at my district, what you see is i've got really high unemployment in my district. in fact, two of my counties, pike and adams, have over 15% unemployment. siota county has almost 13% unemployment. much higher than the national average. even higher than our state average of 11.2%. so we really need jobs. need them badly. what has occurred to me is that i think there must be a disconnect with the administration and the president.

because let me go back and explain what's going on. i have a facility in my district in pike county, the county that has 15.5% unemployment, called the american centrifuge plant. this represents a very early use of commercial -- use of new technology that would significantly reduce emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. the united states and richmond corporation is deploying american centrifuge technology to provide the dependable, long-term u.s.-owned and developed nuclear fuel production capability needed to support the country's nuclear power plants, nuclear submarines, and robust nuclear deterrent. mr. speaker, we have dozens of nuclear power plants in this country that all require nuclear fuel. and we have a navy who as i

speak is sailing in every ocean across the globe, and we have weapons of mass destruction that will become useless deterrents without fresh twitium. without the american centrifuge plant in five year's time, we will have no ability in the united states to enrich uranium to keep our lights on, our ships at sea, our deterrent potential. in five years we will be forced to purchase uranium from foreign suppliers like we do most of our oil. i don't know about you, mr. speaker, but i don't want to depend on foreigners for this kind of product. the american centrifuge plant holds great promise. unfortunately in order to meet this promise usac needed a loan guarantee from the federal government. i want to repeat that, it needed a loan guarantee from the federal government. you see they have already invested $1.5 billion in this

project. and is offered another $1 bill -- $1 billion ofer corporate support t did this with the expectation the department of energy will make available a $2 bill loan guarantee needed to finance the full-scale deployment of this plant. i want to refer to this chart here. why were they confident in that? on september 2, 2008, when president obama was running for election, he wrote a letter to our governor, ted strickland. and he said in that letter, this is the full letter, so you can see it, i'm not taking it out of context, he said, and i quote, under my administration energy programs that promote safe and environmentally sound technologies and are domestically produced, such as the enrichment facility in ohio, will have my full support. i will work with the department of energy to help make loan

guarantees available for this and other advanced energy programs that reduce carbon emissions and break the tie to high cost, and foreign energy sources. this is what this letter said. so you understand that usac was very, very confident that they were going to get that loan guarantee. but instead, on monday night, the department of energy really pulled the rug out from all of us. i got a letter -- a phone call asking me to call the white house. i learned monday night that the department of energy was going to withdraw its promise and they were actually asking usac to withdraw its application and to try it again in 18 months. i was actually told on the phone that if they did that then the department of energy would give them $45 million, $30 million

and then another $15 million if they would rescind this and that kind of shocked me. the next day it also shocked the folks at usac because you see they had this letter that the president had given to our governor, ted strickland, that said those loan guarantees would be given. mr. speaker, the american centrifuge plant currently supports more than $5,700 jobs and will help create 2,300 more within a year of commencement of the loan guarantee funding. that's 2,300 additional jobs to my district. now because the department of energy has contradict add promise that our president made in september of last year to our governor and to those men and women in this area, those jobs are in jeopardy. i was on the phone with one of my constituents earlier today, pink slips are already being given out at the usac plant.

the department of energy has told the media the reasons for their denial were threefold. that the cost subsidy estimate, a new requirement for another $300 million of capital, and the questions of technology. well, the first question offered by the d.o.e. is a little laughable. it turns out that the government isn't really backing these loans. instead of department of energy is charging a risk of failure fee to each of the folks that agrees to back the loans, too. these fees are pooled together to eliminate any risk to the taxpayers that actually have been given a loan guarantee. they determined that the fee for this loan would be $800 million on a $2 billion loan. so usac is supposed to come up with $00 million on a $2 billion loan. i don't know about you, but in

my neck of the woods we call that like loan sharking. the second reason for denying the guarantee is a new need to set aside an additional $300 million for contingencies. i can think where you and i see this is headed. after the risk premium is paid, apparently usac still has to come up with more money to make the department of energy years, feel more comfortable about giving these loans. but the last question i think is the most purr -- surprising. because the last reason is one where they say they have technical questions. and this is the one that's the most absurd of all because quite frankly this technology is out there. france is using it. england is using it. would it surprise you to know, mr. speaker, that iran is using it? but what i found most disturbing is that the department of energy

hired a technology expert as required by law. and they went through the technology and wrote a long report and they gave it, in fact the guy ran back to give it, to the department of energy on tuesday. that was the day after the department of energy made their decision. . they made that decision on monday night and made it without any regard for the report they were relying on for this very important project. and it's not just a project, mr. speaker that continues to help the folks in my district. and it is important to me, because, mr. speaker, this is my district. and these are my folks and these are my friends. i have become friends with these people. and this is a part of my community that doesn't have a

lot of job opportunities and they welcomed this job opportunity, they embraced it. and i believe that the president believes in this project, as he stated on september 2, 2008. but i think there must be some sort of a disconnect with the department of energy. there's a chart here, and i would like to go through the chart a little bit again so we can clearly understand what's going on. the issue, credit subsidy costs estimated by the d.o.e. to be $800 million. the estimate was never provided in writing. the methods of calculation were never disclosed or explained. $800 million subsidy cost was not reasonable. i think it's outrageous given that usac collateralized. standard credit and yes, yield exposures based on credit

ratings of c to b minus and asset recoverries of 20% to 30% of the cost. and it clearly ignores the value of $1.5 billion and another $1 billion of collateral offered by usac containing enriched uranium inventors. additional 300 million of additional capital. usac offered a mitment, which d.o.e. agreed met statutory and regulatory remirmentse. usac fully col raise ralized permit to permit while protecting the taxpayers. the advisers stated that with loan guarantees capital could be

raised in the public market. it has commenced discussions with suppliers to obtain vending fining for the balance. and the final, the technical readiness of american readiness. it concluded that it was not ready to move to commercial scale operations prior to receiving its independent engineers written assessment. the independent engineer had only been working for 12 days when d.o.e. acted. they were scheduled to review the classified independent engineering report on july 28 and d.o.e. representative traveled to tennessee to do so unaware of the decision the night before. american centrifuge is based on technology which d.o.e. initially developed in the 1970's and the 1980's and subsequently operated it for 10 years.

usec approved centrifuges have been operating for over 25,000 hours. the d.o.e. has acknowledged that usec met the agreement between d.o.e. and usec which requires obtaining data from lead cascade operations. the last requirement to be met besides obtaining financing prior to commencing commercial planned construction and operations. mr. speaker, i don't understand what's going on here. i don't think that this body understands what's going on here. and i'm not even sure that the president even understands what's going on here with the department of energy, but i'm very confused. more than that, i'm very outraged, because i believe that we have to have energy independence, but we also have to have security for this nation.

and energy independence depends upon a variety of sources of energy, including nuclear power. but you have to have the stuff to make that nuclear power. in five years, we will no longer be the people that are producing the stuff that it takes to make that nuclear power. that is why this project is so important, not just for the 2,000 jobs that will be lost. mr. space, can you join me here today? one of the other folks that is affected is my very good friend from a district right across from me, zach, space, and zach, i have just laid out what is going on with the department of energy and that our president promised that the department of energy would give out these loans to governor strickland on september 2. i have laid out what i think is a disconnect between the department of energy and our president because i know our president wants -- i just truly

believes he wants to make good on this promise and the impact to your community and my community in southern ohio and also to our security across the nation. so whatever you would like to add, i'm welcome to the discussion. mr. space: i thank the gentlelady and i appreciate the work that you have done in bringing attention to this very important issue. there are a couple of things i would like to speak about and i will be as brief as i can. mrs. schmidt: take as much time as you want. it's fine with me. mr. space: what is happening in appalachia, ohio and what is happening in aplache yeah -- ap latch yeah, america and it's the same thing that president kennedy saw. he drew attention to poverty,

hopelessness, suffering, a lack of infrastructure, a lack of opportunity. and i think it's very important not just for you and i to understand this, but for our president and the department of energy and the american public in general to understand that many of those same needs that kennedy identified so many years ago still exist. this facility has the potential to help breathe new life into a large region in southern ohio, a region where unemployment rates now are typically on a county-by-county basis reaching 16%, a region in which the poverty rates exceed 30%, a region where families, working families, men and women who have to take their children to soup kitchens to eat, this is

happening in america, this is happening in southern ohio. the second thing i would like to point out is that this is our future. we've heard so much about the promise afforded by energy-related jobs, the new economic sector in our economy that i believe holds so much potential, so much potential to put people back to work to provide good wages, allow families to buy homes, send their kids to college, save for retirement, this project falls squarely within the promise afforded by that new economic sector. and i would like to take this brief moment that you so graciously allotted me, jean, to your knowledge the department of energy to reconsider, to look at this situation as one which can provide hope to many americans who don't have it right now.

i commend you again for bringing attention to this matter to advocating it with the passion that you have. and i pledge to work with you moving forward as we do everything we can to bring the economy back to southern ohio. and i yield back. mrs. schmidt: may i ask you for a little conversation on this, because i think this is very important, mr. speaker, to note that mr. space and i, while our districts do connect, we are from different sides of the aisle. and yet i find oftentimes there is much agreement on both sides of the aisle far from the debate that occurs on some of the issues that folks might hear. and this is an issue that is very important to not just me, but to zach space as well, because we understand ap latch yeah and understand the needs of this community and how when you

lose a job in this community it's so hard to get it back, it's not like other communities like where you lose one, in time, it can be replaced. when you lose one in this part of the world, it doesn't get replaced. do you agree, zach? mr. space: jean, i see it and you see it and we see it far too often where we allow ourselves to be separated by a political divide, this aisle that runs between us now is nothing but an empty space. and when we talk about things like this project, we're not talking about what's right for democrats, republicans, for those who are liberal, versus those who are conservative, but what's right for america and i think not just in this case, but in all cases, we should explore every opportunity to bridge that divide and forget about the party politics whether it's energy or health care or job

opportunities, like we have here. all of us need to strive much harder to overcome the ideological differences, find common ground and work for what's right for this country. mrs. schmidt: mr. space, i'm reminded that we are on the house floor and my apollings that i didn't refer to you as congressman space. so now i will refer to you as mr. space. but you and i agree on this. and i think, mr. space, you'll agree the importance of this, not just to our community, but to the nation. we need to have uranium enrichment in order to make nuclear energy, in order to make ourselves -- keep our lights on in this country. and i don't think you and i want to rely on getting this product from a foreign nation. we rely too much on getting our oil from foreign governments. we don't want to rely on foreign

governments for keeping our lights on, to our navy, to our ability to keep the bad guys out of the united states. mr. space: i thank the gentlelady for bringing up such an important subject. and that subject is one of national security. there are a lot of different components that go into what makes us strong as a country. certainly the size of our armies , the money and resources we allocate to military defense, very important. but perhaps there's no greater ingredient to our national security than developing right here at home within our borders energy independence. we have, as a nation, waited far too long to aggressively address this issue. i think many of the painful votes, if you will, many of the divisive issues and the

arguments that we have on the floor of this great house are happening right now because we have as a nation waited far too long to address the issue of energy independence. the gentlelady and i are both old enough to remember what it was like in this country back in the early 1970's when opec first formed its embargo on oil and it was like a slap in the face to our country. suddenly and without warning, we found ourselves almost wholly dependent upon not just other nations, but other nations who meant to do us harm for something so fundamentally important as our energy needs. and as we look back today to 35 years ago, almost 40 years ago, we think of this. what if, what if we would have done the right thing and aggressively pursued energy

independence? what if we would have approached that issue like this nation has with other issues in the past, the manhattan project and apollo project where failure was not an option? we wouldn't be having the debate and wouldn't be having the struggles or the problems with our foreign relations. we wouldn't be having nearly the problems we are experiencing today with our economy if we had done the right thing. now is the time to act. this project fits perfectly with what should be all of our priorities, and that is an aim toward energy independence. mrs. schmidt: and my good colleague and friend from ohio, i totally agree with you. the time is now. i remember the 1970's. i remember standing in line because that was the even day and my friends had the odd day to get gasoline and we can't do that again. you and i seen the price of gas last summer, twice the price it

is this summer. thank heavens it is lower, but they can't put the squeeze on us and on our economy. and while this won't remove our dependence on foreign oil, this project will remove our depeppedens on oil on things we don't need to use it for and that's why we need a total comprehensive energy policy that has to include nuclear and we have to have not just the technology but the stuff that it takes to make that technology happen. and all i can say is this project, the american centrifuge plant is producing the uranium enrichment that we need. and if we don't allow this project to go forward in five years, you and i are going to be standing here screaming at the well because we're going to be beholden to france, england or another country for this uranium

enrichment that we need right now. and i'm so thankful that you are joining me in this fight. please, you know, i don't know what we can do besides calling the department of energy, maybe asking our friends to call the department of energy, maybe asking our friends to call the president. and i don't know what else you and i can do, but i'm going to fight until until we can fight no more and then continue on. . mr. spatial: in yielding back to my friend and colleague from ohio, i would submit we have taken one important step in moving in that direction and that is by ridding ourselves of our partisan bonds and working together in a common cause. you and i both know that oftentimes we do not agree on the issues. but this is one where we can find common ground. let this be not just the beginning of wreck at thisfication of a wrong -- wreck at thisfication of a wrong --

wreck at thisfication -- rectification of a wrong in ohio, but a new day where democrats and republicans work together in solving not democrat problems and republican problems but american problems. i yield back. mrs. schmidt: thank you very much. i want to say, mr. speaker, i believe we can work across the aisle. i have seen us work across the aisle on other issues. this one is a very, very important issue. i'm not going to belabor this point too much longer but only to say that if we don't act now and ask the department of energy to reverse its course, this isn't just something that's going to put a further blight on my district and my good colleague, mr. space's district. and the rest of appalachia, ohio . this is really going to really put a cloud across our economic

security and our national security and our nation. the department of energy can go back. they can look at the technical data which they didn't do when they issued their de significance. they can go back and look at what they are asking usac to cough up and recognize what they have already put on the table. and they can go back and understand that the president made this promise to our vernor on september 2 and they can go back and they can do the right thing because it's not just the right thing for my community or mr. space's community or ohio, it's not just the right thing because our president made a pledge to our governor. it's the right thing for our nation. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentlelady yields back. does the gentlewoman have a motion? mrs. schmidt: yes, i have a motion. that the house should adjourn. the speaker pro tempore: without objection -- the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the motion is agreed to. accordingly, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

relationship you will have with your doctor and the relationship that government will have in that. . and our argument has been that t >> house leadership reached an agreement with conservative democrats in the house and holding up action on the house bill in the energy and commerce committee. they hold enough seats and their objections were enough to keep it from moving forward and they

have been working now for almost two weeks. they announced today they reached an an agreement and four of the blue dogs were going to come on board. >> what are some specifics in the deal? >> they agreed to drop the cost of the bill by at least $100 billion and a commitment on the part of the leadership to try to work with the congressional budget office to make sure that the estimate for the total cost of the bill is less than $1 trillion over 10 years. they made an agreement to make it easier for some small businesses that would have been subject to an employer mandate, instead of $250,000 was the original limit for a payroll tax that would be applied. now if you have a total of less than $500,000, you will not be subject to this employer mandate and not be required to pay taxes if you do not provide your employees with health insurance.

businesses with payrolls between $750,000 and $500,000 will be subject to a sliding tax. so that's new. they also made changes with regard to the public plan. under the original house bill, the rates that were paid to hospitals, doctors, health care providers, would have been similar to the ones under medicare and use the same mechanism that medicare uses. under the new agreement, the secretary of health and human services would decide and have to negotiate individually with providers the same as private insurance plans to come up with their rates. blue dogs are happy with this in part because it will part relieve some original disparities that affect rural hospitals. >> the house energy and commerce committee did not meet wednesday, why? >> it looks as though the deal with blue dog democrats has caused problems with more liberal members of the house.

so those folks, the progressive democratic caucus and they are interested in having a robust public option. progress i haves are meeting with house leadership and chairman waxman was meeting with other democrats on his own committee to try and explain to them what the changes were with the blue dogs and try to address some of their concerns. so we'll see after thisening's negotiations between chairman waxman and the more liberal democrats whether he can put the agreement he made with blue dogs with everyone else. >> the chairman of the senate finance committee had some news of the senate version. what did he say? >> he had new estimates from the congressional budget office which shows that the senate bill will cost $900 billion over the next 10 years, which was good news. there was concern about the cost of the bill. they have yet to reveal the details of their bipartisan

talks, but it is expected that when they announce their deal, a number of the provisions that they're working on will wound up in the final product that lands on the president's desk. >> casey hunt writes for the "national journal." and we will be live with the house commerce committee tomorrow as they continue marking up health care legislation. that will be live beginning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span three. up next on c-span, homeland security secretary, janet mrs. napolitano: with the council of foreign relations in new york city discusses the role of local law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts. she's followed by richard holbrook the u.s. special representative to afghanistan and pakistan and talks to reporters about his recent trip to asian europe. now secretary mrs. napolitano:. she is introduced by the editor-in-chief by the

organization. >> good morning. i will be your presider today. welcome to our meeting. today, participants around the nation and the world are viewing this meeting via live web cast on c.f.r.'s website www.cfr.org. please turn off, not just put on vibrate, your cell phones, blackberries and all of the other wireless devices you've got to avoid interference with the sound system. i would like to remind everybody, all the members that this meeting is on the record. secretary of homeland security, janet mrs. napolitano:, leads the department of 225,000 people charged with helping the american people prevent or failing to cope with disasters

resulting from acts of god or acts of man. in her first few months in office, secretary mrs. napolitano: has led the federal response to the swine flu and the obama's administration's efforts to contain drug cartel violence along the southwest border, along with many other things. she has begun the task of bringing administrative order and effectiveness to an agency widely described as a bureaucratic zoo and that's by its friends. [laughter] >> homeland security combines 22 separate agencies, customs, immigration, border patrol, the transportation, security administration and federal emergency management agency as well as the coast guard and the secret service. previously, secretary mrs. napolitano: was a two-term governor of arizona and before that, she served as her state's attorney general and as its u.s. attorney. she's an avid hiker and accomplished mountain climber.

ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the secretary of homeland security, janet mrs. napolitano:. [applause] >> good morning and thank you very much. i thank paul for your kind introduction and thank the council on foreign relations for hosting us today. i see steve is here. dr. flynn, like several of his colleagues at the council have been doing some very thoughtful work on homeland security. and i'm deeply appreciatetive of that. as a council member myself, it's good to be back here. the last time i was here was with governor barber on a panel on immigration. now i must admit that in the daurt -- department of homeland security, it is a large department and we are looking

for ways to make sure that we spend every dollar, every penny we get wisely. so i thought i would bring my c.f.r. membership dues here today so i could save the cost of postage, so paul i'll leave these here for you. now, the council is an institution i appreciate because it's one of the rare places where people will show up early in the morning at breakfast time to hear about threats of terror and government response. and this will be the highlight of your day. but alas, the topics we're discussing are with us and are the challenge of a network's 21st century. and so it is important that the council be apprised of what the department of homeland security is doing to meet those challenges. now, president obama has been very forceful about seeing the threat of terrorism and all of

its complexity and in bringing all of our resources not just the federal government to bear against violent extremism. so today, i will speak candidly about the urgent need to refocus our counterterror approach to make it a shared endeavor, to make it more layered, net worked and resilient and make it smarter and more adapttive and to make sure that as a country, as a nation, we are at the point where we are in a constant state of preparedness and not a state of fear. the challenge is not just using federal power to protect the country, but also enlisting a much broader societal response to the threats that terrorism poses. now, a wise approach to keeping america secure should be rooted in the values that define our nation, values