mr. upton: mr. speaker, i rise today in support of the path act which addresses two of the most glaring deficiencies in the president's overhaul of the health care system. by what it does, it also -- and also by what it fails to do, the health care law threatens access to qualt quality health care for literally millions of americans. section 3403 of the affordable care act established the independent payment advisory board or ipab, a panel of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats will be given the power to make major decisions regarding who goods and services are valuable. these decisions would then be fasttracked, essentially bypassing the legislative process, with almost no opportunity for discussion or review. the path prevents -- the path act prevents this by repealing ipab. i suspect that most americans still believe that patients and their doctors should have a voice and should be able to decide what health care services that they find valuable. and i think they still believe that major poli

mr. upton is not here this morning. i will recognize mr. murphy of pennsylvania for a three-minute opening statement. >> i appreciate that. welcome. one of the things that i wanted to make a statement on was how pennsylvania is a doing with natural gas. we are excited about the opportunity, of course, we want to do it right. and do it in a way that respects the environment that it is done in a way that makes sure that we are protecting the air and the land and the water. along those lines, slightly less or more than a year ago, last march, i asked the epa for information, if they thought that pennsylvania laws were adequate in their strength and adequately enforced. maybe things slipped by, still it's important that the epa does give information on what the states are doing to give recommendations throughout that. i must admit that i'm not one that favors that the epa tells every states what to do, but given that there are many states involved in this. it's important that epa keeps an eye on what the companies are doing with fracking and ma

mr. upton, five minutes for opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. at least 1.7 million folks sustain a traumatic brain injury every year. we don't have to look very far to see the profound effects of a pa major tbi. with efforts being undertaken at the department of veterans affairs and department of defense and several agencies at the department of hhs. it is incumbent us on to examine these activities to work in a coordinated and efficient manner. i proudly serve on the brain injury task force and encourage bipartisan support for tbi research and rehabilitation and with that support i am confident that the committee will make greater strides to help patients living with the aftermath of tbi. i want to extend a warm welcome to the families attending today's hearing as part of brain injury awareness month and i look forward to your testimony. i yield back to the chairman. >> the chair thanks the gentleman. we have four witnesses on our panel. dr. bonnie strickland, director of division services for children with special health care needs, u.s. depar

. >> thank you.f the committee, mr. upton for five minutes for questions. >> welcome madam secretary. a couple of things i would like to ask this morning. i am seeing different numbers in the 2013 budget than the spending levels you provided to the i don't know if you want to respond by letter in response back. let me walk you through a couple of things. last year, you stated that hhs was estimated to spend $400 million on exchange grants. according to the latest budget the department will have spent $900 million on the same grants. more than double your estimate from a year ago. is that correct? >> mr. chairman we have spent so far out of the allocation two years ago of $1 billion, about $475 million. 261 of that was spent by hhs. >> this is specifically the state exchange grants. >> the state exchange grants. >> you might want to come back to us in an open letter. >> i'll be happy to get that to you. >> as a former budget official -- we'll look forward to a written response. >> sure. >> congress in the president's health ca

at this time recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. upton, for phi minutes. >> -- five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. secretary, welcome. i learned that president obama is personally weighing in on members of the senate to vote no on the keystone pipeline amendment which is going to be an amendment that's part of the highway bill today, and i'm not happy about that at all. i will say that for the record we passed that bill out of this committee a couple times. it was bipartisan support. we saw the same thing on the house floor. are you weighing in at all with any senators on this amendment vote today in. >> no, i'm not. >> i know it's been reported that oil production on federal lands has dropped 14% since 2010, and in reading there the green wire last week let me just read a couple things to you here. domestic oil production may be at an all-time high nationwide, but the increase is primarily occurring on state and private lands rather than on federal land and waters where production appears to have dropped significantly in 2011.

at this time i recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. upton, for five minutes of questions. the chairman of the full committee. >> thank you, administrator jackson, for being here this morning. i do have a couple of questions. i apologize for being in and out. lots of different things going on. i appreciated a letter that i think gina mccarthy sent this yesterday or maybe -- yeah, yesterday. to chairman whitfield. and in that letter, on the first page, you write in the last paragraph on that first page that is why epa conducted extension refinery modeling to understand the cost impacts of a variety of fuel requirements. as a result, the only fuel requirement we are considering for tier 3 is one that would lower the amount of sulfur in gasoline. so my question is does that mean that you will not look at the read vapor pressure or the octane components of a final rule? is that what i read between the lines? >> yeah, i think that's pretty much -- yes. yes, sir. i agree with that interpretation. >> okay. good. now, we are all concerned about job losses across the country, and i

mr. romney picked up the endorsement of fred upton. how did mr. upton express his enthusiasm for mitt romney? he told the michigan press how wrong mitt romney was on the auto bailout on one of the biggest issues in his state. early on in the race he got the endorcement of republican congressman joe heck out of nevada. how does mr. heck express his enthusiasm for mitt romney? he informed the nevada press core that mr. romney was dead wrong on the biggest issue in his state, housing. down in arizona mitt romney gets the endorsement of randy pullen. how does randy pullen express his enthusiasm? he said, my guy has a hard time connecting with people. yes, sir, and you're not helping. former republican governor jon huntsman of utah drops out himself. he endorses mitt romney and how does he express his enthusiasm for mitt romney? >> gone are the days when the republican party used to put forward big bold visionary stuff. we're going to have problems politically until we get some sort of third party movement or some alternative voice out there that can pu

federal lands. >> my time has expired. >> at this time, we recognize the gentleman from michigan, mr. upton, for five minutes. >> mr. secretary, again, welcome greeted i learned literally in the last few minutes that president obama is personally weighing in on members of the senate to vote no on the keystone pipeline amendment, which will be part of the highway bill today. i am not happy about that at all. for the record, we passed that bill out of this committee a couple of times with bipartisan support are you weighing in at all with any senators on this amendment today? >> no, i am not. >> i know it has been reported that oil produion on federal lands has dropped 14% since 2010. in reading from the green wire last week -- let me just read a couple of things -- domestic oil production may be at an all-time high nationwide, but the increase is primarily occurring on state and private lands rather than on federal land and waters where production appear to of dropped significantly in 2011. production of natural gas on public lands and wers in fiscal 2011 dropped 11% from the previous year,

i now recognize mr. upton for a statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman.according to a recent report from the cdc, at least 1.7 million folks sustaining a traumatic brain injury every year. we don't have to look very far to see the profound effects of a major tbi. children injured by caretakers or car accidents, athletes impaired by multiple concussions, soldiers disabled for more and even one of our colleagues wounded at a constituent event in arizona last year. with efforts being undertaken at the department of veterans affairs, the department of defense and several agencies and hhs, it is incumbent upon us to at examined the activities so they can work and coordinate in an efficient manner. i proudly served on the injury task force and encourage bipartisan support for tbi research and rehabilitation. without support, incompetent the committee will make even greater strides to help patients living with the aftermath of tbi. i want to extend a warm welcome to families attending today for brain injury awareness month. i look forward to the testimony today.

upton mr. sometimes about how things are handled because of the way the supreme military council is dealing with this situation, as if there was no revolution. sometimes house certain ultraconservative islamists deal with the situation, speaker of football as simple, which, of course, you know, not a wise thing to say anything to. the general impression i had is that there are many challenges that egypt faces today that have to do with forces that are highly democratic, such as the generals to, to a lesser degree the ultraconservative islamist. but i think they are on the defensive. the people in general -- and i would say the democrats in particular, the youth -- and i mean the ones who really want to break with the past and series the move forward. and i want to give you one example. thanks to the book had the chance to share some of my views with egyptian viewers on television networks. people don't think of it that way. aided the general's and ultraconservative islamists are sincere in sayi

peters of michigan, mr. upton of michigan and mr.oens of new york for working with me on this extremely important issue. h.r. 2682 will clarify congress' intent under the dodd-frank act and provide an explicit exemption from having to post margin for true commercial end users of over-the-counter derivatives. despite clear legislative history to the contrary, regulators continue to misinterpret the dodd-frank act, giving them authority to sbose margin requirements on end users. this bill will ensure once and for all that true end users are not subjected to margin requirements that congress never intended to be applied and make sure that regulators do not attempt to exercise authorities they were never granted by congress in ways that would certainly do harm to the economy, specifically by diverting working capital away from investment and expansion which fuels economic growth and certainly job creation. true end users are firms and companies that use derivatives to manage their various financial risk. for example,