Providing For Further Consideration Of H.R. 5122, National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2007

PROVIDING FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 5122, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2007

Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to begin, if I may quickly, by reminding my friends on the other side of the aisle the basic nature of this bill.

It was a very bipartisan bill. It was universally praised as being bipartisan by Members of both parties. In particular, Chairman Hunter was singled out for operating inclusively, in a bipartisan manner.

There were 88 amendments offered in the House Committee on Armed Services. Seventy-five of those passed. Of those passed, 38 were Democrats, 36 were Republican, one was bipartisan. There were over 100 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee. Of those, 31 were made in order, an additional six were dealt with in the manager's amendment. Only eight amendments were brought up for reconsideration in the Rules Committee by the minority.

Now, I understand that not everybody is pleased with every aspect of the bill, but to characterize the bill as anything other than bipartisan, and bipartisan in process, I think is to not recognize the nature of the process we have gone through.

With respect to Mr. Skelton's amendment, nobody in this House, I can assure you, respects Mr. Skelton more than I do. I have served with him on his committee. I publicly praised him yesterday, and that praise is fully and well deserved. He is one of the distinguished Members of our body.

I do point out his amendment was, in fact, considered in the House Committee on Armed Services. It did fail. There were bipartisan members for it and bipartisan against it, although it was largely a party-line vote.

At some point you have to ask yourself, why do we have committees, if not to make these decision? When a matter is dealt with fully by a committee, who are well-versed in it, I think that should carry heavy weight in determining whether or not we move on and consider a particular amendment on the floor; and in this case, I think that was thoroughly vetted and thoroughly discussed although, of course, my friends still have the opportunity to include that provision in a motion to recommit.

Let me conclude by just quickly going on and going through some of the things that were included in TRICARE.

Under the bill that was fashioned by our distinguished chairman and ranking member, working in a bipartisan fashion in the House Armed Services Committee, H.R. 5122 will prohibit until December 31, 2007, the Department of Defense's ability to increase TRICARE Prime, Standard and TRICARE Reserve Select cost shares.

H.R. 5122 calls for an independent analysis to determine the appropriate cost-sharing formula for the TRICARE program.

H.R. 5122 zeros out the costs for generic and formulary prescriptions for participants in the TRICARE pharmacy and mail order program.

H.R. 5122 also adds $735 million to the Defense Health Program to restore funding cuts included in the DOD budget request in anticipation of increased beneficiary cost shares which, as mentioned, H.R. 5122 prohibits.

H.R. 5122 includes TRICARE coverage for forensic examinations following sexual assaults and domestic violence.

H.R. 5122 provides TRICARE coverage for anesthesia and hospital costs for dental care provided to young children and to mentally or physically challenged beneficiaries.

I say this simply to make the point that we have had several years, frankly, where this committee has worked diligently to improve the TRICARE system to enhance the benefits available to our men and women.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

If I may, again, I want to thank my good friend from Missouri. There is nobody who cares more about men and women that wear the uniform of the United States than Mr. Skelton.

I do wish to point out again the amendment was considered by the full House Armed Services Committee. It did not succeed.

I also want to point out again we made considerable progress in TRICARE, many millions of dollars spent.

And, finally, something which maybe many Members may not be aware of because they don't serve on that committee, active duty family members actually get most of their prescriptions free from military hospitals. Only 11 percent of prescriptions are obtained through a TRICARE retail pharmacy. So we are really not talking about a great deal of money. And we have a study authorized in this legislation under way to look at what the appropriate distribution of the cost of these types of items should be. I actually think the House Armed Services Committee has gone a very long way in trying to address this very, very important issue; and I have no doubt we will revisit it next year.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to my good friend, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mr. Hunter.

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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just wish to quickly point out, again, the record which seems to get lost in the rhetoric: 88 amendments considered in the House Armed Services Committee, 75 accepted; 100 amendments dealt with by the Rules Committee, 31 brought to the floor; six others dealt with during the manager's amendment.

If my friends had their way, it wouldn't matter how many times amendments were defeated along the way. Every single one would come to the floor of the House of Representatives. If we were going to operate that way, we simply could do away with the committee system all together and simply operate by Committee of the Whole. I don't think that makes good sense.

So we are very pleased with the manner in which this bill has been dealt with. Members of both sides have regarded it as a very bipartisan piece of legislation. I will make a prediction it is going to pass with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, it is good to see my good friend from Washington again. We actually visited Iraq together. I know how strongly he feels about this issue. I respect that. I would also point out, though, that we have discussed Iraq on many occasions in this House. We have in the past, we will in the future.

In addition to that, again I just wanted to remind my friends of the simple numbers: 88 amendments considered by the House Armed Services Committee, 75 accepted, about evenly split; 100 amendments proposed to the Rules Committee, 31 accepted, 6 considered or incorporated in the manager's amendment. Frankly, all the other matters where folks are disappointed or have a different point of view can be dealt with in a motion to recommit. I suspect they will be.

The reality is, we have had a very bipartisan process. We agree on 98 or 99 percent of the issues that will be incorporated, I suspect, on the final vote.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. COLE of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, we have had a good chance to debate the issues in the process today. After this debate, I am convinced that the process worked as it should. There can be no debating the basic facts. The House Armed Services Committee considered 88 amendments; 75 of those amendments, 38 Democrat, 36 Republican, one bipartisan, were incorporated into the legislation.

The House Rules Committee received over 100 amendments; 31 of those were made in order. They were about evenly balanced between the two parties. An additional six were incorporated into the manager's amendment. Numerous minority amendments were accepted and moved through regular order. The ranking members of the subcommittees and the full House Armed Services Committee all support the underlying legislation.

Ultimately, there can be no dispute that the process followed for this legislation was fully the regular order. It was fair and protected minority rights.

I think that we should focus, as we come to the conclusion of this debate, on what unites us instead of what divides us. The fact is that we agree on both sides of the House with 97 or 98 percent of what is in the actual legislation.

This is actually a model of bipartisan cooperation, a consensus, despite some of the rhetoric that we have here today. To that end, Mr. Speaker, I urge support for the rule and the underlying legislation.

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