[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 130 (Saturday, August 5, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1693]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND 
               RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1996

                                 ______


                          HON. JOHN D. DINGELL

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 4, 1995
  Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Speaker, early this morning, this House voted to 
approve one of the saddest pieces of legislation it has ever sent 
forward. We heard the astounding arguments that this Labor, Health and 
Human Services, Education, and related agencies appropriations bill 
will maintain, or even increase, funding for health and education 
programs that are vital to the well-being of our most vulnerable 
citizens. But these arguments, like the funding decisions themselves, 
are a sham and a coverup. They coverup the fact that in its allocation 
of funds to the Labor-HHS Subcommittee, this Republican-led Congress 
chose to ignore the needs of those citizens to save money for tax cuts 
for the wealthy, and for spending in the Department of Defense to 
purchase equipment that even the leaders of that Department stated they 
do not want or need. For years, that subcommittee has nurtured and 
supported programs that constitute the discretionary safety net for our 
children, our seniors living on fixed incomes, and our workers. The 
grossly insufficient allocation of funds to the Labor-HHS Subcommittee 
forced Chairman Porter to snip the threads of that net as if with a 
chain saw.
  But this bill does some very, very bad things as well. It terminates 
hundreds of programs, including over 60 programs of the Department of 
Health and Human Services--such as black lung clinics, State trauma 
care, substance abuse training and treatment, programs that counsel the 
elderly about their health insurance, the Low-Income Home Energy 
Assistance Program, programs that provide services to the homeless, 
nutrition programs for the elderly, and programs designed to reduce the 
rampant problem of drug abuse among young people. There are many 
reasons for us to be sad about what this Congress did by passing this 
bill.
  I applaud the dedicated work of Chairman Porter and Mr. Obey, for 
they have done yeoman work under excruciatingly difficult 
circumstances. I applaud them for increasing funds for the important 
research activities of NIH. I am pleased that the subcommittee 
recognized the importance of increased funding for breast and cervical 
cancer prevention activities at CDC, for childhood immunization, and 
for other prevention activities.
  But I am very concerned that this bill achieved those increases 
through a very short-sighted approach, and through robbing Peter to pay 
Paul. I want to focus on just two examples of this.
  The bill increases funding for infectious disease programs at CDC, 
but decreases CDC administrative costs by $31 million. This decrease 
takes funds not only from such things as office supplies and taxicab 
rides, but also for salaries and expenses for the
 researchers, doctors, and laboratory technicians, who are essential to 
CDC's activities in preventing and controlling infectious diseases and 
carrying out other critical activities. It also takes money from the 
budget that provides for CDC epidemiologists and doctors to travel to 
other parts of the country and the world, where they are often the only 
source of expertise related to a new, devastating epidemic.

  It is already extremely difficult for CDC to recruit and retain 
qualified scientists and physicians with expertise in infectious 
diseases. In this era of downsizing Government, the CDC infectious 
diseases program is losing people faster than it can replace them, and 
has increasingly limited ability to replace scientists with invaluable 
and unique expertise. In a March U.S. News and World Report article 
about CDC, entitled ``Tales from the Hot Zone,'' the deputy director of 
the infectious disease program stated the problem quite clearly: ``We 
are losing our expertise.''
  In infectious diseases, as in the other areas where CDC on paper 
receives increased funding, I fear the increase will be seriously 
undermined by virtue of the fact that this bill limits the agency's 
wherewithal to maintain the scientific expertise needed to do the job.
  Another short-sighted approach to this disastrous budget-slashing 
exercise is the reduction of funding for the National Institute for 
Occupational Safety and Health--a reduction that was then applied to 
allow the supporters of the bill to argue that they had increased 
funding for CDC. I fear that perhaps NIOSH is being punished because 
some may believe it is a regulatory, rather than a research agency. 
NIOSH is not a regulatory agency.
  The NIOSH funding cut eliminates the NIOSH training grants program 
and reduces research activities by over 15 percent. It would eliminate 
57 training grants, including 14 university-based educational resource 
centers which serve as regional resources on occupational safety and 
health for industry, labor, Government, academia, and the general 
public.
  NIOSH training grants have trained more than 2,700 professionals in 
occupational medicine and nursing, industrial hygiene, safety 
engineering, et cetera. These people have been trained to prevent and 
treat occupational diseases and injuries. There is a severe shortage of 
certified occupational health nurses and physicians, amounting to only 
about one physician and five nurses to every 80,000 active workers and 
20,000 retired or disabled workers.
  NIOSH is the only Federal agency conducting biomedical research on 
the causes of occupational illness and the only agency conducting 
applied research to identify, evaluate, and prevent work-related 
injuries and illness.
  At at time when Congress seems so intent that in-depth risk analysis 
must be associated with regulations, it is absurd to reduce the ability 
of this agency to ensure that there is sound science and risk 
assessment to underpin regulatory actions relating to worker heath and 
safety.
  NIOSH works closely with management and labor in its research 
activities, and currently is engaged in a tripartite agreement with 
General Motors and the UAW to conduct health and safety research. In a 
recent letter to the Director of NIOSH concerning this program, the GM 
vice president for R&D stated: ``we recognize NIOSH's distinct role as 
a R&D entity which has been very effective in injury prevention 
research over the last 25 years. This effort has ultimately saved the 
nation billions of dollars annually in medical costs, and also improved 
the health and welfare of every American worker and their families.''
  These are just two small but significant examples of the many ways in 
which this funding bill hurts the public health and hurts the people of 
this country. The House wants to balance the budget--we all agree on 
that goal. Many agree that all federal programs need to tighten their 
belts and contribute their ``fair share'' to important budget-reduction 
efforts. But the budget cutting in this Congress has not been honest, 
and it has not been fair. The money being saved is much greater than 
what is needed to balance the budget; it is being saved for tax breaks 
and unnecessary defense spending. The cuts have targeted the most 
unfortunate, the oldest and the youngest, and the most needy in our 
country. Nowhere is that more evident than in this appropriations bill. 
The ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations said it best in 
his dissenting views: this legislation ``will make it harder for 
ordinary people to hold on to a middle class life . . . more difficult 
for the disadvantaged to get the education and training which they need 
to work their way into the middle class . . . workers more vulnerable. 
. . . this bill marks a retreat from our efforts to be one people with 
common causes and common interests. Surely this Congress in a bi-
partisan way can do better.''


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