[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 74 (Thursday, May 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5567-S5571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. LEVIN (for himself and Mr. Abraham):
S. 1797. A bill to revise the requirements for procurement of
products of Federal Prison Industries to meet needs of Federal
agencies, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
The Federal Prison Industries Competition in Contracting Act
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, with
Senator Abraham, the Federal Prison Industries Competition in
Contracting Act. This bill, if enacted, would eliminate the requirement
for Federal agencies to purchase products made by Federal Prison
Industries and require that FPI to compete commercially for Federal
contracts. It would implement a key recommendation of the Vice
President's National Performance Review, which concluded that we should
``Take away the Federal Prison Industries' status as a mandatory source
of Federal supplies and require it to compete commercially for Federal
agencies' business.'' Most importantly, it would ensure that the
taxpayers get the best possible value for their Federal procurement
dollars.
Mr. President, the Director of Federal Prison Industries, Mr. Steve
Schwalb, told me earlier this year that his agency is fully capable of
competing with private industry for Federal contracts. Indeed, FPI
would have a significant advantage in any such head-to-head
competition: FPI pays inmates only $1.35 an hour, less than a third of
the minimum wage and a small fraction of the wage paid to most private
sector workers in competing industries.
The taxpayers already provide a direct subsidy Federal Prison
Industries products by picking up the cost of feeding, clothing, and
housing the inmates
[[Page S5568]]
who provide the labor. There is no reason why we should provide an
indirect subsidy as well, by requiring Federal agencies to purchase
products from FPI even when they are more expensive and of a lower
quality than competing commercial items.
Despite Mr. Schwalb's statement that Federal Prison Industries is
capable of competing with the private sector, FPI remains unwilling to
do so. The reason is obvious: it is much easier to gain market share by
fiat than it is to compete for business. Under current law, FPI need
not offer the best product at the best price; it is sufficient for it
to offer an adequate product at an adequate price, and insist upon its
right to make the sale. Indeed, FPI currently advertises that it offers
Federal agencies ``ease in purchasing'' through ``a procurement with no
bidding necessary.'' The result of the FPI's status as a mandatory
source is not unlike the result of other sole-source contracting: the
taxpayers frequently pay too much and receive an inferior product for
their money.
Mr. President, I do not consider myself to be an enemy of Federal
Prison Industries. I am a strong supporter of the idea of putting
Federal inmates to work. I understand that a strong prison work program
not only reduces inmate idleness and prison disruption, but can also
help build a work ethic, provide job skills, and enable prisoners to
return to product society upon their release.
However, I believe that prison work must be conducted in a manner
that is sensitive to the need not to unfairly eliminate the jobs of
hard-working citizens who have not committed crimes. FPI will be able
to achieve this result only if it diversifies its product lines and
avoids the temptation to build its work force by continuing to displace
private sector jobs in its traditional lines of work. For this reason,
I have been working since 1990 to try to help Federal Prison Industries
to identify new markets that it can expand into without displacing
private sector jobs. I had hoped.
In 1990, the House Appropriations Committee requested a study to
identify new opportunities for FPI to meet its growth requirements,
assess FPI's impact on private sector businesses and labor, and
evaluate the need for changes to FPI's laws and mandates. That study,
conducted by Deloitte & Touche, concluded that FPI should meet its
growth needs by using new approaches and new markets, not by expanding
its production in traditional industries. The Deloitte & Touch study
concluded:
FPI needs to maintain sales in industries that produce
products such as traditional furniture and furnishings,
apparel and textile products, and electronic assemblies to
maintain inmate employment during the transition.
These industries should not be expanded, and FPI should
limit its market shares to current levels.
I followed up on that report by meeting with Federal Prison
Industries officials and participating in a summit process, sponsored
by the Brookings Institute, designed to develop alternative growth
strategies for FPI. The summit process resulted in two suggested areas
for growth: First, entering partnerships with private sector companies
to replace offshore labor; and second, entering the recycling business
in areas such as mattresses and electrical motors.
In January 1994, I urged FPI to move quickly to implement these
recommendations and develop new markets. At that time, I wrote to
Kathleen M. Hawk, the Director of the Bureau of Federal Prisons, as
follows:
As you know, I am supportive of FPI's role in keeping
inmates occupied and teaching them a work ethic and job
skills. However, FPI's continued market share growth in the
government furniture market has had an unfair and
disproportionate impact on that particular sector. In order
to take pressure off of such traditional industries where FPI
has focused, FPI should cap its market share and diversify
its activities away from these traditional industries and
into alternative growth strategies.
I am alarmed that FPI continues to increase its share of
government purchases of furniture. The 1991 Deloitte and
Touche study recommended that FPI limit its industry market
share to current levels in traditional industries. It would
be a welcome sign of goodwill in this ``summit'' process if
FPI were to cap its market share in the furniture industry
while aggressively pursuing acceptable alternative growth
strategies.
Unfortunately, Federal Prison Industries has chosen to take the exact
opposite course of action. Earlier this year, FPI acted unilaterally to
virtually double its furniture sales from $70 million to $130 million
and from 15 percent of the Federal market to 25 percent of the Federal
market, over the next 5 years. In direct contravention of the Deloitte
& Touche recommendations, FPI has announced its intention to undertake
similar market share increases in other traditional product lines, such
as work clothing and protective clothing.
In defense of this action FPI contends that it will not place an
undue burden on the private sector because most firms within the
industry are not heavily involved in the Federal market.
Mr. President, Federal Prison Industries cannot have it both ways. If
they are providing a substantial number of jobs to inmates, then they
must be displacing a substantial number of jobs in the private sector.
A substantial increase in FPI's business means a similar decrease in
U.S. private sector business--unless it is displacing imports, which is
what FPI should be doing. Instead of diversifying as recommended by the
Deloitte & Touche study and the Brookings summit, FPI is going back to
the same well yet again, and taking it out of the hide of the same
traditional industries.
Mr. President, this is the easy way out, but it isn't the right way
for FPI, it isn't the right way for the private sector workers whose
jobs FPI is taking, and it isn't the right way for the taxpayer, who
will continue to pay more and get less as a result of the mandatory
preference for FPI goods. We need to have jobs for prisoners, but can
no longer afford to allow FPI to designate whose jobs it will take, and
when it will take them. Competition will be better for FPI, better for
the taxpayer, and better for working men and women around the
country.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join with my
distinguished colleague from Michigan in sponsoring this legislation. I
think that Federal Prison Industries plays an extremely valuable role
in giving prisoners something useful to do with their time and helping
them to develop the self-discipline and other virtues that enable
people outside of prison to lead productive lives. I am convinced,
however, that these same goals can be accomplished within the
parameters set by this legislation. I also see no reason why the law
abiding owners of small businesses and the workers they employ should
be deprived of any opportunity to bid for a class of government
contracts in favor of FPI. Finally, I appreciate Senator Levin's
acceptance of my suggestion to include section 2, which I believe
provides useful encouragement to FPI to try to concentrate its
expansion efforts in the direction of goods that the Government
presently acquires by importing them.
By Mr. FEINGOLD:
S. 1798. A bill to amend the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 to
clarify the acreage limitations and incorporate a means test for
certain farm operations, and for other purposes; to the Committee on
Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
The Irrigation Subsidy Reduction Act of 1996
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am introducing today a new measure to
curb the receipt of Federal irrigation subsidies by large agribusiness
interests. I am introducing legislation in this area as a deficit
reduction measure because I believe that the Federal Government needs
to scrutinize carefully all forms of assistance it provides in these
times of fiscal constraint. I am also prompted to act in this area, Mr.
President, because the Federal Government has been unable to correct
fundamental abuses of reclamation law that cost the taxpayer millions
of dollars every year.
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation, which
came to be known as the Reclamation Act, to encourage development of
family farms throughout the western United States. The idea was to
provide needed water for areas that were otherwise dry and give small
farms--those no larger than 160 acres--a chance, with a helping hand
from the Federal Government, to establish themselves.
Under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982, Congress acted to expand
the size of the farms that could receive subsidized water to 960 acres.
The RRA of 1982 expressly prohibits farms that
[[Page S5569]]
exceed 960 acres in size from receiving Federally-subsidized water.
These restrictions were added to the Reclamation law to close loopholes
through which Federal subsidies were flowing to large agribusinesses
rather than the small family farmers that Reclamation projects were
designed to serve. Agribusinesses were expected to pay full cost for
all water received on land in excess of their 960-acre entitlement.
Despite the express mandate of Congress, regulations promulgated under
the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 have failed to keep big agricultural
water users from receiving Federal subsidies. The General Accounting
Office and the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior
continue to find that the acreage limits established in law are
circumvented through the creation of arrangements such as farming
trusts. These trusts, which in total acreage well exceed the 960 acre
limit, are comprised of smaller units that are not subject to the
reclamation acreage cap. These smaller units are farmed under a single
management agreement often through a combination of leasing and
ownership.
Three years ago, as part of a settlement of a suit with the Natural
Resources Defense Council, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to propose
new regulations under the reclamation program. At the beginning of
February 1996, the Administration issued its final environmental impact
statement [EIS] on its proposed regulations. On March 8, 1996 I joined
with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley], the Senator from New
Hampshire (Mr. Gregg) and others in writing to the President to express
our concern and disappointment that these new regulations would
continue to allow the 960-acre loophole to be exploited. Indeed,
neither the Bureau's ``preferred option'' for the regulation, nor any
of the alternatives they describe in the EIS, would act to curb
irrigation water abuses by these agribusiness trusts.
Last week, I received a response to the letter I joined in sending to
the Department of the Interior. The letter states, ``Last spring's
release of a proposed rule making and draft EIS prompted nearly 400
letters and 8 public hearings on these complex issues during the
comment period. The FEIS alternative responds to many of the comments
we received.'' Mr. President, this letter specifically does not respond
to the concerns that I, the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and
others raised. Now is the time, in light of the Department's inability
to correct this problem, to look back to the statute and attempt to
correct the costly loopholes that it facilitates.
Presently, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, there are 80 such
trusts receiving subsidized water on more than 738,000 acres of land,
or about 10 percent of the land for which the Bureau of Reclamation
provides water. In a 1989 GAO report, the activities of six of these
trusts were fully explored. According to GAO, one 12,345 acre cotton
farm--roughly 20 square miles--operating under a single partnership,
was reorganized to avoid the 960-acre limitation into 15 separate land
holdings through 18 partnerships, 24 corporations, and 11 trusts which
were all operated as one large unit. A seventh very large trust was the
sole topic of a 1990 GAO report. The Westhaven trust is a 23,238-acre
farming operation in California's Central Valley. It was formed for the
benefit of 326 salaried employees of the J.G. Boswell Company. Boswell,
GAO found, had taken advantage of section 214 of the RRA, which exempts
from its 960-acre limit land held for beneficiaries by a trustee in a
fiduciary capacity, as long as no single beneficiary's interest exceeds
the law's ownership limits. The RRA, as I have mentioned, does not
preclude multiple land holdings from being operated collectively under
a trust as one farm while qualifying individually for federally
subsidized water. Accordingly, the J.G. Boswell Company reorganized
23,238 acres it held as the Boston Ranch by selling them to the
Westhaven Trust, with the land holdings attributed to each beneficiary
being eligible to receive federally subsidized water.
Before the land was sold to Westhaven Trust, the J.G. Boswell Company
operated the acreage as one large farm and paid full cost for the
Federal irrigation water delivered for the 18-month period ending in
May 1989. When the trust bought the land, due to the loopholes in the
law, the entire acreage became eligible to receive federally subsidized
water because the land holdings attributed to the 326 trust
beneficiaries range from 21 acres to 547 acres--all well under the 960-
acre limit.
In the six cases the GAO reviewed in 1989, owners or lessees paid a
total of about $1.3 million less in 1987 for Federal water then they
would have paid if their collective land holdings were considered as
large farms subject to the Reclamation Act acreage limits. Had
Westhaven trust been required to pay full cost, GAO estimated in 1990,
it would have paid $2 million more for its water. The GAO also found,
in all seven of these cases, that reduced revenues are likely to
continue unless Congress amends the Reclamation Act to close the
loopholes allowing benefits for trusts.
The legislation that I am introducing combines various elements of
proposals introduced during previous attempts by other members of
Congress to close loopholes in the 1982 legislation and to impose a
$500,000 means test. This new approach limits the amount of subsidized
irrigation water delivered to any operation in excess of the 960-acre
limit which claimed $500,000 or more in gross income, as reported on
their most recent IRS tax form. If the $500,000 threshold were
exceeded, an income ratio would be used to determine how much of the
water should be delivered to the user at the full-cost rate, and how
much at the below-cost rate. For example, if a 961-acre operation
earned $1 million dollars, a ratio of $500,000 (the means test value)
divided by their gross income would determine the full cost rate, thus
the water user would pay the full cost rate on half of their acreage
and the below cost rate on the remaining half.
This means testing proposal was profiled in this year's ``Green
Scissors'' report, written by Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for
Common Sense and supported by 21 other environmental and consumer
groups, including groups like the Concord Coalition, the Progressive
Policy Institute. The premise of the report is that there are a number
of subsidies and projects, totaling $39 billion dollars in all, that
could be cut to both reduce the deficit and benefit the environment.
This report coalesces what I and many others in the Senate have long
known, we must be diligent in eliminating practices that can no longer
be justified in light of our enormous annual deficit and national debt.
The ``Green Scissors'' recommendation on means testing water subsidies
indicates that if a test is successful in reducing subsidy payments to
the highest grossing 10 percent of farms, then the Federal Government
would recover at least $440 million per year, or at least $2.2 billion
over 5 years.
The measure I introduce today is my third legislative effort in the
area of irrigation subsidies, all of which have been profiled in the
``Green Scissors'' report. In February of 1995, I introduced two
related pieces of legislation aimed at reducing double dipping for
irrigation water subsidies that cost the Federal taxpayers millions of
dollars each year. I hope that other Members will join me in sponsoring
these efforts, as elimination of western water subsidies, and a wide
range of reclamation subsidies, should be pursued as legitimate deficit
reduction opportunities.
When countless Federal program are subjected to various types of
means tests to limit benefits to those who truly need assistance, it
makes little sense to continue to allow large business interests to dip
into a program intended to help small entities struggling to survive.
Taxpayers have legitimate concerns when they learn that their hard-
earned tax dollars are being expended to assist large corporate
interests in select regions of the country who benefit from these
loopholes. The Federal Water Program was simply never intended to
benefit these large interests.
In conclusion, Mr. President, it is clear that the conflicting
policies of the Federal Government in this area are in need of reform,
and if Federal agencies cannot be diligent in curbing this corporate
welfare administratively, Congress should act. Large agribusinesses
should not be able to continue to soak the taxpayers. We should act to
close these loopholes as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that
[[Page S5570]]
the text of the measure be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 1798
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Irrigation Subsidy Reduction
Act of 1996''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that--
(1) the Federal reclamation program has been in existence
for over 90 years, with an estimated taxpayer investment of
over $70,000,000,000;
(2) the program has had and continues to have an enormous
effect on the water resources and aquatic environments of the
western States;
(3) irrigation water made available from Federal water
projects in the West is a very valuable resource for which
there are increasing and competing demands;
(4) the justification for providing water at less than full
cost was to benefit and promote the development of small
family farms and exclude large corporate farms, but this
purpose has been frustrated over the years due to inadequate
implementation of subsidy and acreage limits;
(5) below-cost water prices tend to encourage excessive use
of scarce water supplies in the arid regions of the West, and
reasonable price increases to the wealthiest western farmers
would provide an economic incentive for greater water
conservation;
(6) the Federal Government has increasingly applied
eligibility tests based on income for Federal entitlement and
subsidy programs, measures that are consistent with the
historic approach of the reclamation program's acreage
limitations that seek to limit water subsidies to smaller
farms; and
(7) including a means test based on gross income in the
reclamation program will increase the effectiveness of
carrying out the family farm goals of the Federal reclamation
laws.
SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS.
(a) Definitions.--Section 202 of the Reclamation Reform Act
of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390bb) is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraphs (7), (8), (9), (10), and
(11) as paragraphs (9), (10), (11), (12), and (13),
respectively;
(2) in paragraph (6) by striking ``owned or operated under
a lease which'' and inserting ``owned, leased, or operated by
an individual or legal entity and which'';
(3) by inserting after paragraph (6) the following:
``(7) Legal entity.--The term `legal entity' includes a
corporation, association, partnership, trust, joint tenancy,
or tenancy in common, or any other entity that owns, leases,
or operates a farm operation for the benefit of more than 1
individual under any form of agreement or arrangement.
``(8) Operator.--
``(A) In general.--The term `operator'--
``(i) means an individual or legal entity that operates a
single farm operation on a parcel (or parcel) of land that is
owned or leased by another person (or persons) under any form
of agreement or arrangement (or agreements or arrangements);
and
``(ii) if the individual or legal entity--
``(I) is an employee of an individual or legal entity,
includes the individual or legal entity; or
``(II) is a legal entity that controls, is controlled by,
or is under common control with another legal entity,
includes each such other legal entity.
``(B) Operation of a farm operation.--For the purposes of
subparagraph (A), an individual or legal entity shall be
considered to operate a farm operation if the individual or
legal entity is the person that performs the greatest
proportion of the decisionmaking for and supervision of the
agricultural enterprise on land served with irrigation
water.''; and
(4) by adding at the end the following:
``(14) Single farm operation.--
``(A) In general.--The term `single farm operation' means
the total acreage of land served with irrigation water for
which an individual or legal entity is the operator.
``(B) Rules for determining whether separate parcels are
operated as a single farm operation.--
``(i) Equipment- and labor-sharing activities.--The conduct
of equipment- and labor-sharing activities on separate
parcels of land by separate individuals or legal entities
shall not by itself serve as a basis for concluding that the
farming operations of the individuals or legal entities
constitute a single farm operation.
``(ii) Performance of certain services.--The performance by
an individual or legal entity of an agricultural chemical
application, pruning, or harvesting for a farm operation on a
parcel of land shall not by itself serve as a basis for
concluding that the farm operation on that parcel of land is
part of a single farm operation operated by the individual or
entity on other parcels of land.''.
(b) Identification of Owners, Lessees, and Operators and of
Single Farm Operations.--The Reclamation Reform Act of 1982
(43 U.S.C. 39aa et seq.) is amended by inserting after
section 201 the following:
``SEC. 201A. IDENTIFICATION OF OWNERS, LESSEES, AND OPERATORS
AND OF SINGLE FARM OPERATIONS.
``(a) In General.--Subject to subsection (b), for each
parcel of land to which irrigation water is delivered or
proposed to be delivered, the Secretary shall identify a
single individual or legal entity as the owner, lessee, or
operator.
``(b) Shared Decisionmaking and Supervision.--If the
Secretary determines that no single individual or legal
entity is the owner, lessee, or other individual that
performs the greatest proportion of decisionmaking for and
supervision of the agricultural enterprise on a parcel of
land--
``(1) all individuals and legal entities that own, lease,
or perform a proportion of decisionmaking and supervision
that is equal as among themselves but greater than the
proportion performed by any other individual or legal entity
shall be considered jointly to be the owner, lessee, or
operator; and
``(2) all parcels of land of which any such individual or
legal entity is the owner, lessee, or operator shall be
considered to be part of the single farm operation of the
owner, lessee, or operator identified under subsection (1).
(c) Pricing.--Section 205 of the Reclamation Reform Act of
1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ee) is amended by adding at the end the
following:
``(d) Single Farm Operations Generating More Than $500,000
in Gross Farm Income.--
``(1) In general.--Notwithstanding subsections (a), (b),
and (c), in the case of--
``(A) a qualified recipient that reports gross farm income
from a single farm operation in excess of $500,000 for a
taxable year; or
``(B) a limited recipient that received irrigation water on
or before October 1, 1981, and that reports gross farm income
from a single farm operation in excess of $500,000 for a
taxable year;
irrigation water may be delivered to the single farm
operation of the qualified recipient or limited recipient at
less than full cost to a number of acres that does not exceed
the number of acres determined under paragraph (2).
``(2) Maximum number of acres to which irrigation water may
be delivered at less than full cost.--The number of acres
determined under this subparagraph is the number equal to the
number of acres of the single farm operation multiplied by a
fraction, the numerator of which is $500,000 and the
denominator of which is the amount of gross farm income
reported by the qualified recipient or limited recipient in
the most recent taxable year.
``(3) Inflation adjustment.--
``(A) In general.--The $500,000 amount under paragraphs (1)
and (2) for any taxable year beginning in a calendar year
after 1997 shall be equal to the product of--
``(i) $500,000, multiplied by
``(ii) the inflation adjustment factor for the taxable
year.
``(B) Inflation adjustment factor.--The term `inflation
adjustment factor' means, with respect to any calendar year,
a fraction the numerator of which is the GDP implicit price
deflator for the preceding calendar year and the denominator
of which is the GDP implicit price deflator for 1996. Not
later than April 1 of any calendar year, the Secretary shall
publish the inflation adjustment factor for the preceding
calendar year.
``(C) GDP implicit price deflator.--For purposes of
subparagraph (B), the term `GDP implicit price deflator'
means the first revision of the implicit price deflator for
the gross domestic product as computed and published by the
Secretary of Commerce.
``(D) Rounding.--If any increase determined under
subparagraph (A) is not a multiple of $100, the increase
shall be rounded to the next lowest multiple of $100.''.
(d) Certification of Compliance.--Section 206 of the
Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ff) is amended
to read as follows:
``SEC. 206. CERTIFICATION OF COMPLIANCE.
``(a) In General.--As a condition to the receipt of
irrigation water for land in a district that has a contract
described in section 203, each owner, lessee, or operator in
the district shall furnish the district, in a form prescribed
by the Secretary, a certificate that the owner, lessee, or
operator is in compliance with this title, including a
statement of the number of acres owned, leased, or operated,
the terms of any lease or agreement pertaining to the
operation of a farm operation, and, in the case of a lessee
or operator, a certification that the rent or other fees paid
reflect the reasonable value of the irrigation water to the
productivity of the land.
``(b) Documentation.--The Secretary may require a lessee or
operator to submit for the Secretary's examination--
``(1) a complete copy of any lease or other agreement
executed by each of the parties to the lease or other
agreement; and
``(2) a copy of the return of income tax imposed by chapter
1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for any taxable year
in which the single farm operation of the lessee or operator
received irrigation water at less than full cost.''.
(e) Trusts.--Section 214 of the Reclamation Reform Act of
1982 (43 U.S.C. 390nn) is repealed.
(f) Administrative Provisions.--
(1) Penalties.--Section 224(c) of the Reclamation Reform
Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ww(c)) is amended--
(A) by striking ``(c) The Secretary'' and inserting the
following:
``(c) Regulations; Data Collection; Penalties.--
``(1) Regulations; data collection.--The Secretary''; and
[[Page S5571]]
(B) by adding at the end the following:
``(2) Penalties.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, the Secretary shall establish appropriate and effective
penalties for failure to comply with any provision of this
Act or any regulation issued under this Act.''.
(2) Interest.--Section 224(i) of the Reclamation Reform Act
of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ww(i)) is amended by striking the last
sentence and inserting the following: ``The interest rate
applicable to underpayments shall be equal to the rate
applicable to expenditures under section 202(3)(C).''.
(g) Reporting.--Section 228 of the Reclamation Reform Act
of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390zz) is amended by inserting ``operator
or'' before ``contracting entity'' each place it appears.
(h) Memorandum of Understanding.--The Reclamation Reform
Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390aa et seq.) is amended--
(1) by redesignating sections 229 and 230 as sections 230
and 231; and
(2) by inserting after section 228 the following:
``SEC. 229. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING.
``The Secretary, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the
Secretary of Agriculture shall enter into a memorandum of
understanding or other appropriate instrument to permit the
Secretary, notwithstanding section 6103 of the Internal
Revenue Code of 1986, to have access to and use of available
information collected or maintained by the Department of the
Treasury and the Department of Agriculture that would aid
enforcement of the ownership and pricing limitations of
Federal reclamation law.''.
______
By Ms. SNOWE (for herself, Ms. Mikulski, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs.
Murray and Ms. Moseley-Braun):
S. 1799. A bill to promote greater equity in the delivery of health
care services to American women through expanded research on women's
health issues and through improved access to health care services,
including preventive health services; to the Committee on Labor and
Human Resources.
Women's Health Equity Act of 1996
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I am extremely pleased to join with Senator
Mikulski in introducing the Women's Health Equity Act of 1996. I
believe that this event is historic, not only because of the impressive
breadth and depth of this legislation, but because five women Senators,
including Senators Feinstein, Murray, and Moseley-Braun, have joined
together to set an agenda for congressional action to improve women's
health.
For too many years, women's health care needs were ignored or poorly
understood, and women were systematically excluded from important
health research. One famous medical study on breast cancer examined
hundreds of men. And another federally funded study examined the
ability of aspirin to prevent heart attacks in 20,000 medical doctors,
all of whom were men, despite the fact that heart disease is the
leading cause of death among women.
Today, Members and the American public understand the importance of
ensuring that both genders benefit equally from the fruits of medical
research and the delivery of health care services. Unfortunately,
equity does not yet exist in health care, and we have a long way to go.
Knowledge about appropriate course of treatment for women lags far
behind that for men for many diseases. Research into diseases affecting
predominately women, such as breast cancer, for years went grossly
underfunded. And many women do not have access to critical reproductive
and other health services.
Throughout my tenure in the House and Senate, I have worked hard to
expose and eliminate this health care gender gap and improve women's
access to affordable, quality health services. And under my leadership
as the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, women
legislators in the House called for a GAO investigation into the
inclusion of women and minorities in medical research at the National
Institute of Health. This study documented the widespread exclusion of
women from medical research, and spurred the caucus to introduce the
first Women's Health Equity Act [WHEA] in 1990. This comprehensive
legislation provided Congress with its first broad, forward looking
health agenda intended to redress the historical inequities that face
women in medical research, prevention and services.
Since the initial introduction of WHEA in the 101st Congress, women
legislators have made important strides on behalf of women's health.
Legislation from that first package was signed into law as part of the
NIH Revitalization Act in June 1993, mandating the inclusion of women
and minorities in clinical trials at NIH. We established the Office of
Research on Women's Health at NIH, and secured dramatic funding
increases for research into breast cancer, osteoporosis, and cervical
cancer.
Today, I have joined forces with many of my women colleagues on a
bipartisan basis to take the next crucial step on the road to achieving
equity in health care. The Women's Health Equity Act of 1996 is
comprised of 39 bills devoted to research and services in areas of
critical importance to women's health. I have already introduced
several of the bills contained in WHEA in the Senate: the Consumer
Involvement in Breast Cancer Research Act; the Women's Health Office
Act; the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance Act
of 1996; the Patient Access to Clinical Studies Act; the Medicare Bone
Mass Measurement Coverage Act; and the Accurate Mammography Guidelines
Act. Together, these 39 bills represent the high-water mark for
legislation on women's health.
The research bills contained in title I of WHEA continue to push for
increased biomedical research in women's health at NIH and other
Federal agencies, and address the need for social policy to keep pace
with scientific technology. The impact of the environment of women's
health, women and AIDS, osteoporosis, and lupus are all addressed in
this title.
The service-oriented bills contained in title II of WHEA target new
areas such as the prevention of insurance discrimination based on
genetic information or participation in clinical research as well as
insurance protection for victims of domestic violence. Several bills
address the need for education and training of health professionals and
the importance of providing information about health risks and
prevention to women. Adolescent health, eating disorders,
postreproductive health, and breast and cervical prevention are also
addressed, as well as the need to designate obstetrician-gynecologists
as primary care providers for insurance purposes and to provide for
minimum hospital stays for mothers and their newborns.
Improving the health of American women requires a far greater
understanding of women's health needs and conditions, and ongoing
evaluation in the areas of research, education, prevention, treatment,
and the delivery of services. I believe that the 39 bills comprising
the Women's Health Equity Act will take a giant step in this direction,
and the passage of this legislation will help ensure that women's
health will never again be a missing page in America's medical
textbook.
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