[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 29 (Tuesday, March 17, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H1179-H1181]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  AUTHORIZING USE OF CAPITOL GROUNDS FOR BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS EVENT

  Mr. KIM. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 238) authorizing the use of the 
Capitol Grounds for a breast cancer survivors event sponsored by the 
National Race for the Cure, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 238

       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), 

     SECTION 1. AUTHORIZATION OF BREAST CANCER SURVIVORS EVENT ON 
                   CAPITOL GROUNDS.

       The National Race for the Cure (referred to in this 
     resolution as the ``Race'') may sponsor a public event on the 
     Capitol Grounds on April 1, 1998, or on such other date as 
     the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President 
     pro tempore of the Senate may jointly designate.

     SEC. 2. CONDITIONS.

       (a) In General.--The event to be carried out under this 
     resolution shall be--
       (1) free of admission charge to the public; and
       (2) arranged not to interfere with the needs of Congress 
     and under conditions to be prescribed by the Architect of the 
     Capitol and the Capitol Police Board.
       (b) Responsibility.--The Race shall assume full 
     responsibility for all expenses and liabilities incident to 
     all activities associated with the event.

     SEC. 3. STRUCTURES AND EQUIPMENT.

       For the purposes of this resolution, the Race may erect 
     upon the Capitol Grounds, subject to the approval of the 
     Architect of the Capitol, such stage, sound amplification 
     devices, commemorative pink ribbon, and other related 
     structures and equipment as may be required for the event to 
     be carried out under this resolution.

     SEC. 4. ADDITIONAL ARRANGEMENTS.

       The Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police Board 
     may make any such additional arrangements that may be 
     required to carry out the event under this resolution.

     SEC. 5. APPLICABILITY OF PROHIBITIONS.

       Nothing in this resolution may be construed to waive the 
     applicability of the prohibitions established by section 4 of 
     the Act of July 31, 1946 (Chapter 707; 60 Stat. 718), 
     concerning sales, displays, and solicitations on the Capitol 
     Grounds.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Kim) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Kim).
  Mr. KIM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 238, as amended, authorizes 
the use of the Capitol Grounds by the National Race for the Cure to 
host an event on the morning of Wednesday, April 1, 1998. This event is 
a tribute to breast cancer survivors and will be free of charge and 
open to the public. Furthermore, it will not interfere with the needs 
of Congress.
  This Survivors Day event is intended to raise the awareness of breast 
cancer and emphasize the importance of education and early detection on 
a national level. The sponsor will assume full responsibility for all 
expenses and liabilities relating to the event.

                              {time}  1445

  In addition, all of the arrangements will be overseen by the 
Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police Board.
  The sponsor intends to erect a stage and a 50- to 75-foot pink 
ribbon, the commemorative symbol of breast cancer awareness, and sound 
amplification equipment.
  In addition, in order to satisfy the concerns regarding fund-raising 
activities, the amendment clarifies that this event will not involve 
any fund-raising activities, as this is a prohibited use of the Capitol 
grounds pursuant to title 40, section 193 of the United States Code.
  Mr. Speaker, breast cancer strikes 1 out of 8 American women and is 
the leading cause of death for women between the ages of 35 and 54. 
Early detection is known to provide the best chances of survival from 
this disease. This event will lend support to all survivors of breast 
cancer and demonstrate our commitment to the complete eradication of 
the disease.
  In conclusion, I wish to congratulate the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Solomon), the Chairman of the Committee on Rules who sponsored 
this resolution, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen), whose wife 
Tamra is a private organizer of this event.
  I support this resolution and urge my colleagues to support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 
Solomon).
  Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time. They are waiting upstairs for a quorum, and I have to get back up 
there.
  Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Senator Connie Mack, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Bentsen) and myself, I introduced House Concurrent 
Resolution 238. I want to say what an honor and privilege it has been 
to work with the distinguished Senator from Florida, Connie Mack, and 
his wife Priscilla on this very, very important initiative.
  I want to thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Buildings 
and Economic Development, the gentleman from California (Mr. Kim), and 
of course the ranking member, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. 
Oberstar), my good friend, as well for the opportunity to speak on this 
issue here this morning.
  Mr. Speaker, this a humble resolution. It simply authorizes the use 
of the Capitol grounds for an event on April 1st which will honor 
breast cancer survivors sponsored by the nationally recognized Race for 
the Cure.
  Mr. Speaker, the statistics are staggering. Breast cancer strikes 1 
in 8 women, as my good friend, the gentleman from California (Mr. Kim) 
has said, and is the leading cause of death

[[Page H1180]]

for women between the ages of 20 and 54. Today, there are 2.6 million 
women living with breast cancer in the United States. No woman is 
immune from the disease, and sadly, over 180,000 new cases will be 
diagnosed this year alone. In my home State of New York, nearly 14,000 
women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.
  Mr. Speaker, early detection is the key to winning the battle against 
breast cancer. We now know that regular mammography screenings with 
prompt treatment could result in one-third fewer deaths. The bad news 
is that only one-third of women follow the recommended screening 
guidelines.
  That is why we are here today, to authorize the use of the Capitol 
grounds to highlight the importance of education and early detection on 
a national level by celebrating survivors of breast cancer and 
enhancing public awareness of this devastating disease.
  Mr. Speaker, life is an incredible gift, and having survived a battle 
against cancer myself on 2 occasions in the past 4 years, I just want 
to urge everyone to come over here and pay tribute to these women and 
pass this bill today.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I am obviously very strong in support of the pending resolution, and 
I thank the Chair of the subcommittee for moving this legislation 
through so expeditiously, and the Chairman of the Committee on Rules 
for his very thoughtful words in support of an issue that is very 
special to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I bring a personal perspective as well as a legislative 
perspective to this issue. The nationally established Race for the Cure 
has done an enormous amount of good in education and in publicizing an 
issue nationally that until the early 1980s was one that sort of stood 
in the closet. Until that time, it was difficult for most people to say 
in a public setting the word breast, and then to associate it with 
cancer. But along about the early 1980s, this disease came to be of 
epidemic proportions.
  The Race for the Cure has brought this issue home to people of all 
walks of life all across the country, educating women to the need for 
self-examination, regular visits with a physician, regular 
mammographies for women of certain age, for women with a family history 
of breast cancer, for women with a family history of breast cancer and 
whose first child was born after the age of 30. And as women became 
better informed, as the terms entered our national lexicon, there have 
been enormous benefits. The Race for the Cure has raised dollars for 
cancer research, but more importantly, it has raised consciousness and 
awareness and the information level and the understanding level.
  When my wife Jo detected the lump in her breast and it was confirmed 
as malignant, and she had a mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy. The 
issue crashed in upon the Oberstar family. I was serving on the 
Committee on the Budget at the time, and I, for the first time, must 
shamefully admit, took a look at the number for breast cancer research. 
It was $35 million in 1983. It is now well over $500 million. I am 
pleased to say that I have had some role in moving it along in that 
direction, but there were lots of others who participated and made it 
happen.
  In the 8 years that Jo struggled with breast cancer, the ups and 
downs, the pain of treatment, the pain that our children felt as they 
lost the participation of their mother to an ever-increasing level of 
inability to function fully as a human being, but still with a great 
heart, with enormous love and great support for the children, to the 
degree that she could, in that period of 8 years, 300,000 women died of 
breast cancer.
  Annually, more women died in the 1980s of breast cancer than men and 
women died in the Vietnam War over 10 years. In the decade since the 
second round of onset of spread and metastasis of that disease in her 
body, 420,000 women have died of breast cancer.
  Research has been effective in opening new avenues of treatment, much 
earlier detection, much better treatment and care of breast cancer 
victims, but we are still a long way, we are not even halfway home; we 
are a long way from even seeing avenues to a cure, let alone truly 
effective treatments.
  The work that we do and activities like Race for the Cure does do 
something of extreme importance, and that is to bring home to women the 
importance of early detection, regular checkups. The earlier one 
detects the disease, the better chance one has of surviving.
  Our three daughters understand this all very well. Their mother had 
breast cancer; their grandmother had breast cancer. They are at some 
level of risk. But they have more at their disposal than their mother 
had. They know how early this disease can strike. They know that they 
need regular checkups. They know how quickly to act, and we want that 
kind of information brought home to women all across America. And the 
Race for the Cure is a way to do that.
  No longer should generations of mothers, cornerstone of humanity, 
worry, wonder, live in fear, sometimes terrifying fear, that they, too, 
may become victims.
  I applaud those who have organized in State after State across the 
country the Race for the Cure with the contribution they are making to 
future generations of women who can live more hopefully than did women 
of my wife's generation. The race may not be for a cure, but it has 
that objective in mind, and we must keep hope alive and keep research 
going and keep early detection and treatment nurtured by the benefits 
of this initiative.
  Mr. KIM. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to 
the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. 
The gentleman has spoken movingly of his own personal experience, one 
that I remember when it occurred. In doing so, I think he speaks for 
many Members of this House, who in one fashion or another have had 
family members to experience this disease. And in this respect, Mr. 
Speaker, I think that the Members of this House are truly 
representative of the American people, because this frightening disease 
is one that knows no group of any kind and is spread throughout the 
society. So it makes great sense that on the people's grounds we would 
grant an exception and allow a tribute to be held here in connection 
with the Race for the Cure.
  So I strongly support this resolution that would allow the use of the 
Capitol grounds for the so-called Capitol tribute to breast cancer 
survivors, and I do so in two capacities, or perhaps three, not only as 
a member of Congress, but as the cochair of the Congressional Women's 
Caucus, 50 Members strong, who all of us across party lines strongly 
support this resolution, and, of course, as the Member representing the 
Nation's Capital, which is proud and pleased to have this tribute take 
place in this city.
  I support this resolution for a special reason. I believe these 
events have made a tremendous difference. The gentleman from Minnesota 
(Mr. Oberstar) spoke about the need to raise consciousness. It is 
raising awareness that is saving lives. It is raising awareness that 
has sent women of every racial group and income group in huge numbers 
now to take advantage of mammography.
  What is most encouraging to me is to see how mammography has spread 
across all the discernible lines, and that could simply not have 
happened except for a very much elevated consciousness. We would not 
have poor women and women of color going to get their mammograms by the 
hundreds of thousands as we do today were it not for events like this 
that did perform the simple agent of raising consciousness.
  The Women's Caucus takes special note of this resolution and 
especially supports it. Breast cancer was long an underfunded disease 
spreading at frightening rates throughout our society, and the Women's 
Caucus years ago took it as its own special mission and obligation to 
see to it that funding was increased for the eradication of breast 
cancer.

                              {time}  1500

  Funding matters and raising consciousness matters. I think we see 
that in the figures that were reported on March 13, that in the first 5 
years of the 1990s the annual number of new cases for cancer of all 
kinds fell steadily, and this happened among men and

[[Page H1181]]

women of all ethnic groups and most age groups.
  I was particularly heartened that this downward trend for cancer was 
noted among several specific kinds of cancer: lung, prostate, colon or 
rectal and, yes, breast cancer.
  This is, of course, as we might imagine, Mr. Speaker, the most 
frightening form of cancer for women. Perhaps it is not the most 
devastating, but it just as well may be, because it attacks the mind 
and the spirit with special viciousness, even as it is attacking the 
body.
  Among women, breast cancer has declined for whites, and it has 
declined for Asians and for Hispanics. But during those years, 1990 to 
1995, it rose for blacks. This rise for one group and the continuing 
numbers of women who get breast cancer of course takes away from the 
very hopeful statistics that are beginning to be reported. Breast 
cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths to American women, 
second only to lung cancer. It is the leading cause of cancer death 
among women ages 40 to 55.
  Mr. Speaker, those are the ages when women are finally done with 
child-rearing, can come forward and blossom fully; and to have cancer 
occur at those prime years is simply intolerable. Even with the more 
hopeful statistics, even with the access to mammograms we now see 
across all groups in the society, 44,000 women died from breast cancer 
in 1997 and 180,000 new cases of the disease were diagnosed. We can do 
much better than that. We can do better than that not so much by curing 
cancer with some magic potion but by preventing cancer and by detecting 
cancer early with mammograms.
  I greet this activity on the part of the Race for the Cure. I think 
it is most appropriate for the Congress to show its special concern 
beyond our funding, beyond the leadership of the Women's Caucus, by 
opening up this place, these grounds, for this special tribute. The 
Race for the Cure is a joyful event. There will be many breast cancer 
survivors participating, but it must reminded us that the Race for the 
Cure is still a race to be won.
  Mr. KIM. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Gilman), Chairman of the Committee on International 
Relations.
  (Mr. GILMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in strong support of this measure. 
The National Race for the Cure has had a major impact upon our Nation. 
Last year, as I recall, there was a postage stamp dedicated to the Race 
for the Cure, just to emphasize how important this national program is. 
It raises millions and millions of dollars each year, and there is no 
better place to show leadership for the national Race for the Cure than 
here in our Nation's capital.
  I know many of our congressional spouses, including my own, are very 
actively involved in the National Race for the Cure, because they feel 
very strongly about the impact upon women. It is for that reason I am 
pleased to rise in support of this measure, and I hope our colleagues 
give it full support.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, from time to time I have raised questions about various 
events proposed for the Capitol grounds, some of which I have thought 
were inappropriate or limited to a very narrow interest group. This 
event, the National Race for the Cure, to be held on April 1, is a 
broadly-inclusive event, one in which a wide range of people 
participate. It does not serve a special interest, it serves all 
interests. It is certainly in the category, in my classification, of 
those kinds of events that are appropriate for the grounds of our 
Nation's Capitol.
  Mr. Speaker, the event that we will authorize by this resolution 
will, again, contribute to continued public understanding and awareness 
of breast cancer, I should mention, not only for women but also for 
men. While some 178,000 cases are expected by the National Cancer 
Institute to be diagnosed in women this year, also some 1,600 of breast 
cancer in men will be diagnosed this year. That is about an average 
number. It is much less a threat to men's health than breast cancer is 
to women's health, but it should be noted for the Record that men are 
not immune, either, from this dread disease.
  While there has been an improvement in the detection rate, about a 4 
percent decline in detection of breast cancers or incidents, I should 
say, of breast cancer, that is minuscule. It is a movement in the right 
direction, but it is minuscule. It shows how large the task is ahead of 
us.
  Let us engage in this event, participate, give it our moral support, 
give it our physical support, not only here in the Nation's capital but 
throughout the country in our respective States, so that the greater 
awareness, the increased research that is undertaken year after year 
and focused on this disease will mean for future generations of young 
women that they will not have to wonder and worry about a fate that 
befell their mothers and grandmothers; that hopefully the day will come 
when there really is a cure and the race will be over.
  Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in strong support of 
this bipartisan resolution authorizing the use of the Capitol Grounds 
for a Breast Cancer Survivors Event Sponsored by the National Race for 
the Cure.
  While we have made progress in mounting an aggressive federal attack 
on breast cancer and the tragedy it causes, we still have far to go. 
Women continue to face a 1 in 8 chance of developing breast cancer 
during their lifetimes. It remains the most frequent major cancer in 
women and the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women. Last 
year, an estimated 182,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 
46,000 died of the disease.
  We must increase our investment in breast cancer research. We know 
very little about how to prevent the disease and treatment options are 
few. At least two-thirds of breast cancers occur in women with no known 
risk factors.
  Just last weekend, I was honored to present a leadership award to 
Nancy Brinker, who established the Susan Komen Breast Cancer Foundation 
and who created the Race for the Cure. This event has become the 
nation's largest 5K series held in a record 86 cities throughout the 
United States in 1998.
  It is most appropriate that this House approve the use of our 
nation's Capitol for this important event, and take this opportunity to 
redouble our efforts to eradicate breast cancer.
  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. KIM. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Stearns). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Kim) that the House 
suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 
238, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution, as 
amended, was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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