[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 84 (Wednesday, June 28, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6000-S6003]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE DEPARTMENTS OF LABOR, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, AND EDUCATION, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS, 2001--Resumed
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will now resume consideration of
H.R. 4577, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 4577) making appropriations for the Department
of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and
related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30,
2001, and for other purposes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from
Tennessee is recognized to call up an amendment.
Amendment No. 3654
(Purpose: To increase the amount appropriated for the Inter-agency
Education Research Initiative)
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for
its immediate consideration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from Tennessee [Mr. Frist] proposes an
amendment numbered 3654.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the
amendment be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The amendment is as follows:
On page 18, line 7, insert before ``: Provided,'' the
following: ``(minus $10,000,000)''.
On page 68, line 23, strike ``$496,519,000'' and insert
``$506,519,000''.
On page 69, line 3, strike ``$40,000,000'' and insert
``$50,000,000''.
On page 69, line 6, insert after ``103-227'' the following:
``and $20,000,000 of that $50,000,000 shall be made available
for the Interagency Education Research Initiative''.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I have a modification to my amendment,
which I send to the desk.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has that right.
[[Page S6001]]
The amendment will be so modified.
The amendment (No. 3654), as modified, reads as follows:
On page 68, line 23, strike ``$496,519,000'' and insert
``$506,519,000''.
On page 69, line 3, strike ``$40,000,000'' and insert
``$50,000,000''.
On page 69, line 6, insert after ``103-227'' the following:
``and $20,000,000 of that $50,000,000 shall be made available
for the Interagency Education Research Initiative''.
Amounts made available under this Act for the
administrative and related expense of the Department of
Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, and the
Department of Education shall be further reduced on a pro
rata basis by $10,000,000.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, it is my understanding that a vote will be
scheduled on my amendment tomorrow morning. Therefore, I now ask for
the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise tonight to offer an amendment that I
think goes to the heart of so many of our debates here on the Senate
floor regarding education. My amendment would fully fund the Department
of Education's share of the Interagency Education Research Initiative
(IERI)--a collaborative effort of the Department of Education's
research arm--the Office of Educational Research and Improvement
(OERI)--the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The primary
objective of the IERI is to support the development and wide
dissemination of research-proven, technology-enabled educational
strategies that improve K-12 education.
We debate many new program ideas here in the Senate that have little
to no research to back up them up. Members offer new program after new
program in a mad attempt to cure what ails American education. I ask my
colleagues, ``wouldn't it be better to know what works before we spend
billions of dollars trying out things that may, in fact, not only not
work, but harm student achievement?'' Reading is a good example of
this. We tried many fads before the scientifically-based research
evidence came in that you've got to have phonics.
As we all know, advances in education, as in most other areas, depend
in no small part on vigorous and sustained research and development.
Indeed, state and local policymakers, as well as school level
administrators, are clamoring for information about ``what works'' to
guide their decisions. However, historic investments in such
educational research have been woefully inadequate, and the small
federal investments that have been made through the Department of
Education have not always resulted in the high-quality, scientifically
credible research that we have come to expect from many other research
agencies. Much of research that has come out of the Department of
Education in years past has been politically driven and not always of
the highest quality. IERI is a first step on the road to changing that.
Teaming up with highly respected research institutions like NSF and
NICHD, OERI is improving its research processes. In the 1997 PCAST
``Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12
Education,'' an advisory panel of technology, business, and education
leaders strongly urged that a significant Federal research investment
be undertaken in education, with a focus on educational technology. The
report pointed out that in 1997, we invested less than 0.1 percent of
the more than $300 billion spent on K-12 public education each year to
examine and improve educational practice; by contrast, the
pharmaceutical industry invests nearly a quarter of its expenditures on
the development and testing of new drugs. In addition to the
President's 1997 Technology Advisory Report, the Budget Committee Task
Force on Education's Interim Report, and this year's Republican Main
Street Partnership Paper on ``Defining the Federal Role in Education, A
Republican Perspective.'' both call for more spending on Education R&D.
At our Budget Committee Task Force on Education hearing on education
research, we learned that one of our main Federally funded research
institutions was operating with a budget that was smaller than what a
seed company expended in a facility devoted solely to breeding petunias
down the road.
Dr. Robert Slavin, the Co-Director of the Center for Research on the
Education of Students Placed At-Risk (CRESPAR), one of the Department
of Education's research centers, likened our current expenditures in
federal education research to health research that was limited to
``basic research and descriptions of how sick people are, but never
produced any cures for anything.'' Additionally, another proponent of
education research warns that ``poor research often leaves us with
inadequately tested and replicated fads, masquerading as innovations,
penetrating the system, frustrating the teachers, administrators,
parents and, most importantly, the children, and leaving us all worse
off than before.'' Unfortunately, it is often difficult to discern good
research from bad.
The precursor to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement
(OERI) was the National Institute of Education (NIE). Modeled after the
National Institutes of Health, which is widely respected, the NIE never
realized the same success as its role model. A Budget Committee
Education Task Force heard in 1998 that progress at OERI was stymied by
inadequate peer-review processes and a lack of good quality control
measures. Recognizing these problems, OERI--most recently under Dr.
Kent McGuire's leadership--has embarked on a number of promising
reforms, including an overhaul of its peer review system in partnership
with NIH. However, it is clear we must do more.
In response to the calls of practitioners and experts, the Federal
government launched the Interagency Education Research Initiative
(IERI) in FY1999. The ultimate objective of the IERI is to accelerate
the translation of robust research findings into concrete lessons for
educators to improve student achievement in preK-12 reading,
mathematics, and science. To achieve this goal, the National Science
Foundation, Department of Education, and National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development are supporting a fundamentally new
character of research in education that builds on the research
portfolios of each agency while filling a gap no one agency could
address alone. This research features interdisciplinary collaborations
across learning-related disciplines, is substantively focused on key
aspects of preK-12 education, and is conducted on a scale large enough
to learn generalizable lessons about what works and why. Witnesses at
hearings related to educational research in both the Senate and the
House over the past year (e.g., June 1999 in the Senate Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and October 1999 in the House
Basic Science Subcommittee) have urged the Congress to build upon and
support the IERI model.
Calls for all levels of the educational system to be accountable for
student learning are escalating at the same time that technologies
offer exciting new ways to help all students meet high standards of
excellence. Now more than ever is the time to elevate the role of
rigorous, peer-reviewed educational research--with a focus on
technology--in addressing the urgent challenges of educational reform.
With $30 million in FY1999 funds, the IERI team has already laid the
groundwork for this innovative research program with 14 new research
awards averaging $2 million per year. Another joint program
solicitation for $38 million in FY2000 funds has recently been
released. My amendment will fully fund the Department of Education's
share in order to continue to grow the IERI to leverage potentially
vast gains in student achievement with a relatively modest investment
in finding out ``what works.''
Education R&D is a young discipline. While the taxonomy for medicine
has been in development for millennia, engineering for centuries, and
biology for a few hundred years, the widespread public education of
children has occurred for barely more than a century. Consequently,
education R&D is even younger than that.
The Interagency Education Research Initiative will help expand our
knowledge base and will be money well spent.
The amendment is fully offset, and I urge my colleagues to support
this very worthwhile investment in our children's education.
[[Page S6002]]
Mr. ROBB. Mr. President, a majority of this body--myself included--
just voted to table both the Landrieu and Jeffords amendments, each of
which have the laudable goals of increasing funding for disadvantaged
and special education students. The problem with both amendments is
that they rob Peter to pay Paul. Both amendments reduce the amount of
funding in Title VI, which has been substantially increased this year.
The distinguished Chairman, the Senator from Pennsylvania, has
indicated that the $2.7 billion allocated for Title VI this year is for
the continuation of our class size reduction efforts and for funding,
for the first time since the 1950's, a massive school modernization
effort. The effect of these amendments is simply to reduce the number
of new teachers schools can hire or reduce the money they'll have
available to fix fire code violations or upgrade old schools with new
technology. That's not the answer. What we ought to be doing is making
a greater overall investment in public education.
I have co-sponsored a bill to increase the amount of Title I funding
from $8 billion to $12 billion in this year alone, and I have co-
sponsored a bill that puts us on track to fully fund our federal
commitment to IDEA within ten years. Our economically disadvantaged and
special needs students deserve more of a commitment from the federal
level, but they also deserve small class sizes and safe, modern
schools. It's simply wrong to pit these objectives against each other,
because in the end, our children are the ones that suffer and that is
why I voted to table two amendments that I would otherwise support.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to express my
disappointment that this bill does not provide $125 million for
supportive services for caregivers under the Older Americans Act (OAA).
As an appropriator, I understand the difficult funding constraints
under which Senator Specter and Senator Harkin operate. However, I also
know that providing and funding supportive services for caregivers has
strong bipartisan support and would meet a compelling human need.
Many of us have had personal experiences caring for parents or other
loved ones and understand firsthand the stresses and strains caregivers
face. Last year, the Subcommittee on Aging heard the compelling
testimony of Carolyn Erwin-Johnson, a family caregiver in Baltimore,
Maryland. Ms. Johnson has been caring for her mother who has Multiple
Sclerosis for sixteen years. She left Chicago and her work on a second
Masters degree to come to Baltimore and care for her mother at home,
rather than put her mother in a nursing home. She found a community-
based care system that was fragmented, underfunded, and overburdened.
After months of frustration and trying to find help, Ms. Johnson took
to hiring nursing aides off the street and training them to care for
her mother while she worked a forty hour work week. Even then, she
could only afford to pay for eight hours of help when her mother needed
24-hour care. She and her mother ended up paying on average between
$17,000 and $20,000 annually in out-of-pocket costs to care for her
mother at home.
Caregiving has taken its toll on Ms. Johnson. Today, she has been
diagnosed with two incurable, stress-related illnesses, changed jobs,
and seen her income drop to levels that mean she can no longer afford
to hire private aides. Ms. Johnson is helped by the 164 hours of
respite care she receives annually from the Alzheimer's Respite Care
Program. In the words of Ms. Johnson, ``Respite care programs are the
key to the survival and longevity of family caregivers.''
Mr. President, currently about 12.8 million adults need assistance
from others to carry out activities of daily living, such as bathing
and feeding. One in four adults currently provides care for an adult
with a chronic health condition. Many caregivers struggle with
competing demands of paid employment, raising a family, and caring for
a parent or other relative. Caregiving can take an emotional, physical,
mental, and financial toll. A recent study found that on average,
workers who take care of older relatives lose $659,139 in wages,
pension benefits, and Social Security over a lifetime. Further, the
estimated national economic value of informal caregiving was $196
billion in 1997.
The National Family Caregiver Support Program, originally proposed by
the President, would provide respite care, information and assistance,
caregiver counseling, training and peer support, and supplemental
services to caregivers and their families. Full funding of $125 million
would provide services to about 250,000 families. Senators Daschle,
Grassley and Breaux, DeWine, and I have all sponsored legislation in
this Congress to establish this program. Twenty four Senators joined me
earlier this year in urging the Labor/HHS Appropriations Subcommittee
to fully fund these supportive services for caregivers. I know other
colleagues of mine have also voiced support for funding these
worthwhile services. This is truly a step we can take that will meet a
compelling human need. It gets behind our Nation's families and helps
those who practice self-help.
As this bill moves to conference, I strongly urge the conferees to
re-evaluate the current decision not to fund caregiver support
services. As the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Aging, I am
working with my colleagues on the Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions Committee to reauthorize the OAA this year. I hope that we are
able to reach agreement on outstanding issues to reauthorize the OAA
this year. While we are working on reauthorization, I believe that we
must also move forward on funding caregiver support services. American
families are counting on us to act.
Mr. MACK. Mr, President, as many of my colleagues are aware, cancer
has played a prominent role in my family's history. Some in our
family--me, my wife Priscilla, our daughter Debbie--have been lucky
enough to have fought cancer and won. Others in our family have not
been so lucky. My father died of esophageal cancer, my mother died of
kidney cancer and my younger brother Michael died of melanoma at the
very young age of thirty-five.
As a result, Priscilla and I have become very active in the fight
against cancer and in spreading the message that early detection saves
lives. It's a part of who we are as a family.
And there are other families with their own stories. Michael J. Fox
and his family are waging war against Parkinson's disease. Mary Tyler
Moore and her family are fighting diabetes. Christopher Reeve and his
family are searching for a cure to paralysis. And millions of other
families across the United States are fighting their own battles
against AIDS, sickle-cell anemia, Lou Gehrig's disease, Alzheimer's and
the many, many other diseases that take our loved ones away from us.
What I've come to realize in my fight against cancer is the crucial
role the federal government plays in funding basic medical research at
the National Institutes of Health, and how important basic research is
to finding breakthroughs not just for cancer but for all of the
diseases which affect our families.
For several years now, doubling funding at NIH has been a primary
goal of mine in the Senate. The Federal Government, mainly through the
NIH, funds about 36 percent of all biomedical research in this country,
and plays an especially large role in basic research.
Recently, the Joint Economic Committee, released a first-of-its kind
study: ``The Benefits of Medical Research and the Role of the NIH,''
which examines how funding for the NIH cuts the high economic costs of
disease, reduces suffering from illness, and helps Americans live
longer, healthier lives. And I'd like to take a moment, Mr. President,
to share with my colleagues some of the findings in this extensive
report.
According to the JEC, the economic costs of illness in the U.S. are
huge--approximately $3 trillion annually, or 31 percent of the nation's
GDP. This includes the costs of public and private health care
spending, and productivity losses from illness. Medical research can
reduce these high costs. But, the NIH is fighting this $3 trillion
battle with a budget of $16 billion. That's just half of a percent of
the total economic cost of disease in the United States.
In addition to lowering the economic costs of illness, advances in
medical research greatly help people live longer and healthier lives. A
recent study found that longevity increases have created ``value of
life'' gains to Americans of about $2.4 trillion every year. A
[[Page S6003]]
significant portion of these longevity gains stem from NIH-funded
research in areas such as heart disease, stroke and cancer. If just 10
percent of the value of longevity increases, $240 billion, resulted
from NIH research, that would mean a return of $15 for every $1
invested in NIH.
Also according to the JEC, NIH-funded research helped lead to the
development of one-third of the top 21 drugs introduced over the last
few decades. These drugs treat patients with ovarian cancer, AIDS,
hypertension, depression, herpes, various cancers, and anemia. Future
drug research holds great promise for curing many diseases and lowering
the costs of illness by reducing hospital stays and invasive surgeries.
In fact, one study found that a $1 increase in drug expenditures
reduces hospital costs by about $3.65.
We know that past medical advances have dramatically reduced health
care costs for such illnesses as tuberculosis, polio, peptic ulcers,
and schizophrenia. For example, the savings from the polio vaccine,
which was introduced in 1955, still produces a $30 billion savings per
year, every year.
Medical advances will help cut costs by reducing lost economic output
from disability and premature death. For example, new treatments for
AIDS--some developed with NIH-funded research--caused the mortality
rate from AIDS to drop over 60 percent in the mid-1990s, thus allowing
tens of thousands of Americans to continue contributing to our society
and economy.
And medical research spending isn't just about reducing the enormous
current burdens of illness. The costs of illness may grow even higher
if we fail to push ahead with further research. Infectious diseases, in
particular, are continually creating new health costs. The recent
emergence of Lyme disease, E. coli, and hantavirus, for example, show
how nature continues to evolve new threats to health. In addition,
dangerous bacteria are evolving at an alarming rate and grow resistant
to every new round of antibiotics.
This report extensively shows the benefits of medical research and
reaffirms the enormous benefits we achieve from funding the National
Institutes of Health in our fight against disease. But there is still a
lot more work to be done. I am hopeful my colleagues will take a few
moments to look at this report and recognize the important work done by
the scientists and researchers at the NIH. It can be read in its
entirety on the JEC website at: jec.senate.gov.
Funding for NIH is really about-- hope and opportunity. The challenge
before us is great, but America has always responded when our people
are behind the challenge. America landed a man on the moon. We
pioneered computer technology. America won the Cold War. Now it is time
to win the war against the diseases that plague our society. We have
the knowledge. We have the technology. Most important, we have the
support of the American people.
I ask my colleagues to join me in the effort to double funding for
the National Institutes of Health. It's good economic policy, it's good
public policy, and most importantly, it's good for all Americans.
____________________