[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.

                          ____________________