[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 40 (Friday, March 26, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S3217]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SENATE ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we had a very busy week. The Senate 
continued consideration of S. 1637, the FSC/ETI bill earlier in the 
week. Unfortunately, our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
insisted on offering nongermane amendments to this very important 
manufacturing bill, this JOBS bill. In an effort to move the bill 
forward, we did file cloture with respect to the bill earlier in the 
week. Despite the importance and critical nature of this legislation to 
our economy, addressing those sanctions imposed by the European Union 
on us that are in effect now, we were unable to invoke cloture to 
finish this bill.
  We turned yesterday to the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004. In 
an overwhelming vote of 61 to 38, the Senate passed S. 1637, the Unborn 
Victims of Violence Act of 2004. I thank all my colleagues for their 
handling of the bill. Senator DeWine did a superb job managing the 
bill, supported by Senator Lindsey Graham. Again, they did a tremendous 
job ushering this bill through.
  This legislation does so much to help protect women and their unborn 
children by establishing, for the first time at the Federal level, a 
separate crime for the injury or death of a fetus resulting from an 
attack on the mother. The concept is very simple. If someone attacks a 
woman who is pregnant, there are two victims and not one. Senator 
DeWine was able to hold off any amendments which would have changed the 
underlying legislation. That was important to do. We accomplished that 
and the bill will be sent shortly to the President for his signature.
  This week we also passed welfare reform extension. It was S. 2231. It 
is a 3-month extension of welfare reform programs.
  We will begin consideration of H.R. 4, the welfare reform 
reauthorization bill, on Monday. I hope we can consider important and 
relevant amendments to this bill. I know Members on both sides of the 
aisle do have amendments to improve the bill. We look forward to 
addressing those that are germane, that are important to the bill. 
However, once again, I urge Members to allow us to stay focused on the 
measure before us and not to slow down the process with political 
posturing or, what now we have begun to see a lot of, so-called message 
amendments on the floor of the Senate unrelated to the bill itself.
  I do respect all Members' rights to amend the bills, but with that we 
also have a responsibility, and the responsibility is to legislate.
  Last night I had the privilege of obtaining unanimous consent by 
which we passed the Organ Donation and Recovery Improvement Act, H.R. 
3926. The bill promotes organ donation, promotes organ procurement, 
recovery, preservation, and transportation, all of which is critically 
vital if we are to address the fact we have 83,000 people right now as 
I speak waiting for an organ transplant, yet we have too few organs. 
The supply is too small, it is too few, because we are not capturing 
all the potential organs. This addresses that disconnect and that 
disparity.
  We also passed the Oceans and Human Health Act this week, S. 1218, 
reported by Chairman McCain and the Commerce Committee. This particular 
bill provides for the coordination and support of Federal interagency 
ocean science programs, including research on the role of oceans in 
human health.
  We passed H.R. 2584, the international fisheries reauthorization 
under Chairman McCain.
  We also addressed treaties. We ratified two treaties this week, the 
protocol amending the tax convention with Sri Lanka under Chairman 
Lugar, the income tax convention with Sri Lanka with Chairman Lugar, 
and moments ago we passed the Child Nutrition Act extension, introduced 
today by Chairman Cochran and the ranking member.

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