[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 131 (Tuesday, November 16, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11380-S11382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Mr. LUGAR:
  S. 2980. A bill to improve authorities to address urgent 
nonproliferation crises and United States nonproliferation operations; 
to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. LUGAR:
  S. 2981. A bill to provide for the elimination and safeguarding of 
conventional arms; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. LUGAR. Mr. President, I rise to introduce two new bills to 
strengthen U.S. nonproliferation efforts. One of these is a new 
Conventional Arms Threat Reduction Act. The other is the fourth 
installment of the Nunn-Lugar legislation, the nonproliferation program 
that Sam Nunn and I sponsored in 1991.
  In that year, Sam Nunn and I authored the Soviet Nuclear Threat 
Reduction or Nunn-Lugar Act, which established the Cooperative Threat 
Reduction Program. That program has provided U.S. funding and expertise 
to help the former Soviet Union safeguard and dismantle their enormous 
stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, means of 
delivery and related materials. In 1997, Senator Nunn and I were joined 
by Senator Domenici in introducing the Defense Against Weapons of Mass 
Destruction Act, which expanded Nunn-Lugar authorities in the former 
Soviet Union and provided WMD expertise to first responders in American 
cities. In 2003, Congress adopted the Nunn-Lugar Expansion Act, which 
authorized the Nunn-Lugar program to operate outside the former Soviet 
Union to address proliferation threats. The bill that I am introducing 
today would strengthen the Nunn-Lugar program and other 
nonproliferation efforts and provide them with greater flexibility to 
address emerging threats.
  To date, the Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated or destroyed: 6,462 
nuclear warheads; 550 ICBMs; 469 ICBM silos; 13 ICBM mobile missile 
launchers; 135 bombers; 733 nuclear air-to-surface missiles; 408 
submarine missile launchers; 530 submarine launched missiles; 27 
nuclear submarines; and 194 nuclear test tunnels.
  The Nunn-Lugar program also facilitated the removal of all nuclear 
weapons from Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. After the fall of the 
Soviet Union, these three nations emerged as the third, fourth, and 
eighth largest nuclear powers in the world. Today, all three are 
nuclear-weapons-free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-
Lugar program. In addition, Nunn-Lugar is the primary tool through 
which the United States is working with Russian authorities to 
identify, safeguard, and destroy Russia's massive chemical and 
biological warfare capacity.
  These successes were never a foregone conclusion. Today, even after 
more than 12 years, creativity and constant vigilance are required to 
ensure that the Nunn-Lugar program is not encumbered by bureaucratic 
obstacles or undercut by political disagreements.
  I have devoted much time and effort to overseeing and accelerating 
the Nunn-Lugar program. Uncounted individuals of great dedication 
serving on the ground in the former Soviet Union and in our Government 
have made this program work. Nevertheless, from the beginning, we have 
encountered resistance to the Nunn-Lugar concept in both the United 
States and Russia. In our own country, opposition often has been 
motivated by false perceptions that Nunn-Lugar money is foreign 
assistance or by beliefs that Defense Department funds should only be 
spent on troops, weapons, or other war-fighting capabilities. Until 
recently, we also faced a general disinterest in nonproliferation that 
made gaining support for Nunn-Lugar funding and activities an annual 
struggle.
  The attacks of September 11 changed the political discourse on this 
subject. We have turned a corner--the public, the media, and political 
candidates are paying more attention now. In a remarkable moment in the 
first Presidential debate, both President Bush and Senator Kerry agree 
that the number one national security threat facing the United States 
was the prospect that weapons of mass destruction could fall into the 
hands of terrorists.
  The 9/11 Commission weighed in with another important endorsement of 
the Nunn-Lugar program, saying that ``Preventing the proliferation of 
[weapons of mass destruction] warrants a maximum effort--by 
strengthening counterproliferation efforts, expanding the Proliferation 
Security Initiative, and supporting the Cooperative Threat Reduction 
Program.'' the report went on to say that ``Nunn-Lugar . . . is now in 
need of expansion, improvement, and resources.''
  The first bill that I am introducing today is ``The Nunn-Lugar 
Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 2004.'' It would underscore 
the bipartisan consensus on Nunn-Lugar by streamlining and accelerating 
Nunn-Lugar implementation. It would grant more flexibility to the 
President and the Secretary of Defense to undertake non-proliferation 
projects outside the former Soviet Union. It also would eliminate 
Congressionally imposed conditions on Nunn-Lugar assistance that in the 
past have force the suspension of time-sensitive nonproliferation 
projects. The purpose of the bill is to reduce bureaucratic red tape 
and friction within our Government that hinder effective responses to 
nonproliferation opportunities and emergencies.

  For example, recently Albania appealed for help in destroying 16 tons 
of chemical agent left over from the cold war. In August, I visited 
this remote storage facility, the location of which still remains 
classified. Nunn-Lugar officials are working closely with Albanian 
leaders to destroy this dangerous stockpile. But the experience also is 
illustrative of the need to reduce bureaucratic delays. The package of 
documents to be reviewed by the President took some 11 weeks to be 
finalized and readied for President Bush. From beginning to end, the 
bureaucratic process to authorize dismantlement of chemical weapons in 
Albania took more than 3 months. Fortunately, the situation in Albania 
was not a crisis, but we may not be able to afford these timelines in 
future nonproliferation emergencies.
  The second piece of legislation that I am introducing is the 
``Conventional Arms Threat Reduction Act of 2004'' or ``CATRA.'' This 
legislation is modeled on the original Nunn-Lugar Act. Its purpose is 
to provide the Department of State with a focused response to the 
threat posed by vulnerable stockpiles of conventional weapons around 
the world, including tactical missiles and man portable air defense 
systems, or MANPADS. Such missiles and other weapons systems could be 
used by terrorists to attack commercial and military targets, and U.S. 
facilities here at home and abroad. Reports suggest that Al Qaeda has 
attempted to acquire these kinds of weapons. In addition, unsecured 
conventional weapons stockpiles are a major obstacle to peace, 
reconstruction, and economic development in regions suffering from 
instability.
  My bill declares it to be the policy of the United States to seek out 
surplus and unguarded stocks of conventional armaments, including small 
arms, light weapons, MANPADS, and tactical missile systems for 
elimination. It authorizes the Department of State to carry out an 
accelerated global effort to destroy such weapons and to cooperate with 
allies and international organizations when possible. The Secretary of 
State is charged with devising a strategy for prioritizing, on a 
country-

[[Page S11381]]

by-country basis, the obligation of funds in a global program of 
conventional arms elimination. Lastly, the Secretary is required to 
unify program planning, coordination, and implementation of the 
strategy into one office at the State Department. The bill also 
authorizes a budget increase commensurate with the risk posed by these 
weapons.
  The Department of State has been working to address the threats posed 
by conventional weapons. But in my judgment, the current funding 
allocation and organizational structure are not up to the task. Only 
about $6 million was devoted to destroying small arms and light weapons 
during fiscal years 2003 and 2004. We need more focus on this problem 
and additional funding to take advantage of opportunities to secure 
vulnerable stockpiles from proliferation, theft, or diversion.
  In August, I visited Albania, Ukraine, and Georgia. Each of these 
countries has large stockpiles of MANPADS and tactical missile systems 
and each has requested U.S. assistance to destroy them. On August 27, I 
stood in a remote Albanian military storage facility as the base 
commander unloaded a fully functioning MANPAD from its crate and 
readied it for use. This storage site contained 70 MANPADS that could 
have been used to attack an American commercial aircraft. Fortunately, 
the MANPADS that I saw that day were destroyed on September 2, but 
there are many more like them throughout the world. Too often, 
conventional weapons are inadequately stored and protected. This 
present grave risk to American military bases, embassy compounds, and 
even targets within the United States. We must develop a response that 
is commensurate with the threat.
  I am offering these two bills now, during the November session, so 
that the administration, Congress, and the public can begin an 
examination of their merits. I will reintroduce these bills when 
Congress reconvenes in January. I am hopeful for strong support that 
reflects the priority status of U.S. nonproliferation efforts.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. SANTORUM:
  S. 2982. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to make a 
stillborn child an insurable dependent for purposes of the 
Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance program; to the Committee on 
Veterans' Affairs.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I rise today to offer remarks on a bill 
that I am introducing that would make a stillborn child an insurable 
dependent for purposes of the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance 
(SGLI) program.
  Experiencing the death of a child results in both emotional trauma 
and financial hardship for parents and families. However, further 
stress is added when the family involved is in the military. I was 
recently contacted by a constituent family that experienced a 
stillbirth and subsequently learned that they were not eligible for the 
military's dependent death benefit because the child was stillborn.
  The Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) program is currently 
available to all members of the uniformed services, their spouses, and 
dependents. Specifically, when a servicemember's family experiences the 
death of a child, the family is entitled to a $10,000 child death 
benefit under the SGLI program. However, if a servicemember's family 
experiences a stillbirth, the family is not eligible for a death 
benefit under the SGLI program because current insurance standards 
require that a death certificate be issued for a child to be covered. 
However, neither a birth certificate nor a death certificate is issued 
for a stillborn infant.
  In a recent Federal court case, Warnock v. Office of Servicemembers' 
Group Life Insurance, the issue of whether a stillborn infant is an 
``insurable dependent'' under SGLI was litigated. The court held as a 
matter of law that both statute and SGLI policy do not provide coverage 
for a stillborn infant. To further substantiate the necessity of 
modifying this insurance coverage, the Army Family Action Plan 
supported providing a death benefit for stillborn infants at their 
annual conference in 2003, thus demonstrating this is an important 
issue for all military families.
  This legislation is imperative because it will alleviate some of the 
financial hardship that a servicemember's family must endure as a 
result of a stillbirth. My bill would amend Title 38 of the United 
States Code to make a stillborn child an insurable dependent for 
purposes of the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance program.
  By including stillborn infants within the scope of the SGLI program, 
we will be helping to ease the financial burden of military 
servicemember families at a time of great loss and emotional stress.
  I hope that many of my colleagues will join me in supporting this 
essential legislation.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. WYDEN:
  S. 2983. A bill to establish hospice demonstration projects and a 
hospice grant program for beneficiaries under the medicare program 
under title XVIII of the Social Security Act, and for other purposes; 
to the Committee on Finance.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. WYDEN:
  S. 2984. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to increase 
the number of permanent faculty in palliative care medicine at 
accredited allopathic and osteopathic medical schools and to promote 
the development of faculty careers as academic palliative specialists 
who emphasize teaching; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, our health care system is structured to 
cure but often neglects how we die and how to make dying patients and 
their families more comfortable. Today, I am introducing two bills 
which I believe will provide better care options for dying patients in 
our country. The Medicare Hospice Demonstration Act seeks to test ways 
in which to improve the Medicare hospice benefit, and the Palliative 
Care Training Act recognizes that we need a larger cadre of health care 
professionals who know how to help those with terminal illnesses have a 
better quality of life.
  Although this Congress made improvements in the Medicare Hospice 
benefit last year, I believe we need to continue to test new modes of 
providing hospice care so that more seniors are not only aware of the 
benefit, but access it when needed. Medicare introduced the hospice 
program in 1983 as an optional benefit for achieving a ``good death''. 
This benefit is widely recognized as effective in improving quality of 
life for terminally ill patients. Hospice programs provide a range of 
services to control pain and provide comfort care, primarily to 
individuals in their own homes. In the past decade, the number of 
Medicare patients receiving hospice care has more than doubled. Today, 
about 20 percent of patients who die in the United States receive 
hospice care. However, average lengths of stay in hospice have been 
dropping. According to the GAO, twenty-eight percent of Medicare 
patients in the hospice program receive hospice care for one week or 
less. One reason for this shift in hospice use is patient unwillingness 
to forego curative care--or to abandon hope despite a terminal 
diagnosis. The Medicare hospice program pays for medical procedures 
necessary for pain control and other symptom management, but not those 
aimed at curing the patient. As a result, many seriously ill patients 
resist the program because it forces them to make a choice between the 
hope that there might be a cure and the acceptance that one's life is 
coming to an end.
  The Medicare Hospice Demonstration Act would remove this obstacle by 
permitting patients to seek hospice care as they continue curative 
treatment. I believe more people would use the hospice benefit and use 
it in a timely manner so they could get the full benefit of the range 
of services hospice offers if they did not have to give up hope. I also 
believe that this concept along with counseling assistance provided by 
this demonstration project would help the medical community be better 
able to help patients accept hospice care.
  The second bill I am introducing, ``The Palliative Care Training 
Act'', uses the model already in law for other specialities to create a 
Hospice and Palliative Care Academic Career Award. This award would 
foster the creation of faculty at our Nation's medical schools to teach 
palliative

[[Page S11382]]

care, once the specialty is recognized as a board certified specialty.
  For some the term ``palliative care'' may be new. Palliative care 
improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the 
problem associated with life-threatening illness, through the 
prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, 
assessment, and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, 
psychosocial and spiritual. It neither hastens nor postpones death. 
This type of care offers a support system to help patients live as 
actively as possible until death and to help the family cope during 
their loved one's illness and in their own bereavement. In addition, 
palliative care is applicable early in the course of illness, in 
conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, 
such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
  No one likes to think about what it will be like at the end of our 
lives. We rarely have the discussions we need to have with our medical 
providers about how to help us have a ``good'' death. Much of the fault 
lies in the way we have structured our health care system. With all 
that the American health system has to offer, we need to make sure 
resources are put in place to assure patients and their families better 
care in their last days. I believe these two bills provide important 
components to do that.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. FRIST:
  S. 2986. A bill to amend title 31 of the United States Code to 
increase the public debt limit; placed on the calendar.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of 
the bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 2986

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. INCREASE IN PUBLIC DEBT LIMIT.

       Subsection (b) of section 3101 of title 31, United States 
     Code, is amended by striking ``$7,384,000,000,000'' and 
     inserting ``$8,184,000,000,000''.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. BURNS (for himself, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Thomas, Mr. Enzi, and 
        Mr. Dorgan):
  S. 2987. A bill to amend the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to 
expand the country of origin labeling for certain covered commodities, 
and for other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and 
Forestry.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, as you know, we are trying to finalize the 
appropriations bills this week so that we can get that done and go 
home. But in these appropriations bills, there are a lot of surprises. 
One of them is a movement to water down the country-of-origin labeling, 
a law that was passed in the 2002 farm bill.
  I will tell you that over the past weeks--in fact, before the 
election--I was in 45 communities and traveled 2,500 miles and found 
out that my State supports country-of-origin labeling and does not want 
to see it watered down. I heard from my folks. They strongly support 
it.
  In Montana, we want ``U.S.A'' on it. They are proud of what they 
produce. They are proud of the finished product. Of course, I have 
supported country-of-origin labeling for many years, and I was glad to 
see it finally pass in 2002 when we passed the 2002 farm bill.
  Now we are at the task of trying to write the administrative rules on 
a law that is already in place. We are having problems with that.
  But as Congress completed the bill and the President signed it into 
law, we had some folks already trying to dismantle it. That is wrong. 
Some folks wanted to muddle it up. That was wrong for the simple reason 
that you can't implement a law unless you know what the rules are. We 
don't know what those rules are right now. In fact, I think it is kind 
of like if the Washington Redskins go over to play Baltimore in 
football and they don't make the rules until after the opening kickoff. 
I don't think that works very well.
  But right now we have some folks who want to take another run at it. 
They are getting very aggressive and working overtime to get it done. 
Granted, the law has a couple of flaws in it. It is nothing that we 
can't fix. But keeping it muddled up all the time while we are trying 
to write the administrative rules becomes very difficult.
  There is a move to defund the entire writing process at one time. 
That was defeated.
  Now, instead of having a mandatory COOL law in effect today, which 
was the original intent to have a good program, of course, the rules 
continue because the implementation wasn't supposed to be until 2006. 
That was a compromise to continue the rulemaking process. Now I am told 
that there is another move again to soften the law and make it a 
voluntary law instead of a mandatory law. I don't support that. My 
producers don't support that. They are tired of waiting around.
  We need to get the country-of-origin labeling done. It needs to be 
done right, and it needs to be mandatory.
  I have a concern with the COOL law currently on the books. But today 
I am introducing legislation that begins to fix one part of that law.
  Right now, very little beef will actually be labeled in the grocery 
stores. The law excludes over half of the beef sold in this country. 
But let me be clear. Under no set of circumstances do I support rolling 
back the country-of-origin labeling. If Congress votes to make COOL 
voluntary, it may as well repeal the law because voluntary COOL does 
not work.
  On October 2002, the Secretary published guidelines for a voluntary 
labeling program so any retailer who chose to label could do it. But 
none did.
  Some of my friends say if we mandate a program, then let us try 
voluntary again. It is now time to shift the balance of power in the 
world of agricultural marketing and mandate country-of-origin labeling.
  You see, overwhelmingly, the folks who support COOL are small cow/
calf producers--my ranchers back home in Miles City, Judith Gap, 
Rudyard, Dillon, and across the State of Montana.
  These are guys who have worked hard on their ranches each and every 
day. They raise and produce healthy cattle and they want ``U.S.A.'' on 
their products. I don't blame them. But they do not have a lot of say 
in this decision. Once the calves leave the ranch, producers lose 
control to other parts of the industry.
  While what I am doing is offering a bill to fix it, let us expand the 
bill to processed meats. We have to do that. The bill I am introducing 
will remove the exemption in the law for processed foods. In practice, 
this means beef jerky, sausages, and marinated pork tenderloins which 
are all excluded from the labeling requirements as it stands. These are 
common consumer products and none of them would be just the same as 
they are for fish and shellfish which is already in effect. Looking at 
those rules, we are not asking for any more.
  With that, let us understand that attempts to weaken the law cannot 
happen in this body nor should it happen on these appropriations bills.

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