[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 134 (Friday, November 19, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11520-S11523]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH

  Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed immediately 
to the consideration of S. Res. 474, submitted earlier today by myself, 
Senator Craig, Senator Bond, as well as Senator DeWine, Senator 
Fitzgerald, Senator Levin, Senators Santorum and Stabenow--those last 
names be added as cosponsors to the resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk 
will report the resolution by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 474) to express support for the goals 
     of National Adoption Month by promoting national awareness of 
     adoption, celebrating children and families involved in 
     adoption, and encouraging Americans to secure safety, 
     permanency, and well-being for all children.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I yield to my friend who cosponsored this resolution 
for his remarks prior to mine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, let me thank the Senator from Louisiana for 
her leadership on this issue and on the introduction of this resolution 
to recognize what we believe to be a very important month and a very 
important day for America, for America's children, and especially for 
the foster care children of America.

[[Page S11521]]

  Tomorrow, November 20, is National Adoption Day. This month is 
National Adoption Month. Over the years, as we have worked to bring 
this to the attention of the American people and to people who would 
like to form families through adoption, we find this tremendously 
important. More than 3,100 adoptions of children from foster care will 
be finalized as a result of National Adoption Day. Of those who are in 
foster care, some 129,000 children wait for adoption. Senator Landrieu 
and I, over the last good number of years, have worked almost nonstop 
on this issue, not just for the foster care children of our country but 
for all children of our country who are seeking a permanent, loving, 
safe environment.
  As a result of that effort, she and I and others on the House side 
took the old congressional coalition on adoption and created the 
Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. That institute is now 
one of the sponsors of National Adoption Month and National Adoption 
Day.
  These efforts on the part of all of us, we hope, continue to build 
the kind of understanding and knowledge that is growing across 
America--that you can form a family through adoption. Adoption is a 
phenomenally viable option for couples who may not be able to have 
children naturally or who wish to expand their families, simply because 
they care so much about the future of children and who know that 
children who grow up in a safe, loving environment are going to be 
young people who become productive in our society instead of frustrated 
and oftentimes misguided in their adult efforts.
  What I would like to do now is read the resolution and the 
President's Proclamation on National Adoption Month, because I think it 
speaks to the kind of cooperative effort that the Congress, that Mary 
and I and a good many others in this Senate and the Congressional 
Coalition on Adoption Institute have, with a lot of other alliances but 
very importantly with the President and the executive branch of 
Government.
  This is the 2004 Presidential Proclamation on National Adoption 
Month, by the President of the United States:

       By deciding to share their hearts and home with a child, 
     adoptive parents demonstrate great compassion and receive 
     many blessings in return. During National Adoption Month, we 
     recognize the generosity of adoptive and foster families who 
     are providing hope and love, and we encourage the adoption of 
     children of all ages.
       In 2002, I signed the Promoting Safe and Stable Families 
     legislation that supports families and promotes adoption, and 
     last December I signed the Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 to 
     increase incentives to adopt older children. We have raised 
     the adoption tax credit to $10,000 per child and created the 
     AdoptUSKids website that has joined thousands of children 
     with adoptive parents. We are working hard to place more 
     children from foster care to permanent homes. This year, on 
     November 20, communities from all 50 States and the District 
     of Columbia will celebrate National Adoption Day by 
     finalizing the adoption of thousands of children by loving 
     families. And each one of those families will be enriched by 
     the addition of new members. By bringing care and hope into 
     other lives, individuals can fill their own lives with 
     greater purpose.
       Now, therefore, I, George W. Bush, President of the United 
     States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by 
     the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby 
     proclaim November 2004 as National Adoption Month. I call on 
     all Americans to observe this month with appropriate programs 
     and activities to honor adoptive families and to participate 
     in efforts to find permanent homes for waiting children.
       In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth 
     day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand four, 
     and of the Independence of the United States of America the 
     two hundred and twenty-ninth.
                                                   George W. Bush.

  That is what our President has said. He and this administration, as 
have others, have worked very cooperatively with Senator Landrieu and 
me. Much of what we talk about and much of what the President talked 
about were activities and efforts initiated right in the Senate--the 
child tax credit and other efforts to facilitate and make easier for 
Americans the ability to adopt children and bring them into their homes 
to create that loving environment that we talk about, that we know is 
so critically necessary in the lives of young people as they grow up.
  So I am tremendously proud to join with my colleague, Mary Landrieu 
of Louisiana, as we work cooperatively together in the passage of this 
resolution and as we continue to work to foster the Congressional 
Coalition on Adoption Institute, to grow it.
  Let me close by asking all Senators to become an active member with 
us in the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, to participate 
in its activities and its purpose as we work to facilitate adoptions 
both here in this country and around the world.
  I thank my colleague from Louisiana, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am pleased and proud to join my 
colleague from Idaho. I have the opportunity this morning before this 
body to thank him for his extraordinary leadership on this issue and 
his tireless efforts. Despite all of the responsibilities he has as a 
leader of the majority party and all of the other issues that he leads, 
he always finds time for this issue. It is not an issue that has a lot 
of paid lobbyists associated with it because this is a coalition that 
is actually advocating on behalf of orphans. His leadership is 
particularly noted, and we are grateful for all the work that our 
Senators do for children, not only in our country but around the world.
  While we do celebrate this month and recognize this month of November 
and mark this time noting our great progress and success, let me begin 
by saying, unfortunately, the number of orphans in the world is on the 
rise. Some experts predict an unprecedented number of orphans in the 
world--really in numbers not ever known by the world before. We have 
had world wars in the past that have caused the number of orphans to 
expand greatly, but in the midst of this century and this time not only 
do we have war and famine, but we have something the world has never 
seen before, and that is the epidemic of AIDS that is an orphan factory 
in Africa and India.
  We come to the floor today to celebrate what successes we have 
achieved in the United States, and we will talk about those successes 
in a moment. The challenge is great. I look forward to working with 
Senator Craig and all Members of the Senate as we try to form a 
leadership team for the world to address this unprecedented number of 
orphans.
  If I could just say one more word about AIDS, sometimes children are 
orphaned because a parent dies of heart disease or cancer, but those 
diseases usually just affect one parent, not two. Because of the 
nature of AIDS and the way this disease is transmitted, it actually 
works at killing parents in usually a quick amount of time, leaving 
children in the international community not single orphans but double 
orphans. So that is quite a challenge to the world.

  Let me switch to a happy note. In America last year 120,000 children 
found loving and permanent homes, and approximately 12,000 of those 
children came from other countries to the United States to loving homes 
in all parts of our country; small towns in Idaho, very small towns in 
Louisiana, as well as to our larger metropolitan areas. And they were 
welcomed, of course, with happiness and celebration and have become 
parts of families. I am proud to say that over 100,000 children were 
adopted, children from the United States to American families right 
here at home out of foster care and, of course, infant adoptions as 
well. That was terrific.
  Two million children live in adoptive homes today in our country. 
More extraordinary and more jolting and impressive is the fact that 6 
out of every 10 Americans have been personally touched by adoption; 
either they themselves were adopted or they have adopted into their 
family or grandparents have received from their biological family 
adoptive grandchildren. The stories are endless and wonderful. We need 
to make sure this Government of ours is doing everything it can to 
connect children who need families because governments do a great job 
at many things, but raising children is not one of them. Children need 
to be raised by parents, preferably two parents, but at least one 
loving adult that can raise that child to be a contributing member of 
our society.
  Our future truly depends on it. We can have all the great tax 
policies in the world, great health policies, great education policies, 
but it is parent to child, that carries future values from

[[Page S11522]]

one generation to the next. So making these connections is not only a 
feel-good thing to do, it is a necessary thing to do for the 
continuation of our great Nation and the world community and family.
  Let me share briefly about some of the children waiting in my State. 
There are 500,000 children in foster care in the United States today. 
That is tragic. It is tragic and good and I will explain. It is tragic 
because children have been separated from their parents. Sometimes we 
could have done a better job of preventing that had we given more drug 
counseling on substance abuse or stronger educational benefits or job 
opportunities to those parents. On the positive side, sometimes 
children have to be separated from their families because, if not, they 
may literally die at the hands of parents who are not in their right 
mind and spirit. These children can sometimes be in danger.
  While we try to protect, promote and develop a better system, the 
fact is, 500,000 children are in foster care, anywhere from the age of 
1 month up to 21 years old.
  These are pictures of some of the children in my State. There are 
many more. Some are young teens, children who are perfectly healthy, 
sibling groups. Cynthia is a beautiful child. She was born with 
cerebral palsy and needs special care and attention. This is a story of 
one child who gives everyone great inspiration. Children like this with 
the right love and attention can grow up to be Presidents, mayors of 
great cities, professors at our great universities. They just need 
love, attention, and care. That is what National Adoption Month is all 
about.
  Let me in my brief time share a story about an extraordinary young 
woman who came out of an orphanage. I will tell the story and then show 
the picture because you will not believe it when I show the picture. I 
want to tell a story that Senator Craig and I know about that has 
touched our hearts that we want to share with you today.
  A young girl, about 9 years ago, was left in an orphanage in Russia. 
We do not know too much about the circumstances, but what we know is 
she was severely disabled when she was born. She had spina bifida. She 
had a hole in her spine. In some places in the world, children born 
with disabilities are basically just left to die--even with 
disabilities that we have come to know in America can be fixed and 
corrected with good health care. But there are truly dying rooms around 
the world where infants and young children are born and left to die. 
They are not fed, they are not taken care of because there is no 
medicine, no doctors, and nobody can do anything, so they make a tough 
judgment: to feed the healthy children and leave the sick children to 
die.
  This little girl was left in a dying room. But she would not die, 
basically. After 6 years of living, with very little support, a woman 
we know well showed up in one of our adoption agencies and was trying 
to find children in this orphanage to be adopted. She came across this 
child who was on the floor because she could not walk. She had no 
wheelchair but she crawled up and touched her jacket. She looked down 
at this child's eyes and saw something that obviously no one else had 
seen and decided to adopt this child. The orphanage kept saying: We 
don't want you to have this child; we want you to have a ``good'' 
child.
  She kept saying: This is the child I want. I want this child with a 
hole in her back, the strong and beautiful little girl.
  The long and short of the story is, this woman scoops this child up, 
brings the child to America, adopts this child as her daughter, and her 
name is Tatiana McFadden.
  I want to show a picture of Tatiana, but no one is going to believe 
the end of this story. Tatiana represented the United States of America 
in the Para-Olympics in Greece this year and won the silver medal for 
our country, for America.
  This is a picture of Tatiana, who is now 16 or 17 years old, one of 
the strongest, most courageous, bravest human beings I have ever met. 
She proudly carried the American flag over that finish line and won the 
silver medal in the Para-Olympics.
  Senator Craig, my good friend from Idaho, and I hoped she would be 
our special guest at Angels in Adoption, but she was actually winning 
the medal as our event was taking place.
  In honor of Tatiana McFadden, I wanted to speak for her and for the 
children she represents in America and around the world. This is 
Tatiana, receiving on our behalf, for the United States of America, the 
silver medal. She represents everything that Senator Craig and I want 
to share today about National Adoption Month.
  There are many orphans waiting. They are not damaged goods. These are 
children who, through no fault of their own, have been separated from 
their parents for a variety of different reasons. They need and want 
families. They have a lot to offer not only to themselves but to their 
countries and their families.
  We hope in November, as we gather around our Thanksgiving table, and 
as our Nation gathers and spends time on its knees thanking God for our 
many blessings which we have, remembering our blessings from the early 
founding of this country. As we gather around our tables and hold the 
hands of our children, let's think about the children who do not have 
parents and what we can do.
  Every Senator can most certainly do something. Many Senators and 
House Members are doing a great deal.
  My colleagues have been very gracious with this time, but I close by 
saying that tomorrow, on Saturday, many of our colleagues, House and 
Senate Members, will be participating at their courthouses all over 
America. We are happy to say that we will have 4,000 children adopted 
tomorrow, on National Adoption Day, an effort started by one judge, 
Judge Nash in Los Angeles, CA, who started this to call attention to 
children like Tatiana. All they need is someone to pick them up, hold 
them, love them. Basically the spirit that God has put in them will do 
the rest. That is what this month is about.
  I thank my colleague for offering this resolution. I thank the 
Senators in the midst of their busy work schedule for pushing this 
resolution through. I thank the President for his great support and 
acknowledge President Clinton and First Lady Clinton's effort, now 
Senator Clinton, and President Bush and Mrs. Bush, for their good 
leadership on this issue--not just in America, as my colleague knows, 
but as President Bush advocates these policies around the world.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed 
to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider by laid upon 
the table, and any statements related thereto be printed in the Record 
without intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 474) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:

                              S. Res. 474

       Whereas there are approximately 532,000 children in the 
     foster care system in the United States, approximately 
     129,000 of whom are waiting to be adopted;
       Whereas the average length of time a child in foster care 
     remains in foster care is almost 3 years;
       Whereas for many foster children, the wait for a loving 
     family in which they are nurtured, comforted, and protected 
     is endless;
       Whereas every year 25,000 children ``age out'' of foster 
     care by reaching adulthood without being placed in a 
     permanent home;
       Whereas, since 1987, the number of annual adoptions has 
     ranged from 118,000 to 127,000;
       Whereas approximately 2,100,000 children in the United 
     States live with adoptive parents;
       Whereas approximately 6 of every 10 Americans have been 
     touched personally by adoption in that they, a family member, 
     or a close friend was adopted, has adopted a child, or has 
     placed a child for adoption;
       Whereas every day loving and nurturing families are formed 
     when committed and dedicated individuals make an important 
     difference in the life of a child through adoption;
       Whereas, on November 20, 2004, communities from all 50 
     States and the District of Columbia will celebrate National 
     Adoption Day by finalizing the adoption of thousands of 
     children by loving families; and
       Whereas on November 4, 2004, the President proclaimed 
     November 2004 as National Adoption Month: Now, therefore, be 
     it
       Resolved, That the Senate recognizes November 2004 as 
     National Adoption Month.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

[[Page S11523]]

  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business for up to 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Reserving the right to object.
  Mr. BOND. I thank the President.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Madam President, reserving the right to object, I will 
not object to these remarks, but subsequent to that we will begin the 
postcloture discussion of the issue before the Senate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Madam President, I commend my colleagues from Louisiana and 
Idaho. It was a very touching story of the Senator from Louisiana which 
highlights the importance of adoption month. This is a wonderful effort 
that my two colleagues have launched. We are pleased to support them 
and the President's efforts and all those wonderful people who take 
adopted children into their home.

       (The remarks of Mr. Bond pertaining to the introduction of 
     S. 3009 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on 
     Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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