[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 26, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S542-S543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     AGENDA FOR COMMITTEE ON HEALTH, EDUCATION, LABOR, AND PENSIONS

  Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, 
and Pensions is actively working in all four of those areas as 
specified in the title of our committee as there are major initiatives 
that need to be accomplished in each of those areas.
  I have found that each Member who is working on an issue in any of 
those four areas--and I am not just talking about members of the 
committee, I am talking Senators as a whole--believe their issue should 
be the first issue to come up in the Committee on Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions. As Chairman, I believe that we should work like 
the National Institutes of Health; that is, those issues that stand the 
best chance of making progress will get a higher priority. We will be 
working in all of these four issue areas because they are immensely 
critical to the people of the United States.
  As a brand new Committee Chairman, I am asking all of my colleagues 
that when a Member has an idea in the areas of health, education, 
labor, or pensions, that you share it with me. I can bring the Member 
up to date on all of the people who need to work on that issue so I can 
get them involved. It would be most appreciated. In addition, it would 
allow us to work prime pieces of your bill into any committee bill that 
comes out.
  On a number of issues out there, there are multiple groups, and in 
many cases, bipartisan groups, working on their own bill. The way we 
will have to address those, of course, is to have the committee be the 
referee on which sections of which bills get into the final bill. I can 
assure Members we will look most favorably on Members who have shared 
with us in advance. If it is a matter of who is going to get the 
credit, I don't care on that. I will help preserve credit for your 
idea.
  It would be helpful for me as the new chairman to have some kind of 
an idea of what Members are working on and what the timeframe is. We 
will let Members know how we are working on the same issue and our 
timeframe for the issue.
  I have four outstanding subcommittee chairmen, and they have already 
sat down, looked at a list of things they need to accomplish, and 
together we have set some priorities and have begun to put together 
action plans on each of those bills. I have met with Senator Kennedy to 
take a look at the 20-plus bills that need to be reauthorized before 
September 5. We are trying to organize those so that we can get as many 
of those completed as possible and to see where there is agreement; and 
where there is agreement, perhaps we can move them along faster 
allowing us the opportunity to concentrate on the other bills that need 
more work.
  I didn't say the ones which we are in opposition to--because I know 
on most issues around here, if there is not agreement on the two 
conflicting ways to move a bill forward, there is often a third way 
that can be derived. A lot of the time the way committees work, as we 
get involved in an issue, is if there is a section that people do not 
agree on, quite often we can have those Members interested in that 
section go off for a little bit and hammer it out. Typically, they come 
back with the third way that they can agree upon. Quite often the 
committee agrees on it as well.
  In committee, usually, we can get agreement on 80 percent of an 
issue. Generally, the 80 percent is what is passed through the 
committee if there is bipartisan support, if it appears to have 
bipartisan support. Unfortunately for the American public and 
television, when people see us debate in the Senate it is on that other 
20 percent, the 20 percent we did not agree on in committee, and for 
political reasons may not agree on no matter how long the debate 
continues. When we vote, after all the amendments are tallied, quite 
often we go back to the 80 percent that came out of committee with 
bipartisan support.
  I am suggesting to my colleagues that if we can go by an 80-percent 
rule, do the 80 percent we agree upon in committee, bring it to the 
Senate floor, and wrap it pretty quickly, then we can skip that other 
20 percent. Overall, we could get a lot more done around here. In 
addition, it would be more collegial and it would lead us to being able 
to get more things done on a bipartisan basis.
  So we are going to be trying that in this committee and seeing how it 
works. I hope it does not turn out to be the grand experiment that 
failed. I hope it turns out to be a model for a way we can have a 
Senate that is more agreeable and working towards solutions for the 
American people.
  That is the approach we have taken on every issue that has been 
mentioned here today. We have already been working on action plans for 
those things to see if there is a way we can come up with an 80-percent 
package. If we can, we will move them along much faster than what 
people expect. But it will take a lot of work and a lot of 
concentration and, incidentally, quite a few hearings, too.
  I have learned under Senator Graham and Senator Sarbanes and Senator 
Shelby--those are all Banking Committee chairmen--that one of the ways 
to handle an issue is to try to get together everybody you can who is 
an expert on the particular area you are doing and draw on their 
knowledge--these are practitioners who have actually worked in the 
trenches on the idea--and gather the information from them and see if 
there is not, again, an 80-percent agreement.
  There should not be a shortage of ideas in the United States. We are 
the idea country. If we can find some way to simmer those down and put 
them out as legislation, that helps people. That is what the HELP 
Committee is all about.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues and seeing what sorts of 
things we can do to help health care in the United States so we can 
have more accessible, lower cost, higher quality health care. As you 
can tell from previous discussion, that covers a whole range of issues. 
The Presiding Officer at the moment, of course, is interested in the 
associated health plans, and so are a whole lot of other people in the 
Chamber.
  We have talked about drug reimportation. We have a bill in that comes 
out of a task force, Senate file 4. It comes out of a task force last 
year that was led by Senator Gregg, who is my predecessor as chairman 
of this committee, a diligent, hard-working, knowledgeable task force 
leader who helped us put together about 15 bills that would do exactly 
what I talked about: increase access, reduce costs, help the quality. 
Those are included in a bill. It is not definitive, it is not the final 
answer, but it is a starting point for us to go on this great debate.
  In education, we are going to do an education piece that makes sure 
people understand there are lifelong education

[[Page S543]]

opportunities, that school is never out, that learning never ends. We 
have Head Start, which is preschool education. Of course, we have No 
Child Left Behind in our jurisdiction.
  We are concerned about the number of high school dropouts there are 
today. We are also concerned about the Higher Education Act, which 
needs to be reauthorized, and the Perkins Act, which provides funding. 
All of those are things that need to be done. We have combined them in 
Senate file 9, with the Workforce Investment Act, which you will recall 
came through this body 2 years ago. Two years ago, it came through. The 
committee passed it out by unanimous consent, and it passed this body 
unanimously. But I think partly because of the Presidential election 
years, we were not allowed to have a conference committee. We were 
blocked from having a conference committee. That is an essential piece 
in making sure people have jobs.
  I am fascinated that this generation that is in school now probably 
will not have the kinds of jobs our parents had where they went to work 
at one place, they worked there their entire life, and they retired 
from there. The generation in school now is going to probably have 14 
different careers, and 10 of them have not even been invented yet. So 
there is a tremendous challenge to having learning capability and 
capacity and flexibility so this generation, this generation that is in 
school right now, will be able to get the best jobs in the world, not 
the best jobs in the United States, the best ones in the whole world so 
that any job that happens to be outsourced is one of the low-skilled 
jobs, one of the low-paying jobs, not the best of jobs. But that is a 
huge challenge for us, and it is one we will be working on with a 
primary objective to solve in the education portion of the committee.

  In the labor portion of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions 
Committee, we want to make this a safer country for the workers. I put 
forward several recommendations for ways that can happen, ways we can 
provide more help to small businesses so they can know the best way to 
keep their employees safe rather than beaten over the head and fining 
them after the fact. We need to have them do the prevention, not the 
penalties. There is some common ground there that we can work on.
  Of course, in the area of pensions, this is a very interesting year 
because a lot of pensions need a lot of help. The Pension Benefit 
Guaranty Corporation, which I have already met with, has a huge 
challenge ahead of it to make sure people who have been putting into 
pension plans wind up with a pension. We do not want to have a large 
Government bailout. We want to have the pensions operate the way they 
were designed but with a backup so the worker does not get left behind. 
It is a huge work area. I am looking forward to the task.
  With cooperation from everybody in this body, we can have some great 
bipartisan efforts that will make a difference to every single person 
in this country.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming yields the floor.
  We are in morning business.
  Mr. ENZI. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wyoming suggests the absence 
of a quorum. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Further, I ask unanimous consent that I may be able to 
speak in morning business for as such time as I may require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair.

                          ____________________