[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 26, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10136-S10152]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SECURE FENCE ACT OF 2006
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will
resume consideration of H.R. 6061, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A bill (H.R. 6061) to establish operational control over
the international land and maritime borders of the United
States.
Pending:
Frist amendment No. 5036, to establish military
commissions.
Frist amendment No. 5037 (to Amendment No. 5036), to
establish the effective date.
Motion to commit the bill to the Committee on the
Judiciary, with instructions to report back forthwith, with
an amendment.
Frist amendment No. 5038 (to the instructions of the motion
to commit H.R. 6061 to the Committee on the Judiciary), to
establish military commissions.
Frist amendment No. 5039 (to the instructions of the motion
to commit H.R. 6061 to the Committee on the Judiciary), to
establish the effective date.
Frist amendment No. 5040 (to Amendment No. 5039), to amend
the effective date.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I have 2 minutes
as in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Commending Senator Alexander
Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I note that the distinguished Senator
from Tennessee, Senator Lamar Alexander, is in the Chamber. I am sure
he has already spoken this afternoon, but I was not present because I
was attending another meeting.
Senator, if you do not feel good this afternoon, I don't know what we
are going to do in the Senate in terms of qualifying you to be happy. I
don't know what else we will do to make you happier than what we are
going to do tonight or during the next week or so on this competiveness
measure.
Senator Alexander came to the Senate, and before his first term has
expired he has taken the lead, without anyone wanting to run around and
try to figure out who should get the lead, on this mammoth piece of
legislation. It falls automatically that Lamar Alexander deserves the
credit for getting it started. It was his idea. He recruited the junior
Senator from New Mexico.
They asked me, as members of my committee, if they could take the
proposition of what we could do to better America's position in a
competitive world, if they could take that to the Academy of Sciences
to get a report so we could adopt a report during this calendar year.
Believe it or not, they did that. As a result, 71 Senators
cosponsored the legislation. As a result, we will have introduced a
bill today that almost takes care of every recommendation that
committee made to the Congress. We are having it introduced officially
by the leadership this evening. It will be held and passed by this
Senate before we adjourn this year.
Imagine that, for a Senator who has just come to the Senate. If he
cannot say and put up whatever he puts up, matters of high esteem,
completed by him, something that he can be proud of, that is this
legislation.
There will be a day when it passes that he can be happier, but he
will be overjoyed today when he sits down and thinks for a moment of
what is accomplished for America to get moving to develop our brain
power where we could, where we can, as we can, and as we should,
without any doubt.
I compliment the Senator.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning
business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico. He
is overly generous. I learned as a staff aide in the Senate that if an
idea has many fathers and many mothers, it has a much better chance of
moving along than if it just has one.
Senator Domenici is being overly modest about his own role. This
would not have gotten to first base--by ``this,'' I mean the
competitiveness legislation--had not Senator Domenici created the
environment in which it could succeed, and if he and Senator Bingaman
had not had such a good partnership and been able to work together, set
a good example and have been willing to step back and allow other good
ideas that were progressing through the Commerce Committee and the HELP
Committee.
It has been a remarkable exercise in restraint for many distinguished
Senators, some among the most senior Members of the Senate, and at a
time when politics is at a pretty high level.
I thank the Senator for what he said. It means a lot to me.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a summary of the National Competitiveness Investment Act.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Summary of the National Competitiveness Investment Act
The National Competitiveness Investment Act is a bipartisan
legislative response to recommendations contained in the
National Academies' ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm''
report and the Council on Competitiveness' ``Innovate
America'' report. Several sections of the bill are derived
from proposals contained in the ``American Innovation and
Competitiveness Act of 2006'' (S. 2802), approved by the
Senate Commerce Committee 21-0, and the ``Protecting
America's Competitive Edge Through Energy Act of 2006'' (S.
2197) approved unanimously by the Senate Energy Committee.
Accordingly, the National Competitiveness Investment Act
focuses on three primary areas of importance to maintaining
and improving United States' innovation in the 21st Century:
(1) increasing research investment, (2) strengthening
educational opportunities in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics from elementary through graduate
school, and (3) developing an innovation infrastructure. More
specifically, the National Competitiveness Investment Act
would:
Increase research investment by:
Doubling funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF)
from approximately $5.6 billion in fiscal year 2006 to $11.2
billion in fiscal year 2011.
Setting the Department of Energy's Office of Science on
track to double in funding over 10 years, increasing from
$3.6 billion in fiscal year 2006 to over $5.2 billion in
fiscal year 2011.
Establishing the Innovation Acceleration Research Program
to direct Federal agencies funding research in science and
technology to set as a goal dedicating approximately 8
percent of their Research and Development (R&D) budgets
toward high-risk frontier research.
Authorizing the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) from approximately $640 million in fiscal
year 2007 to approximately $937 million in fiscal year 2011
and requiring NIST to set aside no less than 8 percent of its
annual funding for high-risk, high-reward innovation
acceleration research.
Directing NASA to increase funding for basic research and
fully participate in interagency activities to foster
competitiveness and innovation, using the full extent of
existing budget authority.
Coordinating ocean and atmospheric research and education
at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
other agencies to promote U.S. leadership in these important
fields.
Strengthen educational opportunities in science, technology,
engineering, mathematics, and critical foreign languages
by:
Authorizing competitive grants to States to promote better
alignment of elementary and secondary education with the
knowledge and skills needed for success in postsecondary
education, the 21st century workforce, and the Armed Forces,
and grants to support the establishment or improvement of
statewide P-16 education longitudinal data systems.
Strengthening the skills of thousands of math and science
teachers by establishing training and education programs at
summer institutes hosted at the National Laboratories and by
increasing support for the Teacher Institutes for the 21st
Century program at NSF.
Expanding the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program at
NSF to recruit and train individuals to become math and
science teachers in high-need local educational agencies.
[[Page S10137]]
Assisting States in establishing or expanding statewide
specialty schools in math and science that students from
across the State would be eligible to attend and providing
expert assistance in teaching from National Laboratories'
staff at those schools.
Facilitating the expansion of Advanced Placement (AP) and
International Baccalaureate (IB) programs by increasing the
number of teachers prepared to teach AP/IB and pre-AP/IB
math, science, and foreign language courses in high need
schools, thereby increasing the number of courses available
and students who take and pass AP and IB exams.
Developing and implementing programs for bachelor's degrees
in math, science, engineering, and critical foreign languages
with concurrent teaching credentials and part-time master's
in education programs for math, science, and critical foreign
language teachers to enhance both content knowledge and
teaching skills.
Creating partnerships between National Laboratories and
local high-need high schools to establish centers of
excellence in math and science education.
Expanding existing NSF graduate research fellowship and
traineeship programs, requiring NSF to work with institutions
of higher education to facilitate the development of
professional science master's degree programs, and expanding
NSF's science, mathematics, engineering and technology talent
program.
Providing Math Now grants to improve math instruction in
the elementary and middle grades and provide targeted help to
struggling students so that all students can master grade-
level mathematics standards.
Expanding programs to increase the number of students from
elementary school through postsecondary education who study
critical foreign languages and become proficient.
Develop an innovation infrastructure by:
Establishing a President's Council on Innovation and
Competitiveness to develop a comprehensive agenda to promote
innovation and competitiveness in the public and private
sectors.
Requiring the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a
study to identify forms of risk that create barriers to
innovation.
Mr. DOMENICI. I thank the Senator.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, although most cannot hear it right now,
I want to say how much all in the Senate appreciate the extra hours and
the skill with which the staffs met and worked through August and over
the last several weeks to bring the three committees together. Senator
Ensign played a major role, and his staff did. There were many staffs.
This was not a bill that Republicans wrote and Democrats looked at or
vice versa. We did it together.
Future of Higher Education
Mr. President, today the Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings,
made an important speech at the National Press Club. In her remarks,
she discussed the report from her Commission on the Future of Higher
Education. This commission was chaired by Charles Miller, who was the
former chairman of the board of regents of the University of Texas
system and a leader in education reform at all levels.
I am very impressed with Secretary Spellings. I know her job. I once
had it. I do not think we have had a more effective Secretary of
Education. I am very impressed with Mr. Miller. I know about his work
in Texas as part of a group of business leaders over the last 20 years
who have led the country in terms of helping to set accountability
standards in elementary and secondary education.
Mr. President, I encourage my colleagues to read Secretary Spellings'
speech from today.
Secretary Spellings is the first U.S. Secretary of Education to
assume the role of lead adviser to coordinate all of higher education.
I am glad she is doing that because almost every Department of the
Federal Government has something to do with higher education.
Currently, no one is the lead person for that. It ought to be the
Secretary of Education. She stepped up to do it. I applaud her, and I
applaud President Bush for asking her to do that.
The Secretary's recommendations in her speech today are sensible and
respect the prerogative of Congress to make major changes in higher
education policy. In plain English, she laid out some very good
recommendations, but she recognized that is one branch of Government,
we are the Article I branch of Government, and if there are major
changes in policy, we will make them here, and then it is their job to
implement it.
But among the strong recommendations in her report are the following:
Simplify the financial aid system. We are already doing that, having
worked with the Secretary on a commission, and it is included in the
higher education bill that has not passed. That is a very good
recommendation. Another recommendation is expanding more access to more
students. The initial cost estimates of her commission's report suggest
its recommendations might cost $9 billion or $10 billion more in terms
of Pell grants. That is a lot of money, but it is an important goal.
Another recommendation is increased competitiveness. The Secretary's
commission spent quite a bit of time urging the Congress and the
country to adopt the recommendations of the Augustine commission, to
adopt the recommendations of the Council on Competitiveness, and to
adopt the President's recommendations on competitiveness. That was a
help in getting us come to the point in this body where tonight Senator
Frist and Senator Reid will introduce the National Competitiveness
Investment Act.
The Secretary's committee recommended less regulation for higher
education, which is something I want to talk a little bit more about in
a moment. I thoroughly agree with that. And, of course, another
recommendation is to find ways to reduce costs, which every family who
has a student headed toward higher education thinks about. In our own
family, where we have two new grandchildren who are less than 1 year of
age, the parents--our children--are already thinking about it: How in
the world are we going to pay for college out of our budgets in 18
years? That is at the top of almost everyone's concern.
I want to wave one bright, yellow flag, a cautionary flag, at one
troubling aspect of the report of the Secretary's commission. That is
best captured by the following sentence on page 13 of the commission's
report, and I quote: ``Our complex, decentralized post-secondary
education system has no comprehensive strategy, particularly for
undergraduate programs, to provide either adequate internal
accountability systems or effective public information.''
``Our complex, decentralized post-secondary education system has no
comprehensive strategy. . . .'' The commission apparently believes that
is a weakness. I believe that is a strength. I believe that is the
greatest strength of our higher education system. The key to the
quality of the American higher education system is that it is not one
system, but that it is a marketplace of over 6,000 autonomous systems,
independent systems.
These autonomous or independent institutions--such as the University
of Tennessee, or Fisk University, or the Nashville Auto Diesel College,
or Yeshiva University--these institutions are regulated primarily by
competition--competition for students, for faculty, and for research
dollars--and by consumer choice, which is fueled by generous Federal
dollars that follow more than one-half of American college students to
the institutions of their choice.
There is, in addition, a system of independent accreditation to help
regulate these independent and autonomous institutions. To be sure,
there is still plenty of the traditional kind of command-and-control
Government regulation. That is very hard to get away from. Every State
has a regulatory body, such as the Tennessee Higher Education
Commission. And each of the 6,000 institutions I described that accepts
students with Federal grants or loans must wade through over 7,000
Federal regulations and notices. Those regulations exist today.
The president of Stanford University has said that 7 cents of every
tuition dollar is spent on compliance with Government regulations. The
last thing American higher education needs is a barrage of new Federal
regulations requiring sending new data to Washington so someone here
can try to figure out how to improve the Harvard Classics Department or
the Nashville Auto Diesel College, both of whose students are eligible
for Federal grants and loans.
I believe the overregulation of higher education is the greatest
deterrent to maintaining the quality of American higher education, and
that autonomy, competition, and choice are the greatest incentives to
excellence.
I would, therefore, wish to lead the bandwagon or be on the bandwagon
or
[[Page S10138]]
push the bandwagon for more deregulation and to increase the autonomy
of institutions of higher education and to preserve competition for
research dollars and to give students the broadest array of education
choices possible.
Today in America we are doing that much better than any other country
in the world. It is instructive that China and several European
countries are deregulating their overly bureaucratized colleges and
universities to try to catch up with the quality of ours. Of course,
better information informs choices. And, of course, easier transfer
policies between or among institutions could increase opportunities.
Much is to be gained from research that will help institutions measure
what value their classes add to students.
But I do not want rules about transfer policies to diminish
institutional autonomy. I do not want to see rules from Washington
substitute for choice and competition as the principal regulators of
the quality of our colleges and universities. I do not want to see even
more tuition dollars go to pay for complying with costly Government
regulations instead of to improving research and teaching in the
classroom.
By design or luck, the United States has created a magnificent
marketplace environment that has resulted in, by far, the best higher
education system in the world with remarkable access for students of
all incomes. Our goal should be to improve that system, not to replace
it with some command-and-control structure.
Mr. President, I spoke before the Secretary's Commission on December
9 of 2005, and I hope that those remarks were useful to the Commission.
Mr. President, I want to comment that it is important to keep all of
this discussion in some perspective. For example, there is a great
concern about the rising cost of tuition. Secretary Spellings, in her
remarks, says she wants to know why. Well, I know why it has gone up.
It has gone up because State funding for higher education has been
flat. It has actually gone down in many cases. As State funding of
colleges and universities in Minnesota or Tennessee or South Dakota has
gone down, colleges and universities have had to raise their tuition to
have enough funds to maintain quality.
Now, of course, there are plenty of ways to reduce costs, and we need
to push that and encourage that. And the Secretary has many suggestions
for that. She is right about that. But let's not overlook the fact that
Federal spending for higher education has gone way up in the last
several years, but State spending has been flat. If anyone wants to
know why your tuition bills are higher, it is because your Governors
and your legislatures have not been paying their fair share of what it
takes to have a quality system of higher education in America. I talked
about that in my testimony to the Commission, and I hope they listened
to that. I hope the Administration and my colleagues understand that as
well.
For example, during the 5-year period from 2000 to 2004, State
spending for Medicaid, which is where the Governors have to put most of
their extra money, was up 36 percent; State spending for higher
education was up barely 7 percent. As a result, tuition went up 38
percent.
There is another way I think about it. When I left the Governor's
office nearly 20 years ago in Tennessee, Tennessee was spending 51
cents of every State tax dollar on education and 16 cents on health
care--mainly Medicaid. Today, instead of 51 cents on education, it is
40 cents on education. And instead of 16 cents on health care, it is 26
cents on health care. So if we do not get control of Medicaid spending
here in this Chamber, and in the other Chamber, one of the unintended
consequences will be that we will drive down the quality of higher
education all across America because it will not have appropriate State
funding and we will not create the new jobs that will help us compete
with China and India.
On the question of cost, two other things: One is, I ask unanimous
consent, Mr. President, to have printed in the Record a short column by
the president of the University of Maryland, William E. Kirwan, who
discusses State funding that I have just talked about, and talks about
what some colleges and universities are doing to reduce costs to help
control the rise of tuition.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Washington Post, Aug. 14, 2006]
Security Through Education
(By William E. Kirwan)
A national security crisis is brewing, and if our country
doesn't take immediate action, it could be devastating for
the future of the United States.
Consider these facts: Worldwide, the United States ranks
seventh in high-school completion rates and ninth in the
percentage of high-school graduates who enroll in college. Of
every 100 current eighth-graders in America, just 18 will
receive a college degree during the next 10 years. Based on
current participation and completion rates, the education
pipeline reveals alarming holes.
The ``prescription'' for what ails education in this
country enjoys widespread consensus: Improve the performance
of our primary and secondary school students and provide
access to affordable, high-quality higher education to more
people. But how the country goes about filling this
prescription is a matter of significant debate.
Clearly, a ``fix'' to the problem requires the combined and
coordinated efforts of various sectors. Central to the
effort, however, must be higher education. Higher education,
after all, prepares the teachers for the schools and sets the
standards for the degrees.
What should higher education do to help plug the holes in
the education pipeline and enable our nation to address its
most pressing long-term national security issue: the
development of a robust and superbly educated workforce?
First, higher education must become more engaged in
improving primary and secondary school performance. Colleges
and universities need to encourage more students to pursue
teaching careers and, in partnership with local school
districts, better prepare prospective teachers with the
content knowledge and pedagogy skills to succeed.
Universities must work more effectively with the K-12 sector
to ensure that student assessment in high school is closely
aligned with college entrance requirements, and that the
transition from high school to college is as seamless as
advancement from 11th to 12th grade.
The best way to achieve such transformational changes is
through so-called statewide K-16 councils, which bring
educational leaders from all levels--superintendents,
principals, university presidents, deans--together with
business and community leaders on a regular basis to develop
reform agendas. Such an approach is working in Maryland and a
few other states.
As a second means of plugging the holes, state governments
and higher education need to rethink the way they distribute
financial aid. During the past two decades there has been a
huge shift in the allocation of university-based aid, away
from students with demonstrated financial need and toward
high-ability students--often from upper-middle-class
families--whom universities seek in order to improve their
SAT profiles and ``vanity'' rankings. Too many low-income
students are either discouraged from attending college or
must work such long hours that their progress toward a
degree is unreasonably delayed or, worse, terminated.
Fortunately, we have seen several ``enlightened''
universities--including the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Harvard University, the University of Virginia
and the University of Maryland, College Park--introduce
programs to ensure that students from families at the lower
end of the economic ladder can graduate debt-free. At the
University System of Maryland, we recently adopted a policy
requiring that students from families with the lowest levels
of income graduate with the lowest debt. Planned expenditures
on institutional need-based aid by USM institutions have
increased more than 30 percent in the past year.
Finally, higher education--especially public higher
education--must learn to operate with a more cost-conscious
budget model. Most others sectors have experienced
significant productivity gains through rigorous attention to
cost containment. Higher education can no longer afford to
ignore this strategy.
Investment of state funds in higher education on a per-
student basis is at a 25-year low. It has fallen from about
$7,100 in 2001 to just over $5,800 in 2005. As state
investment on a per-student basis has declined, the tuition
burden on students and their families has increased. In more
than a quarter of our states, tuition revenue is now greater
than the state's investment in its public colleges and
universities. In the coming decades, areas such as health
care, energy, and social services for an aging population
will require an ever greater proportion of available tax
dollars, accelerating the decline in public investment in
higher education.
With that decline and without serious attention to cost
containment, colleges and universities will face two highly
undesirable alternatives: Accept more students at generally
affordable tuition levels and see quality erode or protect
quality by driving up tuition to levels that will be
prohibitive for low-income students.
With the leadership of its Board of Regents, the University
System of Maryland has incorporated cost containment as a
formal part of its budget development process. These efforts
have reduced the ``bottom line'' by more than $40 million for
the system's 13 institutions during the past two years.
[[Page S10139]]
Filling the holes in America's education pipeline must
become an urgent national priority. Nowhere is strong,
unified action more necessary than at our colleges and
universities. In partnership with other sectors, higher
education must be held accountable for embracing its role and
responsibilities to help improve K-12 education, increasing
its need-based financial aid substantially, and containing
costs more aggressively. If this doesn't happen, U.S.
leadership in the global economy will erode. Perhaps even
more threatening, our national ethos of social upward
mobility will be lost and we will devolve into a two-tier
society with a permanent underclass.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Sometimes we talk so much about the high cost of
higher education where families hear that and think no one can go to
college. I was president of the University of Tennessee. Tuition has
gone up there for the reasons I just talked about. But today tuition at
the University of Tennessee, which is one of the leading research
institutions in this country--the manager of the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory--is $5,300 a year. It is $5,300 a year for tuition at the
University of Tennessee. That is more than a lot of people have, but
that is a very good bargain in today's marketplace.
Volunteer State Community College, a public 2-year college--we
encourage many people to go to community colleges, and then to our
research universities--the tuition there is $2,383 a year.
At Tennessee State University, in Nashville--an excellent
institution--it is $4,300. It is the same story in many other States.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for North Carolina
students--one of the best universities in the world--it is $4,500 a
year. At the University of Phoenix--a different kind of university, but
I had a distinguished scientist from the University of Texas tell me he
looked at colleges of education all over America, and he thought the
college of education at the University of Phoenix was as good as any to
get your teacher's degrees--the comparable cost there for a year's
tuition is about $6,669. They do things a little differently, but they
provide an education and a service that many people are asking for, and
I think that reflects the strength of our autonomous system of higher
education.
Now, if you want to go to Harvard, it is a lot more. If you want to
go to Vanderbilt, it is a lot more. But the rest of that story is, if
you show up at Harvard, or if you are admitted to Vanderbilt, and you
do not have the money, they are going to do their best to help you pay
for that.
So I would hope as we talk about the cost of higher education that we
recognize that many of the State institutions are reasonably priced,
that the failure of State funding over the last several years is the
principal culprit in the rising increase for public schools, and that
we do not get carried away up here in Washington by thinking if we pass
some more regulations here, somehow we are going to solve the problem,
and we are going to make our higher education system better.
My main point is this: Our greatest threat to quality higher
education is overregulation. And our greatest incentive for it is
deregulation, choice, and competition. Those are the incentives I would
like to preserve.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Energy Independence for America
Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, as we wind down this legislative session in
this last week, we have a lot of work to do on the agenda. We have
bills dealing with port security, Homeland Security appropriations,
Defense appropriations, and border security, which is the subject of
discussion right now, the Secure Fence Act of 2006, and those are
probably going to be the things on which we can find consensus. We can
add to that the issue of how we deal with detainees and continue to
acquire high-value intelligence that will enable us to prevent future
terrorist attacks. That legislation is coming down the pike, too. So we
have a lot of things to vote on in the last few days before the
election. And the assumption, of course, is that we will probably come
back in after the election to wrap up some of the outstanding issues.
There are other pieces of legislation that could be dealt with in
this period--legislation that is without controversy, legislation that
has been acted on by the House of Representatives and on which there is
broad bipartisan agreement. It seems to me, at least at this point in
the legislative session, that in order to get these bills through, it
is going to take considerable agreement on both sides of the political
aisle, with enough critical mass behind them to get them through.
I have a bill that fits into that category. I have come to the Senate
floor on a couple occasions to speak about it. It has been cleared by
the House of Representatives by a vote of 355 to 9. Now it is sitting
here, and Senator Salazar from Colorado and I have a substitute
amendment to that, and as soon as it is picked up and the Senate passes
it, it goes back to the House. The House has indicated that if we send
it back, they will pass it. Then we can put it on the President's desk.
The bill has to do with an issue that I think is on the minds of a
lot of Americans--energy independence. It is a fairly straightforward
issue. As I have explained previously on the floor, it has to do with
closing the gap in the distribution system between the production of
ethanol, the supply of renewable energy in this country, and the demand
for it, the ultimate consumer of renewable energy.
Right now, as you know, in the last year we passed an energy bill
which required, for the first time ever, certain use of ethanol in this
country--7.5 billion gallons by 2012. We are ramping up to that level
now. In South Dakota, we already have 11 ethanol plants. We have three
under construction, and in a short period we will be at a billion
gallons a year--just in South Dakota. If you add to that the production
underway in the Chair's home State of Minnesota and other States in the
Midwest, there is a tremendous amount of ethanol that is in the
pipeline. We have now a requirement that States around the country have
to meet that 7.5 billion. I think we also have a ver robust demand for
it because people in this country realize that if we are going to get
serious about energy independence, we have to begin shifting away from
some of the types of energy that we get from other places around the
world. This is American energy, homegrown energy, renewable energy. We
can raise it every year. We have a corn crop every year that can be
converted into gallons of ethanol. We have other types of biomass
materials that, raised in places such as the Midwest, are on the cusp
in terms of the technology that will soon be available. One is switch
grass. There is a research project at South Dakota State University
right now looking at the probability in the near future of having the
essential ingredients and processes that will enable us to make ethanol
out of switch grass, something that is in abundance in the upper
Midwest.
This movement toward renewable energy, American-grown energy, is long
overdue. People are demanding that we begin to move in that direction.
We have a renewable fuel standard, as a result of the Energy bill that
passed, which is a great success for moving in that direction. We have,
as I said, a lot of production now that is currently on line, with
additional plants under construction. What we are missing is the method
by which that ethanol or other renewable fuels--bioenergy--is
distributed to consumers in this country.
Right now, we have about 180,000 filling stations in America, and
only about 800 of those make available E85 or other alternative fuels.
If you do the math on that, that is 1 filling station for every 10,000
cars that are currently capable of using E85 or some other form of
alternative energy. The Auto Alliance--and probably Members of this
Chamber have seen them--has run ads in some of the publications in town
saying that today there are 9\1/2\ million cars on the road that can
use alternative sources of energy. ``Flex-fuel vehicles'' is how we
refer to them in most cases. If you look at the 9\1/2\ million cars
already on the road and those currently in production, the car
manufacturers are gearing up to come up with more vehicles that can run
on alternative sources of energy, primarily 85.
[[Page S10140]]
We have an enormous opportunity out there, a great potential for
increasing usage of ethanol and renewable fuels, thereby lessening our
dependence upon foreign sources of energy, which has implications for
our economy, for our national security, and foreign policy.
This is a win-win. This is flatout a no-brainer for America and for
the Senate. Yet we have a hold--a secret hold--by someone on the
Democratic side that is preventing this bill from moving forward.
Mr. President, I understand the traditions and the rules of the
Senate allow for that sort of thing to happen, but whoever it is--and I
have my suspicions about who it is--who has a hold on the bill, I wish
they would come forward and defend that hold. This is a
noncontroversial piece of legislation which has broad bipartisan
support, has passed the House with a 355-to-9 vote, and is ready for
action in the Senate. But as of right now, it is being held up by
someone on the other side. Again, I don't know who that is. I would
like to know who that is and have the opportunity to visit with them to
find out what their objection is.
The reality is that this is a piece of legislation which makes so
much sense for our economy and, as I said, for our need for energy
independence, to have American energy so we can get away from our
dependence on foreign sources of energy. It is good for the
environment. There are so many benefits to moving this legislation
forward. Again, it is heading in a direction that gets us away from
dependence upon foreign energy and more energy independence in this
country.
I come to the floor to urge my colleagues--it has been cleared on the
Republican side. It is ready for action in the House. It is teed up to
go there; we have talked with our colleagues in the House. It passed
once there.
The amendment Senator Salazar and I have offered, the substitute
amendment, is a modification of that bill, but it keeps in place the
basic concept of the bill. Very simply, in terms of explanation, it
provides up to a $30,000 cash incentive for fuel retailers to install
pumps that would provide E85 or other types of energy. The average cost
to install that pump is somewhere between $40,000 and $200,000,
depending on where you are in the country. We believe the convenience
stores and the gas stations across this country would take advantage of
this if it were in place. It would do something about this ratio I just
mentioned where we have 1 filling station for every 10,000 cars in this
country that are capable of running on E85 or some other form of
alternative energy.
Again, I commend this to my colleagues in the hopes that we can move
ahead. We have a few days left this week before everybody heads home
for the elections. We don't know what will happen with the elections.
This is legislation which, as I said, is broadly supported on a
bipartisan, bicameral basis and has the support of the auto
manufacturers across the country and the National Association of
Convenience Stores. I submitted letters previously for the Record
expressing the support of the entire ethanol industry and environmental
groups. I think it has been cleared on the Republican side, and I hope
that whoever on the Democratic side who has placed a hold on the bill
will make that known so we can discuss what the objection is and,
hopefully, clear it for action so we can get something meaningful done
about the issue of energy security before Congress goes home for the
elections.
Mr. President, I raise the issue again, and I urge and ask and
request that my colleagues work together to accomplish what I think is
a very important objective before we leave for the election; that is,
moving America in the direction of lessening our dependence upon
foreign energy, becoming energy independent, and helping to address the
issue of high gas prices in this country. This bill would do that. I
simply ask my colleagues to work with me to get that done.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The Senator from Illinois is
recognized.
Mr. DURBIN. I thank the chair.
Mental Health Parity Act
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, in just a few weeks while we are in
recess, we will mark the fourth anniversary of the untimely death of
our former colleague from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone. Paul Wellstone
died at the age of 58 in an airplane crash about 4 years ago. Paul and
his wife Sheila and daughter Marcia were on their way to a campaign
event in Eveleth, MN on October 25, 2002 when their plane crashed in a
wooded field 2 miles short of the airport. We mourn for the surviving
children Mark and David and for the families of the campaign staffers,
Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, and Mary McEvoy, and for the families of
the pilots flying that fated aircraft.
Paul's tragic and premature death silenced one of the leading voices
in America on the issue of mental illness. Paul Wellstone understood
the devastation that mental illness can bring: the stigma, the
alienation, the broken families and, sadly, even broken lives.
In 1992, together with Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Paul
introduced legislation to require insurance companies to offer the same
coverage for treating mental illness as for physical illness. The
Mental Health Parity Act was passed and signed into law in 1996. The
final version of the bill sadly was watered down and fell short of
Paul's earliest goals.
A new bill to eliminate these disparities in insurance coverage was
introduced in the last Congress. The Paul Wellstone Treatment Act
attracted widespread bipartisan support: 69 Members of this Chamber and
245 Members of the House--a clear majority supporting Paul Wellstone's
legacy. But unfortunately, during the past 2 years, this bill was not
called for passage and did not pass.
Today I am honored to be joined by Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota,
Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Tom Harkin, and Senator Mark Dayton of
Minnesota in submitting a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, first to
remember Paul Wellstone and honor his legacy, but also to publicly
commit to finishing his work on mental health equity legislation.
Mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability. Without
treatment, the consequences of mental illness for the individual and
for all of us are staggering: disability, unemployment, substance
abuse, homelessness, inappropriate incarceration, suicide, and wasted
lives. The economic costs of untreated mental illness is more than $100
billion each year in the United States. In my home State of Illinois,
close to 4 million people, or 30 percent of the population, are
affected by some form of mental illness each year, including
depression. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young
people 15 to 24. Seventy-seven percent of adults with severe mental
illness are unemployed.
Now, the good news is this: Mental illness is treatable but only for
the people who have access to sound diagnosis and care. We have a good
start, thanks to the Mental Health Parity law that Senators Wellstone
and Domenici led to enactment in 1996. Our next challenge is to build
on the work Paul Wellstone left behind.
Current law requires insurers offer mental health care and offer
comparable benefit caps for mental health and physical health, but it
does not require group health plans and their health insurance issuers
to include mental health coverage in their benefits package. It doesn't
prevent insurers from setting higher deductibles, higher copays, and
fewer services covered for mental health illness. I commend Senators
Kennedy and Domenici for their work in this Congress on working toward
a consensus for reaching mental health parity for Americans.
I called Senator Domenici last week to tell him I was submitting this
resolution and to cheer him on so that during the next session of
Congress we can give the right tribute to Paul Wellstone and, more
importantly, as Paul would see it and I see it as well, hope to
millions of Americans.
This resolution honors Paul Wellstone. It commits us to continuing
his work to ensure equity for people with mental illness. Paul fought
against discrimination in any form. His life work was dedicated to
creating a world in which everyone, regardless of race, religion,
economic status, or health or mental health status, would be treated
fairly and equally. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and
renew our commitment to ensuring mental health parity.
[[Page S10141]]
Paul Wellstone was often quoted as saying:
I don't think politics has anything to do with left, right,
or center. It has to do with trying to do right by the
people.
That was what Paul Wellstone said. And now we will have our chance in
the next session of Congress to honor that commitment.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois for
submitting this resolution both on the legacy of Paul Wellstone and, in
particular, focusing on this issue of mental health parity.
Paul Wellstone and I disagreed on a lot of issues. One of the great
things about Paul Wellstone is that even if you disagreed with him, you
admired his passion--his passion which was reflected when we had our
debates. He was always energized. He was real. He was very real.
One of the things he was very passionate about was mental health
parity and doing the right thing for millions of Americans. His Senate
family has been touched by the tragedy of mental illness--touched.
Millions of Americans have been touched or impacted by the tragedy of
mental illness. The reality is there is treatment available. We can
deal with this. We can lift up lives to make people whole and
productive. There is a path to do this. There is a path that my
predecessor laid out with the help of Senator Domenici in the early
1990s. We made some headway, but we didn't go far enough. We know what
the voids are. We know what the gaps are. We have a path to get there.
We are close. The problem is ``close'' may be good in bocce ball, but
it is not good in legislation.
I have been here 4 years. It is one of my hopes that on one of the
things that Senator Wellstone and I fully agreed on, which is the
importance of providing true mental health parity, is that we can get
it done. We are not there yet. We need to get it done. I hope that as
we move forward and when we come back and finish this session--we are
not going to get it done now, but I hope folks will reflect on what is
the right thing. It is the right thing. With this resolution we are
honoring the legacy of a great Senator, we honor the legacy of someone
who had great passion, and we do the right thing for millions of
Americans.
Let us get mental health parity through. It is the right thing and I
hope we can get it done. Again, I thank my colleague from Illinois for
raising this issue.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I at the outset thank my colleague from
Minnesota who was quick to join with his colleague Senator Dayton as a
cosponsor of this resolution.
Many times politics divides us, but when it comes to an issue such as
mental illness, we are all in this together. I know my colleague from
Minnesota has probably had the same experience I had, of raising this
issue at a town meeting or a public meeting, and then I almost
guarantee you that before you leave that hall, someone will come up to
you and ask if they can speak to you privately to tell you the story of
a child or a spouse who has bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or who
has committed suicide. It touches so many of us. What Paul Wellstone
was trying to remind us of is that mental illness is not a curse, it is
an illness, and an illness that can be treated. Why shouldn't we
include it in our health insurance for Americans so that every family
can be spared the suffering that comes with mental illness today.
I thank my colleague from Minnesota for joining me on this
resolution.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I thank and commend my friend and
colleague, the assistant Democratic leader from Illinois, Senator
Durbin, for submitting the Senate resolution honoring the memory of the
late Senator Paul Wellstone from Minnesota, my friend of 22 years, my
colleague and mentor for my first 2 years in the Senate.
I also thank Senator Coleman, my present colleague, for his
cosponsorship of this resolution and making it a bipartisan statement.
I am proud to join as a cosponsor of the resolution.
It is hard to believe that it has been almost 4 years--it will be on
October 25, 2006, when we will not be in session--since the terrible
plane crash occurred that took the lives of Paul Wellstone, U.S.
Senator from Minnesota, his wife and partner of 39 years, Sheila
Wellstone, his daughter Marcia; the Democratic Party associate chair
from Minnesota, Mary McEvoy; one of Paul's longtime valued Senate
staffers here in Washington, Tom Lapic; and a young Minnesota aide,
Will McLaughlin, as well as two pilots.
One of Paul's most important causes was that of mental health parity.
The illness of a family member made this a very personal cause for him,
as well as his compassion for those throughout this country who suffer
from some form of mental illness and are unable to get the treatment
they deserve and which is medically available because insurance
companies will not pay for and treat mental illness with the same
parity they do other physical health problems.
Senator Wellstone found a valuable partner in the distinguished
Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici. Together they worked on a
bipartisan basis for several years against the fervent opposition of
the medical insurance industry to pass mental health parity
legislation.
In the aftermath of Senator Wellstone's death, then-majority leader
of the Senate Tom Daschle succeeded in getting through the Senate the
Wellstone-Domenici legislation, which passed the Senate but
unfortunately hit opposition by the House of Representatives. And once
again the medical insurance industry prevented one of Paul's
legislative dreams from becoming law in 2002.
Despite assurances beginning in January of 2003 from the new Senate
majority leadership that the Senate would act on successor legislation
in honor of Senator Wellstone and pass mental health parity, despite
the best efforts of Senator Domenici, who was then joined on our side
of the aisle by Senator Kennedy and our own caucus leaders, Senator
Reid and Senator Durbin, the Senate has neither considered as a body
nor passed mental health parity in either the 108th Congress or the
109th Congress.
In other words, during the last 4 years following Senator Wellstone's
terrible tragedy, the Senate has not acted to pass this legislation.
That is why Senator Durbin's resolution today is so timely and so
important in these final days of the 109th session. It states that
Senator Wellstone should be remembered for his compassion and
leadership on social issues, and the Congress should act to end
discrimination against citizens of the United States who live with a
illness by passing legislation relating to mental health parity as a
priority for the 110th Congress.
One of Paul's favorite quotes was that of a rabbi many years ago who
concluded by saying: If not now, when? If not now, unfortunately, then
at least in the 110th Congress, over the next 2 years, it is my fervent
hope, although I will not be here, and even though my colleague,
Senator Paul Wellstone, will not be here, his spirit will continue to
carry this legislation forward, and with the leadership of Senator
Durbin and others who have championed this cause in the Senate and with
greater understanding perhaps on the other side of Capitol Hill in the
House about the importance of this legislation to millions and millions
of Americans, this would be one of Senator Wellstone's proudest
moments. It would be one of the Senate's and Congress's great
accomplishments, if mental health parity were to be made the law of
this country for the millions of those who would benefit from it.
I again thank Senator Durbin.
I yield the floor.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a question,
I would like to say by way of question through the Chair that I thank
my colleague from Minnesota. I can recall when he first came to the
Senate serving with our mutual friend, Paul Wellstone. It must have
been tough to be that close to a dynamo. The man had boundless energy
and committed to so many good causes.
The Senator from Minnesota has carried on the fine tradition for your
State. I thank the Senator for joining us in this resolution.
Hope springs eternal, and maybe during the lame duck session Senator
Kennedy and Senator Domenici will be able to give us some good news
that will make us proud on this important issue.
I thank the Senator for his words today.
[[Page S10142]]
Mr. DAYTON. I thank the Senator from Illinois. Senator Wellstone was
an eternal optimist. I share the Senator's hope that something might be
possible this year. If not, this resolution passing on that
responsibility to the 110th Congress is very timely and appropriate. I
am glad to cosponsor it.
Estate Tax
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this morning one of my Republican
colleagues came to the floor to talk about what appears to be the
favorite topic of most Republican Senators: the estate tax. No matter
what we are talking about on the floor, whether it is immigration
reform, making America safe from terrorism, dealing with issues
involving the funding for our troops, port security, without fail, you
can count on one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle trying
to wedge in to this queue with what many of them consider to be at
least equally important: the issue of the estate tax.
So my colleague came to the floor and mentioned my name over and over
again as if I were his opponent. I would say to my colleague there are
many Senators who disagree with his position, but I will be happy to
address it for a moment or two.
The simple fact is this: If an American and a spouse have assets
valued at less than $2 million at the time of their death, they will
never pay one penny in estate taxes--not one. So if you ask who
benefits from this repeal of the estate tax, well, sadly it turns out
to be some of the wealthiest people in America. If you took 1 percent--
that is 1 out of 100--estates in America, people who die each year,
only one-fourth of those will ever pay any estate tax. It is a very
small number of people who have done very well in their lives in
America who may end up paying estate tax.
I want my position to be clear. There is an exemption under the
estate tax, an exempt amount that you can leave to your heirs, that
will not be taxed. I think we need to increase that and regularly
increase it to reflect reality. It is true, the real estate we own has
gone up in value while we have lived there, businesses have increased
in value, farms have increased in value, and I think the exemption
should be increased as well.
Where I have a problem is where we have people who are very well
off--multimillionaires--who end up owing the Government--in fact, owing
their country--something for their success, and they will be left in a
position with the proposal from the other side of the aisle where they
may have no estate tax liability whatsoever.
The majority leader of the Senate, Senator Frist, has said he is for
total repeal of the estate tax--total repeal so that Mr. Bill Gates of
Microsoft, who has done so well and made so much money, would pay
nothing back to America by way of estate tax when he passes away. Well,
Mr. Gates is not asking for that. Many people who are well off are not
asking for that. They understand this country has been very good to
them, and they are also prepared to pay back so that future generations
have a chance to succeed as well.
My colleague came to the floor and talked about farmers and is
concerned about farmers. I am from downstate Illinois. A few years ago,
after hearing all of the debate about estate taxes, I wrote to the
Illinois Farm Bureau, the Illinois Farmers Union, and asked them: Tell
me of any farm that you know of where the farmer's survivors had to
sell the farm because of paying Federal estate tax. There was not one
single instance in my State. They couldn't find one. Now, I understand
some of those farmers may have to sell off a portion of their land or
some of their acreage to pay their taxes at the time that the spouse
finally passes away. But as far as losing farms, that is something that
is said over and over again, but neither the Illinois Farm Bureau, the
Farmers Union and, in fact, the American Farm Bureau could find a
single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of
estate tax liability.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, only 123 family-owned
farms and 135 family-owned businesses would pay any estate tax at all
with a $2 million family exemption level.
So we often have to stop and wonder why are we dwelling on this or
why are some Members of the Senate continuing to dwell on this. If
their sympathy is for those who are struggling to survive in America,
they should focus their spotlight not on the wealthiest among us but
those who are struggling at lower levels.
Let's take a look at some of the realities, the economic realities in
America today. This chart shows what has happened over the last 6
years. The minimum wage has been frozen under President Bush and this
Republican Congress for 9 years. During that 9-year period of time, the
President's pay has been increased substantially, pay for Members of
Congress increased $31,600, and the $5.15 an hour minimum wage has not
gone up.
It is always interesting to me that my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle seem to think that it is fine for those making the lowest
wages in America, some of them working very hard each day, to have no
increase in their pay for 9 straight years, while they are struggling
to make ends meet. They come to the floor and talk to us about those
who have made millions of dollars in their lives and whether they will
have to pay any taxes. I think it is a misplaced priority.
If we take a look at some of the real household income of Americans
across the board, you can see what has happened from 2000 to 2005. Real
household income has declined by $1,273. It means the average family,
working hard, paying off the costs of living--utilities and mortgages,
energy costs, education costs--is working harder and falling behind
each and every year.
Our economic policies in this country really are not focused where
they should be. We should be focusing on this middle-income American
family that is struggling to make ends meet in a very difficult time.
The distribution of wealth in America has changed substantially over
the last several years. The distribution of earnings has become even
more unequal. When you look at this situation, you see the years
between 1995 and 2000 with a violet color, 2000 to 2005 with the red.
So in the year 1995 to 2000, the last term of President Clinton, you
can see there was an increase in earnings, weekly earnings for full-
time workers, across the board. All of these violet bars above show,
for example, a 9.6-percent increase, a 7.4-percent increase. So in that
4-year period of time, we had the distribution of earnings increasing.
Now look at the period of time under President Bush. During that time
period, in each of these categories of income in America, we have seen
that earnings have been declining or rising very slowly, as they are at
the highest levels of income in America
Take a look at the wealth as well under the tax breaks given under
this administration the last several years. This is the Bush economic
record: a $38,000 tax break for people who are making $1 million a
year, but for middle-income families making $50,000 to $100,000, their
tax break under the Bush administration has been $55, and for those in
the lowest income categories a tax break of $6.
You can see where the priorities have been when it comes to taxes.
But ask the average family making about $100,000 a year--let's take
that as an example. Let's take someone who is a teacher and whose
spouse may work part time, bringing in some income to the family, and
together they make $100,000 a year. They have raised their kids and
spent good money sending them to school. Then the kids apply to
college. The families are inundated with a stack of forms--most
families have seen them--to apply for student loans and students
grants. Those making about $100,000 a year will find it difficult to
apply for any financial assistance. So the students, their sons and
daughters who finally got into the school of their dreams, may face an
unconscionable debt.
Some students put off their education. Some give up on the best
schools. Some go on to school and graduate with a mountain of debt, a
mountain of debt which was made worse this year when, on July 1, a law
signed by President Bush increased the interest rates on student loan
debts by 2 percent. It doesn't sound like much, except it means the
payback for that student loan has now been increased by 20 percent over
the life of the loan. It means these students, borrowing money to go to
school, deeper in debt, will now be paying off their student loan debt
into their 50s. Imagine that student graduating today--23, 24 years
[[Page S10143]]
old, maybe--looking ahead to 20 or 30 years of paying off student loan
debt. Finally, in their early 50s, they have paid it all off, and now
they have a few years to contemplate their retirement.
What is wrong with that picture? What is wrong is students and
families in middle-income circumstances are bearing this burden, and
this burden is increasing, as I will show, as the cost of college
education increases. So instead of talking about a $38,000 tax break
for someone who makes $1 million a year, we believe on this side of the
aisle that we should allow the deductibility of college education
expenses. If you can deduct the amount of interest you pay on your home
to encourage home ownership, why shouldn't a family be able to deduct
some of the costs of college education from their tax expenses so we
can encourage students to go on, further their education, and make this
a better country? It is a question of tax priorities: on one side of
the aisle, estate tax relief for those in the highest income
categories; on this side of the aisle, we are talking about relief when
it comes to tax deduction for the real cost of college education
expenses.
Most of the families I represent in Illinois were quick to tell me,
during the August break, how bad gasoline prices were. We know in the
last 5 years they have increased 104 percent. They started coming down
in the Midwest, but I think there is a false sense of security here. A
lot of people were sacrificing to put more gasoline in the car, but we
still don't have a national energy policy, and there is no guarantee
that a few weeks from now those gasoline prices will not go back up
again because we have no bargaining power.
We are so dependent on foreign oil today that we can't say to those
who gouge us and those who want to really charge us the most that there
is anything we will do about it. And this administration has not really
called the oil company executives in, Exxon and others, to explain the
absolutely unprecedented level of profits they took as the gasoline
prices went up. That industry made more money more quickly than any
industry in America, and they reached higher profit levels than any
industry had recorded previously. Yet this administration sat back and
said w can do nothing about it as Americans and families and businesses
and farmers paid the price. As the cost of gasoline goes up, as prices
have in the last several months, families have faced that sacrifice.
Now comes the heating oil season for many, and that may again increase
the cost of expenses for these families.
Take a look at what has happened as well when it comes to family
health insurance premiums under this administration. Family health
insurance premiums have increased 71 percent in the last 5 years. That
means the average premium for family health insurance went from $6,348
when President Bush took office to $10,880. Is it any wonder families
are feeling the squeeze? These premium increases, of course, translate
into another $300 or $400 each month that a family has to come up with
just to have the same health insurance as last year and maybe less
coverage.
Have we discussed expanding health insurance or making it more
affordable on the floor of the Senate? Only once and just for a few
days. I salute Senator Enzi, Republican from Wyoming, chairman of the
HELP Committee, for bringing a health insurance proposal to the floor.
We had another proposal here. We tried, if we could, to work out
something ahead of time to have a bipartisan approach. We didn't get it
done. I hope that in the next Congress, we can find a way to bring real
relief on a bipartisan basis to families that are struggling with these
health insurance premiums.
I mentioned earlier the cost of education and student loans. This
graph shows what has happened under this administration since the
President took office with regard to the increased costs of college.
They have gone up
$3,688, the average annual cost of a public 4-year college, tuition,
fees, room, and board. So there was a 44-percent increase in just this
5-year period of time under this administration, increase in college
cost. Again, wouldn't our Tax Code be more sensible if we helped
families pay this difference, if we helped them put their kids through
college to get a good degree and a good life and contribute to this
country? Wouldn't that be a higher priority in terms of our Tax Code
than whether Bill Gates is going to end up being excused from paying an
estate tax when he passes away?
There is also a concern as well with retirement plans. Take a look at
what has happened in the last 5 years. In the last 5 years, 3.7 million
fewer Americans have retirement plans. The number of workers with
employer-sponsored retirement plans has gone down from 56.2 million to
52.5 million, which means more vulnerability.
A lot of people who had paid into a retirement plan through the
course of their work experience believed that they had paid their dues,
taken the money out of their check every week, and that the day would
come and they would see it, that they would finally get to retire and
relax. Then came mergers and consolidations and corporate sleight of
hand and legal work, and the next thing you know a lot of these
pensions started disappearing. So many families are concerned,
concerned about when or if they can retire.
You read the stories in the paper all the time in Illinois and every
other State about those who had their future plans wrecked when they
lost their pension benefits. It has happened at the airlines. It has
happened in so many industries across our country. We know it makes a
real difference in life. A lot of people who thought they would be
spending their time worrying about where to go fishing now are acting
as greeters at stores around America and trying to find part-time jobs
just to keep it together.
We need to do something about retirement in this country, and one
thing we do not need to do is privatize Social Security. Privatizing
Social Security is, of course, supported by the President but not by
the American people. They know the math doesn't work. Taking money out
of the Social Security trust fund for people to experiment with their
investments is going to weaken that fund unfortunately. They will be
unable to make the payments our Social Security retirees need. If there
is ever a time when we need Social Security to be strong, it is now, as
we see fewer and fewer Americans with retirement plans.
The number of Americans without health insurance has gone up
dramatically under this administration, from 39.8 million Americans
with no health insurance to 46.6 million Americans. Those who are
insured will tell you many times that their health insurance is not
very good. They come up to me at town meetings in Illinois and talk
about frightening scenarios where someone in their family had a serious
illness, a diagnosis, and then when they tried to pay off the medical
bills, it turns out the health insurance fought them all the way. These
health insurance companies are spending a lot less on care and a lot
more on battles with the people who have the health insurance, denying
coverage whenever they can. So we have to really get back to this issue
as part of the priorities of this Congress. I am sorry that this
Republican Congress has not really come up with assistance that many of
these Americans need with health insurance
Overall, as we go through this litany, you can understand as you go
through this litany why this next chart is where it is today. In the
last 5 years, under this administration, household debt has gone up
over $26,000. Because Americans are struggling to make ends meet,
because the cost of college and health care and gasoline and heating
your home has gone up dramatically, Americans have had to borrow more
and more just to keep up. They are right on the edge, trying to pay off
very expensive credit card debt.
There has been a 35-percent increase in household debt in the last 5
years for the reasons I mentioned earlier, from an average inflation-
adjusted debt per household of $75,000 to over $101,000. This debt is
hanging over the heads of many Americans, and if there is any rock in
the road that Americans families trip over--if someone gets sick, loses
a job, a divorce, something unforeseen--they are going to find
themselves then facing default on their debt and even higher interest
rates.
While this has been going on for the average American, employee
compensation has gone down some 4.6 percent. So while all the debts
have been
[[Page S10144]]
piling up, the compensation that is being given to individuals has been
going down. Meanwhile, corporate profits are up 8 percentage points. So
we can see that the share of corporate income going to profits and
employee compensation has gone in opposite directions, and those
directions do not benefit those families that are struggling to get by.
Those who run the corporations are doing quite well, thank you. In
the last 5 years, the pay for the chief executive officers of major
corporations in America has gone up over $1.6 million individually.
This average pay here of $5.2 million when the President took office is
now up to $6.8 million. So while the pay for employees is going down
and expenses are going up, in the boardrooms the median CEO
compensation has gone up substantially.
When you take a look at the tax cuts under this administration, their
economic record, tax cuts are over 150 times larger for millionaires
than they are for most households in America. So we gave the tax cuts
of $103,000 for those in the highest income levels and $684 for those
making less than $100,000 a year. So the so-called tax cut program has
not really helped those families struggling the hardest.
What has happened to employment, creation of jobs in America, is
illustrated by this chart. We have seen the average annual growth rate
of nonfarm employment in America under every President. You have to go
back to Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression to see a decline of 6
percent in employment in America. You will see the lowest number of any
President since Herbert Hoover has been registered by this
administration, in the creation of jobs. That is the average annual
growth rate of nonfarm employment. It is the slowest job growth in
America in over 70 years.
The other sad reality is, while all of these things have taken place,
this represents the famous wall of debt which Senator Conrad of North
Dakota has brought to our attention over and over again. When President
Bush took office, our national debt was $5.8 trillion. Today, it is
over $8.5 trillion--a dramatic increase in America's debt in a 6-year
period of time. With policies which this administration supports and
many on the other side have been arguing for, we can see America's debt
reaching $11.6 trillion in 2011. So in a 10-year period of time, we
will have virtually doubled--not quite but almost doubled--the debt of
America, which means we are leaving a burden for our children, a burden
with which they will have to deal--a burden with which they will have
to deal as we see more and more baby boomers in Social Security and
Medicare. As we see fewer people working, those who remain in the
workforce will not only have to face their own personal challenges
economically, but they will have to deal with the debt that we are
leaving behind.
If this is fiscal conservatism, I don't understand the meaning of the
term.
Why is it that we have reached this point? Sadly, the economy is not
going as planned. We are facing a war which costs between $1.5 billion
and $3 billion every week, and the other side continues to come to the
floor and ask for something that no administration has ever asked for
in the history of the United States--a tax cut in the midst of a war.
That is what the Senator from this morning was suggesting. He wants to
cut the estate tax. By cutting the estate tax there will be less
revenue for our Government, the war will continue, and our debt will
grow. These numbers will have to be adjusted upwards for the debt we
are going to leave our children.
Yesterday we had a hearing with the Democratic Policy Conference to
discuss the war in Iraq. We had two generals and a Marine Corps colonel
who spoke to us. They spoke on a lot of things that we need to do to
make America safer and make sure we win this war in Iraq. But one thing
that MG John Batiste said I really thought was important. He said--and
I think we all believe--that America can rise to a challenge. America
can meet a challenge. We have done it so many times in our history. We
have won wars when we were not expected to. We put a man on the Moon
when a lot of people scoffed at that possibility. We developed medical
breakthroughs which no one would have dreamed of. We led the world in
computer technology development and in so many areas one by one.
Whether it was in agricultural production or in industrial development
or innovation we have led the world. We have led the world because
leaders have stepped forward--a President has stepped forward and
challenged us and said we need to stick together, we need to work
together to reach the goal.
General Batiste said yesterday--and I paraphrase his actual
testimony, but I believe what he said. He said that what we need to be
reminded of is we can meet any challenge as a nation. We need to be
reminded, as well, if we are challenged and work together, we can win
this war on terrorism. And he said it is going to involve sacrifice. It
is not the first time Americans have been asked to sacrifice. They have
done that many times. I believe that spirit of sacrifice is what is
needed to make sure we keep America safe from terrorism and safe from
other threats.
I see that Senator Ensign has come to the floor. I don't know whether
he wishes to take the floor at this time. But I mentioned his name
earlier. I commended him for bringing the health insurance issue to the
floor. I hope in the next session that we can work together to try to
find some bipartisan compromise to deal with this health insurance
challenge. It is still out there and getting more challenging every
day. Senator Enzi of Wyoming, as Republican chair of the committee, may
have been the first one to bring the health issue to the floor of the
Senate in the 10 years I have been here. I commend him for that.
Although we didn't see eye to eye on all of that, I hope we come back
together and sit down and try to find some common bipartisan approach
no matter who is in charge of the Senate in the next session.
I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ryan White Hiv/aids Treatment Modernization Act
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, in a moment I will request unanimous consent
that the Senate pass S. 2823, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment
Modernization Act.
Just last week, we made a unanimous consent request to pass this
bipartisan, bicameral legislation. That means Members from both sides
of the aisle and both ends of the building have agreed to the language
in this reauthorization. It passed out of the House Committee on Energy
and Commerce last week. However, Senators from three States are
blocking the vote that would speed reauthorization programs that
provide life-sparing treatment to individuals suffering from HIV and
AIDS.
We have to pass this bill. If this bill is not reauthorized by
September 30, several States and the District of Columbia will be
slated to lose funds. People who have been counting on the money for
HIV and AIDS will lose money on September 30. Therefore, Senators from
three States are holding up a bill that would help Connecticut,
Georgia, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Illinois,
Maine, Oregon, Washington State, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts,
Maryland, Montana, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia,
not to mention some of the towns, major cities, and some of the States
that would be gaining revenue as we move the money to areas where the
current AIDS and HIV cases are. People with HIV and AIDS who live in
the States I just mentioned will be hurt if a few Senators continue
blocking this reauthorization.
As we all know, the Ryan White program provides critical health
services for people infected with HIV and AIDS. These individuals rely
on vital programs for drugs and other services. We need to pass this
legislation so we can provide them with the treatment they desperately
need. I urge Senators who are holding up this bill to stop playing the
``numbers game'' so that the Ryan White legislation can address the
epidemic of today--not yesterday.
I mentioned that we changed the formula to follow the people. The
HIV/AIDS epidemic affects more women, minorities, and more people in
rural
[[Page S10145]]
areas and the South than ever before. While we have made significant
progress in understanding and treating this disease, there is still
much to do to ensure equitable treatment for all Americans infected
with HIV and AIDS. We must ensure that those infected with HIV and
living with AIDS will receive our support and our compassion,
regardless of their race, regardless of their agenda, regardless of
where they live; therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this key
legislation and to stop playing the numbers game so we can assist those
with HIV in America.
Unanimous-Consent Request S. 2823
Having said that, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to
the immediate consideration of S. 2823, the Ryan White Act. I ask
unanimous consent that the Enzi substitute at the desk be agreed to;
the committee-reported amendment No. 578, as amended, be agreed to; the
bill, as amended, be read the third time and passed; the motion to
reconsider be laid upon the table; and any statements related to the
bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I object, not on my account but on behalf
of some of my Senate colleagues who, I stress, want to join with the
program.
I commend the chairman for his leadership on behalf of this
legislation and the support of the reauthorization, but they object to
the permanent reduction in funding for their respective States which
would occur under the formula the chairman referenced. They share my
hope, along with the chairman, that this issue can be satisfactorily
resolved for all concerned before the expiration, September 30, so that
this--I think we all agree--very important and valuable program
benefiting all of our States can continue uninterrupted.
I do object on their behalf.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Mr. ENZI. I am sorry to hear we have an objection. We need to find a
way to work through this objection. I have been working desperately
across the aisle with Senator Kennedy, who has been joining me in this
effort to help get it out of committee. We have been trying to find a
way that the formula would work. One of the ways was to include in the
bill 3 years of hold harmless for them to finish updating their system
to the point where if they truly have the HIV numbers, they will truly
get the money. If they don't have the HIV numbers, yes, they will lose
the money.
Now, I don't know if the Senator from Minnesota is aware that our
Ryan White reauthorization bill increases the funding for Minneapolis
by $2 million and $2.5 million for the whole State. It is a net
benefactor. There have been increases in HIV and AIDS cases in
Minnesota, and this would move money to where the cases are. That is
where the numbers show that his city and State would be significant
beneficiaries.
I have a lot of statistics I can go through, but I wonder if the
Senator is also aware that these increases are due to the inclusion of
HIV/AIDS in the funding formula and that Minnesota has more HIV cases.
Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, again, to make the record clear, I am not
objecting on my own account but on behalf of my other Senate
colleagues. I thank the chairman for that improvement in the funds that
are going to Minnesota. I strongly support the program and intend to
vote for it.
I thank the chairman again for his leadership and his continuing
efforts to get this important legislation reauthorized.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I appreciate that clarification.
I will ask the Senator for his help. He said he would vote for the
bill. Anything we can do to move this forward. We have put a 3-year
hold harmless in there for everyone.
On September 30, the world falls apart for a number of people.
California, for one, will lose $18.5 million of their funding. There
are a number of big losers. There are no big losers if we pass the
bill, provided the numbers back up what they have.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, by objecting to moving this bill, we need
to look at the real lives that are getting ready to be harmed. Not only
is the funding for the program going to be cut to the poorest of the
poor by the formula in the preexisting Ryan White Act, but also the
money for New York and California is going to be cut. The New York
delegation, for example, argues that updating the formulas is
devastating their State's infrastructure. A closer look reveals that
the impact on New York, like other States with large urban areas, is
not so great.
The national average funding per AIDS case in 2006 was $1,613. New
York's average was $2,122--33 percent more than the national average.
Under the corrected funding formulas, the national average in 2007
would be $1,793; New York's would still be higher at $2,107, just 5
percent less than the State currently has, so people who are getting no
treatment now, especially minority women where this disease has ravaged
and is growing at a larger proportion, do not have access to any care.
What we are really saying is to avoid a 5-percent cut, we are going
to eliminate access for large numbers of minority women in this country
who are infected with this virus and have no access to drugs, have no
access to treatment today because the dollars have not followed the
epidemic.
The political response to this, even though it might be parochial, is
wrong for this country. It is wrong for those who have no benefit today
to continue to be denied benefits because some group might lose a small
percentage when, in fact, a very large number of people are going to be
benefited by the new Ryan White fund.
We need to be very careful. The last Ryan White law was very specific
in what is getting ready to happen. The number of people waiting for
drugs is going to shoot through the ceiling if we do not pass the bill
because of the funding formula that was in there to force us to pass a
bill.
What we have said is we are going to object on parochial interests, a
4- or 5-percent cut, but the reason we are going to object, we do not
care that other people are going to have no care, no treatment, no
drugs, no access, so what we are really doing is we are not taking away
any significant care, but we are markedly reducing an opportunity for
life for those who are the least able to care for themselves.
Just a couple of other examples. The New York Times noted that out of
this $2,107, we have dog-walking paid for through AIDS funds, we have
candlelight dinners paid for for AIDS recipients--this at the same time
an African-American woman in Atlanta, in Greensboro, or in Tulsa cannot
get the lifesaving drugs she needs for tomorrow, the drugs that will
save her life, allowing her to continue to be a mother.
There have been a lot of people who have worked very hard to get Ryan
White reauthorized. I thank them personally for that. It diminishes the
Senate when we think of the parochial and not the whole.
The long-term former funding for Ryan White was based on AIDS cases.
The new funding is based on HIV and AIDS cases. This new funding in
this new bill says that 75 percent of the money has to go to
treatment--we have never had that before--to really make a difference
in people's lives.
I am disappointed that we are not going to be able to do this bill,
but my disappointment is nothing compared to the people who aren't
going to get care, who aren't going to have a future, who aren't going
to have a life if this is not changed. I thank the chairman for his
hard work. I thank the Senator from North Carolina for his work and
Senator Jeff Sessions, as well. This is a disease which is moving hard
and heavy to minority communities, to the South. If we do not recognize
that they ought to have equal rights for treatment and care, there is
something wrong with us.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
Mr. BURR. Mr. President, this is, plain and simple, about whether
this Senate is going to allow legislation to go forward to reauthorize
Ryan White, that allows the funding to follow the patients. What an
incredible thought, that we would be here at a stalemate over whether
health dollars follow the individual HIV-positive and AIDS patients.
In North Carolina, we have gone on an aggressive program for
volunteer
[[Page S10146]]
testing. The amazing thing we found out is that of those individuals
now tested, 30 percent have full-blown aids, meaning that the options
we have, that the health community has, are minimal from a standpoint
of how we stop that disease in its tracks and give them any quality of
life.
We are making the steps in North Carolina to try to identify the
individuals who should be on a regimen of drugs. But by not allowing
this bill to come to the floor for debate, we are denying the Senate
the ability to bring the bill up and to consider the merits of it, and,
yes, to amend it if we want to, to live with the majority of this body
as to whether we change the funding formulas from what the committee
has decided; which is, the funding should follow the patient.
My colleague from Oklahoma is an OB/GYN by profession. He has the
medical degree. He understands the specifics of it. And the one thing
that Tom Coburn has drilled in me over and over and over again is that
to deny these individuals the ability to have the regimen of drugs that
are available is to give them a death sentence. To deny this
legislation to come up on this floor is to give a death sentence to
somebody in America.
The likelihood is that some of those individuals with that death
sentence live in North Carolina. Seventy-two percent of new North
Carolina cases reported in 2005 were minority clients. Women of color
in the South are 26 times more likely to be HIV positive than White
females. In 2004, 66.7 percent of people living with AIDS in North
Carolina were African American--the fifth highest rate in the Nation.
The national average was 39.9 percent.
What is unique about this challenge of the demographic shift in where
HIV and AIDS is affecting the U.S. population is that, for example, in
North Carolina, in many cases, it is in rural North Carolina. The
challenge is not only how you match the dollars for drugs with the
patient, it is how you supply the transportation to the patient to get
to the clinic where, in fact, they get their drugs. To deny the ability
of the Senate to come to the floor and debate this bill, to bring it up
and to address the merits of this formula change, to suggest that there
is something wrong with allowing the funding to follow the patient--I
am not sure I get it. I thought that is why America sent us here.
In 2004, North Carolina's contribution of $11.2 million a year
represented the seventh highest among all States for ADAP programs in
absolute dollars, and the second highest contribution as a State in
percentage. Nobody can look at North Carolina and say we are not doing
our share and more for the people who live in North Carolina.
But what we are denied by our inability to debate this legislation,
to amend it, if some want to amend it, is to say that North Carolina
will have to continue to make a bigger investment on the part of our
State because certain States do not want to give up their Federal
dollars, even though they no longer have the pool of HIV and AIDS
patients.
In 2004--one comparison I will draw for this body--in Massachusetts,
there were 8,254 individuals living with AIDS; in North Carolina, we
had 7,245. Total Federal spending in Massachusetts for individuals
living with AIDS was $18.6 million. In North Carolina, it was $8.1
million--$10 million shy of Massachusetts, with an affected AIDS
population 1,000 less than Massachusetts. That one statistic shows the
inequity that exists in the formula that we currently have within Ryan
White.
One simple change means that funds will now follow the patients. That
the concentration of dollars will go into the communities that affect
the individuals who are infected with this disease.
I am not sure that many of us have stopped to focus on the fact that
when the Federal Government makes an investment or the State government
makes an investment to make sure that AIDS patients have the
medications they need, we eliminate two hospital visits a year. A
person living with AIDS today untreated will likely visit the hospital
twice in any given year, for a week's stay each, once for a retinal
infection, the second time for pneumonia. The average of those two
stays is about $33,000
For an investment of slightly over $10,000 a year--part by the
Federal Government, part by the State government, part by private
entities--we can eliminate those two hospital visits.
So the inability to bring up this legislation, the inability to
debate a change in Ryan White, an inability to let the money follow the
patients means not only will New York keep their pot of money or
California keep their pot of money, but it means North Carolina is
going to pick up, in unrecoverable hospital expenses, about $22,000 per
year per patient for whom we could not provide the medicine. So not
only are we not investing the Federal money wisely because it is being
invested in communities that do not have the patient population
anymore, we are turning around, and the Federal Government is picking
up, in the case of North Carolina, 60-plus percent of the Medicaid
expense, or of the disproportionate share of the hospital expense in
DSH payments, or, in fact, the hospital is sitting there with a $33,000
bill and somebody unable to pay for it, and potentially it gives them a
collection problem.
This is an opportunity for us to fix something that is broken, for us
to do something that every person, every Member of the Senate
understands the equity and the fairness of; and that is, if we are
going to make a Federal investment, let's make sure the dollars follow
the individuals who are affected with HIV and AIDS.
This is an opportunity for us to understand that AIDS does not
recognize State borders, that it does not recognize the difference
between sexes or ethnic backgrounds, that it has now infiltrated rural
areas the same way it did urban areas years ago when we were reluctant
to come to this floor and talk about it.
This is a health problem in America. It deserves our attention today.
It demands that we change the formula to make sure as many Americans as
possible who are infected with AIDS are, in fact, treated, in part with
the money we devote out of the taxpayers' pockets to do it. The
inability to bring this legislation up--to stand up and suggest that we
would like to bring it up, and there is an objection--is to say, no, we
do not want to debate it. Why? Because they do not want to fix it. They
would rather allow a death sentence to be applied to somebody, to many
people, across this country.
So as Dr. Coburn said, dogs can be watched, midnight dinners can be
had, but the fact is, this legislation is focused on how we get
lifesaving drugs to individuals who are infected with HIV and AIDS. My
hope today is that Members who are scared to have this debate will come
to the floor and lift their hold, will agree to the unanimous consent
request, and come down and have a debate on this and try to defend--try
to defend--these numbers, try to tell me that having $18 million for
1,000 more HIV/AIDS patients is fair. In fact, it is not fair.
We are obligated--we are obligated--as Members of this body to change
the formula so it represents where the best investment can be made, and
to where the American people look at it and know we have responded in a
fair and equitable way.
I thank the chairman for the committee's commitment to do this
legislation, for the work of the chairman and his leadership in, quite
frankly, coming up with a very difficult bill to address the input of
many different regions of the country and many different States. But
the same population--a population that was infected with HIV/AIDS,
regardless of where they live, regardless of where they grew up,
regardless of what their skin color is, regardless of whether they are
male or female--they ought to be equitably treated as it relates to the
distribution of Federal funds available for them to access lifesaving
treatments and drugs for their disease.
My hope is that at the end of this day the Chair, the committee, but
more importantly the individuals who are infected across this country,
will, in fact, win and we will pass this legislation and change this
unfair funding formula
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). The Senator from Wyoming.
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his words. The
increase in knowledge that I am sure he has created across the
country--and also the
[[Page S10147]]
comments of the Senator from Oklahoma--both of them have made an
excellent case for why we need to do this. We need to do it
immediately. We need to do it for people who have HIV/AIDS. I would
note that the person who raised the objection to us adopting the bill
is not from one of the three States that have a hold on the bill. I
would hope those people would take a look at the situation in their
State, and take a look at the fact they are getting more than the
average number of funds being expended on patients across the rest of
the country, and see that the surpluses their States are running at the
end of the year greatly exceed the rather minute loss they would have,
and that they would agree for us to move forward on this bill and get
it in place before that September 30 deadline that is going to be
devastating to 13 States that will lose money for having done the right
thing.
Now, having said that, I know there will be people who will say the
Republicans cannot get anything done. Well, that particular issue, and
many others are not Republican issues. They are issues of the United
States. And that is one on which we worked across the aisle and had a
great deal of agreement on. And I have to thank Senator Kennedy, the
ranking member on my committee, for the extreme work he did to help us
find, among the thousands of formulas we looked at, the one that was
the most fair so it would follow the patients. I do appreciate the work
he has helped us do in the committee during the year.
Accomplishments of the Help Committee
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I want to take just a few minutes to talk
about what the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has
done this year. This Ryan White reauthorization is extremely important,
but it is not the only bill we have been working on. Because of the way
we have done our work, some people may not be aware of what has been
done. In fact, I know that to be the case.
This is a committee that has worked across the aisle. When you work
across the aisle, a lot of times you can work out many of the
difficulties, and when you work out the difficulties, there is not a
big floor debate. And when there is not a big floor debate, there is
nothing for the media to write up about the blood; consequently, it
does not get coverage. So I want to correct that here today, and I
would like to discuss the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Committee's accomplishments for the 109th Congress.
We have heard some claims that this is a do-nothing Congress. Well, I
am here to assure American workers, retirees, students, and parents
that the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has done a
great deal to help you live more secure, productive, and healthy lives.
Of course, we have more to do, but I am proud that during a time of
intense partisanship on Capitol Hill, the HELP Committee has produced a
lengthy list of legislative accomplishments.
Looking back over the past 2 years, most of these victories
materialized when Senators were willing to work across party lines and
across the Capitol to put finding a solution in front of exploiting an
issue.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of bills and
reports filed by the HELP Committee in the 109th Congress be printed in
the Record
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
REPORTS FILED BY THE HELP COMMITTEE, 109TH CONGRESS, FIRST AND SECOND SESSION (2005-2006)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill No. Ordered rpted. Date rpted. Written rpt. Cal. No. Status
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. S. 265 (Reau. Trauma Care)............... 2/9/2005 2/2/2006 109-215 359
2. S. 285 (Children's Hosp. Graduate Medical 2/9/2005 5/11/2005 109-66 98 Passed Senate, Amended 7/26/
Ed. Prog.). 2005, Referred to Energy &
Commerce 7/27/2005 (H.R.
5574).
3. S. 288 (High Risk Health Insurance Pools) 2/9/2005 2/10/2005 No 2 Passed Senate, 10/19/2005,
7/29/2005 109-121 (amdt. to H.R. 3204) P.L. 109-
172.
4. S. 302 (NIH)............................. 2/9/2005 5/26/2005 109-75 117 Passed Senate, 7/27/2005,
Referred to Energy & Commerce
7/28/2005.
5. S. 306 (Genetic Info . . . )............. 2/9/2005 2/10/2005 No 3 Passed Senate, Amended 2/17/
2005, Received in House, Held
at desk 3/1/2005
6. S. 172 (Amend FDA-re: Contact lenses).... 3/9/2005 7/27/2005 109-110 177 Passed Senate, 7/29/2005,
Passed House 10/26/2005.
P.L. 109-96.
11/9/2005
7. S. 250 (Carl D. Perkins)................. 3/9/2005 3/9/2005 No 39 P.L. 109-270
5/10/2005 109-65 39 8/12/2006.
8. S. 525 (Caring for Children)............. 3/9/2005 8/31/2005 109-130 199
9. S. 544 (Patient Safety).................. 3/9/2005 Discharged ................. ................. Passed Senate, Amended 7/21/
2005, Passed House 7/27/2005
P.L. 109-41.
7/29/2005.
10. S. 655 (Centers for Disease Control..... 4/27/2005 6/27/2005 109-91 140 P.L. 109-245.
7/26/2006
11. S. 898 (Patient Navigator).............. 4/27/2005 5/25/2005 109-73 115 P.L. 109-18; (H.R. 1812).
6/29/2005.
12. S. 1021 (WIA)........................... 5/18/2005 9/7/2005 109-134 203 Passed Senate, Amended 6/29/
2006.
13. S. 518 ( . . . Prescription Electronic 5/25/2005 7/29/2005 109-117 187 P.L. 109-60; (H.R. 1132).
Reporting). 8/11/2005.
14. S. 1107 (Head Start).................... 5/25/2005 8/31/2005 109-131 200
15. S. 1317 (Cord Blood).................... 6/29/2005 7/11/2005 109-129 156 P.L. 109-129; (H.R. 2520).
12/20/2005.
16. S. 1418 (Health IT)..................... 7/20/2005 7/27/2005 109-111 178 Passed Senate, Amended 11/17/
2005, Referred to Energy &
Commerce 11/18/2005.
17. S. 1420 (Medical Device User Fees)...... 7/20/2005 7/25/2005 109-107 173 P.L. 109-43; (H.R. 3423).
8/1/2005.
18. S. 1614 (Higher Education).............. 9/8/2005 11/17/2005 No 300
2/28/2006 109-218 300
19. S. _ (Defined Benefit Security)......... 9/8/2005 9/28/2005 No \1\ (See Below) H.R. 4 Pension Protection Act,
P.L. 109-280.
20. S. 1873 (Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine 10/18/2005 10/24/2005 No 257
and Drug Development Act).
21. S. 1902 (CAMRA)......................... 3/8/2006 9/5/2006 109-323 585 Passed Senate 9/13/2006.
22. S. 1955 (Health Insurance Marketplace 3/15/2006 4/28/2006 No 417
Modernization and Affordability Act of
2006).
23. S. 2803 (Mine Improvement and New 5/17/2006 5/23/2006 No 439 P.L. 109-236 (6/15/2006).
Emergency).
24. S. 2823 (Ryan White HIV/AIDS 5/17/2006 8/3/2006 No 580
Modernization Act).
25. S. 860 (American History Achievement 5/17/2006
Act).
26. S. 3570 (Older Americans Act Amendments) 6/28/2006 9/19/2006 ................. 616
27. S. 3546 (Dietary Supplements)........... 6/28/2006 9/5/2006 109-324 586
28. S. 707 (PREEMIE Act).................... 6/28/2006 7/31/2006 109-298 541 Passed Senate 8/1/2006.
29. S. 757 (Breast Cancer and Environmental 6/28/2006 7/24/2006 109-290 530
Research Act).
30. S. 3678 (Pandemic and All Hazards 7/19/2006 8/3/2006 109-312 583
Preparedness Act).
31. S. 843 (Combating Autism)............... 7/19/2006 8/3/2006 109-318 578 Passed Senate 8/3/2006.
32. S. 2322 (RADCare)....................... 9/20/2006
33. S. 1531 (Keeping Seniors Safe From Falls 9/20/2006
and TBI).
34. S. 3771 (Health Centers Renewal Act).... 9/20/2006 9/25/2006 ................. 639
35. H.R. 5074 (Railroad Retirement Technical 9/20/2006 9/21/2006 ................. 630 Passed Senate 9/25/2006.
Improvements).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ (Status--Was combined with a Fin. Cmte. bill and introduced as a Senate Bill on 9/28/2005 as S. 1783--Pension Security and Transparency Act of 2005.
Passed Senate amended 11/16/2005. (See also H.R. 28301, H. Res. 602); H.R. 2830--House disagreed to Senate amendment/agreed to a conference on 3/8/
2006.)
Mr. ENZI. Mr. President, I joined the HELP Committee when I was first
elected to the Senate in 1997. It was natural for me because of my
small business background as an owner of family shoe stores. I had
firsthand experience with burdensome government regulations, inadequate
health care coverage for my workers, and adversarial workplace safety
laws. I was energized about finding common sense solutions rather than
more Washington bureaucracy.
Now, another reason I joined the HELP Committee is because its broad
jurisdiction touches nearly every American.
[[Page S10148]]
Now, there were a lot of vacancies on the committee when I signed up.
I asked why there were so many vacancies, and I was told, well, that is
a contentious committee. I thought I knew what contentious committees
were because I served on the labor committee in Wyoming. I found out
that there is another level of contentious. I wanted to work with my
colleagues to find smart solutions that would address some of the most
important challenges faced by my constituents in Wyoming and, of
course, other people across the country. I came from Wyoming as a firm
believer in my 80-20 rule. The way that rule works is that we can
usually find agreement on 80 percent of any issue. We agree across the
aisle on about 80 percent the issues that comes up. Now, we are
probably never going to reach agreement on the remaining 20 percent.
Unfortunately, for America, what they get to watch on any bill is the
debate on the 20 percent we don't agree on, and probably will never
compromise on. That is what makes this body seem so contentious--the 20
percent that we don't agree on, even though 80 percent can get done.
The committee process will enable us to find that 80 percent, and that
has been a principle that has guided my chairmanship.
I was honored and humbled when my colleagues selected me to chair the
HELP Committee nearly 2 years ago. Since my chairmanship began, the
vision for both the full committee and the subcommittees is to craft
legislation that provides lifelong opportunities for people to be
healthier, more competitive, and to be more secure at school, work, and
in retirement.
Because we have such a broad jurisdiction, the HELP Committee has had
an aggressive legislative schedule in the 109th Congress. Over the past
2 years, together with the subcommittees, we have held 57 hearings and
reported 36 bills out of committee; 21 of these proposals were approved
by the Senate and 12 were signed by the President and became public
law. We also reviewed and approved 352 nominations that require Senate
confirmation. I thank my colleagues, including their staffs, for doing
the work needed to maintain this aggressive pace.
In this Congress, the HELP Committee has been privileged to have in
its ranks active subcommittee chairmen and engaged members. This is
largely the reason the committee has had legislative success. I thank
them for their dedication, and I applaud them for the joint success as
a committee. Our ranking member, Senator Kennedy, and I may disagree on
a number of issues, but we have worked hard to find common ground and
we share a commitment to improving the health, education, work, and
retirement security of Americans.
The number of bills acted upon by the HELP Committee is certainly
impressive. However, the numbers alone don't begin to tell the story of
how the committee's activity will improve the lives of Americans now
and in the years to come. One of the committee's most significant
accomplishments came on August 17 of this year when President Bush
signed into law the Pension Protection Act. That act marks the most
comprehensive change to pension law since 1974. The Pension Protection
Act is a real victory for working Americans who spend a lifetime
working hard and saving for retirement. It dramatically strengthens
pension funding rules and helps curb record pension failures. In doing
so, the act better protects the retirement dreams of 45 million
Americans. Not only were single employer fund rules significantly
overhauled, but the rules regarding hybrid pension plans were finally
clarified, and multi-employer funding rules were changed as well. The
proposal strengthens current law and will better help Americans prepare
and plan for retirement. It provides workers the security of knowing
that moneys earned for retirement will be there when they are ready to
retire.
It also secures the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and secures
that corporation without picking the pockets of taxpayers to keep the
agency solvent. This legislation was no small undertaking. It took a
year and a half of hearings, 5 months of deliberations in conference,
and countless hours of negotiations on each provision of the bill.
Fortunately, pension issues are almost always handled in tag team
fashion, involving both the HELP Committee and the Senate Finance
Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Code. While
this tag team approach is a great asset and helped us get the bill
through the Senate, it meant a complicated and extraordinarily large
conference involving four committees in the House and Senate and 27
conferees.
Together with my ranking member, Senator Kennedy, Finance Committee
Chairman Grassley, ranking member Senator Baucus, as well as HELP's
Retirement Security and Aging Subcommittee Chairman DeWine, and Ranking
Member Mikulski, our committees collaborated with House counterparts to
make this sweeping reform happen. Because of this teamwork, the law
passed the Senate 93 to 5. The result was a policy and a process that
was truly bipartisan. Total floor time for the bill--Senate debate and
conference report debate--totaled about one hour and fifteen minutes
equally divided.
Some may think the conference took a long time to conclude, but
history proves that it was ended in record time. The last big pension
conference occurred in 1994. The conference was appointed in March of
that year, but did not conclude until December. Prior to that, the most
recent conference took place in 1987 and operated in the context of
budget reconciliation. Again, that conference commenced in March but
didn't end until December.
This year, our conference began in March and ended in July--just 5
months compared to a 10-month conference for earlier bills.
Comparatively speaking, the Pension Protection Act conference finished
quickly, but the impact will be felt for generations.
Another major accomplishment of the HELP Committee was the enactment
of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, MINER. From the
tragic loss of life in the coal mines of West Virginia and Kentucky
came the first reforms of mine safety laws in 28 years. These tragedies
brought together leaders from the mining industry, from government, and
from the labor unions, and helped to forge a commitment to improve mine
safety. I traveled to the Sago mine with Senators Kennedy, Rockefeller,
and Isakson. We met with the families of the miners who lost their
lives. We met with other miners who worked there, and we met with
people in the union. I felt a commitment to those families and miners
in this country to try to ensure that this would never happen again.
The committee approved the MINER Act on May 17, and the President
signed the bill in June. That has to be one of the fastest, most
comprehensive changes to any safety law. I can't emphasize enough the
cooperation of unions and company executives, and Republicans and
Democrats.
Protecting the health and safety of those who work in the mining
industry need not be a partisan issue. Mining, and coal mining in
particular, is vital to our national and local economies, and to
national energy security. Ensuring the safety of our miners is
essential to protecting and preserving the industry and protecting the
workers. I especially thank Senators Kennedy, Isakson, Byrd,
Rockefeller, and McConnell for the tireless effort they extended. Their
efforts contributed in large part to this proposal becoming law.
I should mention that the debate on the Senate floor was 1 hour
equally divided with two votes. So nobody saw that. Nobody saw that
debate, but it makes a significant difference for all the people in the
country--the mining bill. You never saw any debate on the floor. It
passed unanimously without debate. It passed in the House under
suspension with limited debate--the same bill.
Sometimes the things that get done by unanimous consent that
everybody agrees on nobody ever finds out about, except the people it
does benefit; they know. That is why it is worth doing it that way. For
a bill that has objections around here, there are ways to overcome it
if you get 60 votes for it. But that is usually about a 3-week process.
A unanimous consent doesn't use up much time, but it gets things done.
The committee has also made tremendous strides related to education
and job training. This session the
[[Page S10149]]
HELP Committee initiated a comprehensive effort to authorize
legislation that enhances knowledge and skills and helps American
workers become leaders in the global economy. Some estimates suggest
that 60 percent of the jobs created in the next decade will require
skills that only 20 percent of the workers today currently possess, and
80 percent of the jobs will require education or training beyond high
school. Eighty percent of the jobs will require education or training
beyond high school. That is where the world is going. It is changing
fast.
One important component of this effort is the reauthorization of the
Carl Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It was signed by the
President in August, and it will help close the gap that threatens
America's long-term competitiveness. The act addresses the needs of the
Nation's changing workforce and prepares Americans for highly
technical, higher-paying jobs. The reauthorization also made changes
that will increase accountability at the State and local levels and
will establish stronger links with businesses to build partnerships
with high schools and colleges so they can better meet the needs of the
changing workforce.
For many people, participation in these programs can mean the
difference between a job with no possibility of advancement and a
successful career. Passage of this legislation was a significant
accomplishment. Again, limited floor debate, no debate on the
conference report; unanimous consent across the aisle.
Another piece of this comprehensive effort is the reauthorization of
the Higher Education Act. As my colleagues know, the mandatory portions
of the higher education law were reauthorized in February under the
Deficit Reduction Act of 2006. Before I elaborate, I want to stress
that it is critical to reauthorize the remaining discretionary programs
under the act, which I intend to make a top priority for 2007. We have
the bill out of committee but haven't had the floor time to do the
debate on it. I am making that a top priority for 2007 because
postsecondary education is the key to the future success of our
students, our communities, and our economy.
As I stated earlier, we reauthorized the mandatory components of the
Higher Education Act through the budget reconciliation process. We
found over $20 billion in savings by eliminating corporate subsidies
for lenders and reworking the interest rate structure for many
borrowers, among other revisions. A portion of the savings was used to
pay for over $9 billion in enhanced students benefits. The law makes
higher education more affordable for students who finance part of their
education through loans by reducing borrow origination fees and
increasing loan limits.
Another benefit is a $4 billion grant program for postsecondary
students who major in science, math, and certain national-security-
related foreign languages. These funds are dubbed ``SMART grants'' and
are an important part of making higher education more affordable for
low- and middle-income families. We invested resources where we need
them the most, which will help ensure we have a workforce that can
compete globally.
I was in India earlier this year and saw firsthand what Thomas
Friedman discusses in his book, ``The World Is Flat.'' It doesn't take
long to figure out that by sheer numbers alone, India has only to
educate 25 percent of its population to have more literate and educated
people than the total population of the United States.
By using the reconciliation process for these higher education
reforms, the HELP Committee was able to produce meaningful deficit
reduction. In fact, I am proud the HELP Committee led the entire
Congress in deficit reduction and produced $15.5 billion in savings
over five years. That is 40 percent of the entire Deficit Reduction Act
of 2006. It is not right to overspend now and pass the bill on to our
children and grandchildren to pay later.
I thank Chairman Gregg for his leadership on the Budget Committee and
for his contribution on the authorizing committee that helped make the
meaningful deficit reduction a reality.
Enactment of the Perkins reauthorization and the mandatory revisions
of the Higher Education Act were critical components of a comprehensive
effort to strengthen knowledge and skills. However, this effort also
includes the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. The
reauthorization is essential because it will help train American
workers to fill the good jobs being created so we can continue to be
leaders in the global economy.
The reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act has been a
priority of mine since I chaired the Subcommittee on Employment and
Workplace Safety in the previous Congress. Last Congress, I worked
tirelessly to report the legislation from the committee, only to be
held up on the Senate floor when it came time to appoint conferees.
Now, that means the bill made it out of committee and cleared the
Senate floor. The House passed a different version, so we need a
conference committee to resolve the differences. However, we weren't
allowed to appoint a conference committee. That was 2 years ago. Mr.
President, 900,000 new jobs could be trained under that program. This
year, once again, I have been procedurally hamstrung in my efforts to
move to conference. The bill must be completed. It made it out of the
committee unanimously. It made it through the floor of the Senate,
again unanimously. That means everybody agreed with what is in the
bill. Now the only problem left is we have to reconcile that with what
the House passed.
America is facing an economic challenge that threatens our ability as
a nation to compete on the world stage. This bill sends a clear message
that we are serious about helping our workers and our employers remain
competitive and about closing the skills gap that is putting America's
long-term competitiveness in jeopardy.
Our commitment to lifelong learning never ends. It begins with giving
our children the proper tools for a start down the pathway that leads
to their education. The committee approved improvements to Head Start
this last year, and the completion of this process is one of my top
priorities.
On the health front, eight committee bills were signed into law by
President Bush. One of the most significant new health care laws is the
Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act. The new law is a
culmination of 6 years of work in response to the Institute of
Medicine's 1999 report that found that nearly 100,000 Americans die
needlessly every year due to medical errors.
The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act creates a protected
legal environment in which patient safety organizations can analyze why
medical errors happen and develop strategies to stop those errors from
happening again. The law provides critical legal protection for
doctors, nurses, and other health care workers who might fear coming
forward with information about mistakes because the information could
be used in a lawsuit against them.
This new law is the first important step toward creating a new
culture of safety and continuous quality improvement in health care.
This new law is one of just several important pieces of legislation
the HELP Committee produced in this Congress. I would mention again
that this too took zero debate time on the floor. Another one is the
Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005,
which will help patients with chronic diseases team up with health care
experts who can help them find their way through the maze to the best
treatment offered in this often complex health care system. Again, no
floor debate time.
The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 supports the
creation and maintenance of cord blood stem cells. Stem cells obtained
from umbilical cord blood have already shown great promise in treating
cancers, leukemia, and other diseases, and this law will accelerate our
work in those areas. I have already had people who have reported back
to me that their life may have been saved by that particular act
already. I think we had 5 minutes of debate time on that bill.
The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of
2005 enables physicians and other prescribers to find out whether
patients are abusing and diverting narcotics and other dangerous drugs.
Instead of enabling these patients and their self-destructive habits,
physicians will now be able to identify them and treat them.
[[Page S10150]]
The State High Risk Pool Funding Extension Act of 2005 renewed a key
law that funds State high-risk health insurance pools. These pools
create access to health insurance for otherwise medically uninsurable
individuals and are an important part of our strategy to make health
insurance available to more Americans. The President also signed a bill
to amend the Public Health Service Act and strengthen the National
Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Finally, we passed two key laws to preserve access to medical
technology. The Medical Device User Fee Stabilization Act of 2005
prevented the FDA's medical device user fee program from expiring.
Without this law, patients' access to the latest medical innovations
would have been compromised. Congress also acted to protect children
from dangerous, unregulated cosmetic lenses, often used as part of
costumes, by providing for the regulation of these lenses as medical
devices.
The HELP Committee members worked together with our House
counterparts in a bipartisan, bicameral way to complete action on these
laws. I personally thank all of the committee members on both ends of
the building for their active participation in this process.
We also scored a victory on the Senate floor this summer related to
health insurance. Together with Senators Nelson and Burns, I introduced
legislation that would allow business and trade associations to band
their members together in small business health plans and offer group
health coverage on a national or statewide basis. It would give small
businesses the capability to group together across State lines to
effectively negotiate against big insurance companies. It would bring
down insurance rate significantly, particularly in the area of
administrative costs.
This legislation, the Health Insurance Marketplace and Modernization
and Affordability Act, is a direct response to the runaway costs that
are driving Americans and businesses away from the health insurance
marketplace. In May, this legislation received 55 votes on the Senate
floor--a clear majority. Unfortunately, obstructionists used arcane
Senate rules requiring 60 votes for passage to defeat consideration of
the bill. I count this as a victory for the HELP Committee because the
policy is supported by the majority of the Senate. This will not be a
victory for Americans until it is signed by the President.
Enacting the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and
Affordability Act will be a top priority for the HELP Committee and me
personally in the 110th Congress. I intend to act on this legislation
early next year and continue to work across party lines to find the
solution that produces 60 votes in the Senate. The HELP Committee has a
role to play in making employer-sponsored health care more accessible
and affordable. Employer-provided health insurance is voluntary, and it
is in critical condition. Sixty percent of the country's employers
offer insurance today. That is down 9 percent from just 5 years ago.
And the cost of health insurance for companies has nearly doubled in
that same period, with employers expected to pay an average of $8,167
per employee family versus $4,248 5 years ago. My proposal would
provide health care coverage to over 1 million small businesses and
their working families.
This fall, I am also hopeful the committee can add two more victories
to our list of accomplishments. That would be the Health Information
Technology conference agreement and the reauthorization of the Ryan
White Care Act.
Right now, my staff is working aggressively with the House to
complete action on the Wired For Health Care Quality Act conference
agreement. This legislation will enhance the adoption of a nationwide
interoperable health information technology system, improve the quality
of health care, and contain costs. Primarily, it will allow each
individual to own their own health care record and to carry it around
with them easily. They will have the permanent record to carry with
them and release, to the degree they want to, to any health care
provider. This will contain costs: just between Medicare, Medicaid and
Veterans, this is expected to save $160 billion a year. The cost to
implement: $40 billion, one time. A good investment anywhere.
The committee has also been working in a bipartisan, bicameral
fashion to complete the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act. The
measure was approved by the HELP Committee in May, and I am hopeful
that we can swiftly clear compromise legislation through both Chambers
by December--I was hoping we could pass it today, but I see it has been
stopped. It is absolutely essential that this clear by September 30.
The reauthorization of the Older Americans Act will also have a
significant impact on the everyday lives of Americans. The HELP
Committee approved this legislation in June, and I am hopeful we can
complete action on it this year as well. This reauthorization is
important because it ensures that our Nation's older Americans,
including 78 million aging baby boomers, are healthy, fed, housed, able
to get where they need to go, and safe from abuse and scams. We have
been in bicameral, bipartisan deliberations for several months. Again,
there is a little hangup on the funding formula. Money has to follow
the people in all of these programs.
The committee also conducted various investigations and held several
oversight hearings that exposed waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal
programs and used the findings to craft legislation to increase
accountability. Our first oversight hearing last year focused on how an
asset management company, Capital Consultants, defrauded workers out of
approximately $500 million in retirement assets. The findings from this
oversight effort were addressed in the new pension law.
The committee also held the first oversight hearing in almost 70
years on the Randolph Sheppard Act and the Javits Wagner O'Day Act.
Both programs are supposed to find employment opportunities for people
with disabilities. The committee's investigation and hearing
established that some executives were using the programs for their own
enrichment--making millions while exploiting people with disabilities.
Following the hearing, Federal law enforcement took action against the
worst actors, and we have collaborated across party lines to
systematically overhaul both programs. My goal is to address these
programs with legislation next year.
I thank my ranking member, Senator Kennedy, and his staff for their
hard work these past 2 years. His assistance and cooperation are the
main reasons we have been able to accomplish many of these priorities.
We didn't always agree, but we were able to identify common ground to
advance our mutual priorities.
I also thank each of our committee members. As I stated earlier, we
have kept a full schedule. Many of the legislative victories were
initiatives brought to my attention by our subcommittee chairs or
individual committee members. Senators were also especially diligent
about attending the committee hearings and particularly patient when we
sometimes waited for a quorum during executive session. For the
remainder of the year, I will be reaching out to each of our members to
seek feedback on the 2007 agenda, which will serve as the blueprint for
the year.
Finally, in closing, I would like to recognize two departing members
of the committee: Majority Leader Frist and Senator Jeffords. We are
fortunate they chose to serve, and we are grateful for their
contributions. Senator Jeffords is a past chairman of the committee,
and, of course, Majority Leade Frist has been the doctor on the
committee and provided a perspective no one else could. I am proud of
the work we have done here on the committee these past 2 years. By
working together, we have established a track record of success.
I also wish to compliment the subcommittee chairmen for their
extremely hard work. We gave them a lot of independence, and they
didn't disappoint me. They took hold of programs. The competitiveness
program is one of them that has reached a point where it can now be
debated and pursued. The Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, did a
tremendous job of working that bill, along with Senator Ensign,
collaborating with three different committees on one piece of
farsighted legislation.
[[Page S10151]]
Senators DeWine and Mikulski have done a marvelous job with the Elder
Fall Act and Older Americans Act and have worked well together for a
number of years across the aisle to make sure older Americans are taken
care of.
I could go on and mention all of the subcommittees and the work they
have done. Senator Burr has done some fantastic work on bioterrorism.
He has put together a fantastic bill that contains new concepts which
will allow better preparation for any of the possible terrorism acts
that could happen on our own soil. Senator Isakson, of course, has been
extremely active in handling labor issues. As I mentioned, he was a key
player in the miner safety bill.
It has been an interesting year. I look forward to another
interesting year. I am looking for suggestions from my colleagues on
what needs to be done, and looking for that 80 percent that can be
accomplished.
Our record of accomplishment is proof that we are a can-do Congress.
Far from being a do-nothing Congress, we have shown our colleagues and
our constituents that Congress can and is working hard to improve the
lives of Americans.
One of the reasons America doesn't know more about this is because of
the cooperation that has taken place. We didn't have to debate the 20
percent we didn't agree on here on the floor of the Senate, and
consequently there was not a lot of coverage. But just the pensions
bill and the miner safety bill, either of those, would be a major
accomplishment for any committee during a 2-year period.
I am proud of the 12 bills the President signed and the 21 bills we
got through this body. I think that is a record of accomplishment, and
I thank all those who participated.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be dispensed with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mental Health Parity
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, earlier today, my colleague, Senator
Durbin of Illinois, took the floor to describe a resolution he and I
submitted and a number of others cosponsored with him to both recognize
the contributions of our former colleague, Senator Paul Wellstone, and
to, in that resolution which has now been submitted in the Senate,
commit ourselves to making a mental health parity bill a high priority
in the next Congress, the 110th Congress.
I want to join with Senator Durbin, Senator Coleman, and Senator
Dayton, who also spoke on this topic today, in recognizing the
contribution of our former colleague, Paul Wellstone, and to
rededicating ourselves in his memory to trying to get this mental
health parity bill passed once and for all.
It almost seems impossible that it was almost 4 years ago this next
month when we tragically lost our friend and colleague, Paul Wellstone,
and some others--his wife and others--in that tragic plane crash in
Minnesota.
He was a very special individual to all of us. He was one of the best
friends I ever had. Of course, I think he was to millions of other
people around America. They thought he was one their best friends also
because of what he stood for and what he fought for. He was always
sticking up for the kind of little person--people who didn't have much
voice or power around here.
Paul had one burning goal during his all-too-short tenure in the
Senate, and that was to get mental health put on the same parity as
physical health. He struggled mightily to get that done.
After his tragic death in October of 2002, many here talked about the
need to pass in his memory the Paul Wellstone mental health parity
bill. We still have not gotten it done. Four years later, we remember
that political science professor who came to the Senate. He had a great
impact.
Paul once said, politics is about what we create by what we do and
what we hope for and what we dare to imagine. He dared to imagine and
to fight for the end of neglect and denial surrounding issues of mental
health, especially access to mental health services.
Right now, over 41 million persons suffer from moderate or serious
mental disorders each year. Less than half receive any needed
treatment. However, 80 to 90 percent of mental disorders are treatable
by therapies and medications. Paul fought hard with his characteristic
passion for the Mental Health Parity Act, to end this absurd practice
of dividing mental health from physical health and putting them into
different categories under health insurance.
Mental disorders account for 4 of the 10 leading causes of disability
for persons age 5 and older. In fact, depression is the leading cause
of disability in the United States. Tragically, mental disorders are
also major contributors to mortality. Some 30,000 Americans die by
suicide each year.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration, undertreated and untreated mental disorders cost the
Nation in excess of $200 billion annually, hurting the economy, the
profitability of businesses, and, of course, our Government budgets.
For example, a report released earlier this month by the Department
of Justice found that more than half of all prison and jail inmates,
including 56 percent of State prisoners, 45 percent of Federal
prisoners, and 64 percent of local jail inmates were found to have a
mental health problem.
We do not treat the mental health; we hire more police. People with
mental health problems cause problems in society, and they turn,
perhaps, to crime or illicit drugs to somehow treat themselves and
their mental disorders and they wind up in our jails. And we pay and we
pay and we pay for this as a society. More than half of all of the
people in jails and prison in America have mental health problems.
A lot of opponents of mental health parity claim it will drive up the
cost of health care. However, an interesting study released on March
30, 2006, in the New England Journal of Medicine released results of a
study that evaluated the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the
one we are under, to which we all belong. This has provided insurance
parity for mental health since 2001. The researchers found that when
the care was managed, the cost of coverage for mental health problems
attributable to parity did not increase the cost, and the quality of
the care remained constant.
Interesting. In our own health benefits program since 2001 we have
had mental health parity. And guess what. The costs have not gone up,
and the quality of care has remained constant. The Wellstone Mental
Health Parity Act is modeled after the mental health benefits provided
through the Federal program.
Many cost studies miss something that is very important: they fail to
calculate and quantify the benefits and savings that will result from
parity. They fail to weigh the offsetting cost-benefits to employers
from increased productivity, reduced sick leave, reduced disability
costs. Indeed, a true comprehensive assessment of the costs of parity
must take into account the costs of not providing parity, including the
economic costs in the workplace, the cost to taxpayers of shifting of
burden to public systems--as I mentioned earlier, our prisons and
jails--the cost of care of homeless persons, the cost of care of our
public mental health systems, the increased cost in emergency room
visits. Add up all that and the cost of not treating people with mental
illnesses comes to around $79 billion a year.
When workers suffering from depression receive treatment, many of the
medical costs decline by $882 per employee per year. Absenteeism drops
by 9 days. Again, if we provide that care, we are saving money and
increasing productivity.
Also, the good news is that millions of people with mental illness
can recover. I don't know why so many people think once you have a
mental illness, that person is doomed for life. That is like saying if
I have a physical illness, forget it, I have to have it for the rest of
my life. Not true. It is the same for mental health. People have
problems; they need help; they get it; they get over it. They can
reclaim their lives if they are provided treatment and support in a
timely fashion.
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To that end, it is time to do away with the discriminatory practice
of treating mental and physical illnesses as two different categories
under insurance. It is time to do away with the barriers to mental
health treatment and coverage. It is time to pass mental health parity.
I might remind the Senate, we did pass it once on the 2002
appropriations bill. I happened to be chairman that year on the health
appropriations bill. We passed mental health parity in the Senate. It
got voiced-voted. No one even objected. Imagine that. We passed it. It
went to conference. We kept it in on the Senate side, but we went to
conference with the House and we lost it because the House objected to
it, by two or three votes. By two or three votes in conference we lost
it. We came that close in 2002 to getting mental health parity.
What has happened since? Why have we fallen so far backward? Why
hasn't the Senate, since that time, brought it up? As I said, in 2002,
we did it. Since 2003, it has not even been brought up. Hopefully, in
the next Congress, we will bring it up again, we will pass it again,
like we did before.
For those who had the privilege of serving with Paul Wellstone, his
spirit is still very much with us. He still inspires us and he still
calls us to conscience. Each day that we fail to pass this legislation,
as we have for years, we are cheating millions of Americans. Each day
that we do not step up to the plate and provide adequate mental health
coverage to our citizens, we cheat them from reclaiming their health
and well-being, and we starve society of the talent, contributions, and
productivity they have to offer. It is a disservice to society to sweep
mental illness under the rug and to deny people access and coverage of
adequate treatment.
Congress should make the Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment
Act a priority for the 110th Congress. With widespread support and
widespread need, passage of this legislation is long overdue.
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