[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 83 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Page S4549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             AMENDING THE MISSING CHILDREN'S ASSISTANCE ACT

  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be 
discharged from the consideration of H.R. 2517 and the Senate proceed 
to its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2517) to amend the Missing Children's 
     Assistance Act to authorize appropriations, and for other 
     purposes.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, tomorrow, the country will commemorate 
Missing Children's Day. Ceremonies at the Department of Justice and 
elsewhere will remember our commitment to work together in locating and 
recovering missing children. I am proud that today, Congress has also 
realized its obligation to our Nation's children by passing the 
Protecting Our Children Comes First Act of 2007, which takes important 
steps toward this goal.
  For more than 5 months, one Senator has prevented this important 
legislation from becoming law. This is regrettable. The authorization 
for National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC, and all 
that it does to help children and families expires at the end of this 
fiscal year. This is a bill that passed the House by a vote of 408 to 
3. There were 95 cosponsors in the House, both Democrats and 
Republicans. I introduced a Senate companion bill with Senator Hatch, 
Senator Landrieu, and Senator Shelby last summer. The Senator Judiciary 
Committee considered and reported our Senate bill, S. 1829, last 
December. We have been trying to pass it in the Senate ever since. I am 
glad the objecting Senator has reconsidered his hold on this 
legislation. The National Center will now have the security of being 
able to plan and to maintain their services and staff for the future.
  It pains us all to see photo after photo of missing children from all 
around our country. As a father and grandfather, I can imagine that an 
abducted child is any parent's worst nightmare. Unfortunately, it is a 
nightmare that happens all too often. Indeed, the Justice Department 
estimates that 2,200 children are reported missing each day. There are 
approximately 114,600 attempted stranger abductions every year, with 
3,000 to 5,000 of those attempts succeeding. These families need the 
assistance of the American people and a helping hand from Congress.
  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children spearheads 
national efforts to locate and recover missing children and raises 
public awareness about ways to prevent child abduction, molestation, 
and sexual exploitation. Further, NCMEC works to make our children 
safer by acting as a national voice and advocate for those too young to 
vote or speak up for their own rights.
  The national center's professionals have busy, stressful and 
important jobs. They have worked on more than 127,700 cases of missing 
and exploited children since the national center's 1984 founding, 
helping to recover more than 110,200 children. The national center 
reports that it raised its recovery rate from 64 percent in the 1990s 
to 96 percent today. It has set up three nationwide tip lines: a toll 
free, 24-hour telephone hotline to take reports about missing children 
and clues that might lead to their recovery; a national child 
pornography tipline to handle calls from individuals reporting the 
sexual exploitation of children through the production and distribution 
of pornography; and a cybertipline to process online leads from 
individuals reporting the sexual exploitation of children. The national 
center has taken the lead in circulating millions of photographs of 
missing children, and it serves as a vital resource for the 17,000 law 
enforcement agencies throughout the Nation who are one the frontlines 
in the search for missing children and in the pursuit of adequate child 
protection.
  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children manages to do 
all of this good work with an annual DOJ grant, which is set to expire 
after fiscal year 2008. It is important to act now to extend its 
authorization so that it can continue to help keep children safe and 
families intact around our Nation. We should continue to do everything 
we can to protect our children and I thank my friends on both sides of 
the aisle for joining me in this effort.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and 
passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no 
intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the 
Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (H.R. 2517) was ordered to a third reading, was read the 
third time, and passed.

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