[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 137 (Tuesday, September 22, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6895-S6898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
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By Mr. WICKER (for himself, Mrs. Capito, Mr. King, Mr. Schatz,
Ms. Ayotte, Ms. Collins, and Mr. Barrasso):
S. 2067. A bill to establish EUREKA Prize Competitions to accelerate
discovery and development of disease-modifying, preventive, or curative
treatments for Alzheimer's disease and related dementia, to encourage
efforts to enhance detection and diagnosis of such diseases, or to
enhance the quality and efficiency of care of individuals with such
diseases; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I am wearing purple today in honor of
World Alzheimer's Month. As a matter of fact, yesterday, September 21,
was World Alzheimer's Day. So I have chosen today to introduce a bill
that I hope will lead to a major breakthrough in fighting this terrible
disease and treating and potentially curing Alzheimer's disease.
The legislation which I introduced this morning is called the EUREKA
Act, which stands for Ensuring Useful Research Expenditures is Key for
Alzheimer's--EUREKA.
I am taking this moment to briefly discuss the problem of Alzheimer's
and to ask my colleagues to get behind this tripartisan legislation and
see if we can create some momentum to cure Alzheimer's disease in a
decade.
First of all, a little bit about awareness. As we all know,
Alzheimer's is a 100-percent fatal disease. It affects some 36 million
people around the
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globe. More than 5 million Americans currently have Alzheimer's
disease. My mother died of Alzheimer's disease. I can tell you it is an
incredibly personal trial for families who deal with loved ones
suffering and ultimately succumbing to this disease. So there is the
human cost which so many of us have experienced and are experiencing.
There is also the cost in dollars and cents. Americans will spend
$226 billion from our Treasury on Alzheimer's this year alone. The
disease puts an extraordinary burden on Medicare and Medicaid. As a
matter of fact, one in five Medicare dollars will be spent this year on
someone with Alzheimer's. Think of what we could do to alleviate the
suffering our previous speaker was talking about if we didn't have to
spend this $226 billion per year, if we didn't have to spend one in
five of our Medicare dollars on someone with Alzheimer's. Consider the
2013 filing from the Rand Corporation. Direct costs of Alzheimer's
exceed similar costs associated with cancer and heart disease combined.
According to Rush University, Alzheimer's is responsible for more
than 500,000 deaths each year.
Without a cure or a way to halt this disease, these numbers will
continue to grow. By 2050 Alzheimer's is expected to cost $1.1 trillion
per year. By then, Medicare and Medicaid could see a 500-percent
increase in Alzheimer's spending. So we have a problem in terms of
dollars and cents, and we certainly have a problem in terms of the
hardship it causes on families today.
Experts say we need $2 billion a year in public research if we are
going to get to this goal of conquering Alzheimer's by 2025. We do the
best we can at the National Institutes of Health, but we spend only
$586 million a year on Alzheimer's research. We need $2 billion a year.
We spend roughly a quarter of that amount each year, with very little
prospect of getting it up to four times what we are spending now.
What is the solution? I believe the solution is to go to a concept
that has made America great for decades and even centuries, and that is
the American spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship and competition.
We create, we build, and we make a difference in people's lives through
competition and innovation. So today I have introduced the EUREKA bill,
which would establish a national prize for achieving benchmarks in
fighting this disease. I want to make it clear that the EUREKA Act
would proceed on a parallel track with what is being done at NIH and
the Federal Government in terms of research. It wouldn't take a penny
away from the research dollars currently spent on Alzheimer's and the
funds used to attack Alzheimer's in so many ways. It would be another
route for a breakthrough by establishing a competition to run parallel
to the research being done.
We will need to research some milestones before we arrive at an
Alzheimer's cure. This bill would create a system within the
government, with cooperation from NIH, to encourage public and private
collaboration to help us establish prizes for milestones reached to
conquer Alzheimer's. Of course, we need to remember that prizes are
paid only for success. If we don't meet the milestones, we won't have
to expend the money.
My excellent staff and I have been working for months with some of
the leading experts in the United States on this concept, not the least
of which is the XPRIZE Foundation, which has done such a good job in
establishing breakthroughs in other areas. So we have the support and
cooperation of the XPRIZE Foundation. In addition, we have worked with
the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration
to get as much information as possible, and we think we have come up
with a way to have government-funded prizes to conquer this disease.
This is nothing new. The XPRIZE Foundation came along relatively
recently, but it was inspired by previous examples of success. In 1927
Charles Lindbergh won $25,000 for his Spirit of St. Louis aircraft in a
competition to achieve the first nonstop flight between New York City
and Paris. He received a prize for this accomplishment. Today aviation
is a $300 billion industry. So prizes are not a new strategy. The
government already invests in countless areas, including health. As a
matter of fact, the America COMPETES Act gives Federal agencies the
authority to conduct prize-based challenges. NIH has already completed
dozens of them. This builds on that success.
I envision that a panel would be established under this legislation
to set benchmarks that would get us well along the road to conquering
Alzheimer's. Successful, prize-worthy events would be measures such as
identifying an Alzheimer's biomarker, developing early-detection
techniques, or repurposing existing drugs for treatment. Milestones
such as these would be established by a panel of experts. Think of what
could be achieved if people with expertise combine their skills inside
and outside the government to end Alzheimer's. Think of the progress
that could be made toward ending human suffering.
My bill is S. 2067, the EUREKA Act, and it has received support from
researchers, including the MIND Center at the University of Mississippi
in my home State, where we are doing innovative, groundbreaking
achievements every day on Alzheimer's. Other organizations supporting
the EUREKA Act include the Alzheimer's Association, Us Against
Alzheimer's, the XPRIZE Foundation, the Alzheimer's Foundation of
America, BrightFocus Foundation, Leaders Engaged on Alzheimer's
Disease, otherwise known as LEAD, and Eli Lilly. All of these
organizations and companies are supporting EUREKA.
We already have not bipartisan cosponsorship but tripartisan
cosponsorship of this legislation because we have Republicans,
Democrats, and Independents already cosponsoring this EUREKA Act.
So I come to the floor today and ask my colleagues to talk to their
health staff members. Look at this concept. Talk to us about the
efforts we are engaged in, about the research we have done, about the
learned people who know what they are talking about and who have worked
with us to bring this bill where it is. I hope we can create some
momentum for this act soon. I hope we can attach it to legislation
before the end of the year. I hope we can put this on the President's
desk sometime early in the year 2016.
EUREKA can be a game changer in fighting one of the most terrible and
horrible and expensive diseases we have. So I would urge my colleagues
to look at this, to get back to me. I am going to aggressively be
talking to each of my colleagues and asking them to cosponsor this
legislation. I think we are onto something. I think we are getting
very, very near to achieving this goal of conquering Alzheimer's within
a decade.
______
By Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. Carper):
S. 2068. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to include
automated fire sprinkler system retrofits as section 179 property and
classify certain automated fire sprinkler system retrofits as 15-year
property for purposes of depreciation; to the Committee on Finance.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Fire Sprinkler
Incentive Act. I am very pleased to be joined by my colleague from
Delaware, Senator Carper, in introducing this bipartisan bill.
Our bill would encourage commercial building owners to invest in
life-saving fire safety upgrades. While building codes require
sprinklers in new commercial buildings, a great number of structures
across the U.S. were built and put in service before sprinklers were
required. This is of significance in Maine, which has some of the
oldest housing stock in the country and which has experienced deadly
apartment building fires.
Maine has a large number of older, historic buildings--buildings that
generally may not be required to have fire sprinklers. According to the
Maine State Housing Authority, Maine has the sixth oldest housing stock
in the country. In fact, many of the historic areas of Portland were
built following a devastating fire in 1866. This fire destroyed most of
Portland's commercial buildings, many of its churches, and countless
homes.
Fire sprinklers are very effective at preventing deaths caused by
fires. Small business building owners find it difficult, however, to
fund adding retrofit sprinklers. Our bill would provide
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two tax incentives to encourage building owners to make this
investment.
Currently, commercial building owners must depreciate fire sprinkler
retrofits over a lengthy 39-year period. The period for residential
buildings is 27 and a half years. This bill reclassifies fire sprinkler
retrofits as 15-year depreciable property, thus allowing building
owners to write off their costs more quickly. The bill also provides an
option for certain small businesses to deduct the cost of the fire
system upgrades immediately under Section 179 of the tax code.
Together, these proposals will provide a strong incentive for building
owners to install fire sprinkler systems.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, in 2013, a
fire department responded to a structure fire every 65 seconds, and
fire claimed 9 lives every day. Just last October, five young adults
were killed when fire swept through a two apartment building near the
University of Southern Maine. In addition to these five, 20 other
people died in fires in Maine in 2014. Just last month, a fire killed
two people in Old Town, ME. Sprinklers decrease the fire death rate by
about 80 percent and the average loss per home fire by about 70
percent.
This bill was originally drafted in response to the deadly nightclub
fire in West Warwick, RI, in 2003. One hundred people died in that
fire. The building did not have a fire sprinkler system. Let us work
together to prevent another tragedy like this from happening. I invite
my colleagues to join Senator Carper and me in support of this
bipartisan, common sense legislation.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Congressional Fire Services
Institute,
September 18, 2015.
Hon. Susan Collins,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Collins: On behalf of the Congressional Fire
Services Institute (CFSI), I would like to express our thanks
and appreciation for sponsoring the Fire Sprinkler Incentive
Act. In 2002, CFSI's National Advisory Committee (NAC), a
coalition of 35 national fire and emergency service
organizations, unanimously approved a resolution expressing
the need for federal tax incentives to encourage the
installation of automatic fire sprinkler systems in
residential and commercial buildings. The introduction of the
Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act is an important step in
achieving this goal.
The cost of fire in America is enormous. According to the
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), in 2014, there
were 1,298,000 fires reported in the United States, leading
to 3,275 civilian fire deaths, 15,775 civilian injuries, and
$11.6 billion in property damage. When you include the
indirect cost of fire, such as lost economic activity, the
cost is closer to $108 billion annually.
Studies by NFPA have concluded that buildings outfitted
with sprinklers reduce the death rate per fire by at least
57% and decrease the property damage by up to 68%. By
classifying the retrofit of an automatic fire sprinkler
system as an eligible property under Section 179 of the tax
code, the Fire Sprinkler Incentive Act will save lives by
allowing small and medium-sized businesses to deduct the cost
of sprinkler systems up to $125,000.00. The legislation would
also create a tax incentive for the retrofit of high-rise
buildings. In the United States alone, there are nearly
10,000 high-rise fires annually. These structures, when not
sprinklered, pose serious safety risks to both civilians and
firefighters.
It is an incontrovertible fact that fire sprinklers save
lives, including the lives of our firefighters. No
firefighter has ever died while fighting a fire in a fully
sprinklered structure. But unfortunately approximately 100
firefighters die in the line of duty every year. We, as a
nation, owe it to our firefighters and their families to make
the profession as safe as possible. The Fire Sprinkler
Incentive Act will help us achieve that goal.
We strongly encourage all members of Congress to support
this important piece of legislation. Thank you for your
leadership on this issue, and best wishes on your continued
success and safety.
Sincerely,
Bill Webb,
Executive Director.
______
By Mr. WYDEN (for himself and Mr. Merkley):
S. 2069. A bill to amend the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of
2009 to modify provisions relating to certain land exchanges in the Mt.
Hood Wilderness in the State of Oregon; to the Committee on Energy and
Natural Resources.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Mt. Hood Cooper
Spur Land Exchange Clarification Act. This bill is a necessary step to
ensuring that the Cooper Spur land exchange on Mt. Hood proceeds as
Congress originally intended when it passed as a part of the Omnibus
Public Lands Bill in 2009. I am pleased to introduce this bill with my
colleague from Oregon, Senator Jeff Merkley.
The Mt. Hood Cooper Spur land exchange was included in the Mt. Hood
Wilderness designation that passed 6 years ago as part of the Omnibus
Public Lands Act of 2009. The bill, which has now been law for over 6
years, directed several land exchanges including the Cooper Spur land
exchange.
The Cooper Spur land exchange required the Forest Service to transfer
approximately 120 acres of Federal land to Mt. Hood Meadows in exchange
for approximately 770 acres of private land, with the goal of keeping
development of Mt. Hood concentrated around the current development at
Government Camp and ensuring the protection of the North side of the
mountain. The swap was to be completed in 16 months. It is now 77
months later and the exchange has not moved forward. The delays have
angered the public, endangered the environment, and have now spurred a
lawsuit against the Forest Service.
The Mt. Hood Cooper Spur Land Exchange Clarification Act would make
technical corrections to the Original Cooper Spur land exchange
provisions in the Omnibus Public Lands Act to jumpstart the land
exchange and keep the process moving forward so the exchange can
finally be completed, as originally intended.
I introduced the original Mt. Hood Wilderness proposal in 2004 and
again in 2006 and 2007 with my then-colleague Senator Gordon Smith of
Oregon. As the Wilderness proposal and associated land exchanges took
shape, more than 1,700 constituents provided input on the proposal. It
was supported by members of the Oregon congressional delegation at the
time, then-Governor Kulongoski, the Bush administration, and over 100
community groups. The Mt. Hood Cooper Spur Land Exchange Clarification
Act is supported by Mt. Hood Meadows, Friends of Hood River Valley,
Clackamas County, and Hood River County.
The Cooper Spur land exchange was an important part of the Mt. Hood
Wilderness designation to ensure the protection of the undeveloped
North side of the mountain. In turn, the Mt. Hood Cooper Spur Land
Exchange Clarification Act is needed in order to ensure that the land
exchange, a community-driven solution to the development challenges on
Mt. Hood, is finally completed.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 2069
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Mount Hood Cooper Spur Land
Exchange Clarification Act''.
SEC. 2. COOPER SPUR LAND EXCHANGE CLARIFICATION AMENDMENTS.
Section 1206(a) of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act
of 2009 (Public Law 111-11; 123 Stat. 1018) is amended--
(1) in paragraph (1)--
(A) in subparagraph (C), by striking ``120 acres'' and
inserting ``107 acres''; and
(B) in subparagraph (E)(ii), by inserting ``improvements,''
after ``buildings,''; and
(2) in paragraph (2)--
(A) by amending the text of subparagraph (C) to read as
follows: ``As a condition of the land exchange under this
subsection, title to the non-Federal land to be acquired by
the Secretary under this subsection shall be acceptable to
the Secretary.'';
(B) in subparagraph (D)--
(i) in clause (i), by striking ``As soon as practicable
after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary and
Mt. Hood Meadows shall select'' and inserting ``Not later
than 60 days after the date of the enactment of the Mount
Hood Cooper Spur Land Exchange Clarification Act, the
Secretary and Mt. Hood Meadows shall jointly select'';
(ii) in clause (ii), in the matter preceding subclause (I),
by striking ``An appraisal under clause (i) shall'' and
inserting ``Except as provided under clause (iii), an
appraisal under clause (i) shall assign a separate value to
each tax lot to allow for the equalization of values and'';
and
(iii) by adding at the end the following:
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``(iii) Final appraised value.--
``(I) In general.--Subject to subclause (II), after the
final appraised value of the Federal land and the non-Federal
land are determined and approved by the Secretary, the
Secretary shall not be required to reappraise or update the
final appraised value for a period of up to 3 years,
beginning on the date of the approval by the Secretary of the
final appraised value.
``(II) Exception.--Subclause (I) shall not apply if the
condition of either the Federal land or the non-Federal land
referred to in subclause (I) is significantly and
substantially altered by fire, windstorm, or other events.
``(iv) Public review.--Before completing the land exchange
under this Act, the Secretary shall make available for public
review the complete appraisals of the land to be
exchanged.'';
(C) in subparagraph (F), by striking ``16 months after the
date of enactment of this Act'' and inserting ``1 year after
the date of the enactment of the Mount Hood Cooper Spur Land
Exchange Clarification Act''; and
(D) by striking subparagraph (G) and inserting the
following:
``(G) Required conveyance conditions.--Prior to the
exchange of the Federal and non-Federal land--
``(i) in full satisfaction of Executive Order 11990, Mt.
Hood Meadows shall obtain the concurrence of the Oregon
Department of State Lands with the identification of wetland
boundaries on the Federal land as designated on a wetland
delineation report prepared by an independent professional
engineer registered in the State of Oregon so as to provide
protection of the identified wetland according to applicable
law; and
``(ii) the Secretary shall reserve a 24-foot-wide
nonexclusive trail easement at the existing trail locations
on the Federal land that retains for the United States
existing rights to construct, reconstruct, maintain, and
permit nonmotorized use by the public of existing trails
subject to the right of the owner of the Federal land--
``(I) to cross the trails with roads, utilities, and
infrastructure facilities; and
``(II) to improve or relocate the trails to accommodate
development of the Federal land.
``(H) Equalization of values.--
``(i) In general.--Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), in
addition to or in lieu of monetary compensation, a lesser
area of Federal land or non-Federal land may be conveyed if
necessary to equalize appraised values of the exchange
properties, without limitation, consistent with the
requirements of this Act and subject to the approval of the
Secretary and Mt. Hood Meadows.
``(ii) Treatment of certain compensation or conveyances as
donation.--If, after payment of compensation or adjustment of
land area subject to exchange under this Act, the amount by
which the appraised value of the land and other property
conveyed by Mt. Hood Meadows under subparagraph (A) exceeds
the appraised value of the land conveyed by the Secretary
under subparagraph (A) shall be considered a donation by Mt.
Hood Meadows to the United States.''.
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