[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10316-10330]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            TERRORISM RISK INSURANCE ACT OF 2002--Continued

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the pending 
amendment be set aside.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 3843

  (Purpose: To prohibit the patentability of human organisms, and for 
                            other purposes)

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Under the previous unanimous consent agreement, I send 
an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Kansas [Mr. Brownback] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 3843:
       At the appropriate place add the following:

     SEC. __. UNPATENTABILITY OF HUMAN ORGANISMS.

       Section 101 of title 35, United States Code, is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``(a) In General.--'' before ``Whoever''; 
     and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(b) Unpatentability of Human Organisms.--
       ``(1) Definition.--In this subsection, the term `human 
     cloning' means human asexual reproduction, accomplished by 
     introducing nuclear material from one or more human somatic 
     cells into a fertilized or unfertilized oocyte whose nuclear 
     material has been removed or inactivated so as to produce a 
     living organism (at any stage of development) that is 
     genetically virtually identical to an existing or previously 
     existing human organism.
       ``(2) Unpatentability.--A patent may not be obtained for--
       ``(A) an organism of the human species at any stage of 
     development produced by any method, whether in vitro or in 
     vivo, including the zygote, embryo, fetus, child or adult;
       ``(B) a living organism made by human cloning; or
       ``(C) a process of human cloning.''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Cantwell). The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, we are going to open a debate in the 
U.S. Senate on the future of humanity. I asked the clerk to read the 
entirety of the amendment because I wanted people to know what is 
pending now. The issue is a very narrow and a very clear one. It is 
about whether or not we allow the patenting of people.
  This is an issue that is pending. There are at least three different 
patents in front of the Patent Office. The issue of whether you can 
patent human life or the process of creating human life is a question 
that is a live one in front of our Government, in front of our people. 
As I mentioned, there are three pending today. There are likely to be 
many more.
  This is a narrow subsection of the overall issue on human cloning. 
This is not the issue about a moratorium on cloning. It is not the 
issue about a ban on human cloning. It is not the issue about 
therapeutic cloning. This is about whether or not we as a government 
will allow a person, a human in any stage or age of its development and 
growth, to be patented.
  Currently, the Patent Office is rejecting these patents, saying they 
have that authority under the 13th amendment to the Constitution. That 
is the amendment that bans slavery. I happen to think the Patent Office 
is on good ground to be able to say that they cannot allow these 
patents because this would be slavery.
  There are others who are contending that the young human at various 
stages--an embryo--is not a person, therefore is patentable; that a 
person can be patented because it is a piece of property. It is, in 
essence, livestock.
  It is alive, we know that. But they would contend or say that it is 
not a person, so therefore we are putting this forward to make it clear 
to the Patent Office, for the people of America, the people around the 
world, that you can't patent a person at any stage or age of its 
development and growth. That is the entirety of the amendment. The 
clerk read the entire amendment.
  Ultimately, the question that will be put before this Senate and this 
country, indeed the world, will be this: Shall we use human life for 
research purposes? Shall we use human life for commercial purposes? We 
are taking this as a narrow issue now on the issue of patentability.
  In this debate we will have to answer whether or not the young human 
at his or her earliest moments of life is a person or is a piece of 
property. That is the narrow and the focused issue that is in front of 
us.
  Cloning proponents will argue that the young human is a piece of 
property that can be created or destroyed at the whims of society for 
the benefit of others. I will argue that the young human is a person; 
that it is wrong to treat another person as a piece of property that 
can be bought and sold, created and destroyed, all at the will of those 
in power.
  I think we all understand that human cloning is an issue of vast 
importance to our society and for humanity. This issue, unlike others, 
reveals the value we hold and the worth we place on human life. It is a 
decision that one generation of mankind will be making for all future 
generations of mankind.
  I would also argue it is an issue that will determine what kind of 
future we will give to our children and grandchildren and their 
children and their children's children. The essential question is 
whether or not we will allow human beings to produce, to preordained 
specifications for eventual implantation or destruction, dependent upon 
the intentions of the technicians who create them; whether or not we 
will allow life to be created just to be destroyed and researched upon.
  The question and its corollary must be addressed before the 
technology overtakes our public discourse. Indeed, today we have many 
of these capacities to do this to us now. We are doing it to animals 
and mammals. We can do this in humans. The question is, Should we do 
this? Is it right for us to do this? Is it the point in time that we 
want to make this decision to do this? Do we

[[Page 10317]]

want to make this decision for all future mankind or do we want to 
pause? Do we want to stop here for just a moment and say, Wait? We 
should really think about such a monumental step and such a monumental 
move.
  I would like to begin by making a few observations.
  First, as we debate the issue, we need to debate the science along 
with the biological reality of the human embryo from his or her 
earliest moments of life. We all know that the human embryo is a life. 
But some question whether it is a life or a person.
  Clearly, the human embryo--whether brought into being in a woman, 
whether artificially created in a test tube by fertilization, or by 
cloning--is seen by observation to be a new being of human genetic 
constitution and a unified life principle that in all normal 
circumstances of implementation and development will grow into an adult 
who will one day die. Because we call the adult a human person and 
because there is an essential, unified, biological continuity between 
him or her--by that I mean once you are alive you grow along that 
continuum until you die--and the initial one-celled embryo, it is clear 
that the one-celled embryo is an inviolable human person.
  If you allow it to survive and to grow, it becomes a full-scale human 
being under anybody's definition. As some have attempted to discount 
this clear understanding of the biological continuity of the human 
person in order to justify some human experimentation in some 
circumstances, I note that the people who support this are supporting 
it for reasons that are very good, true, altruistic, to try to find 
cures for others' debilitating, terrible diseases, for which I want to 
find a cure. But I don't want to find that cure at the cost of somebody 
else's life. I don't want to find that cure at the cost of my life or 
Senator Specter's life or Senator Reid's life or at the cost of anybody 
else--or young people yet to come and to be born. That is why I believe 
we should start with some basic definitions.
  Human cloning is human asexual reproduction. It is accomplished by 
introducing nuclear material from one or more human somatic cells into 
a fertilized or unfertilized oocyte whose nuclear material has been 
removed or inactivated so as to produce a human living being--at any 
stage of development--that is genetically virtually identical to an 
existing or previously existing human being--the human being from whom 
the nuclear material was taken.
  In essence, if we take nuclear material from the Presiding Officer or 
from myself and put it inside an egg and start the egg growing, there 
is a human of identical genetic material to me, to the Presiding 
Officer, and to anybody else in this room.
  Roughly, the debate over human cloning has fallen into two 
categories, misleading as those categories may be: reproductive cloning 
and so-called research or therapeutic cloning.
  Two-thirds of the American public, the President of the United 
States, a large majority of the House of Representatives, Senator 
Landrieu, and myself hold the position that all human cloning should be 
banned. It is a position based in large part on the principle that you 
should not create human life as a means of something else, especially 
purposely to destroy it, the point being--and the President put it very 
well--we should not be creating life just to destroy it or do research 
on it.
  Some in the Senate don't want a full ban. They want a limited ban--
what they refer to as ``preproductive cloning,'' but not on so-called 
research or therapeutic cloning.
  All cloning is, of course, reproductive; that is, all human cloning 
produces new human life. That is the very nature of it. If you produce 
a human clone, it is a young human something. It is a human person; it 
is a human life. If you allow it to grow, it is not going to grow into 
an elephant or a tomato. It is going to grow into a human, if you allow 
it to grow.
  I think the notion that human cloning can be therapeutic is both 
misleading and disingenuous. ``Therapeutic'' cloning, as some 
proponents of cloning refer to it, is really the process by which an 
embryo is specially created for the directly intended purpose of 
subsequently killing it for its parts. Some proponents of human cloning 
claim an embryo created in this manner will have cells for a genetic 
match to the patient being cloned and thus would not be subjected to 
the patient's immune system. I will address this issue of 
transplantation rejection later. Let me say that this particular claim 
is not scientifically true.
  To describe the process of destructive human cloning as 
``therapeutic'' when the intent is to create a new human life destined 
to its virtual destruction is misleading. However, one would like to 
describe the process of destructive cloning, it is certainly not 
therapeutic for the clone that has been created and them disemboweled 
for the purported benefit of its twin.
  All human cloning is reproductive, regardless of the intention of the 
researchers and the technicians who have created that life or copied 
it.
  I do not believe we should create human life to be used by others 
and, in the process, destroy it. Yet that is exactly what is being 
proposed by those who support cloning in limited circumstances. And 
however they might name the procedure--whether they call it nuclear 
transplantation, therapeutic cloning, therapeutic cellular transfer, 
DNA regenerative therapy, or some other euphemism--it is simply 
destruction.
  The cloning of a human embryo is wrong in all circumstances, whatever 
it is called. Human cloning is wrong. Yet proponents of so-called 
therapeutic cloning claim that with the use of this controversial 
technique we will be able to cure a whole host of dread diseases that 
plague humanity--diseases that I want to cure, diseases that I helped 
double the funding for at the National Institutes. I am cochairman of 
the cancer caucus in the Senate. I want to see these cured. Cancer runs 
in my family. I want to see these things cured, but not at the cost of 
other people's lives.
  I wish to take a minute to explain why some of the claims of those 
who support cloning are overhyped.
  First, the argument that so-called therapeutic cloning will solve the 
immuno-response rejection problem is questionable.
  Second, the reliance on this type of cloning as a treatment for those 
who are suffering will ultimately only be realized by heavily relying 
on the exploitation of women.
  We should also not forget that this practice would be available only 
to the rich.
  First, the myth of therapeutic cloning: It is becoming increasingly 
obvious that the so-called therapeutic purposes lack the evidence to 
back up their claims for the purpose of their technique of supposedly a 
``regenerative'' type of medicine.
  The promise that some have held out that the use of cloning 
technologies produce rejection-proof cells is starting to crumble under 
closer scrutiny.
  This is the argument. If we just clone a person, they will have cells 
that are genetic matches and you will be able to put those back into 
your body and the body itself will not reject them because it is saying 
these are my cells. It would get around this immune-repressive problem 
we have with heart transfers or other organs or tissue transfers that 
have immuno-repressive problems. The problem is that under closer 
scrutiny, cloning does not work that well.
  We know that cells derived from clonal embryos created for the 
purpose of stem cell transplantation contain mitochondrial DNA--that 
DNA passed through the maternal contribution to the zygote.
  In other words, this is from outside the genetic material. To say the 
Presiding Officer provided it encased in mitochondrial material that is 
from a different person, it is a different person. Therefore, it is not 
genetically identical to the donor/recipient. This nonidentity can 
trigger an immune-response rejection.
  If you take an outside egg, take your genetic material, put it in 
this egg and grow the cells up to a certain age, and kill this embryo 
for those cells, then you put it back in you, the problem is

[[Page 10318]]

the egg isn't your matching genetic material. Some of that carries over 
to the characteristic of this genetic material of test cells that you 
are putting into your body. It still triggers the immune-response 
problem. That is one problem.
  Further, there is not one animal model that shows this is not the 
case. In other words, we don't have an animal model that says if you 
just clone a person you can inject it right back into the person. We 
don't have a single animal model that says we get around this problem--
none. Yet we are going to move forward on this theory that this works 
when we don't even have a single model that that works?
  In fact, Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch, one of the leading vocal proponents of 
cloning admits that his study into the therapeutic value of cloning in 
animal models ``raise[s] the provocative possibility that even 
genetically matched cells derived by therapeutic cloning may still face 
barriers to effective transplantation.''
  This is one of the leading advocates who is saying, early on, we 
don't get around immuno-suppressant problems, one of the leading claims 
of the cloning advocates.
  In addition, it is now known that there are problems with gene 
expression and gene imprinting that can cause cell deterioration as 
well as other abnormalities in the clonal embryos.
  Also, there are practical considerations, considerations that have 
led many of the advocates of cloning to concede the impracticality of 
efforts to custom make stem cells. That is what cloning is really 
about: Custom making stem cells for me, the Senator from Nevada, the 
Senator from Washington, and others. It is saying: OK, we are going to 
make some cells just for me. These are going to be custom made to fit 
what I need.
  In an article by Peter Aldhous, entitled ``Can They Rebuild Us?'', 
published in Nature Magazine, the author notes that:

       [I]t may come as a surprise that many experts do not now 
     expect therapeutic cloning to have a large clinical impact--
     many researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic 
     cloning will ever be efficient enough to be commercially 
     viable. It would be astronomically expensive, says James 
     Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led 
     the team that first isolated E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells from 
     human blastocysts.

  For the advantage of my colleagues, I yield the floor so that 
colleagues can take advantage of some of their time.
  I yield to the Senator from Nevada.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.


                           Amendment No. 3844

  Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I rise to speak on behalf of the 
amendment of the Senator from Kansas.
  We deal with issues around this body often. We deal with issues that, 
frankly, sometimes don't seem very important. But this issue is an 
issue of critical importance. This issue is really what the human 
species is all about.
  I am a veterinarian by profession. I have studied embryology, as all 
veterinary students do, as all medical students do. We study it in 
detail. As a matter of fact, we study it in species after species.
  I have studied the cloning of the famous Dolly clone that we are all 
familiar with, Dolly the sheep. When that first happened, there was 
something very disturbing that went off in my brain. It was not because 
of the cloning of an animal, it was because cloning put people in the 
future.
  When Dolly was first announced, everybody said: No, we cannot clone 
people. We will never go there.
  Last year, during the whole issue dealing with embryos that people 
were talking about, they were saying: No. You know what. We will not 
have cloning. We will ban cloning.
  Everybody agreed, at that time, it seemed, that we were going to ban 
cloning. But now, as some of the research has gone forward, people are 
starting to say: You know what. Now we are just going to do therapeutic 
cloning. We are not going to do reproductive cloning.
  Well, as the Senator from Kansas has pointed out, we are not dealing 
with just therapeutic cloning. It is all reproductive cloning. Dolly 
was produced by the same technology that therapeutic cloning will be 
produced from. It is the same, exact technology. It is cloning.
  You can call it by any name you want to call it, but it is cloning.
  I know there are other Senators who want to talk tonight, so I will 
not talk too much more on this.
  But, Madam President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk 
and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the amendment.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Nevada [Mr. Ensign] proposes an amendment 
     numbered 3844 to amendment No. 3843.

       Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent 
     reading of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

  (Purpose: To prohibit the patentability of human organisms, and for 
                            other purposes)

       Strike all after the first word and insert the following:

     UNPATENTABILITY OF HUMAN ORGANISMS.

       Section 101 of title 35, United States Code, is amended--
       (1) by inserting ``(a) In General.--'' before ``Whoever''; 
     and
       (2) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(b) Unpatentability of Human Organisms.--
       ``(1) Definition.--In this subsection, the term `human 
     cloning' means human asexual reproduction, accomplished by 
     introducing nuclear material from one or more human somatic 
     cells into a fertilized or unfertilized oocyte whose nuclear 
     material has been removed or inactivated so as to produce a 
     living organism (at any stage of development) that is 
     genetically virtually identical to an existing or previously 
     existing human organism.
       ``(2) Unpatentability.--A patent may not be obtained for--
       ``(A) an organism of the human species at any stage of 
     development produced by any method, whether in vitro or in 
     vivo, including the zygote, embryo, fetus, child or adult;
       ``(B) a living organism made by human cloning; or
       ``(C) a process of human cloning.''.
       ``(3) Effective date.--This section shall become effective 
     30 days after the date of enactment.''

  Mr. ENSIGN. Madam President, the issue of human patenting in this 
whole issue of cloning. And the whole cloning debate is really an 
egregious one because the idea of being able to patent a human being or 
the making of a human being is probably one of the most egregious parts 
of this whole issue.
  This really is a time when we are confronting a brave new world. The 
prospect of people in corporate America owning people and trading and 
buying and selling people as if they were property is something that 
should give us all a chill.
  So, Madam President, I think all of us should support the Senator's 
amendment, and the second-degree amendment as well.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.


                           Amendment No. 3843

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I want to proceed to the discussion 
of this issue on the overall patenting because that is the narrow issue 
on which we are focused and it ties in, very closely, with this issue 
of cloning.
  I was mentioning the Nature Magazine article about whether this will 
work because the issue of patents will be that people are seeking to 
create these humans, and then own them through the patenting process; 
that people will research and invest commercially in them. It should 
really send a chill through all of us.
  I think the question one should be asking, even ahead of that, is: 
Will this even work? If we are going to allow this to take place, one 
might advocate, well, OK, this is going to work and create all these 
cures for diseases; therefore, maybe we ought to risk this to humanity.
  I say, even on the science of this, the very basic science of this, 
the science says this isn't going to work either, so that we would be 
subjecting humanity to the notion that you can patent people, when it 
does not even work. And it is not going to proceed.
  Here is the quote I was talking about by Peter Aldhous, entitled 
``Can They Rebuild Us?'' in Nature Magazine, dated April 5, 2001:


[[Page 10319]]

       It may come as a surprise that many experts do not now 
     expect therapeutic cloning to have a large clinical impact--
     many researchers have come to doubt whether therapeutic 
     cloning will ever be efficient enough to be commercially 
     viable. It would be astronomically expensive, says James 
     Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who led 
     the team that first isolated E[mbryonic] S[tem] cells from 
     human blastocysts.

  The article continues:

       [M]ammalian cloning is inefficient, even in the hands of 
     the most skilled scientists. Of the 277 cells from Dolly's 
     mother that were fused with donor egg cells--

  This is 277 eggs. And then because you had to make 277 of these, 277 
eggs--

     less than 30 developed to the blastocyst stage.

  That is the early stages of development.

       At the time experts believed efficiency would improve. But 
     despite feverish efforts by groups worldwide, progress has 
     been disappointing. We don't at the moment have any real 
     handle on how to greatly increase the efficiency, admits Alan 
     Coleman of PPL Therapeutics near Edinburgh, the company 
     involved in the Dolly experiments.

  So 277 eggs, to get to 30 developed to the blastocyst stage, to 
eventually get to one Dolly. So 277 to one, that is how many eggs we 
are going to have to have from women to be able to start these, to be 
able to get some sort of development moving along. You are talking 
about a very inefficient process, and one where you have to have a lot 
of women superovulating, collecting these eggs so we can get more of 
these clones going. At what price to women? At what price to humanity?
  Also, in a recent LA Times interview--this is from May 10, 2002, 
about a month ago--Thomas Okarma of Geron Corporation said that cloning 
for customized stem cell treatments would take, ``thousands of [human] 
eggs on an assembly line'' to produce a custom therapy for a single 
person. He says, ``This proceeds as a non-starter commercially.'' The 
odds favoring success ``are vanishingly small.'' He said this. He is 
one of the lead researchers from Geron Corporation. The possibilities 
of success ``are vanishingly small.'' Yet we want to take this step for 
humanity on the science where the science says the opportunities, the 
possibilities ``are vanishingly small''? We want to go ahead and step 
forward and say: Yes, we should do research, we should patent people on 
an opportunity that is ``vanishingly small''?
  That is not a wise step to take on the science of it, let alone how 
you view the human person, whether or not you should allow patenting of 
people on the science of it. It argues we should not.
  This leads me to my second point which is, in order to be effective, 
therapeutic cloning must rely on the exploitation of women and the 
practice will be available only to the rich. This practice will have to 
rely upon the exploitation of women and will be available only to the 
rich. Aside from being highly impractical, the claim that therapeutic 
cloning will lead to cures is one that can ultimately only be realized 
with the blatant exploitation of women.
  In order to conduct so-called therapeutic or research cloning on a 
scale that would yield just a portion of the benefits cloning advocates 
promise, one would need to harvest a vast number of human eggs. The 
only place you get those is from women.
  As noted by Dr. David Prentice, a stem cell researcher at the 
University of Indiana:

       More than 100 million people in the United States suffer 
     from medical conditions for which embryonic stem cell 
     therapies are being promoted as promising--Parkinson's 
     disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, 
     juvenile diabetes, ALS, and more. If 20 percent of cloning 
     attempts succeeded in reaching the blastocyst stage of 
     development--the success rate in animal cloning--and stem 
     cells are derived from 10 percent of these clon[al] embryos--
     a rate consistent with such success rates in deriving 
     embryonic stem cell lines from non-cloned embryos--how many 
     eggs will we need?

  Based on these assumptions, just his assumptions, saying OK, let's 
take our animal models on cloning, that we are going to say we can be 
just as successful with human cloning as we can in our animal models, 
and we will try to derive stem cells for just 10 percent of the people 
who suffer from one of these diseases, based on these assumptions it 
would take 800 million human eggs to treat just 16 percent of the 
Americans who suffer from conditions for which these therapies 
involving embryonic stem cells have been promised, to be able to 
address the treatments needed for just 16 percent of Americans 
suffering.
  I am just saying, only the rich can afford this. It is going to be 
very expensive. Let's just say the top 16 percent of those who suffer 
can afford to do this. We will be able to treat those. With current 
knowledge and our ability, and even including a factor of favorability, 
saying we will be able to get this done efficiently from being a human 
egg to being a clone, because you to have make that transition, you 
will need 800 million eggs from women. Where are you going to get 
those? If 10 eggs are harvested per woman, then 80 million women of 
child-bearing age would have to submit to the risk of drugs and 
hyperovulation and surgical extraction procedures, providing the eggs 
that would be needed to develop therapies for just a fraction, 16 
percent of those who are suffering from these conditions.
  The egg dearth is a mathematical certainty and is one reason 
researchers say therapeutic cloning will not be generally available for 
medical treatment.
  For example, a year ago biotech researchers Jon Odorico, Dan Kaufman, 
and James Thompson admitted the following in the research journal Stem 
Cells. They said: The poor availability of human eggs, the low 
efficiency of the nuclear cell procedure, and the long population-
doubling time of human embryonic stem cells make it difficult to 
envision this, therapeutic cloning to obtain stem cells, becoming a 
routine clinical procedure, even if ethical considerations were not a 
significant point of contention.
  James Thompson is the person who developed the embryonic stem cell, 
first found those in humans. He is saying that even if you didn't have 
ethical considerations, you will not be able to do this on a regular 
basis. That is aside from the overall issue. That is just the science 
of it. That is not questioning whether a human person should be 
patented or not. That is the question of whether you could do it, 
whether you have sound science based upon being able to do it.
  Concerns such as these as well as others have led a group of 
progressive scientists, virtually all of whom support abortion rights, 
to state in their letter of support for a ban on all human cloning 
that:

       Although we may differ in our views regarding reproductive 
     issues, we agree that a human embryo should not be cloned for 
     the specific intention of using it as a resource for medical 
     experimentation or for producing a baby. Moreover, we believe 
     that the market for women's eggs that would be created by 
     this research will provide unethical incentives for women to 
     undergo health- threatening hormone treatment and surgery. We 
     are also concerned about the increased bio-industrialization 
     of life by the scientific community and life science 
     companies, and shocked and dismayed that clonal human embryos 
     have been patented and declared to be human ``inventions.''

  This is a very real concern. As I am sure many of you are aware, the 
typical in vitro fertilization procedure involves a collection of eggs 
from women who seek to become pregnant in this manner. The 
superovulatory drugs typically used in this procedure will result in 
anywhere from 10 to 40 eggs. The use of superovulatory drugs has 
already been linked to ovarian cancer and other health risks. Some 
people choose to go ahead with that risk because of other concerns and 
desires they have.
  The market for women's eggs is not just a fiction. In fact, the 
market for women's eggs has already developed. For example, the company 
Advanced Cell Technology of Massachusetts paid women up to $4,000 per 
egg donation. This is the group that claimed already to have cloned 
human beings in the United States. They paid women up to $4,000 per egg 
donation. There is another issue we should consider: Whether or not we 
are going to allow companies to pay for women's eggs, to create this 
marketplace, to allow this marketplace to take place.

[[Page 10320]]

  Such a market for women's eggs will be a true threat to the health of 
many women. Women undergoing the health risks associated with egg 
donation for the purpose of having children is certainly one thing in 
that they choose and the life comes forward. That they would be induced 
by some to undergo these health risks for money is another issue.
  It is striking, as I watch this debate unfold, that corporate 
interests in the biotech community want us to countenance the idea that 
society will be able to solve the health care problems of the world on 
the backs of poor women. Asking us to do so is an assault not only on 
the dignity of the human embryo created and destroyed in this process 
but also on the dignity of the woman who sells her body parts to 
accomplish it.
  The commodification of women and their eggs is a very real concern 
that we all share and is yet another reason on a long list for why we 
must outlaw all human cloning and why we must do so now.
  That is not the issue in front of us today. The issue today is 
whether we should allow patenting of human embryos, patenting of 
people. There are alternatives, however, that do not use controversial 
and unproven techniques to improve health. Many of you who follow this 
issue already know the advances being made, and the adult nonembryonic 
stem cell research continues to show great promise. Not only are we 
beginning to treat the myriad diseases which plague humanity, but we 
are continuing to find we can do so without the use of controversial 
techniques or research which relies on the death of another human 
being.
  As to the adult stem cell area, I want to spend some time on this 
because I want to solve these diseases as well. I think we have an 
avenue that is being proven in science today that we should pursue 
aggressively, fund aggressively, fund at the Federal level, and get 
these cures to the people.
  In fact, to date there is no clinical application of embryonic stem 
cells in people, much less those derived from cloned embryos, that are 
used with humans, whereas there are many diseases already being treated 
in humans with adult nonembryonic stem cells. We already have human 
clinical trials with adult stem cells.
  I would like to list just a few of these recent advances. I am 
comparing clones, cloned embryonic stem cells, no human trials or 
applications. It is fully legal today to clone humans in the United 
States, fully legal. It has been going on; companies are claiming to 
have done it. There are no human applications, none. Adult stem cells 
are these repair cells in each of our bodies--Senator Specter's body, 
my body, right now. We have them in all parts of our body, these repair 
cells that go to a particular area and help it build back up and build 
more cells where they are needed. It is the maintenance crew in the 
body. These adult stem cells go places and help where there are needs.
  What we are finding is that we can pull those out, grow them outside 
the body, put them back in with amazing results in cures in some of 
these terrible, debilitating areas.
  There was one reported in the paper just today about liver stem cells 
being converted into pancreatic stem cells that were insulin secreting 
to be able to cure diabetes. That was just reported in the paper today.
  Adult bone marrow stem cells: These are in us now, grow extensively, 
transformed into functional liver cells.
  Dr. Catherine Verfaillie's group in Minnesota continues to show more 
and more uses for the multi-potent adult progenitor cells from bone 
marrow. These are adult bone marrow stem cells. The team has now shown 
that these can transform into functional liver cells. The adult stem 
cells also were grown in culture for over 100 generations of the cells, 
twice the length of time previously thought possible with adult cells.
  This was in a recent journal, May 2002--adult liver stem cells from 
pancreatic cells.
  Researchers at the University of Florida have transformed highly 
purified adult liver stem cells into pancreatic stem cells. Now they 
are taking liver stem cells and making them into pancreatic cells. The 
cells self-assemble in a culture and form three-dimensional islet 
structures--that is where you get the secretion of insulin--express 
pancreatic genes, produce pancreatic hormones and, best of all, secrete 
insulin--to be able to cure diabetes. When you implant it into diabetic 
mice, the transformed cells reverse their hyperglycemia in 10 days.
  Ammon Peck, one of the team leaders, said:

       Adult stem cells appear to offer great promise for the 
     production of an almost unlimited supply of insulin-producing 
     cells and islets of Langerhans . . .

  A particular type of cell that produces insulin.

       The ability to grow insulin-producing cells from liver stem 
     cells shows the remarkable potential of adult stem cells for 
     future cell therapy.

  This was in a June 4, 2002, online edition of Proceedings of the 
National Academy of Sciences.
  Adult stem cells successfully treat Parkinson's. Think about that--
successful treatment for Parkinson's. Has the Chair even heard of this? 
On April 8, Dr. Mike Levesque at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los 
Angeles reported a total reversal of symptoms in the first patient 
treated, a 57-year-old former fighter pilot. The patient is still 
without symptoms 3 years after adult neural stem cells were removed 
from his brain, coaxed into becoming dopamine-producing cells, and then 
reimplanted. So here they took this 57-year-old former fighter pilot, 
took these adult neural stem cells, nerve stem cells, removed them from 
his brain, coaxed them into becoming dopamine-producing cells, and 
reimplanted them. This was in a human trial, not animal.
  ``I think transplantation of the patient's own neural stem cells and 
differentiated dopaminergic neurons is more biologically and 
physiologically compatible--more efficacious and more elegant,'' said 
Levesque. The results show that adult stem cells from a patient's own 
brain can aid in treatment of Parkinson's. This was all accomplished 
without the requirement for immuno-suppression since the patient's own 
adult stem cells were used. Again, it is your own stem cells. There is 
no immuno-suppression problem since the patient's own adult stem cells 
were used. In addition to its use for Parkinson's, the technique is 
under study for juvenile diabetes, stroke, brain tumors, spinal cord 
injury, and other conditions. The results were presented at the meeting 
of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.
  Think about that. Three years after these were taken, were coaxed 
into becoming dopamine-producing cells and were reimplanted, they are 
showing a total reversal of symptoms in the patient. Incredible.
  Adult stem cells can form potentially all tissues. Injection of a 
single adult bone marrow stem cell can reform the entire bone marrow of 
a mouse, forming functional marrow and blood cells and saving the life 
of the mouse. The transplanted bone marrow also could form functional 
cells of liver, lung, gastrointestinal tract--esophagus, stomach, 
intestine, colon--and skin, as well as other cells in heart and 
skeletal muscle. The experiments also provided evidence that adult stem 
cells ``home in'' to sites of tissue damage. This was from Dr. D.S. 
Krause on May 4, 2001, in the publication ``Cell.''
  Fifth, adult stem cells repair heart damage. I am talking, again, 
about human clinical trials. Heart damage. Listen to this:

       Researchers at NIH and the New York Medical College-
     Valhalla used mice to show that injecting adult bone marrow 
     stem cells damaged hearts could rebuild heart tissue and help 
     restore heart function. Newly formed heart tissue occupied 
     over two-thirds of the damaged portion of the heart 9 days 
     after the transplant. In other experiments, significant 
     repair of heart damage was achieved by simply stimulating the 
     production and release of stem cells from bone marrow, with 
     the cells migrating to the heart and repairing damage. The 
     studies indicate that adult stem cells can generate new heart 
     tissue, decreasing the damage of coronary artery disease.

  That was in a magazine called Nature on April 5, 2001. This was a 
mouse trial, not human.

[[Page 10321]]

  The notion that we have to kill one person in order to find cures for 
others is a false trade-off that has been presented to the American 
public in what seems to be a total disregard of the advances made in 
the promising fields of alternative nonembryonic sources of stem cells. 
If we want to talk about regenerative medicine, this is where we should 
focus; this is the area of regenerative medicine. We are doing it today 
in human clinical trials.
  Mr. SPECTER. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. BROWNBACK. If I may complete this point, then I will yield for a 
question. Why would we contemplate going to the point of creating a 
human life and patenting this human life in an area where we are 
showing no results taking place, and it has all these ethical 
questions, and you have one generation of humanity saying, okay, we 
think there are some possibilities here to research in this cloning 
area? Therefore, we are going to allow the creation of human clones, 
which we allow freely in the United States to take place today; it is 
going on right now. We are going to allow them to be patented so that 
you can own this creation of a human being. We don't have to go there. 
I would say, at a minimum, we ought to contemplate at least pausing on 
this until we see how all of this would grow and develop before we 
contemplate creating humans just to research them. We have a better 
alternative that is working today.
  I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, the Senator from Kansas, in his 
introductory comments, announced what his amendment was not about, and 
then he proceeded to talk extensively about nuclear transplantation, 
otherwise referred to as therapeutic cloning, and about embryonic stem 
cells, and about adult stem cells.
  But coming back to the core issue on what the Senator from Kansas is 
offering on nonpatentability, my question is whether the Senator from 
Kansas is aware of a release by the Patent Office on April 1, 1998, 
which reads, in pertinent part:

       The Patent and Trademark Office is required by law to keep 
     all patent applications in confidence until such time as a 
     patent may be granted. However, the existence of a patent 
     application directed to human/non-human chimera has recently 
     been discussed in the news media. It is the position of the 
     PTO that inventions directed to human/non-human chimera 
     could, under certain circumstances, not be patentable 
     because, among other things, they would fail to meet the 
     public policy and morality aspects of the utility 
     requirement.

  Now, this position by the Patent Office obviously, on its face, 
renders totally unnecessary the amendment that is being offered. My 
question to the Senator from Kansas is, Was he aware of this position 
taken by the Patent Office?
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, I am very familiar with that. The Patent Office 
has continued to articulate that position. That is why I stated that 
there is a question on this, because the Patent Office is stating that 
issue based upon the 13th amendment of the Constitution, which is 
against slavery. But they are being challenged by attorneys, and they 
have been challenged in the court often about whether they can deny a 
patent.
  What I am providing by this amendment is clarity by the legislative 
body acting and saying that we will not allow the patentability of this 
issue. I ask my colleague if he agrees with that and maybe with my 
amendment and would agree to support this amendment. It is just a 
clarification of what the Patent Office has currently stated.
  Mr. SPECTER. I would be glad to expound, Madam President. The 
amendment which the Senator from Kansas has offered was offered without 
any notice to this Senator, which came as a surprise, since the Senator 
from Kansas and I have been debating this subject very broadly for the 
past year or two.
  Having seen this amendment for the first time this evening, I was 
surprised that when I walked out for a telephone call, that opportunity 
was used by the Senator from Nevada to offer a second-degree amendment 
to foreclose this Senator from offering a second-degree amendment, 
although that may still be possible under certain procedural 
approaches.
  The arguments which I have heard the Senator from Kansas offer 
tonight, almost his entire presentation has not been about the patent 
issue but has been about therapeutic cloning, and embryonic stem cells. 
The Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services had 
some 14 hearings on the issues relating to stem cells and nuclear 
transplantation. There has been no hearing at all on this subject.
  Again, it is a little surprising to find it come up on a very 
important bill regarding Federal guarantees on insurance. The 
commercial world has been waiting for action on this bill and, to find 
this amendment here, again I say, is surprising.
  The core question which is raised by the Senator from Kansas has been 
answered by the Patent Office. I took from his comment that he had 
mentioned that I did not hear him refer to that at all, but I think his 
amendment is totally unnecessary in light of what the Patent Office has 
had to say.
  If the Senator from Kansas wanted to have hearings on his amendment 
in the regular course of business, he is a member of the Judiciary 
Committee--the Senator from Kansas is a member of the Judiciary 
Committee, as is this Senator--that would be an appropriate place to 
hear it.
  When the Senator from Kansas talks about the future of humanity, I 
agree with him about that. Nuclear transplantation offers an 
opportunity to save lives, to find a cure for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, 
and heart disease, so that we really are on the threshold of some 
remarkable scientific achievements.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, if I may reclaim my time, if we are 
going to go into the speech of the Senator from Pennsylvania, I would 
like to answer his comments and finish up my comments, unless he has 
another question to ask. Again, I would like to go ahead and finish my 
statement.
  Mr. SPECTER. I had not finished answering the question of the Senator 
from Kansas. I have been sitting here patiently listening to him at 
some length and again express a little surprise at having the Senator 
from Nevada take the floor when I step out for a minute and then ask 
unanimous consent not to have the amendment read, which is customary, 
but then the Senator always explains it.
  While I was up at the desk getting a copy of the amendment, the 
Senator from Kansas took the floor again. I do not think there has been 
any shortage of time for the Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I do have the floor, I say to the Senator from 
Pennsylvania, and I am willing to yield for a question on this issue.
  Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, the Senator from Kansas has asked me a 
question, and I am in the process of responding to the question.
  The last comment I will make and will give the floor back--
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas does have the floor 
and can reclaim the floor when he wishes.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I am happy to have the Senator from Pennsylvania 
respond, but if it is his speech, I would like to finish up my comments 
and then yield the floor.
  Mr. SPECTER. The last part of my response, Madam President, would be 
to take strenuous issue with the statement by the Senator from Kansas 
that those who have talked about therapeutic cloning, really nuclear 
transplantation, are misleading and disingenuous. There has never been 
any challenge by this Senator to the Senator from Kansas about his 
being misleading or disingenuous.
  As strenuously as I may disagree with what he has had to say, there 
has never been any challenge to his being forthright and his integrity 
on the point which is strongly suggested by the characterization of 
``misleading and disingenuous.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, reclaiming the floor, I would like to 
put forward a couple of issues in response to the Senator from 
Pennsylvania. No. 1, this issue on the patenting

[[Page 10322]]

of humans has been out there about a month now since a group discovered 
several applications of patents for the patenting of a process to 
create a human embryo. It has been out there, and a number of us stated 
we wanted to ban this procedure of patenting.
  No. 2, as we were going forward in this negotiation process to get 
the competing cloning bills forward, we were required to exchange a 
bill, and in our base bill was the issue of banning the patenting of 
people. That was exchanged this week. It has been out in the hands of 
Senator Specter's staff or others during this week. We have had this 
issue of patenting banned. Whether the Senator knew about it or not, it 
was in the base bill we put forward.
  On the issue of questioning his integrity, I did not, and I do not 
here. I stated earlier in my comments that those who are putting this 
forward do so, when they put forward the issue of cloning people, under 
laudable purposes: to cure debilitating diseases, the same diseases 
that I seek to cure. What I call disingenuous is the term ``therapeutic 
cloning.'' It is certainly not therapeutic to the clone, and as I have 
been going through the science, it is not going to work for the people 
who are trying to do it. If it did work for the people who were trying 
to do this, they are going to have to harvest a lot of eggs from women. 
It is not going to be therapeutic to the women from whom the eggs are 
harvested, and as far as I know, it is not going to be therapeutic to 
the clone, and, I might also add, it is not therapeutic to mankind to 
do this, to start at some point in the life chain, in the life cycle, 
creating life as livestock and be able to do research on them.
  Moving forward with this, and the reason this patent is a central 
issue, as I noted at the very outset, the whole issue in front of the 
Patent Office--they are claiming one way and others are claiming 
another--is the status of the clone. Is the clone a person, thus 
subject to protections under the 13th amendment against slavery or is 
it property, is it livestock to be owned and dealt with as its master 
chooses? That is the central question that is involved at the Patent 
Office.
  That is what I was saying at the outset of the speech, and that is 
why the issue is in front of us, because we need to resolve the issue: 
Is this a person protected under the 13th amendment against slavery? Is 
it livestock; go ahead and patent it, a new type of livestock.
  I am saying that what we should do is move forward with clarity for 
the Patent Office. They are claiming this is a person. It is subject to 
protection under the 13th amendment against slavery, and I am saying we 
should clarify that.
  I hope many of the Senators in this body will join me and say: Yes, 
that is right, we should clarify that. Even if it is a questionable 
issue, we should weigh on the side of, yes, this is probably life and 
we should not enslave it to a patent. I hope most of the Members of 
this body will agree and say: Yes, we are going to deny these patents. 
These are not going to be allowed to go forward.
  The notion that we have to kill one person in order to find cures for 
others is a false tradeoff. It has been presented to the American 
public in what seems to be disregard for the advances being made in 
this promising field of alternative nonembryonic stem cells. This is 
true regenerative medicine.
  As our national bioethics debate progresses, we must continue to 
closely monitor the advances being made in the field of adult stem cell 
research, and we need to fund it and fund it aggressively.
  It is important to remember that we do not have unlimited resources 
in our battle to prolong and improve the quality of life. Throwing 
money at unproven, controversial, and novel treatment regimes is 
foolhardly. It is better to invest where progress is being shown and 
progress charted.
  I wish to address a final point, and that is on the issue of people 
saying this is about your view of religion, your view of science. The 
point I wish to make is some have charged religion is attempting to, 
once again, block important scientific discoveries. This is not true.
  What I have argued in the past, and I will argue today, as well as 
what I will continue to argue in the future, is based directly on 
biological data, statements by those in the field of biology, the data 
of common observations, an objective, logical, reflective thinking 
about the data available. I have not once mentioned an argument based 
upon religion.
  Certainly many traditional religions, dependent on their respective 
positions, coincide with many of the points that have been made in the 
past. The Christian tradition, in particular the Catholic and much of 
the Evangelical, says everything relevant to this debate depends on the 
humanly accessible data and the logical conclusions that can be drawn 
from it, not on theology. Authentic religion hands this over to 
authentic science.
  The difference of view, in my judgment, depends on knowing the 
biological and human truth or not knowing it. It is not about a 
difference of religious view or the difference between religion and 
science. Every argument I have put forward has been based upon science, 
biology, and reason. To me, the present debate is about good or bad 
science and good or bad reasoning. Many, however, seem to be wanting to 
make this a debate about religion when it is not.
  What makes this argument so strange is that I cannot think of one 
Senator who does not believe in God. Indeed, we have printed above the 
main door when we come in, ``In God We Trust.''
  The question for my colleagues to ponder may be put the other way: 
Does God trust us? Does he love us? And if so, when did his love start 
for us? I would suggest it starts very early.
  In closing, I think it is important that as we continue to engage 
this national dialogue, we strive to do so in a way that shows the 
profound mystery and inviolable worth of every human being from the 
moment of conception until natural death. It is a debate well worth 
having, and as a brave new world draws ever near, it becomes clearer 
that our own humanity in fact may depend upon it.
  As a final thought, I think it is unlikely that Senators today will 
ultimately be remembered by history for their votes on tax bills or 
even on bills that are pending right now--budget, trade--all of which 
will be important. They are important, but I think when we look back 50 
years to this period of time, that may not be what history remembers.
  There is something truly unique about the debate on this issue, on 
whether you treat a person as patentable or not. The action we take 
today, tomorrow, and next week on this issue will have far-reaching 
implications and will be of great historical consequence. It is what 
history will ultimately remember us for during this time. I think that 
is why we clearly have to address this issue. That is why we have 
narrowly addressed the point that is in front of us.
  I hope that in the end we get unanimous consent in this body that we 
should not allow patenting of human life in any stage of its 
development, whether it is asexual reproduction or human reproduction.
  Today, yes, indeed, we in the Senate open a debate on the future of 
humanity and whether we shall use human life for research purposes. Let 
us pause and do something most of us agree on and not allow human life, 
whether created by a clone, in a clone, by a biotechnician or in the 
womb, to be patented.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Stabenow). The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I have a lot of respect for the 
distinguished Senator from Kansas. He is a good man. He is very 
sincere, and he believes in what he is doing. He fights for what he 
believes in. I have a lot of respect for him, and I have a lot of 
respect for his attitude.
  Up until this point, the debate on cloning has been considered in an 
orderly and responsible fashion. I am greatly concerned that in filing 
this particular amendment, our opponents in this debate are resorting 
to tactics

[[Page 10323]]

that will not result in the careful consideration that this important 
issue merits. We all know that the great issue in this debate is 
whether an unfertilized blastocyst, or an unfertilized egg that is used 
in the somatic cell nuclear transfer process and becomes a blastocyst 
in 5 or 6 days, is a person? We will have that debate in this body, I 
presume. I think it would be a worthwhile debate.
  The amendment being offered tonight is something of a red herring. 
True, there are issues that should be examined in addition with patents 
which may be issued on living cells. In fact, Chairman Leahy and I are 
pursuing that matter in the Judiciary Committee with the Patent and 
Trademark Office and other interested parties. We are trying to learn 
more about patent No. 6,211,429, issued to University of Missouri 
researcher, Dr. Randall Prather. We are trying to learn if the issuance 
of this patent is consistent with the 1987 PTO policy statement with 
respect to the non-patentability of human beings.
  However, let's be fair, the crux of the issue in this debate has 
little to do with patents. It has to do with whether or not we will 
allow important research to proceed, research that holds the promise of 
improving upwards of 100 million-plus lives in our society in America 
alone. That does not even mention the millions of others throughout the 
world who might benefit from what I refer to as regenerative medicine.
  This body can look at issues around the margin--and trust me, there 
are literally hundreds of them that we could consider--and patenting is 
certainly a concern but it does not go to the heart of the issue.
  The Patent and Trademark Office, the PTO, has already made abundantly 
clear in its 1987 policy statement that human beings are not 
patentable, as the distinguished Senator from Pennsylvania has aptly 
pointed out. This policy states, in part, ``A claim directed to or 
including within its scope a human being will not be considered to be 
patentable subject matter.''
  It seems to me that it might prove beneficial for PTO to reexamine 
the claims of the University of Missouri patent in light of prior art.
  In any event, human beings are not patentble. That has been the law 
of the land, as it should be. To get into a somewhat arcane, 
complicated debate about intellectual property on a totally unrelated 
bill merely sidesteps the real debate and confuses the issue. The 
patent issue is an issue that most appropriately should be examined, 
but I believe should be examined by the Judiciary Committee, of which 
Senator Brownback is a member. So the distinguished Senator from Kansas 
will have every right to have his thoughts considered.
  We need to know how far the Brownback Amendment reaches. Does it 
extend to cell lines derives from unfertilized blastocysts? Does the 
amendment destroy the patentability of any process that could be used 
in nuclear transplantation involving human cells? We need to know what, 
if any, tensions, exist between the Brownback Amendment and the Supreme 
Court's holding in the famous Chakrabarty decision?
  The 1987 PTO policy cited Chakrabarty ``as controlling authority that 
Congress intended statutory subject matter to `include anything under 
the sun that is made by man.''' The PTO went on to say that it ``now 
considers nonnaturally occurring non-human multicelluar living 
organisms, including animals, to be patentable subject matter within 
the scope of 35 U.S.C. 101.''
  We need to think how the Brownback Amendment squares with the 
position taken in the memo written by then-HHS General Counsel Harriet 
Raab with respect to the relationship embryos and pluripotent cell 
lines.
  But I want to emphasize that what we really have to resolve in this 
debate is the legal and moral status of an unfertilized blastocyst that 
will not be implanted into a mother's womb and can never develop into a 
human baby. That is a key issue. Let's be honest, there is little 
interest in patenting a unfertilized blastocyst because the promise is 
not in the unfertilized blasotcyst but in the stem cell lines that may 
be derived from this artificially created cells.
  I have been following the recent debate on the patenting of human 
life very closely. My interest is twofold. As a policy matter and of 
course as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, I have a special 
responsibility for considering any policy issues that touch on 
intellectual property laws. In addition, my longstanding interest in 
biomedical research and ethics compels me to understand ramifications 
of intellectual property policy which have such far-ranging public 
health consequences. So I am very concerned about both of those issues. 
They are important issues and should not be helter-skelter considered 
on the floor without hearings, without appropriate consideration. These 
are complex and difficult issues.
  Throughout my career, I have always taken a strong pro-family and 
pro-life stance, especially on issues relating to biomedical research. 
I have also spent considerable efforts to see that the United States 
remains the world's leader in biomedical research so that our citizens 
may continue to benefit from revolutionary breakthroughs in science.
  Patenting human life involves novel and difficult issues. I believe 
there is widespread agreement that patenting human life, per se, is 
undesirable. Moreover, it may have serious constitutional implications 
under the 13th and 14th amendments as well. However, in approaching 
these issues, we must take care not to rush to judgment and 
unnecessarily make unwise policy decisions that would hinder, and 
perhaps halt, important biomedical research.
  Having said that, I jotted down a few notes put forth by the 
accomplished patent attorney, Al Engelberg. I agree with Al and other 
experts who do not believe that changing the patent law is the 
appropriate vehicle for exercising governmental control over the 
multitude of issues relating to cloning. Patents do not create an 
affirmative right to make, use, or sell the patented subject matter. 
They only give the owner the right to exclude others from doing so. For 
example, a patent on a new drug does not create any right to 
manufacture, use, or sell. An approval from the FDA is an absolute 
prerequisite.
  Similarly, a patent on a slot machine does not give the owner the 
right to use or sell it in a State where gambling is illegal. It would 
be a big mistake to leave the important broad societal moral, ethical, 
and public health issues to PTO experts applying technical patent laws. 
That would be a terrific mistake to make, and I believe that the 
ambiguities in the Senator's amendment will thrust PTO into an improper 
role.
  Do we really want to get involved in parsing patent claims in order 
to decide what is ethically permissible in the real world of cutting 
edge biomedical research? I think not. Let us settle the policy issue 
through a direct, frontal debate rather than approaching the matter 
through the back door of patentability.
  I do not think springing, unannounced, this type of amendment on this 
bill in this fashion is the most constructive manner in which to hold 
an informed debate.
  But on the substance of the amendment, we should take the view that 
the existence of the patent is not determinative of what is legal or 
illegal to make, use, sell, or permit within commerce. The value of the 
patent should rise or fall on the basis of independent legislative 
determinations regarding the legality or illegality of certain 
activities.
  That is what Senators Specter, Feinstein, Kennedy and I have done in 
our legislation by making the independent legislative determination 
that clearly outlaws the cloning of human babies by criminalizing the 
implantation of unfertilized blastocysts.
  The right to engage in such activities should be divorced from the 
issuance of patents.
  Now, as Mr. Engelberg argues, one advantage of proceeding in that 
fashion is that it maximizes the incentives for

[[Page 10324]]

those who make new and potentially new discoveries to disclose them in 
the hope that over the 20-year life of the patent, the definition of 
``legally permissible'' activities may be altered, thereby breathing 
economic value into a discovery that cannot be commercially exploited 
at the time of the recovery. If research in a particular area is 
eliminated, no patent applications can be filed without effectively 
admitting to a crime. Therefore, legislation regarding the scope of 
patents is not a good way to get at the underlying questions that are 
being debated.
  I hope the Senator would withdraw his amendment. I believe it is 
grossly premature. It is very dangerous for us to adopt such a measure 
without appropriate hearings and a complete review of this matter.
  In the end, it does not help us decide, what seems to me the central 
issue of the debate: whether or not we should go forward with this very 
important research?
  In the weeks ahead, the Senate is going to debate these issues of 
extreme importance to many Utahans and many Americans. There are 
upwards of 128 million people in our society who are suffering from 
various difficulties and diseases that may benefit from regenerative 
medicine research. I am talking about heart disease, cancer, ALS, 
diabetes and many others.
  I, personally, believe we ought to do everything in our power to help 
consistent with sound ethics. I, personally, believe--because experts 
tell me this is the case--that regenerative medicine holds great 
promise of curing many diseases.
  I acknowledge the distinguished Senator has quoted some scientists, 
but I am going to stand with the 40 Nobel laureates who have said this 
research should go forward because it holds great promise in expanding 
biomedical research to find treatments or cures. This science may also 
be used to examine disease so we can get to the bottom of the causes of 
disease and hopefully find treatments and cures for the millions and 
millions of Americans and people all over the world who need our help.
  Regenerative medicine has the great potential to save lives and to 
alleviate pain and suffering. I have come to this position after many 
months of study, contemplation, talking with all kinds of scientists 
and others on both sides of this issue, including some of the leading 
authorities in science, religion, and ethics. I have spent a lot of 
time on biomedical research issues during my entire Senate career. I 
have analyzed this from a pro-life, pro-family perspective, with the 
view that being pro-life means helping the living.
  A 4-year-old boy, Cody Anderson, from West Jordan, UT, came to visit 
me this last June. Cody Anderson's mother almost fell apart when she 
discovered at the age of 2 Cody Anderson got the very same diabetes 
that his grandfather had. His grandfather lived until he was 47 years 
of age but lived through 28 different operations, the loss of his left 
leg below the knee, the loss of his right toes, a colonoscopy, all 
kinds of other travails, difficulties and problems, and ultimately was 
on dialysis for the loss of his kidneys for the last 10 years of his 
life before he died, in a miserable, painful condition, at 47 years of 
age.
  When Cody's mother discovered that her son, at the age of 2, had 
exactly the same disease that killed her father at age 47, after all 
that miserable, wretched existence, she almost fell apart. She came to 
me and said: You have to do something about it.
  Not only did the grandfather go blind, he had pressure behind one of 
the eyes, and it had to be removed.
  Now, why wouldn't we do everything in our power to help Cody and 
others suffering from life-debilitating diseases? It seems to me we 
should.
  Let me state my total agreement with my dear friend and colleague 
from Kansas that we should ban absolutely reproductive cloning of human 
beings. There is no question that ban would pass 100 to 0 in this body, 
and I think 435 to 0 in the House. There are only a few people in our 
society today who believe we ought to follow through and try to 
experiment with and reach a position of cloning human beings. Those 
people would be shut off automatically. They basically would be 
outcasts if they tried to do something like that. By banning that 
totally, we would solve most every problem with which most people are 
concerned.
  It does not solve the problem that my dear colleague is concerned 
with because he considers the unfertilized egg, once a nuclear transfer 
takes out the 23 mother's chromosomes, and insert the DNA of a skin 
cell or other somatic cell through the nuclear transplantation process. 
This process inserts the 46 chromosomes into the unfertilized egg that 
will remain unfertilized.
  Some believe that the product of nuclear transplantation is a human 
being. I don't agree with that. It is a living, human cell, but it 
certainly is not a human being, nor does it have a chance in the world 
of becoming a human being unless it is implanted in a human womb, and 
even then probably will not become a human being because it is 
theoretically possible but nobody is absolutely sure if that can 
happen.
  During this period of time, the unfertilized egg can be grown to a 
blastocyst stage in a lab and develop to the point where special cells, 
called embryonic stem cells, can be extracted and replicate themselves. 
The stem cells are undifferentiated but, scientists believe, they can 
be differentiated into as many as 200 different forms of human tissue 
which might save lives, which might treat disease, which might bring 
cures, which certainly will help study disease and the origins of 
disease.
  I don't mean to go into all of the details this evening. But I am 
very concerned in the end that if we do not continue this research, the 
rest of the world is going to leave us behind. They will do so under 
moral and ethical standards that will not be good--at least in some 
parts of the world. If we help set the moral and ethical standards, it 
seems to me, we can benefit everybody around the world, first and 
foremost U.S. citizens. It will mean they will conduct this research on 
a highly ethical and morally upright manner.
  If we do not do that, this research is going to go on through the 
rest of the world, and it will not be with our influence.
  Second, it seems to me, if we do not go ahead with this research 
under very stringent moral and ethical standards, it will be gone ahead 
with no matter what happens because many of our leading scientists 
today may leave our country and go where they can pursue this research. 
And I say again--according to at least 40 Nobel laureates and almost 
everyone else I know, except a few--this is very promising research.
  This is important. I am totally in favor of adult stem cell research, 
and almost every scientist I have talked to is also supportive of this 
line of research. But almost every scientist I have talked to, and I 
have talked to a lot of them, will tell me that it is very difficult to 
get enough adult stem cells, and when you do they are not as able to 
maintain and differentiate into the various forms of human tissue as 
embryonic stem cells are. That is why many in the scientific world, 
except for a few, believe this research, this positive, very important 
research, should go forward.
  I understand the sincerity of those who believe that somatic cell 
nuclear transfer results in the creation of a human being but I do not 
see it that way. If you have an unfertilized egg that is never 
implanted into a mother's womb, I do not think we have a human life. It 
is a living human cell. It is something that should be given respect, 
certainly, but we should give it respect by studying, learning, and 
helping alleviate human pain and suffering if we can. At least that is 
my viewpoint.
  I respect those with viewpoints that are different from mine but I 
think they are in the minority and as this debate unfolds I think that 
more and more Americans will agree with us that this important research 
should go forward. But I do not agree with it.
  There are a lot of very fine people who feel the same way the 
distinguished Senator from Kansas feels. But there are a lot of fine 
people, who are

[[Page 10325]]

very religious and very decent, and who are pro-life, who believe that 
regenerative medicine is moral and that we ought to do all we can to 
help the living, too.
  From where are these eggs going to come? First, that egg is 
unfertilized. It remains unfertilized right up through this blastocyst 
stage. Those eggs are probably going to come from in vitro clinics 
themselves, in many cases. Under our proposal they are going to be 
voluntarily given. Nobody is going to profiteer on these eggs. There 
will be eggs that you cannot freeze readily because they are not 
fertilized. So they will have to be used in a relatively short-term 
fashion, to create these embryonic stem cells, generally in 4 to 6 days 
or so.
  The fact is, they are going to be eggs that are voluntarily given.
  Some of my friends on the right and left of me say every one of those 
eggs ought to be used and implanted in a woman so they can have babies. 
That is not reality. It can be, to a limited number of people who 
choose to do that, but some will volunteer eggs for this research.
  During the Olympics I had a woman come up to me and she said: 
Senator, I appreciate your stand on stem cell research. She said: My 
husband and I have twins from in vitro fertilization. We are so 
grateful for that process.
  I remember when that process came forward, many of the arguments that 
are being used today were used against that process.
  And she said: Senator, we are grateful for those twins. But I don't 
want any more children and I don't want my eggs implanted in somebody 
else. I want them used for research.
  She ought to have the right to do that, and women like her. If you 
are a mother and your child has just gotten a very virulent form of 
diabetes, or your parents are drifting into Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, 
what woman, who is really concerned about her parents, would not be 
willing to do what she could to help them, if in fact this research can 
prove efficacious? And if adult stem cell research has a chance of 
being efficacious, can you imagine what the undifferentiated state of 
stem cells, which can be so easily differentiated, in the eyes at least 
of these scientists, can you imagine what good that will do?
  I believe these 41 Nobel laureates, the leading scientists in our 
society, ought to be listened to in this debate. To a person, they do 
not believe this is a human being at this stage. There is good reason 
for that.
  I ask unanimous consent the letter from these Nobel laureates, with 
their names, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                              The American Society


                                             for Cell Biology,

                                                     Bethesda, MD.
       Two National Academy of Sciences expert committees, as well 
     as noted national and international organizations, have 
     evaluated current scientific and medical information and have 
     concluded that cloning a human being using the method of 
     nuclear transplantation cannot be achieved safely. Such 
     attempts in other mammals often have catastrophic outcomes. 
     Furthermore, virtually nothing is known about the potential 
     safety of such procedures in humans. Consequently, there is 
     widespread and strong agreement that an attempt to clone a 
     human being would constitute unwarranted experimentation on 
     human subjects and should be prohibited by legislation that 
     imposes criminal and civil penalties on those who would 
     implant the product of nuclear transplantation into a woman's 
     uterus.
       Unfortunately, some legislation, such as that introduced by 
     Senator Brownback (R-KS) would foreclose the legitimate use 
     of nuclear transplantation technology for research and 
     therapeutic purposes. This would impede progress against some 
     of the most debilitating diseases known to man. For example, 
     it may be possible to use nuclear transplantation technology 
     to produce patient-specific embryonic stem cells that could 
     overcome the rejection normally associated with tissue and 
     organ transplantation. Nuclear transplantation technology 
     might also permit the creation of embryonic stem cells with 
     defined genetic constitution, permitting a new and powerful 
     approach to understanding how inherited predispositions lead 
     to a variety of cancers and neurological diseases such as 
     Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases.
       A critical element of the Brownback bill would prevent the 
     importation into the United States of medical treatments 
     developed in other parts of the world using nuclear 
     transplantation. It seems unbelievable that the United States 
     Senate would deny advanced medical treatment to hundreds of 
     millions of suffering Americans because of an aversion to a 
     technology that was used in its development.
       By declaring scientifically valuable biomedical research 
     illegal, Senator Brownback's legislation, if it becomes law, 
     would have a chilling effect on all scientific research in 
     the United States. Such legal restrictions on scientific 
     investigation would also send a strong signal to the next 
     generation of researchers that unfettered and irresponsible 
     scientific investigation is not welcome in the United States.
       We, the undersigned, urge that legislation to impose 
     criminal and civil sanctions against attempts to create a 
     cloned human being be enacted. We also oppose strongly any 
     legislation that would prohibit or impede the scientifically 
     legitimate, responsible use of nuclear transplantation 
     technology for research and therapeutic purposes. Similarly, 
     any attempt to prohibit the use of therapies in the United 
     States that were developed with the aid of nuclear 
     transplantation technology overseas denies hope for those 
     seeking new therapies for the most debilitating dieases known 
     to man.
       Sidney Altman, Sterling Professor of Biology, Yale 
     University, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
       Kenneth J. Arrow, Professor of Economics and Professor of 
     Operations Research, Emeritus, Stanford University, Nobel 
     Prize in Economics.
       Julius Axelrod, Scientist Emeritus, National Institutes of 
     Health, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       David Baltimore, President and Professor of Biology, 
     California Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize in Physiology 
     or Medicine.
       Paul Berg, Cahill Professor of Cancer Research and 
     Biochemistry, Emeritus, Director, Beckman Center for 
     Molecular & Genetic Medicine, Emeritus, Stanford University 
     School of Medicine, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
       J. Michael Bishop, University Professor and Chancellor, 
     University of California, San Francisco, Nobel Prize in 
     Physiology or Medicine.
       Thomas R. Cech, Distinguished Professor, University of 
     Colorado, Boulder, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
       Stanley Cohen, Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry, 
     Emeritus, Vanderbilt University, Nobel Prize in Physiology or 
     Medicine.
       Elias James Corey, Sheldon Emery Research Professor of 
     Chemistry, Harvard University, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
       Johann Deisenhofer, Virginia and Edward Linthicum 
     Distinguished Chair in Biomolecular Science, Regental 
     Professor, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at 
     Dallas, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
       Renato Dulbecco, Distinguished Research Professor, 
     President Emeritus, The Salk Institute, Nobel Prize in 
     Physiology or Medicine.
       Edmond H. Fischer, Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, 
     University of Washington, Nobel Prize in Physiology or 
     Medicine.
       Jerome I. Friedman, Institute Professor, Massachusetts 
     Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize in Physics.
       Walter Gilbert, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, The 
     Biological Laboratories, Harvard University, Nobel Prize in 
     Chemistry.
       Alfred G. Gilman, Regental Professor and Chairman, Raymond 
     and Ellen Willie Distinguished Chair in Molecular 
     Neuropharmacology, Director, Alliance for Cellular Signaling, 
     Chairman, Department of Pharmacology, University of Texas 
     Southwestern Medical Center, Nobel Prize in Physiology or 
     Medicine.
       Donald A. Glaser, Professor of Physics and Neurobiology, 
     University of California, Berkeley, Nobel Prize in Physics.
       Joseph L. Goldstein, Regental Professor, Department of 
     Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical 
     Center, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Paul Greengard, Vincent Astor Professor, Laboratory of 
     Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, The Rockefeller 
     University, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Lee Hartwell, President and Director, Fred Hutchinson 
     Cancer Research Center, Professor, Department of Genome 
     Sciences, University of Washington School of Medicine, Nobel 
     Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Dudley Herschbach, Baird Professor of Science, Department 
     of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Nobel 
     Prize in Chemistry.
       Tim Hunt, Principal Scientist, Cancer Research UK, Nobel 
     Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Jerome Karle, Chief Scientist, Laboratory for the Structure 
     of Matter, Naval Research Laboratory, Nobel Prize in 
     Chemistry.
       Arthur Kornberg, Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor, Emeritus 
     Professor of Biochemistry, Stanford University School of 
     Medicine, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Edwin G. Krebs, Professor Emeritus, Senior Investigator 
     Emeritus, Department of

[[Page 10326]]

     Pharmacology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of 
     Washington School of Medicine, Nobel Prize in Physiology or 
     Medicine.
       Leon M. Lederman, Pritzker Professor of Science, Illinois 
     Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize in Physics.
       Edward B. Lewis, Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology, 
     Emeritus, California Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize in 
     Physiology or Medicine.
       William N. Lipscomb, Abbot and James Lawrence Professor, 
     Emeritus, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, 
     Harvard University, Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
       Ferid Murad, Professor and Chairman, Department of 
     Integrative Biology, Pharmacology and Physiology, University 
     of Texas at Houston, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Marshall Nirenberg, Chief, Laboratory of Biochemical 
     Genetics, National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute, National 
     Institutes of Health, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Sir Paul Nurse, Director-General (Science), Cancer Research 
     UK, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Burton Richter, Paul Piggot Professor in the Physical 
     Sciences, Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 
     Emeritus, Nobel Prize in Physics.
       Richard J. Roberts, Research Director, New England Biolabs, 
     Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Phillip A. Sharp, Institute Professor, Director, McGovern 
     Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize 
     in Physiology or Medicine.
       Hamilton O. Smith, Senior Director of DNA Resources, Celera 
     Genomics, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Robert M. Solow, Institute Professor Emeritus, 
     Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nobel Prize in 
     Economics.
       E. Donnall Thomas, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, 
     University of Washington, Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer 
     Research Center, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Harold Varmus, President, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer 
     Center, Former Director, National Institutes of Health, Nobel 
     Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       James D. Watson, President, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 
     Director, National Center for Human Genome Research, NIH, 
     1989-1992, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
       Torsten Nils Wiesel, The Rockefeller University, President 
     Emeritus Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine.
       Robert W. Wilson, Senior Scientist, Harvard-Smithsonian 
     Center for Astrophysics, Nobel Prize in Physics.

  Mr. HATCH. There is so much more to be said about this. We can debate 
all night about it. I am sure there will come a time for this debate, 
where we can discuss all these matters.
  But, you know, I am concerned that we not lose this opportunity to 
help mankind. I remember in the early 1970s, mid-1970s, when 
recombinant DNA was so heavily lobbied against, the research, and it 
was another type of cloning research. It was not the same as this, it 
is not cloning a living mother's egg, but nevertheless, it involved 
cloning. Similar arguments were made against recombinant DNA research.
  I have to tell you that we went ahead anyway, the research was done, 
and today we have over 60 mainline drugs that came from recombinant 
DNA--cloning--research, not the least of which is human insulin which 
is saving millions of lives today in this world.
  In fact, virtually every major scientific breakthrough through 
history has had those who have argued against it. And there have been 
some which have not proven efficacious, such as fetal tissue research.
  I made the arguments on the floor against fetal tissue research at 
the time. So far, I believe that science has not been able to derive 
the projected benefits from fetal tissue research. I am not saying I 
was right; I am just saying the fact is, it did not prove as 
efficacious as originally thought.
  But the scientists, one of the latest ones I chatted with at the 
University of Utah, Mario Capecchi, one of the leading experts in the 
world on mice stem cell research--it was an absolutely fascinating hour 
and a half I spent with him. You can't believe how very deeply he 
believes that embryonic stem cell research, of the type I have been 
talking about, is absolutely crucial for the well-being and care of 
humankind and that, really, this research has to go forward.
  We have already lost one of the truly great scientists in this 
country, Dr. Peterson, I believe, who just threw his hands in the air 
and gave up because he believes this research is going to be ultimately 
hurt in this country--although I do not think he is right. He has 
already left and gone to England. Can you imagine how many more would 
leave if we, the most free country in the world, the most 
scientifically oriented country in the world, the country where most 
biomedical research progress has been made, the country that has the 
best Food and Drug Administration in the world, the country that has a 
caring nature about living human beings--not meaning to demean other 
countries, but I think this country cannot be beat in biomedical 
research. Can you imagine what a demoralizing thing it would be if we 
banned this highly promising research that can help alleviate the pains 
of mankind?
  I have talked enough about it. I am just saying I hope my dear 
colleague will withdraw his amendment because it is premature. We will 
be happy to debate tomorrow, if he is unwilling to withdraw it, or 
whenever--but it is premature. I think it is dangerous to do it this 
way. We should study this because it is a complex, very difficult area. 
There are so many things about this whole debate that are very complex 
and very difficult.
  I am sure I cannot convince my colleague of my point of view, and I 
do not believe he is going to convince me of his. But the fact is, I 
believe we ought to do everything in our power, within moral and 
ethical constraints and standards, to try to come up with treatments 
and cures that might alleviate the pain, suffering, and yes, even 
premature death of our fellow human beings on this planet.
  I hope before this year is out that we will be able to resolve this 
issue because I think it needs to be resolved. I will certainly work 
with my dear colleague to try to find ways we can resolve this. But I 
believe it has to be resolved, and I hope we can have that full-time 
debate at a later date and that we will be able, at that time, to let 
the Senate vote and let the Senate make the determination, as well as 
the House, and go from there.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I would like to respond to a few 
issues raised by my friend and colleague from Utah. I have great 
admiration and respect for him. He is a senior Member of this body. He 
has done excellent work over the years. We have a disagreement on this 
one, although I don't know that we actually have a disagreement on the 
bill that is pending.
  I continue to note the bill that is pending is about a patenting 
issue. It is about banning patents, and it is not about banning patents 
on unfertilized eggs. The bill is on the zygote, embryo, fetus, child 
or adult; a living organism made by human cloning or a process of human 
cloning. That is the operative part.
  The zygote is the very young, fertilized egg. I agree that the 
unfertilized egg is not a person, to maybe clarify that in the debate. 
I don't think the unfertilized egg is a person and it is not protected 
under what we are proposing on this issue about patenting. The issue in 
front of us is patenting.
  I also respond to my dear colleague from Utah that what we are 
proposing does not ban research on human cloning, that he would like to 
proceed. I disagree with that, but the pending issue is not about 
banning human cloning. It says that what we should do is not allow 
patenting of human clones or of young people. It is a narrow issue.
  I want to make sure that it is clear to the body overall that the 
pending issue before this body is not about banning human cloning, it 
is not about a moratorium on human cloning; it is an issue that we 
should not patent the young human at any stage in the life continuum, 
when it is a young human.
  That is when you have an entity. Whether it is a clone or a natural 
human, if you nurture it and it grows into a person, you should not be 
allowing patenting of this person. That is the pending issue.
  I don't believe a number of scientists and Nobel laureates speak to 
the issue of patenting. They speak to the issue of

[[Page 10327]]

human cloning, which is going on in America and which continues to go 
on this day in America. I don't think it should. That is not the 
pending issue, and that is not the issue the scientists address.
  The issue that we are bringing up is about patenting. The good 
Senator from Utah knows this is the time and the right place. I brought 
these issues up in the past year. If not now, when? This is the time. 
These issues are pending. Some say it is not a real issue because the 
Patent Office has already declared that you can't patent a person.
  I want to draw the attention of the Members of the body to when this 
debate broke open. Here is a May 17, 2002, piece in the New York Times, 
``Debate on Human Cloning Turns to Patents''--just this past month.

       The University of Missouri has received a patent that some 
     lawyers say could cover human cloning, potentially violating 
     a longstanding taboo against patenting of humans.
       The patent covers a way of turning unfertilized eggs into 
     embryos.

  That is covered by the amendment we have put forward.

       . . . the production of cloned mammals using that 
     technique.

  And it could be used on humans. That is the issue.
  I ask unanimous consent that this article from the New York Times, 
and a similar one covering it from the Washington Post, and the 
Washington Times, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, May 17, 2002]

                Debate on Human Cloning Turns to Patents

                          (By Andrew Pollack)

       The University of Missouri has received a patent that some 
     lawyers say could cover human cloning, potentially violating 
     a longstanding taboo against the patenting of humans.
       The patent covers a way of turning unfertilized eggs into 
     embryos, and the production of cloned mammals using that 
     technique. But unlike some other patents on animal cloning, 
     this one does not specifically exclude human from the 
     definition of mammals; indeed, it specifically mentions the 
     use of human eggs.
       Those opposed to cloning and to patenting of living things 
     say the patent is a further sign that human life is being 
     turned into a commodity.
       ``It is horrendous that we would define all of human life 
     as biological machines that can be cloned, manufactured and 
     patented,'' said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the 
     International Center for Technology Assessment, a Washington 
     group that has long opposed patenting of living things and 
     also wants to ban all human cloning.
       The patent was issued in April 2001, but attracted no 
     attention until Mr. Kimbrell's group ran across it recently.
       Senator Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican who has been a 
     leading opponent of human cloning, said he intended to 
     introduce a bill to prohibit patents on human beings and 
     human embryos, which he said were ``akin to slavery.''
       ``I think the patent office will appreciate having that 
     clarity, given the applications that are coming into the 
     patent office,'' Mr. Brownback said.
       That bill would be separate from a bill the senator is 
     already sponsoring that would prohibit all human cloning. The 
     Senate is debating how extensively to ban human cloning, but 
     none of the bills it is considering deal with the patent 
     issues.
       The patent also illustrates the tricky legal and ethical 
     issues the United States Patent and Trademark Office is 
     confronting as scientists race to develop cloning and to grow 
     human tissues to treat disease. Mr. Kimbrell said he had 
     found a few other patents that had been applied for but not 
     granted that might cover human cloning.
       The United States has been more liberal than most other 
     countries in granting patents on living things, ever since a 
     Supreme Court decision in 1980 that allowed the patenting of 
     a microbe genetically engineered to consume oil spills. There 
     are patents on complete animals, like a mouse genetically 
     engineered to be prone to cancer. There are patents on human 
     genes and human cells. The University of Wisconsin has a 
     patent on human embryonic stem cells, which are cells taken 
     from human embryos that have the ability to turn into any 
     other type of tissue.
       But the patent office has drawn the line on patenting of 
     humans or human embryos themselves, saying it would not be 
     constitutional. Many experts say this is because such patents 
     would violate the 13th Amendment ban on slavery. Brigid 
     Quinn, a spokeswoman for the patent office, said the agency 
     was not using the 13th Amendment argument anymore but was not 
     granting patents on humans because it had not received any 
     guidance from Congress or the courts saying it should do so.
       The result has been that many patents that conceivably 
     could cover humans--like on cloning animals or on genetically 
     engineering animals to produce drugs in their milk--
     specifically exclude humans.
       A spokesman for the University of Missouri, Christian Basi, 
     said that it believed its patent covered human cloning 
     because it applied to all mammals. The university has 
     licensed the patent to BioTransplant, a Massachusetts 
     biotechnology company that is working on creating pigs that 
     can be used as human organ donors. But the license, Mr. Basi 
     said, covers only the use in pigs.
       ``We have absolutely no interest in using this to research 
     humans and we will not license this technology to anyone for 
     use in humans,'' Mr. Basi said, suggesting that the patent 
     could actually help stop human cloning. ``This gives us 
     control of this particular technology so we will know that 
     this technology will not be used in humans.''
       Ms. Quinn said the patent office did not comment on 
     individual patents but had not changed its policy of not 
     issuing patents ``drawn to humans.''
       Randall S. Prather, a professor of reproductive technology 
     at Missouri whose work was the basis for the patent, said the 
     mention of human eggs ``was put there by the attorneys and 
     they wanted to cover all mammals.''
       Charles Cohen, who wrote the patent when he was a lawyer at 
     a St. Louis law firm, declined to comment.
       Some lawyers who have looked at the patent, No. 6,211,429, 
     say it is not clear that it covers human cloning and that 
     interpreting patents requires careful analysis of the 
     patent's history, that the patent office did not appear to 
     have problems with it could be a sign that the agency 
     believes that the patent does not cover humans.
       ``You'd have to go through line by line, word by word,'' 
     said Gerald P. Dodson, a lawyer with Morrison & Foerster in 
     Palo Alto, Calif., who read the patent and said he could not 
     reach an immediate conclusion.
       Mr. Dodson and others noted that the specifications and 
     examples of how the patent could be used dealt with pigs and 
     cows.
       Even if the patent does cover human cloning, some lawyers 
     say, it would be a stretch to say it covers humans 
     themselves, although the abstract of the patent says it 
     covers the ``cloned products.''
       But even a patent on the process of cloning humans could 
     give the patent holder some rights over people, some lawyers 
     said. Conceivably, for instance, the university could bar 
     people created overseas by its cloning process from entering 
     the country.
       ``It definitely is a patent for cloning a human, and under 
     the laws we have right now, it might actually cover the 
     human,'' said Richard Warburg, a patent lawyer at Foley & 
     Lardner in San Diego who represents Infigen, an animal 
     cloning company.
       Dr. Rochelle Seide, a New York patent lawyer who heads the 
     biotechnology practice at the law firm of Baker & Botts, said 
     the lack of the nonhuman disclaimer in the Missouri patent 
     was surprising.
       ``Looking at it,'' Ms. Seide said, ``I can see where people 
     who are against cloning would have a big problem with it.''
       Advanced Cell Technology, a company that wants to clone 
     human embryos to obtain stem cells for disease treatments, 
     licensed a patent from the University of Massachusetts on its 
     method of cloning. But the patent is on only nonhuman embryos 
     produced by the process, though it does seem to cover human 
     cells.
       It might be difficult to draw the line on what constitutes 
     a human. George J. Annas, professor of health law at Boston 
     University School of Public Health, said it was unclear 
     whether the anti-slavery amendment would be a basis for 
     denying patents on human embryos, because courts, in cases 
     like those involving custody of frozen embryos, have said an 
     embryo is not a person.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Times, May 21, 2002]

         University's Cloning Patent Raises a ``Mammal'' Issue

                             (By Amy Fagan)

       Adding another layer to the contentious debate over cloning 
     in Congress, a patent watchdog group said last week that the 
     University of Missouri at Columbia has received a patent for 
     technology that can be used to clone human beings.
       The patent covers laboratory procedures for creating cloned 
     mammals, but it extends to the direct products of those 
     cloning processes, including humans, said Peter DiMauro, 
     director of Patent Watch.
       ``It says `mammals' and it doesn't have a disclaimer for 
     humans,'' said Mr. DiMauro, whose project tracks patents for 
     the International Center for Technology Assessment.
       University officials said the patent, issued last year, was 
     never intended to apply to human beings. It was issued to a 
     university researcher and applied to technology that allows 
     the cloning of swine.
       ``The intent of the patent was to allow for research on 
     swine,'' said Missouri spokeswoman Mary Joe Banken, who said 
     school officials are meeting today to discuss narrowing the 
     patent's language to exclude humans. ``It was never the 
     intent of the university to use the technology on humans.''

[[Page 10328]]

       Mr. DiMauro said he respects that, ``but the flaw is in the 
     law.''
       The Senate is awaiting a debate on the human-cloning issue. 
     Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican, has a bill to outlaw 
     the cloning of human embryos for any purpose, including for 
     medical research. The House has passed an identical bill and 
     the president is pushing for it.
       Mr. DiMauro said his group has found three pending patents 
     similar to that in Missouri. He called on Congress to clarify 
     in law that patents cannot apply to human beings--including 
     human embryos or fetuses.
       Mr. Brownback said he will introduce legislation this week 
     to do so.
       ``The central point in the debate over human cloning 
     revolves around our view of the human embryo and whether or 
     not the human embryo is a person or a piece of property,'' 
     Mr. Brownback said. ``If we allow the patenting of human 
     embryos, we will be sending the message that humans are 
     property and that they can be exploited and destroyed for 
     profit.''
       A bill competing with Mr. Brownback's cloning ban, by Sens. 
     Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, Dianne Feinstein, 
     California Democrat, and others, would outlaw the 
     implantation of a cloned human embryo in a uterus but would 
     allow the human-cloning procedure to be done for medical 
     research, including the extraction of stem cells. Advocates 
     of this approach say the cloning procedure does not produce a 
     human embryo, since no sperm is involved.
       Patent Watch's DiMauro said the Specter-Feinstein cloning 
     bill contains ``nothing to address the large scale 
     commercialization of human embryos created through cloning.''
       He said it ``seems to permit the status quo of the law, 
     which is to allow the patenting of human embryos.''
       When asked whether scientists would be able to obtain 
     patents on their human-cloning research under her bill, Mrs. 
     Feinstein said she did not know because her bill does not 
     deal with the patent issue.
       ``I do not know, I cannot answer that,'' she said.
                                  ____


                       [From the Washington Post]

                     A New Call for Cloning Policy

                           (By Justin Gillis)

       An advocacy group said yesterday it had uncovered a year-
     old patent that it interprets as applying to cloned human 
     beings, and the group called on Congress to clarify the law 
     to specify that no patents can be issued on human life.
       The patent holder, the University of Missouri at Columbia, 
     said it is still studying issues raised by the group but had 
     no intention of asserting ownership of human beings or of 
     cloned human embryos. The patent was obtained by a Missouri 
     researcher working to develop pigs whose organs could be 
     transplanted to save human patients. Cloning might be a way 
     of creating many such pigs.
       What the patent, No. 6,211,429, actually covers is somewhat 
     unclear. It is mostly a description of specific laboratory 
     techniques for making cloned mammals, but a subordinate 
     clause in a section of the patent also lays claim to ``the 
     cloned products produced by these methods.''
       Other recent patents of this type have included explicit 
     language saying the mammals in question do not include human 
     beings, but this patent, issued April 3, 2001, to Missouri 
     researcher Randall S. Prather and an associate, includes no 
     such language.
       Read in conjunction with relevant law, that means Prather 
     has staked a claim on cloned humans whether he meant to or 
     not, said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director of the 
     International Center for Technology Assessment, the 
     Washington activist group whose ``PatentWatch'' project 
     raised the issue.
       Some details of the patent appeared yesterday in the Wall 
     Street Journal.
       No one has ever made a cloned person, but many scientists 
     believe it has become possible, raising profound ethical 
     questions, including what rights of ownership the creators of 
     a clone might have in their creation.
       ``I would say that the patent office should rescind this 
     patent as grossly unethical and contrary to any kind of 
     public policy,'' Kimbrell said. ``I also feel that in order 
     to clarify this, Congress needs to come in.''
       His group also raised concerns about three pending patents 
     that it said could also be read as covering human life.
       The University of Missouri disclaimed any pernicious 
     intent. Prather ``has absolutely no interest in doing 
     research on humans,'' said Mary Jo Banken, a spokeswoman for 
     the school. ``I would say it would be impossible that we 
     would attempt human reproductive cloning. It would never be 
     approved'' by the university.
       Brigid Quinn, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Patent and 
     Trademark Office, said she could not discuss any individual 
     patent and could not comment on Kimbrell's interpretation of 
     the Missouri patent. But she said the patent office had made 
     no change in its longstanding policy that human life cannot 
     be patented.
       ``Our policy has not changed,'' Quinn said. ``It is not 
     changing. We do not patent claims drawn to humans.''
       However the Missouri patent is ultimately interpreted, the 
     case does point up what some experts see as a gap in U.S. 
     law. The policy to which Quinn referred is just that--a 
     statement of intent issued by the patent office 15 years ago. 
     It is subject to change, to court challenge and to simple 
     oversight by patent examiners.
       There is no specific law that excludes clones or other 
     genetically modified human beings from being covered by 
     patents. Some legal experts feel that constitutional law, 
     particularly the 13th Amendment's prohibition of slavery, 
     would rule out human patents. But others are doubtful and 
     they argue that Congress should make the prohibition 
     explicit.
       Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), who has led a contested effort 
     in Congress to ban all types of human cloning, said yesterday 
     he would introduce separate legislation to clarify the patent 
     laws. ``If we allow for the patenting of human embryos we 
     will be sending the message that humans are property and that 
     they can be exploited and destroyed for profit,'' Brownback 
     said.

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Madam President, I wanted to note to the Members of 
this body that this is the current issue. Indeed, one group that is 
looking and studying this issue believes that there are three patents 
either pending or already granted that could or are being used by the 
patent people or the process to create a human clone already.
  Madam President, my point is that it is a live issue, and what we are 
doing here does not ban human cloning. It simply says you can't patent 
the human clone because there is a person; that if you allow this 
person to grow it is going to become a full-scale human being. It 
appears as if we are not going to be able to take this up in front of 
this body--the overall issue of cloning. Negotiations on that have 
broken down. Yet here is one to which I was hopeful we could get 
actually 100 percent of the Members of the body to agree.
  I want to point to a couple of other issues that the Senator from 
Utah mentioned.
  One is the unfertilized egg. We continue to speak about the 
unfertilized egg, which I believe is not a person. I want to state that 
clearly. The unfertilized egg he spoke about is not covered by the 
amendment. We do not cover the unfertilized egg.
  He notes the position of a number of scientists on the issue of 
cloning. I would agree that there are differences in the scientific 
community on the issue of cloning. I also note that there are 
differences in the public. Two-thirds of the American public is opposed 
to human cloning.
  I want to give you some examples of people who are opposed to human 
cloning and some of the reasons they are opposed to human cloning, and 
show you some pictures.
  Two-thirds of the American public is uncomfortable about the issue of 
cloning. It kind of makes their skin crawl. It is that natural law 
within us that causes us to bristle when we think about creating life 
just for the purpose of destruction.
  Here is a gentleman who wrote to me. He is from Granbury, TX. His 
name is James Kelly. He is in a wheelchair.
  He said:

       For the past five years I've lived in a self-imposed cocoon 
     that includes a computer, a phone, and the world of medical 
     research. In 1997 I fell asleep while driving interstate and 
     a resulting spinal cord injury left me paralyzed below the 
     chest. Because of what I've learned through reading medical 
     journals and speaking to leading scientists, and because my 
     life's focus is to support the safe, efficient development of 
     cures for many medical conditions (including my own), I 
     recently left my cocoon and journeyed to Washington to 
     support your proposed ban on all forms of human cloning.
       My reasons for supporting this ban are simple. Huge 
     obstacles stand in the way of cloned embryonic stem cells 
     ever leading to cures for any condition. To overcome these 
     obstacles crucial funds, resources, and research careers will 
     need to be diverted from more promising avenues for many 
     years to come. These obstacles include tumor formation, short 
     and long-term genetic mutations, tissue rejection, 
     prohibitive costs, and the need for eggs from literally 
     hundreds of millions of women to treat a single major 
     condition (such as stroke, heart disease, or diabetes). 
     However, every condition that cloned embryonic stem cells 
     someday may address is already being addressed in animals or 
     humans more safely, effectively, and cheaply by adult stem 
     cells and other avenues. And since money spent on impressive-
     sounding, but hugely problematic research such as cloning 
     cannot also be spent on research that really offers cures, 
     I'm in favor of a total ban on human cloning.

[[Page 10329]]

       I knew all this before I went to Washington. That's why I 
     went there. Please allow me to share with you what I learned 
     while I was there.

  He goes ahead and talks about his discussion.
  I want to show another person who has written to me who has studied 
and looked into this issue.
  This is Julie Durler from Wright, KS. That is a nice-sounding 
community name.

       I am writing this letter in support of legislation that 
     would ban the creation of all cloned embryos. I understand 
     the cloning of human embryos is being proposed for research 
     purposed to help in finding a cure for different diseases 
     including diabetes.
       I am an insulin-dependent diabetic having been diagnosed 
     with type I diabetes 17 years ago. I know personally the 
     financial costs of having diabetes and also the health risks 
     involved. As I have worked hard to keep my diabetes under 
     control, I have been blessed in that I do not currently have 
     any major complications as a result of having diabetes. 
     However, I am also aware that in the future such 
     complications may very well develop. Along with many others 
     in our nation, I, too, would like to see a cure found for 
     diabetes and know that research is necessary to accomplish 
     that goal. However, the proposed use of cloning of human 
     embryos for research or other purposes concerns me, 
     especially since this creation of the cloned embryos for 
     research purpose would result in their deaths.
       I do not believe it is necessary to destroy life at any 
     stage of development for research purposes. I believe their 
     are other avenues of research that should be explored, most 
     specifically the use of adult stem cells which has already 
     produced some promising developments.

  These are a few of many letters that we received from people who are 
suffering from some of these diseases who say there is a better way to 
go, as I have noted earlier.
  I want to make another point on this Record.
  The Senator from Utah, who has worked with me on many issues, says 
these are just a few cells. They are just a few cells. They are just a 
few cells.
  I want to show you Hannah when she was just a few cells. This is 
Hannah. She is age 28 months, on April 1.
  This is Hannah earlier. This is Hannah in the womb at 21 weeks. It is 
a fairly good picture of her. This is Hannah transferred to mom on 
April 11, 1998. Hannah was conceived. She was frozen. She was adopted 
as a frozen embryo.
  That is interesting.
  On March 5, 1998, she arrived at a clinic. On April 10, Hannah was 
thawed. Here she grows outside the womb. And, on April 11, she is 
transferred to mom. And then she goes on down the process.
  If you destroy Hannah here, you have destroyed Hannah there. It is 
the same person. Looks different. When she gets older, she is going to 
look different.
  Madam President, myself, I was once one of these. You were one of 
these. The Senator from Nevada was one of these. If we had been 
destroyed at this stage, we would never have gotten to this stage.
  It is a life continuum that exists. If you destroy me here, I never 
get there. That is a biological fact. There is no theory involved. 
There is no theology involved. This is a biological fact.
  Hannah was a few cells. We all were a few cells at some point in 
time. If you destroy us here, you destroy us there. If you destroy a 
caterpillar, you never get the butterfly, as much as we may want it.
  My point in continuing this description for people is because this is 
just a few cells, it is true--it is just a few cells--but if you 
destroy those few cells, Hannah is destroyed.
  At what point in time do you put any value to this life? Do we put 
value to Hannah when she is 28 months? I would say everybody in this 
body would agree. What do you put as Hannah's worth on December 31, 
1998, when she came out of the womb? Everybody in this body agrees you 
put value to her at that point. Do you put value to her at 21 weeks in 
the womb? Some people in this body would question that, whether you 
would put worth to her at that point. How about April 11, when she is 
outside the womb? Some people would raise questions about that.
  My point is, if you value her here, you have destroyed her here in 
the process that we are talking about.
  That is not the issue in front of us. What I am talking about is the 
patenting. What I am saying here is, what is this? Is it a person or a 
piece of property at this point in time? Patentwise, what is this? Is 
it a person or a piece of property? The argument that is being 
presented to the Patent Office by some lawyers is that it is property 
and can be patented. But others are saying, it is life; it cannot be 
patented. That is the position of the Patent Office.
  This body needs to decide that issue. And we are going to have to 
decide, then, if it is property at this point, at what point in time 
does it become a person that it cannot be patented?
  My submission to you is, you should start at the moment of inception 
or that creation of the clone and say, you cannot patent the person. It 
is against the 13th amendment abolishing slavery. That is the only 
clean spot you can go in here and declare this is the spot we should 
start.
  This should be a relatively easy and straightforward issue. It does 
not stop cloning research from taking place. It does not stop the 
funding of cloning research from taking place. It does not stop our 
scientists from working on the issue. It simply says, you cannot patent 
a person. It clarifies that issue for people who desire and seek to do 
that.
  For those reasons, I think we should be able to vote on this, bring 
it up. And I am hopeful all my colleagues will join me in voting for 
the amendment.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, following the tragic events of September 
11, 2001, the insurance industry faced an unprecedented situation. The 
final costs and impact on the insurance industry and its consumers have 
yet to be determined.
  Although secondary insurers will help to cover some of the expenses 
associated with the September 11 attacks, it is critical for the Senate 
to consider and pass legislation to address the risks of future 
terrorists attacks.
  The administration, the insurance industry, and policy holders 
throughout the various and diverse sectors of the economy, state the 
critical importance of passing legislation in a timely manner.
  The attacks in September dealt a detrimental blow to an already 
sluggish economy leaving the health and stability of the economy very 
uncertain. Although the economic outlook is improving, further delay in 
passage of a terrorism insurance measure will adversely affect economic 
progress and growth.
  Since September we have passed the September 11 Victims Compensation 
Fund, the Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act, and the 
Bioterrorism Preparedness Act.
  The insurance industry is also facing a potential crisis. It is now 
June 13, 2002, and we still have not passed a bill. Every day that we 
fail to do so, the growing uncertainty in the market threatens the 
ability of businesses to obtain adequate and affordable insurance.


                  Need to Address Group Life Insurance

  Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, the bill that we are debating today 
takes critical steps to address the problems arising from the September 
11 tragedy that are being experienced by the commercial property and 
casualty insurance industry. I understand however, that the group life 
business has also been impacted by the tragic events of September 11. 
Group life insurance covers nearly 160 million Americans and represents 
40 percent of all life insurance in force in the United States, or, $6 
trillion of protection to Americans--most of whom are average working 
Americans. Group life insurance is a highly efficient and inexpensive 
way to deliver much needed security to people who might otherwise have 
little or no coverage. This product is inexpensive because it is sold 
as a single contract between an insurance company and a corporate 
buyer, the employer, and covering a great number of lives. This greatly 
simplifies and reduces costs of marketing and administering of the 
product. It is typically a staple of the employee benefits package 
provided by employers to their employees.
  While I support the terrorism insurance bill that we consider today, 
I am concerned that it fails to address issues

[[Page 10330]]

that threaten the continued vitality of group life insurance providers. 
And so I am pleased to have the opportunity to engage in a colloquy on 
this issue with the Senator from Nebraska, a true expert on insurance 
matters, the senior Senator from Maine, and three key members of the 
Senate Banking Committee.
  I understand that the primary problem, both for the property and 
casualty insurers, as well as the group life insurers, is the 
difficulty in obtaining reinsurance after the disaster. Am I correct?
  Mr. DODD. The Senator's understanding is correct. Reinsurance is 
important to the property and casualty insurers as well as to the group 
life insurance industry.
  Mr. NELSON of Nebraska. I thank the Senator from Connecticut, who has 
played such a key role in bringing this important bill to the floor. I 
also thank the Senator from Maine for raising the profile of this issue 
in the Senate.
  It is my understanding as well that the group life industry is 
experiencing difficulties in obtaining reinsurance. I understand, for 
example, that one group life insurer covered four corporate groups in 
the World Trade Center, with over $150 million in losses. All but $6 
million was paid by reinsurance. Had that insurer not had reinsurance, 
its financial security would have been severely compromised. It is not 
unusual for group life insurance losses to be 96 percent covered by 
reinsurers. Now, however, the catastrophic reinsurance market has 
changed. For those companies that use reinsurance, I understand that 
premiums have skyrocketed with 10- to 13-fold increases and, in many 
instances, reinsurance may not be available at all. Much of the 
reinsurance that is being written excludes acts of terrorism and 
biological, nuclear and chemical claims. And, while reinsurers are 
either declining to pay for certain claims or simply not offering 
reinsurance for certain occurrences, the group life insurers are not 
allowed by their State insurance commissioners to have the same 
exclusions. And so I ask the distinguished ranking member of the Senate 
Banking Committee, does the bill that we are currently debating address 
the problems being faced by group life insurers?
  Mr. GRAMM. I thank the Senator from Nebraska for raising this 
important question. I believe that this bill does not speak 
individually to the issues now confronting the group life insurance 
industry. I would note that the bill does contain a provision that 
requires the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the 
National Association of Insurance Commissioners and representatives of 
the insurance industry and other experts, to study the potential 
effects of acts of terrorism on the availability of life insurance and 
other lines of insurance coverage.
  Ms. SNOWE. I thank the senior Senator from Texas for his remarks. I 
am concerned that the study may not be completed in sufficient time to 
help the group life insurers avail themselves of the help that the 
property and casualty companies are getting in this bill. I would 
therefore ask the Senator from South Dakota, a senior member of the 
Senate Banking Committee, if he believes the needs of group life 
insurers are adequately addressed in this bill or its companion 
measure, passed by the House last November?
  Mr. JOHNSON. I thank the senior Senator from Maine for her question. 
I believe that the needs of group life insurers are not adequately met 
by this bill. I find this problematic because of the role that group 
life insurance plays for the majority of American families. I am 
particularly concerned about the families of firefighters and other 
first responders. We ask firefighters and other first responders to 
risk their lives for us in the event of a terrorist attack. We have to 
make sure that basic group life insurance is there for them. I am also 
concerned about families whose wage earners are at the lower end of the 
pay scale. These families often find that they are able to secure more 
life insurance than they could otherwise afford because their employer 
is subsidizing it.
  Finally, I am concerned about those families with a spouse who has 
had a serious medical problem. These families often find that the only 
life insurance they can afford or even find is group life.
  We need to make sure that this industry remains highly competitive 
and able to pay all of the claims that might be made in the event of a 
future terrorist attack.
  Ms. COLLINS. I thank my colleagues for participating in this 
colloquy, which has added measurably to the debate on the underlying 
bill. I thank particularly the distinguished senior Senators from Texas 
and Connecticut, without whom this bill would not be before us today, 
and I would like to ask them if they would commit to doing all they 
could to ensure that the legitimate needs of group life insurers are 
addressed in the conference on this legislation.
  Mr. GRAMM. I would say to the gentlelady from Maine that this is an 
important issue that was brought to our attention only after the basic 
legislation was drafted. For that reason, I have every intention of 
making sure that, in conference, we give full consideration to the 
problems faced by the group life industry.
  Mr. DODD. I concur with the senior Senator from Texas and will do all 
I can to address the legitimate needs of group life insurers in 
conference. To that end, I would invite the group life industry to 
continue to work with us so that we can better understand the problems 
that it now faces.
  Mr. GREGG. I share the concerns of my colleagues regarding this issue 
and would add that we should facilitate insurance coverage for 
buildings subject to terrorist attacks, as well as for the people who 
work inside them. I look forward to addressing these issues in 
conference.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________