[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7587-7598]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION SAFETY AND INNOVATION ACT--MOTION TO 
                            PROCEED--Resumed

  Mr. REID. I move to proceed to Calendar No. 400, S. 3187.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the motion.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 400, S. 3187, a bill to 
     amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to revise and 
     extend the user-fee programs for prescription drugs and 
     medical devices, to establish user-fee programs for generic 
     drugs and biosimilars, and for other purposes.


                                Schedule

  Mr. REID. Madam President, we are now on the motion to proceed to the 
FDA user fees bill. The majority will control the first half hour 
today, Republicans the final half hour. We will recess from 12:30 to 
2:15 today, to allow for our weekly caucus meetings. At 2:15 the motion 
to proceed to the FDA legislation will be adopted and the Harkin-Enzi 
substitute will be agreed to.
  Madam President, there are 12 million people in the United States who 
face a cancer diagnosis today. Many have fought back against this 
terrible disease and won. Others are still fighting. Each one of them 
knows how difficult a cancer diagnosis can be. But imagine coming to 
terms with your diagnosis only to find out the lifesaving drug you need 
to survive is in short supply or is simply not available. I wish this 
were make-believe but it is not; it is real America. That is the 
situation faced by many Americans battling cancer and other life-
threatening illnesses.
  Through 20 weeks of chemotherapy, my wife Landra and I lived with the 
fear that the medicine she needed every Monday morning wouldn't be 
there because there were shortages. But fortunately for us the drug was 
always accessible. Many Americans have not been so fortunate. One 
Nevadan fighting bladder cancer was near the end of treatment when the 
medicine he was taking suddenly ran short. Only time will tell whether 
the alternative treatment he received was enough to save his life.
  Another Nevada woman with bowel cancer was forced to choose a less 
effective chemotherapy treatment because the best drug on the market, 
one that cures bowel cancer in 75 percent of the cases, was not 
available. Only time will tell whether that second-choice medicine was 
effective.
  Yet another Nevada man was relying on two cancer drugs to keep him 
alive longer and give him a greater quality of life, but one drug was 
in short supply. Since the drugs only work when taken together, doctors 
have only been able to treat him intermittently. That is not good. So 
only time will tell how many days or weeks or months or years he lost 
because he couldn't get the drug he needed.
  Every day these stories play out in hospitals across our country. 
Every day, Americans experience shortages of lifesaving FDA-approved 
drugs and treatments. These shortages literally put Americans at risk. 
As the number of shortages increases each year, more patients are 
forced to wait for treatment, and worry. In the last 6 years, drug 
shortages have quadrupled. Last year the FDA reported shortages of 231 
drugs, including many chemotherapy medicines. That is 231 drugs. How 
many tens of thousands of people did that affect? Public pressure has 
prompted some drugmakers to voluntarily notify the FDA of impending 
shortages. But Congress must step in to improve communication among 
drugmakers, the FDA, and doctors--doctors who have to break the 
terrible news that lifesaving medicines are not available.
  Voluntary cooperation between the drugmakers and the FDA prevented 
almost 200 drug shortages last year, but establishing effective lines 
of communication could further reduce the number of shortages and save 
patients' lives.
  I am pleased that the spirit of bipartisanship begun by my colleagues 
Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi continued yesterday. I look forward to 
an orderly amendment process and I am optimistic the Senate will move 
this legislation without unnecessary delays. I hope I am not 
disappointed.
  Each year more than 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with some 
form of cancer. It is up to us to ensure that not one of them waits or 
wonders if the medicine he or she needs to stay alive will be there 
when the need arises.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.


                          Economic Challenges

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I want to call attention to a couple 
of stories from the last 2 days. I think they say a lot about the 
difficulties of addressing the economic challenges we face.
  The first is a story from Politico. It says the Budget Committee 
chairman can't remember the last time he talked to the President. The 
Budget Committee chairman can't remember the last time he talked to the 
President. Another chairman, dealing with student loans, says he has 
not talked to the President in months--in months. The Democratic point 
man on energy doesn't seem to talk to the President much at all.

[[Page 7588]]

  If you want to know why we can't solve these economic problems, this 
is it. We have a President who is more interested in running around to 
college campuses, spreading some poll-tested message, than he is in 
actually accomplishing anything. That is the problem.
  The second story, also interesting, is about HHS signing a $20 
million contract to promote ObamaCare; $20 million of taxpayer money to 
promote a bill most Americans want to see repealed. That is $20 million 
of our tax money spent on commercials to promote ObamaCare. Let me 
suggest the President spend a little more time trying to do something 
about spending, debt, and gas prices, and a little less time trying to 
spin the unpopular things he has already done. It might require a 
little more work but it is what we need. It is time to lead.
  I ask unanimous consent those two articles to which I referred be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     [From Politico, May 22, 2012]

                      Dems Wait by Phone for Obama

                             (By Manu Raju)

       He doesn't call. He doesn't write. He doesn't drop by for a 
     visit.
       That's what some of the most senior Democrats in Congress 
     are experiencing from President Barack Obama these days.
       Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) is 
     trying to cut a deal on the nation's fiscal crisis, but he 
     can't recall the last time he talked to the president. Sen. 
     Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is in charge of one of Obama's top 
     priorities--preventing a rate increase on student loans--but 
     he hasn't talked to the president in months. And Sen. Jeff 
     Bingaman (D-N.M.) is the go-to guy on high gas prices, but 
     the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee 
     hasn't spoken to the president much since the previous 
     Congress.
       ``I think the reality is the current Congress is not 
     constituted in a way that makes it likely that we can do very 
     much,'' Bingaman said, ``and that's reflected in what we wind 
     up doing on the floor and understandably the president is not 
     as engaged--at least with me.''
       Obama is certainly in regular touch with the top Democratic 
     leaders on the Hill--Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid--but when it 
     comes to some key policymakers and chairmen in Democratic 
     congressional politics, he's far less engaged than earlier in 
     his presidency. The lack of communication not only reflects a 
     gridlocked Congress in an election year, but it speaks to the 
     president's personal style--he's never been much of a 
     schmoozing, back-slapping type in the spirit of Bill Clinton 
     or Lyndon B. Johnson. And even though he came from the 
     Senate, Obama wasn't there long enough to develop deep, 
     bonding friendships with some of the old bulls in Congress.
       Obama's disengagement is also a sharp reflection of 
     political reality: Congress is punting on virtually every 
     major issue until after the election. So even some of those 
     GOP deal makers whom Obama may need to court--whether that's 
     Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine or Lindsey Graham of South 
     Carolina--aren't getting as much presidential attention as 
     they have in the past.
       ``I don't think governing is a high priority right now,'' 
     said Graham, who said he hasn't spoken to the president ``in 
     forever'' after speaking with him frequently in the first 
     couple years of his administration on issues like immigration 
     and energy policy.
       White House officials scoff at those criticisms, saying 
     they work ``tirelessly'' on the economy.
       Jamie Smith, a White House spokeswoman, said the president 
     and his administration ``have regular and repeated 
     interactions with members of Congress from both parties in 
     the House and Senate, and we welcome Republican willingness 
     to pass the congressional `to-do' list,'' referring to the 
     president's economic agenda.
       But both policy meetings and social gatherings with 
     committee chairmen, ranking members, back bench freshmen and 
     GOP swing voters--all hallmarks of the early part of Obama's 
     term--have been few and far between with the president these 
     days, lawmakers say.
       ``There was a while for various reasons where groups of us 
     were coming to the White House for meetings for one kind or 
     another, but . . . he's busy,'' said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-
     Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental 
     Affairs Committee, saying the two last spoke in February when 
     the president offered support for his cybersecurity bill.
       ``I'm afraid that may be related to the feeling that not 
     much is actually going to get done here.''
       Cutting out committee chairmen is also another sign of the 
     ongoing decline in influence of the gavel-holders on Capitol 
     Hill, who in a previous era ran their panels like fiefdoms, 
     but now have taken a back seat to congressional leaders who 
     spearhead the legislative deal making. And it's also sign of 
     the non-stop campaign that dominates politics and has made it 
     harder to legislate.
       Obama has often been criticized for being aloof from 
     Capitol Hill, but White House officials argue that there's 
     been regular outreach to lawmakers throughout his entire 
     term, including by senior aides, legislative liaisons, 
     Cabinet secretaries and Vice President Joe Biden. Just last 
     week, congressional leaders from both parties met with Obama, 
     the first such meeting in months, and there's been an uptick 
     in coordination between the White House and Senate Democratic 
     leaders over legislative strategy and political messaging.
       Moreover, Democrats argue that when Obama has taken a more 
     hands-on role in the legislative process, Republicans have 
     been quick to criticize his involvement and less willing to 
     embrace his ideas. In this Congress, Obama inserted himself 
     in the messy deals to avert a government shutdown last spring 
     and a debt default last summer. But those were reached 
     between a handful of leaders and the president--meaning most 
     lawmakers have been cut out of the process.
       When Obama has gotten involved at times this year, he's 
     done so quietly. He made a series of calls to Democratic 
     senators in March to kill a measure calling for the 
     construction of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline. 
     And when Harkin threatened in February to filibuster an 
     extension of the Social Security payroll tax break, the 
     president made assurances to the Iowa Democrat that persuaded 
     him to back down, Harkin told Politico.
       ``If you put two and two together, you can see what 
     happened,'' Harkin said last week. ``As you know, we're not 
     taking any money out of the [health care] prevention fund.''
       With Congress's approval ratings at all-time lows, there's 
     far more incentive for the president to divorce himself from 
     the sausage-making on Capitol Hill--particularly with little 
     chance of replicating the legislative successes from his 
     first two years, like on health care and financial services, 
     which came at a heavy political price.
       Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), whose name is affixed to the 
     Dodd-Frank financial services law, spoke with Obama at least 
     twice a month when negotiations over that bill were taking 
     shape in 2010.
       ``The last time I talked to him was a couple months ago,'' 
     he says of his interactions with the president now.
       It's not as though Congress doesn't have major issues to 
     resolve. Unless Congress acts, come Jan. 1, $1.2 trillion in 
     automatic spending cuts will take effect, with half coming 
     from defense and national security programs; the Bush-era tax 
     rates for all income groups will expire; and the payroll tax 
     break affecting 160 million Americans will end. And it's only 
     a matter of time before Congress has to deal with a host of 
     expired business tax breaks, as well as whether to renew 
     jobless benefits and how to craft a budget deal to again 
     raise the national debt ceiling.
       Some say the president--along with congressional leaders--
     needs to begin laying the groundwork now to avoid a 
     catastrophic logjam that could ensue after the November 
     elections.
       ``We could get some more done if he was meeting with a 
     broad group of people to address key issues certainly, 
     including the leadership, on a continuous basis,'' said 
     Snowe, who was a periodic Oval Office guest in the first 
     year-and-a-half of the administration but said she hasn't met 
     with the president since spring 2010 over energy policy.
       Arizona Sen. John McCain, Obama's old rival, said he was 
     last in for a White House visit soon after the January 2011 
     Tucson shootings, at which the two discussed acting on 
     immigration reform and the line-item veto.
       ``He said they'd be getting back to me very shortly, and I 
     haven't heard from him since,'' McCain said last week.
       But Democrats are quick to argue that Republicans--
     particularly in the House--have shown little willingness to 
     work with the president. And several senior Democrats who 
     haven't spoken with Obama in a while don't hold it against 
     him, with the president facing a full slate of competing 
     interests and a challenging reelection.
       Conrad said he still speaks with Biden, senior White House 
     budget officials and chief of staff Jack Lew.
       ``We can communicate without the two of us speaking 
     directly,'' Conrad said of the president.
                                  ____


                     [From The Hill, May 21, 2012]

          HHS Signs $20M PR Contract To Promote Healthcare Law

                             (By Sam Baker)

       The Health and Human Services Department has signed a $20 
     million contract with a public-relations firm to highlight 
     part of the Affordable Care Act.
       The new, multimedia ad campaign is designed to educate the 
     public about how to stay healthy and prevent illnesses, an 
     HHS official said.
       The campaign was mandated by the Affordable Care Act and 
     must describe the importance of prevention while also 
     explaining preventive benefits provided by the healthcare 
     law. The law makes many preventive services available without 
     a co-pay or

[[Page 7589]]

     deductible, and provides new preventive benefits to Medicare 
     patients.
       The PR firm Porter Novelli won the contract after a 
     competitive bidding process. The $20 million contract was 
     first reported by PR Week. Porter Novelli did not immediately 
     respond to a request for comment.


                           Jaczko Resignation

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday, we learned about the 
resignation of the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Dr. 
Gregory Jaczko. As I said yesterday, I am not surprised by Jaczko's 
resignation. Even Democrats on the Commission testified before Congress 
that his inappropriate conduct as chairman resulted in a hostile work 
environment for women and threatened to undermine the mission of the 
NRC itself. But what should surprise us all, is how this administration 
could remain silent for more than a year after the allegations of 
Jaczko's offensive behavior first surfaced.
  Jaczko's alleged behavior is unacceptable in any workplace. The fact 
that it was allowed to persist at a critical agency that oversees the 
safety of our Nation's nuclear power plants is astonishing. The White 
House must now move swiftly with a replacement for Jaczko and I urge 
the Senate to move quickly to reconfirm the nomination of Kristine 
Svinicki as NRC commissioner before her term expires on June 30th. The 
only reason her nomination was held up by the White House and the 
Democrat-led Senate in the first place was because she had the courage 
to stand up to a hostile work environment, and to the bully who was 
responsible for it. Now that Jaczko has submitted his resignation, it's 
time for the Senate to move forward on Kristine Svinicki.
  Commissioner Svinicki's credentials are unmatched. She is one of the 
world's leading experts on nuclear safety. She was confirmed by the 
Senate to her current term without a single dissenting vote.
  It's time we act. Svinicki has served as commissioner with 
distinction, is enormously qualified, has bipartisan support and 
deserves a speedy reconfirmation. The American people are best-served 
by a commission that is fully functional.
  I yield the floor.


                       Reservation of Leader Time

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
leadership time is reserved.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
following hour will be equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first 
half and Republicans controlling the final half.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                      National Small Business Week

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I take this time to bring to the 
attention of my colleagues that we are celebrating National Small 
Business Week, which is a very important occasion because, as the 
Senator from New Hampshire understands, the growth engine for America 
is our small businesses. When we are looking at job growth, which we 
all know we need in order to get our economy moving again, we know 
there will be more jobs created from small companies than from large 
companies. About two out of every three jobs created in America will 
come from small companies.
  We also know when we are looking at innovation, it is the small 
businesses that file the patents and come up with the creative new 
ideas for America to become as competitive as we need to be. There are 
an incredibly larger number of patents per employee from small 
companies than from large companies. So the growth engine for America's 
economy rests with our small businesses.
  I am proud to serve on the Small Business Committee under the 
leadership of Chairman Landrieu. We have brought forward many 
initiatives that help small businesses, and I think it has made a huge 
difference as our economy is starting to recover. We are now looking at 
25 consecutive months of continuous private sector job growth where we 
have turned around the economy and we are now growing. In large measure 
I think it is because of the attention we have paid to the small 
business community. We are proud of what it has meant for our entire 
country.
  Let me speak a little bit about my State of Maryland. We have over 
500,000 small businesses in Maryland that employ over 1 million people. 
So it is by far a huge part of the Maryland economy. Our strategy over 
the last several years during the Obama administration has been to 
concentrate on small businesses and, in particular, to help them 
recover from this economic recession.
  The first effort was to increase the capacity of the Small Business 
Administration. I was proud of the Obama budget that put more money 
back into the Small Business Administration. I was proud of the 
initiative we had in the Senate to add funds to the Small Business 
Administration so that the SBA could indeed be the advocate for the 
small business community; so that small businesses have an agency in 
the government that is fighting for their issues. It has made a huge 
difference. When I speak with the small businesses in Maryland, they 
tell me they now have a much greater capacity for help through 
counselors and advocates at the Small Business Administration.
  We then dealt with the No. 1 issue that was brought to our 
attention--and I am sure the Presiding Officer has heard the same 
stories in New Hampshire I have heard in Maryland--that small 
businesses have had a hard time getting access to capital; that we need 
to do a better job of providing capital, particularly during a tough 
economic period where small businesses don't have the same deep pockets 
as the larger companies.
  So we increased the SBA loan limits, increased the amount of the 
Federal loan guarantee in order to make it more attractive for banks to 
lend money to small businesses, knowing full well the government was 
standing behind those loans. That made some monies available. We looked 
for creative new programs to help our small businesses, including one 
in the Treasury Department. We also looked at helping our States by 
initiating partnerships with our States.
  The additional funds we made available in Washington to help build 
the State programs has made many more loans available to small 
companies in Maryland. All of that has helped in providing 
opportunities for our small businesses.
  The reauthorization of the SBIR Program and the STTR Program has made 
a huge difference. Since 1983, in my State of Maryland, $1.5 billion of 
funding has come from the SBIR Program. For those who are listening who 
may not know what this program is about, it is about innovation. It is 
small companies that are involved in biotech and cybertech areas where 
they use innovation to create jobs. In my State and in the Presiding 
Officer's State, they are using these funds to create opportunities for 
America to be competitive internationally.
  We can state chapter and verse for our national defense research or 
for clean energy technology where small businesses are taking advantage 
of these innovative research grants and have been able to build jobs in 
our communities and make America more competitive for the future. The 
reauthorization and thus predictability of funding under the SBIR 
Program and the increased amounts that are available will create, and 
has already created, more job opportunities. We got that done, and that 
was certainly a major step forward.

[[Page 7590]]

  We passed bills providing tax breaks to small businesses, including 
the expensing of their equipment, so they can go out and buy equipment 
and keep things moving.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CARDIN. I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I thank my friend from Arizona for his 
courtesy. I will try not to use the entire 5 minutes.
  There are other areas where we have also moved forward to help our 
small businesses, including credits for their health insurance so they 
can cover their employees. In my own State of Maryland, we have set up 
an African Trade Office which has provided opportunities in 
international trade--an area where we think we can still make progress.
  I could talk about many of the success stories of Maryland small 
businesses that have used the SBIR Program, including one to develop 
new treatment for smallpox vaccines to make them more efficient. We 
have had examples of where we are now developing a vaccine to deal with 
the common cold.
  I was at an SBA event where we honored the leading entrepreneurs in 
our State, and I can cite an example of a small businessperson, Janet 
Amirault, who was the small businessperson of the year--the CEO of a 
software development company. She has had some personal issues with her 
health, but despite that, for the last 3 years she has had 90 percent 
growth in her revenues. This is the innovation we have in Maryland that 
comes out of the small business community.
  Taylor Made Transportation Services, which first qualified under the 
8(a) program, has now graduated from that. They started with a small 
transportation company that provided transportation for people with 
special needs and is now providing for diverse transportation needs in 
our communities. All of that has developed through small business 
programs that we helped develop.
  So I come to the floor today to announce a new initiative that I will 
be filing today, the Small Business Goaling Act, to deal with another 
problem we have with small businesses that I hope we will be able to 
take up on the floor of the Senate in the very near future. It would 
increase the prime goals for small businesses in government procurement 
from 23 percent to 25 percent and increase the subcontracting goals to 
40 percent, adding transparency to how government provides procurement 
opportunities for government contracts to small businesses.
  We have also taken some action in dealing with bundling and trying to 
prevent the bundling of small contracts into large contracts that makes 
it more difficult for small businesses to get prime contracts. I 
believe this legislation will improve transparency and visibility so we 
can, in fact, provide more opportunities; so the government leads by 
example, by using small companies more to help them grow. It will help 
a variety of small businesses, including disabled veteran companies, 
women-owned companies, and minority-owned companies so that all will 
benefit from these opportunities.
  I wish to thank the chairperson of the Small Business Committee, 
Senator Landrieu, for her extraordinary help in getting this bill 
together. It will help small businesses by allowing them to grow and 
create jobs, thereby helping our country in recovery.
  Once again, I thank my friend from Arizona for giving me these extra 
few minutes. The best way to help celebrate National Small Business 
Week is for us to pay more attention to helping small businesses grow.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.


                              The Economy

  Mr. KYL. Madam President, today I would like to add a little context 
to the discussion of the fiscal cliff our Nation approaches, a 
reference to the combination of the largest tax increase in history, 
new taxes under ObamaCare, sequestration, and the expiration of the 
payroll tax holiday, all of which take effect in January of 2013 unless 
the President and the Congress act.
  This is a key discussion to have because how we view this so-called 
fiscal cliff defines our perspective on how an economy grows and 
prospers. Edward Lazear, who is a former Chairman of the President's 
Council of Economic Advisers, recently wrote an op-ep that outlines the 
various perspectives. I will focus on the two most prominent: the 
Keynesian view and the view of supply-side economics.
  The Keynesian theory holds that spending is the key to growth--
government spending. Keynesians believe that in recessionary times, 
increased government spending can take the place of private sector 
activity. That is why they present a false choice between government 
spending cuts--in other words, austerity--and growth. Their perspective 
holds that growth is contingent on government spending.
  This was the thinking behind the President's 2009 stimulus spending 
package, the so-called Cash for Clunkers, and a litany of other recent 
government spending programs, transfer payments, and temporary tax 
credits. I believe the administration's insistence on enacting these 
temporary Keynesian spending policies to stimulate consumption is 
misguided and the evidence reveals has failed. Remember, the stimulus 
was sold as a measure to keep unemployment from topping 8 percent. But, 
in fact, unemployment has not dipped below 8 percent for 39 months, and 
growth is very anemic. We are experiencing a recovery in name only. So 
there is not much evidence that spending can revitalize a sagging 
economy; that is to say, government spending, and even if government 
spending could be a boost, as Lazear points out, the costs would be 
massive. Here is what he writes:

       Even if a fiscal stimulus has some benefit, the cost of 
     fiscal policy is likely to be very large. In order to 
     stimulate the economy, growth in--not high levels of--
     government spending is required. To provide a stimulus 
     comparable to the 2009 legislation, we would need to increase 
     government spending by $250 billion.

  He goes on:

       The Keynesian view implies that keeping spending constant 
     at the higher level in 2014 would generate no simulative 
     growth for 2014 . . . because there is no increase in 
     spending over the 2013 level. . . . If we want to delay our 
     day of reckoning, we must keep spending at a higher level for 
     each year that we want to postpone the negative consequences 
     for growth.

  Supply-side economics, on the other hand, holds a different 
perspective on growth: that government spending does not increase 
prosperity, that tax hikes hurt the economy and stifle growth.
  We believe that economic growth stems from combining three inputs: 
labor, capital, and technology. These three factors of production 
result in output that we can then consume. Without labor, capital, and 
technology, there can be no consumption. Focusing on policies that 
stimulate consumption targets the wrong side of the equation. In order 
to get the economy going, we need to focus on the inputs--labor, 
capital, and technology. We also believe government spending cuts are 
beneficial because they free up private capital and help align revenues 
with government spending.
  Lazear argues that supply-siders stand on the firmest ground when it 
comes to fiscal policy's effect on economic growth. Here is what he 
writes:

       On the tax side, there is strong evidence that supports the 
     supply-siders.

  And he cites, for example, research from Christina Romer. By the way, 
Christina Romer was President Obama's first Chair of his Council of 
Economic Advisers. Her research shows that raising taxes by 1 percent 
of GDP--raising taxes, which is what the administration proposes--
lowers our gross domestic product by nearly 3 percent. So increase 
taxes by 1 percent, you lose 3 percent of gross domestic product.
  I recently joined 40 of my Republican colleagues in sending a letter 
to Leader Reid to make this point, that tax increases will have a 
deleterious effect on economic growth. The letter asks that he join us 
in working to take the

[[Page 7591]]

tax threat off the table before the election in order to create more 
economic certainty. We know that so-called ``taxmageddon'' is coming. 
There is no good reason not to act. The election is not an acceptable 
excuse. In fact, I would posit that politicians could be rewarded for 
acting to avert the catastrophic effect of this huge tax increase.
  In addition to acting to prevent tax hikes, Congress should also 
pursue spending cuts to help unleash private capital, boost growth, and 
reduce our nearly $16 trillion national debt in the process. To be 
clear, cutting government spending does not mean the government should 
take a sledge hammer approach and cut indiscriminately. We should be 
careful where we cut. We should prioritize. For example, I oppose the 
defense cuts on national security grounds, not Keynesian grounds. In 
other words, while it is true that cuts in defense spending will result 
in job losses, big job losses under sequestration, our national 
security is even more important. The automatic spending cuts under 
sequestration mean that across-the-board spending to the Department of 
Defense will, in the words of the Secretary of Defense, devastate our 
national security.
  Allowing the sequester to begin as planned would cut 10 percent from 
defense in fiscal year 2013 alone and dramatically shrink the size and 
capabilities of our military. To avoid this, the Senate should follow 
the lead of the House of Representatives, which recently passed 
legislation to replace the sequester with other spending reductions. 
The legislation will cut $315 billion in spending and will reduce the 
deficit by over $242 billion. It is not a perfect bill, but I do 
believe it is a good place to start.
  My overarching point is this: We should not shy away from prudent 
spending cuts for fear that they will hurt growth. It should not be 
difficult to find cuts in our $3.7 trillion budget. These cuts 
certainly will not derail economic growth if they are done the right 
way.
  The choice, in other words, between spending cuts and growth is a 
false choice. If the President is not truly concerned about boosting 
growth and reversing the trends of the last 3\1/2\ years, he should 
stop presenting this false choice, as he did, for example, at the G8 
summit last weekend, where he actually encouraged German Chancellor 
Angela Merkel and other leaders to embrace what he called a ``growth 
package'' modeled in part after his own budget-busting stimulus 
spending. I hope Chancellor Merkel and other leaders around the world 
take a very close look at whether the Obama growth package is something 
they wish to bring home after observing the American economy for the 
last 4 years.
  Preventing tax increases and reducing out-of-control spending is a 
better approach to long-term prosperity.
  I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks, the op-
ed I referred to by Edward Lazear in the Wall Street Journal of May 21 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2012]

                   Three Views of the `Fiscal Cliff'

                         (By Edward P. Lazear)

       Discussion of the so-called fiscal cliff--the combination 
     of tax increases and spending cuts that will come in 2013 if 
     Congress and the president don't act--confuses a number of 
     different issues. The evidence suggests that we should fear 
     the tax hikes, but not necessarily the spending cuts.
       Anyone who uses the term ``fiscal cliff'' accepts a 
     Keynesian view of the economy, knowingly or not. Both tax 
     increases and constrained spending are assumed to be bad for 
     the economy.
       But there are two other views: that of the budget balancer 
     and that of the supply-sider. Rather than term the impending 
     changes that will occur in 2013 a ``fiscal cliff,'' the 
     budget balancer thinks of this as ``fiscal consolidation.'' 
     Tax increases reduce the deficit, as do cuts in government 
     spending. Both are austerity measures that make the 
     government more responsible and, therefore, both are 
     conducive to long-run economic growth.
       Those who support the Simpson-Bowles plan subscribe, at 
     least in part, to this view. Various proponents of the plan 
     may place different weights on the tax-increase side or the 
     spending-decrease side because they believe the economic 
     consequence of one or the other is more adverse. But 
     fundamentally, the target is to decrease the deficit. The 
     budget balancer regards both tax increases and spending cuts 
     as moves in the right direction.
       The supply-sider has a different view from both the 
     Keynesian and the budget balancer. Fundamentally, supply-side 
     advocates focus on the harmful effects of tax increases. 
     Raising tax rates hurts the economy directly because tax 
     hikes reduce incentives to invest and because they punish 
     hard work. As such, tax increases slow growth. But budget 
     cuts work in the right direction by making lower tax revenues 
     sustainable. If spending exceeds revenues, then the 
     government must borrow and this commits future governments to 
     raising taxes in order to service the debt.
       Consequently, the supply-sider thinks of 2013 primarily as 
     a tax increase and fears what that will do to the economy. 
     The spending cuts are a positive. Unlike the Keynesians who 
     view the fiscal cliff as being bad on two counts, or the 
     budget balancer who views it as being good on two counts, the 
     supply-sider scores it one-and-one. The tax increases have 
     negative effects on the economy; the controls on spending are 
     a positive side effect of the 2013 sunsets.
       Which of the three views is correct? Until recently, most 
     economists believed that fiscal policy was inappropriate for 
     business-cycle management, and that if stimulus was needed at 
     all, monetary policy was the best way. Spending ``stimulus'' 
     does not have a strong track record in recent decades. There 
     is more ambiguity now about the choice between monetary and 
     fiscal policy, in large part because with interest rates near 
     zero, the effectiveness of monetary policy is thought to be 
     more limited.
       But even if a fiscal stimulus has some benefit, the cost of 
     fiscal policy is likely to be very large. In order to 
     stimulate the economy, growth in--not high levels of--
     government spending is required. To provide a stimulus in 
     2013 comparable to the 2009 legislated stimulus, we would 
     need to increase government spending by about $250 billion.
       But the Keynesian view implies that keeping spending 
     constant at the higher level in 2014 would generate no 
     stimulative growth effect for 2014. Despite the higher level 
     of spending in 2014, we would get no additional growth 
     because there is no increase in spending over the 2013 level. 
     Were we to retreat to current levels of spending, there would 
     be a contractionary effect on the economy as government 
     spending decreases. If we want to delay our day of reckoning, 
     we must keep spending at a higher level for each year that we 
     want to postpone the negative consequences for growth. Given 
     the state of the labor market, this could mean a few years. 
     If we waited four years, we would spend $1 trillion to get 
     $250 billion in stimulus.
       On the tax side, there is strong evidence that supports the 
     supply-siders. Christina Romer, President Obama's first 
     chairwoman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, 
     and David Romer document the strong unfavorable effect of 
     increasing tax rates on economic growth (American Economic 
     Review, 2010). They report that an increase in taxes of 1% of 
     gross domestic product lowers GDP by almost 3%. The evidence 
     on government spending also suggests that high spending means 
     lower growth.
       For example, Swedish economists Andreas Bergh and Magnus 
     Henrekson (Journal of Economic Surveys 2011) survey a large 
     literature and conclude that an increase in government size 
     by 10 percentage points of GDP is associated with a half to 
     one percentage point lower annual growth rate.
       The evidence suggests that we should move away from worry 
     over the impending ``fiscal cliff'' and focus more heavily on 
     concern about raising taxes. And although some Keynesians may 
     view this as not the best time to control spending growth, 
     promising to change our ways in the future is as credible as 
     Wimpy's promise to pay on Tuesday for the hamburger that he 
     eats today.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.


                          LightSquared Danger

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I am pleased to see that Jessica 
Rosenworcel and Ajit Pai have been confirmed to the Federal 
Communications Commission. They are both highly qualified, and it is 
unfortunate that the FCC's stubborn refusal to respond to my very 
simple request for information forced me to place a hold on their 
nominations for the past 4 months in order to get the FCC to move on 
giving me the information to which any Member of Congress ought to be 
entitled.
  The FCC needs to learn a simple lesson from this episode: The 
public's business ought to be public, and transparency brings 
accountability. Eventually, the truth will be known, so you might as 
well get it out there when the questions first come up.
  I initially placed my hold on the FCC Commissioner nominees because 
the FCC had stonewalled a document request that I submitted on April 27 
last year regarding their actions related to

[[Page 7592]]

a company called LightSquared and the hedge fund, Harbinger Capital, 
that owns LightSquared.
  Before I wrote my letter on LightSquared, many concerns had already 
been raised regarding the company's plans for a terrestrial network and 
its potential to interfere with the global positioning system, or 
sometimes that is referred to as GPS. In my first letter, I raised 
those concerns as well. Unfortunately, the FCC does not appear to have 
taken those concerns seriously, but months later, independent testing 
verified the danger LightSquared posed to industries, from commercial 
aviation to even our own Armed Forces.
  It seems strange that a project that was so obviously flawed was 
allowed to go so far. But LightSquared had help. In total, LightSquared 
has paid 53 different lobbyists, some registered, some unregistered. 
They paid one former Governor, three former Senators, nine former 
Members of Congress, including a former Speaker and former minority 
leader, and a former White House Counsel to advocate for them. These 
lobbyists provided entry into the FCC and the White House. But they 
could not change the fact that LightSquared's network simply could not 
coexist with GPS.
  LightSquared has now declared bankruptcy, and it appears its plan to 
build a terrestrial network is over, but many questions still remain. 
Some of those questions: Why did the FCC give LightSquared this unusual 
waiver in the first place? Why did LightSquared's lawyers mention 
campaign contributions when they sought meetings at the White House? 
Why did a four-star general claim he had been pressured by the Obama 
administration not to criticize LightSquared?
  When I first asked the FCC for documents, I was told they would take 
about 2 years to respond to my request through the Freedom of 
Information Act. Then they told me they do not voluntarily turn over 
documents to the 99.6 percent of the Members of Congress who do not 
chair a committee with direct jurisdiction over FCC. After a lot of 
back and forth with the FCC, they told me the reason they do not 
respond to 99.6 percent of Congress is because of just a one-line 
statement in the Congressional Research Service report. The line reads, 
``Oversight is most effective if it is conducted by Congressional 
committees of jurisdiction.'' Now, the FCC somehow took this quote and 
conveniently came up with the idea that they do not have to give this 
Senator any documents. Of course, to anybody in the Congress, this 
makes no sense whatsoever, but that is what the FCC hid behind. And, of 
course--you know me--I did not give up. The FCC's response to me is 
just another variation on what the Justice Department told me when I 
started asking questions about Operation Fast and Furious.
  Fortunately, we have Members of the House of Representatives who are 
not afraid to ask this administration some tough questions. In Fast and 
Furious, it was Chairman Issa who held the Justice Department's feet to 
the fire to make sure they responded fully and responded completely. 
With LightSquared, it was another committee in the House of 
Representatives, the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Chairmen 
Walden, Upton, and Stearns and their staff have done an excellent job 
in making sure the FCC is open, transparent, and provides documents to 
Congress, even when they do not want to give those documents to a 
Senator who asked for them, meaning this Senator.
  I would also like to thank Commerce Committee Chairman Rockefeller 
here in the Senate for pressing the FCC personally to release 
documents. With all of this help, we are making sure the FCC is open 
with the American people about the way they operate because 
transparency brings accountability.
  In over 30 years of conducting oversight, I can say that when it 
comes to providing documents to the Congress, the FCC is one of the 
worst Federal agencies I have ever had to deal with. Even after 
receiving a document request from the Energy and Commerce Committee in 
the House of Representatives, the FCC still tried to play the tired old 
games agencies play when they are not acting in good faith.
  When they finally turned over their first batch of documents--would 
you believe it?--those documents were already publicly available on the 
Internet through the Freedom of Information Act. So they weren't giving 
us anything we didn't already have access to.
  When they didn't convince us they were acting in good faith--because, 
quite frankly, they weren't--they gave us a second production. But in 
that production, of the first 1,968 pages they produced, all but 3--in 
other words, 1,965 pages--were newspaper clippings. Again, the FCC was 
playing games. And, of course, that is not acceptable.
  Fortunately, we have continued to press the FCC, and we now, with the 
help of the House of Representatives, have approximately 8,000 
nonpublic internal documents. Still, we have not received all 
responsive documents from the FCC yet. We just received another 4,000 
pages of documents, and I have been told that approximately 7,000 more 
documents are on their way to Congress. We now at least have a path 
forward. That is why I lifted my holds a couple weeks ago, so these 
nominations could move forward.
  I trust the House committee will ensure that the FCC provides those 
7,000 or so additional documents. I have always said if you are hiding 
something, it is best to get it out in the open, because the longer you 
stonewall--in this case the FCC--the worse you are going to look when 
those facts finally come out.
  The FCC has attempted to stonewall my request for documents for 
almost a year, and they have failed. But they failed only thanks to the 
help provided by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and because 
of that help we are finally able to review internal documents from the 
FCC--the very same documents we should have gotten when we first asked 
in our request on April 27 of last year.
  As I said when I initially filed my intent to object, I strongly 
believe it is critical for Congress to have access to documents in 
order to conduct vigorous and independent oversight. Whether it takes 1 
day, 1 week, 1 month, or even 1 year--as it did in this case--I will 
continue to pursue transparency across the Federal Government because 
transparency brings accountability. That is essential so that Congress 
can practice its constitutional role of oversight over the Federal 
Government.
  The role of oversight is this simple: Congress passes laws and 
appropriates money. That is not the end of it. Our government is a 
government of checks and balances. We have a responsibility, after 
passing laws and appropriating money, to make sure the laws are 
faithfully executed and the money spent according to the intent of 
Congress. That is oversight.
  Even now as we review these documents we have already gotten and 
begin conducting interviews with key FCC staff, the investigation, 
obviously, continues. Step one was getting access to the FCC e-mails. 
We took this step so we could make sure we had the facts before we 
jumped to conclusions.
  Now it is time for step two--asking hard questions of the key FCC 
personnel who approved the LightSquared waiver. This process may 
continue to take more time, but however long the process takes, I will 
continue to press for transparency at the FCC because, again, with 
transparency comes accountability.
  This agency must operate in an open and transparent manner, and we 
must have answers regarding the LightSquared waiver. The people at the 
FCC work for the American people, they don't work for themselves.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we are now on the motion to proceed, as 
you

[[Page 7593]]

know, to the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 
2012, which is basically the reauthorization of FDA for the 
prescription drug user fees and the medical device user fees. There are 
a couple of new provisions in this bill dealing with the generic drug 
user fees and the biosimilar drug user fees as well. So this bill is 
extremely important.
  We have been working in our committee for over a year on it, working 
with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. As both Senator Enzi, my 
ranking member, and I pointed out yesterday, this has been a true 
bipartisan effort. We did not divide up in terms of party--Democrat or 
Republican--we divided up in terms of interest areas, and we had 
working groups within our committee so that Senators who had a 
particular interest in one area or another were on that working group. 
We also had Senators who were not on the committee but who had interest 
areas in it involved in our working groups. So they and their staffs 
had full working knowledge of what was going on all the time and it was 
a true collegial effort. Those working groups completed their work 
earlier this year.
  We also called in all the stakeholders--the prescription drug 
manufacturers, the pharmacists, the drugstores, consumer groups, and 
practitioners. So we had all the stakeholders involved in this too. And 
now we have come up with a bill that has very broad support. I put in 
the Record yesterday a list of over 100 different organizations, 
everything from the drug manufacturers to consumer protection groups 
and consumer groups that are supporting this bill. It has very broad-
based support. And, again, I believe that is due to the fact we 
proceeded on the reauthorization of this bill in the time-honored 
tradition of the Senate, which is for the committee to take the 
reauthorization prospect, to do its due diligence--and we did that for 
over a year, as I mentioned--and to make sure people were involved at 
every step of the process on both sides of the aisle. We brought in the 
stakeholders and continued this effort, as I said, for over a year to 
the point where we now have a bill that is broadly supported.
  As I said, everyone has a common interest in ensuring our products 
don't hurt patients. I have said in our hearings, and I continue to 
believe, safety is the paramount consideration. We cannot sacrifice 
patient safety on the altar of other considerations. Patient safety is 
still the highest standard, the highest mark at which we aim our 
sights. But getting the products to patients quickly is also important.
  I have heard heartwrenching stories of patients desperately waiting 
for treatments, and of inspiring accounts of small startup companies 
seeking to fill the needs of these patients with innovative medical 
products. Patient groups and industry alike have stressed the need for 
efficient FDA processes to get products to patients quickly.
  Again--and I will be pointing out later also--FDA does a very good 
job of getting products, both drugs and devices, to market quickly. In 
fact, of the 154 drugs approved in both the United States and Canada, 
in a study done by the New England Journal of Medicine, 132 were 
approved here first. So we have not been dragging our heels and FDA 
hasn't been dragging its heels in terms of getting the job done.
  Some say, well, sometimes products get approved more rapidly in 
Europe than they do here. That is true, but it is important to note 
that foreign approval standards are different. So it is kind of an 
apples-and-oranges kind of comparison. The FDA here approves drugs and 
devices based on their safety and effectiveness--safety and 
effectiveness. Are they safe and do they actually do what they say they 
are supposed to do?
  Other countries--basically in Europe--only consider safety and not 
whether the device is effective. So as long as it is safe, they approve 
it. So, yes, they have a shorter approval time, but they don't take 
into consideration effectiveness.
  I strongly believe the United States should keep this high standard 
of both safety and effectiveness. It is important to know if a device 
is effective because that affects a patient's decision whether to 
accept the device's risks and whether to forego maybe alternative 
treatments.
  FDA officials testified before our committee this year. They 
submitted documentation showing that 95 percent of medical device 
applications were reviewed within the deadlines set in the past user 
fee agreement. Now, despite all this good work FDA is doing, patients 
were sick or dying. Promising therapies can't be approved quickly 
enough. So the bill we have before us will continue to support the 
agency and its good work, but it will allow for some very big 
improvements.
  The medical device industry has agreed to double its user fees, to 
pay twice as much, and in return the FDA has agreed to speed review 
times, increase transparency, enhance communications--all of which will 
get devices to patients more quickly but still keep safety in mind. So 
anything we can do to both streamline the process, get drugs and 
devices to patients sooner, and make sure we keep our high standard of 
safety and effectiveness is not only good for business but critical for 
the patients who need them.
  I expect the FDA Safety and Innovation Act will have significant 
impact on FDA's ability to approve medical products in an efficient and 
transparent way. As I said, that benefits everyone. Investors will feel 
better about putting their money into medical technologies, companies 
will translate their research and development work into sales more 
quickly, support for innovation will allow the United States to 
maintain its leadership position in the biotech industry, and this will 
preserve and create jobs all over America.
  In this sector, as long as we preserve safety standards--which is, 
what is good for business is good for patients--then, again, if 
companies and their investors believe the climate is right to commit 
resources to new medical therapies, this means patients who did not 
previously have options will have treatments to turn to. So I say this 
bill is a win-win for everyone.
  Inspiring innovation and improving patient access to medical 
therapies are two of the many ways this bill modernizes our regulatory 
and oversight system to benefit both patients and the biomedical 
industry. The FDA Safety and Innovation Act is a truly bipartisan 
consensus bill that reflects the input and shared goals of a wide range 
of stakeholders. I hope we will be on the bill shortly after our noon 
caucuses and conferences for the two parties this afternoon. I trust 
that we will have only relevant amendments to the bill. I hope that has 
been accepted on both sides, and that we can discuss the bill and have 
the relevant amendments and have them disposed of sometime this week.
  So I am hopeful we can get this bill done before we go home for the 
Memorial Day recess. But we will be back on the bill this afternoon. I 
urge all my colleagues to give this bill their support. We will have 
some amendments, I am sure, that will be relevant to the bill. They 
will be debated and voted upon. But, nonetheless, I hope we can 
expeditiously move this bill and get it done.
  The clock is ticking. The FDA authorization runs out at the end of 
this summer. You might say, well, we have until then to get it done. We 
are out of here the month of August. We are out of here for the Fourth 
of July break. We have a Memorial Day break. We have appropriations 
bills to do. We have all kinds of things we have to do this summer. 
Plus, it is not waiting until the last minute.
  FDA needs to know very soon whether they are going to have these 
resources. The drug companies need to know whether FDA will have the 
resources to continue to do its work. So sometime midsummer FDA will 
probably have to start sending out pink slips to people they will not 
be able to keep past the end of the summer because they will not have 
the funds. It has been estimated that up to 2,000 people could lose 
their jobs at the end of this summer if we don't do our work and get 
this bill reauthorized.
  So time is of the essence. We need to get it done so we can go to 
conference with the House, work out whatever little disagreements we 
may have, and

[[Page 7594]]

get the final bill to the President, hopefully sometime in June so the 
FDA then will not have to go through any processes of seeing who they 
are going to lay off and how they are going to close things down at the 
end of the summer.
  So, again, time is of the essence. I urge all my colleagues to 
support this well-thought-out bill that has taken over a year to put 
together. All of the stakeholders support it with broad support across 
America. So I hope we can get on the bill this afternoon and bring it 
to a close as soon as possible.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am pleased and proud to follow 
Senator Harkin, one of the chief authors of the FDA bill, and to thank 
him and Senator Enzi for this truly bipartisan, monumental work on a 
measure that is essential to the future of the health of our Nation as 
well as our economic security.
  This bill is a big one. It is a big bill with complex provisions and 
an essential purpose: to safeguard the public, to protect patients, and 
encourage innovation and invention, which are so important to treating 
and curing diseases in this country as well as other problems. This 
measure is revolutionary in many ways. It contains complex new 
provisions with bipartisan support. Truly, the bipartisanship in 
support of this bill makes it noteworthy as well.
  I am pleased to say it includes the GAIN Act, which I helped to 
author and champion with my colleague, Senator Corker, and 15 other 
Senators who have joined in this effort to incentivize the development 
of new antibiotics, to treat, stop, and conquer the superbugs, as they 
are known, germs that are resistant to antibiotics that now exist. To 
provide more drug security, the supply chain needs greater safeguards. 
I have worked with Senators Burr, Bennet, Harkin, Grassley, and 
Whitehouse on this measure. I am proud to say it is in here. The bill 
includes provisions on treatment and research on pediatric diseases and 
conditions that is the work of Senators Reed, Alexander, and Murray. I 
have been very proud to add to their efforts. Of course, it includes 
the work on medical device innovation and safety, which I have done 
with Senator Grassley and Senator Kohl.
  This measure, in a way, epitomizes the approach we should take to FDA 
regulation, which is to enable devices to reach the market more 
quickly, to make sure they are safe but available more promptly, to 
guarantee surveillance and oversight after they reach the market, and 
reporting by industry so we enlist industry as a partner and make the 
FDA an ally, not an adversary, with industry in innovation and patient 
care.
  Nowhere is this approach more necessary than in addressing the drug 
shortage problem in this country. It is a problem, it is a crisis, it 
is an outrage. The United States should be embarrassed and outraged 
that the greatest country in the history of the world, the strongest on 
the planet, having developed lifesaving medicines and devoted 
extraordinary research and development to make those medicines 
available to the people of this country, still has shortages, crisis 
shortages in those very pharmaceutical drugs.
  That crisis is inexcusable and unacceptable. The bill takes a step in 
the direction of addressing and solving this crisis. It is a first 
step. I leave no doubt, as I stand here, that I will continue to work 
on this problem, to advocate other steps--some that I will suggest 
today and others that will be forthcoming in measures I will propose 
later.
  I first became aware of the drug shortage problem through contacts 
with people from Connecticut, patients who suffer as a result of these 
drug shortages and doctors who are hugely concerned about the choices 
they have to make and the dilemmas they face every day in their 
practices, and hospitals that engage in what they call triage, trying 
to find drugs to substitute for the ones that are in shortage so they 
can care for patients who are literally dealing with life-and-death 
situations.
  We are not talking about just one or a couple of drugs. Methotrexate 
was recently the subject of a New York Times front-page article. It 
provides cancer treatment, but there are other cancer-treating drugs 
that are also in short supply, essential for both prolonging life and 
giving life to patients who otherwise would lose it more quickly. We 
are talking about Mitomycin, about Doxil, about Cytaraline. In other 
areas of treatment we are talking about epinephrine, which is important 
for allergy treatment, zinc injections, which are necessary for 
nutrition deficiencies, Propoful, a workhorse medicine commonly used in 
emergency rooms across the country when people arrive in need of 
anesthesia. For these drugs and hundreds of others, literally hundreds 
of others, to be in shortage is unacceptable and inexcusable.
  What illustrates this problem perhaps most dramatically are the faces 
and voices of the people in Connecticut and in every State around the 
country who suffer because of these drug shortages. They are your 
neighbors, your friends--my colleagues' constituents. They are coping 
with pain, anxiety, sadness, grief, anger--and there are drugs 
available to them that would provide relief and remedies. Their docs 
cannot get them because they are in shortage.
  We are talking about people of great courage and fortitude, such as 
Susan Block. She is just illustrative. I have her picture here. My 
office helped her to get a drug called Doxil to treat her cancer 
because halfway through her chemotherapy treatments for ovarian cancer 
she arrived at the hospital one day to learn from her doctor that Doxil 
would no longer be available. She called my office in a panic upon 
learning that information. Ovarian cancer causes more deaths than any 
other cancer of the female reproductive system and Susan was unwilling 
to settle for half a treatment. She was right, and her doctor supported 
her and my office supported her in securing an emergency delivery of 
Doxil for Susan, allowing her to complete treatment.
  She has allowed me, graciously, to share this photo with you today.
  I am pleased we have been able to help constituents in Connecticut 
again and again to secure these medicines when they have been in 
shortage, working with manufacturers as well as hospitals in that 
effort. But it should not have happened at all.
  Not everyone has been this lucky. Stephen Hine of Bethel wrote to my 
office after he lost his wife Ann. She died of terminal ovarian cancer. 
Ann was also on Doxil. While the drug was not going to save her life--
these drugs do not always save lives--it could have prolonged her life 
expectancy. But she could not get Doxil in time and she lost her battle 
with cancer. Stephen, her husband, understood that the drug would not 
have cured her but it would have helped her live longer to spend more 
time with her family, her daughter, who was going to graduate that 
spring. It would have meant so much for Ann to see her daughter 
graduate. We have a right to ask what kind of nation allows patients to 
go without these drugs and forces doctors to make decisions about who 
needs them the most.
  I thank Senators Klobuchar and Casey particularly for championing 
this effort even before I arrived in the Senate and later, personally, 
the Chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and 
the Ranking Member, Senator Harkin and Senator Enzi, for their support.
  There are proven measures that will help solve these issues. More 
needs to be done, but the drug shortage provisions contained in the 
bill before this chamber, which provides for a requirement of 
notification in the event of a discontinuance or interruption of the 
production of life-supporting, life-sustaining drugs or drugs intended 
for use in the prevention of a debilitating disease or condition or a 
sterile injectable

[[Page 7595]]

or a drug used in an emergency are critical. The reasons these drugs 
are in short supply was illustrated and documented by a GAO study. It 
showed that drugs are in short supply--not just once, but they are 
chronically in short supply, some of them many times--it showed 
definitively that these drugs are old, sterile, often injectable, and 
generic. The market simply is not working for these drugs. The profit 
margins are not sufficient to sustain the supply. The market for these 
drugs is broken.
  If these drugs--to draw the analogy to a utility--were electricity, 
the lights would go out. We would not accept that situation. The lights 
are going out for patients in Connecticut and across the country 
because the markets are not working and the government, the FDA, is 
failing in its responsibilities--under great pressure, perhaps with 
good intentions, but still not working effectively enough. The 
President of the United States recognized it when he issued an 
Executive order that required the FDA to use its current powers of 
notification more effectively and to refer price-gouging cases to the 
Department of Justice when there is evidence of them. The markets are 
not working so there is now a gray market that involves markups of 200, 
300, 500, 800 percent, sometimes even higher, in the prices of these 
drugs as they are resold in secondary markets.
  Beyond this requirement of notification that is contained in the 
bill, there are other measures that are important or necessary so that 
we do more to address these problems. I have refiled my amendment from 
the HELP Committee markup, along with Senators Franken, Schumer, 
Cardin, and Klobuchar, to impose penalties, tough penalties for 
manufacturers who fail to notify. Notification is fine but it will be 
less effective if there are no penalties for failure to notify. We may 
try to walk a balance between enforcement and incentives, but 
enforcement in this area is critical, and this measure imposing 
penalties for failure to notify is critical as well.
  The amendment is a fair one. It provides for penalties of up to 
$10,000 per day--up to $1.8 million per violation--for failure to 
notify the FDA within a reasonable time frame of known discontinuance 
of a lifesaving drug.
  I am proposing as well an amendment that would require critical 
manufacturing reinvestment. I have worked with the manufacturing 
industry to create a public/private partnership to incentivize the 
development of additional manufacturing capacity. The root of the drug 
shortage problem is that these products are old and generic and 
difficult to make so that we need more capacity, we need more plants 
making more of these drugs. Over the long term, this kind of 
partnership will strengthen the markets and strengthen our capacity. It 
says the Secretary of Health and Human Services has authority to 
implement an analysis of the root causes of the drug shortage and to 
proactively seek these kinds of partnerships with manufacturers to 
produce more of the drugs that may be in shortage right now, but to 
predict, to forecast, what will be in short supply in the future.
  Market manipulation must be addressed more effectively and I have 
proposed an amendment that will stop the gray market so far as it is 
possible to do, to prohibit market manipulation of drugs that are in 
shortage and prohibit the distribution of false information. It gives 
the FTC authority to assess penalties for these actions. I thank my 
colleagues on the Commerce Committee, Chairman Rockefeller, and also 
thank Senator Schumer for his leadership, because he has shown a 
similar commitment to addressing these issues.
  Our doctors and our health care providers deserve some recourse from 
market manipulation. The gray market must be stopped and the FTC must 
immediately establish a reporting mechanism for price gougers and gray-
market profiteers.
  These measures are a beginning. The notification provision now in the 
bill is a start. I thank, again, Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member 
Enzi for their leadership and the FDA for its cooperation. The work 
cannot stop with this bill. Drug shortages are unacceptable and 
inexcusable, and the people of America, if they are aware of it, will 
demand that we heighten the fight toward a comprehensive solution.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.


                            Child Tax Credit

  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, Senator Sessions and I come to the Senate 
floor today to discuss the Child Tax Credit Integrity Preservation Act, 
the bill I introduced last year, to address a real problem with IRS 
enforcement allowing illegal aliens to access the additional child tax 
credit.
  The reality is, because of this enforcement problem and this loophole 
in terms of how the child tax credit is enforced, illegal aliens who 
pay no taxes and are not entitled to this check from the government 
received $4.2 billion in 2010 alone. These are checks from the 
government through the Child Tax Credit Act.
  There have been several studies under the President Obama 
administration that say this is ridiculous, this is unintended, we need 
to stop this. I am proposing we do and that we move forward in a 
simple, bipartisan, commonsense way to stop it. Let me briefly note 
some of those studies.
  In March of 2009, the Treasury Department said:

       As it now stands, the payment of Federal funds through this 
     tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive for 
     aliens to enter, reside, and work in the United States 
     without authorization, which contradicts Federal law and 
     policy to remove such incentives.

  In July 2011, the Treasury Department, through its inspector general, 
issued a report that was actually entitled ``Individuals Who Are Not 
Authorized to Work in the United States Were Paid $4.2 Billion in 
Refundable Credits.''
  So, again, under this administration the Treasury Department and the 
IRS underscore that this is a huge problem to the tune of $4.2 billion 
every year.
  I urge all of us to come together in a straightforward, commonsense, 
bipartisan way to fix this problem. The IRS and the Treasury Department 
have told us that the fix is simple, and it is clear. We simply need to 
mandate that folks applying for the credit use valid Social Security 
numbers. That will cut off the fraud, and that will cut off $4.2 
billion going improperly to illegal alien families. It will not cut off 
the benefit going to anyone who deserves it under the law.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 577

  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee 
on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 577, the 
Child Tax Credit Integrity Preservation Act, and the Senate proceed to 
its immediate consideration; that the bill be read a third time and 
passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and any 
statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, first of all, 
I want to express my appreciation to the Senator from Louisiana and the 
Senator from Alabama for their courtesy. They are going to talk a lot 
longer on this matter. They recognized there was a good chance I would 
object to their request. They have agreed to allow me to say a few 
words before they finish what they have to say on the Senate floor. I 
appreciate their courtesy very much because I do have some other things 
I need to work on.
  Mr. President, the Vitter-Sessions legislation literally takes a 
sledgehammer to a problem that deserves some very fine tuning and a 
scalpel. There are news reports that have suggested that some have 
claimed the child tax credit for children who actually live outside the 
United States.
  The Tax Code is very clear that the child tax credit is not available 
for children living outside the United States. It is very clear. If, in 
fact, someone is doing that, then those filers and tax preparers are 
committing a fraud on the people of this country. If

[[Page 7596]]

they are doing that and there is a loophole that is existing, we need 
to close that loophole.
  Chairman Baucus has already had his staff work with the IRS to 
determine if its procedures are strong enough to stop such fraud. We 
believe they are, but if they are not then it is up to Congress to plug 
any loopholes that may exist. However, the Vitter-Sessions legislation 
eliminates the child tax credit for filers who are fully complying with 
the law. That is not a good result. In fact, the legislation that is 
proposed fails to address the issue of the child tax credit being 
claimed for children not living in the United States, so the problem is 
not solved by this legislation. The legislation goes well beyond what 
is necessary to stop fraud in the Child Tax Credit Program, and 
therefore I object to the consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, before the distinguished majority leader 
has to leave, I would just ask, through the Chair, if we can get some 
clarification and hopefully come to some consensus, is he suggesting 
that illegal aliens in the country should continue to receive the 
credit? Is he suggesting that citizens who qualify for the credit but 
happen to live outside the country should not get it?
  It seems to me the problem is illegal aliens receiving the credit, 
wherever they are physically, not the people outside the country who 
are receiving the credit, some of whom qualify for the credit.
  If I could bring that point up through the Chair.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, without fully debating the subject--and 
others know more about it than I do, but what I do know is that we want 
to make sure any children who are here and who are American citizens 
and entitled to this get the benefits.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. I would say, through the Chair, thank you for that 
clarification. We have exactly the same goal in mind, and I believe 
this approach of the Vitter bill--the House has already passed this 
approach recently, and its budget outline actually accomplishes that. 
By requiring a valid Social Security number, we allow everyone who 
truly qualifies for the credit to get it, and we stop it from going to 
illegal alien families who do not deserve the credit under the law.
  I invite my distinguished colleague from Alabama to add to the 
discussion.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I appreciate the 
insight the majority leader provided. We will look at that and see 
where we stand on it, but I would urge that we do not need to wait a 
great deal of time for this to be fixed.
  The inspector general for Tax Administration of the U.S. Treasury 
Department started raising this formally in 2009. The issue actually 
came up in 2007 when individuals in the Treasury Department thought 
there was something wrong occurring. So the inspector general did a 
report, and he has called on us to fix it.
  In fact, he said in his report:

       We continue to believe the legislation is needed to ensure 
     compliance with both laws.

  I would say that is what we need to do. The House has acted and we 
should act. Four billion dollars a year is a great deal of money. It is 
about $10 million a day that is going out of the country to individuals 
who should not be receiving it.
  According to the inspector general's report, the amount of the child 
tax credit--and as Senator Vitter said, this is not a tax deduction. 
This is a $1,000-per-child tax credit that we have for people in the 
United States who work, who have worked lawfully, and who have children 
and they get a check. If they owe no income tax at all, and a 
substantial percentage of the people who work in America end up not 
paying income tax, but they still get a check from Uncle Sam for $1,000 
per child.
  It was a policy I supported because over the years families had not 
gained the kind of deductible advantage that had been done 30 years ago 
when people had children, and it leveled the playing field and helped 
working families raise children in a decent environment. It is a policy 
I like, but it is not for somebody here illegally and has children in 
some foreign country. That is not what it is about. It is for $4 
billion. It has surged.
  In 2005 the inspector general noted that the IRS paid out to these 
ITIN filers $924 million in 2005. In 2006, it was $1.3 billion. In 2007 
it was $1.7 billion. In 2008 it was $2.1 billion. In 2009 it was $2.9 
billion. From 2009 to 2010 it went from $2.9 billion to $4.2 billion. 
It has been surging every year.
  As a matter of protecting the Treasury of the United States from 
abuse, the IG says we need legislation. The Senator from Louisiana has 
drafted legislation that will do the job precisely as it should. Would 
the Senator agree that Congress should not wait around another year? It 
is something that the House already passed, and if we passed it, it 
would become law in perhaps a matter of days.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, if I could respond through the Chair.
  I absolutely agree with the Senator from Alabama. Too often folks in 
Washington want to make things overly complicated. Some issues debated 
in the Congress are complicated. Other issues are not complicated, but 
they are made a whole lot more complicated than they need to be made, 
and this is one of those.
  All we are saying is folks who qualify for this benefit under the law 
should get it, but folks who don't qualify, including illegal alien 
families, should absolutely not get it. The law is clear on that. What 
we have is an enforcement problem. We also have the Obama 
administration, through the Treasury Department, absolutely agreeing 
that this is an enforcement problem and that this bill is the 
legitimate and proper solution.
  Again, in March 2009 the Treasury said:

       As it now stands, the payment of Federal funds through this 
     tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive for 
     aliens to enter, reside, and work in the United States 
     without authorization. . . .

  That means it is a magnet to draw more illegal crossings into the 
country.
  Again, in July 2007, the Treasury inspector general had a whole 
report, and the title was ``Individuals Who Are Not Authorized to Work 
in the United States Were Paid $4.2 Billion in Refundable Credits.'' 
That inspector general said what we need is fixed legislation just like 
this.
  In fact, this is what we do with regard to the earned-income tax 
credit. We require a valid Social Security number for that separate tax 
credit. We are simply applying that valid fix to this different tax 
credit.
  Again, let's not make a pretty straightforward situation difficult. 
Let's fix a glaring problem. As the Senator from Alabama said, it is a 
$4.2 billion-a-year problem. We come to the floor every day to talk 
about soaring deficits and debt, to talk about impending cuts in 
defense and other areas, and yet we have this glaring $4.2 billion 
savings that we are not taking advantage of.
  The House has acted. The House recently acted and passed exactly this 
provision. Let's act in a bipartisan, commonsense way in the Senate and 
tell the American people we are going to stop wasting $4.2 billion a 
year for this completely unauthorized purpose.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would point out to my colleagues how 
much $4 billion is. It is a matter that we deal with on a regular basis 
around here. It is a number that has come up several times recently.
  For example, we had a shortfall in our plans to fund the Federal 
highway program--a deeply disappointing event that we couldn't get that 
bill passed. It started out as a $4 billion shortfall. They worked that 
number down, but it is still not fully paid for. We would like just a 
few billion dollars to pay for the bill, and it hasn't been passed.
  The student loan fixed rate where the interest rates would be 
dropped--if I

[[Page 7597]]

am not mistaken, that was $4 billion. We need it to reduce interest 
rates on student loans. That is $4 billion, according to the IG, going 
out of our country wrongfully every year that we could save.
  The President spent a lot of time traveling around the country saying 
we should raise taxes on the rich and we should pass the Buffett tax. 
He had a proposal for the Buffett tax. How much would the Buffett tax 
raise? It would raise $4 billion. That is how much closing this 
loophole would raise. Frankly, I am a little disappointed that the 
Treasury Department officials and the administration itself haven't 
immediately seized upon this loophole that is costing the taxpayers 
large amounts of money and responded themselves by sending legislation 
over and asking us to pass it. Why aren't they asking us to pass it to 
begin with? Well, the inspector general, who is an independent--who 
gets a little independence within the Department of Treasury but, in 
fact, is an employee of the Secretary of the Treasury--he says we need 
this legislation. Quoting his report:

       Clarification to the law is needed to address whether or 
     not refundable tax credits such as ACTC may be paid to those 
     who are not authorized to work in the United States.

  Well, of course they ought not to be getting a check from the U.S. 
taxpayers if they are not authorized to be working here.
  So as the ranking member on the Budget Committee, knowing how tight 
our budget is, I salute Senator Vitter for doing it this year as well 
as last year when he saw this problem and attempted to get it passed. I 
am pleased the House has passed it. I think if we keep working at it, I 
say to Senator Vitter, maybe we can get it done in the Senate, 
remembering that $10 million a day is going out of the country for 
every day we fail to act.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
  Mr. VITTER. Mr. President, I wish to thank very much my colleague 
from Alabama for his leadership on the Budget Committee and his 
leadership on issues such as this. I want to encourage the 
distinguished majority leader to look at the actual details of the 
problem and this legislation. When he does, he will see that this 
legislation is very finely tuned to the actual problem, and it is an 
outrageous problem.
  There has been quite a bit of media attention on this abuse over the 
last several months. A lot of it came out of Indiana. A tax preparer 
there brought cases in Indiana and said he got no response from the IRS 
when he tried to report completely fraudulent returns using fake income 
and documents. He pointed to a number of actual tax forms in which 
illegal aliens were exploiting this. He said: ``I can bring out stacks 
and stacks. It is just so easy, it is ridiculous.''
  An illegal alien who was actually interviewed admitted in another 
case that his address was used by four other illegal aliens who didn't 
even live there. All told, they claimed 20 children were living in one 
trailer, and they received checks from the government through this 
program totaling over $29,000. Only one child was ever observed at that 
mobile home. Twenty other children who live in Mexico have never even 
visited the United States.
  Again, let's not make a simple fix overly complicated because it is 
not. This is an outrageous abuse. The Obama administration Treasury 
Department has said so. They have endorsed this fix. The House has 
passed this fix. Let us in the Senate pass this fix on a bipartisan 
basis and save the American taxpayer $4.2 billion each and every year.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, to conclude, I think the American people 
are unhappy with their leaders. They feel as though the money they have 
sent here is not being well spent, is not being watched closely enough. 
We have a big judicial conference for the second year--since 2010, the 
second time--to go spend $1 million on a resort conference in Maui. We 
have the Solyndra loans going out to cronies that are not being paid 
back in any way. We have the General Services Administration having a 
big party out in Las Vegas with hot tubs and magicians and so forth. We 
have no budget for three consecutive years in the U.S. Senate. And what 
are we hearing from many of our leaders here in Washington? Well, we 
have a problem, American people. We have too big a debt. Send us more 
money. Send more money. We don't have enough. We are borrowing 40 cents 
of every dollar we spend. Send more money.
  I think the American people are tired of hearing that. I think they 
have a right to be tired of hearing that. Until this country is willing 
to face up to saving $10 million a day on this kind of manipulation 
that has been going on since 2007, at least, and has been raised by the 
inspector general since 2009, until those kinds of things are stopped, 
I don't think they should send any more money to Washington. We need to 
honor the money they are sending.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.


                        tribute to thomas hudner

  Mr. BROWN of Massachusetts. Mr. President, I rise to speak about a 
historic ceremony that took place in Boston Harbor--the birthplace of 
the American Revolution--this very morning.
  This morning, the United States Navy named an Arleigh Burke class 
guided-missile destroyer for retired United States Navy Captain Thomas 
Jerome Hudner, Jr., of Concord, MA. The ceremony took place aboard the 
oldest commissioned warship in our United States Navy, the USS 
Constitution.
  As the Presiding Officer knows, it is a distinct honor for any 
service member to have a Navy vessel commissioned in his or her name. 
What made the event today extremely rare is that Captain Hudner is the 
Navy's last living Medal of Honor recipient from the Korean War.
  As the story my colleagues are about to hear shows, no one could be 
more worthy of this distinction than Tom Hudner.
  Tom is a native of Fall River, MA. He was a student at Phillips 
Exeter Academy when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As a leader on 
his school's athletic fields and in its student government, naturally 
he responded to the call to arms. And although World War II ended 
before his commissioning at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Hudner 
began a storied Navy career that would earn him our Nation's highest 
military honor.
  During his first few years in the Navy, Hudner served as a 
communications officer aboard various warships before being accepted to 
the Navy's flight school in Corpus Christi, TX. After earning his wings 
of gold, Hudner became one of the ``Fighting Swordsmen'' of Strike 
Fighter Squadron 32 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Leyte.
  Just a few years after the racial integration of the U.S. military, 
Hudner began flying alongside a young ensign named Jesse LeRoy Brown, 
the Navy's first black pilot. Brown was born and raised in the 
segregated, deep south town of Hattiesburg, MS, a world away from 
Hudner's home in Fall River, MA.
  In the summer of 1950, less than a year after Hudner finished flight 
school, North Korean Communist forces invaded the Republic of Korea. 
Within months, President Truman ordered the Leyte into action off the 
coast of Korea where Hudner and his wingman, Jesse Brown, immediately 
began flying reconnaissance and attack sorties against Communist 
positions. Not long after their squadron joined the fight, Chinese 
forces invaded the Korean peninsula and threatened to overrun U.S. 
positions.
  There are no routine missions in wartime, especially when flying 
close air support over enemy positions. On the afternoon of December 4, 
1950, Hudner and Brown were on a mission to destroy enemy targets near 
the Chosin Reservoir. About an hour into the mission, Brown's Corsair 
was hit by enemy fire, began to lose fuel and he was forced to crash 
land his aircraft into a snowy mountainside.
  The events that transpired over the next few hours became enshrined 
in the history of American Naval aviation.

[[Page 7598]]

  Despite exposure to hostile ground fire, Hudner continued to make low 
passes over Brown, who was trapped in the wreckage of his destroyed 
aircraft. When Hudner saw that his wingman's plane was burning, he 
deliberately crash-landed his own aircraft, risking his life. And 
though injured in the violent landing, Hudner ran to try to rescue 
Brown.
  For Tom Hudner, never leaving your wingman was more than just a 
phrase he learned in flight training, it was a covenant. A short time 
later a rescue helicopter pilot arrived, and both he and Hudner tried 
in vain to free Brown from the wreckage. With night falling and Ensign 
Brown lapsing in and out of consciousness, Hudner was finally forced to 
evacuate the bitter cold crash site. Brown's final words to Hudner were 
to tell his wife Daisy that he loved her. He would do that in person.
  On April 13, 1951, Daisy Pearl Brown was in the audience when 
President Harry S. Truman presented Thomas Hudner with the Medal of 
Honor for his heroic attempt to save Ensign Brown.
  Over the next two decades, Hudner continued to serve with distinction 
in the United States Navy. In addition to flying many of the Navy's 
newest jet fighters, Hudner's career would take him from various ships 
and air bases where he served in positions of increasing 
responsibility, including as executive officer of the USS Kitty Hawk 
during the Vietnam War.
  Hudner and Brown's wife Daisy remained friends, their lives 
intertwined by the events decades earlier on a snowy mountainside on 
the other side of the globe. In fact, the two friends would stand 
together at another ceremony some 22 years later when the U.S. Navy 
commissioned the first American warship in honor of an African 
American, the USS Jesse L. Brown.
  Hudner retired from the U.S. Navy at the rank of captain in 1973, and 
while his day-to-day service in the military would end, he continued to 
serve his fellow veterans through the USO and a variety of veterans' 
organizations. In fact, for most of the 1990s, Hudner served as 
commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Veterans Affairs.
  Today, the newly commissioned USS Thomas Hudner will serve as a 
living legacy to heroism and service. Think about it for a moment. When 
a sailor or Marine is assigned to this ship, they will proudly tell 
their family and friends about Hudner and Brown. When the Hudner makes 
a port call, those in the communities it visits will see the ship in 
port and meet scores of crew members with ``USS Thomas Hudner'' 
stitched on their shoulder.
  And when citizens around the world learn about Captain Hudner's 
specific act that the Navy has described as ``conspicuous gallantry and 
intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of 
duty,'' they will begin to understand what uncommon valor truly is. Tom 
Hudner's story will serve as an inspiration to a future generation of 
Americans.
  Please allow me to thank Captain Hudner for his lifetime of 
exceptional service to our Nation and his dedication to his fellow 
veterans. I ask my colleagues and our Nation to join me in wishing him 
and his wife Georgia all the very best in the years ahead.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________