give us today our daily bread food for our body mind and spirit let your goodness guide us your pro protect us and your love sustain us today give our senators a sense of your precious presence  them with your courage for their challenges your wisdom for their perplexities your peace for their anxieties and your faith for their mountains guide them with your loving hands for we acknowledge you as the way the truth and the life we pray to the senate washington d c may eighth two thousand and seven to the senate under the provisions of rule one paragraph three of the standing rules of the said i hereby point to animal jon tester a center for the state of montana to perform the duties of the the northern illinois will be twenty minutes of debate in a vote following the vote the senate will recess for regular conference meetings yes they call us invoke on the committee substitute i hope that at some cloture i would say on this matter is present i informed the republican leader yesterday we would have not have the votes after four o'clock today but we will that doesn't mean we won't be in session if we can't get some agreement on the running out of thirty hours will have to be in session until that time expires around ten or eleven o'clock tonight and then we would in the morning come in and finish this f d a bill then it's my understanding  thirteen twelve i understand is two for second reading and circle report as thirteen twelve a bill to amend the national labor relations act to ensure the right of employees to a secret ballot election conducted by the national labor relations board as president would exact any further proceedings with respect to the bail objection is her role in the bill be placed on the calendar sort of the leadership time is reserved in the previous order there will be a period for the transaction of morning business for up to sixty minutes with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each with the first half the time under control the majority and the second half of the time of the control of the republicans president our friend and colleague senator bennett and i have joined together in the first bipartisan legislation to guarantee quality affordable health care for all americans in more than a decade i could have no better partner to deal with the premier issue here at home then senator bennett who of course is a senior member of the senate republican leadership and widely respected on both sides of the aisle together in the days ahead we're going to be talking with senators of both parties in discussing the legislation here on the floor with one specific goal in mind wolf that is senate action to fix health care in america in two thousand and seven clip now of course the popular wisdom is that something like this simply could never ever be done all the washington d c beltway pundits say fixing health care is something you just can't do right now and that it will be the job for the next president and the next congress and everybody ought to just expect that maybe two years from now in the spring of two thousand and nine congress will get around to dealing with the principal domestic issue of our time i and senator bennett don't believe that we were given an election certificate to set around for two more years when the american people are saying they cannot afford for the united states congress to wait on fixing health care is the top issue here at home it has been study study study prodded for an awfully long time and it's appropriate that the senate act and act now our citizens are staying up late worrying about how they're going to be able to afford quality health care and i don't see how members of congress can explain what we're going home tonight and we'll just talk about this again in a couple of years the country wants action and i and senator bennett are going to do everything we can to make sure that they get it yesterday the c e o s of five major companies joined our push for action on health care this year they focused on a handful of important principles the principles pretty much mirror the healthy americans act and i'm very pleased that the c e o s yesterday are joining those who are ready come out in support of the healthy americans act the business leaders the labor leaders the public health advocates advocates of consumers those who want to have dignity for folks at the end of life they've already come out and support the healthy americans act and i was very glad to be able to join the c e o s with senator bennett yesterday to talk about why it's important for congress to act  healthy americans act is based on a handful of key principles mr president the first is that if you're going to fix health care you've got to cover everybody if you don't cover everybody what happens in american health care is that those who are insured have their bills shifted those who are uninsured shift their cost to those who are insured and so all of the people who have private policies end up picking up the cost of those who are uninsured second we believe you ought to build universal coverage around private  protecting current government programs our legislation for example keeps in place the basic structure of medicare and veterans make improvements in medicare for example creating new incentives for prevention particularly under part b which called the outpatient portion of the program but we build the future of american health care around quality affordable private choices while protecting current government programs the certain area we address is fixing the tax code we have one hundred eighty million people mr president sexually getting health care in america by historical accident back in the forty's there were wage and price controls it wasn't possible to get quality affordable health care to our citizens and it was essentially put off on the backs of the employers and the tax code came along to support that decision now more than two hundred billion dollars was out the door in a way that disproportionately favors the most affluent and also promotes inefficiency you're a high fly o you can go out and get a designer smile put on your face and write it all off on a tax bill but if you're a hard working woman in a furniture store you get virtually nothing out of the tax code  time to fix something on the tax side that might have made sense sixty five years ago but certainly doesn't make sense today then we propose to cut the link between employers and insurance there really is no reason mr president at a time when our citizens change their jobs something like seven times by the time someone's thirty five and we live in a society where people want portability and ability to move quickly from job to job and take their benefits with them there's no reason no reason to say that the future of american health care ought to require that the employer continue to be the focus of how health care is delivered and certainly at a time when our employers are up against global competition not competing just against somebody in denver or texas but again global markets it makes no sense to dump all this on to the back of the employer so senator bennett and i would cut the link between health insurance and employment and we put a special emphasis mr president on creating a new culture of well in this and in a sense dealing with the fact that america really doesn't have health care at all what we've got is sick care medicare  spend thousands of dollars under par day for senior citizens hospital bills and virtually nothing under part b for prevention to keep people well so we make those voluntary incentives part of medicare so that if a senior for example in montana were to lower their blood pressure or their cholesterol for the first time that senior in montana would be able to get a lower part b premium and actually see on a voluntary basis why good health pays off in terms of the premium costs that seniors face and finally mr president our judgment is that we're spending enough money today on health care we're not spending it in the right places and to put it into perspective we're going to spend this year  two point three trillion dollars on health care there are about three hundred million of us we divide three hundred million into two point three trillion and you can go out and hire a personal physician for every seven families in america and pay that doctor two hundred thousand dollars a year and we'd all have quality affordable health care picture that in the state of montana or in another part of our country seven famil for the amount of money we're spending today could have their own personal physician who would get paid two hundred thousand dollars and their job would be to take care of seven families whenever i bring that up to the physicians groups and share my colleague from montana would see this as well whenever i bring up the physic they say ron where do i go to get my stuff and family sounds pretty good pretty good to be able to practice medicine again today rather than being a bean counter and administrator and somebody has got to shuffle through all the paper and bureaucracy we're spending enough mr president we're not spending it in the right places we know for example that often the corner grocery store has more technology and a better technology than the typical doctor's office so that's why we've gotta stay the first thing we're going to do  what's being allocated by american health care today more wisely the lewin group mr president is sort of the gold standard of doing health care analyses analyzed healthy americans act president's proposals proposals from various states and they have found that under the legislation that i and senator bennett are working for here in the senate that it would be possible to save one point four five trillion dollars that's with a key on health care spending in the years ahead the first proposal to actually lower the rate of growth in health spending so the facts are indisputable mr president people who are insured today and you often ask why should they support changes they are picking up the built of those who are uninsured senator bennett has often said we have universal coverage already today that's the way it works those people are going to get care it's just not going to be done in a very efficient kind of fashion so the facts are not in question medical costs or gobbling up everything in sight our employers are at a disadvantage when it comes to us competitiveness there has been a huge increase in chronic illness a tiny percentage of the medicare population for example consumes most of the medicare dollars sensually as a result of problems relating to heart disease and diabetes a host of other illnesses that could be prevented and of course it's well understood by every senator that there is a demographic avalanche coming with many more older people so with the facts not in dispute with the country saying act now don't put this off for another two years the senate has an opportunity to work in a bipartisan  senators on my side of the aisle have made it clear correctly in my view that we've got to get everybody covered it's not right for this country to be the only western industrialized nation that can't figure out how to get everybody under the tent so it's important to get everybody covered senator bennet and others on the republican side of the aisle have been correct in saying that the public doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of just having government run it all the people in my home state voted against what is known as a single payer plan in two thousand and two by a three t one majority so what senator bennett and i have put together for the amount of money that's being spent today a bill that will save close to one point five trillion dollars over the next ten years i legislation that you can explain at any town hall meeting in montana or oregon or anywhere else and that is that every citizen would have access to a private health policy at least as good as their member of congress has very simple to understand i've got a blue cross card in my pocket i was able during the period of open enrollment as a senator from montana experience when it came to the senate i was able to make choices make a evaluation of the various private health policy that were offered to me and as a result i and my children have that private health coverage i want those same set of choices and set of opportunities for those that i represent and the people of this country and my good friend senator bennett has joined me on the floor and i'm going to allow him to speak but i think that the debate in the senate has reached the critical moment at least for this session of congress we know that you've got to get action on major issues two thousand and seven going to spend a lot of time next year electing a new president you probably don't have to have the president actually sign a piece of legislation two thousand and seven but you've got to get serious action mr president and senator bennett and i believe that there is an opportunity today that we have not had in years and years and that is to bring democrats and republicans together to work for universal coverage my friend senator bennett has made the point and made it very eloquently we're already paying for it today we're just not in many respects getting our money's worth and so we have spent a great deal of time listening to folks in the private sector in business and labor in government democrats and republicans and we want to bring the senate together i would also point out that the healthy americans act which senator bennett has agreed to be the lead republican sponsor on mirrors the letter that ten senators democrats and five republicans sent to the president earlier this year indicating we want to work with him so health care and study and study mr president the time for action is now i'm very pleased that my good friend senator bennett is going to be joining me in this effort i would repeat to the senate this is the first time in more than a decade mr president that there is actually been a bipartisan piece of legislation to provide for universal health coverage in america of the last one in fact utah this president i appreciate the comments of my friend from oregon and i wish to make it very clear that if it were not for his dog and persistence in going after the issue of health care reform in this congress we would not be where we are many of us talk about this we talk about it in the dining room we talk about it as we're waiting between roll call votes we sit in the cloak room and we say wouldn't it be great yeah why don't we do it it would be fabulous if general wyden goes beyond the talk he has determined to go after this and he and i have had a number of conversations i know he's had conversations with the administration both down at the white house and that the department of health and human services he's just a bulldog on this issue and if it gets done it will be a tribute to his  beginning to believe that it will get done and i'm getting his enthusiasm i'd like for just a moment to spend a little time on history so that we can understand how we got in the mess where we are and why the proposal that senator wyden has laid down and that i'm proud to co sponsor is the right direction to go we got in the mass where we are with health care back in the second world war when the federal government decided once again that it was going to repeal the law of supply and demand i've said here many times if i could control what we carve in marble around here to remind us of our duties along with these latin phrases that i love we should also have something constantly before us that says you cannot repeal the law of supply and demand the law of supply and demand is a mutable as the law  gravity because it occurs in economics a lot of people think somehow we can get around it all right in the second world war we had wage and price controls we were going to prevent inflation by federal in other words we were going to repeal the effects of the law of supply and demand all right so that means if i had an employee i couldn't give him arrays all right senator wyden helpings a business he wants my employee and since it's a new job he offers my employee more than i can pay and i can't match that because it's against the law so in order to hold my employer i say tell you what i'll do instead of giving you a raise in dollars that you can put into your paycheck i will give you a raise in value and the value will be a health insurance policy that is worth more than wyden is offering you in money and here's the good thing about it you won't have to pay taxes on this raise i'll pay the taxes on it that is it will be deductible you won't have to pay taxes so you get more vile you and you get a tax break isn't that a good deal and the employer says yeah i'll stay with you instead of switching jobs because you can in fact get around the government's effort to prevent you from giving the array it sounds innocent enough but it started this down the road of having the employer spending the employee's money they say no that's not employee money that's employer money the employer is paying for it no is not the employee earned that amount of money returned that amount of value to his employer but he didn't get it in his w two and that meant the employer ultimately determined how it would be spent and so we started down the road where we are now where there is a major divide in paying for health insurance the employer is spending the employees money but the employer wants to hold that amount down because it will mean savings in his overall business plan so the primary motive on the part of the employer economic motive on the part of the employer there is to hold the cost down he will make a deal therefore that produces a temporary short term cost advantage for him the consumer of the service the employee has a different agenda he wants the best care he can get but since he doesn't control the dollars even though there are his dollars in terms of his earnings he's stuck with whatever decision the employer makes that might make a little bit of sense if the employee stays with the employer his entire career but we've gone long beyond that i tell the graduates of the university you can expect to change jobs ten times before you're fifty and you may change careers you may be trained as a veterinarian and end up as a united states senator we have two examples of that here in the senate today i thought i was going to spend my entire career in the glass and paint business it was a business my grandfather founded my father had run it my uncle was the head of it when i graduated it was just assumed that's where i was going to be for the rest of my life i was there for four years and then a change came along and then another change another change i sat down when i was fifty to look back over my career and discovered that i had changed jobs seventeen times from the age of twenty to the age of fifty in terms of health care that meant seventeen times i was exposed to having my health canceled health care canceled seventeen times when they were worry about preexisting conditions seventeen times when i would be in a situation that i wouldn't like and indeed i was because there was a period in that thirty year time span when i had no health coverage at all the employer that i was working for couldn't provide it or under some circumstances i had no employer period so i understand how the precedent set in the second world war simply doesn't apply to the twenty first century if we had a system where the employee controls his dollars not the employer and takes the product that he buys with those dollars with him from employer to employer we could solve an enormous amount of the problems that we have in health care now let's talk about overall cost john goodman had a piece in the wall street journal where he talked about quality and he pointed out a study that said the best quality in health care can be found in three cities in the united states one was seattle washington one was rochester minnesota immediately the mayo clinic comes to mind and the third was salt lake city utah and naturally that makes me feel pretty good pointed out that if every american got the kind of health care that was available in salt lake city utah the cost would go down by one third and the quality would go up substantially so why doesn't everybody do that because they can't take their dollars and shop they're stuck with whatever plan the employer decides to buy and even as he's buying the employer does not have transparency or information that would say to him the best health care is available at inner mountain health care in salt lake city instead the salesman who comes in to sell the employer the policy will say i can save you this much money in this kind of a situation all right i will buy that policy the focus is on the dollars rather than the quality this is an ironic situation that when you focus on quality and competition quanta part me yeah quality and competition cost comes down automatically that's what happens in the rest of the economy why shouldn't it happen in health care it doesn't happen in health care because of what we did in world war two and the legacy of that that is followed down with us now what about government health care one of the problems with government health care is that we do it here in congress every private health care plan had a drug component decades ago medicare didn't have a drug component until the last congress why because we in congress couldn't agree as to what it should be we always agree that there should be one but we argued about it should be bigger it should be smaller we've got a donut hole all of the things that we talked about that the average consumer knows nothing about and cares nothing about tied it up for decades we finally passed part d there were dire predictions that it wouldn't work because it wasn't a government can't run plan it let in private competition it allowed the senior citizens to make a choice between private offerers and what has been the consequences that well we've got some statistics twenty five hundred and ninety six different plans are now being offered around the united states people are stunned at that number they thought it would be a monopoly of big drug companies but when the customer could choose and niche markets opened up drug companies started to offer products in those niches and the number o choices exploded i've heard the senator from wyoming say we were really worried about wyoming because wyoming is so small we didn't think there would be more than one or two plans in wyoming if anybody wanted to come here at all we thought wyoming would be bypassed by medicare part d well they're now thirty four medicare advantage plans in wyoming plenty of choice and the polls show that something in excess of eighty percent of the seniors like medicare part d and what has happened to the cause it's one of the few government programs that i can identify where the cost has come in below projections the one thing i always say here on the floor is that we know every projection with respect to government plans is always wrong we don't know whether it's wrong on the high side or wrong on the low side but we know it's always wrong but if you're going to bet bet that it's wrong on the low side bet that the program will cost more than we project or than c b o projects this is one that has come in below all of these straws in the wind tell me that senator wyden is on to something very significant that they help the americans act that says let the people control their own money let the people have their own plan that's going to give us better quality and lower costs we look around the world and we see other countries that have tried to sing or pay a single payer system and they're retrenching we look around the world and we see other countries that try a consumer driven health care plan and they are prospering with respect to getting their health care costs down so with that history mr president i'm proud to be the republican sponsor with senator wyden and salute him once again on his leadership and as per his tenacity in getting this program moving forward center for again i believe we've got about thirteen additional minutes to go and the distinguished senator from utah has given us a perve discussion of the history and why it's time to break with sixty years of policy and i'd like to because the distinguish senator was there during the last effort in one thousand nine hundred three nine hundred ninety four debate get his sense about how the approach that we've been talking about linking together universal coverage with these private choices that individuals would make is it the senator's judgment that had that been done in one nine hundred ninety three and one nine hundred ninety four with the efforts of sen chafee yourself and others that we might well have been able to pass legislation right then fifteen years ago had we taken this approach president i would say to my friend from oregon that some of us proposed that during that debate he is right to mention john chafee john chafee was a towering figure in this body and he was the head of the republican health care task force and we talked about an individual mandate as opposed to an employer mandate the core of the bill that was on the floor sponsored by then mage already leader george mitchell was an employer mandate and in the partisan nature of that debate we republicans organized ourselves to stop the bill and we divided the bill up into various sections and my assignment was to attack the employer mandate i had a stack of material at high to help me do that with my fellow senators but as i would talk to people on the other side i would say you know let's talk about an individual man date i think everyone should have some kind of coverage i think it's in society's best interest to have everyone just have some kind of government we do it with auto insurance you can't drive if you don't have an individual insurance plan so that's how we get universal coverage the political stars simply weren't lined up to deal with it but this is not a new idea it was around that time that long ago and if we had done it i think we could have passed legislation i appreciate the senator's comments in the other areas that i picked up over the last fifteen years where there has been dramatic interest and get an opportunity for bipartisanship and i've heard the senator talk about it from utah is this area prevention and we know with the medicare program that something like four percent of those on medicare consume over half the dollars because we're seeing so much of the health care money go to these treatments of what is often preventable illness heart disease and diabetes and stroke and and others what we've tried to do in the healthy americans act is to try to create some incentives for families and prevention and for example parents if parents took a youngster t wellness program it wouldn't be required to do it although we know it makes sense the parents would be eligible for a discount on the parent's premium again using these voluntary incentives what is the senator sense of the opportunities for prevention and i've been struck by some of what the senator from utah has said about prevention in the past mr president the record is very clear that when people spend time taking care of themselves their health care costs go down dramatically and we've had examples presented to us from companies that have done that that is companies that have been very aggressive in trying to make sure that their employees stay healthy rather than simply pay for what happens when they get sick general mills the c e o of general mills was with senator wyden and me at the press conference this week in which he talked about the things that they have done in their company and they have held their health care cost increases to the level of inflation we would all be thrilled with that because health care costs have been going up in double digits for years now people respond to incentives and if there are incentives for parents incentives for employees to stay healthy rather than simply waiting for the ultimate bill to come along we will make a significant difference if i could be personal for one had to do with health care we'd send the bill and it would get paid one hundred percent i sent in my kids orthodontist bills and they paid for straightening their teeth there wasn't any concern about what was covered  figured i could have sent the vet bills for my dog and probably got reimbursed but i didn't do that all right i look back on that and the sense of security and abundance that came from that led me to overuse the system and then not worry about how well we were because it would take care of us so i've had a personal experience about how important it is to pay attention to help at the front end  close mr president the senator's been very gracious to do this with me this morning on why it would be important to have a bipartisan initiative now i think as we have discussed the conventional thinking is that the congress can't deal with something like this now that this will be for the next up president but i think the two of us would very much like to bring the senate together behind what the country wants to do today which is to fix health care and i've always gotten the sense that when you have divided government the president of one party congress of another that was the ideal time to try to bring the congress together to tackle a big issue nothing bigger than health care here at home and i think it would be appropriate and i appreciate the senator from utah coming in all the support to hear your thoughts on bringing the congress together and the country together to finally deal with an issue where there's been so much polarization in the past there's not things that succeeds in politics like good programs like good policy and ronald reagan didn't invent it but he's known for for repeating it saying there's no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don't care who gets the credit far too much of the partisanship stems from the fact that we don't want the other party to get credit for solving the problem and when i've had discussions across the aisle about this and social security i get told bob we will address that right after the next election mr present the next election never comes because there's always a next election and i think the center of morgan is exactly right in that we have a president we have for the first time since dwight eisenhower's election we have an election where there is not an incumbent in the white house on the ballot either a sitting president or a sitting vice president so the democrats who control the congress have a political motive to show that they can do something as they go into that the zero eight elections the republicans cannot try to take credit for that with their candidate because they're not going to have a candidate who is part of the president ministration but the republicans want to be able to say well at least in the last days of the bush administration something important got done the setting is rare we should take advantage of it this is the moment and i join with the senator from oregon in an attempt to seize it but i thank my colleague from utah the other senators who are wishing to to speak we will be back to talk with senators on the to texas colleagues and i would like to talk about the democratic response to high gas prices given the fact that i believe we have about twelve minutes left we may just have a colloquy instead of each giving presentations let me just beg by making a couple points press reported yesterday that the u s average retail gas prices rose to an overall all time high breaking three dollars a gallon i know i paid three dollars and four cents and this is up just about twenty cents a gallon in the last two weeks every family feels this pinch now democrats understand this and that's why last year and i know because i was going through a campaign at the time they attempted to capitalize on a similar spike in gas prices they held press conferences all across the country pledging to lower gasoline prices let me just read one of the headlines that resulted from this publicity blitz from the new york times it says democrats eager to exploit anger over gas prices april twenty first two thousand and six and the article reported i'm quoting that the recommendations of a memorandum sent by the democrat campaign officials to democratic candidates include holding a campaign event at a gas station where you call for a real commitment to bringing down gas prices and mr president i guess you can say that was then this is now now the democrats are in charge the question is what have they done about the problem that they were all too quick to exploit back during the campaign as far as i can tell the answer to that question is exactly nothing and in fact they tried to and it to some extent did prevent republicans when we were in control last year from initiating a series of reforms that would have actually done something about the problem and might have prevented some of what we see now we were finally able to get legislation passed to open up the deep waters off the coast of mexico for oil and gas exploration to bring more supply online that was a very positive development but when we tried to do what things we were stopped by the democrats and so i think it's important for us to challenge our colleagues on the other side of the aisle you are very interested in the american public having to pay high gas prices back during the campaign last year while you're in charge what have you done about it and the answer so far it appears to me to be exactly nothing let me just begin by asking my colleague from texas i know that a lot of our problem is because of regulations that inhibit oil refineries from improving their capability to refine more oil and gas or building new refineries it's very sensitive to what happens at the refineries and my recollection is there was a recent fire at one of the texas refineries is it the case that we could do some things and tried last year to do some things to make it easier from a  regulatory standpoint for oil refineries to increase their capacity and isn't this one of the ways that republicans have tried to ensure that we have a larger supply which would therefore reduce the price of gasoline to our consumers actually that right and i say to the distinguished senator from arizona that one of the problems we have and the reason that my husband walked in to the house this weekend and said i just spent seventy dollars filling my gas tank and what are you going to do about it and like every one of us i'm sure who has had this same experience i think we should be doing something about it and we should be doing a variety of things about it you specifically asked about the refinery capacity and we are very short on refinery capacity and we did pass legislation last year that would try to ease the regulatory burden and therefore the timetable that it takes from either starting a new refinery or adding capacity in a refinery and the regulations  not put out as of a couple of weeks ago and one of the refiners that is in my state that wants to add ask if i would help at least to the department to please issue the regulations so that they can go forward knowing that they will be able to get the regulatory burden lifted so that we can have more refinery capacity but in addition to that i have to say that one of the things that that we see continuing to be blocked on the other side of the is the ability to explore and drill in our own waters the department of interior just last week put out a lease sale proposal in eight areas including the gulf of mexico in the outer continental shelf virginia and alaska in virginia it is just exploration it's not production of gas it's only exploration of gas and there is no actual production of oil or gas but the capability for earning money for the treasury of region yet cause the virginia legislature to say yes we want to do it but there has to be a waiver of a previous extension of the moratorium in drilling which there is now evidence that congress is not going to allow even though the state of virginia legislature and the governor have said they want to be able to explore to see what is out there fifty miles out because the people who represent the people of virginia have seen as so many of our legislators have that technology today is not what it was twenty five years ago you can drill and explore in an environmentally safe way and we can do something about the price of gasoline at  we will take these kinds of measures the department of interior is now trying to do that and yet we are seeing already designs of of struction on the other side of the aisle so i would  if we are going to let these prices continue to go up without any regard to what we have in our own resources under our own control that could alleviate some of this it's not just drilling and production and exploration either we're also trying to put forward nuclear power which is the cleanest most efficient form of energy the french have proven that it can be very effective as a clean energy source and yet we are also thwarted from the opportunity by the other side of the aisle to actually fully explore that avenue in the la then that crop up from the delays have stymied our efforts to increase nuclear capacity in our country so i would just ask my friend from arizona or my friend from texas  if we're going to continue to be stopped from using our own natural resources and if we are not going to be able to increase our refinery capacity then i think we are looking at the capability for countries that have denounced america and said they want the destruction of america to in fact back to be able to hurt our economy by cutting off the oil supply from places in the middle east and in venezuela which does provide about the same amount of oil that we get from the middle east every day so i would just ask what should we do if we're not going to have cooperation i would ask right there's a lot of laws that congress can pass we can even repeal laws but we can't repeal the law of supply and demand and the only way we're going to see these gas prices come down is to produce more supply as we look for alternative forms of energy as we have the senator mentioned obviously nuclear power or even investing in clean coal burning technology i think we basically need to look at all aspects of the energy issue but the senator from arizona is exactly correct as well we've gone from a high of three hundred twenty four refineries in this country down to one hundred thirty two and because we're in a global marketplace for gasoline which essentially can be transported wherever the prices tend to be higher that's why we've seen gas prices in excess of three dollars a gallon at the pump and i  remember well that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle last year when we were in the majority said they want to know what the republican plan what the majority pan plan was to relieve the pain at the pump well mr president the democrats are in charge now and we'd like to know what their plan is and we believe that this is something that we ought to work on together in a bipartisan basis to try to relieve the pain at the pump being experienced by working men and women and families all across this country and the only way we're going to be able to do this is on a bipartisan basis but we've got as long as the democrats control the agenda the majority leader basically controls the floor time on the united states senate floor we need to know when he plans to bring up some meaningful relief for the american consumers to try to bring that price down and we need to do this  the short term in the near term not the long term only we do need to clear power we need to do research and the biofuels and other alternatives we need to employ wind energy and other clean technologies that will provide for part of our energy needs but we haven't discovered a way to make any of those useful to operate our vehicles its oil and its gas gasoline and the only way we're going to be able to provide relief there in the near term is to increase supply by reducing our dependency on imported energy producing more of it domestically and relieving some of the regulatory impediments which have made it impossible to create a new refinery in this country in the last thirty years only by in the near term by increasing the supply or are we going to be able to see the price come down at the pump as we continue to explore alternative forms of energy and other ways to meet our energy needs while continuing to see our economy grow and continue to create jobs mr president i hope of i hope the majority will take this request seriously and will come back and tell us what their plan is to relieve the pain at the pump that american consumers are experiencing today  today students from the seventh grade of the salomon middle school philadelphia suburbs and i'm not provided under senate rules to acknowledge their presence except a verbal way but my granddaughter sylvie specter is among a very impressive group of fifty nine students to west philadelphia before dawn today to come to the nation's capital to s government in operation and i wish i'd had the opportunity to visit the united states senate once i was in the seventh grade it took me a little longer to get here if the students apply themselves and and work hard and i was explaining when we took the picture on the steps today that the congress of the united states makes the laws for the c for every approximately seven hundred thousand people in the united states and each of our fifty states has two senators and we consider legislation we've passed bills by both  house and senate that we get together on a conference and after an agreement on a conference reporters and voted on separately and the measures go to the president of the united states and we have a fascinating part of the legislative process right now with the issue of the funding of the iraq war and the constitution creates the congress under article one and creates the office of the executive branch or president say under article two and we have a very unique constitutional confrontation i think it is not an overstatement to say it is of historic proportions that perhaps the most dramatic constitutional confrontation between  article one power of the congress to appropriate commonly known as the power of the purse and the authority of the president under his real power as commander in chief and the president is insisting on carrying out the program that he has in mind with the addition of troops a surge in iraq to try to restore order to that country i believe that had we known should i be saying did not have weapons of mass destruction we would not have gone into iraq to start with but once there we do not want to leave it in a state of turmoil so we're trying to work our way through the problems as best we can the president laid down two markers for the iraqis in his state of the union speech first that they should for writing the funding the president asked for but setting a date for withdrawal president vetoed that saying that identify withdrawal date would be to tell the enemy how long they would have to stay there two out last years and now we are looking for some resolution and then it's complicated the house is talking about appropriating half of the hundred billion and having another vote hundred billion dollars appropriation bill there is a very a difficult time i had unless we can see a light at the end of the tunnel and on the front page of the new york times today one of our members has said that instead temper there will not be support unless we see some significant progress metaphor light at the end of the tunnel perhaps that is accurate or perhaps we will not be at destroy our society and to said to kill us as they did with the striking events of nine eleven at a concern that if we do not fight the insurgents  in iraq we will be fighting them in the united states these are a weighty issues and there is a lot of controversy and speaking for myself i'm still considering what the right course is results by september but those are the issues which are awaited determination but i reference this in terms of the big issue of the day and how it illustrates the functioning of american government with the congress and the presidency and what we have as a constitutional confrontation i know the time has come to move on to other business and i cite my colleagues in the chair for  permitting me to go beyond the eleven o'clock hour and i now you will the full republican leader mr president i gather morning business has expired this should read to leaders recognize mr president a bronze plaque hangs at the joint readiness center at fort dix in new jersey all the new army recruits their past and all the regulars know the story it tells by heart this plaque declares the joint readiness center to be named after a kentucky soldier who volunteered for his country serve a cause he believed to be just and ri and made the ultimate sacrifice so i asked the senate to pause today in grateful memory of sergeant first class robert and the as a renda and lead better kentucky resident assigned to the first  brigade ninety eighth division of the u s army reserve sergeant around it was killed august fifth two thousand and five when a civilian fuel truck collided with the humvee he was driving is the lead vehicle for a convoy mission in rubia iraq he was forty two years old it could have been far worse if not for robert's astute driving skills and rapid reaction his quick maneuvering of the humvee just prior to impact saved his men in the backseat sergeant duran i was there to act because he volunteered to drive the lead vehicle knowing the likely danger inherent in his choice he stepped forward because most of his fellow soldiers had wives and children at home this final heroic act defined who robert was how he lived and how he served the country he lo for his valorous actions as a soldier sergeant to render was made an honorary green beret and he received numerous awards and medals including the purple heart and the silver star not only did the army name a building after him in fort dix new jersey but a street also bears his name in his home town of shut the water a suburb of buffalo new york robert graduated from the state university of new york at buffalo with a degree in psychology no doubt that degree combined with his long history of military service is what molded him and to a ship perve drill sergeant at robert's funeral majored general bruce a robinson called him a natural at whipping young men into fighting shape after graduation robert served on active duty with the army for six years he returned to his out more moder chemical engineering degree while serving in the army reserves it was his work as an engineer that brought him to calvert city kentucky leaving robert to live a nearby lead better and call the bluegrass state home however this outstanding later was shaped by more than the work that he so enjoyed a cross country runner in high school robert wood aren't would return to his parents home in new york each thanksgiving to run in the annual turkey trot when he wasn't running you might see robert on his harley davidson motorcycle cruising around town robert was also a deeply religious man a fellow soldier described him as a good thomas although his sister caroline kennedy raised her family in a town near pittsburgh robert remained close he left his entire state caroline but told her that should anything happen to him it was all to go to her boy his devotion to them however went deeper then any material wealth that he could offer robert told caroline the reason he wanted to go to iraq with the army was to make the world a safer place for nicholas and thomas he understood the dangers that lurk in the world and wanted his nephews never to know such evil robert's beloved family members included his father aryan is mother loretta his sister caroline kennedy his brother in law scott get a and his two nephews nicholas and thomas giving i say entire senate to keep them in your thoughts and prayers i know they will be in mine mr president no plaque or street name can heal the tragic loss of the durandal family after their beloved son brother and uncle has been taken from them but there are two boys growing up near pittsburgh right now it will always remember the example there i'll go set for them and a lifetime of family friends and feller soldiers will be inspired by sergeant first class robert  sacrifice such examples are worth far more than any bronze plaque could ever be are you  ten eighty two joined by senator enzi and as a co sponsor that that bill with senator kennedy we're considering several amendments this morning that are designed to and will increase access to lifesaving prescription drugs i'd like to for a moment talk about a couple of those amendments one is the stabenow the moon amendment number ten eleven co sponsored by senator lott of mississippi and by me which will stop drug companies from intentionally jamming up the food and drug administration approval process for generic drugs exploiting the citizen petition process to block price competition in the marketplace free market economies rely on price competition when brand name drug companies block price competition they're not only cheating generic drug manufacturers they're cheating consumers businesses tax funded health care programs none of us can afford that the congressional budget office estimates that the stabenow amendment will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over the next ten years and those are just the savings that accrue to tax funded health programs there are also be significant savings to consumers and employer sponsored health plans understand mr president this amendment preserves their rights as we should of citizens to petition their government but stops the game the patent system by the name brand drug companies which have very effectively stymied price competition which i think unanimously in this body we support the whole idea of price competition and a savings from this bill as i repeat the savings will go to out to seniors and others who have seen large out of pocket expenses and in their purchase of prescription drugs the savings will go to businesses  helping us globally compete better than than we might otherwise the savings will go to tax payers through a variety of different government programs that help to help help people buy their prescription drugs every member support is crucial in the stabenow through an amendment i want to highlight an amendment that will be off that was offered by my colleague senator brownback and myself according to the world health organization more than one billion people nearly one in every six people worldwide nearly one billion people are affected by it least one neglected tropical disease in addition neglected in tropical diseases claim roughly five hundred thousand lives each year however less than one percent of the fourteen hundred drugs registered between one hundred seventy five and one thousand ninety nine over twenty five year period less fewer than one percent of the four hundred drugs registered treated such diseases this disparity is clearly due to the lack of financial incentive for pharmaceutical companies to bring  tropical disease treatments to market because these diseases disproportionately affect low income countries with the poorest of the poor in those countries needing these diseases many many of them and most of them in africa creating incentives for companies to invest in treatments for these diseases is not only in our country's national interest but it's consistent with our long standing tradition of caring for those who are less fortunate around the world in other words it's consistent with american values senator brownback would award a priority review voucher to any company that brings the neglect of tropical disease treatment to market priority review is an existing f d a process by which drugs are reviewed in six months as opposed to the average review time of eighteen months significantly speeding the process the priority review voucher would be transferable and could be applied to any drug in a company's pipeline so it will help this amendment will help to bring about research and new drugs treating these tropical diseases and speed the process of getting them to market their spouse or which would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars for a company with a new blockbuster drug would also benefit consumers that's because it would give consumers earlier access to a new prescription drug most importantly creating incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop and to manufacture neglected in tropical disease treatments will save lives i commend senator brownback for his work on behalf of impoverished populations who desperately need our attention he's offering members of this body an opportunity to simultaneously save lives in developing nations give us consumers access to new medicines work quickly and engage the drug industry in a win win proposition it's a rare amendment requires a certification by the secretary of health and human services which we know from previous experience now that cannot or will not be made by the secretary of health and human services and therefore i was go ask the senator from wyoming a couple of questions if it's some point he might come back so that i can gauge him in a in a comic way the to the point of the pocket amendment is that it will now  nullify the entire amendment that was offered by myself senator snowe and thirty three other amendment to the other senators who had co sponsored the amendment and i wanted to get to point out that in the amendment it not only allowed for reimportation of prescription drugs for f d a approved prescription drugs from other countries whose chain of custody was identical or virtually identical to ours so that the american people would have access to lower priced f d a approved prescription drugs but we also included in that amendment which would now be nullified because of the effective he just would not be able to certify counterfeit resistant technologies now i believe that those counterfeit resistan technologies are as a political blow to our existing drug supply domestically as they are to any potential imports that would fit right into this country and i want to read just a couple of comments about this and then i'd like if the senator from wyoming would it would be willing to entertain some questions or at least to engage in a colloquy on this subject i'd like to discuss it with him the the provisions in the bill that would be nullified by senator coc secretary could not certify and so all of the amendment that we offer to be notified the provisions dealing with counterfeit resistant technologies it seems to me probably should proceed because all of us are concerned about the issue of counterfeit drugs whether it's through reimportation or counterfeit drugs in the existing drug supply i mean all of the discussions about counterfeit drugs that have been had on the floor of the senate have nothing to do with reimportation has to do with the existing circumstances so the counterfeit resistant technologies that portion of the amendment which will also now be nullified i think should be restored i've offered a second degree amendment to do that just simply to restore for the current drug supply in this country the safety provisions that would exist with respect to to the counter resistant technologies let me read it just for a moment the provisions in the amendment were incorporating the packaging of many prescription drugs would incorporate one a standardized numerical identifier unique to each package of such drug applied at the point of manufacturing and repackaging in which case the numerical identifier shall be linked to the numerical identifier applied at the point of the manufacturing and to a overt optically variable counterfeit resistant technologies that are well to the naked eye providing for a visual identification of product authenticity without the need for readers microscopes light lighting devices are scanners similar to that used by the bureau of engraving and printing to secure u s currency that are manufactured and distributed in a highly secure tightly controlled environment but the point is i held up a twenty dollar bill yesterday on the floor of the senate and said this has designed into it the architecture of this counterfeit resistant bill as designed into a lot of protections in order to prevent counterfeiting of the twenty dollar bill we're all concerned about counterfeiting of prescription drugs so we had put a provision in the amendment that we had offered something called counterfeit resisting technologies my point is it seems to me that that that we should at least make that apply to the domestic drug supply even if we've already made a decision that we're going to nullify the opportunity for reimportation we will come back to that decision later senate will debate that again and vote on it again but for now at least it seems to me we should not lose the provisions of that amendment dealing with counterfeit resistant technologies might i ask the senator from wyoming the ranking member on the committee his feeling about adding that provision that would i think substantially safeguard the domestic drug supply hi i appreciate the question and i appreciate the effort that's gone into adding ways that the drug supply can be more safe in the united states and of course we're interested in that and that's the primary focus of the bill that we were doing was to make sure that the was safe as possible there were a number of amendments one of which we got withdrawn last night that dealt with internet sales that could have been internet sales in the united states as well as internet sales outside of the united states and the reason it was withdrawn is the sponsor of it didn't want to get polarized into a debate on whether that was just the un do what you've been working on it was not it was to add some more safety and security senator kennedy and i have been working on this f d a bill for over two and a half years now also been working on some things that deal with pedigree and licensure in the united states as well as out of the united states we didn't put that in we didn't want to be something again that would polarize people and maybe distract from being able to do it at a very logical time so most of our most of our effort right now is to make sure that we don't enter into some budget points of order that we're able to accomplish the bill and the conference where they should all changes will be made our committee works may be different from others i'm not i'm not sure i know it works different than the banking committee that i also serve on and it has been one of the most contentious committees in the united states senate  but over the last two and a half years we changed that perspective a bit and really accomplished a lot and one of the biggest changes we had was the way that we do a bill before we tried to stuff it at every possible opportunity that met in committee as well you'll notice that this bill had only one day a markup that's phenomenal for that committee of three three days a week not unusual for the for the committee we got down there in one week which helped the standard stand concerns of of the people on the committee we promised to work on that when i went to the floor we have worked on it when it's been the floor more amendments have been put in here we worked with people senator durbin had one on food safety we worked with them and got that in anything that doesn't appear to polarize doesn't appear to add budget points of order and things that have been considered before we're trying to work into this bill new concepts we'd like to talk about him a little bit more explore him a little bit more but we want everything to be as safe as possible and that's that's what we're working for there are some huge costs that may potentially be involved in what you're talking about there the cost said the cost of drugs and somebody guessed pay it then perhaps we're making less access to drugs and we don't want that and i know you don't want that your focus has been getting lower cost drugs to everybody the same with the has we worked on that for days and it did is a concept that we've been working on before and held some hearings on and i think of arrived it's compromise that put it in that's that's what we're trying to do  is wind up with some some bipartisan things that we can do to get at the conference where more things will be done and some of these issues will be revisited were one of the busy committees i think on on the hill were holding hearings as we're speaking here and i had to leave that to come over to the floor to do just exactly that so i appreciate the senator's efforts and ideas and creativity and i hope i hope to do work with this mr president first i thank the senator from wyoming for his response it is true that the bill that is on the floor of the senate is a bill dealing with drug safety but i think it is also the case that a lot of the discussion on the floor of the senate has been about counterfeit and about the potential danger counterfeiting would pose with respect to reimportation and also the danger counterfeiting poses with respect to the existing drug supply if that's the case it seems illogical to me not to include pedigrees and surreal numbers and r f id technology and the latest counterfeit technology in this bill that what we had done with the three of us co sponsoring the reimportation bill as we understood that with respect to reimportation you need to be sure to safety before you proceed so we we drafted a section of that consulting with all of the experts spend a lot of time on it we've worked on this for a couple of years now and that section it seems to me would vastly improve the underlying bill maybe maybe it is not a consensus i'm for and i understand that the pharmaceutical industry does not want to do pedigree and serial numbers and so on the way we have described it but it seems to me that it is that it certainly should be the case that we add as much as we could to this bill not loaded down but as much as we can on the issue of protecting against counterfeit drugs whether it's for the reimportation or for the domestic drug supply i don't i guess i don't quite understand there's i don't believe there's a budget point of order here and up i don't believe that we're talking about any dramatic new don't in any of that i would expect we should have a trade off of a less safe drug supply versus the cost of the drugs i mean i think all of us want the same thing believe senator kennedy and senator enzi you would both want the safest possible drugs we could have and again i come back to this notion of we spend a lot of time worrying about how to detect a counterfeit twenty dollar bill and we believe engineer does substantial safety precautions there why should we not do the same with respect to to this bottle of lipitor if i might have consent to show it again this is produced in ireland this this is produced in ireland it contains a pill that or a tablet twenty milligram tablets left or to lower cholesterol why would we not want something on this bottle that sent here into this country from the manufacturer that gives us the opportunity to understand the pedigree of the serial number and so on there are some markings on it but we can do much much better i would say i believe and that that's the purpose of my offering a second degree amendment to preserve the counterfeiting and safety standards that a bipartisan group of us have created i'd be happy to yield for responsive mr president i would like to respond that i had i like your example of the the twenty dollar bill or any other denomination  has nothing to do with the pharmaceutical companies this is a discussion kennedy and i have had for ongoing for a long time and brought in some technical people trying to figure out how we can do that that security with the you know a number number of different ways the way that that differs from the twenty dollar bill is that everybody handles twenty dollars well not everybody most people handle twenty dollars bills on a regular basis the same design stays in play for a long time but the pill bottle that you get may be the first pill bottle you get and it may be only pill bottle you get and having that knowledge of what exactly to look for on there isn't something we teach in school or in the pharmacies or anywhere else but it's got to be something that people can tell whether it it truly is or not and that's what adds to the cost when it comes to pharmaceuticals and we're looking at inventors out there that are coming up with the different ways all the time that to make things secure not just medical medicines but we haven't we haven't found the answer yet that question are you moving in your committee towards requiring a pedigree and serial numbers is that where you're going to move in the committee and just don't yet have the consensus is that what i understand mr president that that's correct we've been working on a degree in licensure amendment bill it's actually structured as a separate bill but in anticipation of trying to add to this when we can find a solution that we really feel comfortable with and we haven't gotten there yet i think we're close but we haven't gotten there yet and it's been a joint effort with senator kennedy and i and both our staff mr president if i might further  this is first i guess i understand that the there is an issue with the and i counterfeit measures that we have put in our reimportation bill we have counterfeit confit resistant technologies that we have put in the bill i guess i hear the senator from wyoming saying they're not comfortable with those at this point i had thought the issue was was generally the philosophy of reimportation and pricing but if then and then i think we have a deeper chasm that i that i thought there was generally a consensus in this chamber that the technology that now exists whether it's r f id technology or lots of new things that are available the technology that exists should be used with respect to the latest available technology to resist counterfeiting and i thought there was perhaps a consensus on that but maybe i was wrong if there's a disagreement about whether we should have standardized in america identifiers in those things then i suppose there should be some hearings on that but i had thought we were beyond that point and that was the purpose of my offering a second degree remember that i did not expect it would be controversial to apply whether it's to the domestic drug supply or the potential reimportation of some future point the counterfeit resistant technologies that exist already exist to be made available in this country if we simply require mispresent center for miami another technicality that we work on on these and a principle that we've established that works well for the committee is that we try not to be told specific on what we're doing so that we're picking and losers and that's that's the difficulty that we had with the amendment that you propose there as well but not that it can't be worked within and come up with something that fits the criteria of the principle but one of the difficulties of debating things on the on the floor as a new amendment and an amendable is that usually there are some other ideas some principles other ways of working with it that are very difficult to do from the floor standpoint that's why we start with the markup and some of those other things and keep working with them in an in an effort and i think you've got to admit this been really pretty progressive trying to get something done th hasn't been the effort to really stall things out there been a lot of opportunities to do that but we have been trying to keep things going and hope to get something finished up on this bill so that we can get conference mr president i would say i certainly don't intend to stall this legislation is going to pass i indicated yesterday i want to see what was in the manager's package and several of the proposed amendments were under even at that point when i saw the package still under some reform or some change having reviewed it now i can tell you that i have no difficulty with the baby turtle provision the baby turtles provision i have i consider that at great length last night stayed awake considering it but decided to support the baby turtle provision and the tanning bed provision for that matter along with ginseng but i understand i'm not these are things that are being adjusted in the manager's package so i have looked through it i don't i will i don't have a problem with the specific of the manager's package my my issue today was to come to talk about the kind of resistant technologies that would be available to fight the issue of counterfeit drugs and the reason that i it important to do that is most of the discussion to defeat the dorgan snow amendment and to impose the the amendment by senator cochran was because of the discussion on the floor a what if what if we get counterfeit drugs into this country under this proposal and so the discussion was all about not the confit drugs that have come in out of the proposal but the counterfeit drugs that have already come in under the existing circumstances my thought is if counterfeiting is a big problem then the underlying bill dealing with drug safety should have the strongest possible deal provisions relating to to counterfeit resistant technologies and that is regrettably not the case i will end up voting for this bill in the when it's when we get to a final passage because it it is a step forward but it is not out there where it ought to be with respect to kind of resistant technologies and i'm understand at least part of the reason is the pharmaceutical industry doesn't you know isn't is not supportive of moving as far as we should move but  at any rate i think i prefer the senator responding to me you know frankly i think it's fine on the floor of the senate to have a discussion i don't think all the discussion ought to be somewhere in a committee i think we ought to have pretty interesting discussion here on the floor the set about what's in the bill what's not in the bill what we ought to add that would improve the bill but i appreciate senator from wyoming responding to me and as i indicated i have a second degree amendment along with a couple of other presidents president clinton from ohio i i would like spoke speak from on and i think senator dorgan saw pretty important compromise he saying that we should at least preserve the drug safety provisions in the in the in his reimportation amendment these provisions are the result of significant discussion with public safety experts and i believe that this senate should support senator dorgan on this whether or not we agree on the issue of re importation and there is clearly a split in this body we do agree on the importance of safety in our domestic supply and i there clearly been attempts to counterfeit inside the domestic supply and i think the dorgan amendment brings us to a place that can help us answer those questions opponents to reimportation i think are wrong but i understand that that they raise these issues of drug safety those same issues of counterfeiting are present in the in our in our domestic supply as senator dorgan said under under the law under the situation we're in today sort of begs mr president the larger question of drug safety overall and drugs one of the biggest one of the worst ways we compromise drug safety is by limiting access to affordable prescription drugs in this country and that live that limiting of access is because of the high cost of prescription drugs it means that that too many of us know of situations we've come up that people come up to me and zanesville and in lima and and toledo  cleveland and that i you know i had to cut a cut cut my prescription in half i had to cut my pills in half so they last twice as long or i took pills every other day and until we can find ways which this bill makes some steps in that direction with the citizen petition process and other things make some steps and getting lower cost prescription drugs into people's hands when their doctors prescribe them the reimportation issue was one way we could have done that better and i'm hopeful that we can at least work with senator dorgan on one some of these issues to to bring us to the point that we really are satisfied that art that the domestic supply or prescription drugs is a safe is it can the president press center for my thank the senator from ohio for his comments but i i want to give a little bit more of an answer to the senator from north dakota who has really invested a lot of time and and effort over the years in a variety of these issues that deal with safety of our drug supply and i've got to tell you we just got your second degree amendment so anything we've had has been a very cursory look at it and we're willing to sit down we hope that your staff will sit down with my staff and and take a look at it and see what can be done might i point out though the second degree remember this language taken out of the dorgan snow bill that we filed months and months ago so it's identical language with respect to counterfeit resistant technologies is not the language that mr president night i am hoping that since we did not have a chance on the drug importation and i want to make the point that that's important not reimportation we didn't have a chance to sit down and work on that and work through it to see what changes could be made on that it would only be logical that a portion of that we probably ought to sit down and look at it and work on and we're never sure on the second degree amendment whether it is exactly the same but again didn't have the opportunity to work on that with you and i think all of the staff that have been working on this has been working in a very bipartisan way to come up with a solution so we'll take a look at that specific part and see what see what can be done with it am floor majority leader as president i have an amendment which i filed last week with senator bingaman on conflict of interest issues before the advisory committees of the food and drug administration now i understand that there may be an objection i hope there is not to setting aside the pending amendment and calling this amendment for consideration i don't want to catch anyone off guard with this request and i hope the senator from wyoming will know what i'm about to request if it's not consistent with the current is current wishes but i'm asking that the pending amendment be set aside unanimous consent and that we move to a member number one zero three four which i have filed at the desk  and i will object there are several other people that are in that same position of wanting to do is trying to come up with some kind of logical order so it's actions here and i thank the senator from wyoming and i will take it personally i just want to say that the issue which i'm raising here is one that i think needs to be part of this bill what is the food and drug administration it is a relatively small federal agency with a huge responsibility we spend about one point seven billion dollars a year on the food drug administration in a huge federal budget and this tiny agency is responsible for the safety of about twenty five percent of all of the things that we purchase as americans they have responsibility when it comes to drugs devices biologics food veterinary medicines all sorts of different equipment this small agency has a huge responsibility and we give them more and more things to do and we trust the integrity of the food and drug administration we believe that the food and drug administration giving its approval means something we can trust they reached a decision that's something we're about to buy is safe and effective and for most americans that's the seal of approval how do they reach that level of integrity they set up it buys a re committees these are the wisest men and women they can find in our country that really take a close look at each one of the things that they review and inspect to determine whether or not they are truly safe and effective it's kind of a jury the jury maybe ten twenty thirty different people who sit in make a decision now these decisions are critically important i don't think i overstate when i say that these decisions are life and death decisions they are going to decide that a certain pill which a pharmaceutical company says will help you with your heart condition in fact is safe for americans to take an www it will do what it's supposed to do if they make a bad decision and the pill is not safe a person's health can be jeopardized so truly it is a life and death decision these advisory committees make  administration in addition these are very important economic decisions giving the seal of approval for a new drug means for that drug company the potential of making millions if not billions of dollars so the stakes are high each time the advisory committee makes a decision they know that lives are on the line and they also know that a thumbs up and a decision of approval can mean that the stock of this company is going to rise their profits will rise they'll make more money for shareholders they'll have more money for research it is a big undertaking and so it's not unfair for us to ask who are the people who sit on these advisory committee who are the people who are the jurors who try to impartially look at these issues and decide what's best for the american people well it turns out that we've had some problems some significant problems in the past you would think it would be obvious to us that we don't want to put people sitting on the juries on the advisory committees who have a conflict of interest what about someone who is on the payroll of the pharmaceutical company that wants a drug approved would you want that person sitting on the advisory committee what about someone who has earned fifty thousand dollars coincidently speaking to this company's annual retreat in some caribbean island would you want that person on the advisory committee what about someone who is on the payroll receiving money from a company that can stand to make millions of dollars if the decision goes right way well the natural human reaction is well should most people sit somewhere else they should really be in the room if we're talking about their employer if we're talking about someone who has paid the money they should be part of the should they we want people sitting in that room who don't have any conflict of interest any vested interest in the decision we want people truly objective dispassionate and truthful i think most americans would agree that's a pretty obvious thing well it turns out over time the food and drug administration got a little bit lax a little bit sloppy back seven or eight years ago u today published a dramatic expos about these advisory committees they came to the conclusion that the experts sitting on these advisory committees who are supposed to be independent many times had a direct financial interest in the decision they were about to make how often did it occur in ninety two percent of the advisory committee meetings this goes back seven or eight years now but in ninety two percent of the meetings at least one member sitting in that room deliberating at a financial conflict of interest at more than half of the meetings half or more of the members of the committee had a conflict of interest what difference does it make it make any difference if the person deciding the fate of a product that means profit or loss for a major corporation is on the payroll of that corporation i think it does it turns out it was a problem then which the food and administration started to address but unfortunately has not addressed effectively last week a study by the new england journal of medicine widely recognized and respected examine the pharmaceutical interests farmers tical industries financial ties to doctors here's what they found more than a third of doctors report being reimbursed by the drug industry for the cost of attending professional meetings and continuing medical education and almost thirty percent said they had been paid for consulting giving lectures or signing up patients for clinical trials so when it comes to doctors in general it turns out that a third of them have a conflict of interest so any patient walking into a doctor's office and the doctor says you know i think you should take x y z drug you like to believe that doctors made that decision because they think that's the best drug for you or a member your family it's worrisome that in some instances these doctors have a conflict of interest this new england journal of medicine article went on to say in the words of a prominent harvard expert jerry eva orner the penetration of commerce into the province of science causes great concern it's the same issue here when it comes to these advisory committee now the argument that comes back from the f d a and the pharmaceutical interest three is there just aren't enough smart people out there we have to turn our employees and people that we have on the payroll in people we paid money to into these advisory committee because there aren't enough good people out there to sit on these advisory committees well the new york times i think made a good observation when it comes to that here's what they said unless the food and drug administration makes a more aggressive effort to find unbiased experts or medical researchers start severing their ties with industry a whiff of bias maintain the verdicts of many advisory panels here's what they've found over and over again these conflicts of interest can cause a problem let's be very specific february two thousand and five f d a advisory committee considering painkillers byock spec strip celebrates whether they should be sold to the public there were ten scientists sitting advisory committee who had conflicts of interest they had some financial connection with the companies that made the products that they were judging had the votes of those ten scientists been excluded because of their conflicts of interest the panel would have favored withdrawing bextra from the market and blocking the return of vioxx instead with the ten conflicted scientists and experts they voted that the drugs returned to the market well we know what happened we quickly learned that some of these drugs were very dangerous and they were withdrawn people were having heart problems and other medical difficulties they should never been brought back to the market what impact did the presence of these people with conflicts of interest have on them on the deliberations it could not have been positive it could not have been objective they came to this with some financial interest at least in the companies that were affected by the decision here's  we were moving at twelve fifty to the consideration of a judge will be voted on in twenty minutes judge kampala of illinois i would like to have the time start on that i'll close my remarks on this a few words about judge po then the remaining ten minutes for sent to speak is objectionable without objection thank you and i'll be very brief because i see senator specter's on the floor so what i'm trying to do is make sure we only have one waiver permitting one person sitting in an advisory committee meeting that might have a conflict of just we go on to say that any person with a financial interest in the company that's affected by the decision can't be participating in our voting on the final decision i think that only makes sense and the third thing we say is that the food and drug administration has to actively promote more objective scientific experts without conflicts of interest i don't think this is a radical proposal don't we want peace of mind at the end of the day that that advisory committee as made a decision based on science and medicine and what's good for america as opposed to the bottom line profit loss statement  company there's a lot of discussion as floor about the safety of drugs and the products that the f d a considers i hope that this amendment which is critical to the integrity of the f d a is approved by my colleagues on a bipartisan basis i hope to offer this amendment tomorrow after we've gone through this rough procedural patch let me say just a brief word or two about judge policy fredricka pala has been nominated by senator obama and myself to be a federal district court judge in the northern district of illinois he's an excellent state court judge served for the past quarter century as a great reputation it's a very positive thing to say that ninety nine percent of the attorneys surveyed gave judge compile a positive recommendation for his temperament integrity and management skills and a unanimous rating a well qualified by the american bar association the highest rating a nominee can receive he has been judged by many to be an excellent candidate for the federal bench i've met with him personally of medicine family and like this man i think he'll survive judiciary well and i hope in a few minutes when we vote on this hill will receive an overwhelming vote of support and finally mr president i ask  that my my remarks be separated in the rec would those reflecting on the pending legislation with the f d a be separate from my remarks on behalf of some of judge the public without objection thank you very much to yield for mr president under the previous or that our of eleven fifty a m having arrived the senate will proceed to executive session to consider executive calendar number eighty four which the clerk will report nomination the judiciary federal jake appollo of illinois to  united states district judge the senior senator from pennsylvania as president and i agree with the senator from illinois who has spoken in support of the nomination for judge frederick  kappa his law degree from the university of illinois where he was a mood cork board member has a professional career which is diversified with extensive judicial experience he was an  t state's attorney that's the prosecuting attorney and illinois on graduation for law school for a year then he practiced law for five years and has been  time i would like to i will discuss what we're doing on the immigration bail because there are been so many inquiries that i would ask a consent that appear in a separate part of the congressional record under our morning business without objection we all know the history of the immigration legislation from the one hundred  for many weeks we have met tuesday wednesday and thursday from four to six with the as many as a dozen republican senators present with the secretary of homeland security and the secretary of cause president very substantial white house involvement reflecting the president's statement that he wants a comprehensive immigration reform bill unique process illustrated last week where we met for two and a half hours with a dozen senators being present pretty hard to keep it out some senators sitting in one room at one time going over  a great many ideas but we have come to an agreement on what their way of called a grand bargain quote which is the outlier of an immigration  bill there is no doubt that we need to protect our borders and we have legislated for fencing we want to provide fencing to protect the major metropolitan areas can't have a fence for the entire length of the border we have proposed and are prepared to enact legislation which would provide for six thousand additional border patrol to bring the number to twelve thousand we  are proposing a very strong employer sanctions we do not want employment in the united states to be a magnet for illegal immigration and it is now technically possible to have full proof and then a fixation can be costly and we're still working through the details but there's no daf we want to shake your the border and stop illegal immigration  as the first time we are talking about triggers so that we don't move ahead to dealing with the eleven million undocumented immigrants we're dealing with a temporary worker program until we tough sanctions on the employers but you can't do that unless they have a fair opportunity to know who is legal and and who is illegal we are rejecting the idea of amnesty for the eleven million undocumented immigrants they're going to have to earn for being on the citizenship path as the at the end we are going to require that they pay their back taxes that they have community roots they have a substantial period of employment and that they learn english we're going to do our best to deport those who have criminal records and there is a real security risk with  e some of the undocumented immigrants who have criminal records and where they do commit crimes it is a practical impossibility to a port eleven million undocumented immigrants we're trying to structure a temporary worker program which is temporary coming only for the purpose of filling and then returning to their native countries and we are we are looking at  a system so that if there are americans united states citizens people in this country who can take the jobs that they will have the first choice the majority leader has stated publicly his intention to proceed under rule fourteen file a bill this week perhaps tomorrow and listed for floor debate next monday meeting so i have to confess there's been a fair amount of wheels spinning but that we are not yet ready to proceed next monday on the fourteenth to take up the bill in the last two weeks before memorial day as the majority leader has scheduled i can understand the majority leader's concern about them moving ahead and holding our feet to the fire to try to produce a bill and about this every time i step into the quarter so i thought it would be useful to give this brief summary without the talking waiver to impact on the senator leahy's time but with a note that some democratic time on the judicial so grand without objection and this president significant progress today with another confirmation of a lifetime appointment to the federal bench i'm sure that  only mention this because if you listen to really come down to being totally mistruths whether by the vice president or others you would think that we have and we block presidents judges it's a little known and obviously unappreciated fact by the white house and i know i must look at this although i've only talked to the president's counsel for the last six years i think people three or four times a current one twice but during the more than six years of the bush presidency more circuit judges more district judges more total judges have been confirmed twice or is to assure the chairman that when  mr casey chambliss mrs clinton mr coburn mr cochran mr coleman ms collins mr conrad ground mr grassley mr gregg mr hagel mr harkin mr hatch mrs mr kerry mr lieberman mrs lincoln mr lott mr lugar mr martinez mr mccain mr sessions mr shelby mr smith ms snow mr white house mr wide mr demand mr demand  mr schumer mr schumer a roberts mr roberts a mr thomas mr thomas  mrs boxer mrs boxer  g we want to say about any senators wishing to vote or change their vote