teaches us to rejoice in the privileges you have strewn on our path and to use our opportunities for service help us to use the up sacred scripture as a lamp to guide us through the darkness of challenging times may we use the gift of interest us to use the gift of your spirit to preserve us from self pity and to endow us with peace in the midst of life storm infuse our senators with your love give them a come hashim that will prompt them to labor for the eradication of injustice perform the duties of the chair by robert c byrd present for temporary as president majority leader is recognized i believe there are two bills at the desk and they're due for a second reading clerk will report the bills and block as twenty one ninety eight a bill to require the architect of the capitol to permit acknowledgment of god on flag certificates as twenty two zero five to authorize the cancellation of removal and adjustment following all first agreements by one p m today dishy there is a commitment to complete action on this bill by noon on tuesday told by twelve thirty i should say on tuesday of the no roll call votes today but i do expect a number of members to offer amendments during today's session mine are saying this morning senator coburn senator brown will offer amendments most will occur monday evening around five thirty and there could be a could be a long series of votes  ten minutes this president yesterday senator lieberman then senator warner released language for a legislative approach to address global climate change the committee also announced  subcommittee hearing on this legislation for october the twenty fourth that's next week i also understand that the subcommittee intends to mark up this legislation on october the thirty first and move it to the full committee soon thereafter gallies the commitment of senator lieberman and senator warner both of whom i hold in the highest regard they are very interested in this issue as i am i however i am concerned about the aggressive committee agenda for the consideration and markup of this legislation i would hope that the legislation would proceed under regular order which for complex environmental legislation establishing a new emissions control regimes typically includes multiple hearings on the legislative language with ample time ample time for members to review the legislative language and to weigh the impact on their respective states for example when the committee was considering multiple luton emission reduction legislation under the clear skies act the committee held three legislative hearings over a period of two months before proceeding to a markup in this president i was chairman of that clean air climate change and nuclear regulatory commission committee and we understood that it would take several weeks for people to really comprehend what we were doing and we had i mentioned at least three hearings that process allowed the committee to hear from the environmental protection agency state local officials union representatives public interest groups various trade association and representatives from financial institutions this approach provided members with the input and time necessary for meaningful participation in the committee markup process the subcommittee on environmental protection followed a similar process during cassette aeration of the one nine hundred ninety amendments to the clean air act hundred eighty nine to the final arc up in december eighty nine the subcommittee held three legislative hearings which provided members with a valuable opportunity to question a wide variety of witnesses and the implications of specific provisions in this legislation i also note that on environmental legislation of significant importance the committee has a history of expending the time and consideration necessary to achieve broad bipartisan support before reporting legislation out of committee in the past this is that has ensured that when moving from full committee to the senate floor the legislation has matured sufficiently for consideration by the full senate body i believe this front and work on consensus is even more important given the current demands on floor time and the underlying legislative atmosphere in general but this process is also important because we cannot afford to get this raw i believe that rushing legislation through committee will not affect a reasonable solution to the problem we must find a way to harmonize policies that address our nation's energy economic and environmental needs and the only way we can do this is by taking a detail look at what has been proposed unfortunately in too many instances we've had as a nation what i refer to as the tail wagging the dog environmental policy that's hurting our nation's international competitiveness and what i mean by that mr president is this is that we just as we do too often and we just have silos that we look at we just look at the environment and fail to take into consideration this country's energy needs fail to consider the economic situation that we have in our country and how does this impact on our businesses how does it impact for example in terms of energy costs on the poor and the and the retire i are people that we have throughout this country and here's an example of that coal fired power plants have become increasingly clean yet they face  daunting number of new air quality requirements many of the requirements are duplicative inefficient and create considerably uncertainty for an industry that's providing the nation with one of its most critical resource safe economic and repack reliable power generation the fact for instance that we haven't stayed at that straightened out new source review has really put a lid on many of these power plants from becoming more efficient because they're not sure just what they can or cannot do these policies every zol that in a sharp increase in the use of natural gas for electric power generation accounting for almost ninety four percent of the increase in domestic demand for natural gas in hundred two the demand for natural gas is sending ripple effects throughout the economy because of its use as both a fuel and feedstock for the production of everything from fertilizer to plastics to eating homes like have to say is someone out of compare the cost of fertilizer today with what it was say back in two thousand and one or visit the city of cleveland ohio and look at the  bills of those people who live in the city that are three hundred percent more today than they were back in two thousand and one this is also contributed to over two hundred thousand a manufacturing jobs loss in ohio many of them i've been in the chemical plastics area and the share price increases continue it impair the competitive position of u s manufacturing come companies and domestic and world markets is to give you an example several years ago we export a nine billion dollars worth of chemical products the day we no longer export those products we are now importing about eight billion dollars of the chemical products here in the united states and our nation's environmental policies have really had an impact on our economy but one thing has become clear there's a faction of groups that have made it their priority to kill something that's really important  in our state mr president and that's coal those that support the subject of illustrated to me that this dialogue is being driven by ideological extremes this is unfortunate and does nothing to foster an environment where rational policy choices may be made about the serious issues that we face i recognize that we need to address climate change but any reasonable climate change policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would also promote economic stability reduction should not cause fuel switching sharply electricity rate increases our economic dislocation too we should promote technological development legislation must provide incentives to advance the pace of technology i've said to my friends that are very supportive of cap and trade i understand the importance of cap and trade but i think the thing that should drive any type of mandate or when one must comply by years should be driven by the state of technology that we have in this country in terms of capturing carbon and she questioning it and last provide for reductions for developing countries we can that send jobs overseas to countries that have that don't share our environmental objectives i'll never forget that when we were was going to have a very negative effect on the state of ohio and i said to jim i said you know jim if this legislation passes the way it is today you're going to cause our energy costs to increase astronomically and what it's going to do is going to take our manufacturing jobs and drive them overseas to countries that don't have the environmental policies that we have here in the united states these goals are to keep the nation's economy strategic value from a national security an economic perspective cannot be underestimated it is simply nonsensical to put a policy in place that would jeopardize this resource climate change requires a long term solution which strategy is fully capable of accommodating the time necessary to get the technology in place that will ensure calls continued viability and i want to make it very clear mr president that i don't question one iota the issue of the impact that we are having and climate change today in this country and that we have a problem that needs to be taken care of the real issue is how do we get it done in a way that really gets it done how do we get it done in a way that doesn't give the impression that we are doing a lot about it but when you peel it back we're really in effect not doing that much about it and in the process we are dislocating jobs from this country sending them overseas and forcing many of our utilities to go to natural gas which is already as i mentioned earlier astronomically high we have to look at all of these things when we're putting this together it's going to take time and i think that we could work something out on a bipartisan basis so i think that my real play today is that the environment and public works committee does everything that they can to make sure that we have the time necessary to discuss this to see if as of there isn't some way that we can bind to get a consensus on this legislation to harmonize our energy  our power environmental concerns here in this country the point of all of this is that the same engine is the take the time to fully understand the costs and benefits of the policies that are three five eight the call the senator from oklahoma mr coburn proposes amendment number thirty three fifty eight to amendment number thirty three twenty five at the appropriate place in the following section a this section may be cited as the children's which is about the topic that was just mentioned as the clerk read the children's health care first act of two thousand and seven there's been a lot of debate a lot of politics on children's health care  the house failed to override what i think was a poor solution to taking care of children in this country by expanding children's health care through the s chip program spending four thousand dollars to get twenty three hundred dollars worth of coverage for kids but what we do know is that we do have problems with health care we need to be debating health care we need to figure out which is how we're going to do this myself and senator have a a bill that solve the health care problems which has not been considered yet that were true we're soliciting and have received a number of co sponsors this amendment however redirect this towards priorities so it's something we need to talk about something the senate doesn't talk about we we had numerous quotes in this body about how important it is to make sure kids in this country have access to care  and what we do know and i use the number twenty three hundred dollars because that's the high end if we were to buy every kid in this country a health insurance policy it's probably more like seventeen hundred dollars so if you take the twenty three hundred dollars that we have as a high end number to buy kids health insurance not put them in something's got a medicaid stamp or an ash chip stamp on their forehead but allowed to buy private private health insurance and you look at the earmarks in this bill which are three hundred ninety eight million dollars you could in fact buy insurance for one hundred seventy three thousand kids just in this bill alone from earmarks one hundred and seventy three thousand children could be covered for health care from the air marshal alone in this bill that's the man that's real simple if everybody in this body who claims they want to take care of kids and their health care they ought to be willing to give up their march to cover kids so what this bill says is let's hold no earmarks no directed spending and till such time we have covered the kids in this country we put kids ahead of us we put kids ahead of our political interest we put children's health care ahead of the politics and and the consequential action of using politics in terms of earmark spending now four hundred million dollars is a lot of money four hundred million dollars it's out of the priorities of what this country ought to be doing that in this bill that's member directed spending and this amendment simply says we don't direct any of that money none of it zero not one  until we have karen for the kids until we're caring for the kids so in essence what we're doing by accepting this amendment is said instead of rhetoric we're going to say kids really c we're going to start putting the priorities back if access to care for children is important is it less important than your favorite earmark you know i'm noted if you total up certain of the earmarks in one certain state that has seventy two million dollars where the earmarks you have enough to cover all the uninsured kids in that state all the uninsured kids in that state just of the earmarks in this bill so what are our priorities are our priorities children are our priorities the health care of kids this amendment is going to be a fun vote because what it's going to tell your constituency is is kids really aren't important if you vote to keep your earmarks but if you say i'm willing to bet on that to abate on the earmarks and i'm going to do what's right this amendment says none of this directed spending goes till the secretary of h h s certifies the kids under eighteen in this country have access and have care and we've had months of debate about the children's s chip we're going to have more because another bill common but it seems to me the american public might want to ask why are you earmark and special money for special projects when you have a chance to make sure it will go towards children and really  problem so this is going to be a tough though kids first my political career kids versus my political power kids versus my political earmarks we're going to see we're going to get to see what the real priorities of the senate  is it our ability to direct funds without competition with without oversight to special projects all across this country or is it to truly solve the health care needs of the kids of this country real simple real straightforward it's either yes or no kids are important directed unaccountable noncompetitive earmarks art or political power political earmarks noncompetitive grants no oversight is more important than kids have an access to health care four hundred million dollars in  was set aside for children's health care in this bill with this amendment so it's it's it's the reason it's called children's health care first act it's because children ought to come first as parents we put  kids first or at least we should should the senate not put the kids first should we not put them out in front to make sure that they are our priority are we going to play the game well this isn't the way to do it sen to this is going to speak volumes to the american public about what our priorities are challenge this body on our priorities i'm going to continue to challenge the body on the priorities and ask as we vote on this amendment the american people are going to see what our priorities are it's either going to be kids or it's going to be us let's just talk about what's in this bill this is the bill through which congress can and should provide funding for health care for children diverts four hundred million dollars away from children's hill in order to pay for earmarks here's just a little bit lean of what the earmarks are three hundred fifty thousand dollars for an arts center hundred thousand dollars for a celebration around the like five hundred thousand dollars for field trips five hundred thousand dollars for a virtual herbarium fifty thousand dollars for an eye cent hundred thirty thousand dollars for national first lady's library catalogue how can we spend money on those things when kids in this country don't have access to kids so we're going to debate this again on monday when it comes in when we come back in but it's going to be a test of what our true priorities are and you're going to see all the rhetoric in the world on the bill you've seen it you've seen it in television advertisements against people who didn't think that that was the best way to do it now's a chance to put your words into action either kids are important or they're not but it would seem they're going to be less important than our political power our our political expediency and our ability to empower the select tactic it's not i think the future of health care in this country is the single one of the single most important things that this body should talk about and this is dr coburn went down the list of earmarks that we find in the bill  you know the incredible thing is it didn't seem odd here in those on this floor because we're all dying but for the american people when you hear about a field trip cost and fifty thousand dollars to the chesapeake bay america thinks that's probably a field trip for members of congress i'm not sure we could find the chesapeake bay i'm not sure we can get outside of the thirty square miles around it by reality call washington d c and that there in lies a lot of the problem all we're asking our colleagues to do is express your view to a vote where the children are more important than the personal interest of the air marked i've got some in this bill i give them up long as i know that the money's going to where it can do some good now we've debated children's health and i voted against the extension of last you have bill my governor lobbied extremely hard for me to support that bill now all of a sudden we're talking about covering one hundred seventy seven thousand kids in america with this bill i'm gonna call from my governor the governors are willing to take it if it's a lump sum with no conditions and they can use that however they want to but when you really targeted on kids what is this about this is about prevention this is about creating a medical home for kids versus delivery of care in the emergency room because both of them don't cost him anything you see the misunderstanding about the american health care system today is that if you can't pay and you walk into an emergency room every emergency room is required to provide that care for you well that creates a tremendous call shift and for those of us that pay out of our pocket or we pay because we've got insurance coverage our insurance goes up and the rate out of pocket goes up because we're having to compensate for the people who don't pay for the people who don't have coverage for the people that we haven't changed our health care system to reflect what their conditions are well we've got an opportunity to begin to chip away at it we've got an opportunity to insure at least one hundred seventy thousand seven thousand people this if this were just north carolina mr president the twenty three hundred dollars that dr coburn talked about for the cost of a policy would be closer to thirteen hundred forty two dollars we could actually insure more children in north carolina and he probably couldn't oklahoma but we know people will call into question our numbers so we take the most conservative what's the most expensive it could cost now let me remind my colleagues that under the s chip program that we passed if the federal government to provide this care it was allocated somewhere between thirty four hundred dollars and four thousand dollars per child there's the reason you never want the federal government negotiating your health care i came here thirteen years ago my insurance was with a company  just over fifty employees and when i became a federal employee and i accessed my care with the same employer with the same plan of coverage only one thing changed my premium went up because the federal government had negotiated my plan i learned last year when my older son became twenty two and i got a notice from blue cross blue shield that the federal plan to drop our children at twenty two regardless of whether they're in school or not now mine happens to still be in school and i hope this year will graduate but i was placed like every federal employee with the fact that i had a child who was no longer going to be insured under my family plan and i thought for sure called the federal government they would tell me they had already  d a plan that i could step in right over to and they had it was the same blue cross blue shield plan he was under and what was the annual cost fifty four hundred dollars a year for a twenty two year old healthy  fifty four hundred dollars what did i pay in the first year fourteen hundred and twenty eight dollars fourteen hundred twenty eight dollars same deductible same co pay same coverage one big difference one of the reasons that expansion of the s chip is a bad thing actually change in the health care system to cover forty seven million americans children and adults who today don't have insurance is a good thing i would vote today for the current s chip to be reauthorized forced to put enough money on to make sure nobody is dropped from the rolls to change the formula for the state so th that were cheated were in fact treated fairly and i'd vote for today but why would i expand a program that pays thirty percent too much to fifty percent too much to cover our kids when the answer to healthcare is fix the system while the reality is that we're here about this amendment this amendment would force congress to prioritize between children's health rather than parochial pork projects over seven hundred projects almost four hundred million dollars that we could redirect from this one appropriations bill and devoted fully to the nine point five million uninsured children in this country nine point five is the number in total three point nine of those have been without insurance for over a year so as you can tell you've got the majority of the children's population that is considered uninsured that it's some point in the last twelve months has actually been insured going back to s chip expansion one of the clear facts about expanding s chip not just the numbers of kids that are on it but the income level is that i don't think americans believe that income at eighty two thousand dollars needs to be subsidized by the federal government and that's where they were driving the income limits for s chip but probably more important than that is that we were actually taken kids off of their parents insurance and we were putting them on the federal government's insurance we were taking kids that ride for free on their parents insurance and we were now paying four thousand dollars to put them on the federal taxpayers out of looked at us and thought we were crazy that we're even debating this there was an exclusion in the expansion of s chip that said you know what we're going to take the ones that are only uninsured today no we would take it all of them will take the ones that are insured and we'll flip them over and that many of them will express their preference that we put children's health in front of projects i actually believe today if it passed it would never come out of conference the earmark for chill back up the children's health would go away would happen some point in that process and quite honestly who would lose it kids are the ones that are losing today because we're not debating what we should be debating and that's health care reform uninsured today are the ones that are losing because we should be debating health care reform every american is losing today because for those that are insured for those that have seen their premium rise high single and double digits every year for the past ten years and they've asked why i tell you why it's because we won't fix health care it's because your premium increases reflective of those who aren't covered and tom coburn and i are here today saying we should cover and we've got a plan to do it and it doesn't distinguish between adults and children and through cover in those forty seven million or whatever the number is we will save two hundred billion dollars a year in cost shifting and that two hundred dollars or two hundred billion dollars a year will be begin to bring everybody's premiums in america down for the first time in the last decade so it's not just an effect on the uninsured it's not just an effect on children it's not just an effect on adults it's an effect on every american who currently has private insurance and the reality of the impact on their premium cost i know the president of  is a big proponent of prevention he's outspoken on it you can't have prevention without coverage you can't have real present prevention that individuals buy and to unless there is a reward on the other end the reward of healthy decisions is that you're less risky for illness and when you're less of a risk your premium cost goes down eventually i'd like to see every american own their health insurance policy i'd like to see us have the ability to take an insurance policy from one employer to another because we've negotiated not an employer i'd love to see every american in a position where they're not holding onto a job that they hate or in a location that they dislike because they can't afford to give up health insurance i want to see them have ownership of health care just like they do with their four one k plan that they can make a decision what's best for their family what's best for their future and which best for their occupation without healthcare being the pivotal piece of that decision doesn't exist today were held hostage by the employer based system it's not to say that i'm proposing we get away from it i'm only suggesting that a partnership between individuals and employers partnership between individuals and insurance companies on an effort by congress to restructure health care to reform insurance products to provide america with an unlimited basket of options for coverage is a good thing we created part the medicare for the first time we extended prescription drug coverage to seniors in the country not an oversight  sixty five the medications at that time weren't really used widely to treat patients today it's part of every office visit for sick person some type of medication so we don't know exactly where we're headed when we created part of something targeted just for medicare eligible individuals today eighty four percent of the population eligible has signed up what's our experience after the first year because i believe it's important to look at outcomes and not be focused on process our experiences premiums drop twenty eight percent the cost that every medicare eligible person paid last year this year drops twenty percent on average for part d coverage but what about the drug cost what about the pills that they're buying every month or every quarter first year a reduction in the cost of services delivered pharmaceuticals of thirty three percent one we extended the offer to all seniors we didn't exclude anybody to we created real competition real competition means that if there is a federal piece we had private sector companies private sector plans private sector options that competed and we made sure that there was a robust basket of competition and third and probably most important for the first time we forced transparency in health care we actually made plans and pharmacists pharmacies list the price of certain drugs online so that we could do what we do best in america we could shop where the price was the most advantageous for what it was we wanted to purchase and you know what we learned seniors are very aggressive at it i knew that about my grandparents before they died i'm finding that out as my parents get older that they get just a little bit tighter they want to make that decision that's financially to their benefit well we've extended that opportunity to millions of medicare eligible individuals in this country when we talk about creating the same model takin that positive experience that we had with part b and that extending it over to the entire population that's under private insurance giving them options options a deal with real competition transparency that deals with prices the opportunity for those that are covered by employers to have reductions in their premiums and over some period of time for those americans that want to take advantage of it to actually have ownership on a plan that they've negotiated it's not locked that doesn't lock them into an employer but they're able to use that in a portable way to switch jobs without having to renegotiate their coverage well i think i've presented to you where we are today and where i think we need to go over some period of time in the united states senate it  won't happen if members take this opportunity to insure one hundred seventy seven thousand children who are currently uninsured who currently calls a call shift in america who currently receive emergency care and aren't provided prevention who currently don't have a medical home a doctor that they actually know that they can call whether it's a sore throat or an earache or heaven forbid the current staph infection that's going around that has killed now one out of five individuals who have been infected whether it's presently live in a very dangerous world a dangerous world that should take what's best about our health care system and that's prevention and diagnosis and should make sure that every can has you can't have it without coverage you've gotta start somewhere and this hundred seventy seven thousand is the perfect place for us to start content dependent man and be set aside and call it the minute three three nine nine sides i'll come over and talk with you about it  good members the united states senate may offer interesting ideas on the floor of the senate i want to just point out however that the issue of quote earmarks quote unquote which they discuss and describe a lot is really legislative directed funding which is a very very small percentage in many cases and bills it's one or two or three percent of the funding the rest of it goes down town to some agency in the folks inside that agency make a decision where they spend their money i've heard it many times is there's there's no virtue and there's certainly no value in having any legislative directed funding let the agency down town determine how every single dollar is spent well the power the person course in the constitution rests with united states congress we are responsible and we are accountable for the taxpayers dollars are spent let me give you one example that i think is important we just finished in this country something called the human genome project a lot of people won't know what that means perhaps but it is an unbelievable success story we unlock the mystery of the genes we now have for the first time in the history of the human race an owners manual for the human body for the first time we have an owner's manual manual for the human body in the human genome project you know what the human genome project has done it's going to dramatically change the way we treat diseases it will in many cases allow us to determine how we provide that dread diseases and already we're seeing substantial results from it we had a briefing by dr francis collins recently and he had just come from a meeting in cambridge england where all of the folks are using this break down of the genetic codes that the has come from the human genome project and he describes some of the treatments for looking me and other things that are just breathtaking as a result of the human genome project th creates the breakdown of the genetic code of the human body and has the first provides us the first owner's manual for the human body well guess what yes that came from an earmark on the floor of the ny state senate that's the way the human genome project started because someone in the united states congress decided this approach had merit and should be done no it didn't come from some decision by some g s thirteen or g s fifteen downtown and some agency came from the united states senate in legislative directed spending ice i tell you that only to point out that this for joran if term quote earmark unquote is suggesting that this is all a waste and  pork and so on it is not the case but i recognize and we recognize it got out of hand and so we cut it way back and made it all transparent the point is there are some good ideas coming from the congress have been for a long long time one of them was the human genome project started with an earmark or legislative directive funding here in the united states congress that's just one but it's one that will affect the lives of virtually every american perhaps everybody on this earth who in the future has one of the dread diseases or whose health care is challenge but are i should say whose health is challenged but i just want to make that point that we're making progress and i commend those who have pointed out that some of the  directed funding ought to be cut back we have cut it back very substantially but that which remains in most cases represents good investment and investment that complements what is done in the federal agencies as well as i might also observe that the proposal today to increase the health insurance coverage for children i believe was one hundred seventy thousand children we just had a vote on increasing health care for children who are not covered by health care at this point for three point eight million american children and that failed we passed it here passed the house it failed because the president vetoed it interestingly enough now we have people coming to the floor of the senate say let's cover more children but we had a chance to cover three point eight million more children and it was fully paid for but we couldn't get that done because the president vetoed it it wasn't his priority and he had sufficient support here in the united states congress for his position that it's not a priority and now i suppose we will see a lot of other proposals to say well we really should cover children just far fewer so again i respect my colleagues i believe we should cover children and we certainly should perhaps revisit this vote to see if those three point eight million children who are we going to be left without coverage if the president and those who support him wouldn't rethink their position and believe that represents a priority i don't know as i've said often i don't know what's in second third or fourth place in most people's lives but i know what's in first place their kids i know what's most important people's lives their children and their children's health and if that is not a priority i just don't understand i've said often one hundred years from now we'll all be dead and historians can take a look at what our value system was by determining what we see what we spend money on what was our priority what it what was our value system what did we think was important and i hope they would look back at the federal budget and voted on these appropriations bills they both were proud that their priority was their kids providing health care coverage for children what on earth is wrong with a political system that doesn't believe that's the number one priority well president nothing about that let me i want to talk if i might about children's health care but i want to focus mostly on indian children and i want to talk about indian health care generally and the reason i'm doing that is chairman of the indian affairs committee here in the senate and senator reid has indicated we will have on the floor of the senate perhaps within a week perhaps two weeks the indian health care improvement it's been fifteen years since that has been debated on the floor the united states senate indian health care improvement why separate categories indian health care why separate we have a trust responsibility this country promised through treaty through other obligations this country said to the indian people we have a trust responsibility to provide for your health care so it's not something that that the native americans the first americans said we want you to give this to us we insist upon it it was an agreement a treaty agreement by this country to say in many cases a treaty and other cases just a solemn promise to say we will provide health care coverage to american indians as part of our trust responsibility the indian health care improvement act expired in the year two thousand has not been reauthorized that is seven years later doesn't mean there's not indian health care it's there is some but it's horribly inadequate in any event we should reauthorize that act and modernize it and with respect to native americans we have fallen tragically short of what our responsibilities would insist that we do let me describe what we're spending and how well we're doing with respect to health care medicare medicare we spend six thousand seven hundred dollars per medicare patient indian health care two thousand one hundred dollars per capita we spend twice as much on health care for federal prisoners who we incarcerate as we do for american indians for whom we have a trust responsibility for health care someone incarcerated gets twice as much spent on their health care than american indians for whom we have a responsibility i'm talking about children i'm talking about elders and i talk about some of them in just a moment but you can see ranging from medicare to the v a to medicaid to federal prisons all the way down here is the lowest and the lowest is a per capita expenditure of health care for american indians for whom we have a trust responsibility mr president american indians die at a much much higher rate than other americans from tuberculosis six hundred percent higher rate of tuberculosis diabetes hundred eighty nine percent but in some parts of the country four hundred percent and eight hundred percent higher than americans alcoholism five hundred percent higher fact is we've got grim statistics coming from indian reservations with respect to the health of the first americans the rate of death of sudden and sudden infant death syndrome among native americans is the highest of any population group of the united states and more than double of non indians indian youth suicide on the northern great plains where i am from is ten times the national average last night i received a letter from a constituent on an indian reservation this constituent has had diabetes since she was eleven years old earlier this year she received a kidney and a pen chris transplant needs an anti rejection medicine to stay alive she was told yesterday when she went to the reservation clinic to get her medicine the doctor said there goes our budget pharmacist told her there are two other tribal members who receive this particular medication and when the funding is gone there'll be no more medication the stories are pretty unbelievable mr president this is a picture of a young girl named amos in a way i've described the tragedy of this young girl previously eva's little wind is fourteen years old avis is dead she took her own life mental health treatment wasn't available for ava she lay in her bed in a fetal position for three months and no one seemed alarmed by that before she finally took her life was in a school supposed to have sister committed suicide her father died with his own hands and this fourteen year old girl is gone because i presume she felt that she was hopeless and helpless those on the indian reservation dealing with mental health issues including suicide suicide prevention have virtually no resources the young lady on this indian reservation who testified at a hearing that i held once said she had a stack of files on the floor of her office she said dealing with abuse and health issues she said we don't have any resources to even investigate the files nor would we have a we have to beg to borrow a car to take one of these kids to a clinic someplace and then she broke down weeping and about a month later she resigned the fact is people are dying gave us a little wind died of suicide because mental health treatment wasn't available on that indian reservation i was in montana recently with senator tester the grandmother helmet the picture of this beautiful young girl she's five years old and her grandmother described the picture of her granddaughter named tayshaun rain little  dance and she danced in this costume and all of the power was from the time she was able to walk a beautiful little girl with a sparkle in her eye well tayshaun has gone based on lost her battle as well between may and august of last year she was taken many many times to the crow's indian health service clinic for health services they diagnosed the problem and they began to treat it they said it was depression five year old was depressed well during one of the clinic visits her grandfather said but there's something else going on take a look at the condition of her fingertips and her toes or something something happening in this little girl's body suggests the grandfather said a lack of oxygen something's going on but that concern was dismissed and finally the grandmother ask a doctor to try to eliminate the possibility of of cancer or leukemia or something of that nature but those concerns were dismissed well in august this young girl was rushed rushed from the crow clinic st vincent's hospital in billings montana next day airlifted to denver children's hospital diagnosed with incurable untreatable cancer lived another three months after the tumor was discovered in unmedicated pain she died in september and the grandmother asked our field hearing cancer had been detected earlier would it made a difference with this little five year old girl be alive none of us really know but the question of the quality of health care is a life or death issue it was recently on a wednesday morning in my state a young child on an indian reservation was burned severely burned and rushed by the mother to the indian health service clinic on the reservation only to be told that the clinic was closed for the morning for administrative purposes even after the frantic pleas by the mother this boy was refused care and so she contacted in desperation a doctor from another town outside of the reservation for assistance they directed her to bring her young son immediately she did and thankfully that young boy received treatment and has survived those severe burns she didn't get the needed healthcare at the indian health service clinic and following the treatment she did receive off the reservation after a frantic drive in an automobile the indian health service refused to cover the costs of the young  treatment so the mother's now faced with a substantial medical bill a mother who should never have been placed in the situation and a mother who doesn't have the resources to pay was present when we held a hearing in the indian affairs committee about methamphetamine the intersection of methamphetamine and health care was pretty our yes there was a courageous tribal leader that came to our hearing kathy wesley ketchikan the chairwoman of the senate carlos apache tribe in arizona she was she said embarrassed to talk about some of the things on her reservation because they're not very positive and she said it was like hearing her family's dirty laundry but she said i must she talked about her twenty two year old son to warn him about the catastrophic effect of alcoholism and substance abuse talked about losing her grandson and she broke down talking about her wonderful grandson a rodeo champion champion who'd won twenty six belt buckles and six saddles as a rodeo rider who made the wrong choices with  drinking and lost his life she talked about the methamphetamine problem and that's where it intersects so quickly and in a devastating way with health care she talked about on their reservation in one year out of two hundred fifty six babies born on that indian reservation sixty four out of two hundred fifty six babies were born addicted to methamphetamine i say that again of two hundred fifty six children born on that indian reservation sixty four were born addicted to methamphetamine at the sent carlos emergency room in a year twenty five percent of the patients mr president i'm describing circumstances that exist that you would perhaps attribute to a third world country where health care doesn't exist and yet these stories in many ways are heartbreaking stories they happen here in this country they happen with too often people who are living in third world conditions on indian reservations with inadequate health care that has been promised to them as a trust responsibility but nonetheless inadequate health care i recently learned of a young boy named nicholas from the menominee tribe of wisconsin who had a very rough start he like a high percentage of american indian babies was born premature three months premature he weighs he weighed two and a half pounds first three months of his life he struggled in intensive care to stay alive as part of a significant effort by his family as doctors this case at the i s facility and traditional healthcare practices it preserved as a young man he was forced to face another health care challenge adult onset of diabetes of this type of diabetes that usually strikes americans in midlife it's showing up now in american indians and alaskan native youth at an increasingly younger age seventy seven percent increase in diabetes and native children and youth under fifteen years of age fortunately this young man from the nominate menominee tribe is receiving services at the tribal health facility and early screening at the tribal school he was able to control his blood sugar which will prevent complications one hopes david whitetail was with the three affiliated tribes in north dakota not so fortunate diagnosed with type two diabetes at seventeen didn't receive the necessary care now he's thirty nine years old a dialysis patient awaiting a kidney transplant finally at long last beginning to get the care he needs a couple of years back a young woman yes she would like me to call her a young woman she probably is a bit above a young woman in age her name is light a bear's tail she went to the clinic  and worn away and bone was wrongly rubbing against bone causing a great great pain if that were to happen in this chamber to anyone of us or to our families we would of course get a new transplant or get a new knee but  tail was denied this treatment because it was not deemed priority one life or limb if it's not life or limb and you've run out of contract health money you're outta luck in fact what happened to this woman valhall baker r t l hale baker had chest spent chest pain that wouldn't end and her blood pressure was very very high and she was diagnosed at the eye chest clinic is having a heart attack and so she needed to be hospitalized immediately and they stuck or in an ambulance and rushed her to a hospital off the reservation but they didn't have any contract health care money left to pay for something so the indian health service taped a an envelope to this woman's leg with a piece of tape so she was called in on a gurney to the hospital with an envelope tape with masking tape to her thigh and as a unloaded or in the emergency room the folks that it said that this patient is not going to be covered because there's no contract health money available so what they were saying this patient having a heart attack they were saying to the patient and to the to the hospital if this patient admitted understand there's no money there's no money here so they admit it or to survive but it is a kind of a tragic thing to tell a story about a woman that's hauled into a hospital with a piece of paper taped piece of paper taped to her leg and says by the way if you admit this woman you're on your own because they need health service contractors out of money i've had tribes tell me that contract health care was out of money after the first three months of the year and one reservation they say don't get sick june because there's no contract health care money we're going to get sick has to be before june otherwise this may happen to you you have a heart attack go to a hospital a whole you went in there might be a note attached to your arm or leg because by the way if you admit this  might have some difficulty and there's no money available well mr president this this last woman miss baker she survived and then she received a bill for ten thousand dollars she doesn't have ten thousand dollars so what happens when they run out of contract health care they were in the hospital that they're on your own if you take them and then when the patient is released from the hospital their credit rating is ruined because they get a bill they can't pay and so it is the failure to meet our trust responsibility that's a long description of why we need to reauthorize the indian health care improvement act that act will come to the floor in the next week or two according to senator re colleague from oklahoma senator coburn who's on the indian health care committee with us is a valuable member and a constructive memories a doctor and that is extraordinary helpful in terms of his knowledge he will make the point that we need much broader reform and i will agree with him when we have this discussion we need much broader reform and that this is a step a step in the right direction is that a step as broad as i'd like to make no there's a there's a reform step that is much broader that we need to take and we will and i will work when we move this bill at least we ought to move this legislation i will work with senator coburn and others for much more substantial reform but at least we need to start i mean it this is since two thousand seven years later we need to at least to move this legislative in fifteen years since we last debated the issue have been in health care on the floor of the senate so it's past time long long past the time for us to do what we are required and responsible to do and that is meet our responsibilities for health care for american indians i want us to do this in a way that makes us proud after all it is our responsibility we made this promise long long ago and we need to keep it mr president we are we are a good country and  good society and we spent a lot of time here on the floor of the senate talking about what doesn't work there's a lot that works in this country we're blessed to live here and blessed to be a part of this great place but we continue as a country to always look to find out what what can we do to fix things that are broken to improve things that don't work quite as well as we would like and that's what we're trying to do with this issue of indian health care i've described the failures there are successes there are folks working in indian health care out around the country who get up every day and work long hours and do a remarkable job there are others that don't mean i can tell you about a one that has excruciating knee pain and goes to a doctor at the end health service and she's told wrap your knee and cabbage leaves for four days you'll be fine that's unbelievable but that's sort of thing happens i can tell you of other patients that go to indian health service doctor that get very good care so but there's not enough resources here we need to add things including responding as we have done with responding to the issue of the cluster of teen suicides that exist on indian reservations there are so many things we need to do let me make the final point these are the first americans these are not visitors they were here first and we have around the culture of native americans we have built quite a country  but native americans need to share in the great benefits we stowed up on the american people and that includes opportunities for health care opportunities for good jobs opportunities for housing and a decent education and we fall short in many of those areas we fall short in many of them i have not spoken about education today or housing but those issues themselves are pretty unbelievable when you take a look at the conditions on many of america's indian reservations so mr president i  look forward in the next week or two to have an opportunity to debate the indian health care improvement act it's long past the time for us to do this this will advance the interest of indian health care and then we will in addition and not be now seven minutes require new spending it's a modest amendment designed to achieve a major goal it's designed to reduce school based violence on october tenth a fourteen year old boy brought two guns to a cleveland public school shot four people before turning the gun on himself on april sixteenth the student virginia tech shot forty nine people thirty two of them fatally before turning the gun on himself the next act of school based violence may already be taking shape in the mind of another deeply trial deeply troubled child adolescent or adult parents and their children to school every day trusting that they will be safe it's a crucial promise in school based violence shatters it doesn't matter that violent incidents are rare the fact that a school that any school could become a killing field is unthinkable to a parent to any of us yet we must we must think about it we must think about school based violence so we can minimize it there are no easy answers for a school faced with a potentially violent student who has not yet acted on that potential school should and must respect the rights of each student the safety of all students there are no easy answers but there are answers two thousand to the department of education united states secret service put together a comprehensive guidance document to help schools respond appropriately when faced with a potentially dangerous student as well as how to prepare for and respond to acts of violence on school campuses school administrators have confirmed that this document is very useful unfortunately it's also out of date following the virginia stretch virginia tech tragedy the president asked three members of his cabinet secretary level of health and human services secretary spellings of partage occasion and secretary can solve the part of justice to review the events surrounding the tragedy and to recommend ways of preventing such tragedies in the future this report which was released june thirteenth gives us new information and we should use that we don't have the luxury of time it doesn't make sense to wait a minute longer than necessary to get the right information into the hands of every school administrator in this country the brown webb amendment instructs the department of education to use its existing authority and funding under the safe and drug free school and communities program to update the two thousand and two guidance based on what was learned from virginia tech and to distribute the updated guidance to schools within a three month timeframe that's a fast turnaround and it's completely appropriate updating the document will take staff time distributing the document will take computers and some legwork in getting this done quickly most importantly could brett prevent mr president an act of school based violence it's what we should do i ask my colleagues for support quorum call on the floor of the senate senators gavel in this morning at ten eastern and began working on the six hundred fifty five billion dollars labor health and human services education bill it's the seventh of the twelve spending bills for next year members now working on amendments to that bill majority leader reid saying that a final vote for the full bill set for next tuesday house members not in session monday the return to legislative business you can see the house on c span live coverage of the senate is here on the same when the house were up in the house of representatives are beginning to listen to the elections last fall beginning to listen to what voters are saying beginning to listen to what workers and small businesses are telling them about failed us trade policy and how we need a new direction in trade policy this week i offered a modest amendment on monday one reminder to the bush administration we need to vigorously enforce our trade laws that amendment passed overwhelmingly with with fewer than a half dozen negative votes if you in this chamber can disagree with that especially see what unfair trade in the absence of a vigorous trade enforcement team can do to american manufacturing in our country there are rules to protect the free market from anti competitive schemes like monopolies and collusion and price gouging in the global economy there are similar rules to protect the free market from anti competitive schemes like government subsidies and the dumping of underpriced foreign products on domestic markets once you put domestic markets out of business then foreign prices are free to rise unchecked lax labor environmental laws also undercut the free market by creating insurmountable price differences when our country but when our country doesn't come back at anti competitive behavior in the global marketplace our economy suffers for america and that's why the amendment this week was important to to instruct the administration to be more aggressive as the justice department needs to be more aggressive in our country to protect the free market from anti competitive schemes like monopolies and collusion and price gouging our trade representative our trade negotiators our trade policy enforcers need to be more aggressive in enforcing international trade laws against anti competitive schemes like government subsidies and the dumping of underpriced foreign products on domestic markets american manufacturing fuels our economy whether it's in many applets or whether it's in cleveland and supplies our national defense and structure in my home state of ohio well over two hundred thousand manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the last six seven years we no american industry can compete with anyone in the world when it's actually a fair fight but some foreign governments of unfairly and illegally doled out massive subsidies to their own companies some are encourage through our tax system to reestablish offshore contributing to the out migration of manufacturing jobs from our country overseas yet as reported today on the hill the bush administration is using steel from china to build a fence on the mexican border that part and help the department of homeland security criticize the chinese steel and us mexico this just think about that that we're using we are using taxpayer dollars to build a fence on the u s mexican border and much of the steel for this pence is made from china is comes from china we know what nafta did to mexico's middle class we know it is run more than one a third million farmers off their land into the cities to compete for dwindling manufacturing jobs jobs where wages continue to drop even despite the increased foreign investment from nafta and we know that many a dangerous track many make the dangerous trek to our country trying to get through security trying to go over the desert going cross the river all that they do to find work and money for their family and here we are building a wall made of chinese steel how will history judge this congress when we see more of the same failed trade policies that contribute to this migration and then build the wall of chinese steel i wish madam president that president bush would talk to a height to ohioans about that we should talk to the steel worker in lorain or a machine shop owner in mansfield or tool and die worker in youngstown where people who are hard working men and women who made america the strongest nation in the world workers who frankly feel betrayed by america's trade policies presidents from both parties have entered into a trade agreements agreements like the north american free trade agreement promising that create millions of jobs  communities instead too many of these agreements of cost millions of jobs and devastated communities it's not just the worker who loses his job suffers it's obviously the family it's people down the street as the valuation of housing contributing to two delinquency in foreclosures on homes it means fewer police and fewer teachers and fewer firefighters is communities are devastated from these layoffs and workers get get in when workers lose their jobs and and  if city workers lose their jobs too yet the bush administration proponents of deals with peru colombia panama and south korea want to do more of the same they want the current system to keep going to even be expanded despite the evidence that the nafta model that cast a model has not been working for mexican workers not working for central american workers not working for american workers not working for small business in those countries not working for small manufacturers in our country the number of workers filing for unemployment benefits jumped last week to its highest level since late august last week two thousand more ohioans were seeking unemployment benefits thousands more in michigan in the red in the presiding officer state of minnesota in indiana north carolina all over the country hardly the sign of a good economy hardly a time for another trade a green history will be on the side of those who want a different trade policy in this country the founders gave congress a responsibility to set the terms of trade policy to vote up or down on a flawed agreement is in no one's best interest it's not smart policy it's not smart politics we need to begin by evaluating agreements like the north american free trade agreement as senator dorgan has proposed this week we need to pause we need to stop let's say no more trade agreements for a while until we fix our trade policy in learn exactly what those agreements and our trade commitments of accomplished for workers if there were if i'm wrong and they're working for our workers and working for our communities and working for our consumers and working for a small business owners then let's proceed but let's stop and look in really figure this out we need a new model for trade agreements that requires negotiators to not just ensure better labor and environmental rules that are in force we made some progress in the fruit trade agreement that that's a small step but not enough but also raises food safety standards doesn't allow back door challenges to public interest laws doesn't give corporations the power  nafta did the first time ever in a trade agreement to allow corporations to sue foreign governments including foreign corporations to sue our government to weaken our environmental laws to weaken our food safety laws to weaker in our work protection laws even to undercut buy american laws and that's when we end up doing stupid things like building a wall between mexico and the united states and using chinese steel and finally madame's madam president we need to reward corporations we've introduced the patriot corporation act those corporations that play by the rules hire americans provide health care provide a pension take care of their communities we need to reward those companies with tax advantages that of penalize those companies rewarding those companies that go offshore only our commitment is to protect our country it means protect our children from foreign products that have led it means to protect our workers and protect our small businesses and protect our communities and that's how we build that's how we provide the opportunity to build a thriving middle class in this country that's why it's time to just take a breath stop before we move forward through in panama before we move forward in colombia and south korea and these other trade agreements we really do need to examine and and president the majority leaders recognize you're going to without objection so ordered not to present earlier this month i came to the floor discuss some comments made by rush limbaugh following my remarks more than forty of my senate colleagues and i cosigned a letter to the chairman of clear channel mark me telling him that we doubt we wanted him to can confer with rush limbaugh regarding the statements he'd made i've sent spoken to mark me about this mark me  fact called me regarding this last this week rush limbaugh put the original copy of that letter up for auction on e bay this present we didn't have time or we could have gotten every democratic senator signed that  letter but he put the letter up for auction on e bay and i think very very constructively left the proceeds of that to go to the marine corps law enforcement foundation of what is the marine corps law enforcement foundation that provides scholarship assistance to children marines and federal law enforcement personnel whose parent dies in the line of duty as well as health care assistance for disabled children the fallen troops what could be a more worthwhile cause and i think it's really good that this money on e bay is going to raise for this purpose when i spoke to mark may i think that he and i thought this would probably would raise much money a letter written by democratic senators complaining about something this morning the bid is more than two million dollars for this we watch it during the week it keeps going up and up and up and there's only a little bit of time left on it but it's certainly going to be more than two million dollars never did we think that this letter would bring money of this nature cosmetic president extremely good now everyone knows that rush limbaugh and i don't agree on everything in life and maybe that's kind of an understatement but without qualification mark me the owner of the network that has rush limbaugh on it and rush limbaugh should know that this letter that they're optioning is going to be something that raises money for a really a worthwhile cause i don't know what we could do more important helping to show the children our fallen soldiers and police officers who have fallen in line of duty have the option for their children to have a good education think about this more than two million dollars is going to really help and that's again an understatement there's only a little bit of time left and so i would ask those that are wanting to do more that they can go to harry reid search they actually go and say harry reid letter and this will come up on e bay i'd encourage anyone interested in this with the means to do so to consider bidding on this letter and contributing to this worthwhile cause i strongly believe that when we can put our differences aside even harry reid and rush limbaugh we should do that and try to accomplish good things for american people and this does not mean that a present more than two million dollars for a letter signed by this senator and my friends i'm i have controversial judicial nominations that we're not going to move on those until the minority tells us that's what they want to do one of those nominations is judge southwick and we have that matter was reported out of committee some time ago and both sara lee and i have said that when the republicans tell us they want to move to that we would do that and so sometime next week i'm more than likely going to move to that matter  everyone to know that in fact as the case i also know madam president isn't and indicated that one of our priorities is to do an energy bill this year i had a meeting yesterday with the democratic chairs and other interested people including center count well on certain dorgan to find out how we can move forward and we realize that we can move forward we have a number of issues that are important the issues are somewhat limited one is what are we going to on cafe raising fuel efficient vehicles what are we going to do about our renewable portfolio standard what are we going to do with the tax aspect of this that will do a number of important things not the least of which is give the great entrepreneurs in our country the incentives to invest in alternative fuel sun wind biomass and we need this to be done on a multiple multiple multiple year basis so those are three really important things that we need to do and i've had a number of conversation with my republican colleagues speaker of the house she wants to go to conference on this or some something on one to one republican senator senator i understand you don't want to go to conference the speaker wants to go to conference we i want to go to conference we would like to be able to do a bill or going to our very my best to do that we're going to include the republicans and anything we do we know we can't do a bill unless we include the republican senate and we're going to do that we're going to do our utmost come up with a strong bill one that's in keeping with the needs of this country that the reason the at this time out of presidency and republicans everyone is occupied on that side of the aisle but i am going to in the near future when we have a republican here that so can come to the floor i'm going to ask unscented senate proceed to the consideration of counter number three forty which is h r three two two one which is the house energy bill and i will move that we go to conference on this and i'll come out now later this morning or last morning scott i'll come up this afternoon as soon as we can and offer this unanimous consent request i suggest the absence without objection so ordered me to present ice and modification to the desk of amendment thirty three seventy four and ask for consideration three thirty three amendment thirty three fifty four an amendment thirty three seventy four with modifications it was just set  without without objection the foregoing amendments the four amendments will be considered on blank and agree remind people that we will be here monday and will be voting i don't know the time has been determined yet for probably around five thirty or something like that would probably be and make monday night voting on a whole lot of amendments monday night because the agreement was struck yesterday that we would finish this bill by noon on tuesday and to get there with all of the members that we have pending there will probably be a number of votes on monday night so that  the amendment is pending amendment number thirty three ninety nine is pending madam president i call up that amendment and as it was previously proposed of be written the clerk well the senate continues working on a memo adds to the six hundred five billion dollar labor h h s and education spending bill it's one of the twelve spending measures of congress has to pass every fiscal year no votes are expected today you were earlier heard senator harkin of iowa mentioning a late night on monday for votes on a whole lot of amendments as he said during leader reid saying that he hopes to have the tire bill passed by this coming tuesday they're talking about noon on tuesday you also heard senator reid making mention of a letter that he and a number of senators wrote to radio personality rush limbaugh criticizing some of the comments that he made regarding phony soldiers quote unquote in iraq apparently mr limbaugh has put that letter on e bay and the bidding has reached over two million dollars mr limbaugh is planning to give the proceeds of that sale to the families of a soldier or soldiers killed in iraq the house is not in session members return next monday at twelve thirty eastern for morning hour two o'clock for legislative business you can see the managers and it's mine to at this time and i do at this time ask unanimous consent to call up amendment thirty three eighty one to set aside any pending amendments and ask for media consideration of thirty three eighty one without objection  at the end of my remarks to with seek to withdraw the amendment because there are some procedural objections under rule sixteen of the senate rules but i think this is an important and important amendment an important matter for us to consider at the appropriate time and i hope my colleagues will work with me as well as senator voinovich and senator chambliss who are co sponsors of this amendment to find a way to address the very urgent matters that are contained within the scope of this amendment specifically madam president we ought to be good stewards of the taxpayers money  unfortunately due to this size and scope of the federal by that there seems to be precious little attention given to ways to make sure that we spend the taxpayers money efficiently while we do debate of the the necessity of appropriations and we should continue to try to cut back on unnecessary expenditures wherever possible i think it's imperative that congress do the appropriate oversight on existing federal programs and existing appropriations and ways to look for both cost savings and efficiencies and i think we ought to ask the fundamental question every time we're asked to appropriate money for a particular agency we ought to ask this question is this agency or program still needed is this agency or program still needed what has led me to to offer this amendment really arises out of some good work that's being done by the office of management and budget matter fact they publish this brochure it's called expect more and you can go online to expect more dot org excuse me or dot gov it is expect more dot gov on the internet and see what i'm talking about specifically they have a tool called the program assessment rating tool which helps the office of management and budget assess whether or not a particular government program is working or not the office of management  budget has recently reviewed over a thousand programs and has this chart would indicate upon a review of one thousand and sixteen federal government programs they have concluded that in twenty two percent at twenty two percent of those programs they've rated either ineffective or they said that they are unable to determine whether it is affective in other words there's there are unable to find evidence of their effect and they haven't conclusively determine them as ineffective but a combination of an amazing twenty two percent of the federal government programs they have concluded are either in affective or the results or not demonstrated and anybody who's interested anywhere in the world and certainly anywhere in the united states can look at this expect more dot gov web site and find this information and inform themselves as i'm sure they would want to about what their federal government is doing and not  doing on their behalf as part of the review the office of management budget looked at thirty five programs within the department of labor totaling almost fifteen billion dollars and they identified two billion dollars that could be saved out of that fifteen billion on programs that are not meeting expectations and are not effective some of these programs including the all include the office of disability employment policy trade adjustment assistance and part of the workforce investment act certainly these programs have the potential to help people in strengthen our country but my hope is that what we would do is to look at these programs and not necessarily decide whether or not necessary because they may in fact be but rather to give the appropriate oversight and to come back and try to do what is necessary to make them effective or if they simply can't be rehabilitated if they can't be made effective then we ought to eliminate them whether the fact of the matter is that we can look to our state governments and state laws for mechanisms that we could use to make sure that we spend the taxpayers dollars only on needed programs and then in the most efficient ways possible i look just to my state of texas since one thousand nine hundred seventy one we've had some cunt something called the sunset commission which periodic leigh about every ten years reviews state programs and state spending to decide what the answer to the question is i posed earlier is this agency or is this program still needed and is the money being spent effectively here in washington we could we could learn from the state sunset commission process which i know as i mentioned happens in texas and which also i think is reflected in the laws of many of our state governments but which we do not have here at the federal level a study by the congressional budget office found that congress spent almost one hundred sixty billion dollars in two thousand and six on agencies and programs that were not in fact authorized in other words while the authorizing committees had previously authorized it those authorizations had lapsed indicating a lack of continued oversight and authorization by congress but yet the money was continuing to be appropriated and sp on these programs this list includes hundreds of accounts both big ones and small ones ranging from the coast guard eight billion dollars to the administration on aging one point five billion dollars to section  tenant based housing fifteen point six billion dollars to the foreign relations program which is nine point five billion dollars many of these programs and agencies perhaps most deserve reauthorization i'm not saying that they don't but reauthorization no longer means what it should that means that we have conducted the appropriate investigation and oversight to determine whether the programs are meeting current needs or whether they are no longer necessary congress should make sure that we are only spending money on programs that can and are justified my  would take what i think is a great experiment which has shown us tremendous success on the state level in places like texas and create a bipartisan federal sunset commission to review the efficiency of all federal programs but will focus their work on ineffective and on authorized programs and will make recommendations to congress about how to improve them if they can be improved or whether we should just eliminate them altogether but to me this is a shocking figure when our own federal government concludes the executive branch the office of management and budget concludes that almost twenty five percent of federal programs are not delivering for the american taxpayer amendment would create as i said a bipartisan u s authorization and sunset commission that would be composed of four members of the house and four members of the senate the commission would review a schedule would issue a schedule and review  proposal to congress at least once every ten years as well as issue a report some way to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government programs and agencies the schedule and review proposal is a schedule where the commission would review and analyze at least twenty five percent of unauthorized federal programs and twenty five percent of the ineffective programs as identified by o and be and would be so on a rolling or ongoing basis in others words that have you have to start somewhere and that's where they would start but we would continue until all federal agencies and programs would be subject to this sort of scrutiny and review unlike most commissions congress cannot simply ignore the commission's work under my amendment rather the amendment would provide an expedited procedure that would force congress to consider and debate the commission's work and then vote up or down on whether to accept it simply put madam president this commission would help congress do what we should already be doing but that is to provide the necessary and oversight to make sure that every dollar of the taxpayers money is being spent wisely a commission congress answer the simple but powerful question that i posed at the outset and that is is an agency or program still needed seems like common sense to me i know some would argue this is why we have authorizing committees but i believe the commission would add greater focus to the budget and appropriations process on saving taxpayers money as opposed to how can we come up with new ways to spend more money which tends to dominate the appropriations process and how can we approve improve government accountability and provide for greater openness and transparency in government decision making madam president this concept as i've said is not new or even revolutionary my home state of texas has had a sunset commission in place for thirty years in which time it's estimated that texas taxpayers have been saved more than seven hundred million dollars by eliminating ineffective or unnecessary programs and starting with a zero based budget during the sunset commission review process and judge defying each and every dollar that is added to pay for that program if reauthorized the tendency here in washington unfortunately is to take an existing program and to see it grow incrementally each year and indeed once a government program is created it tends to create a constituency that will come to congress and argue that it should not be eliminated but not only should it not be eliminated it should grow by a certain percentage each year a president as this and other procreation is bills comes before the senate i would ask my colleagues to keep in mind the extent of waste that we already see in government programs rather than allowing these programs to continue in les with no real purpose and no real means of accomplishing their goals it's time we took a closer look at and acted on our responsibility to eliminate wasteful washington spending before we raise taxes and before we mindlessly appropriate money for another batch of potentially ineffective and outdated programs we should take a hard look in the mirror and how we spend the hard earned money of beleaguered american taxpayer no one wants higher taxes and our first defense against high higher taxes ought to be greater efficiency and money savings by a lemonade ing wasteful programs our primary means of ensuring the sufficiency would be through this bipartisan sunset commission so madam president i would hope that all of our colleagues would seriously consider this proposal for a federal sunset commission it's important that we before we look at raising taxes and growing the size of government that we look at ways to eliminate waste unnecessary programs and that's bakley what this amendment would do madam president i understand that this particular amendment being legislation on an appropriation bill would be subject to a point of order rather than pursue that issue and require the procedural ruling on issue that's going to go away i'm not going to go away when it comes to urging greater efficiency and elimination of wasteful washington spending we have a tremendous responsibility those of us who've been sent here to the united states congress to represent our states and our districts and the least of which ought to be being good stewards of the taxpayers money it's time to take the federal budget off of autopilot to see the government grow and grow and grow without any real oversight particularly when it comes to these programs that have been demonstrated either as ineffective or where it's impossible for the federal government to conclude that the evidence justifies the matter and we think it would be appropriate to go to conference it's my understanding that we're close to being able to do that that would be good we listen this is a bill that needs to be done it can only be done yes democrats republicans agree the majority of us in this body are democrats but it's a slim majority so everything we do i need to get twenty percent of the republicans to move forward on legislation and hopefully we can do that to have a real good conference on this matter as i indicated this morning our number of issues that are important renewable portfolio it's important we also do something about cafe and it's also important we do something about taxes so that plan ahead for that so that's something those are the three things we need to work on there's much more of those that gives us an idea of what we need to focus on and it's not easy because the house did not have cafe we did not  renewable part pollio cell it's going to take some mathematical moving around to get this done because we need to work it out i would hope so we can do cafe and ball bodies  that title amendment to the desk be agreed to is their projection present senator from texas at present reserving the right to object i've talked to the majority leader before you propound the unanimous consent report proposal as we've discussed we're trying to clear any objections on our side given the fact it's friday and members are traveling we're having a few difficulties doing that but it's my hope that we can continue to work through it and resolve those so that unanimous consent request can proceed without any objection but at this point because of those of those challenges we have while we are continuing to work in good faith the resolve  momentous piece of legislation we can continue to do that as i indicated this morning had number of conversations yesterday with republican senators who want to move this forward and i think there's a real possibility that we can get a conference and move forward on this and come up with a large lation that this body agrees with the house is how we should proceed and i hope that's the case i understand the center the junior senator from texas why had to object and that is friday afternoon and  quorum call continuing on the floor of the senate the senators continue working on amendments to the six hundred five billion dollars labor h h s and education spending bill it's one of the twelve spending measures a congress has to pass every fiscal year no votes are expected to day votes are expected monday with a late night in the senate expected by majority leader reid says they hope to have it passed by this coming tuesday at noon the house is not in session today members will return next monday at twelve thirty eastern for morning our legislative business will begin at two p m eastern you can see the house live on c span a couple of stories that we want to pass on to you from the associated press republican senator sam brownback the kansas conservative in the two thousand and eight presidential campaign will drop out today people close to him said yesterday money was the main reason for his decision said one person close to brownback has requested anonymity because the candidate has not yet announced his plan brownback is expected to announce his withdrawal in topeka kansas also the story from the associated press mel martinez the public face of the republican national committee as its general chairman announced today that he is stepping down from his post after serving only ten months quote i believe that our future as a party and a nation is bright and our party and our key candidates will i have every intention of continuing to fight for our president our party and our candidates the florida senator said in a statement you can find these and other stories on our website cspan dot org president the current presiding officer joins a very elite group of freshman members who have cheated the distinction presiding and senate for over a hundred dollars  am so happy to announce a center called the charter of the presiding officer achieve this distinction today at an hour and five minutes ago i congratulate you i am embarrassed to say that as a freshman at a large freshman class but i didn't preside for this line i thought it was here all the time but i didn't answer really quite a nice award it really is something you can keep forever we've gone to some l sure it looks good and for the time that i presided over the senate as a freshman i really learned a lot to learn senate procedures and learn different personalities of this centers and come to the fore so your c commended when you take good care of your state you go back often you have a wonderful family and you do it all and i think you said a great example for the rest of the people in america but especially as i've said before you've added so much to the senate when i first came here the woman was makowski the woman still is makowski but she has a lot of people to help  now and the senate is such a much better place with more women and i think that someday it won't be in the immediate future but not in the distant future we'll have a body that hope we'll have an equal number of women as men when that happens protocol the advance of its various parliamentary stages up to and including the presentation resolution ratification of there now be a division vote in the resolution without objection questions on the resolution of ratification all those in favor now alone pose now stan two thirds of those present having voted in the affirmative the resolution of ratification is agreed to i think we have to go over this again out of those in favor please stand all opposed now and two thirds of those present having voted in the ferment of the resolution a ratification is agreed to how do you think i three an act of doesn't make the facility of united states post office located at highway forty nine south and piney woods mississippi and so forth without objection the committee is discharged in the senate will proceed to the measure i ask consent that the bill be read three times past most reconsider be laid on the table and that any statements relating to this matter appear in appropriate place in the record as if given without objection so ordered i further ask that as twenty one thirty one the senate campaign would be discharged from the homeland security committee and be placed on the calendar without objection so ordered madam president monday night my announcement to everyone here today could be that we have a significant number of votes it's very likely you will have certainly more than one vote and we hope that vote will start around five thirty senators harken and specter work today on their staffs work today trying to come up with what they can claire  have money they can work on this also and we're going to try to clear a lot most everything out monday night but we can finish the agreed upon and i would ask you now monday october twenty second following the pern of pledge journal proceedings be approved today the morning hour be deemed expired time for two leaders be reserved for use later in the day and then there be a period of mourning business until three pm the tim