Kindergarten Plus Act of 2004

Mr. President, those who are following the business of the Senate understand that just a few moments ago, we had a vote on the floor of the Senate on the proposed constitutional amendment dealing with same-sex marriage. The final vote, I think, was indicative of the feeling of this body. There were 48 who supported going forward with the debate on this amendment and 50 Senators who opposed it. Of course, 48 Senators does not meet the threshold requirement for approving a constitutional amendment, which is 67 Senators. So that gap of 19 Senators suggests this Senate does not believe it is appropriate for us to move forward on that type of constitutional amendment.

Many of the colleagues on both sides of the aisle spoke to this issue over the last several days and expressed their heartfelt feelings of the underlying issue of same-sex marriage and about the question of whether we should amend the Constitution. The vote today is, I think, a good indication that this is an issue whose time has not come. There is no issue in controversy which requires us to amend the Constitution of the United States of America.

One might ask, if this issue fell so far short, 19 votes short, of what it needed, why did we consider it? For obvious reasons. This debate was not about changing the Constitution. This debate was about changing the subject in the Presidential campaign.

It is understood that if you ask most American families what is important to them the politicians are worried about, they will talk about the obvious things: My job, the fact that my paycheck does not cover the necessities of my family, the cost of health insurance, the availability of quality health care, whether my retirement savings are going to be protected; I am concerned as well about the situation in Iraq; I would like to know when we will stop losing our soldiers, and what do we have ahead of us in terms of Iraq and the $1.5 billion which American

taxpayers spend each week in Iraq, how long will that go on? What could we do with $1.5 billion every week in the United States of America for our schools, for providing health care for our children, immunizations.

These are the obvious questions with which most families identify. But if the Presidential election campaign is waged on those issues, the White House and the Republican Party believe they are at a disadvantage because many people, in fact, an amazingly large percentage of Americans, say when asked, they feel our country is going in the wrong direction in terms of its economics to help working families, in terms of creating jobs, keeping good-paying jobs in America, dealing with the fact we still continue to be dependent on the Middle East and Saudi Arabia for our oil which draws us into a terrible situation of dependency, a terrible situation which taxes our resources.

That is what most Americans will identify as the major issues, and those are not issues on which this administration wants to campaign. So they attempted today to change the subject. They wanted to change the subject by changing the Constitution to deal with same-sex marriages, an issue which has not reached a level where it should even be addressed by our Constitution.

I will not go over that whole debate again, but the vote tells the story. The Republican Party in the majority in the Senate was unable to get a majority of votes to support the President's constitutional amendment. The rollcall tells the story. But there are other issues which, frankly, we should now move to, issues about which families across America do care.

I know as I travel around my State of Illinois and talk with families, businesses, labor union leaders, time and again the issue on their minds is the cost of health care in America.

I met 2 days ago in Chicago with a good friend of mine who heads up one of the major labor unions. It is a labor union which represents people who work at grocery stores, United Food and Commercial Workers. I talked with him about his problems.

He said: Senator, virtually every strike we have, virtually every contract negotiation is over the cost of health insurance. We get our workers 50 cents more an hour, and they don't see a penny of it. It all goes into health insurance, and there is less coverage this year than last year. They are upset with their labor leaders and upset with their employers.

Then you talk with businesspeople, businesses small and large, and I hear the same story, businesses which say: We are mom and pop, and we can no longer afford health insurance for the people who work for us; it is just too expensive.

There is another element in this whole equation which we cannot overlook, and that is the cost of prescription drugs. The cost of prescription drugs is not only driving the cost of health insurance to record levels, but it is also pushing a lot of people of limited family means into terrible choices: whether they can afford to buy the prescription drugs that will keep them healthy and, if they do, whether they will have to sacrifice the necessities of life. That is a real issue. That is an issue this campaign ought to be about. Would it not be refreshing if the debate of the week was not over same-sex marriage and its impact on families but the cost of health care and the cost of prescription drugs and their impact on families? I think that is what the voters are waiting for.

If they have any frustration with those of us in public office, it is the fact we talk past them, over them, and around them and never direct to the issues about which they care.

Today I am joining Senator Levin of Michigan and Senator Dayton of Minnesota in introducing S. 2652.

We are going to work to put this bill on the Senate calendar under rule XIV so that Senator Frist can call it up for debate. In other words, what I am trying to do is to accelerate consideration of this bill to blow past all the political issues and the political rhetoric to get into this legislation. The Democratic leader in the other body is working to discharge a companion bill so they can consider it in an expedited manner.

This bill is called the Medicare Prescription Drug Savings Act. We need to expedite this bill. We need to put it on the calendar. We need to stop wasting time on issues going nowhere because seniors and low- income individuals are facing escalating prescription drug prices that are really hurting them personally and diminishing their Medicare drug benefits. Instead of considering bills that do not have the votes to pass, like the one we just finished, we should consider something that is an urgent priority for Americans. Whether one lives in a blue State, a red State, or a purple State, whether one is in a battleground State or it is a State that is decided, they are going to find seniors concerned about the cost of prescription drugs. This is an issue that is bipartisan. It is an issue that affects virtually every family. Over the past 5 years, prescription drug prices have risen between 14 and 19 percent every single year, 5 times the rate of inflation.

One particularly egregious example of drug price inflation in the United States is Novir, an essential ingredient in the HIV cocktail to deal with the HIV/AIDS crisis. The price of an average dose of Novir went up 400 percent this year from $1,600 a year to more than $7,800. That is more than 10 times the cost of the same drug in Canada or in Europe. Americans are paying 10 times the cost of Novir for HIV patients in the United States as the price that is being paid in Canada and Europe.

Last month, the AARP released a study examining prescription drug prices for the 12-month period ending in March 2004. The study revealed that the prices charged by pharmaceutical companies to wholesalers for the top brand-name drugs used by seniors increased at a rate of 7.2 percent. That is faster than the 2 previous years, which is troubling given that inflation actually fell during that same period of time.

Drug discount cards have been suggested as the answer for this problem, but they are not. A fact sheet sent out by the Department of Health and Human Services to 40 million Medicare beneficiaries said that a discount card with Medicare's seal of approval can help save 10 to 25 percent on prescription drugs.

Now, this is the administration plan, a discount card under Medicare for prescription drugs that could save 10 to 25 percent. Well, after the same Department published the drug card prices in May, the Chicago Tribune newspaper looked at what these cards would mean in a suburb of Chicago, the city of Evanston. The Tribune compared the prices at pharmacies in Evanston with what seniors will save with drug discount cards. Take a look at it.

In some cases, the people in Evanston, IL, will actually save less without the card. The drug Lipitor, with the discount card, is $67.07. The lowest retail price, $68.99. Savings, $1.92, or 3-percent savings. Celebrex, 2 percent. Norvasc, in fact, costs more under the discounted card. So this so-called discount card seems to be of little value with drugs that are very popular and well used and prescribed to, such as Lipitor, Celebrex, and Norvasc.

The lack of significant savings from the discount cards that are being touted by the administration is not unique to Illinois or the city of Evanston. Since President Bush announced the idea of a drug discount card in July of 2001, top selling prescription drugs have experienced double-digit increases, eroding any savings that might come from the card.

Remember when the Bush administration said their discount cards would save seniors 10 to 25 percent? Well, price increases are eroding savings. Take a look at what happened to these drugs: Celebrex for arthritis pain went up 23 percent; Coumadin, a blood thinner, 22 percent; Lipitor, 19 percent; Zoloft, 19 percent; Zyprexa, 16 percent; Prevacid, 15 percent; and Zocor, 15 percent.

The prescription drug discount card is not even really keeping up with the inflation built into prescription drug prices.

Some of my colleagues may say it is not important that the drug card is not producing much savings because the real benefit will start in January of 2006. Unfortunately, rising drug prices will erode that benefit, too.

I will tell my colleagues about one of my constituents. Alois Kessler of Skokie, IL, has $3,200 in drug costs, and his income, which is fixed, is $28,500. Assuming prescription drug prices continue to rise as we have seen them rise

and Mr. Kessler stays with the same medication he is currently taking, his drug costs will be approximately $4,800 by 2006, the first year of the new Part D benefit. His income will rise about 3 percent a year. So he will have drug prices at $4,800 and an income of $31,000 a year.

The new program reduces his cost by $1,080 in the first year, so he will still have to pay out-of-pocket $2,120. By 2015, assuming he is still taking the same medication, his drug costs will reach $17,000, and his income will only have risen to around $40,400. One just cannot keep up with an inflation protection in their Medicare or retirement income against drug price increases of this kind.

What can we do about it? What we can do about it is something this bill proposes, and it is something very basic. There is a lot of talk in Congress today about bringing drugs in from Canada and other places. I am open to that conversation, anything to provide relief to seniors and people on limited incomes trying to buy lifesaving drugs.

Look to the north. Canada selling American drugs made in America, inspected in America, approved in America, with research in America, for sale in Canada turn out to be a fraction of the cost of what they are in the United States. With just 2 percent of the worldwide pharmaceutical market, Canada cannot supply the United States no matter how many busloads of seniors we send there.

The United States has 53 percent of the worldwide prescription drug market. Half of it is made up of Medicare beneficiaries. Think about this for a moment. If Medicare, the program that covers seniors, were to sit down with major pharmaceutical companies and bargain for the prices of the drugs, think about their bargaining power. They have the ability to bring prices down for Americans for drugs sold in America rather than reimported in the United States.

The prescription drug benefit bill we passed expressly prohibits Medicare from negotiating for lower prices. That is something the pharmaceutical companies wanted, and they won. They won it at the expense of American consumers.

Today, the Veterans' Administration and the Department of Defense negotiate for VA drug prices and cut down the cost of drugs by almost 50 percent. Take a look at some of these popular drugs and the difference between what is paid in the drugstores of America and what the Federal Government pays for the same drug: Xalatan eyedrops, $41 under the negotiated price of the VA, and $101 is what is paid in the drugstore; Celebrex, the drug we talked about earlier for arthritis, $108 on the Federal Supply Schedule and $173 at the drugstore; Lipitor for cholesterol, $215 in the Federal system, $446 over the counter; Plavix, $257 negotiated, and over-the-counter, $593.

Once you put the bargaining power of the Federal Government behind price negotiations, the prices come down. People can afford the drugs. Families can afford them. The cost of health insurance comes down, but the profits for the drug companies come down, too. That is why this Congress, under the thrall of that special interest group, has refused to give Medicare the power to negotiate.

I will give one specific example we have lived through on Capitol Hill. Many people rail about what happened with the anthrax scare a few years ago. There was a suggestion that the drug Cipro would be used as an antidote to any ill-effects caused by anthrax. We found out Cipro was an expensive drug, and Secretary Tommy Thompson said he would negotiate with the Bayer Company, the company that makes Cipro, to lower prices.

Look what happened when Secretary Thompson tried to do that. He said:

Everyone said I wouldn't be able to reduce the price of

Cipro. I am a tough negotiator.

What was the market price when he went into it? It was $4.67 per pill for Cipro. When it was all said and done, we were paying 75 cents. When someone sits down with the drug companies and says, You are overcharging us, we won't pay it, look what happens. Yet when the seniors of America look for the same kind of hard-nosed negotiating to bring down costs for them, this Congress says no; we don't want to give Medicare the ability to negotiate to do the same thing Secretary Thompson achieved when it came to these Cipro tablets. Through negotiation, Secretary Thompson brought down the price of Cipro by 490 percent. Good news for the people who needed Cipro; bad news for the people who need Medicare. But we can't even ask him to stand up for senior citizens in America. Out of the question. Drug companies don't want to lose their profitability.

Incidentally, they are very profitable. Let me show you some charts. This indicates the profitability of Fortune 500 drug companies versus the profits for all Fortune 500 companies in the year 2002. Look at what drug companies on the red bars have done on profitability: 17 percent as opposed to 3.1 percent; in this chart, 27.6 percent to 10.2 percent. They are making money hand over fist. They are charging seniors and families across America record high prices for drugs. They are increasing the cost of those drugs every single year and passing them along directly, raising health insurance costs, making it more difficult for seniors to keep up with the drugs they need to stay healthy.

I think the bill I have introduced with Senators Levin and Dayton answers the need. I believe the bill which we will attempt to put on the Senate calendar today, so we can vote it before we leave for anybody's convention, is going to go a long way toward helping America's seniors. The Medicare Prescription Drug Savings Act instructs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to offer a nationwide Medicare-delivered prescription drug benefit in addition to the PDP and PPO plans available in the 10 regions. We keep in place what is in the Medicare bill passed last year, we just add a new player. The new player is Medicare providing prescription drugs with negotiated prices. We set a uniform national premium of $35 for the first year for this prescription drug benefit, and we negotiate group purchasing agreements on behalf of beneficiaries who choose to receive their drugs through the Medicare-administered benefit. It is voluntary. Those who choose to receive their drugs will have negotiated lower prices. Those who enroll can stay enrolled as long as they want.

Not only will this bill provide seniors with lower cost drugs, it will give them a choice to enroll in a Medicare-delivered plan, cutting down on the confusion the privately delivered system has already created. Critics and the pharmaceutical industry would say my bill is about price controls and big government. How do you explain the Veterans' Administration? Aren't we saying for our veterans we want to bring down the cost of pharmaceutical drugs? Have you spoken to a veteran lately who has gone to the VA hospital to sign up for the monthly drug benefit because it is so attractive for him and his family? That tells me government can play an important role and have a voice in buying in bulk and bringing down costs.

Who supports this bill we are trying to bring to the calendar? The Alliance for Retired Americans, AFL-CIO, American Nurses Association, Campaign for America's Future, USAction, Consumers Union, the Service Employees International Union, AFSCME, the American Federation of Teachers, Families USA, the Center for Medicare Advocacy, and the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

If you don't think this is a timely issue, pick up this morning's New York Times and take a look at the front-page story. The bill we passed, signed by President Bush, has America running in the wrong direction. Front-page headline:

Drug Law [signed by President Bush] Is Seen Leading To Cuts

in Retiree Plans.

Let me read one or two paragraphs:

New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce

or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million

retirees when Medicare offers its coverage in 2006.

That is the plan we referred to earlier passed by Congress.

That represents one-third of all retirees with employer-

sponsored drug coverage, according to documents from the

Department of Health and Human Services.

No aspect of the new law causes more concern among retirees

than the possibility they might lose benefits they already

have.

That is what the administration offers us: discount cards which don't offer a real discount, the loss of prescription drug coverage already available for 3.8 million retirees, and, finally, a plan that is offered to seniors

that is almost impossible to describe and follow because it is so complicated in its minutiae and detail, and it does not include a provision that allows Medicare to bargain for the best prices, the same bargaining power which we use over and over again to help veterans and many other Americans.

Before the end of the day, we are going to ask that this bill be brought to the calendar. I don't know what else we will consider today, but if my colleagues in the Senate will go home and ask a random sample of anybody on the street corner, or in the shopping center, about the cost of prescription drugs and what it means, they will understand that whatever the next item of business might be in the Senate, it cannot really match in importance what this issue means to families across the United States of America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with my colleagues Senator Kennedy and Senator Bingaman to jump-start school success for low-income children. Today we are introducing the Sandy Feldman Kindergarten Plus Act of 2004.

Sandy Feldman, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, stepped down today after decades of public service. If there is one goal to which Sandy has dedicated herself over the years, it is the education of our Nation's children.

Sandy is the product of New York City's public schools. She knows what great promise public education holds for our Nation. But, she also knows that all too often, we don't give our schools the resources they need to be able to live up to that promise.

While I've worked with Sandy for many years, I've been particularly privileged to work with her in the area of early childhood education. It was Sandy who developed the concept for this Kindergarten Plus legislation and Sandy who spent countless hours developing the details to ensure that the initiative would work in a diverse array of communities.

Although Sandy is leaving the AFT, I know she will continue fighting for our Nation's children, and for mothers, fathers, and teachers across this Nation. I look forward to her continued counsel and advice on education issues and other issues of importance to families.

The Kindergarten Plus legislation we are introducing today will offer competitive grants to States to provide children below 185 percent of the poverty line with a transitional kindergarten during the summer before kindergarten formally begins and a transitional first grade during the summer between kindergarten and first grade.

Why an extra four months of kindergarten for these children? The answer is simple. Because too many low income children today enter kindergarten unprepared for the year ahead, far behind their wealthier peers in both academic and social skills.

According to a recent survey, 46 percent of kindergarten teachers report that at least half of their class or more has specific problems with entry into kindergarten. Yet, kindergarten is critical in preparing children to succeed in elementary school, especially for children at-risk of academic failure.

There is no panacea, no magic wand to erase the deficiencies that too many low income children have in entering kindergarten on par with their more economically well-off peers. It is simply not possible in a two month period before kindergarten begins or in a nine-month half day pre-kindergarten program to wipe away the advantages that wealthier children have had in their first five years of life that result in the skill set with which they enter kindergarten.

We can, however, do a better job of preparing less fortunate children for school. We can expose them to classroom practices and routines and the expectations for kindergarten behavior and protocol. We can introduce them to concepts and help them understand that classrooms have rules. We can expose them to literature, story time or circle time. We can help them understand that books are made up of printed words and that words are made up of individual letters. We can ask them questions to help develop their critical thinking skills, like what do you think will happen next in the story? Why? We can offer them ``show and tell'' to develop their oral language skills and ability to speak out loud in sequential sentences.

Many children enter kindergarten with these skills. But, many do not. During the school year before a child is eligible to enter kindergarten, about 75 percent of children in families with more than $75,000 in income participate in some type of center-based program, compared to 51 percent of children in families with incomes between $10,000 and $20,000.

The numbers are much more stark when looking at the children of mothers who dropped out of high school. Recent data shows that about 74 percent of 3, 4, and 5 year old children whose mothers graduated from college were enrolled in a center-based program compared to only 42 percent of 3, 4, and 5 year old children whose mothers did not complete high school.

How does this translate to children? Some children know how to follow directions and some children do not. Some children transition well between activities as part of a daily routine, some children do not. About 85 percent of high income children, compared to 39 percent of low income children, can recognize letters of the alphabet upon arrival in kindergarten. About half the children of college graduates can identify the beginning sounds of words, but only 9 percent of the children whose parents didn't complete high school can recognize the beginning sounds of words.

Of equal concern, kindergarten teachers report that about 80 percent of children whose mothers graduated from college persist at a task and are eager to learn whereas only about 60 percent of the children whose mothers have not graduated from high school persist at a task and are eager to learn.

What we know from the research is that children can enter kindergarten better prepared to learn. We may not be able to close the gap between low income children and their wealthier peers, but we can certainly narrow it considerably.

Our bill would provide states with resources to offer a transitional kindergarten during the summer before kindergarten begins. This would enable local school districts to offer a jumpstart on kindergarten with smaller class sizes during the summer. Before all kindergarten eligible children arrive, K+ children would have an introduction to kindergarten. The same opportunity would be part of the program for the summer between kindergarten and first grade.

The introductory period would enable school districts to target low income children who may never before have participated in a center- based program such as Head Start or state pre-k, or nursery school. They could target low income English language learners or low income children who participated in Head Start or state pre-k who could continue their progress during the summer.

About 65 percent of mothers with children under age 6 are in the workforce today. Every day, about 13 million preschoolers, including 6 million infants and toddlers, are in some type of child care arrangement. What we are trying to do with this bill is to pull out low income children who would be eligible to enter kindergarten in the fall and offer them a summer enrichment period as an introduction to kindergarten. It might be that a local Head Start or community-based organization's preschool would continue to operate their programs during the summer. However, these are local decisions made by school districts that apply for and receive K+ funding.

It should be clear that the K+ program would operate as a supplement to existing programs, most of which follow the school calendar. In fact, children who participate in a high quality early learning program during the summer before kindergarten are not eligible to participate in K+ to avoid duplication of efforts and scarce resources.

In the National Academy of Sciences report, ``From Neurons to Neighborhoods: the Science of Early Childhood Development'', numerous recommendations are made to improve the foundation with which children enter school. The report points out that with so many parents working today, the burden of poor quality and limited choice in child care rests most heavily on low income working families whose financial resources are too high to qualify for subsidies or Head Start yet too low to afford market prices for quality child care.

It is the children of the working poor who are very much at risk of beginning kindergarten behind their wealthier and poorer peers. Yet, it is these children in addition to poor children who are most likely to enter kindergarten behind their wealthier peers, unprepared for the year ahead.

Supporting the K+ program is the American Federation of Teachers, AFT, the Parent-Teacher Association, PTA, the Council of Great City Schools, the Society for Research in Child Development, SRCD, the Children's Defense Fund, and Easter Seals.

We urge you to join us as cosponsors of this legislation and help give low income children a jump-start on school success.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a brief summary of the bill and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with my colleagues Senator Kennedy and Senator Bingaman to jump-start school success for low-income children. Today we are introducing the Sandy Feldman Kindergarten Plus Act of 2004.

Sandy Feldman, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, stepped down today after decades of public service. If there is one goal to which Sandy has dedicated herself over the years, it is the education of our Nation's children.

Sandy is the product of New York City's public schools. She knows what great promise public education holds for our Nation. But, she also knows that all too often, we don't give our schools the resources they need to be able to live up to that promise.

While I've worked with Sandy for many years, I've been particularly privileged to work with her in the area of early childhood education. It was Sandy who developed the concept for this Kindergarten Plus legislation and Sandy who spent countless hours developing the details to ensure that the initiative would work in a diverse array of communities.

Although Sandy is leaving the AFT, I know she will continue fighting for our Nation's children, and for mothers, fathers, and teachers across this Nation. I look forward to her continued counsel and advice on education issues and other issues of importance to families.

The Kindergarten Plus legislation we are introducing today will offer competitive grants to States to provide children below 185 percent of the poverty line with a transitional kindergarten during the summer before kindergarten formally begins and a transitional first grade during the summer between kindergarten and first grade.

Why an extra four months of kindergarten for these children? The answer is simple. Because too many low income children today enter kindergarten unprepared for the year ahead, far behind their wealthier peers in both academic and social skills.

According to a recent survey, 46 percent of kindergarten teachers report that at least half of their class or more has specific problems with entry into kindergarten. Yet, kindergarten is critical in preparing children to succeed in elementary school, especially for children at-risk of academic failure.

There is no panacea, no magic wand to erase the deficiencies that too many low income children have in entering kindergarten on par with their more economically well-off peers. It is simply not possible in a two month period before kindergarten begins or in a nine-month half day pre-kindergarten program to wipe away the advantages that wealthier children have had in their first five years of life that result in the skill set with which they enter kindergarten.

We can, however, do a better job of preparing less fortunate children for school. We can expose them to classroom practices and routines and the expectations for kindergarten behavior and protocol. We can introduce them to concepts and help them understand that classrooms have rules. We can expose them to literature, story time or circle time. We can help them understand that books are made up of printed words and that words are made up of individual letters. We can ask them questions to help develop their critical thinking skills, like what do you think will happen next in the story? Why? We can offer them ``show and tell'' to develop their oral language skills and ability to speak out loud in sequential sentences.

Many children enter kindergarten with these skills. But, many do not. During the school year before a child is eligible to enter kindergarten, about 75 percent of children in families with more than $75,000 in income participate in some type of center-based program, compared to 51 percent of children in families with incomes between $10,000 and $20,000.

The numbers are much more stark when looking at the children of mothers who dropped out of high school. Recent data shows that about 74 percent of 3, 4, and 5 year old children whose mothers graduated from college were enrolled in a center-based program compared to only 42 percent of 3, 4, and 5 year old children whose mothers did not complete high school.

How does this translate to children? Some children know how to follow directions and some children do not. Some children transition well between activities as part of a daily routine, some children do not. About 85 percent of high income children, compared to 39 percent of low income children, can recognize letters of the alphabet upon arrival in kindergarten. About half the children of college graduates can identify the beginning sounds of words, but only 9 percent of the children whose parents didn't complete high school can recognize the beginning sounds of words.

Of equal concern, kindergarten teachers report that about 80 percent of children whose mothers graduated from college persist at a task and are eager to learn whereas only about 60 percent of the children whose mothers have not graduated from high school persist at a task and are eager to learn.

What we know from the research is that children can enter kindergarten better prepared to learn. We may not be able to close the gap between low income children and their wealthier peers, but we can certainly narrow it considerably.

Our bill would provide states with resources to offer a transitional kindergarten during the summer before kindergarten begins. This would enable local school districts to offer a jumpstart on kindergarten with smaller class sizes during the summer. Before all kindergarten eligible children arrive, K+ children would have an introduction to kindergarten. The same opportunity would be part of the program for the summer between kindergarten and first grade.

The introductory period would enable school districts to target low income children who may never before have participated in a center- based program such as Head Start or state pre-k, or nursery school. They could target low income English language learners or low income children who participated in Head Start or state pre-k who could continue their progress during the summer.

About 65 percent of mothers with children under age 6 are in the workforce today. Every day, about 13 million preschoolers, including 6 million infants and toddlers, are in some type of child care arrangement. What we are trying to do with this bill is to pull out low income children who would be eligible to enter kindergarten in the fall and offer them a summer enrichment period as an introduction to kindergarten. It might be that a local Head Start or community-based organization's preschool would continue to operate their programs during the summer. However, these are local decisions made by school districts that apply for and receive K+ funding.

It should be clear that the K+ program would operate as a supplement to existing programs, most of which follow the school calendar. In fact, children who participate in a high quality early learning program during the summer before kindergarten are not eligible to participate in K+ to avoid duplication of efforts and scarce resources.

In the National Academy of Sciences report, ``From Neurons to Neighborhoods: the Science of Early Childhood Development'', numerous recommendations are made to improve the foundation with which children enter school. The report points out that with so many parents working today, the burden of poor quality and limited choice in child care rests most heavily on low income working families whose financial resources are too high to qualify for subsidies or Head Start yet too low to afford market prices for quality child care.

It is the children of the working poor who are very much at risk of beginning kindergarten behind their wealthier and poorer peers. Yet, it is these children in addition to poor children who are most likely to enter kindergarten behind their wealthier peers, unprepared for the year ahead.

Supporting the K+ program is the American Federation of Teachers, AFT, the Parent-Teacher Association, PTA, the Council of Great City Schools, the Society for Research in Child Development, SRCD, the Children's Defense Fund, and Easter Seals.

We urge you to join us as cosponsors of this legislation and help give low income children a jump-start on school success.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a brief summary of the bill and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today, along with Senators Biden, Specter, Kyl, Hollings and Allen, to introduce the Reducing Crime and Terrorism at America's Seaports Act of 2004--legislation designed to deter, prevent and punish a terrorist attack at or through one of our Nation's seaports.

I would like to thank Senator Kyl for joining me in sponsoring this bill, as well as Senators Biden, Specter, Hollings and Allen for their leadership and hard work on this critical matter.

Last year, Senator Kyl and I introduced the Anti-Terrorism and Port Security Act of 2003. That bill contained a set of comprehensive measures to enhance the security of our ports. At the same time, Senators Biden and Specter were working on legislation largely focused on the criminal law aspect of Port Security.

Since that time we have joined together to craft the bill now before us. The legislation is narrow in focus, limited primarily to criminal law provisions. It is my hope that it will enjoy strong bipartisan support.

I also hope we can continue to work towards a more comprehensive approach to seaport security in the coming months.

Our nation's seaports represent the soft underbelly of our Nation's homeland security. Our adversaries, including al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, have the plans and capabilities to launch a maritime attack. In fact, just last week six al-Qaida associates were charged with planning the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole. in Yemen that left 19 American sailors dead.

Millions of shipping containers pass through our ports each month. A single container has room for as much as 60,000 pounds of explosives-- 10 to 15 times the amount in the Ryder truck used to blow up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. When you consider that a single ship can carry as many as 8,000 containers at one time, the vulnerability of our seaports is alarming.

Worse, a suitcase-sized nuclear device or radiological ``dirty bomb'' could also be placed in a container and shipped into the country. With the current monitoring system, the odds are that the container would never be inspected. And, even if the container was inspected, it would be too late.

In addition to the danger such attacks present to human lives, an attack on or through a seaport could have devastating economic consequences. Excluding trade with Mexico and Canada, America's ports handle 95 percent of goods imported and exported from the U.S. That means 800 million tons of cargo valued at approximately $600 billion. A terrorist attack would bring our port operations

to a complete standstill. To give you even a small glimpse of what such a disruption could mean, last year's West Coast labor dispute cost the U.S. economy somewhere between $1 and $2 billion per day--a total of $10 to $20 billion.

In its December 2002 report, the Hart-Rudman Terrorism Task Force described what a terrorist attack at or through one of our ports might mean in economic terms: ``If an explosive device were loaded in a container and set off in a port, it would almost automatically raise concern about the integrity of the 21,000 containers that arrive in U.S. ports each day and the many thousands more that arrive by truck and rail across U.S. land borders. A three-to-four-week closure of U.S. ports would bring the global container industry to its knees. Megaports such as Rotterdam and Singapore would have to close their gates to prevent boxes from piling up on their limited pier space. Trucks, trains, and barges would be stranded outside the terminals with no way to unload their boxes. Boxes bound for the United States would have to be unloaded from their outbound ships. Service contracts would need to be renegotiated. As the system became gridlocked, so would much of global commerce.''

This is a national issue, but one of particular concern to my home state because more than half of all goods imported into the U.S. pass through my home State of California.

Last year, 6.5 million imported containers--52 percent of the containers entering the United States--traveled through California. Six million of these came through two ports alone: the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach.

That means that, if terrorists succeeded in putting a weapon of mass destruction into a container undetected, there is a one in two chance that this weapon would arrive and/or be detonated in Southern California.

And the problem is not just with containers. Nearly one-quarter of California's imported crude oil is offloaded in one area. A suicide attack on a tanker at an offloading facility could leave Southern California without refined fuels within a few days.

Since September 11, we have made significant steps in enhancing port security, but clearly, there is more to be done. This bill addresses some of those needed enhancements, particularly in the area of criminal law.

The Reducing Crime and Terrorism at America's Seaports Act of 2004 does the following: Clarifies existing law to make clear that those who would try to access our ports under false pretenses are committing a crime; makes it a crime to refuse to stop when the Coast Guard orders a ship to standby for inspection; sets clear criminal penalties for the use of a dangerous weapon or explosive on a passenger vessel such as a cruise ship; imposes criminal penalties for those who tamper with navigational aids, such as buoys and transponders, intentionally place destructive devices in navigable waters, or intentionally dump hazardous materials in waterways; establishes a specific crime for knowingly and willfully transporting aboard any vessel an explosive, biological agent, chemical weapon, or radioactive or nuclear materials intended to be used to commit a terrorist act; the bill also makes it a crime to knowingly and willfully transport a person aboard any vessel who intends to commit, or has committed, a terrorist act; makes it a crime to damage or destroy a vessel or a maritime facility, to commit an act of violence against any individual on a vessel or near a port facility, or to knowingly communicate false information that endangers the safety of a vessel; provides sanctions to deter criminal or civil violations related to a range of offenses, including theft of interstate or foreign shipments; amends existing law to increase penalties for noncompliance with certain reporting and recordkeeping requirements for incoming ships, including information regarding the content of cargo containers and the country from which the shipments originated; and finally, the bill toughens anti-stowaway laws and laws governing bribery of port security officials.

Strengthening criminal penalties is one way we can make our Nation's ports less vulnerable. The Coast Guard, the FBI, Customs and Immigration authorities--all need the appropriate crime-fighting tools to prevent a terrorist attack. Today, we are introducing legislation to provide the crime-fighting tools that will do just that.

I ask unanimous consent that an analysis of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President. There is no more important or essential substance to us than water. It is the source from which life springs. It also has the potential to be the source of incredible conflict ranging from local to international levels. Fresh water supplies are coming under pressure all over the globe. By mid-century, over half of the world's population will face severe water shortages. These shortages go beyond drinking water; particularly important is the nexus of water and energy production--another flash point in global affairs. Seriously confronting this problem before it leads to tremendous burdens on this nation and the world is an endeavor as worthwhile as any I can contemplate.

Research and development in this area has long been without concerted national attention. Water and water rights have traditionally been under the purview of the States, and rightly so. But few States have the capacity and funding to adequately address this problem. Users of water resources are highly risk averse and can ill afford to take chances on unproven technology. At the Federal level, at least seventeen agencies do water research, however only three currently engage in water supply augmentation research--the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Department of Energy. According to the National Research Council's June 17, 2004 report entitled ``Confronting the Nation's Water Problems: The Role of Research,'' the total Federal investment in water resources research in 2000 dollars has been level at $700m since 1967. The Federal investment in 2000 was 5 percent less than the investment in 1973 in indexed dollars. The total Federal water research investment of $700m represents about 0.5 percent of the Federal research budget--for the most fundamental resource need. Investment in Water supply augmentation research funding has declined from $160m in 1970 to $14m in 2000.

These circumstances have led to neglect in long-term, cutting edge, commercially viable research and development. This is ultimately untenable. We know what is possible, we have acted successfully before. Federal investment in the 1960's and 1970's is the basis for existing desalination technology that substantially expanded U.S. and world wide water supplies. We know that a similar investment can again achieve such results. Thus, the lack of Federal investment is unacceptable given our prior experiences and our complete and utter dependence on this resource.

Our nation's efforts to address these problems must be fought on multiple fronts. We must provide for development and maintenance of water infrastructure, particularly in rural areas. This is the infrastructure that sustains our lives and livelihoods. We must make our management of this precious resource more rational. We must make a concerted effort to more fully understand and extend the limits of our fresh and lower quality water. We must coordinate and enhance our technology to address both water quality and quantity. We cannot fight all these fronts with one effort, but we can begin to address aspects of the problem.

To that end, I introduce today the Department of Energy National Laboratories Water Research and Development Act of 2004. This admittedly ambitious bill authorizes a substantial Federal investment of up to $200 million per year for basic and applied research and development in water supply technologies. The emphasis of this program is developing and deploying new and affordable technology to improve water quantity and quality. Its primary goal is to facilitate and guide research, development, and deployment of affordable and cutting edge technology that increases the quantity and quality of water available for multiple uses. This will be done across the Nation, in a wide range of hydrogeographies and water situations.

The effort combines the expertise and resources of our great National Laboratories and universities across the country. The Program builds on the immense investment in new technology and basic science within the labs and universities and directs it toward this critical human need. It will also compliment and strengthen the many programs and efforts underway at Federal agencies and non-governmental organizations.

The Act authorizes the Department of Energy, through the National Laboratories, to partner with universities in specified regions to work on technology for particularized areas of research. Each region will be tasked with addressing a given range of issues. These include brine removal and inland desalination to re-use and conservation technology. Furthermore, the water and energy nexus will be fully explored. Pressures created by water needed to supply energy and energy necessary to produce usable water have not, to date, been sufficiently addressed.

A grant program will be created to augment existing efforts by non- program members. Many Federal agencies and non-governmental entities have ongoing projects in this arena including the Bureau of Reclamation (``BOR''), the Department of Agriculture (``USDA''), the Department of Defense (``DOD'') (through the Office of Naval Research), the Environmental Protection Agency (``EPA''), and NASA. Additionally, the Program fully incorporates public-private partnerships such as those already working with the American Water Resources Research Foundation, the WateReuse Foundation and many others.

Finally, this bill creates a National Water Supply Law and Policy Institute. The Policy Center's responsibilities include identifying intervention points where technological development may help alleviate real and potential water supply problems. The Policy Institute will act as a clearinghouse for relevant information on regulations, laws and codes--from municipal to national scales focused on helping to overcome obstacles of new technology that can expand water supplies.

The Program will be administered by a Program Coordinator appointed by the Secretary of Energy. The Coordinator will administer the program from facilities located at Sandia National Laboratory, our Nation's best applied engineering lab. Acting as the coordinating institution, Sandia is responsible for technology development road-mapping and assisting the Regional Centers in transferring their creations from bench-scale to commercialization. Sandia is also charged with guiding the Policy Center.

The conditions are present to necessitate the Federal government taking a lead role. We must act now. The costs of inaction will be borne by all of us. The market is skewed against development. It is a matter of personal and national security. It is a matter of human necessity. It is a matter of time.

The need is great. The goal is good. Let us begin.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.