To amend the Public Health Service Act with respect to the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 655) to amend the Public Health Service Act with respect to the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material on the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 655, legislation to make needed improvements to the CDC Foundation. The CDC Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation established by Congress in 1992 to help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fulfill its mission on protecting health and promoting safety. It is located in my State of Georgia. The CDC Foundation is a unique private-public partnership that supports the important work of the CDC both here in the United States and around the world.

When public health emergencies strike, the CDC Foundation harnesses the know-how of the private sector to fill the gaps and get around government red tape, helping to keep Americans safe from harm.

To fulfill its mission, the CDC Foundation relies heavily on the ingenuity and resources of private donations. In the 11 years since its incorporation, the CDC Foundation has raised more than $100 million in private donations from individuals, corporate partners, and other foundations. With the relatively small Federal investment of half a million dollars per year for operating expenses, the CDC Foundation has been able to leverage over $15 million per

year in private funds over the last 5 years. This represents an amazing 30-to-1 return on the Federal investment.

These funds allow the foundation to manage over 100 programs that work directly with the CDC and the United States in over 30 countries around the world.

The CDC Foundation helps to bring an international focus to the work of the CDC that is having a direct impact on the health of U.S. citizens here at home. When deadly infections like SARS or bird flu arise in distant parts of the world, the world-renowned expertise of CDC experts can play an important role in disease monitoring and prevention. Effective intervention at the source can stop these diseases in their tracks, preventing them from ever reaching our soil.

With help from the CDC Foundation, experts at the CDC train local public health officials from around the world, offering valuable resources and expertise to fight deadly infections and save lives.

But the CDC Foundation doesn't just protect Americans by supporting overseas activities. Here in the United States the Foundation gives CDC needed flexibility during public health emergencies. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last year, for example, the lack of computers and Internet access was hampering the CDC's work in detecting and containing potential disease outbreaks among Houston-area hurricane evacuees. Thanks to the ready availability of CDC Foundation funds, these CDC teams were able to cut through the red tape and purchase the equipment they needed to get the job done.

Furthermore, the CDC Foundation is served by an outstanding internationally renowned board of directors that draws its members from the corporate, philanthropic, educational and public health sectors. These leaders have served ably in bringing about both accountability and flexibility to this unique public-private partnership. And I would urge the support of this legislation today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Linder), who is the sponsor of the House version of this same bill that we are now considering from the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my other Georgia colleague, Mr. Gingrey.

Mr. Speaker, the proposed legislation today, as has already been stated, has already received strong bipartisan support as it unanimously passed the Senate, and likewise, passed the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House.

The bill makes several changes to the existing CDC Foundation statute. For example, it allows greater sharing of resources such as private office space and facilities from the CDC to the Foundation. It also extends the lengths of fellowships granted by the Foundation beyond the current limit of 2 years.

The bill will allow the director of the CDC to shift more of her discretionary funding to cover the administrative and operating cost of the foundation. Like any nonprofit or charitable foundation, the CDC Foundation must cover its administrative costs out of its own funds. This legislation will allow the CDC director to provide the Foundation between $500,000 per year up to the $1.25 million per year for operating expenses, depending on need.

Finally, the bill provides additional accountability for Federal resources by requiring a report of the Foundation's activities to be submitted to Congress each year. With these improvements contained in this legislation, I am confident that the CDC Foundation will be able to attract additional significant private funds and expand its role in assisting the CDC.

The continuing partnership between the Foundation and the Federal Government is helping the CDC to have a positive impact on people's health in the United States and around the world.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to thank Ranking Member Dingell and our ranking member of the subcommittee, Sherrod Brown, for allowing me to manage the bill.

I rise in support of this legislation which the Energy and Commerce Committee reported out last month. This legislation makes minor changes in the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so that it can have the flexibility it needs to build on its success to date.

First authorized by Congress in 1992, the CDC Foundation is an excellent example of a public-private partnership that can yield tremendous results with minimal taxpayer investment.

Specifically, the Foundation has utilized $500,000 in Federal funding to bring in approximately $15 million in private sector dollars each year. This amounts to a 30-to-1 return on CDC's annual investment in the Foundation.

With this funding, the CDC Foundation has implemented more than 100 health and safety programs in over 30 countries. These programs stretch across the world and reach all levels of society from corporate leaders and health care professionals to patients.

For example, the Foundation has addressed global health concerns with the Round Table on Global Health Threats, which brought global government and corporate leaders together to develop ways to better detect global health threats.

The Foundation has also been instrumental in the establishment of a health leadership academy that provides management training for midcareer health care professionals from local and State health departments.

The CDC Foundation has also improved the health of underserved women here at home through its mobile mammogram van. This partnership with Avon has put mobile vans on the ground in rural and underserved communities. There is no question that these vans have saved the lives of American women who face significant barriers to health care and whose cancer would have most likely gone undetected until it was too late.

What's more, the CDC has now assigned a scientist to the program to evaluate the program and determine the best practices for similar programs around the country.

This bill makes minor changes in the Foundation's authorization that will have a major impact on the Foundation's ability to leverage its resources and maximize the outcome. For example, the bill increases the authorization levels the CDC director can put toward the Foundation. This change will provide the CDC director with the flexibility to increase CDC's investment in the Foundation, but not at additional taxpayer expense, since the CDC's contribution to the Foundation is not appropriated, but comes from the director's budget.

The bill would also allow for better alignment of private fellowships and Foundation activities. Currently, fellows may be assigned to the Foundation program for 2 years, despite the program's duration of 3 to 4. This small change will allow fellows to remain throughout the program's duration, providing the program with invaluable institutional memory and increased efficiency, which will no doubt improve the outcomes.

This is a commonsense bill that will improve the public-private partnerships that are so important to the current success of the CDC Foundation.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill and ensure we build on this success in the future.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. As I listened to my colleagues, I realized that a lot of what I am going to say is going to be a repeat, but I will tell you what, the story is so good, Mr. Speaker, I want to hear it again myself.

Let me just say that this legislation contains two crucial provisions that allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more flexibility to expand its successful National Foundation Program.

This Foundation is a private, nonprofit organization that was authorized back in 1992 by Congress to raise private funds to support the work of the CDC. It was established to unite outside partners and resources with CDC scientists and employees in order to build programs which substantially strengthen the influence of the CDC.

Some examples of the Foundation's current successful partnerships are Home Depot, UPS and BellSouth.

Currently, the Foundation is required to enforce a maximum of 2 years' participation in the program. However, S. 655 would allow the Foundation to work with these and other partners and employees for as long as they deem appropriate.

Since it was incorporated as a nonprofit back in 1996, the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has raised, and it has been stated earlier, more than $100 million. This has been accomplished with a maximum annual investment limit of only $500,000, meaning that each year the CDC can transfer a maximum of 500,000 from its own budget to fund the Foundation.

In recent years, the Foundation has established a reputation of raising almost $15 million annually. And that, as Mr. Green said, is a 30-fold return on investment.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation increases this maximum investment limit to $1.25 million, an amount equal to the ceiling placed on the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

This provision allows the CDC to transfer an additional $750,000 annually from its budget to support the operating expenses of the Foundation, thereby allowing it to continue to raise private funds for CDC research.

In this time of uncertainty with respect to things like avian flu and other public health threats, our country needs more from this agency than ever. S. 655 gives the Foundation the flexibility to make crucial changes that will increase the capacity of the CDC by leveraging this successful public-private sector collaboration.

It is in the best interest of the American taxpayer to allow a successful program to leverage more private funds to support this crucial agency. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House passage for S. 655 and I urge my colleagues on both sides to join me in supporting the measure.

S. 655 closely mirrors legislation I introduced in the House last year, H.R. 1569. Both of these measures seek the same objective, to make very few limited changes to current Federal law governing the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In light of the fact that the U.S. Senate approved an amended version of S. 655 last July, I worked with my friend and colleague from Georgia (Mr. Deal), the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, to bring this measure to the floor today. I commend him for all of his work on this project, and express my appreciation for his support and leadership on health policy matters, including the CDC.

The legislation before us today, S. 655, would allow research fellows at the Foundation to remain in their positions for as long as their privately funded fellowships remain in effect. Currently, such fellowships must end after 2 years.

Second, the bill gives the director of the CDC authority to provide facilities, utilities and support services to the Foundation, provided that doing so furthers the CDC's public health mission.

Third, it would allow the Secretary of HHS, on behalf of the CDC, to make up to $1.25 million in funding available to the Foundation each year, an increase from the current law level of $500,000.

This bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent and has moved quickly through Energy and Commerce. The important part is the raising the funding part. For every dollar in public funds, the Foundation generates $30 in nongovernmental funding from the private sector. For example, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals paid $30,000 for an Asian rotavirus surveillance network meeting.

Kaiser Foundation Hospitals gave $2 million to emergency preparedness and the response fund.

Sanofi Pasteur paid $1.5 million for a meningcoccal vaccine study.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals paid $3 million for a study of the blood inhibitors in hemophilia patients. These were of parochial interest to these corporations, but of general interest to the public health, and have been helpful to all of us.

In short, the Foundation leverages a modest amount of public money and uses that to generate a large amount of private nongovernmental support for the CDC and its mission. Passing S. 655

will help enable the Foundation to surpass this exemplary record of achievement.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.