United States Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs Act

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill that will reform our immigration policies to make the United States more competitive, called the Securing Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership, or ``SKIL'' bill. Other original cosponsors of this legislation include Senators Allard, Allen, Bennett, Enzi, and Lott.

Our ability to innovate is crucial to the success of our economy. By investing in science and technology, we revolutionize our economy and improve the world. The President has responded to this need by proposing the American Competitiveness Initiative. And I am a proud co- sponsor of legislation that has been introduced in the Senate: the Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE bills) and National Innovation Act.

But there is still more that can be done. Immigration policy must be part of any discussion of competitiveness. The United States does not produce enough engineers--China graduates four times as many engineers as the U.S., and within a few years, approximately 90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will be in Asia. Foreign students fill that gap right now in the U.S., but then our immigration policy-- not our economy--forces them to return home because there are not enough highly skilled work visas.

In the long run, we must improve our schools and encourage more U.S. students to study engineering and mathematics. But we also must adapt immigration policy so that when U.S. students are educated in engineering fields, there will be U.S. jobs for them to fill. With the SKIL bill, foreign students who graduate from U.S. institutions will be able to stay and work in the United States. The bill will allow companies to retain highly skilled and educated workers.

The SKIL bill requires the government to change its processes so that companies do not waste valuable resources. If a worker has been in the U.S. and has complied with all immigration laws, he should be allowed to renew his visa here in the U.S. Why make that worker go to a consulate when all of the processing can be done here in the U.S.?

The SKIL bill exempts from annual visa limit any foreign student graduating from a U.S. university with a Master's or PhD in essential fields. Foreign workers with extraordinary skills, such as a Nobel Prize winner or an international scholar--should not have to wait for a visa. The President has also called for an increase in H-1B visas.

As Chair of the Immigration subcommittee, I have seen how immigration--both legal and illegal--affects all aspects of our lives. I am pleased that there is so much discussion about immigration and about improving avenues for workers to enter our country. But immigration today will shape the country that our children grow up in. And so there needs to be more discussion about the kinds of immigration that will most benefit our economy and our country.

I am introducing the SKIL bill because I don't believe enough attention has been focused on legal immigrants, especially the highly skilled workers who contribute to our economy and comply with our laws. It is my hope that this legislation will allow U.S. companies to retain a highly educated workforce until we can channel more American students into the math, science, and engineer pipeline. The SKIL bill is yet another important piece of the U.S. competitiveness agenda, and I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend Senator Lieberman in introducing legislation that will ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, and will help enhance America's ability to compete in the global economy.

Each year, our Federal Government invests more than $55 billion on basic and applied research. That s roughly 40 percent of the current two-year budget for my home State of Texas.

The bulk of this money is spent by approximately 10 agencies, including: the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture. These agencies use the money to fund research which is usually conducted by outside researchers working for universities, healthcare systems, and other groups.

Most of the time, researchers will publish the results of their work in an academic journal. The NIH, for example, estimates that roughly 65,000 articles are published each year that report on research either partially or entirely funded by NIH.

Unfortunately, as it stands now, most Americans have little--to no-- timely access to this wealth of information, despite the fact that their tax dollars paid for the research. Some Federal agencies, with the NIH chief amongst them, have taken some very positive steps in the right direction to require that these articles reporting on government- funded research be freely available to the public in a timely manner.

In fact, today marks the one-year anniversary of the implementation of a ground breaking public access policy at NIH developed by Director Elias Zerhouni. I thank Dr. Zerhouni and his colleagues for their leadership on this important issue and for energizing this debate.

While Dr. Zerhouni and NIH have made strong progress, Sen. Lieberman and I believe more must be done, not only at NIH and in medical research, but throughout the Federal Government and the sciences in general.

That is why today we are introducing the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006, legislation that will refine the work done by NIH and require that the Federal Government's leading underwriters of research adopt meaningful public access policies.

Our legislation is a simple, common sense approach that will advance the public's access to the research it funds. We hope this access will help accelerate science, innovation, and discovery.

Under our bill, all Federal departments and agencies that invest $100 million or more annually in research will be asked to develop a public access policy. Each policy will require that all articles that result from federal funding be deposited in a publicly accessible archive no later than six months after publication.

Our bill simply says to all researchers who seek government funding that we want the results of your work to be seen by the largest possible audience. It will ensure that U.S. taxpayers do not have to pay twice for the same research--once to conduct it, and a second time to read it.

This legislation is an opportunity for our government to better leverage our investment in research, and to ensure a greater return on that investment, which is all the more important given the current budget situation. By sharing this information quickly and broadly with all potential users, we can advance science, accelerate the pace of new discoveries and innovations, and improve the lives and welfare of people at home and abroad.

All Americans will be positively affected as a result of this bill: patients diagnosed with a disease or condition will be able to use the Internet to access the full text of articles containing the latest information on ent and prognosis; students at small institutions will have equal access to research articles they need to complete assignments and further their studies; researches will have their findings more broadly and more quickly disseminated, possibly sparking further discovery and innovation

The Internet has dramatically altered how the world gathers and shares information. The Internet gives the homemaker in Houston the ability to find volumes of information about a recent medical diagnosis given to a family member. It allows a young community college student in rural West Texas--a great distance from the nearest research library--to learn the latest in scientific discovery and hopefully spur him to continue his studies.

While a comprehensive competitiveness agenda is still in the works, ensuring greater access to scientific information is one way we can help bolster interest in these important fields and move this issue forward while at the same time helping accelerate the pace of discovery and innovation. Through this legislation, I hope to ensure that students, researchers, and every American has access to the published results

of federally funded research, and I ask for my colleagues' support.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition today to comment on legislation that the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, Senator Graham, and I are introducing. This bill will provide veterans with the right to hire counsel to represent them in proceedings before the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and will help ensure that all who represent veterans are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct.

As President Abraham Lincoln eloquently expressed nearly 150 years ago, this Nation has an obligation ``to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.'' In keeping with that charge, the Federal Government provides a wide array of benefits to veterans and their dependents, through an administrative system that is intended to be informal, claimant-friendly, and non-adversarial.

During recent years, however, veterans' organizations, VA, and others have observed that this system has become increasingly complex. Enhanced legal requirements and layers of procedural steps intended to protect the rights of veterans have increased both the complexity of the system and how long it takes to process a claim. At the same time, with the Nation at war and servicemembers deployed around the world, the disability claims filed by returning veterans have become more

complex. Many of these claims are based on disabilities caused by environmental exposures, traumatic brain injuries, psychological trauma, severe combat wounds, and other highly complex medical conditions, which by their nature may entail complex questions of causality or intricate factual or legal analyses.

Despite the increasing complexity of many cases, all 24 million living veterans are prohibited from hiring a lawyer to help them navigate the VA system. It is only after a veteran has spent months and even years exhausting the extensive VA administrative process that the veteran then may retain counsel--a process that often takes 3 or more years to complete. As the National Organization of Veterans' Advocates (NOVA) testified before the Veterans' Affairs Committee last year, ``[t]his is too late in the process for counsel to be truly effective'' because by that time the evidentiary record ``is effectively closed.'' On the other hand, NOVA testified that, if attorneys were retained at an earlier stage of the process, they could be helpful in obtaining and presenting necessary evidence and in ensuring that VA timely and accurately processes claims.

So, with the potential for lawyers to help veterans successfully navigate this increasingly complex system, why does the government prohibit veterans from retaining counsel? This restriction, which dates back to the Civil War, was born out of concern that unscrupulous attorneys would improperly take large portions of veterans' disability benefits as compensation for their services. And some will argue that this concern is equally warranted today.

Although I understand this longstanding desire to protect veterans' disability compensation, I would ask my colleagues to consider a simple question posited in a recent editorial: ``If American soldiers are mature and responsible enough to choose to risk their lives for their country, shouldn't they be considered competent to hire a lawyer?'' I believe the obvious answer to that question is ``yes.''

Particularly for veterans of to day's All-Volunteer Force--which has been described as the ``best-trained, best-equipped, best-led fighting force in the history of the world''--this paternalistic restriction is simply outdated. These highly trained, highly skilled veterans have the ability--and should have the right--to decide whether or not to hire a lawyer.

This is a right that is not denied to individuals seeking other earned benefits from the government. In fact, if a veteran were to seek Social Security benefits for disabilities suffered during military service, the veteran would be permitted to hire an attorney--while the same veteran seeking benefits from VA for the same disabilities would be prohibited from hiring an attorney based on this remnant of an ancient policy.

The paternalistic restriction that prevents veterans from hiring counsel may have been advisable 150 years ago, but--as one veterans' organization recently testified before the Veterans' Affairs Committee--there is now no logic to it ``except history.'' It has endured for far too long and it is now time to embrace Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' admonition that it is ``revolting'' for a law to persist ``in blind imitation of the past.'' It is time to repeal this archaic law and to allow our Nation's veterans the option of hiring counsel.

Having said all that, I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that attorneys should be considered necessary in order to obtain VA benefits. Above all, we must ensure that the system continues to serve veterans in a claimant-friendly, non-adversarial manner--regardless of the presence of an attorney or any other representative--and we must strive to reduce the complexities of this vast system. I hope that veterans' organizations across the country will join me in pursuing those goals.

I also want to be clear that, although I believe veterans should have the option to hire attorneys, they should not be discouraged in any way from utilizing the free services now provided by many dedicated representatives of veterans' service organizations. Those representatives are an important and valuable resource that veterans and their families will undoubtedly continue to rely on for many generations to come. The availability of this resource, however, is no reason to restrict veterans' access to other options. If a veteran would rather hire an attorney, we should not stand in the way.

At the same time, however, we should ensure that anyone who represents a veteran is held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct and that any fee charged to a veteran is patently reasonable. To that end, this legislation will allow veterans the right to hire an attorney at any time and it will heighten the expectations on all individuals who represent veterans.

Specifically, this legislation will allow VA to ensure that all attorneys who practice before VA have adequate training or experience in this specialized area of law to competently represent veterans and that they conform to specified standards of ethical and professional conduct. It would also allow VA to ensure that all veterans' representatives are honest, professional, and law abiding; that they avoid further delaying or complicating the system by presenting frivolous claims or arguments; and that they conduct themselves with due regard for the non-adversarial nature of the system.

For veterans who opt to hire an attorney, this legislation would provide the Secretary of Veterans Affairs with authority to reduce any attorney fee if it is excessive or unreasonable and with authority to set restrictions on the amount of fees that could be charged in any case before VA. Finally, in order to avoid any drain on existing VA resources, VA would have authority to impose on attorneys a registration fee to defray any costs associated with allowing them to practice before VA.

In sum, this legislation will take measures to ensure that the interests of veterans will be protected, while allowing them to decide for themselves whether they want to hire a lawyer. I ask my colleagues to support this groundbreaking legislation.

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

Mr. President, America has the safest, most abundant, best tasting, and least expensive food supply not only in the world, but in the history of the world. There are a lot of good people in the food and fiber production industry who deserve credit for that. But the heart of food production in the United States and the world and the center of the rural communities that produce our food and fiber, is none other than the American family farmer and rancher.

I want to assure everyone here of this. There are a lot of us in Congress and in the country that believe in agriculture; we intend to continue supporting policies that help farmers; and we're not going to apologize to anyone for doing it, especially foreign countries that are not negotiating in good faith with the United States through the WTO.

When I am in Missouri, I hear strong support for the current farm bill. Producers all over the State tell me that they like the programs created in the farm bill and they want to see it extended, especially when we have the uncertainty of the current WTO negotiations hanging over the head of our domestic agriculture industry.

It would be unfair to our nation's agriculture producers to write a new farm bill in the midst of ongoing international trade negotiations. Today, Senator Lincoln, and I, with a number of other members, filed legislation to extend the current farm bill until the Doha round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is complete.

Our Nation's farmers and their lenders should not be asked to operate under rules that keep changing. We must have fair global trading rules in place before we write the next farm bill. A farm bill extension is a reasonable and sound approach.

Everyone knows that safe food is abundant in the United States. Farmers and farm workers constitute 2 percent of the total workforce in the United States, yet they help feed the entire world. Unfortunately, some people in Washington believe that we spend too much in securing that safe and abundant food supply.

What does this safe and inexpensive food supply cost the Federal taxpayer? In the United States, domestic support programs amount to \3/ 4\ of one per cent of the total Federal budget. For \3/4\ of one per cent our farmers are able to sustain an agriculture industry that produces 25 million jobs and 3.5 trillion dollars in economic activity.

For three quarters of one per cent of the Federal budget, Americans have a hedge against ever being held hostage to food imports the way we are now held hostage to energy imports. Where would our security be without the American family farm? What would it mean for the United States if our family farmers went out of business, and foreign powers could threaten our food as they now threaten our energy? Do we want to rely on Brazil for food the way we rely on Venezuela for oil?

I believe the best way to continue support for this strong sector of our economy is to extend the farm bill until we have a WTO agreement that is good for American agriculture. I do not believe that we should negotiate with our trading partners and against ourselves.

As George Washington wrote in 1796, ``Agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage.''

America will be more than ever what George Washington predicted in 1788 it would be: the ``storehouse and granary for the whole world.''

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would extend the provisions of the 2002 Farm Bill until our trading partners in the WTO have at least matched our commitment to level disparities in global agriculture trade. I would like to thank Senator Talent for working with me on this important piece of legislation to farm families in my State of Arkansas and across the Nation.

This legislation would extend our current farm bill until one year after implementing legislation for a WTO Doha agreement is enacted. Then . . . and only then . . . will Congress know what to expect of our trading partners and what our trading partners expect from us.

Four years ago, President Bush, after some noted reluctance, signed into law the 2002 Farm Bill. As a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and a farmer's daughter, I played an active role in that debate and was pleased with the outcome, which I view as a compromise between many different interests. Most importantly, I view it as a contract between the farmers in my State of Arkansas and their government. It is meant to offer what little certainty can exist for those who choose to make a living providing the safe and affordable food supply which we as Americans depend on. Unfortunately, certainty is something that's hard to come by in farm country these days.

This Administration has repeatedly asked Congress to cut funding or make structural changes to the 2002 Farm Bill, regardless of the fact that CBO estimates it has come in approximately $13 billion cheaper than anticipated.

This Administration has also refused to provide emergency assistance to agriculture producers, despite the fact that farmers across the Nation faced weather-related disasters of all kinds and record high fuel and fertilizer costs in 2005. A wet spring, followed by extreme drought and rising fuel prices, cost farmers in my State $923 million last year. In Arkansas, where one in five jobs is tied to agriculture, this impacts the entire State economy.

All the while, producers wait and watch as U.S. negotiators offer proposals in the WTO that would require drastic reductions and changes in our farm support, while our trading partners continue to protect their markets with tariffs and subsidies far higher than we have in the

Mr. President, today I introduced with my colleague, Senator Lieberman, the Elimination of Neglected Diseases Act of 2006. This legislation is designed to confront and combat a group of dangerous parasitic diseases that together claim more than 500,000 lives each year and adversely affect millions more. These 13-15 neglected tropical diseases, NTD, as they are called, are the most common infections in the developing world, and include such debilitating diseases as leprosy, guinea worm, and trachoma. Many are described in the Bible, exposing the sad fact that humans have been suffering from these diseases for millennia. Moreover, research has shown alarming rates of comorbidity of NTD's with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, resulting in severe complications with these already devastating diseases.

The biggest challenge to finding cures for these diseases is the lack of a market. Pharmaceuticals are expensive to develop, and since neglected diseases disproportionately affect poor and marginalized populations in the developing world, there are fewer incentives for conducting research and development for new treatments. The purpose of this act is to encourage drug development by creating market incentives for investment in new research. Specifically, the bill awards a limited patent-term extension or patent-term restoration for certain lifestyle and tropical disease drugs provided the company successfully develops a new FDA-approved drug for an NTD. In this way, a drug company can recoup costs for the large investment in NTD research and development.

With the exception of market incentives, we have all the right ingredients to develop new drugs that would dramatically reduce the number of NTD cases and improve the quality of human life worldwide. I strongly believe that this legislation will add the last remaining step to jumpstart competitive research and development for combating NTD's. I urge my colleagues to join in this effort by supporting this bill.