Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor Amendments Act of 2007

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to help millions of Americans overcome a deadly addiction: the addiction to tobacco. The Medicare, Medicaid and MCH Smoking Cessation Promotion Act of 2008 will help make smoking cessation therapy available to recipients of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Maternal and Child Health, MCH, Program.

More than 45 million adults in the United States smoke cigarettes. Approximately 90 percent started smoking before the age of 14. Despite the fact that we have known for decades that cigarette smoking are the leading preventable cause of death, 1,600 adults become regular smokers each day, including 4,000 kids. Depending on your race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, even where you live, the likelihood that you are a smoker varies greatly. African-Americans are twice as likely as the general population to smoke. Communities in the South are more likely to be smoker-friendly than other communities in the U.S. While 22.5 percent of the general adult population in the U.S. are current smokers, the percentage is about 50 percent higher among Medicaid recipients. Thirty-six percent of adults covered by Medicaid smoke.

We have a moral argument and an economic argument to end the addiction to nicotine. Morally, how do we ignore the deaths of 438,000 smokers or 8.6 million Americans living with serious smoking-related illnesses? Smoking causes virtually all cases of lung cancer and contributes to primary heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, and other deadly health ailments. It is too often a bleak future for smokers and their families. An American Legacy Foundation report reminds us that second- hand smoke in children of smokers leads to asthma and chronic ear infections in children but also that 43,000 children are orphaned every year because of tobacco-related deaths.

We are not only paying a heavy health toll, but an economic price as well. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, health care expenditures caused by smoking is approaching $100 billion. Our federal government pays $17.6 billion in smoking-caused Medicaid payments and $27.4 billion in smoking-caused Medicare expenditures.

Ironically, we do not hear that much about how many smokers America-- 70 percent--want to quit. Unfortunately, they face long odds--in 2000, only about 5 percent of smokers were successful in quitting long-term. Overcoming an addiction to tobacco is arguably one of the single most important lifestyle changes that can improve and extend lives. However, most smokers who want to quit don't appreciate how hard it really is to break an addition to nicotine.

This is why it is essential that we make this decision and the courage that it takes as easy as possible. States are already stepping up to the plate when it comes to smoking cessation. Last year in my home State of Illinois, a record-breaking 36 cities and counties enacted smoke-free laws, more than any other State in the Nation. More and more Illinoisans and Americans nationwide are realizing that life without smoking is possible. And the support for cessation does not end there. In fact, in 2003, 37 States had some form of coverage under Medicaid for at least one evidence-based treatment for smoking addiction. States like New Jersey and Oregon now have some of the lowest smoking-related Medicaid costs.

Studies have shown that reducing adult smoking through tobacco use treatment pays immediate dividends, both in terms of health improvements and cost savings. Shortly after quitting smoking, blood circulation improves, carbon monoxide levels in the blood decrease, the risk of heart attack decreases, lung function and breathing are improved, and coughing decreases.

Pregnant women who quit smoking before their second trimester decrease the chances that they will give birth to a low-birth-weight baby. Over the long term, quitting will reduce a person's risk of heart disease and stroke, improve symptoms of COPD, reduce the risk of developing smoking-caused cancer, and extend life expectancy.

We are fortunate to have identified clinically proven, effective strategies to help smokers quit. Advancements in treating tobacco use and nicotine addiction using pharmacotherapy and counseling have helped millions kick the habit. An updated clinical practice guideline released in May of 2008 by the U.S. Public Health Service urges health care insurers and purchasers to include counseling and FDA-approved pharmacologic treatments as a covered benefit. The Guideline also emphasizes the role that counseling, especially in conjunction with medication, increases the odds of success in quitting. As we urge healthcare insurers and purchasers to offer this important benefit, so too should our government sponsored health programs keep pace.

I am proud to be joined by my colleagues Senators Kennedy and Lautenberg to introduce the Medicare, Medicaid and MCH Smoking Cessation Promotion Act of 2008 and require government-sponsored health programs to cover this important benefit. The Medicare, Medicaid, and MCH Smoking Cessation Promotion Act of 2008 makes it easier for people to have access to smoking cessation treatment therapies. It does three meaningful things.

First, this bill adds a smoking cessation counseling benefit and coverage of FDA-approved tobacco cessation drugs to Medicare. By 2020, 17 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 years of age or older. It is estimated that Medicare will pay $800 billion to treat tobacco related diseases over the next 20 years.

Second, this bill provides coverage for counseling, prescription and non-prescription smoking cessation drugs in the Medicaid program. The bill eliminates the provision in current federal law that allows States to exclude FDA-approved smoking cessation therapies from coverage under Medicaid. Despite the fact that the States have received payments from their successful Federal lawsuit against the tobacco industry, less than half the States provide coverage for smoking cessation in their Medicaid program. Even if Medicaid covered cessation products and services exclusively to pregnant women, we would see significant cost savings and health improvements. Children whose mothers smoke during pregnancy are almost twice as likely to develop asthma as those whose mothers did not. Over 7 years, reducing smoking prevalence by just one percentage point among pregnant women would prevent 57,200 low birth weight births and save $572 million in direct medical costs.

Third, this bill ensures that the Maternal and Child Health Program recognizes that medications used to promote smoking cessation and the inclusion of anti-tobacco messages in health promotion are considered part of quality maternal and child health services.

As Congress begins to examine more closely the impact of tobacco on our country--considering regulation by the FDA or raising taxes to pay for public health priorities--we must make sure we assist those fighting this deadly addiction. I hope my colleagues will join me in cosponsoring this legislation and taking a stand for the public health of our Nation.

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

Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Credit Card Minimum Payment Warning Act. I thank Senators Durbin, Leahy, and Schumer for cosponsoring this legislation.

Too many consumers in our country are burdened by significant credit card debt. Revolving debt, mostly comprised of credit card debt, has risen from $54 billion in 1980 to more than $883 billion in 2007.

We must make consumers more aware of the long-term effects of their financial decisions, particularly in managing credit card debt. While it is relatively easy to obtain credit, especially on college campuses, not enough is being done to ensure that credit is properly managed. Currently, credit card statements fail to include vital information that would allow individuals to make fully informed financial decisions. Additional disclosure is needed to ensure that consumers completely understand the implications of their credit card use and the costs of only making the minimum payments.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 included a requirement that credit card issuers provide information to consumers about the consequences of only making the minimum monthly payment. However, this requirement fails to provide the detailed information on billing statements that consumers need to know to make informed decisions. The bankruptcy law allows credit card issuers a choice between disclosure statements. The first option included in the bankruptcy bill would require a standard ``Minimum Payment Warning.'' The generic warning would state that it would take 88 months to pay off a balance of $1,000 for bank card holders or 24 months to pay off a balance of $300 for retail card holders. This first option also includes a requirement that a toll-free number be established that would provide an estimate of the time it would take to pay off the customer's balance. The Federal Reserve Board is required to establish the table that would estimate the approximate number of months it would take to pay off a variety of account balances.

There is a second option that the law permits. The second option allows the credit card issuer to provide a general minimum payment warning and provide a toll-free number that consumers could call for the actual number of months to repay the outstanding balance.

The options available under the Bankruptcy Reform law are woefully inadequate. They do not require issuers to provide their customers with the total amount they would pay in interest and principal if they chose to pay off their balance at the minimum rate. Since the average household with debt carries a balance of approximately $10,000 to $12,000 in revolving debt, a warning based on a balance of $1,000 will not be helpful. The minimum payment warning included in the first option underestimates the costs of paying a balance off at the minimum payment. If a family has a credit card debt of $10,000, and the interest rate is a modest 12.4 percent, it would take more than ten and a half years to pay off the balance while making minimum monthly payments of four percent.

My legislation would make it very clear what costs consumers will incur if they make only the minimum payments on their credit cards. If the Credit Card Minimum Payment Warning Act is enacted, the personalized information consumers would receive for their accounts would help them make informed choices about their payments toward reducing outstanding debt.

My bill requires a minimum payment warning notification on monthly statements stating that making the minimum payment will increase the amount of interest that will be paid and extend the amount of time it will take to repay the outstanding balance. The legislation also requires companies to inform consumers of how many years and months it will take to repay their entire balance if they make only minimum payments. In addition, the total cost in interest and principal, if the consumer pays only the minimum payment, would have to be disclosed. These provisions will make individuals much more aware of the true costs of their credit card debt. The bill also requires that credit card companies provide useful information so that people can develop strategies to free themselves of credit card debt. Consumers would have to be provided with the amount they need to pay to eliminate their outstanding balance within 36 months.

Finally, the legislation requires that creditors establish a toll- free number so that consumers can access trustworthy credit counselors. In order to ensure that consumers are referred only to trustworthy credit counseling organizations, these agencies would have to be approved by the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve Board as having met comprehensive quality standards. These standards are necessary because certain credit counseling agencies have abused their nonprofit, tax-exempt status and taken advantage of people seeking assistance in managing their debt.

In a report on customized minimum payment disclosures released in April 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that consumers who typically carry credit balances found customized disclosures very useful and would prefer to receive them in their billing statements.

We must provide consumers with detailed personalized information to assist them in making better informed choices about their credit card use and repayment. Our bill makes clear the adverse consequences of uninformed choices, such as making only minimum payments, and provides opportunities to locate assistance to better manage credit card debt.

My bill is necessary to improve credit card disclosures so that consumers are provided relevant and useful information that hopefully will bring about positive behavior change among consumers. Consumers with lower debt levels will be better able to purchase a home, pay for their child's education, or retire comfortably on their own terms.

I will ask that a letter of support from the Consumer Federation of America, the Center for Responsible Lending, Consumer Action, Consumers Union, Demos, the National Association of Consumer Advocates, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Consumer Law Center be printed in the Record.

I will also ask that the text of the Credit Card Minimum Payment Warning Act be printed in the Record.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation that will empower consumers by providing them with detailed personalized information to assist them in making informed choices about their credit card use and repayment. This bill makes clear the adverse consequences of uninformed choices such as making only minimum payments and provides opportunities to locate assistance to reduce credit card debt.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the aforementioned materials be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on State, Local, and Private Sector Preparedness and Integration of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 2 p.m., in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Private Sector Preparedness, Part II: protecting our critical infrastructure.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

This hearing will address issues relating to telephone number portability.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of this hearing is to consider the nominations of Clarence H. Albright, of South Carolina, to be Under Secretary of Energy; Lisa E. Epifani, of Texas, to be an Assistant Secretary of Energy for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs; James L. Caswell, of Idaho, to be Director of the Bureau of Land Management; and Brent T. Wahlquist of Pennsylvania, to be Director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Airport Airways Trust Fund: The Future of Aviation Financing.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to hold a hearing on the nomination of Dr. James W. Holsinger to be Medical Director and Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, Department of

Health and Human Services during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 10 a.m., room G50 of the Dirksen Senate office building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct an oversight hearing on transportation issues in Indian country.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a markup session on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen room 226.

Agenda

I. Bills

S.1145, Patent Reform Act of 2007, (Leahy, Hatch, Schumer, Cornyn, Whitehouse);

S.--, School Safety and Law Enforcement Improvements Act, (Chairman's mark);

S. 1060, Recidivism Reduction & Second Chance Act of 2007, (Biden, Specter, Brownback, Leahy, Kennedy, Schumer, Whitehouse, Durbin)

II. Nominations

William Lindsay Osteen, Jr. to be United States District Judge for the Middle District of North Carolina; Martin Karl Reidinger to be United States District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina; Timothy D. DeGiusti to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma; Janis Lynn Sammartino to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of California.

III. Resolutions

S. Res. 248, Honoring the life and achievements of Dame Lois Browne Evans (Brown);

Res. 236, Supporting the goals and ideals of the National Anthem Project (Bayh, Craig, Kennedy, Cardin, Durbin).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 9 a.m., in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Dirty Bomb Vulnerabilities: fake companies, fake licenses, real consequences.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 12, 2007 at 2:30 p.m., to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 12, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 488 and H.R. 1100, to revise the boundary of the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in the State of North Carolina; S. 617, to make the National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Pass available at a discount to certain veterans; S. 824 and H.R. 995, to amend Public Law 106-348 to extend the authorization for establishing a memorial in the District of Columbia or its environs to honor veterans who became disabled while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States; S. 955, to establish the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area; S. 1148, to establish the Champlain Quadricentennial Commemoration Commission and the Hudson-Fulton 400th Commemoration Commission; S. 1182, to amend the Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor Act of 1994 to increase the authorization of appropriations and modify the date on which the authority of the Secretary of the Interior terminates under the Act; S. 1380, to designate as wilderness certain land within the Rocky Mountain National Park and to adjust the boundaries of the Indian Peaks Wilderness and the Arapaho National Recreation Area of the Arapaho National Forest in the State of Colorado; and S. 1728, to amend the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 to reauthorize the Na Hoa Pili O Kaloko- Honokohau Advisory Commission Reauthorization Act of 2007.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 12, 2007, at l0 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``A Global View: Examining Cross-Border Exchange Mergers.''

Mr. President, as the gulf coast recovers from Katrina and Rita, rebuilding our housing remains the key to our recovery. I have talked about this issue on this floor before. We need housing so that our citizens have a place to live while they rebuild our businesses, restore our infrastructure, and renew our communities. Congress and the President responded by making billions of dollars available to us and we are grateful for this assistance.

I am proud to say that this assistance is working. Every time I go home I see signs of improvement. They are often small: a gas station or a store reopening on a corner; children playing on a street where no one lived only a few months before. I wish I could say that these signs are everywhere, but they are not. Some parts of New Orleans are doing well, some are not. We knew from the start that recovery would take longer in some areas than in others; and we all knew that nothing would happen overnight.

America has never rebuilt a city of 500,000 people before. Our experience in Louisiana and in the Gulf has taught us some valuable lessons about postcatastrophe rebuilding and recovery. We have learned about the shortcomings of government programs at FEMA, the Small Business Administration, and other agencies. In responding to Katrina they used the systems that worked great for smaller disasters, but were woefully inadequate for larger ones. For future megacatastrophes we now understand that it may take government programs several months to ramp up before they are in a position to distribute assistance.

One of the key lessons we have learned from this catastrophe has been the affect of such massive destruction

and displacement on the supply and the costs of labor and building materials, and the impact these have on how long it takes to rebuild. New Orleans, for example, is about half the population it used to be. We do not have enough workers in building and contracting to meet the huge demand we have for this work. As a result, it may take several months to get building started. Developers are also having difficulty getting insurance and the infrastructure in many areas is still heavily damaged.

This timing delay means that Congress will have to reexamine the policies that we have enacted to help rebuild the Gulf region in order to ensure that they are meeting the new kinds of disaster recovery challenges Katrina and Rita have posed. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was one of the major pieces of legislation that we passed. The GO Zone Act provided important tax incentives to encourage investment in businesses and housing in the Gulf.

To help ensure that we can rebuild our housing, GO Zone Act increased the state's allocation of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, LIHTC. These credits finance affordable and mixed income housing. Under the GO Zone Act, any housing developed with these tax credits must be built and operating by December 31, 2008. The statute refers to this as the ``placed in service'' date. This date is consistent with the normal LIHTC program guidelines that require tax credit housing developments to be placed in service within 2 years of allocation.

The Louisiana Housing Finance Agency, LHFA, reports that there was a great demand for these GO Zone credits. For the credits allocated in 2006, the LHFA received 266 applications from developers for more than $253 million. But it only funded 102 projects with $56.9 million in tax credits.

For 2007 and 2008, however, the State received far fewer applications. The reason for this is because of the placed-in-service date. Because of the labor shortage, increased costs, and lack of insurance that we are facing in the Gulf, developers are not sure whether they can get their projects placed in service by the end of 2008. Yet there is still a huge need for the housing that these credits will fund.

The placed-in-service date is also raising new concerns. I have heard from a number of organizations that already received tax credit allocations before 2006 who are concerned that they will not be able to get their developments placed in service by the end of 2008. The LHFA estimates that 65 percent of the affordable housing units under development in New Orleans, roughly 11,050 units, will not make the deadline to be available for rent by the end of 2008. In the surrounding parishes, home sales prices have literally hit the roof meaning working and middle-income families cannot reasonably justify living in the area that they still call home, 19 months since the storm. Again, the culprit is the shortages and increased costs that I mentioned before. Some developers have even told me that they face losing credits that had been allocated to them before the storm because building has been delayed in the region. Since Katrina, rental prices have increased by 39 percent.

Today, I am introducing legislation that will help to ensure that these housing tax credits are available so that we can continue the road to recovery. The Workforce Housing for the GO Zone Act of 2007 will extend the placed-in-service date for the GO Zone Low Income Housing Tax Credit by an additional 2 years. This will allow developers to make full use of the credits that are available to build affordable housing in the Gulf Coast.

Another critical provision lets GO Zone low-income housing projects receive additional federally subsidized loans without losing tax credits. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit provisions included in this bill further assist our people to return home. These credits are competitively awarded to qualified developers and subject to constant oversight by the State housing authority to make sure that only quality affordable housing is being constructed. The citizens of the gulf coast are ready to go back home, and this legislation helps get them there.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce, on behalf of myself and Senators Sessions, Murkowski, and Landrieu, a bill that establishes the foundation for a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle for the U.S. A sustainable nuclear fuel cycle is the key to nuclear energy reaching its full potential to provide the large scale base load electrical generating capacity our country needs, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, nuclear energy provides nearly 20 percent of our electricity generation capacity and does so more reliably, and with a lower cost per kilowatt hour than coal, with essentially no greenhouse gas emissions. In the decades to come, we will need nuclear energy to play an even greater role, not only in electrical generation, but also in the transportation and industrial sectors, if we are to achieve the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to address the challenge of global climate change. The Strengthening Management of Advanced Recycling Technologies Act, or SMART Act, represents the first important step in building the bridge to that future.

The SMART Act promotes the establishment of privately owned and operated used nuclear fuel storage and recycling facilities. These facilities will help resolve the current deadlock in spent nuclear fuel management while providing a means to extract additional energy from used nuclear fuel. I believe that a commercially viable used fuel recycling strategy, combined with a responsible waste disposition strategy, will enable the expansion of nuclear energy necessary to meet all our goals for the future of nuclear energy. The SMART Act advances this vision through incentives--rather than mandates--for both industry and local communities.

The SMART Act establishes a competitive 50-50 cost share program between the Department of Energy and private industry to finance engineering and design work and the development of license applications for up to 2 spent fuel recycling facilities. The SMART Act restricts facility designs to commercial scale facilities that do not separate pure plutonium. The recycling technology must also reduce the burden on geologic repositories used for ultimate disposal of waste and promote extraction of additional energy from used fuel stocks. Beyond these restrictions, the choice of recycling technology is left up to industry.

The resulting reference licenses for recycling facilities may then be used by industry to construct domestic used nuclear fuel recycling capacity. To assist industry in securing the necessary financing for these facilities, the SMART Act authorizes DOE to offer long term contracts for spent fuel recycling services. All construction and financing costs, however, would be born by industry.

Although ultimate geologic disposition of waste will always be needed, interim storage of used nuclear fuel is a

necessary component of the nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure. To encourage development of interim storage facilities the SMART Act establishes an economic incentive program for communities and states that wish to host a facility within their jurisdiction. All interim storage facilities would be privately owned and operated and licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The SMART Act incentives are designed to encourage the development of two large scale facilities with enough capacity to accommodate our annual domestic used nuclear fuel generation.

As with the used fuel recycling facilities, the SMART act authorizes the Department of Energy to enter into long term contracts with storage facility operators. In addition, the SMART Act allows the Department of Energy to enter into agreements with utilities for the settlement of all future claims against the department for failure to take title to spent nuclear fuel by 1998.

Currently, the Nuclear Waste Fund established by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 has a balance of approximately $20 billion and is growing by nearly $1.8 billion annually from fees paid by the utilities and interest on the fund. Unfortunately, this fund is currently ``on budget'' and amounts to little more than an IOU to the U.S. ratepayers. The SMART Act will allow access to a small portion of this fund so that it can begin working to resolve the nuclear waste issue as it was intended.

The SMART Act establishes a revolving fund from $1 billion of the current waste fund as well as the annual interest on the fund. The remaining 95 percent of the current waste fund, as well as all future fees, would be placed in a legacy fund for the purposes of constructing a geologic repository. Expenditures from the revolving fund for the provisions of the act could be made without further appropriations but would be subject to limitations in appropriations acts. In this way the revolving fund could be put to use without being subject to the uncertainty of the annual appropriations process while still retaining the authority of Congress to oversee the fund.

The resolution of the used nuclear fuel issue has been deadlocked for decades. Fortunately time has been on our side since nuclear energy produces so little waste. For example the nuclear waste generated by a family of four during their entire lives is only a couple of pounds. Some have even said that we do not need to begin recycling used nuclear fuel for 30 or 40 years. I do not believe we can wait that long before we resolve the used nuclear fuel issue, however. We must begin taking steps today that will place us on the path to a secure and sustainable nuclear energy industry in the future. We must demonstrate to industry and financial institutions the Government's commitment to resolving the used nuclear fuel issue. The SMART bill will place us on that path to the future.