Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Is the Senate in morning business?

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor with a heavy heart and a clear purpose. Last Thursday would have been the 56th birthday of a great actor, a devoted father and husband, Christopher Reeve. Many Americans got to know Christopher Reeve when he put on that blue and red uniform of Superman and acted in so many Superman roles. He was also on television and stage. So we always think of Christopher Reeve as the first Superman.

Then, in May of 1995, Christopher Reeve was involved in an equestrian accident. He was riding a horse and got pitched off the horse. He suffered injuries to his spinal column, starting in his neck, which left him paralyzed from the neck down.

In the years following the accident, Christopher Reeve not only put a face on spinal cord injury for so many, but he motivated neuroscientists around the world to conquer the most complex diseases of the brain and the central nervous system.

Even before I met Mr. Reeve in 1998, I was a big admirer. Of course, I liked Superman movies. Then I watched what he did after he had been paralyzed. After the accident, he could afford the very best doctors and nurses, the best caregivers and therapies. He could have just withdrawn into himself, focused on his own well-being which was a full- time job in and of itself.

Christopher Reeve made a different choice that defined him as a great human being. He chose to become the man whom I first met in 1998 when he first testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, Human Services, and Education on which I was a ranking member at that time. I had been chairman before and then Senator Specter was ranking. In 1998, Senator Specter was chairman of that subcommittee. Mr. Reeve came on a mission to give hope and help to other people with disabilities and thus became a kind of real-life hero to people around the world.

Later on, I got to know Christopher Reeve as a friend, someone who had an impish sense of humor, a great smile, was warm and personable. He spent all of his waking time, days, thinking about and getting information about spinal cord injuries, research that had been done, how it was being researched here and in other parts of the world, at the same time finding time to direct a movie.

Christopher Reeve began to inform me and others on the committee that the kind of research we were doing into spinal cord paralysis was disjointed; it was not well put together. Then he went on a mission to think about, with others--with scientists and researchers and those of us in the Senate and the House--how we might accomplish pulling this research together in a more unified structure.

In 2002, I first introduced the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Act with bipartisan cosponsors. The bill has passed the House twice, but we have never succeeded in passing it here.

As I said, it is a bipartisan bill. It addresses the critical need to accelerate the discovery of better treatments and one day a cure for paralysis. As I said, currently paralysis research is carried out across multiple disciplines with no effective means of coordination or collaboration. Time, effort, and valuable research dollars are used inefficiently because of this problem. Families affected by paralysis are often unaware of critical research results, information about clinical trials, and best practices.

This bill will improve the long-term health prospects of people with paralysis and other disabilities by improving access to services, providing information and support to caregivers and their families, developing assistive technology, providing employment assistance, and encouraging wellness among those with paralysis.

In August of last year, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee cleared this bill for full Senate consideration. Two months after that, our colleagues in the House passed the bill unanimously by voice vote. Yet for the last 12 months, this bill has languished in the Senate, as I understand it, due to the objections of one Senator, my friend, the junior Senator from Oklahoma. At least that is what I am told. I could be corrected, but that is what I am told.

In the past, I have heard the Senator from Oklahoma question our role in promoting health legislation because he has said sometimes in the past that too often we get caught up in one cause or another pushed by a celebrity and other worthwhile causes get left behind because they don't have someone famous out there pushing for them. I guess once in a while I might agree with that point. But even though this legislation has Christopher and Dana Reeve's names behind it, it was really written for the thousands of ordinary Americans living with paralysis and spinal cord injuries and their families and friends who pushed the cause of improved research and treatment.

I want to read a couple of stories of Americans today. One story belongs to Marilyn Smith of Hood River, OR. She is one of the many paralysis advocates who volunteer their time through the Unite to Fight Paralysis organization. She took the time recently to share her story with me. I want to read a portion of it for the Record. Here is what Marilyn said:

Paralysis doesn't just happen to an individual, it happens

to a family. In December of 2002, our son became a

quadriplegic when a careless driver failed to tighten the lug

nuts on one of his wheels. It came off and flew into our

son's pickup, shattering his cervical vertebra. Our family

was thrown into physical, emotional and financial chaos. We

have done the best we could after this calamity, but our

lives will never be the same. As parents, our greatest wish

before we pass on is to see our son's health restored. We

have traveled from Oregon to Washington, DC, for 4 straight

years to lobby for passage of the Christopher and Dana Reeve

Paralysis Act, a well-crafted piece of legislation with

bipartisan support that will make a measurable difference in

our lives.

I think Marilyn's story underscores the tremendous cost paralysis imposes on families. The Spinal Cord Injuries and Illness Center at the University of Alabama Birmingham has done a lot of work to quantify that cost. I believe their findings might surprise some of my colleagues.

According to the Spinal Cord Injury and Illness Center, the first- year cost of an injury to the C-1, C-4 vertebrae is upwards of $683,000, with costs in each subsequent year averaging out at more than $120,000. Think about that for a moment. That figure represents a cost of personal care attendants, medical treatment and therapy, transportation, and all the necessary modifications made to one's home.

Leo Halland of Yankton, ND, knows this cost all too well. He has been living with paralysis for the past 32 years. He, too, has a story to tell. I will read a short selection from a letter he sent over the weekend. He said:

I know there is much in life I will never understand, and

now near the top of that list are: One, how a single Senator

can stop a piece of good legislation; and, two, how some of

his colleagues can support those efforts. Failure to act on

this legislation is doing great medical harm.

I just have to say, frankly, I am surprised there continues to be an objection to moving this bill. I negotiated this bill with my Republican colleagues before it was marked up in the

HELP Committee in July of last year. During the course of those negotiations, we received through Senator Enzi, who is the ranking member of that committee, specific requests to, one, remove authorizations for the titles related to the National Institute for Health Research. In the interest of getting legislation passed, we accepted this change. We removed the NIH reporting provisions in response to concerns that they were duplicative of reporting requirements in the NIH reauthorization legislation. So we took that out.

We responded to all of the feedback from the Department of Health and Human Services and the NIH by incorporating both substantive and technical changes they wanted.

At that point, we were assured there were no more objections, and the bill passed out of our committee with no amendments and no objections. We just passed it out of committee.

So given all of the efforts we made to meet concerns raised by Senators on the other side of the aisle, and given that Senators had an opportunity to file amendments at that time in the committee but chose not to, I had every expectation that the bill would pass the full Senate. Instead, it continues to be held due to one Republican objection. This bill is long overdue for passage.

When I introduced the bill 17 months ago, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, the Director of the NIH, spoke at a rally in support of the bill. They had suggestions on some changes which we did. But he spoke in support of the bill. Here is something Dr. Zerhouni said that day:

So really as the Director of an institution that is

committed to making the discoveries that will make a

difference in people's lives, I feel proud and I feel

pleased. But at the same time, I'm humbled. I'm humbled

because in many ways [the Christopher and Dana Reeve

Paralysis Act] is the harbinger of what I see as the

combination of the public, the leadership in Congress, and

the administration and government in our country that is

absolutely unique, and humbled because at the same time, I

know it contains a lot of expectations from us. And I am

at the same time confident that we can deliver on these

expectations of NIH, with our sister agencies throughout

the government. But the key thing I would like to provide

is an expression of commitment. At the end of the day, if

you do not have leaders and champions that look at a

problem in its entirety, today in the 21st century, you

cannot make progress.

That was Dr. Zerhouni. I wholeheartedly agree with him. You have to look at it in its entirety. Progress is vital in science and biomedical research. It is also important in the legislative process. As Senators, of course, we have a duty to ensure due diligence in considering legislation. That is one of our responsibilities. But to keep this bill from getting an up-or-down vote, despite strong support from both sides of the aisle, and the fact that the House passed it unanimously, I am not certain that is exercising due diligence. I don't know what it is called, but I don't know if that is due diligence.

Brooke Ellison of Stony Brook, NY, is another passionate advocate. She was paralyzed from the neck down when she was 7 years old after she was struck by a car while walking home from the first day of school. She is now 25 years old. In the years since her accident, she has graduated from college--Harvard--with an undergraduate degree and a master's degree, and founded the Brooke Ellison Project for those facing paralysis and adversity, and she asked me to pass along these words.

I have seen up close and in person how very quickly any one

of our lives can change and we find ourselves facing

challenges unlike anything we may have expected. Eighteen

years ago, I learned this lesson in a personal and profound

way. Yet each day, an increasing number of people find

themselves in similar circumstances, and we need to do all we

can to alleviate their suffering. Christopher Reeve lived his

life as a testament to helping to reduce the challenges

people suffering from paralysis face. The Christopher and

Dana Reeve Paralysis Act is critical to changing the fate,

and sometimes even dire conditions, that millions of people

face. And the events in my life have shown me all too clearly

how essential it is to be passed.

I wish to be clear; by putting this bill on hold, we are also putting Brooke Ellison and Leo Hallan and other people living in paralysis on hold. It tells the more than 400 Iraq war veterans who have returned with spinal cord injuries that they are on hold. It puts the needs of Bethany Winkler from Yukon on hold. She has been paralyzed for 7 years, since falling in an accident. She has taken the time to come to Washington to lobby for this legislation. I met Bethany in the past, and I can testify to what a passionate and effective advocate she is for the cause of paralysis research and care.

Although we often find ourselves on different sides of the table, I wish to say publicly I respect the fact that Senator Coburn believes strongly this legislation inappropriately grows the size of the Federal Government. I have heard that stated. I see my friend is on the floor, and he can state it if he wants. But if that is the case, I wish to say I disagree with that assessment. I am on the Appropriations Committee, sure, but I am on an authorizing committee as well, and this legislation appropriates no money for paralysis research. It doesn't appropriate any money for care or quality-of-life programs. It simply says we authorize funding for programs. So they still have to be funded through the regular appropriations process.

So I come down to the floor with renewed hope. This past week, the Senate passed several bills by unanimous consent with new authorization for Federal spending. Two of those bills, the Drug Endangered Children Act and the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which were also being held up, and again were authorizations for appropriations, received unanimous consent and were passed. So I have come to the floor today, and as soon as I finish, in another page or two, I will ask unanimous consent that the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act pass.

But I am going to give two more cases. One is from Donna Sullivan, another of the many concerned advocates for paralysis research and care. Donna is fighting not for herself but for her son, and here is what she said:

Three years ago, my son was the lone survivor of an

airplane crash. His injuries were extensive, and my heart

literally felt as if it was broken. After numerous operations

and procedures, under the care of well-trained doctors in

three States, he has overcome all of his injuries except for

one, it is his spinal cord injury, which waits for science to

move forward and allow him further recovery.

Together, we have attended research symposiums and visited

our legislators in Washington, DC, to share our story and the

promise that research holds. It is our hope that the Senate

will join others who understand the potential and release

this bill. When you understand the potential paralysis

research holds, it is difficult to ignore, and it is

difficult for me to accept that some do.

Christopher Reeve spoke up passionately for people such as Donna Sullivan and her son. Christopher Reeve's untimely death in 2004 robbed the paralysis community of its most passionate and effective advocate. As we know, his widow, wife Dana, continued her husband's quest until her untimely death in 2006 of lung cancer. Across the country, thousands of ordinary Americans, whose lives have been touched by paralysis, have taken up Christopher and Dana Reeve's advocacy work at great cost to their health and wealth.

Well, I have one last story I have to share with you. It has to do with a young man--a big kid; strong. His dad had been in the Navy in World War II and imbued that in each of his kids. Each kid went in the military--different branches. But this one kid, Kelly--big Irish kid-- he went in the Navy. He went in the Navy. He went to work on an aircraft carrier. He was one of the launch people, an enlisted guy on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

They were cruising off the coast of Vietnam. Unbeknownst to Kelly, on one of the planes--it was an A-6 Intruder--the pilot had run up his engine. The intakes on an A-6 are on the bottom. They are big intakes. He was not supposed to have run up his engine, but he ran up his engine to 100 percent of power. Kelly, doing his job, got too close to the intake and got sucked into the intake. He had a hard hat on--his Mickey Mouse ears and his hard hat on--and evidently the pilot, through later investigations, saw something going wrong with his engine, heard a thud in his plane, and pulled the power back. Someone saw Kelly's feet sticking out of the intake, and they got people up there and rushed him down to the infirmary on the ship and then put him in some kind of traction thing, got him off the ship, and got him back to the States.

I will never forget the day my sister called me about Kelly. It was my nephew. When my sister called me, I was a

Member of the House of Representatives, and she called me up to see what I could do to help. She was extremely distraught, as you can imagine. Kelly was 20 years old and had his life ahead of him. So I went to work, as any Congressman would, for my family, and I got him in at the VA hospital out in California, near Stanford, and that is the first time I flew out to see him. He was quadriplegic at the time. He couldn't move anything.

I can remember walking in there and seeing this kid--and I don't mean to be overly maudlin about this, but you see, I was a Navy pilot. I used to fly my plane around a lot of times, and these kids always looked up to their father because he was in the Navy and I was in the Navy. I was a Navy pilot. I still have pictures of my jet and young Kelly as a kid sitting in the cockpit of my jet with my helmet on dreaming that someday he, too, would do something such as that. So I kind of felt a lot of responsibility for this because I had encouraged him to get into the Navy, to go into aviation, to do things with airplanes.

I will never forget the first time I saw him lying in that hospital bed at Stanford--I think that is right, the Stanford VA hospital--and the look on his face. I mean, this kid was scared. He couldn't move anything, and he was wondering what was going to happen to him.

Well, he had good medical care, and the good news is that over some years he actually got the use of his arms back, through sheer will and determination. And through those years he then went back to school. I remember how tough it was for him, using a wheelchair to get around on campus. That was before the Americans with Disabilities Act. That was before we had ramps and widened doorways and things such as that. This was in the 1980s when he was going to school.

I remember his father building him ramps and stuff so he could get in and out of places and learn how to live. Well, that happened 28 years ago--28 years ago. Now, the good news is Kelly is alive and well. He lives by himself, in his own home, and has a van that has all these automatic lifts that put him into the van so he can drive himself around. He can't use the lower half of his body, but he can drive around.

He started a small business and he is very self-sufficient. I saw Kelly--well, whenever the Democratic Convention was--because he lives in Colorado, and so I went to see him. We were talking about this and that, a lot of things, and I can't begin to tell you what a profound effect Christopher Reeve had on my nephew's life. It seemed as though all of a sudden there was someone like him, who was big and strapping and full of life, with a lot of energy, and then one accident and that is it. So I could see Kelly could identify with someone such as a Christopher Reeve, a healthy, strong, vibrant man, and suddenly one accident and that is it. So he followed him. Kelly is on the computer, on the Internet, and he follows research all the time. During this period of time in the late 1990s, he became more and more encouraged by what Christopher Reeve was doing and how he was pulling all this stuff together. He kept asking me about it: What are you guys going to do? Are you going to pass this? Are you going to do something about paralysis research? Kelly follows this today to the nth degree.

Then Christopher Reeve passed away, and then his wife. I saw my nephew Kelly out in Colorado last month. Once again he asked me, he said: Are you going to get that bill passed or not?

I said: I don't know. I will try. I am still trying.

Of course he knows all about this. He knows it passed the House. He follows all this. He just wondered what the problem was.

I said: A person has a hold on it.

Can't you bring it up, do this?

I don't know if we can bring it up or not--go through cloture and debate and all that kind of stuff. I don't know. He reminded me it passed the House. I said: I know that, it passed the House unanimously. It passed out of our committee.

So I told Kelly when I saw him in August: We will come back in September and I will try another go at it and we will see what happens. I hope we get it passed.

Here we have the medical community, in the personage of Dr. Zerhouni, saying this does what we should be doing, bringing everything together, coordinating it. It authorizes appropriations but doesn't appropriate any money.

I can tell you, it is not just because there was a famous person behind it. There are people such as my nephew Kelly all over the United States who are wondering, are we going to pursue this? I don't like to give anyone false hope. My nephew is a realistic person. He has lived with this for 28 years now. But he still believes strongly that we ought to be pushing the frontiers and that we ought to be doing everything we can to promote research, of course--obviously into paralysis, because that is what affects him. If anybody wants to talk about this and what needs to be done, he can talk about it at greater length and in more depth and understanding than can I.

I was not going to do this until my colleague from Oklahoma came to the floor. I see him here. All I say is I hope we can move this bill. I am hopeful, after looking it over and understanding we do not appropriate any money, and looking at what we did with a couple of other bills earlier, we can get this bill through. I will be glad to engage in any colloquies such as that.

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1183

I am constrained to ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 326, S. 1183, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, that the committee substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Madam President, as I mentioned, and I ask my friend from Oklahoma, two bills I understand went through by unanimous consent this week, the Drug Endangered Children's Act and the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes bills. I understand the Senator from Oklahoma had holds on those bills. Is that correct?

Do I understand from my friend from Oklahoma there was not an offset for the authorizations in that bill? And then the other was the Drug Endangered Children's Act. I am told there was not an offset for the authorization in that bill either. The Senator did not have a hold on that bill?

Those were just two passed by unanimous consent that did not have----

Certainly.

I ask my friend from Oklahoma, did the director of NIH--I don't have a copy of that letter. Did the Director of NIH object to this bill? Because he already said he supported it.

I respond to my friend from Oklahoma, one of the reasons he wouldn't mention this is because, as my friend from Oklahoma surely knows, paralysis is not a specific disease. Paralysis can happen across a wide spectrum of diseases and illnesses and conditions. So this is not a specific disease. In that way, this is not a disease-specific bill as such, and that is probably where the confusion comes in. Because Dr. Zerhouni was very supportive of this approach; I read it in his comments that he made. But he is against disease-specific authorizations or appropriations. I can tell the Senator from Oklahoma, so am I, and I chair that. I chair it now. I have been ranking member or chair of that subcommittee going back 18 years. I cannot remember one time ever appropriating specifically one disease over another.

There are times, of course, I say to my friend from Oklahoma, in which we as legislators, as public servants, take information and input from our constituents or from the country and through the hearing process--and this is usually on the authorizing side more than the appropriating side--try to give some guidance and direction to those to whom we give our taxpayers' money. Again, we have prodded NIH in the past to perhaps do certain things.

I mean we, the Congress, have started different institutes at the National Institutes of Health. At different times people come together and say there should be an institute to look at this and we, as public policy people, set that up.

Then there are times when we get the Director of NIH, or some of the other heads, some of these people here from these different institutes, and we ask them, What are you doing about this kind of research? Spinal muscular atrophy, which I never heard of before until a few years ago, I found out it is even more prevalent and has a higher mortality rate than muscular dystrophy. But they weren't doing much research into spinal muscular atrophy, so we talked about that, we explored that. We talked about a lot of things in cancer or Parkinson's disease, in which we explored with these heads of NIH what the public wants and what we are hearing from the public. They take that into account. They may make some adjustments one way or the other.

I don't see anything wrong with that. That is part of our legitimate role as public servants, and responding to the legitimate requests and needs of the public. The people who work at NIH, and the people who run these institutes, are not high priests of some religious order who do not answer to anyone except the head person. They have to answer to the public. These are public moneys that go in there.

Sometimes we consult with them, we talk with them, bring them information and say, here, the public wants to know why we are not doing more in this area. They take that into account, sometimes respond--sometimes better than others--sometimes not. But at least that is the input we have and that is what we are saying here with this legislation. We are not telling them exactly what they have to do.

Again, the Senator from Oklahoma says they can do everything that is in this bill. But they are not doing it. That is the point. They are not doing it. You can disagree. You can say they should not do it. I did not hear the Senator from Oklahoma say they should not be doing what we have in the bill. He is not saying that. All I heard him say was that he wanted to debate it for a couple of hours and offer an amendment.

I say to my friend from Oklahoma, as a member of the HELP Committee from which this bill came, the Senator from Oklahoma had all kinds of opportunities in the committee to amend this bill. For all I know, some of the changes we made may have come from him. They came through Senator Enzi, who is the ranking member, and we incorporated them into the bill. But the Senator from Oklahoma cannot deny that he was a member of this committee when this bill passed out of committee. If the Senator from Oklahoma wanted to amend it, he had every opportunity to do so at that time. Yet no objection was raised when we passed it out of committee; only when we get it here on the floor.

We operate around here a lot of times on unanimous consent. And we usually do it on bills that are generally accepted by everybody. We hotline, and our staffs look at them to see whether anyone has an objection. This bill has been hotlined on both sides of the aisle. Out of 100 Senators, only one Senator has an objection, the Senator from Oklahoma.

Now, again, people wonder--this one letter from this one woman says: How can one Senator stop something like this? Well, you are seeing one Senator can.

Now, again, to the extent that the Senator from Oklahoma has a legitimate point, his point is that this could be brought up under the normal process and debated and passed. Well, it looks as though we are going to be back again on Wednesday. I will have to consult with our leadership. But if the Senator from Oklahoma would agree to a couple of hours of debate, an amendment that would be voted up or down, if he has an amendment or two, and then final passage, maybe we could do that on Wednesday.

I do not know what the heck we are going to be doing Wednesday. Quite frankly, we could do that. I understand we are going to be in tomorrow, but no legislative business can be done tomorrow under the Jewish holiday, but we could on Wednesday.

So if the Senator from Oklahoma wants to enter into an agreement for an hour or two, I do not know if anyone

else wants to debate it. If he wants to offer an amendment or two or something like that, maybe we can have a vote on it, voice vote it. Maybe he wants a record vote on it. I do not know. But I have not heard any kind of a suggestion from the Senator from Oklahoma that we could do something like that.

So, again, we operate around here in a spirit of comity. What that means is we kind of trust one another. You know, I kind of trust the Senator from Michigan; I trust the Senator from Idaho on a lot of things. We build ourselves on trust. We do not try to pull the wool over someone's eyes here. We do not try to slip something through to which someone may have an objection.

So if we have bills like this we hotline them. We have them called around. Lord knows, we have plenty of staff around here. They look at all of these things to see if there is something in a bill their Senator would object to or want to change. We do that for bills that are generally widely accepted. A lot of times bills come back: There is no objection. Go ahead and pass them through.

I thought this was one of those simply because it came out of committee. The Senator from Oklahoma was on the committee--is on the committee--and had no objections when it came out of committee. We had incorporated all of the changes that Senator Enzi gave us. We incorporated those plus changes from NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services. So it is very frustrating then to have this objection at this time.

Now, one other point the Senator from Oklahoma said. He said this is an authorization for appropriations. That is true as most of the bills are that we pass around here. One way or the other it is an authorization. But he says that will lead to new spending and blah, blah, blah. That is not necessarily true. It may be that we may want to put some money in this program, but we may want to take it from someplace else. We could do that. That has been done a lot around here. We may think that, well, perhaps we will take a little bit here and a little bit here and put it into this. Appropriations committees do that all the time. So it is not necessarily true this is going to lead to any new spending. It may lead to a realignment of spending but not necessarily new. So the Senator from Oklahoma is not quite correct that it would lead to new spending.

Secondly, paralysis is not a disease-specific illness. It cuts across all kinds of diseases, illnesses, and conditions. Then I do not know-- the Senator mentioned something about $5.9 million. I brought that down, but I have no idea what that is all about.

I also have a letter from the Congressional Budget Office, dated July 25, 2008, to the Honorable Kent Conrad as chairman of the Committee on Budget. There were certain questions in here that I thought were pertinent to one of the objections raised by the Senator from Oklahoma.

Question No. 1: Does an authorization of future appropriations provide the authority for Federal programs or agencies to incur obligations and make payments from the Treasury?

Answer: No. A simple authorization of appropriations does not provide an agency with the authority to incur obligations or make payments from the Treasury.

Question: Even if legislation authorizes appropriations for a program, is it not the case that a subsequent act of Congress is required before an agency can spend money pursuant to the authorization?

Answer: Yes.

This is from the head of the Congressional Budget Office.

For discretionary programs created through an authorization, the authority to incur obligations is usually provided in a subsequent appropriations act. An agency must have such an appropriation before it can incur obligations.

Question No. 4: If no new spending occurs under authorizing legislation, does it have the effect of increasing the Federal deficit and/or reducing the Federal surplus?

Answer: No. An authorization of appropriations by itself does not increase Federal deficits or decrease surpluses. However, any subsequent appropriation to fund the authorized activity would affect the Federal budget.

I ask unanimous consent this letter appear at this point in the Record, as well as the July 30, 2008, letter to Congressman Barton from Dr. Zerhouni.

So, again, I see my friend from Oklahoma has departed the floor briefly.

Madam President, I put in a unanimous consent request. Has it been objected to?

I heard there was a reservation.

It has been objected to.

I am about done.

Well, I am sorry for so many people who suffer from paralysis in this country who really have, many of them, traveled to Washington at their own expense, at great personal not only expense but inconvenience and trouble and effort--can you imagine what it must be like--who had every reason to believe this would pass and give them new hope, new encouragement that we were now going to be able to bring a new focus, coordination, to this.

Now, again, the Senator says they can do everything that is in this bill already. The fact is, they are not. That is why we are here. That is why we are Senators. That is why we are public servants. That is why the public elected us to come here and do things, to get the Government to do things that it is not doing or to stop it from doing something that it is doing.

This is one of the things we ought to be telling the people who are involved in this research they ought to be doing. They ought to do this. We do it all the time. And if they will not do it, we ought to be telling them to do it. I am sorry, again, that this Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act has been stopped by a single Senator. I wish we could find some way of getting around it. I ask my friend from Oklahoma if he does not mind, the Senator said something about debating this bill and opening it for amendment.

We are going to be here on Wednesday. Now, I have not cleared this with our leadership--I have to do that, of course; I do not run the Senate. But I would have to clear it with our leadership, and then our leadership would have to clear it with the other side. But if we can get a couple of hours on Wednesday to debate this bill and amend it in a 2-hour period of time, with an up-or-down vote on an amendment or two, would that be acceptable to the Senator?

I say to my friend from Oklahoma again, the Senator from Oklahoma did not object to a bill passing this week by unanimous consent that has an authorization for appropriations in it. Is that not correct?

I say to my friend from Oklahoma, that is very true, on the Emmett Till bill, but not on this one.

Well, I can assure my friend--I said this when my friend from Oklahoma was off the floor--the Senator from Oklahoma seems to say that since it was an authorization for appropriations in here, that we are going to appropriate new money. That is not always the case. Sometimes the Appropriations Committee will take money from other things; maybe take a little bit here, take a little bit here and put it into something else. That happens a lot, I can tell the Senator, as an appropriator.

So it does not always necessarily follow because we authorize the money that we are going to add new money. We could take it from other places. We do not know.

I say to my friend, he just let a bill go through this week that had an authorization for appropriations on it and let it go through under unanimous consent, but not this one. So I see it is up to the Senator from Oklahoma, as one Senator, to decide what is good and what is bad around here.

What assurances? I am an appropriator. I did not give you any assurances. No one asked me about it. So, obviously, now the Senator from Oklahoma has set himself up as the arbitrator of what is good and bad and right and wrong and everything else around here.

Now, come on, there are 100 Senators around here.

I wish to respond to one other thing about Amtrak. The Senator from Oklahoma mentioned the airlines. This is something I know a little bit about. I fly a lot of airplanes. Every commercial airline in the country now uses GPS, global positioning satellites. Do you know how much they spent to put all those satellites up there? Zero. The taxpayers of this country put up billions of dollars. We maintain them. We keep them in orbit. When one decays, we put another one up. We keep 24 in orbit all the time. Not only do our airlines use it, every airline around the world uses it, as do ships and everybody else. That is not a subsidy for the airlines? How about all the traffic controllers? They don't work for the airlines, they work for the Government. How about all the navigation systems we maintain, the Approach System, the ILSs, and everything else, paid for by the taxpayers? We appropriate money around here all the time for airports, runway lights, approach systems that all the airlines use. They don't pay for all of those facilities. How about all the airports? Local cities provide the land.

If my friend really wants to see how much we are subsidizing the airlines, add it up. It would be a heck of a lot more than what we are subsidizing Amtrak. But I am not opposed to that, subsidies for transportation, for new technologies, for moving people. I am not opposed.

The Senator from Oklahoma is sort of saying we subsidize Amtrak but we don't the airlines. I didn't mean to get into that, but that is the point I was trying to make.

Lastly, on this issue of offsetting authorizations, now we have to offset every authorization that comes up here. I want to ask the Senator from Oklahoma--we just passed a Defense authorization bill, authorizes a lot of new things in there. I ask the Senator from Oklahoma, were any of those offset?

You can look at society and say there are a lot of problems out there. You can look at this Congress and say we spend a lot of money that we don't agree on. There is a lot of money spent in this Congress I don't like, that I don't agree with. But does that mean this one Senator should stand here and stop good things from happening just because I don't like the way something is being spent, the way something is being done, that I should use the privilege of being a Senator, a privilege, a right, a privilege of being a Senator to just stop something that is good?

There are 435 Members of the House, not one objection; 99 Members of the Senate, not one objection. But one Senator, the Senator from Oklahoma, is concerned about deficits and about appropriations. OK. I agree. There are some problems. We have to face our deficits and debt. Does that mean, then, that we stop every good thing from happening around here until that is taken care of? That is taking the privilege of being a Senator way beyond what we ought to have a right to do, to stop something like this just because we are upset about something else that is bad about spending.

Heck, I can share with the Senator from Oklahoma a lot of horror stories about how we are wasting money in this Government. He doesn't have a corner on that market, I assure him. Some of the things he may think are wasteful, I might agree. Maybe some of the things I think are wasteful, he may not agree. I don't know. But that is how we work things out here, in a collegial manner, working together to try to get these things solved.

It is very hard to explain, when I tell people that one Senator can stop something like this. They don't understand how that is possible, but it is. One Senator can stop things around here. I wish this weren't so in this case because there are too many people with paralysis who were counting on us to get this done and move ahead to coordinate the research in paralysis and bring all of it together. But we never give up. We just keep trying.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to speak on two bills that should have passed by unanimous consent because they are so widely supported, but there are objections to them by some Republicans.

The first is the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, and the other is Training for Realtime Writers Act. First, I am disappointed objections have been raised against the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act on the other side. I do not speak for myself, but I speak on behalf of tens of thousands of Americans who suffer from paralysis and their families.

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act is a bipartisan bill. It is a fiscally responsible bill. It addresses a critical need to accelerate better treatments and one day a cure for paralysis. Currently, paralysis research is carried out across multiple disciplines with no effective means of coordination and collaboration. Time, effort, and valuable dollars are used inefficiently because of this problem. Families affected by paralysis are often unaware of critical research results, information about clinical trials, and best practices. The bill will improve the long-term health prospects of people with paralysis and other disabilities by improving access to services, providing information and support to caregivers and their families, developing assistive technology, providing employment assistance, and encouraging wellness among those with paralysis.

I am, frankly, surprised there continues to be an objection to moving this bill forward. I negotiated this bill with my Republican colleagues on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee before it was marked up in July. We received specific requests relating to the NIH. We accepted those requests. We moved forward. We removed the NIH reporting provisions in response to concerns that they were duplicative of reporting requirements NIH already had. We responded to all the feedback from the Department of Health and Human Services and the NIH by incorporating both substantive and technical changes. At that point we were assured there were no objections. As a result of these good- faith negotiations, the bill passed out of the HELP Committee with no amendments. Given all of the efforts we made to meet concerns raised by Senators on the other side of the aisle, and given that Senators had an opportunity to file amendments at that time but chose not to, I had every expectation that the bill would quickly pass the full Senate. Instead, it continues to be held due to Republican objections.

One of my Republican colleagues has said he will object to all disease-specific bills because he does not believe that Congress should be able to pass legislation specifically targeting the fights against cancer, ALS, Alzheimer's, and so on. I strenuously disagree with the Senator on this point. I believe Congress can and should be involved in setting national priorities in these fields. But putting that aside, the

fact is, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act is not a disease- specific bill. Paralysis and mobility impairment are not disease- specific issues; they are symptoms or side effects that result from numerous diseases and situations, including traumatic brain injury, stroke, ALS, injuries from athletic activities, injuries, of course, from combat in the U.S. Armed Forces, and many others. So paralysis is not disease specific.

Now, again, there seems to be another objection to this bill. One of our Republican colleagues has said he will not allow any bills to pass by unanimous consent that include spending without an offset. Well, let me be clear: There is no funding in the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act legislation. It is only an authorization that allows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to improve the quality of life and long-term health status of people with paralysis and other physical disabilities.

Our colleague from Oklahoma, Senator Inhofe, made this case very clear in his discussion of the Water Resources Development bill. He explained the significant difference between authorizing and appropriating. Authorization bills are not spending bills; they determine which projects and programs are eligible to compete for future funding and provide for congressional review and oversight. Authorization bills provide the criterion for spending bills, but they do not contain direct spending. So any spending for the paralysis program authorized by this legislation will be subject to the annual appropriations process.

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act passed the House in October. It is long overdue for passage in the Senate. When I introduced this bill, Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of NIH, spoke in support of the bill, and let me read something he said that day.

So, really, as the Director of an institution that is

committed to making the discoveries that will make a

difference in people's lives, I feel proud and feel pleased.

But at the same time I'm humbled. I'm humbled because in many

ways the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act is the

harbinger of what I see as the combination of the public, the

leadership in Congress, and the administration and government

in our country that is absolutely unique, and humbled because

at the same time, I know it contains a lot of expectations

from us. And I'm at the same time confident that we can

deliver on these expectations of NIH, with our sister

agencies throughout the government. But the key thing I would

like to provide is an expression of commitment. At the end of

the day, if you do not have leaders and champions that look

at a problem in its entirety, today in the 21st century, you

cannot make progress.

So that is what Dr. Elias Zerhouni said on the day we introduced the bill. I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Zerhouni. Progress is vital in science and biomedical research. It is also vital in the legislative process. As Senators, we have a duty to ensure due diligence in considering legislation. But for one Senator, or two Senators or three, to stall this bill, I believe without legitimate cause--if the objections are that it is disease specific, I have pointed out it is not. Secondly, if it is being held up because there is not an offset, I point out it is only an authorization bill, not a spending bill. If it were an appropriations bill, it would then be legitimately subject to a hold or objection to unanimous consent because it did not have an offset, if that were the case. Anyway, I think for a handful of Senators to block action on this bill seems to undermine the trust that people put in us as legislators to move forward on things, to respond to certain national needs.

Let us be clear: By putting this bill on hold, Senators are also putting people with paralysis and their families on hold. It is a shame, I say to these Senators. I am not asking you to vote for the bill. If you don't like it, you don't have to vote for it. I am only asking you to allow the entire Senate to work its will. Don't slam the door on our fellow citizens who are living with paralysis. There are some 2 million Americans right now living with paralysis of the arms or legs, or both. Many others are living with multiple sclerosis. Hundreds of young soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with spinal cord injuries and paralysis, facing a lifetime of disability. They should not be placed on hold. They shouldn't have to wait. They shouldn't have to have further delay. They should have this bill passed.

I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider their decision to block this bill. As I said, I worked with Republicans before it went to the HELP Committee. We worked with the Department of Health and Human Services downtown, with NIH, and we met all their objections. We redrafted it and there weren't any objections when it went through the HELP Committee. No amendments were offered. That is the kind of legislation you would think would be subject to a unanimous consent procedure here on the Senate floor. It is a fiscally responsible bipartisan bill, as I said, that does not spend any money. It only authorizes.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Four minutes.

I also wanted to talk about the Training for Realtime Writers Act. On behalf of more than 30 million Americans who are deaf or hard of hearing, I express my deep disappointment that again one or two Senators on the other side of the aisle are blocking passage of this important legislation, the Realtime Writers Act of 2007. Again, it is a bipartisan bill. It is fiscally responsible. It addresses an urgent national need to train more real-time captioners at a time when the demand for these professionals has far outstripped the supply, and when, in fact, the law of the land says that all programs have to be real-time captioned.

For those who don't know what real-time captioning is, these are the people, if you are in your offices and you are watching the Senate floor and you put your button on mute, you see the little closed caption go across the bottom of the screen. That is someone sitting down here in the bowels of the Capitol watching what we say and, on a machine, typing this in so that if you are deaf or hard of hearing you can read what is happening. This is true on programs you watch on normal television as well.

Again, we all use that, I know, at different times. You don't have to be deaf or hard of hearing to use closed captioning. But what has happened, and how this came about is very simple. In 1996, in the Telecom Act, it required that all English language television broadcasts be captioned by the year 2006. All television broadcasts must be real-time captioned by 2006. That was last year. So it is now 2007, and many stations across the country are not in compliance with the law. As a result, a lot of deaf and hard of hearing Americans are not able to access the full range of television programming we take for granted. And why aren't they compliant? Well, it is a legal requirement, but the fact is there are not enough captioners. We knew that back when the bill was passed in 1996. That is why we gave it 10 years for implementation. And little by little we have been trying to get more real-time captioners, but we don't have them.

This bill is an effort to bolster that program and to put focus on it. Again, it is an authorization bill. It is an authorization bill. It authorizes the creation of a competitive grant program to train captioners at the funding level of $20 million a year for 5 years. So, again, it is an authorization bill, not an appropriations bill.

There has been a shortage of real-time captioners. And you might say, well, if there is a shortage, why aren't there more people? Well, a lot of people don't know about it. They don't know about the demand. We need the training and expertise. This is a difficult job. I mean, our stenographers here, who take down our words, have a difficult job, but at least they have time to go back and print it out after they put it into the machines. A real-time captioner has to listen and watch what we are saying and put it on immediately. So it takes a lot of expertise and training to do this.

This act authorizes, again, the funding. It creates no new entitlements. It sunsets after 5 years, because once we get the number up and we get schools across the country teaching this, I have no doubt that we will have enough in the pipeline. And let me point out that this bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent three times before, only to languish in the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 2 more minutes.

Again, the House indicated they would take it up. It languished here. It passed the Senate, as I said, by unanimous consent three times already. Again, it is time to keep the promise that Congress made to 30 million Americans in 1996. I would hope we would not block the Realtime Writers Act, and let it go through, and with unanimous consent, as it has done three times in the Senate before. I would ask those who have a hold on the bill, are they saying that 100 Senators before, who let this legislation go through, didn't know what they were doing? We all have staffs, and we all pay attention to what legislation goes through here. I think it is indicative of the support we had on both sides of the aisle that the Realtime Writers Act, as I said, passed by unanimous consent three times in the past.

I wanted to talk about these bills because again I think they are both widely supported. We have worked out agreements with people in the past, and I don't think there is any real, legitimate reason to keep a hold on these bills and not let them pass.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate take up and pass Calendar No. 326, S. 1183, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, and Calendar No. 291, S. 675, the Training for Realtime Writers Act.

Mr. President, as part of my closing remarks, in case an objection was raised to the Training for Realtime Writers Act, I want to say this is something that can be done already by the administration, but I would point out that they have not done it in 10 years, either Democratic or Republican Presidents. Quite frankly, they are not focusing on it. They have said they can do it as part of their high-growth job training initiative, but they haven't done it. That is the point of the legislation. They have not done this.

And for those interested in earmarks around here, 90 percent of the money in the high-growth job training----

Well, I want to close with 30 seconds, by saying that 90 percent----

Ninety percent of the money is noncompetitive. Over $235 million over 6 years has gone out in noncompetitive grants, and not one penny for real-time writers.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, first let me say to my colleague, I know he is dedicated to this cause. It is an important cause. I have four basic problems with what we are doing here.

We did negotiate this bill. I also expressed in public that I would not allow this bill to go unless we had a full debate on the Senate floor. That has never been in confusion.

I also stated if we were in fact to offset the authorizations in the bill with some of the wasteful spending that we have today--and I understand the contention by the Senator from Iowa, who is also an appropriator who does not believe this will lead to spending--if we do not believe it will lead to spending, why authorize it in the first place? It is a false hope.

The third point I would make is everything this bill wants to do can already be done, except name it after Christopher and Dana Reeve-- everything. So what I would like is a unanimous consent request, after rebuttal from the Senator from Iowa, that I be given 10 minutes to explain my objections to the bill in detail, and also to offer for the record a letter from Dr. Zerhouni, dated July 30 of this year, in which he adamantly opposes any disease-specific bills. He outlined specifically why they should not be there.

The final point I would make, we spend $5.9 billion on this right now. We should spend more, but we do not have the money to spend more because this Congress will not get rid of $300 billion worth of wasteful spending. We appropriate $300 billion that is pure waste every year. It is not that we do not have the money. It is not that this bill will spend the money. It is not that we cannot have this; it can happen right now under the leadership at NIH. It is the fact that the very problems we are faced with today in terms of the financial collapse of this country and the liquidity of this country is because we have gone down a road of fiscal irresponsibility.

On that basis, I will object and await Senator Harkin's rebuttal. I do congratulate him for his commitment and his dedication. I believe the people at NIH want to solve this as well as anybody else and they recognize that they already have the power to do this.

I will make one final comment. This bill could have come to the floor. We could have taken care of it in 2\1/2\ hours if we had debate and amendments. The majority leader refused to let this bill come to the floor.

It is important for the American people know what a hold is. A hold is saying: Let the bill come to the floor, but I don't want to pass it with my vote

unless I have an opportunity to debate it and amend it, and what has been done has precluded us on that.

We did a lot of negotiations on this. The one thing we couldn't get negotiated is offsetting the negotiating level. Everybody knows that is a nonstarter with me. That is the only way we establish fiscal discipline in this country.

Absolutely. In response to your question, the Emmett Till bill, we attempted to do that. It was passed in connection with other bills, and we believed, since we had assurances that the appropriators would in fact take care of that inside the Department of Justice, we did not have that in the bill but outside, the appropriators would take care of that and we wouldn't spend additional money.

No, I never had a hold on that.

Will the Senator yield for a moment?

What I can tell the Senator is I have held every bill that comes before this body that we have an objection to constitutionally, or from the Director of NIH, that does spend money that is already for them.

I will gladly deliver to the Senator a copy of his letter. You can read it. What he objects to is any disease-specific bill. The reason for that is very simple. There are over--let me give you the exact number. There are 12,161 subcategories of diseases. His principle is we ought to let the scientists decide the direction of the research, not Congress. Because if we decided on this and we set it up and a consortium will take it directly from the research--if we did that on everything, we would have the most misguided, misdirected, and wasteful expenditures on research you could imagine. He lists specifically the fact that we had 2,036 categories and over 12,000 subcategories, and philosophically he objects to all disease-specific bills.

It would be more than acceptable provided the bill comes to the floor and offsets the authorizations. The problem we have is that in the last year, in your subcommittee alone on appropriations, we had 398 million dollars' worth of earmarks outside of the authorization process. None of them were authorized.

Now you want to spend more money on programs that you want to authorize, but you will not take away the $398 million of earmarks that were never authorized. That is my whole point. Bring the bill to the floor, offset some spending somewhere else, and we will not even have to go to the floor. Just offset it; you can have the bill.

But the fact is, nobody wants to offset it. The intention is to spend this money. Even though we play the games, how did we get $9.6 trillion in debt? We got it playing this same game, saying: Here is $115 million; it does not cost anything. But that is really untrue because it does. If you authorize it, you are going to spend more money. We have grown 61 percent since 2001 in terms of discretionary spending in this country, and we are broke. And we have a financial crisis in front of us.

I am trying to stand and say, if you want to do something, get rid of some of the 300 billion dollars' worth of waste, which I consider 398 million dollars' worth of earmarks that were unauthorized waste. So it is easy to bring it up. Bring this bill without the authorizing money, put it in, you got it.

That is true.

We received assurances that it would be offset at the appropriations level.

In response to the Senator through the Chair, that is a rarity that occurs here. The fact is, the Federal Government is growing three times faster than the income of the people in this country. It is because we will not put our own financial house in order.

I want to do the best we can do for people with paralysis. I think we ought to get rid of some of the 380 billion dollars' worth of waste and double the money in NIH. That is what I think. But we will not, nobody can, including my colleague from Iowa. When I have offered amendments on the floor to get rid of wasteful spending, rarely, if ever, have you joined me to get rid of the wasteful spending. Instead, we have continued wasteful spending.

Just like we are going to talking about Amtrak. Amtrak has a $100 million subsidy. Nobody in this country,

other than us, would allow Amtrak to continue losing $100 million a year on food subsidies on the train. No airline does that. No bus company does that. But because we have a $2.6 billion subsidy, we think it is fine that we should subsidize people's food on the train.

I can give you a thousand examples of things that we should be doing that we are not. I am not opposed to the efforts that you want to try to accomplish. What I am saying is we need a discipline change in this Congress. The American people have had it with us. We are wasting money hand over foot. And it is not what you want to do is bad, I am for what you want to do, I am saying let's get some discipline and let's make some priority choices.

Every family out there has to choose among priorities. They have to make a hard choice on what is important and what is not.

This is important, yes. We have told your staff the moment this passed the committee that we were going to hold it on the Senate floor unless it was offset. That is not a new threat. That is not news to your staff. They have known that for a long time, and so does every Member of this body. In fact, you received a letter from me in January of 2007 that said very specifically: If you bring a bill to the floor that is not offset, that is going to spend new money, unless we are going to get it debated and offer amendments, we are going to object. So that is where we stand.

Well, we also stopped 10 billion dollars' worth of new authorizations this year. We also stopped $10 billion. There is no question the Emmett Till bill went through with the assurances. I am not 100 percent.

Absolutely not. I voted against it and proudly did so because we had $16.8 billion worth of earmarks in there that will be forced onto the American taxpayer that will never see the light of day. They were in the report language, and we put something in the bill that said you couldn't amend it. None of those are competitively bid; $16 billion worth of earmarks, none of them competitively bid. So what happens? Defense authorization, we got $16 billion that we probably could have bought for 10, but because we have a system that says we are not going to watch out for the taxpayer, we will not do it.

So what I would say to the Senator is, what you want to do is great. I am not against it. How you are doing it I am against. Unless we change how we do things here, until we start becoming responsible fiscally, there has to be somebody putting on the brakes. I don't want to be known as a Senator who blocks research, but in fact, as the doctor related, this can all be done, and they are probably doing it.

The Senator from Iowa voted for the reform of NIH. You proudly voted for the reform of NIH. Paralysis is a disease-specific category because it is based on a problem in terms of mobility. So it falls into a category.

I don't know whether he wants this specifically, but what I am saying to you is, if you will bring a bill with $115 million worth of offsets to the floor in terms of authorization, we will say yes tomorrow.

The point is, until we establish with the American people that we are going to be as wise with their money as they are with their money, then we have to do some changing.

I do not apologize at all for standing in the way of this bill on principle. Somebody has to say timeout in this country in terms of spending. A newborn child born this year faces $400,000 in unfunded liability. When you fund the $115 million and if you offset it with something else, something else will get offset. The average increase in this area has been about 7.5 percent per year. What is the name of all those children who aren't going to get to go to college, will not have a great opportunity economically for the future, because we won't live within our means?

The last time I knew, when the airlines made money, they paid taxes. So, in fact, they are contributing to all those things that were mentioned because they are taxed at one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. One of the reasons the airlines can't compete is because we have a tax rate that essentially is close to 50 percent by the time we add in State income taxes. So they participated in the development of all those programs. They are great advancements.

Let's finish this debate. Let's talk off the floor. I will gladly work with Senator Harkin to accomplish whatever he wants, but I will not break down on the letter I sent in January of 2007 that says I believe we have to change the way we operate. I know there is tremendous resistance to that in this body. I understand that. But the American people don't understand it. What they understand is they have to make hard choices. Either we mean to fund the $115 million or we are sending a charade to the people who want this bill passed. It is one or the other. The fact is, they have had a chance.

I will also put in the Record that in the last Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, there was $105 million that Senator Harkin specifically put in for earmarks that he directed. That is real spending. That is enough to pay for the whole bill over 10 years.

The fact is, we have a major disagreement on specifics on how we control and how we change this country. I will fight for the taxpayer every time. I apologize to the Senator for some of my emotion. It is because I am thinking about the kids who are coming, not the political realm of today. I understand that we need to do more in NIH. I am on public record to take that to $60 billion. I will pay for it, easily pay for it. There is $80 billion worth of fraud in Medicare. What have we done about that? Nothing. We gutted the very program that cut spending for medical devices, durable medical equipment, the last bill through here. We had a way to save over $2 billion a year. We gutted it. The Senator voted for it. He voted to gut the $2 billion worth of savings.

So there are plenty of things we can do, but what we are not going to do anymore with my consent is to pass

bills that increase the liability for our children in the future, even when we do it for the sake of doing something good.

I yield the floor.

Well, Madam President, we certainly need to confront the challenges we are facing now with this banking situation. I know Senator Domenici is so eloquent and speaks with such conviction on it and believes strongly that we need to get busy.

The underlying business, however, at this time does remain the Amtrak bill, the reauthorization. That is the legislation the majority leader, Senator Reid, has brought up. I would assume that the leadership is trying to figure out what to do in light of the House vote. If they want to proceed and discuss that legislation, I will certainly be glad to yield the floor to them. But I do think we need to talk about this reauthorization of Amtrak.

I have watched this issue for a number of years and have drawn increasingly concerned. The legislation provides $9.7 billion for Amtrak and passenger rails through 2013 for operating and capital grants and debt repayment.

Operating--that means in simple language they are losing money, so we are going to make up their losses. Capital grants means they want more money to help them expand the system. Instead of the Amtrak system itself paying for this on a normal basis, they want the taxpayer to pay for it. Debt repayment--we have seen a lot of people having debt and not being able to pay their debt. It appears Amtrak needs a bailout because they cannot pay their debts. I wish we were in better shape, but the fact is, we're not.

It also includes an amount of $1.5 billion for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority--this is another $1.5 billion on top of the money that has been put in that program for some time. What is it for? For capital and preventative maintenance. I guess that means keeping the system running.

I will talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But I would note that in 1997, a little over a decade ago, Congress had a big discussion about Amtrak and what to do about it, and there was a consensus that the system be fundamentally reformed and that there be new accountability for Amtrak. It provided, in 1997, that by 2002 there would be no more Federal subsidies to Amtrak.

I tell you, we do not have accountability in this Government of ours. It is not functioning sufficiently in my view, and one reason is we make assertions, and when things do not work out the people who did not succeed at whatever task they were given--we just give them more money, and they know that. They expect that to happen, so they do not make the tough decisions necessary to be successful.

Kenneth Mead, the former Department of Transportation inspector general who dealt with accountability, succinctly stated it this way:

The mismatch between the public resources made available to

fund inner city passenger rail service, the total cost to

maintain the system that Amtrak continues to operate, and the

proposals to restructure the system comprise a dysfunction

that must be resolved in the reauthorization process of the

Nation's inner city rail system.

Now, the Heritage Foundation, an exceptionally fine think tank, has looked at this, and they have concluded that we do not have the reform that Inspector General Mead said was necessary. In fact, they say that fundamentally this reauthorization makes little reform at all of significance, and this request for money may be the biggest Amtrak has ever asked for. I say we have a problem.

Let me share a few thoughts. I know many people have a romantic attraction to rail systems and want to see them successful and think we could do well if we could have more rails and people would ride the rails and it would save energy and we would all be happy and we could just, I guess, like the Orient Express, play cards and eat meals on white table cloths. Well, let's look at the reality of what we are dealing with.

I do not think Amtrak is going to work in Alabama. Our population is too diverse, and the routes it runs do not seem to fit the traffic patterns of people. I wish it could. I do not want to be a person to say don't send Amtrak through my State. Few people probably benefit from it. Few people might have a job depending on it. But sometimes we as a nation have to ask ourselves what is the proper utilization of our money, and are we making any progress.

I do not think you can justify many, perhaps most, of the routes Amtrak is running, but some of them could be. Some more of them could perhaps become viable if the losses they were taking in this system on bad routes were put into some of the marginal routes, where they upgraded them and they could run the system better, cleaner, and more timely, with fewer delays, and that kind of thing. But fundamentally the romantic view that we are going to have some sort of major international rail system does not seem to be realistic.

I remember as a child growing up in the country we used to say--I grew up on the railroad tracks. It was not but a couple hundred yards from my house to the railroad track. My daddy had a country store there. There were three country stores in that neighborhood and one railroad depot. So we had a passenger train.

When I was a young kid, a passenger train came through there. But there has not been a passenger train through Hybart, AL, in 40, 50 years. Now there is only one store left in the community and no railroad depot. It has been closed for many years.

Things happen. This country changes. People change. Let me ask this question to my colleagues. Would the Nation be better off if somebody in Washington, DC, said: Oh, that is such a shame. This little town of Hybart might lose their three stores, and they might have the depot closed. Maybe we ought to fund the railroad, give them enough money, bail them out, so they can continue to operate their passenger train through there. Would we be better off if we had done that? I do not think so. I hate to see it happen.

We also had a little post office attached to the house of my neighbor, and they closed that a number of years ago. That was heartbreaking. Mrs. Hybart from Hybart ran the post office. When she retired, they closed it. We hated to see that, but maybe the Postal Service was right. Maybe it was such a small operation it couldn't be justified to be continued. Somebody has to make decisions somewhere.

So let me point this out to my colleagues. Using my home State as an example, we have a train that goes through Birmingham and on up to Washington. Birmingham is our largest city. What are your options if you are in Birmingham and want to come to Washington, DC, our Nation's Capital? If you want to go on a commercial airline, which most people do, frankly, there are several flights every day, direct flights from Birmingham to Washington. If you take your personal vehicle you can leave anytime that you desire. You can leave early in the morning or you can leave midday, whatever. If you take the train, though, there is only one train a day leaving, and you have to leave at precisely that time or you don't get on the train. So that limits options at the beginning.

When people are deciding when and how to make a trip, they ask themselves these questions: What about the time it takes to make a trip from Birmingham to Washington, DC? Well, the air time is about 2 hours 12 minutes. The personal vehicle, if you drive by

car, we calculate 11 hours. It may be 10 or 11 hours. By train, it is 18 hours.

How many stops would you make? If you take an airline, of course, a direct flight, there is only one stop--at Washington. If you take your vehicle, maybe you make four or five stops, three or four stops. Let's assume you make four. But Amtrak, Amtrak makes 18 stops, and it does not take the shortest route to the Nation's Capital.

What about cost? How much does it cost? I was surprised, actually, when we looked at these numbers. I questioned my staff. Could it be an error? This is what they told me: The primary cost of a round-trip airline ticket from Birmingham to Washington is $328. It has gone up some. That is what they tell me is the recent fare for this trip. If you look at your automobile, and there is only one person in the car-- you may have four--but if one person is driving to Washington, it is about $200 for the gasoline at the current high prices; $4 or so a gallon. What about the Amtrak train ticket that is going to take 18 hours instead of 2, what does it cost? Four hundred and forty-five dollars.

So you think this may have something to do with why people are choosing to fly or drive, rather than take the train? I kind of wish it wasn't so. I wish there was some way we could make this different than it is, but those are the facts and that is why many of the Amtrak routes are not practical.

People say: Well, why don't we make more routes, more trips, more trains, more often every day, and maybe more people would use it. I don't think so. I think the losses would swell even larger. You can't make this happen, in my view. I wish we had a different statement I could say about it, but that is it.

One reason we maintain these routes around the country that are losing money substantially is because Congress maintains them because politics gets into it. Nobody wants to stand, as I am doing right now, and suggest it is not going to be the end of the world for the State of Alabama if we don't have an Amtrak running through there, if it is costing the taxpayers billions of dollars every year to keep it running.

I wish to mention, briefly, the Washington Metro earmark of $1.5 billion. This includes Northern Virginia and the Maryland suburbs--some of the richest, most prosperous areas in the country. But they want us to send huge amounts of money here to fund the extension of their subway, their train system. I think we have a right--the people outside this area need to ask why they should do that.

Let me share this. My home county that I have been talking about has double-digit unemployment. It is reported by the New York Times that in my county--Wilcox County, where I grew up and went to school--the average citizen spends a larger percentage of their income on gasoline than any other county in America. So I guess what we are talking about now is we are going to ask people in my county who are struggling to get by with high unemployment rates and low wages and long distances to work, to subsidize a big, fancy subway system extension and operation that goes beyond, what I think is fair. What principle is being utilized to decide this is a good allocation of limited wealth in America?

So this is a huge mark. It is a huge item. Let me tell my colleagues how huge it is. Our State, as I recall, under the formula for highway distribution moneys, with every State in America, is about average. Alabama is about an average size State in population and probably in size. The tax revenue from gasoline comes to the Federal Government and we allocate it out by complex formulas that we have fought over for years. Alabama and Mississippi felt as though we weren't being fairly treated, but we are doing a little better now under the formula. But the amount of money Alabama gets, as I recall, it is not much over $500 million a year for the entire interstate highway system in Alabama to be utilized with the State highway money: $500 million per year. Whereas, they who are pushing this Metro system--$1.5 billion payment-- would, in one project alone, be three times the annual funds that my State gets for highways. I don't think that is fair. I know it is a huge project. But, it is not a project I think can be justified. I wish we could do this and that would be good.

Somebody said: Well, Government employees like it. Many of them live out that way. Well, I have to tell my colleagues that Government employees are treated pretty well. You may not know this, but one reason they take subways is most of the agencies subsidize their ticket. If you take the Metro, the Government agency gives you a transportation allowance. So they have tried everything they can to incentivize riding the subway, but the Metro is still losing money. This is an additional subsidy from the Federal Government to the Washington Metro.

So I have to tell my colleagues I believe this is an important matter. I do not believe this legislation is sound. I don't think it is good for the taxpayers. I believe it is, in many ways, including this very large, one appropriation of $1.5 billion, that is clearly unfair to the rest of the country. We shouldn't pass it. I am sorry the majority leader seems determined to move forward with this bill. But as I said, I would not object if he sets it aside temporarily, to discuss what we are going to do about the financial crisis.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have sought recognition to discuss my vote on July 28 against cloture--to end debate--on the motion to proceed to S. 3297, the so-called Reid omnibus bill or ``Coburn package.'' As I stated on the Senate floor Monday, July 28, it is my inclination that the majority leader called for a vote on cloture on proceeding to this bill in order to dislodge the pending legislation on oil speculation. By using his position of power, he seeks to force the Senate to prematurely move away from the No. 1 issue facing the people from my State and the Nation namely energy legislation.

I did not support cloture to move to the Reid omnibus bill not because I do not support many of its provisions, rather because I believe we should complete work on energy legislation before moving on to other matters. Further, I am seeking my right as a U.S. Senator to offer amendments to a bill in a fair and balanced legislative process.

For instance, Senator Kohl and I had a bipartisan amendment prepared to offer to the speculation bill that would have brought OPEC nations under U.S. antitrust laws to prohibit them from meeting in a room, lowering production and supply, and thus raising prices. Unfortunately, this effort was denied by the majority leader's blocking of amendments by filling the so-called amendment tree, disallowing mine and a number of other amendments that ought to be considered.

This procedure is nothing new for this majority leader who has filled the amendment tree on 15 occasions in the current 110th Congress, surpassing all other majority leaders in modern history. As a result of the majority leader's curtailing Senate procedure and amendments, I have been faced with voting against cloture on measures I would have ordinarily supported including this past Saturday's vote on LIHEAP. I have also opposed cloture in instances such as the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill which was considered the first week of June--2 to 6. In that case, the majority leader filled the amendment tree at the first opportunity and filed cloture on the bill without ever allowing consideration of amendments. The 5-day debate culminated in a fait accompli cloture vote that failed on June 6.

Most recently, I voted against cloture to move to the Reid omnibus bill that was a conglomeration of legislation that has been described as non-controversial and may benefit a wide variety of interests. As I stated on the Senate floor on Monday, July 28, I am supportive of most, if not all of the substance in this bill. In fact, I am a cosponsor of six of the items.

I support and have worked to pass a number of the Judiciary Committee-related bills in the proposed omnibus. For example, I am an original cosponsor of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Protection Act, S. 2982, which makes changes in the grant program for centers for runaway youths. I am also a cosponsor of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2008, S. 2304, which would provide grants for the improved mental health treatment and services provided to offenders with mental illness. In addition, I am a cosponsor of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, S. 535, which authorizes funding to solve pre-1970 civil rights crimes. Moreover, in committee, I supported a Federal commission to commemorate the bicentennial of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner and the War of 1812, S. 1079.

Additionally, I voted in favor of the following child protection bills which were passed by the Judiciary Committee: The Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008, S. 1738, which authorizes grants to combat child exploitation; and the Drug Endangered Children Act of 2007, S. 1210, which extends a grant program directed at drug-endangered children.

I directed my staff to work to clear the child exploitation bills from the omnibus package in the same manner I worked to pass the Adam Walsh Act without extraneous add-ons during the 109th Congress. To that end, my staff worked with Senator Coburn's staff to draft a proposed compromise child exploitation bill that includes the key provisions of the child pornography and exploitation legislation in the proposed omnibus, as well as important legislation to strengthen the powers of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the SAFE Act, which was omitted from the omnibus bill.

My support is also invested in efforts to maintain the natural beauty of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed while simultaneously preserving its resources for the communities it serves. S. 2707, The Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Water Trails Network Continuing Authorization Act, will permanently authorize appropriations for these vital programs. I cosponsored this legislation because I believe it is a critical organization whose mission to protect the bay is vital for the communities affected by this watershed.

Another environmental act I have fervently supported and of which I am an original cosponsor, is S. 496, the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2008. The bill renews the Appalachian Regional Commission for 5 years--2007-2011--and authorizes $510 million to be appropriated over that timeframe for the Commission's economic development activities in distressed rural counties.

Numerous health care provisions I have worked hard for can also be found in this package, including S. 1382, which establishes a registry of those suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The registry will gather data about those who are diagnosed with the disease to better understand and research the illness. As Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education--LHHS--Appropriations Subcommittee, I support research and an ALS registry. I worked to provide $39 million for NIH research of ALS in 2008 and $2.8 million to plan the ALS registry.

I am also a cosponsor of S. 1183, the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act, to expand paralysis research at the National Institutes of Health, NIH, and set up a network to allow patients and their families to quickly learn the result of clinical trials on paralysis rehabilitation drugs. The LHHS fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill provided $64 million for NIH spinal cord research.

The package also included bills, H.R. 3112, S. 1810 intended to create a new Federal grant program to pay for information and support services regarding Down syndrome and other prenatally or postnatally diagnosed conditions. While awaiting these authorization bills, I have worked with Senator Harkin to get a jump start on these much-needed activities by including $1 million to establish the congenital disabilities program in the fiscal year 2009 Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations bill. In addition, the Labor-HHS Subcommittee provided almost $1 million to the CDC in fiscal year 2009 for awareness activities related to Down syndrome.

One of the bills, H.R. 477, would permit the issuing of grants to states for stroke care systems. As ranking member of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, I have worked to increase CDC funding for heart disease and stroke activities in the States to over $50 million and NIH funding for stroke research to over $340 million in fiscal year 2008.

Another bill, S 1375, would establish a grant program for services to mothers suffering from postpartum depression. As ranking member of the Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittee, I have worked with Chairman Harkin to include $4.9 million for a first-time motherhood initiative within the maternal and child health block grant.

I also support S. 675, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2007. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires 100 percent closed captioning for all new English broadcast programming by January 1, 2006. That deadline has come and gone. There are not enough real time writers and captioners to meet this unfunded mandate out in the workforce. Furthermore, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires 100 percent closed captioning for all new Spanish broadcast programming by January 1, 2010. America is very far from achieving this goal. S. 675 will assist with training the workforce to provide closed captioning for the 30 million Americans who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

I support H.R. 3320, the Support for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Act of 2007, which requires assistance from the Department of State to support the development of a permanent collection at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. It is in the national interest of the United States to encourage the preservation and protection of artifacts associated with the heritage of U.S. citizens who trace their forbearers to other countries and to encourage the collection and dissemination of knowledge about that heritage. Most recently, I traveled to Poland on August 27, 2007, and observed fist hand the importance of museums that examine Poland in WW II, specifically the Polish uprising and the Home Army. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews will complement the current museum facilities in Warsaw by preserving and presenting the history of the Jewish people in Poland, which had the largest Jewish population in Europe at the beginning of World War II.

Having outlined a number of priorities and areas of support I have with this omnibus bill, let the record show that I support the package as a whole. However, as evidenced by my vote against cloture on the motion to proceed to the bill, I believe the energy situation is too important to set aside until we have completed or frankly even started our work on it by allowing amendments to be considered. It has been said on this floor that explaining opposition to this omnibus bill to our constituents will be difficult. While this premonition may have some merit,

I trust that the people of Pennsylvania and the Nation will support efforts to deal with high energy prices and encouraging the kind of open and fair debate that leads to better policies across the board.

I reinitiate my suggestion that the Senate stay in session during the month of August, if the majority leader would hold a legitimate session that provides the kind of deliberation that has led many to call the U.S. Senate ``the greatest deliberative body in the world.'' Members of this body should be prepared to work as long and hard as necessary in order to reach a solution to the energy crisis not based upon political appeasement, but results. It is time we allow debate and compromise to reverberate through this chamber as we find areas of agreement in the best tradition of the Senate.