Ready to Learn Act

Mr. President, I rise today to address a serious and deadly health issue. I am talking about tobacco, a scourge on our society.

Smoking kills. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. These are not mere platitudes. They are the deadly truth. Tobacco kills more Americans each year than alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire and AIDS combined.

My colleague Senator Kennedy has proposed dealing with this shocking statistic by having the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco. I suggest my colleagues ask themselves: What will it mean to have cigarette and tobacco products regulated by the FDA?

The FDA is the gold standard among public health regulators the world over. For the past century, the FDA has protected the public, from filthy conditions in meat packing plants to thalidomide, which caused thousands of birth defects in Western Europe. The FDA's constant vigilance is not just an historical artifact. It seems like every day there is something new for the FDA to protect us from. The headlines behind me show how we have come to depend on the FDA every day to protect us and our children from poisons that could harm or even kill us.

It is evident that the FDA is overworked and underfunded. We, as a nation, currently ask the FDA to be responsible for so many things: ensuring that new drugs and medical devices are safe and effective; safeguarding the Nation's food supply; regulating the manufacture and distribution of food additives and drugs that will be given to animals; and, increasing the security of our blood supply.

In each of these key activities, the role of the FDA is to protect our health. In providing that protection, the FDA examines key scientific facts and weighs the balance of benefit to our society and risk to our health. It is incomprehensible to me to extend that critical role to an FDA risk/benefit analysis of tobacco and cigarettes.

I will say it again: Smoking kills. There is no such thing as a ``safe'' cigarette. Any public statement by the FDA under their current authority would necessitate the finding that there is no benefit to the use of cigarettes, only harm.

The Kennedy-Cornyn bill would establish the FDA as the regulator for tobacco products. However, the bill explicitly states that the FDA will not be permitted to prohibit the sale of any tobacco product to adults. That is not true regulation. The bill would gut the authority that Congress has bestowed and staunchly defended for the FDA, the authority to remove health threats from the marketplace. This approach is so flawed that I believe the bill cannot be fixed.

Even having the FDA review and approve cigarettes sends mixed and confusing messages to the public, creating the sense that cigarettes are safe or can be made safer. The FDA cannot be put in the position of approving a product which years of science and the personal experience of far too many Americans has shown to be dangerous. Simply put, tobacco kills people. Piling on regulations and bureaucracy won't change that.

I commend my colleague Senator Kennedy for trying to do something about the evil of tobacco. But this bill is a dinosaur. It has been introduced year after year, with barely any changes. In fact, the bill would have FDA issue a regulation from 1996 completely intact. A regulation, I might add, that was overturned by the Supreme Court. But that is beside the point. Instead of resurrecting broken, outdated legislation, we should be aiming to make tobacco extinct.

While some in the tobacco industry claim to share my views on smoking, I do not believe they have actually bought in to the idea of getting people to stop using tobacco. A case in point is the new $350 million facility Philip Morris has built in Richmond, VA. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the following classified ad from the journal Science.

Mr. President, this ad calls for the recruitment of scientists to work at this facility, studying how to ``develop relevant exposure models'' for smoking related diseases. Or to do large scale epidemiology studies on ``the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases.'' Here I thought the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases was smoking. Silly me.

Clearly, Philip Morris believes it will still be able to operate under the Kennedy bill. It will be business as usual for the Marlboro Man, and more Americans will die needlessly.

Trying to make cigarettes safer through a billion-dollar bureaucracy is a waste of time and money. The right approach is to get people to stop smoking, or better yet, to never start.

The key failing of the Kennedy dinosaur legislation is that it will not reduce smoking. In 2004, this bill did pass the Senate, as part of FSC-ETI. The Congressional Budget Office, in scoring the Senate-passed bill, examined the tobacco provisions. I suggest my colleagues study that score carefully. CBO suggested there would be essentially no reduction in adult smoking, and only a 12.5 percent reduction in youth smoking. The bill assesses user fees in excess of $450 million a year. There are currently 2.7 million youth smokers. When you do the math, it comes out to nearly $1,500 per year per youth smoker to achieve these reductions. I don't know if you've talked to any teenagers recently, but they are pretty entrepreneurial. I bet a lot of them would quit smoking if you just paid them to give it up, or even to stay off the stuff in the first place.

In another example of very little bang for very big bucks, a recent Institute of Medicine report from May says that if we keep doing what we are doing, we will reduce smoking from the current 20 percent of the population to about 15 percent over the next 20 years. If we do everything in the report, which is basically the Kennedy bill plus a number of other steps, some of which maybe unconstitutional, we might reduce it to 10 percent. At an unknown, but likely very high, cost.

This bill can't be fixed. I know we can do better. We just have to think bigger. We must win the war on tobacco, not sign a peace treaty with Phillip Morris.

I have developed my own tobacco legislation that would truly have an impact on the number of smokers in this country, and I am pleased to introduce today the Help End Addiction to Lethal Tobacco Habits or HEALTH Act.

My bill contains a novel cap-and-trade program--guaranteeing that

fewer people suffer the deadly consequences of smoking, while providing flexibility in how those reductions are achieved.

Cap-and-trade programs have a proven track record in the environmental arena. In the 1980s, lakes and forests were dying from acid rain. The acid rain was caused by emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from power generation at electrical plants. The Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 instituted a system of allowances for emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides that could be used, banked, traded or sold freely on the open market. The number of allowances decreased each year. This system achieved the desired results faster and at lower cost than had been anticipated. The cap-and-trade program for sulfur and nitrogen oxides has made dramatic differences in our air quality over the past 15 years, and is a resounding success. I propose to carry this market-oriented system over to the tobacco control arena. Although this has never been tried for a health issue, I think it will work.

My legislation will contain a cap-and-trade system for shrinking the size of the tobacco market over the next 20 years. Smoking reductions are guaranteed, and companies are given time and flexibility to make the reductions or divest. In addition, small tobacco companies would have a valuable asset in their allocations, leveling the playing field a bit between the smaller and larger industry members. Finally, and I think very importantly, public health groups could buy and retire allowances to achieve the reductions in tobacco use even faster than specified in my bill. I would like to issue a challenge today to those groups, use your clout to help me make this work. Stand with me to fight tobacco and protect the health of all Americans.

I want to remind my colleagues that the FDA approves cures, not poisons. Forcing the FDA to regulate tobacco but not letting them ban it, as my colleague Senator Kennedy proposes, would undermine the long history of the agency protecting and promoting the public health.

In closing, every day, we hear about some new problem the FDA faces in protecting our health. From contaminated seafood to tainted toothpaste, this agency is in dire need of congressional support to carry out its mission. We should be focusing our efforts on increasing the number of inspectors, and on renewing the expiring drug and device user fee laws.

I ask my colleagues to think hard about what they are proposing when they suggest FDA regulation is the way to defeat tobacco. My record is clear when it comes to tobacco. I am no friend of big tobacco and I have never taken a dime of tobacco company money for my campaigns. I don't intend to start now. But I absolutely reject the notion that the way to show you're ``for kids'' and ``against Big Tobacco'' is by sending the Nation's premier public health watchdog out to fight for safety with one hand tied behind its back. We must not mandate the FDA seal of approval on a deadly product that has no health benefit whatsoever. We can do better. Will you join me?

Health Science Research for Harm Reduction--New Positions at Philip

Morris USA

The Health Sciences Research Division of PM USA is seeking

Leading Scientists in several biomedical-related research

areas.

The primary goal of the Health Sciences Research Division

(HSR) is to conduct health science research to facilitate the

development of new methods and technologies with the

potential to reduce harm associated with our products.

In June 2007, PM USA research scientists will begin

occupying the new 450,000 sq. ft., state-of-the-art Center

for Research and Technology (CRT) facility. HSR scientists

will work in collaboration with other PM USA scientists at

the CRT to investigate and discover technologies for the

reduction of harm associated with our products.

Cigarette Smoke-Related Disease Scientists: Will

participate in the development of models and biomarkers of

cigarette smoke-related diseases including: Cancer Scientists

investigating cancer with emphasis on lung cancer. COPD

Scientists investigating chronic obstructive pulmonary

disease. CVD Scientists investigating cardiovascular disease.

Experimental Pathologists: Will participate in the

development and use of microscopic and imaging techniques to

investigate the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases.

Oxidative Stress Scientists: Will participate in studies

investigating the role of oxidative damage and cell death

processes in cigarette smoke-related diseases.

Inflammation/Immune System Scientists: Will participate in

studies investigating the role of inflammatory/immunological

processes in cigarette smoke-related diseases.

Inhalation Toxicologist for Aerosol Dosimetry: Will

participate in studies investigating in vitro and in vivo

exposure to cigarette smoke to quantify airway smoke

deposition and develop relevant exposure models.

Toxicologist for PK-PD Studies: Will study the PK-PD of

exposure to cigarette smoke during smoke inhalation for the

purpose of developing clinically predictive cell and tissue

dose models.

Epidemiologists (Molecular/Genetic and Chronic Disease):

Will participate in the design, conduct and analysis of

large-scale, high-throughput, molecular and chronic disease

epidemiologic studies on the cause of cigarette smoke-related

diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer).

Biostatisticians: Will participate in the design and

analysis of large-scale epidemiologic, in vitro and in vivo

studies on the cause of cigarette smoke-related diseases

(CVD, COPD, Cancer).

Geneticists (Statistical and Population): Will participate

in the design and analysis of large-scale, high-throughput,

molecular epidemiologic and in vivo studies on cigarette

smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer).

Complex Systems Analysts (Systems Biology): Will

participate in the integration and modeling of high-

throughput, cross-platform, trans-species data on cigarette

smoke-related diseases (CVD, COPD, Cancer).

Mr. President, today I reintroduce legislation initially inspired by an indepth report published in late 2005 by the Chicago Tribune that highlighted the extent of mercury contamination in the fish eaten by the American people.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can cause serious developmental problems in children, ranging from severe birth defects to mental retardation. As many as 630,000 children born annually in the U.S. are at risk of neurological afflictions related to mercury. In adults, mercury can cause problems affecting vision, motor skills, blood pressure and fertility. As many as 10 percent of women in the U.S. of childbearing age have mercury in their blood at a level that could put a baby at risk.

Sampling conducted by the Tribune showed surprisingly high levels of mercury concentrations in freshwater and saltwater fish purchased by Chicago area consumers, fish like tuna, swordfish, orange roughy, and walleye. The Tribune also reported on how existing programs at the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have failed to adequately test and evaluate mercury levels in fish.

For all Americans, especially pregnant women and other at-risk groups, there are risks to eating fish with high mercury levels. That is why we need to work harder to get at the root causes of mercury contamination. In the short term, some have proposed strategies that include eating less fish, or issuing consumption advisories, or printing labels on tuna cans, or posting placards at the supermarket. Each of those strategies have their respective merits, but if we are really serious about making fish safer to eat, we need to actually reduce the amount of mercury in fish, and that means reducing the amount of mercury used in industry.

When policymakers focus on addressing mercury sources, often coal- fired power plants and incinerators are at the top of the list. I think it is important that we not overlook other sources, however, where new policies could yield notable mercury reductions in the short term using methods that are achievable and affordable. One such source is the chlor-alkali industry.

Chlor-alkali facilities manufacture chlorine gas and caustic soda, important chemicals that serve as the building blocks of many of the products and plastics essential to modem everyday life. For more than 100 years, mercury has been a key component in the chlorine process. Since 1974, however, about 115 plants worldwide have converted to better technologies such as membrane and diaphragm cells. Today in the U.S. more than 90 percent of the chlor-alkali industry has switched from using mercury to using these alternative catalysts. Moreover, of the 8 plants in the U.S. that still use mercury, 3 are in the process of stopping. The remaining 5, however, have made no such commitment. It is also worth noting that in 2005 alone, the 5 uncommitted mercury using plants released more than 4,400 pounds of mercury into the air, on average four times the average mercury releases of a standard coal- fired power plant.

The time has come to finish these upgrades and end the use of mercury in the chlor-alkali process, especially since these remaining plants rank among the largest mercury emitters in their respective states.

The bill I introduce today, the Missing Mercury in Manufacturing Monitoring and Mitigation Act, or M5 Act, prohibits using mercury cells in the chlorine or caustic soda manufacturing process by the year 2012. The M5 Act also puts procedures in place by mid-year 2008 to track and report mercury input and output in the chlor-alkali industry. The evidence suggests that between 2000 and 2004, the industry could not account for more than 130 tons of mercury. The EPA calls this ``an enigma.'' The M5 Act addresses this enigma by tightening up mercury tracking requirements. My bill also establishes an advisory committee to study and recommend methods for transfer and long-term storage of mercury from closed or closing facilities. And the bill directs the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Register to conduct a health assessment at those facilities that still use mercury after 2008.

It is important to point out that there are alternatives to mercury in the chlor-alkali process, more than 100 plants worldwide have converted to better technologies. We also know that these alternatives are not cost-prohibitive. Statistics compiled in a recent report by the group Oceana demonstrate that conversion costs are substantially similar to the cost of the continued use of mercury, for example, the cost of waste disposal, treatment, monitoring, fines, and higher energy consumption associated with using the old technology.

If there were simply no alternatives to mercury for this industry, if other technologies had not been proven on a commercial scale, or if switching from mercury was simply too expensive, then I could understand if there were strong arguments against this legislation. But here we actually have a situation where mercury use could actually be phased out within a rather short period of time, improving the health of children and families. So the choice is whether we want to wait another decade and hope that improvements happen, or whether we want to ensure that mercury is phased out beginning today. I hope my colleagues will choose the latter, and I urge their support of this bill.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce the Hospital Quality Report Card Act, a quality-focused initiative that will actively engage all relevant stakeholder groups--patients, providers, administrators, and payers--and increase availability of information about the quality of health care services in local hospitals and health systems.

We know that overall performance in our Nation's hospitals can vary tremendously, and is mediocre at best in many institutions. The academic literature has documented serious issues in health care quality for treatment of a number of conditions, including cardiac arrhythmias, hip replacements, and alcohol dependence to name just a few. But discussions of health care quality are not limited to academic exercises; patients and their families experience medical errors and substandard hospital care every day. Just last month, the L.A. Times reported an extreme case involving Ms. Edith Isabel Rodriguez. Ms. Rodriguez, a 43-year old American woman with a perforated bowel, suffered an excruciating and possibly preventable death, after lying unattended on the floor of an emergency room for 45 minutes. Our Nation's hospitals can do better and must do better.

One step towards improving health care quality is collecting, analyzing, and reporting on health care quality, using measures that have been developed, validated, and accepted by the medical community. Not only will such measures assist hospitals by identifying problem areas and facilitating monitoring for improvement, but the transparency through public reporting will also help consumers and payers make informed decisions about where to obtain health services.

The Hospital Quality Report Card Act grants the Secretary of Health and Human Services the power to collect hospital information related to the staffing levels of nurses and health professionals, the accreditation of hospitals, the quality of care for vulnerable populations, the availability of specialty services and intensive care units, hospital acquired infections, measures of crowding in emergency rooms, and other indicators of quality care. This information--focused on health care effectiveness, safety, timeliness, efficiency, patient- centeredness, and equity--will be electronically accessible to the public. The report card initiative builds upon current work at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, as well as initiatives in a number States including my own home State of Illinois. I am proud to report that I was the primary sponsor of the Illinois Hospital Report Card Act that passed into law in 2003 and took effect in 2004.

Our Nation's reputation of having one of the best health care systems in the world needs to be restored, and this won't happen until we can assure the American people that our hospitals are doing a better job offering top-notch quality care. The Hospital Quality Report Card Initiative will help by expanding and reporting quality measurement, which will provide an incentive for hospitals to do better and valuable information to patients and consumers. I ask that you support the Hospital Quality Report Card Act and help my efforts to pass this legislation.

I am pleased to introduce the Protect Our Children First Act of 2007, which will reauthorize funding for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, NCMEC through fiscal year 2013, and increase Federal support and coordination to help NCMEC programs to find missing children across the Nation. I am glad that Senator Hatch has joined me in introducing this bill, along with Senators Lincoln and Shelby. As members of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, we have all worked together on numerous pieces of legislation to protect the safety and welfare of our children, and I thank them for their continued leadership and for joining me in introducing this bill.

Just a few months ago, we commemorated the 25th National Missing Children's Day, when our Nation particularly remembers our commitment to work together in locating and recovering missing children. It pains us all to see on TV, in the newspapers or on milk cartons photo after photo of missing children from various comers of our country. As a father and grandfather, I know that an abducted child is the worst nightmare. Unfortunately, it is a nightmare that happens all too often. Indeed, the Justice Department estimates that 2,200 children are reported missing each day. There are approximately 114,600 attempted stranger abductions every year, with 3,000 to 5,000 of those attempts succeeding. Experts estimate that children and youth comprise between 85 percent and 90 percent of missing person reports. These families deserve the assistance of the American people and a helping hand from the Congress and from Federal agencies.

As the Nation's top resource center for child protection, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children spearheads national efforts to locate and recover missing children and raises public awareness about ways to prevent child abduction, molestation and sexual exploitation. NCMEC works to make our children safer by being a national voice and advocate for those too young to vote or speak up for their own rights. The center operates under a Congressional mandate and works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to coordinate the efforts of law enforcement officers, social service agencies, elected officials, judges, prosecutors, educators, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the public and private sectors to break the cycle of violence that historically has perpetuated these needless crimes against children. Child advocates like John Walsh, who worked hard in helping Congress enact the National Center's charter, also continue to support the center's vital work.

The center's professionals have disturbingly busy jobs, they have worked on more than 127,700 cases of missing and exploited children since its 1984 founding, helping to recover more than 110,200 children. The center raised its recovery rate from 64 percent in the 1990s to 96 percent today. The center has set up a nationwide, toll free, 24-hour telephone hotline to take reports about missing children and clues that might lead to their recovery, a National Child Pornography Tipline to handle calls from individuals reporting the sexual exploitation of children through the production and distribution of pornography, and a CyberTipline to process online leads from individuals reporting the sexual exploitation of children. It has taken the lead in circulating millions of photographs of missing children, and it serves as a vital resource for the 17,000 law enforcement agencies located throughout the Nation in the search for missing children and in the pursuit of adequate child protection.

The center has also developed a ``Cold Case Unit'' within the Missing Children Division that focuses on long-term missing children cases. By using age progression technology, NCMEC has recovered 741 missing children. NCMEC forensic artists have also identified 24 missing children by using facial reconstructions of unidentified remains.

In order to help the center solve these long-term cases, Section 5 of this bill would allow an Inspector General to provide staff support to NCMEC for the purpose of conducting reviews of inactive case files to develop recommendations for further investigation. The Inspector General community has one of the most diverse and talented criminal investigative cadres in the Federal Government. A vast majority of these special agents have come from traditional law enforcement agencies, and they are highly trained and extremely capable of dealing with complex criminal cases.

Under current law, an Inspector General's duties are limited to activities related to the programs and operations of an agency. Our bill would allow an Inspector General to permit criminal investigators under his or her supervision to review cold case files, so long as doing so would not interfere with normal duties. An Inspector General would not conduct actual investigations, and any Inspector General would only commit staff when the office's mission-related workloads permitted. At no time would these activities be allowed to conflict with or delay the stated missions of an Inspector General.

The Protect Our Children First Act also gives the Center better tools for working in coordination with Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to find missing children. This bill would provide analytical and technical support to assist law enforcement agencies in searching public databases to identify missing children and to locate abductors and would facilitate the deployment of the National Emergency Child Locator Center to assist in locating children in times of national disasters. In addition, the bill would allow

NCMEC to work in conjunction with the FBI to provide fitness determinations based on criminal history of volunteers in child-serving organizations and track the incidence of attempted child abductions to report any links or patterns to law enforcement agencies.

NCMEC is headquartered in Alexandria, VA, and operates branch offices in five other locations throughout the country to provide hands-on assistance to families of missing children, advocating legislative changes to better protect children, conducting an array of prevention and awareness programs, and motivating individuals to become personally involved in child-protection issues. It has also grown into an international organization, establishing the International Division of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has been working to fulfill the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The international division provides assistance to parents, law enforcement, attorneys, nonprofit organizations, and other concerned individuals who are seeking assistance in preventing or resolving international child abductions.

NCMEC manages to do all of this good work with an annual DOJ grant, which expires after fiscal year 2008. We must act now to extend its authorization so that it can continue to help keep children safe and families intact around the Nation. There is so much more to be done to ensure the safety of our children, and the legislation we introduce today will help the center in its efforts to prevent crimes that are committed against them.

We have before us the type of bipartisan legislation that should be moved easily through the Senate and the House. The children we seek to protect through legislation like this should not be used as pawns by groups who would play politics by saddling such efforts with controversial measures. I applaud the ongoing work of the center and hope both the Senate and the House will promptly pass this bill to show our support for the NCMEC to continue to find our missing children and to protect exploited children across the country.

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

Mr. President, supporting our children and early childhood education are critical to keeping America competitive. Today I am pleased to introduce the Ready to Learn Act, legislation that will help families in New York and across the country by preparing children for kindergarten. I am pleased my colleague Senator Bond, a long-time leader in early childhood development, has partnered with me in introducing this essential legislation.

Since my time as a law student, I have worked to spread information about the importance of care and education for our children, especially our youngest children. It is critical that we provide them with every possible opportunity to learn, grow, and develop early on, not just once they start kindergarten, but before they arrive. This is a cause I have believed in and fought for over the past 35 years, as an advocate, a lawyer, First Lady, a Senator, and most important of all, as a mother.

The Ready to Learn Act will help prepare children for kindergarten by providing funding for States to establish high-quality early learning programs to promote school readiness for four-year-olds in their State. States will apply for funding through a competitive process to establish and administer voluntary preschool programs; this legislation will allow governors to build on pre-existing early childhood systems. Schools, child care entities, Head Start programs, or other community providers of pre-kindergarten programs are all eligible for funding.

To ensure high-quality programs that properly prepare children to be ready to learn, State plans will require qualified teachers, a developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate early learning curriculum and support for professional development.

Research has shown the early years are critical in a child's development and that pre-kindergarten education offers benefits that extend through the first years of school and beyond. Children who attend high-quality pre-k programs are less likely to be held back a grade or to need special education, and they are more likely to graduate from high school. They also have higher earnings as adults and are less likely to become dependent on welfare or involved in crime.

While some parents can afford high-quality pre-kindergarten opportunities for their children, so many hard working families simply can't. As a result, in today's current education system, it is not unusual for children to arrive at kindergarten already behind their peers. Nearly 50 percent of all kindergarten teachers report that at least half of their students come to school with problems that hinder their success. One in every six kindergartners needs specialized one- on-one tutoring or special instruction in a small group. Each year, more than 200,000 children repeat kindergarten.

Back when I was First Lady, I hosted a White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning, where expert after expert emphasized the importance of these early years. A child who arrives at kindergarten ready to learn has a far greater chance of excelling, not only in his or her early years, but far into his academic career. Studies show that children who learn the names and sounds of letters before entering kindergarten are 20 times more likely to read simple words by the end of kindergarten than children who enter kindergarten not knowing the letters of the alphabet. Children who do not know their letters prior to kindergarten too often fail to catch up with their peers who do. Eighty-eight percent of children who

are poor readers in first grade remain poor readers by the fourth grade. Children who are not at least modestly skilled readers by the end of third grade are unlikely to graduate from high school.

Like many of my colleagues, I have seen what happens when we invest in our children. We already know that for every one dollar we spend on early childhood education, we reap seven dollars as a society. I have seen what happens when caring adults come together and make the commitment to ensuring that our children can fulfill their God-given potential.

I saw it back in Arkansas when we brought HIPPY to America to teach parents how they could educate their children. We taught them about the importance of reading to their children, and using household objects to teach basic lessons.

I have seen it in visiting Head Start programs where children were learning to read, learning to count and solve problems, learning to share and interact with others and thrive in a structured environment.

We are seeing it around the country in States that have already started investing in early childhood programs. The Ready to Learn Act will support and build on that success.

Supporting our children and early childhood education are critical to keeping America competitive. It is my hope that my colleagues will join Senator Bond and I in supporting this important legislation.

Mr. President, supporting our children and early childhood education are critical to keeping America competitive. Today I am pleased to introduce the Ready to Learn Act, legislation that will help families in New York and across the country by preparing children for kindergarten. I am pleased my colleague Senator Bond, a long-time leader in early childhood development, has partnered with me in introducing this essential legislation.

Since my time as a law student, I have worked to spread information about the importance of care and education for our children, especially our youngest children. It is critical that we provide them with every possible opportunity to learn, grow, and develop early on, not just once they start kindergarten, but before they arrive. This is a cause I have believed in and fought for over the past 35 years, as an advocate, a lawyer, First Lady, a Senator, and most important of all, as a mother.

The Ready to Learn Act will help prepare children for kindergarten by providing funding for States to establish high-quality early learning programs to promote school readiness for four-year-olds in their State. States will apply for funding through a competitive process to establish and administer voluntary preschool programs; this legislation will allow governors to build on pre-existing early childhood systems. Schools, child care entities, Head Start programs, or other community providers of pre-kindergarten programs are all eligible for funding.

To ensure high-quality programs that properly prepare children to be ready to learn, State plans will require qualified teachers, a developmentally, culturally and linguistically appropriate early learning curriculum and support for professional development.

Research has shown the early years are critical in a child's development and that pre-kindergarten education offers benefits that extend through the first years of school and beyond. Children who attend high-quality pre-k programs are less likely to be held back a grade or to need special education, and they are more likely to graduate from high school. They also have higher earnings as adults and are less likely to become dependent on welfare or involved in crime.

While some parents can afford high-quality pre-kindergarten opportunities for their children, so many hard working families simply can't. As a result, in today's current education system, it is not unusual for children to arrive at kindergarten already behind their peers. Nearly 50 percent of all kindergarten teachers report that at least half of their students come to school with problems that hinder their success. One in every six kindergartners needs specialized one- on-one tutoring or special instruction in a small group. Each year, more than 200,000 children repeat kindergarten.

Back when I was First Lady, I hosted a White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning, where expert after expert emphasized the importance of these early years. A child who arrives at kindergarten ready to learn has a far greater chance of excelling, not only in his or her early years, but far into his academic career. Studies show that children who learn the names and sounds of letters before entering kindergarten are 20 times more likely to read simple words by the end of kindergarten than children who enter kindergarten not knowing the letters of the alphabet. Children who do not know their letters prior to kindergarten too often fail to catch up with their peers who do. Eighty-eight percent of children who

are poor readers in first grade remain poor readers by the fourth grade. Children who are not at least modestly skilled readers by the end of third grade are unlikely to graduate from high school.

Like many of my colleagues, I have seen what happens when we invest in our children. We already know that for every one dollar we spend on early childhood education, we reap seven dollars as a society. I have seen what happens when caring adults come together and make the commitment to ensuring that our children can fulfill their God-given potential.

I saw it back in Arkansas when we brought HIPPY to America to teach parents how they could educate their children. We taught them about the importance of reading to their children, and using household objects to teach basic lessons.

I have seen it in visiting Head Start programs where children were learning to read, learning to count and solve problems, learning to share and interact with others and thrive in a structured environment.

We are seeing it around the country in States that have already started investing in early childhood programs. The Ready to Learn Act will support and build on that success.

Supporting our children and early childhood education are critical to keeping America competitive. It is my hope that my colleagues will join Senator Bond and I in supporting this important legislation.