Volunteer Firefighter and EMS Personnel Job Protection Act

Mr. President, today I am honored to introduce the Nursing Education Opportunities Act. This bill seeks to help alleviate both the nursing shortage faced in hospitals and clinics throughout the country, as well as the faculty shortage in nursing schools that constrains the number of new nurses who can be trained to fill the vacancies in our health facilities.

As most people who have heard me talk about health care know, nurses have a soft spot in my heart. In 1987, I was stricken with a brain aneurysm and spent months recovering at Walter Reed Hospital. The surgeons who operated on me were spectacular and I can never thank them enough. But the nurses who took care of me during my stay at Walter Reed were the embodiment of absolute comfort and unquestioning kindness. Along with the top notch medical care they provided me, the nurses at Walter Reed literally breathed life back into my lungs, washed me, brushed my teeth and went on search missions for the most comfortable pillows available. As I often say, if there are any angels in heaven, they must be nurses.

Unfortunately, right now our country is facing a nursing shortage. The American Hospital Association reported in July 2007 that United States hospitals had an estimated 116,000 registered nurse vacancies as of December 2006. Despite the nurse shortage and efforts to increase the pool of qualified nurses, schools of nursing struggle to increase student capacity. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, AACN, the U.S. nursing schools turned away nearly 43,000 qualified applicants in 2006 primarily due to an insufficient number of faculty.

AACN reported in July 2006, a total of 637 faculty vacancies at 329 nursing schools with baccalaureate or graduate programs, or both, across the Nation. Besides the vacancies, schools cited the need to create an additional 55 faculty positions to accommodate student demand. Most of the vacancies, approximately 53.7 percent, were faculty positions requiring a doctoral degree.

The average ages of doctorally prepared nurse faculty holding the ranks of professor, associate professor and assistant professor are 58.6, 55.8, and 51.6 years, respectively. Considering the average age of nurse faculty at retirement is 62.5 years, a wave of nurse faculty retirements is expected in the next decade. In fact, in 2007 the Association of Academic Health Centers surveyed chief executive officers from academic health centers regarding faculty shortages across various health professions. The CEOs rated the nursing faculty shortage as the most severe of all health professions with 81 percent noting the nursing faculty shortage as a problem.

To address this nurse faculty shortage and to get more nurses trained, this bill provides three mechanisms to increase the number of and access to nurse faculty.

First, the bill establishes a grant program to help schools establish doctoral nursing programs. Right now, there are 8 States, including my home State of Delaware, which do not have a doctoral nursing program in their State. This bill allows eligible schools to receive a grant up to $2,000,000 to be used to establish a doctoral degree program. The funds can be used to hire administrators, faculty and staff; retain current faculty; develop doctoral curriculum; repair and expand infrastructures; purchase additional equipment; develop and enhance clinical laboratories; recruit students; establish technology infrastructures; and other investments deemed necessary.

Second, this bill establishes a doctoral nursing consortia pilot project to provide grants to partnerships of schools to allow them to share doctoral faculty and programmatic resources. This would allow schools with a shortage of faculty at the doctoral level to partner with other schools to provide proper education for their students. These grants can be awarded up to $500,000 and can be used to establish technology infrastructures; develop shared doctoral curriculum; hire faculty and staff; retain current faculty; provide travel stipends for nursing faculty who agree to teach nursing courses at consortium schools; provide scholarships for post-doctoral fellows who agree to teach a nursing course within the nursing doctoral curriculum; provide collaborative networks for nursing research; and other investments determined necessary.

Third, I am pleased to include a nurse faculty pilot project that was part of the Nurse Faculty Higher Education Act introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Carolyn McCarthy. This pilot project would provide grants to partnerships between accredited schools of nursing and hospitals or health facilities to fund release time for qualified nurse employees so they can earn a salary while obtaining an advanced degree in nursing with the goal of becoming nurse faculty. In short, this will make it easier for nurses to pursue an advanced degree by allowing them to work part time and retain some of their salary. Many nurses currently cannot afford to leave their jobs to go back to school because they would lose their salaries.

In addition to these three provisions, the bill also amends the Public Health Service Act to provide that, in the case of a nurse faculty shortage, the Secretary of Health and Human Services

may obligate more than 10 percent of traineeships through the Advanced Education Nursing Grants for individuals in doctoral degree nursing programs. This is important to help advance nursing education and allow greater funding opportunities for doctoral students.

But while this bill focuses heavily on increasing the number of nurse faculty to allow nursing schools to train more nurses, it also seeks to help nursing students as well.

First, the bill explicitly includes accelerated degree nursing students as eligible for financial assistance through nursing programs in the Public Health Service Act, including the Nursing Student Loan Program. To address the shortage of qualified nurses, schools of nursing have developed accelerated, second-baccalaureate degree programs in nursing. Students in accelerated degree programs are those with a baccalaureate degree in another field who have decided to return to school to get a degree in nursing. The students in these programs have difficulty securing federal funding as this program category is not easily defined. Accelerated nursing degree programs are not typical 4-year baccalaureate degree programs, as they take between 1 and 2 years to complete. However, they are becoming increasingly popular. In 2005, these programs graduated 3,769 students. In 2006 they graduated 5,236--an additional 1,467 nursing graduates in a single year. Hospitals and other health facilities like hiring graduates from accelerated nursing degree programs because they often have demonstrated a record of success and work-ethic that facilitates a more rapid and smooth transition in to the highly complex health care environment. Accelerated nursing degree students are a critical element to meeting this country's nursing needs.

Additionally, it is time to raise the yearly loan amounts available to all nursing students through the Nursing Student Loan Program. This important program, which provides long-term, low interest-rate loans to full-time and half-time financially needy students pursuing a course of study leading to a diploma, associate, baccalaureate or graduate degree in nursing, has not adjusted the maximum yearly loan amounts available for over a decade. Currently, a student can receive a maximum yearly loan of $2,500 for their first 2 years in a nursing school and $4,000 per year during their second 2 years. This bill would adjust these totals to $4,400 in the first 2 years and $7,000 in the second 2 years, respectively. It is time to raise the yearly loan amounts, as the cost of tuition at nursing schools has increased substantially over the past decade.

It is imperative that we in Congress act to help alleviate the nursing shortage and the nurse faculty shortage in this country. Nurses comprise the largest segment of health care providers in this country and they are crucial in ensuring the quality of care that Americans receive. I believe the initiatives contained in the Nursing Education Opportunities Act can help reduce these shortages. The American Academy of Nursing, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American Nephrology Nurses' Association, American Nurses Association, American Organization of Nurse Executives, Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses and the National League for Nursing all support this legislation.

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

Mr. President. I rise to mark the introduction of the 2007 Biden Crime Bill because a perfect storm is gathering with respect to crime in America, and we need bold action to get us back on track.

Before I discuss the specifics of my legislation, I want to talk to you about what is feeding this perfect storm. Since 2001, Federal funding for local law enforcement has been slashed by billions of dollars--from about $2,1 billion per year in the nineties to a proposed level of $32 million in 2007. The COPS hiring program has been eliminated completely.

At the same time, President Bush has reassigned more than 1,000 FBI agents from fighting crime to combating terrorism. Certainly, this was necessary, but he has not replaced them. A bitter irony results--we have improved our ability to fight international terrorism, but left our communities here at home less safe from the threat of murderers, rapists, and drug kingpins.

This is the perfect storm: asking local law enforcement to do much more for a growing population while giving them much less--less Federal funding and fewer Federal agents with whom to partner. As a result, local law enforcement has had to give up crime prevention practices, like community policing, in order to stay on top of rising demand. They are doing their level best, but they need more help.

Early stages of the storm are upon us. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports show a rise in violent crime and murder for the second straight year. This hasn't happened since 1994. Last year, crime rose at the highest rate it had in 15 years and this year we add another 1.9 percent increase.

The Police Executive Research Forum reports that the homicide rate rose more than 10 percent in metropolitan areas around the country, like Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Philadphia. Don't believe the statistics? Just ask your local cops. They will tell you they are seeing more crimes with a higher level of violence.

Back in the nineties we faced a similar crime crisis. In 1994, Congress passed the Crime Bill, and it transformed the Federal approach to fighting crime. It used a three-part system: invest in prevention programs, dedicate Federal support to community-oriented policing, and ensure that offenders serve tough-but-fair prison sentences. It worked. Crime dropped for eight consecutive years. Violent crime and murder rates dropped more than 30 percent

The bill I introduced today is the most comprehensive crime bill in more than a decade and it builds on the successful approach of the 1994 Crime Bill.

It invests more than $6 billion in tried and true prevention programs that recognize that the first step to fighting crime is protecting kids from neglect and abuse and providing them with a stable family, positive early education, and someplace safe and constructive to spend the critical after-school hours.

My bill reauthorizes the COPS program and provides $1.15 billion per year to hire, equip, and train 50,000 new police officers, and hire additional local prosecutors. Study after study has demonstrated the effectiveness of the COPS program, and every major law enforcement agency in the country supports it. It is high time we started funding it again.

In addition, the bill provides funds to hire an additional 1,000 FBI agents dedicated to fighting crime and an additional 500 DEA agents dedicated to dismantling drug trafficking organizations. The Federal Government cannot make the trade-off between fighting crime and terrorism--we owe it to our citizens to do both.

The bill invests more than $1 billion in preventing recidivism by ensuring that when prisoners are released into society, they have the vocational training, the drug treatment, and the housing they need to reintegrate as law-abiding, productive members. Currently, over 650,000 ex-offenders are released from Federal and State prisons each year. Within 3 years of release, two thirds will commit another crime. That is hundreds of thousands of crimes each year, and we need to bring that number down.

Finally, the bill addresses developments in crime fighting and in criminal trade craft. Mr. President, 13 years ago, online sexual predators, Internet copyright infringement, and computer hacking were virtually unknown. Today they are common crimes with real victims. This bill ensures that law enforcement has the resources and legal tools it needs to prevent, investigate, and prosecute such crimes.

The bottom line is that fighting crime is like cutting grass--you stop mowing the lawn and one day you'll look outside and see a real mess. We can't ignore crime and hope it goes away. We've made that mistake over the last 6 years, and our communities are paying the price.

We have to get back to cutting the grass. This legislation takes a comprehensive approach once again to fighting crime. It renews our financial commitment to rebuilding law enforcement capabilities at the Federal, State, and local level. It is a significant step toward making good on one of Congress's most sacred duties to our citizens protecting them from crime and fostering safe communities. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. President. I have sought recognition to offer legislation to encourage Saudi Arabia to halt its support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other way aid and abet terrorism, and to secure full Saudi cooperation in the investigation of terrorist incidents.

I offer this bill on behalf of myself and Senator Wyden.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, evidence has emerged indicating that support for al-Qaeda, Ramas, and other organizations has come from Saudi Arabia.

Testimony presented to several Congressional committees, including the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Intelligence committees in both houses, has indicated that Saudi Arabia is an epicenter for terrorist financing. These committees have also found the Saudi government's cooperation in investigations into the al- Qaeda terrorist network has been lackluster.

In the 108 Congress, as a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee and as a member of the Judiciary Committee, we worked to establish a basic point that anybody who knowingly contributes to a terrorist organization is an accessory before the fact to murder; so when people contribute to al-Qaeda or Hamas, knowing that both organizations employ suicide bombers, they are accessories to murder.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted in 2001, mandates that all States ``refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts,'' take ``the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts,'' and ``deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts.'' There is mounting evidence that Saudi Arabia has not been compliant with this resolution.

The 9/11 Commission interviewed numerous military officers and government officials who repeatedly listed Saudi Arabia as a prime place for terrorists to set up bases and found that ``Saudi Arabia's society was a place where al-Qaeda raised money directly from individuals through charities.''

The Council on Foreign Relations concluded in a 2002 report that ``for years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al-Qaeda, and for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye.''

There are indications that, since the May 12, 2003, suicide bombings in Riyadh, the Government of Saudi Arabia is making a more serious effort to combat terrorism. That said, I would like to draw attention to the following findings recanted by organizations which have studied the record of the Saudis.

In a June 2004 report entitled ``Update on the Global Campaign Against Terrorist Financing,'' the Council on Foreign Relations reported that ``we find it regrettable and unacceptable that since September 11, 2001, we know of not a single Saudi donor of funds to terrorist groups who have been publicly punished.''

A joint committee of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives issued a report on July 24, 2003, that quotes various U.S. Government personnel who complained that the Saudis refused to cooperate in the investigation of Osama bin Laden and his network both before and after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

My frustration with the Saudi government's lack of cooperation in international counterterrorism efforts goes back more than a decade. After the Khobar Towers were bombed in 1996--an attack which cost 19 American airmen their lives and injured 400 more--I traveled to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia to see the carnage firsthand. When I arrived, U.S. investigators were being denied the opportunity to interview the suspects apprehended by the Saudis. I personally met with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to request that the FBI be granted access to the prisoners. Crown Prince Abdullah said that the U.S. should not meddle in Saudi internal affairs; the murder of 19 airmen and the wounding of 400 more hardly qualifies as a Saudi internal affair.

The Saudi government continues to drag its feet when it comes to cooperation in combating terrorism. The Iraq Study Group stated that Saudi Arabia has been ``passive and disengaged'' with regard to the situation in Iraq. Passive and disengaged is unacceptable when Saudi institutions are funding, training, inciting, and encouraging many terrorist actions in Iraq.

On October 23, 2007, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz stated, ``The Kingdom is determined to continue its policy of fighting all forms of terrorism.''

According to a July 27, 2007, New York Times article, ``Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.''

On October 23, 2007, Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz stated, ``Saudi Arabia's view is that dealing with the phenomenon of terrorism should not be confined to the mere security aspect of it but it should also be at the intellectual level.''

The Center for Religious Freedom, formerly affiliated with Freedom House, in a 2006 report entitled ``Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerience,'' stated that despite 2005 statements by the Saudi Foreign Minister that their educational curricula have been reformed, this is ``simply not the case.'' On the contrary, religious textbooks continue to advocate the destruction of any non-Wahhabi Muslim. Saudi Arabia has established Wahhabism, an extreme form of Islam, as the official state doctrine, and about 5,000,000 children are instructed each year in Islamic studies using Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks.

A fall 2007 report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated that, ``Due to insufficient information provided by the Saudi government, the Commission could not verify that a formal mechanism exists within the Saudi government to review thoroughly and revise educational texts and other materials sent outside of Saudi Arabia. It appears that the Saudi government has made little or no progress on efforts to halt the exportation of extremist ideology outside the Kingdom.'' It is important to note that fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis.

In my judgment, the U.S. has been lenient with the Saudis out of deference to Saudi oil. It is really an open scandal that we have not taken action to secure some independence from our reliance on Saudi oil. A September 2005 Government Accountability Office report stated that, ``Saudi Arabia's multibillion-dollar petroleum industry, although largely owned by the government, has fostered the creation of large

private fortunes, enabling many wealthy Saudis to sponsor charities and educational foundations whose operations extend to many countries. U.S. Government and other expert reports have linked some Saudi donations to the global propagation of religious intolerance, hatred of Western values, and support of terrorist activities.''

The 9/11 Commission recommended that the problems in our bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia must be confronted openly--this legislation takes a step in that direction.

The legislation expresses the sense of Congress that the Government of Saudi Arabia must immediately and unconditionally: 1. permanently close all organizations in Saudi Arabia that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any way aid and abet terrorism anywhere in the World; 2. end all funding for offshore terrorist organizations; 3. block all funding from private Saudi citizens and entities to Saudi-based or offshore terror organizations, and 4. provide complete, unrestricted, and unobstructed cooperation to the U.S. in the investigation of terror groups and individuals.

The President should certify to Congress when the Government of Saudi Arabia is fully cooperating with the U.S. in the actions listed above.

Two major objectives in the Global War on Terrorism are to deny terrorists safe haven and to eradicate the sources of terrorist financing. We cannot be successful in this war by ignoring the problem Saudi Arabia presents to our security. The government of Saudi Arabia can no longer remain idle while its citizenry continues to provide the wherewithal for terrorist groups with global reach nor can it continue to directly facilitate and support institutions that incite violence.

President Bush stated that the U.S. ``will challenge the enemies of reform, confront the allies of terror, and expect a higher standard from our friends.'' To be successful in the global war on terrorism we need the proactive and full cooperation of all nations--especially those who consider themselves allies of the U.S.

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

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Lead Elimination, Abatement and Poisoning Prevention Act of 2007, legislation that would help us address the threat of lead poisoning among children.

We have made enormous strides in reducing exposure to lead since its use was phased out in gasoline and residential paint more than twenty years ago. From 1976 to 1994, we reduced the number of children from age 1 to 5 with elevated blood lead levels from more than 75 percent of the population to slightly over 4 percent of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC. And many local governments have responded to existing lead hazards through intensive interventions.

In my state, for example, Rochester is just one of the cities that have increased their efforts to address elevated blood lead levels among their residents. In 2002, Rochester estimated that nearly 25 percent of its children had blood lead levels that exceeded the CDC's standard of 10 micrograms per deciliter. Rochester embarked on efforts to engage in residential lead remediation and abatement, particularly among the 80 percent of its housing stock identified as having lead- based paint. By 2005, according to the Monroe County Department of Health, out of more than 13,000 children screened, the number with elevated blood lead levels had dropped to less than 5 percent--a marked reduction from only three years before. Yet these levels are still high, and Rochester continues to work to reduce that level even further, continuing efforts to identify and address the sources of lead poisoning with a coalition of stakeholders.

These are the types of interventions we should be supporting, because there are still far too many children in Rochester and other places around our country who are at risk for lead poisoning. The CDC estimates that more than 300,000 children have elevated blood lead levels. Many of these children are at risk due to existing lead-based paint in their homes. To address this concern, I have introduced legislation--the Home-Based Lead Safety Tax Credit Act--which will help families and landlords remediate and abate lead-based hazards in residences.

But as recent events have shown us, residential lead paint is not the only source of exposure to lead hazards. This past summer, families experienced wave after wave of recalls for products containing lead hazards--products that were all targeted for use by children, including toys, bibs, and notebooks. Hundreds of thousands of children have been needlessly exposed to lead-contaminated products, and I have written to both President Bush and the Acting Commissioner of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to urge them to undertake the reforms necessary to strengthen this agency.

Our Government's Healthy People 2010 Objectives includes the goal of eliminating elevated blood lead levels in children. The Environmental Protection Agency's Strategic Plan for 2006-2011 also sets the goal of eliminating elevated blood lead levels in American children by 2010. But if we keep along our current path, we will not attain those goals. We must increase our commitment at our federal agencies to address this issue, provide our state and local governments with the tools to mobilize the multiple stakeholders involved in lead abatement and poisoning prevention, and increase our efforts to educate families about ways to protect their children from lead exposure.

We need to take a comprehensive approach to lead poisoning prevention, which is why I am introducing the LEAPP Act today. This legislation will do the following:

In far too many cases, a single dwelling accounts for multiple childhood lead poisonings. This bill would establish a pilot project to increase collaboration between state and local health departments, housing agencies, and environmental departments to identify these ``repeat offender'' houses, take steps to remediate or remove the existing lead hazards and treat children who have been exposed. This program would be authorized at $5 million annually from fiscal years 2008 to 2012.

Currently, the federal government has multiple programs designed to addressing lead-based hazards and increase lead poisoning prevention. The LEAPP Act would consolidate these task forces to improve coordination among all agencies, as well as state, local and community stakeholders, and have them develop a strategic plan to maximize resources for Federal Government resources.

The President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks to Children was established in 1997 to help coordinate the overall environmental health work in the Executive Branch. The LEAPP Act would codify the Task Force to facilitate

high-level federal coordination for initiatives that improve children's environmental health, including lead poisoning prevention and abatement.

While exposure to lead paint remains a primary hazard, other sources for lead poisoning are imported products with high levels of lead and traditional medications that contain lead. The LEAAP Act would authorize the Office of Minority Health and the Office of Refugee Resettlement to engage in community-based partnerships to increase culturally appropriate education and outreach campaigns to reduce lead hazard exposure.

Since lead accumulates in bones, many pregnant women may unknowingly have elevated blood lead levels, which may be passed to their children or cause toxic effects on their own organs. Through identifying and screening women during pregnancy, we can work to improve the health of the mother, her child, and the overall family. The LEAPP Act would establish pilot projects to incorporate risk assessment, screening and treatment as part of prenatal care for Medicaid populations. This program would be authorized at $5 million annually for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2012.

Current law does not require landlords and homeowners to conduct lead-based paint inspections before they can lease or sell their homes. This legislation not only requires landlords to conduct these inspections, but also produce documentation of these inspections and remediate any lead-based paint hazards found as a result of these inspections before leasing or selling homes.

Far too many children are exposed to lead-based paint in their homes only to return to the same home after being diagnosed as having contracted lead poisoning. Under this bill, if the primary residence of a child who is less than 6 years of age is in a unit of public or private housing, and such child is diagnosed by a certified medical practitioner as having contracted lead poisoning, the public housing authority or landlord for such residence shall immediately temporarily relocate the affected family, conduct an inspection and risk assessment for lead, and completely abate the unit in which such child resided.

Current law and regulation that aim to reduce lead-based poisoning in homes do not cover all housing units. If we are to reach our goal of eliminating lead poisoning by 2010, we must extend the reach of current law and regulations to cover all housing units. This bill will extend that coverage to zero bedroom housing, housing for the elderly and persons with disabilities. Doing so will provide protections for children without regard for the type of dwelling in which they reside.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit is the federal government's largest housing rehabilitation program. Despite this fact, the LIHTC does not have a single lead-based hazard control requirement. This legislation sets aside 5 percent of the LIHTC funding for lead-based hazard control measures.

Although weatherization measures can improve energy efficiency and save homeowners on energy cost, these measures can also create lead hazards in homes. To protect our children from these hazards, this legislation requires weatherization programs to do lead hazard controls as part of their weatherization work.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to continue our efforts to protect children against lead poisoning.

Mr. President, I rise because today is Wyoming's day, literally. It is a long awaited day, a day that is special, a day that is as special as the mountain range that this day centers on, and as special as the State for which this mountain range is named.

This is a day of which I am proud to be a part, joining with the strong majority of Wyoming people who want the legislation I am introducing. It is the Wyoming Range Legacy Act of 2007.

Energy development is a proud part of Wyoming, and it is an important part of our Nation. But equal to that energy heritage is tourism and recreation--also a proud part of Wyoming and an important part of this Nation.

Wyoming is special. Reflecting both aspects of our economy, our people want a special balance between two of our top industries: energy and tourism and recreation.

Some of Wyoming's significant and important energy contributions to this great Nation encompass thousands of acres for our natural gas and energy fields. Meanwhile, independent and strong stands an isolated mountain range 100 miles long and 12,000 feet high. This range is named for our great State. It is that independent and wild mountain range-- the Wyoming Range--that I want to focus on today, and well into the future, for the best future for Wyoming and for our people.

As leaders, there are things we do, defining actions, actions that go well beyond everyday issues. They surmount the daily noise and the disagreements, and they rise to the level of something else: It is to doing the right thing.

Today goes beyond the average day for Wyoming. As I said, today is Wyoming's day. It is a great day because it is today that a bill is introduced that will keep this special place on the map for tourism, for recreation, and for sportsmen forever.

We, as a State--the Governor and I--come together, cooperatively, to join in the memory of our dear friend Craig Thomas to finish his work, to keep and enhance the tourism, recreation, hunting, and sportsmen economy of the Wyoming Range, to preserve a key part of Wyoming's heritage.

This legislation, this initiative Craig Thomas was ready to introduce the week he passed goes to the very heart and soul of the great State of Wyoming. Indeed, this is a place where the heart and the soul of Wyoming run free and run wild.

This is 1.2 million acres for Wyoming tourism, sportsmen, and recreationists. This will mean that new, future leasing for oil and gas will be welcomed elsewhere in the State, and the Wyoming Range will remain in the recreational-based economy that now exists.

For those leases that have already been issued, this legislation provides a process for groups or individuals who are focused on conservation to buy back the value of those leases under voluntary purchase, and then retire them forever.

We all must recognize that the issued leases do have a value because they are

now legal property. At the same time, we can encourage all at the table--leaders, conservationists, and the private sector--to work toward doing the right thing. That process is now appropriately outside of the legislation and is ongoing.

For the recently issued leases that amount to some 44,000 acres, I have great confidence we will be able to work out creative solutions with respect on all sides.

But let us look at the bigger picture in this bill, with emphasis on an important, central point: What was the last bold move for Wyoming tourism? I proudly say, 1.2 million acres for Wyoming tourism, for Wyoming sportsmen, and for Wyoming outfitters and guides--all of whom contribute millions to our economy.

This is not a bill that ``locks up'' land. To the contrary, it is a bill for economic prosperity, for recreation, and for tourism. What we do in this important piece of legislation is to recognize an economic base and then enhance it. Let me repeat--because this is a very important point--we are taking the existing economic base and enhancing it in the Wyoming Range.

The Wyoming Range is a recreational-based economic zone. Yes, there are symbolic reasons for this initiative. It is the Wyoming Range, after all. But there is hard math at the core of this legislation. Tourism and recreation in our Wyoming economy matters. And doing the right thing matters. It matters for future generations of Wyoming people who will someday hunt and fish and hike in these mountains. It is also a place where Wyoming's agricultural industry has thrived for years. With this legislation, grazing and Wyoming's cowboy heritage will continue to thrive.

I want to read you something from 1961 that still applies very much today. It goes to the heart of maintaining proper balance and multiple use of our land:

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element

of time. As we peer into society's future, we--you and I, and

our government--must avoid the impulse to live only for

today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the

precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the

material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss

also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want

democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to

become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

Those words were spoken by President Dwight Eisenhower in his final address as he left the Presidency. The children who were listening to his words back then are now grown and have grandchildren of their own.

The Wyoming Range--the range named for our beloved State--has symbolic meaning, inherent values. It is the heart and the soul of a great State, a spiritual heritage, now a physical reality.

Mr. President, today is Wyoming's day, for the Wyoming range, and for the people who love it.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Pre- existing Condition Exclusion Patient Protection Act of 2007. This is a critical bill for the tens of millions of individuals who suffer from chronic, disabling, and life-threatening conditions, as it will ensure that they have access to affordable, comprehensive, and meaningful health insurance coverage despite ``pre-existing conditions.''

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention estimates that fully one-third of all Americans will have a chronic, disabling, and life- threatening condition at some time during their lifetimes. In West Virginia, that translates to approximately 600,000 of our neighbors who will face these serious health problems. Far too often these are the very people who find their health insurance coverage interrupted, cancelled, or denied because of pre-existing condition limitations in their health insurance policies.

That is why, over 10 years ago, Congress passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, HIPAA, P.L. 104-191, with the objective of protecting Americans from interruptions in health insurance coverage resulting from job changes or other life transitions. HIPAA provides this protection by restricting when private insurers can use pre-existing conditions to limit health care coverage. HIPAA has been successful, and many individuals have come to rely on its protections. However, after more than a decade, certain gaps in HIPAA's protection have become apparent that hamper individuals' access to care for which they could be covered, but for their pre-existing conditions.

First, individuals who have been without health insurance coverage for 63 days or more, risk becoming permanently uninsurable. This is particularly true of individuals with pre-existing conditions, because a 63-day gap in coverage eliminates any prior creditable coverage. If an employee cannot demonstrate that he or she had prior creditable and continuous coverage, an employer can exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions for up to 12 months.

Second, employers can restrict coverage for pre-existing conditions to otherwise qualified employees based on a 6-month ``look-back'' period. This means that an employer may use medical recommendations, diagnoses, and treatments within the most recent 6 months to exclude coverage as a ``pre-existing condition.'' This ``look-back'' period is sufficiently long that it likely impacts all Americans with at least one chronic illness, a category that includes a staggering one out of every three Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Third, the protections offered to individuals moving into a group health plan, or moving into the individual insurance market from a group plan, are not available to individuals attempting to shop around for policies within the individual market. As a result, individuals who purchase policies in the non-group market and never have a gap in coverage still have no protection against the pre-existing condition exclusions that insurers may choose to impose.

The Pre-existing Condition Exclusion Patient Protection Act of 2007 takes significant steps to improve these weaknesses in the law, thereby protecting patients who are currently at risk of being denied health insurance coverage. To close the first gap in the law, the bill reduces the timeframe during which an employer can exclude coverage for pre- existing conditions from 12 months to three months. This would ensure that more Americans have access to health insurance coverage; furthermore, it is consistent with the requirements for ``state- qualified plans'' under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reform Act of 2002.

To close the second HIPAA gap, this legislation shrinks the permitted ``look-back'' period from 6 months to 30 days, which would result in a decrease in the number of Americans who are unfairly denied health coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Finally, the bill closes the third gap by applying the same pre-existing condition protections afforded to individuals in the group health insurance market under HIPAA to individuals moving to, and within, the individual health insurance market.

Passing this legislation would increase access to private health insurance for the almost 94 million Americans who suffer from at least one chronic illness. It also would ensure

that the 158 million individuals who are insured through employer-based private plans and the more than 14 million individuals who are covered by non-group, private plans would have far better protection when changing jobs or their health care plans.

I am confident that with these actions, we can achieve a significant improvement in the access of Americans to health insurance coverage. For this reason, I urge my colleagues to advance progress toward this important goal by supporting the Pre-existing Condition Exclusion Patient Protection Act of 2007.

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