Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act of 2008

Mr. President, my understanding is that we have a cloture vote that will begin at 5:30 this evening. I know Senator DeMint has two amendments he intends to offer this evening. We expect to have votes on those amendments. I have an opening statement I wish to give for a short period, and I will defer on that. Senator Kyl wishes 10 minutes to speak, with 5 minutes on the bill and 5 minutes, I believe, in morning business. I don't want to disadvantage either of my colleagues. I want to comment about the legislation.

We are finally, at long last, going to pass an Indian Health Care Improvement Act. It has been 8 long years. It is long past due. By tomorrow midday, we will have disposed of all of the amendments, and having succeeded in invoking cloture, we will have finally done something that will give cause for millions of Americans to celebrate in this country for the first time in a long time--an improvement in Indian health and Indian health care.

Mr. President, Senator Kyl has asked that he be allowed to speak for 5 minutes at this point. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Kyl be recognized, following which I would like to speak--and I will make it short--and then Senator DeMint will be recognized. I notice that the ranking member, Senator Murkowski, is on the floor as well.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will make a few comments, and then Senator DeMint, by unanimous consent, will be recognized. He will have the time that he desires to speak about his two amendments that we will vote on this evening.

I begin quickly by saying that we have had a lot of help to get this bill this far: Senator Reid, first of all, for allowing us and being persistent in getting this bill to the floor and to keep it here. Senator Kyl has worked closely with us. Senator Murkowski, the ranking member, has worked very hard to help me get this bill from our committee to the floor. Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi and so many others have worked with us to try to make a difference on this legislation.

Let me describe why there is an urgency. We have a trust responsibility for Indian health care. That is different from other responsibilities. A trust responsibility means we took the land from the indigenous Americans, from the first Americans. We took their land but signed treaties and said: Tell you what, we will give you a deal. Here is our responsibility: We will provide health care for you. That was interpreted much later as a trust responsibility.

Let me show what we do on Indian health care compared to other responsibilities we have. This describes how much we spend per person on Medicare, veterans, Medicaid, and so on. We actually spend twice as much money to provide health care for Federal prisoners, those incarcerated in Federal prisons, as we do to meet our responsibility for health care for American Indians. We have a responsibility for both, but we spend twice as much for Federal prisoners' health care as we do for American Indians.

It is not as if there is not a need. American Indians have a 600 percent higher rate of tuberculosis, a 510 percent rate of alcoholism, and diabetes is off the charts. There are about one-third of doctors for Indians versus other populations, and one-fourth of

nurses for Indians as other populations. There is a much higher rate of sudden infant death syndrome. Cervical cancer is four times higher. The suicide rate among Indian teens is 10 times higher in the northern Great Plains, and it is triple in the rest of the country. The statistics are endless. We have a full-scale health care crisis.

This bill in itself will not fix all that is wrong, but it is the first time in 8 years we are finally getting this bill reauthorized. It should have been done 8 years ago. It is now being done, and it is important.

I have described this bill through the eyes of two girls--one age 5, the other age 14, both dead. Let me describe them. Their relatives and parents have allowed me to use their names so that we understand what this is about and what this urgency is.

First, I will explain Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight, a beautiful 5-year- old Indian girl from the Crow Reservation in Montana. Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight died, and the last 3 months of her life was in unmedicated pain. This little girl went to an Indian health clinic again and again to be diagnosed as having a condition of depression, and she was treated for depression. It turns out she had terminal cancer. She was finally rushed to Billings, MT, then rushed to Denver, CO, and diagnosed as having terminal cancer when it was undiagnosed many months before, and it may well have been able to be treated.

When they finally diagnosed this 5-year-old girl, who loved to dance the Indian dances, as having terminal cancer, she asked her mom if she could go to Disney World and see Cinderella's castle and the Make-a- Wish Foundation allowed her to go to Orlando, FL, to see Cinderella's castle.

They got there and checked into a motel, and that evening, in her mother's arms, Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight said: Mommy, I'm sorry I'm sick. I will try to be better. She died that night in her mother's arms. She never got to see Cinderella's castle.

This little girl deserved health treatment, deserved a health system that we would expect for our children, a good diagnosis, first-class health treatment. She did not get it, and she is dead.

So is Avis Littlewind. Avis was 14. Avis Littlewind committed suicide. She lay in her bed for 90 days in a fetal position, missing school, missing everything. Her sister had committed suicide. Her dad took his own life. This young girl age 14 was lying in a fetal position for 3 months and somehow nobody missed her. No mental health treatment was available. Nobody seemed to identify this little girl was in trouble. And then she hung herself. She felt hopeless and helpless and took her life.

A 14-year-old girl is gone. A 5-year-old girl is gone. But it is thousands, thousands of people suffering with a health care system that is not working. It is not working the way we would expect it to work for us and for our families, and it does not work for Native Americans, the first Americans, for whom we have a trust responsibility and to whom we made a promise. That is why we must get this bill done. We will have a cloture vote at 5:30 p.m.

We will have two amendments this evening by Senator DeMint, a couple of amendments tomorrow morning, and final passage, and there will be a celebration by people who have waited a long time for this legislation to move through the Senate.

Mr. President, I know my colleague, Senator DeMint, has been waiting patiently. I yield the floor, and my guess is that Senator Murkowski, the ranking member, will wish to be recognized following Senator DeMint.

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

I ask unanimous consent that the vote sequence beginning at 5:30 today be as follows:

Cloture on the Dorgan-Murkowski substitute amendment; DeMint amendment No. 4070; and DeMint amendment No. 4073.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the votes following the first vote be 10-minute votes, with 2 minutes equally divided for debate.

Let me explain that the legislation, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, does a number of things. We have talked about the urgency for it, but it expands cancer screenings, for example; it expands monitoring and prevention programs for communicable and infectious diseases; it expands recruitment and scholarship programs for those nurses and doctors who serve American Indians; it seeks to address the epidemic of teenage suicides on some Indian reservations; it enhances and expands the current diabetes screening efforts; it tries to address the shortage of health care professionals; provides for home- and community-based services and hospice care; also authorizes convenient care services; and authorizes programs to address domestic violence and sexual abuse.

In short, it is a piece of legislation that attempts to modernize the Indian health care system that has been waiting to be reauthorized now for 8 years. So this is a piece of legislation that I think is going to make a difference in the lives of Americans who have expected and have been promised good health care and have, for a long time, not received it.

While we are waiting for colleagues who may wish to speak prior to 5:30, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 3 minutes in morning business.

Tomorrow, we have a hearing in the Senate Energy Committee that deals with the issue of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, called SPR, and the Administration's oil fill policies. In the 1970s, we have created a Strategic Petroleum Reserve to put oil underground to save it in case of a national security concern. It would be for an emergency so we would have some that is saved and would be available to take out of the underground caverns and use it in these circumstances. This is the basis of our strategic petroleum reserve. It is now almost 97 percent filled. Over its 30-year lifetime, the barrels that have been put into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have averaged about a $27 a barrel. Yet, right now, when oil is trading at $100 a barrel and gasoline prices are going through the roof, we are putting 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day underground into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that is already almost 97 percent full.

How are we doing that? Our Government carries that out through royalty-in-kind transfers. This oil is primarily coming from the Gulf of Mexico through the drilling and the production

that occurs there. We are receiving this oil in kind in lieu of royalties paid to the government for its production. So rather than put that oil into the supply system, get the money for it, and reduce the Federal deficit, we are effectively sticking that money underground in a hole. At a time when oil is $100 a barrel and gas is $3 to $3.50 a gallon, we are taking 50,000 to 60,000 barrels a day and sticking it underground. Is somebody missing a few tubes here? I don't understand it. The wiring must be wrong for people who think that is the right thing to do. This is exactly the wrong time to be sticking oil underground when oil is $100 a barrel. Yet I have tried very hard to get this changed, and I have been unable to do so.

We have a hearing tomorrow where we have representatives coming from the Department of Energy as well as other witnesses. I will have an opportunity, if I am not here on the floor--and I hope I am not--to question them. I have recently introduced legislation--S. 2598, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act of 2008. I will try very hard to move this bill on anything that moves, especially a supplemental appropriations bill, to make sure we stop this as soon as possible.

I chair the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the Department of Energy. When I write my bill this spring, I will be able to put a provision that stops filling the SPR in my bill. But that bill likely won't be effective until towards the end of the year. By that time, they will have continued to put all of this oil underground to its full capacity and also boost the gas prices for the American driver. I don't understand what they could be thinking.

As a part of this fill policy, they are putting underground a disproportionate amount of sweet light crude. That is a subset of the oil produced in the U.S. We had testimony before a joint Energy and Government Affairs/Homeland Committee hearing last year by an expert, Dr. Phillip Verleger, who said that even the small amount of sweet light crude they are putting underground is having a disproportionate impact on the markets and may be increasing the price of gasoline by 10 percent.

If there are some wires crossed someplace, I urge the Department of Energy to track those wires down and get them squared away. Let's start thinking straight. Do not be sticking oil underground when oil is $100 a barrel. That takes oil out of our supply. It means supply is diminished, even if it is a seemingly small amount as DOE contends. It means the price goes up.

This is a classic supply-demand question. All of us have studied economics. I taught economics in college ever so briefly. I was able to overcome that experience, nonetheless. But we all understand the supply-demand relationship. If you take oil out of what otherwise would be 50,000 or 60,000 additional barrels in the supply, you put upward pressure on gasoline prices. That is especially true if you take the subset of sweet light crude coming from the Gulf of Mexico and stick it underground at exactly the time it ought be to be in the supply pipeline.

Tomorrow, we will have the opportunity to have a public discussion with the Department of Energy and representatives with other opinions. If they don't do what is, in my judgment, obvious, I intend to move my legislation forward. I have introduced this bill with about six cosponsors. I certainly hope many others will join me to put the brakes on what the Department of Energy is now doing.

It is completely counterintuitive to anything one would expect that should be done at a time when oil is bouncing around at $100 a barrel and you have to get a loan to gas up your car these days. My hope is we can get the Department of Energy to think straight about this issue of putting oil underground in the SPR.

It felt good to say that because I have been thinking about it all weekend. There is so much we need to do that just represents a deep reservoir of common sense. This is one of those steps. My hope is we will make some progress on it.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 4080

Mr. President, I make a point of order that the DeMint amendment No. 4080 is not germane postcloture.

Mr. President, I have no objection to the amendment. I know of no cases in which Indian health funds have been used for firearms programs. So I have no objection to the amendment and intend to vote for it.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 4073 Withdrawn

Mr. President, on behalf of the sponsor, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4073 be withdrawn.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, with the withdrawal of the last amendment, there will be no further votes tonight. My understanding is the next vote starts at 10 tomorrow morning. The withdrawal of the second amendment on which we were going to have a recorded vote means there will be no further recorded votes necessary this evening.

Mr. President, let me very briefly say that I understand the point Senator Smith is making. There is not enough money for the facilities in these programs. There is a $3 billion backlog for facilities. I am not able to support his amendment, however, and the difficulty is to create an area-wide distribution fund right this moment, at a time when we have a priority list and some tribes have been waiting on that priority list for a long period of time for the construction that was to begin in their area. I think that would be the wrong approach.

But I do think we ought to, in a more comprehensive way, on the Indian Affairs Committee, with the help of Senator Smith and Senator Murkowski and my colleagues, we ought to try to work through this to figure out how we do a better job of getting the funding for the construction that is necessary. I have been to so many facilities that are terrible facilities in terrible disrepair, and they are desperately in need of reform and change and new

construction, and we have to get about the business of doing it. But I regret I can't support this amendment. He is raising the right question, just providing the wrong solution, in my judgment.

Mr. President, we were expecting to clear two unanimous consent requests, but I am told that, at the moment, the minority side has yet to clear them. If we are not able to clear them at the moment, perhaps we will be able to clear them first thing in the morning before we go to the votes that will be scheduled tomorrow.

I think we are at a point where we have about two or three votes remaining and then final passage tomorrow. And that should occur probably close to midday, which will be a pretty happy occasion for a lot of folks who have waited a long time for this legislation to pass the Senate.

I know a couple of my colleagues are waiting to do a colloquy, so if we are not yet cleared, I think we will try to clear both these unanimous consent requests tomorrow morning. Our colleagues, I believe, are not on this subject, so at this point I will defer and we will come back to this tomorrow morning.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent that the vote sequence with respect to S. 1200 tomorrow be as follows: Vitter amendment No. 3896, Smith amendment No. 3897, DeMint amendment No. 4015, DeMint amendment 4066, and final passage of S. 1200; further, that the cloture motion with respect to S. 1200 be withdrawn, with no debate time in order except for 2 minutes prior to each vote; that after the first vote, vote time be limited to 10 minutes each; all other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, February 26, upon disposition of S. 1200, there be a period of morning business until 12:30 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with Senator Feingold controlling 20 minutes of the majority time, if available; that at 2:30 p.m., there be 20 minutes of debate prior to a vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2633, with the time divided and controlled between the leaders, with the majority leader controlling the final 10 minutes prior to the vote; that upon the use of that time, the Senate then vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2633, with other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

My understanding is that this has been cleared on both sides.

Mr. President, let me do one small piece of business with the bill before the Senator from Kansas proceeds.

Amendments Nos. 4019, as Modified, and 4021 to Amendment No. 3899

Senator Murkowski and I wish to have considered two unanimous consent requests that were originally to have been included in the previous unanimous consent by which we conducted business today. One is amendment No. 4021, and one is amendment No. 4019, as modified.

I send both amendments to the desk and ask that they be considered en bloc and agreed to.

Mr. President, at this time I yield 7 minutes to the Senator from Wyoming.

Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from Wyoming, speaking to essentially the urgency of where we are, and the recognition that we have been working on this legislation, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and its reauthorization--and as he mentioned, it should have passed a year and a half ago--but that we have been working on it for a good 10 years. It has been a collaborative effort of many leaders in the Senate. Senator McCain has been mentioned, as the former chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Prior to his chairing that committee, it was Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell who was leading the effort to move forward with this very important reauthorization.

I had the opportunity to go home to Alaska over this past recess, and it was a busy recess for me, as it was for, I know, many of my colleagues. I had an opportunity to visit Galena, which is the Athabascan Indian village on the Yukon River. I was in Fairbanks, Seward, Anchorage, and my hometown of Girdwood. I had a chance to visit with seven or eight Alaskan natives who are training under the dental health aide therapist program in Anchorage. This is a very unique partnership with the University of Washington School of Medicine. What we are doing in Alaska now is training Alaska natives as mid-level professional dental health aide therapists to go out and provide for the dental health needs of so many in our rural communities, in our villages around the State where they simply do not have any level of dental health care. I am not talking about a dentist who comes every other week. I am saying we don't have a dentist every other year practically in some of these villages. So we are providing a training opportunity that is unique to Alaska and is very important.

So even though it is tough to leave home and come back here to work, it is good to be back here knowing that we are working on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, working to finish this very important legislation.

We have had many of our colleagues speak about the challenges of delivering quality health care to America's Native people and the funding environment that all have admitted is inadequate to support those needs.

Those challenges are not limited to the lack of funding, they also include the lack of trained personnel who are willing to live in some of the most remote places in which Indian health care is delivered. So that is one side of the coin. But there is also some very real innovation that is going on within the Indian health care delivery system.

As I listened to the debate that went on on the Senate floor in the past several weeks, it dawned on me that we saw a lot of focus, a lot of attention on some of the inadequacies but that we did not spend any time during that debate to recognize the people, the tribal leaders, the health care professionals who are unwilling to let the lack of funding stand in the way of excellence in health care delivery.

So as we move to conclude our debate on this very important piece of legislation for the health of our Native people, I wish to take a few moments this evening to focus on some of the ways, in my home State, our Native leaders and our Indian health care professionals have partnered to overcome what seemed to be insurmountable obstacles in their quest for excellence.

My focus now on these examples from Alaska is not intended to imply we are not seeing innovation in Indian health care delivery in other places of Indian Country, but I have chosen to speak about these programs because I know them, I believe in them.

In the State of Alaska, we have Native people who have lived in more than 200 traditional villages along the rivers and coasts for thousands of years, and Natives continue to occupy those villages today. But those are places, many of them are places where doctors and nurses and physicians assistants or the PAs, where they did not live, and they will not live.

But that does not mean Alaska's Native people lack access to basic medical care. If one gets sick or injured in a Native village which may be hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital, you need to know you are not alone. In our State, we faced up to the challenge of providing access to medical care in remote places by training Native people to serve as community health aide practitioners. This is a program that originated during the tuberculosis epidemics back in the 1950s. They had volunteer chemotherapy aides who gave out oral medicine in the village under the remote supervision of a physician.

In the 1960s, a structured training program was created to train Native people residing in the villages to function as the eyes and ears, the hands of medical personnel who may be hundreds of miles away.

At one point in time, this link between the village health aide and the doctor in the regional hospitals was carried out by a single- sideband radio similar to what the ham operators use. Then later it was carried out by telephone, subsequently e-mail. Now we have a state-of- the-art telemedicine backbone that connects the health aides and the supervising physicians.

Alaska's Community Health Aide/Practitioner Program was first recognized and funded by the Congress in 1968 and is 40 years old this year. It has earned the respect of the medical profession and has tremendously improved the health condition of Alaska's Native people. I mentioned earlier I had a chance to view those young people who are currently in the Dental Health Aide Therapist Program. This is an extension of this concept to improve the oral health condition of Native people who live in places where the dentists may visit once a year if they visit at all.

These are a few examples from my State of the kind of innovation we have seen going on in Indian health care delivery for some time. I wish to give you a more recent example. This is the Southcentral Foundation's patient-centered primary care initiative.

The initiative has transformed the quality of health care delivered to Native people residing in a service area of

150,000 square miles within southcentral Alaska. The Southcentral Foundation is a tribal health provider which delivers health care under a self-governance compact with the IHS.

Our CEO of the Southcentral Foundation is Katherine Gottlieb, an Aleut. She was the first Alaskan ever to win the MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. She won that award for the patient-centered primary care initiative I will describe for you.

The initiative itself has been discussed in professional journals ranging from the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Family Practice Magazine published by the American Association of Family Physicians. It is the subject of a case study published by the Institute for Health Care Improvement in Boston, which is one of our Nation's foremost think tanks on health care quality.

In 1977, when Southcentral Foundation began to take over primary care delivery from the IHS, the average delay to schedule a routine appointment ranged from 4 weeks to several months. The no-show rate was about 25 percent for appointments, and patients did not have any idea who their primary care provider was. In 1999, Southcentral Foundation embarked on a massive effort to redesign their system.

Today, patients are guaranteed same-day access to their own primary care provider if they call by a certain point in the afternoon; they get to choose their own primary care provider. They get to change their provider if they do not like the one they have chosen. Use of the emergency room and urgent care for primary care is down 50 percent. Use of specialists is down 50 percent. Wait times have decreased across the system.

Customer satisfaction, 91 percent of customers rate their overall care favorably. That is pretty impressive. Staff satisfaction has improved immeasurably. This is a system where you have members of the medical team, the doctors, the nurses, the physicians assistants, their technicians, and they all come together, they all rely on one another. Everyone is expected to work at the highest level allowed by their professional license.

What we saw with this transformation of Southcentral Foundation was it was not just achieved by throwing more money at the problem, it was achieved by changing the values of the system, from a staff-centered system to a patient-centered system that basically went from kind of a big and impersonable crank-them-through-the-process place--and these are the words of the medical director, Doug Eby--to a customer-owned- and-directed system which operates in accordance with Native values, not necessarily bureaucratic principles.

That transformation began with the decision of Native leaders to exercise their rights of self-governance under the provisions of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.

These self-governance provisions allowed tribes to take over the responsibilities for the delivery of health care from the Federal Government. The bill that is before us today, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, will provide self-governance providers, such as Southcentral Foundation, with the tools and the flexibilities they need to further expand these innovations.

We know the bill, S. 1200, was not written in an ivory tower; it was written primarily by Indian health care providers, tribal leaders who know the challenges we face in improving the health conditions of our Native people.

The leaders of our Alaska Native delivery system were key players in the process of formulating this legislation. For me, it is truly an honor and a privilege to be able to give voice to their ideas in the Senate. It is my sincere hope our colleagues today will vote to bring the debate on this important legislation to a close.

The process, as has been mentioned, of drafting this legislation began back in 1999. It has moved through the Indian Affairs Committee in so many different years--I mentioned, under the leadership of Senator Nighthorse Campbell, Senator McCain, Senator Thomas before his death, Senator Dorgan, so many who have put so much time and effort into this very important legislation.

It is long time that Congress modernize the legislation which governs the Indian health care delivery system in a way that promotes exactly this type of innovation I have spoken to that we have seen in Alaska. It is long time that we give our Indian health care providers the tools they need in their quest for excellence.

I anticipate we will move this legislation to final passage. It is something that as I speak to my constituents back home and as we talk about those issues that are most important to them, so much seems to come back to health care and how we are providing health care within the State of Alaska or around the Nation.

So passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act is long overdue. I look forward to seeing the day the President will be able to enact these changes into law.

I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, while we are waiting, I wish to make a few brief comments in reference to the amendment Senator Smith has introduced regarding the area distribution fund.

Coming from the State of Alaska, I do support Senator Smith's amendment, as we believe it will enable more Indian tribes to build the facilities and to address the inequities currently in the system. We recognize it has been under review, having been looked at for revision for years, but I think it is time to do something to create improvements to the system to get more facilities for the tribes.

Now, we recognize that funding is at the crux of this, but Senator Smith's amendment does not mandate that the Secretary create this system. It says if funding is available, that opportunity exists. Furthermore--and I think this goes to the concern many have--that within the current priority system, if there is a change, somehow or other those who have made their way up to the top will somehow be displaced. We understand it doesn't impact the current health care facilities priority system. What we are attempting to do with this amendment is to enhance that system.

I appreciate Senator Smith working with the committee, with the tribes, and with our colleagues on this issue. It is a very important issue, as Senator Dorgan has noted. So I do stand in support of Senator Smith.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the words of the chairman on the need to improve Indian health care. It is clear from the Government Accounting Office study that there is no doubt Indian health is suffering and there are many reforms that are desperately needed. I wish to talk about several amendments we proposed that we think will help the bill. One is related to what Senator Dorgan was just talking about and the fact that there is just not enough money currently to provide the health care that is needed for many Indians across the country today.

Unlike a lot of other Federal support for health care, Indian health care provides 100 percent coverage to all members of tribes across the country, regardless of income level. The problem that creates at a time when we are offering new programs and reforms is we are not offering enough money to actually support all the programs that are in this new bill.

My amendment No. 4073, which we call the Indian gaming amendment, would allocate the scarce resources to the poorer tribes by excluding some of the richer tribes that benefit from class III or casino-style gambling.

Many of us have looked at the statistics. Revenues from Indian casino gambling have surpassed $12 billion, and many members of these tribes will receive income from these casinos from $30,000 to over $300,000. There are clear discrepancies in the income in the tribes across the country, and in designing Indian health care reform, it is important that we recognize that fact.

In 2001, there were 290 Indian casinos across 28 States that brought in more than $12.5 billion with more than $5 billion in profit. To put this in context, the average family in South Carolina makes around $50,000 a year. These families, sometimes on their own, sometimes through their employers, have to pay and help pay for their health care and many times deductibles and copays. The average income in the tribes that have casino gambling is generally much higher than that amount. Yet we are providing free health care for these tribes.

This amendment would exclude from the new programs in the underlying bill those tribes with casino gambling, class III gambling, which would take the money that is provided in the bill and allocate it to the poorer tribes, which uses just basic common sense. If we have a limited amount of money to go around, let's target those tribes with the greatest poverty and the greatest need and allow those tribes with the highest incomes to participate in purchasing their own health care. That is amendment No. 4073. We will vote on that amendment today.

Let me address another amendment that will be voted on today; that is, amendment No. 4070 which recognizes that some of the programs in the bill that are designed for injury prevention or safety have actually been used in the past by Government agencies to promote antifirearm programs, gun buyback programs, or programs that generally stigmatize the ownership of guns for collecting, hunting, or self- defense.

This amendment provides that none of the funds in the bill may be used to fund antifirearm programs, gun buyback programs, or programs aimed at discouraging or stigmatizing the private ownership of firearms for collecting, hunting, or self-defense. That is basically the language in the bill.

We know from programs we have looked at before--we have legislation, for instance, that we passed that would prohibit the Centers for Disease Control from doing exactly the same thing; that is, using money that is supposed to be used for safety programs or other injury prevention and actually use it to promote a political agenda which is an anti-second-amendment agenda. This is another amendment we will vote on today.

So two amendments we will be voting on today after the cloture motion vote is the Indian gaming amendment that would exclude those tribes that have the revenue from casinos, as well as the other amendment which would prohibit funds from being used to stigmatize the ownership of guns.

Mr. President, I wish to address another amendment which is pending to this bill, which is what we call the health savings account choice. This amendment would simply make another choice available to Indians in the purchase of their health care. Right now, they have most of the options that we have at the Federal level in our Federal employees plan, but they do not yet have a health savings account option which we have added to our Federal programs. This simply would allow Indians the same choice that we have. They could purchase a PPO or other plans-- managed care, HMO, or with this amendment, they could also have a health savings account with a high-deductible plan.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment. I am actually working with the chairman on the possibility that this amendment could be accepted and avoid a vote on the amendment tomorrow; otherwise, we will be voting on it tomorrow before final passage.

I wish to make a few comments on a second-degree amendment that I added to one of these amendments the week before we left last week which we call the Semper Fi amendment. This is an amendment that is not germane and will fall after cloture but still deserves some comment. The Semper Fi amendment is named in honor of the marine motto, which means ``always faithful,'' and it is a bill which I introduced after the Berkeley, CA, city council voted to refer to our marines as unwelcome intruders and had proposed that they leave town--that their recruiting office actually leave town. When I heard of this, it immediately angered me and we developed this bill which would simply take away about $2 million of wasteful Federal earmarks, which were not voted on in the Senate or the House, but were added as what we call report language. We are not trying to take away all their Federal funding but simply to say, if they are not going to respect our marines or their mission, which part of it is recruiting, then certainly they should not be the beneficiary of taxpayer-funded earmarks, and certainly those that aren't necessary.

When I first introduced this bill, it was more to make a point and maybe rattle the cages of the city council, because I know all the people in Berkeley don't feel this way. If anyone looked at the video-- and it was one of the most watched videos on YouTube--you could see person after person stepping up and maligning our marines and the job they are doing, not only in Iraq but throughout history, and referring to them as murderers and thugs, unthinkable things being said about the same marines who provided them their freedom of speech.

Some have said by my introducing this bill I am against freedom of speech, and that is not it at all. In fact, the anti-American group Code Pink had been demonstrating for months in front of the marine recruitment office there in Berkeley, and I have no problem with that. They have every right. But they wanted more than freedom of speech, they wanted the power of the local government behind them, to give them an advantage over those who supported the marines, supported their mission, and supported our country. So the city council voted to give Code Pink a free parking place in front of the marine recruitment office, and also voted to give them a permit to use a bullhorn, a megaphone, to shout down any who would want to come into that recruitment office. That is not free speech. That is a government- sponsored political agenda that took the side of a few liberal demonstrators against traditional Americans and the marines who have fought for our freedom of speech.

My amendment got a fair amount of attention and a lot of supporters here in the Senate, which I appreciate. The same bill was also introduced in the House by a number of Republicans. I have been surprised at the response we have gotten--literally thousands of phone calls and e-mails and letters. What this has exposed to me is it is not only a single event, but it has exposed a raw wound not only of our marines but everyone serving in uniform, and their families.

I have heard it when I have been in Iraq, more than once, when I ask our soldiers, marines, and airmen what they need, and the response has often been: Don't forget us. The letters and e-mails I have gotten have indicated the same thing, that finally some are standing up for those who are fighting for our freedoms.

I was surprised by the response. I have gotten letters at home from mothers who have sent me pictures of their marines, thanking those of us who have stood up for their marines. I have agonized over the fact that they need someone to stand up for them.

But when I go back and see what was said in this Chamber and the House Chamber, and what governments such as the city of Berkeley have done, it should come as no surprise to us that there are doubts in the minds of those who put on the uniform that we support them, that we believe in what they do, and that we support their constitutional mission to recruit and to talk about what we offer in our services. People--Americans--are concerned about this.

We have tried to get the Semper Fi act on the floor for an up-or-down vote, and we have not been able to do so. We tried to pass it by unanimous consent, which got 100 percent Republican support but was blocked on the Democratic side. I added it to an amendment to this bill, to try to get a vote, but it will fall after we vote for cloture.

I promise the marines and all those in uniform that I am going to continue to persist until we get a vote on this, because it is not just about this amendment, it is not just about those who support it, it is about letting those who put on the uniform and who are willing to fight for our freedoms know we stand behind them. When any government, at any level, takes a position against them, it is our responsibility here in the Congress to stand up for those marines and those fighting men and women and not to allow them to be taken advantage of and intimidated and bullied by some local government such as we saw in Berkeley.

I have been happy to see some local governments across the country actually pass resolutions in support of the marine recruiters, and I appreciate any across this country who stand and make a statement on behalf of those who are fighting for our freedom. Again, I emphasize that anyone who wants to speak out in protest against marine recruiters, against the Iraq war, or anything, it is their free right. But when government, whether it is a local government or a State government, takes a position against our Federal constitutional amendment to defend this country, which requires the recruitment of marines, soldiers, airmen, and Coast Guard, that is part of our job. It is not freedom of speech when a local government takes a position against what we are charged to do here at the Federal level.

I encourage all those parents, all those in uniform, that the majority of those here in the Senate, in the House, and across this country respect and appreciate what you are doing every day. I got back from Iraq last week, with 2 days on the ground, and I know I speak for all my colleagues when I say I was never prouder of my country and what I do here than when I stood with those in uniform who are sacrificing, in many instances, more than a year away from their family, and some on second and third tours. They are fighting for us and we need to stand up for them. I am going to continue to persist until my colleagues give me a chance to stand with our marines and to support the Semper Fi bill.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, the underlying Indian health care bill allows Federal funds to be used for certain health promotion activities which include injury prevention, personal safety, and violence prevention. My amendment would simply say that none of these funds in the bill may be used to fund any firearm programs, gun buyback programs, or programs aimed at discouraging or stigmatizing the private ownership of firearms for collecting, hunting, or self-defense purposes, which are important to the Indian community. So that is my amendment.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business and also to engage in a colloquy with my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. President, I initially wish to make a few comments, and then I will yield to my colleague from Oregon. Today, I rise to honor two young heroes and their families. Ben Haight of Rhode Island and Boey Byers of Oregon were two remarkable young people whose lives were cut short by cancer, but whose hopes were not.

Of course, when a child has cancer, it deeply affects the parents, siblings, friends, and extended family. In fact, a pediatric illness affects the entire family. Even those who don't bear the damage of the illness bear the pressures, the strains, and the frustrations over dealing with the serious illness of a child. These two young children were extraordinary. We mourn their loss and at the same time we celebrate their lives.

Ben Haight was only 4 years old when he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma. He fought valiantly, enduring chemotherapy, two bone marrow transplants, and total body radiation. Ben did not let cancer stop him from living life. I am told he would dictate his treatment schedules to his doctors: ``No treatments during science class; have to be out by 3 to go to Cub Scouts, baseball or soccer.''

Even at a young age, Ben knew a lot about what was important in life. He cared about others and wanted to help. He held a bandaid drive at school to donate colorful bandaids to the hospital, which used plain bandaids to save money. Ben knew that patients enjoyed picking out a ``cool'' bandaid and that this simple pleasure offered them a brief respite from the rigors of their disease.

Ben's cancer went into remission, but after 2 years it came back. The doctors gave him 3 months to live, but he was tough. He fought for 2 more years. Ben was 9 years old when he died.

I never had a chance to meet Ben, but I have had the honor of meeting his wonderful family. His family has turned the tragedy of losing their son into a message of hope for other families.

Just before Ben died, he and his family enjoyed a special activity together--swimming with dolphins. Now, the Haight family's mission is to do all they can to fight cancer and to provide one child a year with the opportunity to swim with dolphins.

I think there is a sort of symbolic link here between his family and these dolphins. His father was a career enlisted man in the U.S. Navy, a chief in our submarine service. Of course, submarines use the dolphins as the symbol of their service branch. This is a family who has served the Nation in uniform and who continues to serve the Nation by fighting hard for other families who are afflicted by childhood cancer.

Now, Boey Byers was, in her words, a warrior against cancer, and I was very saddened to learn she has recently passed way. A few months ago, I had the privilege of speaking with Boey over the phone. She was full of life and spirit and struck me as very polite, poised, and wise beyond her years. I wanted to thank Boey for all she was doing to try to help other kids with cancer. Her passion in life was to find a cure for her warrior friends, as she called them, so they didn't have to suffer anymore and so they could live out their dreams and contribute to this great country.

We must remember there are thousands of children like Ben and Boey across the country. Each year, there are about 9,500 new cases of pediatric cancer, the leading cause of death by disease among children in the United States. While the incidence of cancer in children is increasing, the causes are largely unknown.

The National Cancer Institute--the NCI--currently spends about $170 million a year on pediatric cancer research, but most of the money goes toward laboratory research and preclinical testing. While it is important to test treatments in a test tube, Petri dish, or on animals, it is equally important to test treatments on humans in clinical trials.

For example, a recent clinical trial found that for children with neuroblastoma, less intensive chemotherapy is as effective as more intensive and toxic chemotherapy.

In 2002, an NCI peer review group of scientists recommended about $50 million in funding for pediatric cancer clinical trials. That level was never funded, and since then it has been cut, despite biomedical inflation and the increasing incidence of childhood cancer. Unfortunately, declining funding has stopped promising clinical trials. Pediatric cancer researchers expect only flat funding for clinical trials this year.

We can do better. The Conquer Childhood Cancer Act invests $30 million a year to expand pediatric cancer research and develop pediatric cancer clinical investigators. The bill also creates a national childhood cancer registry to track pediatric cancer. Researchers would be able to contact patients within weeks, enroll them in research studies, and follow up with them over time. Similar registries are already in place in Europe. If Europe can do it, we can do it, and we should do it.

This bill awaits action by the full Senate. It recently reached a significant milestone, garnering its 51st cosponsor. So even before any vote, we know for sure a majority of the Senate supports the bill. It has broad bipartisan support, with 14 Republican cosponsors and the support of both the majority and minority leaders.

Regrettably, a small minority is blocking this bill, and I call on the Senate to carry out the will of the majority and pass the bill. It is my hope

that in doing so we will intensify our fight against childhood cancer, so that one day the hopes of Ben and Boey, and thousands of children like them, will be realized.

Mr. President, I yield now for the purpose of a colloquy with my colleague from Oregon.

I thank the Senator. One of the things we are doing this evening is once again highlighting the critical importance of this legislation, the impact it would make in the lives of children and families across the country. And your voice is a strong voice for not only this legislation but for issues affecting health care and children in this country.

I think we are picking up speed, but we need the cooperation of virtually all of our colleagues, not to pass the bill--we have 51 votes--but to get it on the floor. That is not something unusual here in the Senate. But I think this is the type of legislation that should not be caught up in the kind of procedural rules that we all use.

I am going to try to reach out and explain personally what is at stake, how we have tried to make changes, how we have pursued a bipartisan approach. I hope we can be persuasive enough to get this legislation on the floor for a vote. I do not think the opposition, frankly, is the concept and the mechanisms we are talking about. Certainly it is not opposition to helping families and children who have cancer. I think it is caught up in other issues. We would like to disentangle those issues and focus on what we can for children who have cancer.

I think that is one of Boey's works.

I am encouraged also. It is incumbent upon supporters like myself and yourself to begin to reach out, which I think we are both committed to doing, and doing it personally to try to get through. I think my sense is a lot like yours. It is not an issue that people are objecting to; it is caught up in bigger issues. And sometimes we just have to step back and understand that the big issues will still be there and the points can still be made, but we can get this bill done.

I noticed the warriors in Boey's drawing at the White House. My hope is one day the President in the White House is going to sign this bill. She will be there, and Ben will be there in spirit because they are the warriors, and the young men and women who are helping us in our mission.

So that is my hope. I think we can do that. We are going to try. If it is because we have not been as explicit or as communicative as we should have been with all of our colleagues, that is something we will correct very quickly.

I agree. I think it is something we can do. The effort is to bring people together and move from 51 to 61 to 71 to 100. I think we can.

We have begun in earnest months ago, and we are picking up the pace. I thank the Senator for his wise and kind words.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today on behalf of myself and Senator Martinez to introduce legislation that takes a major step forward in curbing the abusive lending practices which contributed to the subprime mortgage crisis. With foreclosures at record levels, the housing market in steady decline, a global credit crunch, and the economy nearing recession, it is imperative that we act quickly to restore confidence in the American dream of home ownership.

Our legislation will eliminate bad actors from the mortgage business, and require that brokers and lenders meet minimum national standards which ensure they are professional, competent, and trustworthy.

First, it would create a comprehensive database of all residential mortgage loan originators. This includes mortgage brokers and lenders, as well as loan officers of national banks and their subsidiaries.

Second, it would establish national licensing standards to ensure that mortgage brokers and lenders are trained in legal aspects of lending, ethics, and consumer protection.

Our bill is similar to H.R. 3012, introduced in the House by Representative Spencer Bachus, the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Financial Services. The national licensing concept for loan originators has enjoyed bipartisan support and was included in the comprehensive mortgage reform bill, H.R. 3915, which recently passed the House.

A combination of low interest rates and sophisticated mortgage products, among other factors, helped increase home ownership to record levels just 3 years ago.

Subprime and exotic mortgages allowed millions of Americans--many with little or no down payment and questionable credit--to purchase homes by using adjustable-rate products with low initial monthly payments.

There was explosive growth in the use of these sub-prime loans: in just 2 years, from 2004 to 2006, the number of subprime mortgages in California increased 110 percent, from 273,000 to 573,000--29.4 percent of total mortgages in the State.

While the majority of lenders and brokers offered these mortgages in a responsible fashion, many others relied upon predatory lending tactics to place unsuspecting borrowers in mortgages they could not afford. Competitive pressures and lax oversight resulted in loans of increasingly poor quality being written.

To make matters worse, consumers were not adequately protected from bad actors in the mortgage industry.

The FBI recently reported that complaints of mortgage fraud have skyrocketed over the last few years.

In 2003, the number of suspicious activity reports reviewed by the FBI economic crimes unit numbered 3,000. The number of mortgage fraud complaints increased to 48,000 last year, representing a jump of 1500 percent.

Most mortgage brokers and non-bank lenders are only lightly regulated by State agencies. Standards of accountability have not kept pace with the increasing sophistication of the mortgage industry.

As adjustable-rate mortgages reset to higher rates, many American families find themselves in homes they can no longer afford. The percentage of homeowners currently behind on their mortgage payments is at its highest level in 21 years.

Mr. President, 2.2 million homeowners filed for foreclosure last year and many lenders have gone out of business or sought bankruptcy protection.

It is projected that as many as 2 million Americans will be forced to file for foreclosure before this crisis abates, representing $160 billion in lost equity. The Center for Responsible Lending has projected that one out of every five subprime loans issued between 2005 and 2006 will fail.

California has been especially hard hit. Mr. President, 5 of the 10 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rate in the Nation are in California. The foreclosure rate in California is roughly twice the national average, with 1 foreclosure filing for every 258 households in the State.

Lenders repossessed 84,375 California homes last year, a sixfold increase from 12,672 in 2006. Default notices--the initial step in the foreclosure process--increased 143 percent between 2006 and 2007, rising from 104,977 in 2006 to 254,824 in 2007. In San Diego County alone, foreclosures were up 353 percent in 2007.

According to the FBI economic crimes unit, California has been identified as one of the top 10 ``mortgage fraud hot spots'' in the Nation.

American families are hurting, and Californians are at the center of the storm. With close to 500,000 adjustable-rate mortgages scheduled to reset in California over the next 2 years, the situation is likely to worsen in 2008.

The subprime mortgage crisis has threatened both the global economy and the American dream of home ownership. Accountability, professional standards, and oversight must be enhanced for everyone in the mortgage industry.

This bill will make it so, and will help to ensure such a crisis never happens again.

Specifically, the S.A.F.E. Mortgage Licensing Act would require that all residential mortgage loan originators are licensed, providing fingerprints, a summary of work experience, and consent for a background check to authorities.

Additionally, minimum criteria are established that individuals must meet to obtain a license, including: no felony

convictions; no similar license revoked; a demonstrated record of financial responsibility; successful completion of education requirements, 20 hours of approved courses, to include at least 3 hours related to Federal laws, 4 hours on ethics and consumer protection in mortgage lending, and 2 hours on the subprime mortgage marketplace; and, passage of a written exam, the exam must be at least 100 questions and a minimum score of 75 percent is required to pass.

The Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation must also register all residential mortgage loan originators employed by national banks.

Lastly, State regulators must develop a satisfactory licensing system within 1 year following enactment of this legislation.

If this does not occur, the Housing and Urban Development Secretary is empowered to develop the national registry and license, generating revenue for its implementation through fees to license applicants.

The subprime mortgage crisis is wreaking havoc on American homeowners and the national economy. The damage is truly staggering--more than 2 million foreclosure filings last year and another 2 million expected before this year is over.

Many Americans simply cannot keep pace with adjustable-rate mortgages that are resetting, and some were steered into these obligations by unscrupulous actors.

It is essential that this body take action to address some of the factors that got us here.

This legislation does not assign blame, but rather provides a workable solution to protect homebuyers and begin to restore confidence in the American dream of homeownership.

I hope that my colleagues will join us in moving this important bill through the Senate quickly.

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