A bill to amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to revise the timeframe for recognition of certain designations in certifying rural health clinics under the Medicare program.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that will address the growing harm that nonnative or ``invasive'' species are inflicting on the wildlife and environment of our National Wildlife Refuge System.

In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt issued an executive order that designated Pelican Island, located in my home State of Florida, as a Federal bird reservation. This designation was intended to protect the numerous species of waterfowl that called Indian River Lagoon and Pelican Island home, including the last known brown pelican rookery on the East Coast of Florida. President Roosevelt's action marked the first time that our Federal Government set aside land for the sake of wildlife.

In the century that followed, the Pelican Island reservation, 27 additional sites in Florida, and other areas nationwide were set aside by the Federal Government and grew into a vast network that is now the National Wildlife Refuge System. Today, this system is comprised of 540 wildlife refuges and 3,000 waterfowl production areas, spanning 95 million miles across all 50 States and several U.S. territories. These refuges are home to 700 bird species, more than 200 mammal species, 250 reptile and amphibian species, and more than 200 types of fish-- including one-fourth of all federally recognized threatened and endangered species. The habitat afforded by our refuges will become even more critical to the survival of wildlife, which is already being forced to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.

As if encroaching human development, water and air pollution, and climate change weren't great enough challenges, our wildlife refuges and other protected areas are also threatened by a more insidious and persistent problem: invasive species. These non-native plant and animal species compete for habitat, food, and other resources that are essential to native wildlife, including endangered and threatened species.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, over 400 nonnative animals and nearly 1,200 exotic plant species have been documented in the State, with more arriving each day. The old world climbing fern, Lygodium, poses a greater threat than any other nonnative plant to south Florida's natural areas, including one of our national treasures, the Everglades. This plant currently infests over 70 percent of the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge near Boyton Beach, Florida. The Everglades' tree islands, which are a unique and extremely rare habitat for nesting wading birds and terrestrial wildlife, are particularly vulnerable to Lygodium. This invader first surrounds the islands' hardwood trees and dry ground, then grows over the tree canopy, and eventually smothers the native plants. This process essentially eliminates all of the ecological services that the tree islands once provided to native wildlife.

The threats posed by nonnative species are not confined to my home State of Florida--this is truly a national problem. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, invasive species are one of the most significant problems facing the National Wildlife Refuge System. Resource managers cite nonnative species as the single greatest threat to the refuges' biological and ecological functions, and as one of their most pressing management challenges. Currently, experts estimate that nonnative plant species infest more than 2 million acres in the Refuge System, and that nearly 4,500 invasive animal populations are established.

Efforts are underway to control or eradicate harmful, nonnative species in our wildlife refuges and other conservation areas. For example, the Fish and Wildlife Service treated 2,500 acres of Lygodium on tree islands in the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in fiscal year 2006. The South Florida Water Management District has partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service to develop a sustained population of natural enemies, known as biological controls, to reduce the spread of invasive plants. The district has funded a biological control program for Lygodium since 1997, and has been working to find a natural enemy for the Brazilian pepper, one of the most noxious, widespread weeds in Florida. Projects like these are having a positive impact on the Everglades restoration, and show why it is important that all levels of government work together to combat harmful, nonnative species.

While these and other invasive species control efforts have yielded promising results, the job is far from complete. In the current fiscal year, approximately $8.7 million was budgeted for treatment and control of nonnative plants in the Refuge System. That may sound like a lot of money, but it represents a mere drop in the bucket: the Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the total cost of managing invasive species on refuges nationwide is in excess of $300 million. Clearly, we need to dramatically increase the resources we devote to combating harmful, nonnative species if we expect our refuges to fulfill the wildlife conservation purposes for which they were set aside.

That is why I have worked with Senators Stabenow, Collins, Cardin, and Martinez to develop and introduce the Refuge Ecology Protection, Assistance, and Immediate Response Act, or REPAIR Act. The primary purpose of this act is to protect, enhance, and restore habitats for native fish and wildlife within the National Wildlife Refuge System. The REPAIR Act would establish within the Fish and Wildlife Service a grant program to support projects to assess, monitor, and manage harmful, nonnative species.

Specifically, REPAIR grants would be available to States, tribes, and territories to assess invasive plant and animal species that may threaten refuge resources, and to prioritize restorations needs and activities. Grants would also be available to State and local governments, universities, conservation organizations, and others to implement control projects to eradicate harmful, nonnative plants on refuges and adjoining, nonfederal lands and waters. Volunteer and public-interest groups would also be eligible for grants to conduct habitat surveys and monitor invasive plant and animal species. The REPAIR Act would also give the Secretary of the Interior the authority to provide financial assistance to States to respond quickly to outbreaks of invasive plants at a stage when complete eradication is possible and more affordable.

The Fish and Wildlife Service would be responsible for awarding REPAIR grants on a peer-reviewed, competitive

basis. For control projects, we establish numerous criteria that give priority to efforts that aid threatened and endangered species, encourage increased coordination among Federal, State, and local agencies, nongovernmental groups, and private entities, and that contain a comprehensive plan to prevent reintroduction of target species. All projects include monitoring and reporting elements, with oversight provided by the Fish and Wildlife Service. These provisions will help ensure that we achieve the greatest return on our investments to restore and maintain native habitat in the National Wildlife Refuge System.

The assessments and control projects authorized by the REPAIR Act will most certainly be of benefit to native wildlife living in and around our refuges, including the numerous threatened and endangered species that we have worked hard to protect. The restoration and preservation of native habitats and wildlife provided by the REPAIR Act will also benefit the 37 million people who visit our refuges each year and take advantage of fishing, hunting, and other recreational and educational opportunities that these special places provide.

In closing, I would like to recognize the efforts of Congressman Ron Kind of Wisconsin, who introduced and championed the REPAIR Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. The House passed this important legislation in October of last year. I hope that we can find a way for the companion measure that I introduced today to pass the Senate and become the law of the land. I look forward to working with Chairman Boxer and the other members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to debate this important legislation.

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

Mr. President, today, Senator Snowe of Maine and I are introducing a workforce development bill--the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success, or SECTORS Act.

Over the last 16 months, I have held 110 roundtable discussions in communities all over Ohio.

One of the themes that have recurred in the roundtables--from workers and employers, business and labor, teachers and professors--is that we need to do a better job connecting workers with the middle and high skills needed for careers that are growing in Ohio.

Today, Ohio has an unemployment rate above the national average. It was 6.3 percent in June.

Between 2000 and 2007, Ohio experienced a 24.3 percent drop in manufacturing employment, shedding nearly 230,000 jobs. Overall employment dropped by nearly 3.6 percent in the same time period.

That said, employers throughout the state talk about jobs gone begging, and not being able to fill middle and high skilled positions. There are open jobs in high-tech, healthcare, and even manufacturing that are going unfilled.

A recent report by labor economists Harry Holzer and Robert Lerman found that substantial demand remains in today's labor market for skilled workers. This is particularly true for ``middle-skill'' jobs that require more than a high school degree but less than a 4-year college degree. These jobs make up nearly half of America's labor market and provide good compensation for workers.

The approach Senator Snowe and I take in this bill is to organize training around industry clusters.

Silicon Valley, the Research Triangle in North Carolina, Route 128 around Boston--these are examples of clusters.

But it is not just high tech jobs either.

Think of tourism in Florida, or insurance in Connecticut, or food packaging in Pennsylvania. These are successful clusters that build around a skilled labor force.

The Ohio Workforce Board has compiled great information about emerging industries and skills programs needed to see people fill these jobs.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut are giving workforce training a high priority.

This bill complements those efforts, and builds on great examples of cluster partnerships around the country.

The National Governors Association has been promoting this model, and it really will be the way we successfully train our workers and promote regional economic development.

Nobody wants lack of training to be the constraint on Ohio's economic growth.

So the SECTORS Act focuses on targeted training, with multiple stakeholders in the same industry. The bill right now requires four principal stakeholders to be part of a training program: industry, labor unions, workforce investment boards, and community colleges.

We want to build in a process that makes a training program sustainable and not just a one-time infusion of money. With that in mind, Senator Snowe and I have written in our bill a matching funds requirement.

The legislation builds in rigorous evaluation so lawmakers and policymakers know how tax dollars are being spent, something that has not been the cause under President Bush's Department of Labor's training initiatives.

The Government Accountability Office found in May 2008 that the Labor Department's demand-driven workforce training programs have often been awarded through a non-competitive process, and have lacked accountability and evaluation so that Americans know how their tax dollars are being spent.

We need to break clean from this approach. I plan to work with Senator Snowe and colleagues in both chambers to authorize an industry clusters skills training program that builds in accountability and sustainability, and helps workers and businesses thrive in Ohio, Maine, and throughout the country.

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

I agree with my colleague, Chairman Baucus, and would

also like to extend my thanks to the chairman and ranking member of the HELP Committee, Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, for working with us on this issue. In my 7 years as chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, I have worked to preserve the committee's jurisdiction over legislation amending the Social Security Act, as Senator Baucus is doing now. In this case, the CMS certification requirement for rural health clinic designations is governed by title XVIII of the Social Security Act, which, as the Chairman has noted, is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Finance Committee. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 required that rural health clinics be located in an underserved or shortage area that were designated or updated within the previous 3 years but the 3-year requirement has only been applied to new facilities seeking to be designated as rural health clinics. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, recently issued a rule proposing changes in the requirements for rural health clinics. One of the proposed changes would apply the 3-year designation requirement to all rural health clinics and decertify RHCs located in communities where the shortage area designation is more than 3 years old.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, HRSA, and most States update their shortage area designations every 4 years. We need to align the timeframes for HRSA and CMS shortage area designations so that CMS certifications of rural health clinic designations would be valid for a 4-year period, consistent with the 4-year period used for HRSA designations. Otherwise, many rural health clinics in Iowa and other States throughout the country could lose their RHC designation simply because their State is not able to comply with the new CMS 3- year timeframe for certification.

Under the CMS proposal, if an RHC loses its designation or the State has not renewed its shortage area designation within 3 years, the RHC must request an exception within 90 days or it will be decertified 180 days after the 3-year period ends. Unless the statutory 3-year CMS certification period is changed to 4 years, many RHCs could be subject to being decertified in the near future unless they are deemed ``essential.'' Rural health clinics should not be jeopardized with closure because a shortage area designation has not been updated in a timely fashion by the State or Federal Government.

CMS has estimated that approximately 500 of the 3,700 rural health clinics operating today no longer meet the existing location requirements for RHCs, either because they are not in an area designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as ``nonurban'' or they are not designated by HRSA as being located in an eligible shortage area. Others believe that this estimate is too low. The National Rural Health Association has estimated that the proposed changes to the location requirements could result in up to 45 percent of RHCs being ineligible to continue in the program unless they are granted an exception. If this estimate holds true for RHCs throughout the country, over 1,600 RHCs could be decertified. This would severely impact access to health care for those in rural and medically underserved areas where rural health clinics provide the only access to critical medical services.

We are most appreciative of the efforts of our colleagues, Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, to amend H.R. 3343 to change the CMS certification period for shortage area designations from 3 to 4 years in order to align the CMS certification period for shortage area designations with HRSA's designation review period.

Mr. President, I rise today, with Senator Sherrod Brown, to introduce the Selecting Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success, SECTORS, Act. This legislation would amend the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 and establish a new industry or sector partnership grant program administered by the Department of Labor.

As Co-Chair of the bipartisan Senate Task Force on Manufacturing, one of my key goals is to ensure that manufacturers are able to find a capable workforce. Unfortunately, many manufacturers across the country have raised significant concerns about whether the next generation of workers is being trained to meet the needs of an increasingly high-tech workplace. It is critical that we ensure that our Nation has a sufficient workforce to meet the needs of the U.S. manufacturing sector.

This legislation provides grants to help industry clusters--which are interrelated group of businesses, service providers, and associated institutions--establish and expand industry partnerships. Existing partnerships, which are similar to those created by this bill, have long been recognized as key strategic elements within some of the most successful economic development initiatives throughout the country. Unfortunately, current Federal policy does not provide sufficient support for these critical ventures.

In my home State of Maine, the number of manufacturing jobs has dropped dramatically over the past decade. Between 1998 and 2008, manufacturing employment in Maine went from 81,000 to 59,000, a 27 percent decrease! A key reason manufacturing job losses have dramatically affected Maine is that the average manufacturing salary is $10,000 more than the average annual State wage. The statistics for the whole of New England are no better. From January 1998 through December 2006, the region witnessed a decline of roughly 25 percent of its manufacturing workforce.

For those who have lost manufacturing jobs, it is vital to help improve their skills, preparing them for available U.S. jobs. This legislation provides a crucial link between establishing worker training programs and fostering new employment opportunities for those who have been affected by the manufacturing industry's decline. By promoting this innovative partnership we will take a crucial step toward rejuvenating our economy.

Groups, such as the National Governors Association, the Aspen Institute, and the National Network of Sector Partners have promoted and documented the success of sector partnerships. Throughout the country, sector partnerships are being used to promote the long-term competitiveness of industries and advancing employment opportunities. For example, the State of Maine has recently created the North Star Alliance Initiative. The alliance has brought together Maine's boat builders, the University of Maine's Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Centers, Maine's marine and composite trade association, economic development groups, and investment organizations for the purpose of advancing workforce training.

Out Nation's capacity to innovate is a key reason why our economy continues to grow and remains the envy of the world. Ideas by innovative Americans in the private and public sector have paid enormous dividends, improving the lives of millions throughout the world. We must continue to encourage all avenues for advancing this vital sector if America is to compete at the forefront of innovation.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize an outstanding health care hero from Oregon, Maria Loredo. Through her hard work and tireless dedication to her community, Maria has played a critical role in creating access to health care for those in need in Washington County, OR.

Maria Loredo is the chief operating officer for the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, named for a 6-year-old migrant farmworker girl who moved from Mission, TX, to work with her family in Washington County's strawberry harvest. Tragically, Virginia Garcia died from a simple foot wound, but her death inspired a committed group of individuals to improve health care access in the community.

Like 6-year-old Virginia Garcia, Maria Loredo also hails from Mission, TX, and as a young person worked with her family throughout Texas following crops. Eventually the family migrated to Oregon and settled there in 1966. Maria began her work with the fledgling Virginia Garcia Clinic in 1978 when it was only 3 years old. Her own experience as a migrant worker has helped her develop the programs and services of the clinic so that they are most effective in reaching the farmworker community.

Maria has been instrumental in growing the health center from a clinic operating out of a three-car garage to an organization with four primary care clinics serving over 30,000 people in Washington and Yamhill Counties, OR. Her commitment to the community has enabled the organization to develop a farmworker outreach program that operates from a mobile clinic and provides medical and dental services in over 20 migrant camps throughout the region.

In her role as chief operating officer, Maria has helped establish clinics in McMinnville, Hillsboro, and Beaverton serving a diverse community that includes patients who not only speak English and Spanish, but Vietnamese, Russian, Swahili, Chinese, and Farsi.

She has helped Virginia Garcia develop critically needed dental, pharmacy, and behavioral health care with an integrated approach to health care delivery that always remains sensitive to the language and cultural background of the patients. Most recently, Maria has helped pave the way to a new access point at the Tigard School Based Clinic and also to the implementation of electronic health records.

While working full-time developing Virginia Garcia's programs, Maria found time to pursue her education and graduated with her B.A. from Portland State University in 2003. Once a migrant worker, she has gone on to not only serve her community, but inspire others to achieve a better, healthier life for themselves and their children.

Because she has dedicated the last 30 years of her life to the mission of the Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center and made a significant difference in the lives of so many, I recognize her as an Oregon health care hero and thank her for her ongoing work.

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