A bill to award a congressional gold medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.

Mr. President, it is a privilege to join Senator Enzi in introducing the Enhancing Drug Safety and Innovation Act of 2007. The goals of the legislation are to strengthen the Food and Drug Administration's authority over the safety of prescription drugs after they are approved; to encourage innovation in medical products; to increase access to clinical trials for patients and ensure that doctors and patients are aware of the results of clinical trials involving the drugs they prescribe and use; and to improve the screening of members of FDA's scientific advisory committees to avoid conflicts of interest.

The withdrawal of the drug Vioxx from the market 2 years ago demonstrated again that all prescription drugs have risks, many of which are unknown when a drug is approved, or even for years after approval. We need a more effective system to identify and assess the serious risks of drugs, inform health care providers and patients about such risks, and manage and mitigate these risks as soon as they are detected.

Our bill will require drugs to have a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy when it is approved. For many drugs, the strategy will include only the drug labeling, reports of adverse events, a justification for why only such reporting is needed, and a timetable for assessing how the REMS is working.

The FDA will be able to include additional requirements for drugs that pose serious risks, such as by requiring that the drug be dispensed with labels that patients can understand, that the drug company have a plan to inform health care providers about how to use the drug safely, and that a drug should not be advertised directly to consumers for up to 2 years after approval. If a serious safety concern needs to be understood, FDA can require further studies

or even clinical trials after the drug is approved. Enhanced data collection and data mining techniques will help identify risk signals earlier and more thoroughly.

For drugs with the most serious side effects, FDA will be able to require that its risk evaluation and mitigation strategy include the restrictions on distribution or use needed to assure its safe use.

The FDA will be able to impose any of these requirements at the time a drug is approved. The agency can also modify the labeling or otherwise alter a drug's availability after the approval. The drug's manufacturer will propose the overall strategy, or modifications to it, and the FDA and the company will try to work out an adequate compromise. If the agency and the company cannot agree, the agency's Drug Safety Oversight Board can review the dispute and recommend a resolution to senior FDA officials, who will make the final decision.

Civil monetary penalties are added to FDA's traditional enforcement authority to ensure compliance. Drug user fees will also be used to review and implement the program.

The bill formalizes and makes mandatory what is now only informal and voluntary. Our intent is not to change the standards for approving drugs, but to see that the FDA has the ability to identify, assess, and manage risks as they become known. Better risk management will mean that drugs with special benefits for some patients will remain available, despite serious risks for other patients, because FDA can better identify the risks and manage them.

The bill helps to improve drug safety in other ways as well. The Reagan-Udall Institute for Applied Biomedical Research will be a new public-private partnership at the FDA to advance the agency's critical path initiative. The initiative is intended to improve the science of developing, manufacturing, and evaluating the safety and effectiveness of drugs, biologics, medical devices, and diagnostics.

The Institute will be supported by Federal funds and by contributions from the pharmaceutical and device industries. Philanthropic organizations will be able to supplement Federal support. The institute will have a board of directors and an executive director, and will report to Congress annually on its operations.

The bill will also expand the public database at NIH to encourage more patients to enroll in clinical trials of drugs. The database will build on the current systems and would include late phase II, phase III, and all phase IV clinical trials for all drugs.

A second, publicly available database would include the results of phase III and phase IV clinical trials of drugs, with the possibility that late phase II trials would be added later. Posting of results could be delayed for up to 2 years, pending the approval of the drug or the publication of trial results in a peer- reviewed journal.

The public needs to know about the results of clinical trials on drugs. Tragically, such information was not adequately available for the clinical studies of antidepressants in children.

Posting information in the clinical trials registry and the clinical trials results database will be requirements for federal research funding and for drug review and approval by the FDA. Both the FDA and other appropriate offices in the Department of Health and Human Services will review the content of submissions to the results database to ensure they are truthful and nonpromotional. These Federal requirements will preempt State requirements for clinical trial databases.

Finally, the bill will improve FDA's process for screening advisory committee members for financial conflicts of interest. The agency relies on advisory committees to provide independent, expert, nonbinding recommendations on significant issues. Ideally, committee members should be free of any financial ties to the companies affected by an issue before a committee. But at times, there may be no individual without financial ties to such companies--for example, when the issue involves a rare disease or a cutting edge medical technology. In these cases, the FDA must be able to grant a waiver to allow an individual with essential expertise to serve on the committee. The bill will require the agency to seek qualified experts with minimal conflicts, clarify how it makes waiver decisions, and disclose those decisions at least 15 days before a committee meeting.

Our bill is a comprehensive response to drug safety and other important issues involving prescription drugs and other medical technologies. I commend Chairman Enzi and his dedicated staff-- especially Amy Muhlberg--for working closely with us on this proposal, and I urge our colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, it's a privilege to join my colleague, Senator Durbin, in introducing the Student Loan Sunshine Act, to provide greater support for students and families across America who are struggling with great difficulty to pay for college.

Over the past 20 years, the cost of attending college has doubled. Today, the average cost of attendance at a 4-year public college is almost $13,000. As a result, students and families are going deeper and deeper into debt to finance the cost of higher education. In 1993, fewer than a third of students at four-year colleges graduated with debt to pay on their student loans. Today that number has doubled. Two- thirds of students now graduate with student loan debt.

The average debt load has soared as well. In the past decade, it has increased by 57 percent at public colleges and 38 percent at private colleges. Today, the typical graduate leaves college saddled with $17,000 in student loans.

Nowhere has this growth been more pronounced than in private student loans. Until recently, most students who borrowed for college took out loans under the Direct Loan program and the Federal Family Education Loan program--the two main student loan programs subsidized by the Federal Government.

With the cost of college rising rapidly and grant aid stagnating, however, more and more students are turning to the private loan sector and are taking out so-called ``alternative loans''--private loans that lenders offer through colleges and universities. Students are also borrowing increasingly from direct-to-consumer education lenders, which include giant lenders such as Sallie Mae that also participate in the FFEL program, as well as other companies that just offer private-market loans, such as Loan to Learn.

A decade ago, private loans accounted for only 3 percent of all funds used to finance students' post-secondary education. Since then, the volume of private loans has grown by an astronomical 1200 percent. Today, private loans now total $17 billion, and represent 20 percent of all borrowing for higher education.

Many lenders making these private loans claim they're providing an important service. They say that at a time when college prices are rising rapidly, they provide needed funds to help students pay for college.

What they won't tell you is the exorbitant cost that countless students are paying for these loans. Unlike loans offered through the federal programs, private loans frequently carry much higher interest rates, especially for students without credit histories and families without strong credit ratings. In some cases, the interest rates on private loans may be as high as 19 percent a year, compared to 6.8 percent for loans offered through the FFEL and Direct Loan programs.

The lenders also don't tell you about the aggressive tactics they use to persuade colleges to offer private loans to their students--and to persuade students to borrow directly as well.

The private company Student Loan Xpress has offered 100 percent loan approval at colleges if the college agrees to ``brand'' the private loan with the college's name and emblem--making the loan appear to be offered by the college, not the private lender.

Other private loan companies encourage borrowers not to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which allows borrowers to obtain loans at lower interest rates. They don't prominently disclose the fact that their interest rates are typically much higher.

Some lenders make gifts to college and university employees. Loan to Learn invited college officials and their spouses to an all-expenses paid ``education conference'' in the West Indies. Many lenders who participate in the FFEL program offer similar ``educational conferences'' at fancy hotels, and offer free entertainment and tickets to sporting events to college officials. The Attorney General in New York State has opened an investigation into such practices and is looking into the practices of six lenders, including Sallie Mae, Nelnet, and Educap, the corporate name of Loan to Learn.

We need to take immediate steps to stop actions that prevent students from obtaining the best loan agreement possible. That is what the Student Loan Sunshine Act does.

First and foremost, it is a consumer protection measure. It will protect student and parent borrowers by ending the inappropriate lender practices I've just mentioned.

It prohibits lenders from offering to a college employee any gift worth more than $10, including free or discounted trips, meals, invitations to entertainment events or other form of hospitality.

It prohibits lenders from offering services to financial aid offices that create a conflict of interest, such as lending staff during peak loan processing times. It also prohibits lenders from ``branding'' their loans with a college name, emblem, or logo.

The Sunshine Act also arms students and parents with the information they need to make wise decisions when they borrow funds for higher education.

The Act requires lenders to report any special arrangements they have with colleges to make such loans, and it ensures that this information is conveyed to borrowers.

It requires the Secretary of Education, together with members of the higher education community and students, to develop a clear, easy-to- use model format for reporting the terms and conditions of student loans, similar to the APR disclosure required for other types of loans.

If a college creates a ``preferred lender'' list, the Act requires the college to disclose clearly and fully why it has identified a lender as a preferred lender. Schools must also include at least three nonaffiliated lenders on the list, so that students have a real choice. Finally, the Sunshine Act also addresses the fast-growing direct-to- consumer educational loan market. It offers new protections for students who take out direct-to-consumer loans, so they don't borrow more than is necessary to pay for their college education.

The Act requires all lenders of direct-to-consumer private educational loans to state clearly and prominently that borrowers may qualify for low-interest loans through the Federal Government's loan programs. It also requires lenders to clearly disclose the terms and conditions of the loans they're offering, including any hidden fees, as well as any complaints against the lender that have been filed by consumer agencies such as the Better Business Bureau or the state attorney general's office.

Before a direct-to-consumer lender can offer an education loan of more than $1000, the Act requires the lender to notify the borrower's college of the amount of the proposed loan, so that the school can advise the borrower whether the loan exceeds what's necessary to cover the student's cost of attendance after other aid sources are factored in.

Students deserve the best loan advice possible from financial aid officers and the best deal from lenders. They have the right to exhaust their federal loan eligibility before turning to more expensive private lenders for aid.

Going to college is a lifetime investment, but paying for college is a heavy burden for too many families. As the private student loan market continues to grow, it's our responsibility to protect students from exploitation in that market.

I thank the bill's cosponsors, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill as well. It's time we put students first, and the Student Loan Sunshine Act takes important steps to do just that.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 474) to award a congressional gold medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on S. 474.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we take the final steps in the legislative process to accord the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey a Congressional Gold Medal.

While I am proud to be here at the revelation of this process while we are now revealing all that has taken place and all that has happened for us to have this great opportunity, I must confess that I was not there at the genesis of the process. But, Mr. Speaker, there is one person who has been a constant throughout the entirety of this process, and that one person, Mr. Speaker, is the Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator from the great State of Texas. She has been consistent in that she has annually filed this bill to get it to this point, and she has been persistent in that she has insisted that we work together so as to cause the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey to have this opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, while I am the original sponsor of the House bill, H.R. 1154, to accord this Congressional Gold Medal, there are many other persons who must be thanked. I want to thank my chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the Honorable Barney

Frank, for the outstanding job that he has done to help get this piece of legislation, the bill that has already passed, out of the committee and to the floor. But he has also done an outstanding job in helping us to get the Senate bill to the floor, and for this we thank him.

I also would like to thank my colleagues Congressman Michael Burgess and Congressman John Culberson for the outstanding job that the two of them jointly performed in getting the necessary signatures to get this bill to the floor.

That would be the bill in the House, not the Senate bill. But I want to thank them for what they did because it took getting the House bill through to get us to the point where we can now get the Senate bill passed, such that we can accord the Gold Medal.

I would like to thank the entire Texas delegation. They have all thought highly of Dr. DeBakey, and they have worked with us to make sure that we were in a position to get this done.

We want to thank the 313 cosponsors of this legislation. Literally, we have gone to the floor of the House and we have talked to persons who agreed that the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey should be accorded this preeminent privilege and this great honor.

I want to thank the House leadership because the leadership made it possible for the fellowship to be in this position today. And again, we thank Senator Hutchison and all of the Members of the Senate who have helped us with this process.

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Gold Medal has 535 judges, 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House, because each Member of the House and each Member of the Senate has a vote on the Congressional Gold Medal. And I am honored to say that, while we must receive 290 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate, we have exceeded the required numbers in both the House and the Senate. People were excited about the opportunity to accord the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey a Congressional Gold Medal.

What is a Congressional Gold Medal? It is the Nation's highest and most distinguished civilian award. It was originally awarded to military leaders for their service and later became a civilian medal. It is the congressional equivalent of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Each medal is unique. It is designed by the U.S. Mint and is duplicated in bronze for sale.

The Congressional Gold Medal has been awarded approximately 134 times to approximately 300 individuals. Some notable recipients include our first President, George Washington; General Andrew Jackson; the Wright brothers; Thomas Edison; Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of this august body; Sir Winston Churchill; Robert Kennedy; Lady Bird Johnson; Mother Teresa of India; Nelson Mandela; Rosa Parks; Pope John Paul, II; the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King; and the last recipients were the Tuskegee Airmen. I was honored to be present in the rotunda when they received their Congressional Gold Medal in April of 2006.

Mr. Speaker, I think that Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the oldest of five children, born of parents of Lebanese descent, has truly been an outstanding American. He was born in Louisiana in Lake Charles, performed his residency at Charity Hospital. Mr. Speaker, I am from Louisiana. I was born in New Orleans. I was born in Charity Hospital. And while it may be a bit of wishful thinking, there may be the possibility, or the possibility may exist, that I am a DeBakey baby and that he was performing his residency at Charity Hospital at the time that I was born.

Mr. Speaker, he was on the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine from 1948 to 1993, where he chaired the Department of Surgery. He served as President and Chancellor of the Baylor College of Medicine.

And Mr. Speaker, I say from the bottom of my heart that I thank God for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. He has earned the right to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. He served his country in World War II, and he volunteered to perform this service. He helped to develop, while in the military, the mobile army surgical hospital, we know it as the ``MASH'' units. And Mr. Speaker, there is a TV program and a movie that was made popular because of the MASH units that were developed because of the Honorable Michael E. DeBakey. In fact, it may be said that, but for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, there might not be a MASH television series.

He helped to establish the VA Hospitals. He helped to establish the current Veterans Affairs medical system. He was one of the first to successfully perform a coronary bypass. He established the field of surgery for strokes. He led the movement to establish the National Library of Medicine. He performed the historic transplantation procedure, with a team of surgeons of course. He was the first person to successfully use a partial artificial heart to help patients who could not be weaned from the heart-lung machine following heart surgery.

He pioneered the field of telemedicine, with the first demonstration of open heart surgery transmitted overseas via satellite. He invented the Dacron tube, using his wife's sewing machine and fabric he purchased from a store in Houston, Texas. This, Mr. Speaker, was the first artificial artery.

He was a leader in the development of the artificial heart. He operated on more than 60,000 patients in Houston. He has published over 1,600 articles. He helped to establish health care systems around the world in Jordan, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, to name a few countries.

He became one of the persons to work at the Baylor School of Medicine, to the extent that Baylor has recognized his unprecedented achievements by naming the DeBakey Heart Center in his honor. And also, the Baylor College of Medicine has named the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery in his honor.

Dr. DeBakey is a great citizen, Mr. Speaker, not only of the United States but also of the world. He is a great humanitarian; he has helped rich and poor alike. If we did not have the Congressional Gold Medal, Mr. Speaker, we would have to create one for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey.

On his 99th birthday, we called him to let him know that we had completed the process in the House in terms of passing the House bill so that we can move forward to this bill, and his comment was, ``I am so grateful that I am a citizen of the United States.'' Mr. Speaker, I believe that his life stands for the proposition that one person can not only impact the world, but can change the world for the good of all.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Congressman Burgess, for it was he who called this piece of legislation to my attention. And he has been steadfastly with me throughout the process, and I am honored to have worked on this piece of legislation with him and Congressman Culberson.

I also think that we would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if we did not mention Mrs. DeBakey and the persons who are caring for him currently. We have had conversations with the persons caring for him. They have indicated that, of course, he was doing well when last we spoke to them, and they do an outstanding job of caring for Dr. DeBakey.

Earlier, I mentioned that he has had the Methodist Hospital DeBakey Heart Center named in his honor, and I may have misspoken and said Baylor, but it is Methodist.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation has received bipartisan as well as bicameral support. I had the honor of meeting with Senator Hutchison, and we talked about continuing the effort together to move this piece of legislation as quickly as possible through the process so that the President can sign it and get the actual award ceremony to take place. The President will now have 10 days to sign this bill. History will show us that at no time has a President refused to sign a Congressional Gold Medal. So my suspicion is that this President, who is from the State of Texas, will move expeditiously to sign the bill. After the bill has been signed, the U.S. Mint will meet with the sponsors and with interested parties, which may include family members, to discuss possible designs for the medal.

The Mint engravers will then prepare a series of sketches and possible designs for consideration. These designs will be commented on by the Commission of Fine Arts, and subsequently the Secretary of the Treasury will make the final decision as to the medal's design. The medal is created by the Philadelphia Mint. The medal will be in bronze. The gold medal, of course, will be the one presented to Dr. DeBakey, but there will be replicas in bronze to offset the cost of the medal, and arrangements will be made for the presentation of the gold medal, a ceremony to honor the Honorable Michael E. DeBakey.

Mr. Speaker, this has been one of the great pleasures of my life in terms of being in Congress, in fact, one of the great pleasures of my life period. But this is a high point in my congressional career. I am so honored that my friends have worked with me on this process and that Senator Hutchison has been there throughout the entirety of the process. We are committed to making this happen as expeditiously as possible. If Dr. DeBakey were here today, I am confident that he would continue to talk about how great it is to be a part of this great country that we know as the United States of America.

So I close by saying, God bless you, Dr. DeBakey, and thank you for what you have done to make life better for all of us, and God bless America.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of a bill that I am introducing today, the Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act of 2007.

The life-blood of any criminal organization or enterprise is money. Whether engaged in drug dealing or terrorism, criminals cannot operate without money. The targeting of efforts by criminals to hide illegitimate funds in legitimate financial institutions has long been a focus of law enforcement.

Yet like all other aspects of criminal activity, money laundering continues to evolve into newer and more complex forms. This is particularly true in the funding of terrorist organizations and operations. Therefore, money laundering remains not only a criminal racket but also poses a grave threat to our national security.

Tracking how terrorists obtain, store, and move illicit funds is among the most critical aspects of stopping their efforts. Among its recommendations, the 9/11 Commission report stated that, ``Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must remain front and center in the U.S. counterterrorism efforts.'' We have made some significant strides in identifying how terrorists accumulate and move money, but more remains to be done. Terrorists and criminal networks continually evolve new ways of using legitimate means to launder illegally obtained funds. We must not underestimate the intelligence or resolve of these groups. Many have already utilized loopholes in current law to hide funds or circumvent required reporting to U.S. Customs officials.

Work must continue so that terrorists and other criminals are left without the ability to hide illegally obtained funds inside or in concert with legitimate means. We should commit to increasing pressure on these organizations to make money laundering as difficult and unprofitable as possible. And ultimately, we must give law enforcement and prosecutors the ability to effectively deal with criminals' ever- changing tactics.

The legislation that I am introducing today will strengthen our current money laundering statutes by streamlining those laws, closing those loopholes in the laws exploited by criminal organizations, and creating more efficient means for dealing with violators of money laundering laws. My bill goes about doing this in several ways.

First, my bill deals with the problem of ``specified unlawful activities'' or ``SUAs.'' SUAs are predicate offenses required for current money laundering statutes to apply, and there are currently over 200 of them. As criminals continue to change methods of laundering money, the list of SUAs will continue to grow. This legislation will prevent criminals from turning to other means not designated as an SUA, and will consolidate the ever growing list of SUAs by including all federal and state offenses punishable by imprisonment for more than one year. Also, criminals will no longer be able to hide behind borders, as this legislation would subject violations in foreign countries that have an effect on the U.S. to the same penalties as if they had occurred in the United States.

Currently, most circuit courts must charge each violation of money laundering statutes separately. My bill will allow, at the election of the government, prosecutors to charge multiple acts under one count in an indictment. This will significantly reduce the time and expense incurred by the courts in these cases, versus the current method of charging each and every violation separately.

Criminals have realized that the movement of large sums of money through traditional financial institutions will result in increased scrutiny and investigation. Therefore, many have turned to smuggling large quantities of money via a courier or bulk cash smuggling. They have developed techniques to avoid having to declare property with a value greater than $10,000 and to protect those couriers who are caught. My legislation will remove the criminal's ability to get around current laws, and remove protections for the smuggler.

For example, current law requires that couriers know specifics about the illegal activities that produced the monies they carry before they may be prosecuted under money laundering statutes. As a result, many claim ignorance about the illegal origins of the money and are released. With my bill, couriers will now be held responsible for their actions, even if they try to claim ignorance. Therefore, law enforcement can get both the courier and the money off the street. This bill also would stiffen the penalty for bulk cash smuggling to 10 years.

Another tactic now being used by criminals is to have couriers carry blank checks in bearer form. The couriers argue that the check has no amount, so it is not subject to declaration. Once the courier arrives at his destination, he merely has to fill in the amount, whatever it may be. My legislation would remove this loophole by setting the value of any blank check in bearer form equal to the highest amount in that account during the time period it was being transported, or when it is cashed.

My bill also seeks to mitigate the tactics of ``commingling funds'' and ``structured transactions.'' The ``commingling funds'' tactic involves depositing illegal money in an account with legitimate funds. Under current law, criminals can argue that money withdrawn from the account was from the legitimate sources. The language in this bill would clarify that transactions on accounts containing more than $10,000 in illegally obtained funds will be considered a transaction involving more than $10,000 in criminally derived property, regardless of how the other money in the account was obtained. Nor will criminals be allowed to avoid the law by structuring smaller transactions below the $10,000 reporting requirement. Under my bill, individual but related transactions will be considered at their aggregate value.

Finally, this bill will provide the United States Secret Service with the legislative and financial resources it needs to combat counterfeiters and other criminals seeking to harm our financial systems. The U.S. Federal Reserve Note is the most identifiable currency in the world and the backbone of many other nations' economies. To help ensure continued stability of the Greenback worldwide, my bill will make illegal the possession of any materials used to make counterfeit currency. This is necessary because technology has evolved far beyond the old days of printing plates, stones, and digital images. Like the evolving tactics used by those in money laundering operations, the counterfeiter constantly changes his tactics and technologies. Furthermore, the crime of counterfeiting is becoming more and more international in scope every day. The Secret Service has identified counterfeiting operations in Colombia, Nigeria, Italy, Iraq, and North Korea. This is apparent in the use of bleached notes. Bleached notes are simply bills with low denominations being bleached with chemicals. This produces a blank canvas of genuine currency paper for counterfeiters to work with, to which they can add higher denominations. My bill will make it illegal to possess these bleached or otherwise altered notes, and give the Secret Service the authorization it needs to pursue these criminals outside the United States.

Additionally, this bill gives the Secret Service the authorization to use funds seized from criminals to pay for ongoing undercover investigations. This seems like common sense, and indeed, every other federal investigative agency has this authority. Tasked with protecting our financial systems, the Secret Service should be provided with all the resources necessary to fund its undercover operations. This makes even more sense, considering it's the criminals themselves who would be paying those bills. My bill provides that authority to the Secret Service and will allow them to continue the important work of protecting our financial infrastructure.

As I said, money is essential for the operation of any criminal or terrorist organization. The ability to get, move, and hide these funds is critical to the operations of both. We have had some success in thwarting this ability, as is evident by the constantly changing techniques for laundering money. We must continue to apply pressure on these groups, and do everything we can to identify and stop their financing operations. This bill is designed to do just that, and put these organizations out of business for good. I urge my colleagues to join me and my cosponsors, Senators Kyl, Cornyn, and Graham, in supporting this legislation to combat the financing of criminal and terrorist activities.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas, one of the original cosponsors of this bill, Mr. Culberson.

Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to thank my friends who have come to the floor to help us today honor Dr. Michael DeBakey. I do want to thank Al Green for his persistence in getting this bill to the floor. It has been a long time in the making. And obviously I want to thank our senior Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and certainly thank Chairman Frank for allowing the Senate bill to come through the floor procedure so that we may hasten this floor process for Dr. DeBakey. As has been mentioned here several times this morning, Dr. DeBakey is 99 years old and certainly deserving of this honor, and we need to get it to him with all haste.

Dr. DeBakey is the father of cardiovascular surgery in our country. And I do encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of S. 474, a bill to designate the Congressional Gold Medal for the famed Houston heart surgeon.

This bill has been very important to me, as one of the physicians in the House of Representatives, to be able today to come to the floor and talk about how Dr. DeBakey changed the face of medicine so significantly forever in this country. As a fellow physician, Dr. DeBakey's work on medical advancements is legendary. His dedication to healing those around him came not only from his talents as a physician but his ongoing commitment to the larger medical community. His motto, as we heard others mention it today, was ``strive for nothing less than excellence.'' Boy, every Member of this House could adopt that as one of our mottos and do better by the country for it.

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the education and entrepreneurial spirit that made him worthy of the Nation's highest expression of appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions. Dr. DeBakey received his bachelor's and M.D. degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, as we have already heard mentioned. He delivered Al Green in medical school.

But probably more importantly, while in medical school, he developed the roller pump, later to become the major component in the heart-lung machine that is used in open heart surgery routinely today. This was a groundbreaking achievement, Mr. Speaker. Every pump to pump the heart, to take over the work of the heart artificially, prior to that time, had worked on a mechanical piston-type arrangement. Dr. DeBakey envisioned the roller pump which preserved the structure of red blood cells as they took their course through the pump and allowed this pump to, in fact, become part and parcel with something that we now just all accept as part of cardiovascular surgery. It was truly a visionary change. Again, he popularized that while he was in medical school in the 1930s.

Now, Dr. DeBakey completed his internship at Charity Hospital, one of the venerable institutions of learning in this country. Many of my professors at Parkman Hospital trained at Charity Hospital. Charity Hospital is no longer with us because of the ravages of Hurricane Katrina 2 years ago. After Dr. DeBakey completed his internship at Charity, he went on to the University of Strasbourg in France and the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

He volunteered for service in World War II and was subsequently named director of the surgical consultants division of the U.S. Surgeon General's Office. His work during that war led to the development of what we have already heard described today as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the so-called MASH unit. Mr. Green has already eloquently pointed out that we wouldn't have the MASH units today. More importantly, we wouldn't have those forward surgical teams that go into the combat areas and provide vital care to our soldiers in that first golden hour after injury, all of that pioneered by Dr. DeBakey well over two generations ago.

He helped establish the specialized medical and surgical center system for treating military personnel returning home from war, which we now know as the Veterans Administration Medical Center. But it was at Methodist Hospital in Houston where Dr. DeBakey performed many of his groundbreaking surgeries, including the first removal of a carotid artery blockage in 1950, interestingly the year that I was born, the first coronary artery bypass graft in 1964, the first use of a ventricle assist device to pump blood and support a diseased heart in 1966; and then on to some of the first heart transplants in this country in 1968 and 1969.

He developed a self-contained miniaturized left ventricular assist device to pump blood for a diseased heart, something that is in use to this day. The techniques used to miniaturize the device's inner workings were developed by engineers working on the Nation's space program at nearby NASA.

He has served as adviser to every President of the United States for the last 50 years. Think of that, Mr. Speaker: every President for the last 50 years has depended upon Dr. Michael DeBakey for medical advice. He has given advice to heads of state throughout the world and traveled famously to Russia in 1996 to consult on heart surgery for the ailing Boris Yeltsin. I have

to believe, Mr. Speaker, that he did a lot more than consult in that operating room that day 10 years ago.

During his professional surgical career, he performed more than 60,000 cardiovascular procedures and trained thousands of surgeons who practice around the world. Today, his name is affixed to any number of organizations, centers for learning and projects devoted to medical education and health education for the general public.

But think of this, Mr. Speaker: Dr. DeBakey also underwent an operation that was named for him. I picked up a copy of the New York Times last December and read a story about how Dr. DeBakey had undergone the surgery that he himself had described many years before. In fact, Dr. DeBakey admitted that at the time, although he knew he was ill, he never called his own doctor, he never called 911.

``If it becomes intense enough you are perfectly willing to accept cardiac arrest as a possible way of getting rid of the pain.'' This is what he told the New York Times last year. What a unique, what a pragmatic individual.

He helped establish the National Library of Medicine which is now the world's largest and most prestigious repository of medical archives. The National Library of Medicine is something I look at several times a week as I prepare for committee hearings on our Committee on Energy and Commerce, developed and established by Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Mr. Speaker, as we talk in this Congress about the need for improving computer technology for medical records and medical information, Dr. DeBakey was on the forefront of that while most of us were still in grammar school. In 1969 he received the highest honor a United States citizen can receive, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In 1976, his students founded the Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society. His contributions to medicine and his breakthrough surgeries and innovative devices have completely transformed our view of the human body and our view of longevity on this planet. He has been designated as a living legend by the United States Library of Congress; and, today, we take another step in honoring him with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a high honor for me to be associated with this endeavor. And I certainly do thank Mr. Green and thank him for allowing me to be on the telephone when we gave the news to Dr. DeBakey several weeks ago on his 99th birthday. It is imperative that we get this legislation accomplished quickly. I appreciate Mr. Green's willingness to work with the other body in getting this legislation to the floor so swiftly.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the Kennedy-Durbin ``Student Loan Sunshine Act.''

There is no question that having a college education is essential in today's job market. Over the course of a lifetime, a college graduate will earn over $1 million more than those with only a high school diploma.

In addition to the individual benefits of a college education, investing in and producing more college-educated Americans is vital to our nation's growth. Economists estimate that the increase in the education level of the United States labor force between 1915 and 1999 directly resulted in at least 23 percent of the overall growth in U.S. productivity.

However, paying for college is becoming increasingly difficult for students and their families. Tuition at four-year public institutions rose by 42 percent in the last five years, and more and more students are leaving college saddled with ever increasing debt burdens. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the average student debt has increased by more than 50 percent over the last decade. In 2004, college students graduated with an average of $17,400 in federal student loan debt, almost 45 percent more than students who graduated in 1993. When private loans are factored in, the average debt increases to more than $19,000.

As students and their families struggle to find ways to pay for higher education, more and more are forced to turn to private student loans in order to close the gap. Because these loans are not guaranteed or subsidized by the government, they often carry much higher interest rates.

According to The College Board, private student loans are now a $17.3 billion industry. Between the 2000-2001 and 2005-2006 school years, private student loans grew at an average annual rate of 27 percent, after adjusting for inflation.

As more students begin to rely on private student loans to help pay for college, some lenders and colleges are engaging in practices that do not appear to be in the best interests of the students. An article published in The New York Times revealed examples of incentives offered to colleges by student loan companies in order to be placed on a college's ``preferred lender'' list.

An example cited in the article included an all-expense paid trip to the Caribbean for university officials and their spouses to attend an education ``summit'' held at a luxury five-star beachfront resort. Between symposiums, forums and roundtable discussions on the importance of addressing the cost of higher education, guests could enjoy complimentary water and beach sports such as snorkeling, sailing, kayaking, sailboarding and volleyball as well as access to an 18-hole championship golf course, a 10-court tennis complex, two beachfront pools and a luxury spa. News of the trip garnered such a negative response from the public that the sponsor of the trip, Loan to Learn, ultimately cancelled the trip. Aside from all-expense paid trips, other examples of incentives include iPods that were given away at a financial aid administrators meeting and bonuses that are based on how much students borrow.

Colleges and universities should not be enticed to select ``preferred lenders'' or take other actions related to the student loan program on the basis of factors that are irrelevant, or at best ancillary, to the primary interests of the students.

The Student Loan Sunshine Act protects students and parents from potential exploitation by private student loan lenders and lenders that offer gifts to schools as a way to acquire the school's loan business. It ensures that students and their families have all the facts and can feel confident that they're receiving the best deal on their college loan.

First, this bill puts a stop to inappropriate lender practices. Lenders are

prohibited from offering any gift over $10 to employees of a university, including free trips, meals, and tickets to entertainment events. Lenders are no longer allowed to offer services to a financial aid office that create a conflict of interest such as lending staff during peak loan processing times, printing literature for the financial aid office and e-mailing students on behalf of the financial aid office.

Second, the Act provides students and their families access to information about preferred lender lists, special arrangements between lenders and colleges and terms and conditions of loans. A school's preferred lender list must include at least three lenders that are independent from each other, clearly disclose why a lender was identified as a preferred lender, and clearly state that students and parents may take out a student loan with a lender that is not on their school's preferred lender list. This requirement is needed because in some instances, a school's preferred lender list may include what appear to be five different lenders; however, four of the five lenders may turn out to be subsidiaries of a single company. Lenders are required to report to the Secretary of Education any special arrangement they have with colleges to make loans to the students at a school including the terms of the arrangement and any benefit provided to the school in connection with the loan arrangement. In addition, the Act requires the Secretary of Education, along with the higher education community and students, to develop an easy-to-understand form for reporting the terms and conditions of student loans--similar to an APR disclosure.

Finally, the Act encourages students to maximize their borrowing options through the government's loan programs before obtaining private loans with higher interest rates and discourages over-borrowing through direct-to-consumer education loans. Some companies fail to clearly disclose that their private educational loans typically carry a higher interest rate and even encourage students not to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, which allows students to borrow low-interest educational loans. The Act requires all direct-to- consumer lenders to clearly disclose to students certain information such as: the fact that the student may be eligible for low-interest student loans through the federal government, how the interest rate is determined, any and all fees, and whether any complaints have been filed against the lender. Additionally, the Act puts in place provisions that will ensure that before a student obtains an educational loan through a direct-to-consumer lender, the student is informed of their loan options through the federal government and whether the loan will cause the student to exceed what is necessary to cover the student's cost of attendance.

These requirements are simply meant to ensure that as students are about to sign on the dotted line and accept what will likely be one of the largest debts they will incur in their lives, they have the information they need to make an informed decision and some assurance that their school has only their best interests in mind--not visions of the Caribbean or the latest iPod. We must not look away and allow them to be taken advantage of at one of the most critical points in their lives. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.