Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act of 2010

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3199) to amend the Public Health Service Act regarding early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of hearing loss.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record.

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

I rise in strong support of S. 3199, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act. Last year, the House passed the companion measure to this bill, and we are pleased to pass it again with minor modifications.

Every year, more than 12,000 babies are born with hearing loss. Often their condition goes undetected for years, and many of these children end up experiencing delays in speech, language, and cognitive development. However, if the hearing loss is detected early, many of these delays can be mitigated or even prevented, and for that reason, early detection is critical to improving outcomes for these children.

The bill, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act, would improve services for screening, diagnosing, and treating hearing loss in children by reauthorizing the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program, which was first enacted in 2000. The program provides grants and cooperative agreements for statewide newborn and infant hearing services. These programs focus on screening evaluation, diagnosis, and early intervention.

I want to particularly thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from California, Representative Capps, who is the vice chair of the Health Subcommittee, for her hard work on this issue and so many issues. She is a nurse by profession. I am sure you have noticed that many of the health care bills that have come out of the last 4 years during the Democratic majority have been from Mrs. Capps, and she is always, in particular, looking out for children and senior citizens. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I just wanted to address the gentleman's point with regard to the underlying bill containing the language ``such sums.'' I mean, the bill doesn't change anything from the current law. The 2002 Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act, which we are reauthorizing, had that language in it, and we are simply updating the authorization here. It is not changing the language. And the same is true for the bill that passed the House last year. There was a House version, sponsored by Mrs. Capps, and that didn't make any change either. So I just want to remind my colleagues that, you know, again, we passed this bill in March 2009 and then again on the floor I guess later that month, and there wasn't any issue raised by the Republicans at that time. So I just think to raise it now really makes no sense, and we should simply move to pass this. It is very commonsense legislation. It simply reauthorizes the current law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I now yield 3 minutes to the sponsor of the legislation, the

gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes now to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

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

I just wanted to mention that the three bills today are just a small representation of many bipartisan public health bills that the majority and minority worked on together in the Health Subcommittee over the past 2 years. And I wanted to thank the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. Shimkus, for his hard work and cooperation in these efforts. In the summer and fall alone, the House passed 25 bipartisan health bills that came from our Health Subcommittee.

And I also want to thank the staff that worked on these public health bills this past Congress. From the majority is Ruth Katz, Steve Cha, Sarah Despres, Emily, who's here with me, Emily Gibbons, Tiffany Guarascio, Anne Morris, Camille Sealy, Naomi Seiler, Tim Westmoreland, and Karen Nelson, of course. And from the minority, Ryan Long, Clay Alspach, Peter Kielty, and Chris Sarley.

Madam Speaker, I ask for passage of the legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, S. 3199, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act of 2010, has worthy elements. Certainly we support the efforts of early recognition of hearing loss. As Mr. Pallone said, and Mrs. Capps will reiterate, it is not standard practice, or was not standard practice, to perform early detection for hearing loss on newborns. Usually parents, after about a year, would recognize something isn't right, that maybe speech was delayed, and that's when testing would occur. We have found that early testing has benefits. However, our side of the aisle must recommend a ``no'' vote at this time due to the authorizing of appropriations with the language of ``such sums as necessary.'' This type of open-ended authorization abdicates our duty to budget for programs responsibly.

The bill would reauthorize the newborns and infants hearing loss program. It would enable the Secretary of Health and Human Services to assist in recruitment, retention, education, and training of qualified personnel and health care providers. Unfortunately, in reauthorizing this program, the bill contains no limits on authorization of spending for the program. As my colleagues know, authorizing ``such sums as necessary'' in legislation has contributed to the fiscal crisis our country now faces. Our country had a budget deficit of $1.3 trillion in fiscal year 2010, and some are projecting that our country's budget deficit will reach $1.5 trillion this fiscal year. We cannot continue this fiscal irresponsibility by voting for open-ended authorization amounts. We need to include specific authorization amounts in legislation so we can set priorities, if we are to ever get our fiscal House in order.

Madam Speaker, I recommend a ``no'' vote on this legislation so we can work in a bipartisan manner to include specific reauthorization amounts.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, the gentleman is correct in the sense that it is a reauthorization. It strikes the language of 2002 while leaving the language of ``such sums as may be necessary'' for the fiscal year going forward now, but we still have that open-ended language.

And after hearing from the people for the last couple of years, we have an additional emphasis on making sure that we are tighter in the writing of these bills, unlike what was occurring in the year 2002 when this was passed or in 2009 when it passed from committee. That is our only objection here, the authorization of open-ended, ``such sums as may be necessary.''

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his efforts in fighting Alzheimer's and working for those families.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my colleague and our chairman for yielding time.

Madam Speaker, I am rising today in strong support of Senate bill 3199, the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Act. And I am very proud to have introduced the House version of this bill with our colleague Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri. The House did pass this legislation by voice vote in March of 2009, and the Senate version, introduced by Senators Snowe and Harkin, was modified by the Senate HELP Committee and passed by unanimous consent earlier this week. Senate bill 3199 is noncontroversial and would make needed improvements to the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program, as recommended by experts.

Each year, more than 12,000 infants are born with a hearing loss. If left undetected, this condition impedes speech, language, and cognitive development. And I might add, with concerns for the cost, the cost to taxpayers of not recognizing these needs and intervening, the cost in special education, in modified vocational goals for individuals who will be a burden to taxpayers the rest of their lives is unbelievably high.

Since the authorization of the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Program in early 2000, we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of newborns who are being screened for hearing loss. Back in 2000, only 44 percent of newborns were being screened for hearing loss. Now we are screening newborns at a rate of over 93 percent. But you know, our work isn't done yet. According to CDC, almost half of newborns who fail initial hearing screenings do not receive appropriate followup care. And in my work as a school nurse for over 20 years, I had much interaction with students who were lagging behind their classmates due to undiagnosed and/or untreated hearing loss. We can prevent more children from suffering in the classroom and suffering throughout their lives through a better investment in followup and intervention as a part of the successful hearing screening program for newborns and infants.

This legislation would accomplish these goals through reauthorizing the programs administered by HRSA, CDC, and the NIH, providing grants to conduct newborn hearing screening, provide followup intervention to promote surveillance and research. So I am strongly urging my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of Senate bill 3199, to continue building on the great success of these programs.

I thank the chair very much, and I thank him for his great work.

The poet Robert Browning once wrote, ``Grow old with me. The best is yet to be.'' Unfortunately, the golden years can be the worst years for Americans afflicted with Alzheimer's and their families. We have worked with the Senate to put together a bipartisan bill that has just passed here in the United States House of Representatives that I have worked on over the last 2 years that will put together an Alzheimer's plan, a battle plan for our country. And why is it important? I will tell you very simply: 4 million Americans have Alzheimer's today. There are going to be 12 million to 15 million baby boomers with Alzheimer's. They will have a spouse who also has the disease or some other family member. Somebody in the family has to take care of that person. So by the time all the baby boomers have retired, there will be about 25 million to 30 million Americans whose lives will revolve around Alzheimer's.

We have to find a cure for it. We have to find a way of giving more help to these heroes, these families.

My father was a milkman. My mother was a valedictorian. My mother got Alzheimer's. My father kept her in the living room. For 13 years, we kept her in our living room. My father always said that it was an honor that my mother had married him, the milkman. He also said that if the strength of your brain determined who got Alzheimer's, he said that he would have it and my mother would be taking care of him.

But this is an equal opportunity disease. It's an epidemic. If we do not find the cure, if we do not find the cure, the budget problems for our country will be so explosive that it will be impossible to ever balance the Federal budget.

We are now spending a fortune on it, and unless we cure it, we will never be able to deal with the catastrophic consequences personally, for those families, and for our country, in general.

I thank the gentleman for allowing me this personal privilege, because I was pulled away as the bill was being considered.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we now proceed to Calendar No. 673.

I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be printed in the Record.