Lower Mississippi River National Historic Site Study Act of 2009

Mr. President, I rise to speak on legislation I am introducing today that relates to congenital heart disease research. Congenital heart disease is a rapidly growing national health problem. Congenital heart defects are the most common and most deadly form of birth defects, affecting nearly 1 percent of births, approximately 36,000 a year. In fact, a child is born with a congenital heart defect every 15 minutes. A congenital heart defect occurs when heart structures are malformed, missing or in the wrong place. There are over 30 types of congenital heart defects. These defects cause congenital heart disease--cardiovascular problems caused by the birth defect.

The good news is that modern medicine has made major advances in treating heart defects in newborns. In 1950, a child born with a congenital heart defect only had a 20 percent chance of surviving, but today that number has increased to 90 percent. Due to the increase in childhood survival rates, the congenital heart disease population increases by an estimated 5 percent every year.

However, the bad news is that there is no cure for congenital heart disease. Even survivors of successful childhood intervention face lifelong risks, including heart failure, rhythmic disorders, stroke, renal dysfunction, and neurocognitive dysfunction. Sadly, the estimated life expectancy for those with congenital heart disease is significantly lower than for the general population. The life expectancy for those born with moderately complex heart defects is 55, while the estimated life expectancy for those born with highly complex defects is between 35 and 40.

Unfortunately, fewer than 10 percent of adults living with complex congenital heart disease currently receive the cardiac care they need, and many don't know that they should have life-long specialized health surveillance. Even with access to the best care, living with congenital heart disease involves risk. But for people who don't have the medical care or who don't have it promptly, the risks of premature death or disability are much higher.

In 2004, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a working group on congenital heart disease. This group recommended developing a research network for clinical research, establishing a national database of patients, and creating an outreach education program on the need for continued cardiac care.

Today, I am pleased to introduce the Congenital Heart Futures Act, which builds on these recommendations in several ways. First, the legislation authorizes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, to lead a comprehensive public education and awareness campaign around congenital heart disease. Next, it authorizes a National Congenital Heart Disease Registry at the CDC to track the epidemiology of congenital heart disease and creates an advisory committee to provide expert information and advice to CDC. And, finally, it authorizes congenital heart disease research through NHLBI.

Despite the prevalence and seriousness of congenital heart disease, research, data collection, education, and awareness are limited. The Congenital Heart Futures Act will help prevent premature death and disability in this rapidly growing but dramatically underserved population.

I say to those who are interested in promoting health research, this is an area where we can expend more effort and save more lives. I hope my colleagues will take a look at this legislation which we are introducing today and join me in cosponsoring it.

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

Later this week we will mark World Water Day. It is an important reminder of the many challenges we continue to face in providing clean water and sanitation to the world's poor.

We have made progress in recent years, but around the world today, nearly 1 billion people continue to lack access to clean, safe water. More than 2 billion people lack access to basic sanitation. Most of these people live on less than $2 a day. They are the voiceless and the powerless of the world.

That is why today, Senator Bob Corker and Senator Patty Murray and I are introducing the Paul Simon Water for the World Act in the United States Senate. Congressmen Blumenauer and Payne have introduced the same bill in the House.

Our bill will reestablish U.S. leadership on one of the defining challenges of the 21st century: water.

The goal is to reach an additional 100 million of the world's poorest people with sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. This would represent the largest single commitment of any donor country to meeting the Millennium Development Goal on water, which is to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

The bill targets aid to areas with the greatest need. It helps build the capacity of poor nations to meet their own water and sanitation challenges. It supports research on clean water technologies and regional partnerships to find solutions to shared water challenges.

The bill provides technical assistance--best practices, credit authorities, and training--to help countries expand access to clean water and sanitation. Our development experts will design the assistance based on local needs.

The Water for the World Act also designates within the State Department a high-level representative to ensure that water receives priority attention in our foreign policy, and establishes a new Office of Water at USAID to implement development assistance efforts related to water.

We ought to be assigning some of our best minds to solve the global water challenge. Right now, however, we don't have the staff at USAID to meet our goals on water or any other urgent development need.

At a time when it is more important than ever to win the hearts and minds of those around the world, as well as to address the challenges of fragile and failed states, our top development agency is suffering from an inexcusable shortage of expert staff.

In the 1960s, USAID had more than 5,000 Foreign Service Officers; today, when the needs are greater than ever, it has just over 1,000.

To correct this imbalance and help rebuild our smart power, I recently introduced a bill that would triple the number of USAID Foreign Service Officers by 2012. It's called the Increasing America's Development Capacity Act, and it's an essential part of our efforts to rebuild America's smart power role in the world--on food security, health, economic development, and yes, water.

I owe my passion on water to my friend and mentor, the man whose seat I now occupy in the U.S. Senate: the late Senator Paul Simon.

He was a profoundly good and wise man. He was also a visionary. He saw connections that many people missed. He saw answers to problems before most people even saw the problems.

As many of you know, solving the global water crisis was his last great campaign. In 1998, he wrote a book called ``Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It.''

Paul Simon would go anywhere, and talk to anyone, to try to get people and governments to take the global water crisis seriously. In the last year of his life, he traveled to Israel to moderate a panel between the Israeli and Palestinian water commissioners. He said that he and most of the people in the audience--were amazed that the two commissioners agreed on almost everything.

But when he looked in the newspapers the next day, there was nothing about the meeting. Not a word. He said that was ``because nobody was shouting at each other.'' That's part of the challenge.

The global water crisis is a quiet killer. In the developing world, water-related diseases claim the lives of 5,000 children every day. Diarrhea alone kills nearly 2 million children under the age of 5 each year. As CSIS's ``Global Water Futures'' report hauntingly points out, that is the equivalent of all the children under age 5 in New York and London combined.

Mothers who fear the deaths of their children bear more, in a desperate race against the odds. The lack of clean water enslaves poor women in other ways, as well. In many poor nations, women and girls walk two or three hours or more each way, every day, to collect water that is often dirty and unsafe.

The UN estimates that women and girls in Sub-Saharan Africa spend a total of 40 billion working hours each year collecting water. That is equivalent to all of the hours worked in France in a year.

A developing economy cannot grow if its people are too busy collecting water, or too sick from drinking unsafe water, to work or to go to school.

What Senator Simon knew 10 years ago, and the rest of us are slowly coming around to see, is that we can't begin to solve the problems of global hunger and poverty without addressing the global water crisis.

And water is not simply a humanitarian challenge. It is a threat to global stability and the global economy.

Last June, Goldman Sachs held a meeting to assess the top five risks facing the world economy. Resource scarcity--including competition for water, food and energy--was at the top of the list.

Fortune magazine recently predicted that the global water crisis will be as serious in the 21st century as the oil crises were in the 20th, potentially leading to war.

Paul Simon understood the potential for conflicts over dwindling supplies of clean water. It alarmed him. He used to say, ``Nations go to war for oil, but there are substitutes for oil. There are no substitutes for water.'' We see that in the roots of the conflict in Darfur.

I have seen the challenge of water in so many of my recent trips abroad.

Two years ago I travelled to Jordan after a trip to Iraq. I went to talk with people there about the impact of the

war in Iraq on one of our most important allies in the region.

The Jordanian Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Ms. Suhair-al-Ali, told me that between 600,000 and 700,000 Iraqi refugees were living in Jordan at that time. That was equivalent to 10 percent of Jordan's entire population. For us in the U.S., that would be the equivalent of 30 million refugees.

The massive influx of Iraqi refugees had strained the ability of Jordan's government to provide basic services almost to the breaking point. What did the minister identify as one of Jordan's biggest problems? Water.

It is not just Jordan. Water is central to the fate of the entire Middle East.

In his book, Paul Simon quoted former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as saying, ``If we solve every other problem in the Middle East but do not satisfactorily resolve the water problem, our region will explode. Peace will not be possible.''

You do not have to travel halfway around the world to see the devastating consequences of lack of access to clean water.

A few months ago I traveled to Haiti. This was my second visit and it is always a shock. A 90-minute plane ride from Miami takes you to another world.

There are no public sewage treatment or disposal systems anywhere in the country. Even in the capital, Port-au-Prince, a city of 2 million people, the drainage canals are choked with garbage and sewage.

It is no wonder that Haiti has the highest infant and child mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. One-third of Haiti's children do not live to see the age of 5. The leading killer? Water-borne diseases: hepatitis, thyphoid and diarrhea.

While there, I visited a rural health clinic run by a group called Partners in Health, co-founded by Dr. Paul Farmer. Dr. Farmer is a wonderful man who has improved the lives of so many, from Rwanda to Haiti.

He showed me a water purification kit that his clinic gives to nursing mothers with HIV/AIDS. This allows them to make formula for their babies and not transmit the virus through breastfeeding. It is simple, inexpensive, and life-saving.

Some years ago I visited Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Bolivia is an example of what awaits many countries' water supplies because of global warming.

Much of its population relies on melting glaciers for its water. But because of climate change the glaciers are not being replenished and some are already disappearing. These trends are happening from the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro to the Alps to the Himalayas.

How will the world respond to the water needs such as Bolivia and others who rely on glaciers for their water supplies?

I recently returned from a visit to Cyprus. The island has been divided now for more than 30 years. The leaders on both sides are engaged in brave and important discussions to reunify the island. Amid this hopeful progress toward peace, another problem plagues this island--water.

The groundwater in Cyprus is being depleted too quickly, often for agriculture, and it is being replenished too often with salt water that creeps into the water table. Global warming is causing rainfall to decrease.

In recognition of the vast water challenges we face around the world, two years after Paul Simon died, Congress passed the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act. President Bush signed it into law in December 2005.

It represents the first time the U.S. has codified our commitment to any of the Millennium Development Goals. The Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act makes safe water and basic sanitation a top priority for all U.S. foreign assistance.

In 2007 alone, it helped provide nearly 2 million people in over 30 countries with access to a better source of drinking water, and more than 1.5 million people with better sanitation.

The Water for the Poor Act is saving lives, but its impact could be greater. The Paul Simon Water for the World Act will help us expand these efforts to make a profound and sustainable difference in the lives of the world's poor.

As we prepare to mark World Water Day this Sunday, let us recommit ourselves to a new effort on safe water and sanitation.

Throughout history, civilized nations have put aside political differences to address compelling issues of life and survival. Our generation owes the world nothing less.

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

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Imported Ethanol Parity Act of 2009.

This legislation is cosponsored by Senators Gregg, Bingaman, Collins, Cantwell and Martinez.

First, let me explain what this bill does.

The Imported Ethanol Parity Act instructs the President to lower the secondary ethanol import tariff, so that tariffs on ethanol are no higher than the subsidy for blending ethanol into gasoline.

This would restore parity between the real tariff faced by imported gasoline and ethanol, which currently compete.

This legislation is necessary because last year's Farm Bill shifted the function of ethanol tariffs.

Historically, there has been relative parity between ethanol subsidies and ethanol tariffs. The tariffs served to ``offset'' domestic subsidies for ethanol use, thereby preventing imported ethanol from benefiting from domestic subsidies.

But after passage of the Farm Bill, these tariffs began to serve as a real barrier to trade.

The Farm Bill maintained the primary 2.5 percent tariff and extended the secondary tariff for two more years at $0.54 per gallon, creating a combined tariff of $0.56 to $0.59 per gallon, depending on the sale price. But the Farm Bill reduced the ethanol blending subsidy that these tariffs are intended to offset to $0.45 per gallon.

This disparity means that an ethanol importer pays more tariff than he gets back in subsidy, and parity has been lost.

Specifically, an ethanol importer pays $0.11 to $0.14 per gallon of tariff to the U.S. Treasury that he never gets back from the ethanol subsidy.

Ethanol is therefore disadvantaged when it competes directly with other imported transportation fuels, such as gasoline and diesel.

It increases the cost of gasoline in the United States by making ethanol more expensive.

It prevents Americans from importing ethanol made from sugarcane. Sugar ethanol is the only available transportation fuel that works in today's cars and emits considerably less lifecycle greenhouse gas than gasoline.

It taxes imported transportation fuel from our friends in Brazil, India, and Australia, while oil and gasoline imports from OPEC enter the United States tax free.

It hinders the emergence of a global biofuels marketplace through which countries with a strong biofuel crop could sell fuel to countries that suffered drought or other agricultural difficulties in the same crop year. Such a global market would permit mutually beneficial trade between producing regions and stabilize both fuel and food prices.

It makes us more dependent on the Middle East for fuel when we should be increasing the number of countries from whom we buy fuel. When it comes to energy security for the United States, which has less than 3 percent of proven global oil reserves and 25 percent of demand, we must diversify supply.

Bottom Line: Until the tariff is lowered, the United States will tax the only fuel it can import that increases energy security, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and lowers gasoline prices.

This legislation responds to the Tariff's defenders.

In 2006 I introduced legislation to eliminate the ethanol tariff entirely, and in 2007 I cosponsored an amendment to the Energy Bill which would have eliminated the tariff.

The Imported Ethanol Parity Act is a different proposal that I believe addresses the concerns of tariff defenders.

The advocates of the $0.54 per gallon secondary tariff on ethanol imports have always argued that the tariff is necessary in order to offset the blender subsidy that applies to the use of all ethanol, whether produced domestically or internationally.

They argue that the ethanol subsidy exists to support American farmers who produce ethanol at higher cost than foreign producers. For instance, on May 6, 2006, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee stated on the Senate floor that, ``the U.S. tariff on ethanol operates as an offset to an excise tax credit that applies to both domestically produced and imported ethanol.''

On May 9, 2006, the Renewable Fuels Association stated in a press release: ``the secondary tariff exists as an offset to the tax incentive gasoline refiners receive for every gallon of ethanol they blend, regardless of the ethanol's origin.''

In a letter to Congress dated June 20, 2007, the American Coalition for Ethanol, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, the National Sorghum Producers, and the Renewable Fuels Association stated that the blender tax credit is available to refiners regardless of whether the ethanol blended is imported or domestic. To prevent U.S. taxpayers from subsidizing foreign ethanol companies, Congress passed an offset to the tax credit that foreign companies pay in the form of a tariff.

In 2008, the Renewable Fuels Association's Executive Director asserted that ``The tariff is there not so much to protect the industry but the U.S. taxpayer.''

I ask tariff advocates to either support this legislation or explain how a tariff can justifiably be higher than the subsidy it is designed to offset.

Bottom Line: Ethanol from Brazil or Australia should not have to overcome a trade barrier that no drop of OPEC oil must face. The tariffs cannot be justifiably maintained at $0.56-$0.59 per gallon if its intent is to offset a $0.45 per gallon blender subsidy, and it should be reduced.

Climate Change is the most significant environmental challenge we face, and I believe that lowering the ethanol tariff will make it less expensive for the United States to combat global warming.

Here is how: the fuel we burn to power our cars is a major source of the greenhouse gas emissions warming our planet. In California, it accounts for 40 percent of all of our emissions. To reduce this impact, we need to increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles and lower the lifecycle carbon emissions of the fuel itself.

For this reason, in the 110th Congress I introduced the Clean Fuels and Vehicles Act with Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

The legislation proposed a ``Low Carbon Fuels Standard,'' which would require each major oil company selling gasoline in the United States to reduce the average lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy in their gasoline by 3 percent by 2015 and by 3 percent more in 2020.

This concept became a major aspect of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, in which Congress requires oil companies to use an increasing quantity of ``advanced biofuels'' that produce at least 50 percent less lifecycle greenhouse gas than gasoline.

Unfortunately the ethanol tariff puts a trade barrier in front of the lowest carbon fuel available, making it considerably more expensive for the United States to lower the lifecycle carbon emissions of transportation fuel.

The lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol vary depending on production methods and feedstocks, and these differences will impact the degree to which ethanol may be used to meet ``low-carbon'' fuel requirements under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

For instance, sugar cane ethanol plants use biomass from sugar stalks as process energy, resulting in less fossil fuel input compared to current corn-to-ethanol processes. By comparison, researchers at the University of California concluded that ``only 5 to 26 percent of the energy content in corn ethanol, is renewable. The rest is primarily natural gas and coal,'' which are used in the production process.

The most recent research compiled by the California Air Resources Board concluded that the direct lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of imported sugar based ethanol are 73 percent lower than gasoline, while the direct lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of corn based ethanol from the Midwest are 31 percent lower than gasoline.

Even when land use change is factored in, the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of sugar-based ethanol from Brazil is the single least emitting fuel option available for today's vehicles. It is only surpassed on an emissions basis by electric and fuel cell cars, which are unfortunately at least a few years away from widespread adoption.

Biofuels that protect our planet may be produced abroad, and we should not put tariffs in front of these fuels, if we import crude oil and gasoline tariff free.

This legislation accomplishes two goals: it corrects the Farm Bill's mistaken policy that imposed a real trade barrier on clean and climate friendly ethanol imports, giving gasoline imports a competitive advantage over cleaner fuel that simply should not exist at a time we are trying to combat climate change.

It prevents ethanol producers abroad from receiving American ethanol subsidies, which is supposedly the intent of the ethanol tariff.

I think it strikes the right balance, and I urge Congress to pass this legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill that is sponsored by every woman in the Senate. All 17 of us have come together to introduce legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots, called the WASP. Senator Mikulski and I are taking the lead on this with the other 15 women Senators to finally honor over 1,000 of the bravest, most courageous women in U.S. military history.

This is a picture of those brave World War II pilots. They were the first women in history to fly America's military aircraft. Between 1942 and 1944, they were recruited to fly non-combat missions so every available male pilot could be deployed in combat.

The women pilots who graduated from Army Air Force flight training earned their silver WASP wings in Texas. The first class graduated at Ellington Field in Houston and the remaining classes from Avenger Field in Sweetwater, TX.

Throughout their service, these courageous women flew over 60 million miles in every type of aircraft and on every type of mission flown by Army Air Force male pilots except direct combat missions. Although they took the military oath and were promised military status when they entered training, they were never afforded Active-Duty military status, were never commissioned, and were not granted veteran status until 1977, over 30 years after they had served. All these women volunteered to serve their country in wartime. They paid their own way to Texas for training, and when victory seemed certain and the program was shut down, they paid their own way back home.

Over 25,000 women applied for the program, but only 1,830 qualified women pilots were accepted. Unlike the males, females were required to be qualified pilots before they could even apply for the Army Air Force's military flight training program. By the time the war ended, 38 women pilots had lost their lives while flying for their country. Their families were not allowed to have an American flag placed on their coffins.

I wrote about the WASP in my 2004 book, ``American Heroines: The Spirited Women Who Shaped Our Country.'' I wanted to raise public awareness about these military pioneers who have had a tremendous impact on the role of women in the military today. Their examples paved the way for the Armed Forces to lift the ban on women attending military flight training in the 1970s and opened the door for women to be fully integrated as pilots in the Armed Forces.

Today, women fly every type of aircraft, from combat fighter aircraft to the space shuttle. However, despite their cultural impact, the WASP have never received honors, nor have they been formally recognized by Congress for their wartime military service--until now. We, the women of the Senate, are introducing legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the courageous WASP of World War II.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest and most distinguished award this body can award to a civilian. These women are certainly worthy.

There are precedents for this action. In 2000 and 2006, this body awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Navajo Code Talkers and the Tuskegee Airmen, respectively. Those heroes deserved the same type of distinction, and they, too, served in World War II and were finally appropriately honored by their Government. Now it is time for Congress to celebrate the courage of another group of remarkable Americans who served with courage and honor and whose example brought historic change to our Nation. Of the 1,102 WASP, approximately 300 are still alive today and are living in almost every State of our Nation. They have earned this honor, and the time to bestow the honor is now before any of them are away from us and not able to come to the ceremony which I hope we will have.

I am so pleased that every female Senator, all 17 of us, are cosponsors of this bill, and I hope the rest of our colleagues will also join and that we can pass this bill expeditiously.

I would like to take a moment, with this wonderful picture in the background, to read from the bill that we have just introduced today:

Congress finds that--

(1) the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII, known as the

``WASP'', were the first women in history to fly American

military aircraft;

(2) more than 60 years ago, they flew fighter, bomber,

transport, and training aircraft in defense of America's

freedom;

(3) they faced overwhelming cultural and gender bias

against women in nontraditional roles and overcame multiple

injustices and inequities in order to serve their country;

(4) through their actions, the WASP eventually were the

catalyst for revolutionary reform in the integration of women

pilots into the Armed Services;

(5) during the early months of World War II, there was a

severe shortage of combat pilots;

(6) Jacqueline Cochran, America's leading woman pilot of

the time, convinced General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air

Forces, that women, if given the same training as men, would

be equally capable of flying military aircraft and could then

take over some of the stateside military flying jobs, thereby

releasing hundreds of male pilots for combat duty;

(7) the severe loss of male combat pilots made the

necessity of utilizing women pilots to help in the war effort

clear to General Arnold, and a women's pilot training program

was soon approved;

(8) it was not until August, 1943, that the women aviators

would receive their official name;

(9) General Arnold ordered that all women pilots flying

military aircraft, including 28 civilian women ferry pilots,

would be named ``WASP'', Women Airforce Service Pilots;

(10) more than 25,000 American women applied for training,

but only 1,830 were accepted and took the oath;

(11) exactly 1,074 of those trainees successfully completed

the 21 to 27 weeks of Army Air Force flight training,

graduated, and received their Army Air Force orders to report

to their assigned air base;

(12) on November 16, 1942, the first class of 29 women

pilots reported to the Houston, Texas Municipal Airport and

began the same military flight training as the male Army Air

Force cadets were taking;

(13) due to a lack of adequate facilities at the airport, 3

months later the training program was moved to Avenger Field

in Sweetwater, Texas;

(14) WASP were eventually stationed at 120 Army air bases

all across America;

(15) they flew more than 60,000,000 miles for their country

in every type of aircraft and on every type of assignment

flown by the male Army Air Force pilots, except combat;

(16) WASP assignments included test piloting, instructor

piloting, towing targets for air-to-air gunnery practice,

ground-to-air anti-aircraft practice, ferrying, transporting

personnel and cargo (including parts for the atomic bomb),

simulated strafing, smoke laying, night tracking, and flying

drones;

In October 1943, male pilots were refusing to fly the B-26 Martin Marauder, known as the Widowmaker, because of its fatality record. General Arnold ordered WASP director Jacqueline Cochran to collect 25 WASP to be trained to fly the B-26 to prove to the male pilots that it was safe to fly.

During the existence of the WASP, 38 women lost their lives while serving their country. Their bodies were sent home in poorly crafted pine boxes. Their burial was at the expense of their families or classmates. There were no gold stars allowed in their parent's windows, and because they were not considered military, no American flags were allowed on their coffins.

In 1944, General Arnold made a personal request to Congress to militarize the WASP, and it was denied.

On December 7, 1944, in a speech to the last graduating class of WASP, General Arnold said:

You and more than 900 of your sisters have shown you can

fly wingtip to wingtip with your brothers. I salute you . . .

We of the Army Air Force are proud of you. We will never

forget our debt to you.

With victory in World War II almost certain, on December 2, 1944, the

Mr. President, this past fall our Nation's high school graduation class of 2012 took their first steps into their local high school as freshmen. The best research, based on data from all 50 States, tells us that one third of that class of freshmen will not walk across a stage and receive their diploma with their peers in four years.

The numbers are clear: we face a national high school dropout crisis. Every year, an estimated 1.23 million students drop out of high school. To put that number in perspective, it is equivalent to the entire population of the ninth largest city in the country, Dallas.

The President laid out the crisis we face in his February 24 address to Congress:

``In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity--it is a prerequisite.''

``Right now, three-quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma. And yet, just over half of our citizens have that level of education. We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation.''

By any measure, my home state of Iowa is a national leader in terms of graduating students in four years. According to Education Week's Diplomas Count, Iowa has the second highest graduation rate in the country, at almost 83 percent for the class of 2005. Iowa should be applauded for continually graduating such a high percentage of its students in spite of the challenges present in many rural and low- income school districts.

Yet such a lofty number masks a pervasive inability to graduate African-American and Latino students on a level equal to their peers. The graduation rate for African-American children in Iowa is 25 points below the overall 4-year rate. The discrepancy between the rate of Latino children graduating in four years and their peers' rate is even higher at 30 percent.

Just as the data on racial and ethnic minorities paints a grim picture, a look into the Nation's graduation rates for students with disabilities shows many students continue to be failed by the system. The most recent data indicates that slightly more than half of all students with disabilities graduated from high school with a regular diploma. Those rates go down when examining different categories of students with disabilities. For instance, only 43 percent of students with emotional disturbances graduate from high school with a regular diploma. Bear in mind that many of these students do not have a learning disability, and with the proper supports and interventions they can achieve at the same levels expected of their peers.

To reiterate, States like Iowa should be lauded for their success in graduating so many of their young people from high school in four years, but we must also hold those states accountable for their success or failure with vulnerable populations, or we are doomed to pay the price, both morally and economically. That is why I was proud to introduce the Every Student Counts Act last September, and why I am here to reintroduce this legislation in the Senate today.

Since I introduced the first Every Student Counts Act, the Department of Education has taken laudable action to implement a 4-year high school graduation rate through regulations issued last October.

However, the Department's action was not enough to address this crisis. The regulation leaves the specifics of the graduation rate goals and growth targets, and how to calculate Adequate Yearly Progress up to the States. In doing so, the Department indicated that it was more appropriate for Congress to define graduation rate goals, growth targets, and adequate yearly progress through statute. The Every Student Counts Act is designed to do just that.

Because if we do not set clear, consistent, and high graduation rate goals, with aggressive and attainable graduation rate growth targets, we risk falling into the same trap of mediocrity and flat graduation rates that have led us to this crisis.

Schools, school districts and States that are not already graduating a high number of students must be required to make annual progress to high graduation rates.

This act sets a graduation rate goal of 90 percent for all students and disadvantaged populations. Schools, districts and States with graduation rates below 90 percent, in the aggregate or for any subgroup, will be required to increase their graduation rates an average of 3 percentage points per year in order to make adequate yearly progress required under the No Child Left Behind Law.

In addition to setting high standards for graduation rates, the Every Student Counts Act will also make graduation rate calculations uniform and accurate. The bill requires that all states calculate their graduation rates in the same manner, allowing for more consistency and transparency. This bill will bring all 50 States together by requiring each State to report both a 4-year graduation rate and a cumulative graduation rate. A cumulative graduation rate will give parents a clear picture of how many students are graduating, while acknowledging that not all children will graduate in four years.

Before I conclude my remarks, I would like to recognize the work of my colleague in the House, Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, who first sought to address this issue last year and today joins with me in reintroducing the Every Student Counts Act.

I would also like to thank the growing list of organizations representing the interests of children across the country who have signed on to support the Every Student Counts Act. Specifically, I recognize the Alliance for Excellent Education and their President, former Governor of West Virginia Bob Wise, who have been champions in the movement to improve our high schools and turn back the dropout crisis.

We have no more urgent educational challenge than bringing down the dropout rate, especially for minorities and children with disabilities. For reasons we all understand--poverty, poor nutrition, broken homes, disadvantage

childhoods--not all of our students come to school everyday ready to learn. In some cases, it is as though they have been set up to fail. They grow frustrated. They drop out. And, as a result, they face a lifetime of fewer opportunities and lower earnings. Economically, our nation cannot afford to lose one million students each year. Morally, we cannot allow children to continue to fall through the cracks. I believe the Every Student Counts Act puts us on the right track towards turning back the tide of high school dropouts and I ask my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today we face growing concerns about infectious disease which few could have anticipated. Over a half century ago, following the development of modern antibiotics, Nobel Laureate Sir McFarland Burnet summed up what many experts believed when he stated, ``One can think of the middle of the twentieth century as the end of one of the most important social revolutions in history, the virtual elimination of infectious diseases as a significant factor in social life''.

How things have changed! Today many of the world's greatest killers are infectious diseases--including HIV, tuberculosis, malaria--and increasingly our Nation is susceptible. We have concerns about both natural pandemics--such as those caused by influenza--as well as manmade threats.

At the same time that the threat has grown, we have seen an alarming trend as existing antibiotics are becoming less effective in treating infections. We know that resistance to drugs can be developed, and that the more we expose bacteria to antibiotics, the more resistance we will see. So it is critical to address preserving the lifesaving antibiotic drugs we have today so that they will be of use in treating disease when they are needed.

Today over 9 out of 10 Americans understand that resistance to antibiotics is a problem. Most Americans have learned that colds and flu are caused by viruses, and recognize that treating a cold with an antibiotic is inappropriate. Our health care providers are more careful to discriminate when to use antibiotics, because they know that when a patient who has been inappropriately prescribed an antibiotic actually develops a bacterial infection, it is more likely to be resistant to treatment.

When we overuse antibiotics, we risk eliminating the very cures which scientists fought so hard to develop. The threat of bioterrorism amplifies the danger. We have supported increased NIH research funding, as well as bioshield legislation, in order to promote development of essential drugs, both to address natural and manmade threats. It is so counterproductive to develop antimicrobial drugs and see their misuse render them ineffective.

Yet every day in America antibiotics continue to be used in huge quantities when there is no disease present to treat. I am speaking of the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in agriculture. Simply put, the practice of feeding antibiotics to healthy animals jeopardizes the effectiveness of these medicines in treating ill people and animals.

Recognizing the public health threat caused by antibiotic resistance, Congress in 2000 amended the Public Health Threats and Emergencies Act to curb antibiotic overuse in human medicine. Yet today, it is estimated that 70 percent of the antimicrobials used in the United States are fed to farm animals for nontherapeutic purposes including growth promotion, poor management practices and crowded, unsanitary conditions.

In March 2003, the National Academies of Sciences stated that a decrease in antimicrobial use in human medicine alone will not solve the problem of drug resistance. Substantial efforts must be made to decrease inappropriate overuse of antibiotics in animals and agriculture.

Four years ago five major medical and environmental groups--the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, Environmental Defense, the Food Animal Concerns Trust and the Union of Concerned Scientists--jointly filed a formal regulatory petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urging the agency to withdraw approvals for

seven classes of antibiotics which are used as agricultural feed additives. They pointed out what we have known for years--that antibiotics which are crucial to treating human disease should never be used except for their intended purpose--to treat disease.

In a study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 17 percent of drug-resistant staph infections had no apparent links to health-care settings. Nearly one in five of these resistant infections arose in the community--not in the health care setting. While must do more to address inappropriate antibiotic use in medicine, the use of these drugs in our environment cannot be ignored.

Most distressingly, we have seen the USDA issue a fact sheet on the recently recognized link between antimicrobial drug use in animals and the methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureas, MRSA, infections in humans. These infections literally threaten life and limb!

So it should be clear why I have joined with Senator Kennedy in again introducing the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. Senator Kennedy is truly a champion of public health and understands how critical it is to preserve the drugs we must have in our arsenal to combat infectious diseases. I am honored to join with him in an effort to preserve vital drugs and reduce the development of drug-resistant organisms which threaten human health.

This bill phases out the nontherapeutic uses of critical medically important antibiotics in livestock and poultry production, unless their manufacturers can show that they pose no danger to public health.

Our legislation requires the Food and Drug Administration to withdraw the approval for nontherapeutic agricultural use of antibiotics in food-producing animals if the antibiotic is used for treating human disease, unless the application is proven harmless within 2 years. The same tough standard of safety will apply to new applications for approval of animal antibiotics.

This legislation places no unreasonable burden on producers. It does not restrict the use of antibiotics to treat sick animals, or for that matter to treat pets and other animals not used for food.

As we are constantly reminded, the discovery and development of a new drug can require great time and expense. It is simply common sense that we preserve the use of the drugs which we already have, and use them appropriately. I call on my colleagues to support us in this effort.