Seasonal Influenza and Pandemic Preparation Act of 2009

Mr. President, in the absence of the majority leader, who will be here a little later, I have been asked to say that following leader remarks, the Senate will resume consideration of S. 896, a bill to prevent mortgage foreclosures and enhance credit availability. We hope to reach an agreement today on a finite list of amendments--the leader does.

We have been working at that, I can say to the Presiding Officer, so we can complete the bill on Tuesday.

There will be no rollcall votes today. Senators should expect the first vote on Monday to begin at approximately 5:30 p.m. Senators should note we could have more than one vote Monday evening.

With that, I see my colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, the pending business before the Senate is S. 896, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act. I would like to take a few minutes and review the provisions of this bill that Senator Shelby of Alabama and I have offered in the form of a substitute. It is similar to the original bill, but there are some changes. We have been told there are somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen amendments, maybe a little less, that our colleagues have proposed. We are trying to work out a finite list of amendments, to consider them on Monday, with the hope of getting to conclusion of this bill either by Monday or Tuesday--Monday may be a little optimistic but by Tuesday to be able to complete work before moving on to other business.

This is a very important piece of legislation. Many of our residents and citizens are deeply concerned about the foreclosure problems. I have repeated the numbers over and over. I suspect many people are aware, but 10,000 people a day run the risk of losing their homes through default or the auction process. Those numbers have not been shrinking at all. In fact, there are estimates that the numbers may actually increase.

We have tried over the last 2 years any number of steps to reduce and mitigate the foreclosure problem, including inviting the major lending institutions to step up and voluntarily talk about mitigation. That process began as early as the late winter of 2007 and the spring of 2007. Regretfully, those institutions did little or nothing to try to mitigate this problem.

In fact, the previous administration refused to accept the magnitude of the problem, despite overwhelming evidence, even in early 2007, that the foreclosure issue was going to mushroom

far beyond early predictions. Of course, that is exactly what has happened.

Today, most analysts tell us that while there are a lot of elements that contributed to the present condition the economy is in, no one disagrees that a major source of economic hardship began with the residential real estate market. This problem will not be solved until we get to the bottom of it. While there are a lot of other issues to talk about, and we are doing that, until this issue of keeping people in their homes at rates and mortgages they can afford is resolved, this problem will persist.

The legislation Senator Shelby and I offer, along with the support of committee members--and I note the Presiding Officer is a very distinguished member of the committee--is to try to offer some relief. I will explain briefly the provisions of the bill. I invite my colleagues to review it and, hopefully, be supportive on Monday or Tuesday when we try to reach final passage.

We expand the ability of the Federal Housing Administration and rural housing to modify loans. Servicers of the Federal Housing Administration and rural housing do not have the same ability to modify these Federal Housing Administration or USDA loans as they do for non- Government loans they service. Our legislation authorizes the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to give these servicers the opportunity and incentive to participate in the Obama Loan Modification Program or to otherwise modify the loans in ways that are not presently available to distressed homeowners, including reducing interest rates, reducing principal, or stretching out the terms of these Government-insured loans. This is a major provision of the bill. To be able to provide the FHA and USDA with the authority to expand these opportunities can bring a tremendous amount of relief to people under those programs.

Secondly, we expand the access to the HOPE for Homeowners Act. This was legislation we adopted last summer. The legislation makes a number of changes to the HOPE for Homeowners Program to make it more user friendly and effective, including the option to lower fees, streamlining borrower certification requirements, giving the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development limited discretion to determine the amount and the distribution of future appreciation. It bans millionaires from the program and allows for incentive payments to servicers and originators who participate in the program.

The HOPE for Homeowners Act that passed overwhelmingly here, while the intentions for the bill were high, the reality is, the bill didn't even come close to achieving the goals those of us who crafted it thought it would. We have listened to a lot of people over the last number of months as to what could be done to make the proposal more effective and efficient to reach more people. The proposals I have mentioned were the ideas we have accumulated that we believe, and others believe, should make the program far more effective. It will not solve all the foreclosure problems, but it will be a major step in the right direction.

Thirdly, the bill creates more enforcement tools for the Federal Housing Administration to eliminate bad lenders. The bill empowers the Secretary of HUD to expeditiously drop lenders that break Federal Housing Administration rules, including, one, by authorizing the Department of Housing to go after lenders that break the rules but then withdraw from the program to avoid enforcement actions. We put a stop to that. We crack down on the misuse of FHA insurance issued on mortgages originated through unapproved third-party entities, and we authorize HUD to impose penalties on entities that misuse the Federal Housing Administration Ginnie Mae designations, another important housing program.

Fourth, this bill provides a safe harbor for servicers who modify a loan consistent with the Obama plan or refinance a borrower into a HOPE for Homeowners loan. This is a somewhat controversial provision because we end up having a contest between investors and bankers.

The problem is simply this: Even as more and more homeowners have fallen behind in their loans, the response of loan servicers has been inadequate to the issue. In part, their reason for not responding is because they fear they will be sued by investors or competing interests for doing so. The House of Representatives passed a very broad safe harbor provision, very similar to the one our colleague from Florida, Senator Martinez, offered and passed by a voice vote in this body as part of the Senate-passed stimulus bill several months ago. The provision was dropped in conference. The safe harbor provision in this bill is much more narrowly drawn than was the proposal by Senator Martinez. I thank him for it. He was very creative in offering the idea, but there were concerns raised that it was too broad, that we should make it more narrow in its application. So as to not disadvantage investors where they have a legitimate complaint and provide a safe harbor for those who don't deserve it, the safe harbor we crafted is much more narrowly drawn than the House provision or the one that passed the Senate in order to ensure that only servicers that provide modification consistent with the Obama plan get the benefit of the safe harbor.

In addition, this bill ensures that the HOPE for Homeowners refinances are covered as well. That will not satisfy all of the investor community, but it is far better than what was in the House bill or previously authored.

The fifth provision of this bill authorizes an additional $130 million for foreclosure prevention activities. We owe a special thanks to the majority leader, Senator Reid, for its inclusion. He has been consistent over the months that I have been involved in these issues since becoming chairman of the Banking Committee 2 years ago, along with Senator Schumer and others, about providing additional resources for counseling. This bill provides these additional moneys. We have found in the past that where consumers are aware of what is available to them and they get advice as to how to proceed, we are able to reduce the problems of people losing their homes. Once you are in the foreclosure legal web, it is very difficult to help people. Once you are in that court setting, it is hard. So the goal is to try to catch individuals who qualify for some assistance, who would qualify for some relief before they end up in the legal bureaucracy. That is why counseling services have been so valuable over the last number of months, because they have been overwhelmed by the amount of work.

I know in my case, the head of my office in Connecticut, who has been with me for many years, literally every morning he arrives at work, he has e-mails--30, 40, 50 a day--from constituents seeking help because they fear they are about to lose their homes. I know other congressional offices as well as, of course, counselors are also being inundated with requests for help. Obviously, getting good counseling, good solid advice, is important. Senator Reid has provided a very valuable contribution to this legislation with this proposal.

The sixth provision of this bill extends the $250,000 deposit insurance level for 4 years. Presently, that level would expire at the end of this year under an agreement reached earlier with the Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Most people are aware that normally deposits are insured up to $100,000 per account. However, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act increased coverage through the end of this year. This legislation extends the higher deposit insurance limit for banks, thrifts, and credit unions to the year 2013.

Deposit insurance has been a stabilizing force in our banking system since its inception in 1933. It is worth noting that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation originated in the Depression years. There were three things done at that time that had as much to do with the 60 years of relative stability in our economy. One was the formation of the Securities Exchange Commission, which played a very valuable role in beginning to govern those markets and to prohibit or limit some of the wildcatting that went on that created in good part the Depression of the 1930s.

Secondly was Glass-Steagall, which has been controversial with the separation of commerce and banking. We have begun to blur those lines. I was

involved in that effort back a number of years ago when we dealt with the Community Reinvestment Act. Like everyone else in this Chamber, I suspect if we were all asked if we could have anything back and redo, I wish that was one we could go back and revisit. Candidly, it seemed reasonable at the time, the firewalls. But, frankly, I think we could have done a little more to protect and separate those activities.

Third, in addition to the SEC and Glass-Steagall was the FDIC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation--the run on banks. The very day Franklin Roosevelt took office in March of 1933--do not hold me to this number, but something like 5,000 banks declared a holiday, and there was a substantial run. People were frightened they were going to lose the savings they had accumulated, the deposits they had invested or put in these banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, providing that insurance to people that their accounts would be protected in an economic difficulty, had as much to do, if anything, in providing the kind of stability we have seen over the years. But that level of $100,000 has been around for a while. I forget how long, but it goes back several decades--well, 1980. My good friend and colleague in the Chamber, Jonathan Miller, tells me it has probably been since the 1980s for the $100,000, maybe even earlier. So there has been a desire to move this level up with good cause, even in the absence of the predicaments we are in.

So for those reasons, we raised it. I, for one, would have preferred we almost make it permanent--the $250,000--but others wanted to restrain this by the amount of time, and I respect their judgment. So there was a debate whether it should be 1 year or permanent. We settled on 4 years. My sense is, we are not going to roll this back in 4 years; it is going to be at least $250,000.

So for those out there who are concerned about whether there is enough certainty in all of this, while I know they would have preferred a permanent increase, when you are serving with 99 other colleagues here and you are trying to get things done, you have to make some compromises. So the chairman would have liked it permanent, some of my good friends in this Chamber wanted far less than that, and we settled on 4 years. That is the reason that timeframe has come up.

This is going to be tremendously important. The significant extension of the increase in deposit insurance will be especially helpful to smaller financial institutions in our respective States that are worried there would be a run from these institutions, including community banks that derive 85 to 90 percent of their funding from deposits.

So to the community bankers across the country that rightly have been disappointed that every time we talk about banks, we fail to distinguish between the more conservative, responsible activities of our community bankers across the country and the activities of other financial institutions that have had far less than that level of responsibility--so to our friends in the community banking system across the United States: We heard you on this. Many of you would have preferred a permanent raising. I agree with you about that, but this is the best I could do with this bill. It will not roll back, in my view. Eventually, I think we will make this permanent. For the time being, it is 4 years.

By helping community banks protect and grow their deposit bases, this legislation contributes to the effort to improve the availability of capital for lending. That, of course, affects small businesses, microbusinesses, and our constituents across the country. So while this is seen as some security and stability, particularly in the community banking system, this also is very important to small businesses and investors and depositors as well. That is why this legislation needs to be seen in the full context of those who will benefit from it--not only those facing foreclosure but obviously businesses that need borrowing, need that capital to stay alive, let alone try to expand and grow during these difficult times.

The eighth provision of this bill increases the permanent borrowing authority for both the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Credit Union Administration. The bill increases the permanent borrowing authority for the FDIC from $30 billion to $100 billion. It has been since the 1990s--I think 1991, if I am not mistaken, was the time we settled on the $30 billion. It has been since then that there has been--actually long before this economic crisis--a desire to raise that borrowing authority level. So in this bill, we raise the authority from $30 billion to $100 billion. In the credit unions, we raise it to $6 billion.

We establish temporary additional borrowing authority from the $100 billion to $500 billion in the case of the FDIC and from $6 billion to $30 billion in the case of the National Credit Union Administration, to which the regulators may gain access only with--by the way, you only get beyond that $100 billion with the FDIC or beyond the $6 billion if you are part of the National Credit Union Administration if you are able to get the following agreements: The regulators may gain access only with a two-thirds vote by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the National Credit Union Administration, a two-thirds vote by the Federal Reserve Board, and agreement by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the President of the United States. Again, you have to have a two-thirds vote by the Federal Reserve Board, a two-thirds vote by the FDIC or National Credit Union Administration, approval by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the President of the United States. I hope my colleagues would feel those are enough safeguards that you would not find regulators being able to raise those amounts without going through some significant hoops, and the circumstances would have to be such that these various offices would agree.

FDIC--Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation--Chairman Sheila Bair has said that the temporary authority would allow the FDIC to reduce the special assessments on banks by as much as 50 percent, increasing lending by as much as $75 billion.

Again, going back to our banking community and their concerns about assessments, the fact that we are doing it, reducing those assessments by as much as 50 percent, is no small achievement. Again, it is real relief. By doing so, there is the likelihood these institutions can provide additional lending because those assessments will not be too high, which helps small businesses and borrowers across the country. Again, it is not unlike raising insurance levels.

We think these provisions will also make a great contribution to getting lending going again. The one thing we all hear from our constituents over and over again is: We are having a hard time accessing capital. So we hope these provisions will provide some additional relief in that area.

The ninth provision of this bill stretches out the payment of assessments to rebuild the bank, thrift, and credit union deposit insurance funds to 8 years. This is a very important provision. Again, it goes and relates to the last two provisions I talked about because, again, while we think we are providing some relief in terms of the amount of assessments, over what period of time you have to pay them is also a critical issue for these smaller lending institutions. By doing what I have just suggested--stretching it out to 8 years--community banks and credit unions will be able to devote more of their resources to making loans in the communities they serve.

This provision is especially important for credit unions because of the way their deposit insurance system is structured; otherwise, these institutions would have to rebuild their fund in 1 year, which could lead to a severe reduction in lending. So it is a major provision for both community banks and credit unions but particularly in the case of credit unions.

The 10th provision of the bill improves the FDIC's systemic risk special assessment authority. Again, it is related to the last three provisions I have mentioned. The Government's recent use of its systemic risk authority benefited large bank holding companies and their nonbank affiliates, shareholders, and creditors as well. Yet to recover any losses from systemic risk, the FDIC may now only charge banks and thrifts themselves. Obviously, this would unfairly burden community and other traditional banks, particularly

those with few or no nonbank activities.

What we have done in this bill would allow the FDIC, with the Treasury Secretary's concurrence, to directly assess bank holding companies if they stand to benefit from the Government's actions and correspondingly to reduce the cost to our community banks. Again, this is a major provision. It is a technical one, maybe, to many, but again, since a lot of these institutions do not have any nonbanks--and therefore run the risk in the absence of this provision--they could end up being assessed for those charges. This would allow the Secretary of the Treasury and the regulators to seek those assessments for the institutions that ought to be assessed since they are the ones benefiting from that program.

So these provisions, while they are technical in nature, I say to my colleagues--and they are not the kinds of issues you can explain necessarily in a quick sentence before a townhall meeting--let me tell you, they are very important. Are they going to solve the economic crisis? Absolutely not. Are they going to make a difference? Absolutely. Absolutely. So while this bill does not get the same degree of notoriety that others have, it is a critical component to getting our economy moving again.

For those of you who have heard--as I have heard over and over--from our community bankers, our community small businesses: Where is the lending, we think this bill, while it is not going to cause a floodgate to open in terms of lending, it lifts a lot of those barriers and restraints that people have otherwise felt when it comes to lending practices.

So do some of these community banks and thrifts and credit unions benefit as a result of this? Yes, they do. But let me remind you, when they do, the borrowers, the homeowners, the small businesses who are desperate for that lending, that capital, or to mitigate foreclosure, are a direct beneficiary of this legislation. So this is a bill where literally both the lending institutions and the borrowers are direct beneficiaries, and one of the reasons I think it is so important we try to adopt this as quickly as we can.

My hope is that on Monday or Tuesday we will be able to handle a few of these amendments, some of which have nothing to do with this bill. We have to deal with the TARP money and others things, and I appreciate people's concerns about that issue. But let's not miss an opportunity now to get this right.

If this bill becomes loaded down with a lot of other amendments--and I am always hesitant to speak for the majority leader, but in my conversations with him, he has indicated he is not going to spend forever on this. We will come back to it--recognizing that at some point, whether it is later this summer or next fall or maybe next winter, we could come back to this, I think that would be a tragedy because I think we can get this done. Senator Shelby and I have worked hard on a bipartisan basis to put this legislation together. We have a very good Banking Committee that has worked on this legislation as well. And I think we would miss an opportunity not to get this done.

So to my colleagues who would like to bring up a lot of other issues--and I do not question their motives or sincerity behind those ideas that have little or nothing to do with this--I would urge restraint or we may run the risk of losing an opportunity to get this bill done.

There are a lot of other matters before this body that the leader has to get up for consideration. He cares deeply about this issue, as I have evidenced by the fact that he has contributed directly to this bill. But he also has other matters that deserve our attention. He has provided me the opportunity, along with Senator Shelby, to get this bill done. Let's not miss this opportunity.

People talk about bipartisanship, working together. That is exactly what Senator Shelby and I have done with our respective staffs to produce this product. It is not exactly everything Senator Shelby would agree on. It is not everything I would agree on. But together we feel this is a product that deserves the support of our colleagues.

Let me, lastly, if I can, suggest to you that there are a number of very diverse groups that support our efforts. The Center for Responsible Lending is a strong advocate of this bill. The Credit Union National Association supports this bill. The Independent Community Bankers Association strongly supports this bill. The National Consumer Law Center supports this legislation. The American Bankers Association, the National Association of Consumer Advocates supports this bill, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the Housing Policy Council. To those who think this is just another list of organizations, let my remind those who are not familiar with these organizations, that is a very diverse list. You do not normally find consumer groups and the American Bankers Association, community bankers and the Center for Responsible Lending all agreeing on a bill. Yet that is exactly what has occurred with this legislation. So if you have any doubts about the importance of it, I would invite my colleagues to contact any of these organizations and ask them how significant this bill is.

Technical, it may be, in nature, and yet it is these technical corrections and improvements which can make a difference in the lives of our fellow citizens who are anxious--to put it mildly--that we step up and get the job done, get our economy moving again, restore our optimism and confidence as a people, and provide the kinds of steps that will move us in that direction.

Mr. President, lastly, I ask unanimous consent that letters of endorsement from various organizations I have just recited be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I have come to speak about the subject of energy, but before I do that, I wish to speak about the issue of Roxana Saberi and the fact that she sits this morning in a 10-foot by 10-foot cell in Evin Prison just outside of Tehran, Iran.

Let me describe, as I have previously done so, this young woman. This is a picture of Roxana Saberi. She was born and raised and educated in Fargo, North Dakota. Her father came to this country from the country of Iran about 35 years ago. As a result, Roxana, born and raised in this country, is an American citizen. However, her father was an Iranian citizen and has Iranian citizenship. Thus, this young woman is considered an Iranian citizen as well.

Let me tell you a bit about her. She was an all-star scholar, an all- star athlete. She graduated from high school in Fargo, North Dakota. She got a bachelor's degree. She competed in the Miss North Dakota Pageant and was Miss North Dakota. She competed in the Miss America Pageant and was one of the 10 finalists in the pageant. She went to Northwestern University and got a master's degree at Northwestern University. She then went to Cambridge, England, and in Cambridge received a master's degree in international studies. She worked for a television station in North Dakota in the middle of all of that. Later, she went to Iran because she was very interested in her heritage. While in Iran, she reported for National Public Radio and BBC in England. She reported for those entities and many others.

At the end of January of this year, she was arrested by the Iranian authorities and put in prison. She was arrested, presumably for purchasing a bottle of wine. They threw her in prison. She was there incommunicado, unable to communicate with anyone for a good long while. She was later told her arrest was not for purchasing a bottle of wine but, rather, for reporting without a license--being a reporter and reporting without a license.

She was finally allowed about a 1-minute telephone call to her parents in the United States. Then she was allowed to see an attorney. Then they held a very brief, closed-door trial in Tehran, Iran and found her guilty, sentencing her to eight years in prison for espionage.

The Iranian Government went from purchasing a bottle of wine which justified her arrest and detention in prison, to reporting without a license, to espionage, and to an 8-year prison sentence. Today, Roxana Saberi sits in a 10-foot by 10-foot cell with two other women in that prison.

I visited this week with the Swiss Ambassador to Iran, who came to this country and stopped in to see me. The reason I mention the Swiss Ambassador is because we do not have an embassy in Iran nor do we have an ambassador there. We do not have diplomatic relations with this country, so the Swiss Embassy is our protectorate. So we have an intercessor. They have been working with us to talk with the Iranian officials.

This is an unbelievable miscarriage of justice and needs to be rectified. The fact is, the Iranian officials should understand that they have detained this young journalist and thrown her in prison. They have charged her with espionage and sentenced her to eight years in prison, thus the spotlight of the world is on them. Their credibility is at stake.

I hope the Iranian officials will do the right thing: release her from prison and allow her to leave the country of Iran. It is past time, long past the time for them to make the right judgment. They have made a number of wrong judgments in recent weeks and months. This young woman has been in prison since the end of January. It is a complete miscarriage of justice. For them

to charge her with being a spy and find her guilty of espionage is almost unbelievable. They know better than that. I call on the Iranian Government to release her from prison and allow her to leave the country of Iran.

Most governments in the world have now communicated with the country of Iran about this case. I hope we will not have to be talking about this case much longer. I hope the Iranian authorities and its Government will do the right thing.

Roxana Saberi should not be in prison. She is a very accomplished young woman who was in the country of Iran because she treasured her heritage. Because she was in Iran, she was apparently arrested on what I believe are trumped-up charges and has been sentenced in a way that completely defies any reasonable sense of justice.

Again, my hope is Iranian officials will begin to do the right thing and do it very soon. I call on them to release this young woman from prison and allow her to leave the country of Iran.

Energy Policy

Mr. President, I wish to talk about energy policy. There are so many different issues we confront in this country, and we have been leapfrogging from one issue to another. We have a very serious financial crisis and financial collapse in this country. We have seen, month after month after month, 600,000, 650,000 people losing their jobs, in an economy that has substantially collapsed, and we are hoping now is at bottom. We are hoping we will begin to rebuild once again. But when we talk about 3.7 million people having lost their jobs just since this recession began. This is a very serious situation.

So the financial crisis that is one issue. On top of that, day after day we hear of other significant challenges--a crisis now that might turn out to be a pandemic dealing with swine flu, and requiring the U.S. Government to move very quickly to address that. I just described one issue in Iran. The reality is that we have a country that wishes to build a nuclear weapon and imprisons innocent young women. Further, there are concerns about North Korea and their actions in recent weeks. We have no end to challenges. We are trying to figure out what and where we go with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan. What do we do about Iraq? How do we address the issue of terrorism? There is no end to the issues we face.

I have been in both Afghanistan and in Iraq and that region dealing with, not only the internal issues of both countries which are very difficult, but the issue of terrorism in the region is something very important to us.

My point is that we are working on many issues and all of them critically important. But let me describe one issue that, if something catastrophic happened some night about midnight, would put this country flat on its back. That concern is energy and our unbelievable dependence on foreign energy.

Let me put a chart up that shows oil consumption. This is a chart showing the top oil consumers in the world. At the top of the chart is the United States. The next largest is China and so forth. We put little straws in this planet and suck oil out. We suck 85 million barrels of oil every day out of the Earth--85 million barrels a day! One-fourth of it is needed for the United States. Think of that: One- fourth of everything that is taken out of this planet in the form of oil is needed in this country. We have an unbelievable appetite for oil to turn into energy.

Another statistic: Of the 21 million barrels a day that we use in the United States, nearly 70 percent comes from outside our country. We are 70 percent dependent on oil supplies from outside of our country. Another statistic: Nearly 70 percent of all the oil that we use is used in the transportation sector. We get behind a steering wheel, put the key in the ignition, get the seat real comfortable, put whatever we are going to put in the cup holder, and away we go using oil. As I said, 70 percent of that which we use is used in transportation, and nearly 70 percent of that which we use comes from outside our country.

Think through for a moment: If somehow terrorists interrupted the supply of oil to this country or were able to destroy one of the major supply lines or one of the major facilities in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere, then we would be in very significant difficulty. This demonstrates how we are unbelievably dependent on oil.

I think we are going to continue to use oil, natural gas and fossil fuels in our future for a long time. We are going to need to use them differently by decarbonizing them and have less CO2 emitted, but the fact is we are going to continue to use fossil energy. Much more importantly, how do we, even as we continue to use that oil, make the U.S. less dependent on that oil which others produce? Well, the way we do that, it seems to me, is to define a different kind of energy future. To decide that, we are going to produce renewable energy and that we are going to do so by maximizing the production of renewable energy domestically. If we are producing a lot of energy from the wind and a lot of energy from the sun, or biomass or other alternatives, it means we need to import less oil. That is a fact.

We are going to have a lot of debates, and it wasn't too many months ago on the floor of the Senate that we had folks coming with big signs that said: Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill. The whole notion was you have to drill more. Well, you know what, I am for drilling more. It makes sense to me.

By the way, if you are going to drill more, the place you would go, it seems to me, is in the eastern Gulf of Mexico--where you have substantial opportunities to achieve more production. The only area that has been newly opened in the Gulf of Mexico in recent years is something called lease 181, which four of us, myself, Senator Bingaman, then-Senator Talent, and Senator Domenici introduced legislation to open. It got narrowed some, but we got it done, and that became law. They had a lease sale, and we now have the opportunity to get some energy from lease 181, which is a reasonably small area in the eastern gulf.

My point is: We should drill more. Let us drill where it makes sense and add to our stock. But the fact is, that in itself will not solve our problems. Senator Voinovich and I introduced legislation in recent weeks called the National Energy Security Act of 2009. It is bipartisan and addresses a wide range of issues of things we have to do to address this energy issue. Right now, in the authorization committee of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we are beginning to write a new energy bill as well, and I am pushing very hard to include those kinds of provisions in a new energy bill that will, I hope, come to the floor of the Senate reasonably soon.

Here are the kinds of things this represents--the achievements I think we have to strive for in a new energy bill. It is what we have included in the National Energy Security Act. Number 1, reduce our dependence on foreign oil; Number 2, increase domestic production--and that is not just oil but production of all sources of energy--Number 3, electrify and diversify our vehicle fleet because as I indicated, 70 percent of our energy is used in transportation; and by doing this we can move toward an electric drive future with respect to vehicles, and then even beyond that, hydrogen fuel cells with respect to the long- term future--Number 4, create a transmission superhighway; and, Number 5, train the energy workforce of tomorrow.

The transmission superhighway is a critical part of this because we don't have a transmission superhighway similar to the interstate highway system in this country. We have a transmission system that is kind of like an old inner tube with patches on it. Much of it is old, with some new, but it does not have a transmission capability that connects all of America. What we need to do is maximize the potential of renewable energy.

How do we do that? Well, the wind blows especially hard from Texas to North Dakota. What you need to do is to capture that wind energy and move it to where it is needed. For example in North Dakota, while it can produce a lot of wind energy--the Department of Energy calls it the Saudi Arabia of wind--North Dakota doesn't need the additional wind energy. But if it can produce it, it must move it to where it is needed. From Texas to California, in the heartland of our country, where you can produce a lot of energy from the wind, you need to have a modern grid that connects it to areas of the country that can use, and must have, the product of that wind energy.

I mean, this is simple. You take energy from the wind and, through a turbine, turn it into electricity. You can do a lot of things with it, but most notably you would put it on a grid and move it to where it is needed. Or you can, through electrolysis, separate hydrogen from water and store a hydrogen fuel from it.

This is an example of an interstate transmission system. We have all seen these. Actually, there are new technologies now that would allow it to be put underground and perhaps would be much more efficient and much less costly. But anyway, if you don't modernize the transmission grid and create a superhighway of transmission capability connecting all of America, you cannot possibly maximize wind energy or solar energy or biomass or others. You can't possibly do it. If we can get a bill to the floor of the Senate that is tepid or halting with respect to how we want to do this, or even whether we want to do it, we can talk until we are blue in the face. But we will not have done this country any favors in maximizing the production of renewable energy.

I mentioned a transmission system. The transmission system is necessary for wind and solar energy, and so on. Most of us now understand what this wind energy means. I know it was a fanciful idea not too many years ago to talk about getting energy from the wind, but with the new technology with respect to the turbines, you can put a big old tower up and some very large blades and you can grab energy from the wind and produce electricity. Once you put that tower up, you can make a few adjustments here or there, but for the next 30 years, you are going to be getting wind energy for virtually nothing. I understand we have to talk about maintenance, but understand that wind is free.

By the way, free energy comes from sun as well. As we know, the wind comes from different warming trends of the Earth, the sun shines all the time and has an unbelievable amount of energy that it focuses on the Earth, both in solar energy and wind energy. We need to harvest it and we need to take advantage of it with solar cells and a whole range of different approaches using solar and wind energy.

The only way it will work, however, is if we have, as I said, an interstate transmissions system. This system has three components to it that make it controversial: Who is going to plant it? Who is going to site it? And who is going to pay for it? Now, let me give a statistic. In the last 9 years, we have produced 11,000 miles of natural gas pipeline in this country, moving natural gas all around the country. During those 9 years, we have been able to build only 640 miles of high voltage transmission lines. Let me say that again. We have built 11,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, and during the same period we could only build 640 miles of high voltage transmission lines.

Why is that? It is because it is hard to build transmission lines. Nobody wants them to cross their interstate transmission lines. Talking about interstate now. They have proven very difficult to build because you have several different jurisdictions that have to give approval and a good many of them simply say, ``Not in my back yard. Take a hike.'' We have to address those issues. Is it controversial? Sure it is. But if we don't address it, I guarantee you this country can talk and talk and talk about moving toward more renewable energy, but we will never get there. We will not get there. Now, if we do that--move toward more renewable energy and put it on transmission lines to move it where it is needed--it will allow us to move toward an electric drive future for our vehicles, which I think is very important.

I have often mentioned my first vehicle as a young kid was an antique--a 1924 Model T Ford. It is interesting--I will not tell the whole story about my Model T Ford--but I restored it in 2 years as a young teenage kid. I loved to do that stuff. When I got it running again, got it painted and all fixed up, it was a car that was serviceable, right? It was running. The Model T ran. The interesting thing about vehicles is that everything--everything--in a vehicle has changed since they made a Model T--everything. It doesn't matter what you talk about--tires, the radiator, the spark plugs, you name it--it has all changed. There is now computer capability. But the one thing that hasn't changed is the gas tank. The gas tank on that car that was built nearly a century ago is the same as the gas tank on the current vehicle. You filled it the same way as you do now: You looked for a gas pump, drove up there, stuck a hose in the tank and started pumping.

Nothing has changed about the way we fuel vehicles. But we have to change that. If 70 percent of our oil is used in the vehicle fleet--in transportation in this country--then we have to decide if we are going to be less dependent on Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Venezuela and Iraq and so on, and change the way we fuel vehicles.

Here is a picture of an electric drive vehicle. I don't quite know the form, but we have electric drive vehicles on the road today. There is much more sophistication in the development of these vehicles. In my subcommittee, I put in $2 billion in the economic recovery program for grants for battery technology because we want to lead the world in battery storage. That is part of the key to an electric drive future. We want to lead the world in storage capacity.

Some of the electric vehicles, perhaps--whether you have plug-in vehicles, plug-in hybrids, there are all kinds of different approaches--will run on batteries, and when the battery runs a bit low, there will be a tiny engine someplace that starts and provides some additional charging for the battery. There are all kinds of different approaches, but the fact is we need to move in this direction, and I believe we will. But it will happen only if we decide as a country to embrace the policies that allow us to do it, and that is substantial additional development of renewable energy--the capability of building an interstate transmission system and getting it done with high voltage wires. If we do all that, we can change our energy future. That is a fact.

I mentioned a few moments ago about drilling. The fact that I want to maximize renewable energy doesn't mean I don't want to produce what we need to produce, and that is additional oil and natural gas, and continue to use coal as we decarbonize the use of coal. But in the legislation Senator Voinovich and I have introduced, we open the entire eastern gulf for expansion of drilling. This is a very important area where there is substantial additional opportunity for drilling. It is now closed, by the way. This little area, lease 181, is the area we opened, the four of us, by legislation in recent years. That is the only area that has been opened. We need to do this, and we need to demonstrate we are serious about energy and all forms of energy.

I have talked a lot about production and then moving it to where it is needed. Conservation is critically important, and in the legislation we have introduced, we have substantial conservation capability as well. But the fact is, when you save a barrel of oil, it is the same as producing a barrel of oil. I believe we have great opportunity to conserve.

While I am speaking, there are a whole lot of folks who left their homes to go to work today. They have all kinds of appliances plugged in. It is true at this point that the toaster is not pushed down, toasting bread, you know. Many of the appliances are not actually triggered, but they are still using some energy because they are plugged into the wall. At midnight and 2 o'clock and 4 o'clock in the morning, almost every home is still heating water. You tell me the name of somebody who is going to shower at 3 a.m. The whole country is heating water at 2 a.m.--for what? The point is, we can do a lot more and do it a lot better through conservation. That deals with the issues of smart grid and smart metering and a whole range of issues of that type.

If someone wonders whether all of this is important, I want to show you this black spot on the map. This is a map of the United States of America, and the lights show where electricity is used at night. You can see the population centers. But over here, there is one big black hole. That is because it is August 14, 2003, and 50 million people lost their electricity. Do you see that? Ohio to New York, 50 million Americans discovered the switch they used to flick up doesn't yield any energy, the toaster they used to push down doesn't produce any energy; no energy at all,

and all of a sudden you have a huge dark spot for 50 million Americans. If you wonder about the importance of this, I am talking about the reliability of a system for something we take advantage of every single day.

We are drafting a bill right now in the Energy Committee, and there is a great deal of disagreement about a renewable energy standard requirement that at least 15 percent of electricity is produced from renewables. That should not be controversial at all. In fact, I think a couple dozen states have gone way beyond the Congress on this issue. That should be a slam dunk, but it is not.

Building a transmission system--we are going to have a lot of opposition. But no country gets where it wants to go unless it sets a course. There is an old saying: If you don't care where you are, you are never lost. This country has to set a course and say: Here is where America wants to head for a decade. If, at the end of that decade, we are not less dramatically dependent on foreign oil for this country's energy needs, we are going to be held hostage for a lot of interests around this country. We need to do this, we need to do it right, and we need to do it soon.

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

Mr. President, I am introducing the Seasonal Influenza and Pandemic Preparation Act of 2009. The bill was given the number S. 953. This bill would establish a nationwide free, voluntary influenza vaccination program, under which any individual in this country may receive an annual influenza vaccine shot free of charge.

I offered this bill 3 years ago because at that time we started the process of building up our vaccine capacity. I will have more to say about that. What is happening currently with H1N1 being almost at a pandemic stage now, it brings home again what we need to do in this country to be prepared, and that is what this bill is about. Offering free flu shots to everyone in the United States is a good idea in and of itself.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an average of more than 40,000 Americans die each year from flu-related diseases and causes. Think about that: 40,000 Americans die every year due to flu- related causes. Seasonal flu is responsible for more than 31 million outpatient visits and more than 3 million days annually in the hospital. Seasonal flu costs the U.S. economy nearly $90 billion annually, including $10 billion in direct medical costs--$10 billion a year just in direct medical costs. Think about that: 40,000 people dying every year, $10 billion in direct medical costs, $90 billion annually in lost productivity to our economy, over 3 million days in the hospital every year, and this is seasonal flu.

We can significantly reduce all those numbers. In addition, there is some evidence that people who are vaccinated each year against seasonal flu viruses actually build up a limited degree of resistance to pandemic viruses. So strictly as a matter of prudent prevention, it is desirable to maximize the number of Americans who are vaccinated against flu each year. By offering the vaccinations for free and making them conveniently available, we would remove major barriers to more widespread participation.

There is precedence for this. Medicare, right now, will pay for one seasonal flu shot for everybody on Medicare every year. So we already have that out there. We just need to get it to the rest of the population.

There are other compelling reasons for establishing a nationwide voluntary free flu vaccination program. Let me explain.

As chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds health programs, I have taken the lead in the past in providing funding to prepare for a future flu pandemic. Since 2006, my subcommittee has provided more than $6 billion to these activities.

As a consequence, while public health authorities in the United States may have been surprised by the H1N1 virus outbreak, they have not been caught unprepared. To the contrary, since 2006 we have undertaken very robust measures to prepare for exactly this kind of outbreak and potential pandemic.

First, we have made major investments in antivirals that can be given to a person once exposed and shows signs of the illness. We have made major investments in medical equipment, which are right now, as we speak, being distributed nationally to our local public health authorities across the country. Many of them are now in place. Many started going out earlier this week. I daresay that probably most, if not all, of them are probably out there right now--from the stockpiles that we built up. There are over 50 million doses of Tamiflu and Relenza that we built up in our stockpile. Well, not all of that, but most of it, has gone out around the country to be prepared.

Second, we have stepped up our public health and surveillance activities, which helped us to detect the H1N1 virus earlier than we otherwise might have.

Third, we have increased the capacity of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify viruses and respond aggressively and very immediately, including producing what is called a ``seed'' virus, necessary for the development of a vaccine. That is being done right now.

Fourth, we have also made major investments in building up our vaccine production capacity in the United States. Mr. President, when we started on this in 2005, there was at that time only one plant in the entire United States of America that could produce flu vaccines-- one. I believe it is located in Pennsylvania, and that was making vaccines based upon an old methodology of using eggs. We had to use millions of eggs every year to produce that vaccine, and that takes a long time.

There have been, in the research and development, processes by which we can make cell-based vaccines. We can shorten the timeframe. That is nice, but we don't have any cell-based plants in the United States. In the fiscal 2006 bill, we put over $3 billion out there to build these plants. They are being built now. So we are building up our vaccine production capacity and doing it in a way in which we can get the vaccines produced more rapidly.

Fifth, we have funded research into adjuvants. These are agents that increase the vaccine's effectiveness. Let me put it this way. If we have one dose of a vaccine, we might actually be able to cut that dose down and give that one dose to four or five people by adding the adjuvant to it.

Lastly, we have worked with State and local public health agencies to boost their capacity to respond to a flu pandemic. We have done that, but because of the economic downturn many of our State budgets have been slashed. In our States around the country, we were told at our hearing the other day, over 60,000 people have been laid off from our public health agencies. That makes it more difficult to get the antivirals out to people who may come down with H1N1 or any other kind of flu virus.

Because of all these things we did, I think I can safely say there is no reason for anyone anywhere in the United States to panic because of the H1N1 flu virus. As I said, one of the most important things we have done is to build up our vaccine manufacturing capacity.

Here is the problem. This really is the crux of this bill I have introduced today. Say we build up the vaccine manufacturing capacity and we build these plants that can respond aggressively and immediately to a pandemic outbreak. What happens the rest of the time? What happens? Do they sit there idle, not being utilized? We cannot have that.

What we need to do is to use these plants, then, to make more of the seasonal flu vaccines every year. Well, if we have the plants out there, and they make more of the seasonal flu viruses but not everybody is using them, what do we do, just throw it away? We want the plant capacity to prepare for any

pandemic in the future, but they need to be active and they need to produce annually. If they are going to produce annually, then we have to find something to do with these vaccines.

By offering annual free vaccines to every single person in America, we will keep our vaccine production capacity up and running. It will be ready to shift at a moment's notice, when necessary, from producing seasonal flu vaccines to a mass production of vaccines to fight any future outbreak or pandemic.

There is another reason for this bill. If we are faced with a flu virus pandemic, we are going to have to mobilize people. We are going to have to get the vaccines out in a hurry and get the vaccines right down to the individual people all over this country--people in small towns and communities, in rural areas, and in cities. Well, by having an annual free flu vaccination, we will give public health agencies across America valuable experience in administering vaccines to masses of people, local agencies that will have a reason to develop trained cadres of people who are capable of administering vaccines.

We will also develop an established network of sites that might include grocery stores, shopping malls, schools, places of worship, and senior centers where people can conveniently go to get vaccinated in case of an outbreak. These annual activities will significantly increase State and local public health readiness to fight a pandemic. Not all these people are going to be employed by the Government. These will be volunteers, but they will be trained. They will know where to go and how to administer a vaccine because they will be doing it on an annual basis, free of charge, to people. We will build up a network of sites and a cadre of people who can be relied upon in case we face a pandemic.

On Tuesday, in response to the H1N1 outbreak, I chaired an emergency hearing on the Health Appropriations Subcommittee. We heard assessments of the outbreak from top medical experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the renowned and remarkable Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH.

Years ago, when we first started this, back in 2005, Dr. Fauci warned us that it is not a matter of ``whether'' there will be a flu pandemic but rather ``when'' it will happen. It is not a matter of whether but when.

When the Senate drafted its version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this year--the stimulus bill--I included an additional $870 million for pandemic preparedness. Most of that funding was to be used to complete the work of building up our vaccine production capacity; in other words, to get these plants built more rapidly. Unfortunately, it was taken out in the final bill. Again, what we are trying to do is shift from egg-based production to cell-based production, so we can get these vaccines developed more rapidly. Taking it out of the stimulus bill was the typical shortsighted resistance that I have often encountered when I talk about this.

Some accused me a couple years ago of crying wolf. The wolf is here. One day in the future we can encounter an even worse wolf, such as the flu pandemic of 1918, which was the Spanish flu. It infected one out of three people worldwide and killed more than 50 million people. It would be the height of folly not to do what we can to prepare for such a possibility. The harsh reality is that we have repeatedly experienced flu pandemics. I mentioned the one of 1918 and 1919.

There was the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 and 1958 that killed over 1.5 million people.

The Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968 and 1969 killed over 1 million people. Not only did it kill over 1 million people, it caused hundreds of millions of illnesses and hospital stays all across the globe.

We cannot predict the future course or severity of the current H1N1 outbreak, but clearly it is one more wake-up call.

Again, I am reintroducing the Seasonal Influenza and Pandemic Preparation Act today as a stand-alone bill. I first introduced it in 2005, as I said. It is now a stand-alone bill. We either pass it that way or, if not, I plan to incorporate it into the prevention and public health title of comprehensive health reform legislation that we will hopefully pass this year. A program offering annual free flu shots to every American is exactly the kind of smart, cost-effective, prevention-focused public health that must be at the center of our reformed health care system in America. It will save lives and money. When--when not whether--a pandemic flu strikes the U.S. in the future, we will be ready.

I encourage Senators to cosponsor the legislation. I think this is one more wake-up call and we have to move ahead aggressively in preparing for these pandemics. As Dr. Fauci said, it is not a question of whether, it is only a question of when and how severe it will be. We don't know.

I remind people that a few years ago when we started this, back in 2005, we were confronting the possible pandemic of an avian flu or H5N1 flu, which started in Southeast Asia. Thanks to surveillance, to the CDC, and to a lot of people working on it, we were able to contain it. That H5N1 avian flu is one of the most deadly we have confronted, with over a 50-percent mortality. One out of every two persons who contracted it died. Now we have contained it and tamped it down. That H5N1 virus is still out there and, periodically, we pick it up in places such as Southeast Asia.

There was a thought that because of migratory birds, it may be spread to other places, but we don't know that.

But because it has reared its ugly head, because we know that virus is out here someplace, it behooves us to do everything we can to protect the people of this country and in doing so to prepare. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope when there is a pandemic flu, it will be just a mild one and will not kill people. But we don't know. The best way to prepare for it is to build up our vaccine-manufacturing capacity as rapidly as possible; secondly, make sure our public health agencies on the State and local levels are ready to go, that they are trained, that they are equipped; and thirdly, that we have some experience, that we know how to do this.

One of the best ways is to give everyone a free flu shot every year-- everyone, a voluntary free flu shot every year. To me, that will set us up well to prepare for and to protect the American people against any flu pandemic that may come our way in the future.

Mr. President, I am introducing the Seasonal Influenza and Pandemic Preparation Act of 2009. The bill was given the number S. 953. This bill would establish a nationwide free, voluntary influenza vaccination program, under which any individual in this country may receive an annual influenza vaccine shot free of charge.

I offered this bill 3 years ago because at that time we started the process of building up our vaccine capacity. I will have more to say about that. What is happening currently with H1N1 being almost at a pandemic stage now, it brings home again what we need to do in this country to be prepared, and that is what this bill is about. Offering free flu shots to everyone in the United States is a good idea in and of itself.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an average of more than 40,000 Americans die each year from flu-related diseases and causes. Think about that: 40,000 Americans die every year due to flu- related causes. Seasonal flu is responsible for more than 31 million outpatient visits and more than 3 million days annually in the hospital. Seasonal flu costs the U.S. economy nearly $90 billion annually, including $10 billion in direct medical costs--$10 billion a year just in direct medical costs. Think about that: 40,000 people dying every year, $10 billion in direct medical costs, $90 billion annually in lost productivity to our economy, over 3 million days in the hospital every year, and this is seasonal flu.

We can significantly reduce all those numbers. In addition, there is some evidence that people who are vaccinated each year against seasonal flu viruses actually build up a limited degree of resistance to pandemic viruses. So strictly as a matter of prudent prevention, it is desirable to maximize the number of Americans who are vaccinated against flu each year. By offering the vaccinations for free and making them conveniently available, we would remove major barriers to more widespread participation.

There is precedence for this. Medicare, right now, will pay for one seasonal flu shot for everybody on Medicare every year. So we already have that out there. We just need to get it to the rest of the population.

There are other compelling reasons for establishing a nationwide voluntary free flu vaccination program. Let me explain.

As chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds health programs, I have taken the lead in the past in providing funding to prepare for a future flu pandemic. Since 2006, my subcommittee has provided more than $6 billion to these activities.

As a consequence, while public health authorities in the United States may have been surprised by the H1N1 virus outbreak, they have not been caught unprepared. To the contrary, since 2006 we have undertaken very robust measures to prepare for exactly this kind of outbreak and potential pandemic.

First, we have made major investments in antivirals that can be given to a person once exposed and shows signs of the illness. We have made major investments in medical equipment, which are right now, as we speak, being distributed nationally to our local public health authorities across the country. Many of them are now in place. Many started going out earlier this week. I daresay that probably most, if not all, of them are probably out there right now--from the stockpiles that we built up. There are over 50 million doses of Tamiflu and Relenza that we built up in our stockpile. Well, not all of that, but most of it, has gone out around the country to be prepared.

Second, we have stepped up our public health and surveillance activities, which helped us to detect the H1N1 virus earlier than we otherwise might have.

Third, we have increased the capacity of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify viruses and respond aggressively and very immediately, including producing what is called a ``seed'' virus, necessary for the development of a vaccine. That is being done right now.

Fourth, we have also made major investments in building up our vaccine production capacity in the United States. Mr. President, when we started on this in 2005, there was at that time only one plant in the entire United States of America that could produce flu vaccines-- one. I believe it is located in Pennsylvania, and that was making vaccines based upon an old methodology of using eggs. We had to use millions of eggs every year to produce that vaccine, and that takes a long time.

There have been, in the research and development, processes by which we can make cell-based vaccines. We can shorten the timeframe. That is nice, but we don't have any cell-based plants in the United States. In the fiscal 2006 bill, we put over $3 billion out there to build these plants. They are being built now. So we are building up our vaccine production capacity and doing it in a way in which we can get the vaccines produced more rapidly.

Fifth, we have funded research into adjuvants. These are agents that increase the vaccine's effectiveness. Let me put it this way. If we have one dose of a vaccine, we might actually be able to cut that dose down and give that one dose to four or five people by adding the adjuvant to it.

Lastly, we have worked with State and local public health agencies to boost their capacity to respond to a flu pandemic. We have done that, but because of the economic downturn many of our State budgets have been slashed. In our States around the country, we were told at our hearing the other day, over 60,000 people have been laid off from our public health agencies. That makes it more difficult to get the antivirals out to people who may come down with H1N1 or any other kind of flu virus.

Because of all these things we did, I think I can safely say there is no reason for anyone anywhere in the United States to panic because of the H1N1 flu virus. As I said, one of the most important things we have done is to build up our vaccine manufacturing capacity.

Here is the problem. This really is the crux of this bill I have introduced today. Say we build up the vaccine manufacturing capacity and we build these plants that can respond aggressively and immediately to a pandemic outbreak. What happens the rest of the time? What happens? Do they sit there idle, not being utilized? We cannot have that.

What we need to do is to use these plants, then, to make more of the seasonal flu vaccines every year. Well, if we have the plants out there, and they make more of the seasonal flu viruses but not everybody is using them, what do we do, just throw it away? We want the plant capacity to prepare for any

pandemic in the future, but they need to be active and they need to produce annually. If they are going to produce annually, then we have to find something to do with these vaccines.

By offering annual free vaccines to every single person in America, we will keep our vaccine production capacity up and running. It will be ready to shift at a moment's notice, when necessary, from producing seasonal flu vaccines to a mass production of vaccines to fight any future outbreak or pandemic.

There is another reason for this bill. If we are faced with a flu virus pandemic, we are going to have to mobilize people. We are going to have to get the vaccines out in a hurry and get the vaccines right down to the individual people all over this country--people in small towns and communities, in rural areas, and in cities. Well, by having an annual free flu vaccination, we will give public health agencies across America valuable experience in administering vaccines to masses of people, local agencies that will have a reason to develop trained cadres of people who are capable of administering vaccines.

We will also develop an established network of sites that might include grocery stores, shopping malls, schools, places of worship, and senior centers where people can conveniently go to get vaccinated in case of an outbreak. These annual activities will significantly increase State and local public health readiness to fight a pandemic. Not all these people are going to be employed by the Government. These will be volunteers, but they will be trained. They will know where to go and how to administer a vaccine because they will be doing it on an annual basis, free of charge, to people. We will build up a network of sites and a cadre of people who can be relied upon in case we face a pandemic.

On Tuesday, in response to the H1N1 outbreak, I chaired an emergency hearing on the Health Appropriations Subcommittee. We heard assessments of the outbreak from top medical experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the renowned and remarkable Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH.

Years ago, when we first started this, back in 2005, Dr. Fauci warned us that it is not a matter of ``whether'' there will be a flu pandemic but rather ``when'' it will happen. It is not a matter of whether but when.

When the Senate drafted its version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act this year--the stimulus bill--I included an additional $870 million for pandemic preparedness. Most of that funding was to be used to complete the work of building up our vaccine production capacity; in other words, to get these plants built more rapidly. Unfortunately, it was taken out in the final bill. Again, what we are trying to do is shift from egg-based production to cell-based production, so we can get these vaccines developed more rapidly. Taking it out of the stimulus bill was the typical shortsighted resistance that I have often encountered when I talk about this.

Some accused me a couple years ago of crying wolf. The wolf is here. One day in the future we can encounter an even worse wolf, such as the flu pandemic of 1918, which was the Spanish flu. It infected one out of three people worldwide and killed more than 50 million people. It would be the height of folly not to do what we can to prepare for such a possibility. The harsh reality is that we have repeatedly experienced flu pandemics. I mentioned the one of 1918 and 1919.

There was the Asian flu pandemic of 1957 and 1958 that killed over 1.5 million people.

The Hong Kong flu pandemic of 1968 and 1969 killed over 1 million people. Not only did it kill over 1 million people, it caused hundreds of millions of illnesses and hospital stays all across the globe.

We cannot predict the future course or severity of the current H1N1 outbreak, but clearly it is one more wake-up call.

Again, I am reintroducing the Seasonal Influenza and Pandemic Preparation Act today as a stand-alone bill. I first introduced it in 2005, as I said. It is now a stand-alone bill. We either pass it that way or, if not, I plan to incorporate it into the prevention and public health title of comprehensive health reform legislation that we will hopefully pass this year. A program offering annual free flu shots to every American is exactly the kind of smart, cost-effective, prevention-focused public health that must be at the center of our reformed health care system in America. It will save lives and money. When--when not whether--a pandemic flu strikes the U.S. in the future, we will be ready.

I encourage Senators to cosponsor the legislation. I think this is one more wake-up call and we have to move ahead aggressively in preparing for these pandemics. As Dr. Fauci said, it is not a question of whether, it is only a question of when and how severe it will be. We don't know.

I remind people that a few years ago when we started this, back in 2005, we were confronting the possible pandemic of an avian flu or H5N1 flu, which started in Southeast Asia. Thanks to surveillance, to the CDC, and to a lot of people working on it, we were able to contain it. That H5N1 avian flu is one of the most deadly we have confronted, with over a 50-percent mortality. One out of every two persons who contracted it died. Now we have contained it and tamped it down. That H5N1 virus is still out there and, periodically, we pick it up in places such as Southeast Asia.

There was a thought that because of migratory birds, it may be spread to other places, but we don't know that.

But because it has reared its ugly head, because we know that virus is out here someplace, it behooves us to do everything we can to protect the people of this country and in doing so to prepare. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope when there is a pandemic flu, it will be just a mild one and will not kill people. But we don't know. The best way to prepare for it is to build up our vaccine-manufacturing capacity as rapidly as possible; secondly, make sure our public health agencies on the State and local levels are ready to go, that they are trained, that they are equipped; and thirdly, that we have some experience, that we know how to do this.

One of the best ways is to give everyone a free flu shot every year-- everyone, a voluntary free flu shot every year. To me, that will set us up well to prepare for and to protect the American people against any flu pandemic that may come our way in the future.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments Act of 2009. This bill would enhance the research programs established in the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Act of 1998 and reauthorized in 2004, which have greatly enhanced our ability to predict outbreaks of harmful algal blooms and the extent of hypoxic zones. But knowing when outbreaks will occur is only half the battle. By funding additional research into mitigation and prevention of HABs and hypoxia, and by enabling communities to develop response strategies to more effectively reduce their effects on our coastal communities, this legislation would take the next critical steps to reducing the social and economic impacts of these potentially disastrous outbreaks.

I am proud to continue my leadership on this important issue and I particularly want to thank my counterpart on this key piece of legislation, Senator Bill Nelson. My partnership with Senator Breaux on the first two harmful algal bloom bills proved extremely fruitful, and I am pleased that Gulf of Mexico--whose coastal residents are severely impacted by both harmful algal blooms, also known as HABs, and hypoxia--will continue to be so well represented as this program moves into the future. I also want to thank the bill's additional co- sponsors, Senators Cantwell, Cardin, Vitter, Landrieu, Boxer and Levin for their vital contributions. We all represent coastal States directly affected by harmful algal blooms and hypoxia, and we see first hand the ecological and economic damage caused by these events.

In New England blooms of Alexandrium algae, more commonly known as ``red tide'' can cause shellfish to accumulate toxins that when consumed by humans lead to paralytic shellfish poisoning, PSP, a potentially fatal neurological disorder. Therefore, when levels of Alexandrium reach dangerous levels, our fishery managers are

forced to close shellfish beds that provide hundreds of jobs and add millions of dollars to our regional economy. Red tide outbreaks--which occur in various forms not just in the northeast, but along thousands of miles of U.S. coastline--have increased dramatically in the Gulf of Maine in the last 20 years, with major blooms occurring almost every year.

In 2005, the most severe red tide since 1972 blanketed the New England coast from Martha's Vineyard to Downeast Maine, resulting in extensive commercial and recreational shellfish harvesting closures lasting several months at the peak of the seafood harvesting season. In a peer-reviewed study, economists found that the 2005 event caused over $4.9 million in lost landings of shellfish in the State of Maine alone, and more than $20 million throughout New England.

Last year's outbreak of red tide tracked very closely the patter of the 2005 event in both location and severity, but unlike in 2005 when nearly the entire coasts of Maine and Massachusetts were closed, resource managers had improved testing capabilities in place that allowed many localized areas to remain open. Such procedures were a direct result of programs established by the Harmful Algal Blooms and Hypoxia Research and Control Acts of 1998 and 2004.

Most recently, on April 22, 2009 researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and North Carolina State University announced the potential for ``red tide'' in the Gulf of Maine this season is expected to be ``moderately large'', based on a regional seafloor survey of Alexandrium abundance. This survey revealed that levels of Alexandrium are currently higher than those observed just prior to the 2005 red tide. Just a few days ago, officials from the Maine Department of Resources Marine Biotoxin Monitoring Program closed a large parcel of the Maine coast to the harvest of mussels, oysters, and carnivorous snails due to the presence of PSP. The current trend of increasing frequency and intensity of red tide events in new England waters is just one example of the need to further enhance our ability to provide detailed forecasting and testing measures. The quick response time these capabilities enable will greatly reduce the economic impact such outbreaks impose on our coastal communities.

While we have made great strides in bloom prediction and monitoring, it is clear that these problems have not gone away, but rather increased in magnitude. Harmful algal blooms remain prevalent nationwide, and areas of hypoxia, also known as ``dead zones'' are now occurring with increasing frequency. Within a dead zone, oxygen levels plummet to the point at which they can no longer sustain life, driving out animals that can move, and killing those that cannot. The most infamous dead zone occurs annually in the Gulf of Mexico, off the shores of Louisiana. In 2008, researchers determined that this dead zone extended over 12,875 square miles, making it the second largest since measurements began in 1985. Dead zones are also occurring with increasing frequency in more areas than ever before, including off the coasts of Oregon, the Chesapeake Bay and Texas.

The amendments contained in this legislation would enhance the Nation's ability to predict, monitor, and ultimately control harmful algal blooms and hypoxia. Understanding when these blooms will occur is vital, but the time has come to take this program to the next level--to determine not just when an outbreak will occur, but how to reduce its intensity or prevent its occurrence all together. This bill would build on NOAA's successes in research and forecasting by creating a program to mitigate and control HAB outbreaks.

This bill also recognizes the need to enhance coordination among state and local resource managers--those on the front lines who must make the decisions to close beaches or shellfish beds. Their decisions are critical to protecting human health, but can also impose significant economic impacts. The bill would mandate creation of Regional Research and Action Plans that would identify baseline research, possible State and local government actions to prepare for and mitigate the impacts of HABs, and establish outreach strategies to ensure the public is informed of the dangers these events can present. A regional focus on these issues will ensure a more effective and efficient response to future events. And finally, this bill would, for the first time, create a pilot program to examine harmful algal blooms and hypoxia in fresh water systems.

If enacted, this critical reauthorization would greatly enhance our Nation's ability to predict, monitor, mitigate, and control outbreaks of HABs and hypoxia. Over half the U.S. population resides in coastal regions, and we must do all in our power to safeguard their health and the health of the marine environment. The existing Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Program has done a laudable job to date, and this authorization will allow them to expand their scope and provide greater benefits to the Nation as a whole. I thank Senator Bill Nelson, and all of my cosponsors again for their efforts in developing this vital legislation.

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