Southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas, Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Care Improvement Act of 2011

Mr President, I rise to introduce the High School Data Transparency Act in celebration of the 39th Anniversary of Title IX. I am pleased to be joined again this year by my colleague from Washington, Senator Murray. Since the 108th Congress, we have introduced this bill to require that high schools, like their collegiate counterparts, disclose data on equity in sports, making it possible for student athletes and their parents to ensure fairness in their school's athletic programs.

Since my first day in Washington in 1979, I have been a stalwart supporter of Title IX. And there should be no mistake what this 39 year-old landmark civil rights law is all about, equal opportunity for both girls and boys to excel in athletics. Obviously, athletic participation supports physical health, but sports also impart benefits beyond the field of play.

For girls who compete in sports, 50 percent are less likely to suffer depression and breast cancer . . . 80 percent are less likely to have a drug problem . . . and 92 percent are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy. Athletic participation helps cultivate the kind of positive, competitive spirit that develops dedication, self-confidence, a sense of team spirit, and ultimate success later in life. So it is not surprising that, according to several studies, more than eight out of ten successful businesswomen played organized sports while growing up.

To cite one example, Irene Rosenfeld, Chairman and CEO, Kraft Foods was quoted as saying, ``growing up, I was extremely athletic, and very competitive. I played four varsity sports in high school and went to Cornell because they had a fabulous women's athletic program, and the academics weren't bad either.''

Without question, Title IX has been the driving factor in allowing thousands of women and girls the opportunity to benefit from intercollegiate and high school sports. Indeed, prior to Title IX, only 1 in 27 high school girls, fewer than 300,000, played sports. Today, the number is more than 2.9 million . . . that is an increase of over 900 percent. Moreover, our country is celebrating the achievements and being inspired by our female athletes now more than ever.

Last fall, the University of California, Berkley celebrated the life of the late Jill Costello who served as an inspiration not only to her fellow teammates but to the thousands of girls who defy the odds every day. Jill participated on Cal's Women's Crew Team as their varsity coxswain despite being diagnosed with stage IV cancer with only nine months to live. Throughout her treatment she not only supported her friends, family and teammates but was supported by them. Despite battling for her life Jill led Cal to achieve second place at the NCAA national crew championship. Jill's story proves that the incredible mystical nature of team and friendship does exist.

Earlier this year, the University of Connecticut's Women's Basketball Team furthered displayed women's progress in athletics. These women surpassed the University of California at Los Angeles men's basketball record of 88 consecutive wins achieving the longest winning streak of 90 games. The impact of this accomplishment has yet to be fully realized but has surely raised the profile of not only women's basketball but also woman's athletics.

Indeed, in my state of Maine, Bowdoin's women's varsity field hockey team has remarkably won Division III national championships in 3 of the last 4 years, putting Bowdoin and Maine on the women's field hockey map.

So while we celebrate this remarkable progress, we cannot allow rest on our laurels. That is why I am so pleased to join with Senator Patty Murray, who has been a tireless advocate for women's sports, to reintroduce the High School Sports Data Collection Act of 2011.

Our bill directs the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics to collect information regarding participation in athletics broken down by gender; teams; race and ethnicity; and overall expenditures, including items like travel expenses, equipment and uniforms.

These data are already reported, in most cases, to the state Departments of Education and should not pose any additional burden on the high schools. Further, to ensure public access to this vital information, our legislation would require high schools to post the data on the Department of Education's Web site and make this information available to students and the public upon request.

For nearly 40 years, Title IX has opened doors by giving women and girls an equal opportunity to participate in student athletic programs. This bill will continue that tradition by allowing us to assess current opportunities for sports participation for young women, and correct any deficiencies.

With this new information, we can ensure that young women all over the country have the chance not only to improve their athletic ability, but also to develop the qualities of teamwork, discipline, and self- confidence that lead to success off the playing field. Soccer star, Mia Hamm, characterized it best when ``somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back . . . play for her,'' and I am introducing this bill today for her as well.

Mr. President, as former Chair and now Ranking Member of the Senate Small Business Committee, it is my privilege and my responsibility today to stand up for small businesses across America that are being unfairly hurt by a punitive and unnecessary tax. The so- called ``tanning tax'' was included at the eleventh hour as part of last year's health care legislative maneuvering, and I am pleased to offer this legislation to repeal the tanning tax.

The tanning tax was added to the health care bill without any analysis of how it would affect this industry comprised primarily of small businesses, 75 percent of whose employees and customers are women. I cannot reiterate enough that small businesses are the primary job creators in this country, responsible for more than two-thirds of all new jobs created. At a time when a staggering and seemingly intractable unemployment rate of over 9 percent has become the norm, when some 22 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, when we are experiencing the longest period of long-term unemployment in American history since data collection started in 1948, surpassing even the 1982 double-dip recession for the length of unemployment, when the percentage of population that is employed has declined to 58.4 percent, the lowest level in nearly 30 years, how could anyone think that shuttering or slowing the growth of small businesses is a good idea?

Reports show that small businesses lost an estimated $2 trillion in profits and asset valuation since the recession started in December 2007, while larger companies have been less affected and are recovering more quickly. Combined with the current, on-going economic malaise, the tanning tax is certain to accelerate job losses in this industry beyond the 20,000 jobs already lost nationwide. These small businesses need our help, not a further hindrance such as this tax.

I have heard first-hand of just what a job-killing, growth-preventing measure this tax is. Sun Tan City, a chain of small business tanning salons based in Augusta, ME, with 125 employees in Maine and another 50 in New Hampshire have slowed dramatically the expansion of their business. They opened 7 new salons in 2009 but only 4 in 2010 and another 2 in 2011. Sun Tan City remitted $85,000 to the IRS just this past quarter, money that would have gone to grow jobs and their business.

The tanning tax is not just about the money, it is also about the burden of compliance. Each store must collect and remit its tanning tax liability individually, increasing the paperwork and compliance burden. At an estimated cost of $74 per hour spent complying with paperwork burdens, merely remitting the tax imposes yet another enormous burden on small businesses.

Moreover, the tanning tax is imposed in addition to any state tax levies. For instance, New Jersey imposes a 7 percent tax on tanning services, meaning tanning salons in New Jersey are now responsible for 17 percent in taxes just for this service. We are already hearing that those seeking tanning services are going to other States when possible in order to avoid the higher New Jersey and Federal combined taxes. I guess that is one way to improve interstate commerce.

The worst part of the provision, though, may be the way the IRS has interpreted its implementation, in a way that favors larger businesses over smaller ones. The IRS released its tanning tax-implementing guidance on June 15, 2010, just two weeks before the tax became effective. This guidance contained a gross inequity that will subject some businesses to the tanning tax while exempting others. The guidance exempts ``qualified physical fitness facilities,'' which include gyms. That is, a person could pay for a membership at such a facility and be able to use that facility's tanning beds without having to pay the tax. Thus, the tax is having a disproportionate effect on small businesses while allowing larger, syndicated gyms and similar facilities to go untaxed.

There are legitimate concerns about the health of those who engage in tanning, whether using natural sunlight or tanning beds. I do not come before you today to argue the science. But the Food and Drug Administration has been under pressure for years to ban outright the use of tanning beds and repeatedly has declined to do so. The 10 percent tanning tax was never designed as a deterrent; it was designed solely to replace the 5 percent tax on Botox injections and elective cosmetic surgery as a revenue raiser to pay for the health care bill. No other factor was discussed, nor were there ever hearings on the merits. I am as concerned as any Senator or citizen about the health of our fellow Americans, but a dead-of-night job-killing tax increase on small businesses is not the way to address any health concerns!

There are other ways, such as an education campaign, that would be far

more effective and less cumbersome than this 10 percent tax to inform people about any tanning risks, especially when the IRS has carved out big businesses from being affected by the tax. Why is it safe to tan in gyms but not in salons? That is not a question the IRS should be answering. If the health issue is important enough to merit scrutiny of the industry, then let us have that debate, but the fact that there was no debate before this onerous tax was imposed makes it doubly outrageous.

This bill is supported by the National Federation of Independent Businesses and by the Indoor Tanning Association, which is comprised of business owners and operators, as well as manufacturers and distributors of tanning equipment. The tanning tax was a painful hit to this sector of our economy and this bill will seek in some way to rectify what was done to them by eliminating the onerous tax going forward.

Finally, I want to thank Glen and Dennis Guerrette, whose father, Will, served in the Maine state legislature, and Lewis Henry, all from Maine, for bringing this issue and their stories to my attention. I would also like to thank Congressmen Michael Grimm and Pat Tiberi and many others for their leadership in the House on this crucial issue.

In conclusion, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support our bill.

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

Mr. President, with the unemployment rate hovering above 9 percent nationwide, and at almost 11 percent in my home State of Rhode Island, job creation must continue to be our No. 1 priority as lawmakers.

It disappoints me that Republicans chose politics over job creation yesterday when they filibustered legislation that would have reauthorized the Economic Development Administration, an agency dedicated to restoring economically distressed regions to prosperity. In the past, this bill has been reauthorized and supported broadly, indeed, by unanimous consent. It is the fourth jobs bill the minority has chosen to obstruct, and I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will reconsider their tactics. If not, we may have to reconsider ours and force some votes on job creation measures without this litany of irrelevant amendments that have bogged down and obstructed the previous jobs bill we have tried to get action on. Out- of-work Americans are hurting right now, and they want us to act to help create jobs.

I rise today to introduce a measure that will do just that. I have heard from dozens of Rhode Island business owners that business is picking up a bit, but they are still concerned the recovery may be temporary and that discourages them from hiring additional workers. I spoke with one such small business owner on Monday. I visited Dona Vincent during a tour of her Cranston, RI company, Tedco. Tedco makes and stamps metal components for the automotive, aerospace, and communications industry. It employed 13 people before the recession struck in 2008. Now it is down to eight employees. Dona and Ted's co- general manager Barbara Galonio wishes to start hiring more workers, but they worry that business could slow down again. They told me they have been waiting to hire, wanting to hire, and for months saying to themselves: Well, what if this? What if that? They have been on the border of hiring.

The legislation I have introduced today, the Job Creation Tax Credit Act of 2011, would give Dona and thousands of other business owners nationwide greater security as they look forward to building their workforces. The bill would provide refundable tax credits for employers to hire new workers now. The way it would work is that for each qualified hire made in 2011, the business would receive a tax credit equal to 15 percent of the wages paid to the new employee. If the new employee remains employed or if the business were to hire additional employees in 2012, the business would be eligible for a 10-percent tax credit on those employees' wages next year. Because these tax credits would be refundable, businesses would benefit from them even if they are not currently profitable.

One of the problems with struggling businesses that are not sure how much profit they are going to make if they are right on the edge is giving them a tax credit doesn't help because they have no tax against which to take the credit. A refundable tax credit comes to the business in spite of that. The higher credit in 2011 I expect would encourage employers to hire new workers as soon as possible, and the additional credit in 2012 would encourage retaining those employees and additional workforce expansion. To help those Americans who are struggling to find work, qualified hires would be defined as new employees who have been unemployed for at least 60 days prior to getting hired.

The Job Creation Tax Credit Act would continue the job creations sparked by the HIRE Act of 2010 which included somewhat different tax incentives for new hiring. Economist Mark Zandi has estimated that the HIRE Act created 250,000 new jobs, a quarter of a million families with a paycheck coming in. The larger financial incentives in this new bill would continue to dent the unemployment numbers in Rhode Island and nationwide.

The previous HIRE Act, sponsored by Senator Schumer and Senator Hatch, received wide bipartisan support, and I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support the Job Creation Tax Credit Act as well because right now we cannot forget that too many unemployed Americans are hurting. Too many are out of work. Too many are out of work through no fault of their own. Indeed, too many of them are still out of work because of the cascade of misery that washed across this country from the Wall Street meltdown. There may be a lot of blame to go around on that, but none of it attaches to the workers who got caught in that cascade of misery. Of course, too many families are struggling to make ends meet week to week. We must continue fighting for them by using every tool at our disposal, including these new tax incentives, to get our economy moving and to help businesses start hiring.

Again, this is a bill with a proven successful strategy, that has been approved by this body in the past, that has had bipartisan support in the past, and that addresses the most important issue facing our country right now, and that is putting people back to work, rekindling our economy, and getting folks into jobs.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation with Senator Bingaman and Senator Kohl to remove Social Security numbers, SSNs, from Medicare identification cards.

Today, many of the 45 million Medicare beneficiaries in the United States carry their Medicare cards in their wallets. The card displays an individual's Medicare identification number, which is their Social Security number with a 1- or 2-digit code at the end.

The use of Social Security numbers on Medicare cards places millions of seniors at risk of identity theft because if the card is lost or stolen, their Social Security number is easily obtained. A person's Social Security number is one of the most valuable pieces of information that a thief can steal. It can unlock a treasure trove of personal and financial information.

Last year, nearly 8.1 million Americans were victims of identity theft, many after their Social Security numbers were stolen. These crimes accounted for more than $37 billion in fraudulent charges.

Recognizing this risk of identity theft, many government agencies and private businesses have stopped displaying Social Security numbers on identification cards. Thirty-three states have enacted laws that limit how public and private entities use and display Social Security numbers. Social Security numbers are being removed from driver's licenses, and most private health insurance cards no longer display them.

Federal agencies have also taken steps to reduce the threat of identity theft. The Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense are no longer displaying Social Security numbers on new identification cards. In addition, the Office of Personnel Management has directed health insurers participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program to eliminate Social Security numbers from insurance cards.

Unfortunately, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, is lagging behind other agencies.

In 2005, I offered an amendment to the fiscal year 2006 Labor-HHS- Education appropriations bill to require CMS to remove SSNs from Medicare cards. My amendment passed 98-0. The final bill directed CMS to provide Congress a report on steps necessary to remove the numbers.

CMS issued the report in 2006, but it has not yet begun to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards.

In 2008, the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration took CMS to task for its inaction. The Inspector General's report confirmed that displaying Social Security numbers on Medicare cards places millions of people at risk for identity theft and concluded that ``immediate action is needed to address this significant vulnerability.''

The bill that I am introducing today, the Social Security Number Protection Act of 2011, establishes a reasonable timetable for CMS to begin removing Social Security numbers from Medicare cards.

Not later than 3 years after enactment, CMS would be prohibited from displaying Social Security numbers on newly issued Medicare cards. CMS would be prohibited from displaying the number on existing cards no later than 5 years after enactment.

In addition to Medicare cards, the bill would prohibit CMS from displaying Social Security numbers on all written and electronic communications to Medicare beneficiaries, beginning no

later than 3 years after enactment, except in cases where their display is essential for the operation of the Medicare program.

I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation and work with me to enact it. Removing Social Security numbers from Medicare cards and communications to beneficiaries is long overdue.

Medicare beneficiaries should not be placed at greater risk of identity theft than people with private health insurance. Other Federal agencies have successfully removed Social Security numbers from identification cards, and we should require CMS to do the same.

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

Mr. President, I rise to introduce, together with Senator Kerry, the Veteran Voting Support Act of 2011. We are joined by Senators Reid, Leahy, and Durbin.

This bill would take important steps to improve veterans' access to voter registration services. Our veterans have served our Nation at great risk and sacrifice. I believe we should do everything in our power to ensure that they play a central role in our democratic process, that their votes are cast and their voices heard.

Almost 4 years ago, during the previous administration, I learned that a Department of Veterans Affairs facility in California had been barring voter registration groups from accessing veterans in the facility. Similar reports emerged in Connecticut and other parts of the country.

Since that time, Senator Kerry and I have been working, together with our cosponsors, to make sure that our Government works to provide veterans with voter registration services, not to prevent them from receiving election-related materials.

We have written letters and our staffs have held meetings with the VA to establish a fair, nonpartisan policy to facilitate voter registration for veterans who receive services from VA facilities.

We have made significant progress.

After much negotiation, in 2008, the VA established a new and substantially improved policy that allows state and local election officials, as well as nonpartisan groups, to access VA facilities for voter registration under terms and conditions set by the facility. This is an improvement, and we have not heard serious complaints in recent years.

However, legislation remains necessary. First, this voluntary policy could be rescinded or rolled back in the future; Federal law cannot. Second, more should be done to ensure not only that outside groups can register voters in a nonpartisan manner in VA facilities but also that veterans who live in and use these facilities have easy access to voter registration and absentee ballot forms, even when no group or official comes by.

The Veteran Voting Support Act of 2011 would require the VA to provide voter registration forms to veterans when they enroll in the VA health care system, or change their status or address in that system.

The bill would also ensure that veterans who live in VA facilities have access to absentee ballots when they want to cast votes, and that VA employees assist veterans with election-related forms if necessary, in the same way that these employees assist veterans with other forms.

It would allow nonpartisan voter groups and election officials to provide voter information and registration services to veterans in a time, place, and manner that makes sense for the facilities.

It would give the Attorney General authority to enforce these provisions.

It is a cornerstone of our democracy that every eligible citizen is able to register and cast their vote. These rights should never be denied, by fiat or as a matter of practicality, to those who have given the very most for our country.

I believe it is time that the VA provides veterans with the support they need and deserve to register, cast their votes, and have those votes counted.

I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting the Veteran Voting Support Act of 2011.

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

Mr. President, I rise today with Senator Manchin to introduce the Silver Alert Act of 2011. This legislation increases the chances of quickly locating missing senior citizens by establishing a national communications network to help regional and local search efforts.

Every year, thousands of adults go missing from their homes or care facilities due to diminished mental capacity, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, or other circumstances. As the population of the United States ages, that number is likely to increase. Over five million Americans currently suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and it is estimated that 60 percent of these men and women are likely to wander away from their homes. Disorientation and confusion may keep many from finding their way back home. The safe return of missing persons often depends upon them being found quickly. If not found within 24 hours, roughly half risk serious illness, injury, or death. Only four percent of those Alzheimer's sufferers who leave home are able to get back without some assistance.

Our bill would create a national program to coordinate existing state-based Silver Alert plans so that missing seniors can be returned safely to their homes and families. Not only will a federal network increase the success of efforts to find missing seniors, but it also eliminates duplicative search efforts, saving the public time and money. The Silver Alert Act creates this needed Federal network.

The Amber Alert system, which the Silver Alert Act is modeled after, has a track record of success. The Amber Alert Act created a similar Federal program that filters information and transmits relevant details to the appropriate authorities as quickly as possible. Just as with missing and abducted children, timely notification and dissemination of appropriate information about missing seniors greatly improves the chances that they will be found before they are seriously harmed. Silver Alert plans use the same infrastructure as Amber Alert plans, so this Act enables us to protect another vulnerable group in our population, at very little additional cost.

Over half of States have responded to the problem of missing seniors by establishing Silver Alert plans. These plans have created public notification systems triggered by the report of a missing senior. Postings on highways, radio, television, and other forms of media broadcast information about the missing senior to locate him or her, and return the senior safely home.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.