Rural Community Flood Protection Act of 2011

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to end the use of Great Apes in invasive research and urge my Senate colleagues to support the Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act.

The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act would prohibit invasive research on all Great Apes, including gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees--who are the primary Great Apes used in research today. The bill would also require the immediate retirement of 500 federally-owned chimpanzees to great ape sanctuaries.

Today about 1,000 chimpanzees--half of them federally owned--languish at great taxpayer expense in eight research laboratories across the Nation.

These chimpanzees are being held or used for invasive biomedical research, research that may cause death, bodily injury, pain, distress, fear, and trauma. Invasive research practices include techniques such as injecting a chimpanzee with a drug that would be detrimental to its health, infecting a chimp with a disease, cutting a chimp or removing body parts, and isolation or social deprivation.

The vast majority of these animals--between 80 and 90 percent--aren't actually being used in research, but instead are warehoused, simply wasting away in these facilities. For example, approximately half of the government-owned chimpanzees are being held in a facility in New Mexico where no research is being conducted.

Some chimpanzees have been in labs for more than 50 years, confined in steel cages for most of their lives and enduring sometimes painful and distressing experimental procedures.

The fact that the vast majority of federally-owned chimpanzees are not being used in active research, but instead are warehoused in labs at the taxpayer expense, underlines the futility of their continued confinement.

For a single chimpanzee, lifetime care in a research facility can cost over $1 million, compared with $340,000 for superior care in a sanctuary. Ending invasive research will mean a savings of more than $25 million per year for the American people.

Chimpanzees are poor research models for human illness, and they have been of limited use in the study of human disease. Despite how similar they are to us, significant differences in their immunology and disease progression make them ineffective models for human diseases like HIV, cancer, and heart disease research.

For example, research published in the Journal of Medical Primatology in 2009, on hepatitis C indicates that use of chimpanzees has produced poor results. And the National Center for Research Resources under the National Institutes of Health has prohibited breeding of government- owned chimpanzees for research. In effect, NIH has already decided that the chimpanzee is not an essential animal model for human medical research.

Significant genetic and physiological differences between great apes and humans also make chimpanzees a poor research model for human diseases. We have spent millions of dollars over several decades on chimpanzee-based HIV and Hepatitis C research with no resulting vaccines for those diseases. Chimpanzees largely failed as a model for HIV because the virus does not cause illness in chimpanzees as it does to humans.

These are very social, highly intelligent animals--with the ability, for example, to learn American Sign Language. Their intelligence and ability to experience emotions so similar to humans underscores how chimpanzees suffer intensely under laboratory conditions.

Their psychological suffering in laboratories produces human-like symptoms of stress, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder after decades of living in isolation in small cages.

Given their social nature and capacity for suffering and boredom due to lack of stimulation, the 500 privately-owned chimpanzees and 500 federally-owned chimpanzees being held in research laboratories would be better off in sanctuaries. And by doing so we would save more than $25 million taxpayer dollars each year. This is because the cost of caring for a chimpanzee in a sanctuary is a fraction of the cost of their housing and maintenance in a laboratory. And many in the scientific community believe this money could be allocated to more effective research.

In my home State of Washington, I am proud that we have Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest. Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest provides sustainable sanctuary for seven chimpanzees retired in 2008 from decades in research facilities.

The United States is currently behind the rest of the world in outlawing this sad practice.

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all banned or severely limited experiments on great apes. And several other countries and the European Union are considering similar bans as well.

We are the only country--besides Gabon in West Africa--that is still holding or using chimpanzees for invasive research. It's past time for the United States to catch up with the rest of the world by ending this antiquated use of this endangered species.

We are lagging behind in action, but the desire to end invasive research on Great Apes has been present for more than a decade. In 1997, the National Research Council concluded that there should be a moratorium on further chimpanzee breeding. And the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has already announced an end to funding for the breeding of federally-owned chimpanzees for research, but this should be codified.

Government needs to take action to make invasive research on chimpanzees illegal.

That is why today I am introducing the bipartisan Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act, along with my colleagues Senators Susan Collins, Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman.

The Great Ape Protection and Cost Savings Act is a commonsense policy reform to protect our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom from physical and psychological harm, and help reduce government spending and our federal deficit.

Specifically, this bill will phase out the use of chimpanzees in invasive research over a three-year period, require permanent retirement to suitable sanctuaries for the 500 federally-owned chimpanzees currently being warehoused in research laboratories, and codifies the current administrative moratorium on government-funded breeding of chimpanzees.

We have been delaying this action for too long. It is time to get this done and end this type of harmful research and end this wasteful government spending.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation designed to improve educational opportunities for struggling students. The All Students Achieving Through Reform Act, or All-STAR Act, would provide Federal resources to the most successful charter schools to help them grow and replicate.

Across the nation, public charter schools are achieving extraordinary results in low-income communities. I have been particularly impressed by the Noble Street schools in Chicago. Since opening its first campus in 1999, Noble Street has expanded to 10 charter high schools educating over 13,000 students in some of Chicago's most difficult neighborhoods. Noble Street has achieved phenomenal results. Even though more than 75 percent of students enter the schools below grade level, Noble students have the highest ACT scores among Chicago open-enrollment schools. Every year, more than 99 percent of Noble Street's seniors graduate and more than 85 percent go on to college. I see this success in action when I visit Noble Street schools. As soon as you walk in the door, you can tell that everyone in the building is focused on academic success. The students are actively engaged in their learning. Their teachers and principals are demanding and inspiring. Noble Street would like to continue to grow and educate more students in Chicago.

Not all charter schools are excellent. Poor-performing charter schools should be closed. But we also need to replicate and expand the ones that are beating the odds, and we need to learn from their lessons. We need more excellent charters, like the Noble Street schools, in Illinois and around the country.

The bill I am introducing today would help make that possible. Currently, Federal funding for charter schools can only be used to create new schools, not expand or replicate existing schools. My bill would create new grants within the existing charter school program to fund the expansion and replication of the most successful charter schools. Schools that have achieved results with their students will be able to apply for Federal grants to expand their schools to include additional grades or to replicate the model to a new school. Successful charters across the country will be able to grow, providing better educational opportunities to thousands of students.

The bill also incentivizes the adoption of strong charter school policies by states. We know that successful charter schools thrive when they have autonomy, freedom to grow, and strong accountability based on meeting performance targets. The bill would give grant priority to states that provide that environment. The bill also requires new levels of charter school authorizer reporting and accountability to ensure that good charter schools are able to succeed while bad charter schools are improved or shut down.

This bill will improve educational opportunities for students across the nation. Charter schools represent some of the brightest spots in urban education today, and successful models have the full support of the President and Secretary Duncan. We need to help these schools grow and bring their best lessons into our regular public schools so that all students can benefit. Supporting the growth of successful charter schools should be a part of the conversation when we take up reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I thank Senator Kirk, Senator Landrieu, and Representative Polis in the House for joining me in this effort.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with Senator Landrieu known as the Voluntary Protection Program Act. This bill will codify the Voluntary Protection Programs, or VPP, expand it to include more small businesses, and incorporate recent GAO recommendations for program improvements.

No program has been more successful in creating such a culture of safety in the workplace than VPP. Since it was created in 1982, Republican and Democrat administrations alike have fostered its growth to more than 2,500 worksites, a quarter of which are unionized, and it covers approximately one million employees. The bipartisan support for VPP continues into this Congress. Last year, the Senate Budget Committee unanimously approved an amendment to preserve VPP budget authority and I have been pleased to work with the Chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, Senator Landrieu, on this bill again this Congress. Our bill is also drawing bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. Congressmen Tom Petri and Gene Green are introducing companion legislation today and 1 thank them for their strong support on this important issue.

Worksites that pass the rigorous evaluation process and become VPP sites have an average Days Away Restricted or Transferred, DART, case rate of 52 percent below the average for its industry. In recent years, smaller worksites have made significant strides in VPP, increasing from 28 percent of VPP sites in 2003 to 44 percent in 2010.

The innovative program doesn't just keep employees safer; as I have noted, it also saves both the VPP companies and the taxpayer's money. In 2007, Federal Agency VPP participants saved the government more than $59 million by avoiding injuries and private sector VPP participants saved more than $300 million. The Department of Defense has estimated that it saves between $73,000 and $8.8 million per site because of VPP. Additionally, when workplaces make the significant commitment to safety required by VPP, it allows OSHA to focus its resources where they are most needed. VPP Participant employers contribute a great deal to the VPP program expenditures. VPP participants have assigned approximately 1,200 of their own employees to act as OSHA Special Government Employees, SGEs, who conduct onsite evaluations for OSHA.

Despite the strong bipartisan support for VPP and its very positive results, the need for this legislation has become painfully clear. Last year, the administration's fiscal year 2011 Budget Request proposed eliminating the small amount it takes to administer VPP--$3.125 million--and sought to transfer the 35 FTE it takes to run the program to other functions. The failure to complete the appropriations process last year thwarted that plan, and the administration did not renew the request in their fiscal year 2012 budget proposal. I hope that Department of Labor officials will note the bipartisan support VPP has and maintain support for the program. Surely, this proven life and cost-saving program is something we can all get behind.

I would like to thank Senator Landrieu for working with me on this important legislation and add the following Senators as original cosponsors: Sen. Landrieu, Sen. Isakson and Sen. Coburn.

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

Mr. President, I would like to bring to the Senate's attention The Lake Thunderbird Efficient Use Act of 2011.

This bill allows the Central Oklahoma Master Conservancy District to import and store non-project water into Lake Thunderbird, if the Secretary of the Interior determines there is enough capacity to do so. Allowing additional water to be stored at Lake Thunderbird would help increase municipal and industrial supplies for the cities served by the District, which include Norman, Midwest City, and Del City.

There is no cost associated with this bill. Any additional infrastructure needs will be the responsibility of the non-Federal establishment contracting with the Secretary.

This legislation does not change the capacity of Lake Thunderbird and will help increase water supplies in a growing metropolitan area. Over the last decade, the Norman area grew by 15 percent making it one of the fastest growing areas in the State. As the area continues to grow, and as Tinker Air Force Base requires a growing water supply, there will be a greater need for access to the water supplies of the Lake Thunderbird reservoir.

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