Floor Statements

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to support the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

I am pleased that the Senate today will finally confirm Governor Kathleen

Sebelius as the new Health and Human Services Secretary. Governor Sebelius brings much needed policy and management expertise to the job as our Nation Faces serious public health challenges. Our immediate concern is the effective coordination of our Nation's public health resources to combat the emerging swine flu pandemic. Sebelius and her team must immediately respond to contain this very serious threat.

I look forward to working with her as she helps fulfill President Obama's promise to enact comprehensive health reform. Governor Sebelius will add urgency, substance, and know-how to pass complicated health legislation that will benefit American families and businesses.

Govenor Sebelius will serve as the effective CEO of HHS and ensure its agencies are well run and consumer focused. She has the difficult task of not only restoring the public's confidence in our Nation's health agencies, but also building the trust of HHS' committed workforce. Special effort must be made to listen and learn from the scientists at FDA who lacked effective leadership during the previous administration. Governor Sebelius' immediate leadership also will help guide the implementation of the economic recovery act that included several important health initiatives--particularly the development and adoption of interoperable health information technology standards. I am confident she will meet the intent and deadlines enacted by Congress.

Mr. President. I wish today to recognize the 60th anniversary of the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Sixty years ago this April, NATO was created to ensure the freedom and security of western nations in the aftermath of the Second World War. Since

then, it has evolved into the most comprehensive international security organization the world has ever known and has become a reliable cornerstone of America's national security.

As many of my Senate colleagues know, I was an active proponent of NATO expansion in 1999 and again in 2004. For me, the debate over whether to expand NATO had deep personal resonance. For many of the countries aspiring to join NATO at that time, freedom did not come to every nation in Europe at the end of the Second World War. For those countries caught behind the Iron Curtain, the end of the Second World War marked the beginning of a long struggle for freedom and democracy. Even after the Iron Curtain fell, their freedom and security was not ensured. For many of those countries, joining NATO in the expansion rounds in 1999 and 2004 provided true security for the first time.

For me, growing up as a Polish American in east Baltimore, I learned about the burning of Warsaw. I knew about the occupation of Poland by the Nazis. I learned about the burning of Warsaw at the end of World War II, when the Germans burned it because of the Warsaw uprising, Soviet troops stood on the other side of the Vistula River and watched it burn. I learned about the Katyn massacre, where Russians murdered more than 4,000 military officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest at the start of the Second World War, so there would not be an intellectual force in Poland, ever, to lead it to democracy. I learned that these terrible events must never be permitted again. When the Senate voted to ratify the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary into NATO, I knew that Poland could finally emerge from the shadow of the Cold War to join the family of Western nations.

In the 60 years since it was created, NATO has been an unprecedented success in deterring conflict and promoting peace and stability. To remain relevant and successful in the future, NATO must keep its doors open to those European democracies ready to bear the responsibilities, as well as the burdens, of membership. We must all remember that for many nations that have been occupied and oppressed over the last 100 years, NATO represents an institution that will guard against a repeat of the despicable and inhumane practices of the old century.

Madam President, I wish to respond to the amendment of my colleague from North Carolina and reach out a hand to him as well in terms of seeing if we could come up with a consensus.

First of all, I support the goals of what the Senator from North Carolina wishes to achieve. There is no one from our side of the aisle who would want to expose anyone in a vulnerable population--children, the elderly, those with disabilities--to a sexual predator, to a druggie, to a pill head, whatever terms we want to use, because the whole idea of AmeriCorps is to have people who will volunteer their services, and out of that will be able to help to uplift these vulnerable populations. So we are on the same broadband in terms of that.

Actually, remember: This bill has not been reauthorized in more than a decade, and in reauthorizing the bill, we actually examined these situations. The bill before the Senate actually requires that national service programs to run a background check through either a State criminal registry or send fingerprints to the FBI for a background check. It does not deal with drug testing. That is a new concept introduced by our colleague.

I wish to reiterate that the new legislation, the Serve America Act, already requires a criminal background check for programs serving children, the elderly, disabled individuals, or any other vulnerable population. It requires that every employee and every volunteer undergo a criminal history check in order to participate in federally funded programs.

We also want to go the extra mile in our bill by prohibiting sex offenders from serving as volunteers. No registered sex offender can serve as either a foster grandparent, a senior companion, or participate in any activity involved in exposure to children as a school volunteer. Our approach is consistent with the comprehensive rules promulgated by the corporation in 2007 following extensive consultation with the Department of Justice and public comment. So we took what they did through rule-making and we have codified it in this bill exactly to deal with the deep and grave and authentic concerns voiced by the Senator from North Carolina.

So our comments to the Senator from North Carolina are, No. 1, we don't think the amendment is necessary because we think we have dealt with it in the bill. Also, I am going to suggest that he and I confer off the Senate floor so we can review the bill and see if it accomplishes his objectives and deal with the issue of drug testing which is in the amendment the Senator has offered today.

If staff on our side of the aisle did not respond to the Senator's inquiry, I apologize for that. We are going to have that staff here, supervised by my staff and Senator Kennedy's staff, to see what we can work out.

I have worked with the Senator from North Carolina on so many issues, including on the Health Committee where he was a stalwart ally in moving the Higher Education Act. We have worked together in the area of intelligence. We do know about bad guys--bad guys and gals over there and possibly bad guys and gals here. We both want to accomplish the same policy objectives. Let's see if we can't have a conversation.

If our failure to respond in some way needlessly triggered an amendment, I again wish to apologize. So what I would like to do is leave the amendment pending, and let's have a conversation and see what we can work out. But I can assure my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that we want to make sure no vulnerable population is exposed to an AmeriCorps volunteer or any other volunteer receiving Federal

funds in this bill who in any way would jeopardize their health, their safety, and their well-being.

I yield the floor.

I appreciate that, as we have engaged with each other on so many other occasions. Therefore, I think that is an excellent way to proceed.

I have only two concerns. One is already in the bill, and the other could be onerous costs to very small agencies. I think we can deal with it and approach it the way we always have--rationally, civilly, and with a commitment to get the job done.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise in objection to the Vitter amendment No. 705 to single out ACORN, and actually, inadvertently, target other organizations that have no involvement whatsoever with

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that at 2:30 p.m. today, the Senate resume consideration of amendment No. 721; that upon disposition of that amendment, the Senate resume amendment No. 716; that upon the disposition of that amendment, the Senate then resume amendment No. 705; that prior to a vote in relation to each amendment, there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form; and that no amendments be in order to any of the amendments in this agreement, prior to a vote in relation thereto; that after the first vote in this sequence, the remaining votes be limited to 10 minutes each.

To put that in plain English, Madam President, it means that we will be voting on Senator Thune's sense of the Senate on charitable giving. Senator Baucus has an alternative, or a side-by- side, and we will be voting on that. We will also be voting on the Vitter amendment related to ACORN. So those will be the three votes.

For the interest of our colleagues and others as to how this bill is progressing, we are doing very well, and we thank our colleagues for coming down and offering amendments and debating them. All amendments need to be filed by 1 p.m. today. Upon getting that list, we hope to then work down those that can be easily disposed of, but we will also be reaching out to colleagues for them to come and offer the amendments on the floor so at such time later on this afternoon we can have substantive votes.

We want to have substantive debate all afternoon. So if our colleagues could file their amendments by 1 p.m., on both sides of the aisle, we will be expeditiously dealing with them, and then we will be inviting colleagues to offer them and then voting on them later on today.

It would be our hope, and the hope, I believe, of the leaders on both sides of the aisle, that we could conclude the debate and the vote on final passage on this bill today. That would be my goal, and I know the goal of Senator Kennedy. I know the goal is shared by Senators Enzi and Hatch. With the cooperation of colleagues, we will certainly be able to do it, and we thank them already for their excellent cooperation.

Madam President, 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 ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

I now call up the Ensign amendment, No. 690, and I ask that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk and that the amendment, as modified, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I vigorously, unabashedly, unreservedly

oppose this amendment. This amendment is absolutely not needed.

First, ACORN hasn't received AmeriCorps money in over a decade. Now, we would deny--deny--to groups who happen to be in the same building as ACORN access to AmeriCorps funds. It is harsh, punitive, and I believe makes no sense in terms of being able to deliver a service. It means if the Franciscan nuns had a floor in the building where ACORN operated, they couldn't do outreach to the poor. It means if there is a hotline for battered women to call, and they happen to be in the same building as ACORN, they couldn't get AmeriCorps funds.

I think this is an amendment that has no purpose and has Draconian consequences if passed. I therefore object to this amendment.

Madam President, I yield back my time, and I move to table this Vitter amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Madam President, I rise as an enthusiastic cosponsor of the Burr-Mikulski amendment. I do so because I believe what we have been able to achieve is to ensure that our vulnerable populations will not ever be exposed to people who could jeopardize their health or well-being if they work in the service of America.

Our amendment affirms very clearly that our bill will require criminal history checks on all employees and volunteers participating in these programs. Volunteers will be checked through the national sex offender data base. No sexual predators will participate.

Also, we will be doing, where appropriate, FBI and State database criminal data checking. We agree with Senator Burr there should be mandatory FBI fingerprint background checks of all volunteers working with children, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities.

Our amendment makes our bill even tougher by adding Senator Burr's requirement that volunteer organizations check with that FBI data base so that no criminals are ever working around these populations. We are also making sure there is the opportunity for flexibility of these groups, particularly where the entity is not authorized or is unable under State law to access these national history background checks, and some other technicals.

We are going to go a step further and ask the Attorney General to report back within a year if we need to do more to strengthen these background checks. We will work to get whatever we need to get the job done.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Senator Burr for reaffirming a strong commitment in this area. I have worked with him on his Committee and on the Intelligence Committee. I thank him for his approach in protecting vulnerable populations. I am glad we can work together to find a sensible center so we can get the job done. It shows if we listen to each other, we can work and govern together and, at the end of the day, the bill is better because of our efforts.

I thank the Senator for his cooperation, his civility, and a very good idea. If the Senator from North Carolina would like, we could move to a voice vote on the amendment.

Madam President, I ask that this amendment be adopted by a voice vote.

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, I want to report the status. We have concluded action on three amendments by a formal vote. We just completed another matter on a voice vote, as staff continues to iron out modest wrinkles on very few outstanding issues. Besides those issues, I am not aware of any other matter that needs to be considered.

I want Members to be aware the national service train will soon be leaving the station. If any Senator now wishes to offer an amendment or bring something to our attention, now is the time.

I am not in a position to ask unanimous consent for a time for final passage, but I alert our colleagues that after the national security briefings that all Senators will shortly be attending, we would like to be ready to move toward final passage.

Let's continue to work the way we are, and I think we can get the job done.

Amendment No. 714 to Amendment No. 687

Madam President, on behalf of Senator Warner of Virginia, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 714, and that once that is reported, the amendment be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

On behalf of myself and Senator Enzi, I call up an amendment of technical changes, which is at the desk, and I ask unanimous consent that it be considered and agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I thank the Chair.

Teach for America

I thank the Senator. I appreciate the Senator raising the issue of Teach For America. As the Senator knows, I am a very strong supporter of Teach For America and am very proud of the successes that its corps members have in the classroom. Teach For America has 240 corps members in Maryland this year, and by next year you will have 140 in Tennessee, which is very exciting. Nationally, over 6100 corps members are enriching the lives of more than 450,000 underserved students in our Nation's lowest performing schools. And with more than 14,000 alumni working in all fields to combat educational inequity, I am confident that the impact of this program and its corps members will only continue to grow.

I am proud to be a longtime supporter of this innovative and dynamic program, and I am pleased to say that they will continue to be eligible to participate in AmeriCorps through the newly created national service corps. Teach For America has demonstrated measurable effectiveness in the classroom, and it is exactly this type of measurable success that we are looking to scale up.

I would like to reiterate it as clearly and simply as I can so that there is no confusion:

Teach for America is eligible to receive funding under this legislation as a program model for service corps.

Participants in the national service corps program models are allowed to serve in the Education Corps--or any of the other corps--that we are allowing for the creation of with the passage of this law, as long as they are focused on improving the appropriate outcomes.

And Teach for America will be eligible to serve in the Education Corps.

Retired Senior volunteer Program

I thank the Senator. I appreciate the Senator raising the issue of competition in the SeniorCorps programs. As the Senator knows, I am

a very strong supporter of the work that these programs perform in the communities in my State. More than 7,400 seniors participate in these programs. Our Foster Grandparents serving as tutors and mentors, our Senior Companions are providing services to homebound seniors, and our Retired and Senior Volunteers are working in hundreds of community- based organizations across Maryland.

I believe that the language we have agreed upon provides opportunities to address some of the additional administrative burdens that may present a challenge for some of our small and rural programs. While this bill requires that RSVP programs undergo evaluations to gauge their performance levels, it also includes requirements for the Corporation to provide technical assistance to those programs that are struggling. It is important that as these organizations work to improve their performance they are able to obtain the support that they need from the Corporation to be successful. We have built in sufficient time so that the process is not rushed, and the legislation also ensures that every effort be made to minimize disruption to the volunteers and the communities they serve.

And it is also important to note that we have directed the Corporation to make available an online resource guide. This resource guide will spell out the Corporation's expectations for high performing programs, provide examples of best practices, and help demystify the meaningful outcome measures that we expect to be applied to these programs. We are charting a path forward that will result in the RSVP volunteers providing better services to the communities in which they serve.

roosevelt scholars

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

Mr. President, I am excited that we are wrapping up this historic legislation.

We all know that our Nation is facing many challenges. But times of crisis are times of great opportunity. They are the times in which our Nation's character is forged and in which Americans show their mettle. We are a nation of believers. We believe in ourselves, and we believe in our country's ability.

And at such a time of national need, we here in the Congress also know how to come together.

This bill is the result of extensive bipartisan work by Senators Kennedy and Hatch who have worked for more than a year on this legislation. They have lived lives that are a testament to the values expressed in this legislation. Thus, it is more than just a bipartisan bill, it is an American bill, and exemplifies everything that is good about our country.

It exemplifies not only their great friendship but their shared passion for service and for giving back and working across the aisle to do get things done. This really shows the Senate acting at its best.

I am no stranger to National Service. In 1989 I introduced the National and Community Service Act with Senators Kennedy, Nunn, and McCain to establish the Commission on National and Community Service, to oversee and coordinate our national volunteer efforts.

That legislation also created a demonstration program that evolved into AmeriCorps. That program provided vouchers for full and part-time service, to pay for education, job training, and homeownership

In 1993, we took national service to the next level, by enacting the National and Community Service Trust Act. We worked on that landmark legislation with President Clinton. It created the framework for the programs we are strengthening and expanding today.

National service is not just another social program. We created national service as a social invention. It was

created to address two critical questions, a practical question and an idealistic one:

How would young people pay for their education?

How could we reinstall the habits of the heart that made our country great?

And it worked. As our economy struggles, these American habits of the heart are shining through. Americans across the country are also doing their best by signing up to serve their communities and their country. City Year applications are up 180 percent. AmeriCorps applications are up as much as three to four times over last year's levels. Teach for America received 35,000 applications for just 4,000 slots. The help they get with student loans through the educational award is a real incentive for these young people. That worked as well.

This legislation will help us to harness a renewed energy for service to our communities and our country. It increases the number of AmeriCorps volunteers to 250,000 a year over 8 years, from 75,000. This will provide opportunities for more Americans to serve while ensuring the Corporation has time to handle the growth.

This bill isn't just about growth. It is about focusing AmeriCorps on areas of the most pressing national need, and where service can do the most good. That is why we include an education corps, a health futures corps, a clean energy corps, a veterans corps, and an opportunity corps focusing on poverty. This is why we are focusing our service efforts.

If we are going to do more in service we need to be sure it is done right. That is why this bill contains many vital accountability measures, to measure outcomes for specific service grantees and outcomes for the Corporation itself. And for this we can truly thank our colleague, Senator Enzi, the Ranking Member of the HELP Committee and a vital partner in this bill. He has once again brought his very sound accounting skills to the table, and we came up with a way to, again, ensure value for the taxpayer, value for the community.

One of the things that is so exciting about this bill is what it does to encourage service among young people. We all know that our future lies with the next generation, with America's youth. And we know that young people who learn to serve take those lessons with them for a lifetime. I look at my colleagues--Senator Hatch, Senator Dodd, and Senator Rockefeller. Many of them had important service experiences when they were young that encouraged them to embark on a career of public service. Indeed, working on this bill has reminded me of many things that I did in my own life.

When I started my career as a social worker, I wasn't just working in the jobs that paid. I was volunteering with nuns to help women get their lives back on track after getting out of prison. I was working with foster children and children with special needs--our most vulnerable population--to help them get the services and the care they needed. I was a trainer at the very first VISTA training center in Baltimore, making sure that those VISTA members weren't just working to build President Johnson's ``Great Society,'' but that they were doing great work in their communities.

I didn't do all of this because anyone asked me to, I did it because nobody asked me to. I saw the compelling human need, and I used my skills as a community organizer to do the best I could in my neighborhood, and my hometown of Baltimore. It led to me fighting to stop a highway, which led to the city council in Baltimore, then to the House of Representatives and, now, to the floor of the U.S. Senate. I didn't know that I would be here when I started my career, but I know that what I did in those early years as a social worker, and volunteer has impacted everything that I've done since.

These experiences that we have when we are young truly shape the habits of a lifetime. That is why it is so important that this legislation makes key investments in our Nation's young people.

The bill will increase service-learning opportunities for students. Working with Senator Dodd, who has been such a leader on these issues, we create ``summer of service'' opportunities for middle and high school students. In return for spending the summer doing service, students will receive an educational award--which will not only help them pay for college, but will send them a signal that college is within reach. It will also create ``youth engagement zones,'' which provide for coordinated community-wide service learning programs in areas with high dropout rates. Both of these programs provide students with meaningful service experiences and put them on a path to a lifetime of service.

College is where so much of our young people's character and experiences are shaped, and our colleges must do a good job instilling the virtues of service. This bill recognizes those that are going the extra mile by allowing for the designation of 25 ``Campuses of Service'' across the country, schools which are undertaking activities to help their students engage in service, service-learning, and go on to public service careers.

As I mentioned, this bill will also help students pay for college and decrease student debt for those who serve in AmeriCorps. This was something we thought about very carefully when we created this program. And with college costs rising, it is more important than ever that we reaffirm this commitment. Across AmeriCorps, it will increase the Eli Segal Education Award to $5,350 for the first time since its creation. We also pegged the award to the Pell grant, to ensure it does not get stuck once again in the future.

This bill also recognizes we must to do more to appreciate what older Americans have to give back and more to ask them to do them. The largest generation in American history is retiring, but in many cases they have more to give. Recent surveys show that many older Americans are interested in continuing to do more to help the greater good, and a full 58 percent of the first wave of baby boomers reported that they would consider entering ``encore'' careers in service.

To help them help us, this bill makes AmeriCorps work better for adults. It allows adults over the age of 55 to transfer their educational award to a child or grandchild, to help such a young person go to college. This keeps the tie between service and educational benefit, but makes it work better for adults.

The legislation also creates encore fellowships to help adults transition to longer-term public service. This is a way to bring in people who have retired and who have incredible skills, such as that retired accountant who can help a nonprofit get its books together and maybe find new grant opportunities.

Finally, the bill updates and expands the Senior Corps programs, RSVP, Senior Companions, and Foster Grandparents. These programs have been providing opportunities for seniors across the country for decades, and this bill will ensure they continue to do so.

Some of the most important work this bill does is around supporting social innovation. We don't know ahead of time what these will be, but every generation comes up with a social invention that shapes our nation for years to come.

Often, these ideas come from a young social entrepreneur who has the courage to think they have a new way to solve a tough problem--and they're right. From Teach for America to the Community Health Corps to New Song Urban Ministries' Youth Mentoring Program in Baltimore, they have so much to teach us.

The Social Innovation Fund in this bill will do just that, by creating public-private funds to support the expansion of effective, outcomes-based nonprofits that are meeting real needs.

One of the things that is truly a hallmark of the American character is our willingness to help each other. There is an overwhelming majority of Americans that donate a few hours of their time each week to do just that. Particularly in this time of need, we must continue to focus on these part-time volunteers. To help organizations better recruit and manage these volunteers, this legislation creates a Volunteer Generation Fund to improve volunteer management and increase capacity at small organizations that rely on volunteers.

From part-time volunteers to full-time volunteers, from students to retirees, this bill will help every American at every stage of life give back.

By doing so, it will draw on some of our best attributes as a nation--our strength, our compassion, our ingenuity--to address the challenges we are

facing. We all agree there is nothing about our country's current situation that is easy. But there are some easy steps on the path to getting back on our feet. This legislation is one such step.

In a very short time, we will vote on final passage of the Serve America Act. This is going to be a great day for the Senate and a great day for people everywhere who wish to give back to their country. The content of the bill is outstanding. The way the process has worked has been amazing. What is so wonderful about this bill is, it showed that the Congress and the Senate can work together. We can check our party hats at the door and then concentrate on what we need to do to help the American people.

This legislation passed in the House. In the Senate, we have been deliberating on it this week. This bill is the result of extensive bipartisan work by Senators Kennedy and Hatch who have worked for more than a year on the legislation. They, too, have devoted their lives to service. Senator Kennedy's role is well known. For more than 40 years, his steadfast commitment to the Peace Corps, to the VISTA volunteers, to being a founding father of AmeriCorps, he has been there every single time benchmark legislation has passed that has led to the opportunity for greater service.

Senator Hatch brings his wonderful background, his Mormon commitment to service, where he himself went on a service mission and to know how it would change their lives. They have brought extensive work on the bill, and they brought a lifetime of experience.

I am no stranger to national service because in 1989, I introduced the National Community Service Act with Senators Kennedy, Nunn and McCain to establish a commission and a demonstration project to look at national service. We actually wanted to test out ideas.

Then, in 1993, working with President Clinton, we took national service to the next level by enacting the National and Community Service Trust Act. We worked on that landmark legislation with President Clinton. It created the framework for the programs we are strengthening and expanding today.

When we did this in 1993, we did not want national service to be just another social program. We wanted to see this as a social invention that would spark a social movement. At that time in the 1990s, everyone was worried about the me generation, where young people were forgetting the legacy of what this country is, the habits of the heart, of neighbor helping neighbor. We wanted to stimulate a movement from the me generation to the we generation. At the same time we faced the hard reality that access to the American dream, particularly higher education, was slipping away from many young people.

It worked. We found that the framework for AmeriCorps and other important programs that are in the Corporation for National Service did generate exactly what we wanted. Thousands and thousands of people stepped forward to volunteer, people of all ages, young people and not so young people, in AmeriCorps, the foster grandparent corps, the RSVP, and Senior Companions Programs. It absolutely changed their lives.

What is it that we see now? What we see now, as we come into the new century, those habits of the heart continue to burn brightly among our population. We are seeing that as the economy struggles, the American habits of the heart are shining through.

All across America, people want to volunteer, if they have the opportunity to do so. City Year applications are up 180 percent. Teach for America has received 35,000 applicants for 4,000 slots. AmeriCorps applications are three or four times last year's level. That is not because they don't have a job and they see AmeriCorps or Teach for America as a substitute for a job. They see it as a calling. They see it as an opportunity to take all this talent and put it to work for our society.

We are going to do that. This legislation helps us to harness a renewed energy for service to our communities and our country. It increases the number of AmeriCorps volunteers to 250,000 volunteers a year. But we do it in a well paced way and also in an affordable way. It increases the number of AmeriCorps volunteers to 250,000 a year over 8 years. We will get the job done. It will provide opportunities for more Americans to serve while we ensure that the corporation has time to handle the growth.

Also, we wanted to reform, reinvigorate, and refocus AmeriCorps. In AmeriCorps now we are refocusing it on the areas of the most pressing national need and where service can do the most good. That is why we have included the permissible use of establishing an education corps to work at improving school outcomes for young people, more literacy, more math skills, better attendance. We also have a healthy futures corps which will work to make sure people who are eligible for benefits can get them but also to go into schools to be able to help develop those new healthy habits that will last over a lifetime. We have a clean energy corps that will work on weatherization and helping clean our parks and neighborhoods. We have an opportunity corps to focus on poverty, and a veterans corps to help those families where men and women are deployed. That is why we are focusing our service efforts.

This bill also includes many accountability measures to ensure to not only measure outcomes but to ensure fiscal stewardship. I thank Senator Enzi, the ranking member of the HELP Committee, a vital partner on this bill. He brought his very sound accounting skills to the table. Working together, we found a way to ensure value for the taxpayer and value for the community. That is what I mean about working together, taking the time to listen to one another, to recognize there is not only talent out there in the community, there is talent right here in the Senate.

If we take the time to listen to one another and the ideas we have, sort them through, pay attention to one another, talk with one another--first of all, talk with one another, and do it in a civil way, wow, we can really do some very special things. That is what we did in this bill.

We know our future lies with the next generation. We know young people who learn to serve take those lessons with them for a lifetime. My colleagues Hatch, Dodd, and Rockefeller did a year of service. My own work as a social worker had a profound impact on me. My work as a foster care worker and a child abuse worker will stay with me all of my life, when I think about vulnerable populations and what we need to do. The work I was able to do in my own community, working with women who were in jail, who had no programs to assist them when they came out, to the work in the church I belonged to in the African American community, where they did not have access to credit except to the gougers and scammers and schemers, to work to establish a credit union. And then, of course, as a grassroots volunteer, I helped fight a highway that saved neighborhoods in Baltimore and took me into politics.

In our country, sometimes those of us who are active in those activities raise the dickens, or in dissent, end up in jail. I ended up in the city council, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. I turned my protest signs into amendment and legislative signs. This is what we see today.

Habits last a long time. When we look at what is happening in the healthy futures corps where young people are already working in their community health centers and so on, when they finish their year of service, many of them are going into health careers. They go into medicine, nursing, allied health, or in the great area of public health. Eighty five percent of the people who volunteer in this area want to go into some kind of career that produces improvements in health outcomes. So this is what AmeriCorps is all about.

When I worked in the community, I didn't do this because somebody asked me. I did it because it needed to be done. It is not only about what I did as a young volunteer. It is about what young volunteers are doing now. Sure, President Obama is inviting them to participate. But a lot of young people out there see compelling human need, and they want to make a difference. These experiences are going to shape them for a lifetime. We cannot minimize the impact this will have on communities. In its decade and a half of existence, AmeriCorps has already changed lives and communities.

When we talk to people where our young people have volunteered in public schools, we know that attendance went up, behavioral problems went down, motivation increased. Working with those volunteers, they even took the time to look at what were the opportunities for scholarships and loans and grants that they could go on to higher education.

They make a difference.

When we take a look at what they were able to do working in response to disaster assistance, weren't we proud of what our volunteers were able to do--working side-by-side-down there dealing with Katrina where they helped New Orleans dig out? But not only dig out, they dug in to help Louisiana and New Orleans move to a better future. Those AmeriCorps young men and women helped clean up after the debris, clean up after the terrible hurricane that hit. They are working with Habitat for Humanity to build housing or to repair housing and also working side-by-side with public school leadership to create a new New Orleans public school system.

This is fantastic. Every community that has been hard hit in many ways enjoys the benefits of these programs. There were other programs we were able to do. One of the things we are especially pleased with was that we were able to increase the education award named after its first founder, Eli Segal, and increased it to $5,300. There are other programs in here.

When we talk about programs, it sounds so bloodless, so ``there they go again.'' But that is right; here we go again. We are creating an opportunity ladder for people to be able to participate in our society. There is no other country in the world that does this. I am not just talking about bragging rights for the United States, but it is a lesson learned that in our society, we have a public sector and a private sector. But we have a vibrant sector that is really in the nonprofit field where people can get involved and get engaged. It is what we call the intermediary institutions. It is what de Tocqueville called the habits of the heart. It is what sociologists called the little platoons of neighbor helping neighbor. It is what George Bush the elder called the Thousand Points of Light. But whatever you call it, it is called serving America.

Shortly, we will be voting on this bill. I think we have done a very good job. We have created opportunity. We have done it in a way that is affordable. We have built-in, sound accountability measures, and we have governed on a truly bipartisan basis.

I thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch for being the lead architects on this bill. I also thank Senator Enzi and Senator Dodd for their very important contributions in improving this bill.

I thank all of the staff who have participated in this effort: from Senator Hatch's staff, Chris Campbell, Bryan Hickman, and Jace Johnson; from Senator Kennedy's staff, Christine Leonard, Charlotte Burrows, Janice Kaguyutan, Portia Wu, Michael Myers, and Emma Vadehra; from Senator Enzi's staff, Beth Buehlmann, Adam Briddell, Frank Macchiarola, and Greg Dean; from my own staff, Julia Frifield, Ben Gruenbaum, and Mario Cardona. And the Corporation's general counsel was available to us all the time through Frank Trinity.

So I thank the staff who put in so many hours in helping design the bill but also working with other Senators to get the best ideas and the best thinking on how we could get the bill done, but to do it in a way that has accountability and outcome measurements.

But also, when the American people hear about what we have done this week, it is such an antidote to last week, when we were talking about AIG and bonuses and ``ain't I greedy,'' and all of those things. What we are talking about here today is about the very best of the American people and how we can draw upon it, and also the very best of the Senate. We do govern best when we work together.

So today we were not a red State, we were not a blue State, we were the United States of America States, and we will be ready to vote on it.

Mr. President, at the appropriate time--or even now--I urge passage of this bill.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 26, 2009 at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Enhancing Investor Protection and the Regulation of Securities Markets--Part II.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 10:30 a.m., in room 50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance will meet on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, to conduct an executive business meeting on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 9:30 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 26, 2009 at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Airland of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, March 26, 2009, at 2 p.m.

Mr. President, later this afternoon we are going to be voting on the Crapo amendment, No. 688, to increase borrowing authority for the FDIC. I will not be supporting the Senator's amendment even though I agree there is much about the policy in the amendment that I agree with. It might be a good idea, but it is in the wrong place.

The bill pending before the Senate is the national service bill. It is the result of bipartisan, bicameral work--very complicated bipartisan, bicameral negotiations--on which we have strong support from a range of Senators and strong support from the administration. Introducing contentious housing and economic issues into this debate would jeopardize the bipartisan support we have on this bill and could wreak havoc in the conference we will be facing with the House. We don't want to be in havoc with the House. It is one thing to be negotiating assertively, representing a Senator's viewpoint with the House on national service and what is the best, most prudent, and affordable way to do it, but if we have to carry over to the House an amendment dealing with FDIC and insurance--that really belongs on another bill.

I encourage our colleague, Senator Crapo, to withdraw the amendment. I really would not like to reject the idea, but that is the Banking Committee's jurisdiction. As I understand it from the chairman and ranking member of the Banking Committee, this is a substantive issue they intend to take up in their committee.

I say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, if Senator Crapo insists upon a vote, that we really not pass his amendment. For all of those who think the policy has merit, I don't dispute that. But that is for another forum. That is for a Banking Committee forum. That should be hashed out in the Banking Committee, and then recommendations would be brought to the respective caucuses of both the Democrats and Republicans so that we can have a substantive discussion.

I must say that to increase the borrowing authority of the FDIC from $30 billion to $100 billion should not be done on a shoot-from-the-lip. That is what this amendment is, all due respect to my colleague. Just kind of dumping it on national service is a shoot-from-the-lip amendment. I think it deserves more caution and consideration. We are talking about raising the borrowing authority by $70 billion just when everybody is saying: Hey, Obama is taking on too much. I think we are taking too much on in an amendment with the national service bill.

I say to my colleague, please withdraw your amendment. If you insist upon a vote, I am afraid I will have to oppose you in a very vigorous way. Perhaps, if done appropriately through the Banking Committee and it comes before the Senate in the regular order, I might be in the ``aye'' column.

So when we do vote on that, that is the category I will be in. As I understand it, we will be voting on that amendment this afternoon. There is still time for the Senator to come over and withdraw his amendment. I say this in the most respectful way because I know how strongly he feels about it. He has a lot of expertise on that, and I would like to see that expertise channeled to the right place, at the right time, with the right amendment, on the right bill.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 3 p.m., the Senate resume consideration of amendment No. 688; that if a budget point of order is raised against the amendment and a motion to waive the applicable point of order is made, that immediately thereafter the Senate proceed to vote on the motion to waive the point of order.

Mr. President, I say to my colleague from Nevada, there seems to be some confusion about this matter. We do want to address his amendments. We have been working on his side trying to queue up those amendments. Perhaps during this vote he and I can talk. I think there was confusion about where there are some roadblocks. Let's talk during the vote.

Mr. President, I make a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Mr. President, what is the order, a vote or a quorum?

Mr. President, we can appreciate this amendment and the thrust behind it.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, the Ensign amendment would make an unnecessary and divisive change to the bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Baucus and Grassley. The Baucus-Grassley amendment would create

a nonprofit capacity building program. It would fund a grant program to provide education opportunities to small charities, primarily designed for those in rural areas. The education opportunities would teach charities how to manage finances and fundraise effectively, how to accurately file complicated tax forms, adopt new computer technologies or even plan a long-term budget. Capacity in rural communities, such as I see in my own areas, do need help. I think the Grassley-Baucus amendment has merit. In the Baucus-Grassley amendment, there is no limitation on the types of charities that can access these training programs. Therefore, the amendment of the Senator from Nevada is unnecessary.

Support for the Baucus-Grassley amendment is quite broad. The National Council of Nonprofits, the Independent Sector, and the Alliance for Children and Families have voiced their strong support for this amendment. I urge colleagues to oppose the Ensign amendment.

I wish to also comment on his desire to include crisis pregnancy centers. That is a broad definition. I am not sure what he means by a crisis pregnancy center. There are those that are ones with a particular philosophical viewpoint as compared to broad pregnancy information. These centers are already covered by language in the current bill. The amendment is not needed. There is a question about adding that explicit language. I urge Members not to adopt the Ensign second-degree amendment. It is unnecessary and unneeded and would cause quite an intense negotiation with the House when we go to conference. The whole idea of the way we have been working so faithfully on a bipartisan and even bicameral basis is to not to have a long conference so we are able to move the national service bill to signing by the President so it could be included in this year's appropriations. By adding the Ensign second degree, this would result in jeopardizing the passage of the bill.

I urge defeat of the Ensign amendment and would so recommend to my colleagues.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I object.

Mr. President, we didn't know the Senator had an amendment. We need to have a copy of the amendment. If we could have a copy, we would be willing to discuss it.

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

Mr. President, if I may say to the Senator from South Dakota, we are looking at his amendment to see if there is something we can accommodate. Would it be agreeable to him if the Senator from New Hampshire offered a bipartisan amendment that she and the other Senator from New Hampshire are offering? She will offer it and speak briefly, understanding that the Senator had sought recognition before she did.

Yes.

It is a matter of expediting the time. We are reviewing your amendment, which is a sense of the Senate. We are viewing it from not only a policy standpoint but with this arrangement of discussing issues with the House. It is more of a time management issue than a content issue.

I ask unanimous consent that upon completion of the offering of the amendment by the Senator from New Hampshire, the Senator from South Dakota's amendment be pending.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire, along with her colleague, the senior Senator, Mr. Gregg, for offering this amendment. It does make sure that service programs in the Education Corps are also allowed to incorporate art and music. We in the committee on both sides of the aisle support this. We support it both for content reasons and process reasons.

In the area of process, what the Shaheen-Gregg amendment does is actually incorporate art and music as eligible for funding, as do our colleagues in the House. So it puts it in symmetry with the House. This is what we like. It is when we are out of symmetry with the House that we do not like it. This makes it a high note for art and music.

Second, we know that for many of our boys and girls, the involvement in art and/or music can have a profound impact on, No. 1, school attendance--they really want to come to school to follow their passion; No. 2, it also seems to have a particularly positive effect in the area of behavior for special education children. Special education children seem to have a real affinity in engaging in music and art activity and often by the enrollment in those activities.

What we see in our public schools is that art and music programs have been the first on the budget block when it comes to the reduction of funds. Having talented young people come in with this kind of approach can really help school attendance, help with behavior problems in schools, and also unlock a talent in a child.

If a child grows up, as I see in Baltimore in that show called ``The Wire''--where neighborhoods that are so drug saturated that there is constant police activity, and the informants become the wire--the children of those communities are so terribly disadvantaged. The teachers work under such Spartan circumstances that AmeriCorps being able to come in could change lives--could actually change lives.

The Shaheen-Gregg amendment is an excellent concept to add to our Education Corps. We, under normal circumstances, would accept it, but we understand a vote will be required. But when they call my name, I am going to be in the ``aye'' column.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, if I could comment on the Thune amendment, it is a sense of the Senate that Congress and Federal law should continue the current tax deduction rate of 35 percent, and we understand the thrust of the argument behind the Senator's sense of the Senate. I wish to comment both on process and on content. This is a Finance Committee and a Budget Committee matter; this is not a national service matter, though I can see why the Senator would say that, because the uniqueness of America is that we have always had these great public-private partnerships. In fact, so many of the AmeriCorps volunteers will work exactly in the nonprofits that benefit from the charitable giving. Boys and Girls Clubs would be an example of that type of work.

Now, the budget will be on the floor of the Senate next week. Why is that not the right place for the Senator to offer his amendment, not only as to the sense of the Senate, but to actually make a change? The President has recently proposed to limit the tax benefits of itemized deductions for those in the top two income brackets--to limit it to 28 percent. So in the President's budget we will be considering, there is the change in tax deduction rates from 35 percent to 28 percent. Next week is the right time for not only a sense of the Senate but actually direct action. I actually hope that the Senator from South Dakota would consider withdrawing his amendment and dealing with it on the budget when the budget is before us next week.

We believe that the President's proposal would retain a generous benefit. There still would be a tax deduction equal to 28 cents on the dollar for every dollar contributed to charity. Less than 10 percent of the taxpayers who do claim a charitable deduction are in that 35- percent category the Senator from South Dakota has outlined. We believe these taxpayers, fortunate enough to be doing well, and who also wish to do good, will continue to give, even if it is at a 28-percent rate.

I could debate the substance, but I would prefer that the substantive debate come from the Budget Committee members and the Finance Committee members who have poored over this. No one on either side of the aisle wants to limit charitable giving or penalize people for giving. We understand that this is exactly what we need during these tough times. I believe this amendment should be debated and voted on in the budget bill, but if it is going to be here, again, I will have to oppose it, not necessarily on substantive grounds, though. I will support the President's budget.

We are proud of the tradition we have with giving. We should encourage people to keep on giving. One of the ways we do that is through an itemized deduction for charitable giving. I think both sides of the aisle agree on that. We very much support the idea of an itemized deduction for charitable giving. Both sides of the aisle agree on that. Certainly I do. But what the Senator's amendment misses is that all Americans give, all Americans who itemize deductions as well as Americans who don't. In fact, CRS says that only 30 percent of taxpayers claim a deduction for charitable giving. Yet we know that many more than 30 percent of taxpayers give to charity. In fact, the independent sector the Senator has quoted has a study that indicates 89 percent of households in America give in some charitable way. Isn't that wonderful. I mean isn't that fantastic. So many taxpayers make charitable contributions, even though they are not getting a tax benefit at all.

So to place the national service bill in one more quagmires with the House--because when we send this over, it means that national service will not only be conferenced by our counterpart in the Education and Labor Committee, but it is going to have to go to the Finance Committee--excuse me, their Ways and Means Committee. Once again, because of a sense of the Senate, we are going to be put in a quagmire, when the Senator wants to deal with the policy of 35 percent versus 28 percent, and he would have that opportunity on the budget debate.

I disagree with this amendment not only because it is bad policy, but it is absolutely the wrong place to bring this up. I am going to oppose this sense of the Senate and I encourage the Senator from South Dakota, who has many excellent points to be made, that he bring it up on the budget bill.

So I oppose the amendment based on process as well as on substantive grounds.

Mr. President, before I yield the floor, I note that the Senator from Oregon is standing. May I inquire what the purpose of his statement will be--because the Senator from Louisiana has been waiting to offer an amendment. Did the Senator wish to speak on the Thune amendment?

Mr. President, this is not only a good amendment, it is a fantastic amendment. I really compliment the Senator from Louisiana not only for the amendment but for her steadfast commitment to children in foster care, and also children in need of adoption--not only the cute, cuddly infants but the older children and the children who are handicapped. The Senator has also been a leader in the international field, working on a bipartisan basis.

This amendment is fantastic because it will help more foster children get the social and academic mentoring they need. It doesn't create a new corps. We are going to put it under AmeriCorps and leave it to the flexibility of government at the local level to do this in a way that coordinates with their departments of human services.

It is true there are 500,000 children in foster care in this country. When I started out my career as a social worker, after I graduated from college, I worked for Associated Catholic Charities. I was a foster care worker, so I know this up close and personal. I was also a home worker, so I know it personally.

When I was in my twenties, I often worked with children being cared for by nuns in group homes. The nuns themselves were in their forties, fifties, or older. They were sweet, caring, and compassionate. We could not do it without them. But those young preteens and adolescents needed different kinds of help.

I organized women I graduated with at my Catholic college, and we did hair-dos and curlers and lipstick with them and the kinds of things young girls needed to do. I was once in that age group myself. But those preteen girls were transitioning to womanhood. My classmates and I helped them, and it increased their interest in school, their interest in working with the sisters. When those girls were ready to leave the group home, either to go out into the world or to return to their parents, they were in a better place because of the nuns and their loving care and the work of Catholic Charities, and because of what the volunteers did.

I think what the Senator is offering is going to make a difference. I look forward, when we have the vote, to supporting it.

Our colleague from Oregon has been waiting to offer a very compelling speech, which I eagerly await to hear. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Oregon. I understand it is his very first speech he has given on the Senate floor; is that correct?

Well, how wonderful, I say to the Senator from Oregon, his very first speech was important because it was about home ownership and how we have to make sure the American dream continues to be within reach for most Americans, that they are able to afford a home and have the jobs that pay those wages, and that when they go to buy a home, the rates are reasonable, that they are not a victim of a scam or scum.

I would like to say, if that is his first speech, I am looking forward to hearing many more and working with him on access to the American dream--home ownership, the opportunity to pursue a higher education, and to either own a business or have a job that pays a living wage. Senator Merkley is a welcome addition to the Senate. Speaking, I know, on behalf of those who have been here a while, that was a great speech, and we look forward to many more.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:15 p.m. today, the Senate resume consideration of the Ensign second-degree amendment, No. 715, and that the amendment be modified with changes at the desk and there be 2 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form prior to a vote in relation to the amendment; that upon the use of that time, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the amendment; that upon the disposition of amendment No. 715, as modified, the Baucus-Grassley amendment, No. 692, as amended, if amended, be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that the Senate then resume consideration of amendment No. 693 and that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk; that once modified, the amendment be agreed to, as modified, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that the Senate then resume consideration of amendment No. 717, and that the amendment be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that no amendments be in order to any of the amendments covered in this agreement prior to a vote in relation thereto.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

What is the pending business?

Which is the Ensign second-degree amendment?

Thank you. As I understand it, the Senator from Nevada does not wish to speak.

I will comment that the Ensign amendment would make an unnecessary, divisive change to the bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Baucus and Grassley. Senators Baucus and Grassley create a nonprofit, capacity-building program that would fund grant programs to provide technical assistance to small charities: how to manage finances, accurately file tax returns, et cetera.

There is no limitation in the Baucus-Grassley amendment on the type of charities that can access these training opportunities. Therefore, the Senator from Nevada's amendment is unnecessary.

Therefore, I move to table the Ensign amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I believe we can wrap up this bill. I am not aware of many more amendments on our side of the aisle. We will be able to come to closure on ours, I believe, even before noon tomorrow, acknowledging what will happen in the Budget Committee. So we would like to be able to move expeditiously.

I would hope we would not have to be in session late on Friday or on Saturday. And, in fact, I would suggest that Members go home to their communities and volunteer. There is always some good work to be done. This is about national service. We have heard about the good 'ol platoons all over America. There are communities that need our help more than they need long-winded speeches on the Senate floor. So let's do some heavy lifting in the Senate, and let's do some heavy lifting in our communities. But let's bring this bill to an end tomorrow night.

I really want to thank my colleague, Senator Hatch, for the excellent cooperation he and his staff have given us, along with Senator Enzi, who I know continues to be snowed-in in Wyoming. We do not want to be snowed-in in the Senate. We have now filed cloture. Let's get this bill done.

Mr. President, questions have been raised about the intent of section 1705 giving the chief executive officer authority to delegate specific programmatic authority to the States. In particular, strong concerns have been raised that corporation officials would use this authority to eliminate the State offices of the corporation and adversely impact the operation of VISTA and the Senior Corps.

The committee intends that the chief executive officer will use this authority judiciously to improve the operation of the all of the corporation's programs by using a consultative process that includes all of the stakeholders in the affected programs. The committee expects the corporation to continue the staff from State offices at an operational level that is at least equal to the current one.

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, I rise to pay tribute to the spouse of one of our colleagues. The entire Senate has now been notified that Mrs. Christine Sarbanes, the beloved wife of Senator Sarbanes, has passed away. I come to the floor with a heavy heart and with fond memories of, indeed, a remarkable person.

Christine Sarbanes was quite a woman in her own right. She was a woman of keen intellect, warm heart, and a compassion for the underdog. She was a woman who was a force in her own very quiet, understated way. If you really liked and admired Paul Sarbanes, which all of Maryland did, you also really loved Christine Sarbanes. Senator Sarbanes often joked that whenever he would come to an event, they would say: Where is Chris? Or they would say: Where is Christine? She often represented him in and around our State.

She had a unique way of talking that brought immeasurable commonsense and practicality but yet a connection to people and their day-to-day needs.

Theirs was a remarkable relationship that I had the good fortune of observing. I have known the Sarbanes family for more than 30 years. I met the young Paul Sarbanes, a spirited reformer, in Baltimore during the 1960s. Baltimore was dominated by political bosses. There were those of us who were bringing a new day, change that one could believe in. We reformers were running for local offices and challenging the machine. The local press nicknamed us the ``shiny brights'' because we saw ourselves as a new force.

Paul Sarbanes was the first to beat the machine, running for the House of Delegates and then for Congress. When he ran for the Senate, I filled the House seat held by Senator Sarbanes. It was the remarkable third congressional seat. That seat was held by Paul Sarbanes, then by me, then by Ben Cardin, and now by John Sarbanes.

One of the joys of Christine's life was to see John take the oath of office and to take the seat in the House of Representatives that his father held.

This was a remarkable couple, as you saw them doing good and having a strong presence in our community. They were really made for each other. These were people who really believed in the life of the intellect, but the life of the intellect lived in the community. They met at Oxford. Christine, like Paul, shared a very modest background. Her dad was an electrician; her mother was a waitress. She was a scholarship girl, as they said in those days, to some of the private schools in England that then took her to a scholarship at Oxford where she won both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree.

The Baltimore Sun has a wonderful article about Mrs. Sarbanes, which I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record.

It tells the story. Senator Sarbanes has told this story as well. He went to a meeting of the American Association, where he met a young British woman who was interested in getting women in the Oxford debating union. Women were excluded from the Oxford debating union. He saw Christine. He saw her charm, her charisma, her passion, her advocacy for women when it was just coming to the fore. Suddenly, Paul Sarbanes became an impassioned supporter of getting women in the Oxford Union. He was an equally unabashed supporter of getting women in the Senate, which helped me become the first Democratic woman here.

That was the Sarbaneses. They met there. They met on a cause. The cause began their love for each other and their love of this country and the love of making this country a better place.

We all know Senator Sarbanes's remarkable career in the Senate, a man we all admired for his honesty, his integrity, his honor, and his ability to get the job done. Maryland loved him by reelecting him on several occasions, often being the highest vote getter. Christine came back and helped Paul with his career. She also continued her work in our community.

Mrs. Sarbanes was a gifted teacher, a spirited volunteer, and a civic leader, while she was raising a family of four remarkable children: three young men and a wonderful young woman who has a doctorate in literature and is in California. She also was an avid civic volunteer. Her great passion was books. She believed books would change lives. Books changed her life. They helped her win a scholarship, they got her to Oxford, and this would continue.

For her, the world of books was so important, one of her advocacy areas was libraries. If you ever wanted to meet someone who believed in the power and the empowerment of libraries, it was Christine Sarbanes because she believed ideas belong to everybody. Books should be available to everybody. There should be a public institution that no matter who you are, no matter what your economic background, no matter what Zip Code you were born in, you could have access to the great books of our world. That is why she devoted herself to that and was on the board of the Enoch Pratt Library.

She did a fantastic job there. In fact, her memorial service will be held at the Enoch Pratt Library in a few days.

In her work, she also was a teacher. She taught at Goucher College. She taught at one of the more prominent prep schools, and she taught the classics. But in teaching the classics, we should all note that Mrs. Sarbanes was, indeed, a very classy lady.

When we think about her, we will always remember her, again, for being able to light up a room while she worked so hard to light up the lives of others. She will be greatly missed by all of us.

As all of you know, Senator Sarbanes and I shared a very special relationship in the Senate, but that relationship was also shared in the Maryland community with Mrs. Sarbanes. Mrs. Sarbanes was there for everybody, and everybody in Maryland mourns for her.

Madam President, first of all, I rise to thank my colleague from Utah for his excellent statement. I think he outlines exactly where we are in terms of both the content of the bill and the way we have approached this bill.

It is my belief, as is the belief of Senator Kennedy, that we govern best when we govern together. That is exactly what the Serve America Act exemplifies. The architects of this legislation are Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch, bringing to bear their own passion on Americans being able to give back to our society. Yet, with 16 years of lessons learned on the running of the Corporation for National Service, we have learned a lot.

So this bill, as originally introduced, had not only good ideas and good intentions, but came from lessons learned on how to better focus our efforts, get more of a dollar's worth out of our efforts, and, at the same time, be able to harvest this growing desire of people to serve. This year, there are far more people who are applying for national service opportunities than at any other time in our history.

Senator Hatch has also outlined the very important parameters we have set in the bill: no money will be going to participants to engage in partisan activities, no money going to participants that cannot demonstrate they are providing viable services and meeting the very clear requirements of AmeriCorps.

There are other issues both Senators Hatch and Enzi have worked so constructively on to bring to our attention--great yellow flashing lights around these issues--and we heard them. We not only heard their concerns, I want to thank them because they brought not only concerns to the table but very sound solutions. So I want to thank them for that.

I think on our side of the aisle, we have looked at AmeriCorps, we have looked at what President Obama is calling for, along with Senator Kennedy, and the wonderful contributions of Senator Dodd, and want to expand this program. But we realize there is a

limit. There is a limit to the money we can spend, and there is a limit to our organizational capacity on what we can undertake.

So on our side there was an attempt to find that sensible center to be able to focus exactly on what we want to do in certain basic corps, and, at the same time, to merely make sure, increase the number of people volunteering.

We have taken a look at the education voucher award. It has been frozen for 16 years. We made a modest increase, and our index will be to peg it to the Pell grants. This seems to be a sensible solution. There were those on my side of the aisle who wanted to double or even triple the education award. If we looked at inflation over 16 years, I would have been in that category. Well, in the spirit of compromise and consensus, we all sometimes have to not make the perfect the enemy of the really excellent. Therefore, in 2010, we will raise the education award to $5,350--a $500 increase. That would be less than $50 a year over the last 16 years.

So we trimmed what the education award would be. We looked at how we wanted to triple the number of volunteers. We knew it couldn't be done in a day or a year, so instead, we phase it in over a 7-year period. Again, it was taking what we wanted to do, but organizing it at a pace we knew the taxpayers could afford, and so the corporation could develop the capacity to be able to expand the programs in a sound way.

Then there comes the stewardship idea, which is, how do we make sure we build in certain reporting that really would ensure we were getting a dollar's worth of service for a dollar's worth of taxes? Senator Enzi of Wyoming, the ranking member of the committee, once again brought his very sound accounting skills to the table, and we came up with a way to, again, ensure value for the taxpayer, value for the community, and do it in a way that does not create a lot of micro-processes. We have put a lot of work into this bill.

We don't want to lose sight of the fact that this legislation is to intended to really tap into the idealism of our young people. Idealism doesn't know gender, it doesn't know religion, it doesn't come from a ZIP Code. I believe it is really in the hearts of people everywhere in the world. It is a unique American characteristic to want to help your neighbor. Some people call it the Golden Rule--``Do unto others as you would have them do unto you''--but this is more. This is really saying: I want to take my life my talent, and put it to work in the community and make the community a better place. That is the original purpose of this bill.

Yesterday, I don't know how my colleagues felt, but, gosh, I was buoyed when Senator Kennedy came on the floor, when he walked in that door with his jaunty cane and his good humor. The cheer that he brought to this body--it was very edifying, very inspirational, very energizing. Senator Kennedy brings his own unique energy to this.

I have been talking to him about this bill. He is so pleased that the Senate is taking it up. He has been working with us as we have talked back and forth about improvements and so on. I know how strongly he feels about it. If he were on the floor himself today, he would be encouraging us. He would be motivating us. He would be inspiring us to pass this legislation so that we can engage a new generation of young Americans in national service, while at the same time, welcoming the large-scale participation of all generations to address national needs because, again, the desire to serve isn't based on age. It is not only young people who feel it. We all do.

Communities across our country face challenges too numerous to count. If Senator Kennedy were on the floor, he would be reminding us about rising unemployment, particularly among young people, rising poverty, and falling home prices. At the same time, all of us are aware of the fiscal challenges many States and schools and communities are facing, which means they have to cut back on services just when families and children need them the most.

Some of my colleagues believe we can't afford this legislation at a time when our debt is growing and our economy is struggling, but I say we can't afford not to pass this legislation. This bill offers innovative solutions to those challenges by asking more Americans to give their time to serve their country and their community. It answers the economic challenges of communities and families and what they are facing today. It is a carefully developed and focused solution.

We have learned a lot in the past 16 years since we passed the original legislation about what works and what doesn't work. Senator Hatch spoke eloquently about it a few minutes ago. This bill draws on those lessons and actually puts them to work. We have learned that service can make a big difference in addressing specific challenges and that service opportunities early in life can put young people on the path of lifetime service. We have seen that older Americans want to serve their communities with skills and experience and that social entrepreneurs in the private sector are coming up with very innovative ways to tackle the challenges we face in a way that is affordable.

This bill focuses national service programs where service can do the most good. I will repeat that. AmeriCorps, and these new programs with focused approaches, will focus service programs on where service can do the most good. In other words, following a Marine Corps adage, we are saying to the AmeriCorps volunteers: Be best at what you are best at, and be best at what you are most needed for. Be best at what you are best at, and be best at what you are most needed for. That is why we are talking about an education corps. That is why we are talking about a health futures corps, a clean energy corps, a veterans corps, an opportunity corps focusing on poverty. This is why we are focusing our service efforts.

Social entrepreneurs such as those who started City Year and Experience Corps are the ones who are teaching us many of these lessons. When City Year began, it was about giving a year of service by a young person to do good in the community. That was the aegis of AmeriCorps. Back then, City Year took on all kinds of programs, but as City Year has matured, they found it is better to focus.

City Year focuses primarily on tackling one of our greatest national challenges--the dropout crisis in high schools. In Baltimore City, my hometown, only one in three students who starts high school actually graduates. This is a travesty mirrored in inner cities and rural areas throughout our country. City Year focuses on how to deal with that dropout rate.

Let's talk about Experience Corps. Experience Corps takes older adults and uses them as AmeriCorps volunteers. What they found is Experience Corps works best by working in schools. They are taking adults with years of experience and putting their skills to work, and it is making a difference. I have seen Experience Corps work in my own hometown of Baltimore in a school called Barclay Elementary School that has had its ups and its downs and its sideways. It has had talented teachers, often a good principal, and yet they needed help. In that surrounding community, within the shadow of Johns Hopkins University, Experience Corps works, and in many ways it has helped and assisted with volunteers and others coming from Hopkins. With that blend of volunteers, Barclay Elementary School has improved.

When I asked the CEO of Experience Corps--because the people in this age group can do a variety of things--why education, he told me that's what Experience Corps could do best, where it was most needed. We have learned from programs like this, which is why AmeriCorps will now focus on these very specific core programs.

We also found that this bill will, of course, encourages service learning opportunities for students, because students want to give as well. Working with Senator Dodd, who has been such a leader on these issues, we now have Summer of Service opportunities for middle and high school students. These young people want to do it.

College is where so much of our young people's character and experiences are shaped. This bill recognizes that, going the extra mile by allowing the designation of 25 campuses of service which will undertake activities to help students engage in service that

will actually encourage people to go on to public service careers.

This legislation also creates Encore Fellows to help adults transition to longer term public service with a nonprofit organization. These adults are volunteering by choice. They have knowledge and experience, and we just need to get them in the door. This is a way to bring in people who have retired and who have incredible skills, such as that retired accountant who can help a nonprofit get its books together and maybe find new grant opportunities.

Finally, it is to help older Americans get more involved through Senior Corps, RSVP, Senior Companions, and Foster Grandparents. These are excellent programs.

In this bill, we have taken innovation, creativity and lessons learned and come up with a new framework of service.

Right now, our country faces an incredible economic challenge. We see it in homes, families, factories, farms, and communities all over America. But as you look out, you don't see faces of despair. People believe in this country, and children and grandparents know and even believe, also, in great possibilities. So while we are facing these great challenges, we have a great opportunity. This is not the ``me generation'' of a decade ago; it is the ``we generation.'' I think this bill will help us be ``we, the people'' who serve each other.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, as we talk with colleagues and work to gather the votes, some of the naysayers, or those who have questions about the efficacy of this bill, say: So what, people go off and do a little bit of service, they feel good, and then they go off--OK, that is nice, but they could do that anyway.

Well, they could do that, but what is often overlooked is the impact that service has on changing the lives of people who do service. We could talk about examples on my side of the aisle. We have Senator Dodd, who joined the Peace Corps. He has given long-term service to the Nation, including his work in Latin America, where he served as a Peace Corps volunteer. He continues that work on the Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Rockefeller went to West Virginia as a VISTA volunteer and was so taken with the poverty and hard times--and inspired by the determination of the people of West Virginia--that he made a go of trying to help them with their economic development and the economic empowerment of the people of West Virginia. He went on to run for public office and became a Governor and now is a Senator. We know of his and Senator Byrd's devotion to West Virginia and, again, their advocacy for those who were left out--the steelworkers, coal miners, and so on. Our democratic members bring those experiences with them.

My own experience is very interesting as well. Yes, I do have a master's in social work and, yes, I did work in social programs. When I got my master's, I didn't only work in those programs that paid; I was also involved in those programs where I saw a need. While I was working in the streets and neighborhoods of Baltimore as a grassroots community organizer, it was very clear to me that people who had addiction problems had very few services to choose from. This was long before we had a drug czar and many of the programs we have today with addiction. I teamed up with a priest in the inner-city neighborhoods of Baltimore, Father Maloney, a Josephite, and we started something called Narcotics Anonymous, to open the doors. Many women came. We found the men and women together didn't get along. They each had their own story and they told them differently. I ran the women's groups and helped to start them.

Those women had a different set of problems. I would go into the Baltimore city jail every Monday night to meet with a group of women to help plan for when they got out of jail. There was no discharge planning. Nobody was saying: How are you going to get a job? How are we going to keep you off drugs? How are we going to get your kids back from foster care? How do we make sure there is no abuse or addiction in the home?

I would meet with them in the jail and work with Father Maloney when they came out. That was indeed quite an experience for a young social worker. I grew up with stories of women who were so poor that many had only gone to the sixth or seventh grade, or they had no education. They had no hope, they had only despair. I worked as a volunteer and helped to get them the service they needed. It had a profound impact on me. When I went to the Baltimore City Council, one of the first things I did was jail reform to try to bring services into the city jail so there would be an organized, systematic way of doing things. So I did jail reform in the city council, now, chairing the Commerce, Justice, and Science Committee, we do prison reform in the Congress and for our Federal programs--to make sure our Federal prisons have the staffing they need; to make sure the people who were there have the opportunity to turn their lives around.

Then, we worked with incredible organizations--often faith-based--for post-prison discharge, so people wouldn't go back into prison. I know what those faith-based programs are. I worked for one of them as a volunteer. My lifelong commitment, starting in the streets and neighborhoods and working with Father Maloney, took me behind the bars to see what those lives were like. At the same time, now, in the Congress, we work for the important addiction services, work to make sure we have mental health parity, because so many people had these problems. Those are the kinds of things I did on my own as a volunteer. At the same time, we wondered what happened to the men. I asked, what happens to the men when they come out of jail? There were very few group homes, and working again with the Episcopal Church, a faith-based initiative, I went on the board of the Valley House. Do you know why it was called that? The 23rd Psalm says: I shall walk through the valley of darkness and I shall fear no evil. That is what it was. Those men were walking through and working through their ``valley of darkness'' as they followed their 12-step program. I saw a building that was tattered, worn, rundown.

The very first thing I did was get some other women on the board, get my own volunteers, and we did our own habitat for healing. We worked with the recovering alcoholics and painted, cleaned, scrubbed, and whatever, got a good cook in there, so that when the men went out to look for a job, they came back to at least a hot meal and fellowship. We cleaned up the family at Valley House and shepherded them out of the valley of darkness and we led them to sitting at the table where their cups began to overflow.

I learned a lot listening to those stories, putting in my own sweat equity. It was not about me; it was about the ``we'' whom we inspired. That is what community volunteer work does. While you are involved, it changes you. You listen to the stories and you know what that is. You want to make a lifelong commitment that the people you meet today you will never, ever forget

tomorrow. Those women I met at the city jail are now grandmothers. I hope those children are finishing school, and I hope their lives were turned around. I hope the men who were at Valley House went through that valley of darkness and went into the valley of life.

As for me, as I tried to help them turn their lives around, they helped give my life direction. That is what we are talking about when we talk about giving back, getting involved, neighbor helping neighbor. For those of us who volunteer, the changes are significant. What I say is, each and every one of us can make a difference. But when we work together we can make change. This is one of the bills that will help do it.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

The Budget

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be yielded back, the motion to proceed be agreed to, and that after the bill is reported, I, Senator Mikulski, be recognized to call up the substitute amendment.

I call up my amendment which is at the desk.

I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, before the Senator from Connecticut leaves, I wish to thank him for his contribution and remarks in two areas, both on the Serve America Act and his comments on the Crapo amendment.

First, on the Serve America Act, I wish to say on the Senate floor that we really appreciate the contribution he has made to this bill. When Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch were working on it, I know they had three goals: how we could reinvigorate national service, how we could refocus it in a contemporary way, as well as how we could reenergize it.

I think the Senator's ideas were some of the best, involving middle school children and so on. They have been outstanding. That is no surprise because the Senator has been involved with this not only in his own personal life--walking his own talk as a Peace Corps volunteer. I remember when we were putting the original national service bill together, Senator Dodd was the Senator who reminded the committee that the poor needed to serve as well. They are not just passive beneficiaries. We always think maybe it is only the affluent and the young who can serve. The Senator from Connecticut was the one who said: Wait a minute. Everybody can serve. It doesn't matter what your age or your income is.

I think the original bill was better because of the philosophy of the Senator. Now we can see that here. It is a philosophy about the empowerment of people. We thank the Senator for that.

On the banking bill, I, too, agree with the Senator. He can offer the amendment, but this could sink the bill in the process. I hope he will withdraw this amendment and offer it on a more appropriate vehicle.

Again, I thank the Senator for his work today and for his work as a Senator.

Mr. President, first of all, I say to the Senator from Nebraska, I wish to thank him for his compassion. This side of the aisle, and I know the other cosponsors of the Serve America Act, are very much interested in working with him to accomplish the goal he so eloquently stated in his very compassionate statement. I would ask respectfully if we could--before I make a request--lay the amendment aside, and the staff on both sides of the aisle would like to work with the Senator to achieve these objectives. We want to be sure we don't inadvertently negatively impact either senior programs or some other programs for the disabled. Would the Senator be agreeable to that?

Absolutely. The Senator will get a determination on his amendment. I give him my word. Is that agreeable?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Johanns amendment on the Special Olympics be temporarily laid aside.

Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Montana on his amendment. I understand his amendment is also a bipartisan amendment; is that correct?

Both he and the Senator from Iowa, Mr. Grassley, are cosponsors. I believe the Senator's amendment has identified a very specific need, particularly for the small, primarily rural organizations that sometimes are not looked at when we do a big national framework. I want to be as supportive as I can of the Senator's amendment. I want to examine it more closely. In order to follow the framework, I need to discuss it with my colleague, Senator Hatch, and also Senator Enzi of Wyoming. As many know, Senator Enzi has been trapped in a snowstorm. He will be here tomorrow. We will have a chance to review this and determine our ability to work with the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Iowa to see whether we can find some comity to adopt the amendment. I thank them for their spirit of bipartisanship. We will continue to follow that same framework.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period for the transaction of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

President, I rise today to introduce two important social work bills; the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act and the Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009. I am proud to sponsor these pieces of legislation that will improve the shortage of social workers and properly reimburse social workers for the services they provide.

Social workers play a critical role combating the social problems facing our nation and are an integral part of our healthcare system. As we move into an era of unprecedented healthcare and social service needs, we must have the workforce in place to make sure that our returning soldiers have access to mental health services, our elderly maintain their independence in the communities they live in, and abused children are placed in safe homes. Social workers support physical, psychological and social needs. They provide mental health therapy, caregiver and family counseling, health education, program coordination, and case management. In these tough economic times social workers play a more important role than ever to keep communities together and help individuals and families cope with the new stresses they are facing.

The Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act reinvests in social workers by providing grants to social workers, reviewing the current social workforce challenges, and determining how this shortage will affect the communities social workers serve. I am honored to introduce this bill named after two social visionaries, Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young. Dorothy Height, a pioneer of the civil rights movement, like me began her career as a case worker and continued to fight for social justice. I am particularly honored to introduce this bill today, on Dorothy Height's birthday. Whitney Young, another trailblazer of the civil rights movement, also began his career transforming our social landscape as a social worker. He helped create President Johnson's War on Poverty and has served as President of the National Association of Social Workers.

This bill is about reinvesting in social work. It provides grants that invest in social work education, research, and training. These grants will fund community based programs of excellence and provide scholarships to train the next generation of social workers. The bill also addresses how to recruit and retain new social workers, research the impact of social services, and foster ways to improve social workplace safety. This bill establishes a national coordination center that will allow social work education, advocacy and research institutions to collaborate and work together. It will facilitate gathering and distributing social work research to make the most effective use of the information we have on how social work service can improve our social fabric. This bill also gives social work the attention it deserves. It creates a media campaign that will promote social work, and recognizes March as Social Work Awareness Month.

Today 30,000 social workers specialize in gerontology, but we will need 70,000 of these social workers by 2010. I want to make sure that when the aging tsunami hits us, we have the workforce in place to care for our aging family members, the Alzheimer patients, and the disabled.

The Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009 ensures that clinical social workers receive Medicare reimbursements for the mental health services they provide in skilled nursing facilities. Under the current system, social workers are not paid for the services they provide. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who provide similar counseling, are able to separately bill Medicare for their services.

Since my first days in Congress, I have been fighting to protect and strengthen the safety of our nation's seniors. Making sure that seniors have access to quality, affordable mental health care is an important part of this fight. I know that millions of seniors do not have access to, or are not receiving, the mental health services they urgently need. Nearly 6 million seniors are affected by depression, but only one-tenth ever receive treatment. According to the American Psychiatric Association, up to 25 percent of the elderly population in the United States suffers from significant symptoms of mental illness and among nursing home residents the prevalence is as high as 80 percent. These mental disorders, which include severe depression and debilitating anxiety, interfere with the person's ability to carry out activities of daily living and adversely affect their quality of life. Furthermore, older people have a 20 percent suicide rate, the highest of any age group. Every year nearly 6,000 older Americans kill themselves. This is unacceptable and must be addressed.

This bill protects patients across the country and ensures that seniors living in underserved urban and rural areas, where clinical social workers are often the only available option for mental health care, continue to receive the treatment they need. Clinical social workers, much like psychologists and psychiatrists, treat and diagnose mental illnesses. In fact, clinical social workers are the primary mental health providers for nursing home residents and seniors residing in rural environments. Unlike other mental health providers, clinical social workers cannot bill Medicare directly for the important services they provide to their patients. Protecting seniors' access to clinical social workers ensures that our most vulnerable citizens get the quality, affordable mental health care they need. This bill will correct this inequity and make sure clinical social workers get the payments and respect they deserve.

Before the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, clinical social workers billed Medicare Part B directly for mental health services they provided in nursing facilities for each patient they served. Under the Prospective Payment System, services provided by clinical social workers are lumped, or ``bundled,'' along with the services of other health care providers for the purposes of billing and payments. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who provide similar counseling, were exempted from this system and continue to bill Medicare directly. This bill would exempt clinical social workers, like their mental health colleagues, from the Prospective Payment System, and would make sure that clinical social workers are paid for the services they provide to patients in skilled nursing facilities.

This bill is about more than paperwork and payment procedures. This bill is about equal access to Medicare payments for the equal and important work done by clinical social workers. It is about making sure our nation's most vulnerable citizens have access to quality, affordable mental health care. The overarching goal we should be striving to achieve for our seniors is an overall improved quality of life. Without clinical social workers, many nursing home residents may never get the counseling they need when faced with a life-threatening illness or the loss of a loved one. I think we can do better by our nation's seniors. I am fighting to make sure we do.

As a social worker, I have been on the frontlines of helping people cope with issues in their everyday lives. I started off fighting for abused children, making sure they were placed in safe homes. Today I am a social worker with power. I am proud to continue to fight every day for the long range needs of the nation on the floor of the U.S. Senate and as Chairwoman of the Aging Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009 and the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act is strongly supported by the National Association of Social Workers. I also want to thank Senator Stabenow and Senator Murray for their cosponsorship of the Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009. I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact these two important pieces of legislation.

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

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

President, I rise today to introduce two important social work bills; the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act and the Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009. I am proud to sponsor these pieces of legislation that will improve the shortage of social workers and properly reimburse social workers for the services they provide.

Social workers play a critical role combating the social problems facing our nation and are an integral part of our healthcare system. As we move into an era of unprecedented healthcare and social service needs, we must have the workforce in place to make sure that our returning soldiers have access to mental health services, our elderly maintain their independence in the communities they live in, and abused children are placed in safe homes. Social workers support physical, psychological and social needs. They provide mental health therapy, caregiver and family counseling, health education, program coordination, and case management. In these tough economic times social workers play a more important role than ever to keep communities together and help individuals and families cope with the new stresses they are facing.

The Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act reinvests in social workers by providing grants to social workers, reviewing the current social workforce challenges, and determining how this shortage will affect the communities social workers serve. I am honored to introduce this bill named after two social visionaries, Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young. Dorothy Height, a pioneer of the civil rights movement, like me began her career as a case worker and continued to fight for social justice. I am particularly honored to introduce this bill today, on Dorothy Height's birthday. Whitney Young, another trailblazer of the civil rights movement, also began his career transforming our social landscape as a social worker. He helped create President Johnson's War on Poverty and has served as President of the National Association of Social Workers.

This bill is about reinvesting in social work. It provides grants that invest in social work education, research, and training. These grants will fund community based programs of excellence and provide scholarships to train the next generation of social workers. The bill also addresses how to recruit and retain new social workers, research the impact of social services, and foster ways to improve social workplace safety. This bill establishes a national coordination center that will allow social work education, advocacy and research institutions to collaborate and work together. It will facilitate gathering and distributing social work research to make the most effective use of the information we have on how social work service can improve our social fabric. This bill also gives social work the attention it deserves. It creates a media campaign that will promote social work, and recognizes March as Social Work Awareness Month.

Today 30,000 social workers specialize in gerontology, but we will need 70,000 of these social workers by 2010. I want to make sure that when the aging tsunami hits us, we have the workforce in place to care for our aging family members, the Alzheimer patients, and the disabled.

The Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009 ensures that clinical social workers receive Medicare reimbursements for the mental health services they provide in skilled nursing facilities. Under the current system, social workers are not paid for the services they provide. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who provide similar counseling, are able to separately bill Medicare for their services.

Since my first days in Congress, I have been fighting to protect and strengthen the safety of our nation's seniors. Making sure that seniors have access to quality, affordable mental health care is an important part of this fight. I know that millions of seniors do not have access to, or are not receiving, the mental health services they urgently need. Nearly 6 million seniors are affected by depression, but only one-tenth ever receive treatment. According to the American Psychiatric Association, up to 25 percent of the elderly population in the United States suffers from significant symptoms of mental illness and among nursing home residents the prevalence is as high as 80 percent. These mental disorders, which include severe depression and debilitating anxiety, interfere with the person's ability to carry out activities of daily living and adversely affect their quality of life. Furthermore, older people have a 20 percent suicide rate, the highest of any age group. Every year nearly 6,000 older Americans kill themselves. This is unacceptable and must be addressed.

This bill protects patients across the country and ensures that seniors living in underserved urban and rural areas, where clinical social workers are often the only available option for mental health care, continue to receive the treatment they need. Clinical social workers, much like psychologists and psychiatrists, treat and diagnose mental illnesses. In fact, clinical social workers are the primary mental health providers for nursing home residents and seniors residing in rural environments. Unlike other mental health providers, clinical social workers cannot bill Medicare directly for the important services they provide to their patients. Protecting seniors' access to clinical social workers ensures that our most vulnerable citizens get the quality, affordable mental health care they need. This bill will correct this inequity and make sure clinical social workers get the payments and respect they deserve.

Before the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, clinical social workers billed Medicare Part B directly for mental health services they provided in nursing facilities for each patient they served. Under the Prospective Payment System, services provided by clinical social workers are lumped, or ``bundled,'' along with the services of other health care providers for the purposes of billing and payments. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who provide similar counseling, were exempted from this system and continue to bill Medicare directly. This bill would exempt clinical social workers, like their mental health colleagues, from the Prospective Payment System, and would make sure that clinical social workers are paid for the services they provide to patients in skilled nursing facilities.

This bill is about more than paperwork and payment procedures. This bill is about equal access to Medicare payments for the equal and important work done by clinical social workers. It is about making sure our nation's most vulnerable citizens have access to quality, affordable mental health care. The overarching goal we should be striving to achieve for our seniors is an overall improved quality of life. Without clinical social workers, many nursing home residents may never get the counseling they need when faced with a life-threatening illness or the loss of a loved one. I think we can do better by our nation's seniors. I am fighting to make sure we do.

As a social worker, I have been on the frontlines of helping people cope with issues in their everyday lives. I started off fighting for abused children, making sure they were placed in safe homes. Today I am a social worker with power. I am proud to continue to fight every day for the long range needs of the nation on the floor of the U.S. Senate and as Chairwoman of the Aging Subcommittee of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009 and the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act is strongly supported by the National Association of Social Workers. I also want to thank Senator Stabenow and Senator Murray for their cosponsorship of the Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2009. I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact these two important pieces of legislation.

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