Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to honor a man from Arkansas

who had a strong sense of duty toward his country from a very young age. COL Alva Bryan Lasswell, known as ``Red'' to friends, was a World War II war hero whose service has gone unrecognized for most of his life. I believe it is finally time to honor Colonel Lasswell for the brave servicemember that he was.

When he was only 13 years old, Colonel Lasswell tried to join the Marine Corps. Due to age requirements, the future hero would have to wait until his 21st birthday to enlist. Throughout his distinguished military career, Colonel Lasswell was awarded the rank of 2nd lieutenant and served in Navy intelligence.

During World War II, he was stationed at Pearl Harbor and was selected as one of 10 officers to take part in the elite intelligence gathering unit. In May 1942, Colonel Lasswell intercepted an unusual message that he reported to Navy headquarters. The message was a Japanese Operational Order authorizing the Battle of Midway. As a result of Lasswell's heroic service, the Navy was able to prepare for the attack, and the Battle of Midway would go on to become the first major victory for the Navy in World War II.

This was not the end of his service however. Colonel Lasswell later translated a message which led to the shooting down of a plane carrying Japanese Adminral Isoroku Yamamoto in 1943, and in 1944 he recovered intelligence which involved a plot to assassinate GEN Douglas MacArthur. In addition, Lasswell's intelligence helped the U.S. Navy Antisubmarine Group sink at least five submarines in 1944. Lasswell completed his military career in 1956, serving as Chief of Staff for the Marine Recruit Depot.

Despite his tremendous service to his country, Colonel Lasswell never received distinction or recognition for his intelligence recovery efforts during World War II. At this time, I would like to pay him the tribute he has deserved for so long.

Mr. President, on behalf of children in lower-income schools across our nation, I rise today to introduce the Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act.

Each day, teachers in our schools are tasked not only with addressing the academic needs of students, but also with the behavioral, social, and emotional needs of the children in their classrooms. When they are left to address these emotional and behavioral issues, they have less time to deliver high quality academic instruction to the rest of the students in their class. Additionally, teachers often do not have the training or expertise to deal with many of the emotional issues their students face. Children overcoming mental illness or family issues such as the deployment of a parent to a war zone, homelessness, or domestic abuse, need the assistance of a trained professional, such as a school psychologist, school counselor, or school social worker.

While student support services provided by these support personnel are readily available in many school districts, other low-income schools often lack access to these support personnel. Too many schools in low-income rural and urban areas have to share school counselors, social workers, and psychologists with many schools in the area, limiting their students' access to these services and placing an unnecessary burden on our teachers and our students.

That is why I rise today along with my colleagues Senators Cochran, Leahy, Menendez, and Pryor to enthusiastically offer the Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act. This bill will authorize grant funding to form partnerships between higher education institutions that train school guidance counselors, social workers, and psychologists and qualified rural and urban low-income Local Education Agencies to train and place these important school support professionals in under-served schools across the country.

This bipartisan bill also authorizes grant funding to universities to recruit and hire faculty to train graduate students to become school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists. Additionally, it provides tuition credits to such graduate students, and offers student loan forgiveness to program graduates employed as school counselors, social workers, or psychologists by rural or urban low-income Local Education Agencies for a minimum of five years.

By increasing the number of student support personnel in our country's under-served schools, we will provide students with the social and emotional support they need to succeed in the classroom. We will also provide teachers the assistance they need so they can concentrate on providing the academic instruction our children need.

By taking these steps to improve student access to school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists, I am confident we can make strides in raising academic achievement in schools across the country.

As we move forward, I want to encourage my colleagues to support America's children by supporting this important piece of legislation.

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

Mr. President, on behalf of children in lower-income schools across our nation, I rise today to introduce the Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act.

Each day, teachers in our schools are tasked not only with addressing the academic needs of students, but also with the behavioral, social, and emotional needs of the children in their classrooms. When they are left to address these emotional and behavioral issues, they have less time to deliver high quality academic instruction to the rest of the students in their class. Additionally, teachers often do not have the training or expertise to deal with many of the emotional issues their students face. Children overcoming mental illness or family issues such as the deployment of a parent to a war zone, homelessness, or domestic abuse, need the assistance of a trained professional, such as a school psychologist, school counselor, or school social worker.

While student support services provided by these support personnel are readily available in many school districts, other low-income schools often lack access to these support personnel. Too many schools in low-income rural and urban areas have to share school counselors, social workers, and psychologists with many schools in the area, limiting their students' access to these services and placing an unnecessary burden on our teachers and our students.

That is why I rise today along with my colleagues Senators Cochran, Leahy, Menendez, and Pryor to enthusiastically offer the Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act. This bill will authorize grant funding to form partnerships between higher education institutions that train school guidance counselors, social workers, and psychologists and qualified rural and urban low-income Local Education Agencies to train and place these important school support professionals in under-served schools across the country.

This bipartisan bill also authorizes grant funding to universities to recruit and hire faculty to train graduate students to become school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists. Additionally, it provides tuition credits to such graduate students, and offers student loan forgiveness to program graduates employed as school counselors, social workers, or psychologists by rural or urban low-income Local Education Agencies for a minimum of five years.

By increasing the number of student support personnel in our country's under-served schools, we will provide students with the social and emotional support they need to succeed in the classroom. We will also provide teachers the assistance they need so they can concentrate on providing the academic instruction our children need.

By taking these steps to improve student access to school counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists, I am confident we can make strides in raising academic achievement in schools across the country.

As we move forward, I want to encourage my colleagues to support America's children by supporting this important piece 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 order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak on an issue I have certainly followed for many years now in the Senate and one I am proud to have brought to some conclusion along the way, particularly last evening.

Many people look at history and see that when the Capitol was first built in the late 1700s to early 1800s, enslaved African Americans worked in all facets of its construction--carpentry, masonry, carting, rafting, roofing, plastering, glazing, painting, and sawing. But for almost 200 years, the story of these slave laborers was not told and was basically unknown, I would imagine to almost everyone who visited and worked in the Capitol every day.

In July of 2000, I sponsored a resolution to establish a special task force to recommend an appropriate recognition for the slave laborers who worked on the construction of this great building--the U.S. Capitol--our symbol of freedom in this country. My cosponsor on this effort was then Senator Spencer Abraham from Michigan, and so the resolution became known as the Abraham-Lincoln resolution back then.

The bicameral, bipartisan Slave Labor Task Force brought together historians and interested officials to work on this issue. One of those was Curtis Sykes, an educator and native of North Little Rock, AR, and an original member of Arkansas' Black History Advisory Committee. Mr. Sykes passed away before our work was complete, but he made so many important contributions to the task force before his

passing. He was then ably succeeded by Ms. Sarah Jean Davidson, founder and president of the Association for the Preservation of North Little Rock, Arkansas African American History.

I am so very grateful to these two individuals who have offered their insight and their expertise and their input to make sure that what we did here was done in a very special way in great recognition.

In 2007, the task force presented the congressional leadership with recommendations on how to best recognize the contribution of these enslaved workers. The recommendations were developed with the invaluable assistance of a working group that included the historians and curators of the Senate, House, and Office of the Architect of the Capitol, representatives from the AOC Project Management Division, and representatives from the Capitol Visitor Center.

Since then, we have been working so very hard to see that these recommendations are all realized. We have developed a history of slave laborers in the construction of the Capitol and put it online. We have ensured that the story of these slave laborers was incorporated into the CVC orientation video and Capitol tour guide training. We have seen the publication of a book on Black Americans in Congress, and we have seen the reception area of the CVC named Emancipation Hall.

On Monday, I, along with my good friend and colleague Senator Chambliss, introduced a resolution to bring another recommendation to fruition. This resolution, which was approved by the Senate last night, authorizes a plaque to be placed in the Capitol, a plaque that identifies a very special feature of the Capitol. The original exterior wall of the Capitol was constructed between 1793 and 1807. The stones for that wall were mined by slave laborers in a sandstone quarry in Aquia Creek in Stafford County, VA.

Quarrying stone was among the most difficult and backbreaking tasks in the building business. First, the land had to be cleared, then the top of the stone chipped away to reach the parts that had not been damaged by frost or vegetation. Then the stone would be further chipped to create a small cavity, just large enough for one man to work in. The men would work in these small cavities to cut grooves and hammer in iron wedges to split the stone to free it from the larger block. To make matters worse, the quarries were located on an isolated, snake- infested island that swarmed with mosquitoes in the blazing summer and froze under snow in winter.

Much of the original Capitol no longer stands, due to the fires of war and renovations to create more space. The original East exterior wall still exists, however, and is now part of the East Front Corridor. It is one of the few places where that original slave-quarried sandstone is still in evidence. The plaque would be placed near that wall, and would bear an inscription identifying the wall as having been built of sandstone quarried by enslaved African Americans who were an important part, a vital part of the labor force that built our great U.S. Capitol.

Thanks to my Slave Labor Task Force colleague Congressman John Lewis, there will be a similar plaque on the House side of the East Front Corridor. These locations are important for another reason. They are on the route that visitors take to the Senate and House galleries. Mr. Sykes, as I mentioned earlier, the Arkansas historian with whom I worked, focused on the need to ensure that as many citizens as possible be made aware of this contribution of enslaved African Americans in the building of this great building, our Capitol. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Sykes. To me, education is at the heart of this effort. It would do no good to have a plaque that was hidden in a corner where no one would see it. It would do no good if we told the story of enslaved African Americans building the Capitol and no one heard it.

A critical part of recognizing the work of the slaves is to make their story visible and accessible, so that future generations know and understand the sacrifices that have been made for the many blessings that we enjoy today, that those blessings that are capsulized in the very building in which we all work, that the freedoms and the rights that we enjoy, are capsulized in a building that had tremendous input from enslaved African Americans.

I was recently in the new CVC and I hope, for those Members who have not been, they will go visit and certainly for those of our constituents who visit this great Capitol of the Nation, that they get a chance to visit the Visitors Center. I watched the faces of dozens of schoolchildren as their mouths opened up, dropped in awe at the sight of this vast and beautiful Emancipation Hall. Their eyes popped open wide as they looked through the skylight and saw this gorgeous view of the dome of the Capitol that represents who they are and the great Nation to which they belong.

They were so excited about being there, and that excitement opened their minds to the lessons that would be taught to them, there in that visitors center--like the Statue of Freedom that was designed by an Italian and sent over here and yet could not be reconstructed until the ingenuity and the dedicated focus of, yes, an enslaved African American by the name of Philip Reid could figure out how to unhook the model that the Italians had sent us, cast it, and put it piece by piece back together. No one else could figure it out.

As you walk into Emancipation Hall and you see this huge statue, the caste of the Statue of Freedom, what an unbelievable feeling it gives, not just to schoolchildren, but to any American who walks in there. How important for them to know of the ingenuity, the hard work, the labor that went into this incredible building.

Through this effort I wanted to make sure that everyone who visits the Capitol leaves knowing the story of the people who helped to build it, a true symbol of freedom, at a time when they themselves were not free.

I want to close, first, by saying again a very special thanks to my friend and colleague Senator Chambliss from Georgia who has worked with us on this resolution--we were so excited and pleased to see it pass last night--as well as the chairman of the Rules Committee, Senator Schumer, and the distinguished ranking member of the committee, Senator Bennett, for also sponsoring the legislation with Senator Chambliss and myself. They were all so good to work with on this resolution. I appreciate their efforts and emphasis on something I believe is very important, not just for the Capitol but for our entire Nation.

I also want to publicly thank and recognize my good friend and former colleague Congressman John Lewis for his leadership on this project. He is an extraordinary human being. I have been grateful for the opportunity to work with him on this very important issue.

I never will forget, when I arrived in the House of Representatives as a young single woman in 1993, Congressman Lewis invited a small group of us freshmen--it was the largest freshman class since the 1940s, I believe--anyway, he invited us to come view some of his footage and film from days during the 1960s, and all of what he endured before that. It was amazing--the freedom ride, all of what he had experienced. It was a tremendous opportunity for me to get to know him better. I am grateful, again, for his extraordinary leadership.

I hope everyone, as I said, will take the opportunity to go to the CVC if they have not already and take a look and hopefully burn in each of our hearts how important it is to remember every day when we come to this unbelievable building what it stands for; hopefully relighting and rekindling our ability to unite, to work together for the great things this wonderful Nation stands for. I appreciate so much everyone working together to make this possibility a reality. I am very excited.

I thank my colleagues for their attention. I yield the floor to my good friend and colleague from Georgia.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from West Virginia for being here today. I thank my colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, for being here today, and all my other colleagues who are here.

When I left the seventh grade basketball game in the morning at 8 o'clock, my children wanted to know--they are used to me working on Saturdays, but usually it is in Arkansas. They said to me, ``You are going into the Capitol? What are you doing, Mom?'' I said we have something very important facing this country right now, the gravity of the situation we find ourselves in as a nation right now, looking for the solutions to the challenges we face in this great country. I told them we are so blessed to live in this country, it is worth coming in on a Saturday to talk through the issues, the challenges we face, and what the solutions are for this country moving forward.

I have to say I am glad to be here, and I am glad to be joined by such compassionate and pragmatic Members who are also here to talk about how we get ourselves out of this. We can talk about history, we can talk about what got us here. The most important thing to talk about is how we put our country back on track.

The most important challenge we have been faced with here is obviously our economy. There are lots of others that will feed in. As the Senator just mentioned, we have other opportunities down the road to deal with those. But I am proud of the effort in the Senate.

President Obama gave us a good beginning in his recommendations of his recovery package. The House worked on theirs. We are here now, the deliberative body, to look at how it is we can improve upon this.

I have to say, I think about some of the best advice I have ever gotten in life. Life is about choices, and we all are faced with choices and the many hats we wear in our lives. We have choices of how to be good parents, how to make those choices. We have choices in how to be responsive and to be a good wife and to be a good daughter to

aging parents. And yes, how to be good Senators, coming together to represent the interests of our State but also the well-being of the 50 United States, this great Nation of which we are a part. That is what we are here about right now. That is why we worked late into the night last night. Everyone was tired. Now we have come back today to begin, hopefully, a bigger and better discussion of how we face these challenges and where we find these solutions.

I was extremely proud of my colleagues, Senator Collins, Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, and the others who came together. I joined that group to listen and talk about how we can bring balance to these solutions, those who have concerns about how much is spending in this bill and how much is tax cuts, and where do we go to create that balance that will help us move forward in this country to create the economy we need to create without creating outrageous debt that could be harmful to our children. It is a delicate balance, and that is why that group came together; it was to see how do we find a bipartisan way to come up with these solutions.

Trimming about $100 billion is what came out of that. It was a good thing. It was a good thing to say, yes, they are all things we are passionate about. Nobody is against education. We do not want to demonize the programs that exist in what people are passionate about. But is this the place to do it? Can't we maybe reduce some of that extra spending we put in this bill to make it comparable to what it is that everybody wants to see? That was a good step. It was something we should be proud of in this body, that in a bipartisan way people did come together to say: What are our challenges, what are our options, how do we balance this?

There are great ideas out there. I tend to disagree a little bit--new ideas can be good ideas. We have to look for the new ideas. We have to move from an old energy economy to a new energy economy. We have to look at the new ways of health care where we can find efficiencies and effectiveness that will bring us greater quality of care at a lower cost, accessibility to more Americans in health care needs and in health insurance. These are things we can do. But we cannot do them if we do not work together and we are not willing to take steps forward. If all we do is look back, look in the past and worry about what got us here and worry about all of those things as opposed to working together, we will never make it.

One of the other critical pieces of this recipe is patience. We have to be patient. Yes, this is timely. It is much needed. We are in a grave situation in this country in terms of our economy. We have to deal with this crisis and put ourselves back on track. We can do it with timely and targeted and temporary measures. My colleague from Iowa mentions that often, and it is a wonderful thing for each of us to remember as we go through these things.

We also have great passion for a lot of the different specifics that are important to our States. We have to have patience with that. There will be other trains leaving this station. We will do an omnibus bill, we will do an appropriations bill, we will do a move into that new energy economy, we will do an energy bill, we will do health care reform, and we will do tax reform. We are dedicated to doing those things. But this right now should be our focus, should be our most important focus, of moving forward. We all, when we have an important job to do, get very anxious. Now we need to have patience. We need to move in a calculating way, working hard, to come up with the solution we need to have. But we do need to do something now. We are here today because we want to get it right, we want to work hard with others in a bipartisan way, across the aisle, to make sure what we are doing is going to be important.

I would say to my colleagues, look at what we have done. Look at where we have come over the course of the last week. We have already brought about a balanced package, frankly, in terms of spending and tax cuts. Those are positive things. We are going to have to spend something. We are talking about dealing with this economic crisis, spurring the economy, giving the ability to the people, the hard- working families of this country--look at what we have done on the tax side: support for small businesses, tax relief for small businesses that want to keep their payrolls going, that want to keep those jobs going, that want to make sure those working families are still going to be getting their payroll checks and putting into the GDP through the consumption their families need.

We have an awful lot to do. But I hope the Members of this body will not give up, will not torture themselves about what other people have done and will remember who we are in this body and our ability to come together and work. We have done it in the past.

When our country needs us the most, it is absolutely essential that we put down all of what may be behind us and make sure we are working hard to get this right. We can, we must, for the sake of this great country, the sake of the blessing each and every one of us has in living in this great country. It is our responsibility, it is our duty, and it should be our honor to come together and work these problems out.

That is fine.

Mr. President, I wish to a say special thanks to Chairman Baucus as well as Chairman Inouye. Having been given the task of working hard, their staffs have been amazing in coming together and trying to produce a package that will be a job creator, a stimulus to our economy, a recovery to the economic crisis we face in this great Nation. They have done a tremendous job with the time they have been given.

Of course, we are all here because we believe we have something to add to that process and to that solution. I come today to speak briefly about a couple of amendments I have.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Vitter of Louisiana be added as a cosponsor of my amendment No. 199.

The amendment I will be offering here today, along with Senators Cornyn, Murray, Pryor, and Vitter, will bring relief to the forest products industry, which has been devastated by the downturn in the housing market.

My colleague from Tennessee has just spoken about the housing issue, the concerns we have there. Well, it has had a devastating effect on our timber industry as well. This industry is an integral part of the economy of many Southern and Northwestern States. In my home State of Arkansas, the forest products industry is a foundation of our economy, our culture, our way of life, and particularly those living in rural America.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of legislation that is long overdue, the reauthorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP.

For those of us who have children who are young, in school, bringing home all kinds of unbelievable colds, sniffles, and all the other sickness, we realize our children today need health care. How wonderful it is, as a nation, that we have gathered to put together a comprehensive package that will help increase the number of children who can be covered.

As a mother myself, as a daughter, as a wife, as the wife of a physician, better understanding the opportunity we have as a nation to do this makes me extremely proud because I see other mothers at school who cannot afford to provide health insurance for their children.

A close friend of my boys was injured on the playground the other day and was taken by emergency vehicle to the hospital. He was OK. But the mother came up to me later and said: You know, I am working as hard as I can, but I can't afford health insurance. What am I going to do? I can't pay for this.

We have the opportunity in this job in the Senate to make an impact on the lives of working families across this great country.

This is a bipartisan program that for the last 12 years has allowed us to make health care coverage more accessible for millions of children, coverage that is critical to the lifelong health of a child and to a family's peace of mind.

In conjunction with Medicaid, CHIP has been tremendously successful in reducing the number of uninsured children in my State and across this country. We have done much work on this bill over the course of the last couple of years to improve upon it, to talk about what we can do to make it a better bill. And here we now come to the floor of the Senate with an opportunity to pass something that will be monumental in the lives of working families.

Since the program's inception, the number of children without health care coverage has dropped by one-third. I am proud that Arkansas has become a national leader in reducing its number of uninsured children from 21 percent in 1997 to 9 percent today. Now more than 70,000 of Arkansas's children currently receive coverage through CHIP which we know in Arkansas as Our Kids First, a great program that helps working families all across our State. Unfortunately, passage of SCHIP had been held hostage for the past 2 years due to President Bush's two vetoes which we tried to override and were unsuccessful.

At this critical time in our Nation's history, when working families are struggling, they are faced with economic crisis all over this country, I believe we have a moral obligation to extend this program and provide health care coverage to millions of children who are now uninsured.

Can you think of anything more important to the households of these working families than to ease their minds, to create peace of mind by saying to them: You are now eligible for a program that can help you provide health insurance for your children.

It is interesting, when we talk about things that make us happy or things that make us feel fulfilled, as we grow older, we realize it is less and less about us and it is more and more about our children. It is no different from my family to any other family across this great land, to parents across this country who want desperately to be able to provide for their children. Here is our opportunity to help them.

As parents, we are no different. Whether you are unemployed or whether you are a Senator, what gives you that fulfillment is to be able to see your children fulfilled, to see them healthy with access to the kind of health care that will help them reach their potential because we know that unhealthy children are less likely to learn, they are less likely to become healthy adults. They are certainly going to be more costly to the system if they depend on emergency services, not to mention the chronic diseases that can occur because they are neglected from getting the health care that they need early on.

There are so many good things in this bill and so many good things this bill does. Peace of mind comes to mind, first, because I think of those parents who are unable to provide that health insurance.

The bipartisan SCHIP bill provided by the Senate Finance Committee is essentially the same bill that passed overwhelmingly in the last Congress. As I mentioned before, we have discussed this bill, and we have tried to work out compromises. Is it 100 percent of what everybody in this body wants?

No, it is not. But no bill ever is. Are we going to miss an opportunity to help working families across this country because it is not 100 percent of what every one of us wants? I hope as Senators, as parents, we are not so blind that we would let that happen. It builds tremendously upon the success of the program by giving States more of the tools they need while preserving their flexibility to strengthen their programs and, ultimately, cover more children.

I would remind you, Mr. President, and I would remind all my colleagues, that we all have worked to keep flexibility in this bill. We also must keep in mind that many of the provisions in this bill are options to the States. Not a mandate that the State must cover but an option that gives States the flexibility to be what they are and to address the specific needs they may have in addressing both the chronic conditions of their children and, more importantly, covering the population of children who need coverage most in their States.

CHIP reauthorization will allow States to preserve coverage for the children currently enrolled while reaching an additional 4.1 million low-income children. I don't know of a greater way, quite frankly, that we could show other countries who we are and what our value system is than to reach out and cover 4.1 million more low-income children; to express to the world where we put our values, where we want to make an investment--an investment in future leaders, a future workforce, the future leaders not just of our country but in the global community as well.

This proposal would also provide much-needed funding to States for outreach and enrollment efforts to enroll many of those who are currently uninsured. This is critically important to me in my State of Arkansas, where two out of three uninsured children are eligible for ARKids First or Medicaid but are not enrolled. We need the resources to reach out and ensure that these children and their families understand what these great programs are and what they would mean to their children.

It also takes additional steps to ensure infants and toddlers get a healthy start by providing care for expectant mothers. At the age I was when I delivered my twins, people thought I was Methuselah, but nobody ever missed the opportunity to tell me how very important it was to care for myself if I loved my children, and I did. I did everything I possibly could to ensure that I could bring those children into this world as healthy and happy as possible. It was a blessing to me. There are other mothers out there--expectant mothers--who want desperately to ensure that they can do everything possible to bring their children into this world healthy and happy, and the key is prenatal care.

I have long been a supporter of improving access to health care coverage for expectant mothers. I understand how important it is, both as a mother myself but, more importantly, looking at what it means to us as a country to ensure that we bring as many children into this world as healthy and happy as we possibly can--not only because it is vital to the health of both the mother and the infant but also because it often reduces future health care costs, which we know can be high in premature births. In fact, it was reported in 2005 that the socioeconomic costs associated with preterm birth in the United States were at least $26.2 billion. Every year, more than 500,000 infants are born prematurely, and that is nearly one out of every eight babies.

I can remember delivering my children in the Medicaid section of the University Hospital where my husband worked, and I remember going upstairs to the NIC unit, and I took my dad with me. My dad was a dirt farmer. He is no longer with us, but he is here in spirit with me today, as he always is. But he was a dirt farmer in east Arkansas, and I took him with me to the NIC unit. I had never seen my daddy cry before then. But he looked at those premature babies, and he said: What is their life going to be like?

The more we can provide the kind of health care that expectant mothers need, we will not have to ask that question. We can ensure that babies will be born healthy and happy.

As I mentioned before, it is of particular concern for me because also, in recent reports, more than 14 percent of our births in Arkansas are premature, ranking it among the States with the highest incidence of preterm births. By taking these needed steps to improve access to care for expectant mothers, I am confident we can make strides to improve health outcomes for them and for their children.

The Finance Committee proposal also includes incentives to ensure that States reach out to the lowest income kids first and phase out the adult waivers that have been existent under the previous administration.

In addition, the bill provides the Federal authority and resources to invest in the development and testing of quality measures for children's health care. This provision will help ensure that States and other payers, providers, and consumers have the clinical quality measures they need to assess and improve the quality and performance of children's health care services. Making determinations on children's health care based on studies that have been done on adults doesn't make sense. It is critical that we focus on those quality measures based on our research and study of children and applying it in the appropriate way.

Additionally, it allows some States to use income eligibility information from other Federal programs, such as school lunch programs, to speed the enrollment of eligible children into the CHIP program or into Medicaid. We have the income information about these families for the school lunch program, which is critically important to the well- being of our children, so why wouldn't we want to ensure that those same families, meeting those same eligibility requirements, could move quickly into the CHIP program to get the other health care needs of their children met? This would certainly simplify the administrative process for States, and it would reduce paperwork burdens that are put upon hard-working, low-income families.

This bill would also provide greater access to much-needed dental care for lower income children and would ensure that children enrolled in CHIP would have access to mental health care that is on par with the level of medical and surgical care that they are currently provided.

The dental portion, the wraparound, is twofold. I can remember when I first visited one of the very first Head Start Programs in my community, and I saw these children lined up with little Styrofoam cups they had decorated. They had a donated toothbrush and a free sample of toothpaste. They were so proud each day to be able to walk to the community sink there in the Head Start facility and brush their teeth.

Dental care is essential. It is absolutely essential. All you have to do is look at children of low-income families whose teeth are rotten, who aren't getting dental care, who aren't getting supervision or not being taught the life skills they need. When those teeth are rotten, they hurt, they make those children sick, they are unable to eat, they get no nutrition, and then we wonder why they cannot focus in the classroom or why they cannot learn. This dental wraparound program is excellent for ensuring not only that children will get the dental care they need, but the wraparound portion of it ensures that we will not see crowding out; that families who have private insurance which doesn't cover dental can then get their dental coverage in a wraparound package and maintain the other private insurance they have. Those are critical needs and critical sensitivities we have looked at in this bill to ensure that we are doing the most we possibly can for the children of our country.

As you can see, this bipartisan bill is a step in the right direction to provide care and coverage for our most precious resource--our most precious asset in this great country--and that is our Nation's children. We have to look no further than the children of this country to understand that all of what we do today means nothing if we have not given them the ability to carry on the great lessons of this great country we are blessed to be a part of. And if they do not reach their potential, whether it is because they haven't gotten dental care, they haven't gotten immunizations, they haven't gotten the proper kind of health care they need to be able to learn and flourish and reach their potential, we will have done an injustice to our country.

As we move forward, I wish to encourage my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation in the same bipartisan spirit that was demonstrated when it was created 12 years ago. We are not here to create a work of art. We are here to create a work in progress. After 12 years, we have come to understand the importance of what has changed in our communities, what has changed in our economy, what has changed among our working families, and to meet the needs that exist in today's world. After 2 years of waiting, we cannot fail our Nation's children yet again.

I hope every one of us in this body will think of a child who was born 2 years ago, unable to access CHIP coverage--a family with a child born 2 years ago. If we fail to do it now, and they have to wait 2 more years, they have missed 4 years of critical development in their life without health care. We will never, ever be able to reverse that.

This is the time. Now is the time. We have talked and talked, we have reached out to one another to come up with the best possible solutions we could, but now is the time to pass this bill. In a time when more and more Americans are struggling to find affordable health care, it is up to us to put politics aside, not only for the future of our Nation but for the well-being of millions of our children across this great Nation. It is not just our future. Most importantly, it is their future. They are depending on us, and it is time we fulfill our commitment to them.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to rise today to introduce the Timber Revitalization and Economic Enhancement Act II of 2009 with my good friend, Senator Crapo of Idaho. I also want to say a special thanks to our cosponsors, Senators Alexander, Pryor, Cornyn, Cantwell, Landrieu, Murray, and Vitter.

This legislation has commonly been referred to as the TREE Act. I appreciate that Congress understood the importance of the TREE Act with its inclusion and enactment in the Farm Bill last year. But, unfortunately, this tax policy is already set to expire in May. So today, my colleagues and I introduce the TREE Act II to make this important forest policy permanent.

In my home State of Arkansas, the forest products industry is a foundation of our economy and culture. More than 50 percent of Arkansas land is forested. Much of this is sustainably managed to create products we use every day. In addition, there are jobs associated with the growing of these forests and manufacture of these great products. More than 32,000 Arkansas men and women work in our woods, at our sawmills and in our paper mills. These are good jobs located in our small rural towns.

However, these jobs and this industry continue to face many challenges. During this economic crisis, the forest products industry has suffered greater dislocation than many others, and since 2006 has lost more than 181,000 jobs or roughly 14 percent of our workforce. The wood products industry has been particularly hard hit with 20 percent drops in employment. In Arkansas the impact is even greater, with a predicted 24 percent job loss in the wood products industry.

The TREE Act II helps address these challenges. Just as it is important to have diversity in our forests, it is also important to maintain diversity in our forestry industry, and we must ensure that all business forms have the necessary tools so they can be successful in the global marketplace. Timber companies that are organized as corporations continue to be under intensifying pressure to reorganize. In that case, a corporation that owns substantial manufacturing facilities would be forced to sell some of those facilities and to make other structural changes in order to comply with the relevant tax rules that it would newly become subject to. This would likely cause disruptions in many of these communities and would also make it harder for U.S. companies to compete internationally.

In Arkansas, like so many other States across our Nation, a strong forest product industry is essential to having a strong economy. A permanent solution to the TREE Act II is imperative for this industry and supporting the jobs it provides. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee to ensure this important tax policy is made permanent.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to rise today to introduce the Timber Revitalization and Economic Enhancement Act II of 2009 with my good friend, Senator Crapo of Idaho. I also want to say a special thanks to our cosponsors, Senators Alexander, Pryor, Cornyn, Cantwell, Landrieu, Murray, and Vitter.

This legislation has commonly been referred to as the TREE Act. I appreciate that Congress understood the importance of the TREE Act with its inclusion and enactment in the Farm Bill last year. But, unfortunately, this tax policy is already set to expire in May. So today, my colleagues and I introduce the TREE Act II to make this important forest policy permanent.

In my home State of Arkansas, the forest products industry is a foundation of our economy and culture. More than 50 percent of Arkansas land is forested. Much of this is sustainably managed to create products we use every day. In addition, there are jobs associated with the growing of these forests and manufacture of these great products. More than 32,000 Arkansas men and women work in our woods, at our sawmills and in our paper mills. These are good jobs located in our small rural towns.

However, these jobs and this industry continue to face many challenges. During this economic crisis, the forest products industry has suffered greater dislocation than many others, and since 2006 has lost more than 181,000 jobs or roughly 14 percent of our workforce. The wood products industry has been particularly hard hit with 20 percent drops in employment. In Arkansas the impact is even greater, with a predicted 24 percent job loss in the wood products industry.

The TREE Act II helps address these challenges. Just as it is important to have diversity in our forests, it is also important to maintain diversity in our forestry industry, and we must ensure that all business forms have the necessary tools so they can be successful in the global marketplace. Timber companies that are organized as corporations continue to be under intensifying pressure to reorganize. In that case, a corporation that owns substantial manufacturing facilities would be forced to sell some of those facilities and to make other structural changes in order to comply with the relevant tax rules that it would newly become subject to. This would likely cause disruptions in many of these communities and would also make it harder for U.S. companies to compete internationally.

In Arkansas, like so many other States across our Nation, a strong forest product industry is essential to having a strong economy. A permanent solution to the TREE Act II is imperative for this industry and supporting the jobs it provides. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee to ensure this important tax policy is made permanent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to speak about the bill that is before us, which is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

It doesn't take a legal scholar to understand that the U.S. Supreme Court did get it wrong when they ruled against Lilly Ledbetter in 2007. In fact, I think the issue is rather simple. All I have to do is look out across my great State of Arkansas at the number of single mothers who are working hard to care for their families and who need equal pay and deserve equal pay.

In today's business environment, where women make on average 78 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make for the same work, it can be impossible for someone to know that they have been discriminated against until long after the fact. Employees are not privy to pay data in the workplace, as we are. Our pay is published, as well as for our staff, but in the regular workforce it is not published. In many instances, they can actually be disciplined or fired if they share pay information with one another.

In the case of Lilly Ledbetter, she was hired as a supervisor at a tire plant in Alabama nearly 30 years ago. For years, day upon day, she went to work next to her male counterparts working hard to do her job the best she could, doing the same job or an extremely similar job to what these gentlemen were doing. She received unequal pay for equal work to her male colleagues. She only discovered she was a subject of discrimination after she received an anonymous tip shortly before her retirement. Although an Alabama jury found in her favor, her employer appealed the decision and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against her. In a 5-to-4 decision, they overturned years of precedent and said that she should have filed a complaint every time she received a smaller raise than the men she served alongside, even though she didn't know what they were making or if the pay was discriminatory. How could she know? She was not privy to that information, and she was prohibited from asking.

In her very spirited dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said that the majority clearly misinterpreted the law and that ``the ball is now in Congress's court'' to correct this inequity. It is in our court. It is in our court to ensure that the women of this country are going to receive the equal pay that is due to them for the job they do working alongside their male counterparts.

So that is why we are here today, to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It is a responsible and fair piece of legislation which ensures that all employees, regardless of their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, are treated the same. That is what we have just celebrated in the inauguration of a new President: the values we hold dear as a part of this great country, the blessing of being American, and that we would have the same opportunity to reach our potential--each of us as individuals--whether we are men or whether we are women.

I know in some of the business communities they are concerned that this bill will extend the statute of limitations and expose employers to numerous lawsuits. However, I reject those arguments, because this bill provides little incentive for employees to sit on claims with only a 2-year limit on back pay. In addition, it does not create new grounds for filing lawsuits. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office expects that it would not significantly affect the number of filings within the EEOC. So I encourage my colleagues to support this important piece of legislation.

When I first came to the Congress in 1992, I came to the House representing the eastern district of Arkansas, and I remember my campaign vividly. I was a young single woman at the time. People thought I was crazy, not only because of my age and my gender, but because of the fact that I was unmarried, and it was unheard of for a young single woman to be out there running for the Congress.

I remember sitting next to a distinguished banker in one of my hometown communities. He looked quite conservative, and sitting next to him I got a little nervous. He started asking me about some women's issues that would probably be before me at one time or another if I were elected to the Congress. He started to quiz me pretty heavily. I got nervous, but I came back with what I felt were strong and concise and well thought out answers. At the end of our conversation, he looked at me and he said: I have kind of been a little hard on you, but I wanted to know how you felt about these issues. I wanted to know how you truly, deep down felt about these issues, because I have three daughters who are in the workforce and one of them is a single mom. I want to know that you are going to be fighting for them and for their children.

So it is not just the women who are interested in what happens here; it is the fathers and grandfathers, it is the brothers of women who are out in the workforce doing their best, working hard to make a living for their families, to care for their children, or to help their aging parent. I found, when I came to the House and then to the Senate, my colleagues were always ready to work with me regardless of my gender or my age, if I came to the table prepared and ready to work hard, and if I was honest in where I was coming from on those issues and wanted to work hard to bring about results for the betterment of my constituencies in Arkansas. So I hope as we look at this, we will realize that is what we are talking about here: for American women across this great land who are working hard--many of them in the same job as a man; maybe supporting a family by themselves or taking care of an aging parent, financially and otherwise--that we would do the right thing, the thing this country is based on, which is equity and fairness and justice, and that we would provide for those women the reassurance that the principles we stand for are not lost in them or in their paycheck, but that we do see the importance of standing up and saying how important it is to who we are and what we stand for that they deserve to have that equal pay. It is a fair and responsible bill that restores the congressional intent and ensures that those responsible for discrimination are held accountable.

I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I come before the Senate to once again raise an issue that is near and dear to my heart--an issue that is of great importance to working families across this country. In 2001 and again in 2003, Senator Snowe and I worked together to ensure that low- income working families with children receive the benefit of the Child Tax Credit. Last year, we were successful in improving the credit to ensure that more working families are able to receive its benefit for the tax year 2008, and I come here today to introduce legislation that will ensure this important provision continues to provide tax relief for our working families in the future.

The change we made to the credit last year will ensure the Child Tax Credit is available for all working families. As some of my colleagues may be aware, to be eligible for the refundable child tax credit, working families must meet an income threshold. If they don't earn enough, then they don't qualify for the credit. The problem is that some of our working parents are working full-time and yet they still don't earn enough to receive a meaningful benefit from this provision because they just don't have a high enough income.

It is wrong to provide the credit to some hardworking Americans, while leaving others behind. That is why we temporarily lowered the income threshold to $8,500 in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act last Fall. As a result, the single, working parent that is stocking shelves at your local grocery store for minimum wage will receive a meaningful credit this year.

This improvement to the credit must be made permanent to ensure that our tax code works for all Americans, especially those working parents forced to get by on the minimum wage. Today, we are introducing the Working Family Child Assistance Act, legislation which makes the refundable Child Tax Credit permanent and sets the income threshold at a reasonable level so that all working parents, including those making the minimum wage, receive the benefit of the credit.

I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration to ensure that those low-income, hard-working families that need this credit the most do receive its benefits.

Mr. President, I come before the Senate to once again raise an issue that is near and dear to my heart--an issue that is of great importance to working families across this country. In 2001 and again in 2003, Senator Snowe and I worked together to ensure that low- income working families with children receive the benefit of the Child Tax Credit. Last year, we were successful in improving the credit to ensure that more working families are able to receive its benefit for the tax year 2008, and I come here today to introduce legislation that will ensure this important provision continues to provide tax relief for our working families in the future.

The change we made to the credit last year will ensure the Child Tax Credit is available for all working families. As some of my colleagues may be aware, to be eligible for the refundable child tax credit, working families must meet an income threshold. If they don't earn enough, then they don't qualify for the credit. The problem is that some of our working parents are working full-time and yet they still don't earn enough to receive a meaningful benefit from this provision because they just don't have a high enough income.

It is wrong to provide the credit to some hardworking Americans, while leaving others behind. That is why we temporarily lowered the income threshold to $8,500 in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act last Fall. As a result, the single, working parent that is stocking shelves at your local grocery store for minimum wage will receive a meaningful credit this year.

This improvement to the credit must be made permanent to ensure that our tax code works for all Americans, especially those working parents forced to get by on the minimum wage. Today, we are introducing the Working Family Child Assistance Act, legislation which makes the refundable Child Tax Credit permanent and sets the income threshold at a reasonable level so that all working parents, including those making the minimum wage, receive the benefit of the credit.

I look forward to working with my colleagues and the Administration to ensure that those low-income, hard-working families that need this credit the most do receive its benefits.

Madam President, I regret that I will be unable to be present for today's vote on the Unemployment Compensation Extension Act, H.R. 6867, due to a hunger awareness event previously scheduled in Arkansas. If I were present for the vote, I would vote to support this important piece of legislation as I did in June when the Senate passed a 13-week unemployment insurance extension as part of the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, Public Law 110-252.