Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise in support of the nomination of Harold Koh to serve as Legal Adviser to the Department of State.

My one and only regret in offering my enthusiastic support for this nomination is that it will take from my State of Connecticut a pillar of our academic community and a mentor to countless young legal minds at the Yale Law School, where Harold Koh has served as a member of the faculty since 1985 and dean since 2004.

Dean Koh is a man of extraordinary intellect, unquestioned patriotism, and great accomplishment. He is a former Marshall Scholar, a graduate of Harvard Law School, the recipient of 11 honorary degrees, and the author of 8 books.

He has appeared before appellate courts and the Congress on countless occasions, won many awards and accolades as a human rights advocate, and served his country under Presidents of both parties. In his most recent service, he was unanimously approved by this body to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, where he served with tremendous distinction for 3 years.

In short, Dean Koh is exactly the sort of public servant we need at the State Department at a time when our Nation is seeking to restore its standing in the world by renewing our commitment to traditional American values like respect for all people and adherence to the rule of law.

After all, we confront global challenges as complex as they are numerous. Nuclear proliferation and international terrorism threaten our national security, and issues like genocide and human trafficking test our leadership on the world stage. Our foreign policy must be rooted in an understanding of American and international law, as well as a firm commitment to not only our Constitution, but also the underlying moral values from which it was created.

No one understands these issues better than Harold Koh. He is the child of parents born in South Korea who grew up under Japanese colonial rule. They lived through dictatorship and unrest before coming to America. Their son Harold chose to study law because he understood that, as he once stated in an essay, ``freedom is contagious.''

Dean Koh wrote movingly of his time with the State Department:

Everywhere I went--Haiti, Indonesia, China, Sierra Leone,

Kosovo--I saw in the eyes of thousands the same fire for

freedom I had first seen in my father's eyes. Once, an Asian

dictator told us to stop imposing our Western values on his

people. He said, ``We Asians don't feel the same way

as Americans do about human rights'' I pointed to my own

face and told him he was wrong.

Our Nation will be safer and stronger, and the world will be freer, with Harold Koh at the State Department once again.

I suspect that many of my colleagues who have raised concerns about this nomination understand fully just how qualified Dean Koh is for this position. Unfortunately, some are too willing to play politics with our foreign policy.

Let's be clear. To suggest that Dean Koh does not understand or appreciate American sovereignty or the supremacy of our Constitution is an insult. Dean Koh has done important and valuable work exploring the tenets of international law and comparisons between the legal systems of different countries, work I hope he will continue when his nomination is approved. He does not wish to subjugate our legal system to that of any other nation, or to international law, and claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate and unfair.

Indeed, while some have been tempted by the prospect of opposing a talented legal scholar nominated by a President of the opposing party, Dean Koh's nomination has been endorsed by serious legal minds on both sides of the ideological spectrum.

John Bellinger, who served in this position under President George W. Bush, wrote: ``I do think Harold Koh is well qualified and should be confirmed.''

Kenneth Starr, the well-known Republican attorney who has opposed Dean Koh in court on many occasions, calls him ``not only a great lawyer, but a truly great man of irreproachable integrity.''

Conservative legal legend Ted Olson agrees, calling Dean Koh a ``brilliant scholar and a man of great integrity.'' He also makes the very salient point that ``the President and the Secretary of State are entitled to have who they want as their legal adviser.''

Serious people, people who understand the importance of this position to our foreign policy and the nature of the man President Obama has nominated to fill it, have been able to look past political considerations and judge Dean Koh fairly.

They support him. I support him. I urge my colleagues to support him. And I look forward to his confirmation, his service, and his continued friendship.

Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

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

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Dodd pertaining to the introduction of S. 1382 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my fellow New Englander, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, in introducing the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education, and Research Act of 2009.

As families in New England look forward to outdoor fun this summer-- and as families around the country look forward to vacationing in New England--they might not be thinking about the risks and dangers associated with hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities.

But every year, tens of thousands of Americans working or playing outdoors are bitten by ticks.

For most, a tick bite is nothing more than a minor annoyance. But approximately 20,000 Americans contract Lyme disease each year, and the numbers are rising. And because Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose, many experts believe the true number of cases each year could be as much as 10 or 12 times the reported number. Worst of all, it is our children who are most at risk.

Lyme disease was first described in my home State of Connecticut, and we still have the unfortunate distinction of being ten times more likely to contract Lyme disease than the rest of the Nation. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of new cases from 46 States and the District of Columbia. According to some estimates, Lyme disease costs our Nation more than $2 billion in medical costs each year.

Lyme disease can affect every part of the body. Tens of thousands of Americans suffer through pain, severe fatigue, sleep disturbance, and cognitive difficulties, among many other symptoms. Some of these victims are able to lead normal lives, finding ways to cope with the disease. But many more find the disease significantly disrupts their lives, preventing them from everyday experiences that we all take for granted.

The legislation we offer today directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a Tick-Borne Diseases Advisory Committee at HHS to coordinate efforts and improve communication between the federal government, medical experts, physicians, and the public.

It will improve diagnostic efforts, establish a national clearinghouse for research and reporting, and require that scientific viewpoints on this often-frustrating disease be disseminated in a balanced way.

It contains tools for researchers, physicians, and the public to improve awareness and treatment.

Finally, it requires the Secretary to prepare and submit to Congress an annual report tracking developments related to Lyme disease, its spread, its treatment, and its impact on families in Connecticut and around the country.

Lyme disease is a frustrating puzzle for physicians, a burden on our Nation's health care system, and most importantly, a threat to American families enjoying our beautiful outdoor spaces.

I want to specifically mention and thank the organization from my home State of Connecticut that worked closely with me to develop this legislation, Time for Lyme. The co-presidents and founders of Time for Lyme, Diane Blanchard and Debbie Siciliano, are tireless advocates for the patients struggling with chronic Lyme disease. This is not their job. They are parents whose children suffer from this disease. They work to find time in their busy schedules to make a difference. This is their mission and they give me hope that we can get this done.

I also want to thank my good friend, Senator Collins, for her leadership on this issue. I want to thank Senators Reed, Lieberman, Cardin, and Whitehouse for their support for this bill. Whether it is fishing on the Housatonic River or exploring Gillette Castle State Park near my home in East Haddam, Connecticut families enjoy a variety of outdoor activities.

But Lyme disease remains a persistent and dangerous risk for my constituents, for Senator Collins's constituents, and for those across the country. With leadership from this body and better coordination from federal agencies, we can more effectively combat this disease, better protect our children and families, and make our outdoor spaces safer places to work and play.

I urge my colleagues to join Senator Collins and myself in support of this legislation and thank them kindly for their consideration.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a piece of legislation--and not just any old piece of legislation, I might add, because this organization I am about to talk about had as much to do with the formation of who I am as my family did: the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009.

I would point out that some 35 years ago a young man from Massachusetts and an equally young man from Connecticut were elected to the House of Representatives. A fellow by the name of Paul Tsongas and myself were the first two former Peace Corps volunteers to be elected to the Congress. Paul Tsongas went on to be elected to the Senate, I think, in 1978. He is no longer with us. He died tragically a number of years ago. His wife Niki is now a Member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts.

Paul Tsongas and I were great friends and enjoyed sharing stories with each other for many years about our respective Peace Corps experiences.

Paul Tsongas served in Ethiopia--one of the earliest programs, if not the earliest program, in that country. I served in the Dominican Republic from 1966 through 1968 as a Peace Corps volunteer up in the mountains of that country, not far from the Haitian border. The Peace Corps experience for me was as formative, as I said at the outset of these remarks, as anything else in my life, with the exception of my own family; growing up with wonderful five brothers and sisters in Connecticut and a family who was deeply involved in public service.

The Peace Corps experience was formative, and so over the years, I have expressed a great deal of interest in the organization and the various administrations that have served in Washington since the late 1970s through the 1980s and 1990s and this decade. So my interest in the organization is strong.

The contribution of the Peace Corps has been remarkable over the years. It is one of the few Federal agencies that enjoys almost universal support from the American public. It has had greater moments of celebration and public awareness than at others, but it has been consistent in the minds of most Americans. This organization sends mostly younger Americans, but not always younger Americans, to serve in underprivileged nations, nations that are struggling, including Third World nations, to make a difference in the lives of others. It has been a unique contribution to the world.

There are many other volunteer organizations--some in our own country, some in other nations--but I think the Peace Corps holds a special place in the minds not only of our own fellow citizenry but also millions of people around the world who have come to know those Peace Corps volunteers--as I said, mostly younger people but not always younger people--who serve and spend 2 years working with them in their villages or urban areas, not only making a difference in their daily lives but also getting to know them, getting to know us. People who would never have the chance to come to America got to know America because they got to know that young American who was learning their language and spending time with them and making a contribution to improve their lives.

Well, for 48 years, the Peace Corps has stood as a uniquely American institution. I know other nations make contributions. This is not a unique idea for ourselves. But what other great nation would send its people abroad not to extend its power or intimidate its adversaries, not to kill or be killed, but to dig, to teach, to empower, and ask for nothing in return. For 48 years, those men and women--180,000 of us-- have returned, as stronger, wiser, and more inspired people prepared to live our American lives of service.

For a half century, the Peace Corps has shaped our lives and the identity of all Americans; who we are as a people and what we hope to achieve, not only for our own Nation but also for others who share this planet with us.

Today I rise to offer a piece of legislation for one simple reason, Mr. President: I want the Peace Corps to continue playing that role that it has for the last half century for another half century to come. But before we consider how the Peace Corps can grow going forward, I think it might be worth remembering just how it came into being. Where did it all start? How was it created?

Like an awful lot of groundbreaking ideas, Mr. President, the Peace Corps might not have survived a board meeting or a subcommittee hearing where the idea was first proposed. It was a wild notion in many ways, so breathtakingly outrageous that it could only have been born out of idealism, youthful energy, and--perhaps a key element--too much caffeine. For you see, the Peace Corps was born at 2 in the morning.

It was October 4, 1960, and a then young Senator from Massachusetts by the name of John F. Kennedy was running for the Presidency. He was running hours late, as candidates often do, for a campaign stop at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. John Kennedy assumed that most of the crowd would have gone home by that late hour. But when he arrived at the student union, at the campus in Ann Arbor, he found 10,000 students waiting outside in the frigid dark to greet him. As public officials and holders of elective office, I think we can sympathize with then-Senator Kennedy at that hour, having endured months of late nights on a campaign trail, uncomfortable beds, and a bad diet along the way. I suspect he might have been sorely tempted at that late hour--as all of us have been from time to time--to offer a perfunctory thank-you to the Michigan students for hanging around all that long, recite a memorized stump speech--having given it on countless occasions, he would know it from memory--and send them home and retire himself.

But something besides a chill was in the air that night in Ann Arbor. Floodlit and shivering, the crowd began to chant his name as he climbed the steps to the student union, and Senator John Kennedy realized this was something special. He realized he owed these students more than just that perfunctory set of remarks. So at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, on a frigid night in Michigan, he challenged them as a candidate, as a United States Senator, and he asked:

How many of you, who are going to be doctors, are willing

to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how

many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and

spend your lives traveling around the world?

I believe, Mr. President, that challenge is the Peace Corps' founding document. It didn't begin with a white paper or a TV ad. It began with a simple question.

In the days that followed the Kennedy rally at the student union in Michigan, students drafted a petition, circulating it to colleges all across the State, and within a couple of weeks across the country, presenting several scrolls ultimately to John Fitzgerald Kennedy containing thousands upon thousands upon thousands of names. Some 30,000 letters flooded his office asking him to continue with this idea.

So I think it is fair to say, Mr. President, the answer to that question--are you willing to serve your country by serving the world?-- was an overwhelming yes by a generation almost 50 years ago. Of course, several other pressing questions also followed: How do you build an organization around that raw energy? How do you pay for that? What do you even call that idea or organization?

John Kennedy's top advisers were already working on those issues. After all, they had decided, if we don't start doing our part for the developing world, they were concerned--and rightfully so--the Communists around the world would. At a time much like today, when our Nation faced conflicts with people who knew as little of America as we knew of them, this case for a Peace Corps could be made not only in the lofty rhetoric of idealism but in the cold hard language of realpolitik.

The notion that service could be a part of our foreign policy--indeed that it could be a powerful weapon in the Cold War--was truly a radical idea. It suggested that there could be more measures of strength than caliber or tonnage. It argued that the world needed to see our ideals not just in ink but incarnate in the person of Americans with dirty hands working under a hot foreign sun. It said: You cannot hate America if you know Americans.

The skeptics quickly descended upon John Kennedy's idea. Richard Nixon called the Peace Corps ``a haven for draft-dodgers.'' Former President Dwight Eisenhower called it ``a juvenile experiment.'' Even those old foreign policy hands who supported Kennedy's idea thought it was a fine idea, as long as it was kept small. Academics and State Department officials agreed: Proceed with caution, they urged. Start with just a few hundred volunteers. Don't create a fiasco, they said. Don't let this experiment get out of hand.

If they had gotten their way, I suspect the Peace Corps might not even exist today. But just as a late-night burst of exuberance gave birth to the Peace Corps in Ann Arbor, a similar bolt of sleepless inspiration kept it alive. In a hotel room in downtown Washington--not far from where I am on the floor of the Senate--with only a few typewriters and a stack of blank papers, two aides--only two of them; one named Sergeant Shriver and the other named Harris Wofford, who turned out many years later to be a colleague of ours in the Senate-- comprised the entirety of the Peace Corps staff that had been tasked with figuring out how to put this outrageous idea into practice.

The one thing the two of these men knew, Sergeant Shriver later told us, was that the conventional approach then in vogue wouldn't work. America would only have one chance to get it right. So it was that Sergeant Shriver happened to be in the office at 3 o'clock in the morning--not unlike the hour at Ann Arbor--reading a paper prepared by a State Department employee who had sent along some ideas. His name was Warren Wiggins.

Warren Wiggins called his paper ``The Towering Task,'' a reference to JFK's first State of the Union Address, where the young President said:

The problems are towering and unprecedented and the

response must be towering and unprecedented as well.

Warren Wiggins called for a towering and unprecedented Peace Corps. He wrote:

One hundred youths engaged in agricultural work of some

sort in Brazil might pass by unnoticed, but 5,000 American

youths helping to build Brasilia might warrant the full

attention and support of the President of Brazil himself.

Where a handful of young people might present a nuisance to a foreign ambassador, an army of motivated young Americans could make a real difference. Besides, wasn't it a moment for great ambition?

At 3 o'clock in the morning, Sergeant Shriver read Warren Wiggins's conclusion: The Peace Corps needed to begin with a ``quantum jump,'' and it needed to begin immediately, by Executive order, with as many as 5,000 to 10,000 volunteers right away. By 9 o'clock that same morning, Warren Wiggins himself was sitting alongside Sergeant Shriver in that very hotel room drafting a report for the President of the United States.

Within a month of that date, President John Kennedy had created the Peace Corps by Executive order. Within 2 years, more than 7,000 young Americans were serving across the globe, and that number had more than doubled by 1966, the year that I joined the Peace Corps.

One of those young Americans--as I mentioned, the person speaking to you this afternoon--was a 22-year-old English major at Providence College who arrived in the small village of Moncion in the Dominican Republic. As a young person, I spoke barely any Spanish. I had little idea I was doing, and I certainly didn't have a clue that more than 40 years later I would be standing on the floor of the United States Senate explaining that the Peace Corps gave me the richest 2 years of my life.

I owe those 2 years, and the impact they had on all of my years since, to John Kennedy's 2 a.m. question and Warren Wiggins paper that Sergeant Shriver read at 3 in the morning.

From the story of the Peace Corps, and my own story, we can learn three things: First, the Peace Corps works,

Mr. President. Besides simple labor and goodwill, every American we send abroad brings with him or her another chance to make America known to a world that often fears and suspects us and our motives. Every American who returns to our country from that service comes home as a citizen strengthened with the knowledge of the world in which he or she has just lived.

As Sargent Shriver said, ``Peace Corps Volunteers come home to the USA realizing that there are billions--yes, billions--of human beings not enraptured by our pretensions, or our practices, or even our standards of conduct.''

Second: size matters. The perils of a small, timid Peace Corps are just as clear today as they were in 1961. Just as then, advocates of a stripped-down mission make the same arguments: sending untrained, untested students only aggravates our host countries and raises the chance of a mishap--so let's send a few experts instead. And just as in 1961, our response is fundamentally the same, and still fundamentally correct: of course we need volunteers of the highest quality. But we need the highest quantities, too.

Third: size comes at a cost. The bigger any organism grows, the slower it gets. The Peace Corps that charted its course in a hotel room with a staff of two now enjoys a staff of over a thousand and a fine office building close to the White House. But even the most groundbreaking ideas must all make, in good time, what the philosopher Gramsci called ``the long march through the institutions.'' And where President Kennedy once predicted that, within a few decades, our Nation would have more than one million returned volunteers, today fewer than 200,000 have had the opportunity to serve.

The legislation I offer today is designed to help the Peace Corps not only grow--and I have joined the many voices calling for it to grow dramatically--but also reform.

To those who know and love the Peace Corps, reform is an uncomfortable subject. After all, we don't want to destroy what has made this institution so remarkable and unique. There wouldn't be a Peace Corps if JFK had stuck to the script in Ann Arbor. There wouldn't be a Peace Corps if thousands of students, acting on their own initiative, hadn't caught his attention with their movement. There might not be a Peace Corps if Sargent Shriver had listened to the respectable voices of caution in the early days of 1961.

The Peace Corps is unlike any other organ of our government because of its uniquely grassroots origin. And we can't treat it like any other organ of our government for those reasons.

So the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009 does not include a list of mandates. It does not micromanage.

Instead, it asks those who have written this remarkable success story--from the Director to managers and country directors to current and returned volunteers--to serve once more by undertaking a thorough assessment of the Peace Corps and developing a comprehensive strategic plan for reforming and revitalizing the organization.

Just as JFK's question to those Michigan students sparked the Peace Corps, asking questions today, some 50 years later, I believe will strengthen it. How can volunteers be better managed? How can they be better trained? Can we improve recruiting? Are we sending our volunteers to the right countries? Why do we have volunteers in Samoa and Tonga, but not in Indonesia, Egypt, or Brazil? Are we still achieving the broader goals of the Peace Corps and helping our country meet 21st century challenges?

Most of all: How can we strengthen and grow this remarkable organization without losing the spark--the ambitious sense of the possible that led JFK to stay up late dreaming with those students in Ann Arbor and Sargent Shriver to stay up even later reading Warren Wiggins's paper?

Warren Wiggins died 2 years ago at the age of 84. His obituary quoted Harris Wofford: ``I think he embodied the watchwords that were once given to me: We must be more inventive if we're going to do our duty.''

Inventiveness and duty: two qualities that don't often go together. But the Peace Corps is the result of just such a combination. It has strengthened our Nation, improved the world, and stands today as one of the signal accomplishments of the 20th century. It has been supported by Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 50 years.

As I said at the outset of these remarks, except for my own family, nothing has meant more in my life--or in the lives of so many others-- than the experience I enjoyed so many years ago.

Today we honor the accomplishment of this organization. But let us commit to strengthening and expanding the Peace Corps by passing this legislation which I will send to the desk momentarily. Let us strive to inspire future generations to walk the path of service and exploration, the one that led me and thousands of our Nation's citizens to nations such as the Dominican Republic or Ethiopia, where Paul Tsongas served, and then years later to arrive at this institution, which I cherish and love as well. And let us never lose that spirit, that idealism, that ambition that led a young President of a young nation to ask a generation to serve.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my fellow New Englander, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, in introducing the Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Education, and Research Act of 2009.

As families in New England look forward to outdoor fun this summer-- and as families around the country look forward to vacationing in New England--they might not be thinking about the risks and dangers associated with hiking, camping, and other outdoor activities.

But every year, tens of thousands of Americans working or playing outdoors are bitten by ticks.

For most, a tick bite is nothing more than a minor annoyance. But approximately 20,000 Americans contract Lyme disease each year, and the numbers are rising. And because Lyme disease is difficult to diagnose, many experts believe the true number of cases each year could be as much as 10 or 12 times the reported number. Worst of all, it is our children who are most at risk.

Lyme disease was first described in my home State of Connecticut, and we still have the unfortunate distinction of being ten times more likely to contract Lyme disease than the rest of the Nation. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received reports of new cases from 46 States and the District of Columbia. According to some estimates, Lyme disease costs our Nation more than $2 billion in medical costs each year.

Lyme disease can affect every part of the body. Tens of thousands of Americans suffer through pain, severe fatigue, sleep disturbance, and cognitive difficulties, among many other symptoms. Some of these victims are able to lead normal lives, finding ways to cope with the disease. But many more find the disease significantly disrupts their lives, preventing them from everyday experiences that we all take for granted.

The legislation we offer today directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish a Tick-Borne Diseases Advisory Committee at HHS to coordinate efforts and improve communication between the federal government, medical experts, physicians, and the public.

It will improve diagnostic efforts, establish a national clearinghouse for research and reporting, and require that scientific viewpoints on this often-frustrating disease be disseminated in a balanced way.

It contains tools for researchers, physicians, and the public to improve awareness and treatment.

Finally, it requires the Secretary to prepare and submit to Congress an annual report tracking developments related to Lyme disease, its spread, its treatment, and its impact on families in Connecticut and around the country.

Lyme disease is a frustrating puzzle for physicians, a burden on our Nation's health care system, and most importantly, a threat to American families enjoying our beautiful outdoor spaces.

I want to specifically mention and thank the organization from my home State of Connecticut that worked closely with me to develop this legislation, Time for Lyme. The co-presidents and founders of Time for Lyme, Diane Blanchard and Debbie Siciliano, are tireless advocates for the patients struggling with chronic Lyme disease. This is not their job. They are parents whose children suffer from this disease. They work to find time in their busy schedules to make a difference. This is their mission and they give me hope that we can get this done.

I also want to thank my good friend, Senator Collins, for her leadership on this issue. I want to thank Senators Reed, Lieberman, Cardin, and Whitehouse for their support for this bill. Whether it is fishing on the Housatonic River or exploring Gillette Castle State Park near my home in East Haddam, Connecticut families enjoy a variety of outdoor activities.

But Lyme disease remains a persistent and dangerous risk for my constituents, for Senator Collins's constituents, and for those across the country. With leadership from this body and better coordination from federal agencies, we can more effectively combat this disease, better protect our children and families, and make our outdoor spaces safer places to work and play.

I urge my colleagues to join Senator Collins and myself in support of this legislation and thank them kindly for their consideration.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a piece of legislation--and not just any old piece of legislation, I might add, because this organization I am about to talk about had as much to do with the formation of who I am as my family did: the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009.

I would point out that some 35 years ago a young man from Massachusetts and an equally young man from Connecticut were elected to the House of Representatives. A fellow by the name of Paul Tsongas and myself were the first two former Peace Corps volunteers to be elected to the Congress. Paul Tsongas went on to be elected to the Senate, I think, in 1978. He is no longer with us. He died tragically a number of years ago. His wife Niki is now a Member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts.

Paul Tsongas and I were great friends and enjoyed sharing stories with each other for many years about our respective Peace Corps experiences.

Paul Tsongas served in Ethiopia--one of the earliest programs, if not the earliest program, in that country. I served in the Dominican Republic from 1966 through 1968 as a Peace Corps volunteer up in the mountains of that country, not far from the Haitian border. The Peace Corps experience for me was as formative, as I said at the outset of these remarks, as anything else in my life, with the exception of my own family; growing up with wonderful five brothers and sisters in Connecticut and a family who was deeply involved in public service.

The Peace Corps experience was formative, and so over the years, I have expressed a great deal of interest in the organization and the various administrations that have served in Washington since the late 1970s through the 1980s and 1990s and this decade. So my interest in the organization is strong.

The contribution of the Peace Corps has been remarkable over the years. It is one of the few Federal agencies that enjoys almost universal support from the American public. It has had greater moments of celebration and public awareness than at others, but it has been consistent in the minds of most Americans. This organization sends mostly younger Americans, but not always younger Americans, to serve in underprivileged nations, nations that are struggling, including Third World nations, to make a difference in the lives of others. It has been a unique contribution to the world.

There are many other volunteer organizations--some in our own country, some in other nations--but I think the Peace Corps holds a special place in the minds not only of our own fellow citizenry but also millions of people around the world who have come to know those Peace Corps volunteers--as I said, mostly younger people but not always younger people--who serve and spend 2 years working with them in their villages or urban areas, not only making a difference in their daily lives but also getting to know them, getting to know us. People who would never have the chance to come to America got to know America because they got to know that young American who was learning their language and spending time with them and making a contribution to improve their lives.

Well, for 48 years, the Peace Corps has stood as a uniquely American institution. I know other nations make contributions. This is not a unique idea for ourselves. But what other great nation would send its people abroad not to extend its power or intimidate its adversaries, not to kill or be killed, but to dig, to teach, to empower, and ask for nothing in return. For 48 years, those men and women--180,000 of us-- have returned, as stronger, wiser, and more inspired people prepared to live our American lives of service.

For a half century, the Peace Corps has shaped our lives and the identity of all Americans; who we are as a people and what we hope to achieve, not only for our own Nation but also for others who share this planet with us.

Today I rise to offer a piece of legislation for one simple reason, Mr. President: I want the Peace Corps to continue playing that role that it has for the last half century for another half century to come. But before we consider how the Peace Corps can grow going forward, I think it might be worth remembering just how it came into being. Where did it all start? How was it created?

Like an awful lot of groundbreaking ideas, Mr. President, the Peace Corps might not have survived a board meeting or a subcommittee hearing where the idea was first proposed. It was a wild notion in many ways, so breathtakingly outrageous that it could only have been born out of idealism, youthful energy, and--perhaps a key element--too much caffeine. For you see, the Peace Corps was born at 2 in the morning.

It was October 4, 1960, and a then young Senator from Massachusetts by the name of John F. Kennedy was running for the Presidency. He was running hours late, as candidates often do, for a campaign stop at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. John Kennedy assumed that most of the crowd would have gone home by that late hour. But when he arrived at the student union, at the campus in Ann Arbor, he found 10,000 students waiting outside in the frigid dark to greet him. As public officials and holders of elective office, I think we can sympathize with then-Senator Kennedy at that hour, having endured months of late nights on a campaign trail, uncomfortable beds, and a bad diet along the way. I suspect he might have been sorely tempted at that late hour--as all of us have been from time to time--to offer a perfunctory thank-you to the Michigan students for hanging around all that long, recite a memorized stump speech--having given it on countless occasions, he would know it from memory--and send them home and retire himself.

But something besides a chill was in the air that night in Ann Arbor. Floodlit and shivering, the crowd began to chant his name as he climbed the steps to the student union, and Senator John Kennedy realized this was something special. He realized he owed these students more than just that perfunctory set of remarks. So at 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, on a frigid night in Michigan, he challenged them as a candidate, as a United States Senator, and he asked:

How many of you, who are going to be doctors, are willing

to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how

many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and

spend your lives traveling around the world?

I believe, Mr. President, that challenge is the Peace Corps' founding document. It didn't begin with a white paper or a TV ad. It began with a simple question.

In the days that followed the Kennedy rally at the student union in Michigan, students drafted a petition, circulating it to colleges all across the State, and within a couple of weeks across the country, presenting several scrolls ultimately to John Fitzgerald Kennedy containing thousands upon thousands upon thousands of names. Some 30,000 letters flooded his office asking him to continue with this idea.

So I think it is fair to say, Mr. President, the answer to that question--are you willing to serve your country by serving the world?-- was an overwhelming yes by a generation almost 50 years ago. Of course, several other pressing questions also followed: How do you build an organization around that raw energy? How do you pay for that? What do you even call that idea or organization?

John Kennedy's top advisers were already working on those issues. After all, they had decided, if we don't start doing our part for the developing world, they were concerned--and rightfully so--the Communists around the world would. At a time much like today, when our Nation faced conflicts with people who knew as little of America as we knew of them, this case for a Peace Corps could be made not only in the lofty rhetoric of idealism but in the cold hard language of realpolitik.

The notion that service could be a part of our foreign policy--indeed that it could be a powerful weapon in the Cold War--was truly a radical idea. It suggested that there could be more measures of strength than caliber or tonnage. It argued that the world needed to see our ideals not just in ink but incarnate in the person of Americans with dirty hands working under a hot foreign sun. It said: You cannot hate America if you know Americans.

The skeptics quickly descended upon John Kennedy's idea. Richard Nixon called the Peace Corps ``a haven for draft-dodgers.'' Former President Dwight Eisenhower called it ``a juvenile experiment.'' Even those old foreign policy hands who supported Kennedy's idea thought it was a fine idea, as long as it was kept small. Academics and State Department officials agreed: Proceed with caution, they urged. Start with just a few hundred volunteers. Don't create a fiasco, they said. Don't let this experiment get out of hand.

If they had gotten their way, I suspect the Peace Corps might not even exist today. But just as a late-night burst of exuberance gave birth to the Peace Corps in Ann Arbor, a similar bolt of sleepless inspiration kept it alive. In a hotel room in downtown Washington--not far from where I am on the floor of the Senate--with only a few typewriters and a stack of blank papers, two aides--only two of them; one named Sergeant Shriver and the other named Harris Wofford, who turned out many years later to be a colleague of ours in the Senate-- comprised the entirety of the Peace Corps staff that had been tasked with figuring out how to put this outrageous idea into practice.

The one thing the two of these men knew, Sergeant Shriver later told us, was that the conventional approach then in vogue wouldn't work. America would only have one chance to get it right. So it was that Sergeant Shriver happened to be in the office at 3 o'clock in the morning--not unlike the hour at Ann Arbor--reading a paper prepared by a State Department employee who had sent along some ideas. His name was Warren Wiggins.

Warren Wiggins called his paper ``The Towering Task,'' a reference to JFK's first State of the Union Address, where the young President said:

The problems are towering and unprecedented and the

response must be towering and unprecedented as well.

Warren Wiggins called for a towering and unprecedented Peace Corps. He wrote:

One hundred youths engaged in agricultural work of some

sort in Brazil might pass by unnoticed, but 5,000 American

youths helping to build Brasilia might warrant the full

attention and support of the President of Brazil himself.

Where a handful of young people might present a nuisance to a foreign ambassador, an army of motivated young Americans could make a real difference. Besides, wasn't it a moment for great ambition?

At 3 o'clock in the morning, Sergeant Shriver read Warren Wiggins's conclusion: The Peace Corps needed to begin with a ``quantum jump,'' and it needed to begin immediately, by Executive order, with as many as 5,000 to 10,000 volunteers right away. By 9 o'clock that same morning, Warren Wiggins himself was sitting alongside Sergeant Shriver in that very hotel room drafting a report for the President of the United States.

Within a month of that date, President John Kennedy had created the Peace Corps by Executive order. Within 2 years, more than 7,000 young Americans were serving across the globe, and that number had more than doubled by 1966, the year that I joined the Peace Corps.

One of those young Americans--as I mentioned, the person speaking to you this afternoon--was a 22-year-old English major at Providence College who arrived in the small village of Moncion in the Dominican Republic. As a young person, I spoke barely any Spanish. I had little idea I was doing, and I certainly didn't have a clue that more than 40 years later I would be standing on the floor of the United States Senate explaining that the Peace Corps gave me the richest 2 years of my life.

I owe those 2 years, and the impact they had on all of my years since, to John Kennedy's 2 a.m. question and Warren Wiggins paper that Sergeant Shriver read at 3 in the morning.

From the story of the Peace Corps, and my own story, we can learn three things: First, the Peace Corps works,

Mr. President. Besides simple labor and goodwill, every American we send abroad brings with him or her another chance to make America known to a world that often fears and suspects us and our motives. Every American who returns to our country from that service comes home as a citizen strengthened with the knowledge of the world in which he or she has just lived.

As Sargent Shriver said, ``Peace Corps Volunteers come home to the USA realizing that there are billions--yes, billions--of human beings not enraptured by our pretensions, or our practices, or even our standards of conduct.''

Second: size matters. The perils of a small, timid Peace Corps are just as clear today as they were in 1961. Just as then, advocates of a stripped-down mission make the same arguments: sending untrained, untested students only aggravates our host countries and raises the chance of a mishap--so let's send a few experts instead. And just as in 1961, our response is fundamentally the same, and still fundamentally correct: of course we need volunteers of the highest quality. But we need the highest quantities, too.

Third: size comes at a cost. The bigger any organism grows, the slower it gets. The Peace Corps that charted its course in a hotel room with a staff of two now enjoys a staff of over a thousand and a fine office building close to the White House. But even the most groundbreaking ideas must all make, in good time, what the philosopher Gramsci called ``the long march through the institutions.'' And where President Kennedy once predicted that, within a few decades, our Nation would have more than one million returned volunteers, today fewer than 200,000 have had the opportunity to serve.

The legislation I offer today is designed to help the Peace Corps not only grow--and I have joined the many voices calling for it to grow dramatically--but also reform.

To those who know and love the Peace Corps, reform is an uncomfortable subject. After all, we don't want to destroy what has made this institution so remarkable and unique. There wouldn't be a Peace Corps if JFK had stuck to the script in Ann Arbor. There wouldn't be a Peace Corps if thousands of students, acting on their own initiative, hadn't caught his attention with their movement. There might not be a Peace Corps if Sargent Shriver had listened to the respectable voices of caution in the early days of 1961.

The Peace Corps is unlike any other organ of our government because of its uniquely grassroots origin. And we can't treat it like any other organ of our government for those reasons.

So the Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009 does not include a list of mandates. It does not micromanage.

Instead, it asks those who have written this remarkable success story--from the Director to managers and country directors to current and returned volunteers--to serve once more by undertaking a thorough assessment of the Peace Corps and developing a comprehensive strategic plan for reforming and revitalizing the organization.

Just as JFK's question to those Michigan students sparked the Peace Corps, asking questions today, some 50 years later, I believe will strengthen it. How can volunteers be better managed? How can they be better trained? Can we improve recruiting? Are we sending our volunteers to the right countries? Why do we have volunteers in Samoa and Tonga, but not in Indonesia, Egypt, or Brazil? Are we still achieving the broader goals of the Peace Corps and helping our country meet 21st century challenges?

Most of all: How can we strengthen and grow this remarkable organization without losing the spark--the ambitious sense of the possible that led JFK to stay up late dreaming with those students in Ann Arbor and Sargent Shriver to stay up even later reading Warren Wiggins's paper?

Warren Wiggins died 2 years ago at the age of 84. His obituary quoted Harris Wofford: ``I think he embodied the watchwords that were once given to me: We must be more inventive if we're going to do our duty.''

Inventiveness and duty: two qualities that don't often go together. But the Peace Corps is the result of just such a combination. It has strengthened our Nation, improved the world, and stands today as one of the signal accomplishments of the 20th century. It has been supported by Republican and Democratic administrations over the last 50 years.

As I said at the outset of these remarks, except for my own family, nothing has meant more in my life--or in the lives of so many others-- than the experience I enjoyed so many years ago.

Today we honor the accomplishment of this organization. But let us commit to strengthening and expanding the Peace Corps by passing this legislation which I will send to the desk momentarily. Let us strive to inspire future generations to walk the path of service and exploration, the one that led me and thousands of our Nation's citizens to nations such as the Dominican Republic or Ethiopia, where Paul Tsongas served, and then years later to arrive at this institution, which I cherish and love as well. And let us never lose that spirit, that idealism, that ambition that led a young President of a young nation to ask a generation to serve.

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

Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Mr. President, I see my friend from Ohio, Senator Brown, who has been a champion of this issue, not only as a Member of this body but as a former Member of the other body. He has spoken eloquently on this already. I will defer to him whatever time he may wish to use. I am told Senator Enzi will be here shortly. We will go back and forth between now and 2:30.

I thank my colleague from Ohio for his remarks and for his efforts over the years. This has been a long journey. It goes back 50 years. Back then, the Surgeon General of the United States warned of the health effects of smoking--a half century ago.

I know we will have a big vote at 2:30, and that is great news. Sometimes a large vote such as this minimizes the impact of the decision. This has been a very long battle. Somebody told me the other day the issue to ban smoking on airplanes only passed the Congress by one vote. Imagine today if somebody tried to restore the right, or privilege, to smoke on airplanes. I doubt you would find one vote in favor. Even smokers object to smoking on airplanes today. So only by a one-vote margin did Congress vote to ban that practice.

On Monday, we had a cloture vote. People can vote for a lot of different reasons. I don't suggest that everybody who voted against cloture was in favor of continuing to allow the tobacco industry to be unregulated. But by a 1-vote margin, basically, 61 votes, on a bipartisan basis, we terminated that debate, which is bringing us to the vote in 20 minutes. While it may seem like another vote on this day, June 11, 2009, it is a significant vote. I don't know of another vote in the last number of years as important as this one. We are going to start a markup in the next week--my friend from Wyoming has been involved in this and is passionate about the issue of smoking. We are going to mark up bills and fashion a major health care reform debate in this country. What better way to begin that debate than by the vote we are going to take in a few minutes.

For the first time in the history of our country, we will insist that tobacco products be regulated by the FDA. To put this into perspective, the FDA regulates not only all the food and other products we ingest, it regulates cosmetics, mascara, lipstick, and all sorts of products that we not only ingest but that we also use on our bodies. It also controls the products your pets consume, such as cat food, dog food, hamsters, and whatever else; the FDA has the power to regulate that.

But for 50 years, the tobacco industry has successfully fought the ability to regulate tobacco products. Yet 3,000 to 4,000 kids start smoking every day in this country; 400,000 a year die, as you have heard from Senator Brown. It is incredible to me that for more years than many want to believe or count, we have had an industry that has gone basically unregulated. Of course, the idea that you can put cherry flavors and strawberry flavors in a cigarette and use cartoon figures to market it, that is not aimed at the 30- and 40-year-old tobacco user, it is aimed at children. One thousand of those children become addicted every day, and one-third that number will die prematurely from smoking.

I will guarantee you there is not an adult smoker who wishes their child would begin smoking. I guarantee you that virtually 100 percent of adult smokers have many wishes for their children and one is that their children never start the habit that they did. We are told by health officials, experts, that the average person who smokes and tries to quit, tries seven times before effectively kicking the habit. I am a former smoker. Let me tell you, it is hard. I know others have not smoked, and my colleague from Wyoming talks about his own family smoking. He never did, but he grew up in a family that did. My mother smoked cigarettes and my father smoked cigars and pipes in our house with six children. Many of my siblings smoked growing up, all of whom have stopped. But it is hard.

Today, in the name of my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, who for four decades championed this, as well as Henry Waxman in the House, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, and many others who have fought this battle, we will vote at 2:30. It will go through overwhelmingly, and we will go on to the next matter.

Our leader, Harry Reid, insisted we stay on this matter. That is leadership. He could have easily said let's move on to another issue, it is taking too long--3 weeks to get it done. But because Harry Reid and Dick Durbin and Mike Enzi stayed with us and insisted we go through a normal process, which is right to do in our committee, with the good staff people who have worked hard on this, we are going to get this done today. We might move on to the next issue then.

For the first time, we will make a difference by requiring that the FDA regulate the production, the sale, and the marketing of these products. That is history. I cannot tell you how proud I am to be involved in it, in the name of Ted Kennedy and the others who came before us, including Mike DeWine of Ohio, Tom Davis, Henry Waxman and many others and the thousands of organizations that joined us in this effort today.

Yes.

I yield the floor.

That is my general understanding of the provision.

I agree with my colleagues from the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues. We are getting close to the time of the vote. I would be remiss if I did not also mention our staff. I often say in a time such as this, Senators get the opportunity to stand at a podium and be heard, but there are literally dozens of people whose names most Americans will never know who make these moments happen. They deserve public recognition because they worked tirelessly, late nights, weekends, around the clock negotiating, working with each other trying to iron out provisions of the bill.

On Senator Kennedy's staff: Jeff Teitz, Michael Myers, Ben Olinsky, Terri Roney, Shawn Daugherty, and Portia Wu. Some are in the Chamber. I thank them immensely on behalf of Senator Kennedy.

Senator Durbin's staff: Tom Falletti and Sara Singleton have been terrific in this effort. We thank Tom and Sara for their work.

Senator Enzi's staff: Greg Dean and Amy Muhlberg. We thank them immensely. They worked hard on this bill.

Finally I want to thank Jim Fenton from my office, Rachael Holt, Jeremy Sharp, who is sitting next to me, and Monica Feit. I have gotten a lot of help in this effort, with Senator Kennedy's staff and Senator Enzi's staff.

There are members of the majority leader's staff who deserve our thanks as well. We always have to thank Lula, Tim, and others who make it all possible. We thank them all very much for what they do.

Again, as Senator Durbin said, and Senator Enzi and others have said, this is a historic moment for our Chamber to be able to do something. Fifty years ago the Surgeon General warned us of tobacco use, and a half century later we are about to insist the agency in charge of food, drugs, cosmetics, and pet food also be able to include tobacco. We are about to do that.

The House and Senate bills are similar, and I believe we will have a Presidential signature on this legislation very quickly.

On behalf of millions of families across this country and as the father of a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old who do not know anything about tobacco yet, and whose mother does not smoke, never did, and a father who did but stopped, on behalf of my children and millions of children around this country, we are told by the Congressional Budget Office that an 11-percent reduction in youth smoking can happen immediately with the passage of this bill. That may not seem like much, but it is a beginning. We may just reach the goal of my colleague from Wyoming of a 100-percent reduction of young people smoking. My hope is that certainly will be the case.

Mr. President, with a little bit of time remaining, I am prepared to yield back the time, and at the appropriate moment, I will ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, as I understand it, we are going to have a vote at 12:30. I ask unanimous consent the time between now and 12:30 be equally divided between the minority and majority.

There are over 1,000 organizations that support H.R. 1256. I ask unanimous consent that some of these letters of support be printed in the Record.

Let me take a couple of minutes. I know my colleague and friend from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, is coming to the floor as well. I think Senator Coburn is going to be here to make a point of order. I will keep an eye out so I do not exceed the time.

I want to point out to my colleagues that this is now down to the last few votes on this matter. I had hoped we would have been able to consider some of the other amendments that were being offered. But as my colleagues, I think, are probably aware, one of the amendments to be considered was an amendment offered by my colleague Senator Lieberman. There was objection to that amendment coming up. As a result, we could not reach an agreement on allowing time for the other amendments to be considered, amendments offered by Senator Enzi, Senator Bunning, Senator Coburn, and Senator Hagan.

In fact, an amendment offered by Senator Enzi--he and I reached an agreement on that. It is regrettable that we weren't able to get to it. I hope we can fix it at another time. That is an example of what happened when we couldn't get unanimous consent to go forward. Nonetheless, I hope the substitute will be adopted, cloture will be invoked, and we can schedule a vote for final passage, as I believe we will, in the next day.

This is important. A lot of work has been done on this bill. As Senator Durbin, our friend from Illinois, pointed out, this is work that has gone on for decades between Republicans and Democrats. It is a bipartisan bill. We spent 2 days on markup, considering amendments, adopting some, accepting some. That brought us to the position we are in today with this legislation.

As I have said over and over again over the last number of weeks as we have considered this bill, this is an unprecedented action we will be taking, an historic moment in many ways. For the first time ever in the history of our country, the 100-year-old regulatory agency, the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates all the food and products we ingest and consume as Americans, will now for the first time be allowed to regulate tobacco products.

The FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, as I pointed out, not only regulates the food we humans consume but also pets--cat food, dog food, bird feed, hamsters--all those products have to be approved by the FDA. One product we have not been able to legislate because of opposition from the tobacco industry is tobacco products. We are about to change that. My hope is with a vote today and tomorrow, and then agreement with the House, the President will be in a position to sign the legislation that will, first, give the Food and Drug Administration the opportunity to regulate these products and, as important, to determine and set guidelines and regulations dealing with the sale and marketing to young people.

It has been said, I know, over and over again, maybe not often enough, 3,000 to 4,000 children begin smoking every day in America. Every day we delay having the FDA take on this responsibility and begin controlling the marketing and sale of these products, we run the risk of more and more children starting the habit. We know that of that 3,000 to 4,000 who start smoking every day, 1,000 of them end up becoming addicted to the products. One in five high school students in my State of Connecticut today smoke. I suspect those numbers are probably fairly uniform across the country. Of that number I have mentioned, the thousand who become addicted, about one-third that number will die from smoking-related illnesses. Four hundred thousand people every year lose their lives as a result of tobacco-related illnesses.

Again, this is a self-inflicted wound. Obviously we have known this for a long time. The Surgeon General has warned for years, every scientific study that has been done has cautioned about what happens if people develop the habit of smoking and the dangers associated with it. We talk about loss of life but there are also those who become debilitated through the contraction of various diseases associated with smoking.

I apologize for making this case with numbers, but it is so important my colleagues understand where we are and how important this vote is, to be able to do this. We are now already beginning the debate about health care in the country. That debate is going to go on for the next number of months. A major feature of the health care debate is prevention, to try to prevent people from getting the diseases that cost them and their families and our country so much. What better way to take a step toward prevention than to deal with an issue like smoking and tobacco products, which causes so many deaths in our country, so many illnesses.

In fact, if you take suicides, murders, AIDS, alcohol-related deaths, automobile accidents, drug-related deaths, and combine all of them, they do not equal the number of fatalities that occur every year as a result of the use of tobacco products.

If we are truly interested in making real headway on prevention, what better way than to begin to deal with the issue of marketing and sale of tobacco products to young people. That is what a major part of this bill does.

We also provide help to the producing States because we recognize that for farmers in these States, this will be a major adjustment for them economically. This bill accommodates that as well.

I say to my friends on the other side, particularly, those who have offered--want to offer some of these amendments, we didn't have a chance to consider some of them, but I want them to know it was not objection on this side to that at all. There were objections to the Lieberman amendment going forward that created this problem. But, nonetheless, the work that has been done on this bill I think is deserving of our support. It is worthy of our unanimous adoption.

As I said over and over again, if you were to collect all of the adult smokers in the country--and 90 percent of adult

smokers began as children, by the way--but if you asked all of them their opinion on whether we ought to do something about marketing these products to children, I would be willing to venture a guess that 98 percent of adult smokers, if they could speak with one voice today, would tell us to pass this bill. The last thing a parent who smokes wants is their children to start smoking. They know the hazards, they know the damage, they know the heartache that comes with the illnesses associated with these products.

On behalf of all parents in the country, smokers and nonsmokers, let us adopt this legislation and take a major step in dealing with the dreaded health problems associated with tobacco products.

I see my colleague from Wyoming so let me stop here and give him the remainder of the time he needs to comment on this. I thank him and his staff who have been working on this. I am a late arrival. He worked with Senator Kennedy on this problem long before I was directly involved with it. I thank him for his work.

As you know, most new smokers start as children. Every day, approximately 3,500 kids will try a cigarette for the first time, and another 1,000 will become new, regular daily smokers. We should do everything possible to protect our children from the dangers of smoking.

The Senator from New Jersey is correct. While the term ``characterizing flavor'' is undefined in the legislation, it is intended to capture those additives that produce a distinguishing flavor, taste, or aroma imparted by the product. Nothing in this section is intended to expressly prohibit the use of any specific ingredient that does not fall into this category.

The pending matter will be a vote at 12:30, in a few minutes, on the cloture motion, is that correct?

We will go to the vote right away. I appreciate the comments of my friend from Wyoming. I wish the Record to note there were no objections on this side to any of the amendments being offered, the germane amendments. My friend from Wyoming is absolutely correct. I regret that, that we didn't have an opportunity to debate those, but let me say there may be a time and opportunity for us to deal with these on other vehicles as well, but my hope is we can invoke cloture and move forward.

I am prepared to yield back the time and proceed to the vote.

Madam President, I wish to thank my colleagues. This is, again, a strong bipartisan vote on this issue, and it allows us now to get to the final passage. We have had about, I think, three cloture votes on this bill. If we followed the regular order, the vote would occur at 6:05 a.m. tomorrow morning. I am sure the leader will not make us do that, but that may be the price you pay for all the cloture votes we have had to go through. But sometime tomorrow the vote will occur, and the leadership will obviously decide when.

Let me again thank Senator Enzi and his staff and Senator Kennedy and his staff. They have gone back many years. I am a place-holder on this. I hope our friend from Massachusetts is watching this because he battled 10 years to get us to this point.

If we can make a dent in those 3,000 to 4,000 kids who start smoking every day--the estimates are 11 percent will not start smoking because of what we are about to do on this bill. If we can make a difference in those 400,000 who lose their lives every year and those who contract emphysema and related illnesses, this may be the most important prevention step we take in the short term on our health care efforts.

So for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who have made this possible, this is a moment they can take great satisfaction in having made a significant contribution to the well-being of Americans. I thank all of them for that and urge a strong vote tomorrow for the passage of the legislation. Then we will work out--and we may not have to work out differences with the House--but if we do, we will then send this bill to the President for his signature, hopefully in the next few days. For the first time in the history of our country, the Food and Drug Administration will be able to regulate tobacco products, and that is a major achievement for our country's children.

With that, Madam President, I thank my colleagues again and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I withhold that request.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce The Standards to Provide Educational Achievement for Kids, SPEAK, Act, a bill designed to provide incentives to states to begin holding every child in America to the same high standards. At its core, SPEAK will adopt and implement voluntary core American education content standards in math and science while incentivizing states to adopt them.

America's leadership, economic, and national security rest on our commitment to educate and prepare our youth to succeed in a global economy. The key to succeeding in this endeavor is to have high expectations for all American students as they progress through our Nation's schools.

Currently there are 50 different sets of academic standards, 50 State assessments, and 50 definitions of proficiency under the No Child Left Behind Act. As a result of varied standards, exams and proficiency levels, America's highly mobile student-aged population moves through the Nation's schools gaining widely varying levels of knowledge, skills and preparedness. Yet, in order for the U.S. to compete in a global economy, we must strengthen our educational expectations for all American children--we must compete as one Nation.

Recent international comparisons show that American students have significant shortcomings in math and science. Many lack the basic skills required for college or the workplace. This affects our economic and national security; it holds us back in the global marketplace and risks ceding our competitive edge. This is unacceptable.

America was founded on the notion of ensuring equity and opportunity for all. And yet, we risk both when we allow different students in different states to graduate from high school with very different educations. We live in a nation with an unacceptably high high school dropout rate. We live in a nation where 8th graders in some states score more than 30 points higher on tests of basic science knowledge than students in other states. I ask my colleagues today what equality of opportunity we have under such circumstances.

This is where American standards come in. Voluntary, core American standards in math and science are an important step in ensuring that all American students are given the same opportunity to learn to a high standard no matter where they reside. They will allow for meaningful comparisons of student academic achievement across states, help ensure that American students are academically qualified to enter college or training for the civilian or military workforce, and help ensure that students are better prepared to compete in the global marketplace. Uniform standards are a first step in maintaining America's competitive and national security edge.

While I understand that education is, after all, a state endeavor, we cannot ignore that at the end of the day America competes as one country on the global marketplace. This does not mean that I am asking states to cede their authority in education. What the bill simply proposes is that we use the convening power of the Federal Government to incentivize efforts to create a core set of common standards.

I would like to take a moment to recognize the recent remarkable achievement of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers in partnership with Achieve, Inc, ACT, and the College Board. Just last week they announced that 49 States and territories have joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative and have committed to a process to develop common standards in English language arts and mathematics. They have made a commitment to evidence- based and internationally benchmarked standards, which are scheduled to be developed later this year. This effort is outstanding. Just 2 years ago, when I introduced one of the first bills in the Senate on standards, this type of effort would have been unthinkable. Now, there is strong momentum behind providing all students across the country with competitive and consistent standards.

The SPEAK Act, provides flexibility in the creation or adoption of American standards, understanding that there are effective efforts underway that could be integrated into the program of Federal incentives that this bill would provide.

The SPEAK Act will task the National Assessment Governing Board with creating or adopting rigorous and voluntary core American education content standards in math and science for grades K-12. It will require that the standards be anchored in the National Assessment of Educational Progress' math and science frameworks. It will also ensure that such standards are internationally competitive and comparable to the best standards in the world, similar to the outline created for the standards being developed through the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

States that do participate, while required to adopt the American standards, will be given the flexibility to make them their own. They will have the option to add additional content requirements, they will have final say in how coursework is sequenced, and, ultimately, States, and districts will still be the ones developing the curriculum, choosing the textbooks and administering the tests. The standards provided for under this legislation will simply serve as a common core.

The SPEAK Act will develop rigorous achievement levels. It will ensure that varying developmental levels of students are taken into account in the development of such standards. It will provide for periodic review and update of such standards. It establishes an American Standards Incentive Fund to incentivize states to adopt the standards. Among the benefits of participating is a significant infusion of funds for states to bolster their K-12 data systems.

No one will deny that our Nation is facing difficult economic times. However, there remains a steadfast commitment to improving education for our students, a commitment that includes working to develop voluntary American standards. I applaud states that realize that despite facing difficult budget realities, holding all students to the same, high standards will be what is best for the future of our nation. These States need and deserve incentives and resources to complete this important work.

I should also note that the SPEAK Act has garnered endorsements from businesses, math/science organizations, foundations, and the education community. Through the leadership of Congressman Vernon Ehlers in the House of Representatives it shares not only bicameral, but bipartisan support. Together we have all come together to affect meaningful change in our public schools.

We live in an economy where you can no longer lift, dig or assemble your way to success. Today, you have got to think your way to success so that when public education doesn't work, when we fail to compete as one nation, our entire country gets left behind. Low expectations translate to an America that is less competitive on the world stage. If that happens, we are going to wonder why we didn't do anything about it while we still had time.

Core American standards will set high goals for all students, allow for meaningful comparisons of achievement across states, and help ensure that all of our students are qualified to enter college. At the end of the day, we all want what is best for our country and parents want what is best for their kids. With core standards, America will begin the work of regaining its competitive edge in the global economy. In the life of every student, equality will be made a little more real with reintroduction of this bill, as the skills and knowledge we expect of them are no longer made contingent on where they reside.

I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting the SPEAK Act. As we start holding our students to the same high standards, I expect that we will be amazed at the excellence that follows.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce The Standards to Provide Educational Achievement for Kids, SPEAK, Act, a bill designed to provide incentives to states to begin holding every child in America to the same high standards. At its core, SPEAK will adopt and implement voluntary core American education content standards in math and science while incentivizing states to adopt them.

America's leadership, economic, and national security rest on our commitment to educate and prepare our youth to succeed in a global economy. The key to succeeding in this endeavor is to have high expectations for all American students as they progress through our Nation's schools.

Currently there are 50 different sets of academic standards, 50 State assessments, and 50 definitions of proficiency under the No Child Left Behind Act. As a result of varied standards, exams and proficiency levels, America's highly mobile student-aged population moves through the Nation's schools gaining widely varying levels of knowledge, skills and preparedness. Yet, in order for the U.S. to compete in a global economy, we must strengthen our educational expectations for all American children--we must compete as one Nation.

Recent international comparisons show that American students have significant shortcomings in math and science. Many lack the basic skills required for college or the workplace. This affects our economic and national security; it holds us back in the global marketplace and risks ceding our competitive edge. This is unacceptable.

America was founded on the notion of ensuring equity and opportunity for all. And yet, we risk both when we allow different students in different states to graduate from high school with very different educations. We live in a nation with an unacceptably high high school dropout rate. We live in a nation where 8th graders in some states score more than 30 points higher on tests of basic science knowledge than students in other states. I ask my colleagues today what equality of opportunity we have under such circumstances.

This is where American standards come in. Voluntary, core American standards in math and science are an important step in ensuring that all American students are given the same opportunity to learn to a high standard no matter where they reside. They will allow for meaningful comparisons of student academic achievement across states, help ensure that American students are academically qualified to enter college or training for the civilian or military workforce, and help ensure that students are better prepared to compete in the global marketplace. Uniform standards are a first step in maintaining America's competitive and national security edge.

While I understand that education is, after all, a state endeavor, we cannot ignore that at the end of the day America competes as one country on the global marketplace. This does not mean that I am asking states to cede their authority in education. What the bill simply proposes is that we use the convening power of the Federal Government to incentivize efforts to create a core set of common standards.

I would like to take a moment to recognize the recent remarkable achievement of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers in partnership with Achieve, Inc, ACT, and the College Board. Just last week they announced that 49 States and territories have joined the Common Core State Standards Initiative and have committed to a process to develop common standards in English language arts and mathematics. They have made a commitment to evidence- based and internationally benchmarked standards, which are scheduled to be developed later this year. This effort is outstanding. Just 2 years ago, when I introduced one of the first bills in the Senate on standards, this type of effort would have been unthinkable. Now, there is strong momentum behind providing all students across the country with competitive and consistent standards.

The SPEAK Act, provides flexibility in the creation or adoption of American standards, understanding that there are effective efforts underway that could be integrated into the program of Federal incentives that this bill would provide.

The SPEAK Act will task the National Assessment Governing Board with creating or adopting rigorous and voluntary core American education content standards in math and science for grades K-12. It will require that the standards be anchored in the National Assessment of Educational Progress' math and science frameworks. It will also ensure that such standards are internationally competitive and comparable to the best standards in the world, similar to the outline created for the standards being developed through the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

States that do participate, while required to adopt the American standards, will be given the flexibility to make them their own. They will have the option to add additional content requirements, they will have final say in how coursework is sequenced, and, ultimately, States, and districts will still be the ones developing the curriculum, choosing the textbooks and administering the tests. The standards provided for under this legislation will simply serve as a common core.

The SPEAK Act will develop rigorous achievement levels. It will ensure that varying developmental levels of students are taken into account in the development of such standards. It will provide for periodic review and update of such standards. It establishes an American Standards Incentive Fund to incentivize states to adopt the standards. Among the benefits of participating is a significant infusion of funds for states to bolster their K-12 data systems.

No one will deny that our Nation is facing difficult economic times. However, there remains a steadfast commitment to improving education for our students, a commitment that includes working to develop voluntary American standards. I applaud states that realize that despite facing difficult budget realities, holding all students to the same, high standards will be what is best for the future of our nation. These States need and deserve incentives and resources to complete this important work.

I should also note that the SPEAK Act has garnered endorsements from businesses, math/science organizations, foundations, and the education community. Through the leadership of Congressman Vernon Ehlers in the House of Representatives it shares not only bicameral, but bipartisan support. Together we have all come together to affect meaningful change in our public schools.

We live in an economy where you can no longer lift, dig or assemble your way to success. Today, you have got to think your way to success so that when public education doesn't work, when we fail to compete as one nation, our entire country gets left behind. Low expectations translate to an America that is less competitive on the world stage. If that happens, we are going to wonder why we didn't do anything about it while we still had time.

Core American standards will set high goals for all students, allow for meaningful comparisons of achievement across states, and help ensure that all of our students are qualified to enter college. At the end of the day, we all want what is best for our country and parents want what is best for their kids. With core standards, America will begin the work of regaining its competitive edge in the global economy. In the life of every student, equality will be made a little more real with reintroduction of this bill, as the skills and knowledge we expect of them are no longer made contingent on where they reside.

I hope that my colleagues will join me in supporting the SPEAK Act. As we start holding our students to the same high standards, I expect that we will be amazed at the excellence that follows.

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 further ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

I thank the Chair. I will try and be brief on this. I know I have spoken at some length about the bill before us, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. I wish to begin by again thanking our colleagues who voted yesterday to allow us to move forward by supporting the cloture motion. It took a bipartisan effort and I am grateful to colleagues, both in the majority and the minority, for lending their support to that effort. I am also pleased we are having an opportunity to vote on the Burr-Hagan amendment. There were some questions raised as to whether that amendment would be permissible under a postcloture environment from a parliamentary standpoint. As I told my friend from North Carolina, Senator Burr, even though I disagree with his amendment, I would vote against a point of order if one were raised against it so he would have a chance to make his case. His State is going to be affected by this decision we are making. As I recall, I think he told me there are some 12,000 to 15,000 tobacco farmers in North Carolina, hard-working families who have been in the business for generations. This will have an impact on them. It may not be as dramatic as some suggest, but it certainly will have a negative impact if we are successful in reducing the amount of smoking and use of tobacco products by young children.

I am pleased my colleague from North Carolina has had a chance to make his case, along with his colleague from North Carolina, Senator Hagan.

Having said I would support his right to be heard, now I wish to take a few minutes to express why I support the underlying bill. This bill has been supported over the years by a substantial number in this body, as well as in the other body, the House of Representatives--as I pointed out in the past, this matter, which has been under consideration for almost a decade, has not become law because neither House of Congress has adopted the legislation in the same Congress. We have ended up with the Senate passing a bill, the other House passing a bill, but never in the same Congress. So for all of these years, the Food and Drug Administration has not been able to regulate tobacco products.

We are about to change that if we, in fact, reject the Burr amendment and several others that are pending and give the Food and Drug Administration the power, the authority, to regulate the sale, production, and marketing of tobacco products, particularly to young children. So for the first time, the FDA will have this authority and put in place tough restrictions that for far too long have been absent. This will provide support for families when it comes to how cigarettes are marketed to their children.

I am sure my colleagues are tired of hearing me speaking over the last several weeks about the number of young people who start smoking every day. We have been at this matter now for about 2 or 3 weeks, considering the floor action, as well as the action in the HELP Committee, which is the committee of jurisdiction. You can do the math yourself: Over 20 days, 3,000 to 4,000 children every day starting to smoke while we have been deliberating this piece of legislation. Needless to say, I don't know of a single person in this country with an ounce of sense who wants that many children who begin this habit to continue. I don't know of anybody with any sense at all who believes our country is better off if day after day we allow an industry to market products designed specifically to appeal to young people, knowing what danger and harm it causes. Four hundred thousand of our fellow citizens expire, die every year because of smoking-related illnesses--400,000 people. That is more than the number of people who lose their lives as a result of automobile accidents, AIDS, alcohol

abuse, illegal drug abuse, and violent crimes with guns. All of those combined do not equal the number of deaths that occur because of people's use of tobacco and tobacco products. That does not include the number of people who lead very debilitated lives, who are stricken with emphysema or related pulmonary illnesses that fundamentally alter their lives and the lives of their families.

I apologize to my colleagues for continuing to recite these numbers, but I pray and hope these numbers may have some impact on those who wonder if every aspect of the bill makes the most sense or not. None of us should ever claim perfection, but we have spent a lot of time on this, a lot of consideration on this. There are 1,000 organizations, faith-based, State organizations--leading organizations dealing with lung cancer and related problems and they are all speaking with one voice. They are telling us to pass this bill, pass this bill, and allow finally for the FDA to be able to control the marketing, the selling, and the production of these tobacco products.

Absent any action by this Congress, more than 6 million children who are alive today will die from smoking. Mr. President, 1 out of 5 children from my State of Connecticut smokes today, and 76,000 children, we are told by health care professionals, will die prematurely because of their addiction to tobacco.

As I mentioned earlier, we are on the eve of passing major health care reform legislation. The centerpiece of that bill, as I hear my Republican friends and Democratic friends talk about it, is prevention. That is the one piece about which there is a great deal of unanimity. How can we deal with health care reform? The best way to treat a disease is to have it never happen in the first place. This bill may do more in the area of prevention, if adopted, than anything else we may include in the health care bill in the short term. The estimates are that 11 percent of young people would not begin the habit of smoking if this bill is adopted. Imagine 11 percent of the young people not smoking of that 3,000 to 4,000 every day who start. That in itself would be a major achievement.

My friend from North Carolina, Senator Burr, does not give authority to the FDA. The FDA is 100 years old. His bill creates a completely new agency, an untested agency, to oversee tobacco products. But the FDA is the right agency because it is the only agency that has the regulatory experience and scientific experience and the combination of that with a public health mission. Unlike the Kennedy bill, the underlying bill, the Burr substitute fails to provide adequate resources to do the job. In the first 3 years, if the Burr substitute is adopted, it would allocate only one-quarter of the funding allocated in Senator Kennedy's proposal. The Burr substitute fails to give the authority to remove harmful ingredients in cigarettes, which the Kennedy bill would do. It doesn't go far enough in protecting children and has weaker and less effective health warnings as well.

I say respectfully to my friend, setting up and creating a whole new agency, providing a fraction of the funding necessary to get it done, and providing inadequate resources in order to support these efforts is not the step we ought to be taking. All of us can agree that the FDA is basically the agency we charge with the responsibility of regulating everything we consume and ingest, including the products ingested by our pets. The FDA has jurisdiction over your cat food, dog food, and what your parakeet may have, but your child's use of tobacco is not regulated by anybody. Your child's safety, in many ways, is being less protected than that of a household pet. That needs to change.

For a decade, we have debated this. We have been through countless arguments. Now we have come down to the moment as to whether this Congress, in a bipartisan fashion, as we did yesterday, will say enough is enough. We have come to the end of the debate.

Mr. President, 400,000 people are losing their lives every day, and 3,000 to 4,000 children are starting to smoke, a thousand of whom will be addicted for life, and one-third of that number will die because of the use of these products. That is over with. The marketing, the production, as well as the selling of these products has to come to an end. This is the best way to save money, if you are not impressed with the ethics and morality of the issue.

This is a self-inflicted wound we impose on ourselves as a country, knowing the damage it causes, the costs it imposes, the hardships, the horror, and the sorrow it brings to families. I don't know a single person who smokes and wants their child to begin that habit. If they could stand here collectively--the families across this country who are smokers--they would say with one voice: Pass this bill. Please do everything you can to see to it that my child doesn't begin that habit.

Ninety percent of smokers start as kids, we know that. So we need to change how we regulate these products. That is what this bill does. It has had tremendous support from our friends, both Republicans and Democrats, over the years. We have never done it together, and we are on the brink of doing that and making a significant change in our country for the better. It is long overdue.

When the vote occurs on the Burr amendment, I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment. I want to do everything I can to help those farmers. The bill makes a difference in providing real help to the farmers. I see my friend from Kentucky. He knows I went to law school there, and he knows I have an affection for the people there. We owe it to them to provide real help so they can get back on their feet. I say to my friend from North Carolina, and others, I know what it means to have an industry in your State face these kinds of challenges, but clearly the challenge to our Nation is to begin to reduce the number of children who smoke and to save lives every year. I say respectfully that there is no more paramount issue for our Nation as a whole.

I urge my colleagues to reject the Burr amendment.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, if I may--I wish to ask unanimous consent to go into morning business at the conclusion of these brief remarks-- there are several amendments that are germane amendments to this bill that we ought to consider, and my hope is that will happen. I will let the leadership determine what the rest of the day will be like, but my hope is we can complete these other germane amendments that are before us. I know there is a package of amendments on other things to be looked at, and I am certainly prepared to do that.

My good friend, the Senator from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, is not on the floor at this minute, but he and I have had a good relationship on this bill, and we would like to complete it if we could. We have been now almost a week and a half on this legislation, so it shouldn't take much more to get to final passage.

So I make that offer to my colleagues, that they can sit down and see if we can't resolve some of those matters or at least allow for some time for debate on those outstanding germane amendments that are pending.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed to morning business, with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

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