Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Today, I introduce the National Guard and Reserve Mental Health Access Act, which provides greater access to mental health services for our members of the National Guard and Reserve.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking an excruciatingly high toll on veterans and their families and the Nation obviously needs to give greater priority to their mental health needs, including the National Guard and the Reserve.

As of April 29, 2008, 31,848 servicemembers have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thirty percent of our soldiers struggle with brain injuries, mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, or a combination of these physical and mental wounds.

Earlier this month, the RAND Corporation released a report documenting the alarmingly high numbers of veterans who struggle with mental health problems and brain injuries. One in 5 of these brave men and women report mental health problems.

These mental health problems take various forms, including post- traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidal tendencies and substance abuse, and they can persist for months or even years after their service. Some will never be the same again.

It is our duty to give our National Guard and Reserves the best possible treatment, whatever their injury. Mental conditions should be treated with the same care and concern as physical conditions.

This bill calls for the implementation of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program, which provides counseling, education and family services to returning members of the Guard and reservists. It establishes a Joint Psychological Health Program in the National Guard Bureau to oversee and coordinate support for Guard members with mental illness or brain injuries, and it creates a pilot project for providing new applications of technology in tele-mental health and anti-stigma treatment.

The National Guard and Reserve Mental Health Access Act is a three- part approach to targeting these mental health needs, which require specialized access to care and services.

Our National Guard and Reserves make incredible sacrifices for our country and we owe them the very best access to care possible.

Today, I introduce the National Guard and Reserve Mental Health Access Act, which provides greater access to mental health services for our members of the National Guard and Reserve.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking an excruciatingly high toll on veterans and their families and the Nation obviously needs to give greater priority to their mental health needs, including the National Guard and the Reserve.

As of April 29, 2008, 31,848 servicemembers have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thirty percent of our soldiers struggle with brain injuries, mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, or a combination of these physical and mental wounds.

Earlier this month, the RAND Corporation released a report documenting the alarmingly high numbers of veterans who struggle with mental health problems and brain injuries. One in 5 of these brave men and women report mental health problems.

These mental health problems take various forms, including post- traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidal tendencies and substance abuse, and they can persist for months or even years after their service. Some will never be the same again.

It is our duty to give our National Guard and Reserves the best possible treatment, whatever their injury. Mental conditions should be treated with the same care and concern as physical conditions.

This bill calls for the implementation of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program, which provides counseling, education and family services to returning members of the Guard and reservists. It establishes a Joint Psychological Health Program in the National Guard Bureau to oversee and coordinate support for Guard members with mental illness or brain injuries, and it creates a pilot project for providing new applications of technology in tele-mental health and anti-stigma treatment.

The National Guard and Reserve Mental Health Access Act is a three- part approach to targeting these mental health needs, which require specialized access to care and services.

Our National Guard and Reserves make incredible sacrifices for our country and we owe them the very best access to care possible.

Mr. President, with each passing day, families are confronted with growing challenges stemming from our lagging economy. We have had a surge of bad news, and there is almost certainly more to come. People have done everything right. They have worked hard all their lives. They have been good citizens and they cared for their communities. Many have served in the military. They have bought homes in which to raise their families and have dutifully paid the mortgage every month.

But now they are seeing everything they have worked for, everything they have saved for and sacrificed for placed at risk. Families are stretched to the limit by stagnant wages and soaring prices. They have seen the value of their homes and retirement savings plunge. They wonder if they can afford to put gas in the tank in order to get to work.

Now there is a danger that their children will be the next victims of the economic crisis.

What started as a crisis in the housing market has spread to the banks and beyond. We must draw a line there and not let the crisis in the credit markets become a crisis for students struggling to pay for college and access to the American dream.

If we allow that to happen, we not only limit the horizon for a new generation of Americans, but we will damage the long-term economic health of America as well. More than ever, a college degree is the key to the door of opportunity for individual students. Sending more of our students to college is key to our international competitiveness in the global economy.

Yet students are facing new obstacles as they pay for their education. The credit crisis in the mortgage market has rippled throughout the lending industry and has begun to affect student loans.

The full scope of the problem isn't clear yet, but we cannot afford to wait for a full-blown crisis before we act. Students are applying now for loans to cover the fall term. I am very pleased the Senate acted earlier today to ensure that the loans they need will be available, and I look forward to prompt action by the House.

Already, almost 50 lenders have completely dropped out of the Federal program. Together, they make up almost 14 percent of the Federal student loan market. We need to make sure we have done everything we can to protect students in case that downturn continues.

The first line of defense for students and families is the Direct Loan Program. It is insulated from the turbulence of the credit markets because the Federal Government provides the capital directly to students, without having to pay a bank or other middleman. I have urged colleges across the country to sign up to participate in this program to protect them from any problems in the credit markets.

We need to take additional steps to shore up the alternative federally subsidized loan program--the FFEL program--in the short term as an additional backstop against unacceptable disruptions in the financial aid process later this year.

The legislation the Senate passed today will protect students from the problems in the credit markets by ensuring they will be able to access federally subsidized loans.

First, Mr. President, it ensures that private lenders will continue to participate in the federally subsidized program by giving the Secretary of Education the authority to buy outstanding Federal loans in order to provide lenders with the capital needed to make new loans to students for the upcoming school year.

Second, as a backup for students who still have trouble obtaining a loan, the bill facilitates students' access to ``lender of last resort'' loans. These loans are provided to students through existing State-operated guaranty agencies, using capital advanced by the Secretary of Education.

Third, the bill assists students who rely on higher cost, non- federally guaranteed loans by making additional low-cost Federal options available to them and their families.

The bill raises Federal loan limits for undergraduate students by $2,000. This legislation also makes it easier for parents to take out low-cost federally subsidized loans on behalf of their children through the PLUS loan program. The bill ensures that parents affected by

the current mortgage crisis can still obtain these loans, and it allows parents to delay repayment on these loans until after their child graduates from school. This is very important--the fact that it would delay repayment until after graduation. That is a major assistance to families.

We are increasing the amount that will be available at the lower rates to college students, and we are extending the period of time that will help the families in terms of the repayment schedule.

Finally, this bill helps students decrease student loan debt levels by expanding access to an existing grant program, the Academic Competitiveness Grants. Under this bill, an additional 100,000 students can receive up to $4,000 more a year in grant aid.

We need to get these safety nets in place now before we are hit with a problem that is beyond our control. College affordability should not be determined by the quarterly profits or losses of the banks.

The student aid system is not about banks' bottom lines. As the cost of college has tripled over the past 20 years, the Federal student aid system of grants and loans has made the dream of college a reality for millions of students who could not otherwise afford it.

In 1993, less than half of all graduates had to take out college loans, but in 2004 nearly two-thirds had to borrow to finance their education. This chart reflects that. This chart reflects the students taking out the loans in 1993. Here it reflects those who took out loans for 2004. Years ago, when we passed the student loan program--back in 1965--these were effectively all grant programs; about 80 percent are grants, and only 20 percent are loans. We have seen this dramatic shift over the period of recent years now to the loan program. That has all kinds of implications in terms of indebtedness to students. Too often many of the students are now working one or two jobs, and they are also trying to pay off their debts in the future years. This has a very important adverse impact in terms of students and their ability to pursue careers, the careers that are lower paying, but so critical to our society, such as teaching, public health or social work.

In the 2004-2005 school year in Massachusetts, 86 percent of students relied on Federal student loans. The average debt of these students was over $18,000. So the best way to help students and families afford college is to increase the grant aid. More aid up front means fewer loans and less debt on graduation day. That is why Congress acted last year on our promise to raise the maximum Pell grant to $5,400 by 2012, an increase of $1,350 under the level at which it stagnated under this Administration. As a result, students eligible for the maximum Pell grant will have to borrow $6,000 less in loans over the course of their college career.

That is a very important relief to those families. The legislation we enacted last year also made Federal loans less costly for students by cutting the interest rates in half for undergraduates. In addition, we helped students manage debt by capping monthly loan payments at 15 percent of their income. If they go into public service, their loans would be completely forgiven as long as they stay in public service for a period of years. All of these benefits would be meaningless if students cannot obtain the loans they need to pay for college.

So I thank my Senate colleagues for supporting this legislation, and I urge our colleagues in the House of Representatives, and the President, to act quickly so our Nation's college students don't become the next victims of our slumping economy. Together we can ensure that the students get the assistance they need to go to school so their dreams don't turn into nightmares, caused by the volatilities of our credit markets.

Mr. President, I am very grateful to my colleague and friend, Senator Enzi, the ranking Republican member, and the members of our Education Committee for their help and assistance during this period of time. We have had hearings on this legislation. We also had field hearings on this subject matter and gained a good deal of information. We have worked very closely with the Administration, with Secretary Spellings. We are grateful to her for her involvement and help and assistance. We worked very closely with the House, with both Chairman Miller and Mr. McKeon, the ranking minority member as well.

In the Senate, we have followed a longstanding tradition of trying to work and find common ground in education policy to benefit students. I think we have done a good job on that over a period of years.

This legislation, which is basically the stopgap legislation meant to deal with the challenges we are facing in the credit markets and that students will face in the credit markets, will respond to that need. We are on alert for any additional changes that are going to be necessary as we move along.

We are going to be monitoring this very closely in the days and weeks ahead, and we welcome ideas and suggestions and recommendations from students and from parents, as well as from all others, about how we can best ensure that we will be able to make sure that the a college education is going to be available to the young people in this country.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the previous order with respect to H.R. 493 be modified to provide that following disposition of S. 1315, the time until 2:15 p.m. be equally divided and controlled, as previously ordered, and the Senate proceed to vote on passage of H.R. 493, with the remaining provisions of the previous order remaining in effect.

Mr. President, for the information of our membership, we will be having a rollcall vote, then, at 2:15 p.m., and the time, now, will be divided between Senator Enzi and myself on the issue of the genetic nondiscrimination legislation.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might use.

Mr. President, today, the Senate is considering the first major new civil rights bill of the new century. Five years ago this week, we celebrated a milestone that once seemed unimaginable: the completion of the Human Genome Project, which sequenced and mapped all the genes in the human body. This Friday is DNA Day, when we pay tribute to this amazing accomplishment, which was the dawn of a new era in the life sciences. Mapping the human genome has provided extraordinary insights for modern medicine, and it has opened the door to immense new opportunities to prevent, diagnosis, treat, and cure disease. Its discovery may well affect the 21st century as profoundly as the invention of the computer or the splitting of the atom affected the 20th century.

But with this invaluable new information comes a tremendous responsibility. A person's unique genetic code contains the most personal aspects of their identity. As we begin to decipher this information, Americans have legitimate fears about how this deeply private information will be used. Surveys show that people are already declining to take medically valuable tests out of fear that they will face discrimination or invasion of their personal privacy. These fears are not unwarranted. As Francis Collins, the leader of the NIH project to sequence the human genome, has said:

Genetic information and genetic technology can be used in

ways that are fundamentally unjust. Already, people have lost

their jobs, lost their health insurance, and lost their

economic well-being because of the misuse of genetic

information.

The remarkable medical advances of the genetic age will be valuable only if people are not afraid to take advantage of them. The promise of this new science will be in jeopardy if our laws fail to contain adequate protections against abuse and misuse of genetic information.

The bipartisan bill now before the Senate takes a substantial step to preserve the value of new genetic technology and to protect the basic rights

of every American. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act recognizes that discrimination based on a person's genetic identity is just as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of race or religion. No American should be denied health insurance or be fired from a job because of genetic testing.

The bill before us provides comprehensive protections. It prohibits health insurers from using a patient's genetic information to deny health insurance coverage or raise premiums. It bars employers from using genetic information to make employment-related decisions. It prohibits insurers and employers from seeking genetic information or requiring individuals to take genetic tests. It bars disclosure of genetic information by insurers or employers, and it contains effective remedies so that anyone who has suffered genetic discrimination can obtain relief. By granting these protections, the bill gives the American people the opportunity to reap the rewards of improved health care through genetics without fear of unjust use of their personal genetic makeup.

This bill has been the product of a decade of dedicated effort by Members on both sides of the aisle. My sincere thanks go to Senator Snowe and Senator Enzi for helping to lead this bipartisan effort with me, and to Senator Reid, our majority leader, and the Senate leadership, for their commitment to moving this bill forward. Thanks to Senator Gregg and Senator Dodd and Senator Harkin, who also made important contributions through their leadership and expertise. I commend our House colleagues--Speaker Pelosi, Representative Slaughter, Representative Biggert, Chairman Miller, Chairman Rangel, and Chairman Dingell--for their strong support, and also our former colleague, Senator Daschle, who was a leader in his term here in the Senate. It is a remarkable achievement to get this bill to the President's desk. The administration cooperated with us throughout the process, and we are grateful for its support on this important legislation.

We stand today on the threshold of a major new breakthrough in medical technology. With personalized medicine that genetic science makes possible, patients can receive therapy precisely tailored to their own genetic makeup with reduced side effects and greater potency. But the effectiveness of these new technologies is undercut by people's legitimate fears and the lack of strong protections.

Just this week, doctors announced important findings on the genetic factors that may contribute to Parkinson's disease. There are new discoveries in genetic variations that may confer a reduced risk of heart failure and new insights into the genetic switches that may one day control cancer. But one great barrier stands in the way of these extraordinary advances that are possible in this new field of discovery: the reluctance of patients to receive the benefit of this new science and the fear that is already keeping patients from volunteering for this research.

Even the crown jewel of our Federal research enterprise, the National Institutes of Health, has been affected by this fear. The threat of genetic discrimination is so real that it is even listed on the informed consent document that the NIH provides to patients considering enrolling in the clinical trials of the new genetic medicines. This is what the chart says:

We will not release any information about you or your

family to your insurance company or employer without your

permission. However, instances are known in which genetic

information has been obtained through legal means by third

parties. This may affect you or your family's ability to get

health insurance and/or a job.

Can you imagine individuals going out to the NIH and saying: I will volunteer in order to be a part of a research program, only to find out that their genetic information could be leaked? What happens if it is leaked? The insurance companies will say: Look, this individual has a better chance of getting breast cancer, diabetes, bipolar disorder, or a whole series of different types of cancer, so why are we going to go ahead and insure that individual? Or if we are going to insure him, we are going to charge a good deal more.

Some of this genetic information is valuable to know for medical history. For example, if mothers have certain types of genetic markers, the daughters might want to find out whether they have the same kind of proclivity. Yet if they go out and have the test so that they know whether to start thinking about treating that particular health challenge, they know they will be discriminated against. They won't be able to get a job because an employer will say: Why should I hire that person when they may very well develop breast cancer, and why should I hire that person because if they develop breast cancer, then it will cost my company a good deal more to pay for that individual's health insurance. That is the reality today. That is happening today.

There has been an explosion of progress in terms of genetic research. New opportunities for personalized medicine are opening, which is really going to be the pathway in the future. With personalized medicine, patients will no longer have to receive treatments that work for the average person--but may not work for them. Instead, they will receive therapies precisely tailored to their own genetic makeup, with reduced side effects and far greater potency.

Individualized medicine is the way of the future. With that, there is going to be a great deal more information about an individual's health, but also the attendant challenge and problem that this information could be used to adversely impact that individual. That is what we want to avoid, and that is what we want to protect against.

We know there are numerous barriers to new discoveries that Congress can do little about: the complexities of disease, the uncertainties of science, and the rarity of true inspiration. But this is one major problem which is entirely within our power to solve. We can make a difference, and we can do it today. With effective protections against the misuse of genetic information, this amazing new technology can realize its potential and bring better health care to all people throughout our world. I hope all of our colleagues will join in advancing the potential of genetic research by supporting the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

I want to show on the chart all of the different groups that are supporting this legislation. It gives us a very clear idea of the overwhelming support of the medical profession. Family physicians, pediatricians, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association--virtually the whole health community strongly supports this bill. The National Partnership For Women and Families and other women's groups and civil rights groups are supportive, as are the many specialized medical groups that know about genetic diseases.

Genetic discrimination issues are often tied to national origin. We have the Tay-Sachs disease that affects many members of the Jewish community; sickle cell anemia, which affects many African Americans; Cooley's disease, which affects many of those who come from Mediterranean countries, and a host of others. These are genetic diseases. That is why a number of the different groups are so concerned about this, because they have seen the discrimination.

I will just give ease to our colleagues. This chart shows when we have considered the legislation at other times. We considered it in 2003--the Senate did--and in 2005, and look at the overwhelming votes, Republicans and Democrats, even in the House in 2007. But we haven't been able to get the House and Senate together at the same time. So this has been going on since 2003, and we are in 2008. We have the opportunity with this legislation to get the job done, and the President has indicated he is going to sign it so we can achieve this extremely important undertaking.

Let me just review some of the other statements about why this is so important. We remarked here just a few moments ago about the dangers that are out there in terms of people being concerned about the violation of their privacy based on genetic information. Is this really a problem? This is a chart which shows that 72 percent of Americans think laws are needed to protect genetic privacy. The American people are really way ahead of us in the Congress on this issue. They understand that their genetic privacy is enormously important. They have an inner

sense, which is well-founded, that their genetic privacy can be abused. We have 72 percent of Americans who think we need laws.

This chart shows that Americans want their genetic information kept private. Ninety-two percent of Americans think their employer should not have access to their genetic information for the reasons I have outlined. If you don't have these protections and employers are able to find out that certain individuals they are employing have a greater proclivity to develop disease, there is a very good chance they will discriminate against those individuals. That has been the case.

Eighty percent of Americans think their health insurer should not have access to their genetic information. The reason for that is a very sound reason, which is they believe if the insurer has that kind of information, the cost for the health insurance, which is extraordinarily high today, will go up even further. So the American people are way ahead of the Congress in getting this. With this, Mr. President, we will be meeting their particular needs.

I want to show this chart. Francis Collins, for many of us in this body--and I think for the health community--is one of the great giants in health research. He is the person who has been at the heart and soul of the research on the Human Genome Project and in understanding the power of genes. He has made an absolutely extraordinary contribution in terms of science and public policy. He is a tireless advocate and a wonderful asset for all of us here in the Senate, on both sides of the aisle, in strong support for this legislation.

As he points out:

Discrimination in health insurance, and the fear of

potential discrimination, threaten both society's ability to

use new genetic technologies to improve human health and the

ability to conduct the very research we need to understand,

treat, and prevent genetic disease.

That says it all. It talks about the danger, in terms of discrimination, and also about the ability to do the research. You could be discriminated against in terms of your job or in terms of the increased costs in your health insurance, or if you were involved in research, volunteering for research--the dangers that this kind of information would be out there and could be used against you.

Mr. President, I remember--and it wasn't that long ago--when we listened to Dr. Collins. He was talking about the progress made in genetic research. They were talking about markers at that time. I think some of the earliest progress was made in terms of developing information about breast cancer and who had the proclivity to develop breast cancer. That was truly remarkable. Since that time--and it has only been a few years--we have seen that expand to prostate cancer, diabetes, bipolar, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and Parkinson's. Think of that. That list is growing virtually every day. We are eventually going to be getting health care systems that will say: If you have these kinds of diseases, we have the particular targeted kind of personalized medicine to help you either recover or to protect you in terms of the future. That is going to happen, Mr. President. It is going to happen sooner rather than later.

This gives you an idea of how rapidly this kind of research is moving along and how this kind of research, in the hands of top-rated physicians and researchers who know how to treat these illnesses and sicknesses, will make a difference in terms of improving the quality of health care on the one hand. It is so dramatic, as is the danger of abuse by unscrupulous employers or health insurance companies on the other hand. That is what this legislation is really all about. That is why this is so important and why it has strong bipartisan support.

In many respects, this is going to be one of the most important pieces of health legislation we pass in this Congress. We have other very important health proposals, but this will make an enormous difference in terms of the march for progress for good health care. We look forward to a strong vote.

I yield the floor.

Will the Chair let me know when I have 30 seconds left? I yield myself the remaining time.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Brownback for reminding us about our bill dealing with Down's syndrome. It is a very worthwhile effort and one that is enormously compelling. I give him the assurance we want to work very closely with him. We are trying to get a counterpart in the House of Representatives and trying to get this done during this session. We thank him for his strong leadership in that area. He has been working on it for a long time.

Mr. President, we are in a new era of the life sciences, and the truth of that statement can be seen in fields from medical imaging, to new biologic drugs and even to the use of DNA technology to improve our environment and reduce greenhouse gasses. But in no area of research is the promise greater than in the field of personalized medicine.

With personalized medicine, patients will no longer have to receive treatments that work for the average person--but may not work for them. Instead, they will receive therapies precisely tailored to their own genetic makeup, with reduced side effects and far greater potency.

The cost of developing new drugs is likely to be significantly reduced. No longer will a potentially promising drug be consigned to a dusty warehouse because it fails to work well on average, if it has the potential to treat patients with a particular genetic condition.

A main barrier in the way of such extraordinary advances is the reluctance of patients to seek the benefits of this new science and the fear volunteering for this research.

Three stories recounted to the advisory committee on genetic issues at the Department of Health and Human Services make the point.

Tonia Phillips has the BRCA-1 mutation. He told the committee that based on her genetic risk for ovarian and breast cancer, she elected to have a hysterectomy and a prophylactic double mastectomy. Ms. Phillips works for a small company of just four people. After her surgery, the health insurance premium for the company increased by $13,000 year. Her employers asked her to switch to her husband's health insurance policy, and even offered to increase her salary if she would switch policies. She refused. The company then adopted a policy requiring employees to pay half their insurance costs. If GINA is passed, changing the terms of employment based on genetic information would be illegal.

Paula Funk, a 33-year-old mother from Arkansas, told the committee that of her 24 female relatives, 13 have developed breast cancer. She decided to pay out-of-pocket and be tested for BRCA-1 anonymously. She tested positive, had a prophylactic double mastectomy, and plans to have her ovaries removed in the near future. Paula and her husband opened their own computer business but were prepared to abandon their plans unless they could get a group health plan for their two-person company, because they knew she wouldn't qualify for individual insurance based on her BRCA-1 status. Her concern now is for protection against discrimination for her two young daughters, Audrey and Anna, who will someday have to make the difficult decision about being tested. If GINA is passed, Audrey and Anna would not have to fear losing their health insurance based on a BRCA-1 test result.

Judith Berman Carlyle, a 48-year-old woman with a family history of ovarian cancer, was afraid that she wouldn't be able to obtain health insurance if she tested positive for the variant of the BRCA-1 gene that is related to breast and ovarian cancer. Instead of being tested, she decided to have prophylactic surgery to remove her ovaries, believing that the surgery would be less likely to cause her to be dropped by her insurer. Later, having obtained health insurance, Judith decided to be tested for BRCA-1 before having a prophylactic double mastectomy. Her test was negative. If she had known this information, she might not have chosen to have her ovaries removed and might have opted for increased screening measures.

Earlier this year, the Pulitzer Prize was awarded for an extraordinary series of articles on the promise and challenge of this new science. One article dealt with the fears of discrimination faced by those who undergo genetic tests, and the measures they take to protect themselves. Those articles included new revelations about the harm caused by the fear of discrimination.

Victoria Grove, of Woodbury, MN, told how she concealed crucial information about her genetic tests from her doctor, for fear it would be used to deny coverage. As a result, she did not receive proper treatment for her lung condition.

Kathy Anderson's parents refused to let her be tested for a genetic condition that affects blood clotting, for fear of discrimination. When Kathy was prescribed a common birth control pill, she developed massive clots--a life threatening illness that could have been avoided if she had had the genetic tests.

For Judith Carlisle, the consequences of not taking a genetic test were tragic. She has a strong family history of breast cancer, but was afraid that a genetic test to detect a particular gene mutation would provide proof to insurance companies and employers that she was a health risk. So she refused to take the test.

Still, she worried about the risks of cancer, so she had a hysterectomy to prevent that risk. Only later, when she took the gene test, did she discover that her fears had been misplaced. The test showed that she had no elevated risk of cancer.

We've also heard other stories in the years of debate on this bill.

Phil Hardt is a grandfather in Arizona with hemophilia B, a bleeding disorder, and Huntington's disease. His human resources manager told him to withhold that information from his employer, or he would never be promoted or trained. In addition, his grandchildren would be denied health insurance because the genes they might have inherited.

Rebecca Fisher is a mother and early onset breast cancer survivor with a family history of the disease. She recounted how her employer, a small, self-insured community hospital, was more concerned that the cost of her bone marrow transplantation and other health care had exceeded the cap for that year, than with her health or productivity as a worker.

Thousands of other patients who refuse to receive the benefits of this new technology have similar stories. The time for delay is over-- and I urge my colleagues to pass this needed legislation.

I again acknowledge the great work and effort of my colleague and friend, Senator Enzi, the work he and his strong staff have provided. We know we would not be here without his strong commitment to this legislation.

This legislation was stuck for a time in the legislative cauldron of good works, but it was never lost. Through his efforts we had the good opportunity to work out some of the final differences and we have the opportunity to get it passed today. I am very grateful to him.

Senator Snowe has been a long-time leader in this. Her leadership has been referred to and all of us who have been interested in this thank her for her long-time dedication and commitment to it.

I want to mention some of the other people and say a final word. Dr. Collins, who has been the leader of the Human Genome Project, has been such a strong voice in passing this legislation; Sharon Terry, the Director of the Genetic Alliance; Kathy Hudson, who works at NIH and gave us excellent technical assistance; Representative

Louise Slaughter, who has a long-time commitment to this program--I thank her and Michelle Adams, who has worked with her; Representative Judy Biggert and her staffer Brian Peterson; Shana Christrup, Keith Flanagan, and Ilyse Schuman--all have worked with Senator Enzi, and I thank them personally for their strong help working with me and with our staff; Kim Monk and David Thompson with Senator Gregg, who was a strong supporter of this bill when he chaired the HELP Committee--I thank him; Pete Goodloe from Congressman Dingell, Michelle Varnhagan from Congressman Miller; Cybele Bjorklund, who worked with Charlie Rangel and previously worked with us on our staff when we were fortunate to have her efforts here in the Senate; Kate Leone and Jennifer Duck had worked for Senator Daschle--they are not now here, but we acknowledge their work at an important time in this bill's history; Stephanie Carlton for Senator Coburn staff, her efforts are appreciated as well.

On my staff I thank Portia Wu, Lauren McFerran, Holly Fechner, Michael Myers, Laura Kwinn, and especially David Bowen. All have been invaluable.

This bill opens a new frontier in medicine, in which can read the genetic makeup of patients to stop diseases before they ever happen. This legislation opens the door to modern medical progress for millions and millions of Americans. It means that people whose genetic profiles put them at risk of cancer and other serious conditions can get tested and seek treatment without fear of losing their privacy, their jobs, or their health insurance.

It is the first civil rights bill of the new century of the life sciences. This is the era of life science, with extraordinary possibility over these next years.

With the passage of this legislation we take a quantum leap forward in preserving the values of new genetic technology and protecting the basic rights of every American. We will ensure that our laws reflect the advances we are making each and every day in medical science. The promise of new science will be in jeopardy if our laws fail to maintain adequate protections against abuse and misuse of private genetic information.

It was a hard-fought battle to get here. This bill has been the product of a decade of dedicated efforts by Members of both sides of the aisle. I am honored to work with many of my colleagues, particularly Senator Enzi, Senator Snowe, and Congresswoman Slaughter on this bill. I hope it will get overwhelming support.

Amendment No. 4573

(Purpose: In the nature of a substitute)

Mr. President, I call up the Snowe-Kennedy-Enzi substitute, which is at the desk.

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

I yield any time that remains.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I strongly support a resolution by Senator Menendez supporting National Child Care Worthy Wage Day. I hope that it will shine a brighter light on the many challenges facing the early childhood education and care community and the importance of attracting and retaining excellent childcare workers.

Across the country today, nearly two-thirds of children under the age of 5 are in some form of nonparental care while their parents are at work and more and more research emphasizes that learning begins at birth. The quality of early care that children receive has a profound impact on the rest of their lives.

Children in high-quality early care and education programs are 30 percent more likely to graduate from high school and twice as likely to go to college. They are also 40 percent less likely to be held back a grade or need expensive special education programs.

Childcare is particularly effective for at-risk students. Important studies, including the research of both Nobel Laureate Economist James Heckman and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, show that quality early care and education can break the cycle of poverty and crime. Heckman's survey of at-risk boys who receive quality early education found that less than 10 percent of boys who participate will be convicted of a crime and less than 2 percent will end up on welfare--rates significantly lower than for those who do not receive such support.

The key to assuring quality early childhood education and care for our youth is access to a highly qualified educator or caregiver. Despite the obvious importance of their work, however,

child care providers are underpaid, unsupported and undervalued.

These providers are responsible for the social, emotional and mental development of the children in their care. They teach skills that young children need in order to be ready to read and learn when they go to school. They help young children learn about the world around them and how to interact with others. Yet the average salary of an early care and education workers is $18,820, and less than a third of them have health insurance.

In Massachusetts, those numbers are only marginally better--childcare workers are paid a little over $10 an hour and earn $22,760 annually. By comparison, registered nurses make $37,511 a year, police officers earn $37,078, and K through 12 teachers earn $32,306.

The story of Melvina Vandross is typical. She has spent the last 20 years caring for children in poor families in New York City. Due to the lack of sufficient Federal subsidies, she makes less than $19,000 a year in one of the world's most expensive cities. She has no health insurance, and could not afford to get her son the tutor he needed to succeed in school. Her commitment to the futures of some of the Nation's least fortunate children has made it nearly impossible for her to provide for herself and her family.

Melvina's story is unacceptable. It is unacceptable that Head Start teachers in Montana qualify for Habitat for Humanity homes. The men and women who shape the lives of our Nation's children deserve fair wages and benefits. The sacrifice we are asking of them for their indispensible work is too high.

Inadequate wages and benefits have made it difficult to recruit and retain qualified childcare providers. Turnover rates are going through the roof. Almost 30 percent of child care providers leave the field every year. Neither their wages nor their turnaround rates are acceptable. If we want our children to be cared for by qualified providers who have a good education and sound understanding of child development, we must see that they are fairly compensated and supported, commensurate with their contribution to our national, civic and economic well-being. They are indeed deserving of a worthy wage for their worthy work that is so important for the Nation's future. I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution. We owe it to the Nation's childcare providers, and we owe it to our Nation's children and their families.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Dodd, I ask unanimous consent that Pam Bradley, a fellow in Senator Dodd's office, be granted floor privileges for the duration of consideration of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as I might use.

Mr. President, our Nation was founded on the basic principle of fairness, justice, and equality. Over the years, a continuing march of progress has brought these shared ideals to ever more Americans. The ``Whites only'' signs that were a stain on America are a thing of the past. We have opened the door of opportunity to African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. Glass ceilings that limited the opportunities of women and persons with disabilities are shattered. We have improved protections for persons of faith who suffer discrimination and intolerance because of their beliefs. Opportunities for older workers are greater now than perhaps at any previous time in our history. The march of progress represents America at its best. It has brought us ever closer to the ideal of Dr. Martin Luther King that Americans will one day be measured not by the color of their skin, their gender, their national origin, their race, their religion, or their disability, but by the content of their character.

The Senate has been an important part of the progress in guaranteeing fairness and opportunity. We passed strong bipartisan laws to protect basic civil rights, and we must not turn back the clock again. Time and again, the Senate has gone on record in favor of fairness and against discrimination, and we have done so by overwhelming majorities. We will have an opportunity in a few moments to do so again.

This chart shows the record of the Senate in ensuring pay equity for those whose skin is a different color, on the basis of age, disability, gender, religion, or national origin. Here it is: The Equal Pay Act was passed on a voice vote. An overwhelming majority in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, said equal pay, equal work should be the law of the land. It was passed in 1963.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, title VII, equal pay for equal work, passed 73 to 27.

Age discrimination that says you will not discriminate on the basis of age passed the Senate under President Johnson by a voice vote.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 provided the same kind of protections for disabled individuals, individuals who have some disability but are otherwise qualified to do work. You cannot discriminate against them. That was passed on a voice vote under President Nixon. And this was repeated in the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Look at the Presidents: Kennedy, Johnson, Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Bush. And now in the Senate our Republican friends want to say: Oh, no, we are going to permit discrimination against women because they did not have adequate notice that the discrimination was taking place because the employer did not give them that notice when they gave them a paycheck that was unequal to their male counterparts. That was a 5-to-4 decision.

We have an opportunity to go back on the right track that Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congress led us down. Let's restore the fairness, the equity, the decency, and the humanity this Senate of the United States has gone on record with regard to equal pay for women, disabled, and the elderly in our society. Let's do that. We have a chance to do so in just 45 minutes.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I will take 30 seconds.

We are attempting to restore the law prior to the Supreme Court decision. That is all we are trying to do. The law before the Supreme Court's decision is that when the paycheck reflects discrimination the time to file starts.

Here is a chart. All light green and dark green. That was the law of the

land. That was the law of the land, Mr. President. That is what our bill does. Let's not confuse the facts. We want to go back to what the law of the land was--that and only that.

Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from New York.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Maryland.

I yield 2 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes.

If I could have the attention of the Senator from Maryland, can the Senator explain to me why there would be reluctance in this body to vote for equal pay for equal work? We voted on this now more than five times in a 40-year period, to knock down the prejudice and discrimination to women, to minorities, to the disabled, and to the elderly. Under the Supreme Court decision, that discrimination can take place in the United States of America today. This legislation can halt it. Can the Senator possibly think about why we should hesitate in taking the action to restore the law to what it was prior to the Supreme Court decision?

I yield myself 1 minute.

If I can ask the Senator from Washington, in this downturn in our economy we find that women have less savings, they are participating less in pension plans, they are subject to more foreclosures in housing. At a time when women are under more pressure, can the Senator possibly explain why there should be reluctance in this body to restore fairness?

I yield 4 minutes to the Senator from New York.

Mr. President, I believe there is 5 minutes 45 seconds remaining?

I yield 4 minutes to the assistant majority leader.

Madam President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Illinois.

Madam President, I am deeply disappointed we were not able to get the required 60 votes. With the majority leader's vote, we would have had 57 votes--57 votes. There is virtually unanimous opposition on the other side of the aisle to restore what had been fairness and decency and equity in our fair pay laws.

I think most of us who have been around this institution for some time and who have been involved in the civil rights issue understand if you don't have a remedy, you don't have a right. This debate was about restoring a right to Lilly Ledbetter, her right to be treated fairly in the workplace and the rights of millions of others too. Those who are disabled, elderly, people in our society of various national origins, those of particular religious faiths, and women all are threatened by the underlying Supreme Court decision. That has to be altered. It has to be changed.

I welcome the fact that our majority leader has sent a powerful signal by indicating that we will come back and revisit this issue. This issue is about fairness. It is about equity. If we are going to permit discrimination in the workplace, we shouldn't permit it to pay, and the best way to make sure it does not pay is to provide the remedy to ensure it will not.

This is an early skirmish in this battle toward true fairness and equity and equitable pay for women and all others in our society. I look forward to working with our colleagues in the ongoing battle. I am very hopeful and optimistic that the next time we will get the votes that are necessary to permit us to take final action on this legislation.

Again, I thank the majority leader for his addressing this issue and for his willingness to bring this back to the floor so we can have further debate and discussion on it.

And I would like to thank my staff--Charlotte Burrows, Sharon Block, and Portia Wu, who worked very hard on this important legislation. I would also like to thank Michael Myers, Scott Fay, and Kate Dowling from my staff for all of their help.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank our majority leader and our leadership for scheduling a vote on what is known as the Ledbetter legislation tomorrow. We expect that we will have that vote tomorrow evening sometime. I think it is important that the membership understand that we will. It is appropriate today that we have a number of our colleagues speak about the importance of this legislation because today is Equal Pay Day. It has been designated Equal Pay Day. It has been Equal Pay Day for a number of years.

What do we mean by Equal Pay Day? We mean equal pay for equal work. That has been a goal of this country going back actually to 1963, when we passed the Equal Pay Act. At that time, the disparity between men and women for doing the same job was 60 cents to the dollar that the men were getting. We have seen that figure close over time, now to 77 cents, but still there is a disparity. As long as we have had a disparity, it has been and is wrong.

As a country, we have tried to remove forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice that have existed in our society, and the bigotry and prejudice that exist in terms of pay has been there for some time. Since 1963, the Congress has taken action not only on pay for women but in terms of other groups as well. It has made progress in making sure that African Americans are not going to feel a disparity. We did that in 1964 with Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act under President Johnson. Look at the Senate vote, the ultimate vote, 73 to 27. Republicans and Democrats alike said--the Civil Rights Act was primarily focused on public accommodations provisions but also had another very important provision--we will not permit a disparity and discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, gender, or religion in terms of pay. African Americans and other workers were going to be able to get equal pay.

Then, we have the age discrimination. We said, under President Johnson, if individuals are going to be able to do the job, and they happen to be older but yet they have the competency and the skills and they are going to be able to do an equal job, we are going to make sure they are not going to be discriminated against. We have said women will not be discriminated against, minorities will not be discriminated against, and people will not be discriminated against by age.

In 1973, we said: Well, what about those who have some disability? We

said we are not going to discriminate against those people either. Maybe they have a mental or a physical disability, but if they are able to do the job, and they are qualified to do the job, they ought to get paid for doing the job. That is what we said. We saw that vote was a voice vote, under President Nixon, supported by the administration.

Then, we had later provisions: the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was enacted to provide greater kinds of protections for the disabled; additional civil rights protections; and others; the Civil Rights Restoration Act. So the sum total, since 1963, has been a constant drumbeat, a constant march, a constant statement by the Congress and by the administrations by, as we have seen, Democrats and Republicans alike, that said: When it comes to equal pay, it is going to be equal pay for women and for men, it is going to be equal pay for people with disabilities, older workers, African-American workers, Hispanic workers, and others. This chart shows the various groups that, under the EEOC'd laws, have found out they have been discriminated against.

This chart shows, as of a year ago, in 2007, the EEOC had received more than 7,000 pay discrimination claims. Here it is for disability cases--as I mentioned earlier, we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act--and for national origin cases--we have protections for that group, those people who come from different kinds of ethnic backgrounds--for age, race, and gender discrimination as well.

We see that with regard to race, there have been 2,300 claims; with regard to gender, there have been some 2,400 claims. There are the cases for those with disabilities and the national origin cases. These are cases that were brought because we passed laws over the period of 40 years that said: If you are going to work, and work hard, in the United States of America, and you are going to do effectively the same job as someone else, you should be paid the same. We have not solved all the problems of comparability in this legislation. That is another issue which is enormously important and one we should address, and I hope we will address, in this Congress because it is extremely important. All we are trying to do is deal with the pieces of legislation that I have mentioned and restore a remedy. We can have a right and, as all of us understand, a right is not worth very much if we do not have a remedy. That is what this legislation is all about: to give a remedy to victims of pay discrimination, like Lilly Ledbetter. The remedy is that when workers are given unfair pay for doing effectively comparable work, that they are entitled as a matter of right and a matter of law to fair compensation.

It is interesting, in the dissent in the Ledbetter case, the dissent asks for congressional action. We are giving congressional action. That is why I am going to be interested in the arguments of those who are opposed to it. Here a Justice of the Supreme Court invites the Congress to take the action. We are taking the action. What we are effectively doing is restoring the law to what it was prior to the Supreme Court decision--nothing more than that.

I will review what exactly this law does here. What this legislation, the Ledbetter legislation, does, is it reverses the Supreme Court's unfair Ledbetter decision. It holds employers accountable for ongoing discrimination. As we pointed out, the Supreme Court held that Lilly Ledbetter should have known she was being discriminated against by her employer on pay, even though the employer controlled the books, controlled all the documents and was not sharing that information with the employees. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court said: Well, she should have found out in any event. If she did not, it is tough luck on her. Tough luck on you. Tough luck on you. Imagine, the Supreme Court of the United States, after all of the legislation and all of the congressional intent in the last 40 years, saying: Tough on you.

So the employer holds it in a safe, and Lilly Ledbetter cannot find it. Tough on her. Doesn't have a remedy. Too bad. Go ahead and continue to discriminate. In the United States of America, after what we have gone through in terms of civil rights--the battle to knock down the walls of discrimination over the period of these last 40 years? Tough on you.

Is that what we have come to? Is that what the Supreme Court is saying to a hard-working mother who has worked hard, tried to provide for her children, has demonstrated and won award after award for good performance? Tough on you. You could not find it in that sacred safe of the employer. Too bad. You lost your remedies. Too bad.

That is what this is all about. What we are doing is restoring congressional intent.

So what this legislation does not do: It does not encourage workers to delay the filing of claims. It does not eliminate the statute of limitations in the pay cases. It does not increase the litigation. We have the CBO's analysis. I have referred to it. It does not create new grounds for filing lawsuits. We answered all of these arguments. This is what it does not do. We have given the answers. They are not just my answers, they are the answers of the CBO's independent review.

What we are basically doing, and the reason why we are doing it, is to effectively restore the law to what it was previously. As this chart indicates: the lighter green being what the law was previously--that is what we are returning it to--the darker green being what the law was as interpreted by the EEOC, and the orange were the dissenting states. So this is going back to the previous rule.

This would be right to do at any time, but it is particularly important now. The reason it is particularly important now is because of the kind of economic conditions we are facing in this country at this time, where families are being squeezed. Working families are being squeezed. The middle class is being squeezed. In that squeeze, no one is getting squeezed harder than the women in our society, particularly working women. Their participation pension and retirement plans is falling. Look at what has happened to women's participation in pensions over the last 6 or 7 years. It has dropped, I think, close to 10 percent. We are finding out that their rates of unemployment are increasing faster than the unemployment figures in terms of men. Their savings are down. Women's savings are down. So they have a greater difficulty in dealing with the economic reversals we are facing at the present time. They have more home foreclosures because their savings have been down. So they are under an incredible squeeze.

This chart is an example of how adult women are seeing a sharper rise in their unemployment rate. Their rate is going up 21 percent as compared to 15 percent for men. On earnings, women's earnings are falling faster than men's. So their earnings are going down faster. We are finding out that their unemployment is going up faster and their earnings are going down faster.

If you take what happens to different women within the general group, look at women's net worth. Unmarried women have $13,000 less in net savings than unmarried men. Here it is, the difference, as shown on this chart. So in this time of recession and economic stress, these issues become much more acute. This is the right answer at any time, but it is particularly something that can be done now that can make a difference to these working women--something that can be done now: restore a right. That is what this is basically all about.

As I mentioned, this is targeted on women, but the application is across the board. It affects other groups in our society. It affects African Americans and Hispanics, and they have been hard hit by the economic downturn. If pay is discriminatory against African Americans and Hispanics--and we saw the pie chart, which shows it is, with thousands of claims every single year--they are going to be denied the remedy. This legislation applies to women. It applies to minorities. It applies to people discriminated against because of their religion. It applies to the disabled. It applies to older workers. Otherwise, they are going to get shortchanged. They are facing the economic realities in a much harsher way now.

We have an opportunity to do something about it. The House of Representatives has done something about it. Tomorrow we can do something about it. Show me something, anything, any piece of legislation that can have a better, more positive impact in terms of the income of working women than this vote tomorrow. That is what it is about.

Finally, let me give you these figures to demonstrate what this meant to Lilly Ledbetter. This is a reflection of what was actually in the Court's decision. She was making $44,000 a year. She received $5,600 less than the lowest paid male coworker during her last year at Goodyear. The highest paid male coworker was getting $62,000. She had the qualifications and was doing the job the same as her colleague who got $62,000. The lowest paid male worker--whose skills were much less than Lilly Ledbetter's--was still getting paid more. You cannot get it any clearer than this chart about what the facts are. These are not facts I am making up. These are the facts accepted by the courts, not questioned by the Supreme Court. There it is.

The most powerful is listening to Lilly Ledbetter herself. She has testified. Anyone who is interested ought to read her testimony, and can read through the hearings in our committee about this. She explains it in great detail: how she first heard about it, and how she was treated, and what the Supreme Court decided. She has taken a double whammy because not only has she suffered, and will not recover her wages. We have a 2-year limitation on back pay--you can only recover in terms of the 2 years. Her retirement was based upon what she earned and so that has also been lost during this period of time. That was lost, will be lost, continues to be lost. Imagine that. Imagine the unfairness of that. We are not addressing that. We are not dealing with that. We should be, but we are not. That is basically and fundamentally wrong.

I mentioned earlier the CBO. The Congressional Budget Office agrees that the Fair Pay Restoration Act will not increase the litigation. The Fair Pay Restoration Act will not establish a new cause of action for claims in pay discrimination. CBO experts said the bill would not significantly affect the number of filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What they are basically saying is, what this will do is it will have the law enforced and people will pay attention to it.

Many employers are, obviously, good employers, and are playing by the rules. But not all of them are. Those who are not playing by the rules should not be able to exploit people in the workplace on the basis of their gender, race, national origin, religion, disabilities or age.

Finally, we have seen--and I have shown this chart previously of the various groups that support this legislation. These are only some of the groups. I have included a more complete list in the Record. We have the groups representing the disabilities community, the American Association of People with Disabilities; elderly people, the AARP feels very strongly about the discrimination against the elderly; the NAACP, for the obvious reasons, not only because of discrimination on the basis of race, but all the forms of discrimination they continue to fight and oppose. We have the auto workers, who see prejudice and discrimination and who are fighting for full rights and equality. We have the National Congress of Black Women and the Religious Action Center, because of the moral issues raised by this. And we have the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce.

We will have an opportunity to address this and speak more about it. I cannot think of an issue where it is more an issue of fundamental fairness. Americans try to understand some of the complex issues about which we deal here. They are not always easy to understand and to catch and find their way through. Probably one of the great mysteries is the ERISA law, which was put in by our old friend Jacob Javits. An amusing aspect of that was when Jacob Javits passed on to his eternal reward, he took all the knowledge about ERISA with him. All of us find complexities in trying to deal with that. It has important implications in terms of health and the job market.

This is simple. Everyone gets it. The American people understand it, because it is about fairness. If there is one issue Americans understand, it is fairness. They believe that when somebody works, they ought to be adequately paid. Americans don't believe one person ought to be paid a different rate for doing the same job as another person. They don't believe that because their skin is a different color, or because of gender, or because of disability, or because of sexual orientation they should be paid less. They don't believe it. If the person is qualified to do the job, and does the job, they ought to get equal pay. This Senate has gone on record time and time and time and time again over the last 40 years, by overwhelming votes, against pay discrimination. We have our chance tomorrow to restate that commitment. I hope the vote will be overwhelmingly in favor.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to address the Senate on a matter of fundamental fairness to millions of our fellow citizens: to women, working women in our society, and to do it at a time when we know those who are working are hard pressed in the economy. We are all familiar with the anxiety among working families-- working fathers and working mothers. Today I will address what underlies the efforts in which many of us are involved in what we call the Ledbetter case.

It is legislation to override a 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision named after Lilly Ledbetter, an extraordinary woman who had worked for a tire company for a number of years and had been discriminated against in her pay and had received judgments to make up for the damages she had experienced over a period of years. The Supreme Court then undermined the previous courts and effectively left her without any remedy at all, in effect saying unscrupulous employers could discriminate against an employee, and if they do not get caught within 100 days, they are free and clear and they can continue to discriminate against that individual.

That is not only against women, which is the Ledbetter case, but it is also true if they had done the same with regard to African Americans or Latino Americans or if they discriminated against the disabled or if they discriminated on the basis of religion or national origin--all of those cases with a simple 5-to-4 decision, the rights of those workers, people who are working, working hard, are virtually out the window.

I wish to take a few minutes to review what this Senate has done with regard to what we will call the equal pay issue over a period of time. It is an extraordinary record. It is a record of progress and fairness.

It will be amazing to me when my friends and colleagues on the other side rise to oppose this simple act of fairness and equity this situation demands. For over 40 years, this Senate has gone on record time and again saying that we will not discriminate against our fellow citizens on the basis of pay. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has reached a different conclusion, and we will have the opportunity on Wednesday to change that conclusion and restore the record of the Senate to what it has been over the last 40 years.

This chart shows the different laws that have been passed in Congress to establish equal pay for equal work. The Equal Pay Act under President Kennedy was done by a voice vote. It was pointed out at that time that women were getting 60 cents on the dollar. That was wrong. We ought to strive for equal pay for equal work. That legislation was passed at that time.

We thought we had made progress on that legislative effort, but we had not made as much progress as we thought.

So in 1964, the great Civil Rights Act, known because of the public accommodations provisions, included in title VII a provision that provided equal pay, nondiscrimination on the basis of race, religion, and national origin, signed by President Johnson. It passed 73 to 27.

Then we had the Age Discrimination in Employment Act because there were many forms of discrimination in our country on the basis of people's age. We wanted to free ourselves of discriminating against the elderly in our country, those who contributed so much to our Nation, so we passed the Age Discrimination Act. There was much support for that effort. It was passed under the Johnson administration by voice vote.

We had the Rehabilitation Act that dealt with the disabled. Make no mistake about it, under the current Supreme Court holding, if you have a disabled person who is able to perform a job as well as somebody who does not have that disability, if the employer discriminates against that individual, that individual will be covered by the existing Supreme Court decision, and we may very well see those individuals discriminated against because they are disabled, even though they are able to perform the work, and they are being denied a remedy.

We debated those issues back with the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and said we were not going to permit that.

Then the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 under President Reagan and the Americans with Disabilities Act restated those goals. Look at the votes: 92 to 6 and 93 to 5.

All of this legislation, from early 1963 all the way to 1991, provided the kinds of protections that we are including in this legislation that will be before the Senate on Wednesday, called the Ledbetter legislation, named after Lilly Ledbetter who was discriminated against.

Mr. President, I mentioned those pieces of legislation. Look at this chart. Pay discrimination hurts all kinds of American workers. In 2007, EEOC received more than 7,000 pay discrimination charges: on the basis of disability, 480 cases; on the basis of national origin, 760; on the basis of age discrimination, 978; on the basis of race, 2,352; and on the basis of gender, some 2,470.

These were individuals who were working hard but finally found out they were being discriminated against--7,000 cases. So we can ask: What had been the law previously when we had those kinds of situations? This chart reflects what the law was. The paycheck accrual rule was the law of the land. That meant if people discriminated against those individuals and the individuals found out about it and brought a case, they were able to gain damages or they were able to get remedies by the EEOC. This was under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. That has been the law of the land, with the exception of three States. That was the law of the land. That is what we want to return to, and we will have the opportunity to return to it.

Some will say if we return to it, it will mean a lot of burdensome bureaucracy and expenditures on the employers. Look what CBO says. CBO agrees that ``the Fair Pay Restoration Act would not establish a new cause of action for claims of pay discrimination. . . . CBO expects that the bill would not significantly affect the number of filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.''

So this argument that it is going to make it much more cumbersome and much more troublesome and much more expensive is not true. What it will do is provide protections.

What are we basically talking about with Lilly Ledbetter? She was a hard-working woman. Here is what Lilly Ledbetter received: $5,000 less than the lowest paid male coworker during her last year at Goodyear. That was $44,000. The lowest paid male was $51,000, and the highest paid male, who did virtually the same job, was paid $62,000. This is a year. She was doing exactly the same as this paid worker; the only difference was she was a woman.

What did the courts say, even though she was awarded the damages? You didn't bring the case in the first 180 days. You didn't bring the case and, therefore, you don't have the case at all.

How was Lilly Ledbetter supposed to know she had a case? The payroll was kept secret from all the workers. How was she supposed to know? How in the world was she supposed to know? She couldn't know; she didn't know. It took her years to find out that she was the subject of this kind of discrimination, and the Supreme Court says: We don't care; we don't mind if the employers are going to keep that payroll all locked up and keep it secret. Lilly Ledbetter should have known what was in that secret safe of that employer.

Come on. Come on. That is a system of justice in the United States of America? They were able to get five votes for that theory over in the Supreme Court of the United States? It defies common sense, of reasonableness and equity for people in this country, and that is what we are striving for.

This is all against an extraordinary background of what is happening to working women at the present time. Look at what is happening to working women now. For women who are employed now, their earnings are falling faster. Women who are working now are experiencing unemployment two or three times faster than men in our economy. Their earnings are going down faster than men in our economy. Incidents of foreclosure for women are a good deal higher than men in our economy, and they are, at the present time, still only earning, for the same job, 77 cents out of every dollar. So they are already facing an uphill battle in our economy, the difficult economy we are facing at the present time, and this Supreme Court decision is just going to make it all that more complicated and more difficult.

This issue, as I said, is one of fundamental fairness.

We have an extraordinary group supporting us in terms of the disability groups--the American Association of People with Disabilities; the elderly groups--the AARP, they know they can experience the same kinds of discrimination; Business and Professional Women; the NAACP--because of what this can mean in discriminating against minorities, Blacks; the auto workers, because we can see the discrimination that could be against other workers; the National Congress of Black Women; the Religious Action Center--there was an excellent letter they sent pointing out the moral issues raised about this; and then the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce--understanding this is plainly simply wrong. It is wrong in our society. It was wrong at any other time.

This is an issue that cries out for a remedy. It should not take the Ledbetter legislation--which passed overwhelmingly. It passed with Republican support in the House of Representatives and strong Democratic support. We have a number of our Republican friends and colleagues who are a part of this effort. This is a very simple and fundamental issue: Are we going to permit discrimination against women in the workplace to continue? That is what it is.

We have to understand, as a practical matter, employers are going to keep the payroll confidential and secret. They do that. They have done it and will do it in the future. What the Supreme Court says is that is too bad, too bad you don't know, but if you do not do it within 180 days you will lose your rights. They can effectively discriminate against you for the rest of your life if you are working in that company. They can go ahead, completely freely, without any threat of any kind of lawsuit, go ahead and discriminate for the rest of your life, if you are working there. Tell me what the common sense of that proposal is. Where is the justice on that issue? Where is it?

We have addressed that issue and similar issues over a long period of time under a variety of Presidents, under Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents--President Nixon, President Reagan, the two Presidents Bush. Look at the vote on these, 91 to 6, and 93 to 5, with virtually similar issues that are presented here.

We should not have to spend the time other than having a rollcall on this issue, it is so compelling. We await eagerly those who support the current Supreme Court decision. We await them out here on the floor of the Senate. We awaited them last week to come out and tell us what their rationale is, what their excuse is, what their reasons are for denying fairness and equity in the workplace to millions of

our fellow citizens who happen to be women. What is their right? What is their purpose? What is their justification--whether those individuals are disabled, whether they are elderly, whether they are being discriminated against on the basis of religion--we are going to continue to permit that here in the United States when we have the opportunity to overturn it? That is what is going to be before the Senate on Wednesday.

It is simple; it is fundamental; it is basic. It is a defining issue of fairness in this country and we will have more to say about this tomorrow and on Wednesday as well.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Reid, I ask unanimous consent that Robert Bruce, a Marine Corps fellow in his office, be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of

Mr. President, the Senate must act to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and we must do so now. The House has already acted on this bill to restore the basic protection against pay discrimination as part of our Nation's commitment to equal justice and full civil rights for all.

Protecting these fundamental rights and ending discrimination in all forms are essential to our success as a nation. Republicans and Democrats worked together to enact our civil rights laws, and the American people want and deserve these protections to be implemented in full.

The guarantee of equal pay was first enacted in 1963. When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, he emphasized that protection against pay discrimination is ``basic to democracy,'' and those words are still true today.

In the years that followed, Congress passed other strong, bipartisan laws to strengthen the guarantee of equal pay for millions of Americans. Over the years, the Senate has gone on record time and again in favor of fairness and against discrimination.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted after long, difficult, and contentious debate, but the cause of justice eventually prevailed. That landmark legislation included many important protections, including, for the first time, protection against pay discrimination on the job because of race, national origin, gender, and religion. That is title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Public accommodations is another very major part of that legislation. But title VII provided these kinds of protections against discrimination. That legislation passed 73 to 27.

We went on record again when the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was passed in 1967, with unanimous support in the Senate. Equal pay for those who are older; you are not going to be able to discriminate against the elderly. It was passed unanimously.

The consensus in favor of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which outlaws discrimination based on disability in federally funded programs and activities, was so strong it passed the Senate by a voice vote.

All of us are familiar with the fact that if there is going to be a dispute or major differences, people are going to call for a rollcall vote, even if there is going to be only a handful of people against it. In this situation, with regard to fair pay, equal pay, in the areas of those people who are working with the disabled, the guarantee was going to be fair pay. It, effectively, in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, passed the Senate by a voice vote.

In 1990, the Senate passed the Americans with Disabilities Act 91 to 6, and it was signed into law by the first President Bush. The first President Bush has stated--and I have heard him eloquently say it was the most important piece of legislation that passed and he signed into law. It had protections against discriminating against those who are disabled individuals.

We passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991 by an overwhelming margin of 93 to 5. That was a clear vote in favor of fairness. It too was signed into law by the current President's father.

On this chart is the list where the Senate has addressed this issue of equal pay for equal work. Going back to 1963, these are the different Presidents who signed legislation--including President Johnson, President Nixon, President Reagan, President Bush. Look at the overwhelming votes: a clear indication of what the intention has been by this Congress in terms of fairness and justice, and correctly so.

Each time we have considered the issue, the Senate has taken the high road. Once again, we must demonstrate that we mean what we say. These important laws established the bedrock principle of equal pay for equal work, and they have made our Nation a stronger and better and fairer land.

In these times of economic hardship, working people deserve more than ever the chance to earn a fair day's pay for an honest day's work. Yet, as a result of the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision--5 to 4: one vote-- last May in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, more American workers will have to endure pay discrimination, without the means to stop it.

Let me show what is happening with regard to women at the present time. We have serious economic challenges we are facing today. But look at the overall economic challenges, the downturn in our economy, and how it is playing out in terms of women. Women's earnings are falling faster than men's. We all hear about the falling of purchasing power among working families across this country. We can see it is falling a good deal faster in terms of the decline in median wages in the year 2007 for women.

As I mentioned, this legislation also applies in terms of African Americans, the disability community, age discrimination, national origin quotas--all of them. Look what is happening with the current economic crisis. Minorities are hit hardest by the economic downturn. So we have the economic downturn going on, and we have this decision which said the employers are going to be able to discriminate against workers on the basis of race, gender, national origin. It is unbelievable that a Supreme Court of the United States, 5 to 4, would overturn 5 to 6 major pieces of legislation that were decided overwhelmingly by this body over a 30-year period which say we want equal pay for equal work.

The list goes on. We know, basically, women make 77 cents for every dollar paid to men. That is existing. These are the current data of the U.S. census in 2007. So this is the current situation, generally. What we are trying to do is change this; to get equal pay for equal work. But inherently, this is where we are in 2007, and unless we change this, it is going to continue or probably even grow worse.

It is reflected, as we would expect, in family income. This chart shows we are talking about equal pay for women, and this legislation also applies to African Americans and national origin. Here we have African-American men receiving 21 percent less pay than White men. We find the same for Latinos. They are affected by this decision as well. Latinos receive 72 cents for every dollar earned by White workers. This shows the distinction, the annual distinction, about $8,000 a year. This has been true.

So we know we are facing a difficult economic time. We also know the people who suffer the most are the people--whether it is women, whether it is African Americans, whether it is Latino, whether it is disability or whether it is elderly, all those groups are affected by the Ledbetter decision, and in the face of 30 years of this Congress saying time and time and time again, in a bipartisan way, we are going to insist on equality of pay for equal work. That is the issue. That had been the law. This legislation we are talking about with Ledbetter, we are trying to go back to what the law was.

This chart indicates--the light green is what we would go back to, and the dark green is where the EEOC held the same as we are proposing in this legislation. This had worked and worked effectively. That is why the CBO said this isn't any further additional burden on industry or business. We are going to hear that argument. We have the CBO study which says that, because basically most employers want to do the right thing. They understand it, they respect it, and they want to do the right thing. So they are not going to be penalized; it will be others who will be penalized.

On this final point, as I mentioned the different groups affected, this shows pay discrimination hurts all kinds of Americans. This orange depicts the disabled, this is national origin, 760. These are cases of pay discrimination charges, including 2,470 in terms of the gender; and on race, 2,352; on age discrimination, 978. So this is 7,000--these are the cases that are brought. Most estimates are it is in the hundreds of thousands of actual cases that are out there that people don't know about.

Lilly Ledbetter didn't know about the fact that she was being shortchanged for years and years and years because people keep the payroll secret. Finally, she hears from others who are working and who are doing comparable work, and she gradually puts it together that she has been shortchanged. Sure enough, she had been shortchanged for years and years and years. The local jury made the decision to pay the damages and the Supreme Court overruled it and said: You are out of luck, Lilly Ledbetter. You should have brought your case within 180 days of the time you were employed. Even though you didn't know about it, you still should have brought it. Even if you didn't know about it, tough luck. You have no remedies. No remedies. No remedies. It has been going on for years. None. That is fundamentally and basically wrong, and that is what we are changing.

We have very strong support for this legislation. We have the support of various groups, including the American Association of People With Disabilities; the AARP, obviously, because of discrimination of the elderly; Business and Professional Women, the NAACP, United Auto Workers, National Congress of Black Women, the Religious Action Center, U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce. They understand it and see it. The list goes on. I will include a more complete list with my remarks for the Record.

Many people give speeches on fairness and the need to help people in these tough economic times. An important way we can do so is by proving we still stand strongly against pay discrimination, that we would not allow the rights workers thought they had to be undone by misguided court decisions. Fair treatment for all employees is especially important now. As I mentioned, our faltering economy is hitting working families hard. There were 230,000 jobs lost in the first 3 months of this year. Unemployment rates climbed. Over 1 million working men and women have joined the unemployed since this past year.

Few doubt that we are now in a serious recession. It has been particularly hard on women and minorities and on workers--particularly hard. Of the 80,000 jobs that were lost in this last month, 50,000 were construction workers. The unemployment rate among women has risen sharply in the past year. Minorities are suffering more. Unemployment for African Americans is now well over 9 percent, almost twice the national average.

The impact of unfair pay practices is staggering. Today, as I mentioned, women still earn 23 percent less than men; African Americans, 21 percent less than White men; and Latinos earn 72 cents for every dollar paid to White workers.

In fact, the financial security of all working men and women is undermined by this recession. Workers are suffering already, and millions increasingly find their paychecks do not go far enough. They don't deserve to bear the additional burden of discrimination in their pay. The cost of this discrimination becomes more and more intolerable over time. Lilly Ledbetter lost tens of thousands of dollars over the course of her career because every paycheck made the burden of the discrimination even greater.

There is no doubt that the Supreme Court's decision in the Ledbetter case has left employees without one of the fundamental protections against pay discrimination that Congress intended them to have. The Court decision undermined their ability to hold employers accountable for such discrimination by imposing serious and unnecessary obstacles to ending the discrimination against them.

Under the Ledbetter case, the time limit for filing of pay discrimination claim begins to run, as I mentioned, when an employer decides to discriminate--not when the worker finds out about the discriminatory paycheck. Employers who conceal their illegal action for 180 days are free to discriminate. They can pay women less than men. They can pay African Americans less than Whites. They can pay older Americans less than younger ones and pay religious minorities and persons with disabilities less than other workers. These employees can never, ever obtain relief. Paycheck after paycheck can keep implementing the discrimination, and workers have no way to hold employers accountable.

Clearly, the decision has opened up a flagrant loophole in our civil rights, and the Congress cannot let it stand. Under this bill, the 180- day clock restarts with every discriminatory paycheck, so employees can challenge ongoing discrimination, even if their employer successfully hides its true motives at first.

Lilly Ledbetter was one of the few women supervisors at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Gadsen,

AL. She worked at the plant for almost two decades, constantly fighting to prove that women could do a job traditionally done by men. She endured insults from her male supervisors. She was told the plant didn't need women. Yet she persevered and gave the company a fair day's work. She had children and both she and her husband were working hard to support them. She had no idea Goodyear was not living up to its responsibility to pay her fairly.

For almost two decades, the company discriminated against her by using discriminatory evaluations to pay her less than her male colleagues who performed exactly the same duties. Many of those male colleagues had less seniority and experience than she had, but they were still paid more than she was for identical work.

The jury saw the injustice of Goodyear's mistreatment of Ms. Ledbetter and awarded her full damages. Five members of the Supreme Court ignored that injustice and ruled Ms. Ledbetter was entitled to nothing at all--nothing at all--because she filed her claim too late. The Court's decision gives countless employers a free hand to conceal and continue illegal discrimination and leaves workers powerless to stop it.

The bipartisan Fair Pay Restoration Act will restore the clear intent of Congress when we passed the important laws I mentioned earlier. It would restore the fair and reasonable rule that applied in the vast majority of the country until May 29 of last year. If we pass this bill, we can go back to the longstanding rule that the clock begins to run for filing a pay discrimination claim on the day a worker receives a discriminatory paycheck, rather than the day the employer first decides to discriminate.

By enacting this law, we will restore a rule that reflects how pay discrimination actually occurs in the workplace, and it will give all workers a fair means to stop ongoing discrimination and obtain fair compensation for the discrimination they have endured. By doing so, we will also be helping to prevent employers from engaging in such discrimination in the first place.

There is nothing radical about the changes this bill will make. It simply restores the law employers and workers had lived with for many years, until last May 29, the date of the Supreme Court's distressing decision.

I urge my colleagues to join me in restoring the full strength of the antipay discrimination laws we have enacted in the past. Let's take a clear stand for all working men and women and pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this list of supporters be printed in the Record.

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