Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am pleased to be able to introduce the Department of Energy Carbon Capture and Storage Research, Development, and Demonstration Act of 2007, along with my co-sponsors, Senators Domenici, Tester, Bunning, Salazar, Obama, and Webb. This bipartisan bill reauthorizes and improves the carbon capture and storage program at the Department of Energy that was first explicitly authorized in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. With the attention that the topic of global warming has been getting, it is becoming ever clearer that we need answers to the practical questions of what needs to occur so that we can decide on the role that carbon capture and storage will play in our future energy system. This bill, as well as a bill that has previously been referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, S. 731, begins to lay the foundation for a bipartisan and effective approach to these issues.

I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I need at most 15 minutes. I know my colleague from Tennessee needs a comparable amount of time. I know there are others who wish to speak, but I don't know if they will be able to come to the floor at this point.

I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I am offering this amendment on behalf of myself and Senators Alexander, Lieberman, Domenici, Ensign, and Reid. This is an amendment that I believe will go a long way toward ensuring that the United States maintains its preeminent status in our global economy.

On March 6, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell and many of the rest of us held a press conference on the introduction of a bill we called the America COMPETES Act. The bill represents recommendations from two reports on the status of our Nation's ability to compete in the global economy. Those reports are the National Academy of Sciences report on ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' and the Council on Competitiveness report entitled ``Innovate America.''

Obviously, this is not the right time to try to enact that legislation. Let me make it clear to my colleagues that we are not proposing that legislation as an amendment to the budget resolution. What we are proposing, though, is an amendment that tries to make sure

that the budget ceilings, the overall amounts that are permitted for the various agencies and functions of the Government, are as high as possible so that there is room in this budget to actually go forward and appropriate the funds called for in that authorizing legislation. We hope we will bring up that authorizing legislation some time in the next couple of months and get it passed and sent to the President.

Let me describe briefly what this amendment would do. It would provide for the National Science Foundation to meet the President's requested funding level of $6.4 billion for the Department of Energy. It would allow the budget to meet the President's request for the Office of Science at $4.4 billion, as well as provide funding that would allow for a program similar to that administered by the Hertz Foundation for training a new generation of Ph.D. students in the physical sciences. For the National Institutes of Science and Technology, it will provide necessary funding to meet the $704 million authorization level in the bill, thereby strengthening programs such as the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership to help small and medium-sized businesses compete in the global economy.

The reports I referred to were important in that they tapped into and identified a growing uneasiness that is being experienced throughout the country about our ability to remain competitive in world markets. It is clear that we are slipping in our world leadership role in science and engineering. We are losing site of the importance of long- term investments in creating the conditions for prosperity.

In 1995, Alan Greenspan was quoted as saying:

Had the innovations of recent decades, especially in

information technologies, not come to fruition, productivity

growth would have continued to languish at the rate of the

preceding 20 years.

Recent work that has been done by the Federal Reserve bears out that a broader category of such intangible investments now accounts for a full 11 percent of our gross domestic product and that much of our economic growth is attributable to these activities: research and development and information technologies. The statistics that we have bear out that while we are not yet at a point of crisis, we are approaching one. At the macro level, the fastest growing economies continue to increase their research and development investments at nearly five times the rate of the United States. Collectively, we have China and Ireland, Israel, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan increasing their research and development investment rates by 214 percent between 1995, when Alan Greenspan made his statement, and 2004. During that same period when they were increasing their investment by over 200 percent, the United States was increasing its investment by 43 percent.

A recent survey of several industries in the United States and Europe found that 48 of 235 recent or planned research and development facilities would actually be located in this country; 55 were to be located in China, 18 in India. Indeed, on a trip I took to India a couple years ago, we learned that the Intel Design Center for Intel Corporation in Bangalore is now designing chips that are fabricated by a manufacturing plant in New Mexico. It used to be the other way around. It used to be that we would do the design work, the high-end, value-added work here, and the manufacturing would occur elsewhere.

The achievement and interest level of U.S. students in math and science is a serious problem for all of us. In fact, the most recent NAEP assessments of educational progress in math reveal that only 23 percent of 12th graders in this country performed at or above proficient. That is in the year 2005. Unfortunately, this assessment in science reveals that the scores for 12th graders have declined since 1996 in each of the science areas--in the earth sciences, physical sciences, and life sciences. Only 18 percent of 12th graders scored at or above proficient in science.

So the issues are serious. They are ones about which more and more of the opinion leaders and thoughtful students of this subject have come to be concerned. These reports have been a major contribution to the dialog. Those of us in Congress are now called upon to actually put in place some solutions to these problems.

I believe passing this amendment to the budget resolution to ensure that there will be room in the budget for funding to meet these very important needs is extremely important.

Let me also acknowledge--and this is something for which I commend the chairman of the Budget Committee--the budget resolution before us increases funding for education by more than $6 billion over what the President proposed. Much of that increased funding is to allow for full funding in the appropriations process of some of these math and science education initiatives and also strengthening math and science teaching skills for our Nation's teaching workforce. That is clearly intended by the budget resolution. The amendment we are offering today does not propose increases in funding in that area because, in fact, the budget resolution itself does make room for the funding increases that America COMPETES calls for.

Let me acknowledge the extremely impressive leadership of my colleague from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, in focusing the attention of the Congress on this issue. He has been the single most aggressive Member of the Senate in making sure we continue to address this issue at every stage. As I see it, our amendment is one step in that process. I know it has the support of Senator Reid. I believe it also will have the support of the managers of the legislation. I hope it has the support of all Senators, Democratic and Republican.

I should point out that the offset that this legislation calls for is essentially whatever change in funding the Appropriations Committee chooses to make in so-called function 920. It gives them discretion to either do a very modest across-the-board cut in other funds or find some other way to locate the funds needed.

This legislation would add $1.9 billion that is currently not permitted in the budget for these essential items. It is important that we pass the amendment. I urge all my colleagues to do so.

I yield the floor.

As the chairman knows, strong math and science education is critical if we, as a nation, are going to continue to have a skilled and educated workforce that can compete in the global economy.

Does the chairman agree that we need to improve K-12 math and science education for all students in this country and do all we can to strengthen the math and science teaching skills of the teaching workforce?

I am very pleased that the chairman's mark increases funding for education by more than $6 billion over the President's proposed budget, and I ask, was it the chairman's assumption that this increase should be used, in part, to fund provisions that will strengthen K-12 math and science education and strengthen the math and science teaching skills of the teaching workforce?

I thank the chairman and look forward to working with him to ensure these critical programs receive funding.

Madam President, this amendment is bipartisan. Senator Alexander and I and many other Senators are cosponsoring this amendment. It is to make room in this budget so we can fund what the President has requested in the various agencies that are essential to keeping this country competitive.

It is to allow the provisions of the America COMPETES Act, which Senators Reid and McConnell earlier introduced, to actually be funded later this year, if we can do that in the appropriations process. I yield the remainder of my 1 minute to Senator Alexander and urge all colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. President, the legislation I am introducing today is designed to make several very important changes to current law to ensure that U.S. citizens receive the Medicaid to which they are entitled.

Since July 1, 2006, most U.S. citizens and nationals applying for or renewing their Medicaid coverage face a new Federal requirement to provide documentation of their citizenship status. Recent reports indicate that tens-of-thousands of U.S. citizens, and in particular children, inappropriately are being denied Medicaid benefits simply because they don't have access to newly required documentation. The articles below and report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities highlight this very serious problem. Hospitals, physicians, and pharmacies may not be willing to treat these individuals until they have a source of payment, but they cannot qualify for Medicaid until they produce a birth certificate and ID.

This new Federal requirement was added to Medicaid by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, DRA, enacted February 8, 2006. The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, TRHCA, signed into law December 20, 2006, included some amendments to the DRA citizenship documentation requirement, primarily to exempt certain groups. Prior to enactment of the DRA, States were permitted to use their discretion in requiring such citizenship documentation.

Under Section 6036 of the DRA, citizens applying for or renewing their Medicaid coverage must provide ``satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship or nationality.'' The DRA specifies documents that are acceptable for this purpose and authorizes the HHS Secretary to designate additional acceptable documents. No Federal matching funds are available for services provided to individuals who declare they are citizens or nationals unless the State obtains satisfactory evidence of their citizenship or determines that they are subject to a statutory exemption.

It is important to note that citizenship documentation requirements do not affect Medicaid rules relating to immigrants--they apply to individuals claiming to be citizens. Most new legal immigrants are excluded from Medicaid during their first 5 years in the U.S. and undocumented immigrants remain eligible for Medicaid emergency services only.

The legislation I am introducing would make several very important changes to current law to ensure that U.S. citizens receive the Medicaid to which they are entitled.

First, the legislation would restore citizenship verification to a State option. Specifically, States would be permitted to determine when and to what extent citizenship verification is required of U.S. Citizens. States would also be permitted to utilize the standards most appropriate to the their population as long as such standards were no more stringent than those currently used by the Social Security Administration and includes native American tribal documents when appropriate.

Second, the legislation would ensure that individuals are afforded a reasonable time period to provide citizenship documentation utilizing the same reasonable time period standard that is available to legal immigrants to provide satisfactory evidence of their immigration status.

Third the legislation protects children who are U.S. citizens by virtue of being born in the United States from being denied coverage after birth because of citizenship verification requirements.

Fourth, the legislation also clarifies ambiguities in federal law to ensure that these citizen children, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, are treated like all other low-income children born in the United States and are deemed eligible to receive Medicaid services for one year.

Finally, the legislation also ensures that the thousands of citizen children and adults, who were erroneously denied Medicaid coverage, may receive

retroactive Medicaid eligibility for coverage they were inappropriately denied because of citizenship verification requirements.

I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this critical legislation, which protects low-income U.S. citizens from being inappropriately denied Medicaid coverage because of lack of documentation.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and supporting documentation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the legislation I am introducing today is designed to make several very important changes to current law to ensure that U.S. citizens receive the Medicaid to which they are entitled.

Since July 1, 2006, most U.S. citizens and nationals applying for or renewing their Medicaid coverage face a new Federal requirement to provide documentation of their citizenship status. Recent reports indicate that tens-of-thousands of U.S. citizens, and in particular children, inappropriately are being denied Medicaid benefits simply because they don't have access to newly required documentation. The articles below and report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities highlight this very serious problem. Hospitals, physicians, and pharmacies may not be willing to treat these individuals until they have a source of payment, but they cannot qualify for Medicaid until they produce a birth certificate and ID.

This new Federal requirement was added to Medicaid by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, DRA, enacted February 8, 2006. The Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, TRHCA, signed into law December 20, 2006, included some amendments to the DRA citizenship documentation requirement, primarily to exempt certain groups. Prior to enactment of the DRA, States were permitted to use their discretion in requiring such citizenship documentation.

Under Section 6036 of the DRA, citizens applying for or renewing their Medicaid coverage must provide ``satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship or nationality.'' The DRA specifies documents that are acceptable for this purpose and authorizes the HHS Secretary to designate additional acceptable documents. No Federal matching funds are available for services provided to individuals who declare they are citizens or nationals unless the State obtains satisfactory evidence of their citizenship or determines that they are subject to a statutory exemption.

It is important to note that citizenship documentation requirements do not affect Medicaid rules relating to immigrants--they apply to individuals claiming to be citizens. Most new legal immigrants are excluded from Medicaid during their first 5 years in the U.S. and undocumented immigrants remain eligible for Medicaid emergency services only.

The legislation I am introducing would make several very important changes to current law to ensure that U.S. citizens receive the Medicaid to which they are entitled.

First, the legislation would restore citizenship verification to a State option. Specifically, States would be permitted to determine when and to what extent citizenship verification is required of U.S. Citizens. States would also be permitted to utilize the standards most appropriate to the their population as long as such standards were no more stringent than those currently used by the Social Security Administration and includes native American tribal documents when appropriate.

Second, the legislation would ensure that individuals are afforded a reasonable time period to provide citizenship documentation utilizing the same reasonable time period standard that is available to legal immigrants to provide satisfactory evidence of their immigration status.

Third the legislation protects children who are U.S. citizens by virtue of being born in the United States from being denied coverage after birth because of citizenship verification requirements.

Fourth, the legislation also clarifies ambiguities in federal law to ensure that these citizen children, regardless of the immigration status of their parents, are treated like all other low-income children born in the United States and are deemed eligible to receive Medicaid services for one year.

Finally, the legislation also ensures that the thousands of citizen children and adults, who were erroneously denied Medicaid coverage, may receive

retroactive Medicaid eligibility for coverage they were inappropriately denied because of citizenship verification requirements.

I urge my colleagues in the Senate to support this critical legislation, which protects low-income U.S. citizens from being inappropriately denied Medicaid coverage because of lack of documentation.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and supporting documentation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Vermont, Senator Leahy, to introduce a bill that would restore the American people's access to Presidential papers. This bill is the companion to H.R. 1255, which is sponsored by Representative Henry Waxman, and was passed in the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support.

In 1978, this body passed the Presidential Records Act and declared that a President's papers were the property of the people of the United States of America and were to be administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA. The Act provided that Presidential papers would be made available 12 years after a President left office, allowing the former or incumbent President the right to claim executive privilege for particularly sensitive documents. In order to fulfill that mandate, President Reagan in 1989 signed Executive Order 12667, which gave the former or incumbent President 30 days to claim executive privilege.

However, in 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13233, nullifying President Reagan's order and imposing new regulations for obtaining Presidential and Vice-Presidential documents. President Bush's new order greatly restricts access to Presidential papers by requiring that all requests for documents, no matter how innocuous, be approved by both the former President and current White House. In this way the order goes against the letter and the spirit of the Presidential Records Act by creating a presumption of nondisclosure, thus allowing the White House to prevent the release of records simply by inaction.

The President's order also limits what types of papers are available by expanding the scope of executive privilege into new areas--namely communications between the President and his advisors and legal advice given to the President. The order extends executive privilege to the records of the Vice President for the first time. Also, former Presidents can now designate third parties, including family members and Vice Presidents, to exercise executive privilege on their behalf, meaning that Presidential papers could remain concealed many years after a President's death. These expansions raise some serious constitutional questions. Deleted sentence. My legislation simply seeks to restore a presumption that Presidential records belong to the people of the United States and to create a legitimate, streamlined means of carrying out this body's wishes--making Presidential records available for examination by the public and by Congress.

The administration shouldn't fear passage of this bill. Any documents that contain sensitive national security information would remain inaccessible, as would any documents pertaining to law enforcement or the deliberative process of the executive branch. Executive privilege for both former and current Presidents would still apply to any papers the White House designates. With these safeguards in place, there is no reason to further hinder access to documents that are in some cases more than 20 years old.

By not passing this bill, the Congress would greatly limit its own ability to investigate previous administrations, not to mention limit the ability of historians and other interested parties to research the past. Knowledge of the past enriches and informs our understanding of the present, and by limiting our access to these documents we do both ourselves and future generations a great disservice. Numerous historians, journalists, archivists and other scholars have voiced their disapproval of Executive Order 13233 because they understand how important access to Presidential papers can be to accurately describing and learning from past events. We here in the Congress cannot and should not surrender our ability to investigate previous Presidential administrations because doing so would remove a vitally important means of ensuring Presidential accountbility.

I believe it is time for these documents to become part of the public record. I believe in open, honest, and accountable government, and I do not believe in keeping secrets from the American people. The Presidential Records Act was one of this country's most vital post- Watergate reforms and

it remains vitally important today. In these times when trust in government is slipping more and more every day, we need to send a statement to the American people that we here in Washington don't need to hide from public scrutiny--that instead we welcome and encourage public scrutiny. This bill will send just such a message.

Franklin Roosevelt commented on the opening of his Presidential library in 1941:

``To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. I must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people to learn from the past so that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.''

I believe that the American people deserve and need access to Presidential records.

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

Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Vermont, Senator Leahy, to introduce a bill that would restore the American people's access to Presidential papers. This bill is the companion to H.R. 1255, which is sponsored by Representative Henry Waxman, and was passed in the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support.

In 1978, this body passed the Presidential Records Act and declared that a President's papers were the property of the people of the United States of America and were to be administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, or NARA. The Act provided that Presidential papers would be made available 12 years after a President left office, allowing the former or incumbent President the right to claim executive privilege for particularly sensitive documents. In order to fulfill that mandate, President Reagan in 1989 signed Executive Order 12667, which gave the former or incumbent President 30 days to claim executive privilege.

However, in 2001, President Bush issued Executive Order 13233, nullifying President Reagan's order and imposing new regulations for obtaining Presidential and Vice-Presidential documents. President Bush's new order greatly restricts access to Presidential papers by requiring that all requests for documents, no matter how innocuous, be approved by both the former President and current White House. In this way the order goes against the letter and the spirit of the Presidential Records Act by creating a presumption of nondisclosure, thus allowing the White House to prevent the release of records simply by inaction.

The President's order also limits what types of papers are available by expanding the scope of executive privilege into new areas--namely communications between the President and his advisors and legal advice given to the President. The order extends executive privilege to the records of the Vice President for the first time. Also, former Presidents can now designate third parties, including family members and Vice Presidents, to exercise executive privilege on their behalf, meaning that Presidential papers could remain concealed many years after a President's death. These expansions raise some serious constitutional questions. Deleted sentence. My legislation simply seeks to restore a presumption that Presidential records belong to the people of the United States and to create a legitimate, streamlined means of carrying out this body's wishes--making Presidential records available for examination by the public and by Congress.

The administration shouldn't fear passage of this bill. Any documents that contain sensitive national security information would remain inaccessible, as would any documents pertaining to law enforcement or the deliberative process of the executive branch. Executive privilege for both former and current Presidents would still apply to any papers the White House designates. With these safeguards in place, there is no reason to further hinder access to documents that are in some cases more than 20 years old.

By not passing this bill, the Congress would greatly limit its own ability to investigate previous administrations, not to mention limit the ability of historians and other interested parties to research the past. Knowledge of the past enriches and informs our understanding of the present, and by limiting our access to these documents we do both ourselves and future generations a great disservice. Numerous historians, journalists, archivists and other scholars have voiced their disapproval of Executive Order 13233 because they understand how important access to Presidential papers can be to accurately describing and learning from past events. We here in the Congress cannot and should not surrender our ability to investigate previous Presidential administrations because doing so would remove a vitally important means of ensuring Presidential accountbility.

I believe it is time for these documents to become part of the public record. I believe in open, honest, and accountable government, and I do not believe in keeping secrets from the American people. The Presidential Records Act was one of this country's most vital post- Watergate reforms and

it remains vitally important today. In these times when trust in government is slipping more and more every day, we need to send a statement to the American people that we here in Washington don't need to hide from public scrutiny--that instead we welcome and encourage public scrutiny. This bill will send just such a message.

Franklin Roosevelt commented on the opening of his Presidential library in 1941:

``To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. I must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people to learn from the past so that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future.''

I believe that the American people deserve and need access to Presidential records.

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

Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The hearing will be held on Tuesday, March 20, 2007, at 10 a.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of this hearing is to consider the nomination of Stephen Jeffrey Isakowitz, of Virginia, to be Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Energy.

Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150.

For further information, please contact Sam Fowler at (202) 224-7571 or Amanda Kelly at (202) 224-6836.

Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a hearing has been scheduled before the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The hearing will be held on Tuesday, March 20, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony on the following bills: S. 126, to modify the boundary of Mesa Verde National Park, and for other purposes; S. 257, to direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of establishing the Columbia-Pacific National Heritage Area in the States of Washington and Oregon, and for other purposes; S. 289, to establish the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area, and for other purposes; S. 443, to establish the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area in the State of Colorado, and for other purposes; S. 444, to establish the South Park National Heritage Area in the State of Colorado, and for other purposes; S. 500 and H.R. 512, to establish the Commission to Study the Potential Creation of the National Museum of the American Latino, to develop a plan of action for the establishment and maintenance of a National Museum of the American Latino in Washington, D.C., and for other purposes; S. 637, to direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of establishing the Chattahoochee Trace National Heritage Corridor in Alabama and Georgia, and for other purposes; S. 817, to amend the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996 to provide additional authorizations for certain National Heritage Areas, and for other purposes; and S. Con. Res. 6, Expressing the sense of Congress that the National Museum of Wildlife Art, located in Jackson, WY, should be designated as the ``National Museum of Wildlife Art of the United States.''

Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send it to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Subcommittee on National Parks, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150, or by email to [email protected].

For further information, please contact David Brooks at (202) 224- 9863 or Rachel Pasternack at (202) 224-0883.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that a Roundtable Discussion has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The Roundtable Discussion will be held on Monday, March 26, 2007, at 2 p.m. in room SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of the Roundtable is to discuss the progress of the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme and to receive information on lessons learned for policymakers who want to better understand how a market-based trading program could operate efficiently and effectively in the United States.

Because of the limited time available for the Roundtable, participation is by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written statements for the record should send two copies of their statement to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150.

For further information, please contact Jonathan Black 202-224-6722 or Gina Weinstock at 202-224-9313.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 6 minutes prior to the recess.

Mr. President, prior to yielding the floor, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment, No. 281, to the pending bill.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation entitled the Children's Dental Health Improvement Act of 2007, along with several of my colleagues. This legislation is designed to improve the access and delivery of dental health services to our Nation's children through Medicaid, through the State Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, through the Indian Health Services, or IHS, and also through our Nation's safety net of community health centers.

The oral health problems facing children in this country are widespread. They are closely associated with poverty. Tooth decay remains the single most common childhood disease nationwide. Although poor children are more than twice as likely to have cavities as wealthier children, experts report that they are far less likely to receive treatment. The dramatic consequences of this lack of oral health care were underscored yesterday in the Washington Post article discussing the death of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver from complications arising from a lack of dental care. I know Senator Cardin has spoken on this same tragic incident.

A little over a month ago, Deamonte Driver came home complaining of a toothache. Today, that young man is dead. What began as a simple toothache developed into an abscessed tooth and, eventually, a brain infection that killed him. Although his family attempted to access care, they could not acquire meaningful oral health services either when they were on the Medicaid Program or while they were uninsured.

While this young man's death is shocking, the lack of access to dental care that it reflects is not unusual. The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services reported that only 18 percent of the children who are eligible for Medicaid actually received even a single preventive dental service. The inspector general also reports that there is no State in the Union that provides preventive services to more than 50 percent of the eligible children. The factors are complex, but the primary one is due to the limited participation by dentists in the Medicaid Program because of the very low reimbursement rates that are provided. Such issues played a central role in the death of this young man.

The Children's Dental Health Improvement Act of 2007 provides a comprehensive strategy to address the underlying oral health issues that led to Deamonte's death. First, the legislation provides grants to States to improve dental services to children enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP. Such grants will not only assure improved delivery of dental services to children but also improved payment rates for dental services that are provided through those two programs. The bill will also include grants to federally qualified health centers, to county and local public health departments, to dental schools, Indian tribes, tribal corporation organizations, and others to increase the availability of primary dental care services in underserved areas.

The bill also provides critical bonus payments to dentists within the Indian Health Service who commit to work there for 2, 3, or 4 years. The legislation also ensures SCHIP funds will be utilized to provide coverage for dental services for low-income children who have access to limited health insurance coverage that does not include dental services. This is known as wraparound coverage, and it is crucial that we provide for this.

In addition, the bill would make important changes to the way in which dental residents are counted for Medicare graduate medical education or GME purposes to incentivize dental schools to train a larger number of dentists.

Finally, the legislation also creates a comprehensive oral health initiative aimed at reducing oral health disparities for vulnerable populations such as low-income children and children with developmental disabilities. Such activities will be administered through the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, and a newly established chief dental officer for Medicaid and SCHIP. Such activities will also include school-based dental sealant programs as well as basic oral health promotion.

I introduce the legislation in the hope that this Congress will act this year to ensure that Deamonte's death does not repeat itself, that no more of America's children will suffer needlessly or even, as in this case, die as a result of a lack of access to meaningful oral health care. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to join me in supporting this important legislation.

I would like to thank the American Dental Association, the American Dental Education Association, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., the National Association of Children's Hospitals, the American Dental Hygienists' Association, and the Children's Dental Health Project for their outstanding support and/or their technical advice on this legislation. This bill is a result of their outstanding work.

In particular, I want to thank Dr. Burt Edelstein, Libby Mullin, and Ann De Biasi of the Children's Dental Health Project for their vast knowledge and technical assistance on this issue. I want to thank Judy Sherman of the American Dental Association, Myla Moss and Jack Bresch of the American Dental Education Association, Dr. Herber Simmons and Scott Litch of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Karen Sealander of the American Dental Hygienists' Association, Dr. Jim Richeson and Judy Kloss Bynum of the Academy of General Dentistry, Dr. Stephen Corbin of Special Olympics, Inc., and Dan Hawkins, Chris Koppen, and Roger Schwartz of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., for their valuable insight, technical advice, and continued support for this legislation. I look forward to working with them all to ensure that we achieve increased access to oral health care for our children.

In addition to those organizations, I would like to thank the following groups for their support of the bill, whether in the past session of Congress or this year. They include: the Academy of General Dentistry, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, American Academy of Periodontology, American Association of Dental Examiners, American Association of Dental Research, American Association of Endodontists, American Association of Public Health Dentistry, American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, American Association of Orthodontists, American Association of Women Dentists, American College of Dentists, American College of Preventive Medicine, American Dental Trade Association, American Public Health Association, American Society of Dentistry for Children, American Student Dental Association, Association of Clinicians for the Underserved, Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors, Dental Dealers of America, Dental Manufacturers of America, Inc., Family Voices, Hispanic Dental Association, International College of Dentists--USA, March of Dimes, National Association of City and County Health Officers, National Association of Local Boards of Health, National Dental Association, National Health Law Program, New Mexico Department of Health, Partnership for Prevention, Society of American Indian Dentists, Special Care Dentistry, and United Cerebral Palsy Associations.

I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post article and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Invest USA Act of 2007 with my colleague from Indiana, Senator Lugar.

Our legislation creates a United States Direct Investment Administration, USDIA, within the Department of Commerce, to be led by an Under Secretary of Commerce for United States Direct Investment. This new agency will coordinate efforts to attract more foreign direct investment in the United States, thereby making our economy more competitive by encouraging multinational businesses to open new facilities or expand existing operations here, rather than elsewhere.

Specifically, our legislation tasks the new agency with five principal duties. First, USDIA will collect and analyze data concerning direct investment flows into both the United States and other countries.

Second, USDIA will publish an annual direct investment report for Congress. This report sets forth the data that USDIA collects and analyzes in the course of its work, identifying best practices in attracting direct investment at the Federal, State, and regional levels, as well as those used by other advanced industrialized countries.

Third, USDIA will publish an annual direct investment agenda to make strategic policy recommendations based on the direct investment report. It will also act as the lead agency within a broader interagency Direct Investment Promotion Committee, which will advocate and implement USDIA's strategic policy recommendations. For example, as part of this work, it will create and maintain an internet-accessible database of direct investment opportunities in the United States.

Fourth, the legislation requires USDIA to focus on direct investment in critical high-technology industries throughout the course of its work.

The United States continues to be the premier place in the world to locate a business. However, in an increasingly globalized world, where the factors of production can easily migrate from country to country, we can no longer passively rely on our inherent competitive advantages alone. We must actively publicize them.

Many countries, particularly those in Europe, have committed significant resources to recruiting foreign direct investment. For example, in many cases, our competitors maintain offices in the United States, where they regularly meet with American business leaders, encouraging them to consider locating facilities in their country.

Currently, the United States lacks any comparable program to entice multinational businesses to invest and create jobs here. Instead, we relegate direct investment promotion to economic development agencies at the State, regional, and local level. Although these local economic development agencies make valiant efforts to attract direct investment, our lack of a national strategy creates two problems.

First, too often, these local economic development agencies suffer from limited resources, which dwindle even further if the locality is suffering from an economic downturn due to a plant closing or for other reasons. Second, the dominance of State and local agencies creates the impression of an uncoordinated patchwork in the minds of foreign business executives. Consequently, State and local economic development agencies are too often unable to perform their recruitment missions effectively. The Invest USA Act addresses these flaws by creating and funding USDIA, which can act as a one-stop shop for multinational businesses seeking to establish new operations or expand existing ones.

Of course, we need to continue to focus on persuading U.S. businesses to stay in this country. But we also need to launch a concurrent, robust effort to encourage multinational businesses to establish or move facilities to our country. The end result is the same: more jobs for U.S. workers.

According to the Organization for International Investment, direct investment in the U.S. totaled $128.6 billion in 2005, an increase of 20 percent from the previous year, and according to the latest available Government data, as of December 31, 2004, U.S. subsidiaries of foreign multinationals employed approximately 5.1 million American workers, or 4.7 percent of the workforce. Moreover, according to the latest available Department of Commerce data, average per-worker compensation paid by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign multinationals in 2004 was $63,428, over 32 percent higher than compensation at U.S. companies as a whole.

Senator Lugar and I believe that with a proactive, strategically focused effort at the Federal level, we can do even better at attracting the best jobs to our country. The Invest USA Act of 2007 will allow us to do just that.

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

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation entitled the Children's Dental Health Improvement Act of 2007, along with several of my colleagues. This legislation is designed to improve the access and delivery of dental health services to our Nation's children through Medicaid, through the State Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, through the Indian Health Services, or IHS, and also through our Nation's safety net of community health centers.

The oral health problems facing children in this country are widespread. They are closely associated with poverty. Tooth decay remains the single most common childhood disease nationwide. Although poor children are more than twice as likely to have cavities as wealthier children, experts report that they are far less likely to receive treatment. The dramatic consequences of this lack of oral health care were underscored yesterday in the Washington Post article discussing the death of 12-year-old Deamonte Driver from complications arising from a lack of dental care. I know Senator Cardin has spoken on this same tragic incident.

A little over a month ago, Deamonte Driver came home complaining of a toothache. Today, that young man is dead. What began as a simple toothache developed into an abscessed tooth and, eventually, a brain infection that killed him. Although his family attempted to access care, they could not acquire meaningful oral health services either when they were on the Medicaid Program or while they were uninsured.

While this young man's death is shocking, the lack of access to dental care that it reflects is not unusual. The inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services reported that only 18 percent of the children who are eligible for Medicaid actually received even a single preventive dental service. The inspector general also reports that there is no State in the Union that provides preventive services to more than 50 percent of the eligible children. The factors are complex, but the primary one is due to the limited participation by dentists in the Medicaid Program because of the very low reimbursement rates that are provided. Such issues played a central role in the death of this young man.

The Children's Dental Health Improvement Act of 2007 provides a comprehensive strategy to address the underlying oral health issues that led to Deamonte's death. First, the legislation provides grants to States to improve dental services to children enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP. Such grants will not only assure improved delivery of dental services to children but also improved payment rates for dental services that are provided through those two programs. The bill will also include grants to federally qualified health centers, to county and local public health departments, to dental schools, Indian tribes, tribal corporation organizations, and others to increase the availability of primary dental care services in underserved areas.

The bill also provides critical bonus payments to dentists within the Indian Health Service who commit to work there for 2, 3, or 4 years. The legislation also ensures SCHIP funds will be utilized to provide coverage for dental services for low-income children who have access to limited health insurance coverage that does not include dental services. This is known as wraparound coverage, and it is crucial that we provide for this.

In addition, the bill would make important changes to the way in which dental residents are counted for Medicare graduate medical education or GME purposes to incentivize dental schools to train a larger number of dentists.

Finally, the legislation also creates a comprehensive oral health initiative aimed at reducing oral health disparities for vulnerable populations such as low-income children and children with developmental disabilities. Such activities will be administered through the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, and a newly established chief dental officer for Medicaid and SCHIP. Such activities will also include school-based dental sealant programs as well as basic oral health promotion.

I introduce the legislation in the hope that this Congress will act this year to ensure that Deamonte's death does not repeat itself, that no more of America's children will suffer needlessly or even, as in this case, die as a result of a lack of access to meaningful oral health care. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to join me in supporting this important legislation.

I would like to thank the American Dental Association, the American Dental Education Association, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, the National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., the National Association of Children's Hospitals, the American Dental Hygienists' Association, and the Children's Dental Health Project for their outstanding support and/or their technical advice on this legislation. This bill is a result of their outstanding work.

In particular, I want to thank Dr. Burt Edelstein, Libby Mullin, and Ann De Biasi of the Children's Dental Health Project for their vast knowledge and technical assistance on this issue. I want to thank Judy Sherman of the American Dental Association, Myla Moss and Jack Bresch of the American Dental Education Association, Dr. Herber Simmons and Scott Litch of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Karen Sealander of the American Dental Hygienists' Association, Dr. Jim Richeson and Judy Kloss Bynum of the Academy of General Dentistry, Dr. Stephen Corbin of Special Olympics, Inc., and Dan Hawkins, Chris Koppen, and Roger Schwartz of the National Association of Community Health Centers, Inc., for their valuable insight, technical advice, and continued support for this legislation. I look forward to working with them all to ensure that we achieve increased access to oral health care for our children.

In addition to those organizations, I would like to thank the following groups for their support of the bill, whether in the past session of Congress or this year. They include: the Academy of General Dentistry, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, American Academy of Periodontology, American Association of Dental Examiners, American Association of Dental Research, American Association of Endodontists, American Association of Public Health Dentistry, American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, American Association of Orthodontists, American Association of Women Dentists, American College of Dentists, American College of Preventive Medicine, American Dental Trade Association, American Public Health Association, American Society of Dentistry for Children, American Student Dental Association, Association of Clinicians for the Underserved, Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, Association of State and Territorial Dental Directors, Dental Dealers of America, Dental Manufacturers of America, Inc., Family Voices, Hispanic Dental Association, International College of Dentists--USA, March of Dimes, National Association of City and County Health Officers, National Association of Local Boards of Health, National Dental Association, National Health Law Program, New Mexico Department of Health, Partnership for Prevention, Society of American Indian Dentists, Special Care Dentistry, and United Cerebral Palsy Associations.

I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post article and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Invest USA Act of 2007 with my colleague from Indiana, Senator Lugar.

Our legislation creates a United States Direct Investment Administration, USDIA, within the Department of Commerce, to be led by an Under Secretary of Commerce for United States Direct Investment. This new agency will coordinate efforts to attract more foreign direct investment in the United States, thereby making our economy more competitive by encouraging multinational businesses to open new facilities or expand existing operations here, rather than elsewhere.

Specifically, our legislation tasks the new agency with five principal duties. First, USDIA will collect and analyze data concerning direct investment flows into both the United States and other countries.

Second, USDIA will publish an annual direct investment report for Congress. This report sets forth the data that USDIA collects and analyzes in the course of its work, identifying best practices in attracting direct investment at the Federal, State, and regional levels, as well as those used by other advanced industrialized countries.

Third, USDIA will publish an annual direct investment agenda to make strategic policy recommendations based on the direct investment report. It will also act as the lead agency within a broader interagency Direct Investment Promotion Committee, which will advocate and implement USDIA's strategic policy recommendations. For example, as part of this work, it will create and maintain an internet-accessible database of direct investment opportunities in the United States.

Fourth, the legislation requires USDIA to focus on direct investment in critical high-technology industries throughout the course of its work.

The United States continues to be the premier place in the world to locate a business. However, in an increasingly globalized world, where the factors of production can easily migrate from country to country, we can no longer passively rely on our inherent competitive advantages alone. We must actively publicize them.

Many countries, particularly those in Europe, have committed significant resources to recruiting foreign direct investment. For example, in many cases, our competitors maintain offices in the United States, where they regularly meet with American business leaders, encouraging them to consider locating facilities in their country.

Currently, the United States lacks any comparable program to entice multinational businesses to invest and create jobs here. Instead, we relegate direct investment promotion to economic development agencies at the State, regional, and local level. Although these local economic development agencies make valiant efforts to attract direct investment, our lack of a national strategy creates two problems.

First, too often, these local economic development agencies suffer from limited resources, which dwindle even further if the locality is suffering from an economic downturn due to a plant closing or for other reasons. Second, the dominance of State and local agencies creates the impression of an uncoordinated patchwork in the minds of foreign business executives. Consequently, State and local economic development agencies are too often unable to perform their recruitment missions effectively. The Invest USA Act addresses these flaws by creating and funding USDIA, which can act as a one-stop shop for multinational businesses seeking to establish new operations or expand existing ones.

Of course, we need to continue to focus on persuading U.S. businesses to stay in this country. But we also need to launch a concurrent, robust effort to encourage multinational businesses to establish or move facilities to our country. The end result is the same: more jobs for U.S. workers.

According to the Organization for International Investment, direct investment in the U.S. totaled $128.6 billion in 2005, an increase of 20 percent from the previous year, and according to the latest available Government data, as of December 31, 2004, U.S. subsidiaries of foreign multinationals employed approximately 5.1 million American workers, or 4.7 percent of the workforce. Moreover, according to the latest available Department of Commerce data, average per-worker compensation paid by U.S. subsidiaries of foreign multinationals in 2004 was $63,428, over 32 percent higher than compensation at U.S. companies as a whole.

Senator Lugar and I believe that with a proactive, strategically focused effort at the Federal level, we can do even better at attracting the best jobs to our country. The Invest USA Act of 2007 will allow us to do just that.

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

Madam President, I call up amendment No. 281 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Madam President, this is an amendment I am offering on behalf of myself and Senator Domenici, my colleague. It is to provide funds to local law enforcement agencies along our very substantial borders with Canada and Mexico to assist them with criminal activity, problems of enforcement of the laws, and dealing with criminal activity in those border communities. This is an amendment that sets up a $50 million-a-year grant program. It is an amendment we have passed twice in the Senate, but it has not become law as yet.

It calls upon the Department of Homeland Security to establish a competitive grant program to assist local law enforcement located along the border or other local law enforcement agencies that are determined by the Homeland Security Department to be heavily impacted, high-impact areas elsewhere in the country.

The border with Canada is 5,525 miles long. Our border with Mexico is nearly 2,000 miles long. We have had serious problems on the New Mexico-Mexico border, as has the State of Arizona. In fact, last year the States of Arizona and New Mexico declared states of emergency in order to provide local law enforcement with immediate assistance in dealing with criminal activity along the border. The Federal Government needs to step up and do its part in helping these local law enforcement agencies. This amendment helps to do that.

I hope when the time comes for a vote on the amendment, my colleagues will agree to support it, and we can pass it with a unanimous vote.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to announce for the information of the Senate and the public that an oversight hearing has been scheduled before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

The hearing will be held on Wednesday, March 7, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The purpose of the hearing is to investigate market constraints on large investments in advanced energy technologies and investigate ways to stimulate additional private-sector investment in the deployment of these technologies.

Because of the limited time available for the hearing, witnesses may testify by invitation only. However, those wishing to submit written testimony for the hearing record should send two copies of their testimony to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-6150.

For further information, please contact Michael Carr at 202-224-8164 or Rachel Pasternack at 202-224-0883.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the request to proceed to S. 184.