Floor Statements

Mr. President, our Nation's haphazard trade policy has done plenty of damage to Ohio's economy, to our workers, to our manufacturers, and to our small businesses. Recent news reports of tainted foods and toxic toys reveal another hazard of ill-conceived and unenforced trade rules. They subject American families and children to products that can harm them, that in some cases have even killed them.

From pet food to toothpaste, from tires to toys, news stories almost every day highlight the consequences of our Nation's failed trade policy. Countries such as China lack basic protections we have come to take for granted. Given the well-known dangers of lead, particularly for young children, our Government banned it from products such as gasoline and paint in the 1970s. Yet our trade policy is turning back the clock on the hard-fought safety standards that keep our families and our children safe.

What happens should come as no surprise. When we trade the way we do, when we bought $288 billion of products from the People's Republic of China last year and $288 billion this year--it will probably exceed $300 billion--and we are trading with a country that doesn't have close to the same safety standards for its own workers or safe air or drinking water standards for its own water, why would we expect them to sell safe products to our country?

It is compounded by the fact that companies, such as Mattel say to the Chinese contractors: We want you to cut costs. Lead paint? Use it; it is cheaper. Cut corners so we can save money.

It is no surprise because American corporations have pushed the Chinese to cut costs, and at the same time China doesn't have fair labor standards, clean air, and safe drinking water standards for their own people. Of course they are going to sell products back to our country such as contaminated toothpaste and pet food and dangerous toys with lead-based paint on those products.

Our trade policy should prevent these problems, not invite them. Despite the real and present danger from Chinese imports, we must not focus solely on consumer threats from China. The real threat is our failed trade policy that allows recall after recall. The real threat is our failure to change course and craft a new, very different trade policy. The real threat is this administration's insistence on more of the same--more trade pacts that send U.S. jobs overseas, more trade pacts that allow companies and countries to ignore the rules of fair trade, more trade

pacts that will mean more tainted products in our homes, more dangerous toys for our children, and more recalls for our businesses.

The administration and its free-trade supporters in Congress are gearing up for another trade fight. They want to force on our Nation--a nation that in November, in Montana, Ohio, and across the country, demanded change--more job-killing trade agreements with unreliable standards. Free-trade agreements with Peru, Panama, Colombia, and South Korea currently being debated in Congress are based on the same failed trade model.

This week, the Peru trade agreement is at the forefront of the debate between fundamentally flawed trade models--more of the same--and the fight for fair trade. We want more trade, plenty of trade; we just want fair trade, different rules.

The Peru free-trade agreement, like NAFTA, while it has some improvements over that, puts limits on the safety standards we can require for imports. FDA inspectors have rejected seafood imports from Peru and Panama--major seafood suppliers to the United States. Yet the current trade agreement, as proposed--the Bush administration's Peru and Panama agreements--limits food safety standards and border inspections. What has happened already is where, frankly, we have bought too many contaminated products, contaminated seafood imports, and whatever problems we have, this trade agreement will make it worse because this agreement will limit our own food safety standards and border inspections. Adding insult to injury, the agreements would force the United States to rely on foreign inspectors to ensure our safety. We have seen how well that worked with China.

It is time for a new direction in trade policy. It is time for a trade policy that ensures the safety of food on our kitchen tables and toys in our children's bedrooms. It is time for a trade policy that creates new businesses and good-paying jobs at home instead of a trade policy that encourages companies to outsource and move overseas. It is time for a trade policy that puts an end to the global exploitation of cheap labor.

The voters in November shouted from the ballot box, demanding a new trade policy. Their resounding call for a new trade policy put Members of Congress on notice that their trade votes in Washington matter to voters back home.

With Peru, Panama, Colombia, and South Korea, voters in my State of Ohio and across the Nation are watching these trade debates. Everyone agrees on one thing: We want more trade with countries around the world, but first we must protect the safety and the health of our families and our children.

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

Mr. President, the Children's Health Insurance Program is a sound investment. It protects our children. It fosters their development. It helps them thrive. Children without health insurance are children taken to emergency rooms instead of doctors' offices. They are children whose care is delayed and delayed, until simple sickness becomes serious illness. They are children who need our attention, our compassion, our help.

The President has said he opposes this legislation because philosophically he thinks children should be covered by private insurance, not by the Children's Health Insurance Program. It does not matter whether these children in reality should be covered by private insurance. What matters is that these children are not covered by private insurance. Simply, they are not covered at all.

By lodging a veto threat against this bill, the President is saying that if private insurers have not made room for low-income children, then we should not make room for them either. That is not just faulty logic, it is faulty ethics. At the same time, the President argues that the Children's Health Insurance Program is too expensive.

We are suggesting--bipartisanly, in both Houses, with a program that started 10 years ago, with a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, a Republican House, a Republican Senate; a bipartisan initiative from 10 years ago--we are suggesting an increase of $7 billion a year over the next 5 years--$35 billion.

Contrast that with the war in Iraq. Mr. President, $7 billion a year, to cover 4 million uninsured children in this country, 75,000 in my State of Ohio--$7 billion a year--contrast that with $2.5 billion a week on the war in Iraq. Mr. President, $7 billion a year; $2.5 billion a week. Yet the President says that is too much to take care of 4 million children.

Uninsured children do not have the luxury of time. They cannot will themselves to remain healthy until individual insurance becomes more affordable or employer-sponsored coverage stops eroding or the President becomes more pragmatic. It is up to this body, this week, to take action.

In Ohio, the Demko family can tell you why they value the Children's Health Insurance Program. Emily Demko, 3 years old, has Down Syndrome. Because of her condition, she is automatically denied private health coverage because Down Syndrome is considered a preexisting condition.

Emily was covered by the Children's Health Insurance Program until March 31 of this year. Under the Children's Health Insurance Program, Emily was able to receive the therapy she needed to reach all of her developmental milestones in an age-appropriate way. But in March, Emily was cut off from this program because her father made $113 too much per month for the family to qualify.

Her father is self-employed. Her mother stays at home to care for her. Without health insurance, the bills for Emily's care total $3,700 per month, which, of course, is impossible for the Demkos to pay.

The Demkos' family income falls within the range of 250 and 300 percent of poverty. Emily has now been without health insurance for 6 months. Governor Strickland and the Republican legislature, bipartisanly, raised the threshold for the Children's Health Insurance Program in Ohio if the Feds go along, if the President signs our bill, to 300 percent of poverty--not for families living in the lap of luxury, but families such as the Demkos who have seen their daughter cut off from her health insurance because of a preexisting condition and falling out of eligibility because her father makes $100 too much per month.

So far, Emily is not regressing, but there is that possibility with Down Syndrome. Her parents cannot afford the insurance for themselves either. But more than anything, they want to see 3-year-old Emily covered. They worry about what will happen to her without the therapy she needs. She does not qualify for any other programs despite her disability.

I wish President Bush would talk to the Demko family, would keep them in mind as he considers whether to sign the Children's Health Insurance Program. I hope he wants to make life better, not harder, for this hard-working family and help Emily to thrive.

The Children's Health Insurance Program will expire September 30 unless

the President signs this bill. The House and Senate have found a compromise that works for both parties. The version we passed in the Senate passed with 68 votes, more than enough to override a veto. The compromise version is very much like the Senate version, even though some of us would like to see us do a bit more.

The compromise would cover 4 million American children, as I said, 75,000 of them living in my State of Ohio. These children did not choose to be uninsured. They are not uninsured because their families walked away from private insurance. Understand, most of the children in the Children's Health Insurance Program are sons and daughters of working parents, parents who are working hard, playing by the rules, simply not making enough money to buy private insurance, and their employers are not providing that insurance.

The fact is, private insurance too often steers clear of too many working families in Akron and Toledo and Zanesville and Marion and Lima and Marietta. These families are uninsured because they have no choice. Their children have no choice. But we have a choice. We can choose to help them. Let's do it.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Feingold and echo the words of the Democratic leader, the majority leader, Harry Reid, and his comments about this war and about the future of our country and what we need to do. I rise in support of the Feingold amendment.

General Petraeus confirmed that our troops, operating under horrific conditions, are displaying the courage and the skill that define this whole engagement. Our troops have been courageous. Our troops have been skillful. Our troops have been effective. Our troops have been selfless. Our troops have done everything we have asked them to.

But the civilians at the Pentagon and the politicians at the White House have bungled this war. The administration is selling one war and fighting another. They are selling a war where they are saying with a little more patience, we can truly say ``mission accomplished,'' as if we didn't hear that last year and the year before and the year before that. The President's fighting of the war is one step forward, two steps back, and one that will require perhaps a decade-long engagement.

More than anything, Americans deserve the truth. We are losing men and women, without a clear idea of whether or when we can bring our troops home. We are refraining from redeploying troops based on possibilities--possibilities that are no worse than the realities we are facing now.

Especially and mostly, we have lost our focus. We have lost our focus on Afghanistan, on rooting out al-Qaida, finding Osama bin Laden, and protecting our borders. Instead, we spend $2.5 billion a week on a war--$2.5 billion a week on a war that even General Petraeus, by not answering Senator Warner's question, acknowledges this war is making us no safer. So we spend $2.5 billion a week and the war is not making us safer and we are not doing what we should be in Afghanistan, what we should be doing in rooting out al-Qaida, what we should be doing in finding Osama bin Laden, and what we should be doing in protecting our borders.

Instead, we are mired in a civil war, with no end in sight. As long as the Iraqis, as Senator Feingold said, and so many of us who have wanted to have a plan to redeploy our troops out of Iraq for 2 or 3 years now--as long as our commitment looks open-ended, as long as there is no end in sight to this civil war, there is no incentive for the Iraqis to do what they need to do; there is no incentive for a political settlement, where Sunnis and Shia and Kurds work together on a political settlement with a political compromise, and there is no incentive for the Iraqis because they think we are always going to be there in this open-ended commitment to the civil war. There is no incentive for them to do what they need to do to build a military security and police security force until the Iraqis know that, yes, there is an end date. We need to pass the Feingold amendment and the message will be that U.S. troops are going to redeploy out of Iraq, so it is now incumbent upon the Iraqis to do what they need to do through political compromise and through building their military and police security forces, and then Iraq can move forward. As long as we stay mired in a civil war and they think it is an open-ended commitment, we will continue to see this lack of progress.

Military victories we can win, and have, and our soldiers and marines have waged and won those battles. But until we have a political victory, a compromise, a settlement, and the Iraqis build up their own security forces, the war goes on and on. It is time to bring our troops home in the safest and most orderly way we can, as Iraq accomplishes other urgent goals, such as border security, and we address the issues in Afghanistan and with al-Qaida.

I support the Feingold amendment. It makes sense that we finally change course in Iraq and do the right thing for the Iraqi people and for our country.

I thank the Chair, and I thank Senator Webb for his leadership on this important issue as I rise in support of the Webb amendment.

This amendment, first and foremost, is about supporting our troops. It is about supporting the military families. Every Member of this body, some even more than others, talk about their support for our troops. Many put the yellow ribbon magnets on their cars, many wear other kinds of clothing to show their support for the troops. They talk about it at home, they talk about it here. This vote will put that support for our troops into action.

This amendment ensures that our military gets the rest at home they deserve; that our military readiness gets the support it needs. This amendment will ensure that our National Guardsmen will stay at home for at least 3 years after returning from deployment, the men and women of the Guard who leave businesses, jobs, and families on hold while bravely serving our Nation.

The current Iraq policy is overextending our troops and placing unacceptable burdens on families back home, with spouses often acting as single parents, doing their very best, in sometimes worse economic times, to keep their families together.

I have met with these families for 4 years, going back as early as 2003, soon after tens of thousands of American troops were deployed in Iraq. They would talk frequently about the shortage of body armor. They talked frequently about the shortage of bottled water, about hygiene products, and all kinds of things our troops needed as our Government rushed into war in 2003 without adequately supplying them. Families would raise money at events to provide the body armor and to send bottled water and hygiene products or whatever their loved ones needed in Iraq.

Our Government didn't do what it should have done back then because of the poor civilian leadership and its lack of preparation for this war in Iraq. I heard comments over and over about the difficulty of adjusting, as those troops came back home, due to the lack of foresight and the lack of planning on the part of the civilian leadership of our military.

Our Armed Forces have served bravely and honorably again and again, deployment after deployment, often without, as I said, the proper body armor, proper vehicle protection, proper training, and dwell time between deployments. We fought in this body and in the House for more body armor, we fought for more MRAPS, the triangular-bottomed vehicles. We shouldn't have to fight to allow our soldiers the proper amount of time between deployments.

The requirement in this amendment for dwell time is something the military has voluntarily done for decades because they know that serves the troops well, they know it serves the families well, and they know principally it serves the military well to have that dwell time between deployments. The 1-to-1 standard in the Webb amendment is actually below the historic standard of the Department of Defense for dwell time. We could do even better than this.

We can debate about our role in Iraq's civil war, we can debate timelines for ending our involvement, we can debate how much money we should spend in Iraq, but we shouldn't need to debate how much rest, preparation, and training our troops get before they go back off to war. Everyone in this Chamber talks about supporting our troops, even as our President failed to provide body armor and MRAPs, failed to provide support and supplies, and even as our President has failed to provide enough money for medical care for the Veterans' Administration for when our troops return home. Everyone in this Chamber talks about supporting our troops, but this amendment puts the soldiers and their families first.

They have done their job. It is time we do ours.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Social Security Act Improvements for the Terminally Ill Act. This is a critical and long overdue piece of legislation and I urge my colleagues to give it due consideration and, ultimately, support.

In the Senate, we are accustomed to making tough decisions on pressing issues that have a direct impact on the lives of Americans. But few issues are both as urgent and as uncomplicated as the one now present to the Chamber.

This bill would waive the 5-month waiting period in the Social Security disability program for terminally ill patients--thus allowing those with just months to live to receive the Federal benefits they deserve. None of our fellow citizens should have to spend their last days haggling with the Federal Government for benefits that can help ease the financial burden associated with palliative care, death, and burial. Specifically, this bill would authorize disability benefits for any eligible individual whose disability is expected to or does result in the patient's death before the end of the current 5-month waiting period.

This commonsense reform would grant justice to those, like Ohioan Mr. Arthur Woolweaver, Jr., who are being effectively ``waited out'' by the Government. Even though Mr. Woolweaver had worked and contributed to Social Security all his life and even though his disability due to cancer was easily verified by the Social Security Administration, he was still forced to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. Unfortunately, it is now too late for Mr. Woolweaver, who passed away on June 12 of this year. Ultimately, Mr. Woolweaver was still waiting for his benefits, which would have totaled $1,800 per month, when he died this summer. This money could have helped Mr. Woolweaver's wife keep their house in Cuyahoga Falls, OH.

Like it or not, the Federal Government is often viewed as a faceless and heartless bureaucracy. This bill offers a chance to take a small step to change that image and restore faith in the system. I think I speak for most Americans when I say that I want my Government to be responsive, logical, and

compassionate. This bill seeks to achieve that ideal.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Social Security Act Improvements for the Terminally Ill Act. This is a critical and long overdue piece of legislation and I urge my colleagues to give it due consideration and, ultimately, support.

In the Senate, we are accustomed to making tough decisions on pressing issues that have a direct impact on the lives of Americans. But few issues are both as urgent and as uncomplicated as the one now present to the Chamber.

This bill would waive the 5-month waiting period in the Social Security disability program for terminally ill patients--thus allowing those with just months to live to receive the Federal benefits they deserve. None of our fellow citizens should have to spend their last days haggling with the Federal Government for benefits that can help ease the financial burden associated with palliative care, death, and burial. Specifically, this bill would authorize disability benefits for any eligible individual whose disability is expected to or does result in the patient's death before the end of the current 5-month waiting period.

This commonsense reform would grant justice to those, like Ohioan Mr. Arthur Woolweaver, Jr., who are being effectively ``waited out'' by the Government. Even though Mr. Woolweaver had worked and contributed to Social Security all his life and even though his disability due to cancer was easily verified by the Social Security Administration, he was still forced to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait. Unfortunately, it is now too late for Mr. Woolweaver, who passed away on June 12 of this year. Ultimately, Mr. Woolweaver was still waiting for his benefits, which would have totaled $1,800 per month, when he died this summer. This money could have helped Mr. Woolweaver's wife keep their house in Cuyahoga Falls, OH.

Like it or not, the Federal Government is often viewed as a faceless and heartless bureaucracy. This bill offers a chance to take a small step to change that image and restore faith in the system. I think I speak for most Americans when I say that I want my Government to be responsive, logical, and

compassionate. This bill seeks to achieve that ideal.

I thank my friend from North Dakota.

Senator Dorgan has reviewed the numerous reasons why this pilot program doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to compromise safety laws, whether it is road safety, food safety, toy safety, or truck safety. Unsafe trucks on our roads, unsafe food on our tables, or dangerous toys in the hands of our children, all of this is part of a larger issue. It is about trade.

It would be easier if it weren't. It would be easier if we didn't need strong trade rules to ensure truck safety and food safety and product safety, but it simply doesn't work that way. If we don't require China to export products as safe as those manufactured in the United States, our children will be exposed to lead paint and loose parts. If we don't write trade deals, as Senator Dorgan says, that prohibit unsafe trucks from our roads, more Americans--count on it-- will be killed on our highways. Yet we write trade deals that compromise and compromise and compromise away the safety standards that protect our children, our pets, our roads, and ourselves.

Why should we agree to a trade deal that turns product safety into a reactive recall-driven enterprise? Not because it serves our families but because it serves multinational corporations. Why should we agree to trade deals that compromise road safety? Not because it serves our families but because it serves multinational corporations.

Too often in both Chambers in this Congress we write trade deals that ignore consumers, coddle corporations, produce massive trade deficits, ensure unsafe imports, and export U.S. jobs. Instead, we could write trade rules that respect U.S. law and promote U.S. exports. We could write trade rules that keep our roads safe, our food and toys safe, that are fair to U.S. trading partners, and best for America's families. But it means letting go of expedient, shortsighted, lopsided free trade deals and embracing a new model.

Instead of trade deals designed to benefit top management and multinational corporations, we should write trade deals designed to benefit everyone else. I am sure the benefit of those trade deals will ultimately trickle down to the Nation's CEOs. U.S. road safety laws make sense. Voting for the Dorgan amendment and voting against the Cornyn amendment demonstrates respect for those rules.

I urge my colleagues to vote accordingly.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, last week, Mattel, the maker of Barbie and Elmo and Barney toys, issued its third recall of tainted products from China just in the last month. Toothpaste, tires, toys--when ``made in China'' becomes a warning label, something is very wrong. Our trade policy should prevent these problems, not invite them. Clearly, our trade policy has failed. Yet anyone who disagrees with America's trade experts is labeled a protectionist, as if that is a bad word. It is not only our moral obligation to protect our communities, protect our families, protect our children from contaminated, possibly deadly products, as Members of Congress it is our duty to protect them.

Last year, the United States imported from China $288 billion worth of goods, much of it food and toys and vitamins and dog food. Not only is China weak in unenforced health and safety regulations, as the Washington Post revealed again today, it aggressively foists on vulnerable nations contaminated food and products.

China sends formaldehyde-laced children's candy, mercury-laced makeup, and fungus-infested dried fruits to unsuspecting consumers in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Hong Kong--a part of China--nations largely reliant upon Communist China for trade and for aid. Our country has worked hard to build safe working places, to build a reliable, healthy food supply, and to ensure that our drinking water is pure and safe. For 100 years, workers, community leaders, elected officials, advocates, labor union activists, people of faith in their synagogues and in their churches, took on some of the world's most powerful corporations to make sure our food and our products were safe. Unrestricted, unregulated free trade with China threatens these gains and jeopardizes our public health. Why would we expect otherwise? China doesn't enforce food safety, doesn't enforce consumer product safety, doesn't enforce worker safety in its own country for its own people. Why would we expect--with this wide-open trade arrangement with the People's Republic of China, why would we expect that Communist government, which cares little about its own citizens--why would we expect them to ship us uncontaminated vitamins? Why would we expect them to ship us products that are safe? Why would we be surprised when toys are coated with lead-based paint or vitamins are contaminated?

As of now, there is little interest among the Chinese in changing the way we and they do business. Our trade deficit with China exceeded $250 billion last year.

So what is to be done? Since the Chinese Communist party forbids third party inspectors on Chinese soil, we either buy less--much less-- from China, or we hold importers responsible for the safety of the products they bring into our country. First of all, we must increase the number of food and consumer product safety inspectors. Less than 1 percent of all imported vegetables and fruits and seafoods and grains are inspected at the border--less than 1 percent.

Mattel is to be commended for taking the proactive step of an internal investigation into the recall of products. But such action should be the rarity, not the norm, which is why we cannot in our Nation's best interests focus solely on consumer threats from China.

The real threat is our failed trade policy that allows--and in fact encourages in some ways--recall after recall after recall. The real threat is our failure to change course and craft a new trade policy. The real threat is this administration's insistence not just on continuing these trade relationships, but on building more of the same: More trade pacts that send U.S. jobs overseas, more trade pacts that allow companies and countries to ignore the rules of fair trade, and more trade pacts that will lead to more recalls.

The administration and its free trade supporters in Congress are gearing up for another trade fight. They want to force on our Nation--a nation that in November demanded change in every State in the Union-- they want to force on our Nation more trade agreements with Peru and Panama, Colombia and South Korea, all based on the same failed trade model.

FDA inspectors have rejected seafood imports from Peru and Panama. Yet the President is suggesting trade agreements with Peru and Panama. Yet the current trade agreements--as written--limit food safety standards and continue to ignore real border inspections. Adding insult to injury, the agreements would force the United States to rely on foreign inspectors who aren't doing their jobs to ensure our safety. We have seen how well that worked in China.

More of the same in our trade policy will mean exactly what we have seen now with China: more contaminated imports; more unsafe, dangerous toys; more recalls. It is time for a new direction in our Nation's trade policy.

As my friend from North Dakota says, we want plenty of trade. We want trade--plenty of it--but we want it under different rules. It is time for a trade policy that ensures the safety of food on our kitchen tables and toys in our children's bedrooms.

Everyone agrees on one thing: We want more trade with countries around the world, but our first responsibility in the Senate is to protect the safety and the health of our families first.

I would love to.

Mr. President, Senator Dorgan is exactly right. The tragedy of the young boy who swallowed the little toy made of lead is that it is less expensive to use lead. It is easier to paint. The paint dries quicker. All of that when you use lead. So when we have this race to the bottom, when our companies go to China and are looking for the cheapest way to make products, and then to import those products, export them from China, import them back into the United States, you are going to see that race to the bottom.

We have seen it with contaminated toothpaste, we have seen it with vitamins, we have seen it with inulin in apple juice, and we see it in toy after toy after toy made by Fisher Price, made by Mattel, some of the most respected companies in our country.

Until we change the trade policy when we are dealing with a country that doesn't protect its own consumers, doesn't do much for its own clean water, its clean air and safe

drinking water, doesn't do much for its workers, we know this race to the bottom will continue. That is why the Senator's efforts on trade issues and our efforts jointly on trade issues are so important. We want more trade, and we want plenty of it, but we want it under different rules that protect American families.

Exactly. As we weaken those standards, as we have this wide-open trade arrangement with a country that doesn't respect those standards and has a history of undermining any standards like that, it is intensified by the fact that we have seen in our own country a weakening of consumer products, safety laws, and we have seen a scaling back of the number of food inspectors at the U.S.-Mexican border and in other places. So the first job--and I know the Senator thinks in North Dakota, and I think in Ohio that U.S. Senators protect our families. And the best way to do that is stronger consumer product laws, stronger health and safety laws, and not to allow them to be undercut and not to allow them to be unenforced.

So I thank my friend from North Dakota for his interest, and I also want to lend support for his amendment that he is about to introduce that deals with the same kinds of issues; in this case truck safety, and how important that is to all of us.

I yield the floor, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I thank Chairman Kennedy, the Presiding Officer now, and Ranking Member Enzi, William Jawando on my staff--the committee's Ohio staff and all of the HELP Committee for their excellent work on this legislation. This bill, of course, as we know, invests in higher education. The returns on that investment will not only accrue to students and to the education system that serves them but will accrue to the stability, prosperity, and security of our Nation as a whole.

We know the problem. We know what has happened in the last many years to higher education in this country. Particularly in the last 5 or 6 years in my home State of Ohio, the cost of attendance at 4-year public institutions has increased 53 percent. In 2001, if you graduated from college versus going 4 years in 2007, you are paying almost half again, this year, in this 4-year period, than the 4-year period half a decade earlier. It has gone up almost 30 percent in the last 5 or 6 years at 4-year private institutions. At the same time, the median household income in my State has increased only 3 percent. So as college costs have gone up 30 percent if you go to private schools, 50 percent if you go to a public 4-year university, the average income in Ohio has gone up only 3 percent. You can see the gap.

The Federal Government has not been able to fill that gap. Pell grants haven't been raised for years until this legislation. The interest rates have continued to go up. Federal loans have

not kept pace, neither FFELP nor the Direct Loan Program, so the chasm has grown in terms of the kind of money working-class kids and poor kids and middle-class kids need to go to college.

In the 2004-2005 school year, 66 percent of students graduating from 4-year institutions in my State of Ohio graduated with student loan debt, and that debt was an average of $20,000. So two-thirds of Ohio students graduating are burdened with an average of $20,000 in student loan debt. That makes a big difference in career choice. That means they sometimes cannot take the kind of job they trained for, that they most want, because it doesn't pay the bills as well as another job might.

A generation ago, it was very different. As Senator Kennedy and I have talked, I told him my wife a generation ago graduated from Kent State University, a working-class kid, the first one in her family to go to college. Her father carried a union card at Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company for 36 years as a utility worker, but she was able to graduate from Kent State, getting a bachelor's degree in journalism with grants, loans, and very little debt when she graduated so she could pursue the kind of opportunities she had chosen to.

Looking from 30 years ago to today and the difficulties that the middle-class and working-class and poor kids face going to college, that is why this bill matters, the dramatic increase in Pell grants, the lowering of interest rates, the loan forgiveness which Senator Kennedy has talked about at length--what that means is assistance for teachers and nurses and all kinds of public servants to serve the community.

This seems to be a generation of idealism, and we will see those students be able to pursue a career in public service and be able to take those jobs, sometimes--often--at lower pay, but be able to relieve themselves of the huge burden of debt they face. That is why this bill matters so much.

This bill is a major step. We know we have more work to do.

Senator Enzi has said several times that we have got to pass the other legislation with the reauthorization. He is right about that. We all agree with that. That will help on some issues such as simplifying the loan form for those prospective students filling out their applications for student loans and for grants.

We also know this growth in the cost of college, as I said earlier, the cost in State universities in Ohio has gone up 50 percent, wages have gone up for an average family only 3 percent in this decade. The Federal Government has not kept up. That means an awful lot more students have turned to the private loan system and have had to face interest rates of 10, 12, 15, sometimes as high as 18 percent. They graduate from college, private or public, with a huge, even larger burden because of those high interest rates. We need to address that in the future as the private loan system has grown more and more and more.

I close by thanking the entire committee, Senator Kennedy, Senator Enzi, for taking up this extremely important legislation. All students should be able to afford college in this country. This bill is a step, a major step in that direction. I thank all the fellow Senators who have been so involved in this issue.

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

Mr. President, every day an estimated 4,400 lives are lost around the world to tuberculosis--day in, day out, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Fifteen lives will be lost, roughly, in the few minutes of my remarks.

Tuberculosis is an urgent global crisis that demands our attention and our response. Two billion people--two billion people--one-third of the world's population, carry around with them the tuberculosis bacterium. As many as 10 million to 15 million in the United States alone are infected with the TB bacterium. Most will not get sick, but many of them are in some jeopardy.

Nine million people, practically the population of my State of Ohio, become sick with active tuberculosis every year, and 1.6 million people will die.

We struggle with many diseases that are beyond our scientific understanding, but tuberculosis is not one of them. These deaths are preventable. TB is the greatest curable infectious killer worldwide.

Much of the good work of the legislation this Senate passed last night will be undermined if we do not do a better job of controlling tuberculosis. Our investments in development will do little to improve economic conditions if entire populations--as are so many in Africa, especially, and India, especially--are reeling from this disease.

Combating TB is fundamental to sustaining economic development in poor countries. My colleagues know this.

Congress--following the leadership of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee Chairman, Pat Leahy, and ranking member, Judd Gregg--has made great strides in investing greater resources in global health. Diseases such as HIV and malaria have received tremendous increases over the past several years, and I hope this trend will continue.

Last night, the Senate did something about this. The amendment I offered last night, with Senators Brownback, Durbin, Boxer, and Smith, added $90 million in funding for our international efforts against tuberculosis, bringing total spending to $200 million. Undoubtedly, that will save lives.

Combating TB must go hand in hand with the fight against HIV. Up to 50 percent of people who are HIV positive develop tuberculosis. As many as half the deaths from HIV in Africa actually are deaths from tuberculosis. It is the leading cause of death among people who are HIV positive all over the world.

HIV infection weakens a person's immune system, making it 50 times more likely that person will develop active tuberculosis. So if someone is carrying the TB bacterium in their body--as is a third of the world's people--if they get infected with HIV or have some other disease or weakness--from malnutrition or something else--they are much more likely to develop active tuberculosis.

To compound that, unchecked, drug-resistant tuberculosis, including deadly XDR-TB, threatens to reverse progress made against AIDS and TB worldwide. In today's world, extensively drug-resistant TB--so-called XDR-TB--poses a grave public health threat never more than a plane ride away.

This past June, we got a wakeup call when an American boarded a plane to Europe while infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis. Luckily, his was not the most virulent strain. But his example shows us clearly that this disease does affect America and that more resources for TB are needed to prevent, identify, treat, and control extensively drug- resistant tuberculosis.

We need to heed that wakeup call and act before it is too late. It is within our power. There is no mystery here. We know what to do. We know how to treat and cure regular so-called garden-variety tuberculosis. We know how to treat and cure multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in an overwhelming majority of cases. And we know how to treat, generally, extensively drug-resistant--XDR-TB--tuberculosis and cure people of that. It is within our means. Treating regular, garden-variety TB costs only $20 per person. It is a small price to pay to save our lives.

I thank my colleagues, including the junior Senator from Pennsylvania for his support of this issue. Last night was a victory for people in the developing world who are so often victims of tuberculosis, who so often suffer from that. It is also a victory for people in our country, a few of whom have TB, but most--but the many more people who are a plane ride away or are potentially exposed to this tuberculosis bacteria.

I thank my colleagues.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed en bloc to the consideration of the following calendar items: Calendar No. 342, S. Res. 134; Calendar No. 343, S. Res. 282; Calendar No. 344, S. Res. 288; Calendar No. 345, S. Res. 292; and Calendar No. 346, S. Res. 301.

I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to en bloc, the preambles be agreed to en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, the consideration of these items appear separately in the Record, and that any statements relating thereto be printed at the appropriate place in the Record as if read.