Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ben Taylor of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. President, the position of Secretary of Agriculture, in my estimation, is one of the most important, yet too often unheralded, positions in the Federal Government. Good leadership by the Secretary is vitally important in my State of Iowa, where agriculture is critical to our economy and we treasure our way of life in small towns and rural communities. Yet no matter where one lives, we all depend on agriculture for food, fiber and, increasingly, for energy and other farm-based products. The day-to-day responsibilities of the Secretary of Agriculture truly touch the lives of every American as well as millions of others around the world.

It is my pleasure to congratulate Governor Michael Johanns of Nebraska on his confirmation to be the next Secretary of Agriculture. I have spoken with Governor Johanns in some depth on several occasions and believe he has the qualities and potential to be a very good Secretary. I might add, his Iowa pedigree is certainly a plus. I also thank and commend Secretary Ann Veneman, as she departs, for her good work and her cooperation and communication with me, as well as the same between our staffs, over the years.

As we look ahead to the next 4 years, there are many challenges and many opportunities ahead. We passed a good farm bill in 2002, President Bush praised it and signed it. For the most part it has been working, but too many of the key initiatives in that bill have suffered from misguided or delayed implementation. Yet even though we stayed within our budget in writing the farm bill, since then agriculture and farm bill funding has been very damagingly siphoned off. Those budget threats seem certain to intensify. The risks to food safety and security from bovine spongiform encephalopathy or other animal and plant diseases continue to make headlines. The new Secretary will have to deal with some very serious issues many of them very soon.

At the same time, we have some great opportunities in agriculture and the rural economy; that is, if only we will seize them. I am encouraged that Governor Johanns understands the importance of capitalizing on these opportunities, specifically value-added agriculture spanning the range from pork and beef to the great potential to produce energy and biobased products from farm fields across the country.

For instance, we adopted a provision in the farm bill to require all Federal departments and agencies to give a preference to procuring biobased products whenever feasible thus creating a huge potential market. While USDA has issued final rules to carry out this program, nothing will actually be purchased until a list of eligible products is published. I have urged Governor Johanns to move to implement this program fully and without further delay in order to begin realizing the economic and environmental benefits of this biobased initiative.

We also included a very robust conservation title in the 2002 farm bill, one that was touted by the president when he signed the bill into law. Unfortunately, many of those initiatives, including the Conservation Security Program, have been undermined by funding cuts and too-often poor execution. I have talked with Governor Johanns about these problems, and I am hopeful that we will work together to fulfill the promise of the farm bill and move forward on these important conservation initiatives so that farmers and ranchers have the tools they need to be the best stewards of the land they can be.

We also have a history of bipartisan cooperation to meet our responsibilities to alleviate hunger and malnutrition through Federal and international food and nutrition assistance. And increasingly, we face compelling challenges in improving diets and nutrition in order to promote healthier and longer lives.

Many other issues important to prosperity and quality of life in rural America must be addressed ranging from providing broadband access to boosting locally owned businesses and jobs to ensuring opportunities for family-size farms and independent producers.

I am optimistic that we can make real progress in addressing these and other challenges in food, agriculture and rural issues. I welcome Governor Johanns to Washington, congratulate him on his confirmation as the next Secretary of Agriculture and remind him that my door is always open.

The Senator from California is performing an important service for American democracy today, along with her partner in this effort on the House of Representatives side, the Congresswoman from Ohio. Their challenge allows a needed debate in the Senate, as well as in the House of Representatives. This debate is short today. We are limited to 5 minutes. I hope this debate will continue in the future, at least this year, to try to reach some better conclusions as to how we operate voting in America.

I want to be clear that I do not question the legitimacy or outcome of our 2004 Presidential election. Nor will I vote to overturn the result of the vote in Ohio. The irregularities and the disenfranchisement that took place in that State and elsewhere, which are real and deeply worrisome, do not appear to me to have determined the outcome, either nationally or in Ohio.

But the right to vote and the need for citizens to have confidence that their votes will be counted correctly are basic to our democracy. That is why I believe there can be no more appropriate time to talk about problems in our electoral system than today, the day on which we officially confirm and proclaim the results of our recent election. So I thank Senator Boxer, as well as Representative Tubbs Jones, who is a former judge in the State of Ohio, for this responsible action.

I say to my friend Mr. DeWine from Ohio, whom I listened to briefly a little bit ago, this is not about whether George Bush won the election. It is about taking a hard look at the voting structure in America, asking how we can make it better. How can we make it better and more equitable for people?

Now we tried, through the Help America Vote, to fix some of the problems, but there is evidence we did not do enough. We know that massive lines at the polls in Ohio likely led to thousands of voters giving up on voting. People had to wait 4, 5, 10 hours in line. Standing in line for 10 hours in America is like throwing acid in the face of democracy. It mars it. It scars it permanently.

Now, why the long lines? They did not have an adequate number of voting

machines. Where were the lines? Many of them were in urban areas and minority communities because there was an inequitable distribution of machines between urban and suburban areas.

According to the New York Times, in Columbus, OH, there was an average of 4.6 machines per voter in Bush's strongest precincts while there were only 3.9 machines in the so-called Kerry precincts.

What we saw in Ohio was a concerted effort by an official, the Secretary of State, to try to minimize the ability of Ohioans to cast their vote. The Secretary of State was also the Chairman of the Ohio Bush re-election campaign. For example, in the weeks leading up to the election, the Secretary of State of Ohio tried to argue that thousands should be denied the right to vote because the forms they used to register were printed on the wrong weight of paper.

The Secretary of State also argued that absentee voters who had not received their ballots should not be allowed to vote, another concerted effort to suppress votes.

We also have reports of electronic voting machines not voting properly. A system where software is kept secret has been allowed to be the norm. This is an inappropriate practice that could result in serious fraud. Clearly, we need a Federal statute requiring independent review of the software used in electronic voting machines, as well as providing both sides access to the software in these machines.

What we saw in Ohio, what we likely would see in many States if they came under this type of scrutiny, is continuing problems with the whole election process that need to be fixed. We need to make changes in Federal law to make it clear that election officials are to work to maximize the right of people to vote rather than finding technicalities to disenfranchise them.

It is curious to note that in the Constitution of the United States, there is not a provision guaranteeing the right to vote. There are a number of amendments, the 14th, the 15th, 19th, 24th, 26th, that expand the concept, say people cannot be denied the right to vote on the basis of poll taxes, race, color, gender, and age.

Perhaps what we need is a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of every citizen of the United States a secret ballot and to have that ballot counted. I think it would come as a shock to most Americans to know that it is not in the Constitution of the United States that we have that right to vote.

This debate is needed to fix a system that is broken.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleagues, Chairman Gregg and Senator Kennedy, as well as Chairman Boehner and Representative Miller, for conducting a truly bipartisan conference. When the legislative process is working properly, we have a fair negotiation, and more often than not, that produces a better bill. Not a bill that gives each of us everything we wanted, but a fair result given the two bills that we are charged with reconciling. And that is what we have here.

Last week, Washington Post's internet site ran a cartoon by Ted Rall that was one of the most egregious things I have ever seen. I don't know if many of you saw it, but it showed a student in a wheelchair with crossed eyes and drool coming from his mouth. He had joined a class of students without disabilities and here is what one of the panels of the cartoon read: ``The special needs kids make people uncomfortable and slow the pace of learning.'' The cartoon showed the class changing from higher level math to simple addition because of the special education student.

The cartoon was supposed to be some kind of analogy to the United States, but it was very hard to understand the point. What was crystal clear, however, was the author's bigotry and stereotyping of children with disabilities. I understand that the Post will no longer run cartoons by Mr. Rall because cartoons like this are not funny. They are hurtful and serve as a stark reminder of why we are here and why IDEA is such important civil rights legislation.

I was here in Congress in 1975, as were some of my Senate colleagues, when IDEA was enacted. It is important to remember why we passed this legislation in the first place. We passed it because bigotry and discrimination were keeping a million children with disabilities completely out of school. Those children were locked out of an education and denied the bright future that comes with an education. IDEA opened the doors of opportunity for those children.

I have participated in many subsequent revisions to the law over the past 29 years, and I am supporting this reauthorization because we continue our proud tradition of ensuring that children with disabilities have the right to a free, appropriate public education (FAPE). In addition, we improve the enforcement of that right.

Over the years, I have been involved in the debate about disciplining students with disabilities--and this was a major issue for the conferees. I know parents were very concerned about changes to this section of the law. I appreciate and understand those concerns because I have shared them.

While this reauthorization streamlines the discipline provisions, it continues several key principles. We will continue to consider the impact of the disability on what the child is doing, and we will not punish children for behavior that is related to their disability. It is also important that we continue to require that children receive educational services when they are being disciplined so they do not fall further behind. We also continue to emphasize that an assessment and services must be provided to children who have more serious behaviors so we can prevent future discipline problems.

I believe that discipline will become less and less of an issue over time as schools implement positive behavior supports more widely. Section 614(d)(3)(B), entitled Consideration of Special Factors, was added in 1997 to provide special emphasis on certain related services, modifications, and auxiliary aides which were not being considered by IEP teams and therefore not provided. The Senate bill modified subsection 614(d)(3)(B)(i) to state that behavioral supports must be provided when the child's behavior impeded his/her education or that of others. In conference, current law was reinstated in order to make the subsection consistent with the other special consideration subsections.

By instructing the IEP team to consider the specified services, it goes without saying that the services must be provided if the IEP team finds that the services will assist the child in benefiting from his/ her educational program. In the case of behavioral interventions, the section sets forth the circumstances when the services would be required.

The regulations to IDEA specify that ``if, in considering the special factors . . . the IEP team determines that a child needs a particular device or service (including an intervention, accommodation, or other program modification) in order for the child to receive FAPE, the IEP team must include a statement to that effect in the child's IEP.'' 34 C.F.R. Sec. 346(c). And IEP services must be provided to the student. See Office of Special Education Programs Letter to Osterhout, 35 IDELR 9 (2000).

There has been widespread noncompliance with this requirement. However with reauthorization's increased emphasis on monitoring and enforcement, we expect this implementation will improve. Children whose behavior is impeding them or others from learning should get the positive behavioral supports they need when the IEP team considers this issue and finds that the services are part of FAPE for that child.

In addition, we allow schools to use up to 15 percent of their funds to address behavior issues for children who have not been identified as special education students. Also, Senator Clinton has worked to include authorization for a program that would provide funding for systemic positive behavioral supports in schools.

Research by Dr. George Sugai and others indicates that the implementation of positive behavioral supports can have a dramatic impact on disciplinary problems. Dr. Sugai testified in 2002 before the Health, Education, and Labor Committee that by shifting to schoolwide positive behavioral supports, an urban elementary school decreased its office referrals from 600 to 100. It also decreased in 1 year its days of suspension from 80 to 35. Schools can save administrators' time and resources and cut down on discipline problems by implementing these programs.

Another area that generated discussion in this reauthorization is litigation and attorneys fees. However, the facts show that there is very little litigation under IDEA. GAO examined the data and concluded that the use of ``formal dispute resolution mechanisms has been generally low relative to the number of children with disabilities,'' according to a 2003 report titled, ``Special Education: Numbers of Formal Disputes are Low and States are Using Mediation and Other Strategies to Resolve Conflicts.''

My own State of Iowa follows the general trend of very low hearings and court cases. A graduate student in Iowa did a thorough analysis of due process hearings in Iowa from 1989-2001. Since the amendments in 1997, there were three hearings in 1998; three also in 1999 and four hearings in 2000. The Department of Education informs me that this trend continues, with only three hearings in each of the past 2 years. And there are thousands of children in special education in the State of Iowa.

Given the fact that litigation is generally not a problem in IDEA, in this reauthorization we merely include a standard that is used in other civil rights contexts--it is generally referred to by the case, Christiansburg Garment Company vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 98 S.Ct. 694 (1978). Both prongs of the Christiansburg

standard (filing or pursuing litigation that is groundless or for bad faith/improper purpose) adopted today are very high standards, and prevailing defendants are rarely able to meet them. They are designed for only the most egregious cases.

Also, in deciding cases under this standard, courts have considered the party's ability to pay. This is important because Congress does not intend to impose a harsh financial penalty on parents who are merely trying to help their child get needed services and supports. So in applying this standard and deciding whether to grant defendants fees, the court must also consider the ability of the parents to pay.

A school district would be foolhardy to try to use these provisions in any but the most egregious cases. Not only would the school be wasting its own resources if it did not prevail, but it would be liable for the parents' fees defending the action.

Unlike parents who are entitled to attorney fees if they win the case, the fact that a LEA ultimately prevailed is not grounds for assessing fees against a parent or parent's attorney. As the Supreme Court concluded in Christiansburg, courts should not engage in ``post hoc reasoning by concluding that, because a plaintiff did not ultimately prevail, his action must have been unreasonable or without foundation. This kind of hindsight logic could discourage all but the most airtight claims, for seldom can a prospective plaintiff be sure of ultimate success.''

As GAO found, there has been a low incidence of litigation under IDEA. The cases that are filed are generally pursued because parents have no other choice. Congress does not intend to discourage these parents from enforcing their child's right to a free, appropriate, public education. This is merely to address the most egregious type of behavior in very rare circumstances where it might arise.

In this reauthorization, we also include a 2-year statute of limitations on claims. However, it should be noted that this limitation is not designed to have any impact on the ability of a child to receive compensatory damages for the entire period in which he or she has been deprived of services. The statute of limitations goes only to the filing of the complaint, not the crafting of remedy. This is important because it is only fair that if a school district repeatedly failed to provide services to a child, they should be required to provide compensatory services to rectify this problem and help the child achieve despite the school's failings.

Therefore, compensatory education must cover the entire period and must belatedly provide all education and related services previously denied and needed to make the child whole. Children whose parents can't afford to pay for special education and related services when school districts fail to provide FAPE should be treated the same as children whose parents can. Children whose parents have the funds can be fully reimbursed under the Supreme Courts decisions in Burlington and Florence County, subject to certain equitable considerations, and children whose parents lack the funds should not be treated differently.

I also want to discuss the monitoring and enforcement sections of this bill. I want to thank Senator Kennedy for his leadership on this issue. Again, GAO has issued a report that has informed our deliberations around this issue. They noted that the Department of Education found violations of IDEA in 30 of the 31 States monitored. In addition, GAO found that the majority of these violations were for failure to provide actual services to children. That report, issued this year, is titled, ``Special Education: Improved Timeliness and Better Use of Enforcement Actions Could Strengthen Education's Monitoring System.''

When we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, we said that our four national goals for people with disabilities were equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self- sufficiency. But children with disabilities are never going to meet any of those goals if they don't get the tools they need when they are young. So if we truly want equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities, it has to start with IDEA, and with our youth, who are our future. The law must be enforced so they receive the services and supports they need to get a quality education and a brighter future.

As part of the enforcement of this law, States must ensure that local education agencies are meeting their targets to provide a free, appropriate public education. If they fail to do so, the State must take action, including prohibiting the flexible use of any of the local education agency's resources.

In addition to monitoring and enforcement, there are other improvements in this bill. I will mention one area that is near and dear to my heart because of my brother Frank, who, as many of you know, was deaf. In this bill, we add interpreter services to the list of related services, a change that is long overdue and we continue to require the Department of Education to fund captioning so deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals will have equal access to the media.

While I support the bill, I must point out, however, that I am deeply disappointed that this bill does not include mandatory full funding of IDEA. We fought for this on the floor of the Senate. Even though a majority of the Senate agreed, we did not have the needed 60 votes, and it did not become part of the Senate bill. I continue to believe that mandatory funding is required to give schools the resources they need to ensure that all children get a quality education.

This bill does, however, have specific authorized levels that will get us to full funding in 7 years. If we fail to meet these levels, I will continue to argue that Congress should provide mandatory funding to ensure we meet the commitment we made almost 30 years ago.

This is a bill about children. We all tell our children to keep their promises, to fulfill any commitments they make. Yet Congress has not kept its word to these children and their families. We have not provided the resources we said we would. We must fully fund IDEA. This is important to children, to schools, and to our communities. And it is the right thing to do.

I want to thank the staff who worked so hard on this bill. On my staff, I would like to thank Mary Giliberti, Julie Carter, Erik Fatemi, and Justin Chappell. I especially thank Senator Kennedy's staff for their dedication to children with disabilities, including Connie Garner, Kent Mitchell, Michael Dannenberg, Roberto Rodriguez, and Jeremy Buzzell.

I would also like to thank Denzel McGuire, Annie White, Bill Lucia, and Courtney Brown on Senator Gregg's staff for their efforts to ensure a bipartisan process.

Also, thanks go to Sally Lovejoy and David Cleary with Congressman Boehner; Alex Nock with Congressman Miller; Michael Yudin with Senator Bingaman; Carmel Martin, formerly with Senator Bingaman's staff; Jamie Fasteau, with Senator Murray's; Bethany Little, formerly with Senator Murray's staff; Catherine Brown, with Senator Clinton; Justin King with Senator Jeffords; Rebecca Litt, with Senator Mikulski; Elyse Wasch, with Senator Reed; Maryellen McGuire and Jim Fenton with Senator Dodd; Joan Huffer, with Senator Daschle; Bethany Dickerson with the Democratic Policy Committee; and Erica Buehrens, with Senator Edwards.

Mr. President, IDEA is fundamentally a civil rights statute for children with disabilities. I have worked with my colleagues on this conference to ensure that core rights are protected and enforced.

Mr. President, with the close of the 108th Congress, the Senate will lose to retirement one of our most respected and admired Members, Senator Bob Graham of Florida.

I remember how impressed we were in 1987 when Bob came to the Senate after two terms as an enormously popular Governor of Florida. From the start, he made his mark in this body as a serious and diligent legislator--a classic workhorse Senator rather than show-horse Senator.

One of his greatest accomplishments was the passage, 4 years ago, of comprehensive legislation to restore and protect the Florida Everglades. This was Bob Graham at his very best: forging a bipartisan consensus, and crafting a unique partnership among

Federal, State and local governments as well as private industries and landowners. This will be a living monument to Senator Bob Graham: a restored and revitalized Everglades.

I first got to know Bob Graham back in 1977, a decade before he came to this body. At the time, he was a state senator down in Florida, planning to run for Governor the following year. He had heard about my work days, an idea that I originated when I was running for Congress in 1974. I had spent dozens of work days--as a cop on the beat, construction worker, farmer, nurse's aide, and many other professions. It was a great way to get in touch with ordinary working Iowans and their concerns.

I remember Bob coming by my office over in the Cannon House Office Building. He was a very serious man, very analytical and thorough. He asked all the right questions. And a couple weeks later, he sent me his plan to conduct 100 work days during his campaign for Governor. I told him, as tactfully as I could, that was way too many, that he would never be able to do it. But Bob went ahead with his plan. He did, indeed, conduct 100 work days. He did, indeed, get elected Governor of Florida. And I learned never to underestimate Bob Graham.

By the way, Bob's work days didn't stop there. As Governor and United States Senator, he went on to complete nearly 400 work days, serving as police officer, teacher, garbage man, busboy, hurricane relief worker, you name it. Bob swears by the value of these days--as I do. In fact, in 1997, he spent one work day as a U.S. Customs inspector at the port in Tampa. This opened his eyes to the extreme vulnerability of our ports to crime, drug trafficking, and terrorist strikes.

And the work days continue. Last month, Senator Graham spent a day as a high school civics teacher in Miami. And just this past weekend, he spent a day as a bookseller in Coral Gables.

All of which is typical of Bob Graham. He may be retiring from the Senate, but he is not a retiring man. He continues to be a workhorse and a whirlwind of activity. His new book, Intelligence Matters, has stirred up controversy by shining a spotlight on the Saudi royal family's connections to terrorism.

The fact is Bob is leaving the Senate at the very top of his game, especially in the field of intelligence and homeland security. After the September 11 attacks, it was Senator Graham who proposed the creation of a joint House-Senate inquiry into the intelligence failures leading up to the attacks. Senator Graham ended up serving as cochair of that historic effort, and he did just a brilliant job of keeping the inquiry bipartisan, focused on the facts, focused on solutions.

Meanwhile, events have vindicated Senator Graham's principled stand as one of only 23 Senators to vote in October 2002 against the resolution to authorize the use of force against Saddam. At the time, he argued passionately that the war on terrorism should be our highest priority. He insisted that al Qaeda was the real threat to America, and that an attack on Iraq would be a detour and distraction from the war on terrorism. And, as usual, Bob Graham was exactly right. The Senate failed to heed his warnings. I failed to heed his warnings. And, as a result, Osama bin Laden remains at large, al-Qaida and the Taliban are reconstituting themselves, and our Armed Forces are bogged down in a quagmire in Iraq.

So, no question, with Bob Graham's retirement, the Senate is losing one of its most talented and respected members. Over the years, Bob and Adele have become wonderful friends, and those friendships will continue. But I will miss the day-to-day association on the floor with Bob.

As I said, you have to respect the fact that Bob Graham is leaving the Senate at the very top of his game. I wish Bob and Adele all the best.

John Breaux

Mr. President, there are not many things on which all Senators agree. But on one thing, there is universal, bipartisan agreement in this body: We are going to miss Senator John Breaux when he retires at the end of the 108th Congress.

Make no mistake, John Breaux is a tremendously accomplished Senator, with scores of legislative achievements and accomplishments. He is a Senator's Senator. But when I think of John Breaux, I think first and foremost of his character, his unique way with people, and his wonderful good nature.

You can disagree with John, but you can never dislike him. He has a knack for taking disagreements and disputes, and turning them into deals to move people forward. This is a priceless talent--a special skill--and I have never met another politician who could match John Breaux's gifts in this regard.

For John, politics is not something you do with clinched teeth. Politics is a joy. Politics is fun. They used to call Hubert Humphrey the ``happy warrior.'' And that is very much the spirit that John Breaux has always brought to his work in the Senate. However, John would rather not make war on other Senators; he would rather cut a constructive deal that gets things done for ordinary people.

Of course, these personal qualities have allowed John Breaux to be an amazingly effective Senator for his State of Louisiana. When John comes to you, when he tells you he needs help on a measure critical to his State, it is mighty hard to say no. Frankly, many times I have had a preconceived notion against the oil and gas industries, and I have opposed what they are trying to do on this or that bill. But John Breaux would come to see you, he talks it through, and next thing you know, you find yourself supporting him. He is just so effective in that kind of one-on-one persuasion. And, time and again, Louisiana has been the big winner.

Another hallmark of John Breaux in the Senate has been his commonsense centrism. John is a man of strong principles, but he is not rigid and he certainly is not an ideologue. The questions John asks are, ``What is practical?'' ``What is going to work in the real world?'' ``What can we bring people together on, in order to make a positive difference?''

Typical of Senator Breaux was his proposal a couple years ago to address the problem of 54 million Americans without health insurance. He called for universal health care. But he kept it practical. He proposed that all Americans have access to a basic, government-defined insurance package similar to what members of Congress and our staffs get from the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan. And he proposed tax credits to make premiums more affordable for middle- and lower-income citizens.

Perhaps it is symbolic that John Breaux is leaving the Senate at this time. As we saw this week in the conference on the FSC bill, the spirit of compromise and the art of constructive accommodation seem to be dying in the Senate--and even more so in the House. Increasingly, the attitude around here is ``my way or the highway.'' And that is not the Senate that I have loved over the years. That is not healthy for our democracy.

The shame is that John Breaux is leaving at exactly the time when we need his talents more than ever. In fact, we need a dozen John Breauxs around here to heal this body, to show people how to rise above partisanship in the best interests of the country.

So I will miss John's presence in the Senate. We will all miss him. But John Breaux is the youngest 60-year-old person I have ever met. And you can bet that he has many challenges and opportunities still ahead of him. John and Lois have been, and will continue to be, wonderful friends. And I wish them all the best.

Ernest F. Hollings

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

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. I am going to give a speech on the floor regarding wellness and obesity. Is there a time constraint we are operating under now?

Mr. President, as the 108th Congress comes to a close, many of us are looking back and asking whether we accomplished all that we might have. Now, of course, we are looking ahead to the next Congress for opportunities to move forward with some bipartisan agendas. What can we work on together to really do something good for our country?

The last year has been a challenging one. The campaign season always makes it a little more difficult to accomplish tasks that are already a challenge. It is not surprising, then, that many Members of this body look back on the 108th Congress with mixed feelings. I personally view it in which some important opportunities have been missed. But I also think some have been offset by what I detect as an emerging bipartisan concern and interest in some issues that have previously not received much attention.

In particular, I have been heartened by the degree of interest shown by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on the issue related to obesity, health promotion and prevention of premature death and chronic disease.

This is very heartening that we see on both sides of the aisle strong interest in promoting wellness, in promoting disease prevention. As I have often said, we in America do not have a health care system; we have a sick care system. If you get sick, you get care, but there is precious little out there to keep you healthy in the first place. All the incentives are to patch you up, fix you, and mend you once you are ill. There are very few incentives to keep you healthy in the first place.

Now with all of the recent revelations on obesity and what that is doing to our society, more and more interest is being shown in what we can do as a Congress to change this paradigm, to change us from a sick care system to a truly health care wellness system in our country.

I am confident that in this area, we can make some historic progress, again, on a bipartisan basis in the new Congress that will convene in January.

I have been working for a long time in this area, but I am not the only one who appreciates the urgency of these issues. For example, the distinguished majority leader, Senator Frist, has shown a keen interest in finding ways

to fight obesity, and he has taken some leadership positions on this, as has the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman, who is my colleague on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. In fact, Senators Frist and Bingaman teamed up to pass the Impact bill in the Senate and, if enacted, that bill will be a very positive step forward in the fight against obesity.

Our colleague from Indiana, Senator Lugar, who has always been a well and very active and fit person himself as a devoted jogger, has also introduced a health promotion bill. It would establish the prevention of chronic disease as a major priority for the Federal Government. Our colleagues Senator Wyden, Senator Dodd, Senator Cornyn, and Senator Kennedy have all been very active on the issues of wellness and obesity prevention.

My aim right now is not to provide an exhaustive list of Senators who are active in this area but to show there is a broad bipartisan interest in the Senate on wellness, health promotion, disease prevention, a health care paradigm.

We have made some progress this year, but given the scope of the obesity epidemic, given the spiraling cost of chronic disease, we need to act more robustly, more aggressively in the coming Congress. We currently spend in excess of $1.8 trillion a year on health care in the United States. Fully 75 percent of that total is accounted for by chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and depression.

What these diseases all have in common is that in so many cases, they are preventable. In the United States, we fail to make an upfront investment in prevention. So what do we do? We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on treatment and disability, hospitalization that, in many cases, could have been avoided.

Again, as we look globally, we Americans take a great deal of pride in our system. We have the best hospitals. I also tend to think we have the best doctors. We certainly excel the rest of the world in biomedical research through the National Institutes of Health and disease prevention through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is the premier body in the world in terms of disease control. In fact, other countries look to our own CDC for guidance and direction in that area. If you want to get a heart transplant, a hip transplant, or a lung transplant, you come to America. Or if you want to get cancer treatment, you come to America. People come from all over. Kings, princes, heads of state, the wealthy, and the well-to-do all around the world come here to get treatment.

I would say if we are keeping a scorecard or report card in terms of treatment, we get an A. In terms of prevention and health care and keeping people healthy, I would say we are down around a D minus, close to an F. This is what has to be changed.

We can take great pride in how we treat, cure, fix, mend, and replace parts. Those are great technological advancements. As I said, in so many of those cases, they are preventable, if only we will invest a little bit upfront.

The way we do things in this country is not only foolish, it is financially unsustainable. We cannot continue down the path on which we have been going for the last 30 to 50 years. We need this new paradigm in American health care, a prevention paradigm, a genuine health care system that concentrates, focuses resources on wellness and prevention.

Health care costs are out of control. Health insurance premiums are skyrocketing. More and more people in America are not covered with health insurance, and we have a raft of new studies documenting the obesity epidemic and consequences of our failure to emphasize wellness and prevention.

I have some charts. Caution: Public health crisis ahead. People a lot of times say, what business is it of the Government? Do we want a nanny Government to take care of everybody? No. Shouldn't people be in charge of their own wellness? Yes. But when it becomes a public health crisis, when it is not just me or you, but it is all of us, and when it means our tax dollars are going to take care of people with chronic diseases--75 percent of the costs of illnesses in America are due to chronic illnesses, most of which are preventable. So it is not just you smoking and not exercising and having a bad diet, it is the fact that you are going to consume health care dollars, and we are going to have to pay for it--all of us.

It is a public health care crisis. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight. Thirty percent of our kids are overweight. That is a public health care crisis.

I would like to cite several of the major caution signs that have flashed this year to remind us of the sense of urgency, and the reason I am taking the time on the Senate floor today, perhaps our last day of the year, is because it is urgent. As I said, I sense a willingness to work across the aisle, a bipartisan effort to do something about this. I remind people of the sense of urgency we have.

In March, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study determined that poor diet and lack of physical activity are now the second leading cause of death in the United States, leading to over 400,000 deaths annually. This study warned that poor nutrition and physical inactivity would soon overtake smoking as the leading preventable cause of death in America.

And by the way, if anyone had any lingering doubts about the dangers and destructive forces we are up against, yesterday, Hardee's, the fast food restaurant chain, unveiled its newest offering. And do you know what it is called? The Monster Thickburger; just what we need--the Monster Thickburger.

This new product apparently is designed to make a Big Mac look like an hors d'oeuvre, a snack. The Monster Thickburger consists--are you ready for this?--of two one-third pound slabs of hamburger, four strips of bacon, three slices of American cheese, and mayonnaise, all served on a buttered sesame seed bun. Wow, can't wait to sink my teeth into that one. Well, this death-defying sandwich clocks in at 1,420 calories and contains a whopping 107 grams of fat.

Again, does anybody have any doubt on where we are headed? A couple of those every week, and one will be in our sick care system pretty soon, too.

Also in March, the Food and Drug Administration released its report called ``Counting Calories,'' which offered a blueprint for confronting the obesity epidemic. Among other things, the FDA recommended increasing the amount of information available to consumers through food labeling. It called for enhanced Federal Trade Commission authority to police false or misleading product claims. It recommended that the Federal Trade Commission take steps to improve nutritional information available to consumers at restaurants, increase the information available to consumers through food labeling and nutritional information at restaurants.

Now, some restaurants do that, I have to admit. If one looks at the menu, it tells them how many grams of fat, how many grams of transfat, how many calories, carbohydrates, perhaps, salt, sodium. So one can be a little bit more informed about what they eat. We do that in the Senate servery. We can go through and see how many grams of fat is in everything.

I have been told by those who run our servery that since we started that about 3 months ago, one would be amazed at how many more people are picking up salads, how many more people are picking up the skinless chicken or turkey and things like that, taking skim milk instead of whole milk. It is information. But if one does not have the information, how do they know? So I am just saying that the Food and Drug Administration recommended increasing this information available to consumers.

In April, after years of careful analysis, the World Health Organization recognized the growing problem of obesity. They issued their global strategy on diet, physical activity, and health. It urged governments to review the role of food advertising and marketing, particularly with regard to children. It encouraged schools to implement policies that support children in adopting healthful diets and engaging in physical activity. The WHO report expressly stated that the role of government is crucial in achieving lasting change in public health.

Now, I will address this a little bit further. It urged governments to review the role of food advertising and marketing, particularly with regard to children. It encouraged schools to implement policies that support kids in healthful diets and physical activity. Eighty percent of elementary school kids in America today get less than 1 hour of physical activity a week.

Now I will bet that the occupant of the chair, the Senator from Missouri, and I, the Senator from Iowa, when we grew up, we had PE in small schools. I went to a two-room schoolhouse. We had 15 minutes of recess in the morning, we had 45 minutes at lunch, and we had 15 minutes in the afternoon. We had to go outside. The only time we did not have to go outside is when it was like 20 below. It had to be 20 below in the wintertime and then we could stay in, but other than that we had to get out and run around. And it was not competitive sports.

We have gotten off the track. If one is not involved in the high school football team, the basketball team, the soccer team, wrestling, whatever, swimming, they do not get anything. Every kid needs physical exercise and physical activity. We have seen some schools--there are some great schools out there--that ensure that every child, kids with disabilities, get physical exercise and physical activity, if not on a daily basis, two or three times a week. But we have now found elementary schools being built in America without even a playground, no indoor gym, no playground. So there is a role for government in ensuring that schools teach and have access to physical activity for kids.

So, again, the role of government in many ways is to support, not as a nanny but basically to set up systems so that people will be healthy starting early in life. We know what kids learn early is what they carry through, and with the obesity epidemic now among kids in America, with their lack of physical activity, it bodes ill for the future of our country.

We have also seen a number of new reports on the costs of obesity and chronic disease. One study by health economist Ken Thorpe in the Journal of Health Affairs determined that in the year 2000 we spent $200 billion more on the treatment of disease and chronic conditions than we did just 13 years ago.

Five conditions accounted for one-third of the $200 billion increase: heart disease, pulmonary conditions, mental disorders, cancer, and hypertension. All of them are preventable. Even more startling, some 27 percent of the rise in health care spending between 1987 and 2001 is attributed to the costs of treating obese patients. Twenty-seven percent of the rise is attributed just to treating obese patients. Five conditions, one-third of the $200 billion increase, all of that preventable. Want to save money? Want to save the impact on our budgets? Want to help families in terms of keeping their taxes down? This is the way to do it. We have to have better prevention.

Perhaps most compelling, we have also seen fresh evidence again that we are failing to teach our children about the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps most compelling of all is that the National Institute for Health Care Management Research and Educational Foundation found that only 16 percent of kindergarten programs meet the daily recommendations for physical activity by the Centers for Disease Control.

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences issued a major report just last month, October. The report was on preventing childhood obesity, a clarion call to action, urging a comprehensive national response to the childhood obesity epidemic where they focus on wellness and prevention. It sets forth the blueprint for a multifaceted national campaign against childhood obesity. This was just last month.

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the preeminent scientific medical body in this country, just last month, issued this warning.

So we need to act. We cannot twiddle our thumbs any longer. We cannot say, well, that is just the way things are. We cannot just say, well, it is free enterprise, and if someone wants to sell a monster thick burger and people want to eat it, let them. I am not saying Hardee's cannot put out a monster thick burger. They can do it. But I want to make sure that everyone who goes there and eats one of those has information to tell him or her how many calories, how many grams of fat, and what it means to them if they eat that. We need to start teaching our kids how to eat right. Experts are saying that this generation of kids growing up today, if we do not change rapidly, may be the first generation to live a shorter lifespan than their parents. Think about that. Our kids will have a shorter lifespan than what we have, the first time ever in history.

So we have had warnings from everywhere. The Centers for Disease Control, Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Federal Trade Commission, National Institutes of Health, National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine, World Health Organization-- on and on and on. Every single one of them urges that we use the power of the government to promote healthier lifestyles. Yet Congress has, thus far, failed to take any comprehensive action.

(Mrs. DOLE assumed the chair.)

The Institute of Medicine report on childhood obesity offers us a comprehensive approach to fighting obesity. It doesn't say that fighting obesity is the responsibility of government alone, or just one sector of society. It calls on all sectors of society to play a role in fighting obesity. In fact, the Institute of Medicine blueprint bears striking similarities to the approach called for in a bill that I introduced earlier this year, the Healthy Lifestyles Prevention Act, known as the Help America Act of 2004.

As you can see from this report, the Institute of Medicine's recommendations mirror my bill in a number of ways. Over here is what the Institute of Medicine recommended to support nutrition and physical activity grant programs. That is in our bill. Nutrition labeling for restaurant foods, that is in our bill. The Federal Trade Commission should have authority to monitor food marketing--how it is marketed to kids. That is in our bill.

Let me digress for a moment on this marketing to kids. We now have counting books for kids who are just learning to count, 3 years old, 5- year-olds--a simple counting book, learning your 1-2-3-4s and 5s. Do you know what they are? They are called M&M counting books. You count by learning how many M&Ms there are.

I saw an Oreo cookie counting book. You count by how many Oreo cookies there are. So what happens? That will have little kids associate learning, associate getting better and progressing, with eating Oreo cookies or M&Ms, and thus begins a lifestyle and a habit pattern at a very early age. I found that hard to believe when I saw it, that these companies would actually go that far, to put in unhealthy food. I like an Oreo cookie as much as anyone else, don't get me wrong. You take them apart and eat the inside, you know how to do that. I love Oreo cookies. But let's be honest about it, it is maybe a little treat you have later on sometime, but to start getting kids in their counting books to count according to how many Oreo cookies there are, I am sorry, that sends the wrong message.

The Institute of Medicine recommended that community and child and youth-centered organizations promote healthful eating and physical activity. That is in our bill, too. Help get the YMCAs all over America focused on wellness, and I am happy to report the YMCA is in the forefront of this battle, and I am proud of them. They are in the forefront of this fight against childhood obesity and for wellness.

Improving streets and sidewalks to encourage walking and biking. Imagine the Institute of Medicine recommending that we build sidewalks.

There are housing developments being built in America today that don't even have a sidewalk. You want your kids to walk to school or to ride a bike? I happen to have a house out in rural Virginia. My wife and I have lived there for a number of years, since I have been privileged to serve in the Congress. So my kids, when they were growing up, went to a public high school in Fairfax County. It was a good school a mile from our house. A mile, that is a great walk for my kids to go to school, high school, but there is only one problem. There is no sidewalk, on a

busy street. I wouldn't even let them ride a bike down there. You are not going to ride a bike down that street. There are no sidewalks.

Again, every highway bill we pass here, every highway bill in which we take dollars out of the road use fund, the gas tax, and put it out to States for building highways and streets, ought to have provisions in it that you have to build sidewalks or you have to build walking paths. I am told in Europe today you cannot build a bridge unless it has a walking path, bike path, adjoining the bridge across the river or thoroughfare or wherever you build it. We ought to be doing that in America. If people want to ride bikes or walk, they can't get across the bridge. So that is in our bill, too.

Insurers should include screening and obesity preventive services in routine clinical practice. It is in our bill, but how many insurers do that? How many provide that you can go in and have screening, counseling, and you can have preventive services under your insurance premium, under your insurance program? I can count the number on two hands, probably--maybe one.

Schools should draw up nutritional standards for competitive foods in schools--competitive foods. I did see one school in Iowa this year in which they had set up their competitive foods. Competitive foods is a fancy name for snacks or vending machines, that kind of stuff. I saw one school in Iowa that took all that stuff out and only had healthful snacks, 100-percent juice drinks, granola bars, different kinds of fruits, things like that. That is the way we ought to be going.

Develop school policies to create schools that are advertising free-- get advertising out of our schools. If you walk down the hallway, there is a big Pepsi machine, a big Coke machine. If you walk around the corner, there is your competitive foods, advertising all the candy bars and soft drinks and everything else. Why should we allow advertising in our public schools? I could never figure that one out.

Why don't we advertise here in the Senate? I have an idea, we will put up a sign: A Hardee's steakburger right here. Sell some wall space here. I'll bet it would be priceless. These cameras would pick it up every day. If we don't have advertising in the Capitol, why do we have it in the schools? Why do we bombard our kids every day with advertising for unhealthy habits?

I didn't mean to go through all of these. Those are some of them. But this is what the Institute of Medicine is saying that we ought to do.

I mentioned the bill I introduced, the Help America Act. I am going to reintroduce it next year. We spent many months working on this, on a comprehensive approach. You just can't address the obesity problem, the increase in chronic illnesses in America by just focusing on what we do or what you do in a school. It has to be comprehensive. It has to start from the earliest time of our lives, in daycare centers, kindergarten, elementary schools. So it has to be home-based so we get more information to our families. It has to be school-based from kindergarten right on through high school and college. It has to be workplace-based so that people on their jobsites can have physical activity and wellness support. It has to be governmentally based so that we do not build housing developments without sidewalks or bridges without walking paths or bike paths; that we build more walking trails in our country.

It has to be Government based and making sure that we have Federal Trade Commission monitoring truth in advertising. It has to be community based. Communities have to pull together with their local YMCAs and others to have wellness programs for the entire community.

One of the great things popping up all over America today is mall- walking programs for the elderly, especially in my part of the country. In the wintertime, it is hard for the elderly to get out and malls have set up walking programs where elderly people will meet. They can walk and they have distance markers. They go around the mall, half a mile, three-quarters, 1 mile. They have a little place where they can stop and have water or coffee or tea or whatever they want. You would be amazed at how many of our elderly are now doing these mall-walking programs. By the way, it is not bad for the mall either. Sometimes they stop and shop, too.

These are the kinds of things we have to do on a community basis, workplace basis, a community basis to help promote a healthier lifestyle in America.

I could go on and on about the Institute of Medicine, what they recommended. The point is, we do have an authoritative blueprint for action. We have a bill that reflects that blueprint. The bill we introduced earlier this year, we will introduce again next year.

So the ball is really now in our court. I intend to reintroduce the HELP America Act in the 109th Congress.

We need a serious, ambitious probusiness, bipartisan effort to build on the steps we took this year. There is no question in my mind that the HELP America Act is a bill whose time has come to tackle some of the biggest health challenges of our day, in particular the obesity epidemic.

We have had report after report and warning after warning on the national level. But we have responded in only an incremental and piecemeal fashion. It is as though we were in the midst of a five-alarm fire but we stubbornly keep the hook and ladder engine in the firehouse relying instead on the garden hose to fight the fire. This is unacceptable.

When we reconvene in January, we need to come together on a bipartisan basis to address the obesity epidemic, to stress wellness and prevention in all aspects of our society. My goal is that the new 109th Congress will be remembered as the Congress that replaced America's sick care system with a genuine health care system.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, when the man who sits right next to me across this aisle over here, the senior Senator from South Carolina, Fritz Hollings, retires at the end of this Congress, this body will lose one of its most distinctive and eloquent voices. We will lose a master legislator, a person who will go down in history as one of the truly consequential Senators of the second half of the 20th century. Of course, we will lose the presence of a great friend, a colleague whose passion and wit burn just as intensely today as when he first entered this Chamber nearly four decades ago.

As I said, Senator Hollings sits directly across the aisle to my left, at the desk that was once occupied by another extraordinary individual from South Carolina, Senator John C. Calhoun. But Calhoun was a voice of the Old South, a defender of slavery in the great debates prior to the Civil War. Fritz Hollings, first as Governor, and for the last 38 years as a Senator, has epitomized the New South.

Fritz Hollings became Governor in 1958, at the tender age of 36. He immediately set about diversifying South Carolina's textile and farming economy. He planted the State thick with technical colleges. He aggressively recruited new industries to the State. But, most importantly, he set in motion the peaceful transformation of racial relations in South Carolina.

Now, remember--I remember it well; I was a senior in high school just going into college at that time--this was a time when other Southern Governors were pledging massive resistance to integration. They literally stood in the schoolhouse door. They incited people to keep African Americans from going into school or sitting at lunch counters or riding on buses.

But Fritz Hollings charted a different course as Governor. He showed tremendous leadership, real political courage, as he orchestrated the peaceful integration of Clemson University. So Fritz Hollings epitomizes the New South.

He also epitomizes the Greatest Generation. In World War II, right out of the Citadel, he served as an Army officer in North Africa and later in Italy earning seven campaign ribbons and the Bronze Star.

But I have always believed that what made the Greatest Generation truly great was not just what they did during the war but what they did after the war. As I said, Fritz Hollings played a transformational role in South Carolina. Then he came to the Senate, and he played an equally dramatic role on the national stage.

In 1968, he conducted a series of ``hunger tours'' across South Carolina, exposing poverty and Third World living conditions. He went on to coauthor national legislation that created the Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children, which we now know today as the WIC Program. He championed the Community Health Center Program, bringing medical care to the poor and underprivileged. And now thousands of community health centers dot the landscape in every State of our Union.

Fritz became a passionate advocate for medical research and the National Institutes of Health, especially cancer

research. I know how proud Fritz is of the nationally respected cancer research and treatment center at the Medical University of South Carolina, now known appropriately as the Hollings Cancer Center. In fact, at his farewell gala a couple months ago that I went to downtown, Fritz Hollings raised more than $2 million for the center's programs.

Well, it would take a long time to stand here and do justice to Senator Hollings' legacy of legislative accomplishments. I will not do so. I am tempted to do so because there is so much there. But those of us who have served with him over the decades know there is no more dedicated fighter for fiscal conservatism in this body or anywhere in this Congress. There is no one who has fought harder for what I call fiscal rationality in our spending and taxing programs than Fritz Hollings.

There is no one who has done more when it comes to protecting our oceans and coasts. It was Senator Hollings who passed the Coastal Zone Management Act in 1972, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, the Oceans Dumping Act of 1976, and the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996. So the next time you go out to look at whales or you see the dolphins swimming, the next time you walk along a beach and you don't see all that junk washing up on the shoreline, thank Fritz Hollings. He led the charge on it.

And long before it became fashionable, Fritz Hollings was speaking out against the indiscriminate outsourcing of American jobs, first in the textile industry, then jobs in the steel industry and manufacturing. In literally scores of speeches on this floor, he has educated Members of this body about the fallacies and human costs of so-called free trade. That is not fair trade. He has spoken out with passion and persistence for fair trade and a fair shake for American workers.

Fritz Hollings leaves a personal legacy in this Senate. We will always remember his sharp mind in debate, his wit, and a very sharp tongue that could cut to the quick and get at the essence of what the debate was all about. And there is no one who had a greater sense of humor or was more generous and more kind than Fritz Hollings. He could craft humor about others, and he could craft humor about himself--a great individual, Fritz Hollings.

I would be remiss if I did not also publicly pay a big thank you to Fritz Hollings for the opportunity he gave me 16 years ago. I had just been elected to the Senate. I was in my first term. It was 1988. Lawton Chiles, who was then a Senator from Florida, was retiring as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

I was a freshman Senator. I was at the bottom of the ladder. So Lawton left that position and went back to Florida. Most of the Democrats ahead of me--the Democrats were in charge at that time--had other subcommittee chairmanships they didn't want to give up. So it came down to Fritz Hollings and me. I knew of the passion that Fritz had for health and education issues. So I assumed he was going to take chairmanship of that subcommittee. But I called up Fritz. I let him know that if he didn't take it, I was next in line, that I always had a great interest in this area. Well, he said he would take that into consideration. I will never forget it. I was at home on a Sunday night. He called me up and said: Well, Tom, I have been thinking about this. He said I would really like to have the Labor, HHS, Education; this is in my interest. I have spent so much time on health issues.

Well, I thought this was his nice way of telling me, I am sorry, Tom, I am going to take the chairmanship, tough luck. But at the end, he said: Well, I want you to know I am going to stay with the Commerce- State-Justice Subcommittee.

I could hear him laughing. He had kind of strung me out during this whole phone call, leading me to the point where he was going to say, I am really sorry, Tom, but I am going to take it. Then he turned 180 degrees and said: I am going to stay with Commerce-State-Justice. I could hear him chuckling in the background, knowing that he had given me a great gift.

It was a huge opening for me as a freshman Senator to chair the second largest Appropriations subcommittee. I will always be grateful for the confidence and the trust that he had in me at that time. I hope I have not disappointed him.

Fritz Hollings has cast more than 15,000 votes here. He has passed major bill after major bill. He has spoken out courageously on issues of war and peace, trade and budget, civil rights and human rights. He has been a voice for the poor and for the sick and for those who have no voice in the political arena. I know Fritz is very fond of a particular quote from Elibu Root, Teddy Roosevelt's Secretary of State. Those of us who were at the farewell banquet for Fritz in September heard him repeat it on that occasion. He said:

Politics is the practical art of self government, and

someone must attend to it if we are going to have self

government. The principal ground of reproach against any

American citizen should be that he is not a politician.

For more than five decades, Fritz Hollings has been a proud politician, an extraordinary public servant, one of the truly magnificent Senators in the history of this body. We will remember his legacy. I am going to miss him as a friend and as someone I could converse with, gain insight from, and share a laugh with, listening to Fritz go on about fiscal responsibility.

Peatsy and Fritz have been a team. I was fortunate to have taken a congressional delegation trip with Fritz and Peatsy last December. We went down to Brazil, looking at all the different things in Brazil-- everything from rain forests to agriculture to labor conditions. It was truly a magnificent week to spend with Fritz and Peatsy. I will never forget it. I will never forget both of them. So I wish both Fritz and Peatsy a long and wonderful retirement in their beloved Charleston, SC.

Will the Senator yield for a brief question?

I thank the Senator. It has been floating around here that this is somehow a staffer who put this in. I do not know the answer to that question. But certainly someone is responsible and certainly it should not take an investigation lasting a year to find out who. Someone was responsible for this.

I ask the Senator from California, does the Senator feel we ought to know who the person responsible is, and certainly anyone who would exceed his or her authority as a staff person to put in that kind of language, I ask the Senator, does the Senator think that person ought to continue employment in either the U.S. House or the U.S. Senate?

Civil and criminal.

Mr. President, I want to thank my colleagues, Chairman Gregg and Senator Kennedy, as well as Chairman Boehner and Representative Miller, for conducting a truly bipartisan conference. When the legislative process is working properly, we have a fair negotiation--and more often than not, that produces a better bill. Not a bill that gives each of us everything we wanted, but a fair result given the two bills that we are charged with reconciling. And that is what we have here.

Last week, Washington Post's internet site ran a cartoon by Ted Rall that was one of the most egregious things I have ever seen. I don't know if many of you saw it, but it showed a student in a wheelchair with crossed eyes and drool coming from his mouth. He had joined a class of students without disabilities and here is what one of the panels of the cartoon read, ``The special needs kids make people uncomfortable and slow the pace of learning.'' The cartoon showed the class changing from higher level math to simple addition because of the special education student.

The cartoon was supposed to be some kind of analogy to the United States, but it was very hard to understand the point. What was crystal clear, however, was the author's bigotry and stereotyping of children with disabilities. I understand that the Post will no longer run cartoons by Mr. Rall because cartoons like this are not funny. They are hurtful and serve as a stark reminder of why we are here and why IDEA is such important civil rights legislation.

I was here in Congress in 1975, as were some of my Senate colleagues, when IDEA was enacted. And it is important to remember why we passed this legislation in the first place. We passed it because bigotry and discrimination were keeping a million children with disabilities completely out of school. Those children were locked out of an education and denied the bright future that comes with an education. IDEA opened the doors of opportunity for those children.

I have participated in many subsequent revisions to the law over the past 29 years. And I am supporting this reauthorization because we continue our proud tradition of ensuring that children with disabilities have the right to a free, appropriate public education, FAPE. In addition, we improve the enforcement of that right.

Over the years, I have been involved in the debate about disciplining students with disabilities--and this was a major issue for the conferees. I know that parents were very concerned about changes to this section of the law. I appreciate and understand those concerns because I have shared them.

While this reauthorization streamlines the discipline provisions, it continues several key principles. We will continue to consider the impact of the disability on what the child is doing and we will not punish children for behavior that is related to their disability. It is also important that we continue to require that children receive educational services when they are being disciplined so they do not fall further behind. We also continue to emphasize that an assessment and services must be provided to children who have more serious behaviors so we can prevent future discipline problems.

I believe that discipline will become less and less of an issue over time as schools implement positive behavior supports more widely. Section 614(d)(3)(B), entitled consideration of special factors, was added in 1997 to provide special emphasis on certain related services, modifications and auxiliary aides which were not being considered by IEP teams and therefore not provided. The Senate bill modified subsection 614(d)(3)(B)(i) to state that behavioral supports must be provided when the child's behavior impeded his/her education or that of others. In conference, current law was re-instated in order to make the subsection consistent with the other special consideration subsections.

By instructing the IEP team to consider the specified services, it goes without saying that the services must be provided if the IEP team finds that the services will assist the child in benefiting from his/ her educational program. In the case of behavioral interventions, the section sets forth the circumstances when the services would be required.

The regulations to IDEA specify that ``if, in considering the special factors ... the IEP team determines that a child needs a particular device or service (including an intervention, accommodation, or other program modification) in order for the child to receive FAPE, the IEP team must include a statement to that effect in the child's IEP.'' 34 C.F.R. Sec. 346(c). And IEP services must be provided to the student. See Office of Special Education Programs Letter to Osterhout, 35 IDELR 9 (2000).

There has been widespread noncompliance with this requirement. However, with reauthorization's increased emphasis on monitoring and enforcement, we expect that this implementation will improve. Children whose behavior is impeding them or others from learning should get the positive behavioral supports they need when the IEP team considers this issue and finds that the services are part of FAPE for that child.

In addition, we allow schools to use up to 15 percent of their funds to address behavior issues for children who have not been identified as special education students. Also, Senator Clinton has worked to include authorization for a program that would provide funding for systemic positive behavioral supports in schools.

Research by Dr. George Sugai and others indicates that the implementation of positive behavioral supports can have a dramatic impact on disciplinary problems. Dr. Sugai testified in 2002 before the Health, Education and Labor Committee that by shifting to schoolwide positive behavioral supports, an urban elementary school decreased its office referrals from 600 to 100. It also decreased in 1 year its days of suspension from 80 to 35. Schools can save administrators' time and resources and cut down on discipline problems by implementing these programs.

Another area that generated discussion in this reauthorization is litigation and attorneys fees. However, the facts show that there is very little litigation under IDEA. GAO examined the data and concluded that the use of ``formal dispute resolution mechanisms has been generally low relative to the number of children with disabilities,'' according to a 2003 report titled, Special Education: Numbers of Formal Disputes Are Low and States Are Using Mediation and Other Strategies To Resolve Conflicts.

My own State of Iowa follows the general trend of very low hearings and court cases. A graduate student in Iowa did a thorough analysis of due process hearings in Iowa from 1989-2001. Since the amendments in 1997, there were three hearings in 1998; three also in 1999 and four hearings in 2000. The Department of Education informs me that this trend continues, with only

three hearings in each of the past 2 years. And there are thousands of children in special education in the State of Iowa.

Given the fact that litigation is generally not a problem in IDEA, in this reauthorization we merely include a standard that is used in other civil rights contexts--it is generally referred to by the case, Christiansburg Garment Company vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 98 S.Ct. 694 (1978). Both prongs of the Christiansburg standard (filing or pursuing litigation that is groundless or for bad faith/improper purpose) adopted today are very high standards and prevailing defendants are rarely able to meet them. They are designed for only the most egregious cases.

Also, in deciding cases under this standard, courts have considered the party's ability to pay. This is important because Congress does not intend to impose a harsh financial penalty on parents who are merely trying to help their child get needed services and supports. So in applying this standard and deciding whether to grant defendants' fees, the court must also consider the ability of the parents to pay.

A school district would be foolhardy to try to use these provisions in any but the most egregious cases. Not only would the school be wasting its own resources if it did not prevail, but it would be liable for the parents' fees defending the action.

Unlike parents who are entitled to attorney fees if they win the case, the fact that a LEA ultimately prevailed is not grounds for assessing fees against a parent or parent's attorney. As the Supreme Court concluded in Christiansburg, courts should not engage in ``post hoc reasoning by concluding that, because a plaintiff did not ultimately prevail, his action must have been unreasonable or without foundation. This kind of hindsight logic could discourage all but the most airtight claims, for seldom can a prospective plaintiff be sure of ultimate success.''

As GAO found, there has been a low incidence of litigation under IDEA. The cases that are filed are generally pursued because parents have no other choice. Congress does not intend to discourage these parents from enforcing their child's right to a free, appropriate, public education. This is merely to address the most egregious type of behavior in very rare circumstances where it might arise.

In this reauthorization, we also include a 2-year statute of limitations on claims. However, it should be noted that this limitation is not designed to have any impact on the ability of a child to receive compensatory damages for the entire period in which he or she has been deprived of services. The statute of limitations goes only to the filing of the complaint, not the crafting of remedy. This is important because it is only fair that if a school district repeatedly failed to provide services to a child, they should be required to provide compensatory services to rectify this problem and help the child achieve despite the school's failings.

Therefore, compensatory education must cover the entire period and must belatedly provide all education and related services previously denied and needed to make the child whole. Children whose parents can't afford to pay for special education and related services when school districts fail to provide FAPE should be treated the same as children whose parents can. Children whose parents have the funds can be fully reimbursed under the Supreme Courts decisions in Burlington and Florence County, subject to certain equitable considerations, and children whose parents lack the funds should not be treated differently.

I also want to discuss the monitoring and enforcement sections of this bill. I want to thank Senator Kennedy for his leadership on this issue. Again, GAO has issued a report that has informed our deliberations around this issue. They noted that the Department of Education found violations of IDEA in 30 of the 31 States monitored. In addition, GAO found that the majority of these violations were for failure to provide actual services to children. That report, issued this year, is titled, Special Education: Improved Timeliness and Better Use of Enforcement Actions Could Strengthen Education's Monitoring System.

When we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, we said that our four national goals for people with disabilities were equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self- sufficiency. But children with disabilities are never going to meet any of those goals if they don't get the tools that they need when they are young. So if we truly want equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities, it has to start with IDEA, and with our youth, who are our future. The law must be enforced so they receive the services and supports they need to get a quality education and a brighter future.

As part of the enforcement of this law, States must ensure that local education agencies are meeting their targets to provide a free, appropriate public education. If they fail to do so, the State must take action, including prohibiting the flexible use of any of the local education agency's resources.

In addition to monitoring and enforcement, there are other improvements in this bill. I will mention one area that is near and dear to my heart because of my brother, Frank, who many of you know, was deaf. In this bill, we add interpreter services to the list of related services, a change that is long overdue. And we continue to require the Department of Education to fund captioning so deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals will have equal access to the media.

While I support the bill, I must point out, however, that I am deeply disappointed that this bill does not include mandatory full funding of

I thank my colleague, and I agree with his explanation. I ask the Senator, what about the child with a disability who violates a code of conduct in a way which does not reach that level of dangerousness? In 1997, we distinguished between situations where the conduct was related to their disability and those where it was not. Is this distinction also preserved in our new bill?

I wonder whether my colleague believes this reauthorization changes the factors for deciding whether the behavior is a manifestation of the disability?

I thank my colleague for his explanation.

Mr. President, briefly, I wish to thank the Senator from Idaho. The bill that was just passed is a bill that provides grants for training court reporters for closed caption reporting. In 1996, the Congress passed a bill that said by 2006 all television shows have to be closed captioned. By 2010, all Spanish-speaking shows have to be closed captioned. That is going to take about 3,000 people trained to do this. We have less than 500 trained right now. We are not going to meet that date, but we have to move ahead and try our best to get these people trained in our community colleges all over the country. That is what this bill does.

I especially want to thank Senator McCain, the chairman of the Commerce Committee, for his expeditious handling of this bill and letting it go through. I am assured the House is going to pass it unanimously, so we can get on with the business of training our reporters so that they can do realtime closed captioning.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Iowa be recognized upon the completion of the remarks of the Senator from Florida.

Mr. President, in these final working days of the 108th Congress, as so many speakers before me have said, we are saying farewell to a number of our retiring colleagues. I intend to speak about a couple of them this evening and will have more to say about some of the others tomorrow.

A most painful farewell will be to my good friend Senator Tom Daschle. I do not know that I have heard a more heartfelt, soul- searching, and inspirational speech about what a Senator should be, ought to be, and must be than the speech given by our great leader Senator Daschle earlier this evening.

As I sat and listened to that speech, especially when he talked about Dick Reiners, my mind went back to 1978 when I was just a second-term Congressman from the State of Iowa and I was asked to go campaign in South Dakota for this young guy running for the House whose name was Tom Daschle. His former employer, Senator Jim Abourezk, came to Iowa to campaign for me and asked me to reciprocate. Because I had been active in some farm issues and agricultural issues, he asked me to campaign in South Dakota, and I did.

I struck up a friendship with Tom Daschle at that point that endures to this day and will endure forever. So I would go out and campaign for him and then he would come and campaign for me and I would campaign and we would go back and forth from Iowa to South Dakota. Of course, we shared a common border up at Sioux City. Much of Sioux Falls's television comes into Iowa. Much of Sioux City's goes into South Dakota. So we have shared kind of a common area there of constituents, constituencies over all these years.

So it is a painful farewell to my good friend Tom Daschle. These days, there are fewer and fewer bipartisan agreements in this body. But I sense today that there was bipartisan agreement about Tom Daschle. We respect his decency, his fairness, his courage and leadership, his extraordinary capacity for hard work. I cannot imagine a more difficult job in the Senate than being leader of the Democratic caucus. We have all heard Will Rogers quip that he belonged to no organized party, he was a Democrat.

Those independent, hard-headed habits flourish within our caucus. For the last decade, Tom Daschle's amazing skills and unlimited patience have brought us together as a team. That is an accomplishment of which he can be very proud.

The President of the United States, it is said, has the persuasion of power. But the leader of our Senate Democratic caucus has only the power of persuasion. I cannot imagine anyone more persuasive than Senator Tom Daschle. He has always been willing to talk with us, accommodate us whenever possible, to do whatever it takes, however long it takes, to forge a consensus and move us ahead. We are grateful. I am grateful for his leadership, his diligence, for his grace that he has unfailingly brought to this job as our leader. I cannot emphasize enough this fairness and this underlying grace of this wonderful human being. Unfailingly fair to all.

When Democrats were in the majority, Majority Leader Daschle was respectful of the rights and the prerogatives of our Republican minority. Conversely, as our minority leader, he has steadfastly defended the rights and the prerogatives of the Democratic minority. In the heat of a partisan campaign, some have labeled this ``obstructionism,'' but that characterization is incorrect. The duty of the opposition party is present compelling alternatives, and to do so fairly, forthrightly, and within the rules of the Senate. The duty of the leader of our opposition is to protect the rights of the minority so that our voice and our votes can be heard; so that we can speak out and offer a different way, a different path. That is our duty as opposition. Senator Daschle protected the rights of the minority, so important in our country, not just in the Senate, but important for us as a country.

If there is one thing that is pervasive in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, it is just that; it is the protection of the minority so the minority can be heard. That is so the minority's voice and votes will be counted. That is exactly what Senator Daschle has done. There is not one hint of obstructionism. What he has done is to protect and enhance the rights of the minority, and he did it with skill and persistence, with fairness and with grace.

Over all these years of service with Tom Daschle in the House and in the Senate, I have always respected how he fought and advocated for his constituents in South Dakota. No one has fought harder in the House and in the Senate for the revitalization of rural America than Tom Daschle. No one has fought harder to bring health care and good schools and economic opportunity to Indian country. No one has fought harder to increase the income of family farmers and give them a fair shake in the marketplace.

Another jewel in the crown of Tom Daschle's legacy is the emerging ethanol industry in the United States. Since Tom arrived in Congress in 1978, he has been a relentless champion of ethanol. He mentioned that in his farewell speech today. I know he was a relentless champion because I was there, too, during those early years. People said those of us who were advocating the expanded use of ethanol didn't have a chance against big oil. But Senator Daschle persevered. He used the 1990 Clean Air Act to put in place policies that gave birth to the ethanol industry in our country. He continued to promote tax incentives and a renewable fuel standard to advance ethanol and to move our country towards energy independence.

No doubt about it, Senator Daschle's leadership on ethanol brought us to where we are today in the production of this renewable and clean fuel in America. His leadership on ethanol will be greatly missed in the future.

It has been a privilege to serve in this body with Tom Daschle. I will miss him as a colleague. I will miss his leadership, that fairness, that gentleness of nature, but that steely determination to make sure that our views and our votes were counted; that steely determination to make sure that people who live in small towns in rural America are not forgotten, that their interests are protected here. I will miss him as a friend. Oh, I am not going to lose contact with Tom and Linda. My wife and I will continue to count them as good friends. But I will miss him as a friend here in the Senate.

As Tom Daschle said today, he has always been an optimist. I have never known Tom Daschle to ever utter a pessimistic word. For him the sunrise was always better than the sunset. So the Sun rises on a new chapter in Tom Daschle's life. That Sun is going to be bright. It is going to be bright because of who Tom Daschle is, what he is. So there are going to be some new days and important chapters ahead written in the life of Tom Daschle. Both Ruth and I wish Tom and Linda and his family the very best in the years ahead.

We will continue to look forward to his input into the political life of America and into the common wheel that binds us as a country.

John Edwards

Mr. President, I would also like to express my respect to and

admiration for the retiring senior Senator from North Carolina, Senator John Edwards, who also spoke earlier. We will miss his unique, skillful, and persuasive voice in the debates here on the Senate floor. Time and again we have seen his knack for taking complex arguments and making them accessible and persuasive to ordinary people. Time and again his skills have carried the day.

I fully understand the advice uttered by one of my Republican colleagues one time, when he said, ``Never yield the floor to John Edwards.''

Over the last year and a half, people in my State of Iowa have gotten to know John and his wonderful wife Elizabeth very well. As I have often said, John Edwards was the only person to run for national office as a Vice Presidential candidate who visited each one of Iowa's 99 counties. He has been all over our State, in our schools, in our coffee shops, and in our living rooms. In fact, we have often said in Iowa if it weren't for that southern accent, you would think John was born and raised in Iowa.

I can say that we on the Democratic side, we Democrats in Iowa and all over the country, are proud of his race to secure the nomination of our party, which he did not get, which went to another of our colleagues, Senator John Kerry. But we were proud of how John Edwards sought that nomination. And we are doubly proud of his conduct as our nominee for Vice President of the United States.

He always comes across as just folks, which is what you would expect from a person raised in very modest circumstances, the first in his family to go to college. That humble background was an enormous strength for John Edwards. It is a strength we saw on that campaign trail that allowed him to understand people and to communicate powerfully with ordinary people. People responded in kind. All over this country, people just plainly liked John Edwards. They trusted him because he spoke to them in a language they understood.

But if Iowans and other Americans see just plain folks in John Edwards on the campaign trail, Senators here have been privileged to see a different side of him, hard at work in this Senate. He has only been here one term. He surely made his mark. He made his mark first by challenging an incumbent Senator, and took on the Jesse Helms machine in North Carolina, and he beat it. That is no small feat in North Carolina.

He made his mark here as lead cosponsor of the Patients' Bill of Rights, along with Senators Kennedy and McCain. He managed the bill on the floor. He was the lead negotiator in hammering out a bipartisan consensus on the bill.

He made his mark by sponsoring and passionately advocating for a bill to speed up the approval of generic drugs.

As I said in my State of Iowa, John Edwards made his mark and won people's hearts with his big smile, his friendly manner, and his boundless optimism.

He won our respect with a campaign that was always positive. Even under provocation, even when stakes were the highest in the final weeks of the campaign leading up to the caucuses, John never wavered from his positive message of hope and opportunity for ordinary Americans.

We are proud of our colleague Senator Edwards, and we know we will not hear the last of him as he leaves this body.

We say farewell to Senator John Edwards. I know and I hope and I trust we will hear more from him in the future. We wish him the very best. Of course, we all hope--and our prayers are with him and with Elizabeth--for a full recovery for his wonderful wife Elizabeth. We will miss them both here. But our friendship endures, and I know that Senator Edwards, Elizabeth, and his family will be heavily involved in the course of our political life and our Democratic Party in the future.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, in these final working days of the 108th Congress, we are saying farewell to a number of retiring colleagues. A most painful farewell will be to my friend Senator Tom Daschle.

These days, there are fewer and fewer bipartisan agreements in this body. But there is bipartisan agreement about the senior Senator from South Dakota. We respect his decency, his fairness, his courage, his leadership, and, of course, his extraordinary capacity for hard work.

I cannot imagine a more difficult job in the Senate than being leader of the Democratic caucus. We've all heard Will Rogers's quip that he belonged to no organized party, he was a Democrat. Well, those independent, hardheaded habits flourish within our caucus. But, for the last decade, Tom Daschle's amazing skills and unlimited patience have brought us together as a team. And that is an accomplishment he can be very proud of.

The President of the United States has the persuasion of power. The leader of the Senate's Democratic caucus has only the power of persuasion. And I can't imagine anyone more persuasive than Tom Daschle. He has always been willing to talk with us, to accommodate us whenever possible, and to do whatever it takes to forge a consensus and move us forward. I am grateful for his leadership, and for the diligence and race that he has unfailingly brought to his job as leader.

I cannot emphasize too much Tom Daschle's sense of fairness as leader. He has been unfailingly fair to others. And he has demanded fair treatment in return. When Democrats were in the majority, majority leader Daschle was respectful of the rights and prerogatives of the Republican minority. Conversely, as minority leader, he has

steadfastly defended the rights and prerogatives of the Democratic minority.

In the heat of a partisan campaign, some have tried to label this obstructionism. But that characterization is incorrect. The duty of the opposition party is to oppose, and to do so fairly, forthrightly, and within the rules of the Senate--to protect the rights of the minority. That is exactly what Senator Daschle has done--with great skill and persistence.

I also have enormous respect for the way Senator Daschle has advocated for his constituents back home in South Dakota. No one has fought harder for the revitalization of rural America than Tom Daschle. No one has fought harder to bring health care, good schools, and economic opportunity to Indian County. No one has fought harder to increase the income level of family farmers, and to give them a fair shake in the marketplace.

Another jewel in the crown of Tom Daschle's legacy is the emerging ethanol industry in the United States. Since Tom arrived in Congress in 1978, he has been a relentless champion of ethanol. I know because I was there, too, during those early years. People said that those of us who were advocating the expanded use of ethanol didn't have a chance against big oil. But Senator Daschle used the 1990 Clean Air Act to put in place policies that spurred the ethanol industry. And he has continued to promote tax incentives and a renewable fuel standard to advance ethanol and to move our country in the direction of energy independence. So, no doubt about it, Senator Daschle's leadership on ethanol will be greatly missed.

It has been a privilege to serve in this body with Senator Tom Daschle. I will miss him as a colleague. Most of all, I will miss him as a friend. The good news is that there are important chapters yet to be written in the life of Tom Daschle. I wish Tom and his wonderful wife Linda the very best in the years ahead.

John Edwards

Mr. President, I rise to express my respect and admiration for the retiring senior Senator from North Carolina, John Edwards.

We will miss his uniquely skillful and persuasive voice in debates here on the Senate floor. Time and again, we have seen his knack for taking complex arguments and making them accessible and persuasive to ordinary people. Time and again, his skills have carried the day. So I fully understand the advice of one of our Republican colleagues: ``Never yield the floor to John Edwards.''

Over the last year and a half, people in my state of Iowa have gotten to know John and his wonderful wife Elizabeth very, very well. John has been in every one of Iowa's 99 counties. He's been in our schools, in our coffee shops, in our living rooms. In fact, if it weren't for that Southern accent, Iowans would think John was one of us. We Democrats are proud of his race for the nomination and his conduct as VP nominee.

He always comes across as ``just folks''--which is what you'd expect from a person raised in very modest circumstances, the first in his family to go to college. This humble background is an enormous strength for John Edwards. It's a strength we saw last night. It allows him to understand people. It also allows him to communicate powerfully with ordinary people. And people respond in kind. They just plain like John Edwards. People trust him.

But if Iowans and other Americans see a ``just folks'' John Edwards on the campaign trail, Senators have been privileged to see a different side of him, hard at work in this body. John has been in the Senate for only one term. But he has made his mark.

He made his mark by challenging an incumbent Senator and single- handedly taking on the Jesse Helms machine in North Carolina--and beating it.

He made his mark as a lead cosponsor of the Patients' Bill of Rights in the Senate, along with Senators Kennedy and McCain. John managed the bill on the floor. And he was the lead negotiator in hammering out a bipartisan consensus on the bill.

He made his mark by sponsoring--and passionately advocating for--a bill to speed up approval of generic drugs.

And, in my State of Iowa, John Edwards made his mark--and won people's hearts--with his big smile, his friendly manner, and his boundless optimism. At the same time, he won our respect with a campaign that was always positive. Even under provocation, even when the stakes were highest in the final weeks of the campaign leading up to the caucuses, John never wavered from his positive message of hope and opportunity for ``ordinary'' Americans.

So here at the end of this 108th Congress, we say farewell to Senator John Edwards. But, clearly, we have not seen the last of this remarkably able person. I wish John the very best. And, of course, we all pray for the full recovery of Elizabeth. We will miss them both here in Washington, but our friendship will continue.

Mr. President, today I extend my appreciation to my fall 2004 class of interns: Sonja Loges, Colleen Coffey, Lauryn Douglas, Cheri Rolfes, Sarah Helgen, Katie Callahan, Milan Dalal and Deborah Sundquist. Each of them has been of tremendous assistance to me and to the people of Iowa over the past several months.

Since I was first elected to the Senate in 1984, my office has offered internships to young Iowans and other interested students. Through their work in the Senate, our interns have not only seen the legislative process, but also personally contributed to our Nation's democracy.

It is with much appreciation that I recognize Sonja, Colleen, Lauryn, Cheri, Sarah, Katie, Milan and Deborah for their hard work this fall. It has been a delight to watch them take on their assignments with enthusiasm and hard work. I am very proud to have worked with each of them. I hope they take from their fall a sense of pride in what they have been able to accomplish, as well as an increased interest in public service and our democratic system and process.