Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Kennedy and Ranking Member Enzi for their leadership, as well as the staff, for their tireless work on the Head Start reauthorization bill. It is long overdue. It will help prepare thousands of low-income children for their transition into school and for their success later in life. There is no greater investment, of course, that we can make than investing in our children. This legislation means an additional 8,000 low-income infants and toddlers younger than those who have traditionally been enrolled in Head Start will be eligible for the program. Teachers will receive more training, the critical training they need and the cost-of-living increases that they deserve. This legislation means expansion of the program to children whose families earn just above the poverty line. For tens of thousands of children in this country, this legislation gives them hope. It is a step forward, a major step forward. Yesterday, unfortunately, the President vetoed the funding for Head Start. That is why we take a step forward today with this Head Start reauthorization, as the President took a step backward in vetoing the funding for Head Start. Budgets, we know, are about priorities. Whether it is a family budget, it speaks to your values; whether it is a Federal budget, it speaks to our values. Vetoing funding for Head Start, for medical research, and for job training as the President did yesterday, tells us something about his priorities. I am pleased that on a bipartisan basis, by passing legislation that expands Head Start to reach more low-income children, this Senate is saying our priorities are different. I hope that together we can override the President's veto and fulfill the promise inherent in the Head Start Program. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their good work on this Head Start reauthorization. We should move forward.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask to speak for up to 7 minutes in morning business.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, November voters in my State of Ohio spoke out for change. They spoke out for a very different and new set of priorities in Washington, priorities that match their own priorities and their own values back home. Heeding their calls earlier this year, Congress raised the minimum wage, passed potentially lifesaving stem cell legislation, voted to expand access for health insurance to literally 4 million low-income children, and last week, Congress sent to the President the Labor, Health and Human Services bill for his signature, a bipartisan bill that was filled with our national priorities. That bill would increase funding for Head Start and Pell grants and programs that benefit our Nation's veterans. Earlier today, once again, the President made it clear that this administration and its supporters do not share the priorities of America's middle class. He vetoed lifesaving stem cell legislation, he vetoed expanding access to children's health insurance, and he, today, vetoed the bipartisan bill for Head Start, to give preschool kids a chance. He vetoed the legislation that included Pell grants to give middle-class working families, working-class kids an opportunity to go to college without a huge, onerous burden on them when they leave college. And he vetoed legislation that would matter to our Nation's veterans. Today's veto was a veto of middle-class families and a veto of our values as a nation. The Labor, Health and Human Services bill funds the priorities that matter most in Ohio and across the Nation--more funding to help low-income children get the best possible start in school, more funding for students hoping to realize their American dream, more funding for programs to help our Nation's veterans with job training, with college costs, and to help with the all too serious issue of traumatic brain injury. The day after Veterans Day, the day set aside to honor our Nation's veterans, the President vetoed legislation that would benefit those who have sacrificed so much for our great country. That, Mr. President, is unacceptable. Yesterday, in Cleveland, at the Wade Park Veterans Hospital, I spent the afternoon with veterans from northeast Ohio, listening to them and their concerns. I learned that they need more, not less, assistance from the Federal Government. I heard from a former Ohio National Guardsman living in Jefferson, OH, not far from Ashtabula. Before being deployed to Iraq, he was an engineer and his wife was the vice president of a local company. After being injured in Iraq by an IED, he returned home suffering from a traumatic brain injury, a spinal cord injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Unable to work full time because of his injuries, this former National Guardsman, who worked full time before he left, now had to rely on disability compensation to support his family. His wife Julie had to leave her job to care full time for her child and for her husband. His care requires four trips weekly to the nearest VA hospital, a trip of about 110 miles each way. I heard from a reservist, CPL Anthony Niederiter, of Euclid, OH, who was deployed to Iraq in 2005. Corporal Niederiter shared stories about the need for a better system that helps our military men and women return to civilian life after serving our country. The confusing transition process has caused veteran after veteran to miss filing deadlines for health benefits and educational opportunities. One veteran, one soldier, told me after he left the military, he applied for dental benefits 32 or 33 days after he left the military. But he found out if you don't apply within 30 days, they are not available. Nobody told him that. Others have been denied educational benefits because they didn't follow the right rules because nobody told them that when they left the military. Too many commanding officers, after these troops are used up and of no value anymore to the military, just wash their hands of them and look to the next class of military recruits they are going to send off to war, not informing those who are leaving, those who have served their country--frankly, not caring enough to make sure those veterans, those soldiers leaving the Armed Forces have been notified and told of their rights and the benefits they are able to receive--education, health care, and the like. I heard from Dr. John Schupp, a Cleveland State University professor, who emphasized the importance of doing more, not less, for our veterans. Dr. Schupp founded the SERV Program, a two-semester program at Cleveland State University designed just for veterans. The program helps veterans apply for GI bill benefits, offers veterans-only classes that help ease the transition back into the classroom for many veterans who have not been in a classroom for 6, 8, 10 years or longer. He works with veterans to navigate VA issues and offers a veteran-to-veteran mentoring program. Mr. President, we need more programs like this. Dr. Schupp's involvement, his brainchild, his program--much of this should be done by the Department of Defense before our soldiers, our marines, and our sailors leave government or military service. Dr. Schupp has taken up the slack, frankly, for much that hasn't been done. We need more programs like this, not just in Ohio but across our great country. We need more Federal investment in our Nation's veterans. We must continue to honor our heroes from World War II and Korea and Vietnam, while finding ways to care for the new generation of veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq--and Kosovo, as one of the veterans came from yesterday. As more and more veterans return from these overseas engagements, especially from Afghanistan and Iraq, we must ensure that this growing group has access to the best care and the best benefits available. They have earned them. Congress cannot simply wait to correct problems that arise. We can, we must anticipate those problems and address them now, not later. Providing care and support for Ohio's veterans is a moral obligation. Instead of vetoes, our veterans deserve, from their Government, the support they have earned. Congress can start by overriding the veto of the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill. I strongly encourage my colleagues to stand up for middle-class families, stand up for our communities, stand up for our workers, and to stand up, importantly, for our Nation's veterans. I strongly encourage my colleagues to override this veto. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the House of Representatives today passed a bilateral trade agreement with the country of Peru. I was disappointed that there was another ratification in our Government of another job-killing trade agreement, a trade agreement that will mean more unsafe food at our kitchen tables and more unsafe toys, consumer products, in our children's bedrooms. We have seen this over and over again. We saw it with NAFTA in 1993 when the year before NAFTA was passed, we had a trade deficit in this country of $38 billion. Last year, the trade deficit was literally 20 times that amount. President Bush I said every $1 billion of trade deficit or surplus translates into 13,000 jobs. So a $1 billion trade surplus means a growth of 13,000 jobs in our country; a $1 billion trade deficit means a loss of 13,000 jobs. Do the math. When our trade deficit goes from $38 billion in 1992 to upstairs of $700 billion in 2006, we know our trade policy is not working. It is not working for our workers, it is not working when we have layoffs in Lima, Canton, Youngstown, Toledo, or Dayton. We have these layoffs, and look what it does to police, fire, and schools, layoff of teachers. All that comes from a failed trade policy. Yet the House of Representatives again today passed another trade policy. We not only know that trade policy does not work for our workers and does not work for our communities where we have plant closings or, short of that, layoffs of large numbers of workers and services and our communities decline, from Galion to Gallipolis, from Avon Lake to Buckeye Lake, but we also know what these trade policies mean to consumer protection and food safety. Almost every week for the last several months, we have seen a new recall. It might be toys, it might be tires, it might be toothpaste, it might be vitamins. Yet, literally, almost every week there seems to be a recall, often from China, but not always. We are setting ourselves up. Think of it this way: In 2006, we imported $288 billion worth of goods from China. That $288 billion, tens of billions of dollars--if my math is right, that is about $700 million or $800 million every day from China--tens of billions of dollars for toys, consumer products, and food products. Of those tens of billions of dollars, think about it this way: When we buy products made in China, the People's Republic of China, a Communist government, we know that Government puts no real emphasis on food safety, on consumer product safety, or on worker safety. So we are buying products from a country that puts no real premium on the safety of those products we are buying. That is the first problem. The second problem is, when we import large numbers of toys, for instance--let's take toys as an example because we have seen that over and over--when we import large numbers of toys from China, we know American companies such as Mattel go to China and subcontract with Chinese companies. Then Mattel and these other companies say to the Chinese subcontractors: You have to cut costs, you have to cut corners, you have to make these products cheaper. What do they do? They use lead paint. Why? Because lead paint is cheaper, it is easier to apply, it dries faster, and it is shinier. Mattel then brings these products back into the United States after they have told their Chinese subcontractor: You have to cut costs, you have to cut prices, you have to cut corners. They bring the products back into the United States with no corporate responsibility on their part. They bring them into our country. These toys end up in our children's bedrooms, these food products end up on our kitchen tables, and we have an inspection system that is increasingly falling apart, increasingly disintegrating. We have fewer inspectors than we have ever had at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. That Commission, when it began two or three decades ago, was twice the size it is today, and we were not even importing products from China or other places around the world. They were inspecting tires two decades ago, mostly made in the United States. They were inspecting toys two decades ago, mostly made in the United States under pretty good conditions. Today they have significantly less inspectors and tens of billions of dollars of products coming into this country from China, which doesn't have a consumer product safety commission of any import and doesn't have a food regulatory system, which we hold so dear in this country. It is a perfect storm: You trade, buy tens of billions of dollars from a country that doesn't have consumer product safety rules, you have an American company importing products and is pushing, saying, you have to cut costs, pushing quality and safety aside, and then you have a Consumer Product Safety Commission in this country underfunded by the Bush administration, weakened by the administrators and the White House, that does not protect American children. That is the problem with what we have seen at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. That is why it is time for Nancy Nord, the chairperson of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to step aside. She is the acting chairperson but, unfortunately, we see a lot more inaction from her and from that Commission than action. It is time to put a chairperson in place who is not satisfied with saying: Well, we are doing the best we can. ``The best we can'' is a chairperson who understands his or her primary responsibility is to protect the safety of our children and the safety of our families. Let me go a little further. Back around the time of Halloween, I asked Ohio Ashland University professor Jeff Weidenheimer to test 22 Halloween products for lead. He is a chemistry professor. He has looked into lead-based paint applied to consumer products, to toys, for some time. The acceptable level of lead, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is 600 parts per million for adults, and for children, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says the acceptable level is zero. What Professor Weidenheimer found, of these 22 Halloween products, 3 out of the 22 were not safe. They had much too high levels of lead. For example, the Halloween Frankenstein cup, which I mentioned on the Senate floor before, contained 39,000 parts per million of lead. Again, the upper level of safety for adults is 600 parts per million. This was 39,000 parts per million. This was a Halloween Frankenstein cup that likely children are going to put to their lips and some of that lead will clearly end up in their system. Forty years ago, we banned lead in paint. Now we need to ban lead in toys. We need to get tough enforcing safety standards abroad so we will not see these unsafe products coming in. We need to, most importantly, hold responsible those importers who are bringing those products into the United States, subsequent to their pushing their contractors to cut corners and cut costs. At the same time, we need a Consumer Product Safety Commission that is going to work. A week or so ago, Chairwoman Nord of the Consumer Product Safety Commission was lobbying against the legislation submitted by our colleague, Senator Pryor from Arkansas, that will make the Consumer Product Safety Commission work better. She said they have an adequate budget, even though their budget is half of what it used to be when it was an agency on the side of the public. Everyone agrees on one point: We want more trade with countries around the world, but we want fair trade. First, more than anything, we want a trade policy that protects our workers, protects our country, protects our communities, protects our families on food safety issues, protects our children on consumer product safety issues. It is our first responsibility as Senators to protect our families and make our families safe. Part of the way to do that is a very different trade policy. Part of the way to do that is a very different Consumer Product Safety Commission. Part of the way to do that is for Chairwoman Nancy Nord to step aside and put somebody in whose first, primary responsibility that he or she will recognize is protecting American families. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for no more than 10 minutes.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Strategies to Address Antimicrobial Resistance Act. This bill, also known as the STAAR Act, is meant to reinvigorate efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance--efforts that accelerated in the late 90s but then stalled. I want to thank Senator Hatch for his leadership on this issue and for introducing this bill with me. I look forward to working with him to ensure it passage. Antibiotics are the cornerstone of modern medicine, relied on to treat countless diseases and responsible for some of the great advances in public health in the 20th century. But over time, bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens have mutated to develop resistance to antibiotic drugs. This is a dangerous setback for modern medicine. Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria can cause serious, prolonged, and debilitating illnesses, and even death. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, is a drug resistant infection that can be contracted not only in hospitals but in community settings such as gyms and playgrounds. A study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last month projected that the number of deaths from MRSA exceeded the number from AIDS in 2005. That statistic alone should be a wake-up call for America. We need to respond quickly to this problem, because it will only grow worse with time. We are creating these deadly infections. We create them by using antibiotics when we do not need to and by not following through on the full regimen of antibiotic therapies as prescribed. More consistent and thorough hand washing in health care settings can also make a huge difference. Several of our Government agencies are involved in efforts to address antimicrobial resistance. However, we need more coordination among all the federal agencies involved. This bill seeks to facilitate that coordination by establishing an Office of Antimicrobial Resistance at the Department of Health and Human Services. The bill also reauthorizes an interagency task force that has already done significant legwork on this issue so that, spearheaded by the coordinating office, Federal agencies can turn that legwork into action. The STAAR Act calls for a comprehensive research plan that would identify knowledge gaps and recommend strategies for filling those gaps. It would significantly improve surveillance by establishing a multi-site surveillance network and working to ensure uniformity in State collection of antimicrobial resistance data. Drug-resistant infections set back the clock on medical progress. They cost money and more importantly, they take lives. We need to take antimicrobial resistance seriously and fight it with as much passion as we fight any potential killer.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today, I am introducing the Strategies to Address Antimicrobial Resistance Act. This bill, also known as the STAAR Act, is meant to reinvigorate efforts to combat antimicrobial resistance--efforts that accelerated in the late 90s but then stalled. I want to thank Senator Hatch for his leadership on this issue and for introducing this bill with me. I look forward to working with him to ensure it passage. Antibiotics are the cornerstone of modern medicine, relied on to treat countless diseases and responsible for some of the great advances in public health in the 20th century. But over time, bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens have mutated to develop resistance to antibiotic drugs. This is a dangerous setback for modern medicine. Infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria can cause serious, prolonged, and debilitating illnesses, and even death. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA, is a drug resistant infection that can be contracted not only in hospitals but in community settings such as gyms and playgrounds. A study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last month projected that the number of deaths from MRSA exceeded the number from AIDS in 2005. That statistic alone should be a wake-up call for America. We need to respond quickly to this problem, because it will only grow worse with time. We are creating these deadly infections. We create them by using antibiotics when we do not need to and by not following through on the full regimen of antibiotic therapies as prescribed. More consistent and thorough hand washing in health care settings can also make a huge difference. Several of our Government agencies are involved in efforts to address antimicrobial resistance. However, we need more coordination among all the federal agencies involved. This bill seeks to facilitate that coordination by establishing an Office of Antimicrobial Resistance at the Department of Health and Human Services. The bill also reauthorizes an interagency task force that has already done significant legwork on this issue so that, spearheaded by the coordinating office, Federal agencies can turn that legwork into action. The STAAR Act calls for a comprehensive research plan that would identify knowledge gaps and recommend strategies for filling those gaps. It would significantly improve surveillance by establishing a multi-site surveillance network and working to ensure uniformity in State collection of antimicrobial resistance data. Drug-resistant infections set back the clock on medical progress. They cost money and more importantly, they take lives. We need to take antimicrobial resistance seriously and fight it with as much passion as we fight any potential killer.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 328, S. 1163.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time; that the Veterans' Affairs Committee then be discharged of H.R. 797, the House companion, and the Senate then proceed to its consideration; that all after the enacting clause be stricken, and the text of S. 1163 be inserted in lieu thereof; that the bill be advanced to third reading, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that S. 1163 be returned to the calendar; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, if there is no further business, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 2 p.m. Monday, November 5; that on Monday, following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of Proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day; that there then be a period of morning business until 3 p.m., with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each; that at 3 p.m., the Senate proceed to the consideration of H.R. 2419, the farm bill; provided further that there be debate only after the majority manager has offered a substitute amendment.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the adjournment of the Senate, the Agriculture Committee be authorized to file an original bill and accompanying committee report until 3 p.m., Friday, November 2.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I thank the Presiding Officer, the Senator from Minnesota, for the work she has done on the issue I will talk about today--consumer product safety. This year, our Nation has witnessed recall after recall after recall of contaminated products--toys, vitamins, pet food, tires, the list goes on and on. Our fundamentally flawed trade policy, mixed with an indifferent--or worse--consumer protection agency, has eroded nearly 40 years of safety standards in our Nation. In the past, until the last few years, our safety standards assured parents they could trust that their children's toys were lead free. We are now trying to strengthen the Consumer Protection Safety Commission. I am a cosponsor of the legislation authored by Senator Pryor that will help strengthen that agency--the agency charged with keeping our families safe from contaminated products--whether it is toys or other products. Earlier this week, however, a New York Times story revealed that the CPSC Acting Chairwoman, Nancy Nord, is actively working against these improvements, lobbying Congress to kill this bill. That is shameful. This morning's Washington Post revealed that, in addition to fighting agency improvements, Chairwoman Nord has enjoyed trips across the country and around the world, paid for by the very toy companies she is responsible for regulating. That is outrageous. These were trips paid for by the toy industry, the industry that is now under scrutiny for cutting corners--cutting corners that earn big profits for industry CEOs and sends toxic toys into our children's bedrooms. Parents have the right to trust that their children's toys are safe. Every American has the right to trust that their Government is doing its job to keep us safe. Sadly, that does not appear to be the case with the CPSC. Now, Chairwoman Nord claims her agency simply doesn't have the resources to do the job right. She claims the legislation now working its way through Congress would overburden her agency. Why then, one must ask, did Chairwoman Nord fail to ask for more money when she met with the Appropriations Committee earlier this year? The 2008 budget she defended before Congress doesn't even account for inflation. It leaves this agency less well equipped to prevent harm to children and to the rest of us. She stood up before the House Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee and defended this budget, never once asserting the need for additional resources. What better opportunity could Chairwoman Nord have had to improve her agency? What better opportunity could she have had to protect our families? But she failed. The CPSC budget is half what it was when it was created in the 1970s--in the days when most toys and consumer products were made in this country. We imported last year $288 billion worth of products from China, tens of billions of dollars of products and toys from China and other countries that don't have a regulatory system or a Consumer Product Safety Commission or a system in place to protect consumers. During this time, the CPSC staff dwindled from nearly 1,000 to 420. We must increase funding and staff to the CPSC. We need to increase coordination between the CPSC and Customs officials. We must give the CPSC the authority to examine and approve other nations' regulatory systems before imports from those countries show up in our children's bedrooms. We need a leader at the CPSC who supports these goals. It is clear that Chairwoman Nord does not. She has been given the responsibility of doing everything in her power to keep our families safe and our children safe. Instead, Chairwoman Nord supports an abysmal agency budget request, is actively working against efforts to strengthen her agency, and takes trips funded by manufacturers. Chairwoman Nancy Nord should step down. It is time to put a chairperson in place who is not satisfied with: We are doing the best we can. We need a chairperson who fights for the authority and the resources the CPSC needs to do the job it is supposed to do--protect our families. We need real leadership at the CPSC--leadership that doesn't side with manufacturers over consumer safety, leadership that stands up to industry pressure, leadership that puts our children and our families first.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, Halloween has come and gone. Yet there are too many parents I have talked to in the last couple weeks who have some fear, who have been scared about some of the toys that have come into our country; where they see ``Made in China'' and they have seen news reports and have seen and heard about products tested that have lead content. A professor at the University of Ashland, in Ashland, OH, about 15 miles from where I grew up in Mansfield, OH, has been a leader, with his chemistry students at Ashland University, in testing for lead in toys. I asked him if he would test some Halloween products, if you will, some Halloween toys and various paraphernalia. He found out of 22 products he tested, 3 of them had high levels of lead. In fact, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has said that anything over 600 parts per million of lead is dangerous for adults, and any lead at all is dangerous for children. He found in a Frankenstein mug he bought locally at a store in Ashland--and they are sold all over the country, I am sure--he found a Frankenstein mug that had 39,000 parts per million of lead--39,000-- when the level of safety for adults is 600, and the level for children is zero. He found a Halloween cup that was 39,000 parts per million. We have read all about the Consumer Product Safety Commission and how they have failed the American people and how the chairwoman is lobbying against the legislation of Senator Pryor to make the Consumer Product Safety Commission work better; how she has supported the Bush administration, as an appointee of them, in cutting funding for inspections and cutting funding for enforcing consumer product safety. But this shouldn't surprise us when we buy $288 billion worth of products from China, as we did last year, not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars of products from other countries, and tens of billions of dollars of those products are consumer items certainly-- tens of billions of dollars worth of tires, vitamins, toys--all kinds of things. Those products are made in a country where they have weak worker safety standards, they have almost nonexistent consumer protection laws and rules, they have very weak food safety standards, very weak environmental safe drinking water and clean air standards. So we shouldn't be surprised when we buy products from a country where these products are produced doesn't have any kinds of protections themselves for their own workers and for their own consuming public. That is compounded by the fact that American companies such as Mattel, toy companies and other companies, when they go to China, they hire Chinese subcontractors and they push these Chinese subcontractors to cut costs: You have to cut costs and cut corners and make these products cheaper. So what logically will they do? They will use lead- based paint because it is cheaper, easier to apply, dries faster, and it is shinier. They will put contaminants in vitamins because it is less expensive than using the pure, real ingredients that should be in them. As the New York Times pointed out yesterday in a frontpage story, they will sell pharmaceuticals out of China that are contaminated and unsafe for consumers in China and all over the world. So you have a situation where we open our borders, as we should, to trade. I want trade. I want more of it. I want plenty of it. But I want it under a different set of rules, most importantly to protect the American public and our families and our children. But we open up our borders to $288 billion of Chinese products. They don't make these products safe for their own people, let alone for the United States. They cut costs to export those products here, and then when these importers bring them in, Mattel or anybody else, they are not held accountable. If Mattel is going to bring toys in, then they are responsible for those toys being safe--any importer that brings products in, whether it is apple juice, whether it is vitamins, whether it is toothpaste, whether it is dog food, whether it is toys, whether it is tires. Every one of those products has had a major problem, and every one of those products I mentioned was imported from China and from Southeast Asia. At the same time, then, we have a complicit or a compliant--I am not sure which--Bush administration which has weakened consumer protection laws, food safety laws, clean air laws, safe drinking water laws, and it has weakened drug safety laws. We have a Bush administration which has weakened those laws and then underfunds and cuts back on the number of inspections. So the products are made in a country where they are not likely to be safe, they are brought in by an American contractor who has pushed those subcontractors to do it more cheaply; they are then brought in with no personal or corporate responsibility by the importer, and then we have a government which doesn't protect us. For 50 years, in some cases more than 50 years, and in others slightly fewer than 50 years, we have had an FDA, Food and Drug Administration, an EPA, a Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency, we have had these agencies which have protected the air, the water, the food, the medicine, the toys our consumers buy. What has happened over the last 5 years is that they have weakened the standards and cut back the number of inspectors, even though 20 years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency was much larger and did many more inspections, we are now importing all kinds of toys and food products that we weren't importing back then. So we have set ourselves up--because of the Bush administration's closeness to the toy companies and other corporations, the Bush administration has sided with the drug companies over the consuming, medicine-taking public, the Bush administration has sided with the big polluters and they weakened the EPA; they sided with the big toy companies and weakened the Consumer Product Safety Commission. So it is no surprise our children are not as safe and our food supply is not as pure as it should be. It doesn't matter to point fingers, but the fact is we have set this system up, in part because of trade policy that is written by the largest corporations in the country to serve their shareholders and to serve their executives at the expense of workers overseas, at the expense of workers in our country, and at the expense of the consuming public: our children and their toys in their bedrooms and our families in the food they buy for their kitchen tables. Yet Congress--the House and Senate--perhaps is about to pass another trade agreement. We have seen these trade agreements with China, with Mexico--the Central American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, CAFTA, PNTR with China--we have seen these trade agreements weaken our safety regulatory structure. These trade agreements in part are responsible for weaker environmental standards, for weaker food safety standards, for weaker consumer protection laws, for weaker food and drug safety rules. Yet Congress is about to pass, it looks like, a trade agreement with Peru, with some of the same problems. It is a better trade agreement. It has some labor and environmental standards, but it doesn't have the kinds of protection for food safety, the kinds of protections for drug safety, the kinds of protections for consumer products as it should. Instead of passing another trade agreement, Congress should simply stop. We should reexamine our consumer protection laws, our food safety laws, our safe drinking water and clean air laws, our drug safety laws. We should stop and examine them. We should stop and not pass any more trade agreements until we have reexamined what NAFTA has meant, what CAFTA has meant, what PNTR with China has meant, and a whole host of other trade agreements. Then we can move forward and write trade agreements that don't just serve the interests of the largest companies in the world, as they have in the past, but trade agreements that work for workers, trade agreements that protect the public, protect our jobs, protect our food supply, and protect our children from dangerous toys. If these trade agreements are done right, they will lift up standards not just in Mexico and Central America and China, but lift up standards in this country so we know we will have pure food and safe drinking water. We know from these trade agreements that we will have safe toys with no lead in them, and we know it will be better for our communities, from Galion to Gallipolis to Ashtabula to Middletown in my great State of Ohio. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time on the quorum call be evenly divided between the two parties.

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for about 7 or 8 minutes.

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, Members of the House and Senate have worked diligently over the last several months to write a bill to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program. They worked hard and came to a solid bipartisan compromise. This is a bill that Republicans and Democrats alike have championed. Almost 70 Members of the Senate voted for the Children's Health Insurance Program, and about 290 members of the House voted for it. Despite the strong support nationwide from both parties in the House and both parties in the Senate and the strong support from groups such as the United Way to children's hospitals, to pediatricians, to medical groups, to all kinds of children's advocates, the President still vetoed it. Now we have an opportunity to save the bill. For our national leaders who are still unsure, I wish they would meet the families benefiting from this program. I would love it if President Bush would meet families such as the Coltmans of Conneaut, OH, which is not far from where my wife grew up, near the Pennsylvania border. The Coltmans are a large family with five children and two hard-working parents. In July, their 7-year-old son Caleb was diagnosed with leukemia. The doctors are optimistic, but treatment, of course, is very expensive. Last year, Kenna Coltman, Caleb's mother, left her job to work for her family business, a neighborhood grocery store. Unfortunately, this meant she had to search for new health insurance. After a long search for private insurance, the Coltman family found an affordable plan, but it wasn't scheduled to go into effect until August. By that time, Caleb had been diagnosed with leukemia. Needless to say, that was a deal breaker for the private insurer. Uninsured, facing catastrophic illness--a parent's worse nightmare-- the Coltmans ran out of options. Caleb's mother recounted the experience this way: If there was absolutely any other way to get our son the care and medication he needs without totally impoverishing our family, we would do it. Instead, the Coltmans turned to Ohio's Healthy Start/Healthy Families program, a Medicaid-CHIP joint initiative. Mrs. Coltman said: We were lucky in the fact that last year was a really bad year for us financially, or we may not have even qualified for Medicaid. Hear that again: We were lucky in the fact that last year was a really bad year for us financially, or we may not have even qualified for Medicaid. It seems wrong to me that a family should be feeling ``lucky'' because they earned so little money in 1 year that they were able to qualify for Medicaid to take care of their son who was diagnosed with leukemia. But Mrs. Coltman does feel lucky and they qualified--falling below 200 percent of poverty even after exhausting all their savings. Caleb's treatment is now covered. Thankfully, his current prognosis is good, and the family business seems to be turning the corner. Although the Coltman parents are still without health insurance, the children remain covered through SCHIP--a bona fide lifesaver, a real lifesaver. Let's make sure other families--in Ohio and elsewhere--have access to this critical health insurance safety net by sending the Children's Health Insurance Program bill to the President's desk. Let's provide children in Ohio, in Missouri, and elsewhere, such as Caleb, the start in life that will help them to achieve their goals and develop to their fullest potential. Ten years ago, a Democratic President and Republican Congress made a promise to low-income children and their parents. We told them they would be able to insure their children. We wrote it into law and the Children's Health Insurance Program has worked for 6 million children. Now, this bill will help us follow through on that promise for 4 million additional children. There are millions of low-income American children who are eligible but not now enrolled. This bill enables our country to follow through for more children who are already standing at the door. This bill lets them in. We have an insurance program that works, a bipartisan consensus that is firm, and a goal that is above politics. Our goal is to provide health insurance for our children. Let us move forward. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, our Nation's haphazard trade policy too often allows contaminated food and dangerous toys onto our shelves and into our homes, and this administration has done little to curb the toxic tide. Earlier this month, I asked Ohio's Ashland University chemistry Professor Jeff Weidenhamer to test 22 Halloween products for lead. Three products tested were found to contain high lead levels. Acceptable levels of lead, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, are 600 parts per million for adults. According to CPSC, there is no acceptable lead level for children. A Halloween Frankenstein cup that Professor Weidenhamer tested--presumably a cup that may end up in a child's mouth--contained 39,000 parts per million versus 600, which is acceptable for an adult, and zero acceptable for a child. For more than 40 years, parents trusted that their children's toys were safe from lead. The safety net secured to help our families is being systematically dismantled, as the Presiding Officer, the Senator from North Dakota, has pointed out so well, by our Nation's failed trade policies and an apathetic administration. Forty years ago, we banned lead in paint. Now we must ban lead in toys. I am a cosponsor of legislation with Senator Obama that would do that. While a ban on lead in toys is an important step, it doesn't get at the heart of the problem--our failed trade policy. Until we get tough on enforcing safety standards abroad, we won't be able to prevent contaminated products from ending up on store shelves across the country and in our homes. Distributors seeking low-cost products stretch supply chains to China and cut costs; that is, American companies that import go to China and other countries and push them to cut costs, to cut corners, and then those products are brought back into the United States. That means lead paint in toys because it is cheaper to buy and to apply, it means too often contaminated products in our homes, and it means zero accountability. We have not made the importers, the contractors, or the Government accountable because of cuts at the Consumer Product Safety Commission and because we have a top Commissioner there who has simply weakened that agency and abdicated responsibility. As yesterday's report highlighted, we must do more to ensure the Consumer Product Safety Commission has what it needs to do its job. I am a cosponsor of legislation sponsored by Senator Pryor that would reauthorize and strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Its budget is half what it was when it began in the 1970s in real dollars. The staff has dwindled over the years from 1,000, including inspectors, to 420. We must instead increase funding and staff at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We must increase coordination between the CPSC and Customs officials. We must give the Commission the authority to examine and approve other nations' regulatory systems before imports from a country get onto our store shelves. When we buy tens of billions of dollars of toys, tires, and other consumer products from a country that has weak environmental laws, weak food safety laws, weak consumer protection laws and, at the same time, when our companies that import from other countries push subcontractors in those countries to cut costs, this is what we end up with. That is why we must give the CPSC the authority to examine and approve other nations' regulatory systems. Unfortunately, as imports from China and other trading nations rise and the recall of toxic products at home increases, the Bush administration continues to call for more Consumer Product Safety Commission cuts. Yesterday, the Times reported that Chairwoman Nord of the CPSC plans to actively work to kill the Pryor legislation. That is unacceptable. This administration's apathy for policies that protect our families is at best shameful and at worst potentially deadly. One thing I am sure of: It is time for Nancy Nord of the Consumer Product Safety Commission chair to step aside. She is the acting chairperson but, unfortunately, we have seen a lot more inaction than we have action. It is time to put a chairperson in place who is not satisfied with ``we are doing the best we can.'' We need a chairperson who fights for the authority and the resources the Commission needs to do the job it is supposed to. Her response to the wave of product recalls has been, to put it charitably, underwhelming. She is fighting efforts to make more information available to the public about product hazards. She opposes protections for whistleblowers who identify shoddy products, and, most importantly, in the face of recall after recall, she has offered no plan to equip the CPSC to fulfill its role in product safety. She spends most of her time trying to make sure her agency isn't scrutinized or held accountable for doing its job. We need a permanent chairperson dedicated to doing the most important thing the CPSC is to do--protecting families and our children, not protecting corporate interests. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for no more than 5 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, today the Joint Economic Committee released a report highlighting the impact of subprime foreclosures on local economies. It confirmed what many of us know: When homes go into foreclosure, it is not just the homeowner and the tragedy to that family; whole communities suffer. When entire neighborhoods fall victim to foreclosures, communities are often devastated. Today's report shows that in Ohio, there are more than 293,000 outstanding sub-prime loans--293,000 in a State of 11 million people, perhaps 3 million-plus households; 293,000 outstanding subprime loans. Every outstanding loan represents a family, an Ohio family, that is so close to losing their home. The estimated loss of property value this year in Ohio is more than $3.7 billion. The estimated local tax loss, that is local government revenue all over the State, this year is more than $31 million. That is lost revenue needed to pay for firefighters, for schoolteachers, for police officers, and for rescue squad vehicles and their workers. That lost revenue means poorer service and less service for those communities already suffering from poverty and suffering from the foreclosures themselves. Two years ago, when Hurricane Katrina's storm surge left thousands homeless, Congress and the American people leapt to respond. We were moved and ashamed by the images we saw in our newspapers and on television. We were moved by the images, and ashamed, frankly, by our Government's lack of response. Most of us could not believe this could happen in our country. Today, we are witnessing the economic equivalent of Katrina in the housing market--a slow moving storm surge that is leaving hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people in this country without a home. They have lost their homes, they have lost their American dream. It started on Lake Erie rather than on Lake Pontchartrain, but it has spread to all corners of our country--from New York to the Presiding Officer's Florida, from California to Minnesota. As today's report shows, subprime lending doesn't just hurt families, it hurts entire communities. Unfortunately, the response to date in some ways has been worse than Katrina. Regulators have been slow to use their authority to act, Congress has done next to nothing, and the President, as before with Katrina, made a speech and then moved on. The Treasury Department sprang into action when Wall Street was looking at losses, but it has not applied the same energy or commitment to the thousands upon thousands of families in Slavic Village, near Cleveland, in Columbus and Lima, in Mansfield and Marion, or Zanesville. Thousands and thousands of families in those communities are losing their homes. Whole neighborhoods in Cleveland and Dayton and cities throughout the State are drowning in foreclosures. Things are going to get worse before they get better. We know that, because the adjustable rate mortgages are about to reset day after day, week after week, month after month in our communities. Almost every day the news brings more evidence of how widespread this problem has become for banks--losses in Merrill Lynch, layoffs at Bank of America, and huge layoffs at National City Bank in my State. Even as National City announces the layoff of 1,000 people in Ohio, in the first 9 months of this year, since January, 100,000 foreclosure filings have already stacked up, with every county in our State contributing to that stack. Home sales are down, prices are down, and problems are showing up in prime markets. But we have yet to see the worst of it. Resets of subprime adjustable rate mortgages will peak this fall, ease up a bit, and then skyrocket next fall. Throughout the time these mortgages were being made, underwriting standards fell further and further. So on top of the enormous volume of loans resetting over the next 12 to 15 months, the likelihood of all those 2-28 loans made in 2006 defaulting in 2008 is likely to get worse. We are already in record territory when it comes to this year's loans, but we have made a start in addressing this crisis. The $200 million contained in the housing appropriations bill passed by the Senate must be maintained or increased in the bill sent to the President. And he must sign it. He must do something about this. That would be a major first step to helping those neighborhood organizations, those not-for-profits. There is a terrific one in Toledo, and several in my State and in the State of Florida too. It will matter to those people who are about to lose their homes. They are delinquent in their payments, perhaps because of the reset and a higher mortgage, or because their taxes and insurance were added when they didn't know they weren't included, or when they were simply deceived or betrayed by fraudulent mortgage brokers. This $200 million is not a bailout. It is only to help them renegotiate their loans so their delinquencies won't turn into foreclosures. And the President, as I said, must sign this bill. The regulators need to act and act quickly with strong protections for consumers, and Congress must act to codify and build on those protections. Mortgage bankers must be held accountable for their actions. They can no longer sell loans without regard to whether a borrower can afford to pay them back. And banks have to be responsible as well. Underwriting standards have to ensure that borrowers qualify at the real rate rather than the teaser rate. No more of that. Escrows have to be set up for subprime loans, as they are for prime loans, and put money aside for insurance and for taxes. No-document loans need to become a thing of the past. Just because the subprime crisis is less visible than the destruction of a hurricane, it is no less damaging. All of us need to respond. Our response must be comprehensive and our response needs to happen now. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.