Sherrod Brown

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Kennedy, and I want to join my colleagues, and I will precede Senator Dodd and join him and Senator Kennedy and others in urging a ``no'' vote on the amendment offered by the Senator from Colorado. Drugmakers, as we know, have exclusive rights to market a prescription drug under a patent. That means no generic drugs are allowed on the market. There is no price competition and nothing to prevent drugmakers from charging top dollar for their products. Top dollar, as many of our constituents know all too well, for a prescription drug can be breathtaking. A 30-day supply of Nexium, the little purple pill, costs about $193; a 30-day supply of Exelon, an Alzheimer's drug, is $214; a 30-day supply of Pravachol, a statin drug, is $168. Under current law--under current law--drugmakers are rewarded an additional 6 months of competition- free time on the market when they agree to evaluate a prescription drug for use in children--6 months. That is a tradeoff. It is a tradeoff the House and Senate agreed to, where adult consumers of this drug--adult consumers of the drug--are denied a less costly generic version of, for example, Prilosec, for an additional 6 months. This means their out-of-pocket health care costs-- or their employer, or their insurance company, or the government--are significantly higher than they otherwise would be. That is the tradeoff. At the same time, drugmakers agree to conduct pediatric testing they wouldn't have done voluntarily, sometimes for reasons all their own, and those tests provide invaluable information to pediatricians for the proper use and dose of medicines prescribed to children. That was the agreement--the 6-month exclusivity agreement. That incentive has worked to increase, we all agree, the number of pediatric tests drugmakers conduct. That is important. Pediatricians now have access to new information that has enabled them to make better use of prescription drugs to help our Nation's children. My colleague, Senator Dodd, championed the 6-month exclusivity law in his efforts in this area, as did my predecessor in the Senate, and so many others, and their work has improved the lives of children. Needless to say, the Senator from Connecticut would not arbitrarily or recklessly make changes to the pediatric exclusivity law. It was his idea and his work. He clearly isn't going to compromise it. But he is recommending one change, and this amendment, the Allard amendment, undoes that change, which is included in S. 1082. He is recommending if a drug generates more than $1 billion in revenues--that is, it is a blockbuster drug--if the drug generates more than $1 billion in revenue, that drug should receive an additional 3 months of market exclusivity instead of 6 months. The reason is both simple and compelling. It costs about $13 million--think about these numbers--it costs about $13 million to conduct pediatric testing on a new drug. If a drugmaker is taking in $1 billion a year on that drug, $13 million is about 1 percent of their revenues on that drug. Giving that drugmaker an additional 6 months of market exclusivity on a $1 billion drug costs health care consumers and taxpayers--the taxpayers who cover the cost of public health programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA--it costs them millions of dollars each day. This is not, as Senator Allard said, a provision to punish the drug companies. It is a provision to help people with their out-of-pocket drug costs. It is a provision to help taxpayers who fund Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA. It is a provision to help those businesses that are funding health care and drug plans for their employees. The Federal Government could do it another away. The Federal Government could reimburse drugmakers for the cost of pediatric tests. It could reward them with a 600-percent profit on conducting those tests, and it would still cost appreciably less than rewarding them an additional 6 months of exclusivity. That is why we made the decision not to do it that way. But in light of the astounding imbalance between the cost of conducting a pediatric test--$13 million--and the reward that 6 months of exclusivity provides when it comes to a $1 billion drug, Senator Dodd recommended we cut that in half. We provide 3 months of exclusivity for billion-dollar drugs instead. It is still a breathtaking reward: A $1 billion drug gets a 3-month exclusivity instead of a 6-month exclusivity for a $13 million test--a breathtaking reward for one pediatric test, but it is measurably more justifiable than the 6-month moratorium on price competition. Common sense, fiscal responsibility, and the fact that all of us in this Chamber report to U.S. taxpayers dictate that we support Senator Dodd on this modest change in his own program. The Allard amendment gives $1 billion drugs a 6-month exclusivity instead of 3. The logic is, if 6 months of market exclusivity is working to prompt drugmakers to conduct pediatric testing, we shouldn't change it. By that logic, we might as well give drugmakers 100 years of market exclusivity. I am sure that would work, too. The point is, we have to draw the line to encourage pediatric testing, which this will, and to save money for our employers, for our taxpayers, and for senior citizens' out-of-pocket costs. When a drugmaker earns hundreds of millions of dollars, in many cases out of the pockets of U.S. taxpayers, for a pediatric test that costs about $10 million, that is unnecessary, it is unjustifiable, and it is outright wrong. Please vote for common sense, for protecting our children, for U.S. taxpayers, for consumers, and against the Allard amendment.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet in open session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 2, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., to receive testimony on Department of Energy Atomic Energy Defense programs in review of the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2008.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, 4 years ago today, as Senator Menendez said, the President landed on an aircraft carrier, amid a flurry of pomp and circumstance, and declared, ``Mission accomplished.'' Since that day, much has happened. Since that day, 3,000 brave American soldiers and marines have died in Iraq. This war has gone on, since that day, longer than World War II. Since that day, the United Nations has estimated that 35,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed. Since that day, U.S. taxpayers have spent $450 billion on the war in Iraq. To get an understanding of what $450 billion is, if we spent $500 every second of every minute of every hour of every day, it would take 29 years to spend the $450 billion we have spent in Iraq. Now, 4 years later, our troops in Iraq are stuck in the middle of a civil war. Too many of our brave soldiers do not have the body armor they need, in spite of the imploring of so many of us to the administration to do what they need to do to protect our soldiers. Now thousands of Guard men and women face early and extended redeployment. Four years later, the will of the people resonates in townhalls and in churches, in back yards and in living rooms across this country. Their message is clear: Mr. President, redeploy our troops out of Iraq. Up to now, however, the President has refused to hear the calls of millions of Americans. He has refused to listen to voters last fall who demanded a different course in Iraq. He has refused to listen to the Iraq Study Group, which recommended the redeployment of our troops out of Iraq. He has refused to listen to his own generals who have implored him, in many cases, to disengage from this civil war. He has refused to listen to Congress. The supplemental on its way to the White House echoes what many of us in Congress and military families across this great country have been saying: We need a new direction for Iraq. We take a backseat to no one in supporting the brave men and women fighting in Iraq. That is why so many of us have pushed this administration, pushed the civilian leadership in the Pentagon and in the White House to equip our soldiers with proper body armor. We take a backseat to no one in supporting the families of our soldiers overseas. That is why so many of us in this Chamber have pushed to help these support groups that have formed all over the country for soldiers and helping them reintegrate back into their jobs, back with their families and their society when they return home from Iraq. But more of the same is not a plan for our troops and will not end the war in Iraq. This war has made our country and our world less safe. Congress will continue to fight for our Nation's military by working to see that they have the resources and the support they need and the leadership they deserve. This legislation fully funds and supports our troops, while establishing conditions that will bring our troops home. It provides desperately needed funding to the Veterans' Administration, something this administration and previous Republican Congresses have woefully underfunded. It provides desperately needed funding to the Veterans' Administration to help care for the hundreds of thousands of new veterans created by this war. If the President will not take responsibility for his failures in his conduct of this war, then Congress will. If the President will not lead our troops home, then Congress will. We owe it to our soldiers, to our sailors, to our airmen, airwomen, and to our marines, and we owe it to their families. Instead of threatening a veto, the President should listen to the military leaders, listen to the American people, and work with Congress to change the course in Iraq. Vetoing this legislation would deny funding our military and our veterans desperately need: $99 billion in emergency Department of Defense spending, more than the President's budget; $3 billion for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles; $4.8 billion in military construction for BRAC, the Base Closing Commission; and the VA, which has been underfunded by $2 billion in the President's budget, under this bill would get $1.7 billion immediately, more than the President's VA proposal, and will do better in the next budget. It includes $100 million for VA mental health services. It is absolutely outrageous that this Congress--the House and Senate--and this President send our men and women off to war, not equipping them with the right body armor, not giving them the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles we know how to build in this country, and then when they return home, not giving tens of thousands of soldiers and marines the health care they deserve. In addition to what we do to restore that spending and take care of our veterans when they return home, this emergency legislation has over $1 billion for Katrina relief, $13 million for mine safety because of the increase in deaths in mines in places such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia, $625 million for the pandemic flu response, something we absolutely need to be prepared for, and $400 million for energy assistance for the low-income elderly. Please, Mr. President, before you decide to veto this bill, read this legislation. Don't turn your back on millions of Americans, don't turn your back on your military advisers and the military experts, don't turn your back on our soldiers. Sign this legislation.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I appreciate the words of my colleague, the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi. S. 1082 is a major piece of legislation that aims to--and will--achieve a profoundly important goal. It will improve the public health. When it is riskier to take a drug than to skip it, the public health is compromised. When a lifesaving prescription drug or medical device languishes at the FDA because of backlogs in the approval process, the public health is compromised. When pediatricians are forced to fly by the seat of their pants because there is no data to guide the use of a drug or medical device in children specifically, the public health is compromised. When FDA has the responsibility but lacks the tools to assess the safety or effectiveness of a new drug or device, the public health is compromised. S. 1082 tackles each of these problems. It gives FDA more authority and drugmakers a greater incentive to assure the safety of medicines before and after drug approval. It reauthorizes user fees, an additional source of funding that enables FDA to speed up the approval of new prescription drugs and medical devices. It reauthorizes financial incentives to encourage drugmakers to test their products for use in children, and it establishes similar incentives for medical device manufacturers. At the same time, it puts more teeth in FDA's authority to require studies when the health or safety of children is clearly at risk. S. 1082 creates a new institute charged with developing up-to-date methods of assessing the safety and effectiveness of cutting-edge medical interventions. You are no doubt going to hear complaints about this bill. Some Members will tell you that it is overly bureaucratic. Coincidentally, that is exactly what the brand-name drug industry says about it. Nobody can accuse the drugmakers of inconsistency. They consistently place their own self-interest ahead of health care safety, access, and affordability. The drug industry doesn't want FDA to take additional steps to prevent prescription-drug-related injury or death, although the drug industry is open to being shielded from liability when those tragedies happen. When Members of this body stand up and claim this bill is too bureaucratic, don't buy into it. This is a carefully crafted bipartisan bill. It is less stringent than consumer groups want and more stringent than the drug industry wants. In other words, it is a compromise--a compromise that will improve the public health. There will be amendments to this bill. As Members on both sides of the aisle review them, I urge them to remember this: Amendments that improve drug safety will benefit consumers and reduce health care costs. Amendments that increase price competition in the prescription drug market will benefit consumers and reduce health care costs. And amendments that weaken this bill or block price competition in the marketplace will benefit--who else--the brand-name drug industry. The drug industry has more than 3,000 lobbyists here and in the House of Representatives. Last year alone, the drug industry spent more than $150 million lobbying at the Federal level. That is quite a home court advantage. As one might imagine, people who have lost loved ones to unsafe drugs and people who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions don't have quite as deep pockets as the drug industry. Still, this is a drug safety bill, this is a drug access bill, this is not a drug industry bill. I hope every Member will consider the bill and every amendment in that context because in that context, when we vote on the final bill, if we vote yes, we will be voting to improve the public health. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Madam President, recently we learned the Ohio National Guard could face early redeployment. We learned the National Guard is being asked to train without the proper equipment. Our Guard will do the job well regardless of the circumstances, but it is wrong to send them to Iraq with incomplete training and inadequate equipment and with insufficient downtime. The supplemental passed today echoes what many of us in Congress and military families across the country have been saying: We need a new direction for Iraq. Make no mistake, we take a backseat to no one in supporting the brave men and women fighting in Iraq. We absolutely support their families. However, more of the same is not a plan for our troops and will not end this war in Iraq. This war has made our world and our country less safe. The Iraq war has cost 142 Ohioans their lives. It has wounded another 1,000 Ohioans. Congress will continue to fight for our Nation's military by working to see they have the resources and support they need and leadership they deserve. The supplemental did that today. The supplemental fully funds and fully supports our troops, while establishing conditions that will bring our troops home. It provides desperately needed funding to the VA, something the President simply has not asked for, to help care for the hundreds of thousands of new veterans created by this war. In the Veterans' Committee yesterday, we heard from families about tragedy after tragedy, from families who have lost loved ones in this war, who didn't get the proper care from the VA because of underfunding, who didn't get the proper direction when they returned home from Iraq because the White House simply did not schedule in the way they should have the kind of help for returning Iraqi veterans. If the President won't take responsibility for those failures and lead our troops home, then Congress must. We owe it to our soldiers, sailors, air men and women, our marines, and especially to their families. The President should listen to the military leaders and listen to the American people and work with Congress to change course in Iraq instead of threatening vetoes. I hope the President reads this legislation before he makes his final determination whether to sign it or whether to veto it. Vetoing this legislation would deny funding that our military needs and that our veterans desperately need, such as $99 billion in emergency Department of Defense spending--$4 billion more than the President requested; $3 billion for mine-resistant, ambush- protected vehicles; $4.8 billion in military construction in part to fund BRAC--$3.1 billion will go to funding the BRAC 2005 account, and we know all over the country how important that is; and $1.6 billion for individual body armor. The President and the Pentagon and civilian leaders of this country have fallen shamefully short in their failures to provide the body armor for our troops. We have all heard too many stories. I have heard them in Steubenville and Toledo and Dayton about soldiers' families telling us they didn't have the proper body armor they needed. The VA would get $1.7 billion more than the President's VA proposal. We know the VA is underfunded at least that much. They have increased only about 10 percent in terms of employees but have a workload of returning Iraqi war veterans of at least 2.5 times that number. There is $39 million in our supplemental budget for polytrauma-related funding. There is $10 million for blind veterans programs. There is $100 million--and this is essential--for VA mental health services and $25 million for prosthetics. None of those did the President include in his request, and none of those have we prepared for properly in the previous Congress and in the White House. When we add up the numbers and we see 3,300 soldiers and marines in our country have lost their lives in the Iraq war, when you understand the tens of thousands of injuries, we see that our VA is simply not prepared. They are not prepared for this year and next year, let alone for the 50 years down the road when taxpayers are going to be taking care of these deserving veterans, giving the kind of care that we should be providing. We are going to see we are not prepared over the next 50 years to do that, either for health treatment or for treatment of mental health injuries. In addition to the Iraq spending and the spending for our Nation's returning veterans, there are other things in this emergency spending bill, as there were in Republican bills in the past, drafted by the White House, passed by the Republican House and Senate. There is other crucial emergency spending that needs to be dealt with: $1.3 billion for Katrina relief, $100 million for FEMA and emergency management performance grants, $425 million for securing rural schools, $13 million for mine safety. We have seen some of the most dangerous times in our Nation's mines in the last couple of years. There is $625 million for pandemic flu response, something public health authorities warn us about every week or so here. There is $400 million for LIHEAP to take care of deserving elderly and indigent who simply cannot afford their heating and cooling bills and another $683 million for emergency relief grants--all that this Congress needs to do. The President has set our Nation on a path that leads in the wrong direction in Iraq and fails to meet the needs of our returning veterans. It is time to change paths. I ask again that the President of the United States read this bill, understand this bill, and understand how the supplemental bill addresses the needs our country faces in the years ahead. Madam President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise in support of the Kohl amendment. I, first of all, appreciate the terrific work he has done in the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. I come from a State with many of the same problems the Senator from Wisconsin faces, including a decline in our industrial base. In too many cases, many of the 3 million manufacturing jobs our country has lost are in my State, and it especially hurts those small manufacturing companies, those small tool and dye makers, those small machine shops in Steubenville and Akron and Toledo. The work he has done on the Manufacturing Extension Partnership has already helped turn around some of those businesses in my State, in Ohio, in the Miami Valley, and the Mahoney Valley and everything in between. The MEP allows small companies--the big companies don't need the help so much--similar to the Agriculture Extension Service, which is so important throughout the world and America--the Manufacturing Extension Partnership has really mattered in helping these small companies, whether it is cutting energy costs, whether it is learning how to export, working with the U.S. Export Assistance Center, whether it is dealing with some kind of trade policy, perhaps, or tax policy, helping those small companies learn how to compete in this increasingly difficult and competitive global environment. The MEP has had strong support from both parties, so I strongly urge my colleagues in both parties to support this amendment. There is simply no reason the administration every year comes and tries to cut this, and every year we fight back and restore the funding. I will be discussing later, either in this bill or sometime later, legislation I have introduced to allow a revolving fund through the Manufacturing Extension Program done locally. In Ohio I believe there are 11 or 12 regions of the State under MEP that can help, that really can help, help form MEP programs in working with these small businesses, these small manufacturers. In Cleveland there is a program called Magna, and in Kyoga County specifically they have had this revolving loan program--sort of a pilot program--that has helped with innovation and with the manufacturing, marketing, and with the development of new products. I think the Kohl amendment will go a long way in helping MEP help small businesses and help us compete globally. So I ask my colleagues for support of the Kohl amendment. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, last week our colleague, Senator Byron Dorgan, chairman of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Trade, and Tourism, held the first in a series of hearings on our U.S. trade policy. I was proud to join Chairman Dorgan as we asked the pivotal question on the minds of workers and small business owners across the country: Is free trade working? Is it working for American communities? Is it working for our families? Is it working for our workers? For the majority of Americans and people worldwide, the answer is a resounding no. For a privileged few, yes, this model of trade has increased the bottom lines. But the economic values embodied by this free-trade model are skewed toward a very select few in our Nation. Not only is our trade policy not working, it is worsening the problem of income equality across the Nation. From 1946 to 1973, economic opportunities for poor and working families in this country grew. As you can see, that income, people's income--they are divided into five groups--the lowest income, 20 percent, the middle groups, and then the wealthiest 20 percent. Between 1947 and 1973 in this country, the 20 percent lowest income workers actually saw their income rise the fastest. From 1947 to 1973, that was a time of strong economic growth. It was a time of actual trade surpluses during those years. It was a time of fairly stable energy prices--all of that. The lesson here: Families that worked hard, that played by the rules, had a real chance of getting ahead. Then the next, from 1973 to 2000, that economic opportunity began to flatten out for those families. We saw, in those years, from 1973 to 2000--1973 was the year we went from a trade surplus to a trade deficit. That was only one of the reasons. The lowest income workers saw their income grow by the least. People whose income was in the top 20 percent saw their income grow the fastest. If we had a third chart here, income since 2000, since 2000, income has gone up only for the wealthiest 20 percent in this country. When Secretary Paulson came to the Banking Committee and spoke to us, he bragged about 3\1/2\ percent economic growth for this country--a good thing. The problem is, profits are up, productivity is up, but workers are not sharing in the wealth they create. Profits are up, executive salaries are up, and almost everybody else's income in this country has been pretty stagnant. Our economic house is not in order. It is not in order nationally, and it is not anywhere where it needs to be in my State of Ohio. When I first ran for Congress in 1992, our trade deficit was $38 billion. Our trade deficit figures for 2006 topped $800 billion. That is from $38 billion to $200 billion from 1992 to 2006. Our trade deficit with China went from low double figures in 1992 to well over $200 billion--an increase of almost 20 times in those 15 years or so. In fact, since 1982, we have accumulated trade deficits of $4.3 trillion. The aggregate trade deficit from 1982 to the present day is $4.3 trillion. That is money which eventually will have to be paid. Put another way, we have produced 4.3 trillion fewer manufactured goods, in most cases, than we have purchased. Put another way, to understand what $4.3 trillion of wealth transferred out of our country means, if you had $4.3 trillion and you spent $1,000 every second of every minute of every hour of every day, to spend that $4.3 trillion trade debt, it would take you 131 years. We have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs across the country. Those are jobs which pay an average of 31 percent more than service sector jobs. Service sector jobs, the ones that NAFTA and the World Trade Organization proponents said would replace manufacturing jobs, they also are tradable and they are also moving offshore at a swift pace. The trade policies we have set in Washington and negotiated across the globe have a direct impact on places such as Toledo and Hamilton, OH, Cleveland and Steubenville, and Lime, OH, as well as in Mexico and Korea and Bangladesh. We must shrink income equality, grow our business community, and create good-paying jobs. We must establish trade policy that builds our economic security, not undermines it. Job loss does not just affect the worker or even just the worker's family. Job loss, especially job loss in the thousands, obviously devastates communities, layoffs of police and fire and teachers and all of that. It hurts local business owners, the drugstore, the grocery store, the neighborhood restaurant. This model of trade is also not winning us more friends abroad. Last month, tens of thousands of workers in Korea took to the streets protesting a pending free-trade agreement with the United States, similar to the tens of thousands of protesters against the Central American Free Trade Agreement in our country and in the six countries in Central America. Much has been written and said about the waning enthusiasm for the free trade area of the Americas, throughout Latin America, most notably because of what NAFTA has done to Mexico's rural population, with a million and a half small farmers' livelihoods devastated. It almost toppled the favored Presidential candidate in Mexico last year, as the challenger talked about NAFTA's negative impact on Mexico and who came within a hair of winning. In Brazil, in Bolivia, in Ecuador, and elsewhere, leaders are responding to the demand for a very different, more equitable trading system, not one modeled after the North American Free Trade Agreement. A few years ago, I traveled to McAllen, TX, where I crossed the border with a couple of friends into Reynosa, Mexico. I met a husband and wife who worked for General Electric Mexico, 3 miles from the United States, and lived in a shack about 15 feet by 15 feet, no running water, no electricity, dirt floors. When it rained hard, the floors turned to mud. Behind their little shack was a ditch maybe 4 feet wide, human and industrial waste flowing through that ditch. The American Medical Association said it is the most toxic place in the Western Hemisphere. As you walked through their neighborhood, you could tell where the people living in each of those shacks worked because their homes were constructed from the packing material, the boxes and the wooden crates and the pieces of cardboard and all, the packing material from the company for which they worked. You could go nearby to an auto plant, nearby to these homes in this neighborhood, 3, 4 miles from the United States of America. The auto plant looked just like an auto plant in Lordstown, OH, or just like the auto plant in Avon Lake or just like the auto plant at Twinsburg, OH. The auto plant was modern, the technology was up to date, the floors were clean, the workers were productive, and the workers were working hard. The only difference between the Mexican auto plant and the American auto plant is the Mexican auto plant did not have a parking lot because the workers are not paid enough to buy the cars they make. You could go halfway around the world to a Motorola plant in Malaysia, and the workers are not paid enough to buy the cell phones they make, or come back to our hemisphere, to Costa Rica, to a Disney plant, and the workers are not making enough at the Disney plant to buy the toys for their children. You can go back halfway around the world to a Nike plant in China, and the workers are not making enough to buy the shoes they make in their jobs. Only when workers share in the wealth they create will we know our trade policy is working. American workers are more and more productive every year, an explosion in productivity in this country, yet workers' wages are flat, as we see, especially the bottom 60 or 80 percent, and especially since 2000, where our trade policy is having a depressing impact on wages. Two years ago, thousands of workers in Central America took to the streets protesting that failed trade policy. CAFTA still has not been implemented in Coast Rica because it is so controversial. In fact, this week in Costa Rica, there will be a public referendum on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. This shift in thinking about free trade, both in the Senate and the House, in this country among the public and abroad, presents all of us today with an opportunity, the challenge we face, which grows in urgency as to how we trade and take part in our global economy without continuing to destroy, to undermine the middle class. The current system is not sustainable. Those of us who support free trade--not fair trade but support free trade--we want trade, we want plenty of it, but under new rules. We want legitimate fair trade. It is considered protectionist by some to fight for labor and environmental standards, but they consider it free trade to protect drug company patents and Hollywood DVDs. If we can protect intellectual property rights with enforceable provisions in trade agreements, as we should, we absolutely can do the same for labor standards and environmental protections and food safety standards. I am pleased to say this Congress is already hard at work in building a better trade policy. Senator Dorgan and I have introduced antisweatshop legislation. We need more fair trade to build the middle class and lift up American workers. There will be more of those proposals in the future. It is not a matter of if we trade but how we trade and who benefits from that trade. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Sure.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, recently we learned that the Ohio National Guard could face early redeployment. We learned the National Guard is being asked to train without the proper equipment. Our Guard will do the job well, General Wade and others in Ohio assure me, and their past history shows they will. Our Guard will do the job well regardless of the circumstances, but it is wrong to send them to Iraq with incomplete training, with inadequate equipment, with insufficient downtime. The conference report released last night echoes what many of us in Congress and what so many military families across our great country have been saying: We need a new direction for Iraq. Make no mistake, we take a back seat to no one in supporting the brave men and women fighting in Iraq, and we absolutely support their families. But more of the same is not a plan for our troops. More of the same, more involvement in this civil war, will not end the war in Iraq. This war has made our country, and our world, less safe. The Iraq war has cost 142 Ohioans their lives and wounded another 1,000. GEN Colin Powell, talking about the President's surge, the President's escalation of this war, has said: I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work. Colin Powell, General Powell, recognizes this is a civil war, recognizes that the surge, the President's escalation will not result in a different outcome in Iraq. Congress will continue, of course, to fight for our Nation's military by working to see that they have the resources and the support they need and the leadership they deserve. The conference report fully funds and fully supports our troops while establishing conditions that will bring our troops home. It provides desperately needed funding to the Veterans' Administration to help care for the hundreds of thousands of new veterans created by this war. When we think of the carnage brought about by this war, when we think of the literally tens of thousands of men and women who serve this country and who are back from Iraq and who are in the Veterans' Administration health care system, we understand why we need from our Government literally a 50-year plan. What are we going to do for the next five decades for these injured men and women who have suffered psychological injury and physical injury? Yet this administration is not even funding our troops, the health care of our returning troops well this year, let alone planning into the future. This supplemental bill we will send to the President in the next few days begins the process of what we need to do to take care of the health and the welfare of these returning troops, these injured, psychologically and physically injured soldiers. If the President won't take responsibility for his failures and lead our troops home, then Congress needs to and Congress will. We owe it to our soldiers, to our sailors, to our airmen and women and to our marines, and we owe it to their families. The President should listen to military leaders and the American people and work with Congress to change course in Iraq instead of threatening vetoes. Vetoing this legislation would deny funding that our military needs in Iraq. It would deny funding our veterans desperately need who have returned home. The President says there is too much pork, too much spending in this bill, as if every other supplemental bill that previous Republican Congresses, the House and Senate, have sent to the President every time with other supplemental emergency spending has not. Mr. President: Please read this bill. Don't dismiss it out of hand because you don't like some of the language about Iraq, even though it protects our soldiers, even though it takes care of our veterans, even though it does things such as spend $3 billion for the mine-resistant ambush- protected vehicles, vehicles that will make our troops considerably safer than the flat-bottomed vehicles where far too many of our troops have been killed or badly injured. This supplemental bill we are sending to the President includes billions of dollars for BRAC, billions of dollars for military construction, the kind of work we need to do to make our military even more efficient, even more productive. It spends $1.6 billion for individual body armor, something the military and the civilian leadership in the White House and the civilian leadership in the Pentagon have fallen short on, providing the kind of body armor for our troops and the kind of up-armor for our humvee vehicles that is needed. I ask again, Mr. President: Please read this bill before you decide what you are going to do, and then sign this bill. The VA would get $1.7 billion more than the VA proposal from the President, which was zero; it would have $39 million in polytrauma-related funding; it would have $10 million for blind veterans programs. It has $100 million for VA mental services. It has $25 million for prosthetics. This legislation we are sending to the President--again we ask him to read it before making his decision instead of dismissing it out of hand--has all kinds of support for our troops, for their health care, for their supplies, for supplying them in the field. It has way more money for our troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and for those troops returning home in our VA system, way more resources than the President has allowed in his budget. The President has set our Nation on a path that leads nowhere. He did not listen to the voters last fall. He has not listened to the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan panel of very distinguished Americans. He has not listened to many of the military advisers, free to speak freely, and he has not listened to the House and the Senate majorities about this legislation. In addition, this legislation provides for help for mine safety. It provides for emergency spending for the LIHEAP program, for elderly indigent people who have had their heating or air-conditioning cut off because they simply can't afford to pay for their energy use at home. It has support for the pandemic flu. It has pandemic flu protections. As Senator Stabenow from Michigan said a few moments ago, it has a minimum wage increase, something this Senate or House has not done for 10 years. Mr. President: Please read this bill before you decide whether you are going to sign it or veto it, and please listen again to General Powell, who said: I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work. We are on the wrong course in Iraq. If the President signs this bill, it will help us redeploy our troops more quickly out of Iraq in the most orderly and safest way possible. It will also equally and importantly provide for health care for our troops, for the tens of thousands of injured troops who have returned home from this war. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise in support of this crucial legislation. I want to read into the record a statement from the Bush administration in support of the bill. It is from the Executive Office of the President, Statement of Administration Policy: The Administration supports Senate passage of S. 378 to strengthen judicial security. The legislation would enhance the ability of the Federal government to prosecute individuals who attack or threaten participants in the Nation's judicial system, including judges, lawyers, witnesses, and law enforcement officers. A Nation founded on the rule of law must protect the integrity of its judicial system, which must apply the law without fear or favor. The Administration also supports the provision to prohibit the filing of false liens against judges, prosecutors, and other government officials to retaliate against them for the performance of their official duties. Another of the most important provisions of this bill was brought to our attention by Judge Carr of the Northern District Court in Toledo, OH. Judge Carr pointed out the importance of section 101 that ``enhances the ability of the Judicial Conference of the United States to participate in determining the security needs of the judicial branch by requiring the Director of the U.S. Marshals Service . . . to consult with the Judicial Conference on an ongoing basis regarding the security requirements of the judicial branch.'' This legislation makes sense for a variety of reasons. Not only must our judges be protected, but they must have a seat at the table in determining the safety of our Federal courthouses and the personal safety of the employees of the Federal judiciary and the participants who come in front of the Federal bench. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Nevada has an amendment he wishes to offer. Amendment No. 897.

Mr. BROWN

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

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 151, which was submitted earlier today.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, if there is no further business and if the Republican leader has nothing further, I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, Americans as much as any people on Earth have a sense of fair play. That is why I believe 3 or 4 years ago, when the Medicare law was passed literally in the middle of the night in the House of Representatives, where the Presiding Officer and I served at that time, by one vote--the rollcall vote was kept open for 3 hours, arms were twisted, calls from the President and pleas and all kinds of begging on the House floor, and who knows what else--that is why people were angry with the way the Medicare law passed. They were also angry especially because of the sense of betrayal they felt with the Medicare law that clearly was written by the drug companies and for the drug companies and by the insurance companies and for the insurance companies. In fact, that Medicare law meant as much as $200 billion in extra profits for the drug industry and meant as much as $70 or $80 billion in directed subsidies for insurance companies to entice--the word our friends used--entice those insurance companies to write standalone Medicare prescription drug coverage. Americans know the score. Americans understand much about this whole Medicare law. We all understand the major employee groups typically in our system negotiate bulk discounts on prescription drugs. Americans also understand that the VA negotiates bulk discounts on prescription drugs. The VA, which ensures millions of our Nation's veterans, will go to the drug industry, company by company, and negotiate on a drug formulary, negotiate a price that gives the Government paying for these prescription drugs for our Nation's veterans a discount of about 50 percent on average, the same kind of thing that large insurance companies will do. But under this Medicare law--again, written by the drug companies, written by the insurance companies, pushed through because of the lobbying force and the advertisements and all that the drug industry did and the insurance industry did--Medicare is prohibited under law from negotiating bulk discounts on prescription drugs. That is a prohibition only the drug industry and their friends in Congress--and they number many--could love. When Medicare has to pay higher prices for medicines, dollars are taken from taxpayers' pockets and placed directly into the pockets of the multinational drug industry. For many years, I have taken bus trips with senior citizens to Canada, when I was in the House of Representatives, from my northern Ohio congressional district. We drove up through Detroit to Windsor to allow senior citizens to buy prescription drugs at a discount of 50, 60, 70 percent because the Canadians have a system where they negotiate drug prices directly with the manufacturer. It is the same drugs, the same manufacturer, the same packaging. The only difference between the medicine sold here and the medicine sold in Canada is the price. That is the same in country after country after country. We pay two and three and four times more for prescription drugs than people in any other country given the same drug, the same dosage, the same manufacturer. It is a great deal for the drug industry and a bum deal for consumers, especially for senior citizens and for taxpayers in our country. Medicare is the single largest prescription drug consumer in the country, and jacked-up prices jeopardize Medicare's future. The legislation we will consider tomorrow ends the prohibition on price negotiations. It takes the handcuffs off Medicare and enables Medicare to negotiate price discounts--the kind of discounts Medicare should receive, given the huge volume of medicines it purchases. Medicare is a system with more than 40 million Americans in that system. That kind of bulk discount buying will save billions--tens of billions--of dollars for American taxpayers and for senior citizens. The drug industry, however, has taken to the airwaves, as it always does, and gone to Nation's newspapers to fight this legislation. In the Washington Post today is an example of an outrageous kind of ad the drug industry has written: ``89% of Voters Oppose Government Negotiation of Medicare Drug Prices.'' That is what it says: ``89 percent of Voters Oppose Government Negotiation of Medicare Drug Prices.'' That does not even pass the straight-face test. I hardly know anyone in Ohio--a Democrat, a Republican, an independent--I hardly know anyone who does not think the Government should use the bulk discount process of negotiating directly with the drug industry on behalf of 40 million Medicare beneficiaries. Yet, they claim, in bold print, in a full-page ad that costs tens of thousands of dollars--not much for the drug industry, to be sure--that ``89% of Voters Oppose Government Negotiation of Medicare Drug Prices.'' If you read the small print, it says: Majorities of Democratic, Republican and Independent voters do not want the government negotiating prescription drug prices under Medicare. In fact, 89 percent oppose government negotiation if it could limit access to new prescription medications. Well, no kidding, if it limits access, then they say they do not like it. But, of course, they do not. And, of course, because of high drug company prices, we are seeing limited access to prescription drugs. How many times, I say to the Presiding Officer, in New Jersey or in Ohio or in Nevada or in Iowa do we hear stories from our constituents who have decided, because they cannot quite afford the drugs, they are going to cut a pill in half so their prescription will last twice as long, or they are only going to take a tablet every other day, even though they are prescribed to take it every day, so their prescription lasts longer? How often do we have to hear that? That is the issue of access, that too many seniors, too many middle- class Americans, too many low-income Americans simply cannot afford to pay for their prescription drugs because the price is so high because of the drug companies, with their billions of dollars in advertising, with their hundreds of millions of dollars they spend on 600 lobbyists in this institution. There are, at last count, over 600 people paid by the drug industry to lobby this Congress. There are only 535 of us here in Congress; 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House. They have more than 600 lobbyists to talk to us. These most recent ads are particularly offensive. Allowing Medicare to negotiate lower priced medicines will not reduce access to medicines, it will increase access. If we get lower priced drugs, more people who have these prescriptions will be able to fully fill their prescriptions so, in fact, they will get access to drugs. That is why lower prices for Medicare mean lower copayments for seniors, and that means increased access to medicines. That is why AARP supports allowing price negotiations. That is why the Alliance for Retired Americans supports allowing price negotiations. That is why the Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare supports allowing price negotiations. The drug industry, again, stooped pretty low with this misleading poll, and then with this very expensive--tens of thousands of dollars for this one ad in one newspaper in the country. I wonder if there is any line the drug industry would not cross when it comes to preserving the sweetheart deal they have in this country, where they have far too many politicians in the Senate and in the House, far too many of our colleagues, who simply, again, over and over and over, do the drug companies' bidding. Every other developed country in the world, as I said earlier, gets better priced prescription drugs than we do. Every other developed country in the world gets better prices than we do. That is because these countries do not put up with the grossly inflated drug prices our Nation does. It is because their drug company lobbyists or their drug company media campaigns simply may not be as effective in France and Canada and Germany and Israel and Japan and Mexico, and all over the world, where drug prices are a half or a third or a fourth of what they are here. We will put up with most anything, it seems, if an industry has deep enough pockets and an army of lobbyists. Prohibiting the Government from negotiating volume discounts on prescription drugs simply makes no sense. The Government negotiates the price of everything else it buys. When the Architect of the Capitol buys carpeting for the Senate floor--as we look around at this very nice blue carpet here--they do not take the manufacturer's word that a fair price would impair fiber research. We do not say whatever the carpet makers want, we will pay because it costs a lot to do this research to make these rugs beautiful and make this carpet last, when so many feet walk over it. When the Park Service buys ranger uniforms, it does not take the first bid that comes in. It gets good quality at the lowest price possible. But with drugs, the President and his allies here in Congress--and we know how much money the drug industry gave to President Bush; and we know the kinds of effective lobbying the drug industry employs in the Senate--the President and his allies here in Congress say the Government must pay any price the drug industry wants to charge. That policy is more than a mistake; it is a joke on the American people. It is a betrayal of our constituents. The drug companies are laughing all the way to the bank. We need to pass this legislation tomorrow and let Medicare bargain for the prices that Medicare beneficiaries deserve.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, in the next decade our Nation needs to--our Government needs to come up with a manufacturing policy. If our trade laws and our tax laws continue to encourage outsourcing, continue to contribute to this erosion of the middle class, we will be a country with less and less manufacturing, fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs, less and less of an ability to protect our national interests. It is a question of national security, to be able to have a strong manufacturing component to our economy, and it is a question of economic security for families in places such as Dayton, in places such as Steubenville and Painesville and Cleveland, OH, places where people have built middle-class lifestyles, bought their homes, sent their children to college, worked for a decent retirement because they have worked hard and played by the rules and manufactured goods that people in our country use. I think it is important as we move forward with Senator Dorgan and people like Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island, who is also very interested in this, that we move forward on developing this manufacturing policy on trade, on tax law, and on helping particularly our small manufacturers compete in this global economy. I thank the President, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I reemphasize what Senator Dorgan says so often; that is, we want trade--plenty of it--we just want it with different rules. We want fair trade. Plenty of countries around the world practice trade, as South Korea does, for their own national interests. We practice trade according to some economics textbooks some days, and other days we practice trade according to what is in the interests of these large corporations that outsource. But these companies--again I use the word ``betray''--they betray our families, they betray our communities when they do what Huffy Bicycles did because those jobs were good-paying union jobs in Shelby County OH, in western Ohio. As Senator Dorgan said, they have been there for hundreds of years. In the far corner of northwest Ohio there is a company called the Ohio Art Company. The Ohio Art Company makes something that almost everyone who grew up in this country knows about: they make the Etch A Sketch. Some years ago, Wal-Mart went to the Ohio Art Company and said: We want to sell Etch A Sketch in our stores for under $10, and the Ohio Art Company couldn't make them for that price, so they pretty much moved most or all of their production to China. It is that kind of betrayal by these corporations, with the concurrence of our Government, because our Government writes the rules for these trade agreements--our Government has consistently practiced trade and allowed our largest companies to practice trade not according--unlike other countries that don't practice it according to our national interests, and it is time that we do.

Mr. BROWN. Yes.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record.

Mr. BROWN

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 153, submitted earlier today.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.