Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada, and I thank the leadership for bringing up this topic. It is commonsense and pro-family legislation. I hope we pass it in an overwhelming fashion through this body and that it arrives on the President's desk once we go through conference committee and get it back here and that it can become the law of the land. The bill has been described in many different iterations. I believe people understand the concept of what is being put forward about involving the family. I believe this is a significant pro-parent, pro- child, pro-life piece of legislation. It is a bill that everybody knows is to help to preserve this role by making it illegal for somebody to take a child across State lines for an abortion, thereby circumventing parental rights laws in the State where the child resides. That is all well known. The issue I wish to deal with briefly, if I could, is the commonsense feature of this legislation. Everybody has talked about the examples of how you cannot get an aspirin in school without the parents' permission. You virtually cannot do any medical procedure without the parents' permission, except an abortion. Everybody looks at that, and they are quizzical and wonder why there is this exception. I wish to talk about the commonsense feature of this. Why is it that we don't give aspirin to children at school? Why is it that we require that parents are involved in the medical decisions of their children? The reason, I think--and most people look at it as common sense--is that there are consequences to this. If this happens, if the child has a response to the aspirin or if the child has some reaction to a minor surgery, the parent needs to be involved. Something might happen, so the parent needs to know. We need to take care of the child. The parents have the role of being entrusted with that child's life and working with that child and therefore needs to be actively engaged in knowing what is going on with the child. We have held hearings in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, and many States have held hearings on the impact of abortion on women. There are groups that are formed about the impact of abortion on women, both physically and psychologically. We have had expert witnesses present and testimony about how abortion impacts and harms women physically and psychologically. There have been books written on this topic. Some people say: We don't think it has as big an impact as you say it has. Others say: I think it has a bigger impact. That debate can be taken, I suppose, to any medical procedure on a child. The point of the issue is that we have the parents there to help them help the child, and they decide. That is who is making the decision. That is who is making the decision on whether the child gets minor medical care at the school. You want the parents involved. They are the guardians, the ones who are responsible. Here is a situation where, clearly, you have a physical impact on the child. I believe clearly that you have a psychological impact on that child. I think that has been documented. Others question whether that has been fully documented. Clearly, on a number of women who have abortions, there is a psychological impact. Isn't it simply common sense that parents would be involved in such a monumental decision that is going to impact this child for the rest of their life and that parent would be involved in helping the child to process what is the wise decision, the right thing to do, the appropriate thing, what the options are and the sorts of things they can do? Particularly at a time when the child is going to have to process this in a difficult emotional situation, the parent needs to be involved and should be involved to give that wise counsel, prudent counsel, to the child involved in this particular circumstance. Parents can and do help present all of the health facts to their children and help them make a prudent decision. That is just basic common sense. It is the right thing that we ought to do. Parents can help to spot abusive situations which might not otherwise be evident to the child. Without parental involvement, abortion can be forced upon a young woman by, in some cases, an abusive male figure in order to cover up a crime. The role of parents in protecting children is essential. This cannot be delegated to any other person. Yet in this law, we even provide for the judicial bypass procedure. Especially when a daughter is facing an unintended pregnancy, parents need to be involved. We talk a lot on the Senate floor and have worked over the years to try to build more and stronger family units. One of the key ways to do that is to have the parents more involved in the decisionmaking of the child, particularly when health consequences are there. This is one on which that should take place. When a child is undergoing this procedure, it does clearly terminate a young life growing in the mother's womb. That has an impact on the child psychologically, if in no other fashion. Parents need to be involved in helping to process how that is going to be handled for the child. I believe this legislation is a step in the right direction. It would go some distance toward helping protect parents' rights and children's health. It would help integrate and build that relationship between the parent and child. I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation. I hope, as a message to the country, we can pass it in a large bipartisan fashion and send a signal to people that this makes good sense. It is appropriate for us to do. It is not simply that you are pro-life or you are pro-choice; therefore, we are going to split on those lines. Rather, we should look at this as parents, as we virtually all are on this floor, and saying as a parent, whether I am pro-life or pro-choice, I would want that sort of information for my child, and I would want to be able to have that information to process as a parent, and that I would say to my legislators I am one way or the other on the abortion debate, but as a parent I believe it is my duty to know this. This is my duty to be involved in this type of decisionmaking for my child. I think that is why, while we have a lot of debate about the issue of abortion in the country, this is so strongly supported by people because so many people look at this outside the abortion debate, and they look at it much more as a parental debate, as to how they observe and they deal and they want to deal with this particular issue. I urge my colleagues to look at it that way as well. Take it out of the grid of the abortion debate and put it into the decisionmaking grid of a parent. I think if we do that, we will pass this in a strong bipartisan fashion. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Voting Rights Act, and I thank my colleague from Massachusetts who was here before me for allowing me to now speak briefly on this particular issue. The right to vote is quite literally the bedrock of the representative democracy we enjoy today. We must enable American citizens to fully participate in the political process if we are to truly be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is central, and it is central that everybody is given that right in equal regard. The importance of the Voting Rights Act cannot be underestimated. It has transformed the face of our Republic and vindicated the noble values of our Nation. America has come a long way in the last four decades, and it is my hope that the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act will help us to continue to extend the promise of democratic participation to every American. I have had the chance, twice now, to do the civil rights pilgrimage that the Faith in Politics group has sponsored to Selma, AL, to Montgomery, to several different places, and to hear from the firsthand experiences of individuals who were involved in the civil rights movement and in the freedom trails of the bus rides and in the protests, about the importance that the VRA was to them, was to getting involved, and is central in getting everybody participating in the democracy and a true opportunity to register to vote and to actually vote. It was and is critical. It is critical that we extend it. I also want to recognize and thank the Senator from Massachusetts for the central role his family has played in fighting for this particular language, this legislation. And it is important. Out of a strong desire to achieve this goal of everybody participating equally in this democracy, a bipartisan majority of Congress passed, and President Johnson signed, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The aim of the act two generations ago was to fulfill the democratic promise of the Civil War amendments to the Constitution--a promise left unmet for a century after that terrible war had ended. The civil rights landscape has greatly improved in the country since 1965, thanks in great part to the Voting Rights Act. The act has resulted in a tremendous increase in the ability of minority citizens to fully and fairly participate in our political system, both as voters and as candidates. The number of minority legislators has grown substantially. I am pleased to be a cosponsor of the pending Voting Rights Act reauthorization bill which the Judiciary Committee reported out unanimously yesterday. This bill recognizes the achievements of many and particularly of three champions of the civil rights era: Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King. I believe we have a responsibility to carry on the work of these great Americans by reauthorizing the expiring sections of the Voting Rights Act. The bill does provide a flat bar to unconstitutional racial discrimination. It speaks clearly, aggressively, eloquently, and importantly on this topic. We cannot have racial discrimination in this country, period. We are extending this act. It is an important act. It is one that has helped make the values of democracy real on a tangible basis to individuals, and it is important that we extend it into the future. Mr. President, I am delighted to be a cosponsor of this bill. I urge my colleagues to pass it. I believe it will pass overwhelmingly. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be dispensed with.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I speak in morning business about the issue that the two prior speakers--the Senator from South Carolina and the Senator from Arizona--spoke about, the Middle East. This is a key time. I hope we continue to stand by Israel very strongly, very resolutely, and recognize what we are experiencing today. We are experiencing a key global war on terrorism, which is the use of terrorist entities sponsored by state sponsors so that there is some sort of deniability by the state sponsor. But, nonetheless, there is real terrorism that is taking place. There are real threats that are occurring and real attacks that are occurring. There are real responses that are needed. That is what you have seen Israel doing today. Israel has been attacked. Hezbollah has been launching missiles into Israel, into major cities in Israel. That is what is occurring. Hezbollah is sponsored by the Iranians. Iran is the key sponsor of Hezbollah. Iran is the lead sponsor of terrorism in the world, according to our State Department and, I think, frankly, according to the intelligence entities around the world. They cannot sponsor the terror group and then deny responsibility for it and say they should be left alone and there should be no consequences. We need to move aggressively against Iran in the United Nations and force the issue on Iran. Here I am talking about economic sanctions and political and diplomatic pressure on the Iranians for their state sponsorship of terrorism. We are also seeing that in Syria. This body passed the Syrian Accountability Act. I urge the administration to use all tools available toward Syria, which is also a state sponsor of terrorism, in working with Hamas and Hezbollah and other groups in this region. I get concerned when a lot of people look at it and say Israel shouldn't be doing this or shouldn't respond. Certainly, we want all care to be given in any sort of military response so that innocent civilians are not hurt. We want to urge that sort of restraint, but by the same token, if the United States were attacked by terrorist groups sponsored by other countries operating off foreign soil, the United States would act aggressively and respond. We would not allow this to continue. We would say our citizens are being attacked and we have the right as a sovereign nation to defend our people, as Israel does, and as any nation around the world does. I hope we view this for what it is--a part of the global war on terrorism. These are terrorist tactics that are being used by terrorist groups, and they have state sponsors behind them. I wish the situation were different today. I wish we were not here having to talk about the support for Israel in a military engagement in Lebanon. But the facts are what they are. We have to deal with the situation as it is. I believe we should be standing aggressively and firmly with Israel. They are a democratic country in the region. They are a strong ally of the United States. We have worked closely together over many years. They seek peace. They want peace as we want peace. Yet, at some point in time they have to respond to the attacks. That is what they are doing. I am pleased that this body in a bipartisan fashion has stood with Israel.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, the prior speaker from South Carolina talked about energy. We have to engage in energy strategies that pull us off of our addiction to Middle Eastern oil. We have a lot of plants coming on in ethanol production from grain. We need to move that as well--and plant materials and cellulosic alcohol from grain. We can produce about 10 percent of our fuel needs from grain, corn, milo-based ethanol. From the cellulosic material, we can get another 30 percent. We need a rapid expansion of plants and investment in this field. It is starting to take place. It is very encouraging. The economics are at work, particularly when you are looking at over $70 per barrel of oil. We can produce energy cheaper than $70 a barrel oil and get off the addiction. We need more of our cars running on 85-percent ethanol rather than 10-percent ethanol. We need more plug-in technologies where we have more cars that are using electricity rather than gasoline so we can break the addiction. This country can do it with our technology and our willingness and with the economics of today. We can do it. And it is a matter of utmost national security to break that addiction. It is time, I believe, that we in this body take up additional energy legislation. It is time we do that. I thank the Presiding Officer. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 10 a.m. The purpose of this oversight hearing is to examine United States and India energy cooperation in the context of global energy demand, the emerging energy needs of India, and the role nuclear power can play in meeting those needs.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 10 a.m. to hold a hearing on Islam and the West.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2006, at 2 p.m., to conduct a hearing on ``Perspectives on Insurance Regulation.''

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Department of Justice Oversight'' on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 9:30 a.m. in Hart Senate Office Building Room 216. Witness list Panel I: The Honorable Alberto Gonzales, The Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. for a hearing regarding What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2006, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to consider the following nominations: Honorable Charles E. McQueary to be Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Department of Defense; Anita K. Blair to be Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Reserve Affairs; Benedict S. Cohen to be General Counsel of the Department of the Army; Frank R. Jimenez to be General Counsel of the Department of the Navy; David H. Laufman to be Inspector General, Department of Defense; Sue C. Payton to be Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition; William H. Tobey to be Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, National Nuclear Security Administration; and Robert L. Wilkie to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 18, 2006, at 10 a.m. for a hearing entitled, Examining the Challenges the District will Face Today, Tomorrow, and in the Future.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 18, 2006, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed briefing.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I ask the Chair to advise me when I have 2 minutes left. I want to start with a picture of Dennis Turner because this is a real-life case of Parkinson's disease. The prior speaker, Senator Vitter, talked about his dad dying of Parkinson's disease; it is a terrible disease. It is incredibly debilitating. I met with a friend of mine last week who has something similar. It is not Parkinson's, but it is also debilitating. Dennis Turner testified at a hearing we had in the Senate Commerce Committee. He had been cured of his symptoms for 5 years. We had difficulty getting him in because he was out doing fun things such as safaris. After a period of 5 years, the symptoms started to return. He had received an adult stem cell therapy, not embryonic stem cell therapy. His symptoms went away for 5 years, and then they started coming back. He needed to have another treatment; he could not get it. International doctors--to try to get their help and support, we need to fund that type of work, which is working, for people like Dennis Turner. My colleagues say we need to do this with embryonic stem cell research, that that is going to cure Dennis, Dennis Turner will be cured that way. I want to remind some of my colleagues that they said this about fetal tissue research about 10 years ago in this debate. In 1993, this was a typical statement debate at that time: There is substantial evidence that fetal tissue research-- Taking a human embryo, fetal tissue, and let's work and mold and work with this and put it inside a person, and let's deal with issues like Parkinson's this way. --will offer new hope of prolonged life, greater quality of life, perhaps one day even a cure for many of these diseases, and a tremendous economic and social cost-saving to the country. So we funded fetal tissue research for a long period of time, like we are funding embryonic stem cell research, to the tune of half a billion dollars over the last 5 years in human and animal models. We funded fetal tissue research. Now, this is tissue and cells that are further developed than embryonic cells. They are further differentiated and they are more stabilized, so they go off in fewer tangents. So if they are put in some particular area of the body, like they come from the brain, from the fetal tissue, and you put them back in the brain, they are more stable. We did this research. We funded this. We even tried it in humans, to disastrous results--disastrous results. This is Parkinson's research set back by failure of fetal cell implants. Disastrous side effects are the quotes from the people who did the testing. Absolutely devastating. It was tragic, catastrophic. It is a real nightmare. And we can't selectively turn it off. My goodness, this is strong wording that is taking place, to be catastrophic for fetal cell implants. Catastrophic? What happened? These cells, the fetal cells, formed tumors, and in some cases these tumors, they were implanted in the brain, the fetal cells implanted in the brain, and these tumors ended up being fingernail or hair that was in the brain, and we can't selectively turn it off. Think about this just for a minute, if we could. Everybody is saying we want to cure people. I want to cure people. If we have a route that is working in 72 different disease areas with the adult cord blood--and here is real research we funded. We tried it in humans even, with fetal cells. These are further developed cells than embryonic. They formed tumors, to disastrous results in Parkinson's patients. Yesterday, I entered into the Record a series of six one-page--this is the front-page summary of peer-reviewed articles on the formation of tumors using embryonic stem cells, and these were all articles saying: OK, we use embryonic stem cells; they formed tumors. Now, I am not a scientist, but it seems that if you got it in fetal tissue, which was further developed cells, and you found out that these are wild and they grow too fast and they form in other areas, and you back it up to embryonic stem cells and they are even younger, more malleable, and less formed, and we now have research saying they are forming tumors, you would look at that and say: Well, I don't think this is working particularly well. Now, it is interesting science. We may learn something of how the cell works in this process. I don't deny that at all. But if I am looking for a cure for Dennis, and I have--I want a cure for Dennis. I want something that works for him, and he has had a treatment that has worked for 5 years in him, in the adult field, and I have research that says, in the embryonic field, it is going to form tumors, and I have research earlier in fetal tissue that says it did form tumors in humans, how am I going to cure Dennis in this case by putting more into embryonic stem cell lines, taking precious dollars from adult stem cell work and cord blood and putting it into a speculative field, the embryonic field, which is producing no results and, in fact, the results it is producing are producing tumors? That doesn't seem to make much sense to me as far as how we would invest these sorts of dollars. People are talking about spinal cord injuries, and I think we should because we are going to deal with this area. I hope that in the next 10 years we are going to see for people, once they get a spinal cord injury, there is an immediate therapy they have and it starts to knit that spinal cord back together, so they are not waiting years and letting it further atrophy but immediately there is a therapy. The therapy you see right here in Jacki Rabon--I have had her in to speak at a press conference. This was a spinal cord injury accident-- paraplegic from the hips down. Now she has feeling in her spinal cord. She had to go overseas to get this treatment. It should have been done in America. It wasn't. Adult stem cells from the base of the nose-- olfactory--taken, harvested, and put in. She is getting feeling. My guess is she is going to need several treatments. Now, one of the greatest dismays we have is that a number of people are citing a rat model that has been shown on television of embryonic stem cells helping a rat to walk again. And that is fine. I am glad people are showing it. But a lot more people know about this rat model than know about Jacki Rabon. It seems as if there has been a media blackout on the adult stem cell successes and treatments and cord blood, and this rat has gotten all the publicity, even though we know that if you do this in humans, you are going to form tumors. Why? Why wouldn't we embrace what is working and has no ethical problem? I wish to close this section with a letter from a child. This is the first snowflake baby. This was a frozen embryo that was adopted-- Hannah. She wrote this last year. It is her letter. She is a pioneer. She says: ``We're kids. I love you.'' X's and O's--hugs and kisses. I love these letters. When my youngest daughter Jenna does them, they are absolutely precious. Then she draws three faces. This is her face as an embryo. She is happy. She got adopted. She is no longer frozen. Here is a sad face as an embryo that is still frozen, and her explanation of this letter is he is sitting there frozen, hoping somebody adopts him. Here is a third face with a straight line, and her explanation is this is a young embryo saying: What, you are going to kill me? This is a child's explanation of a frozen embryo. A frozen embryo that is life, that is human life. If you destroy Hannah at this stage, you don't get any sweet letters from Hannah to her parents. And we have a lot of frozen embryos. We are saying: Well, let's make some utility out of them. Isn't that against human dignity, to say, We will just research on this, when this could be this child? This is this child? We don't need to do it. Even the research we are funding in this area isn't working. I ask my colleagues to vote against H.R. 810. I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. If I could respond?

Mr. BROWNBACK. None whatsoever.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield to my colleague from Virginia who is here to speak on some important topics.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes. If you caught my comments on the floor, I stated that is part of the tragedy here. He had 5 years Parkinson's free, wants an additional treatment using the same adult stem cell procedure he had before that worked, and can't get it. We don't have sufficient funding to move that on forward.

Mr. BROWNBACK. We have been down this road before. We tried this on the fetal tissue research. Remember that debate of 10 to 15 years ago. They had fast-growing cells, Parkinson's, and heart disease. When we inserted them into actual human patients, here is what it did. It created disastrous results because they formed all sorts of tissues along with cancer. We have been here before, as the Senator knows, on trying to get these sort of different cells from other bodies into one.

Mr. BROWNBACK. If I could answer on both of those, I would have printed in the Record the funding over the past 4 years for both embryonic and adult and cord blood stem cells. We put about half a billion in embryonic, both animal and human, over the past 5 years. I ask unanimous consent to have this printed in the Record, to point to the level of funding we have put in both of those

Mr. BROWNBACK. Second, I would point out on Parkinson's, I don't know why the Parkinson's advocacy community would support that. I find it hard to believe they would oppose us doing more work in this field. I would simply ask you, or others, if we have a place that is working and we have another place that is producing tumors, why wouldn't you put more in a place that is working?

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I see the next speaker is here, and I yield the floor.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Good. If I could, what does the Senator from Iowa desire?

Mr. BROWNBACK. I have other things I can cover. I understand the distinguished Senator from Virginia wanted to come over and speak on a very pressing matter of foreign policy. That is why I yielded the time to my colleague.

Mr. BROWNBACK. This is an op-ed piece in the Washington Post. David Shaywitz put it in, in 2005. While stem cell advocates have helped voters connect stem cell research with compelling images of patients who might one day benefit from treatments, such therapies are unlikely to emerge soon enough to benefit most current proponents. . . . . . . scientists must do a better job of articulating the limitations of our existing knowledge, taking care to emphasize not only the ultimate therapeutic potential of these cells, but also how far we are from achieving such therapies. That is from scientists who support embryonic stem cell research. Let's be clear what we are talking about in this particular field. Now I want to talk about the pluripotent nature of adult stem cells. Here, Dr. Coburn, Dr. Frist, and others would be better qualified, obviously, than I could ever dream of being about this topic, but this has been raised for some period of time. The theory has gone, embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, they can form any type of cells. Adult stem cells cannot. Their plasticity is insufficient for them to be able to form other types of cells. I simply point to this chart, listing 16 peer-reviewed studies showing alternative sources of pluripotent stem cells other than embryonic stem cells, and almost all of these are out of adult stem cells--pluripotency. I urge my colleagues, the science has moved quite rapidly on this. I hope we can get up to speed with where the science is on this. There is pluripotency in other stem cells. There is pluripotency in cells other than the embryonic stem cells. We have the alternative bill, the Santorum-Specter bill, looking at other alternative sources of embryonic-type like stem cells that you do not have to destroy an embryo to get to. Look at those fields and those areas, these adult stem cells and this research, rather than saying the only source is embryonic, because it is not. That is not the only source because the science continues to move on through this and find other areas of pluripotency in adult stem cells as they are created. Because I have a little bit of time--I ask the Chair, how much time is remaining?