Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect to amendment No. 2347 and I ask that the amendment be withdrawn. I further ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to votes in relation to the pending amendments in the order offered; provided further that there be 2 minutes equally divided for debate prior to the votes in relation to any of the pending amendments, in addition to any second degrees offered.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, it has been a long day. The next vote on final passage will be our last vote of the day. This will be our 22nd rollcall vote of the day. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for a tremendous job. About 4 or 5 days ago, we said it was going to be done by 6 o'clock. We were going to complete this bill. Indeed, they have accomplished just that. We will be in session tomorrow, but there will be no rollcall votes. We will go to the DOD authorization bill. Again, there will be no rollcall votes tomorrow. We will be on the DOD authorization bill on Friday and Monday. We will have rollcall votes Monday night. We will not be voting before 5:30 on Monday. With that, congratulations. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each; further, that Senator Bunning be recognized now for 10 minutes, to be followed by Senator Wyden for 10 minutes.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 299 submitted earlier today.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 300 submitted earlier today.

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at the desk. I ask for its first reading.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we are going to be in session tomorrow to resume consideration of the Defense authorization bill. Chairman Warner and Senator Levin expect to have amendments offered on Friday, but we will not have votes on those amendments on Friday. We will return to the bill on Monday and, as announced earlier, we will begin voting Monday evening at approximately 5:30. Again, I appreciate everyone's patience over the last 9 hours. Vote- aramas are not a pretty part of the budget process, but under the direction of our able, our outstanding chairman and ranking member, it was made a lot less painful than it could have been. They give tremendous success to the American people--35, or just right at $35 billion in savings, and that goes directly to the bottom line when it comes to deficit reduction. As we travel around the country, people will say: Get serious, Congress, on fiscal discipline, on spending. Well, this is the first time in 8 years that this body has gone after mandatory spending in a responsible way to the tune of $35 billion. I also wish to thank my colleague, the assistant Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, who did a tremendous job. We had, I guess, 22 rollcall votes today, and he did a terrific job in terms of whipping those votes on our side of the aisle, a truly remarkable accomplishment.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:30 a.m. on Friday, November 4. I further ask that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate then proceed to the consideration of S. 1042, the Defense authorization bill, as under the previous order. I further ask unanimous consent that during Friday and Monday's sessions, amendments may be debated and then set aside with the time reserved for use at a later time.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment as a further mark of respect to the late Henry K. Giugni.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I would be happy to yield. The Chaplain's Loss

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning we will be getting an earlier start than normal in order to resume the deficit reduction bill. Senators Gregg and Conrad have agreed to an order for the next couple of amendments. We will continue to debate throughout the course of the day. At 6 p.m. all time is expired under the order. The Senate will then debate the Agriculture appropriations conference report under the 2-hour time limit reached last night. The vote on that conference report will not occur this evening and we will set the time for that vote later. On Thursday morning we expect to come in early and begin the voting sequence with respect to the pending amendments to the deficit reduction bill. When the pending amendments are disposed of, it is in order for Members to offer additional amendments. However, no debate is in order and we would immediately vote on those amendments. This is what we call affectionately--maybe not affectionately--the vote-arama. I urge my colleagues to show restraint throughout the course of both today and tomorrow with regard to the number of amendments we are going to be voting on. It is going to be an extremely long day tomorrow with consecutive votes and Senators will not be able to wander far from the Chamber. We want to stay within the time limits for those votes in order to expeditiously deal with each and every one of them in an efficient way. We will be finishing this bill either tomorrow around 6 o'clock or Friday morning, depending on how many votes we have. Mr. President, I think at this juncture I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning we will immediately resume debate on the deficit reduction package after a brief statement I have to make. Chairman Gregg opened debate on the bill yesterday and will be here managing the bill this morning. Last week we entered an agreement which divided the statutory time limit between 3 days, with all time expiring on Wednesday at 6 p.m. During today's session, Senators will be able to offer amendments. However, votes on those amendments will be stacked to occur at a later time. I will be working with the Democratic leader to determine the best time for those votes to occur. I had hoped that we could dispose of some of the proposed amendments with votes during today's session. However, at this point, we have several scheduling conflicts, and we may have to delay those votes until tomorrow. On Wednesday, we have several Members attending the funeral of Rosa Parks, and we will need to schedule votes to accommodate that service as well. Having said that, this will be a very busy week. Senators will be able to offer amendments after the expiration of time and that leads to the so called vote-arama. I encourage Senators to offer their amendments during the debate period so that we can limit the amendments considered after time expires. I do not believe the vote-arama is the most constructive use of the Senate's time, and I believe most Members are frustrated with that process--at least halfway through the vote-arama, as they express that frustration directly to me and leadership. During those consecutive votes, the Senate votes on amendment after amendment with very little time and little explanation of the amendments. So I hope we can do it in an orderly process over the next several days. I do want Members to come to the floor early so we can show some restraint when the 20 hours of debate time is complete. Finally, I want to remind everyone that we will be considering the appropriations conference reports as they arrive from the House. Once the House has completed action and those conference reports become available, we will address them. We have the Agriculture appropriations conference report already, and we will be scheduling that for a vote sometime this week. Avian Flu Mr. President, on another issue, I want to make a few comments. Shortly, the President will begin to unveil his plan to prepare the Nation against the threat of bird flu or avian flu, a potential for initially an epidemic and then pandemic nobody was thinking very much about a year ago. I do thank the President for his bold and decisive leadership. He recognizes the urgency for our Nation to take immediate action to prepare for and to prevent the spread of such a pandemic and the impact it would have on this Nation and, indeed, nations throughout the world. Last night, the Secretary of Health and Human Services began briefing people on the plan that will be laid out by the President today. He has been discussing in meetings over the last several weeks the importance of comprehensive organization at all levels of Government. It is not just a Federal issue or a State issue or a local issue, it is all three. The vertical integration of communication and response and preparedness is complex, but it is something that we absolutely must address. We would have to mobilize from the very top vertically at the Federal, State, and local level in ways that we never had to in the past. The Secretary explained at the National Press Club last week all of this using the analogy of a dry forest, that it takes only one little spark to set a fire in a forest, and if we are close to where the spark ignites, usually you can just stamp it out. But if it is allowed to spread and it really goes beyond any size that can be contained, that whole forest is left in smoldering ruins. I would simply add to that analogy that in a forest you could have many different little sparks which aggravate and increase the challenges to the system itself. If you can isolate those sparks or that spark very quickly, you can stamp out that potential for a pandemic, and ultimately you can save millions of lives. That is why it is absolutely critical we think of the response, of preparedness in this country. Indeed, this is a global challenge, and we have to work with our partners throughout the world. In fact, if you had to look at the likelihood of a pandemic and how it starts, it would probably be in Asia or Southeast Asia, and therefore we have a real obligation to address concerns in this country as well as around the world. In the Senate, we are working hard to develop a comprehensive prevention and preparedness plan. We have now passed two separate measures to increase the national stockpile of vaccines and the antiviral drugs, drugs like Tamiflu. This month the HELP Committee, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, passed a measure to protect vaccine makers from the frivolous lawsuits that we absolutely know discourage vaccine production and which, in part, has explained why we have gone from several dozen vaccine manufacturers in this country down to fewer than a handful. The bill that the HELP Committee has addressed and passed out of committee also establishes a Biomedical Advanced Research Development Agency, called BARDA, which would support this bug or identifying what the etiology is, the bug that starts it, all the way to creating a drug. This agency, BARDA, would focus on the gaps that exist in the system today. The agency would help researchers move from egg-based vaccine manufacture--and right now for the avian flu you depend on millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of eggs to grow this vaccine, and today it does not make sense because you can with the appropriate research target and focus, develop a cell manufacture that doesn't require any eggs, that you could ramp up very quickly, in a short period of time, and you don't have to worry about, yes, we are going to have to have an egg-based vaccine, so where are all 20, 30, 40 million eggs, chicken eggs, that you need to cultivate this vaccine for weeks and weeks and weeks? It is the sort of effort that BARDA would focus on to incentivize, to fill this gap in our system today. In the 20th century, we have seen three outbreaks of avian flu, avian bird flu. The worst of those occurred in 1918. A lot of people have gone back to read about that Spanish flu. It is called Spanish flu, though it probably started in this country in Kansas. Half a million Americans died, somewhere between 40 and 50 million people worldwide. And the people say why this bug, why this drug, why does it have to be, why do you have to narrow that window and speed things up? If you look back on the Spanish flu, in 24 weeks' time, more people were killed in the world than have been killed by HIV/AIDS in 24 years. In 24 weeks, more people died of the avian flu than in 24 years of HIV/AIDS. Speed, efficiency, appropriate research and development, appropriate vaccine production needs to be done rapidly, quickly. Secretary Levitt warns that if the past is a prologue, we are long overdue for a pandemic. If you look throughout history at pandemics, you cannot only look at it on a regular basis but a periodic basis. Worse yet, the current virus looks and acts more like the virus of 1918 than any of its other cousins that we have seen to date--if you come back and analyze H5N1 and you compare it to the virus of 1918. So what do you do? Americans look for leadership, look for bold leadership, and we are seeing it from the President of the United States. I pulled off my desk, as I was coming over, last month's National Geographic, which asks the question: ``The next killer flu:'' And over in little letters here it says, ``Can we stop it?'' ``The Next Killer Flu: Can we stop it?'' And the answer to that is, yes, we can, using technology for research, bold leadership, Government resources, private sector resources. We know that H5N1 is spreading. Romania reported two bird cases yesterday. Last week, Indonesia and Thai authorities reported new cases of bird-human transmission. To date, avian flu has infected more people and more poultry than any previous strain. In fact, over 160 million birds have either died or been killed because of this avian flu in the last year. Since 2003, there have been 121 people confirmed to have avian flu and half of them have died, 61 have died. That is a 50-percent mortality. The Spanish flu in 1918 had a mortality of about 2.5 percent--2.5 percent--and in this country, less than that. We are talking about a virus right now that has a mortality rate of 50 percent. Last week, I met with Dr. Robert Webster, again, from St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, which is in Memphis, TN. He is one of the leading authorities on H5N1. As he explains, there are 16 families of avian influenza. That virus mutates billions of times a day. It is constantly changing, which is why it is such a challenging opponent for us. And with each of these changes in this mixing bowl of the virus itself, the human-to-human transmission becomes more likely. If and when it becomes a pandemic, we have no natural immunity. That is the bad thing. It is not similar to the regular flu. If you have the flu one year and you get it next year, you already have some antibodies built up, but nobody in this room, nobody listening to me right now, nobody has any natural immunity to this. So when you get hit, you get sick very quickly, and of the people hit so far, one out of every two died. Again, panic and paralysis, even talking about it, people get so anxious. The good news is there are things we can do in terms of prevention, preparedness, stockpiling, educating our first responders and that, indeed, is what the President will spell out. I look forward to hearing more specifically about the President's plan. I urge my colleagues to spend time studying the issue. There is absolutely no reason to panic, but we do need to be prepared, and today we are underprepared. Indeed, we have no higher duty than to protect the health, the well-being, and the security of the American people. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following my remarks Senator Roberts be recognized to speak for up to 15 minutes, to be followed by Senator Rockefeller for up to 15 minutes, with the time yielded from the pending deficit reduction measure; further, that following that time Chairman Gregg or his designee be recognized.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we now resume open session.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we are back in open session, and I believe shortly--in about 40 or 45 minutes--we will be back on course on a very important bill that our Nation cares about, which we are on track to complete this week; that is, the deficit reduction bill. Over the next about 30 or 35 minutes, however, we will be clarifying some of the intention, scheduling, and language with regard to the completion of the report on Iraq prewar intelligence which has been under a great deal of discussion in the past within the Intelligence Committee, and, indeed, a subject of discussion between the chairman and the vice chairman, both of whom will have the opportunity to express their ideas here shortly. Let me say that I think it is absolutely critical as we move forward on this important issue that we get partisanship out of these discussions of intelligence--important matters, important to this country, important to the American people--and anything and everything we can do to keep these discussions above partisanship is absolutely critical. We have been in a closed session, and I want all Members to familiarize themselves with what that actually means as we have seen because we were in that session for a little over 2 hours. It is very important that people do not talk about what happened during that session. Again, we will all have to go back because it is very unusual to go into these closed sessions, and, in fact, I think unprecedented, the way we went into this session, which we will probably talk about a little bit more later. I was very disappointed the way we entered into this session, which was a total surprise to me. Let me also say I have absolute confidence in our Intelligence Committee and in what they are doing in terms of this important work and Senator Roberts as chairman. The one thing that is important for us to mention, for the benefit of our colleagues, is an agreement between the leader and myself to the following three points: that the majority leader and the Democratic leader will appoint three members from their respective parties. This task force of six Senators will meet and report back to leadership no later than the close of business on November 14 the following: The Intelligence Committee's progress on the phase II review of the prewar intelligence and its schedule for completion. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the benefit of my colleagues, at this point we have 15 minutes set aside--for up to 15 minutes--for Senator Roberts, followed by Senator Rockefeller, and after that we will recognize Chairman Gregg or his designee. And with mutual discussion between the Democratic and Republican leaders, we very much, after the comments by the chairman and vice chairman, want to get back on the deficit reduction bill. We have a time agreement to complete discussion on that bill by 6 o'clock tomorrow night. There are a lot of Members who want to talk about this very important issue.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, very briefly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 408, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, and all nominations on the Secretary's desk. I further ask unanimous consent the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President immediately be notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate immediately proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 409, the nomination of Michael Wynne to be Secretary of the Air Force. I further ask unanimous consent that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and finally that the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, this morning we will have a period of morning business which will allow Senators to come to the floor to make statements. I announced last night that there would be no votes today, and I do not anticipate a lengthy session. We expect to consider some executive nominations over the course of the morning, and we also will be able to consider any other cleared legislative items before closing. On Monday, under our order from last night, we will begin consideration of the deficit reduction bill. I will have a few comments on that shortly. That bill does have a statutory 20-hour time limit, and we now have an order which divides that time over the course of Monday. Also, we have set out a time for Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week. We will not have any votes during Monday's session, but Senators can expect a very busy week on that deficit reduction package. I will have more to say about the course of next week later today and will outline the voting schedule, as we know it, a little bit later this morning. I congratulate, once again, Chairman Specter and Senator Harkin for completing the work on the Labor-HHS appropriations bill last night. That was the final of our 12 appropriations bills to be considered by the Senate. Senator Cochran has done a tremendous job throughout the appropriations process, and we thank him for his efforts and his committee members for shepherding the bills through.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, on Monday we begin consideration of the deficit reduction bill, a bill that goes by the title of a reconciliation bill. Indeed, it has been 8 years since we have addressed spending on a reconciliation bill, a critically important bill. It may well be the most important piece of fiscal legislation we will debate. I fully expect it will be enacted this year. For those who may watch this debate, I should be clear that the bill we will debate is focused on one piece of the Federal budget, not the entire Federal budget. It is, however, a major piece of the budget, mandatory spending. That word ``mandatory,'' sometimes referred to as entitlement spending, represents about $1.4 trillion or 56 percent of overall Federal spending this year. It will continue to grow in the future, particularly as that demographic shift occurs, as the baby boomers begin to travel through our system in 2008. Mandatory spending, entitlement spending, encompasses a whole range of programs familiar to my colleagues--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Federal-civilian military retirement, student loans, TRICARE, foster care, child nutrition, SSI, unemployment insurance, farm price support programs, veterans disability, and the list goes on. If Federal spending is to be controlled--and it absolutely must be controlled-- over time, these programs are going to have to be addressed. They are going to have to be reformed. Over the last 5 years, mandatory entitlement program spending has grown at an annual rate of over 7.1 percent. That is three times faster than the overall growth in our economy. It simply cannot be sustained. The result is a greater share of our national economy's productive capacity, that proportion of our productive capacity, is being shifted toward those programs. We have to find a balance. It is incumbent upon us to do so. Under the procedures laid out by the Budget Act for considering this deficit reduction legislation that we will have on the floor beginning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week, Social Security, which is the largest of these mandatory programs, is set aside. It cannot, nor should it be, considered in this legislation. It cannot be. So realistically, the universe of Federal spending that we will be dealing with over the next week is limited to 33 percent or about a third of all Federal spending. That is where the focus will be. The deficit reduction legislation we will be considering over the week is the culmination of a process that began in February, when the President gave us his budget. The President's budget included proposals to reduce the Federal deficit over the next 5 years by slowing the growth in Federal spending in this area of the Federal budget. Again, of the overall Federal budget, we are talking about a third of it that we will be addressing. The President's budget came over and said: We are going to slow that spending growth by $26 billion. The congressional budget resolution we adopted back in April similarly agreed that slowing that growth--and there is still going to be growth--in mandatory spending was an essential part of achieving not only deficit reduction but, not unrelated, being able to sustain economic growth. We want to achieve deficit reduction, but we want to be able to sustain economic growth. So to accomplish that goal, our 2006 budget laid out a process that has not been used in about 8 years. I believe it was in 1997 that we last had a spending deficit reduction package, a reconciliation process used on the spending side of the equation. It has been 8 years since we have used this process. The budget we adopted directed eight authorizing committees in the Senate and in the House to make changes in laws within their jurisdiction to achieve a total of $34.7 billion in savings over the next 5 years. That is what the budget told those eight authorizing committees to come up with. Subsequent to passage of our budget in the spring, we have had big, unanticipated spending demands that resulted from the worst hurricane season in the Nation's history. All of that placed added attention on spending and on Government spending. We responded to that appropriately, in a bipartisan way, by agreeing to delay consideration of the reconciliation process in early September so that we could focus on hurricane response and on the demands and on what the people who have been so directly affected by those hurricanes deserve. We have addressed the needs of the gulf coast families affected by the storms. We continue to address them. We did, indeed, in legislation last night. We will continue to do so in the future. Indeed, within this reconciliation legislation, while at the same time meeting the goal of deficit reduction, we do so while also providing the needed medical attention, the education attention, and other Government benefits to the victims of those hurricanes. We also recognize that because of the additional spending demands being placed on the Federal Government, we needed to do more in terms of deficit reduction itself, the deficit reduction we defined pre-Katrina, that we did need to do more. In late September, I, along with the chairman of the Budget Committee, wrote to the chairmen and ranking members of the eight reconciled committees, the committees that will be responding with their proposals next week, asking them each to consider how they could come up with increased savings. I am proud of the effort put forth by each of these eight committees. They have come forth with specific recommendations. Now that is what we are bringing to the floor of the Senate. They increased deficit reduction by nearly 13 percent so rather than $35 billion, as required by our initial budget proposal from the early part of this year, the legislation approaches about $40 billion, just under but almost $40 billion in savings. I thank and applaud members of the various authorizing committees who have come forth with those increased savings. I would be remiss if I did not point out that in many instances, the additional savings were accomplished on a bipartisan basis in many of the committees. Forty billion dollars in savings over the next 5 years is less than 2 percent of the $2.6 trillion in mandatory spending that will occur over the next 5 years. It is tough to accomplish that. We will be debating that over the course of the week. But in truth, it is only 2 percent of the $2.6 trillion in mandatory spending that is going to occur over the next 5 years. There will be some who think this legislation does not go far enough to reduce spending. I personally would not disagree. There will be others who will come into my office saying it goes too far. I do disagree with them. Both proponents will have an opportunity, over the course of consideration of the bill, to amend the legislation to achieve whatever their objectives might be. I will be laying out that schedule later today. Regardless of that debate, no one will deny that this is the first real effort in 8 years to slow down growth in mandatory spending. The chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Gregg, and the ranking member, and the eight reconciled committees are to be congratulated for making the tough and difficult decisions they had to in bringing this bill to the Senate floor. Finally, in balancing deficit reduction with all of the other demands that come to this body, the committees were careful not to place the burden of deficit reduction on the most vulnerable in our society. As a member of the HELP Committee, I personally thank Chairman Enzi and Ranking Member Kennedy for meeting their deficit reduction requirement, while at the same time providing a 10-percent increase in average grants to low-income students, with additional assistance for those students working toward a degree in math, science, engineering, and technology. While that committee achieved over $16 billion in deficit reduction by eliminating banker and lender windfalls and special payments, it redirected some of those savings toward needy students. Similarly, the Finance Committee, in meeting its instruction to achieve $10 billion in deficit reduction, was able to redirect additional savings toward providing such things as $1.9 billion to Medicaid recipients in the Gulf Coast States, nearly $1 billion to expand Medicaid benefits to severely disabled children through the Family Opportunity Act, nearly $100 million for the SCHIP program, and extension of expiring provisions that will provide over $200 million to rural hospitals and sole community centers. Another committee, the Commerce Committee, was able to direct a portion of its deficit reduction savings toward implementing E-9-1-1 emergency services as well as directing $200 million toward coastal disaster assistance. All of this is a first good positive step toward real mandatory spending reduction. Additional steps are being taken and will be taken to control the growth in the nonsecurity appropriations as we bring the 2006 appropriations process to a conclusion over the next couple of weeks as well. We will apply fiscal discipline through the actions we take these coming weeks and we will continue to promote those policies that protect the needy while at the same time creating jobs and ensuring a growing economy. Let us work together to keep America moving forward. I look forward to the debate next week and doing just that, working together to keep this country moving in a positive direction. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a few moments we will be closing for the week. But before doing so, I wanted to bring to the attention of my colleagues something that was just brought to my attention about 2 hours ago when I was e-mailed by our President pro tempore, Senator Ted Stevens. Basically, in a little cryptic language, it said: Bill, did you read the New York Times today? I said: No, I haven't read the New York Times today. Then he gave me one statistic that he picked up. I looked at it, and he is exactly right. That statistic drove home to me a threat--we don't talk very much about it--that we need to face up to and to act on. We are doing some powerful things in the Senate to do just that. But we are going to have to put it out front, and we are going to have to lead on it. The statistic is that China, in engineering, one field, is producing 442,000 new undergraduates a year, along with 48,000 graduates with master's degrees and 8,000 Ph.D.s in engineering. I focus on that to seize the opportunity that we do have before us a real threat that America is losing--not will lose but is losing--today the edge in technology that we depend on, and we depend on it in terms of creating the American dream, maintaining that American dream to pass on to our children, and it is time for us to act. This has not been the first time that certain challenges have been put before us. We faced a similar challenge, and we overcame it. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union--and we all remember that day, or those of us who were alive at the time remember that date--successfully launched the first manmade satellite into space. I was a very little boy at the time sitting around the dinner table and watching the stunning effect that had on my own family as they talked about it, I remember, one Sunday afternoon. The event stunned America, but it spurred us to action. We don't have a Sputnik, per se, moment, but we need to create it. We need to educate the American people where we are today, the challenge that we face and the threat that we face to our competitive edge. Less than a year later after that October 4 day in 1957, President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act to restore America's preeminence in science. Math, engineering, and science became our top educational priorities. As a result, not only did we close the gap with the Soviet Union, but we far exceeded our own dreams, our own expectations at the time. Fifty years later we face a similar challenge with the entry of China, the example I used, but also India and soon to be many other nations, into this global marketplace. As writer and observer Tom Friedman details in his wonderful book, ``The World Is Flat,'' American workers face accelerating competition not only in the low-wage manufacturing sector but now in the new fields of science and engineering and the technological fields. That is where the competition is today--with China and with India. According to BusinessWeek, together China and India graduate 500,000 scientists and engineers a year--every year, 500,000. How about America? Where are we? Just guess. Think. Are we more? Less? United States, 60,000; 500,000, India and China every year. We are down to 60,000. China, I just mentioned--more than 442,000 graduates every year. While the entire world is getting smarter and faster and stronger in math and science, the United States is not. We are moving in the opposite direction. Indeed, the number of engineering degrees awarded in the United States is down 20 percent from just a decade ago, 10 years ago. We are moving in the opposite direction. If current trends continue, by 2010 more than 90 percent of all scientists in the world, of all engineers in the world, 90 percent will be in Asia. Already, the majority of graduate science and engineering students in the United States are foreign born. Let me say that again. Already, the majority of graduate students in science and engineering in the United States are foreign born. Instead of investing their new skills in America, they are increasingly returning--not staying here but returning to their homes. According to Education for Innovation Initiative, which is a coalition of America's most prominent business organizations, we need to double-- we need to double the number of American science, technology, engineering, and mathematic students by 2015 if we are to remain the technological leader in the 21st century. That is a lot to do by 2015, just 10 years from now--a doubling. As I said, we are moving in the opposite direction. If we don't significantly improve math and science education in this country, there is a real danger that we will fall permanently behind-- once we lose that competitive edge in technology, in science, in mathematics where most job creation, as we look to the future, occurs. How are we failing? I used the example of students today at the graduate level in engineering. So where does it all start? You have to jump all the way back down to the 15-, 16-year-old in the middle school areas. Are we failing there as we look to the future? They will become the graduates, whether it is math, science, engineering, or some other field, in the future. Well, right now in the 29 industrialized nations in the world, if I asked you just to imagine where you think we are if you look at 15- year-old students--and most people would say, whether you are going to be a scientist or an engineer, it is really determined in that age, from about 14 to 16. If I happened to ask the American people listening but also my colleagues, if there are 29 industrialized countries, and we want to rank mathematics performance of students around the world, is the United States first? You would think so. Maybe fifth? Surely, you would think so, in the United States of America, with our resources and our great innovation and culture of creativity and the American dream. It is not 5th. It is not 10th. It is not 15th. It is not 20th. The United States now ranks 24th of 29 industrialized nations in math literacy among 15-year-olds. We fall behind who? You can name 23 of them, but it is Finland, Korea, Canada, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Spain, France. Business leaders who observe this tell us that fewer and fewer American workers have the math and science skills they need for today's jobs. One researcher at the Hudson Institute warns: We're rolling into the most severe shortage of skilled workers this country has ever seen. And in what must be the most dismal development, tutoring American students in math via the Internet is becoming a boom industry--in India. We are actually outsourcing our education. All this really says: What do you do? These are the observations. They are observations at the middle school level, the high school level, the graduate level, even beyond graduate level, and we are failing. So it is incumbent upon us to act, and to act with meaningful solutions that respond to a real problem that is there today, and it is going to increase over time. We cannot afford to lose the technological race. It is a matter of economics. It is a matter of security. I believe it is a matter of national security as well. It is a matter of keeping jobs, good-paying jobs right here in America. People say: Well, Senator Frist, he is a doctor. He is a scientist. He has a little bias. It is way beyond that. Math and the hard sciences are what drive innovation in just about every single industry today. From computers, to my own field of medicine, we depend on technology to improve our quality of life, to be able to figure out how we solve problems that seemingly are insurmountable, that are unsolvable. We solve them by the most innovative, most creative, the most advanced technological solution. That is where that competitive edge exists. Not only that but math comprehension is critical to everyday tasks today, whether it is balancing the checkbook or figuring out how to interpret your 401(k). You need those everyday skills. We are thriving in a fast-changing modern world, constantly evolving world, moving so much faster than any of us would have anticipated 5 or 10 years ago. We need these skills to survive and to thrive. That is why in terms of action, in the sort of things we need to do, in August I proposed the national SMART grant. The national SMART grant provides low-income students up to $1,500 in their third and in their fourth year of college to pursue math and science. Together the maximum Pell grant and the national SMART grant cover nearly an entire typical State university tuition bill for those last 2 years. People say: Why the last 2 years? The last 2 years because that is when people determine their majors, in those years of college. The national SMART grant will make it easier for low-income students to meet that heavy class load in math and in science. We know that those academic loads are heavy in those particular fields. Some of my colleagues have worked on this. I thank them. To start naming them, Senators Enzi and Roberts and Warner have done a tremendous job in getting this legislation to the point that it exists, and each has been a champion of rigorous math and science education. In addition, I thank Chairman Enzi, especially, for more than doubling the investment in this SMART grant program. It is focused on the needs I am speaking about today. As a matter of fact, the SMART grant is a good, solid first step in getting America's science and math education back on track so that we truly can globally compete. Mr. President, throughout our history, our Nation has been blessed to be a land of innovation and creativity and dynamism. We have attracted the best, and we have attracted the brightest from across the oceans. And they have come and made our country an even more vibrant and more dynamic place. I am confident that if we keep our focus on the fundamentals, America will continue to offer unrivaled opportunity and prosperity for generations to come.

Mr. FRIST

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

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and that the Senate return to legislative session.