Bill Frist

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded. the PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I speak for a moment on the issue of equality in health care and what I have personally been able to observe, which we as a body have tried to address--in fact, have taken some major steps forward--but which stands as a major challenge which I believe we can address in this body. That is the subject of health care disparities. In the 21st century, Americans are among the healthiest, the longest living, and robust citizens in the history of the world. We have conquered diseases that were once untreatable. Our remarkable scientists continue to develop new drugs, therapies, treatments, and procedures that every day are bringing new hope and, indeed, saving the lives of millions around the country and millions around the world. We have much of which to be proud. At the same time, there is something we should be ashamed of because despite the dazzling medical and social progress of the last century, there remains wide health disparities and inequalities between minority and nonminority citizens. I will cite a few examples. Infant mortality rates are twice as high among African Americans versus Whites. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Latino populations is four times higher. And the prevalence of AIDS among African Americans is nine times higher than among Whites. African-American children are twice as likely to have asthma. They are six times more likely to die from asthma than others. And mortality rates related to diabetes are more than twice as high among African Americans and Native Americans. The question is, why? We have made progress in understanding why, but we cannot answer that question, Why? Even when we control our access to medical services and we control for other socioeconomic factors, Americans from minority backgrounds still receive unequal care. They suffer lower quality care and, consequently, worse health outcomes. That is the challenge. The response to that challenge is we can eliminate that. We can reverse these health care disparities. Progress has been made in recent years to close the health gap between minority and White patients. We are boosting Federal research into the cause of health disparities. We are identifying barriers to care in our communities. We are expanding the number of health professionals who have a strong commitment to the needs of minority and underserved patients. Much more, however, needs to be done. That is why I am proposing the Health Care Gap Act of 2003. This legislation, which I plan to introduce later this year, builds on successful prior legislation to ultimately eliminate such disparities in health care. This legislation will address key areas necessary to close the health care gap in America. These include expanding access to quality health care, improving national leadership and coordination, increasing the diversity of health professionals, promoting more aggressive professional education, promoting research to identify sources of racial and ethnic disparities, identifying promising interventions, and improving and expanding programs to prevent, too manage, and to treat diseases and conditions that disproportionately impact minority and underserved populations. As I mentioned in the data I quoted, these include asthma, they include HIV/AIDS, prostate cancer, and other types of cancer. Last weekend, I have the privilege, as so many Members--in fact, many Members departed an hour or so ago to deliver commencement speeches at high schools, elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and graduate schools all over the country. I had the privilege last week of speaking at two commencement ceremonies. One was for the School of Medicine at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and also the George Washington School of Medicine here in the Washington area. In my address, I challenged these hard-working and young people--our future doctors, our future health professionals, our scientists--to become active, to actively shape and mold our profession. I told them that in this day and time in the field of medicine, we simply can no longer, as health professionals, solely practice medicine. They must lead in medicine. The same is true of us. This bill on health care disparities, this legislation which will be introduced later this year, will do just that. In the Senate, we must help to create a medical system that treats all patients equitably. Our national creed, that all are created equal, dictates that we must.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, one of the many interesting challenges this Congress will face is that of fundamental Medicaid reform. The President unveiled an innovative and exciting proposal earlier this year, and the budget that we adopted in April anticipates Congressional action by creating a reserve fund of resources for modernizing Medicaid. Of course, the jobs and growth package presently before us contains a temporary state aid program of $20 billion. Under this interim plan, up to $10 billion will flow through the Medicaid program over the next 18 months. This time-limited spending, proposed in the Senate by Senators Collins and Nelson, as well as Senator Rockefeller, is provisional, lasting only until September 30, 2004. Further, Mr. President, my three colleagues entered a colloquy in the Record on May 14, 2003, to that effect. The language that passed the Senate, and the language contained in the conference report, clearly states that the program itself is repealed in 2004. The Senate sponsors of this provision have acknowledged that the program is not to be permanent, and both the chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, and the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Nickles, agree that this program is to last no longer than September 30, 2004. As the program unfolds, based on the commitment of its sponsors and the chairmen, I will be monitoring to ensure that the program is indeed transient, and will work with colleagues to keep it temporary. Further, in no way does this provision in the state aid package obstruct the opportunity provided in the budget resolution for the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Energy and Commerce Committee to move ahead on Medicaid modernization. Since the administration detailed its plan, various committees in the House and Senate have explored its features, and Medicaid modernization that enhances flexibility and responsiveness is a goal many share as we move into the 21st century. I look forward to the creativity and ingenuity of the chairmen of the relevant committees, Senator Grassley and Mr. Tauzin, as they move forward in the coming weeks and months.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, last Wednesday marked an important day in the progress of medicine and national policy. I am pleased to note that on that day the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee voted unanimously to report out S. 1053, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2003. For more than 6 years, I have had the opportunity to work with Senators Snowe, Jeffords, Enzi, Gregg, Hagel, Collins, and DeWine on this important legislation. I believe with the invaluable contributions of Senators Daschle and Kennedy that we brought to the forefront of the congressional agenda solid legislation that will provide patients with real protection against genetic discrimination in health insurance. I will first express how much I appreciate the work of my colleague on this issue, the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Judd Gregg, who is chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. It is his commitment and dedication to this issue that is primarily responsible for getting us to this point of reporting out this Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. At this juncture, I also commend President Bush for his commitment to ensuring strong protections against genetic discrimination and for calling attention to this critical matter. We began work on this issue many years ago. It was interesting when we started this work----well, not many years, about 5 years ago. But when we started this work, it was way off in the future that we anticipated decoding of the human genome would actually occur, but we were able to identify the problem, recognizing that the advances in technology, this unraveling of the genetic code, which was so revolutionary in thought at the time, would indeed introduce new challenges to the way we handled health information. So we jump a few years later and now we can look back, and over the last few weeks the complete decoding of the human genome has been announced. That is about three billion bits of information that we did not know about a year ago. Now we know. Just last month, America celebrated two wonderful milestones in medical science. Scientists working in collaboration with the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH, National Institutes of Health, published a final draft documenting that entire sequence of the human genetic code. The publication occurred more than 2 years ahead of schedule. I should also add, it came under budget. There are very few things we do in Washington that are completed ahead of schedule and under budget. This tremendous discovery, this unraveling of the genetic code of the human genome, is one of them. The publication of this occurred more than 2 years ahead of schedule, as I mentioned, but also almost 50 years to the day from the historic publication by two icons in terms of science, Dr. James Watson and Dr. Francis Crick. The helix, called the DNA, which is a double helix---- all of us have seen pictures of almost a figure 8, a three dimensional helix which was described now a little over 50 years ago. The dazzling accomplishment of this decoding of the human genome has ushered in a new era which we will see unfold over the next few years, next 5, 10 years, which will enable us to better understand diseases, how the human body functions but, importantly, how diseases affect that functioning of the human body. This decoding has also begun to expand our understanding of human development throughout life, health, and disease processes. Specifically, the discovery of disease genes----that is, variations in the genetic code that can be associated with the manifestation of symptoms and what becomes disease----brings promises for hope for ultimately not just prevention of those diseases but also treatment and cure. Scientists very likely will be able to design drugs to treat specific genes or the manifestation of these genes. In my own field of heart and lung transplantation and other types of transplantation of tissues, organs may be specifically engineered for use in the field of transplantation. Even preventive care, where we are woefully inadequate in terms of knowledge but also in application of that knowledge today, may potentially be based in large part to genetic testing. This potential explosion of knowledge, which is exciting to me as a scientist and as a physician, is also associated with risk. When I first joined my distinguished colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, in this effort several years ago, almost one-third of women who were offered a test for breast cancer risk--and this is a genetic test--at the National Institutes of Health declined. They said, no. They say: I understand that test may be able to tell whether I will get breast cancer but I decline. You ask why. They say: The only reason, and the reason I say no, is the risk that information will be used by a health insurance company or an employer against me. What if that information got out? I strongly believe then, as I do now, that we have an obligation, a responsibility, to protect people from the threat that their genetic information can be used against them in any way. I would say that from a medical standpoint, and from a societal standpoint, this is a moral responsibility. It is a practical responsibility. If unchecked, the fear of genetic discrimination will prevent individuals from participating, whether it is in research studies, or in the gathering of information that can be used and applied more broadly to people, either in this country or indeed across the globe. It will prevent people from taking advantage of the new technologies which can be and, in fact, almost certainly will be lifesaving. It will keep people from getting tests, even from discovering that they are not at risk for genetically related diseases. Also, the fear of genetic discrimination has the potential to prevent citizens from making informed health decisions. If one does not have that information, they simply are not going to be able to make informed health care decisions, whether it is in lifestyle or to determine whether or not they need an annual cardiac or heart catheterization once a year, or if they have the gene for breast cancer so that they would go and get mammographies more often. If they refused to get the test because of the fear of the discrimination, clearly they are not able to make informed health decisions for themselves. In the past, Congress has taken on the battle against broad discrimination in all sorts of legislation. We think back to the 1964 Civil Rights Act; to 1990, the American with Disabilities Act; more recently to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Today, we extend those protections to citizens with genetic markers, a move that has the power, I would argue, to save lives. As I have implied, this whole field of genetic research and testing will undoubtedly unleash thrilling advances and better health care. It will lead almost certainly to cures for diseases that we cannot even imagine can be cured today. The potential medical advances that emerge from our knowledge and our understanding and that definition of the human genome that was spelled out just a couple of months ago, I know will be more dramatic than the changes I have seen in over 20 years practicing medicine, that I witnessed in my own medical career. Clearly, there will be much more advancing and pioneering than my dad saw after 55 years practicing medicine from about the 1930s to the 1980s. As we greet the future, the excitement, the thrill of discovering what emerges from this new body of information, this definition of the human genetic code, we have a responsibility in this body to protect our body politic. I am pleased by the progress we have made thus far. I come to the floor to speak today because I have watched this debate, I have watched this discussion, and I have seen in a bipartisan way in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee tremendous progress being made this past week, and hopefully it can be made in the Senate as we look at discrimination in genetic testing. I congratulate my colleagues on their persistence and dedication to the issue. It gives us an opportunity, in advance of there being a problem, in advance of the new genetic tests, to address that potential for discrimination which, in turn, if it occurred--and I believe there is a high likelihood unless we act--would be a disservice to mankind. This legislation stands squarely on our time-tested civil rights laws establishing comprehensive, consistent, practical, reasonable, and fair protections. I strongly support this compromise bill. I am speaking today primarily because it is a compromise bill taking the very best out of the pieces of legislation that have been proposed in the past. I strongly support this compromise bill. I look forward to its swift passage.

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

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a few moments we will be completing our work for today--indeed for the week--after what has been a productive process in completing a lot of legislation today with a number of votes, but following really about 2 or 3 months of very consistent, steady progress, as was just outlined by the assistant majority leader a few moments ago. It caused me, as I listened to my distinguished colleague from Kentucky, to think back to 5 months ago, when we began the 108th Congress, and what we were thinking then as we projected forward what we hoped to accomplish. I recall at that time, on the floor, committing this body, working together in a bipartisan way, to achieve results for the American people--the type of results that would push America forward, focusing on action, on getting things done. We said that this Congress would be a Congress defined by action, defined by accomplishment, and I believe that indeed we have kept that pledge. Whether working to create jobs, increasing our Nation's economic growth, fighting global terror, protecting our homeland and making our homeland more secure, or helping to stem the spread of HIV/AIDS, this Congress has been quietly, steadily, and consistently getting the job done for the American people. As my colleagues leave today to return to their homes across the country and spend this Memorial Day holiday with their friends and families, I do want to take this opportunity, in these final moments, to thank them for their patience and their hard work. They have been extremely productive. They have been prolific. First and foremost, we have enacted measures to stoke America's great economic engine and to create new jobs for our workers. The 11 appropriations bills left over from last year we passed in 1 omnibus appropriations bill, finishing the work left unfinished from the last Congress. We passed the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And we passed that budget in near record time. Indeed, it was only the fourth time in the history of our budgeting process that we actually met the statutory deadline. Also, today we approved President Bush's jobs and growth plan, a plan which will put more money in the pockets of everybody listening right now, and more money in the pockets of all American families, thereby creating thousands and thousands of new jobs. It is progress. It shows action. It shows we are delivering to the American people. The package we passed just a few hours ago includes the third-largest tax cut in our Nation's history. I believe it will help turbocharge the economy because 60 percent of the $350 billion stimulus package will hit home this year and next year, in this timeframe, over the next 18 months. Working with President Bush, we have strived to make our homeland more secure and fight the global war against terror. In addition to the funds approved in the budget, the $80 billion supplemental appropriations bill, passed in April, not only helped pay for the cost of the Iraq campaign, but it provided funds to protect our own borders as well. In what may someday, I believe, be considered our most far-reaching initiative, Congress has approved--and the President, next Tuesday, will sign--a 5-year, $15 billion commitment to combat the global spread of that deadly HIV/AIDS virus--a virus we knew nothing about 25 years ago, a virus that represents, in the pandemic that has ensued, the greatest public health challenge of our time, killing more than 23 million people, infecting more than 40 million people alive today, ultimately killing, in all likelihood--even if we discovered a vaccine today--another 60 million people over the next 20 to 30 years. But now, because of the action of this body, following the leadership of the President of the United States, working hand in hand with the House of Representatives, America is now--and proudly so--the global leader in HIV/AIDS funding and has brought the lamp of hope to millions of people threatened by this devastating disease. I have been privileged, as a physician, to be able to perform medical mission work in various places around the world, but specifically in Africa, and I can tell you how desperately--how desperately--needed is this leadership, is this funding. This legislation is a manifestation of the caring spirit--that spirit of compassion--that spirit of caring and compassion on behalf of the United States of America. It shows our commitment to the less fortunate in the world and that we are, indeed, a nation of moral courage. In foreign policy, we supported the Moscow Treaty, which calls for the most dramatic reduction of nuclear weapons between Russia and America in history. Under the terms of this treaty, the number of nuclear weapons will be lower than at any point since 1954. Also in foreign policy, we supported the expansion of NATO, bringing seven new democracies into the alliance: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. At home, we have not only acted to spur the economy to create jobs but we have looked after those who do not have a job but who are looking for a job. Today, again, just a few hours ago, we once again extended the unemployment insurance to ensure that families will have the economic support they need while they continue to look for a job. On issues here at home, we voted to end that abhorrent practice of partial-birth abortion. We approved the CARE Act to encourage charitable giving to charitable and nonprofit organizations. These are just a few of the many accomplishments of this Congress. I could go on: AMBER Alert, air cargo security, a national ``Do Not Call'' list to stymie unwanted phone solicitors, military tax relief--and the list continues. I mention all this because as we focus on our day-to-day activities, it is rare that we look at that large picture from 30,000 feet as to what we have accomplished. And, indeed, we have done much. It has been a productive 5 months. It has not always been a smooth road, but in a closely divided Senate few paths are easy. It takes working in a bipartisan way. Before I close, I do want to say, as part of a new leadership team on the Republican side of the aisle, it has been extremely important for me to have developed a positive working relationship with the other side of the aisle, both in terms of leadership and really throughout the Senate. I do want to thank the corresponding leaders on the other side of the aisle for working with me in a bipartisan way as we have set out this agenda and as, indeed, we have completed the agenda that has been set out. I do hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle enjoy the break and come back from their time refreshed because we have a lot of work to do. On the top of that list will be to bring our Medicare Program up to date so we can include prescription drugs as part of the armamentarium for health care delivery and health care security for our seniors. That is going to require bipartisan cooperation if we are truly to accomplish what I know we will accomplish, what we can accomplish, and what our seniors deserve; that is, a strengthening and improvement of our Medicare Program. We will do that the month we come back. It will be hard work, but in the end I know we can approve a plan to improve the current system, to strengthen it, to guarantee all seniors access to prescription drugs in a plan that can best meet their health care needs. I do want to thank my own Republican leadership team. We heard a few moments ago from my colleague, the assistant majority leader, our whip, Senator McConnell. Our working relationship has been such that it excites me, as we look to the future, again, having worked hand in hand to address these many issues in the past. As our colleagues go home, I know they will all be paying tribute to the men and women who have returned to their own communities after representing the best that we have in the United States of America, as they have fought for freedom and democracy--those freedoms that we are able to enjoy each and every day. We have done much, but we have much to do.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate proceeds to the consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2 at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, May 23, there be 1 hour for debate remaining divided as follows: Senator Grassley, 25 minutes; Senator Baucus, 5 minutes; Senator Conrad, 10 minutes; Senator Dayton, 10 minutes; Senator Daschle, 5 minutes; Senator Frist, 5 minutes. I further ask consent that following the use or yielding back of the debate time, the Senate proceed to a vote on or in relation to the conference report, without further intervening action or debate. Finally, I ask consent that following the vote on the adoption of the conference report the Senate then begin consideration of H.J. Res. 51, the debt limit extension.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, that is a correct assumption. We do expect it sometime between now and then, and we plan on having received it to start at 8:30. If we do not receive it, we will alter these best laid plans.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent the committee substitute amendment be agreed to.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 102, S. 878.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 133 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. FRIST. 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, all with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to this measure be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand that S. 1104 is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. FRIST. I now ask for its second reading and object to further proceeding on this matter.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations on today's Executive Calendar: Calendar Nos. 90, 91, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198. I further ask unanimous consent that the nominations be confirmed en bloc; that the motions to reconsider be laid upon table; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action; and that the Senate then return to legislative session.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, let me add, for tomorrow we do the jobs and growth package, we would take what time is necessary on the debt ceiling extension, and then we also have one other issue, which is unemployment insurance, which we will be addressing tomorrow. Again, all of this can be done in a very short period of time. These are not new issues. In each and every one of them, we know what the consequences are. They have been debated. The jobs and growth package we talked a lot about, although it is not exactly as written now, but the issues we talked about and discussed. On all three of these issues, we will finish them. We could finish them, actually, early afternoon tomorrow if we stay focused, and that will be my intent. I understand some people on the other side of the aisle may want to talk on the debt ceiling and possibly unemployment insurance as well. I think if we work together in a collegial way, we will be able to complete all of this legislation. Again, it has been an ambitious schedule for the week, but based on what we have seen over the last 3 years, we are making progress as we go forward.

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I thank the two managers for their hard work and willingness to stay late into the evening in an effort that some said could not be done over the course of the last 3 days, but both managers said we were going to do it. I congratulate them for delivering on that commitment. In a couple of moments, we will have an additional vote on a Ninth Circuit court judge. Before doing that, the Democratic leader and I wanted to have a general understanding with our colleagues of where we are and where we will be going over the next couple of days, or next couple 12 hours, say, 18 hours. We will see how long it will be. It is my understanding we will be receiving sometime in the next hour the conference report on the jobs and growth package. It will be filed shortly in the House. I don't know exactly what time that will be. We just left there. Hopefully, it will be in the next hour or so. It is my hope we will be able to begin debate tonight, following the vote on the judge, on the jobs and growth package. If that is the case, what I think, in talking to the Democratic leader, we would like to accomplish is the debate, which statutorily would be 10 hours, would begin, although we will not officially start the clock at that point, right after the vote on the judicial nominee. If that were acceptable to our colleagues, again, depending on what time the language arrived and papers could be filed, we would be able to vote on final passage tomorrow morning. This is on the jobs and growth package. That is not all the business and I will comment on the other business. Ideally, we would be able to vote sometime around 9:30 tomorrow, although we cannot say with certainty at this juncture. If that were the case and we were able to complete that vote, we still have the debt limit extension to address, which is something that we have to, absolutely no question about it, deal with tomorrow. Everyone agrees with that, although I do understand there will be amendments from the other side of the aisle to allow discussion. Some of those amendments will be substantive and useful to discuss and debate and some, hopefully, will disappear, and we will talk about the issues at some point. I believe we are talking about eight amendments. We will have to pass the debt ceiling extension tomorrow. How many amendments, we have not yet decided. We have to wait until tomorrow. I am not sure how long we need to talk on the debt ceiling, but if we had the vote on the jobs and growth package at 9:30 in the morning, I imagine there is a period we might be able to agree to tonight--or may not--at which time we start the amendment process and have a series of amendments, hopefully one after another, or I would encourage that to be the case. People have a lot of commitments tomorrow and tomorrow evening. We want to do the business in a very deliberate way. That is a rough outline. Let me turn to my distinguished colleague, Senator Daschle, to comment. Right now we are talking not unanimous consents but a general understanding of how the next day will play out.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period for morning business.

Mr. FRIST

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

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 under the previous order.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. For the information of all Senators, tomorrow the Senate will resume debate on the conference report to accompany H.R. 2, the jobs and economic growth bill. Under the previous order, the Senate will vote on the adoption of the conference report tomorrow morning at 9:30. The 9:30 a.m. vote on the conference report will be the first vote tomorrow. Following the disposition of the conference report, the Senate will consider the debt limit extension legislation. Amendments to the measure are expected throughout the morning and therefore rollcall votes will occur throughout the afternoon. It is my hope that Members will show restraint in the number of amendments offered to the debt limit legislation, and we could thereby complete action on this necessary measure early tomorrow afternoon. In addition, we will be considering in all likelihood the unemployment compensation initiative at some point tomorrow, most probably following the debt limit legislation. I would alert Members at this time that tomorrow will be a very busy day, starting early in the morning with a number of rollcall votes expected throughout the day. I encourage Senators to make the necessary scheduling arrangements to accommodate the voting on these important issues.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 8:30 a.m., Friday, May 23. 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 for their use later in the day, and the Senate then resume consideration of the conference report to accompany H.R. 2, the jobs and economic growth bill, as provided under the previous agreement.

Mr. FRIST

Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar Nos. 109 and 111, en bloc. I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to en bloc, the preambles be agreed to en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table on bloc, and any statements relating to these matters be printed in the Record.