Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. My friend from Wyoming mentioned the fact that we should bring up appropriations bills. As someone who has been a member of the Appropriations Committee for quite a long time, I would remind my friend from Wyoming that earlier this year, on the first appropriations bill that we passed out of committee under the leadership of Senator Mikulski--it was the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bill--if I am not mistaken, it had a number of Republican votes in committee. It was brought out onto the floor. An extraneous amendment was offered by the Senator from Kentucky, whereupon I believe Senator Mikulski, our leader, filed cloture on the bill so we could vote on the appropriations bill. I say to my friend from Wyoming that all the Republicans on that side voted against cloture, voted against taking up that one appropriations bill--I am sorry, I am reminded that we had one Republican, the Republican from the State of Maine who did vote to go to cloture on that bill, one Republican out of all those on the other side. I say to my friend from Wyoming, we tried to bring up the appropriations bill. It was Republicans who objected to even dealing with that appropriations bill. I would ask my friend from Wyoming if he had looked at that history and understood what had happened on the bill that came up at the time. I thank my friend from Wyoming for yielding.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be allowed to speak before I object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, the Senator from Florida, now wants to fund the Head Start Program. That is all well and good. We all recognize how invaluable the Head Start Program is. But I must say that listening to this request and the previous request and the other requests that have come up reminds me of an analogy. The Republicans, quite frankly, have torn down the wall of government, and now they want to rebuild it brick by brick, but the way they want to rebuild it is by stacking the bricks. Here is a stack of bricks here, here is another stack of bricks, and here is another stack of bricks. Anyone will tell you that if you build a wall like that, it will be very weak. It won't hold together. Our government is built from a wall of interconnected bricks. Look at a brick wall sometime. See how the bricks are interconnected. It provides strength. They all rely upon one another. They are interconnected. They provide a bulwark. If you stack those bricks one after the other, you will have a weak wall. Now what the Republicans are saying is: Well, we have torn down that wall by shutting down the government. Now we want to build it brick by brick, but we will just stack them. We will have a brick here and a brick there. This is what I am getting at with that analogy. The Senator from Florida wants to fund the Head Start Program--all well and good--but the Head Start Program is not a separate brick in that wall, it is interconnected to so many others. A variety of other Federal programs are used in the Head Start Program. For example, States use the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program. They use the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families-- TANF--Program. They use the social services block grants to provide wraparound services. In this way, for example, they can use some of those funds to extend the Head Start day from half a day to a full day. They can extend it from a full day to later hours for parents who have different working hours and working conditions. Under a shutdown, we don't have these other programs. So you might have the Head Start Program, but these other ones are all shut down. Head Start providers use funding from the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which is funded under a whole different auspices of the government, but this food program comes in to provide healthy meals and nutritious services. I say to the Senator from Florida, I have visited a lot of Head Start centers, and they have nutritious food for these kids. That doesn't come under the Head Start Program, that comes from the Child and Adult Care Food Program. That is also shut down right now. So, again, you could fund the Head Start Program, but all these other programs interlock and provide the support necessary for a good Head Start Program. I might also say that the Head Start Program is a need-based program. So if someone wants to get their child into a Head Start Program, sometimes documentation is used and needed--documentation such as last year's tax returns. What was your income? Well, as long as the IRS is closed right now--out of 94,000 active IRS employees, 87,000 are furloughed--the IRS is not processing those. The point I make to all and to the Senator from Florida is that it is not enough just to say: I want to reopen the Head Start Program. All of these bricks are interlocked. That is why it is so important to get the government running again. If the Senator from Florida wants to cut funding for some of these other programs, there is plenty of opportunity to do that through the legislative process and the appropriations process. But just to say we are going to fund the Head Start Program, I say, with all due respect, that is a cruel irony to hold out to all of the families who use the Head Start Program that somehow, yes, we want to fund Head Start, but all the other things that go to support it and make it work, we are taking that away, and like a wall built of stacked bricks, it will fall over because it won't have the other supports that are needed. So I respectfully object to the request from the Senator from Florida.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Are we under a 10- minute time limit? Is that correct?

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, Erik Fatemi, the clerk of my appropriations subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, is leaving the Senate this week after 12 years of sterling service. On behalf of Senators from both sides of the aisle who have had the good fortune to work with Erik over the years, I would like to take a few minutes to express our gratitude. Knute Rockne was probably the alltime great coach at Notre Dame, and he knew that the Almighty had a special feeling for that team. But Rockne was fond of saying: ``I've found that prayers work best when you have big players.'' Successful committee chairs in the Senate have the same approach. We know that it is not enough to be on the side of the angels; we have got to have big players. Here in the Senate, that means big intellect, big heart, big work ethic. And those are qualities that Erik Fatemi possesses in superabundance. Erik joined my Appropriations staff in early 2001, a few months before Senator Jim Jeffords switched from Republican to Independent, giving Democrats back the majority in the Senate. So Erik has been in the minority with me, then the majority, then back to the minority, and now in the majority again. Over the years, Erik has acquired a profound knowledge of the appropriations and legislative processes that is widely respected not just by Members and staff in this Chamber, but also in the administration. And with Erik, it's not only a matter of know-how, it is also a matter of know-who. Over the years, Erik developed important relationship of trust and respect, especially with top researchers and institute directors at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health since 2009, recently said about Erik: ``Erik Fatemi stands out in my mind as one of the most effective staff members I have worked with on Capitol Hill. Erik is the exemplar of an effective appropriations staffer: he has always mastered any of the issues he's been involved in and he has always demonstrated the 'passion for anonymity' of a loyal staff member. An expert on NIH, Erik has always been tough, fair and compassionate. He always asked the tough questions and would not give up until he got straight answers--wether it was from the NIH or the broader biomedical research community. And in all of his dealings with NIH and me, he has always kept uppermost in his mind the millions of patients and their families who count on the treatments, cures, and preventive measures that publicly-funded biomedical research makes possible. Throughout his career, in his dedication to his boss, Tom Harkin, and in his commitment to patients and their families, Erik Fatemi has been a superb Appropriations staffer and a model public servant.'' As notable as Dr. Collins praise is, I long ago lost track of the number of times people have thanked me for things that Erik played a huge role in getting done. Let me mention a few of his many accomplishments. One signal achievement of my time as chair of the Appropriations subcommittee was collaborating with Senator Arlen Specter to double funding for the National Institutes of Health over a 5-year period. Erik played a very significant role in making that possible in 2001, 2002, and 2003--and that is something that he can be very proud of. In the late 2000s, I was chief Senate sponsor of the Stem Cell Enhancement Act, to remove the administration's arbitrary restrictions on stem cell research and Erik was my lead staffer on the bill. With Erik's invaluable assistance, we passed the Stem Cell Enhancement Act twice in Congress with large bipartisan majorities. Unfortunately, the bill was also vetoed twice by President Bush. And do you know what. That is about the only thing that can stop Erik Fatemi: A veto by the President of the United States. The good news, of course, is that we ultimately prevailed, with President Obama's executive order in early 2009. During and after the great recession, Erik took the lead in identifying and responding to the impact the downturn could have on our Nation's education system. He illustrated for me and other Members of Congress the devastating impact educator layoffs would have on our children's education and our Nation's future. The historic Recovery Act and the later Education Jobs Act kept hundreds of thousands of teachers and other educators in our schools, and Erik helped me shape the debate and passage of those critical laws. Erik played a key role in the creation of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at NIH, which is accelerating the pace of getting new cures and therapies to the patients who need them. He also oversaw production of the 2012 report ``Under Threat: Sequestration's Impact on Nondefense Jobs and Services.'' This was the first comprehensive State-by-State projections of the destructive impacts of sequestration on nondefense discretionary programs. All of these accomplishments amply demonstrate Erik's skills and talents as a top Senate staffer. But Erik is more than that. He is the quintessential humble public servant who works long hours on behalf of this institution and the people of the United States. Let me cite just one aspect of that humble service. Over the years, Erik has spent countless hours explaining to thousands of constituents and advocates what was happening on Capitol Hill at any given moment. I can't imagine how many times and to how many audiences he has patiently explained how the legislative process works, especially the arcane and sometimes bizarre workings of appropriations. As a Senator, I have always appreciated that when Erik couldn't tell my constituents the answer they wanted to hear--which, unfortunately is most of the time, especially these last few years--he would respond to every question and e-mail promptly and honestly. In dealings with Erik, people always know that he is listening and taking their concerns seriously. Finally, I also want to express my appreciation to Erik's family members, especially his wife Alisann and their beloved daughters, Caroline, Kathryn, and Anna Christina. They, too, have sacrificed as Erik has spent many late nights and weekends toiling in the Dirksen Building. It was not easy to experience those absences, but I hope you realize that Erik's work has made a powerful difference for the American people. Erik, I join with the entire Senate family in thanking you for your outstanding service. We wish you, Alisann, Caroline, Kathryn and Anna Christina much happiness in the years ahead.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, more and more interesting figures are coming in to my health committee from around the country with regard to what is happening around the Nation in terms of the health care marketplace, ObamaCare. The Republicans said it was going to be a failure and all that kind of stuff and how it was going to cost so much more money. I do not have it for every State. It is starting to come in. But I have it for some States and I want to give this body and people watching some of the initial figures that have come in on the savings to families. For example, in Alabama, $2,013 premiums for a family of four--median premium for month. This is just the average, take the median. In Alabama, for a family of four this year the premium was $557.58 a month. We now know the marketplace premium, family of four making $50,000 a year with the tax credits, their monthly premium will be $112 a month, a savings of $445.58 a month for a family of four making $50,000 year in the State of Alabama. In my State of Iowa, that median premium per month for a family of four this year was $549.58. The marketplace premium for that family of four at $50,000 with tax credits is now $103 a month, for a savings of $446.58 per month for that family of four. I was looking at Oklahoma. Their median premium this year was $684 a month. The marketplace premium for that family of four--again, $50,000 a year--with their tax credits, believe it or not, is $63 per month. They will go from $684 to $63 a month. Those families will have a savings of $621 a month in the State of Oklahoma. The median premium per month for a family of four in Texas this year is $504.50. Their marketplace premium for a family of four making $50,000 a year, after the tax credits, $57 a month, for a savings of $447.50 a month. It is an amazing savings. Many of these people are getting insurance for the first time. Many of these people may have had a preexisting condition or perhaps they worked in a job that did not give them health care coverage or perhaps they simply couldn't afford $500 a month in Texas, but now they can afford $57 a month and get coverage for their family of four, and they will get a subsidy for buying that marketplace insurance. Is this what the Republicans want to stop? Is this what they want so desperately to stop that they are willing to shut down government? They ought to talk to some of these families in Texas, Iowa, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Michigan. The premium for a family of four in Michigan is $381 a month this year. In the marketplace it will be $80 a month. Georgia's premium for a family of four is $448 a month this year and will go down to $132 a month under the marketplace. That is what the Republicans want to stop? Well, I think we are seeing that what the Republicans really wanted to do was to keep the same old system we have where health insurance companies call the tune, you pay the price, and if you couldn't afford it, tough luck, go to the emergency room. Now we are going to cover all Americans. More and more information will come in, and as it comes in, I will take the floor to give more and more information about the call centers. Right now--in the last 2 days--over 7 million Americans have visited healthcare.gov to get more information on what they can do to sign up. Again, the marketplace call center--these are calls, not the Web site--received over 295,000 calls since midnight on October 1. The wait time has been cut in half so now the wait time is only 2 minutes. The wait time is only 2 minutes if you call in to the call center. Again, I want to repeat what I said yesterday--and I know the majority leader said it this morning--about the dangers of continuing this government shutdown. I quoted a Congressman from Iowa who said in Politico: We passed the witching hour at midnight last night and the sky didn't fall and the roof didn't cave in. Is that what has to happen? Does the sky have to fall and the roof have to cave in before we do something? I pointed it out yesterday, and I will point it out again today: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is closed down. Why is that important? Well, we are now in the flu season. More than 200,000 Americans are hospitalized due to the flu each year. In a mild year 3,000 people will die from the flu, and in a severe year that number could rise to 50,000. The CDC monitors which strains are circulating around the country and which communities are being hit the hardest. They are the ones who look at how to contain it and keep it from spreading. They are not doing that now because they are shut down. Food safety: Twelve days ago, 162 people in 10 States became ill with hepatitis A because of eating frozen berries. Right away the CDC got on the job, sent their epidemiologists out there, tracked it down, isolated it, recalled it, and found out it was pomegranate berries from Turkey. Well, 162 people got Hepatitis A, but nobody else did. CDC is not out there doing this now because they are shut down. That was just 12 days ago. What if we have another outbreak of food poisoning? How fast will it spread? How many people have to get sick? Is that what this Congressman from Iowa is saying, that we have to have more people get sick? Is that what he means when he says the sky hasn't fallen or the roof hasn't caved in? In August, cyclosporine infected 643 people from a salad mix. It started in my home State of Iowa. They immediately called the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC got on it right away and found that this salad mix was sent to 25 States. They recalled it all, traced it to salad that had come from Mexico, and they stopped it. How many people have to get sick? Do we have to have a West Nile virus, hepatitis, e. coli, or a vast outbreak of the flu virus before they say: Well, that is enough, I guess we can start the government up again. It is totally irresponsible to say: Well, we can shut down the government because the sky hasn't fallen and the roof hasn't caved in. Members of Congress are getting their paycheck. They are coming to work every day. We are here and we are getting our pay. How about all of those government workers who work on our staffs, on our committees, and run the Senate? They are good, hard-working public servants, and they are out of work and not getting a paycheck. I have staff people who don't make a lot of money. They have families, a mortgage, and maybe a car payment to make, but they don't have any money coming in. If they wanted to go to the credit union here to get a bridge loan to get them through the crisis, they can't because the credit union is shut down. Now where do they go? Do they get the money from their credit card? I say to the Congressman from Iowa that for these people the roof has caved in and the sky has fallen. There are thousands of Head Start kids who will be sent home from Head Start this month and working parents will have to find something else for them. What are they going to do? For them the sky has fallen and the roof has caved in. Don't we care about them? I mentioned Social Security too. Social Security will still take your claims and your application for a Social Security card, but that is it. You won't get it because the backlog is backing up. They will take it, but they won't process it. I mentioned that 445,000 people call their Social Security office every day in this country. They will not get an answer now. There are 180,000 people who visit a Social Security office every day in this country, but they can't now because they are closed. They lost their Medicare card or Social Security card or they need a new Medicaid card. There are 22,000 Americans who file for retirement benefits every day and 12,000 apply for disability benefits. They can still apply, but they are not going to get any help. For them the sky has fallen and the roof has caved in. What is this Congressman saying, that the sky has to fall on him and the roof has to cave in on him before he will do something to help open the government? And to hear them talk about it--a representative said ``this is about the happiest'' she has been. This is a Congresswoman from Minnesota. ``This is about the happiest I've seen members in a long time,'' she said. ``We are very excited,'' said Representative Michele Bachmann. ``It's exactly what we wanted, and we got it.'' Shutting down the government is exactly what they wanted and they got it. ``It's wonderful,'' said Representative John Abney Culberson of Texas, clapping his hands to emphasize his point. ``We are 100 percent united.'' So this is where we are. The tea party group in the House is happy to shut down the government. It is the happiest they have been, they said. They want this discord, disunity, chaos, and confusion. The American people don't want that. The American people don't want to turn their back on ObamaCare either because they see that now they are able to get coverage. Even if they have a preexisting condition, they can get a good rate for themselves and their families which they could not get before. Now it is time to open the government again, put people back to work so we can meet our responsibilities to the American people. I call upon Speaker Boehner to take the continuing resolution that is sitting over in the House now--it is a continuing resolution that will open the government. He says we wouldn't negotiate. We already negotiated because before that we had one level of spending in the bill, they had a lower level of spending, and we agreed with them. We took the lower level. We took the Republicans' level. All he has to do is bring that to the House floor and it will pass in the next 10 to 30 minutes. It will pass, and then we can open the government so people can get back to work. The Centers for Disease Control can get their people back out in the field. The National Institutes of Health will open once again. Head Start kids will be able to stay in their Head Start Programs. The Women, Infants, and Children feeding program will be able to get the necessary nutritious food for poor kids and kids who are homeless. All Speaker Boehner has to do to end this is to bring that bill on the floor. He doesn't even have to vote for it. Congressman Boehner doesn't have to vote for it. Just throw it out, and I will bet that enough moderate Republicans and Democrats will vote to pass it. I challenge him to bring it out. Let's see what happens. That is the way to end this debacle right now. With that, I yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have been informed that I spoke incorrectly a few minutes ago when I said the credit union was closed. I guess one office is closed someplace, but another office is open and they will take calls. So I guess the office in the Hart Building is still open. I guess another office someplace else is closed. So I spoke incorrectly. But I will continue to make this point: Isn't it a shame that our staffs, who work hard, have to go to a credit union to borrow money to get them through this period of time, to meet a mortgage payment or a car payment or whatever it is? We don't have to do that; we continue to get paid while we are here. Again, in response to the remarks that, well, the sky hasn't fallen and the roof hasn't caved in, according to this Congressman from Iowa, for someone who now has to borrow money, even from a credit union--I belong to the credit union--for someone who has to borrow money from the credit union, it is just not right. This is simply not right and another reason why we have to call off this government shutdown, which, as I said, we could do in the next few minutes if Mr. Boehner would just put on the floor the continuing resolution he has over there and let his people vote on it. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, first of all, in all this mess there is some good news. The Affordable Care Act is up and running, and the people of America are responding in remarkable numbers. Remember how the Republicans said this is bad, it is a failure? They kept saying it was a failure even though it had not even started. In the first 24 hours of healthcare.gov being up, the national marketplace, 4.7 million people visited. In California, which has its own State-run marketplace, 5 million people visited that site yesterday. I noted that I heard the Republican leader out here earlier today. In his home state of Kentucky, with 78,000 visitors, they started nearly 4,700 applications and completed more than 2,900 yesterday in the first day. I think what this all indicates is the American people is hungry to get covered with health insurance. With 30 million people out there without health insurance, with a preexisting condition, or maybe they are ill right now, maybe they have had other things happen or are out of work--now they can go on the marketplace and get health insurance coverage. And they are flocking to it, because it has been sorely needed for decades. The Republicans still want to hold the government hostage and defund the Affordable Care Act. I would like to know what the Republican leader might say to those 4,700 people who applied in Kentucky yesterday. And we know it is going to be more as the weeks and months go by. We have 6 months to sign up. But think about those figures just in the first day. Fifty-five thousand people went to Colorado's exchange and 1,450 created accounts to allow them to start shopping. I mentioned New York. There were 10 million attempts to reach their Web site. We had some glitches. Yes, some Web sites froze because they didn't expect that many people to come on the first day. Andrew Stryker was among the first people to purchase health care through the marketplace. Mr. Stryker is 34 years old and lives in Los Angeles where he is a freelancer. He has a preexisting condition--high blood pressure--and says health insurance companies had denied him coverage on the individual market. He said signing up for coverage through the marketplace will save him over $6,000 per year when compared with his monthly premium for his COBRA plan. For that, he said, I would have waited all day. So the Affordable Care Act is up and running, and people all over this country are flocking to it to get the good news that they can get affordable coverage for themselves and their family. The same is happening in my own State of Iowa, where the plans have come in as some of the lowest in the country. So that is the good news. The bad news is Republicans here are still trying to stop it before too many people get health insurance because then they know they won't be able to turn it back. The people of America have waited too long to have health insurance coverage for themselves and their families. Now everyone can get health insurance at a price they can afford. So we are going to have health coverage not just for the healthy and the wealthy but for everyone in this country. That is the good news. We are now in day 2 of the Federal shutdown. If we listen to some Members across the aisle and in the other body, one might get the sense that it is no big deal. The Congressman from my own State said, the sky hasn't fallen. We have had government shutdowns and the sky hasn't fallen, the roof hasn't caved in. No big deal. I may have paraphrased a little bit, but that is basically what he said. They seem to think you can simply turn off the Federal Government for a few days or a month or two and it won't matter. I don't understand this attitude, but it is what we hear from Members of the other party. Let me explain what a government shutdown means in the areas I am most familiar with as the chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and as chair of the Appropriations Committee that funds those programs. As of yesterday, the National Institutes of Health stopped enrolling new patients in 497 ongoing clinical research trials. Of those trials, 255 are studying treatments for cancer and 50 involve children with cancer. These are ongoing clinical research trials right now--stopped-- 50 involving children with cancer. What do you say to those families? Clinical trials can't be completed if they don't have enough patients. But as long as there is a shutdown, the process stops. I remind everyone, when I am talking about NIH I am not just talking about Bethesda, MD. I am talking about all over this country. NIH funds research and clinical trials in every State in this country. As of yesterday, the NIH began turning away people from its clinical research center. Each week of a shutdown, NIH estimates it will close its doors to 200 new patients who need help. Also yesterday the NIH stopped processing applications for new research grants. These applications are submitted by scientists all over the country, from universities and other places in our States, not just from Bethesda and not just from Washington, DC. We might say OK, so they have stopped processing new research grants. So what. The sky hasn't fallen, the roof hasn't caved in, according to the Congressman from Iowa. We have no idea which of those grant applications might lead to the next cure for cancer or Alzheimer's or diabetes or might be that one bit of research that fits into that slot where other people can build on it to find cures. But so long as there is a shutdown, none of them will be considered. That is the effect on NIH. I understand the House is proceeding to some kind of a measure to pass an appropriations measure just for NIH and maybe a couple other things, and they are going to send it over here. Do you know what they are missing if they want to talk about health? They are missing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is the premier public health agency--not just in America but in the world. The people who work there protect America from threats to our health and safety like infectious diseases, chronic diseases, outbreaks of foodborne disease. As of yesterday, the CDC--the premier public health agency in the world--is shut down. All of their labs are closed. The scientists are furloughed. The expert hotlines that physicians and the public call for information are turned off. The emergency operations center is on a skeleton crew for outbreak response. Maybe that should give us some comfort. But the CDC is not doing any disease monitoring. So who is going to sound the alert if they are not doing the monitoring? I have to add, viruses don't just break out when the government is open. I will never forget what our former chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and under whom I served some years ago, Mark Hatfield, the great Senator from Oregon, said when he gave his final speech here on the Senate floor. I remember it well. I remember him saying it is not the Russians are coming, the Russians are coming; it is the viruses are coming, the viruses are coming. Senator Hatfield was looking ahead because he knew what was happening. We know for a fact that the viruses are coming because October is the beginning of flu season. And yet because the government is shut down, there is no one at CDC monitoring influenza. Why is that important? For most of us, I suppose flu is an inconvenience. For most of us, we can go down here to the doctor's office and get our flu shot. But for many people, flu can be a matter of life and death. More than 200,000 Americans are hospitalized from flu every year. In a mild year, 3,000 Americans who get the flu will die. In a severe year, that toll can rise to almost 50,000. So right now is precisely when the Center for Disease Control should begin monitoring which strains are circulating across the country, which communities are being hit hardest, so they can isolate it, find out what is happening, and keep it from spreading. As long as there is a shutdown, the CDC is not doing this. This past April, a new strain of flu, H7N9, appeared in China during their flu season. It is very deadly. Twenty percent of the people who got it died. Thank goodness, we haven't had that outbreak in America; but as long as the CDC is shut down, no one is watching for it. No one is monitoring to see if that strain of flu might cause an outbreak someplace in this country. I say that to tell people we may think everything is just fine and dandy. My fellow Congressman from Iowa may say, well, the sky hasn't fallen, the roof hasn't caved in. And I hope and pray we don't have an influenza outbreak. I hope and pray we don't have any serious virus outbreaks in the next few days. But viruses don't just wait around for the government to be open.

Mr. HARKIN. Under what order are we proceeding?

Mr. HARKIN. I have more to say about the Centers for Disease Control, but I guess I will have to seek my 10 minutes later on in the day. I thank the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Senator. She is very kind. I have at least another 5 to 7 minutes to go. I have some data from CDC that I want to put in. So I thank her very much. I have been talking about the Centers for Disease Control and what the shutdown means in terms of monitoring outbreaks, food-borne outbreaks, illnesses, virus outbreaks--and that is not happening now. I want to turn to another thing; that is, what CDC is and how CDC keeps Americans safe every day, and that is in food safety. The Centers for Disease Control has stopped its epidemiological work to identify potential outbreaks and link the outbreak to a food source. I can't tell you what might be missed while the CDC is shut down. I can give a few examples where recently the CDC has sounded the alarm and kept Americans safe. Only 12 days ago, 162 people in 10 States became ill with hepatitis A as a result of eating contaminated frozen berries--the kinds of mixed berries you get in the grocery store freezer department. The States are as far apart as Arizona, California, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Wisconsin, but because of the expertise of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they were able to go out, get this secured, recall the food, and trace it down. They traced it, believe it or not, to some pomegranate seeds that came from Turkey--not America but Turkey. This is another way in which the Centers for Disease Control protects the safety of Americans. In August cyclospora infected 643 people who ate a particular salad mix in 25 States. A lot of people may remember that. The outbreak was first identified in my home State of Iowa. They immediately called the Centers for Disease Control, and then the CDC got a hold of other States. The next place it popped up was Texas--Iowa, then Texas. They traced it. CDC put its detectives, as I call them, to work. They isolated this salad mix, and it was traced to a place in Mexico. It was recalled. Yes, 643 people got sick, but we stopped it before it spread any further and before anybody died. That is what the CDC did. Now, because of the government shutdown, CDC has stopped. I hope there is not another outbreak like this, but one never knows. But the detectives on the CDC epidemiology team are now furloughed. What does that mean for the safety of Americans? When the Congressman from Iowa on the other side said: Well, you know, the sky hasn't fallen and the roof hasn't caved in because the government has shut down, implying that it is no big deal, I hope and pray we don't have a virus outbreak, a bacteria outbreak, or a food- borne outbreak such as I just mentioned. Well, will food contamination happen tomorrow? Will a flu outbreak happen this weekend? I have heard people say: We shouldn't be too concerned about the shutdown. It might last only a few days. To those I ask, how many days can we afford to lose when a virus emerges? In those few days, how many people will buy and eat a contaminated product? How many more people will catch the flu, West Nile virus, hepatitis or E. coli? I could go on and on. How long can we afford to put a blindfold on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? I am not trying to unduly frighten anybody, but I am telling the facts. What I said here happened recently. This is not mythological. This is not maybe. These things actually happened within the last few weeks in America. People got sick. People lost work. Again, we have to be concerned. Yes, maybe the sky hasn't fallen or the roof hasn't caved in. Is that what we have to have happen before we reopen the government? I say to that Congressman from Iowa, is that what has to happen--must a lot of people have to get sick, or do lot of people have to die? Then maybe we will say: Oh, I guess now we have to reopen the government. What a terrible way to run a government. In another area--and again I am talking about things under my jurisdiction as the chair of this committee--the Social Security Administration furloughed 18,000 Federal employees and Social Security officers across the country--29 percent of the agency's workforce. I suppose some would say: Well, so what. They are just bureaucrats. Let's take a look at them. Checks will still go out, Social Security checks will still go out, disability and retirement claims will still come in, but that is it. What that will mean is delays in basic services for the 180,000 people who visit a Social Security office every day in America or the 445,000 people who call Social Security offices every day who have a problem, who have a question, maybe a lost card. Need I mention what it means when you have a lost Social Security card, don't have that ID, trying to get some health care services or something else and you don't have your Social Security card? Some 22,000 Americans a day file for retirement benefits. Twelve thousand a day apply for disability benefits. As I said, Social Security will continue to accept those, but nothing will happen. That means the backlog piles up and piles up and piles up every day. Twenty-two thousand a day file for retirement benefits. They can file it, but nothing happens. So that just builds up day after day after day, and the backlog gets worse. It already takes about 13 months, on average, to get a decision on an appeal for disability benefits. With this shutdown, it is going to be longer. It is going to be 14 months, 15 months and 18 months, and on and on. If you need a new Social Security card, sorry. As long as there is a shutdown, you can't get one. You cannot get a new Social Security card. If you need to replace your Medicare card, tough luck, you are going to have to wait a long time. The Department of Labor staff, who investigate worker violations such as wage theft, will be at home instead of on the job. Some worker protection staff are still on the job but they are only looking at the highest risk facilities or responding after an accident has occurred. This isn't acceptable. Take, for example, MSHA, the Mine Safety Health Administration. It is unable to conduct all of its required inspections because of the shutdown. How many safety and health violations won't be identified and corrected? How many miners are at risk of lifelong injuries and illnesses because of this shutdown? As someone remarked the other day: You know, these mine operators, they can smell a mine inspector 2 miles away. Well, now, what are these mine operators going to do, when we know what their track record has been in the past, violating safety precautions? When they know they are not going to get inspected, will they ramp up production? They will get as much out of their miners as they can and they won't worry about the safety because the inspectors aren't coming around. How many miners will have their health affected or will be injured? I certainly hope not die, but you never know. That is just at the Department of Labor.

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 more minutes. Mr. President, it is not just our current workforce that is impacted by this stalemate. The government shutdown is also threatening to shut the door at Head Start classrooms. This month, grants for 22 Head Start providers are scheduled to be renewed. These are simply continuations of existing grants. The providers have already enrolled children. But after a shutdown, this funding will be cut off. As a result, 18,000 children and families that those programs serve are going to be losing access to early childhood education services this month--this month-- this month. As I said, I could go on and on, but I just wanted to point out how people are being affected by this shutdown. It may not be visible to all, but it is there, and it is hurtful to them and their families and to our country. This shutdown needs to stop. It is time for cooler heads to prevail. It is time to end this mindless, damaging, preventable shutdown. There is one simple way to do it. All the Speaker of the House has to do is bring up a clean continuing resolution which is sitting over there right now--bring it to the floor of the House. The votes are there to pass it, and the government will be back in business tomorrow. If he did that, the shutdown would be over, and Americans would know their safety and health--everything from food to illnesses to viruses to bacteria and food safety--will again be protected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We would know the research and the operations of the National Institutes of Health will continue. We would know our workers will be safe once again on the job because of the Department of Labor. We would know our Social Security offices will be open and running and will be able to process claims and issue new Social Security cards and Medicare cards. I just want to make it very clear there are a lot of people being hurt by this. They may not be on the front lines or highly visible, but they are out there and they are being hurt today. It is a shameful, shameful comment on a great nation like ours that we continue this government shutdown, hurting so many people in this country. With that I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN

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

Mr. HARKIN. As chair of the HELP Committee--that great committee upon which the Presiding Officer also sits and a valuable member of that committee--I was just informed by our staff that as of this last hour, over 2.8 million people have gone on healthcare.gov to get information and sign up for the Affordable Care Act. In fact, there were so many people online that at different places in the country, the Web site froze. Then I heard some of my Republican friends were saying: See, we told you it wasn't ready. The Web site is not working right. If very few people had signed up, they would have said: See, we told you no one is going to sign up for it. They are trying to have it both ways. There were 2.8 million Americans on the first day logged on to healthcare.gov to get this information, and, again, to sign up. By tomorrow we will have some data and some statistics on how many people who not only inquired but have actually signed up on the Web sites. We will have some more information on that tomorrow. Obviously, the interest is there, and we knew it would be. Leader Reid told a story today about how years ago he went out and visited Google in California. At the time they were telling him that when they first started Google, they didn't realize how many people would be using it, and they kept crashing and freezing. So they had glitches of their own. There are some glitches in this system because a lot of people are coming on and wanting the information and wanting to sign up. That is the good news, and it is what we always knew. We knew that when we passed the Affordable Care Act, if we approached it in a diligent, forthright way but cautiously and in an orderly manner, it would work, and that is why it has taken us almost 3 years to get to this point because we wanted to do it right. We wanted to do it in a way that would work. I think today is a remarkable day in the history of our country in that we are now going to have affordable health care insurance for every American that cannot be taken away if you get sick. They can't deny it to a family because somebody had a preexisting condition. Everyone will have health care insurance that will be affordable and can't be taken away, and we will have a whole new suite of preventive care measures and wellness programs to keep people healthy and to prevent illness in the first place. We have turned the corner on bringing health care to every American regardless of their health status, regardless of their economic status, regardless of whether they have a job or don't have a job, no matter how old, no matter how young, and no matter the circumstances. Everyone will be able to be covered by health care insurance. I guess I might also say it is another red letter day because of the closedown of the government. We have the House of Representatives that, again, will not even put the bill on the floor of the House for a vote that will keep the government running. Think about that. They will not even put it on the floor for a vote because they know if they put it on the floor, they will get enough Republicans and Democrats to vote for it, and it will pass. So the tea party extremists in the House--instead of putting it on the floor and passing it tonight so the government could be back in business tomorrow--are trying to make a little deal. First it was to defund and delay ObamaCare. Now they have something they are doing on the House floor where they are going to fund some little TV programs. It is nonsense. This is not worthy of a great country. I had a nice conversation with Secretary of State Kerry this morning--not necessarily just about this, but, of course, we talked about the government shutdown. I asked him: Secretary, you are close to this. How is this playing in other countries? Secretary Kerry said: It is painful for us in the State Department--representing the government of the United States in a nonpartisan way--to have other countries look at us, scratch their heads, and wonder why we are doing things like this. He was just pained, not for himself but for all of his wonderful diplomats and ambassadors all around the world who represent our country and what they must have to go through to have other countries see what we are doing and question our judgment. That is what the tea party people are doing. They are driving this country down. What they are doing is very dangerous. It is ideologically driven obstructionism, and it has taken a dangerous turn. Again, despite the efforts to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government, the House Republicans have shut down the government because we will not submit to defunding or delaying ObamaCare, or the Affordable Care Act, whichever you call it. It seems as though we see this crisis differently. I was reading a newspaper report that one Member of the House Republican caucus said with a big smile: We are very excited. It is exactly what we wanted, and we got it. This is exactly what they wanted, a government shutdown and they got it? We are excited, she said. The article also notes the reaction of another representative who reportedly said: It is wonderful. We are 100 percent united. Again, that was from another tea party Republican. What are they excited about? Are they excited about the hundreds of thousands of Federal workers who are on furlough today? Are they excited about the closed monuments and the national parks? Are they excited about the delayed veterans' benefits, Social Security, loss of economic activity and jobs? After more than three decades in Washington, it is difficult to shock me, but the sheer cynicism and fundamental lack of decency we are witnessing right now is nothing short of breathtaking. As I understand it, this is just the first step. The tea party Republicans continue to threaten that if the Senate and President Obama don't submit to their demands, they will create another economic crisis by causing our country to default on the national debt in the middle of the month. Who pays the price for this recklessness?

Mr. HARKIN. I would be delighted to yield to my friend from Illinois.

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend from Illinois, I would be delighted to sign on to that letter because I am acutely aware of what is happening at NIH, but I might also tell my friend from Illinois that I would also like to include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mr. HARKIN. But I must say to my friend that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is out there keeping diseases from spreading, containing them where they break out, putting in prevention measures all over this country. They too are furloughing people. Just think what would happen if, God forbid, some virulent bacteria or virus were to break out and they have--as my colleague knows, the CDC is very good at containment. They know how to handle these situations. What if they don't have the people to do that?

Mr. HARKIN. I say to my friend, it is shameful. It is not befitting a great nation. Maybe they would like us to be a Third World country. I see this and I don't understand. The Senator from Illinois is right: Where is their shame? But where is their sense of responsibility? Where is their sense of being responsible to the people of this country, to have a government that works to protect them, to keep them healthy, that does the medical research that the Senator spoke about? I see that, and I don't understand why they don't grasp the kind of damage they are doing to our country. I don't understand it.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I thank the Senator for his input and his questions. I think the Senator has highlighted the kind of situation that begs credulity. People around this country must wonder, Have we taken all leave of our senses here? People say we should sit down and negotiate. We are always willing to negotiate. We are always willing to talk about issues. But when the tea party Republicans in the House say, No, we won't even keep the government open unless we defund ObamaCare, which is the law of the land, that is trying to nullify a law by holding a gun at our heads and saying we are going to shut down the government unless we get rid of a law--not a bill, not a proposal before us, but the law of the land upheld by the Supreme Court, this is not the way to govern. It is the way to take hostages, maybe. It is the way to commit blackmail, but it is not the way to run a government. So I hope the moderate Republicans--and believe me, there are a lot of good moderate Republicans. On my own committee, I deal with good people who work together to get bills passed and to get them out of our committee. We just need them to say to the tea party: You are wrong. This is not good for us, it is not good for the country, and it is not good for the Republican Party, either. I will have more to say about this later as well as tomorrow when I will bring some more figures to the floor on how many more people are excited about the Affordable Care Act and are going to healthcare.gov. If I might, I wish to take one extra minute here to say that I was down at the World War II Memorial this morning to greet some Iowans who were coming in on an Honor Flight and I saw the barricade up there. I talked to one of the park officers and I said, This doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense because it is open. I have come down here at midnight and walked around. It is out in the open. I could understand it if it were a building where you had to go through a device and security. I could understand that because the government is shut down. Then some buses came from Mississippi. I had to leave before the Iowans could arrive. They went behind the barrier. They went in and everybody was fine. I heard this afternoon that the Park Police came down and now we are moving people out again and putting up the barricades. Why are there barricades on the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, or any of those where people walk around? It doesn't make sense to put up barricades around these outdoor memorials. While this whole shutdown of government is nonsense, I don't think we ought to respond to nonsense with more nonsense. So I call upon the Park Service and the Department of the Interior, on those instances where it is open 24 hours a day, such as the World War II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, or the Lincoln and Jefferson Monuments, why put up the barricades? People are there, they go there 24 hours a day. This doesn't make sense. I hope by tomorrow, whoever gave the orders to put those barricades up will have those orders superseded by someone higher up and get those barricades down. As I said, I can understand if it is a building where we have to have security, where we have to have guards and machines and equipment. I understand, with a government shutdown, that is not accessible. But for something that is open, as those monuments are, where people wander in and out 24 hours a day, it makes no sense to put up barricades. I call upon the Park Service to get rid of those barricades. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in executive session on Wednesday, October 2, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to mark up S. ______, Children's Hospital GME Support Reauthorization act of 2013; S. ______, CHIMP Act Amendments of 2013; H.R. 2094, School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act; S. ______, Older Americans Act Reauthorization Act of 2013; the nominations of Michael Keith Yudin, to serve as Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Department of Education; James Cole Jr., to serve as General Counsel, Department of Education; and Chai Feldblum, to serve as Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; as well as any additional nominations cleared for action. For further information regarding this meeting, please contact the Committee at (202) 224-5375.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Well, here we are Mr. President. I guess this is like the movie ``High Noon.'' The two sides are walking down the street. I just hope, like in the movie ``High Noon,'' the good guys win. In other words, I hope reason and judiciousness and a sense of responsibility to the people of this country prevails, and not some knee-jerk reaction to what a few people in the House of Representatives want to do to our government. There seems to be a sense among some Members across the aisle here, and certainly among a block of Republicans in the House, that shutting down the Federal Government is no big deal. Well, I suppose if you are of an anarchist mind--which I think some of them may be--then you do not want government, you want to create chaos, you want to create confusion. Someone might ask: Why would someone want to create chaos and confusion? I think if you read your history, you will find that most authoritarian governments and most authoritarian movements that are based upon a minority view or a minority support gain their power through confusion and chaos, by disrupting--disrupting--the public body. I do not care whether it is authoritarian movements of the left or the right, that is what they do. They know they cannot gain power through the normal channels, especially in a democratic government, so, therefore, they do everything they can to skew the way government operates. First, you manipulate the district lines for how you elect Members of the House of Representatives so that you have a lot of safe districts for one party. I have to hand it to the Republicans, they were very keen on this for the last 10 years or so, and they focused on redrawing the district boundaries so they would have what we might call sinecures, a safe seat. But if you look at the election results of the last election, more Americans voted for Democratic Members of the House than they voted for Republican Members of the House, but the Republicans are in charge of the House. That is because of the way the district lines were drawn after the last census was taken. So that is one way you do it, you skew it that way. And then what happens is you bring in a minority block of tea party-type people to the House of Representatives, and they want to sow more confusion and more chaos because they know that is the only way their views are ever going to prevail. They will never prevail in the open marketplace of ideas and debate and discourse among the American people. On what do I base that statement? Look at the last election. A lot of what the tea party is proposing and what they are now doing in terms of focusing on shutting down the government, much of that was proposed by their candidate for President--not all of it but a lot--and I think the American people soundly rejected that. So the tea party, being frustrated because they cannot get their way electorally or in the open marketplace of ideas and discourse and public debates, now sees their only way to do it is to create confusion and chaos. One might say if they are doing that, certainly the public will turn against them. Well, I think to a certain degree that is happening. But for the vast majority of Americans out there--who go to work every day and work hard, who are raising their families, thinking about where the next paycheck is coming from or whether they are even going to have a job; young people getting out of school with mountains of debt, trying to get a job, to start a family, perhaps--they are not focusing on the everyday activities of what we do around here in Washington. They read the headlines and may see the news or see something on their laptops or on their iPads or whatever, and what they see is a Congress that is muddled and mixed up and cannot get anything done. You read the polls, and the people blame all of us for this. I think the people in the tea party have seen that, and I think they believe that if they can create more confusion and chaos and disruption of government, both sides will be blamed, and out of that they believe somehow they can rise to the top of the heap and infuse the government with their minority views. That is what is happening. It is a small group of willful men and women, who have a certain ideology about how our country should run and what we should do, who cannot get their way in the normal, as I say, discourse and debate and votes either here in the Congress or in the body politic at large. And since they cannot get their way, they are going to create this confusion and discourse and hope the public will be so mixed up on who is to blame for this that they will blame both sides, and perhaps they feel their minority--which is so imbued with this passion of theirs, this ideology, this rigidness of ideology of theirs--that they are the ones who will come out en masse and vote in the next election, other people will be so discouraged they will say: Oh, a pox on both your houses, I won't vote, and, therefore, that is the path they see to taking over government. It is dangerous. It is very dangerous. I believe we are at one of the most dangerous points in our history right now--every bit as dangerous as the breakup of the Union before the Civil War. We are at a point where: Will this Congress allow a small group dedicated--I give them credit for working hard--but a small group of dedicated, ideologically driven individuals to dictate to the Senate and the House what our course of action is going to be? We cannot give in to that. So I call upon my friends in the Republican Party who are moderates-- and there a lot of them in my own State, around the country. They are conservative, but they are responsible conservatives. They may look at Democrats and say: You want to go too fast one way. We might want to go a little bit slower that way or maybe we want to go in a slightly different direction, so let's get together and work it out and see which way we go. That is being a responsible conservative or a responsible liberal too, I would say. I call upon them to disabuse themselves of this idea that somehow they have to march in lockstep with this small band of tea party--call them what you will--rightwing ideologs--you can use whatever adjectives you want--but they must disabuse themselves of the idea that they have to somehow march in lockstep with them. I keep reading the papers that somehow the Speaker of the House is trying to find a way out of this. Well, I do not know John Boehner real personally, but he was on the Education and Labor Committee all the time I was on the committee here. We always went to conference. We worked things out in a reasonable manner. There is a way forward--there is a way forward--and that is for the Speaker basically to take what we do here. What we are about to pass today is a stripped-down version of a continuing resolution that will keep the government running until November 15. But it knocks out all that other junk the House put in about defunding ObamaCare and all this other stuff they put in there. It is just a straightforward: Let's keep the government running until November 15. The compromise we made on our part was to give up on our budget line. We had a certain level that we wanted to fund the government. The Republicans had a lower level. So we accepted the lower level. We accepted that lower level. In turn, we asked, rather than going until December 15, go to November 15 on this continuing resolution funding the government. So we accepted the lower level--hard for some of us to swallow. I didn't believe in that lower level. I thought it should be higher so we could adequately fund things such as education, health care, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all of the things--transportation infrastructure. But it was a compromise. We took the lower level. We said: Do it until November 15 so we can bring our appropriations bills out on the floor, hopefully between now and then, and we can work on an overall spending package for next year, one that is not just a continuing resolution that just keeps things going, but maybe we want to make some changes--and we do. I know in my committee we want to change some things, hopefully make them work better. So by doing that by November 15, then that gives us a month from November 15 until Christmas to get it all worked out and hopefully have this package passed by Christmas. If we go to December 15, we will not have time to do that. So that is what is before us today. Here is the Speaker's avenue to act responsibly and to let the American people know there are responsible Republicans. All he has to do is take the bill we pass here and bring it up in the House and encourage some of his more moderate Republicans to support it and get the Democrats to support it and pass it in a bipartisan fashion. However, if the Speaker wants to just cater to this small band of ideologs, well then he will take what we pass here, change it around, add this, add that--I hear they have a laundry list--and then send it back to us. That is totally irresponsible. There is a path forward. It is the path of responsibility, of being responsible, being judicious, not giving in to a small band of ideologs who want to seed confusion and discord, a small band of ideologs who want to use the power of the minority to do what they can to disrupt government in order to get their way. When we were kids, there was always some kid who was playing marbles with you--or whatever it was, playing games--who did not get his way. So they picked up and went home, threw a temper tantrum. Well, for kids who were out playing, as we did, in the fields in small communities, temper tantrums were something they lived with. They did not really do much harm. But that is not true here in the Congress. We cannot afford the temper tantrums of a few ideologs. There is more I could say about what they want to do and how they want to nullify laws by doing this. We have the Affordable Care Act that we passed here. It is being implemented. There has been a lot written about the exchanges starting next week. It is the law of the land and has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Yet a small band, a small group, a few on this side--not everyone on the Republican side-- and some in the House want to nullify that law not through votes, they want to nullify it by shutting down the government or by not paying our bills when the debt ceiling comes and defaulting on our debt. Nullification of a law through that type of action--that is sort of like picking up your marbles and going home. But when you are a kid, no one really gets hurt. But who gets hurt from this? The American people. I think there are a lot of people who say that shutting down the government is no big deal. It is a big deal. OMB recently estimated that in 1996 when the government shut down, it cost in today's dollars $2.1 billion just because of a few days of a shutdown of government. So those who say they are fiscal conservatives have to think about that, what the cost would be to the American people of shutting it down. I happen to be privileged to chair the appropriations committee that funds Head Start Programs, early childhood development programs, elementary education, Pell grants, student loans, and medical research. I can tell you that if the government shuts down, a lot of people are going to get hurt. Twenty-two Head Start providers will be delayed. About 18,000 kids will be denied Head Start Programs. The National Institutes of Health will not be able to fund new biomedical research projects. Social Security offices will close. Every day in this country, 445,000 people will call their Social Security office. They have a missing check. They have something wrong. They need some help. With the government shut down, no one will be able to call the Social Security office and get that kind of help. I could go on and on. This is not a game. This is not a game. Hopefully we are not children. Hopefully we are responsible adults. I believe what we are doing today is responsible, in passing a stripped- down continuing resolution to keep the government going until November 15. I understand we will have the votes to do that. I just hope the House of Representatives will be responsible and forget about kid's games like picking up your marbles and going home or throwing a temper tantrum or shutting down the government because you cannot get your way. This is a dangerous time. I just hope the Members of this body, the Senate, and the House of Representatives, in which I was privileged to serve for 10 years, will rise to the occasion and let the American people know we are going to act responsibly. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will meet in open session on Thursday, September 26, 2013, at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Newborn Screening Saves Lives: The Past, Present, and Future of the Newborn Screening System''. For further information regarding this meeting, please contact Josh Teitelbaum of the committee staff on (202) 224-9243.