Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. On the bill?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Reed be recognized to offer his amendment, and then Senator Allard, and upon the disposition of that amendment, that Senator Landrieu be recognized, in that sequence, and then after Senator Landrieu, Senator Menendez be recognized.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we have four amendments that have been agreed to on both sides, cleared. I ask unanimous consent that they be considered and agreed to en bloc. They are amendments Nos. 3323, 3337, 3355, and 3375.

Mr. HARKIN. I agree. Strong math and science education is critical if we, as a nation, are going to continue to have a skilled and educated workforce that can compete in the global economy.

Mr. HARKIN. I am aware of that provision, and point out that America Competes also recognizes that other highly rigorous, evidence-based, postsecondary preparatory programs can also qualify for funding under this authorization.

Mr. HARKIN. I think that is a good idea, and will work with the ranking member and my colleagues in the House to try to achieve that goal.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we are now back on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies appropriations bill. I thought I might recap for Senators where we are. We started yesterday. I thought we had a fairly productive afternoon. We, right now, have five pending amendments that we are working on in terms of offsets. We have the Vitter amendment on drug reimportation. That language we are just working on. There is no offset needed. We have the amendment by Senator Dorgan on heart disease. We are again looking at an offset there. We are working on that. We have an amendment by Senator Thune on telehealth. Again, we are working on trying to find the proper offsets. We have another amendment by Senator Dorgan on a NAFTA study. That has not been totally agreed to yet on the other side of the aisle. We have an amendment by Senator Menendez on patient navigators. Again, I think it is broadly supported. But, again, we are working on trying to find an offset. We adopted three amendments yesterday: the amendment by Senator Feinstein which was to set up a child abuse registry; the second amendment was by Senator Smith which was a technical fix to the Garrett Lee Smith suicide prevention bill; and then yesterday we accepted an amendment by Senator McCaskill which provides for a link on the Web sites of all of the departments under our jurisdiction to the IG. I am told we have about 30 amendments filed. We have 10 that we now have worked on, so we are down to about 20 amendments. I hope we can again move rapidly today and have people come over. I see people are here waiting to offer amendments. I appreciate that very much. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these three Members be recognized to call up amendments and that the pending amendments all be set aside for this purpose. In this order it would be: Senator DeMint, Senator Dole, and Senator Brown.

Mr. HARKIN. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I will probably have more to say about this later, but on the amendment the Senator offered regarding the Rangel Center, I object to this amendment. It is an attack on an institution that is not in the Senate amendment before us. It is a House provision that provides funding for a center at the City College of New York. As I understand it, the center was set up basically to offer interdisciplinary programs for bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, midcareer programs, to get more minority population into management positions. Right now, non-Whites make up nearly 30 percent of our population, yet only 13.8 percent of the men and women who occupy top management and policy positions in the Federal Government are members of minority groups. We need to do more to bring minority Americans into public service. A center for public service at the City College of New York was set up to do this. It was the City College of New York that decided the name of it. As far as I know, we didn't decide that. We didn't do anything to decide the name of it. In this bill, we have funds for the Howard Baker Center in Tennessee. We have funds for a Robert Dole Center. These are centers set up at universities, and they name them. We do not. They decide to put a name on it. I believe we ought to be in the position of saying, yes, there is a need for course work to help minorities get into midmanagement and senior positions in the Federal Government. That is laudable. But what the university names it ought to be up to the university. It is not up to us.

Mr. HARKIN. Surely.

Mr. HARKIN. Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request? I hate to interrupt the Senator.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I think this has been cleared on the other side. I ask unanimous consent that at 12:30 today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the DeMint amendment No. 3338, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote, and that there be 2 minutes of debate prior to the vote with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators DeMint and Schumer or their designees; that upon disposition of the DeMint amendment, Senator Byrd be recognized to call up an amendment on the subject of mine safety.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from New Jersey for his amendment. Senator Specter and I had put into the bill a prohibition on abstinence-only programs providing information that is medically inaccurate. Again, this is the beauty of having issues such as this come to the floor. Senator Lautenberg and Senator Snowe have offered a suggestion to tighten down on that provision and actually make it more meaningful. This is what the amendment says: For purposes of this section, the term ``medically inaccurate'' means information that is unsupported or contradicted by peer-reviewed research by leading medical, psychological, psychiatric, and public health publications, organizations and agencies. That clarifies the intent of the amendment. I thank Senator Lautenberg for the amendment, and I intend to support it. Hopefully, we are going to have clearance soon to begin a series of votes. We do not have that agreement yet, but we hope in the next 15 minutes we will begin a series of four votes. We don't have that agreement yet. Hopefully, we will have that cleared pretty soon. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask that Senator Snowe and Senator Rockefeller be added as cosponsors of the amendment I offered on MRSA.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President we now have clearance for a series of votes. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote in relation to Senator Byrd's amendment No. 3362 at 2:30 p.m.; that upon disposition of that amendment, the Senate vote in relation to Senator Harkin's amendment No. 3368; that upon the disposition of that amendment, the Senate vote in relation to the Brown amendment No. 3348; that upon the disposition of that amendment, the Senate vote in relation to the Kyl amendment No. 3321; that there be 2 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form prior to each vote and that no other amendments be in order prior to these votes.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, Senators should be alerted that beginning at 2:30 p.m., there will be a series of four votes. I do not ask for consent now, but I will after the first vote, that the other three votes be 10-minute votes. So there will be four votes starting at 2:30 p.m. Mr. President, I have a slight change in that unanimous consent agreement. It has been cleared. That the first vote at 2:30 p.m. will be my amendment No. 3368; that following that amendment, it will be Senator Byrd's amendment No. 3362, and the rest as stated earlier.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Thank you, Mr. President. We just disposed of four more amendments. Obviously, there will be no more business tonight. The leader already said there would be no more votes. Our staffs and I will continue to work through these amendments. But we will be in tomorrow, and we will be disposing of amendments tomorrow. So if Senators have amendments to this bill, and they want them offered, I suggest that tomorrow would be a good time to do it. We will not be in Monday until about 5:30. And then we will have votes on Monday night on pending amendments. So if amendments are offered tomorrow, and votes are needed, we can stack those votes for Monday night. I will just say the door will start closing after tomorrow because Monday night we will be voting. We will be in Tuesday morning probably at the usual hour--that is up to the leadership to decide--but then the final passage of this bill will be at noon on Tuesday. So I say to Senators, if they have amendments they want to have considered, I would say tomorrow would be an excellent time; otherwise, the door is going to close very rapidly, and they will not be able to offer those amendments and to get any debate or a vote on them prior to noon on Tuesday. So with that, Mr. President, again, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. I do support implementation of this innovative program. I assure the senator from Maryland that I will do my best to find funding for the Community Innovations for Aging in Place program during the conference process.

Mr. HARKIN. I thank both of my colleagues from Michigan for their concern and support of WIA. I agree that the Workforce Investment Act should be provided the adequate level of funding needed to ensure that workers can get the training and services they need to compete for 21st century jobs. The Workforce Investment Act statutorily provides States 3 years to spend the funds allocated to them. This flexibility allows States to assess their unique needs, the needs of their unemployed workers, and to adequately plan innovative initiatives, training programs, and services for the workforce. I believe the rescission of funds proposed by the House of Representatives would be unfair to those programs that have appropriately obligated funds at the State and local levels to serve workers in need. The committee expects to provide sufficient funds for this program and will work towards securing the funding in the final bill. I thank the distinguished Senators from Michigan, and I will be happy to work with them in conference on this important matter.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes. I think this is a great program. Because the vast majority of our seniors are aging in place, the Community Innovations for Aging in Place program will help leverage new, human, financial, and neighborhood resources for the benefit of our seniors' health, independence, and quality of life.

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that David Heckman and Kassie Hobbs of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.