Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today I am proud to join Senators Schumer, Specter and Cochran in introducing a constitutional amendment to overturn the 1976 Supreme Court decision in the case of Buckley v. Valeo and restore Congress's power to regulate campaign finances. This constitutional amendment is a necessary first step in restoring confidence in our system of government. The Court's decision in Buckley, which equated money with speech, was fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, since that decision, our democracy has been perverted. Costs of elections have spiraled out of control, office seekers are required to spend more time than ever raising money, and special interests correspondingly have greater access than ever before. As a result, the integrity of our democracy continues to wane. Make no mistake, I am extremely reluctant to amend the Constitution. Amending the Constitution rightly is an extraordinary step that has seldom been done in our history. But, when it has been truly needed, we have done so. Reluctantly, I have reached the conclusion that it is needed now. Without this amendment, our nation is simply too limited in its ability to deal with corruption and to restore confidence in our electoral system. The integrity of our democratic system not only deems it appropriate for us to approve a constitutional amendment, it requires it. Until we have the ability to truly create a system of campaign finance, we will continue to have an escalation of spending on campaigns, and an escalation of continued distrust by the American people in their political system. This amendment is a necessary first step and I encourage my colleagues to support this vital measure. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, we are now on the appropriations bill for Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and related agencies. Before we get into the bill, I want to explain a couple of things. I will be yielding to my partner, Senator Specter, for his opening statement. Then I will follow with mine. It is not the usual order. Usually, the chairman goes first. But Senator Specter is very much involved in Judiciary Committee hearings today, and he has to return to that. I will respect that and yield to him in a moment. I wished to make it clear to our fellow Senators there is a change in the bill they will now notice, the substitute at the desk. The amendment Senator Specter and I offered basically strikes the language in the bill dealing with stem cells. Again, I do this with regret. Senator Specter and I have worked together for many years to advance the cause of embryonic stem cell research. In fact, we worked together on the first bill President Bush vetoed in his first 4 years. That was our stem cell bill, the only bill he vetoed in 4 years. We then came back with another stem cell bill this year, and he vetoed that also. That veto override has not taken place yet. So together we put some additional language in this bill to further the cause of trying to break through and get embryonic stem cell research covered. However, we received a statement of administration policy from the administration yesterday saying they opposed our bill for two reasons. It says it includes ``an irresponsible and excessive level of spending,'' and then it says, ``The administration strongly opposes provisions in this bill that overturn the President's policy regarding human embryonic stem cell research.'' I guess in the spirit of compromise, we wanted to show we are willing to compromise. We are willing to try to meet the President halfway. We know the President's strong feelings against this; they are misguided, nonetheless. Plus, the fact that, although not yet before the Senate, we will have a veto override vote on a stem cell bill he vetoed earlier this year. I don't know if we will have the votes to override. We may. With that, we thought we will show our good faith in saying to the President: OK, we are willing to compromise. We will take that language out. That is what we have done with the amendment that is at the desk. We have taken that language out of the bill. However, on another aspect in terms of the administration saying it is an irresponsible and excessive level of spending, I will say more about that in my opening statement, but the fact is, in the last 5 years, under the leadership of Senator Specter, when I was ranking member, this appropriations bill exceeded the President's budget request every single year. I thank Senator Specter for that. He provided great leadership. But the President never once threatened to veto one of those bills and never did, even though we exceeded his budget. This year, however, the President has said he is going to veto it because we exceeded his budget. What is the difference? Because the Congress changed hands? I don't think Senator Specter or I give a hoot about that. What we care about is investing in education and health, job training, biomedical research, all the other good things this bill does. I respectfully disagree with the President that it is irresponsible. I believe it is responsible. We met our budget allocations. We are within our pay-go limitations. We do not exceed our budget allocation in this bill whatsoever. I wished to make that clear for other Senators. We are on this bill. We have dropped the stem cell language. I did this in consultation with Senator Specter as a good faith reaching out to the White House to say: We are willing to compromise. So we will take it out, but we are going to stand firm on our funding levels because they are reasonable. They are within our budget allocation. They don't bust the budget. I yield the floor to my partner in this for many years, Senator Specter, for his opening statement. I know he has to get back to the Judiciary Committee. I will return and make my opening statement at that time. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his longstanding effort to give our consumers a better shake when it comes to drug prices in this country. I also thank him for all of his help and support over the years for funding for NIH. I know of his intense interest, of course, in heart disease. The amendment is a good amendment. It is one I can support. We are trying to work it out now, of course, in terms of the offset. Our staffs will be working on it and hopefully we will be able to have that worked out. Hopefully we can set this amendment aside for right now and move on to other amendments, but I assure my friend from North Dakota we will get this worked out one way or the other. Also, on the Vitter amendment, I understand we don't have a clearance on that either at this time, so I ask to set that aside also so we can move on with other amendments. Amendment No. 3336 to Amendment No. 3325

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I suggest 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 an amendment I am offering on behalf of Senator Smith of Oregon. I send it to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this is a 1-year technical fix requested by Senator Smith. These are the State suicide prevention grants authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. It is a simple technical correction to enable HHS to issue youth suicide grants to States this year. It has no cost. It has been cleared by the authorizers on both sides of the aisle, and we are prepared to accept the amendment.

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

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thought I might take this bit of lag time on the floor while we are waiting for Senators to offer amendments--which I hope will happen, if there are amendments; I am not trying to encourage any. I am saying if there are amendments, Members should come and offer them because now is a good time--to talk about the bill and what this debate is all about, why this bill is so important. I say that because the President yesterday sent down his policy statement and said he was going to veto the bill because it spends too much money, that it has to stay within his constraints. I want to make it clear, we stay within our budget, the budget we have, and we have a pay-go budget. We are not adding anything new this year. We are severely constraining spending to get out of the deficit hole. I want to compare this bill, what we have done on a bipartisan basis--this appropriations bill passed our committee 26 to 3, strong bipartisan support in the subcommittee and full committee--with the President's budget so that Senators who are thinking of how they are going to vote on this appropriations bill might have a clearer picture. What would happen if we did what the President asked, if we just approved the President's budget instead of the bill before us? What I want to do is go through it. You can tell a lot about a person's priorities on how they spend their money. This bill provides a modest increase in programs that help people, especially Americans at the bottom rungs of the ladder. It helps them to lead meaningful, safe, and productive lives. The President wants to cut those programs. He says we are spending too much for education, for medical research, for job training. Again, look at the amount of money we are talking about. The Senate bill is about $11 billion higher than the President's budget. That is about 1 month in Iraq; we are talking about a full year--1 month in Iraq versus 1 full year for education, health, job retraining, all the other items. Compared to last year, our Senate bill invests $7.3 billion more than last year on education, health, and labor programs. Again, as part of our balanced budget plan, we are within our budget constraints. The President's budget would cut $3.5 billion from these programs from last year. At the same time, he wants to spend up to almost $10 billion a month in Iraq. Again, let's look at some of the programs we are talking about; for example, helping the poor. Two of the most important programs in the bill are the community services block grants and the social services block grants. States get to use these funds in a wide variety of ways to help some of our most disadvantaged citizens. The Senate bill provides $2.4 billion for these two block grants. The President's budget requested a 50-percent cut in these two programs, a 50-percent cut from last year to $1.2 billion. So again, when we are talking about programs that help lift people up, we are at $2.4 billion; the President says he wants to cut it in half to $1.2 billion. That is one clear difference in the President's budget and in what we offer. Let's look at medical research. The Senate bill provides another $1 billion for the National Institutes of Health. That is about a 3.5- percent increase, and that does not even keep up with biomedical inflation. Our bill would increase the number of new research grants by about 400. What does the President's budget do? It would cut NIH by $279 million. That would slash the budget by 12 percent below where we were in 2003--going backward. It would cut the number of new research grants by 800. So the President's budget would cut the number of research grants by 800; our bill would increase it by 400. Members may choose which one they would rather have--the President's budget or the Senate bill. Let's look at special education. Three decades ago, when we passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we said to the States: Our goal is for the Federal Government to provide up to 40 percent of the additional cost of mainstreaming kids, getting kids into school rather than warehousing them in State institutions or not even giving them an education. We opened the door for kids with disabilities to go to school. But we said our goal was to get up to 40 percent of this additional cost. That was 30 years ago. What has happened? I can say that time after time we have had a number of votes on the Senate floor, usually a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying that we have to put more money for special education, we have to get up to that 40 percent. The Senate bill increases the State grants by $450 million to help them meet the needs of the additional cost of educating kids with disabilities. The President's budget slashes $291 million from special education. What is not on this chart is that is going backward. The high point we had was in 2006. In 2006, the Federal Government's percentage of the additional cost was about 18 percent. Last year, it went down to 17 percent. Under the President's budget, it would go to 16 percent. This means a lot to our local schools because if we don't put the money in, there is only one way they can get it, and that is usually through local property taxes which are unfair in most cases. Again, what we are trying to do is to meet our goal, our obligation, what we said 30 years ago. We put in $450 million, and the President wants to cut it by $291 million. Let's look at another program, Head Start, a popular program, one of the great society programs started by Lyndon Johnson. We always hear about how the Great Society failed. No, it didn't. I am sorry. It did not. Here is one of the great examples of the successes of the Great Society; that is, the Head Start Program. We have a lot of data over the years to show that kids who went through Head Start do better in elementary school, high school. They go on to lead healthier and more productive lives. In our bill, we expand Head Start services with an increase of $200 million. The President's budget cuts Head Start by $100 million, which would leave thousands of children behind. The President's budget would result in a cut of over 30,000 slots for children in Head Start Programs. Again, the President's budget goes backward. We are moving ahead. Let's look at community health centers. One of the things I had always said is that I agreed with President Bush about his goal of having more community health centers built and having at least one community health center in every poor district. I thought that was a laudable goal. I have been supportive of that. Again, the Senate bill increases the Community Health Centers Program by $250 million. The President neglects the uninsured, people with limited health care access. He just says: Keep it where it is, no increase whatsoever. Yet we know we need to not only open new community health centers--a lot of them are backed up. People want to open new ones, plus the ones that are open, because of the increased cost of health services. Medical devices, equipment, and all that have higher expenditures as well. We need to make sure we keep up with funding of community health centers that are open. We are also expanding dental services. One of the most important parts of community health centers we have found in the last several years--maybe decade, decade and a half--is the importance of dental care for kids. We have begun to add more and more dental services to our community health centers, which has helped a lot of families who otherwise cannot afford dental care for their children. That requires some extra money as well. We have responded to that by putting in $250 million. The President keeps it exactly where it is. Ours would increase the Community Health Centers Program from $1.99 billion to $2.2 billion. The President says: Leave it where it is and leave a lot of low-income Americans who are uninsured without any access to community health centers. Another provision in our bill is the home energy assistance program, otherwise known as LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It is a very successful program. The Senate bill maintains funding. We should have had an increase, but we are in a budget crunch. We couldn't get an increase for it, but at least we held the line. We know energy costs are higher now than they have ever been. What does the President's budget do? It cuts LIHEAP by $379 billion despite record-high energy prices. The President's budget would reduce the number of families receiving this assistance by 1.1 million. Again, these are the very low income, in many cases low-income elderly who we know are cutting back on their food, on medicine, and other things to be able to pay heating bills in the wintertime. Another issue that is of importance to all of us is Social Security. As I said earlier, we know--every Senator knows; and you can check with your State offices, and they will tell you--the caseload for people whose disability claims have not been acted on has a backlog of several months, a year, a year and a half, in trying to get their disability claims approved. Right now, it takes 1\1/2\ years--1\1/2\ years--to process a hearing request. In the year 2000, it was 200 days. It was 200 days, and now it is a year and a half. The disability claims backlog is about 660,000. That is about a 100,000 increase since 2006. Recognizing this, we have put a $426 million increase into Social Security for hiring more people, to accelerate the hearings decisions, and to try to reduce that disability backlog we have now of 660,000. The President's budget only put in enough money--$300 million--that would allow no hiring, despite the lowest staffing level since 1972. With the baby boom generation hitting the disability-prone years and closing in on retirement, the President's budget would add almost 100,000 disability claims to the backlog, so we have put in $426 million to reduce that backlog. Student aid, which is another big part of our bill: The gap between the cost of a 4-year public college and the maximum Pell grant has increased by over $3,000 since 2002. We increased the amount of money for Pell grants to $4,800 to help alleviate that problem. The President's budget falls short of that by almost $300, bringing it to $4,540--again, very short of the amount needed to offset the cost of higher tuition. On competitiveness, there are 7 million unemployed and millions more not working and not looking, as employers move jobs overseas. They hire foreign workers to fill jobs. Well, the Senate bill provides $4.8 billion for job training, and career and technical education programs to enhance the competitiveness of our workforce. What does the President's budget do? It undermines U.S. competitiveness with a $1 billion cut--a $1 billion cut--in job training, a 50-percent cut in career and technical education programs. Almost 8 million high school and college students could see career and technical education courses disappear because of the President's cuts. That is not all that is in our bill. There is more, but I thought this kind of highlights the difference between the President's budget and what we are trying to do in this bill, keeping in mind, again, that our bill is a little over $7 billion more than last year--hardly an inflationary increase. We have kept within our budget, within our pay- go budget. Yet we have been able to get necessary increases, as I have outlined. The President's budget basically says: No. Give me more money to spend in Iraq, to the tune of about $12 billion a month. We are saying we only need $11 billion for the entire year, for all the things I outlined. I think the choice is clear. I think the choice was clear when we were in subcommittee. It passed our subcommittee unanimously. It passed the full Appropriations Committee, as I said, by a vote of 26 to 3. I think it is a good, bipartisan bill. I hope we can bring it to a close here in the next day or so. I say to my fellow Senators, the floor is open if anyone has any amendments. As I said, I am not encouraging them, but I know there are some people who do have amendments, and I would hope they might come over and offer those amendments. With that, Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Dorgan for his many years championing the cause of our skilled workers in this country, championing the cause of manufacturing in this country. He warned us a long time ago about what NAFTA was going to do. Frankly, his dire predictions have turned out, unfortunately, to be true. When Senator Dorgan speaks about NAFTA, or any trade agreement, and the impact on jobs in this country, it would do us well to pay attention. There is no one I know who knows more about this area than Senator Dorgan. His amendment, I say to him, is one I can fully support. I hope all Members of the Senate could support it. As he said, it requires the Department of Labor to provide Congress with a fuller picture of the impact of the NAFTA agreement. Frankly, this is key information we ought to have anyway so we can understand the changes to our economy that have occurred since NAFTA has passed. Again, I thank him for it. This has been a key issue in my State of Iowa. I say to my friend from North Dakota, I remember all the speeches he used to give about Huffy bicycles and now talking about Levis. What could be more American than that? I might say something equally as American as that is the Maytag washing machine. The Maytag washing machine, what could be more American than that Maytag repairman who never had anything to do because the Maytag washers and dryers were so good? We have always taken great pride in Iowa that Iowa was the home of the Maytag, has been since the beginning, since Fred Maytag started his business in Newton, IA. I hate to tell you, but your Maytag washers are now coming from Mexico. All these great jobs we had, and these were good-paying jobs. A lot of people in the past worked at Maytag. It was part of their community. They built good schools, educated their kids, the kids went on. Some of the kids grew up and they then went to work at Maytag. It was a wonderful community, a wonderful business. They had great relations with organized labor there. To make a long story short, Whirlpool came in, bought out Maytag, shipped all the jobs to Mexico. Now all those jobs are missing in Iowa. What do we do? We scramble to get some retraining, some job retraining and things such as that. But the jobs the people are getting are much lower paid jobs. They are not as good, and all the manufacturing jobs are now in Mexico. Of course, maybe I am being a little chauvinistic because it was such an Iowa institution, Maytag, and to think they are not making them there anymore, they are gone.

Mr. HARKIN. I did myself when I was a kid.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I appreciate the sentiments by the Senator from Louisiana and accept this proposal to move the funding for this project to other priority projects for the State of Louisiana in the bill when it goes to conference committee.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the FIT Kids Act. That first word, FIT, is an acronym for ``Fitness Integrated with Teaching''. The FIT Kids Act encourages schools to provide children with quality physical education that can help them lead healthier lives. Since the 1970s, the incidence of obesity has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and for young people aged 12-19 years, and has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. There are many reasons of this public health crisis, and addressing this crisis will require multiple solutions as well. One critical place to start is in our schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that fewer than 10 percent of our public schools at all levels offer daily physical education or its equivalent for the entire school year for all students. The FIT Kids Act would amend the No Child Left Behind Act to support quality physical education for all public school children through grade 12, and ensure they receive important health and nutritional information. As a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I have been working with Chairman Kennedy and my other colleagues to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that improves on existing law, and gives schools and educators the resources they need to succeed. It is truly alarming to see the discrepancies in achievement between children in the United States and children abroad. Here in the U.S., we have a wide and persistent achievement gap that is leaving behind children of color, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and children with disabilities. I believe that the No Child Left Behind Act gives us a framework to reduce, and hopefully close, this achievement gap to ensure that children from all walks of life are achieving at high levels. I believe that we can and will reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that preserves its essential reforms and continues the progress we have made over the nearly 6 years since the act became law. Unfortunately, despite the law's lofty goals, many educators have come to see it as a burden and a hindrance to effective classroom practices. I admit I share many of their concerns. I am particularly concerned about reports of imbalances and distortions that have come about as various States and the Federal Government have pushed for higher standards and greater accountability. Earlier this year, the Center on Education Policy, here in Washington, released a study showing that, as a result of NCLB, many school districts have cut back on the time spent teaching subjects other than math and reading. I am especially concerned by the finding that time spent on physical education has dropped by 9 percent, and recess by 6 percent. A new elementary school in Atlanta was actually built without a playground! This is just plain wrong-headed and short-sighted for two big reasons: one, we are fighting a childhood obesity epidemic of frightening proportions. Two, as any teacher or parent knows, kids have got to have time to play and burn off energy if they are going to be in a proper frame of mind to learn. This legislation will provide parents with information on the time and resources devoted to giving their children a quality physical education. Specifically, the bill will amend the State, local education agency, and school report cards to include measures of physical education tied to nationally recognized guidelines and standards. It is important to note, however, that this legislation will not amend the school accountability process to include measures of physical education. However, by including this new information on report cards we will give parents the data they need in order to assess whether their children are receiving an appropriate physical education. In addition, the bill promotes teacher professionalism in the field of physical education in order to promote healthy lifestyles and physical activity, and thereby to boost students' readiness to learn. The bill promotes physical activity in after-school programs. It amends the school counseling program to take into account students' emotional and physical wellbeing. It supports efforts to train parents to encourage healthy behaviors and physical activity. Finally, this legislation authorizes research into the ways physical activity can be incorporated into all aspects of the school day, as well as research into the impact of physical activity on students' ability to learn, and into the best ways to measure student progress in increasing physical activity. I am pleased that this bill is strongly supported by the American Heart Association, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American School Counselor Association, YMCA of the USA, National Association for Sport and Physical Education, the Campaign to End Obesity, and many other leading organizations in the fields of education and health. The FIT Kids Act shines a spotlight on children's heath and how our schools can play a greater role in teaching our children healthy behaviors. As we move forward in reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, we cannot neglect the importance of proper physical education. Students should be learning healthy behaviors and the importance of physical activity, and why these lessons will be important throughout their lives. The FIT Kids Act provides the framework to accomplish this. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, today I am introducing the FIT Kids Act. That first word, FIT, is an acronym for ``Fitness Integrated with Teaching''. The FIT Kids Act encourages schools to provide children with quality physical education that can help them lead healthier lives. Since the 1970s, the incidence of obesity has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and for young people aged 12-19 years, and has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. There are many reasons of this public health crisis, and addressing this crisis will require multiple solutions as well. One critical place to start is in our schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that fewer than 10 percent of our public schools at all levels offer daily physical education or its equivalent for the entire school year for all students. The FIT Kids Act would amend the No Child Left Behind Act to support quality physical education for all public school children through grade 12, and ensure they receive important health and nutritional information. As a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I have been working with Chairman Kennedy and my other colleagues to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that improves on existing law, and gives schools and educators the resources they need to succeed. It is truly alarming to see the discrepancies in achievement between children in the United States and children abroad. Here in the U.S., we have a wide and persistent achievement gap that is leaving behind children of color, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and children with disabilities. I believe that the No Child Left Behind Act gives us a framework to reduce, and hopefully close, this achievement gap to ensure that children from all walks of life are achieving at high levels. I believe that we can and will reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that preserves its essential reforms and continues the progress we have made over the nearly 6 years since the act became law. Unfortunately, despite the law's lofty goals, many educators have come to see it as a burden and a hindrance to effective classroom practices. I admit I share many of their concerns. I am particularly concerned about reports of imbalances and distortions that have come about as various States and the Federal Government have pushed for higher standards and greater accountability. Earlier this year, the Center on Education Policy, here in Washington, released a study showing that, as a result of NCLB, many school districts have cut back on the time spent teaching subjects other than math and reading. I am especially concerned by the finding that time spent on physical education has dropped by 9 percent, and recess by 6 percent. A new elementary school in Atlanta was actually built without a playground! This is just plain wrong-headed and short-sighted for two big reasons: one, we are fighting a childhood obesity epidemic of frightening proportions. Two, as any teacher or parent knows, kids have got to have time to play and burn off energy if they are going to be in a proper frame of mind to learn. This legislation will provide parents with information on the time and resources devoted to giving their children a quality physical education. Specifically, the bill will amend the State, local education agency, and school report cards to include measures of physical education tied to nationally recognized guidelines and standards. It is important to note, however, that this legislation will not amend the school accountability process to include measures of physical education. However, by including this new information on report cards we will give parents the data they need in order to assess whether their children are receiving an appropriate physical education. In addition, the bill promotes teacher professionalism in the field of physical education in order to promote healthy lifestyles and physical activity, and thereby to boost students' readiness to learn. The bill promotes physical activity in after-school programs. It amends the school counseling program to take into account students' emotional and physical wellbeing. It supports efforts to train parents to encourage healthy behaviors and physical activity. Finally, this legislation authorizes research into the ways physical activity can be incorporated into all aspects of the school day, as well as research into the impact of physical activity on students' ability to learn, and into the best ways to measure student progress in increasing physical activity. I am pleased that this bill is strongly supported by the American Heart Association, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American School Counselor Association, YMCA of the USA, National Association for Sport and Physical Education, the Campaign to End Obesity, and many other leading organizations in the fields of education and health. The FIT Kids Act shines a spotlight on children's heath and how our schools can play a greater role in teaching our children healthy behaviors. As we move forward in reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, we cannot neglect the importance of proper physical education. Students should be learning healthy behaviors and the importance of physical activity, and why these lessons will be important throughout their lives. The FIT Kids Act provides the framework to accomplish this. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that Alexander Torres and Young- Min Cho of my staff be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of today's session.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Bingaman, I ask unanimous consent that Jeffry Phan, a fellow in his office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the pendency of H.R. 3043.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building. At this hearing, the Committee will explore the status of the digital television transition including consumer education efforts, the operation and implementation of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration converter box program, and other issues related to a smooth and effective transition from analog to digital television.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a nomination hearing.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Is DHS Too Dependent on Contractors to Do the Government's Work?''

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized during the session of the Senate in order to meet to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States, on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m. in the Hart Senate Office Building room 216.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, in order to conduct an oversight hearing on VA and DOD collaboration, the hearing will focus on the report of the President's Commission on Care For America's Returning Wounded Warriors, the report of the Veterans Disability Benefit Commission and other related reports. The Committee will meet in 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to hold a hearing entitled, ``Oversight Hearing on the Federal Superfund Program's Activities to Protect Public Health.''