Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Parliamentary inquiry: How much time remains?

Mr. HARKIN. I ask for 5 seconds. To my colleague, we will be calling up amendment No. 2259 later on to add $74 million to the ADAP program, but we will not take it out of CDC. That is the amendment we ought to vote for.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. HARKIN. Again, I thank the Senator. I personally do not have any problem with it, but this is something I think--I always have a little question when any Senator, on this side of the aisle or that side, anywhere, has a pretty thick amendment that involves commissions and how you select commissions and what they do. I have not even had a chance to read this amendment. I don't even know what is in it. Again, I ask my friend from Pennsylvania, has this amendment, in its present form, been submitted to either the Finance Committee or the HELP Committee? They probably share jurisdiction there. Have they looked at it to see if there are any objections to this?

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Pennsylvania--well, you have offered the amendment. That is fine. The amendment is at the desk. I wonder if we might put off voting on this amendment.

Mr. HARKIN. I would like to have the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, and perhaps the HELP Committee because it perhaps crosses both--to have them at least take a look at it. If it is fine, then I do not care. Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2232

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2244

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senator Kennedy to send a modification to the amendment to the desk. It changes the date, it looks like, from August to June.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this is the first time I have seen this amendment. This is setting up a congressional commission on expanding social service delivery options. I have no problem with that. But the way it is spelled out and everything, I would ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, the author of the amendment, has this been brought up before the authorizing committee? Has there been any hearing on this? Has there ever been a hearing on this, or has the authorizing committee acted on this at all? This is authorization on an appropriations bill.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment now be laid aside.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I now call up an amendment by the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, on women's employment data. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside.

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

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I join my chairman and support his views on this amendment. He correctly stated a lot of the history of how this has come about. Between the two of us, as we have alternated as chairmen of this subcommittee, it has been a strong bipartisan effort, not just between the two of us but on both sides of the aisle for a long time, to bring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta's facilities up to the 21st century. I remember having gone down in the 1990s. I had seen this movie ``Outbreak'' starring Dustin Hoffman. It supposedly had taken place at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. I was quite taken by all of the containment facilities and how modern it was in this movie, and I wanted to go down and see all this. Imagine my surprise when I went down to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and I asked to see these wonderful facilities that were in this movie and I was told the movie producers had come down to film the movie there, saw the facilities, and said no one would ever believe these ramshackle buildings are our Centers for Disease Control, so they went out and built their own movie set to make the movie. I went around and looked at their buildings, some predating World War II, in which the most virulent specimens of viruses and other things were being dealt with. There was a tremendous concern about safety. We perhaps didn't think about it in terms we are thinking about it now, but in terms of terrorist activity, about someone being able to abscond with some of those very lethal strains, plus the environment for scientists to be able to work down there. After looking at this and consulting with one another, and others, and with probably three administrations, Republican and Democratic, it was decided we needed to bring these buildings up to the 21st century. We embarked on that and we are about through bringing them up. They are state of the art, as they should be. We have always prided ourselves in America of being on the leading edge--not on the edge, being way out in front of everyone in our medical research, but also in terms of the Centers for Disease Control. I don't know that there is any institution in America dealing with health and safety that is called upon more around the globe to do something than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whether it was SARS a few years ago--think about it. We prevented SARS from coming to America. We did. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did. They are called upon all over the globe, whether it is for Ebola, swine flu, of course now the avian flu, a pandemic that may be confronting us shortly. These buildings need to be finished. We have the plan. We have gone through. We have had our oversight hearings and we found they came through on time and under budget, so I think we ought to finish it. I would say the AIDS Drug Assistance Program the Senator is talking about is a good program. I have no problems putting money into those programs if they are good programs. But to take it from the Centers for Disease Control for that is--talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul, you are invading one entity that goes to control and prevent diseases and illnesses in America and putting it into another one. It doesn't make much sense. I think we ought to finish our projects, be proud of the buildings that are built there, be proud of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and what they do for America and for the world. I am opposed to this amendment. We ought to finish the job we started on. I don't know about Japanese gardens. I don't know that much about gardens and stuff such as that. But, you know, if I might make a minor observation, I remember traveling through the Soviet Union years ago and looking at all the government buildings built in Moscow and places such as that, East Germany. They were stark, sterile, concrete block buildings. Who would ever want to work there? They were ugly; depressing. Is that what we want to build here? As I said, I don't know much about Japanese gardens, but this is the premier facility in the world regarding health and disease prevention. I understand that the building in question where this garden is--in fact, I went down and saw it. It is designed to emphasize healthy living. The stairs are located on exterior walls to increase daylight and to encourage daily physical activity. We talked about that with Dr. Gerberding. The green space around the building includes a stream fed by water runoff collected from the building to make the area inviting for exercise. I remember seeing that. I didn't think it was a Japanese garden; I thought it was a green space. But it is to get people out, exercise, walk more. As far as I am concerned, the more green space and the more daylight and the more exercise people get there, the better off we are. That is what they are preaching, right? They are preaching to us to do more exercise to stay healthy. I guess they are going to start doing that more on their own at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I understand what the Senator from Oklahoma wants to do here. If he wants to increase money for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, that is all well and good, but not at the expense of taking it away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Mr. HARKIN. Well, I understand. I just hope the appropriate committee of jurisdiction has looked at it, too.

Mr. HARKIN. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. HARKIN. I further ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order on the Dodd amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, before we proceed to the Dodd amendment, I believe the pending amendment is my amendment. I have a modification at the desk. I ask for its consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Byrd amendment be temporarily set aside. I have an amendment I send to the desk and ask for its consideration.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I appreciate my chairman's remarks. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. HARKIN. I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding a couple of minutes. Here they go again. Every year, Senators on that side of the aisle say they want to increase funding for LIHEAP and other things, but they want to take it out of other programs. These amendments are phony. These across-the-board cuts will never get passed into law. My good friend from New Hampshire says: Well, it is just 1 percent or just 2 percent or whatever it might be. Let's take a look at what the Senator from New Hampshire's cuts really mean. He said it will not affect anybody. Well, it is a .98-percent cut. That does not sound like much, but in terms of No Child Left Behind, it means that 39,400 kids will not be served by title I. I guess they do not count. It means that we will cut special education by $105 million. It means that 9,300 Head Start kids will not get Head Start programs. That is why this amendment is phony. That is why we have to adopt the Reed amendment. Again, the Senator from New Hampshire always said he wanted to increase funding for special education. Right now the Federal Government is paying 18.6 percent of the excess costs of special education. We are supposed to go to 40 percent. Under Senator Gregg's amendment, the share will drop to 17.8 percent. We will go in the wrong direction. So we will never reach the goal of full funding for special education if we adopt the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire. So do not be fooled by these across-the-board cuts. It hurts people. It hurts poor kids. It hurts special education. And it hurts title I kids. We do not want to hurt them in order to give money for low-income elderly so they can buy heating oil and pay their gas bills this winter. That is unfair. It is unconscionable. The best way to go is to adopt the Reed amendment. I thank the Senator for yielding.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jacob Cilek of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of today's session.