Tom Harkin

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I have a letter from 33 attorneys general involved in the tobacco settlement negotiations calling for full funding of the FDA initiative. I ask unanimous consent a letter from the attorneys general be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I thank the chairman. Privileges of the Floor

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ellen Murray, Peter Reinecke, and Bev Schroeder be permitted privileges of the floor for the duration of the debate.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I thank my chairman for his leadership on this plan and for outlining in great detail the various aspects of the bill that he just covered, in our efforts to craft a truly bipartisan bill to bring to the floor of the Senate. Mr. President, S. 1061, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and related agencies for fiscal year 1998, is now before us. Again, I want to start by commending our chairman for his skill and his craftsmanship in putting this bill together. Senator Specter has ably balanced the many, often competing requests we have received--as he mentioned, over 700 different types of requests from Senators. It is always a very tough job, and I appreciate how closely he has worked with me and my staff in crafting a truly bipartisan plan. For example, the bill's broad support was reflected in its unanimous approval by the full Appropriations Committee. I am especially pleased that the bill provides significant increases in funding for key education programs. Senator Specter quite ably went over those. I will not repeat those again. I will just mention what Senator Specter had said in terms of the bill grants--the increase in the stipend from $2,700 to $3,000. This will help over 3.6 million low- and moderate-income students in colleges and institutions of higher learning this next year. This is the highest level of Pell grant support. The bill exceeds the support for education recommended by the bipartisan budget agreement by $164 million. It includes significant increases for special education and education technology and, in particular, funds to support teacher training. Computers in the classroom are of no value if teachers don't know how to use them effectively. The mark in the bill puts special emphasis on early intervention. The cornerstone, as we know, for educational success are the first years of a child's life. Recent research on the brain provides irrefutable proof about the dramatic development in children before the age of 3. So we must intensify our efforts to make sure that all children enter school ready to learn. We have begun to lay the foundation in this bill by increasing Head Start funding by $324 million, and we have doubled the set-aside for early Head Start which serves children up to the age of 3. This bill also provides an 11-percent increase in funding to $350 million for the early intervention program for infants and toddlers with disabilities served by part H of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act. Again, Mr. President, as we know, it is vital for children without disabilities to have early educational services. We know that it is doubly vital for kids, infants, and toddlers with disabilities to have those early intervention programs before the age of 3. I am also very pleased that we are able to make a start--not a big one, but at least a start--on the Education Grant Infrastructure Program. I think we can all agree that the infrastructure needs of our school systems are truly staggering. Most estimates of nationwide school repair and construction costs exceed $100 billion. Again, clearly, school construction and repair will and should remain primarily a State and local responsibility. Nevertheless, I think there is a limited Federal role here, and it is one would that is connected to the longstanding Federal support for the education of disadvantaged children through the title I program. I am often asked the question, Mr. President, ``Where is it indicated in the Constitution of the United States that education funding must come out of property taxes?'' I have here a little pocket copy of the Constitution that I try to carry with me at all times. I find it a very good reference. A lot of times I hold it up, and ask people, ``Where? Show me where in the Constitution of the United States, as amended, that it says that education in America is to be funded on the basis of property taxes.'' You can read every word in the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, all the amendments thereto, and you will not find one thing in the Constitution that says how education is to be funded. It doesn't say we have to pay for it through property taxes. But that is sort of the system that evolved in our country over the years. So what we have are these anomalies. I happen to maintain a residence, as many of my colleagues do, in suburban Virginia, in Fairfax County. To be sure, both of my daughters have gone to public schools in Fairfax County, and I can tell you the schools here are wonderful. They are great schools. That is 12 miles from where we are standing right now. Five blocks from here, in the District of Columbia, are some of the worst schools in our country. Why is it? Why the difference in 12 miles? Well, it is because in Fairfax County, you have a lot of high- income people who pay a lot of property taxes. And they have great schools. Yet, five blocks from the Capitol, you have very low income with very low property taxes, and no ability to fix up and repair their schools. This is true all over our country. I refer those who are interested to a book, of course, written by a good friend of mine, Jonathan Kozol, called ``Savage Inequalities.'' It is not a new book. It is at least 10 years old, I guess, by now. That problem is very clearly across America--what it means to be a child lucky enough to be born to moderate to well-to-do parents who live in an area where there are high property taxes and high property values. The schools are good. If you live in an inner city, or sometimes in Appalachia, or rural areas of America where you have low property taxes, you have bad schools. So homeowners who are living in poor school districts have to carry a much heavier tax burden to raise school construction funds. Where they have the worst schools, they need the most repairs. Yet, they have the least ability to do so because they have a low tax base. Homeowners who live in affluent districts, however, have it much easier. So the homeowners who live in the poor areas have a much harder burden to carry in repairing and constructing new schools. And so I have long felt it is, indeed, at least part of the responsibility of the Federal Government to equalize this, to equalize it somewhat. Now, in States we have acquisition formulas. In my State of Iowa, for example, yes, property taxes are local, but the State recognizes, as many other States have done, that it provides for a lot of inequalities. So the State has stepped in with equalization formulas to try to equalize funding for schools at least in regard to construction and repair for those who are in poor areas and those who are in rich areas, more affluent areas. But, again, we have anomalies existing throughout the country, and so I think the Federal Government could emulate a little bit of what the States have done and have some kind of equalization where we will provide funds for repair and construction of school facilities to those areas with the greatest needs and the fewest local resources. Now, again, I would not want this money to replace money that is already being provided by the States. We do not want to do that. We do not want to provide money to a low-income school district and the State will say, well, good, we are getting all those Federal dollars; now we don't have to do anything. Therefore, there must be an effort at equity by the States to continue to have their equalization programs. And I would envision that the rules developed by the Department would take that into account in providing this money that we have for school construction and repair. A major concern I have about the bill is our inability to more adequately address our health services and training needs while at the same time simultaneously providing generous increases for health research. Now, again, I will not go into it at length here. I have talked about it many times in the Chamber, and I will talk about it and keep talking about it until we do something about it. And that is the need to provide more money for biomedical research. As my friend, the chairman, said earlier, a few months ago the Senate went on record 99 to 0 to double NIH funding over the next 5 years. A few weeks after that, Senator Specter and I offered an amendment, very modest, to provide about a $1.1 billion increase out of our pot for increased funding for NIH. And as Senator Specter pointed out, that went down almost 2 to 1. We got 37 votes for it. So it was sort of the will of the Senate. It is our will to provide a doubling of funding for NIH over 5 years, but there is no money there to back it up. Now, there are some who say, well, we can take it out of our bill. If we did so, Mr. President, under the constraints of the Balanced Budget Act that we have adopted here, under the constraints of that balanced budget agreement, if we doubled funding for NIH out of the pot of money that we have, there would not be one single penny left for any other discretionary health program. What does that mean? There would be no Centers for Disease Control. We would have no money for that. We would have no community health centers in any States, no substance abuse programs, no family planning money, no mental health program money from the Federal Government. All of that would be wiped out. And we still would not have enough money to double NIH funding over 5 years. So here we have it, on the one hand, 99 Senators saying we want to double NIH funding, biomedical research funding over 5 years, but we don't have the money to do it--not within our bill we don't, unless those 99 Senators, or at least 51 of those Senators want to cut all of the funding for the Centers for Disease Control and wipe it out, cut out all Ryan White funding, cut out every one of our community health centers in America, and on and on and on. If we do that, we get close. We do not get the double, but we get close. Obviously, there are not going to be 51 Senators who will vote to cut out the community health centers in America or the Centers for Disease Control. That would be ridiculous. As I have said many times, we have to go outside the discretionary fund that we have for the National Institutes of Health. We have to provide a different source of funding--outside of our appropriations process. What I have advocated, along with our former colleague, Senator Mark Hatfield--we advocated it at least since 1991, 1992--is setting up a medical research trust fund that would be funded out of the premiums that we pay in for our health insurance coverage. Again, Mr. President, you and I and all the rest of us here and Americans throughout the country who have insurance programs, we pay in every year and our employer pays in, matches it. It varies how much is matched, but we pay in, both employers and employees pay in for health insurance to the tune of about $700-some billion a year. I always ask audiences when I talk about this, do you know how much of that money goes for health research, to find the causes and cures for things like diabetes and Alzheimer's and cancer and AIDS and Parkinson's disease and mental health? How much of that money that you put into your premiums goes to pay for medical research? The answer is zero. Not one single penny. No corporation in America would try to continue to move along without putting some money into research. And yet we sort of stagger along in this country every year putting more and more money into health insurance programs to pay for taking care of people with Alzheimer's or with cancer or with Parkinson's disease or with diabetes, et cetera, et cetera. We pay all that money in to take care of those illnesses once they occur, but not one penny is used to find the causes and cures. It does not seem to make sense. So what Senator Hatfield and I advocated for several years was that just one penny, just one penny out of every dollar that we put into our health insurance programs go to a trust fund. Think of it like this. We have a highway trust fund. Every time you buy a gallon of gas, some of that money goes into the highway trust fund. It cannot be used for anything else. It must be used for transportation purposes. We have an airport and airways trust fund. When I buy an airplane ticket, some of that goes into the airports and airways trust fund. So it is not new. Well, we have a Social Security trust fund, obviously, but we have a lot of different trust funds to meet what we have determined to be national priorities that otherwise could not get sufficient funding through the appropriations process. And the American people by and large have supported us. Most everyone I know supports the highway trust fund and airways trust fund. What they do not support is us using the money for something else. But they support us using that trust fund money for highways and for bridges and for airports and for airways because that is what the money was put in there for. And so we have proposed that we set up that trust fund. That one penny a year would provide us a little over a 50-percent increase in funding for NIH. That would get us a long way toward doubling that funding in 5 years. Now, Senator Hatfield is no longer in the Senate, but my cosponsor on the bill is now my colleague and our esteemed chairman, Senator Specter. We are both pushing very hard again to find another source of funding for biomedical research, and I believe the trust fund concept is the way to go. We have hundreds and hundreds of different entities throughout America supporting that concept. We had a vote in the Senate a few weeks ago on this concept of having this trust fund. I believe we got--we got over 51 votes, I know that, for it, but we needed 60 votes because of a point of order. So over 50 Senators have, indeed, voted at least in concept for setting up this type of a trust fund and funding it this way. I know I can speak for Senator Specter in saying we will continue our efforts to enlist the support of other Senators to set up this form of a trust fund. Otherwise, we are simply never going to have the kind of funding for biomedical research that we need. What we are going to do basically is to keep raising insurance premiums to pay for the illnesses that continue to plague us. But if we put the money into research and find the causes and cures--Mr. President, we all struggle around here trying to figure out what is the long-term solution to the Medicare problem: People living longer, fewer and fewer people paying into the Medicare trust fund. We know we have a problem. We have to do something about it. Every medical expert will tell you, if you want to solve the Medicare problem, find the causes and cures; it is early intervention of illnesses and diseases. If we, for example, could just delay, delay the onset of Alzheimer's by 5 years, we could have no problem in the Medicare trust fund--just delay it 5 years. That is not to mention actually finding the cure for Alzheimer's. That is not to mention osteoporosis or diabetes that so plagues our culture, or hearing loss or eye loss. All the things that affect us in our older age are now coming back and costing Medicare more and more money because people are living longer. These are the things we can do to make sure the Medicare trust fund is solvent in the future, but only if we put adequate money into biomedical research. I said I was not going to talk about it, but once I got on a roll I could not stop myself because I feel so strongly that we really are shortchanging ourselves when we are not putting the money into medical research. Finally, Mr. President, in our report we have tried to focus the Department of Health and Human Services on the issue of fraud and abuse in Medicare. Speaking of Medicare, a recent inspector general's report found that improper Medicare billing losses could be as high as 17 percent of last year's $194 billion Medicare budget--17 percent. Now, again, let me digress here a little bit, Mr. President. A few years ago, when I held the position that Senator Specter now holds as chairman of this subcommittee, I asked for a study to be done on losses in Medicare due to waste, fraud, and abuse. Well, we did the study. It came back and said it was as high as maybe 10 to 14 percent. Well, some of those in the system challenged those findings. They said, well, your survey wasn't big enough. You only did one area of the country. You did not sample enough items. And so it was a skewed kind of study--the losses surely are not that big. Well, I said, OK, fair enough criticism. So then, under the leadership of Senator Specter, when we changed hands in the Senate, we went back and we asked them to do another study, nationwide. Several thousand were sampled. Every region was sampled. Guess what happened. The first study came up short. It was not 10 to 14 percent. It was as high as 17 percent of Medicare payments were going out for waste and abuse. Well, we must make this a priority and address this serious problem. We have in this bill; we have focused on it. Senator Specter has taken the lead. Let me sum up once again by complimenting our chairman, Senator Specter, and his staff and my staff for their work in putting together this legislation. I look forward to a smooth process, hopefully, as Senator Specter said, that will enable us to be done by tomorrow. And I would again just close by referring, as I did earlier, to the Constitution of the United States. Time and again I have had people question why we do what we are doing here in this subcommittee--in health and in human services and in education, labor, all of the various things that we cover here. The National Institutes of Health, what business is that of the Congress? Why are you getting involved in all those things? Well, you know, it is interesting, Mr. President, that twice in the Constitution of the United States there is mention made of the general welfare of the people of this country--first in the preamble when it says, ``We the people of the United States,'' and it lays out why we are developing the Constitution, ``in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare''--promote the general welfare--``and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity * * *'' Right there in the preamble it says we are doing this because we want to promote the general welfare of the people of this country. Well, how do you do that? Article I of the Constitution, which lays out the structure of Congress and our responsibility, section 8 of article I lays out what we are supposed to do here, lays out our responsibilities. Congress shall have the power to do all kinds of things--borrow money, regulate commerce, coin money, establish post offices, declare a war, et cetera, et cetera. But, in the first paragraph it says: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States. * * * Interesting, they put the common defense and the general welfare together. That is our responsibility--article I, section 8. What we are supposed to do in providing for that general welfare obviously changes with times and circumstances. What was providing for the general welfare in the last century certainly is not what we deem to be providing for the general welfare in this century, and certainly it will change in the future. But, nonetheless, I believe that the bill before us meets our constitutional requirement in two ways: First, by promoting the general welfare, and second, by providing for the general welfare through the appropriations process. So, that is our constitutional obligation and I believe that we have done our level best, in a bipartisan manner, to meet that requirement of article I, section 8 of the Constitution. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President it is my great pleasure to offer this sense of the Senate to recognize and commend John H.R. Berg for 50 years of service to the U.S. Government on behalf of myself and Senator Warner. Mr. Berg's employment with the U.S. Government began at age 15 working for the U.S. Army in 1946. From July 1947 to February 1949 he worked with the American Graves Registration Command in Paris. In July 1949, Mr. Berg began his employment with the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Currently, he is the chief of the visitors and travel unit in our Embassy in Paris. Currently, he is the chief of the visitors and travel unit in our Embassy in Paris. So far this year, as chief of the Embassy's travel and visitors office, Mr. Berg and his staff of three have supported over 10,700 official visitors, 500 conferences, and over 15,000 official and unofficial reservations. The position entails coordinating all travel, transportation, housing control rooms and airport formalities for visits and conferences. Mr. Berg's dedication, efficiency, and wide range of useful host government and private sector contacts have been invaluable to the Embassy and the U.S. Government. His support efforts, personal interest, and ability to accomplish the impossible have become legend in the Foreign Service and to those of us who know his work personally. I know I speak for those who have worked with Mr. Berg when I say that he has devoted his life to providing dedicated, faithful, and loyal service to the U.S. Government. He willingly and cheerfully works long hours--evenings, weekends and holidays--to ensure that our visits are handled in the most skillful and efficient manner possible. And he has received five Department of State Meritorious Honor Awards for his outstanding work. A little known fact about John Berg was that he was a stateless person at the beginning of his service to the U.S. Government. He was born in Germany in 1930, but lost his German citizenship in 1943 due to Nazi Jewish persecution. After his father was deported to Auschwitz, he and his mother with a small group of brave Jews, hid in Berlin from the Gestapo until the end of the war. The heroism they exhibited and the dangers they faced are documented in the book, ``The Last Jews of Berlin,'' by Leonard Gross. His father died in the concentration camp. And after World War II, John Berg moved to France where he began working for the American Government, and has now completed 50 years of service to the U.S. Government. For all his adult life, John Berg's most fervent desire was to become a U.S. citizen. That goal was realized, and he was sworn in as an American citizen in 1981. Mr. President I cannot think of a better role model for those in the public sector. Therefore, I believe that John Berg deserves the absolute highest praise from the President and the Congress for his 50 years of dedicated service to the U.S. Government.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I would like to engage the chairman and the ranking member of the Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary Subcommittee in a colloquy regarding abusive and exploitative child labor. According to the International Labor Organization [ILO], some 250 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are working in developing countries and the number is on the rise. I strongly believe that access to primary education reduces the incidence of child labor around the world. It is my understanding that the Asia Foundation supports efforts to improve access to primary education. I would like to see some language in the conference report urging the Asia Foundation to continue its work in Pakistan. I know that our staffs' have conferred, and that you and the ranking member share my concern about abusive and exploitative child labor.

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum. We are going to be here for a long time.

Mr. HARKIN. Overall, I believe it is an excellent bill and one I wholeheartedly support. However, there is in this bill, I believe, a glaring shortfall relating to the level of funding provided for the Food and Drug Administration's enforcement and outreach efforts to prevent smoking by America's children. The budget request for FDA includes $34 million for this purpose, but the reported bill provides only $4.9 million. The amendment that Senator Chafee and I will be offering will provide FDA the full $34 million it needs to implement a nationwide effort in all 50 States to help our kids avoid the deadly trap of tobacco. The needed funding is truly a drop in the bucket compared to the $50 billion or more our Nation spends each year on medical costs attributable to smoking. Everyone, including even the tobacco companies, claims to be against underage smoking. But those assertions are just empty words if we fail to provide the necessary resources to carry out the FDA rules specifically designed to prevent sales of tobacco to children. With this amendment, the rubber really meets the road. It presents this body with a clear choice whether we are really serious about attacking underage smoking. In discussing our amendment, I hope that Members of the Senate will not lose sight of what is really at stake. Disease, suffering, and death caused by smoking and nicotine addiction is clearly at horrendous proportions in our Nation. With a death toll of more than 400,000 each year, smoking kills more Americans than AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicles, fires, homicides, illicit drugs and suicide all combined. Here is a chart, Mr. President, that shows that in graphic detail: The comparative causes of annual deaths in the United States. Here we see 30,000 in AIDS deaths, 105,000 from alcohol, and those from homicides, illicit drugs, suicides. Here is smoking, 418,000 per year. There are more deaths caused by smoking than all of the rest put together. This is truly an epidemic, an epidemic that begins with underage smoking. Mr. President, 4.5 million kids aged 12 to 17 are smokers today. Almost 90 percent of adult smokers began at or before the age of 18. The average youth smoker begins at age 13 and becomes a daily smoker by the age of 14\1/2\. Thousands of our kids are drawn into smoking every day. It is no longer even an arguable point that they have been targeted for recruitment into a deadly habit. Today, just like every day, 3,000 young Americans will begin smoking and 1,000 of them will die from it. At current rates, 5 million American kids under 18 who are alive today will be killed by smoking- related disease. The upward trend in teenage smoking is even more frightening. Smoking among high school seniors is at a 17-year high. Mr. President, again, here is a graph that shows it in detail. The smoking rates among high school seniors are at a 17-year high. These are the trends of cigarette smoking among high school seniors, 12th grade, 1980 to 1996. Look what has been happening since about 1991, 1992. This graph is going off the charts--a 17-year high. The statistics on smoking among young women and girls are just as shocking. Smoking among eighth grade girls--yes, I said that correctly, eighth grade girls--jumped over 60 percent from 1991 to 1996, with rates of smoking now higher for 8th- and 10th-grade girls than for boys. And smoking among black children of this age nearly doubled during this time period. Our children are our future, as we all know. But thanks to smoking, millions of American kids will not be leading long and fulfilling lives. Instead, they will be filling hospital beds and coffins long before their time. The epidemic of teenage smoking is a crisis that is beyond partisanship. Responding to it should lift us up above everyday politics. That is why I am so proud to have the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, Senator Chafee, as a cosponsor of this bipartisan amendment. Unquestionably, Mr. President, a key factor in youth smoking is that it is far too easy for kids to buy tobacco. Not only is it far too easy, but we now know that the tobacco companies, through the use of slick advertising, through the use of Joe Camel, through the use of the Marlboro Man and Virginia Slims and all of the fancy advertising that they have done, have targeted kids with Marlboro gear, the Camel coupons you can redeem for Camel gear and for beach wear and radios and cassette players, jackets and all the things that teenagers like to accumulate. We know that the tobacco companies have targeted teenagers for smoking with their advertising. When you combine that targeting of the advertising with the easy access for kids to buy tobacco, that is why you have teenage smoking at a 17-year high. I believe that this recent rise is due to the tremendous amount of advertising targeted to our youth and the ease with which youth can buy tobacco. A review of numerous studies has shown that children and adolescents were able to buy tobacco products successfully 67 percent of the times that they tried. Over 60 percent of kids who smoke say they buy their own. One study showed that over 75 percent of underage high school students who had bought cigarettes in a store or a gas station in the past 30 days said they were not asked to show proof of age. It has been demonstrated that enforcement of youth access laws can successfully reduce tobacco sales to minors and reduce youth smoking rates. That just makes good common sense and that is exactly the basis on which the FDA acted. Let me describe the FDA initiative that our amendment funds. In August of 1996, FDA issued rules specifically designed to reduce the number of kids who start smoking. The most important of the rules set a national legal age of 18 for the purchase of tobacco products and require retailers to check photo ID's of consumers seeking to purchase tobacco who appear to be younger than 27 years of age. Those rules went into effect in February of this year. Now, some might say, is this necessary that we have this photo ID rule with a cutoff of 27 years of age? Well, I ask you, Mr. President, and other Senators to look at this picture. Which one is age 16? Is it Melissa here on the left or is it Amy here on your right, both coming up to the counter to buy cigarettes? Can you tell which one is 16? If they walked into a store, would the clerk know which one was under age 18? Well, to eliminate the guesswork, FDA requires retailers to card anyone, to have proof of ID for anyone who appears under 27. In case you are wondering, Melissa here is 16 and Amy here is 25. That is the problem we have. And that is why FDA acted. The public overwhelmingly supports putting a stop to illegal sales of tobacco to minors. A new poll shows that 92 percent of Americans agree that young people should be required to show a photo ID to buy tobacco products. Eighty-seven percent agree with the FDA rule setting a national minimum age of 18 for buying tobacco mandating ID checks of all tobacco purchasers appearing to be under the age of 27. FDA needs $34 million for enforcement and outreach that will help all 50 States carry out the minimum age and photo ID rules. There is no question that the States need help in the area of enforcement. Despite the fact that it is against the law in all 50 States to sell cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to minors, our young people purchase an estimated $1.26 billion--billion--worth of tobacco each year. The FDA initiative directly addresses these enforcement problems. It will keep tobacco out of the hands of children. Of the $34 million, $24 million will go to enforcement and evaluation, with the vast majority of that going out to the States through contracts. And $10 million of the $34 million will go to outreach efforts for educating retailers and the public about complying with the rules. The point of the initiative is to prevent our kids from buying tobacco illegally and to help our small businesses and our retailers to come into compliance with the law. The FDA initiative is not a new, big Federal regulatory program. The bulk of the money will go directly to support State and local efforts. Without this funding, the States will not have the resources they need for their efforts against illegal tobacco sales to kids. By the end of fiscal year 1997, FDA expects to have contracted with the first 10 States. The increased funding will allow a comprehensive national enforcement effort with contracts in all 50 States. Now, Mr. President, it is true that the tobacco industry has challenged FDA's tobacco regulation in court. Well, they went to court. They had their day in court. However, the authority of FDA to carry out the minimum age and photo ID rules was fully upheld in April by the Federal district court in Greensboro, NC. The $34 million request in FDA's budget, which our amendment would provide, would be used for activities that the Greensboro Federal court gave the green light to. That decision did not reduce the need for fully funding the FDA initiative. Mr. President, I have a letter from Secretary of Health and Human Services Shalala supporting this point. I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as the letter from Secretary Shalala makes clear, the full $34 million is needed to carry out the minimum age and photo ID rules. She states: Without these funds, FDA will not have the credible national enforcement program required to reduce significantly young people's access to tobacco. Again, the pending litigation has not reduced FDA's need for or its ability to utilize the $34 million. So our amendment provides the full funding for FDA to work with the States to carry out the minimum age and photo ID rules. Now, where do we get the money? We offset the full cost of the FDA youth smoking initiative by increasing the tobacco marketing assessment from the current 1 percent of the national price support level to 2.1 percent for the 1998 crop of flue-cured tobacco and for the 1997 crop of burley and other tobacco. The increase will apply to assessments expected to be collected in fiscal year 1998. That is because flue- cured tobacco is marketed in the summer, while burley and others are marketed almost entirely after October 1. The full cost of the increase would be borne by purchasers of tobacco, that is, the tobacco companies. In addition, for the tobacco covered by the amendment, half of the current 1 percent assessment now paid by producers would be shifted to purchasers, thus providing assessment relief to tobacco farmers. We have heard concerns expressed clearly and forcefully on the floor of the Senate about the consequences for our tobacco farmers of changes in tobacco policies. I am very sympathetic to the situation of any farmer, including tobacco farmers. They are just trying to make a living. I know how hard farmers work and what a struggle it is for them to make a living. So I am concerned, also, about the impacts on tobacco-farming families. For that reason, this amendment is crafted to relieve tobacco farmers of their obligation to pay a part of the marketing assessment on the tobacco covered by the amendment. Currently, the producer of domestic tobacco--that is the farmer --pays half of the assessment. That is one- half of 1 percent of the support price, with the purchaser paying the other one-half of 1 percent. What our amendment says is that the tobacco companies will pay the whole assessment, including the increase. So this amendment provides relief for our tobacco farmers because it will relieve them of the burden they have now of paying that one-half of 1 percent of the assessment. I might add, parenthetically, Mr. President, I believe if tobacco companies have to pay the full 2.1 percent, then they are going to pass costs along to the consumers--that is, those who smoke tobacco. On the one hand, we relieve the tobacco farmers of this burden and we have made those who use tobacco pay more. As a nation, we are in solid agreement that use of tobacco by minors must be reduced--or at least we say we are. When that happens, it also means that we eventually will have fewer adults smoking. So it is our national policy that there will be less of a market in this country for tobacco. Tobacco farmers need to recognize that change is coming. But I also know that when markets for agricultural commodities change, it is often the farmers who bear the brunt of that change. It is no different for tobacco than for corn or soybeans or hogs or wheat or cotton or any other commodity. I hope that we will find more ways to help tobacco farmers deal with this change. In the meantime, I am suggesting that at least we should require that tobacco companies pay the marketing assessment. It will ease the burden on tobacco farmers, who clearly are facing uncertainty. Mr. President, we simply cannot continue to postpone addressing the monumental costs to society of tobacco use on the grounds that doing so may have some negative impact on farmers. There are too many lives at stake--lives of people who are children today. Again, let me make it clear that this amendment does not give FDA any additional jurisdiction over tobacco farmers. It does not create any new authority for FDA to regulate tobacco farmers or become involved in the marketing by farmers of tobacco. The offset in the amendment involving an increase in the assessment involves only the Department of Agriculture, not the FDA. Now, Mr. President, there is some misinformation floating around to the effect that we do not need this FDA funding because of the proposed tobacco settlement that is now under review by the Congress and the administration. Well, Mr. President, this FDA initiative against youth smoking was begun long before the tobacco settlement talks even started. The minimum age and photo ID check rules are in place and are working. But there is a pressing need for more funding to allow all 50 States to carry out enforcement efforts aimed at preventing youth smoking. There plainly is no good reason for delaying full implementation of the FDA initiative. We should not await the uncertain fate of the tobacco settlement before putting the necessary resources into FDA's enforcement and outreach efforts to stop underage smoking. As a nation, we cannot afford to continue losing our kids to tobacco at the horrendous rates that we are now experiencing. So the proposed tobacco settlement and this FDA initiative are totally separate matters--there should be no confusion on this point--and there is no inconsistency between them either. Mr. President, I have here a letter from 33 attorneys general involved in the settlement activities, who write in support of full funding for the FDA initiative, what our amendment here provides. The 33 attorneys general who are involved in the settlement say they support full funding of this initiative. They would not have signed the letter if there were any reason to delay funding the FDA efforts pending possible legislation to carry out the settlement. I ask unanimous consent to have that letter printed in the Record.

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

Mr. HARKIN. I object.

Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HARKIN. I understand.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, our amendment would in no way prejudice or in any way affect the outcome of any legislation designed to implement the settlement. Mr. President, I also have two additional letters here. One is from Secretary Shalala and one is from Michael Moore, the Mississippi attorney general who has led the attorneys general in the tobacco settlement negotiations. As you know, Mississippi already reached a settlement with the tobacco companies. Michael Moore led these efforts. I just want to read an excerpt from his letter dated July 21, 1997: Dear Senator Harkin: I am writing to express my strong support for your amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations bill to provide full funding for the Food and Drug Administration's initiative to protect kids from tobacco. This is a critical program that must be supported without delay. Attorney General Moore of Mississippi goes on to say: There has been some confusion regarding your amendment and whether it would interfere or conflict with the proposed settlement with the tobacco industry. Some Members of Congress have also stated that they believe funding FDA's tobacco program is unnecessary because money will be forthcoming from a settlement. No one is more anxious than I to have Congress promptly address the settlement; but let me be very clear: Again, I am reading from Attorney General Moore's letter. passage of your amendment is critical because we can't be certain that the tobacco settlement will be passed or implemented in time to provide the needed funds for the upcoming fiscal year. Congress should not jeopardize the current FDA tobacco initiative unless we are assured of the immediate passage of legislation regarding the settlement. Immediate full funding for the FDA rule is appropriate because the agency's initiative is already in place and has been implemented. Secretary Shalala, in her letter dated July 22, says: Let me emphasize that the funding requested by the administration is separate from any funds that might be available sometime in the future as a result of any settlement. Further, I do not believe it would prejudice or predetermine in any way future congressional action regarding the settlement. I ask unanimous consent that the letter from Secretary Shalala and the one from Attorney General Mike Moore of Mississippi be printed at this point in the Record.

Mr. HARKIN. Again, Mr. President, both letters make it clear that the tobacco settlement does not obviate the need for the FDA funding that we provide in our amendment and that providing the funding would not interfere with the settlement. In closing, Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Byrd for his excellent addition to our amendment. Senator Byrd has been the leader in the Senate in focusing, also, on the horrendous problem of youth drinking and the need to clamp down on young people buying alcohol. Senator Byrd's addition requires that States be encouraged to coordinate their enforcement of the tobacco ID check with enforcement of laws that prohibit underage drinking. Mr. President, this is a significant improvement to our original proposal. I commend my distinguished senior colleague from West Virginia for providing this language. As I said to Senator Byrd, if we tighten down on these ID checks, if we provide the funding so that when Melissa--Melissa is 16 and she looks older than Amy who is age 25--goes in to buy tobacco we will also attack underage drinking. A lot of times they may be buying beer or wine along with tobacco. As long as an ID check is made, it will stop underage drinking as well as smoking. So I agree with Senator Byrd that the States should coordinate their enforcement of tobacco ID checks with enforcement of laws that prohibit underage drinking. Mr. President, again, I have an amendment here that incorporates that language from Senator Byrd. I thank my colleague, Senator Chafee, for his cosponsorship. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. HARKIN

Mr. HARKIN. When the House bill takes the place of the Senate bill, when you strike all after the enacting clause and put in the House bill, at that point the House bill is then open for amendment. It is my intention to offer an amendment to the House bill at that point in time.

Mr. HARKIN. Yes. I would like to inform the distinguished majority leader that when this point happens, I intend to offer an amendment on the House bill. It would be subject to the Senate bill at that point in time.

Mr. HARKIN. After that, the UC also says that the House bill would then come in and be substituted for the Senate bill and then proceed to a third reading of the House bill at that point in time. However, it is my understanding that when the House bill is substituted for the Senate bill, it is also open for amendment at that point in time; is that not correct?

Mr. HARKIN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President. I might ask the majority leader, I understand from in the UC request that, after all these amendments are disposed of, we go to the third reading of the bill, and that there would be a vote on final passage.

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, how much time do we have?

Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Rhode Island, and thank him for his support.

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, again, let's be clear what we are talking about when we are talking about SAMHSA. SAMHSA and the States can pass a law and they can deal with retailers. But there are no hard targets in SAMHSA to say: Here is what you have to do or you will certainly lose your block grant. The State can pass all kinds of laws but, if the State laws don't meet a target, then SAMHSA has no way of going to the State and saying, ``Look, you didn't meet the requirements of the law and therefore we will take away your mental health and substance abuse block grants.'' If there were, in the Synar amendment, a provision that said that, if a State, for example, cannot show that by year one they have taken this step and this step and this step, and that they have met the target--if in that case they then would lose their block grants, I would then agree with the Senator from Kentucky. That is not the case in the Synar amendment. It is a lot of nice words, but it doesn't really get to the heart of it, because there are no effective penalties, there is no real trigger, there is no hard target that, if a State doesn't do something, they then will lose their block grant. On the other hand, the proposed FDA rule upheld by the courts goes to the retailers, and FDA can--not must--but can contract with States and contract with local jurisdictions for enforcement of the FDA rules. FDA will also provide information, resources, support and help through outreach. A lot of times the small businesses don't really know what they have to do, and outreach can help them carry out this rule requiring the photo ID under age 27. So I don't want to get this FDA initiative confused with SAMHSA at all. This is something entirely different. I don't know if the Senator from Alaska wanted me to yield for a question.