Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, earlier this month, we honored the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Each year on this anniversary we get together and speak glowingly of Dr. King's life and work. These words are important; make no mistake. But even more important than honoring Dr. King with words is honoring Dr. King with action. Today, we have the opportunity to do that by passing the Fair Pay Restoration Act. The right to equal pay for equal work is a fundamental right. Indeed, Dr. King was in Memphis on that fateful day in April 1968 to protest pay discrimination against African-American Memphis sanitation workers. We hope to have this legislation on the floor in the early part of next week. It involves overturning the Ledbetter case, a Supreme Court decision of recent times. Forty years later, we are still fighting the same fight as Dr. King. We are still trying to empower workers to assert their civil rights. Over the years, I have been proud to stand with the majority of the Congress for justice and fairness by passing strong bipartisan laws against pay discrimination. In 1963, we passed the Equal Pay Act. We followed that in 1964 with the landmark Civil Rights Act. Then we passed the Age Discrimination Act, then the Americans With Disabilities Act. Most recently, we passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991. All these laws protected workers from pay discrimination and have made our country a stronger, better, and fairer land. These laws are just words on a page of a lawbook if workers can't get into court when employers break the law. To bring these words to life, we must today continue the work Dr. King started. This effort is necessary because last May the Supreme Court undermined the fundamental protections against pay discrimination. In the Ledbetter decision, the Court imposed serious obstacles in the path of workers seeking to enforce their rights. Ledbetter was a textbook case of pay discrimination. Lilly Ledbetter, whom I have had the honor to meet, was one of a few women supervisors at a Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant in Gadsen, AL. She worked at the plant for almost two decades, consistently demonstrating that a woman can do a job traditionally done by men. She put up with teasing and taunting from her mail coworkers, but she persevered and consistently gave the company a fair day's work for what she thought was a fair day's pay. What she didn't know, however, was that Goodyear wasn't living up to its end of the bargain. For almost two decades, the company used discriminatory evaluations to pay her less than her male colleagues who performed exactly the same work. The jury saw the injustice in Goodyear's treatment of Ms. Ledbetter and awarded her full damages. But five members of the Supreme Court ignored that injustice and held that Ms. Ledbetter was entitled to nothing at all--nothing at all--saying she was too late in filing her claim. Under the rule in the Ledbetter case, Ms. Ledbetter would have had to file her claim within a few months of when Goodyear first started discriminating against her. Never mind that Ms. Ledbetter didn't know about the discrimination when it first began. Never mind that she had no means to learn of the discrimination because Goodyear kept salary information confidential. Never mind that Goodyear's discrimination against Ms. Ledbetter continued each and every time it gave her a smaller paycheck than it gave her male colleagues. The rule imposed by the Supreme Court reversed decades of precedent in the courts of appeal, it overturned the policy of the EEOC under Democratic and Republican administrations, and it upset the Nation's accepted definition of what is right. This chart shows that the paycheck accrual rule was the law of the land prior to Ledbetter. In all these areas, these are the courts of appeal decisions that would have helped Ms. Ledbetter to recover. These areas are the areas where the EEOC demonstrates the paycheck accrual rule under EEOC policy, as well as these others. This small area in here shows what is now known in the Supreme Court decision as the Ledbetter decision. But this is the way the law of the land had been for years prior to this judgment and this decision. The rule imposed by the Supreme Court reversed the decades of precedent in the courts of appeal, it overturned the policy of the EEOC under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and it upset the Nation's accepted definition as to what is fair and right. The Court's decision turned back the clock on civil rights. Every year, thousands of workers suffer pay discrimination. The Ledbetter decision will hurt workers alleging discrimination of every kind: Sex, race, national origin, age, and disability. This chart shows 5,700 pay discrimination charges that have been brought. These here are on disability, discrimination on the basis of disability, after we passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. The dark green is on gender discrimination. The lighter green is on race discrimination; discrimination on the basis of race. This is national origin in here: 588. This is discrimination on age. All these cases--5,700--are based upon the pay discrimination that has crossed the country. This is a real challenge. This doesn't represent the hundreds of thousands--hundreds of thousands--of cases of people who don't know about it. This is what is happening in this country. This is what is going to continue to happen unless we overturn the Ledbetter decision. The Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter gives employers free rein to continue to discriminate and leaves workers powerless to stop it. The result defies both justice and common sense. We must act to restore the decency and fairness to our Nation's civil rights laws. The bipartisan Fair Pay Restoration Act will restore the clear intent of Congress. That is the legislation we will have on the floor to act on this next week. It provides a reasonable rule that reflects how pay discrimination actually occurs in the workplace. It links the time for filing a pay discrimination claim to the date a worker receives a discriminatory paycheck--not when an employer makes a discriminatory decision. Workers shouldn't have to be mindreaders in order to protect themselves from discrimination. Workers who aren't allowed to share information about their wages shouldn't be rendered powerless to combat discrimination. This bill recognizes that workers who receive a discriminatory check today should not be out of time to file a claim simply because the employer managed to hide its illegal behavior initially. This legislation holds no surprises. It puts the law back to what it was on the day before the Supreme Court's Ledbetter decision. So we know this legislation is fair and it is workable. There would not be any unexpected consequences. Courts would not be overwhelmed. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has said this bill would not increase litigation costs by much and businesses would not be blindsided. We are restoring what the law was previously. Most importantly, the Fair Pay Restoration Act makes employers accountable for violating the law. Under the Supreme Court's rule, if an employer can keep its discriminatory ways secret for 6 months, it gets a free pass. Do my colleagues hear me? If they are able to keep this secret that they are discriminating on any one of these bases--any of the bases we have mentioned, including age or disability, national origin, sex or race-- in any of these areas, if they are able to do that and keep that a secret for 6 months, the employers get the free pass. They can continue to discriminate and its victims are powerless to stop the unfair treatment. It only makes sense that, if the violation continues, the right to challenge it should continue. No one should get a free pass to break the law. The Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter took us backward in time. It takes us farther away from our ideal of a fair and just workplace for all Americans. We have too much progress still to make, and we cannot afford a step back. With this legislation, we can at least make up the ground we have lost. That is why this legislation has such widespread support. This chart indicates the various groups. A wide array of civil rights groups, labor unions, and religious and disability rights groups support this legislation. It includes the American Association of People with Disabilities. AARP understands what is happening in terms of age discrimination; Business and Professional Women understand the discrimination taking place against women; NAACP; the United Auto Workers and other labor organizations, too; National Congress of Black Women; Religious Action Center understands the moral implications of this issue; U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce, and others. They all support this legislation. Many businesses also support the bill, including the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce, as I said. All companies that play by the rules and treat workers fairly should support this legislation. Workers have lived for almost a year with the inequity of the Ledbetter decision. It is time to stand up for the right to fair pay. As Dr. King said so eloquently after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Many people felt that after the passage of the civil rights bill, we had accomplished everything. We didn't have anything else to do and we would miraculously move into a new era of freedom. But when we opened our eyes, we came to see that the civil rights bill, as marvelous as it is, is only the beginning of a new day and not the end of a journey. If this bill is not implemented in all of its dimensions, it will mean nothing, and all of its eloquent words will be as sounding brass on a tinkling cymbal. We must take this bill and lift it from thin paper to thick action, and go all out, all over this Nation, to implement it. It is time to hold employers accountable for their unlawful conduct. It is time to turn the clock forward on civil rights, instead of backward. It is time to pass the Fair Pay Restoration Act. A final comment. This is a remarkable woman, Lily Ledbetter. Here is her quote: And according to the Court, if you don't figure things out right away, the company can treat you like a second class citizen for the rest of your career. That isn't right. She played by the rules. She worked hard and provided for her family and was being discriminated against. Here she is again: I hope that Congress won't let this happen to anyone else. I would feel that this long fight was worthwhile if, at least at the end of it, I knew that I played a part in getting the law fixed so that it can provide real protection to real people in the real world. We hear a lot of speeches in this body about the importance of work and paying people fairly. We hear speeches on both sides of the aisle about this. Here we have the classic example of a hard-working, decent, fairminded woman, who is trying to provide for a family, is playing by the rules, and she is getting shortchanged on the basis of doing equal work but not getting equal pay. She finds that out and pursues her rights and receives damages, under the rule of law in most of the States; and the Supreme Court, by a narrow margin of one, makes a decision that because she didn't know about it at the time this was started, when there was no chance in the world she would know about it because pay records are kept confidential, she is going to lose out on the fair pay she is entitled to under the protection of the law we have passed. This body has gone on record time in and time out about fair wages for their work. We are going to have another opportunity in the next week to see whether we are going to continue this. Let me finally say we are going back to the previous law. This isn't a new, bold idea carving out terms of the future. This is the way the law was. We are restoring the law, restoring the protections. This should have passed unanimously. How can Members of this body say no to restoring the law to what it was in the overwhelming majority of the jurisdictions of this country, on the fundamental issue of fairness that applies to virtually all workers, applies to men and women of color, men and women of disability, men and women of age, applies to national origin, and applies across the board? What are we afraid of? We will have the chance to take this up and to take action on it and to call the roll, and the American people will understand who in this body is for fairness and treating American workers right, and who is for going back in terms of the Nation's fundamental commitment to decency and honoring hard-working people, who should be entitled to equal pay for equal work. We will find out when we call the roll the early part of next week. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, an editorial in Monday's New York Times called attention to a new academic study on the Supreme Court confirmation process. The study, ``An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Justices of the Rehnquist Natural Court,'' was conducted by Professors Jason Czarnezki of the Marquette Law School, William Ford of the John Marshall Law School, and Lori Ringhand of the University of Kentucky College of Law, and it was published in the Spring 2007 issue of Constitutional Commentary. The study compares the statements made by nine Supreme Court nominees--Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Breyer--at their confirmation hearings with their subsequent rulings on the Court to determine whether their statements as nominees on stare decisis, originalism, legislative history, and the rights of criminal defendants were consistent with their rulings as Justices. The authors found that a large gap often exists between what nominees told the Senate Judiciary Committee and how they later ruled from the bench. For example, in their confirmation hearings, Justices Scalia and Thomas indicated a stronger commitment to stare decisis than most of their colleagues did, yet on the Court they were the Justices most likely to vote to overturn precedents. On none of the subjects was the correlation very strong between the testimony by the nominees at the Senate hearings and their rulings on the Court. The authors conclude that Senators have a better chance at obtaining useful information in confirmation hearings if they ``focus their questions on specific issue areas rather than `big picture' issues involving interpretative methods.'' As the authors state, their results are far from definitive and are meant only to start a conversation. The evidence is certainly suggestive, however, and is consistent with what legal scholars have been saying for many years. Supreme Court nominees reveal very little substantive information at their confirmation hearings. As a result, it is difficult for the Senate and the American public to understand how these nominees will approach their role on the Court. This trend was obvious in the confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Throughout their hearings, they offered only general platitudes, with little indication of how they would rule on the bench. They refused to answer specific questions or to say how they would have voted in past cases, on the ground that doing so might compromise their duty to decide every case with an open mind. Legal scholars are increasingly in agreement that political convenience, not principle, has motivated much of this stonewalling. Since Supreme Court nominees all have years of legal experience and, if confirmed, have lifetime appointments to the Court, they can be candid about their views on many issues, including previously decided cases, without doing any damage to the judicial system or to the rights of future litigants. Since Supreme Court confirmation hearings have become increasingly lacking in significant content, it is no surprise that researchers find weak correlations between what nominees say at the hearings and what they do on the Court, and that academic and popular support for a more serious confirmation process continues to grow. Of course, no Senator should try to undermine judicial independence by asking nominees to make ``commitments'' to rule a particular way in a future case, but all Senators should insist that nominees participate in a serious conversation about the pressing legal issues of our time. Hopefully, Senators on both sides of the aisle can agree that, at a minimum, nominees should give full and forthright responses when asked about their views on specific legal questions. It does not compromise the integrity or impartiality of the judiciary to require nominees to tell the Senate what they honestly think about such questions. Their failure to do so has real costs for our democracy. Madam President, I believe that this article will be of interest to all of us in the Senate in exercising our constitutional responsibility of advice and consent on judicial nominees, especially nominees to the Supreme Court, and I ask unanimous consent that the New York Times editorial and the article's abstract be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. 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 Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 3:15 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Census in Peril: Getting the 2010 Decennial Back on Track, Part II.''

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 15, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Transportation Safety, Infrastructure Security, and Water Quality be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 3 p.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to hold a hearing entitled, ``Pharmaceuticals in the Nation's Water: Assessing Potential Risks and Actions to Address the Issue.''

Mr. KENNEDY. 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 Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Nuclear Terrorism: Confronting the Challenges of the Day After.''

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the Session of the Senate on April 15, 2008, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Turmoil in U.S. Credit Markets: Impact on the Cost and Availability of Student Loans.''

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet, during the session of the Senate, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ending Abuses and Improving Working Conditions for Tomato Workers'' on Tuesday, April 15, 2008. The hearing will commence at 10 a.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 10 a.m., in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Tax: Fundamentals in Advance of Reform''.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on law of war treaties.

Mr. KENNEDY

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to congratulate Boston College Eagles men's ice hockey team on their Division I National Championship and to offer a Senate resolution with my colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kerry, to recognize the team's extraordinary accomplishment. This past Saturday, in Denver, Boston College defeated the University of Notre Dame four goals to one to claim their third national championship and their second since 2001. For the Eagles and their legion of supporters, known as the ``Super Fans,'' this victory marks the culmination of years of hard work in which they reached the Frozen Four's championship game in 3 consecutive years. Junior Nathan Gerbe was named the Frozen Four's Most Outstanding Player. Led by head coach Jerry York, Nathan Gerbe, captain Mike Brennan, and assistant captains Matt Greene and Dan Bertram, the Eagles compiled an impressive overall record of 24 wins, 11 losses, and 8 ties during the 2007 to 2008 season, which also included Boston College's 14th victory in the historic Beanpot Championship. With their work ethic and dedication, the Eagles have made the entire Boston College community and all of us in New England proud. We congratulate the entire team, its coaches, and fans. We also thank Father William P. Leahy, president of Boston College, who has proved that you can foster a collegiate environment in which both academic and athletic excellence are the order of the day. The team deserves great credit for its extraordinary achievement, and I urge my colleagues in the Senate to approve this resolution. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Boston Globe be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 514 submitted earlier today.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to consider be laid upon the table, and any statements be printed in the Record without intervening action or debate.

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

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

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess until 2:15 p.m. this afternoon.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a recent article in the Washington Post highlights the serious additional harm that is being done to victims of stroke each and every day by our failure to get them as quickly as possible to hospitals or other treatment centers qualified to provide the timely, appropriate care that can make all the difference between recovery and permanent disability or death. Not all hospitals have this capability, and Massachusetts and a handful of other States have begun implementing systems to make better quality care available and to inform the public and emergency medical services of the location of the nearest facility capable of providing such care. What is needed most, however, is national leadership to make prompt and quality care for stroke victims a reality throughout this country. I believe our colleagues in the Senate and House will be interested in this important article, and I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today, Congress took a major step toward making a remarkable difference in the lives of some of our Nation's most deserving citizens: our soldiers and our children with brain injuries. I commend our colleagues, Congressmen Pascrell and Platts, as well as my friend and cosponsor in the Senate, Senator Hatch, on all they have done to achieve passage of this legislation. It is an important and timely bill that helps an especially deserving group of people. Traumatic brain injuries have become the signature wound of the war in Iraq. Up to two-thirds of our wounded soldiers may have suffered such injuries. In the civilian population here at home, an unacceptably large number of children from birth to age 14 experience traumatic brain injuries approximately 475,000 a year and some of the most frequent of these injuries are to children under the age of 5. In Massachusetts alone, more than 40,000 individuals experience these injuries each year. As a result of these injuries, over 5.3 million Americans are now living with a permanent disability. Today, we have taken another step toward ensuring that these citizens and their families will receive the best services we can provide. The legislation reauthorizes grants that assist States, territories, and the District of Columbia in establishing and expanding coordinated systems of community-based services and supports for persons with such injuries. The legislation also reauthorizes an important provision, the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury Program. This program, enacted by Congress in 2000, has become essential because persons with these injuries have an array of needs beyond treatment and health care. Protection and advocacy services include assistance in returning to work, finding a place to live, obtaining supports and services such as attendant care and assistive technology, and obtaining appropriate mental health, substance abuse, and rehabilitation services. Often these persons especially our returning veterans must remain in extremely expensive institutions far longer than necessary, because the community-based supports and services they need are not available, even though they can lead to reduced government expenditures, increased productivity, greater independence and community involvement. Those who provide such assistance must have special skills, and their work is often time-intensive. The legislation also allocates funds for CDC programs that provide important information and data on injury prevention of these injuries. A recent Institute of Medicine report demonstrated that these programs work. Their benefit is obvious, and we must do all we can to expand this appropriation in the years ahead to meet the urgent and growing need for this assistance. A recent report by the Institute of Medicine calls the current TBI programs an ``overall success.'' It states that ``there is considerable value in providing funding,'' and ``it is worrisome that the modestly budgeted TBI Program continues to be vulnerable to budget cuts.'' Current estimates show that the Federal Government spends less than $3 per brain injury survivor on research and services. As the IOM study suggests, this program must be able to expand, so that each State will have the resources needed to maintain vital services and advocacy for the large number of Americans who sustain such injuries each year. Enactment of this bipartisan legislation will bring us a giant step closer to strengthening these vital programs for these deserving individuals and their families.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the historic Good Friday agreement, which put Northern Ireland on the path to reconciliation and peace after decades of violence, bloodshed, and deep mistrust. The people of Northern Ireland and the courageous leaders of the political parties in Northern Ireland, Ireland, and Great Britain, all deserve special recognition on this day for their deep and unwavering commitment to peace. We salute them for their extraordinary accomplishment and difficult compromises they were able to achieve to create a greater and better future for the people of Northern Ireland. Their success is an example to the world of what can be accomplished with courage and commitment. The benefits and advances have been extraordinary over the past decade. Guns are out of politics, and power is being shared on an equal basis. Future generations in Northern Ireland will live in peace, stability and prosperity, and they will do so because of the extraordinary commitment by leaders on all sides to a peaceful resolution of conflict based upon mutual respect for all the people. All Americans congratulate the people of Northern Ireland on this auspicious anniversary. They were truly blessed to have such extraordinary peacemakers among them, and we pray for similar leadership in resolving the other bitter conflicts that challenge our world today.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, it is a privilege to join my colleagues in supporting the Firearms Information Use Act to repeal the most extreme provisions in the Tiahrt amendment and lift the veil of secrecy that currently surrounds the flow of guns in our country. The act will give law enforcement agencies the support they need to do their job, while protecting information about undercover officers, confidential informants, ongoing investigations, and lawful firearms purchasers. It is a basic open-government measure that is critical for the public safety of communities across America. The Tiahrt amendment is an appropriations rider enacted in 2003 that restricts public access to information gathered by the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It prevents law enforcement organizations from sharing gun trace data with each other and from obtaining gun trace data outside their geographic jurisdiction. It prohibits such information from being used as evidence in State license revocations, civil lawsuits, or any other administrative proceedings, unless specifically filed by the Bureau. It also prevents the Bureau from publishing reports that use gun trace data to analyze the flow of guns at the national level. Numerous mayors, law enforcement officers, and researchers have spoken out against these restrictions. Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a bipartisan coalition of over 250 mayors led by Mayor Tom Menino of Boston and Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, is staunchly opposed to the Tiahrt amendment, and one of the coalition's top priorities is to have the amendment repealed. The International Association of Chiefs of Police recently emphasized that we can reduce gun violence in our communities by making gun trace data publicly available. In a 2006 report, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence documented the harmful consequences of the Tiahrt amendment. The Brady Center found that the amendment ``had an immediate chilling effect on the Bureau's activities,'' that ``academic researchers have already found their work stymied,'' and that the amendment has ``crippled'' efforts by law enforcement to investigate patterns of gun trafficking on a nationwide basis and to identify sources of guns used in crime. The report unequivocally concludes that the ``Tiahrt Amendment is a transparent attempt by the gun lobby . . . to shield the public, as well as government and law enforcement agencies, from the truth about guns and crime.'' In spite of these criticisms, the amendment has been included in the Justice Department appropriations bill every year since 2003, and even more restrictive versions of it have been proposed in recent months. By enacting the Firearms Information Use Act, Congress can restore sanity to our policy on gun trace data. Scaling back the Tiahrt amendment will give our State and local officials the information they need to halt gun trafficking and the reckless dealers who facilitate it. Whatever one's views of the second amendment, surely we can all agree that it does not confer a right to sell firearms illegally. I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, one of the most pressing concerns of American families and businesses these days is the skyrocketing cost of health care. Health costs are now the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcy and many businesses are dropping coverage for their employees because they can no longer afford it. Required reading for anyone seeking to address the challenge of high health costs is an insightful article in this month's New England Journal of Medicine. It was authored by Dr. James Mongan, who is CEO of Partners HealthCare in Massachusetts, which includes Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's, two of the Nation's leading hospitals. He is joined by Dr. Timothy Ferris and Dr. Thomas Lee. The article states that there is no single answer to reducing health costs. However, it identifies a number of initiatives that hold significant promise, including pay-for-performance programs, use of electronic medical records and more. I commend this compelling article to my colleagues and ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I urge support for S. Res. 500, which honors military children. The children of our servicemen and women in the Armed Forces have been deeply affected by the invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of children have lost a parent serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and tens of thousands more must deal with the daily pressure of their parents' deployment. Military children clearly deserve our support. Even in times of peace, these children pay a high price as they are typically required to move to many new locations several times during their formative years. The Department of Defense agrees that these multiple moves can make it more difficult for military children to do well in school, form lasting relationships with peers and adults, or cope with emotional issues ranging from loneliness to anger to depression. In spite of all the challenges facing military children, they persevere. Children attending Department of Defense schools continue to have some of the highest test scores in the country. They rank 8th or better in all categories in comparison to the states in every national test, and they rank first or second in all categories for African- American and Hispanic students. Military children also have high school graduation and college enrollment rates significantly higher than the rest of the Nation's children. One study estimates that about 75 percent of children who graduate from high school with one or both of their parents in the military go on to college. That's significantly higher than the national average of 67 percent. These are all accomplishments to be proud of. Military children unquestionably deserve our support, and the resolution offered by Senator Bayh recognizes them and pays tribute to their commitment, sacrifice and unconditional support for their parents and their country. These youth are the children of our national heroes and their perseverance, patriotism and achievements make them heroes in their own right. Despite all the obstacles they face, military children continue to succeed. I commend Senator Bayh for his leadership in offering this important resolution and urge the Senate to support it.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.