Barbara Mikulski

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation to close a loophole in current law that allows convicted murderers to be honored at our national cemeteries. I believe we must preserve our national cemeteries as places of honor for our veterans. Arlington National Cemetery--and all our national cemeteries--are hallowed ground. They should not be polluted by the remains of convicted murderers. In August, I learned of a tragic and troubling circumstance regarding our national cemeteries. The remains of a convicted cold-blooded murderer sentenced to two life sentences for his crimes were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on July 27, 2005. This man, Russell Wagner, was convicted of stabbing to death two elderly residents of Hagerstown, MD--Daniel Davis, 84 and his wife, Wilda Davis, 80. He was sentenced in State court to two life sentences for these unspeakable crimes. While serving his sentence in prison, Wagner died from a heroin overdose. Because he served honorably in Vietnam, his remains were allowed to be placed in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors, even though he committed this terrible crime. This episode has been terribly painful for the Davis family, understandably: they have had to relive the horror of their parents' brutal murder, while seeing the man who took away their loved ones being honored as a hero in our Nation's most sacred burial ground. There has been community outrage--which I share. The law that allows this disgrace must be changed. Arlington is for heroes. So many Marylanders who served with honor were laid to rest in Arlington, the heroes from every war: men like Navy Diver Michael Steadam, who was brutally murdered by terrorists simply because he was a member of our military. In the Iraqi conflict, 37 Marylanders have died, including two from the same high school who died within weeks of each other. These are the heroes who deserve burial at our national cemeteries. In my 18 years as the head of the VA-HUD subcommittee, I was proud to work closely with our Veterans' Service Organizations. They are tireless advocates for America's veterans. I so respect and admire them. I know many in these groups are uncomfortable with the idea of Congress tinkering with the benefits our veterans have earned. I can understand their yellow flashing lights. Promises made to our veterans must be promises kept. For 18 years, I fought every day to safeguard these benefits--and continue to do so, because they represent America's payment of a debt we owe our brave veterans for their service--a debt that can never be fully repaid. But this is murder. Federal law already prohibits murderers from being honored at Arlington and our national cemeteries. In 1997, Congress passed a law to restrict burial eligibility, to prevent convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh from being buried in a national cemetery following his execution. Under current law, if a veteran is convicted of a capital crime in a Federal court, he or she cannot be placed in a national cemetery. Yet, if someone is convicted of the same crime in a State court, they retain their eligibility to be placed in a national cemetery if they are eligible for parole. This loophole enabled the man who murdered Mr. and Mrs. Davis to be placed alongside the heroes at Arlington. Why did Congress pass what is known as the McVeigh law? Not to further punish the guilty, but to preserve our national cemeteries as places of honor for our veterans. So I was shocked to learn that the law we passed in 1997 does not apply in the case of the man who murdered Daniel and Wilda Davis. He was convicted of two life sentences, but because he was convicted in State court, he remained eligible for interment with honors at Arlington National Cemetery. This doesn't make any sense. The purpose of the 1997 law was to protect the standards our military men and women live by: to protect the values they fight and die for. The cold-blooded murder of an elderly couple is certainly contrary to those values. I am introducing this bill on behalf of the Davis family. But I am also introducing it on behalf of a Nation at war. Every day across this country, brave young soldiers are being honored and laid to rest in our national cemeteries. We have precious little to offer in comfort for their grieving loved ones, who have made the ultimate sacrifice a Nation can ask. But we can insist that these sacred resting places and the honors our Nation rightfully bestowed on those who have died in its service are preserved as sanctuaries and monuments to the values they died protecting. Placing the remains of a cold-blooded murderer in this hallowed ground makes a mockery of that service. And it is wrong.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. I compliment her for her forceful words on the Coast Guard, and I wish to align myself with them, as I fully believe in the remarks of the Senator.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Will the Senator yield to me for a request.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Will the Senator allow me to be a cosponsor of her resolution?

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I thank the Chair. First of all, I rise to encourage my colleagues to vote for the appropriations bill that is before us. It is the appropriations bill to fund The Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. I would like to thank the chairman of the committee, the distinguished Senator from Utah, Mr. Bennett, as well as the ranking member, for the excellent bill that they have put together, and therefore it warrants our support because it does fund the agricultural needs of our communities, and also funds the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. President, Maryland is an agricultural State. It might surprise people because usually we are thought of as the home of high-tech research, Johns Hopkins University, the National Institutes of Health, but we are agricultural in soybeans and poultry. Also, we are the proud home of the Food and Drug Administration. We are so proud of the fact that the FDA is in Maryland and that the agency is charged with the mission of food safety and also with the safety of our drugs and our medical devices. One might ask why is FDA in Agriculture appropriations. Well, because its original mission was food safety. But now it has expanded to the mission of ensuring the safety of our drugs and also of our medical devices. It is wonderful to have them in the State, these competent people who work very hard putting America first, putting the safety of our people first, and also ensuring that drugs and medical devices move to areas of clinical practice. But I am telling you I am really worried about what is going on at FDA currently. FDA has always been the gold standard in maintaining drug safety and drug efficacy. Yet today this agency is being politicized and degraded. The current administration has shown a persistent pattern of bringing incompetent leaders into critical positions. We have seen it at FEMA. We have seen it at other agencies. And now it is true at FDA. I see appointments being made on the basis of ideology instead of competency. I have seen people who have worked and devoted their lives to FDA resigning because they saw science being politicized. I am worried about this. Now, I voted against the current FDA Director, not because he is not a pleasant man but because there were so many problems under his watch. And they are not getting better. Let's take the situation that occurred in the consideration of something called plan B. Regardless of how you feel about whether plan B emergency contraception should be available over the counter, I think we would all agree that a decision should be made. I understand it is controversial from a cultural standpoint, but the question is was it controversial from a scientific standpoint? Well, delay, delay, delay, delay. Even the head of the FDA recently promised Senators Clinton and Murray that a decision would be made. Guess what happened? What happened was after the scientists made their decision, the Director delayed it because he said: How can we prevent teenagers from getting it? Well, Madam President, you are a mom. You know if we can keep alcohol and cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers, surely the Food and Drug Administration would know how to handle this issue of contraceptives with teenagers. Put it behind the counter. Dr. Susan Wood, the Director of the FDA Office of Women's Health, resigned in protest. Dr. Wood is a distinguished scientist. She is a competent policymaker. She headed up the Office of Women's Health that the distinguished Senator from Maine, Senator Snowe, and I worked to establish, to be sure that as drugs and clinical devices went through the evaluation, special needs of women would be taken into consideration and also children--another aspect led by our colleague from Ohio, Senator DeWine. So this is what Wood's job was. Did she quit because of pay? Did she quit because she got some big job with the pharmaceutical industry? Why did she quit? She quit because, she said, ``after spending the last 15 years to ensure that science forms policy decisions, I can no longer serve when scientific and clinical evidence are being overruled by the leadership.'' Well, she quit. So what happened? Guess who they announced would serve as the acting director of the office last week? They announced a male, a guy, with a background in veterinary medicine. What a dismissive attitude of the Office of Women's Health. Now, I am not saying a man could not handle that job. He probably would have to work twice as hard to prove himself. But nevertheless, an individual with a background in veterinary medicine in charge of the Office of Women's Health? I admire the veterinarian community. They play a very important role in our community. They are respected. They are admired. They have sophisticated training. But I do not believe, as we are looking at the impact of a drug on pregnancy, or of postmenopausal women that someone with a background in veterinary medicine should be in charge. Guess what. Advocates and scientists pounded the table, and they put someone else in charge. And the FDA doesn't even have the guts to stand up for the immediate appointment it made. It backed off, saying: Oh, we never announced his appointment. However a lot of people have that e- mail. I do not know the qualifications of the new acting director, but we are not heading in a good direction. I want FDA to be the gold standard on safety and efficacy. There are many countries around the world that are poor. They rely on what is approved by FDA because they could never afford to have an FDA. Doctors in clinical practice rely on the FDA to tell them what is a good and safe drug, or what is a good and safe medical device, or an effective device. This is phenomenal. I had the benefit of this myself. I wore a heart monitor, invented in the United States of America, that could tell my doctor whether the drugs they were giving me controlled a condition of arrhythmia that I have. It was wonderful to know it had been approved by FDA, that it could tell me if what I was doing was safe, and could give advice to my physician on how best to treat me. This is what we want the FDA to be able to do. We have a lot of problems. Look what is happening. We know what happened to Vioxx, out there prematurely, or with data withheld. We have all of these questions. If you want to worry about teenagers, let's worry about antidepressants. I worry they can get antidepressants faster than they can get plan B. That is up to parents and others to control. But these antidepressants have had a very negative and dangerous effect on some teenagers. Where was FDA? Now we have these implantable defibrillators that can go into your body, wonderful devices that can jump-start a heart. But guess what. They are found to have short circuits. The manufacturer knew about it, FDA knew about it, and they took no action on this. What is happening to our FDA? I have fought for the right resources, I fought for the right legislative framework for FDA, and I am going to fight for the right leadership. I wish Dr. Crawford would, No. 1, take charge of his agency. I am not calling for his resignation today, though he has to think about what he is doing over there. He cannot continue to politicize this agency. I am saying to him now that if he continues to politicize it, we will have to look at further action. I believe he is a decent person, but either he is getting direction from somewhere else or he has lost direction. This is meant to be a scientific agency, standing sentry over the safety of our food supply, doing the necessary evaluations as to whether a drug should come into clinical practice, and making decisions about whether a medical device can be safe and reliable and be the tool it was supposed to be, such as the one I had the benefit from. So I say let's support the appropriations, let's make sure they have the right resources, but I sure in heck want them to have the right leadership so we can come to the right conclusions, and people all over the world--doctors, clinicians, and the American people can rely on FDA. I want to rely on FDA for science and not politics. I yield the floor.

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Chair. I ask for regular order. Amendment No. 1678

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, before we move to the vote on the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw Bingaman amendment No. 1706.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, first of all, once again, we are coming now to the final aspects of this bill. We have been able to achieve this because of the wonderful bipartisan support that existed between Senator Shelby, myself, and our staffs. We want to thank them for doing that. I will thank them as we go into wrapup. Our colleagues, we thank them again for their cooperation in moving the amendments, working on a bipartisan basis. And now as we go to the Snowe-Kerry amendment and the vote, we ask Senators who have those outstanding amendments to consult with the floor and leadership staff, and ourselves as well, because we think we could have a vote--not promptly but expeditiously--after the conclusion of the Snowe-Kerry amendment. Again, I say to my colleagues to come, vote, stick around, let's work together, and we can finish our bill. People need this bill. It funds the FBI. It funds Katrina help. It funds the methamphetamine help about which we have been talking, and our very important Weather Service. There are so many provisions in it. I yield the floor and look forward to the vote. Amendment No. 1717

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, pretty soon we will be coming to the last round of amendments to the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill. When he is on the floor, I will thank, publicly and personally, the distinguished Senator from Alabama, Mr. Shelby. We certainly worked on a bipartisan basis to move this bill, to accomplish national objectives, and to respond to the compelling human and financial needs of our neighbors in the Gulf States. Moving this legislation has been enjoyable because there has been such a spirit of bipartisan cooperation. Senators have worked on their amendments. They have offered them jointly. In a few minutes, we will be voting on an amendment by Senator Snowe of Maine and John Kerry of Massachusetts to help small business, particularly, in relation to Katrina. That has been the example throughout. As the ranking member on this new subcommittee, I hope the spirit of the Senate, in moving forward on this bill, will be the spirit of the Senate all the time. We need more of that. We need more civility. We need more collegiality and more of that spirit of ``let's get it done'' and ``let's get it done together.'' There were many issues that were new to me, at least the depth of the national problem. We are all familiar with Katrina. One of the things that came up was the whole methamphetamine issue, which seems to have the country in its grips, to listen to the Senators from North Dakota talk about what it means in a rural State, to listen to other Senators who have come in either with individual projects or with national issues. Again, in a spirit of bipartisanship, Senators Dayton and Chambliss came in with a request to restore over $200 million to fight this scourge that seems to be gripping people at all economic levels. The methamphetamine issue has reached epidemic levels. That bipartisan support added money to the budget and added resources for local communities. Another champion, of course, was the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell. She offered an amendment for $20 million on the Hot Spot Program. Where are the real hotspots of meth? We worked with her to adopt that amendment. We thank her and particularly the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Dayton, the Senator from Georgia, Mr. Chambliss, for being strong advocates. Every other Senator came to me and said: We are glad this is in the bill. Senator Cantwell, focusing on the hotspots, sends vital Federal support to law enforcement officers and first responders who are on the frontlines of the meth epidemic. Actually, those crime fighters have a great friend in Senator Cantwell. We thank everyone who has helped move this legislation. We are looking forward to moving to final passage. We have two more amendments, and then we will move to final passage. Again, the spirit of the Senate has been wonderful. We are meeting real needs--whether it is Katrina, fighting the methamphetamine epidemic, providing weather services, and so on. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, we have no objection.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I would like to thank Senator Cantwell for tireless leadership in the fight against meth. Methamphetamine abuse has reached epidemic levels across our country, and by working to ensure that we don't shift the burden onto local communities, Senator Cantwell has given State and local law enforcement an important ally. Accepting her amendment to add $20 million to the hotspots program brings funding for meth State and local enforcement to $80 million. Coupled with the bipartisan addition of $43 million of meth authorization dollars that Senator Cantwell cosponsored and other meth- related funding, this bill makes an enormous Federal commitment to help our State and local effort to fight the meth battle. Senator Cantwell's amendment sends vital Federal support to law enforcement officers and first responder on the front lines of the meth epidemic everywhere. These crimefighters need more funds to help combat this dangerous drug, and Senator Cantwell has fought to give them resources they need. I appreciated her work to improve this bill, as do countless law enforcement officers across America. Mr. President, as part of H.R. 2862, the fiscal year 2006 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill, the Senate has included comprehensive relief assistance for small business harmed by Hurricane Katrina. I am glad we were able to come to agreement on a bipartisan package and I thank Senators Snowe, Kerry, Vitter and Landrieu for their work and for ensuring that we could move forward to pass these provisions so vital to small businesses in the Gulf Coast. One of the key differences between the Snowe-Vitter and Kerry-Landrieu amendments was that the latter included appropriations for the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program. Our support of the compromise Hurricane Katrina small business package should not be interpreted as our taking a position today on whether to include appropriations for the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program. While we were not able to address the 7(a) program today, I am aware that there is $79 million included in the House version of our bill for the 7(a) program and that we will be addressing this issue in conference. I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that the 7(a) program continues to provide access to capital to small businesses across the Nation. Mr. President, we are now coming to the end of our bill. We thank the leadership for all the help and support they gave us, and also working with the Judiciary Committee to accommodate their schedule. This is the first time this subcommittee has come out with a bill. We are a newly constituted committee. I have had the chance to work with someone I had worked with in the House. Chairman Shelby and I worked together in the same committee in the House of Representatives. Now we are together in Appropriations. I thank him for working with me in such a collegial and consultive way. Also, his staff is outstanding: Katherine Hennessey, Jill Long, Nancy Perkins, Art Cameron, Allen Cutler, Shannon Hines, and Ryan Welch. I also thank my staff: Paul Carliner, Kate Fitzpatrick, Gabrielle Batkin, and Alexa Sewell, who is not here today because she has a new baby. So I thank everyone because I think we are about to pass a good bill. I think the Senate can be very proud of this bill because we support law enforcement at all levels in our communities. We support technology and development and scientific discovery. And working with agencies such as the National Weather Service, we save lives and livelihoods. So I am ready to move to final passage and, once again, express my appreciation.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I share the views of my colleague from Colorado. Money is tight, but our future competitiveness as a nation hangs on our ability to educate our future scientists and engineers. It is important to make sure that we encourage our children to take interest in science, technology, engineering and math. It is important to make sure we provide our teachers with the appropriate tools and training so our children will keep that interest. And it is important to research how our students learn science, and to research the best ways to teach them these disciplines. I would like to see science education funding returned to at least last year's levels and will work toward that goal in conference. I respectfully join the Senator from Colorado and also ask the Chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Subcommittee to help me reach that goal.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Let me be clear, I am absolutely opposed to efforts to privatize the weather service. The National Weather Service must continue to provide forecasts and warnings through its website and other sources without limitation. The National Weather Service provides critical information to our citizens and saves lives and livelihoods and it must continue to do so. National Science Foundation

Ms. MIKULSKI. We have all become aware of the dangers of exposure to contaminated water and the health risks to residents, first responders and volunteers. Many challenges lay ahead, as flooded gulf communities continue to pump out this contaminated water as we speak.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I thank the Senator from New York for bringing this program to my attention and I will work with him to find ways to further this important program. Noaa's National Weather Service

Ms. MIKULSKI. It is wonderful to see collaboration between the Federal Government and our Nation's top universities, and we should support those efforts whenever possible. In these tight budget times, it is difficult to fund every deserving project such as this one. I will work with the Senator from Florida so that we can find ways to further partnerships like these.

Ms. MIKULSKI. I say to my colleague from Florida that I understand the importance, to the Gulf states and the Nation, of providing funding for research and analysis of weather systems. The Senator from Florida has been a leader on this issue. While in these tight budget times, we are unable to fund every worthy program, I will continue to work with him to ensure that our Nation has the very best research available to understand hurricanes and other environmental concerns.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, only to say that as we move to the closing of this bill, I want to thank Senator Shelby and his staff for all the many courtesies. It has been an outstanding way to move this bill. I do not object to the Senator's request.

Ms. MIKULSKI

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

Ms. MIKULSKI

Ms. MIKULSKI. I call for the ruling.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. MIKULSKI. No objection.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I wish to acknowledge the validity of the fact that the Senator from Arizona has worked long and hard on this issue and sees this as a consumer protection issue, and protection-of- our-sovereignty issue also. Without taking any prejudice on the merits of the amendment, I have to make a point of order under rule XVI that the amendment does constitute general legislation on an appropriations bill and is not in order.

Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, I say to my friend and member of the Judiciary Committee, I do not know. I truly do not know. I do know that these parliamentary mechanisms were worked out at the leadership level.