Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Comprehensive Veterans Benefits Improvements Act of 2007. The purpose of this bill is to address many of the long-standing benefit and other policy issues that are a priority to the national veteran service organizations and millions of their members all across our country. The legislation tracks many of the recommendations made in the Independent Budget, IB, for fiscal year 2008. The IB, as it is known, is ``the collaborative effort of a united veteran and health advocacy community that presents policy and budget recommendations on programs administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Labor.'' It is a guide for how this country should treat its veterans. It is written jointly by AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars and supported by over 50 other prominent organizations. I am very happy to have consulted extensively with the Independent Budget authors to craft this legislation. For too many years veterans' needs have been sent to the back of the line in Congress behind tax cuts for the rich and corporate welfare for multinational corporations. This legislation is one step forward in correcting the shortcomings of the way our current system treats veterans. Instead of turning a blind eye to our veterans' needs as has happened often in recent years, this bill begins to say ``thank you'' with real action. The Comprehensive Veterans Benefits Improvements Act makes more than 25 separate changes to veterans' programs ranging from disability payments, to insurance premiums, to grants for disabled veterans to adapt their cars to make them easier to use. We also try to make progress on long standing injustices in the VA and DoD benefit and retirement systems that veterans and their families have fought to correct for years. Among them are: Category 8 Veterans: In January of 2003 the VA announced that it would no longer allow Category 8 veterans to enroll into the VA health care system. The Administration justified this move on the grounds that these are ``higher income'' veterans. The truth, however, is that these veterans can make as little as $27,000 a year. VA estimates that more than 1.5 million category 8 veterans will have been denied enrollment in the VA health care system by fiscal year 2008. This legislation repeals that ban. Concurrent Receipt: As the Military Officers Association of America explains, the Concurrent Receipt or Disabled Veterans' Tax issue exists because of a ``19th century law that required a dollar-for-dollar offset of military retired pay for disability compensation received from the VA . . . Retired pay is earned for a career of uniformed service and VA disability compensation is recompense for pain, suffering and lost future earning power due to service-connected disabilities.'' For that reason veterans should receive both payments and not have one offset the other. This legislation would allow veterans to receive both compensation/pension benefits and retired or retirement pay. Dependency and Indemnity Compensation-Survivor Benefit Plan Offset: Under current law, the survivors of veterans who die as a result of service-connected causes are entitled to compensation known as dependency and indemnity compensation, DIC. In addition, military retirees can have money deducted from their pay to purchase a survivors annuity. This is called the Survivor Benefit Plan, SBP. However, if the military retirees dies from service-connected causes his or her survivors will receive a SBP payment offset dollar for dollar by the amount of the DIC payment they receive. Like the offset between military retiree pay and VA disability payments, this SBP/DIC offset unfairly denies beneficiaries the full amount of 2 programs that are meant to compensate for different loses. This legislation repeals the offset between dependency and indemnity compensation and the Survivor Benefit Plan. Veterans' Claims: We also take a new approach to improving the system for rating claims by creating an agency dedicated to electronically sharing clinical information between the VA and the DoD. For too long these issues have been ignored by the Congress. It is time for that attitude to change. This legislation also amends other benefit programs important to veterans. Over time, Congress and the Department of Veterans Affairs have added many benefits and assistance programs for our Nation's veterans and their families. As with many programs, the benefits did not meet all the needs of our veterans and others also have not been updated in many years rendering many of their benefits much less useful. For example, the IB notes the low level of grants the VA gives severely disabled veterans for adapting their cars: In 1946 the $1,600 allowance represented 85 percent of average retail cost and a sufficient amount to pay the full cost of automobiles in the `low-price field.' By contrast, in 1997 the allowance was $5,500, and the average retail cost of new automobiles, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, was $21,750. Currently, the $11,000 automobile allowance represents only about 39 percent of the average cost of a new automobile, which is $28,105. This legislation increases this car grant amount to $22,484 and adjusts this amount automatically each year using an average retail car cost index established by the Secretary. This is not the only example of a veterans' benefit being chipped away by inflation. When we look at assistance family members get for burying a loved one we find that the current benefits have not kept up with inflation. As a result, the current benefit of $300 only pays for a small fraction of the costs of a burial. The legislation I am introducing today increases the plot allowance from $300 to $745 and expands the eligibility for the plot allowance for all veterans who would be eligible for burial in a national cemetery, not just those who served during wartime. This section also contains a provision to adjust these payments annually. This legislation contains many other similar corrections and updates, bringing benefits into the 21st Century so that these programs are meaningful again. These are not controversial proposals. These changes are the least we can do to show our appreciation for those who sacrifice for their country. This legislation is attempting to strengthen the current VA system so that it can fully provide for those veterans already in the system and those thousands more returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and all over the world that will soon come to the VA for care. This is just the beginning; one part of a larger effort to honor our veterans and their service. We here in Congress have so much more to do to care for our veterans such as improving mental health care for veterans, Traumatic Brain Injury treatment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment, transition assistance, polytrauma care, caring for homeless veterans, and eliminating the waiting lines and claims backlogs at the VA. As a parent of a fallen soldier told our Committee, these veterans have survived the war, now ``[w]e've got to help them survive the peace.'' We have much work to do in the Veterans Affairs Committee and I look forward to working under the leadership of Chairman Akaka and the other colleagues on our Committee and in the Senate to make sure that meaningful and substantial veterans' legislation is passed this year. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Comprehensive Veterans Benefits Improvements Act of 2007. The purpose of this bill is to address many of the long-standing benefit and other policy issues that are a priority to the national veteran service organizations and millions of their members all across our country. The legislation tracks many of the recommendations made in the Independent Budget, IB, for fiscal year 2008. The IB, as it is known, is ``the collaborative effort of a united veteran and health advocacy community that presents policy and budget recommendations on programs administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Labor.'' It is a guide for how this country should treat its veterans. It is written jointly by AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars and supported by over 50 other prominent organizations. I am very happy to have consulted extensively with the Independent Budget authors to craft this legislation. For too many years veterans' needs have been sent to the back of the line in Congress behind tax cuts for the rich and corporate welfare for multinational corporations. This legislation is one step forward in correcting the shortcomings of the way our current system treats veterans. Instead of turning a blind eye to our veterans' needs as has happened often in recent years, this bill begins to say ``thank you'' with real action. The Comprehensive Veterans Benefits Improvements Act makes more than 25 separate changes to veterans' programs ranging from disability payments, to insurance premiums, to grants for disabled veterans to adapt their cars to make them easier to use. We also try to make progress on long standing injustices in the VA and DoD benefit and retirement systems that veterans and their families have fought to correct for years. Among them are: Category 8 Veterans: In January of 2003 the VA announced that it would no longer allow Category 8 veterans to enroll into the VA health care system. The Administration justified this move on the grounds that these are ``higher income'' veterans. The truth, however, is that these veterans can make as little as $27,000 a year. VA estimates that more than 1.5 million category 8 veterans will have been denied enrollment in the VA health care system by fiscal year 2008. This legislation repeals that ban. Concurrent Receipt: As the Military Officers Association of America explains, the Concurrent Receipt or Disabled Veterans' Tax issue exists because of a ``19th century law that required a dollar-for-dollar offset of military retired pay for disability compensation received from the VA . . . Retired pay is earned for a career of uniformed service and VA disability compensation is recompense for pain, suffering and lost future earning power due to service-connected disabilities.'' For that reason veterans should receive both payments and not have one offset the other. This legislation would allow veterans to receive both compensation/pension benefits and retired or retirement pay. Dependency and Indemnity Compensation-Survivor Benefit Plan Offset: Under current law, the survivors of veterans who die as a result of service-connected causes are entitled to compensation known as dependency and indemnity compensation, DIC. In addition, military retirees can have money deducted from their pay to purchase a survivors annuity. This is called the Survivor Benefit Plan, SBP. However, if the military retirees dies from service-connected causes his or her survivors will receive a SBP payment offset dollar for dollar by the amount of the DIC payment they receive. Like the offset between military retiree pay and VA disability payments, this SBP/DIC offset unfairly denies beneficiaries the full amount of 2 programs that are meant to compensate for different loses. This legislation repeals the offset between dependency and indemnity compensation and the Survivor Benefit Plan. Veterans' Claims: We also take a new approach to improving the system for rating claims by creating an agency dedicated to electronically sharing clinical information between the VA and the DoD. For too long these issues have been ignored by the Congress. It is time for that attitude to change. This legislation also amends other benefit programs important to veterans. Over time, Congress and the Department of Veterans Affairs have added many benefits and assistance programs for our Nation's veterans and their families. As with many programs, the benefits did not meet all the needs of our veterans and others also have not been updated in many years rendering many of their benefits much less useful. For example, the IB notes the low level of grants the VA gives severely disabled veterans for adapting their cars: In 1946 the $1,600 allowance represented 85 percent of average retail cost and a sufficient amount to pay the full cost of automobiles in the `low-price field.' By contrast, in 1997 the allowance was $5,500, and the average retail cost of new automobiles, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association, was $21,750. Currently, the $11,000 automobile allowance represents only about 39 percent of the average cost of a new automobile, which is $28,105. This legislation increases this car grant amount to $22,484 and adjusts this amount automatically each year using an average retail car cost index established by the Secretary. This is not the only example of a veterans' benefit being chipped away by inflation. When we look at assistance family members get for burying a loved one we find that the current benefits have not kept up with inflation. As a result, the current benefit of $300 only pays for a small fraction of the costs of a burial. The legislation I am introducing today increases the plot allowance from $300 to $745 and expands the eligibility for the plot allowance for all veterans who would be eligible for burial in a national cemetery, not just those who served during wartime. This section also contains a provision to adjust these payments annually. This legislation contains many other similar corrections and updates, bringing benefits into the 21st Century so that these programs are meaningful again. These are not controversial proposals. These changes are the least we can do to show our appreciation for those who sacrifice for their country. This legislation is attempting to strengthen the current VA system so that it can fully provide for those veterans already in the system and those thousands more returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and all over the world that will soon come to the VA for care. This is just the beginning; one part of a larger effort to honor our veterans and their service. We here in Congress have so much more to do to care for our veterans such as improving mental health care for veterans, Traumatic Brain Injury treatment, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder treatment, transition assistance, polytrauma care, caring for homeless veterans, and eliminating the waiting lines and claims backlogs at the VA. As a parent of a fallen soldier told our Committee, these veterans have survived the war, now ``[w]e've got to help them survive the peace.'' We have much work to do in the Veterans Affairs Committee and I look forward to working under the leadership of Chairman Akaka and the other colleagues on our Committee and in the Senate to make sure that meaningful and substantial veterans' legislation is passed this year. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Yes.

Mr. SANDERS. Yes.

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. SANDERS. Ten minutes would be fine.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me congratulate the Senator for his outstanding leadership on this issue. Let me just pick up right from where he left off. He and I and Senator Snowe and a number of us have been dealing with this issue for many years. My involvement came in 1999, when I took a busload of Vermonters, including many women who were struggling for their lives with breast cancer. Many of those women did not have a lot of money, and they also went across the Canadian border. They also purchased Tamoxifen. In those days, the price they paid was one-tenth the price, one-tenth the price compared to what they were paying in the United States. Here you have women struggling for their lives, who do not have a lot of money, and were paying one-tenth the price. This amendment is a big deal. This amendment will mean that Americans from one end of our country to the other, people with chronic illnesses, senior citizens who run into the doughnut hole, so-called doughnut hole on Medicare Part D, that finally these Americans, our Americans, our people, will no longer continue to be ripped off by the pharmaceutical industry and be forced to pay by far the highest prices in the industrialized world for the same exact medicine which people in Canada, people in Germany, people all over Europe receive at far lower prices--the same medicines, same companies, same factory, except we pay far higher prices. There is very strong support for this legislation. Millions of Americans are already supporting this legislation by getting into their cars and going over the Canadian border. The AARP and other senior organizations support this amendment. My understanding is that the AARP intends to note on their scorecard that a vote for the Cochran amendment--which is clearly a poison pill--is a vote against reimportation. I would urge my colleagues, if you disagree with reimportation, vote no. But a vote for the Cochran amendment is, in fact, a vote no. You have heard from Senator Snowe. You have heard from Senator Dorgan. The arguments over safety are just not accurate. This bill details in great length an entire regimen as to how we can make sure all of the prescription drugs reimported into the United States are safe and FDA approved. I always find it remarkable that every day, huge amounts of imported food are coming into this country. I do not hear a hue and cry about whether that food is inspected. Let me quote from the May 1st New York Times: More than 135 countries ship food items to the United States. Canada, Mexico and China have led the way with China shipping nearly five times as much in food items to the United States as it did in 1996. China is importing more and more food into the United States. Where are the FDA inspectors? Are they all over the farms in China making sure these products are safe? I have not heard one word about that issue. This legislation has built in the strongest prescription drug safety regimen we have ever seen. Let me tell you what this debate is really about. It is not about prescription drug safety. It is about the power of the pharmaceutical industry, which in a city that has enormously powerful special interests, we have the pharmaceutical industry standing uniquely alone as the most important, if you will, and, in my view, greedy lobby in the entire United States of America. Here it is. Do you want to know what the issue is? Here it is: pharmaceutical industry lobbying. From 1998 to 2006 they spent $1.1 billion for lobbying; 1998 to 2006, $1.1 billion in lobbying. The pharmaceutical industry has over 1,000 well-paid lobbyists right here on Capitol Hill: former heads of the Republican Party, former leaders in the Democratic Party. Whenever anybody stands up for justice, whenever anybody stands up to try to lower the cost of prescription drugs in this country so that the American people can afford these lifesaving medicines, these lobbyists descend like locusts on all of our offices in the Senate, in the House. That is what they do. It is not just the amount of money they spend on lobbying. They spend a substantial amount of money on campaign contributions: From 1990 to 2006, $139 million in campaign contributions; 2006 alone, $19 million. That is power. What this debate is about is not just the need to lower the cost of prescription drugs in America, as important as that is. What this debate is more significantly about is whether the Congress of the United States has the courage to stand up to the greediest, most powerful special interests in this country. In November the American people went to the polls. They said they want a change in the direction in which this country is moving. Clearly, that election had a lot to do with Iraq. It certainly did. It had a lot to do with global warming, I believe. But it also, in any view, had a lot to do with the understanding that year after year wealthy and powerful special interests have dictated the terms of the debate, have paid for the legislation which has come through the Senate and through the House. The drug companies have managed to do something rather amazing. Virtually all of the Members of the Senate and the House look at economic issues through two lenses. No. 1, in order to protect consumers, we say: Let there be free market competition. That is the way to lower the costs of the product. And there is truth to that. The other way that we can protect consumers is through Government regulation. There is certainly truth to that. What the pharmaceutical industry has managed to do is tell us we cannot regulate the pharmaceutical companies. We cannot have Medicare negotiating lower prices with the drug companies. We cannot do that. They have given us all kinds of reasons we cannot do that. Then they have told us, well, we also cannot do free market competition: No, you cannot have the local druggist going out and purchasing the product at the best price that he can get, maybe in Canada, maybe Europe. You can't do that. You cannot have regulation. You cannot have free market competition. Then, on top of all of that, what the drug companies have managed to do is get many billions of dollars in corporate welfare, so the taxpayers of this country subsidize the research and development of many of the most important drugs, while the consumers, the American consumers, get no reasonable pricing despite the many billions of dollars that go into research and development that were paid for by them. The drug companies get it all. That is what they get. At the end of the day, year after year after year, they are one of the most profitable industries in this country. They are very profitable, and elderly people and working people all over this country find it harder and harder to pay for the prescription drugs they desperately need. Let us stand with the people. Let's defeat the Cochran amendment and pass the Dorgan amendment.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the debate we are now having is an extraordinarily important debate; in fact, it will be one of the most important votes we will be casting this year. This vote is about whether we stand with the American people, millions of whom are having a very difficult time paying their prescription drug bills or whether we stand with the most powerful and greedy lobby on Capitol Hill, and that is the pharmaceutical industry which has spent extraordinary sums of money to make sure the American people pay outrageously high prices for the medicine they desperately need. I wish to briefly examine a chart which talks about the very high profit margin of the pharmaceutical industry. One of the reasons why the pharmaceutical industry can spend so much money on lobbying, on campaign contributions, on advertising is because of the profits they make year after year. In 2004, drug companies ranked as the third most profitable industry in the United States with a 15.8-percent profit margin, which is about three times higher than the profitability of a median Fortune 500 company, which is at about 5.3 percent. This is in 2004. This comes from the Kaiser Foundation. What we can also see, and what this chart tells us, is the extraordinary profits the drug companies are making from particular drugs. Epogen is the drug. Amgen is the company with profits of $2.5 billion. Taxol is the drug; the firm is Bristol-Myers Squibb, $2.1 billion for one drug, and on it goes. They are profitable year after year. The pharmaceutical industry continues to be one of the most profitable industries in this country. I have another chart. One of the issues I look forward to discussing with Members of the Senate is the fact that as taxpayers in our country, we contribute billions and billions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health, the universities, the foundations for the very noble and important purpose all of us support: to create drugs that will address the major illnesses facing us, whether it is cancer, diabetes, AIDS, whatever it may be. We have spent billions and billions of taxpayers' dollars in a sense subsidizing the drug companies and, in fact, taxpayers do not get any reasonable price returns from them. We just give them the money. Here is an example. Taxol is a very important and widely used medicine. According to a 2003 GAO report, the NIH spent $484 million on research for Taxol, Bristol-Myers Squibb spent $1 billion and subsequently earned $9 billion in profits. In other words, American taxpayers are paying twice: once in the form of underwriting pharmaceutical research and the second time in the form of monopoly prices. When we talk about the drug companies, we should also deal with the issue they often bring up. PhRMA is a very powerful lobbying group, the most powerful trade group on Capitol Hill. What they tell us is they need these very high prices, they need all of the taxpayers' money because they are putting all of that into research and development. Don't we all want new drugs for diabetes, cancer, AIDS, and a dozen other terrible illnesses? This chart tells us something a little bit different. This chart tells us the pharmaceutical industry spends far more for marketing--and goodness knows we have seen their ads on television over and over again, and guess who is paying for those ads. We are, in terms of high prices for the drugs, far more for marketing than for research and development. Let me get back to the thrust of what this debate is all about, and let me be very clear. As I mentioned a little while ago, the Cochran amendment is a poison pill. If anyone is serious about prescription drug reimportation, if people are serious about lowering the cost of prescription drugs from 25 to 50 percent, if people are serious about standing up for consumers in this country, they will vote against the Cochran amendment. So that no Senator has any doubt about what is going on, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a Statement of Administration Policy, dated May 1, 2007, from the President's office, and I will quote from the bottom of page 2, where there it is in black and white. This is a two-page letter. It says: As a result, if any such importation provision were included in the final version of the bill presented to the President, the President's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, the first flaw Secretary Shalala identified was the lack of any requirement that the drug manufacturers give importers permission to use the FDA-approved labeling for imported medicines. The Dorgan amendment addresses that concern. The second flaw identified by Secretary Shalala was the lack of any ban on drug companies discriminating against foreign companies that export medicines to the United States. The Dorgan amendment addresses that concern. The third flaw identified by Secretary Shalala was the 5-year sunset in that version of the bill. That sunset would limit the public benefit from the investment the public would be making to put a safe reimportation system in place. In other words, she was saying, why should we go through all this effort if we are to only have a 5-year process. The Dorgan amendment addresses that concern. Finally, the Secretary noted the absence of a long-term income stream to fund enforcement of the reimportation system. The Dorgan amendment addresses that concern. In short, to characterize Secretary Shalala's letter as one that says reimportation is unsafe is to mischaracterize the essence of that letter. What Secretary Shalala was critical of was poison pills, what she called ``flaws and loopholes'' that were put in, or allowed to remain in the bill at the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry so they could defeat reimportation. I have been involved in this issue for a long time, and that is what the drug companies do. Every day there is another reason why we can't go forward to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Every day there is another reason why we have to pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. We have 1,200 lobbyists, no doubt many of them running around right now knocking on doors, to make sure our people continue to pay the highest prices in the world. Secretary Shalala wrote in her letter that she, in fact, hoped Congress would fix the flaws and close the loopholes in that 2000 legislation of 7 years ago, and this is what she wrote to President Clinton: Mr. President, the changes to the reimportation legislation that we have proposed can and should be enacted by the Congress next year. In other words, in 2001. Let me repeat that. Secretary Shalala wrote to President Clinton: Mr. President, the changes to the reimportation legislation that we have proposed can and should be enacted by the Congress next year. Unfortunately, it has taken 7 years of work to bring us to where we are today. This should have been done years ago. Under the Republican leadership, there was no question we could not get to first base on reimportation. I hope things have changed now. Let me conclude by saying that anyone who comes up here and says they are for reimportation but they are voting for the Cochran amendment is in fact not for reimportation. Anybody who comes up here and says, well, even the Clinton administration said we could not do that, I am afraid also that is not accurate and I think they are quoting Secretary Shalala, who was then Secretary of Health and Human Services, out of context. As I have mentioned before, I have been through these battles with the drug companies before. There is nothing the pharmaceutical industry will not do--nothing--in order to make sure they remain one of the most profitable industries in America. They will say anything, do anything, and put any kind of pressure they can on Members of the Senate or Members of the House. Today, we have an opportunity to do something important. For many years there was growing concern in this country about a do-nothing Congress, about a Congress that was worried far more about the wealthy and the powerful than the needs of ordinary Americans. The elections in November have changed that. We have new leadership here. I hope very much that under this new leadership we will all summon up the courage to stand up to the drug companies, the most powerful, the most greedy lobby and industry right here on Capitol Hill, and that we will go forward and we will pass this legislation to lower the cost of prescription drugs for all Americans. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the Cochran amendment. We should be very clear. For anybody who is interested in prescription drug reimportation, for anybody who is interested in lowering the cost of prescription drugs in this country from 25 to 50 percent, for anybody who is interested in standing up for the working families of this country who are getting ripped off every day by outrageously high prescription drug costs, the Cochran amendment is a poison pill. To vote for the Cochran amendment is to vote against prescription drug reimportation; it is to kill the Dorgan amendment. The idea of asking permission from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, from the Bush administration, who have already gone on record rather firmly and decisively in opposition to reimportation, is to simply mask your vote. The Bush administration represents the pharmaceutical industry. They will kill prescription drug reimportation. To ask their permission to go forward is simply to kill prescription drug reimportation. So anyone who is serious about lowering the cost of prescription drugs will not be supporting the Cochran amendment. The unfortunate reality is, in the United States of America we continue to pay, by far--it is not even close--the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Because of the escalating cost of medicines, many of our fellow Americans, many working people, many people with chronic health problems, simply do not get their prescriptions filled. I am sure in Montana the experience is the same as it is in Vermont. People tell me they walk into the drugstore and cannot believe the prices they are being charged. They can't afford those prices. I have talked to pharmacists, as I suspect the Chair has as well, who have been embarrassed. They have seen tears coming out of people's eyes when they have told them the cost of their medicine. Meanwhile, as a result of the power of the pharmaceutical industry, we have the highest prices in the world, and those prices are rising every single day. In fact, tomorrow, if an American walks into a pharmacy and the pharmacist says to that person: I am sorry to have to tell you this, but the cost of your medicine went up 50 percent, or 75 percent, we can do nothing about it. Unlike the rest of the industrialized world--Canada, Europe--where they understand prescription drugs are an integral part of a whole strategy regarding health care, we let the drug companies do anything they want to do. As the first Member of Congress to take constituents across the Canadian border to enable them to pay substantially lower prices than they were paying in the United States, I have seen firsthand what it means to people's lives when they get the drugs they need at a price they can afford. I will never forget--never forget--when in 1999 I brought a busload of Vermonters over the Canadian border. Many of the women there were struggling with breast cancer, fighting for their lives, and they didn't have a whole lot of money. They went to Montreal and purchased Tamoxifen, a widely prescribed breast cancer drug, which at that time--at that time--was one-tenth the price they were paying in the United States. Imagine that. Fighting for your life, not having a lot of money, and needing a drug. Suddenly, they looked at the price they were paying and they literally could not believe it. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a chart which compares prices in the year 2005--so the prices may be different today, but as of April 2005, a price comparison between United States prices and Canadian prices, and United States prices and German prices.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague from North Dakota for the extraordinary and comprehensive outline of this issue that he has made not only today but in the past. Mr. President, every single day in this Congress, and throughout America, people sit down and eat their lettuce and tomato and their salads. Their tomatoes come from Mexico, Latin America, and their lettuce comes from Latin America. Other foods they eat come from as far away as China. Billions of dollars of food imports come into this country, but I don't hear anybody in this body standing up and saying, oh, we have a problem about food safety or food coming from other countries. They come in. There is a problem--and I don't hear it too often here, but somehow the U.S. Government, with the FDA, cannot regulate a small number of drug companies so that we can safely bring in prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries so that, as a result, we can substantially lower the cost of medicine for millions and millions of Americans. This is absurd. Of course, we can safely regulate the flow of medicine coming into this country. The real issue is not the safety of medicine. The real issue is the power of the pharmaceutical industry, the most powerful industry in terms of lobbying impact in the United States of America. If you think the oil companies are powerful, take a look at the drug companies. If you think the banks are powerful, take a look at the drug companies. Today, we are living under a Medicare Part D prescription drug program that was written by the drug companies, for the drug companies. Today, billions of dollars of taxpayer money goes into research and development for new medicines that go to benefit the drug companies, while the American people do not get reasonable prices for the products they help to produce. Mr. President, since 1998, the pharmaceutical industry has spent over $900 million on lobbying activity--$900 million. That is more than any other industry. Today, there are over 1,200 prescription drug lobbyists right here on Capitol Hill and throughout this country. Do you know what their job is? Their job is to make sure in the United States of America we continue to pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for the medicine we use. If you have a chronic illness, there is a strong likelihood you will be paying two times as much for the same medicine as our friends in Canada or Europe pay. Why is it that the same medicine, manufactured in the same factory, costs us, in some cases two times, and in some cases three times, as much money as it costs our Canadian and European friends? The answer is pretty simple. It has everything to do with the power of the pharmaceutical industry and the enormous amounts of money they spend on lobbying, on campaign contributions, on advertising, and the pressure they put on Members of the United States Congress. Mr. President, I have been involved in this issue for a number of years. I have been involved in it in an emotional way because I was the first Member of Congress to take constituents over the Canadian border to purchase, in that case Tamoxifen, which is a widely prescribed breast cancer drug that ended up costing Vermont women one-tenth the price they had to pay in the United States. In our country today, there are people struggling very hard with terrible illnesses who have no health insurance and who need their prescription drugs. Some of them simply cannot purchase their prescription drugs. Some are taking money out of their food budget to buy their prescription drugs. We are a great nation in many respects. But the time is long overdue for Members of the Senate, for Members of the House, to reclaim this institution from the powerful special interests. Today is a day of reckoning. This is very important legislation. This can drive the price of prescription drugs down by 25 to 50 percent. Let's stand together and, for those Members who are wavering on the issue, who think they cannot vote for it, I hope at least they will support cloture to allow us to continue this debate and to finally lower the cost of prescription drugs for the American people.

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

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me talk about a few of the drugs. Actos is a drug for diabetes. As of 2005, in the United States, the price of that drug was $116. For the same number of pills and the same milligrams, it was $50.62 in Germany. Twice the price--same product, same company, same factory, but less than half the price in Germany. For Celexa, a drug for depression, it was $85 in the United States and $35 in Germany. Same company, same product. Clarinex was $77 in the United States and $38 in Germany. On and on it goes--sometimes more, sometimes less but often half the price in Germany, and different prices in Canada but often the same end result. The very simple question the Members of the Senate have to ask themselves is: Why is it that in the United States we have to pay the highest prices in the world for our medicine? Why is it that at a moment in history when we are eating food products from farms in Mexico and in Latin America, produced in China, and they are coming to our kitchen tables today, why is it that anybody here can say with a straight face it is OK for products all over the world to come into this country from tens of thousands of farms, but in terms of a handful of major drug companies, somehow we cannot regulate the flow of those medicines from Canada, for goodness' sake, into the United States? Give me a break. That argument is so totally absurd as to be almost beyond the laugh test. This debate has nothing to do with drug safety. All of us are concerned about drug safety, and the Dorgan amendment has page after page after page of regulations making sure the FDA-approved medicines that come into our country will be safe. What saddens me very much is that in many ways the American people have given up on this issue in terms of the ability of their own government to act, and they have taken matters into their own hands. I don't know what goes on in Montana, but in the State of Vermont thousands of people in our State go over the Canadian border. They go to the Canadian drugstores and buy the products they need. It is not a big deal, and they save substantial sums of money. There was an estimate a few years ago, and I don't know what those numbers are today, but there was an estimate several years ago that about 2 million Americans were buying their medicine in Canada. What the Dorgan amendment is about is simply saying that it is a little bit absurd for Americans to have to get in their cars and drive to Canada to get the drugs they need; that it might make more sense for our pharmacists to be able to purchase that medicine, our prescription drug distributors to be able to purchase that medicine so, in fact, Americans could take advantage of the lower prices at their own local drugstore. That is what we want to do. We don't want all of America to have to go to Canada or Germany to buy reasonably priced medicine. We want those products sold in this country at an affordable price. I think many Americans are wondering: Well, how does it happen that a product made by an American drug company--at a time when the taxpayers of this country, by the way, spend billions of dollars in research and development for drugs that go to the drug companies--that in the midst of all this, how does it happen that we pay two or three times as much as our neighbors in Canada or our friends in Germany or throughout Europe? How does that happen? Well, the answer is pretty simple. The answer is pretty simple. The answer has everything to do with the way we do politics in this country and the enormous power of large multinational corporations and the enormous power of lobbyists who represent those corporations. Let me quote from a Washington Post article of Friday, January 12, 2007. It is a front page article. This is what it says. This is January 12, 2007: This month alone [i.e. January] the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America [PhRMA] spent more than $1 million on full-page newspaper ads touting the success of the existing Medicare drug system. Drug companies spent more on lobbying than any other industry between 1998 and 2005--$900 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. They donated a total of $89.9 million in the same period to Federal candidates and party committees, nearly three-quarters of it to Republicans. ``You can hardly swing a cat by the tail in Washington without hitting a pharmaceutical lobbyist,'' said Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, a key sponsor of the 2003 legislation that created the current program. That is what we are dealing with today, and we should not kid ourselves. The pharmaceutical industry, year after year, turns out to be one of the more financially successful industries in our country. According to Fortune magazine, the top 19 pharmaceutical companies in 2005 made $42.1 billion in profit; in 2004 the profit margin was almost 16 percent, three times higher than the average Fortune 500 company. That is what you have. We have a situation where millions of Americans are struggling to pay their prescription drug costs. We have a situation where many Americans simply cannot afford the medicine they desperately need. We have a pharmaceutical industry which, year after year, enjoys some of the highest profits of any industry in this country. We have an industry which pays its CEOs very exorbitant salaries. We have an industry which has an estimated 1,200 paid lobbyists in this country, many of them former leaders of the Republican and Democratic Parties. We have an industry that makes huge amounts of campaign contributions. We end up with a situation in which we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Senator Dorgan quoted a study from the CBO, I believe it was, that suggests we could save some $50 billion over a 5-year period if we move to prescription drug reimportation. In this body we have people who get up every day and tell us how wonderful they perceive unfettered free trade to be. It is not a problem when American workers are thrown out on the street because factories are moved to China where people are paid 30 cents an hour; hey, that is part of the global economy. No problem there. There is no problem when food comes into this country from China and our farmers lose money. No problem. That is part of the global economy. But somehow, amazingly enough, when an aspect of free trade works for the average American and not for a large multinational corporation, suddenly we do not like unfettered free trade. Suddenly we cannot reimport prescription drugs from Canada--from Canada, which neighbors us, obviously--from a handful of drug companies. We cannot do that. I think that argument is very absurd. Let me conclude. A vote for the Cochran amendment is a vote to kill prescription drug reimportation, pure and simple. The Bush administration has said they will not go forward with reimportation. Let us defeat the Cochran amendment. Let us pass the Dorgan amendment. Let us lower prescription drug costs in this country by 25 percent to 50 percent. Perhaps even more important, let us show the American people that the Congress has the courage to stand up to the most wealthy and powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, there is not much I can add to the brilliant remarks made by Senator Dorgan. I think he, in a very comprehensive manner, made clear why the Senate and this country should move to prescription drug reimportation. I think he very ably answered the objections that we know are sure to come and made the case as well as could be made. I want to touch on some personal reflections on this issue. Some years ago, as the Congressman then from the State of Vermont--and I live an hour and a half away from the Canadian border. My State borders Canada. Some years ago, I put together what, in fact, turns out to be the very first bus trip to take constituents over the Canadian border to buy low-cost prescription drugs. All of us have days which are transformative where something happens we will never forget, and that is the day I will never forget. On that day we took a busload of Vermonters, mostly women, many of the women struggling with breast cancer. We went from St. Albans, VT, to Montreal, Canada. I will never forget the look on the faces of those women who were struggling for their lives when they bought breast cancer medicine at 10 percent of the cost they were paying in the State of Vermont. The drug was Tamoxifen, a widely prescribed drug for those people who are struggling with breast cancer. These women walked in fighting for their lives, many of whom did not have a lot of money. They walked in there and they could not believe, literally could not believe, the cost of that medicine which they needed to keep them alive. At that moment some years ago--it may well have changed since then--the cost was one-tenth what it was in the United States of America. The question is a very simple question: How do you have a drug manufactured by a company, manufactured in the same factory, put in the same bottles, sold in Canada, in some cases for one-tenth the price that same medicine is sold in the United States of America? How possibly can that happen? Now, as it occurs, I am not a great fan of unfettered free trade. I have very serious concerns about what our trade policy is doing in terms of throwing American workers out on the street, moving plants to China and other low-wage countries. But I am always amazed that on the floor of Congress, when it comes to representing the interests of multinational corporations, people are always speaking about how great unfettered free trade is; it is not a problem; American workers going down the street; workers in China paid 30 cents an hour. That is okay. That is part of globalization. Well, why isn't it part of globalization that prescription drug distributors and pharmacists can pick up FDA safety-approved medicine at a fraction of the price they are currently forced to pay, and lower the cost of prescription drugs in this country very substantially? Why is that not a process of globalization that every Member of the Senate should be supporting? We should not kid ourselves as to what this debate is about. I think most Americans understand that large multinational corporations have enormous power over the Congress. You have big oil running up recordbreaking profits, receiving tax breaks and corporate welfare. You have credit card companies with tremendous power over what goes on in Congress, able to charge Americans 25, 28 percent usurious interest rates. You have insurance companies blocking national health care efforts so all of our American people can have health care as a right of citizenship. But at the top of the list of powerful, greedy special interests, at the top of that list, that very impressive list, stands the pharmaceutical industry. They are at the top. So when you talk about powerful interests, look at the pharmaceutical industry and the impact and the power they have in terms of what goes on here in Congress. Since 1998, the pharmaceutical industry has spent over $900 million on lobbying activities; $900 million since 1998. That is more than any other industry in the United States of America. It is hard to believe, but there are now over 1,200 prescription drug lobbyists right here in America, many of them right here on Capitol Hill. That amounts to more than two lobbyists for every Member of the House and the Senate. They have us well covered. These people are paid top dollar as lobbyists. These are former leaders of the Republican Party, former leaders of the Democratic Party. Let me tell you, they are hard at work today. They will be hard at work tomorrow. What they have done successfully, year after year after year, is when an effort comes up in the House and an effort comes up in the Senate, they descend like locusts into the offices of Members of Congress and say: Don't vote for change. Keep the status quo alive. Make sure the American people continue to pay the highest prices for medicine in the entire world. Since 2000--I don't know if you are supposed to talk about these things on the floor of the Senate. I will. Since the year 2000, the pharmaceutical companies have contributed almost $250 million in campaign contributions. Let me repeat that. Since the year 2000, the pharmaceutical companies have contributed almost $250 million in campaign contributions. What this debate is about is not just whether we are going to lower the cost of medicine in this country and save billions and billions of dollars for the consumers of our country, for people with acute and chronic illnesses, for our seniors; it is also about whether the Congress of the United States is, in fact, prepared to stand up to the most powerful, the greediest special interest in the United States of America. In my view, the time is long overdue for us to begin to make some fundamental changes in our prescription drug policies in this country. The time is long overdue for us to lower the price of medicine for our people, which not only will help people, of course, pay for their prescription drugs, it will lower the entire cost of health care in the United States. We spend far more money per capita on health care than does any other country on Earth. If we lower the cost of prescription drugs, we will have an impact on that. Tomorrow I will be speaking at greater length on this issue, but I think the arguments are so clear that prescription drug reimportation makes sense. The idea, as Senator Dorgan has mentioned, that somehow we can import tomatoes and lettuce from farms in Mexico and in Latin America, that is okay, but we cannot reimport prescription drugs from Canada with FDA regulations, that is impossible, makes sense to nobody at all. Food coming in from China, no problem; FDA-regulated prescription drugs coming from Canada, oh, my word, it can't be done. Give me a break. Of course, it can be done. What this issue is about is not drug safety. What this issue is about is the profits of the pharmaceutical industry and the enormous power they have over Congress. Now is the time for us to say to the drug companies: You have dominated what goes on year after year after year. You, in the drug industry, wrote the prescription drug Medicare bill. You have resisted year after year every effort to reform how we price medicine in the United States. Maybe the year 2007 might be the moment in which Members of Congress have the courage to stand up and say enough is enough. Let's support the men and women and children, the seniors of our country. Let's lower the cost of prescription drugs. Let's pass prescription drug reimportation. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I very much thank my friend from Alabama and my friend from Connecticut. We look forward to working with you. Mr. President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I yield to my friend from Alabama.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, if my friend will yield briefly, Senator Baucus is a cosponsor of this legislation, along with Senator Leahy and Senator Lincoln. Mr. President, I yield back to the Senator.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I intended to have considered an amendment I have offered, which is a very important amendment, which would provide assistance from the Department of Commerce to workers, to employees who want to move forward in terms of ESOPs, employee stock ownership plans. At a time when we are losing millions of good-paying blue-collar manufacturing jobs, white-collar information technology jobs, it seems to me that the ESOP concept, the worker-ownership concept, is, in fact, an important model the U.S. Government should be exploring in terms of how we help those workers purchase their own companies and keep jobs in the United States of America. I understand there is a problem with jurisdiction. The chairman and ranking member of the Banking Committee would like to work with me on this issue. I think we would like to go forward in terms of holding hearings and then coming forward with some legislation, which seems to me to be a sensible idea. What I would like to do is, if I could, yield to the chairman of the Banking Committee, Mr. Dodd, and then maybe to Ranking Member Shelby.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Power Act of 2007. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record. This legislation is modeled after legislation spearheaded by my predecessor and ardent protector of the environment and the public health, Senator Jim Jeffords. I am proud to sit on the Environment and Public Works Committee that was under his leadership for a time, and I am also honored to be a member of another Committee of significant importance, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Clean Power Act of 2007 gets to a problem on the minds of those in the northeast, who suffer insults to their health and their environment in the form of dirty air and polluted lakes, as well as those all across the country who want to see power plants shape up their act. This legislation will help clean the air and reduce global warming pollution by dramatically reducing the four major pollutants emitted by power plants--carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury. Congress must work toward an economy-wide approach to addressing global warming, along the lines of the legislation I introduced with Senator Boxer and others: S. 309, the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. However, power plants should begin reducing their greenhouse gas emissions now, at the same time they are reducing emissions of other air pollutants. The Clean Power Act of 2007 would set this process in motion by using a cap and trade approach for reducing carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide emissions. Additionally, the legislation makes specific linkages to an economy- wide reduction of pollutants responsible for global warming by specifying that if Congress has not passed, and the President has not signed, legislation affecting at least 85 percent of manmade sources of global warming pollutants by 2012, that the emissions from power plants must be decreased each year by 3 percent until atmospheric concentrations of global warming pollutants are stabilized at 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent. So, while I am putting forward this power plant only bill today, let it be clear that I remain firm in my belief that we must tackle the problem of global warming in a way that will actually make a difference to the future of the planet. I am happy to be joined in introducing this legislation by Senator Lieberman, Senator Leahy, and Senator Feingold. Additionally, I am glad to have the support of many national organizations, including the Clean Air Task Force, National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense, National Environmental Trust, the American Lung Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, and U.S. PIRG. As we move forward to address global warming and to protect current and future generations, dealing with power plant emissions is a good start. I look forward to gaining the support of my colleagues on this important legislation.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by commending the distinguished majority leader, Senator Reid, for introducing S. 761, the America COMPETES Act, and bringing it to the floor, along with the minority leader, Senator McConnell, Senator Bingaman, Senator Domenici, and a number of other Senators in a true spirit of bipartisanship. There is no question the Congress has to do a better job in making sure the United States is able to compete in the global economy. The America COMPETES Act will begin to accomplish this important undertaking by doubling the investment in basic research at the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science in the next 5 to 10 years. I am also pleased this bill will improve teacher training in math and science and help low-income students succeed in college preparatory courses. I applaud these provisions and thank my colleagues for working on this important piece of legislation. But in my opinion, if we truly want to provide the tools necessary for American workers to compete in the global economy, much more needs to be done. That is why I will be offering this amendment, which I hope will attract bipartisan support. This amendment is simple and it is straightforward. At a time when the United States has lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, at a time when we are on the cusp of losing millions more of high-paying information technology jobs, this amendment would begin to reverse that trend by providing employees with the resources they need to own their own businesses through employee stock ownership plans and eligible worker-owned cooperatives. Specifically, this amendment would authorize $100 million to create a U.S. employee ownership competitiveness fund within the Department of Commerce to provide loans, loan guarantees, technical assistance, and grants to expand employee ownership throughout this country. Why is it so important for the Senate to provide incentives to expand employee ownership in this country? The answer is pretty simple: Employee ownership is one of the keys to creating a sustainable economy with jobs that pay a living wage. This amendment has the strong support of the ESOP Association, a nonprofit organization serving approximately 2,500 employee stock ownership plans throughout the country. Let me quote from a letter they recently sent to my office: Your amendment is a modest first step in awakening our government to the fact that in the 21st Century the inclusion of employees as owners of the companies where they work in a meaningful manner should be a key component of any national competitiveness program. If the Senate adopts your amendment and it eventually becomes law, we assure you that the ESOP community will work constructively to ensure that the loan and grant program you propose works effectively to benefit the employee owners, the employee-owned companies, and our American economy. The concept of an ESOP or a worker-owned company is not a radical idea. Not only are there some 11,000 ESOPs in our country, but there are some major corporations that everybody is very familiar with, including Procter & Gamble and Anheuser-Busch, that are also ESOPs. Interestingly, the Tribune Company, one of the major publishers in America, is in the process of becoming a 60-percent employee-owned company. Every day we read in the papers about plants that are being moved to China, Mexico, and a number of other low-wage countries. Since a number of these factories were making profits, they were doing well in the United States. Shutting them down was unnecessary and could have been avoided if these plants were sold to their employees through ESOPs, or worker-owned cooperatives. In other words, in my State, the State of Vermont, and throughout this country, there are companies, large and small, that are making a profit where owners--who may be retiring, who started a company and now they are retiring--want to be able to leave their companies to their employees if these workers had the resources, if they had the technical assistance and legal advice to know how to put together that transaction--which in many cases is pretty complicated. Further, study after study has shown when employees own their own companies, when they work for themselves, when they are involved in the decisionmaking that impacts their jobs, workers become more motivated, absenteeism goes down, worker productivity goes up, and people stay on the job for a longer period of time because they are proud of and involved with what they are doing. Most important to the communities throughout this country is when workers own the place in which they work, shock of all shocks, they are not going to shut it down and move the plant to China. Since 2000, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost 3.2 million good- paying manufacturing jobs. Put another way, since President Bush was elected President, this country has seen one out of every six factory jobs disappear--one out of every six. In addition, the Associated Press recently reported a study by Moody's which found: ``16 percent of the nation's 379 metropolitan areas are in recession, reflecting primarily the troubles in manufacturing.'' I suspect this problem is even worse in rural areas in my own small State of Vermont. We have lost about 20 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the last 5 years. Let me give an example of some of the jobs we have been losing as a country and why, in fact, we need to be competitive and why, in fact, we need to encourage ESOPs and worker- owned industry. From 2001 to 2006, the United States of America has experienced a loss of 42 percent of our communication equipment jobs, 37 percent of our jobs have been lost in the manufacture of semiconductors and electronic components, 43 percent of our textile jobs have disappeared, and about half of our apparel jobs have vanished. Not only are we losing good-paying manufacturing jobs, we are also losing high-paying information technology jobs. While the loss of manufacturing jobs has been well documented, it may come as a surprise to some that from January of 2001 to January of 2006, the information sector of the American economy lost over 640,000 jobs, or more than 17 percent of its workforce. The trends there are pretty ominous. Alan Blinder, the former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has recently concluded that between 30 million to 40 million jobs in the United States are vulnerable to overseas outsourcing over the next 10 to 20 years. While, of course, we have to invest in math and science, of course, we have to educate our students as best we can, we cannot ignore the significant impact globalization is having on our blue-collar factory jobs and on our white-collar information technology jobs. Today there are some 11,000 employee stock ownership plans, hundreds of worker-owned cooperatives, and thousands of other companies with some form of employee ownership. Many of them are thriving. In fact, employee ownership has been proven to increase employment, increase productivity, increase sales, and increase wages in the United States. Yet despite the important role that worker ownership can play in revitalizing our economy, the Federal Government has failed to commit the resources needed to allow employee ownership to realize its true potential, and that is why this amendment is so important. While this issue may be new to this bill, I have actually been working on it for several years. In the House, when I was the ranking member of the Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, I was able to hold a hearing on this issue nearly 4 years ago and we had some wonderful testimony. I fear in the next 10 to 20 years, if we do not change course, there will not be a major automobile industry in this country. We must not allow that to happen. We must protect good-paying jobs in this country. I believe employee ownership may be one of the ways we can keep good- paying jobs in America. Let me conclude by saying in my opinion it would be much more important to provide this assistance to employees who could be creating and retaining jobs right here in the United States by the expansion of employee ownership. This is a very important issue. There is a lot of excitement all over the country about it. Let us protect American jobs. Let us give working people in this country the opportunity to own the places in which they are working. Let us make this country more economically competitive. I very much hope my colleagues will be supporting this amendment when it is offered. I yield the floor.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I wish to discuss an amendment, amendment No. 936, which I have filed to this bill. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add the following Senators as cosponsors of this amendment: Senator Baucus, Senator Leahy, and Senator Lincoln.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Power Act of 2007. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Record. This legislation is modeled after legislation spearheaded by my predecessor and ardent protector of the environment and the public health, Senator Jim Jeffords. I am proud to sit on the Environment and Public Works Committee that was under his leadership for a time, and I am also honored to be a member of another Committee of significant importance, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Clean Power Act of 2007 gets to a problem on the minds of those in the northeast, who suffer insults to their health and their environment in the form of dirty air and polluted lakes, as well as those all across the country who want to see power plants shape up their act. This legislation will help clean the air and reduce global warming pollution by dramatically reducing the four major pollutants emitted by power plants--carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and mercury. Congress must work toward an economy-wide approach to addressing global warming, along the lines of the legislation I introduced with Senator Boxer and others: S. 309, the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. However, power plants should begin reducing their greenhouse gas emissions now, at the same time they are reducing emissions of other air pollutants. The Clean Power Act of 2007 would set this process in motion by using a cap and trade approach for reducing carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and sulfur dioxide emissions. Additionally, the legislation makes specific linkages to an economy- wide reduction of pollutants responsible for global warming by specifying that if Congress has not passed, and the President has not signed, legislation affecting at least 85 percent of manmade sources of global warming pollutants by 2012, that the emissions from power plants must be decreased each year by 3 percent until atmospheric concentrations of global warming pollutants are stabilized at 450 parts per million carbon dioxide equivalent. So, while I am putting forward this power plant only bill today, let it be clear that I remain firm in my belief that we must tackle the problem of global warming in a way that will actually make a difference to the future of the planet. I am happy to be joined in introducing this legislation by Senator Lieberman, Senator Leahy, and Senator Feingold. Additionally, I am glad to have the support of many national organizations, including the Clean Air Task Force, National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense, National Environmental Trust, the American Lung Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, and U.S. PIRG. As we move forward to address global warming and to protect current and future generations, dealing with power plant emissions is a good start. I look forward to gaining the support of my colleagues on this important legislation.

Mr. SANDERS

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