Bernie Sanders

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Just to set the record straight, my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Doyle) a moment ago talked about the energy efficiency programs going up. That is true in recent years, but in 1995 it was budgeted at $215 million. Today it is at $120 million; a huge decline in funding.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS. But the gentleman knows that Senator Lott has declared that supplemental dead on arrival, and what we are looking at is $15 million less.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman made the point that the committee had increased funding from $135 to $139 million. What the gentleman is talking about is the money that was included in the supplemental.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, that is the CBO, 1999. Mr. Chairman, I can well understand why some of my friends from various States are here to defend this program. I can understand that. The reality is that unlike the weatherization program, which is well distributed to all 50 States, the lion's share of fossil fuel research money goes to relatively few States. In fact, over 50 percent of the designated funds goes to four States, while 38 percent of that money goes to two States. This amendment is good environmental policy, it is good public policy, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes on this amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. I would just point out that all the environmental groups support the amendment.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, just out of respect here, some of us have been sitting here and have amendments that are coming down the pike.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I really was not trying to be partisan. My colleague can attack Clinton and so forth. The only point that I was making, and I did not mean to be partisan, I only meant to record for the Record what the Republicans in 1997 said. And I think what they said was appropriate.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), if I might, he is, of course, a Republican; and I would imagine that he is familiar with the 1997 Republican budget resolution which touched on this issue. So let me quote it for him. This is from the Republican budget resolution of 1997: ``The Department of Energy has spent billions of dollars on research and development since the oil crisis in 1973 triggered this activity. Returns on this investment have not been cost effective, particularly for applied research and development, which industry has ample incentive to undertake.'' I think that is the point that the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is trying to make. Some of this activity is simply corporate welfare for the oil, gas, and utility industries. Much of it duplicates what industry is already doing. Some has gone to fund technology in which the market has no interest. That is not me. That is the Republican budget resolution of 1997 regarding the Fossil Fuel Energy Research and Development Program. I do not often agree with the Republican budgeteers, but I think on this one they are right.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, there is no argument with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) in the sense that we all want to be energy independent and that we want lower prices. No one is arguing about that. I think the question is that we have an oil industry which some believe is already rigging the game and artificially raising prices; we have an oil industry today that makes billions and billions of dollars in profits. And some of us would ask, why are they not investing heavily into making more oil efficiently.

Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would simply say that, while we all want energy efficiency, providing corporate welfare to some of the largest and most profitable corporations in this country is not the way to go. In a few moments, perhaps, I will be introducing legislation which increases funds for weatherization. Making homes of low-income and working people's homes more energy efficient is a lot better way.

Mr. SANDERS

Mr. SANDERS. Why does the gentleman not take his own time, if he would. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, that is correct.

Mr. SANDERS. I am sorry. I did not mean to interrupt the gentleman.

Mr. SANDERS. This amendment, Mr. Chairman, is very, very clear. Mr. Chairman, am I on his time or my own?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is a very simple bipartisan amendment that is cosponsored by the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Barrett), and the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Baldacci). When I last introduced a version of this amendment in 1996, it received 180 votes. I hope we can win tonight with strong bipartisan support. This amendment is supported by Families USA, the National Council of Senior Citizens, and the Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Mr. Chairman, over the years, the taxpayers of this country have contributed billions of dollars to the National Institutes of Health for research into new and important drugs, and that research money has paid off. Between 1955 and 1992, 92 percent of drugs approved by the FDA to treat cancer were researched and developed by the NIH. Today, many of the most widely used drugs in this country dealing with a variety of illnesses were developed through NIH research, and that is very good news. The bad news is that, by and large, these drugs which were developed at taxpayer expense were given over to the pharmaceutical industry with no assurance that American consumers would not be charged outrageously high prices. Mr. Chairman, the pharmaceutical companies constitute the most profitable industry in this country. Yet while their profits soar, millions of Americans cannot afford the prescription drugs they desperately need because of the high prices they are forced to pay. In fact, Americans pay by far the highest prices for prescription drugs than the people of any other country on Earth, and many of these drugs are manufactured right here in the United States and their research was done through taxpayer dollars. While there are many reasons for the crisis in prescription drug costs in this country today, in this amendment I want to focus on one small part of that problem, and, that is, that it is totally unacceptable for the taxpayers of this country to provide billions of dollars through the NIH in research money for the pharmaceutical industry and get nothing in return in terms of lower prices for the products that they help to develop. Mr. Chairman, the reality is that taxpayers spend billions of dollars for research and development of prescription drugs and they deserve to get a return on that investment in terms of lower prices. Let me cite some examples. Tamoxifen, a widely prescribed drug for breast cancer, received federally funded research, and NIH sponsored 140 clinical trials to test its efficacy. Yet today the pharmaceutical industry charges women in this country 10 times more than they charge women in Canada for a drug widely developed with U.S. taxpayer support. Many, many other drugs were developed with NIH support: Zovirax; AZT, the primary AIDS drug; Capoten; Platinol. And Prozac, the blockbuster antidepresant, was made possible by the basic NIH-funded research that discovered the brain chemical triggering depression. And on and on it goes. The reality is, and The New York Times in a front page story made this point, that much of the drug research in this country comes from taxpayer support. Our amendment requires that the NIH abide by current law and ensure that a company that receives federally owned research or a federally owned drug provide that product to the American public on reasonable terms. This is not a new issue. During the Bush administration, the NIH insisted that cooperative research agreements contain, quote, a reasonable pricing clause that would protect consumers from exorbitant prices of products developed from federally funded research. The NIH several years ago abandoned the clause under heavy pressure from the pharmaceutical industry. While a reasonable pricing clause is not the only device that will protect the investment that American taxpayers have made in numerous profitable drugs, this amendment makes clear that Congress will not stand by while NIH turns over valuable research without some evaluation that the price charged to consumers will be reasonable as is required by current law.

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Porter) for his thoughts, but I respectfully disagree. And here is the bottom line: the bottom line is that as a result of taxpayer-funded support, very important and wonderful drugs are developed. But the problem, Mr. Chairman, is that millions of Americans who paid for the research to develop those drugs cannot afford the product. I think it is totally responsible for the United States Government to say to the private companies we are giving you important research. But in return, we have to make some guarantees to the public that we are going to serve the public interests in terms of controlling the prices that are charged. I think that that is something that the taxpayers of this country deserve.

Mr. SANDERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman.