Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to join my colleagues in calling for quick, decisive action by Congress to make prescription drugs more affordable for all Americans. This Chamber has the opportunity to make an enormous difference in the lives of seniors, individuals with disabilities, and many, many others. And for once, there is something relatively simple that we can do. We can pass the legislation making it easier for Americans to reimport prescription drugs approved by the FDA and manufactured in FDA facilities. A vast amount of the pharmaceuticals produced in the Nation under government-inspected plans and with government-approved procedures end up in other countries. Quite often they are sold at far lower prices there than are available to United States residents. For many people, it would be less expensive to buy those medications overseas and have them shipped home than to purchase them at the corner drugstore. However, restrictive export laws make it impossible. Both the House and the Senate have approved legislation that would allow Americans to reimport prescription drugs. I strongly support this reasonable proposal, with the understanding that reasonable safeguards on the purity and safety of these products would also be put in place. This is a common sense step that we can take to improve all of our constituents' access to more affordable medication. In early June, my office worked with Public Citizen to help a dozen of my constituents travel to Montreal to purchase prescription drugs at lower prices in Canada. The savings realized by these persons was nothing short of astonishing. Elsie saved $650, or 47 percent, of the cost of her prescriptions. Nancy saved 48 percent, or over $450, Francis saved 60 percent. For all of the men and women who went, the savings amounted to a significant proportion of their monthly income. Now, I should point out that these persons were only allowed to buy medications for 2 months and, so, those significant savings were for only a 2-month period of the year. Mary takes nine different medications, and she spends 73 percent of one month's income for 3 months' supply. She speaks for many seniors when she says, ``Do you stop taking your medication to buy food?'' It is intolerable that the wealthiest Nation in the world allows this situation to persist. However, it is even worse to see the lengths to which the pharmaceutical industry will go to defeat any effort to make these drugs more affordable. Citizens for Better Medicare, a group funded primarily by the largest drug companies, now spends something over a million dollars a week on campaign-related issue ads. They have already spent $38 million in this cycle, more than any organization except the two major political parties; and they expect to spend plenty more in the coming weeks before the election. Just imagine how much good that $38 million would do for low-income Americans and seniors who cannot afford their prescriptions. It is time for Congress to stop the nonsense and take a modest first step toward making prescription drugs more affordable for all Americans. Congress should pass a prescription drug reimportation provision as soon as possible.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution as well as the underlying bill. The measure would establish the Lackawanna Valley Heritage Area in the State of Pennsylvania. The proposed areas would cover a four-county region in northeastern Pennsylvania, including Lackawanna, Luzerne, Wayne, and Susquehanna Counties. Also included in H.R. 940 is the designation of the Schuykill River Valley. This river valley developed a charcoal iron industry that made Pennsylvania the center of the iron industry within the American colonies. This measure will go a long way toward repairing the environmental damage to the river and its surroundings caused by the largely unregulated industrial activity. H.R. 940 authorizes the appropriation of up to $1 million for any fiscal year, not exceeding $10 million, for carrying out this act. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to quote from a letter from the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care. ``School-based health care centers represent a partnership between community health care organizations, such as local hospitals, health centers and public health departments, school systems and parents. The programs are designed by the community. The scope of service, including reproductive health, is determined by what health care providers, school officials, parents, and other community members feel is necessary to combat health-compromising behaviors and inadequate and unaffordable access to competent and caring physical and mental health services for school-aged children. The ability to provide these services with public family planning and primary care resources is vital to these few programs. Their ability to offer adolescents needed reproductive health care should not be constrained by Congress. This decision should remain one of local control and oversight.'' And that letter is signed by John Schlitt, Executive Director of the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, someone certainly to whom we should listen before we take away the right of the parents and the health providers in a community to set up such a clinic. Mr. Speaker, I am providing the full letter for the Record, as follows: National Assembly On School-Based Health Care, September 18, 2000. Hon. Nita M. Lowey, U.S. House of Representatives, 2421 Rayburn HOB, Washington,

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Reynolds) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. Mr. Speaker, since its opening in 1993, the Holocaust Memorial Museum has become one of the most visited sites in Washington with nearly 15 million visitors in the past 7 years. This museum is a living memorial to the victims of the Holocaust and serves as the focus for education on the lessons of that great human tragedy in the hopes that one day we can rid the Earth of all genocide. The underlying bill, H.R. 4115, would establish the museum as an independent entity of the Federal Government. Moreover, the measure provides the board of trustees with overall governance responsibility. This legislation was introduced at the request of the council and the director of the museum. This is a noncontroversial change in the operations of the museum which deserves the support of the House. The rule is an open rule and will allow any germane amendment to be offered to the bill, although it is not anticipated that any will be offered. I am particularly proud to speak in support of this bill because of my own experience of working with Holocaust survivors. The Holocaust embodied the worst of what human beings can do, and yet so many survivors are still filled with hope and faith in the basic goodness of human nature. As sponsor of a separate bill, the Justice for Holocaust Survivors Act, I had the privilege of meeting and hearing from many of these remarkable individuals. It is one of the proudest accomplishments of my career in Congress that this modest bill helped to drive the German Government to double the size of its compensation fund for the survivors of slave labor camps. Mr. Speaker, in order that the House might proceed directly to consideration of H.R. 4115, I urge adoption of the rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall vote #429 due to a late flight. Had I been present, I would have voted Yes or Aye on rollcall vote #429.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, perhaps more than any other institution, museums consistently give the American people a real glimpse into our past. Walk a few feet outside the door of the Capitol and you see hundreds of people from all over the country and the world touring through the many museums here in Washington. These visits give both adults and children a sense of our own history and culture as well as those of other nations. That is why I believe it makes good sense to provide the Institute for Museum and Library Services with the funding increase suggested by this motion. In 1995, the budget for the Institution of Museum and Library Services was cut by more than 25 percent. Since then, the IMLS has seen only extremely modest increases in their funding levels. This motion to instruct provides much needed and very affordable relief by directing the conferees to accept a $600,000 increase for this agency, an amount that was responsibly added to this bill by the other body. This Institute of Museum and Library Services oversees America's 8,000 museums, connects schools, libraries and other institutions with many wonderful resources within their walls. With additional funding, IMLS can continue to administer the wonderful programs that connect our youth with history and expose all of us to worlds we have yet to know. In an era where technology takes center stage in our society, we need new programs more than ever and not to forget to emphasize art, culture, and history. If we give these services nothing more than level funding, we send a message to the younger generation that it is okay to forget your past, it is okay not to have a place where individuals can see evidence of the greatness that came before them. Unless we approve this motion, we are contributing to the slow death of arts and culture in America. We owe our constituents much more than that. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of the motion to instruct.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, Americans are growing increasingly aware that the most intimate information they possess about themselves, their health information, is not only unprotected, but freely shared among corporate and other interests. I am particularly concerned about the security of genetic information. With the recent completion of the rough draft of the human genome, increasing numbers of people will consider taking genetic tests to learn more about their future health. But unless we protect the privacy of this information, people will refuse to take the genetic tests or even to participate in the research. We then risk having billions of dollars spent on genetic research go to waste and the enormous promise of this research to go unfulfilled. Right now, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is holding a hearing on genetic discrimination in employment. Shamefully, the House of Representatives has never held a single hearing on genetic discrimination, and we cannot afford to waste any more time. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor H.R. 2457, the Genetic Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance and Employment Act, and please sign discharge petition No. 11 to bring this bill to the House floor for a vote immediately.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, this is a modified closed rule; but H.R. 4843 deserves full and open debate, and an open rule would have ensured that no one would be shut out of the process. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the underlying goals of H.R. 4843, to provide expanded opportunities for working Americans to save for their retirement. The bill includes a number of provisions which improve current protections for workers and retirees, such as a reduction of vesting to 3 years for 401(k) plan-matching contributions, encouraging rollovers of pension plans when workers switch employment, and eliminating compensation caps that unfairly affect the pension benefits of rank and file workers. Even during this period of strong economic growth, more people are joining the workforce than are receiving pension coverage. Only half the workforce is covered by a pension plan; and, worse, there is reason to believe it will not provide them with an adequate level of supplemental income in their retirement. Although there is insufficient data to measure contributions and benefits, data from the Federal Reserve shows pension plan contributions declining by 50 percent in recent years. While the underlying bill provides significant opportunities for those workers who can most afford to save the maximum amount allowed, few or no opportunities are available to low- and moderate-income workers under the bill. We must continue to work together to improve this aspect of the bill and ensure that no segment of our workforce is excluded from the opportunity to financially improve their retirement years. The pressure to save adequately for retirement affects all working Americans. Statistics confirm that low-income workers are far less likely to participate in an employment-based retirement savings plan than workers with higher incomes, even when the plan is available to them. Individuals who are in between $10,000 and $14,000 annually participate at a rate of 31 percent, even though 51 percent of them have access to plans at work. However, the participation rate for workers earning $50,000 or more increased to 83 percent, with 88 percent of such workers having access to employer-sponsored plans. During the consideration of the underlying bill, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel) will offer a substitute that incorporates the text of H.R. 4843, as well as provisions to encourage the participation of the low-income workers. Specifically, the substitute provides a refundable credit for low- and middle-income workers who save for their retirement, makes small business employers eligible to claim a credit for certain expenses incurred as the result of establishing a qualified pension plan, provides relief from certain section 415 rules and benefit limits, and expresses a Sense of Congress that issues concerning cash balance plans should be resolved. Mr. Speaker, I urge that my colleagues support these important improvements to the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding me the customary 30 minutes and yield myself such time as I may consume. (Ms. SLAUGHTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, in May of this year, I was proud to speak in support of Representative Smith's bill to monitor and eliminate sex trafficking here in the U.S. and abroad. After an arduous six year struggle to address the problem of sex industries worldwide with my own bill, I was pleased to see Rep. Smith's bill pass with strong bipartisan support. As a result of this successful effort, the U.S. is now in a position to put pressure on other nations to adopt policies that will eradicate sex trafficking practices inside and between their borders. We are also in a position to prosecute and punish the traffickers themselves and thereby put an end to coordinated kidnaping and prostitution rings. In the wake of this victory, however, there is still a great deal of work to be done. Over the past six years, it has become abundantly clear to me that the phenomenon of trafficking of women and children will never be fully eliminated until we develop safe shelters, psychological services and reintegration programs for returning sex trafficking victims. This amendment, offered by Rep. Bernie Sanders, strives to respond to this growing problem by granting assistance to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who provide shelter and reintegration assistance to women and children victims of international trafficking. Today, in many countries of transit or destination where victims are found, there is an immediate need for temporary and safe shelter, medical and psychological services, access to translators and appropriate NGO consultations and assistance. But the resources are limited or in some cases, nonexistent. When there is no shelter available for these victims, governments will often place the victim in detention with criminals and then immediately deport her the next day. The need to deport victims immediately due to the lack of shelter thereby increases the risk that the victim will return to trafficking or a dangerous situation back home. Returning these individuals to a threatening environment is a crime in and of itself, not to mention counterproductive and psychologically damaging to the victim. Another challenge we face is how to effectively reintegrate victims into their families and community structures after being trafficked abroad. For many victims, they return home with the stigma of prostitution or suffer with HIV/AIDS--only to be rejected by their families and communities. In the worst case scenarios, traffickers anticipate this rejection and attempt to retraffick these victims at the border. To prevent these repeat offenses and to provide victims with a fighting chance to improve their lives, I rise in strong support of the Sanders--Smith amendment. If approved, this amendment will provide international NGOs with a $2.5 million increase to ensure that victims escape the trafficking world for good.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I have been appalled time and time again by the audacity of antichoice legislators to restrict women's reproductive options in the United States and worldwide. This annual right of, quote, ``we will show the women who is boss,'' end quote, legislation has allowed millions of women to die in the Third World. Mr. Chairman, we stand here every year; and we say 600,000 women die every year, and nobody bats an eyelash. Do not tell me that a poll of people in the United States would approve of that. If the question asked on that poll is would you like the international family planning law of the United States to allow 600,000 women to die, we would get a far different answer. The problem is that the harshest lesson that people learn about us is that we will allow them to die. Nothing else that we do in foreign aid, nothing else purposefully allows women to die. The truth of the matter is we will never hear a word here about the woman herself, because mothers do not matter. The children that she leaves motherless at home, they do not matter. The fact that there are unsanitary conditions in which they live do not matter. What matters is the policy and beliefs of some Members of this House, and I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to strike.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall votes 386, 387, 388, and 389. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall votes 386, 387, 388, and 389.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present for rollcall votes 382, 383, 384, and 385. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' or ``aye'' on rollcall votes 382, 383 and 385 and ``no'' or ``nay'' on rollcal vote 384.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Brown- Waxman-Slaughter amendment. My generation remembers all too clearly the scourge of infectious diseases. When we were children, surviving to adolescence could be a major challenge. Children ran a gauntlet of potentially fatal diseases against which doctors had few, if any, effective weapons--influenza, pneumonia, measles, and tuberculosis, to name just a few. For some of us, we relived those fears again with our children. I know that with my three daughters, I breathed a sigh of relief when each summer ended and they had again escaped contracting polio. With the discovery of antibiotics, the world of health and medicine was transformed. Antibiotics were nothing short of a miracle. Just a few doses could banish these terrifying diseases from our and our children's lives, allowing the nation to become dramatically healthier in the space of scarcely a decade. Modern medicine had triumphed over disease, relegating these terrors to the medical history books. Or so we thought. Today we know differently. Infectious disease microorganisms have evolved over millennia, and they can be ingenious in ensuring their own survival. The advent of antibiotics dealt them a setback, but only a temporary one. After only a few decades these microbes are showing us just how quickly they can adapt and render themselves impervious to some or all of the antibiotics in our health care arsenal. As a former microbiologist, I am keenly aware of the critical challenge posed by antimicrobial resistance. In fact, I wrote my master's thesis on the misuse of penicillin. Many factors are currently contributing to antimicrobial resistance: overprescription of antibiotics, individuals' failure to take all their medication, lack of handwashing and proper hygiene, and the increased ability of people-- and therefore microbes--to travel around the globe quickly. Just as this problem is multi-faceted, so must any solution be. This amendment seeks to address one critical component of that problem: the use of antibiotics to boost livestock growth and production. Decades ago, farmers discovered that the use of antibiotics at very low levels caused animals to grow faster and bigger. The amount of antibiotics used were too low to have any value in killing off infections in the animals. Over time, the practice of feeding antibiotics to livestock at ``subtherapeutic'' levels has become a common tool in the agriculture industry. Unfortunately, this practice appears to be having an insidious side effect. Preliminary studies indicate that the bacteria in livestock may be developing an immunity to certain antibiotics as they are consistently exposed to these drugs at low levels. As the old saying goes, that which does not kill them makes them stronger. This amendment would shift a very modest amount of funds within the Food and Drug Administration budget to the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine. With this funding, the Center could move more quickly on its top priority, assessing and preventing the growth of antimicrobial resistance related to livestock husbandry practices. We must take action if we expect antibiotics to continue being effective in treating human ailments. None of us want to return to a day when a bout of pneumonia could easily mean a death sentence for one's child or parent. I urge my colleagues to support the Brown- Waxman-Slaughter amendment.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, in 1988, National Endowment for the Humanities issued a report concluding that more than 80 percent of colleges and universities permitted students to graduate without taking a course in American history. Now, thirteen years later, standards have fallen even further with 78 percent of America's elite college and universities not requiring their student to take any history course at all. The results of this lackadaisical approach to learning and understanding our own country's history is devastating. In a survey conducted by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, only 23 percent of the students surveyed correctly identified James Madison as the ``Father of the Constitution'' while 54 percent incorrectly identified Thomas Jefferson. Unfortunately, the final results of the survey are equally embarrassing, with 65 percent of the students receiving a 59 percent or an ``F'' grade. This is unacceptable. The poor performance of these students from America's top universities and colleges should serve as a wake-up call to Members of Congress that the academic quality of our history education programs is deteriorating to the point of no return. But rather than take steps to improve these horrendous statistics with actual education reforms, the majority voted to slash teacher- training and student loan programs and recently rejected my amendment to moderately increase funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, one of the only agencies that strives to preserve our nation's history through education. I am a proud co-sponsor of S. Con. Res. 129 and I wholeheartedly agree that Congress needs to eradicate the profound historical illiteracy that currently plagues our nation's young people, but we can do better than to pass a ``feel-good, do-nothing'' resolution.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment offered by Representative Coburn. For the past three years, Congress has revisited Rep. Coburn's amendment to prohibit the FDA from testing, developing, and approving drugs that could cause the chemical inducement of abortion. Like the so-called ``partial birth abortion'' ban, it has become a hallmark of the anti-choice agenda. But this measure is not about abortion or even mifepristone. It is about Congress trying to dictate what the FDA is permitted to do and not to do. As a public health specialist by training, I am appalled that my colleagues would attempt to interfere with the FDA's ability to test, research, and approve any drug with political mandates. Reproductive health drugs should be held to FDA's rigorous science- based requirements that any drug must meet before approval can be granted--just like any other drug. They should not be singled out simply because they deal with reproductive health. In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration found mifepristone a safe and effective method for early medical abortion. This drug has been used successfully by more than 500,000 women around the world for over twenty years in countries like France, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, and was just recently made available in Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, and Israel. Every country in Europe, and beyond, seems to recognize the benefits of making this drug available to women--except the United States. This measure seeks not only to deny American women access to mifepristone, it also threatens the health of Americans in general. In addition to providing safe, medical abortions, there is evidence that mifepristone has great potential to treat serious medical conditions such as inoperable brain tumors, prostate cancer, and infertility--as well as female specific conditions like endometriosis, uterine fibroids, and breast cancer. I ask my colleagues, how many other uses are there for a drug like Viagra? Yet, Viagra hit the market in record time. What kind of message does that send to the world? The consideration of this measure and the failure of the United States to make this drug available tells the world that the health of Americans is negotiable and subject to the will of anti-choice politicians. If passed, this amendment would not only compromise the integrity of FDA's scientific process, it would open the door for further invasions on the drug approval process. More importantly, it would set a very dangerous and irrevocable precedent in the medical community. Over the past three decades, the face of reproductive health care has drastically changed to serve the needs of American women. And for the first time in history, a reproductive health drug has the potential to benefit not only American women, but to provide more appropriate care to millions of Americans. Who are we, Members of Congress, to interfere in the face of such immense scientific progress? Americans trust that drugs approved by the FDA are safe. Vote ``no'' on the Coburn amendment and let the FDA do its job.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bentsen). (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick). (Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall). (Mr. UDALL of Colorado asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I rise in opposition to this amendment offered by my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) because of the effect it would have on the nuclear deterrent power of the United States. The National Ignition Facility is a cornerstone requirement of the stockpile stewardship program and the only facility that would allow the experimental study of fusion burning in the laboratory. The capability is an essential element of our ability to maintain our nuclear deterrent into the future.