Henry Waxman

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this motion to instruct. This is one of the worst pieces of environmental legislation I have ever seen. It slashes the EPA overall operational budget by one-third and its environmental enforcement by one-half. What this will mean is that EPA will not have the ability to implement and enforce the law. But it does not stop there. It is loaded with riders that are a radical attack on our environmental laws. Mr. Speaker, this is not the way to pass environmental legislation. In 1990 we passed the Clean Air Act where 400 Members supported it and President Bush signed it. We worked through long hearings. We tried to reach a consensus. If we need to fix a problem in that Clean Air Act, let us fix it. Let us deal with an inspection and maintenance problem. There was a grain elevator problem that the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Nussle] and I worked together to resolve. Let us work together in a bipartisan and genuine way, otherwise we will get awful policy or gridlock. I support the motion to instruct.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, there are many, many reasons to oppose this legislation: It savages health and education programs; it gives tax breaks to the wealthy at the same time it takes the earned-income tax credit away from people who need it; it contains some outrageous assaults on some of our most treasured environmental assets. Under the cover of balancing the budget, this bill is a disaster for American people, full of special interest giveaways and policies that will do irreparable harm to the health and well-being of America's working families, children and seniors. Nowhere is that effect more obvious than in the actions taken to slash and undermine the Medicare and Medicaid Programs. The so-called Medicare reform of Mr. Gingrich is nothing less than an attempt to destroy Medicare as we know it, and take away from our seniors the ability to stay in a strong and viable Medicare Program where they can choose their own doctor and be protected against having to pay that doctor a lot of extra dollars out of their own pocket. The Gingrich Medicare reform hikes the Medicare premium dramatically, and takes away the guarantee for seniors struggling to live on incomes below poverty that Medicaid will pay their Medicare part B premium and cost-sharing. Despite the personal assurances of Speaker Gingrich to this House last week, that help that seniors have now is not there. If there is any doubt about what the agenda is here, we need to look no further than the statements reported in today's Washington Post: Majority Leader Dole, stating with pride that in 1995, ``I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare.'' Speaker Gingrich, bragging to the insurers about what the Republicans are doing to Medicare, ``Now, we don't get rid of it in round one because we don't think that's politically smart . . .''. It is not that he does not think it is a good idea to get rid of Medicare, but it is smart politics to cover up the impact in the first round. I do not think it is smart politics to think that you can fool the American people about what is going on here. Democrats are proud to defend Medicare, not because we think it is smart, but because it is the right thing to do. With Medicaid, Mr. Gingrich and his Republican colleagues do not even seem to think they have to put up a smokescreen as they dismantle it. They take away any guarantee of coverage for people who need nursing home care, for severely disabled children, and adults who have nowhere else to turn for help, for 18 million poor children who have no other source of health care. That is one-quarter of the kids in this country who are about to be put at risk to join the ranks of the uninsured. They take billions of Federal dollars out of the system to provide health care for people who have no other options, and they leave States, counties, and cities holding the bag when they find that there is not enough money to deal with the problem. They leave the States with the choice of raising taxes to try to replace Federal revenue, or simply cutting people off from help. And they tip the scales toward cutting people off. States will soon be competing with surrounding States in a race to the bottom--afraid to try to keep an adequate Medicaid Program in place because too many desperate people from surrounding areas will try to come in to get help. There is more. They do not want to pay nursing homes enough to support the delivery of decent quality care. So their answer to that problem is to repeal the nursing home standards. They undo all the protections of current law, and hope people will not understand what they are doing. They hope this will get through before they get caught. Look what they did in terms of protecting the spouse of someone who goes into a nursing home from ending up in poverty. First, they repealed all the protections. Not one Republican voted for restoring them when we offered an amendment to protect against spousal impoverishment in committee. They were very outspoken that they did not need or want Federal standards. Then they started to feel some heat in the press, and even they started to feel uneasy defending what they had done. So they changed it--all of a sudden the amendment all the Republicans hated in committee showed up in the Kasich bill. Now they were finally willing to say that a State could not impoverish the spouse. But there is just one problem--they let the nursing home itself require the spouse or the adult children of the person in the nursing home to make them pay extra if they wanted their husband or wife, father or mother, to get care in the nursing home. I think we call that giving with one hand and taking away with the other. What happened? Once again, when the light of day shined on what they were doing, they reversed course. Now the rule adds a Bliley amendment--one that Mr. Bliley did not ask to be made in order, I might not, until we caught them at what they were doing--that would not let the nursing home get that extra money. Well good! That is what they should have done in the first place. But the fact is they are still trying to hide the biggest thing of all. What they are hiding is that the spouse who needs the nursing home care in the first place is not assured of getting it! People with Alzheimer's getting coverage under Medicaid now: They have no guarantee they will be covered. People who could stay at home if they had some help: No guarantee of coverage. People who have to have nursing home care: No guarantee of coverage, and even if they do get it, no guarantee that it will be in a decent facility. Even veterans now getting services: No guarantee they will continue to get coverage. This is wrong. It is wrong to say to millions of working families with severely disabled children, that they have no guarantee of help anymore. It is wrong to say to families who have no health insurance coverage for their children, that they have no guarantee of help anymore. It is wrong to say to low-income seniors that they have no guarantee that we will help pay their Medicare premiums and cost-sharing anymore. And it is wrong to say to States, and counties, and cities, it is your problem. We have washed our hands of its. There are many things that are wrong with this bill. But what is done to Medicaid alone is enough to vote against it. What is done to Medicare alone is also enough to vote against it. The health and security of America's seniors and children depend on what we do here today. Defeat this bill.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, what we are going to do today, if the Republicans get their way, is a travesty, it is irresponsible, and it is wrong. Thirty-seven million Americans depend on Medicare. They want a program that let them see their own doctor and protects them from financial ruin when they get sick. Mr. Chairman, they do not want us to gamble with Medicare. They do not want us to go along with what some health-care theorist thinks might make them more cost-conscious consumers. They already watch their dollars. They pay enough in premiums and coinsurance, and most Medicare recipients live on less than $25,000 a year. Most of all, they do not want us to balance the budget on the backs of Medicare recipients. They do not want us to cut Medicare so we can cut taxes. The supporters of this bill are not telling us some facts. First of all, not only will Medicare beneficiaries pay higher premiums to hold on to part B, but the bill will allow doctors and hospitals to charge the patients more money directly over and above what they get now paid from the Medicare fund. That is something they cannot do at the present time. Second, this will take away the choice of doctors and will herd people into managed care plans. That is not a bad choice if you want an HMO, but that should not be your only choice. Third, this bill is going to jeopardize the quality of care for everyone, when hospitals and emergency rooms are forced to close, when medical research hospitals are starved of funding. Mr. Chairman, this is a bad bill. It has not been thought through and we ought not take a chance with a program that is so important to so many Americans.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Bryant] and I ask him if he would yield back to me 15 seconds.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I just want to comment on the statement made by the previous gentleman. He claimed we are not cutting benefits, we are not going to make people pay for benefits for their health care. How are we getting $270 billion in Medicare cuts and the AMA supports the bill? Something just does not add up.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, the preceding speaker talked about the decisions that have to be made and who will make those decisions. I would submit if people are herded into HMO's because they really have no other choice, because they cannot afford anything else, the decisions will be made by a bureaucrat in an HMO that wants to maximize the profit for the HMO. That is not the way the decisions for health care should be made in this country.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, today we are discussing only the Medicare bill. We talked about it in terms of the relationship to the tax bill that is coming up next week. I want to mention the relationship between Medicare and Medicaid, which is coming up next week. Mr. Chairman, we have no program to protect seniors when they become so frail that they require nursing home care. We have relied on Medicaid to take care of that. But next week the Medicaid program is going to be repealed and there will be no guarantee of a person in a nursing home getting coverage after they spend every cent they own. There will be no protection for the spouse of that nursing home resident or the children of that nursing home resident or the lien to be put on the home. There will be no protection in the standards of care that will be given in that nursing home because all of that law has been repealed under the bill passed out of the Committee on Commerce. Mr. Chairman, we should not think of Medicare alone, we should think of it in the context of the tax cut the money from Medicare will pay for and the other undercutting of services for the elderly under Medicaid.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I want the public that may be watching this debate to understand the depth of cynicism that the Republicans have in presenting their Medicare proposal. I am going to put into the Record a series of key words and phrases given to the Republicans to use in this debate. Members may well recognize some words like ``save, preserve, protect, proud to support.'' Then when they talk about the Democratic proposal they are supposed to say ``politics as usual, the politics of the past.'' Maybe an energetic reporter will look through these comments today to see how many of these phrases were dutifully used by the Republicans for their proposal and against ours. The second level of cynicism, to talk about the insolvency of the Medicare trust fund, to use that as an excuse for their package, the Medicare trust fund was nine times out of sync, and each time it was, without fanfare and partisan propaganda, restored. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is notable for what it does not do. What it does not do, unlike the Gingrich bill, is make the elderly pay larger premiums just to keep their Medicare benefits. It does not destroy the fee-for- service Medicare system that people are already in, and that they like, and it does not offer them these phony choices that will be paid for by savaging the Medicare program fee-for-service. This amendment does not do what the Republicans do, which leaves people unprotected if they are forced out of Medicare into these Medicare-plus plans for balanced budgets, and doctors will charge them extra bills for their services. Unlike the Gingrich bill, it does not take billions of dollars out of Medicare to finance tax cuts, or to finance deficit reduction. This substitute preserves Medicare without doing all these onerous things, and for that reason, Mr. Chairman, we ought to support it.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that the Speaker of the House, Mr. Gingrich, did not understand the bill that the Republicans reported out of the Committee on Commerce; but since he made the claim that the bill would protect those individuals, low-income individuals, to help them pay for their Medicare out-of-pocket costs, I would expect that he will support the amendment that was offered in our committee by the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone]. The Pallone amendment would have given an assurance, an absolute guarantee, that if you are below the poverty line, your out-of-pocket Medicare costs, the premium, the co-insurance costs, will be picked up. If we do not have that kind of protection, a lot of people will not be able to buy part B. They will not be covered under Medicare. Low-income elderly just will not be part of the Medicare program that assures their physicians' fees. Now, let me go through what their bill does. In their Medigrant bill, they repeal Medicaid completely. Their bill does not ensure people below the poverty line will have their Medicare premium paid. What they say to the States is, spend some portion of your block grant funds to pay Medicare premiums for poor people. But the amount they are supposed to spend for that purpose, and let us be clear. There is no way to enforce even that requirement, there is not enough to cover people up to the poverty level, let alone to the 120 percent of poverty we require the States to pay now. With the cuts in the growth of the funds for the Medigrant program, with the growth in the eligibles for Medicare, which is a growing elderly population in this Nation, with the big increases in premiums absolutely guaranteed by the passage of this Medicare bill, which will require more premiums, maybe even doubling of the premiums to be paid by the elderly, we will never be able to see the States cover the people who are below the poverty line. I would like to give some numbers. The Republican Medicaid block grant repeals the requirement that States pay cost-sharing for low- income Medicare beneficiaries. However, the Republican proposal requires that States set aside 85 percent of what the States would have spent on premiums, not all cost-sharing, from 1992 to 1994. The premium for 1992 was $31.80; in 1993, $34.60; 1994, $41.10. Newt Gingrich himself estimates that the premium will be $88 in the year 2002. With that kind of an increase in the premium, with a growing increase in the number of the elderly, the States are setting aside only 85 percent of the amount for the 1991-1992 levels. They are not going to be able to pay for the out-of-pocket costs for the elderly. Furthermore, once they repeal Medicaid, which is what they seek to do next week and replace it with a Medigrant, a block grant bill, the States will get money. They can use it as they see fit. There will be a set-aside of money for this purpose, but it will be grossly inadequate, and the States will have to use that money as they see fit. They could say to people, ``We will cover you if you are in line, but when we run out of money you will not get covered.'' They could say, ``We will only cover 10 percent of the costs instead of 100 percent of those premium and out-of-pocket costs.'' They can refuse to pay people for their out-of-pocket costs entirely. [[Page H 10467]] There is no guarantee, if you are an individual below the poverty line, disabled or under Medicare because of your age, that you will be protected. There is no guarantee to the individual, only some money to the States, to do the best job they can, and whatever they do will be acceptable. Now, the Speaker did incorrectly state what was in his bill. I believe that he genuinely did not understand his legislation. When he reads it, when he finds out what they did in the Committee on Commerce, well, I would not want to be the chairman of that committee since the Speaker now has decisionmaking power over who is chairman of the committee or not. But I suspect what he will do, which is the only honorable thing to do, is to support the Pallone amendment when it is offered to the legislation.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Reclaiming my time, to rely on OSHA is not sensible when OSHA would have jurisdiction over acting to deal with workplace hazards. Cutting funds on the research at EPA, we are not going to understand the hazards. I guess if we do not know about it, we would not have to take any actions to deal with it. That does not eliminate the threat, and it does not eliminate the fact that [[Page H 9952]] some of the exposures indoors, in the air we breathe, can cause cancer. The cancer rates in this country are at an extraordinarily high level. I cannot fathom how this in any way could be a partisan issue. I do not think it makes sense to take the position that what we do not know will not hurt us, because it certainly will come back to cause serious health threats. Mr. Chairman, I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. WAXMAN. I have not heard an argument. If I can reclaim my time, we have not heard an argument. I have waited for the Republicans to stand up and respond to this amendment. Maybe they are going to support it. Maybe they see they are in error. I further yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WAXMAN. That is my understanding.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rose reluctantly because I wanted to give the chance for the Republicans to comment on this amendment, and I do not see them rising to their feet, so I want to take this opportunity to strike the last word and speak out in support of the amendment. It just makes no sense at all to zero out EPA funding for indoor air, and I think my colleague, the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] was most eloquent, as was the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy], in arguing that we have got to continue funding the research on indoor air pollution. Health experts consistently rank this air pollution problem as one of the greatest environmental threats. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] indicated it was the Bush administration that set out its priorities for those environmental problems which are the greatest threat to human health, and they ranked the problems of indoor air pollution as one of the highest. EPA research is crucial to understanding this problem, and EPA has already made enormous contributions in the area of indoor air research. For example, Mr. Chairman, they have done ground-breaking work on environmental tobacco smoke, an issue that we did not know was as serious as it is turning out to be, or radon toxic emissions from carpets, toxic substances from carpets. Mr. Chairman, in the last Congress this House voted overwhelmingly, recognizing that indoor air pollution is a serious health matter. We passed legislation overwhelmingly with bipartisan support that directed EPA to conduct more studies on indoor air so that we would have the science needed to address these problems. I cannot believe that the election last November would change the view of almost all the Democrats and Republicans who served in the last Congress to support this research, to now change it to deny the funding to have EPA do this research. I do not think we ought to turn our back on science and on the consensus we had in the last Congress. It would be a terrible mistake. It would certainly be shortsighted.

Mr. WAXMAN. I am complaining about a trend in this House and I think those hearings exemplify it, where there is a politically popular, politically correct point of view that seems to be given a spotlight, and I have no problems with having diverse opinions. But let us give spotlights and elevation to views of people that do not have the scientific standing of the hundreds of other scientists that have studied this problem and have raised concerns about it.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think we ought to have an answer from the other side about these important charges, but I want to use this opportunity to say that we do all want a diversification of scientific opinion but if we do not fund the research, we are not going to have researchers doing the work to give those considered opinions. On the ozone depletion hearings, I do not want us in that area or any other area to find science that is politically correct. It seemed to me that from what I understand about those hearings, scientists who had never published peer review articles were given an elevated status to argue against what hundreds of other scientists around the world had found as a genuine threat in the ozone depletion problem. I have a history with this issue because in 1977 when we enacted a change in the Clean Air Act, we first started to hear about the hole in the ozone. Of course a lot of people said, ``Let's study it, let's study it, let's don't take action.'' This is one of those rare examples of a scientific issue that moved so quickly that it moved from the theoretical to the measurable.

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

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I include for the Record the two articles referred to earlier. [From the New York Times, September 18, 1995] Global Warming Heats Up The evidence mounted last week that manmade gases are causing deterioration of the earth's atmosphere. First came news that a United Nations scientific panel believes it has found, for the first time, evidence that human activities are indeed causing a much-debated warming of the globe. The report, though preliminary, appeared to strengthen the case that governments throughout the world may need to take stronger action to head off potential damage. Then came an announcement from the World Meterological Organization that a worrisome hole in the earth's protective ozone shield appears to be getting even larger over Antarctica. Such enlargement had been expected because it will take a while for corrective actions already taken by many governments to exert their effect. But the report underscored that the battle to save the ozone layer is not yet safely won. The U.N.'s global warming report, described by William K. Stevens in the Sept. 10 Times, indicates that man-made global warming is a real phenomenon. It can not be dismissed as unproved ``liberal claptrap,'' as Representative Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, who heads a House environmental subcommittee, has derisively suggested. For years now scientists have been arguing over whether the emission of ``greenhouse gases,'' such as carbon dioxide generated by the burning of fossil fuels, has contributed to a small rise in global temperatures over the past century-- and whether such emissions will drive temperatures even higher in coming decades. Such a change in temperature might, if drastic enough, have serious consequences, as is made clear today in a second article by Mr. Stevens. Global warming could cause a rise in sea level that would flood coastal lowlands, an increase in weather extremes and damage to forests and croplands in some regions. Forestalling truly severe damage might well warrant action to slow the emission of greenhouse gases by reducing the world's reliance on fossil fuels. But that would be a wrenching, costly process that few political leaders are eager to undertake absent compelling evidence that human activities really are driving world temperatures toward dangerous levels. Now the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific panel charged with analyzing the problem, has concluded in a draft report that it is seeing signals that man-made global warming is under way. The signals are not in the form of a ``smoking gun.'' Instead, they are found in computer patterns. The computer models that predict rising temperatures seem to be matching up more closely with some of the patterns of climate change actually observed. There are great uncertainties in how much the temperature will rise and how great any damage might be. But the case for being concerned about global warming is getting stronger. That makes it especially distressing that committees in the House and Senate are slashing funds for programs aimed at protecting the global environment. Steep cuts have been imposed on research to study global climate change, on programs to help reduce carbon emissions and on funds to help developing countries phase out their ozone-destroying chemicals. It is perverse that, as the evidence of global atmopsheric harm gets somewhat stronger, the political response to mitigating it gets progressively weaker.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, sometimes the politicians under those circumstances decided to punish the scientists who were coming in with some scientific opinions that they did not like. I do not want us to do the same thing today that the Neanderthals of years past have done. I think we ought to have a free and open inquiry of science. We ought not to prejudge it and defund it because we do not like what they are doing.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, the issue of global warming is a matter of great concern. I have an editorial from the Washington Post. They said that ``There are great uncertainties in how much the temperature will rise and how great any damage will be, but the case for being concerned about global warming is getting stronger. That makes it especially distressing that committees in the House and Senate are slashing funds for programs aimed at protecting the global environment.'' That is what is happening in this legislation, we are cutting funds to deal with the problem of the global environment. In a few minutes we are going to have a discussion about the provision of the bill that strikes funds dealing with indoor air pollution. It is almost as if this Congress were anti-science. We act like we belong to the Flat Earth Society. Time after time we are ignoring sound science, we are ignoring sound concerns to our environment, so our response is to cut back funding in understanding the threat and how to deal with it. Let me put this in perspective. I do think this Congress is more and more anti-science. It is very distressing. An example: this House passed a Clean Water Act, and despite the National Academy of Science's, our Nation's most prestigious scientific organization, recommendations on what would be a sound scientific definition of a wetland, the House of Representatives threw it all out and decided to adopt a scientifically indefensible definition of wetlands that wipes out most of our Nation's wetlands. That is not a decision made on good science. Another example, ozone depletion. Yesterday Dr. Sherwood Rowland and two other scientists were given a Nobel Prize for their discovery that manmade chemicals are destroying the ozone layer. Their science has been endorsed by virtually every reputable scientific organization in the world. These are Nobel Prize winners. What happens with the House Committee on Science? They do not accept this science. Instead, the committee has been holding hearings that feature eccentric witnesses who argue that there is no ozone hole. Today we are talking about taking another sad step into the realm of anti-science. We are debating a bill that would defund important, basic scientific research into these key environmental problems. The global warming plan at the Environmental Protection Agency was the result of the work of EPA administrator William Reilly, who was appointed by President Bush. This is not a partisan issue. This should not be a partisan issue. When we get to indoor air pollution, it is amazing to think that we are not going to be doing the work on indoor air pollution when the EPA, when they were told to come up with some priorities of the threats to human health, put indoor air pollution right at the top. I think we have to step back and put this all in perspective. Because some industry groups do not like the idea that maybe they are going to face regulation because some scientists have a difference of opinion, that should not mean that we will ignore scientific opinion and not conduct further research to try to implement action plans that can, in a very prudent way, protect us from the results of global warming, should the threat be as severe as we are being led to believe. I have a couple of articles that I am going to put into the Record. One is an article from the New York Times, September 18, headlined, ``Scientists Say Earth's Warming Could Set Off Wide Disruptions.'' The first paragraph reads, ``The earth has entered a period of climactic change that is likely to cause,'' likely to cause, ``widespread economic, social and environmental dislocation over the next century if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not reduced, according to experts advising the world's Governments.'' We are hearing from most of the scientists about this issue. Another article which I will insert into the Record, September 10. ``Experts Confirm Human Role In Global Warming.'' The article goes on to talk about, ``In an important shift of scientific judgment, experts advising the world's governments on climate change are saying for the first time that human activity is a likely cause of the warming of the global atmosphere.'' Mr. Chairman, if that is the case, how do you take the Environmental Protection Agency out of this issue? How do you stop their action plan in its tracks from reducing some of these manmade chemicals that are causing this problem? This is an example of this problem which has led to this amendment. To keep the funds in place, not to cut back, is it seems to me a very shortsighted move, and I believe one that ignores the overwhelming scientific opinions and denigrates it. We do not have certainty, but we ought not to denigrate the mounting evidence and wait to the point where we have a problem that cannot be fixed.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. WAXMAN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, absolutely not.

Mr. WAXMAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman, of course not. Scientists are reflecting different opinions. We ought to hear from them, but we ought not to make a decision to vote one way or the other based on which scientist you like and ignore what is turning out to be an overwhelming accumulation of evidence.

Mr. WAXMAN

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in saluting Sharon Berkowitz, who will be honored at Shaare Zedek Medical Center's annual Women For * * * Save A Baby Luncheon on November 12, 1995. Sharon Berkowitz has made immeasurable contributions to charities here in Los Angeles and in Israel. In Los Angeles, she has taken a leadership role in a wide variety of organizations affiliated with the modern orthodox movement, including the PTA of Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy, Hadassah, and the newly formed organization for the assistance of newly married couples in difficult financial straits. Sharon Berkowitz is best known for her long-standing work with the oldest medical facility in Israel, the eminently respected Shaare Zedek Medical Center. For years, Shaare Zedek has benefited from the many contributions of Sharon Berkowitz and her husband, Rabbi Jacob Berkowitz, Associate Rabbi of Beth Jacob Congregation of Beverly Hills. In her work with Shaare Zedek, Sharon Berkowitz has focused her efforts on the medical center's renowned neonatology department, which is recognized worldwide for its [[Page E 1916]] pioneering treatment of low weight babies, babies with congenital birth defects, and babies from all over the region who require specialized treatment that is not readily available at other facilities. Shaare Zedek's program for ill newborns has built bridges between Israel and her Arab neighbors. Through this program, Muslims, Christians, and Jews have been able to transcend their differences in the interest of saving babies precariously on the border between life and death. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Sharon Berkowitz for all of her charitable work, and especially her work with Shaare Zedek's Neonatology Department. The survival of the children treated there is often dependent upon her efforts and those of other humanitarian supporters of the neonatology program. I wish her many years of good health and success in all of her future endeavors.