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Doc Contents Legislation passed in the 102nd Congress would have allowed the Park
[Page: S4677] GPO's PDF
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. ADDITION TO WILDERNESS BATTLEFIELD, VIRGINIA.
(a) REMOVAL OF CONDITION ON BATTLEFIELD ADDITION.--Section 2(a)(2) of Public Law 102-541 (16 U.S.C. 525k note; 106 Stat. 3565) is amended by striking ``: Provided,'' and all that follows through ``Interior''.
(b) AUTHORIZED METHODS OF ACQUISITION.--
(1) ACQUISITION OF CERTAIN LANDS BY DONATION.--Section 3(a) of Public Law 101-214 (16 U.S.C. 425l(a)) is amended by adding at the end the following new sentence: ``However, the lands designated `P04-04' on the map referred to in section 2(a) numbered 326-40072E/89/A and dated September 1990 may be acquired only by donation.''.
(2) REMOVAL OF RESTRICTION ON ACQUISITION OF ADDITION.--Section 2 of Public Law 102-541 (16 U.S.C. 525k note; 106 Stat. 3565) is amended by striking subsection (b).
(c) TECHNICAL CORRECTION.--Section 2(a) of Public Law 101-214 (16 U.S.C. 425k(a)) is amended by striking ``Spotslyvania'' and inserting ``Spotsylvania''.
By Ms. SNOWE (for herself, Mr. HARKIN, and Mr. FRIST):
S. 956. A bill to establish programs regarding early detection, diagnosis, and in tervention s for newborns and infants wit h hearing loss; to the Committee on He alth, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
NEWBORN AND INFANT HEARING SCREENING AND INTERVENTION A CT OF 1999
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Newborn and Infant Hearing Screening and Intervention A ct of 1999. This bill is a companion bill to H.R. 1193, introduced in the House by Representative JIM WALSH. I am pleased to be joined again this year by my colleague from Iowa, Senator HARKIN, who has long been a champion of the hearing impaired, and my colleague f rom Tennessee, Senator FRIST.
We usually associate hearing problems with the aging proc ess, and it is true that the largest group of Americans suffering from hearing impairment are those in the 65 to 75 year age range. But at the same time, approximately 1.5 to 3 out of every 1000 children--or as many as 33 children per day--are born with significant hearing problems. According to the N ational Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, as many as 12,000 infants are born each year in the United States with some form of hearing impairment.
& nbsp;In recent years, scientists have stressed that the first years of a child's life are crucial to their future development. This makes early detection and intervention o f hearing loss a necessity if we are t o ensure that all our children get the strong start they deserve. Specialists in speech and language development believe that the crucial period of speech and communication in a child's life can begin as early as six months of age. Unfort unately, though the average age of diagnosis of hearing loss is close to three year s of age.
The ability to hear is a major element of one's ability to read and communicate. To the extent that we can help infants and young children overcome disabilities detected early in life, we will impro ve the ir ability to function in society, receive an education, obtain meaningful employment, and enjoy a better quality of life. Without early diagnosis and intervention, these children are behind t he learning curve--literally--before they have even started. They should not be denied a strong start in life simply for the lack of a simple screening test.
There are many causes of hearing loss, and in many states a n ewborn child is screened only if the physician is aware of some factor that puts that baby in a risk category. The good news is that over 550 hospitals in 46 states operate universal newborn hearing screening programs. Nine sta tes--Hawaii, Rhode Island, Mississippi, Connecticut, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Massachusetts--have passed legislation requiring universal newborn hearing screening. Hawaii, Mississip pi, Rhode Island, Utah, and Wyoming have statewide early hearing detection and interv ention p rograms. A nd scientists acr oss the country are developing and implementing model rural-based infant hearing, screening, follow-up, and i ntervention programs for children at ris k for hearing and language disabilities. < p> The bad news is that, unfortunately, only about 20 percent of the babies in this country are born in hospitals with universal newborn hearing screening programs, and more than 85 percent of all hospitals do not do a hearing screening before sending the baby home.
Universal screening is not a new idea. As early as 1965, the Advisory Commit tee on Education of the Deaf, in a report of the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, recommended the development and nationwide implementation of ``universally applied procedures for early identification.'' In 1989, f ormer Surgeon General C. Everett Koop used the year 2000 as a goal for identifying 90 percent of children with significant hearing loss before they are one yea r old.
In 1997, an expert panel at the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders recommended that the first hearing screening be carried out bef ore an infant is three months old in order to ensure that treatment can begin before six months of age. The Panel also recommended that the most comprehensive and effective way of ensuring screening before an infant is six months old is to have newborns screened before they sent home from the hospital. But a 1998 report by the Commission on Education of the Deaf estimated that the average age at which a child with congenital hearing loss was identified in the U nited States was a 2 1/2 to 3 years old, with many children not being identified until five or six years old.
It is time to move beyond the recommendations and achieve the goal of universal screening. In addition to the nine states that require screening, the Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control, is helping 17 states commit to achieving universal hearing screening by the year 2000. This plan will lead to the screening of more than one million newborns a year, but it still leaves more than half the states without universal screening programs.
The purpose of the bill I am introducing today is to provide the additional assistance necessary to help all the states in implementing programs to ensure that all our newborns are tested and to ensure that those identified with a hearing impairment get help. Specifi cally, the bill:
(1) Authorizes $5 million in FY 2000 and $8 million in FY 2001 for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work with the states to develop early detection, diagnosis and int ervention networks for the purpose of developing models to ensure testing and to collect data;
(2) Authorizes $5 million in FY 2000 and $7 million in FY 2001 for the Centers for Disease Control to provide technical assistance to State agencies and to conduct applied research related to infant hearing detection, diagnosis and tre atment/int ervention; and
(3 ) Authorizes the National Institutes of Health to carry out research on the efficacy of new screening techniques and technology.
A baby born today will be part of this country's future in the 21st century. Surely we owe it to that child to give them a strong start on that future by ensuring that if they do have a hearing impairment it is diagnosed a nd treatment started well before their first year of life is completed. I urge my colleagues to join me, Senator HARKIN, and Senator FRIST in supporting the Newborn and Infant Hearing Screening and Intervention A ct of 1999.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, along with my colleagues, Senator SNOWE and Senator FRIST, the Newborn and Infant Hearing Screening and Intervention A ct of 1999.
&nb
[Page: S4678] GPO's PDF
Every year, approximately 12,000 children in the United States are born with a hearing impairment. Most of them wil l not be diagnosed as hearing-impaired until after their s econd birthday. The consequences of not detecting early hearing impairment are signi ficant, but easily avoidable.
Late detection means that crucial years of stimulating the brain's hearing centers are lost. It may del ay speech and language development. Delayed language development can retard a child's educational progress, minimize his or her socialization skills, and as a result, destroy his or her self-esteem and confidence. On top of all that, many children are diagnosed incorrectly as having behavioral or cognitive problems, simply because of their undetected hearing loss.
&nbs p;In 1988, the Commission on Education of the Deaf reported to Congress that early detection, diagnosis and tre atment wer e essential to improving the status of education for people who are deaf in the United States. Based on that report and others, in 1991, when I was chair of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee on Appropriations, we urged the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Deisorders--NIDCD--to determine the most effective means of identifying hearing impairments in newborn infan ts. In 1993, the Labor-HHS Subcommittee supported NIDCD's efforts to sponsor a consensus development conference on early identification of hearing im pairment in infants and ch ildren. And in 1998, the Subcommittee encouraged NIDCD to pursue research on intervention strategies for infants with hearing impairments, and encouraged HRSA to provide states with the results of the NIH study on the most effective forms of screening infants for hearing loss.
&nbs p;Mr. President, the Act we are introducing today builds on these earlier efforts. The Act would help states develop programs that many of them already are working on; it would not impose a single federal mandate. At least eight states already have mandatory testing programs; many others have legislation pending to establish such programs. Other states have achieved universal newborn testing voluntarily. These programs can work; they deserve federal help.
One of the highlights of my Congressional career, indeed, of my life, has been working on policies and laws to ensure that people with disabilities have an equal opportunity to succeed in our society. This is especially meaningful to me, because my brother Frank became deaf as a child.
I watched Frank grow up, and I saw how few options and support services were available for people who were deaf. I remember the frustrations and challenges Frank faced, and I told myself early on that I would do all I cou ld to break down the barriers in our society that prevented people who were deaf from reaching their potential. By supporting early screening, diagnosis, and tr eatment programs, this act would go a long way toward accomplishing that goal.
I would like to thank Senators SNOWE and FRIST for their hard work and support of this act, and I hope our colleagues will join us in this worthy effort.
By Mr. KOHL:
S. 957. A bill to amend chapter 111 of title 28, United States Code, relating to protective orders, sealing of cases, disclosures of discovery information in civil actions, and for other purposes, to the Committee on the Judiciary.
SUNSHINE IN LITIGATION ACT OF 1999
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today to offer the Sunshine in Litigation Act of 1999, a measure that addresses the growing abuse of secrecy orders issued by our Federal courts. All too often our Federal courts allow vital information that is discovered in litigation--and which directly bears on public health and safety--to be covered up, to be shielded from mothers, fathers and children whose lives are potentially at stake, and from the public officials we have asked to protect our health and safety.
All this happens because of the use of so-called ``protective orders''--really gag orders issued by courts--that are designed to keep information discovered in the course of litigation secret and undisclosed. Typically, injured victims agree to a defendant's request to keep lawsuit information secret. They agree because defendants threaten that, without secrecy, they will fight every document requested and will refuse to agree to a settlement. Victims cannot afford to take such chances. And while courts in these situations actually have the legal authority to deny requests for secrecy, typically they do not--because both sides have agreed, and judges have other matters to which they prefer to attend. So judges are regularly and frequently entering these protective orders, using the power of the Federal government to keep people in the dark about the dangers they face.
Perhaps the worst offenders are the tobacco companies. They have used protective orders not only to keep incriminating documents away from public view, but also to drive up litigation costs by preventing document sharing, effectively forcing every successive plaintiff to ``reinvent the wheel.'' One tobacco industry official even boasted, ``The aggressive posture we have taken regarding depositions and discovery in general continues to make these cases extremely burdensome and expensive for plaintiffs' lawyers, particularly sole practitioners. To paraphrase General Patton, the way we won these cases was not by spending all of our money, but by making the other S.O.B. spend all his.''
This systematic abuse of secrecy orders is one of the reasons that it took more than four decades of tobacco litigation to achieve a reasonable settlement. In fact, Congress and the public's shift in recent years against Big Tobacco resulted in large part from disclosure of materials that had been concealed under secrecy orders, including materials regarding youth targeting and nicotine manipulation.
The problem of excessive secrecy orders in cases involving public health and safety has been apparent for years. The Judiciary Committee first held hearings on this issue in 1990 and ag ain in 1994. In 1990, Arthur Bryant, the executive director of Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, told us, ``The one thing we learned ..... is that this problem is far more egregious than we ever imagined. It goes the length and depth of this country, and the frank truth is that much of civil litigation in this country is taking place in secret.''
Four years later, attorney Gerry Spence told us about 19 cases in which he had been involved where his clients had been required to sign secrecy agreements. They included cases involving defects in a hormonal pregnancy test that caused severe birth defects, a defective braking system on a steamroller, and an improperly manufactured tire rim.
But that's not surprising, because individual examples of this problem abound. For over a decade, Miracle Recreation, a U.S. playground equipment company, marketed a merry-go-round that caused serious injury to scores of small children--including severed fingers and feet. Lawsuits brought against the manufacturer were confidentially settled, preventing the public and the Consumer Products Safety Commission from learning about the hazard. It
took more than a decade for regulators to discover the danger and for the company to recall the merry-go-round.
There are yet more cases like these. In 1973, GM allegedly began marketing vehicles with dangerously placed fuel tanks that tended to rupture, burn, and explode on impact more frequently than regular tanks. Soon after these vehicles hit the American road, tragic accidents began occurring, and lawsuits were filed. More than 150 lawsuits were settled confidentially by GM. For years this secrecy prevented the public from learning of the alleged dangers presented by these vehicles--millions of which are still on the road. It wasn't until a 1993 trail that the public learned about sidesaddle gas tanks and some GM crash test data that demonstrated these dangers.
The thrust of our legislation is straightforward. In cases affecting public health and safety, Federal courts would be required to apply a balancing test: they could permit secrecy only if
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Although this law may result in some small additional burden on judges, a little extra work seems a tiny price to pay to protect blameless people from danger. Every day, in the course of litigation, judges make tough calls about how to construe the public interest and interpret other laws that Congress passes. I am confident that the courts will administer this law fairly and sensibly. If this requires extra work, then that work is well worth the effort. After all, no one argues that spoiled meat should be allowed on the market because stricter regulations mean more work for FDA meat inspectors.
Having said all this, we must in fairness recognize that there is another side to this problem. Privacy is a cherished possession, and business information is a cherished commodity. For this reason, the courts must, in some cases, keep trade secrets and other business information confidential.
But, in my opinion, today's balance of these interests is entirely inadequate. Our legislation will ensure that courts do not carelessly and automatically sanction secrecy when the health and safety of the American public are at stake. At the same time, this bill will allow defendants to obtain secrecy orders when the need for privacy is significant and substantial.
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