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As a way to help more women, Strengthen Our Sisters would like to expand the service their program offers for older women. In 1998, Strengthen Our Sisters served four women over age fifty-five, a number that jumped to fourteen in the span of less than a
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The work of Strengthen Our Sisters is an appropriate focus for the Committee because domestic violence is a national epidemic. Expanding the Strengthen Our Sisters program to help senior women could be a model for shelters across the country that are confronting similar problems and population trends.
Mr. SPECTER. In the past, we have faced difficult choices in making a determination of funding priorities and this year promises to be no exception. We are aware of the request by Strengthen Our Sisters and commend their efforts toward expanding its program to serve more women in need. In conference, we will keep in mind your request as well as those with similar meritorious characteristics and goals.
Mr. TORRICELLI. I thank my distinguished colleague for his assistance with this matter. I am thankful for the Committee's acknowledgment of the expertise and dedication that Strengthen Our Sisters brings to helping our most vulnerable population and I hope that funding for this important organization can be found in conference.
COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL REFORM FUNDING IN LABOR HHS APPROPRIATIONS BILL
Mr. BINGAMAN. Senator Lugar, I know you're aware of the tremendous good that the Comprehensive School Reform program (CSRD) has introduced to many struggling schools with high proportions of disadvantaged students, and the potential that the program offers for the numerous schools that desire to implement comprehensive reform in their buildings. While I recognize the considerable task of Chairman SPECTOR and Ranking Member HARKIN in accommodating the great number of priorities funded in the FY'01 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill, it concerns me that the bill before us provides no funds for the CSRD--a tremendously popular and effective program.
Mr. LUGAR. I agree that few areas of our education funding can have a mo re positive impact on education in America than the C SRD. This program is a key tool for helping struggling schools adopt important reforms. Good reform programs are a bargain for our schools and our children when we compare their costs to that of retention, special education and illiteracy. In fa ct, I filed an amendment to S. 2, legislation crafted to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, that would have more than doubled funding for this important program. Unfortunately, this bill has been set aside.
Mr. BINGAMAN. The notion of systematic, comprehensive reform is inherently appealing because rather than piecing together discordant or incompatible pieces of change, these approaches provide a holistic and coordinated plan of action to improve student achievement and outcomes. I know that a number of research-based models of comprehensive school reform have been developed in recent years, and one that I am familiar with and which has spurred great progress across New Mexico is the Success for All program.
Success for All is serving about 1550 elementary schools in 48 states, and is also assisting related projects in five other countries. Fifty schools in New Mexico have adopted this program with great results.
Mr. LUGAR. Success for All is an exemplary research-based reform program. I have spent time with Dr. Slavin, who developed this program at Johns Hopkins, and I have been visiting Success for All schools in Indiana. The results in these schools are so promising that I have written to every superintendent in Indiana urging them to take a look at the program.
The discipline and accountability of Success for All greatly reduce the possibility that students will fail. By teaching children to read in the early grades, our schools can avoid holding students back, promoting them with insufficient ability or transferring them out of the normal curriculum to special education courses. Referrals to special education in Success for All sc hools have been shown to decrease by approximately 50 percent. In schools where Success for All is taught, students learn to read by the end of the third grade. By the fifth grade, students in these schools are often testing a full grade level ahead of students in other schools.
Mr. BINGAMAN. It is clear that as we seek ways to assist resource-poor and failing schools, we should increase support for research-based proven programs like Success for All. The House bill included the amount requested by the Administration--$240,000,000--for this program and I know that Senators SPECTER and HARKIN are supporters of the program. So, I'd like to encourage the Senators to include funding for it as the bill moves to conference. Funding at this level would allow approximately 2,250 schools to receive new grants and continue support for 1,025 schools currently using such funds to carry out research-based school reforms. It is my hope that we can work together as the bill moves through the appropriations process to fund this successful program.
Mr. SPECTER. Senators LUGAR and BINGAMAN make some very valid points with respect to the comprehensive school reform program. In conference with the House, I will make every effort to work with the Conferees to provide adequate resources for the CSRD.
Mr. HARKIN. I agree that the comprehensive school reform program has had a positive impact in many of our schools. As the bill moves to conference, I will work with Chairman SPECTER to restore funding for this program.
RELIEF FOR DISPLACED COAL WORKERS IN INDIANA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to discuss with Chairman SPECTER the plight of nearly 1,000 displaced coal workers in southwestern Pennsylvania. As Senator SPECTER is aware, these employees of Consol Coal have recently lost their jobs and have sought federal assistance to provide a wide variety of adjustment assistance services including occupational skills training, career plan development, and job search assistance.
As my colleague knows, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had requested over $12 million in an emergency grant application that was submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor. In addition to the services already mentioned, needs-related payments were requested in order to provide income support to workers who participated in retraining activities. These payments are essential as they provide a modest source of income for the workers while they are pursuing additional skills and education in order to prepare for a new vocation. Unfortunately, the Department of Labor only funded a portion of the request, indicating that needs-related payments could not exceed 25 percent of the total application. However, in the past the Department has not held similar applications to the same standard. In fact, I have been made aware of a grant award for mine workers who requested needs-related payments in excess of 70 percent of the total grant application.
Knowing of the need of these displaced coal workers and the inconsistency of the Department of Labor in awarding funds, I ask that Chairman SPECTER work with me in the coming weeks to identify appropriate funds in the Department of Labor's budget to support these workers as they prepare for new careers.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I want to thank my friend, the Senator from Pennsylvania, for his comments. He has been a tireless advocate of the coal workers in Indiana County, and I applaud his efforts on their behalf.
I, too, am well aware of the situation being faced by the former employees of Consol Coal and wrote to the Department of Labor on January 31, 2000 to urge that federal retraining funds be made available. As my colleagues are aware, we face tight budget constraints in this legislation. I will continue working with my colleague from Pennsylvania in the coming weeks in an effort to identify sources of funding that may be available for this purpose.
GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION PRO GRAM
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Mr. SPECTER. I will be pleased to yield to the Senator from Florida for a question.
Mr. MACK. I was most pleased to see that the Senate report accompanying this bill urged the Department to act in a timely manner to issue a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to include psychology into the Graduate Medical Education pro gram. As you know, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee have been working with the Department of Health and Human Services on this matter since 1997. Both the Conference Report on the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (Report 105-217 issued on July 30, 1997) and the Conference Report on last year's Omnibus bill (Report 106-479 issued on November 18, 1999) urged the Department to act favorably on this matter. In fact last year's Conference Report urged the Secretary to issue Notice of Rule Making to accomplish this modification before June 1, 2000.
Mr. President, we thank you for including language in your report--Report 106-292--to further support this effort. I am saddened to report that the advice the Appropriations Committee has given the Secretary is being given little notice, just like all the previous requests to her on this matter. Mr. President, at this point, I would request unanimous consent that a letter I wrote to Secretary Shalala, along with Senator GRAHAM, Congressman SHAW, and Congresswoman THURMAN on April 27, 1998 be published in the RECORD, following this colloquy.
Mr. President, many letters have been written to the Secretary and Nancy Ann Min DeParle, the Administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, on this subject. Language has been included in two Finance/Ways & Means Conference Reports on this subject. Language has been included in the L-HHS Report. Despite all of these urgings, the desired result has not been produced. Would the Chairman of the Subcommittee consider including bill language in the final bill mandating this action if the Department has not issued the Notice of Proposed Rule Making by the time the Subcommittee goes to Conference with the House.
Mr. SPECTER. I would be pleased to look at this matter between now and the time of Conference.
Mr. GRAHAM. I understand that the Health Care Financing Administration has now cleared the NPRM, but there are other Departmental Agencies who now have questions about issuing the NPRM. I also concur with my colleague Senator MACK, that this issue has remained unresolved for too long, and I also believe it would be appropriate to include language to mandate this change.
Mr. MACK. I thank the Chairman for his response to our inquiry.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES,
Washington, DC, April 27, 1998.
Hon. DONNA
SHALALA,
Secretary of Health and Human Services,
Washington, DC.
DEAR SECRETARY SHALALA: The purpose of this letter is to bring to your attention report language included in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-33) and to request implementation of the language at the earliest possible date. The language stated: ``With regard to graduate medical education pay ments, t he Committ ee also notes that the Secretary reimburses for the training of certain allied health professionals, and urges the Secretary to include physician assistants and psychologists under such authority.''
The Graduate Medical Education (GM E) progr am current ly supports the training of 13 allied health professions including hospital administration, medical records, x-ray techno logy, dietetic internships and inhalation therapy. We believe the cost of including two additional health professions in the GME program, as recommended by the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, would be small and offset by the additional benefits to patient care.
In our view, including psychologists and physicians assistants in the GME program would be of significant benefit to Medicare patients. For example, there is an excellent program at the University of Florida where clinical psychologists, working in Shands Teaching Hospital, treat a variety of individuals with medical and psychological dis orders. This program operated at and supported financially by Shands University Hospital contributes significantly to patient care and is the kind of program the Conference Committee considered appropriate for GME reimbursement.
We look forward to hearing from you regarding early implementation of the Conference language.
Sincerely,
CHILD HEALTH INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND DENTISTRY OF NEW JERSEY-ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON MEDICAL SCHOOL
; Mr. TORRICELLI. I rise for the purpose of engaging the Chairman, Mr. SPECTER, in a colloquy.
Mr. SPECTER. I'd be happy to join my colleague from New Jersey in a colloquy.
Mr. TORRICELLI. I would like to take this opportunity to express my support for a very important initiative to both myself, the State of New Jersey, and the Nation. The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has developed the Child Health Institute (CHI) of New Jersey--a comprehensive biomedical research center focused on the development, growth and maturation of children. The mission of the Institute is to improve the health and quality of life of children by fostering scientific research that will produce new discoveries about the causes of many childhood diseases as well as the treatments for these diseases. Researchers will direct their efforts toward the prevention and cure of environmental, genetic and cellular diseases of infants and children.
The hospitals in central New Jersey birth nearly 20,000 babies each year. The founding of the Child Health Institute has created an extraordinary health care resource for these hospitals and the patients they serve. The new Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital is scheduled to open in 2000 and the Child Health Institute in 2001. Together these institutions will provide state of the art clinical and scientific research and treatment complex to serve children and their families, not only in New Jersey, but throughout the nation with cutting edge care and the latest scientific developments.
At maturity, the Child Health Institute is also expected to attract between $7 and $9 million of new research funding annually with the total economic impact on the New Brunswick area estimated to be $50 to $60 million per year. This facility has also already attracted the private funding of two endowed professorships designed to allow recruitment of world-class faculty.
Mr. President, funding for the University of Medicine and Dentistry's Child Health Institute in this bill would be entirely appropriate under the Health Resources and Services Administration account. It would be money well spent. I ask the Chairman to consider providing $5 million for the completion of the Child Health Institute.
Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleague for his comments. We have received numerous requests for funding of health facilities. In the past, we have faced difficult choices in making a determination of funding priorities and this year promises to be no exception. We are aware of the request by the Child Health Institute and commend their efforts toward enhancing its research and service capacity. In Conference, we will keep in mind your request as well as those with similar meritorious characteristics and goals.
ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE
Mr. COCHRAN. It is my understanding that, in view of the pressing need to deal with both infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistant diseases, the Chairman will agree that in conference there will be a total of at least $25 million in new funds to deal with the problem of antimicrobial resistance and that the total to deal with other infectious diseases will be at least at the level included in the Senate bill prior to the amendment.
Mr. SPECTER. That is correct.
Mr. KENNEDY. I commend my colleagues, Senator SPECTER and Senator COCHRAN, for their leadership in having reached agreement on this important issue. The resources provided under this agreement are an important first
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LEAST TOXIC PESTICIDES POLICIES
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, last March, the Senate passed an amendment I offered to the Education Savings Accounts bill that said schools receiving federal funds must notify parents prior to the application of toxic pesticides on school buildings and grounds. It also required the distribution of the Environmental Protection Agency's manual that guides schools in establishing a least toxic pesticide policy.
I offered that amendment for a simple reason. Toxic pesticides hurt our kids, and that hurts the education of our kids. The Nati onal Academy of Sciences has found that up to 25 percent of childhood learning disabilities may be attributable to a combination of exposure to toxic chemicals like pesticides and genetic factors. Yet, current EPA pesticide standards are not protective of children, and schools across America--where our children spend 6 or 7 or more hours a day--routinely use toxic pesticides. My amendment sought to lessen the impact of toxic pesticides on our children by urging schools to use the kinds of products that will harm children the least and to let parents know when toxic pesticides are going to be used.
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