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a Federal mandate. The Senator from New Hampshire keeps talking about it as a Federal mandate. But saying it does not make it so.
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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is a civil rights bill. It is a bill that basically helps the States meet their constitutional obligation. In the early 1970s, there were two court cases in which the courts said that if a State chooses to fund public education, then children with disabilities enjoy a constitutional right to a free and appropriate public education. A State, if it wanted to, could say: We are not going to fund any public education, and they could do so.
But if a State provides a free public education to its children, it cannot discriminate on the basis of race or sex or national origin. And as a result of these two cases that came up in the early 1970s, they cannot discriminate on the basis of disability, either.
So as long as a State provides a free public education to its children, it cannot say, yes, for non-disabled students; but no to kids with disabilities. Constitutionally, they have to provide that free, appropriate public education to all kids.
In 1975, the Congress said: Look, this is going to be a burden on the States, so we will help. We will help the States with some funding to meet their constitutional obligations. It is not a Federal mandate. So we set up this law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and we said: OK, we will provide you some funds to help you out if you do these certain things, meet these certain guidelines.
No State has to take one penny of IDEA money. We do not force it on them. We do not say: You have to take it. We say: Look, because of the court cases, you have to provide a free, appropriate public education to every child with a disability. What we are saying at the Federal level is: We are going to help you do that. But, if you want our help here are the guidelines. Follow them and you get the money. That is the basis of IDEA. It is not a Federal mandate.
We also keep hearing that somehow we guaranteed to help the States meet 40 percent of the cost of educating the kids with disabilities. That is not so.
The maximum award to any State under IDEA would be 40 percent of the national per-pupil expenditure per year for education, not 40 percent of the cost of educating the kids in their State with disabilities. We said the maximum grant would be 40 percent of the national average cost of educating every child. That, right now, if I am not mistaken, is around $6,850.
So $6,850 is the national per pupil average that we funded out of the Federal Government in 1998. The IDEA funding formula is 40 percent of the per pupil average or $2,750, give or take a few dollars. I am not going to figure it to the exact dollar. Under the legislation we have right now, it is about 11.7 percent. With the increase, it gets it up to about 15 percent. So we do have a ways to go before we reach the maximum of 40 percent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask for a couple more minutes, and then I will wrap it up.
Mr. SPECTER. I yield 2 more minutes.
Mr. HARKIN. I want to make it clear, do I support the goal of getting up to 40 percent of the national per pupil expenditure up to $2,750 per student? I do. But I don't believe we ought to do it at the expense of afterschool programs or out of Head Start or anything else. That is what I dislike about the Gregg amendment. If he wants to come up with more money for IDEA, fine. I will be glad to support him. But to take it away from other kids who have needs, I think, is not the way that we ought to proceed. Quite frankly, I don't know anyone in the disability community who would say, yes, take it away from those kids and give it to ours. They would say, look, fund the disability programs, fund IDEA, but fund afterschool programs, fund breakfast programs, fund Head Start programs, because these are all our kids and they all have needs. We ought to appropriately fund all of education.
If this Congress gave the same priority to education as it does for the Pentagon, we wouldn't have to make these types of choices. There would be enough for both.
We added $4 billion to the Pentagon's budget over what they asked for. When will we ever see the day when we would add $4 billion over what the Department of Education requested?
Those were the basic points I wanted to make. IDEA is not a funding mandate. We need afterschool programs. We need IDEA also. I don't agree with stripping funds from one important program to fund another. That is why I believe Senator GREGG's amendment has deficiencies.
With that, I yield the floor.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, it has been a good debate, I think.
I now ask unanimous consent that, notwithstanding the pendency of the Smith amendment No. 1808, the vote on the amendment be reconsidered and tabled.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter dated September 17, 1999, from me to Senator COCHRAN be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
U.S. SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS,
Washington, DC, September 17, 1999.
Hon. THAD
COCHRAN,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
DEAR THAD: As a precautionary matter, I think it is advisable for me to recuse myself on the issue of the appropriation for the National Constitution Center since my wife, Joan Specter, is director of fundraising.
I would very much appreciate it if you would substitute for me on that issue since you are the senior Republican on the Subcommittee for Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.
Sincerely,
ARLEN SPECTER.
Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, let me begin by commending Senator SPECTER and Senator HARKIN for their hard work on this bill. Although it's far from perfect, it's a big improvement over the House version, and I know Senators SPECTER and HARKIN have worked diligently to fund critical education and health priorities within the constraints they have faced.
I intend to support this bill, Mr. President. But I also need to point out that it's apparently part of a broader plan that would lead to using Social Security surpluses. And I think that would be a mistake.
The additional money for this bill has come by shifting allocated funds from the Defense Appropriations bill. But rather than finding savings in military spending, the leadership intends to declare much of the extra spending as an emergency.
What we have here, Mr. President, is a shell game. The Republican plan may succeed in circumventing the discretionary spending caps, as they are trying to do. But it doesn't get around another critical problem. It still leaves us on course toward using Social Security funds to run the government.
Mr. President, for many months now, we've heard our Republican friends declare their commitment to protecting Social Security funds. They've put together a Social Security lock box in an effort to appear committed toward that goal--though, I must add, it's a lock box with a huge loophole, and one that does nothing for Medicare.
But while declaring their commitment to protecting Social Security, Mr. President, the Republicans are actually moving to spend Social Security surpluses. At their current rate, they're going to spend roughly $20 billion in Social Security surpluses. And that total could well go higher.
Mr. President, I know that many people around here privately believe that there's no alternative to spending Social Security surpluses, and we need that money to fund government adequately. But that's just wrong.
There's a better alternative. If we simply ask the tobacco industry to fully compensate taxpayers for the costs of tobacco-related diseases, we almost certainly could avoid spending Social Security surpluses.
Every year, Mr. President, tobacco costs taxpayers more than $20 billion. To its credit, the Justice Department is trying to recoup these costs through civil litigation. But that could take years. Meanwhile, Congress can act now to make taxpayers whole. And we should.
Mr. President, I've heard Republicans argue for months that pursuing more tobacco revenues is just, and the word they usually use is, ``unrealistic.'' It's a clever way to avoid responsibility. It's as if some force outside themselves
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If the Republican leadership simply decided to ask Big Tobacco to compensate taxpayers, they could do it. It's completely realistic, if they just summon the will to do it.
Now, given the close relationship between the Republican Party and the tobacco industry, I realize that's not a politically easy decision for them.
But this is a different world than last year, when the tobacco legislation went down.
Now we have a Republican Congress about to embark on a money grab of Social Security funds. Compared to that, asking the tobacco industry to pay their fair share should be less difficult.
In any case, Mr. President, it seems clear that the real debate this fall is going to be between tobacco and Social Security.
And if we end up using Social Security funds to run the government, it will because the Republican Congress put Big Tobacco first, not Social Security. I think the American people would be outraged at that. And that's why I'm hopeful it won't happen.
So, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to do the right thing, and choose Social Security over Big Tobacco. Let's end this money grab, reduce youth smoking, and protect Social Security.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, each year, up to 1 million nurses and other health care workers are accidentally stuck by needles or other sharp instruments contaminated by the blood of the patients they care for. More than 1,000 of these health care workers will contract dangerous and potentially fatal diseases as a result of their injuries. The Reid amendment is very important--it will require hospitals to use safer devices, and it will provide more effective monitoring of needlestick inj uries, so that we can take additional steps to deal with this danger.
Karen Daley, of Stoughton, MA, is one of those whose lives have been forever changed by disposing of a used needle.
Karen is a registered nurse and president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association. In July 1998, as an emergency room nurse at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, she reached into the box used to dispose of a needle, and felt a sharp cut. By the end of the year, Karen had been diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C. I would like to read from a statement she recently delivered at the Massachusetts State House, where a bill has been recommended by the relevant committees:
I have been a practicing nurse for over 25 years. I love clinical nursing and have felt privileged to care directly for thousands of patients over the years....... I have developed expertise in my practice over the years that has allowed me to have a significant impact not only on the quality of care my patients receive, but also in the growth and professional development of less experienced colleagues ..... Since January of this year, I have come to terms with the fact that I am infected with not one, but two potentially life-threatening diseases....... I have had to have weekly blood tests drawn--over 90 tubes of blood since January....... Experience to date is that treating a person infected with both HIV and Hepatitis C is extremely difficult and that each infection makes it more difficult to successfully treat the other.
That one moment in time changed many other things. In addition to the emotional turmoil that it has created for myself, my family, my friends, my peers--it has cost me much more than I can ever describe in words. I am no longer a practicing health care provider--I made the decision to not return to my clinical practice setting where I have worked for over 20 years. In the process, I have abruptly been forced to leave many colleagues with whom I've worked for many years and who are as much family as peers to me. The harder decision for me has been the decision I've made not to return to clinical nursing.
This injury didn't occur because I wasn't observing universal precautions that are designed to reduce health care workers' exposure to blood-borne pathogens. This injury didn't occur because I was careless or distracted or not paying attention to what I was doing. This injury and the life-altering consequences I am now suffering should not have happened.......and would not have happened if a safer needlebox system had been in place in my work setting.
Karen Daley is now battling against two devastating diseases. And it didn't have to happen. Unfortunately, this scene is repeated more than 1,000 times a year--in communities across the country.
Lynda Arnold, a 30-year-old registered nurse and mother of two adopted children, is now HIV-positive as a result of a needlestick inj ury she received in an intensive care unit in Lancaster, PA, in 1992. She has started the Campaign for Health Care Worker Safety. Lynda writes,
I no longer work in a hospital. I no longer involve myself in direct patient care. I do not dream of growing old with my 30-year-old husband or dancing with my son at his wedding.
These cases are tragedies, and there are many more. At least 20 different bloodborne pathogens can be transmitted by needlestick inj uries, including HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C.
The average cost of followup for a high-risk exposure is almost $3,000 per incident--even when no infection occurs. The American Hospital Association estimates that a case can eventually cost more than $1 million for testing, medical care, lost time, and disability payments.
Up to 80 percent of needlestick inj uries could be prevented with the use of safer needle devices currently available. However, fewer than 15 percent of American hospitals use these products. The primary reason for not adopting steps to create a safer workplace is the cost. But the consequences are severe.
Safer needle devices do cost approximately 25 cents more than a conventional syringe. But the net savings from avoiding the excessive costs associated with workplace injuries are also significant. Hospitals and health care facilities in California are expected to achieve annual net savings of more than $100 million after implementing a proposal similar to the one now under consideration.
This is not a partisan issue. The companion bill in the House has almost 140 cosponsors--including more than 20 Republicans from across the political spectrum.
Similar bills have recently passed in California, Texas, Tennessee, and Maryland, and have been introduced in more than 20 other States.
These protections have the strong support of the American Nurses Association, Kaiser Permanente, the American Public Health Association, the Consumer Federation of America, and many, many other groups that represent nurses, doctors, and other health care workers. In addition, the Massachusetts Hospital Association and other State level associations have supported these bills at the State level.
There is no excuse for inaction. Time is of the essence. Every day 3,000 more accidental needlesticks occur. We need to act as soon as possible. We owe prompt action and greater protection to those who devote their careers to caring for others.
Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, in my 11 years in the U.S. Senate I have rarely seen such an opportunity to fight against big Government and defend local decisionmakers like parents and teachers.
The Democrats are signaling their intent to hamstring local schools by commanding them to focus their efforts on issues which are deemed important inside the Capital Beltway, not within their homes and communities. I feel Montanans know what is best for Montana; we don't need Washington to tell us how to teach our children.
Congress should reject a one-size-fits-all approach to education and local schools should have the freedom to prioritize their spending and tailor their curriculum according to the unique educational needs of their children.
For too long, Washington has been part of the problem with education, enacting many well-intentioned programs that result in more redtape and regulation. Though Washington accounts for only seven percent of education funding, it accounts for 50 percent of the paperwork for our teachers and principles. It is time for Washington to lend a helping hand to our states.
Unfortunately, right now many of our Federal education programs are overloaded with so many rules and regulations that states and local schools waste precious time and resources to stay in compliance with the Federal programs. It is obvious that states and local school districts need relief from the administrative bourdons that many federally designated education programs put on States, schools, and educational administrators.
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I feel strongly and deeply that Montanans need to be in control of Montana's classrooms. I can not vote for anything that does not have local school control. I will continue to resist the attempts to take away your control of your child's schools.
Our goal on the Federal level is to help States and local school districts provide the best possible first-class education for our children that they can. We need to get the bureaucratic excess out of the face of the local educators so that they can do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
Mr. President, we need to fix the problem of Federal controls in education. We need to allow the decisionmaking to be made by the people that we trust to educate our children. That is what really counts.
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