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Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise to express my regret that I was unable to support the Labor/HHS Appropriation bill that was passed by the Senate today. I was initially prepared to offer my support when we began debate on this legislation, however the addition of a number of troubling amendments during consideration of this bill compels me to oppose this bill.
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Before I discuss the provisions that caused me to vote against the legislation, I would like to recognize Senators SPECTER and HARKIN as well as the rest of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, for their efforts to increase our nation's investments in a number of critical programs that serve our nation's children and families. First, this legislation includes an increase of $817 million for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, bringing total funding for this program to $2 billion and allowing an additional 220,000 children to be served. In my opinion, this new investment in child care represents a significant victory for American families and it is my sincere hope that this provision is retained in conference. I am also pleased that this legislation provides $4.9 billion for the Head Start program, as the President had requested. This funding represents a funding increase of $1 billion over FY 2000.
I also commend Senators SPECTER and HARKIN for providing a $2.7 billion increase for the National Institutes of Health, the largest increase in history. This increase, coupled with a $2 billion increase last year, put Congress on the path toward the goal of doubling our nation's investment in the search for medical breakthroughs over the next five years.
I also applaud the Appropriations Committee's bipartisan education funding increase of $4.6 billion, including a record $1.3 billion increase for special education, as well as increases for Title I grants to schools, teacher technology training, Impact Aid, Reading Excellence, vocational education, school counseling, Pell grants, and other student financial aid programs.
Mr. President, I am particularly pleased that this legislation includes an initiative I worked to advance last year that will serve to protect individuals with mental illnesses from the inappropriate use of seclusion and restraint. I first became aware of the problem surrounding the misuse of seclusion and restraints in 1998 when the Hartford Courant published a five-part investigative series outlining the tragic practice. This series documented 142 deaths over the last decade nationally that were determined to be directly attributable to the inappropriate use of restraint and seclusion. Additionally, the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis estimates that between 50 and 150 restraint-related deaths occur each year nationally, with more than 26 percent of those deaths occurring in children. This initiative will ensure that physical restraints are no longer used for discipline or for the convenience of mental health facility staff by extending to the mental health population a standard that has been shown to be effective in reducing the use of restraints and seclusion in nursing homes. Further, this legislation will require that all restraint and seclusion related deaths be reported to an appropriate oversight agency. In addition, this legislation would require adequate staffing levels and appropriate training for staff of facilities that serve the mentally ill. These safeguards will hopefully prevent further harm to individuals who may be unable to protect themselves from abuse
by those entrusted with their care.
Yet, while I recommend the overall increase in education funding, I am concerned about the elimination of funds for critical programs. For instance, the bill ends the bipartisan commitment to reduce class size that has now been funded for two years. S. 2553 transfers the class size funds to Title VI, which eliminates any guarantee that the funds will be used for this purpose, greatly diluting targeting to high poverty schools, and severely weakening accountability for how money is spent. I am also concerned that this bill fails to guarantee funds for the critical area of school modernization. Instead, it increases the Title VI program by $1.3 billion, adding renovation and construction of school facilities as an allowable use of funds. I am pleased that the bill acknowledges the need for federal assistance in helping states and schools with their school modernization needs; however, this block grant approach fails to guarantee that funds will be used for school modernization, and fails to target funds to schools with the greatest needs. I also believe this bill does not go far enough to fund Title I--an important program that provides supplemental programs to enable educationally disadvantaged children. This bill would only increase last year's $8 billion appropriation by $400 million. It is estimated that it would take $24 billion to fully fund this program.
Another area of this bill that is of some concern to me is the investment in after-school programs. The bill's funding level for 21st Century Community Learning Centers is $400 million below the President's request denying 1.6 million children access to before- and after-school programs in safe, drug-free environments. I am disappointed that my amendment to increase spending on this crucial area to $1 billion was not adopted. It is time our funding reflects the importance that parents place on this national priority. With 5 million children home alone each week, after-school programs must not be an afterthought.
I am also very troubled that this legislation now includes a patients bill of rights proposal that offers only the illusion of patient protections. This amendment fails to cover all Americans with private health insurance and fails to offer patients a true right to seek legal redress when they are harmed by an HMO's refusal to provide care. I am also disappointed that the majority refused to support an amendment offered by Senator DORGAN which would have required that any patient protection legislation passed by the Senate cover all 191 million privately insured Americans.
Lastly, I am disappointed that this legislation would delay a proposed ergonomics standard to protect w orkers from work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Each year more than 600,000 workers suffer serious injuries, such as back injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome and tendinitis as a result of ergonomic hazards. The proposed ergonomics rule promulgated by O SHA can go a long way tow ard keeping our workers productive and our businesses profitable. I hope that common sense will prevail in conference, and that this and other counter-productive measures will be remedied.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, during the debate on the Labor-Health & Human Services-Education appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2001, Senator DASCHLE offered an amendment relating to genetic testing and the potential for genetics-based discrimination in the workplace.
I was thrilled at the recent announcement of the completion of the human genetic map, and with it, the possibility of the full identification of the more than three billion nucleotide bases that comprise the genome. This knowledge will bring with it limitless possibilities, vastly improving our quality of life and health.
Yet with this knowledge comes great responsibility. For all the good this information can do for us, there is also the potential of great harm and misuse. One of the challenges that faces us even now, is to ensure that genetic information about an individual is not used against him or herself.
Despite my strong conviction that genetic information must never be used to discriminate against an individual, I was unable to support the amendment offered by Senator DASCHLE relating to genetic discrimination in the workplace.
Senator DASCHLE's amendment is, in reality, much more than simply a technical amendment to an appropriations bill. It is a 5-page, far-reaching, broadly written, piece of legislation, which would create an entirely new class of discrimination law, creating inequalities and conflicting with existing law.
This legislation would usurp the jurisdiction of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and allow genetic discrimination suits to go directly to the court system. This is highly unusual for discrimination suits and would afford this form of discrimination preferential treatment over any other form of discrimination.
In addition, this bill comes into direct conflict with the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA. The ADA already captures genetic discrimination--this has been affirmed by the Secretary of the EEOC and the Supreme Court. If we pass a separate bill that preempts the protections already provided for in the ADA, we could potentially be undermining our support for the people covered by those protections. Just to highlight the possible inequalities--the Daschle amendment
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Given the drastic and over-reaching changes which would be brought about by the Daschle amendment, especially in a new area such as genetic testing, consideration of this legislation must be deliberate and well-informed.
Yet, there has not been a single hearing on this legislation. In fact, the amendment language was not available for review until only an hour or so before the vote. I believe it would be wrong and even negligent to pass legislation without knowing exactly how it would affect Americans' lives, now and far into the future.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has already planned the first hearing on this matter in July. I am confident, that with careful deliberation and thorough debate, we will succeed in finding the most effective and appropriate way to ensure that no one will have their genetic-information used against them. I am looking forward to the challenge.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, today the Senate passed H.R. 4577, the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Act. I would like to congratulate my colleagues, Senator SPECTER, Senator STEVENS, and Senator HARKIN for working together to pass one of the more contentious of the annual appropriations bills.
I appreciate the comity and courtesy displayed by the managers of this bill. I realize that most of my colleagues have specific priorities they wish to highlight in this measure. I appreciate the managers' support of the Inhofe amendment regarding the Impact Aid program. As I have stated in the past, this is a vital program for Utah.
I also appreciate the fact that the subcommittee has once again included a provision which would allow school districts adversely affected by a recalculation of the census to keep their Title I concentration funds.
According to Utahns who live and work and educate our children in these districts, this cut would do a huge disservice to Title I students in these districts. These hardworking Utahns have informed me that they believe that the census calculations do not adequately reflect the pockets of poverty that exist in these districts. Some of the schools in these districts have a poverty rate, when calculated based on school lunch data, at over 70 percent. I am pleased that the subcommittee has accepted the recommendation to hold these districts harmless.
I intend to vote in favor of the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill, but I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to note, once again, that a crucial provision in the Title I formula remains unfunded. The Education Finance Incentive Grant Program was authorized in the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act and is included in S. 2, the ESEA reauthorization, currently pending before the Congress.
I recently detailed the merits of this program when I spoke about my intention to offer an amendment to S. 2 that would make EFIG a mandatory component of Title I. I will briefly review those arguments here:
EFIG has, as a principal component, an equity factor, which measures how states distribute resources among school districts. As policy, equalizing resources among school districts has merit well documented in academic literature.
Moreover, many States are being compelled by the courts to equalize resources among school districts. Over 30 states have been taken to court on the basis of an unequal distribution of resources. My amendment would provide some relief to states that are currently required by the courts to equalize resources among school districts by increasing their share of Title I funds. My amendment would also provide the incentive to equalize resources to states which may not have already done so.
The Education Finance Incentive Grant program would be the only part of the Title I formula that does not use the per-pupil expenditure as a proxy for a state's commitment to education. There are many ways to measure a State's commitment to education--the per-pupil expenditure is merely one. Indeed, one of the most damaging aspects of the Title I formula is that it is replicated as a means to distribute Federal money to the states in other programs that have no relation to Title I. The insertion of another measure of a state's commitment to education is appropriate.
When EFIG is a factor in the Title I formula, more states do better than under current law. This was a key factor in the debate over the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and why it was the intent during the enactment of the 1994 reauthorization that any additional funds directed to Title I go out through the EFIG. Indeed, it was the reason why a number of Senators voted for the conference report. It is my strongly held conviction that the intention of the 1994 act should be realized, and I will continue to pursue this goal.
I do not believe that the Senate should authorize on an appropriations measure, which is why I did not offer my amendment during consideration of this bill. However, I join with many of my colleagues who have expressed concerns over the possibility that, for the first time in nearly 30 years, the Congress will fail to reauthorize vital elementary and secondary education programs. I sincerely hope that those who have obstructed enactment of S. 2 will reconsider their position and allow the bill to go forward.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from New Mexico is recognized to speak as if in morning business.
The Senator from New Mexico.
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