Making Appropriations for Science, the Departments of State, Justice, and Commerce, and Related Agencies for Fiscal Year 2006 Continued

MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR SCIENCE, THE DEPARTMENTS OF STATE, JUSTICE, AND COMMERCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 CONTINUED

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I want to offer a few observations with respect to Stabenow amendment No. 1688 to H.R. 2862, which was accepted by the Senate yesterday, as modified, and elaborate on why I supported this amendment.

As my colleagues well know, I have long supported the legalization of prescription drug importation in this country. In fact, I have sponsored a bill to legalize the importation of prescription drugs. That bill is S. 334, the Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act of 2005. I want to thank Senators Dorgan, Snowe, Kennedy, and McCain for working with me to carefully develop legislation that I could fully support. I worked very closely with my colleagues to draft S.334 in way that does not create any litigation risk with respect to any of our trade agreements. We achieved that in S. 334. I believe S. 334 is fully consistent with the terms of our trade agreements, including our agreements with Singapore, Morocco, and Australia.

The Stabenow amendment is not limited to pharmaceutical patents. That concerns me. I believe the international trade obligations of the United States allow us to apply a special rule of patent exhaustion to pharmaceutical patents as long as we respect the principles of national treatment and most-favored-nation treatment. I hope that the Stabenow amendment will be further refined in conference so that its scope is limited to pharmaceutical patents.

By legalizing the importation of prescription drugs we will increase competition and keep the domestic pharmaceutical industry more responsive to consumers. Drug companies will be forced to reevaluate their pricing strategies, and American consumers will no longer be forced to pay more than their fair share of the high cost of research and development for new innovative pharmaceuticals. Prescription drug importation legislation has been stalled in Congress for far too long. My support for the Stabenow amendment is intended to help kickstart the legislative process, so we can pass prescription drug importation legislation without any more delay. The American people deserve no less.

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