Federal Marriage Amendment - Motion to Proceed

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD
SENATE
FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT-MOTION TO PROCEED

Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about some of the issues which are pending before this Senate which are not being considered because the other side of the aisle refuses to take them up. I am going to stay on narrow issues which have not received a lot of public attention.

Obviously, there have been a lot of issues such as medical malpractice, such as the just recent decision not to go forward with the debate on the constitutional amendment, that have received a fair amount of visibility as a result of the obstruction coming from the other side and the other side deciding it does not wish to address those issues, which are quite often critical to the American people. There have, however, been four items reported out of the committee which I have the good fortune to chair, the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. It is a committee of fairly disparate views-to be kind. I chair it. I have as my honorable colleague on the other side of the aisle, Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts. To say that we have a philosophical identity would be an imaginative view.

As we go down the membership of the committee, the differences of opinions relative to philosophy of governance are rather significant. We have some of the best Members of the Senate-obviously, there are many good Members there-but we have some of our most aggressive and constructive Members serving as members of the committee, and I enjoy that. It makes the committee an interesting and challenging place in which to work. But the views are different within that committee, the views of how we approach governance.

Therefore, when we as a committee reach an agreement on something, it means it is a pretty good work product. It means there has been a consensus reached the way consensus should be reached within the Congress, which is that the different parties have sat down, they have recognized the problem, they have brought to bear their philosophies on that problem, their ideologies on that problem, and the practical nature of the way that you can resolve that problem, and they have reached what is, in most instances, a pretty good, commonsense solution to how we should move forward.

In four areas right now pending before this Senate, the committee has reached consensus. It has had a unanimous vote on a piece of legislation. Some of those have even come to the floor. We have had a unanimous vote, for example, on how we should reauthorize and restructure the special education laws of this country. It was called IDEA. It is a very complex issue, a very important issue, especially to children or parents of children who have special needs.

I can't think of anything more important than a parent who has a child who has some unfortunate issues relative to their ability to learn. For that parent and for that child, the most important event of each day is going to school and making sure that child's schooling experience is a positive one, and that it moves that child forward as that child tries to deal with the issues of learning and especially issues of life.

So the special education bill is a critical piece of legislation. It went through our committee with unanimous support. It came to the floor of the Senate. It was debated, debated aggressively, and passed. But it simply sits.

A second bill has been stopped because the other side of the aisle has refused to allow us to appoint conferees. The second bill which falls in the same area is the Work Investment Act. This is basically a bill which came out of our committee again in a unanimous way, worked on primarily by Senator Enzi of Wyoming. He did a great job on it and worked across the aisle with a number of Senators. As a result, it was unanimously passed out of our committee, came across the floor of the Senate, and again this bill has been stopped because conferees have not been appointed.

Then reported out of our committee as another very important piece of legislation relative to education is the Head Start bill. Head Start affects a lot of kids in this country today. It gives low-income kids in our country a nurturing environment during those very formative years and allows them an environment where they get decent health care and they get decent custodial care during the daytime. They have daycare services, and it teaches them socialization patterns. We have taken that concept and we have added to it an education, academic component so the kids going to Head Start will now also come out of the Head Start program after they are 3 or 4 years old moving into kindergarten and preschool. They will hopefully be up to par with their peers academically so they know their alphabet and are ready to learn.

This is an important initiative. This bill is structured to put that new component into Head Start and make that part of that initiative.

Again, this bill came out of our committee unanimously. It came to the Senate and has stopped-stopped. We negotiated to try to get it brought up in reasonable ways, one of which would allow us to give both sides amendments if they wanted them and then move it to conference. No, it hasn't happened, so that bill has been stopped.

The fourth bill which I want to talk about is the Patients Savings Act. We know that there is a problem, unfortunately, in our health care community with mistakes-unintended mistakes, but mistakes-that end up causing people harm because health care is delivered inappropriately or incorrectly to people. In fact, the estimate is that literally tens of thousands-potentially more than 100,000 people-die each year as a result of that type of situation.

One of the ways to address that is to allow the medical community to communicate with each other as to what these problems are so they can learn from each other and so we can set up a regime where if somebody has a system in place which avoids a problem, a mistake or an error occurring, they can share that with other medical providers. If there is, on the other hand, a mistake that has occurred or error that has occurred, the information relative to the investigation of that and how it can be mitigated can be shared with other providers. This sharing of information is absolutely critical if we are going to get control over the issue of how we deliver better health care in this country. Unfortunately, there are antitrust and other laws which limit the ability of that information to be shared. So we have set up this Patients Safety Act which is essentially an attempt to give patients more protection when they are in a health care facility.

This bill again was worked on effectively and aggressively by both sides of the aisle. The thoughts and initiatives were brought together. It was passed out of committee unanimously. This is a very important piece of legislation. We need to get this piece of legislation in place. Unlike the other pieces of legislation which I mentioned-the WIA bill, the IDEA bill, and the Head Start bill, which already have programs up and running, which are effective, but can be improved significantly by those bills-in the case of patient safety there is nothing out there today which allows these medical providers to take advantage of what this law is going to bring to bear and thus reduce injuries to people. Literally, the longer this bill is kept from passing and becoming law, the more people are harmed. There is a direct numerical relationship, direct formula, direct factor relationship where if this bill were passed today, fewer people would be harmed tomorrow. It is that simple.

This bill needs to be taken up. It needs to be passed. Yet although it came out of committee unanimously, it has disappeared into the opposition on the other side of the aisle which says we are not going to listen to that. We are not going to bring that up. If you want to pass something such as that, you will have to throw on everything else and the kitchen sink that has no relationship to it. You are not going to be allowed to pass a bill that was unanimously passed out of committee.

A couple of days ago, I was reading a pamphlet which was sent to me by an ever inquisitive and creative and very unique individual in his energy level, which is much higher than mine, the President pro tempore, Senator Stevens. He had go to some lecture or some meeting where they had been talking about quantum physics. He sent us a booklet on quantum physics. I have never understood even the term "quantum physics." I opened it to the first page and read the first paragraph. I quickly got lost in the theory. But the basic statement about quantum physics was that the universe is 96 percent anti-matter. Maybe it is 98 percent. The universe-and this is a shock. This is a new theory. The universe is 98 percent anti-matter or, in other words, a black hole.

I have to tell you, under the Democratic leadership in this Senate, the Senate is becoming 98 percent anti-matter, or a black hole. When bills come out of committee, they are unanimously passed by a committee which has such a diverse viewpoint philosophically, ideologically, and regionally as our committee has, when those bills come out of that committee unanimously and will significantly improve kids going to elementary school, getting ready for school, kids in their early years, kids who have problems and who have significant issues, special-needs kids going through their school systems, people who need to be retrained in a workplace that requires constant retraining or, as in the case of the patients safety bill, will actually save lives because it will allow us to do a better job of delivering medical care-when they come out of committee and are unanimously supported by the full committee, they are unanimously supported to the extent they went through the subcommittee, to the full committee, unanimously supported, come to the floor of the Senate, and the other side of the aisle says that bill is going to be assigned to the black hole.

That bill disappears into what you might call "Daschle Land" where nothing comes back. Send the bill out and it is gone. Where did it go? I do not know. It went to "Daschle Land." This can't continue. These pieces of legislation have to be taken up. We should consider them. We should pass them. After all, if they have unanimous approval from the committee of jurisdiction when that committee has some divergent views on it, they have to be pretty well worked out as a piece of law.

I have asked that we get the IDEA bill and the special education bill to conference. It hasn't happened. I have asked that we be able to bring up the Head Start bill. It hasn't happened. I have asked that we be able to go to the WIA bill and send it to conference. It hasn't happened.

Today I would like to ask that we be able to bring up the Patients Safety Act and pass it out of this Senate under a reasonable plan, under a reasonable set of options where we will essentially say people get a right to amend it on the substance of the bill and then move to conference.

I would like to present the following unanimous consent request relative to the Patients Safety Act.

UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST-H.R. 663

I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, in consultation with the Democratic leader, the HELP Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 663, the Patients Safety bill, and the Senate proceed to its consideration; provided that upon reporting of the bill Senator Gregg be recognized to offer a substitute amendment, the text of which is at the desk; provided further that there be one first-degree germane amendment in order to be offered by Senator Kennedy or his designee and that that amendment be subject to a germane second-degree amendment to be offered by Senator Gregg or his designee, with no further amendments in order.

I further ask unanimous consent that there be a total of 2 hours for debate, and following the use or yielding back of the time the Senate proceed to a vote on or in relationship to the second-degree amendment, to be immediately followed by a vote on or in relationship to the first-degree amendment, as amended; provided that following disposition of the amendments, the substitute amendment, as amended, if amended, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read the third time, and the Senate proceed to a vote on the passage of H.R. 633, as amended, with no intervening action or debate.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that following passage, the Senate insist upon its amendment, request a conference with the House of Representatives on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees on behalf of the Senate with a ratio of 5 to 4.