Mr. President, today the Senate will be voting on the fiscal year 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations act. I am pleased to support this bill, which provides healthier funding levels for our labor, health, and education programs for the first time in many years. At a time of rising poverty levels, rising health care and heating costs, and classrooms in desperate need of funding, this bill helps promote programs that offer solutions to these problems.

I am pleased that the Senate adopted four amendments I worked on. One was an amendment I cosponsored that Senator COLLINS offered to provide much-needed additional funding to improve access to dental health in rural and underserved areas. Our amendment successfully doubled the funding for the Dental Health Improvement Act, bringing funding from $2 million to $4 million. The Collins-Feingold Dental Health Improvement Act authorized a new State grant program that is designed to improve access to oral health services in rural and underserved areas. States can use these grants to fund or create programs tailored to state needs. For example, they can use the funds for loan forgiveness and repayment programs for dentists practicing in underserved areas. They can also use the grant funds to establish or expand community or school-based dental facilities or to set up mobile or portable dental clinics. In Wisconsin, funds were used to provide children with better access to sealants. This helps prevent further and more expensive dental work later in life.

The Collins-Feingold amendment to increase funding for this important program will help fund additional state programs so that more people in our country will have access to essential oral health care. I thank Senator Collins for her work on this, and also thank Chairman Harkin and Senator Specter for their assistance in passing this.

Another adopted amendment will increase public access to automatic external defibrillators, or AEDs, in schools. Mr. President, in my home state of Wisconsin, as in many other states, heart disease is the number one killer. Cardiac arrest can strike anyone. Cardiac victims are in a race against time, and unfortunately, for too many of them, Emergency Medical Services are unable to reach people in need, and time runs out for victims of cardiac arrest.

Fortunately, AEDs are inexpensive and simple to operate. Because of advancements in AED technology, it is practical to train and equip police officers, teachers, and members of other community organizations on how to use these devices.

Over the past six years, I have worked with Senator Susan Collins on a number of initiatives to empower communities to improve cardiac arrest survival rates. We have pushed Congress to support first responders–local police and fire and rescue services–in their efforts to provide early defibrillation. Congress heard our call, and responded by enacting two of our bills, the Rural Access to Emergency Devices Act and the ADAM Act.

The Rural Access to Emergency Devices program allows community partnerships across the country to receive a grant enabling them to purchase defibrillators, and receive the training needed to use these devices. Approximately ninety-five percent of sudden cardiac arrest victims die before reaching the hospital. With every minute that passes before a cardiac arrest victim is defibrillated, the chance of survival falls by as much as 10 percent. After only eight minutes, the victim’s survival rate drops by 60 percent. This is why early intervention is essential–a combination of CPR and use of AEDs can save lives.

If we give people in rural communities a chance, they may be able to reverse a cardiac arrest before it takes another life. Unfortunately, the President zeroed out the funding for the Rural AED program after the program was cut by 83% in FY2006 and kept at that level in FY2007. I am very disappointed that the program was eliminated in the President’s budget. Our rural communities deserve better, and I am pleased that the Senate Appropriations Committee recognized this by providing $3 million in funding for the program this year. That is double last year’s funding level and, while it is still much lower than I would like, I hope the final version of this bill includes at least that much in funding.

Heart disease is not only a problem among adults. A few years ago I learned the story of Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old high school student and a star basketball and tennis player in Wisconsin. Tragically, during a timeout while playing basketball at a neighboring Milwaukee high school, Adam suffered sudden cardiac arrest, and died before the paramedics arrived.

This story is incredibly tragic. Adam had his whole life ahead of him, and could quite possibly have been saved with appropriate early intervention. This story helps to underscore some important issues. First, although cardiac arrest is most common among adults, it can occur at any age–even in apparently healthy children and adolescents. Second, early intervention is essential–a combination of CPR and the use of AEDs can save lives.

After Adam Lemel suffered his cardiac arrest, his friend David Ellis joined forces with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin to initiate Project ADAM to bring CPR training and public access defibrillation into schools, educate communities about preventing sudden cardiac deaths and save lives.

The ADAM Act was passed into law in 2003, but has yet to be funded. The ADAM Act is one way we can honor the life of children like Adam Lemel, and give tomorrow’s pediatric cardiac arrest victims a chance at life.

The Feingold-Collins amendment provides modest funding for this act—just $200,000. This funding, while not much in the grand scheme of the federal budget, will help jumpstart this valuable program. This amendment as drafted would be funded through the Rural AED line; however, I am pleased that the managers share my goal of not taking away any of the already limited Rural AED funding and are looking for additional ways to fund the ADAM Act. I am pleased that our amendment passed the Senate by unanimous consent and I urge the conferees to maintain this small but important program.
My third amendment that passed requires GAO to conduct an assessment of current state health care reforms and comment on the potential role that Congress could take in assisting states with their efforts. I offered this amendment along with Senators Graham, Bingaman, and Voinovich. There is momentum in many states to reform the broken health care system. This study would provide an overview of what is working in the states and the effect of federal laws on state health care initiatives. In addition, the study would provide recommendations on how the federal government could better work with states to further efforts.
While Congress may not be able to reach consensus on how to ensure all Americans access to health services, a state-based model allows consideration of politically diverse solutions that could eventually be widely applied. Gathering data on what works at the state level will assist Congress in looking at broader reforms, which is why Senator Graham and I have introduced legislation, with the backing of the Brookings Institute and the Heritage Foundation, to encourage and expand state efforts to extend health care coverage.

My fourth amendment directs GAO to examine the different techniques schools are using to prepare students to achieve on state standardized exams as well as meet state academic standards. Schools in Wisconsin and around the country are facing their sixth year under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the centerpiece of President Bush’s domestic agenda, and I continue to hear grave concerns throughout Wisconsin about the federal testing mandates contained in NCLB and the ongoing implementation problems with the law.

Wisconsin teachers and parents are concerned about many of the unintended consequences of NCLB, including the narrowing of the curriculum to focus on the subjects that are tested under NCLB – reading and math. As a consequence of more narrowed curriculums, some students are experiencing reduced class time on other important subjects including social studies, civics, geography, science, art, music, and physical education. I have also heard numerous concerns that students are being drilled in reading and math in order to boost performance on these standardized tests, which may not be the best measure of students’ higher order thinking skills. Many Wisconsinites are concerned that rote drill exercises in reading and math take the joy out of learning for students and have called for a reexamination of NCLB policies to ensure that a diverse and high-quality curriculum is taught in all of our nation’s schools.

I voted against NCLB in large part because of its federal testing mandate and the potential ramifications of the primary focus on test scores in order to determine adequate yearly progress in our schools. I also remain deeply concerned that NCLB’s testing and sanctions approach has forced some schools, particularly those in our inner cities and rural areas, to become places where students are not taught, but are drilled with workbooks and testing taking strategies, while in wealthy suburban schools, these tests do not greatly impact school curriculums rich in social studies, civics, arts, music, and other important subjects.

I do not necessarily oppose the use of standardized testing in our nation’s schools. I agree that some tests are needed to ensure that our children are keeping pace and that schools, districts, and states are held accountable for closing the persistent achievement gap that continues to exist among different groups of students, including among students in Wisconsin. But the federal one-size-fits-all testing and punishment approach that NCLB takes is not providing an equal education for all, eradicating the achievement gap that exists in our country or ensuring that each student reaches his or her full potential.

My amendment calls on GAO to examine how the use of different preparation techniques varies based on the demographic characteristics of schools, including the concentration of poverty at schools, whether schools are located in a rural, suburban, or urban environment, and the whether schools have been identified for improvement under NCLB. It is my hope that Congress will receive concrete data on how the student preparation varies among different types of schools so that we can get a better sense of how NCLB is impacting our nation’s schools. The disaggregation element of this GAO study should better help us determine whether various preparation techniques, including commercial test preparation programs and narrowing of the curriculum, are correlated with certain school demographics.

I was also pleased to cosponsor an amendment from my colleague, Senator Brown of Ohio, to prohibit the Department of Education from continuing its problematic evaluation of the Upward Bound program until Congress has a chance to examine this policy as part of the Higher Education Act (HEA) reauthorization. I have been a strong supporter of the TRIO Upward Bound program for many years and continuously hear about the benefits it provides to Wisconsin students entering college, particularly first-generation college students.

Because of my strong support for Upward Bound, I continue to be concerned about the Department of Education’s evaluation of Upward Bound, including the mandate that colleges had to recruit more students than they can serve under the Upward Bound program. I agree that Upward Bound, like other federal programs, needs to be evaluated to ensure federal dollars are being spent wisely and effectively. But the federal government has a duty to design responsible evaluations of federal programs, and I do not think the Department fulfilled that obligation with the design of this Upward Bound evaluation. I am pleased the Senate recognized that the ongoing evaluation is troublesome and agreed to prohibit funding for it until Congress can reexamine the Upward Bound evaluation as part of the ongoing HEA reauthorization.

I am pleased that my colleagues supported all of my amendments and accepted them. I thank Chairman Harkin and Senator Specter for their assistance and support with these amendments.

Mr. President, I would also like to comment briefly on an amendment that the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Wayne Allard, brought to a vote. This amendment would have redirected funds from programs deemed ineffective by the Program Assessment Rating Tool, or PART. This program was enacted into law as part of the Government Performance Results Act and is intended to better target government dollars to the most efficient programs. Senator Allard’s amendment would have cut the programs considered ineffective by PART by ten percent, and then sent these dollars to the federal deficit.

I share Senator Allard’s goals of efficient government spending and reducing the deficit; however, I have some concerns about the standards for evaluating government programs in PART. There are several programs that are making a big, positive difference in communities, that score poorly on the assessment. Some of these programs I have supported for years, such as rural health programs, and various higher education programs. I think it’s important to examine this tool more closely and see if there is a way to improve the assessment before cutting these programs. For this reason, I opposed this amendment, which would have had far-reaching implications.

I was pleased to support final passage of this bill which provides essential funding for education, health care, and job training programs. Many of these programs have seen drastic cuts over the past six years and I am happy that we have been able to more adequately fund these programs in this bill. I am disappointed that the President continues to say that he will veto this bill and I hope that he will reconsider in the coming days. Too many Americans are depending on the employment, health care, and education services provided in this legislation and they are the ones who will be negatively impacted if the President follows through on his veto threat. Much more remains to be done to correct the inadequate funding for these programs in recent years, but this bill is a step in the right direction.