transmission lines. why? because you've got all kinds of jurisdictions that can say "no" and will say "no." so you can't build transmismghts so the legislation that we passed out. energy committee a year and a half ago now solved that problem, put on the path tock able to build an interstate transmission system, a modern grid system. we shouldn't lose that. we should proceed to get that opportunity in that legislation. let me talk just a bit about oil and gas. we are actually producing more oil for the first time now that it's been a long while in this country that we've been on the decline in production. that's changed at bit. part of it is from my state. the bocan formation is the largest in the history of the lower 48 states. there is up to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil according to the u.s. geological survey. that with the gas shale in much

of the country we're producing more oil and gas in the country that. will stop very quickly if we can't continue what is called hydraulic fracturing. that's a big problem we have to deal with. i think most of us in this senate who come from areas where we produce this fossil energy believe that this has been done for 50 years without a problem and now it is under some siege. and if -- if we can't do hydraulic fracturing all of that promise of natural gas supplies an oil will resa evaporate. i also am a supporter of pro -- the production of ethanol and the biofuels. i think it makes a lot of sense to extend our energy supply if we can do it every single year using biogas and corn-based ethanol. the other issue is coal. we're going to have to find a way to use coal by extracting

the carbon. i think that we can do that. we need to make a greater effort and much more needs to be done and then we have nuclear energy we're going to build nuclear plants. we're on the way to doing that. i'm somebody who believes we do a lot of everything and do it well. wind, solar, geothermal. all of the refeebles have great -- renewables have great, great promise. it was real men dig and trillion. you know, if you're -- dig and drill. if you use wind energy, god bless you, smoke a pipe and we'll give you a wind tower someplace, but real men dig and drill. dig for coal and drill for oil and the rest of you are nuisances and that was the thought that existed for a long, long time. it's not true anymore. we're going to dig and drill and protect this country's environment. but we're also going to

incentivize and see the production after substantial amount of energy from the wind and from the sun. it just makes sense to do that in order to -- to expend our energy supply to protect our environment, produce additional jobs. all of these issues i've talked about are very job creating. yet, in many ways this legislation that we worked on languishes because we're told we don't have time. this is urgent. it's about the vulnerability of our economy, about our national security, and it's about jobs and we ought to get about the business of deciding this is a priority. now, if i can just describe in summary, here's how we address our energy issues. we produce more. yes, we should produce more. in every area. produce more wind energy, more solar energy. incentivize it. yes, produce more oil. we're doing that. an natural gas. expand ethanol capabilities,

geothermal. we're building nuclear plants. we're going to see some nuclear plants come online. i think we ought to do what the french are doing with reprocessing and recycling and produce that 100% body of waste to 5%. that's what they've been doing for some while. we ought to be doing that. the -- the renewables are so important and then move toward the electric vehicle deployment so that we can take advantage of all of this. now, i mentioned to you we produce about 35 million barrels of oil, one-fourth of all of the oil, 70% of the oil we use in this country is used in vehicles. so if you're going to do something about conservation and reducing the use of oil and reducing too many exports of oil, you have to do something about transportation and that's why this electric vehicle issue

is so very important. the same is true with natural gas vehicles and long-haul trucking across a network in this country. but electric vehicles are very important. i have always been a fan as well of -- of hydrogen and fuel cells. i think it's probably just beyond electric vehicles, although a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle runs on electricity, it is easy to drive a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle and put your nose at the exhaust pipe because it's water vapor. it doesn't have sound. that is ultimately i think what our grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to drive. so all of these issues are -- are so important to this country's future and, again, i start as -- as -- i should say i end as i start by saying how profoundly disappointing it is at the end of this session to understand how important this issue is and how little has been

able to be done. there's still time. we could pass legislation called the electric vehicle deployment act. we could do that. we could pass legislation calling for a renewable energy standard, renewable electricity standard. this isn't rocket science. these are not inordinately complex issues that people can't understand. they do understand them. both political parties have strong supporters for these things. and it seems to me as we turn to december an contemplate one or two or three weeks, probably three weeks in december here on the floor of the senate, we ought to at least consider what portion of an energy system -- energy future can we embrace that came out of the energy committee in the united states senate? the electric vehicle deployment act is the legislation that came out most recently, passed 19-3 by the energy committee.

strongly bipartisan. now, why would we not take that up? why would we not complete work on that and advance this country's future? madam president, the other day i talked about the -- the two tune buggy sized vehicles on the -- dune buggy sized vehicles on the surface of mar, i -- on mars, two people from north dakota were saying that -- so i told them the story about the two dune-buggy sized vehicles driving on the surface of mars. it was one week ago, we ignited rockets and the rockets lifted off the west coast of the united states and they were on their journey to mars. one week apart. and the first rocket transported its payload to the surface of mars, which landed on mars with a thump and a bounce and it was

in a shroud and when it stopped bouncing and stayed still, the shroud opened up and out drove a little dune buggy sized vehicle. one week later a second payload was on the surface of mars and a second vehicle was on the surface of mars p one's name is -- mars. one's name is spirit and the other is opportunity. two vehicles, spirit and opportunity. they were supposed to last 09 days on the surface of mars, giving us information on what we could learn about this strange planet. five years later spirit and opportunity are still moving. five years later. it takes us nine minutes to communicate with spirit or opportunity. nine minutes to send them a message. at one point spirit fell dead asleep and we communicated with

a satellite orbiting mars, had the satellite communicate with spirit and spirit woke up. spirit, they say, has an arm that was used to sample the soil of mars and that arm has become like old men become, rheumatoid and artdz rittic and -- arthritic and hangs at a strange angle and also a wheel broke among the five wheels. and so it's hanging, so as spirit traverses the surface of mars, it drags one wheel that digs a slightly deeper two-inch hole in the surface of mars and its arthritic arm searches the surface of mars to tell us what is happening on mars. how does this happen? unbelievable engineering. can you imagine the people that put this together to send dune

buggies to drive on the surface of mars. it how are they powered? do they have a brigs and stration en engine? no. they have solar cells that allow us to drive dune buggies on the surface of mars. is it beyond the reach to believe if we can power dune buggies on the surface of mars, we can fix a few things on planet earth? of course that's not beyond reach. of course we can do that. the name of these two buggies, spirit and opportunity ought to be the names on these desks. i started by saying there is no preordained destiny for this country to do well. it's always done well. when i grew up i always knew we were the biggest, best, stron strongest, the most. that is not always going to be the case.

we will not always remain a world economic power unless we as a country make smart decisions. our parents did, our grandparents did. every parent -- every parent in this country has wanted to do things to sacrifice for their kids. i don't know in most people's lives what's in second, third or fourth place. i know what's in first place. it's their kids. the question for awful us whether it's on -- all of us, the question is what are we willing to do for our kids? what kind of future do we want to leave our kids? ones that deep in debt? ones that vulnerable on energy production that may leave us in the dark one day? is that what we want to leave? i don't think so. this country can do much, much better than that. neither political party has been much of a bargain for this country lately. i have a strong idea on which has better ideas at the moment. i won't be partisan except to say this country deserves more and it's not just coming out

here talking about how can we cut taxes for everybody? how do we tighten our belt? how do we ask those who are supposed to pay taxes pay them? how do we get people back on payrolls? incentivize businesses to help them create jobs? how do we address the energy issues? it's time for this country to be serious. time for this congress to be serious about doing things that are necessary that may require sacrifice for all of us -- from all of us. if young men and women are willing to leave their homes today to go to afganistan for a year because their country asks them to, can we do no less than to make sacrifices that are thoughtful on behalf of this country's future so when they come back they won't find more deficit and more unemployment? they find a country that made tough decisions to say, here's what's wrong and here's how we're going to fix it. it may be controversial, but we're going to fix this. because it's important for the country's future that we do it.

energy is so very important and unfinished business ought not to include at the end of this year an energy bill or components of an energy bill that can be very important to this country's future, to jobs and this country's national security. i yield the floor and make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed

with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: thank you. madam president, in a very short while here -- literally in about 40 minutes -- the time will be expired and we'll be voting on the motion to proceed to the food safety modernization act. the food safety modernization act. now again, one can wonder why did we have to go through a cloture petition and a vote on that the other day. we got 74 votes on it, but it looks like now we're going to have to have another vote on the motion to proceed, after we've had 74 votes. madam president, a lot of effort has gone into this bill by a lot of people. republicans and democrats, and lord knows, our staff. this bill has been germinating and being put together over a

course of, well at least the last three or four years anyway, probably a little bit before that when it started. i know senator durbin has been working on this for several years, as has senator gregg and senator dodd and others. so, this is all being put together over several years period of time, but i would say over the last four years diligent work has gone into this bill. and certainly in the last one year. it was one year ago november 18 18 -- one year ago today -- that this bill was reported out of our "help" committee, which i chair; reported out without one dissenting vote arcs bill that was supported by so many different groups and so many different people.

here's just a list of the people supporting this bill. we worked hard to get a broad base of support from both industry and consumers. this may be one of the only bills i've seen around here that has the support not only of the food marketing institute and the grocery manufacturers institute and -- and the center for science and the public interest. we have both consumer groups and the business groups supporting this. the u.s. chamber of commerce and the u.s. public interest research group. when have those two ever been together on a bill? and the snack food association and the pew charitable trust. i mean, we have wide support for this. the industry wants this. they want it because they know

that our food safety laws have not been upgraded in seven decades, since 1938, before i was born. think about how our food has changed in our society and how we produce it and how we process it and how we ship it. not to mention the amount of foreign foods coming into this country. consumers want it because we know that a lot of people are getting sick. i will hasten to add that we do have one of the safest food supplies in the world. that's not good enough because we know how many people get sick and get ill every year. thousands of people are contaminated by food poisoning every year. e. coli, salmonella. i've met with families here from safe tables, our priority --

i've met with families whose kids are damaged for life because they happened to eat the wrong thing. they ate so much spinach or they ought a tomato or they ate fish or shellfish or something like that. these kids are maimed for life. and so we've worked very hard to put this bill together. as i said, one year ago it came out of our committee without one dissenting vote. but there were still some problems out there. so we worked very hard since last november to try to satisfy, to reach an agreement on this bill. and we do. we have a broad agreement. i said we have 74 votes the other day here on the floor of the senate. now, one of my colleagues has raised a lot of issues on this bill. my good friend from oklahoma,

senator coburn, he's on our committee, he raised a lot of concerns about this bill. i met with him several times. we've had good discussions on this. i know he said some nice things about me on the floor earlier, and i appreciate that. and i repay those in kind, that senator coburn is a very thoughtful person, and he focuses on these things. he reads bills and he gets involved in this. this is not kind of a, something off the seat of his pants. i mean, he really has focused on this. some of the suggestions that he made, i thought were valid. and we looked through them, and we incorporated a lot of the suggestions made by my friend from oklahoma into this bill. and we were willing to go to the consumers and say, look, this is okay. none of us -- not one, any one

senator around here has infinite wisdom. only one person has infinite wisdom. no senators have infinite wisdom around here. i can't say that i've ever written a bill in its entirety that got through here without having anything changed, because we don't know everything. and so we rely upon one another in good faith to suggest changes to, point out things that maybe our blinders didn't see and to help us put together bills that have broad support and broad consensus but move us ahead as a society. to me, that's the way i think we ought to operate. when other people are making suggestions -- aeupbd didn't mean to sin -- and i didn't mean to single out senator coburn, but others too made suggestions we tried to work with them to in corporate certain things in the bill. senator testers -- senator

tester on our side raised the consternation of many on the consumer side and the business side. the bigger businesses said if we have to do this, you can get just as sick from eating things from small producers too. so we had to work through that. so we worked through it. it took us several months, but we worked through and we got an agreement that, quite frankly, we had good input from the quirin side -- from -- from the republican side, from senator gregg, senator burr, they have been integral to this process on our committee. we worked through that and we got an amendment that satisfies the small producers and the consumers and the business community and the large producers. not easy. not easy, but compromises a lot of times aren't very easy. but it's a compromise.

we worked through it. we worked through senator tester's amendment too, and that took a long taoeufplt we were not able to -- took a long time. we were not able to reach an agreement on senator feinstein's amendment so we agreed not to incorporate it because we could not reach an agreement on it, on the b.p.a. amendment. even though it's very important to her and very important to a lot of people. so we tried to get something together that would have this broad consensus and yet move us forward in making our food safer. and i believe this bill does that. this bill does this in four ways. it improves the prevention of food safety problems. that's really key. for many years i served as chair or ranking member or -- on the agriculture committee; 35 years both here and in the house. and many years ago we came up with a program of prevention.

rather than just solving the problem later, how do we prevent pathogens from entering the meat supply? and we came up with this proposal of finding the access points. where are the points in the process where contaminants and pathogens can come in? let's have the industry come up with plans on how they prevent that on their own. and it's worked. does it work 100% every single time? no, but nothing is ever perfect. and i hasten to add, tpaoepb we -- i hope if we pass this bill, as if going to prevent every single foodborne illness forever and ever? probably not. probably not. but it's going to be a lot better than what we have right now. a lot better because we're going to look at prevention. preventing the pathogens from entering in the first place. that's one way we do it. secondly, it improves the

detection of response to foodborne illness outbreaks when they do occur. in other words, we'll be able to detect it earlier and respond earlier than what we've been able to do in the past. it enhances our nation's food defense capabilities. every year 76 million americans get sick from foodborne illness. 76 million. the stakes are too high not to act. so, these are the critical ways in which we move the ball forward. again, i know my friend from oklahoma has said to me many times, it's not going to solve all your problems. well, i understand that. it's not perfect, but there's an old saying, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. this is a good bill. it's going to help keep our people from getting sick. everyone? no. i would never stand here and say this is going to solve every

single foodborne illness problem in america, but it's sure going to do a lot more than what we've been doing. so, again, i just want to make it clear that if anyone says we're trampling on the rights of the minority, i just ask you to consider all that we have done. we've had a bipartisan team in place. we've modified the bill dozens of times to get the right balance. we've all made compromises, democrats and republicans, consumers and business. as i said, we agreed to compromises just lately. the mandatory inspection schedule, which is so important to the public health community, has been reduced tenfold -- tenfold -- since that bill was reported out of our committee unanimously a year ago. we accepted language that, as i said, which exempted small facilities from these new requirements, the tester

amendment. we agreed to changes in the section on trace-back that limits the application of the new rules to farmers and restaurants -- to farms and restaurants. there is no registration fee to help pay for the bill. routine access to records that the f.d.a. wanted, we don't do that either. that's just a short list. i can go on and on, but the point is, is that -- and i think one of the -- my friends on the other side said we have bent over backwards, and we have. and we wanted to reach a point where we could move ahead with the bill and even offering to let some amendments be offered and we would vote on those amendments. but what's happened now is i understand that -- that the senator from oklahoma, my friend, has said now that --

that he wanted to offer an amendment dealing with earmarks. well, look, earmarks is an issue. it's an issue that this congress or the next congress, i would say -- probably the next congress is going to have to -- have to address. but it should be done in the spirit of debate. it should be done in the spirit of committee that's have relevant jurisdiction to look at this, to recommend. we shouldn't do it in the heat of passion right now. i mean, we just came off of a very heated election. there's been a lot of changes made. i understand that. we live with that. that's fine. but now is not the time to start throwing up red hot issues and stuff that were in the campaign. let's let things cool down a little bit and approach an issue

like earmarks thoughtfully -- thoughtfully, with due diligence and with due debate. this bill that's going to protect our people from getting sick and our kids from being injured for lifetimes because they eat contaminated peanut butter, this is not the bill on which to try to deal with earmarks. i hope that my friend from oklahoma will relent on that. and there will be plenty of time -- i say to my friend from oklahoma, there will be plenty of time an plenty of opportunities when we come back in january with a new congress to debate earmarks and come up a solution made by both the senate and the house on that issue. but not right now. this is not the time to do it, not in the heat of -- coming off of the campaign. let us keep our eye on the ball. the eye on the ball. this is the food safety bill.

we've come so close. and we have an agreement from the house that what we pass here -- the bill that we have put together -- that we reached all these compromises on. we have an agreement from the house that if we pass it and we do get significant -- we get bipartisan support, that the house would take it and pass it and send it right to the president. what more could you ask for? -- ask for than that? that we get to decide what the president actually signs into law. so we have -- without going into every little thing that we have done here, let me just mention a few. we offered -- senator coburn was concerned about the authorization, we offered to reduce it by 50%. we'll reduce the authorization

by 50% on the grants. we offered to modify the sections on performance standards on inspections. it's all been done. we completely struck section 510 -- we called for increasing the hiring of the f.d.a. staff, in our bill, called for increasing staff to conduct certain inspections and stuff. well, my friend objected to that. in the spirit of compromise, we struck it. we said, no, we're not going to -- we're not going to call for increased hiring of field staff. mr. coburn had some concerns, rightfully so, by the way, about approving the coordination between the f.d.a. and usda, so we offered to add his language that would force them to -- to get together and to not duplicate efforts and -- and on the custom side on u.s.

department of customs so that we would eliminate any kind of duplication of inspections. we put that in the bill. so, anyway, we offered to do all of this stuff to put in the bill and we did. and that will be in our amendment that we offer. we will in good faith put those things in our bill. but then i'm told that now we're probably going to have to -- we're probably going to have to file cloture, fill the tree and do all that stuff which i was hoping we wouldn't have to do. that's not the way to do business here. i don't like doing it that way. that's why we worked so hard to try to reach these agreements. but i guess -- i guess we're

going to be forced to do that and i -- i hope -- i hope that's not so. i also heard that maybe someone might want to read the bill. well, that's four hours of reading the bill. that bill's been out here for a year. anybody want to treed, they could have -- to read it, they could have read it by now. that's another delaying tactic that we don't need. we really don't need. so, again, on this issue of saying that we can't vote on this bill unless we vote on earmarks, i just say earmarks, again, i say it's important issue, i'm happy to have a debate and to have a vote on them, but not now, this is a food safety bill. we've got it ready to go. we've got all our compromises in place. this is not the time and this is not the bill on which to debate the whole issue of earmarks. well, you might say why are we so willing to compromise?

why so passionate am i on this bill? because people are dying. we've got thanksgiving coming up. people will be gathered around with their families. except for all of those people in homeless shelters. 950,000 children in america -- 950,000 kids in america that go to elementary, middle and high school will not have a home to go to this thanksgiving because they're living in homeless shelters. think about that. they're living in cars, homeless shelters, they're being shuttled around, 950,000. now, am i going to stand here

and say if we pass this bill that's going to keep any one of them from getting sick from what they might eat on thanksgiving day? no, i'm not here to say that. but what this bill will do is accepted a strong -- send a strong signal that we will take the steps necessary in the coming months and coming years to upgrade our food set of system so their chances, their likelihood of ever getting sick from eat a con tomorrow natured food -- contaminated food will be greatly decreased. greatly decreased. surely we can and they hopeful message -- send that hopeful message out to families before thanksgiving. surely we can do that and not get boloxed up here in politics and political debate. i know of no politics on this bill. i know of no politics. i mean, democrat, republican,

left, right, liberal, conservative, i don't know of anything like that. there isn't. i do know that this issue of earmarks, regardless of the substantive issue, is a political issue too. it may have substantive reason, but there's also a pot of politics -- a lot of politics hanging around that. let's take the bill that has no politics. knows neither left nor right, has nothing to do with earmarks or what we do with earmarks or anything else, but has to do with the safety and well fair of our american families and of our kids. i'm just asking people to be reasonable -- to be reasonable -- to be reasonable.

there's a time and a place for political debate, even here on the senate floor. we may say it doesn't happen, but we know it does. there's a time and place for that. that will happen. not now. not on this bill. we've come too far. we're too close. we've got too many compromise that's we've made that -- compromises that we've made that are so widely supported. and i'm afraid -- i'm afraid if we lose this all the good work that has gone in in the last year -- the last two years, the last four years putting this together, it's -- it's going to be very hard to put it back together again. very hard. and so people will continue to roll the dice when they buy food. maybe it's say and maybe it's not. maybe it's safe, maybe it's not.

we'll continue to see more things happen like kayla. kayla -- kayla, monroe, iowa, age 14. beautiful. look at that. beautiful young woman. on october 22, 2007, she turned 14. passed her driver's test, learner's permit. the next day she stayed home, she had e. coli. she admitted to the hospital. her symptoms worsened. they didn't respond to the antibiotics. within a week her kidneys began to fail. she was transferred to the children's hospital in des moines for dialysis. her condition continued to deteriorate. she suffered a seizure and began to have heart problems. a few days later kayla's brain

activity stopped. and her parents made the painful decision to take their beautiful daughter off of life support. e. coli. kykyle allgood, spinach. kyle's family is going to have an empty seat at the thanks giving table. kyle fell ill after eating bagged spinach contaminated by a deadly strain of e. coli. they thought it was fluid at first. they -- he began to cry from abdominal pain. he was flown to salt lake city hospital. his kidneys failed. he had a heart attack and he died. eating bagged spinach. stephanie's family, they're going to have an empty seat at

their thanksgiving table this year. stephanie, killed by listera eating lettuce. she was 30 weeks pregnant, stephanie was, she felt that something was wrong. she went for an ultrasound. her baby was not moving. she had contractions and had to undergo an emergency c-section. when she awoke she found that her baby boy had bleeding in his brain. he was brain dead. stephanie soon discovered that she suffered from a bacterial infection from eating contaminated lettuce. she almost lost her own life. her newborn baby michael died in her arms that night. there are also families, mr.

president, who had loved ones survive food-bourne illnesses, but their lives will never be the same. light rylee and her family. on rylee's ninth birthday she began to complain of stomach pains after eating contaminated spinach. she was admitted to children's hospital. her kidneys began to fail, she experienced wha, had fluid builp in her lungs and around her heart. on the tenth day of hospitalization her condition deteriorated to a point that the doctors felt it was necessary to prepare her family that she might not pull through. rylee spent 35 days in the hospital and will have to endure the memories of that traumatic time for the rest of her life. the long-term effects of her illness are currently unknown.

so how many americans will have to die? how many of these kids will become sick and ill before we fulfill our responsibility to modernize our woefully outdated food safety system? how many families will have to endure a tragic loss before we pass this legislation? one more tragedy is one too many. i urge my colleagues, madam president, as they think about their holiday plans and their preparations, to take a moment to think about the families that have had their holidays disrupted by contaminated food. 5,000 people die every year in this country because of contaminated food. among them, many children. as you spend the day with your loved ones preparing thanksgiving banquets, the last thing people want is to be jeopardized by the threat of

food contamination, yet many families are haunted by this. it's unacceptable. it's past time that we do something. we have come too far. we have reached our compromises. we have all the support from all sectors of society for this. now again, if we pass this bill, will it ensure that no kid like rylee will ever get sick again? i can't make that promise. or that no one will ever die? no, i can't make that promise. but i can promise you this: account passage of this bill, putting it into law, the chances that there will be another rylee gustavson will be diminished greatly, diminished greatly. let's not get this caught up in politics. let's get the politics out of this. let's vote on the bill. let's get it through. and let's -- let us go home, let

us senators go home for thanksgiving grateful that we've done a good thing, that we've done something really good for our country, and that we didn't let it get all boxed up in politics. isn't that the least we can do for our country on this thanksgiving week? madam president, i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. durbin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois.

mr. durbin: i ask consent the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: madam president, what is the pending order of business? the presiding officer: we're on the motion to proceed postcloture. mr. durbin: thank you, madam president. is this on the food safety modernization act? the presiding officer: it is. mr. durbin: thank you, madam president. i'd like to say a few words about this issue because it's something i have worked on for many years. i can't thank senator harkin, senator enzi and others enough for their hard work in bringing this issue to this moment in time. several things have been stated during the course of the debate which i'd like to address. most of them were stated by my friend and colleague from oklahoma, senator tom coburn. at this point in time, he is the only senator holding up this bill from consideration, one senator. at this point in time, 89% of the american people support food safety reform to make our food safer and to have more inspections of imported food so that our children and family members don't get sick. 89% support it. the bill has substantial

bipartisan support. 20 republican and democratic senators are committed to this bill. 74 senators, almost 3/4 of the senate, voted yesterday to move forward on this bill, a strong bipartisan roll call. the house of representatives passed a companion bill with the support of 54 republicans, so we know it's a bipartisan issue. this should not be a partisan fight. senator coburn came to the floor and one of the things he objected to in the bill was giving the federal government the authority to recall a dangerous food product. most people believe that if there is a dangerous food product in the stores across america, the federal government just sends out a notice and it's brought in. that's not the case. the federal government does not have the legal authority to recall any food products. all they can do is publicize that the products are dangerous and hope that grocers and retailers and manufacturers will take them off the shelves. that's it. that's the existing state of the law. we give the government that authority. senator coburn said it's not

necessary. he claims -- "not one company," clothe quote, has ever refused to recall contaminated food. he's wrong. there are many instances of companies flat-out refuse to go recall food or delay a food and people get sick and die. that's a fact. last year, westco nut company refused the f.d.a.'s request to recall contaminated peanut products. a few years ago, g.a.o. released a report entitled "actions needed by f.d.a. to ensure companies carry out recalls," which highlighted six other companies that flat out refused to recall contaminated food when they were told it was dangerous. even the bush administration realized how important this was, and they formally requested mandatory recall authority in the 2007 food protection plan. senator coburn has his facts wrong when he claims the f.d.a. does not need the mandatory recall authority. senator coburn also claims that our bill does not address the real problem in our nation's

food safety system. once again, he's mistaken. the national academy of sciences disagrees with him. in june, the national academy released a report entitled enhancing food safety, the role of the f.d.a. the report contains seven critical recommendations for improving food safety. this is not a partisan group. it's the national academy of science. every single one of the key recommendations from that group are addressed in our food bill, including increasing inspections and making them risk related, giving f.d.a. mandatory recall authority, improving registration of food facilities and giving the f.d.a. the authority to ban contaminated imports. our bill fits all of the critical gaps in the f.d.a.'s food safety authority that have been identified by the national academy of science, and for senator coburn to say it's unnecessary is to ignore science and fact, and i guess just the reality that if we're going to make food safer, we need to do our job better. that's why all the key consumer

protection public health groups support this bill, all of them. senator coburn thinks that this bill is not good for business. he says it hurts their profits and their productivity. he's just wrong. the number and diversity of the industry and business groups that supports the bill speaks for itself. listen to the groups that support the food safety bill and tell me that they are acting against their best business interest. the grocery manufacturers association, the u.s. chamber of commerce, the american beverage association, the american frozen food institute, the food marketing institute, the international dairy foods association, national restaurant association, snack food association, national coffee association, national milk producers federation, national con f.e.c. -- confectioners association, organic trade association, american feed association. if senator coburn is right, every one of these association's leadership should be removed

tomorrow because under his analysis, they have decided to support a bill that hurts their business. they know better. safe food is good business. think about what it costs these companies when they have to recall a product, when it damages their reputation and all of the things they go through to try to clean up their act. that's the reality. senator coburn also says there are 10 or 20 deaths per year caused by foodborne illness. the senator is just wrong. he uses this number to support his assertion there are just not enough victims to justify a bill. he's just wrong. here are the facts. according to the center for disease control, there are not ten or 20 deaths per year, as senator coburn has said. there are 5,000 deaths in america every single year caused by foodborne illness. 5,000. senator reid of nevada can tell you some stories about his state which has been hit particularly hard by food illnesses. moreover, every year, 76 americans contract a foodborne illness. 325,000 are hospitalized. a few weeks ago, i told you about one of the victims.

young man named richard chatfield from owosso, oklahoma, age 15 on a camping trip diagnosed with e. coli. eight years, suffered with pain, migraine headaches, dry heaves, high blood pressure, after going on dialysis for kidney failure. when we were debating this bill, richard was lying in the hospital and his mother christine had just rushed to be by his side. that hospital turned out to be richard's scene of his death. on monday, october 18, while we were still holding up the food safety bill, richard chatfield of owosso, oklahoma, died from a foodborne illness, the complications of an e. coli infection that affected him eight years ago. when i hear a senator on the floor say there are not enough people dying for us to really go to work here, he's just plain wrong, and richard chatfield of his state is dramatic evidence of that fact. as we stand here today, one senator is blocking a bill to

protect millions of americans. moms and dads across america making dinner tonight, if you happen to have missed the channel you were really looking for and ended up on c-span and you're following this debate, i'm telling you that we're talking about an issue that goes right into your refrigerator and stove and kitchen, as to whether the food you're putting on the table is safe for your kids. one senator from oklahoma says it's not a big enough problem. well, it is. it's a problem that is a life-and-death issue. senator, thank you. senator harkin of iowa, for your leadership on this, and senator reid, thanks for bringing this up. if we save one life, it is worth the effort. i yield the floor. mr. harkin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: madam president, i want to thank my friend and colleague from illinois, senator durbin. he has been the leader on this issue for several years. i said earlier in my remarks that we have been working on this bill for a number of years. it's really senator durbin who has led the charge on this, going back literally several years.

and as i pointed out, we have come so close. we have got all the compromises made. we have got consumers groups, the chamber of commerce, you never get those people to agree on anything, and they all agree on this bill. i just wanted to just again thank senator durbin for all of his great leadership on this. i hope -- hope springs eternal. i still hope that we will get the votes to pass this and keep the politics out of it, keep the politics out. but i want to correct one thing, madam president, i said earlier. earlier today, i had met with senator coburn, and we had a number of things that he wanted that i said that i would try to put in the amendment that we're going to be voting on, and in good faith, i said i would -- i would do that. but then, of course, we had to send it out to the various offices to get senators to sign off on it, and we couldn't get the republican senators to sign off on it. so i want to correct the record,

the changes that i had mentioned earlier that i was willing to put in the bill for senator coburn was not objected to by anybody on our side. it was objected to by republicans and not democrats, so it's not in the bill, those changes which i was willing to make to accommodate the senator from oklahoma. but i just wanted to make the record clear on that. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: is the 30 hours postcloture? the presiding officer: it is. it has. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the presiding officer: there is a sufficient second. the clerk will call the roll.

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the presiding officer: are there any senators who wish to change their votes? or to vote? if not, the -- the -- there are 57 ayes and 27 nays. the motion to proceed is agreed to. the court will -- the clerk will report the bill. the clerk: calendar number 247, s. 510, a bill to amend the federal food and drug and cosmetic act with respect to the safety of the food supply. mr. reid: mr. president, are we on the bill now? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask consent that the senate proceed to calendar number 465, h.r. 5712. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 465, h.r. 5712, an act to provide for certain clarifications and extensions under medicare,

medicaid, and the children's health insurance program. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask consent -- the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, so ordered. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask consent that the substitute amendment which is at the desk be considered and it be agreed to, that the bill as amended be read three times and then passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, that the title amendment which is also at the desk be considered and agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i appreciate everyone's cooperation. this is the s.g.r. extended for 30 days to allow us to spend more time on this to make sure that the doctors are taken -- are able to be compensated. these medicare patients are extremely important. they need doctors. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent there now be a time for debate only for a period of 20 minutes, with senator brownback recognized for a period of up to

to -- senator brownback for ten minutes, and i be recognized when he completes his statement. mr. president, for the benefit of all members, senator mcconnell and i are trying to work through some of the procedural issues we have here to give more definition to what we're doing. we're trying to work something out on food safety. we're trying to work something out on the nomination. we don't have that done yet, but we have made progress. i hope everyone could be patient and stay around so they can hear what we wind up doing. it's a delicate time here. everyone has to be calm and cool. we have a lot to do in the next few weeks. we would like to be able to expedite some things tonight. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. brownback: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas.

mr. brownback: mr. president, thank you very much. i thank the majority leader for setting this period of time up. this would be my last speech probably to the body. it's a speech that i want to give in talking about leaving the united states senate. i was just elected to be governor of kansas, which i'm very excited about that post. i have served here a period of 14 years, which has been a wonderful chance to be able to serve the people of kansas, the people of the united states, and i love this body and i love this country. a lot of folks talk about when they leave about the partisanship and the bickering. i like to think about the beauty of the country and the ability to come together because it does happen. the predecessor of the person sitting in the seat, i worked one of the flagship pieces of legislation on human rights protection, it was on human trafficking. the initial bill was with paul wellstone that i worked with from minnesota. a delightful individual. it was a great chancer for us --

a great chance for us to work together on something we couldn't have been further apart. i think he was ranked the second most liberal member of the united states senate. he aspired to be number one, but he was second. he was a delightful man and dealt from the heart, and we got things done. i say that because i think that's really how we work in this place, is we fight about 20% of the issues, they are important, big issues, and then we can cooperate and work together on a whole host of bipartisan issues, such as dealing with things like human trafficking. and you do that i think primarily with people that deal from the heart, people like paul wellstone, ted kennedy, jesse helms. there are a lot of others and many people get many things done in this body, but i think it's just best when people deal from the heart. and when they do that, then there's a chance for us to come together around key and heartfelt things. this has been a great body to serve in and i've delighted in being able to do that. there's much to be done, much to

be done for the country. we've got to deal with creation of jobs in america. we have to deal with our debt and our deficit. we have many, many issues to deal with. the -- my hope for here and my hope for our country is that we go back to the virtues of the greatest generation and look to those for ways to move on forward. it's kind of looking back at the old path at what worked in tough times and moving on forward to the new path. i was -- i came into this seat after bob dole served in this body and served in this seat. senator dole from kansas i think is the iconic figure of the world war ii generation and of that greatest generation. just got out of walter reed hospital. he's been very sick and ill this year but is coming back and recuperating. i think he's 87 years old this year. most everybody in america would agree about the greatest generation. they'd say that world war ii generation really hit the mark

of what it is to be an american, what it is to sacrifice, what it is to fight for a gad cause -- fight for a good cause. and they did it with a set of virtue as that are timeless, that are known and that i think we've got to emulate this time for us to deal with the problems we have now. they were courageous, they were selfless, they were courteous, they were people that would fight for a cause, they were ones that exhibited charity, thrift, certainly known in that generation. and i think these are things that we've got to bring back. hard work, compassion. that's -- that seems to me when i think of that generation -- and nobody's perfect and that generation's not perfect -- but those are ideals and those are ideas that i saw in practice, whether it was them on the battlefield in world war ii or if was them raising their families at home or if it was their educating of their families, if it was saving for the future generations.

that's what they did. and i don't know if you -- if you ask people in that generation, did you do this on purpose? they might not say -- they may say, well, we didn't or we didn't, but most of them would say well, this is the right thing to do and it's the thing we needed to do. and i think it's what we need to do now. i think we need to emulate those virtues of the greatest generation and apply them to our problems. their problems were more foreign than ours are. ours, i believe, are more domestic, dealing with our own debt and deficit as a country and as a society, and as individuals and individual households, us creating and saving for that next generation in the country and investing to do that. and being selfless and sacrificial in doing that. building family structure and doing things that are for the good of our families. they are things that we need to do and that virtue and that old ancient path that they followed, that they said we just did because it was the thing we needed to do, i think we've got to do the same thing.

and i hope we will as a country. there has been a debate that has started up in america that i don't agree with and it's whether or not this is a special country and whether or not america is an exceptional land. and i, for one, fully embrace the notion that this is a special place. i believe in american exceptionalism. and i've been in many places over the world that you see this in action. and i've been in many places in america where you see this in action, where somebody selflessly takes care of other individuals. or last night i was at the korean embassy and we were talking about what's taking place in north korea. and one of the people working there at the south korean embassy was just amazed that people in the united states would care what happens to people in north korea. i said to one of the people with me were just saying that that's how we look at the world. if somebody else is in bondage, if somebody else is in

difficulty, we -- we feel that and we want to help out and deal with it. and that, to me, is part of what american exceptionalism is all about. this is a special place, and has a special calling, and if it isn't us doing it, in many cases around the world, it doesn't get done. i've been in the sudan and they aren't calling on the chinese to lead sudan into a freer time period. i've been in other places in africa and on north korean border, and if you're looking for somebody to solve their pro, it's the americans that go in and do it. our task now is to not only do that around the world but it's to do it here domestically. i just think we've got to look more and more at ourselves and say, we are a special place and i think we have to look at ourselves as a baby boomer generation that i'm a part of and say that you've got to prove and earn your exceptionalism. i think we've got to step up to the mark as the greatest

generation -- as the greatest den ration did and be -- as the greatest generation did and be willing to serve in a tough way, in a sacrificial way the best interests for the future of our country. and we've got to do it and now's the time to do it. i'm appreciative that the president had a deficit task force that he appointed and that they came up with some ideas, some which i agree with, some of which i disagree with. but i'm glad that they've started the discussion and the debate. if the figures i've seen are accurate, half the american households receive an entitlement check from the federal government. half of the american households. we've got a deficit and debt that is structural. it's not just based upon one-time war funding, although war funding has contributed to it, but it's structural and we've got more going out than we've got coming in. and it is time that this is dealt with. and i think that's part of the message from this last election cycle is the american people are

ready to have an intelligent discussion, a difficult discussion of what we're going to do to be able to save ourselves fiscally. and now's the time to do it. and we actually have the structure set up to do it, with a republican house, democrat senate, democrat presidency, this would be the time and the structure to talk about this sort of difficult issue, and our generation should step up and deal with it. i am not going to be here for that discussion and debate but it's time we have it and it's time we bring back these timeless virtues to deal with our domestic problems the way we've dealt with international problems in the greatest generation. mr. president, as i leave this body, one of the rites of passage is to sign your desk and i just did that. i did it in pencil. i figure that all of us will fade with time and that signature will fade with time as well.

but the things you remember are the lives that you touched and the lives that touched you. and the souls that are touched. and it's people that deal with -- from the heart are the ones that touch your life, the ones that touch your soul. i want to express my deep appreciation to my colleagues that have touched my heart and i hope that i've been a positive statement to many of them. the palm that som that comes tos one that says, "and his place that knew him no more," the palmist wrote. -- the psalmist wrote. so you sign the desk, you move on, you look back at the signatures that are in the desk and you don't recognize any of them. the place will know us no more. but the hearts that we touch, the hearts that touch ours will remember forever. and i certainly will. i want to thank you and my colleagues in the senate for letting meserve with you. it has been a great joy. it is a fabulous nai the natione

greatest nation on the face of the earth, and it was an honor to serve here. god bless america. i yield the floor. note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

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