i don't think the cochran or language necessarily kills the bill at all. it does raise the issue many of us have concern about the effectiveness, but nonetheless, i want to be on record as being supportive of this effort. i know there's been an effort in the past to talk about this and different vehicles and so forth, but this is certainly a major cost factor in dealing with health care. i'll leave my colleagues to express their views on the matter. that's where this senator stands on the issue. senator brown. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i support mccain amendment and oppose any second degree amendment. i've been through this as john as 1 1/2 decades working with john on these and patent issues, too, that pharma seems to, even when we went to battle they seem to win the war. any weakening language does two things. one, it denies these cost savings to consumers and second, it's got something about public safety as john points out. it denies savings to consumers and only doesn't save us the money it would save if we were to do this right. for years, several

not long after that, cochran became commanding officer of the 319th women's flying training detachment in houston, texas, which provided basic flight instruction for the army air forces. on august 5, 1942 -- 1943, the squadrons were combined to form the women's air force service pilots. over 25,000 women applied to become pilots and only some 1,900 were selected for training. of these almost 1,100 eventually earned their wings, many in the hometown of sweet water, texas, in the district i get to represent. the women who volunteered to fly planes faced a world that we can squaresly imagine. while complaints of sexism in the workplace still continue today, in the 1940's, sexism was not the exception but the standard operating practice. the women of the wasp were paid less, trained within with inferior equipment, -- trained with inferior equipment and faced an openly hostile working environment. they had to pay for their room and board and uniforms. yet through all of that, the wasp pilots were stationed at over 120 airbases throughout the united states, flying every type of aircraft and

they put safety provisions in there and always mention that, but i have gotten a copy of the cochrane roberts language which places requirements for safety and certification before the bill can go into a fight which is what we have always past when this bill has come up and some point they figure that with that amendment in there is a worthless bill. but i would ask unanimous consent to be able to offer her the second-degree amendment to the mccain amendment. >> mr. chairman, we will have to vote on that but let's have no doubt you wrote that parma and thus have no doubt about the fact, it would kill the bill so you can vote for this if you want to but the fact is that it kills the ability to import drugs and that, let's not have a charade. and so i would be happy to do what ever the committee wishes are two have a vote on that but have no doubt it would have the effect of killing legislation and amendments before us. >> mr. chairman i have supported this proposal and the past and i think the case has been made on the importation. i supported this in the past, we had a vote to somethi

i leave the record open here for a statement by senator cochran and i would then recognize you madam secretary. your statement will be made it part of the record in its entirety, and as a matter of introduction, kathleen sebelius became the 21st secretary of the department of health and human services on april 29th of 2009. in 2003 she was elected as governor of kansas and i thank you for coming to i was many times. i always enjoy seeing you and iowa and working with you. she served in that capacity until her appointment as secretary. she serviced kansas state insurance commissioner graduate of trinity washington university in the university of kansas. madam secretary, and since-- >> mr. chairman i am happy to join you in welcoming the secretary to the hearing. thank you very much. >> thank you. i will leave this record open for your statement. >> please proceed as you so desire. >> thank you chairman harkin and senator cochran and members of the committee. i want to thank you for the impartation to come and discuss the 2010 budget and for a start by thanking you for your hard work g

cochran and see how fast we can gets there. >> chairman, i thank you very much. i agree with you that going over the words long enough, it is time for work. this is a compromised package that both sides have worked on. none of us got everything we want. that is not in the nature of it. and i just want to thank you for the many courtesies. people have been telling me this guy is a tough nut to crack. >> emphasis on the nut. [laughter] br but i must say it has been a pleasure working with you, sir. >> i feel the same about you. >> and if i may, like you, i have a 20-minute statement. thank you very much. >> mr. lewis. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. we have been talking a little bit about this bill because there are some questions that i have. i may very well express some of those questions by way of my statement if you'll be a bit patient with me. but in the meantime i'm very pleased that we have at least temporarily returned to regular order removing this supplemental that is before us. i must confess to being disappointed at the final product that has take

h.r. 2470, a bill to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at 19190 cochran boulevard, f. frnt as the lieutenant commander roadway h. boehm post office building. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. lynch, and the gentleman from california, mr. bilbray, each will control 20 minutes. the chair recognizes the gentleman from massachusetts. i were -- lunch -- mr. lynch: thank you, mr. speaker. i ask that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. lynch: i yield myself such time as i may consume. mr. speaker, on behalf of the committee on oversight and government reform, i stand for the consideration of h.r. 2470, legislation that designates the united states postal service facility located at 19190 cochran boulevard front inport charlotte, florida, as the lieutenant commander roy h. boehm post office building. introduced by representative thomas j. rooney on may 18, 2009, and reported out of the oversight and government reform committee

i'd like to also thank the full committee chairman, senator inouye, and ranking member cochran in getting us to the floor today. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. mr. inouye: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. inouye: madam president, today the senate begins its consideration of our annual spending bills, and we start with the legislative branch appropriations bill. madam president, i'm pleased to announce to my colleagues that, as of this moment, the appropriations committee has reported out four appropriations bills. it may please you to know, madam president, that all of these bills -- legislative, homeland security, commerce, and interior -- passed the committee unanimously, and all of the bills represent a bipartisan approach. and the bill before this body deserves the support of every member of this body. it provides for the essential services to fulfill the functions of our legislative branch. it is a clean, free bill of unnecessary dividers. it is $300 million below the amount requested and within the funding allocation provided to th

i want to thank senator cochran for his statements about federal employees on june 11. i want by those who work in the federal government. mr. president, last week i shared the story of a federal employee who spent his career working at redstone arsenal in alabama. he designed and tested the advanced missile system to defend our military overseas. this week i wish to share the story after federal employee who works to advance our interest overseas, that of a humanitarian good works. both are vital to our global leadership. i spoken before about the groundbreaking research performed by our federal employees at the national inuse it of health. it helps to keep america health care the most innovative in the world. yet making breakthroughs and developing treatments is one part of how the federal government is helping promote global health. one of our foreign policies humanitarian priorities is to expand access to new medications and health technologies among those who live in the developing world. the hard-working men and women of the centers for disease control and prevent

senator mccain is not here that my view is the mccain the amendment is offered without the roberts cochrane or whoever else would be offering the language will fail. i also would be supportive of the amendment to deal of the safety and effectiveness issues but i would tell people as a look around on my job and right now if john is interested in adopting you will be better suited and excepting the road that deals with these other issues otherwise would not make it so my advice would be they want to hear advice is to wait until title one to allow for amendment offered and that is my judgment. so obviously they have a right to offer amendments but if it were offered at this point that is not a conclusion. >> senator mccain was two go ahead with a vote, i thank you know sometimes we tilt at windmills and he may not describe it that way, you know sometimes you lose but he knows as i do that to the so-called safety language is a language that really does restrict the importation. we have all seen this, we have seen the drug industry every year every time there is a spite we have every importation

for those of you who dared to read my testimony, on page it, we talk about cochran leverage. what that is is what share of your disposable income gets eaten up for the price of carbon dioxide. small numbers can look like small numbers when they are small, but they are averages. in kentucky, $10 per metric ton it's up 66 basis points of disposable income. it does not sound like much, but it matters a lot if you are well below the average income in the state. the other thing is if you look at the national average on the page. $145 a person, direct to the consumer. that is not dissimilar to what cpo's numbers are. if you look at that over time, that becomes part of the whole economy. it becomes 0.8% when you look at the whole economy defect. look through your 2030, and you have a cumulative cost nominally of $25 trillion. if you make the assumption that gdp will grow at 3% -- and it may not grow at 3%. that is not a guarantee either. you may have a green economy that generates so much value that the 0.8% is outweighed by something else. i think this is an important point. the ot

. >> i'd like to comment on a portion of the bill that senator cochran just referred to. on january 14, senator collins and senator schumer and i introduced a bill, the thought and goal of which was pretty sirm sill -- simple, that was to encourage people to purchase more efficient automobiles with a voucher. and that became known as cash for clunkers. this is something we'd worked on for a long time, some of us that did the cafe bill in the senate, thanks to senator inoue , it was added to the energy bill and we were able to achieve a 10 mile over 10 year improvement in fuel efficiency in automobiles. it was a big victory. because we began this in 1993 and hadn't been able to achieve any improvement in the cafe standards. the cash for clunkers bill, and i must say this, is a product of the house, is not based on improving fuel efficiency. it helps deter, prevent, diminish fuel efficiency. it really is in structure a bailout for the automobile industry. secondly there is no funding mechanism. senator collins and i had a funding mechanism which took it off of the stimulus.

get some significant movement, the full-blown dorgan or vitter bill will pass an amendment and the cochran or brownback amendment will fail. one, we need to locate a democratly cosponsored for the second-degree amendment. it goes on that kj & j, merck, novartis and the other new jersey companies coordinate and contact senator men nen des aves and get him to take the lead? we're trying to get senator dorgan to back down. senator mccain has said he will offer rawrls. so even if dorgan withdraws, we may still go forward. we believe we have 39 yes votes and 25 members in the undecided column. kenzie not here. we're scheduling a call for later this morning to follow up on our targets from yesterday's whip call. please make sure your staff is fully engaged in this process. this is real. wwe only had six companies participate in the last call." my friend, a little insight as to how the special interests in washington work. and i really would like to have an amendment -- a vote on this amendment, i say to my friend from nevada, with full appreciation of the difficulties that he has in getting this

it's a story of how a famous pilot, jacqueline "jacky" cochran became the first commander of the w.f.o. in 1942. that's the women's flying training detachment. it's the story of how a test pilot, nancy love, became the commander of the w.a.f., the women's auxiliary flying -- ferrying squadron in 1942. it's the story of how the w.f.o. and the w.a.f. merged in 1943 to become the wasp. the wasps would go on and fly 60 million miles. they would fly every type of aircraft. they would be stationed in 120 bases across the country. on december 20 of 1944, when victory was at hand, the wasps were quietly and unceremoniously disbanded. 38 lost their lives in the course of serving their country. however families and friends had to pay for their burial expenses. survivors had to pay their way back home because they were not considered a part of the military in an official capacity. many of their records were sealed and unavailable to historians until the 1980's. they didn't get veteran status until 1977. and this was done without a white house ceremony and it was done without the kind of fanfare t

i congratulate the chairman and ranking member, senator cochran and senator inouye for bringing it forward. it is critical that we adequately fund our troops in the field. this is the first responsibility yeas a government when we have troops in the field in harm's way to give them the resources they need in order to protect themselves and defend our liberties. and so this is a very, very important piece of legislation. it must pass. it simply must pass. however, ironically, the hedges legislation that occurs around here, this legislation had air dropped into it by the house of representatives something that has no -- nothing to did with our troops fighting in the field. and that is a bill called the cash for chunker bill. now, -- clunker bill. i have -- purchasing automobiles that are high-mileage vehicles that use a lot of gas and exchanging them for lower-mileage vehicles in order to accomplish some environmental protections. i would simply note this, however. that this bill that was airdropped into this doesn't accomplish that. basically this is a bill that was drafted in the house abo

. >> normally when this comes up we either have senator cochran or roberts who deals with the safety section which i assume you do not have in that amendment. >> this amendment requires the secretary of health and human services to verify the safety and importance of prescription drugs. i don't know what more you want in it. if we could get the amendment out maybe it could clarify it for you. >> appreciate it. >> obviously, i don't know of any senator who would propose an amendment that would allow unsafe or prescription drugs into this country that did not meet all the safety standards. so, mr. chairman, the amendment would provide americans access to safe and imported prescription dugs at much lower price. it would lower the overall price of this legislation due to the significant savings it would provide americans and the government. the amendment would, one, waive the food and drug administration administration's limitation on the importation of prescription drugs from outside the united states. require the secretary of health and human services to verify the safety of imported p

and our colleagues -- particularly senator levin, as a sponsor, and sponsors on our side -- senator cochran, senator bond, many others -- and i ask actually at this time by unanimous consent that senator corker be added as a cosponsor to the resolution. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brownback: and also our staffs have worked very hard on this. but i really have to acknowledge lara young in my staff. she's really been dedicated to get these through and forward. i thank her for her great work on this. it is my experience that apologies are tough to do. they're tough as individuals, they're tough as groups. they're certainly tough for nations to do. it's just one of those things that when this issue would come up for a lot of people they would say, yes, i acknowledge that happened, but i didn't do t or well that happened a long time ... can't we just move past it? and yet my experience has been, until you actually acknowledge the wrong that was done and say i did this and it was wrong and i apologize, that there remains a barrier there. there remains something that you just can

bond, brownback, enzi, graham, martinez, thune, wicker, alexander, cochran, ensign, vitter, and i'm sure there are others. it's a bipartisan bill. now, mr. president, we have already wasted so much time on this. we had to file cloture on a motion to proceed to this heavily bipartisan bill. and once we're on the bill -- i spoke to the republican leader and we thought when he a pathway to having civility here so the republicans would try help us. but, of course, we learned that yesterday the senate g.o.p. still saying "no." democrats need to know when the bring bills up we're going to extend the debate as long as we can even if we can't win. we said okay, let's -- you offer -- you, the republicans, offer four amendments. and they did. they picked all the amendments they wanted to offer want germane to this bill. and i said okay. they were all involving tarp, the money that we all know about by now. and so i said, well, senator -- i told senator from vermont, senator sanders, i said, if republicans want to offer nongermane amendments, i'll be happy to offer your amendment. his is -- his is