ms. murkowski: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: thank you, madam chairwoman. before i begin, i'd ask unanimous consent that three individuals from my staff -- catit, kimberly, be allowed to be on the floor during the debate on this appropriations bill. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: madam president, i rise this afternoon in support of the legislative branch appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010. the chairman of the subcommittee, senator nelson, and i have worked collaboratively in this process of putting the bill together. i thank him for that. i think we had some real substance in our hearings and spent the time, energy, the focus that we needed to on these matters regarding this particular appropriations. when combined with the house items, the bill before us totals $4.7 billion, and while this is an increase of 5% over the current year, the bill that we reported out of the committee represented less than a 3% increase over fy2009, as the chairman has said. in fact, 2.4%. and i would argue t

. >> if i could say, the incidence of ms, multiple cler oes is, als and a number of issues from gulf war veterans from the early '90s is what senator murkowski is referring to. >> is there any epidemiology cal research anybody has done on it? >> we've been working on it. >> there is research that's going on, but it's limited research. this is -- it's been described as an orphan disease. there's only, like, 30,000 people. only. that's a lot of people that come down with a disease that is absolutely, in my opinion, one of the ugliest ones out there. but the research has been limited. they have not had but one new drug placed on the market since literally lou gehrig named the disease. >> really? >> i didn't know about -- >> but why it's connected to the gulf war is is still unknown. >> yes. >> mr. chairman, just one comment. >> yeah. >> as you work towards -- if you work towards something like that, using alwae ining alzheim the wrong label. we should use dementia. there's different kinds of dementia. and alzheimer's. >> i'm not sure when i characterized pizzi hollings if i had that right. thank you for that correction. mike, let us know where