The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS” mentioning the Department of Interior was published in the Senate section on pages S5567-S5571 on May 23, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. LEVIN (for himself and Mr. Abraham):
S. 1797. A bill to revise the requirements for procurement of products of Federal Prison Industries to meet needs of Federal agencies, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
The Federal Prison Industries Competition in Contracting Act
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce, with Senator Abraham, the Federal Prison Industries Competition in Contracting Act. This bill, if enacted, would eliminate the requirement for Federal agencies to purchase products made by Federal Prison Industries and require that FPI to compete commercially for Federal contracts. It would implement a key recommendation of the Vice President's National Performance Review, which concluded that we should
``Take away the Federal Prison Industries' status as a mandatory source of Federal supplies and require it to compete commercially for Federal agencies' business.'' Most importantly, it would ensure that the taxpayers get the best possible value for their Federal procurement dollars.
Mr. President, the Director of Federal Prison Industries, Mr. Steve Schwalb, told me earlier this year that his agency is fully capable of competing with private industry for Federal contracts. Indeed, FPI would have a significant advantage in any such head-to-head competition: FPI pays inmates only $1.35 an hour, less than a third of the minimum wage and a small fraction of the wage paid to most private sector workers in competing industries.
The taxpayers already provide a direct subsidy Federal Prison Industries products by picking up the cost of feeding, clothing, and housing the inmates who provide the labor. There is no reason why we should provide an indirect subsidy as well, by requiring Federal agencies to purchase products from FPI even when they are more expensive and of a lower quality than competing commercial items.
Despite Mr. Schwalb's statement that Federal Prison Industries is capable of competing with the private sector, FPI remains unwilling to do so. The reason is obvious: it is much easier to gain market share by fiat than it is to compete for business. Under current law, FPI need not offer the best product at the best price; it is sufficient for it to offer an adequate product at an adequate price, and insist upon its right to make the sale. Indeed, FPI currently advertises that it offers Federal agencies ``ease in purchasing'' through ``a procurement with no bidding necessary.'' The result of the FPI's status as a mandatory source is not unlike the result of other sole-source contracting: the taxpayers frequently pay too much and receive an inferior product for their money.
Mr. President, I do not consider myself to be an enemy of Federal Prison Industries. I am a strong supporter of the idea of putting Federal inmates to work. I understand that a strong prison work program not only reduces inmate idleness and prison disruption, but can also help build a work ethic, provide job skills, and enable prisoners to return to product society upon their release.
However, I believe that prison work must be conducted in a manner that is sensitive to the need not to unfairly eliminate the jobs of hard-working citizens who have not committed crimes. FPI will be able to achieve this result only if it diversifies its product lines and avoids the temptation to build its work force by continuing to displace private sector jobs in its traditional lines of work. For this reason, I have been working since 1990 to try to help Federal Prison Industries to identify new markets that it can expand into without displacing private sector jobs. I had hoped.
In 1990, the House Appropriations Committee requested a study to identify new opportunities for FPI to meet its growth requirements, assess FPI's impact on private sector businesses and labor, and evaluate the need for changes to FPI's laws and mandates. That study, conducted by Deloitte & Touche, concluded that FPI should meet its growth needs by using new approaches and new markets, not by expanding its production in traditional industries. The Deloitte & Touch study concluded:
FPI needs to maintain sales in industries that produce products such as traditional furniture and furnishings, apparel and textile products, and electronic assemblies to maintain inmate employment during the transition.
These industries should not be expanded, and FPI should limit its market shares to current levels.
I followed up on that report by meeting with Federal Prison Industries officials and participating in a summit process, sponsored by the Brookings Institute, designed to develop alternative growth strategies for FPI. The summit process resulted in two suggested areas for growth: First, entering partnerships with private sector companies to replace offshore labor; and second, entering the recycling business in areas such as mattresses and electrical motors.
In January 1994, I urged FPI to move quickly to implement these recommendations and develop new markets. At that time, I wrote to Kathleen M. Hawk, the Director of the Bureau of Federal Prisons, as follows:
As you know, I am supportive of FPI's role in keeping inmates occupied and teaching them a work ethic and job skills. However, FPI's continued market share growth in the government furniture market has had an unfair and disproportionate impact on that particular sector. In order to take pressure off of such traditional industries where FPI has focused, FPI should cap its market share and diversify its activities away from these traditional industries and into alternative growth strategies.
I am alarmed that FPI continues to increase its share of government purchases of furniture. The 1991 Deloitte and Touche study recommended that FPI limit its industry market share to current levels in traditional industries. It would be a welcome sign of goodwill in this ``summit'' process if FPI were to cap its market share in the furniture industry while aggressively pursuing acceptable alternative growth strategies.
Unfortunately, Federal Prison Industries has chosen to take the exact opposite course of action. Earlier this year, FPI acted unilaterally to virtually double its furniture sales from $70 million to $130 million and from 15 percent of the Federal market to 25 percent of the Federal market, over the next 5 years. In direct contravention of the Deloitte
& Touche recommendations, FPI has announced its intention to undertake similar market share increases in other traditional product lines, such as work clothing and protective clothing.
In defense of this action FPI contends that it will not place an undue burden on the private sector because most firms within the industry are not heavily involved in the Federal market.
Mr. President, Federal Prison Industries cannot have it both ways. If they are providing a substantial number of jobs to inmates, then they must be displacing a substantial number of jobs in the private sector. A substantial increase in FPI's business means a similar decrease in U.S. private sector business--unless it is displacing imports, which is what FPI should be doing. Instead of diversifying as recommended by the Deloitte & Touche study and the Brookings summit, FPI is going back to the same well yet again, and taking it out of the hide of the same traditional industries.
Mr. President, this is the easy way out, but it isn't the right way for FPI, it isn't the right way for the private sector workers whose jobs FPI is taking, and it isn't the right way for the taxpayer, who will continue to pay more and get less as a result of the mandatory preference for FPI goods. We need to have jobs for prisoners, but can no longer afford to allow FPI to designate whose jobs it will take, and when it will take them. Competition will be better for FPI, better for the taxpayer, and better for working men and women around the country.
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I am very pleased to join with my distinguished colleague from Michigan in sponsoring this legislation. I think that Federal Prison Industries plays an extremely valuable role in giving prisoners something useful to do with their time and helping them to develop the self-discipline and other virtues that enable people outside of prison to lead productive lives. I am convinced, however, that these same goals can be accomplished within the parameters set by this legislation. I also see no reason why the law abiding owners of small businesses and the workers they employ should be deprived of any opportunity to bid for a class of government contracts in favor of FPI. Finally, I appreciate Senator Levin's acceptance of my suggestion to include section 2, which I believe provides useful encouragement to FPI to try to concentrate its expansion efforts in the direction of goods that the Government presently acquires by importing them.
By Mr. FEINGOLD:
S. 1798. A bill to amend the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 to clarify the acreage limitations and incorporate a means test for certain farm operations, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.
The Irrigation Subsidy Reduction Act of 1996
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I am introducing today a new measure to curb the receipt of Federal irrigation subsidies by large agribusiness interests. I am introducing legislation in this area as a deficit reduction measure because I believe that the Federal Government needs to scrutinize carefully all forms of assistance it provides in these times of fiscal constraint. I am also prompted to act in this area, Mr. President, because the Federal Government has been unable to correct fundamental abuses of reclamation law that cost the taxpayer millions of dollars every year.
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation, which came to be known as the Reclamation Act, to encourage development of family farms throughout the western United States. The idea was to provide needed water for areas that were otherwise dry and give small farms--those no larger than 160 acres--a chance, with a helping hand from the Federal Government, to establish themselves.
Under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982, Congress acted to expand the size of the farms that could receive subsidized water to 960 acres. The RRA of 1982 expressly prohibits farms that exceed 960 acres in size from receiving Federally-subsidized water. These restrictions were added to the Reclamation law to close loopholes through which Federal subsidies were flowing to large agribusinesses rather than the small family farmers that Reclamation projects were designed to serve. Agribusinesses were expected to pay full cost for all water received on land in excess of their 960-acre entitlement. Despite the express mandate of Congress, regulations promulgated under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 have failed to keep big agricultural water users from receiving Federal subsidies. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior continue to find that the acreage limits established in law are circumvented through the creation of arrangements such as farming trusts. These trusts, which in total acreage well exceed the 960 acre limit, are comprised of smaller units that are not subject to the reclamation acreage cap. These smaller units are farmed under a single management agreement often through a combination of leasing and ownership.
Three years ago, as part of a settlement of a suit with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Bureau of Reclamation agreed to propose new regulations under the reclamation program. At the beginning of February 1996, the Administration issued its final environmental impact statement [EIS] on its proposed regulations. On March 8, 1996 I joined with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley], the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg) and others in writing to the President to express our concern and disappointment that these new regulations would continue to allow the 960-acre loophole to be exploited. Indeed, neither the Bureau's ``preferred option'' for the regulation, nor any of the alternatives they describe in the EIS, would act to curb irrigation water abuses by these agribusiness trusts.
Last week, I received a response to the letter I joined in sending to the Department of the Interior. The letter states, ``Last spring's release of a proposed rule making and draft EIS prompted nearly 400 letters and 8 public hearings on these complex issues during the comment period. The FEIS alternative responds to many of the comments we received.'' Mr. President, this letter specifically does not respond to the concerns that I, the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. Bradley] and others raised. Now is the time, in light of the Department's inability to correct this problem, to look back to the statute and attempt to correct the costly loopholes that it facilitates.
Presently, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, there are 80 such trusts receiving subsidized water on more than 738,000 acres of land, or about 10 percent of the land for which the Bureau of Reclamation provides water. In a 1989 GAO report, the activities of six of these trusts were fully explored. According to GAO, one 12,345 acre cotton farm--roughly 20 square miles--operating under a single partnership, was reorganized to avoid the 960-acre limitation into 15 separate land holdings through 18 partnerships, 24 corporations, and 11 trusts which were all operated as one large unit. A seventh very large trust was the sole topic of a 1990 GAO report. The Westhaven trust is a 23,238-acre farming operation in California's Central Valley. It was formed for the benefit of 326 salaried employees of the J.G. Boswell Company. Boswell, GAO found, had taken advantage of section 214 of the RRA, which exempts from its 960-acre limit land held for beneficiaries by a trustee in a fiduciary capacity, as long as no single beneficiary's interest exceeds the law's ownership limits. The RRA, as I have mentioned, does not preclude multiple land holdings from being operated collectively under a trust as one farm while qualifying individually for federally subsidized water. Accordingly, the J.G. Boswell Company reorganized 23,238 acres it held as the Boston Ranch by selling them to the Westhaven Trust, with the land holdings attributed to each beneficiary being eligible to receive federally subsidized water.
Before the land was sold to Westhaven Trust, the J.G. Boswell Company operated the acreage as one large farm and paid full cost for the Federal irrigation water delivered for the 18-month period ending in May 1989. When the trust bought the land, due to the loopholes in the law, the entire acreage became eligible to receive federally subsidized water because the land holdings attributed to the 326 trust beneficiaries range from 21 acres to 547 acres--all well under the 960-
acre limit.
In the six cases the GAO reviewed in 1989, owners or lessees paid a total of about $1.3 million less in 1987 for Federal water then they would have paid if their collective land holdings were considered as large farms subject to the Reclamation Act acreage limits. Had Westhaven trust been required to pay full cost, GAO estimated in 1990, it would have paid $2 million more for its water. The GAO also found, in all seven of these cases, that reduced revenues are likely to continue unless Congress amends the Reclamation Act to close the loopholes allowing benefits for trusts.
The legislation that I am introducing combines various elements of proposals introduced during previous attempts by other members of Congress to close loopholes in the 1982 legislation and to impose a
$500,000 means test. This new approach limits the amount of subsidized irrigation water delivered to any operation in excess of the 960-acre limit which claimed $500,000 or more in gross income, as reported on their most recent IRS tax form. If the $500,000 threshold were exceeded, an income ratio would be used to determine how much of the water should be delivered to the user at the full-cost rate, and how much at the below-cost rate. For example, if a 961-acre operation earned $1 million dollars, a ratio of $500,000 (the means test value) divided by their gross income would determine the full cost rate, thus the water user would pay the full cost rate on half of their acreage and the below cost rate on the remaining half.
This means testing proposal was profiled in this year's ``Green Scissors'' report, written by Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for Common Sense and supported by 21 other environmental and consumer groups, including groups like the Concord Coalition, the Progressive Policy Institute. The premise of the report is that there are a number of subsidies and projects, totaling $39 billion dollars in all, that could be cut to both reduce the deficit and benefit the environment. This report coalesces what I and many others in the Senate have long known, we must be diligent in eliminating practices that can no longer be justified in light of our enormous annual deficit and national debt. The ``Green Scissors'' recommendation on means testing water subsidies indicates that if a test is successful in reducing subsidy payments to the highest grossing 10 percent of farms, then the Federal Government would recover at least $440 million per year, or at least $2.2 billion over 5 years.
The measure I introduce today is my third legislative effort in the area of irrigation subsidies, all of which have been profiled in the
``Green Scissors'' report. In February of 1995, I introduced two related pieces of legislation aimed at reducing double dipping for irrigation water subsidies that cost the Federal taxpayers millions of dollars each year. I hope that other Members will join me in sponsoring these efforts, as elimination of western water subsidies, and a wide range of reclamation subsidies, should be pursued as legitimate deficit reduction opportunities.
When countless Federal program are subjected to various types of means tests to limit benefits to those who truly need assistance, it makes little sense to continue to allow large business interests to dip into a program intended to help small entities struggling to survive. Taxpayers have legitimate concerns when they learn that their hard-
earned tax dollars are being expended to assist large corporate interests in select regions of the country who benefit from these loopholes. The Federal Water Program was simply never intended to benefit these large interests.
In conclusion, Mr. President, it is clear that the conflicting policies of the Federal Government in this area are in need of reform, and if Federal agencies cannot be diligent in curbing this corporate welfare administratively, Congress should act. Large agribusinesses should not be able to continue to soak the taxpayers. We should act to close these loopholes as soon as possible. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the measure be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
S. 1798
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Irrigation Subsidy Reduction Act of 1996''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that--
(1) the Federal reclamation program has been in existence for over 90 years, with an estimated taxpayer investment of over $70,000,000,000;
(2) the program has had and continues to have an enormous effect on the water resources and aquatic environments of the western States;
(3) irrigation water made available from Federal water projects in the West is a very valuable resource for which there are increasing and competing demands;
(4) the justification for providing water at less than full cost was to benefit and promote the development of small family farms and exclude large corporate farms, but this purpose has been frustrated over the years due to inadequate implementation of subsidy and acreage limits;
(5) below-cost water prices tend to encourage excessive use of scarce water supplies in the arid regions of the West, and reasonable price increases to the wealthiest western farmers would provide an economic incentive for greater water conservation;
(6) the Federal Government has increasingly applied eligibility tests based on income for Federal entitlement and subsidy programs, measures that are consistent with the historic approach of the reclamation program's acreage limitations that seek to limit water subsidies to smaller farms; and
(7) including a means test based on gross income in the reclamation program will increase the effectiveness of carrying out the family farm goals of the Federal reclamation laws.
SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS.
(a) Definitions.--Section 202 of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390bb) is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraphs (7), (8), (9), (10), and
(11) as paragraphs (9), (10), (11), (12), and (13), respectively;
(2) in paragraph (6) by striking ``owned or operated under a lease which'' and inserting ``owned, leased, or operated by an individual or legal entity and which'';
(3) by inserting after paragraph (6) the following:
``(7) Legal entity.--The term `legal entity' includes a corporation, association, partnership, trust, joint tenancy, or tenancy in common, or any other entity that owns, leases, or operates a farm operation for the benefit of more than 1 individual under any form of agreement or arrangement.
``(8) Operator.--
``(A) In general.--The term `operator'--
``(i) means an individual or legal entity that operates a single farm operation on a parcel (or parcel) of land that is owned or leased by another person (or persons) under any form of agreement or arrangement (or agreements or arrangements); and
``(ii) if the individual or legal entity--
``(I) is an employee of an individual or legal entity, includes the individual or legal entity; or
``(II) is a legal entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with another legal entity, includes each such other legal entity.
``(B) Operation of a farm operation.--For the purposes of subparagraph (A), an individual or legal entity shall be considered to operate a farm operation if the individual or legal entity is the person that performs the greatest proportion of the decisionmaking for and supervision of the agricultural enterprise on land served with irrigation water.''; and
(4) by adding at the end the following:
``(14) Single farm operation.--
``(A) In general.--The term `single farm operation' means the total acreage of land served with irrigation water for which an individual or legal entity is the operator.
``(B) Rules for determining whether separate parcels are operated as a single farm operation.--
``(i) Equipment- and labor-sharing activities.--The conduct of equipment- and labor-sharing activities on separate parcels of land by separate individuals or legal entities shall not by itself serve as a basis for concluding that the farming operations of the individuals or legal entities constitute a single farm operation.
``(ii) Performance of certain services.--The performance by an individual or legal entity of an agricultural chemical application, pruning, or harvesting for a farm operation on a parcel of land shall not by itself serve as a basis for concluding that the farm operation on that parcel of land is part of a single farm operation operated by the individual or entity on other parcels of land.''.
(b) Identification of Owners, Lessees, and Operators and of Single Farm Operations.--The Reclamation Reform Act of 1982
(43 U.S.C. 39aa et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 201 the following:
``SEC. 201A. IDENTIFICATION OF OWNERS, LESSEES, AND OPERATORS
AND OF SINGLE FARM OPERATIONS.
``(a) In General.--Subject to subsection (b), for each parcel of land to which irrigation water is delivered or proposed to be delivered, the Secretary shall identify a single individual or legal entity as the owner, lessee, or operator.
``(b) Shared Decisionmaking and Supervision.--If the Secretary determines that no single individual or legal entity is the owner, lessee, or other individual that performs the greatest proportion of decisionmaking for and supervision of the agricultural enterprise on a parcel of land--
``(1) all individuals and legal entities that own, lease, or perform a proportion of decisionmaking and supervision that is equal as among themselves but greater than the proportion performed by any other individual or legal entity shall be considered jointly to be the owner, lessee, or operator; and
``(2) all parcels of land of which any such individual or legal entity is the owner, lessee, or operator shall be considered to be part of the single farm operation of the owner, lessee, or operator identified under subsection (1).
(c) Pricing.--Section 205 of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ee) is amended by adding at the end the following:
``(d) Single Farm Operations Generating More Than $500,000 in Gross Farm Income.--
``(1) In general.--Notwithstanding subsections (a), (b), and (c), in the case of--
``(A) a qualified recipient that reports gross farm income from a single farm operation in excess of $500,000 for a taxable year; or
``(B) a limited recipient that received irrigation water on or before October 1, 1981, and that reports gross farm income from a single farm operation in excess of $500,000 for a taxable year;
irrigation water may be delivered to the single farm operation of the qualified recipient or limited recipient at less than full cost to a number of acres that does not exceed the number of acres determined under paragraph (2).
``(2) Maximum number of acres to which irrigation water may be delivered at less than full cost.--The number of acres determined under this subparagraph is the number equal to the number of acres of the single farm operation multiplied by a fraction, the numerator of which is $500,000 and the denominator of which is the amount of gross farm income reported by the qualified recipient or limited recipient in the most recent taxable year.
``(3) Inflation adjustment.--
``(A) In general.--The $500,000 amount under paragraphs (1) and (2) for any taxable year beginning in a calendar year after 1997 shall be equal to the product of--
``(i) $500,000, multiplied by
``(ii) the inflation adjustment factor for the taxable year.
``(B) Inflation adjustment factor.--The term `inflation adjustment factor' means, with respect to any calendar year, a fraction the numerator of which is the GDP implicit price deflator for the preceding calendar year and the denominator of which is the GDP implicit price deflator for 1996. Not later than April 1 of any calendar year, the Secretary shall publish the inflation adjustment factor for the preceding calendar year.
``(C) GDP implicit price deflator.--For purposes of subparagraph (B), the term `GDP implicit price deflator' means the first revision of the implicit price deflator for the gross domestic product as computed and published by the Secretary of Commerce.
``(D) Rounding.--If any increase determined under subparagraph (A) is not a multiple of $100, the increase shall be rounded to the next lowest multiple of $100.''.
(d) Certification of Compliance.--Section 206 of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ff) is amended to read as follows:
``SEC. 206. CERTIFICATION OF COMPLIANCE.
``(a) In General.--As a condition to the receipt of irrigation water for land in a district that has a contract described in section 203, each owner, lessee, or operator in the district shall furnish the district, in a form prescribed by the Secretary, a certificate that the owner, lessee, or operator is in compliance with this title, including a statement of the number of acres owned, leased, or operated, the terms of any lease or agreement pertaining to the operation of a farm operation, and, in the case of a lessee or operator, a certification that the rent or other fees paid reflect the reasonable value of the irrigation water to the productivity of the land.
``(b) Documentation.--The Secretary may require a lessee or operator to submit for the Secretary's examination--
``(1) a complete copy of any lease or other agreement executed by each of the parties to the lease or other agreement; and
``(2) a copy of the return of income tax imposed by chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for any taxable year in which the single farm operation of the lessee or operator received irrigation water at less than full cost.''.
(e) Trusts.--Section 214 of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390nn) is repealed.
(f) Administrative Provisions.--
(1) Penalties.--Section 224(c) of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ww(c)) is amended--
(A) by striking ``(c) The Secretary'' and inserting the following:
``(c) Regulations; Data Collection; Penalties.--
``(1) Regulations; data collection.--The Secretary''; and
(B) by adding at the end the following:
``(2) Penalties.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary shall establish appropriate and effective penalties for failure to comply with any provision of this Act or any regulation issued under this Act.''.
(2) Interest.--Section 224(i) of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390ww(i)) is amended by striking the last sentence and inserting the following: ``The interest rate applicable to underpayments shall be equal to the rate applicable to expenditures under section 202(3)(C).''.
(g) Reporting.--Section 228 of the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390zz) is amended by inserting ``operator or'' before ``contracting entity'' each place it appears.
(h) Memorandum of Understanding.--The Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 (43 U.S.C. 390aa et seq.) is amended--
(1) by redesignating sections 229 and 230 as sections 230 and 231; and
(2) by inserting after section 228 the following:
``SEC. 229. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING.
``The Secretary, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Agriculture shall enter into a memorandum of understanding or other appropriate instrument to permit the Secretary, notwithstanding section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, to have access to and use of available information collected or maintained by the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Agriculture that would aid enforcement of the ownership and pricing limitations of Federal reclamation law.''.
______
By Ms. SNOWE (for herself, Ms. Mikulski, Mrs. Feinstein, Mrs.
Murray and Ms. Moseley-Braun):
S. 1799. A bill to promote greater equity in the delivery of health care services to American women through expanded research on women's health issues and through improved access to health care services, including preventive health services; to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources.
Women's Health Equity Act of 1996
Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I am extremely pleased to join with Senator Mikulski in introducing the Women's Health Equity Act of 1996. I believe that this event is historic, not only because of the impressive breadth and depth of this legislation, but because five women Senators, including Senators Feinstein, Murray, and Moseley-Braun, have joined together to set an agenda for congressional action to improve women's health.
For too many years, women's health care needs were ignored or poorly understood, and women were systematically excluded from important health research. One famous medical study on breast cancer examined hundreds of men. And another federally funded study examined the ability of aspirin to prevent heart attacks in 20,000 medical doctors, all of whom were men, despite the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death among women.
Today, Members and the American public understand the importance of ensuring that both genders benefit equally from the fruits of medical research and the delivery of health care services. Unfortunately, equity does not yet exist in health care, and we have a long way to go. Knowledge about appropriate course of treatment for women lags far behind that for men for many diseases. Research into diseases affecting predominately women, such as breast cancer, for years went grossly underfunded. And many women do not have access to critical reproductive and other health services.
Throughout my tenure in the House and Senate, I have worked hard to expose and eliminate this health care gender gap and improve women's access to affordable, quality health services. And under my leadership as the co-chair of the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues, women legislators in the House called for a GAO investigation into the inclusion of women and minorities in medical research at the National Institute of Health. This study documented the widespread exclusion of women from medical research, and spurred the caucus to introduce the first Women's Health Equity Act [WHEA] in 1990. This comprehensive legislation provided Congress with its first broad, forward looking health agenda intended to redress the historical inequities that face women in medical research, prevention and services.
Since the initial introduction of WHEA in the 101st Congress, women legislators have made important strides on behalf of women's health. Legislation from that first package was signed into law as part of the NIH Revitalization Act in June 1993, mandating the inclusion of women and minorities in clinical trials at NIH. We established the Office of Research on Women's Health at NIH, and secured dramatic funding increases for research into breast cancer, osteoporosis, and cervical cancer.
Today, I have joined forces with many of my women colleagues on a bipartisan basis to take the next crucial step on the road to achieving equity in health care. The Women's Health Equity Act of 1996 is comprised of 39 bills devoted to research and services in areas of critical importance to women's health. I have already introduced several of the bills contained in WHEA in the Senate: the Consumer Involvement in Breast Cancer Research Act; the Women's Health Office Act; the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination in Health Insurance Act of 1996; the Patient Access to Clinical Studies Act; the Medicare Bone Mass Measurement Coverage Act; and the Accurate Mammography Guidelines Act. Together, these 39 bills represent the high-water mark for legislation on women's health.
The research bills contained in title I of WHEA continue to push for increased biomedical research in women's health at NIH and other Federal agencies, and address the need for social policy to keep pace with scientific technology. The impact of the environment of women's health, women and AIDS, osteoporosis, and lupus are all addressed in this title.
The service-oriented bills contained in title II of WHEA target new areas such as the prevention of insurance discrimination based on genetic information or participation in clinical research as well as insurance protection for victims of domestic violence. Several bills address the need for education and training of health professionals and the importance of providing information about health risks and prevention to women. Adolescent health, eating disorders, postreproductive health, and breast and cervical prevention are also addressed, as well as the need to designate obstetrician-gynecologists as primary care providers for insurance purposes and to provide for minimum hospital stays for mothers and their newborns.
Improving the health of American women requires a far greater understanding of women's health needs and conditions, and ongoing evaluation in the areas of research, education, prevention, treatment, and the delivery of services. I believe that the 39 bills comprising the Women's Health Equity Act will take a giant step in this direction, and the passage of this legislation will help ensure that women's health will never again be a missing page in America's medical textbook.
____________________
