Senate Proceeding on Oct 8th, 2009 :: 6:04:10 to 6:14:20
Total video length: 11 hours 47 minutes Stream Tools: Stream Overview | Edit Time

Note: MetaVid video transcripts may contain inaccuracies, help us build a more perfect archive

Views:52 Duration: 0:10:10 Discussion

Previous speech:

Next speech:

6:04:06 to 6:04:27( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: brownback, and others who have been instrumental in its success. i strongly encourage all senators to support this bill. and i ask senator brownback to make appropriate. mr. brownback: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. brownback: mr. president, i want to thank my colleague,

6:04:10 to 6:14:20( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Sam Brownback

6:04:28 to 6:04:48( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: senator kohl, chairing this committee. it is the first year for me to be the ranking member on it. he's been a delight to work with. a number of issues are being addressed in this bill. the centerpiece is the agriculture within the united states. it is of key importance. it's interesting to me to note in this economic downturn that we're in, the agriculture industry has had a great deal of difficulties, although it's been

6:04:49 to 6:05:10( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: one of the stronger industry sections we've had as a country during this period of time. i think that's in no small part because of the strength of the industry, the willingness of people to work, to invest aggressively in that industry, to work hard and to pay attention to details, and for us to support the research entities underneath it. a lot of that's in this bill, so

6:05:11 to 6:05:32( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: that we're aggressively what we can do to produce things efficiently, effectively that the marketplace wants. it's a great export industry. it provides a lot of exports out of my state, the ranking member's state, the presing officer's state, a lot of others. that research is important. that's what's in this bill.

6:05:33 to 6:05:56( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: that's the primary piece of it. it's not the total, all of it, but a key part of it. looking into the future, i can just see that places that we need to go are in things that will require the research for us to go to move them forward. things like cell low sick ethanol, where people are excited like let's do the green-based ethanol. that's important. but we need to have a stream

6:05:57 to 6:06:19( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: from cellulosic ethanol so you can get more domestically. it also goes into the energy field, but it's a key part of ours. it grows jobs in rural areas that are pretty tough a lot of times to grow jobs in rural areas, where people go to more concentrated regions and in the country. but we need them in rural areas. and if we can invest and if we can show ways that people can

6:06:20 to 6:06:42( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: invest and make money in rural areas, going into food and and products, these are things that can really work for us and for our people in the united states and around the world. so i'm pleased to be able to work with chairman kohl about that. he's worked on this for many years. this has been my first year as a ranking member. in particular, i'd like to note two particular areas that we

6:06:43 to 6:07:03( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: made key investments on that i think are important for the country and i think they're important to save people' lives. one is in the food and drug piece of this bill. the food and drug administr is also appropriated in this bill. and one of those areas is rare and neglected diseases. there's language included in this bill that creates two

6:07:04 to 6:07:25( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: groups within f.d.a. to examine the agency's approach to rare and neglected diseases in the developing world and here. unfortunately, we get a number of people in the united states that get diseases that may be only 100,000 people get. and that sounds like a big nu but to a drug company looking at making an investment and then being able to develop a cure,

6:07:26 to 6:07:47( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: they are looking at a much larger marketplace. and w bill is are there ways within the f.d.a. in a rare disease or a neglected disease, for us to shorten -- for us to cut down the cost process to develop a new drug. n these areas. because otherwise, we're not getting any research into how do we take care of diseases for

6:07:48 to 6:08:09( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: somebody that's one of 50,000 that gets this and they don't have -- there's nothing g research-wise to be able to help them. i had a lady in my office this morning that had a disease that's in this category, and she was basically told by her physician when she got diagnosed with it, you should go get your

6:08:10 to 6:08:32( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: affairs in order. that's -- that's not an acceptable answer, as a policy-maker. so we've got two groups in here that are looking at ways if these are in a neglected disease or rare disease area, how do we cut the cost of developing that drug down so that a pharmaceutical company or other could

6:08:33 to 6:08:53( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: lot of is lower. so i will look at i will go into this field. and our hope is that we can really stimulate some research there in this country and then neglected world that can affect a huge number of people. the world health organization

6:08:54 to 6:09:16( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: says that more than a people -- a billion people -- nearly one in every six persons worldwide is affected by at least one of the neglected diseases but they happen to be in countries that don't have hyper cap at that income. again, a company looks at this and says there's a lot of people affected by this, but there is just no income level here, so i

6:09:17 to 6:09:38( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: can't go into it. well known examples of these diseases include malaria, tuberculosis, cho they disproportionately affect very low-income populations in developing countries. so we're going at this issue too. and i can't think of a better place for us to invest foreign policy-wise than helping to save people's lives. people tend to like you more

6:09:39 to 6:10:00( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: when you help save their lives. and this affects a broad cross section of people around the world. and we've got a marketplace, the technology to be able to work in it if we can cut the cost of it down. again, so these two really trac together, and i think they're very important ones for us to be able to save lives. i always consider it a great day

6:10:01 to 6:10:22( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: if you can save a person's life by some policy move that you're making that may make things work better. these are a another chat chairman and i have been working on is tackling the issue of food aid. here, i've had a lot of disappointment in the fact that we put a lot of money in aid, hits the target.

6:10:23 to 6:10:45( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: he have $1 we put in food aid, 60% gets eaten up by transportation and administration. so 40% gets to the person that actually needs it. a lot of these are food aid situations where it costs a to get the food in if you're going into the interior and sudan, it costs a lot to get there. no question about it. but still, i've got to think we can do this better. so we're starting to look at that.

6:10:46 to 6:11:06( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: but also pilot projects to help develop new food aid products and develop micro nutrient fortified foods for infants, school-age children, pregnant or nursing mothers. we haven't developed a new food aid product in over 20 yrs. the last one was corn soybean blend, which is a good product. but my guess is -- i know the

6:11:07 to 6:11:27( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: chairman did 20 years ago. my guess is the presiding officer doesn't either. because you kind of understand, the body moves a little differently. this area of micro nutrients is the area that most researchers believe that if the invest in highest-yield category for us to save and positivy affect the most lives, is investment in

6:11:28 to 6:11:49( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: micro nutrients. maybe it's a corn and soy blend, but it also has vitamin additives put into it so that infant, that nursing mother, that person that has aids or mala a lot to try to save the person with aids or malaria, but now they can't get better because they don't have their body that they need.

6:11:50 to 6:12:10( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: we get that into i'm excited about these steps and the pilot projects about what we might be able to find out in these categories and do, again, to save lives. and i think funds. it's tough economic times for us as a country. these are critical issues for us. i'm always looking at ways we

6:12:11 to 6:12:32( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: can hold down, because i think we've really got to get our budget under control. these are ones that have been good and wise i think t for us to work in. and i've been appreciative of being able to work on these particular projects. as we me forward, looking next

6:12:33 to 6:12:54( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: year, i hope we can sharpen the pencil even more in areas that they may have been in the past but they shouldn't be n for us to be able to look at ways that we can control and get our budget down, and then you move that money either into paying down the deficit so the deficit is much l say this is -- if we're going to put things in higher-investment

6:12:55 to 6:13:15( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: areas, we move itrom low-investment to high-investment regions, and that we would emphasize ourselves d work in the committee to see what areas are that we should be taking money out of to put into higher-need categories or to put back against the deficit that's just running way too high for u country. and we all know that. this deficit is way too high.

6:13:16 to 6:13:36( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: it is nonsustainable. and we need to sharpen our pencil every bit that we can in these committees to be able to do our part on this. i hope we can really spend some time on we line up for the appropriation process going through holding hearings on what are low-priority areas.

6:13:37 to 6:13:57( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: what can we cut out of this budget. we tend to mostly focuses on -- focus on new ideas and new programs. those are good and important. in these budgetary times, i think we've got to spend some time saying, okay, what is it that we can do without. i think that would be important for us to do. thank you very much, mr. chairman. it's been a pleasure to work with you. i would urge my colleagues to

6:13:58 to 6:14:19( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: vote for the conferees' report to send it on to the president. the presiding officer: who

6:14:20 to 6:14:20( Edit History Discussion )

Sam Brownback: yields time?