Tom Harkin: “I thank my friend. I remember Dr. Andrew Weil, who is very well known in this country and a good friend of mine, once…”

“I thank my friend. I remember Dr. Andrew Weil, who is very well known in this country and a good friend of mine, once made the statement sometime ago in a hearing that the default state of the human body is to be healthy. The body wants to be healthy. After all these millennia of changes, the body wants to be healthy. The problem is we put all these obstacles in the way. I think that is true of people. People want to be healthy. They may not know that some of their lifestyle choices, some of what they do is provoking their illnesses. So I think it is our job to make people more aware of that and to help to provide some assistance, to provide some incentives for them to have a more healthy lifestyle. I say to my friend from Connecticut, people will be here, I hope, for the next highway bill. We haven't been able to get one for a long time. I was here for the last one. I had an amendment I thought was going to pass. It was simply this: Any time Federal funds are involved in communities for streets or roads or highways or bridges or whatever, there must be incorporated in the plan provisions for walkways or bike paths along the side. I didn't say they had to build them. I just said they had to be put in the plans. They are doing that in Europe, by the way. Every road, every street built has a walkway or a bike path--both for walking or biking. Someone here objected to it, and we didn't get it. But I still think that would be something, again, to make people more aware.…”