Tom Harkin

I think that it is key that we continue the momentum.

I think we definitely need to understand the strategic importance of NIH.

The NIH Reform Act that we passed last year puts a big emphasis on the common fund.

The President's budget now is more than $500 million below last year, without considering an inflationary increase.

Senator Harkin and I had to fight like tigers last year to add a little over $600 million to stop a $50 million cut in the National Cancer Institute.

We moved, on this committee, to appropriate very substantial sums over a 4-year period of time.

It's time for the Nation's policymakers to find common ground to make sure that NIH does not lose its historical leadership.

To sideline NIH on an issue of such importance, in my view, is shortsighted.

In America we don't have a healthcare system, we have a sickcare system.

We will not allow those cuts to take place.

I always say it's one of my proudest accomplishments in my entire career in the Senate.

And we all benefited from that service. He understands the appropriations process better than anyone. New staff could always look to Jim for institutional knowledge, and count on him to be a patient teacher of many on both substantive…

This is a statement I wish I did not have to make. Jim Sourwine, who has almost 40 years of Federal service, including more than 30 on the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee, will retire this month. He not only served the…

I am always amazed at how those who are well off in our society, those who are doing quite well, how they always get taken care of in the final hours when the Congress closes down. Tax extenders--why, there is stuff for everybody in there…

If this description is accurate, it is hard to imagine that Secretary Spellings didn't know anything about the abuses described in the inspector general's report. Instead of making others take the fall for what happened, she needs to stand…

Let me thank the chairman, Senator Stevens from Alaska, and his ranking member, the Senator from Hawaii, Mr. Inouye, for their hard work on this Defense appropriations bill. As a member of that subcommittee, I have been pleased to work…

I do not believe that the pension bill should treat different, very competitive companies within the airline industry in the very disparate manner that it does. This was an unresolved issue in the pension conference when the House leaders…

If I might, as a manager, we are on strict time limits. At 5 o'clock, Senator Kennedy gets 25 minutes and then 5 minutes goes to Senator Reed. At 5:30, it goes back to the other side. If we take time here and there, it spills over, and…

But the fact is the inference from some of the statements, I think, is that thus far stem cells, when introduced, cause cancer. That is not so. That has not been proven. That has not been proven at all.

I don't know. I am a little confused. Is the Senator saying, if a stem cell has been introduced and is undifferentiated, it causes cancer or teratoma?

I say to my friend, I don't understand that. I have a chart here that shows stem cell funding, embryonic stem cell funding, is $38.3 million last year and adult stem cell funding is $200 million. You are telling me out of $200 million they…

I have heard this argument before. I am not a scientist. I don't know all of the nuances, I would be the first to admit. I do know, however, that every time that has come up, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Association disagrees that this…

Let me respond this way: First, I note that the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which represents families all over America who are affected with juvenile diabetes, is in support of H.R. 810. I want that on the record. In fact, they…

I am not intimately knowledgeable of all of the nuances in research that is being done. We had hearings, and we have the information in our hearing record on a lot of that. Standing here now, I don't know all of that.

So you could take it as a young girl. And what are we doing right now? Nothing. We should be moving ahead aggressively in this country and in other countries where cervical cancer is a killer. As the Senator knows, it is a killer. Yet we…