WEEKLY SENATE UPDATE

Closer to home, I will continue to work with my colleagues in the appropriations process to ensure that vital funding for initiatives in Maine are included in the final bills sent to the President. Unquestionably, it is going to be a condensed legislative calendar - dictated by the Presidential Election on November 2 - and, thus, will require consensus-building and a bipartisan approach to key issues in order to pass these bills into law and achieve real advancements for Maine, and the country, at large.

America’s health care system is plagued by escalating costs, particularly with respect to prescription drugs. As we have all heard in news accounts, Mainers and countless other Americans are organizing trips to the Canadian border to purchase cheaper medications in Canadian pharmacies. Joining with Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), we introduced the bipartisan "The Pharmaceutical Market Access and Drug Safety Act" to allow the safe, regulated importation of prescription drugs from Canada within 90 days of enactment, and from additional industrialized nations in Europe and Australia one year later.

With 28 cosponsors including Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ), our bipartisan legislation is currently under consideration in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions - but it is poised to move this session, and I am working closely with Senator Dorgan and our colleagues in securing consideration - and passage - of drug importation legislation by the full Senate this fall. Americans should no longer have to cross international borders to purchase affordable prescription drugs that often originate in the United States.

Also this fall, the Senate will rightly continue its work to institute necessary reforms to the Intelligence Community. In June, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, of which I am a member, issued a comprehensive report detailing the institutional and systemic failures of the currently fractured IC. Joining with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), we have introduced legislation that will establish a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) who will have real budgetary and personnel authority over the 15 intelligence agencies that comprise our nation’s IC. By empowering a DNI with substantive authority, we can strengthen our nation’s intelligence structure, in part, by reducing the turf war for resources currently plaguing the IC, particularly with the Department of Defense which controls more than 80 percent of the IC budget. In July, the 9-11 Commission issued 41 recommendations to reform intelligence capabilities and accountability which included creating a DNI.

Additionally, I authored legislation that would create an Inspector General for Intelligence, thus improving the level of accountability the President, the Congress and the American people can have over our nation’s intelligence agencies and estimates. Having conducted numerous hearings throughout the August recess, the Senate is already making progress in writing legislation that will modernize the IC, promoting the "three C’s": coordination, communication and cooperation. With bipartisan consensus, we will work diligently to meet the deadline of October 1^st established by the President for enacting meaningful reforms.

And, as mandated each year, the Senate will continue working to pass the twelve remaining appropriation bills for Fiscal Year 2005, which include funding for homeland security, veterans and housing, energy and water projects, foreign operations, environmental projects, health and human services, education, transportation, and agriculture. As I have for 25 years in Congress, I will be working closely with the rest of the delegation this year to funding for critical projects in Maine. These are just some of the major issues my attention will be turned to when the Senate returns. As the saying goes, the unpredictability of the Senate is the only thing that is predictable -- so I will continue to take an active role in legislation that is vital to Maine and her citizens so we can be sure that it rightly reflects our views and priorities.

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