Congressional Budget for the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2005-Continued

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005-CONTINUED

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, this amendment also relates to the Indian Health Service. This amendment would increase the budget for the Indian Health Service by $282 million. This is intended to track the recommendation that the Indian Affairs Committee sent to the Budget Committee in its views and estimates letter.

It provides the funding for those priorities that were set out in the committee's list. We are looking at increases for clinical services, a 50-percent increase for services to urban Indians, a $90 million increase for contract support costs and an additional $61 million for health facilities construction. This amendment would make all of these increases possible.

Of particular interest to me, the amendment enables an additional $10 million increase in funding for sanitation facilities construction, which is incredibly important to my home State. 40 percent of the unmet need for sanitation, as identified by the Indian Health Service, is in Alaska.

This amendment also envisions a substantial funding increase for the Community Health Aide Practitioner Program, which the Indian Health Service regards as a national model.

The increases in this amendment are defensible. We recognize we have a long way to go when it comes to improving the health condition of our Native peoples, but I think this is a good and reasonable step in that direction.

I urge Members to support this amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Murray as a cosponsor of this amendment.

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on behalf of myself, Senators SPECTER, BOND, STEVENS, DEWINE, CORNYN, CAMPBELL, GRAHAM, ALLEN, ENSIGN, and MIKULSKI, I propose the following.

Many of us have had the opportunity this week to be visited by veterans from our respective States, folks who are in town for their annual convention and meetings. I am pleased to offer an amendment that will boost the spending for our veterans health care. This would be an increase in veterans health care by $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2005.

This is a relatively straightforward amendment. The funds will come from function 920 and offset the spending increase. The budget, as it currently stands, provides $70.4 billion for fiscal year 2005 veterans programs. So this would be an increase of $9 billion or 15 percent from the current fiscal year.

We need to look at what our veterans have given to this Nation and think about what we should do as we help them. When we look at this amendment, we help eliminate the wait list for veterans in need of medical care, hopefully shorten the time it will take to process a veteran's disability claim and to process our veterans' benefits in a timely manner.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.