National Silver Alert Act

Floor Speech

NATIONAL SILVER ALERT ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 15, 2008)

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Mr. BILIRAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 6064, the National Silver Alert Act sponsored by my colleague from Texas, Congressman Lloyd Doggett.

I first became involved in the issue of finding missing seniors earlier this year when one of my constituents, Mary Lallucci, lost her mother, who had left her care-giving facility and could not be located. She had driven her car into the Gulf of Mexico and drowned.

This tragedy unfortunately highlighted the very real problem of older individuals who suffer from diseases which leave them easily confused and disoriented, wandering away from their homes or care-giving facilities and meeting harm because family, friends, and authorities cannot find them in time.

The inability to find missing elderly is a problem State and Federal policymakers should address before something like this happens again. That is why I support the bill before us today which includes provisions from the Silver Alert legislation I introduced earlier this year.

The National Silver Alert Act is a bipartisan bill developed by Congressman Doggett, myself, and Congresswoman Sue Myrick. It combines portions of missing persons bills that each of us have introduced.

The National Silver Alert Act includes language from my bill, the Silver Alert Grant Program Act, which creates within the Department of Justice a grant program to help States establish and operate Silver Alert notification systems to help find missing individuals who suffer from Alzheimer's disease and other dementia-related illnesses.

The measure we are considering today also establishes a national Silver Alert communications network to assist regional and local missing persons search efforts and requires an annual report to determine the effectiveness of State Silver Alert plans to help guide their establishment in other States.

The bill also reauthorizes Kristen's Act. Mrs. Myrick's bill provides grants to public and nonprofit organizations to help them find abducted adults.

I was honored to work with these two fine Members, and pleased that we were able to combine these complementary bills.

I want to thank them for their work, as well as the willingness of the Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Ranking Member Lamar Smith, and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott and Ranking Member Randy Forbes, for moving this bill through their panels in such an expeditious manner.

I believe that all States, especially my State of Florida, should establish systems similar to the highly successful Amber Alert program to help find those suffering from dementia-related illnesses and prevent tragedies like the one that occurred in my community.

The Amber Alert system has a remarkable track record of success because necessary information is filtered so that relevant details are transmitted to appropriate authorities as quickly as possible.

The experiences of States that already have developed such Amber Alert systems suggests that these programs save lives. States have found that, just as with missing and abducted children, timely notification and dissemination of appropriate information about missing seniors greatly improves the chances that they will be found before they harm themselves.

I believe that the Federal Government can and should help States develop notification systems to prevent these all-too-frequent tragedies. This is especially important in my State which has more residents age 65 or older than any State in the Nation. My State needs Silver Alert and it needs it now.

Passage of this bill today will bring Florida and other States without these life-saving systems one step closer to improving the ability to find missing seniors in the crucial few hours after they go missing.

We have many people to thank for that, including Mary Lallucci, whose determined advocacy for Silver Alert has inspired me and serves as a loving tribute to her mother's memory.

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Lallucci was asked whether she thought a Silver Alert system in Florida could have saved her mother. ``Who knows,'' she said. ``Unfortunately, I will never know.''

I urge my colleagues to support the National Silver Alert Act to prevent another family from being forced to struggle with that same uncertainty.

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