Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleagues from Maine to introduce legislation to restore fairness to the Medicare program. This package of legislation will reduce regional inequalities…
Mr. President, I rise today to join with my colleagues from Maine to introduce legislation to restore fairness to the Medicare program. This package of legislation will reduce regional inequalities in Medicare spending and support providers of high-quality, low-cost Medicare services.
The high cost of health care in Wisconsin is skyrocketing: A survey issued a few days ago found that the cost of health care benefits for employees in this State rose 14.8 percent this year, to an average of $6,940 per employee. That's 20 percent high than the national average of $5,758 for workers in businesses with 500 or more employees.
These costs are hitting our State hard, they are burdening businesses and employees, hurting health care providers, and preventing seniors from getting full access to the care that they deserve.
One of the major contributing factors to the high cost in our state is the inherent unfairness of the Medicare Program.
With the guidance and support of people across our State who are fighting for Medicare fairness. I have proposed this legislation to address Medicare's discrimination against Wisconsin's seniors, employers and health care providers. The Medicare program should encourage the kind of high-quality, cost-effective Medicare services that we have in Wisconsin. But as many in Wisconsin know, that's not the case.
To give an idea of how inequitable the distribution of Medicare dollars is, imagine identical twins over the age of 65. Both twins worked at the same company all their lives, at the same salary, and paid the same amount to the Federal Government in payroll taxes, the tax that goes into the Medicare Trust Fund.
But if one twin retired to New Orleans, Louisiana, and the other retired to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, they would have vastly different health options under the Medicare system. The twin in Louisiana would get much more.
For example, in most parts of Louisiana, the first twin would have more options under Medicare. The high Medicare payments in those areas allow Medicare beneficiaries to choose between an HMO or traditional fee-for-service plan, and, because area health care providers are reimbursed at such a high rate, those providers can afford to offer seniors a broad range of health care services. The twin in Eau Claire does not have the same access to care, there are no options to choose from in terms of Medicare HMOs, and sometimes fewer health care agencies that can afford to provide care under the traditional fee-for- service plan.
How can two people with identical backgrounds, who paid the same amount in payroll taxes, have such different options under Medicare? They can because the distribution of Medicare dollars among the 50 States is grossly unfair to Wisconsin, and much of the Upper Midwest. Wisconsinites pay payroll taxes just like every American taxpayer, but the Medicare funds we get in return are lower than those received in many other states.
My legislation will take us a step in the right direction by reducing the inequities in Medicare payments to Wisconsin's hospitals, physicians, and skilled nursing facilities.
Last year, with the introduction my Medicare fairness legislation along with the efforts of many other Senators, we put Medicare fairness issues front and center in Congress. The Senate Budget Committee approved my amendment to promote Medicare fairness in any Medicare reform package. A wide range of Senators from both parties endorsed my proposal to create a Medicare fairness coalition. The House passed a number of Medicare fairness provisions that were a result of these successes, and both House and Senate leadership endorsed Medicare fairness issues. Now that we have finally brought these issues the attention that they deserve, we need to build on that momentum to pass Medicare fairness provisions into law.
My legislation demands Medicare fairness for Wisconsin and other affected States, plain and simple. Medicare shouldn't penalize high- quality providers of Medicare services, most of all. Medicare should stop penalizing seniors who depend on the program for their health care. They have worked had and paid into the program all their lives, and in return they deserve full access to the wide range of benefits that Medicare has to offer.
I look forward to working with my colleagues to move this legislation forward. I believe that we can re-balance the budget, while at the same time encouraging efficient, quality enhancing services, and that's what my legislation sets out to do.
Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague from Maine to introduce legislation to help businesses form group-purchasing cooperatives to obtain enhanced benefits, to reduce health care rates, and to improve quality for their employees' health care.
High health care costs are burdening businesses and employees across the Nation. These costs are digging into profits and preventing access to affordable health care. Too many patients feel trapped by the system, with decisions about their health dictated by costs rather than by what they need.
The cost of health care in Wisconsin is skyrocketing: A recent survey found that the cost of health benefits for employees in Wisconsin rose 14.8 percent this year, to an average of $6,940 per employee. That's 20 percent higher than the national average of $5,758 for workers in businesses with 500 or more employees.
We must curb these rapidly-increasing health care premiums. I strongly support initiatives to ensure that everyone has access to health care. It is crucial that we support successful local initiatives to reduce health care premiums and to improve the quality of employees' health care.
By using group purchasing to obtain rate discounts, some employers have been able to reduce the cost of health care premiums for their employees. According to the National Business Coalition on Health, there are more than 90 employer-led coalitions across the United States that collectively purchase health care. Through these pools, businesses are able to proactively challenge high costs and inefficient delivery of health care and share information on quality. These coalitions represent over 7,000 employers and approximately 34 million employees Nationwide.
Improving the quality of health care will also lower the cost of care. By investing in the delivery of quality health care, we will be able to lower long term health care costs. Effective care, such as quality preventive services, can reduce overall health care expenditures. Health purchasing coalitions help promote these services and act as an employer forum for networking and education on health care cost containment strategies. They can help foster a dialogue with health care providers, insurers, and local HMOs.
Health care markets are local. Problems with cost, quality, and access to health care are felt most intensely in the local markets. Health care coalitions can function best when they are formed and implemented locally. Local employers of large and small businesses have formed health care coalitions to track health care trends, create a demand for quality and safety, and encourage group purchasing.
In Wisconsin, there have been various successful initiatives that have formed health care purchasing cooperatives to improve quality of care and to reduce cost. For example, the Employer Health Care Alliance Cooperative, an employer-owned and employer-directed not-for-profit cooperative, has developed a network of health care providers in Dane County and 12 surrounding counties on behalf of its 170 member employers. Through this pooling effort, employers are able to obtain affordable, high-quality health care for their 110,000 employees and dependents.
This legislation seeks to build on successful local initiatives, such as the Alliance, that help businesses to join together to increase access to affordable and high-quality health care.
The Promoting Health Care Purchasing Cooperatives Act would authorize grants to a group of businesses so that they could form group- purchasing cooperatives to obtain enhanced benefits, reduce health care rates, and improve quality.
This legislation offers two separate grant programs to help different types of businesses pool their resources and bargaining power. Both programs would aid businesses to form cooperatives. The first program would help large businesses that sponsor their own health plans, while the second program would help small businesses that purchase their health insurance.
My bill would enable larger businesses to form cost-effective cooperatives that could offer quality health care through several ways. First, they could obtain health services through pooled purchasing from physicians, hospitals, home health agencies, and others. By pooling their experience and interests, employers involved in a coalition could better attack the essential issues, such as rising health insurance rates and the lack of comparable health care quality data. They would be able to share information regarding the quality of these services and to partner with these health care providers to meet the needs of their employees.
For smaller businesses that purchase their health insurance, the formation of cooperatives would allow them to buy health insurance at lower prices through pooled purchasing.
Also, the communication within these cooperatives would provide employees of small businesses with better information about the health care options that are available to them. Finally, coalitions would serve to promote quality improvements by facilitating partnerships between their group and the health care providers.
By working together, the group could develop better quality insurance plans and negotiate better rates.
Past health purchasing pool initiatives have focused only on cost and have tried to be all things for all people. My legislation creates an incentive to join the pools by giving grants to a group of similar businesses to form group-purchasing cooperatives. The pool are also given flexibility to find innovative ways to lower costs, such as enhancing benefits, for example, more preventive care, and improving quality. Finally, the cooperative structure is a proven model, which creates an incentive for businesses to remain in the pool because they will be invested in the organization.
We must reform health care in America and give employers and employees more options. This legislation, by providing for the formation of cost-effective coalitions that will also improve the quality of care, contributes to this essential reform process. I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this proposal to improve the quality and costs of health care.
Mr. President, I am pleased to re-introduce the Quality Cheese Act of 2003. This legislation will protect the consumer, save taxpayer dollars and provide support to America's dairy farmers, who have taken a beating in the marketplace in recent years.
When Wisconsin consumers have the choice, they will choose natural Wisconsin cheese. But the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, may change current law, and consumers won't know whether cheese is really all natural or not.
If the Federal Government creates a loophole for imitation cheese ingredients to be used in U.S. cheese vats, some cheese labels saying ``domestic'' and ``natural'' will no longer be truly accurate.
If USDA and FDA allow a change in Federal rules, imitation milk proteins known as milk protein concentrate, casein, or dry ultra filtered milk could be used to make cheese in place of the wholesome natural milk produced by cows in Wisconsin or other part of the U.S.
I am deeply concerned by recent efforts to change America's natural cheese standard. This effort to allow milk protein concentrate and casein into natural cheese products flies in the face of logic and could create a loophole that could allow unlimited amounts of substandard imported milk proteins to enter U.S. cheese vats.
My legislation would close this loophole and ensure that consumers could be confident that they were buying natural cheese when they saw the natural label.
Over the past decade, cheese consumption has risen at a strong pace due in part to promotional and marketing efforts and investments by dairy farmers across the country. Year after year, per capita cheese consumption has risen at a steady rate.
Recent proposals to change to our natural cheese standards, however, could decrease consumption of natural cheese. These declines could result from concerns about the origin of casein and milk protein concentrate.
The addition of this kind of milk could significantly tarnish the wholesome reputation of natural cheese in the eyes of the consumer.
This change could seriously compromise decades of work by America's dairy farmers to build up domestic cheese consumption levels. It is simply not fair to America's farmers!
Consumers have a right to know if the cheese that they buy is unnatural. And by allowing milk protein concentrate milk into cheese, we are denying consumers the entire picture.
This legislation will require that labels paint the entire picture for the consumer, and allow them enough information to select cheese made from truly natural ingredients.
Allowing MPCs or dry ultra-filtered milk into natural cheeses would also harm dairy producers throughout the United States. Some estimate that the annual effect of the change on the dairy farm sector of the economy could be more than $100 million.
The proposed change to our natural cheese standard would also harm the American taxpayer. If we allow MPCs to be used in cheese, we will effectively permit unrestricted importation of these ingredients into the United States. Because there are no tariffs and quotas on these ingredients, these heavily-subsidized products would displace natural domestic dairy ingredients.
These unnatural domestic dairy products would enter our domestic cheese market and might further depress dairy prices paid to American dairy producers. Low dairy prices result in increased costs to the dairy price support program. So, at the same time that U.S. dairy farmers would receive lower prices, the U.S. taxpayer would pay more for the dairy price support program.
This change does not benefit the dairy farmer, consumer or taxpayer. Who then is it good for?
It would benefit only unscrupulous foreign MPC producers out to make a fast buck at the expense of Americans.
This legislation addresses the concerns of farmers, consumers and taxpayers by prohibiting dry ultra-filtered milk from being included in America's natural cheese standard.
Congress must shut the door on any backdoor efforts to stack the deck against America's dairy farmers. And we must pass my legislation that prevents a loophole that would allow changes that hurt the consumer, taxpayer, and dairy farmer.
Mr. President, I rise today to offer a measure which could serve as a first step towards eliminating the inequities borne by the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest under the Federal Milk Marketing Order system.
The Federal Milk Marketing Order system, created nearly 60 years ago, establishes minimum prices for milk paid to producers throughout various marketing areas in the U.S. For sixty years, this system has discriminated against producers in the Upper Midwest by awarding a higher price to dairy farmers in proportion to the distance of their farms from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
My legislation is very simple. It identifies the single most harmful and unjust feature of the current system, and corrects it. Under the current archaic law, the price for fluid milk increases depending on the distance from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, even though most local milk markets do not receive any milk from Wisconsin.
The bill I introduce today would prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from using distance or transportation costs from any location as the basis for pricing milk, unless significant quantities of milk are actually transported from that location into the recipient market. The Secretary will have to comply with the statutory requirement that supply and demand factors be considered as specified in the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act when setting milk prices in marketing orders. The fact remains that single-basing-point pricing simply cannot be justified based on supply and demand for milk both in local and national markets.
This bill also requires the Secretary to report to Congress on specifically which criteria are used to set milk prices. Finally, the Secretary will have to certify to Congress that the criteria used by the Department do not in any way attempt to circumvent the prohibition on using distance or transportation cost as basis for pricing milk.
This one change is so crucial to Upper Midwest producers, because the current system has penalized them for many years. The current system provides disparate profits for producers in other parts of the country and creating artificial economic incentives for milk production. As a result, Wisconsin producers have seen national surpluses rise, and milk prices fall. Rather than providing adequate supplies of fluid milk, the prices have led to excess production.
The prices have provided production incentives beyond those needed to ensure a local supply of fluid milk in some regions, leading to an increase in manufactured products in those marketing orders. Those manufactured products directly compete with Wisconsin's processed products, eroding our markets and driving national prices down.
The perverse nature of this system is further illustrated by the fact that since 1995 some regions of the U.S., notably the Central states and the Southwest, are producing so much milk that they are actually shipping fluid milk north to the Upper Midwest. The high fluid milk prices have generated so much excess production, that these markets distant from Eau Claire are now encroaching upon not only our manufactured markets, but also our markets for fluid milk, further eroding prices in Wisconsin.
The market-distorting effects of the fluid price differentials in Federal orders are manifest in the Congressional Budget Office estimate that eliminating the orders would save $669 million over five years. Government outlays would fall, CBO concludes, because production would fall in response to lower milk prices and there would be fewer government purchases of surplus milk. The regions that would gain and lose in this scenario illustrate the discrimination inherent to the current system. Economic analyses show that farm revenues in a market undisturbed by Federal orders would actually increase in the Upper Midwest and fall in most other milk-producing regions.
While this system has been around since 1937, the practice of basing fluid milk price differentials on the distance from Eau Claire was formalized in the 1960's, when the Upper Midwest arguably was the primary reserve for additional supplies of milk. The idea was to encourage local supplies of fluid milk in areas of the country that did not traditionally produce enough fluid milk to meet their own needs.
That is no longer the case. The Upper Midwest is not the primary source of reserve supplies of milk. Unfortunately, the prices didn't adjust with changing economic conditions, most notably the shift of the dairy industry away from the Upper Midwest and towards the Southwest, and specifically California, which now leads the Nation in milk production.
The result of this antiquated system has been a decline in the Upper Midwest dairy industry, not because it can't produce a product that can compete in the market place, but because the system discriminates against it. Today, Wisconsin loses dairy farmers at a rate of more than 5 per day. The Upper Midwest, with the lowest fluid milk prices, is shrinking as a dairy region despite the dairy-friendly climate
of the region. Other regions with higher fluid milk prices are growing rapidly.
In an free market with a level playing field, these shifts in production might be fair. But in a market where the government is setting the prices and providing that artificial advantage to regions outside the Upper Midwest, the current system is unconscionable.
I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and bring reform to this out dated system and work to eliminate the inequities in the current milk marketing order pricing system.
Mr. President, I rise to re-introduce a measure that will begin to restore democracy for dairy farmers throughout the Nation.
When dairy farmers across the country voted on a referendum four years ago, perhaps the most significant change in dairy policy in sixty years, they didn't actually get to vote. Instead, their dairy marketing cooperatives cast their votes for them.
This procedure is called ``bloc voting'' and it is used all the time. Basically, a Cooperative's Board of Directors decides that, in the interest of time, bloc voting will be implemented for that particular vote. It may serve the interest of time, but not always in the interest of their producer owner-members.
I do think that bloc voting can be a useful tool in some circumstances, but I have serious concerns about its use in every circumstance. Farmers in Wisconsin and in other states tell me that they do not agree with their Cooperative's view on every vote. Yet, they have no way to preserve their right to make their single vote count.
After speaking to farmers and officials at USDA, I have learned that if a Cooperative bloc votes, individual members simply have no opportunity to voice opinions separately. That seems unfair when you consider what significant issues may be at stake. Coops and their members do not always have identical interests. We shouldn't ask farmers to ignore that fact.
The Democracy for Dairy Producers Act of 2003 is simple and fair. It provides that a cooperative cannot deny any of its members a ballot if one or two or ten or all of the members chose to vote on their own.
This will in no way slow down the process at USDA; implementation of any rule or regulation would proceed on schedule. Also, I do not expect that this would often change the final outcome of any given vote. Coops could still cast votes for their members who do not exercise their right to vote individually. And to the extent that coops represent farmers interest, farmers are likely to vote along with the coops, but whether they join the coops or not, farmers deserve the right to vote according to their own views.
I urge my colleagues to return the democratic process to America's farmers, by supporting the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act.
Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation to eliminate from the Federal Tax Code percentage depletion allowances for hardrock minerals mined on Federal public lands. I am pleased that the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell, is joining me as an original cosponsor.
President Clinton proposed the elimination of the percentage depletion allowance on public lands in his FY 2001 budget. President Clinton's FY 2001 budget estimated that, under this legislation, income to the Federal treasury from the elimination of percentage depletion allowances for hardrock mining on public lands would total $487 million over 5 years and $1.20 billion over 10 years. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would save $410 million over 5 years and $823 million over 10 years. These savings are calculated as the excess amount of Federal revenues above what would be collected if depletion allowances were limited to sunk costs in capital investments. Percentage depletion allowances are contained in the tax code for extracted fuel, minerals, metal and other mined commodities. These allowances have a combined value, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation, of $4.8 billion.
These percentage depletion allowances were initiated by the Corporation Excise Act of 1909. That's right, these allowances were initiated nearly one hundred years ago. Provisions for a depletion allowance based on the value of the mine were made under a 1912 Treasury Department regulation, but difficulty in applying this accounting principle to mineral production led to the initial codification of the mineral depletion allowance in the Tariff Act of 1913. The Revenue Act of 1926 established percentage depletion much in its present form for oil and gas. The percentage depletion allowance was then extended to metal mines, coal, and other hardrock minerals by the Revenue Act of 1932, and has been adjusted several times since.
Percentage depletion allowances were historically placed in the Tax Code to reduce the effective tax rates in the mineral and extraction industries far below tax rates on other industries, providing incentives to increase investment, exploration and output. Percentage depletion also makes it possible, however, to recover many times the amount of the original investment.
There are two methods of calculating a deduction to allow a firm to recover the costs of its capital investment: cost depletion, and percentage depletion. Cost depletion allows for the recovery of the actual capital investment, the costs of discovering, purchasing, and developing a mineral reserve, over the period during which the reserve produces income. Using cost depletion, a company would deduct a portion of its original capital investment minus any previous deductions, in an amount that is equal to the fraction of the remaining recoverable reserves. Under this method, the total deductions cannot exceed the original capital investment.
Under percentage depletion, however, the deduction for recovery of a company's investment is a fixed percentage of ``gross income,'' namely, sales revenue--from the sale of the mineral. Under this method, total deductions typically exceed, let me be clear on that point, exceed the capital that the company invested.
The rates for percentage depletion are quite significant. Section 613 of the U.S. Code contains depletion allowances for more than 70 metals and minerals, at rates ranging from 10 to 22 percent.
In addition to repealing the percentage depletion allowances for minerals mined on public lands, my bill would also create a new fund, called the Abandoned Mine Reclamation Fund. One fourth of the revenue raised by the bill, or approximately $120 million dollars, would be deposited into an interest bearing fund in the Treasury to be used to clean up abandoned hardrock mines in states that are subject to the 1872 Mining Law. The Mineral Policy Center estimates that there are 557,650 abandoned hardrock mine sites nationwide and the cost of clearing them up will range from $32.7 billion to $71.5 billion.
There are currently no comprehensive Federal or State programs to address the need to clean up old mine sites. Reclaiming these sites requires the enactment of a program with explicit authority to clean up abandoned mine sites and the resources to do it. My legislation is a first step toward providing the needed authority and resources.
In today's budget climate we are faced with the question of who should bear the costs of exploration, development, and production of natural resources: all taxpayers, or the users and producers of the resource? For more than a century, the mining industry has been paying next to nothing for the privilege of extracting minerals from public lands and then abandoning its mines. Now those mines are adding to the nation's environmental and financial burdens. We face serious budget choices this fiscal year, yet these subsidies remain persistent tax expenditures that raise the deficit for all citizens or shift a greater tax burden to
other taxpayers to compensate for the special tax breaks provided to the mining industry.
The measure I am introducing is fairly straightforward. It eliminates the percentage depletion allowance for hardrock minerals mined on public lands while continuing to allow companies to recover reasonable cost depletion.
Though at one time, there may have been an appropriate role for a government-driven incentive for enhanced mineral production, there is now sufficient reason to adopt a more reasonable depletion allowance that is consistent with depreciation rates given to other businesses.
The time has come for the Federal Government to get out of the business of subsidizing one business over another. We can no longer afford its costs in dollars or its cost to the health of our citizens. This legislation is one step toward the goal of ending these corporate welfare subsidies.
I ask unanimous consent the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.
Mr. President I rise today with my colleague from Maine to introduce legislation to help first responders do what they do so well, protect our communities in an emergency.
The Department of Homeland Security will create a massive shift in the Federal Government. Nobody will feel the impact of this shift more than the brave men and women who work in law enforcement, as firefighters, as rescue workers, as emergency medical service providers, and in capacities as first responders.
We must make sure that these first responders have the resources that they need.
While I commend the Administration for raising the funding dedicated to first responders in the President's budget, I am concerned that new layers of bureaucracy and reorganization could reduce these funding levels, or just as harmful, put up barriers to first responders actually receiving these funds.
The Federal agencies in the proposed Department of Homeland Security must listen to the priorities of our communities. After all, the needs of first responders vary between regions, as well as between rural and urban communities. In Wisconsin, I have heard needs ranging from training to equipment to more emergency personnel in the field, just to name a few.
My legislation would promote effective coordination among Federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security and ensure that our first responders, our firefighters, law enforcement, rescue, and EMS providers, can help Federal agencies and the new Department of Homeland Security to improve existing programs and future initiatives.
It would first establish a Federal Liaison on Homeland Security in each state and coordinate between the Department of Homeland Security and state and local first responders.
This office would serve not only as an avenue to exchange ideas, but also as a resource to ensure that the funding and programs are effective.
For example, my hope is that the Homeland Security Department will make programs such as the Fire Act a high priority. The Fire Act provides grants directly to fire departments across our nation for training and equipment needs. I recently visited one excellent example of this program in West Allis, Wisconsin, where the Department received a grant in 2001 to implement a wellness and fitness program for their firefighters. I am told that it is one of the first departments in the State to meet the goals of this program, and I commend the department for its efforts.
My legislation would also direct the agencies within the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate and prioritize their activities that support first responders, and at the same time, ensure effective use of taxpayer dollars.
As part of this coordination, the First Responders Support Act establishes a new advisory committee of those in the first responder community to identify and streamline effective programs.
Last year, both the original Senate and House homeland security bills lacked the provisions needed to ensure that the new Department of Homeland Security communicates and coordinates effectively with first responders.
During the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee mark-up of the Homeland Security bill, the Committee added our First Responders Support Act to the legislation. They did so knowing that we would have to reconcile the overlap between our legislation and the language in the Chairman's mark creating an office for state and local government coordination. Our amendment, which was approved by the full Senate, did just that. Unfortunately, our proposal was dropped from the final bill during backroom negotiations.
Because of this omission, I promised to make enacting this legislation one of our top priorities this Congress. That's why we are re-introducing this legislation today.
We must be aggressive in seeking the advice of our first responders, and helping them get the resources that they need to provide effective services. They are on the front lines, and deserve our strong support.
In almost any disaster, the local first responders and health care providers play an indispensable role. If the Department of Homeland Security is to be effective, we need to ensure that the resources are delivered to the front line personnel in an effective and coordinated manner. I urge my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this proposal and support our first responders.
Mr. President, today I am reintroducing legislation that would terminate the operation of the Navy's Extremely Low Frequency communications system, Project ELF, which is located in Clam Lake, WI, and Republic, MI.
I would like to thank the senior Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl, and the Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden, for cosponsoring this bill.
Project ELF is a Cold War relic that was designed to send short one- way messages to ballistic and attack submarines that are submerged in deep waters. The bill that I am introducing today would terminate operations at Project ELF, while maintaining the infrastructure in Wisconsin and Michigan in the event that a resumption in operations becomes necessary.
Project ELF is ineffective and unnecessary in the post-Cold War era. This antiquated system does not facilitate the rapid mobilization that our military says it needs to respond to current threats from weapons of mass destruction. The horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, emphasized the need for rapid, reliable two-way communications. Since ELF cannot transmit detailed messages, it serves as an expensive ``beeper'' system to tell submarines to come to the surface to receive messages from other sources, and the subs cannot send a return message to ELF in the event of an emergency. It takes ELF four minutes to send a three-letter message to a deeply submerged submarine.
With the end of the Cold War, Project ELF becomes harder and harder to justify. Our submarines no longer need to take that extra precaution against Soviet nuclear forces. They can now surface on a regular basis with less danger of detection or attack. They can also receive more complicated messages through very low frequency, VLF, radio waves or lengthier messages through satellite systems. Taxpayers should not be asked to continue to pay for what amounts to a beeper system that tells our submarines to come to the surface to receive orders from another, more sophisticated source.
Further, continued operation of this facility is opposed by most residents in my state. The members of the Wisconsin delegation have fought hard for years to close down Project ELF. I have introduced legislation during each Congress since taking office in 1993 to terminate it, and I have recommended it for closure to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.
Project ELF has had a turbulent history. Since the idea for ELF was first proposed in 1958, the project has been changed or canceled several times. Residents of Wisconsin have opposed ELF since its inception, but for years we were told that the national security considerations of the Cold War outweighed our concerns about this installation in our State. Ironically, this system became fully operational in 1989, the same year the tide of democracy began to sweep across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Now, fourteen years later, the hammer and sickle has fallen and the Russian submarine fleet is in disarray. But Project ELF still remains as a constant, expensive reminder to the people of my State that many at the Department of Defense remain focused on the past.
There also continue to be a number of public health and environmental concerns associated with Project ELF. For almost two decades, we have received inconclusive data on this project's effects on Wisconsin and Michigan residents. In 1984, a U.S. District Court ordered that ELF be shut down because the Navy paid inadequate attention to the system's possible health effects and violated the National Environmental Policy Act. Interestingly, that decision was overturned because U.S. national security, at the time, prevailed over public health and environmental concerns.
Numerous medical studies point to a possible link between exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and a variety of human health effects and abnormalities in both animal and plant species.
In 1999, after six years of research, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences released a report that did not prove conclusively a link between electromagnetic fields and cancer, but the report did not disprove it, either. Serious questions remain, and many of my constituents are rightly concerned about this issue.
In addition, I have heard from a number of dairy farmers who are convinced that the stray voltage associated with ELF transmitters has demonstrably reduced milk production. As we continue our efforts to return to a sustainable balanced federal budget, and as the Department of Defense continues to struggle to address readiness and other concerns, it is clear that outdated programs such as Project ELF should be closed down.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of this bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce legislation that would put an end to automatic cost-of-living adjustments for Congressional pay.
As my Colleagues are aware, it is an unusual thing to have the power to raise our own pay. Few people have that ability. Most of our constituents do not have that power. And that this power is so unusual is good reason for the Congress to exercise that power openly, and to exercise it subject to regular procedures that include debate, amendment, and a vote on the record.
Regrettably, current law permits Members to avoid such an open procedure. All that is necessary for Congress to get a pay raise is that nothing be done to stop it. Unless Congress affirmatively acts, the annual pay raise takes effect.
This stealth pay raise technique began with a change Congress enacted in the Ethics Reform Act of 1989. In section 704 of that Act, Members of Congress voted to make themselves entitled to an annual raise equal to half a percentage point less than the employment cost index, one measure of inflation.
On occasion, Congress has voted to deny itself the raise. Traditionally, this has been done on the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill. But that vehicle is not always made available to those who want a public debate and vote on the matter. In one instance, the Treasury- Postal bill was slipped into the conference report on the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, and thus completely shielded from amendment. And during 2002, the Senate did not consider the Treasury- Postal bill at all.
This makes getting a vote on the annual congressional pay raise a haphazard affair at best. And it should not be that way. No one should have to force a debate and public vote on the pay raise. On the contrary, Congress should have to act if it decides to award itself a hike in pay. This process of pay raises without accountability must end.
The question of how and whether Members of Congress can raise their own pay was one that our Founders considered from the beginning of our Nation. In August of 1789, as part of the package of 12 amendments advocated
by James Madison that included what has become our Bill of Rights, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Constitution providing that Congress could not raise its pay without an intervening election. Almost 214 years ago, on September 9, 1789, the Senate passed that amendment. In late September of 1789, Congress submitted the amendments to the States.
Although the amendment on pay raises languished for two centuries, in the 1980s, a campaign began to ratify it. While I was a member of the Wisconsin State Senate, I was proud to help ratify the amendment. Its approval by the Michigan legislature on May 7, 1992, gave it the needed approval by three-fourths of the States.
The 27th Amendment to the Constitution now states: `No law, varying the compensation for the services of the senators and representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.''
I try to honor that limitation in my own practices. In my own case, throughout my 6-year term, I accept only the rate of pay that Senators receive on the date on which I was sworn in as a Senator. And I return to the Treasury any additional income Senators get, whether from a cost-of-living adjustment or a pay raise we vote for ourselves. I don't take a raise until my bosses, the people of Wisconsin, give me one at the ballot box. That is the spirit of the 27th Amendment. The stealth pay raises like the one that Congress allowed last year, at a minimum, certainly violate the spirit of that amendment.
This practice must end. To address it, I am reintroducing this bill to end the automatic cost-of-living adjustment for Congressional pay. Senators and Congressmen should have to vote up-or-down to raise Congressional pay. My bill would simply require us to vote in the open. We owe our constituents no less.
I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, today I am introducing a measure aimed at curbing wasteful spending. In the face of our return to Federal deficits, we must prioritize and eliminate programs that can no longer be sustained with limited Federal dollars, or where a more cost- effective means of fulfilling those functions can be substituted. The measure that I introduce today eliminates or modifies three Federal programs: it establishes a means test for large agribusinesses receiving subsidized water from the Bureau of Reclamation, it terminates the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, USUHS, a medical school run by the Department of Defense, and it ends the future production of submarine launched D5 missiles, commonly known as the Trident II missiles. Eliminating or reforming these three programs would save the taxpayers in excess of $8 billion over ten years.
The irrigation means test provision is drawn from legislation that I that have sponsored in previous Congresses to reduce the amount of Federal irrigation subsidies received by large agribusiness interests. I believe that reforming Federal water pricing policy by reducing subsidies is important as a means to achieve our broader objectives of achieving a truly balanced budget. This legislation is also needed to curb fundamental abuses of reclamation law that cost the taxpayer millions of dollars every year.
In 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed legislation, which came to be known as the Reclamation Act of 1902, to encourage development of family farms throughout the western United States. The idea was to provide needed water for areas that were otherwise dry and give small farms, those no larger than 160 acres, a chance, with a helping hand from the Federal Government, to establish themselves. According to a 1996 General Accounting Office report, since the passage of the Reclamation Act, the Federal Government has spent $21.8 billion to construct 133 water projects in the west which provide water for irrigation. Agribusinesses, and other project beneficiaries, are required under the law to repay to the Federal Government their allocated share of the costs of constructing these projects.
As a result of the subsidized financing provided by the Federal Government, however, some of the beneficiaries of Federal water projects repay considerably less than their full share of these costs. According to the 1996 GAO report, agribusinesses generally receive the largest amount of Federal financial assistance. Since the initiation of the irrigation program in 1902, construction costs associated with irrigation have been repaid without interest. The GAO further found, in reviewing the Bureau of Reclamation's financial reports, that $16.9 billion, or 78 percent, of the $21.8 billion of Federal investment in water projects is considered to be reimbursable. Of the reimbursable costs, the largest share, $7.1 billion, is allocated to irrigation interests. GAO also found that the Bureau of Reclamation will likely shift $3.4 billion of the debt owed by agribusinesses to other users of the water projects for repayment.
There are several reasons why large agribusinesses continue to receive such significant subsidies. Under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982, Congress acted to expand the size of the farms that could receive subsidized water from 160 acres to 960 acres. The RRA of 1982 expressly prohibits farms that exceed 960 acres in size from receiving federally- subsidized water. These restrictions were added to the Reclamation law to close loopholes through which Federal subsidies were flowing to large agribusinesses rather than the small family farmers that Reclamation projects were designed to serve. Agribusinesses were expected to pay full cost for all water received on land in excess of their 960 acre entitlement.
Despite the express mandate of Congress, regulations promulgated under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 have failed to keep big agricultural water users from receiving Federal subsidies. The General Accounting Office and the Inspector General of the Department of the Interior continue to find that the acreage limits established in law are circumvented through the creation of arrangements such as farming trusts. These trusts, which in total acreage well exceed the 960 acre limit, are comprised of smaller units that are not subject to the reclamation acreage cap. These smaller units are farmed under a single management agreement often through a combination of leasing and ownership.
The Department of the Interior has acknowledged that these trusts do exist. Interior published a final rulemaking in 1998 to require farm operators who provide services to more than 960 nonexempt acres westwide, held by a single trust or legal entity or any combination of trusts and legal entities to submit RRA forms to the district(s) where such land is located. Water districts are now required to provide specific information about farm operators to Interior annually. This information is an important step toward enforcing the legislation that I am reintroducing today.
My legislation combines various elements of proposals introduced by other members of Congress to close loopholes in the 1982 legislation and to impose a $500,000 means-test. This new approach limits the amount of subsidized irrigation water delivered to any operation in excess of the 960 acre limit which claimed $500,000 or more in gross income, as reported on its most recent IRS tax form. If the $500,000 threshold were exceeded, an income ratio would
be used to determine how much of the water should be delivered to the user at the full-cost rate, and how much at the below-cost rate. For example, if a 961 acre operation earned $1 million dollars, a ratio of $500,000, the means-test value, divided by its gross income would determine the full cost rate. Thus the water user would pay the full cost rate on half of their acreage and the below-cost rate on the remaining half.
This means-testing proposal was featured in the 2000 Green Scissors report. This report is compiled annually by Friends of the Earth and Taxpayers for Common Sense and supported by a number of environmental, consumer and taxpayer groups. The premise of the report is that there are a number of subsidies and projects that could be cut to both reduce the deficit and benefit the environment. The Green Scissors recommendation on means-testing water subsidies indicates that if a test is successful in reducing subsidy payments to the highest grossing 10 percent of farms, then the Federal Government would recover between $440 million and $1.1 billion per year, or at least $2.2 billion over five years.
When countless Federal programs are subjected to various types of means-tests to limit benefits to those who truly need assistance, it makes little sense to continue to allow large business interests to dip into a program intended to help small entities struggling to survive. Taxpayers have legitimate concerns when they learn that their hard- earned tax dollars are being expended to assist large corporate interests in select regions of the country, particularly in tight budgetary times.
The second element of my bill will help our Armed Services obtain physician services at a more reasonable cost by terminating the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, USUHS. The measure is one I proposed when I ran for the U.S. Senate, and was part of a larger, 82-point plan to reduce the Federal budget deficit. The most recent estimates of the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, project that terminating the school would save $273 million over the next five years, and when completely phased-out, would generate $450 million in savings over five years.
USUHS was created in 1972 to meet an expected shortage of military medical personnel. Today, however, USUHS accounts for only a small fraction of the military's new physicians, less than 12 percent in 1994, according to CBO. This contrasts dramatically with the military's scholarship program, which provided over 80 percent of the military's new physicians in that year.
What is even more troubling is that USUHS is also the single most costly source of new physicians for the military. CBO reports that based on figures from 1995, each USUHS trained physician costs the military $615,000. By comparison, the scholarship program cost about $125,000 per doctor, with other sources providing new physicians at a cost of $60,000. As CBO has noted, even adjusting for the lengthier service commitment required of USUHS trained physicians, the cost of training them is still higher than that of training physicians from other sources, an assessment shared by the Pentagon itself. Indeed, CBO's estimate of the savings generated by this measure also includes the cost of obtaining physicians from other sources.
The House of Representatives has voted to terminate this program on several occasions, joining others, ranging from the Grace Commission to the CBO, in raising the question of whether this medical school, which graduated its first class in 1980, should be closed because it is so much more costly than alternative sources of physicians for the military.
The real issue we must address is whether USUHS is essential to the needs of today's military structure, or if we can do without this costly program. The proponents of USUHS frequently cite the higher retention rates of USUHS graduates over physicians obtained from other sources as a justification for continuation of this program, but while a greater percentage of USUHS trained physicians may remain in the military longer than those from other sources, the Pentagon indicates that the alternative sources already provide an appropriate mix of retention rates. Testimony by the Department of Defense before the Subcommittee on Force Requirements and Personnel noted that the military's scholarship program meets the retention needs of the services.
And while USUHS provides only a small fraction of the military's new physicians, relying primarily on these other sources has not compromised the ability of military physicians to meet the needs of the Pentagon. According to the Office of Management and Budget, of the approximately 2,000 physicians serving in Desert Storm, only 103, about 5 percent, were USUHS trained.
USUHS has some dedicated supporters in the U.S. Senate, and I realize that there are legitimate arguments that those supporters have made in defense of this institution. The problem, however, is that the Federal Government cannot afford to continue every program that provides some useful function, especially when such services can be procured elsewhere.
The final provision of my legislation terminates another wasteful defense program, the continued production of new Trident II submarine- launched ballistic missiles. Trident submarines, and the deadly submarine-launched ballistic missiles they carry, were designed specifically to attack targets inside the Soviet Union from waters off the continental United States.
Let me say at the outset that this provision would in no way prevent the Navy from maintaining the current arsenal of Trident II missiles. Nor would it affect those Trident II missiles that are currently in production.
The Navy currently has ten Trident II submarines, each of which carries 24 Trident II, D5, missiles. Each of these missiles contains eight independently targetable nuclear warheads, for a total of 192 warheads per submarine. Each warhead packs between 300 to 450 kilotons of explosive power.
By way of comparison, the first atomic bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima generated 15 kilotons of force. Let's do the math for just one fully-equipped Trident II submarine. Each warhead can generate up to 450 kilotons of force. Each missile has eight warheads, and each submarine has 24 missiles. That equals 86.4 megatons of force per submarine. That means that each Trident II submarine carries the power to deliver devastation which is the equivalent of 5,760 Hiroshimas.
And that is just one fully equipped submarine. As I noted earlier, the Navy currently has ten such submarines.
Through fiscal year 2003, the Navy will have been authorized to purchase 408 Trident II missiles for these submarines. Even taking into account the 86 Trident II missiles that have been expended in testing through calendar year 2002, the Navy will still have 322 missiles in stock once those authorized to be purchased during FY2003 are completed.
The Navy needs 240 missiles to fully equip ten Trident II submarines with 24 missiles each. That leaves 82 ``extra'' missiles in the Navy's inventory. And the Navy still plans to buy at least 132 more missiles over the next two years, for a total purchase of 540 missiles. My bill would terminate production of these missiles after the currently authorized 408, saving taxpayers $6.6 billion over the next ten years.
The tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the recent resumption of nuclear activities by North Korea, serve as chilling reminders that there is still a potential threat from rogue states, and from independent operators such as al-Qaeda, who seek to acquire ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction. I also recognize that our submarine fleet and our arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons still have an important role to play in warding off these threats. Their role, however, has diminished dramatically from what it was at the height of the Cold War. Our missile procurement decisions should reflect that change and should reflect the realities of the post-Cold War world.
Our current ballistic missile capability is far superior to that of any other county on the globe. And the capability of the Russian military, the very force which these missiles were designed to counter, is seriously degraded.
We should not be buying more Trident II missiles at a time when the governments of the United States and Russia have signed the Moscow Treaty, which calls for deep reductions in our nuclear forces. To spend scarce resources on building more missiles now
is short-sighted and could seriously undermine our efforts to negotiate further arms reductions with Russia.
In conclusion, the time has come to rethink our Federal budget priorities, and to redirect needed funds appropriately. Eliminating or reforming these three programs will go a long way to doing just that, and I urge Congress to act swiftly to save money for the taxpayers. I ask unanimous consent that the text of this legislation be printed in the Record.
