A bill to condition of receipt certain State revolving funds on the restriction of development or construction of new colonia and colonia structures along the border between the United States and Mexico.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the American Indian Reservation Transportation Improvement Program Act. I am pleased to be joined, as I have been each time that I have introduced legislation dealing with the Indian Reservation Roads program, by my good friends, Senators Inouye and Campbell. I am confident that we will replicate the success we have had in our previous endeavors to improve this important program.

In 1982, when I served on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, several members of the Navajo Nation Tribal Council Committee on Transportation approached me with an interesting proposition. These Navajo Councilmen believed that the time had come for Indian tribes to participate directly in our National Highway Trust Fund programs.

I agreed with these gentlemen, the Senate agreed with me, and the Congress and President Reagan approved Indian tribal participation in the U.S. Department of Transportation highway construction program for the first time in our Nation's history.

By the mid-1980's, Indian Reservation Roads, IRR, funding was at about $100 million per year nationwide. By the late 1980's, however, IRR funding fell to about $80 million per year. In ISTEA, for the early 1990's, we were able to raise this critical highway construction funding to about $190 million per year.

Then, in TEA-21, The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, we succeeded in bringing annual IRR funding up to $275 million for fiscal years 1999 through 2003.

As we seek to promote economic opportunities on our Nation's tribal reservations, I believe it is imperative that we once again increase this vital infrastructure funding. I am aware that the National Congress of American Indians, NCAI, is recommending a large jump to $500 million per year for the construction program; $100 million for an Indian transit program; $50 million for Indian bridges; $70 million, plus $26 million in Interior funding, for road maintenance; and several other additions for a total of $907 million in DOT funds in FY2004. By the year FY2009, the NCAI recommendations would exceed $1.4 billion annually.

While I am sympathetic to the need for such large increases, I am keenly aware of competing needs around the country for medical research, economic stimulus, and for our national defense, to name just a few. Therefore, I am compelled to recommend increases for the IRR program that are more likely to win acceptance among my colleagues.

For highway construction, I am recommending an immediate increase of $55 million in the first year to a new total of $330 million. My bill would then increase the amount for construction by $30 million each year so that the program receives $480 million in the final year of the authorization. For the Indian bridge program, I am recommending $15 million per year, an increase of $6 million annually. And for State roads that serve as key bus routes for Indian children, primarily on our Nation's largest Indian reservation--the Navajo Nation--I am recommending increasing this vital funding from $1.5 million per year to $3 million in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, to $4 million in fiscal years 2006 and 2007, and $5 million for fiscal years 2008 and 2009.

My final recommendation is to create a rural transit program for Indian Reservations. Because the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Transit Administration each have their areas of expertise that can make such a program a success, my legislation will require the two agencies to work together for the benefit of the tribes who participate in this program. My suggestion is to fund this program at $20 million.

In closing, I want to thank the Navajo Nation Transportation Committee and the tribal transportation department for keeping me informed of their progress and continuing needs. I believe my bill will be a positive answer to their requests. In addition, the Pueblo Indians and Apache Indians of New Mexico have continuing development needs, including new and improved roads to reach their many attractions for tourists and other visitors.

I ask my colleagues to join me in increasing the Indian Reservation Roads program funds in our Federal Highways Programs to the degree I have requested in this bill. I thank my colleagues and urge their support for these increases as we reauthorize TEA-21 for six more years.

I ask unanimous consent the text of this bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to resolve the unfortunate boundary line disputes in Southwest Missouri that have resulted from conflicting Federal Government land surveys performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the United States Forest Service, USFS, respectively. The land involving these disputed property lines is located in the vicinity of the Cassville District of the Mark Twain National Forest in Barry and Stone Counties adjacent to Table Rock Lake.

During the 1970's, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through various private land surveyors, surveyed this area around Table Rock Lake. In its surveys, the Corps found that most of the original ``corner monuments'' or boundary lines laid out by the U.S. General Land Office, GLO, in its original land surveys performed in the 1840's were either lost, stolen or had eroded over the years. Because of this, Corps surveyors used existing de-facto land markers in the vicinity of the original GLO monuments as the basis for its new survey. Prior to the Corps surveys, these defacto monuments were recognized by local surveyors as legitimate boundary markers and were used in survey after survey over the decades.

For almost 30 years, private landowners in Barry and Stone Counties bought and sold their land based on the surveys performed by the Corps in the 1970's. However, several years ago, the USFS performed new land surveys using surveying technology that had only recently become available. As a result of these new surveys, the USFS now claims that the boundary lines in its surveys conflict with the boundary lines established in the previous corps surveys. In addition to this, the USFS has announced that the Corps surveys are incorrect and that property lines all over this area are in the wrong place.

Because of these new revelations, many private property owners in the vicinity of the Mark Twain National Forest, who bought and paid for their land in good faith based on a previous Federal Government survey, are now being told that they have encroached on USFS land.

USFS has begun telling these private landowners that their land now belongs to the Federal Government, and that they will have to reimburse the USFS for the Federal land that the landowners now occupy. Naturally, these actions have produced chaos, confusion and anger among landowners in these two counties.

Needless to say, it is inherently unfair and absolutely devoid of any common sense to expect private landowners to compensate the Federal Government for land that they have already purchased simply because the government has changed its collective mind about where Federal property begins and ends.

Over the past 18 months, I have repeatedly asked the USFS and the Army Corps of Engineers to work together to find a solution that would resolve this problem. Unfortunately, after 18 month of debate and disagreement, the Corps of Engineers and the USFS have been unable to agree on a resolution of this problem. In the meantime, the lives of many of these Missouri residents continue to be disrupted.

Therefore, I have concluded that Federal legislation represents the only feasible solution to this boundary problem. This legislation authorize the Secretary of the Agriculture to convey, without consideration, title to land in which there is a boundary conflict, with adjoining federal land, to private landowners, who can demonstrate a claim of ownership because they relied on a subsequent land survey approved by the Federal Government.

M. President, I am proud to introduce today the Working Taxpayer Fairness Restoration Act. I offer this bill on behalf of the nearly 12 million children who were left behind when President Bush signed the 2003 tax bill.

The bill that I am introducing, with many of my good friends, including Senators Snowe, Warner and Jeffords, will restore a provision left on the cutting-room floor when House and Senate leaders finalized the conference report on the tax cut. Our bill will restore the advanced refundability of the child tax credit.

My friend from Maine and I have worked since 2001 to ensure that all working families benefit from the child tax credit. We worked to ensure in the 2001 tax cut that the child tax credit was refundable. During Finance Committee deliberations on this year's tax bill, I successfully offered an amendment that would have advanced the refundability of the child tax credit. Regrettably, that provision was dropped in conference.

Unless we pass the bill that I am introducing today, families with incomes between $10,500 and $26,625 will not get the $400 checks that will be mailed in July as part of the 2003 tax bill. Since nearly half the taxpayers in Arkansas have adjusted gross incomes less than $20,000, Arkansas families are among the hardest hit by this omission in the new tax law.

Consider this: The base pay for a private in the military is just under $16,000 per year. The average Arkansas firefighter makes between $22,000 and $25,000 a year. Many of those enlisted men, who could be given a few days' notice before being shipped off to war, and those firefighters, who could get no more than a few minutes' notice before rushing into a terrorist attack, have families. They work hard to support their families and to protect us. Yet they got left out when negotiators shook hands over the final tax bill.

I wasn't in the room during those negotiations in the dark of night, and I understand that very few of my colleagues were. But we are here today, united in our effort to fight for these working families.

Advancing the refundable portion of the child credit to cover these families will cost only $3.5 billion--just 1 percent of the entire cost of the tax cut. This measure had strong bipartisan support in the Senate, and I was proud to play a leading role to expand the children tax credit in the Senate bill. I'm glad to have bipartisan support in my effort today to restore this provision.

We will pay for this tax relief for working families by shutting down some Enron-related tax shelters. This pay-for was included in the Senate version of the 2003 tax bill, so it has already received the blessing of a majority of the Senate.

Especially as our nation contends with a sluggish economy, we should ensure that everyone benefits from the tax cut. After all, buying blue jeans for schoolchildren, washing powder for the laundry or tires for the car costs just as much for a family making $20,000 a year as it does for a family making $100,000. If we want to get our economy back on track, we need to make sure that we're putting money into the pockets of consumers who will spend it.

This isn't about partisanship--as is evidenced by the cosponsors of this bill--it is about doing what's right for

families who may need a little extra help. We should fix this problem immediately. Let's make these families a priority now.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill to improve the deplorable housing situation on the U.S. border with Mexico. In Texas along the 1,248 mile stretch from Cameron County to El Paso County, there are more than 1,400 colonias, or underdeveloped subdivisions, that suffer from such conditions as open sewage, a lack of indoor plumbing, and poor housing construction. These colonias are the most distressed areas in the country, yet despite terrible living conditions, they have grown in population. The legislation I introduce today, along with the Colonias Gateway Initiative Act which I am sponsoring, will go a long way toward eliminating the substandard living conditions that should not exist here in the United States of America.

This legislation will prohibit Federal funding for counties and municipal governments that refuse to enforce reasonable rules to prevent the development or construction of any new colonias that lack water, wastewater, and other basic infrastructure needs. I have inserted and the Senate has passed this exact language into the VA-HUD Appropriations bill every year since fiscal year 2001.

In 1993, I visited with a woman named Elida Bocanegra, who led me through the streets of the colonia where she lived. Elida showed me her community, which lacked paved roads, wastewater facilities and running water. Quite frankly, I could not believe I was in America. After that experience, the first amendment I offered as a U.S. Senator authorized $50 million for a colonias clean-up project. Since my election to the U.S. Senate, I have worked to improve the quality of life and ensure fundamental services are provided for people like Elida, helping to secure more than $615 million for the colonias of my state.

This act will ensure that colonias lacking water and wastewater facilities will be a thing of the past, and the neediest people along our border with Mexico will have the basic necessities to live. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce a bill to improve the deplorable housing situation on the U.S. border with Mexico. In Texas along the 1,248 mile stretch from Cameron County to El Paso County, there are more than 1,400 colonias, or underdeveloped subdivisions, that suffer from such conditions as open sewage, a lack of indoor plumbing, and poor housing construction. These colonias are the most distressed areas in the country, yet despite terrible living conditions, they have grown in population. The legislation I introduce today, along with the Colonias Gateway Initiative Act which I am sponsoring, will go a long way toward eliminating the substandard living conditions that should not exist here in the United States of America.

This legislation will prohibit Federal funding for counties and municipal governments that refuse to enforce reasonable rules to prevent the development or construction of any new colonias that lack water, wastewater, and other basic infrastructure needs. I have inserted and the Senate has passed this exact language into the VA-HUD Appropriations bill every year since fiscal year 2001.

In 1993, I visited with a woman named Elida Bocanegra, who led me through the streets of the colonia where she lived. Elida showed me her community, which lacked paved roads, wastewater facilities and running water. Quite frankly, I could not believe I was in America. After that experience, the first amendment I offered as a U.S. Senator authorized $50 million for a colonias clean-up project. Since my election to the U.S. Senate, I have worked to improve the quality of life and ensure fundamental services are provided for people like Elida, helping to secure more than $615 million for the colonias of my state.

This act will ensure that colonias lacking water and wastewater facilities will be a thing of the past, and the neediest people along our border with Mexico will have the basic necessities to live. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.