A bill to amend the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946 to restore the application date for country of origin labeling.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the Graham amendment.

It is almost unbelievable that we are on the DOD authorization bill, a very important bill that we need to discuss and move forward, as it supports a lot of important things for our troops, and our military strategy. But somehow the other side of the aisle and the Department of Energy think they can sneak in language to this Defense authorization bill that would allow the reclassification of hazardous, high-level nuclear waste and basically call it incidental waste. Basically it would reclassify nuclear waste that is in existing tanks in my State, in South Carolina, in Idaho, and in New York, and basically say that waste can be covered over with cement, with sand, and could be grouted. Basically, it says we can take high-level nuclear waste and grout it-- grout it.

For most Americans, grout is something they see in their bathroom, not something they do with nuclear waste. Yet this is what we have before us in the underlying Department of Defense authorization bill. It is a shame. It is a shame that this body would allow such a significant change, really a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act on how nuclear waste is classified in this country, without public debate, without a public vote, without a public hearing, even without legislation discussing that change. Yet the other side of the aisle thinks they can come at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and offer an amendment to change 30 years of policy, and that in the blink of an eye, they are going to get a vote on changing that policy without discussion.

The underlying bill is flawed. As far as I am concerned, it has made the whole DOD bill radioactive itself. Why do they play politics on an issue that is so important to our country? Why do they try to sneak through a change that ought to be debated in public in full daylight, with people weighing in on what is appropriate science?

Mr. President, if I sound as if I am a little upset about this underlying bill and the fact that it has this sneak attack language to reclassify high-level nuclear waste, you are right.

Fifty-three million gallons of nuclear waste reside at the Hanford nuclear reservation in the State of Washington.

This Senator wants to see that waste cleaned up. I do not believe that can happen by pouring cement on top of it and putting sand in those tanks and all of a sudden now say we have cleaned up waste. Nowhere has that policy been promulgated as sound science.

This is a picture of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and one of its reactors in proximity to the Columbia River. My constituents in Washington State already know the 53 million-gallon tanks of nuclear waste are leaking, and there are toxic plumes that have already gained access to the Columbia River. So, yes, Washington State wants the tanks to be cleaned up. They want the material that has been part of the nuclear mission of this country removed from the tanks, the tanks cleaned up, the ground cleaned up, the plumes removed to the best possible extent, in order for us to go on with our mission and our life at the Hanford Reservation.

What we do not want is somebody to come in and say all of a sudden these underground storage tanks that exist below ground should be taken and cement poured on top of them and that means they are cleaned up.

It is amazing to me because when I think about the Hanford project and what I think it meant to our country, these were men and women in 1943 who started on a mission to produce a product that would help us win the war. In less than 2 years, they had the world's first reactor going and they produced plutonium that provided a very valuable tool for our country. Those men and women did their job.

Now we have been left with the aftermath of that and we should handle it in the same professional way those men and women did, by cleaning up the waste and recognizing that these tanks are leaking and they are causing hazard to the environment. The appropriate way to clean them up is by making sure the material is removed and that that material is placed in a more permanent storage. That is exactly what science has been saying. Yet my colleagues believe that in this underlying bill, the Defense authorization, it

was somehow appropriate, in a closed-door session, with no public, no public testimony, no public witness to this language, no bill saying they were going to put this in the DOD bill, they can now sneak through this policy.

Well, thank God some people in America are paying attention because they are starting to respond. I will share some of that with my colleagues. For example, the Idaho Falls Post Register basically said those on the other side are choosing the wrong side.

What happened in this case is the Department of Energy--maybe I should stop for a second and give some of my colleagues a little reminder of how we got to this point, because everybody thinks reclassification of waste is something that belongs to the States. It does not belong to the States. It belongs in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that was passed in 1982. That was passed by Congress, after much debate. It went through the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the EPW Committee. They had a discussion about what nuclear waste cleanup should be. They have the authority.

So when the Department of Energy recently said ``let us accelerate the cleanup of waste, let us do it faster, we have an idea, instead of removing all of the material from these tanks we can just pour cement and sand on top of it and somehow we can get this done quicker and cheaper''--I am sure everybody in America agrees that pouring sand and cement on top of the waste that is there instead of cleaning it up is cheaper. But no one says it is safer and no one says it satisfies current law in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

That is why when the Department of Energy tried to use an order basically reclassifying waste, saying, ``let us try this accelerated cleanup, let us try this notion of grouting and see if it, in fact, is the way we can do this.'' The courts have said the Department of Energy does not have that authority to reclassify the waste; the definition lies within the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and DOE was not consistent with that act.

So what did the Department of Energy do when they lost that case? Yes, it is on appeal. They can go through the appeal process. But instead of coming to Congress and asking for public hearings on changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, saying, ``listen, we think some waste that ought to be able to be reclassified,'' they have snuck language into the DOD authorizing bill.

Let me be clear again. Sneaking in language is having a closed-door session, without public debate, without public scrutiny, without a hearing on the change in this reclassification.

Now all of a sudden we are presented with this bill and people think we ought to move ahead without removing this radioactive language that is in the DOD bill, which I say has no business being here. If people want to debate this policy, let us debate it in the broad daylight of a hearing and discuss what hazardous waste is and the changes to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that might be appropriate.

I guarantee, if somebody wants to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, that bill would not go to the Senate Armed Services Committee. It would be a policy that was debated by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and by the EPW Committee. It is not the Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction to change the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This underlying bill basically will put in place language contradictory to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

What are newspapers around America saying about this? Basically, the Idaho Falls Post Register says, ``if the courts are uncooperative, try blackmail. That is what DOE is doing by holding $350 million in cleanup funds, including $95 million for Idaho's national engineering and environmental laboratory.

They go on to say, ``if blackmail fails, start cutting deals in secret with Congress. DOE found an ally and behind closed doors in the Senate Armed Services Committee won a provision in the Defense authorization bill that would allow DOE to reclassify the high-level Savannah River waste.''

I think they said it best when they said the view from Boise is more accurate, and that Kempthorne, the Governor, believes the measure ``would wreck Idaho's position in the court by setting a precedent in short order, it would undermine the State's landmark decision.''

It goes on to say: ``Why would you reward DOE for its heavyhandedness against the State by passing something in the committee with the thinnest of claims to jurisdiction? If the Nuclear Waste Policy Act needs revision, do so in the open. Hold hearings. Conduct them in germane committees. What is going on here is not science, it is bare- knuckle politics.'' That is from the Idaho paper.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer said a similar thing: ``The Senate should halt the nuclear waste plan.'' Why? Because the bill gives the DOE the reclassification authority and withholds funds, and that this is a scheme to reclassify, hoping the States will cave in. It is not a good idea.

What did the Idaho Statesman say? Well, basically in a headline that said ``State Cleanup Faces An All or All Proposition,'' it said: ``We expect the Feds to clean up and move out all the highly radioactive liquid waste now stored in Idaho. No haggling, no shortcuts. Our political leaders need to hold firm even when politicians in other States are willing to cut deals.''

What did the Spokesman Review in my State say? I thought the Spokesman Review had an interesting take. They said: ``For example, let us say the next step would be to persuade the affected parties and the public there is scientific consensus on this matter. Without that, there will be no hope of political consensus. The U.S. Department of Energy believes leaving some waste behind is a good idea but is trying to slip this in as a seismic policy shift in the Defense authorization bill without comment or without congressional debate.''

I think these newspapers have it right. In fact, another newspaper in my State, the Tacoma News Tribune, said: ``It was bad enough that the U.S. Department of Energy was trying to carry out illegal, quick, and dirty disposal of the Nation's most dangerous radioactive waste. Now a Senate committee is helping the Department circumvent the law.''

I think these newspapers are on to it. The Buffalo News, in their editorial, called it ``A Dangerous Game.''

The Federal Department of Energy is trying to use

administrative sleight of hand to avoid its responsibilities

in the cleanup of nuclear waste at West Valley and several

other sites. DOD is trying to downgrade the threat of nuclear

waste altered in this bill. The department argues that the

waste should be classified as high level based only on how it

originated, not on what they are. But what they are still is

bad. It's still radioactive and it's still a Federal

responsibility.

That is from the Buffalo News.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have all those editorials printed in the Record.

Mr. President, let's go back for a second to what this issue is as it relates to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and what the underlying change in this bill does. That is the question at hand.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle hope we can get rid of this issue in one afternoon--again, without public debate, without the scrutiny of changing the definition of highly radioactive waste. They think we should just pass what is in the underlying bill. It has only seen the daylight because of the objections of myself and other colleagues and the scrutiny of the press. That is what has gotten them now to offer the amendment on the floor. The amendment on the floor is not sufficient to strike the language relating to the reclassification of waste.

So what is the issue? In 1982, when we passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act--I wasn't here but other Members were--basically we came up with a definition. We said:

Highly radioactive material resulting from the processing

of spent nuclear fuel, including the liquid waste produced in

the reprocessing. . . .

That is what this reactor did for us in World War II. It basically processed spent nuclear fuel and that liquid waste was then stored in tanks still at Hanford.

That the solid material derived from such waste that

contains fission products in sufficient concentrations. . . .

So that is what we said high-level radioactive waste was. We went on to add to the definition:

Highly radioactive material that the Commission says is

consistent with the law requires permanent isolation.

That is what we said in 1982, that the spent fuel from these reactors required permanent isolation. That is what the current law says. The current law says spent fuel requires permanent isolation. That means you have to remove it from the tanks that are there, because the tanks are leaking and you cannot guarantee permanent isolation.

So the tanks have started to be cleaned up and the process for cleaning them up is underway. But now the Department of Energy wants to say, ``let's have a new definition of that.'' In fact, in the underlying DOD bill, in section 3116, it basically says:

High-level radioactive waste does not include radioactive

material resulting from the processing of spent nuclear fuel.

How about that? One change in the DOD bill and billions of gallons of waste in my State is no longer high-level radioactive nuclear waste. Just like that, changing the definition. Yes, it says the Secretary can determine whether various hurdles have been scaled, but that is contradictory to the current law in the 1982 act.

I remind my colleagues this is an act that was passed through this body after hearings, after discussion. I think the process may have taken more than a year. It took more than a year to define high-level radioactive waste. Yet now we want to pass the DOD authorizing bill with this change in it and basically say, ``let's go ahead and reclassify nuclear waste.''

I am not for reclassifying nuclear waste without a debate and a discussion and, frankly, the notion that this underlying bill would reclassify it in such an inappropriate fashion, to say you could somehow call this grouting and that this would be a sufficient way to deal with the country's nuclear waste, is incredible. It is incredible that this is the scam being used on the American public just to get this process in place.

Let's go through some of the history, because as I said, I think this is really sour grapes by the Department of Energy, which has tried to get this policy pushed through and has not been successful. In fact, in 2001, basically, the Department said that they would re-create a better cleanup process. But, they said, we obviously have to get States to agree.

They came to us in Washington State and we said: We have an agreement with you about the level of waste that is going to be cleaned up under the requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, so we don't really know what you mean by reclassification. At that time they refused to say that they meant they would clean up 99 percent, or all that was technically possible, of this waste.

So we in Washington State said: Listen, it doesn't sound like you have a serious plan for reclassifying waste when you just want to call it a different name. That is not an appropriate process. In fact, Washington State decided not to do that.

Wisely enough, the Idaho court basically said DOE didn't have that ability, they didn't have the ability to reclassify that waste. That is exactly why they are trying to sneak this language in today, because they would like to

continue to say that they can move ahead on a plan that, sure, would save money, but who wants to save money by leaving nuclear waste in the ground, where it is leaking into the Columbia River or the Savannah River, or other areas of the country?

If somebody thinks this is an issue that affects the State of Washington, or affects just Idaho, or affects South Carolina--it doesn't. These are bodies of water, with the potential of nuclear waste in them, that flow through many parts of our country. To pass legislation without debate on changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is an incredible statement, that people are willing to override 30 years of law just to do that.

There are other issues I think we need to talk about. I am very pleased the Governor of Idaho, Governor Kempthorne, issued a release saying:

Federal legislation undermines the cleanup that was to take

place in Idaho, at the Idaho facility.

In fact, Governor Kempthorne has said his opposition to the legislation that was passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee is because it allows the Secretary of Energy to withhold an estimated $95 million from cleanup funds, which is part of the debate we are going to have on the underlying amendment. But then he goes on to say:

I recognize the need to ensure public confidence in how we

manage nuclear waste. This legislation would be a huge step

backwards, reinforcing public fears about our Nation walking

away from nuclear cleanup obligations. I am also concerned

this legislation will negatively impact DOE's compliance with

the 1995 court settlement case in Idaho.

I think Governor Kempthorne, who has to deal with this, just as Governor Locke does in the State of Washington, has realized what a bad deal this is for Idaho. He realizes the underlying language, when it tries to reclassify waste, is a danger.

I find it interesting that we will forget the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, no problem. We will write our own rule about what hazardous waste is. We will come up with our own definition.

The states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, South Carolina, New Mexico, and New York filed into the court case and in their amicus brief said:

DOE cannot ignore Congress' intent . . . by simply calling

[high level] waste by a different name.

South Carolina joined that case. South Carolina went to the courts, put its name on a brief, objecting to the DOE attempt to reclassify high-level nuclear waste by issuing an order.

Why all of a sudden are we now going to listen to one State tell us they have the right to decide they are going to keep nuclear waste in their State and they are going to call it something else? Nuclear waste that reaches the Savannah River does not affect just South Carolina, and a definition in statute that conflicts with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not just affect South Carolina; it affects everyone. That is not the way to legislate, by sneaking it in without having full public debate about this issue and the obligations we have for nuclear waste cleanup.

What has the Atomic Energy Commission said? Basically, it said in 1970 that over the life of these tanks, basically you have a problem. Basically, what you are saying when you assume that you will take those Hanford tanks or Savannah River tanks or Idaho tanks or West Valley tanks, and you are going to leave material in them and somehow put cement over the top of them and everything will be okay--that is counter to all the science we have had for 50 years.

The Atomic Energy Commission said ``over periods of centuries,''-- guess what, that is what happens when you leave it in the tanks for a long period of time; you are talking about centuries--``one cannot assure the continuity of surveillance and care which tank storage requires.''

(Mr. CRAPO assumed the Chair.)

They are saying if you put in high-level waste, we cannot tell what will happen to that over a long period of time. That is why the decision was made to take it out and put it in a permanent storage facility somewhere else, because these tanks do not have the capacity.

The science says that once you do the grouting of this waste, unfortunately, your opportunity to do other things is much more difficult. Once you have poured cement on the ground and solidified it, the process of getting it out and retrieving it is made immensely more difficult. In fact, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in 2004 said:

Grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain

significant quantities of long lived radionuclides . . . Is a

policy that poses considerable risk to the long-term health

of the water resources in the region.

This statement is from 2004. In 2004, people have said this grouting technique, which basically is storing this in the leaking position in underground tanks, is a threat to the water resources of the region. These tanks are not more than 7 miles from the Columbia River, not 7 miles from one of the major water resources of the Pacific Northwest. It already has a plume of nuclear waste that has reached the river. Fortunately, it is at a level that we can contain today but only if we continue to clean up the tanks.

This proposal to pour cement and sand on top of it and just keep the waste in the ground has not been proven as a secure way to keep the waste intact and water resources clean. So what you are leaving us with in the Pacific Northwest--in Washington, in Oregon, in the tributaries feeding in and out of the Columbia River and into the Pacific Ocean--is the threat of 50 million gallons of nuclear waste not being cleaned up in a sufficient fashion and that waste ending up in the Columbia River. Or in the South Carolina, Savannah River. Governor Kempthorne said it right: this is a huge step backward because it reinforces the public fears about this process.

This Senator wants to have the nuclear waste cleaned up in our State. Some people may not understand the process, or some people listening to this debate may even think this is somehow about four or five States in this country. It is not about four or five States in this country and just about whether we will change the definition of high-level radioactive waste and what we will do about the definition.

That is what I am concerned about today in the underlying bill. This Nation has a responsibility--as it had a responsibility in development of the reactors, the development of the plutonium, and the development of that product--this Nation has a responsibility for the cleanup of those facilities. Oftentimes my colleagues forget about that responsibility until it comes time to do the budget and people see the huge amount of money that is spent on nuclear waste cleanup.

I would be the first Senator to say we have made mistakes in this process. It is mind-boggling to think prior to my coming here that at one point in time somebody gave contracts to a company to produce vitrified logs, and they were not going to pay them until they made the vitrification work. Somewhere along the way people figured that would not work, that the vitrification process was not underway and operating. But now we have been successful and vitrification is starting to take place. That means we are taking the nuclear waste out of the ground and solidifying it into a glass log substance and that glass log substance will then go to permanent storage. So it will be in a facility that can help store that product for an indefinite period of time. That has been the plan. That is the plan on the books. That is the plan of record.

But that is not what the DOE authorizing bill does. It says, ``no, let's reclassify that waste and say that it is not high level. Let's just call it another name, let's call it grout and say it is okay to keep in the ground, let it contaminate water, and let's keep the savings from that unbelievable shortcutting of our responsibilities in the cleanup process.'' I don't think that is something we want to do as a body and government.

I would like to talk about how this legal process worked and why DOE is attempting to do this. What my colleagues seem to want to think today is that this is all about giving the State of South Carolina the ability to negotiate with DOE what nuclear waste cleanup should be. In fact, as I said, in the underlying bill, instead of saying that high- level waste is something that needs to be retrieved, basically that spent fuel from reactors is something

that needs to be retrieved from tanks and put in permanent storage, basically the DOE underlying bill says, no, high-level radioactive waste resulting from fuel process can be reconsidered and considered for a different kind of storage permanently in the tank. And that is something South Carolina and DOE can do together.

That is not what the cleanup partnership really is. The cleanup partnership is not about the State of South Carolina and the Federal Department of Energy interpreting the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in a new way by passing contradictory language.

Let's imagine for a second that we let the State of Michigan determine what the clean air standards are for the State of Michigan. Let's say that EPA and the State of Michigan decided, well, the clean air standards for Michigan are going to be at X level, and that somehow that is OK for Michigan, but somehow we do not think that is going to apply to the rest of the country.

Does anyone think that once it applies to Michigan, some other State is not going to say: How come you gave Michigan an exemption? They continue to pollute the air at a level that the rest of the country does not, which has a higher standard. We are talking about a recipe for disaster in the courts and for predictability in the process. I think it is very detrimental, where we are going with this legislation.

The court process that took place is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court. We are still waiting for a decision. I think the appropriate thing for the Department of Energy to do, while they are waiting for their decision on appeal, is to say they want to come to Congress and have hearings on changing radioactive waste definitions, that they want to come and have a discussion about that.

I appreciate the fact the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Levin, as this issue was discussed in the Armed Services Committee, understood the dangerous precedence of this language, and understood how important it was to get the DOD bill done. He basically asked that they not include that language in the bill.

Now, it was a closed-door session. I do not know what the real vote was. I am sure it was a closely, hotly debated issue. But, really, what they put in was section 3116, which would overturn 30 years of carefully crafted laws and 50 years of scientific consensus related to the cleanup of the Nation's radioactive defense waste.

As written, this provision--because it allows DOE to reclassify waste that, as I said, for decades has been classified as high-level waste-- basically says the radioactive and chemical toxic components would stay the same. So basically the same toxic level of waste is there, but we are just going to call it another name. I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Michigan tried to change this language and prevent it from being in the bill. Unfortunately, it is in the underlying bill before us.

The underlying bill before us also created a slush fund of $350 million. I find it intriguing. I love knowing a little bit about software because when you share documents and you basically try to make changes to documents, and you e-mail those around to everybody, you can look at the text and see where the changes came from. It is very interesting, this legislation was proposed by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But when you check on who was really the author of the legislation, when you look at who was making the changes to the legislation, it was the Department of Energy.

The Department of Energy wrote the statute and basically submitted it to the committee, and tried to make it look like it was a Member's idea. This is coming straight from the Department of Energy, that lost a court battle, and does not want to wait for an appeal, does not want to come here and fight their battle in the daylight, but wants to try to sneak language in a bill, in the hopes these people will blink on a Thursday afternoon. Well, I am not prepared to have this bill move forward without having this discussion today about this change.

Now, what was DOE's great idea that they submitted through a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee? What was their wonderful idea? Well, besides reclassifying waste, they decided, ``well, let's create a $350 million slush fund that gives the Secretary of Energy the authority to withdraw cleanup funds from the States of South Carolina, Washington, and Idaho--until they agree with our reclassification plan.'' Basically, it was to hold them hostage and blackmail them into agreeing.

As I said, when the State of Washington was offered this deal 2 years ago, we said: ``We are not taking any deal unless we understand what you are cleaning up and how you are cleaning it up. The fact that you think you are going to reclassify and rename this is not good enough for us. Let's see the details.'' When they refused to show us that they planned on cutting cleaning up all this waste, we refused to accept the deal. Now they are hoping they will buy off some other State.

If the Department of Energy really believes science is on their side, if it really believes this grouting technique works, if it really believes this is the process we ought to pursue, then come before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, come before the EPW Committee, and debate a change to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the policy that defines highly radioactive waste and how it should be cleaned up.

I think it is a tragedy, especially when you think about the good job the people did at Hanford, the process by which these people speedily got to the business of helping us in World War II, in the cold war years, and providing us with help and support. They got the job done. They did their job. Now it is our turn to do our job and clean this up.

When you are talking about 100 million gallons of highly radioactive waste that is stored in 253 deteriorating tanks in all of these States--as I said, at Hanford we have 53 million gallons of this tank waste, about 60 percent of the whole national inventory. So 60 percent is in Washington State, along with other high level waste stored in the Hanford 200-Area. That includes spent fuel and miscellaneous volumes that contain high-level waste from offsite which are also buried in the ground.

I am all for considering new technology and new ways to clean up waste and to retrieve waste that is buried in the ground that is considered high-level waste, which may have come from other States or have been basically brought to the Hanford Reservation. Some has been dumped on the Hanford Reservation and then has been part of the storage there for some time, but that is a different issue.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act makes it very clear that spent nuclear fuel from reactors needs to be placed in a permanent isolated area. That does not mean pouring cement in tanks and calling it incidental. It is very clear about that. So we can talk about other technologies to clean up other kinds of waste, or we can come back and debate changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. But because 67 of the 177 tanks that we have in Washington State have already leaked 1 million gallons of waste into the ground, that is 1 million gallons of nuclear waste, this Senator does not take this issue lightly.

DOE estimates that at Hanford, 270 billion gallons of ground water is contaminated above the drinking water standards across 80 miles of this site, and that plumes containing numerous toxins have reached the Columbia River.

I think we have another picture of the Hanford site. I encourage all my colleagues, at some point in time, to go to the Hanford site. This site is in Washington State, but this is a Federal responsibility. It is a Federal responsibility to clean up nuclear waste. It is not just the province or jurisdiction of four or five States in the country. We spend budget money on this issue, and we need to get the job done.

You can see one scene of the Hanford reservation, which is almost as big as--a third of the size--the State of Rhode Island. It is an immense property. I know the senior Senator from Washington State has joined me, and she can tell you--because she was instrumental in getting the Hanford Reach Monument created, preserving some of this as a national monument for us. On the one hand we are preserving it as a national monument and then deciding one day we are going to take high- level radioactive waste, rename it, let the plume that is already reaching the Columbia River to stay in the ground, and that somehow by putting cement

and sand on it, we are all going to be OK.

Everybody wants to say how much cheaper that proposal is. I think everybody in America gets how cheap it would be to pour concrete and sand. What they want to know is whether it is safe, whether it is the right technology, whether it is going to stop the plumes or leaking tanks, whether you are going to change the current law first to get there.

This is a beautiful, pristine area of our country that we can preserve, but only if we do the job we are responsible to do, as the people who created the B reactor and created this facility were responsible in doing.

To be irresponsible today by offering this on the DOD authorizing bill and thinking we are going to have a debate about it in a few short hours and change 30 years of law and 50 years of science is shameful. It is shameful that we think we can have this kind of discussion in a few hours and wrap up a decision. If people are so sure about their position, then hold the public hearings and have the debate. Because these tanks are leaking and one million gallons have already leaked in my State. It is not something that is a tomorrow issue.

What about the science? Let's go back, so my colleagues are clear about how we got here. Congress required DOE to clean up these sites and make it a priority, and they did that in that 1982 act. That act reflected science dating back to 1950, when the National Academy of Sciences recognized that high-level radioactive waste, such as the waste at Hanford, must remain isolated from human beings and the environment long enough for the radioactivity to decay. That is a long process.

That is why the Atomic Energy Commission, a precursor to the Department of Energy, also recognized something must be done to treat high-level radioactive waste in the tanks and at these DOE sites, and they referred to ``over a period of centuries.'' As I said earlier, this isn't a problem where you think about it for a few years or even a decade. You have to come up with a solution for centuries.

Over a period of centuries, the Atomic Energy Commission wrote in 1970, ``one cannot assure the continuity of surveillance of care with storage tanks.'' Basically they said, you can't get it done with storage tanks. So the science has not changed since then.

Yet there are provisions in this bill where DOE says, let's throw out the science. And the provision in this bill would allow DOE to take 50 years of science and leave an indeterminate amount of toxic sludge in these leaky tanks and simply say: Mission accomplished. I think we have heard that statement before.

What science says is that grouting residual high-level waste in tanks that contain significant quantities of long-lived radionuclides is a policy that possesses considerable risk to the long-term health of the water resources of the region. That is what science says.

The grouting proposal that is in this bill is a considerable risk. In the State of Washington, we are very familiar with this. In Washington State, thank God our Department of Ecology has had strong reservations about grouting and we have vocalized those. For us, because it is 50 million gallons of this highly radioactive waste, it would have to have been a plan for durability for 10,000 years. That is what you would have to have. That is how radioactive the waste is.

What is bothersome is when people say an indeterminate amount, that is what DOE can decide. An indeterminate amount? The last 8 percent of the waste in the tanks has 50 percent of the radioactivity. Think about that. So we are saying in this underlying bill, go ahead, DOE. Leave an indeterminate amount in the tanks. Maybe they will say let's leave 10 percent. Maybe they will say, let's leave 5 percent. We know at 8 percent it is 50 percent of the radioactivity.

We think the grouting plan is something that is not the way to go. We set it aside in Washington State. We said that basically glassifying or vitrifying the waste was the way to go. That means that process of turning it into a glass structure so it is a solid structure and taking it to permanent storage was a better way to go.

As I said, in 2002, DOE wanted to use this accelerated initiative. We in Washington State had people come and talk to us about what accelerated cleanup was and what the schedule would be on high-level waste. And we said: We want to understand how you are going to comply with the agreements that are already on the table and with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, with the triparty agreement, because this isn't the first time the Department of Energy has had debates with the State about their responsibilities for cleanup.

I can't imagine that there is an OMB director or a DOE executive who does not come to that post and look at the numbers involved in cleanup and basically says: Boy, there has to be a way we can get this done quicker and cheaper. I am all about getting it done quicker, given that I have a million gallons already leaking and running into the Columbia River. I am all about quicker. But I am not about a plan that has not been verified by science, that has not had a hearing in a full committee as to this process and what it will mean.

Everybody gets the quick factor, but who said cleaning up nuclear waste in America should be about doing it on the cheap? It is about doing it the right way. As the Atomic Energy Commission said, it is about keeping it out of the reach of humans for centuries.

Subsequently DOE has insisted upon researching new technologies for the treatment of Hanford tanks, this new form of grout, cast stone, steam reforming, and different forms of vitrification. In all, I think there were three cases. DOE said they would still retrieve waste from the tanks, but try to treat it and bury it in steel containers and lined trenches in the Hanford site.

I can tell you, even the new and improved grout was quickly rejected by the State of Washington and by other scientists.

According to the officials at the Washington State Department of Ecology, grouting would have violated the State requirement that any alternative waste that was not performed at the vitrification objected to. And, in addition, the State found that this grouting would still pose ground water risks and create leaching; furthermore, that this would violate drinking water standards.

Even more interesting is the fact that the grouting was not to be found more efficient. In some instances, grouting wasn't found to be any cheaper than other options of cleaning up the tanks. While everybody says that pouring cement and sand on this is a great way to clean up nuclear waste, most people figured out that leaking would still happen and that nuclear waste would still need to be removed. They figured out that it was even more expensive to remove than waste.

So those are the scenarios with which we are dealing. Those are the scenarios that have been discussed. This debate--whether we want to reclassify nuclear waste and call it low-level waste and say we are going to grout it--might be new to some of my colleagues in the Senate as to. But for the State of Washington, we already said this plan wasn't acceptable science, and that reclassification was something we didn't think we should go along with, when DOE wasn't willing to give us a definition on how they were going to clean up the waste.

So this is very difficult because the tanks holding sludge and salt cake and hard heels--this would mean the waste in those tanks would not be penetrated to remove and segregate the radionuclides. The hazardous material would not be separated out and removed. It means those tanks would not be thoroughly mixed without the right level of product. Basically, what they found is that grout, as engineered, is not an option that protects human health and the environment for such a significant portion of tank waste, when we don't know the definition, because it is an indeterminate amount of tank waste.

As I said, even the last 8 percent of tank waste includes 50 percent of the radioactivity. How do you know, by using this grouting process, that you have successfully rendered this a nonhazardous substance? So grout as an in-tank treatment for significant waste volume will be, as I said, probably more expensive than other routes when we find out that it is not successful.

The best science says is don't hold States hostage by reclassifying waste

and telling them we are not going to give them money for cleanup unless they agree to our definition. This definition is something that the Department of Energy thinks they can come up with on their own. But the courts have determined that DOE doesn't have that authority.

The courts have not sided in DOE's favor. The courts have not said don't go ahead with cleanup. They didn't say you cannot move forward on cleaning up the tanks. The courts said: DOE cannot move forward on its plan of reclassifying waste and saying that it is a grout process and that is going to work. It says you cannot move forward on that.

So back to the underlying bill and what happened in the Defense authorization bill. There was an amendment that would enable the Department of Energy to exempt an intermediate amount of highly radioactive waste from regulation as high-level radioactive waste.

I am reading from legal counsel's interpretation of this underlying provision in the DOD bill. This interpretation says the amendment would allow the Department of Energy to continue to store waste long thought destined for deep geologic repository in existing storage tanks or send them to waste isolation pile-up plants or low-level radioactive waste burial sites. It also would exempt the Department's handling of those wastes from the license and regulation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It will, in short, overturn the fundamental legal principles that have governed the disposal of these wastes for the past 30 years.

This legal briefing goes on to point out--which I think is very important--that for nearly half a century, when the DOE and its predecessors made plutonium for their nuclear weapons, they did so by irradiating uranium fuel, transforming it into plutonium, and reprocessing the spent fuel, as I showed in the picture with the reactor. And that became high-level radioactive waste. This is the term given to the plutonium spent fuel from the reactors was high-level waste.

So what did the Nuclear Waste Policy Act say? In 1981, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act said: Let's establish a comprehensive program for the disposal of this spent nuclear fuel, and put it in deep geologic repositories licensed by the Commission.

So let me be clear about this point, because I am sure we will hear about this in the debate. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was given the responsibility of the deep geological repository license procedure. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not given the responsibility for these low-level tanks. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was not given the responsibility to interpret this change in the DOD bill as it relates to whether this is a cleanup plan and whether they can license it because that is not their responsibility. Their responsibility, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is on Yucca Mountain and the deep geological solution. That is what their responsibility is.

The act directed the President to decide whether high-level radioactive defense waste should be disposed of in the same repository as civilian waste, or in a separate repository. So in 1985, President Reagan decided this defense waste should be put in the same repository as civilian waste.

The 1982 act defines high-level radioactive waste. We had a decision by the President in 1985 that military waste should be treated as civilian waste, and that the civilian waste should be put in the same spot.

So that is the plan we have been on. Now, I have had some concerns about how much waste you are actually going to take out of Hanford because, I tell you what, I want more than 17 percent of the waste taken from Hanford to go to Yucca Mountain. I want it cleaned up and I want it in a permanent place.

I don't want grouting and I don't want to have plumes continuing to leak. But that was the decision made in 1985, and the President made that decision. They said, let's vitrify this waste, glassify it, take it out of the tanks, turn it into glass logs, and take that to a site for permanent storage, wherever that site is.

The plan, since 1985, has not been to pour cement and sand and create grout leaving some percentage, some indeterminate amount of waste in tanks.

I cannot emphasize how important it is if DOE believes in this philosophy, this science, if DOE thinks this is the successful course of discussion that should happen with spent nuclear fuel, then come to the broad daylight of a Senate hearing and make their case and put that before the appropriate Senate committees. If they are so proud of their science and the standing of their decision, they should have no problem doing that. As Governor Kempthorne of Idaho said, when you don't end up achieving public consensus, you don't do anybody any favors.

The issue is the Department of Energy knows all too well, because these States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and South Carolina challenged the Department of Energy in court, that these States do not believe this order or plan for reclassifying waste is sound science. They do not believe it is sound science. That is why they challenged it in court.

I know the Department of Energy knows they cannot waltz into the Senate hearing rooms and make their case without hearing the critiques of the experts who have been dealing with this issue for years and years. And by ``the experts,'' I mean not only the scientists, but the people who have to live with the economic and health consequences of having a million gallons of nuclear waste leak into the ground and make its way to the Columbia River. Those people are paying attention, and they are paying attention to the fact that this science is not standing the test of daylight and scrutiny. If it were, they would be here debating it.

I am saying to them now, this Senator, and I am sure members of other committees, welcomes the opportunity to understand this technology, to understand this new process, to understand exactly how taking some level of spent fuel from these reactors in these underground tanks and somehow pouring a grouting material on them is going to make for a successful cleanup effort.

I am sure my colleagues would love to hear if it actually saves billions of dollars and can be safe and sound science. But if that is the case, then we should not be in a rush today. After the courts have already said DOE does not have the authority to change this policy without the approval of Congress, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, my colleagues should not be in a hurry to pass this legislation that basically says in a contradictory form: Go ahead, DOE Secretary, reclassify the waste because nuclear waste from spent fuel does not have to be classified as highly radioactive.

The definition of highly radioactive waste that is used in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was initially modeled after the definition found in the West Valley demonstration project. That is a commercial site in New York. I am again reading from the legal opinion Energy counsel has provided to us.

It basically said waste produced by reprocessing of spent fuel, that it included both liquid waste and that waste directly from reprocessing and dry solid material derived from that solid waste.

In addition, it gave the Nuclear Regulatory Commission the authority to include other waste in the definition of such material. Significantly, West Valley gave the Commission power to add material other than reprocessing waste to the definition, but not to exempt any part of the processing of waste.

We have had this debate, and I know the Department of Energy objected to the definition. I know they wanted the regulatory agencies to be able to exclude material from high-level radioactive waste. I know that is what they wanted. But Congress rewrote the definition, not as the Department asked, but, as enacted, the final definition provides, as I said earlier, high-level radioactive waste means material from reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, and that other radioactive material that the Commission, consistent with existing law, determines requires permanent isolation.

That is the process by which we, as the legislative branch, have gotten to the point of making decisions about this incredible product that was made by men and women throughout our country in the 1940s. It was a time of great military need, during World War II and the cold war. And they did their job, as the federal government had asked.

Now we are saying we are going to ignore the definitions and the process and not really have a hearing on the Nuclear Waste Policy Act or the fact that the DOE has already been turned down in the courts in its ability to reclassify that waste.

Does the Senator have a question?

Without yielding the floor.

Mr. President, I have some more material on the history of the process. I see 2 of my colleagues in the Chamber who are also very concerned about this issue, but I imagine at least another half hour or so longer, maybe more.

Does the Senator from Washington have a question?

I obviously want my colleagues to join in the debate on this issue, but the reason this Senator feels so strongly about this process is because I do believe this measure does not belong on the Defense authorization bill. We have a very important piece of legislation that needs to move through the process, and yet we have an entity the courts have turned down, that believes that States have turned them down, that believes this is a controversial issue, and thinks they ought to sneak it in on a DOD bill and that is a way to do legislation. It is not the way to do legislation.

This is the only opportunity we have to expose the fact this legislation has been drafted this way and the unbelievable effect it has on so many people in this country when the Department of Energy can author legislation and give it to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who then offers it in a mark-up in private and includes it in the legislation.

I am going to take a little more time to go over these facts because I think the bright light of day needs to shine on the fact the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 ought to have the attention of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and ought to have the attention of the Environment and Public Works Committee and not be proposed on the Defense authorization bill without the scrutiny of public debate and foresight that such a huge, significant change in policy would bring about.

This is why I am going to take as much time as necessary to explain this policy and to say to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that while any member has the ability to offer any amendment they want, including in an authorizing bill, usually it is the other way around. We have authorizing on appropriations and issues of that nature that have caused----

The Senator will yield for a question.

I thank the Senator for his question. The issue is that the Senate Armed Services Committee should never have voted and considered this legislation in a closed door session without those hearings. So I certainly want the Member to be heard but--I think I have the floor, Mr. President.

I think I have the floor, Mr. President, and I will yield in a moment for another question.

The issue is that we have been trying to work with the author of this legislation on a compromise that would promote a dialog and a hearing. My staff has been working diligently since the language came out of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

This morning we learned without warning, without notice, that perhaps now they did not want to continue discussion on that, they did not want to continue discussion on how we brought this issue to light.

I really did not want to spend the afternoon on the Senate floor. We had hoped we would actually propose a better process and procedure, but others want to move forward on changing the underlying bill, which in this amendment is still flawed. The proposed amendment by Senator Graham of South Carolina makes a bad situation slightly better but does not correct the underlying problem. And this Senator whose home state has one million gallons of nuclear waste flowing to the Columbia River--is going to be heard on the details of this proposal.

The fact that we have not had a full public hearing on a significant change in 30 years of policy and 50 years of science is something that, if it takes me 5 hours to explain, I will take it. I will take the 5 hours to explain to my colleague the significance of these changes.

I will yield to the Senator for a question.

I thank the Senator for his question, but under rule XXV, the Armed Services Committee has jurisdiction over national security aspects of nuclear energy, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee has jurisdiction over nonmilitary development of nuclear energy, and the EPW Committee has jurisdiction over the nonmilitary environmental regulation and control of nuclear energy.

Undoubtedly SASC has jurisdiction over the reprocessing that created the tanks to begin with because DOE was responsible for the national security, but I do not see how anyone could seriously argue how the waste, disposal, and cleanup of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is a part of the national security aspect of the Senate Armed Services Committee's jurisdiction.

While I am more than happy that the committee has used this authority to bring this issue up, I think the committee is doing an injustice to say to our colleagues that a change that is in contradiction to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act ought to be passed by the committee without hearing, without debate, without full scrutiny of public daylight. This provision would really contradict 30 years of law on the books when the agency promulgating that rule change lost a court battle basically telling it it does not have the authority to redefine high-level nuclear waste.

I fully respect, because of all the committees that I work with, I know that the chairman of the Armed Services Committee always strives to be fair and balanced at his hearings. And

there are difficult challenges that we have had over many sensitive subjects in the last several weeks. The chairman has gone way out of his way to make sure the continuity of that committee works well and that the rules and processes are followed. But I say to the chairman that if the Department of Energy is so sure about these statutory changes they are promulgating through his committee without debate, then they ought to be willing to have the hearings and have the debates with the other committees that have jurisdiction for the cleanup, not the national security efforts the Senator was responsible for as the chairman of that committee.

I thank the chairman again for his statement. I point out to him that the difference between authorizing for appropriations and oversight of policy, and what I am debating is that the committee's oversight over nuclear waste cleanup policy as set out in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. When that was passed in 1982 and moved through the legislative branch and made its way through the debates, it was debated in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and EPW Committee. As the parliamentarian referred to those committees, I am sure that the SASC, because of its nature of the appropriated funds, has some responsibilities. But I do not think that the SASC is the committee of jurisdiction for changing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. I do not think that is the primary responsibility of that committee.

So, I don't know. I say to the Senator, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I have a great deal of respect for his willingness at all times in the most difficult of situations to try to have consideration of issues be as fair and balanced as possible, and to give Members their opportunity. I am happy to continue to discuss with him the nuances of this particular issue. But I have a feeling that if we had this Nuclear Waste Policy Act before us today and we asked the Parliamentarian--this change that is in your bill, under a separate act, under a separate stand-alone bill--it would not be referred to that committee. It would be referred jointly to those other committees and maybe to SASC in the authorizing of an appropriation, but not for the policy change.

Mr. President, I think there are several other people here.

Without losing my right to the floor.

I simply want the issue to have the appropriate amount of debate and dialog. All of us will have the opportunity to vote up or down on any of the amendments anybody wants to offer to this section. But the question before us was, all of a sudden at 11:30 today, without notice, when we had been in negotiations on this language, to bring it to the floor, this Senator feels obligated to make sure this time period is used to bring committee members and colleagues up to speed about the contents of the underlying bill.

Yes.

That is correct.

That is correct. I will give my colleagues from Washington and South Carolina an opportunity to join in this debate and participate because I think it is very important that this issue receive the full attention of Members. As I said at the beginning of this discussion, I do not believe this is an issue--even though a lot of my colleagues would like to classify it as an issue that only affects Washington State, South Carolina, or Idaho perhaps with some impact on Oregon and maybe Georgia, or New York in its commercial facility. I have never thought of this nuclear waste issue as a geographic-specific debate.

Our responsibility as a body is to make sure nuclear waste cleanup happens in a process that the science determines will not be with harm to humans or to the environment. We now have a proposal before us that science says will be harmful, that is not based on sound science, that has not met the test, nor has our approval.

While I am willing to have this debate, I hope my colleagues will use this debate as an opportunity to understand our challenge on nuclear waste cleanup and the tremendous amount of resources that are spent by our Government on that cleanup and the efficiencies that need to happen to make that process go more smoothly than it has in the past.

But I can guarantee to my colleagues that wanting that process to go more smoothly in the future, and wanting it to be more cost effective, does not simply mean coming up with a short-term proposal, a fix that is counter to what existing statute and law is. If we want to have that debate, let's go through the normal committees and have that debate, and let's have the scientists come in and discuss it with us, and let's not end up with a process where we are going to be battling in the courts. I don't think that does any of us any good. Certainly, for us in the State of Washington, with a 1-million-gallon plume heading toward the Columbia River, it doesn't do us any good.

I hope my colleagues will use this opportunity to focus attention not just on the question at hand, of high-level radioactive waste, but I would say the consistency by which the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, South Carolina, and others have banded together in the last year or two in authorizing and appropriations language that has done a good job to make sure the processing of radioactive waste is completed.

I remind my colleagues, this is the first time I think the Department of Energy has successfully picked off a State. At first the underlying language was actually blackmail: We are going to make this change and nuclear waste is going to be reclassified, and if you are going to agree with us, we will give you some money, and if you don't agree with us, we are not cleaning up your waste. That is blackmail. That is what the current language in the DOD authorizing bill is. It is blackmail.

Now, after my colleagues have seen what ludicrous language that is, Senator Graham wants to offer an amendment that will not tie up the funds. But we still remain with the underlying problem, which is the Department of Energy is trying to reclassify highly radioactive waste as low-level ancillary waste and say it can be grouted, that is that cement and sand can be poured on it and somehow, leaving incidental amount of tank waste is a sufficient way to clean up tanks.

I will continue to fight on this issue until Members understand the significant policy change that is before this body.

I ask unanimous consent after the remarks of Senator Inhofe that Senators Murray, Allard, and Hollings be recognized, and that I immediately be recognized after them.

I want to accommodate the Senator from Nevada. I was proposing to accommodate and trade off recognition of the four Members who are present on the floor?

Does the Senator have a question?

The Senator from Nevada--I am happy to yield the floor to the Senator from Nevada.

Does the Senator from Nevada have a question?

The Senator from Washington is happy to entertain a question that would allow the various Members who are here----

Mr. President, this Senator is happy to yield the floor to my colleague to discuss this issue. I want to make it clear that after 30 years of standard policy, they are not willing to just have a few hours of debate and then vote on this significant a change. The underlying Graham amendment does not fix the underlying DOD committee- passed authorization language that allows the Department of Energy to reclassify waste.

That is the key issue at hand. We do not want to leave this bill with this reclassification of highly radioactive waste to an amendment on spent fuel storage tanks to then be grouted over. We need to have the attention of this body, my colleagues who are members of the various committees I mentioned and my colleagues from those States directly affected, although I said it is a policy everybody should be discussing, and the public needs to have an idea and an opportunity to understand that this is a major policy proposal which is being proposed in this underlying bill.

I would have preferred that the Graham amendment not be brought up today, not to this particular issue of the DOD bill being discussed. We are still talking. We hoped we might able to work something out and save our colleagues the time and attention of studying a nuclear waste policy proposal and what level of radioactivity could be sufficiently removed from tanks and what couldn't be. But if my colleagues want to continue to pursue the subject, we are going to continue to pursue and discuss this issue.

With that, I know various Members of both sides of the aisle are waiting, and I will have more to say on this subject as we continue to debate the DOD authorizing bill and continue to debate whether the Graham amendment is sufficient in disposing of the problem that has now been created in the underlying bill in overriding 30 years of law and science about how this country should clean up nuclear waste. I don't believe anybody in America wants to do it on the cheap. We need to give the American public the certainty that this body will not propose major policy changes without hearings, without debate, without committees of jurisdiction having oversight of this policy proposal that is in the Defense authorization bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleagues. I have, this afternoon, the opportunity to respond to being charged as anti-Semitic when I proclaimed the policy of President Bush in the Mideast as not for Iraq or really for democracy in the sense that he is worried about Saddam and democracy. If he were worried about democracy in the Mideast, as we wanted to spread it as a policy, we would have invaded Lebanon, which is half a democracy and has terrorism and terrorists who have been problems to the interests of Israel and the United States.

It is very interesting that on page 231, Richard Clarke, in his book ``Against All Enemies,'' cites the fact that there had not been any terrorism, any evidence or intelligence of Saddam's terrorism against the United States from 1993 to 2003. He says that in the presence of Paul Wolfowitz. He says that in the presence of John McLaughlin of the CIA. In fact, he says: Isn't that right, John? And John says: That is exactly right.

The reason was when they made the attempt on President Bush, Senior, back in 1993, President Clinton ordered a missile strike on Saddam in downtown Baghdad, the intelligence headquarters, and it went right straight down the middle of the headquarters. It was after hours so not a big kill--but Saddam got the message: You monkey around with the United States, a missile will land on your head.

So, in essence, the equation had changed in the Saddam-Iraq/Mideast concerns whereby Saddam was more worried about any threat of the United States against him than the United States was worried about a threat by Saddam against us.

I want to read an article that appeared in the Post and Courier in Charleston on May 6; thereafter, I think in the State newspaper in Columbia a couple days later; and in the Greenville News--all three major newspapers in South Carolina. You will find

that there is no anti-Semitic reference whatsoever in it.

The reason I emphasize that upfront is for the simple reason that you cannot put an op-ed in my hometown paper that is anti-Semitic. We have a very, very proud Jewish community in Charleston. In fact, it is where reform Judaism began. The earliest temple, Kadosh Beth Elohim, is on Hasell Street. I have spoken there several times. I had the pleasure of having that particular temple put on the National Register. This particular Senator, with over 50 years now of public service, has received a strong Jewish vote.

Let me emphasize another thing because the papers are piling on and bringing up again a little difference of opinion I had on the Senate floor with Senator Metzenbaum. It was not really a difference. What had happened was we were discussing a matter, and we referred to each's religion in order to make sure there would not be any misunderstanding or tempers flaring. The distinguished Senator from North Carolina, Mr. Helms, referred to himself as the Baptist lay leader, Senator Danforth as the Episcopal priest. I referred to myself as the Lutheran Senator. And when Senator Metzenbaum came on the floor, I referred to him as the Senator from B'nai B'rith, and he took exception. He thought it was an aspersion. I told him: Wait a minute, I will gladly identify myself as the Senator from B'nai B'rith. I did not mean to hurt his feelings. I apologized at that time but not for the legitimacy and the circumstances of the particular reference.

Now here we go again, some years later. The Senator from Virginia, Mr. George Allen, and I are good friends. Maybe after this particular thing he might feel different, but I know his role as the chairman of the campaign committee. And so I have an article here where Senator Allen denounces Senator Hollings' latest political attack, Senator Hollings' antisemitic, political conspiracy statement. Let me read the statement here from the May 6 Post and Courier, and you be the judge:

With 760 dead in Iraq, over 3,000 maimed for life--home

folks continue to argue why we are in Iraq--and how to get

out.

Now everyone knows what was not the cause. Even President

Bush acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with

9/11. Listing the 45 countries where al-Qaida was operating

on September 11 . . . the State Department did not list Iraq.

They listed 45 countries and at that particular date on September 11, 2001, they did not even list Iraq.

Richard Clarke, in ``Against All Enemies,'' tells how the

United States had not received any threat of terrorism for 10

years from Saddam at the time of our invasion.

On page 231, John McLaughlin of the CIA verifies this to

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. In 1993, President

Clinton responded to Saddam's attempt on the life of

President George H.W. Bush by putting a missile down on

Saddam's intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. Not a big

kill, but Saddam got the message--monkey around with the

United States and a missile lands on his head. Of course

there were no weapons of mass destruction. Israel's

intelligence Mossad knows what's going on in Iraq. They are

the best. They have to know.

Israel's survival depends on knowing. Israel long since

would have taken us to the weapons of mass destruction . . .

Let me divert for a second there. I was here when Israel attacked the nuclear facility in Baghdad during the 1980s. In all candor, when President Bush, on October 7, 2002, said, after all that buildup by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and everybody else, that facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait until the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud, I thought we were attacking for Israel. I thought that they knew about some kind of nuclear development there. And rather than getting them in further trouble with the United Nations and the Arab world, that its best friend, the United States, would knock it out for them. That is why I voted for it. I got misled. Our attack on Iraq, the invasion of Iraq is a bad mistake. I will get into that later. But let me read even further:

. . . if there were any [weapons of mass destruction] or if

they had been removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a

sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to

secure Israel.

Led by Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer,

for years there had been a domino school of thought that the

way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in

the area. Wolfowitz wrote: ``The United States may not be

able to lead countries through the door of democracy, but

where that door is locked shut by a totalitarian deadbolt,

American power may be the only way to open it up.''

Namely, invasion. That is Wolfowitz talking.

And on another occasion: Iraq as ``the first Arab democracy

. . . would cast a very large shadow, starting with Syria and

Iran but across the whole Arab world.'' Three weeks before

the invasion, President Bush stated: ``A new regime in Iraq

would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example for freedom

for other nations in the region.''

I referred to those three gentlemen because I know them well. They are brilliant. I have been for years associated one way or the other with each of them. I read Charles Krauthammer. I wish I could write like he can. With respect to Richard Perle, he was sort of our authority in the cold war, best friend of Scoop Jackson. That is how I met him 38 years ago almost. I followed him and I followed his advice, and that is in large measure how we prevailed in the cold war. So I have the highest respect for Richard Perle.

And, of course, the other gentleman, Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Wolfowitz, I met him out in Indonesia when he was Ambassador. He came back. We were good friends. He was looking around for a position, and I know I offered him one--in fact, we might go to the records and find temporarily he might have been on my payroll for a few weeks. But I have always had the highest regard for Paul Wolfowitz.

That is why I referred to him. I had their sayings and everything else. But let me go, diverting for a minute, right to the Project For The New American Century. I have a letter that was written on May 29, 1998, to Newt Gingrich, the Speaker, Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader. These are the gentlemen who said this:

We would use U.S. and allied military power to provide

protection for liberating areas in northern and southern

Iraq, and we should establish and maintain a strong U.S.

military presence in the region and be prepared to use that

force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf and, if

necessary, to help remove Saddam from power.

And that is signed by--and I want everybody to remember these names-- Elliot Abrams, William J. Bennett, Jeffrey Bergner, John R. Bolton, Paula Dobriansky, Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Peter Rodman, Donald Rumsfeld, William Schneider, Jr., Vin Weber, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Robert B. Zoellick. There is a studied school of thought of the best way to secure Israel. We have been going for years back and forth with every particular administration, you can see where we are now.

But in any event, the better way to do it is go right in and establish our predominance in Iraq and then, as they say, and I have different articles here I could refer to, next is Iran and then Syria. And it is the domino theory, and they genuinely believe it. I differ. I think, frankly, we have caused more terrorism than we have gotten rid of. That is my Israel policy. You can't have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here. I have followed them mostly in the main, but I have also resisted signing certain letters from time to time, to give the poor President a chance.

I can tell you no President takes office--I don't care whether it is a Republican or a Democrat--that all of a sudden AIPAC will tell him exactly what the policy is, and Senators and members of Congress ought to sign letters. I read those carefully and I have joined in most of them. On some I have held back. I have my own idea and my own policy. I have stated it categorically.

The way to really get peace is not militarily. You cannot kill an idea militarily. I was delighted the other day when General Myers appeared before our Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and he said that we will not win militarily in Iraq. He didn't say we are going to get defeated militarily but that you can't win militarily in Iraq.

Not until I complete this thought. Time is running out on me.

The papers are the ones that pointed out Wolfowitz, Pearle, and Charles Krauthammer were of the Jewish faith. They are the ones who brought all this Semitism in there. I can tell you that right now, I didn't have that in mind. I had my friends in mind and I followed them. We had this in the late 1990s

under President Clinton, when we passed a resolution that we ought to have Saddam removed from power, have a regime change. I was wondering how it went. I had to find my old file--on this Project For The New American Century.

Now, going back to my article: ``every President since 1947 has made a futile attempt to help Israel negotiate peace. But no leadership has surfaced amongst the Palestinians that can make a binding agreement. President Bush realized his chances at negotiation were no better. He came to office imbued with one thought.''

Without losing my right to the floor, I will yield.

Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

Mr. President, let me again read from my article:

President Bush came to office imbued with one thought: reelection.

I say that advisedly. I have been up here with eight Presidents. We have had support of all eight Presidents. Yes, I supported the President on this Iraq resolution, but I was misled. There weren't any weapons, or any terrorism, or al-Qaida. This is the reason we went to war. He had one thought in mind, and that was reelection. I say that about President Bush. He is a delightful fella, a wonderful campaigner, but he loves campaigning. You cannot get him in the White House or catch him there, hardly. He doesn't work on these problems at all.

I have worked with all of the Presidents. I know the leadership goes to the White House and tries to work with him. He is interested in one thing, and that is to be out campaigning. So he had one thought in mind, and that was reelection.

Again, let me read: Bush thought tax cuts would hold his crowd together and that spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.

Is there anything wrong with referring to the Jewish vote? Good gosh, every 1 of us of the 100, with pollsters and all, refer to the Jewish vote. That is not anti-Semitic. It is appreciating them. We campaigned for it.

I just read about President Bush's appearance before the AIPAC. He confirmed his support of the Jewish vote, referring to adopting Ariel Sharon's policy, and the dickens with the 1967 borders, the heck with negotiating the return of refugees, the heck with the settlements he had objected to originally. They had those borders, Resolution No. 242--no, no, President Bush said: I am going along with Sharon, and he was going to get that and he got the wonderful reception he got with the Jewish vote. There is nothing like politicizing or a conspiracy, as my friend from Virginia, Senator Allen, says--that it is an anti- Semitic, political, conspiracy statement.

That is not a conspiracy. That is the policy. I didn't like to keep it a secret, maybe; but I can tell you now, I will challenge any 1 of the other 99 Senators to tell us why we are in Iraq, other than what this policy is here. It is an adopted policy, a domino theory of The Project For The New American Century.

Everybody knows it because we want to secure our friend, Israel. If we can get in there and take it in 7 days, as Paul Wolfowitz says, then we would get rid of Saddam, and when we got rid of Saddam, now all they can do is fall back and say: Aren't you getting rid of Saddam?

Let me get to that point. What happens is, they say he is a monster. We continued to give him aid after he gassed his own people and everything else of that kind. George Herbert Walker Bush said in his book All The Best in 1999, never commit American GIs into an unwinnable urban guerrilla war and lose the support of the Arab world, lose their friendship and support. That is a general rephrasing of it.

The point is, my authority is the President's daddy. I want everybody to know that. I don't apologize for this column. I want them to apologize to me for talking about anti-Semitism. They are not getting by with it. I will come down here every day--I have nothing else to do--and we will talk about it and find out what the policy is.

Let me go back to this particular column:

But George Bush, as stated by former Treasury Secretary

Paul O'Neill and others, started laying the groundwork to

invade Iraq days before the Inauguration.

There is no question, he got a briefing. That was the first thing he wanted out of former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen. Then the nominee, about to take the oath of office as President of the United States, wanted to be briefed on Iraq. They had this policy in mind coming to town. Mr. President, 9/11 had nothing to do with it, and we all know it now. We have to understand it because that is the only way really to help Israel and get us out of the soup. Everybody is worrying about Iraq. We better worry about Israel because we certainly have put her in terrible jeopardy with this particular initiative.

Without any Iraq connection to 9/11, within weeks President

Bush had the Pentagon outlining a plan to invade Iraq. He was

determined. President Bush thought taking Iraq would be easy.

Wolfowitz said it would take only 7 days. Vice President

Cheney believed that we would be greeted as liberators, but

Cheney's man, Chalabi, made a mess of de-Baathification of

Iraq by dismissing Republican Guard leadership and Sunni

leaders who soon joined with the insurgents.

Worst of all, we tried to secure Iraq with too few troops.

In 1966 in South Vietnam, with a population of 16 million,

General William C. Westmoreland, with 535,000 U.S. troops,

was still asking for more troops. In Iraq, with a population

of 25 million, General John Abizaid, with only 135,000

troops, can barely secure the troops, much less the country.

If the troops are there to fight, there are too few. If they

are there to die, there are too many. To secure Iraq we need

more troops, at least 100,000 more. The only way to get the

United Nations back in Iraq is to make the country secure.

Once back, the French, Germans, and others will join with the

U.N. to take over.

With President Bush's domino policy in the Mideast gone

awry, he can't keep shouting ``Terrorism war.'' Terrorism is

a method, not a war. We don't call the Crimean war, with the

charge of the light brigade, the cavalry war, or World War II

the blitzkrieg war. There is terrorism in Northern Ireland,

there is terrorism in India, and in Pakistan. In the Mideast,

terrorism is a separate problem, to be defeated by diplomacy

and negotiation, not militarily.

Here, might does not make right. Right makes might. Acting

militarily we have created more terrorism than we have

eliminated.

The title of this article is ``Bush's failed Mideast policy is creating more terrorism, `` and, I could add, jeopardizing the security of Israel.

They say: He talks like a big fan of Israel. I am. I have a 38-year track record. I will never forget some 34 years ago meeting with David Ben-Gurion. He talked about little Israel, less than 3 million at that time in a sea of 100 million.

Let's say Israel has 5 million people there now, but there are 150 million Muslims surrounding it. If you punch the particular buzzer I did with Yitzhak Rabin 1 day down on the Negev to scramble the air force, I think it was 21 seconds they were up in the air, and

in a minute's time, they were outside over Jordan.

Militarily, Israel is a veritable aircraft carrier. You can hardly fly and you are out of the country, and everybody has to understand that. You cannot play the numbers game Sharon plays. He thinks he can do it militarily.

I want to remind you, it was in that 6-day war--the book is ``Six Days of War'' by Michael Oren. Look on page 151, and Major Ariel Sharon says: Look, we are going to decimate the Egyptian army and you will not hear from Egypt again for several generations. And Levi Eshkol, the Prime Minister, on page 152 says: ``Militarily victory decides nothing. The Arabs will still be here.''

That is my theme. I have watched it over the years. You have to learn not to kill together, but to live together. The finest piece I ever read was right in this morning's paper. There is still hope. I refer to an article: ``Israeli Arabs Exalting in a Rare Triumph.''

There are a million Israeli Arabs. They won a soccer match in Tel Aviv. The majority of the team was of Israeli heritage, and they held an Israeli flag, if you can imagine that in the political United States of America. They are living together. Every Prime Minister since David Ben-Gurion has realized that fact: that they have to learn to live together. They all moved, and they almost had it under Ehud Barak and President Clinton. Arafat proved he did not want peace. He did not accept it. That was our one chance.

Unfortunately, rather than working on that one chance and continuing, Ariel Sharon went in their face at Temple Mount, the intifada started, and he has been killing 10 to 1. He plays the numbers game, almost like we had in Vietnam. He thinks he can eliminate by moving the ball some, getting some more settlements, bulldozing a house, but he is creating terrorism.

I had a headline the other day. When I saw it, I showed it to my staff. I said: You all come in here, I want to ask you something. ``Israel plans to destroy more Gaza dwellings.'' You see that headline? I asked staff members: Suppose they bulldoze your daddy's home. Wouldn't you want to cut their throat?

They said: In a New York minute.

How do you create terrorists? Where is the front line in the so- called war on terrorism? I learned the answer recently on a trip I was on with the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We talked for over an hour with the King of Jordan. He finally cautioned at the very end, when we stood up, he said: You have to settle this Israel-Palestine question. That is the only way to get on top of this. We went over to Kuwait to the Prime Minister when he got through, he said: You have to settle the Israel-Palestine situation.

I will quote Mr. Musharraf, the President of Pakistan. When we got there, he cautioned if you can settle the Israel-Palestine question, terrorism will disappear around the world.

Then we came in on a Friday evening to make a little courtesy call with the French. The distinguished Senator from Virginia with Lafayette--and I have slept in Lafayette's bed over there in Richmond, VA, and I helped with that particular thing because I believe and remember the French help. I will never forget--everybody is going to the 60th anniversary of D-Day, but I was at the 50th anniversary and we went over to Ste-Mere-Eglise, where a major, who was a Citadel graduate, had broken through the line and saved us from having to leave the beachhead and go back to England. They made a movie of it. A shell burst killed him. They laid him down on their side. He is buried on the side of the chapel.

We went to the services. We had talks there. This little old lady came. She was about 80 years old, walking with a cane. I was listening to the mayor, and she pulled my jacket and she said: Thank you, Yank. If you had not come we would be goose-stepping.

I turned to her and I said, thank you, madam, because if you had not come, we would still be a colony.

The majority of the troops on the field at Yorktown with the surrender of Cornwallis were French troops. We had French troops that helped us get this so-called freedom. All this anti-French stuff, do not give me french fries and everything else, is crazy.

I was proud to appear with the Senator from Virginia. But Chirac, he said, look, we have to have western solidarity. We have to work together now and we have to watch this competition from China in the Far East, and we in the western world have to stick together. He said he wanted to help in Iraq, but he needed a U.N. resolution to cover. He said what we have to do is do something about Israel and Palestine.

I said, what would you do?

He said, I would put a peacekeeping force.

I said, would French troops come?

He said, French troops would come immediately. We would be part of it and we would separate them from killing each other every day.

My position is, and I believe in this particular policy as strongly as I know how, might does not make right, but right makes might. We have lost our evenhanded posture and reputation in the Mideast. We are in worse off shape with Israel, our principal interest in the gulf.

Sharon has not helped us at all. We see him going back and forth. They say, oh, no, it is negotiation. But we are throwing over the United States-Israel policy of some 35 years insofar as negotiating the settlements and the refugees. We are saying forget about all of that, let Sharon keep bulldozing them. Now in the morning paper on the front page one sees the killing of children, they are saying, we are defending Israel. That is the U.S. policy. That is not just Israel's policy.

They are coming in there with U.S. equipment, U.S. gun helicopters, U.S. tanks that are bulldozing. That is our policy. That is the reason for 9/11 and Osama. He said, I do not like American troops in Saudi Arabia, get the infidel out. That is why they went right into that thing. Where do you think we get all this talk about hate America? I do not buy that stuff. I have traveled the world. They love Americans.

Recently we met with the Ambassadors of Germany and France, and Britain in our policy committee and they said the young people are disillusioned. They always look to the United States for the moral position and taking and defending that particular position. They do not look there anymore.

We are losing the terrorism war because we thought we could do it militarily under the domino policy of President Bush, going into Iraq. That is my point. That is not anti-Semite or whatever they say in here about people's faith and ethnicity. I never referred to any faith. I should have added those other names from the Project For The New American Century, but I picked out the names I had quotes for. And for space, I left other things out.

Mr. President, on May 12 of this year, I had printed in the Record the article in its entirety.

I diverted from the reading of the article several times, so for the sake of accuracy I wanted the whole article printed.

This particular op-ed piece appeared in the Post and Courier. Never would they have thought, having read it, if it was anti-Semitic, that they would have ever put it in there. Nor would the Knight Ridder newspapers in Columbia, SC. Nor would the Metro Media newspapers in Greenville, SC. But the Anti-Defamation League picked it up and now they have given it to my good friend, Senator Allen of Virginia. I have his particular admonition how I am anti-Semitic and I cannot let that stay there.

My staff knew I was coming over and waiting my turn in order to talk under the Pastore rule. I know I am as vitally interested as anybody can be about this issue. Our distinguished colleague from Washington, Senator Cantwell, knows this subject backward and forward.

The reason I had not known or gotten all fired up is I have been doing some other work and South Carolina has already looked to me for everything at that Savannah River plant. I am on the Energy Appropriations Subcommittee and we have gotten all the money--do not worry about money. This is a policy of nuclear waste disposal, high- level waste, being reclassified under an end-around-end deal of trying to make it low-level waste and, as Senator Cantwell says, pouring in some sand and concrete on top of it. The scientists say, watch out, the remains in these tanks are 50 percent as deadly and dangerous as the entire tank container.

Back to Saddam, everybody is glad we have gotten rid of Saddam, but we can see what has happened. There is an old saying we learned in World War II that no matter how well the gun is aimed, if the recoil is going to kill the gun crew, you do not fire.

Did this White House and administration ever think of the recoil? It severely injured the gun crew. Yes, ordinarily to get rid of Saddam, like they put a missile on the intelligence head, they could have put a missile on him any time they wanted, but they did not want to do that. They wanted the domino policy to ensue.

No, no, getting rid of Saddam was not worth almost 800 dead GIs and over 3,500 maimed for life. Some say every time we want to criticize the policy, we are weakening the GIs. I am strengthening the GIs. I said let's get enough in there so they can secure themselves. We have 135,000 now. A third of those are guarding the other third, and that means leaving a third, 35,000 or 40,000 troops, running out like a fire drill to any particular trouble and coming back in and eating. I have been there.

You can see it in Rafah. They are building a big old thing like in Kosovo, where we hunker down and act like we are in charge of Kosovo. The Albanians are in charge of Kosovo.

You can't force-feed democracy. It has to come from within. We helped liberate Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, 60-some years ago, and Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia have not opted for democracy, nor has Libya, nor has Egypt, nor has Lebanon, nor has Syria, nor has Iraq, nor has Iran, nor has Afghanistan, nor has Pakistan, nor has Jordan, nor has Yemen, nor has Aden, nor has Saudi Arabia, nor has the organization of Arab states.

Come on. So we have to go out and not speak sense with respect to policy, and when you want to talk about policy, they say it is anti- Semitic. Well, come on the floor, let's debate it. Because my friend from Virginia admonishes me. Referring to me he says, ``I suggest he should learn from history before making accusations.'' I didn't make any accusations. I stated facts. That is their policy. That is not my policy.

Mind you me, when we went into Iraq, the only people in the world who favored that policy were the people of the United States and the people of Israel. The people of Jordan, Iraq, Britain, Spain, Poland, Italy, Japan, everywhere around the world said you just don't invade a sovereign country no matter how bad the rascal is. We have Kim Jong of North Korea--he has weapons of mass destruction, but we don't do anything there.

Don't give me this about how we saved this and we did this or did that. We have to sort of learn that the front line now is not the Pentagon but the State Department. We have to work through diplomacy. We live in a global economy and a global world. That is only going to come about economically, politically, diplomatically, and by negotiations.

The United States, until this invasion and this domino policy for Israel--don't tell me it is otherwise, about spreading democracy. They know what they are talking about. They are insisting on it. It is not a Jewish policy or a Semite policy. It is their domino policy. That is exactly what it is. But they know how to make you tuck tail and run. Not the Senator from South Carolina. We don't run, we don't win, we are not right, we are wrong a lot of times, but I have thought this out as thoroughly as I know how, and it worries me that here we are.

I said after we got into that thing in Vietnam with the Gulf of Tonkin--I came there at that particular time, in 1966, went to Vietnam when we were under fire three times--actually over into Cambodia before and that kind of thing. We finally came up with McNamara writing a book saying he was wrong.

I'll never forget, McNamara comes out to Allie Richenberg near Saint Albans to get his tennis lesson at 7 o'clock, and Bob Mcnamara turned to Allie and said, ``Allie, what do you think about my book?'' He said, ``It's as bad as your backhand. You should not have written it.''

But we had to wait 20 years for that one, and we killed 58,000 Americans. Now we have killed almost 800, maimed for life thousands of others. Are we going to just continue on?

What would the Senator from South Carolina do if I were king for a day? Yes, I would put the troops in to get security, and I would step up the election. I can tell you right now, I have run for all kind of offices, 20-some statewide offices and campaigns. But don't put me in on that temporary coalition. That fellow, El Baradei, who is running around the United Nations to get a temporary coalition or government to turn power over to on June 30--don't put me in that. I immediately have to repudiate the United States, that I am not a stooge for the United States. We just have our fingers crossed that we can hold law and order so we can have an election. But don't wait until 2005, or December; by September 30, let's get that election going.

Let's realize we are in real trouble. Saudi Arabia is in trouble. Israel is in trouble. The United States is in trouble. I am going to state what I believe to be the fact. In fact, I believe it very strongly. They just are whistling by on account of the pressures that we get politically. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.

It was a mistake like Vietnam. We got misled with the Gulf of Tonkin, we got misled here, and we are in that quagmire. ``Municipal guerrilla war and a quagmire,'' that says George Herbert Walker Bush. I will end on my authority--President George Herbert Walker Bush said:

Never commit U.S. troops into an unwinnable urban guerrilla

war and turn off the Arab world.

Look in that book of his and you will see exactly what I am talking about. He is not anti-Semitic. He is sensible. He didn't go in.

Yes, Colin Powell, General Powell said if you are going in, let's have enough troops. They tried to do it on the cheap. They were ill advised. My friend Paul Wolfowitz said you will do it in 7 days. Come on. And they let the Republican Guard back into the city of Baghdad and into the Sunni triangle, and the next thing you know, when Chalabi, who has now been demoted or set aside--he did away with their leadership and everything, so they got turned off and they buddied up with the insurgents, and now we have hell on our hands. Everybody knows that.

So it has been ill prepared, ill advised, and ill administered. The entire thing is a mess. Don't give me ``support the troops, support the troops.'' I have been with troops, about 3 years in combat, so don't tell me about troops. I have always supported the troops.

You ask how many Senators have gotten a Woodward Award from the U.S. Army. They don't give that out lightly. I have been with every Secretary of Defense until this one, and I think he is brilliant, but I think he has made a mistake going along with this domino policy. We have it now out on the table, and we will all talk about it, and we will be around and ready to debate it.

I appreciate the colleagues yielding to me. I wish I had all the time to put all these articles in.

I want to thank--and I am going to sit here and support my friend from Washington. She has done a magnificent job stating what the issue is.

It is simply under the auspices of an accelerated disposal plan going around end to reclassify--and it is around end. I had not heard anything about it. I have been handling everything at Savannah River for 30 some years. I called up the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control--DHEC--and they were adamantly opposed and gave me the brief they signed a few weeks ago adamantly opposing it, with the assistant attorney general's name on it. They say this is DHEC policy. I talked to two members of DHEC and they said it was never brought up at their meetings. They do not know anything about it.

So, yes, it is a little rider for one special State that is injurious not only to the State itself--I say that advisedly--but also to the United States.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today along with my colleague Senator Coleman to introduce the Internet Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act also called the ``Ryan Haight Act'', a bill which is vital to protect the safety of Americans who choose to purchase their prescription drugs legally over the Internet.

This legislation is necessary because of a growing problem of illegal prescription drug diversion and abuse of prescription drugs. Coupled with the ease of access to the Internet, it has led to an environment where illegitimate pharmacy websites can bypass traditional regulations and established safeguards for the sale of prescription drugs. Internet websites that allow consumers to obtain prescription drugs without the existence of a bona fide physician-patient relationship pose an immediate threat to public health and safety.

To address this problem, the Internet Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act makes several critical steps to ensure safety and to assist regulatory authorities in shutting down ``rogue'' Internet pharmacies.

First, this bill establishes disclosure standards for Internet pharmacies.

Second, this bill prohibits the dispensing or sale of a prescription drug based solely on communications via the Internet such as the completion of an online medical questionnaire.

Third, it allows a State Attorney General to bring a civil action in a federal district court to enjoin a pharmacy operation and to enforce compliance with the provisions of this law.

Under this bill, for a domestic website to sell prescription drugs legally, the website would have to display identifying information such as the names, addresses, and medical licensing information for pharmacists and physicians associated with the website.

In addition, if a person wants to use the Internet to purchase their prescription drugs he or she will not be prohibited from doing so under this bill but, in order to do so, must already have a prescription for the drug that is valid in the United States prior to making the Internet purchase.

Reliance on the Internet for public health purposes and the expansion of telemedicine, particularly in rural areas, make it essential that there be at the very least a minimum standard for what qualifies as an acceptable medical relationship between patients and their physicians.

According to the American Medical Association, a health care practitioner who offers a prescription for a patient he or she has never seen before, based solely on an online questionnaire, generally does not meet the appropriate medical standard of care.

Let me illustrate the situation facing our country today. If a physician's office prescribed and dispensed prescription drugs the same way Internet pharmacies currently can and do, it would look something like this: A physician opens a physical office, asks a patient to fill out a medical history questionnaire in the lobby and give his or her credit card information to the office manager. There is no nurse, and therefore no one to take the patients' height, weight, blood pressure, verify his or her medical history, and so forth and no one to answer the patient's questions regarding their health.

The questionnaire is then slipped through a hole in the window; the office manager takes it to the physician, or person acting as the physician, who then writes the prescription and hands it to the pharmacist, or person acting as the pharmacist, in the next room. Once the patient signs his credit card, he is on his way out the door, drugs in hand.

No examination is performed, no questions asked, and no verification or clarification of the answers provided on the medical history questionnaire.

This illustration is not an exaggeration. It occurs every day all across the United States. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy estimates

that there are around 500 identifiable rogue pharmacy websites operating on the Internet.

According to the Federation of State Medical Boards, approximately 29 states and the District of Columbia either have laws or medical board initiatives addressing Internet medical practice. Of the other 21 States, 13 have medical or osteopathic medical boards that have taken disciplinary action against a physician for prescribing medication online.

Many States have already enacted laws defining acceptable practices for qualifying medical relationships between doctors and patients and this bill would not affect any existing State laws.

For example, California law was changed in 2000 to say:

No person or entity may prescribe, dispense, or furnish, or

cause to be prescribed, dispensed, or furnished dangerous

drugs or dangerous devices [defined as any drug or device

unsafe for self-use] on the Internet for delivery to any

person in this state, without a good faith prior examination

and medical indication . . .

I believe California's law is a perfect example of why this legislation is needed. The law only applies to persons living in California. As we all know, however, the Internet is not bound by State or even country borders.

This legislation makes a critical step forward by providing additional authority for State Attorneys General to file an injunction in Federal court to shut down an Internet site operating in another State that violates the provisions in the bill.

Under current law, in order to close down an Internet website selling prescription drugs prosecutors must take enforcement actions in every State where the Internet pharmacy operates, requiring a tremendous amount of resources in an environment where the location of the website is difficult, if not impossible, to determine or keep track of.

This bill will allow a State Attorney General to bring a civil action in a Federal district court to enjoin a pharmacy operation and to enforce compliance with the provisions of the law in every jurisdiction where the pharmacy is operating.

While this legislation pertains to domestic Internet pharmacies, the practice of international pharmacies selling low-cost drugs to U.S. consumers who have valid prescriptions from their doctors deserves to be discussed and debated on the Senate floor. It is my hope that the Senate will act this year on prescription drug importation legislation.

In closing, I want to share with you the story of Ryan T. Haight of La Mesa, CA in whose memory this bill is named.

Ryan was an 18-year old honor student from La Mesa, CA, when he died in his home on February 12, 2001. His parents found a bottle of Vicodin in his room with a label from an out-of-state pharmacy.

It turns out that Ryan had been ordering addictive drugs online and paying with a debit card his parents gave him to buy baseball cards on eBay.

Without a physical exam or his parents' consent, Ryan had been obtaining controlled substances, some from an Internet site in Oklahoma. It only took a few months before Ryan's life was ended by an overdose on a cocktail of painkillers.

Ryan's story and others like it force us to ask why anyone in the U.S. would be able to access such highly addictive and dangerous drugs over the Internet with such ease?

Why was there no physician or pharmacist on the other end of this teenager's computer verifying his age, his medical history and that there was a valid prescription?

That is why I support this legislation. It makes sensible requirements of Internet pharmacy websites that will not impact access to convenient, oftentimes cost-saving drugs.

With simple disclosure requirements for Internet sites such as names, addresses and medical or pharmacy licensing information, patients will be better off and state medical and pharmacy boards can ensure that pharmacists and doctors are properly licensed.

Lastly, this bill will give State Attorneys General the authority they need to shut down rogue Internet pharmacies operating in other States. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. President, I rise to introduce, along with my colleague, Senator Bill Nelson, the Increasing Notice of Foreign Outsourcing Act, or the INFO Act. This legislation will help safeguard Americans' most important and sensitive personal information when it is sent abroad for processing to countries that may have lax security and privacy standards.

The bill will ensure that American companies notify consumers of a business's outsourcing practices. It will require American companies to certify the adequacy of their outsourcing protections. And it will require American companies to hold their foreign business partners accountable for protecting Americans' data.

In order to protect the information of Americans that is now vulnerable abroad, this bill calls for the following key safeguards:

First, the bill requires American health and financial companies to notify consumers when sending their information abroad, and to certify the safety of the overseas processing. We drafted provisions carefully to minimize the burden on businesses, so they will expand on privacy disclosures that companies already make under Federal law.

Second, American companies processing health or financial data must include clauses in contracts with their foreign partners to allow audits of their foreign information processors and to enforce American privacy standards.

Third, the bill creates a system to inform American companies and Federal regulators of any security breaches involving American health or financial information at facilities operated outside the United States.

And fourth, the bill gives Americans the right to have workers at foreign call centers disclose where they are calling from.

The bill also gives Federal agencies the power to enforce these provisions. It is important to emphasize that this bill is drafted to minimize the burdens on businesses, by expanding on existing privacy data and security laws.

While many are concerned about how outsourcing abroad hurts American workers, outsourcing also poses risks to the security and privacy of American consumers' personal data. The recent wave of international outsourcing means that we are flooding the entire world with our most sensitive information.

Once sent abroad, the information is at risk because our Federal laws do not apply to foreign companies operating overseas. Another reason is because many foreign countries have far weaker security laws than our own. For instance, India still has no laws to protect personal and private data. And still another reason is because it is extremely difficult for Americans to use foreign courts to sue foreign companies that misuse American data.

These factors leave the most intimate details of the lives of uncountable Americans vulnerable to lax security and to malicious identity thieves.

And there is even more at stake. Information outsourcing poses a direct risk to national security. We are painfully aware that some people want to steal the identity of individual Americans in order to evade our homeland defenses and harm us all.

International information outsourcing has skyrocketed in recent years. Consider the following:

Tax returns for about 200,000 Americans were prepared in India this year. To put this number in context, India workers processed only about 1,000 U.S. tax returns 2 years ago. Tax returns have Americans' names, Social Security numbers, income, employers, addresses, and other details.

The American Association of Medical Transcription estimates that 10 percent of all medical transcription of doctors' notes is being done abroad.

An executive from Trans Union, one of the major credit agencies in the United States, told The San Francisco Chronicle that:

A hundred percent of our mail regarding customer disputes

is going to go to India at some point.

If anyone doubts the risk that international outsourcing poses to Americans, consider these incidents:

Recently, a low-paid transcriber in Pakistan was working as a subcontractor to the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. That foreign worker threatened to post confidential patient information on the Internet unless the university coaxed her boss into paying some of her bills.

Three weeks later, a strikingly similar incident occurred with a worker in Bangalore, India.

In another incident, in Noida, India, an employee working at a call center used an American's credit card information to buy electronics equipment from Sony.

Also in India, there is a burgeoning black market in personal identity information. According to one report, stolen names, addresses, phone numbers, the bank a person has an account with, and even bank account numbers are sold on the streets for mere pennies.

These are just a few incidents. No one knows how many other times workers have done similar things. And that is a big part of the problem. It is not merely that Americans' identities are vulnerable when sent abroad. The problem is that American companies obscure how much outsourcing they do, and when they are doing it.

For example, according to the San Jose Mercury News, a worker at a call center dealing with State benefits refused to identify his location. The supervisor, when she picked up the call, refused to say anything more than that she worked for Citicorp.

In essence, the problem of obscurity is so bad that we can list only a few incidents reported by the media. How many security breaches have taken place? Have consumers been informed when their information is abroad and at risk? How much money has this cost consumers? We don't know.

And so far, American regulatory agencies have been unable to say despite their oversight of these industries. And American companies have stayed mum. We need to break the silence.

The fact is, our Government is simply not doing enough to protect consumers. Earlier this month I received a letter from John D. Hawke, Jr., who is the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency. He heads one of the agencies that regulates U.S. financial institutions and banks.

Mr. Hawke wrote to me that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, known as the OCC, does not directly regulate foreign contractors that work for U.S. banks. Specifically, he wrote:

[T]he OCC focuses its supervisory reviews regarding foreign

servicing relationships on whether the serviced banks have

adequate procedures in place. . . .

That means the OCC is focusing on the American companies, not the foreign ones.

I also learned from the OCC that it already suggests certain safeguards for American banks to use when they hire foreign information processors. The OCC asks U.S. banks to use contract provisions to make sure that foreign companies use secure methods to process data, and to let the U.S. companies audit the foreign companies.

But the OCC only suggests that companies adopt these safeguards. The legislation we are introducing today would take safeguards like the OCC's a step further, and make them mandatory.

Now is the time to act. We know that there are criminal syndicates, such as in Nigeria, that have fraudulently obtained bank information to steal untold fortunes. We can hardly imagine the damage such organizations can do with a vast new source of sensitive financial data from international information outsourcing.

In short, this bill accomplishes four goals crucial to protecting Americans' sensitive data sent abroad. It requires companies to give notice that they send consumers' sensitive data abroad. It ensures that U.S. companies can audit their foreign partners, and impose U.S. privacy standards on them. It establishes a system to ensure that foreign and U.S. companies will report security breaches to the U.S. Government. And it allows American consumers to demand to know where foreign call centers are located.

This bill helps to protect outsourced information while minimizing burdens on American businesses. I urge my colleagues to join us in this effort.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Peace Corps Volunteers Health, Safety, and Security Act of 2004 be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I join our colleague from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, to introduce a bill

designed to help protect consumers--especially children--from the dangers of tobacco. Simply, our bill would finally give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority it needs to effectively regulate the manufacture and sale of tobacco products.

I say finally, because there are some tobacco proponents who would have you believe that the Master Settlement Agreement, which was signed in 1998 by 46 States, resolved the issue of youth tobacco use by imposing advertising restrictions.

I say finally, because my colleagues--first Senator McCain, then Senator Frist, then Senator Gregg, and then Senator Kennedy and I--have been seeking FDA regulation of tobacco products since the mid to late 1990's.

And, I say finally, because the bill that we are introducing today is the product of long and hard discussions and negotiations that I have had with Senator Kennedy and public interest groups and industry. Our bill has the support of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. Our bill has the support of Philip Morris. Our bill has the support of the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, and the American Cancer Association. It is a bill that I am proud of, that is worthy of the Senate's consideration, and that will provide the FDA--finally-- with strong and effective authority over the regulation of tobacco products.

I realize full well that tobacco users and non-users, alike, recognize and understand that tobacco products are hazardous to their health. We all know that smoking is not a healthy habit. But, that's an obvious point in comparison to the fact that right now, many consumers, including smokers, are surprised to learn that no Federal agency has the authority to require tobacco companies to list the ingredients that are in their products--things like trace amounts of arsenic, formaldehyde, and ammonia. And, no Federal agency has the authority to inspect tobacco manufacturers--how the cigarette and smokeless tobacco products are made, whether the manufacturers' machines and equipment are clean, etc.

While simply listing the ingredients, toxic as they may be, might not seem like much to some, think of it this way: Current law makes sure we know what's in products designed to help people quit smoking, like ``the patch'' or Nicorette gum, but not the very products that get people addicted in the first place--the cigarettes. That is absolutely absurd!

Think about this: Right now, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires Philip Morris/Altria to print the ingredients in its Kraft ``Macaroni and Cheese,'' but not the ingredients in its cigarettes--a product that contributes to the deaths of more than 440,000 people a year.

Right now, the FDA requires Philip Morris-owned Nabisco to print the ingredients contained in ``Oreo Cookies'' and ``Ritz Crackers,'' but not the ingredients in its cigarettes--even though cigarettes cause one-third of all cancer deaths and 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. It is unfathomable to me that we would require the listing of ingredients on these products, yet not require the listing of ingredients for one of the leading causes of death and disease.

Right now, the FDA requires the printed ingredients for chewing gum, lipstick, bottled water, and ice cream, but not for cigarettes--a product that causes 20% of all heart disease deaths and is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.

Think about this: If a company wants to market a food product as ``fat-free'' or ``reduced-fat'' or ``lite,'' that company is required to meet certain standards regarding the number of calories or the amount of fat grams in that product. Yet, cigarette companies can call a cigarette a ``light'' or ``mild'' and not reveal a thing about the amount of tar or nicotine or arsenic in that supposedly ``light'' cigarette.

Not having access to all the information about this deadly product just makes no sense, and it is something that needs to change. By introducing this bill, we are finally saying that we are not going to let tobacco manufacturers have free reign over their markets and consumers any more.

Today, we are taking a step toward making sure the public gets adequate information about whether to continue to smoke or even to start smoking in the first place. With this bill, we are not just saying ``buyer beware.'' We are saying ``tobacco companies be honest.'' We are saying ``tobacco companies stop marketing to innocent children.'' We are saying ``tobacco companies tell consumers about what they are really buying.''

The legislation that Senator Kennedy and I are introducing would do just that.

One of the most dramatic changes our bill makes is that tobacco products will now have to be approved before they reach consumer hands. It just makes sense that tobacco products should not be able to imply that they may be safer or less harmful to consumers because they use descriptors such as ``light'' or ``mild'' or ``low'' to characterize the level of a substance in a product. The National Cancer Institute has found that many smokers mistakenly believe that ``low tar'' and ``light'' cigarettes cause fewer health problems than other cigarettes. Our bill would require specific approval by the FDA to use those words, so that consumers could be informed.

For the first time ever, all new tobacco products entering the market would have to be approved by the FDA. Obviously, we already know that smoking is a health risk. But, what we don't know about is the harm caused by or what adverse health effects are created by the other ingredients in tobacco products or by how the tobacco is burned. There are tobacco products on the market that are not conventional cigarettes. They have carbon filters running down the center of them. They are sophisticated products that burn tobacco differently, that affect the body differently, and that may cause people to smoke them differently.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, in an October article of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, ``the only proven method to reduce tobacco-related cancer risk is to stop smoking.'' Yet, often times, people cannot quit. It is very difficult to quit ingesting an addictive product. People are addicted to the nicotine in the tobacco product and are just simply unable to quit using it. So, tobacco companies have responded by developing and marketing tobacco products that purport to be ``reduced-risk'' or ``safer.''

Take, for example, a person who smokes Marlboro cigarettes--just plain Marlboro cigarettes, the ones in the red package. Let's say that person would like to quit smoking, has tried to quit smoking a number of times, but just hasn't been successful. So instead of quitting outright, that person figures they will switch the type of cigarette they smoke to a cigarette that has the implied claim of being ``safer''--like a ``light'' cigarette or a ``mild'' cigarette or a ``low tar'' cigarette. Those cigarettes have not been found to be any safer? In fact, just the opposite has been discovered.

In a 2001 National Cancer Institute publication, they wrote the following:

The tobacco companies set out to develop cigarette designs

that markedly lowered the tar and nicotine yield results as

measured by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) testing

method. Yet, these cigarettes can be manipulated by the

smoker to increase the intake of tar and nicotine. The use of

these ``decreased risk'' cigarettes have not significantly

decreased the disease risk. In fact, the use of these

cigarettes may be partly responsible for the increase in lung

cancer for long-term smokers who have switched to the low-

tar/low-nicotine brands. Finally, switching to these

cigarettes may provide smokers with a false sense of reduced

risk, when the actual amount of tar and nicotine consumed may

be the same as, or more than, the previously used higher

yield brand.

So the products that tobacco companies develop and market as being ``safer'' are not safer. Rather than people quitting smoking entirely, they are often misled into thinking that the ``light'' or ``mild'' cigarettes that they switch to are better for them. In addition, people may begin to start smoking because they think some of these products aren't so bad for them--that the products have been made safer or better for them somehow and are okay to smoke.

Tobacco companies are able to make these implied health claims about their products because they are not regulated. Consumers have no choice but to trust the tobacco companies to reveal the ingredients and marketing claims about their products. That is just absurd to me. These are all things that should be examined, reviewed, and commented on by the Food and Drug

Administration to determine whether it is appropriate for these products to be marketed as ``reduced-risk'' products, so the public knows what they are choosing to consume.

Tobacco advertising is in magazines and on billboards along the highway. Tobacco advertising is in convenience stores, along the aisles and at the checkout counter right beside the candy where children are likely to see it. Tobacco advertising is at sporting events, part of promotional items, where consumers can ``buy 1 get 1 free.'' Tobacco advertising is on the Internet and in the daily delivery of mail.

Our bill would make changes regarding tobacco advertising. It would give the FDA authority to restrict tobacco industry marketing-- consistent with the First Amendment--that targets our children. Our bill would require advertisements to be in black and white text only and would define adult publication in terms of readership.

An issue that is related to advertising and marketing of tobacco products has to do with the flavored tobacco products, which clearly target our children. We have probably all seen the flavored cigarettes--flavors like strawberry, chocolate, and wild rum. The scent of strawberry filters through the unopened pack of cigarettes. And guess what, the cigarettes smell like candy. A recent New York Times article described the scent of chocolate flavored cigarettes as if ``someone had lifted the lid on a Whitman Sampler.''

I can't speak for every parent, but I know my 8 grandchildren like candy, and they like the smell of chocolate, and they would be curious to try something that smells or tastes like candy. Cigarettes shouldn't be flavored and marketed in such a way to attract children and to encourage children to smoke. Our bill bans the use of flavors such as strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, coffee and other flavorings that would attract children to the product.

Despite the fact that 40 million Americans use tobacco products, many of them do not know what is inside the cigarette or the tobacco product they ingest. They do not know the ingredients or the constituents, like tar or nicotine, that are in the products they use. Consumers do not know what additives are included in the product. Additives like ammonia or urea, both of which may make the tobacco product more addictive because they increase the delivery of nicotine. Tobacco companies do not disclose the specific ingredients in their products because they don't have to. Tobacco products are unregulated.

Our legislation would give consumers more information about what's in tobacco products. Specifically, the bill would provide the FDA with the ability to publish the ingredients of tobacco products.

It would require a listing of all ingredients, substances, and compounds added by the manufacturer to the tobacco, paper, or filter.

It would require a description of the content, delivery, and form of nicotine in each tobacco product.

It would require information on the health, behavioral, or physiologic effects of the tobacco products.

I think it is equally important that I mention what our bill does not do. Here are some of the areas where authority is not conferred to FDA: Our bill does not allow FDA to ban tobacco products or to eliminate nicotine from a tobacco product. The bill ensures that FDA will not have the power to use its ``performance standard'' authority to ban cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or any other category of tobacco products, or to reduce their nicotine yields to zero.

Our bill does not allow FDA to establish a minimum smoking age higher than 18. The bill explicitly forbids FDA from establishing a minimum age higher than 18 years of age to purchase tobacco products.

Our bill treats all tobacco retailers equally. Our bill specifically provides that FDA can't prohibit the sale of tobacco products in any particular category of retail outlet. Our bill forbids FDA from creating a more permissive set of advertising rules for adult-only establishments. This provision protects retailers and convenience store owners.

Finally, I would like to make a comment about the tobacco farmers. There has been a lot of talk recently about the need for a buyout for our Nation's tobacco farmers. My colleagues, Senator McConnell and Senator Dole, have been working tirelessly to craft a buyout bill for tobacco farmers. They need a buyout--and the Congress should give them one. The Senate needs to pass the buyout, but the buyout needs to be passed along with this FDA bill. I look forward to working with my colleagues from the tobacco-growing states to make this happen.

The bill that Senator Kennedy and I introduce today gives the FDA the authority to regulate a product that has gone unregulated for far too long--a product that for the past century has not revealed its ingredients to the consumer--a product whose manufacturing facilities are not inspected or accountable for following good manufacturing practices--a product that is never reviewed or approved before reaching the hands of 40 million consumers, many of whom are just children. Congress needs to put an end to this. Congress should put an end to the marketing of tobacco products to our children. Congress should put an end to the ability of tobacco companies to make claims, whether they are implied claims or direct claims, about their products. Congress should put an end to tobacco companies putting any ingredient they want into their products without disclosing it to the consumer. It is time Congress give the FDA authority to it needs to fix these problems.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today with my friend and colleague, Senator Carper, to introduce the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2004, a bill designed to help the 225-year-old Postal Service meet the challenges of the 21st Century. This legislation represents the culmination of a process that began in the summer of 2002 when I introduced a bill to establish a Presidential Commission charged with examining the problems the Postal Service faces, and developing specific recommendations and legislative proposals that Congress and the Postal Service could implement.

It has long been acknowledged that the financial and operational problems confronting the Postal Service are serious. At present, the Postal Service has more than $90 billion in unfunded liabilities and obligations, which include $6.5 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury, nearly $7 billion for Workers' Compensation claims, $5 billion for retirement costs, and as much as $45 billion to cover retiree health care costs. The General Accounting Office's Comptroller General, David Walker, has pointed to the urgent need for ``fundamental reforms to minimize the risk of a significant taxpayer bailout or dramatic postal rate increases.'' The Postal Service has been on GAO's ``High-Risk'' List since April of 2001. The Postal Service is at risk of a ``death spiral'' of decreasing volume and increasing rates that lead to further decreases in volume.

In December of 2003, President Bush announced the creation of a bipartisan commission charged with identifying the operational, structural, and financial challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service. The President charged this commission with examining all significant aspects of the Postal Service with the goal of recommending legislative and administrative reforms to ensure its long-term viability.

The President's Commission conducted seven public hearings across the country at which they heard from numerous witnesses. On July 31, 2003, the Commission released its final report, making 35 legislative and administrative recommendations for the reform of the Postal Service.

As I read through the Commission's report, I was struck by what I considered the Commission's wake up call to Congress: its statement that ``an incremental approach to Postal Service reform will yield too little, too late given the enterprise's bleak fiscal outlook, the depth of current debt and unfunded obligations, the downward trend in First- Class mail volumes and the limited potential of its legacy postal network that was built for a bygone era.'' That is a very strong statement, and one that challenged both the Postal Service and Congress to embrace far-reaching reforms.

To the relief of many, including myself, the Commission did not recommend privatization of the Postal Service. Instead, the Commission sought to find a way for the Postal Service to do, as Co-Chair Jim Johnson described to me, ``an overwhelmingly better job under the same general structure.''

The Postal Service plays a vital role in our economy. The Service itself employs more than 750,000 career employees. Less well known is the fact that it is also the linchpin of a $900-billion mailing industry that employs 9 million Americans in fields as diverse as direct mailing, printing, catalog production, paper manufacturing, and financial services. The health of the Postal Service is essential to the vitality of thousands of companies and the millions that they employ.

One of the greatest challenges for the Postal Service is the decrease in mail volume as business communications, bills and payments move more and more to the Internet. The Postal Service has experienced declining volumes of First-Class mail for the past four years. This is highly significant, given that First-Class mail accounts for 48 percent of total mail volume, and the revenue it generates pays for more than two- thirds of the Postal Service's institutional costs.

The Postal Service also faces the difficult task of trying to cut costs from its nationwide infrastructure and transportation network. These costs are difficult to cut. Even though volumes may be decreasing, carriers must still deliver six days a week to more than 139 million addresses.

As Chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs, I held a series of eight hearings, including a joint hearing with the House, during which we reviewed the recommendations of the President's Commission. The bill Senator Carper and I introduce today is the culmination of everything the Committee learned from dozens of witnesses over the past eight months.

First and foremost, the Collins-Carper bill preserves the basic features of universal service-affordable rates, frequent delivery, and convenient community access to retail postal services. As a Senator representing a large, rural State, I want to ensure that my constituents living in the northern woods, or on the islands, or in our many rural small towns have the same access to postal services as the people of our cities. If the Postal Service were no longer to provide universal service and deliver mail to every customer, the affordable communication link upon which many Americans rely would be jeopardized. Most commercial enterprises would find it uneconomical, if not impossible, to deliver mail and packages to rural Americans at rates charged by the Postal Service.

The Collins-Carper bill allows the Postal Service to maintain its current mail monopoly, and retain its sole access to customer mailboxes. It grants the Postal Service Board of Governors the authority to set rates for competitive products like Express Mail and Parcel Post, as long as these prices do not result in cross subsidy from market-dominant products. As a safeguard, our bill establishes a 30 day prior review period during which the proposed rate changes shall be reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

It replaces the current lengthy and litigious rate-setting process with a rate cap-based structure for market-dominant products such as First-Class Mail, periodicals and library mail. This would allow the Postal Service to react more quickly to changes in the mailing industry. The rate caps would be linked to an inflation indicator selected by the Postal Regulatory Commission. The goal would be to make rate increases more predictable and less frequent and to provide incentives for the Postal Service to operate efficiently. Price changes for market-dominant products would be subject to a 45-day prior review period by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Our bill would introduce new safeguards against unfair competition by the Postal Service in competitive markets. Subsidization of competitive products by market-dominant products would be expressly forbidden, and an equitable allocation of institutional costs to competitive products would be required.

The President's Commission recommended that the regulator be granted the authority to make changes to the Postal Service's universal service obligation and monopoly. The vast majority of the postal community, however, shared my belief that these are important policy determinations that should be retained by Congress. The

Collins-Carper bill keeps those public policy decisions in congressional hands.

The existing Postal Rate Commission would be transformed into the Postal Regulatory Commission with greatly enhanced authority. Under current law, the Rate Commission has very narrow authority. We wanted to ensure that the Postal Service management has both greater latitude and stronger oversight. Among other things, the Postal Regulatory Commission will have the authority to regulate rates for non- competitive products and services; ensure financial transparency; establish limits on the accumulation of retained earnings by the Postal Service; obtain information from the Postal Service, if need be, through the use of new subpoena power; and review and act on complaints filed by those who believe the Postal Service has exceeded its authority. Members of the Postal Regulatory Board will be selected solely on the basis of their demonstrated experience and professional standing. Senate confirmation of all Board Members will be required.

The Governmental Affairs Committee dedicated two hearings to the examination of the Commission's workforce-related recommendations. The Postal Service is a highly labor intensive organization, using $3 out of every $4 to pay the wages and benefits of its employees. Their workforce is comprised of more than 700,000 dedicated letter carriers, clerks, mail handlers, postmasters, and others, who place great value on their right to collectively bargain. Our bill reaffirms that right. This bill only makes changes to the bargaining process that have been agreed to by both the Postal Service and the four major unions. We replace the rarely used fact-finding process with mediation, and shorten statutory deadlines for certain phases of the bargaining process.

Additionally, the Collins-Carper bill corrects what I believe to be an anomaly in the Federal workers' compensation law that results in high costs for the Postal Service. Under the Federal Employees Compensation Act (FECA), Federal employees with dependents are eligible for 75 percent of their take-home pay, tax free, plus cost of living allowances. In addition, there is no maximum dollar cap on FECA payments. As a result, employees often opt not to retire, staying on the more generous workers' compensation program permanently.

According to a March 2003 audit issued by the Postal Service's Office of Inspector General, the Postal Service's workers' compensation rolls include 81 cases that originated 40 to 50 years ago, with the oldest recipient being 102 years old. The IG's office found 778 cases that originated 30 to 40 years ago; and 1,189 cases that originated 20 to 29 years ago.

The Collins-Carper bill works to protect the financial resources of the Postal Service by converting workers' compensation benefits for total or partial disability to a retirement annuity when the affected employee reaches 65 years of age. This change would reflect the fact that disabled postal employees would likely retire at some point were they not receiving workers' compensation. I would like to note that the average postal employee retires far earlier than age 65, so this is still a generous program. It is important to point out that the Postal Service has reduced their workplace injury rate by twenty-eight percent over the past three years.

The Collins--Carper bill also puts into place a three-day waiting period before an employee is eligible to receive 45 days of continuation of pay. This is consistent with every state's workers' compensation program that requires a three- to seven-day waiting period before benefits are paid.

Our bill has reached an important compromise on the issue of workshare discounts. Some have raised concerns that the Postal Service has set rates so that mailers get a discount greater than the cost avoided by the Postal Service. While this may have occurred in a handful of instances, those mailers are still covering their attributable costs, as well as making a healthy contribution to overhead. The language in our bill sets a policy that the Postal Service shall not create new discounts greater than the cost avoided by the Postal Service. The only exception is in those cases where the Postal Regulatory Commission believes those rates are necessary.

The bill has also, for the first time, explicitly created the authority for the Postal Service to enter into negotiated service agreements with individual customers. This will allow the Postal Service to create agreements with customers to increase its revenue. I would point out that these agreements must cover all attributable costs, and will likely result in greater contribution to overhead. In addition, our bill requires that other similarly situated mailers will be able to enter into such agreements with the Postal Service.

Finally, our bill would repeal a provision of Public Law 108-18 which requires that money owed to the Postal Service due to an overpayment into the Civil Service Retirement System Fund be held in an escrow account. Repealing this provision would essentially ``free up'' $78 billion over a period of 60 years. These savings would be used to not only pay off debt to the U.S. Treasury and to fund health care liabilities, but to mitigate rate increases as well. In fact, failure to release these escrow funds would mean, for mailers, a double-digit rate increase in 2006--an expense most American businesses and many consumers are ill-equipped to afford.

The bill would also return to the Department of Treasury the responsibility for funding CSRS pension benefits relating to the military service of postal retirees. No other agency is required to make this payment. Ratepayers should not be held responsible for this $27 billion obligation.

The Postal Service has reached a critical juncture. If we are to save and strengthen this vital service upon which so many Americans rely for communication and their livelihoods, the time to act is now.

Our bill has the strong endorsements of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Association of Postmasters of the United States, and the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service--which represents thousands of the major mailers, employee groups, small businesses, and other users of the mail. I am also very pleased to add Senators Ted Stevens, George Voinovich and John Sununu as originated cosponsors of this bill.

I look forward to working with all of my colleagues in the Senate, and House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Tom Davis, who just last week passed a postal reform bill out of his committee by a vote of 40-0.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record, along with a letter sent to me from David Walker, Comptroller General of the General Accounting Office, addressing the need for comprehensive postal reform.