Global CARE Act

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Intermediate Sanctions Compensatory Revenue Adjustment Act of 2003, ISCRAA. This legislation will restore to the States billions of dollars in revenue due to them from a massive lawsuit recently conducted on their behalf the tobacco-Related Medicaid expenses litigation. ISCRAA amends an existing provision of the Federal tax code in order to enforce basic, universally accepted fiduciary standards governing the award of attorneys fees. By applying these standards to the attorneys who represented the states in the tobacco settlement, ISCRAA reasonably can be expected to restore to the states income with a present value of approximately $9 billion. I have included at the end of my statement a chart detailing how much each state can expect to recover.

ISCRAA's tax formula is borrowed from the 1996 Tax Act's Intermediate Sanctions Tax, IST, which applies a two-step excise tax to any excessive or unreasonable compensation that the managers of a trust pay to themselves from the assets of the trust. The IST framework encourages the trustee to restore the excessive portion of any fee to the trust--when he does so, the IST's punitive taxes do not apply.

ISCRAA extends the IST to another type of trust relationship: that between a lawyer and his client. ISCRAA applies the IST tax formula to any unreasonable or excessive income that a lawyer collects from litigation resulting in a judgment or settlement in excess of $100 million. To avoid IST taxes, an attorney must restore the excessive portion of the fee to the client.

As my colleague Senator Cornyn will explain today, the ethical and legal abuses that resulted from the 1998 State tobacco settlement make the need for this legislation manifest. Senator CORNYN also will discuss the law of attorneys' fiduciary obligations, which establishes that a fee award is the property of the client--and that any unethical fee must be restored to the client, regardless of how the fee award is structured.

I will discuss today how ISCRAA will affect massive litigations generally. In order to gauge the reasonableness of a lawyer's fee award, ISCRAA adopts and codifies a liberal version of the lodestar- multiplier system. As I will later explain in greater detail, ISCRAA allows fee multipliers of up to 500 percent of reasonable hourly rates. This limit is as generous as the most liberal limits adopted by state courts, and considerably more generous than the limits that federal courts have applied in $100 million cases. ISCRAA's fee formula guarantees that attorneys' fiduciary obligations will be respected, while providing plaintiff's lawyers with ample incentive to provide high-quality legal representation in these types of cases.

Federal supervision of fee awards resulting from $100 million litigations is appropriate for several reasons. First, because of their sheer size, these types of lawsuits inevitably operate as a tax on the consuming public. Few defendants actually can afford to pay such judgments with cash on hand. Instead, the affected industries simply will raise the prices that they charge to their customers.

This is exactly what has happened in the State Medicaid tobacco settlement--according to the leading proponents of that litigation. The first State attorney general to file suit against the tobacco companies has admitted that ``what always happens in these cases is the industry passes the costs to the consumer.'' Other commentators agree that this has occurred in the tobacco litigation. As one law-review article notes, ``the [tobacco] settlement * * * is a tax because it's a set of payments made by tobacco companies that depend on how many packs they sell; in short, it looks like a tax and quacks like a tax.''

Because of the way that these massive judgments typically are satisfied, it is particularly important to ensure that attorneys are paid in proportion to the services that they provided--rather than solely on the basis of the size of the recovery. Again, the State tobacco settlement highlights the nature of the problem. As two of the leading academic commentators have noted, it is ``very troubl[ing]'' that under that agreement, ``a group of private citizens [are] getting paid a percentage of a tax increase they helped pass.'' The sheer size of the tobacco settlement--and the fact that attorneys fees were based on this size, rather than on the attorneys' actual efforts--has given the fee awards an uncanny resemblance to the medieval practice of tax farming. In all but name, the government has licensed a group of private individuals to collect a tax from the consuming public.

I would emphasize at this point that ISCRAA is not an attack on the State tobacco lawsuits. The bill does not pass judgment on the merits or the appropriateness of this type of litigation. ISCRAA simply is designed to ensure that when such lawsuits are brought on the public's behalf, the public receive its fair share of the proceeds. If a State chooses to seek compensatory revenue from industry for past harms, then the resulting tax on the public--minus the reasonable value of the legal services actually provided--must go to the State treasury.

There are several reasons why $100 million is an appropriate threshold for applying ISCRAA's fee formula. First, the courts themselves have indicated that fee agreements based primarily on the size of the recovery tend to become unreasonable when judgements reach this size. As one court has stated, ``in much smaller cases, a fee award of 33 percent does not present the danger of providing the plaintiff's counsel with the windfall that would accompany a `megafund' settlement of $100 million or upwards. But it is quite different when the figures hit the really big time.'' Or as the Third Circuit notes, ``courts have generally decreased the percentage awarded [for attorneys fees] as the amount recovered increases, and $100 million seems to be the informal marker of a 'very large' settlement.''

The logic of avoiding judgment-based awards in these very large cases is straightforward. As one court explains, ``it is not 150 times more difficult to prepare, try, and settle a $150 million case than it is to try a $1 million case, but the application of a percentage comparable to that in a smaller case may yield an award 150 times greater.'' Thus, according to another court, ``there is considerable merit'' to disallowing standard percentage awards as the ``size of the [recovery] fund increases. In many instances the increase [in the recovery] is merely a factor of the size of the class and has no direct relationship to the efforts of counsel.''

It also bears mention that because of its $100 million threshold, ISCRAA applies to a fairly limited universe of cases. As courts have remarked, ``there are few so-called `megafund' cases with settlements over $100 million.'' In 2001, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit attempted to catalogue all common-fund cases in federal court that resulted in recoveries greater than $100 million. Though such litigations have been more frequent in recent years, the Third Circuit identified only 22 such cases since 1985. See in re Cendant Corp. PRIDES Litig., 243 F.3d 722, 737 (3d Cir. 2001).

ISCRAA is somewhat broader than the criteria that Cendant Corp. employed to collect cases. ISCRAA is not limited to common-fund cases-- it also applies to judgments won on behalf of tax-exempt entities or even single individuals. ISCRAA also applies to cases brought in State court, and it aggregates identical claims that are brought against common defendants in separate actions, in order to prevent evasion of its limits through the subdivision of actions. Nevertheless, ISCRAA's scope remains fairly narrow. An academic specialist who is familiar with developments in this field has reviewed the bill and concluded that because of its ``relatively high threshold,'' ISCRAA probably would apply only to about 15-20 litigations per year. I will include a copy of this professor's letter to me in the Congressional Record.

Finally, a $100 million threshold also is appropriate because it limits ISCRAA's reach to litigations that are a natural subject of congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce. It is well- established that ``Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate . . . those [economic] activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.'' United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 609 (2000). See also United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995). Both the executive and the legislative branches previously have identified $100 million as guideline for determining whether a matter has a significant impact on interState commerce. See, e.g. Executive Order 12866; Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. Sec. 804(2); Unfunded Mandates Act, 2 U.S.C. Sec. 1532(a). Because it is limited to litigations of this size, ISCRAA is consistent with congress's power and obligation to protect the flow of commerce between states.

Another point that I would like to emphasize today is that ISCRAA is not an anti-plaintiffs' lawyer bill. It is not stingy toward trial attorneys. ISCRAA is carefully designed to protect fiduciary interests while providing plaintiffs' lawyers with ample incentives to provide high-quality legal representation in large litigations. ISCRAA's fee formula is as generous as the limits set by the most liberal State courts that engage in meaningful review of attorneys fees, and is considerably more generous than the Federal courts' practices in $100 million cases. Moreover, the multiplier criteria that ISCRAA employs universally are recognized as legitimate prerequisites for a contingency fee--even by trial lawyers' professional associations.

Federal courts primarily rely on two systems for calculating attorneys fees in cases, such as class actions, in which they are required to set ``reasonable fees:'' the percentage method and the lodestar-multiplier method. The percentage method, as its name implies, calculates fees as a percentage of the total recovery. The lodestar system, by contrast, requires a court to first calculate a fee based on the number of hours that the lawyer worked multiplied by prevailing hourly rates, the ``lodestar''. The court then multiplies this lodestar fee again in order to reward the attorney for the risk of nonpayment of fees that he assumed and for any exceptional services that he provided.

Over the last thirty years, courts have moved back and forth between these two systems. Only a few courts make lodestar-multipliers the exclusive means of awarding attorneys fees. But as one academic commentator has noted, ``lodestar, or hours-based methods, have been adopted in every [federal judicial] circuit.''

And more importantly, in large-recovery cases, there has been very little difference between lodestar and percentage systems. This is because even when courts apply a percentage to calculate fees, and as judgements become very large, courts typically also calculate a reasonable lodestar in order to determine what constitutes a reasonable percentage. Thus, again, as the Third Circuit notes, ``courts have generally decreased the percentage awarded as the amount recovered increases, and $100 million seems to be the informal marker of a `very large' settlement.''

Courts have been wary of awarding fees based on percentages alone. As one State supreme court explains: ``to begin the assessment by arbitrarily picking a percentage amount without any reliance on a cognizable structure invites decisions that are nonobjective and inconsistent. What constitutes a reasonable percentage may differ from one judge to another depending on each judge's predilections, background, and geographical location in the state.''

Thus ``courts that employ the percentage approach appear to be motivated in part by a lodestar dynamic. Because courts are reluctant to give fee awards totally incommensurate with the efforts of the attorneys, percentage awards generally decrease as the amount of the recovery increases.''

One result of the cross-use of the lodestar and percentage systems is that even when courts use the percentage system, those awards overwhelmingly tend to reflect a reasonable lodestar multiplier. Therefore, even percentage-based cases tend to provide evidence of the range of multipliers that the courts consider to be reasonable.

In 2001, the Third Circuit ``set forth a chart of fee awards given in Federal courts since 1985 in class actions in which the settlement fund exceeded $100 million and in which the percentage of recovery method was used.'' Cendant Corp. The court identified 17 such cases. In almost every case, the Third Circuit could calculate the multiplier that was used, and ``the lodestar multiplier in those cases never exceeded 2.99.'' And in the direct lodestar-multiplier cases that court identified, the multiplier ranged from 1.2 to 3.25.

Other courts, surveying smaller cases than the $100 million recoveries examined in Cendant Corp., have identified larger multipliers. One Federal district court has ``observe[d] that in virtually every case where the court notes a lodestar but awards fees based upon a percentage, the lodestar multiplier converted from this percentage is in the range of 1 to 4.'' Another Federal district court has found that ``the range of lodestar multipliers in large and complicated class actions runs from a low of 2.26 to a high of 4.5.''

By contrast, some courts have declared that they would allow only lower multipliers. One Federal court has stated that ``only in the most exceptional circumstances would this court award a multiplier of 3 or greater. . . . this court believes that lodestars enhanced by multipliers less than 3 should adequately compensate even the most talented counsel.'' And the Seventh Circuit has suggested that ``it may be that a doubling of the lodestar would provide a sensible ceiling.''

On the other hand, the Florida Supreme Court--which is generally regarded as one of the more plaintiff-friendly courts in the United States--has announced that: ``we set the maximum multiplier available in this common-fund category of cases at 5. . . . [A] multiplier which increases fees to five times the accepted hourly rate is sufficient to alleviate the contingency risk factor involved and attract high level counsel to common fund cases while producing a fee that remains within the bounds of reasonableness. We emphasize that 5 is a maximum multiplier.''

ISCRAA adopts this more liberal standard. It allows fees as high as 500 percent of reasonable hourly rates. ISCRAA awards multipliers based on two criteria: it allows up to 300 percent to be added onto the amount of reasonable hourly fees if a case that involved a substantial risk of nonrecovery of fees, and allows an additional 100 percent add- on if the attorney provided exceptional services that improved the plaintiff's recovery.

The criteria that ISCRAA employs universally are recognized as necessary prerequisites to the legitimacy of a contingency fee. ``Courts in general have insisted that a contingent fee be

truly contingent. The typically elevated fee reflecting the risk to the lawyer of receiving no fee will be permitted only if the representation indeed involves a significant degree of risk.'' Charles W. Wolfram, Modern Legal Ethics Sec. 9.4, at 532 (1986). The risk requirement has been recognized ever since contingency fees first were allowed in the United States. The American Bar Association even noted at that time that ``a contract for a contingent fee, where sanctioned by law, should be reasonable under all the circumstances of the case, including the risk and uncertainty of the compensation.'' ABA Canons of Professional Ethics, Canon 13 (1908). Indeed, even the professional associations of plaintiffs' attorneys have, at times, acknowledged that contingent fees should be based on an actual contingency. In a guide to its members, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America has ``recommend[ed]'' that attorneys ``exercise sound judgment in using a percentage in the contingent fee contract that is commensurate with the risk, cost and effort required.'' ATLA, Keys to the Courthouse: Quick Facts on the Contingency Fee System 13 (1994).

The criteria that ISCRAA employs are universally accepted--and the limits that it sets should be universally acceptable. ISCRAA is not intended to alter the considered standards of any jurisdiction. Rather, it is intended to enforce those standards--and to correct the occasional extreme outlier. Because ISCRAA incorporates a fee formula that is substantially more liberal than the usual practices of the federal courts in $100 million cases, we can be confident that high- quality legal representation will remain available to plaintiffs in these large litigations. See, e.g. in re Sumitomo Copper Litig., 74 F. Supp. 2d 393, S.D.N.Y. 1999, RICO and Commodities Exchange Act case resulting in $116 million recovery; attorneys reviewed millions of pages of documents located throughout the world, many requiring translation from Japanese; Federal district court awards multiplier of 250 percent for total fee of $32 million.

Another issue that I will address today is the argument--occasionally raised in opposition to proposals to limit attorneys fees--that such restrictions violate attorneys' rights to freedom of contract.

The first principle to keep in mind when questions of attorneys fees are considered is that ``a fiduciary relationship exists as a matter of law between attorney and client.'' (Illinois Supreme Court.) As one academic commentator has noted: ``[I]t is uncontroverted today that a lawyer is a fiduciary for, and therefore has a duty to deal fairly with, the client. . . . Lawyers are fiduciaries because retention of an attorney to exercise 'professional judgment' on the client's behalf necessarily involves reposing trust and confidence in the attorney. Exercising professional judgment requires that the lawyer advance the client's interests as the client would define them if the client were well-informed.''

The lawyer's status as fiduciary places limits on his dealings with his client--including with regard to his fee. ``An attorney's freedom to contract with a client is subject to the constraints of ethical considerations.'' New Jersey Supreme Court. ``In setting fees, lawyers are fiduciaries who owe their clients greater duties than are owed under the general law of contracts.'' Massachusetts Appeals Court. ``As a result of lawyers' special role in the legal system, contracts between lawyer and client receive special scrutiny. . . . While freedom of contract is the guiding principle underlying contract law, contractual freedom is muted in the lawyer-client and lawyer-lawyer contexts.'' Joseph M. Perillo, law professor.

The unique status of attorney fee contracts has led courts to reject analogies between such agreements and other business or service contracts. Perhaps the fullest exposition is provided by the Arizona Supreme Court: ``We realize that business contracts may be enforced between those in equal bargaining capacities, even though they turn out to be unfair, inequitable or harsh. However, a fee agreement between lawyer and client is not an ordinary business contract. The profession has both an obligation of public service and duties to clients which transcend ordinary business relationships and prohibit the lawyer from taking advantage of the client. Thus, in fixing and collecting fees the profession must remember that it is a branch of the administration of justice and not a mere money getting trade.' ABA Canons of Professional Ethics, Canon 12.''

The same principle has been identified by the Florida Supreme Court: There is but little analogy between the elements that control the determination of a lawyer's fee and those which determine the compensation of skilled craftsmen in other fields. Lawyers are officers of the court. The court is an instrument of society for the administration of justice. Justice should be administered economically, efficiently, and expeditiously. The attorney's fee is, therefore, a very important factor in the administration of justice, and if it is not determined with proper relation to that fact it results in a species of social malpractice that undermines the confidence of the public in the bench and bar. It does more than that. It brings the court into disrepute and destroys its power to perform adequately the function of its creation.''

In order to protect the lawyer's public role and to enforce his fiduciary obligations, the courts read a reasonableness requirement into every attorney fee contract. ``[T]he requirement that a fee be reasonable in amount overrides the terms of the contract, so that an `unreasonable' fee cannot be recovered, even if agreed to by the client.'' G. Hazard, Jr. & W. Hodes, The Law of Lawyering 1. 5:205 Fee Litigation and Arbitration 120 (1998 Supp.).

As one court has stated, ``[A]n attorney is only entitled to fees which are fair and just and which adequately compensate him for his services. This is true no matter what fee is specified in the contract, because an attorney, as a fiduciary, cannot bind his client to pay a greater compensation for his services than the attorney would have the right to demand if no contract had been made. Therefore, as a matter of public policy, reasonableness is an implied term in every contract for attorney's fees.''

Finally, when assessing whether a fee is reasonable, courts ask whether the fee is proportional to the services that were actually provided. ``Fees must be reasonably proportional to the services rendered and the situation presented.'' (Arizona Supreme Court.) ``If an attorney's fee is grossly disproportionate to the services rendered and is charged to a client who lacks full information about all of the relevant circumstances, the fee is `clearly excessive' . . . even though the client consented to such fee.'' West Virginia Supreme Court.

Because attorneys are fiduciaries, they simply do not have complete freedom of contract in negotiating their fees. An attorney's dealings with his client always must reflect that the client comes to him in a position of trust--and therefore, the attorney's fee always must be reasonable. ISCRAA will help ensure that this important obligation is respected.

Another subject that I would like to address today is ISCRAA's effective date. ISCRAA applies to attorney fee payments received after June 1, 2002. This effective date is appropriate under the circumstances of the State tobacco settlement for several reasons: first, Congress routinely enacts major tax legislation with effective dates that look back much further than does ISCRAA. The Supreme Court has ``repeatedly upheld [such moderately] retroactive tax legislation against a due process challenge.'' United States v. Carlton, 512 U.S. 26, 30-31, 1994; see id. at 33, upholding tax whose ``actual retroactive effect . . . extended for a period only slightly greater than one year''.

Second, ISCRAA is not even truly retroactive. ISCRAA does not change the substantive law governing attorneys fee awards. Rather, it simply enforces established, pre-existing fiduciary standards that already bind every attorney in every state. The Model Rules of Professional Conduct, at Rule 1.5(a), contain a clear, direct command that ``a lawyer's fee shall be reasonable.'' Similarly, the Model Code of Professional Responsibility, at DR 2-106, directs that an attorney ``shall not enter into an agreement for, charge, or collect an illegal or clearly excessive fee.'' The Model Code further explains that an attorneys fee is ``clearly excessive when, after a review of the facts, a

lawyer of ordinary prudence would be left with a definite and firm conviction that the fee is in excess of a reasonable fee.'' Finally, as academic commentators point out, in addition to the model rules, ``all State rules of professional conduct prohibit attorneys from charging excessive fees.''

As I described earlier, to enforce fiduciary standards, ISCRAA codifies and applies a very generous version of the fee multiplier system, allowing attorneys fees as high as 500 percent of reasonable hourly rates. This is considerably more generous than what Federal courts typically allow in large-judgment cases. No attorney can be heard to complain that he is subjected to a law that is more generous than his existing fiduciary obligations.

Further, none of the tobacco-settlement attorneys can reasonably maintain that they have a vested right to see their fiduciary duties to the states go unenforced. Nevertheless, in order to be fair to all parties, ISCRAA's excise taxes are applied only to fees that were paid after June 1, 2002. By this date, all of the tobacco lawyers twice had received notice from George W. Bush that he intended to enact legislation to enforce their fiduciary obligations. In February 2000, then-candidate Bush promised that he would ``extend[] the `excess benefits' provision of the tax code to private lawyers who contract with states and municipalities,'' with ``the reasonableness of the fees * * * [to] be determined by the standard judicial `lodestar' method.'' And as early as February 2001, the current Administration announced that it anticipated providing ``additional public health resources for the States from the President's proposal to extend fiduciary responsibilities to the representatives of States in tobacco lawsuits.'' See A Blueprint for New Beginnings: A Responsible Budget for America's Priorities 80, Office of Management and Budget, February 28, 2001.

Under ISCRAA, all of the attorneys who participated in the State tobacco settlement still will be very liberally compensated. Because ISCRAA does not apply to the first three-and-a-half years of fee payments under the settlement, it exempts the first two-and-a-half billion dollars that these lawyers received. Every one of the tobacco lawyers will have more than enough money left to pay for the yachts, luxury cars, and vacation homes that were purchased with the tobacco proceeds. ISCRAA might simply be described as the one-yacht-per-lawyer rule.

But most importantly, because ISCRAA applies to the last year's worth of tobacco fee payments, and to all future payments, it will return a substantial amount of funds to the States--money that already should belong to the States under any reasonable interpretation of fiduciary standards. It is critical that these funds be restored in this time of widespread fiscal crisis. Today a large number of the States face massive budget deficits that threaten their ability to provide health care to the indigent, to fully fund public education, and to guarantee adequate and effective law enforcement. When such needs risk going unmet, fee abuses that cost the States billions of dollars simply can no longer be ignored. The States must receive their fair share of the tobacco settlement proceeds--funds that are badly needed to support basic public services.

Under the terms of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, MSA, between the States and tobacco companies, $500 million in cigarette taxes is set aside every year to pay the attorneys who chose to have their fees awarded in arbitration. Because extraordinarily high fees were awarded by the arbitrators--estimated to total $15 billion-- the $500-million-a-year income stream, which is not adjusted for inflation, may have to be paid in perpetuity. In addition to this annuity, the MSA also sets aside an additional $1.25 billion in cigarette taxes to compensate those lawyers who choose to forego arbitration and negotiate their fees directly with the tobacco companies.

The present value of the $500-million-a-year fee stream--discounting all future payments for the time value of money--has been conservatively estimated at just over $8 billion. Current and future payments from the $1.25 billion fee fund are less certain, since the grants made from that fund and their disbursement schedule have been kept obscure from the public. Because ISCRAA's effective date is June 1, 2002, ISCRAA will probably recoup for the States an additional $1 billion above the present value of future $500 million-a-year payments. ISCRAA does not affect the first three-and-a-half years of fees paid under the MSA. Because these payments almost certainly are adequate to pay all reasonable fees incurred in the litigation, ISCRAA would restore to the States virtually all fees paid after its effective date. Thus the net present value of the sums that ISCRAA would provide to the States can conservatively be estimated at $9 billion.

By restoring these excess fee payments to the states' MSA escrow account and returning them to the States on a per capita basis, ISCRAA guarantees every State a very substantial recovery. Based on the estimates that I have described, even our Nation's smallest State, Wyoming, would recoup at least $15 million in tobacco fee payments, and other small States, such as North Dakota, would receive approximately $20 million. On the other hand, our nation's largest State, California, can expect to recoup at least $1 billion. Other large States would also see generous returns: Florida, $511 million; Illinois, $397 million; Michigan, $318 million; New York, $607 million; Ohio, $363 million; and Texas, $667 million.

Here is how much each State can expect to recover:

Alabama....................................................$142,220,272 Alaska.......................................................20,046,569 Arizona.....................................................164,079,935 Arkansas.....................................................85,496,543 California................................................1,083,230,642 Colorado....................................................137,556,275 Connecticut.................................................108,911,511 Delaware.....................................................25,059,883 District of Columbia.........................................18,294,706 Florida.....................................................511,123,686 Georgia.....................................................261,806,474 Hawaii.......................................................38,745,502 Idaho........................................................41,381,203 Illinois....................................................397,174,614 Indiana.....................................................194,456,664 Iowa.........................................................93,585,167 Kansas.......................................................85,976,825 Kentucky....................................................129,257,603 Louisiana...................................................142,919,876 Maine........................................................40,772,615 Maryland....................................................169,384,021 Massachusetts...............................................203,046,997 Michigan....................................................317,835,940 Minnesota...................................................157,327,166 Mississippi..................................................90,973,451 Missouri....................................................178,937,382 Montana......................................................28,852,605 Nebraska.....................................................54,726,966 Nevada.......................................................63,905,164 New Hampshire................................................39,520,996 New Jersey..................................................269,094,724 New Mexico...................................................58,173,915 New York....................................................606,875,689 North Carolina..............................................257,420,675 North Dakota.................................................20,537,847 Ohio........................................................363,078,559 Oklahoma....................................................110,353,478 Oregon......................................................109,417,889 Pennsylvania................................................392,753,669 Rhode Island.................................................33,525,716 South Carolina..............................................128,305,961 South Dakota.................................................24,140,253 Tennessee...................................................181,945,847 Texas.......................................................666,850,647 Utah.........................................................71,417,756 Vermont......................................................19,470,563 Virginia....................................................226,374,115 Washington..................................................188,496,659 West Virginia................................................57,831,660 Wisconsin...................................................171,532,756 Wyoming......................................................15,791,372

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and the following four articles be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Kyl, to introduce today this landmark legislation to clean up our civil justice system. This legislation would enact a badly needed reform to the way in which attorneys are paid in some of the Nation's largest cases. It is designed to address some of the worst abuses of our civil justice system that I have witnessed in my nearly thirty years in the legal profession as a lawyer in private practice, as a state trial and appellate judge, and as state attorney general.

This legislation, the Intermediate Sanctions Compensatory Revenue Adjustment Act of 2003, ISCRAA, will combat the gross abuse of attorney contingent fee agreements, abuses which we have been witnessing at an increasing rate in recent years. The legislation will enforce attorneys' fiduciary duties to their clients in a small but important category of cases--those resulting in judgments greater than $100 million.

Contingent fee agreements can have an important role to play in our civil justice system. Sometimes, when people are injured but cannot afford to hire lawyers out of their own pockets, attorneys will accept the case with the expectation that, if their clients prevail, the attorney will be paid for his or her services out of the judgment or settlement that the attorney is able to secure for the client. Such agreements between attorneys and their clients are called contingent fee agreements, because the attorney's fee is contingent on the client obtaining a money judgment or settlement. Contingent fee agreements, properly understood and utilized, reward attorneys for their work in obtaining monetary recovery for their clients, and the risk that they take that, despite their hard work and best efforts, they are unable to obtain any recovery for the client at all.

Contingent fees can thus help ensure that plaintiffs with legitimate claims have the opportunity to obtain justice from our courts through the assistance of counsel. But contingent fees also present serious ethical problems for our legal system--particularly in cases in which the dollar amounts at stake are extraordinary, and result in a contingent fee award that overwhelmingly exceeds the relatively light or even negligible effort and risk actually undertaken by the attorneys.

Under the time-tested traditions of our legal system, clients hire attorneys with the understanding and expectation that the attorney is ethically, legally, and morally obliged to represent their best interests, and that the attorney will use his or her legal skills in order to produce the best possible result--not for the attorney, but for the client.

Thus, as my colleague has noted, contingent fee agreements are no ordinary agreements between consumers and businesses. It is a bedrock principle and well-established tenet of our Anglo-American system of justice that attorneys are not ordinary businessmen who can engage in hard bargaining with their customers, as courts have made clear on countless occasions. Rather, attorneys are officers of the court who bear a fiduciary duty to their clients. As fiduciaries, attorneys occupy a position of trust in their dealings with their clients, a trust which attorneys may not lawfully abuse.

One obligation that flows from this status as a fiduciary is the attorney's obligation not to charge an unreasonable or excessive fee. This obligation is a fundamental part of an attorney's ethical duties, universally recognized in the ethics rules of all 50 States. Courts have made clear, time and time again, that every attorney fee contract automatically and necessarily includes the requirement that the fee be a reasonable one, a fundamental and basic duty of all attorneys, and one that no provision of such agreements may abrogate.

ISCRAA affirms and reinforces the longstanding substantive law of attorneys' fiduciary duties, by providing a special mechanism to enforce those duties in a particularly high risk category of cases--a category that the courts themselves have singled out as posing special risks of unethical, windfall fees. Courts have noted that allowing standard contingency fee agreements in cases involving judgments of

$100 million or more have a distinct tendency of grossly overcompensating attorneys for their actual services rendered.

ISCRAA prevents attorneys from evading their obligation to charge a reasonable fee in extraordinarily large recovery cases, by effectively limiting awards to a generous multiple of reasonable hourly fees. State courts, Federal courts, and even trial lawyers' themselves have all recognized that a reasonable fee must be proportional to the attorney's actual efforts. ISCRAA codifies and enforces this principle, while continuing to guarantee lawyers ample and generous compensation for their efforts--using fee multipliers that are as generous as the most liberal limits adopted by state courts, and which are considerably more generous than the limits set by federal courts in $100 million cases.

This legislation thus promises to clean up our civil justice system and to repudiate the grossest abuses of our legal system. Make no mistake: Although all attorneys are supposed to uphold a strict ethical code, under which they are strictly forbidden from charging their clients unreasonable or excessive attorney fees, the temptation to abuse contingent fee agreements is a strong one, and even more so when the dollar amounts are truly extraordinary--such as in the $100 million cases that would be covered by this legislation. And make no mistake: the victim of such attorney fee abuse, and the beneficiary of this legislation, is not the defendant who pays the judgment--after all, the defendant pays the same total amount whether the money goes to the attorney or to the client. Rather, the real victim of this abuse, and the real beneficiary of this legislation, is the injured client, whose money is being taken away from the lawyer through an abusive contingent fee arrangement.

As my colleague has also noted, ISCRAA is unquestionably an appropriate exercise of Congress's power to regulate and protect interstate commerce, considering the large size of the litigations to which it applies. $100 million is a standard threshold used by the federal government to determine whether an economic transaction significantly affects interstate commerce.

But the most important reason for federal intervention in this area I have not yet mentioned, and I would like to take a moment to discuss it here: the gross abuses that we have already witnessed in large litigation fee awards. Recent experience amply demonstrates that, if the Federal Government does not act to prevent unethical and grossly abusive fee awards in massive, nationwide lawsuits, no one will. Moreover, recent experience further demonstrates that unreasonable fee payments in such suits threaten not just the attorneys' fiduciary obligations; they also place at risk the integrity of our governmental institutions. The unwholesome incentives created by windfall, unethical fee awards in large-scale litigations have induced some public officials to abandon their civic obligations.

The textbook example of the types of abuses that make ISCRAA necessary is the attorney fee arrangement awarded in the State lawsuits to recover tobacco-related Medicaid expenses. Individual law firms that represented the States in that litigation have been given hundreds of millions and sometimes even billions of dollars in fees. To date, approximately $15 billion in fees has been awarded to the tobacco settlement lawyers, to be paid out in $500-million-a-year increments. Attorneys representing just three of the States--Mississippi, Texas, and Florida--were awarded $8.2 billion in fees. In many cases, such fees were paid to attorneys who filed duplicate, copycat lawsuits at a time when settlement negotiations had already begun and the risk that the states would not recover any money was negligible. Yet these lawyers nevertheless received massive contingency fees, for suits that involved no real contingency. And for most of the tobacco settlement lawyers, the size of the fee awards bears no reasonable relation to the actual effort expended or risk involved.

There is widespread agreement that the fees awarded in the tobacco settlement are excessive and unreasonable. Perhaps the most damning indictments come from those who took the plaintiffs' side in this litigation--including from plaintiff lawyers themselves. For example, Michael Ciresi, a pioneer in the tobacco litigation who represented the state of Minnesota in its lawsuit, and who is no doubt familiar with what these lawsuits actually require, has said that the Texas, Florida, and Mississippi lawyers' fee awards ``are far in excess of these lawyers' contribution to any of the state results.'' Similarly, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler, another leader in the fight against tobacco, has said that the states' private lawyers ``did a real service, but I think the fee is outrageous. All the legal fees are out control.'' Washington, D.C. lawyer and tobacco-industry opponent John Coale has denounced the fee awards as ``beyond human comprehension'' and stated that ``the work does not justify them.'' Even the Association of American Trial Lawyers, the nation's premier representative of the plaintiffs bar, has condemned attorney fees requested in the state tobacco settlement. The President of ATLA has noted: ``Common sense suggests that a one billion dollar fee is excessive and unreasonable and certainly should invite the scrutiny, of the courts. ATLA generally refrains from expressing an institutional opinion regarding a particular fee in a particular case, but we have a strong negative reaction to reports that at least one attorney on behalf of the plaintiffs in the Florida case is seeking a fee in excess of one billion dollars.''

This letter, written in 1997, only concerned one of the Florida lawyers' request for attorney fees. Ultimately, Florida's private counsel was awarded a total of $3.4 billion in fees. These statements demonstrate beyond all doubt that there is real abuse going on here, and that the victim of this abuse is the client, the plaintiff--and not the defendant.

Perhaps the best gloss on the tobacco fee awards is that provided by Professor Lester Brickman, a professor of law at Cardozo Law School and noted authority on legal ethics and attorney fees. Professor Brickman has stated:

``Under the rules of legal ethics, promulgated partly as a justification for the legal profession's self-governance, fees cannot be `clearly excessive.' Indeed, that standard has now been superseded in most States by an even more rigorous standard: fees have to be `reasonable.' Are these fees, which in many cases amount to effective hourly rates of return of tens of thousands--and even hundreds of thousands--of dollars an hour, reasonable? I think to ask the question is to answer it.''

The attorney fees awarded in the state tobacco settlement are simply indefensible. And the process by which the fees were awarded partly explains how they came to be so. Outside counsel fees were determined by a private arbitration panel established by the Master Settlement Agreement, MSA, that resolved 46 of the states' litigation. Four other states had settled their suits earlier. Their lawyers, however, also were paid out of the accounts created by the MSA. Amazingly, the settlement agreement explicitly immunized all fee awards from judicial review. Even more amazingly, one of the three arbitrators who made the awards had a clear conflict of interests: he was the father of a South Carolina lawyer whose law firm has received the largest fee awards of all, believed to amount to over $2 billion. Another one of the arbitrators had no background in fee arbitrations or any related matter, and simply ignored the law in order to make outrageous awards, using the salaries of sports stars and entertainers as a basis of measure. Revealingly, the third arbitrator, a retired Federal judge appointed by President Carter, dissented from the key fee decisions.

As incredible as the MSA fee awards and the arbitration procedures may seem, even more dubious is the process by which many of the law firms that participated in this lucrative litigation were selected in the first place to represent the states.

In my home State of Texas, trial lawyers have accused the then-state attorney general of demanding $1 million in campaign contributions in exchange for their being hired to represent the state in the tobacco litigation. One prominent lawyer--a former president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association--has since said that the attorney general's solicitation was so blatant that ``I knew th[at] instant . . . that I

could not be involved in the matter.'' He even later wondered if the meeting had been a ``sting operation.'' Another lawyer simply characterized his encounter with the attorney general as a bribery solicitation.

This former Texas attorney general was recently indicted on Federal charges of attempting to fraudulently divert $260 million in tobacco- settlement legal fees to one of his personal friends. He had given a sworn affidavit that this lawyer had served as Texas' ``primary adviser'' in its tobacco lawsuit--despite the apparent fact that the lawyer had attended no court hearings, depositions, or strategy meetings, wrote no memos or legal briefs about the case, and apparently never even spoke to any of the other attorneys. The attorney general even went so far as to forge and fraudulently backdate documents in order to win his friend a share of the tobacco settlement fee.

As for the five law firms that actually did represent Texas in the tobacco litigation, they filed relatively late lawsuits that were based on other lawyers' work--and yet, despite the minimal energy expended on those suits, were awarded $3.3 billion in attorney fees. This award amounts to compensation that, even assuming that the attorneys worked all day every day during the entire period of the litigation, remains well in excess of $100,000 an hour. As one newspaper editorial has noted, for the amount of money that these lawyers were awarded, Texas could hire 10,000 additional teachers or policemen for ten years. Instead, four of these firms gave the attorney general $150,000 in campaign contributions in recent years.

Texas' experience is not an isolated example. In other states as well, lawyers' participation in the tobacco litigation appears to have been the product of political favoritism--and to have resulted in unfathomable fees that bear no reasonable relation to the services provided. For example: New Jersey: The private in-state lawyers who represented this state in the tobacco litigation have admitted that they had no mass-tort litigation experience and played no role in the state settlement talks. They have also admitted that all the key work in the state's lawsuit was done by out-of-state firms--the in-state firms' principal work was drafting pro hac vice motions to have these outside lawyers admitted in New Jersey courts. Any work that the New Jersey lawyers did was submitted to the outside lawyers, who made all of the substantive arguments. Result: these in-state lawyers were awarded $350 million in the MSA fee arbitration. Connections: the New Jersey lawyers were an inside group of past presidents of the New Jersey trial lawyers' association. The State refused to even consider hiring a nonprofit firm to conduct the New Jersey lawsuit.

Pennsylvania: Settlement talks had already begun, the states' tobacco litigation was being resolved, and all of the legal theories already had been developed long before the Pennsylvania state suit was filed. Result: Pennsylvania's private lawyers were awarded $50 million in the MSA arbitration--equivalent to 1000 percent of a reasonable hourly rate. As one expert has noted, ``there's not $50 million of work in there.'' Connections: the two law firms that the state Attorney General selected to conduct the litigation were among his top campaign contributors. The firms were awarded no-bid contracts. As one Pennsylvania commentator has noted, ``obviously, it was a political kind of thing.''

Maryland: Billionaire tort lawyer Peter Angelos demanded a one billion dollar fee for his work on that State's case, even though, according to the State Senate President, the State legislature had retroactively ``changed centuries of precedent to ensure [Angelos] a win in the case.'' Angelos ultimately received an accelerated $150 million payment for this no-risk lawsuit.

Louisiana: The private law firms that represented the State in the tobacco litigation were awarded $575 million. The MSA arbitration panel actually increased this award on the ground that the State government-- the lawyers' supposed client--was opposed to suing tobacco companies. The Louisiana fee award amounts to almost $7,000 an hour, based on the lawyers' estimate that they worked a total 85,000 hours. Moreover, this estimate is unverifiable, because the state's private lawyers kept no billing records--as the attorney general explained, ``I wasn't that big on hourly or written reports.'' The dissenting member of the arbitration panel simply noted that the Louisiana fee award ``shocks the conscience'' The single biggest beneficiary of this largesse-- receiving $115 million in attorney fees--was a law firm based in Lake Charles, the hometown of the state's attorney general. This firm and the next largest fee recipient had donated over $42,000 to the attorney general's political campaigns. Together, all of the firms that represented Louisiana gave more than $100,000 to the attorney general in the years before they were selected to participate in the state's tobacco team.

Ohio: The lawyers representing this State received fees estimated to exceed $50,000 per hour, despite the fact that, according to independent observers, ``all of the legal issues were resolved long before these Ohio lawyers stepped up to the plate.'' The state's outside counsel had donated $26,000 in campaign contributions to the State attorney general prior to their appointment to the state's tobacco team. After the attorney general chose one private lawyer to serve as the state's ``lead special counsel,'' that lawyer hired one of the attorney general's top aides for an undisclosed sum in order to--in the lawyer's own words--``help me get acquainted with a technique called PowerPoint.'' When told that ``there were many people in Ohio capable of doing a PowerPoint presentation,'' the state's outside counsel responded that this particular attorney general's aide ``was the only one I knew of.''

Massachusetts: According to other tobacco plaintiffs' lawyers, Massachusetts's suit piggybacked on the work of other lawyers and was not pivotal to the outcome of the tobacco litigation. Result: $775 million was awarded to the Massachusetts lawyers in the MSA arbitration.

New York: When this State's then-attorney general hired private counsel to represent the State in its tobacco lawsuit, tobacco companies already had paid $15 billion to Florida and Mississippi for identical claims and a national settlement agreement already was under discussion. As one local anti-tobacco leader has noted, ``these were copycat lawsuits, there wasn't all that much work to do.'' The firms' primary job was to collect New York-specific data in order to calculate damages. Ultimately, the New York firms represented the State for just 13 months. And they received a fee award of $625 million. This amounts to at least $14,000 an hour, for a lawsuit that by all accounts involved no risk. The dissenting member of the arbitration panel has denounced the award as ``an astronomical sum unrelated to, the attorneys', efforts or achievements.'' The New York firms had contributed more than $250,000 to New York politicians and their campaign organizations in the years preceding their selection - and another $200,000 after the State settlement.

Wisconsin: The Wisconsin lawyers' tobacco litigation work has been described as chiefly consisting of media and public relations efforts on their own behalf. Their billing records included time spent selecting office space and buying furniture. One lawyer effectively billed $3,000 to the State for reading an article in a Madison newspaper. The lawyers also billed the State for limousine rides around the state, trips on private jets, and stays at luxury hotels. Result: $75 million was awarded to the Wisconsin lawyers. Based on the law firms' records of the total number of hours they devoted to the case-- including work by paralegals--this fee amounts to $3,000 per hour.

Missouri: A State supreme court justice in Missouri resigned his post in order to join one of the private law firms expected to receive a portion of the MSA arbitrators' fee award. Ultimately, the firms representing the State spent just 5 months on the state's lawsuit. They received a fee award of $111 million. One State leader has described the award as ``the biggest rip-off in the 180-year history of the state.'' The law firms receiving these fees had donated more than $500,000 to State politicians and parties in the years leading up to their selection as the State's outside counsel.

These examples are too numerous to dismiss. In State after State, the temptations created by the massive, windfall fees awarded in the Medicaid tobacco settlement corrupted not only lawyers involved, but the government as well. The fee awards poisoned everything that they touched. No one who examines these events closely--who surveys the obscene fee awards, and the political cronyism that determined who benefited--can disagree that this must never be allowed to happen again.

As a final point, I would like to address a question that has been raised with regard to remedy. Some have argued that nothing can be done to correct the excesses of the tobacco settlement fee awards--even with regard to fees that are still being or have yet to be paid. On several occasions, State judges who were called upon to approve their State's tobacco settlement have also, on their own initiative, inquired into the apparent unreasonableness of the fees awarded. In each case, both the plaintiffs' lawyers--and in some cases, even State officials--have challenged the State courts' authority to act. They have argued that these courts lack jurisdiction to review a national settlement, and that excessive fees cannot be restored to the State. One state's attorney general implicated in these events has argued that it is a ``misconception'' that the tobacco settlement ``attorneys' fees are coming out of the public's pocket. That is not the case. They [sic] defendants have agreed to pay these fees.''

Because of the way that the MSA fee payments are structured, no lawyer's award comes out of any one particular, identifiable State's recovery. Instead, all of the lawyers are being paid from one of two separate accounts, each of which is funded by the tobacco companies.

It is a mistake, however, to contend that, because the MSA fee payments are made directly from defendants to plaintiffs' lawyers-- without ever formally or actually passing through the plaintiffs' hands--they are immunized against ethical scrutiny or correction. It is well and long established in our law that fee awards originate as the property of the client regardless of how the fee agreements are structured. The courts have been very clear on this point. As they have stated: ``The allowance of attorney fees in a judgment gives the attorneys no interest and ownership in the judgment to the extent of the amount of the fee allowed, but the judgment in its entirety is the property of the client. The award for fees is for the client, not the attorney.''

``[A]ttorneys' fee provisions exist for the benefit of parties and not the attorneys. . . . Several jurisdictions have noted that the real party in interest with regard to fees is the client and not the attorney.''

``A judgment for costs is a judgment in favor of the party, and not of his attorney, and the money represented by the costs is the property of the party.''

``[T]he award of attorney fees [is] made not to the attorneys but to the litigant who was personally liable to the attorneys. This is also the view in other states when the courts award attorney fees.''

``An award of attorney's fees belongs to the client and not the attorney.''

Indeed, an award of attorney fees is generally taxable as income to the client. In a recent case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit noted that a plaintiff's obligation to compensate the law firm that represented him ``was satisfied by [the defendant]. The payment was therefore to [the client]. The discharge by a third person of an obligation to him is equivalent to receipt by the person taxed.'' The Ninth Circuit emphasized that the fact ``[t]hat [the client] never laid hands on the money paid to the lawyers does not obliterate their constructive receipt.'' In other words, the fee award belongs to the client, regardless of how the award is made.

The rule that fee awards belong to the client is strongly supported by important policy considerations. It is necessary because any other rule would be an invitation to collusion and self-dealing between plaintiffs' lawyers and defendants. Again, the courts have been very clear on this point. As the Third Circuit has noted: ``[A] defendant is interested only in disposing of the total claims asserted against it, and the allocation between the [plaintiff's] payment and the attorneys' fees is of little or no interest to the defense. Moreover, the divergence in class members' and class counsel's financial incentives creates the danger that the lawyers might urge a class settlement at a low figure or on a less-than-optimal basis in exchange for red-carpet treatment for fees.''

The Second Circuit has made the same point, noting: ``Defendants, once the settlement amount has been agreed to, have little interest in how it is distributed and thus no incentive to oppose the [attorneys] fee. Indeed, the same dynamic creates incentives for collusion--the temptation for lawyers to agree to a less than optimal settlement in exchange for [generous fees].''

The Ninth Circuit has also addressed the question of ``whether a class member has standing to appeal class counsel's attorney fee and cost award when that award is payable by the defendant independently, and not out of the class settlement.'' The court concluded that ``[e]ven if class counsel's attorney fees are not to be paid from the class settlement . . . , the aggregate amount of the attorney fees and the class settlement payments may be viewed as ``a constructive common fund.'' The court reasoned that ``[i]f . . . class counsel agreed to accept excessive fees and costs to the detriment of class plaintiffs, then class counsel breached their fiduciary duty to the class. If that were the case, any excessive award could be considered property of the class plaintiffs, and any injury they suffered could be at least partially redressed by allocating to them a portion of that award.''

As several commentators have noted, the policy considerations underpinning the rule that fee awards belong to the client apply with full force to the State tobacco settlement. Indeed, that settlement could serve as a textbook example for why this rule exists. As Professor Brickman has noted: ``To the tobacco companies, dollars are dollars, whether paid to States or paid to lawyers. So the real amount on the bargaining table was not the $246 billion that the states settled for, but a larger sum, including the amount to be paid to the attorneys. . . . Stated simply, because dollars are fungible, the fees are coming out of the settlements.''

Even foreign commentators have noted that the State tobacco settlement's ``arbitration is a mere figleaf. The money going to the lawyers was clearly part of the overall amount that the tobacco companies were willing to pay to settle the case. Whatever the lawyers get, the states do not.''

And this point has not been lost upon members of Congress. Representative Chris Cox, R-CA, has testified on the matter: ``It is specious to argue that, billions of dollars, in fees are not being diverted out of funds available for public health and taxpayers. The tobacco industry is willing to pay a certain sum to get rid of these cases. That sum is the total cost of the payment to the plaintiffs and their lawyers. It is a matter of indifference to the industry how that sum is divided--75 percent for the plaintiffs and 25 percent for their lawyers, or vice versa. That means that every penny paid to the plaintiffs' lawyers--whether it is technically ``in'' the settlement or not--is money that the industry could have paid to the state or the private plaintiffs. Excessive attorneys' fees in this case will not be a victimless crime.''

These authorities and their reasoning should be more than sufficient to permanently dispel the notion that an attorney fee agreement can be structured so as to evade the ethical obligation to charge only a reasonable fee. The defenders of the MSA fee payments are simply misleading the public and this distinguished body when they assert that a particular lawyer's award under the settlement does not come out of a particular state's recovery. That fee comes out of all of the State's recoveries. All excessive or unreasonable fees should be restored to all 50 of the States.

Senator Kyl has already presented estimates of the monetary recovery each State can expect if ISCRAA is enacted. I would simply point out here that, according to those estimates, Texas has been charged excessive and unreasonable attorney fees in the amount of $667 million, and therefore would recover those funds if this legislation is adopted.

ISCRAA's return of unethical tobacco-settlement fee awards to the

states is manifestly proper in light of the fact that all fee awards are the property of the client, and the attorney is entitled only to a reasonable fee. No attorney is above these ethical rules and obligations. They cannot be waived or ignored. And in light of our experience with the State tobacco settlement fee awards, and their effect on our public officials, these ethical duties must be carried out and enforced strictly and fully.

Our Federal and State courts generally do a good job of protecting consumers and enforcing the rights of all Americans. But there are problems in our courts that require attention and significant reform. Class action abuse not only threatens the integrity and the perception of rationality in our nation's courts, it also strongly hinders economic and job growth. Tort reform is badly needed to rescue many industries, especially our health care industry, from abuses of our legal system. The judicial confirmation process at the federal level has become bitter, severe and destructive, and that broken process poses a serious threat to judicial independence and the quality and efficiency of our courts. And abusive attorney fee arrangements make a mockery of our civil justice system, all while enriching a small band of unscrupulous litigators at the expense of the real victims, their clients.

To enforce the longstanding fiduciary duty of all attorneys to charge only a reasonable fee, in a class of cases that poses heightened risks of abuse and special significance to the national economy, I urge that this Senate consider expediently, and approve quickly, this important measure, the Intermediate Sanctions Compensatory Revenue Adjustment Act of 2003.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague Senator Snowe in introducing the Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act. This legislation will establish mental health care parity in the Medicare program.

Medicare currently requires patients to pay a 20 percent co-payment for all Part B services except mental health care services, for which patients are assessed a 50 percent co-payment. Thus, under the current system, if a Medicare patient sees an endocrinologist for diabetes treatment, an oncologist for cancer treatment, a cardiologist for heart disease treatment or an internist for treatment of the flu, the co- payment is 20 percent of the cost of the visit. If, however, a Medicare patient visits a psychiatrist for treatment of mental illness, the co- payment is 50 percent of the cost of the visit. This disparity in outpatient co-payments represents blatant discrimination against Medicare beneficiaries with mental illness.

The prevalence of mental illness in older adults is considerable. According to the U.S. Surgeon General, 20 percent of older adults in the community and 40 percent of older adults in primary care settings experience symptoms of depression, while as many as one out of every two residents in nursing homes are at risk of depression. The elderly have the highest rate of suicide in the United States, and there is a clear correlation between major depression and suicide: 60 to 70 percent of suicides among patients 75 and older have diagnosable depression. In addition to our seniors, 400,000 non-elderly disabled Medicare beneficiaries become Medicare-eligible by virtue of severe and persistent mental disorders. To subject the mentally disabled to discriminatory costs in coverage for the very conditions for which they became Medicare eligible is illogical and unfair.

There is ample evidence that mental illness can be treated. Unfortunately, those in need of treatment often do not seek it because they are ashamed of their condition. Among our Medicare population, the mentally ill face a double burden: not only must they overcome the stigma about their illness, but once they seek treatment they must pay one-half of the cost of care out of their own pocket. The Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act will phase-down the 50 percent co- payment for mental health care services to 20 percent over six years. By applying the same co-payment rate to mental health services to which all other outpatient services are subjected, the Medicare Mental Health Copayment Equity Act will bring parity to the Medicare program and improve access to care for our senior and disabled beneficiaries who are living with mental illness. I urge my colleagues to join with us to pass this critical legislation.

I ask unanimous consent that several letters of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, owning your own home is the foundation of the American dream. It encourages personal responsibility, improves child development, provides economic security and gives families a greater stake in the development of their communities. Communities where homeownership rates are highest have lower crime rates, better schools and provide a better quality of life for families to raise their children.

However, too many low- and moderate-income families living in urban and rural areas across our nation have not been able to share in the dream and benefits of homeownership due to the lack of available housing or the high cost of what housing is available.

Today, I am introducing the Community Development Homeownership Tax Credit Act, along with Senators Santorum, Sarbanes, Allard, Daschle, Kennedy, Stabenow and Clinton to encourage the construction and substantial rehabilitation of 500,000 homes over the next ten years for low- and moderate-income families in economically distressed areas.

The bill will increase the supply of affordable homes for sale in inner-cities, rural areas and low- and moderate-income neighborhoods across the United States. It will bridge the gap that exists today between the cost of developing-affordable housing and the price at which these homes can be sold in many low-income neighborhoods by providing investors with a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost of home construction or rehabilitation.

By facing the mounting challenge of producing affordable housing, I strongly believe we can help provide critically needed economic development low- and moderate-income communities across our country and provide an important stimulus in the development of our nation's economy. The production of new homes provided in this legislation will create both construction and construction-related jobs which will both increase economic growth and lower the unemployment rate. New Economic activity can revitalize many inner-city neighborhoods and rural areas where unemployment and crime have been a fact of life for too long.

Buying a new home also leads to the purchase of new appliances and furnishings. Average new homebuyers spend almost $5,000 on appliances and

furnishings during the first year of living in their new home. This will help stimulate the manufacturing section of our economy. It is clear that building new homes creates jobs and moves our economy forward.

Over the past decade, we have made substantial progress in increasing the homeownership rate in the United States. In 2000, the U.S. homeownership rate reached a record high of 67.1 percent with some 71 million U.S. households owning their own home. However, many working families have been struggling to find an affordable home in our nation's cities. Over the past two generations, many families have moved out of cities and into the suburbs, which has depressed the development of housing in the inner-city. In 1999, the homeownership rate in the central-city areas was 50.4 percent, this is more than 20 percent lower than the suburban homeownership rate of 73.6 percent.

Working families with low- and moderate-income have also had difficulties buying a home. Currently, 83.3 percent of households with family income higher than the median family income are homeowners, while only 52.4 percent of households with family income below the median income are homeowners.

Too many communities face a lack of available homes because developers are concerned that the new houses may not be sold for the cost of construction. Many properties or sites that could be developed into affordable homes now sit vacant, and neighborhoods remain undeveloped because the gap between development costs and market prices has not been filled. The lack of affordable single-family homes affect many urban and rural areas where a majority of residents earn less than the median income.

Today, too many minority families face barriers in their attempts to reach the American Dream of homeownership. According to Census data for the fourth quarter of 2002, non-Hispanic whites have a 74.8 percent homeownership rate, while minority groups have just a 55.4 percent homeownership rate. African Americans have only a 47.5 percent homeownership rate, and Hispanics have a 49.5 percent homeownership rate in the same study. The gap between white and African American homeownership rates has been approximately 25 percent to 30 percent for most of the last century. These numbers are simply unacceptable.

Despite our efforts at the federal level to promote homeownership, many minorities also face higher than average denial rates for mortgage applications. A recent study by the University of Massachusetts shows that racial and ethnic lending disparities continue in Boston. For example, African Americans were 2.73 times as likely as whites to be denied in their mortgage applications. Latinos were 2.25 times as likely as whites to be denied in their mortgage applications. Finally, Asians were 1.55 times as likely as whites to be denied in their mortgage applications.

Along with a lack of available homes in urban and rural areas, our nation is also facing an affordable rental housing crisis. Thousands of low-income families with children, the disabled, and the elderly are finding it difficult to obtain or afford privately owned affordable rental housing units. Recent changes in the housing market have limited the availability of affordable housing across the country, while the growth in our economy in the last decade has dramatically increased the cost of the housing that remains. Constructing new housing will help many families move out of rental housing and help increase the number of available rental housing units and help ease the affordable housing crisis we now face.

The story of Benjamin and Rita Okafor shows how working families in Massachusetts have great difficulty obtaining a decent home of their own. For many years, the Okafor's and their two young children were forced to live in a one-bedroom apartment. Benjamin Okafor, who worked full time as a cab driver in Boston, spent days and months looking for a bigger apartment for his family. However, the lack of affordable housing in the Boston area made it impossible for him to find anything appropriate. When his wife Rita became pregnant with their third child, the Okafor's knew something had to change in their living situation. Luckily, Ben was accepted into the Habitat for Humanity program and worked 300 sweat equity hours constructing a house. In August 2000, the Okafor family moved into a new home of their own in Dorchester. Ben says that this new home gives them the hope and stability they need. Yet, there are still far too many working families living a substandard housing and many more families that desperately need assistance to become homeowners. A new tax incentive for developers to build affordable homes in distressed areas will help working families like the Okafor's to afford a home for the first time.

The benefits of owning a home can bring families financial rewards and personal satisfaction with a deep sense of security. Real estate values have historically risen over time. Homeowners may deduct mortgage interest and property taxes as an expense against income. Real estate has generally been seen as marketable, allowing for property to be sold at a predictable price to a dependable group of available buyers.

We know that owning a home instead of renting leads to a better quality of life for its residents, but we are now learning more and more about the impact homeownership has on the cognitive and behavioral outcomes for children. A recent study by Ohio State University shows that children of families who own their home have fewer behavioral problems and are able to learn more effectively. Specifically, a child's cognitive abilities are 9 percent higher in math and 7 percent higher in reading for children living in their own homes. The study also shows that these children also experienced up to 3 percent lower behavioral problems than other children. This study proves that the national goal of homeownership has an added benefit of helping America's children learn and behave better, which helps our schools produce better citizens and will help our economy develop in the long term.

The Community Development Tax Credit Act, which I am introducing today, bridges the gap between development costs and market value to enable the development of new or refurbished homes in urban and rural areas to blossom. The tax credit would be available to developers or investors that build or substantially rehabilitate homes for sale to low- or moderate-income buyers in low-income areas. The credit would generate equity investment sufficient to cover the gap between the cost of development and the price at which the home can be sold to an eligible buyer.

The tax credit volume would be limited to $1.75 per capita for each State and allocated by the States themselves. Credits would be claimed over 5 years, starting when homes are sold. I believe this legislation will result in approximately 50,000 homes built or refurbished annually, assuming about $40,000 per home.

The maximum tax credit equals 50 percent of the cost of construction, substantial rehabilitation, and building acquisition. The eligible cost may not exceed the Federal Housing Administration single-family mortgage limits. The minimum rehabilitation costs is $25,000. Eligible building acquisition costs are limited to one-half of rehabilitation costs. States will allocate only the level of tax credits necessary for financial feasibility of individual projects. Ten percent of the available credit will be set aside for nonprofit organizations.

The eligible areas for the tax credit are defined as Census Tracts with median income below 80 percent of the area or state median. Rural areas that are currently eligible for USDA housing programs will be eligible for the tax credit. Indian tribal lands will be eligible for the tax credit. State-identified areas of chronic economic distress will also be eligible for tax credit, subject to disapproval by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Those eligible to buy homes built or refurbished using the tax credit include: individuals with incomes up to 80 percent of the area or state median and up to 100 percent of area median income in low-income/high- poverty Census Tracts.

Individual states will write plans to allocate the available tax credits using the following selection criteria: contribution of the development to community stability and revitalization; community and local government support; need for homeownership development in the area; sponsor capability; and the long-term sustainability of the

project as owner-occupied residences. Then individual developers along with investors can apply to the state to be awarded a tax credit for developing a property in a low- or moderate-income area. If chosen by the state, investors can start to claim the tax credit as the homes are sold to eligible buyers. They can continue to claim the tax credit for five years. Investors are not subject to recapture. If the home owner sells the residence within five years, a scale would determine the percentage of the gain that would be recaptured by the Federal Government. In the first two years, 100 percent of the gain and 80, 70 and 60 percent in the third, fourth, and fifth years, respectively, would be recaptured.

The Community Development Homeownership Tax Credit Act that I am introducing today will positively affect the lives for approximately 500,000 families over the next 10 years, help resolve the affordable rental housing crisis we face, and help create jobs and grow our economy. I ask all of my colleagues to help expand the foundation of the American Dream by supporting this new tax incentive to encourage the construction and rehabilitation of homes for low- and moderate- income families in economically distressed areas.

This legislation is supported by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Enterprise Foundation, Local Initiatives Support Coalition, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, National Association of Home Builders, National Low Income Housing Coalition, National Association of Local Housing Finance Agencies, National Association of Realtors, National Council of La Raza, National Hispanic Housing Conference, Habitat for Humanity International and others.

Mr. President, I rise today to draw the attention of the Senate and those following this proceeding to a global emergency many of us believe the last Congress did not adequately address.

Imagine the public reaction that would ensue if every year the United States lost a population the size of the city of Chicago to HIV/AIDS- related deaths; if every year the United States lost the number of children equal to the population of this city, Washington, DC, to HIV/ AIDS-related deaths. This is the reality the world faces.

Imagine how bad the situation would have to be in the United States for the public to accept an HIV-positive muppet on Sesame Street, the popular television show geared to little kids ages 2 to 4. This is the reality of children's TV in South Africa.

In 2001, 662,000 children lost either one or both parents to AIDS in South Africa.

In 2002, 3 million children, defined as 15 years of age or younger, were reported to be living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa; 800,000 children worldwide were newly infected with HIV last year.

Last weekend I went with several of my colleagues to Haiti. The reason for that trip had a lot to do with a well-known rock singer named Bono whose group U2 is legendary in rock-and-roll history. But he has taken on a special mission, not only to make music, but to make the world more aware of the HIV/AIDS crisis. He is a very likable fellow. He has been a great lobbyist. This Irishman comes to Capitol Hill and opens every door.

In my office, when he came to see me, I couldn't get over how many of my staffers took a great interest in HIV/AIDS just to be in the room when he sat down and talked about it. He has done such spectacular work with Democrats and Republicans, the executive branch, and the legislative branch. Then he had a tour, which was scheduled about 2 or 3 months ago, in the Midwest. The tour was really to speak to the heartland of America about this issue of HIV/AIDS. He came to my City of Chicago. I was proud to meet with him and a group of African American clergy.

Then he went out to a very conservative piece of real estate near the City of Chicago, the great Wheaton College. Wheaton College was where Billy Graham took his training before he went into the ministry. Wheaton College has a reputation of being pretty conservative, high- minded in their values, dedicated to their religion and their belief. And they invited him, this outspoken Irishman, to speak to them about HIV/AIDS. It was a great presentation.

At the very end there was some music, but most of it was very serious in that people talked about their life experiences. The thing I noticed, as the presentation was made, was that one of the doctors said: You Americans tend to want to look across the ocean for HIV/AIDS. You have it here in the United States, and don't forget it. But you also have it in your hemisphere in Haiti in a way that most people don't even appreciate.

Last weekend I traveled to Haiti with several of my colleagues, including Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. But the leader of our codel was Senator Mike DeWine, a Republican of Ohio, and his wife Fran. Let me just say something for a moment about Mike DeWine. Mike and I had been friends since we were both elected to the House 20 years ago. He left for a period of time and ran for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, then came back as a Senator from that State.

Most people don't know Mike and his wife and family have a particular interest and dedication to Haiti and the poor people who live there. This trip was their eleventh trip to Haiti. Many Members of Congress are lucky to go to the same place far away once or twice in a lifetime. Think about the fact that Mike and Fran, people on their staff, continue to return to one of the poorest places on earth over and over and over again. It isn't just to take photographs. In fact, they do very little of that. It is to bring bags of toys and soccer balls, basic items, medical and otherwise, that the poorest people in our hemisphere need, to visit programs like one called Hands Together. Hands Together is something I never heard of before I got to Haiti, but I met Father Tom Hagan, who is the leader of Hands Together in Haiti, and Doug Campbell, his executive director, and they showed us a center which they have created in

one of the poorest slums on earth. It is called Cite Soleil. My French translation would be Sun City. But it is not always sunny in this city for the tens of thousands who live in the worst poverty.

They created this little school and community center to teach children how to read and write on the condition that their parents also come in and learn. They provide basic food for these children. They invite in senior citizens who come in for the only meal of the day that is worthwhile, and they try to give them some encouragement and maybe some basic things they need to survive.

They told us a story about the senior citizens being brought to the center. There is no place for them to go in this terrible slum. When they first started bringing them in, most were brought in in wheelbarrows. They could barely walk. The life expectancy in Haiti is 51 years of age. If you are 60 or 70--I met people who are even older-- it is a rarity, but you obviously have some good genetics. But they were still struggling.

At their center with Hands Together they offered these senior citizens a basic meal. I saw it. It was beans and rice with a few little peppers on the top of it, and a vitamin pill. In a matter of weeks, these same elderly people, who could barely walk and were brought in in wheelbarrows, were up and moving around, thanks to Hands Together and to Father Hagan.

There is also the center where the kids are educated, called the Becky DeWine Center, named after Mike and Fran's late daughter. It is wonderful to see those children come in in their uniforms, 6 days a week. They want to be there, learning.

The reason I tell you this as background is that amidst all this poverty, Haiti faces an AIDS epidemic which is unparalleled in our hemisphere. When Bono visited Wheaton College, he said to the students: This is a global crisis. It is in our backyard in the Caribbean. It is all across Africa. It is moving across India and Russia and China. We have to do something about it.

It was that piece of information that led me to go to Haiti. I am glad I did. We set up a meeting at the ambassador's residence. Ambassador Brian D. Curran is our career ambassador. Previously he had been the ambassador to Mozambique. He let us meet with Bill Pape, who is known as ``Dr. Pop'' in the French pronunciation. What an impressive man. Here was a man who told us how he had decided as a public health leader in one of the poorest countries to try to eliminate the deaths of children, infants, from diarrhea, a terrible problem in the Third World. These poor children, who drink water that is contaminated, get sick with diarrhea and throwing up, become dehydrated and die.

They put together a program that has virtually eliminated that as a challenge in Haiti. I am impressed. That is a big undertaking, and a lot of success was demonstrated. Now Dr. Pape and his organization, known as GHESKIO, an organization that is one of the earliest in terms of commitment to dealing with HIV and AIDS, have received a $10 million-plus grant from the Global AIDS Fund to take on the AIDS epidemic in Haiti. Already he is able to demonstrate on the chart that just their first year or two of activity, the AIDS rate of infection is starting to come down ever so gradually. He believes he is on the right course to deal with this epidemic.

Do you know where the Global AIDS Fund money comes from? Some of it comes from us, taxpayers who contribute to the Global AIDS Fund. As we contribute and he is successful, fewer children are infected; fewer children are orphaned. There is more hope for their future.

I left that visit to Haiti inspired again, as I am every time I visit some of the poorest places in the world. You might think it is depressing to see people living in the worst squalor imaginable, to see them holding beautiful little babies as they stand right next to open sewers that pigs are rooting through, to see dogs that are so skinny they can barely walk, to see the living conditions which are so horrible. You would think that would be so depressing, but you will find in every one of these places stories of courage, not just the mothers and fathers struggling to keep the family together, but people like Father Tom Hagan and Hands Together and Doug Campbell who come into that setting and say: Let us help.

There are many others. I just mentioned Hands Together. There is World Vision, CARE, Catholic Relief Services. The list goes on. Thank goodness they are there. I am glad I had a chance to see it.

When we came back here to Washington, I came back with a renewed dedication and determination to really work on this issue of global

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 10 minutes.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has been open and candid about using all of these things to deal with AIDS. When I told him Senator Mike DeWine and I had been successful on the Senate floor in putting in $180 billion more on the global AIDS fight, a big smile crossed his face.

Today, 42 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS--5 million were newly infected last year. We have seen 3.1 million AIDS- related deaths in 2002. Each year, AIDS deaths claim more than the entire population of Chicago. Life expectancy has dropped below 40 years of age in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS has already erased 15 years of progress in the worse affected countries. Despite our efforts to date, this epidemic continues its deadly spread across the globe. As the disease spreads, unraveling social structures and decimating populations, the national security implications for the United States multiply--in number as well as intensity.

Last year, the National Intelligence Council released a report supplying grave statistics for ``the next wave.'' In 5 of the world's most populous countries, the number of HIV-infected people will grow from 14 million to 23 million currently to an estimated 50 million to 75 million by 2010.

The disease infiltrates national armies, as well as the public sector, weakening the country's ability to govern and respond to regional threats. As the number of infections grows, the cost of fighting HIV/AIDS overwhelms national governments and competes for the same funds they need to maintain their economy and basic social structure.

Most governments face a lose-lose situation: Either they fight AIDS and underfund the infrastructures necessary to sustain continued immunity, or they continue to build the infrastructures while HIV/AIDS decimates

any progress, and they fall victim to it and watch their state crumble.

On every continent, AIDS is traveling along social fault lines and exploiting the weaknesses, hurting both lives and economies.

HIV/AIDS is a national security issue that is as important to our time as the war on terrorism. It is an economic issue, a health and safety issue, and it is a moral issue. Without comprehensive action, the HIV/AIDS epidemic will worsen, demanding even more attention and funding. That is why I introduce this bill to reset global AIDS as a top priority in this Congress.

The main purpose of the bill is to provide a comprehensive response to the AIDS pandemic and acknowledge the growing need for resources. In the form of specialized initiatives, my bill will focus on the growing number of AIDS orphans, the lack of health professionals in AIDS- ravaged countries, and the lack of access to affordable treatment for the majority of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.

I have designed the Global CARE Act to achieve four major goals: Better coordination of our own agencies in fighting global AIDS; the provision of programs that address all components necessary to support a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS, including prevention, treatment, care, and investment in broader health systems and national economies; increased accountability for the health and policy objectives we will seek to achieve with our financial and human investment; and the ability to mobilize the most effective human capacity-building tools to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Last year, I introduced a version of this bill which authorized $2.5 billion in global AIDS spending for fiscal year 2003. For fiscal year 2004, I have proposed authorization levels of $3.35 billion. The United States, unfortunately, only contributed $1 billion to fighting this epidemic in 2002. With the passage of the Durbin-DeWine amendment, the Senate allocated $1.525 billion in its fiscal year 2003 appropriations bills. This is a breakthrough--a 50-percent increase by the United States in its commitment.

But these funding levels are still far short of the goal. To meet the need, our target for fiscal year 2004 should be in the $3.35 billion range. Frankly, when you look at the world this year, the global need just to fight HIV/AIDS stands at $8.2 billion. Despite these good efforts by the United States, we can do more. But other countries in the world can do more as well. Let them join the President and the Congress in our commitment to this fight. We have been shortchanging this epidemic for too long. We take tiny steps in pursuit of a challenge that is racing away from us.

Because the spread of this disease remains in its infancy, we have to look at it in more serious terms. We must do more for the 42 million people worldwide who are living with HIV/AIDS, and we have to understand that the disease is not going to wait for our political determination.

A 15-year-old boy in Botswana faces an 80-percent chance of dying from AIDS. We have to change his future. To do that, the Global CARE Act addresses this epidemic aggressively and honestly. I hope this bill will provide a basic blueprint for the United States, and I hope we can join on a bipartisan basis in passing it. I hope my colleagues who read my remarks and follow this debate will believe, as I do, that the President has given us a great opportunity on a bipartisan basis to stand together and tell the world that this caring Nation is committed to dealing honestly and effectively with the global AIDS crisis.

Mr. President, I rise today to draw the attention of the Senate and those following this proceeding to a global emergency many of us believe the last Congress did not adequately address.

Imagine the public reaction that would ensue if every year the United States lost a population the size of the city of Chicago to HIV/AIDS- related deaths; if every year the United States lost the number of children equal to the population of this city, Washington, DC, to HIV/ AIDS-related deaths. This is the reality the world faces.

Imagine how bad the situation would have to be in the United States for the public to accept an HIV-positive muppet on Sesame Street, the popular television show geared to little kids ages 2 to 4. This is the reality of children's TV in South Africa.

In 2001, 662,000 children lost either one or both parents to AIDS in South Africa.

In 2002, 3 million children, defined as 15 years of age or younger, were reported to be living with AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa; 800,000 children worldwide were newly infected with HIV last year.

Last weekend I went with several of my colleagues to Haiti. The reason for that trip had a lot to do with a well-known rock singer named Bono whose group U2 is legendary in rock-and-roll history. But he has taken on a special mission, not only to make music, but to make the world more aware of the HIV/AIDS crisis. He is a very likable fellow. He has been a great lobbyist. This Irishman comes to Capitol Hill and opens every door.

In my office, when he came to see me, I couldn't get over how many of my staffers took a great interest in HIV/AIDS just to be in the room when he sat down and talked about it. He has done such spectacular work with Democrats and Republicans, the executive branch, and the legislative branch. Then he had a tour, which was scheduled about 2 or 3 months ago, in the Midwest. The tour was really to speak to the heartland of America about this issue of HIV/AIDS. He came to my City of Chicago. I was proud to meet with him and a group of African American clergy.

Then he went out to a very conservative piece of real estate near the City of Chicago, the great Wheaton College. Wheaton College was where Billy Graham took his training before he went into the ministry. Wheaton College has a reputation of being pretty conservative, high- minded in their values, dedicated to their religion and their belief. And they invited him, this outspoken Irishman, to speak to them about HIV/AIDS. It was a great presentation.

At the very end there was some music, but most of it was very serious in that people talked about their life experiences. The thing I noticed, as the presentation was made, was that one of the doctors said: You Americans tend to want to look across the ocean for HIV/AIDS. You have it here in the United States, and don't forget it. But you also have it in your hemisphere in Haiti in a way that most people don't even appreciate.

Last weekend I traveled to Haiti with several of my colleagues, including Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. But the leader of our codel was Senator Mike DeWine, a Republican of Ohio, and his wife Fran. Let me just say something for a moment about Mike DeWine. Mike and I had been friends since we were both elected to the House 20 years ago. He left for a period of time and ran for Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, then came back as a Senator from that State.

Most people don't know Mike and his wife and family have a particular interest and dedication to Haiti and the poor people who live there. This trip was their eleventh trip to Haiti. Many Members of Congress are lucky to go to the same place far away once or twice in a lifetime. Think about the fact that Mike and Fran, people on their staff, continue to return to one of the poorest places on earth over and over and over again. It isn't just to take photographs. In fact, they do very little of that. It is to bring bags of toys and soccer balls, basic items, medical and otherwise, that the poorest people in our hemisphere need, to visit programs like one called Hands Together. Hands Together is something I never heard of before I got to Haiti, but I met Father Tom Hagan, who is the leader of Hands Together in Haiti, and Doug Campbell, his executive director, and they showed us a center which they have created in

one of the poorest slums on earth. It is called Cite Soleil. My French translation would be Sun City. But it is not always sunny in this city for the tens of thousands who live in the worst poverty.

They created this little school and community center to teach children how to read and write on the condition that their parents also come in and learn. They provide basic food for these children. They invite in senior citizens who come in for the only meal of the day that is worthwhile, and they try to give them some encouragement and maybe some basic things they need to survive.

They told us a story about the senior citizens being brought to the center. There is no place for them to go in this terrible slum. When they first started bringing them in, most were brought in in wheelbarrows. They could barely walk. The life expectancy in Haiti is 51 years of age. If you are 60 or 70--I met people who are even older-- it is a rarity, but you obviously have some good genetics. But they were still struggling.

At their center with Hands Together they offered these senior citizens a basic meal. I saw it. It was beans and rice with a few little peppers on the top of it, and a vitamin pill. In a matter of weeks, these same elderly people, who could barely walk and were brought in in wheelbarrows, were up and moving around, thanks to Hands Together and to Father Hagan.

There is also the center where the kids are educated, called the Becky DeWine Center, named after Mike and Fran's late daughter. It is wonderful to see those children come in in their uniforms, 6 days a week. They want to be there, learning.

The reason I tell you this as background is that amidst all this poverty, Haiti faces an AIDS epidemic which is unparalleled in our hemisphere. When Bono visited Wheaton College, he said to the students: This is a global crisis. It is in our backyard in the Caribbean. It is all across Africa. It is moving across India and Russia and China. We have to do something about it.

It was that piece of information that led me to go to Haiti. I am glad I did. We set up a meeting at the ambassador's residence. Ambassador Brian D. Curran is our career ambassador. Previously he had been the ambassador to Mozambique. He let us meet with Bill Pape, who is known as ``Dr. Pop'' in the French pronunciation. What an impressive man. Here was a man who told us how he had decided as a public health leader in one of the poorest countries to try to eliminate the deaths of children, infants, from diarrhea, a terrible problem in the Third World. These poor children, who drink water that is contaminated, get sick with diarrhea and throwing up, become dehydrated and die.

They put together a program that has virtually eliminated that as a challenge in Haiti. I am impressed. That is a big undertaking, and a lot of success was demonstrated. Now Dr. Pape and his organization, known as GHESKIO, an organization that is one of the earliest in terms of commitment to dealing with HIV and AIDS, have received a $10 million-plus grant from the Global AIDS Fund to take on the AIDS epidemic in Haiti. Already he is able to demonstrate on the chart that just their first year or two of activity, the AIDS rate of infection is starting to come down ever so gradually. He believes he is on the right course to deal with this epidemic.

Do you know where the Global AIDS Fund money comes from? Some of it comes from us, taxpayers who contribute to the Global AIDS Fund. As we contribute and he is successful, fewer children are infected; fewer children are orphaned. There is more hope for their future.

I left that visit to Haiti inspired again, as I am every time I visit some of the poorest places in the world. You might think it is depressing to see people living in the worst squalor imaginable, to see them holding beautiful little babies as they stand right next to open sewers that pigs are rooting through, to see dogs that are so skinny they can barely walk, to see the living conditions which are so horrible. You would think that would be so depressing, but you will find in every one of these places stories of courage, not just the mothers and fathers struggling to keep the family together, but people like Father Tom Hagan and Hands Together and Doug Campbell who come into that setting and say: Let us help.

There are many others. I just mentioned Hands Together. There is World Vision, CARE, Catholic Relief Services. The list goes on. Thank goodness they are there. I am glad I had a chance to see it.

When we came back here to Washington, I came back with a renewed dedication and determination to really work on this issue of global

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 10 minutes.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has been open and candid about using all of these things to deal with AIDS. When I told him Senator Mike DeWine and I had been successful on the Senate floor in putting in $180 billion more on the global AIDS fight, a big smile crossed his face.

Today, 42 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS--5 million were newly infected last year. We have seen 3.1 million AIDS- related deaths in 2002. Each year, AIDS deaths claim more than the entire population of Chicago. Life expectancy has dropped below 40 years of age in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS has already erased 15 years of progress in the worse affected countries. Despite our efforts to date, this epidemic continues its deadly spread across the globe. As the disease spreads, unraveling social structures and decimating populations, the national security implications for the United States multiply--in number as well as intensity.

Last year, the National Intelligence Council released a report supplying grave statistics for ``the next wave.'' In 5 of the world's most populous countries, the number of HIV-infected people will grow from 14 million to 23 million currently to an estimated 50 million to 75 million by 2010.

The disease infiltrates national armies, as well as the public sector, weakening the country's ability to govern and respond to regional threats. As the number of infections grows, the cost of fighting HIV/AIDS overwhelms national governments and competes for the same funds they need to maintain their economy and basic social structure.

Most governments face a lose-lose situation: Either they fight AIDS and underfund the infrastructures necessary to sustain continued immunity, or they continue to build the infrastructures while HIV/AIDS decimates

any progress, and they fall victim to it and watch their state crumble.

On every continent, AIDS is traveling along social fault lines and exploiting the weaknesses, hurting both lives and economies.

HIV/AIDS is a national security issue that is as important to our time as the war on terrorism. It is an economic issue, a health and safety issue, and it is a moral issue. Without comprehensive action, the HIV/AIDS epidemic will worsen, demanding even more attention and funding. That is why I introduce this bill to reset global AIDS as a top priority in this Congress.

The main purpose of the bill is to provide a comprehensive response to the AIDS pandemic and acknowledge the growing need for resources. In the form of specialized initiatives, my bill will focus on the growing number of AIDS orphans, the lack of health professionals in AIDS- ravaged countries, and the lack of access to affordable treatment for the majority of those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.

I have designed the Global CARE Act to achieve four major goals: Better coordination of our own agencies in fighting global AIDS; the provision of programs that address all components necessary to support a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS, including prevention, treatment, care, and investment in broader health systems and national economies; increased accountability for the health and policy objectives we will seek to achieve with our financial and human investment; and the ability to mobilize the most effective human capacity-building tools to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Last year, I introduced a version of this bill which authorized $2.5 billion in global AIDS spending for fiscal year 2003. For fiscal year 2004, I have proposed authorization levels of $3.35 billion. The United States, unfortunately, only contributed $1 billion to fighting this epidemic in 2002. With the passage of the Durbin-DeWine amendment, the Senate allocated $1.525 billion in its fiscal year 2003 appropriations bills. This is a breakthrough--a 50-percent increase by the United States in its commitment.

But these funding levels are still far short of the goal. To meet the need, our target for fiscal year 2004 should be in the $3.35 billion range. Frankly, when you look at the world this year, the global need just to fight HIV/AIDS stands at $8.2 billion. Despite these good efforts by the United States, we can do more. But other countries in the world can do more as well. Let them join the President and the Congress in our commitment to this fight. We have been shortchanging this epidemic for too long. We take tiny steps in pursuit of a challenge that is racing away from us.

Because the spread of this disease remains in its infancy, we have to look at it in more serious terms. We must do more for the 42 million people worldwide who are living with HIV/AIDS, and we have to understand that the disease is not going to wait for our political determination.

A 15-year-old boy in Botswana faces an 80-percent chance of dying from AIDS. We have to change his future. To do that, the Global CARE Act addresses this epidemic aggressively and honestly. I hope this bill will provide a basic blueprint for the United States, and I hope we can join on a bipartisan basis in passing it. I hope my colleagues who read my remarks and follow this debate will believe, as I do, that the President has given us a great opportunity on a bipartisan basis to stand together and tell the world that this caring Nation is committed to dealing honestly and effectively with the global AIDS crisis.