Catch-Up Lost Retirement Savings Act

Mr. President, I am pleased today to be re-introducing legislation, the ``Small Business Federal Contractor Safeguard Act,'' designed to protect the interests of small businesses in the Federal marketplace.

Currently as the Ranking Member, and last Congress as Chairman, of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I have focused a considerable amount of energy on increasing the role of small businesses in the Federal marketplace. Not only is it an issue of fairness, but it is in the best interest of our economy and our national security. In fact, the Small Business Administration was created after World War II to ensure that small businesses would be viable for defense-related production, to build a diverse pool of suppliers so that the country would not be dependent on only a handful of companies. As this country prepares for war in Iraq and continues the on-going war on terrorism, we should be improving that viability and expanding that diverse pool. We should be increasing our business with small business, not reducing it.

It is no secret that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship places a great deal of importance on moving legislation forward in a bipartisan manner--the members of my Committee understand we represent the interests of all of our nation's small businesses, the most important and dynamic segment of our economy. And nowhere is the bipartisan consensus stronger than in the area of Federal procurement and ensuring that our nation's small businesses receive their fair share of procurement opportunities.

The legislation we are introducing today has one ultimate purpose, to prevent Federal agencies from circumventing small business protections with regard to the practice known as contract bundling. Few issues have so strongly galvanized the small businesses contacting community as the practice of contract bundling, which occurs when procurement contracts are combined to form large contracts, often spread over large geographic areas, and results in minimal or no small business participation.

Many supporters of the practice of contract bundling point to its cost savings--they claim it saves the taxpayer money to lump contracts together. Unfortunately, there is little evidence supporting this claim, and too many contracts are bundled without the required economic research designed to determine if a bundled contract will actually result in a cost savings.

The SBA's Office of Advocacy, an independent body within the SBA, estimated that for every increase of 100 bundled contracts, there was a decrease of over 106 individual contracts issued to small firms. For every $100 awarded on a bundled contract, there was a decrease of $33 to small business. This cost small businesses an estimated $13 billion in 2001. The Office of Advocacy arrived at these conclusions using a conservative definition of what constitutes a bundled contract. Therefore, the negative impact on small businesses from contract bundling is likely more severe.

While seemingly an efficient and cost-effective means for Federal agencies to conduct business, bundled contracts are anti-competitive. And they are anti-small business. When a Federal agency bundles contracts, it limits small businesses' ability to bid for the new bundled contract, thus limiting competition. Small businesses are consistently touted as more innovative, providing better and cheaper services than their larger counterparts. But when forced to bid for mega-contracts, at times across large geographic areas, few, if any, small businesses can be expected to compete. By driving small business from the Federal marketplace, contract bundling will actually drive up the costs of goods and services purchased by the Federal government because competition will be limited and our economy will be deprived of possible innovations brought about by small businesses.

While there are current laws in place intended to require Federal agencies to conduct market research before bundling a contract, loopholes in the current definition of a bundled contract allow them to often skirt these safeguards.

Our legislation changes the name ``bundled contract'' to ``consolidated contract,'' strengthens the definition of a consolidated contract, and closes the loopholes in the existing definition to prevent Federal agencies from circumventing statutory safeguards intended to ensure that separate contracts are consolidated for economic reasons, not administrative expediency.

The new definition relies on a simple premise: if you combine contracts, be it new contracts, existing contracts or a combination thereof, you are consolidating them and would need to take the necessary steps to ensure it is justified economically before proceeding.

Our legislation also alters the current Small Business Act requirements regarding procurement strategies when a contract is consolidated to include a threshold level for triggering the economic research requirements.

Previously, any consolidated contract would trigger the economic research requirements, something considered onerous by many Federal agencies and often cited as the reason for circumventing the law. The new procurement strategies section of the Small Business Act would require a statement of benefits and a justification for any consolidated contract over $2 million and a more extensive analysis, corresponding to current requirements for any consolidated contract, for consolidations over $5 million.

In order to move forward with a consolidated contract over $2 million, the agency must put forth the benefits expected from the contract, identify alternatives that would involve a lesser degree of consolidation and include a specific determination that the consolidation is necessary and justified. The determination that a consolidation is necessary and justified may be determined simply through administrative and personnel savings, but there must be actual savings.

In order to move forward with a consolidated contract over $5 million, an agency must, in addition to the above: conduct current market research to demonstrate that the consolidation will result in costs savings, quality improvements, reduction in acquisition times, or better terms and conditions; include an assessment as to the specific impediments to small business participation resulting from the consolidation; and specify actions designed to maximize small business participation as subcontractors and suppliers for the consolidated contract. The determination that a consolidation is necessary and justified may not be determined through administrative and personnel savings alone unless those savings will be substantial for these larger contracts.

By establishing this dual-threshold system, we have placed the emphasis for the economic research on contracts more likely to preclude small business participation, while not ceding smaller contracts to the whims of a Federal agency. This change, coupled with a clear definition of a consolidated contract, should be enough to garner compliance. However, if Federal agencies continue to consolidate contracts when there is no justification, fail to conduct the required economic research, or fail to provide procurement opportunities to small businesses, the Committee would have little choice but to consider legislative changes requiring punitive measures for these Federal agencies. This is a step I have been reluctant to take in the past. However, I am optimistic that such a step will not be necessary and that the fair and reasonable system established under this legislation will be effective.

I would once again like to thank my fellow sponsors, Senators Landrieu, Stabenow, Cantwell, and Pryor for their continued support on this issue. I hope all of my colleagues will join us in supporting this bill. I ask that the text of the legislation be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Rural Home Health Payment Fairness Act, which would extend the 10 percent add-on payment under Medicare for home health care services in rural areas that is currently scheduled to sunset on April 1. This legislation would help to ensure seniors and disabled citizens living in rural America continue to receive the home health care benefits and services they depend on and deserve.

Health care in this country has gone full circle. Patients are spending less time in the hospital. More and more procedures are being done on an outpatient basis and recovery and care for patients with chronic diseases and conditions have increasingly been taking place in the home. As a consequence, home health care has become an increasingly important part of our health care. The kinds of highly skilled and often technically complex services our Nation's home health nurses provide have enabled millions of our most frail and vulnerable senior citizens to avoid hospitals and nursing homes and stay where they want to be, in the security, privacy, and comfort of their very own homes.

I have visited home health patients throughout my State in northern, central, and southern Maine. Regardless of where they live, the impact of home health care on their lives has been the same. It has made the difference between couples staying together in their own home for their golden years, despite the ill health of one of the spouses, or being forced prematurely into a nursing home or into repeated hospitalizations.

One elderly gentleman told me all he wanted was to live out the remaining days of his life with his wife, whom he had been married to for decades, and that home health care allowed them to be together in the home where they had always lived, as he completes his final years.

Home health care is also a bargain. It makes a great deal of sense to care for people in their own homes and avoid the extra costs of nursing homes and hospitalization. Our home health care system is fragile. Extension of the 10 percent add-on payment for rural home

health care agencies will help to ensure that patients living in rural communities continue to have access to vital home health services. Surveys have shown the delivery of home health services in rural areas can be as much as 12 to 15 percent more costly because of the extra travel time required to cover long distances between patients, higher transportation expenses, and other cost factors.

Rural agencies also experience higher costs relative to productivity. Because of the longer travel distances, rural caregivers are unable to perform as many visits in a single day as their urban counterparts. Saundra Scott-Adams, the Executive Director of Visiting Nurses of Aroostook in northern Maine, tells me her agency covers 6,600 square miles to serve a population of only 73,000. Her costs are understandably much higher and her hard-working nurses are not able to see as many patients in a day as their urban counterparts. The long distances they must drive mean they are able to see fewer patients each day.

Moreover, agencies in rural areas are frequently smaller than their big city counterparts, which means their relative costs are higher due to smaller scale operations and an ability to take advantage of economies of scale. Smaller agencies with fewer patients and fewer visits mean that fixed costs, particularly those associated with meeting regulatory requirements, are spread over a smaller number of patients and visits, increasing overall per-patient and per-visit costs. If the rural add-on payment is eliminated on April 1, it will only put more pressure on our rural home health agencies that are already operating on a very narrow margin, and it could, in fact, force some of these agencies to close.

Some agencies operating in rural areas are the only home health providers for a vast geographic area. If any of these agencies are forced to close, the Medicare patients in that region will completely lose their access to home health care.

Earlier this year, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission voted unanimously to extend the rural add-on payment for home health services for one year. I urge all of my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring this important legislation to ensure that all of our seniors, no matter where they live, whether they live in big cities, in suburbs, or the smallest communities, continue to have access to quality home health services.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to help highlight and protect sites in one of our Nation's most archaeologically rich regions, the Four Corners. The Trail of the Ancients National Historic Trail Act of 2003 would amend the National Trails System Act to direct a study of the suitability of designating the Trail of the Ancients as a national historic trail.

The Trail of the Ancients National Historic Trail would become a multistate, auto route featuring world-renowned examples of Ancestral Puebloan cultures in the Four Corners area. The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as Anasazi, preceded today's Navajo and Ute tribes. The Trail of the Ancients connects many of the most significant Ancestral Puebloan sites in the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.

The Four Corners region in the Southwestern United States is one of the areas of greatest archaeological interest in the Nation. The Trail of the Ancients National Historic Trail would provide improved access to and understanding of this region's numerous examples of the Ancestral Puebloan culture. The history of the Four Corners region is not only unique and important to the Nation, it is unparalleled in how well it is preserved in the remaining archaeological sites. The semi- arid climate of the Four Corners area has helped preserve some the archaeological sites beyond what is typically seen in most other areas of the United States. International recognition of a number of the sites in the area has contributed to the wealth of information about the peoples who lived in them.

The Trail would highlight areas and sites where our Nation's earliest inhabitants, the Paleo Americans, traveled and lived as early as 10,000 B.C. Within the same region lived the Ancestral Puebloan Indians from about A.D. 1 to 1300. The Trail would also feature sites that chronicle the existence of today's Ute Indian culture from the early 13th century, as well as today's Navajo people.

I point out that the Trail of the Ancients National Historic Trail would include only existing routes and roads, and would not require the acquisition of additional property. Currently, much of the existing route is officially designated a Scenic Byway in Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. The trail also intersects and shares stops with other national- and State-designated byways and highways including the San Juan Skyway in Colorado and the Utah Bicentennial Highway.

Most of the existing cultural and historical interpretation of the numerous sites along the trail was developed independently. Designation of the Trail of the Ancients National Historic Trail would link many of the cultural and recreation areas for the benefit of the traveling public and involved communities. Just as importantly, designation as a national historic trail would provide a unified framework for protecting and interpreting for the public the trail's most important sites.

That is why I am introducing this legislation today. This bill would authorize the study of the Trail of the Ancients for possible inclusion in the National Trails System and allow for its precious and irreplaceable sites to be best protected, as well as enjoyed by the public.

I thank the Senate for the opportunity to address this issue today, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. President, over a year ago the greed of some senior executives at the Enron corporation finally caught up with them. Enron's financial house of cards began to tumble, and along with it went the pensions and retirement dreams of thousands of employees and investors. Among the employees whose pensions were crushed in Enron's accounting avalanche were nearly all of Portland General Electric, or PGE's 2,700 employees in Oregon.

Enron took over PGE in June of 1997, and two years later merged the PGE employee 401(k) retirement plan into a single plan. That plan allowed employees to contribute up to 15 percent of their income, with the company matching in Enron stock. When Enron took over PGE in 1997, PGE's stock was trading at $27 a share; three years after the merger, Enron stock was trading at $85 a share, enticing employees to invest 100 percent of their 401(k) money in Enron stock.

Enron's stock had begun to slide in August 2001, and it was not until October that real panic set in. At that time the captains of the Enron ship knew it was sinking. In an effort to prevent a massive stock sell- off, senior executives on the deck locked workers in the boiler room, preventing them from selling off 401(k) shares while they dumped their own. By the time the pension lockdown ended, an Enron share was worth less than ten dollars. In early December, Enron filed for bankruptcy.

Earlier this year Congress enacted significant corporate accountability legislation so that executives and accountants can no longer use certified financial statements to play a game of financial hide-and-seek. But little was done for the workers who were locked in the boiler room. The purpose of the legislation I am introducing today, the ``Catch-Up Retirement Savings Act,'' is to give those PGE employees who were harmed by the greed of Enron executives the opportunity to catch-up on some of their lost retirement. My bill does two things to help workers. First, it allows employees to triple the deductible amount they may otherwise contribute to an IRA, and second, it gives employees a 50 percent tax credit on the amount they contribute to their IRA. The tax incentives would be available for five years to employees whose employer filed for bankruptcy and who was the subject of an indictment or conviction resulting from business transactions related to such case, and whose employer matched at least 50 percent of the employee's contributions to the pension plan.

No act of Congress can ever respond fully to the egregious harm that has been caused to thousands of Oregonians by the collapse of Enron. But I believe that something must be done to help recoup some of the lost pension savings. The ``Catch-Up Lost Retirement Savings Act'' is a small but important step that Congress should take to help employees to begin to catch-up on their retirement savings.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a chart be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, over a year ago the greed of some senior executives at the Enron corporation finally caught up with them. Enron's financial house of cards began to tumble, and along with it went the pensions and retirement dreams of thousands of employees and investors. Among the employees whose pensions were crushed in Enron's accounting avalanche were nearly all of Portland General Electric, or PGE's 2,700 employees in Oregon.

Enron took over PGE in June of 1997, and two years later merged the PGE employee 401(k) retirement plan into a single plan. That plan allowed employees to contribute up to 15 percent of their income, with the company matching in Enron stock. When Enron took over PGE in 1997, PGE's stock was trading at $27 a share; three years after the merger, Enron stock was trading at $85 a share, enticing employees to invest 100 percent of their 401(k) money in Enron stock.

Enron's stock had begun to slide in August 2001, and it was not until October that real panic set in. At that time the captains of the Enron ship knew it was sinking. In an effort to prevent a massive stock sell- off, senior executives on the deck locked workers in the boiler room, preventing them from selling off 401(k) shares while they dumped their own. By the time the pension lockdown ended, an Enron share was worth less than ten dollars. In early December, Enron filed for bankruptcy.

Earlier this year Congress enacted significant corporate accountability legislation so that executives and accountants can no longer use certified financial statements to play a game of financial hide-and-seek. But little was done for the workers who were locked in the boiler room. The purpose of the legislation I am introducing today, the ``Catch-Up Retirement Savings Act,'' is to give those PGE employees who were harmed by the greed of Enron executives the opportunity to catch-up on some of their lost retirement. My bill does two things to help workers. First, it allows employees to triple the deductible amount they may otherwise contribute to an IRA, and second, it gives employees a 50 percent tax credit on the amount they contribute to their IRA. The tax incentives would be available for five years to employees whose employer filed for bankruptcy and who was the subject of an indictment or conviction resulting from business transactions related to such case, and whose employer matched at least 50 percent of the employee's contributions to the pension plan.

No act of Congress can ever respond fully to the egregious harm that has been caused to thousands of Oregonians by the collapse of Enron. But I believe that something must be done to help recoup some of the lost pension savings. The ``Catch-Up Lost Retirement Savings Act'' is a small but important step that Congress should take to help employees to begin to catch-up on their retirement savings.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and a chart be printed in the Record.