Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act of 2003

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I have an amendment that I send to the desk and ask its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment concerns procedures for contracting out. I ask that the cosponsors be Senators Landrieu, Reid, Sarbanes, Lautenberg, Lieberman, Kennedy, Leahy, Akaka, and Byrd.

I rise to offer an amendment that does several things. First, it protects the egregious abuses and unfair practices that are now into a new procedure for contracting out the work of Federal employees. That contracting out procedure is called an A-76, which is the circular that describes this methodology.

You need to know. I understand reform is necessary, but abuse is not necessary. I must say I am very concerned that the White House is pursuing a political agenda masquerading as management reform. In the administration's plan for privatization, the costs are too great. It costs money. It costs morale. It costs the integrity of the Civil Service system.

When I say it costs money, do you know that when we were foraging funds for veterans health care, the administration wanted to spend $75 million to figure out how to contract out the work being done at the VA? What jobs am I talking about? Radiologists, social workers, core essential medical personnel. The administration wants to spend $75 million, while we have veterans waiting in line to figure out how we can contract out the health care we promised them. It costs too much.

Then it costs morale. The minute you hear you might be contracted out, you have to write a job description. Then you have to wait around to see if you are contracted out. Then, even if you win it, you might be contracted out because you will again have to compete in 5 years. Morale in key agencies such as the National Institutes of Health is completely in disarray.

It also costs the integrity of the Civil Service system. Every democracy in the world has a civil service system that is absolutely independent and has absolute integrity to carry out the core functions of government, regardless of what political party is in charge. That is why democracies have civil service, to administer the core functions of government. That is why we always wanted to be sure that it wasn't patronage that determined who became an FBI agent, that it was not crony politics that decided who got a Social Security check. We would have an independent civil service that would administer these things.

That is not where we are going. We are heading to cronyism and political patronage. At the very time we are fighting a war against terrorism, I don't understand why the White House is spending its time figuring out how we can undermine our Civil Service.

Make no mistake, I am not opposed to privatization. In some instances, privatization works very well. In my own State of Maryland, in an agency called the Aeronautics and Space Agency, of which I am a ranking member for funding, we have privatization.

Let's look at Goddard Space Agency in my own home State. We have 3,000 Civil Service jobs and 9,000 private contractor jobs. Both are doing an outstanding job, and I am proud of them.

What I am opposed to is that this new A-76 is inherently unfair to Federal employees. The deck is stacked against them to pursue an ideology driven agenda, not a management reform agenda.

My amendment is simple. It throws out these new crony rules, these new unfair rules which stack the deck against Federal employees, and asks that the administration go back to the drawing board to come up with new guidelines for competition that are truly fair. Why is this important? OMB is pushing contracting out, even when it doesn't make sense, or even when it puts our Nation's security at risk, or the integrity of medical research on the line, or even when it costs more to conduct competitions than it saves in the long run.

Did you hear what I said? Even when it doesn't make sense, even when it puts national security at risk, and in some instances now they have some cockamamie scheme that could even put the integrity of medical research on the line. Hello. Where are we going? I think we need to go back to the drawing boards.

Let me say why this is unfair. Let me go through some very specific reasons. No. 1, it does not allow Federal employees to submit their own best bids. The new rules create something called streamlined competitions. That is just a code word for employees not having a chance to come up with their own cost-saving ideas. I don't know how you can call it competition if you don't even allow the employees to form a team and to come up with ideas on how to save money, as well as how to save jobs.

No. 2, guess what, in all of this contracting out it does not even require contractors to show they are saving money. The old A-76 required contractors to show they would save the Government significant money, at least $10 million or 10 percent, whichever is less. This new A-76 has gotten rid of this requirement. Guess what. The competitions themselves cost money. To do an evaluation on what should be contracted out by and large costs $8,000 an employee. So now Federal workers who might be losing their jobs to contractors do not even do it to save the taxpayer any money, let alone the integrity of the Civil Service.

It is also destabilizing. This is really a morale buster. Boy, you talk about a morale buster; it is just to say: You know, every couple of years we are going to put you up for grabs. This new A-76 forces Federal workers to recompete every 5 years for their jobs, but it does not require contractors to recompete every 5 years for the contract that is won.

How will the Government attract and keep bright young workers if their jobs are at risk every 5 years? And if the Federal employees should be up for bid every 5 years, why shouldn't the private sector bid every 5 years? If you want to destroy agencies such as NIH and VA, just do it this way.

Also, it provides an unfair advantage to contractors that provide lesser benefits. If a contractor saves money by shrinking wages and eliminating health care, that is not improving Government efficiency. But that gives them an unfair advantage when they bid. Their bids do not show efficiency; they win contracts because they either eliminate or shrink health care.

That is not the way we should go. It is bad 46 million Americans do not have health care, let alone now forcing Federal employees not to have it.

To be sure everybody understands this, I would like to give three examples. Let's take the National Institutes of Health. This is one of the most beloved agencies in our country. If anything would ever happen to the National Institutes of Health, it would be devastating to the American public. This is one of the agencies everyone loves. Why do we love NIH? Because out there every day there are people working to find cures to save lives. So guess what. OMB took a look at NIH. Guess what they wanted to contract out. OMB wants to contract out lots of things, but one of the things they want to end is the NIH fire department. Why do they have their own fire department? Because of all the research going on, we need not only brave first responders but those who are best at handling chemical, biological, and radiological events.

In fact, the entire Capital region relies on them for emergencies and also training others. We need our own fire department at NIH because they know every building, they know every rack where the research is going on, and they know every mouse and what they have taken in tests to keep us alive.

How do you bid on a fire department? I don't know how you contract out a fire department.

I am telling you this is terrible.

They not only go to the firefighters, but they go to scientists, scientific support, and other jobs at NIH which are slated for competition.

There is a group called Senior Scientists Category 2. These are postdoctoral research fellows. OMB wants to contract out the decisionmaking process in selecting these scientists. They want to contract it out. They want to provide a bid for outside contractors to select these key scientists. I cannot believe it.

I listened to Dr. Zerhouni testify. By the way, Dr. Zerhouni is a very eminent physician, an entrepreneur, formerly of Johns Hopkins, now the head of NIH, and an outstanding Bush appointee. He told me they had to spend $15 million at NIH to study how they could contract this out. That is $15 million that could have gone to find a cure for Alzheimer's and diabetes. Dr. Zerhouni and others said it took over 100,000 hours of staff time. Dr. Zerhouni protested. He went right to OMB and said don't contract out my fire department. It is a waste of time and a waste of money. Please let us select these postdoctoral fellows. He was overridden by OMB. We are grateful for this man who heads up NIH, and who because of his own research could be a candidate for the Nobel prize. But they overrode him under the guise of a political agenda masquerading as management reform that has absolutely left the morale at NIH in shambles.

Let us take VA. I couldn't believe it. Just when Senator Bond and I are trying to come up with more money for our veterans, we got a request from VA saying they want to spend $75 million to study contracting out. Whoa--$75 million? I am the appropriator along with Senator Bond. Seventy-five million could have put up 75 new outpatient clinics. It could have provided prescription drugs for 77,000 veterans. Just when our men and women are coming back from Iraq, we want to contract out VA health care and things such as radiology, pathology, and pharmaceutical care.

I am telling you: Boy, don't they feel good. We should be lucky to have these doctors and nurses and professionals. Guess what. They have tried this. The jobs they want to contract out are actually even held by veterans themselves. You are telling me we should take money from veterans health care to pay for studying how to contract out veterans' jobs to provide health to other veterans. By my calculation, one study they did didn't work out.

Let me tell you about the most heartbreaking example.

At the Medical Center in Bethesda--we all know about Naval-Bethesda. It is an outstanding facility. People here at the Senate have used it. Our own President goes there for his annual checkup, as has every President preceding him. It is great. At Naval-Bethesda down in the kitchen there are 21 custodial food service employees. They work in what they call the hospital scullery. They are a very unusual group of people. They are mentally challenged. There are 21 people who work there. They have worked there as a special unit. This Federal Government reached out using it as a model for hiring people with mental disabilities who could be self-sufficient and self-employed.

Boy, have they done a good job. They clean up the kitchen. They prep the food. Everybody at Naval-Bethesda loves them. Devorah Shapiro has worked there for 10 years. She is in a group home. James Eastridge is from Hagerstown. He started working there 22 years ago, and he hasn't missed a day of work. He gets all kinds of awards.

Guess what. At Naval-Bethesda working in the kitchen are people who are trying desperately to be self-sufficient. And we are going to contract out 21 jobs in the kitchen for people who wash the dishes and prep the food? I am telling you, shame on you, OMB. Shame on you, OMB, for what you are doing here. I think this is outrageous.

That is why I have the Mikulski amendment. It is for those people. It is for those veterans who have gotten their education from the GI bill and who are serving there--our scientists, our seafood inspectors, the people who are doing the mapping at the FAA for our flight plans for our military and commercial planes.

I could go on and on and on. Those are the kinds of people I am talking about. They aren't bureaucrats sitting there looking at their fingernails. They are not people just sitting around. They are people who work every day. They are people at NIH who win Nobel prizes. They are people out there in the Coast Guard who are protecting us from drug dealers and from terrorists. They are people like those who lost their lives in the Oklahoma bombing.

That is why I am offering this amendment. I have told you my opinion on contracting out. But to the naysayers and those people who are fussbudgets, let me reassure you this amendment doesn't prohibit contracting out. It does not. It simply changes the rules to make them more fair. All it does is throw out the unfair May 29 version to give the administration a chance to rethink its one-sided, overly aggressive policy.

Speaking of that, I know OMB has tasked every Federal agency to get rid of 400,000 jobs. You know my feeling about that. It is just outrageous. Instead, we should pass the Mikulski amendment and go back to the drawing boards. There are simple reasons why. This new process doesn't require appreciable cost savings. It allows contractors to make appeals but not Federal employees. It fails to track the cost and quality of contractors. It encourages it. It doesn't offer alternatives to progress. It is bad for diversity. The jobs being contracted out tend to be primarily service jobs and clerical jobs which are often women. It is also in the blue-collar jobs that have a very strong diversity group. It doesn't allow Federal workers to bid on contractor work. It doesn't give them an appeal process. I could go on and on.

It is a new A-76. It is a dangerous trend to replace our Civil Service employees with cronyism and political patronage contracts. I believe this A-76 system is inherently unfair. We should send it back to OMB. Let us work in a very constructive way to get the best value for the taxpayer and make sure we have the best people operating our missions--driven not by money but by agencies.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, are we possibly setting my amendment aside so that the language of the Senator from Wyoming could arrive from legislative counsel? It would enable the debate to proceed without waiting for legislative counsel and then return to the debate with the Senator from Wyoming.

The Senator from Wyoming would be protected and we would be expediting the process?

I think that is a reasonable solution. I want to cooperate in any way I can to ensure the Senator's right to offer a second degree and to expedite the debate.

I withdraw my objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I am sponsor of the amendment that is currently pending on the Senate floor. I ask unanimous consent Senator Akaka also be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, we are looking forward to moving this bill. I know the Senator from Wyoming wishes to offer a second degree. I note that he is on the floor.

I also note that the Senator from Ohio has done a great deal of work on the Civil Service. He has some very interesting ideas.

I wish we could continue the debate on these amendments. The Senator from Ohio will be offering an amendment. We are ready to debate and discuss it.

If we all work together, I think we can finish the bill in the interest of the

American public, the integrity of the Civil Service, and the taxpayer.

I will save my rebuttal until the pertinent parties are on the floor.

I am ready to go. If we could have the second degree, we are ready to debate it.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I feel at a bit of a disadvantage. I am all set to debate, but we keep waiting. We waited for the amendment. Now we have to wait for the Senator from Ohio to make his points in the argument and then he tells me to go ahead and make the argument. My argument is to rebut their amendment. So I am waiting for the Senator from Ohio to make his argument.

I have great admiration for the Senator from Ohio, particularly in the area of Civil Service. I know he has put in countless hours in terms of the Civil Service. Perhaps if he could explain his amendment. I listened carefully to Senator Thomas, but I am not sure I grasped the full extent of the amendment. There are many elements about the amendment I find attractive and I would like to comment on those. Those I find deficient I would like to identify.

I do want the Senator from Ohio to know I think you are an expert on Civil Service. I have great admiration for you.

Mr. President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. President, first, again I wish to make clear what I said about my two colleagues and my great respect for them. And I know of their work on civil service. I am particularly aware of the work of the Senator from Ohio. But I must say, the Thomas-Voinovich amendment proves my point that the May 29 A-76 circular on the new framework for contracting out is deficient. And it is deficient because it is unfair. It absolutely tilts the bidding process, to almost rig it to the fact that private contractors would win the bid. Their corrections of the A- 76 that they offer in their amendment point out how deficient May 29 was. So they make my point.

No. 2, I note also that they call for more reporting and more accountability. I think that is great, but, guess what, we are going to contract out Federal employees like the fire department at NIH, like the people with mental disabilities in the kitchen at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, and then we are going to hire people to watch the contracts.

Why are we contracting people out and then hiring people to watch the contracts that we have contracted out? Where are we going? What is the point? Where is the management reform in that?

So I respect the need for greater accountability and oversight. In fact, I think it is called for. Know that I know that the old A-76 also had some potholes in it.

What my amendment does is it says: You cannot implement May 29. Go back to the drawing boards. Work with the Commission that the Senator from Ohio described. But let's implement all of the recommendations, not only the selective ones that tilt the playing field to the contracting out. So that is where my amendment is.

I ask my colleague from Ohio and my colleague from Wyoming, am I right in saying that your amendment would want more accountability; it would allow an appeals process, which now they do not have; that they would not bid every 5 years; and they cannot contract overseas?

I ask either the Senator from Wyoming or the Senator from Ohio, have I grasped your amendment? Have I? What are your five points? I will repeat it: Greater accountability; reporting requirements; the right for Federal employees to have an appeal, just like the private contractors; that they would not have to compete every 5 years; and this wonderful one that says they cannot contract out to move jobs overseas.

Is that what I understand your amendment to be?

Well, I salute you. I think those are excellent improvements, but they are not a substitute for my amendment because even if your amendment goes through, I identified 15 things that were wrong with A- 76.

Now, you are willing to correct five. I was not as prescriptive. But you are willing to correct five. There are 10 others that need correcting. And I am just going to give a few, as I hear your arguments.

When I look at the ones that are not in there, the ones that are not included: One, it does not require appreciable cost savings. A contract out does not have to show that it is saving money. The other one is it does not end the unfair advantage given to contractors who provide their employees with inferior health benefits. So when there is a competition between the Federal employees and this so-called private contractor, the Federal employee's health benefits will count in the contract but not for the contractor.

Also, what it does is it does not consider alternatives to privatization; in other words, to give them the chance to reorganize and to streamline. That has been done at NIH. It has been done at other agencies.

It also encourages the privatization of inherently Government work. This is a big sticking point.

Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes of my time to my colleague from Maryland.

Madam President, how much time remains on my side?

I yield myself 5 minutes and withhold 4 to see if Senator Kennedy or another Senator wishes to speak. Right now I would like to yield myself 5 minutes. I ask the Chair to confirm, as I get a little excited when I am talking about this.

Madam President, what I want to say in response to what my colleague has said is, No. 1, he says the May 29 circular is better. There is a fundamental difference between us on that. I don't believe it is better. I stand with the way the National Treasury Union Workers feel about it and the way the other Federal employees feel about it.

If you are on the side of the companies that are going to benefit from privatization, you like it. If you are the ones who are on the firing line or the chopping block, you don't like it.

What I do acknowledge is that the amendment offered by my two colleagues from the other side of the aisle does improve the A-76 process.

I also acknowledge that I know the Senator from Ohio did go ballistic. I am glad that he went ballistic. I thank him for standing sentry down in the Government Affairs Committee against bounty hunting, against quotas, and against sending jobs overseas. I salute him on that. But he is one man against

a whole tide here. This is why I think his amendment has merit.

But I tell you, deep down to my toes, I believe they want to privatize most of the Federal Government, and I do believe that deep down inside they want quotas to privatize. I don't believe that about him.

When we look at this whole issue that he raised about private sector contractors moving jobs overseas, the Senator knows they have already done it. If the call center at the Census Bureau is now in India, Hello? The United States of America calling India to find out about census?

I could go on with other examples. The time is late. I appreciate the fact that the Senator gives Federal employees a right to appeal when they lose a competition which they now don't have. I also acknowledge that his amendment removes the 5-year recompete competition, and I salute him on that, and also ensures contract oversight.

In other words, you have some good ideas here. But in my comments, I say, you can vote for both. I want my colleagues to know they can vote for both. They can vote for Voinovich-Thomas and they can vote for Mikulski. Voinovich-Thomas has ideas of merit. Theirs is a modest improvement.

My amendment improves it all. They improve five things about this. I have identified 15. If you want 15, you vote for Mikulski. But you can vote for them and you can vote for me.

The other thing I want to say is that the Mikulski amendment does not stop contracting out. It simply stops the May 29 circular, which is harsh, punitive, and unfair to Federal employees.

I said to the administration, back to the drawing boards, work with Voinovich and Thomas and Collins, and work with Mikulski, Kennedy, and Sarbanes, and make sure our Federal workforce keeps on working.

Madam President, how much time do I have?

Madam President, I wish to notify the Chair that other Senators are on the way. I will speak for 2 minutes and then I hope they are here.

Again, I reiterate, the Thomas amendment has some good points. You can vote for both. My amendment does not stop privatization; it just makes it fair. I say something and they something back. But I am telling you, they don't mandate cost savings in this A-76.

Let me tell you a boondoggle. Defense Finance Accounting Service-- this is finance accounting--contracted out 650 jobs to a private computer company. Guess what. The DOD inspector general found out that it cost the taxpayers $25 million more than it would cost under Federal employees. Take the call center. They won the competition, and they won it by sending it to India. Lower wages, no health care. Let's ship those jobs overseas.

My gosh, what are we doing? This May 29 circular is despicable, it is unfair, it is harsh, it is punitive, and it will cost taxpayer dollars to do studies, and it is costing morale. If we want people to work for the Federal Government and be enthusiastic and put their best energies forth and put America first, we cannot keep Tinkertoying with them. I hope you can vote for their amendment, but, please, in the interest of the vitality and integrity of the Federal workforce, please vote for the Mikulski amendment.

I yield 1 minute to the Senator from Louisiana.

Madam President, how much time remains?

I reserve 2 minutes, waiting for Senators Byrd and Lautenberg. Does the Senator from Wyoming wish to speak?

I said I reserve 2 minutes to allow Senator Byrd and Senator Lautenberg to speak. Does the Senator wish to speak any longer?

I am going to wrap up. Remember, there are 15 reasons why the new public-private competition is unfair.

It does not allow Federal employees to submit their best bids.

It fails to end the unfair advantage given to contractors who provide their employees with inferior health benefits.

It allows the use of quotes instead of actually soliciting bids from contractors.

It doesn't consider alternatives to privatization giving Federal employees the right to come up with streamlining.

It is very bad for diversity in the Federal workplace. Many of these jobs are clerical. I have already gotten feedback from constituents who refer to the clerical workers as ``let's get rid of them; they will be low-hanging fruit.'' Is that the way we refer to the clerical people who are willing to work 24/7 in keeping the FBI or keeping the DOD going? And guess what. Once it goes, it does not allow the Federal workers to rebid to get it back.

All I am saying is, stop the implementation of the May 29 circular. Let's have a better process. Let's have a better plan. I am not opposed to privatization, but I am opposed to this May 29 circular.

I yield back such time as we may have remaining, and I am ready to vote.

Madam President, we now come to the Mikulski amendment. Know that the amendment that just passed with the support of my side of the aisle corrects 5 and only 5 of 15 egregious problems with the May 29 circular. That amendment was a downpayment. But if you want to correct all the grievances, vote for the Mikulski amendment. It does not end privatization. It ends the harsh, punitive, and egregious problems with the May 29 circular.

Stand up for America, stand up for the Federal employees, stand up for the Mikulski amendment and vote aye.

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I am proud to be a cosponsor of the amendment to lift restrictions on travel to Cuba. I and many of my colleagues have been trying for the last five years to restore American citizens' right to travel where they choose, including to the island of Cuba, if that is their desire.

The broad cross-section of bipartisan cosponsors of this amendment are in agreement that the time has come to lift the very archaic, counterproductive, and ill-conceived ban on Americans traveling to Cuba. Not only does this ban hinder rather than help our effort to spread democracy, it unnecessarily abridges the rights of ordinary Americans. The United States was founded on the principles of liberty and freedom. Yet when it comes to Cuba, our Government abridges these rights with no greater rationale than political and rhetorical gain.

Cuba lies just 90 miles from America's shore. Yet those 90 miles of water might as well be an entire ocean. We have made a land ripe for American influence, forbidden territory. Look, there is no doubt in my mind that Fidel Castro does not want the light of freedom shone on his island. He is a dictator and wants nothing more than to keep his people in the darkness. Sadly, U.S. policy has helped make his worker easier. We have enabled the Cuban regime to be a closed system, with the Cuban people having little contact with their closest neighbors.

Surely we do not ban travel to Cuba out of concern for the safety of Americans who might visit that island nation. Today Americans are free to travel to Iran, Sudan, Burma, Syria, and even to North Korea--but not to Cuba. You can fly to North Korea; you can fly to Iran; you can travel freely. It seems to me if you can go to those countries, you ought not be denied the right to go to Cuba. If the Cubans want to stop Americans from visiting that country, that ought to be their business. But to say to an American citizen that you can travel to Iran, where they held American hostages for months on end, to North Korea, which has declared us to be an enemy of theirs completely, but that you cannot travel 90 miles off our shore to Cuba, is a mistake.

To this day, some Iranian politicians believe the United States to be ``the Great Satan.'' We hear it all the time. A little more than two decades ago, Iran occupied our embassy and took innocent American diplomats hostage. To this day, protesters in Tehran burn the American flag with the encouragement of some officials in that government. Those few Americans who venture into such inhospitable surroundings often find themselves pelted by rocks and accosted by the public.

Similarly, we do not ban travel to Sudan, a nation we attacked with cruise missiles a few short years ago, for its alleged support of terrorism; to Burma, a nation with one of the most oppressive regimes in the world today; to North Korea, whose soldiers have peered at American servicemen through gun sights for decades; or Syria, which has one of the most egregious human rights records and is one of the foremost sponsors of terrorism.

I totally agree with my colleagues that it borders on negligence when 10 percent of the Treasury's Office on Foreign Assets Control budget is devoted to tracking down and punishing grandmothers and grandfathers because they have visited Cuba. Don't we have more important programs to spend resources on? How about tracking down the financial resources that continue to support terrorist groups like al-Qaida? We know that activities of that organization and others like it are a direct threat to U.S. national security. We know that more government resources are need to ensure that events like September 11, 2001 never again are repeated against our citizens. Chasing down bikers who have visited Cuba is doing nothing to ensure our citizens are protected against terrorist attacks.

It is time to get our priorities straight and end the inconsistency

with respect to U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba. We ban travel to Cuba, a nation which is neither at war with the United States nor a sponsor of international terrorist activities.

Why do we ban travel? Ostensibly so that we can pressure Cuban authorities into making the transition to a democratic form of government.

I fail to see how isolating the Cuban people from democratic values and ideals will foster the transition to democracy in that country. I fail to see how isolating the Cuban people from democratic values and from the influence of Americans when they go to that country to help bring about the change we all seek, serves our own interests.

The Cuban people are not currently permitted the freedom to travel enjoyed by many peoples around the world. However, because Fidel Castro does not permit Cubans to leave Cuba and come to this country is not justification for adopting a similar principle in this country that says Americans cannot travel freely. We have the Bill of Rights. We need to treasure and respect the fundamental rights that we embrace as American citizens. Travel is one of them. If other countries want to prohibit us from going there, then that is their business. But for us to say that citizens of Connecticut or Alabama cannot go where they like is not the kind of restraint we ought to put on people.

If Americans can travel to North Korea, to the Sudan, to Iran, then I do not understand the justification for saying that they cannot travel to Cuba.

I happen to believe that by allowing Americans to travel to Cuba, we can begin to change the political climate and bring about the changes we all seek in that country.

Today, every single country in the Western Hemisphere is a democracy, with one exception: Cuba. American influence through person-to-person and cultural exchanges was a prime factor in this evolution from a hemisphere ruled predominantly by authoritarian or military regimes to one where democracy is the rule. Our current policy toward Cuba blocks these exchanges and prevents the United States from using our most potent weapon in our effort to combat totalitarian regimes, and that is our own people. They are the best ambassadors we have. Most totalitarian regimes bar Americans from coming into their countries for the very reasons I just mentioned. They are afraid the gospel of freedom will motivate their citizens to overthrow dictators, as they have done in dozens of nations over the last half century. Isn't it ironic that when it comes to Cuba we do the dictator's bidding for him in a sense? Cuba does not have to worry about America spreading democracy. Our own Government stops us from doing so.

Let me review for my colleagues who may travel to Cuba under current government regulations and under what circumstances.

The following categories of people may travel to Cuba without applying to the Treasury Department for a specific license to travel. They are deemed to be authorized to travel under so-called general license: Government officials, regularly employed journalists, professional researchers who are ``full time professionals who travel to Cuba to conduct professional research in their professional areas,'' Cuban Americans who have relatives in Cuba who are ill--but only once a year.

There are other categories of individuals who theoretically are eligible to travel to Cuba as well, but they must apply for a license from the Department of the Treasury and prove they fit a category in which travel to Cuba is permissible. What are these categories? The first is so called freelance journalists, provided they can prove they are journalists; they must also submit their itinerary for the proposed research. The second is Cuban Americans who are unfortunate enough to have more than one humanitarian emergency in a 12-month period and therefore cannot travel under a general license. The third is students and faculty from U.S. academic institutions that are accredited by an appropriate national or regional educational accrediting association who are participating in a ``structural education program.'' The fourth is members of U.S. religious organizations.

The fifth is individuals participating in public performances, clinics, workshops, athletic and other competitions and exhibitions. If that isn't complicated enough--just because you think you may fall into one of the above enumerated categories does not necessarily mean you will actually be licensed by the U.S. Government to travel to Cuba.

Under current regulations, who decides whether a researcher's work is legitimate? Who decides whether a freelance journalist is really conducting journalistic activities? Who decides whether or not a professor or student is participating in a ``structured educational program''?

Who decides whether a religious person is really going to conduct religious activities? Government bureaucrats are making those decisions about what I believe should be personal rights of American citizens.

It is truly unsettling, to put it mildly, when you think about it, and probably unconstitutional at its core. It is a real intrusion on the fundamental rights of American citizens. It also says something about what we as a government think about our own people.

Do we really believe that a journalist, a government official, a Senator, a Congressman, a baseball player, a ballerina, a college professor or minister is somehow superior to other citizens who do not fall into those categories; that only these categories of people are ``good examples'' for the Cuban people to observe in order to understand American values?

I do not think so. I find such a notion insulting. There is no better way to communicate America's values and ideals than by unleashing average American men and women to demonstrate by daily living what our great country stands for and the contrasts between what we stand for and what exists in Cuba today.

I do not believe there was ever a sensible rationale for restricting Americans' right to travel to Cuba. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and an end to the cold war, I do not think any excuse remains today to ban this kind of travel. This argument that dollars and tourism will be used to prop up the regime is specious. The regime seems to have survived more than 40 years despite the Draconian U.S. embargo during that entire period. The notion that allowing Americans to spend a few dollars in Cuba is somehow going to give major aid and comfort to the Cuban regime is without basis, in my view.

Political rhetoric is not sufficient reason to abridge the freedoms of American citizens.

Nor is it sufficient reason to stand by a law which counteracts one of the basic premises of American foreign policy; namely, the spread of democracy. The time has come to allow Americans--average Americans--to travel freely to Cuba.

I urge my colleagues to support the pending amendment and restore American citizens' rights to travel wherever they choose, including to the island of Cuba.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Daschle, Senator Reid, and, of course, on behalf of my colleague from Kentucky, Senator McConnell, as well, to address this matter. I do not want to take a lot of time on this amendment. There are other Members who have obligations they want to meet.

This amendment is pretty straightforward. Let me begin by thanking my colleague from Kentucky, my colleague from Missouri, and others with whom, over the last several years, we have worked to create and pass the Help America Vote Act, which was signed into law by the President 1 year ago next week.

This is a law, of course, to try to improve the conduct of Federal elections across the country. I need not remind my colleagues, of course, of the condition of the Federal election system based on the results we saw in the national elections in the year 2000.

The piece of legislation that authorized these funds was adopted 98 to 2 by this body, and almost by a similar percentage of votes in the other body.

Last week, Senator McConnell and I came to the floor. I was going to suggest we offer an additional appropriation on the $87 billion package for Iraq. But, rightly, as my colleague from Kentucky pointed out, that was not the appropriate place to do this. We agreed in a colloquy that we would try to find an opportunity to provide the additional resources necessary so the State and local officials across this country could meet the obligations of doing these elections in a proper way.

I point out to my colleagues that the sense of timing is important. In the Federal elections in 2004, the first primary of which is in the District of Columbia on January 13--less than 3 months away--all States and localities must provide provisional ballots to any voter who is challenged. Those provisional ballots must be verified, according to State law, in 2004. Also, in 2004, all States and localities must be prepared to implement the anti-fraud provisions that the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Bond, fought so diligently and hard for as part of the Help America Vote Act which affect first-time voters who register by mail. There are other requirements, of course, by 2004, and a whole series of things that must be done by 2006.

Needless to say, as the State and local officials will tell you, getting mechanisms in place to get it done requires advanced timing. This cannot

just happen in the last few months before the elections occur.

I also point out to my colleagues that, obviously, the States are facing tremendous budget constraints themselves. This is not the ideal way we would like to do this, but we have no other choice but to be part of this budgetary cycle and to include these dollars in this particular effort.

In a time when we are committing, obviously, billions in Federal resources to build democracies around the world--and I supported that; I had reservations about it but, nonetheless, that is critically important--we cannot ignore the needs of our own democracy. Obviously, I think we would all agree we need to do what we can as well, as a nation that prides itself on being the leader when it comes to the conduct of our elections, to try to get these systems working better than they have been.

Again, I thank my colleagues who have worked very hard on this matter. This was truly a bipartisan effort. It continues to be one. We have tried to work together on these matters over the last several years so as not to create any partisan feelings. I think that has been the case.

So today, in a bipartisan way, we are asking our colleagues to be supportive of this additional amount in the appropriations process so we can get the moneys back to our States.

I am sure every one of my colleagues has heard from their State and local officials. By the way, the States are doing a very good job. You may have read recent articles of how the States are getting up to speed, putting things in place, getting their implementation plans in order, and doing so with a great deal of expedition and care.

Several States have already utilized some of the newer approaches as a result of their own State efforts, which are proving to be very successful.

I think we are on the right track. I think we are doing the right thing. The National Governors Association, of course, reported the difficulties they are having with their budget problems, as I mentioned a moment ago.

I do not want to take a lot of time of my colleagues. I think they know what the issues are. I have talked to many of them.

Just last week, Senator McConnell and I came to this floor to express our concerns that the Congress not leave here this session without providing sufficient resources to the States to implement the minimum requirements and other election priorities, for Federal elections enacted under the Help America Vote Act. Some of those requirements must be implemented in time for the Federal elections next year.

The States are living up to their end of the bargain--all States are well along in the development of their state plans and many are in the initial implementation stages of the effort. But we must live up to our side of the bargain.

In his budget request, the President recommended funding these programs in fiscal year 2004 at only one-half of the authorized amount, for a total of $500 million. To their credit, the Appropriations Subcommittee fully funded that request, and I thank the distinguished chairman, Senator Shelby, and my friend and colleague, the ranking member, Senator Murray, for their efforts.

However, State and local budgets simply cannot absorb this $500 million shortfall. More importantly, any shortfall in fiscal year 2004 follows on a similar shortfall of over $600 million in the fiscal year 2003 appropriations. Unless we increase funding in this fiscal year, our commitment to the States to share in the funding of the new requirements for Federal elections will fall over $1 billion short.

In a time when we are committing billions of dollars in Federal resources to build democracies around the world, we simply cannot afford to shortchange our own. The basic premise of a democracy is that every citizen must have an equal voice in the determination of its government.

And in this Nation, that voice is expressed through the equal opportunity to cast a vote and have that vote counted. If America is to continue to be the leader and example for emerging democracies around the world, then our system of giving our citizens an equal voice--our system of elections--must meet this test.

Unfortunately, what we learned in the elections of 2000 was that not all Americans enjoy an equal voice. In fact, some citizens were denied a voice at all because of malfunctioning or outdated voting equipment, inaccurate and incomplete voter registration records, and allegations of voter intimidation and fraud.

The silver lining of the 2000 elections was that it created the opportunity to recognize the challenges confronting our system of Federal elections and the ability to respond with bipartisan determination to provide Federal leadership to overcome those challenges. And 98 members of the Senate responded to that opportunity by overwhelmingly passing the Help America Vote Act last year.

I once again want to thank my distinguished colleagues, and coauthors of the Help America Vote Act, Senator McConnell and Senator Bond, for their bipartisan leadership in that effort and for their continuing commitment to see our promise for Federal funding fulfilled.

I especially want to recognize the leadership of my distinguished colleague, Senator McConnell, whose unfailing leadership on this issue has help to bring us to this point. As then Chairman of the Rules Committee, he chaired the first hearings on election reform and introduced one of the first measures in Congress to offer assistance to the States.

And today we stand before you again, united by our desire to fulfil the commitment and promise of HAVA to the States, and to every American voter, to be a full partner in Federal elections. But rhetoric alone will not fulfill this commitment, nor will it fix the problems that came to light in the 2000 elections. It will take leadership and funds. And that is what the Help America Vote Act provides.

HAVA provides federal leadership in the form of new minimum requirements that all states must meet in the conduct of Federal elections. Those requirements will ensure that all voters can check their ballots and correct them before they are cast and counted. The requirements will ensure that no voter who believes he or she is registered and eligible to vote can be turned away from the polls--but must be given a provisional ballot to cast and then have verified pursuant to State law. And those requirements will ensure the accuracy of voter registration lists against fraud and mistakes through the creation of a single statewide registration list. In short, HAVA will strengthen our democracy by giving an equal voice to all citizens by making it easier to vote and harder to cheat.

Implementing these reforms will not be cheap and so for the first time in our history, Congress committed to being a full partner in the funding of these reforms by authorizing $3.8 billion to fund the implementation of these requirements.

Federal funding is critical to nationwide implementation of this Act and may well govern the success and effectiveness of the new law. To help pay for election reforms and avoid an unfunded mandate on the States, HAVA authorizes a total of nearly $4 billion over three fiscal years, including over $2 billion in fiscal year 2003; $1 billion in fiscal year 2004; and $645,000 in fiscal year 2005.

Of the $1.5 billion Congress appropriated last year to fund grants to the States, $650 million has been distributed to all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa. I thank my colleagues for their support during the FY03 appropriations process, particularly Senator Stevens, Chair of the Appropriations Committee and Senator Byrd, the Ranking Member, for providing this substantial down-payment on our commitment to the States.

But we now know that the FY03 appropriation will not provide sufficient funds for the States to fully implement their State plans and meet the new requirements of the law. And the shortfall in the first critical year of funding under HAVA is only compounded by the additional shortfall of $500 million in the bill before the Senate today.

Given the dire financial budget constraints faced by our states and counties, the total shortfall of over just over $1 billion in promised Federal support creates an unfunded mandate that is both unfair and unnecessary and

threatens to undermine the very reforms that were adopted last year.

According to the National Governors Association, the current financial health of state and local governments was at its lowest point since World War II last year and has worsened in the past 10 months. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, States have struggled to close deficits that have totaled approximately $190 billion over the past three years and the best estimate at this time is that they will face deficits of more than $40 billion in fiscal year 2005.

And the counties are in no better economic situation than the States. According to the National Association of Counties, nearly 72 percent of counties are facing budget shortfalls and 56 percent of counties are facing reductions in State funding for State-mandated programs. While counties are struggling to deal with the revenue reductions, the demand for county-provided services continues to rise.

State and local governments are willing and anxious to implement the new requirements; they simply cannot go it alone. And that was the historic message of the Help America Vote Act: the Federal Government will step up to our responsibility to be a full partner in funding Federal election reforms.

Full Federal funding for HAVA is crucial to ensuring that the reforms that Congress overwhelmingly approved, on a broad bipartisan basis, and the President endorsed with his signature, are implemented. The very integrity of our elections, and consequently our democracy, hangs in the balance.

Full funding of HAVA is critical to our national credibility for fairness and accuracy in Federal elections. It is fundamental to the integrity of our democratic process. This amendment not only fulfils out commitment to date, it assures that the very reforms Congress enacted last year will actually be implemented.

This effort is overwhelming supported by a bipartisan and powerful coalition of State and local election officials, in conjunction with all the major civil rights, disability, language minority, and other voter interest groups in the United States. I thank each and every one of them for their strong support in passing HAVA and their continuing commitment to see that Congress makes good on its promise to be a full partner in Federal elections by fully funding the provisions of HAVA. I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the Coalition be included in the Record following my remarks.

No civil right is more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote and no need for Federal funding is more essential to securing that democracy than is the commitment made by this body to ensure the integrity and accuracy of our Federal elections.

I thank my colleagues for their continuing support of this effort and urge my colleagues to fulfill our commitment of last year to ensure the integrity of our Federal elections and the very foundation of our democracy by supporting this bipartisan amendment to fully fund the Help America Vote Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print a letter supporting this amendment in the Record.

Again, my colleagues from Kentucky and Missouri and I would prefer to have some other way we could do this, but if we don't get it done now, it is going to be very difficult for us to meet these obligations at all. This additional amount in fiscal year 2004 will get us back on track and allow us to complete this process and to see the election cycle work in a way that all of us would be proud to see.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to strongly oppose the Mikulski amendment to the Transportation, Treasury, general government appropriations bill. I have the highest regard for both Senators from Maryland but have a real difference of opinion in regard to the relevancy and the need for this amendment that would throw out the new OMB A-76 circular that was issued in May of this year. The A-76 rules were designed to fix a process which government managers, private sector contractors, and Federal employees unions agreed was broken. Congress recognized the problem as well. Therefore, Congress established the

commercial activities panel as part of the 2001 national defense authorization bill. In other words, Congress recognized that there was a problem with the A-76 back in 2001.

The panel was convened specifically to consider A-76 revisions and other issues related to competition. It was led by Comptroller General David Walker, head of the General Accounting Office. The other members of that panel should be of interest to the Members of the Senate: David Walker was chairman; Pete Aldridge, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions; Frank A. Camm, senior analyst from Rand; Mark C. Filteau, President, Johnson Controls; Steven Goldsmith, Senior Vice President, Affiliated Computer Services; Bobby Harnage, Sr., National President, American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO; Kay Cole James, Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; Colleen M. Kelley, National President, National Treasury Employees Union--this is the panel that considered changing A-76 and came back with a recommendation--David Pryor, Director, Institute of Politics, Harvard University; Stan Soloway, President, Professional Services Council; Angela B. Styles, Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the administration; and another very distinguished labor leader in this country, Robert M. Tobias, distinguished adjunct professor at American University who is the former President of the National Treasury Employees Union.

This was a very distinguished group that looked at the A-76 process and said it is broken and it needs to be fixed. What this amendment would do is take us back to that broken A-76 which was recognized for some time and deny us the opportunity to use this new A-76 that was agreed upon by this distinguished panel.

I could go on at length as to how the new rules are an overall improvement on the old. But this is not really what this amendment is about.

The real purpose of the amendment we are hearing from the other side of the aisle is to stop the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative by disrupting the administrative processes associated with it. While Senator Mikulski's amendment would not stop competitive sourcing, as I say, it would force the executive branch to continue to use a process that everybody agreed was broken and in need of repair.

When the administration first came out with their six management initiatives, one of the things I became very upset about, as someone who has a great appreciation for people who work in government, was that they had set some artificial percentages that Departments would have to follow in terms of outsourcing. So it would be 5 percent this year and then 10 percent.

We had a hearing on this, and we made it clear that we thought it was bad public policy, that what directors should be doing, and people who work for them, was to look at their manpower to see if those people who are in place can do the job better; and in many cases they could, but they were not given money for the training they needed to upgrade their skills. I say to colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we got the administration to back away from that. They publicly have backed away from it. Clay Johnson, the new management person at OMB, has said we are backing away from it. He gets it; he understands that that policy wasn't in the best interest of the people who work for the Government or in the best interest of the taxpayers of this country.

I urge colleagues to defeat this amendment. I want you to know that Senator Thomas and I will offer an amendment later this afternoon to address what we have identified as some remaining issues of concern with the A-76 rules and the Bush administration's competitive sourcing agenda. I believe these amendments will indeed level the playing field. I believe they will give the fairness that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to see in terms of the issue of competitive sourcing.

The amendment will apply to all competitive sourcing activities all across the Government. It will do the following:

It will require all agencies to provide Congress with detailed information on how it is implementing public-private competition. This includes a description of how the agency's competitive sourcing decisionmaking process is aligned with the Department's strategic workforce plan. That is the beginning--the strategic workforce plan: How are we going to get the job done and shape our workforce to achieve the goals we set for our Departments?

It also requires the agency to report the projected number of full- time equivalent employees covered by the competition scheduled to be announced during the next fiscal year. So right off the bat, we are going to require these people to identify what they are looking at in terms of outsourcing or putting up for competitive bid.

I believe having rigorous reporting requirements is the right approach. This would have to do it prospectively and retroactively. How much money are we saving? How much more efficient are we? Then they would have to come back and report after they did it to see how it was working.

After I am finished with my presentation.

It has been the prerogative of every administration since the 1950s to decide when to conduct public-private competitions and the manner in which these competitions would be conducted. That is the prerogative of the executive administrative branch of Government. Congress, in its oversight role, has the right and responsibility to know what the executive branch is doing.

This amendment will require the Bush administration to provide exactly that information. This will create a uniform reporting requirement on competitive sourcing activities at all executive branch agencies of Government across the board--not just Treasury. This affects the entire operation across the board of the Federal Government. That information will guide congressional oversight and allow us to judge if further congressional action is necessary.

The amendment also gives appeal rights to a Federal organization when it loses a bid. Currently, when private contractors lose a competition with a Government entity, or another private sector contractor, they have a right to appeal the decision to the General Accounting Office. The Federal organization currently does not have that right. This provision levels the playing field and makes the competition process fair to Federal employees. We put them in the same position as we do the private contractors. We want them to be able to appeal it. This time, it says if our employees lose, they can appeal that, just as the private contractor can appeal.

Third, this amendment modifies the provision of the new Circular A- 76, which requires that activities identified for competitive sourcing must be recompeted every 5 years if the Federal organization wins the competition. I am concerned about the effects this requirement may have on employee morale. This amendment removes the provision. In doing so, it sends a signal that as long as the MEO continues to perform well, it doesn't need to be subject to future competition. In other words, if the Federal workers win the competition, why should they, at the end of 5 years, have to have it recompeted? If you want to recompete it, the Department decides that; it means they are not getting the job done. But to have an automatic 5 years that says, hey, boys and girls, you are getting the job done, but after 5 years we are going to recompete it, that is not fair.

Fourth, this amendment requires the executive branch Departments and Agencies to spend such sums as are necessary to ensure that they have strong contract oversight capabilities. One of the problems we have in a lot of Federal agencies is we don't have the people who can properly oversee this competitive sourcing, nor do we have the people inside. There is a contract management office in the executive branch, and they don't have the necessary resources to properly do their job.

It is not enough to farm something out to a private company and then not find out whether or not they are doing the job. We should have that. When I was the tax assessor of Cuyahoga County, we had internal people who watched the appraisal company that we had do the annual job. When I became the

auditor, we had nobody inside. So we would hire a company, and nobody would know whether they were doing a good or a bad job or who helped us draft a contract to make sure we got what we wanted. So we brought them in house. It is the same thing we need in the Federal Government.

If you are going to do competitive outsourcing, you had better have people in house who can do it right and, once it is done, make sure you are getting what you are supposed to get: We are saving money, and we are more efficient. If it is not happening, then you can throw the red flag.

This amendment demonstrates congressional awareness of this problem and directs the executive branch agencies to do what is necessary to correct any deficiencies. This is a lot of work. I have talked to Clay Johnson at OMB. He gets it. He knows we must do a better job in these agencies.

Fifth, the amendment prohibits private sector contractors who win competitions from relocating jobs overseas. Our reasoning is very simple. Jobs that were previously performed by U.S. citizens should not go to foreigners. We know today that more and more of that is happening with these private companies. Say it would be some company that competes for data processing and they get the job and then they would have people in Bangalore, India, do the work for them. This would require that if somebody won the competition in the private sector, those jobs had to be in the United States and not farmed out to India or some other country.

Overall, this amendment represents a very balanced approach to further addressing some lingering concerns Congress may have with the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative. I have spent a lot of time on this issue. I have been working on the Governmental Affairs Committee. I am chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia. We were the ones who put together, with Senator Akaka, amendments to the Homeland Security Act that created more flexibility, and it was something we worked on, on a bipartisan basis.

I have several other pieces of legislation that just got voted out of the Governmental Affairs Committee on a bipartisan basis this week. I care about our Federal workers. I do. I believed that our Federal workers, when I was mayor, Governor, and now as a Senator, if given the right tools and are empowered and get the training they need, can beat anybody. We have to make sure they have an even playing field. But at the same time we do that, I don't think we should go back to an A-76 procedure that we, many years ago, said was broken.

So, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to not support the amendment proposed by my good friends--people I respect--from Maryland, and that they support the amendment I have put together with Senator Thomas.

I will say that we are trying to still, between now and then, work with people on the other side of the aisle, and they have other ideas on how we can do this better. This is a serious issue.

I will now yield for a question to my colleague from Maryland.

I yield for a question.

Does the Senator yield?

Mr. President, the 2001 National Defense Authorization Act required that panel be put together to look at a new A-76 rule, and the commercial activities panel worked on this issue for a significant amount of time and reflected a cross section of labor and management, the final regulation that was put out by the administration was looked at by several of the people who were on that panel with whom I personally spent some time.

In spite of whatever criticisms you may have with that A-76 process, it was the consensus that the new A-76 regulation is far better than the one we have on the books, which is not getting the job done or we wouldn't have asked that a commercial panel come up with a new A-76 recommendation in terms of a regulation.

My argument would be that the regulation proposed by the administration--by the way, I don't think they even got into the issue of the A-76 regulation over in the House. This was just a question of whether we were going to have competitive bidding. Some people were for it; some people were not.

With all due respect, I have talked with some of the people over on the other side and I don't think a lot understood what this was about. I am saying to the Senator, the new regulation, though he and others may have some problems with it, is far better than the one we decided wasn't getting the job done. I would argue that some of the concerns that have been raised about competitive bidding are being responded to with the amendment I am going to be offering with Senator Thomas this afternoon.

Mr. President, I am saying there was some difference of opinion, and it didn't do everything they wanted, but the consensus was that the new A-76 regulation that was proposed by the administration was better than the old A-76 procedure that we have.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield? I am asserting that talking to individual members of the panel indicated to me that the circular that was put out by the administration was better than what they had before in terms of the A-76 process.

Now, if you are asking me did everyone agree with everything that was on there, I can't verify that fact, but I will say this: The consensus that we got, particularly from David Walker who was chairman of the panel, indicated that he thought that what they came back with was better than the old A-76 process.

Then, by the way, other issues were raised. Frankly speaking, that is one of the reasons why I am here with an amendment that deals with competitive sources. There was a concern about the fact that our employees would--if they won the competition--have to come back every 5 years. There was concern that there wasn't a right of appeal if our employees lost the competition. There was concern about the fact that the agencies have the individuals they need on board to put competition together, and that once they are put together, they have people who can monitor the private sector doing the work to make sure they are getting this cost savings and the efficiencies they expected they were going to get from the process.

Last but not least, as you know, I am making it very clear that the amendment makes it very clear that if they do win, it can't be farmed out to some foreign workers.

These amendments are a reflection of trying to deal with some of the concerns that employee unions and other people have with this A-76.

Mr. President, I would like to save my remarks. I am waiting for something to come from my office that I can share with the Members of the Senate from the chairman of the Commercial Activities Panel I made reference to in my remarks earlier. I will let the other side continue with their remarks.

Mr. President, in my previous remarks in opposition to the Senator's amendment, I went into the details of the amendment we presented to the floor. So those five provisions I just mentioned--and they were reiterated by the Senator from Wyoming--basically constitute the amendment. I think that lays it out. I am more than happy to hear the Senator's thoughts in regard to that.

Mr. President, could the Chair inform me when I have used 5 minutes?

Mr. President, I would just like to clarify something for my colleagues in the Senate. First of all, the A-76 old rule was considered to be broken. Congress recognized the problem, and they established a Commercial Activities Panel as part of the 2001 Defense Authorization Act. The panel was convened specifically to consider revisions to the A-76 competition. It was led by Comptroller David Walker, the head of the General Accounting Office.

Now, there have been some allegations here that the circular that was put out by the Bush administration was not reflective of the panel's decision.

First of all, the recommendations coming from the panel were either agreed to unanimously or by a supermajority of the public and private representatives.

I will say, in all candor, I correct my earlier statements. They were not supported by Bob Tobias. They were not supported by Colleen Kelley. And they were not supported by Bobby Harnage. So let's clarify that. The union representatives did not like it that much.

So the question is, Is the new A-76 better than the old one that the Senators from Maryland want us to adopt?

As I noted earlier, the A-76, the new regulation, quoting David Walker:

. . . is generally consistent with the commercial activities

panel's sourcing principles and recommendations and, as such,

provides improved and foundation for competitive sourcing

decisions in the Federal Government. In particular, the new

circular permits . . .

Then he goes on to talk about the new circular.

He goes on to say:

If effectively implemented, the new Circular should result

in . . . [greater credibility] and greater accountability

regardless of the service provider selected.

As part of an executive session at Harvard University that was convened by Dean Nye, in which I participated, I got to know several members of the Clinton administration. One of those members of the administration was Steve Kelman, administrator of the Office for Federal Procurement Policy at OMB. He had the job of Ms. Styles who has left the administration. I asked Steve what he thought about the new A- 76 circular and he said that overall it was better than the old A-76 and that the only problem he had with it was this recompete after 5 years for those people in the public sector who won the competition.

What I am saying is that the A-76 circular that was submitted by the Bush administration is not perfect. There are differences of opinion about it, but it is a far cry better than the old A-76 circular.

What we are saying today is that we should not go back to that, that the new circular is better. Our amendment enhances the playing field for our Federal workforce in that it requires certain reporting requirements that say this competition is not going to be done willy- nilly, that it is going to be done as part of their workforce shaping.

By the way, I would like to correct one Senator from Maryland who said the administration has given the charge to go out and do this arbitrarily. They did that initially. I blew a gasket. I blew a fuse. Senator Durbin and I had a hearing on that. We had a second hearing on it and the administration has backed off from the quotas. So there is not going to be a rush out there to do competitive bidding. We are going to require them to have reporting requirements, letting people know beforehand that they are going to go to competition.

Once they go to competition and if the private sector wins, they are going to have to report whether they are getting the money efficiencies and whether they are getting the other efficiencies they thought they were going to get.

It provides that if the Government employees lose the competition, they will have a right to appeal, just as the private sector has a right of appeal. So we are giving them that opportunity. We are eliminating the every 5-year competition if it is won in-house.

It also provides that if the private sector gets the work, it has to go to American people and not be farmed out overseas.

I believe this amendment, plus the revised A-76 regulation, is a far better system than going back to something that we acknowledged back in 2001 was not working. We fixed it. It may not be perfect. I am not saying it is. I am not saying that everybody agrees with it. But it is a far cry better than to go back to what we had before.

Fundamentally, I think the other side wants to go back there because there are many people who are opposed to competitive bidding. I want everyone to know, competitive bidding ought to be something that is available to the administrative branch of Government, but it ought to be something that is carefully considered before they go forward and do it.

My feeling always is, I would rather stay with the people who are working in the Federal Government and give them the training, the empowerment, and tools to get the job done. We have leveled the playing field. We slowed down the process.

I believe with Clay Johnson over there at OMB and with Kay James over at OPM, we have two outstanding people. That is what it is about, the integrity of the people. They are not going to go forward and do some of the things that the folks on the other side of the aisle think they are going to do.

I am staying on top of this issue. I am going to monitor this issue to make sure they continue to do what they have represented that they are going to do to me and so many other members of the Governmental Affairs Committee.

Madam President, I need 2 minutes.

I appreciate the kind words from the Senator of Maryland with regard to our amendment. But I think that to go back to the old A-76 circular after the commercial panels spent so much time on it would not be in the best interest of our Government.

I am going to quote from David Walker, who is chairman of that panel, to clarify the fact that the new circular is better than the old system, and that we would be better off having our amendment attached to the new circular rather than to the old rules and old circular. He says:

As I noted previously, the new Circular A-76 is generally

consistent with the Commercial Activities Panel's sourcing

principles and recommendations and, as such, provides an

improved foundation for competitive sourcing decisions in the

Federal Government. In particular, the new Circular permits:

greater reliance on procedures contained in the FAR, which

should result in more transparent, simpler, and consistently

applied competitive process, and source selection decisions

based on tradeoffs between technical factors and cost.

The new Circular also suggests the potential use of

alternatives to the competitive sourcing process, such as

public-private and public-public partnerships and high-

performing organizations. It does not, however, specifically

address how these alternatives might be used.

That is an improvement.

If effectively implemented, the new Circular should result

in increased savings, improved performance, and greater

accountability, regardless of the service provider selected.

That is why the amendment is so important.

However, this competitive sourcing initiative is a major

change in the way Government agencies operate, and successful

implementation of the Circular's provisions will require that

adequate support be made available to Federal agencies and

employees, especially if the timeframes called for in the new

Circular are to be achieved.

The point I am making today--one of the reasons we have one of our amendments--is that we are requiring the Federal agencies to have the capacity to properly go through this competitive sourcing. That is what our amendment says. In addition, it says that once the competitive sourcing has been--if the outsiders win, we are going to monitor their performance to make sure we are going to get the savings and the efficiencies we are supposed to get. If we are not, that would mean our workers in the Federal Government would get another shot at what had been farmed out to the private sector.

I know there have been instances in the Defense Department where things have been farmed out and then they have been brought back into the Federal Government.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment has some history in the Senate and the House. I will try to enlighten Senators as to the background and what it is about. Hopefully, we can have support for the amendment and adopt it.

Basically, it stops the Treasury Department from moving forward with a regulation that would allow companies to convert from a traditional defined benefit pension plan to a cash balance plan in a way that would hurt older workers. We are not saying they can't promulgate a rule that wouldn't allow a company to go from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan. We are just saying, they should not do it in a way that hurts older workers. Let me talk about that a little bit and what is behind it.

I am not totally opposed to cash balance plans. Some designs can be very good. Some can be a great deal better for younger workers, for example, than an uninsured defined contribution plan. Some are not. I am not saying we should prohibit any cash balance plans from existing. However, we need to make sure employers put in place a fair and equitable manner for treating these.

I have been following this issue closely for several years. In the mid-1990s, a groundswell of companies started converting from traditional defined benefit plans to hybrid plans, including cash balance plans. A couple of years later, some older workers who were nearing retirement started looking at the effect of this conversion on their account. They were shocked to find they hadn't been accruing any benefits for years. In other words, workers who were, say, in their forties or early fifties when the company converted from a defined benefit plan to a cash balance plan, didn't really know how the conversion would affect them. Then after several years, these older workers looked and found out they had been working for several years and their pension had not increased one penny, even though they had been working. Yet younger workers, age 20, 25, saw their pension plans increase.

A lot of workers nearing retirement, thinking they were going to get what they had assumed was going to be their retirement and their pension, all of a sudden found out their pension had been worn away over several years. It turned out that employers were freezing the accounts in the old plan, then they established a lower opening account balance in the new plan which meant, simply, that the longer you were in the plan, the longer you were working without earning any new benefits. That became a term called ``wearaway.'' In other words, your pension benefits wore away.

Many people said: This is nothing less than age discrimination. In other words, I am working for the company. I have been there for 20 years. They switch their pension program. A younger person gets more in their pension program than I get in mine.

A new 25-year-old employee would be getting more money contributed to their pension account, while a 45-year-old who had been loyal to the company for 20 years would not get anything. I was shocked and appalled to learn about this practice, and so were thousands of loyal, hard- working Americans.

In 1999, I introduced a bill to make it illegal for corporations to wear away

the benefits of older workers during these conversions. We raised the profile of this issue. We raised it with Treasury. In September of 1999, the Treasury Department issued a moratorium on conversions from defined benefit plans to cash balance plans. The momentum against these unfair conversions was building as more and more companies changed, as more and more workers found their pensions were worn away.

In April of 2000, we in the Senate passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution without objection, stating that the wearing away of current benefits during cash balance conversions is unfair and wrong--a unanimous sense-of-the-Senate resolution in April of 2000.

Well, now we go to 2001 and 2002, and not much is happening. That moratorium stayed on, by the way, through 2000, 2001, and 2002. However, last December, Treasury issued a regulation that would turn the clock back, undo the moratorium, allow more businesses to go forward with conversions in this wrong manner--the manner that would wear away the pensions of older workers.

Very soon after that, 191 members of the House of Representatives, and 26 Senators signed a bipartisan letter to President Bush asking that we do not reopen the floodgates, that we withdraw this rule and promulgate a rule that is fair and equitable. Well, now, as you might imagine, during this period of time some of these workers who found that their pensions had been worn away went to court. In August, a district judge in East St. Louis, in the case of Cooper v. IBM--IBM was one of the larger, well-known companies that engaged in this practice-- ruled in favor of the plaintiff on her age discrimination claim.

Now, on September 9--I am talking about last month, and this case was decided in August--the House of Representatives voted 258 to 160--again bipartisan, with 65 Republicans voting for the amendment--saying that the IRS should not issue a regulation that would overturn this ruling by the district judge in East St. Louis.

So now we are into October. I might just say that all of these have been positive steps. We had a sense-of-the-Senate resolution in 2000. We had the moratorium. Last December, the Treasury Department--I might add, if I am not mistaken, I don't think there was a Secretary of the Treasury at that time in place--issued this rule to turn the clock back, and 196 members of the House and 26 Senators signed a letter to President Bush saying withdraw this rule and have one that is fair and equitable.

In August, there was the district court ruling. On September 9, last month, the House voted 250 to 196 that the IRS should not issue a regulation that would overturn this ruling. There have been a lot of positive steps, but this regulation is still hanging out there.

One other thing happened. Last January, Senator Durbin and I indicated that we might place a hold on the nomination of Mr. John Snow to be Secretary of the Treasury. Well, Mr. Snow was a very popular person and we didn't have anything personally against him; I want to make that clear. But we wanted to raise this issue. So Mr. Snow, a fine gentleman and outstanding business executive, someone who has gotten high accolades for his tenure in business as a business executive, met with Senator Durbin and me in my office. He said on this critical issue he would let fairness guide the regulatory process.

Mr. Snow had talked about what they had done at CSX, the company he had been CEO of, and how they had, I believe, instituted a cash balance plan, and a choice between the old plan and the new plan, which sounded fair and reasonable to me--let the worker decide what they want, which means many younger workers would probably pick the cash balance plan, and older workers might stay with a defined benefit plan. Mr. Snow said he would let fairness guide this regulatory process. That is the way we ought to go.

The fairness ought to be in working with Congress to develop this new regulation. So I think the best way to ensure that we do this is to ensure, No. 1, that Congress speaks on this issue; that Congress is involved in working with Treasury to make sure we come up with a fair and equitable rule dealing with pensions.

Secondly, I think the best way to make sure this happens, and to make sure that Congress is able to work and have a seat at the table is to adopt this amendment.

This regulation must be withdrawn. We need to work together to find a reasonable, bipartisan legislative solution to this complex problem. This is an incredibly important issue to American workers. It is very important for them to know that we stand united behind them in this struggle for fairness.

Mr. President, I spoke about this many times on the Senate floor. In terms of what distinguishes the American workplace in so many ways from others around the world, we have always valued loyalty and productivity in the American workplace--loyalty and productivity. If you are hard working and you are productive and you are loyal, U.S. companies have always valued that--at least they used to. That is one of the reasons companies have offered defined benefit pension plans. The longer you work and the more loyal you are to the company, you get a bigger pension. It makes sense.

So the longer you work someplace, the better you do your job, the more you learn about it, the more productive you are, that is what we value. We value that productivity and loyalty.

Now if companies are able to just break these promises at random, what kind of a signal does that send to U.S. workers? It tells workers they are foolish to be loyal because their employer could just change the rules of the game at any time and leave them out in the cold. It destroys the kind of work ethic that we have come to value and that I believe built this country, which distinguishes us from other countries around the world. We value fairness when it comes to workers. A deal is a deal.

I offer this analogy. Let's say I am offered a job. The employer says to me: OK, Senator Harkin, we are going to hire you and we are going to have a 5-year job here for you to do. If you stay with us for 5 years and you work for 5 years, we will give you a $50,000 bonus. I think that is a pretty good deal, so we shake hands, and I agree on that. So I worked at the company for 3 years, then my boss comes to me and says: Harkin, you know that deal we made where we said if you would work here 5 years, you would get a $50,000 bonus? Well, you have been here for 3 years and, guess what, the deal is off. Just like that, the deal is off. But I went to work for that company depending upon that.

That is what happens to a lot of people. They depend upon the kind of pension program the company has. That is one of the things, when companies recruit workers out of college or vocational schools, people look at what kind of pension program they have. Well, if after a certain amount of time they say, sorry, it is off, you don't get any of this, what does that say about loyalty and productivity?

I don't think that is the way we want to treat workers in this country where the employer holds all the cards and can change the deal anytime they want.

Again, I didn't have any stake--but, Harkin, you didn't contribute anything to that bonus. We said if you worked here 5 years, we would give you a $50,000 bonus, but we paid you the salary we agreed upon, did we not?

Yes.

You didn't put anything into that $50,000 bonus; that is something we were going to give you. Now we reneged on it. You don't have anything to gripe about.

Wait a minute. I have given 3 years to this company. I worked hard. I was productive because I wanted to get that bonus for 5 years, so it is not true to say I didn't put anything into the bonus.

This is like saying you didn't put anything into the pension plan. This is something the company offered you. Oh, yes, you did. You may have put in 20 or 25 years of loyal, hard work and diligence. If you had known 20 years ago they were going to pull the rug out from underneath you, would you have stayed with that company or would you maybe have gone someplace else?

Again, I hope people disabuse themselves of the idea that somehow a pension is just what the company offers you and you don't have any stake in it. You have a big stake in it. It is what they promised you when you went to work there, and you went to work there relying upon that promise.

I am not saying they can't change their pension programs. Times change, conditions change, the workforce changes. I understand all that. New kinds of pension programs come on the market dealing with existing circumstances or what the future might be. That is fine, just as long as, No. 1, they treat workers fairly, and No. 2, that a deal is a deal. It seems to me if you work for a company for 20 years and they want to switch their pension plan, but you made a deal on one and you want to stick with that one, they ought to at least let you continue to work and retire under that plan. If you want to switch, it ought to be up to the worker.

That is what this amendment is all about. It is simply about saying to the Treasury Department they can't issue this proposed rule they have come up with which, as I said, last month the House voted 258 to 160 to say no to and which earlier this year 191 Members of the House and 26 Senators signed a letter to President Bush saying withdraw the rule.

That is what this amendment does. It simply says: Withdraw this rule; work with Congress. Let's have something that is fair and equitable for our workers.

Again, I urge my colleagues to join in support of this amendment in fairness to American workers.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a letter from the AARP dated October 23, 2003, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill for accepting this amendment. Again, this amendment is going to send a strong signal that both bodies want to work with the Treasury Department to establish a fair and equitable rule on pensions. I thank the managers.

Mr. President, I rise today to support my friends from Maryland and Louisiana, who have offered an important amendment to get rid of unfair rules that disadvantage Federal Workers. I want to talk about one group of Federal Workers in particular--those with mental disabilities who are at risk of losing their jobs if these outsourcing rules are allowed to stand. I joined both of my colleagues from Maryland in sending a letter to Mr. Bolten, the Director of OMB, and to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, expressing our outrage about workers at one workplace in Maryland, and urging them to adopt a government-wide policy protecting these workers and others like them from losing their jobs.

Senator Mikulski has spoken about employees with mental disabilities working at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, mentioned in a Washington Post article earlier this month. These 22 workers in the hospital kitchen are providing dependable and reliable service in very hard-to-fill positions. In return, the Navy provided them with a steady paycheck and the ability to lead independent, productive lives. This relationship is mutually beneficial, but it is being jeopardized by outsourcing. And these workers could lose much more than their jobs. They could lose their independence. That is what is at stake for these workers.

As the author of the ADA and longstanding advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, I am shocked that the administration would consider outsourcing these jobs and reversing decades of Federal policy protecting people with disabilities from discrimination and ensuring that the Federal Government serve as a model employer.

These workers have been hired under a longstanding program that encourages the employment of individuals with mental disabilities. The program has operated under presidents from both parties and has been well implemented. No one has ever thought to attack it, until now. In 2000, the government employed 1,734 workers with mental retardation, about \1/10\ of 1 percent of the 1.8 million Federal workers. If this outsourcing is allowed to continue, that number could shrink dramatically.

Our Senate report on committee-passage of the ADA in 1989 noted this sad truth ``According to a recent Louis Harris poll not working is perhaps definition of what it means to be disabled in America.'' Thirty-two percent of people with disabilities are working full or part time compared to 81 percent of people who don't have a disability. The administration ought to be doing more to increase the number of workers with disabilities, not outsourcing the jobs of the few who are employed.

I am proud to support the amendment of the Senators from Maryland and Louisiana.

I am a cosponsor of the Mikulski-Landrieu amendment, and I say to my colleague from Wyoming, before he leaves, the more I listened to him, the more committed I became to this amendment. In fact, with each passing minute as he spoke, I was increasingly strengthened in my view that it is the right and honorable thing to support this amendment and to urge my colleagues to support it. I will outline why that is the case.

Before I do that, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Reid of Nevada be added as a cosponsor.

The Senator from Wyoming spoke as though the amendment is going to repeal public-private competition sourcing.

My colleague talked about what was done in 2001 and the competitions that have taken place since that date. So, as one listened to him, one was thinking: Well, is this whole competitive arrangement going to be stopped in its tracks? Nothing could be further from the truth.

What this amendment seeks to do is to stop an OMB revision, of last May 29, with respect to the terms on which these competitions are going to take place. That is all it does. When I was first listening to the Senator from Wyoming, I thought to myself: Well, surely we would meet what seems to be his concern if we just went back to the system that prevailed before the OMB revision. But then, at the end, he became clear and said, no, he wants those revisions as well. That is what I am very much opposed to.

This amendment seeks to ensure the Government work is allocated in a fair and equitable manner. I believe it would provide the American taxpayers with the best value for Government services and for their tax dollars.

Often--in fact, federal employees win most of these competitions. There seems to be a premise on the part of the Senator from Wyoming that savings is most often achieved when work goes to the private sector. That is not the case.

What has happened is the OMB is driving an ideological agenda. It has rewritten the rules governing competitive sourcing, which, I think, in effect, jeopardizes fair competition, jeopardizes getting the best value for Government services, and jeopardizes the taxpayers' dollars.

Earlier this year, the Office of Management and Budget, on May 29, issued a new circular, a new ruling that rewrote the rules by which this competition takes place. The concept of public-private competitions or competitive sourcing is not new, but the manner in which it is to be conducted is drastically altered by the rules of May 29 put forward by OMB.

The new process established by OMB unfairly favors private sector contractors over Federal employees, opens highly specialized Government jobs to the lowest bidder, imposes arbitrary quotas and deadlines on Government

agencies, and, I think, lead, in fact, leads to a waste of Government money rather than saving Government money.

We all seek to make the Federal Government more cost effective and efficient. However, to achieve these goals, there are certain tests which should be met.

First, we need to demonstrate with certainty that cost savings are achieved through the outsourcing of work to the private sector. No effective method has been put in place for oversight of the private contractors doing work for the Federal Government. This is most apparent at the Department of Defense where competitive sourcing has been most prevalent. It is my understanding that DOD cannot fully account for how many contract workers they currently employ or the cost to the American taxpayers for the work they do.

Second, we must ensure that Federal employees are given the opportunity to compete on fair terms. Often, in these public-private competitions Government employees can be placed at a distinct disadvantage by making proprietary information about the Government bid available to their commercial competitors at a time when that information can be used to unfairly enhance the commercial offering. Government employees are not offered the same opportunity to enhance their bids.

There is a great temptation that with this access to proprietary information for the commercial bidder to lowball their bid to win the contract, and then increase prices once the competition is eliminated.

Unfortunately, because there is so little Government oversight of contractors, it is difficult to assess the costs of contractor work. When contract costs escalate, it is difficult to fix the problem.

Thirdly, I am concerned that many highly specialized Government jobs will be let out to the private sector without proper consideration of qualitative factors. I believe many of these positions are inherently governmental and should not be awarded to the lowest bidder.

The Senator from Wyoming, in effect, dismissed concrete examples offered by my colleague with respect to the problems. But how do we understand this issue if we do not focus on concrete examples?

At NIH, competitive sourcing, it has been asserted to us, threatens not only the critical scientific work conducted there but also the security of the installation itself.

NIH scientists have testified before a joint House-Senate hearing that they believe competitive sourcing has created a wave of unnecessary anxiety and bureaucratic duplication, and that the implementation of the initiative at NIH was not well thought out.

Additionally, the administration rejected a request by NIH officials to exempt the fire department from competitive sourcing. Because the nature of the work done at NIH often involves hazardous materials, the Federal firefighters assigned to NIH have specialized training in the handling of chemical, biological, and radiological events.

This kind of expertise cannot be matched in the private sector, and losing this asset would certainly be to the detriment of NIH's mission. Yet the administration refused to classify the firefighters as core public employees who would not be privatized.

I want to add another dimension to this consideration as one of the largest employers in the country, the Federal Government should serve as a model for other businesses.

In recent years, we have made great strides in extending employment to disadvantaged groups. I believe the Government must lead by example in this area. At Bethesda National Naval Medical Hospital, competitive sourcing threatens the jobs of mentally challenged workers who perform important services in the hospital's scullery.

My very able colleague from Maryland outlined this situation. To counter what I thought was a very powerful statement of this point, the Senator from Wyoming sort of dismissed it as, quote, an emotional argument.

Is it an emotional argument to register the fact that the National Naval Medical Hospital is seeking to provide some dignity and self- respect for mentally challenged workers to do these basic, virtually custodial, services in the hospital's scullery?

This employment enables these individuals to lead independent lives. There is no accounting for that in this OMB circular. These are real examples. These are real people. This problem ought not to be dismissed. It is one of the consequences of the revision of this OMB circular.

The House has passed its version of the Mikulski amendment by a vote of 220 to 198. Obviously, when it was considered by our colleagues on the other side, they saw merit in it.

Furthermore, this proposal from OMB artificially inflates the cost of the Federal employees' bid by arbitrarily assuming a 12-percent overhead as part of the bid. The Inspector General of the Department of Defense has said the 12-percent overcharge arbitrarily placed on all in-house bids is insupportable and that either a new overhead rate must be established or an alternative methodology must be devised to allow overhead to be calculated on a competition-specific basis.

If we are to have this competition--and we have had it, as the Senator from Wyoming pointed out when he went back in earlier references, for some period of time--it needs to be on a fair basis. You need to make sure the playing field has not been tilted. The regulations of May 29 tilted the playing field unfairly, not only to the disadvantage of the Federal worker but to the disadvantage of the Federal taxpayer.

It needs to be understood that if the rules of competition are not fair, the awarding of the work to the private contractor may cost the taxpayer more money with a less quality product. That is what is at issue here. This amendment doesn't stop the competitive sourcing process. It only stops the revised regulations, the radical revised regulations that were put into place on May 29 and which have tilted the playing field, have moved away from a fair process, and resulted in a bad deal for the American taxpayers. We need to have an even playing field. We need to make sure the rules of competition are fair. This amendment is designed to accomplish that, and I strongly urge my colleagues to support it.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I will seek the floor on my own accord, if the Senator is finished.

I listened very carefully to my distinguished colleague from Ohio. I don't gainsay his concern about the Federal workers. I accept his assertion in that regard, and it has been my own experience in dealing with him in the past. I was concerned about one thing when he listed the members of this Commission.

He talked about this very diverse Commission, but it is my understanding that Commission, when it made its recommendations, had unanimity with respect to some and differences of opinion with respect to others. In any event, the OMB circular issued on May 29, the matter that is at issue here with the Mikulski-Landrieu amendment, does not track the recommendations of the Commission. In other words, it departs from it in significant respects, and much of the problem we are talking about is a consequence of that departure.

What we have before us is not something that has been worked out and a consensus has developed, although we had a broad group that went into the deliberations and it doesn't reflect a consensus in the Congress. Witness, the vote in the House of Representatives where a majority of the House of Representatives supported the House version of the Mikulski amendment. So there is no consensus on that score.

All this amendment would do would be to say: No, we are not going to let the OMB hand down these revisions, this new circular, to rewrite the rules in this way. We will put that on hold, and we will go back and look again at this issue to see if we can't come up with a solution which commands a consensus.

I feel very strongly that is the way we should seek to deal with this matter. This isn't repealing competitive sourcing. All it is saying is that this OMB circular, which was put into place a few months ago and which many very strongly feel does not give you a level playing field or fair competition, that is going to be put on hold and provide us an opportunity then to revisit this issue in a more careful, balanced, and judicious way, and out of that process hopefully come up with a consensus.

I think that is a reasonable way to proceed in the circumstance. It doesn't nullify or vitiate the competitive sourcing approach. It only seeks to assure that it will be done in a fair, balanced, level playing field way. I think that is an important objective to achieve, and it is not reflected in the May 29 OMB circular.

I certainly yield to the Senator.

Is my colleague asserting that the members of the panel supported or support the OMB circular of May 29?

It is my understanding that a number of members of that panel disagree with the OMB circular of May 29, and if that is the case, I don't see how the Senator can be using this panel as supportive of the OMB circular.

The Senator mentioned this panel that was studying it and he went through the membership of the panel.

He emphasized how diverse it was in terms of where it drew people from. But it is my understanding that the OMB circular does not reflect the position of a number of members of the panel. Is the Senator asserting to the contrary?

Mr. President, I have the floor, I believe. I am not going to press my colleague further because I think it is manifest by the comments he just made in terms of deficiencies in the OMB circular, that the members of this panel who studied this matter did not concur or support the OMB circular.

Obviously, by his own statement just now, a number of concerns and problems were raised with respect to the OMB circular. I, therefore, renew my very strong support for the amendment of my colleague in an effort to try to, in effect, hold things in place while we try to figure out what constitutes a fair and reasonable solution.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I simply make the observation that the offering of this amendment by the Senators from Wyoming and Ohio clearly admits and sends the signal that the OMB circular issued on May 29 was grossly deficient.

Now, they are addressing it in certain limited respects. And to the extent that is the case, so be it. But it does not really solve the basic problem which we confront, and that is that OMB handed down this circular which grossly tilts the playing field and which structures an unfair competition.

It seems to me the best way to resolve this situation is to adopt the amendment offered by my colleague from Maryland, Senator Mikulski, which in effect would hold the May 29 OMB circular. We could then revisit this question and address the range of the deficiencies that are in that circular. My own view is, if people of good will undertake that enterprise, we will be able, I hope, to reach a consensus and have a better product as a consequence.

I think this is, in a sense, elemental fairness for the Federal employee and for the Federal taxpayer. This issue is always portrayed as though contracting out to the private sector is beneficial to the Federal taxpayer. That is clearly not the case. In fact, there has been instance after instance in which Federal employees win competitions, therefore validating the argument that they are better for the

taxpayer than putting it out into the private sector.

Now, OMB, because it is not meeting its targets--these ideological targets that have been placed upon them, which they in turn are imposing upon the agencies because they cannot get the outcome they seek--has come in with a new circular, of May 29, which tilts the playing field in an unfair way. That really cries out for the passage of the very well considered amendment of my colleague from Maryland.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the Mikulski amendment.