A bill to permit athletes to receive nonimmigrant alien status under certain conditions, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, seventy-five years ago today, President Herbert Hoover created the Veterans Administration by signing Executive Order 5398 for the ``Consolidation and Coordination of Governmental Activities Affecting Veterans.''

Of course, the commitment of America to the care and welfare of the Nation's veterans goes back to the earliest days of our Republic. In 1789 George Washington said, ``The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country.''

The care of veterans was a central theme in Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address. He said, ``With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.''

Today, this important work of caring for our veterans is carried on by the Department of Veterans Affairs at a time when American troops are engaged in combat under very trying circumstances overseas.

In order to address the clearly emerging needs of the newest veterans, I am today introducing the ``Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment Improvement Act.''

This bill requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to hire the number of mental health professionals which the Department's own internal panel of experts has for years recommended as that required to provide an appropriate

level of treatment for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

PTSD is a fairly new term but it is by no means a new problem. People exposed to extremely traumatic stressful events can suffer lasting and long-term mental health problems as a result. Soldiers who have endured the horrors--of the battlefield--who've experienced and had to participate in deeply troubling events--have long been susceptible to this problem. Among Civil War veterans it was called ``the soldier's heart.'' Among World War I veterans it was called ``shell shock.'' In World War II it was called ``battle fatigue.'' Many people will remember the incident during World War II in which General George Patton slapped a soldier hospitalized with battle fatigue. The American public reacted angrily to Patton's action because they understood that Patton was wrong; needing medical treatment to help recover from the psychological trauma of war was not any sign of weakness or cowardice but rather simply one of the understandable hazards of the very violent modern battlefield. In the aftermath of Vietnam, our understanding of what is today known as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD has grown tremendously and so has our ability to treat it. Today, as a result of its work with Vietnam Veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs is the world leader in diagnosing and treating PTSD.

While the quality of the expertise in the VA is high, we need to improve the quantity. The Department of Veterans Affairs needs more mental health professionals to meet the needs of the coming influx of new veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two articles in the July 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine indicate that the nature of the war in Iraq is producing a new generation of American veterans who will require treatment for PTSD. The data gathered from recently returned troops suggests that about 1 in 6 of our Iraq veterans will develop this serious problem. One of the articles cautions that the actual numbers will probably be even higher because the data of the reported study was collected from soldiers and marines who served in the theater before the Iraqi insurgency rose to its current level of intensity. The conditions are now made even more stressful by the hidden enemy, frequently concealed among civilians and attacking suddenly with roadside explosions and suicide bombers. The uncertainly, the shock, the blood and destruction of this type of warfare understandably takes a toll on the feelings of even the toughest of our warriors. We know from experience that roughly 30 percent of Vietnam veterans suffered from PTSD sometime in their lifetime.

Senators don't have to read the New England Journal of Medicine to know that our returning veterans will need a little help to overcome some terrible memories and troubling mental images. We can hear it from the veterans in our own States.

Several weeks ago I traveled across my State of Illinois to five different locations for roundtable discussions about this subject. I invited veterans as well as medical counselors from the Veterans' Administration to tell me about former service members who were trying to come to grips with this torment in their minds over what they had been through and what they had seen. I was nothing short of amazed at what happened. At every single stop, these men and women came forward and sat at tables before groups in their communities, before the media, and told their stories of being trained to serve this country, being proud to serve, and going into battle situations which caused an impact on their mind they never could have imagined. They talked about coming home with their minds in this turmoil over the things they had done and seen. Many of them told of having to wait months and, in one case, a year before they could see a doctor at a VA hospital.

I heard from veterans from Iraq, Vietnam, Korea and World War II. One veteran in southern Illinois who was in the Philippines couldn't come to my meeting because ``I just can't face talking about it.'' This was 60 years after his experience. Veterans of Vietnam, coming home, facing animosity from others, then being unable to address their emotional and psychological anguish and difficulty because they were afraid to even acknowledge they were veterans. They were left tormented by this for decades.

The ones that gripped my heart the most were the Iraqi veterans. I will never forget these men and women. The one I sat next to at Collinsville, a bright, handsome, young Marine, talked about going into Fallujah with his unit and how his point man was riddled with bullets, and he had to carry the parts of his body out of that street into some side corner where the remains could be evacuated. Then he took over his friend's job as point man and went forward. A rocket-propelled grenade was shot at him, and it bounced off his helmet. One of the insurgents came up and shot him twice in the chest. This happened just this past November.

When he came home, he said he couldn't understand who he was because of what he had seen and been involved in. He had problems with his wife--difficult, violent problems, and he turned to the VA for help.

I said to this young Marine: I am almost afraid to ask you this, but how old are you? He said, ``I am 19.''

Think of what he has been through. Thank goodness he is in the hands of counselors. Thank goodness he is getting some help and moving in the right direction.

But in another meeting in southern Illinois, another soldier said, in front of the group, ``As part of this battle, I killed children, women. I killed old people. I am trying to come to grips with this in my mind as I try to come back into civilian life.''

A young woman, a member of the Illinois National Guard, said when she returned to the United States, still in distress over what she had seen and done, she was released from active duty through Fort McCoy in Wisconsin where the Army sat her down and asked, ``Any problems?'' Of course, that should have been the time for her to come forward and say: I have serious problems. She didn't. She'd heard that if you said you had a problem, you had to stay at Fort McCoy for several more months. She was so desperate to get home she said, ``No problems.''

She came home and finally realized that was not true. She had serious psychological problems over what she had been through. When she turned to the VA and asked for help, they said: You can come in and see a counselor at the VA in a year.

What happens to these veterans, victims of post-traumatic stress disorder, without counseling at an early stage? Sadly, many of them see their marriages destroyed. One I met was on his fourth marriage. Many of them self-medicate with alcohol, sometimes with drugs, desperate to find some relief from the nightmares they face every night. These are the real stories of real people, our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our husbands and wives who go to battle to defend this country and come home with the promise that we will stand behind them.

So, in addition to the Vietnam, Gulf War and other veterans already being treated, it is clear that we will soon see large numbers of Iraq veterans coming to the VA for help with PTSD. What is our capacity to help them? Unfortunately, it does not look good.

Disturbingly, the Department of Veterans Affairs may lack the capacity to treat those with PTSD. The Government Accountability Office recently concluded, and the Department of Veterans Affairs concurred, that the Department has not kept adequate accounting of the numbers of patients it currently treats for PTSD. Without any reliable numbers of patients currently receiving treatment, the VA cannot deliver to us any assurance about having the facilities or staff needed to treat the coming influx of new veterans.

The VA has demonstrated an inability to forecast the number of patients it must be ready to treat. In three of the past four years, the Department of Veterans Affairs has submitted budget requests that included patient estimates which turned out to be too low in four different areas. In three of the past four years, the VA has underestimated its number of acute hospital care patients, the number of medical visits, the dependents and survivors' hospital census, and the numbers of dependent and survivor outpatients that it would see.

Now, just a couple of weeks ago, the VA had to acknowledge that its budget for the current fiscal year was going to be $1 billion short because they got their estimate of Iraq veteran patients wrong. The VA had forecasted a 2.3 percent growth in healthcare demand this year but the actual increase turned out to be 5.2 percent--more than twice the VA estimate. The VA budget assumed that 23,553 VA patients would be veterans of the Global War on Terrorism. The number of these patients in 2005 is now estimated to be 103,000--more than four times what VA had estimated.

In the absence of reliable patient information and patient estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs, how can we know that the VA healthcare system lacks the capability to treat the incoming number of veterans needing PTSD treatment? That's easy--we can simply listen to the VA medical professionals who provide the treatment.

In the course of conducting its investigation, the Government Accountability Office asked officials at VA facilities if they would be able to meet this coming demand. The answer they received was very disturbing. Fully six out of these seven VA healthcare officials stated that their facilities may be unable to handle the influx of new veterans needing PTSD treatment. Six out of seven!

In addition, another set of internal VA mental health professionals has repeatedly recommended that VA expand its capability to treat PTSD. The Department's own Special Committee on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has issued a long list of recommended improvements. When the Government Accountability Office studied the progress on implementing these expert recommendations, it found that the Department of Veterans Affairs hadn't fully implemented any of them.

Enough is enough!

When the VA fails to count its current PTSD patients; when the VA consistently underestimates its number of future patients; when the VA ignores the improvement recommendations of its own internal mental health professionals it is time for Congress to step in, demonstrate the leadership that is required, and take action to provide the treatment capability that our veterans deserve.

The bill I am introducing today accomplishes this by requiring the Department of Veterans Affairs to implement three of the key treatment improvement recommendations made by the Department's own Special Committee on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The bill requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to do three things. First, it requires the Secretary to establish a Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Team at every Medical Center within the Department of Veterans Affairs. Second, it requires the Secretary to provide a certified family therapist within each Vet Center. Finally, the bill requires the appointment of a regional PTSD Coordinator within each Veteran Integrated Service Network (VISN) and Readjustment Counseling Service region to evaluate programs, promote best practices and make resource recommendations.

Let me explain the importance of these three provisions.

The majority of the major VA hospitals already have a clinical team of mental health experts focused on providing treatment for post- traumatic stress disorder. These teams include psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychotherapists who bring their varied skills together. However, approximately 60 of our VA hospitals currently do not have a PTSD clinical team. This bill requires that these teams be established.

Nationwide, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates 207 ``Vet Centers.'' The community-based, informal atmosphere of these centers has proven to be a highly effective way to provide counseling and other services to veterans who might not want or be able to go to a formal VA hospital for help. The Special Committee has recognized the importance of family relationships in helping veterans deal with their PTSD and has recommended that there be a certified marriage and family therapist at each Vet Center.

Currently only 17 centers have these specialists on staff. This bill helps keep families strong for our veterans by adding 190 family therapists to Vet Centers nationwide.

Finally, the bill ensures that PTSD treatment capability gets the attention and management needed to keep it strong by requiring the appointment of PTSD coordinators at the regional level.

Altogether, this bill will add about 400 mental health professionals to the Department of Veterans Affairs' capability to treat those of our veterans whose wounds are not visible, whose thoughts are continually troubled by the horrors of war, who need just a little help to get past the nightmares and get their life back on track.

Even the toughest of warriors can have troubled feelings following the stress of combat. It is no sign of weakness--it is no sign of failure to ask for a little help in getting past some of those feelings. That message must be clearly conveyed to all of our veterans.

By acting now, we can ensure that this help is available to our veterans when they return. This is crucial because the effects of post- traumatic stress disorder are sometimes left undiagnosed and untreated for years. If we delay, we virtually guarantee a future shortage of treatment capability and, in so doing, we lay the groundwork for the plague of drug abuse, domestic violence, homelessness, unemployment and even suicide that so often is the result of post-traumatic stress disorder which is left untreated.

America's newest generation of young veterans certainly deserve better than that!

We in the Congress can step up and require that the Department of Veterans Affairs hire a full staff of mental health professionals that can help our veterans to move past the psychological trauma of war and to lead healthy, happy and productive lives.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting our returning veterans by supporting the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment Improvement Act.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Trade Adjustment Assistance for Industries Act.

I have long been a champion for our Trade Adjustment Assistance program, what we call ``TAA.''

For more than 40 years, TAA has been providing retraining, income support, and other benefits to workers who lose their jobs due to trade. The program has a critical mission: to give trade-impacted workers the skills they need to find new jobs and prosper in growing sectors of the economy.

Maintaining a well-trained workforce is key to our Nation's long-term competitiveness and economic health. And helping those few who lose out from our trade policy choices is key to maintaining public support for trade liberalization.

In the Trade Act of 2002, I spearheaded the most comprehensive expansion and overhaul of the TAA program since 1974. We expanded the kinds of workers who are eligible for TAA benefits. We extended the training benefit to make it more effective and enhanced funding for training. We added new benefits like wage insurance and the health coverage tax credit. We also streamlined the application process to get workers enrolled and retraining sooner.

TAA is a lifeline for those who enter the program. Participating workers in Montana tell me that TAA has made it possible for them to make a new start. It gives them hope that they can do something more than merely survive a plant closure.

One of the industries in Montana that has had all too much experience

with the TAA program is softwood lumber. Our softwood lumber industry has been battered for years by imports of dumped and subsidized lumber from Canada. Over time, and despite decades of litigation, these unfair trading practices have taken their toll.

Since 1999, workers from at least 24 Montana lumber mills have applied for TAA certification. An additional 11 petitions were filed under the now-repealed NAFTA-TAA program.

What surprises me is not that so many Montana lumber workers have applied for TAA--but the inconsistent treatment of their petitions. Of the 24 Montana lumber companies that petitioned for TAA, 16 were approved and 8 were denied. Under the NAFTA-TAA program, 6 petitions were approved, and 5 were denied.

These results do not make sense. These mills are all competing in the same market. They are all competing against dumped and subsidized imports from Canada that drive down prices until U.S. producers cannot survive. The International Trade Commission found that Canadian imports injure or threaten injury to the entire domestic softwood lumber industry. And yet, somewhere between a third and a half of Montana workers laid off in the industry were left to fend for themselves, while the others had the chance to participate in TAA.

So why are some workers getting TAA and others being turned down? The answer lies in the way the Department of Labor reviews petitions. Under current law, petitions have to be filed and reviewed on a plant-by- plant basis and in a total vacuum.

In effect, the Labor Department puts on blinders. It does not consider whether the International Trade Commission has found injury to the industry from imports. It does not ask whether imports are leading to job losses nationwide. It does not examine whether entire occupational categories are being offshored.

Instead, it just asks an individual plant whether it or its customers are buying more imports. If that one plant submits the wrong information, or its customers deny buying imports, its workers lose out--while similar workers up the road get the benefits they deserve.

The plight of softwood lumber illustrates why, in some cases, plant- by-plant certification is not the best policy. And lumber workers are not alone. A similarly checkered record of certifications and denials affects other industries, like textiles and small electronics. Simply put, there are some industries where the trade-related displacements are clearly national in scope.

The industries are easy to identify. They experience multiple plant closures covering multiple states in a relatively short period. They are often industries seeking or receiving relief under trade remedy laws.

In these cases, it makes no sense to consider petitions one plant closure at a time. That creates the risk of inconsistent results for similarly situated workers. And it makes the Department of Labor investigate the same situation over and over again--even when the International Trade Commission, or another Federal agency, has already made a thorough injury investigation.

What would make more sense is a way to certify workers on an industry-wide basis or on the basis of occupational classification in cases where the trade-related layoffs are national in scope. That is what this legislation does.

I should note that, in one rare circumstance, the President already has the authority to certify workers for TAA on an industry-wide and nationwide basis. When the President grants a remedy in a global safeguard case--what we call section 201--he has the option of certifying all workers in the affected industry for TAA.

To my knowledge, this option has been used only once, by President Reagan, in a case involving the footwear industry. In that case, workers laid off from individual footwear plants did not need to petition the Department of Labor for a determination that their job losses were import-related. All each worker had to do was go to a designated office in his State and prove that he lost a job in the footwear industry within the applicable time period.

Normally, there are two steps needed to qualify for TAA under current law. First, the Department of Labor has to certify that a particular layoff is trade-related. That certification covers all the workers laid off at a single plant. Second, each individual worker affected by that layoff has to prove that he or she satisfies a list of criteria to qualify for benefits, such as 2 years' employment at the firm and eligibility for unemployment insurance. In the footwear case, workers were spared the first, group eligibility step and moved right to the second step.

To me, this model makes a lot of sense. If you believe in the purpose of TAA, it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for qualifying workers to access benefits.

This bill achieves that goal in two ways.

First, it makes industry-wide TAA certification automatic in cases where the President, the International Trade Commission, or another qualified Federal agency has already determined that imports are having an injurious effect. If workers lose their jobs in an industry covered by a global or bilateral safeguard or an antidumping or countervailing duty order, within a set period of time, they do not need to file a petition for TAA. Instead, they can proceed directly to the second step of demonstrating their individual eligibility and enrolling through the one-stop centers in their states.

Second, the bill permits, but does not require, the Secretary of Labor to make her eligibility determination on an industry-wide or occupation-wide basis in other circumstances that suggest a plant-by- plant approach is not appropriate. Such circumstances would include cases where the Secretary has received three or more petitions from workers at different plants in the same industry within a 6 month period. It would also include cases where the Senate Finance Committee or the House Ways and Means Committee passes a resolution requesting an industry-wide investigation. In these cases, the Secretary may certify workers in an entire industry only if she determines that the statutory eligibility criteria are satisfied on an industry-wide basis.

Now that I have described what this bill does, I think it is important to emphasize some things that it does not do:

It does not change the eligibility criteria or make any new categories of workers eligible for TAA.

It does not make TAA benefits available to workers who quit their jobs or are fired for cause.

It does not change the type or amount of benefits an eligible worker can receive.

What it does is create a fair, predictable, and efficient way to make eligibility determinations where industry-wide effects are obvious.

We owe our trade-affected workers a fair chance to train for the jobs of the future and get back into the workforce. And we owe our employers and our economic future well-trained workers.

We already have a program designed to do just that. We should be doing everything we can to make sure that TAA benefits reach every qualified worker who needs them. This change is long overdue.

I want to thank Senator Coleman for joining me in introducing this important legislation. He has been a strong partner in the quest to make TAA work for every American who needs it.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to once again introduce legislation that will address the challenges facing many promising, talented young athletes from other countries who wish to play for sports teams in the United States. Due to the shortage of H-2B nonimmigrant visas for temporary or seasonal nonagricultural foreign workers both this year and last, many American teams who rely on these visas to recruit new talent from abroad have been unable to bring some of their most talented prospects to the United States. This bill would provide a commonsense solution to this problem.

Across the United States, the H-2B visa shortage has been a significant concern to many in a wide variety of industries, including hospitality, forest products, fisheries, and landscaping, to name a few. While we recently were successful in crafting a temporary, 2-year fix for the H-2B shortage, there is more still to be done. We must continue to seek permanent solutions to this problem, and to find practical ways to reduce the demand on this visa category. While there are a number of factors contributing to this high demand, among these is the extremely diverse, ``catch-all'' nature of this visa classification.

What many people do not know is that, in addition to loggers, hotel and restaurant employees, fisheries workers, landscapers, and many other types of seasonal workers, the H-2B visa category is also used by many talented, highly competitive foreign athletes. Specifically, minor league athletes--unlike their counterparts at Major League franchises-- are lumped into this same oversubscribed visa category, despite the obvious differences in the nature of the work they perform. The recent H-2B visa shortage has therefore meant that hundreds of promising athletes have been unable to come to the United States to play for minor league and amateur sports teams across the Nation. Not only have many teams been unable to bring some of their most talented prospects to the United States, but this visa shortage has also compromised a traditional source of talent for Major League sports teams. In addition, some very talented ice skaters who have earned roles in a number of popular theatrical productions, such as Disney on Ice, have faced difficulties in coming to the United States.

In my home State of Maine, for example, the Lewiston MAINEiacs, a Canadian junior hockey league team, faced tremendous difficulties last year obtaining the H-2B visas necessary for the majority of its players to remain in the United States to play in the team's first home games in September. These young athletes are among Canada's most talented junior players, but the shortage of H-2B visas threatened their chances of improve their skills with the MAINEiacs and, possibly, graduate to a career in professional hockey. This year, due to uncertainty about the availability of H-2B visas at the end of the fiscal year, the team has had to schedule a later season home opener. It must also attempt to schedule make-up games for the home games that the team would normally play in September. This creates a hardship on the team and its venue, and could mean fewer home games and a loss of revenue for businesses in the surrounding area. I have received a letter from the MAINEiacs, expressing the teams's support for this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

The Portland Sea Dogs, a Double-A level baseball team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox, is another of the many teams that relies on H-2B visas to bring some of its most skilled players to the United States. Thousands of fans come out each year to see this team, and others like it across the country, play one of America's favorite sports. Due to the shortage of H-2B visas, however, Major League Baseball reports that more than 350 talented young, foreign baseball players were prevented from coming to the U.S. last year and early this year to play for Minor League teams, a traditional proving ground for athletes hoping to make it to the Major Leagues. The experience gained in the Minor Leagues is crucial to the development of the best Major League players.

The inclusion of these athletes in the H-2B visa category seems particularly unusual when you consider that Major League athletes are permitted to use an entirely different nonimmigrant visa category: the P-1 visa. This visa is used by athletes who are deemed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, CIS, to perform at an ``internationally recognized level of performance.'' Arguably, any foreign athlete whose achievements have earned him a contract with an American team would meet this definition. However, CIS has interpreted this category to exclude minor and amateur league athletes. Instead, the P-1 visa is typically reserved for only those athletes who have already been promoted to Major League sports. Unfortunately, this creates something of a catch-22: if an H-2B visa shortage means that promising athletes are unable to hone their skills, and to prove themselves, in the Minor Leagues, then they are far less likely to ever earn a Major League contract.

A simple solution would be to expand the P-1 visa category to include minor league athletes and certain amateur-level athletes who have demonstrated a significant likelihood of graduating to the major leagues. I have received a letter from officials from Major League Baseball, which continues to strongly support the expansion of the P-1 visa category to include professional Minor League baseball players. I would ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record. As the League points out, by making P-1 visas available to this group of athletes, teams would be able to make player development decisions based on the talent of its players, without being constrained by visa quotas. The P-1 category, the League argues, is appropriate for Minor League players because these are the players that the Major League Clubs have selected as some of the best baseball prospects in the world.

There is no question that Americans are passionate about sports. We have high expectations for our teams, and demand only the best from our athletes. By expanding the P-1 visa category, we will make it possible for athletes to be selected based on talent and skill, rather than nationality. In addition, we would reduce some pressure on the H-2B visa category so that more of those visas can be used where they are really needed.

Mr. President, I rise today to once again introduce legislation that will address the challenges facing many promising, talented young athletes from other countries who wish to play for sports teams in the United States. Due to the shortage of H-2B nonimmigrant visas for temporary or seasonal nonagricultural foreign workers both this year and last, many American teams who rely on these visas to recruit new talent from abroad have been unable to bring some of their most talented prospects to the United States. This bill would provide a commonsense solution to this problem.

Across the United States, the H-2B visa shortage has been a significant concern to many in a wide variety of industries, including hospitality, forest products, fisheries, and landscaping, to name a few. While we recently were successful in crafting a temporary, 2-year fix for the H-2B shortage, there is more still to be done. We must continue to seek permanent solutions to this problem, and to find practical ways to reduce the demand on this visa category. While there are a number of factors contributing to this high demand, among these is the extremely diverse, ``catch-all'' nature of this visa classification.

What many people do not know is that, in addition to loggers, hotel and restaurant employees, fisheries workers, landscapers, and many other types of seasonal workers, the H-2B visa category is also used by many talented, highly competitive foreign athletes. Specifically, minor league athletes--unlike their counterparts at Major League franchises-- are lumped into this same oversubscribed visa category, despite the obvious differences in the nature of the work they perform. The recent H-2B visa shortage has therefore meant that hundreds of promising athletes have been unable to come to the United States to play for minor league and amateur sports teams across the Nation. Not only have many teams been unable to bring some of their most talented prospects to the United States, but this visa shortage has also compromised a traditional source of talent for Major League sports teams. In addition, some very talented ice skaters who have earned roles in a number of popular theatrical productions, such as Disney on Ice, have faced difficulties in coming to the United States.

In my home State of Maine, for example, the Lewiston MAINEiacs, a Canadian junior hockey league team, faced tremendous difficulties last year obtaining the H-2B visas necessary for the majority of its players to remain in the United States to play in the team's first home games in September. These young athletes are among Canada's most talented junior players, but the shortage of H-2B visas threatened their chances of improve their skills with the MAINEiacs and, possibly, graduate to a career in professional hockey. This year, due to uncertainty about the availability of H-2B visas at the end of the fiscal year, the team has had to schedule a later season home opener. It must also attempt to schedule make-up games for the home games that the team would normally play in September. This creates a hardship on the team and its venue, and could mean fewer home games and a loss of revenue for businesses in the surrounding area. I have received a letter from the MAINEiacs, expressing the teams's support for this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record.

The Portland Sea Dogs, a Double-A level baseball team affiliated with the Boston Red Sox, is another of the many teams that relies on H-2B visas to bring some of its most skilled players to the United States. Thousands of fans come out each year to see this team, and others like it across the country, play one of America's favorite sports. Due to the shortage of H-2B visas, however, Major League Baseball reports that more than 350 talented young, foreign baseball players were prevented from coming to the U.S. last year and early this year to play for Minor League teams, a traditional proving ground for athletes hoping to make it to the Major Leagues. The experience gained in the Minor Leagues is crucial to the development of the best Major League players.

The inclusion of these athletes in the H-2B visa category seems particularly unusual when you consider that Major League athletes are permitted to use an entirely different nonimmigrant visa category: the P-1 visa. This visa is used by athletes who are deemed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, CIS, to perform at an ``internationally recognized level of performance.'' Arguably, any foreign athlete whose achievements have earned him a contract with an American team would meet this definition. However, CIS has interpreted this category to exclude minor and amateur league athletes. Instead, the P-1 visa is typically reserved for only those athletes who have already been promoted to Major League sports. Unfortunately, this creates something of a catch-22: if an H-2B visa shortage means that promising athletes are unable to hone their skills, and to prove themselves, in the Minor Leagues, then they are far less likely to ever earn a Major League contract.

A simple solution would be to expand the P-1 visa category to include minor league athletes and certain amateur-level athletes who have demonstrated a significant likelihood of graduating to the major leagues. I have received a letter from officials from Major League Baseball, which continues to strongly support the expansion of the P-1 visa category to include professional Minor League baseball players. I would ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record. As the League points out, by making P-1 visas available to this group of athletes, teams would be able to make player development decisions based on the talent of its players, without being constrained by visa quotas. The P-1 category, the League argues, is appropriate for Minor League players because these are the players that the Major League Clubs have selected as some of the best baseball prospects in the world.

There is no question that Americans are passionate about sports. We have high expectations for our teams, and demand only the best from our athletes. By expanding the P-1 visa category, we will make it possible for athletes to be selected based on talent and skill, rather than nationality. In addition, we would reduce some pressure on the H-2B visa category so that more of those visas can be used where they are really needed.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. This bill, which is the latest version of legislation Senator Brownback and I have been pushing for almost six months, will provide the tools and authorizations and put forth the policies necessary to stop the genocide in Darfur. This bill also has support in the House, where it has been introduced by Representatives Hyde, Payne and others.

Sudan is in the news today because of Secretary Rice's trip, and because of the rough treatment her entourage has received. But let's not lose sight of what has happened in Sudan over the last two years, and what is still happening. 2 million Darfurian civilians have been displaced from their homes. 1.8 million have been forced into camps in Darfur. There are 200,000 Darfur refugees in Chad. Hundreds of thousands have died, with some estimates up to 400,000. The Government of Sudan and the janjaweed militias it supports are responsible for systematic, targeted and premeditated violence, including murder and rape.

It was one year ago tomorrow that the Senate recognized these atrocities as genocide. One long, horrible, violent, tragic year for the people of Darfur.

We can stop this genocide, and we know how to do it. It just takes the will.

Three months ago, the Senate passed the Darfur Accountability Act as an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations bill. Despite overwhelming bipartisan support, it was stripped out in conference. Meanwhile, the genocide continued and now we are forced to revisit many of the same issues.

First, it is time we put real pressure on the Government of Sudan. While I welcome Secretary Rice's trip to Sudan, and Deputy Secretary Zoellick's two trips, diplomacy only goes so far. When the world threatens sanctions, Khartoum moderates its behavior. This bill calls for a UN Security Council resolution to impose real sanctions on the Government of Sudan.

Second, we need boots on the ground. When I visited Darfur in August last year, there were only a couple hundred African Union troops on the ground. There are not more than 3,000. But this number is far from adequate to patrol a region the size of Texas. There are over 50,000 police officers in Texas, yet we are still struggling to deploy 7,000 AU soldiers in Darfur, where genocide and civil war are raging, and where transportation and communications are limited.

The AU has been effective where it is deployed and I applaud the AU's leadership on this issue. But we have to be realistic about what they are up against. They need an explicit mandate to protect civilians and they need much more support.

It also requires that, 30 days after we learn the names of those the UN has identified as having committed atrocities, the President report to Congress on whether he is sanctioning those people and the reasons for his decision.

This is not about the past. Those who have committed genocide are still

doing so. While we debate this legislation, brutal killers continue to terrorize the people of Darfur with impunity. They must be named, they must be sanctioned, and they must be brought to justice.

Fifth, we need a Special Presidential Envoy. Secretary Rice and Deputy Secretary Zoellick simply cannot devote themselves full time to this crisis.

A high-profile envoy will make sustain the pressure on the Government, get the UN Security Council to act, keep tract of what the African Union really needs to be effective and accelerate NATO involvement, and make sure that peace talks with the Darfur rebels don't drift. A Special Envoy will be able to visit all of Darfur, not just the camps that have been cleaned up for visiting VIPs. And a Special Envoy will be able to address related problems, from northern Uganda to Sudan's troubled East.

We can do all of this. We just need the political will But, that has always been the problem. From Cambodia to the Balkans to Rwanda, we failed to act or acted too late. And this time, we can't even claim not to know what is happening. We know all too well.

We can't claim that we haven't had the time to act. It's been a year since we declared the atrocities in Darfur to be genocide. We can't claim that we are not responsible. What greater responsibility can there be than to stop a genocide?

We're out of excuses, and we're out of time. I hope this bipartisan bill and its House counterpart are quickly passed. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.