A bill to require the submittal to Congress of any Presidential Daily Briefing relating to Iraq during the period beginning on January 20, 1997, and ending on March 19, 2003.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the ``Local Development Business Loan Program Act of 2005.'' This bill will improve the Small Business Administration's (SBA) Certified Development Company Loan Program, also known as the ``504 Loan Program,'' by streamlining the lending process and providing small businesses with greater opportunities to obtain affordable financing. The 504 Loan Program provides small businesses with long-term, fixed-rate financing for real estate and machinery.

As Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, one of my primary responsibilities is to ensure small businesses are afforded the best possible environment to grow and flourish. The fundamental purpose of the SBA is to maintain and strengthen the nation's economy by aiding, counseling, assisting, and protecting the interests of small business concerns. This bill would strengthen the SBA's ability to pursue those goals.

The legislation responds to one of the primary needs of small businesses: access to affordable capital. For many small businesses, expansion plans face constraints imposed by facilities that are too small, or equipment that has insufficient capacity or outdated features. These small businesses often lack capital to remedy these needs, and without the SBA they would be limited to obtaining short- term financing with higher, often variable, rates. As a result, the 504 loan program is a key element of these small businesses' eventual success, because the program provides long-term capital, at fixed rates, that allows businesses to obtain new facilities, expand existing facilities, and update their machinery.

In Fiscal Year 2004, the SBA's financing programs, combined, supported over $20 billion in loans and venture capital for small businesses. In the 504 program alone, small businesses obtained 8,357 loans in 2004. Through those loans the SBA guaranteed over $4 billion in financing. The SBA portion of each 504 program loan is only 40 percent of the total loan size. This program thus produced approximately $10 billion in financing for small businesses in 2004! That financing allowed small businesses to create or retain 140,000 jobs in 2004.

Although the 504 program is already assisting entrepreneurial small businesses throughout the nation, it can be improved. The program works by combining in each financing package provided to a small business a loan from a Certified Development Company (CDC) that is guaranteed by the SBA, this is 40 percent of the total package; a non-guaranteed loan provided by a private ``first-mortgage'' lender, 50 percent of the total package; and a 10 percent down-payment provided by the small business. This bill offers improvements to all three aspects of the program, to increase the program's efficiency and impact. If approved by the Congress and signed into law, this bill will increase the number of small businesses that can utilize the program to grow and succeed.

Job creation and retention is a bedrock element of local development efforts throughout the country. One of the statutory purposes of the 504 loan program is to create new jobs and to help small businesses retain existing jobs. This bill's purpose is to further strengthen the local development impact of the 504 loan program. To reflect that, the bill re-names the 504 loan program as the ``Local Development Business Loan Program'' (Local Development Program). This new name will also help borrowers to understand the intent of the program; many small business owners had commented to the Committee that the name ``504 program'' was neither clear nor indicative of the program's purposes. The bill will not require the SBA to waste money by discarding existing program materials that refer to the previous name; the SBA may continue to use those materials, but it will use the new name on any new materials produced after the bill's enactment.

If the Local Development Program continues to grow at its recent pace, it may exceed $6 billion in guaranteed loans during 2006. The bill would authorize a maximum program level of $8 billion in guaranteed loans in fiscal year 2007, and $8.5 billion for fiscal year 2008.

This legislation will also reduce regulatory barriers that have constrained CDCs from expanding their operations into new areas. By increasing competitive opportunities for CDCs, the bill seeks to increase the number and qualify of financing options available to small businesses. For instance, existing SBA regulations require CDCs to have a separate loan committee for each State and to account for all revenue and expenses separately for each state. Regulations of this type have made compliance both costly and difficult and have deterred many CDCs from expanding into new areas. Simplifying these regulations will result in increased access to capital for small business.

The bill allows borrowers to provide more than the required minimum amount of equity when initiating their loan, and to use the excess equity to reduce the amount of the first-lien mortgage made by a private lender in the program. By contributing a larger down-payment at the onset of the loan, this provision will provide an opportunity for these borrowers to reduce their periodic payment obligations.

This legislation would also designate Local Development Program loans that qualify under the New Markets Tax Credit Program as a public policy goal under the Local Development Program, and thus make them eligible for larger financing packages. The New Market Tax Credit Program permits taxpayers to receive a credit against Federal income taxes for making qualified equity investments in designated Community Development Entities.

The Act will also permit the ownership interest of two or more small business owners to be combined to determine whether the small business is 51 percent owned by minorities, women, or veterans in order to qualify as a business eligible for a public policy loan. The Act's goal of improving access to capital for small businesses is also furthered by another provision that permits Local Development Program borrowers to obtain financing in the maximum amount permitted under this program and also under the SBA's ``7(a) loan program.''

This legislation would also allow a borrower to refinance a limited amount of existing debt. The amount that could be refinanced could not exceed 50 percent of the expansion project funded by the loan, and would be limited to certain situations. By giving these small businesses the opportunity to refinance and obtain lower-cost capital, the bill would provide them a greater chance to succeed.

The bill would also eliminate a fee now imposed on the first mortgage lenders, private banks, in a Local Development Program financing package. The lender's fee is a one-time fee equal to 0.5 percent of the first mortgage loan. Currently, the first mortgage lenders pass this fee on to CDCs and to borrowers. The bill will not increase the total fees paid by the CDCs or the borrowers, but clarifies that the CDC's stipulated annual fee would be increased by 0.06 percent, 6/100ths of one percent, and the borrower's stipulated fee would increase by approximately 0.06 percent, to replace the fees currently imposed on CDCs and borrowers by private lenders. In other words, instead of a fee imposed on CDCs and borrowers by the private lenders, which is not always clearly identifiable to those outside the program, this provision will specify the fee be paid directly by the CDCs and borrowers. It is hoped that this provision will clarify the fee obligations owed within the program, and will clearly identify to banks the total costs of participating in the program.

The SBA's current 504 Program provides our Nation's small businesses with low-cost, long-term financing that is absolutely critical to starting and developing a successful business. In turn, small businesses create the majority of new jobs created in the United States. This program, re-named as the Local Development Business Loan Program, will continue to help small businesses create jobs and support their local communities. In fact, the provisions in this bill will improve those efforts significantly.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Medicare Drug Benefit Protections Act of 2005 with my colleague, Senator Bill Nelson. Our bill provides additional protections for Medicare beneficiaries enrolling in the new Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit, protections which we believe are essential. Our bill extends the initial enrollment period for the new benefit until the end of 2006, provides more flexibility for beneficiaries to change plans, and adds crucial protections for those enrolled in a plan.

We are now in the midst of the rollout of the new Medicare drug benefit, and, as of November 15, seniors and individuals with disabilities on Medicare have begun enrolling in various plans. Unfortunately, many seniors are confused and angry, frustrated and concerned that they do not have adequate information about the plans being offered. Seniors may ultimately decide not to enroll in a plan if they do not have enough expert assistance--readily available and accessible--to help them choose an appropriate plan. To make matters worse, many say the information available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, the agency overseeing the plan, is either not helpful or simply overwhelming.

Beneficiaries are worried they could make a poor choice in selecting a plan and that, once enrolled, the drugs offered by the plan they choose may not be the drugs they need. We must assure them that they will not be saddled with monthly premiums for plans which, in the end, do not adequately cover their prescription drug needs.

Our bill would address these concerns in several ways. The bill includes two provisions from Senator Nelson's bill, the Medicare Informed Choice Act of 2005, which give beneficiaries additional protection. The bill extends the initial six-month period for enrolling in a plan from May 15, 2006, to December 31, 2006, thus delaying late enrollment penalties until 2007 and giving beneficiaries the rest of this year and all of next year to decide whether to enroll in a plan. Once beneficiaries have enrolled in a plan, the bill provides a one- time opportunity during 2006 to change to another plan without penalty, should they wish to do so.

The Medicare Drug Benefit Protections Act includes additional safeguards, as well. Seniors are getting misinformation from the CMS website, especially in regard to the cost of drugs being offered by certain plans. Seniors in my home State of Maine have experienced serious problems with inaccurate drug pricing information being provided by the CMS website devoted to the new Medicare Part D plans, www.medicare.gov. In one instance, the CMS website quoted one price for a senior's drug costs for 2006 but the plan itself quoted a cost of approximately $2,000 more than the CMS website. Under our bill, beneficiaries could change plans without penalty if they relied on misinformation from CMS to their detriment.

Beneficiaries would also be allowed to change plans without penalty should their circumstances change significantly, due to medical reasons, for example. Beneficiaries who meet these criteria would have an extended period of time to change plans, a minimum of four months rather than the current 90 days. The bill would also extend the annual open season, as of 2007, from November 15th through December 31st, to a full two months, from November 1st through December 31st, in order to allow all beneficiaries more time outside the busy and travel-filled holiday season to study and compare plans should they wish to make a change.

Finally, our bill authorizes $25 million in funding for grants to States, non-profit organizations, and other entities to conduct additional education and outreach efforts on the drug benefit during fiscal years 2007 and 2008.

Our goal is to ensure that beneficiaries have sufficient time, comfort, and peace of mind to understand the new drug benefit and enroll in a plan well-suited to their needs so they can derive the much-needed assistance with their prescription drugs offered by these plans. We must provide flexibility, safeguards, and outreach efforts beyond what currently exists to reduce the anxiety and frustration that too many seniors are experiencing today.

The new Medicare drug benefit is the first comprehensive outpatient prescription drug benefit in the 40-year history of Medicare. The benefit is not perfect by any means, but rather a beginning. I will continue working to improve this benefit so that it will truly deliver the assistance that our seniors so desperately need and deserve to have.

Mr. President, I will speak just for a moment about each of these important measures. Before I do, I know today has been a long day, and it has been complicated by many procedural votes and a series of bills that we just passed out of here, many important bills. Of course, the Defense appropriations, Defense authorization bill, two of the major bills that Congress works on throughout the year, and it is important we get them through.

On the Defense appropriations bill, as it was amended, there was a very important piece for the gulf coast, $29 billion direct relief package. I will speak just for a moment about that because it has bearing on what we are going to do in the future when we are faced with catastrophic events.

Senator Vitter and I, my colleague from Louisiana, returned to the Congress over 4 months ago to try to describe to our colleagues the devastation that occurred with not one but two hurricanes and then multiple levee breaks which have devastated a major American city and a region, the southern part of Louisiana and Mississippi.

I have said now on many occasions that FEMA, on its best day, is not adequate to address the emergency and enormous needs of the people who have been affected: their need for housing, their need for employment, their need for capital, their need for emotional security, their need for public infrastructure, their need for police, their need for firefighters, their need for health care, their need for education.

I cannot even describe the tremendous angst, anxiety, and despair setting in on many communities in the gulf coast region because help has been slow in coming. And when it has been offered, it has been inadequate to address the situation we find ourselves in.

I do not know if we have ever considered what needs to be done when we have a catastrophic incident such as we had. So we are going to come back after the recess and I hope talk about how FEMA can be restructured, how it can be made to be more efficient, how it can be made to be more accountable, how it can be made to act more quickly. But we are also going to need some additional tools.

That is what the two bills address I have introduced tonight as a companion to a House bill that was introduced and has been worked on very diligently by my colleague Congressman Richard Baker from Baton Rouge, who is the ranking member on the Banking Committee in the House. He has done some excellent work on this bill and has moved it out of the House committee. It establishes a brand new corporation that can step in. It would be established by appointment by the President and by the Governor, with seven members, to establish a corporation that could then access the capital markets by issuing bonds, to step up and into the gulf coast area to work with our local officials, to work with the officials at the city level, at the parish level, to provide opportunities, to provide equity for homeowners who find themselves with homes that are uninhabitable, with mortgages that need to be paid and no possible way to sell their property because it is of questionable value, given the situation.

We are very fortunate in America that we have not had to face these tragedies very often, and this is the first time we faced a tragedy of this magnitude. Mr. President, 275,000 homes destroyed, 10 times the amount of homes destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Mr. President, 28,000 homes were destroyed in the worst disaster before we faced Rita and Katrina. But with 275,000 homes destroyed, clearly, we have to do more than send money through FEMA.

Money is not the only answer for the challenges before us. So we need new tools. That is why I have come to the Senate tonight to introduce, after a long day, a bill that was crafted in the House by Congressman Baker, amended through input from a variety of his colleagues in the House, input from myself and some Senators in anticipation of the bill moving over here, and have had a verbal commitment from Senator Shelby, the chairman of the Banking Committee, and very positive comments from Democrats on the Banking Committee that we could have an expedited hearing on this bill when we return.

Because even with the $29 billion in direct aid that is included in the Defense appropriations bill, I can promise my colleagues, to stand up the great city of New Orleans and the region and the gulf coast is going to take more than FEMA, more than direct aid through community development block grants and aid to our schools and universities and hospitals. It is going to take some new tools we are going to have to invent, we are going to have to place into a toolbox and then give out to local elected officials, to business leaders, to community organizations, to rebuild this great community.

But the great opportunity is, if we can invent these tools, and we can design them appropriately, they will then be available for us in the event a catastrophe such as this or something similar strikes again, whether it is an earthquake in San Francisco, massive tornadoes in the Midwest or, God forbid, a terror strike that would decimate or destroy a population or vast area such as we are experiencing from a hurricane and levee breaks in New Orleans.

There is all this work we can do on this housing corporation bill when we get back. I urge my colleagues' involvement because of the extraordinary need, as outlined and expressed so beautifully by Senator Stevens' remarks toward the end of this evening about how he was so emotionally taken aback by what he saw in New Orleans. I can most certainly understand it. Senator Vitter and I have been living that as we have moved through New Orleans and the region and all through south Louisiana, and share his view that more has to be done.

So these two bills that I introduce--one is a companion bill to Congressman Baker's bill with some important, I think, improvements or important amendments. One is to ensure a strong local input through local advisory committees, appointed by parish governments and municipalities. Also there is an underlining or emphasis, if you will, that the corporation must comply with State and local planning ordinances and direction.

This Senate version will also increase the potential equity recovery from 60 percent to 80 percent and will increase the potential cap of recovery from $500,000 to $750,000. We also put something in this bill to try to give corporate or commercial property owners some relief.

So between the Baker bill in the House, which needs to continue to move through the process, and this bill which will get, hopefully, some expedited hearings when we return, hopefully, we can quickly put into the hands of our communities, our large cities, our suburban areas, our rural areas, and individual property owners--who have seen in the last 4 months everything they have worked for in their life, perhaps even a little bit they were able to inherit, and all they hoped to pass on to their children or their grandchildren gone, without a whole lot of options for recovery--assistance.

We have every intention to rebuild our city and to rebuild our region. Just as if there were an earthquake in San Francisco, I don't think Congress would suggest that the millions of people who live there should simply pick up and move to New York and abandon the city of San Francisco, we have no intention of abandoning the city of New Orleans. We may lie 5 feet below sea level, but let me assure you, there are places in this world that are as or more productive than this region that lie 20 feet below sea level and manage their water properly and invest in their civil works properly in a way we could model ourselves after and do very well.

The city of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana have contributed billions of dollars to the economy of this Nation and to the general fund of

this Nation, and we want to continue to do so. We are not asking for a handout but a hand up. We are not asking for charity. We are asking for a portion of the taxes we pay, a portion of the money we send to the national Government, to be redirected, to give us the security for our coast and our hurricane protection that we warrant and the industries this infrastructure protects warrant for the benefit of not just the 4.5 million people who live in the State of Louisiana, and the 3 million-plus people who live in Mississippi, but which protect and support the almost 300 million people who live in the United States of America.

So these two bills are very important. I look forward to working on them when we get back.

The second bill is a bill where we picked up an idea from the New York situation, 9/11--a terrible situation that is still seared into our memory and our collective conscience.

There were some real problems with housing following the destruction of that neighborhood. This second bill I have introduced would allow FEMA to extend some of their rental and housing programs to give some immediate help to families who find themselves unable to recover their equity for whatever reason out of the houses they have that are uninhabitable but who have to find a decent place to live so they can rebuild and regroup. That bill will address that situation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Spent Nuclear Fuel Control and Accounting Act of 2006. I am pleased to be joined by the Senior Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, in introducing this legislation. In the other body, our colleague from Vermont, Congressman Sanders, is introducing a companion measure. This legislation is designed to improve the safety and security of spent nuclear fuel generated by our Nation's nuclear powerplants.

Approximately 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel are generated by the Nation's 103 nuclear powerplants each year. Spent nuclear fuel is no longer able to generate power but is still intensely radioactive and continues to generate heat for tens of thousands of years. Radiation produced by the fuel can kill a person within minutes if they are directly exposed.

Terrorist attacks in the U.S. have heightened public concern generally about whether this highly radioactive material could be stolen and used maliciously. Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, NRC, argues that spent nuclear fuel is ``self-protecting'' because of its high radioactivity, the potential for harm to human health and the environment warrants close attention to the control and accounting of this material.

I am introducing this legislation because there have been several instances of lost spent nuclear fuel at operating plants in the past few years, including in my own home State. Such losses have eroded public confidence in the job the NRC is doing. Following the loss of spent fuel rod fragments at Vermont Yankee in 2004, I requested that GAO study the issue of how the NRC controls such material. In its April 2005 report, the GAO recommended that the NRC establish requirements for the control of individual fuel rods and fragments and develop inspection procedures to verify plants' compliance.

NRC currently has no regulations that specifically deal with the tracking and recordkeeping of spent nuclear fuel of this type. While the NRC generally has regulations requiring plant operators to maintain records of their spent nuclear fuel they do not specify how individual fuel rods and fragments should be tracked. Additionally, the NRC requires plant operators to inventory spent fuel at least once a year, but does not specify how that inventory should be conducted. Because of this lack of specificity in its regulations, there is considerable variation among nuclear powerplants in how regulations are implemented. Plus, the NRC no longer monitors plants' compliance with its tracking and accounting regulations.

While the NRC has been working administratively to address the issues identified in the GAO report, the proposed legislation would require the NRC to more effectively control and account for spent nuclear fuel. The NRC needs to redouble its efforts to shore up public confidence in its regulatory efforts. This is a difficult task, but one that is critically important.

This bill will focus on the safe operation and management of existing nuclear powerplants. The NRC and the nuclear industry are planning for a ``nuclear renaissance'' with the construction of new nuclear plants. The NRC estimates that it will receive 18 new license requests between now and the year 2012. But, we must maintain continued oversight over existing plants and pay particular attention to the safe management of spent nuclear fuel. The public needs to be confident that the current system operates well, or they will likely not accept a new generation of plants.

The Spent Nuclear Fuel Control and Accounting Act of 2006 directs NRC to develop regulations which would improve the current system of control and accounting for spent nuclear fuel and would help prevent incidents like the one which occurred at Vermont Yankee.

In the case of Vermont Yankee, operated by Entergy, the plant's operators discovered that two pieces of a radioactive fuel rod were missing from the plant's storage facilities on April 21, 2004. During a scheduled fuel outage, the plant conducted a special inspection requested by the NRC to document the location of its fuel rods, both spent and unspent.

The documentation of the pieces' location was requested by the NRC as part of a follow up to the loss of two complete spent fuel rods at the Millstone plant in Connecticut in 2000. At Vermont Yankee, the missing pieces were 7 and 17 inches long, and came from a fuel rod sent to the Vermont Yankee plant by General Electric in 1979 that arrived broken. When the rod broke, the pieces were placed in a lead bucket at the bottom of the spent fuel pool, in which low-level waste was periodically also stored. Later it was learned that a special storage container was ordered from General Electric to house these pieces, and that they were stored in a different part of the fuel pool.

The NRC was involved in Entergy's efforts to use a remote-control camera to see if the misplaced rod pieces were among the spent fuel rods in the plant's spent fuel pool. Entergy also reviewed paper records to see if two missing fuel rods from the plant were shipped to waste storage facilities in South Carolina or the State of Washington. The spent fuel rods were eventually located on July 15, 2004, after a search in which Entergy estimates company employees and outside contractors had spent between 9,000 and 10,000 hours involved in the search.

A similar event occurred at the Millstone nuclear powerplant in Connecticut in 2000 and at the Humboldt Bay plant in California in July 2004. Pacific Gas and Electric officials searched for three missing uranium components of a used nuclear fuel rod in the reactor pool at the decommissioned Humboldt Bay nuclear powerplant near Eureka, CA. Each of the pieces of the missing Humboldt Bay fuel rod is 18 inches long, has the width of a pencil and contains uranium fuel encased in steel. The rods from the Humboldt Bay and Millstone plants are still missing. The Millstone plant paid a $288,000 fine for the loss of its fuel.

When the Millstone incident occurred, the NRC said that fuel rods had never before gone missing in the history of commercial nuclear power in the United States. While I know that the materials at Vermont Yankee were found to be missing due in part to a special inspection the NRC instituted after Millstone, the sad fact is that fuel again went missing. I do not want missing fuel to become the norm. It is not enough to tell the public that we ``think'' it is likely that highly radioactive material went to storage. Certainly it is poor government management not to look carefully at how the

utilities conducted these searches for missing fuel rods, draw out lessons, develop best management practices, and safeguard and protect the existing paper trail we have for the waste stored at our Nation's nuclear power plants. We must improve our nuclear materials accounting system, and my legislation is the first step in doing so.

This legislation calls for NRC to pay special attention to loose individual spent fuel rods and rod fragments like those lost at the Vermont Yankee plant. It requires NRC to report when loose fuel rods and fragments result and requires NRC to conduct an annual inspection to make sure that plants are complying with waste tracking requirements. Additionally, the bill instructs NRC to develop best management practices for the safe storage of individual rods and fragments and for the inventory of spent nuclear fuel. The legislation will require NRC to modernize its data management systems by developing an updated electronic system for storing data and for tracking the location of spent nuclear fuel. The creation of an electronic database of spent fuel storage records would help secure this important information from aging plants that are being uprated and relicensed and also require the new fleet of plants to use a uniform electronic system. Finally, this bill would track the movement of spent nuclear fuel onsite at nuclear powerplants and offsite to other facilities by requiring that manifests indicate whether shipments contain fuel rods or fragments.

I believe that this bill will be an important step towards improving security related to one of the most hazardous materials made by humans--spent nuclear fuel. This bill would increase the scrutiny on the tracking of this material and ensure that spent nuclear fuel remains safely stored in appropriate facilities and does not end up in the wrong hands.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of my bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to authorize water recycling and other water supply projects by the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, the Cucamonga Valley Water District, the Western Municipal Water District, the Yucaipa Valley Water District, and the City of Corona Water Utility. These projects will produce approximately 161,000 acre-feet of new water annually in one of the most rapidly growing regions in the United States, reducing the need for imported water from the Colorado River and northern California through the California Water Project.

This legislation is intended to be the companion to two House of Representatives bills: H.R. 802, sponsored by David Dreier, Grace Napolitano, Ken Calvert, Joe Baca, and Gary Miller; and H.R. 1008, sponsored by Ken Calvert, Jerry Lewis, Joe Baca and Darrell Issa. H.R. 802 and H.R. 1008 have each passed the House of Representatives twice, in both this Congress and the previous Congress.

Environmental groups such as the Mono Lake Committee, Environmental Defense, Clean Water and Natural Resources Defense Council strongly support the water recycling and groundwater remediation projects in this bill. Business leaders such as Southern Cal Edison and Building Industry Association also support these projects.

I would like to describe the projects in this bill:

The Inland Empire Regional Water Recycling Initiative would authorize two project components. The first will be constructed by the Inland Empire Utilities Agency--IEUA--and will produce approximately 90,000 acre feet of new water annually. The second of these projects, to be constructed by the Cucamonga Valley Water District--CVWD--will produce an additional 5,000 acre feet of new water annually.

The Inland Empire Regional Water Recycling Initiative has the support of all member agencies of IEUA, as well as the water agencies downstream in Orange County. IEUA encompasses approximately 242 square miles and serves the cities of Chino, Chino Hills, Fontana--through the Fontana Water Company--Ontario, Upland, Montclair, Rancho Cucamonga-- through the Cucamonga Valley Water District--and the Monte Vista Water District.

The next project is Western Municipal Water District's Riverside- Corona Feeder. Western provides supplemental water to a 510 square mile area of growing western Riverside County and serves a population of more than one-half million people. As a member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California--MWD--Western provides supplemental water to the cities of Corona, Norco, and Riverside and the water agencies of Elsinore Valley and Rancho California. Western also serves customers in the unincorporated areas of El Sobrante, Eagle Valley, Temescal Creek, Woodcrest, Lake Mathews, and March Air Reserve Base.

The purpose of the Riverside--Corona Feeder water supply project is to capture and store new water in wet years in order to increase firm water supplies, reduce water costs, and improve water quality. The project will include about 20 wells and 28 miles of pipeline. Studies have shown the safe annual yield of the aquifer is about 40,000 acre- feet.

The project would allow locally stored water to replace imported water from Colorado River and the State project sources in times of drought or other shortages. The project proposes to manage the ground water levels by the construction of ground water wells and pumping capacity to deliver the pumped ground water supply to water users. A new water conveyance pipeline is also proposed that will serve western Riverside County.

There are also very important environmental remediation aspects of the project. Up to half of the wells could be placed within plumes of VOCs and perchlorate. These wells would remediate about 20,000 acre- feet of currently contaminated water per year.

Next, the city of Corona Water Recycling and Reuse Project will consist of three reservoirs and two pump stations along with retrofitted user irrigation systems.

Additionally, 27 miles of pipelines will separate recycled water from drinking water. The reclamation system will enable the city of Corona to provide recycled water to parks, landscape maintenance districts, schools, landscaped freeway frontages and any other project that does not require potable water. It will also reduce the need for increased water imports and construction of additional drinking water infrastructure.

Finally, the Yucaipa Valley Water Supply Renewal Project will maximize the various water resources in the Yucaipa Valley. Federal funds would be used to provide federal assistance for planning, designing, and constructing the new Yucaipa Valley Regional Water Filtration Facility that is part of the renewal project. The new facility will contain a reverse osmosis system and a brine pipeline to remove salinity, contaminants, and organic compounds from the water supply in the Yucaipa Valley. The brine pipeline will extend nearly 20 miles to the existing Santa Ana Regional Interceptor brine pipeline.

This project will minimize the amount of water imported from northern California, maximize the use of higher quality water, reduce withdrawals from ground water supplies, and provide a long-term, drought-proof water supply. The full project is expected to reduce demands on the California State Water Project by over 4 billion gallons per year, which is a sufficient quantity of water for 27,000 families.

I want to say a few words about the importance of water recycling projects.

The development of recycled water can bring significant amounts of water ``on line'' in a relatively short period of time. Recycled water provides our State and region with the ability to ``stretch'' existing water supplies significantly and in so doing, minimize conflict and address the many needs that exist. According to the State of California's Recycled Water Task Force, water recycling is a critical part of California's water future with an estimated 1.5 million acre- feet of new supplies being developed over the next 25 years.

Water recycling is also a bipartisan initiative in California, as witnessed by the many Republican and Democratic House cosponsors of the House versions of the bill I introduce today.

It also has a long history. In 1991, the Secretary of the Interior in President George H.W. Bush's administration, Manual Lujan, recognized that California would need an alternative water supply source because it was receiving more water from the Colorado River than its allocation.

In a bold and farsighted maneuver, in August 1991, Secretary Lujan launched the Southern California Water Initiative, a program to evaluate and study the feasibility of water reclamation projects. Mr. Lujan's vision was to build replacement water capacity to offset the anticipated Colorado River water supply reductions.

Congress, in 1992, was completing work on major water legislation saw the wisdom of the Lujan initiative too. Lujan's proposal, a year after it was first announced, became title XVI, the Bureau of Reclamation water recycling program that today serves the entire West, not just California. Today, water recycling is the essential water supply element in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Denver, Salt Lake City, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Portland, and other western metropolitan areas.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill to help meet the West's water supply needs and to reduce our dependence on the Colorado River. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I introduce to you a bill to prevent the imposition of global taxes on the United States. The current efforts of the United Nations and other international organizations to develop, advocate, endorse, promote, and publicize proposals to raise revenue by instituting international taxes are unacceptable.

The United Nations is not a sovereign nation and, therefore, does not have the legal capacity to levy taxes. Furthermore, paying taxes to an international organization like the UN would impair global commerce, hinder the defense capabilities of the United States, and continue to line the pockets of an organization that has historically been replete with mismanagement and corruption, especially in recent years. In order to avoid these consequences, the bill I bring before you will withhold 20 percent of dues from the United Nations and other international organizations if they continue to promote global taxes. Its passage will help preserve the sovereignty of our Nation and save American taxpayers from potentially paying billions of dollars every year to international organizations.

The United Nations' record of developing and advocating global taxation goes back for more than a decade. Usually the organization's efforts have been done quietly so as not to elicit the ire of the United States. However, in 1996 Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali delivered a speech at Oxford University in which he openly embraced the concept of global taxes and authoritarian world government. Specifically, the Secretary General expressed a desire for the United Nations to ``not be under the daily financial will of the member states.'' Though the U.N. had tried to circumvent the Security Council and avoid member state scrutiny for many years by borrowing from international financial institutions, assuming control of bonds issued by Member States, and imposing fees on an extensive range of transactions, goods and services, this was the first time the concept of global taxation was so explicitly advocated.

In response to the United Nations' actions, Senator Bob Dole and Representative Gerald Solomon introduced bills in both Houses of Congress in January of 1996 to put a stop to the United Nations' antics. These bills prohibited any voluntary or assessed contributions from the United States to the United Nations if the United Nations continued to develop and promote proposals for international taxes and fees. That legislation passed through the 104th and the 105th Congresses to become public law.

Still, the United Nations continued to pursue global taxation. Later in 1996, the United Nations Economic and Social Council fully debated international taxation. After that, a United Nations Development Programme research project resulted in the publishing of a text entitled ``The Tobin Tax,'' which proposed a currency transaction tax. Global taxation was discussed in ``The Human Development Report'' in 1999 as well as at the United Nations Preparatory Committee for the International Conference on Financing for Development in 2001. Also in 2001, Ernesto Zedillo published a report which concluded ``there is a genuine need to establish, by international consensus, stable and contractual new sources of multilateral finance.'' Dialog arose at the Conference on Sharing Global Prosperity in Helsinki in 2003. In 2004, the United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research issued a study on global taxation.

Recently, the 2005 ``Human Development Report'' discussed proposals to levy international taxes in order to fund the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals. Some of the taxes the United Nations proposed in this report were taxes on aviation fuel, an airline passenger tax, and a currency transaction tax like the Tobin tax. At other points in time the U.N. has considered a global environmental levy, an ocean freight tax on international trade, and a military expenditures and arms tax.

Innovative development financing mechanisms were the primary topics of discussion at a conference held in Paris on February 28 and March 1 of 2006. As a result of this conference and other discussions, various nations, most notably France, are already implementing an international tax on airline travel, with the approval of Kofi Annan. Plans for global taxes on currency transactions, energy use, and United States companies are also being considered. An official U.N.-sponsored book, ``New Sources of Development Finance,'' says that a proposed tax on oil, gas, coal and other carbon-based fuels could produce $750 billion a year in revenue for the U.N. and other global purposes.

We have frequently reminded the United Nations of our sentiments regarding global taxation after legislation formally passed through Congress in 1996 and 1998. Recently, on August 30, 2005, the U.S. representative to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, clearly stated ``the United States does not accept global aid targets or global taxes.'' Shortly after, on September 13, 2005, 16 Senators joined with me in sending a letter to Kofi Annan which reiterated Mr. Bolton's message. Still, the United Nations has continued to research and promote different forms of international taxation.

Since the United Nations is not listening to the United States, now it is time for Congress to back up our words. The bill I am introducing along with 31 colleagues states that if the United Nations or other international organizations continue to pursue global taxation, the United States will withhold 20 percent of assessed contributions to the regular budget of these organizations. This measure would last until certification is given by the President to Congress that neither the United Nations nor any other international organization has legal taxation authority in the United States, that no taxes or fees have been imposed on the United States, and that no taxes have been proposed by any of these organizations.

The fascination of the United Nations and other international organizations with international taxation has gone on too long. Please join me in taking a stand for the sovereignty of our Nation by supporting this bill.