Estate Tax Relief and Reform Act of 2006

Mr. President, today, I wish to join my good friend, Senator Bayh, in introducing the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2006. This bill addresses a crisis afflicting too many communities and shortchanging the opportunities of too many kids in America: the absence of supportive fathers.

If we are serious about breaking the cycle of poverty in America and raising healthy kids, we have to get serious about the breakdown of families. We can do that without blame or fingerpointing. We can do it an openness to new ideas.

It is the same story all across America. More than a quarter of all families with children have only one parent present, and more than a third live without their father. And 40 percent of children who live without their father have not seen him their father in over a year.

Many single mothers are doing a heroic job raising their kids. They are working two and three jobs, dropping the kids off at school and daycare, and, quite simply, being both a mother and a father to their children. I appreciate the work of single mothers, because my own father was not around during my life, and my mother and grandparents had to step up to the plate to fill my father's role. But most people would agree that children are almost always better off with a father contributing his fair share, and the data shows this. Children are more likely to be poor and to do worse in school without a father in their life. And a healthy relationship between children and their father is important to healthy growth and development.

The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act addresses these problems by removing government barriers to healthy relationships and responsible fatherhood. It improves the economic stability of parents who accept their parenting responsibility. Our bill sets a high standard for parents and helps them to reach it with incentives, support, and tougher enforcement of child support obligations.

We can't simply legislate healthy families and expect all parents to get and stay married. We can't legislate good parenting skills or good behavior role models. We can't legislate economic success for all families. But we can eliminate some of the roadblocks that parents face, roadblocks often created by the government. And we can provide some tools to help these parents succeed.

The first way this act removes governmental roadblocks is by eliminating a perverse disincentive to marriage in the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program. Congress is now telling States that they may be penalized for serving married couples. That is the wrong message to send. There should be equality for two-parent families receiving TANF, and States should not be required to meet a separate work participation rate for the two-parent families in their caseload.

Second, this act makes important improvements to the child support system which affects noncustodial fathers as much or more than any other government program. We restore funding for child support enforcement and we require States to pass the full amount of child support collected along to the family. A father is more likely to pay child support if he knows that the money is going to his kids. Research from States that have implemented a ``full pass through'' confirm this.

We also require States to review the amount of child support arrears that are owed to the State and we clarify existing State authority to forgive such arrearages. A father who earns only $10,000 per year, and who has $20,000 of child support debt because the State billed him for the Medicaid birthing costs of his child, is probably going to work underground and avoid paying child support altogether. He needs an incentive to get a legitimate job and to begin taking care of his family. It is in everybody's best interest.

States are also providing funding to assess any other barriers to healthy family formation or sustainable employment created by their child support and criminal justice systems. They are encouraged to establish commissions to propose State law changes that would be in the best interest of children.

Another important aspect of this act is fostering economic stability for fathers and their families. This act establishes three employment demonstration programs. One program is supervised by courts or State child support agencies that serve parents who are determined to be in need of employment services in order to pay child support obligations. The court can arrange temporary employment services for the father rather than throwing him in jail for nonpayment of support. The second is a transitional jobs program that combines temporary subsidized employment with activities that help fathers develop skills and remove barriers to employment. The third program establishes public-private partnerships to provide fathers with ``career pathways'' that help them advance from jobs at low skill levels to jobs that require greater skills and provide family-sustaining wages and benefits.

These programs are modeled on successful initiatives in Indiana and Illinois and will be subject to rigorous evaluations to ensure the goals are being achieved.

This bill fixes the earned-income tax credit to increase the incentive for fathers to engage in full-time work and paying child support obligations. The EITC is one of the most successful anti- poverty programs because it rewards work and supplements wages that may be too low to support a family. Our bill ensures that the work incentives under the EITC also apply to noncustodial parents who pay child support. To be eligible for the enhanced credit, a low-income parent must be working and current on all child support obligations. We also accelerate marriage penalty relief for families who receive the earned-income tax credit. Perversely under the U.S. Tax Code, these families have been the last to get such relief.

Finally, this bill improves the Responsible Fatherhood and Marriage Promotion Programs that were funded by the Deficit Reduction Act. Funding is increased and all fatherhood and marriage programs are required to coordinate with domestic violence prevention services to reduce instances of

domestic violence and promote healthy, nonviolent relationships.

This bill takes these steps because Congress needs to get serious about the problem of family breakdown. This is a problem that cuts across all income levels, religions, races and ethnicities, and communities across this country. There is no segment of our population that is immune to these challenges.

But some segments of the population are worse off than others. I would like to speak specifically, for a moment, about family breakdown in the African-American community--and not just because I, myself, am an African American. I am addressing this because I know, as Senator Bayh knows, and as most of my colleagues know, that a problem for one community is a problem for all of America. Hope deferred for one group is hope delayed for us all.

Around 70 percent of Black children are born outside of marriage. Of the 30 percent born to married parents, more than half experience a divorce. That means that about 85 percent of Black children spend some or all of their childhood in a home without their father. Fewer than 6 of every 10 young Black men are employed, and in some of our urban and rural areas the rate of unemployment is over 50 percent. Roughly one- third of young Black men are involved in some way with the criminal justice system. And young Black men have the lowest educational attainment among Black and White men and women.

These factors contribute to low marriage rates among African-American men. But by age 34, nearly half of Black men are fathers. And roughly two-thirds of all Black men leaving prison are fathers. I could quote statistics all day, but the bottom line is, as hard as some of these men try, it is likely that their children will also be denied the advantages of healthy parental relationships and married families. Their children will be more likely to live in poverty and to become young, unmarried parents themselves. Their children's life chances will be limited. The cycle of despair will continue.

But there is reason for hope. At the time of the birth of the child, most fathers are close to both the mother and their child. The challenge is to maintain healthy relationships between parents and to strengthen the early bonds between fathers and their children. The challenge is to improve economic opportunity for all parents so they can support themselves and their families. The challenge is to break the cycle by strengthening America's most vulnerable and fragile families.

That is what this bill does, and it is fully paid for by revenue raised by closing abusive corporate tax loopholes and blocking the exploitation of tax havens. This is a solid first step forward in removing government barriers to healthy family formation, and addressing the crisis of fatherhood among our Nation's low-income populations. I urge you to support the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2006.

Mr. President, last December, the Chicago Tribune published an in-depth report on the extent of mercury contamination in the fish eaten by the American people.

As I am sure my colleagues know, mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can cause serious developmental problems in children, ranging from severe birth defects to mental retardation. As many as 630,000 children born annually in the U.S. are at risk of neurological problems related to mercury.

In adults, mercury can cause major neurological problems affecting vision, motor skills, blood pressure and fertility. As many as 10 percent of women in the U.S. of childbearing age have mercury in their blood at a level that could put a baby at risk.

Mercury, in short, is a poison, and it often reaches humans through the fish that we eat.

Sampling conducted by the Tribune showed surprisingly high levels of mercury concentrations in freshwater and saltwater fish purchased by Chicago area consumers--fish like tuna, swordfish, orange roughy, and walleye. The Tribune series also reported on how existing programs at the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have failed to adequately test and evaluate mercury levels in fish.

As someone who regularly eats fish, I was surprised at the range of species with high mercury levels in the Tribune tests. Fish is an excellent source of nutrients and other compounds indispensable for good health. More of us should eat more fish. But for all Americans-- and especially pregnant women and other at-risk groups--there are risks to eating fish with high mercury levels. That's why we need to work harder to get at the root causes of mercury contamination.

You see, the long-term solution isn't eating less fish, or issuing consumption advisories, or printing labels on tuna cans, or posting placards at the supermarket. If we're really serious about making fish safer to eat, we need to reduce the amount of mercury in fish, which means reducing the amount of mercury used in industry.

But, the solution can't be just a U.S. one. Half of mercury settles near where it is emitted and the other half gets transported around the globe--often settling in oceans, lakes, and rivers nowhere near mercury sources. For that reason, we need a comprehensive, global strategy, and the two bills I am introducing today are designed to be part of that strategy.

My first bill, the Mercury Market Minimization Act, or M3 Act, establisbes a ban on U.S. exports of mercury by the year 2010. Such a ban, when coupled with a European Union proposal to ban mercury exports by 2011, will constrain global supply of commercially available mercury in sufficient quantities that developing nations that still use mercury will be compelled to switch to affordable alternatives to mercury that are already widespread in industrialized nations.

My second bill, the Missing Mercury in Manufacturing Monitoring and Mitigation Act, or M5 Act, requires the remaining eight of more than 30 chlor-alkali plants in the United States to complete the transition from mercury to alternative technologies.

Chlor-alkali facilities manufacture chlorine gas and caustic soda, important chemicals that serve as the building blocks of many of the products and plastics essential to modem everyday life. For decades, mercury was a key component in the chlorine process, but today, more than 90 percent of the chlor-alkali industry has switched to an alternative catalyst. Only eight chlor-alkali plants remain in the U.S.

that still use mercury. The chlorine industry has instituted voluntary policies to help capture and reduce mercury missions into the atmosphere--with laudable success. The time has come, however, to finish these upgrades and end the use of mercury in the chlor-alkali process.

The amount of mercury emitted or lost by these eight chlor-alkali plants rivals the amount of mercury emitted by all of the coal-fired plants in the United States. In 2003, the average chlor-alkali facility released 1,055 lbs. of mercury into the air--six times as much as the 183 lbs. of mercury released by the average coal-fired powerplant. And it is likely that the actual amount of mercury released by chlor-alkali plants is even higher because of emissions that escape through unmonitored ventilation systems and other leaks.

The M5 Act also solves another gap in the current system; it puts procedures in place to track and report mercury input and output statistics in the chlor-alkali industry. The evidence suggests that between 2000 and 2004, the industry could not account for more than 130 tons of mercury, in addition to the 29 tons that were released into the environment. The EPA calls this ``an enigma.'' The M5 Act puts an end to this enigma and requires documented tracking of mercury.

Although this bill deals with chlor-alkali plants, it's important to acknowledge that coal-fired powerplants are a significant contributor to the mercury in our atmosphere. We must continue to pursue balanced policies that address those emissions, but our policy approaches on mercury cannot single out coal-fired power plants alone. In truth, the largest source of global mercury contamination is the continued worldwide use of mercury in developing countries, particularly in gold mining and general industry, even thought there are proven and economically viable mercury substitutes.

Mr. President, I believe these two bills will go a long ways towards improving the health of the American people. I urge the swift enactment of these bills.

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

Mr. President, I have sought recognition to discuss the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States today and to address the question as to where we go from here. There have already been many inquiries as to what is the import of this Supreme Court decision and what are the next steps in order to establish a framework to deal with the people who are detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Since the opinions were released this morning, my staff and I have been reviewing them: 177 pages, 6 opinions. The essence of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on a 5-to-3 vote is that the President did not have the authority to establish the military commissions and that the authority rests with the Congress under the Constitution.

The Court dealt with the issue of the resolution that authorizes the use of military force, a resolution which the administration has sought as authority for amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and when the Court dealt with the resolution authorizing the use of military force, the Court said that it did not give the President the authority to establish the military commissions. The Court did not deal with any issue of inherent authority. But the decision that the President lacked the authority to establish the military commissions makes it obvious that the conclusion of the Supreme Court is that there is no inherent authority, an inference and a proposition which may have some weight as we consider collateral matters, for example, on the electronic surveillance under NSA.

The Constitution of the United States is explicit in article I, section 8, which states, and I am leaving out some of the irrelevant language: Congress has the authority ``to make rules concerning captures on land and water.'' So it is a congressional matter.

In reaching its conclusion, the Supreme Court of the United States found that the military commissions violated the Code of Military Justice and also violated the terms of the Geneva Convention. The Court found that the military commissions violated the Code of Military Justice because they did not provide for very basic due process considerations. The Court said that the military commissions violated the Geneva Convention, which the Court found applicable, reversing the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia where the Supreme Court said: The Geneva Convention, common article 3, plainly affords some minimal protection to individuals, associated with a signatory or even a nonsignatory, who are involved in a conflict.

The Court dealt with the issue of jurisdiction by saying the Government contention that the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction was wrong. The Supreme Court referred to a provision of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which provides:

No court shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an

application for habeas corpus filed by an alien detained at

Guantanamo Bay. . . .

There was a reference to the statutory provision which gave exclusive jurisdiction, according to the statute, to the District of Columbia court.

The statute provided specifically:

. . . the United States Court of Appeals for the District

of Columbia Circuit shall have exclusive jurisdiction to

determine the validity of any final decision of a Combatant

Status Review Tribunal which determines that an alien is

properly detained as an enemy combatant.

I argued as forcefully as I could when that amendment was considered, that it was really atrocious--without any hearings, without any extended floor debate, and I had 2 minutes to speak under the rules governing the amendment--that we would be taking away jurisdiction of the Federal courts except for the District of Columbia. On its face, that language would say that the Supreme Court of the United States had no jurisdiction.

The Supreme Court made short shrift of that point, saying that it did have jurisdiction. When you deal with a constitutional issue, it is hard for this lawyer to understand how you can take away jurisdiction from the Supreme Court of the United States. How can you do that, when we know since Marbury v. Madison in 1803 that the Supreme Court of the United States is final arbiter of the Constitution? But this language, this clumsy language sought to vest exclusive jurisdiction in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court made short shrift of that.

On a personal note, and relevant to this consideration as well, in Justice Scalia's dissent he cites my floor argument in a footnote saying, at page 12 of his opinion:

An earlier part of the amendment provides that no court,

justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to consider the

application for writ of habeas corpus. . . .Under the

language of exclusive jurisdiction in the D.C. Circuit, the

U.S. Supreme Court would not have jurisdiction to hear the

Hamdan case. . . . Id., at [Senate Congressional Record]

S12796 (statement of Sen[ator] Specter).

Interesting that Justice Scalia, who doesn't believe in congressional intent or congressional deliberation, would make that citation. But when I made the point that the statute, on its face, took away jurisdiction from the Supreme Court of the United States, I made it plain that I did not think it had any validity. A statute can not do that.

What the statute was trying to do, in part, was to look to a favorable court. The DC Circuit was a favorable court--they engaged in a little court shopping--and there was an effort to take away the jurisdiction of the district court from habeas corpus proceedings.

Under the logic of Hamdan, where you have a statutory provision that the DC Circuit has sole jurisdiction and the Supreme Court interprets that as not taking away jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, inferentially the same conclusion would follow for the district court.

It doesn't say the district court does not have jurisdiction, just like it does not say the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction. It just says exclusive jurisdiction is in the DC circuit. It is a little hard to see how that would work out if you filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the DC Circuit. That

would be anomalous. Those petitions are filed in the district court.

In any case, the Supreme Court claimed jurisdiction over the case and found that the procedures which the administration has prescribed do not comport with law.

The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Guantanamo and made a field trip there. A number of us, including myself, went to take a look at Guantanamo, to see it firsthand and to question people there. I had gone there with the expectation of having a field hearing there. I wanted to hear from the officials at Guantanamo. When I got to Guantanamo, after the flight in, I was told there would be no field hearing--which was a disappointment, and really contrary to what I had understood the arrangement to be. But we held a hearing and devoted a considerable amount of work to the issue. Knowing, or thinking that, the administration's military commissions would be struck down because they did so little and had no real relationship to due process, we prepared legislation.

I had it put in final form last week when we considered the Department of Defense authorization bill, and one Senator did talk about legislation. I considered offering it at that time but decided that it was not a good time to do so. But we have it ready to go, ready for introduction.

Senator Durbin and I introduced a bill to handle the Guantanamo detainees on February 13, 2002. The issue was not picked up again until the Judiciary Committee held hearings last June, and this bill, which I am introducing today, I believe, will satisfy the requirements of the Supreme Court of the United States.

This bill provides for two divisions. One is for the people who are charged with specific offenses. We retain the description of a military commission. We provide that there would be three officers on the commission, one president--a presiding judge from the Judge Advocate General's Office. Also an attorney will be provided for the accused, there will be competent evidence, there will be cross-examination and a unanimous verdict.

In the event of the use of classified information, we prescribe that the provisions of the Confidential Information Protection Act would govern, which is a statute which has been used in our courts for many years, which authorizes the presiding judge to sift through the information and make available to the defense whatever is appropriate and not classified. And if it is classified, then to make it available at the discretion of the judge to the attorney.

The attorney for the accused would be cleared through regular channels to deal with classified information so that we would be protecting the classified information by having it viewed only by someone authorized to take a look at it, so that the defense lawyer would be able to use it in the defense of his client. That is not a perfect situation, but that is the way we have dealt with confidential information under the so-called Confidential Information Protection Act.

In our legislation, we also deal with the enemy combatants. These are the individuals who have been detained at Guantanamo under an arrangement where there is no limit as to the length of their detention. That has caused considerable angst, considerable objection. But it is a very difficult matter. When we are in a war, fighting terrorists--and we should never lose our focus that we are in that war and that there are continuing dangers and we have to protect Americans--until somebody has a better idea, they are going to be detained. Some have been released and some of those released have been found on the battlefields killing Americans, so the detention of enemy combatants is an ongoing issue.

Our legislation provides that there would be a classification tribunal so that there would be a review of their status, to make a determination on a periodic basis that they continue to be a threat to the United States, either on the continent or because they will go back and fight a war. We provide for an attorney, again, an attorney who would be cleared to view classified information.

The issue of evidence is much more difficult because these enemy combatants are frequently taken into custody in a battlefield situation where competent evidence is not present, so we allow for hearsay.

In the Supreme Court opinion, if there is a showing of necessity, there is leeway granted in terms of defining sufficient due process. The Supreme Court found, for example, that the President had demonstrated sufficiently that there could not be trials in the U.S. Federal district courts, so ruling that out was fine. It was acceptable. And leeway, too, for some deviation from all of the generalized rules might be acceptable. The Supreme Court really didn't reach the issue of granting leeway because they didn't have a specific situation, but there would have to be a showing of necessity, a showing that no other system would work.

So in dealing with the enemy combatants, we are still struggling with how to handle the issue of indefinite detention, recognizing that they continue to be a threat.

The legislation which I am introducing today has received considerable thought and considerable analysis. As I say, it picks up on legislation which Senator Durbin and I introduced on February 13, 2002. But it still requires a great deal more analysis and a great deal more thought, which we will give it in due course on the legislative process. We have altered our schedule in the Judiciary Committee to reserve July 11 for a hearing, the second day we are back--on that Tuesday we really swing into action--we will take up an analysis of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld in greater detail than we could do this afternoon in a short floor statement and with only a few hours to digest the 6 opinions and 177 pages. We will consider this legislation at that time.

I ask unanimous consent that the full text of the bill be printed in the Congressional Record at the conclusion of my comments, and a short summary of the bill, which will enable the reader to follow without going through the extended text.

Mr. President, today I am introducing another piece of legislation with Senator Feinstein that addresses the critical issue of the Nation's energy policy, the EXTEND the Energy Efficiency Incentives Act of 2006. The Senator from California and I have come together once again--given where we are as a Nation in terms of reliance on foreign oil, the historically high costs of energy, the state of our environment, and the status of our technological know-how--to introduce realistic, doable legislation that represents one of the best opportunities for developing bipartisan consensus on tax policy to further securing our Nation and its future.

The EXTEND Act, also cosponsored by Senator Kerry, takes a comprehensive and practical approach to assure that America gets the maximum possible energy savings and relief from high energy prices at the lowest cost. It builds on the incentives for efficient buildings adopted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, EPAct 2005, and modifies them where necessary to achieve these policy goals.

The bill extends the temporary tax incentives for energy efficiency buildings established in EPAct 2005, providing 4 years of assured incentives for most situations, and some additional time for projects with particularly long lead times, such as commercial buildings. A sufficient length of time is needed by the business community to make rational investments. The bill is meant to incentivize not discourage. I want to encourage businesses to make investments to qualify for energy efficiency tax incentives. Commercial buildings and large residential subdivisions have lead times for planning and construction of 2 to 4 years. This is why the EXTEND Act provides 4 years of assured incentives for most situations, and some additional time for projects with long lead times.

I am pleased to have the support of Finance Committee Chairman Grassley for crafting the correct policy for large-scale commercial projects, recognizing that these large commercial building projects take years to design and build. As a mater of fact, I entered into a colloquy with the chairman the day EPAct 2005 passed the Senate and received his assurance that he will continue to work with me to make this a long-term policy of the Tax Code.

Also, the EXTEND Act makes modifications to the EPAct 2005 incentives so that the incentives are not based on cost but based on actual performance. These are measured by on-site ratings for whole buildings and factory ratings for products like solar water heaters and photovoltaic systems as well as air conditioners, furnaces, and water heaters. The EXTEND bill provides a transition from the EPAct 2005 retrofit incentives, which are based partially on cost and partially on performance, to a new system that can provide larger dollar amounts of incentives based truly on performance.

The Snowe-Feinstein legislation also extends the applicability of the EPAct 2005 incentives so that the entire commercial and residential building sectors are covered. The current EPAct 2005 incentives for new homes are limited to owner-occupied properties or high rise buildings. Our bill extends these provisions to rental property and offers incentives whether the owner is an individual taxpayer or a corporation. This extension does not increase costs significantly, but it does provide greater fairness and clearer market signals to builders and equipment manufacturers.

I have worked hard over the past 5 years for performance-based energy tax incentives for commercial buildings--one-third of energy usage is from the building sector, so there are great energy savings to be made with the extension of these incentives. My energy efficiency tax incentives provisions for commercial buildings that came to fruition in the EPAct 2005 were tasked to Treasury to promulgate regulations to harmonize with the law. On June 2, 2006, the Internal Revenue Service issued guidance on how to comply with section 179D of the Internal Revenue Code establishing a deduction for commercial buildings that achieve a reduction in energy consumption of 50 percent.

Unfortunately, the guidance is inadequate, according to energy efficiency experts, which may stem from the fact that we are into some uncharted territory and there may be a basic lack of understanding of what it takes to make energy efficiency tax incentives work, and specifically those based on performance, not cost. It is critical that the IRS guidance is written correctly so as to actually incentivize greater energy efficiencies while making sure any guidance promotes the best use of taxpayer dollars. I brought these issues to the attention of the now Secretary of the Treasury Paulson at his nomination hearing in the Senate Finance Committee on June 27, and I look forward to working with his people at Treasury to resolve these important issues relating to the IRS guidance.

It is reasonable to expect many annual benefits after 10 years if we put into place the appropriate incentives. For instance, direct savings of natural gas would amount to 2 quads per year or 7 percent of total projected natural gas use in 2017. And, to this figure must be added the indirect gas savings from reduced use of gas as an electricity generation fuel. Total natural gas savings would be 35 quads per year, or 12 percent of natural gas supply. Total electric peak power savings would be 115,000 megawatts; almost 12 percent of projected nationwide electric capacity for the year 2017.

In addition, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions would be 330 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, about 16 percent of the carbon emissions reductions compared to the base case necessary to bring the U.S. into compliance with the Kyoto Protocol; or roughly 5 percent of projected U.S. emissions in 2017. Also, importantly, the bill will result in the creation, on net, of over 800,000 new jobs.

The value of energy savings should not be overlooked as both business and residential consumers will be saving over $50 billion annually in utility bills by 2017, as a direct result of the reductions in energy consumption induced by the appropriate incentives. Also, the projected decrease in natural gas prices will be saving businesses and households over an additional $30 billion annually.

I would also like to take this opportunity to comment on the Feinstein-Snowe 10 in 10 CAFE standards legislation introduced this past week as the bill is yet another piece for solving the Nation's energy crisis.

The ten in ten measure is straightforward--we increase the average mileage of each company's vehicles fleet by 10 miles per gallon in 10 years--10 in 10. This would save 2.5 million barrels of oil a day by 2025--the same amount we currently import daily from the Persian Gulf-- while eliminating 420 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, a climate change-causing greenhouse gas, from entering the atmosphere.

Certainly, we ought to be able to at least meet these goals. Yet, thus far, Congress and the administration have regrettably sent exactly the wrong message at a time when we have already witnessed a crisis-- and that is, a ``can't do'' attitude, rather than the ``can do'' spirit that has defined progress in America since our fledgling days as a nation. We have the means, we have seen the demonstrated necessity, we possess the entrepreneurial spirit, what exactly is there left not to get?

There should be no question that increasing fuel economy standards an average of 1 mile per gallon across a manufacturer's fleet for the next 10 years is a challenge to which this country can rise--in fact, it is long overdue. We are long past the point of watching and waiting it out while the U.S. auto makers dither--Congress has a responsibility to provide leadership on this issue by refusing to accept the notion that ``this is as good as it gets.''

We must reject the administration's request that we just cede to the Department of Transportation our statutory authority to reform CAFE standards for passenger cars--especially as DOT has had the opportunity to increase CAFE standards for SUVs, minivans, and light pickups, but only incrementally increased the miles per gallon to 22.2 mpg by model year 2007 that is an increase of less than 1 mile per gallon. This minimal increase will save less than 2 weeks worth of gasoline each year for the next 2 decades. We can do better and under our legislation we will do better.

A wide variety of experts, including some of those who took part in the 2001 congressionally mandated National Academy of Sciences report on CAFE standards, agree that the most effective action we could take today to decrease the price of gasoline is to increase fuel economy standards for all vehicles--passenger cars and light trucks. Yet the only time we raised fuel economy standards for passenger cars was back in 1976. Think about it--in 1976, our computers were about the size of cars--and now we hold them in the palm of our hand--are we really saying the United States of America doesn't have the technological wherewithal to provide 10 more miles-per-gallon over the next 10 years, at a time when the transportation sector accounts for fully 40 percent of all the Nation's fossil fuel consumption?

Morever, we give manufacturers the flexibility to develop an entire fleet that accomplishes the overall fuel economy standard in the most cost-effective manner--it can be done and it must be done. And with a third of American drivers now considering trading their current vehicle for another that gets great fuel economy, frankly, if our auto makers had embraced higher fuel economy standards when our SUV loophole bill was first introduced in 2001, or way back in the early 1990s when an increase in CAFE was a compelling argument for that decade's energy bill, perhaps the U.S. industry would be in better shape today. Consumers certainly would be.

And how can there be any question--at this time when our reliance on foreign oil has skyrocketed from 44 percent 3 decades ago to 72 percent this year--and prices hover at near historic highs of $70 per barrel-- that we must take a page from America's greatest quests--like putting a man on the Moon--to finally reduce our consumption of precious fossil fuels. We are financing the ambitions of radical leaders in some of the most volatile regions of the world to supply the energy to power America's future. This makes no sense--not when our bill, through its resulting fuel savings, would effectively develop Middle Eastern oil production within our own country within just the next 19 years.

Mr. President, these two bills, the EXTEND Act and the 10 in 10 Act, are synonymous with the security of America's future. These bills are two pieces of an overall national energy picture that we need to address now. Consumers throughout the United States, from small businesses to families, are demanding leadership on energy prices. Congress should advance past rhetoric, gimmicks, and photo-ops and move to substantive legislation such as the EXTEND Act and the 10 in 10 CAFE bill. It is imperative that Congress begin these policy discussions--we cannot wait for yet another crisis.

I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues and the administration to provide the American people the leadership they deserve on these issues.

Mr. President, today I rise to introduce mine and Senator Gordon Smith's bill, The Affordable Housing Preservation Act of 2006. Our bill provides a solution to preserve federally assisted affordable multifamily housing.

I want to thank all of our colleagues-- Senators Bond, Reed, Murray, and Sarbanes--for realizing the importance of this issue and agreeing to cosponsor our legislation.

I have often said that few Federal programs have helped mothers and fathers keep their families together more than our low income and public housing programs. And while I always fight to make sure New York and the country at large gets all the money it can from Washington, frankly I am not the kind of elected official who believes that all government programs are equally good. But low income housing programs are some of the best things our government has ever done to help families, mothers, the elderly, and the disabled.

Unfortunately--the current housing climate has reached a crisis point and the good that we are doing just is not enough anymore. Consider that in 2001, 95 million people--a whopping one third of the nation-- had housing problems: ranging from high cost burden, to overcrowding, to poor quality, or worse to homelessness.

In the same year, 41 million people, 14.6 percent of the U.S. population, were without health insurance and 12 percent of all people in the U.S.--33.6 million--lacked food security. These are all interrelated. If rent is too high--you go without health insurance. Maybe you trim down spending on groceries.

Sixty-five million Americans with housing problems are low income, and 87 percent of them face high housing cost burdens. In New York, the numbers are even worse. New York State ranks 47th out of the 50 States in renter affordability.

Across the board, housing problems are plaguing low income people who live in both renter and owner households, and by people in all age groups, including children and seniors.

The bottom line is that twice as many people who lack health insurance and three times more people who struggle on a regular basis to put food on their table have housing problems.

But for whatever reason, the housing issue does not attract the same level of public concern and political attention as other programs. And that's why housing programs have been cut back by more than just about any other program over the last decade.

Whenever I speak to New Yorkers--there is a common refrain: from gas prices to milk costs to rent hikes, the cost of living in New York keeps going up and up.

It is a demonstrated pattern and we have worked diligently to try to defend every penny. We have had some successes but it is a yearly battle and I unfortunately have no doubt that we will continue to fight to defend every penny of funding for housing programs.

But scraping our pockets for money is not enough. I served on the Housing Subcommittee for my entire 25 years in Congress and I'm tired of just playing defense and preventing things from happening.

If we want to actually get something done to improve the housing market and prospects for millions of low income families we've got to not just be satisfied with a good defense.

What we need right now is a good offense. As the newest member on the Senate Finance Committee in addition to my current post on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, I intend to use this position to help fight for housing and particularly new funding for housing for New York and America.

Today I am introducing legislation with my fellow Finance Committee member, Senator Gordon Smith--proposing that we bring this fight to a playing field many more are comfortable on. We should focus on housing tax incentives rather than just relying solely on new spending to expand the number of affordable housing units.

Since its inception the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the low-income housing tax credit, for example, has helped build and convert 1.6 million apartments with rents affordable to low income families, by providing investors in affordable housing developments with a dollar- for-dollar reduction in their Federal tax liability.

We anticipate that the Affordable Housing Preservation Act of 2006 will afford renters and developers similar benefits. Our legislation will work to ensure that we can preserve the current supply of affordable housing by providing tax relief to owners.

At the moment the inadequate present stock of affordable housing might shrink even further--much of it was built in the 60s and 70s and is aging and needs to be rehabilitated.

Under normal circumstances--developers who own this housing and have no interest in rehabilitating it themselves would sell it to another developer who would refinance and rehabilitate it for affordable housing.

But because a so called ``exit tax'' is placed on any developer who plans to sell their subsidized property--more and more are deciding not to sell and to just sit on the property until they die.

Let's say back in the 70s Developer Dan purchased a plot of land in Queens for $200,000 and built $800,000 worth of affordable housing on it--for a total investment of $1 million.

At the time, Developer Dan was able to secure tax benefits as part of the accelerated tax depreciation program and was able to deduct 70 cents on every dollar invested in affordable housing over a 15-year period.

So now in 2004 his accelerated depreciation has expired and Dan is getting on in his years and wants to sell the property--simply to break even and get out of the business.

But he can't do it very easily. If Dan sells the property for $1 million he must then pay an exit tax. The exit tax for Dan will be 25 percent applied to the building that was subsidized. So Dan must pay a $200,000 tax when he sells the building. That is not a very appealing situation for our friend Dan.

So Dan entertains two other options--instead of keeping the units as affordable housing he sells his property into the traditional housing market where he can garner a greater price which includes the amount of the exit tax but removes the units from the affordable housing market.

Or even more likely, Dan holds onto the property and neglects its upkeep at a detriment to his tenants and waits until he dies because then the tax consequence is erased. The property is likely sold in the traditional market and lost to the affordable housing community.

The Local Initiatives Support Coalition estimates that there are 1 million housing units held in this manner because owners are unwilling to sell and take on the new tax burden.

That is 1 million housing units--many of which are rapidly deteriorating and not providing good homes for the people who are living in them and one million units that will eventually be removed from the affordable market if we don't do something to make it easier and more attractive for affordable housing owners to sell their properties to other affordable housing developers.

So today, we are proposing a plan to waive exit taxes for owners who sell their properties to buyers who agree to keep the properties affordable for no less than 30 years. It is a simple fix--and one that could save us 1 million affordable housing units.

While we await a full scoring of our proposal from the CBO, our back of the envelope estimate shows that waiving the exit taxes to preserve this supply of affordable housing represents a $422 million incentive program over a 10-year period.

We hope this bill will move quickly, especially since we have clear support in both the House and the Senate. Congressman Jim Ramstad has introduced a similar bill on the House side. In addition, we have widespread support from the housing, real estate and investment community

Before I close I want to make clear--this and similar types of housing tax proposals are not meant to replace funding for current housing programs. We will still fight for full funding of every housing program--from section 8 to CDBG. We just need to modify our strategy and operate more on the offense rather than the defense.

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce legislation today to protect a site of worldwide scientific significance in the Robledo Mountains in New Mexico. The bill, which is cosponsored by my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, would create a national monument to preserve and allow for the continuing scientific investigation of a remarkable ``megatracksite'' of 280,000,000 year-old fossils and trackways.

The vast tidal mudflats that made up much of modern New Mexico 60 million years before the first dinosaurs preserved the marks of some of the earliest life on our planet to make its way out of the ocean. The fossil record of this time is scattered throughout New Mexico but, until this discovery, there were few places where the range of life and their interactions with each other could be studied.

Las Cruces resident and paleontologist Jerry MacDonald first brought the find to light in 1988 when he revealed that there was far more to be found in the Robledos than the occasional fossil that local residents had been seeing for years. The trackways he hauled out on his back, some over 20 feet long, showed that there was a great deal of useful information buried in the rock there. The trackways include footprints of numerous amphibians, reptiles, and insects, including previously unknown species. These trackways help complete the puzzle of how these ancient creatures lived in a way that we cannot understand from only studying their fossilized bones.

Senator Domenici and Representative Skeen joined me in sponsoring legislation, passed in 1990, to protect the area and study its significance. In 1994, the Bureau of Land Management, along with scientists from the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, the University of Colorado, and the Smithsonian Institution, completed their study and documented the importance of the find. Particularly owing to the quality of the specimens and the wide range of animals that had left their imprint there, the study found that the site was of immense scientific value. The study concluded, in part, ``[t]he diversity, abundance and quality of the tracks in the Robledo Mountains is far greater than at any other known tracksite or aggregation of tracksites.'' The study also described the site as containing ``the most scientifically significant Early Permian tracksites'' in the world. However, despite the recognition of the significance of the site, it has remained essentially unprotected, and many of the trackways and fossils have been lost or damaged. This bill would take the next logical step to follow up from these efforts and set in place permanent protections and allow for scientific investigation of these remarkable resources.

In addition to permanently protecting the fossils, the bill would authorize the continuation of existing uses in the area, such as motorized recreation, as long as the trackway resources aren't harmed. The bill would also help ensure that local residents get the opportunity to see these unique specimens and participate in their curation. This should provide a unique scientific and educational opportunity to Las Cruces and the surrounding community.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to protect these important resources and allow for their continuing contribution to our understanding of life on the ancient Earth.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation entitled the Save Our Safety--SOS--Net Act of 2006. This legislation will help repair the fraying safety net that provides critical health care to patients throughout the United States. This legislation is important to the continued survival of many of our Nation's emergency departments and rural hospitals that provide services to millions of American's on a daily basis. It is these facilities that are there for us in the most remote regions of the country, it is these facilities that are there for us at all times of day and night, and it is these facilities that will be there for us in time of disaster. We need to take the steps to ensure the survival of this safety net.

This week, The Institute of Medicine's--IOM--Committee on the Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System released a series of reports detailing the problems facing emergency care in the U.S. These reports make it clear that emergency departments--EDs--struggle daily with overcrowding, ambulance diversion, the boarding of admitted patients in the ED, limited staffing, and poor reimbursement. They face all of these challenges while continuing to provide access to safe, high-quality care without regard to ability of the patient to

pay for their care. Similarly, rural hospitals face shortages of staff and specialists, poor reimbursement, and the isolation that sometimes complicates medical care. This system is stressed and is poorly prepared to accept the additional burdens that could occur in a disaster or terrorist attack. These safety net systems and the people who work within them deserve our support and yet the trends are not promising.

The demand for emergency departments has been growing fast. In the recent study conducted by the Institute of Medicine, emergency department visits grew by 26 percent between 1993 and 2003, but due to lack of funding 425 emergency departments have closed resulting in almost 200,000 less hospital beds in the U.S. In my own State of New Mexico, we have seen a decrease from 4.2 to 3.6 beds per 1,000 population from 1990 to 2002. Ambulances are frequently diverted from overcrowded emergency departments an average of once every minute. With the growth of the number of elderly patients and the growth of uninsured patients seeking care in the ED, these statistics will only worsen if nothing is done.

There are approximately 535 sole community hospitals in 46 States. Congress has long recognized the special role of these facilities, because they serve as safety net providers offering hospital services to isolated communities and regions. These hospitals struggle with poor reimbursement and difficulty finding staff. Despite the service they provide, these facilities face the possibility of closing on a yearly basis.

To improve the ability of our safety net facilities to function, this bill proposes several steps. By improving Medicare payments for emergency department services, this bill would provide SOS payments to physicians and hospitals for the care that is provided in the emergency department. It would improve reimbursement to emergency departments by an additional 10 percent for outpatient services delivered to Medicare beneficiaries.

This legislation will also permanently extend outpatient hold harmless payment protections to some of the Nation's most vulnerable institutions, small rural hospitals and sole community hospitals that serve as safety net providers in rural communities.

Finally, to further strengthen the rural hospital safety net, this bill will improve disproportionate share hospital--DSH--payments to these facilities. Congress has historically provided additional payments to health care providers who treat large numbers of indigent patients. Disproportionate share hospital payments are made in addition to the base payments hospitals receive from the Medicare and Medicaid Programs for inpatient services. This bill will eliminate the cap that is present on DSH add-on payments to rural hospitals. This will remove some of the inequities between urban and rural hospitals.

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