Health Centers Renewal Act of 2006

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, in a moment I will request unanimous consent that the Senate pass S. 2823, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act.

Just last week, we made a unanimous consent request to pass this bipartisan, bicameral legislation. That means Members from both sides of the aisle and both ends of the building have agreed to the language in this reauthorization. It passed out of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last week. However, Senators from three States are blocking the vote that would speed reauthorization programs that provide life-sparing treatment to individuals suffering from HIV and

I am sorry to hear we have an objection. We need to find a way to work through this objection. I have been working desperately across the aisle with Senator Kennedy, who has been joining me in this effort to help get it out of committee. We have been trying to find a way that the formula would work. One of the ways was to include in the bill 3 years of hold harmless for them to finish updating their system to the point where if they truly have the HIV numbers, they will truly get the money. If they don't have the HIV numbers, yes, they will lose the money.

Now, I don't know if the Senator from Minnesota is aware that our Ryan White reauthorization bill increases the funding for Minneapolis by $2 million and $2.5 million for the whole State. It is a net benefactor. There have been increases in HIV and AIDS cases in Minnesota, and this would move money to where the cases are. That is where the numbers show that his city and State would be significant beneficiaries.

I have a lot of statistics I can go through, but I wonder if the Senator is also aware that these increases are due to the inclusion of HIV/AIDS in the funding formula and that Minnesota has more HIV cases.

Mr. President, I appreciate that clarification.

I will ask the Senator for his help. He said he would vote for the bill. Anything we can do to move this forward. We have put a 3-year hold harmless in there for everyone.

On September 30, the world falls apart for a number of people. California, for one, will lose $18.5 million of their funding. There are a number of big losers. There are no big losers if we pass the bill, provided the numbers back up what they have.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his words. The increase in knowledge that I am sure he has created across the country--and also the

comments of the Senator from Oklahoma--both of them have made an excellent case for why we need to do this. We need to do it immediately. We need to do it for people who have HIV/AIDS. I would note that the person who raised the objection to us adopting the bill is not from one of the three States that have a hold on the bill. I would hope those people would take a look at the situation in their State, and take a look at the fact they are getting more than the average number of funds being expended on patients across the rest of the country, and see that the surpluses their States are running at the end of the year greatly exceed the rather minute loss they would have, and that they would agree for us to move forward on this bill and get it in place before that September 30 deadline that is going to be devastating to 13 States that will lose money for having done the right thing.

Now, having said that, I know there will be people who will say the Republicans cannot get anything done. Well, that particular issue, and many others are not Republican issues. They are issues of the United States. And that is one on which we worked across the aisle and had a great deal of agreement on. And I have to thank Senator Kennedy, the ranking member on my committee, for the extreme work he did to help us find, among the thousands of formulas we looked at, the one that was the most fair so it would follow the patients. I do appreciate the work he has helped us do in the committee during the year.

Accomplishments of the Help Committee

Mr. President, I want to take just a few minutes to talk about what the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has done this year. This Ryan White reauthorization is extremely important, but it is not the only bill we have been working on. Because of the way we have done our work, some people may not be aware of what has been done. In fact, I know that to be the case.

This is a committee that has worked across the aisle. When you work across the aisle, a lot of times you can work out many of the difficulties, and when you work out the difficulties, there is not a big floor debate. And when there is not a big floor debate, there is nothing for the media to write up about the blood; consequently, it does not get coverage. So I want to correct that here today, and I would like to discuss the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee's accomplishments for the 109th Congress.

We have heard some claims that this is a do-nothing Congress. Well, I am here to assure American workers, retirees, students, and parents that the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee has done a great deal to help you live more secure, productive, and healthy lives. Of course, we have more to do, but I am proud that during a time of intense partisanship on Capitol Hill, the HELP Committee has produced a lengthy list of legislative accomplishments.

Looking back over the past 2 years, most of these victories materialized when Senators were willing to work across party lines and across the Capitol to put finding a solution in front of exploiting an issue.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of bills and reports filed by the HELP Committee in the 109th Congress be printed in the Record

Mr. President, I joined the HELP Committee when I was first elected to the Senate in 1997. It was natural for me because of my small business background as an owner of family shoe stores. I had firsthand experience with burdensome government regulations, inadequate health care coverage for my workers, and adversarial workplace safety laws. I was energized about finding common sense solutions rather than more Washington bureaucracy.

Now, another reason I joined the HELP Committee is because its broad jurisdiction touches nearly every American.

Now, there were a lot of vacancies on the committee when I signed up. I asked why there were so many vacancies, and I was told, well, that is a contentious committee. I thought I knew what contentious committees were because I served on the labor committee in Wyoming. I found out that there is another level of contentious. I wanted to work with my colleagues to find smart solutions that would address some of the most important challenges faced by my constituents in Wyoming and, of course, other people across the country. I came from Wyoming as a firm believer in my 80-20 rule. The way that rule works is that we can usually find agreement on 80 percent of any issue. We agree across the aisle on about 80 percent the issues that comes up. Now, we are probably never going to reach agreement on the remaining 20 percent.

Unfortunately, for America, what they get to watch on any bill is the debate on the 20 percent we don't agree on, and probably will never compromise on. That is what makes this body seem so contentious--the 20 percent that we don't agree on, even though 80 percent can get done. The committee process will enable us to find that 80 percent, and that has been a principle that has guided my chairmanship.

I was honored and humbled when my colleagues selected me to chair the HELP Committee nearly 2 years ago. Since my chairmanship began, the vision for both the full committee and the subcommittees is to craft legislation that provides lifelong opportunities for people to be healthier, more competitive, and to be more secure at school, work, and in retirement.

Because we have such a broad jurisdiction, the HELP Committee has had an aggressive legislative schedule in the 109th Congress. Over the past 2 years, together with the subcommittees, we have held 57 hearings and reported 36 bills out of committee; 21 of these proposals were approved by the Senate and 12 were signed by the President and became public law. We also reviewed and approved 352 nominations that require Senate confirmation. I thank my colleagues, including their staffs, for doing the work needed to maintain this aggressive pace.

In this Congress, the HELP Committee has been privileged to have in its ranks active subcommittee chairmen and engaged members. This is largely the reason the committee has had legislative success. I thank them for their dedication, and I applaud them for the joint success as a committee. Our ranking member, Senator Kennedy, and I may disagree on a number of issues, but we have worked hard to find common ground and we share a commitment to improving the health, education, work, and retirement security of Americans.

The number of bills acted upon by the HELP Committee is certainly impressive. However, the numbers alone don't begin to tell the story of how the committee's activity will improve the lives of Americans now and in the years to come. One of the committee's most significant accomplishments came on August 17 of this year when President Bush signed into law the Pension Protection Act. That act marks the most comprehensive change to pension law since 1974. The Pension Protection Act is a real victory for working Americans who spend a lifetime working hard and saving for retirement. It dramatically strengthens pension funding rules and helps curb record pension failures. In doing so, the act better protects the retirement dreams of 45 million Americans. Not only were single employer fund rules significantly overhauled, but the rules regarding hybrid pension plans were finally clarified, and multi-employer funding rules were changed as well. The proposal strengthens current law and will better help Americans prepare and plan for retirement. It provides workers the security of knowing that moneys earned for retirement will be there when they are ready to retire.

It also secures the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and secures that corporation without picking the pockets of taxpayers to keep the agency solvent. This legislation was no small undertaking. It took a year and a half of hearings, 5 months of deliberations in conference, and countless hours of negotiations on each provision of the bill.

Fortunately, pension issues are almost always handled in tag team fashion, involving both the HELP Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Code. While this tag team approach is a great asset and helped us get the bill through the Senate, it meant a complicated and extraordinarily large conference involving four committees in the House and Senate and 27 conferees.

Together with my ranking member, Senator Kennedy, Finance Committee Chairman Grassley, ranking member Senator Baucus, as well as HELP's Retirement Security and Aging Subcommittee Chairman DeWine, and Ranking Member Mikulski, our committees collaborated with House counterparts to make this sweeping reform happen. Because of this teamwork, the law passed the Senate 93 to 5. The result was a policy and a process that was truly bipartisan. Total floor time for the bill--Senate debate and conference report debate--totaled about one hour and fifteen minutes equally divided.

Some may think the conference took a long time to conclude, but history proves that it was ended in record time. The last big pension conference occurred in 1994. The conference was appointed in March of that year, but did not conclude until December. Prior to that, the most recent conference took place in 1987 and operated in the context of budget reconciliation. Again, that conference commenced in March but didn't end until December.

This year, our conference began in March and ended in July--just 5 months compared to a 10-month conference for earlier bills. Comparatively speaking, the Pension Protection Act conference finished quickly, but the impact will be felt for generations.

Another major accomplishment of the HELP Committee was the enactment of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act, MINER. From the tragic loss of life in the coal mines of West Virginia and Kentucky came the first reforms of mine safety laws in 28 years. These tragedies brought together leaders from the mining industry, from government, and from the labor unions, and helped to forge a commitment to improve mine safety. I traveled to the Sago mine with Senators Kennedy, Rockefeller, and Isakson. We met with the families of the miners who lost their lives. We met with other miners who worked there, and we met with people in the union. I felt a commitment to those families and miners in this country to try to ensure that this would never happen again.

The committee approved the MINER Act on May 17, and the President signed the bill in June. That has to be one of the fastest, most comprehensive changes to any safety law. I can't emphasize enough the cooperation of unions and company executives, and Republicans and Democrats.

Protecting the health and safety of those who work in the mining industry need not be a partisan issue. Mining, and coal mining in particular, is vital to our national and local economies, and to national energy security. Ensuring the safety of our miners is essential to protecting and preserving the industry and protecting the workers. I especially thank Senators Kennedy, Isakson, Byrd, Rockefeller, and McConnell for the tireless effort they extended. Their efforts contributed in large part to this proposal becoming law.

I should mention that the debate on the Senate floor was 1 hour equally divided with two votes. So nobody saw that. Nobody saw that debate, but it makes a significant difference for all the people in the country--the mining bill. You never saw any debate on the floor. It passed unanimously without debate. It passed in the House under suspension with limited debate--the same bill.

Sometimes the things that get done by unanimous consent that everybody agrees on nobody ever finds out about, except the people it does benefit; they know. That is why it is worth doing it that way. For a bill that has objections around here, there are ways to overcome it if you get 60 votes for it. But that is usually about a 3-week process. A unanimous consent doesn't use up much time, but it gets things done.

The committee has also made tremendous strides related to education and job training. This session the

HELP Committee initiated a comprehensive effort to authorize legislation that enhances knowledge and skills and helps American workers become leaders in the global economy. Some estimates suggest that 60 percent of the jobs created in the next decade will require skills that only 20 percent of the workers today currently possess, and 80 percent of the jobs will require education or training beyond high school. Eighty percent of the jobs will require education or training beyond high school. That is where the world is going. It is changing fast.

One important component of this effort is the reauthorization of the Carl Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. It was signed by the President in August, and it will help close the gap that threatens America's long-term competitiveness. The act addresses the needs of the Nation's changing workforce and prepares Americans for highly technical, higher-paying jobs. The reauthorization also made changes that will increase accountability at the State and local levels and will establish stronger links with businesses to build partnerships with high schools and colleges so they can better meet the needs of the changing workforce.

For many people, participation in these programs can mean the difference between a job with no possibility of advancement and a successful career. Passage of this legislation was a significant accomplishment. Again, limited floor debate, no debate on the conference report; unanimous consent across the aisle.

Another piece of this comprehensive effort is the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. As my colleagues know, the mandatory portions of the higher education law were reauthorized in February under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2006. Before I elaborate, I want to stress that it is critical to reauthorize the remaining discretionary programs under the act, which I intend to make a top priority for 2007. We have the bill out of committee but haven't had the floor time to do the debate on it. I am making that a top priority for 2007 because postsecondary education is the key to the future success of our students, our communities, and our economy.

As I stated earlier, we reauthorized the mandatory components of the Higher Education Act through the budget reconciliation process. We found over $20 billion in savings by eliminating corporate subsidies for lenders and reworking the interest rate structure for many borrowers, among other revisions. A portion of the savings was used to pay for over $9 billion in enhanced students benefits. The law makes higher education more affordable for students who finance part of their education through loans by reducing borrow origination fees and increasing loan limits.

Another benefit is a $4 billion grant program for postsecondary students who major in science, math, and certain national-security- related foreign languages. These funds are dubbed ``SMART grants'' and are an important part of making higher education more affordable for low- and middle-income families. We invested resources where we need them the most, which will help ensure we have a workforce that can compete globally.

I was in India earlier this year and saw firsthand what Thomas Friedman discusses in his book, ``The World Is Flat.'' It doesn't take long to figure out that by sheer numbers alone, India has only to educate 25 percent of its population to have more literate and educated people than the total population of the United States.

By using the reconciliation process for these higher education reforms, the HELP Committee was able to produce meaningful deficit reduction. In fact, I am proud the HELP Committee led the entire Congress in deficit reduction and produced $15.5 billion in savings over five years. That is 40 percent of the entire Deficit Reduction Act of 2006. It is not right to overspend now and pass the bill on to our children and grandchildren to pay later.

I thank Chairman Gregg for his leadership on the Budget Committee and for his contribution on the authorizing committee that helped make the meaningful deficit reduction a reality.

Enactment of the Perkins reauthorization and the mandatory revisions of the Higher Education Act were critical components of a comprehensive effort to strengthen knowledge and skills. However, this effort also includes the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act. The reauthorization is essential because it will help train American workers to fill the good jobs being created so we can continue to be leaders in the global economy.

The reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act has been a priority of mine since I chaired the Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety in the previous Congress. Last Congress, I worked tirelessly to report the legislation from the committee, only to be held up on the Senate floor when it came time to appoint conferees. Now, that means the bill made it out of committee and cleared the Senate floor. The House passed a different version, so we need a conference committee to resolve the differences. However, we weren't allowed to appoint a conference committee. That was 2 years ago. Mr. President, 900,000 new jobs could be trained under that program. This year, once again, I have been procedurally hamstrung in my efforts to move to conference. The bill must be completed. It made it out of the committee unanimously. It made it through the floor of the Senate, again unanimously. That means everybody agreed with what is in the bill. Now the only problem left is we have to reconcile that with what the House passed.

America is facing an economic challenge that threatens our ability as a nation to compete on the world stage. This bill sends a clear message that we are serious about helping our workers and our employers remain competitive and about closing the skills gap that is putting America's long-term competitiveness in jeopardy.

Our commitment to lifelong learning never ends. It begins with giving our children the proper tools for a start down the pathway that leads to their education. The committee approved improvements to Head Start this last year, and the completion of this process is one of my top priorities.

On the health front, eight committee bills were signed into law by President Bush. One of the most significant new health care laws is the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act. The new law is a culmination of 6 years of work in response to the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report that found that nearly 100,000 Americans die needlessly every year due to medical errors.

The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act creates a protected legal environment in which patient safety organizations can analyze why medical errors happen and develop strategies to stop those errors from happening again. The law provides critical legal protection for doctors, nurses, and other health care workers who might fear coming forward with information about mistakes because the information could be used in a lawsuit against them.

This new law is the first important step toward creating a new culture of safety and continuous quality improvement in health care.

This new law is one of just several important pieces of legislation the HELP Committee produced in this Congress. I would mention again that this too took zero debate time on the floor. Another one is the Patient Navigator Outreach and Chronic Disease Prevention Act of 2005, which will help patients with chronic diseases team up with health care experts who can help them find their way through the maze to the best treatment offered in this often complex health care system. Again, no floor debate time.

The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 supports the creation and maintenance of cord blood stem cells. Stem cells obtained from umbilical cord blood have already shown great promise in treating cancers, leukemia, and other diseases, and this law will accelerate our work in those areas. I have already had people who have reported back to me that their life may have been saved by that particular act already. I think we had 5 minutes of debate time on that bill.

The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005 enables physicians and other prescribers to find out whether patients are abusing and diverting narcotics and other dangerous drugs. Instead of enabling these patients and their self-destructive habits, physicians will now be able to identify them and treat them.

The State High Risk Pool Funding Extension Act of 2005 renewed a key law that funds State high-risk health insurance pools. These pools create access to health insurance for otherwise medically uninsurable individuals and are an important part of our strategy to make health insurance available to more Americans. The President also signed a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act and strengthen the National Foundation for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Finally, we passed two key laws to preserve access to medical technology. The Medical Device User Fee Stabilization Act of 2005 prevented the FDA's medical device user fee program from expiring. Without this law, patients' access to the latest medical innovations would have been compromised. Congress also acted to protect children from dangerous, unregulated cosmetic lenses, often used as part of costumes, by providing for the regulation of these lenses as medical devices.

The HELP Committee members worked together with our House counterparts in a bipartisan, bicameral way to complete action on these laws. I personally thank all of the committee members on both ends of the building for their active participation in this process.

We also scored a victory on the Senate floor this summer related to health insurance. Together with Senators Nelson and Burns, I introduced legislation that would allow business and trade associations to band their members together in small business health plans and offer group health coverage on a national or statewide basis. It would give small businesses the capability to group together across State lines to effectively negotiate against big insurance companies. It would bring down insurance rate significantly, particularly in the area of administrative costs.

This legislation, the Health Insurance Marketplace and Modernization and Affordability Act, is a direct response to the runaway costs that are driving Americans and businesses away from the health insurance marketplace. In May, this legislation received 55 votes on the Senate floor--a clear majority. Unfortunately, obstructionists used arcane Senate rules requiring 60 votes for passage to defeat consideration of the bill. I count this as a victory for the HELP Committee because the policy is supported by the majority of the Senate. This will not be a victory for Americans until it is signed by the President.

Enacting the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act will be a top priority for the HELP Committee and me personally in the 110th Congress. I intend to act on this legislation early next year and continue to work across party lines to find the solution that produces 60 votes in the Senate. The HELP Committee has a role to play in making employer-sponsored health care more accessible and affordable. Employer-provided health insurance is voluntary, and it is in critical condition. Sixty percent of the country's employers offer insurance today. That is down 9 percent from just 5 years ago. And the cost of health insurance for companies has nearly doubled in that same period, with employers expected to pay an average of $8,167 per employee family versus $4,248 5 years ago. My proposal would provide health care coverage to over 1 million small businesses and their working families.

This fall, I am also hopeful the committee can add two more victories to our list of accomplishments. That would be the Health Information Technology conference agreement and the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act.

Right now, my staff is working aggressively with the House to complete action on the Wired For Health Care Quality Act conference agreement. This legislation will enhance the adoption of a nationwide interoperable health information technology system, improve the quality of health care, and contain costs. Primarily, it will allow each individual to own their own health care record and to carry it around with them easily. They will have the permanent record to carry with them and release, to the degree they want to, to any health care provider. This will contain costs: just between Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans, this is expected to save $160 billion a year. The cost to implement: $40 billion, one time. A good investment anywhere.

The committee has also been working in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to complete the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act. The measure was approved by the HELP Committee in May, and I am hopeful that we can swiftly clear compromise legislation through both Chambers by December--I was hoping we could pass it today, but I see it has been stopped. It is absolutely essential that this clear by September 30.

The reauthorization of the Older Americans Act will also have a significant impact on the everyday lives of Americans. The HELP Committee approved this legislation in June, and I am hopeful we can complete action on it this year as well. This reauthorization is important because it ensures that our Nation's older Americans, including 78 million aging baby boomers, are healthy, fed, housed, able to get where they need to go, and safe from abuse and scams. We have been in bicameral, bipartisan deliberations for several months. Again, there is a little hangup on the funding formula. Money has to follow the people in all of these programs.

The committee also conducted various investigations and held several oversight hearings that exposed waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal programs and used the findings to craft legislation to increase accountability. Our first oversight hearing last year focused on how an asset management company, Capital Consultants, defrauded workers out of approximately $500 million in retirement assets. The findings from this oversight effort were addressed in the new pension law.

The committee also held the first oversight hearing in almost 70 years on the Randolph Sheppard Act and the Javits Wagner O'Day Act. Both programs are supposed to find employment opportunities for people with disabilities. The committee's investigation and hearing established that some executives were using the programs for their own enrichment--making millions while exploiting people with disabilities. Following the hearing, Federal law enforcement took action against the worst actors, and we have collaborated across party lines to systematically overhaul both programs. My goal is to address these programs with legislation next year.

I thank my ranking member, Senator Kennedy, and his staff for their hard work these past 2 years. His assistance and cooperation are the main reasons we have been able to accomplish many of these priorities. We didn't always agree, but we were able to identify common ground to advance our mutual priorities.

I also thank each of our committee members. As I stated earlier, we have kept a full schedule. Many of the legislative victories were initiatives brought to my attention by our subcommittee chairs or individual committee members. Senators were also especially diligent about attending the committee hearings and particularly patient when we sometimes waited for a quorum during executive session. For the remainder of the year, I will be reaching out to each of our members to seek feedback on the 2007 agenda, which will serve as the blueprint for the year.

Finally, in closing, I would like to recognize two departing members of the committee: Majority Leader Frist and Senator Jeffords. We are fortunate they chose to serve, and we are grateful for their contributions. Senator Jeffords is a past chairman of the committee, and, of course, Majority Leade Frist has been the doctor on the committee and provided a perspective no one else could. I am proud of the work we have done here on the committee these past 2 years. By working together, we have established a track record of success.

I also wish to compliment the subcommittee chairmen for their extremely hard work. We gave them a lot of independence, and they didn't disappoint me. They took hold of programs. The competitiveness program is one of them that has reached a point where it can now be debated and pursued. The Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, did a tremendous job of working that bill, along with Senator Ensign, collaborating with three different committees on one piece of farsighted legislation.

Senators DeWine and Mikulski have done a marvelous job with the Elder Fall Act and Older Americans Act and have worked well together for a number of years across the aisle to make sure older Americans are taken care of.

I could go on and mention all of the subcommittees and the work they have done. Senator Burr has done some fantastic work on bioterrorism. He has put together a fantastic bill that contains new concepts which will allow better preparation for any of the possible terrorism acts that could happen on our own soil. Senator Isakson, of course, has been extremely active in handling labor issues. As I mentioned, he was a key player in the miner safety bill.

It has been an interesting year. I look forward to another interesting year. I am looking for suggestions from my colleagues on what needs to be done, and looking for that 80 percent that can be accomplished.

Our record of accomplishment is proof that we are a can-do Congress. Far from being a do-nothing Congress, we have shown our colleagues and our constituents that Congress can and is working hard to improve the lives of Americans.

One of the reasons America doesn't know more about this is because of the cooperation that has taken place. We didn't have to debate the 20 percent we didn't agree on here on the floor of the Senate, and consequently there was not a lot of coverage. But just the pensions bill and the miner safety bill, either of those, would be a major accomplishment for any committee during a 2-year period.

I am proud of the 12 bills the President signed and the 21 bills we got through this body. I think that is a record of accomplishment, and I thank all those who participated.

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

I thank the chair.

Mental Health Parity Act

Mr. President, in just a few weeks while we are in recess, we will mark the fourth anniversary of the untimely death of our former colleague from Minnesota, Paul Wellstone. Paul Wellstone died at the age of 58 in an airplane crash about 4 years ago. Paul and his wife Sheila and daughter Marcia were on their way to a campaign event in Eveleth, MN on October 25, 2002 when their plane crashed in a wooded field 2 miles short of the airport. We mourn for the surviving children Mark and David and for the families of the campaign staffers, Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, and Mary McEvoy, and for the families of the pilots flying that fated aircraft.

Paul's tragic and premature death silenced one of the leading voices in America on the issue of mental illness. Paul Wellstone understood the devastation that mental illness can bring: the stigma, the alienation, the broken families and, sadly, even broken lives.

In 1992, together with Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Paul introduced legislation to require insurance companies to offer the same coverage for treating mental illness as for physical illness. The Mental Health Parity Act was passed and signed into law in 1996. The final version of the bill sadly was watered down and fell short of Paul's earliest goals.

A new bill to eliminate these disparities in insurance coverage was introduced in the last Congress. The Paul Wellstone Treatment Act attracted widespread bipartisan support: 69 Members of this Chamber and 245 Members of the House--a clear majority supporting Paul Wellstone's legacy. But unfortunately, during the past 2 years, this bill was not called for passage and did not pass.

Today I am honored to be joined by Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator Tom Harkin, and Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota in submitting a sense-of-the-Senate resolution, first to remember Paul Wellstone and honor his legacy, but also to publicly commit to finishing his work on mental health equity legislation.

Mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability. Without treatment, the consequences of mental illness for the individual and for all of us are staggering: disability, unemployment, substance abuse, homelessness, inappropriate incarceration, suicide, and wasted lives. The economic costs of untreated mental illness is more than $100 billion each year in the United States. In my home State of Illinois, close to 4 million people, or 30 percent of the population, are affected by some form of mental illness each year, including depression. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people 15 to 24. Seventy-seven percent of adults with severe mental illness are unemployed.

Now, the good news is this: Mental illness is treatable but only for the people who have access to sound diagnosis and care. We have a good start, thanks to the Mental Health Parity law that Senators Wellstone and Domenici led to enactment in 1996. Our next challenge is to build on the work Paul Wellstone left behind.

Current law requires insurers offer mental health care and offer comparable benefit caps for mental health and physical health, but it does not require group health plans and their health insurance issuers to include mental health coverage in their benefits package. It doesn't prevent insurers from setting higher deductibles, higher copays, and fewer services covered for mental health illness. I commend Senators Kennedy and Domenici for their work in this Congress on working toward a consensus for reaching mental health parity for Americans.

I called Senator Domenici last week to tell him I was submitting this resolution and to cheer him on so that during the next session of Congress we can give the right tribute to Paul Wellstone and, more importantly, as Paul would see it and I see it as well, hope to millions of Americans.

This resolution honors Paul Wellstone. It commits us to continuing his work to ensure equity for people with mental illness. Paul fought against discrimination in any form. His life work was dedicated to creating a world in which everyone, regardless of race, religion, economic status, or health or mental health status, would be treated fairly and equally. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution and renew our commitment to ensuring mental health parity.

Paul Wellstone was often quoted as saying:

I don't think politics has anything to do with left, right,

or center. It has to do with trying to do right by the

people.

That was what Paul Wellstone said. And now we will have our chance in the next session of Congress to honor that commitment.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I at the outset thank my colleague from Minnesota who was quick to join with his colleague Senator Dayton as a cosponsor of this resolution.

Many times politics divides us, but when it comes to an issue such as mental illness, we are all in this together. I know my colleague from Minnesota has probably had the same experience I had, of raising this issue at a town meeting or a public meeting, and then I almost guarantee you that before you leave that hall, someone will come up to you and ask if they can speak to you privately to tell you the story of a child or a spouse who has bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or who has committed suicide. It touches so many of us. What Paul Wellstone was trying to remind us of is that mental illness is not a curse, it is an illness, and an illness that can be treated. Why shouldn't we include it in our health insurance for Americans so that every family can be spared the suffering that comes with mental illness today.

I thank my colleague from Minnesota for joining me on this resolution.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield for a question, I would like to say by way of question through the Chair that I thank my colleague from Minnesota. I can recall when he first came to the Senate serving with our mutual friend, Paul Wellstone. It must have been tough to be that close to a dynamo. The man had boundless energy and committed to so many good causes.

The Senator from Minnesota has carried on the fine tradition for your State. I thank the Senator for joining us in this resolution.

Hope springs eternal, and maybe during the lame duck session Senator Kennedy and Senator Domenici will be able to give us some good news that will make us proud on this important issue.

I thank the Senator for his words today.

Mr. President, this morning one of my Republican colleagues came to the floor to talk about what appears to be the favorite topic of most Republican Senators: the estate tax. No matter what we are talking about on the floor, whether it is immigration reform, making America safe from terrorism, dealing with issues involving the funding for our troops, port security, without fail, you can count on one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle trying to wedge in to this queue with what many of them consider to be at least equally important: the issue of the estate tax.

So my colleague came to the floor and mentioned my name over and over again as if I were his opponent. I would say to my colleague there are many Senators who disagree with his position, but I will be happy to address it for a moment or two.

The simple fact is this: If an American and a spouse have assets valued at less than $2 million at the time of their death, they will never pay one penny in estate taxes--not one. So if you ask who benefits from this repeal of the estate tax, well, sadly it turns out to be some of the wealthiest people in America. If you took 1 percent-- that is 1 out of 100--estates in America, people who die each year, only one-fourth of those will ever pay any estate tax. It is a very small number of people who have done very well in their lives in America who may end up paying estate tax.

I want my position to be clear. There is an exemption under the estate tax, an exempt amount that you can leave to your heirs, that will not be taxed. I think we need to increase that and regularly increase it to reflect reality. It is true, the real estate we own has gone up in value while we have lived there, businesses have increased in value, farms have increased in value, and I think the exemption should be increased as well.

Where I have a problem is where we have people who are very well off--multimillionaires--who end up owing the Government--in fact, owing their country--something for their success, and they will be left in a position with the proposal from the other side of the aisle where they may have no estate tax liability whatsoever.

The majority leader of the Senate, Senator Frist, has said he is for total repeal of the estate tax--total repeal so that Mr. Bill Gates of Microsoft, who has done so well and made so much money, would pay nothing back to America by way of estate tax when he passes away. Well, Mr. Gates is not asking for that. Many people who are well off are not asking for that. They understand this country has been very good to them, and they are also prepared to pay back so that future generations have a chance to succeed as well.

My colleague came to the floor and talked about farmers and is concerned about farmers. I am from downstate Illinois. A few years ago, after hearing all of the debate about estate taxes, I wrote to the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Illinois Farmers Union, and asked them: Tell me of any farm that you know of where the farmer's survivors had to sell the farm because of paying Federal estate tax. There was not one single instance in my State. They couldn't find one. Now, I understand some of those farmers may have to sell off a portion of their land or some of their acreage to pay their taxes at the time that the spouse finally passes away. But as far as losing farms, that is something that is said over and over again, but neither the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union and, in fact, the American Farm Bureau could find a single example of a family being forced to sell its farm because of estate tax liability.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, only 123 family-owned farms and 135 family-owned businesses would pay any estate tax at all with a $2 million family exemption level.

So we often have to stop and wonder why are we dwelling on this or why are some Members of the Senate continuing to dwell on this. If their sympathy is for those who are struggling to survive in America, they should focus their spotlight not on the wealthiest among us but those who are struggling at lower levels.

Let's take a look at some of the realities, the economic realities in America today. This chart shows what has happened over the last 6 years. The minimum wage has been frozen under President Bush and this Republican Congress for 9 years. During that 9-year period of time, the President's pay has been increased substantially, pay for Members of Congress increased $31,600, and the $5.15 an hour minimum wage has not gone up.

It is always interesting to me that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to think that it is fine for those making the lowest wages in America, some of them working very hard each day, to have no increase in their pay for 9 straight years, while they are struggling to make ends meet. They come to the floor and talk to us about those who have made millions of dollars in their lives and whether they will have to pay any taxes. I think it is a misplaced priority.

If we take a look at some of the real household income of Americans across the board, you can see what has happened from 2000 to 2005. Real household income has declined by $1,273. It means the average family, working hard, paying off the costs of living--utilities and mortgages, energy costs, education costs--is working harder and falling behind each and every year.

Our economic policies in this country really are not focused where they should be. We should be focusing on this middle-income American family that is struggling to make ends meet in a very difficult time.

The distribution of wealth in America has changed substantially over the last several years. The distribution of earnings has become even more unequal. When you look at this situation, you see the years between 1995 and 2000 with a violet color, 2000 to 2005 with the red. So in the year 1995 to 2000, the last term of President Clinton, you can see there was an increase in earnings, weekly earnings for full- time workers, across the board. All of these violet bars above show, for example, a 9.6-percent increase, a 7.4-percent increase. So in that 4-year period of time, we had the distribution of earnings increasing.

Now look at the period of time under President Bush. During that time period, in each of these categories of income in America, we have seen that earnings have been declining or rising very slowly, as they are at the highest levels of income in America

Take a look at the wealth as well under the tax breaks given under this administration the last several years. This is the Bush economic record: a $38,000 tax break for people who are making $1 million a year, but for middle-income families making $50,000 to $100,000, their tax break under the Bush administration has been $55, and for those in the lowest income categories a tax break of $6.

You can see where the priorities have been when it comes to taxes. But ask the average family making about $100,000 a year--let's take that as an example. Let's take someone who is a teacher and whose spouse may work part time, bringing in some income to the family, and together they make $100,000 a year. They have raised their kids and spent good money sending them to school. Then the kids apply to college. The families are inundated with a stack of forms--most families have seen them--to apply for student loans and students grants. Those making about $100,000 a year will find it difficult to apply for any financial assistance. So the students, their sons and daughters who finally got into the school of their dreams, may face an unconscionable debt.

Some students put off their education. Some give up on the best schools. Some go on to school and graduate with a mountain of debt, a mountain of debt which was made worse this year when, on July 1, a law signed by President Bush increased the interest rates on student loan debts by 2 percent. It doesn't sound like much, except it means the payback for that student loan has now been increased by 20 percent over the life of the loan. It means these students, borrowing money to go to school, deeper in debt, will now be paying off their student loan debt into their 50s. Imagine that student graduating today--23, 24 years

old, maybe--looking ahead to 20 or 30 years of paying off student loan debt. Finally, in their early 50s, they have paid it all off, and now they have a few years to contemplate their retirement.

What is wrong with that picture? What is wrong is students and families in middle-income circumstances are bearing this burden, and this burden is increasing, as I will show, as the cost of college education increases. So instead of talking about a $38,000 tax break for someone who makes $1 million a year, we believe on this side of the aisle that we should allow the deductibility of college education expenses. If you can deduct the amount of interest you pay on your home to encourage home ownership, why shouldn't a family be able to deduct some of the costs of college education from their tax expenses so we can encourage students to go on, further their education, and make this a better country? It is a question of tax priorities: on one side of the aisle, estate tax relief for those in the highest income categories; on this side of the aisle, we are talking about relief when it comes to tax deduction for the real cost of college education expenses.

Most of the families I represent in Illinois were quick to tell me, during the August break, how bad gasoline prices were. We know in the last 5 years they have increased 104 percent. They started coming down in the Midwest, but I think there is a false sense of security here. A lot of people were sacrificing to put more gasoline in the car, but we still don't have a national energy policy, and there is no guarantee that a few weeks from now those gasoline prices will not go back up again because we have no bargaining power.

We are so dependent on foreign oil today that we can't say to those who gouge us and those who want to really charge us the most that there is anything we will do about it. And this administration has not really called the oil company executives in, Exxon and others, to explain the absolutely unprecedented level of profits they took as the gasoline prices went up. That industry made more money more quickly than any industry in America, and they reached higher profit levels than any industry had recorded previously. Yet this administration sat back and said w can do nothing about it as Americans and families and businesses and farmers paid the price. As the cost of gasoline goes up, as prices have in the last several months, families have faced that sacrifice. Now comes the heating oil season for many, and that may again increase the cost of expenses for these families.

Take a look at what has happened as well when it comes to family health insurance premiums under this administration. Family health insurance premiums have increased 71 percent in the last 5 years. That means the average premium for family health insurance went from $6,348 when President Bush took office to $10,880. Is it any wonder families are feeling the squeeze? These premium increases, of course, translate into another $300 or $400 each month that a family has to come up with just to have the same health insurance as last year and maybe less coverage.

Have we discussed expanding health insurance or making it more affordable on the floor of the Senate? Only once and just for a few days. I salute Senator Enzi, Republican from Wyoming, chairman of the HELP Committee, for bringing a health insurance proposal to the floor. We had another proposal here. We tried, if we could, to work out something ahead of time to have a bipartisan approach. We didn't get it done. I hope that in the next Congress, we can find a way to bring real relief on a bipartisan basis to families that are struggling with these health insurance premiums.

I mentioned earlier the cost of education and student loans. This graph shows what has happened under this administration since the President took office with regard to the increased costs of college. They have gone up

$3,688, the average annual cost of a public 4-year college, tuition, fees, room, and board. So there was a 44-percent increase in just this 5-year period of time under this administration, increase in college cost. Again, wouldn't our Tax Code be more sensible if we helped families pay this difference, if we helped them put their kids through college to get a good degree and a good life and contribute to this country? Wouldn't that be a higher priority in terms of our Tax Code than whether Bill Gates is going to end up being excused from paying an estate tax when he passes away?

There is also a concern as well with retirement plans. Take a look at what has happened in the last 5 years. In the last 5 years, 3.7 million fewer Americans have retirement plans. The number of workers with employer-sponsored retirement plans has gone down from 56.2 million to 52.5 million, which means more vulnerability.

A lot of people who had paid into a retirement plan through the course of their work experience believed that they had paid their dues, taken the money out of their check every week, and that the day would come and they would see it, that they would finally get to retire and relax. Then came mergers and consolidations and corporate sleight of hand and legal work, and the next thing you know a lot of these pensions started disappearing. So many families are concerned, concerned about when or if they can retire.

You read the stories in the paper all the time in Illinois and every other State about those who had their future plans wrecked when they lost their pension benefits. It has happened at the airlines. It has happened in so many industries across our country. We know it makes a real difference in life. A lot of people who thought they would be spending their time worrying about where to go fishing now are acting as greeters at stores around America and trying to find part-time jobs just to keep it together.

We need to do something about retirement in this country, and one thing we do not need to do is privatize Social Security. Privatizing Social Security is, of course, supported by the President but not by the American people. They know the math doesn't work. Taking money out of the Social Security trust fund for people to experiment with their investments is going to weaken that fund unfortunately. They will be unable to make the payments our Social Security retirees need. If there is ever a time when we need Social Security to be strong, it is now, as we see fewer and fewer Americans with retirement plans.

The number of Americans without health insurance has gone up dramatically under this administration, from 39.8 million Americans with no health insurance to 46.6 million Americans. Those who are insured will tell you many times that their health insurance is not very good. They come up to me at town meetings in Illinois and talk about frightening scenarios where someone in their family had a serious illness, a diagnosis, and then when they tried to pay off the medical bills, it turns out the health insurance fought them all the way. These health insurance companies are spending a lot less on care and a lot more on battles with the people who have the health insurance, denying coverage whenever they can. So we have to really get back to this issue as part of the priorities of this Congress. I am sorry that this Republican Congress has not really come up with assistance that many of these Americans need with health insurance

Overall, as we go through this litany, you can understand as you go through this litany why this next chart is where it is today. In the last 5 years, under this administration, household debt has gone up over $26,000. Because Americans are struggling to make ends meet, because the cost of college and health care and gasoline and heating your home has gone up dramatically, Americans have had to borrow more and more just to keep up. They are right on the edge, trying to pay off very expensive credit card debt.

There has been a 35-percent increase in household debt in the last 5 years for the reasons I mentioned earlier, from an average inflation- adjusted debt per household of $75,000 to over $101,000. This debt is hanging over the heads of many Americans, and if there is any rock in the road that Americans families trip over--if someone gets sick, loses a job, a divorce, something unforeseen--they are going to find themselves then facing default on their debt and even higher interest rates.

While this has been going on for the average American, employee compensation has gone down some 4.6 percent. So while all the debts have been

piling up, the compensation that is being given to individuals has been going down. Meanwhile, corporate profits are up 8 percentage points. So we can see that the share of corporate income going to profits and employee compensation has gone in opposite directions, and those directions do not benefit those families that are struggling to get by.

Those who run the corporations are doing quite well, thank you. In the last 5 years, the pay for the chief executive officers of major corporations in America has gone up over $1.6 million individually. This average pay here of $5.2 million when the President took office is now up to $6.8 million. So while the pay for employees is going down and expenses are going up, in the boardrooms the median CEO compensation has gone up substantially.

When you take a look at the tax cuts under this administration, their economic record, tax cuts are over 150 times larger for millionaires than they are for most households in America. So we gave the tax cuts of $103,000 for those in the highest income levels and $684 for those making less than $100,000 a year. So the so-called tax cut program has not really helped those families struggling the hardest.

What has happened to employment, creation of jobs in America, is illustrated by this chart. We have seen the average annual growth rate of nonfarm employment in America under every President. You have to go back to Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression to see a decline of 6 percent in employment in America. You will see the lowest number of any President since Herbert Hoover has been registered by this administration, in the creation of jobs. That is the average annual growth rate of nonfarm employment. It is the slowest job growth in America in over 70 years.

The other sad reality is, while all of these things have taken place, this represents the famous wall of debt which Senator Conrad of North Dakota has brought to our attention over and over again. When President Bush took office, our national debt was $5.8 trillion. Today, it is over $8.5 trillion--a dramatic increase in America's debt in a 6-year period of time. With policies which this administration supports and many on the other side have been arguing for, we can see America's debt reaching $11.6 trillion in 2011. So in a 10-year period of time, we will have virtually doubled--not quite but almost doubled--the debt of America, which means we are leaving a burden for our children, a burden with which they will have to deal--a burden with which they will have to deal as we see more and more baby boomers in Social Security and Medicare. As we see fewer people working, those who remain in the workforce will not only have to face their own personal challenges economically, but they will have to deal with the debt that we are leaving behind.

If this is fiscal conservatism, I don't understand the meaning of the term.

Why is it that we have reached this point? Sadly, the economy is not going as planned. We are facing a war which costs between $1.5 billion and $3 billion every week, and the other side continues to come to the floor and ask for something that no administration has ever asked for in the history of the United States--a tax cut in the midst of a war. That is what the Senator from this morning was suggesting. He wants to cut the estate tax. By cutting the estate tax there will be less revenue for our Government, the war will continue, and our debt will grow. These numbers will have to be adjusted upwards for the debt we are going to leave our children.

Yesterday we had a hearing with the Democratic Policy Conference to discuss the war in Iraq. We had two generals and a Marine Corps colonel who spoke to us. They spoke on a lot of things that we need to do to make America safer and make sure we win this war in Iraq. But one thing that MG John Batiste said I really thought was important. He said--and I think we all believe--that America can rise to a challenge. America can meet a challenge. We have done it so many times in our history. We have won wars when we were not expected to. We put a man on the Moon when a lot of people scoffed at that possibility. We developed medical breakthroughs which no one would have dreamed of. We led the world in computer technology development and in so many areas one by one. Whether it was in agricultural production or in industrial development or innovation we have led the world. We have led the world because leaders have stepped forward--a President has stepped forward and challenged us and said we need to stick together, we need to work together to reach the goal.

General Batiste said yesterday--and I paraphrase his actual testimony, but I believe what he said. He said that what we need to be reminded of is we can meet any challenge as a nation. We need to be reminded, as well, if we are challenged and work together, we can win this war on terrorism. And he said it is going to involve sacrifice. It is not the first time Americans have been asked to sacrifice. They have done that many times. I believe that spirit of sacrifice is what is needed to make sure we keep America safe from terrorism and safe from other threats.

I see that Senator Ensign has come to the floor. I don't know whether he wishes to take the floor at this time. But I mentioned his name earlier. I commended him for bringing the health insurance issue to the floor. I hope in the next session that we can work together to try to find some bipartisan compromise to deal with this health insurance challenge. It is still out there and getting more challenging every day. Senator Enzi of Wyoming, as Republican chair of the committee, may have been the first one to bring the health issue to the floor of the Senate in the 10 years I have been here. I commend him for that.

Although we didn't see eye to eye on all of that, I hope we come back together and sit down and try to find some common bipartisan approach no matter who is in charge of the Senate in the next session.

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

Mr. President, today I rise with my good friend Senator Ensign to introduce the White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006. This bill creates economic opportunity for the people of White Pine County, improves public land management, and protects some of Nevada's most incredible wild lands. It also makes needed changes to the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act.

The White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act is the product of many years of work. Ranchers, land managers, conservationists, off-highway vehicle advocates, tribal members, city and county officials, wilderness advocates and many others have contributed to this effort. Meetings and tours focused on a White Pine County land bill have been taking place for more than 5 years.

The result of these many years of dialogue can be found in the sturdy compromise contained in this legislation. Our bill resolves wilderness study areas, provides a reasonable expansion of local tribal lands, authorizes a study and possible designation of an off-highway vehicle trail, provides for competitive Federal land sales, makes common sense transfers of land between Federal agencies, expands State parks, conveys two small tracts of land to the county for economic development, funds an

important landscape scale restoration project in eastern Nevada, and establishes a national heritage route in eastern Nevada and western Utah.

Like similar legislation that we have worked on and passed for Clark County and Lincoln County, we do not expect anyone to endorse every title in this bill. When it comes to the topics of growth, conservation and stewardship in rural Nevada there are many strong and often opposing views. We believe that this legislation offers a solid middle ground and a path forward for the people of White Pine County.

In order to understand why this legislation is necessary, it is important to first put Nevada and White Pine County in context. Unlike most states in our Union, nearly nine out of every ten acres in Nevada are managed by Federal agencies. In White Pine County the number is even higher. Of the 5.7 million acres that make up White Pine County, 94 percent are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, BLM, the Forest Service, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service Federal agencies.

This means that local decisions are not always local. Even the simplest land and stewardship decisions can involve multiple Federal land agencies, and the associated rules that come along with each agency. All too frequently, congressional action is needed to bridge the divide. This is a reality in many parts of the West, but in no place is it more true than in Nevada.

Moving beyond the borders of White Pine County, our legislation also makes essential changes to the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act that was first passed in 1998. This law has served Nevada well over the last 8 years, yet changes are needed to ensure that the legislation is able to meet the many and complex needs of our fast growing State. I will briefly describe each of these amendments, in addition to the other major titles of this legislation.

But before moving on to the specifics of each section of this bill, let me thank my colleagues for their willingness to work with us on this legislation. Senator Ensign and I have crafted this bill through a hands-on, ground level process that we think you will appreciate and support. Throughout this effort we have aspired to make well-reasoned, beneficial and necessary changes to land management in Nevada.

The first title in this bill creates a mechanism to increase the amount of privately held land in White Pine County. Currently, 94 percent of the land in the county is managed by Federal agencies. By increasing the total amount of private land in White Pine Country, we create essential opportunities for growth and economic development that will also allow the county to provide greater support to its residents through an expanded tax base.

Our bill calls for up to 45,000 acres of land currently managed by the BLM to be made available for sale in reasonable increments. Each year a portion of the total acreage will be made available for public auction after a joint selection is made by the county and the BLM. This system has worked well in Clark County and Lincoln County, and we believe that it will greatly enhance the ability of White Pine County to help plan and shape the long-term growth of its many communities. As part of the land sale authority, the county may elect to halt the annual disposal of land when and if appropriate.

Like the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act and the Lincoln County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act, this bill directs the Secretary of Interior to reinvest the proceeds from these land sales into essential Federal, State, and local environmental protection, infrastructure development, and recreational enhancements in the areas and communities where the lands are sold.

These funds also provide an additional revenue source for fulfilling the various mandates of this bill, including an off-highway vehicle trail study, designation of new wilderness areas, and the conveyance of lands into trust for tribal use.

In 1985 when I visited White Pine County to discuss possible wilderness designations in the Schell Creek and Currant Ranges and the north and south ends of the Snake Range, I heard from many local residents who opposed any effort to designate wilderness. Now in 2006, when I hear from the citizens of White Pine County they are most often strongly supportive of wilderness designation, particularly in the areas that they and their families have visited and cherished for generations.

I believe that much of this change can be attributed to the successful management of the Mt. Moriah and Currant Mountain wilderness areas, designated in 1989, where we were able to protect truly wild lands while still allowing hunting, grazing and other historical uses to continue. Equally important, many White Pine County residents have noted that as new waves of people discover the incredible backcountry of the Great Basin, the identification and protection of lands that are untouched by permanent development has become a priority.

Accordingly, in this bill we have identified roughly 545,000 acres for wilderness designation and the release of 67,000 acres of BLM wilderness study areas. We have benefited greatly from the careful suggestions of the White Pine County Commission, the Nevada Department of Wildlife, the Nevada Wilderness Project, hunters, ranchers, miners, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, and other White Pine County residents during this process.

We have worked to make careful decisions on the wilderness boundaries in this bill. Based on feedback from grazers and other users of the Mount Moriah wilderness area, a number of boundary adjustments have been included to remove small pipelines and other encumbrances from the original wilderness area designated in 1989. We have also made careful choices like along the north end of Red Mountain where the wilderness boundary follows the banks of the White River so that a number of primitive campsites between the stream and a nearby road are excluded from the wilderness area.

While this proposal will surely be criticized as too conservative, others will see it as too expansive. Senator Ensign and I have both made important compromises to reach the proposal that we are presenting today and we stand by the middle ground that we have reached. We are committed to continue listening to all parties and taking into account their many and divergent needs.

The third title of this bill makes two important transfers of land between Federal agencies that will improve public land management in White Pine County. The first of these changes is a transfer of approximately 645 acres from the BLM to the Fish and Wildlife Service, FWS, to be managed as part of the Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This land became an inholding within the boundaries of the refuge after the Fish and Wildlife Service purchased the lands surrounding the BLM parcel in 2002. Management of this area by the Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge will improve oversight on the land and strengthen the holdings of this popular refuge.

Our legislation also transfers administrative jurisdiction of roughly 117,000 acres from the Forest Service to the BLM. These lands can be easily identified on a map as the donut shaped configuration of Forest Service land currently surrounding Great Basin National Park. Under the present arrangement, the Park Service, the Forest Service and the BLM manage an awkward patchwork of lands. In some areas, land managed by each of the three agencies can be found within a single linear mile. This division of management and labor makes proper stewardship of this area complicated and often times unworkable.

In addition to moving the identified lands to the BLM to improve management efficiency, we also withdraw roughly 50,000 acres of this land from mineral and land laws and require a management plan for the roads and trails through the area. These added protections will not only compliment Great Basin National Park and its mission, but will also ensure that popular hunting areas remain open and accessible. The additional 70,000 acres transferred to the BLM will be designated as the Highland Ridge Wilderness Area.

This title conveys land to expand two existing state parks and one state wildlife management area. The Charcoal Ovens State Park will receive approximately 650 acres of BLM land to expand its current holdings. The land to be conveyed is already managed by the

state through a Recreation and Public Purposes lease for the operation of a camping area and trail system. Cave Lake State Park will also receive a conveyance of land to help improve management of that site, although the exact boundaries of this designation have not yet been finalized. This park is exceptionally popular, receiving nearly 100,000 visitors each year, most of which are from southern Nevada.

In addition to expanding these two State parks, this bill conveys roughly 6,200 acres to the State of Nevada for an expansion of the Steptoe Valley Wildlife Management Area. The State acquired the 3C Ranch in 1999 and now manages it as the Steptoe Valley Wildlife Management Area. The conveyance of BLM land to this popular hunting and bird watching area will maximize management options while also creating a safety buffer between hunters and future residential and commercial development.

Further, our legislation makes two small but important conveyances to provide for the future economic growth of White Pine County. These include up to 200 acres for the expansion of the White Pine County Industrial Park and up to 1,500 acres for the planned expansion of the White Pine County Airport. The county has been working with the Federal Aviation Administration on this airport expansion for a number of years. When completed, it will allow larger jets to land at the airport, further expanding the economic reach of White Pine County. The conveyance also allows for the airport to expand and accommodate additional business tenants. Any funds collected from the lease, sale or conveyance of either the industrial park or airport lands will be directed for public uses.

Building on the designation of the Silver State Off-Highway Vehicle Trail in Lincoln County, this bill authorizes a 3-year study for a possible extension of the trail into and through White Pine County. If the Secretary of Interior, working with local citizens and other stakeholders, is able to identify a route for the trail that would not significantly impact wildlife, natural or cultural resources, an extension of the Silver State Trail will be designated at the conclusion of the study.

Off-highway vehicle use in Nevada has grown exponentially in recent years, and this rise in use has led to the pioneering of hundreds of miles of additional trails and roads across Nevada's frontier. The longer this uncontrolled use continues, the fewer areas we will have in Nevada that are truly wild and untouched. And when these places are gone, we will have lost something that cannot be replaced.

With this in mind, the study authorized by this bill is an effort to recognize that the use of off-highway vehicles is a popular form of recreation that is here to stay. Many people use their off-highway vehicles responsibly and we are creating a process with this legislation that will put advocates for off-highway vehicles, wildlife, grazing and other land users around the same table.

Perhaps no issue addressed by this legislation has been more discussed and debated than the conveyance of BLM land to be held in trust by the United States for the Ely Shoshone Tribe. Currently, the tribe holds 100 acres in two separate parcels within the city limits of Ely. For 3 years meetings have been taking place in White Pine County to discuss possible configurations and areas for a tribal expansion. Local residents and interested parties have expressed strong feelings on all sides of this issue, and our proposal is better as a result of this dialog.

This bill transfers roughly 3,500 acres in four separate parcels into trust for the benefit of the Ely Shoshone Tribe. Over half of this acreage is contained in one parcel to the west of Ward Mountain. This large area is designated exclusively for traditional tribal uses, such as ceremonial celebrations and gatherings and pine nut picking.

The conveyance also includes two parcels to the south of Ely and one approximately 10 miles north of McGill on highway 93. These lands are available to be used by the tribe for residential and commercial purposes.

The placement of these conveyances will allow the tribe to be a partner in the growth and economic development of White Pine County while also ensuring that the city of Ely has sufficient room to grow south along highway 93. We have taken special care to ensure that existing developments, like the KOA, have room to expand.

This conveyance represents a tough compromise between many important interests. Some have proposed that the tribe should receive in excess of 20,000 acres of land in and around Ely. Others have fought to block the tribe from receiving a single acre. We do not expect that the conveyance in this bill will please anyone completely, but we do believe it is a fair compromise that addresses the main concerns of all the concerned parties.

The invasion of non-native species like cheat grass and red brome and the overgrowth of pinon and juniper woodlands has begun to fundamentally alter the ecosystems in eastern Nevada. This landscape level change threatens to bring catastrophic fire to this area while also destroying essential habitat for many of Nevada's native species.

In order to address the challenges, this legislation makes funds from the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act special account available for the implementation of the Eastern Nevada Landscape Restoration Project in White Pine and Lincoln Counties. In addition to funding this vital program, we have authorized the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to work with Eastern Nevada Landscape Coalition and the Great Basin Institute in carrying out the landscape- scale restoration efforts necessary to restore the health of eastern Nevada's rangelands. In the interest of understanding and fully addressing the ecosystem changes that are taking place all across the Great Basin, this bill also authorizes a feasibility study for an interagency research facility and experimental rangeland in eastern Nevada.

In addition to preventing major and repeated fires, this restoration initiative will benefit ranchers, sportsmen, private land owners, communities of all sizes, and of course the wildlife and rangelands on which we depend. It is my sincere hope that this program will make a long lasting and beneficial change in the health of the ecosystems in eastern Nevada.

Since the passage of the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, SNPLMA, in 1998, thousands of acres of BLM land have been auctioned in southern Nevada. These sales have produced significant funding for conservation efforts, enhancements to our most prized public lands, and the acquisition of sensitive lands throughout our State.

Now, 8 years after its passage, we are seeking to update the legislation so that it continues to serve the full interests of the people of Nevada, our public lands, and the federal agencies that administer the programs funded by the original legislation.

In this bill we provide funding for two separate 10-year hazardous fuels reduction programs, one for the Spring Mountains and one for the Lake Tahoe Basin including the adjacent lands in the Carson Range in Washoe and Douglas Counties and Carson City. We also provide funding for the implementation of the Clark County Multispecies Habitat Conservation Plan, allow SNPLMA to be used for improvements to state parks in Clark County, authorize reimbursement for water saving landscaping undertaken by public institutions, and make the Clean Water Coalition eligible for funding to implement an essential wastewater project that will improve the water quality in Lake Mead and provide a sustainable future for the Las Vegas Wash.

In order to make SNPLMA more manageable for the agencies and municipalities that administer the special account and its many programs, we have included authority that allows all federal agencies that carry out SNPLMA projects to get reimbursed for their direct costs. We have also provided an important authority for the BLM to use SNPLMA funds to properly clear and protect vacant parcels in the Las Vegas Valley from dumping. The current practice of providing funding for approved projects only through reimbursement is also brought to an end. Under this legislation the Department of Interior is required to distribute funds for approved SNPLMA projects no later than 60 days after a transfer of funds is requested.

Of special note, these amendments also include a 5-year authorization for Washoe County to acquire up to 250

acres of land for a county park. The residents of Washoe County have been and remain strong advocates for open space and we hope that they will take advantage of this opportunity.

Perhaps the most important change that we make to SNPLMA is a complete rewrite of the legislation's affordable housing title. While language was included in the original legislation that allows for land to be acquired at less than fair market value for the development of affordable housing, it took the BLM over 4 years to promulgate the guidelines for implementing this provision. Since that time no eligible party has successfully used these guidelines to secure land and build affordable housing anywhere in Nevada.

With an estimated 170,000 housing units needed in southern Nevada for affordable and workforce housing in the next 10 years, immediate action is needed. As a result, we have struck the largely unworkable language from the original legislation. We have replaced it with an authority allowing all legitimate interested parties to work with the BLM to pursue land for the development of affordable and workforce housing. We also take a further step and require that any parcel of Federal land over 200 acres in size that is auctioned in the Las Vegas Valley must include at least 5 percent affordable and workforce housing.

These new affordable and workforce housing provisions are by no means a complete answer to the housing crisis facing southern Nevada, but they are a step in the right direction. I applaud the work that has been done at the local and State levels to address this issue and I am committed to continuing to work on broad based solutions to ensure that we can meet the affordable housing needs in all of Nevada's communities.

The last title of this bill establishes the Great Basin National Heritage Route. Encompassing Millard County, Utah; the Duckwater Indian Reservation in Nevada; and White Pine County, Nevada, this historic area includes historic mining camps and ghost towns, Mormon and other pioneer settlements, as well as Native American communities. The Route passes through classic Great Basin country along the trails of the Pony Express and the Overland Stage. Cultural resources within the route include highly valued and culturally important Native American archaeological sites dating back to the Fremont Culture.

Designation of the corridor as a heritage route will ensure long-term protection of key educational and recreational opportunities while also bringing attention to the Great Basin's rich natural wonders like the bristlecone pine, the old living things on Earth, and the rare Bonneville cutthroat trout. In short, the Great Basin National Heritage Route will provide a framework for celebrating eastern Nevada's and western Utah's rich historic, archaeological, cultural, and natural resources for both visitors and residents.

I have been proud to support the designation of the Great Basin Heritage Route for many years and have helped pass legislation through both the Senate and the House calling for establishment of the route. Unfortunately, in each instance the legislation was included in a larger package of bills that failed to reach the President for signature. Having received the approval of both bodies of Congress for this measure, it is my hope that we can finally make this route a reality as part of this comprehensive legislative package for White Pine County.

The White Pine County Conservation, Recreation and Development Act of 2006 is an ambitious, timely and complex piece of legislation. By making long-term and forward looking improvements to public land management and the stewardship of our shared natural resources, we believe we have crafted a bill that will serve the best interests of the people of White Pine County, eastern Nevada and our entire State.

I look forward to working with the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to ensure timely review and passage of this bill.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico. He is overly generous. I learned as a staff aide in the Senate that if an idea has many fathers and many mothers, it has a much better chance of moving along than if it just has one.

Senator Domenici is being overly modest about his own role. This would not have gotten to first base--by ``this,'' I mean the competitiveness legislation--had not Senator Domenici created the environment in which it could succeed, and if he and Senator Bingaman had not had such a good partnership and been able to work together, set a good example and have been willing to step back and allow other good ideas that were progressing through the Commerce Committee and the HELP Committee.

It has been a remarkable exercise in restraint for many distinguished Senators, some among the most senior Members of the Senate, and at a time when politics is at a pretty high level.

I thank the Senator for what he said. It means a lot to me.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a summary of the National Competitiveness Investment Act.

Mr. President, although most cannot hear it right now, I want to say how much all in the Senate appreciate the extra hours and the skill with which the staffs met and worked through August and over the last several weeks to bring the three committees together. Senator Ensign played a major role, and his staff did. There were many staffs. This was not a bill that Republicans wrote and Democrats looked at or vice versa. We did it together.

Future of Higher Education

Mr. President, today the Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, made an important speech at the National Press Club. In her remarks, she discussed the report from her Commission on the Future of Higher Education. This commission was chaired by Charles Miller, who was the former chairman of the board of regents of the University of Texas system and a leader in education reform at all levels.

I am very impressed with Secretary Spellings. I know her job. I once had it. I do not think we have had a more effective Secretary of Education. I am very impressed with Mr. Miller. I know about his work in Texas as part of a group of business leaders over the last 20 years who have led the country in terms of helping to set accountability standards in elementary and secondary education.

Mr. President, I encourage my colleagues to read Secretary Spellings' speech from today.

Secretary Spellings is the first U.S. Secretary of Education to assume the role of lead adviser to coordinate all of higher education. I am glad she is doing that because almost every Department of the Federal Government has something to do with higher education. Currently, no one is the lead person for that. It ought to be the Secretary of Education. She stepped up to do it. I applaud her, and I applaud President Bush for asking her to do that.

The Secretary's recommendations in her speech today are sensible and respect the prerogative of Congress to make major changes in higher education policy. In plain English, she laid out some very good recommendations, but she recognized that is one branch of Government, we are the Article I branch of Government, and if there are major changes in policy, we will make them here, and then it is their job to implement it.

But among the strong recommendations in her report are the following: Simplify the financial aid system. We are already doing that, having worked with the Secretary on a commission, and it is included in the higher education bill that has not passed. That is a very good recommendation. Another recommendation is expanding more access to more students. The initial cost estimates of her commission's report suggest its recommendations might cost $9 billion or $10 billion more in terms of Pell grants. That is a lot of money, but it is an important goal.

Another recommendation is increased competitiveness. The Secretary's commission spent quite a bit of time urging the Congress and the country to adopt the recommendations of the Augustine commission, to adopt the recommendations of the Council on Competitiveness, and to adopt the President's recommendations on competitiveness. That was a help in getting us come to the point in this body where tonight Senator Frist and Senator Reid will introduce the National Competitiveness Investment Act.

The Secretary's committee recommended less regulation for higher education, which is something I want to talk a little bit more about in a moment. I thoroughly agree with that. And, of course, another recommendation is to find ways to reduce costs, which every family who has a student headed toward higher education thinks about. In our own family, where we have two new grandchildren who are less than 1 year of age, the parents--our children--are already thinking about it: How in the world are we going to pay for college out of our budgets in 18 years? That is at the top of almost everyone's concern.

I want to wave one bright, yellow flag, a cautionary flag, at one troubling aspect of the report of the Secretary's commission. That is best captured by the following sentence on page 13 of the commission's report, and I quote: ``Our complex, decentralized post-secondary education system has no comprehensive strategy, particularly for undergraduate programs, to provide either adequate internal accountability systems or effective public information.''

``Our complex, decentralized post-secondary education system has no comprehensive strategy. . . .'' The commission apparently believes that is a weakness. I believe that is a strength. I believe that is the greatest strength of our higher education system. The key to the quality of the American higher education system is that it is not one system, but that it is a marketplace of over 6,000 autonomous systems, independent systems.

These autonomous or independent institutions--such as the University of Tennessee, or Fisk University, or the Nashville Auto Diesel College, or Yeshiva University--these institutions are regulated primarily by competition--competition for students, for faculty, and for research dollars--and by consumer choice, which is fueled by generous Federal dollars that follow more than one-half of American college students to the institutions of their choice.

There is, in addition, a system of independent accreditation to help regulate these independent and autonomous institutions. To be sure, there is still plenty of the traditional kind of command-and-control Government regulation. That is very hard to get away from. Every State has a regulatory body, such as the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. And each of the 6,000 institutions I described that accepts students with Federal grants or loans must wade through over 7,000 Federal regulations and notices. Those regulations exist today.

The president of Stanford University has said that 7 cents of every tuition dollar is spent on compliance with Government regulations. The last thing American higher education needs is a barrage of new Federal regulations requiring sending new data to Washington so someone here can try to figure out how to improve the Harvard Classics Department or the Nashville Auto Diesel College, both of whose students are eligible for Federal grants and loans.

I believe the overregulation of higher education is the greatest deterrent to maintaining the quality of American higher education, and that autonomy, competition, and choice are the greatest incentives to excellence.

I would, therefore, wish to lead the bandwagon or be on the bandwagon or

push the bandwagon for more deregulation and to increase the autonomy of institutions of higher education and to preserve competition for research dollars and to give students the broadest array of education choices possible.

Today in America we are doing that much better than any other country in the world. It is instructive that China and several European countries are deregulating their overly bureaucratized colleges and universities to try to catch up with the quality of ours. Of course, better information informs choices. And, of course, easier transfer policies between or among institutions could increase opportunities. Much is to be gained from research that will help institutions measure what value their classes add to students.

But I do not want rules about transfer policies to diminish institutional autonomy. I do not want to see rules from Washington substitute for choice and competition as the principal regulators of the quality of our colleges and universities. I do not want to see even more tuition dollars go to pay for complying with costly Government regulations instead of to improving research and teaching in the classroom.

By design or luck, the United States has created a magnificent marketplace environment that has resulted in, by far, the best higher education system in the world with remarkable access for students of all incomes. Our goal should be to improve that system, not to replace it with some command-and-control structure.

Mr. President, I spoke before the Secretary's Commission on December 9 of 2005, and I hope that those remarks were useful to the Commission.

Mr. President, I want to comment that it is important to keep all of this discussion in some perspective. For example, there is a great concern about the rising cost of tuition. Secretary Spellings, in her remarks, says she wants to know why. Well, I know why it has gone up. It has gone up because State funding for higher education has been flat. It has actually gone down in many cases. As State funding of colleges and universities in Minnesota or Tennessee or South Dakota has gone down, colleges and universities have had to raise their tuition to have enough funds to maintain quality.

Now, of course, there are plenty of ways to reduce costs, and we need to push that and encourage that. And the Secretary has many suggestions for that. She is right about that. But let's not overlook the fact that Federal spending for higher education has gone way up in the last several years, but State spending has been flat. If anyone wants to know why your tuition bills are higher, it is because your Governors and your legislatures have not been paying their fair share of what it takes to have a quality system of higher education in America. I talked about that in my testimony to the Commission, and I hope they listened to that. I hope the Administration and my colleagues understand that as well.

For example, during the 5-year period from 2000 to 2004, State spending for Medicaid, which is where the Governors have to put most of their extra money, was up 36 percent; State spending for higher education was up barely 7 percent. As a result, tuition went up 38 percent.

There is another way I think about it. When I left the Governor's office nearly 20 years ago in Tennessee, Tennessee was spending 51 cents of every State tax dollar on education and 16 cents on health care--mainly Medicaid. Today, instead of 51 cents on education, it is 40 cents on education. And instead of 16 cents on health care, it is 26 cents on health care. So if we do not get control of Medicaid spending here in this Chamber, and in the other Chamber, one of the unintended consequences will be that we will drive down the quality of higher education all across America because it will not have appropriate State funding and we will not create the new jobs that will help us compete with China and India.

On the question of cost, two other things: One is, I ask unanimous consent, Mr. President, to have printed in the Record a short column by the president of the University of Maryland, William E. Kirwan, who discusses State funding that I have just talked about, and talks about what some colleges and universities are doing to reduce costs to help control the rise of tuition.

Sometimes we talk so much about the high cost of higher education where families hear that and think no one can go to college. I was president of the University of Tennessee. Tuition has gone up there for the reasons I just talked about. But today tuition at the University of Tennessee, which is one of the leading research institutions in this country--the manager of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory--is $5,300 a year. It is $5,300 a year for tuition at the University of Tennessee. That is more than a lot of people have, but that is a very good bargain in today's marketplace.

Volunteer State Community College, a public 2-year college--we encourage many people to go to community colleges, and then to our research universities--the tuition there is $2,383 a year.

At Tennessee State University, in Nashville--an excellent institution--it is $4,300. It is the same story in many other States. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for North Carolina students--one of the best universities in the world--it is $4,500 a year. At the University of Phoenix--a different kind of university, but I had a distinguished scientist from the University of Texas tell me he looked at colleges of education all over America, and he thought the college of education at the University of Phoenix was as good as any to get your teacher's degrees--the comparable cost there for a year's tuition is about $6,669. They do things a little differently, but they provide an education and a service that many people are asking for, and I think that reflects the strength of our autonomous system of higher education.

Now, if you want to go to Harvard, it is a lot more. If you want to go to Vanderbilt, it is a lot more. But the rest of that story is, if you show up at Harvard, or if you are admitted to Vanderbilt, and you do not have the money, they are going to do their best to help you pay for that.

So I would hope as we talk about the cost of higher education that we recognize that many of the State institutions are reasonably priced, that the failure of State funding over the last several years is the principal culprit in the rising increase for public schools, and that we do not get carried away up here in Washington by thinking if we pass some more regulations here, somehow we are going to solve the problem, and we are going to make our higher education system better.

My main point is this: Our greatest threat to quality higher education is overregulation. And our greatest incentive for it is deregulation, choice, and competition. Those are the incentives I would like to preserve.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, since the March 2003 start of the Iraq war, more than 19,157 members of our Nation's Armed Forces have been injured, more than 18,777 of them wounded in action.

Imagine that you are one of those wounded. You are an enlisted marine serving your country in Iraq. Your convoy is attacked by Iraqi gunmen and your transport explodes, killing several of your fellow soldiers and wounding many more. You are seriously wounded, so you're medevaced to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and then transported to an appropriate medical facility in the U.S. for further stabilization and treatment.

As you begin the long road to recovery in the hospital, you may be approached by a Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, counselor who provides you with information about VA medical benefits and vocational rehabilitation and employment services. You may or may not meet with someone from the VA. But you're not ready to think about those things yet. You just want to get better and rejoin your fellow marines in Iraq.

Several months later, as you convalesce, Department of Defense, DOD, determines that you should be discharged due to the seriousness of your injuries. But, the discharge process won't become official for at least nine months, and you can't access VA services until it does. This leaves you in limbo, caught somewhere between the DOD and VA systems.

You finally return home, still convalescing from your injuries and while there, you finally receive your discharge papers. This development means no more access to the support you received during active duty, including health care. In order to receive medical care, you need to begin enrollment in the VA system to access medical services. Enrollment is a slow and difficult process, and, in your seriously wounded state, you come up against a blizzard of paperwork, Byzantine procedures, and a number of overworked VA caseworkers.

Your family has no idea how to get you into the system quickly and without having to pay more money for interim care until the VA benefits kick in.

As the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on, these stories are all too frequent. Many wounded soldiers, service men and women are faced with the prospect of a premature end to their military service and are struggling to reenter civilian life, often with permanent disabilities. And they now have to find their way to the VA. They need help finding their way so they can get the care they deserve. They have served their country and now their country, their military, owes them our best in return.

That is why I am proud to introduce the Veterans Navigator Act, a bill that would expand and enhance the important work done by VSOs and other non-governmental organizations to guide our Nation's service men and women to and through the VA healthcare system. It would, in fact, acknowledge the work of these organizations by providing $25 million in grants over 5 years to augment their capabilities.

The ``navigator'' concept is not new. It is similar to the Patient Navigator demonstration program I introduced and which was subsequently enacted

into law. There, we also took a successful small-scale program being used at select medical facilities around the country and expanded it by providing grants for a scaled-up demonstration program to serve those with cancer and other chronic diseases, and in particular, to provide support to medically underserved populations.

With the veterans navigator bill, I propose to do something similar, capitalizing on the successes of the Patient navigator concept, to help our troops. The $25 million over 5 years in the bill would allow VSOs and other organizations to apply for grants so that they could hire and train navigators to provide assistance, on an individualized basis, to members of the Armed Forces as they transition from military service to the VA health care system. They would do so in coordination with DOD and the VA. Right now, many VSOs rely principally on donations to perform these services.

At the end of the 5 years, the VA Secretary would submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the veterans navigator demonstration program and to recommend whether it should be made permanent.

Often called national service officers or counselors, a navigator is a ``sherpa,'' a guide through the maze of paper and people and specialists and benefits. A navigator is an advocate for those no longer able to go it alone. A navigator is a facilitator, someone who will be with you through the process, to provide the expertise you will need to transition between active duty and veterans status and to get the urgent care you need.

Let me be clear: a navigator does not supplant the role of the DOD or the VA. A navigator is meant to complement the work done by these organizations, particularly at a time when those systems are struggling to meet the needs of the soldiers returning from war and will continue to do so long after the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have ended.

The bill focuses particular attention on four underserved groups in the military community: the seriously injured or wounded soldiers, female soldiers, those suffering from psychological problems like post- traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and members of the activated National Guard and Reserves.

These underserved groups have not been sufficiently served in existing VA and DOD transition programs and activities. It is these underserved groups who especially need continuity of care as they enter and wind their way through the VA medical system. Part of the reason they have not been adequately cared for is that the nature of the current wars we are fighting, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, are different from previous conflicts we have undertaken.

During the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, we have the largest activation of National Guard and reservists since World War II. As of June 1, according to DOD, the United States had 128,789 military personnel deployed in Iraq. Of these, 102,709 were active component personnel and 26,080 were National Guard and Reserves. The recent announcement by President Bush to send additional troops to Baghdad in the face of increasing sectarian violence will likely only mean that those numbers will increase.

The GAO released a report last February citing deficiencies in benefits for these soldiers. The report concluded that National Guard and Reserve soldiers ``are given little help navigating a thicket of regulations and procedures necessary to gain access to military doctors.''

To complicate matters, members of our National Guard who seek medical care must file for an extension of their active duty status in order to continue to access military bases and hospitals.

In its report, GAG also concluded that, and I quote, ``the Army has not consistently provided the infrastructure needed to accommodate the needs of soldiers trying to navigate their way through the' active duty medical extension' ADME--process . . . this has resulted in injured and ill soldiers carrying a disproportionate share of the burden for ensuring that they do not fall off their active duty orders.''

The Veterans Navigator Act would help minimize such occurrences by providing National Guardsmen and Reservists someone to help bring them through the ADME process and to help correct any discrepancies before they cause a delay in accessing VA medical care.

Veterans with psychological problems also need help. In the last several years, we have been hearing a lot more about post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, in veterans and those returning from conflict. A recent GAO report has concluded that almost four out of five service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who were found to be at risk for PTSD, were not provided appropriate medical assistance. All of these factors mean that now, more than ever, our Nation's soldiers need help moving between the DOD and VA realms.

According to the chief of psychology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, roughly 20 percent of those service men and women returning from Iraq suffer from PTSD. In its recently released report, GAO concluded that roughly 78 percent of those servicemembers at risk for PTSD do not get further evaluation. That means they return to active duty or are discharged without receiving the appropriate care.

It is the nature of this disorder to appear not right after the traumatic event is experienced, but often not until an individual reexperiences an event, has a flashback or is somehow reminded of a battlefield event. That may not happen until after a servicemember has been discharged from service. Once PTSD does emerge, the veteran may not know how to access VA medical assistance, or he or she may not have yet enrolled into the VA medical system.

Again, as in the case of the severely wounded, time is of the essence. PTSD can manifest itself so severely as to incapacitate a soldier, making medical care more urgent. In the case of returning National Guardsmen and Reservists, the problem is made more complex because of the 2 year time limit on filing for VA benefits.

Since 1991, opportunities for women in our Nation's Armed Forces have grown. For the first time, the military is placing women in support units at the front line. This has come partly as the result of more than 10 years of policy changes making 91 percent of the career fields gender neutral.

The Navy and the Air Force have begun to allow female soldiers to fly fighters and bombers. The Army has expanded the role of women in ground-combat operations. Right now, ``women command combat military police companies, fly Apache helicopters, work as tactical intelligence analysts, and serve in artillery units.

This would have been unheard of a decade ago, but it is happening right now. Right now, record numbers of female soldiers are fighting on the front lines and, as a result, more are being seriously wounded or killed. A Baltimore reporter profiling women soldiers' participation in Iraq observed that ``the war in Iraq has been an equal opportunity employer, by killing and injuring a historic number of female soldiers in combat situations.''

Therefore, a VA medical system designed to treat wounded male soldiers must now ensure that female soldiers get the right kind of medical care. They will need help finding that care and getting access to that care. A veteran navigator can help them do that.

Because of the length and size of the deployment, many more soldiers are being seriously wounded. According to the GAO, roughly 30 percent of U.S. soldiers wounded in combat during World War II later died. Today, that number has dropped to 3 percent for those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan due to advances in technology and protective gear.

While this is clearly a positive development, it also means that many of these injured soldiers are returning home with severe disabilities, including traumatic brain injuries and missing limbs that require comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation services.

But, severe injuries often mean a lengthy transition from active duty to veteran status. As my story earlier indicates the physical evaluation of a seriously wounded service member to determine whether he or she can return to active duty can take months to complete. In the interim, the VA has to be able to identify these soldiers so that they can perform early outreach, provided that they have the information to do so.

Despite this, the GAO observed in a March 2005 report that the VA faces ``significant challenges in providing services to seriously injured service members.''

In many cases, VA staff have reported that seriously injured service members are simply not ready to begin thinking about VA benefits or dealing with the VA system during the recovery process. The problem here, as GAO has pointed out, is that the VA has no policy for maintaining contact with these soldiers down the line, once they are discharged. Contact is often conducted on an ad hoc basis. Navigators can also help these seriously wounded soldiers.

VSOs such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Jewish War Veterans and so many others have emphasized the importance of maintaining contact with seriously injured veterans who do not initially apply for VA health care benefits because it may be many months or even years before they are prepared to apply for them.

The veterans navigator can help perform this function. Because this individual or individuals have reached out to the injured service member before his or her discharge, they can, in coordination with the VA caseworkers, remain in contact with them as they recover and prepare to reenter civilian life. The navigator can also help obtain information from DOD on seriously injured soldiers earlier on so that they can help ensure that all service members and veterans benefit from VA health care services at the right time.

At a time when many active duty service people and veterans have fought and often made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, we cannot risk having any soldier fall through the cracks. We cannot take the risk that our female soldiers, who are fighting alongside their male colleagues, may not receive the medical care they need. We cannot risk the lives and health of soldiers with PTSD. We cannot risk the lives and the health of any service member who put their lives at risk for our country.

Not so long ago we celebrated Memorial Day, a day when each and every American honors the service of our Nation's Armed Forces, both past and present and takes a moment to thank them for helping to keep America safe and secure. The very least that we can do is to ensure that all of these brave men and women are able to access the medical benefits to which they are entitled, particularly in their time of greatest need. At some point in each of our lives, we might need a guiding hand to help us find our way. Today, Mr. President, I am proposing to provide that helping hand to our troops in a time of their greatest need. It is the very least that we can do.