Medicare Access to Rehabilitation Services Act of 2005

Mr. President, I rise today with my friend and colleague, Senator Carper, to introduce the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2005, a bill designed to help the 225-year-old Postal Service meet the challenges of the 21st Century. This legislation represents the culmination of a process that began in the summer of 2002 when I introduced a bill to establish a Presidential Commission charged with examining the problems the Postal Service faces, and developing specific recommendations and legislative proposals that Congress and the Postal Service could implement.

I originally introduced the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act last

May. In June of 2004, the bill was unanimously reported out of the the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. That bill, S. 2468, had the strong endorsements of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Association of Postmasters of the United States, and the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service--which represents thousands of the major mailers, employee groups, small businesses, and other users of the mail. It also had the strong bi-partisan support of twenty-two members of the United States Senate. Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, my efforts to have the bill considered before the full Senate were stalled.

Since last Fall, Administration representatives have become actively engaged in postal reform efforts, and have given me their commitment to working with Congress to ensure passage of a reform bill this year. I have every expectation that this will be the year comprehensive postal reform legislation is signed into law.

It has long been acknowledged that the financial and operational problems confronting the Postal Service are serious. At present, the Postal Service has more than $90 billion in unfunded liabilities and obligations, which include $1.8 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury, $7.6 billion for Workers' Compensation claims, $3.5 billion for retirement costs, and as much as $47 billion to cover retiree health care costs. The Government Accountability Office's Comptroller General, David Walker, has pointed to the urgent need for ``fundamental reforms to minimize the risk of a significant taxpayer bailout or dramatic postal rate increases.'' The Postal Service has been on GAO's ``High- Risk'' List since April of 2001. The Postal Service is at risk of a ``death spiral'' of decreasing volume and increasing rates that lead to further decreases in volume.

In December of 2003, President Bush announced the creation of a bipartisan commission charged with identifying the operational, structural, and financial challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service. The President charged this commission with examining all significant aspects of the Postal Service with the goal of recommending legislative and administrative reforms to ensure its long-term viability.

The President's Commission conducted seven public hearings across the country at which they heard from numerous witnesses. On July 31, 2003, the Commission released its final report, making 35 legislative and administrative recommendations for the reform of the Postal Service.

As I read through the Commission's report, I was struck by what I considered the Commission's wake up call to Congress: its statement that ``an incremental approach to Postal Service reform will yield too little, too late given the enterprise's bleak fiscal outlook, the depth of current debt and unfunded obligations, the downward trend in First- Class mail volumes and the limited potential of its legacy postal network that was built for a bygone era.'' That is a very strong statement, and one that challenged both the Postal Service and Congress to embrace far-reaching reforms.

To the relief of many, including myself, the Commission did not recommend privatization of the Postal Service. Instead, the Commission sought to find a way for the Postal Service to do, as Co-Chair Jim Johnson described to me, ``an overwhelmingly better job under the same general structure.''

The Postal Service plays a vital role in our economy. The Service itself employs more than 750,000 career employees. Less well known is the fact that it is also the linchpin of a $900-billion mailing industry that employs 9 million Americans in fields as diverse as direct mailing, printing, catalog production, paper manufacturing, and financial services. The health of the Postal Service is essential to the vitality of thousands of companies and the millions that they employ.

One of the greatest challenges for the Postal Service is the decrease in mail volume as business communications, bills and payments move more and more to the Internet. The Postal Service has experienced declining volumes of First-Class mail for three straight years. This is highly significant, given that First-Class mail accounts for 48 percent of total mail volume, and the revenue it generates pays for more than two- thirds of the Postal Service's institutional costs.

The Postal Service also faces the difficult task of trying to cut costs from its nationwide infrastructure and transportation network. These costs are difficult to cut. Even though volumes may be decreasing, carriers must still deliver six days a week to more than 139 million addresses.

As Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I held a series of eight hearings, including a joint hearing with the House, during which we reviewed the recommendations of the President's Commission. The bill Senator Carper and I introduce today reflects what the Committee learned from dozens of witnesses.

First and foremost, the Collins-Carper bill preserves the basic features of universal service--affordable rates, frequent delivery, and convenient community access to retail postal services. As a Senator representing a large, rural State, I want to ensure that my constituents living in the northern woods, or on the islands, or in our many rural small towns have the same access to postal services as the people of our cities. If the Postal Service were no longer to provide universal service and deliver mail to every customer, the affordable communication link upon which many Americans rely would be jeopardized. Most commercial enterprises would find it uneconomical, if not impossible, to deliver mail and packages to rural Americans at rates charged by the Postal Service.

The Collins-Carper bill allows the Postal Service to maintain its current mail monopoly, and retain its sole access to customer mailboxes. It grants the Postal Service Board of Governors the authority to set rates for competitive products like Express Mail and Parcel Post, as long as these prices do not result in cross subsidy from market-dominant products. As a safeguard, our bill establishes a 30 day prior review period during which the proposed rate changes shall be reviewed by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

It replaces the current lengthy and litigious rate-setting process with a rate cap-based structure for market-dominant products such as First-Class Mail, periodicals and library mail. This would allow the Postal Service to react more quickly to changes in the mailing industry. The rate caps would be linked to the Consumer Price Index. The goal would be to make rate increases more predictable and less frequent and to provide incentives for the Postal Service to operate efficiently. Price changes for market-dominant products would be subject to a 45 day prior review period by the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Our bill would introduce new safeguards against unfair competition by the Postal Service in competitive markets. Subsidization of competitive products by market-dominant products would be expressly forbidden, and an equitable allocation of institutional costs to competitive products would be required.

The President's Commission recommended that the regulator be granted the authority to make changes to the Postal Service's universal service obligation and monopoly. The vast majority of the postal community, however, shared my belief that these are important policy determinations that should be retained by Congress. The Collins-Carper bill keeps those public policy decisions in congressional hands.

The existing Postal Rate Commission would be transformed into the Postal Regulatory Commission with greatly enhanced authority. Under current law, the Rate Commission has very narrow authority. We wanted to ensure that the Postal Service management has both greater latitude and stronger oversight. Among other things, the Postal Regulatory Commission will have the authority to regulate rates for non- competitive products and services; ensure financial transparency; establish limits on the accumulation of retained earnings by the Postal Service; obtain information from the Postal Service, if need be, through the use of new subpoena power; and review and act on complaints filed by those who believe the Postal Service has exceeded its authority. Members of the Postal

Regulatory Board will be selected solely on the basis of their demonstrated experience and professional standing. Senate confirmation of all Board Members will be required.

To meet the Presidential Commission's call for increased financial transparency, the Collins-Carper bill will require the Postal Service to file with the Postal Regulatory Commission certain Securities and Exchange Commission financial disclosure forms, along with detailed annual reports on the status of the Postal Service's pension and postretirement health obligations.

The Governmental Affairs Committee dedicated two hearings to the examination of the Commission's workforce-related recommendations. The Postal Service is a highly labor intensive organization, using $3 out of every $4 to pay the wages and benefits of its employees. Their workforce is comprised of more than 700,000 dedicated letter carriers, clerks, mail handlers, postmasters, and others, many of whom place great value on their right to collectively bargain. Our bill reaffirms that right. This bill only makes changes to the bargaining process that have been agreed to by both the Postal Service and the four major unions. We replace the rarely used fact-finding process with mediation, and shorten statutory deadlines for certain phases of the bargaining process.

Additionally, the Collins-Carper bill corrects what I believe to be an anomaly in the federal workers' compensation law that results in high costs for the Postal Service. Under the Federal Employees Compensation Act (FECA), federal employees with dependents are eligible for 75 percent of their take-home pay, tax free, plus cost of living allowances. In addition, there is no maximum dollar cap on FECA payments. As a result, employees often opt not to retire, staying on the more generous workers' compensation program permanently.

According to a March 2003 audit issued by the Postal Service's Office of Inspector General, the Postal Service's workers' compensation rolls include 81 cases that originated 40 to 50 years ago, with the oldest recipient being 102 years old. The IG's office found 778 cases that originated 30 to 40 years ago; and 1,189 cases that originated 20 to 29 years ago.

The Collins-Carper bill works to protect the financial resources of the Postal Service by converting workers' compensation benefits for total or partial disability to a retirement annuity when the affected employee reaches 65 years of age. This change would reflect the fact that disabled postal employees would likely retire at some point were they not receiving workers' compensation. I would like to note that the average postal employee retires far earlier than age 65, so this is still a generous program. It is important to point out that the Postal Service has reduced their workplace injury rate by twenty-eight percent over the past three years.

The Collins--Carper bill also puts into place a three-day waiting period before an employee is eligible to receive 45 days of continuation of pay. This is consistent with every state's workers' compensation program that requires a three- to seven-day waiting period before benefits are paid.

To address the President's Commission's recommendation for improved executive compensation, this bill will allow the Postal Service to raise their overall executive compensation level from Executive Level 1 to that of the Vice President. This would bring the Postal Service in line with authority granted to federal agencies. This new authority will be contingent upon the development of a meaningful performance appraisal system.

Our bill has reached an important compromise on the issue of workshare discounts. The workshare program was developed by the Postal Service and the Postal Rate Commission to enable customers to pay lower rates when they perform mail preparation or transportation activities. The language in our bill supports the principle that workshare discounts should generally not exceed the costs that the Postal Service avoids as a result of the worksharing activity. However, the bill spells out certain circumstances under which workshare discounts in excess of avoided costs are warranted.

Finally, our bill would repeal a provision of Public Law 108-18 which requires that money owed to the Postal Service due to an overpayment into the Civil Service Retirement System Fund be held in an escrow account. Repealing this provision would essentially ``free up'' $78 billion over a period of 60 years. These savings would be used to not only pay off debt to the U.S. Treasury and to fund health care liabilities, but also to mitigate rate increases as well. In fact, failure to release these escrow funds could mean, for mailers, a double-digit rate increase in 2006--an expense most American businesses and many consumers are ill-equipped to afford.

The bill would also return to the Department of Treasury the responsibility for funding CSRS pension benefits relating to the military service of postal retirees. No other agency is required to make this payment. Ratepayers should not be held responsible for this $27 billion obligation.

The Postal Service has reached a critical juncture. If we are to save and strengthen this vital service upon which so many Americans rely for communication and their livelihoods, the time to act is now.

I look forward to working with all of my colleagues in the Senate, and House Government Reform and Oversight Committee Chairman Tom Davis, who, together with Congressman John McHugh, also recently introduced a postal reform bill, H.R. 22.

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

Mr. President, today I introduce the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2005, a bill designed to help the 225-year-old Postal Service meet the challenges of the 21st century. I originally introduced this bill last May. In June of 2004, the bill was unanimously reported out of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. That bill, S. 2468,

had the strong endorsements of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Association of Postmasters of the United States, and the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service--which represents thousands of the major mailers, employee groups, small business, and other users of the mail. It also had the strong bi-partisan support of twenty-two members of the United States Senate. Unfortunately, the 108th Congress expired before my bill passed the Senate.

It has long been acknowledged that the financial and operational problems confronting the Postal Service are serious. At present, the Postal Service has roughly $70 billion to $80 billion in unfunded liabilities and obligations, which include $1.8 billion in debt to the U.S. Treasury, $7.6 billion for workers' compensation claims, $3.5 billion for retirement costs, and as much as $47 billion to cover retiree health care costs. The Government Accountability Office's Comptroller General, David Walker, has pointed to the urgent need for ``fundamental reforms to minimize the risk of a significant taxpayer bailout or dramatic postal rate increases.'' The Postal Service has been on GAO's ``High-Risk'' List since April of 2001. The Postal Service is at risk of a ``death spiral'' of decreasing volume and increasing rates that lead to further decreases in volume.

The Postal Service is the linchpin of a $900-billion mailing industry that employs 9 million Americans in fields as diverse as direct mailing, printing, catalog production, and paper manufacturing. The health of the Postal Service is essential to the vitality of thousands of companies and the millions that they employ.

First and foremost, my bill preserves the basic features of universal service--affordable rates, frequent delivery, and convenient community access to retail postal services. If the Postal Service were no longer to provide universal service and deliver mail to every customer, the affordable communication link upon which many Americans rely would be jeopardized.

This postal reform legislation grants the Postal Service Board of Governors the authority to set rates for competitive products like Express Mail and Parcel Post, as long as these prices do not result in cross subsidy from market-dominant products. It replaces the current lengthy and litigious rate-setting process with a rate cap-based structure for market-dominant products such as first-class mail, periodicals, and library mail. The bill also introduces new safeguards against unfair competition by the Postal Service in competitive markets.

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act will greatly improve the financial transparency of the Postal Service. The USPS would be required to file with the Postal Regulatory Commission certain Securities and Exchange Commission financial disclosure forms, along with detailed annual reports on the status of the Postal Service's pension and postretirement health obligations in order to ensure increased financial transparency.

The legislation repeals a provision of Public Law 108-18 which requires that money owed to the Postal Service due to an overpayment into the Civil Service Retirement System Fund be held in an escrow account, which would essentially ``free up'' $78 billion over a period of 60 years. These savings would be used to not only pay off debt to the U.S. Treasury and to fund health care liabilities, but also to mitigate rate increases. It also returns to the Department of the Treasury the responsibility for funding CSRS pension benefits relating to the military service of postal retirees--a responsibility that the Treasury Department bears for all executive branch departments and agencies.

The bill also converts workers' compensation benefits for total or partial disability to a retirement annuity when the affected employee reaches 65 years of age, and puts into place a 3-day waiting period before an employee is eligible to receive 45 days of continuation of pay. These changes will save the Postal Service approximately $50 million in workers' compensation costs over a 10-year period.

The Postal Service has reached a critical juncture. If we are to save and strengthen this vital service upon which so many Americans rely for communication and their livelihoods, the time to act is now.

I therefore ask the Senior Senator from New Hampshire and chairman of the Senate Budget Committee whether I can count on his assistance and support to help pass this legislation this Congress.

I thank my friend from New Hampshire and look forward to working with him on this important piece of legislation.

Mr. President, today I am introducing comprehensive legislation to ensure the reliable delivery of electric power in the United States.

Last Congress, in August of 2003, nearly 50 million people in the Northeast and Midwest were affected by a massive power outage. This event emphasized the vulnerability of the U.S. electricity grid to human error, mechanical failure, and weather-related outages. We must act to protect the grid from devastating interruptions in the future. That is why I am introducing this bill today to ensure greater reliability in our electricity delivery system.

My bill, the Electric Reliability Security Act of 2005, will help achieve reliability and security of the electricity grid in an efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally sound manner. It does so by creating mandatory, nationwide electric reliability standards.

The bill also mandates regional coordination in the siting of transmission facilities, and provides $10 billion dollars in loan guarantees to finance ``smart grid'' technologies that improve the way the grid transmits power.

While a $10 billion dollar investment may seem to be a large investment, it is significantly less than the transmission cost estimates that have circulated following the Northeast blackout. Industry experts estimated that it would cost consumers as much as $100 billion dollars to upgrade transmission systems and site new lines to meet future reliability needs.

However, even this hefty price tag does not factor in the costs of additional generation, does not consider the rising cost of natural gas due to increasing electricity consumption, and does not include the environmental and other social costs of continued expansion of our presently centralized power system. Power lines are expensive and are rarely welcomed by the nearby public. The loan guarantees in the bill will help balance the need for new transmission lines by providing federal resources to help improve existing ones.

In addition to addressing system operation and transmission needs, the bill also promotes sound system management. It establishes a Federal system benefits fund as a match for state programs. Historically, regulated electric utility companies have provided a number of energy-related public services beyond simply supplying electricity that benefit the system as a whole. Such services have included bill payment assistance and energy conservation measures for low-income households, energy efficiency programs for residential and business customers, and pilot programs to promote renewable energy resources. More than 20 states, including my home state of Vermont, have public benefits programs. This bill will provide needed federal matching money to States for these programs. Our states can use these funds. They will be able to move more quickly to deploy these low-cost strategies with federal help.

The Alliance to Save Energy estimates that a federal program to match existing state public benefits programs would save 1.24 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity over 20 years, and cut consumer energy bills by about $100 billion dollars. Mr. President, my bill, which has the potential to save consumers $100 billion dollars is far preferable to raising consumer electricity bills by the $100 billion dollars to raise money for grid expansion. My Vermont constituents would prefer to keep the lights on, and their money in their own pockets. The bill also establishes energy efficiency performance standards for utilities. The United States has experienced tremendous growth in electricity consumption over the past decade. Current estimates are that electricity consumption is increasing at roughly 2 percent per year.

Between 1993 and 1999, U.S. summer peak electricity use alone increased by 95,000 megawatts. This is the equivalent of adding a new, six-state New England to the nation's electricity demand every fourteen months. Energy experts estimate that as much as 50 percent of expected new demand over the next 20 years can be met through consumer efficiency and load management programs. Over the past two decades, utility demand-side efficiency programs have avoided the need for more than 100 300-megawatt power plants. However, with the advent of electricity deregulation, utility spending on these efficiency programs has dropped by almost half. The federal government should seek to correct this trend, and this bill takes a strong first step in that direction by phasing in a requirement that utilities reduce their peak demand for power and their customers' power use between 2006 and 2015.

Finally, the bill enacts standards that enable increased on-site, or distributed, generation to reduce pressure on the grid and lessen the impact of a blackout should one occur. We have an obligation, Mr. President, to ensure that the electricity grid is secure. We currently have a giant system consisting of almost 200,000 miles of interconnecting lines that constantly shift huge amounts of electricity throughout the country. Such a giant and complex system, traversing miles of city and countryside, is inevitably subject to unforseen problems. Simply making it bigger will never take away all uncertainty, nor can it eliminate the vulnerability of the grid to sabotage or terrorist attack. We should do all we can to make certain such vulnerabilities are reduced.

In summary, I am introducing this legislation because I feel that we should be cautious in our assumptions that the answer to our nation's reliability woes lies primarily in building a bigger, more expansive grid. Simply building more transmission lines is not the answer. Investments in energy efficiency and on-site generation can significantly improve the reliability of the nation's electricity grid and in most cases will be cheaper, faster to implement and more environmentally friendly than large-scale grid expansion. We also must fill the regulatory gaps in the system, which my bill does. Congress should establish mandatory reliability standards and close other regulatory gaps left by state deregulation of the electricity sector. In addition, no national reliability program will be effective or complete without strong incentives for demand-side management programs for efficiency and for on-site generation.

We cannot solve today's energy problems with yesterday's solutions. My bill is an innovative approach to ensuring electric reliability by maximizing energy efficiency, regulatory efficiency, and efficient investment. Given the high costs of power outages to our country, we cannot afford to do otherwise.

I invite my colleagues to join me in my efforts to advance energy security and reliability in the United States. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Renewable Energy Investment Act of 2005 to accelerate the use of clean, domestic renewable energy sources as an integral part of our Nation's electrical generation.

A recent episode of the television show, West Wing, portrayed renewable energy as science fiction. The truth is closer to Reality TV.

Eighteen States, plus the District of Columbia, have already instituted minimum renewable standards. This bill would establish a national renewable portfolio standard requiring that, by the year 2020, 20 percent of U.S. electricity be derived from clean, domestically produced renewable energy including wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and wave energy.

As the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I think obtaining 20 percent of our country's electricity from renewable energy represents the modest end of what we could achieve.

Let me offer five reasons why I believe we need a national commitment to encourage renewable power.

First, renewable power would help consumers by reducing electricity prices. According to data provided by the Bush administration's Energy Department, a 20 percent renewables requirement similar to that set forth in the bill I am introducing today would lower consumer energy costs by the year 2020. Why? Because adding additional renewables to our energy mix will decrease the pressure on natural gas supplies, bringing overall costs down.

This point is worth repeating. Despite concerns from those in the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, the Department of Energy has consistently found that a mandatory renewable portfolio standard would not raise overall energy costs and would have no significant adverse impact on America's wallets.

Estimates are that reaching 10 percent renewable energy production by the year 2020 could reduce the demand for natural gas by as much as 1.4 trillion cubic feet, and could reduce the price of natural gas by 6 percent. With the higher renewable portfolio standard in my bill, the price reductions are even greater.

I have received letters from the chemical industry expressing deep concern about the high price of natural gas, and imploring me to take steps to help alleviate shortages and reduce costs.

Much to my consternation, however, neither the chemical industry, nor this administration have addressed the obvious link between increasing renewable energy production and easing demand on natural gas supplies. Instead, their solutions have been to open sensitive lands to more drilling, reduce environmental compliance and advance clean coal technologies.

Whatever merits there may be to some of their suggestions, an obvious step that should be taken is diversifying our energy sector and easing the growing demand on natural gas by promoting other clean energies which can be readily produced on American soil.

The second reason for a national commitment to encourage renewable power is the public health and environmental benefits.

Electricity generation is the leading source of U.S. carbon emissions, accounting for over 40 percent of the total. Carbon dioxide emissions are the primary greenhouse gas, contributing to harmful climate change. A 20 percent renewables requirement would, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, reduce carbon emissions from power plants by up to 18 percent by the year 2020.

A 20 percent renewables requirement would also significantly reduce emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides. These pollutants contaminate our water, cause smog and acid rain, and contribute to respiratory illnesses. As a result, a renewable portfolio standard would help alleviate asthma, which has become the most common chronic disease for children.

Coal burning electric power plants are also the largest source of mercury pollution, releasing an estimated 98,000 pounds of mercury directly into the air, and generating an additional 80,000 pounds a year in mercury tainted waste. A renewable portfolio standard would help the estimated five million women and children regularly exposed to mercury at levels that EPA considers unsafe.

And according to the Department of Energy, these public health benefits would be achieved without raising consumer energy costs.

Third, a 20 percent renewable portfolio standard would enhance our national security by diversifying our energy supply. As we increase our reliance on natural gas, much of the demand may have to be met by liquified natural gas shipped to the U.S. from other countries. It is unthinkable that we should sink to greater reliance on foreign fuel imports when we have abundant, inexhaustible renewable energy right here.

Further, much of the U.S. energy system including power plants, refineries, and pipelines, present significant safety and security risks. Renewable energy facilities are generally smaller, more geographically dispersed and do

not involve disposal or transportation of radioactive or combustible materials.

A 20 percent renewable portfolio standard such as I offer today will help bring the costs of on-site generation down even further, making providing your own electricity a reality for a growing number of homes and facilities. In these times when we worry about the potential security of our energy grid, that option becomes increasingly attractive.

Fourth, a national renewable portfolio standard builds on the successful experiments by the States. To date, 18 States, plus the District of Columbia, have adopted mandatory renewable energy standards. These State programs provide excellent incentives for renewable energy. In September 2004, New York created the second- largest new renewable energy market in the country, behind only California, when the state Public Service Commission adopted a standard of 24 percent by 2013. Earlier in 2004, Hawaii, Maryland, and Rhode Island also enacted minimum renewable electricity standards.

Texas has one of the most successful state programs. The Texas Renewable portfolio standard was signed into law by then Governor George W. Bush, and administered by Pat Wood, who now chairs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These men know the value of renewable energy. Texas now has enough wind power to run about 300,000 homes a year, with huge benefits to ranchers who can lease acreage for wind turbines.

However, as good as these State efforts are, they are subject to the inherent limitation that they can only address electricity sales and production within their own State boundaries. Yet as we know, electricity generation and transmission are regional in nature. State renewable requirements alone cannot provide the market and other mechanisms necessary to address regional and national electricity transmission.

But these State programs demonstrate that renewables requirements can work, and operate to the benefit of consumers.

Finally, I call for a national commitment to encourage renewable power because a cleaner energy future is in our grasp. The U.S. has the technical capacity to generate 4.5 times its current electricity needs from renewable energy resources. European investment continues to outstrip U.S. markets, but that is changing. Worldwide, approximately 6,500 megawatts of new wind energy generating capacity were installed, amounting to annual sales of about $7 billion. Almost a third of that came from the United States, which installed nearly 1,700 megawatts of new wind energy in 2001, or $1.7 billion worth of new wind energy generating capacity.

Yet, renewable energy still accounts for only a little over 2 percent of U.S. electricity generation.

It is not that we expect this renewable portfolio standard to make conventional energy sources obsolete. Undoubtedly, fossil, nuclear and other fuels will be with us for some time. But isn't it time that we charted our future with cleaner energies? The potential is there, but we have to give it the assistance of market incentives, as we have traditionally done for our more established fuel sources.

I urge my colleagues to again demonstrate our strong commitment to renewables and support my legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to introduce today, along with my colleagues Senators Smith, Collins, Chafee, and Rockefeller, the ``Pathways to Independence Act of 2005.'' This legislation is the product of a bipartisan effort to ensure that those individuals in our welfare system who face the toughest barriers to work, such as individuals with disabilities or substance abuse problems, are provided the best opportunity for future success and productivity. This legislation gives states the tools and incentives necessary to assist them in moving individuals from welfare to work.

The current welfare system has been widely regarded as a success in moving individuals off the welfare rolls, and states have been given incentives to do so. While this approach has been regarded as successful, it has one major flaw. Although the states are provided incentives for removing people from the welfare rolls, no incentives exist for placing individuals into sustainable employment. States receive the same credit for moving a welfare recipient into a high paying job as they do for sanctioning that person outright. This perverse incentive has been particularly difficult for the many welfare recipients who have disabilities or struggle with substance abuse problems. In many states it is easier to write these people off than to give them the support necessary to become truly independent.

In Vermont, approximately 15 percent of the welfare caseload has been diagnosed with a disability and receive services through the Vermont Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. Vermont's effort to provide these services enables welfare recipients to, move from welfare to work. However, these services are not included in the core work activities allowed under the current welfare law. Vermont receives no credit or incentive for moving these individuals to independence. This policy is wrong. If we truly want welfare to be an initiative that helps people to become independent and self-sufficient, then our policies must reflect our intentions. That is where ``The Pathways to Independence Act of 2005'' comes into play.

The ``Pathways to Independence Act of 2005'' would allow states to count certain rehabilitation services for individuals with disabilities and treatment for substance abuse toward work activities. Here's how it works: the legislation would give states the ability to count a welfare recipient who is engaged in work, or work preparation activities, to participate in a drug treatment program for three months. At the end of this 3-month period, the state would be given the opportunity to re- evaluate the status of the individual and decide whether to continue treatment for an additional 3 months. This is the same process that is envisioned in the ``Personal Responsibility and Individual Development for Everyone (PRIDE) Act'' that the Finance Committee is planning to consider this spring. The PRIDE approach would then require an individual with a severe barrier to meet the same standard as a non- disabled individual. However, the ``Pathways to Independence Act'' would allow the state to continue treatment for the individual, provided that the individual is meeting at least half of the regular work requirements and following their treatment program for the remaining hours.

This is a common sense proposal. It is consistent with the research on providing effective support programs for people with disabilities and effective treatment programs for people struggling with substance abuse leading to sustainable employment. By allowing states to count these individuals in the ``working'' category, we provide the states with the necessary incentives to engage those most difficult to serve in meaningful ways that will help them to work. It will allow the states to place people with disabilities and substance abuse problems on a pathway to independence.

The ``Pathways to Independence Act of 2005'' would supply the states with the tools and incentives necessary to provide welfare recipients with the greatest chance for independence and self-sufficiency. If we truly want to take the necessary steps towards achieving this goal and improving upon our current welfare system, this legislation must be part of any welfare reform reauthorization that is enacted.

I would like to thank the members of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities for their help in developing this legislation and their strong letter in support of this initiative. I especially want to thank my colleague from Oregon, Senator Smith, for his commitment to this legislation and all of our cosponsors in this endeavor.

Mr. President, the entire world continues to wait for signs that the administration takes seriously its moral and legal responsibilities to eliminate torture and abuse. It is long past time for the administration to give the American people and the world an ironclad assurance that these shameful tactics are no longer being used in any prison or detention facility under American control and that we are not outsourcing our torture to regimes well known for using them.

I strongly support the legislation that Senator Leahy has introduced to deal with this urgent problem and to see that our Nation is not farming out abusive interrogations to other countries. The bill makes crystal clear that we can't torture by proxy.

Abhorrence to torture is a fundamental value. Our attitude toward torture speaks volumes about our national conscience, our dedication to the rule of law, and our essential ideals. 9/11 is no excuse for abandoning our ideals.

The line separating right from wrong must clearly exclude the reprehensible practice called extraordinary rendition, the ridiculous code word for torture by proxy. Article 3 of the Treaty Against Torture, which the United States has ratified, provides: ``No State Party shall expel, return, or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.'' The secretive U.S. practice of rendition is a violation of international law because it involves detaining prisoners without a shred of due process and delivering them for interrogation into the hands of countries known to commit torture. As one commentator noted: ``In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by side with contract killings.''

Ask Maher Arar. In the fall of 2002, Arar, a Canadian citizen, was returning to Montreal from a family visit in Tunisia and he made a stopover at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Acting in part on flawed intelligence from Canadian officials, U.S. Immigration officials seized Mr. Arar at the airport. He was not charged with a crime, or given a chance to talk with a lawyer. Instead, he was held in Brooklyn and interrogated for days by U.S. law enforcement authorities.

When the interrogation failed to produce incriminating information, Mr. Arar was flown to Jordan and handed over to Jordanian authorities. He was chained, blindfolded, and beaten in a van that transported him to the Syrian border. In Syria, he was placed in a small, dark cell-- three feet by six feet, like a grave--and was held there for almost a year. He was slapped, beaten, and whipped on his palms, wrists, and back with an electric cable. He begged them to stop. He heard other prisoners screaming as they were tortured. He signed any confessions he was told to sign.

Mr. Arar was released in October 2003. Syrian officials told reporters that their investigators found no link between Mr. Arar and al-Qaida. His confession turned out to be worthless and his suffering was pointless. Mr. Arar is now home in Canada.

How can any of us stand idly by knowing that this country condoned and facilitated such brutality?

Tragically, Mr. Arar is not the only victim. On March 6, 60 Minutes aired a report on rendition. On the program, Michael Scheuer, a recently retired CIA official who created its rendition program, admitted that he would ``have to assume'' that suspects the U.S. sends to Egypt are tortured. ``It's very convenient,'' he said. ``It's finding someone else to do your dirty work.''

The Defense Department has attempted to justify this tactic. On June 25, 2003, Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes wrote to Senator Leahy, stating that whenever the U.S. transfers an individual to another country, ``United States policy is to obtain specific assurances from the receiving country that it will not torture the individual being transferred to that country. We can assure you that the United States would take steps to investigate credible allegations of torture and take appropriate action if there were reason to believe that those assurances were not being honored.''

Mr. Haynes' ``assurances,'' are difficult to accept. The State Department's annual human rights report, released last month, criticized numerous countries for a range of interrogation practices it labeled as torture. The State Department identified Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, among others, as countries practicing torture. Press reports make clear that since 9/11, the U.S. has flown 100-150 suspects to countries such as these. The State Department condemns Syria for torturing its prisoners, but Mr. Haynes blindly relies on Syria's promise that the prisoners we send there will be treated humanely.

Recent press reports also suggest that the assurances of humane treatment sought by the CIA are worth very little. According to today's Washington Post, ``one government official who visited several foreign prisons where suspects were rendered by the CIA said . . . `It's widely understood that the interrogation practices that would be illegal in the U.S. are being used.' '' The official also said, ``they say they are not abusing them . . . but we all know they do.''

According to the Post, an Arab diplomat, whose country is actively engaged in counterterrorism alongside the CIA said it was unrealistic to believe the CIA really wants to follow up on assurances. He said: ``It would be stupid to keep track of them because then you would know what's going on.'' He said, ``it's like don't ask don't tell.''

So, it seems that we are not fooling anybody but the American public.

We are a Nation of laws, not hypocrites. Our country is strong and our constitutional system has endured because it permits us to do great things and still ensure that we treat people fairly and humanely. We are not supposed to ``disappear'' people here.

Yet, that is exactly what rendition and the related tactic of ``ghost detainees'' amounts to, making people vanish into a shadowy world of secret abuse. In his report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, MG. Antonio Taguba

wrote that prisoners had not been registered as required by Army regulations and they were being moved around to avoid detection by the Red Cross. General Taguba called the practice ``deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in

violation of international law.'' Last September, Army investigators told the Senate Armed Services Committee that as many as 100 detainees at Abu Ghraib had been hidden from the Red Cross at the CIA's direction.

Last month, the Associated Press reported that one of the ``ghost detainees'' held at Abu Ghraib, Manadel al-Jamadi, died in November 2003 under CIA interrogation. He had been suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back. According to an Army guard who was asked by the interrogator to adjust al-Jamadi's position, blood gushed from his mouth ``as if a faucet had been turned on'' after he was released from his shackles.

Behavior like that forces us all to ask, ``what has America become?''

The issue shows no signs of abating. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that transfers of detainees from occupied territory to any other country ``are prohibited, regardless of their motive.'' Violations of the Article constitute ``grave breaches'' of the Treaty and qualify as ``war crimes'' under Federal law. Nevertheless, a Justice Department memorandum in March, 2004 re-interpreted the Treaty to allow the CIA to remove prisoners from Iraq for the purpose of ``facilitating interrogation.'' According to press reports, the CIA used this ``Goldsmith Memorandum'' as justification to transport ``as many as a dozen detainees'' out of Iraq. The legal analysis in the memorandum is an embarrassment. Yet it appears to have provided the legal justification for the CIA to commit war crimes.

The New York Times recently reported that the U.S. plans to transfer as many as half the 550 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to prisons in other countries. This week, a Federal judge blocked the government from transferring 13 citizens of Yemen until a hearing can be held on the propriety of the move. Lawyers for the detainees expressed concern that the prisoners would be delivered into the hands of torture.

Even worse, last week Attorney General Gonzales defended the practice of rendition, despite admitting that he ``can't fully control'' what other nations do and that he doesn't know whether countries have always complied with their promises.

Congress can't allow these shameful tactics to continue. Senator Leahy's bill is designed to prevent them. It states that no person in the custody or control of the United States can be sent to another country on the State Department list of countries that commit torture. Nor, may any person be sent to a country, even if it is not on the State Department list, where there are grounds to believe the person would be in danger of being tortured. The bill states that mere diplomatic assurances that detainees will be treated humanely are not sufficient to permit a detainee's transfer. Instead, in certain circumstances, the act permits delivery of the detainee where there is an actual mechanism to verify that the person will not be tortured, such as by allowing unfettered access to the detainee by humanitarian organizations.

The Bush administration's has clearly condoned the use of torture and abuse by our own government, as well as handing prisoners over to other countries for the same purpose. Officials have approved and used interrogation techniques that include feigning suffocation, feigning drowning, ``stress positions,'' sleep deprivation, and the use of unmuzzled dogs. According to one report, ``The methods employed by the CIA are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the interviews of the high-level detainees . . . ``because the FBI fears that the techniques could subject their agents to criminal lawsuits.

The anti-rendition bill offered today is a way to start addressing the problem. It deserves to pass as soon as possible. Torture and other abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo have done immense damage to America's standing in the world and has clearly made the war on terrorism harder to win. We need to repair that damage and re-claim our national commitment to fairness and decency.

As Edmund Burke said, ``The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'' We in Congress have it in our power to prevent the triumph of an evil practice. Knowing what we now know, the Senate cannot simply look away and do nothing. I urge my colleagues to support us in ending these despicable abuses.

Mr. President, today, Senator DeWine and I are introducing legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration broad authority to regulate tobacco products for the protection of the public health. We cannot in good conscience allow the fuderal agency most responsible for protecting the public health to remain powerless to deal with the enormous risks of tobacco, the most deadly of all consumer products.

Last year, a large bipartisan majority of the Senate voted to grant the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. It was a major step forward in the long-term effort to enact this legislation, which health experts believe is the most important action Congress could take to protect children from this deadly addiction. Unfortunately, the legislation was blocked by a small group of House conferees.

We are reintroducing our bill today and we are hopeful that 2005 will be the year when Congress takes the final steps to enact this extraordinarily important health legislation. This bill has majority support in the Senate and strong support amongst rank and file members in the House. Now is the time to make it the law of the land.

The stakes are vast. Five thousand children have their first cigarette every day, and two thousand of them become daily smokers. Nearly a thousand of them will die prematurely from tobacco-induced diseases. Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in the nation today. Cigarettes kill well over four hundred thousand Americans each year. That is more lives lost than from automobile accidents, alcohol abuse, illegal drugs, AIDS, murder, suicide, and fires combined. Our response to a public health problem of this magnitude must consist of more than half-way measures.

We must deal firmly with tobacco company marketing practices that target children and mislead the public. The Food and Drug Administration needs broad authority to regulate the sale, distribution, and advertising of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.

The tobacco industry currently spends over eleven billion dollars a year to promote its products. Much of that money is spent in ways designed to tempt children to start smoking, before they are mature enough to appreciate the enormity of the health risk. The industry knows that more than 90 percent of smokers begin as children and are addicted by the time they reach adulthood.

Documents obtained from tobacco companies prove, in the companies'

own words, the magnitude of the industry's efforts to trap children into dependency on their deadly product. Recent studies by the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control show the substantial role of industry advertising in decisions by young people to use tobacco products.

If we are serious about reducing youth smoking, FDA must have the power to prevent industry advertising designed to appeal to children wherever it will be seen by children. This legislation will give FDA the ability to stop tobacco advertising which glamorizes smoking from appearing where it will be seen by significant numbers of children. It grants FDA full authority to regulate tobacco advertising ``consistent with and to the full extent permitted by the First Amendment.''

FDA authority must also extend to the sale of tobacco products. Nearly every state makes it illegal to sell cigarettes to children under 18, but surveys show that those laws are rarely enforced and frequently violated. FDA must have the power to limit the sale of cigarettes to face-to-face transactions in which the age of the purchaser can be verified by identification. This means an end to self- service displays and vending machine sales. There must also be serious enforcement efforts with real penalties for those caught selling tobacco products to children. This is the only way to ensure that children under 18 are not able to buy cigarettes.

The FDA conducted the longest rule-making proceeding in its history, studying which regulations would most effectively reduce the number of children who smoke. Seven hundred thousand public comments were received in the course of that rulemaking. At the conclusion of its proceeding, the Agency promulgated rules on the manner in which cigarettes are advertised and sold. Due to litigation, most of those regulations were never implemented. If we are serious about curbing youth smoking as much as possible, as soon as possible; it makes no sense to require FDA to reinvent the wheel by conducting a new multi- year rulemaking process on the same issues. This legislation will give the youth access and advertising restrictions already developed by FDA the immediate force of law, as if they had been issued under the new statute.

The legislation also provides for stronger warnings on all cigarette and smokeless tobacco packages, and in all print advertisements. These warnings will be more explicit in their description of the medical problems which can result from tobacco use. The FDA is given the authority to change the text of these warning labels periodically, to keep their impact strong.

Nicotine in cigarettes is highly addictive. Medical experts say that it is as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Yet for decades, tobacco companies have vehemently denied the addictiveness of their products. No one can forget the parade of tobacco executives who testified under oath before Congress that smoking cigarettes is not addictive. Overwhelming evidence in industry documents obtained through the discovery process proves that the companies not only knew of this addictiveness for decades, but actually relied on it as the basis for their marketing strategy. As we now know, cigarette manufacturers chemically manipulated the nicotine in their products to make it even more addictive.

The tobacco industry has a long, dishonorable history of providing misleading information about the health consequences of smoking. These companies have repeatedly sought to characterize their products as far less hazardous than they are. They made minor innovations in product design seem far more significant for the health of the user than they actually were. It is essential that FDA have clear and unambiguous authority to prevent such misrepresentations in the future. The largest disinformation campaign in the history of the corporate world must end.

Given the addictiveness of tobacco products, it is essential that the FDA regulate them for the protection of the public health. Over forty million Americans are currently addicted to cigarettes. No responsible public health official believes that cigarettes should be banned. A ban would leave forty million people without a way to satisfy their drug dependency. FDA should be able to take the necessary steps to help addicted smokers overcome their addiction, and to make the product less toxic for smokers who are unable or unwilling to stop. To do so, FDA must have the authority to reduce or remove hazardous ingredients from cigarettes, to the extent that it becomes scientifically feasible. The inherent risk in smoking should not be unnecessarily compounded.

Recent statements by several tobacco companies make clear that they plan to develop what they characterize as ``reduced risk'' cigarettes. This legislation will require manufacturers to submit such ``reduced risk'' products to the FDA for analysis before they can be marketed. No health-related claims will be permitted until they have been verified to the FDA's satisfaction. These safeguards are essential to prevent deceptive industry marketing campaigns, which could lull the public into a false sense of health safety.

Smoking is the number one preventable cause of death in America. Congress must vest FDA not only with the responsibility for regulating tobacco products, but with full authority to do the job effectively.

This legislation will give the FDA the legal authority it needs--to reduce youth smoking by preventing tobacco advertising which targets children--to prevent the sale of tobacco products to minors--to help smokers overcome their addiction--to make tobacco products less toxic for those who continue to use them--and to prevent the tobacco industry from misleading the public about the dangers of smoking.

Enacting this bill this year is the right thing to do for America's children.

Mr. President, this week the people of my State of Alaska pause to recognize two giant figures in the fight for equal rights and justice under the law, the late Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich. On February 16, 2005, the State of Alaska once again observed Elizabeth Peratrovich Day. Activities to celebrate the legacy of Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich are taking place in schools and cultural centers throughout Alaska this week. This coming Saturday, the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage will conduct a day-long celebration of the Peratrovich legacy.

Roy and Elizabeth are to the Native peoples of Alaska what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks are to African Americans. Everybody knows about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, but hardly anyone outside the State of Alaska knows about Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich. Today, I rise to once again share the Peratrovich legacy with the Senate.

Elizabeth was born in 1911, about 17 years before Dr. King. She was born in Petersburg, AK. After college she married Roy Peratrovich, a Tlingit from Klawock, AK, and the couple had three children. Roy and Elizabeth moved to Juneau. They were excited about buying a new home. But they could not buy the house that they wanted because they were Native. They could not enter the stores or restaurants they wanted. Outside some of these stores and restaurants there were signs that read ``No Natives Allowed.'' History has also recorded a sign that read ``No Dogs or Indians Allowed.''

On December 30, 1941, following the invasion of Pearl Harbor, Elizabeth and Roy wrote to Alaska's Territorial Governor:

In the present emergency our Native boys are being called

upon to defend our beloved country. There are no distinctions

being made there. Yet when we patronized good business

establishments we are told in most cases that Natives are not

allowed.

The proprietor of one business, an inn, does not seem to

realize that our Native boys are just as willing to lay down

their lives to protect the freedom he enjoys. Instead he

shows his appreciation by having a `No Natives Allowed' sign

on his door.

In that letter Elizabeth and Roy noted:

We were shocked when the Jews were discriminated against in

Germany. Stories were told of public places having signs,

``No Jews Allowed.'' All freedom loving people were horrified

at what was being practiced in Germany, yet it is being

practiced in our own country.

In 1943, the Alaska Legislature, at the behest of Roy and Elizabeth considered an antidiscrimination law. It was defeated. But Roy and Elizabeth were not defeated. Two years later, in 1945, the antidiscrimination measure was back before the Alaska Terrritorial Legislature. It passed the lower house, but met with stiff opposition in the Territorial Senate.

One by one Senators took to the floor to debate the closely contested legislation. One Senator argued that ``the races should be kept further apart.'' This Senator went on to rhetorically question, ``Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?''

Elizabeth Peratrovich was observing the debate from the gallery. As a citizen, she asked to be heard and in accordance with the custom of the day was recognized to express her views.

In a quiet, dignified and steady voice this ``fighter with velvet gloves'' responded, ``I would not have expected that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with 5,000 years of recorded history behind them of our Bill of Rights.''

She was asked by a Senator if she thought the proposed bill would eliminate discrimination, Elizabeth Peratrovich queried in rebuttal, ``Do your laws against larceny and even murder prevent these crimes? No law will eliminate crimes but at least you as legislators can assert to the world that you recognize the evil of the present situation and speak your intent to help us overcome discrimination.''

When she finished, there was a wild burst of applause from the gallery and the Senate floor alike. The territorial Senate passed the bill by a vote of 11 to 5. On February 16, 1945, Alaska had an antidiscrimination law that provided that all citizens of the territory of Alaska are entitled to full and equal enjoyment of public accommodations. Following passage of the anti-discrimination law, Roy and Elizabeth could be seen dancing at the Baranof Hotel, one of Juneau's finest. They danced among people they didn't know. They danced in a place where the day before they were not welcome.

There is an important lesson to be learned from the battles of Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich. Even in defeat, they knew that change would come from their participation in our political system. They were not discouraged by their defeat in 1943. They came back fighting and enjoyed the fruits of their victory 2 years later.

Twenty-four years before Alaska's statehood and 18 years before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of his dream for racial equity under the law, Alaska had a law protecting civil rights. Elizabeth would not live to see the United States adopt the same law she brought to Alaska in 1945. She passed away in 1958 at the age of 47, 6 years before civil rights legislation would pass nationally.

In addition to the annual observance of Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, the State of Alaska has acknowledged Elizabeth Peratrovich's contribution to history by designating one of the public galleries in the Alaska House of Representatives as the Elizabeth Peratrovich Gallery.

But what about Roy? Why has his role not been recognized? Roy Peratrovich passed away in 1989 at age 81. He died 9 days before the first Elizabeth Peratrovich Day was observed in the State of Alaska. Perhaps it was because Roy was still alive at the time this honor was bestowed, it is Elizabeth who has gotten all the credit for passage of the antidiscrimination

Members of the Peratrovich family tell me that this is not entirely unjustified because without Elizabeth's stirring speech the antidiscrimination law would not have passed. But they also point out, as does the historical record, that Elizabeth and Roy were a focused and effective team. History should recognize that the antidiscrimination law was enacted due to the joint efforts of Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich. I rise today to do my part toward that end.

Joined by my colleagues, the distinguished senior Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, and my distinguished colleague from the State of Washington, Ms. Cantwell, I am pleased to once again offer legislation to recognize the contributions of Roy and Elizabeth Peratrovich with a Congressional Gold Medal. I invite all of my colleagues to join with me in cosponsoring this important legislation. Congressional Gold

Medals have been awarded to a number of African Americans who have made contributions to the cause of civil rights, among them, Rosa Parks, Roy Wilkins, Dorothy Height, the nine brave individuals who desegregated the schools of Little Rock, Arkansas, and others involved in the effort to desegregate public education.

With the opening of the very popular National Museum of the American Indian last year our Nation is focusing on the many contributions of our first people and the challenges they have faced throughout our Nation's history. It is time that we also acknowledge the work of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in the struggle for civil rights and social justice. Honoring Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich's substantial contribution with a Congressional Gold Medal is a fine start.

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

Mr. President, more than 30 years have passed since Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act which settled the aboriginal land claims of the first inhabitants of Alaska by making each eligible Alaska Native a shareholder in 1 of 13 regional corporations and many of these people shareholders in a village corporation as well. Each of the corporations was capitalized with land and money.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was a bold experiment, and its implementation was not without controversy. As originally enacted, the law provided that a shareholder of an Alaska Native Corporation could sell his or her stock on or after December 18, 1991, without any intervening action by the corporation.

This provision could have resulted in massive sales of stock by Native shareholders in the ensuing years and caused the wholesale transfer of Native assets to non-Native interests. Thanks to the leadership of the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, this catastrophe was averted through a series of amendments to the Act, signed into law in 1987, which forbade the sale of corporate stock without the consent of the corporation's shareholders.

This landmark legislation brought an end to the speculation about whether the Native corporations would survive long enough to fulfill the goal that Congress set for them, which was to be the springboard for the economic, social and political empowerment of Alaska's Native people, or alternatively execute the temporary transfer of land and capital which would ultimately end up in non-Native hands. I am proud, that none of the Native corporations have opened their stock to purchase by outsiders. In fact, I see nothing on the horizon to suggest that any of the corporations will take up this question in the foreseeable future.

If history is any guide, the Alaska Native Corporations are destined to remain in Native hands for a long time to come. This is good news for the Native people of Alaska and it is good news for my State as a whole.

I rise today to offer legislation, requested by the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Association of ANCSA Presidents and CEOs, which is intended to address a piece of unfinished business left by the 1987 amendments to the act.

Under the act, as originally passed, stock in an Alaska Native corporation was generally only available to an Alaska Native born on or before December 18, 1971 and those who might inherit stock from a deceased shareholder. The original legislation gave little thought to offering those born after December 18, 1971 a role in the corporation. In effect, the original legislation disenfranchised an entire generation born after the cutoff date from having a stake in the Native corporations. It disenfranchised an entire generation of young people from playing a role in the governance of the Native corporations and from having an ownership interest in their Native lands.

The 1987 amendments allowed the shareholders of a Native corporation to remedy this unintended consequence by allowing new stock to be issued to the descendants of a corporation's original shareholders provided that a majority of the outstanding shares agreed. Under the 1987 amendments, such stock could only be issued to those descendants who had one quarter or more Alaska Native blood. A subsequent technical amendment allowed the stock to be issued to descendants without regard to their blood quantum, at the option of each corporation's shareholders.

Time has demonstrated that the remedy for incorporating the generation

born after December 18, 1971 is an imperfect one. This is sad because one of the most important responsibilities faced by the Board of Directors of any corporation is to plan for its own succession and the succession of the corporation's leadership.

Since 1987, less than a handful of the 13 regional Native corporations have put the question of enrolling the next generation to their shareholders. However, all of the corporations that have considered the question have voted in the affirmative.

Why then have more corporations not taken the question to a vote? The answer seems to lie in the voting requirements imposed by the 1987 amendments, which essentially requires an affirmative vote of a supermajority of the shares represented in person or by proxy at a shareholder meeting. In order for a corporation to obtain an affirmative vote of a majority of its outstanding shares, something of the order of 80 percent of the corporation's stockholders must be represented at the meeting in person or by proxy. Under present law, any shareholder who does not attend the meeting or submit a proxy is deemed to have voted in the negative.

When Doyon, Limited, the regional Native corporation for Interior Alaska, took the question of enrolling the generation of descendants born between 1971 and 1992 to its shareholders at its 1992 annual meeting, some 79.2 percent of the shareholders expressed an opinion in person or proxy. Still, the decision to approve the enrollment passed by the narrowest of margins. This was a record quorum for the corporation, which had 9,061 original shareholders, and the record has yet to be broken.

Sealaska Corporation, the regional Native corporation for Southeast Alaska, had more original shareholders than any other regional Native corporation. Sealaska had 15,700 original shareholders, each owning 100 shares of stock. Sealaska has never enjoyed a quorum of 79.2 percent and is pessimistic that such a quorum could ever be mustered. Accordingly, Sealaska, which has been pondering the question of enrolling the next generation for many years, has been deterred from putting the question to a stockholder vote by the supermajority voting requirement in the 1987 amendment.

Whether Sealaska enrolls the generation born after 1971 is not up to me. It is up to the shareholders of Sealaska. But I think the Congress owes it to the next generation of Alaska Natives to offer a level playing field when it comes to participation in their Native corporations.

In addressing the Alaska Native community, I often make reference to a marvelous book by Alexandra J. McClanahan entitled ``Growing Up Native in Alaska.'' In this book, A.J. profiled 27 Alaska Natives born between 1957 and 1976 and allowed them in their own words to speak about what it means to be an Alaska Native. Some of the people profiled in the book received stock under the 1971 act while others missed the deadline. I will quote from this book for the Record.

One of these 27 Alaska Natives is Jaeleen Kookesh-Araujo, a Tlingit Indian, who grew up in the village of Angoon, AK. Jaeleen is a bright young attorney who works at one of Washington's most respected law firms. She is precisely the type of person who is well positioned to lead her regional corporation, Sealaska, into the future. And she is one of many Alaska Natives who was born after December 18, 1971. Jaeleen has an opportunity to participate in Sealaska's governance because her parents gave her some of their stock as a gift, but she remains concerned that others of her generation have been left out.

This is what Jaeleen said about why it is important to make stock available to the descendants.

I am a shareholder thanks to my parents gifting me shares,

but there are a lot of young people who are never going to be

shareholders. If you have one parent with several children,

they can try to allocate shares to all of them, but some may

be left out. Or, maybe you have a Native child who has been

adopted who doesn't have parents with shares--whatever. There

are going to be a lot of young Native people left out of this

corporate structure, and it's really sad. Eventually, there

may be a problem because you're going to have a lot of

young, talented Alaska Native people going out to get

educated. They're going to have a lot of expertise and

education in ways that might benefit the corporation, and

yet you have to wonder if they're really going to want to

be involved in these Native corporations that they don't

even belong to. I do want to be involved in the Native

corporations because this is my ancestors' land that

they're managing and developing and protecting . . .

I am not going to tell you that each of the 27 young people that A.J. profiled feels the same way. Another young Native profiled in A.J.'s book supported the status quo in spite of the fact that he was born 2 days after the cutoff.

I really don't think it's necessary to adjust for the

future generations. The idea of gifting and willing stock is

a really efficient method, and I think we ought to stick with

that, rather than having to expand and degrade the stock,

allowing the children to be shareholders. It's unfair that we

as children born after December 18th are not shareholders,

but in order to keep the integrity of the stock, I think it's

essential that we continue on with the method of granting,

gifting and willing stock.

The final quote is from a Doyon shareholder who was involved in that company's decision to make new stock available to those born between 1971 and 1992.

When I first started I thought, ``I don't want my dividend

to get smaller.'' I was an intern in Doyon's Shareholder

Relations, so I was involved in the committee that was

studying the issue to enroll children born after 1971. When

it was time to vote, I thought: ``Darned if I'm letting my

nieces and nephews not be involved.'' I was a total

turnaround. There was no way I was going to leave them out.

There was no difference between me and them. They were just

born later.

As you can see, there may not be unanimity on the question of whether new stock should be made available to the descendants. But I think we all can agree that the debate is a healthy one and the debate will not take place in earnest unless Congress relaxes the supermajority standard imposed by the 1987 amendments.

The legislation I am introducing today would allow the shareholders of a Native corporation to authorize new stock for those born after December 18, 1971 by a majority vote of the shares present and voting at a duly constituted meeting of the shareholders. Shareholders who want to make the stock available will have the opportunity to vote yes. Those who do not will have the opportunity to vote no. Those who choose not to participate, place the fate of the question in the hands of those who choose to participate. The majority prevails.

The 1987 amendments authorized Native corporations to make additional shares available to Native elders and to enroll those who were eligible to receive stock as original shareholders but who failed to enroll. The number of missed enrollees is expected to be small. My legislation would change the voting standard for these two categories to a majority of the shares present and voting as well.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to join my friend from Maine, Senator Collins, in introducing the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2005, legislation that makes the reforms necessary for the Postal Service to thrive in the 21st Century and to better serve the American people. This bill is almost identical to S. 2468, the version of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act that was unanimously reported out of the Governmental Affairs Committee last June on a 17-0 vote.

When I rose with Senator Collins to introduce S. 2468 last year, I noted that some of our colleagues may wonder why we need postal reform. Most of us probably receive few complaints from our constituents about the Postal Service. Most Americans like the Postal Service just the way it is and don't want to see it changed. We must keep in mind, however, that, despite the fact that the mailing industry, and the economy as a whole, have changed radically over the years, the Postal Service has, for the most part, remained unchanged for more than three decades now.

Senator Collins and I are re-introducing this bill today, then, because the Postal Service continues to operate under a business model created a generation ago.

In the early 1970s, Senator Stevens led the effort in the Senate to create the Postal Service out of the failing Post Office Department. At the time, the Post Office Department received about 20 percent of its revenue from taxpayer subsidies. Labor-management relations were at their worst, service was suffering and there was little hope the department would be able to muster the resources necessary to service a growing delivery network.

By all accounts, the product of Senator Stevens' labors, the Postal Reorganization Act signed into law by President Nixon in 1971, has been a phenomenal success. The Postal Service today receives virtually no taxpayer support. The service its hundreds of thousands of employees provide to every American, nearly every day is second to none. The Postal Service now delivers to 141 million addresses each day and is the anchor of a $900 billion mailing industry.

As we celebrate the success of the Postal Reorganization Act, however, we need to be thinking about what needs to be done to help the Postal Service continue to thrive in the years to come.

The Postal Service is clearly in need of modernization once again. Back in the early 1970s, none of the Postal Service's customers had access to fax machines, cell phones or pagers. Nobody imagined that we would ever enjoy conveniences like e-mail and electronic bill pay that could replace a First Class letter. That, of course, is no longer the case. Most of the mall I receive from my constituents these days arrives via fax and e-mail instead of hard copy mail, a marked change from my days in the House and even from my more recent days as Governor of Delaware.

This continuing electronic diversion of mail, coupled with a slow economy and the threat of terrorism, has made for some rough going at the Postal Service of late. In 2001, as Postmaster General Potter came onboard, the Postal Service was projecting its third consecutive year of deficits. They lost $199 million in 2000 and $1.68 billion in 2001. They were projecting losses of up to $4 billion in fiscal year 2002. Mail volume was falling, revenues were below projections and the Postal Service was estimating that it needed to spend $4 billion on security enhancements in order to prevent a repeat of the tragic anthrax attacks that took several lives. The Postal Service was also perilously close to its $15 billion debt ceiling and had been forced to raise rates three times in less than two years in order to pay for its operations.

A number of positive steps have been taken since 2001. General Potter has led a commendable effort to improve productivity and make the Postal Service more efficient. Billions of dollars in costs have been taken out of the system--some $4.3 billion since 2002--according to the Postal Service's most recent annual report. Thousands of positions have been eliminated through attrition and successful automation programs have yielded great benefits, resulting in the smallest workforce seen at the Postal Service since the early 1980s.

Perhaps most dramatically, the Postal Service learned in 2002 that an unfunded pension liability they once believed was as high as $32 billion was actually significantly lower. Senator Collins and I responded with legislation, the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act, which cut the amount the Postal Service must pay into the Civil Service Retirement System each year by nearly $3 billion. This has freed up money for debt reduction and prevented the need for further rate increases until at least next year. The Postal Service's debt to the Treasury now stands at about $1.8 billion--the lowest it's been in more than 20 years--and rates have remained stable since the passage of the pension bill.

Aggressive cost cutting and a lower pension payment, then, have put off the postal emergency we thought was right around the corner just a few years ago. But cost cutting can only go so far and will not solve the Postal Service's long-term challenges. These long-term challenges were laid out in stark detail last year when Postmaster General Potter and then-Postal Board of Governors Chairman David Fineman testified before the House Government Reform Committee's Special Panel on Postal Reform. Mr. Fineman pointed out in his testimony that the total volume of mail delivered by the Postal Service has declined by more than 5 billion pieces since 2000. Over the same period, the number of homes and businesses the Postal Service delivers to have increased by more than 5 million. First Class mail, the largest contributor to the Postal Service's bottom line, is leading the decline in volume. Some of those disappearing First Class letters are being replaced by advertising mail, which earns significantly less. Many First Class letters have likely been lost for good to fax machines, e-mail and electronic bill pay.

Despite electronic diversion, the Postal Service continues to add between 1.6 million and 1.9 million new delivery points each year, creating the need for thousands of new routes and thousands of new letter carriers to work them. In addition, faster-growing parts of the country will need new or expanded postal facilities in the coming years. As more and more customers turn to electronic forms of communication, however, letter carriers are bringing fewer pieces of mail to each address they serve. The rate increases that will be needed to maintain the Postal Service's current infrastructure, finance retirement obligations to its current employees, pay for new letter carriers and build facilities in growing parts of the country will only erode mail volume further.

The Postal Service has been trying to modernize on its own. General Potter and his management team are making progress, but there is only so much they can do without legislative change. Even if the Postal Service begins to see volume and revenues pick up, we will still need to make fundamental changes in the way the Postal Service operates in order to make them as successful in the 21st Century as they were in the 20th Century.

This is where the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act comes in. First, our bill begins the process of developing a modern rate system for pricing Postal Service products. The new system, to be developed by a strengthened Postal Rate Commission, re-named the Postal Regulatory Commission, would allow retained earnings, provide the Postal Service significantly more flexibility in setting prices and streamline today's burdensome rate making process. To provide stability, predictability and fairness for the Postal Service's customers, rates would remain within a cap to be set each year by the Regulatory Commission.

The second major provision in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act requires the Postal Service to set strong service standards for its Market Dominant products, a category made up mostly of those products, like First Class mail, that are part of the postal monopoly. The new standards will improve service and will be used by the Postal Service to establish performance goals, rationalize its physical infrastructure and streamline its workforce.

Third, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act ensures that the Postal Service competes fairly. The bill prohibits the Postal Service from issuing anti-competitive regulations. It also subjects the Postal Service to state zoning, planning and land use laws, requires them to pay an assumed Federal income tax on products like packages and Express Mail that private firms also offer and requires that these products as a whole pay their share of the Postal Service's institutional costs. The Federal Trade Commission will further study any additional legal benefits the Postal Service enjoys that

its private sector competitors do not. The Regulatory Commission will then find a way to use the rate system to level the playing field.

Fourth, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act improves Postal Service accountability, mostly by strengthening oversight. Qualifications for membership on the Regulatory Commission would be stronger than those for the Rate Commission so that Commissioners would have a background in finance or economics. Commissioners would also have the power to demand information from the Postal Service, including by subpoena, and have the power to punish the Postal Service for violating rate and service regulations. In addition, the Regulatory Commission will make an annual determination as to whether the Postal Service is in compliance with existing rate regulations and service standards and will have the power to punish them for any transgressions.

Fifth, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act revises two provisions from the ``Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act in an effort to shore up the Postal Service's finances in the years to come. As our colleagues may be aware, that bill required the Postal Service, beginning in 2006, to deposit any savings it enjoys by virtue of lower pension payments into an escrow account. In this bill, we eliminate that requirement in order to allow the Postal Service to spend the money that would have gone into escrow to begin pre-funding on a current basis its $50 billion retiree health obligation. Leftover savings would be used to continue paying down debt to the Treasury and to maintain rate stability.

The bill Senator Collins and I are introducing today also reverses the provision in the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act that made the Postal Service the only Federal agency shouldered with the burden of paying the additional pension benefits owed to their employees by virtue of past military service.

Finally, and most importantly, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act preserves universal service and the postal monopoly and forces the Postal Service to concentrate solely on what it does best-- processing and delivering the mail to all Americans. Our bill limits the Postal 'Service, for the first time, to providing ``postal services,'' meaning they would be prohibited from engaging in other lines of business, such as e-commerce, that draw time and resources away from letter and package delivery. It also explicitly preserves the requirement that the Postal Service ``bind the Nation together through the mail'' and serve all parts of the country, urban, suburban and rural, in a non-discriminatory fashion. Any service standards established by the Postal Service will continue to ensure delivery to every address, every day. In addition, the bill maintains the prohibition on closing post offices solely because they operate at a deficit, ensuring that rural and urban customers continue to enjoy full access to retail postal services.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, this bill that Senator Collins and I are introducing today is almost identical to the version of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act that was unanimously reported out of the Governmental Affairs Committee last June on a 17-0 vote. A similar bill was unanimously reported out of the House Government Reform Committee last year as well. Neither bill was considered on the floor of the Senate or the House, however, due--I'm told--to objections raised by the administration.

I was deeply disappointed that we were unable to complete action on postal reform last year. However, Senator Collins and I, our staffs and our colleagues in the House have had a series of discussions with administration officials since the 108th Congress adjourned last year and have narrowed our differences with them on these issues significantly. I'm pleased to report that this bill contains a handful of new provisions drafted to address specific concerns raised by the Administration.

First, we demand even greater financial transparency from the Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act gives the Postal Service more room to operate like a private business. For quite some time, however, it's been clear that the financial reporting required of the Postal Service has been lacking. It's difficult to look at the Postal Service's financial reports and learn as much as we'd like to learn about its current condition and its future liabilities. For this reason, our bill requires the Postal Service to begin filing the very same quarterly and annual Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure forms that private sector firms must file.

Second, we add language drafted at the request of the Treasury Department that would ensure that the Postal Service does its banking and investing with the Federal Financing Bank. Our original bill would have given the Postal Service almost total freedom to invest any revenue earned by its competitive products in the market as if they were a private business. Treasury feared this could have a negative impact on the markets and the issuance of federal debt.

Third, we give the Postal Board of Governors the ability to better reward top Postal Service executives for their performance and recruit top talent. We accomplish this by raising the cap on executive pay at the Postal Service to the level of compensation given to the Vice President. This will allow the Board to reward high-performing managers. It should also make it easier to recruit and retain qualified managers.

Fourth, we ensure that the rate cap to be developed by the Postal Regulatory Commission is truly workable by requiring that the cap be based on the Consumer Price Index. A CPI-based cap should guarantee that the Postal Service has the room to operate each year without breaking the cap or turning to the Treasury for assistance while still giving mailers the predictability they need.

This is significant progress but we still have our work cut out for us. I look forward to working in the coming weeks with Chairman Collins, my colleagues on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, our House counterparts and the administration to work out any remaining differences we have. It's vitally important that we succeed.

The Postal Board of Governors voted last month to go forward with a rate increase. If approved by the Postal Rate Commission, this increase will go into effect sometime next year. Thanks to increased productivity, this is expected to be a lower increase than many observers feared. Without postal reform, however, especially the language freeing the Postal Service from the escrow requirement and the military pension obligation, future rate increases will be higher. Probably much higher. This will only speed the flight from hard copy mail to electronic forms of communication. The impact of this flight will be significant, not just at the Postal Service but throughout the entire economy.

A recent study conducted by the Envelope Manufacturers Association Foundation's Institute for Postal Studies found that, if mail volume were to decline by 10 percent more than 780,000 mail-related jobs will be at risk across the country. More than 2,000 of those jobs are in Delaware. If mail volume were to decline by 20 percent more than 1,500,000 mailing industry jobs will be at risk across the country. More than 4,000 of those jobs are in Delaware. We need to act soon to prevent this from happening.

In closing, I'd like to point out how amazing it is to me to think that the Postal Service, something Senator Stevens was literally able to put together at his kitchen table at the very beginning of his career, could have lasted so long and had such an enduring impact on every American. I'm hopeful that the model Senator Collins and I have set out in this bill today can last at least that long and have just as positive an impact on our nation and our economy as the Postal Service has had over the past 35 years.

collins and gregg colloquy on postal reform