A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Army to carry out a program for ecosystem restoration for the Louisiana Coastal Area, Louisiana.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Natural Gas Price Reduction Act of 2005 and the ``Tax Provisions for Natural Gas Price Reduction Act of 2005.'' I send to the desk two pieces of legislation. One is the substantive provisions of the bill and one is the tax provisions of the bill.

Mr. President, I offer the legislation on behalf of myself and the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, who is the lead Democratic sponsor on the legislation. I do so with appreciation to the chairman of our Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Chairman Pete Domenici, and the staff of that committee who have worked very closely with us on the development of this comprehensive piece of legislation, and with thanks to my own staff, Sharon Segner, who has worked on it for several months.

This is a piece of legislation to address aggressively and comprehensively the rising cost of natural gas in the United States. This is legislation for the blue-collar worker, for the American farmer, and for the American homeowner.

Natural gas prices in the United States are at record levels. We have gone from having the lowest natural gas prices in the industrial world to the highest. These high prices are threatening millions of our jobs. Our farmers are getting a 10-percent pay cut. Homeowners are having a hard time paying their heating and cooling bills because of our contradictory policies.

Our policies boil down to this: We are restricting the supply of natural gas, and we are encouraging the use of natural gas. You do not have to go very far in an economics class at the University of Oklahoma or the University of Tennessee to know that if you restrict supply and encourage demand, the inevitable result is higher prices. And higher prices is a very serious problem for U.S. workers, U.S. homeowners, and U.S. farmers.

Only an ambitious and comprehensive approach that both increases supply and controls demand can lower the price of natural gas and keep our economy growing. This is not a question of tweaking our natural gas policy. It is time, aggressively, to revamp it. We need aggressive conservation. We need aggressive use of alternative fuels. We need aggressive research and development. We need aggressive production. And, for the time being, we need aggressive importation of liquefied natural gas from other parts of the world.

Here on this chart is an idea of where we are today. This is the United States of America: $7 per unit for natural gas--the highest in the industrialized world. Until recently, we had the lowest natural gas prices in the world.

What that means is large parts of our industries--the chemical industry, for example--were built on the idea of $1.50 or $2 for natural gas, but today it is $7.

A million Americans work in those blue-collar manufacturing jobs in every State in our country. Now, if they are paying $7 here, and it is $5.55 in Canada and $5.15 in the United Kingdom and $2.65 in Turkey and $1.70 in the Ukraine, where do you suppose,

though, a million blue-collar jobs are going to be 5 years from now, if we do not do something about the $7 price? They are not going to be in the United States. They are going to be moving out of the United States, to the United Kingdom, to Germany, to the Ukraine, to other parts of the world. And people are going to be writing their Congressmen and saying: Why didn't you do something?

So here is what we can do. By aggressive conservation, I mean setting stronger appliance and equipment standards for natural gas efficiency so that a commercial air conditioner will cool the same while using less natural gas doing it. Those standards have been generally agreed upon by environmental groups with the industry. If they were put in place, by a rough estimate, they might save the equivalent energy that could be produced by 30 or 35 powerplants.

By aggressive use of alternative fuels, I mean, for example, fully commercializing coal gasification. Coal gasification is taking this abundant supply of coal we have in the United States--we are the ``OPEC,'' the ``Saudi Arabia'' of coal; we have a 400- or 500-year supply--and finding a clean way to use it instead of importing oil from a part of the world where people are blowing each other up.

That means starting with support so we can have six coal gasification plants in this country by the year 2013. Coal gasification means, you burn the coal to create gas, and then you burn the gas to create power. If we can do that commercially, we will not only be passing a clean energy bill, we will be passing a clean air bill, because if you do that, you remove most of the mercury, most of the nitrogen, most of the sulfur. And by additional research, we may be able to find a way to recapture the carbon that is produced and put that in the ground and solve the carbon problems that a lot of people are talking about around the world.

In addition to helping ourselves, we would help ourselves by helping others. China and India and other parts of the world are building hundreds of coal plants. We would much rather them build a coal gasification plant, one that is clean and does not contribute to air pollution. Because if China and India and Brazil build dirty coal plants, that air blows around the world, and it blows into Tennessee and it blows into South Carolina. It blows into Oklahoma.

So aggressive alternative fuels is a part of a natural gas supply. Aggressive research and development includes investment and research in gas hydrates. Gas hydrates is gas that is in the ground. Methane hydrates hold tremendous potential to provide abundant supplies of natural gas. Hydrates are like ice solid structures, consisting of water and gases, mainly methane, compressed to greater than normal densities.

Coastal U.S. areas are rich in this resource. The United States is estimated to contain one-fourth of the world's supply. We need to find a way to use that gas so we do not have $7 per unit natural gas prices. That sends millions of jobs overseas. That cuts the income of farmers. And that raises home heating prices and cooling prices for residential Americans.

Aggressive production means, among other things, allowing States to selectively waive the Federal moratoria on offshore production of gas and collect significant revenues from such production. Let me give you an example. Within the last few weeks, the legislature of Virginia decided it might like to explore the idea of drilling for gas offshore. Now, why would Virginia want to do that? Because there is probably a lot of gas offshore. What would that mean for Virginia? Well, they could put a gas rig out in the ocean, beyond 20 miles, so nobody in Virginia or North Carolina could see it, run a pipeline underground to Virginia, and take their share of the revenues. And they can lower taxes in Virginia and put the rest of the money in a trust fund to build the best colleges and universities in America. That is what they could do in Virginia.

If Tennessee had a coastline, and I were Governor of Tennessee, that is what I would be asking the Congress to let me do.

I think as other Governors and other legislatures and other people look at Texas and Louisiana and Alabama and see what they are doing and decide that they can in an environmentally sensitive way exercise a State option to drill for gas in Federal waters so far out you can't see it, that they will find that a good option because it will help lower the price of gas. It can build up the schools and keep taxes down, and it can avoid other worse forms of energy.

For example, you would have to have 46 square miles of windmills, these things that are 100 yards tall, in order to equal one gas rig that you couldn't see out in the ocean. This is a State option. Aggressive importation of liquefied natural gas starts with giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority for siting and regulating what we call LNG terminals. This means importing liquefied natural gas from other parts of the world. There is a lot of it around the world. They freeze it and put it in tankers, and they bring it here and put it in our pipelines, and then we have it.

That seems like a pretty big waste of effort when we have plenty of natural gas here in the United States that we don't have access to. But if we want an adequate supply of natural gas, we are going to have to import some from around the world, and that means we are going to need terminals to which to bring it. Some of them may be offshore. They might be 10, 12, 14 miles offshore. Some of them, like the four we have today, may need to be onshore. There is no silver bullet. There is no single answer. That is why we need aggressive conservation. If, for example, the United States adopted the conservation attitudes towards natural gas that California did a few years ago, it might equal what 50 powerplants could produce in the United States. If that is so, we ought to do it today. That would begin to bring this $7 figure down.

Aggressive use of alternative fuels such as coal gasification. I also would say nuclear power is the most obvious alternative fuel to natural gas. If we had more nuclear power, we would use less natural gas. In our country today, what do you suppose we are using to create electricity when we need more electricity even though the cost of it is $7 a unit, the highest in the world? Natural gas, because natural gas plants can be built for a few hundred million dollars, and we have created an environment where we can't use nuclear.

We haven't built a new nuclear plant since the 1970s, even though we invented the technology, even though France has 80 percent of its power now produced by nuclear power, even though Japan builds a new nuclear plant every year or so. We invented it. Our Navy has operated nuclear reactors since the 1950s without ever having a single accident. It is a clean, obvious alternative to $7 natural gas, and we haven't built a plant since the 1970s. So we need to think seriously about aggressive conservation, aggressive use of alternative fuels, aggressive research and development for solar, for methane hydrates, aggressive production, and that includes giving States the option of deciding whether they would like to drill offshore and take some of the revenues and put some of the revenues into a conservation fund, and aggressive importation of liquefied natural gas from overseas at least for the time being.

In March of 2002, the Secretary of Energy requested that the National Petroleum Council undertake an extensive study on the natural gas crisis. That advisory council produced a study. It talked about the results I have described. Our Senate Energy Committee, under the chairman, Senator Domenici, has paid a lot of attention to that report. Senator Domenici hosted what we called a natural gas roundtable that was well attended by Senators and went on for 3 or 4 hours. There were more than 100 proposals presented.

I am chairman of the subcommittee of that full committee, and so my purpose today is to take many of the ideas that we heard that made the most sense, some of which people haven't been willing to advocate, and put them into the discussion. Again, because I do not want to be a Senator who 10 years from now somebody comes up to and says: How did you let farmers get a 20-percent pay cut because of $7, $8, $9 natural gas; how did you let millions of jobs in the chemical industry, the auto industry go overseas because of $7, $8, and $9 natural gas; how did you let prices of natural gas for home heating

or cooling get so high that middle-income Americans can't even afford to heat their homes? I don't want to be that kind of Senator. So I am here today with a comprehensive proposal across the board even though some of the ideas will create that kind of controversy.

I have summarized in a few words the provisions of a 250-page piece of legislation.

We were ambushed in the United States on September 11, 2001. Even though you could argue that we might have known it was coming, terrorism wasn't new on September 11, 2001.

I remember being in a meeting with Prime Minister Rabin of Israel in 1994. At the end of a long day, I asked him: What is the greatest challenge threatening the world? And he said terrorism. That was many years before we were attacked. He was right. He was dead within a few months at the hands of terrorists within his own country. We didn't see the terrorism coming. We were ambushed, and we have paid a terrible price--in lives, in dollars. We have had to create whole new departments. We have had to interrupt the lives of thousand of national guardsmen and Army reservists and send them overseas, some to die and some to be wounded, because of terrorism. Maybe we couldn't have seen exactly that act coming, but we knew it was out there.

We are about to have another big surprise. That is to our standard of living. We are 5 to 6 percent of all the people in the world. Yet we produce a third of all the money in the world. We could wake up 10 years from now and that picture could be very changed. One way is if we lose our brainpower advantage. And we could lose it. Half of our new jobs have been created by science and technology since the end of World War II. And if we go through our budget balancing, deficit controlling exercise for the next 10 years and we don't double investments for the physical sciences and retake the lead in advanced computing, and if we don't see that we have plenty of graduate students in science and engineering, we are going to find most of the R&D will be done in other parts of the world. We are going to find most of the engineers who produce this brainpower that creates jobs in other parts of the world.

They are thinking in China, and they are thinking in India. There is no real good reason why the United States should make a third of all the money in the world every year with just 5 or 6 percent of the people, and we have so little. So they are keeping their bright people home. They are building up their universities. They are doing what we need to keep doing. That is one place we could get a big surprise.

But the other is in energy. We have taken energy for granted for a long time. I know I come from Tennessee. We have had the Tennessee Valley Authority. It has sat there since the 1930s, and it has produced reliable, low-cost electricity. Homes that have never been lit, barns that have never been lit, rural areas that have never been lit have enjoyed that. That is within my lifetime.

And then while I was Governor in the 1990s, I remember that one of the big attractions for Saturn and Nissan and the automobile industry coming into Tennessee was low-cost reliable power. But when I had a natural gas roundtable last fall in Tennessee, there was the president of Saturn, the president of Nissan, the head of the Tennessee Farm Bureau. There was the head of the University of Tennessee. They were all saying: We can't live in Tennessee on $7 natural gas. What do they do if they can't? It is very easy what they do. They don't have to have those jobs in Tennessee or South Carolina. They can move them to Germany, they can move them to Mexico, they can move them to Canada, and they are doing it every day.

And Tennessee Eastman in the upper part of east Tennessee, which we think is just like the great Smokey Mountains, has been there so long. There are 12,000 people there, real good incomes. What do they use to make chemicals there? They use natural gas.

How long are they going to be there? If we have $7 gas and they have $3 and $4 gas in other parts of the world, I am afraid they are not going to be there too long. And somebody is going to say to me: What did you do about it? At least my answer is I stood up on the floor of the Senate and said this is not the time to tweak our natural gas policy.

We do not need to sit around and wait for a big surprise on energy like we had a big surprise on September 11 on terrorism. We need an aggressive policy. We need a comprehensive policy. We need aggressive conservation. That is where we should start. We need aggressive alternative fuels. That means nuclear and that means coal gasification. We need aggressive research and development, whether it is hydrogen or whether it is solar, or whether it is methane gas hydrates. We need aggressive production. We have lots of gas in the United States. We should be using it if we have $7 gas.

For the time being, we need to create the terminals that will permit us to import enough liquefied natural gas to get that $7 price down to $6 or $5 or $4.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Johnson from South Dakota for joining me in this comprehensive aggressive approach. I thank Senator Domenici for taking the lead on an energy bill. I thank Senator Bingaman, who is the ranking Democrat on our committee, because I notice on our committee a greater sense of urgency, a greater sense of bipartisan cooperation on coming up with an energy bill this year. Our blue-collar workers, our farmers, our homeowners in Tennessee and across this country expect it from us.

Senator Johnson's and my contribution today is to introduce this comprehensive 250-page bill and to get on the table all the aggressive ideas we can think of that make sense about how to reduce the price of natural gas for workers, for farmers, and for homeowners. We hope it contributes to the discussion. We hope we find lots of these provisions in an ambitious energy bill.

I look forward to working with my colleagues, as I know Senator Johnson does, on a bipartisan basis to help lower the price of natural gas, keep our jobs, keep our homes cool and warm, and make it possible for farmers to make a living.

Natural gas prices are at record levels and the highest of any industrialized country. High natural gas prices are threatening our jobs, our farms, and hurting Americans who are trying to heat and cool their homes. Only an ambitious, comprehensive approach that both increases supply and controls demand can lower the price of natural gas and keep our growing economic recovery from becoming recent history.

This is not a question of tweaking our natural gas policy. It is time to aggressively revamp it. We need aggressive conservation, aggressive use of alternative fuels, aggressive research and development, aggressive production and for the time being, aggressive imports of liquefied natural gas.

Aggressive conservation, for example, means setting stronger appliance and equipment standards for natural gas efficiency so that a commercial air conditioner will cool the same while using less natural gas to do it.

Aggressive use of alternative fuels, for example, means fully commercializing coal gasification, starting with support for the deployment of six coal gasification plants by 2013. Coal gasification means that you burn coal to produce power but get the much lower pollution output of using natural gas.

Aggressive research and development includes investment in research of gas hydrates. Methane hydrates hold tremendous potential to provide abundant supplies of natural gas. Hydrates are ice-like solid structures consisting of water and gases, mainly methane, compressed to greater than normal densities. Coastal U.S. areas are rich in this resource. The U.S. is estimated to contain one-fourth of the world's supply.

Aggressive production means, among other changes, allowing states to selectively waive the federal moratoria on off-shore production and collect significant revenues from such production.

And aggressive importation of liquefied natural gas starts with giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exclusive authority for siting and regulating LNG terminals, while still preserving states' authorities under the Coastal Zone Management Act and other acts.

In March 2002, Secretary of Energy Abraham requested that the National Petroleum Council undertake an extensive study on the natural gas crisis.

That council, a Federal advisory committee to the Secretary of Energy, produced in late 2003 one of the most extensive policy studies and recommendations on the natural gas crisis to date. Since that time, other prominent groups, such as the National Commission on Energy Policy, have also produced extensive studies on the natural gas crisis. In October 2004, I held a roundtable on the impact of soaring natural gas prices on Tennessee farmers and jobs. The Senate Energy Committee has held numerous hearings over the last 2 years and recently held an extensive natural gas roundtable on the subject on January 24, 2005. Over 100 proposals were submitted to the Senate Energy Committee on natural gas issues.

The conclusion of all of these forums has been clear.

High natural gas prices are threatening our country's economic competitiveness and costing us jobs. For example, high natural gas prices have been the equivalent of a 10 percent pay cut to American farmers.

The situation is urgent.

There are no silver bullets. We cannot conserve our way out of this problem, nor can we drill our way out of this problem. We will need to be aggressive on all fronts, in order to keep our industries competitive.

High natural gas costs are also tied to high oil prices. We need to address both natural gas and oil prices in order to lower natural gas costs.

Our country has contradictory policies on natural gas--on one hand, we encourage its use. On the other hand, we limit access to its supply. We need to amend our contradictory natural gas and environmental policies.

That's why I am introducing the ``Natural Gas Price Reduction Act.'' It is an aggressive, bold approach to tackle this issue. This 250-page legislation is an attempt to start a very difficult, but balanced, legislative discussion in the United States Senate on natural gas prices. I have taken the best ideas that I have heard in these roundtable discussions and from the various policy studies. I have met with hundreds of people in the past year discussing natural gas prices. This legislation is an attempt to be more aggressive on all areas impacting natural gas prices--energy efficiency and fuel diversity, natural gas supply, and improved infrastructure for importation of liquefied natural gas.

Half our Nation's increase in natural gas demand in the last decade has come from the power sector. So to conserve natural gas, one must not only reduce consumption of gas itself, but also of electricity. And, as I noted, since oil prices affect natural gas prices, conserving oil is also important. My bill addresses conservation in five ways.

The bill creates a 4-year national consumer education program on the urgent need for energy conservation. A statewide California effort to educate energy consumers resulted in savings of 10 percent at peak usage--the equivalent of five-and-a-half 1,000 Megawatt coal-powered power plants. My bill aims to take that effort to the entire nation.

The legislation sets higher appliance and equipment standards for natural gas efficiency. These standards have been negotiated between consumer and industry representatives and are codified in the bill. For example, the standards would require a new kitchen oven to produce the same heat while using less natural gas to do it. The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy estimates that these standards will reduce natural gas use by about 125 BCF in 2010 and 525 BCF in 2020. In addition these standards will reduce peak electric demand by about 33,500 MW in 2020, equivalent to 34 coal power plants of 1000 MW each, and will save consumers and businesses more than $60 billion.

The bill creates tax incentives and provides regulatory relief to enable manufacturing facilities to more easily produce their own power and steam from a single source--a process called cogeneration or CHP which saves money and energy while also reducing pollutants. A CHP system can produce the same electrical and thermal output at 75 percent fuel conversion efficiency as compared to 49 percent separate steam and power. This is a 50 percent gain in overall efficiency, resulting in a 35 percent fuel savings. Large industrial plants, such as International Paper, Alcoa and Eastman in my home State of Tennessee all use cogeneration in their manufacturing processes. More companies could do the same, and the bill particularly focuses on providing incentive for smaller cogeneration projects.

The Alexander bill provides incentive for public utilities to utilize their natural gas plants based on efficiency. The process of activating different power plants to meet demand during a given day is called ``dispatching.'' For example, on a hot summer day in Tennessee, the demand for electricity, for air conditioning, might be highest in the early afternoon, so then a power company would have to dispatch the most power plants to provide the energy. But during the cooler night, they might dispatch less plants since less power is needed. If power companies dispatched their most efficient plants first, this would save us a significant amount of natural gas. As you can see, the highest saving will be in the medium-term--2010-2015--but real savings continue for many years.

Our reliance on foreign oil is the silent elephant in the room when it comes to high natural gas prices. My legislation includes a provision that requires the President report to Congress annually on efforts to reduce U.S. dependence on imported petroleum 1.75 million barrels a day from projected 2013 levels, almost 10 percent. As I noted earlier, oil and gas are usually produced together; and, typically, there is a 6:1 ratio between natural gas and oil prices. Reducing dependence on foreign oil will help bring natural gas prices down.

Conservation of natural gas and related energy sources is critical to lowering prices and keeping our manufacturing and farming jobs here in the United States. But conservation alone is not enough. The second focus must be to develop alternative sources of energy. The ``Keep Manufacturing and Farming Jobs in the United States Act'' encourages the use of three alternative fuels:

The bill initiates a national coal gasification strategy. Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, TN, has been using coal gasification with a 95% availability factor for the past 20 years. Tampa Electric has successfully demonstrated large-scale coal gasification. It is time for this process to be more widely used. Coal gasification is a process whereby gas derived from burning coal is used as a source of energy or a raw material. When used in a power plant, coal gasification means that you burn coal but get the much lower pollution output of using natural gas. My legislation provides up to $2 billion in tax or other incentives to support the construction of six new coal gasification power plants. Similarly, the legislation provides up to $2 billion in assistance for industrial gasification projects. The bill also provides streamlined permitting for coal gasification facilities. Coal is an abundant resource in the United States; we should use it to produce clean energy and raw material for industrial applications.

Solar energy is another clean, alternative fuel source that could be developed further. Solar energy can be used directly for heating as well as to create electricity. To push an aggressive solar energy strategy, the Alexander legislation provides tax incentives for investment in solar power generation. Specifically, it provides businesses a tax credit for investing in geothermal or solar heating and/or power generation--10 percent heating, 25 percent for generating or displacing electricity.

My bill also contains language to invest in new technologies to use hydrogen to power fuel cell vehicles. The language in this bill mirrors language I offered in the last session of Congress on the Energy Bill that would have enacted President Bush's Hydrogenl/Fuel Cell Initiative. When I visited Japan last year, I visited a hydrogen fuel station--that looked much like a gas station--and saw fuel cell vehicles that range from small cars to SUVs. These cars not only allow us to use an alternative fuel source but are also great for the environment--their only byproduct is water vapor. The bill invests in research and development of technologies and infrastructure for 2 hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles.

Methane hydrates hold tremendous potential to provide abundant supplies of natural gas. Hydrates are ice-like solid structures consisting of water and

gases--mainly methane--compressed to greater than normal densities. Coastal US areas are rich in this resource--the U.S. is estimated to contain one-fourth of the world's supply. My bill invests $200 million over the next 4 years in research for this promising new resource, a number consistent with recommendations from the National Commission on Energy Policy.

Conserving natural gas and using alternative fuels will take us a long way to reducing gas prices and keeping jobs here in the U.S., but we must also address the other side of the equation: supply. As Energy Committee members learned at our Natural Gas Roundtable, our current policy encourages consumption of natural gas while restricting the supply. We need to stop putting unnecessary restrictions on production and supply of natural gas, and my legislation does so by addressing production off-shore and in the Rocky Mountains as well as the importation of liquid natural gas from abroad.

We have plenty of natural gas here in the U.S., we just cannot get to it. There are large fields off the coasts, especially the Atlantic, and in the Rocky Mountains. There is no reason for natural gas prices here in the U.S. to be so high when we have so much available here--if only we would use it.

Today, there are two moratoria on our outer continental shelf, OCS--a congressional moratorium and a Presidential moratorium. The Atlantic Coast--40 miles off the coast is believed to be largely natural gas- prone. The Pacific Coast is believed--to be mainly oil-prone. The Gulf of Mexico is both. Today, when production is greater than 9 miles offshore, a State that has oil and gas production gets zero percent of the production revenues. This is radically different than onshore production; on Federal lands, States get 50 percent of the production revenues. Alaska gets 90 percent of the production revenues. In order to have a constructive dialogue on OCS production, the right framework needs to be established.

My legislation provides the Department of the Interior with the legal authority to issue natural gas only leases. Currently, Interior can only issue combination gas and oil leases. Since there is greater hesitation about the environmental impact of producing oil off-shore, issuing natural gas-only leases may alleviate some concerns.

It also instructs the Secretary of the Interior to draw the state boundary between Alabama and Florida regarding Lease 181--a disputed area off the coast of both states in the Gulf of Mexico in which Alabama may wish to permit production while Florida may not. The boundaries shall be drawn using established international law. Under my bill, portions of Lease 181, which are not in the state of Florida and greater than 30 miles off of the coast of Alabama, shall be leased by December 31, 2007. However, of those portions of Lease 181 that are in the State of Florida, the State of Florida may keep the moratoria. Leasing would not be allowed to interfere with U.S. military operations in the Gulf Coast.

Finally, under the bill, States will have the authority to request studies of natural gas resources off their coasts and be permitted to waive Federal moratoria on offshore production. The states shall not have the authority to lift the moratoria at National Marine Sanctuaries or National Wildlife Refuge Area. The State of Virginia recently engaged on this issue, and the state ought to have the ability to license off-shore production--especially if it is far enough off-shore that you cannot even see it from land. My bill also allows States to collect significant revenue from such production, and designates that a portion of revenues also go to a conservation royalty. The conservation royalty would be shared equally by the Federal land and water conservation fund, state land and water conservation fund and wildlife grants.

Importing liquefied natural gas--LNG--requires the infrastructure to receive it. LNG comes to the U.S. by ship, and terminals to receive these ships and unload LNG must be built and appropriate infrastructure developed to transport gas from those terminals to users across the country.

My bill streamlines the development of offshore liquefied natural gas terminals. The siting of LNG terminals has become a difficult issue since we all want cheaper natural gas, but no one seems to want an LNG terminal in ``their backyard.'' The Alexander legislation gives FERC clear authority for regulating liquid natural gas terminals, but, unlike a related House bill, still preserves States' authorities under the Coastal Zone Management Act and other acts. I hope this will provide some balance so that LNG terminals can be sited, but environmental concerns will play a significant role in choosing their sites. In an effort to speed the siting of pipelines that allow natural gas to reach all parts of the country, the bill also requires that FERC grant or deny a terminal or pipeline application within one year.

Our country is facing an energy crisis. We are consuming more and more electricity. Gasoline prices are poised to reach all time highs. The price of oil is up. And so, too, is the price of natural gas.

The bill I introduce today, the ``Natural Gas Price Reduction Act,'' addresses high natural gas prices. Natural gas is not just used for heating homes, a source of electricity, it is a raw material for industries, and it is an important component in fertilizers used by farmers. High natural gas prices have cost farmers a 10-percent pay cut and are shipping manufacturing and chemical jobs overseas. We can not afford to let this problem fester any longer.

Bold action is required, and that is what my legislation provides. This bill takes a comprehensive approach to addressing the problem by encouraging conservation, developing alternative fuel sources, and reducing roadblocks to the production and importation of natural gas. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Madam President, we have several pages of amendments that are out there. We repeat our invitation on behalf of myself and Senator Jeffords. We want to invite all Democrats and Republicans who have amendments to the highway bill to bring them down. It is going to get crowded later as we go on. Now we have time for adequate consideration, for deliberation, and we encourage Members to bring their amendments to the floor.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first I say to the Senator from Colorado, we miss him on the committee. He was an excellent member of the committee. However, he was replaced by some excellent freshmen who are as enthusiastic as was the Senator from Colorado. While we miss him on the committee, it is still a great committee, and we certainly appreciate very much the comments he made this morning and the contributions he has made to the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Mr. President, it is my understanding the regular order is the amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana. He has agreed to set his amendment aside for the consideration of other amendments as they come to the floor, with the understanding he will regain the floor after those amendments are considered and action taken, if action is taken.

We do have an amendment from the chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation, Senator Bond, who has worked tirelessly for years on this bill. I am sure he wants to offer it at this time.

I thank the Senator from Virginia. I serve on the Armed Services Committee under his capable leadership. He chairs that committee. He is also the longest serving member of the committee that I chair, Environment and Public Works. It is very rare that I would oppose something he is in favor of. This might be that exception. But let me give him our assurance that nothing is going to happen to dispose of this amendment until he has adequate time to complete his hearing and come down and be heard on this amendment.

Mr. President, we have talked about this issue several times before. The distinguished Senator from Virginia has very strong beliefs. Those beliefs are shared by the ranking minority member and by several members of our committee. This amendment was added in committee. It is one I voted against at the time. I did oppose it. However, I know there are very strong feelings about it and I want to make sure everybody gets to be heard, and I am sure we will end up with a rollcall vote. I would only make a couple of comments.

There are flexible provisions in the underlying bill that will help States address their storm water needs and maintain their ability to determine how to spend these limited dollars. For that reason I had felt a mandatory 2-percent set-aside in this bill was not necessary.

Currently, States are allowed to use their STP funds for environmental enhancements which include a variety of projects, including storm water mitigation. Our bill gives States the option to use STP and NHS money for storm water mitigation. Our bill allows those States that wish to use highway money to address storm water runoff and help communities comply with phase 1 and 2 on clean water runoff to do so.

I think probably one of the reasons for my opposition to this is I spent 4 terms as mayor of a major city, Tulsa, OK. I have always been a strong believer that the closer you get to home, the better the decisions are. In other words, the idea that somehow Washington knows more about my State of Oklahoma than the people in my State of Oklahoma is something I have disagreed with.

If this amendment should be agreed to and the bill should become law, if we in the State of Oklahoma want to spend 2 percent or even more of our money for this purpose, we can do it. But if we have other priorities that are greater, as determined by those of us in Oklahoma, then I think that should take precedence.

For that reason I will respectfully support this amendment. I am sure there will be more discussion on it later on.

I am sure the ranking minority member will agree with me, we do not want to do anything further other than hear debate until Senator Warner, whose provision it was that was put in the bill in committee, has ample time to debate it and to come to the floor and try to work out any compromises he may be successful in working out with the author of the amendment, Senator Bond.

With that, let me renew our appeal to Members to come down with their amendments. I am glad we are finally getting some activity here, some amendments coming down. It is very important we move on with this bill. We have several pages of amendments. I know a lot of these amendments are going to be agreed to in a managers' amendment we will be propounding before too long. There are some that will have to be fought out on the floor. It is my desire, and I am sure the desire of the ranking minority member, that we get on with these amendments. I have been here long enough to know what is going to happen. We are going to have all day today to handle amendments, and tomorrow. People are not going to bring them down. Then when something happens or when cloture is filed, everyone is going to get hysterical and say, Why didn't I have time to offer my amendment?

You may not have time. We are serving warning to you right now, that could happen. Now there is time and we encourage you to come down. This amendment under discussion now, which the Senator from Indiana has graciously set aside--it is his amendment--is one that will be controversial and I suspect there will be many members on the minority side of our committee who want to be heard. I think they were unanimous in supporting Senator Warner in the committee at that time.

We hope those people will come down and get the debate out of the way so we can proceed with this amendment and with any other amendments that come to the floor. Let's keep in mind, as I said yesterday on more than one occasion, what will happen if we are not successful in getting this bill passed. We are on our sixth extension. The extensions do not work. Our money is not well spent. People are dying on the highways. There are things that are happening that will not happen unless we pass this bill. Without an extension there is not going to be any chance to improve the donor status. My State is a donor State. I remember when it was 75 percent as a guarantee to come back to the States for money paid into the highway trust fund, revenues that were collected in my State of Oklahoma. Now it is up to 90.5 percent. If we had been successful with the bill last year, it would have been 95 percent.

Senator Jeffords and I did everything we could to get our bill passed. We are going to try to make that happen this time. But for those States that are concerned about their donor status, they better be lining up and supporting this. We do not know in conference what is going to come out in terms of a number, but we do know this: Donor status of 90.5 percent will at least go up to 91 or 92 percent. So they are going to be better off, but not if we operate on an extension. If we operate on an extension, we are not going to have any new safety core programs.

They call this SAFETEA. I know there is an effort by the chairman of the committee in the other body to rename it TEALU. I do not have a real problem with that. But it is a safety bill. We have many safety provisions, core programs that respond to the thousands of deaths each year on our roadways. If we go on extensions, we are not going to make any of these safety provisions a reality.

If we go on extensions instead of a bill, there is not going to be any new streamlining. In fact, some of the current obstacles in helping us to get roads built and bridges improved can be corrected, but they can only be corrected if we are able to pass this bill. If we operate on extensions, there is no increased ability to use innovative financing, thereby giving the States more tools.

This is something that is so important. Ever since the Eisenhower administration, we haven't changed the way we fund our road program. There are a lot of ideas out there where we could use the public- private partnership to build more roads and bridges. In fact, we have in this bill a provision that establishes a commission to study various ways, innovative ways to change the way we finance our roads, highways, bridges, and infrastructure in America. But if we are on an extension, if we do not pass this bill, we are not going to be able to do that.

We have one provision in here, Safe Routes to School, which is one I felt strongly about, but I was not the leader on it. There are several on our committee as well as over on the House side. As I recall, this is one of the programs Congressman Oberstar felt very strongly about. If we operate on an extension, we are not going to have the Safe Routes to School Program. We could have deaths of young people as a result of our failure to act. That is why this is so important.

Certainty in planning: On an extension, there is no certainty. You think we are going to get the same amount of money that was already authorized previously, but nothing else has changed. We don't know what is going to happen next year. We don't know whether we are going to have a bill that will be passed a month from now or 2 months from now or a year from now. Therefore, there is no long-range planning that can take place.

I served in the State legislature in Oklahoma many years ago. I know when you start planning for the future

you have to plan for your contract season. It is not as severe in Oklahoma as it is in Vermont or some of the Northern States, but certainly these things have to be considered. We have to have our labor supply ready to absorb, to be able to accommodate a heavy schedule of construction, so we need to be able to plan for that.

In this bill we have a border program, Borders and Corridors. It is very important we do these to accommodate the States such as Texas, California, Arizona, and other border States along the northern border, to help them out with that program. Without this bill we are not going to be able to do that.

There are chokepoints. A lot of people think of the highway bill as just highways. This is intermodal transportation. It affects railroad crossings. Our State of Oklahoma is a State that has a channel. It comes all the way to my town of Tulsa, OK. A lot of people don't know that. We know there are chokepoints where barge traffic will come up; it will go to rail traffic; it will go to truck traffic. This bill addresses intermodal transportation and eliminates chokepoints.

Finally, we have the firewalls. What has bothered me more over the years than anything else I can think of is how people will raid trust funds. Politicians in State legislatures--it has happened here in Washington--when no one is looking and there is a large surplus in some trust fund, what do they do with a large surplus, I ask Senator Jeffords? They run in there and they raid it. Consequently there are no real protections under an extension. But we do have protections in the bill that is before you.

I have every confidence--I don't want to sound as though I am doubting whether we are going to have a bill. But we need to pass it in time to get it to conference, back from conference, get it voted on, and in law by May 31. That is getting very close.

In the Senate we will be going into a recess next week. We will not be here for 7 days. It is my expectation as soon as we get back, we will be in a position to finish this bill, get it to conference, and meet this deadline.

I know I speak on behalf of our minority member, the ranking member, the Democratic member on the committee, Senator Jeffords, in urging people to come down and offer their amendments.

The Senator and I know they are up there right now. Come on down.

Mr. President, I agree wholeheartedly with the comments made by the ranking member, Senator Jeffords. It is interesting when he reads off the list of people anxious for a bill.

In the case of Oklahoma, when I was mayor of the city of Tulsa, we were interested in being able to plan ahead. We have our Council of Governments saying they need to have it. We have our State department of transportation that says they are going to miss their construction season. We have to get it done.

While Senator Jeffords and I many times philosophically disagree, the fact we agree so much on getting this bill completed speaks well of what we are trying to do. It demonstrates the broad base of support. I don't have any doubt we will be able to get passage. The problem is if we do not get the amendments for consideration, it will be a logjam when we return from recess and could very well be a problem in meeting our deadline of May 31. That is what we need to focus on.

We are in agreement on most of the provisions. There is some disagreement on the formula. Formulas are always a problem. I have been very happy about the way the Senate has done this. After having spent 8 years in the other body and serving on the Transportation Committee of the House of Representatives, I remember meetings we had. I don't say this in a critical way, but they operate on the basis of projects. We do, too, except the difference is we talk about formulas and try to be as equitable as possible and let the States determine their projects.

It gets back to the argument, who is in a better position to know the needs of my constituents in the State of Oklahoma? Is it Washington or our transportation commissioners responsible to the State legislature and the needs in the State?

Some people say in an expensive bill, there is pork. There is no pork in the bill. There are only two projects in the entire bill. People need to understand that.

This will change to some degree when we get to conference because it has to be agreed to by a majority of the conferees on the House, as well as a majority of the conferees from the Senate. To devise a formula that no one will disagree with is absolutely impossible. The only choice we have if we look for unanimity in approving a formula would be to have Senator Jeffords and me go to 60 Senators and say we will take care of you and we will forget about the other 40. We would have a bill and do it and it would be perfectly legitimate and not unethical.

We take into consideration the Interstate Maintenance Program. It varies from State to State. We take into consideration the National Highway System, the lane miles, the principal arteries, excluding the interstate VMT on principal arteries, excluding the interstate diesel fuel used on highways, and total lane miles on principal arteries divided by population. All these things have gone into the formula.

The Surface Transportation Program, which we have talked about, is part of the consideration in terms of total lane miles.

The Highway Bridge Replacement Rehabilitation Program I am particularly sensitive to because Oklahoma ranks last in terms of the condition of bridges. These things have to be considered.

The Recreation Trails Program varies from State to State. There has to be something in a formula that will take into consideration these programs.

Border planning and operations: Since the passage of NAFTA and now they are considering CAFTA, there are unusual situations taking place from State to State. We have low-income States. My State, Oklahoma, is a low-income State. We have low-population States such as Wyoming, Montana, and

some of the States where they still have to have roads, but they do not have the number of people so that has to be part of the consideration and part of a formula.

They have low-population density States, high-fatality States. Some States have higher fatalities than other States. That has to be taken into consideration.

All these things--donor status, donee status--all are important. But the bottom line is, I can take all 12 or 14 factors and put them into a formula program. I can find areas where Oklahoma is not considered as well as Texas or as Vermont. I can find factors that treat Vermont worse than they treat Montana or some of the other States. If someone is looking to be ahead on all factors, there is not 1 of 50 States that can say they are.

I ask our Members to consider that. Formulas consider a lot of things. We have done a good job with the approach we have. It is a harder approach to take than the approach the other body uses. It is easier for them to get a bill on and off the floor. Timing is important. There is not a Member of this Senate who does not agree we need to get a bill passed.

Members may not like the bill as it is. Come on down with amendments. We are waiting for you. We invite Members.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, while we are again encouraging people to bring amendments down to the floor, I would like to make some comments on a statement that was made yesterday that affects our committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Yesterday evening, the junior Senator from Delaware discussed his hold on Stephen Johnson's nomination to be Administrator of the EPA. His main complaint about Steve Johnson is about a lack of technical data from EPA on Clear Skies. We are talking about the Clear Skies legislation we considered in our committee that the administration has come forth with.

But there has been no lack of technical data. The EPA has provided the Environment and Public Works Committee with over 10,000 pages of modeling on costs, job impacts, fuel switching, air quality, and deaths avoided for the various multi-emissions proposals.

This information provides extensive detail about the impacts on the Nation as a whole, regions, and individual States. Claims that EPA did not supply sufficient information to make an informed decision simply do not have any credibility.

In fact, this is in direct contrast to 2002, when then-Chairman Jeffords--I have been making all kinds of complimentary remarks about the ranking member, Senator Jeffords. Back in 2002, Senator Jeffords was the chairman and I was the ranking member. He came forth with something he had very strong feelings about, and that was the Clean Power Act. When he marked it up, we had less than 1 week to review a 53-page bill, without any modeling information whatsoever. Let me repeat that: less than 1 week to mark up a 53-page bill, which was substituted for the original 5-page bill. I do not say that critically because we did it. Nonetheless, we did it without the information I believed was necessary at that time. We did not have information.

In addition, the quality of information in 1990--this is back when we considered the Clean Air Act Amendments--paled in comparison to what the executive branch has been able to produce for us using today's more sophisticated models run on powerful supercomputers. The committee had far more information about the impacts of the Clear Skies legislation than the entire Senate had in 1990 during the debate on the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990.

Now, what has been particularly frustrating is that the EPA data request was used as a red herring to vote against Clear Skies. It is now being used as an excuse to oppose Steve Johnson. I do want to talk about Steve Johnson a minute because it is very unusual we have the opportunity to have a Director with the background of Mr. Johnson.

When we notified the minority last November 15 of our intentions of marking up the Clear Skies bill in February,

they never once raised the issue of needing more data from the EPA until after we delayed the first markup on February 16. Then they mentioned the need to get more data from the EPA almost as an afterthought.

When we offered to delay the markup 2 weeks, in order to negotiate a compromise, we were told they needed data from EPA, which would take 6 months to produce. This, of course, was after our committee already spent 5 years conducting 24 hearings on the topic. We were told, after all this committee work and the 10,000 pages of analysis, that the minority still needed more analysis before they would be willing to even begin negotiating.

Nevertheless, EPA has offered to spend considerable resources to analyze each of the multi-emission proposals using an identical methodology to guarantee that comparisons of the three bills are apples to apples. Yet the charge is being leveled that this offer still is not enough.

Last week, the EPA offered to conduct even more analysis to satisfy Senator Carper, offering detailed data on S. 131, the President's Clear Skies proposal; secondly, the Clear Skies manager's amendment from March 9, 2005--that was ours; S. 843, Senator Carper's Clean Air Planning Act; and, fourth, S. 150, Senator Jeffords' Clean Power Act.

The data would consist of the cost of each bill; the fuel mix for electricity production; Henry-Hub natural gas prices; average mine mouth coal prices; regional electricity prices; emission allowance prices; national and regional coal production; the response of electric generating facilities--for example, the capacity retrofitted with pollution control equipment; national and State-by-State emission levels for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury; the national aggregate CO2 emissions; public health and environmental provisions benefits of each bill, such as the total monetized health benefits, premature mortality benefits, and visibility benefits; and the effects of each bill on nonattainment areas--for example, for each current nonattainment area, EPA will list the counties in the area and project whether the area comes into attainment with ozone and particulate matter.

This is for all four pieces of legislation, not just one, everything that has been asked for. This was an unprecedented offer of information by the administration to the junior Senator from Delaware and, frankly, it is more information than I believe he needs in order to move forward on Clear Skies. This is in addition to the 10,000 pages of data the committee has already received. This information would take the staff of EPA 6 to 8 weeks to complete.

Unfortunately, even this offer is not enough. The junior Senator from Delaware is insisting on the same level of analysis that the administration conducted for the President's proposal, which would take a half a year. Strangely, he insists this would allow him to negotiate multiemissions legislation this spring.

This is a level of detail that no administration has ever conducted for a legislative proposal at this stage in the process and, quite frankly, a level of detail that is inappropriate to request. If the EPA were requested to conduct this type of analysis for every bill, we would have to double the size of the EPA, and all of their employees would be working full time on congressional requests. To suggest that a congressional committee needs this type of analysis before it can move on legislation is ridiculous.

In the history of the Clean Air Act, we have more and better quality data today than we have ever had in moving legislation, including the amendments of 1990. Those are the amendments that were so significant and have had such a positive effect on air quality. We have more data than we ever had in moving any environmental legislation.

This demand for data was an excuse for delaying the Clear Skies legislation and, quite frankly, it was an excuse to delay or obstruct Steve Johnson's nomination. This appears to be part of a larger strategy to obstruct this President's EPA nominees. Last Congress, Governor Leavitt's nomination hearing was first boycotted by the minority, then delayed for over 50 days. Today, Steve Johnson is also being obstructed.

For just a moment, I wish to say something about the nomination of Steve Johnson to be the next Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It is unfortunate we find ourselves in a position of having that nomination filibustered by the Democratic side. Mr. Johnson is not a partisan politician. In fact, he is neither a partisan nor a politician. I can't tell you right now whether he is a Democrat or Republican. I don't think it makes any difference.

Steve Johnson is a career EPA employee who has risen through the ranks under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He joined the EPA during the Carter administration and was promoted to senior management posts during the Clinton administration. He has also been confirmed twice by the Senate, both times without opposition. Stephen Johnson is not a partisan. He is also a scientist and, if confirmed, would be both the first scientist and first career EPA employee to serve as the head of the agency. We never had someone who has a scientific background as Administrator of the EPA, nor have we had anyone who has gone through the ranks of the EPA. There has never before been a nominee who has known this agency so well prior to becoming Administrator.

One of the big problems we have had with Administrators who are not familiar with the agency is when we have something that needs to be done, it takes them forever to sort through to find out where the bad guys and good guys are and where the reports are coming from. He already knows. He spent 24 years doing this.

He is trained in biology and pathology. After graduating from college, he worked for the Computer Sciences Corporation at the Goddard Space Flight Center and was signed to serve as a junior member of the launch support team for the first Synchronous Meteorological Satellite, SMS-1. He joined EPA during the Carter administration as a health scientist in the Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances. He left EPA briefly in 1982 to join a private lab and then returned in 1984 to EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances. Throughout the years Mr. Johnson climbed through the ranks, eventually being appointed to senior management positions by the Clinton administration, including Deputy Director of the Office of Pesticide Programs and the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator at that time.

I have to say I was there when this happened during the Clinton administration. I asked him a lot of serious questions, and I did not object to his nomination even though it was propounded by the Clinton administration.

In 2001, he was nominated by President Bush to serve as the Assistant Administrator for that program office. He was confirmed without opposition. Just last year when Mike Leavitt became Administrator he was nominated to the No. 2 spot at the agency. Once again, he was confirmed without any opposition.

Steve Johnson's qualifications are beyond question. The question is, why are we here fighting for cloture on not just a qualified nominee but a nominee who has been consistently promoted by both Democratic and Republican Presidents? I believe Jonathan Adler did a good job describing this nomination process when he wrote the following in the National Review:

President Bush's selection of Steven L. Johnson as

administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency was

universally praised in Washington, D.C. Democrats and

Republicans, environmental activists and industry lobbyists

all hailed the pick as a positive step for the troubled

agency. Stalwart conservative Sen. James Inhofe . . .

--that's me--

applauded the choice while the Environmental Working Group's

Ken Cook called it a ``spectacularly good appointment.'' The

era of good feelings did not last long, however. Once slated

for a quick and easy confirmation, Johnson is now the victim

of an old-fashioned political obstruction as Senate Democrats

again target the administration's environmental policies.

This isn't the first time in recent history that an EPA Administrator has been held up. In fact, that precedent was set the last time someone was nominated by this President. Governor Mike Leavitt was treated with equal courtesy as Steve Johnson. I know some, including the junior Senator from Delaware, are now saying: I supported Mike Leavitt and was there for him. But that is simply not accurate.

In fact, when the committee was scheduled to vote on the Leavitt nomination, the vote was boycotted by the Democrats. Not a single committee Democrat showed up, including the Senator from Delaware. It was part of the boycott.

The three Administrators previous to Mike Leavitt took an average of 8 days to confirm. Mike Leavitt's confirmation took 50 days, 50 days to confirm a Cabinet-level position for an individual who clearly is qualified.

So this is nothing new for a qualified EPA Administrator nominated by President Bush. It has been nearly a month that Steve Johnson has awaited confirmation. The time has come to confirm Mr. Johnson.

During the debate we will likely hear some negative comments about the President's record on the environment. What you hear from the Democrats will likely be a very distorted view. The facts are very plain, very easy to understand. By virtually every measure, under this President's stewardship, our air, our water, and our land are cleaner. We have a cleaner and healthier environment than we did prior to George W. Bush taking over as President. That is simply the simple truth.

Just to highlight a few of the actions by the President, he signed into law historic bipartisan legislation that has accelerated the cleanup of brownfields--all of the States are concerned about that-- better protecting public health, creating jobs, and revitalizing communities. George W. Bush is the first President ever to require the reduction of mercury emissions by powerplants. I can remember when there were full-page ads during the campaign saying that this President is lowering the emissions. There were no restrictions before he came in. He is the one who made the first reduction in our history. This President has imposed a mandatory 70-percent reduction in mercury emissions from these sources.

Just a year ago, the President announced an aggressive new national goal, moving beyond the policy of no net loss wetlands to a new policy of an actual net increase for wetlands each year. His Great Lakes Legacy Program will help to clean up one of the largest systems of freshwater on Earth, roughly 18 percent of the world's supply. His Clear Skies initiative would have reduced SOX, NOX and mercury emissions by 70 percent--the largest mandated reduction of any President in the history of America. It wasn't Bill Clinton. It was George W. Bush.

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary, the environment and our families are healthier because of George W. Bush. The facts don't lie.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, let me say to my good friend from Oregon that the leader is coming down to make a statement. Would he withhold his request until the leader gets here and makes his statement?

I object.

Mr. President, I seek recognition to introduce legislation that will give the public greater access to our Supreme Court. This bill requires the high Court to permit television coverage of its open sessions unless it decides by a vote of the majority of Justices that allowing such coverage in a particular case would violate the due process rights of one or more of the parties involved in the matter.

The purpose of this legislation is to open the Supreme Court doors so that more Americans can see the process by which the Court reaches critical decisions of law that affect this country and everyday Americans. Because the Supreme Court of the United States holds power to decide cutting-edge questions on public policy, thereby effectively becoming a virtual ``super legislature,'' the public has a right to know what the Supreme Court is doing. And that right would be substantially enhanced by televising the oral arguments of the Court so that the public can see and hear the issues presented to the Court. With this information, the public would have insight into key issues and be better equipped to understand the impact of the Court's decisions.

In a very fundamental sense, televising the Supreme Court has been implicitly recognized--perhaps even sanctioned--in a 1980 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States entitled Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia. In this case, the Supreme Court noted that a public trial belongs not only to the accused, but to the public and the press as well; and that people now acquire information on court procedures chiefly through the print and electronic media.

That decision, in referencing the electronic media, appears to anticipate televising court proceedings, although I do not mean to suggest that the Supreme Court is in agreement with this legislation. I should note that the Court could, on its own motion, televise its proceedings but has chosen not to do so, which presents, in my view, the necessity for legislating on this subject.

When I argued the case of the Navy Yard, Dalton v. Specter, back in 1994, the Court proceedings were illustrated by an artist's drawings. Now, however, the public gets a substantial portion, if not most, of its information from television and the internet. While many court proceedings are broadcast routinely on television, the public has little access to the most important and highest court in this country. The public must either rely on the print media, or stand in long lines outside the Supreme Court in Washington DC in order to get a brief glimpse of the open session from the public gallery.

Justice Felix Frankfurter perhaps anticipated the day when Supreme Court arguments would be televised when he said that he longed for a day when: The news media would cover the Supreme Court as thoroughly as it did the World Series, since the public confidence in the judiciary hinges on the

public's perception of it, and that perception necessarily hinges on the media's portrayal of the legal system.

When I spoke in favor of this legislation in September of 2000, I said, ``I do not expect a rush to judgment on this very complex proposition, but I do believe the day will come when the Supreme Court of the United States will be televised. That day will come, and it will be decisively in the public interest so the public will know the magnitude of what the Court is deciding and its role in our democratic process.'' Today, I believe the time has come and that this legislation is crucial to the public's awareness of Supreme Court proceedings and their impact on the daily lives of all Americans.

I pause to note that it was not until 1955 that the Supreme Court, under the leadership of Chief Justice Warren, first began permitting audio recordings of oral arguments. Between 1955 and 1993, there were apparently over 5,000 recorded arguments before the Supreme Court. That roughly translates to an average of about one hundred thirty two (132) arguments annually. But audio recordings are simply ill suited to capture the nuance of oral arguments and the sustained attention of the American citizenry. Nor is it any response that people who wish to see open sessions of the Supreme Court should come to the Capital and attend oral arguments. For, according to one source: Several million people each year visit Washington, D.C., and many thousands tour the White House and the Capital. But few have the chance to sit in the Supreme Court chamber and witness an entire oral argument. Most tourists are given just three minutes before they are shuttled out and a new group shuttled in. In cases that attract headlines, seats for the public are scarce and waiting lines are long. And the Court sits in open session less than two hundred hours each year. Television cameras and radio microphones are still banned from the chamber, and only a few hundred people at most can actually witness oral arguments. Protected by a marble wall from public access, the Supreme Court has long been the least understood of the three branches of our federal government.

In light of the increasing public desire for information, it seems untenable to continue excluding cameras from the courtroom of the Nation's highest court. As one legal commentator observes: An effective and legitimate way to satisfy America's curiosity about the Supreme Court's holdings, Justices, and modus operandi is to permit broadcast coverage of oral arguments and decision announcements from the courtroom itself.

Televised court proceedings better enable the public to understand the role of the Supreme Court and its impact on the key decisions of the day. Not only has the Supreme Court invalidated Congressional decisions where there is, in the views of many, simply a difference of opinion to what is preferable public policy, but the Court determines novel issues such as whether AIDS is a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, whether Congress can ban obscenity from the Internet, and whether states can impose term limits upon members of Congress. The current Court, like its predecessors, hands down decisions which vitally affect the lives of all Americans. Since the Court's historic 1803 decision, Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court has the final authority on issues of enormous importance from birth to death. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Court affirmed a Constitutional right to abortion in this country and struck down state statutes banning or severely restricting abortion during the first two trimesters on the grounds that they violated a right to privacy inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In the case of Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), the court refused to create a similar right to assisted suicide. Here the Court held that the Due Process Clause does not recognize a liberty interest that includes a right to commit suicide with another's assistance.

In the seventies, the Court first struck down then upheld state statutes imposing the death penalty for certain crimes. In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Court struck down Georgia's death penalty statute under the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment and stated that no death penalty law could pass constitutional muster unless it took aggravating and mitigating circumstances into account. This decision led Georgia and many states to amend their death penalty statutes and, four years later, in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), the Supreme Court upheld Georgia's amended death penalty statute.

Over the years, the Court has also played a major role in issues of war and peace. In its opinion in Scott v. Sanford (1857)--better known as the Dredd Scott decision--the Supreme Court held that Dredd Scott, a slave who had been taken into ``free'' territory by his owner, was nevertheless still a slave. The Court further held that Congress lacked the power to abolish slavery in certain territories, thereby invalidating the careful balance that had been worked out between the North and the South on the issue. Historians have noted that this opinion fanned the flames that led to the Civil War.

The Supreme Court has also ensured adherence to the Constitution during more recent conflicts. Prominent opponents of the Vietnam War repeatedly petitioned the Court to declare the Presidential action unconstitutional on the grounds that Congress had never given the President a declaration of war. The Court decided to leave this conflict in the political arena and repeatedly refused to grant writs of certiorari to hear these cases. This prompted Justice Douglas, sometimes accompanied by Justices Stewart and Harlan, to take the unusual step of writing lengthy dissents to the denials of cert.

In New York Times Co. v. United States (1971)--the so called ``Pentagon Papers'' case--the Court refused to grant the government prior restraint to prevent the New York Times from publishing leaked Defense Department documents which revealed damaging information about the Johnson Administration and the war effort. The publication of these documents by the New York Times is believed to have helped move public opinion against the war.

In its landmark civil rights opinions, the Supreme Court took the lead in effecting needed social change, helping us to address fundamental questions about our society in the courts rather than in the streets. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court struck down the principle of ``separate but equal'' education for blacks and whites and integrated public education in this country. This case was then followed by a series of civil rights cases which enforced the concept of integration and full equality for all citizens of this country, including Garner v. Louisiana, 1961, Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority, 1961, and Peterson v. City of Greenville, 1963.

In recent years Marbury, Dred Scott, Furman, New York Times, and Roe, familiar names in the lexicon of lawyerly discussions concerning watershed Supreme Court precedents, have been joined with similarly important cases like Hamdi, Rasul and Roper all cases that affect fundamental individual rights. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004, the Court concluded that although Congress authorized the detention of combatants, due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker. The Court reaffirmed the nation's commitment to constitutional principles even during times of war and uncertainty. Similarly, in Rasul v. Bush, 2004, the Court held that the federal habeas statute gave district courts jurisdiction to hear challenges of aliens held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in the U.S. War on Terrorism. Earlier this year in Roper v. Simmons, 2005, the Court held that executions of individuals who were under 18 years of age at the time of their capital crimes is prohibited by Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

In June of this year, the Supreme Court issued Kelo v. City of New London, 2005, a highly controversial opinion in which a majority of the justices held that a city's exercise of eminent domain power in furtherance of an economic development plan satisfied the Constitution's Fifth Amendment ``public use'' requirement despite the absence of any blight. Moreover, on June 27, 2005, the High Court issued two rulings regarding the public display of the Ten Commandments. Each opinion was backed by a different coalition of four, with Justice Breyer as the swing vote.

The only discernible rule seems to be that the Ten Commandments may be displayed outside a public courthouse, Van Orden v. Perry, but not inside (McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union) and may be displayed with other documents, but not alone. In Van Orden v. Perry, the Supreme Court permitted a display of the Ten Commandments to remain on the grounds outside the Texas State Capitol. However, in McCreary County v. ACLU, a bare majority of Supreme Court Justices ruled that two Kentucky counties violated the Establishment Clause by erecting displays of the Ten Commandments indoors for the purpose of advancing religion. While the multiple concurring and dissenting opinions in these cases serve to explain some of the confounding differences in outcomes, it would have been extraordinarily fruitful for the American public to watch the Justices as they grappled with these issues during oral arguments that, presumably, reveal much more of their deliberative processes than mere text.

Irrespective of ones view concerning the merits of these decisions, it is clear beyond cavil that they have a profound effect on the interplay between the government, on the one hand, and the individual on the other. So, it is with these watershed decisions in mind that I introduce legislation designed to make the Supreme Court less esoteric and more accessible to common men and women who are so clearly affected by its decisions.

When deciding issues of such great national import, the Supreme Court is rarely unanimous. In fact, a large number of seminal Supreme Court decisions have been reached through a vote of 5-4. Such a close margin reveals that these decisions are far from foregone conclusions distilled from the meaning of the Constitution and legal precedents. On the contrary, these major Supreme Court opinions embody critical decisions reached on the basis of the preferences and views of each individual justice. In a case that is decided by a vote of 5-4, an individual justice has the power by his or her vote to change the law of the land.

Some would argue that the Court has even played a significant role in deciding political contests as well. Who can forget the Court's dramatic decision in Bush v. Gore that enabled the country to move on from a bitterly fought presidential race. That decision, with its enormous repercussions for the Nation, cried out for greater public scrutiny of the process by which the Justices heard arguments and all but decided the fate of the 2000 presidential race.

Given the enormous significance of each vote cast by each Justice on the Supreme Court, televising the proceedings of the Supreme Court will allow sunlight to shine brightly on these proceedings and ensure greater public awareness and scrutiny.

In a democracy, the workings of the government at all levels should be open to public view. With respect to oral arguments, the more openness and the more real the opportunity for public observation the greater the understanding and trust. As the Supreme Court observed in the 1986 case of Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, ``People in an open society do not demand infallibility from their institutions, but it is difficult for them to accept what they are prohibited from observing.''

It was in this spirit that the House of Representatives opened its deliberations to meaningful public observation by allowing C-SPAN to begin televising debates in the House chamber in 1979. The Senate followed the House's lead in 1986 by voting to allow television coverage of the Senate floor.

Beyond this general policy preference for openness, however, there is a strong argument that the Constitution requires that television cameras be permitted in the Supreme Court.

It is well established that the Constitution guarantees access to judicial proceedings to the press and the public. In 1980, the Supreme Court relied on this tradition when it held in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia that the right of a public trial belongs not just to the accused, but to the public and the press as well. The Court noted that such openness has ``long been recognized as an indisputable attribute of an Anglo-American trial.''

Recognizing that in modern society most people cannot physically attend trials, the Court specifically addressed the need for access by members of the media: Instead of acquiring information about trials by first hand observation or by word of mouth from those who attended, people now acquire it chiefly through the print and electronic media. In a sense, this validates the media claim of acting as surrogates for the public. [Media presence] contributes to public understanding of the rule of law and to comprehension of the functioning of the entire criminal justice system.

To be sure, a strong argument can be made that forbidding television cameras in the court, while permitting access to print and other media, constitutes an impermissible discrimination against one type of media over another. In recent years, the Supreme Court and lower courts have repeatedly held that differential treatment of different media is impermissible under the First Amendment absent an overriding governmental interest. For example, in 1983 the Court invalidated discriminatory tax schemes imposed only upon certain types of media in Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Commissioner of Revenue. In the 1977 case of ABC v. Cuomo, the Second Circuit rejected the contention by the two candidates for mayor of New York that they could exclude some members of the media from their campaign headquarters by providing access through invitation only. The Court wrote that: Once there is a public function, public comment, and participation by some of the media, the First Amendment requires equal access to all of the media or the rights of the First Amendment would no longer be tenable.

In the 1965 case of Estes v. Texas, the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the denial of television coverage of trials violates the equal protection clause. In the same opinion, the Court held that the presence of television cameras in the Court had violated a Texas defendant's right to due process. Subsequent opinions have cast serious doubt upon the continuing relevance of both prongs of the Estes opinion.

In its 1981 opinion in Chandler v. Florida, the court recognized that Estes must be read narrowly in light of the state of television technology at that time. The television coverage of Estes' 1962 trial required cumbersome equipment, numerous additional microphones, yards of new cables, distracting lighting, and numerous technicians present in the courtroom. In contrast, the court noted, television coverage in 1980 can be achieved through the presence of one or two discreetly placed cameras without making any perceptible change in the atmosphere of the courtroom. Accordingly, the Court held that, despite Estes, the presence of television cameras in a Florida trial was not a violation of the rights of the defendants in that case. By the same logic, the holding in Estes that exclusion of television cameras from the courts did not violate the equal protection clause must be revisited in light of the dramatically different nature of television coverage today.

Given the strength of these arguments, it is not surprising that over the last two decades there has been a rapidly growing acceptance of cameras in American courtrooms which has reached almost every court except for the Supreme Court itself. Ironically, it was the Chandler decision which helped spur the spread of television cameras in the courts. Shortly after Chandler, the American Bar Association revised its canons to permit judges to authorize televising civil and criminal proceedings in their courts.

Following the green lights provided by the Supreme Court and the ABA, nearly all the States have decided to permit electronic coverage of at least some portion of their judicial proceedings. In 1990, the Federal Judicial Conference authorized a three-year pilot program allowing television coverage of civil proceedings in six federal district courts and two federal circuit courts. The program began in July, 1991, and ran through December 31, 1994. The Federal Judicial Center monitored the program and issued a positive final evaluation. In particular, the Judicial Center concluded that: Overall, attitudes of judges toward electronic media coverage of civil proceedings were initially neutral and became more favorable after experience under the pilot program.

The Judicial Center also concluded that: Judges and attorneys who had experience with electronic media coverage under the program generally reported observing small or no effects of camera presence on participants in the proceedings, courtroom decorum, or the administration of justice.

Despite this positive evaluation, the Judicial Conference voted in September 1994, to end the experiment and not to extend the camera coverage to all courts. This decision was made in the aftermath of the initial burst of television coverage of O.J. Simpson's pretrial hearing. Some have argued that the decision was unduly influenced by this outside event. In March 1996, the Judicial Conference revisited the issue of television cameras in the federal courts and voted to permit each Federal court of appeals to ``decide for itself whether to permit the taking of photographs and radio and television coverage of appellate arguments.'' Since that time, two circuit courts have enacted rules permitting television coverage of their arguments. It is significant to note that these two circuits were the two circuits which participated in the federal experiment with television cameras a few years earlier. It seems that once judges have an experience with cameras in their courtroom, they no longer oppose the idea.

On September 6, 2000, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts held a hearing titled ``Allowing Cameras and Electronic Media in the Courtroom.'' The primary focus of the hearing was Senate bill S. 721, legislation introduced by Senators Grassley and Schumer that would give Federal judges the discretion to allow television coverage of court proceedings. One of the witnesses at the hearing, Judge Edward Becker, Chief Judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, spoke in opposition to the legislation and the presence of television cameras in the courtroom. The remaining five witnesses, however, including a Federal judge, a State judge, a law professor and other legal experts, all testified in favor of the legislation. They argued that cameras in the courts would not disrupt proceedings but would provide the kind of accountability and access that is fundamental to our system of government.

In my judgment, Congress, with the concurrence of the President, or overriding his veto, has the authority to require the Supreme Court to televise its proceedings. Such a conclusion is not free from doubt and is highly likely to be tested with the Supreme Court, as usual, having the final word. As I see it, there is clearly no constitutional prohibition against such legislation.

Article 3 of the Constitution states that the judicial power of the United States shall be vested ``in one Supreme Court and such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.'' While the Constitution specifically creates the Supreme Court, it left it to Congress to determine how the Court would operate. For example, it was Congress that fixed the number of justices on the Supreme Court at nine. Likewise, it was Congress that decided that any six of these justices are sufficient to constitute a quorum of the Court. It was Congress that decided that the term of the Court shall commence on the first Monday in October of each year, and it was Congress that determined the procedures to be followed whenever the Chief Justice is unable to perform the duties of his office.

Beyond such basic structural and operational matters, Congress also controls more substantive aspects of the Supreme Court. Most importantly, it is Congress that in effect determines the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Although the Constitution itself sets out the appellate jurisdiction of the Court, it provides that such jurisdiction exist ``with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.'' In the early days of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Marshall, writing for the Court in Durousseau v. United States, recognized that the power to make exceptions to the Court's jurisdiction is the equivalent of the power to grant jurisdiction, since exceptions can be ``implied from the intent manifested by the affirmative description [of jurisdiction].''

The Supreme Court recognized the power of Congress to control its appellate jurisdiction in a dramatic way in the famous 1868 case of Ex Parte McCardle. In this case, McCardle, a newspaper editor, was being held in custody by the military for trial on charges stemming from the publication of articles alleged to be libelous and incendiary. McCardle petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The Court heard his case but, before it rendered its opinion, Congress repealed the statute that gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction to hear the habeas appeal. In light of this Congressional action, the Supreme Court felt compelled to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction.

Some objections have been raised to televised proceedings of the Supreme Court on the ground that it would subject justices to undue security risks. My own view is such concerns are vastly overstated. Well-known members of Congress, walk on a regular basis in public view in the Capitol complex. Other very well-known personalities, presidents, vice presidents, cabinet officers, all are on public view with even incumbent presidents exposed to risks as they mingle with the public. Such risks are minimal in my view given the relatively minor exposure that Supreme Court justices would undertake through television appearances.

As I explained earlier, the Supreme Court could, of course, permit television through its own rule but has decided not to do so. Congress should be circumspect and even hesitant to impose a rule mandating the televising of Supreme Court proceedings and should do so only in the face of compelling public policy reasons. The Supreme Court has such a dominant role in key decision-making functions that their proceedings ought to be better known to the public; and, in the absence of Court rule, public policy would be best served by enactment of legislation requiring the televising of Supreme Court proceedings.

This legislation embodies sound policy and will prove valuable to the public. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

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

There being no objective, the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the SIMPLE Cafeteria Plan Act of 2005'' to increase the access to quality, affordable health care for millions of small business owners and their employees. I am pleased that my good friend from Missouri, Senator Bond, as well as my good friend Senator Bingaman from New Mexico have agreed to co-sponsor this critical piece of legislation.

Regrettably, our Nation's healthcare system is in the midst of a crisis. Each year, more and more Americans are unable to purchase health insurance, and there are no signs that things are improving. As evidence, the United States Census Bureau estimates that nearly 47 million people did not have health insurance coverage for all of 2002. Sadly, this number rose from 41.2 million uninsured persons in 2001--a 14.6 percent increase.

As if these numbers on a national scale are not alarming enough, the results are even more troubling when we look specifically at the small business sector of our economy. Analysis conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonpartisan group dedicated to ensuring that all workers have access to affordable health care, suggests that the highest rates of uninsured occur among either self-employed workers or workers whose employer employees fewer than 25 persons. When compared to workers in firms that employ 1,000 or more employees, where just 12.6 percent of those workers do not have health insurance, it becomes clear that the majority of uninsured Americans work for small enterprises. Clearly, these numbers suggest that there is a direct correlation among those persons who do not have health insurance and the size of their employer.

The question, then, is why are our Nation's small businesses, which are our country's job creators and the true engine of our national economy, so disadvantaged when it comes to purchasing health insurance.

The main reason that small business owners are not able to offer their employees health insurance is because many small business owners are able to pay only a portion of their employees' health insurance premiums or, even worse, cannot afford to provide any health insurance or other employee benefits at all. As a result, many small business workers must acquire health insurance from the private sector rather than the work place--an unfair, and far more expensive alternative.

Clearly, we have a problem on our hands. While we can debate among ourselves why this crisis exists and how we ended up here, what is not open for debate is that we need to start identifying ways to fix the system because it is simply unconscionable to do nothing while more and more Americans find themselves without health care.

As you know, I re-introduced a bill earlier this year that will go a long ways towards improving the situation by creating Associated Health Plans for small businesses. In general, this bill would permit small businesses throughout the country to band together for purposes of obtaining an insurance quote from an insurance company. By pooling these businesses together, they would pay lower premiums because of the increased risk pool.

Again, this bill would increase the number of Americans that would be able to afford health insurance because their insurance premiums would be based on a more reasonable number. The bill I am introducing today builds upon this and goes a step further by putting more small business owners and their employees on a level playing field when compared to workers of a larger company.

Specifically, many large companies and even the Federal government enable their employees to purchase health insurance and other qualified benefits with taxfree dollars. Larger companies are able to do this by qualifying for certain employee benefit delivery mechanisms under the tax code.

One such delivery mechanism is a cafeteria plan. As the name suggests, cafeteria plans are programs whereby employers offer their employees the opportunity to purchase certain qualified benefits of their choosing. The key here is that the employer provides the opportunity for the employee to purchase the benefit, and the employee is then free to chose whether to participate and which benefits to buy. Under current law, qualified benefits include health insurance, dependent-care reimbursement, and life and disability insurance. Typically, employer contributions, employee contributions, or a combination of the two fund these plans.

Cafeteria plans offer valuable benefits to employees and are popular for many reasons. Specifically, they offer employees great flexibility in selecting their desired benefits while enabling them to disregard those benefits that do not fit their particular needs. Participating employees are also able to exclude any wages that they contribute to a cafeteria plan from their Federal taxable income, Social Security, and Medicare, which means they are using more valuable pre-tax dollars to buy these benefits. Moreover, the employees are usually purchasing these benefits at a lower cost because employers are oftentimes able to obtain a reduced price for the benefits through a group rate after they establish a cafeteria plan.

Cafeteria plans also provide employers with valuable benefits, most notably as a recruiting tool. It certainly stands to reason that if more small business owners are able to offer their employees the chance to enjoy a variety of employee benefits, these owners

then will be more likely to attract, recruit, and retain more talented workers, which will ultimately increase the firm's business output. Too often, we hear that small businesses loose skilled employees to larger companies simply because a big firm is able to offer a more attractive benefit package. Given that small businesses are responsible for a majority of the new jobs created in this country, we need to reverse that trend, and this bill will go a long way in rectifying this inequity.

Clearly, cafeteria plans play a critical role in our Nation's health care system and economy in general. The problem, though, is that in order for companies to qualify for the tax benefits that cafeteria plans provide, they must satisfy strict nondiscrimination rules under the tax code. These rules exist to ensure that the benefits offered to highly compensated employees are offered to non-highly compensated employees as well. The rules also strive to ensure that non-highly compensated employees in fact receive a substantial portion of the benefits provided under the plan.

Now I want to be clear when I say that these non-discrimination rules serve a legitimate purpose. Indeed, we need to be sure that employers are not able to game the tax system by implementing these cafeteria plans, and that the cafeteria plans that qualify for preferential tax treatment are used by a majority of the employees in the company.

However, what I find to be unacceptable is the way the tax code attempts to implement this policy under the existing rules. Currently, many small businesses simply cannot satisfy these mechanical rules because, through no fault of their own, they have relatively few employees and a high proportion of owners or highly compensated individuals. As such, were a small business to create a cafeteria plan and violate the non-discrimination rules, certain workers within the company would be subject to a penalty and would be required to include a substantial portion of their contributions in their taxable income.

Consequently, many small companies simply do not even bother to implement a cafeteria plan for fear that they will violate the non- discrimination rules. According to the Employer's Council on Flexible Compensation, while 38.36 million U.S. workers had access to cafeteria plans in 1999, only 19 percent of those workers were employees of small businesses.

To improve the current situation, the bill I am introducing today will allow and encourage more small businesses to offer employees the opportunity to purchase health insurance with tax-free dollars just as larger companies and the federal government do. My bill accomplishes this by creating a Simple Cafeteria Plan, which is modeled after the Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE) pension plan. As with the SIMPLE pension plan, a small business employer that is willing to make a minimum contribution for all employees or who is willing to match contributions will be permitted to waive the non-discrimination rules that currently prevent these owners from otherwise offering these benefits. This structure has worked extraordinarily well in the pension area with little risk of abuse, and I am confident that it will be just as successful when it comes to broad-based benefits offered through cafeteria plans.

Under the SIMPLE Cafeteria Plan, small companies will not have to struggle with satisfying the burdensome non-discrimination rules that often prevent them from offering valuable employee benefits to their workers. As a result, more small business employers will be able to provide their workers with the employee benefits that are often reserved for larger employers and that are otherwise unavailable because of the non-discrimination rules.

In addition my bill will expand the types of qualified benefits that will be able to be offered under ALL cafeteria plans--both those that qualify under existing law as well as the new SIMPLE cafeteria plans that will be created. Specifically, my bill modifies the rules governing benefits offered under cafeteria plans, such as flexible spending accounts and dependent-care assistance plans that many larger employers offer their employees. These modifications will increase the likelihood that employees of small businesses will utilize the available benefits and that will increase the benefits provided for all employees.

For example, current rules impose a ``use it or lose it'' requirement with respect to flexible spending arrangement contributions. This means that the employee forfeits any money he or she contributes to the account but does not use during the plan. My bill would change that rule and allow employees to carry over up to $500 remaining in their account to the next plan year. The bill would also permit employees to carry-over any unused funds to a retirement account such as a 401(k) plan.

In either case, any carried over contributions will reduce the amount that the employee otherwise would be able to contribute to the spending arrangement in the following year so that the carry-over option will not produce a greater dollar benefit for any employee. As a result, more employees are likely to participate in these spending arrangements because they will ultimately be able to use any funds that they contribute without any fear of forfeiting them simply because the funds were not used in the year of contribution.

Additionally, this legislation modifies rules that pertain to employer-provided, dependent-care assistance plans. First, it would increase the current $5,000 annual contribution limitation of these plans to $10,000 if the contributing employee claims two or more dependents on his or her tax return. This increase is significant because it will provide these taxpayers with an opportunity to care for not only their children but also an elderly family member who is a dependent of an employee--a scenario that will become increasingly more likely as the current baby-boomer generation continues to age.

Second, this bill would amend the current non-discrimination rules that dependent-care assistance plans must satisfy. As is often the case with the majority of small business owners who cannot, through any fault of their own, satisfy the non-discrimination rules for establishing a cafeteria plan, these rules often prevent the owner from offering this valuable benefit to their employees. To remedy this inequity, this bill would change the current mechanical thresholds such that more small businesses can provide dependent-care assistance plans to their employees but in a manner that does not encourage the type of abuse that the non-discrimination rules are intended to prevent.

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy. According to the Small Business Administration, small businesses represent 99 percent of all employers, employ 51 percent of the private-sector workforce, and contribute 51 percent of the private-sector output. It is therefore critical that small businesses owners are able to offer their employees the benefits that cafeteria plans provide so that more of our nation's workers have the opportunity to purchase quality healthcare and provide security for their families.

The ``SIMPLE Cafeteria Plan Act of 2005'' achieves those objectives, and it does so in a manner that the employers and employees are able to afford. Although the use of pre-tax dollars to acquire these benefits reduces current federal revenues, the opportunity to provide small business employees these same benefits to workers and their families rather than relying on the public sector more than justifies this minimal investment. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation as we work with you to enact this bill into law.

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

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce with Senators Durbin and Salazar a very important piece of legislation, ``The No Child Left Behind Reform Act.'' This legislation makes three basic changes to the No Child Left Behind Act which was signed into law in January of 2002.

The No Child Left Behind Act received the support of this Senator and eighty-six of our colleagues. Like most, if not all, of our colleagues who supported this bill, I supported it because I care about improving the quality of education in America for all of our children. I believed that this law would help to achieve that goal by establishing more rigorous standards for measuring student achievement, by helping teachers do a better job of instructing students, and last but not least, by providing the resources desperately needed by our schools for even the most basic necessities to help put the reforms we passed into place.

Regrettably, the high hopes that I and many others had for this law have not been realized. The law is being implemented by the Administration in a manner that is inflexible, unreasonable and unhelpful to students. Furthermore, the law is not only failing to help teachers do their best in the classroom, it also reflects, along with other Administration policies and pronouncements, a neglect and even hostility towards members of the teaching profession.

Worse still, the Administration's promise of sufficient resources to implement No Child Left Behind's much needed reforms is a promise that has yet to be kept. Indeed, the current budget proposed by the Bush Administration underfunds No Child Left Behind by $12 billion. Since passage three years ago, the law has been funded at a level that is more than $39 billion below what was promised when the President signed the Act into law.

As a result of the failures of the current Administration to fulfill its commitment to our nation's school children under this law, those children and their teachers are today shouldering new and noteworthy hardships. Throughout the State of Connecticut, for example, students, teachers, administrators and parents are struggling to implement requirements that are often confusing, inflexible and unrealistic. And they are struggling to do so without the additional resources they were promised to put them into place. According to a recent report put together by the Connecticut State Department of Education, through 2008, it will cost the State of Connecticut $41.6 million over and above what the Federal Government is going to supply to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Of that $41.6 million, $8 million will need to spent on testing alone. That is a significant amount of money--a significant amount of money that is going to fall on Connecticut taxpayers trying to simultaneously pay for their mortgage, basic health care and the rising cost of their children's tuition.

As I have said on numerous occasions in the past, resources without reforms are a waste of money. By the same token, reforms without resources are a false promise--a false promise that has left students and their teachers grappling with new burdens and little help to bear them.

The legislation I am introducing today proposes to make three changes to the No Child Left Behind Act. These changes will ease current burdens on our students, our teachers and our administrators without dismantling the fundamental underpinnings of the law.

First, the No Child Left Behind Reform Act will allow schools to be given credit for performing well on measures other than test scores when calculating student achievement. Test scores are an important measure of student knowledge. However, they are not the only measure. There are others. These include dropout rates, the number of students who participate in advanced placement courses, and individual student improvement over time. Unfortunately, current law does not allow schools to use these additional ways to gauge school success in a constructive manner. Additional measures can only be used to further indicate how a school is failing, not how a school is succeeding. This legislation will allow schools to earn credit for succeeding.

Second, the No Child Left Behind Reform Act will allow schools to target school choice and supplemental services to the students that actually demonstrate a need for them. As the current law is being implemented by the Administration, if a school is in need of improvement, it is expected to offer school choice and supplemental services to all students--even if not all students have demonstrated a need for them. That strikes me as a wasteful and imprecise way to help a school improve student performance. For that reason, this legislation will allow schools to target resources to the students that actually demonstrate that they need them. Clearly, this is the most efficient way to maximize their effect.

Finally, the No Child Left Behind Reform Act introduces a greater degree of reasonableness to the teacher certification process. As it is being implemented, the law requires teachers to be ``highly qualified'' to teach every subject that they teach. Certainly none of us disagree with this policy as a matter of principle. But as a matter of practice, it is causing confusion and hardship for teachers, particularly secondary teachers and teachers in small school districts. For example, as the law is being implemented by the Administration, a high school science teacher could be required to hold degrees in biology, physics and chemistry to be considered highly qualified. In small schools where there may be only one 7th or 8th grade teacher teaching all subjects, these teachers could similarly be required to hold degrees in every subject area.

Such requirements are unreasonable at a time when excellent teachers are increasingly hard to find. The legislation I introduce today will allow states to create a single assessment to cover multiple subjects for middle grade level teachers and allow states to issue a broad certification for science and social studies.

In my view, the changes I propose will provide significant assistance to schools struggling to comply with the No Child Left Behind law all across America. As time marches on and more deadlines set by this law approach--including additional testing, a highly qualified teacher in every classroom and 100% proficiency for all students--we have a responsibility to reassess the law and do what we can to make sure that it is implemented in a reasonable manner. In doing so, we must also preserve the basic tenets of the law--providing a world class education for all American students and closing the achievement gap across demographic and socioeconomic lines. Again, no child should left behind--no special education student, no English language learning student, no minority student and no low-income student. I stand by this commitment.

Obviously, funding this law is beyond the scope of this bill. I would note, however, that efforts to increase education funding to authorized levels have thus far been unsuccessful. Despite this, I remain committed to work to change this outcome as well. Clearly, our children deserve the resources

needed to make their dreams for a better education a reality.

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

Mr. PresIdent, I am pleased to rise today with Senators Snowe, Kennedy, Collins, Murray, Durbin, Clinton, Inouye, Levin, Lautenberg and Johnson to introduce legislation which would supply greatly needed support to college students struggling to balance their roles as parents with their roles as students. The Child Care Access Means Parents in School Act (CCAMPIS) would increase access to, support for, and retention of low-income, nontraditional students who are struggling to complete college degrees while caring for their children.

The typical college student is no longer an 18-year-old recent high school graduate. According to a 2002 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, only 27 percent of undergraduates meet the ``traditional'' undergraduate criteria of earning a high school diploma, enrolling full-time, depending on parents for financial support and not working or working part-time. This means that 73 percent of today's students are considered non-traditional in some way. Clearly, non-traditional students--older students, students with children and students with various job and life experiences--are filling the ranks of college classes. Why? Because they recognize the importance of college to future success. It is currently estimated that a full-time worker with a bachelor's degree earns about 60 percent more than a full-time worker with only a high school diploma. This amounts to a lifetime gap in earnings of more than $1 million.

Today's non-traditional students face barriers unheard of by traditional college students of earlier years. Many are parents and must provide for their children while in school. Access to affordable, quality and convenient child care is a necessity for these students. But obtaining the child care that they need is often difficult because of their limited income and non-traditional schedules, compounded by declining assistance for child care through other supports. Campus- based child care can fill the gap. It is conveniently located, available during the right hours, and of high quality and lower cost. Unfortunately, it is unavailable at many campuses. Even when programs do exist, they are often available to only a fraction of the eligible students. That is where the Dodd-Snowe CCAMPIS Act comes in.

The Dodd-Snowe CCAMPIS Act increases and expands the availability of campus-based child care in three ways. First, it raises the minimum grant amount from $10,000 to $30,000. For most institutions of higher education, $10,000 has proven too small relative to the cost and effort required to complete a federal application.

Second, the Dodd-Snowe CCAMPIS Act ensures that a wider range of students are able to access services. Present language defines low- income students as students eligible to receive a Federal Pell Grant. This language excludes graduate students, international students, and students who may be low-income but make slightly more than is allowed to qualify for Pell grants. CCAMPIS will open eligibility for these additional populations.

Third, the CCAMPIS Act raises the program's current authorization level from $45 million to $75 million so that we not only expand existing programs, but create new ones as well.

Research demonstrates that campus-based child care is of high quality and that it increases the educational success of both parents and students. Furthermore, recipients of campus-based child care assistance who are on public assistance are more likely to never return to welfare and to obtain jobs paying good wages.

Currently, there are approximately 1,850 campus-based child care programs but over 6,000 colleges and universities eligible to participate in the CCAMPIS program. Currently, CCAMPIS funds only 427 programs in states and the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, the number of non-traditional students across America is increasing. As these numbers increase, the need for campus-based child care will increase as well.

Just last week in Connecticut, I went to Eastern Connecticut State University where I met a number of students who would benefit from this legislation. One woman is attending part-time as an accounting major. She works as a restaurant supervisor and just gave birth to her first child. She is balancing work, family and school. Another woman is a junior social work major with two children. Having already received an associate's degree, she is now working towards a bachelor's degree to increase her competitiveness in the job market. A third woman is pursuing her second degree in physical and health education. A stay-at- home mom prior to re-enrolling, she has three children at home. These are the students that need our assistance--hard working parents trying to improve their lot in life for the good of their children.

This is a modest measure that will make a major difference to students. It will offer them new hope for starting and staying in school. I am hopeful that it can be considered and enacted as part of the Higher Education Act. I look forward to working with my colleagues to move this important measure forward.

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