Student Aid Reward Act of 2005

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Corps of Engineers Modernization and Improvement Act of 2005. I am pleased to be joined by the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain, who worked with me in the 107th and 108th Congresses to reform the Corps.

We cannot ignore the record-breaking deficits that the Nation faces. Fiscal responsibility has never been so important. This legislation provides Congress with a unique opportunity to underscore our commitment to that goal. Too often, some have suggested that fiscal responsibility and environmental protection are mutually exclusive. Through this legislation, however, we can save taxpayers billions of dollars and protect the environment. As evidence of this unique opportunity, this bill is supported by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the National Taxpayers Union, the National Wildlife Federation, American Rivers, the Corps Reform Network, and Earthjustice.

Reforming the Army Corps of Engineers will be a difficult task for Congress. It involves restoring credibility and accountability to a Federal agency rocked by scandals and constrained by endlessly growing authorizations and a gloomy Federal fiscal picture, and yet an agency that Wisconsin, and many other States across the country, have come to rely upon. From the Great Lakes to the mighty Mississippi, the Corps is involved in providing aid to navigation, environmental remediation, water control and a variety of other services in my state alone.

My office has strong working relationships with the Detroit, Rock Island, and St. Paul District Offices that service Wisconsin, and I want the fiscal and management cloud over the Corps to dissipate so that the Corps can continue to contribute to our environment and our economy.

This legislation evolved from my experience in seeking to offer an amendment to the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 to create independent review of Army Corps of Engineers' projects. In response to my initiative, the bill's managers, who included the former Senator from New Hampshire, Senator Bob Smith, and the senior Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus, adopted an amendment as part of their managers' package to require a National Academy of Sciences study on the issue of peer review of Corps projects.

The bill I introduce today includes many provisions that were included the bill I authored in the 108th Congress. It codifies the idea of independent review of the Corps, which was investigated through the 2000 Water Resources bill. It also provides a mechanism to speed up completion of construction for good Corps projects with large public benefits by deauthorizing low priority and economically wasteful projects.

I will note, however, that this is not the first time that the Congress has realized that the Corps needs to be reformed because of its association with pork projects. In 1836, a House Ways and Means Committee report discovered that at least 25 Corps projects were over budget. In its report, the Committee noted that Congress must ensure that the Corps institutes ``actual reform, in the further prosecution of public works.'' In 1902, Congress created a review board to determine whether Corps projects were justified. The review board was dismantled just over a decade ago, and the Corps is still linked with wasteful spending. Here we are, more than 100 years later, talking about the same issue.

The reality is that the underlying problem is not with the Corps, the problem is with Congress. All too often, Members of Congress have seen Corps projects as a way to bring home the bacon, rather than ensuring that taxpayers get the most bang for their Federal buck.

This bill puts forth bold, comprehensive reform measures. It modernizes the Corps project planning guidelines, which have not been updated since 1983. It requires the Corps to use sound science in estimating the costs and evaluating the needs for water resources projects. The bill clarifies that the national economic development and environmental protection are co-equal objectives of the Corps. Furthermore, the Corps must use current discount rates when determining the costs and benefits of projects. Several Corps projects are justified using a discount rate formula established over 30 years ago, not the current government-wide discount rate promulgated by the Office of Management and Budget. By using this outdated discount rate formula, the Corps often overestimates project benefits and underestimates project costs.

This legislation also requires that a water resource project's benefits must be 1.5 times greater than the costs to the taxpayer. According to a 2002 study of the Corps backlog of projects, at least 60 Corps projects, whose combined costs total $4.6 billion, do not meet this 1.5 to 1 benefit-cost ratio. Thus, this benefit-cost ratio will save the taxpayer billions of dollars. The bill also mandates federal- local cost sharing of flood control projects and reduces the federal cost burden of these projects.

While the bill assumes a flat 50 percent cost-share for flood control projects, my home state of Wisconsin has been on the forefront of responsible flood plain management and also happens to be home to the Association of State Flood Plain Managers. As Congress considers the issue of Corps reform and the Water Resources Development Act, I hope my colleagues will take a closer look at the issue of a sliding cost scale. We should explore the possibility of creating incentives for communities with cutting-edge flood plain management practices to reduce their local share for projects.

The bill requires independent review of Corps projects. The National Academy of Sciences, the General Accounting Office, and even the Inspector General of the Army agree that independent review is an essential step to assuring that each Corps project is economically justified. Independent review will apply to projects in the following circumstances: 1. the project

has costs greater than $25 million, including mitigation costs; 2. the Governor of a state that is affected by the project requests a panel; 3. the head of a federal agency charged with reviewing the project determines that the project is likely to have a significant adverse environmental or cultural impact; or 4. the Secretary of the Army determines that the project is controversial. Any party can request that the Secretary make a determination of whether the project is controversial.

This bill also creates a Director of Independent Review within the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of the Army. The Director is responsible for empaneling experts to review projects. The Secretary is required to respond to the panel's report and explain the extent to which a final report addresses the panel's concerns. The panel report and the underlying data that the Corps uses to justify the project will be made available to the public.

The bill also requires strong environmental protection measures. The Corps is required to mitigate the environmental impacts of its projects in a variety of ways, including by avoiding damaging wetlands in the first place and either holding other lands or constructing wetlands elsewhere when it cannot avoid destroying them. The Corps requires private developers to meet this standard when they construct projects as a condition of receiving a Federal permit, and I think the Federal Government should live up to the same standards. Too often, the Corps does not complete required mitigation and enhances environmental risks.

I feel very strongly that mitigation must be completed, that the true costs of mitigation should be accounted for in Corps projects, and that the public should be able to track the progress of mitigation projects. The bill requires the Corps to develop a detailed mitigation plan for each water resources project, and conduct monitoring to demonstrate that the mitigation is working. In addition, the concurrent mitigation requirements of this bill would actually reduce the total mitigation costs by ensuring the purchase of mitigation lands as soon as possible.

This bill streamlines the existing automatic deauthorization process. Estimates of the project backlog runs from $58 billion to $41 billion. The bill requires the Corps to conduct a fiscal transparency report to review and report on the current backlog of Corps projects. Under current law, a project will be deauthorized anywhere from 7.5 to 11.5 years after authorization for construction if it receives no funding, and any type of funding will keep the project alive. This bill reduces the amount of time until automatic deauthorization based on funding to between 7.5 to 6.5 years. After 4 years of receiving no construction funding, a project goes on the Fiscal Transparency Report list. To keep one of those projects alive, Federal funds must be obligated for construction within 30 months of submission of the Fiscal Transparency Report. If no funds are obligated during that time, the project is deauthorized.

This legislation will bring out comprehensive revision of the project review and authorization procedures at the Army Corps of Engineers. My goals for the Corps are to increase transparency and accountability, to ensure fiscal responsibility, and to allow greater stakeholder involvement in their projects. I remain committed to these goals, and to seeing Corps Reform enacted as part of this Congress's Water Resources bill.

I feel that this bill is an important step down the road to a reformed Corps of Engineers. This bill establishes a framework to catch mistakes by Corps planners, deter any potential bad behavior by Corps officials to justify questionable projects, end old unjustified projects, and provide planners desperately needed support against the never-ending pressure of project boosters. Those boosters include congressional interests, which is why I believe that this body needs to champion reform--to end the perception that Corps projects are all pork and no substance.

I wish it were the case that the changes we are proposing today were not needed, but unfortunately, there is still need for this bill. I want to make sure that future Corps projects no longer fail to produce predicted benefits, stop costing the taxpayers more than the Corps estimated, do not have unanticipated environmental impacts, and are built in an environmentally compatible way. This bill will help the Corps do a better job, which is what the taxpayers and the environment deserve.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing the International Clean Energy Deployment and Global Energy Markets Investment Act of 2005. This is a forward-thinking, made-in-America action plan that can serve as a building block that puts the right structure and mechanisms in place, mobilizes the necessary resources, and helps define the course we will have to take in order to better design the global energy system that will be built in coming decades. But let me also state up front what this legislation does not do. It is not intended to be a substitute for the need to seek globally binding climate change agreements that would include commitments from the largest industrial and developing country emitters of greenhouse gases. However, my legislation can serve as a meaningful first step to seriously engage developing countries in tackling the critical link between our mutual energy and climate change challenges. Additionally, such engagement can be a new cornerstone for the U.S. to demonstrate that we are committed to working with other nations on a broad range of international issues.

We must start by honestly addressing several bottom line issues. We know that the world's population will likely grow by about 50 percent during this century, and those people, most of whom will live in developing nations, will be seeking the necessary resources to live. These nations will be growing rapidly and their requirements for energy will follow suit for the foreseeable future. But at the same time, we know that growth needs to be undertaken in as clean and efficient a manner as possible. When economies heat up so does energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and that global change. How can any nation's economy continue to grow and provide good jobs in a way that does not undermine its environment and vice versa? How do we find ways to address these problems of mutual concern for our citizens and for their children and grandchildren? These issues matter as much in the United States as they do in places in China, India, Brazil, and Mexico.

This legislation's journey began several years when I included, in the fiscal year 2001 Energy and Water Appropriations bill, language that called for a clean energy exports and market development strategic plan. The Bush administration sent that report to Congress in October 2002. Since that time, I have been urging, cajoling, and pushing Federal agencies like the Department of State, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Agency for International Development to cooperate more and increase public/private efforts to help export U.S. clean energy technologies and open more of these markets abroad. It is now time to take the next step and introduce this legislation in order to expand upon that foundation.

By taking this next step, I am suggesting that we must work together to develop a broad-based action plan that builds on American ingenuity, encourages the export of made-in-America clean energy technologies, helps advance developing country climate change engagement, increases international sustainable development, and strengthens interagency and public/private cooperation. The objectives of this legislation further include efforts to increase access to clean and reliable energy services, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy security, and integrate these goals in a manner that is consistent with U.S. foreign policy interests around the world. Finally, my legislation essentially codifies and enhances the administrative structure that has already been put in place.

On a related but separate note, I am very aware that on February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol came into force. As the primary author of Senate Resolution 98, which passed unanimously in 1997, I worked to establish core principles which should be part of any future binding, international climate change agreement. Those principles were that a treaty should be cost effective and should include the participation of developing nations, especially the largest emitters. The Kyoto Protocol does not meet those principles for the United States.

There have been widely varying interpretations of that resolution, especially by the Bush administration. The Byrd-Hagel resolution was intended to guide our Nation's role in international negotiations, not kill that effort. It was meant to strengthen the hand of

any administration as it sat at the international negotiating table, but this White House has used the Senate's vote as an excuse to totally abandon the negotiations and offer, instead, only hollow alternatives. Yet, it is the height of hypocrisy for the Bush administration to claim that it is defending that resolution's principles when, as a matter of fact, it has disregarded its very purpose.

That Senate resolution directed that any climate change treaty include commitments for the developing world, like China and India, which will surpass the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. These commitments could lead to real reductions. An international treaty with binding commitments also could allow for developing countries' continued economic growth with relatively modest requirements at first, pacing upwards, with ultimate goals to be achieved over time.

Moreover, given their expected economic growth and energy demands, developing nations are a primary market for clean energy technologies. But, this multi-billion dollar window of opportunity could close for the United States. With little pressure on developing countries to reduce or contain their emissions growth, these potentially enormous markets for clean energy technologies, made in the U.S., could slip away. Thus, my legislation can serve as a commonsense foot-in-the-door to help jump start efforts to seek fair and effective globally binding agreements in the future.

Despite this, the President has clearly stated that the U.S. would only pursue voluntary measures both domestically and internationally, and he continues to follow that path despite the fact that no major environmental problem has ever been solved by a purely voluntary basis. Since retreating from the international forum, his own climate change program is a strong testament to prove that voluntary actions are not likely to result in any serious decrease in overall emissions. While global climate change is long-term problem, it does not mean that we can put off action indefinitely. If we wait for decades to take more significant actions, then more radical measures will likely be necessary.

Additionally, I have long said that the U.S. needs a comprehensive, national energy strategy that has bipartisan support. A serious energy efficiency program, bolstered by the promotion of renewable energy and other clean home-grown energy sources, provides a compass point for a U.S. energy strategy. At its core, we must rely on our nation's domestic energy assets, especially coal. Coal must become a primary fuel source for new energy demands into the 21st century. However, to do so requires that we think differently about coal.

It is a myth to say that the U.S. or other major nations like China and India will stop burning coal any time soon. Yet, we must begin to treat this plentiful resource like black gold and use it in a much cleaner and more efficient way. We must accelerate the deployment of commercial-scale technologies that move us away from simply burning coal toward the enhanced ability to transform coal into a variety of energy products. We can begin to meet this challenge by demonstrating and deploying advanced power generation, especially coal gasification and carbon sequestration technologies, as well as by producing synthetic fuels and, eventually, hydrogen for use in other sectors of the economy. This broad approach also requires sending strong and clear regulatory and market signals which can significantly reconcile numerous environmental and climate change concerns, stimulate technology deployment, and set the stage for coal into the future.

The path that I am proposing here today goes far beyond the energy proposals that this White House has offered. Pursuing this course will take steadfast leadership, hard work, and American ingenuity to move forward in a responsible, balanced, and intelligent way. It is time for industry, labor, academic, environmental, and community interests to work with policymakers to find common ground. Commonsense market-based and regulatory approaches, emerging technology platforms, and new policy perspectives can bring these divergent groups together.

I believe it is time to send the message that there will likely be a binding carbon management regime in place for the U.S. at some point in the future. It may not be in place tomorrow or the next day or even in the next 2 to 4 years. It may also be a modest approach initially, but it is on the horizon. We certainly cannot run until we have walked, and we cannot walk until we have taken a step. But we can no longer stand still forever. By acting boldly, we can champion a new energy and environmental legacy that will benefit all the world's citizens.

With regard to my legislation's introduction today, our Nation must recognize the incredible impact that U.S. technologies and ideas can have in helping to meet other nations' energy needs in a more sustainable way. We must work to open and expand international markets for a range of U.S. clean energy technologies and simultaneously address global energy security, economic, trade, and environmental objectives.

I thank you for this opportunity and hope this legislation will receive serious consideration. I urge Members to see this as a key component of the architecture that will be necessary if we ever hope to seriously tackle the tough energy and environment issues before us as well as a way to enhance our broader foreign policy and climate change efforts around the world.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to authorize the Inland Empire Regional Water Recycling initiative to be part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Title XVI program. These water recycling projects will produce approximately 100,000 acre-feet of new water annually in one of the most rapidly growing regions in the United States.

The legislation would authorize two project components: the first of which will be constructed by the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, IEUA and will produce approximately 90,000 acre feet of new water annually. The second of these projects, to be constructed by the Cucamonga Valley Water District CVWD, will produce an additional 5,000 acre feet of new water annually. Combined, approximately 100,000 acre feet of new water would be produced locally by 2010, reducing the need for imported water from the Colorado River and northern California through the California Water Project.

Significantly, the Federal cost share is only 10 percent of the upfront capital costs.

We must continue to approve measures preventing water supply shortages in the Western United States. The Inland Empire region is one of the fastest growing areas in the nation. This legislation means that the Inland Empire will use less water from the Colorado River and northern California, and the bill will have other benefits like improved water quality, energy savings, and job creation.

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

Today's Commissioner of Reclamation said it best when, in a speech to the WateReuse Association he declared that recycled water is ``the last river to tap.''

IEUA produces recycled water for a variety of non-potable purposes, such as landscape irrigation, agricultural irrigation, construction, and industrial cooling. By replacing these water-intensive applications with high-quality recycled water, fresh water can be conserved or used for drinking, thereby reducing the dependence on expensive imported water.

As we look into the future, it is appropriate that we are guided by lessons from the recent past. In the late 1980's, California confronted a sustained, multi-year drought. It was so serious that some observed that our State had 6-year-old first graders who had never seen ``green grass.'' California faced a crisis and water agencies and water districts, particularly in Southern California found a solution-- recycled water.

In 1991, the Secretary of the Interior in President George H.W. Bush's administration, Manual Lujan, recognized that California was receiving more water from the Colorado River than its allocation. The Interior Secretary looked into the future and saw a day when California would get its allocation--4.4. million acre-feet, but no longer would it get up to 800,000 acre-feet of ``surplus flows.'' As is well known, that day has arrived.

For any political leader, it's always a tremendous challenge to look into the future and design programs and solutions to a crisis. Secretary Lujan did exactly that. In August 1991, he launched the Southern California Water Initiative, a program to evaluate and study the feasibility of water reclamation projects. Mr. Lujan's vision was to build replacement water capacity to offset the anticipated Colorado River water supply reductions. In this endeavor, Secretary Lujan was assisted by then Commissioner of Reclamation Dennis Underwood. Last week, Mr. Underwood was selected by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, MWD, board of directors as their new general manager and CEO.

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

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

This bill is also supported by and fully consistent with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, MWD's Integrated Resource Plan, Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, SAWPA's Integrated Watershed Plan, and the Chino Basin Watermaster's Optimum Basin Management Plan, Inland Empire Utility Agency's Feasibility Study, Cucamonga Valley Water District's ``Every Drop Counts'' Urban Water Reuse Management Strategy, the Bureau of Reclamation's Southern California Comprehensive Water Recycling and Reuse Feasibility Study, the State of California's Water Recycling Task Force, the WateReuse Association, the Association of California Water Agencies, ACWA and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Water 2025 Initiative.

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

These projects were authorized for feasibility study in Public Law 102-575, Title XVI, Section 1606, the Southern California Comprehensive Water Recycling and Reuse Feasibility Study in 1992. The State of California, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, SAWPA and others provided $3 million of the $6 million required for the regional feasibility study of which these projects were one part.

Detailed Feasibility Studies and environmentally reports have been prepared and approved by both agencies and certified by the State of California.

Congressman David Dreier introduced identical legislation in the House in the 108th Congress. The House Resources Committee and then the House of Representatives both passed the bill unanimously.

His bill is cosponsored by Representatives Gary Miller, Grace Napolitano, Ken Calvert and Joe Baca.

And these valuable recycling projects would never have progressed at all without the hard work and dedication of Mr. Robert DeLoach, general manager of the Cucamonga Valley Water District, and Mr. Rich Atwater, CEO and general manager of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill. I ask unanimous consent that the

text of the bill be printed in the Record.

President, today I am pleased to join Senator Levin in introducing a bill that will further my efforts to limit unfair government competition with the private sector. Throughout my career in public office, I have always taken the position that government should not compete unfairly with American small businesses. If a function or product is available in the private sector, then that should be the first avenue of choice as opposed to having that function provided by government.

For several years now, Federal Prison Industries (FPI), a government entity with the purpose of keeping prisoners busy while serving their sentences, has been providing a growing variety of products and services to both the Federal Government and the private sector. Currently, FPI employs approximately 21,000 Federal prisoners or roughly 12 percent of a population of 174,000. These prisoners are responsible for producing a diverse range of products for FPI, ranging from office furniture to clothing, as well as providing a variety of services, including telemarketing. The remaining Federal prisoners who work do so in and around Federal prisons.

Through its status as a sole provider of certain goods to the Federal Government, FPI has effectively blocked private sector businesses from having a chance to provide products, even though they may be able to provide a better product in a more cost effective and efficient manner. This situation is not in the best interest of the American taxpayer and is blatantly unfair to American small businesses across the country. Along with Senators Grassley and Stabenow, Senator Levin and I propose to enact thorough and lasting reforms to Federal Prison Industries that would ensure that they no longer compete unfairly with private sector small businesses.

We have already taken steps to remedy the situation. In last year's Omnibus Appropriations bill, language was included that prohibited funding for sole source products from FPI and subjected such procurements to follow the competitive requirements set out in the Federal Acquisitions Regulations. However, there are questions as to whether the mandatory sourcing requirement still remains under these regulations. Our bill makes it very clear to Federal Managers and Federal Prison Industries that contracting officers are to use competitive procedures for the procurement of products and services. This approach allows federal agencies to select FPI for contracts if, as a result of a competitive process, FPI can meet that particular agency's requirements and the product or service is the best value offered at a fair and reasonable price. By removing FPI's status as the sole provider and subjecting procurement to competition, the above outlined provision in our bill places the control of government procurement in the hands of contracting officers and allows them to pursue the most cost effective and efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

While we believe that it is important to keep prisoners working, we do not believe that this effort should unduly harm or conflict with law-abiding businesses. This bill seeks to minimize the unfair competition that private sector companies face with the FPI. As FPI continues to expand its reach into providing services, the low costs of inmate labor is undercutting private sector businesses that provide similar services. The result is an unfair advantage for FPI. While allowing for the conclusion of current contracts, this bill also looks to limit services provided by inmates that compete with the private sector in interstate commerce. Additionally, the bill prohibits FPI from production of goods or services in which an inmate would have access to classified or sensitive data.

We support the goal of keeping prisoners busy while serving their time in prison. But FPI should not be placed in a position of advantage when providing goods to the federal government, and these activities should not unfairly compete with services already provided in the private sector. However, I recognize that there may be cases in which a particular contract is deemed essential to the safety and effective administration of a particular prison. To deal with these exceptions, a provision is included that allows the Attorney General to grant a waiver to these reform measures in certain cases.

In addition to bringing a halt to unfair business practices with the private sector, this bill allows for FPI to search for other means to keep prisoners working that do not impact the

employment of individuals in the private sector. There is a need to keep inmates busy, and this legislation addresses further work opportunities though public service activities and cooperation with charitable organizations. Additionally, the bill recognizes the need for further avenues of rehabilitation and directs the Federal Bureau of Prisons to establish an Enhanced In-Prison Educational and Vocational Assessment and Training Program for inmates.

I am confident that by allowing competition for government contracts our bill will save taxpayer dollars. Through healthy competition with the private sector for procurement contracts, FPI will be forced to look internally for ways to improve its own effectiveness and efficiency. The reform of Federal Prison Industries will bring about numerous improvements, not just in cost savings, but also in preserving jobs for law abiding Americans in the private sector who work in small businesses. And the most important effect will be the better use of tax dollars. The American taxpayer is the one who will benefit most from this legislation.

A similar version of our bill was reported favorably out of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in the 108th Congress, and reform measures have passed overwhelming in the House of Representatives. Our bill has the support of small business groups from across the country, as well as organized labor. Clearly, reforming the way Federal Prison Industries does business is an issue that enjoys broad, bipartisan support. I believe this bill provides that reform. I would ask my colleagues to look at this legislation and consider giving it their support.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Inouye in introducing ``The Wakefield Act'', which reauthorizes the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program. It has been 20 years since Senator Inouye and I first worked for passage of the original bill authorizing the EMSC program. We embarked upon this partnership after realizing that there was a critical gap in our Nation's ability to provide emergency medical services for the most precious segment of our population: our children.

Since the Emergency Medical Services for Children Act was first passed, its programs have spread across the nation, enhancing the care received in the more than 31 million visits made by children and adolescents to our nation's emergency departments every year. In part due to this program, the pediatric death rate from injuries has fallen 40 percent over the last 20 years. Imagine that--40 percent! In that light, it is extremely disappointing that President Bush would recommend eliminating funding for this very important program.

More than 30 groups have endorsed this legislation, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Emergency Physicians, American College of Surgeons, Brain Injury Association of America, Emergency Nurses Association, Family Violence Prevention Fund, National Association of Children's Hospitals, National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, Rural Metro Corporation, Society for Pediatric Research, and the Society of Critical Care Medicine.

While much has been accomplished, more remains to be done. Children's physiology and response to illness and injury differ significantly from those of

adults, necessitating specialized training to recognize and treat these patients properly. Ninety percent of the children who require emergency care receive it in general hospitals, not in free-standing specialty children's hospitals. Of those hospitals that lack pediatric intensive care units, only 47 percent have appropriate written transfer agreements with hospitals that do have such specialized units. One- third of states do not have a physician available on-call 24 hours to provide medical direction to EMTs or other non-physician emergency care providers. Of those states that do, many do not have full state coverage.

It is clear that despite the progress made since the Emergency Medical Services for Children Act was first enacted, deficiencies in our pediatric emergency care system remain. What is more, the need for a strong and healthy population, as well as a robust, prepared, and responsive health care system, has never been greater. This cannot occur in the absence of an emergency medical structure that is fully trained and ready to care for our nation's youth.

The Wakefield Act fills this role by supporting states' efforts to improve the care of children within their emergency medical services systems. EMSC-supported projects include strengthening emergency care infrastructures, assessing local provider needs, and developing comprehensive education and training modules. The impact of this program is undeniable: in 2003, 78 percent of States reported that either all or some of their pediatric emergency training programs were dependent on EMSC grant funding.

The EMSC program also ensures timely distribution of best practices and lessons learned in the area of pediatric emergency care, as well as facilitating the sharing of innovations through its national resource center. Furthermore, EMSC-supported projects have a proven record of success at the State and local level. For example, in 1997, no State disaster plan had specific pediatric components, but by 2003, 13 EMSC projects were working actively with their State's disaster preparedness offices to address children's needs in the event of a disaster.

I am proud that my home State of Utah has played a vital role in advancing the level of emergency medical care for children and teenagers. Working with the Emergency Medical Services for Children program, Utah has participated in the Intermountain Regional Emergency Medical Services for Children Coordinating Council. The University of Utah is home to both the National Emergency Medical Services for Children Data Analysis Resource Center and the Central Data Management Coordinating Center for the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network. Utah-based projects also helped pioneer the development of training materials on caring for special needs pediatric patients.

Over the course of its 20 year history, the Emergency Medical Services for Children program has made great strides in improving the lives of our Nation's children. It has largely eliminated discrepancies in regulations among States, establishing a national norm and making children's issues in emergency medical care a priority. The national EMSC program is a dynamic and flexible program that has proved to be responsive to both the Nation's and the individual States' needs. The program has funded pediatric emergency care improvement initiatives in every State, territory and the District of Columbia, as well as national improvement programs.

I urge my colleagues to support this important and necessary legislation.