Employee Misclassification Prevention Act

Today, I am joined by the junior Senator from Washington, Senator Cantwell, in introducing the Travelers' Privacy Protection Act of 2008. This bill restores privacy for law-abiding Americans who, under current administration policy, may be required to give customs agents unfettered access to the contents of their laptop computers and other electronic devices when they return from overseas travel.

There is a compelling and immediate need for this legislation. Over the last two years, reports have surfaced that customs agents have been requiring American citizens and others lawfully residing in the U.S. to turn over their cell phones or give them the passwords to their laptops. The travelers have been forced to wait for hours while customs agents reviewed and sometimes copied the contents of the electronic devices. In some cases, the laptops or cell phones were confiscated, and returned weeks or even months later, with no explanation.

When the practice was challenged in court, the administration argued that it can search the contents of American travelers' laptops without any suspicion of wrongdoing whatsoever, because a laptop is no different than any other ``closed container.'' In other words, according to this administration, there is no difference between rifling through the contents of your suitcase, and logging on to your laptop, opening your files, and reviewing your photographs, medical records, financial records, e-mails, letters, journals, work product, or an electronic record of all the Web sites you have visited.

I am willing to bet that most Americans would disagree. Americans understand the importance of security at the borders, and the vast majority of them accept that the government is entitled to look through their suitcases when they are returning from an overseas trip. But I say to my colleagues: try asking your constituents whether the government has a right to open their laptops, read their documents and e-mails, look at their photographs, and examine the Web sites they have visited--all without any suspicion of wrongdoing--and see what they say. I think you'll hear the same thing that I have heard: ``Not in the United States of America.''

In June of this year, I held a hearing of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee to examine this issue. At this hearing, we learned about the effect of suspicionless electronic border searches on American businesses. The Executive Director for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives testified that, in a survey of ACTE members, 7 out of 100 respondents had experienced seizures of their laptops or other electronic equipment. Many companies are now taking expensive and burdensome measures to protect their electronic information from forced disclosure at the border. The administration's intrusive border practices thus come with a hefty price tag for the American business sector, at a time when the economy can ill afford it.

We also heard disturbing evidence suggesting that Muslim Americans and Americans of Arab or South Asian descent are being targeted for these invasive searches. Many travelers from these backgrounds who have been subject to electronic searches have also been asked about their religious and political views, including why they chose to convert to Islam, what they think about Jews, and their views of the candidates in the upcoming election. This questioning is deeply disturbing in its own right. It also strongly suggests that some border searches are being based, at least in part, on impermissible factors.

At the same time it was claiming the right to look at all of the information Americans carry with them across the border, the administration was refusing to provide Americans or Congress with information about its policies for border searches. Requests by the public and members of Congress were steadfastly ignored. DHS declined my invitation to send a witness to the hearing, claiming that its preferred witness was unavailable on that day. But after the hearing sparked a flurry of press coverage and major newspapers criticized DHS for its secrecy, the agency made public a written policy for border searches dated July 16, 2008.

The DHS policy is truly alarming in the sweeping authority it claims. According to the policy, customs agents may ``analyze and review'' the information in Americans' laptops and other electronic devices ``absent individualized suspicion.'' As part of this search authority, customs agents may ``detain'' the electronic device for an unspecified period of time, take it off-site, make copies of its contents, and send the equipment or the copies to other agencies or even private individuals in some cases. Although the policy purports to require probable cause to ``seize'' a laptop, as opposed to merely searching it, this safeguard is almost meaningless given that DHS's definition of ``search'' includes the right to ``detain'' the laptop indefinitely. Moreover the policy exempts officers' written notes from any constraints, allowing customs agents to transcribe an electronic document verbatim and keep it forever without any level of suspicion.

Defenders of this policy outside the administration are hard to find. Major newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a host of other national and local outlets, have published editorials condemning the policy and urging Congress to act. As USA Today put it: ``[T]he notion that the government can arbitrarily have a free crack at your e-mail, Web searches and other personal electronic data is chilling. Given the government's abysmal record of safeguarding private data, it's no wonder that business and civil liberties groups are protesting.'' In my home state of Wisconsin, the Green Bay Press-Gazette put it this way: ``[T]he fact that this policy exists . . . is an affront to the core values of the United States of America.''

In the fact of this public outcry, DHS has reacted like a traffic officer standing by a 20-car pile-up and telling onlookers ``Nothing to see here--move along.'' The agency claims that its July 16 policy spells out the practice followed by customs agents for years and across administration. But that just isn't true. The Customs Directive that governed border searches of documents through the end of the Clinton Administration stated that Customs agents could glance at documents-- but not read them--``to see if they appear to be merchandise.'' At that point, ``reasonable suspicion [was] required for read and continued detention'' of the documents. The reading of personal correspondence other than merchandise was expressly prohibited. This administration's policy authorizing ``review and analysis'' of any and all electronic documents without a shred of suspicion thus represents a 180 degree turnaround from previous policy.

DHS alternatively defends its policy by arguing that the authority to conduct suspicionless searches of Americans' laptops is necessary to capture terrorists and criminals. Yet the few specific examples DHS has seen fit to give have all been cases in which the search was anything but suspicionless. For example, in one instance DHS has cited, the laptop search took place after customs agents received a tip that the traveler was a smuggler and discovered $79,000 in unlawful U.S. currency in his belongings. Despite many opportunities to do so, DHS has yet to identify a single example in which a search that was conducted ``absent individualized suspicion'' resulted in the apprehension of a dangerous criminal or terrorist.

This brings me to my next point. Both Secretary Chertoff and the Deputy Commissioner for Customs and Border Protection have tried to downplay the extent of privacy violations by pointing out that DHS has limited resources for conducting electronic searches at the border. That may be true, but it hardly justifies suspicionless searches. To the contrary, the limited nature of these resources makes it all the more important to direct them toward people who actually do present some objective basis for suspicion. As the DHS examples confirm, these are the cases in which electronic searches are most likely to yield results. Using our limited resources to search the laptops of law- abiding Americans who present no basis for suspicion is frankly irresponsible.

This is not simply a matter of what the Constitution protects or allows. In fact, a few lower courts have agreed with the administration that the Fourth Amendment does not protect Americans against suspicionless searches of their laptops at the border. I happen to believe that these decisions incorrectly applied Supreme Court precedent, but ultimately, that is beside the point. Not everything that comports with the Constitution is sound policy. A government practice can satisfy minimum constitutional requirements and still violate Americans' expectations for what they want and deserve from their government. In those cases, it is up to Congress to act.

The bill I am introducing today would require DHS agents to have reasonable suspicion before searching the contents of laptops or other electronic equipment carried by U.S. citizens or other lawful residents of the U.S. ``Reasonable suspicion'' is a lower standard than ``probable cause''; it simply requires DHS to have an objective basis for suspecting that a particular person is engaged in illegal behavior. No less should be required when the government seeks to encroach on such a significant privacy interest.

Like the current DHS policy, the bill I am introducing requires probable cause in order for DHS agents to seize electronic equipment lent. Unlike the current policy, however, the bill defines ``seize'' in a manner than is consistent with both legal precedent and common sense. If DHS keeps your laptop or any of its contents for longer than 24 hours, there has clearly been a seizure, and the bill recognizes this. The bill also reinforces the probable cause requirement by requiring DHS to obtain a warrant, while allowing DHS to hold on to the equipment pending a ruling on the warrant application.

Most of the information DHS will review, even under a reasonable suspicion standard, will prove innocuous. Recognizing this, the bill contains provisions to protect law-abiding Americans' privacy by strictly limiting disclosure of information that DHS acquires through electronic border searches. The only disclosures that are permitted in the absence of warrant or court order are limited disclosures to other federal, state, or local government agencies. Those agencies in turn may apply for a warrant--or, if the laptop appears to contain foreign intelligence information, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Order--to seize the equipment.

If DHS damages the electronic equipment in the course of a search, the

agency must compensate the owner for any resulting economic loss. The bill requires DHS to establish an administrative claims process to that end. Awards will be paid from agency funds, ensuring that the bill is deficit-neutral.

The bill prohibits profiling based on race, ethnic, religion, or national origin. Profiling based on these characteristics has no place in our society. It is repugnant to our values as a pluralistic nation, and it is counterproductive as a matter of law enforcement. At the hearing I held on this issue, all of the witnesses, those invited by myself and those invited by Senator Brownback, agreed at that point.

Finally, the bill contains provisions to ensure that DHS provides the information about its policies and practices that Congress needs and that the public is entitled to have. The agency must provide Congress and the public with any past, existing, or future policies relating to electronic border searches, as well as information about the implementation of those policies. Our ability to know what DHS claims the right to do at the border should never depend on whether DHS chooses to send a witness to a congressional hearing.

Taken together, these provisions reverse this administration's departure from previous policy and, more importantly, bring the government's practices at the border back in line with the reasonable expectations of law-abiding Americans. Furthermore, they enhance the security of our borders by focusing the government's resources where they can do the most good. And they will enable all of us in this body to look our constituents in the eyes and say, ``You're right--that doesn't happen in the United States of America.''

Mr. President, I hope that my colleagues give this bill the enthusiastic support it deserves. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, in a democracy, no right is more important than the right to vote; in our democracy, no right has been so dearly won. This country was founded on the idea that a just government derives its power from the consent of the governed, a principle codified in the very first words of our Constitution: ``We the People of the United States.'' From the Civil War through the women's suffrage movement through the Voting Rights Act of 1965 through the 26th Amendment, the continuing expansion of the franchise, a broadening of who ``we the people'' are, is one of our great American stories.

So today I will introduce the Democracy Restoration Act of 2008. This bill will guarantee that citizens who are not incarcerated have the right to vote in Federal elections. I am pleased that the Senator from Rhode Island, Sen. Whitehouse, and the Senator from Maryland, Sen. Cardin, have agreed to be a cosponsor.

Once, only wealthy White men could vote in this country. Once, African Americans, ethnic minorities, women, young people, the poor, and the uneducated were all excluded. Today, we look back at those times and wonder how our country could have denied its citizens such a fundamental right for so long. And yet today, we continue to disenfranchise an estimated 4 million of our fellow citizens who were convicted of felonies but are no longer in prison. Two million of these people have fully served their sentences, and the other two million are on probation, parole, or supervised release. These people are living and working in the community, paying taxes, and contributing to society. But they cannot vote.

At this time, 10 states still strip people who have completed their sentence--who have paid their debt to society--of their right to vote. Some 35 States deny the vote to people on parole, and 30 of those States also deny the vote to people on probation. I believe that the practice of stripping our fellow citizens of their voting rights is un- American. It weakens our democracy. It is an anachronism, one of the last vestiges of a medieval jurisprudence that declared convicted criminals to be outlaws, irrevocably expelled from society.

This principle was called ``civil death'' and in medieval Europe, it was reserved for the worst crimes. Yet today, here, in the greatest democracy in the world, we continue to sentence 4 million people-- people who have served their time, people who are contributing members of society--to civil death.

One might ask how something as undemocratic as civil death could have survived to the present day. Unfortunately, Mr. President, the practice of disenfranchising people with felony convictions has an explicitly racist history. Like the grandfather clause, the literacy test, and the poll tax, civil death became a tool of Jim Crow.

Across the country, 13 percent of African-American men are disenfranchised because of a felony conviction. As of 2004, in 14 states, felony disenfranchisement provisions had stripped more than 10 percent of the entire African-American voting-age population of the right to vote. In 4 states, they had disenfranchise more than 20 percent of eligible African-American voters.

The architects of Jim Crow would be proud of their handiwork, and how it has lasted long after the rest of their evil system was dismantled. The rest of us should be ashamed, and yes, outraged. If we believe in redemption, we should be outraged. Because civil death has denied 4 million Americans a chance at redemption. If we believe in progress, we should be outraged. Because civil death keeps this country chained to the worst moments of our past. If we believe in democracy, we should be outraged. Because civil death strikes at the heart of our democracy.

There is a growing movement across the country to expand the franchise and restore voting rights to people coming out of prison and reentering the community. In the last decade, 16 States have reformed their laws to expand the franchise or ease voting rights restoration procedures. This bill continues that movement. It provides that the right to vote for candidates for Federal office shall not be denied or abridged because a person has been convicted of a crime unless that person is actually in prison serving a felony sentence. It gives the Attorney General of the United States the power to obtain declaratory or injunctive relief to enforce that right. And it gives a person whose rights are being violated a right to go to court to get relief.

The bill also requires Federal and State officials to notify individuals of their right to vote once their sentences have been served. This is an important part of the bill, given the long history of these civil death provisions. Even after this bill passes, many ex- offenders may not know their rights, and we should take affirmative steps to make sure that they do. No one should be disenfranchised because of lack of information.

Upon signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965, President Johnson said:

The vote is the powerful instrument ever devised by man for

breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls

which imprison men because they are different from other men.

When prisoners return to their communities after serving their sentences, we expect and hope that they will reintegrate themselves into society as productive citizens. Yet, without the right to vote, rehabilitated felons are already a step behind in regaining a sense of civic responsibility and commitment to their communities. If our country wants ex-offenders to succeed at becoming better citizens, who both abide by the law and act as responsible individuals, then we need to restore this most fundamental right. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise again this evening to speak about a growing crisis in rural America. This crisis is found in rural New England, throughout Appalachia, spans the Great Plains, crosses the Western deserts, and reaches the mountains of the great Northwest. It impacts the seniors, children, the women, and the men of rural America. What I am speaking about today is a lack of access to quality health care.

In rural America, patients have long gone without care. Despite the fact that one-fifth of the U.S. population lives in rural America, only 9 percent of the Nation's physicians are practicing in these areas. Over 50 million of these rural Americans live in areas that have a shortage of physicians to meet their basic needs.

Now, physician recruitment to rural America is a big problem. Part of this problem comes about through high student debt, which often forces many students away from a rural practice and

into urban specialty medicine where they can probably command higher salaries.

I recently held a Senate HELP Committee field hearing in Alaska. This was during the February recess. I held this field committee hearing on the physician shortage crisis in rural America. At that hearing, I had a young woman come up and speak. She is a medical student who is currently part of the WAMI Program, the Western States medical program. This young woman, Melissa Howell, is 26 years old. She stated the student debt she has accumulated is a huge concern that hangs over the decisions she makes as she decides where she is going to practice. Simply put, she said that the $100,000 student debt she faces is ``kind of scary.'' I have to admit, that is kind of scary.

A dozen States already report severe physician shortages. These shortages exist in the areas of cardiology, radiology, neurology, to name a few. But the greatest shortages persistently have been in primary care. In fact, the shortage of primary care physicians in rural areas of the United States represents one of the most intractable health policy problems of the past century.

It will only worsen. In 20 years, 20 percent of the U.S. population will be 65 or older, and this is a percentage larger than at any other time in our Nation's history. Just as this aging population places the highest demand on our health care system, we have some experts who predict a national shortage of close to 200,000 physicians. If that becomes a reality, 84 million patients could be potentially left without a doctor's care.

So the question has to be asked, where are the doctors going? We are losing some of our doctors through attrition. One-third of physicians are 55 years old and older and are likely to retire as this baby boom generation moves into its time of greatest medical need. Additionally, for the last quarter of a century, medical schools have kept their student enrollments virtually flat.

We are also losing a lot of our doctors, quite simply, through frustration. Low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, coupled with complex regulations and paperwork, leave physicians aggravated, leave them disappointed with the practice of medicine.

In Alaska, we have lived with provider shortages since statehood. I grew up in a part of the State down in the southeastern area where you did not have doctors who were available to deliver babies except on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You hoped you could give birth on a Tuesday or a Thursday. Still, in many parts of our State, we do not have providers who can deliver. If you are out in the Aleutian chain, you are told by your physician's attendant to come to Anchorage, some 600 miles away, to wait out the remaining month of your pregnancy because they do not have the facilities, do not have the doctors available to take care of you in the event of an emergency.

So we have lived with provider shortages for a long time. Because our State is larger than Texas and California and Montana combined, ``rural'' brings on a new meaning and the physician shortage crisis is even more amplified, as I have given in my two examples. But we have had some recent events in the State that have created a situation far worse than Alaska has known in the past. Currently, in the State, we have the sixth lowest ratio of physicians to population in the United States. That is when you take into account Anchorage, which is our largest population center. In rural Alaska, it is the worst physician- to-population situation in the Nation. Alaska needs nearly 400 more doctors to provide the same level of care as elsewhere in the country.

One of our problems is we do not have a medical school, and we are not likely to be getting a medical school in the near future. We also have the lowest per capita number of medical school slots in the country and the lowest number of residency slots. We have two small but very successful programs; this is the University of Washington Medical School Partnership and the Alaska Family Residency Program. These two programs help train Alaskans as physicians and also help us bring doctors to Alaska. But despite the success of these programs, each is far too small to meet our population's needs.

Each week, without fail, I receive faxes, phone calls, letters, and e-mails from Alaskan seniors who simply cannot find a doctor to treat them. I wish to read a few excerpts from recent e-mails we have received. The first one is from a gentleman in Anchorage. Keep in mind, Anchorage is our largest population center; about half the population of the State is here.

He writes:

My mother . . . has had difficulty in the extreme in

getting a doctor who will take her on as she is a medicare

patient . . . doctors are telling potential patients that

they are no longer taking medicaid. My mother has made in

excess of 100 calls to physicians in Anchorage.

Another constituent writes--and this is also from Anchorage:

During the past year, I've tried to find a doctor that

accepts Medicare. I used the Anchorage Yellow pages and

called over 100 doctors, only to be told that they won't

accept any more Medicare patients.

She then writes to say:

I'll tell you ahead of time, we'll be going to the hospital

emergency rooms, to receive, even the basic medical care,

i.e.: colds, flu, and other basic medical care, that could

have been treated through seeing a doctor, at their

established practice. This doesn't sound like good fiscal

management.

Another constituent--and this was actually in a letter to the editor in the Anchorage Daily News--says:

My friends telephoned more than 80 doctors recently, and

not one was accepting new Medicare patients.

A third gentleman from Kenai, AK, writes:

My mom has Medicare and she had to wait 5 months to be seen

by a Neurologist because she had been put on a waiting list

to be seen due to the fact she was a Medicare patient.

Another woman from Anchorage says:

I just got through trying to find a physician for an

elderly Medicare-dependent friend. At this time I have found

no one who will take her. Most physicians take no Medicare

patients or have a quota which is full. The Providence health

care provider list has no one who takes Medicare.

The last e-mail was from Anchorage stating:

Almost no family practice office in Anchorage is accepting

new Medicare patients.

This is just a sample of what we get from constituents around the State of Alaska saying: I don't have anyone who can see my mother. I can't get in to see anyone myself.

I mentioned in my comments this is a crisis that is growing. In Alaska, we don't often think of it as being a State where we have a large senior population. We think of some of the Southern States as being the ones that attract our seniors. But the fact is Alaska has the second fastest-growing senior population in the Nation, second only to Nevada.

So again we ask the question: Why aren't Alaska's doctors able to provide care to our seniors? Why are they saying: No, we are not accepting any new Medicare patients? Well, a lot of it has to do with the reimbursement rates. Recent Federal reductions in Alaska Medicare reimbursement rates have been so severe that primary care physicians report that Medicare pays them only 37 cents--it is actually between 37 cents to 40 cents--for every dollar that it costs to treat a patient. So the doctor is spending a dollar in the care provided but is getting reimbursed about 40 cents to every dollar. We had one physician testify at the field hearing, and he said that in order for him to basically break even with his medical practice, he would have to see one Medicare patient every 7 minutes in order for him not to lose money. For those of us who go into our doctor's office, if we only had 7 minutes in there with our medical provider, I don't think we would feel we were getting the care and the attention our medical issues deserve.

Losing money by seeing Medicare patients has meant that many of our physicians have stopped accepting Medicare patients entirely. They are making a decision not to accept any new Medicare patients. Or if you have been a patient of a particular physician and you turn 65, you may have had a good relationship with that physician, but if he tells you: I am sorry, I am not accepting any new Medicare patients, that date of your birthday comes and all of a sudden you don't have the care that you had relied on for some period of time.

During this committee field hearing, we had testimony that revealed that

only one neighborhood health clinic in the entire city of Anchorage-- and again, this is a city that has half the State's population--only one neighborhood health clinic is still accepting new Medicare patients.

So if you are lucky enough to find a physician, it often takes weeks or months for an appointment. So when you are faced with this kind of a delay, you have one of two options. You either go to the emergency room if the conditions are severe enough or you go without care entirely, putting it off until perhaps it becomes even more complicated down the road.

We had testify at the field hearing one gentleman who is from the city of Bethel. Bethel is in the western part of the State. He said he was willing to fly the 500-some-odd miles from Bethel to Anchorage if only he could find a primary care doctor who would accept him. He kind of joked because he said he counted himself lucky because he had a heart condition, and he was at least able to get in to see a specialist once in awhile.

The chairman of the Alaska Commission on Aging, Mr. Frank Appel, called the lack of access to health care for seniors ``the most critical problem facing Alaska's seniors.''

I know Alaska is not alone. The crisis is not just Alaska. It is nationwide. We as a body, as a Congress, should find this situation intolerable.

I haven't been in the Senate for as long as many of my other colleagues, but I have been here long enough to know that we fight a lot about health care. We debate the solvency issues, the funding issues, the insurance, the benefit coverage, universal coverage, health savings accounts, the prescription drug benefit. We debate and argue about a lot of these issues as they relate to health care, and each and every one of these issues is certainly worthy of great debate. But I would submit that not one of those very worthy debates matters in the least to one of the seniors I have mentioned in these letters who can't find a primary care doctor after making 100 phone calls.

So instead of this body debating how health care is delivered, it is time we focus on the fact that it is not delivered in much of America. We have a crisis that, simply put, cannot wait. We have to do two things. We have to help current physicians stay in the practice of medicine, and we must vastly increase our health care work force.

Earlier this year, Senator Stevens and I introduced the Rural Physician Relief Act, and this is a bill that provides tax incentives for physicians to practice in our most rural and frontier locations in the country. Today, along with my colleagues, Senator Schumer, Senator Stevens, and Senator Sanders, we are introducing legislation entitled the ``Physician Shortage Elimination Act.'' This legislation will double the funding for the National Health Service Corps, a program that is dedicated to meeting the needs of the underserved. Despite its success over the years, it has been vastly underfunded. We understand that 85 percent of the applicants to this worthy program have to be turned away each year because we don't fund it.

This legislation will also allow rural and underserved physician residency programs to expand by removing barriers that prevent programs from developing rural training programs.

We will also double certain title VII funding to create programs that target disadvantaged youth in rural and underserved areas and nurture them to create a pipeline to careers in health care. We need to get more people interested in the field.

Finally, we must bolster the cornerstone of rural health care, which is the community health center, through additional grants and by allowing them to expand their residency programs.

I would suggest that the prognosis for the quality of health care in America is poor. Fifteen million Americans in underserved areas across the Nation already do without care. Soon, with even greater physician shortages, it could mean that potentially another 84 million patients will be left without a physician's care.

The time for Congress to act is now. In fact, it is past time. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this issue that again is not just Alaska-specific. I think the facts on the ground up North perhaps make the arguments more accentuated, but I think it points to a situation in this Nation that we must deal with now before the crisis is felt throughout the country.

I appreciate the attention of the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill to authorize appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security--the first comprehensive DHS authorization bill introduced in the Senate in the 5-year history of this agency created in response to the attacks of 9/11.

This bipartisan bill is cosponsored by my friend and colleague, ranking member Senator Susan Collins, who has long been one of the Senate's great leaders in our efforts to make our nation more secure.

I understand there is not time in this session for full consideration and passage of this legislation but we offer it as a blueprint for the next administration and the 111th Congress outlining key areas of improvement we think can make DHS more efficient and effective in its mission to safeguard our homeland.

Before I offer more detail on this bill, I would like to briefly review the history of the Department that has brought us to where we are today.

The attacks of 9/11 made it clear that oceans are no longer a defense against those who mean to harm our Nation. After a series of hearings, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee proposed legislation pulling more than 22 different agencies responsible for different areas of homeland defense into one Department whose overarching mission was the protection of the American people.

Success was not guaranteed. The administration and many in Congress at first opposed the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. But we persevered in our mission and President Bush signed legislation creating the Department in January 2003.

We all knew at the time that creating a new Department with a single identity out of 22 different agencies would be difficult. Each agency came into the Department with its own culture--not to mention its own procurement, personnel and computer systems. In some cases, they came after having been neglected in other Departments where homeland security had been an afterthought. There was, and remains, much work to be done.

But over the past 5 years, the men and women who work at the Department, under the leadership first of Secretary Tom Ridge and now of Michael Chertoff, have worked hard, often under difficult circumstances, to systematically improve the Nation's security.

Our committee has also written and helped pass several pieces of important legislation to strengthen and guide DHS as it evolved into a more mature agency. I would like to briefly mention some of them because I am proud of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's work under former Chairman Susan Collins and during my own tenure as chairman, because we truly worked as partners across party lines.

In the 108th Congress, our committee led the effort to enact the recommendations of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States--otherwise known as the 9/11 Commission--a Commission which, had been created through the Committee's work in the previous Congress. The resulting Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 implemented most of the 41 recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including a number directed at the work of the new Department.

In the 109th Congress, in the wake of the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, our committee conducted a far-reaching investigation into the actions at all levels of government that contributed to the disastrous response to the hurricane.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held 22 hearings, interviewed hundreds of witnesses, reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, and issued a comprehensive, 700-page report on what went wrong.

The committee's findings on shortcomings at FEMA and DHS led us to draft the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, which strengthened and elevated FEMA within the Department, brought together

into a single agency those charged with preparing for disasters with those responsible for responding to them; required planning for catastrophic events; and helped ensure that the resources of the whole Department would be available in a catastrophe.

The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act was signed into law in October 2006, and the results of that Act can be seen in the much improved--though admittedly still imperfect--Federal response to the series of recent tornadoes in the Midwest and devastating hurricanes that have hit the Gulf Coast.

In the 109th Congress, our Committee helped draft and pass the SAFE Ports Act, to strengthen the Department's port security efforts, and we passed legislation to provide DHS authority to better secure dangerous chemical facilities.

In this Congress, after many hearings and much hard work, legislation implementing the final recommendations of the 9/11 Commission was signed into law. This legislation addressed a diverse array of issues at DHS, from homeland security grants to information sharing to interoperable communications to transportation security.

So while we offer this authorization bill as DHS readies for its sixth year as a department--and its first Presidential transition--this committee has been working hard all along to give DHS both the support it needed and the oversight--sometimes harsh--to steadily improve its capacity to carry out its critical mission.

With this authorization act we continue that important work and I would like to touch on key portions of the bill.

This bill can be summarized under three major themes: integration, accountability, and effectiveness.

As I have already noted, we knew when we passed the Homeland Security Act that the process of creating a new, unified Department out of many diverse component agencies would be both challenging and time consuming--and the process is not yet complete. Therefore, a number of provisions of this bill would improve the integration of the Department. These provisions are collectively intended to help the Department to perform its missions at a level that is greater than the sum of its parts.

First, the bill would create an Under Secretary for Policy, to ensure that there is policy coordination across the Department.

The bill would also require the Secretary to develop and maintain the capability to coordinate operations and strategically plan across all of the component organizations of the Department. To this end, it permits the establishment of an Office of Operations Coordination and Planning within the Department, making it easier for the staffs of agencies such as the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, and FEMA to work together on key operational activities, such as planning for the upcoming DHS transition.

The bill would enhance the statutory authorities of the Chief Information Officer, allowing for greater control over IT investments in the Department. It also gives the Assistant Secretary for International Affairs of DHS new authority to coordinate the international activities of the Department. The bill would establish the Office of the Chief Learning Officer, who would coordinate training and workforce development activities on a Department-wide basis.

Finally, the bill would require the establishment of a consolidated headquarters for the Department of Homeland Security, which is long overdue. Currently, the Department is spread throughout 70 buildings and 40 sites across the National Capital Region making communication, coordination, and cooperation among DHS components a significant challenge. The deplorable condition of the present headquarters complex also makes it harder for DHS to recruit and retain talented professionals--directly affecting homeland security--and I will continue to push Congress and the administration to get the funding necessary for the headquarters consolidation to proceed.

The second major theme of the bill is accountability. The bill contains a number of provisions intended to enhance oversight and ensure that the Department is held accountable for the decisions that it makes.

The bill requires that DHS have certified program managers for all major acquisition programs, and directs the Department to report to Congress on its use of various contracting authorities and on task orders within two of its major acquisition vehicles.

The bill creates a statutory requirement for a formal investment review process within the Department, and for investments where there are significant technological challenges, requires a formal testing and evaluation process prior to investment. These provisions will help to ensure that the Department does not again move forward with costly acquisitions without first proving that the underlying technology will work.

The bill also requires reports to Congress on a number of other activities, including the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative and the Department's efforts to improve minority representation among its employees.

The third major theme of the bill is effectiveness. There are a number of homeland security mission areas where the Federal government needs new or expanded authorities to effectively address threats that face us.

For example, the bill addresses growing concerns about the cybersecurity threat by establishing a robust National Cyber Security Center with the mission of coordinating and enhancing Federal efforts to protect government networks, and by enhancing the statutory authorities of the National Cyber Security Division.

The bill would enhance our nation's border security by authorizing an increase in the number of CBP officers and ensuring that they receive sufficient and appropriate training. It also recognizes the essential work of the agriculture specialists at the border, who perform plant inspections and help protect against both devastating pests and potential bioterrorism events, authorizes an increase in the number of agriculture specialists and requires measures to improve their recruitment and retention.

The bill addresses the threat of improvised explosive devices, IEDs, by including provisions that would authorize the DHS Office of Bombing Prevention, OBP, as well as authorize an increase in its budget to $25 million. OBP would lead bombing prevention activities within DHS, and would coordinate with other Federal, State, and local agencies to ensure that existing gaps in Federal bombing prevention efforts are filled.

Building upon changes already being implemented in the Post Katrina Act, the bill also seeks to continue improvement in the Nation's preparedness. It would require that DHS work with other Federal agencies to develop plans for responding to potential catastrophic scenarios, and would authorize a pilot program to assign National Guard planners to State emergency planning offices, to foster better State- Federal planning coordination. In addition, it would authorize the Metropolitan Medical Rescue System to assist States and localities prepare for mass casualty events. It would reauthorize the Pre-Disaster Hazard Mitigation Program, which provides grants to States for mitigation measures designed to reduce losses in disasters.

Collectively the measures in this bill will improve the ability of the Department to carry out its missions and become a more mature and effective entity.

I believe that the reforms and enhancements contained in this legislation, along with continued, vigorous oversight, will make DHS a stronger agency in the years to come. And reform, not thoughtless reorganization, is the course future Ccngresses should follow when it comes to DHS. Five years into its mission, and ignoring some noticeable improvements in its performance, there are still those who believe DHS should be chopped up and its parts shipped off to other agencies.

I believe that is exactly the wrong course to take. It makes no sense to disrupt the development of the Department, and weaken the hand of the next Secretary, at a time when the challenges she or he must face, from preventing nuclear terrorism, to securing our borders, to ensuring more effective responses to catastropies of all kinds remain daunting. It took decades for the Department of Defense to become a

coherent whole, and its work is still not complete. Just as DHS and its component arts are beginning to gel into an effective organization ready to deal with disasters visited upon our nation by nature or terrorists, it makes no sense to plunge responsibility for our homeland back into the chaos that existed before 9/11.

This is a course I have fought and will fight in the years to come.

In their report to the nation, the 9/11 Commissioners wrote: ``The men and women of the World War II generation rose to the challenges of the 1940s and the 1950s. They restructured the government so it could protect the country. That is now the job of the generation that experienced 9/11.''

The Department of Homeland Security was part of that response to the new dangers we face and must remain so.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about an issue that, in the midst of this devastating economic crisis, continues to plague more and more Americans every day--hunger. Although hunger in this country may not be as obvious as it is in other nations, it nonetheless exists and has devastating consequences for those it affects. It weakens the body, making it more susceptible to illness. It impedes child development and reduces a child's ability to learn. It saps valuable energy, resulting in lowered productivity and less earning potential. In short, hunger has a devastating effect on those it touches.

In 2006 alone, the United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, reported that 35.5 million Americans did not have enough money or resources to get food for at least some period during the year. This figure was an increase of 400,000 over 2005 and an increase of 2.3 million since 2000. And, with the fragile state of our economy, we can only assume that when the figures for 2007 and 2008 are released, the number of Americans living with hunger will be even greater.

Unfortunately, for these millions of Americans facing hunger, the ability to afford the food they so desperately need has not become any easier over the past year. According to the Department of Labor, the cost of food at home rose 7.1 percent from July 2007 to July 2008. But, for the nearly 28 million Americans receiving food stamps, the effects of food price inflation during that time period were even more devastating. From July 2007 to July 2008, the cost of the ``Thrifty Food Plan''--the Government's estimate of what constitutes a nutritious, minimal cost meal plan--rose by 10 percent. As a result, the benefits currently provided to food stamp participants are not enough to even cover the cost of this minimally adequate diet.

Each summer, the United States Department of Agriculture sets new food stamp benefit levels based on the average of the previous year's food price inflation. However, these new benefit levels are not implemented until the first day of October each year, by which time they already lag behind current prices. For instance, when updated food stamp benefit levels were provided to an average family of four in October 2007, they were already lagging $12.20 behind the monthly cost of the Thrifty Food Plan. By July of this year, that same family of four was receiving $56 per month less than they needed to afford the cost of this minimal diet. for such low-income families, already facing rising home energy and transportation costs, and having non-negotiable expenditures like rent or mortgage payments and child care expenses needing to be paid, food purchases are often the only area of the monthly budget where cuts can be made.

But, food price inflation is not only affecting the price families are paying for food at home. It is also affecting the prices schools are paying for foods provided through child nutrition programs like school breakfasts, lunches, and after-school snack programs. While the Federal Government does reimburse schools for the costs of providing these programs to children from low-income families, with ever rising food prices, these reimbursements are not enough to cover the expenses of providing these meals.

Like food stamps, school meal reimbursement rates are updated every

summer to account for inflation. But, by the time the school year begins, these reimbursements already lag behind the true cost of producing the meal. In fact, a recent survey by the School Nutrition Association found that 88 percent of responding school districts indicated that Federal reimbursement rates were not sufficient to cover the costs of producing a meal during the 2007/08 school year. As a result, 73 percent of these school districts said they plan to increase the price other students pay for food services in this coming school year to make up for the increased costs.

Congress can and must do more to ensure that Federal nutrition assistance programs can adequately cover the costs of food for those most in need. That's why today I'm pleased to introduce the National Hunger Relief Act of 2008. This act will make critical changes needed to help low-income families and schools cover the costs of purchasing healthy, nutritious foods.

Under this act, when setting benefit levels for food stamps, Congress would anticipate the food price inflation that will occur in the coming fiscal year, and would act to offset it by setting a higher benefit rate for October 1 than is currently provided. Beginning in fiscal year 2010, recipients would receive 102 percent of the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan in the previous June. By fiscal year 2012, this benefit rate would be ramped up to 103 percent of the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan in the previous June. This change would be consistent with the way food stamp benefits were regularly adjusted for food price inflation for many years prior to 1996. By providing this higher benefit rate, food stamp benefits would be adequate to meet rising food prices over the course of the following year. As a result, low-income families participating in the food stamp program would have the necessary resources to purchase the foods their families need and be able to ensure that their families do not suffer from the adverse effects of hunger.

To solve the problem of inadequate reimbursement rates for certain child nutrition programs, this bill would provide for semi-annual reimbursement rate adjustments. In addition to the current annual update in July to reimbursement rates for school meal programs, reimbursement rates would also be adjusted for inflation each January. As a result of this change, reimbursement rates for the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, the Special Milk Program, the Child and Adult Day Care Program, and the Summer Food Service Program would more accurately reflect the costs that schools or service providers incur to provide foods through these programs. This, in turn, would help to keep the prices charged for foods provided to other children at schools more in line with the costs of procuring and providing those foods.

I am introducing this legislation today because it is critically important to begin the dialogue on finding ways to ensure that our nutrition assistance programs can continue to prevent hunger by providing necessary nourishment to Americans of all ages. However, I also recognize that we have a challenge to ensure that these nutrition assistance programs can operate in the most efficient and cost- effective manner possible while adequately serving the more than 35.5 million Americans who continue to be plagued by the threat of hunger. Over the coming months, as we continue to work on ways to eradicate hunger in this Nation and begin to consider the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act, I will continue seeking out ways to make reforms to this and other nutrition assistance legislation to ensure that--at the end of the day--these programs can continue to effectively reach those most in need.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation that would establish the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area in York and Lancaster Counties, Pennsylvania. Since 1984, Congressionally- designated National Heritage Areas have fostered partnerships between the public and private sectors for undertaking preservation, educational, and recreational initiatives in diverse regions throughout the country. Through these efforts, National Heritage Areas have helped to protect our Nation's natural and cultural resources while promoting local economic development. Today, I am proud to join my colleague from Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter to propose a bill that would grant national recognition to the Susquehanna Gateway region, an area that has played a key role in the development of our nation's cultural, political, and economic identity.

While the region boasts an impressive catalogue of historic and scenic resources, perhaps two examples in particular best underscore how the distinct traditions and natural landscape of the Susquehanna Gateway offer an insight into the broader American experience. For centuries, the Susquehanna River, which forms a natural border between Pennsylvania's York and Lancaster Counties and represents the heart of the proposed National Heritage Area, has been at the center of agricultural, industrial, and recreational activity in the Mid-Atlantic United States. The river provided colonial settlers with a trading route to Native American communities. It was an important shipping lane for timber, iron, coal, and agricultural products throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. With the decline of industry and commercial shipping in the region, the river today has assumed a new identity as a center of recreation for millions of boaters, fishermen, hunters, birders, and others. In tracing these developments, we recognize that the story of the Susquehanna River Valley reflects much of the American story. Passing the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area Act will allow more Americans to discover and better appreciate this narrative.

No less than in this tremendous natural resource, the Susquehanna Gateway region's national significance is rooted in its populace. As the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was founded in the spirit of providing refuge to those suffering religious and cultural persecution, so did York and Lancaster Counties offer a home to German Baptist immigrants who created Amish and Mennonite farming communities. By their example of humility, hard work, environmental stewardship, and respect for others, these ``Plain'' people continue to inspire millions of Americans. Designating the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area is the proper way to acknowledge their contributions to the story of American agriculture and its transformative influence on the natural landscape.

Finally, I would like to recognize the leadership of Mark Platts, President of the Lancaster-York Heritage Region, and his colleague Jonathan Pinkerton, Deputy Director. Through their tireless efforts, they have developed a feasibility study for the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area that meets the National Parks Service's ten interim criteria for designation of a National Heritage Area. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate to pass the Susquehanna Gateway National Heritage Area Act soon so that the region can begin to play a national role in sharing America's story.

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

Mr. President, I rise today, along with my colleague, Tom Coburn, to proudly reintroduce the Child Medication Safety Act, a bill to protect children and their parents from being coerced into administering a controlled substance or psychotropic drug in order to attend a school.

Parents today face many challenges when raising their children, one of which is ensuring that their children receive the best education possible. My views on education come from a somewhat unique perspective in that my wife, Kay, was a teacher at Edison High School in Tulsa for many years and now both of our daughters are teachers. I can assure you that I am one of the strongest supporters of quality education. However, it has come to my attention that schools have been acting as physicians or psychologists by strongly suggesting that children with behavioral problems be put immediately on some form of psychotropic drugs. Schools and teachers are not equipped to make this diagnosis and should not make it mandatory for the student to continue attending the school. This is clearly beyond their area of expertise. Therefore, I am introducing this legislation to ensure that parents are not required by school personnel to medicate their children.

The Child Medication Safety Act requires, as a condition of receiving funds from the Department of Education, that States develop and implement polices and procedures prohibiting school personnel from requiring a child to obtain a prescription as a condition of attending the school. It should be noted that this bill does not prevent teachers or other school personnel from sharing with parents or guardians classroom-based observations regarding a student's academic performance or regarding the need for evaluation for special education. Additionally, this bill calls for a study by the Comptroller General of the United States reviewing: (1) the variation among States in the definition of psychotropic medication as used in public education, (2) the prescription rates of medication used in public schools to treat children with attention deficit disorder and other such disorders, 3) which medications listed under the Controlled Substances Act are being prescribed to such children, and 4) which medications not listed under the Controlled Substances Act are being used to treat these children and their properties and effects. This GAO report is due no later than one year after the enactment of this Act.

I believe this is an extremely important bill that protects the rights of our children against improper intrusion regarding health issues by those not qualified. If a parent or guardian believes their child is in need of medication, then they have the right to make that decision and consult with a licensed medical practitioner who is qualified to prescribe an appropriate drug. Please join us in support of this legislation that protects the freedoms of our children.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Capital Gains Inflation Relief Act of 2007. The taxation of inflation is one of the most unjust practices of the tax code. This simple improvement will not only enhance the basic fairness and efficiency of the tax code, but will also immediately increase the net return on capital investment.

Under current law, a taxable capital gain occurs whenever a capital asset is sold at a price higher than the original purchase price. However, the timing of capital gains taxation sets it apart from other types of income. While wages are generally taxed on a yearly basis, the taxation on capital assets occurs at the time the capital asset holder chooses to sell his asset and realize

his gains. The gains on capital assets accrue over the course of the asset's life, which is usually many years. This is generally favorable to the capital asset holder, because he can defer taxation on his gains to a future year. This tax deferral is often cited as the primary reason for holding assets long term.

However, the value of tax deferral is often times overstated because current tax policy taxes the capital asset holder not only on real gains, but also on gains due to inflation. This creates a situation that is patently unfair to the American taxpayer. For example, an American who purchased a share of stock for $10 in 1950 and sold it for twice that amount today would be subject to capital gains taxes on the nominal gain of $10, though the transaction was a clear loss when one accounts for inflation. Why should an American taxpayer, who invested in a capital asset in his youth, be forced to pay capital gains taxes, on what can only be viewed as a loss, in his later years? In spite of all our efforts to curb inflation, it will remain a fact of life. This does not mean we should tax hard-working Americans with long-term goals on gains that are due to inflation, gains that they will never actually realize.

Without an inflation index, the tax code incentivizes short-term speculation and discourages long-term capital investment. The current turmoil in the subprime lending market is an example that demonstrates the perils of emphasizing short-term speculation over long-term capital investment. Though inflation has remained relatively modest recently, there is no guarantee of future stability. Inflation indexing would instantly increase the net return on capital investment and consequently encourage more of it. Inflation indexing would also restore core principles of sound tax policy such as ``horizontal equity,'' wherein two taxpayers in identical situations are treated identically by the tax system. Indexing capital gains would improve the basic fairness of the tax code with only a minor increase in administrative costs and a single step of simple multiplication for taxpayer compliance.

The need for indexing is clear. It would help average Americans and improve tax policy by enhancing both the basic fairness and the pro- growth incentive of the tax code. The merits of the capital gains tax are themselves debatable, but if we are to tax capital gains let us make sure they are taxed fairly. Please join with me in supporting this legislation to free the American taxpayer from the unfairness of the current tax policy.

Mr. President, the independent producers of oil and gas are the backbone of our domestic supply of energy. They have played and continue to play a critical role in meeting our domestic needs, especially as the big oil companies' focus mainly offshore. In fact, independents develop 90 percent of our Nation's wells. According to the Department of Energy, independent producers supply 68 percent of American oil production and 82 percent of overall American natural gas.

Therefore, I rise today to introduce legislation that eliminates the taxable income limit on percentage depletion for oil and natural gas produced from marginal wells; wells producing 15 barrels of day and less than 90 thousand cubic feet of natural gas.

Under current law, the percentage depletion method is limited to only independent producers and royalty owners. It is a form of cost recovery for capital initially invested toward production of oil and gas wells. Generally, the percentage depletion rate is 15 percent of the taxpayer's gross income from an oil and gas producing property and is limited to a daily average of 1,000 barrels of oil or 6,000 thousand cubic feet of natural gas. However, under the net income limitation, percentage depletion is limited to 100 percent of the net income from an individual property. In the case of marginal wells, where total deductions often do exceed this net-income, this limitation discourages producers from investing in the continued production from marginal wells.

As a result Congress has suspended the net-income limitation for 1998 through 2005; and again for 2006 and 2007, with the passage of the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, H.R. 6111.

My bill would simply clarify the policy by doing away with the taxable net income limitation altogether.

In my own State of Oklahoma, it is the small independents, basically mom-and-pop operations, producing the majority of oil and natural gas, with 85 percent of Oklahoma's oil coming from marginal wells.

Because marginal wells supply such a significant amount of our oil and gas, it is vital we keep them in operation. According to the Energy Department, between 1994 and 2003, we lost 110 million barrels of crude oil due to plugged marginal wells. Thus, when we lose marginal wells, we become more dependent upon foreign sources of energy, at a time when virtually all agree that U.S. policies should encourage reliance upon domestic sources. Furthermore, we lose domestic jobs to foreign nations.

My bill would allow independents the necessary capital to continue to produce from these existing marginal wells--which is critical to the Nation's overall energy security. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.