Medicare Medical Nutrition Therapy Act of 2007

Mr. President, today I introduce legislation to reduce air pollution and the threat of global warming by enacting strict standards on the four major pollutants from powerplants. I send the legislation to the desk and ask it be introduced.

Mr. President, I am pleased that Senator Joe Lieberman, of Connecticut, who chairs a key environmental subcommittee, will be the bill's lead cosponsor, so it will be known as the Alexander-Lieberman Clean Air Climate Change Act of 2007. It will establish an aggressive but practical and achievable set of limits on four key pollutants. This is a little different sort of clean air and climate change bill, and I would like to talk for a few minutes about exactly what it does and why we are doing it this way.

Most of us in the Senate can be measured by where we come from. I come from the Great Smoky Mountains. When I go home tomorrow afternoon, after we hopefully start the competitiveness legislation debate, I will go to my home about 2 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When the Cherokees named the Great Smoky Mountains, which today have become our most visited national park, they were not talking about smog and soot. Unfortunately, today they probably would be. There has been a lot of recent progress, but air pollution is still a serious health problem, causing illnesses from asthma to premature death, and making it harder to attract new jobs.

To be specific about that, recently, over the last 20 years, the auto industry has become important to Tennessee.

Tennessee was in competition recently for a Toyota plant that nearly came to Chattanooga but went to Mississippi. In the last 25 years, one- third of our manufacturing jobs have become auto jobs. I can remember when there were not any, and I was Governor, and the Nissan plant decided to come to Tennessee in 1980. The first thing I had to do as Governor was to help them go down to the air quality board and get a permit to paint 500,000 cars and trucks a year. That is a lot of paint, and produces a lot of emissions in the area. If Tennessee had not had clean air at that time, that Nissan plant would have been in Georgia. So clean air is not only about our health, although the more we learn about the effects of nitrogen pollutants and sulfur pollutants, the more that we learn that it and mercury are about our health, clean air is also about our ability to attract jobs. So we want to make sure that when Nissan or Toyota or any of the suppliers of any automobile company--General Motors with a Saturn plant in Tennessee--when they want to look at our State for expansion--they are not limited by our inability to meet clean air standards.

We also have jobs that come from another direction. In Tennessee, tourism is big business. Many people know about Yellowstone in the West, but the Great Smoky Mountains have three times as many visitors as any Western park, nearly 10 million visitors a year, and they come to see the Great Smokies, not to see smog, not to see soot. They want to enjoy it.

When I go into Sevierville, Dolly Parton's hometown, and ask the Chamber of Commerce right there next to Maryville where I grew up, what is your No. 1 issue, these conservative Republicans in Sevier County say to me: Clean air. That is what the Chamber of Commerce there says, clean air. So we Tennesseans think clean air is important for our health, because we love to look at our mountains and because of our jobs.

I am the chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Congressional Caucus. I sit on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee. I am especially delighted that Senator Lieberman, who is the cosponsor of this legislation, not only is on that committee, but he chairs one of the major subcommittees on the Environment and Public Works Committee that has to do with global warming.

What we are hoping is that this legislation, which I am about to describe, along with legislation Senator Carper of Delaware is introducing today or tomorrow, will help move along the debate about how we deal with global warming in our country.

In the legislation I have presented, the Alexander-Lieberman legislation, we seek to preserve our jobs while we clean the air and preserve the planet. We have a number of concerns in our country, and global warming is only one of those. So I would argue that the provisions we have set out are aggressive, but they are practical and they are achievable. They set schedules for powerplants to reduce emissions for sulfur dioxide, for nitrogen oxide, for mercury, and for carbon dioxide. Doing so will relieve some of the worst air-related health environmental problems such as ozone, acid rain, mercury contamination, and global warming.

I think it is important to note that one of the differences with this Alexander-Lieberman bill is it proposes carbon caps only on powerplants that produce electricity; it does not propose carbon caps on the economy as a whole.

Now, why would we only do that? Well, here are the reasons for that: No. 1, when we talk about global warming and carbon, we are dealing with a huge, complex economy. This country of ours produces and uses about 25 percent of all of the energy in the world. We have businesses that range from the shoe shop to Google to chemical plants.

I think we have to be very careful in Washington about coming up with great schemes and great ideas that sound good here but that might not apply to everyone across the country, because everyone across the country has a natural conservatism about the wisdom of those who are in Washington. We could scare them to death with some talk of an economywide global warming bill. So I am more comfortable thinking sector by sector. I want our steps to be practical and cost effective.

I do believe a market-based cap and trade system for powerplants makes a lot of sense. Powerplants are the logical place to start with carbon regulation. Powerplants produce about 40 percent of all the carbon in our economy. Powerplants are increasing emissions of carbon at a rate faster than any other large segment in our economy. We have selected in our legislation what we call a market-based cap and trade system to regulate the amount of carbon that is produced. This is not a new idea. The market-based cap and trade system was actually introduced by a Republican administration in which I served in the Cabinet, the first George Bush. It was a part of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990. It was introduced because we were concerned about the amount of sulfur coming out of powerplants. Basically it created a lot of flexibility for those powerplants. It used a market system. We have now had 15 years experience with it. It has worked very well. It has significantly reduced the amount of sulfur in the air. It has done it in a way that most everyone concedes is the lowest possible cost of regulation.

It is a minimal amount of rules from here, a maximum amount of market decisions and individual decisions by individual utilities. So we have had that system in effect since 1990. There has been a similar system in effect for nitrogen. There has been a similar cap and trade system in Europe. We have a lot of experience with cap and trade. So we have elected to use a similar cap and trade market-based system to regulate the carbon coming out of the same smokestacks that sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury come out of. We can already measure the amount of carbon coming out, so we do not have to guess about that. We do not have to invent a new system.

We do have to be careful about what the standards are, what the dates are. We want to know what the costs will be to the ratepayers. We want to keep electric rates as low as we possibly can, as well as making the energy clean.

But if we are concerned about global warming in this generation, because I think we should be, then powerplants are a good place to start. It is time to finish the job of cleaning the air of sulfur, of too much sulfur, too much nitrogen, and too much mercury. It is time to take the right first step with controlling carbon emissions. It is time to acknowledge that climate change is real, that human activity is a big part of the problem, and that it is up to us to act.

Now not only am I glad to be working with Senator Lieberman, who will be the lead cosponsor of this legislation, he, of course, is already a leader in this area and he has an economywide piece of legislation which he introduced. Senator McCain in the last session--I am not about to try to speak for another Senator, but I think Senator Lieberman is taking the position he would like to see several good trains moving down the track toward the same station in hopes that one of them eventually gets there, and that we can learn from each other.

That is the attitude I take with the legislation Senator Carper has described today and that he is introducing today or tomorrow. Senator Carper and I have worked together through two Congresses on four pollutant legislation. A lot has happened since we started working. For example, the Administration, to its credit, through the Environmental Protection Agency, has stiffened requirements for sulfur and nitrogen. I applaud President Bush for that. They are very good requirements. They have also proposed the regulation of mercury for the first time in our country's history. I applaud the EPA for that. So a lot has changed since Senator Carper and I first started.

Also we have learned a lot. Senators who do not always have their mouths open learn a lot. We have discovered one of the most difficult areas in fashioning a market-based cap and trade system for sulfur or for nitrogen or for carbon is who pays for it. We called that the allocation system.

Senator Carper and I started out with what we called an output system. We thought that sounded pretty good. It would be based upon the amount of electricity you would be putting out. But the more we studied it, he came to a different conclusion and I came to a different conclusion. I came to the conclusion that we should use historical emissions. In other words, we are saying to a utility in the United States: We are about to impose upon you some requirements for cleaning up more sulfur, cleaning up more nitrogen, cleaning up mercury--for the first time--and regulating the emissions of carbon for the first time, and I understand that is a significant cost.

That capital cost will have to be borne in the end by ratepayers. So, in my view, it seems to me that the fairest way to impose that cost would be through what we call the historical allocation system. That is the way we have done it with allowances for sulfur and nitrogen for the last 15 years.

In fact, the input or the historical allowance system as the way to pay the bill has been the way it is done almost everywhere, I believe.

But there is another way to allocate that is called the output. Senator Carper selected that. There is still a third way to allocate the costs of doing whatever regulation we do, and that is called the auction. A market-based cap and trade system sounds complicated, but it is not so complicated. It basically says to each emitter of one of the pollutants: You have an allowance to emit one ton of that sulfur or of that carbon, and as long as you emit that much, you are okay. If you emit more than that, you are going to have to buy allowances to emit that much more from someone else. So it costs you more. Or if you emit less, you can sell your allowance. Then as the law goes along over the years, 2009 or 2010 to 2015, the amount of pollutants that come down, your allowance total drops down as well.

One of the favored proposals mostly--and especially by many environmental groups--is an auction of those allowances. Well, I have resisted. I have been careful about the auctions. I have been to a lot of auctions. I know they must have them in Minnesota as well as Tennessee. I have yet to see one where the purpose of the auction was not to get the highest possible price.

Well, if I am paying my electric bill down in Memphis, or if I am at Eastman Chemical in east Tennessee or ALCOA trying to keep my electric costs in line, I am not interested in my Senator coming to Washington and having an auction to raise my electric rates to the highest possible price.

So also there is the temptation that if you auction off these allowances, and there are a lot of them when we are talking about carbon allowances, many more than when we are talking about sulfur allowances over the last 15 years. They will bring in a lot of money. And whenever you bring in a lot of money, and 100 different Senators and lots of Congressmen know there is a pot of money, they will come up with a lot of ways to spend that money. And where will that money come from? Well, it has got to come from the man or women or family paying the electric bill in Nashville, or Knoxville. So I have been conservative about the use of auctions.

Senator Lieberman and I, in this bill, say 75 percent of the allowance comes from historical emissions and 25 percent are sold in an auction. This gets way down in the weeds, as we say. But one of the things that I think may be beneficial from Senator Carper going ahead with his bill, which relies on an output system that becomes a 100- percent auction, and way we go ahead in the Alexander-Lieberman bill with 75-percent input and 25-percent auction, may be that our colleagues will do as we have been doing over the last few months, and spend a little more time understanding allowances and auctions, and we can come to a better conclusion about this.

I value greatly my relationship with Senator Carper and respect his leadership in this area. He chairs one of the principal subcommittees on the Environment Committee upon which I serve

and the Presiding Officer serves. What I hope is he and I are moving into a new stage of our working relationship on clean air and climate change, and the result of that will be that all of our ideas will be out in front of our colleagues and that it will move the debate along.

I would emphasize, we agree, he and I, on a lot more than we disagree on. In fact, I believe on all of the standards and deadlines for meeting those standards for nitrogen, sulfur, and mercury, we agree. We agree there should not be a cap and trade system for mercury because mercury is a neurotoxin, and down in east Tennessee where I live, we do not want TVA buying a lot of allowances so they can emit a lot more mercury, because it doesn't go up in the air and blow into North Carolina, it goes up in the air and comes right down on top of us, for the most part. We don't want that.

We don't want that. The more we learn about mercury, the less we want it. We don't have cap and trade for mercury, although we do suggest that for carbon.

Climate change has become the issue of the moment. Everybody is talking about it. There are movies about it. The Vice President was here testifying about it. It is not the only issue that faces us that has to do with air pollution. I am more concerned in Tennessee about sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury than I am about carbon. That is why this is a four-pollutant bill. We ought to address all of these at once.

I was in this body 40 years ago as a staff assistant working for Howard Baker. I remember very well when Senator Baker, a Republican, and Senator Muskie of Maine, a Democrat, worked together on the committee on which the Presiding Officer and I now serve. They passed the first Clean Water Act and the first Clean Air Act. The Clean Water Act, some people have said, is the most important piece of urban renewal legislation ever enacted because the rivers of America had gotten so dirty, nobody wanted to live on them. The rivers of America are where most of our great cities are. As soon as they were cleaned up, people moved back to the cities and around the rivers. That was 1970 and 1971.

It is appropriate to think about that now because Earth Day is coming up this weekend. I can remember Earth Day, which began in 1970. Suddenly the environment, which had been an issue that was reserved for only a few people, became a national craze. It was almost like a hula hoop. Everybody was interested in the environment and recycling. Former Senator Gaylord Nelson was a leader in creating Earth Day. I can remember sitting in a meeting of President Nixon and the Republican leadership in 1970 when I was on the White House staff, and President Nixon was trying to explain to the Republican leaders the importance of environmental issues. It was 8 o'clock in the morning, and they weren't listening very well. It was a new subject. But Gaylord Nelson was doing it. The kids were doing it. People were recycling. The Republican President was talking to the Republican leadership, and Senator Baker, Senator Muskie, and the Congress passed the first Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

Many of us who have lived a while can remember things are better today in many ways. When I was a student at Vanderbilt in Nashville, it was so smoggy in the mornings, you couldn't see downtown. Your clothes got dirty during the day. Things got gradually better. In 1990, when the first President Bush was in office, we passed important Clean Air Act amendments, and the first cap and trade system for sulfur began. What also happened was that we learned more about how damaging these pollutants are to our health.

As a result, the standards which we once thought were high seemed low. Knoxville, the biggest city near where I grew up, near the Smoky Mountains, is the 14th most polluted city for ozone. Ozone irritates lung tissue, increases the risk of dying prematurely, increases the swelling of lung tissue. It increases the risk of being hospitalized with worsened lung diseases and triggering asthma attacks. At risk in Knoxville County alone are 176,000 children, 112,000 seniors, 15,000 children with asthma, and 50,000 adults with asthma. Ozone is not emitted directly from tailpipes and smokestacks. The raw ingredients come from coal-fired powerplants and cars.

Sulfur is in many ways our biggest problem. It is the primary contributor to haze. It causes difficulty in breathing. It causes damage to lung tissue and respiratory disease and premature death.

We know that mercury is also a problem. Monitoring by the National Park Service in the Great Smoky Mountains has found high levels of mercury deposits from air pollution. Mercury pollution of rivers and streams contaminates the fish we eat and poses a serious threat to children and pregnant women.

This bill is a clean air and a climate change bill. I hope our committee, as we take advantage of this resurgence of interest in the quality of air and our health and what we need to do about it, we won't just do part of the job. I would like to look at the whole picture. What we do in this bill is take the standards that the EPA has created for nitrogen and sulfur and put them into law. We make them a little stricter, but basically we put them into law. We take the mercury rule of the EPA, and we put it into law. We make it even stricter. The EPA says get rid of 70 percent of it. We say get rid of 90 percent. Then for the first time we put into law carbon caps on electric powerplants which produce 40 percent of all the carbon produced in the United States and are the fastest growing sector producing carbon in America.

I hope my colleagues will carefully consider this sector-by-sector approach to climate change. Carbon caps might be the best way--I believe they are--for dealing with electric powerplants. When it comes to fuel, there may be another strategy that makes sense. We could deal with that sector in a different way. For example, when we were dealing with sulfur, we didn't put a cap and trade on diesel fuel. We did on powerplants. But when we got to diesel fuel, we just said that you have to have ultra low sulfur diesel for big trucks, which just now went into effect.

There is also the large segment of building energy use. If we took the sector of building energy use, the fuel segment, and the electric powerplants, if we added that to a few stationery sources in America and developed strategies that were aggressive but practical and cost- effective for each of those segments, we would be up in the 85 to 90 percent of all the carbon we produce in America. That makes a lot more sense to me than trying to devise some one-size-fits-all system that affects every little shop, store, or farm in America. If we can get most of it this way, maybe we can learn something so that someday we can get the rest of it.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks a section-by-section description of the Alexander-Lieberman bill, a one-page summary of the Alexander-Lieberman Clean Air/Climate Change Act of 2007, as well as a short memorandum which we describe as discussion points and with which I will conclude my remarks by going over in just a moment, and a letter from the National Parks Conservation Association endorsing the bill.

Senator Lieberman and I don't have all the answers with this legislation. I feel much more comfortable with this legislation today than I did with any I helped introduce last year or the year before because I have learned a lot more. But I will guarantee my colleagues that there are several areas in which I would welcome advice. Over the last several weeks, I have met with a dozen, two dozen environmental groups, utilities, Tennessee citizens, others who had suggestions. For example, the discussion points that I have put into the record contain five points that are arguable. I have come to a tentative conclusion on them. That is in the bill. But there is another side to the point. I am looking for advice.

For example, should we cap only carbon or all greenhouse gases emitted from electricity plants? I chose to cap CO2 only. That is because this is a four-pollutant bill--sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, and carbon. It is not primarily a climate change bill.

Another consideration is that it seems Europe's experience is that it may be better to cap just carbon and

not all greenhouse gases. That is a question we can debate.

What should the size of an auction be in terms of the allowances? I discussed that earlier. Senator Lieberman and I have chosen 25 percent of the total number of allowances. Senator Carper, in his bill, eventually goes to 100 percent. There are arguments on both sides.

What influenced my decision was, I wanted to keep the costs down as much as possible. I was afraid that if we used some different kind of allowance allocation, we might literally take money away from the emitters that they ought to be using to put scrubbers on to reduce sulfur, nitrogen, mercury, or carbon and pay it to other utilities.

What rules should govern the use of offset allowances by electric plants? Offsets are an ingenious idea. The idea would be that an emitter of carbon might be able to pay somebody else to reduce their output of carbon and, therefore, we would end up with the same amount of carbon. There are many advantages to that. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority might pay a Tennessee farmer to manage his livestock crop in a way as to not produce as much methane, might pay a Tennessee farmer to plant a lot of trees. Both of those things would reduce greenhouse gases, and the farmer would have more money in his pocket. That is a good idea.

The downside of offsets is that if they are unregulated entirely, it seems to me they could become a gimmick or a fad or worse. What we have done in this bill is adopt a system of offsets from a consortium of States ranging from Maryland to Maine--that includes Senator Lieberman's State of Connecticut--and used those model rules on offsets. That tends to limit the way offsets may be used. It is a good place to at least begin. In other words, a utility might produce more carbon, but it might pay someone else who is reducing carbon by using biomass or by sequestering carbon in some other way.

There is a question about how should new coal-fired electric plants be treated. There are probably 160 new coal plants on the drawing boards. Some of them hope to escape the rules Congress is considering about capping the output of carbon. I don't think they should. This bill would apply to all coal-fired powerplants, including those on the drawing boards. It also would give an incentive to the first 30 of those plants to meet a high standard of clean coal technology. We don't want to encourage the use of natural gas in this bill. That is the last thing we want to do. We don't want to discourage the use of coal. We have a lot of coal. It would help make us energy independent. We want to encourage the creation of the kind of technology that will permit us to use coal in a clean way that either recaptures the carbon and stores it or finds some other way to deal with it.

Finally, what should the CO2 cap levels be? We can debate that, and I am sure we will. But the cap level we pick in this legislation is to say, let's freeze at the level of last year, starting with 2011, and go down step by step into 2025 to 1.5 billion metric tons. This is our contribution to the debate.

We have learned enough about our health, about our ability to attract jobs, to know we need to finish the job of cleaning up the air of nitrogen, of sulfur, and of mercury; and we need to take the right first step to begin to control the emission of carbon to deal with global warming. I believe the right first step is a market-based cap and trade system of electricity plants which is described here.

May I also say this: Some people say: Well, let's wait until China does it. Let's wait until India does it. The great danger is that we will not unleash the technological genius of the United States of America to clean our air and to deal efficiently and inexpensively with the emissions of carbon. If we do not figure that out, India and China are going to build so many dirty coal powerplants that it will not make any difference what we do because the wind will blow the dirty air around here, and we will suffer and the planet will suffer whatever the consequences are of global warming and of the other pollutants that come from coal.

So we have an obligation not just to the world to do this, we have to do this for ourselves because 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 new coal-fired powerplants in India and China will obliterate any of the good work we might do here. I believe if we take the aggressive but practical cost- effective steps in this Clean Air/Climate Change Act, we will unleash the great entrepreneurial spirit of our country. We will be able to create an inexpensive way to deal with carbon on a segment-by-segment basis, deal with the other pollutants, and India and China will have to follow. The rest of the world will follow, and we will be better off.

I cannot imagine more interesting and exciting work to be doing. This is the kind of subject on which we should be working together on a bipartisan basis.

I thank Senator Lieberman for joining me in cosponsoring this legislation. I salute Senator Carper for his continued leadership. I look forward to working with him.

Exhibit 1

Clean Air/Climate Change Act of 2007, Section by Section Description,

April 19, 2007

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce America's Red Rock Wilderness Act of 2007. This legislation continues our Nation's commitment to preserve our natural heritage. Preservation of our Nation's vital natural resources will be one of our most important legacies.

America's Red Rock Wilderness Act will designate as wilderness some of our Nation's most remarkable, but currently unprotected public lands. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in Utah harbor some of the largest and most remarkable roadless desert areas anywhere in the world. Included in the 9.4 million acres I seek to protect are well known landscapes, like the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, as well as lesser known areas just outside Zion National Park, Canyonlands National Park, and Arches National Park. Together this wild landscape offers spectacular vistas of rare rock formations, canyons and desert lands, important archaeological sites, and habitat for rare plant and animal species.

I have visited many of the areas this Act would designate as wilderness. I can tell you that the natural beauty of these truly unique landscapes is a compelling reason for Congress to grant these lands wilderness protection. I have the honor of introducing legislation first introduced by my friend and former colleague in the House of Representatives, Wayne Owens. As the representative for much of Utah's Red Rock country, Representative Owens pioneered the Congressional effort to protect Utah wilderness. He did this with broad public support, which still exists not only in Utah, but in all corners of our Nation.

The wilderness designated in this bill was chosen based on more than twenty years of meticulous research and surveying. Volunteers have taken inventories of thousands of square miles of BLM land in Utah to help determine which lands should be protected. These volunteers provided extensive documentation to ensure that these areas meet Federal wilderness criteria. The BLM also completed a reinventory of approximately six million acres of Federal land in the same area in 1999. While only six million acres of the total 9.4 million acres were inventoried by the BLM, the results provide a convincing confirmation that the areas designated for protection under this bill meet Federal wilderness criteria.

For more than 20 years, Utah conservationists have been working to add the last great blocks of undeveloped BLM-administered land in Utah to the National Wilderness Preservation System. The lands proposed for protection surround and connect eight of Utah's nine national park, monument and recreation areas. These proposed BLM wilderness areas easily equal their neighboring national parklands in scenic beauty, opportunities for recreation, and ecological importance. Yet, unlike the parks, most of these scenic treasures lack any form of long-term protection.

Today, the BLM is in the process of making critical decisions about the future stewardship and use of nearly six million acres of wild lands that my legislation would protect. The BLM will decide which areas should be preserved or developed and whether they will be left roadless or have roads cut through them. It also will determine if these wild lands will be open to off-road vehicles or exploited for mineral mining and oil and gas exploration. Any policies put in place will stand for 15 to 20 years, a timespan long enough to leave a lasting mark on this landscape.

Americans understand the need for wise and balanced stewardship of these wild landscapes. Unfortunately, the Administration has proposed little or no serious protections for Utah's most majestic places. Instead, the BLM appears to lack a solid conservation ethic and routinely favors development and consumptive uses of our wild public land. In just the last four years, the BLM has leased for oil and gas development over 125,000 acres of land that would have been designated for wilderness in America's Red Rock Wilderness Act.

This legislation represents a realistic balance between our need to protect our natural heritage and our demand for energy. While wilderness designation has been portrayed as a barrier to energy independence, it is important to note that within the entire 9.4 million acres of America's Red Rock Wilderness Act the amount of ``technically recoverable'' undiscovered natural gas and oil resources amounts to less than four days of oil and four weeks of natural gas at current consumption levels.

America's Red Rock Wilderness Act is a lasting gift to the American public. By protecting this serene yet wild land we are giving future generations the opportunity to enjoy the same untrammeled landscape that so many now cherish.

I'd like to thank my colleagues who are original cosponsors of this measure, many of whom have supported the bill since it was first introduced. Original cosponsors are Senators Kerry, Feingold, Cantwell, Menendez, Cardin, Reed, Harkin, Kennedy, Bayh, Lieberman, Stabenow, Schumer, Lautenberg, Boxer, Whitehouse, Brown and Clinton. Additionally, I would like to thank The Utah Wilderness Coalition, which includes The Wilderness Society and Sierra Club; The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance; and all of the other national, regional and local, hard-working groups who, for years, have championed this legislation.

Theodore Roosevelt once stated:

``The Nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.''

Enactment of this legislation will help us realize Roosevelt's vision. To protect these precious resources in Utah for future generations, I urge my colleagues to support America's Red Rock Wilderness Act.

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

Mr. President, President Eisenhower once stated, ``Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in armaments is not spending its money alone: it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.''

In as trying a time as we live in today, his statement cannot ring more true. We are in the middle of a war with no seeming end in sight. We have daily debates about the numbers in our budget. But President Eisenhower was right. We are not spending our money alone.

In a Nation as rich as ours, we should be able to arrange our priorities to meet the needs of our country, but the unfortunate reality is that in the United States today, children go hungry. Children count on school, not only for education but also for their meals. Seniors are forced to make a choice between life-saving medicines and groceries for their meals. Families are forced to make the difficult choice between paying for food and paying for utilities or their rent or mortgage or even their medicine or medical care. This is the reality of our America.

As Senators, we often hear from families that tell us the difficulty in making ends meet. More and more working families are turning to food banks, pantries and soup kitchens for emergency food assistance. When examining the actual costs of housing, food, utilities and other necessities, researchers have found that in most areas of the country, families need about 200 percent of the poverty level to achieve ``minimal economic self-sufficiency.'' Individuals and families are faced with a cost of living that continues to rise and an increasing gap between what low-wage workers earn and what is required to meet basic needs.

In my State of Illinois, over 158,000 Illinois households experienced hunger in 2005. If we include households that have had to struggle to put food on the table or have had to skip meals to make sure the food would last through the week--that's 440,000 households in Illinois living with food insecurity--9 percent of Illinois households. These are working families who need more to lead healthy, happy lives.

Fortunately, we have some programs in existence to offer hope. Since President Johnson started the war on poverty, we have documented that the Federal nutrition programs work to reduce hunger. When people are able to use Food Stamps, there are enough groceries to last through the week. When new moms are helped by WIC, they and their babies have enough milk and eggs and fruit. When senior citizens are near a Commodity Supplemental Food Program site, they can take home a box of food to fill the pantry AND buy their prescription drugs. Our school children can fill their stomachs and then focus on learning--because of the Federal school food program. In cases of emergency, like the

tragic occurrences of hurricanes, our Federal nutrition assistance programs have been there to assist families in need. These Federal food programs work, but more can be done.

Last Congress, I introduced the Hunger Free Communities Act with Senators Lincoln, Smith and Lugar. The bill creates new grant programs that help communities make the most of the Federal nutrition programs and build on their successes.

First, the bill makes grant money available to local groups that are working to eliminate hunger in their communities. Each day, soup kitchens serve meals, and food pantries give groceries, and volunteers collect food, make sandwiches, and deliver food. Our bill creates an anti-hunger grant program--the first of its kind--that asks communities to assess hunger and hunger relief at the local level. Grant money is available to help with that assessment or grant money can be used to help fill in the gaps that a local plan identifies.

Second, we create a funding stream that food banks and soup kitchens can use to keep up their buildings and trucks and kitchen equipment. The response of the food bank network to the crisis after hurricanes Katrina and Rita was remarkable. Tons of food was donated, transported and delivered by thousands of volunteers from all over the country. But within days, America's Second Harvest recognized the food banks needed freezers, forklifts, delivery trucks and repairs to warehouses and equipment. My bill creates the only Federal funding stream specifically for the capital needs of local hunger relief efforts. Helping these organizations is especially important for those organizations in underserved areas and areas where rates of food insecurity, hunger, poverty, or unemployment are higher than the national average.

Late last Congress, the Hunger Free Communities Act was passed by the Senate. I had hoped that there might be time for the House to act on it before the Session ended, but we ran out of time. This was, however, a small victory. It was a small step toward progress--a step that both Democrats and Republicans want to take for the health and well-being of our communities.

There are still too many parents in this country who skip meals because there is not enough money in the family food budget for them and their children to eat every night. There are still too many babies and toddlers in America who are not getting the nutrition their minds and bodies need to develop to their fullest potential. There are too many seniors, and children, who go to bed hungry. In the richest Nation in the history of the world, that is unacceptable.

Progress against hunger is possible, even with a war abroad and budget deficits at home. I am heartened by the 43 United States Senators who agreed with me and cosponsored the Hunger Free Communities Act last year. I am heartened by the support of the Illinois Coalition on Hunger, Bread for the World and America's Second Harvest. Congress will be reauthorizing many nutrition programs this year with the farm bill, and the Hunger Free Communities Act should be a part of that. I believe this bill can take a modest but meaningful step toward eliminating hunger in this country. We tried to make that first step when the bill passed the Senate late last year. We can do it again and should.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue of children's rights and human rights: the recruitment and use of child soldiers.

Hundreds of thousands of children in the world today serve as child soldiers, boys and girls alike.

They serve as combatants, porters, human mine detectors and sex slaves.

Their health and lives are endangered and their childhoods are sacrificed.

The bulk of these children are captured, recruited, or sold into service with rebel groups such as the infamous Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

But some serve with uniformed armed forces or government-supported paramilitaries or militias.

Even more troubling, children have served as child soldiers for governments that receive U.S. military assistance.

Today, Senator Sam Brownback and I are introducing legislation addressing this issue.

Our bill, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, will ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not used to support foreign militaries known to recruit or use child soldiers in government armed forces or government- supported militaries.

U.S. military assistance can continue under this bill, but it will be used to remedy the problem by helping countries successfully demobilize their child soldiers and professionalize their forces.

Under the terms of this bill, Foreign Military Assistance and other defense-related aid would be limited if countries are clearly identified in the State Department's Human Rights report as recruiting or using child soldiers.

Military assistance to these countries would be limited to supporting the professionalization of their forces until they eliminate the use of child soldiers.

If years of abuse continue, then U.S. assistance would eventually be eliminated.

In all circumstances, the President would be able to waive these rules if he deems that it is in the national interest.

What do we mean by professionalization?

We mean creating regular militaries which conform to long-standing international norms, such as not using children, respecting human rights, and functioning as professional armies.

This bill can only affect governmental or government sanctioned military and paramilitary organizations.

But that is where we have leverage through our foreign military assistance programs and we will use whatever leverage we have to address this heinous phenomenon.

In the last year, many of us have read the haunting memoir of Ishmael Beah, A LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.

Beah is all of 26: that might seem too young to write a memoir, but sadly, his youth was stolen from him many years ago.

Beah grew up in war-torn Sierra Leone. He was born in 1980.

Eleven years later, civil war broke out, killing tens of thousands of people and driving millions from their homes.

At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels.

Beah's parents and his two brothers were among those killed.

By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, but that was no refuge.

Fleeing the rebels who had killed so many of his friends and family, Beah wound up in a village run by government troops.

He wrote of this moment in his life, ``In the beginning it seemed we had found safety the smiles on people's faces assured us that there was nothing to worry about anymore. All that darkened the mood of the village was the sight of orphaned children. There were over thirty boys between the ages of six and sixteen. I was one of them. Apart from this, there were no indications that our childhood was threatened, much less that we would be robbed of it.''

That was exactly what was happening, though.

In Beah's first battle he watched his eleven-year old tent-mate bleed out before his very eyes.

He writes of this awful day, ``My face, my hands, my shirt and gun were covered with blood. I raised the gun and pulled the trigger, and I killed a man. Suddenly, as if someone was

shooting them inside my brain, all the massacres I had seen since the day I was touched by war began flashing in my head. Every time I stopped shooting to change magazines and saw my two young lifeless friends, I angrily pointed my gun into the swamp and killed more people.''

That was at 13. Thirteen--- an age for junior high soccer games, not for going to war.

Ultimately during his time in the government army, Beah says he killed ``too many people to count.''

In 1998 he fled and in 1999 he was able to come to New York.

Returning to civilization, according to Beah, was actually harder than the act of becoming a child soldier because ``dehumanizing children is a relatively easy task.''

Thank God, Sierra Leone's civil war is over.

But too many children in the world continue to be forced to serve as child soldiers.

Ensuring that countries professionalize their militaries and help their child soldiers make the transition back into civil society is a humanitarian issue but also in the best interest for our own armed forces.

We do not want American soldiers in a position where they have to return fire on children.

Delay in such a moment could cost an American soldier his life, but think also of the psychic costs of having to kill a child in battle.

We want our troops to avoid such a situation and we want to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are used as they should be: for professionalizing the militaries of countries whom we are assisting.

It is not enough for child soldiers simply to be demobilized: U.S.- funded programs assist in the rehabilitation of child soldiers and the reintegration of these young people back into civilian life.

Some of these child veterans of war have witnessed or been forced to do terrible things.

Many of the girls have been victims of rape and may be coming back into civilian life with their own children.

I strongly support programs to provide psychological services, educational and vocational training, and other assistance to these traumatized young people.

I also support efforts to bring to justice those rebel leaders and others who kidnap children for use as child soldiers.

The use of child soldiers represents a basic issue of human rights.

For that reason, next week Senator Coburn, who is the ranking member on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, and I will be holding a Subcommittee hearing on Child Soldiers and the Law.

In this hearing, we will explore the persistent use of child soldiers despite the fact that this practice is widely acknowledged as a war crime.

Is this persistent crime in part a failure of enforcement?

Are reforms needed in U.S. law to criminalize this terrible practice?

How is this issue addressed under our immigration laws?

Expert witnesses from non-governmental and faith-based organizations will speak to these issues in our hearing next Tuesday.

So too will Ishmael Beah, whose words vividly capture the horror of children at war.

I am introducing this bill and our subcommittee is holding this hearing as progressive steps to remedy a terrible and persistent problem.

Here in Washington, on the floor of the Senate, it is hard to imagine the atrocities that children endure every day, as combatants, as sex slaves, and as forced labor for militaries and paramilitaries.

But those atrocities do continue.

At the least we should ensure that U.S. assistance goes to remedy the problem and that it is never used to prolong it.

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

Mr. President, today I introduce the Colon Cancer Screen for Life Act of 2007 along with my colleagues, Senator Collins, Senator Lieberman, and Senator Graham. Many people are aware that colon cancer is the second most deadly cancer in the United States. In 2006 alone, according to the American Cancer Society, more than 150,000 new cases were diagnosed and more than 50,000 Americans died from colon cancer. In my own State of Maryland, nearly 1,000 people lost their lives to this disease last year. What people are not as aware of, however, is that colon cancer is preventable with appropriate screening, highly detectable, and curable if found early. The purpose of our bill is to increase the rate of participation in colon cancer screening and ensure that we are saving every life that we can from this deadly disease.

Medicare coverage for colorectal cancer screening through colonoscopy was authorized in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and further expanded in 2000 when the colonoscopy benefit was added for high risk beneficiaries. Under this Medicare benefit, a low risk beneficiary is entitled to receive a colonoscopy once every ten years and a high risk beneficiary is entitled to a colonoscopy every two years. Despite this, recent studies have shown that patients are not utilizing coverage of CRC preventive screenings. According to the Government Accountability Office, since the implementation of the benefit in 1998, the percentage of Medicare beneficiaries receiving either a screening or a diagnostic colonoscopy has increased by 1 percent.

Since providing coverage for this lifesaving service, Congress has discovered many barriers that stand in the way of patients having access to the colonoscopy benefit. One reason for such low utilization is that the physician reimbursement has been cut by 33 percent since this benefit was enacted. In 1997, a colonoscopy performed in a hospital outpatient department or an ambulatory surgery center was reimbursed at approximately $301. Now, in 2007, that reimbursement is only $198.20.

Some may argue that reductions in Medicare payments are necessary to keep the Medicare Program financially viable. While I strongly support efforts to eliminate wasteful spending in Medicare, I can assure my colleagues that is not the case here. To the contrary, providing adequate reimbursement for screening will result in Medicare savings and better health outcomes. Let me explain. Our health care system spends an estimated $8.3 billion annually to treat newly diagnosed cases of colon cancer. The average cost of direct medical care for each cancer episode is estimated to be between $35,000 for early stage detection and $80,000 for later stage detection. So each time that cancer is not detected early, that individual faces an increased risk of developing the disease and needing treatment that costs Medicare Program tens of thousands of dollars.

Patient participation has also been is that currently Medicare does not cover a preoperative visit with a physician prior to screening. While it is true that a colonoscopy is a minimally invasive procedure, an anesthetic is used to sedate the patient to make the colonoscopy less uncomfortable. Because the patient is going to be sedated, medical standards require doctors to visit with the patient before surgery to determine and protect against any risks, such as drug interaction, and to give them preoperative instructions. Recognizing the importance of these visits, Medicare does reimburse for a consultation prior to a diagnostic colonoscopy. A preoperative visit is no less medically necessary before a preventive screening, and therefore should be reimbursed in the same manner.

Finally, some beneficiaries may delay seeking colorectal cancer screening because they cannot afford Medicare's Part B deductible. Recognizing this, Congress recently took an important step by waiving the Part B deductible for preventive colon cancer screenings, effective January 1, 2007. However, gastroenterologists are now reporting that, if polyps or other signs of cancer are discovered in the course of a preventive colonoscopy, the procedure is then considered to be diagnostic and Medicare requires that the beneficiary pay a deductible. Congress needs to ensure that beneficiaries are not dissuaded from getting this lifesaving procedure by the concern that they might have to pay a deductible if a polyp is discovered. Our legislation clarifies congressional intent to ensure that CMS will waive the deductible in all screenings so that Medicare beneficiaries are not confronted with an unexpected additional expense, should the procedure's coding change.

The Colon Cancer Screen for Life Act would eliminate every one of these barriers, and in doing so, save lives. First, this legislation would increase reimbursement for colorectal cancer related procedures to ensure that physicians are able to continue to perform these valuable services. Reimbursement for procedures performed in a physician's office would be increased by up to 10 percent and reimbursement for procedures performed in Hospital Outpatient Department, HOPD, or Ambulatory Surgery Center, ASC, would be increased by up to 30 percent. The bill would also provide Medicare coverage for the preoperative doctor's visit conducted prior to a screening colonoscopy. Finally, the bill contains a technical provision to require that the deductible is waived whether or not the beneficiary's screening was clean or results in a biopsy or lesion removal.

More than 50,000 Americans will die from colon cancer this year alone. Ninety percent of these cases might have been prevented. We cannot afford to wait another moment before doing something to eliminate these and other barriers that are standing in the way of preventing colon cancer.

I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this important legislation and enact it this year.

Mr. President, we need to make this country energy independent, and to enact a comprehensive, long-term energy policy that will give Americans the energy they need, while protecting our environment and our national security.

As one step in this direction, today I am introducing the American Green Building Act.

Our Federal Government is the largest single energy consumer in the world.

Buildings account for over a third of America's energy consumption. Buildings also account for 49 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 25 percent of nitrous oxide emissions, and 10 percent of particulate emissions, all of which damage our air quality. Buildings produce 38 percent of the country's carbon dioxide emissions--the chief pollutant blamed for global warming.

Federal buildings are a large part of this problem.

Energy used in Federal buildings in fiscal year 2002 accounted for 38 percent of the total Federal energy bill. Total Federal buildings and facilities energy expenditures in fiscal year 2002 were $3.73 billion.

The American Green Building Act would require all new Federal buildings to live up to green building LEED, Leadership and Energy in Environmental Design, Silver standards, set by the United States Green Building Council. These standards were created to promote sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality. The average LEED-certified building uses 32 percent less electricity, 26 percent less natural gas and 36 percent less total energy. LEED-certified buildings in the U.S. are in aggregate saving 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide reduction, equivalent to 30,000 passenger cars not driven for one year. A single LEED-certified building is designed to save an average of 352 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, which is equivalent to 70 passenger cars not driven for one year. This standard would only apply to Federal buildings for which the design phase for construction or major renovation is begun after the date of enactment of the provision. The General Services Administration or relevant agency may waive this requirement for a building if it finds that the requirement cannot be met because of the quantity of energy required to carry out the building's purpose or because the building is used to carry out an activity relating to national security.

My bill will also require that significant new development or redevelopment projects undertaken by the Federal Government plan for storm water runoff. The hardened surfaces of modern life, such as roofs, parking lots, and paved streets, prevent rainfall from infiltrating the soil. Over 100 million acres of land have been developed in the United States. Development is increasing faster than population: Population growth in the Chesapeake Watershed, for example, increased by 8 percent during the 1990s, but the rate of impervious surface increased by 42 percent. Development not only leads to landscape changes but also to contamination of storm water runoff by pollutants throughout the watershed. Storm water runoff can carry pollutants to our streams, rivers, and oceans, and poses a significant problem for the Chesapeake Bay. Every other pollution source in the Chesapeake is decreasing, but pollution from storm water runoff is increasing. In urbanized areas, increased storm water runoff can cause increased flooding, stream bank erosion, degradation of in-stream habitat and a reduction in groundwater quality. For these reasons, as the Federal Government moves forward with development, we need to plan for how to manage storm water runoff. The storm water provisions in the American Green Building Act will be used to intercept precipitation and allow it to infiltrate rather than being collected on and conveyed from impervious surfaces.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to restore the authority of State and local governments to protect the environment and ensure public safety with respect to the siting of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals within their States. This measure would strike a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which gave the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission (FERC) power to preempt State and local concerns in the siting, construction and operation of LNG facilities.

In recent years, the LNG industry has proposed building dozens of new LNG terminals throughout the United States, as LNG's share of the natural gas market continues to grow rapidly. Many of these terminals are being planned near populated areas or in environmentally sensitive coastal areas. As a highly hazardous and combustible fuel source, LNG poses serious safety concerns to local communities from potential accidents, as well as terrorism risks. Richard Clarke, a former Bush Administration Counter Terrorism official, noted that LNG terminals and tankers present ``especially attractive targets'' to terrorists. Experts have identified anumber of potentially catastrophic events that could arise from an LNG release, including pool fires--an extremely intense fire that cannot be extinguished and can spread over considerable distance, flammable vapor clouds that may drift some distance from the spill site, and flameless explosions. According to the Congressional Research Service, there have been approximately 13 serious accidents at LNG plants around the world over the past six decades, including three accidents which caused fatalities--two in Algeria in 1977 and 2004 respectively, and another at Cove Point, MD; in 1979, which killed one worker and caused some $3 million in damages.

In the State of Maryland, which is already home to one of six operating LNG terminals in the United States, AES Sparrows Point LNG, LLC and Mid-Atlantic Express, LLC has proposed building a new terminal near a densely-populated area of Baltimore. Our area Congressional Delegation, Governor O'Malley, Baltimore County Executive Jim Smith and other local officials and community leaders believe this project poses unacceptable public safety, economic and environmental risks and does not serve the public interest. Yet, under current law, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission now has exclusive authority to approve onshore LNG terminal siting applications. While the law requires FERC to consult with State and local governments regarding safety concerns, they have no role in the final decision. Moreover, while the law permits states to conduct safety inspections of LNG terminals, they do not have the authority to require any safety precautions or to take enforcement actions if they discover problems at a facility during a safety inspection.

It is vital, in my opinion, that State and local authorities and the public have a meaningful opportunity to participate in the decision- making process about the siting of these plants. These terminals have the potential for tremendous impacts on the communities in which they would be constructed and would operate. The measure I am introducing today seeks to restore that authority and give Governors the same veto powers for onshore LNG terminal proposals as they currently exercise for offshore terminal proposals under the Deepwater Port Act. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this measure.

Mr. President, today, I rise to introduce legislation that will strike the consumptive demand clause from Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1307). Section 307 prohibits the importation of any product or good produced with forced or indentured labor including forced or indentured child labor.

The consumptive demand clause creates an exception to this prohibition. Under the exception, if a product is not made in the United States, and there is a demand for it, then a product made with forced or indentured child labor may be imported into this country.

Let us be clear: forced or indentured labor means work which is extracted from any person under the menace of penalty for nonperformance and for which the worker does not offer himself voluntarily. Let us be really clear: this means slave labor. In the case of children, it means child slavery.

Some examples of goods that are made with child slave labor include cocoa beans, hand-knotted carpets, beedis, which are small Indian cigarettes, and cotton.

Throughout my Senate career, I have worked to reduce the use of forced child labor worldwide. It was in 1992 that I first introduced a bill to ban all products made by abusive and exploitative child labor from entering the United States.

Over the years we have been making some progress. I was heartened last year when the International Labor Organization's (ILO) global report, The End of Child Labor Within Reach, detailed the progress being made on reducing the worst forms of child labor. The ILO projects that if the current pace of decline in child labor were to be maintained, child labor could be eliminated, in most of its worst forms, in 10 years--by 2016. Although there has been a tremendous amount of progress in ending child labor, there are still

some obstacles to ending these abusive practices. One of those impediments is the consumptive demand clause.

Today, hundreds of millions of children are still forced to work illegally for little or no pay, making goods that enter our country everyday. For this reason, the consumptive demand clause is outdated. Since this exception was enacted in the 1930s, the U.S. has taken numerous steps to stop the scourge of child slave labor. Most notably, the United States has ratified International Labor Organization's Convention 182 to Prohibit the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Currently, 162 other countries have also ratified this ILO Convention.

Additionally, in 2003, my staff was invited by Customs to meet with field agents on Section 307 to discuss what appropriations were needed to enforce the statute. At the meeting, the field agents reported that the consumptive demand clause was an obstacle to their ability to enforce the law that is supposed to prevent goods made with slave labor from being imported into the United States. Yet there has been no action from the Bush Administration to support efforts to remove the clause.

Retaining the consumptive demand clause contradicts our moral beliefs and our international commitments to eliminate abusive child labor. Maintaining the consumptive demand clause says to the world that the United States justifies the use of slave labor, if U.S. consumers need an item not produced in this country. Last year, Harvard University conducted a pilot study on the effects on sales of labeling towels, candles, and dolls as made under ``fair labor conditions.'' The study found that labeling the products and raising their prices slightly to cover the costs of ensuring fair labor conditions resulted in an increased demand for these products among certain consumers in New York City.

There should be no exception to a fundamental stand against the use of slave labor. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, in introducing the IDEA Full Funding Act. The aim of this legislation is to ensure, at long last, that Congress makes good on a commitment it made more than three decades ago when we passed what is now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. At that time, in 1975, we told children with disabilities, their families, schools, and States that the Federal Government would pay 40 percent of the extra cost of special education. We have never lived up to that commitment. In fact, today, we are not even halfway there.

As we introduce this bill, we want to pay tribute to our former colleague, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who, in 2001, joined with me to introduce the first amendment to make full funding of IDEA mandatory. In 1975, as ranking member of the House subcommittee on special education, Jim Jeffords co-authored what would later be known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, requiring equal access to public education for millions of students with disabilities. It was a matter of profound disappointment to Jim that, year after year, the Federal Government failed to make good on its funding promises under that law.

We tell our children all the time to keep their promises, to live up to their commitments, to do as they say they are going to do. We teach them that if they fail to do so, other people can be hurt. Well, that is what Congress has done by failing to appropriately fund IDEA: We have hurt school children all across America. We have pitted children with disabilities against other children for a limited pool of school funds. We have put parents in the position of not demanding services that their child with a disability truly needs, because they have been told that the services cost too much and other children would suffer. We have hurt school districts, which are forced, in effect, to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to provide services to students with disabilities. We have also hurt local taxpayers, who are obliged to pay higher property taxes and other local taxes

in order to pay for IDEA services because the Federal Government has reneged on its commitment.

I was pleased that, at the outset of this new Congress, we were able to increase funding for the IDEA grants to states program as part of the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution to $10.8 billion. But even that level of funding is woefully inadequate. That represents only 17.2 percent of the additional funding needed to support special education. So we have a long way to go to reach the 40 percent level. But it is time to do so. It is time for the Federal Government to make good on its promise to students with disabilities in this country.

The IDEA Full Funding Act is pretty straight forward. It authorizes increasing amounts of mandatory funding in 8-year increments that, in addition to the discretionary funding allocated through the Appropriations Committee, will finally meet the Federal Government's commitment to educating children with special needs.

This bill is a win-win-win for the American people. Students with disabilities will get the education services that they need in order to achieve and succeed. School districts will be able to provide these services without cutting into their general education budgets. And local property tax payers will get relief.

Full funding of IDEA is not a partisan issue. We all share an interest in ensuring that children with disabilities get an appropriate education, and that local school districts do not have to slash their general education budgets in order to pay for special education. We all share a sense of responsibility to make good on the promise Congress made to fully fund its promised share of special education costs.

So I urge my colleagues to join with Senator Hagel and me in sponsoring this bill. In the 30-plus years since we passed IDEA, and in the 6 years since we passed the No Child Left Behind Act, the expectations for students with disabilities have grown immensely. Likewise, we are holding local school systems accountable in unprecedented ways. It is high time for us in Congress to also be held accountable. It is time for us to make good on our promise to fully fund IDEA.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Legal Aid Attorney Loan Repayment Act. This important legislation is critical to ensuring that basic civil liberties are protected for all of our citizens. Our promise of ``equal justice under law'' rings hollow if those who are most vulnerable are denied access to representation. Legal Aid attorneys across the country protect the safety, security, and health of low-income citizens. When a senior citizen is the victim of a financial scam, when a family faces the loss of their home, or, all too often, when a woman

seeks protection from abuse, Legal Aid is there to help them. Legal Aid attorneys are critical to ensuring that poverty is not a barrier to accessing the justice system.

Despite the importance of the services they provide, almost half of the eligible people seeking assistance from Legal Aid are being turned away because of a lack of funding. Additional qualified and experienced attorneys would alleviate some of the shortages facing Legal Aid.

I started my legal career as a legal service lawyer, and it is an experience that I will never forget. It helped shape many of my views about how government can most effectively help those in need. Working as a Legal Aid attorney is one of the most rewarding career choices a young lawyer can make.

Unfortunately, these days, it's harder and harder for newly minted lawyers to make the choice that I made to work for Legal Aid. The average starting salary for a Legal Aid lawyer is now $35,000. But the average annual loan repayment burden for a new law school graduate is $12,000! Many law graduates who are able to take positions with Legal Aid end up leaving after two or three years because their debt is too burdensome. They leave at a time when they have gained the necessary experience to provide valuable services to low-income clients, creating a revolving door of inexperienced lawyers within Legal Aid services.

That is why I am introducing this bill to provide a loan-repayment program for new law graduates who chose to work for Legal Aid. Such programs are available for Federal prosecutors and other Federal employees. But, for Legal Aid attorneys--who have the lowest incomes-- there is not adequate access to loan-repayment programs. Estimates suggest that there are fewer than 2,000 attorneys who would need the assistance of such a program. This bill builds on existing loan- repayment and retention programs for lawyers in other fields by providing partial loan-repayment assistance to full time civil legal assistance lawyers. Recipients who receive the loan-repayment assistance must commit to a minimum of three years of service. And the bill prioritizes awards for those who have practiced public service law with less than five years of experience. This program is critical to ensure that lawyers who want to commit to public service are able to do so.

We have a responsibility to ensure that all citizens have appropriate protection under the law. By establishing a loan-repayment program, Legal Aid programs are better able to attract and retain qualified personnel. I urge my colleagues to support this critical legislation to reduce the barriers to public service and protect access to legal representation for all of our citizens.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Federal Employee Combat Zone Tax Parity Act, which would provide parity to civilian Federal employees by extending the tax credit currently received by military personnel in combat zones to the civilian Federal employees working alongside them. My fellow Virginian, Congressman Frank Wolf, has introduced a similar bill in the House of Representatives.

In addition, several Federal employee organizations, such as the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), the Financial Management Association (FMA), the Senior Executives Association (SEA), the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), and the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), strongly support this legislation.

As of today, I have made eleven separate trips to Iraq and Afghanistan to see firsthand the work of our military personnel, which is essential to success in these regions. In addition, the work of our Federal civilian employees in these regions is significantly important.

At the moment, a majority of the work in the reconstruction of these countries is being done by the military and the Department of State (DOS). These dedicated men and women deserve our gratitude. However, as I have said on a number of occasions, our challenging task requires the coordination and work of Federal agencies across the spectrum.

Regardless of whether one is in the military or a civilian, there are certain risks and hardships associated with working overseas. As a result, the Federal Government provides certain incentives to individuals when they take on extremely challenging jobs. For example, those in the military working in a combat zone receive the Combat Zone Tax Credit.

This tax credit permits military personnel working in combat zones to exclude a certain amount of income from their Federal income taxes. This benefit for the military was established in 1913.

Private contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan get a similar benefit. Under the Foreign Earned Income Tax Credit, contractors are allowed to exclude a portion of their income from taxes while they work abroad, like in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To date, however, no similar benefit exists for Federal employees serving in the same combat zones. I do not believe it is fair for our Federal employees to be excluded from the same benefits available to military personnel and private contractors in the same combat zone.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, of which I have been honored to serve for the last 28 years in the Senate, is home to over 200,000 Federal employees. I have long been a strong supporter of our Federal employees as I have been for our military personnel.

Our efforts in the war on terrorism can only be successful with a highly skilled and experienced workforce. I can personally attest to the dedication of civil service employees throughout the Federal Government. Since the September 11th attacks, Federal employees have been relocated, reassigned, and worked long hours under strenuous circumstances without complaints, proving time and again their loyalty to their country is first and foremost.

During my service as Secretary of the Navy--during which I was privileged to have some 650,000 civilian employees working side by side with the uniformed Navy--I valued very highly the sense of teamwork between the civilian and uniformed members of the United States Navy. Teamwork is an intrinsic military value, in my judgment, and essential to mission accomplishment. A sense of parity and fairness is important for developing this teamwork.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the teamwork of the entire Federal Government is essential to harness our overall efforts to secure a measure of democracy for the peoples of those countries, and we need to make it easier for our Federal employees to participate.

Last year, I offered additional legislation that became law under an emergency supplemental bill to achieve this goal. My bill, S. 2600, provided the heads of agencies other than DOS and the Department of Defense (DOD) with the authority, at their discretion, to give their employees who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan allowances, benefits, and gratuities comparable to those provided to State Department and DOD employees serving in those countries.

At that time, the agency heads of non-DOD and DOS agencies did not have such authority, and it is essential, as part of the U.S. effort to bring democracy and freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan, that agency heads be able to give their workers in those countries the same benefits as those they work beside.

In the last estimate, there are almost 2,000 Federal employees working a variety of jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am grateful for their hard work in potentially dangerous situations. And, I know there are many other Federal employees who are anxious to serve their country and engage in these efforts, but it is a lot to risk.

Providing parity in this important tax credit would provide a significant incentive for individuals to take on this challenge--a challenge that America desperately needs Federal employees to undertake.

Throughout the world, America's civil servants are serving our government and our people, often in dangerous situations. They are on the ground in the war on terrorism taking over new roles to relieve military personnel of tasks civilian employees can perform. They are playing a vital role in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have a long tradition in Congress of recognizing the valuable contributions of our Federal employees in both the military service and in the civil service by providing fair and equitable treatment. This bill gives us the ability to continue this tradition while at the same time providing an important incentive to help America meet its needs.

I urge my colleagues to join with me in support of this legislation.

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