A bill to amend the grant program for law enforcement armor vests to provide for a waiver of or reduction in the matching funds requirement in the case of fiscal hardship.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to finally comment on some of these things and to do my opening statement.

I do want to say I was a little surprised by the speech of the Senator from New York, Mr. Schumer, about, primarily, the price of gas. I have to say, he has got it right. That is the biggest concern on the minds of people across this country. No matter what else we are talking about, it is about the price of gas. What I learned from his speech is we are going to be disrupted in this debate later today as the majority leader rule XIVs an energy bill.

I wish to congratulate Senator Domenici for his work on putting together an energy bill which we had a vote on this morning. I really think if that could have been voted on in pieces, a number of those pieces would have passed and made a difference to this country.

I can see that the main thrust of the bill we are going to be interrupted by later to take a look at is one to force Saudi Arabia to increase their production by a million barrels a day or give up some arms purchases from us.

Let's see, if we sell them arms--which I have not looked at enough to know whether that is a good idea--we get some money back. When we force them to do a million barrels a day, we give them $120 million a day. Part of that, which some people do not like, was ANWR. ANWR would produce at least a million barrels of oil a day from the United States. We would be paying people in the United States for the oil, not shipping it over to Saudi Arabia, and we have to worry about what they are going to do with the arms we sell them.

So I can understand they ought to be concerned about gas and are finally

concerned about gas and are going to interrupt us to be concerned about gas, but we had a proposal this morning that should have gotten a little bit more consideration and some of those provisions put into effect so we could actually solve some of our energy problem.

Let's see now, we are going to put the burden on Saudi Arabia.

My first encounter with higher gas prices happened back in 1973. I was president of the Wyoming Jaycees. We did some things to Saudi Arabia they were not very pleased about, and they cut us off completely. That produced the biggest crisis in this country in my memory. We had lines at the gas pumps. We had people who could not transport goods. We had people who could not get gas. We were trying to figure out ways to store gas should we ever get it again. It was because Saudi Arabia said: OK, if that is the way you are going to be, no oil.

Well, at any rate, I do not think we are carrying as big a stick on this as we think we are. We need to be looking at a number of the solutions.

Windfall profits tax--that was a good way for us to drive our companies overseas to do their work, to sell us oil. That does not bring down the price of oil. If I had my way, I would call the energy companies in. I would tell them I want to know what they are doing with however many billions of dollars worth of profit they are making. I want to know about it weekly. And I would report to the American people on a weekly basis. I do not suspect that would bring down the price of oil. I do suspect that would bring up the investment in energy, all kinds of energy. We need to have that done.

So I do not mean to go on and on about this, but as long as we are going to be interrupted in our debate on public employees, I want to make sure I have my say on it too.

Mr. President, I do rise today to voice my opposition to H.R. 980, the so-called Public Employer-Employee Cooperation Act. The fact that this bill has come to the Senate today is just another example of the cynical calculus of election-year politics. We are still doing ``gotcha'' politics on this floor. How do I know that? I know we have not passed a bill that did not go through committee--not just the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that I am the ranking member of but the other committees. If it does not go through committee, it does not pass. But here we have an issue that I am told was passed last July by the House. Do you know how many hearings we have held on it? I looked back 4 years, and we have not had a hearing on this one--not a hearing on it.

What we do at hearings is kind of invite people in to tell us some specific points they want to make on a particular bill. Now, you will find that I am not a very big proponent of hearings because the chairman--and I used to be the chairman--gets to invite all the people to the committee except one and the ranking member gets to invite one. Then, people from both sides show up to beat up on the other witnesses. That is not very productive.

We did switch to a system, occasionally, where we have had roundtables. Roundtables are a little bit different than hearings. With roundtables, you invite in 10, 15, 20 people who have actually done something in the area, and you hear what the problems are and what the advantages are, and after all of them have spoken, then they interact with each other. They are not Senators asking clever questions. They interact with each other on ways their ideas fit with somebody else's idea. They come up with some good legislation.

Now, we have not ever had hearings--or roundtables on this issue. So how do you know what is really a good idea? How do you know what the effect is going to be on other people when you do not do anything to prepare for it and then you bring it right to the floor?

Another advantage of going through committee is that you can find out what the concerns are from the amendments when it gets to the markup process. From those amendments, you can say: Well, this might be a good idea, but we have to revise it a little bit. People go off and work on that part of the idea, and they bring it back in a workable fashion that will fit that both sides agree on.

You say it cannot be done on labor issues? Well, in the past we have. We passed a mine safety bill through here in less than 6 weeks, and it passed unanimously in the Senate, and it passed unanimously in the House. That is how we did it. We did it through the committee process. Now, that was the first change in mining law in 28 years, but it was done cooperatively, and it was done through the committee process.

This one has, I guess, purposely circumvented the regular order of the Senate and its committee process because the scrutiny of that process would expose some multiple flaws in the legislation. We are going to have some amendments that will point out what some of the flaws are in this legislation. Now, it is very difficult to do it here. I have to put in an amendment, and we kind of vote it up or we vote it down. We cannot go off and work it out so it is agreeable to both sides. It is a difficult process, especially when you involve 100 people with it. It is much easier to do it in committee.

So we have this bill, and once again we are going to play the election-year spin, going to do sound bites, probably do a lot of press. But I suspect the result may be the same as other things that did not go through committee.

Now, their calculation is simple: Since this bill involves unions that organize among police and firefighters, they will continue to simply claim that anyone who opposes this bill is against police and firefighters. You have already heard it.

Let's address that calculated untruth first. There is no one I know of--Republican or Democrat, supporter or opponent of this bill--who does not respect and value the work and dedication of our police, our firefighters, and other first responders. Their contributions to our communities are immeasurable, and our support for them is unwavering. However, this bill provides no benefit to any police officer, firefighter, or first responder. It does not provide a dime in Federal money to any State, city, or town to hire or to train or to equip any additional public safety personnel. In fact, it only imposes costs that will make that result less likely.

The bill does not contain a dime of Federal money or a word of language that would increase the pay or benefits of any firefighter, police officer or first responder or that would enhance their working conditions or that would make their job safer or make their retirement more secure. It only imposes totally unfunded costs on States, cities, and towns that will make those rules less--not more--likely.

Plain and simple, the only direct beneficiaries of this legislation are labor unions. This bill does nothing more than open new markets for unions, and it provides them with the opportunity for increased revenue from new dues-paying members. This bill does nothing for any police officer, firefighter or first responder, except to provide them with the dubious opportunity to share a portion of their paycheck with the labor union.

The real truth is there is absolutely nothing inconsistent about being fully supportive of our local police and firefighters and first responders and totally opposed to this bill. A vote against this bill is not a vote against first responders. Proponents of this bill would serve both the debate and themselves better by abandoning any absurd claims to the contrary. The public is simply not that gullible, and I think the public is fed up with a Congress that transparently panders to special interests, while trying to tell the rest of the world they are acting in everybody's interests. The old song is out of tune, but as long as some continue to sing it, there shouldn't be any surprise about the fact that the public opinion of Congress is at an all-time low.

Let me now turn for a moment to some of the serious and fundamental problems with this legislation. Over 70 years ago, the Congress passed what is now referred to as the National Labor Relations Act. That legislation has been amended numerous times over the many decades of existence, and it has become universally recognized as the embodiment of our national labor policy. A hallmark of that policy for eight decades has been the well-reasoned principle that the employment and

labor relations between a State, city or town and its own employees should not be a matter of Federal law, but a matter of local law. That bedrock principle is not only rooted in our national labor policy; it is firmly fixed in our Constitution and our traditions of federalism. For more than 70 years, Congress has repeatedly and consistently excluded State and local labor relations from Federal control and intervention. Yet today the proponents of this bill seek to overturn this hallmark principle and to radically change decades of unbroken Federal law and policy. The enormity of this change is only matched by the prospect that it could occur in the wake of an appalling lack of thought, total disregard for the processes of the Senate, and complete absence of any meaningful opportunity for rational debate.

This body has before it a bill that would overturn more than 70 years of unbroken precedent and law. It would raise profound constitutional issues. It would overturn law in a majority of States--in a majority of States--and completely reverse the fundamental and founding principle of our national labor policy. You would think the Senate would consider such a bill only after careful examination and due deliberation. But if you do think that way, sadly, you are wrong. This legislation, as I said, has not had a Senate committee hearing or markup this Congress. I looked back 4 years. I could not find a single hearing or markup on this bill. There has been no meaningful exploration by the HELP Committee this Congress of the important issues that this legislation implicates. This bill grants enormous power over States to a virtually unknown Federal agency that will make critical decisions about these people. Yet we have never so much as asked a representative sampling of State officials about their views, nor have we ever informally asked the Federal agency involved if it feels up to the job we are about to impose on it. These shortcomings alone are ample proof that this bill is being pushed not because it is good policy but only because we see it as expedient politics in an election year.

This bill would require that every State, every city, and every town with more than 5,000 residents would open its police, firefighters, and first responders to unionization. It would impose as Federal mandate-- not in the absence of any State consideration of this issue but in direct opposition to the legislative will of several States.

Proponents of this legislation have attempted to maintain the fiction that it actually does little to disturb State laws--a good way to pass a bill, I guess, but not true. It is simply not the case. Within the last 2 legislative sessions, some 13 States have officially considered and rejected legislative proposals similar to the law that would be federally imposed under H.R. 980. The proponents of this legislation have attempted to maintain the fiction that it wouldn't disturb State laws. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every expert who has reviewed this law has concluded it is clearly in conflict with the current law in at least 22 States, and the chart shows the 22 States. Some believe the number is as high as 26, and even the bill proponents freely concede it is at least 21. All of these States, their citizens, and their legislatures have expressly considered all the issues raised in this bill and have decided on a different approach--a different approach--than what would be required under this bill. Some States have decided to use meet-and-confer laws. Some have placed limits on the enforceability of agreements. Some have limited the subjects of bargaining. Some have made the issue one of local option, and some have decided to limit bargaining by employee function.

States, cities, and towns have done what they think best to provide for the safety and welfare of their own citizens in developing their labor relations policy for their own public safety employees. Yet we propose to clearly overturn the democratic judgment of at least 22 States through this legislation.

Let's be clear. We would take this action not because States have not acted; that is not the case. All these States made a conscious, democratic decision about what is best for their citizens. In fact, some 16 of these States have considered and rejected laws similar to H.R. 980 within the last few years.

Now, the impact, however, doesn't end there. Experts who have reviewed this legislation and existing State laws have identified at least 12 States where this bill would raise serious legal questions about one or more aspects of their existing collective bargaining law. You can see those filled in on the chart. These are States that supposedly have full collective bargaining statutes. Remember: The question of whether an existing State law complies with the requirements of H.R. 980 is going to be figured out later by a little- known Federal agency--the Federal Labor Relations Authority--that is devoid of any experience in State labor relations and isn't accountable to a single State government. I am sure all the technical and legal issues left unclear by this bill, which bear on whether a State law complies, will keep an awful lot of lawyers busy for a long time and guarantee a huge expansion of the Federal labor relations authority.

Now, the effect of this bill, however, goes beyond the States where the law is clearly overturned and where it is probably overturned and where the lawyers will fight about whether it is overturned. By federalizing State labor relations, this bill will affect every State, city, and town in the country. As a matter of State law, States have the authority to effectively take items off the union bargaining table. Many States with collective bargaining laws already do this, particularly in the area of public safety. Manning and staffing levels, training and job requirements, deadly force rules, drug testing, merit pay, job requirements, and promotion are a few of the examples of the terms and conditions of employment which must be bargained but could be exempted from bargaining by State action or a law. Now, once you federalize this law, States will lose that authority.

Look closely at both the Senate and the House language of this bill. It specifically lists only three things a State can exempt or take off the bargaining table: pension, retirement benefits, and in one version, health insurance. Everything else is on the table. That will be the Federal law over which a State can do nothing.

This is a critical problem for every State. States can't be responsible for the safety of their citizens when the Federal Government takes away the authority they need to accomplish the job. Here is one example. Suppose a State decides to implement mandatory drug testing for public safety officers. It can't just do that under Federal law if H.R. 980 passes. Any change such as that would require bargaining. Why would we ever require that any State, city or town bargain or horse trade over matters of public safety?

If you don't think this is a real problem, you need only look at today's paper. The city of Boston has for years sought to negotiate a drug-testing provision with its public safety union. Despite incidents of documented and suspected drug use by Active-Duty personnel, the city has not been able to implement a program. We have seen the same pattern reflected in the utterly shameful situation in Major League Baseball and the inability to achieve any meaningful resolution, despite years and years and years of collective bargaining. Now, here is the difference: Baseball is a game; public safety isn't.

So let us be completely clear about what we propose doing with this legislation. Any vote that advances this bill is a vote to overturn the law and the democratic will of citizens of a near majority of our States. Let me say that again. Any vote that advances this bill is a vote to overturn the law and the democratic will of the citizens of a near majority of our States to create unnecessary question and litigation over the validity of law in many other States and to forever tie the hands and limit the authority of every State to protect the safety of its citizens as it sees best. This legislation is not only directly contrary to over 70 years of Federal labor policy; it further violates the most fundamental, centuries-long principles of federalism and most likely runs completely afoul of the U.S. Constitution to boot.

With all this in mind, we should be asking ourselves: What price is this Congress willing to pay in an effort to ingratiate itself to organized labor?

Earlier this year, Congress transparently pandered to the special interests of organized labor and came perilously close to depriving workers of their democratic right to a secret ballot in deciding the question of unionization. Now we are at it again. This time, however, the price of congressional pandering is the sovereign authority of States and the integrity of their democratic process.

Since even these compelling facts are unlikely to stand in the way of politics, we need to look at the legislation itself. Since it has not been discussed and has not been marked up in the committee of jurisdiction, I suppose at least a few moments of legislative consideration is better than none at all.

In no particular order, here are a few of the multiple and fatal drafting and policy problems of this bill:

First, this bill is the height of hypocrisy by the Federal Government. This bill would require States, cities, and towns over 5,000 to provide full collective bargaining for all their public safety employees. However, while requiring this of States, cities, and towns, the Federal Government would continue to exempt itself from any collective bargaining obligation with regard to many of its public safety employees.

Let's see. We are going to tell States, cities, and towns what to do, but we don't tell ourselves what to do. That sounds like hypocrisy to me.

Second, this law would require States to bargain over wages of their covered employees. However, the Federal Government routinely exempts itself from bargaining over wages with its employees.

I wonder how many Senators bargain with their staff? Moreover, this bill would severely limit--in fact, virtually eliminate--the right of State governments to determine the appropriate subjects for bargaining with their employees--a right fully retained by the Federal Government with regard to its employees.

Third, this legislation forces collective bargaining on States but doesn't require or ensure fundamental employee rights. For example, Federal law preserves the right of the workers in the private sector to decide the issue of unionization by secret ballot. However, this legislation, which imposes collective bargaining on unwilling States, cities, towns, and their employees, not only fails to guarantee the right to a secret ballot in union elections, it specifically ratifies and approves State laws that strip public sector workers from this fundamental democratic right.

Fourth, this legislation is a gift to organized labor that comes with none of the obligations or safeguards of other federally mandated bargaining. Unionized workers, under current Federal law, have the right to information about their union's finances, and those unions must publicly report on their finances every year. This bill would force unions on States, cities, and towns but would not require union financial transparency or require that workers have access to this financial data.

Fifth, this is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only is there no requirement about union financial reporting and disclosure in this bill, this bill also fails to contain any guarantees to the workers about how their union dues money can be spent. For example, workers unionized under current Federal law cannot be required to contribute to a union's favorite political causes. This bill, which forces collective bargaining on States, cities, and towns that have rejected it contains no such guarantee.

Sixth, this bill would not only fail to provide any meaningful guarantee against the disruption of municipal services because of labor disputes, it practically guarantees the right of unions to cause those disruptions. The bill purports to have no strike guarantee. However, it goes to great pains to say it is not a strike when a public safety officer refuses ``to carry out services that are not mandatory conditions'' of their employment.

What does that mean? Who decides which duties of a firefighter or police officer or public safety officer--that is a pretty broad title-- are ``mandatory''? This provision appears to be nothing more than legislative code words specifically authorizing ``work to rule'' and a host of other types of disruptive job actions that have become all too familiar among public school teacher unions. This bill forces unions on unwilling cities and towns, and then gives those unions a legislative green light to disrupt municipal services.

Finally, there is the enormous problem in this legislation that relates to volunteer firefighters. It is no secret that the International Association of Firefighters, the principal firefighter union in this country, actively opposes the use of voluntary fire departments. It has consistently sought to prevent its members from volunteering their services. Its own union constitution provides for the discipline, fining, or discharge of members who do. The most effective way this union has to prohibit volunteering or, as they refer to it, ``two-hatting,'' is the union contract clause to that effect. They have sought and obtained this kind of clause in union contracts across the country and want to make sure they can continue to do so under H.R. 980.

Now, there is a clause in there that may be referred to. If you look at it, it is ``weasel'' words. It does not do what it is purported to do, and it will eliminate volunteer fire departments.

Members are being told this problem with the bill has been ``fixed.'' That is wrong. It is not. If you really wanted to make sure unions had no authority to kill off volunteer firefighting, you could write a plain provision that does exactly that. Instead, both the House and Senate versions use convoluted, double negative, lawyer speak in a deceptive effort to claim that the problem is solved. I guarantee you that it is not. Once you unwind the language, you will find both the House and Senate versions of the bill leave the door wide open to an all-out union assault on the use of volunteer firefighters.

In 25 States, volunteer firefighters account for all or most of the staffing in more than 90 percent of the departments statewide. In 14 States, volunteers account for all or most of the staffing in more than 80 percent of the departments. With just two exceptions, in the remaining 11 States, volunteers account for all or most of the staffing in more than 60 percent of the departments. No State can provide fire protection in its cities, towns, and rural districts without volunteer firefighters. Anyone who even considers advancing this legislation ought to be completely sure that it could not have a negative effect in their State.

These problems represent only the tip of the iceberg. This bill is quite simply a prime example of terrible policy being badly executed, without process.

Mr. President, I want to bring up another point regarding this legislation that is also of critical importance. This bill imposes an enormous unfunded Federal mandate on States, cities, and towns across the country. I want to take a minute and address this serious concern not only from my current position as a Senator but from my former position as mayor of Gillette, WY, a city of about 22,000 people.

As I look around the Chamber, not many here have had any experience with trying to balance the budget of a city or town. So I guess we should understand why they would pay so little attention to the very real financial consequences of their actions on thousands of municipalities. They ought to.

Just last week, after teetering on the brink of insolvency, the city of Vallejo, CA, finally declared bankruptcy. Everyone has acknowledged that the cause of Vallejo's financial problems was plain and simple: The spiraling costs of their police and firefighter labor agreements.

Vallejo is not alone. In the last few years, a number of other cities and towns have teetered on the brink or actually have been forced into bankruptcy: McCall, ID; Toledo, OH; Marion, MS; Moffet, OK; Duluth, MN--just to name a few.

Now, what we usually don't realize in this body is those bodies don't get to print their own money. They actually have to work with the revenue that comes in. Most of them have severe limitations on the ability to raise money. They could not raise taxes if they wanted to. So the revenue is limited, but the costs go up. What do you do?

Here is the reality. Without regard to pay or benefits, just the administrative costs alone of collective bargaining represent a very significant line item

that Congress now proposes to force on States, cities, and towns. Towns, particularly small ones, that currently don't have the resources to negotiate and administer multiple collective bargaining agreements must now hire and pay for these additional services. And this isn't just going to be one; it is multiple.

Towns and cities that do not devote the long hours of municipal time to the complicated process of bargaining and overseeing multiple union contracts and to administering contract provisions and resolving disputes under a collective bargaining system will be required to spend that time. Nobody should be fooled. Those additional manpower and manhour requirements are enormously costly and burdensome. This bill would impose those costs by Federal mandate but would not provide a single penny of Federal money to help offset those costs. Make no mistake, the Congress is proposing to buy organized labor a free lunch and stick America's small towns with the bill.

As a former mayor and as the only accountant in the Senate, I remind my colleagues about the cold realities of municipal finance. If you increase municipal costs, you have only two ways to meet those increased costs: You either increase revenues or decrease services. This bill will unquestionably place many municipalities in that difficult position of choosing between raising State and local taxes, which they probably would not have the capability to do, or decreasing and eliminating local municipal services, which they don't want to do.

Are the Members of this body so completely out of touch with the real needs of their constituents and the real fiscal problems that their cities and towns face every day that they would impose these unnecessary costs and burdens? With stagnant or declining property values and an endless parade of increasingly fixed costs, don't our cities and towns have enough on their plate without the Federal Government imposing yet another cost on them?

This isn't an imaginary problem. Remember Vallejo, CA, and the other cities and towns I mentioned across the country that make it clear that this problem is very real.

For all these reasons, Mr. President, I am opposed to H.R. 980. I urge my colleagues to vote no on this legislation. Hopefully, we will have a chance to make some corrections to this bill--particularly on the flaws that I have pointed out.

I will just recap. It didn't go to committee. It is an unprecedented intrusion by the Federal Government. It directly overturns existing laws in 22 States. It casts doubt on a dozen more. Sixteen States have recently considered and rejected legislation very much like this. It calls into question the constitutionality. We had no hearing or markup. It creates unfunded mandates. It would impose costs on small towns.

I don't know how many of you think 5,000 is a big city. Actually, in Wyoming it is; 3,500 is considered a first-class city. But 5,000 is not a very big town, and there isn't as much expertise.

I mention that another piece of the bill says the requirement is imposed when there are 25 employees. It doesn't say 25 public safety employees. It doesn't say 25 people who would be covered by this. It says a flat 25. I suspect there are a lot smaller towns than 5,000 that have 25 employees. That is a pretty small amount. That is not the same as public safety employees. So they either have to cut services or raise taxes or the city is going into bankruptcy.

The bill doesn't contain any worker protection for them getting to vote on whether they will have a union, and it puts in charge a little known Federal agency. Again, it is pretty hypocritical of us. We have not imposed this on the Federal Government, but we are willing to impose it on the little places back home. I think we will regret it, and it will remind us of the mistake we made here.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I wish to take a little bit of time to talk about at least two of the amendments and probably make a mention of the one we just had. As to the underlying bill, we have two amendments that have been suggested--one for a public employees bill of rights and the other one for an unfunded mandate exemption--and I want to comment on those a little bit. I haven't gotten to speak much, and there are several on the other side who have spoken to some extent.

I did notice that the Senator from New Jersey, the former mayor of a community of 60,000, made some comments about how this bill would work, and I wished to point out that 60,000 is a pretty big city in a lot of States around this country. That would be bigger than any city in Wyoming. So when we are talking about how easy it is to do these negotiations, I think we are leaving out some crucial factors.

The bill says it applies if a municipality has more than 5,000 people or--this is very important. It says 5,000 people or 25 employees. If it has 25 employees, no matter what they do for the city, the city comes under this bill. It becomes an unfunded mandate for the city even if there are less than 5,000 people. I can tell my colleagues there are a lot of towns that have less than 5,000 that would have, depending on what services they provide, more than 25 employees.

I think that some of these other employees are going to be a little upset, too, realizing that we have this opportunity to place some special emphasis--and should--on the public safety employees, but not others. My city had its own electrical utility, and I can tell my colleagues, if the power goes out, the most important person in the city for public safety is the guy who comes and gets the electricity going again. This bill would not cover those people. If your city sewer is backing up into somebody's home, the most important city employee from a public safety standpoint is the guy with the city utility. This doesn't include him. But it will force some mandates on the city that will take away money from the guy who fixes the sewer backing up into your house or fixes the electrical utility that keeps the power on that handles heat and air-conditioning and other important things for your home.

I also was kind of fascinated by the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, mentioning that as far as the secret ballot, they are going to leave that up to the States. Why would we leave that up to the States? We are not leaving any of the rest of this up to the States. Not only that, we are saying that no matter what the city and the employees agree to, there is going to be this little-known Federal agency that can say: Nope, not enough. That is the way the bill reads. It allows overriding of agreements by the director of a Federal agency. So we are not only saying: We don't care what kind of relationship you have with your public safety people, we don't care how unfunded this is, and we don't care if it steals money from other city employees, we have a Federal agency that is going to keep its eye on you and let you know if you are doing it well enough. Not to mention, of course, that the rules haven't even been written on this, so we don't even know how those are going to go.

So there are some difficulties, and I want to have the chance to address some of these amendments a little more fully.

Of the people who voted for the motion to proceed--some voted that way to say we should debate this. I mentioned in my speech that we needed to have some time to talk about the difficulties of this bill, that there are a lot of things that people don't realize about this bill that need to be corrected and brought out, and we are doing that through some logical amendments.

But Washington does not know best how a municipality works. There is no way we can understand the diversity of all of the municipalities in this United States that would qualify under this bill. Remember, it applies to those with a population of 5,000 or more or 25 employees. So we are not even sure whom we are pulling into this. But we do know we are affecting State law in all 50 States. The exception, of course, is the question of card check or secret ballot where the bill says if they already require it, it is OK, but if they don't, that is OK too. So we can impose every rule on them we can possibly think of, but we are going to leave the right to a secret ballot part out. I hope that is not the case.

I hope some of the amendments that are being suggested will be voted on and passed or, even better yet, accepted. I think some of them are worthy of that.

So with that, I yield the floor and reserve the right to speak again.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maine for her statement. I have one request for her though. Look at the paragraph that deals with volunteer firefighters--the language regarding allowing professional firefighters who want to help out in the community to volunteer as well. There has been language suggested that would make it clear that what you described would happen. But the language from the House definitely doesn't say that. The language, as revised in the substitute amendment, still doesn't say that. I would appreciate it if the Senator would take another look at that and see if that can be made a lot clearer. The language I was referring to is ``to prohibit an employee from engaging in volunteer or part-time employment, any agreement that contains such language shall be unenforceable.'' That is pretty clear. I am concerned that will not only be misconstrued, but it will be bargained away without any consequence. I would appreciate if the Senator would take another look at that.

Mr. President, as the Senator from Tennessee prepares, I wish to make a couple of comments because I still haven't gotten to talk about either the bill of rights or the unfunded mandate amendments. I am equally as disturbed as the Senator from Massachusetts has just described himself. Where he thinks that I don't understand it, I don't think he understands it. But we have never had a chance to work this out as part of the committee. We come here to the floor, and here it is, kind of take it or leave it. Any amendment that we bring up is going to be considered to have been old and regurgitated. These are things we have always had a concern for, especially when something is being thrust on States that have specifically addressed the particular issue and said no.

I know the Senator from Ohio had a lot of enthusiasm, but I don't think we can connect collective bargaining with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Both sides are using some things that might be a little extraneous to what we are trying to achieve here. I do want everyone to pay particular attention to what is in the bill about the final and unprecedented authority of the Federal Labor Relations Authority. As the Senator from Massachusetts says, there are only four requirements. Those are very vague requirements. There are many people who work with this on a daily basis who have noted the vagueness of these terms and how impossible it would be to deal under that criteria. Not to mention the fact that some of these States have not been subject to such ruled before, and after they make agreements, a Federal agency may say: No, that is not good enough.

That is what we are mandating in this bill, asking a Federal agency that we hardly ever hear about, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, to decide, even if a city and their first responders, police, and firefighters say this is a contract we like, that group can override it. They can say: That is not good enough. I don't think that is the kind of Federal authority we should be trying to give to an agency that hasn't had that kind of authority.

I do have more to say, but the Senator from Tennessee is here. I would love to hear his comments.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, again, I appreciate the words of the Senator from Massachusetts and do enjoy working with him on bills. I think I have been pretty cooperative in getting bills through committee, as he was when I was the chairman.

Again, we have not had a chance to work on these amendments or on the bill together. We are having to do it separately, and there is a lot of rhetoric involved in this issue, and a lot of misunderstanding. Those are the kinds of things that get cleared up in a little closer working relationship than you can get by addressing it on the floor of the Senate.

But I too was a mayor, and I was a mayor of a boomtown. Boomtowns attract young people, and young people are vivacious. They are busy. They like to work hard, and they like to play hard. As a result, I had a police department that had to handle some probably unique situations.

I had a volunteer fire department to work with, and we later combined that with the county so we did not have disputes over whether a building that was on fire was inside the city or outside the city. That helped overcome a lot of difficulties there.

So I worked with the firefighters. I have worked with police. I worked with the sheriff's department. Again, we had that same boundary problem when it came to: What is within the city limits and outside the city limits, particularly when you have a fast-growing community; and we did. And we do again. The energy boom is creating a fast-growing community again.

I remember being at a crawfish boil almost a month ago. That is one of the highlights of the year for people who work particularly in the oil patch, but actually people who work all over the community. It was started by some Cajuns from Louisiana who came up to work in the oil patch. They said: We ought to have a crawfish boil. They even figured out a reason for it. They said: If we can get somebody to donate the food, and then we can charge people to come, we can put that in kind of an emergency fund for anything that happens to anybody. They did that. The event still goes on 25 years later. They used to give the beer away. Now they sell the beer. That is worth about another $45,000 in donations. But they did about 11,000 pounds of crawfish this year and fed about 5,000 people. At any one time, there were easily 3,500 people in the building. As you came in, you

had to be approved as being over 21 in order to be able to buy that beer. If you were over 21, you got this bright orange wristband, virtually impossible to take off without cutting.

As I was enjoying my crawfish, I looked around the room and noticed that almost everybody there had on one of these orange bands. But I also noticed that they all looked like they were about 18 or 19. I knew they were 21.

So, once again, we have a very young community of people who are working hard and playing hard. That puts some extra stress on law enforcement. I respect the people who are in law enforcement. In fact, my brother-in-law is a policeman in Gillette. He is the oldest person to ever go through the Wyoming law enforcement academy. He decided to become a policeman at the time most policemen are retiring, and he loves it. He enjoys it, and he does a good job with it. He has seen some interesting situations and even been bitten by a person. But he loves his work. He does it well. But he has not asked me to mandate collective bargaining. Neither did the people who worked for me when I was mayor.

I would not have had the capability to do any particular additional things for them because while it was a boom, it was an energy boom, and all the energy happened outside of the community. So we did not get any tax base off of that business--the business that was growing and causing the city growth. We only got to tax what was inside the city limits. We had to handle things such as sewer and water, streets, garbage, police protection, and electricity. We even had our own electrical utility.

I had to find water for people. They considered that to be the biggest need. The only place we could get enough water to take care of the population--we were already on water rationing when I took office-- was to go 42 miles away. The cost of that project--the interest alone on the cost of that project exceeded all the revenue for the city of Gillette. It did not leave me a lot of negotiating capability with anybody. It tied my hands significantly.

I had to come to New York City and prove that we would be able to pay off the water bonds. I had to go to New York to go to the rating agencies so we could get a good enough rating that I could get revenue so we could afford the whole thing. The ironic part of it was, it was when New York City was going broke. New York City was going broke. Mayor Lindsay was having a few problems with the city. The questions I got were very difficult to handle for a small town in Wyoming because they were basing them on a big city in New York. They wanted to know if we were going to run into the same problems New York City had.

Well, the big problem that New York City had was that they bargained early retirement for firefighters and police, so they only had to work 20 years until they could get their retirements. So they worked for 20 years. They were only 40 years old. They had two people retired for every one person who was working. It is hard to provide police protection if you have twice as many people retired as you have working, and you have to pay all of these people who are not working their retirement. It created a huge problem for New York. They did not need us to say: You have to have collective bargaining, because they already had collective bargaining. So we did not have collective bargaining. I was able to explain why our policemen would work a little bit longer and be a productive part of the police force longer than in New York City. I got the rating I needed on the bonds and was able to build the water project. It has been a good source--and still is a good source--of water. But now the town has had another one of those booms where they probably doubled or maybe tripled in size. That will require a lot more water. Water is a basic need for communities. So I do not feel comfortable imposing on them any kind of requirements of how they are supposed to do their business. They are right there where the people are. They are in the best position to know what the community needs and wants the most.

When I was mayor, I used to talk about the ``oh, by the ways.'' That is when you are walking down the street or you are out to dinner, even with your family, and people come up and say: Oh, by the way, I have this little problem. Don't get up and solve it right now. Tomorrow will be fine. But they do intend for you to solve that problem by tomorrow.

Now, the whole discussion today has made it sound as though municipalities are enemies of public service and public safety employees. I do not know of any communities where that is true. To make it sound as though the whole country works against the policeman, against the fireman, against the first responders because there is not a collective bargaining law, is wrong. There is an old expression: You can't fight city hall. My opinion of that is, if you can't, you never tried it. Because the people at city hall are responsive. The mayors and the council keep their job if they take care of the problems the people have. If they do not, they are out of there--probably not just one at a time, but en masse. They do not try to pick out exactly who made the bad decisions; they just get rid of them. So towns have to be responsive to all of their employees.

As I said before, I think there are probably a lot of employees out there who say: How come I am not important? How come just the firefighters, just the police, just the first responders are important? I am important too, and this leaves me out.

So we are trying to make some points while a big public relations event is going on here this week. I finally figured out that is why this bill has been brought up at this time, even though it has not gone through committee or had any hearings in the Senate. On bills that came before this committee before, we tried to avoid the heat of the moment because I have found in legislating, if it is worth reacting to, it is worth overreacting to. I think what we have here is a little bit of an overreaction, and there is not going to be much chance to make any changes in it.

I have been kind of keeping track of time here. I know we had about the same number of speakers, but we certainly did not have the same amount of time to speak. I also know the leader also already sent out the word there were not going to be any more votes today. Well, since we have not gotten to address this bill before with the rest of the body, I have asked all of them to pay attention to the amendments we are doing. But I would hesitate to offer any more amendments when I know everybody has gone home. They are all out to dinner by now.

I do not think this is the way we should try to do business. I do not think it was intentional. But I think it certainly puts us at a disadvantage when we are trying to bring up some things that point out some difficulties with this particular bill--offering some responsible amendments, regardless of how they are portrayed.

So with that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I see my colleague from New York. I think he would like to speak on this issue, and then we will continue to balance off the speakers the best that we can to try to take into consideration the Members' schedules.

But we thank the Senator from New York. If he is prepared to speak, we would welcome his comments.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, for extending the courtesy, because we have had some speakers on our side, out of respect for their schedules. We have welcomed their comments at this time.

But I wish to refocus attention to the subject matter at hand, the matter that is before the Senate, and to describe in greater detail this legislation and the reasons for it and the support for this important piece of legislation.

First, I commend the Senate for voting earlier today to take up the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act. The House passed this bill last July by an overwhelming vote of 314 to 97. The Cooperation Act isn't just about protecting union rights. This bill is vitally important to each and every American because, at its core, it is about safety, the safety of our dedicated first responders and the safety of our Nation in this new era of heightened concerns about homeland security. The bill takes a major step forward in protecting our firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians, and other first responders from danger on the job. Public safety workers are on the front lines of our constant efforts to keep America safe. They are all on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, doing backbreaking, difficult work, and doing it with great skill, great courage, and great dedication.

We have seen all too often how dangerous these jobs can be. These charts illustrate the point. In 2006, more than 75,000 police officers were injured in the line of duty. Last year, 140 police officers paid the ultimate price and lost their lives in the line of duty. We see similar numbers with firefighters who put their lives on the line every day. In 2006, more than 83,000 firefighters were injured in the line of duty. Last year, 115 firefighters paid the ultimate price. Another 45 have lost their lives so far this year. This is dangerous work, life- threatening work. These are careers which men and women follow for years with great courage, dedication, and commitment to the public interest and to the families of America. Those are the individuals we are talking about with this legislation.

First responders can also face chronic long-term health problems as well. The courageous firefighters who rushed to Ground Zero on 9/11 now suffer from crippling health problems such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, depression, and post- traumatic stress disorder. They often pay the ultimate price. Last year 250 public safety employees across the country lost their lives in the line of duty. Our public safety workers do not hesitate to rush into fires, wade into floods, put their lives on the line in other ways to protect our homes, our families, and our communities. They know better than anyone else what is needed to keep them as safe as possible on the job, and they deserve the right to have a voice in decisions that profoundly affect their lives and their safety.

When governments and public safety workers are unable to cooperate through collective bargaining, the workers' lives are put at needless risk. The numbers tell the story. Look at this chart. States without collective bargaining, which is the underlying issue before the Senate with this legislation, have 39 percent more fatalities. The reason primarily is because firefighters know how to work in ways that can protect the public and also can provide greater safety and security for the firefighters and first responders and police officials as well, based upon their experience, their knowledge of the task which is before them. Because of that, they are able to have a much better safety record. That is basically what we are trying to share, that kind of experience, with the other firefighters and police officials and first responders in other parts of the country who don't have these kinds of protections.

Behind those numbers are the tragic stories of lives that could have been saved with better communication or better cooperation of effort. A heartbreaking example occurred last year in Charleston, SC. Here is the story. In 2002, the Charleston firefighters association asked the city to begin following the National Fire Protection Association. That is an organization that makes recommendations with regard to safety and security in fighting fires. Unfortunately, there was no mechanism to ensure that these concerns could be heard and addressed. On June 18, 2007, nine Charleston firefighters died in the line of duty. In October of 2007, an expert panel hired by the city to investigate the loss recommended that the department begin following NFPA standards and begin meeting with workers.

That was their recommendation after experiencing the loss of lives. Afterwards we wanted to try to establish a procedure to avoid those kinds of circumstances in the future. We will never know how many lives might have been saved on that day in Charleston, if adequate safety standards had been in place, but we do know that in many other fire departments across the country, critical discussions about safety should be happening, but they are not. Unless public safety workers have a voice on the job, these problems will never be fully and fairly addressed. Without the protection of collective bargaining, workers are afraid to speak out for fear they will face retaliation. These fears are well founded because of countless examples of brave and dedicated first responders who have been harshly punished for raising safety concerns.

Consider the case of firefighter Stan Tinney of Odessa, TX. Here is his situation. In 2001, Stan Tinney, president of the Firefighters Association of Odessa, TX published a newsletter critical of the fire department's safety practices, including inadequate staffing and equipment. Tinney was suspended without pay, reprimanded, downgraded in a performance evaluation, and it took a Federal court that later found the Odessa officials violated Tinney's constitutional rights. It took a Federal case in order to do that. Think of all the other Stan Tinneys around the country who have been intimidated by that kind of action. We don't need that. We need to have suggestions. We need ideas. We need recommendations about how to protect our firefighters, our first responders, and our police community.

Tinney and four of his coworkers, when this incident took place, were questioned individually by city officials and Tinney was suspended without pay, reprimanded, and downgraded. A Federal court later found his constitutional rights had been violated, and the city settled Tinney's claim for $265,000. All that heartache and expense could have been avoided if there had been a mechanism in place for Tinney to express his concern. This legislation provides that.

The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act will give Stan Tinney and countless others like him a voice in the decisions that affect their jobs, their health and safety, and their families. It will give them a safer workplace, and, just as important, it will give them a right to be treated with dignity and respect.

It is not just individual workers who will benefit from this important legislation. Enabling public safety workers and their employers to work cooperatively together makes our entire Nation safer.

In the past decade, we have seen dramatic changes in the way we protect our country. National security has become a local issue. Every city and town in our country--large and small, urban and rural--now has a vital role in keeping us safe from harm.

In this new and more dangerous world, State and local public safety workers are being asked to play an even larger role. We have asked them to become true partners with Federal security agencies in protecting our country from threats, and these dedicated workers have risen to the challenge. But year after year, we are failing to give them the support they need to do their vital jobs as effectively as possible.

Giving these brave men and women the voice they deserve at the bargaining table will facilitate cooperation between public safety workers and their employers. It will enable them to perform their jobs more efficiently and effectively. The benefits are obvious, and we see them in communities across the country that have already accepted the basic principles of public safety cooperation.

Take the example of Annapolis, MD. Until recently, scheduling rules for firefighters and paramedics in Annapolis, MD, often forced them-- these are the workers--to work 48-hour shifts, leaving workers vulnerable to exhaustion and dangerous mistakes. The local union worked with management through collective bargaining to change scheduling rules, shortening

shifts and improving safety for the workers and the public. It does not sound too complicated. It just sounds like common sense to me. And it sounds like an important step in order to provide greater safety and protection for families in Annapolis. Workers there were concerned about scheduling rules, and through a cooperative collective bargaining relationship, the union worked with management to negotiate a new schedule that met the city's needs, while reducing the length of individual shifts. These obvious changes resulted in better rested and more effective firefighters and paramedics, with real benefits to both the first responders and the communities they serve.

Such cooperation also gives State and local governments the flexibility they need to respond to changing circumstances.

Look at this chart. The economy in Tulsa, OK, was struggling after September 11. Through collective bargaining, the mayor and the firefighters agreed to defer payments into the firefighters' Health and Welfare Trust for 1 year. The deferral saved the city over $400,000, and the city was able to spread its repayment to the trust over a longer period of time, providing valuable flexibility that helped the city address its budget troubles--working together with the community and for the community, an important achievement and an important accomplishment.

Some of my colleagues argue that granting them collective bargaining rights will limit the ability of States and cities to respond effectively to an emergency. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have seen, in the most dramatic illustration, that all 343 firefighters who lost their lives in the line of duty on September 11 were union members and with collective bargaining rights. There is no question about their courage, no question about their bravery, no question about their willingness to do their duty and do it heroically. When challenged, that has certainly been the evidence time-in and time- out. So we reject those suggestions and those observations.

In addition, for example, before 9/11, the Port Authority police officers worked 8-hour days, with 2 days off, each week. After 9/11, everyone worked 12-hour shifts every day and all vacations and personal time were canceled. This hard schedule continued for nearly 3 years, but neither the union nor any union member filed a single grievance about it. They did their duty, and they did it heroically.

Do we understand that? As to police officers for the Port Authority that has responsibility in the greater port area in New York, before 9/ 11 they worked 8-hour days, with 2 days off, each week, and after 9/11 everyone worked 12-hour shifts every day and all vacations and personal time were canceled. The hard schedule continued for nearly 3 years, and neither the union nor any union member filed a single grievance--not a single grievance--when they were called upon to meet their responsibility--not a single grievance. They did their duty, and they did it heroically.

Our families and communities deserve the best public safety services we can possibly provide, and achieving that goal starts with the strong foundation that comes with collective bargaining.

No one doubts that our communities and our country are living on borrowed time. We all hope the numerous other steps we are taking will be successful in preventing similar catastrophic attacks. It makes no sense not to make the basic rights granted by this legislation available to all of America's first responders. It is an urgent matter of public safety. I commend Senator Gregg for his leadership on this important issue, and I urge my colleagues to give our heroes the respect and support they deserve by approving the Cooperation Act.

Mr. President, I see my friend from Utah. We did have three speakers on our side, and we are going to do the best we can to balance it. I think the Senator's side is next. How long does the Senator from Utah wish to speak? Then I will ask that the Senator from New York to follow.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New Jersey be recognized for 20 minutes following Senator Hatch.

Mr. President, we will recognize the Senator from New Jersey, but if he will yield a minute.

Mr. President, we want to permit others to speak. I will speak in a short time in response to my friend and colleague from Wyoming. If this legislation did what he suggested it did, I would not be a sponsor or support the legislation either. I will go into some detail in explaining what the legislation does do and what it doesn't do.

With regard to the Senator from Utah, this issue about having a secret ballot or nonsecret ballot, we leave up to the States. Rather than trying to mandate that--a lot has been talked about giving the States options as to how to proceed. We say on both items the Senator addressed that the States are the ones that should make the judgment and determinations.

We will have a longer time to debate this issue.

I thank the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

I always appreciate hearing from the Senator from New Jersey. I hope our colleagues will listen carefully to what the Senator from New Jersey has said because he comes to this debate as a former mayor. Mayors, as we all know, have had special relationships, obviously, with firefighters and police on the firing line. So when I hear the Senator from New Jersey talk about that value as a former mayor, he can see the value in terms of safety and security for the people in that community as a result of this legislation in terms of cooperative discussions and arrangements. That says a good deal.

Some have presented a situation--which, of course, is not accurate-- where this legislation is going to be imposing extraordinary hardships, additional burdens, and unfunded mandates on mayors, particularly in smaller communities, and do a great disservice, actually, in terms of the whole relationship between the public safety officers and the security of the community.

So I particularly value his comments on this aspect of the bill. There are obviously a number of other important aspects of it. But as it relates to small towns, I forget the actual population or the size of the community, the city that the good Senator was the mayor of, but, in any event, if he could elaborate on his views about this legislation and its importance to mayors as well as to firefighters, I think it would be very helpful because he speaks from very practical experience.

Would the Senator yield for another question?

I think all of us in this body know the good Senator represents the State of New Jersey in this case, which had suffered extraordinary loss at the time of 9/11. A number of those extraordinary firefighters lived in the Senator's State. So when he speaks about these issues, talking about the courage and the bravery of these firefighters, he talks about it with a good deal of background and understanding and an enormous sense of compassion for having gone through with many of these families their loss.

That is why, I believe, the Senator in his strong support for this legislation, as a former mayor and also someone who knows and has personal experience with these firefighters, can speak so authoritatively about what this legislation can mean in terms of the safety and security of the community and also with regard to the safety and security of the firefighters, police officers, first responders.

Does the Senator agree with me that those who were not lost on that day but in a very real sense brothers and sisters of the first responders who were lost on 9/11, many of whom were lost in his district, do they feel that legislation will help and assist providing safety and security to the people, whether it is in New Jersey, or in the communities they represent, and that they are supporting this legislation because they are very hopeful and prayerful we will never again face that kind of tragedy we faced but that they believe this legislation can help provide additional safety and security for their communities and for their fellow citizens?

I see other Senators wish to address the Senate. We have been reminded about how long we have been considering this legislation and how important it is that we do it at the present time.

As the Senator knows, this bill was initially introduced by our former colleague, Senator Mike Dewine, in 1999. The Senate even voted on it in 2002. We had a HELP Committee hearing on this same legislation in the 106th Congress in 2001.

So many of these brave responders have waited for a long time. This has gone on for some 8 years without coming to completion. It is a matter that has been before this body as well during this Congress.

So would the Senator not agree with me, finally, that the time is now to take action? This is the time. We are talking about homeland security; we are talking about first responders; we are talking about those firefighters and police officers. Now is the time to permit them to be fully engaged and involved in further advancing the safety and security of our colleagues.

Would the Senator not agree with me that this is a significant matter that we have full awareness of and knowledge of and should be ready to take action on?

Mr. President, I hope our colleagues have listened carefully to the Senator from Ohio because he has laid out the essential elements of this legislation and did it effectively.

As I mentioned, very often around here we have people who misrepresent or mischaracterize legislation and then differ with it. I have even done it myself a few times. We have seen that done with regard to this legislation.

I listened to my friend and colleague--and he is my friend and colleague--from Tennessee. I watched him wave the Constitution and talk about the tenth amendment, and the Senator from Ohio has answered that.

Does the Senator not agree with me that the basic process that is followed is that if this legislation is passed, a State then must set up some opportunity fulfilling four different requirements that are included in the bill? Those four different requirements that are to provide public service officers

the right to form and join a labor organization; requires the employers to recognize a union that is chosen, require employers to engage in a collective bargaining process, and make available an impasse resolution. As the Senator correctly pointed out, that may very well be arbitration, that may be factfinding. It is completely left open.

Now the State takes these four broad guidelines and fashions legislation. Once Tennessee passes a law, if Tennessee workers say we don't like unions, they don't have to have one. End of the story. I had difficulty in understanding the Senator from Tennessee talk eloquently for half an hour describing this amendment, and I said one of us hasn't read it because there is no such requirement in this legislation as described by the Senator from Tennessee.

I wish the Senator would once again speak to the issue of an unfunded mandate. There is no possibility, as the Senator has mentioned, that there can be any impact on the local community or the State in terms of requiring them to spend a nickel if it isn't going to be approved by the regular order within that State. The State is going to have to make that judgment and that decision whether they want it, but there is nothing included in this legislation that is going to alter that part of the procedure.

As to these concerns we have heard during the course of the afternoon that this new legislation is going to suddenly be an unfunded mandate, I am always interested, if you eliminated the words ``unfunded mandate,'' you would quiet about half the Senate. They use those words so frequently when too often they don't have anything else to say. ``It is an unfunded mandate,'' and everyone quivers and shakes about it. That is the situation.

It is good if we have a debate, and we welcome the opportunity to take some time to debate. We are in no rush. This is important legislation. It is important that the Members understand it, but it is important, it does seem to me, as we are engaging in this debate, for the Members to understand correctly what we are doing and what we are not doing.

I was interested to know if the Senator agrees with me that the bill will not require any town or community in Ohio or any State to expend resources and funds that the State will not duly authorize under its existing appropriations procedures?

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield further, would the Senator not agree with me that the decisionmaking then is going to be done at effectively the local level by workers rather than at the Federal level or even at the State level? The State is going to outline a process. Then the workers are going to make a judgment as to whether they want to follow that process. And if they choose that they will not do it, then there is no process or procedure, and they don't have to do it.

A compelling aspect of this legislation is the fact that we are giving the authority to deal with the most local issues to those who have responsibility today in the local community and who know best in terms of safety and security, and are trained in safety and security-- the first responders.

The record is powerful in this area about how to ensure additional safety and protection for local communities, the State, and the country. We want to make sure that those decisions are made by the workers who have that expertise.

I thank the Senator for his comments because we have heard a good deal of rhetoric on the floor. It is important that we make sure our colleagues have a good understanding and awareness of the great efforts that have been made to make sure we are going to respect the States, we are going to respect, obviously, local communities and the differences that take place, and we are going to have special provisions, as the Senator correctly pointed out, in terms of voluntary fire departments.

We tried to work very carefully and closely--as the Senator has mentioned, this has been a bipartisan effort with Senators from all different parts of the country. What is important is that local firefighters, local first responders, local police officers are so strongly in support of this legislation because they understand better than anyone on the floor of this Senate the difference it can make for the safety and security of the American people.

I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I will take a few moments to respond to some of the points that have been made during the afternoon. There are some very basic and fundamental points that I think should be made, and that is on the question of the right to choose and the ability for individuals to have that right to choose.

Here on the floor of the Senate, we heard last night from the Senator from Tennessee and at a time here earlier from the Senator from Arizona. I appreciate his kind personal comments. And I join him in paying tribute to my colleague, the Senator from Wyoming.

Although we differ on this legislation, he knows the great respect I have for him as a legislator and the affection I have for him. But there is a difference between a State saying: We are going to deny people the opportunity for collective bargaining, and a State having a process and a procedure in which the people in the State make that judgment and decision. It is similar to the right to vote. Every individual ought to have that right to vote, and if they are not going to use it, that is their judgment and decision, but it is an important enough right to say that we must make it available and allow them to exercise it.

That is what we are saying with this legislation, that a decision dealing with safety and security and a voice on the job for first responders is sufficiently important that workers should have an opportunity to express themselves and decide whether they want collective bargaining. The States themselves, as good as we believe their judgments are, shouldn't get to make that decision for the workers. The States should set up a process and procedure and let the people in the States make that judgment--that is pretty apple pie Americana, to let people make judgments and decisions about matters that are going to make an important difference with regard to safety and security of their jobs and their communities. That is what this is basically about.

So when we hear on the other side: my State made a judgment on it, and we are trying to see another State trying to impose its will on mine, well, I think my friend Senator Brown answered that very well as a general concept, but in particular, it is important to understand what is at the root of this, and that is a process. If this legislation passes, a State has four broad criteria that it must meet, and the Senator from Arizona is correct that if the State does not meet these requirements, then the Federal Labor Relations Authority has to step in and make sure these criteria are met. But if they do meet these basic requirements the Federal Labor Relations Authority would not become involved at all.

The idea that workers are going to be forced to join a union if they don't want one is a scare tactic--and I don't say that in a pejorative way, but just for our membership to understand. We are giving the choice to the workers. We believe those firefighters and first responders can make that judgment. We think it is an important enough decision that affects their lives and the lives of the people they are protecting that they should make it. Then they can make the judgment and decision on what they want in that particular State. If they make the decision that they don't want to have collective bargaining, so be it. But at least they have the possibility of moving ahead in that direction. It is difficult for me to believe that the States would refuse to establish the kind of process and procedure that would make that choice possible.

There are a host of different provisions in the Hatch amendment which have previously been rejected in one form or another. We might go over them briefly tomorrow. But I wanted to point out, in this legislation there is no requirement that workers must use majority sign-up, or card-check. I am a supporter of card check. I think it would open up opportunities for people to speak on the issue of whether they want to organize. But we have not made that judgment in this legislation. That isn't what this legislation is about. It is always interesting to me to hear all the opposition to card check, when we know historically that we used to have card check and it worked very well. Into the l950s, we had it, and we didn't hear a lot of the horror stories that we hear associated with it at this time. But there is not any requirement in this bill about card check. So it is important people understand that.

During the course of the afternoon, I heard a description of this legislation that I could not understand and never would have supported, if the legislation provided that. I hope we can clear up some of these misconceptions. We have had a good discussion on a number of these issues and on a number of others during the course of the afternoon. We will have a chance to go through the Record in more careful detail this evening, and make additional points when that opportunity presents itself.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object, I don't expect that I will object, but would the Senator withhold that request for a few more minutes?

I am sure we are going to accede to it, but there is something we want to check out.

Please, I appreciate that.

We have no objection, Mr. President.

Mr. President, very quickly, the effect of the Corker amendment would be to gut or undermine the legislation. What we are trying to do is give workers an opportunity to make a judgment about how to proceed. That choice should be made by workers, not the Federal Government, not us here in Washington, DC, not in the State capitols, not the legislatures, but to let the workers, who are on the frontlines--firefighters, police officers, first responders--make the judgments that are going to make a difference in terms of their lives and in terms of their view of what is in the best interests of the safety and security of fellow citizens. This amendment, of course, will undermine that effort.

Finally, I want to review what this legislation does. We have done this a bit earlier today. I wanted to mention exactly what the requirements would be. First, there are four requirements that the States must meet to establish a framework by which the first responders and the firefighters and the police would make a judgment about whether they want a union. There must be a process allowing workers to form or join a union so they can have a voice in important decisions such as safety; they must be allowed to bargain over working conditions with their employers; they must be able to sign legally enforceable contracts; and they must have access to a neutral third party to help resolve disputes. We don't say whether it is arbitration, mediation, factfinding. All of those options are available. At the end of the day, if the workers say: We don't want that, then the issue is settled. But they have the voice. That is at the heart and the soul of this legislation. Do you have sufficient confidence in these individuals to be able to make that judgment. Those 343 extraordinary firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11, should they have had the opportunity to make judgments with regard to their safety and security? Shouldn't they be the individuals who know what is important in terms of safety and security? They weren't failing or flagging in terms of their resolution or their courage. What we are attempting to do is say: They are the knowledgeable people. They are the trained people. They are the ones who know how to improve safety. They should have a voice at the table, if they want one.

All of this about unfunded mandates, all of this about the Federal Labor Relations Authority, all of the language about volunteer firefighters, all of that is useful to talk about but misses the very basic and important element and thrust of this legislation, which is so important in terms of people who work every day to make our communities and our cities in our country safe and secure.

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

Mr. President, I think we have had a good discussion today on this legislation. I hope we will have a chance to look over the Record tonight. We have four pending amendments. We understood Members wanted to talk about these measures, and they wanted to give consideration to them. So we will be ready. There is another group of amendments that I believe have been filed, but we are checking with their authors whether they want to call those up. So I think in the totality of things we have made some good progress today.

I understand we will be on this legislation in the mid or late morning tomorrow. We look forward to that opportunity to further respond to questions and to consider other amendments. We would certainly look forward to the authors of these amendments being ready to give consideration to voting on some of these measures. I think they are all--at least the amendments we have seen--pretty straightforward. I have responded to a few this afternoon. We will have a chance to further respond in the morning. But I think we will be prepared to keep the process moving and move ahead. There are matters which should

be discussed and debated. We look forward to that debate and discussion as well tomorrow.

At least now, we have no further speakers on this legislation at this time. I see our friend from Iowa on his feet.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

I send to the desk an amendment and ask for its immediate consideration. I believe Senator Kennedy has seen a copy of it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this is an amendment to the pending legislation which would give the mayors and chief administrative officers of cities and States the opportunity to opt out if they conclude that this law would be, in their circumstances, contrary to the best interest of public safety, No. 1, or would result in an increase in local taxes or a decrease in the level of public safety or other municipal service. In other words, if this legislation amounted to an unfunded Federal mandate, it would not be effective.

Let me speak to the unfunded mandate aspect of this legislation and its interference with the prerogative of States. Those are two different ideas and two very important ideas in the American fabric. Let me begin by saying we are talking about some of the most honored men and women in our country--firefighters, policemen, and other public safety workers. That is true in Tennessee as well. We have over

700 fire departments, and we were grateful for the heroism of firefighters everywhere on 9/11. Local fire fighters in Tennessee and across the Southeast were among the first on the scene after the deadly tornadoes earlier this year. We are deeply grateful for that.

Charles Martinez from Maryville, my hometown, was named Tennessee firefighter of the year in 2004 for giving his kidney to a fellow firefighter. We deeply admire him for that.

In 2006, Lieutenant Terrance Andrews of Chattanooga was named Tennessee firefighter of the year for his dramatic rescue during a house fire in which he pulled the security bars away from a window to save Virginia Humphrey. Ms. Humphrey was injured and spent some time in a hospital, but she fully recovered. I admire Lieutenant Terrance Andrews' bravery.

Another example, firefighter Shane Daughetee of the Highway 58 Volunteer Fire Department in Chattanooga died in the line of duty in January of last year when he was trying to rescue a family. We mourn Shane Daughetee's death and admire the bravery of that individual. All of us admire and respect the bravery of firefighters and other public safety employees in all our communities. But that is not what this legislation is about.

A better name for this bill would be the ``Washington knows best unfunded mandate act.'' In the name of some of the men and women we respect the most, our firefighters, policemen, and others, we are about to commit two of Washington's worst and most flagrant sins. That is, No. 1, to take away from States and communities their right to decide their own labor relations, what they ought to be; and, No. 2, to pass an expensive piece of legislation, make it sound good, take credit for it, and then send the bill home to mayors, Governors, and local officials who will have to either raise taxes or cut services to deal with it. It is an unfunded mandate in that sense.

Current Supreme Court law suggests that the tenth amendment permits the Federal Government to require State compliance with the general regulatory scheme but does not permit the Federal government to require States in their sovereign capacities to regulate their own citizens.

The argument made by the distinguished Senator from New Jersey basically boiled down to this: We have it in New Jersey, so we are going to make Tennessee have it. We have decided in New Jersey that it is a good idea, so I am going to fly to Washington and impose it on Tennessee, Georgia, Wyoming, and all 21 States which have different laws.

This is not a new subject. We haven't been waiting a long time to discuss this. We debated and discussed this law every year I was Governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, which is where it is supposed to be discussed, because we are discussing the labor relations of the State of Tennessee. It was discussed almost every year in the 1990s and rejected by the legislature of Tennessee in an entire series of years. I have here the years in which it was considered and rejected by our State. Tennessee considered this specific question in both the State House and the State Senate which, I might add, are majority Democratic during all of this time. In 1997, Tennessee said: We prefer to have a law in Tennessee that provides that mayors and local officials deal directly with public safety employees such as firefighters and police officers. We believe that is the best way to encourage public safety, to have strong communities, and to provide the best labor-management relationship in our State.

The State legislature said that in 1997. The Democratic State legislature said it again in 1999. They said it again in 2001, 2003, and 2005. In our State of Tennessee, we will grant that a different rule might be good for New Jersey, but we have decided over the last two or three decades that way is not good for our State.

What are we talking about here? What we are saying in this Federal law--which will be imposed, as the Senator from Wyoming has said, on every State, but in 21 States like ours, it overturns our law--is basically that a mayor is required to recognize a union leader, if he or she wants to sit down and talk instead of with the policemen and firemen and other public safety employees about pay, benefits, and work rules. It takes away the State's decision that says we believe it is better for the mayor to deal directly with those employees. I don't know what that will do to improve working conditions or cooperation or the public safety, but I am confident it will coerce hundreds of thousands of local policemen and firemen to pay union dues and fatten those treasuries.

This bill is saying what is good for New Jersey, what is good for Massachusetts, is good for Tennessee. What I am saying is we have 90 towns in Tennessee that will be forced to change how they deal with their public employees, because someone in New Jersey or someone in Massachusetts or other States thinks that is what we ought to do. Not only does Washington know best, according to the advocates of this legislation, but also that Washington knows best how to spend our money. Because what are these discussions about? They are discussions about towns such as Pulaski, 7,800 people; Mumford, 5,000 people; Dyersburg, 17,000; Alcoa, 7,700; my hometown of Maryville, 23,000.

Let me take Maryville as an example. We have good schools there. My father ran for the school board after World War II with a ticket of men and women who said: We will take all the money we have and we are going to focus on having great schools. So in that blue-collar town where at the time most of the people worked for the Alcoa plant, middle-income community, lower middle income, by and large, we slowly built up a culture of very good schools. About 75 percent, if I remember the figure correctly, of the local tax dollars go to make those schools superior. They win academic scores year in and year out.

What we are saying to Maryville is: OK, the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Massachusetts have a better idea for you folks in Maryville. We are going to impose on you a different way of dealing with your policemen and firemen. As a result, some labor union leader from Massachusetts and New Jersey may come into Maryville and say: Instead of spending 75 percent of your money to make schools better, we want you to do this, that, or the other about public safety and reduce spending on schools and increase spending for salaries of public safety people.

One could make that argument.

But so far, the people in my hometown have said: We would rather not do it that way. We would rather make education our priority. We think we have a super police force. We are very proud of them. But we like the way we are doing things. The same in Sweetwater and Erwin and Bolivar and Rockwood and Church Hill and Millersville. Ninety of our towns in Tennessee would suddenly be doing things the New Jersey way, the New York way. If we wanted to do things the New Jersey way, we would move to New Jersey. We would move to Massachusetts. We would move to New York. Those are wonderful States, but we don't choose to live there. We like to do things our way, and we have always been able to.

We don't have a chance to do that just out of common sense. Common sense would suggest that a big, complex country of 300 million people, where people come from all over the world and freedom and liberty are our values, that we allow people as much as possible to do things in different ways, so long as they meet with certain constitutional rights. Senator Byrd likes for us to carry around in our pockets the Constitution to which we took an oath to honor. It says in amendment X:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the

Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are

reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

In other words, it says that in the United States of America--it might not be true in some other countries--unless the Constitution says the Federal Government shall do it, the States do it. And so the States have been doing it. We don't say in this country if New Jersey does it and the Senator from New Jersey thinks it is a good idea to do it in Tennessee, make Tennessee do it. That is not the way we do things. So I don't believe this legislation is constitutional, among other things.

Let me also say that as a former Governor, I am trying to make a temperate speech about this legislation, because I feel so strongly about it. But

as a former Governor, when I was sitting there in Nashville, nothing made me madder than to look up to Washington and see some Congressman-- and I will have to say, sometimes they were Republicans and sometimes they were Democrats--who flew to Washington and got smarter than they were when they were back in the small towns in which they grew up. They would say in Washington: I have a great idea. They would pass it into law and hold a press conference and take credit for it, and then they would send the bill to me, the Governor. Then what would happen? The next week that same Congressman, if it was a Republican, would be home in Knoxville making a Lincoln day speech bragging about local control, and the Democrat would be in Nashville making a Jackson day speech bragging about local control, and I would be paying the bill. That is not right. That is called an unfunded Federal mandate.

The American people don't like it. I will tell you how much they don't like it. I was one of those Senators--there are a lot of us--who felt a calling to run for the Presidency of the United States a few years ago in the middle of the 1990s. I didn't make it. My preacher brother-in-law said it was a reverse calling and that I should be doing something else for the people. So I am here. But I remember in 1994, 1995, and 1996, there was a strong resentment in this country toward being told what to do from Washington, DC. People had had it up to here. The Republicans seized on that. I remember Newt Gingrich and a lot of Republican candidates for Congress standing on the Capitol steps and saying: No more unfunded mandates. They put it in something they called a Contract with America. And the first piece of legislation that was passed by the new Republican Congress, elected overwhelmingly by the people, S. 1, was the no unfunded Federal mandate act. That was S. 1. We are not going to pass unfunded mandates anymore. If we are going to pass something, we are going to pay for it.

This legislation doesn't pay for it. It might tell Erwin and Maryville and Alcoa and Pulaski and 90 other towns in Tennessee what they need to pay firefighters and policemen. It might tell them what to pay them or create an environment that creates a higher salary, perhaps, or a bigger benefit, but it doesn't pay the bill.

Now, the Republican Congress said in 1994: No more unfunded mandates. If we break our promise, throw us out. In fact, the people have, and I think part of the reason is because some Republicans forgot about no unfunded Federal mandates.

So I urge my colleagues to recognize that to impose upon a State--as different as Tennessee might be from New Jersey; as different as Wyoming might be from Georgia--we do not need the same rules and regulations. We are capable in our hometowns of making a good decision about how to have good labor relations, or how to deal directly with our volunteer firemen. We have over 700 fire departments in Tennessee-- 700--and lots of different ways of dealing with them. We do not need anybody from New Jersey or Massachusetts or somewhere else telling us how we should deal with them.

This is an ominous trend. Tennessee is also a right-to-work State. Now, I know this legislation has a little section that says this does not interfere with right to work. Well, I wonder about that. Maybe this legislation by itself does not in its explicit terms. But if the Federal Government can say, in New Jersey, in New York, and other States: We have a union shop--in other words, employees do not have the opportunity to make a choice about whether to join a union--why cannot they say: It is good for New Jersey; let's have it in Tennessee? It is not a very big step.

Or if New Jersey or some other--I am not just picking on New Jersey, but their Senator was here saying if this is good for them, it would be good for us--State might say: We do not see any need for the secret ballot in union elections. Let's just let employees sign cards. It makes it a lot easier to organize, and if it is good for New Jersey or New York or California, it is good for Tennessee. A lot of people moved to Tennessee because they prefer our level of taxes. They prefer the right to work. They prefer the relations we have between employers and employees.

I imagine the auto industry, which is now one-third of our manufacturing jobs in Tennessee, is there because we have a different labor environment than in some other parts of the country. Now, that does not mean we do not have union workers. We have a lot of union workers.

In fact, in the mid-1980s, a lot of people paid attention to our State because here came the Nissan plant, which even today is nonunion, and it is the largest, most efficient automobile plant in North America, making 500,000 or 600,000 cars and trucks a year. Right next door, 15 miles away, is General Motors' Saturn plant. When General Motors came, the United Auto Workers came, and they are a partnership. Both plants are successful. There has been some shifting and changing at the General Motors plant, but it is back on track.

So we have both plants there: one where employees are required to join the union, one where people have a choice to join the union. We like it that way, and I think they like it that way.

Now, we are the third or fourth largest State in suppliers. They seem to like it that way. So why would we do it the way some other State does it, especially if we figured out a better way to do it, in our opinion. Particularly in the United States of America where we have a 10th amendment to the Constitution, we believe in federalism, and we are a decentralized society.

So I am very worried about this piece of legislation. I think it is bad for Tennessee. It is bad for our labor-management relations. We have enough common sense in our State--with our Democratic Governor, our Democratic House of Representatives, our Republican State senate now--to make these decisions for ourselves. Why do we need U.S. Senators telling us this? Then, when we get in the majority, we might say: What is good for us in Tennessee is good for New Jersey, and change their law; or what is good for us in Tennessee is good for New York, and change their law. We don't care about New Jersey's law. As long as we follow the constitutional rights of the people of the United States, we would like to settle things.

I come from the mountains of Tennessee. My great-grandfather was asked about his politics. He said: I am a Republican. I fought with the Union and I vote like I shot.

The reason we were unionists and Republicans in the Civil War--and still today--was because we did not want the Federal Government telling us what to do. This is an extreme example of serious meddling.

One last example, and then I will stop.

The argument is, if we can only force all these 90 Tennessee communities to collectively bargain, that will improve public safety. Well, how do we know that? Is New Jersey and New York safer than Tennessee? Do we know that for sure?

Or let's take the one example in Tennessee where we have required communities to collectively bargain, and that is with teachers. The unit is an arm of the National Education Association. I have had some pretty important disagreements with my friends in the Tennessee education association over the last 25 years about what is good for education. For example, I thought it would be a good idea to reward outstanding teaching, pay teachers more for teaching well. Twenty-five years ago, our State became the first State to do so. We created a career ladder system, and we raised taxes in order to offer every single teacher a 70-percent pay increase on the State's share. Ten thousand teachers went up that ladder. Guess who the No. 1 opponent to that was. The teacher's union. Not Albert Shanker and the American Federation of Teachers, but the National Education Association.

I am not criticizing them. They are very open about that. They do not like the idea of paying teachers more for teaching well. I think to improve education we should. So does that really improve education in Tennessee to require that collective bargaining?

Another example: I notice a lot of teachers were worried about being sued by parents. I think that is not right. Why not offer teachers the same liability insurance the State provides to State employees?

The Tennessee Education Association raised its dues to defeat my proposal

because they offer liability insurance. Did that improve education in Tennessee?

Or charter schools? I think charter schools are a good idea, public charter schools that leave teachers free to make their own decisions about the kids who are there. But the teachers union disagreed. That is a legitimate difference of opinion. But I think I am right. They think I am wrong. But does that improve Tennessee's schools to have them there?

Choices for parents: I think the best thing to do in Nashville, for example, where schools are having a very difficult time, might be to ask all the parents where they would like to send their kids to school and see if we could do it. Give them their first, second, and third choice to see if we could probably supply that. The teachers union is opposed to that.

Everyone, when we were bringing in the auto industry to Tennessee, bringing in the Nissan plant--the first time we had ever had those jobs, which raised our family incomes--I wanted to build a road out to the plant with State dollars, and the teachers union objected because they wanted me to give the money to the teachers. I thought that was short-sighted because if we improved the tax base, we would have the money to improve education.

So there are differences of opinion about what would improve education, and there are differences of opinion about what would improve public safety. We like our opinions in Tennessee. That is why we do not like this bill.

So I will be seeking a vote on my amendment when the appropriate time comes. I would urge my colleagues, you may be right about your own home State. Maybe it is better to require all your communities to collectively bargain. Maybe that improves safety in New Jersey or New York or somewhere else. But in Tennessee, we have considered it almost every year for the last 25 years, and we have decided a different way. We believe States ought to have the right to decide what their own labor relations ought to be. We do not believe it is a right of the Federal Government to impose unfunded mandates on us and cause us to pay our extra bills at a time when the Governor is laying off people in our State because there are not enough tax dollars coming in.

This is the grossest sort of interference to the sovereignty of our State. We have a strong bipartisan opinion about this in Tennessee. That is why I am so vigorously opposed to this piece of legislation.

It should be called the Washington Knows Best Unfunded Mandate Act. I am going seek to amend it. I am going to do my best to defeat it.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today the Senate is poised to confirm two more nominations for lifetime appointments to the Federal bench: Cathy Seibel for the Southern District of New York and Glenn T. Suddaby for the Northern District of New York. These nominees each have the support of the New York Senators, who worked with the White House to identify a slate of consensus nominees. I thank both Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton for their work in connection with these nominees.

When these nominees are confirmed, that will bring the number of judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate during the slightly more than three years I have served as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to 158. Coincidentally, the number of President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate during the almost four and one-half years of Republican control totaled 158.

I have always said that we would treat this President's nominees more fairly than Republicans treated President Clinton's. And we have. Indeed, we have matched the confirmation record that Republicans achieved for a President from their own party. We have not pocket filibustered more than 60 of this President's nominees. We are not going to return 17 circuit court nominees without action to this President as the Republican-led Senate did to President Clinton. We have not doubled the judicial vacancies and forced them above 100 nationwide, nor have we doubled the number of circuit court vacancies. To the contrary, we have cut judicial vacancies by more than half, and reduced circuit court vacancies by more than two-thirds from a high point of 32, to a low of just nine throughout all 13 Federal circuits.

The 100 nominations we confirmed in only 17 months in 2001 and 2002, while working with a most uncooperative White House, reduced the vacancies by 45 percent by the end of 2002. With 40 additional confirmations last year, and another 18 this year, the Senate under Democratic leadership has now confirmed 158 lifetime appointments to the Federal bench nominated by President Bush. Nearly half of the judicial nominees the Senate has confirmed while I have served as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee have filled vacancies classified by the Administrative Office of the Courts as judicial emergency vacancies. Eighteen of the 27 circuit court nominees confirmed while I have chaired the committee filled judicial emergency vacancies, including nine of the 10 circuit court nominees confirmed this Congress. This is another aspect of the problem created by Republicans that we have worked hard to improve. When President Bush took office there were 28 judicial emergency vacancies. Those have been reduced by more than half.

In the 2 full years that preceded my returning as chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 2007, with a Republican chairman and a Republican Senate majority working to confirm the judicial nominees of a Republican President, 54 nominations were confirmed. After the two confirmations today, we will reach 58 judicial confirmations for this Congress. Truth be told, President Bush's judicial nominees have been confirmed faster by the Democratic majority than by the previous Republican majority of the Senate.

Judicial vacancies have been reduced from 10 percent as we made the transition to the Bush administration to 4.5 percent today. I wish we could say the same about unemployment, the cost of gasoline, food prices, health care costs, about inflation and the national debt, but all those indicators have been moving in the wrong direction, as is consumer confidence and the percentage of Americans who see the country as on the wrong track.

Republican critics ignore the progress we have made on judicial vacancies. They also ignore the crisis that they had created by not considering circuit nominees in 1996, 1997 and 1998. They ignore the fact that they refused to confirm a single circuit nominee during the entire 1996 session. They ignore the fact that they returned 17 circuit court nominees without action to the White House in 2000. They ignore the public criticism of Chief Justice Rehnquist to their actions during those years. They ignore the fact that they were responsible for more than doubling circuit court vacancies during their pocket filibusters of Clinton nominees or that we have reduced those circuit court vacancies by more than two thirds.

In fact, as the Presidential elections in 2000 drew closer, and when the judicial vacancy rate stood at 7.2 percent, then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch declared that ``There is and has been no judicial vacancy crisis,'' and that 7.2 percent was a ``rather low percentage of vacancies that shows the judiciary is not suffering from an overwhelming number of vacancies.'' As a result of Republican inaction, the vacancy rate continued to rise, reaching 10 percent when the Democrats took over the Senate majority in 2001.

Democrats have reversed course. We have cut circuit court vacancies by more than two-thirds, from a high of 32. With the confirmation of two nominees today, the judicial vacancy rate will be just 4.5 percent.

I have yet to hear praise from a single Republican for our work in lowering vacancies. I also have yet to hear in the Republican talking points any explanation for their actions during the 1996 congressional session, when the Republican Senate majority refused to allow the Senate to confirm even one circuit court judge. I have yet to hear explanations for why they did not proceed with the nominations of Bonnie Campbell, Allen Snyder and so many others.

I hope the American people will not witness another week in which Senate Republicans attempt to make a partisan, election-year issue out of the confirmation of judicial nominations. This is the one area where the numbers have actually improved during the Bush presidency while the life of hardworking Americans has only gotten more difficult. The Treasury Secretary has been quite sobering about the financial difficulties still ahead. Inflation is now on the rise, jobs are being lost, gas prices have skyrocketed, food prices have soared, health care is unaffordable and yet Republicans want come to the floor to pick a partisan fight about the pace of judicial confirmations while the Senate proceeds to confirm two more judges.

Americans have seen the unemployment rate rise to 5.5 percent and trillions of dollars in budget surplus have turned into trillions of dollars of debt. Last week General Motors announced layoffs. The annual budget deficit is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the dollar has lost half its value, and the costs of the Iraq war and interest on the national debt amounts to $1.5 billion a day.

When President Bush took office, the price of gas was $1.42 a gallon. Today, it is over $4.00 a gallon. The housing crisis and mortgage crisis threatens the economy. The stock market dropped 2,000 points in the first six months of the year and went under 11,000.

Hardworking Americans trying to do the best they can for their families are more concerned about critical issues they face in their lives each day. They are concerned about affording to heat their homes this winter. They are concerned about gas prices that have skyrocketed so high they do not know how they will afford to drive to work. They are concerned about the steepest decline in home values in two decades. More and more Americans are affected by rising unemployment, with job losses for the first six consecutive months of this year tallying over 438,000. Americans are worried about soaring health care costs, rising health insurance costs, the rising costs of education and rising food prices. The partisan, election-year rhetoric over judicial nominations, at a time when judicial vacancies have been significantly reduced, is a reflection of misplaced priorities.

Our progress today in confirming two more nominations for lifetime appointments shows that when the President works with home State Senators to identify consensus, well-qualified nominees, we can make progress, even this late in an election year. I congratulate the nominees and their families on their confirmations today.

The Federal judiciary is the one arm of our Government that should never be political or politicized, regardless of who sits in the White House. I will continue in this Congress, and with a new President in the next Congress, to work with Senators from both sides of the aisle to ensure that the Federal judiciary remains independent and able to provide justice to all Americans, without fear or favor.

Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to consider a number of bipartisan measures. Several are important items on which Republicans had already delayed consideration since June. They include the bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, a bipartisan OPEN FOIA bill and the bipartisan William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. In addition, we had before us the Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act, the Fugitive Information Networked Database Act, the Methamphetamine Production Prevention Act and the National Guard and Reservists Debt Relief Act.

I had hoped that last week we would be able to report these measures. A few words about one of them--the legislation to reauthorize the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This bill would strengthen our efforts to stop the abhorrent practice of human trafficking around the world. Our bill enhances protections for victims of these terrible crimes. Human trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery, involving victims who are forced, defrauded or coerced into sexual or labor exploitation. These practices continue to victimize hundreds of thousands around the world, mostly women and children, and we must do all that we can to be more effective in confronting this continuing problem. I thank Senator Biden for his leadership. Unfortunately, Republican partisan antics have gotten in the way of progress on this front and delayed the Judiciary Committee and the Senate from acting on this measure.

Rather than meet and work on the human trafficking bill and the others, a number of the Republican Senators who serve on the Judiciary Committee came to the Senate floor while Republicans objected to the committee meeting. That was too bad. It set back our legislative agenda.

Republicans previously boycotted business meetings for the month of February when we were trying to report judicial nominations. That only slowed our progress. Then, when we tried to expedite consideration of two circuit court nominations in May, they objected. Those judicial nominations were finally confirmed late in June.

I look forward to a time when Senators from the other side of the aisle return to work with us on the important legislative business of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate. It would be refreshing if they recognized the progress we have made on filling judicial vacancies.

When they do, when they show cooperation, when we are able to make progress on our legislative agenda, at that point I will be able to turn my attention from concentrating on that legislative agenda and consider, along with the majority leader, whether there are additional judicial nominees we might be able to consider and confirm this year. It will be difficult to do so, especially in connection with nominees recently received for whom we do not have an ABA peer review rating at this time.

Let me give you some flavor of how petty the obstructionism from Republicans has become. I introduced at the request of the Chief Justice a bill to extend authorization for the Supreme Court police to remain in operation, S. 3296. I have been trying to clear this measure for passage since June 19. Although our Ranking Republican on the Committee cosponsored, he has not been able to clear it on his side of the aisle.

I have been seeking for months to find a way to extend the EB-5 investor visa pilot program that brings benefits

not only to Vermont but to Pennsylvania and Iowa, and elsewhere. Authority for this worthwhile program that leads to investments here in the United States expires in September. My efforts to clear H.R. 5569, a bill to extend the program for 5 years, have been stymied by Republicans who insist on using this bill as a vehicle for other immigration-related matters and have ensnarled it in a series of competing concerns.

More broadly, the Judiciary Committee has worked throughout this Congress to advance the priorities of Americans. We have reported legislation to support local law enforcement to make our cities and towns safe from crime that has now gone back up after consistent declines in the 1990s, like the COPS Improvements Act, S. 368, and my bill to extend the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act, S. 2511. We have reported legislation to combat fraud and corruption, like the War Profiteering Prevention Act, S. 119, and the Public Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act, S. 1946. We have reported legislation to protect the civil rights and voting rights of Americans, like the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, S. 535, and Senator Obama's Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007, S. 453. We have reported legislation to protect Americans' data privacy like my Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, S. 495. We have reported measures to provide the Federal judiciary with increased resources both in terms of salary restoration and additional judgeships, S. 1638 and S. 2774. We have reported intellectual property measures like the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act, S. 2913. And, of course, we have reported the bill to confront the OPEC cartel, NOPEC, S. 879. I look forward to a time when Republicans work with us on these matters instead of obstructing us at every turn.

Legislation with broad bipartisan support that I have managed to move through the Judiciary Committee has then been stalled on the Senate floor by the obstruction of a few Republicans. Of the bills that have been reported from the Judiciary Committee this Congress, Republicans have blocked legislation to support runaway and homeless young people, S. 2982; to help law enforcement cope with mentally ill offenders, S. 2304; to support the investigation and prosecution of civil rights era murders left unsolved for too long, S. 535; and to protect our children from the scourges of drugs, child pornography, and child exploitation, such as S. 1210, S. 1738 and S. 2344. I joined the Majority Leader in introducing a measure yesterday that combines some of these Committee- approved and House-passed bipartisan measures into one bill, S. 3297. These should have been consent items and already been considered and passed by the Senate.

The list goes on. I say, again, Republican obstructionists have blocked legislation to ensure that law enforcement officers can obtain bulletproof vests, to give much needed resources to State and local law enforcement, to break the grip of the OPEC cartel on oil prices, to prohibit war profiteering, to train prosecutors, and to teach children to use the internet safely, just to reiterate a few examples. And that is just legislation reported by the Judiciary Committee. Every Committee in the Senate has seen simple legislation intended to help the American people in difficult times stymied by Republican obstruction.

Republicans have become masters of true obstruction, boycotting business meetings of the Judiciary Committee and cutting short important hearings, including a hearing at which two courageous women from Pennsylvania were testifying about severe injuries they suffered to help us understand the plight of hardworking Americans whose legitimate grievances have been rejected by a pro-business Supreme Court. When Republicans obstructed a meeting last week where we could have made progress on reducing youth violence, protecting women and children from human trafficking, and helping those who serve our country to cope with unmanageable debt, that was just the latest example of a pattern that has become all too familiar.

Sadly, we have seen Republican obstructionism since the beginning of this Congress, with Republicans using filibuster after filibuster to thwart the will of the majority of the Senate from doing the business of the American people. Republican filibusters prevented Senate majorities from passing the climate change bill; the Employee Free Choice Act; the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; the DC Voting Rights Act; the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007; the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008; the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008; and the Consumer- First Energy Act.

These are critical pieces of legislation to address urgent priorities like the energy crisis, the environment, voting rights, health care, and fair wages for working men and women. All of them had the support of the majority of the Senate. And all were blocked by a minority of Republican Senators bent on preventing us from making progress. Republicans have now filibustered more than 80 pieces of legislation in this Congress. We can only imagine what we could have accomplished in this Congress with cooperation rather than obstruction.

This long list of priorities unaddressed because of the Republicans in Congress would be even longer if we were to include the many important bills President Bush has vetoed since the beginning of this Congress. This list includes legislation to fund stem cell research to fight debilitating and deadly diseases, to extend and expand the successful State Children's Health Insurance Program that would have provided health insurance to more of the millions of American children without it, to set a timetable for bringing American troops home from the disastrous war in Iraq, and to ban waterboarding and help restore America as a beacon for the rule of law.

The American people are going through increasingly difficult times, and their Congress should be working to make their lives better. Time is running short in this Congress. It is past time for Republicans to stop their foot stomping and work with us to get things done. That is what I have been trying to do throughout this Congress. I hope, despite their recent antics, that Republicans will reconsider and join with me to make progress on legislative matters of concern to the American people.

Mr. Presdient, earlier this week, I joined the majority leader in the introduction of S. 3297, the Advancing America's Priorities Act. The majority leader selected 35 legislative items from the jurisdiction of seven Senate committees, including eight bills from that of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for this effort. These are all measures with bipartisan support and, we believe, the support of a strong bipartisan majority of the Senate. I have moved several through the Judiciary Committee, and several have already passed the House. All have the support of all Democratic Senators, and all were cleared for unanimous Senate passage, but each has been stalled on the Senate floor by Republican objection.

One key bill included in this package is the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. I thank Senator Dodd and Congressman Lewis for their tireless work on this bill over the last 4 years. It will strengthen the ability of the Federal Government to investigate and prosecute unsolved murders from the civil rights era. It would create new cold case units in the Justice Department and FBI dedicated to investigating and prosecuting unsolved cases involving violations of criminal civil rights statutes which resulted in death and occurred before January 1, 1970. The Senate legislation was introduced on February 8, 2007. I was proud to cosponsor Senator Dodd's bill. The Judiciary Committee reported it by unanimous consent as amended on June 20, 2007, more than a year ago. The House legislation passed the House on June 20, 2007, more than a year ago, by a vote of 422 to 2. Its Republican cosponsors include Senator Cochran,

Senator Hatch, Senator Alexander, and Senator Cornyn.

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting Emmett Till's cousin, Simeon Wright, who was with him that terrible night. The brutal killing of Emmett Till galvanized this Nation. I want to acknowledge Mr. Wright's courage and his commitment to fight for justice for all these years.

The primary purpose of the Till bill is to track down those whose violent acts during a period of national turmoil remain unpunished. By passing this legislation, we honor Emmett Till and all those who sacrificed their lives advancing civil rights. It is disgraceful that it has taken us so long to take this basic step to pursue justice too long delayed. It is incredible to me that some continue to obstruct these efforts. It reminds me of those who so adamantly opposed a national holiday to recognize the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the progress this country has made toward equal justice.

Another important piece of legislation in this bill is the reauthorization of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. Many Vermonters have told me how much that act is needed to help young people in Vermont and around the country. I held a hearing in Rutland this year on crime in small cities and towns, which emphasized the need for programs to help young people in difficult circumstances, and held another here in Washington on this measure before the Judiciary Committee reported it in April. The companion House bill passed in June.

In addition, the eight Judiciary Committee related bills include several concerning child pornography, exploitation and drugs. The Effective Child Pornography Prosecution Act passed the House 409 to 0 last November; the Enhancing the Effective Prosecution of Child Pornography provision passed the House 416 to 0 last November; the PROTECT Our Children Act passed the House 415 to 2 last November; the Drug Endangered Children Act passed the House last September 389 to 4. All of these bills have been cleared by all Democratic Senators.

Thus, the Judiciary Committee components in S. 3297 are all measures that should have passed the Senate long ago. Two of the eight have Republican Senators as their lead sponsors. Others have Republican cosponsors.

People are rightly worried about keeping their communities safe and protecting their children. The Judiciary Committee has worked throughout this Congress to advance these priorities of Americans. Sadly, these important efforts have been obstructed by Republican objections. I hope that all Senators will join together tomorrow to pass S. 3297 without further delay.

The bill we will consider tomorrow contains eight Judiciary Committee-related pieces. There were selected from many more bills that have been reported favorably by the Senate Judiciary Committee and that have passed the House. All these bills have the support of every Democratic Senator, and it is Republican objections, usually anonymous objections, that are keeping them from passing.

Let me mention some of the others:

S. 879, No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act of 2007--this bill would make it illegal for any foreign state or any instrumentality or agent of a foreign state to act collectively with another foreign state to limit the production, set the price, or take any other action to restrain trade of oil, natural gas, or any petroleum product. The actions of OPEC to limit production of oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products result in higher prices of crude oil and, thus, gasoline in the United States. These actions are having a harmful effect on American consumers. This legislation will make clear that the actions of nations and their agents to limit supply and fix prices of oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products to affect the U.S. market violates U.S. antitrust law, and it will authorize the Attorney General to enforce antitrust law against such nations and prevent technical legal doctrines such as sovereign immunity and act of state from preventing actions for redress.

S. 368, COPS Improvements Act of 2007--this bill would reauthorize and improve the Department of Justice's Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, COPS. Since 1994, the programs created by the COPS initiative have helped drive down crime rates. The COPS Program would restore vital programs that have been cut at a time when our law enforcement officers need it most. S. 368 would authorize $600 million to hire officers to engage in community policing, intelligence gathering and antiterror initiatives, and to serve as school resource officers. It would authorize $350 million per year for technology grants and $200 million per year to help local district attorneys hire community prosecutors. Also, it would establish the COPS office as an entity within the Department of Justice to carry out these functions and activities under the COPS Program in order to eliminate duplication of efforts.

S. 119/H.R. 400, War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007--this legislation would strengthen the tools available to Federal law enforcement to combat contracting fraud during times of war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities. It would also extend extraterritorial jurisdiction in an attempt to reach fraudulent conduct wherever it occurs. The bill would create a new criminal fraud offense in title 18 of the U.S. Code to prohibit fraudulent acts involving the provision of goods or services in connection with a war, military action, or relief or reconstruction activities.

S. 185, Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007--this bill would repeal provisions of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that eliminated the jurisdiction of any court to hear or consider applications for a writ of habeas corpus filed by aliens who have been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as enemy combatants. Passage of this bill would restore the basic and essential right to challenge arbitrary detention by the Government to noncitizens, including the 12 million lawful permanent residents currently in this country, who under current law may be held forever with no recourse to challenge their detention in court. This legislation will contribute to renewed global respect for American values and the rule of law.

S. 2511, a bill to amend the grant program for law enforcement armor vests to provide for a waiver of or reduction in the matching funds requirement in the case of fiscal hardship--this bill would amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to authorize the Director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance to waive, in whole or in part, matching fund requirements applicable to the grant program for the purchase of armor vests for law enforcement officers.

S. 2344, Internet Safety Education Act of 2007--this bill would create a competitive grant program for eligible organizations to carry out free, age-appropriate programs that promote Internet safety for children. This would give educators and parents the tools necessary to teach proper online interactions and promote safe Internet usage to their students and children in an age-appropriate manner.

H.R. 3095, to amend the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 to modify a deadline relating to a certain election by Indian tribes--this bipartisan bill would provide Indian tribes a 1-year extension in which to decide how to comply with the requirements of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. The Adam Walsh Act enacted new requirements for States and Indian tribes to maintain sex offender registration information, post such information on the Internet, and share such information among States and other Indian tribes. The Justice Department proposed detailed regulations for States and Indian tribes to comply with the Adam Walsh Act, but those regulations are not yet final. The Indian tribes cannot make an informed decision on how to comply with the act until those regulations are final. This 1-year extension would give Indian tribes sufficient time to make appropriate choices.

S. 267/H.R. 545, Native American Methamphetamine Enforcement and Treatment Act--this bill would ensure that Indian tribes are able to apply for grant programs authorized by the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act. When Congress passed the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act, tribes were unintentionally left out as eligible applicants in some of these programs. This bill would clarify that

territories and Indian communities are eligible to receive the resources they need to fight methamphetamine use.

S. 877, Controlling the Abuse of Prescriptions Act of 2007--this bill seeks to crack down on performance-enhancing drugs by putting human growth hormone on the same list of controlled substances as anabolic steroids. Classifying human growth hormone, HGH, as a schedule III controlled substance would subject the drug to more Government regulation and stiffer penalties for illegal distribution.

S. 1027, PACT Act--this bill would help combat cigarette trafficking by updating existing antitrafficking laws and introducing new tools to combat illegal remote sales, such as those conducted over the Internet. The legislation closes loopholes in current tobacco trafficking laws, enhances penalties for violations, and provides law enforcement with new tools to combat the innovative new methods being used by cigarette traffickers to distribute their products. By strengthening criminal laws governing cigarette trafficking and empowering Federal, State, and local law enforcement with the powers to investigate and prosecute the cigarette traffickers of the 21st century, the PACT Act can help disrupt terrorist groups and other organized criminal enterprises.

S. 627, Safe Babies Act of 2007--this bill would amend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to require the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to award a grant to a national early childhood development organization to establish a National Court Teams Resource Center. The goals of the Center would be to promote the well-being of maltreated infants and toddlers and their families, help prevent the recurrence of abuse and neglect of children, and promote timely reunification of families.

H.R. 5569, to extend for 5 years the EB-5 Regional Center Pilot Program, and for other purposes--this bill would extend the EB-5 Regional Center Program for 5 years. This program allows entrepreneurs from around the country to apply for Regional Center designation with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which in turn allows project managers to attract foreign investment to discrete projects within specified geographic areas, many of which are rural areas in need of economic stimulation. Over the years, this program has resulted in foreign capital investment of billions of dollars and the creation of thousands of jobs in American communities. This important program is set to expire on September 30, 2008, and its reauthorization is critical for the many Americans who depend upon this program to make positive economic changes to their communities.

S. 442, John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007--this bill would establish a student loan repayment program for qualified attorneys who agree to remain employed for at least 3 years in certain public sector employment. This targeted student loan repayment assistance program will bolster the ranks of attorneys in the criminal justice system, enhancing the quality of that system and the public's confidence in it.

S. 3296, to extend the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court Police to protect court officials off the Supreme Court grounds and change the title of the Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice--this bill would extend for 5 years the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court Police to protect Supreme Court Justices when they leave the Supreme Court grounds. In January of this year, the Court Security Improvement Act was signed into law to authorize additional resources to protect Federal judges, personnel, and courthouses. This additional legislation would extend the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court Police to protect the Supreme Court Justices on and off Court grounds. It would also change the title of the Chief Justice's senior advisor from ``Administrative Assistant'' to ``Counselor.''

S. 3106, a bill to amend chapter 13 of title 17, United States Code, relating to the vessel hull design protection, to clarify the definitions of a hull and a deck--this bill would give the Department of Defense full assurance that Government and defense designs will not be subject to unwarranted restrictions. In 1998, Congress passed the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act to recognize the significant time, effort, and innovation that figure into ship design. Recent action in the courts has made it clear that in order to be effective, this law needs to be clarified and refined. This bill does exactly that by clarifying the definition of ``hull'' and ``deck,'' to ensure that the intellectual property rights of vessel hull designers would be protected.

H.R. 6344, Responsive Government Act of 2008--this bill would provide the Federal courts and the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, PTO, with needed emergency authority to delay judicial proceedings or statutory deadlines in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency situation which makes it impractical for parties, including the United States, to comply with certain filing conditions or to protect the rights and privileges of people affected by certain emergencies or a major disaster. We have recently observed how the ravages of natural disasters disrupt the lives of our fellow citizens, which can impede the ability to comply with strict statutory deadlines. Thus the Responsive Government Act provides critical flexibility to the courts and the PTO to help ameliorate the practical difficulties caused by these emergency situations.

S. 621, Wartime Treatment Study Act--this bill would establish two factfinding commissions to supplement the work done in the 1980s by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, which studied the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The act would create one commission to review the U.S. Government's treatment of German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans during World War II, and another commission to review the U.S. Government's treatment of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II.

S. 2942, a bill to authorize funding for the National Advocacy Center--this bill would authorize the National District Attorneys Association to use the National Advocacy Center in Columbia, SC, for a national training program to improve the professional skills of State and local prosecutors and to enhance the ability of Federal, State, and local prosecutors to work together.

I hope that those Republican Senators who are holding up these measures will work with me by coming forward and letting me know what it is in the bill that they find objectionable. That way, we might be able to work something out to accommodate them. But when they object anonymously and do not come forward to work with us, it seems they are only interested in obstruction.