Floor Statements

Mr. President, in honor of Older Americans' Mental Health Week, I rise today to introduce the Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2005. I am proud to sponsor this legislation that will ensure that clinical social workers can receive Medicare reimbursements for the mental health services they provide in skilled nursing facilities. Under the current system, social workers may not be paid for services they provide. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who provide similar counseling, are able to separately bill Medicare for their services. Congressmen Stark and Leach are introducing a companion bill today in the House of Representatives.

Since my first days in Congress, I have been fighting to protect and strengthen the safety of our Nation's seniors. Making sure that seniors have access to quality, affordable mental health care is an important part of this fight. I know that millions of seniors do not have access to, or are not receiving, the mental health services they urgently need. Nearly 6 million seniors are affected by depression, but only one-tenth ever gets treated. According to the American Psychiatric Association, up to 25 percent of the elderly population in the United States suffers from significant symptoms of mental illness and among nursing home residents the prevalence is as high as 80 percent. These mental disorders, which include severe depression and debilitating anxiety, interfere with the person's ability to carryout activities of daily living and adversely affect their quality of life. Furthermore, older people have a 20 percent suicide rate, the highest of any age group. Every year nearly 6,000 older Americans kill themselves. This is unacceptable and must be addressed.

As a former social worker, I understand the role that social workers play in the overall care of patients and seniors. This bill protects patients across the country and ensures that seniors living in underserved urban and rural areas, where clinical social workers are often the only available option for mental health care, continue to receive the treatment they need. Clinical social workers, much like psychologists and psychiatrists, treat and diagnose mental illnesses. In fact, clinical social workers are the primary mental health providers for nursing home residents and also seniors residing in rural environments. But unlike other mental health providers, clinical social workers cannot bill directly for the important services they provide to their patients. Protecting seniors' access to clinical social workers can help make sure that our most vulnerable citizens get the quality, affordable mental health care they need and deserve. This bill will correct this inequity and make sure clinical social workers get the payments and respect they deserve.

Before the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, clinical social workers billed Medicare Part B directly for mental health services provided in nursing facilities to each patient they served. Under the Prospective Payment System, services provided by clinical social workers are lumped, or ``bundled,'' along with the services of other health care providers for the purposes of billing and payments. Psychologists and psychiatrists, who provide similar counseling, were exempted from this system and continue to bill Medicare directly. This bill would exempt clinical social workers, like their mental health colleagues, from the prospective payment system, and would make sure that clinical social workers are paid for the services they provide to patients in skilled nursing facilities. The Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act addressed some of these concerns, but this legislation would remove the final barrier to ensuring that clinical social workers are treated fairly and equitably for the care they provide.

This bill is about more than paperwork and payment procedures. This billis about equal access to Medicare payments for the equal and important work done by clinical social workers. It is about making sure our Nation's most vulnerable citizens have access to quality, affordable mental health care. The overarching goal we should be striving to achieve for our seniors is an overall improved quality of life. Without clinical social workers, many nursing home residents may never get the counseling they need when faced with a life threatening illness or the loss of a loved one. I think we can do better by our Nation's seniors, and I'm fighting to make sure we do.

The Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act of 2005 is strongly supported by the National Association of Social Workers and the Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. I also want to thank Senators Stabenow, Bingaman, Murray, Corzine, Johnson, and Inouye for their cosponsorship of this bill. I look forward to working with my colleagues to enact this important legislation.

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

Mr. President, I rise to speak against this so-called nuclear option. This is a sad day for the Senate because I believe we are about to fracture 200 years of precedent and tradition. I think we are about to fracture what I had hoped would be a bipartisan approach to solving the compelling problems we face in the United States of America, and the Republicans are about to change the rules in the middle of the game.

One of the hallmarks of the United States of America is always fair play. And fair play means a belief and respect for the rules because we are a nation that believes in rules and in the rule of law. Whenever we are in competitive situations, we believe in rules. You don't change the rules in the middle of the game. You don't change the rules in a game you are losing. But here especially there is no reason to change because the Bush administration is not losing. They have had more nominees confirmed than almost any other Administration in recent history.

This is a manufactured crisis. There are those who say there is a crisis in terms of confirming judges. There is no crisis. George Bush is not losing. Right now, right this minute, we have confirmed 208 of the President's nominees for the bench. That is a 95-percent confirmation rate. I would think that getting 95% of what you want would make you declare victory. But, oh, no, that is not good enough. There is a desire to change the rules so that the President gets 100% and we cannot exercise our constitutional responsibility of advise and consent.

Now I know that many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle don't want to change the Senate rules. They know the ebbs and flows of this institution one day you are in the majority and the next in the minority. And they know its not fair to change the rules in the middle of the game because doing so undermines century of tradition and the very essence of the Senate as the world's premier deliberative body.

So I have come to the floor today to urge my colleagues to oppose this so-called nuclear option. I do this because I firmly believe in my heart of hearts that we must always have an independent judiciary and a judiciary that has been confirmed according to the traditional roles of the Senate. I know it is one of my foremost responsibilities as a member of the United States Senate to protect the independence and integrity of our federal courts. Because our courts are charged with safeguarding the very principles on which

our nation was built--justice, equality and individual liberty.

The courthouse door must always stay open. And when someone walks through that door, they must find an independent judiciary. In order to do that, we cannot turn the Senate into a rubberstamp for any administration. We must not compromise our constitutional checks and balances over 7 highly controversial judges. The American people deserve better and, and the Constitution requires it.

When Alexander Hamilton and others were at the Constitutional Convention inventing America, they wanted checks and balances. They wanted no one to have absolute power, they wanted no individual to have absolute power, and they wanted no institution within our Government to have absolute power. That is why we have the system of checks and balances. That is why the greatest check and balance is the advice and consent role given to the Senate. The President nominates and the Senate has an important co-equal role to play in the confirmation process.

So the Senate has a very real and critical role to play here. It can't rubber stamp nominees. It can't give consent without a thorough examination and it should not support nominees who don't respect basic judicial principles.

When we are talking about this, we say, What does it mean? Who has been nominated? Who has been confirmed? Whom have we opposed? I have given the statistics. Since the President has been in office the Senate has confirmed 208 of his nominees and rejected only 10. That's 95 percent approval and those we have rejected have been among the most controversial and extreme nominees. Nominees who did not represent the mainstream of American legal thought. Nominees hostile to civil rights, women's rights, reproductive rights and working families.

Let's talk about the 208. Let's talk about working on a bipartisan basis. Let's talk about Maryland.

There were three openings on the Federal bench in Maryland for the district court. Governor Ehrlich sent forth three names of outstanding people of judicial competency. Senator Sarbanes and I moved them straightforward and ahead, even though one had been the chairman of the Republican Party. We did not care about that. Second, he had even run for attorney general. We did not care about that. What we cared about was that the Maryland Bar Association said he was qualified.

No. 2, he had been a U.S. attorney and had done a stunning job, and he had extensive legal background in Maryland. We did not play politics. We moved Judge Bennett, Judge Quarles, and Judge Titus.

Then came the court of appeals. Oh, my gosh, guess what came out of the Bush administration. They wanted to give us a guy who was not even a member of the Maryland bar. Sarbanes and Mikulski said no. That is one of the ones that did not even come up. Why? We think if you are going to represent Maryland on the court of appeals, you ought to be a member of the Maryland bar and have some significant ties to Maryland. We threatened a filibuster.

This is the Maryland seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. They wanted to give us someone from Virginia. We like Virginia, Senator Warner, Senator Allen. We like judges from Virginia, but not for the Maryland seat. And Senator Sarbanes and I said we would filibuster. So we stopped, prevent our state from losing its seat on the court of appeals because of the Senate rules.

Though some of them never came forth as nominees, we knew we had the rules of the Senate to prevent this injustice to Maryland. We invited the White House to look at the thousands of lawyers in Maryland who are members of the bar, who have judicial competence and judicial temperament and commitment to basic constitutional principles. Maryland would recognize them.

But we were ready to use these rules in the Senate to protect the Maryland seat and make sure whoever was on the court of appeals for the Maryland seat would at least be a member of the Maryland bar or at least be from Maryland and have significant ties there.

Those are the rules. That is how you exercise advice and consent. We gave advice, they ignored it, so they were not going to get our consent. Hey, those are the rules. We do not want those rules changed, and it would be the same if there was a Democrat in the White House.

We could look at the nominees President Bush has given us. Not only do we get people who are not members of a bar, but we get some who are outside the judicial mainstream.

Judge Priscilla Owen is an example of someone who would turn our courts in the wrong direction. She has a history of being driven by ideology and not law. Her beliefs are far outside the mainstream of judicial thinking. She has an extreme ideological agenda on civil rights, women's rights and the right to privacy that we severely question and make her unsuitable to sit on this federal court.

She is a judicial activist, that means she has a consistent pattern of putting ideology about the law and ignoring statutory language and substituting her own views. Something about which even officials in this White House have raised concern. Alberto Gonzales, now our Attorney General, who once served with her, called her dissent in a case ``unconscionable . . . judicial activism'' and in another case said her dissent would judicially amend the Texas statute. In other words, she was making law rather than interpreting law.

Her opinions show a bias against consumers, victims and individuals. She has consistently ruled against workers, accident victims and victims of discrimination. Her decisions impair the rights of ordinary people to have access to the courts. On the Texas Supreme Court she has restricted a woman's right to choose by ignoring statute and creating additional barriers for women seeking to exercise reproductive choice.

We could go through Owen, and we could go through others. Priscilla Owen stands among a handful of nominees who will turn back the clock on protecting important constitutional rights. We know through our examination of these nominees that they are outside the judicial mainstream, and we want to exercise our priority and our responsibility on advice and consent. And now Republicans want to focus on the jobs of 7 people who already have jobs when we have 7.7 million Americans who don't.

They want the change the subject away from issue that Americans care about to a handful of extreme judicial nominees. They say there is a crisis but there are more federal judges now than at any other point in our nation's history. This is the lowest vacancy rate on the courts in a decade. Republicans have the wrong priorities.

I had to explain what this nuclear option means to a head of state. Did you ever have to explain to someone who is a former head of a government in a European country, who himself fought for freedom and was a dissident and even in prison, what a nuclear option means? He thought we were talking about using nuclear weapons.

I had to explain this to members of my family, the senior citizens in my family. ``Barb, what is this nuclear option? Are we thinking about using nuclear weapons?'' We use language here very glibly, and I think exaggerated. What I said was we are headed for a meltdown. We cannot let the Senate melt down, and we will melt down if we do not stop these proceedings from going forth. We need to have an institution that functions on a bipartisan basis.

Some of the happiest and most distinguished accomplishments of my life have been accomplished because of working on a bipartisan basis. In the 1990s, I worked with the Senator from Colorado, Mr. Hank Brown, and we worked to bring Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO. We had to stand up to a Democrat such as Senator Moynihan and a Republican such as Senator Warner to get the Senate to consider it, but we worked on a bipartisan basis, and we extended NATO from old Europe to a new Europe. And right now, the people we brought into NATO are fighting with us side by side in Iraq and are part of the coalition of the willing. Bipartisan relationships did that.

Because of our work in the Senate where the women get together at least once a month to have dinner for friendship and fellowship and to talk about

an agenda, we have done a lot on women's health. We have increased mammogram funding research by 700 percent. We have increased funding for domestic violence. We have done all this when we worked together.

My gosh, when we work together we work our best. Let us now stop this dangerous course. We should not continue further on this terrible down this path on which we are embarking. The American people want us to be standing up for jobs. They want us to be able to face straightforward the health care crisis, and they want to make sure we stabilize the pension crisis in the United States of America. Young people want to be able to afford college. They wonder what are we doing here. Republicans are spending all this time on the nuclear option and debating 7 controversial nominees instead of focusing on our national priorities. When all is said and done, is will be that more gets said than gets done?

Let's put the nuclear arsenal option back into the missile silo. We must do so to preserve the constitutional role of the Senate to advise and consent and protect our checks and balances.

Let's get back to doing the business of the people. The American people deserve that and they deserve a Senate that works for them. A Senate that governs best when it works together, and let's start putting the people first rather than politics.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I support our troops and their families. I am behind them 100 percent. They deserve our gratitude, not just with words, but with deeds. This emergency supplemental appropriations bill helps us do just that.

The House and Senate have worked hard to respond to the President's request for additional funding to support our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have provided more than $75 million in defense-related spending, including vital support to our soldiers and their families. We have also provided more than $6 billion in assistance to our friends and allies, including $681 million to aid in the recovery from last year's terrible tsunami in Indonesia.

We have provided a total of $17.4 billion to speed up the Army's purchase of trucks, additional up-armored humvees, and upgrades to Abrams tanks. There is also $1 billion for additional purchases of Army and Marine Corps trucks, tactical vehicles like humvees, night vision and other important protective equipment to keep our soldiers as safe as possible on the battlefield. We have also preserved support for the C130J aircraft, so vital to transporting troops and materiel around the world.

U.S. troops will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan long enough to ensure that those nations can defend themselves against chaos and terrorism. It is important that we provide training and equipment to prepare Iraqi and Afghan security forces to take over when American troops come home.

To do this, we have provided $7.0 billion to train security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also $1.78 billion for Afghan reconstruction and counter-narcotics efforts. In addition to providing $7.7 million to support U.S. diplomatic and reconstruction efforts in Iraq, we have provided $20 million in assistance to Iraqi families who have been affected by coalition operations in Iraq.

We must do everything we can to care for soldiers when they are injured. I am very proud that we have provided an additional $211 million for the Defense Health program.

This funding also includes assistance to provide meal and telephone services for soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in Iraq or Afghanistan. It also provides assistance for family members to travel to be with an injured service member recovering from combat injuries. To help soldiers with the enormous medical costs that can be associated with combat injuries, we have also made it possible for service members to get traumatic-injury protection as part of their military insurance package. This insurance rider can be worth as much as $100,000 to service members enrolled in the Servicemembers Group Life Insurance, SGLI, program. We have also made it available retroactively, to help out those soldiers and families already dealing with combat and combat- related injuries.

Mr. President, more than 1,700 service men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan. Part of the debt of gratitude we owe the families they leave behind is to ensure that they do not have to face a financial crisis while they are dealing with the loss of a loved one.

I am very proud that we have been able to help alleviate their burden, by increasing from $12,000 to $100,000 the fallen heroes compensation for family members of troops who make the ultimate sacrifice for our country. This benefit is applied retroactively, to include all service members who have died since the global war on terror began in October 2001. In addition, the family of a service member who has died will be allowed to remain in military housing for a year, rather than the six months currently allowed. We have also increased the life insurance benefit provided under the SGLI, from $250,000 to $400,000. This increase will also be applied retroactively to 2001.

I am disappointed that the conferees did not accept the advice of the Senate--and of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Richard Myers--and provide the fallen heroes compensation to families of all service members who die on active duty.

Instead, Congress has expanded all aspects of the current coverage to include those who die in designated combat zones and in combat-related activities, such as training. This is a good start, but I agree with General Myers that every family who loses a loved one on active duty deserves the gratitude of this nation and should benefit from the fallen heroes fund.

We also need to make sure that families receive the full amount of this compensation. Working closely with Senator Grassley, I have taken steps

to ensure that the full benefit will be tax free. Senator Grassley has assured me that this important correction will be added to the next tax bill considered in the Senate.

We know that nearly 40 percent of the soldiers deployed today in Iraq and Afghanistan are citizen soldiers who come from the National Guard and Reserves. More than half of these will suffer a loss of income when they are mobilized, because their military pay is less than the pay from their civilian job. Many patriotic employers and state governments eliminate this pay gap by continuing to pay them the difference between their civilian and military pay.

I am very disappointed that this conference report does not include the Reservist Pay Security Act, which would ensure that the U.S. government also makes up for this pay gap for Federal employees who are activated in the Guard and Reserves. This legislation has passed the Senate three times, and three times it has been stripped out of the conference report. I will continue to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate to build support for this important provision to help our National Guard and Reserves.

Mr. President, Americans joined the world in mourning the loss of more than 150,000 victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami last Christmas. Together, we prayed for the 7 million displaced survivors that God may give them the strength to persevere and overcome this, the largest natural disaster of our time.

But expressions of sympathy are not enough. As I said at the time of this terrible disaster, the United States must set the example and lead the world in the humanitarian effort of recovery and rebuilding. Congress has provided $656 million for the tsunami recovery and reconstruction fund to support on-going and long-term relief efforts, including programs aimed specifically at women and children in the affected areas. We have also provided $25 million for U.S. tsunami warning programs to help prevent future human disasters on the scale we have seen in Asia.

The people of Darfur continue to suffer the terrible effects of war in the Sudan. Congress has provided $248 million for humanitarian assistance to Darfur and $37 million for Sudan peace implementation assistance. We have also included $50 million to be made available to the African Union, for peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. Also, part of the $90 million provided for food aid and famine relief can be used to help improve conditions in Darfur.

Because it is just as important to support our communities at home as it is to support our troops in the field, I will continue to fight for responsible military budgets. For that reason, I joined the Senate's efforts to insist that the President fund our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the regular budget and appropriations process. After three years in Afghanistan and two years in Iraq, we should not be funding these operations as if they were surprise emergencies.

Unfortunately, because much of the funding included in this conference report has been designated as an ``emergency,'' it will not count against our budget limits and instead just gets added to our ever-growing national debt.

This emergency supplemental is a Federal investment in supporting our troops and their families.

We support out troops by getting them the best equipment and the best protection we can provide. We support them by getting them the best health care available when they are injured in service to our Nation. And we support them by ensuring that their families do not face a financial crisis at the moment when they are grieving the loss of a soldier who has sacrificed everything for our country.

I am proud to vote yes for our troops and their families. I am also proud to vote yes because this bill contains important provisions to help small and seasonal businesses in the United States.

The emergency supplemental contains language that provides real relief to small businesses that need temporary seasonal workers by the summer. This emergency supplemental contains the language I offered on the floor of the Senate to temporarily solve the H2B visa shortage. It passed this body by a overwhelming bipartisan vote of 96-4 and was adopted by both House and Senate conferees to be part of the final bill.

I know that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle supported this amendment because it is a limited fix to the H2B worker shortage that many coastal states and resort states are facing. This solution is desperately and immediately needed by small and seasonal businesses throughout the country.

My amendment helps us keep American jobs, keep American companies open, and yet retain control of our borders

I am very proud that we were able to work together, House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, to pass this measure. This bill was a simply fix, it was temporary and it does not get in the way of comprehensive reform

The amendment and the Save our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act on which it is modeled will help small business by doing three things:

No. 1, temporarily exempting good actor workers from the H2B cap, so employers apply for and name employees who have already been in U.S.;

No. 2, protecting against fraud in the H2B program; and

No. 3, providing a fair and balanced allocation system for H2B visas.

This amendment first and foremost protects American jobs.

It provides a short-term fix to the H2B visa cap which will only be in place through fiscal year 2006. It has four simple provisions:

One, it exempts returning seasonal workers from the cap for this year and next. That means that people who have worked here before and who have gone back home are the only ones who would be eligible. The exemption works this way--an employer requests a visa and lists the name of the returning worker on his petition. The employer must provide supporting documentation to the Department of Homeland Security or the State Department that the worker is a returning worker who has come to the United States in one of the 3 prior years under the H2B program.

This exemption does not exempt any new workers because employers must show that the worker was in the US previously in order for that worker to be exempt from the cap. Employers can petition for exempted workers at any time during the fiscal year--regardless of whether the cap on H- 2B visas has been met or not. The legislation explicitly states that exempted workers are outside the cap.

The employer does not automatically get the exempted worker, they still must go through the whole DOL and DHS process before they can get exempted workers. That means that employers still must prove to the Department of Labor that they cannot find American workers to fill these jobs. Only then will DOL give them the ability to continue the application process and get the workers who they need through DHS and State. Employers will go through the whole process for new or returning workers. Returning workers will be exempt from but new workers will be subject to the cap.

This provision is both forward looking and retroactive back to the beginning of the fiscal year, or October 2004. That means that DHS will have to determine how many returning workers were admitted prior to the passage of this Act and open up those spaces to new workers. That makes it fair so that summer employers have the same bite at the apple that winter employers had. DHS estimates that between 30,000 and 35,000 workers are returning workers and they will be able to use the information they have in their databases and in coordination with the Department of State to ensure that spots that were counted in the cap and used by exempted workers will now be opened up for new workers to use so that summer employers can get their fair share.

This fix also has strong antifraud provisions to make sure that everyone is playing by the rules and that no one is misusing the program. And it gives DHS added teeth to prevent fraud and enforce our Nation's immigration laws. A $150 antifraud fee ensures that Government agencies processing the H-2B visas will get added resources to detect and prevent fraud. This money is added to an antifruad fund to give the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State and the Department of Labor some added resources to train workers so that they can identify fraud in the program.

We also add strong new sanctions to the law. These sanctions are permanent and further strengthen DHS's enforcement power by allowing sanctions against those who have a significant misrepresentation of facts on a petition. We increase fines and allow DHS to bar violating employers from the H-2B program for up to 5 years. This section also sends a strong message to employers--don't play games with U.S. jobs. Our bill reserves the highest penalties for employer actions which harm U.S. workers.

We also make the system better by creating a fair allocation of visas. Under current law summer employers lose out because winter employers get all the visas. So our bill does two things: First, as I said above, we exempt returning workers from the cap, so returning workers don't count for the cap. But we also divide the cap between summer and winter. What that means is that of the 66,000 visas and we make 33,000 available from October thru March and 33,000 available from April thru September. Winter employers get half and summer employers get half. And we make this change permanent to make sure that even if comprehensive reform cannot be reached by 2006, then at least summer and winter employers are competing for the limited number of visas on a level playing field.

Finally, we give the Department of Homeland Security the ability to implement this law now, without having to issue regulations. That means that employers get real relief now. DHS has a limited exemption from the Administrative Procedure Act to implement the exemption section, the antifraud fees and also the allocation of visas section. These exemptions are to prevent any barriers or delay to the immediate implementation of those provisions.

So that is what this strong bipartisan legislation is all about. This is the language that 94 Senators in this body supported and that the House adopted into the emergency supplemental conference report.

Now we want to make sure that DHS can start its implementation immediately so I want to make sure that they are very clear about what the congressional intent of this legislation is:

Section 402 is intended to increase the number of H-2B admissions available for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. This legislation was drafted with the understanding that the preexisting USCIS method of implementing the H-2B limitation is based upon accepting for filing the number of petitions (only some of which name the specific workers) that is projected to result in the authorized number of admissions, with allowance made for an expected number of petitions that will be denied or revoked and of workers with approved petitions who will not apply for or qualify for visas or admission, based upon State Department information.

Consistent with this general methodology, and with the fact that USCIS has already received sufficient petitions for fiscal year 2005 to fill the cap and has not required any information to be provided as to whether the petitions were filed for ``returning workers'', it is intended that USCIS to make its best estimate as to the number of previously filed petitions that likely were for returning workers, based on State Department information, and accordingly to free up numbers for fiscal year 2005 to be available to otherwise qualified H- 2B aliens, whether or not they are ``returning workers.''

In addition, H-2B workers will be available to petitioners identifying and certifying specific aliens to be returning workers. For fiscal year 2006, the number of new H-2B admissions available will be 66,000, plus any aliens for whom the certification and confirmation requirements of section 214(g)(9)(A), (B), and (C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended by this section, are met.

Specifically, Section 405 provides that the 66,000 limitation on H-2B admissions for fiscal year 2006 and thereafter will be administered as two half-year limitations of 33,000 each applicable to aliens subject to the overall 66,000 limitation, i.e, not including ``returning workers.'' It is the intention of the supporters of the amendment that this provision be administered so as to give employers seeking workers for the second half of the year an opportunity to obtain them at least equivalent to that available to first semester employers.

Finally, section 407, is intended to allow this law to be implemented expeditiously. The intent was to make sure that the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and other laws relating to regulatory processes and forms--especially, but not limited to, any requirement to promulgate new rules--to the extent any such provisions might apply, should not pose a barrier in any way to the expeditious implementation of the provisions of this Act intended to give urgent and necessary relief to summer and seasonal employers and to apply the new fee provision in section 403. We therefore, provide the authority to the relevant departments to waive any such requirement that may otherwise delay such implementation.

It is a quick and simple legislative remedy with strong bi-partisan support. It fixes the problem now and takes small steps to prevent this drastic shortage in the future. It is immediate and achievable because DHS will start implementation once it is signed by the President. And more importantly, it does not exacerbate our immigration problems.

Mr. President, it is important that we continue to support the brave men and women who put their lives on the line both at home and abroad. But today, as I support funding for our troops I also stand opposed to the part of the emergency supplemental known as REAL ID.

This controversial and overly-broad provision has no place in an emergency spending bill. The changes to our immigration laws and the policies on asylum proposed by this legislation are major modifications that are contentious on both sides of the aisle. As it is written, this bill undermines both due process and the principles of fundamental fairness on which our immigration laws are based.

This legislation, plain and simple, is a drastic and unknown change. It is the type of change that both the House and the Senate should have deliberated on and given in-depth consideration to. The Senate has not had the opportunity to do that.

Just look at what this legislation does:

First, it increases the burdens on those seeking asylum in the United States and limits judicial review of some decisions. These are people who are often persecuted in their own countries and cannot produce the level of documentation or corroboration of their abuse that this bill requires.

Next, it permits the Department of Homeland Security to waive ``all legal requirements'' that interfere with the construction of roads or barriers along our borders. That means that the Secretary of Homeland Security can waive any State or Federal environmental, health and safety, civil rights, labor, or criminal law. And there is very limited ability of anyone to challenge these decisions. That means the Secretary has a tremendous amount of discretion to override existing laws and step all over State's rights.

It also limits judicial review of removal cases and discretionary decisions of agencies--that means an agency, not a judge, will have the final say.

And most notably, it creates national standards for identification cards that States must enforce. That means that States now must not only verify the many forms of identification that are required, but they are also responsible for keeping track of a drivers license holder's immigration status. That creates a huge increase in expenses for States and it also means that State officials, who have no background in immigration law, will be forced to enforce these complicated provisions. That's an unfunded mandate on States that are already in fiscal crisis.

Plain and simple REAL ID drastically changes immigration laws, limits access to the courts and due process, and places significant new costs and duties on local and State governments. The Senate should have had the ability to review, debate, and amend this provision before it became a permanent part of our Federal immigration law.

Now, I am the first to agree that we need strong and comprehensive immigration reform. We need to look at all the problems with protecting our borders and ensuring our safety. We need to make sure that the programs that work are updated and continued. We

need to make sure that the programs that don't work are fixed so that we do not have porous borders. But we need to use regular order to do so.

The Senate must have the opportunity to consider comprehensive reform, not focus on piecemeal measures. And President Bush should lead the way in working with Congress and our allies for solutions that protect our borders. And for solutions that allow our rich history and tradition of immigration to continue. But these supposed solutions cannot come at the expense of our constitutional framework.

REAL ID is an unfunded mandate that is punitive. We do not know if any of the provisions will actually make us safer--we just know that they override States rights and undermine civil rights and civil liberties. I believe that it is our duty, as Members of the Senate, to balance national security interests with due process and constitutional rights, yet because we have not had hearings or been able to evaluate this change to our immigration law we do not know the extent of its impact.

REAL ID proposes several different and significant changes to our immigration laws, I believe that it is important for the Senate Judiciary Committee to have an opportunity to hold hearings and consider comprehensive legislation that looks at all areas of the law. Then the whole Senate should have the ability to fully debate the issue on the Senate floor.

I am disappointed that this controversial measure was added to this must pass legislation. We should be passing an emergency supplemental bill without the harmful REAL ID provision. And then we should turn our attention to real reform and the Senate should proceed to a thoughtful and comprehensive debate on immigration reform that protects our borders and our constitutional mandate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 7 minutes on the topic of the 15th anniversary of the Hubble telescope.

Mr. President, this week marks the 15th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble space telescope. As we watched Hubble lift off 15 years ago, we had great hopes for the Hubble and great hopes for science. Guess what. We were not disappointed.

Hubble ushered in a new era of astronomy and science. Hubble has exceeded all expectations. It is the greatest tool for studying the universe since Galileo himself invented the telescope. Because of the Hubble, we are now living in what astronomers call the ``golden age'' of astronomy and physics. How incredible, how spectacular. It has been America's gift to the world. It has been one of the greatest acts of public diplomacy in history. Hubble has become a symbol of America's generosity of spirit. Whatever the Hubble sees in the world, it downloads for the rest of the world to have access. Hubble even has its own Web site. It gets e-mails from people all over the world. Some of them from the children are the most touching. There are e-mails that say: Dear Mr. Hubble, did you see God today? Have you met an angel? Is there another universe? What does it look like? They actually talk to Hubble, and it has inspired their curiosity and their desire to engage in science.

It is not surprising; just look at what it has accomplished.

The Hubble telescope has accounted for 35 percent of all of NASA's discoveries for the past 30 years. It has seen farther and sharper than any telescope in history. It has observed more than 14,000 objects in space. It has been the No. 1 producer of science for NASA over the past 10 years. Over 2,600 scientific papers have been written on the Hubble results. It has dramatically improved our understanding of the atmosphere of planets; the size of galaxies; the birth, life, and death of stars; the existence of black holes; the age of the universe and how the universe expands.

I have a photograph in my office of a swirling galaxy. They call it the ``eye of God'' because you literally see those spectacular pictures, and you feel in this one picture that God himself is staring down at us from the universe.

Hubble has rewritten the science textbooks almost every year. It has exceeded our wildest expectations. But it didn't start that way. Fifteen years ago, I was chairing the subcommittee that finances NASA, and we were so excited when Hubble took off. But no sooner was it in space when we saw that the Hubble did not work. Something was wrong with its mirror. Hubble could not see. I immediately had a hearing and said, oh my gosh, Hubble has a cataract. It needs space surgery. It needs a space contact lens. Well, I never saw myself as a space ophthalmologist, but, quite frankly, working with my dear friend from the other side of the aisle, Senator Jake Garn, we took a risk to finance the fix for Hubble.

Well, this country and this world, this big planet, was not disappointed. We took the risk because we believed in Hubble's potential. We believed in the engineers and the scientists at NASA to know how to fix it. We believed in our astronauts, that they could go to the Hubble and fix it and return safely to Earth. Thanks to those astronauts and engineers, Hubble was saved. We did fix it with a contact lens that has lasted now for many years. We have had to go back to space and give it new batteries. We have also had to give it new gyroscopes so it doesn't vibrate in space. We even improved its lens. Each year it gets better and better. From the brink of failure to extraordinary success, this has been the story of Hubble.

Now we are once again going to have to come to the rescue of Hubble. Last year, the NASA Administrator announced that he was terminating the final servicing mission to give Hubble new batteries and extend its life. The Administrator rejected it, saying that the Hubble would shut down in 4 years when its battery runs out. The reason he gave was astronaut safety. I was troubled by that because astronaut safety has been my No. 1 priority as an appropriator for the space program.

However, I was uncertain about that decision and, like any good scientist, I asked for a second opinion. First, I asked Admiral Gehman, who had done the study of what went wrong with Columbia, for his opinion. He said go to the National Academy of Sciences. I did that, and we found a study that concluded that a servicing mission was no more risky than going back to the space station.

Once again, Mr. President, our shuttle is going to start flying again, and our hearts and prayers will go with Colonel Collins as she takes astronauts back into space and, God willing and with the help of our engineers, returns to Earth safely.

The next mission needs to go up and fix the Hubble. I believe the American people want it. We have the will. Now we have to find the wallet. President George Bush, with poor advice from the NASA Administrator, canceled it out of the budget. I want the President to look at those NASA pictures. I want him to know what NASA has meant to the world and to America in space. I am going to work with him, on a bipartisan basis, to find the money to keep Hubble flying and seeing the universe. Who knows, maybe we will meet an angel and make some interesting new friends.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, one of my top priorities is the real reform of our Nation's intelligence. The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 was a first step toward transforming the U.S. intelligence community. Information sharing will be strengthened, while diverse opinion and independent analysis will be protected.

The single most important provision in the act was the creation of a Director of National Intelligence, who would have authority, responsibility, and financial control over the entire intelligence community.

The President has nominated an experienced diplomat to be Director of National Intelligence. Ambassador John D. Negroponte has worked hard for his country and has made personal sacrifices. When his country called, he has exposed himself to hardship and danger most notably in Vietnam and in Iraq.

He has also had extensive exposure to U.S. intelligence products and operations. He had intelligence coordination responsibilities in Washington on the National Security Council. He recently had responsibility for leading the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during a time when intelligence on the Iraqi insurgency had the highest priority.

Yet I have serious concerns with certain aspects of Ambassador Negroponte's record--particularly his actions while he was ambassador to Honduras. There is a serious discrepancy between his description of the Honduran government's human rights record during those years and that of the CIA Inspector General and nongovernmental organizations. He has yet to show complete candor in discussing U.S. activities there with the Congress.

I believe that Ambassador Negroponte could have been more outspoken in reporting from his vantage point at the United Nations in the winter of 2003--when our country was on the verge of war.

Despite these concerns, I will vote for the confirmation of Ambassador Negroponte. I am encouraged by his responses to my questions during hearings before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In a very important exchange, he provided assurances that he will ``speak truth to power.'' In response to my questions, Ambassador Negroponte said he would make sure that reliability problems with sources are put before decisionmakers. He agreed to explore mechanisms like the State Department's Dissent Channel to encourage those who see yellow flashing lights to express their views to senior officials and to protect dissenters from political retaliation. And he said that he himself would be taking the ``unvarnished truth'' to the President. He also said that all organizations under his purview will obey the law and that there will be full accountability.

These assurances are critical. My vote to confirm Ambassador Negroponte is based on them. As a member of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, I will be watching closely to see that they are honored and will do what I can to contribute to Ambassador Negroponte's success as the first Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on my amendment No. 497 to ensure that increased military death benefits are tax free.

We know that more than 1,700 servicemen and women have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don't always focus on the families that have to live their lives without a husband or wife, without a son or daughter, without a father or mother, without a brother or sister.

Already in March, Newsweek estimated that 1,043 American children had lost a parent in Iraq. The stories of these children trying to cope with the reality that a parent isn't coming home will break your heart. But the families of those who die for their country also have to struggle with more mundane challenges, like the loss of the main breadwinner.

Staff Sargeant Kendell Waters-Bey was a 29-year-old Marine from Baltimore. He was one of the first American servicemembers to die in Iraq, among 12 people killed in a helicopter crash.

Michael and Angela Waters-Bey lost their only son; that's hard enough. But 10-year-old Kenneth lost his father. My Maryland colleague in the House, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger, helped to set up a trust fund to pay for Kenneth's college education.

Another Marylander, Naval Reserve Lieutenant Kylan Jones-Huffman, was killed by small arms fire in Iraq. Lieutenant Jones-Huffman was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and he returned there to teach history before being deployed to Iraq.

These are just two of the many families in Maryland and across the Nation that experience the sacrifices of this war every day. They deserve our gratitude--not just words, but deeds.

I'm proud to be a member of the Appropriations Committee. We did what is right to support our troops by reporting out a strong emergency supplemental bill to meet the needs of our men and women in uniform in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. We did what is right by increasing the military death benefit immediately paid to the family of a member of our military who is killed.

This bill will raise the military death benefit from just over $12,000 to $100,000.

The supplemental bill also provides a benefit to make the increase retroactive to October 7, 2001, the start of the war in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.

The Senate has also rightly adopted the Kerry amendment to ensure that the death benefit increase covers all soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who die on active duty.

I also appreciate the Senate's adoption of the Salazar amendment, to me the so-called death gratuity as fallen heroes compensation. While we understand that no compensation can make up for the loss of a family member, the new name adopted by the Senate recognizes that we are helping the families of our fallen heroes.

I believe just about every Senator shares my view that the military death benefit should not be taxed.

We need to make sure that the full amount is paid to the family of a service member who dies for our country. We are a grateful Nation, and this is one of the ways we express our gratitude.

Under our tax law, the death benefit is excluded from gross income. That means families don't have to pay income tax on it. We don't want the family of a hero who died for our country to be handed the American flag from the casket in one hand, and get a bill from the IRS in the other.

My amendment will make sure that the payments to make the death benefit increase retroactive are not taxed.

I appreciate the support of the National Military Family Association for my amendment.

I also appreciate the support of the Senator from New Jersey, Senator Corzine, who is a cosponsor of this amendment.

I hope that the Senate will send a strong message that we intend the military death benefit to be tax-free.

Mr. President, I would like to thank the chairman of

the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, and the ranking member, Senator Baucus, for their support of ensuring that death benefits paid to the families of those who give their lives for our country are tax- free. I appreciate their commitment to getting this done through appropriate tax legislation, if necessary, as soon as possible. And I appreciate the help of their staff on the Finance Committee, who worked with my staff on this issue.

Given these commitments from Chairman Grassley and Senator Baucus, I will not proceed with my amendment on this critical supplemental appropriations bill to meet the needs of our troops.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I support our troops and their families. I am behind them 100 percent. They deserve our gratitude, not just with words but with deeds. We must do right by our troops and their families. This strong emergency supplemental appropriations bill helps us do just that.

In this bill we have provided $5.4 billion to fix or replace equipment that has been damaged during combat operations. We have also added $3.3 billion to add armor to all convoy trucks, buy more armored vehicles and provide helicopter survivability systems.

To help protect our troops from deadly improvised explosive devices, IEDs, I supported the addition of $60 million for the Army to purchase field jamming systems $213 million for the Army to purchase Up-Armored Humvees. We have preserved support for C130J aircraft, so vital to transporting troops and materiel around the world.

To ensure that we do all we can to care for soldiers when they are injured, this bill includes an additional $275 million for the Defense Health program. It also eliminates a petty charge to some service members recuperating from combat injuries in military facilities who are being asked to pay for their own meals.

More than 1,700 servicemen and -women have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan. Part of the debt of gratitude we owe the families they leave behind is to ensure that they do not have to face a financial crisis at the same time that they are dealing with the loss of a loved one.

To help alleviate their burden, we have increased from $12,000 to $100,000 the Fallen Heroes compensation for family members of those brave troops who make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our country. We have applied this increase retroactively, to include all those who have died since the beginning of operations in Afghanistan, and we have extended this compensation to apply to every service member who dies while on active duty, not just in a designated combat zone.

We also need to make sure that families receive the full amount of this compensation. Working closely with Senator Grassley, I have taken steps to ensure that the full benefit is tax free. Senator Grassley has assured me that this important correction will be added to the next tax bill considered in the Senate.

To further ease the strain for these families, we have allowed the family of a service member who dies to remain in military housing for a year, rather than the 6 months currently allowed.

The veterans' health care system is stretched to the limit at a time when more and more veterans are turning to VA. That's why I supported an amendment by Senator Murray to increase veterans funding by $2 billion to meet the health care needs of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and other war veterans. Although this amendment was defeated, I will continue to fight for adequate funding for veterans' health care, because the VA will continue to see more enrollment of veterans and a higher demand for care.

We know that nearly 40 percent of the soldiers deployed today in Iraq and Afghanistan are citizen soldiers who come from the National Guard and Reserves. More than half of these will suffer a loss of income when they are mobilized, because their military pay is less than the pay from their civilian job.

Many patriotic employers and state governments eliminate this pay gap by continuing to pay them the difference between their civilian and military pay. The Reservist Pay Security amendment, which I worked on with Senator Durbin, will ensure that the U.S. Government also makes up for this pay gap for Federal employees who are activated in the Guard and Reserves.

Americans joined the world in mourning the loss of more than 150,000 victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami last Christmas. Together, we prayed for the 7 million displaced survivors that God may give them the strength to persevere and overcome this, the largest natural disaster of our time.

But expressions of sympathy are not enough. As I said at the time of this terrible disaster, the United States must set the example and lead the world in the humanitarian effort of recovery and rebuilding.

So I am especially proud that this bill includes $907 million to help keep America's promise to tsunami victims. It provides $656 million for the Tsunami Recovery and Reconstruction fund to support on-going and long-term relief efforts. It also provides $25 million for U.S. tsunami warning programs to help prevent future human disasters on the scale we have seen in Asia.

Because it is just as important to support our communities at home as it is to support our troops in the field, I will continue to fight for responsible military budgets. For that reason, I joined Senator Byrd's call for the President to fund our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the regular budget and appropriations process. After 3 years in Afghanistan and 2 years in Iraq, we should not be funding these operations as if they were surprise emergencies.

I also joined Senator Byrd in his call for the President to provide Congress information on the costs so far of these operations and for an estimate of what we can expect them to cost in coming years.

This bill is a Federal investment in supporting our troops and their families.

We support out troops by getting them the best equipment and the best protection we can provide. We support them by making it easier for our citizen soldiers in the National Guard and Reserves to serve their country. And we support them by ensuring that their families do not face a financial crisis at the moment when they are grieving the loss of a soldier who has sacrificed everything for our country.

Mr. President, I honor the life and legacy of Edward J. Moskal.

Edward Moskal was a giant in the Polish-American community. He was President of the Polish American Congress and the Polish National Alliance. These are empowering organizations--rooted in heritage, history and philanthropy. Their members are humanitarians and patriots--dedicated to Polish history and culture, and to strengthening the historic links between America and Poland. Because of Ed Moskal's leadership, these organizations have flourished.

The Polish American Congress and the Polish National Alliance were created during one of the darkest periods in Polish history. We know that the history of Poland has, at times, been a melancholy one. Every king, kaiser, czar or comrade who ever wanted to

have a war in Europe always started by invading Poland. But we know that while Poland was occupied, the heart and soul of the Polish nation has never been occupied.

The Polish American community never abandoned Poland. We supported them during the long, cold years of Soviet domination. And then in 1980, when an obscure electrician in the Gdansk Shipyard jumped over a wall proclaiming the Solidarity movement, he took the Polish people and the whole world with him, to bring down the Iron Curtain. Ed Moskal and the Polish American community played an important role--sending supplies to the strikers and their families and educating the world about what was going on in Poland.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, I worked with Mr. Moskal for NATO membership for Poland. Mr. Moskal and the Polish American community helped Poland take its rightful place as a member of the family of democratic nations. Poland is now a full, contributing member of NATO. Our Polish allies serve alongside Americans in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Now, after so many years of foreign domination, Poland has made the difficult transition to democracy and a free market. Poland is now a real democracy with a vibrant market economy, as well as a reliable NATO ally.

And so, today, we in the Polish community mourn the loss of Ed Moskal. We send our thoughts and prayers to his wife, Wanda Sadlik, and to his family.

Mr. President, I rise to ask my colleagues to support cloture on the amendment I offered last week on the H-2B visas. This amendment is desperately needed by small and seasonal business throughout the United States. This amendment is identical to the bipartisan bill I introduced in February called the Save Our Small and Seasonal Business Act. It is designed to be a temporary solution to the seasonal worker shortage that many coastal and resort States are facing.

My amendment helps keep American jobs, keep American companies open, and yet retains control of our borders. Small and seasonal businesses all over our country are in crisis. They need seasonal workers before the summer can begin so they can survive. For years they relied on an H-2B visa program to meet their needs. The program allows businesses to hire temporary seasonal foreign workers with a mandated return to their home country when no other American workers are available. But this year they can't get temporary labor. They have been facing this for the last couple of years because they have been shut out of the program because there is a cap and the cap is reached by the wintertime.

My amendment will help these employers by doing three things. One, it temporarily exempts good actor workers from the H-2B cap so employers can apply for and name employees who have already come back and forth to the United States. It protects against fraud, and it provides a fair and balanced allocation of the H-2B visas between winter and summer people.

Let me be clear about my amendment. First, it protects American jobs. Second, it is a short-term remedy because it is only a 2-year solution. What it does is exempt seasonal workers from the cap. That means there are no new workers. There are no new immigrants. It means no more new guest workers. It means people who have worked here before, who have played by the rules and gone back home, are the only ones who will be eligible. They have to have been here in the last 3 years, worked in absolute compliance with the law, and returned back home to Mexico as required. So it is not new people who will be exempt. It is an employment program for them and for us.

The employer has to go through the whole Department of Labor and Homeland Security process so we are in compliance with labor rules and we also ensure our national security.

Like my colleagues, I worry about fraud, so we have very strong antifraud provisions. We also make the system better by creating this fair allocation. We recognize that States need them in the winter, but summertime people need them, too.

There is a crisis. Thousands of small businesses are affected by this. Hitting the cap so early had a great impact on my own State of Maryland. We had a lot of summer seasonal business, particularly over there on the Eastern Shore, working that wonderful, fabulous Chesapeake Bay I share with my colleagues from Virginia. Many of our businesses used this program year after year. First they hire all the American workers they can find. Then they turn to the H-2B to find additional workers. I could give example after example, but I can tell you, if they don't get this legislation, they will have to either lay off their permanent workers or close their doors.

So what my legislation is all about is a simple legislative remedy with strong bipartisan support. It is realistic. It is specific. It is narrow. It stands up for American companies, protects our borders.

I know there is great urgency about this. We absolutely need it. Many of my companies have been around for 100 years working in the Chesapeake Bay. Many of them provide the livelihoods not only on the Eastern Shore but because of our fabulous seafood processing industry. We provide jobs also in Baltimore and Bethesda and other parts. We have to pass this legislation because if they can't start to hire within the next few weeks, we are going to close American companies and end up with an even more porous border.

I urge the adoption of my amendment, but now I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I yield whatever time I have remaining to the other Senator from Virginia.

I thank the Senator from Virginia. I accept the challenge. If it takes two of you to take me on, so be it.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

Mr. President, there is no further debate on the amendment. I yield all of my time and, therefore, request a vote on my amendment, as amended.

Less than a minute.

Mr. President, I ask for the regular order with respect to my amendment.

Mr. President, I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Mr. President, I understand that negotiations are ongoing on all of the immigration provisions. I am sorry I have to do this, and I will be very glad to withdraw this cloture motion if we are able to come to an understanding.

Amendment No. 430

I now ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume consideration of the Byrd amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I realize the Senator from Texas has been recognized to offer his amendment. I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to offer my amendment after the Cornyn-Feinstein amendment.

Withholding the right to object, I have no objection to how long you wish to speak on your amendment, Senator. I wanted to be sure I got to offer my amendment this afternoon.

Mr. President, reluctantly, I rise to oppose this amendment, even though I agree with many of the principles expounded in it. No. 1, to my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, the sponsors of this amendment, I too, agree, that our immigration system is badly broken. It does fail to serve the interests of our national security and our national economy. We do need to enact the critical appropriations bill to support our troops and help people who are tsunami victims and some other important aspects. At the same time, though, the sense of the Senate really should be directed to the House. For someone like myself, who has a very serious crisis because of something called the H-2B visas, which I will explain in more detail at another time, the fact is this is our only vehicle.

Immigration, as an issue, was introduced in the supplemental appropriation bill in the House of Representatives with an enormously controversial and prickly concept, the so-called REAL ID card. I know that my colleague from Tennessee has proposed some creative solutions to deal with that. I know that others want to talk about this. If we can talk about comprehensive immigration reform, I am all for it. But the question is, When are we going to do it? It has been over 1,000 days since 9/11, and we have not done comprehensive immigration reform, nor have we looked at what aspects of immigration are working. There are certain aspects that are working in certain areas of the guest worker programs; college students who come from abroad, who work in our country and learn in our country and go back home, what a tremendous exercise in public diplomacy the so-called J visas have accomplished.

In my own State, the H-2B visa, which allows guest workers to come

into this country for seasonal employment to take jobs that are certified as not being held by American workers, with a mandated return to their own home, has worked well. It has worked so well that the cap is now bursting at the seams.

I am all for comprehensive immigration reform, but No. 4 says Congress should not short circuit the discussion by attaching amendments to this supplemental. We have had no discussion. There is nothing to short circuit. What we do have is a series of, as Senator Durbin has said, these rifle-shot crisis situations.

It would be wonderful if we could have comprehensive reform. I look forward to participating in that comprehensive reform. For now, we have to look at those States that are facing a crisis because of the flawed immigration system we have now and for which we are advocating modest and temporary legislative remedies.

I salute our colleagues. They have a big job ahead of them. Anybody willing to undertake comprehensive immigration reform needs to be encouraged, supported and worked with. We need elasticity in this bill to deal with those things related to our economic viability. In many ways, a guest worker program that is working needs to be addressed, and I hope to offer an amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I rise to offer an amendment. I understand my colleague from California is seeking a unanimous consent.

This is without yielding the floor.

Yes, without losing my floor privileges.

Mr. President, I am now confused. As a courtesy to the chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations, I yielded to him so he could offer his technical amendment. Are we now laying my amendment aside?

Where are we?

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

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

Mr. President, in the interest of following the regular order and engaging in senatorial courtesy, we really need order. I could not hear the distinguished Senator and, therefore, was concerned that we were having some slippage in our process.

Amendment No. 386

Mr. President, I send my amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, today I rise to offer an amendment that is desperately needed by small and seasonal business throughout the country. This amendment is identical to the bipartisan bill I introduced in February called Save Our Small and Seasonal Business Act. It is designed to be a 2-year temporary solution to the seasonal worker shortage that many coastal States and resort States are facing.

I wish to acknowledge the need for comprehensive immigration reform, but right now small and seasonal businesses all over this Nation are in crisis and need our help. These businesses need seasonal workers before the summer begins so they can survive.

For years, they have relied on something called the H-2B visa program to meet their needs. This is a temporary guest worker program. But this year they cannot get the temporary labor they need because they have been shut out of the H-2B visa program because the cap has been reached. This is a program that lets businesses hire temporary guest workers when no American workers are available.

This amendment modeled after the Save Our Small and Seasonal Business helps employers by doing four things:

It temporarily exempts the good actor workers--those who do

return home after they have worked a season--from the H-2B

cap. Employers apply for and actually name those good

compliant workers who have complied with the law, they name

them so that they are allowed them to reenter for this

temporary period.

It protects against fraud within the H-2B program.

It provides a fair and balanced allocation for the H-2B

visas.

And it reports to Congress how the program is working and where the beneficiaries are.

I urge my colleagues to help small businesses by passing this amendment and save these businesses and actually save thousands of American jobs.

Thousands of small and seasonal businesses are facing a worker shortage as we approach the summer. In my home State, this is primarily in the seafood industry. This year, because the cap of 66,000 workers was reached earlier in the year, my small businesses have been effectively shut out. We have had a lot of summer seasonal business in Maryland on the Eastern Shore and Ocean City, people working on the Chesapeake Bay, and many of these businesses use the program year after year.

First of all, they do hire American workers. They hire all the American workers they can find. But at this time of the year, we need additional help to meet seasonal demands. Because that cap was reached for the second year in a row, I might add, these employers are at a disadvantage. They cannot use the program. What will it mean? It will mean that some of our businesses will actually have to close their doors.

My amendment is supported on both sides of the aisle. It does not change existing requirements for employers. Employers cannot just turn to the H-2B visa whenever they want. First of all, employers must try vigorously to recruit those workers. Then they must demonstrate to the Department of Labor that they have no U.S. workers available. Only after that are they allowed to fill seasonal vacancies with the H-2B visas.

The workers they bring in often participate in the program year after year. They often work for the same companies. They do not stay in the United States and are prohibited by law from doing so. They return to their home country, to their families, and their U.S. employer starts all over the following year.

Let me just say this: Right now in certain villages in Mexico, there are many women--mothers and their adult daughters, aunts--who are packing their bags. They are ready to come back to Maryland where they have come before to work in Clayton Seafood or Phillips Crab House, which so many of you have enjoyed in your visits to the bay, or Harrison's seafood. Some of them have been in business 100 years. Some of them are major employers. A lot of college kids work their way through college working at Phillips Seafood, but Phillips Seafood

needs these guest workers to help these kids and to help the restaurant stay open.

These workers are not taking the jobs, they are helping American workers keep their jobs and American companies keep their doors open and, I might add, to the delight of many of you here, to the delight of people who enjoy our products, and to the delight of the people who collect the sales tax, Social Security, and so on from those American workers.

I know we need comprehensive reform, but while we are waiting for that, I have a temporary fix. By the way, working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, we looked for regulatory relief. We consulted with the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security. Secretary Chao could not have been more gracious, more cooperative, more forthcoming, but when it came down to it, her legislative counsel said, you need to change the law. She could not change the regulations on this cap.

What does my amendment do? First, my amendment continues to protect those American jobs. It is a short-term fix because it is a 2-year solution. This amendment will only be in place for 2 years. So it allows this comprehensive reform to go forward.

What it does is exempt returning seasonal workers from the cap. That means there are no new workers. It means those people who have worked before and have gone back home are the only ones who would be eligible. In other words, in the last 3 years, they had to have worked here under the law, come in under the law, and returned home as the law requires. So it is not new people. It is not an amnesty program. It is an employment program for them and for us. These workers receive a visa, and it requires their employers to list them by name. So in all probability, they will return to the same employer. Then, at the end of the year, they will do it all over again. Remember, the only people eligible are those who have used the program in the past--the employer and the actual person coming in.

I worry about fraud, too. So we have an antifraud fee that ensures that Government agencies processing the H-2B visa will get added resources in their new sanctions. The bill creates a fair allocation of visas. Some summer businesses lose out because winter employers get all the visas. This will make the system more fair. We also simplified the reporting requirements.

I could give example after example of businesses that have been impacted. Clayton Seafood started over a century ago. They work the water of the bay supplying crab, crabmeat, and seafood. It is the oldest working crab processing plant in the world, and by employing 65 H-2B visa workers they have been able to retain all of their full-time workers.

The Friel Cannery, which began its business over 100 years ago, is the last corn cannery left out of 300. When they could not find local workers, they turned to the H-2B visa. Since then, that business is open and thriving. Each year this program helps the company not only maintain its workforce, but 75 Americans have good paying full-time jobs in accounting and marketing and other areas, and it keeps 190 seasonal workers going and 70 farmers who would not have a cannery to go to are also able to keep their jobs.

So that is what my legislation is all about. It is a quick and simple legislative remedy. It has strong bipartisan support. It is realistic. It is specific. It is immediate, achievable, and does not exacerbate our immigration problem.

Every Member of the Senate who has heard from their constituents, whether they are seafood processors, landscapers, or other people in resort areas, know the urgency in their voice. They know the immediacy of the problem. Our companies feel urgency. They feel immediacy. They feel desperation.

I urge my colleagues to join me in passing this amendment and keeping the doors of American companies open while we also maintain control of our borders.

I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

The Senator from Massachusetts has accurately assessed what has created the crisis: that given the time of application and when they want the people to work, the winter needs then take up practically all 66,000. We acknowledge our colleagues who do need the winter help, but we need their help for the summer help. You are also correct that my legislation would create a more even playing field between the two and, again, this is a temporary legislative remedy while we assess the entire situation of the need for comprehensive reform, how we keep American jobs, how we keep American companies open, and yet retain control of our borders.

The Senator, again, has made an accurate assessment. This bill is only applicable to employers and guest workers who have complied with the law. If a worker has not been here before and they have not demonstrated that they have complied with the law, not returned to their home country, they would not be eligible. That is why I say we need to help American business but keep control of the border.

I thank the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maine for her remarks, along with her and her colleague from Maine for their advocacy on behalf of Maine workers. We know Maine has been hard hit with many issues.

I ask unanimous consent to add Senator DeWine of Ohio as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, I hope the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations would take my amendment or, at the very least, have an amendment tonight. There needs to be a discussion on how we proceed.

I note there seems to be no one here. I could speak on this bill, I have such passion, such fervor about the need for it that I could speak for an extended period of time, but I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, my amendment is pending.

My amendment is pending and I recognize the Senator from Oklahoma wishes to speak. The Senator from California has an amendment.

Yes.

If the Senator wishes to speak on another matter, perhaps as if in morning business, I have no objection to that.

Perhaps I could clarify this, Mr. President. The reason I asked for a quorum call, reclaiming my right to the floor, is so the distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee and I could discuss how we were going to proceed for the rest of the evening. Therefore, the Senator from California would know how

to exercise her right as the next in line.

So if the Senator from California could be patient for a minute to get clarification, he could be a time-filler.

Would that be a good way to do it?

It is a klutzy way of talking about it, but it is, nevertheless, where we are.

Reserving my right to object, may I ask what the Senator would like to do?

Well, that is what we are trying to determine. That is what I am trying to determine. I would like to have a quorum call.

I have no objection.

Mr. President, I call for the regular order.

As I understand the regular order, the H-2B amendment I have offered is pending. I note that there are other speakers on the other side of the aisle but on the same side of the issue who wish to speak. I note the Senator from Wyoming is here and he wishes to speak. I want to continue the debate on this amendment.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his comments in articulating the economic issues facing Wyoming. I have had the occasion to visit there myself and I know what a wonderful State it is. I am not much of a skier; I am built a little too close to the ground for that. But this shows this is not only a coastal State issue, and it also shows it is not only a seafood processing issue; this is an issue that affects our entire country, particularly those who depend upon summer seasonal workers. We understand some of our States enjoy-- whether it is Massachusetts, Wyoming, or Idaho--both summer and winter. Either way, the Senator knows that we depend on summer workers. We thank him and the Senator from Idaho who spoke, as well as others.

Mr. President, I note that the hour is late and now that the Senator from Wyoming has spoken, I am not sure if there are other people who wish to speak.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Snowe of Maine be added as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, I want to get a vote on my amendment, but it is not possible tonight. Therefore, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, also part of the greatest generation is someone whom I rise to pay tribute to today and that is to Pope John Paul II. I was saddened at the passing of Pope John Paul II. The Holy Father was an inspiration to me as well as to millions around the world. His faith, his compassion, his eloquence, transcended religion or nationality. We so admired His Holiness because he stood for those who suffered, those who were oppressed, those who could not give voice through their own advocacy for human rights. He offered faith and hope and courage with his famous phrase ``be not afraid,'' as he reached out to young people to give them a moral compass that they needed--that we all need to guide our lives.

Pope John Paul was the true people's Pope. Gosh, he traveled to over 100 countries. He didn't just speak from the pulpit; he reached out and touched people. He moved into the crowds, and he spoke the language of the people, often literally because he spoke so many languages. The Pope was the father of the church, but he was also a son of Poland, my own cultural heritage. I remember when I heard the news about the new Polish Pope, the first non-Italian in over 400 years. I live down the street from the Polish parish, St. Stanislaw's in Fells Point. We felt such pride and joy. The bells rang, the tugboats tooted. We closed the streets and had a fantastic party. We were so excited.

In Baltimore we even knew him before he became Pope. He came to visit us as the cardinal from Krakow. He visited Holy Rosary Church, again one of the Catholic churches serving large numbers in the Polish community. I was so pleased to be there that day for this young, vigorous, athletic man who came from Poland to speak to us, wanting to know about our own country, speaking to us in English also about our own hopes and aspirations. But because he had grown up under Nazi fascism and lived under the boot of communism, he spoke to us about what it was like to live behind the Iron Curtain.

As you so well know, he came from the captive nations. I was so proud then to be part of the American delegation when he was Invested over 2 years later. And even then we could see the hint of things to come. There was a mass for hundreds of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, where His Holiness gave his first blessing and spoke the Word to the people in many tongues. Before he came over to greet the diplomatic corps, he went over to a special section of children, and not just ordinary children but extraordinary children--the mentally retarded, those with birth defects, cerebral palsy. And the first touch of the Pope was to those children. I think it touched us all.

One of my best memories was taking my parents to meet the Pope at the White House when Jimmy Carter was President and Brzezinski was his National Security Adviser. I took my mother and father through the receiving line, and they had a chance to talk with him in both Polish and English. He turned and smiled with his wonderful humorous way and said: Don't forget to listen to your mother and father and to the Holy Father.

Twenty-five years later, I joined my colleagues in the Senate to present the Pope with our Congressional Medal, the highest honor we can bestow. The Pope doesn't usually accept awards, but he made an exception because we wanted to thank him for his stand for human rights and for peace and justice around the world. After the presentation and the blessing, he said to us: God bless you and God bless America.

The Pope visited this country seven different times, both as a bishop and as Pope. And during those times, he always spoke to us about the need for freedom. He knew what it was like to live under the occupation. During the dark days of communism, he led the church's support of the Solidarity movement. In 1979, after he became Pope, he made his very first visit to his own native land. In 9 days, he was seen by 13 million people, from Warsaw to Krakow to Czestochova. He touched every part of Polish society, and he encouraged them once again to be not afraid. One year later an obscure electrician working in a shipyard, named Lech Walesa, jumped over that wall. And when he jumped over the wall of the Gdansk shipyard, he took the whole world with him. That was the beginning of the end of Communism.

The Pope forged a special relationship with President Ronald Reagan, and I believe helped bring about the end of the Cold War and pulled down that Iron Curtain.

Pope John did more than any other leader of the church to reach out to different faiths. He was the first Pope to visit a synagogue. He was the first Pope to visit a mosque. He reached out to Anglicans and to Eastern Orthodoxy. But he didn't just reach out to different faiths; he reached also to the human heart. He reached back to the darker side of history. He was the first to acknowledge the Holocaust and to say that antisemitism was a sin and to officially visit Israel. He wanted the improvement of relationships.

If we want to honor the Pope, we should do it not with words but with deeds: To be not afraid, to speak up for truth, to speak truth to power, speak about justice, speak about human rights, to speak about the marginalized and the oppressed. Today we grieve the death of the Pope. We express our gratitude for his remarkable life and his remarkable leadership and legacy of faith and freedom and the enduring promise of the Gospels calling us to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and turn our spears into plowshares.

Mr. President, I, too, wish to speak in morning business. What a passing of a great generation. I, too, want to pay my respects to Senator Heflin, an outstanding Senator, a wonderful Senator from Alabama. When I came to the Senate in 1987, he was one of the men of the Senate who welcomed me with graciousness. He introduced me to hand-pulled barbecue from Alabama. He also introduced me to the Marshall Space Program. I had the opportunity to work with him in terms of creating jobs in Alabama and also creating opportunity through the Space Program.

He embodied the qualities of hard work, honesty, humility, and humor, and he left this earth with a great legacy. Senator Heflin died on March 29, 2005, last week. He is survived by his wife Elizabeth Heflin; a son, Howard Thomas Heflin, Jr.; a daughter-in-law, Corneila Hood Heflin; grandson Wilson Charmichael Heflin; and a granddaughter, Mary Catherine Heflin.

Senator Heflin was devoted to his family, his State, and his country. As a World War II hero, he put his love of country above all else. He made remarkable contributions to Alabama and the Nation as a whole. His warmhearted personality will be remembered by all who knew him well. We will all miss him. We will certainly miss him in the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to acknowledge the passing of a great Marylander, Frank Perdue, Sr., who helped build the poultry industry on the Eastern Shore, a leading entrepreneur, a philanthropist. He passed away of Parkinson's disease a few days ago.

Born in Parsonburg, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Frank Perdue grew up working in his family's egg business--collecting and cleaning eggs from childhood. But Frank Perdue was determined to take the family business to another level--and it was his tremendous capacity for hard work that did just that. When Perdue said, ``It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken,'' America listened, and Frank Perdue became both a savvy businessman and a cultural icon. Today Perdue Farms employs more than 20,000 people across America and has annual sales of about $3 billion.

I am proud to work have worked with Frank Perdue--and now with his son Jim Perdue--to fight for fair trade policies that enable Maryland chicken producers to export around the world.

As Frank Perdue's business soared, he worked to bring Maryland with him. He became a great benefactor to Salisbury University, establishing the Perdue School of Business with a generous gift. Once a college baseball player and always a baseball fan, Frank Perdue brought the Delmarva Shorebirds to Salisbury in 1996, and then built the team and the Eastern Shore community a stadium. It is for both his business sense and his philanthropic heart that I salute him today.

Frank Perdue and I came from different ends of the political spectrum. Yet we both believed that the best social program is a job-- and that we must give help to those who practice self-help. We joked that we should do an ad for a group we both support--we would say-- we're two tough birds from the right wing and the left wing--but we both support this tender cause.

Today as we grieve the loss of one of Maryland's finest, Frank Perdue, we send our thoughts and prayers to his family and his many friends and colleagues.

Mr. President, this amendment would increase the Hope credit to $4,000 and make it available for 4 years of college. The core of the American Dream is getting a college education and I want to make sure that every student has access to that dream. I want to help families who are trying to send their children to college and adults who are going back to school for their first degree or their third.

Our middle-class families are stressed and stretched. Families in my state of Maryland are worried--they're worried about their jobs and they're terrified of losing their healthcare when costs keep ballooning. Many are holding down more than one job to make ends meet. They're racing from carpools to work and back again. But most of all, they don't know how they can afford to send their kids to college. And they want to know what we in the United States Senate are doing to help them.

That's why I want to give every family sending a child to college a $4,000 tuition tax credit. This amendment would give help to those who practice self help--the families who are working and saving to send their child to college or update their own skills.

College tuition is on the rise across America. Tuition at the University of Maryland has increased by almost 40 percent since 2002. Tuition for Baltimore Community College rose by $300 in one year. The average total cost of going to a 4-year public college is $10,635 per year, including tuition, fees, room and board. University of Maryland will cost more than $15,000 for a full time undergraduate student who lives on campus.

Financial Aid isn't keeping up with these rising costs. Pell Grants cover only 40 percent of average costs at 4-year public colleges. Twenty years ago, Pell Grants covered 80 percent of average costs. Our students are graduating with so much debt it's like their first mortgage. The average undergraduate student debt from college loans is almost $19,000. College is part of the American Dream; it shouldn't be part of the American financial nightmare.

Families are looking for help. I'm sad to say, the President doesn't offer them much hope. The Republican budget has all the wrong priorities. President Bush proposed increasing the maximum Pell Grant by just $100 to $4,150. I want to double Pell Grants. Instead of easing the burden on middle class families, the Republican budget helps out big business cronies with lavish tax breaks while eating into Social Security and creating deficits as far as the eye can see.

We need to do more to help middle-class families afford college. We need to immediately increase the maximum Pell Grant to $4,500 and double it over the next 6 years. We need to make sure student loans are affordable. And we need a bigger tuition tax credit for the families stuck in the middle who aren't eligible for Pell Grants but still can't afford college.

A $4,000 tax credit for tuition will go a long way. It will give middle class families some relief by helping the first-time student at our 4-year institutions like University of Maryland and the midcareer student at our terrific community colleges. A $4,000 tax credit would be 60 percent of the tuition at Maryland and enough to cover the cost of tuition at most community colleges. My amendment would help make college affordable for everyone.

College education is more important than ever: 40 percent of new jobs in the

next 10 years will require post-secondary education. College is important to families and it's important to our economy. To compete in the global economy, we need to make sure all our children have 21st century skills for 21st century jobs. And the benefits of education help not just the individual but society as a whole.

To have a safer America and a stronger economy, we need to have a smarter America. We need to invest in our human capital to create a world class workforce. That means making a college education affordable.