Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am delighted to rise to acknowledge El Camino Real High School's championship win in this year's national Academic Decathlon. El Camino Real High School is located in Woodland Hills, CA. This is El Camino's third win and marks the most national titles any California student group has ever received. It is a wonderful record of which to be proud, and I extend my heartiest congratulations to everyone who made this accomplishment possible.

The Academic Decathlon is highly competitive, testing the students in 10 different subjects. The El Camino team headed to Boise, Idaho to compete against more than 300 students from 39 other American high schools and one Canadian high school to clinch the national title.

Under the leadership and tutelage of three main coaches, Melinda Owen, Mark Johnson and Rebecca Gessert, the team of eight students collectively spent more than 1,200 hours this year to prepare for the competition, including intense cramming sessions as the big event drew closer. These students sacrificed much of their free time to represent their school, and it is clear that their work paid off.

I could not be happier for or prouder of the El Camino team, including Cassidy Ellis, Gary Fox, Jonathan Lin, Patrick Liu, Eric Rasyidi, Adam Singer, Chris Taylor, and Adrian Wittenberg. They have made their school, their district, and our entire State proud, and they have every reason to celebrate their accomplishment.

The students could not have won their title without the help of their dedicated coaches. I also salute and congratulate all the teachers, faculty, and students at El Camino who worked with this team and gave them the support they needed to achieve their goals.

Congratulations again to El Camino Real High School on this wonderful win.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak for up to 20 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, today I rise to pay tribute to 59 young Americans who have been killed in Iraq from March 22 to April 26. All of them to whom I am going to pay tribute were from California or were based in California.

I have previously read the names of all the others connected to California who have died. Sadly, these numbers are going up. I was shocked to just hear on the radio that 11--11--of our troops have been killed today in Iraq.

So I am going to read the names of those who are connected to California. And this, again, is from March 22 until Monday of this week.

LCpl Jeffrey C. Burgess, age 20, died March 25, due to enemy action near Fallujah. He was assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 373, Marine Wing Support Group 37, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Air Station, Miramar, CA.

LCpl James A. Casper, age 20, died March 25, due to a noncombat- related incident at Al Asad. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA.

MSgt Timothy Toney, age 37, died March 27, due to a noncombat-related incident at Camp Wolverine, Kuwait. He was assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA.

PFC Leroy Sandoval, age 21, died March 26 due to hostile fire in the Al Anbar Province. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA.

LCpl William J. Wiscowiche died March 30 due to enemy action in Al Anbar Province, age 20. He was assigned to 1st Combat Engineering Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA. He was from Victorville.

PFC Dustin Sekula, age 18, died April 1 due to injuries sustained from enemy fire in Al Anbar Province. Assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, CA.

PFC Geoffrey Morris, 19. Private Morris died April 4 due to injuries received from hostile fire in Al Anbar Province. Assigned to 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, CA.

LCpl Aric Barr, age 22, died April 4 due to injuries received from enemy action in Al Anbar Province. Assigned to Twentynine Palms, CA, the same battalion, the same division, the same force.

Cpl Tyler Fey, age 22. Corporal Fey died April 4 due to injuries received from enemy action in Al Anbar Province. He was assigned to the same battalion, the same division, the same force, Twentynine Palms,

Mr. President, I would like to recognize a remarkable group of young people who will be traveling to Washington, DC next week, May 1-3, to participate in the national finals of ``We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution.'' This program consists of competitions in which students field questions that test their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution.

I am pleased to announce that students from Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, CA will be representing the State of California in this competition. With the help of their civics teacher, Matthew Campbell, these students have studied for months to prepare for their role as experts testifying on constitutional issues in a simulated congressional hearing.

These students have all worked very hard through first the congressional, then state, and now national competitions. The members of this year's civics team are Nichole Barlow, Anna Currin, Tony D'Albora, Logan Daniels, Shelley DeFord, Michael Gondkoff, Gabe Ivey, Nate Koppikar, Kristin MacDonnell, Sonia Markovic, Jennifer Martin, Lacie McFarland, Shawna McGrath, Nicole Melton, Barry Ripley, Elisabeth Schulze, Sunaina Selam, Kent Stander, and Jae Yoo. I congratulate each of them for coming this far and send them my best wishes for next week's competition.

It is very encouraging to see young people take such a profound interest in studying those ideas and principles which are at the heart of our democracy and of our country. I am certain that this type of involvement will only lead to a deeper interest and that it will build strong citizens and strong leaders for our country's future.

Mr. President, I stand here today to call on Vice President Dick Cheney to immediately open his records of his secret energy task force meetings and tell the American people the truth about who attended those meetings.

The administration needs to stop fighting this wasteful lawsuit. It has cost hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, that belong to the taxpayers. And it has consumed an enormous amount of time with the Justice Department and other agencies. Today the case is to be heard across the street at the Supreme Court.

It is not too late for the Vice President to come clean. Just tell the American people who attended the secret meetings he held before he issued his energy policy which took the form of this very expensive, beautiful-colored brochure which has, for example, this picture of ``Energy for a New Century,'' and it shows an oil rig in the ocean. By the way, that is not exactly the energy of the future.

The time has come for the Vice President to stop the stonewalling. Simply tell the truth. Who did he meet with in preparing our Nation's energy plan?

First, the American people have the right to know. The last I checked, this country was a free country. It is a country where there is access to information for the people. We pay the salaries of our President, our Vice President, our Senators, our House Members. Unless it is a question of the highest national security, the people have a right to know how their money is being spent or misspent. Why does the administration continue to hide the truth about how its energy policy was formed? It is not necessary to be secretive. It is wrong. The public needs to know how public policies are formulated.

To know that, they need to know who was sitting at the table when this national energy policy was put together. Who was there? Was it a broad array of citizens from all sides of the issue--consumers, environmentalists, people from the oil companies, the gas companies, the nuclear industry--or was it just one set of people?

Second, it is time to stop wasting taxpayers' money. The cost of that lawsuit across the street is very difficult to pin down. We know the General Accounting Office, which tried to force the Vice President to reveal who was at the meetings, spent over $300,000 in legal fees to fight Dick Cheney's stonewalling. From my office's research, we believe attorneys from Justice and the Office of Solicitor General have spent thousands of work hours preparing these documents.

Let me show a chart on what other things these persons could be doing other than keeping the meetings that the Vice President had secreted from the people. They could have been fighting terrorism by seeking and freezing assets of terrorist groups such as Hamas. They could have been prosecuting Medicare fraud. They could have been prosecuting drug companies that falsify data for FDA drug approval. They could have been prosecuting corporations that violate consumer safety laws with toxic products. All those things are in the public interest.

But, no, this Vice President says to these people who work hard every day: Just forget about this. We know we said a lot about cracking down on terrorism, money laundering. We said a lot about cracking down on Medicare fraud and drug company fraud and corporations that violate consumer safety laws with toxic products. Just forget it. Defend me. I am so important. I am the Vice President and the people have no right to know with whom I meet.

It is outrageous. I want the Justice Department to go after criminals, not to keep meetings secret that should be made public.

The Supreme Court has other things to do as well. They defend our way of life, our civil liberties, our human rights. For this court to spend its time listening to Mr. Cheney defend his secrecy pulls it away from other important issues it could address. It is a waste of the Court's time. It is a waste of money.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes and ask that Senator Durbin have an additional 2 minutes as well.

Two Federal judges have already found that the administration has violated the Freedom of Information Act. Openness is an American value. In the end, openness is a way of life. Do you remember how Condi Rice was not going to testify because the President said that she only reports to him and what she tells him is secret? Well, they caved on that one. They caved on that one because that is not in the public interest, and the people wouldn't stand for it.

Do you remember when First Lady Hillary Clinton said she believed she didn't have to reveal who was sitting in on the health care task force meetings? Well, they were sued. And Hillary Clinton, now Senator Clinton, said: OK, OK. Let's not go to court. I will reveal this information.

But not this administration, not Dick Cheney. He has a lot of time to bash Senator John Kerry, but he doesn't have time to open up the files and show the people who sat in on those meetings that led to the formulation of the national energy policy. It is remarkable--someone who didn't serve 1 minute, 1 hour in the military is taking on a war hero, John Kerry. But he doesn't have time to pay attention to this issue on which the New York Times editorialized today and said:

[The Cheney] case also raises more substantive issues about

the degree to which a vice president can claim to be above

the law.

This is a sad day. We already know because the Vice President admitted that Ken Lay attended those secret meetings. Yes, he did. Ken Lay, the man we are hoping will wind up in prison for defrauding the people of California and the people of the west coast of billions of dollars. We know he was in the meeting. We also know he handed the Vice President a document that said: Don't take any action in California.

I call on the Vice President, tell the truth. Cut it out. Walk away from this case and let the people know with whom you met.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Armenian Victims Insurance Fairness Act. This bill is the Senate companion to legislation introduced by Congressman Adam Schiff, my good friend and colleague from the 29th District of California.

This legislation authorizes states to enact laws that require insurance companies to disclose and make public information about any policy issued in areas controlled by the Ottoman Empire between 1875 and 1923.

This week marks the 89th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Between 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Empire conducted the first Genocide of the 20th Century, killing an estimated 1.5 million Armenians and displacing thousands more. The campaign was so devastating that at the beginning of World War I, there were 2.1 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Following the Genocide, fewer than 100,000 Armenians remained.

This legislation is important because survivors and descendants of the Armenian Genocide are still trying to recoup the benefits owed to them under the tens of thousands of insurance policies that were issued prior to the Genocide. According to a news report, one Californian has been attempting to collect on an insurance policy for 40 years, but has been stonewalled by the company that issued the policy.

Insurance policy documents were often destroyed during the Genocide, and death certificates were not issued to those Armenians who lost their lives. Therefore, survivors and descendants can only rely on the documents held by insurance companies as proof that they are owed benefits. Unfortunately, we have seen little cooperation from insurance companies on disclosing these documents and opening up their records.

This bill closely follows legislation that would help Jewish Holocaust survivors. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that a California state law requiring the disclosure of insurance information related to Holocaust-era policies was unconstitutional--in part because of the Federal Government's responsibility to make foreign policy. I support pending legislation to allow States to pass laws requiring the disclosure of Holocaust-era policies.

My bill is designed to ensure that state laws to force insurance companies to disclose insurance information on policies related to the Armenian Genocide do not run into similar legal challenges.

It is an injustice to the memories of those slain during the Armenian Genocide that insurance companies have not paid the benefits owed to the survivors and victims of this tragic chapter of history. This legislation will help survivors and their families pursue these claims.

I urge my colleagues to support the Armenian Victims Insurance Fairness Act.

Mr. President, I am proud to be here with my friend and colleague Senator Jeffords, who is the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee on which I serve. His leadership has been extraordinary on a whole range of issues, as has been his dedication to the environment, to protecting people and their environment.

When we hear protection of the environment, some people think of wildlife, which is true, and fisheries, which is true, and forests. It is all true. It is all about preserving these things--first of all, because they are God's gift to us and that is our moral obligation, but it also protects the people of our country because we know when species get endangered, we know when oceans get polluted, we know when we lose the wetlands, we know when the air is smoggy, it hurts the people we represent--particularly the children, who are the most vulnerable, the people who are ill, and the elderly.

If we take our position seriously, what could be more fundamental than protecting our people? Protecting the environment is protecting our people. It is what we must do. It is the moral thing to do.

I say to my friend Senator Jeffords--and I see my colleague Senator Reid of Nevada has come to the floor. I serve with both of them on that committee. It is a joy to be on that committee--we have a lot of work to do. We know Earth Day is a time for us to reflect on what our work should be. Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes founded Earth Day in 1970 to ensure environmental protection would be a major national issue. It has been. Tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of Earth Day.

One thing I find when I go home is people are so--I don't like to use this word, but it is true--they are disgusted with partisanship. They have had it with partisanship. They want us to work together. On what better issue could we work together than a clean and healthy environment? Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whatever, you still have to breathe the air; you still have to drink the water; you still want to take your family to the beach or to the park. It is our job to protect the environment so you can do that.

We know this issue has been very much a bipartisan issue. When I think back, what comes to mind is President Nixon founded the EPA. We look at each President and we see progress has been made across party lines. Yet with this Presidency--and I think Senator Jeffords has touched on it and it has to be very painful for him to touch on it--we see a reversal of years of bipartisan progress. I want to get into that.

In today's paper there is a big story. The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy has given its preliminary report on the state of our oceans. Happily, they gave us a blueprint for a new, comprehensive, national ocean policy. This happens to be a Presidentially-appointed commission composed of academics, naval officers, and members of the business community. This group, appointed by our President, is telling us our oceans are in crisis and we need to take action now if we are to reverse declines. The Commission stated we need to start taking an ecosystem-based management approach to protect our oceans and marine species. That means we need to look at the whole environment of the ocean and not take small steps, but make sure we have policies that protect the entire ocean.

We need to improve the governance of our oceans by strengthening and coordinating decisionmaking. The Commission highlighted the need for greater Federal investment in ocean research and exploration for better scientific information.

I am someone who has worked for a long time to stop oil drilling off the coast of California because that is a precious environment we must protect, and it is an economic asset as it is. I am someone who wrote the tuna labeling bill which turned out, happily, to save tens of thousands of dolphins every year. I so welcome this report. I call on the President to embrace the findings of this report. I call on the President to work with us and let us know how he wants to implement this report.

I hope I am wrong in what I am about to say, but given the history of this administration I am very worried we will not hear much from the President about steps he is going to take with us to invest in our environment, to make sure America is the model for the world when it comes to protecting its natural resources.

Half a billion people participate in Earth Day campaigns every year, half a billion people across this world. I urge the President to take a look at this report, to step out on Earth Day and say I embrace this and we are going to work together to protect the oceans. While he is at it, I think Earth Day would be a perfect day for him to say he has seen the light and he is going to reverse all of the environmental rollbacks he is perpetrating on the American people.

I have a scroll I cannot bring into the Senate Chamber because there are rules against bringing the scroll in. When I unroll that scroll-- and it goes out 30 feet--we see the more than 350 laws and regulations that have been rolled back unilaterally by this administration. No one has been immune from these attacks: not children with asthma, not communities faced with toxic waste sites, not parents who worry about what comes out of their faucets.

I couldn't possibly go through every rollback. I don't have enough time in the day. But what I want to give a sense of is what these rollbacks look like when they are written down, so I do have a whole series of charts. It is very hard to read, I know. Each one has a date. It starts January 20, 2001,

When the White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, issued the memo to all Federal agencies ordering the 60-day suspension of all rules finalized by the Clinton administration, including numerous important regulations to protect the environment and public

health, that is how they started. It was barely a day that they were in office. It started then--unrelenting--the same day the administration held up rules announced by the EPA to minimize raw sewage discharges and to require those discharges be placed in the public record so that the public was notified.

To give you a sense of it, last year alone there were 40,000 discharges of untreated sewage carrying bacteria, viruses, and fecal matter into basements, streets, playgrounds, and waterways across the country.

My God, who would ever want to stop a rule that said you need to notify the public and minimize raw sewage into people's basements?

Earth Day is coming. What are we doing here?

That is just the first two on the list.

On February 12, just a couple weeks after he was inaugurated, the Department of Energy delayed implementation of a new energy-efficient standard for residential and commercial appliances and equipment.

Again, I come from a State that has an electricity crisis. The best way to deal with it is to make sure we conserve as much as we can. Why would anyone think it is in the public interest not to move ahead with those standards?

This goes on. Here I go. I just landed on this one, August 8, 2001: In a reversal of President Bush's Earth Day pledge to preserve wetlands, the Corps of Engineers proposed relaxing a series of rules designed to protect streams and other wetlands. The Forest Service granted authority to review road building and timber sale prices, removing protections for the most pristine and largest roadless national forests.

We have national forests. We protected them. And the administration wants to go and build roads in these most precious areas.

It goes on. December 2001, Interior Secretary Norton reverses her agency's denial of a Canadian company's proposal to locate a major open pit gold mine in an area of the Southern California desert that is of great cultural and religious importance. Former Interior Secretary Babbitt denied it because of the devastating impact it would have had on the resources of this site.

Wasn't that a cyanide mine? They used cyanide on a beautiful precious area that is a religious holy site.

My eyes are just landing on different items here.

December 14, right before Christmas, 2001, the Department of Energy says the Government no longer must prove the Yucca Mountain's underground rock formations would leak radioactive contamination into the environment.

Can you imagine dumping radioactive waste and not making sure that it wouldn't leak into the environment? What are they doing over there? It is shocking, absolutely shocking.

This upcoming Earth Day is a chance for the President to embrace his own ocean commission's recommendations and then to step to the plate and reverse some of these.

Here are some more: January 2002 through May 2002. President Bush releases the fiscal year 2003 Federal budget that eliminates the EPA's budget for graduate student research in the environmental sciences. Funding for the EPA's Star Grant Program, which provides highly motivated doctoral students with 3 years of funding to do environmental research, amounts to a little more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the EPA's budget.

Here is a program where young people who are dedicated to the environment can continue their education. Oh, no. This is something that is going to be cut from the budget.

May 10, 2002, EPA documents reveal that the Federal Office of Surface Mining is pushing to halt reforms that would ensure coal companies have plans to restore mining development before they can obtain mountain top removal permits.

Here is a coal mine that wants to go on the top of the mountain. And we always said you have to have a plan for how you are going to restore the mountaintop. They say it is OK; go ahead, destroy the mountains; we really do not care.

How could people understand all of this that is going on?

I am just picking a few.

Let us look at another chart. All of this is on the scroll.

The Bush anti-environmental record, May 2002 through August 2002: This is something Senator Jeffords talked about.

An Assistant Secretary at the Commerce Department testified that the Bush administration needs between 2 and 5 years to develop a national strategy to minimize global warming, and they will seek volunteer reductions instead of mandatory emission reductions.

The announcement came despite recent civilian employee reports confirming what most scientists have long believed--greenhouse gases generated by human activity are a major cause of climate change.

The Commerce Department says, Well, even though the scientists say this is global warming--and we have had hearings that show that slopes where people go skiing may not be there in the near future--they are just going to take their time about it and they are not going to require companies to clean up their act. They are going to use voluntary methods. This is just one more example. It goes on and on.

Here is August 2002 through December 2002. Can you imagine all of these rollbacks by one administration? It is shocking. Any one of these, I say, deserve days of discussions because of their ramifications.

Here is one, September 7, 2002: An investigation reveals that under the Bush administration the number of EPA personnel assigned to enforce air quality laws has fallen by 12 percent, the lowest level on record. In addition, the number of EPA civil enforcement employees also has been cut in the past year by 5.7 percent.

What does that mean? It means the people who are enforcing the laws we pass are being laid off or transferred out. The polluters understand it. They are not dumb; they know. If they are not being watched, they are not going to live up to their obligations.

It is a reversal of years of bipartisan progress. That is what hurts so much.

As I listened to my friend, Senator Jeffords, who made a very heartfelt decision to become an independent, one of the reasons he decided was the environment and that he was perplexed and discouraged and dismayed at what had happened to his party--his former party. I understand why he is perplexed.

We just looked at some of these. Let us go ahead. This doesn't stop. It goes on and on.

Here is 2002 through July 2003. The administration has reversed a Federal policy that protects public lands while Federal land managers are assessing possible designations of wilderness areas.

Let me explain that. In the past, if someplace is under consideration for wilderness designation, you don't go in there with mining companies and drills. You don't go in there and destroy it while the land is under consideration for wilderness designation. Once you destroy the wilderness, this pristine gift from God, it is gone. Never before have we seen where you go in there and disturb these beautiful areas. But that is what they do.

Here is one, June 6, clean water: The EPA has racked up an abysmal record of enforcing Federal water pollution standards, according to its own study. In the broadest effort to date to document the failure of the EPA and State to enforce the 30-year-old Clean Water Act, the Agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance found that at one time roughly 25 percent of all large industrial plants and water treatment facilities were in violation of Federal law, and in all but a handful of cases EPA failed to take action against the polluters.

The Clean Water Act is 30 years old, and now we are not enforcing it. The first Clean Water Act was passed under Harry Truman. It has been amended since then.

We have the Clean Water Act and they decided not to enforce it.

Here is one, March 19, 2004: The Federal Government has issued its first-ever warning that certain people should limit their consumption of canned albacore white tuna due to a risk of mercury poisoning. Under new guidelines issued by the U.S. FDA and EPA, pregnant and nursing women and young children should eat no more than 6 ounces of white tuna per week. According to experts on the FDA advisory panel, the recommendations do

not reflect the groups' view that children and pregnant women should completely eliminate albacore tuna from their diets and eat significantly less chunk light tuna than the Government suggests.

Vas Aposhian, a toxicology professor at the University of Arizona, resigned from the panel after the FDA did not heed its warnings.

Mercury is a serious problem, and Senator Jeffords has been a leader on that. Even though we know how harmful it is, they have even tried to downplay the impact of mercury on women and children.

This will complete more than 350 rollbacks. This is where we are as we approach this Earth Day.

I am happy to yield for a question.

I thank my friend for his comments. He is right.

My goodness, at the minimum, we should do no harm. In other words, let's do no harm. We should do a lot more. We should clean up. We should do better. We should set ourselves a standard of achievement on the environment so that areas get cleaner and the water gets purer. At the minimum, we have to stop bad things from happening.

As we look at more than 350 rollbacks made by this administration, going around the Congress, going through the executive branch by Executive order, and rules and interpretations, I tell you who has been protecting the people. The only way the people have been protected from some of these things is the courts. We are winning some of these battles in the courts.

Speaking of the courts, we are still fighting with the Bush-Cheney administration over the Vice President's desire to keep secret who sat in on his meetings as he put together the energy policies for this country which, as my friend knows, very much weigh heavily on the state of the environment, particularly the quality of the air.

I will be calling on the Vice President, and I might as well start now, to cease and desist in these lawsuits and turn over the records of who was in those meetings. Why should the Vice President not want to reveal this? Instead, it has taken years and thousands of hours of attorneys' time that the taxpayers are paying for, to keep all this secret.

I say to my friend, this is an open government, by and for the people. I don't see any reason why the Vice President needs to keep all of this secret. That is another issue on which we will be working.

I wish to talk about the Superfund. How much time remains?

I will conclude, and I assume my friend would like to speak again.

I say to the Senator, those words mean a lot to me. With all the other issues we face, and we face some very harsh issues, not the least of which is that this month alone I have lost 45 people in Iraq who either were from California or based in California--that weighs heavy on my heart--we have to do it all. There are no excuses.

This is only one environment. It is hard to bring it back when you destroy it.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

Absolutely.

Yes, despite all of our other pressures, we have to become tougher, stronger. We have to do everything we can.

I try to give out the Toxic Trophy Awards every time one of these things happens to try to draw attention to what is going on.

I return to my Earth Day comments and the Superfund Program. One in every four Americans, 70 million people, including 10 million children, lives within 4 miles of a Superfund site as we sit here today.

During its tenure in office, this administration has cut cleanups of those sites from 87 per year to 40 per year while refusing to fully fund the program.

Superfund is experiencing a funding shortfall of up to $800 million. This President Bush is the first President in history to oppose the ``polluter pays'' fee. His dad supported it, Ronald Reagan supported it, and Bill Clinton supported it. This was a consensus until now.

What does it mean when you do not have the polluter fee? It means the taxpayers, not the polluters, pay for the cleanup.

I will show how many Superfund sites we have in the United States: 1,239. As this chart shows, the sites are in almost every single State. Maybe a State or two escapes, but not many.

In 1995, polluters contributed 82 percent to the Superfund trust fund. As of October 1, 2003, the trust fund had no money collected from polluters. This means we will never be able to clean up the most hazardous wastesites. Do you know what has happened to this budget. When the keys were handed over in the Oval Office from Bill Clinton to George Bush, he had a surplus as far as the eye could see. It has been reckless over there. We now have deficits as far as the eye can see. It is a very anxious time in our country. Is this the time to now say to polluters, ``Don't worry, you don't need to pay a fee. We have enough money in the tax coffers to cover your problems?''

We all love to tell people, ``You don't have to pay taxes.'' That is the greatest thing for any of us to do. But of all the times to tell polluters, ``You don't have to clean up your room anymore,'' this is not the time.

My mother taught me: If you make a mess, you clean it up. I find myself quoting my mother more and more the older I get. She said other things like: Don't go where you're not wanted. She said a lot of smart things to me that I hold close to my heart. One thing is: Clean up your mess. She was talking about me when I was a kid in my room. I am talking about polluters, the messes they have made.

So where are we now? We are in a situation where we have reduced the cleanups. Let's look at it graphically on this chart. Through 2005, we are going to see 40, if we are lucky--and no money. And when Bill Clinton took office, the cleanups increased. But George Bush has radically decreased the pace of cleanup from former administrations, that is for sure. He has not gotten back to this level as shown on the chart.

But look at where we are now. Whether you look at the Superfund sites, whether you look at air pollution, whether you look at safe drinking water, whether you look at mercury, whether you look at global warming, whether you look at deep cuts in enforcement, whether you look at perchlorate, which they refuse to set a standard for, whether you look at the changes of the Sierra Nevada framework, we are hurting the environment and the people of this country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and hope all of us can work together on this Earth Day to change things around here.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I have just returned from San Francisco, a city whose heart has been broken by the tragic shooting death of a brave young police officer. On April 10, Isaac Espinoza was killed in the line of duty at the age of 29.

Officer Espinoza died doing the duty he loved: protecting the community from gang violence. He had volunteered to work as a plain clothes officer in the gang suppression unit of Bayview Police Station, where he served with distinction for 7 of his 8 years on the San Francisco police force.

Officer Espinoza was well known and liked in the Bayview neighborhood. Residents trusted him, and they appreciated his efforts to defuse violence and get guns off the streets. His outstanding work was recognized by the Police Department, which honored him with a Silver Medal of Valor and a Purple Heart as well as a Police Commission commendation.

Isaac Espinoza was also a loving husband, father, and son. My heart goes out to his wife, daughter, and family. I want them to know that the entire community shares their grief. All San Francisco feels the loss of Isaac's death, just as we all appreciate the gift of his life and work.

A gallant police officer is gone, but he will not be forgotten. We can and must carry on his work by giving community police officers and other first responders the resources they need to bring peace and safety to our Nation's streets and neighborhoods.

Mr. President, I am voting for this pension conference report, but I do so with serious reservations.

There are 35 million workers nationwide who participate in single- employer pension plans and who will benefit from this legislation. They need help now. Many of their pension plans are in trouble. Some are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. This bill will help ensure greater retirement security for these hard working Americans.

Unfortunately, this bill does not help all pension plans and all workers. More than 9 million workers in multi-employer pension plans will not be covered by this bill. All of these workers were covered in the bill that passed the Senate, which I supported and which passed the Senate with 86 votes. Leaving them out was a partisan and ideological decision that leaves us with a truly sub-par solution to the pension plan crisis in America.

There is nothing wrong with what is in the bill. The problem is what has been left out. Senator Kennedy is absolutely right on the merits. We should help all workers. We should not be picking winners and losers. I will work with Senator Kennedy and the rest of my colleagues to pass the Senate provision on assisting multi-employer plans at the first and every available opportunity.

Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize Juan Mejia for his achievement in becoming the Tulare County spelling bee champion and his entrance into the prestigious National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C.

Juan was born in Guzman, Mexico and moved to the United States when he was a year and a half old. He learned English while attending pre- school at a Head Start Program at Sundale School. Continuing on to Kohn Elementary he distinguished himself as a bright and motivated student and was accepted into the GATE program for gifted students. Now at Live Oak Middle School he continues to excel in his studies and extra- curricular activities.

Juan Mejia's achievement in the Tulare County Spelling Bee is particularly notable because of his late introduction to the English language. By working hard and using all available resources, Juan overcame an educational barrier to become a master of the English language. For his focus, fortitude and determined work, I congratulate him and wish him the best of luck in the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. Regardless of the outcome in the National Spelling Bee, Juan Mejia is a tremendous success and a worthy example of how challenges can be met and overcome with focused effort and perseverance.

Mr. President, I am pleased to recognize Doug Harrison's lifetime of service to the Fresno Metropolitan Flood Control District, and most importantly, the people of Fresno County.

In 1970, Doug Harrison began a career with the FMFCD. He served as general manager for 31 years. Mr. Harrison led the effort that designed and implemented a storm drainage system that ended regular flooding which had plagued residences and businesses for generations. Under his leadership, the construction of flood retention basins throughout the Fresno-Clovis metropolitan area became part of a network of groundwater recharge facilities, and in recent years Mr. Harrison led efforts to work with community groups, such as Tree Fresno, to landscape many of these facilities. The result has been the protection of property, replenishment of vital groundwater resources and beautiful greenspace, as well as recreational facilities at many basins.

Mr. Harrison is an exemplary public servant, who has worked tirelessly for a broad constituency. He has made the lives of many people better. His innovation, energy and dedication will be missed. To him, I say thank you. He is a public servant in the best and truest sense of the word.

Mr. President, we are facing a filibuster on an amendment I offered with Senator Kennedy, with great support across the board. I thank Senator Reed for his support of this very simple amendment.

We are facing a filibuster on whether we can vote on raising the minimum wage. I cannot think of a more cruel filibuster in my life. Why on Earth would anyone, Republican or Democrat, try to block a vote on this very important matter? I hear all about compassionate conservatism. Fine. Show it to me. Where is it?

People at the minimum wage have been stuck there for 7 years. That is how long it has been since we raised it. Give us a chance to have an up-or-down vote on raising the minimum wage. I ask my colleagues to try and live on $10,800 a year. Think about your rent or your mortgage payment. If it is $800 a month, that is it. You use up all of your money.

Some Members say we are trying to raise it way out of proportion. We are not. It is a rather modest increase, from $5.15 to $7 an hour.

I will show a few charts that tell the story better. People who work at the minimum wage are working well below the poverty line. This red line on this chart is the poverty line for a family of three. A family of three is way below the poverty line. They are headed straight down, as shown on this chart. I do not understand why we want to keep people below the poverty line.

Nearly three-quarters of minimum wage workers are adults. We are not talking about kids. When I was a kid, I used to work at the minimum wage. Fine. It was great. I made 50 cents an hour. That gives away my age. Imagine if those Members of the Senator were still in the Senate. We would still have a minimum wage of 50 cents an hour. My goodness, we need to raise the minimum wage.

Seventy-two percent are adults. How can we look at these people and tell them they do not deserve an increase? By the way, they will still be below poverty even after we raise them to $7.

Every day we delay, minimum wage workers fall further behind. All the gains of the 1996 minimum wage increase have been lost already. The time is long overdue that we raise the minimum wage.

People are working hard but losing ground. The real value of the minimum wage: Today it is worth $4.98. That is what hard-working people are getting, $10,800 a year for a family of three. With our minimum wage increase, there would be a $3,800 yearly increase in wages. That would pay far more than 2 years of childcare.

We talk about how important this welfare bill is. As a matter of fact, my friend from Pennsylvania had a chart showing how wonderful it has been that children have been lifted out of poverty. Of course, we are seeing now an increase in poverty. During the Clinton years, that was true. There were so many jobs, 22 million jobs created, compared to 3 million jobs lost under Bush. Kids were lifted out of poverty.

This minimum wage increase would give children more childcare. That is important. It provides 2 years of health care; provides full tuition for a community college degree; provides a year and a half of heat and electricity; provides more than a year of groceries; provides more than 9 months of rent.

When we give to people at the lower echelon an increase in the minimum wage, they will spend it, and that will fuel our economic recovery. I ask our friends on the other side, Why are you opposing us?

We will look at which Presidents have signed minimum wage increases into law: FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Republican; John Kennedy, Democrat; Lyndon Johnson, Democrat; Gerald Ford, Republican; James Carter, Democrat; George H.W. Bush, Republican; William Clinton, Democrat.

The people who are trying to stop an increase in the minimum wage are going against a whole array of Democratic and Republican Presidents. Our increase is quite modest as shown by my chart.

American families are suffering since the Bush administration took hold. Look what has happened: 13 million children hungry; 8 million Americans unemployed; 8 million workers losing overtime. That is what they want to do. There are 7 million low-wage workers, some waiting 7 years for a minimum wage increase. All we want is an up-or-down vote. They are filibustering it. There are 3 million more Americans in poverty since President Bush took office and 90,000 workers a week losing unemployment benefits.

I hope compassionate Senators on both sides of the aisle, I hope savvy Senators on both sides of the aisle, will definitely allow a vote on this very simple proposition. Seven years ago we raised the minimum wage. It is time to do it again.

Take it to the people in your States. Ask them how they feel. The polls are overwhelming. More than 70 percent of the people want to see an increase in the minimum wage. Yet in this Chamber, one would think we are asking for something that makes no sense. We want to get people off of welfare. That is the point of the underlying bill. Let's get them into work that pays.

Mr. President, I retain the remainder of our time on this side.

Thank you very much for asking. We are ready to vote on the minimum wage right now. We do not need any more debate time.

The message we are sending is to the people in America

who need to have an increase. That is the message. We want to have that vote.

Reserving the right to object.

I say to my friend, there are a series of amendments that are important to the working people of this country. Overtime--the Bush administration is trying to take away overtime--we want a vote on that. The unemployment insurance, which has run out for millions of Americans, we want a vote on that. There are a series of amendments that deal with making lives better for the people.

Mr. SANTORUM addressed the floor.

This Senate is not the House. We are Senators. We are free to offer amendments.

I absolutely would agree if he would modify his request. We can agree on time agreements for these and keep it open for the rest of the amendments, and then we will agree.

I object, as he has done it. But I will agree to modify it.

Mr. President, two and a half years ago, the United States was caught unprepared when it came to aviation security. The results were devastating.

Since then, we have greatly improved our aviation security, and we have begun to improve our port security. We have a long way to go in both of these areas.

But, we have a longer way to go to secure our rail system--both passenger, freight, and local transit.

In October 2001, the Commerce Committee passed a rail security bill to authorize $1.77 billion over two years for Amtrak. We knew that the United States must not be caught off-guard when it comes to our passenger and freight rail systems.

Unfortunately, the bill never became law.

And, now, we have received another warning. In March, terrorists blew up commuter trains in Madrid killing nearly 200 people and injuring 1,400. We must heed this warning and address the vulnerability of America's rail systems. We must act now.

Today, I am introducing legislation that will authorize funding for more police, canine dogs, and surveillance equipment on Amtrak and local transit systems. The bill will authorize $500 million per year for five years. One-third of the funding will be spent on Amtrak based on passenger ridership and the remainder of the funding will be spent on securing rail and transit.

This is important for the entire nation, but it is especially important for California. California has the second highest Amtrak ridership in the country. Almost 9 million passenger trips began or ended in California during fiscal year 2003. Amtrak operates an average of 68 intercity and 300 commuter trains per day in California.

The freight rail system is also important for goods movement. California's ports receive over 40 percent of all of the goods that are shipped into the United States. Many of the imports are shipped by rail through California and to the rest of the nation. If there were a terrorist attack, the impact on our economy would be devastating.

Finally, local communities throughout California have mass transit systems. For example, Muni, in San Francisco, is the 7th largest transit system in the nation. There is light rail in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego. Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority has buses that go directly to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has weapons research.

It is vitally important to ensure that our nation's entire transportation system is secure. It is time we stopped ignoring our rail systems.

Mr. President, two and a half years ago, the United States was caught unprepared when it came to aviation security. The results were devastating.

Since then, we have greatly improved our aviation security, and we have begun to improve our port security. We have a long way to go in both of these areas.

But, we have a longer way to go to secure our rail system--both passenger, freight, and local transit.

In October 2001, the Commerce Committee passed a rail security bill to authorize $1.77 billion over two years for Amtrak. We knew that the United States must not be caught off-guard when it comes to our passenger and freight rail systems.

Unfortunately, the bill never became law.

And, now, we have received another warning. In March, terrorists blew up commuter trains in Madrid killing nearly 200 people and injuring 1,400. We must heed this warning and address the vulnerability of America's rail systems. We must act now.

Today, I am introducing legislation that will authorize funding for more police, canine dogs, and surveillance equipment on Amtrak and local transit systems. The bill will authorize $500 million per year for five years. One-third of the funding will be spent on Amtrak based on passenger ridership and the remainder of the funding will be spent on securing rail and transit.

This is important for the entire nation, but it is especially important for California. California has the second highest Amtrak ridership in the country. Almost 9 million passenger trips began or ended in California during fiscal year 2003. Amtrak operates an average of 68 intercity and 300 commuter trains per day in California.

The freight rail system is also important for goods movement. California's ports receive over 40 percent of all of the goods that are shipped into the United States. Many of the imports are shipped by rail through California and to the rest of the nation. If there were a terrorist attack, the impact on our economy would be devastating.

Finally, local communities throughout California have mass transit systems. For example, Muni, in San Francisco, is the 7th largest transit system in the nation. There is light rail in Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego. Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority has buses that go directly to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which has weapons research.

It is vitally important to ensure that our nation's entire transportation system is secure. It is time we stopped ignoring our rail systems.

Mr. President, we have heard all these glowing figures from the other side of the aisle about this economy. I want to give a little dose of reality.

Today the unemployment insurance extension runs out. This Senate refused to act. I don't know how many times Senator Cantwell has made that unanimous consent request.

In my State, it is estimated if unemployment benefits are not extended, 314,344 workers will lose benefits in the first 6 months of the year. This is outrageous.

This is the first time I can ever remember where a political party in charge could care less about people who are unemployed. Look at the record here. This is real. Let's go back to the Hoover administration, when there was a decrease in job creation. During every other administration--Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton--private sector employment increased.

Not now. Here we are at a moment when people are running out of their unemployment extension. I will read you a letter written by Kathleen Fontana of Scotts Valley, CA:

Dear Members of Congress: I am a single parent of two

teenage boys and unemployed and unable to apply for the

extension of UI. I was laid off July 2, 2004 . . . after 38

years with TWA. Needless to say, I am 60 years old, having

been forced to live off my home equity loan in order to make

ends meet. The unemployment extension needs to be passed and

reinstated for us American citizens that are having these

financial difficulties in the career area. More jobs are

leaving the U.S. and more money is leaving here, too. Iraq is

only one example. Things need to change and people at home

need help too. . . . We need your votes to change this and

have the extension of UI benefits.

As I go around my State--and I have been doing that a lot--the basic theme I am hearing is this: Senator, it is time for this country; it is time for America; it is time to think about our people and our workers.

I could not even believe it. I went into farm country and the rice farmers there who are sending their sons and daughters off to war--the contracts for rice are for the people of Iraq; they went out of the country. This is taxpayer dollars, American taxpayer dollars. Instead of saying, OK, we are going to rebuild Iraq and do it with American business and farmers, oh, no, we could not do that. Our State Department would not like that.

I am here to tell you there is something brewing in the countryside. People are angry about the fact that they seem to be last in line.

Let's look at some of these job loss numbers since this President came into power. Under Ronald Reagan, we had 165,000 jobs created per month. That was terrific. He was a beloved President. Under George H.W. Bush, 47,604 jobs were created a month. That was not very good. Under Bill Clinton, there was an extraordinary leap, to 236,625 jobs created per month. That is why kids got lifted out of poverty.

I saw a chart Senator Santorum had and it is beautiful. It shows how the African-American children are seeing poverty decline--up until last year. It is because during the Clinton administration we did welfare reform and we had a great economy. Then under George W. Bush, 58,815 jobs have been lost per month. It is a pathetic situation. If you translate that to my State, what we see in this situation is, again what has happened here and why we have to at least, A, be compassionate to the people who need extended unemployment benefits; B, we need to raise the minimum wage; C, we need to kill this administration's crazy idea to take overtime away from hard-working people.

Let's get this country back on track. It should be time for America.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Kennedy and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to offer this amendment with my colleague from Massachusetts who is the true leader on the issue of trying to raise the minimum wage so that people who are trying to get into the workforce, get off of welfare and subsidy, will be able to actually support their families so that we actually reward work, and it is going to make a huge difference.

Before I go into my remarks, I do want to, however, respond to my friend who spoke about how important it is to call your Senators and ask them to pass that Energy bill that we killed. I hope when you call us, you will tell us not to pass that one. That one was a travesty of justice for consumers. It was a terrible bill if you care about the environment. And it was a terrible bill if you believe that there is already too much corporate welfare because there were huge subsidies to the nuclear industry.

There were huge subsidies by way of giving a liability waiver to those companies that made MTBE, which destroyed drinking water supplies all over the country. The Senate was sending this bill over to a conference committee, and it comes back with this liability waiver. It is a terrible bill.

Yes, there are places we could drill in this country, where the folks want it there and the oil is there. Off the Gulf of Mexico, near Louisiana, certain places in Alaska, it makes sense. But it does not make sense to pass an Energy bill that is back to the future because it doesn't understand that times have changed and just a couple of extra miles of fuel economy and fuel efficiency in our automobiles can mean that we will have fields and fields of energy in the future.

The last point I want to make--and then I want to talk about this amendment which is important to this bill--is that on April 25 or thereabouts, taxpayers are funding a court case where Dick Cheney, the Vice President, is refusing to reveal who came into his office when he put together an energy report and worked on an Energy bill. It is outrageous that taxpayers have to go all the way to the Supreme Court, essentially, because they are paying for the defense of Dick Cheney, and he refuses to reveal who met with him about the Energy bill, what they talked about, and what their interests were. We know Enron was in that meeting. That much we know. But I don't know who else was there.

So I just wanted to answer the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Craig, because in my view, we did a great service to the people by not passing that particular Energy bill. Let's pass an Energy bill that is a good Energy bill.

Now, I want to get to the amendment I sent to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Kennedy and lay the groundwork for why it is so important to this welfare reform bill.

The last time the Federal minimum wage was raised it was $4.25 an hour. In 1996, it was raised to $5.15. It was over a 2-year period. So that is 8 years ago; 8 years ago we raised the Federal minimum wage. Those people at the bottom of the economic ladder are living on $10,700 a year.

I don't know if my colleagues are aware of what it costs to rent an apartment, if you have a family, and you are trying to raise a family on this amount of money. I guess you might be lucky, in my neck of the woods, to try and get some sort of an apartment for $800 a month or $850, if you could even find one. You can't find it around here, a decent size place. That would use up the entire salary of someone living on the minimum wage.

I say to my colleagues, please support this. How can we expect people to live on this amount of money, to be able to afford rent, food, the minimum requirements for raising a family?

I am happy to yield.

The Senator is correct.

My friend is accurate.

That is absolutely true. In my State we have a minimum wage that is higher than the Federal minimum wage, but there is no question that the Federal minimum wage is a benchmark number.

A poverty rate for a family of three in our country today is $15,607. And for a family of four, it is $18,850. So, yes, if you are a single mom or a single dad and you are working at a minimum-wage job, you are making less than people who are considered to be in poverty. What a travesty.

And even if you have two workers working at the minimum wage, you would barely get out of the poverty range. So we are talking about a severe deficiency in compassion. These days, we hear a lot about compassionate conservatives. I have seen a conservative side. I want to see the compassionate side on this particular vote.

How can anyone believe it is fair to keep the minimum wage where it has been for 8 years? It is not fair.

We are talking about a bill that seeks to lift people out of the darkest, deepest economic hole. We want to start them on their way to being able to take care of themselves and their families. You cannot lift yourself out of a deep economic hole on a minimum-wage job.

As my friend from Nevada points out, we used to think of the minimum wage--when I was a kid it was 50 cents an hour, and the kids took the minimum-wage jobs. What I used to work at when I was a kid was 50 cents an hour.

I am showing my age. Maybe I shouldn't do that. But we didn't look at families who were surviving on that. Today we are looking at families who are surviving on the minimum wage.

We can be sure of one thing: If we don't lift the minimum wage, people may move off of welfare into the workforce, but they will not move out of poverty.

Studies have shown that between half and three-quarters of those who are leaving welfare remain poor for up to 3 years. The courage that it takes to train yourself for work, to get up every day and not even to be able to afford to pay the rent--this isn't right.

Some may say: Senator, these minimum-wage jobs are just starter jobs. They are just a few months.

Studies prove that you may be stuck in that job for 3 years, and that is just average. You may be stuck in that job for 6 years. With the economic circumstances of the last 3 years, where we have seen a loss of 3 million private sector jobs, it isn't as if you have a tremendous array of jobs out there.

What will our amendment do? Our amendment will increase the Federal minimum wage to $7 an hour in three steps over 2 years and 2 months. It would raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour today to $5.85 an hour in 2 months, after enactment of this act, then to $6.45 in another year, and then to $7 a year after that. Even at that rate of $7, you are barely able to survive. But at least we are moving the minimum wage toward a more livable wage.

Let me talk about California. My State stepped out and looked at the Federal minimum wage and said: This cannot be. This will not work in our State, where the rental costs are so high; where the food costs, even though we are the breadbasket of the world, are high; where the cost of transit is high. So in my State, the minimum wage today is $6.75.

The States cannot do it alone. The Federal Government has to set the standard of compassion and fairness and make work an honorable endeavor.

The best social program is a job. I agree with that. I would much prefer that people work than not. But work has to be rewarded. You may ask: Senator Boxer, why does this bill matter since your State has a higher minimum wage of $6.75? It is very clear. The Federal Government sets the floor for workers everywhere, and it is a guide to all States, including my State. Even a small increase to $7 will help 393,000 workers in California, if California keeps the minimum wage at $6.75.

Raising the minimum wage helps many more low-wage workers than just those earning the minimum wage because it does set the standard. You have heard that many cities and counties all over the country are casting what they call ``livable wages,'' because they are looking at a minimum wage and realizing that it is really a sub-minimum wage; it isn't going to really work. Why not have a minimum wage that we can be proud of here? That is what Senator Kennedy and I are trying to do today.

Let's look at what has happened in the area of poverty in our country. The poverty rate rose to 12.1 percent in America in 2002, from 11.7 percent in 2001. So this administration's economic policies, which caused the loss of so many private sector jobs, has seen an increase in poverty. And 1.7 million people have been added to the ranks of the poor, including many women and many children. You can be a compassionate conservative, a compassionate progressive, or a compassionate liberal, or anything you want to call yourself. Compassion is the name of the game. It will help our country. I will talk about that in a minute.

Let's look at what else has happened. First, you have 12.1 million children living in poverty today. In 2002, 34.6 million Americans were living in poverty. Think about that. I have 35 million people in my State, and 34 million Americans were in poverty in 2002. The whole State of California equals the number of people who were in poverty. That is an enormous number. My State, if it were a nation, would be the fifth largest in terms of its GDP. Imagine if every person in my State were in poverty. That is what we have. So we have 12 million children in poverty.

Let's look at something else. For the first time in many years, working Americans' wage growth is almost stagnant, while during the last term of the Clinton administration those wages grew. So what am I saying to you? We have seen an increase in poverty among women and children and families, we have seen an increase in the poverty rate, and we see wage growth that is almost stagnant.

From the end of 1996 to the end of 2000, full-time workers saw their usual weekly earnings grow faster than inflation, and those gains in real wages were evident for both higher and lower wage workers. In fact, the lowest earning 10 percent of the workers saw their wages increase 2 percent greater than inflation. So before the Bush administration, we saw this wonderful real wage growth--wages that were going up faster than inflation. In contrast, from the end of 2000 until the end of 2003, real weekly earnings for working-class Americans stagnated. The lowest 10 percent of American workers have seen their wages go up by 0.2 percent; whereas, before, they went up 2.1 percent. Now it is 0.2 percent. So people are working harder and they are just not getting ahead at all.

Again, whether we call ourselves conservatives, moderates, or liberals, that doesn't matter to me. I just think the word ``compassion'' comes into it. Also, a word that has to come into this-- or two words--are ``smart policy.'' Why is it smart policy? I will get into that.

One of the arguments you hear against raising the minimum wage--and you hear it every time--is don't raise the minimum wage because it is going to hurt employers. We have heard that since the very first day I was working in a minimum-wage job at 50 cents an hour. What if Congress in the past decided to just hold firm at 50 cents an hour? I am sure Senator Kennedy heard the same arguments all those years ago, when people came to the floor and said 50 cents an hour is enough, and don't raise the minimum wage because it will be a burden to employers.

The truth is that we have seen in the history of the greatest country in the world, when you raise the minimum wage, everyone does better. Workers perform better. They are more productive. Business does better. They are more productive. Their profit margins go up. So let us not hear the same old,

same old, same old words from the past that, oh, it is a burden on everyone. No, it has proven to be an economic stimulus.

There is another theory I would like to test with my colleagues who have supported tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. If you are a millionaire, you are going to get back $120,000 a year. Think about that, folks. If you are a millionaire, under the Bush tax cut, you will get a cut in taxes of $120,000 a year. A minimum-wage earner today, working full time, 8 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week, earns $10,800 a year. So my calculation is that this year's tax cut for millionaires is 11 times the yearly income of a full-time minimum-wage worker.

What are we doing? Why are we here? I admire the folks in the upper income brackets, and I happen to know a lot of them in California. Do you know what they say to me? They say: Senator, you make sure everyone is brought along. When everybody is brought along, we do better. First, we feel better about ourselves and our country, but we do better. Why do we do better? Because the people who will get this increase--the $7 an hour--are going to spend that money in the economy. It is a no- brainer.

My colleagues can make every argument about how giving back $120,000 a year to the wealthiest among us will stimulate the economy. They call it ``trickle down.'' They love trickle down when it applies to the wealthy. Oh, give it to the wealthy; they will go out and spend it. The fact is, the wealthiest people already have the refrigerator or two; they already have the two homes or three; they already have the yachts. They already have what they need. They are not going to go out and spend it. They probably will sock it away.

The bottom line is, when a worker gets another couple of bucks in his pocket and has to support his or her family, they will go to the store on the corner and spend the money, and it is going to give a boost to this economy. So let us not say that trickle down only works when you give to the rich. Let's also admit that the fact is, when you give to the middle class--and that is what I support, middle-class tax cuts and tax cuts to the working poor--you are really going to drive consumer spending. We know that low-income workers and moderate-income workers put their earnings right back into this economy, and they don't even have time to think about it because they have to buy clothes for the kids and food for the table. They will spend 100 percent of that increase; whereas, the wealthier taxpayers are unlikely to put that windfall back into the consumer-driven economy.

To just sum up my remarks--and I know the Senator from Massachusetts is going to add mightily to these arguments--let me say this. We are doing a welfare bill. Everybody wants to see people get off welfare and go to work. Every one of us should also want to make sure that when people get into the workforce and they work hard, their work is rewarded, their work means something, and they won't be stuck in poverty forever if they are stuck in a minimum-wage job.

Let us show not only our compassion, let us show our respect for work; let us show our understanding of economics.

I have a degree in economics. Granted, it was a long time ago. I was a stockbroker and it was a long time ago.

I know when you put money in the hands of people who need to spend it, it is going right back into the economy. This particular amendment has all the attributes we should all want to see. It will be a stimulus to the economy. It will get people out of poverty. It will set a standard for the rest of the States. It is fair, it is overdue, and the time is now.

I commend my colleague from Massachusetts. This is his initiative. He knows how much I care about this issue and is willing to share it with me. I am so honored to have my name associated with this amendment. I am very hopeful we can come together today and adopt it.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

I am sure the Senator would be happy to agree to a 5- minute limit. The Senator from Iowa gets up and says this is a noble thing to raise the minimum wage, but you are holding up the welfare bill.

We will vote on this in 60 seconds from now. The American people are for this. Does my friend agree the American people are fairminded and for this?

Mr. President, will my friend yield for another question?

We are charged with giving pay increases to the Federal workforce. We do it every year, do we not?

Our colleagues accept it. I do not know of anyone who does not accept the automatic adjustment in their pay.

Does the Senator not think it is an outrage? We work hard and we make a decent living. We get an automatic cost-of-living adjustment unless we stop it. Yet the same people who take a cost-of- living adjustment for themselves won't give a small increase to the people at the bottom of the ladder who are trying so hard to make something of themselves and rise above problems, illness, and poverty-- sometimes for generations--and want to be able to get into the workforce.

My colleague says Tommy Thompson says it is important that these be good jobs. I wonder if any of our colleagues could live on $10,800 a year. I do not think they could. I do not think so.