Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I send to the desk a private relief bill to provide permanent resident status to Juan and Alejandro Gomez, and ask that it be appropriately referred.

Juan, 18, and Alejandro, 20, are natives of Colombia who came to the U.S. with their parents in August 1990 on B-2 visitors visas. They currently reside in Miami, FL with their parents. They are now the subjects of an October 14, 2007, voluntary departure date under an order of deportation. The date of their departure has been extended from September 14, 2007. Juan and Alejandro have lived continuously in the U.S. for the last 17 years. They have both graduated from Miami Killian High School and are currently enrolled in Miami Dade Community College. They have the strong support of their community. It would be an extreme hardship to uproot Juan and Alejandro from their community, which has wholeheartedly embraced them, to send them back to Colombia where there lives could be in serious danger.

We all know that the circumstances of Juan and Alejandro aren't unique. Just like many other children here illegally, they had no control over their parents' decision to overstay their visas a number of years ago. Most of these young people work hard to complete school and contribute to their communities. Cases like Juan's and Alejandro's are the reason why the so called DREAM Act was attached to the comprehensive immigration reform legislation that the Senate attempted to pass earlier this year, only to face a filibuster from opponents of any comprehensive immigration reform proposal.

The DREAM Act has broad partisan support and is not the reason that the immigration bill has stalled in the Senate. I would hope that consideration could be given to de-linking the DREAM Act from the larger bill so that we can put in place a legal framework for dealing with young people who are caught in this unfortunate immigration status. But that is not likely to happen soon enough to address the problems confronting Juan and Alejandro.

That is why I have decided to introduce a private bill on their behalf. I will also be writing to Senator Edward Kennedy, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration to request, pursuant to the Subcommittee's Rules of Procedure, that the Subcommittee formally request an expedited departmental report from the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services regarding the Gomez brothers so that the Subcommittee can then move forward to give consideration to this bill as soon as possible.

I had an opportunity to meet Juan and Alejandro recently. They believe that America is their home. They love our country and want to have an opportunity to fulfill their dreams of becoming full participants in this country. Passage of the private bill would give them that opportunity. I look forward to working with the Subcommittee to facilitate its passage.

Mr. President, today I send to the desk a private relief bill to provide permanent resident status to Juan and Alejandro Gomez, and ask that it be appropriately referred.

Juan, 18, and Alejandro, 20, are natives of Colombia who came to the U.S. with their parents in August 1990 on B-2 visitors visas. They currently reside in Miami, FL with their parents. They are now the subjects of an October 14, 2007, voluntary departure date under an order of deportation. The date of their departure has been extended from September 14, 2007. Juan and Alejandro have lived continuously in the U.S. for the last 17 years. They have both graduated from Miami Killian High School and are currently enrolled in Miami Dade Community College. They have the strong support of their community. It would be an extreme hardship to uproot Juan and Alejandro from their community, which has wholeheartedly embraced them, to send them back to Colombia where there lives could be in serious danger.

We all know that the circumstances of Juan and Alejandro aren't unique. Just like many other children here illegally, they had no control over their parents' decision to overstay their visas a number of years ago. Most of these young people work hard to complete school and contribute to their communities. Cases like Juan's and Alejandro's are the reason why the so called DREAM Act was attached to the comprehensive immigration reform legislation that the Senate attempted to pass earlier this year, only to face a filibuster from opponents of any comprehensive immigration reform proposal.

The DREAM Act has broad partisan support and is not the reason that the immigration bill has stalled in the Senate. I would hope that consideration could be given to de-linking the DREAM Act from the larger bill so that we can put in place a legal framework for dealing with young people who are caught in this unfortunate immigration status. But that is not likely to happen soon enough to address the problems confronting Juan and Alejandro.

That is why I have decided to introduce a private bill on their behalf. I will also be writing to Senator Edward Kennedy, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Immigration to request, pursuant to the Subcommittee's Rules of Procedure, that the Subcommittee formally request an expedited departmental report from the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services regarding the Gomez brothers so that the Subcommittee can then move forward to give consideration to this bill as soon as possible.

I had an opportunity to meet Juan and Alejandro recently. They believe that America is their home. They love our country and want to have an opportunity to fulfill their dreams of becoming full participants in this country. Passage of the private bill would give them that opportunity. I look forward to working with the Subcommittee to facilitate its passage.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the fiscal year 2008 Transportation-HUD appropriations bill, which was passed by the Senate earlier today.

I would like to begin by thanking Chairwoman Murray and Ranking Member Bond. Crafting legislation that seeks to meet the transportation and housing needs of our Nation is no easy feat, and I commend the hard work of the chairwoman, the ranking member, my colleagues on the subcommittee, and their staffs.

The legislation passed by the Senate provides nearly $105 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. Almost $66 billion is allocated to the Department of Transportation and nearly $39 billion is allocated to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

I would like to speak on some of the transit and housing provisions in this legislation that fall under the Banking Committee's jurisdiction.

I note that although this bill provides an increase in transit funding over fiscal year 2007, it does not fund transit at the level authorized in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, SAFETEA-LU, the surface transportation authorization bill which Congress passed just 2 years ago. Safe and efficient transit systems provide significant benefits both to transit riders and to others in the community, including employers, property owners, and automobile drivers. In fact, the Texas Transportation Institute has estimated that transit saves Americans over $18 billion a year by reducing the amount of time we spend in traffic. Moreover, in this era of high gasoline prices, public transportation provides an additional benefit: according to economists Robert Shapiro and Kevin Hassett, public transportation saves more than 855 million gallons of gasoline a year, helping to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Transit ridership is at its highest level in 40 years, and strong support for transit is essential in light of this increasing demand. I hope that this shortfall will be addressed by the conference committee.

I would like to thank Senators Murray and Bond, as well as my ranking member on the Banking Committee, Senator Shelby, for working with me to include an amendment related to the Federal Transit Administration's proposed rule implementing the New Starts program. Through the New Starts program, the Federal Government helps to fund major transit investments in communities around the country. The proposed rule fails to follow SAFETEA-LU in several material respects, and at the same time, introduces new concepts that were not authorized in SAFETEA-LU. This amendment makes clear that the FTA's failure to follow the law is unacceptable.

I am pleased that this bill provides additional funding, above the President's request, for many critical housing and community development programs. Unfortunately, the administration continues to request insufficient funds for these programs, and, in fact, each year has asked Congress to cut programs that assist our Nation's most vulnerable--children, seniors, and those with disabilities. Each year, we attempt to restore these cuts, and this year is no exception. Chairwoman Murray, and Ranking Member Bond, strong supporters of these programs, have, once again, successfully restored most of the cuts, helping to ensure that low-income families will have safe, decent and affordable housing in strong communities.

The housing programs funded in this bill assist millions of families around our country. Without housing assistance, many families would lack the stability to find and retain employment, and many children would be unable to adequately perform in school because of multiple moves or health problems resulting from inadequate housing, including asthma, poor nutrition and lead poisoning.

The wages of working families have not kept pace with housing costs. On average, a family in our country must earn $16.31 per hour at a full-time job in order to afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment without foregoing other basic needs. This amount is three times the minimum wage. In my home State of Connecticut, the wage needed to afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment is almost 4 times the minimum wage. This significant gap between the wages of low-income earners and housing costs makes evident that housing assistance is necessary for many working Americans.

This bill restores funding to the public housing program, which houses over 1.2 million of our Nation's lowest-income families. The public housing program has been targeted by this administration for deep cuts each year, and has lost hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 7 years. This year, the administration sought cuts to public housing funding of almost $500 million. The bill before us restores these cuts, increasing funding for the Public Housing Capital Fund by $61 million, the Operating Fund by $336 million, and restoring funding for the successful Hope VI program. Even these levels of funding are lower than what is realistically needed by public housing agencies to operate all of their units, but we are pleased to see these increases.

The bill we passed also increases funding for the Section 8 housing voucher program to ensure that all families currently in the program can retain housing. In addition, the bill provides funding for vouchers for veterans to make sure that American veterans have access to stable and affordable housing. It is a national disgrace that veterans, who have defended our country, are unable to access housing assistance in their times of need, and I strongly support the efforts of Senators Murray and Bond to address this critical failure.

The Section 8 housing voucher program assists over 2 million families in affording rents in the private housing market. While the appropriators have done an exceptional job at protecting this program from budget cuts, a combination of legislative language and administrative changes have altered the funding formula in the Section 8 program numerous times over the last several years, leaving housing agencies without assurance that all of their units will be funded. I applaud Senators Murray and Bond for including language in this bill retaining the Section 8 formula that was put in place last year--a formula that allocates funding in a reasonable way, and provides funding stability for housing agencies and the families they serve. I urge the chairwoman and ranking member to retain this formula throughout the whole appropriations process.

This bill also ensures that programs to house seniors, people with disabilities and people living with HIV/AIDS are fully funded. The President, astonishingly, requested a cut of $160 million to the senior housing program, and a cut of $112 million to the housing program for people with disabilities. I want to thank Chairwoman Murray and Ranking Member Bond for restoring these significant and shortsighted cuts.

The bill we passed also seeks to increase funding for CDBG and the HOME program, two flexible sources of funds that communities use to house families across the income spectrum, provide rental assistance, rehabilitate housing and public facilities, provide and sustain homeownership opportunities, and restore and strengthen communities. In this bill, CDBG funding has been increased by $288 million over last year's funding level, and HOME has been increased by over $200 million, including an additional $100 million for housing counseling, specifically for counseling to prevent foreclosures, an increase I sought and strongly support.

This $100 million is critical to helping build the counseling infrastructure that can help tens of thousands of American families threatened with default and foreclosure save their homes, preserve their home equity, and maintain their dignity. As many of my colleagues know, the subprime mortgage market has been rife with abusive and predatory lending practices that have led to millions of Americans being trapped in adjustable rate mortgages, ARMs, with mortgage payments that will soon explode to unaffordable levels. During hearings that I chaired in the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, senior executives from some of the largest subprime lenders acknowledged that they knew, when their companies funded these loans, that many of these borrowers could not afford these payments after the interest rates reset and payments increased. Yet, they made the loans and collected the fees. In most cases, the lenders sold these loans off to the secondary market. Today, these homeowners, and their communities, are paying a steep price in lost equity and falling home prices.

In fact, the Center for Responsible Lending, CRL, released a report late last year predicting that 2.2 million families would lose their homes at a cost of $164 billion in hard-earned home equity. When this report was released, we heard howls of protest from many analysts and industry officials; yet, as the weeks and months go by, and each

new round of foreclosure statistics are released, the CRL number looks more and more accurate.

The additional $100 million in counseling funds will help organizations with the experience and expertise to work with lenders and servicers to reach out to borrowers early--prior to loan resets, if possible--to try to modify loans to make them affordable for the long- term. This effort is crucial--one industry study indicates that over 6 million subprime borrowers, with over $1.5 trillion in home loans, will face mortgage loan resets in 2007 and beyond. Given the fact that we are already experiencing historically high foreclosure rates, we need to take decisive action to keep hard-working Americans in their homes.

While this bill helps to ensure that low- and moderate-income families can afford decent and safe housing, I am concerned with the level of funding provided for Section 8 project-based assistance. This bill provides the level of funding requested by the administration; however, HUD recently alerted us that this is well below what is needed to pay for all project-based assistance contracts. Without adequate funding, property owners in the program will not be able to continue providing affordable housing to low-income families. I have called on the administration to immediately provide Congress with an estimate of the amount of funds needed to fully fund these contracts for housing assistance, and yet we have not received this vital information. If there is a shortfall in this program, we will have to address this problem.

In closing, I would like mention a few additional initiatives funded under this bill. I am pleased that Amtrak has received almost $1.4 billion in this legislation--funding that will ensure the continuation of passenger rail service in this country. I am also pleased that Senators Murray and Bond agreed to an amendment I cosponsored with Senator Clinton regarding the redesigning of airspace over greater New York. Over the past several months, I have voiced concern over the way the Federal Aviation Administration has proposed redesigning airspace in the Northeast. While I am supportive of the idea to reduce the air traffic congestion that currently plagues our country, I believe the FAA has an obligation to submit redesign proposals that are transparent and allow for full and informed public comment. The amendment adopted in this legislation takes a step forward in that direction. Finally, I am pleased that this bill contains vital resources for many important transportation and economic revitalization initiatives in my home state. It is my hope this funding is retained as the Senate proceeds to a conference with the other Chamber.

Mr. President, I rise today to herald the passage of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. This bill not only helps students and families better afford higher education, it will ultimately ensure that our country stays competitive in a global economy. I thank my colleagues Senators Kennedy and Enzi for their efforts on this important legislation and congratulate them on bringing additional dollars into the student financial aid system. I also look forward to completing the rest of the Higher Education Reauthorization package later this year.

The College Cost Reduction and Access Act makes significant steps to assist students in several important ways: by increasing student aid, especially the Pell grant; by addressing college debt; by increasing college access and expanding college preparation programs; by providing incentives for teachers to go to the neediest schools; by reforming the student loan system to benefit students; and by strengthening minority serving institutions. We have accomplished all of this without increasing the Federal deficit and actually providing $750 million in deficit reduction. We recapture $20 billion by reforming the student lending system in order to invest additional resources into preparing our students for the global economy.

The annual cost of college is staggering at roughly $13,000 a year to attend a public university and $30,000 on average for a private university. In Connecticut, 33 percent of family median income is needed to pay for a public college. Thirty three percent even

after financial aid is received! At a time when costs for other household necessities are rising and incomes are not keeping up, families and students are getting priced out of their opportunity to attend college.

This year alone, it is estimated that 400,000 high school graduates who are prepared and ready to go to a 4-year college will be unable to go because their families cannot afford it. If America is to remain the land of opportunity, then we must ensure that college is available to all of our citizenry.

Not only is paying for an education a daunting task, but the debt incurred to complete a higher education is astounding. In Connecticut, 58 percent of graduating seniors are leaving school with debt, at an average of $19, 440 per graduate. For low-income and moderate income students the thought of being saddled with a burden of debt prevents them from pursuing higher education at all. Aside from the Federal loan program, practices in the private lending system have been demonstrated to dig our students deeper and deeper into debt.

In this bill, we have also strengthened our commitment to recruit Americans to public oriented sectors--public service employees, childcare workers, and many others will be offered loan forgiveness on their direct Federal loans after 10 years of payments. By capping the repayments of Federal loans at 15 percent of one's discretionary income, this bill will also ensure that students can choose jobs that best suit them, rather than jobs that only pay the bills. Borrowers are also assisted by the interest rates on subsidized student loans being cut in half. Over four years, this rate will be reduced from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. Students will be enabled to pay off debt sooner with less interest due to this provision in the conference report.

Students in most need of assistance are the critical focus of this bill. I am pleased that minority serving institutions receive an additional $510 million to ensure that their students graduate. The Upward Bound program also receives an additional $285 million to prepare low-income students for a higher education. In order to ensure that all students are ready to go onto college, the new TEACH program provides incentives for students who agree to teach in high-poverty schools or teach high-need subjects.

This bill will also allow additional low-income families to automatically claim zero expected family contributions when filling out financial aid forms. This change will allow students of these from lower-income families to be eligible for increased Pell grants. Financial forms themselves will become more user-friendly to provide additional assistance for low-income families in accessing student aid.

I am very pleased with the increase in the Pell grant provided in this bill. The maximum Pell grant will be raised to $5,100, in 2008 and up to $5,400 by the year 2012. I wish it were much higher, considering the small portion of the cost of public education that a Pell grant provides today. The grant used to cover 80 percent of the average tuition, fees, room and board at a public university. Today the Pell grant covers an average of 29 percent. While I continue to advocate for even greater increases in the Pell grant, I commend my colleagues for taking steps to get us back to the 80-percent tuition coverage we achieved in 1975.

I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to talk about the private student lending market. Until we reach the goal of 80 percent of students' tuition being covered by Pell grants and other forms of Federal financial aid, many students have been, and will continue to be forced to turn to private and direct consumer and student loans, which are not guaranteed by the Federal Government and are not subject to loan limits.

Private student loans are now the fastest growing segment of the $85 billion student loan industry due to rising college cost, Federal financial aid remaining stagnant and increased demand for a college education. This concerns me for several reasons.

The underwriting for private loans is similar to that used for other forms of consumer credit. This means that student borrowers, who usually have little or no credit history, poor credit scores, or no parental cosigner, or whose parents have poor credit histories, will typically pay higher rates than those with good credit histories and those with parental cosigners with good credit. This model runs counter to the longstanding Federal purpose of student aid, which is targeting low-cost financial assistance to students with the greatest needs, one of the great success stories of our country dating back to the G.I. bill in 1944.

Earlier this year, at a hearing I convened within the Senate Banking Committee, committee members listened to testimony that detailed aggressive and questionable marketing practices and other unseemly industry practices, ranging from conflicts of interest to kickback schemes to consumer fraud, that have been unveiled by congressional and State investigations into the private student loan industry. The issues uncovered at that hearing led to legislation, ``The Private Student Loan Transparency and Improvement Act of 2007,'' which was marked up and approved overwhelmingly by the Senate Banking Committee prior to Congress adjourning for the August recess.

The ability to pursue a higher education is a fundamental element of the American dream. We must ensure that Americans have options to be able to pay for college, and I believe that private lending should be one of them. But students should have full and timely access to all of the information they need regarding the terms and conditions of private student loans in order to make a well-informed decision regarding the financing of their educational needs. Conflict-driven industry practices like revenue sharing and cobranding must be prohibited and student loan underwriting should occur in a manner that does not have a disparate or discriminatory impact on minority borrowers.

The legislation we passed within the Banking Committee would accomplish many of these important objectives. It requires lenders to provide more accurate and timely information to their customers about the interest rates, terms, and conditions of their products, thereby helping students better understand their financial options and obligations. It prohibits documented practices that have harmed students and families in obtaining the most competitive and affordable student loans and requires a government review into the extent to which private student loan underwriting practices may disparately impact student borrowers and colleges on the basis of factors including race and income levels.

I believe it is imperative that as we consider inclusion of the private lending legislation as a complimentary component to the Higher Education Act. We should ensure that this fast-growing market is well regulated and remains accessible and affordable as an alternative source of higher education funding for students who need them. I look forward to working with the managers of this bill towards that important goal.

The legislation before us will make college more affordable for students and their families. Reinvigorating our commitment to higher education as we do in this conference report keeps our country moving in the right direction. I urge my colleagues to further invest in our future by completing the Higher Education Act reauthorization before the end of September.

Again, I congratulate Senators Kennedy and Enzi and all of my colleagues, including Representative Miller, for providing the most significant assistance to our students since the G.I. bill.

Mr. President, the Senator from Rhode Island has been so persuasive in his argument, I ask that he add me as a cosponsor to the bill.

Mr. President, both our colleagues from Minnesota have left the floor, but I join with my colleague from Rhode Island and others here in expressing our regrets and our condolences to the people of Minnesota for the tragedy that State has gone through with the collapse of the highway over the Mississippi River. Certainly all of us extend our sympathies to those who lost loved ones and those who were injured. We in Congress will do whatever we can to help out in that situation, as all of us have at one time or another stood in this Chamber and asked for help for our States because of a tragedy that has occurred. It is very much in keeping with the tradition of this body to respond to tragedies such as the one Minnesota has experienced.

I want to take a moment, however, and urge my colleagues during the next few weeks to consider an important bill to try to address the growing problem of deteriorating infrastructure across our nation. For nearly 2 years, the Senator from Nebraska and I, Senator Hagel, have been working on this bill, along with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Felix Rohatyn, who has been very involved in the issues of New York City, and our former Senate colleagues Warren Rudman and Bob Kerrey.

The numbers are staggering. There are some 160,000 bridges of the 900,000 in our country that are deficient, to put it mildly. We saw what happened in Minnesota. There are 614 transit systems in deep need of repair. One-third of all our highways are in need of significant repair and improvement. The water systems and wastewater systems in the United States are, on average, almost 100 years old. Clearly, the ability of our appropriations process to maintain the needed infrastructure for our country is inadequate. We all know that. So we have spent time over the last 2, 2\1/2\ years working with people on Wall Street and others to come up with ideas on how we might attract capital to the area of infrastructure development.

Ironically, we had talked about delaying this announcement until September, but at the suggestion of Senator Hagel, we decided Wednesday morning to make the announcement before we left for the August break. I think we had four members of the press in the gallery to cover the initial announcement of this year-and-a-half long effort. And of course by 5 or 6 o'clock that afternoon, we had heard the news of what happened in Minneapolis, which heightened the country's awareness of a problem that was well-known to those of us looking into this over the years.

This should never have happened in the United States. We have been successful over the years because we have understood the relationship of strong infrastructure systems, wastewater treatment systems, highways, bridges, and transit systems, to our ability to grow economically. Of course, some of the major efforts that have increased the prosperity of our country have been big ideas in infrastructure. Certainly the interstate highway system, under Dwight Eisenhower, is a classic example of a project that dramatically improved the economy of our Nation more than 50 years ago.

At any rate, there are a number of examples, and I hope my colleagues will look at this critically important legislation we have presented for their consideration. We look forward to further examining how better to deal with the large problems facing us when we reconvene this fall. As many of my colleagues may know, a $1 billion investment, whether public or private money, would generate as many as 40,000 jobs. So, in addition to addressing major deficiencies in our infrastructure, it will also spur economic development and provide needed work for those in the construction fields and trades.

Again, this is an important issue, and one that is unfortunately receiving more attention than it would otherwise, except for the tragedy in Minnesota. In my home State of Connecticut, we went through a similar tragedy, as my colleague from Rhode Island may recall, on Route 95 along the Mianus River, the corridor running through his State and mine, down to Florida. A whole section of that road in western Connecticut collapsed. Four people lost their lives on that day when the Mianus River bridge fell. So we relate to and understand what has happened in Minnesota.

Again, our invitation is to take a look at this. It is an idea, a big idea, a large idea, creatively financed to be able to do something serious about this growing problem. It is a problem we are going to be hearing more and more about if we fail to take the necessary steps to improve this infrastructure. We must work to construct what needs to be constructed and put our feet back on the ground.

I thank my colleagues.

I am going to make some unanimous consent requests here.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Veterans' Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 327 and the Senate then proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that if the Senate receives the message from the House on H.R. 1538, the Wounded Warrior bill, with a request for a conference, the Senate agree to the request and the Chair be authorized to appoint conferees.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at a time to be determined by the majority leader, following consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 257, S. 1257, a bill to provide the District of Columbia a voting seat and the State of Utah an additional seat in the House of Representatives.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate receives from the House H.R. 3159, the Dwell Time Act, the bill be considered as having been read three times, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 321, S. 742, that the committee-reported amendment be considered and agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time, passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table and any statements be printed in the Record as if read.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 320, S. 1785, that the committee-reported amendment be considered and agreed to, the bill be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Last, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 93, S. 558, that the amendment at the desk be considered and agreed to, the committee-reported substitute as amended be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time, passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and that any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record with no intervening action or debate.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am in strong support of H.R. 976, the Small Business Tax Relief Act. There are few more important issues facing the Senate than the health and well-being of our nation's children. The vote to pass this legislation is a vote for children. It is a vote to do what's right for our nation's youth.

As the father of two young daughters, I know the importance of having the peace of mind to know that if one of them gets sick they have the health insurance coverage that will provide for them if they break a bone or get a cold. For millions of parents, every slight sniffle or aching tooth could mean the difference between paying the rent or paying for medical care.

It is our national shame that nine million children wake up every day lacking any form of health insurance. For their parents, the lack of access to health insurance means a regular check up is sidelined, a dental exam goes unscheduled, or an early diagnosis of a chronic condition such as asthma or diabetes is postponed. For families, such delays in access to proper health care set the stage for children to grow up underperforming in school, developing preventable or treatable conditions, or worse, permanent disability or even premature death.

The lack of health insurance goes beyond poor health outcomes. Health insurance is inextricably linked with alleviating child poverty. Low- income families without insurance often get stuck in an endless cycle of medical debt. Personal debt due to medical expenses is a primary cause of bankruptcy filings in this country. Parents already struggling to make ends meet should not have to choose between buying medication for their children and putting food on the table.

I commend the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee for working so hard to put together a bill that will benefit the lives of millions of children and their families. Through their leadership and that of Senators Hatch, Rockefeller, Kennedy and many others, since the Children's Health Insurance Program was first enacted, the number of uninsured children has decreased by one-third. The bill passed by the Senate is an important vote for children. Although I supported efforts to broaden the bill to cover an additional one million uninsured children, the bill passed by the Senate is a tremendous investment in the health and future of our children.

Specifically, this bill continues providing coverage for 6.6 million children currently enrolled in CHIP and provides coverage for 3.2 million children who are currently uninsured today. It will reduce the number of uninsured children by one third over the next 5 years.

In my own State of Connecticut, our CHIP program, commonly known as HUSKY B, has brought affordable health insurance to more than 130,000 children in working families since its inception in 1998. H.R. 976 is essential to states like Connecticut so that they may continue to operate programs like HUSKY B and build on their proven success to insure even more children.

I am additionally very pleased that my Support for Injured Servicemembers Act amendment was included in the final SCHIP bill. This amendment provides up to 6 months of Family and Medical Leave Act, FMLA, leave for family members of military personnel who suffer from a combat-related injury or illness. FMLA currently allows three months of unpaid leave. Fourteen

years ago, FMLA declared the principle that workers should never be forced to choose between the jobs they need and the families they love. In the years since its passage, more than 50 million Americans have taken advantage of its provisions to care for a sick love one, or recover from illness themselves, or welcome a new baby into the family.

Mr. President, if ordinary Americans deserve those rights, how much more do they apply to those who risk their lives in the service of our country? Soldiers who have been wounded in our service deserve everything America can give to speed their recoveries--but most of all, they deserve the care of their closest loved ones. Given the severity of their injuries, and our debt of gratitude, our servicemembers need more. That is exactly what is offered in the Support for Injured Servicemembers Act.

Senator Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala have been instrumental in this effort as well, through their thoughtfulness and work on the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors. It's not surprising that the Commission found that family members play a critical role in the recovery of our wounded servicemembers. The commitment shown by the families and friends of our troops is truly inspiring. According to the Commission's report, 33 percent of active duty servicemembers report that a family member or close friend relocated for extended periods of time to help their recoveries. It also points out that 21 percent of active duty servicemembers say that their friends or family members gave up jobs to find the time.

I am pleased that Senator Clinton is the lead co-sponsor of my amendment. FMLA was the very first bill that President Clinton signed into law, and I am grateful that his wife, Senator Clinton, continues to support the principles that I have been fighting for over 20 years. I am pleased that Senators Dole, Graham, Kennedy, Chambliss, Reed, Mikulski, Murray, Salazar, Lieberman, Menendez, Brown, Nelson of Nebraska, and Cardin are co-sponsoring this amendment. I thank Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley for accepting this important amendment and appreciate the support of all of my colleagues in this effort.

Mr. President, I am troubled by the comments from the Bush administration about this bill. It is a bill to help children and an overwhelming majority of members on both sides of the aisle have voted to support that goal. The CHIP Program is a model of success and this bill provides sustainable and predictable health care coverage for low income children regardless of their health status. One day soon, the President will make a decision on whether to sign CHIP reauthorization into law. At that moment, all Americans will know whether the President stands for children or would rather stand in the way of children's access to critically needed health care.

Mr. President, earlier this week the House and Senate Democratic Leadership--forced to forgo a formal conference by one Republican Senator's insistence on blocking this bill--made public their comprehensive new ethics reform legislation. This legislation is historic, an important next step in the process of restoring the confidence of Americans in the legislative process. Designed to bolster congressional accountability, make the legislative process fairer and more transparent, and regulate more tightly the relationships between Members of Congress, executive branch officials, and lobbyists, it deserves our full support.

After being stymied by serious procedural hurdles in the last Congress, earlier this year in the Senate we passed a tough, comprehensive, bipartisan bill of which this body can be very proud. Regrettably, this week we had to overcome a filibuster by my Republican colleagues to get this bill to this point--a filibuster on a bill very similar to the earlier Senate-passed bill for which many of them voted. I congratulate my colleagues on voting earlier today to overcome objections from those who attempted to block its progress.

We should adopt this bill today without changes and send it to the President for his signature. It is important that Congress act quickly on this bill to help restore the confidence of all Americans in the legislative process and in the laws we write. That confidence, already low, has been further shaken by recent lobbying scandals and investigations, some involving funding earmarks. Bringing this bill to the floor as the first piece of legislation in this Congress was an indication of the depth of our commitment to restore the confidence of Americans in that process; I commend the majority leader for making this measure a priority and for pressing forward relentlessly, through many obstacles, to get this final version to the floor.

This bill, which passed the House by an overwhelming vote of 411 to 8 earlier this week, reflects the approach we took last year in developing reform legislation. I commend our Rules Committee chair Senator Feinstein, along with Chairman Lieberman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, for working with our leaders to develop this strong bill. It is the final step in a lobbying reform process which has taken several years to come to fruition.

Let's remember why we are here: because of a need to respond to the crisis in confidence of the American people following the Jack Abramoff scandal in the House, a matter involving the bribery conviction of a Member of that body, and legal proceedings against certain other congressional and administration officials involving allegations of lobbying-related improprieties. The serious violations that have lead to last year's guilty pleas by former House Members and staff and the activities of Abramoff and his cronies in

which they violated lobbying, gift, and ethics rules have helped to create a climate of disillusionment and distrust of Congress. Americans made very clear in the last elections that cleaning up this process was a priority for them; it must also be a priority for us.

This comprehensive reform bill will help reduce the risk of future wrongdoing by lobbyists and officeholders. It is important to strengthen our current rules and procedures, where we can, to avoid future problems. But enforcing current rules is not enough; that is why we should adopt these tough new reforms today. And let me say that by making these changes we impugn no one in this body--I know my colleagues, many of whom I have worked with for decades, to be men and women of integrity, their behavior above reproach.

Regulating the relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists is not new. In 1876, the House tried to require lobbyists to register with its clerk, but enforcement was weak and not much came of these efforts. In the early 1930s, Congress held hearings on lobbying abuses, with little result. In 1938, the Foreign Agents Registration Act was enacted, followed by the 1946 Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act, the scope of which the Supreme Court soon narrowed. Additional minor reforms were implemented in the sixties, and then the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 and new Senate gift and travel rules followed. And now this reform measure, the most sweeping of its kind since Watergate, will help shed further sunlight on the legislative process and illuminate how special interests influence that process.

It is clear that real, enforceable ethics reforms do work. Such reforms have over the years worked to improve the way Congress operates. Conflict of interest rules, earned-income limits, lobbying disclosure laws, the McCain-Feingold law and the honoraria ban, both of which I was privileged to play a role in, and other key reforms have helped ensure greater transparency and accountability to those whom we represent. But we must do more, and that is what this effort is about.

When we initially considered this legislation many months ago, Members from both sides of the aisle offered their ideas to improve the bill on the floor, which were incorporated into the final bill. That measure then passed 96 to 2. While some may quibble with the way one or another provision was finalized, virtually all of the bill's major elements have been retained in some form, and that is why this is a very strong product. Our leader rightly called it the strongest reform bill since the Watergate era; we should be proud to support it.

Since others have detailed what is in this bill--including provisions to slow the revolving door between Congress and the lobbying industry; tough new conflict of interest and postemployment rules; expanded disclosure of lobbyists' activities, including campaign-related activities; tightening of gift and travel rules; increased enforcement; requiring Members to pay charter rates to fly on private aircraft, and the like--I will not spend time doing that here. Suffice it to say this is a very strong bill, worthy of our support.

Finally, let me say a word about what I think is the elephant in the room on congressional reform efforts, and that is the need to enact comprehensive reforms of the way we organize and finance campaigns in this country.

As I have said, gift and lobby reforms do matter and are important. But while it is clear serious reform of the way some in Congress and their lobbying allies do business is needed, these changes alone won't address the core problem: the need for campaign finance reform which breaks once and for all the link between legislative favor-seekers and the free flow of inadequately regulated, special interest private money. Ultimately, this is more significant than lobbying, gift and travel rules, or procedural reforms on earmarks and conference procedures and reports.

My preferred reform approach would include a combination of public funding, free or reduced media time, spending limits, and other key reforms. Others will have different views and approaches. But I hope this will be just the first step in a process that will include comprehensive campaign finance reform. It took us years to enact the McCain-Feingold law, and it will likely take at least as long to enact a more comprehensive bill; we should get started on that effort as soon as possible. Real campaign finance reform must address not just congressional campaigns but also the urgent need to renew and repair our Presidential public funding system, which has served Democratic and Republican candidates--and all Americans--for 25 years.

The American public is way ahead of us on this issue. Too many believe the interests of average voters are usurped by the money and influence of lobbyists, powerful individuals, corporations, and interest groups. Too many believe their voices go unheard, drowned out by the din of special interest favor-seekers.

Our system derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. That is put at risk if the governed lose faith in the system's fundamental fairness and in its capacity to respond to the most basic needs of our society because narrow special interests hold sway over the public interest. Nowhere is the need for reform more urgent than on campaign finance. In the Rules Committee we held a recent hearing on the issue; I hope we will keep moving forward on it, and I intend to contribute to that debate as I have before.

I end where I began, with a concern about the confidence of Americans in Congress. Our credibility, and the credibility of the legislative process, is at stake. Let's not fool ourselves that these issues will ultimately be resolved without a fundamental overhaul of our campaign finance system. But in the wake of overwhelming approval by the House, let's adopt this measure and get it signed by the President, recognizing that it is an important next step in the reform process.

I again congratulate the majority leader for bringing this legislation back to the Senate floor and look forward to seeing it enacted into law so that we can help to begin to restore the confidence of the American people in the legislative process. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting aye.