Floor Statements

Mr. President, today, I join my colleagues, Senators Harkin, Durbin, Talent, Grassley, Coleman, Fitzgerald and Pryor to introduce bipartisan legislation to provide transportation efficiency and environmental sustainability on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

As the world becomes more competitive, we must also. In the heartland, the efficiency, reliability, capacity, and safety of our transportation options are critical--often make-or-break. As we look 50 years into the future, and as we anticipate and try to promote commercial and economic growth, we have to ask ourselves a fundamental question: should we have a system that permits and promotes growth, or should we be satisfied to restrict our growth to the confines of a transportation straight jacket designed not for 2050, but for 1980?

Further, we must ask ourselves if dramatic investments should be made to address environmental problems and opportunities that exist on these great waterways.

In both cases, the answer is, ``Of course we should modernize and improve.''

We have a system which is in environmental and economic decline. Jobs and markets and the availability of habitat for fish and wildlife are at stake.

We cannot be for increased trade, commercial growth, and job creation without supporting the basic transportation infrastructure necessary to move goods from buyers to sellers. New efficiency helps give our producers an edge that can make or break opportunities in the international marketplace.

Seventy years ago, some argued that a transportation system on the Mississippi River was not justified. Congress decided that its role was not to try to predict the future but to shape the future and decided to invest in a system despite the naysayers. Over 80 million tons per year later, it is clear that the decision was wise.

Now, that system that was designed for paddlewheel boats and to last 50 years is nearly 70 years old and we must make decisions that will shape the next 50-70 years. As we look ahead, we must promote growth policies that help Americans who produce and employ.

We must work for policies that promote economic growth, job creation, and environmental sustainability. We know that trade and economic growth can be fostered or it can be discouraged by policies and other realities which include the quality of our transportation infrastructure.

So in 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 years, where will the growth in transportation occur to accommodate the growth in demand for commercial shipping? The Department of Transportation suggests that congestion on our roads and rails will double in the next quarter century. The fact of the matter is that the great untapped capacity is on our water.

This is good news because water transportation is efficient, it is safe, it conserves fuel, and it protects the air and the environment. One medium-sized barge tow can carry the freight of 870 trucks. That fact alone speaks volumes to the benefits of water. If we can, would we rather have 870 diesel engines on the roads of downtown St. Louis, or two diesel engines on the water watching the traffic buildup and smog glide by?

The veteran Chief Economist at USDA testified that transportation efficiency and the ability of farmers to win markets at higher prices are ``fundamentally related.'' He predicts that corn exports over the next 10 years will rise 45 percent, 70 percent of which will travel down the Mississippi.

Over the past 35 years, waterborne commerce on the Upper Mississippi River has more than tripled. The system currently carries 60 percent of our Nation's corn exports and 45 percent of our Nation's soybean exports and it does so at two-thirds the cost of rail--when rail is available.

Over the previous 11 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have spent $70 million doing a six year study. During that period, there have been 35 meetings of the Governors Liaison Committee, 28 meetings on the Economic Coordinating Committee, among the States along the Upper Mississippi and Illinois waterways, and there have been 44 meetings of the Navigation and Environmental Coordination Committee. Additionally, there have been 130 briefings for special interest groups, 24 newsletters. There have been six sets of public meetings in 46 locations with over 4,000 people in attendance. To say the least, this has been a very long, very transparent, and very representative process.

However, while we have been studying, our competitors have been building. Given the extraordinary delay so far, and given the reality that large scale construction takes not weeks or months, but decades, further delay is no longer an option.

This is why I am leased to be joined by a bipartisan group of Senators who agree that we must improve the efficiency and the environmental sustainability of our great resources. Today, we introduce legislation to adopt the initial recommendations of the Corps of Engineers and their public and private partners to increase the lock capacity on the Upper Mississippi and Illinois Rivers and the begin an ambitious program of ecosystem restoration.

This plan gets the Corps back in the business of building the future, rather than just haggling about predicting the future. More will need to be done later on ecosystem and lock expansions further upstream, but this begins the improvement schedule underway.

In this legislation, we authorize $1.46 billion for ecosystem restoration--two times the federal share of lock capacity expansion which we authorize on locks 20-25 on the Mississippi River and Peoria and LaGrange on the Illinois. The new 1,200 foot locks on the Mississippi River will provide equal capacity in the bottleneck region below the 1,200 foot lock 19 at Keokuk above locks 26 and 27 near St. Louis. Half the cost of the new locks will be paid for by private users who pay into the Inland Waterways Trust fund. Additional funds will be provided for mitigation and small scale and nonstructural measures to improve efficiency.

As we look ahead, the locks at 14-18 will have to be addressed as will further investments to ecosystem restoration efforts.

This effort is supported by a broad-based group of the States, farm groups, shippers, labor, and those who pay taxes into the Trust Fund for improvements.

I thank my colleagues for their work together on this bipartisan effort.

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

Mr. President, I wish to pay special tribute to Mr. Fred F. Zeller, the American Legion District 11 and 12 Legionnaire of the Year. Fred and the millions of other veterans that have served have earned our Nation's most sincere thanks for the service and sacrifices they rendered. It is their service that provided the umbrella of freedom under which we live today.

Mr. Zeller earned his eligibility to be a member of The American Legion by serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II as part of the greatest generation and has enjoyed 57 continuous years in The American Legion.

After being discharged from the Navy in 1946, Fred joined Post 225 in Ohio. He was transferred by his company to Minnesota in 1951 where he joined Post 257. He served on various committees, the executive board and Captain of the Color Guard and the Firing Squad for 8 years. His job took him to many places and he landed in Missouri and settled in St. Louis in 1978, becoming a member of Post III where he took part in all of the Post activities.

Fred is presently serving as Judge Advocate and President of G.A.P.L., the building and grounds part of the post. For sharing all of his knowledge, skill and hard work, Mr. Zeller was presented a gold card and life membership in 1999. Fred is a member of The Past Commanders Club, having served twice on the Executive board.

Fred exemplifies the true meaning of the word service. As you can see, Fred continued to serve long after he was discharged from the military and we should all be proud of his many accomplishments. Again, I wish to extend my most sincere thanks for Mr. Zeller's service and my congratulations to him on being chosen as Legionnaire of the Year.

Madam President, I came to speak on other matters, but I thought it would be helpful to straighten out some things, where maybe those who are watching or who have heard might have a misapprehension as to the position that the Secretary of Defense has taken.

The Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are in Baghdad today. I have heard it said that the Secretary defended the rules of engagement for the Abu Ghraib prison, with possibly a misunderstanding that he approved or somehow condoned what went on and what has been revealed in the shocking photos of abuse we have seen.

Let's be clear on one thing. The rules of engagement are very clear, and the rules of engagement do not permit or tolerate the kind of abuses we have seen depicted in the Abu Ghraib prison. This is a real difference between a free, democratic country with respect for human rights observing the Geneva Convention, and those who do not. It has been stated on the Senate floor that we are no better than the Saddam Hussein government that was running the prisons. That is an unnecessary slanderous attack on the men and women of the military who do believe, by and large--99.999 percent--in the standards we set.

The difference in our country is that when we see these evidences of abuse we move to do something about them. Investigations began in January. The first criminal indictments were handed down near the end of March. We are proceeding with the prosecution of those who have been shown to be engaged, and we will follow that up the chain of command if somebody gave orders that were interpreted to permit this kind of behavior. This is a real difference--and I think it is important for Americans and people throughout the world to realize that there is a difference.

It was said earlier this morning that the President took a U-turn away from dealing with terrorism and went into Iraq. Let me remind my colleagues and the people of the United States that, after viewing the intelligence, 77 Senators said we need to do something about Iraq because it is a dangerous country, harboring terrorists. We didn't take a U-turn. We went into Iraq because it was one of the great dangers to the world, in terms of harboring terrorists.

David Kay, who was leading the Iraqi Survey Group, made many inspections over there. He didn't find large caches of weapons of mass destruction. Nobody said we would. What he did say when he came back was the situation in Iraq was far more dangerous than we even knew because terrorist gangs were roaming Iraq. Iraq had produced and used chemical or biological weapons on its own people and on the Iranians, and this was a dangerous territory. We have seen in recent days how dangerous it has become because of al-Zarqawi, a colleague-in-arms of Osama bin Laden, set up 2 to 3 years ago, and Ansar al-Islam, which is the deadly, vicious terrorist organization that beheaded Nicholas Berg.

If the world needs to know the difference, the difference is when there are abuses such as putting a chain around the neck of an Iraqi prisoner, we are going to prosecute people. In Iraq, al-Zarqawi can cut the head off an innocent American hostage and I have

yet to hear any outcry or outrage from the people in that region. There is a real difference.

But we ought to be worried about young people hearing about hostages--innocent hostages--being beheaded. Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal was beheaded.

These are the people we are dealing with. This is why this matter is important. This battle is not won. It is going to be a battle not of months, maybe not even of years, and maybe decades. But the world is going to be safer, and we are going to be safer in the United States if we can continue the battle President Bush has laid out to carry the war on terrorism to those countries that harbor terrorists.

Madam President, I came here to recognize and commend the great work of Senator Gregg and Senator Kennedy on crafting an IDEA bill. They produced a solid, thoughtful, bipartisan bill which protects the educational rights of children with special needs while at the same time making IDEA more workable for parents, teachers, school administrators, and school districts.

I think we all agree IDEA was a great idea. It helped open doors for many children with special needs since it was enacted in 1975. Yet there is no question that significant problems exist.

As I traveled through Missouri and talked with educators, teachers, administrators, parents, and school board members, I heard all kinds of problems with IDEA. Over the years, these teachers, principals, and administrators in Missouri have told me IDEA has become a morass of rules, of regulations and litigation that truly limit access and in some instances actually hinder learning--not just for children with disabilities but for all children. That is simply not acceptable.

Educators are struggling under a crushing procedural and paperwork burden imposed by IDEA, contributing to what is becoming a chronic shortage of quality teachers in special education in Missouri and nationwide. Special education teachers are leaving the profession--not out of frustration with the children whom they are there to serve, but out of frustration with the overwhelming and unnecessary paperwork and the regulatory burdens they face. Without a qualified teacher, a child with a disability cannot receive a free, appropriate public education.

Most special educators report they have to spend 20 to 50 percent of their time on paperwork. More time spent on paperwork is less time spent with students or preparing lesson plans for students. It is as simple as that. We cannot continue to let IDEA interfere with the time educators can devote to the children they serve because we all know a misdirected focus on paperwork, on procedures, and on bureaucracy frustrates teachers and fails to give children the education they need.

In addition, over the years IDEA has encouraged and fostered adversarial relationships between school districts, staff, and parents. Time, money, and resources exhausted in costly litigation would be far better spent on instruction for children. Taking limited dollars away from children with disabilities and redirecting them to attorneys to fight long and costly battles is simply counterproductive. It does not help the education of our children--all children, special children and other children in the schools.

These are a few of the concerns I have heard from Missouri educators over the years. But the thing I like about Missouri educators is they don't simply tell me what the problem is; they show me how to fix it. Maybe that is one of the reasons they call Missouri the ``Show Me'' State.

The Missouri School Board Association's Special Education Advocacy Council, working in partnership with the Missouri Council of Administrators of Special Education, developed a list of thoughtful, solid, and detailed recommendations to improve IDEA and inject a little bit of good old-fashioned commonsense reform to IDEA.

In fact, the Missouri Special Education Advocacy Council examined the IDEA statute line by line and told me exactly where and how we improve the statute by refocusing special education on educating children with special needs rather than simply complying with a system of complex regulations and mountains of paperwork and red tape.

I am pleased many of the recommendations made by MSBA's Special Education Advocacy Council have been incorporated in S. 1248. The numerous paperwork and regulatory reforms in the bill will go a long way to free special educators' time to spend with their students and in preparing effective instruction plans. In addition, this bill contains many provisions to reduce litigation and restore trust between parents and school districts.

I thank both Senator Gregg and Senator Kennedy for including these critical reforms in the Senate bill. This bill will improve and strengthen IDEA and extend the promise of quality education for a new generation of children with special needs.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

There is one other thing I want to address. I want to talk a minute about funding IDEA. We heard a lot of talk yesterday about the broken promises. The authorization for IDEA said the Federal Government is going to provide 40 percent of the cost of IDEA. Over 19 years, funding for IDEA has increased from $251,000 in 1977 to $2.3 billion in 1996.

Our side took control of Congress in 1995, and over the course of that time period, the Republican Congress has increased funding for IDEA by 224 percent since 1996. That was done through the appropriations process.

If the President's budget is enacted, it will have increased funding for IDEA by 376 percent. The average per-pupil expenditure has increased from 7 percent to almost 20 percent. If you include the President's budget request for this year, IDEA funding since 2001 will have increased $4.7 billion--75 percent in this President's budget.

In comparison, in the 1980s IDEA was one of the spending appropriations categories that did not increase. In fact, in many of those years the Federal Government covered less than the States' average per-pupil expenditure for children with disabilities than it had the year before. I am proud of our leadership in this Congress which has made steady progress toward finally trying to reach the 40- percent level authorized in 1975. We have made great strides toward fulfilling the commitment. I know the people in education are very appreciative of those increases.

Madam President, let me join with my colleague from Kansas in celebrating and congratulating the educational institutions of this country in implementing the Brown v. Board of Education decision that is now celebrating a major historical birthday.

We have come a long way. I was in school back in those days before Brown v. Board of Education. I can tell you it has not been an easy struggle.

President Dwight Eisenhower called up the military to go into Little Rock to integrate the schools. Battle after battle was fought.

Fifteen years later, I had the honor of serving the chief judge of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, GA, one of President Eisenhower's appointees who fought the battle to carry out the civil rights reforms that had been ordered by the courts and enacted into law.

This has been a long and tortuous journey. We have made great progress. There is still a way to go. But I think we all can take pride in the fact that as a result of Brown v. Board of Education and legislation passed by this body and implemented by the courts, we have made progress that was long overdue and should be warmly welcomed by all Americans of every race, creed, and color.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Ten minutes.

Madam President, I am on the Senate floor to explain why I am on the floor today. A week ago, I came to the Senate floor to raise what I think is a very serious point, and that is, we are being filibustered on the procedural motions to take the highway bill to a conference with the House.

I had the great privilege and pleasure back in January of 2003 to assume the chairmanship of the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the Environment and Public Works Committee, and I did so knowing full well that committee, along with the full committee, had the responsibility for drafting what I consider to be one of the most important infrastructure bills this Congress ever deals with, and that is the transportation bill or, as it is known by some, the highway bill. This year we are calling it SAFETEA. This is the acronym adopted by the administration to emphasize the fact that it is a safety-related measure.

Good highways, roads, and bridges, along with mass transit and other elements, are vitally important to our country in a number of ways. For those of us who are stuck in traffic around Washington, DC, being stuck in traffic is like having breakfast in the morning, and it is as reliable as flowers in the springtime. Better roads mean less congestion, less hassle. But there are many other items that are very important as well, because good roads and the lack of congestion mean less pollution. Cars sitting idling pollute the atmosphere, so the atmosphere is worse, the air quality is worse if you have congestion.

Highways are also important in another way. If we had passed the highway bill last winter or even when we passed it in February, we would have put people to work because every billion dollars of highway investment creates 47,000 jobs, and there is no question that we were waiting to see the jobs come back. We needed these highway jobs this year. We have missed this year's construction season.

Fortunately, the tax cuts passed by this body are working, and we are seeing an upturn in the economy, particularly in small business. That is another speech I will make on the Senate floor.

Tremendous numbers of people are going to work, as small business members, as proprietors starting their own businesses, 410,000 working selling their own products on e-Bay. They are creating good jobs. But we still need the jobs.

Beyond that, good highways and good transportation are essential for the long-term stability and growth of our States, our communities, and our Nation.

When I was Governor, I spent a lot of time working on economic development issues, and there is one thing I can tell you: if you are trying to get jobs into a particular community, they have to have transportation, particularly if they are dealing with goods or with people who are coming into that community. Good roads mean good jobs. Our highways, our roads, our bridges, even our waterways are the sinews of economic commerce. Without good transportation, we do not have growth and we don't have jobs.

Finally, good highways mean safety. We kill about 43,000 people on the highways in the United States every year. The Department of Transportation says about a third of those killed are killed because of insufficient highway infrastructure. In other words, we have in Missouri many crowded two-way highways which have traffic that really demands a divided highway. When you have that, you have frustration, and very often people from out of State are not familiar with the curves and the hills and pass in areas where you cannot pass, and they have tragic head-on collisions. I say we kill roughly three people a day on Missouri's highways, and I think one out of three is killed because of inadequate highways. All you have to do is travel the highways and see the white crosses where people have died.

To deal with that situation, I set out to work on a bipartisan basis. We have worked since a year ago January very closely with all the interested parties--the people interested in road building, community development workers, union members, environmental groups who wanted to have improved environmental processes. We brought all of them together in a bipartisan--let me emphasize bipartisan--bill for which I have thanked my colleagues on the other side many times for their great cooperation. We brought a good bill to the floor: $255 billion for highways and bridges over the next 6 years. Boy, we passed it with a whopping 76-vote majority in the Senate.

I go home and people say: What is happening to the highway bill?

I say: It is being filibustered.

They say: What? It passed by 76 votes.

I say: No, the simple procedural steps to move the bill to conference with the House are being filibustered.

They say: What?

I say: Yes, there are about six steps that have to be taken to send a bill to the House of Representatives so we can sit down in a conference and get a final bill that has to then pass both Houses and go to the President.

We have been working for more than a year and a half. It has been more than 7 months since the existing bill, TEA-21, expired. It has now been 7 weeks since the Senate passed a highway bill. It has now been 5 weeks since the House passed a highway bill. The majority leader and I have gone to the Senate floor and asked unanimous consent three times to take the necessary steps to move the bill to the House.

All three requests have been objected to by my colleagues on the other side. Yesterday, a great group of citizens from the community of Saint Joseph, MO, was in my office. They traveled a long way to ask me: Why do we not have a highway bill? I told them I wish I had a reasonable answer, but I do not.

Last Friday, I went to Kansas City, MO, where we had the road- building group together and that was the union leaders, the contractors, the community development people, the local elected officials, and they gave me a stack of 43,000 signatures on petitions saying pass this bill. Unfortunately, my suitcase was not big enough and the restrictions made it difficult for me to bring it here with me, but if my colleagues want to see them we will bring 43,000 signatures to the floor to show how many Missourians want a highway bill.

They asked me why we have not even begun the process of meeting with the House. There is no good reason, except politics, and that is not a good reason.

Every single day someone asks me these questions, and now I ask my colleagues once again why can we not start a highway bill conference? Some on the other side say they demand to know what is going to come out of the conference. I would love to know what is going to happen tomorrow. I would love to know what is going to happen the day after tomorrow. No one can say with certainty what is going to come out of any conference.

This is too important a bill to be a political football. We passed a total bill of $318 billion. The House passed one for a total of $275 billion. We passed a much better bill. I want to see our bill passed. I want to see $318 billion. I want to see the environmental streamlining in the bill that allows the environmental concerns to be raised early on in the process and dealt with, that makes it easier to do the planning.

The House bill had $11 billion worth of specific earmarks. My colleagues probably read about it in the editorial pages. Now, the occupant of the chair may take great pride in the fact that some of those were in a far northwest State, but I say to my colleagues we are not going to be able to take a bill that has $11 billion of earmarks that take away from the general allocation of funds among the States. So that is something we have to negotiate, but we need to do that to get a good bill.

I cannot speak for the folks on the other side as to why they are willing to kill the bill. They will not even let us go to conference to try to get the bill that we passed. They have to be banking, I guess, on perhaps a cynical notion that the American people will understand or they will just blame Republicans, even though it is their side currently undertaking to kill the legislation.

Are they killing it in hopes they can blame us? Is politics that cynical? I hope not. I thought we had to fight OMB to get the bill done, and I am willing to make that fight.

As a matter of fact, people who have been around a long time know I took on that fight against a President of my own party. The year I campaigned, he made three wonderful appearances for me. I have great respect for him, but he vetoed a highway bill, and I was the deciding vote that overrode that veto, much as I respected him, because I know how important highways are to my State and to the country.

Several months ago we started the normal bipartisan process of writing a highway bill. The bipartisanship carried through to a floor vote on the final bill. The Finance Committee provided the funds we needed. It was paid for, without a tax increase and without bonding.

After we passed the bill, my colleagues and I cheered our success and praised the cooperative efforts across the aisle; yet somehow, now my colleagues across the aisle tell me they do not trust me? Is this how good faith bipartisanship is honored?

Will someone come to the floor and tell me that I have not acted in good faith for days, weeks, and months through this process?

I have every intention to get a strong bipartisan conference report to the Senate floor and to the desk of the President but we cannot do that if the Democrats prevent us from negotiating the final bipartisan bill. Unless they let the process go, this bill is dead and they will have killed it; and for what?

My House counterpart Congressman Petri may have said it best as quoted in yesterday's edition of BNA:

House Highways, Transit and Pipelines Subcommittee Chairman

Tom Petri, R-Wis., hailed the move to ``normal order,'' Petri

said; people analyzing the situation said in the absence of

an agreement--on a number--it was better to go back to

conference because ``there might have been wisdom in the

ideas of the founding fathers.

The whole point of a conference with the House is to work out our differences and produce a final bill. It is past time to get to work on those differences. I also read a quote in the paper yesterday where the distinguished minority leader said his party did not want to ``roll the dice'' and hope they get adequate representation in conference.

Instead, I submit that my colleagues are ``rolling the dice'' with an even bigger gamble. Rather than even giving conference a chance, they are betting that voters will prefer procrastination over progress.

My constituents say, ``Senator, didn't the same people raising objections vote for the bill?'' They also ask, ``Senator, didn't many Democrats help draft the bill?'' Some even wonder ``Didn't I hear Senator so and so say the Nation needs a highway bill now?''

The resounding answer to all of their questions is yes. Yes, my colleagues helped draft the bill. Yes, my colleagues voted in favor of the bill. Yes, my colleagues make cries for a strong bill now. And, yes, unless the politics stop, they will also have killed this bill. To steal a line from some great philosopher, they are all bark, no bite.

One week ago today I was on the Senate floor attempting to move this process forward. Now Republicans in both Chambers of the Capitol are prepared to work in conference to resolve our differences. In the near future, we will vote in the Senate to determine who really wants to back up their bark with a bite.

Right now safety and quality of life on our roads are taking a back seat to political warfare that has nothing to do with transportation. It is time to end the filibuster on the highway bill.

That said, I renew my unanimous consent request from last week.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the House-passed highway bill, H.R. 3550; provided further, that all after the enacting clause, be stricken, the text of S. 1072, as passed, be inserted in lieu thereof; the bill be read a third time and passed; further, the Senate then insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the Chair then be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate with a ratio of 11 to 10.

Mr. President, the United States biotechnology industry is the world leader in innovation. This is due, in large part, to the Federal Government's partnership with the private sector to foster growth and commercialization in the hope that one day we will uncover a cure for unmet medical needs such as cystic fibrosis, heart disease, various cancers, multiple sclerosis, and AIDS.

However, the industry was dealt a major set-back when the Small Business Administration (SBA) determined that venture-backed biotechnology companies can no longer participate in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Until recently, the SBIR program was an example of a highly successful Federal initiative to encourage economic growth and innovation in the biotechnology industry by funding the critical start-up and development stages of a company.

Traditionally, to qualify for an SBIR grant a small-business applicant had to meet two requirements; one, that the company have less than 500 employees; and two, that the business be 51 percent owned by one or more individuals. Recently, however, the SBA determined that the term ``individuals'' only means natural persons, whereas for the past 20 years the term ``individual'' has included venture-capital companies. As a result, biotech companies backed by venture-capital funding in Missouri and throughout our Nation, who are on the cutting edge of science, can no longer participate in the program.

The biotech industry is like no other in the world because it takes such a long span of time and intense capital expenditures to bring a successful product to market. In fact, according to a recent study completed by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, it takes roughly 10-15 years and $800 million dollars for a company to bring just one product to market. As you can imagine, the industry's entrepreneurs are seeking financial assistance wherever they can find it.

For the past 20 years, the SBIR program has been a catalyst for developing our Nation's most successful biotechnology companies. In addition to these important government grants, venture-capital funding plays a vital role in the financial support of these same companies. The strength of our biotechnology industry is a direct result of government grants and venture-capital working together.

However, some have argued that a biotech firm with a majority of venture-capital backing is a large business. This is simply a bogus conclusion. Venture-capital firms solely invest in biotech start-ups for the possibility of a future innovation and financial return and generally do not seek to take control over the management functions or day-to-day operations of the company. Venture-capital firms that seek to invest in small biotech businesses do not, simply by their investment, turn a small business into a large business. These are legitimate, small, start-up businesses. Let's not punish them.

Instead, we must work together to avoid stifling innovation. Let me be clear. Our impact today will foster cures and medicines tomorrow that were once thought to be inconceivable. However, the industry cannot do it alone. We must nurture biotechnology and help the industry grow for the future of our economy and for our well-being.

This bill that I am introducing today will do just that. It will ensure that the biotechnology industry has access to SBIR grants, as it has had for 20 years. It will level the playing field to ensure that SBIR grants are given to small businesses based on fruitful science and nothing else. This is still a young and fragile industry, and we are on the cusp of great scientific advances. However, there will be profound consequences if biotechnology companies continue to be excluded from the SBIR program.

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

Mr. President, the United States biotechnology industry is the world leader in innovation. This is due, in large part, to the Federal Government's partnership with the private sector to foster growth and commercialization in the hope that one day we will uncover a cure for unmet medical needs such as cystic fibrosis, heart disease, various cancers, multiple sclerosis, and AIDS.

However, the industry was dealt a major set-back when the Small Business Administration (SBA) determined that venture-backed biotechnology companies can no longer participate in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Until recently, the SBIR program was an example of a highly successful Federal initiative to encourage economic growth and innovation in the biotechnology industry by funding the critical start-up and development stages of a company.

Traditionally, to qualify for an SBIR grant a small-business applicant had to meet two requirements; one, that the company have less than 500 employees; and two, that the business be 51 percent owned by one or more individuals. Recently, however, the SBA determined that the term ``individuals'' only means natural persons, whereas for the past 20 years the term ``individual'' has included venture-capital companies. As a result, biotech companies backed by venture-capital funding in Missouri and throughout our Nation, who are on the cutting edge of science, can no longer participate in the program.

The biotech industry is like no other in the world because it takes such a long span of time and intense capital expenditures to bring a successful product to market. In fact, according to a recent study completed by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, it takes roughly 10-15 years and $800 million dollars for a company to bring just one product to market. As you can imagine, the industry's entrepreneurs are seeking financial assistance wherever they can find it.

For the past 20 years, the SBIR program has been a catalyst for developing our Nation's most successful biotechnology companies. In addition to these important government grants, venture-capital funding plays a vital role in the financial support of these same companies. The strength of our biotechnology industry is a direct result of government grants and venture-capital working together.

However, some have argued that a biotech firm with a majority of venture-capital backing is a large business. This is simply a bogus conclusion. Venture-capital firms solely invest in biotech start-ups for the possibility of a future innovation and financial return and generally do not seek to take control over the management functions or day-to-day operations of the company. Venture-capital firms that seek to invest in small biotech businesses do not, simply by their investment, turn a small business into a large business. These are legitimate, small, start-up businesses. Let's not punish them.

Instead, we must work together to avoid stifling innovation. Let me be clear. Our impact today will foster cures and medicines tomorrow that were once thought to be inconceivable. However, the industry cannot do it alone. We must nurture biotechnology and help the industry grow for the future of our economy and for our well-being.

This bill that I am introducing today will do just that. It will ensure that the biotechnology industry has access to SBIR grants, as it has had for 20 years. It will level the playing field to ensure that SBIR grants are given to small businesses based on fruitful science and nothing else. This is still a young and fragile industry, and we are on the cusp of great scientific advances. However, there will be profound consequences if biotechnology companies continue to be excluded from the SBIR program.

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

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Wyoming for giving

us some time. We are in another critical juncture in our efforts to pass a transportation bill, a highway bill, or SAFTEA. I propose a unanimous consent request. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the consideration of the House-passed highway bill, H.R. 3550; provided further that all after the enacting clause be stricken, and the text of S. 1072, as passed, be inserted in lieu thereof, the bill then be read a third time and passed; further, the Senate then insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the Chair then be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate with a ratio of 11 to 10.

Madam President, I would be happy to accept that as an addendum to my request. The problem is, we need to appoint conferees to the House. I want to call attention to the fact that for 11 weeks we have been stalled. If we cannot appoint conferees, then I have a hold on the extension. So unless my good friend is willing to accept the unanimous consent request I propounded, I cannot accept his unanimous consent request.

Madam President, I want to reclaim my time. First, let me say I know all the pressures. I know the people my good friend from Nevada mentioned. They want a highway bill at $318 billion that we passed. I want one. I have long quotations. I have all kinds of people behind me. The chairman of the committee, Senator Inhofe wants it. I know that Senator Reid wants it and Senator Jeffords wants it. But do you know something, we can't do anything because we are opposed, we are blocked by the minority from going to conference.

A lot of people in America don't understand. They have heard about filibusters. They know we filibuster judges around here. They know we filibuster bills. But this is the first time I know of where a bill that has passed this body with 76 votes has been stopped from going to conference by the opposition of the minority.

I am happy to yield to the assistant leader.

Madam President, I thank my colleague and neighbor for the clarification. I have never seen, in my history, a bill passing the Senate with this much support, that is so important to our Nation, being held up. It is 11 weeks since we passed a highway bill, the $318 billion Surface Transportation Equity Act. To get it to conference, we have to have the approval of the minority.

I am taking this step. I am taking this radical step because the people of America need to know. When I go home, they say: How come we don't have a highway bill? They don't understand that we are being blocked from going to conference. We can't work out the differences between the House and Senate unless we can go to conference. If there has ever been a bipartisan bill, I believe this bill is it.

Chairman Inhofe with Senator Jeffords, Senator Reid and I have worked, I think collegially and effectively, in bringing a good bill to the floor of the Senate. I appreciate the work that my colleagues did.

It is obvious when the bill passes with 76 votes that it was a good bipartisan bill. We can't tell what is going to come out of conference. I am going to go into conference saying we need a $318 billion bill. But if we can't go to conference, we can't even take that step.

We have been delayed and delayed from going to conference. That is what, unfortunately, we have to explain to our constituents around the country--that the transportation system lifeline to our country and our economy is being held up. We cannot take the next step and make the major investment in the future of this system to promote increased employment, decrease congestion, enhance security, to lay the sinews of economic development for the future and, most of all, provide safety on our highways.

There are 43,000 Americans killed on the highways each year; in Missouri, more than three a day, and at least one and probably more of those are killed because of inadequate highways. What can we do about it? We can do something in the Senate. But we don't get the job done. We have to sit down and work with our colleagues in the House and come up with a compromise proposal that I hope looks like our bill in the Senate.

I am going to fight as hard as I can when we can get to conference. But until we can get to conference, we don't know and there is no hope of us getting a new bill. That is why I have placed a hold on the extension of the highway bill. Yes, this is a drastic measure. How long are we going to kick the ball down the road? I objected to holding up the first extension, but we have had extension after extension after extension. When are we going to get a bill? It is very simple. We can have this bill. We can have the extension if the minority will agree to let us appoint conferees so this can go to conference.

I assure you that we will continue to work, Senator Inhofe, our ranking members, Senators Jeffords and Reid, as we did before to get a bill that looks as much like the Senate bill as we possibly can, but until we do that, I am going to continue to object to the extension. I regret we have to take this drastic action, but the people of America and the people concerned about highways need to know what is causing this problem.

I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, a few moments ago, my good friend from Nevada talked about how the highway transportation system in Nevada depends upon the Internet and all the technology there. And I agree with him. We are very proud of the technology, the intelligence transportation systems, and other things we have in our Missouri Department of Transportation, our highway entity.

I was very pleased he read off a list of people who support the measure we passed in the Senate. That just reinforces what I have said for a long time. We had an overwhelming vote to get the number of $255 billion for highways. We had an overwhelming vote to get a bill to the floor. We had an overwhelming vote of 76 to 21 to pass a good 6-year highway bill.

My good friend from Nevada worked very closely with us. I tell you, as long as I have been in the Senate, I do not know if we ever had better bipartisan cooperation than Senator Inhofe and I on the Republican side have had with Senator Jeffords and Senator Reid on the Democratic side.

Mr. President, 11 weeks ago, we passed this wonderful highway bill. This, what I hold in my hand, is the highway bill. It passed overwhelmingly. It is a 6-year, $318 billion bill for all of transportation. Do you know what? It is still sitting at the desk. I was on this floor raising Cain with our House colleagues because they would not move. I believe my friend from Nevada joined with us.

Well, they moved. It will be 4 weeks tomorrow that they moved. Now, something that maybe a lot of people don't understand is, when you pass a bill like this, it doesn't go into the President's hands; it doesn't become law. You have to take some procedural steps to move it out of here. You have to substitute this bill for the House bill. You have to insist on a conference. You have to name conferees and send it back to the House--procedural items.

For most of the time I have been here, it happens automatically. Once you have a conference, then the Republican and Democratic conferees from the House sit down with the Republican and Democratic conferees from the Senate, and you can move forward.

But do you know what. We are stuck. We are stymied. Senator Reid wants to know what we can do. I say, very simply, what we need to do is to stop blocking the transfer of this bill back into conference with the House. What part of ``yes'' don't you understand? This is a simple matter. Now we have kicked the can down the road. We have had extensions and extensions, and we can't sit down and talk with our House colleagues.

And I said: Wait a minute. We have intelligence transportation systems in Missouri and every other State in the Nation. We have a need for good highways, roads, and bridges, to promote our homeland security, to create jobs, to relieve congestion, to promote long-term economic growth, and for safety. At least a third of the 43,000 people killed on highways every year in the Nation are killed because of unsafe highways.

So my good friend from Nevada wants to know what he can do to get an extension; and I said so this morning. I said: It is very easy. Let us move forward on the bill. We have tough issues to work out with the White House. We cannot work on those issues until we can sit down with the House and move forward. We have been

blocked by the actions of the other side.

I asked unanimous consent this morning to move forward, and the distinguished minority whip on the other side had another unanimous consent request. I said I would be happy to accept his if he accepts this one. Let's move the process forward. This is not rocket science. This is a necessary procedural step.

I am going home to Missouri this weekend. And do you know what. People are going to ask me: Why haven't you passed a highway bill? I would not be surprised if at least 90 percent of the Members of this body are asked the same question: Why haven't you passed a highway bill? One simple answer: 76 Members of this body voted for it, but now the other side objects to the procedural steps we need to take to move this into conference.

Nothing is going to happen until we move this bill into conference. This is not some strange procedure. Up until this year, this has been the normal procedure. Maybe if my colleague is sufficiently concerned about the extension, maybe if I renewed my request, he would be willing to move the bill forward.

Therefore, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the House-passed highway bill, H.R. 3550; provided further that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of S. 1072, as passed, be inserted in lieu thereof; the bill then be read a third time and passed; further that the Senate then insist on its amendment, request a conference with the House, and the Chair then be authorized to appoint conferees on the part of the Senate, with a ratio of 11 to 10.

Mr. President, I am sorry there continues to be an objection. I do not want to hold up this bill any longer. I want to see the Internet tax moratorium bill pass. I want to see us move forward on highways and transportation. I felt it was necessary to come down to clarify, based on what my good friend from Nevada said, that I am trying to move the process along. And when he asks his unanimous consent, I would ask that my unanimous consent be added to it so we can move forward. That is all we are doing.

This is very simple, standard procedure. I appreciate the time of the managers and everybody else. But there are an awful lot of people in this country who are waiting for a good 6-year Transportation bill, one like we passed in this Senate.

I appreciate my colleagues' time. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, will my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. President, I express my appreciation to the Senator from Nevada for reciting the deathless prose that I shared with this body the last time we were trying to get an extension. I made those statements because the highway bill is so important.

I ask my friend if he understands my message today--I know what the process is like; we go through this process of appointing conferees, and it takes a long time to get it done--if he understands that the way to move forward is to stop objecting to the simple procedural process of substituting this bill for the House bill, reading it a third time, passing it, naming conferees, sending it to the House and asking for a conference, all he has to do is to say yes to the unanimous consent request. I will say yes to his request and we can get on with the business. This is absolutely an unnecessary procedural delay. Every day we fail to appoint conferees, we are further down the road.

Did I make myself clear to my friend from Nevada? If he will agree to take the procedural steps, I will be happy to remove my objection to the extension.

Mr. President, I thank the majority leader and the distinguished minority whip.

I join with my colleagues today in welcoming a good friend to the Senate as guest Chaplain, Dr. Phillip McClendon of Joplin, MO. He is the senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church where for the past 20 years he has served as a dynamic church and spiritual leader for southwest Missouri, ministering to all with whom he comes in contact, including hospital patients here and on his extensive missions

abroad. While we claim him for Missouri, his pastoring and his services extend to many people beyond the borders of our State. We are extremely delighted that he has been able to bring this body together and start us, we hope, on the right track today.

Dr. McClendon was educated in Georgia, Kentucky, and Missouri, and has been pastor for lengthy periods of service in New Mexico and Texas before being elevated to the current status in Missouri.

In addition to his church responsibilities, Dr. McClendon is a widely respected civic leader. He has served as trustee for the Ozark Mental Health Center, on the board of directors for the Ronald McDonald House of the four States, and as a member of the Advisory Council for the Community Blood Center of the Ozarks.

Dr. McClendon's works can be read through his published works. He has been on numerous television broadcasts throughout the region and has developed quite a wide following.

The interesting thing about Dr. McClendon is his ability to balance his calling, his family duties, all the while contributing so much to the Greater Joplin community. It underscores his dedication and active commitment to doing God's work for the betterment of humanity and all of our spiritual lives.

Dr. McClendon and his wife Jackie have three children, Scott, Gwen, and Crystal. Today, we are very pleased to be able to welcome an enthusiastic group of friends and admirers as he opened the Senate for business. We are truly delighted to welcome him and his group.

Thanks, Dr. McClendon, to you and your family, for your service.

I appreciate the opportunity to make these remarks. I thank the Chair for giving me this opportunity.

Mr. President, I rise to congratulate the Drury University Lady Panthers basketball team on their fantastic march to the NCAA Division II championship game in St. Joseph, MO, on March 27, 2004. Fans and alumni in Southwest Missouri and across the country are justifiably proud of the Lady Panthers.

For years fans from the great State of Missouri have enjoyed watching some of America's most outstanding sports legends. The Lady Panthers are continuing this tradition of excellence, ending their year with an enviable record of 36-2. In an amazing performance, the Drury team battled until the end for the NCAA Division II National Championship. In the words of Coach Nyla Milleson, it was a tremendous journey.

What makes this story remarkable is the fact that the Lady Panthers basketball team was established just 4 years ago under the direction of the late Dr. Bruce Harger, Drury's athletic director for 15 years. Many teams work for years to gain preeminence and respect in their sport. Thanks to the brilliant coaching of Nyla Milleson and her staff, along with the team's strong commitment and hard work, the Lady Panthers were able to achieve this distinction in a very short time.

Coach Milleson skillfully assembled a group of talented young women, many from southwest Missouri where basketball takes center stage in most communities during the winter months. The women's team played their first game in 2000, joining a Drury men's team that is rich in tradition. With strong support from the University and its boosters, the Lady Panthers enjoyed immediate success, culminating in their championship appearance this March.

Long known for academics, Drury University can now add women's basketball to its list of nationally recognized sports programs, continuing its tradition of excellence. There is no doubt that the Drury Lady Panthers are poised to compete in many more games. I congratulate Coach Milleson and all the Lady Panthers team members, coaches and supporters who worked hard to turn their dreams into reality.

Madam President, I came to speak on medical malpractice. How much time is remaining on this side?

Madam President, I wish to save 3 minutes, if you will advise me. I believe another colleague is coming.

I do have to make one or two quick remarks about this subject of Iraq. When we went into Iraq, 77 Members of this body believed the intelligence, that there was a deadly force, a radical tyrant there who needed to be removed.

One may argue about the intelligence. The intelligence was not as good as it should have been, and that is why we on the Intelligence Committee have been looking into the evidence. But there is no question, what David Kay said afterward when he did the work of the Iraqi Survey Group, Iraq was a far more dangerous place than we even imagined it.

We heard from soldiers. I talked with soldiers who have been there. They know what we are doing. They know the atrocities that went on. They know Iraq was a place of weapons of mass destruction, that biological and chemical weapons had been manufactured before, with wide-open opportunities for terrorists in Iraq to get those weapons and to use them. This was a clear-cut danger, not only to the people of Iraq who were suffering every day--literally hundreds of thousands murdered, neighbors murdered--but also a harbor for terrorists in that country and around the world.

What we did in Iraq was dismember the Saddam Hussein regime and wipe out the terrorist holding pattern of government, wipe out the protective elements Afghanistan's Taliban government and Iraq's Saddam Hussein have given the terrorists.

Yes, there is deadly fighting going on. There are tragedies every day, and it was laid out by al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader in northern Iraq who has been working there for years to attack not only American soldiers but Iraqi civilians. They are attacking those civilians, but they are aiming at the American public opinion. They are aiming at this body. They want to get this body to say we are going to cut and run so they can have the opportunity to run that country one more time.

I believe we cannot forsake and disregard the sacrifices made by the brave men and women who have deposed and captured Saddam Hussein and opened up the opportunity for a free and vibrant Iraq to flourish in the Middle East. I hope we will stay the course, and I think my colleagues will want to talk about it.

I wanted to address today the problem of medical malpractice insurance rates and how trial lawyers have driven them through the top of the roof.

Nineteen States are in a full-blown crisis, including my home State of Missouri. Premium increases in 2002 were 61 percent, on top of increases in the previous year of 22 percent.

Almost a third of the physicians in Missouri say they are considering leaving their practice altogether. It is happening in Missouri and across the country. But this is not only a problem for doctors. They are well educated. They can move elsewhere and resume their practice, as difficult and as unfair as that is. The real damage, the real pain, is being felt by their patients.

The headlines and the horror stories continue to accumulate, and patients continue to suffer in Missouri and across the country. The bill before us on which we are going to vote today is a narrow, targeted, short-term solution to a growing national crisis. This bill protects patient access to emergency and trauma care services, as well as access to care for women and babies.

I have come to this floor many times to talk about protecting access to care for pregnant women. It is a real problem in Missouri. Last year, Missouri lost a total of 33 obstetricians. Let me give a few examples of the compromised care in Missouri.

A St. Joseph, MO, practice, the only practice in northwest Missouri to accept Medicaid, lost one-third of its doctors after the insurance company would no longer offer insurance to OB/GYNs. St. Joseph now has only seven OB/GYNs serving its population.

A Missouri doctor who had been in private practice for 3 years experienced a 400-percent increase in liability premiums for the past 3 years. He got a quote of $108,000 for the current year. The OB/GYN is considering quitting obstetrics to find more affordable insurance to do something else.

A gynecological oncologist in Missouri left a group practice, eliminated a rural outreach clinic because of rising professional medical liability premiums. Women with gynecological cancers in Ste. Genevieve, Carbondale, and Chester now have to drive over 100 miles to see a gynecological oncologist.

On the eastern side of the State in St. Ann, MO, an OB/GYN was forced to close his practice last year because of medical liability costs that rose 100 percent. Previously, that practice had delivered about 400 babies a year.

Twelve doctors at the Kansas City Women's Clinic used to serve women in both Missouri and Kansas, but because of the rising medical liability insurance rates in Missouri, the clinic could not find a single company that would offer them a medical malpractice insurance policy they needed in their office in Missouri.

As a result, at the end of 2002, they closed their doors to Missouri patients. There were over 6,000 visits a year in their Missouri office. Now they have to go to Kansas to see an OB/GYN or someplace else.

Access to OB/GYN services is not the only care in jeopardy. This crisis threatens access to emergency and trauma services as well. To secure affordable medical liability insurance or to minimize their risk of lawsuits, many physicians, including neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, cardiothoracic surgeons, obstetricians, and cardiologists are forced to stop serving ``on call'' to hospital emergency departments.

Today, in many hospitals there are no neurosurgeons available to treat patients with major head trauma or no orthopedic surgeon to care for patients with open fractures.

Patients suffering from head and spinal injuries, broken bones, gunshot wounds, or other major trauma are airlifted to other medical facilities. Critical lifesaving facilities are no longer available, and in many extreme cases trauma centers have been forced to shut down completely. This is a danger that speaks in volumes.

As my colleagues know, there is a ``golden hour'' that trauma patients have from the time they are injured to the time they get trauma care. Closing trauma centers increases the odds that patients won't get the care they need in that hour.

In Missouri the numbers speak volumes: 20 percent of all the neurosurgeons in Kansas City, MO have quit or moved out of the area in the past 12 months; 5 out of 25 neurosurgeons in private practice in St. Louis quit last year; 21 out of 79 neurosurgeons surveyed in Missouri are considering leaving the State; 2 trauma centers in Kansas City have closed in the past 12 months due to lack of physician coverage.

According to Dr. Steve Reintjes, a practicing physician at the KC Neurosurgery Group in Kansas City, ``Patients are dying before they get to us because the trauma center's closed.''

Patients are having a hard time getting the care they need and communities are losing their trusted doctors. We have a health care system that is in crisis in Missouri and across the country.

The bill before us today provides a sensible, short-term solution to a growing national crisis, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Madam President, I see my colleague from Arizona has joined us. I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Arizona.

Mr. President, I am delighted to join with my friend and colleague Senator Mikulski to introduce today the Environmental Enforcement and Security Act (EESA) of 2004. This bill will increase substantially enforcement of our Nation's environmental laws, increase environmentally related homeland security, and further protect our Nation's water supply from terrorist attack.

Our families and environment deserve communities free from intentional violators of environmental laws and terrorists who would attack our drinking water supplies.

With this dramatic new commitment to environmental enforcement and drinking water security, we will tell those who would intentionally harm us that we are coming after them.

The environment and health of our communities need vigorous prosecution of intentional violations of our Nation's environmental laws. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Criminal Enforcement program investigates the most significant and egregious violators of environmental laws that pose a significant threat to human health and the environment. However, the number of EPA Criminal Enforcement Special Agents has remained constant for the last several years.

In addition, in our post-9/11 world, EPA Special Agents are needed for homeland security duties to detect, investigate and respond to terrorist threats involving chemical or biological hazards.

EPA Special Agents support the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice. EPA Special Agents are members of FBI Counter-Terrorism Response Teams and Evidence Response Teams.

However, with this new post-9/11 need to respond to the threat of terrorism, some are concerned that environmental violations may not be receiving the attention they deserve. A recent report by the EPA Inspector General, an internal review by the EPA Enforcement and Compliance Assurance program, and various media accounts tell how EPA needs more resources to meet both its environmental and homeland security duties.

Our bill responds to these calls with a dramatic new commitment to EPA's enforcement program. My bill will put 50 new EPA Criminal Enforcement Special Agents on the environmental beat. EESA will also provide for 80 Special Agents to support homeland security duties.

With our bill, we will no longer need to make a choice between protecting our homeland and protecting our environment.

With out bill, those who would intentionally hurt our families and communities through environmental harm will know that we are sending the manpower and resources needed to come after them.

We are also sending local communities new funding to protect our drinking water supplies. Every family and every business needs clean and safe drinking water. Every mother needs to know that when she turns on the tap in her kitchen sink, clean and safe water will come out.

That is why our bill devotes $100 million for additional drinking water security protections. EESA will send grant funds directly to water systems to protect against terrorist attack with fencing, intruder detection, access control and water monitoring. The need is great, but the federal government will attempt to do its share.

Our bill will also enhance EPA's ability to protect the environment and human health in several other ways. EESA will double the number of enforcement trainers and triple EPA's enforcement training budget. EESA funds will train Federal, State and local inspectors, law enforcement agents and prosecutors with the training they need to pursue environmental violations.

Our bill will also improve the environment by doubling compliance assistance funds to fill gaps in enforcement coverage, reach regulated facilities not visited by inspectors, and help the regulated community, especially small businesses, to understand EPA's complex and extensive regulatory requirements.

Our bill will also make EPA's enforcement actions more efficient and targeted by fully funding a strategic enforcement targeting program. EESA will enhance EPA's ability to target its enforcement actions to where the environment needs them most. Strategic targeting will also improve EPA's ability to identify and respond to increased noncompliance with environmental laws.

Our Nation's environmental laws exist to protect our families, our communities and our natural resources. Those who would intentionally violate our environmental laws deserve the full force of the government to stop them.

Our families and communities also deserve our most vigorous efforts to protect them from the specter of terror. Chemical and biological threats represent one of the most sinister means for men to terrorize each other.

We will send our homeland security agencies the environmental expertise and personnel they need to confront these threats.

We will also send our local communities new help for additional drinking water security protections.

Our environment deserves no less, our families deserve no less. I urge my colleagues to support passage and funding of the Environmental Enforcement and Security Act of 2004.