Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate now resume legislative session and that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 2677, the Morocco free-trade legislation, as provided under the statute.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished assistant minority leader for his approval of going ahead on this issue. I thank every Senator on the other side because any Senator on the other side or, for that matter, this side can object to any legislation coming up. Trade legislation is a little more controversial than it used to be. We have had great cooperation from the Democrats in the bipartisan manner it takes to get business done in the Senate on three very important trade agreements, including now this one, the United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement. Last week we did the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement, and prior to that the extension and reauthorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which was passed just prior to our previous recess for the Fourth of July.

So often in this body the antagonism gets highlighted between Republican and Democrats. I wish to thank all the minority Members for allowing me to move ahead with this legislation.

Obviously, since I presented this legislation, I support this bill, S. 2677. It is legislation that implements the United States-Morocco Free Trade Agreement. I happen to believe this agreement marks a solid win for America, and when it comes to trade legislation, when we talk about a solid win, that is in economic terms and that creates jobs in America because America produces, in most instances, more than we can consume, particularly in agriculture but in other areas as well.

The United States is 5 percent of the world's population. So if anybody thinks we should not accept goods from overseas and then other countries not let us export, understand that 5 percent of the people of this world, the Americans, when we produce much more than we consume-- and in agriculture that is 40 percent--what they would be saying is that we ought to shut down part of productive America. Obviously, if we shut down part of productive America, we lose jobs. So if we are going to keep enhancing our economy, to increase our standard of living--and that is related to increased productivity--then, obviously, we have to look to the 95 percent of the people of the world who are outside the United States as a market.

Other countries, obviously, look to the world for a market. So it is a very competitive market. But the extent to which we reduce trade barriers--and this Morocco agreement is one example of reducing barriers to trade--then we let the marketplace make a decision on where goods go, what goods cost, and the quality of goods. For the most part, consumers of those respective countries, including America, make a determination as to what they want to pay and the quality of product they want. But the marketplace is going to be making that decision.

When we have barriers to trade that are set up by governments, then political leaders are making those decisions. Or if it is not political leaders, it is government employees making those decisions. Quite frankly, when government makes decisions, you do not reap the benefits of the efficiency of the marketplace and the efficiency of productivity of the respective workers of the respective countries that you do if the marketplace is making those decisions.

Willing buyer, willing seller, setting price, setting quality, setting time of transaction is better than 535 Members of Congress making that decision. All one has to do is look at Russia today. It is much more productive than it was when bureaucrats in Moscow were deciding how many acres of wheat to plant and when to combine those acres, the mature crop. A third of it was left in the field because when 5 o'clock came, they went home. When the American farmer goes out to harvest crops, he stays there until he gets it done, particularly something that is time sensitive, such as the maturing crop of wheat or soybeans. But not the Russian farmer under the Soviet system of command and control. Russia was not exporting grain. Today, Russia is exporting grain. We have to go back to the new economic program of the late 1920s for that to have happened, or you have to go back to the days of the czar for that to have happened in Russia.

So the marketplace is the best place to make these decisions, and agreements leveling the playing field, such as this Morocco agreement, are examples of the United States looking to the rest of the world to sell the surplus we manufacture, the surplus we produce, the excess--if you do not want to call it surplus, it is excess--of what we can consume here.

When this agreement is implemented, more than 95 percent of bilateral trade will become duty free immediately. According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, this is the best market access package of any U.S. free-trade agreement with a developing country. This will bring important new opportunities for America's manufacturing sector. The agreement will also benefit our service providers with new market opportunities, particularly in key sectors such as engineering, telecommunications, banking, and insurance. U.S. intellectual property rights owners will obtain the benefits of

stronger protection for their trademarks, for their copyrights, and for their patents.

Any agreement will lead to a more open and transparent trading regime with the implementation of the new transparency procedures for customs administration, new commitments to combat bribery, and strong protections for U.S. investors in the region.

Perhaps most importantly for my home State of Iowa, the agreement brings substantial benefits to the U.S. agricultural community. I note firstly that the agreement is comprehensive. No sector is excluded. This is important for the future of our U.S. agriculture. The fact is, when we take a sector off the table during negotiations, our trading partners are bound to do the same. All too often the sector they want excluded is one of our most competitive agricultural products. That means lost sales for America's family farmers.

It is very important that we send a strong message to our future trading partners that our country, the United States of America, remains committed to negotiating broad and very comprehensive free- trade agreements. Passage of this agreement moves that ball closer to the goalpost and reaffirms our commitment to negotiating and not being on the sideline.

Second, this agreement is sure to advance our agricultural exports in an important and growing region of the market. The recent trend of Argentine and Brazilian corn displacing American corn in the Moroccan market will end. In fact, the International Trade Commission predicts that absent the current tariff, United States corn producers will supply nearly all of Morocco's corn imports in the coming years.

The International Trade Commission also estimates that United States exports of soybean meal to Morocco will likely increase substantially under this agreement. With Morocco presently imposing tariffs as high as, believe this, 275 percent on the import of United States beef, the United States is in effect literally shut out of the Moroccan beef market. This will change under this agreement, with the United States gaining new access for our beef going into Morocco.

United States exporters are currently at a competitive disadvantage when they try to sell wheat to Morocco. The fact is that competitors of the United States can sell their wheat cheaper. This agreement will change that. This agreement will level the playing field for America's wheat farmers. It is also going to do it for our beef ranchers.

An independent study by the American Farm Bureau Federation found that under this agreement--now, this is the American Farm Bureau--the United States agricultural trade surplus with Morocco could reach $382 million by 2015 with Moroccan agricultural exports rising by only $25 million. Thus, under this agreement, U.S. agriculture would see roughly a 10-to-1 gain. Those figures speak louder than words.

I have received testimony and letters in support of this agreement from across America's agricultural sector. I concentrate on what we have heard from one Iowa farmer, but also a person who is very much a leader in the Iowa Soybean Association, Ron Heck from Perry, IA. He testified before the Finance Committee, which I chair, that the agreement will not only benefit soybean farmers directly in increased exports to the country of Morocco but also indirectly as they sell their grain to America's beef and poultry farmers who will in turn export these products of beef and poultry to Morocco.

When one sells meat, one sells a value-added agricultural product that has created more jobs in America. It is better to sell the beef and the poultry, it brings more wealth to America than sending our raw grain and our raw soybeans overseas.

We have the National Corn Growers Association, the International Dairy Food Association, the National Milk Producers Federation, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Association of Wheat Growers, the National Chicken Council, the Corn Refiners, and the USA Rice Federation, to name a few, that have all written to me in favor of this agreement.

The Morocco free trade agreement also contains a preference clause that grants the United States market access provisions that will be at least as good as those granted by Morocco to other countries in any future free trade agreement they may enter into.

Finally, the agreement enabled us to tackle tough sanitary and phytosanitary issues which had been acting as a bar to many of our agricultural exports.

In my mind, the economic benefits are enough for any Senator to support this agreement. I think my colleagues ought to take into consideration other less tangible reasons to cast their vote as yea.

Morocco is a longstanding friend and ally of the United States. In fact, Morocco was the first country to extend diplomatic relations to the United States following our independence. Our two nations first signed a treaty of peace and friendship in 1786, making this the oldest unbroken treaty in the history of the United States foreign relations.

Today, Morocco is a valuable ally in the war against terrorism, working with our country to bring peace and stability throughout the Middle East. In short, Morocco has been and still remains a valued friend of our country. I am pleased we will be able to strengthen our friendship with the passage of this free trade agreement.

The Morocco free trade agreement marks our third free trade agreement in the Middle East. Although we enjoy strong free trade agreements with Israel and Jordan, the Congress may soon have an opportunity to consider a fourth free trade agreement with Bahrain, another important Middle Eastern country and one that is very helpful to us in a military way.

While each free trade agreement is valued in and of itself, these free trade agreements are also steppingstones toward President Bush's broader vision of a Middle East free trade agreement by the year 2013. Today, far too many people in the Middle East are plagued by poverty and lack of education and opportunity. While trade itself will not alleviate every ill, it is a vital tool of development which has been lacking for far too long in that important region of the world. I am confident the passage of this free trade agreement, along with our continued efforts to build a Middle East free trade agreement, can help change that by ushering in a new era of hope and prosperity in that critical part of the world.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak to an issue that is vitally important--hospital safety. For too long, the Federal Government has not had the appropriate oversight authority to assure safety in our Nation's hospitals.

I am proud to introduce the Medicare Hospital Accreditation Act, bipartisan legislation that will give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the same oversight capacity over hospital accreditation that it has over all other health care accrediting bodies.

The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO) is a private, not-for-profit organization. In 1965 Congress granted JCAHO ``deeming authority'' for Medicare certification under Section 1865 of the Social Security Act. This sweeping authority gave hospitals accredited by JCAHO the ability to participate in Medicare with minimal CMS oversight. Since then, JCAHO has accredited most of our Nation's hospitals--over 80 percent in 2002. No other health care accreditation program has had this same statutory exception.

Congress gave JCAHO an important role to detect and correct problems that directly affect the lives of patients in hospitals. Congress, CMS and in turn the American people, rely upon JCAHO's work to ensure the quality and safety in our Nation's hospitals.

JCAHO's own mission claims to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation.

Unfortunately, JCAHO was entrusted with this responsibility without the necessary checks and balances so crucial to a government responsive to the needs of the people it serves.

This GAO report is only the most recent evidence showing problems with the Joint Commission. In June of 1990, the GAO found that CMS, which was then called the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), needed to reevaluate the criteria used to evaluate the JCAHO's survey process and recommended that HCFA establish a means to detect significant differences between state agency and Joint Commission surveys.

In May of 1991, the GAO published a report titled ``Hospitals with Quality-of-Care Problems Need Closer Monitoring'' and recommended that HCFA closely monitor the Joint Commission's follow-up of hospital efforts to correct deficiencies it found related to Medicare conditions of participation.

Then in 1999, the Inspector General for the Department of Health & Human Services also raised serious concerns. The IG looked at how well the Joint Commission identified deficiencies in hospitals and found that the Joint Commission's surveys were not likely to identify patterns of deficient care.

Today's GAO findings are likewise significant. Over the course of 3 years--

between 2000 and 2002--500 hospitals were surveyed by both JCAHO and by a state survey agency on behalf of CMS. According to the GAO, a comparison of these surveys revealed that the state surveys often found serious deficiencies--serious deficiencies that went overlooked or unnoticed by JCAHO.

In fact, the GAO found that out of the 157 hospitals found with serious deficiencies, JCAHO identified only 34. In other words, compared to state surveyors, JCAHO missed hospitals with deficiencies 78 percent of the time.

A hospital that prepared and administered drugs in violation of federal and state laws is just one example of a serious deficiency found by a state agency, but missed by JCAHO in its 2000 survey.

Serious deficiencies found by state agencies but missed by JCAHO represent a pattern of deficient care--not merely isolated incidents. Unlike isolated incidents, a pattern of deficient care raises grave concerns because of the potential to place dozens of lives in danger, involving for example a floor or entire wing where many hospital patients are receiving their care.

Because JCAHO's hospital ``deeming authority'' is statutorily mandated, CMS cannot terminate this authority. Today, we are taking the first step to give CMS the same oversight capability over JCAHO that it has over all other health care accrediting organizations.

This legislation will give CMS the authority and responsibility to hold JCAHO accountable and, if necessary, restrict or remove its hospital accreditation authority. It will bring uniformity to the health care accreditation process and will provide a more effective chain-of-command. JCAHO will have to answer to CMS--as it does in other sectors of health care accreditation.

The GAO recommends that Congress grant CMS greater oversight over JCAHO's hospital accreditation process. CMS agrees. JCAHO agrees. My colleague from across the aisle and across the Capitol, Congressman Stark--who as we speak is introducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives--agrees with this finding.

I urge your support for this much-needed legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak to an issue that is vitally important--hospital safety. For too long, the Federal Government has not had the appropriate oversight authority to assure safety in our Nation's hospitals.

I am proud to introduce the Medicare Hospital Accreditation Act, bipartisan legislation that will give the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the same oversight capacity over hospital accreditation that it has over all other health care accrediting bodies.

The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Health Organizations (JCAHO) is a private, not-for-profit organization. In 1965 Congress granted JCAHO ``deeming authority'' for Medicare certification under Section 1865 of the Social Security Act. This sweeping authority gave hospitals accredited by JCAHO the ability to participate in Medicare with minimal CMS oversight. Since then, JCAHO has accredited most of our Nation's hospitals--over 80 percent in 2002. No other health care accreditation program has had this same statutory exception.

Congress gave JCAHO an important role to detect and correct problems that directly affect the lives of patients in hospitals. Congress, CMS and in turn the American people, rely upon JCAHO's work to ensure the quality and safety in our Nation's hospitals.

JCAHO's own mission claims to continuously improve the safety and quality of care provided to the public through the provision of health care accreditation.

Unfortunately, JCAHO was entrusted with this responsibility without the necessary checks and balances so crucial to a government responsive to the needs of the people it serves.

This GAO report is only the most recent evidence showing problems with the Joint Commission. In June of 1990, the GAO found that CMS, which was then called the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), needed to reevaluate the criteria used to evaluate the JCAHO's survey process and recommended that HCFA establish a means to detect significant differences between state agency and Joint Commission surveys.

In May of 1991, the GAO published a report titled ``Hospitals with Quality-of-Care Problems Need Closer Monitoring'' and recommended that HCFA closely monitor the Joint Commission's follow-up of hospital efforts to correct deficiencies it found related to Medicare conditions of participation.

Then in 1999, the Inspector General for the Department of Health & Human Services also raised serious concerns. The IG looked at how well the Joint Commission identified deficiencies in hospitals and found that the Joint Commission's surveys were not likely to identify patterns of deficient care.

Today's GAO findings are likewise significant. Over the course of 3 years--

between 2000 and 2002--500 hospitals were surveyed by both JCAHO and by a state survey agency on behalf of CMS. According to the GAO, a comparison of these surveys revealed that the state surveys often found serious deficiencies--serious deficiencies that went overlooked or unnoticed by JCAHO.

In fact, the GAO found that out of the 157 hospitals found with serious deficiencies, JCAHO identified only 34. In other words, compared to state surveyors, JCAHO missed hospitals with deficiencies 78 percent of the time.

A hospital that prepared and administered drugs in violation of federal and state laws is just one example of a serious deficiency found by a state agency, but missed by JCAHO in its 2000 survey.

Serious deficiencies found by state agencies but missed by JCAHO represent a pattern of deficient care--not merely isolated incidents. Unlike isolated incidents, a pattern of deficient care raises grave concerns because of the potential to place dozens of lives in danger, involving for example a floor or entire wing where many hospital patients are receiving their care.

Because JCAHO's hospital ``deeming authority'' is statutorily mandated, CMS cannot terminate this authority. Today, we are taking the first step to give CMS the same oversight capability over JCAHO that it has over all other health care accrediting organizations.

This legislation will give CMS the authority and responsibility to hold JCAHO accountable and, if necessary, restrict or remove its hospital accreditation authority. It will bring uniformity to the health care accreditation process and will provide a more effective chain-of-command. JCAHO will have to answer to CMS--as it does in other sectors of health care accreditation.

The GAO recommends that Congress grant CMS greater oversight over JCAHO's hospital accreditation process. CMS agrees. JCAHO agrees. My colleague from across the aisle and across the Capitol, Congressman Stark--who as we speak is introducing the companion bill in the House of Representatives--agrees with this finding.

I urge your support for this much-needed legislation.

I now ask unanimous consent that the FSC bill be temporarily set aside and I now move to proceed to H.R. 4759, the Australia Free Trade Agreement. I further ask consent that there be 6 hours equally divided between the chairman and ranking member or their designees; provided further that all other provisions of the statute remain applicable to the bill.

Further, I ask unanimous consent that following the use or yielding back of the time the Senate proceed to a vote on the passage of H.R. 4759, and immediately following that vote the Senate resume consideration of the FSC bill and proceed to a vote in relation to the DeWine amendment as provided under the order.

Finally, I ask unanimous consent that there be 2 minutes equally divided for debate prior to the second vote.

Yes. That would be on the DeWine amendment?

Yes.

Mr. President, for staff and Senators who are not on the floor, I call attention to the fact that we are starting the debate on the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement. We have 3 hours on this side. I have not had many requests for time, and I know that two or three Members want to speak. I urge those Members to come over early to speak because if we can yield back time we do want to do so.

I was only going to speak about 7 or 8 minutes. The Senator from Oklahoma wanted to speak 5 minutes. Is there any problem if I give the Senator from Oklahoma 5 minutes right now and then I speak 7 or 8 minutes and then the Senator from North Dakota can have the floor?

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes to the Senate majority leader.

Mr. President, I am happy to bring to my colleagues the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act. This is a bill that Congress must pass to actually implement what has been negotiated as the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement. This is under the process that we call trade promotion authority. This is a process by which Congress, which has the constitutional power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, has delegated negotiating authority to the President to negotiate certain trade agreements. But because we have that constitutional authority, we cannot give to the President of the United States the authority to change U.S. law as it might be negotiated.

So we are now dealing with legislation that changes U.S. law and makes the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement not a treaty approved just by the Senate of the United States, as we know treaties are, by two-thirds vote, but this is basic law. It has passed the House of Representatives by a majority vote, hopefully it will pass the Senate by a majority vote, and it is to be signed by the President.

We are dealing with the constitutional authority of the Congress to regulate foreign and interstate commerce, but understanding that it is not reasonable to expect 535 Members of Congress to deal with foreign countries, we have asked the President to do that for us but under guidelines that we have set down and with Congress having the final authority. We are in the process of exercising that final authority.

As is true of almost any agreement, this one might not be perfect. However, I believe it will provide significant benefits to the United States, our economy, and particularly to the economy and the people of my home State of Iowa.

During committee consideration of the agreement, we heard from a number of different sectors of the economy which stand to benefit from the agreement. At the top of the list is the U.S. manufacturing sector and all the jobs that exist in that sector that will be stabilized and enhanced as a result of American manufacturing selling a lot more to Australia because certain duties that now are on those products will be gone.

Under the agreement, more than 99 percent of U.S. manufacturing exports to Australia will become duty free immediately after this agreement is signed by the President. This is the most significant reduction of manufacturing tariffs ever achieved in any U.S. free-trade agreement.

This is very good news for manufacturers such as the Al-jon company of Ottumwa, IA, employing 100 people. Today, about 10 to 15 percent of Al-jon's production is exported. They are confident that with a level playing field they can do even better. This bill helps level that field.

During testimony before my committee, John Kneen, chairman of the board of Al-jon, testified that while they have had some success selling in Australia, their exports are currently limited by two factors: First, Australia currently imposes a 5-percent tariff on their exports. And, second, the cost of shipping heavy equipment to Australia is very high. While we cannot do much about the cost of shipping, we surely can eliminate the 5-percent barrier with the enactment of this trade agreement.

It is not just the company of Al-jon that will benefit. Mr. Kneen testified that over 19,000 U.S. companies that currently export to Australia are likely to benefit from what he termed the ``instant competitive advantage'' provided by the elimination of these tariff barriers on U.S. manufacturing exports.

These companies include other Iowa manufacturers such as John Deere, which has four manufacturing plants in my State. John Deere anticipates increased exports to Australia on account of this free-trade agreement.

The U.S. agricultural sector stands to benefit from the agreement as well, as duties on all U.S. farm exports will be eliminated, reducing tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports by over $700 million. Processed food, soybeans, oilseed products, fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, all will benefit from these duty reductions. For U.S. farmers and our ranchers who compete with Australian agriculture, special safeguards and tariff rate quotas are included as part of the agreement to make sure that trade is not only free but fair.

The free-trade agreement negotiating process also opened the door to eliminate scientifically unfounded barriers to the importation of U.S. pork and U.S. pork for processing. These are all major Iowa products because we are No. 1 of the 50 States in the production of pork. While Australia made its scientific determination regarding pork outside of the free-trade agreement negotiations, the intensive consultation process that naturally flows from engaging in bilateral trade negotiations helped in the resolution of that very important matter. Dermot Hayes, an economist at Iowa State University, estimates that the elimination of these unfounded barriers could increase U.S. exports of pork to Australia by over $50 million annually.

The United States-Australia Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, and the Standing Technical Working Group on Animal and Plant Health Measures, which are established under the FTA, will help to ensure that all Australian standards on United States agricultural imports are based on sound science and are not used as a basis for protectionism.

Iowa's service providers will also benefit from new market-access openings in Australia for our service exports. These commitments, along with new, transparent trading rules, should provide a lot of important new market opportunities for Iowa's service exports.

And, for the first time, this agreement opens much of Australia's lucrative government procurement market to United States exporters. The government procurement provisions are especially important, as Australia is one of only a few developed countries that are not members of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement.

In sum, the United States will benefit from the United States- Australia Free Trade Agreement. I urge my colleagues to vote for S. 2610, the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.

(At the request of Mr. Daschle, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)

Mr. President, I was hoping that the Senator from North Dakota would stay around. First, I support the Australia Free Trade Agreement because it is for the sole purpose that it is in the economic interest of the United States of America. I do it within our constitutional power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce. I do it in the tradition of the last 70 years, since the 1930s, of the United States doing everything it could to lead the rest of the world in the reduction of barriers to trade; to enhance not only the economy of the United States of America but the economy of the entire world.

Let no one have any doubt in their mind, this is in the economic interest of the United States and that is the only thing the United States ought to be considering as we consider this legislation.

The charge was made that the only reason we are doing this is because of the friendship of Australia and their support in our efforts in Iraq. If I can do something in the economic interest of the United States and at the same time enhance our relationships and show our respect for a friend in the world community of nations, I am not going to back away from doing that, because through almost 100 years of the involvement of the United States in military activity for the promotion of peace and liberty around the world Australia has been an ally on which we could count.

Australia is not going to agree to this agreement because they might like the United States of America. Australia is going to look at this and ask: Is it in their economic interest? Now, their administration has already said that it is because it is signed. I do not know whether Congress has acted down in Australia, but nobody is going to be concerned about the economic interests of America except Americans and the elected representatives of America. Nobody is going to be concerned about the economic interests of Australia except the people of Australia and their elected representatives.

It just happens that everything does not have to be black and white, that when we do things in public policy and in international trade and in our foreign relations sometimes things can be done to accomplish more than one thing, and it happens that we have an opportunity in this vote today not only to do something in the economic interests of the United States of America but also to enhance our relationship with a friend in the world.

From a member of a political party who is always badmouthing our President of the United States because he is engaged in world activities, military activities without seeking enough help from other nations and from the United Nations, I think it is talking out of both sides of your mouth when you condemn us for trying to do something for a nation that has been a friend of ours--in this case, Australia.

The other thing I noticed about the debate that just went on is the charts that have been put up all afternoon by people on the other side of the aisle bemoaning the unfavorable balance of trade we have. What do they want to do? Do they want to tell the consumers of America that you cannot buy from anywhere in the world you want? Why do we have the balance of trade we do? It is because the U.S. consumers are king and they can do anything they want to do and they are doing it. They are exercising their economic freedom. They are also exercising the opportunity of the marketplace to buy from what they think is the place to get the best quality for a certain price. That opportunity happens to be enhanced the greater the competition. The freer the trade around the world and the fairer the trade around the world, the more opportunities there are for our consumers to buy whatever they want to buy, of the quality they want, at what they consider a fair price.

I don't know that any Member of this Congress who has been complaining about the unfavorable balance of trade has introduced any legislation saying the consumers of America cannot buy this product or that product. Are they going to tell the consumers of North Dakota what they can buy or not buy? Are they going to certify to their people that their judgment as political leaders is better than the judgment of the consumer of America and the marketplace, including the consumer of North Dakota? I don't see them doing that.

The other thing is, why do we have an unfavorable balance of trade? One of the reasons is the people of America are not saving as much. But what do we get from the other side of the aisle when it comes to giving the taxpayers of America an opportunity to have more discretionary income? We hear complaints from the other side of the aisle that this side of the aisle is giving too many tax cuts because they happen to believe that 535 Members of Congress are smarter and better able to decide how to spend the money than the 130 million taxpayers of America. I don't believe that. But when taxes are high, there is less discretion for savings, and it impacts negatively upon our balance of trade.

The other thing I wonder about, with the other side of the aisle talking about the high trade deficit--one-third of that trade deficit comes from the importation of energy into America, mostly petroleum. We had an energy bill up last November, and that energy bill is defeated by a filibuster on the other side of the aisle. When we want to set an energy policy, so we import less energy, so we reduce our unfavorable balance of trade to some extent, they deliver 13 out of 49 Democrats to break a filibuster. When they want to kill the confirmation of judges who the President appoints, they can deliver 46 out of 49 Democrat votes to kill those judges. But when their own leader votes for a motion to bring about a national energy policy so we are not importing so much energy, so the balance of trade is not so unfavorable, what do we get from the other side? They don't even support their own leader when he says he needs it for his State.

So don't complain about the unfavorable balance of trade in America when you espouse policies that tend to make it worse, or question the wisdom of the consumers of America, to put your judgment above the judgment of 280 million people in America, that you know more than they do about what they ought to be doing with their money.

Now I want to address whether Congress is giving up constitutional power. I am addressing specifically the accusation that has been made by the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Conrad, who just finished his remarks. First of all, I have yet to see the memo obtained by Senator Conrad from the Congressional Research Service which he says supports his claim that his amendment could be made constitutional. But in any event, with respect to his argument that one way to implement his amendment in a constitutional fashion would be in the statement of administrative action--and it is on that point that I want to comment-- this is precisely the type of revisionist history that I warned of earlier, yesterday, in our committee meeting.

I read from the amendment that he put before the committee:

The amendment enhances the consultation requirement in the

waiver provisions by adding a requirement in paragraphs

202(c)(4) and 202(d)(5) that the Finance and the Ways and

Means Committees must both affirmatively approve a proposed

waiver before the USTR can waive the application of a

safeguard.

This amendment calls for specific changes to two sections of the implementing legislation. How could language added, then, to the statement of administrative action possibly effectuate this amendment, which calls for changes to the implementing bill? The answer is, very clearly it couldn't. But even if it could, this argument ignores the fact that the statement of administrative action is a statement of administrative action, not a statement of congressional action. But the amendment calls for action by two committees of Congress, not for action by the administration.

I would like to remind my colleague from North Dakota of the principle of separation of powers. In fact, that principle underlies the Supreme Court Chadha case and is the reason why the amendment as drafted and as voted on by the Finance Committee is unconstitutional. So any argument that the statement of administrative action offered a way to implement the amendment in a constitutional way is without merit.

What about the argument that the amendment could have been implemented in a constitutional way if requirements for action by the full Congress and presentation to the President for his signature were added, according to the decision of Chadha? In effect, under this interpretation, the amendment would require additional legislation to be enacted before a beef safeguard measure could be waived. That is the only way you could remain consistent with our Constitution. And it requires a contorted reading of the language of the amendment that was actually introduced and was voted on by the committee that day.

But let us assume that a legislative procedure was intended by the amendment, as contorted as that may be. The problem is, such a procedure conflicts with the obligations assumed by the United States in annex 3(a) of the agreement. In sections (b)(4) and (c)(5) of annex 3(a), the United States commits to retain the discretion not to apply a beef safeguard measure.

If the President is required to wait for congressional action before granting a waiver, that deprives the administration of the discretion to grant a waiver. Even if the amendment were to be implemented consistent with the U.S. Constitution, it would at the same time be inconsistent with the terms of the agreement.

Again, we see this amendment for what it truly is. It was political maneuvering, pure and simple. It was intended to obstruct the process. It was intended to force the administration to explain its rejection of an unconstitutional amendment or, based on these new arguments about constitutionality, the administration would be forced to explain its rejection of an amendment that was inconsistent with the agreement.

In either case, the administration's rejection of the amendment would have been used by some to argue that the trade promotion authority process was flawed, that the administration ignored the will of the Finance Committee.

They would have also argued that the administration had not done enough to protect the U.S. beef industry from imports, an allegation that is completely without merit if you read the terms of this agreement.

Any way that you revise the reading of the amendment, its purpose was to delay formal consideration of the bill and give opponents a political issue to try to exploit.

Again, as chairman of the Finance Committee, I did not want to see that happen. I wanted to end the obstructionism, end the political gamesmanship, and end the consideration of an unconstitutional amendment.

The majority of the committee voiced their will, and the amended recommendation was not approved. The trade promotion authority process was on and the process moved forward, leading us to the consideration of this very important legislation today, much in the economic interests of our people.

Again, I call on my colleagues to recognize the value of the underlying agreement with Australia and to support the implementation bill when we vote on it in a short period of time.

I yield the floor.

I yield back time on this side.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to fix a loophole in our visa policies that has and could continue to have detrimental consequences on our national security. I have been pressing the Departments of State and Homeland Security for the last year to make changes to visa revocation certificates so that we can question, detain, or deport foreigners who were not supposed to be granted a visa. It was one year ago today that the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on this problem.

For example, it is extremely difficult to detain and deport suspected terrorists whose visas have been revoked on terrorism grounds after those persons have set foot on U.S. soil. The difficulty stems from the wording on the revocation certificates, which are issued by the State Department. However, by law, the Department of Homeland Security has policy authority over visa issuance.

On June 17, 2003, a GAO report revealed that suspected terrorists can stay in the country after their visas have been revoked on terrorism grounds because of a legal loophole in the wording of revocation papers. This loophole came to light after the GAO found that more than 100 persons were granted visas that were later revoked because there was evidence the persons had terrorism links and associations. I wrote a letter to the Department of State on June 23, 2003, and both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees held hearings on the matter last year.

Some of us in Congress expected the government to fix this problem immediately, especially after GAO brought it to the attention of your department and other agencies. Perhaps this expectation was naive. More than a month after the GAO report and the hearings on the matter, I pressed the issue further with Under Secretary Hutchinson during a July 23, 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

We all recognized that a simple administrative fix, such as re- writing the revocation certificate, would solve the problem. In fact, Assistant Secretary Hutchinson personally pledged to me in July of last year that the Department of Homeland Security would issue regulations to fix it as soon as the Memo of Understanding with the Department of State was finalized. The Memo was signed on September 29, 2003.

On May 20 of this year, a member of the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that a regulation was written and being circulated internally.

But, here we are--more than a year after the GAO first revealed the loophole--and it appears that the problem still has not been solved.

This week, the GAO issued a report that said ``additional actions are needed to eliminate weaknesses in the visa revocation process.'' The GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State jointly develop a written governmentwide policy that clearly defines roles and responsibilities and sets performance standards for the agencies involved in the visa revocation process.

Frankly, I think these Departments have had enough time to consult with each other. Today, I offer a legislative fix.

It is amazing to me that such a simple and straightforward solution to such a dangerous and well-known problem continues to languish in the slow-moving bureaucracy. Promises were made, but the promises have not been kept. The visa revocation loophole needs to be fixed.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation to fix a loophole in our visa policies that has and could continue to have detrimental consequences on our national security. I have been pressing the Departments of State and Homeland Security for the last year to make changes to visa revocation certificates so that we can question, detain, or deport foreigners who were not supposed to be granted a visa. It was one year ago today that the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on this problem.

For example, it is extremely difficult to detain and deport suspected terrorists whose visas have been revoked on terrorism grounds after those persons have set foot on U.S. soil. The difficulty stems from the wording on the revocation certificates, which are issued by the State Department. However, by law, the Department of Homeland Security has policy authority over visa issuance.

On June 17, 2003, a GAO report revealed that suspected terrorists can stay in the country after their visas have been revoked on terrorism grounds because of a legal loophole in the wording of revocation papers. This loophole came to light after the GAO found that more than 100 persons were granted visas that were later revoked because there was evidence the persons had terrorism links and associations. I wrote a letter to the Department of State on June 23, 2003, and both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees held hearings on the matter last year.

Some of us in Congress expected the government to fix this problem immediately, especially after GAO brought it to the attention of your department and other agencies. Perhaps this expectation was naive. More than a month after the GAO report and the hearings on the matter, I pressed the issue further with Under Secretary Hutchinson during a July 23, 2003 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

We all recognized that a simple administrative fix, such as re- writing the revocation certificate, would solve the problem. In fact, Assistant Secretary Hutchinson personally pledged to me in July of last year that the Department of Homeland Security would issue regulations to fix it as soon as the Memo of Understanding with the Department of State was finalized. The Memo was signed on September 29, 2003.

On May 20 of this year, a member of the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that a regulation was written and being circulated internally.

But, here we are--more than a year after the GAO first revealed the loophole--and it appears that the problem still has not been solved.

This week, the GAO issued a report that said ``additional actions are needed to eliminate weaknesses in the visa revocation process.'' The GAO recommends that the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State jointly develop a written governmentwide policy that clearly defines roles and responsibilities and sets performance standards for the agencies involved in the visa revocation process.

Frankly, I think these Departments have had enough time to consult with each other. Today, I offer a legislative fix.

It is amazing to me that such a simple and straightforward solution to such a dangerous and well-known problem continues to languish in the slow-moving bureaucracy. Promises were made, but the promises have not been kept. The visa revocation loophole needs to be fixed.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dan Shepherdson, Nic Prenger, Julia Ehrgood, Casey August, and Peter Jordan be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the debate on S. 2610, the United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act.

Mr. President, I wish to take this opportunity to recognize the activities of two American Legion Auxiliary Units in Iowa, the Walter T. Enneberg 358 Auxiliary Unit in St. Ansgar, IA, and Auxiliary Unit 278 in Osage, IA. I thank them for their contributions to their communities. I ask unanimous consent that a newspaper article detailing the activities of the St. Ansgar unit and a summary of the activities of the Osage Unit be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I wish to take an opportunity to make a few comments and respond to some of the statements that have been made by individuals on the other side of the aisle who are opposed to this bill. I know a lot of people on the other side of the aisle favor this bill and that is why we have been able to get to the place where this legislation is coming up again. So my remarks are made toward and in response to those who oppose this legislation, not those who have been helping us move it along.

For instance, I heard there were claims that the Class Action Fairness Act has never been considered before, that there have not been any hearings or markups on this legislation. Clearly, these Members have not been talking to the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. Kohl, who has worked hard with me since the 105th Congress. Clearly, critics didn't pay any attention to what I had to say last night in my opening statement or, for that matter, many of the statements made by my colleagues on the long history of this legislation.

To the contrary, Congress has been considering this Class Action Fairness Act for several years. Small businesspeople who are paying for this irresponsible tort system we have in America would tell you they have been paying dearly too long and that this legislation is long overdue. One might even find some big companies saying that. But there is no free lunch in America. Somebody is paying when there are frivolous lawsuits. Somebody is paying when lawyers are getting paid too much and when consumers are getting too little. It is a cost to the economy, and we ought to do something about irresponsible costs to our economy.

My colleagues may remember--or they may not remember or we would not have heard these comments today about this legislation--as I indicated in my opening statement last night, both the House and Senate have convened hearings on class action abuse and the need for reform. Are we hearing there have never been hearings held? On what planet are those Senators living?

The House has passed similar versions of the Class Action Fairness Act since the 105th Congress and have done it, by the way, with very strong bipartisan support.

In the Senate in the 105th Congress--this is the 108th Congress. We can go back to the 107th, the 106th, and the 105th Congresses when there was work done on this legislation. At that time, I held hearings on class action abuse in the Judiciary Committee's Administrative Oversight and Court Subcommittee. In the 106th Congress, my subcommittee held another hearing on class actions, and the Judiciary Committee marked up and reported the Class Action Fairness Act, two Congresses ago.

In the last Congress, the 107th, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on class action abuse. And in the 108th Congress, the Judiciary Committee marked up the bill.

Any Senator who says we have not had hearings on this legislation has not been in the Senate very long or they do not have very good staff helping them or they are not doing anything themselves.

The bill we are considering is also compromise legislation that we worked out in a bipartisan way, a continuation of the bipartisan spirit of this legislation that is exemplified by the work of Senator Kohl now for over four Congresses. We did this with Senators Schumer, Dodd, and Landrieu since the cloture vote failed last October.

While the bill numbers may have changed for the Class Action Fairness Act, we have been working on it now for the fourth Congress. If people think just because we change the title of a bill we ought to have another hearing, that is just an excuse for stalling. If they do not like the bill, vote against it. But let's move something along that needs to be moved along, and there is a consensus in this body that it ought to be done.

I heard this morning claims that the Class Action Fairness Act would deny people the ability to file class action lawsuits. That is just plain not true. We do not take away claimants' ability to file in State court. All we do is modify the rules to allow removal to Federal court for class actions that fit certain criteria within this bill, and most often that is when there is a national implication of the class action suit, or it is not limited to a single State. It is in no way mandatory in our legislation that these cases need to proceed to the Federal court.

Moreover, the claims that we have heard this morning and this afternoon that the Federal courts do not certify class actions are not true either. The Federal courts certify class action cases all the time, and the claimants win their suits in the Federal courts

and it is often seen as a forum of preference.

A recent Federal Judiciary Center study found that it was more likely for a class action to be certified in Federal court than in State court. There simply is no foundation, then, for the allegation that Federal courts are less capable of deciding these kinds of cases than State courts. Simply, that does not meet the commonsense test.

It also is not true that it will take longer for Federal courts to decide class actions. The Federal courts have more resources to decide these cases than State courts. In fact, we have the same Federal Judicial Center study indicating that State courts are much more likely than Federal courts to sit on class action lawsuits.

Also, I want to restate that we have made significant changes to the bill to ensure that truly local class actions stay in State court. This is the local controversy exception that was worked out to bring on other Democratic Senators who did not like certain aspects of the bill but wanted the bill to pass and said they would help us get it passed. Those Senators who wanted that local class action exemption, that the class action stay in State courts, were Senators Schumer, Dodd, and Landrieu.

Earlier, some of my colleagues indicated that local issues, such as the PCP leak made famous in the Erin Brockovich case, or suits brought by nursing home residents would be required to be heard in Federal court. Again, this is not true because of the compromise that we crafted with these other Senators and included in the bill that is now before us.

So it is not true that if you have your case heard in Federal court, you will get no justice. That is an outrageous statement and, quite frankly, an insult to the Federal judiciary. The Class Action Fairness Act does not close the courtroom door to anyone. Congress has studied this issue, and Congress has found that there are many problems that need to be considered. That is why we have been working on this steadily for so many Congresses.

A number of studies have come out indicating there are serious abuses of the class action system. There have been numerous editorials and articles that support this bill. It is a bipartisan bill. So I think we ought to move on. The Senate is functioning as the Senate ought to function. As I said last night, nothing gets done in the Senate that is not bipartisan, and when it comes to an issue of partisanship, if 41 Senators stand against it--and that is quite a minority in this Senate--nothing gets done.

We had that vote last October, 59 votes, 1 short of the supermajority to move on, but enough to bring a halt to the consideration of this legislation, because nothing happens in this body unless there is strong bipartisan support. After that cloture vote, we spent last fall working with Senators on the other side of the aisle to get above that 60.

So if there is a situation where one Senator is still not satisfied, do we shut down the whole Senate, or where we maybe even have 10 Senators not satisfied? What more do we have to do to get over that customary rule in the Senate of 60 votes to stop debate to get to finality?

For sure, if we get to a cloture of 60 votes and end up with 70 votes or 75 votes, are not the people trying to stall this legislation somewhat embarrassed by wanting to shut down the whole legislative process? So we have worked to get over that magic hurdle, and when we get over that we will have plenty of votes.

Remember the vote we had through April and May on what we call the FSC/ETI bill, or the JOBS bill, the bill I called creating jobs in manufacturing? We took 15 days over about 2 months to get that legislation passed. It passed 92 to 5.

There were all sorts of games being played with it on matters totally unrelated to the underlying legislation, all in the interest of preserving minority rights. Well, I think this bill has met that test, and we ought to move on. We still have a few people who do not want to move on, and that is a sad commentary, because when one plays by the rules of the game, it seems to me that people who do not get their way have to quit crying in their beer and suck it in, suck it up and move on. That is what I am asking my colleagues on the other side to do, suck it up and move on.

Let the Senate work. It has worked. This legislation is proof that it is working.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Senator Baucus and I are pleased to announce the introduction of legislation to extend cost-sharing assistance to qualifying individuals for the Medicare Part B premium through September 2005. Qualified Individuals are a vulnerable population with income between 120 percent and 135 percent of the federal poverty level and limited assets. It is estimated the monthly Medicare Part B premium will be around $75 in fiscal year 2005. Let me put this into real numbers, this extension will provide over $900 dollars of annual assistance to Medicare beneficiaries who earn less than $12,600 per year.

In the Medicare discount drug card program, Congress has targeted this same population with the transitional assistance program. These same seniors are eligible to receive $600 in assistance on their Medicare-approved drug card both this year and next. We need to extend this program, and the President agrees. An extension is part of his fiscal year 2005 budget. It does not seem right for us to assist these Medicare beneficiaries with some of their health care costs and relinquish our assistance in other areas. This program has been in existence since 1997 and has been extended every year thereafter because it targets help to low-income Medicare beneficiaries. I urge Congress to act on this important legislation.

Mr. President, Senator Baucus and I are pleased to announce the introduction of legislation to extend cost-sharing assistance to qualifying individuals for the Medicare Part B premium through September 2005. Qualified Individuals are a vulnerable population with income between 120 percent and 135 percent of the federal poverty level and limited assets. It is estimated the monthly Medicare Part B premium will be around $75 in fiscal year 2005. Let me put this into real numbers, this extension will provide over $900 dollars of annual assistance to Medicare beneficiaries who earn less than $12,600 per year.

In the Medicare discount drug card program, Congress has targeted this same population with the transitional assistance program. These same seniors are eligible to receive $600 in assistance on their Medicare-approved drug card both this year and next. We need to extend this program, and the President agrees. An extension is part of his fiscal year 2005 budget. It does not seem right for us to assist these Medicare beneficiaries with some of their health care costs and relinquish our assistance in other areas. This program has been in existence since 1997 and has been extended every year thereafter because it targets help to low-income Medicare beneficiaries. I urge Congress to act on this important legislation.

I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I am pleased that Majority Leader Frist has called up the Class Action Fairness Act. I have been working on this bill since the 105th Congress, so I think it is about time the Senate completes action on this bill.

My colleagues will recall that in October of last year Senator Frist brought this bill to the floor, but we were not able to proceed to the bill because of filibuster, and we lost the vote on cloture on the motion to proceed by just a one-vote margin. A supermajority of 60 votes was needed. We had 59 votes which, obviously, means that last fall we had enough votes to pass the legislation but could not get around the filibuster.

When you are up against a filibuster, you have to work out issues because nothing in the Senate gets done that is not done in a fairly broad bipartisan way. Since then, I have worked in good faith with Senator Hatch, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and our lead Democratic cosponsors, Senator Kohl and Senator Carper, to modify the bill to address a number of concerns raised by their colleagues on the Democratic side, Senators Dodd, Landrieu, and Schumer.

These Senators are now satisfied with the changes we made to this bill. We reintroduced the legislation this year as S. 2062. So the bill before us goes even further in terms of compromising on the issues than were brought before the Senate last October--enough action, I hope, that we can get to finality within a few days.

As many colleagues may already know, this bill has gone through many changes and mostly changes to accommodate the minority in the Senate, a few Democratic Senators. I have worked in good faith with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to bring people together and to address valid concerns to increase support for this bill, especially to get over the hurdle of the supermajority of 60 to get to stop debate and get to finality.

To tell you the truth, Mr. President, I really didn't think we needed to make any changes in this class action bill that we originally introduced this Congress--in other words, last year. I thought then, and I think now, that the original introduction was a pretty good bill. But, of course, being a pretty good bill in my judgment doesn't mean it has enough votes to get that supermajority and get the compromise that is necessary to get to finality. So in order to move the class action bill forward, I did my best to listen to the issues raised and to make modifications to the bill where there was room for compromise.

Yet S. 2062 still retains the goals I wanted to achieve and other cosponsors

wanted to achieve; that is, to fix some of the more egregious problems that we are seeing in the class action system, and to provide a more legitimate forum for nationwide class action lawsuits.

The deal we have struck is a very carefully crafted compromise that should not need any further modifications. So I am asking my colleagues to withhold offering amendments to avoid disrupting the balance we have achieved. I also hope we will not see a lot of nongermane amendments offered to this bill--meaning nothing to do with this legislation. Under the rules of the Senate, they can be offered but they are very distracting. We ought to keep our focus upon the class action system reform. Instead, we should focus on the germane amendments, get this bill done, and move on. We should not get all caught up in message amendments that will do nothing but play politics and delay all the hard work that we put into this bipartisan compromise bill. So I hope we can pass this bipartisan class action bill without changes and without any further delay.

The reality is that the class action system is broken and we should do something about it. The current class action system is rife with problems which have undermined the rights of both plaintiffs and defendants. Class members are often in the dark as to what their rights are, with the class lawyers, driving the lawsuits and the settlements, with their interests as much in mind as those of members of the class.

Class members receive court and settlement notices in hard-to- understand legalese. The notices are written in small print and in confusing legal jargon so class members often do not understand their rights or, more importantly, the consequences of their actions with respect to the class action lawsuit of which they are a part.

Furthermore, many class action settlements only benefit lawyers, with little or nothing going to the members who have been harmed. We are all familiar with class action settlements where the members get a coupon of little or no value, and the lawyers get all the money available in the settlement agreement. We know that is not protecting the consumers of America.

In addition, the current class action rules are such that the majority of the large nationwide class action lawsuits can only proceed in State court when they are clearly the kinds of cases that should be decided in our Federal courts because they have nationwide implications.

At least these class action lawsuits should have had an opportunity to be heard in Federal court because usually they are the cases that involve the most amount of money, citizens from all across the country, and issues of nationwide concern.

Why should a State court or a county court be deciding these kinds of class action cases that are going to impact people all across our country? Those cases ought to be decided in a Federal jurisdiction. This present system has never made sense to me.

To further compound the problem, the present rules are easily gamed by unscrupulous lawyers who steer class action cases to certain State- preferred courts where judges are quick to certify a class and approve settlements with little regard to class members' interests and the parties' due process rights.

We have heard of class action lawyers manipulating case pleadings to avoid removal of a class action lawsuit to Federal court, claiming that their clients suffered under $75,000 in damages, in order to avoid the Federal jurisdiction amount threshold in existing law.

We have also heard of class action lawyers crafting lawsuits in such a way to defeat the complete diversity requirements by ensuring that at least one named class member is from the same State as one of the defendants, even if every other class member is from a different State.

These are only a couple of the gamesmanship tactics that we hear lawyers like to utilize to bring down an entire class action legal system. The fact is, many of these class action cases are just frivolous lawsuits that are cooked up by lawyers to make a quick buck, with little benefit to class members whom the lawyers are supposed to be representing.

This is a real drag on the economy. Many a good business is being hurt by frivolous litigation costs. Unfortunately, the current class action rules are contributing to the cost of businesses across America and particularly hitting hard small businesses that get caught up in the class action web.

Too many frivolous lawsuits are being filed and too many good companies and consumers are having to pay for lawyer greed. We need to restore some commonsense reform to our legal system, and this legislation does it. It should have been done years ago.

So my colleagues understand, then, why Senator Kohl of Wisconsin and I originally joined forces several Congresses ago--too long ago--to do something about these runaway abuses, and the only thing standing between us and success several years ago was the powerful influence of personal injury lawyers within our political system.

The Class Action Fairness Act will address some of the more egregious problems within our class action system, and it will, at the same time, preserve class action lawsuits as an important tool to bring representation to the unrepresented.

I remind my colleagues of all the time that was spent working on finding a fair solution to the class action problem. For the past four Congresses, Senator Kohl, Senator Hatch, and others have joined me in studying the abuses in the class action system and working to solve these problems. Over the years, both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have convened numerous hearings on these class action abuses and, more importantly, highlighting the need for reform. The House passed similar versions of class action bills in several Congresses with very strong bipartisan support.

In the Senate, in the 105th Congress, I held a hearing on class action abuse in the Judiciary Committee's Administrative Oversight Subcommittee. In the 106th Congress, my subcommittee held another hearing on class action, and the Judiciary Committee, at that time, marked up and reported out our class action legislation. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing on class action abuse again in the 107th Congress and again in this 108th Congress. The Judiciary Committee marked up the bill which is before the Senate.

Chairman Hatch, Senator Kohl, and I worked closely with Senator Feinstein to make sure that more in-State class actions stayed in State court. That was a compromise to garner a little more bipartisan support at that time.

We also worked closely with Senator Specter, albeit a Republican but a person who had some questions about this legislation, to make sure that his concerns relative to class actions were addressed.

The bill was approved by the Judiciary Committee with solid bipartisan support. Late last year, we worked with Senators Schumer, Dodd, and Landrieu to address concerns they raised and to get them on board. Those Senators joined us in the introduction of the numbered bill before us, S. 2062, in February of this year in a bipartisan show of support for class action reform.

I wanted to elaborate on the history of this bill so my colleagues were aware of the tremendous amount of time, over almost a decade, that Congress has spent studying the problem with our class action system and all the work and compromises that we put into this bipartisan bill to hopefully now get it passed.

I will highlight some of the changes that we made to the bill to increase bipartisan support since Senator Kohl and I introduced the first Class Action Fairness Act several years ago.

The bill, as was originally introduced, did several things. It required that notice of proposed settlements in all class actions, as well as all class notices, be in clear, easily understood English and include all material settlements and the terms of those settlements, including amount and source of attorney's fees. Mr. President, you should not have to be a lawyer to understand what you are suing about and what your cause is and what is going to happen to attorney's fees and other issues in the settlement. Presently, it is pretty complicated to understand that situation.

Because plaintiffs give up their right to sue by joining a class action, they have a right to understand the ramifications of their actions in joining a class.

Then our bill required that State attorneys general, or other responsible State government officials, be notified of any proposed class settlement that would affect the residents of their States.

We included this provision to help protect class members because such notices would provide State officials with an opportunity to object if the settlement terms were unfair to the citizens of their particular State. Somebody at the State level ought to be reviewing that for the populations of their States.

Our bill also requires that courts closely scrutinize class action settlements where the plaintiffs only receive a coupon or some other noncash award while, as I have said before, the lawyers get the bulk of the money.

Our bill required the Judiciary Committee to report back to Congress on the best practices in class action cases and how to best ensure fairness of class action settlements.

Finally, the bill allowed more class action lawsuits to be removed from State court to Federal court. The bill eliminated the complete diversity rule for class action cases but left in State court those class actions with fewer than 100 plaintiffs, class actions that involved less than $5 million, and class actions in which the State government entity, like the attorney general--well, no that is not right--where a State government entity is a primary defendant. Our bill still does many of these things, but we have made a number of modifications to get broader bipartisan support.

In the Judiciary Committee last year, we incorporated the Feinstein amendment, which would leave in State court class action cases brought against a company in its home State where two-thirds or more of the class members are also residents of that State. We also incorporated changes to address issues raised by Senator Specter relative to how mass actions should be treated under the bill.

In our negotiations in late 2003 with Senators Schumer, Dodd, and Landrieu, we made numerous changes. I am only going to mention a few of those important compromises reached. Examples: We made changes to the coupon settlement provisions in the bill, providing that attorneys fees must be based either on the value of the coupons actually redeemed by class members or the hours actually billed in prosecuting the case.

We deleted the bounties provision because of concern that it might harm civil rights plaintiffs.

We deleted provisions in the bill that dealt with specific notice requirements because the Judicial Conference has already approved similar notice requirements to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

To address questions about the merry-go-round issue, we eliminated a provision dealing with the dismissal of cases that failed to meet rule 23 requirements so that existing law continues to apply.

We deleted a provision allowing plaintiff class members to remove class action because of gaming concerns.

We placed reasonable time limitations on appellate review of remand orders in the bill.

We clarified that citizenship of proposed class members is to be determined on the date plaintiffs file the original complaint or when plaintiffs amend that complaint.

We made modifications to the Feinstein compromise that I have already referred to and to the class actions language referred to.

We clarified that nothing in the bill restricts the authority of the Judicial Conference to promulgate rules with respect to class actions.

Finally, we crafted a new local class action exception which would allow class actions to remain in State court if, No. 1, more than two- thirds of the class members are citizens of the forum State; No. 2, there is at least one in-State defendant from whom significant relief is sought by members of the class and whose conduct forms a significant basis of the plaintiffs' claims; No. 3, principal injuries resulting from the alleged conduct or related conduct of each defendant were incurred in the State where the action was originally filed; and lastly, no other class action asserting the same or similar factual allegations against any of the defendants on behalf of the same or other persons has been filed during the preceding 3 years. We did this to ensure that truly local class action cases, such as a plant explosion or some other localized event, would be able to stay in the State court where the harm took place.

So we have made significant concessions to get our Democratic colleagues on board the Class Action Fairness Act. They have been telling us they are ready to support the bill and to get it passed. Both sides have been asking the leader to bring up this bill. Now that we have an agreement to proceed to the bill, hopefully no partisan politics will be played and we will get down to business and finally get this job done. It is time to make real progress on the class action bill and get it passed.

Again, I want to remind my colleagues that we crafted a carefully balanced bill that consists of all of these compromises and more that I have mentioned. I believe we have done a pretty good job of addressing legitimate concerns with the bill, and I am hopeful we will not see lots of amendments to disrupt this compromise.

I urge my colleagues to refrain from offering nonrelevant amendments, amendments that have nothing to do with this bill, because this is a bill that should not be bogged down with everyone's pet project, for which the Senate is so famous. All of our hard work of forging a bipartisan compromise bill should not go down the drain.

The bottom line is class action reform is badly needed. Both plaintiffs and defendants alike are calling for change. The Class Action Fairness Act will help curb many problems that have plagued the class action system.

The bill will increase class member protections and ensure the approval of fair settlements. It will allow nationwide class actions to be heard in the proper forum--the Federal courts--but keep primarily State class actions in State court. It will preserve the process but put a stop to the more egregious abuses. It will also help to put a stop to the frivolous lawsuits that are a drag on our economy and especially harmful to small business.

Now that we have worked out a delicate compromise, we should be able to get this bipartisan bill done without any changes.

A lot of my colleagues listening will say: Well, the gall of the Senator from Iowa to say that we have such a perfect bill before the Senate that we should not have any amendments. Well, over the course of several years, this has been a bipartisan bill in sponsorship. We developed more broad bipartisan consensus last year to get this bill out of committee. We just about had enough consensus to move the bill, one vote short of a supermajority, last October, of 60 votes, to move this bill.

Then there were further compromises made to get over that hurdle. You can quantify in this body, what it takes, as a measure of bipartisanship. It is whether you get that 60-vote supermajority to stop debate and to get to finality. That is where the power of the minority comes into play in this body. They can say they need further compromise to move this bill to finality. We did that between last October and now.

Some people do not want class action reform and they have a right to vote against it. But it seems when the Senate process has worked to bring about the necessary votes, and those necessary votes are gotten by the proper bipartisan compromises being worked out, then we ought to be able to let the Senate work its will. The rights of the minority have been protected.

Have the rights of every last Senator been protected? No. But if we had to wait for that to happen, no bill would pass. But if it did pass, it would pass by a 100-to-0 margin.

We are there. Hopefully this bill will pass the way it has been worked out and be done in a short period of a few days. We do not have a lot of time to spend on it. Of course, that works to the advantage of those who do not want anything because they represent the interests, they would say, of the consumers, and I don't doubt that is what they are concerned about. But they are also, intended or not, representing the interests of the selfish personal injury lawyers who want to play games with picking this county in this State, or that county in that State--some Podunk county where they can win their case.

It would be OK if that case were only pertinent to the people of that State,

but you find this forum shopping with national implications. Something of national implication should not be decided in one Podunk county in one State but should be decided by our Federal courts.

I yield the floor.

Yes. I yielded the floor, but if you want me to hold the floor----

Yes.

Mr. President, if I could say this before I yield the floor, and I am going to yield the floor right away, first of all, I appreciate the statement by the Senator from Delaware. He may have missed it, but sometime in my remarks tonight I made some commentary about his efforts to help work a compromise and bring up issues that were very important to get settled in order to move to finality.

Also, Mr. President, I want to tell you as well as other Members of this body, this bill is where it is because of the urgency Senator Carper has put on this legislation, to get it passed, because he knows of the need. He also understands the need of bipartisanship.

I hope I have given him proper credit in this way. So many times as we Senators do, we go to breakfasts or lunches to speak to groups that are interested in legislation, and they are always asking us about this bill or that bill. More often than not, particularly when I am talking to small business groups, I am often asked about when are we going to get class action reform. I say, under certain circumstances we will get it. Sometimes people compliment me because I was the prime sponsor of this legislation. But I say at every one of these meetings, they need to thank Senator Carper whenever they see him, because no person in the Senate is trying move this bill along and do it in a bipartisan way, no one more than Senator Carper.

I can say to Senator Carper, I thank him very much for what he has done and I yield the floor.

Yes. I guess I didn't understand that was part of my responsibility. I will do that right away.

Mr. President, for our leader, I ask there now be a period of morning business with Senators speaking for up to 10 minutes each.