Floor Statements

Mr. President, for the information of all Senators, on Monday, the Senate will resume debate on H.R. 2691, the Interior Appropriations bill. There are currently five amendments pending on this bill. The bill managers will be here Monday to receive additional amendments. Any votes ordered with respect to amendments to the Interior Appropriations bill on Monday afternoon will be stacked to occur at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

In addition to amendments to the Interior Appropriations bill, the Senate may also vote on any executive calendar items that can be cleared for action. Therefore, Senators should expect the possibility of several rollcall votes beginning at 5:30 Monday evening.

Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I call up a substitute amendment which is at the desk. This amendment is the text of S. 1391.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to bring before the Senate the Interior and related agencies appropriations bill for fiscal year 2004. In dollar terms, this is a modest bill compared to many of the appropriations bills we tackle in this body. It totals about $19.6 billion in discretionary budget authority. But in terms of its direct impact on the lives and livelihoods of the people and communities throughout this country, it is a critical bill, and it is of particular importance to the Western States, such as my State of Montana, where the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service either own or manage in trust vast acres of land.

These are lands where my constituents live. This is where they graze livestock, where they mine, where they hike, hunt, fish, and timber. What we do in this bill affects all of those activities.

It is not just a public lands bill. It is also a bill that provides education, health care, and other core services for the Native Americans of America.

It supports energy research and development that fosters economic growth, strengthens our national security posture, and improves the quality of our environment. And it supports the treasured cultural institutions, such as the Smithsonian and the National Endowment for the Humanities--institutions that help tell the story of America and that remind us who we are as a people.

As I suspect is the case with many of my colleagues who have chaired appropriations subcommittees, the more I learn about the agencies funded in this bill, the harder it gets to make tough choices that have to be made, particularly in the current fiscal climate.

The President's fiscal year 2004 budget request for the Interior bill was $19.56 billion in discretionary budget authority, a modest increase over the comparable level for fiscal year 2003.

While the budget request included increases for several activities that have considerable merit, it also proposed severe reductions in a number of critical programs that have broad support within the Senate. With an allocation that is effectively the same as the President's request, we had to make some tough choices.

That said, with the help of Senator Dorgan, my good friend and neighbor from North Dakota, we have been able to fashion a responsible bill that does a number of very positive things.

The bill provides increases for the core operating programs of the land management agencies, including $72 million for our National Park System and $31 million for the Fish and Wildlife Service. The funds provided for the park system include $20 million over the budget request to increase the base operating budgets of individual parks.

The bill also increases funding for Bureau of Land Management operations by $27 million and adds $34 million to the President's request for Forest Service activities.

From the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the bill appropriates $511 million. This includes $222 million for Federal land acquisition, an increase of $35 million over the budget request and more than double the House total of $100 million. As is always the case, there was great interest in increasing funding for the land, water, and conservation programs, but I think the amount provided is reasonable given the constraints of the subcommittee allocation and the many other demands on this bill.

The Interior bill also supports several grant programs. I won't go through all the numbers, but among

the highlights is a $30 million increase over the budget request for payments in lieu of taxes; a $15 million increase for State wildlife grants; and an increase of $9 million for the Historic Preservation Fund. The bill also restores a proposed $16 million cut in the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Fund.

Let me explain PILT, payment in lieu of taxes. This is the money that goes directly to the counties to support their activities where a large amount of Federal land is found--BLM land, anyway.

As I mentioned previously, the Interior bill is a vitally important bill for Native American communities. It increases funding for the Indian Health Service by $88 million over the enacted level, for a total of $2.9 billion.

It includes $574 million for Indian education programs which fully funds the budget request for Indian school replacement. It also provides an increase of $6 million for tribal community colleges. This is a subject that is of particular interest to both Senator Dorgan and me and one we may discuss further as we progress with this legislation.

The bill also provides $243 million for the Office of Special Trustee to continue the administration efforts to improve the management of Indian trust assets. This is an increase of $95 million over the enacted level.

While I strongly believe Congress must support trust reform, let there be no mistake that reform is coming at a very significant cost in terms of money, personnel, and management focus. Vital concerns in Indian country are being shortchanged because trust reform and related litigation are draining both funds and morale.

We would all like there to be a simple solution, but there just isn't one. Settling the case may ultimately be the answer, but at this stage, the plaintiffs and the administration do not appear ready to have productive negotiations. Even if we settle on any past damages, the question remains as to how we manage Indian trust assets in the future. This bill continues to support the Department's reform efforts to the greatest extent possible.

I will continue to work closely with the Department, with the authorizing committees, and with Indian country to advance the reform effort so we can get ourselves out from under this immense cloud.

The Interior bill also supports an important piece of our Nation's energy portfolio, including research on fossil energy and energy efficiency, the operation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This bill provides $1.67 billion for Department of Energy programs, including $862 million for energy conservation and $594 million for fossil energy research and development.

Among the cultural programs supported by this bill, the Smithsonian will receive an additional $10 million to prepare for the opening of two new museums, the Air and Space Museum extension near Dulles Airport, and the National Museum of the American Indian on The Mall. The National Endowment of the Arts will get $117 million and the National Endowment for the Humanities will get $142 million. This is an increase of $15 million for the NEH, for an American history initiative.

This has been something the new Member of this body, Senator Alexander from Tennessee, has worked on very hard ever since his arrival in the Senate and something he and I have discussed many times. I know Senator Alexander and his staff have been meeting with administration officials and the authorizing committees to discuss ways of aligning the administration's American history proposal with his own.

It is my understanding those discussions are going well.

Certainly we should all be pulling in the same direction on an issue such as this. I am excited about this initiative, and I want to applaud our good friend from Tennessee for his hard work.

Finally, I want to talk about funding of wildland fire management. This is a subject we find ourselves discussing again and again. The reason is this: The current system we have for the fire suppression budgeting is broken. Again and again we find ourselves in a situation where both the Forest Service and the Department of Interior are forced to borrow massive amounts of money from other budget accounts to fight the fires. Those accounts are inside their own agencies.

This is a reasonable mechanism when the amounts being borrowed are relatively modest, when the borrowing occurs only during particularly bad fire years, and when sufficient surplus carryover funds are readily available. But the borrowing has become routine and the amounts involved are massive. We no longer have large carryover amounts in other accounts. This carryover has disappeared in many accounts with the decline of the timber program and the revenues it produced.

Last year, we borrowed heavily from a number of Forest Service and Interior accounts, causing both agencies to stop conducting certain activities until those amounts were repaid or replaced. In the end, however, we only repaid about 60 cents of every dollar borrowed, which is the amount proposed by the administration in its supplemental request.

As a result of this shortfall, a large number of congressionally approved projects have either been cancelled or reduced in scope. This year we find ourselves in the same situation. Prior to the recess, my colleagues may recall I was very upset that the House sent us a supplemental appropriations bill that did not include the fire funds requested by the administration. Those funds were desperately needed in August when my State of Montana was suffering from dozens of significant fires. The presence of smoke was almost constant during the time I spent in Montana over the recess. In fact, two airports had to be closed for a period of time because of smoke.

In a way, I am glad we did not act then. I say this because the $289 million that is under discussion in the legislative branch appropriations bill is totally inadequate. I would not want anybody to believe that this amount begins to take care of our problem. The Department of Interior has already borrowed $130 million from other accounts to fight fires this summer. It expects to borrow $30 million more before the end of the fiscal year. The Forest Service has already borrowed--and get this figure--$595 million and is contemplating another $100 million transferred to get us through this fiscal year. Roughly speaking, we will borrow $850 million from other accounts before the end of the fiscal year.

Simply providing the $289 million in the pending administration request does not do the trick. These funds, for the most part, have already been spent.

There are not options at this point. We need to repay those accounts soon and we need to repay them in full. Sixty cents on the dollar this time around would be devastating to a wide variety of programs. They range from endangered species monitoring to facilities construction, from acquisition to processing even the simplest forms of grazing permits. It would amount to a de facto rescission of funds that this Congress voted to appropriate when it approved the 2003 bill.

My colleagues will hear more from me later on this issue, and I will likely have an amendment to offer at some point, but for now I want to use this opportunity to tell my colleagues this is not just a problem for those States where there has been fire. It is a problem for every State in this country, because the funds are effectively borrowed from every State, including the projects and programs that were funded at a specific request of Members in this body. So I call on the administration to send up another supplemental request, one that fully reflects the amounts that will be spent on fire suppression this fiscal year.

I thank my friend, Senator Dorgan, and his staff. They have been great to work with. Of course, we come from almost the same part of the country--in fact, we are neighbors--so it was very easy for neighbors to get together and to roll up our sleeves and put this bill together. His input has been very valuable. We have tried to fashion a bill that reflects the priorities of the Senate as a whole. I think this bill does just that.

So I urge my colleagues who have amendments to get them to me or to my staff as quickly as possible so we can deal with them and get this bill to conference. I caution, however, that we have allocated the entire amount of the subcommittee's allocation. Any amendment that provides additional

funds will have to be fully offset, and I think I can speak for Senator Dorgan in saying we will take a dim view of amendments that propose to use across-the-board reductions or unspecified administrative savings as offsets.

I ask the support of this Senate for this bill. I would hope we can have this bill done by tomorrow, and move on and get this bill into conference. I urge my colleagues to support it.

If I can get the attention of my good friend from North Dakota, I look forward to working with him on this issue and I appreciate his good help and his input on this bill.

I yield the floor to my good friend from North Dakota.

Mr. President, our staff and the staff of Senator Alexander and the Department of Education and the administration did get together. They are moving to an agreement. I agree maybe the Department of Education is where it should be and those funds be allocated to be used there.

But what the Senator from Tennessee was trying to do was highlight something of national interest that is happening in North Dakota and Montana now. As I said, the Dakota territory and Montana was the heart and soul of the book that was written, ``Undaunted Courage.'' Now that we are approaching the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase and the trek of Lewis and Clark, there is a lot of interest in our part of the country. What was started in the humanities, the interest of Lewis and Clark, the interest of the Louisiana Purchase and the impact it had on this country, has been very positive for all of us out there and all of America.

Some of the original 13 States got the idea that maybe this country is big enough right where it is. If you read another book, ``A Wilderness So Immense,'' you get an idea--this was before our Constitution was ratified--some of the events that went on in the history of the Louisiana Purchase. It is very interesting.

That is why we are very supportive of history initiatives. We have young people coming out of our schools who do not have a sense of history. They do not know who they are, why they are, or how they got here. This initiative is very important.

In regard to the Forest Service permit, it is fire suppression money that was taken from the accounts that would enable them to issue the permits and to complete the NEPA studies. We have to understand that and how important these funds are to be replaced in the accounts of the BLM and the Forest Service so this work can be completed. The Senator from North Dakota is exactly right. These do not have to be done on a yearly basis. There should be a longer term with monitoring. I like the 10-year lease. That is the way it used to be. We find now everywhere we had grazing we did not have fires, which is something we should take a look at as far as fire prevention and fire suppression and the use of the land.

The other day, I will even tell my good friend from North Dakota, I saw a truckload of sheep being unloaded in Missoula County, Montana. They were paying the sheep man to run his sheep on public lands for weed control, spotted nap weed, and of course earlier in the spring, we had the spurge problem. But I thought, what a novel idea. I wished I had thought of it.

We will let that program go to the benefit of the land and also to the people who graze the land and make their living and are in the business of feeding and clothing.

Those are the challenges we have ahead of us. This bill impacts a lot.

I have a few clarifications of items in the committee report that I would like to have printed in the Record.

I ask unanimous consent those corrections be printed in the Record.

I remind Senators to get their amendments down here. We want to complete this bill by noon tomorrow so we can watch the rain. Those folks are worried about forest fires. I don't think anyone on the East Coast has to worry about that.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 1724, the pending substitute amendment, be agreed to and considered original text for the purpose of further amendment, provided that no points of order be waived by virtue of this agreement.

Mr. President, I again say to my colleagues, we are going to try to finish this bill before this storm hits tonight. We are working now on a managers' package of known amendments, and if there are some unknown amendments, I suggest Senators come to the floor, submit their amendments, and let us deal with them. If not, we are going to move right along in completing this legislation.

We understand the House is not going to be in tomorrow. So we do not want to be caught in that pickle. We want to complete action on this appropriations bill if we possibly can. I suggest my colleagues bring their amendments to the floor.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent we now go into a period of morning business with Senators being allowed to speak for 5 minutes therein until the hour of 2 p.m. this afternoon, at which we will return to the business of Interior appropriations.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 10 a.m. on digital media--consumer privacy technology mandates.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 2:30 p.m. on the nominations of Gwendolyn Brown to be Chief Financial Officer of NASA, Karan Bhatia to be an Assistant Secretary of Transportation, and Charles Snelling to be a member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Wednesday, September 17 at 10:00 a.m. to consider pending calendar business:

Agenda Item 1: The nomination of Suedeen Kelly to be a Member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Agenda Item 2: Nomination of Rick Dearborn to be Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Energy.

Agenda Item 3: S.J. Res. 16--Joint resolution to approve the ``Compact of Free Association, as amended between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Federated States of Micronesia'', and the ``Compact of Free Association, as amended between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands'', and otherwise to amend Public Law 99-239, and to appropriate for the purposes of amended Public Law 99-239 for fiscal year ending on or before September 30, 2023, and for other purposes.

In addition, the Committee may turn to any other measures that are ready for consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet in open Executive Session during the session on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 10 a.m., to consider a Chairman's Mark entitled, Extension of Highway Trust Fund Provisions, and S. 1548, Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit Act of 2003 (VEETC) (as modified by the Chairman's Mark); and, a Chairman's Mark entitled, National Employee Saving and Trust Equity Guarantee Act; and H.R. 743, The Social Security Program Protection Act of 2003.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, September 17, 2003 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on U.S. Energy Security: West Africa & Latin America.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 10:00 a.m. for a hearing titled ``U.S. Postal Service: What Can Be Done to Ensure Its Future Viability?''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 10:00 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on S. 420, a bill to provide for the acknowledgement of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 10 a.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office building room 226 on ``Judicial Nominations.''

Witness List:

Panel I: Senators.

Panel II: David W. McKeague to United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit.

Panel III: Margaret Catharine Rogers to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Florida, Roger W. Titus to be United States District Judge for the District of Maryland; George W. Miller to be Judge for the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, September 17, 2003, at 2 p.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office building room 226 on ``Combating Gang Violence in America: Examining Effective Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Strategies.''

Witness List:

Panel I: The Honorable Patrick Fitzgerald, United States Attorney, Northern District of Illinois, Chicago, IL; The Honorable Debra W. Yang, United States Attorney, Central District of California, Los Angeles, CA; The Honorable Christopher J. Christie, United States Attorney, District of New Jersey, Newark, NJ; Special Agent Grant Ashley, Assistant Director, FBI, Criminal Investigative Division, Washington, DC.

Panel II: The Honorable Robert P. McCulloch, President, National District Attorney Association, Alexandria, VA; Mr. Wes McBride, President, California Gang Investigators Association, Huntington Beach, CA; The Honorable Eddie J. Jordan, Jr., District Attorney, District of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA.

I ask unanimous consent Larissa Sommer and Ron Hooper of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of debate on the fiscal year 2004 Interior and Related Agencies Act.

Mr. President, I rise today in opposition to the resolution. I say this as someone who is unhappy with the core aspects of the FCC's ruling. I disagree with the move to lift the 35 percent national television viewership cap. I believe the 35 percent ceiling has served us well in preserving the goals of competition, localism, and diversity.

However, the decision was extremely comprehensive and complicated and included some changes which I do favor. For example, I strongly support the Commission's approach to ease the ill-advised restrictions on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership. The empirical data from the newspaper/broadcast station combinations that were grandfathered in shows that this has allowed for a greater diversity of voices.

Miles City in my home State of Montana provides a vivid example. KATL-AM and the Miles City Star are one such operation. Each operates autonomously and KATL provides valuable local news coverage to the area. Through the pooling of resources, smaller stations which might not be viable are able to maintain their economic health and continue to serve the local community.

Again, I reiterate my strong opposition to the FCC's decision to lift the national broadcast ownership cap to 45 percent from 35 percent. If the major networks are allowed to own even more of their affiliate stations, local concerns will have less of a role in shaping what programming makes it on the air.

Affiliate stations that are independently owned may choose, from time to time, to preempt network programming that they believe does not conform to the mores of their local communities. That is localism. I guarantee that the local views of the citizens of Butte, MT differ from those of the citizens in New York City. Independently owned stations are answerable only to local demands. So, if the station owners feel certain programming doesn't reflect their local community values, they keep it off the air.

Not only will lifting the cap mean that stations are less likely to preempt programming, but it also means that there will be less local input into the composition of network schedules. As the networks own more and more of their affiliates, the independently owned affiliates will lose negotiating leverage. In short, you'll see programming decisions made more and more in Los Angeles and New York, instead of in local markets.

We already raised the national television cap in 1996 from 25 percent to 35 percent. It would be premature to raise it again so soon.

I fully understand the sentiment that lead to this resolution. I agree with the concerns of many of my colleagues, particularly on the television cap. However, this is not the way to go about it.

The Commerce Committee upon which I serve--has moved to protect the national broadcast cap. I also serve on the Appropriations Committee and the Commerce, Justice, State bill for this year includes a measure to protect the 35 percent cap. I support these moves, which target individual rule changes, rather than the resolution being considered today, which rolls back the entire decision.

Again, I emphasize I am not happy with the FCC ruling. But I don't think the answer is to wipe out every aspect of the FCC ruling with one single vote. If we are going to get it right, we need to look at each regulation and each issue individually. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the resolution.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for the time I shall need. If any other pending business comes up, I will gladly step aside.

Mr. President, as we are rolling along, trying to complete our work on appropriations, it won't be long that we will have the appropriations for the Interior Department on the Senate floor. I would just like to bring my colleagues up to date on some of the challenges we will be facing and how we probably have to come up with some imagination to take care of some of the problems.

We watched the weather reports from my State of Montana. Montana has had an unusually hot, dry summer. We have also been plagued with wildfires this year. In fact, the lion's share of the fires has been in my State. I want to speak for a moment on something I think has great importance--the need to provide additional funds to the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior to pay for the cost of fighting this year's wildfires.

Nationwide, the numbers are staggering. Once again, we have suffered a terrible fire season. Little does America know, 27 firefighters lost their lives this year in the line of duty. Over 789 homes and other structures have been destroyed, and 2.8 million acres have burned. During the recent Labor Day weekend, 25,000 firefighters were working on fires in every State in the West.

As in 2000, my home State of Montana has been hit by the largest share of the damage. In fact, for much of the summer, half of the total acres burning in the whole Nation were burning in Montana. So far we have lost 600,000 acres, and the fire continues today. Weather conditions, with cooler temperatures and 2.5 inches of rain this week reported in Big Fork, MT, have helped. But there are still 20 fires that have the potential of blowing up unless the moisture continues.

During the August break, I saw the devastating impact of these fires on our parks, forests, and communities firsthand. The fires were so bad that portions of Glacier National Park and Yellowstone Park were closed to the public for many days, as were many national forest lands and, this time, wildlife refuge lands. The impact of these fires is catastrophic, not only on the land but also on the people.

During July and August, hundreds of residents were evacuated as 80 fires burned out of control throughout Montana. Roughly 125 structures were destroyed, and that included 23 homes.

Fighting these fires is expensive. The Forest Service has been spending as much as $20 million a day on firefighting alone. Total expenditures this fiscal year will approach $1 billion. That is taxpayer money. In order to pay for these extraordinary costs, the Forest Service has been forced to borrow $595 million from other nonfire accounts. The Department of the Interior has borrowed $100 million already and is expected to borrow at least $50 million more before the fire season is over. Putting it in a conservative manner, the two agencies together will borrow $850 million from other accounts to fight fires this fiscal year.

Prior to the August recess, the President and the administration submitted a supplemental request for $289 million for fire suppression. My colleagues may recall, I was angry when the House ultimately sent us a supplemental that did not include these funds. In my view, it was highly irresponsible since the fire season was well under way and we knew those funds would be needed.

At this stage, it may be just as well that the House omitted these funds. The pending supplemental request is now totally inadequate in light of what has transpired over the last month. If we were to approve only the pending administration request, we would leave the Forest Service and the Department of the Interior with a combined shortfall in other programs of between $550 and $600 million.

What would be the impact of this? In a word--substantial. The issue is not whether fires will or won't be fought when necessary. Both agencies will continue to protect life, property, and the important natural resources wherever possible. The issue is what won't get done if we fail to repay the accounts that have been raided.

Last year, we were in a similar situation. Both the Forest Service and the Interior borrowed heavily from nonfire accounts. This caused both agencies to stop work on certain things until those amounts were repaid and that account replenished. In the end, we only repaid about 60 cents on every dollar borrowed, which was the amount proposed by the administration in its supplemental request.

The impacts of this shortfall were very real, but the agencies managed to keep most programs above water by managing carryover, canceling defunct projects, and reducing the scope of projects. But as a result of last year's shortfall, this low-hanging fruit is gone.

If we do not act soon to repay in full--and that is my intent, to repay in full the amounts borrowed during the fiscal year 2003--the impacts will be far greater. A wide variety of programs will be deeply affected--from endangered species monitoring to facilities construction, from land acquisition to recreation management, from the processing of grazing permits to the sale of timber. Failing to repay the amounts borrowed will affect all of these things. It amounts to a de facto rescission of funds appropriated by Congress just 6 months ago.

To my colleagues from over the Nation, I would say this is not just a western problem simply because that is where most of the fires burn. It is a problem for every State in the Union because the funds are effectively being borrowed from every State. They are being borrowed in many cases from projects and programs that were funded at the specific request of every Member in this body. If the amounts are not repaid, those amounts will permanently be taken from many of those same projects and programs again. Maybe it will come from a National Park Service construction project. Maybe it will be in Massachusetts. Maybe it will come from land acquisition in Arizona. Maybe it will come out of grazing management in Colorado. More than likely, it will come from all that I have mentioned.

The use of borrowing authority to fight fires is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a reasonable mechanism when the amounts being borrowed are

relatively modest, when sufficient carryover funds are readily available, or when the borrowed amounts are ultimately repaid. But the borrowing has become routine. The amounts involved are massive. We no longer have large carryover amounts in other accounts, and we have habitually not repaid the full amount that was borrowed.

It is a terrible, inefficient way to run a program.

In the past, both the Congress and the administration have been guilty of playing budgetary games with fire suppression funding, but the current situation is only a faint reflection of that fact. Congress included in the fiscal year 2003 appropriations bill essentially the same amounts that were requested by the administration for wildlife fire management. That amount, in turn, was determined by using the 10- year average cost of fire suppression. But that 10-year average no longer is reasonable or a reasonable benchmark for a number of reasons.

Look at our forests. Fuel loads on the floors of our forests are increasing. Increasing costs of personnel and equipment are fully reflected in the 10-year average, and the wildland-urban interface is expanding, which increases the cost of fire suppression.

I think Congress and the administration need to deal with these issues, particularly hazardous fuel loads. But that will not happen overnight, and it does not change the situation we are in today.

To be clear, I have no interest in giving the Forest Service or the Department of the Interior a blank check to fight fires. We must continue to seek ways to reduce costs, and that is why the Appropriations Committee has asked the National Academy of Public Administration to study recent trends in firefighting costs. But while that academy did find some areas for improvement, it found no smoking gun, and there is no silver bullet.

The system is broken, Mr. President, and the administration must work with us to fix it. It cannot rationally expect to produce cost containment in one program by starving the life out of others.

In the short term, we must enact a supplemental that fully repays the amounts they borrowed during fiscal year 2003. I call on the administration to send us another supplemental request for these amounts.

For the longer term, we have to have annual budget requests that more adequately reflect the current reality of suppression costs. We also need to take another look at borrowing authority we traditionally have provided these agencies.

Unless adequate action has already been taken on the impending supplemental, I expect to offer amendments on this subject when the Interior appropriations bill comes to the floor. I hope these amendments will be widely supported by my colleagues.

I appreciate this opportunity to give a little forecast of what is ahead on another appropriations bill because these are tremendous challenges.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

appalachian regional commission

Mr. President, today I rise in honor of Monica Conter Benning and Bernard Floyd Benning, Barney, on the celebration of their 61st wedding anniversary on August 20, 2003. Monica and Barney are the only surviving couple of the Pearl Harbor attack who both were in the immediate Pearl Harbor area at the time of the bombing. As the courtship between these two officers evolved in the setting of World War II, their experiences during the attack on America, December 7, 1941, are an important part of American history.

Barney, a college ROTC 2nd Lt. from Niles, MI, was ordered to active duty to Hawaii in May 1941. Barney joined an anti-aircraft battery in Fort Kamehameha at the entrance of the Pearl Harbor channel.

Army nurse 2nd Lt. Monica Conter of Apalachicola, FL served at Walter Reed General Hospital in 1940-1941, and was the official model for the Army Nurse Corps Recruiting Program. Monica was later assigned to the new Hickam Field Hospital, adjacent to Pearl Harbor and separate by a lone chain link fence. Monica is the only nurse still living today who was on duty at Hickam Field Hospital at the time of the attack. During the attack on December 7th, a bomb fell on the hospital lawn about 60 feet from the building, leaving a large crater. A banyon tree sapling was planted in the crater several days after the attack. Today, beside the huge tree is a granite monument and plaque, honoring Monica's service as an Army nurse on duty that fateful day.

Monica and Barney Benning first met on a prearranged ``blind date'' in September 1941; the beginning of a lifetime together. Their courtship continued with regularity until that ``Day of Infamy,'' December 7, 1941--the first terrorist attack on America. The following Wednesday, when Barney appeared at Hickam Hospital in a dirty, wrinkled uniform, it was quite an emotional moment when they found each other alive.

``Off Duty'' time was infrequent and often they were miles apart and usually on some kind of alert status until the American victory at the Battle of Midway in May.

They wed on August 20, 1942, in the temporarily camouflaged Hickam Field Chapel; the original chapel was destroyed on December 7.

On August 20, 2003, they will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary. I congratulate and praise this couple, members of our Greatest Generation, for serving America to protect our precious democracy. I applaud your bravery and dedication to preserving freedom for all Americans.

Monica and Barney currently reside in Fort Myers, FL. They have two sons, Phil Benning and Gregory Benning and a daughter, Veronica Benning, as well as two grandchildren, Melanie and Lauren Benning.

Mr. President, I would like to show my support for the autism awareness resolution submitted today by my colleague, Senator Coleman. Autism is a developmental disability which typically appears during the first 3 years of life and impairs the communication and social skills in those affected. The result of a neurological disorder affecting the functioning of the brain, autism and its associated behaviors occur in as many as 1 in 500 individuals, in a rate of 5 boys to every girl. Because autism is difficult to recognize and diagnose, it is important that families seek an evaluation by a medical professional experienced in diagnosing and treating the disorder.

This disability is about 10 times more prevalent today than it was in the 1980s, with over 500,000 people in the U.S. today with some form of this pervasive developmental disorder. Its frequency rate makes autism one of the most common developmental disabilities. However, most of the public, including many medical, educational, and vocational professionals, are still unaware of how autism affects people and how they can effectively work with individuals with this diagnosis. I encourage my colleagues to join me in my efforts to increase autism awareness, and support this resolution.

Mr. President, on behalf of myself and my colleague, Senator Baucus, I will offer an amendment to the pending Energy bill that will make it economically feasible to make improvements to and operate the Flint Creek Hydroelectric Project at Georgetown Lake in Granite County, MT. Specifically, this amendment limits the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's, FERC, annual land use fee at the project to $25,000 for so long as Granite County, or the neighboring county, Deer Lodge County, holds the license to the project. This amendment is very similar to legislation which Senator Baucus and I introduced in the 104th Congress and which was reported unanimously from the Senate Energy Committee.

The Flint Creek Project does not currently generate electricity, nor will it without a limitation placed on the FERC annual land use fee. Under the status quo, FERC's annual fee for the project would be more than $83,000, an amount that simply makes the project uneconomic. The GAO recently released a report that concluded that the FERC generally sets land use fees too low for non-Federal hydroelectric projects located on Federal lands. In the case of the Flint Creek Project, the opposite is true.

The Flint Creek Project is more than 100 years old. It was operated by the Montana Power Company for many years. Since 1992, when it was transferred to Granite County, it has remained idle. In order to become operational again, it will require more than $2.3 million in investment. This includes building a new powerhouse that replicates the architectural style of the historic structure, installing new intake facilities, replacing the old woodstave line with a new low-pressure pipeline, new generation turbines, swiftgear equipment, stream flow control, data logging systems and a new substation and metering equipment to connect the project to the Northwest energy transmission grid.

All of this investment is necessary to get the Flint Creek Project up and running in an operationally efficient and environmentally responsible and safe manner. When these investments are made, the project will have an installed generation capacity of 2 megawatts. That translates into anticipated annual power sale revenues of between $300,000 and $350,000. Under the current FERC fee regime, however, the annual fee of $83,000 would amount to nearly 25 percent of the gross revenues of the project. With this kind of bureaucratic overhead, no one with an ounce of business sense would make the $2.3 million investment required to restart the project. My amendment reduces this annual fee to a level that fairly compensates the Federal Government for the use of its property, while at the same time encouraging investment in this project by assuming a modest rate of return.

As we sit here debating new mandates to diversify this Nation's energy portfolio and increase the amount of renewable electricity available for the marketplace, it strikes me that this is one small, site-specific yet beneficial way in which we can appropriately encourage new investment in clean, renewable electricity.

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

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

Mr. President, I appeal to my good friend from New Mexico who is managing this Energy bill and ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business.

For less than 10 minutes.

I thank my good friend.

Mr. President, on the floor of the House of Representatives this morning, they are debating a supplemental appropriations bill that deals with some serious issues that are happening under the heading of disasters across this country. The appropriations bill does not designate any money for firefighting in the West. I have been told that right now the Forest Service currently has $352 million available for wildfire suppression, but that is only going to last the next 2 weeks. The latest projections, which are conservative, I am told, indicate the expected expenditure for fighting forest fires this year is $775 million.

We have a certain amount of money set aside for prevention; that is-- if we didn't have this procedure called appeals--those accounts that are set aside for prevention will now be moved over to fire suppression. We are between a rock and a hard place.

It occurs to me that with the support of the White House, a clean supplemental for fire suppression, under emergency conditions, makes a lot of sense. We have to provide some money for fire suppression. The American people are turning on their television sets every night, and every night our forests are afire.

To give a rundown, they have evacuated all of Glacier National Park. Even some people they said would not have to evacuate--they are inholders in the park and have homes along Lake McDonald--they had to prepare their homes for fire prevention, and they left the park, for example, to get their groceries. Now they will not let those people back in. That is a local situation, and I am sure that is going to get ironed out.

That is how drastic this situation is. I call upon my friends in the House of Representatives: Do what is right to handle the emergencies we now have because, if we don't, when we start running out of money, then--due to this extended drought, with very hot conditions right now in the Rocky Mountain West--we are going to have these fires far into the month of September. It is just not right.

These fires are threatening our national treasures. McDonald Valley, Glacier National Park, is now on fire on both ends. Remember the book, ``The Perfect Storm,'' about two storms coming together at the right time, and they are only 10 miles apart, that is the ``perfect storm,'' and we could lose that entire forest.

I call upon my colleagues in the House to do the right thing now because we understand they are going to pass this bill and send it to the Senate. The Senate is in a vise. We either take it or we don't. If we don't, it will be zero dollars and the middle of September before any funds will flow into these areas that desperately need the money.

I don't know who is giving advice on this issue. I don't know who is doing the thinking on this issue. But I will tell you right now, it is wrong-headed to do it as the apparatus is set up to get it done now. It is just wrong-headed. I feel powerless to do anything, especially for the forests in my State of Montana, and that is not a very good feeling.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.