Floor Statements

I send a substitute to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, we are now on the substitute. I understand there are some amendments that are either on their way down or are going to be presented at this time. If not, we will talk a little bit about the bill and where we are today. We are prepared now to go ahead and accept amendments. We are going to ask Members to bring their amendments to the desk. The majority and minority leaders have agreed to give us the floor time to consider these amendments. The sooner we get the amendments, the sooner we can get this passed and sent to conference. I would think the minority leader would agree with me that this is one of the three most significant bills of the year.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what is the regular order?

Mr. President, as we have said, we are on the substitute, our committee substitute. That will be the one that will receive amendments. We have invited Members to come to the floor with their amendments.

While we are waiting for those to come to the floor, I will go over what is before us section by section. Then when someone comes in for the purpose of offering an amendment, I will be glad to stop and then yield to that a person.

I first ask if the ranking minority member, Senator Jeffords, had any comments to make before we go on to amendments.

First, I will start section by section. Section 1101 of the bill authorizes $283.9 billion in guaranteed spending and contract authority over a 6-year period. This level is consistent with levels adopted by the House and the White House. Subtracting authorizations for mass transit and safety and funding for fiscal year 2004, the bill provides $191 billion for maintenance and improvement to the Nation's roads and bridges over the 5-year period from fiscal year 2005 through 2009.

Let us keep in mind that this was essentially the same bill at a different funding level than we had a year ago this week, I believe. So we already have a year behind us. What we have done for this statement is to say what is there other than what has already been used for the first year, fiscal year 2005, and also mass transit and safety.

The link between a robust economy and a strong transportation infrastructure is undeniable. The movement of people and goods is one of the foremost indicators of a growing economy and job creation. At this point, we need to recognize that people have been concerned--were concerned a few years ago--about the economy, and we are recognizing that this administration actually inherited a recession and we are coming out of it now. But there is no single thing we could do that would provide more jobs and more economic activity. I suggest to the President that for each 1-percent increase in economic activity, it provides an additional 47,000 jobs. So do the math and we can see what a great boon this would be.

The bill before us today recognizes the realities of available revenues without the need for increasing gas taxes. It is designed to make the most of every available dollar for better and safer roads, while creating thousands of new jobs.

It probably is anticipated that there will be amendments to increase this amount. I anticipate there may be an amendment by the chairman and the ranking member of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus, and if not them then somebody else would probably do it. When this happens, they would, of course, be in a position to come up with the amount of money that would be necessary.

One of the things I commented about last year is that we were always within the amount of money that we could identify--in other words, the amount of money that was anticipated coming in from Federal revenues from gas purchases, along with other areas we could identify.

The total obligation authorized in this bill is $188 billion for a period from fiscal year 2005 to 2009.

In addition to the increases in funding for the overall program, the bill makes important changes to the apportionments of a few specific programs. Under TEA-21, which we adopted 7 years ago, the administrative expenses for the Federal Highway Administration were funded as a takedown from the various core programs. This bill recognizes the separate importance of costs associated with the administration of the overall highway program. Therefore, the bill funds Federal Highway Administration expenses at its own separate apportionment protecting the autonomy of the individual core programs and the administrative fund itself.

Of the amount designated for program administration, the Secretary of Transportation is also given the authority to transfer an appropriate amount to the administrative expenses of the Appalachian Highway Development System.

As a result of the 2000 census, 46 new metropolitan planning organizations, known as MPOs, have been established throughout the country and are now eligible for Federal transportation planning funding. To respond to this expanded need, we have increased the program set-asides for MPOs from 1 percent under TEA-21 to up to 1\1/2\ percent. This, along with the overall increase in program funds, will help to address the growing transportation planning needs.

Section 1104 is the equity bonus section. TEA-21 used the minimum guarantee calculation to guarantee that States receive back at least 90.5 percent of their percentage contributed to the highway trust fund. This is very significant. It has become quite controversial. Last week and this week we have talked for several hours on this bill about the various donor States. My State of Oklahoma has always been a donor State, since the programs began. I can remember that donor amount was 75 percent; that is to say, each State was guaranteed to get back 75 percent of the money that was sent in. Slowly that has crept up and it is currently at 90.5 percent.

Had we passed the bill that we had in conference last year--the bill that we sent to conference had $318 billion of authorization--then we would have everybody at the end of this 6-year period up to 95 percent. So it would have gone from 90.5 percent to 95 percent.

The minimum guarantee program is driven by a political distribution known as the 1104 table. The bill replaces the old minimum guarantee program and the 1104 table with a new equity bonus program that ensures a percentage return to States of 92 percent in each of the fiscal years 2005 through 2009.

At this point we can say it is very complicated, but the equity bonus program is just what it states: it is an equity program. The program does away with the table in TEA-21 which determined each State's percentage share of the total highway program. Rather than have a State's return be set by a politically driven table, the equity

bonus program determines each State's return by first relying on the program distribution of formulas.

This is not the easy way of doing it; this is the hard way of doing it. I am sure Senator Jeffords joins me in saying it would be a lot easier to have a minimum guarantee for any State, work out their deal, make 60 Members of the Senate happy, and walk away. That would have been done a long time ago if we decided to do it that way. But that is not equitable, and I think that is the wrong way to do business.

In fact, I say to people who criticize this bill saying it has pork in it, there are only two projects in the entire bill. The bill before us right now in the form of a substitute only has two projects in it. That is not the case over in the other body. They have several hundred projects. It has been my philosophy, and I think it is shared by the ranking minority, that the closer one gets to home, the better these decisions are.

If we can determine an equitable formula, which I believe we have done, we can send it back to the States and let the local people make the determinations as to how that is going to be spent. Now, a lot of people in Washington do not agree with that. A lot of them think if the decision is not made in Washington, it is not a good decision. I believe we are doing it the right way.

The equity bonus calculation identifies a justifiable nexus in equity between the underlying formulas and responsible balanced growth for donor and donee States alike. If a State fails to reach the minimum return in any year based on the formulas, that State would receive an equity bonus apportionment in addition to their formula funds to bring them up to the required level.

While we allow the formulas to work under the new equity bonus program, we also recognize there would be some inequities if we allowed the formulas to be the sole factor in distributing dollars to the States. In order to increase the minimum rate of return for donor States while ensuring an equitable transition of donee States, rates of return are subject to an annual growth ceiling to smooth out the phase- in of increased minimum returns. This accomplishes two goals. First, it keeps the cost of the equity bonus program affordable; secondly, it ensures that donee States are still able to grow so no States grow less than 10 percent over their TEA-21 levels. Everyone is guaranteed an increase from their own levels, at least 10 percent.

There is a cap on equity bonus. No State may receive a portion more than a specific percentage of their average portion received under TEA- 21. So you have two caps--a floor and a ceiling. That helps the formulas work.

There is a special rule to protect States with population densities less than 20 persons per square mile, a population of less than 1 million, a median household income of less than $35,000, or a State with a fatality rate during 2002 on the interstate highways greater than 1 fatality per 100 million vehicle miles traveled.

We said a lot in one paragraph. It shows the complications of a formula. First, we have to take care of the States that do not have a population. Look at Montana, Wyoming, some of the sparsely populated States. They still have to have roads. Second, we have said for the States that might have a lower per capita income, they can be considered poverty States, so there is a consideration. My State of Oklahoma is in a different situation than many other States and we would benefit from that. Or a State with a fatality rise during 2002. It is absolutely necessary to have part of the formula attributed to a consideration for money being made to States where the fatality rate is higher than average. That takes us through several of the sections.

At this point, if there are any Senators who would like to offer amendments, I encourage them to come to the Chamber and offer amendments, at the end of which time we will continue to go through the bill section by section.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his amendment and for working with us on this committee. I am sure he is aware the amendment concerns a large number of tribal communities in Oklahoma, as well as those in South Dakota. I believe right now we have the largest percentage of Native Americans per capita of any of the States.

This amendment has been cleared on both sides. I ask the Senator from Vermont if it is the Senator's wish to go ahead and accept this now, if this has been cleared on the minority side.

I move to reconsider the vote.

I appreciate the Senator from South Dakota coming down. He has submitted the first amendment to this bill, an amendment as meaningful to Oklahoma and other States as to South Dakota. We thank the Senator for his effort.

We invite other Members to offer their amendments. I am not implying they will all be that easy, but we invite our Senators to offer amendments.

I was going over section 1104, the most complicated section in the bill, the equity bonus section. We talked about the fact it does protect States that are of a lower income, densely populated States, States that have our donor status, States that are donee status. This is an important part of the bill.

The scope or percentage of funding included in the equity bonus and in the program remains the same, at 92.5 percent as TEA-21. This is significant. That means 92.5 percent of everything in this bill, whatever it ends up being, whether $284 billion or another amount, is done through this equitable manner. It minimizes what a lot of people would criticize as being pork for special projects.

In order to craft a successful formula, we have to balance the needs of donor and donee States. I will be the first to acknowledge this balance, as with any compromise, is not perfect. A few minutes ago we talked about compromises and they aren't perfect.

However, I can say with, I am sure, the agreement of the ranking minority member, there were many compromises made during the construction of this bill over the past 2\1/2\ years the Senator from Vermont disagreed with and with which I disagreed. But in the spirit of compromise we were able to get these things done.

My colleagues in representing donee and donor States that received lower rates of return or growth rates than they feel fair have made this fact very clear. I am sympathetic to the concerns of both donor and donees in this situation. They both have significant transportation needs that cannot be ignored. Addressing their concerns is more difficult in the last year due to the fact we have less money.

When we were dealing with the bill we passed out of the Senate and sent to conference last year, just at about this time, it was at a higher level, and that did guarantee every State would reach, at the end of the 6-year period, at least a 95-percent return. I know my people in the State of Oklahoma wanted a 95-percent return, and they were very disappointed when we were unable to get it out of conference, when I had every expectation we would get it out of conference.

So now, in order to get up to a higher amount, we have to be dealing with a different funding level. We have to wait and let the process take place and see what happens on that.

Section 1105 is the revenue aligned budget authority, the RABA. The huge 2003 negative adjustment in revenue aligned budget authority, or RABA, made it clear that some changes were needed to the RABA calculation in order to provide greater stability, more accurate predictions, and less fluctuation in coming years. As I have indicated before, I believe the underlying principle of RABA is an important fiscal policy and that highway expenditures should be tied to highway trust fund revenues.

This bill modifies the RABA calculation so that annual funding level adjustments are less dependent on future anticipated receipts and more dependent on actual receipts to the highway trust fund. If the RABA adjustment in a fiscal year is negative, the amount of contract authority apportioned to the States for that year will be reduced by an amount equal to the negative RABA.

Under TEA-21, negative adjustments were delayed until the succeeding fiscal year. Under the new method--the change we are making--no reduction to apportionments is made for RABA when the cash balance on the highway trust fund, other than the mass transit account, exceeds $6 billion.

Section 1201 is the Infrastructure Performance and Maintenance Program, the IPAM. The Infrastructure Performance and Maintenance Program is intended for ready-to-go projects that States can undertake and complete within a relatively short timeframe. This is very important because we are now--I anticipate we will pass this bill--into the construction season. Some of my friends from Northern States have much shorter construction seasons than some, such as the Presiding Officer. They have 12 months a year for construction. We are not quite that fortunate.

So this allows those projects that are ready to go, to go ahead--as soon as this bill is signed into law--and in a very short timeframe to be completed.

As a result, States are given 6 months to obligate IPAM funds. We designed this discretionary program to promote projects that result in immediate benefits for the highway system's

condition and performance, while avoiding long-term commitments of funds. The program also provides further economic stimulus to the economy and provides a way to aid in spending down balances in the highway trust fund.

States may obligate funds for projects eligible under Interstate Maintenance; the National Highway System; the Surface Transportation Program; the Highway Safety Improvement Program; Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement, the CMAQ Program; and the Highway Bridge Program.

Eligible projects under the IPAM Program include the preservation, maintenance, and improvement of existing highway elements, including hurricane evacuation routes, operational improvements at points of recurring highway congestion, and systematic changes to manage or improve areas of congestion.

Section 1202 is the future of the surface transportation system. In order to be prepared for future reauthorizations of this legislation, we require the Secretary of Transportation to perform a long-term investigation into the surface transportation infrastructure needs of the Nation. Specifically, the bill directs the Secretary to look at, first, the current condition and performance of the interstate system; next, the future of the interstate system in 15, 30, and 50 years; third, the expected demographics and business uses that impact the surface transportation system; fourth, the effect of changing vehicle types, modes of transportation, traffic volumes, and fleet size and weights; fifth, possible design changes; sixth, urban, rural, interregional and national needs; seventh, improvements in emergency preparedness; eighth, real-time performance data collection; and, ninth, future funding needs and potential approaches to collect those funds.

Now, that concludes section 1202.

Mr. President, it is my understanding that a Senator is here who wants the floor for a purpose other than the highway bill.

Mr. President, I would make the request of the Senator from Massachusetts to go ahead and proceed in terms of his comments on the highway bill. Then, since we do have others coming down, we have to get through this section by section. Can the Senator give us an idea about how much time he would like to have?

I would ask the Senator, if we were to go ahead and allow you 20 minutes on another subject, if someone came down, prior to that time being used, to offer an amendment, would you at that time yield the floor? It is highly unlikely that will happen, but we do want to stay on this bill.

Mr. President, I have no objection to the 20 minutes for that purpose.

Mr. President, the regular order of business is the Transportation bill. We will proceed now. It is our desire to discourage people from coming down to the Senate floor until we have started receiving these amendments. There is no more important piece of legislation that we will consider this year than the Transportation bill. I am prepared to go through it section by section. I will certainly yield to the ranking minority member, Senator Jeffords.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator and certainly agree with his remarks.

Once again, the ranking member and I request anyone who has amendments to come down to the floor. We are open for amendments at this time on this very significant piece of legislation.

Let me go through section by section and explain what we have in the bill.

Section 1203 is freight transportation gateways, freight intermodal connections. I think it is important we realize--and we said this earlier this morning--back when the first legislation came to our attention--that was back during the Eisenhower administration--they were talking about roads and highways. Now this has become intermodal, to take care of all the needs in transporting people and goods around the country.

Freight movement in America is expected to grow dramatically in both volume and value over the coming decades. Throughout reauthorization, the

Environment and Public Works Committee heard concerns about inadequate freight facilities, insufficient capacity, and inefficient connections.

In December 2003, the GAO released a report on freight transportation that recommended strategies needed to address planning and financing limitations. The report noted that the major challenges to freight mobility all shared a common theme--congestion--including overcrowded highways and freight specific chokepoints. Additionally, the GAO reported two main limitations that stakeholders encounter in addressing these challenges. They first related to the limited visibility that freight projects receive in the planning and prioritization process. SAFETEA directly addresses this problem by creating a freight transportation coordinator at the State level to facilitate public and private collaboration in developing solutions to freight transportation and freight gateway problems. The bill also ensures that intermodal freight transportation needs are integrated into project development and planning processes.

The second limitation reported by the GAO was that Federal funding programs tend to dedicate funds to a single mode of transportation or nonfreight purpose, thus limiting freight project eligibility among some programs. SAFETEA, or the bill we have before us today, addresses this problem by making intermodal freight projects eligible for STP and NHS funding.

The Freight Gateways Program under this bill promotes intermodal improvements for freight movement through significant trade gateways, ports, hubs, and intermodal connectors to the National Highway System. States and localities are encouraged to adopt new financing strategies to leverage State, local, and private investments in freight transportation gateways, thus maximizing the impact of each Federal dollar. The Freight Gateway Program is funded from a set-aside of 2 percent of each State's NHS proportions. However, in the spirit of State flexibility and ensuring that funds go to the areas of the greatest need, a State is not required to spend 2 percent of the NHS apportionment if they can certify to the Secretary that their intermodal connectors are adequate.

I think my colleagues see all throughout this bill that we are granting more latitude for the States to determine their fate. It is a recognition that the States know their needs better than we know them in most cases. Consequently, if they can do something better, why dictate something from the Federal Government when they are able to do a better job themselves.

Section 1204 is construction of ferry boats and ferry terminal facilities. TEA-21 established a discretionary program for the construction of ferry boats and ferry terminal facilities. This bill creates a new permanent section in title 23 for this TEA-21 program. The program is designed to provide for the important construction of ferry boats, ferry terminals, and approaches to facilities that are part of the Nation's highway system and constitute ``last mile'' connections for ferries.

Section 1205 is designation of interstate highways. As part of this bill, Interstate Highway 86 in the State of New York is specifically designated as the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Interstate Highway in memory of our late colleague and friend who was not only a transportation safety expert but served his country in the House and Senate for many years.

It is important at this time to recognize that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was also the chairman of this committee that accomplished so much in the earlier years. And unbeknownst to most people on the committee, Daniel Patrick Moynihan was from my city of Tulsa, OK. So I am very supportive of this portion of the bill to make this designation for him.

This section also designates a segment of Interstate Highway 86 near towns of Painted Post and Corning in New York State as the Amo Houghton Bypass in recognition of the former Congressman's work in making I-86 possible. It is interesting, we have a Democrat and Republican getting these designations. It happens that I was elected in 1986 with Amo Houghton. He has made great contributions, and I am sure this is a very appropriate tribute to make to former Congressman Amo Houghton.

Section 1301, the Federal share. SAFETEA continues the statutory provisions that lay out what the Federal share for a highway project will be for different States based on the amount of Federal land within the States. The Federal share provisions of the current law use a sliding scale which permits States with large portions of Federal land to match Federal funds with fewer State dollars. This is understandable because the Federal lands would consume a good portion of some States, States such as New Mexico. Due to the decreasing taxing ability of States with high percentages of Federal lands, these States are given access to a higher Federal contribution for highway projects within their States.

The bill before us today modifies this provision slightly to simplify the calculation used to determine the Federal share rates that apply to each individual State. I might add, in this respect, this is something we found agreement with from both the States with large amounts of Federal land and States, such as my State of Oklahoma, that has a very small amount.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, as we go through section by section, we talked about congestion, but we neglected to elaborate because this is one of the more serious problems we have now. According to the Department of Transportation, time spent in congestion increased from 31.7 percent in 1992 to 33.1 percent in 2000. Based on this rate, a typical rush hour in an urbanized area is 5.3 hours a day. The problem is not simply in urban areas. Cities with populations less than 500,000 have experienced the greatest growth in travel delays, according to the

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 26, 2005, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on ``An Update on Money Services Businesses Under Bank Secrecy and USA Patriot Regulation.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 10 a.m. on the nominations of Maria Cino to be the Deputy Secretary of Transportation, and Phyllis Scheinberg to be Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Budget.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation be authorized to meet on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 2:30 p.m. on the Transportation Security Administration's FY2006 Budget and pending nominations.

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 Tuesday, April 26, at 10 a.m. in Room SD-366.

The purpose of the hearing is to receive testimony regarding the status of the Department of Energy's Nuclear Power 2010 Program.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 10 a.m., to hear testimony on ``Proposals To Achieve Sustainable Solvency, With and Without Personal Accounts.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a hearing on the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Subcommittee on Reitrement Security and Aging, be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 10 a.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``A Bill to create a Fair and Efficient System to Resolve Claims of Victims for Bodily Injury Caused by Asbestos Exposure, and for other Purposes'' on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 9:30 a.m., in Russell Senate Office Building, Room 325.

Panel I: The Honorable Judge Becker.

Panel II: The Honorable John Engler, National Association of Manufacturing, Washington, DC.; Mr. Craig Berrington, General Counsel, American Insurance Association, Washington, DC.; Ms. Peg Seminario, Director, AFL-CIO, Washington, DC.; Ms. Carol Morgan, President and General Counsel, National Service Industries, Inc.; Doraville, GA; Mr. Hershel W. Gober, National Legislative Director, Military Order of the Purple Heart, McLean, VA; Dr. Francine Rabinovitz, Hamilton, Rabinovitz & Alschuler, Carmel, CA; Mr. Mark A. Peterson, President, Legal Analysis Systems, Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA; Prof. Eric D. Green, Boston University Law School, Boston, MA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, to markup the nomination of Mr. Jonathan B. Perlin to be Under Secretary for Health, Department of Veterans' Affairs.

The meeting will take place in room S 216 (the President's Room) of the Capitol at 11:45 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 26, 2005 at 2:30 p.m., to hold a briefing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-366.

The purpose of the hearing is to review the preparedness of the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior for the 2005 Wildfire Season, including agencies' assessment of the risk of fires by region, the status of and contracting for aerial fire suppression assets, and other information needed to better understand the agencies' ability to deal with the upcoming fire season.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the privilege of the floor be afforded Mr. Richard Steinmann, a detailee from the Federal Transit Administration, for the duration of the consideration of the surface transportation reauthorization bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following staff members of the Joint Committee on Taxation on a list that I send to the desk be given the privilege of the floor for the duration of the deliberation of the Highway Reauthorization and Excise Simplification Act of 2005, provided that no more than four from the list occupy the floor at any given time.

Mr. President, today we will resume debate on the motion to proceed to highway legislation. On Friday, a cloture motion was filed to the motion to proceed. Under the order, that cloture vote will occur at 11:45 tomorrow morning.

On behalf of the leadership, we hope that cloture will be invoked and that we will be able to begin consideration of the underlying bill. If the Senate can proceed to the highway bill tomorrow, Senators should expect another rollcall vote as the Senate considers amendments to the bill. Finally, I would like to announce the Senate will this week also consider any conference report that may become available.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 119, submitted today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the resolution and preamble be agreed to en bloc, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements be printed in the Record, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate now proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 120, which was submitted today.

I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 893, introduced earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, and any statements relating thereto be printed in the Record, without intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, on Friday, the leader filed a cloture motion on the motion to proceed to H.R. 3, the highway bill. I believe the cloture vote has been scheduled for tomorrow at 11:45 am. I strongly urge all of my colleagues to vote yes.

The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, TEA-21, expired on September 30, 2003, nearly 19 months ago. Yet we are still attempting to get a bill done. The Federal-aid program has been operating under a number of short-term extensions--a total of six to date.

We need to get this done. The vote on Tuesday on cloture is critical. If we cannot proceed to this bill, we will miss yet another deadline and our States will continue to pay the price. The current May 31 expiration date for the highway, transit and safety programs is fast approaching. The House bill, H.R. 3, has some very significant differences from S. 732 the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act of 2005, SAFETEA, the bill reported out by the Environment and Public Works Committee on March 16. We will need as much time as possible to work out a compromise. Although we may not all be in perfect agreement here on the Senate floor on each and every provision of S. 732, one thing I believe we are all in agreement on is that we need to get this done. In addition to conversations with colleagues, I have visited with community leaders and outside interest groups and the message is clear . . . get the bill done.

My committee colleagues and I are asking the Senate to consider essentially the same language that 76 Senators voted for in 108th Congress. The Environment and Public Works Committee used as its mark the Senate-passed S. 1072 with the exception that we adjusted the numbers to reflect the President's proposed spending level of $284 billion over 6 years. During our markup we accepted several non- controversial amendments from committee members. None of these amendments substantially changed the policy goals of the bill as passed last year.

Therefore, I strongly urge my colleagues to support the pending cloture motion and allow us to move to H.R. 3. We really need to keep this moving. The longer we delay enactment of a long-term bill, we are negatively effecting economic growth. According to DOT estimates, every $1 billion of Federal funds invested in highway improvements creates 47,000 jobs. The same $1 billion investment yields $500 million in new orders for the manufacturing sector and $500 million spread throughout other sectors of the economy.

State contract awards for the 2005 spring and summer construction season are going out to bid. If we fail to send a bill to the President by May 31st, States will not know what to expect in Federal funding and the uncertainty will potentially force States to delay putting these projects out for bid. According to the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials--AASHTO, an estimated 90,000 jobs are at stake. This problem is exacerbated for northern States, such as Alaska, that have shorter construction seasons. Many State transportation departments have advanced State dollars to construct projects eligible for Federal-funding in anticipation of our action to reauthorize the program. Without a new bill, States are essentially left ``holding the bag.''

Over the past 6 years under TEA-21, we have made great progress in preserving and improving the overall physical condition and operation of our transportation system. However, more needs to be done. A safe, effective transportation system is the foundation of our economy. We are past due to fulfill an obligation to this country and the American people.

I am pleased that the President's budget assumed more funding for reauthorization over his previous level of $256 billion. I and along with many of you believe we need more. Certainly that is an issue that will be thoroughly debated on the floor of the Senate, but we can't even have that debate unless we get to the floor.

Again, if we are able to proceed, the language that the Senate will be considering is essentially the same bill that was passed on the Senate floor last year--a bipartisan product of many months of hard work and compromise. This bill remains a very good piece of legislation which I hope will require few, if any, changes here on the floor. However, I am anxious to discuss with Senators their amendments so that we can debate them and hopefully get this bill in conference with the House prior to the recess, but we need to get to the bill first.

S. 1072 passed the Senate last year guaranteed all donor States a rate of return of 95 percent. I can remember that was 75 percent when I first came here. At a lower funding level we were able only to achieve a 92 percent rate of return but kept the 10 percent floor over TEA-21. The scope, or split of percent funding above and below the line, remain the same at 92.5 percent.

In order to get this bill off the floor, we have to balance the needs of donor and donee States. I will be the first to acknowledge that this balance--as with any compromise--is not perfect. My colleagues representing donee and donor States that receive lower rates of return or growth rates than they feel fair have made this fact very clear to me over the past year.

I am very sympathetic to the concerns of both donors and donees in this

situation. Both have significant transportation needs that cannot be ignored. Addressing their concerns has become more difficult in the last year due to the fact that we have less money. Providing either group with more money would add significantly to the cost of the bill or take away from other programs. But holding up even consideration of this bill will not solve the problem. We need to proceed to H.R. 3 so that donor and donee States will have the opportunity to offer their amendments on how to improve their State's treatment.

I am certain my colleagues share my strong desire to get a transportation reauthorization bill passed. We must act to get a bill to and through conference prior to the May 31 expiration of the current extension. This will be a very difficult challenge, but if we act quickly we can do it.

Now let's look at the alternative. What will happen if we do not pass a highway bill? There will not be another extension. If we don't pass the bill there will be no chance of improvement on donor State rate of return and no new safety core program to help Spates respond to thousands of deaths each year on our roadways.

Our bill up has many safety provisions, as the ranking Democrat, Senator Jeffords knows. We didn't agree on all these, but we finally agreed on a final product. Without a bill, there will be no real streamlining of environmental reviews, so critical products would be still subject to avoidable delays. There will be no increased ability to use innovative financing, thereby giving States more tools to advance projects.

Out in California, they have done some things that are working very well. We have studied these and put some very innovative provisions in this bill to allow us to get more for the dollar than we can get today. But without a bill, we cannot do that.

Without a bill, we would not have any Safe Routes to School. This is a program many of the Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate have embraced. But without a bill, we will not have that.

Without a bill, the States will continue to have uncertainty in planning, thereby delaying projects and negatively impacting jobs.

It is easy to sit up here in Washington and be indecisive about these things, but the States have to make plans in advance. For each delay, that is less they are going to get.

Without a bill, we have no new border program, which is critical to border States dealing with NAFTA.

Without a bill, we have delay in the establishment of the national commission to explore how to fund transportation in the future. It is something we have been doing essentially the same way year in and year out, but we are studying new methods now as motor vehicles are more fuel efficient and a tax collection system based solely on fuel consumption becomes less practical.

Without a bill, we won't have any increased opportunity to address choke points at intermodal connectors.

The firewall protection of the highway trust fund would not be continued, thereby making the trust fund vulnerable to raids in order to pay for other programs.

It is very important that we move forward. We studied this for a year and a half before coming to the Senate a year ago right now. Certainly the ranking Democrat on the committee, Senator Jeffords, can remember the months and months we worked on it. We came to the Senate with a good bill, passed it, went to conference, and were unable to get a vote on the conference report. Because of that, all these 10 things I mentioned did not happen this year. For all these things to happen, to move forward, we have to have a bill. We cannot have a bill until we vote on the motion to proceed so that we will be able to move to the bill. That is what this is all about.

I recognize the ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Jeffords.

Mr. President, I say to my good friend, Senator Jeffords, we are not political equals in philosophy; yet I, as a conservative, agree with everything the Senator has said in terms of the need for roads and the need for infrastructure.

Senator Jeffords talked about some of the deficiencies we have, but I have to say in my State of Oklahoma the FAWA goes out and they rate roads and bridges. Oklahoma is dead last in bridges. This is a life- and-death situation. We lose lives every year.

A lot of my friends say: Well, you did not want to have a robust, expensive highway bill. I say to them: That is what we are supposed to be doing here.

I am a conservative. There is no one more conservative, according to the ACLU, than I am in this Senate. Yet I can say we need to spend money on infrastructure in the United States.

I will say a little bit about the formula of which I have been very proud. Both my good friend from Vermont and I used to serve in the other body before we came to the Senate. At that time, I was on the Transportation Committee in the House. I watched the way we did things there and how we do things here. I don't want to be critical of the way the other body operates, but we do it in a more fair and equitable way.

It would be easy--if we needed 60 Senators, we could give them projects until everyone signed on, and then forget about the other 40, have a vote, and go home. That could happen, but we did not do that. We have a complicated formula.

This creates different anxieties in different States where there is opposition because in one particular area they do not do as well as another State. Let me give an example of how complicated the formula is.

In a formula, you take into consideration an abundance of items, such as interstate lane miles. This is something in the formulas we take into consideration. Obviously, there is a reason. Or vehicle miles traveled, which is referred to as VMT. Over the next few days we will hear that quite often. The vehicle miles traveled on interstate has to be something to consider in terms of authorizing a 6-year program.

The contributions to the highway trust fund are very significant. We hear from some of the large States that they give more to the highway trust fund. I suggest it is not just people in that State who are making those contributions; people driving through the State also have to buy fuel in those States.

The lane miles on principal arteries, excluding the intersection, is weighted in the formula to a percentage. The VMT on principal arteries is considered. Diesel fuel used on highways is a consideration. Total lane miles on principal arteries divided by population is considered when we look at a formula that would affect all 50 States. So total lane miles on Federal aid highways, total vehicle miles traveled on Federal aid highways, the contributions to the highway trust fund, or the highway account, attributable to highway users, the cost to repair or replace deficient highways and bridges have to be considered. In the State of Alaska, for example, the Presiding Officer's State, it is more expensive. They have severe winters in Alaska. We do not have severe winters in some of the Southern States. This has to be part of the consideration.

The weighted nonattainment and maintenance area, population, the equal shares to each eligible State on highways, recreational trails program, the border planning, borders and corridors--this is significant to States such as California and Arizona, Texas, Florida, and, of course, the northern tier of States. The border States' share of cargo weight, what their share is of cargo value, the number of commercial vehicles entering the border State, the number of passenger vehicles entering the border State--all these are part of the formula.

We have low-income States. My State of Oklahoma is a low-income State. The State of Arizona is a high-income State. That is a consideration. One of the chief workers on the bill has been Senator Baucus from Montana. He is the ranking member on the committee; Kit Bond chairs that subcommittee on transportation within our committee. He has a low-population State. Obviously, if you have a low-population State, that has to be a consideration. There still have to be roads so they can travel and other people can travel through their States. But if they base it all on getting 100 percent back, and they do not have extra consideration--that has to be part of the formula.

Low-population-density States is a factor. The high fatality rates are a factor. The fatality rate in my State of Oklahoma is higher than average. The guaranteed minimum growth of each State--there is a limit applied to that--and the guaranteed minimum rate of return for donor States is a consideration. I remember when that guaranteed minimum rate of return for donor States was 75 percent, and it only crept up to 80, 85 and 90; now we operate on 90.5 percent. If we passed the bill offered last year, the way it passed in Senate, we would be at 95 percent. Every State would be guaranteed 95 percent return of donations of that State.

If we did not do it this way, we could do it the politically easy way--handing out projects until it is done. But that is where pork comes in. That is where most of the criticism comes from. I have heard a lot of the commentators talk about the highway bill the Senate has is full of projects and pork. My response is they have not read it yet. There are only two projects in the entire bill. Only two. On the other side, there are several hundred. It is a totally different approach.

So we have these things that are of major consideration. We have to get this bill done. The best way to get it done, of course, is to vote favorably tomorrow on the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, and then to move on to the bill.

Now, we have several people who may wish to speak. I mentioned Senator Bond, who is the chairman of the Transportation Subcommittee. Senator Baucus, who has been very helpful in working with us, is the ranking member of the subcommittee. There is Senator Jeffords and myself. Of course, we have 18 members of our committee. We would like to invite them to come down right now. I will defer to anyone who wants to come down and talk about this legislation. In the event that nobody shows up, I have more to say. I think, probably, the Senator from Vermont might have more to say, too.

So at the present time I will go ahead and suggest the absence of a quorum and encourage members of our committee and others who want to be heard on the highway bill to come down and speak.

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 ask unanimous consent that I be recognized to speak for up to 30 minutes as

in morning business. However, I want to say if anyone comes down to speak on the motion to proceed to the highway bill, I will stop at that point so they can be recognized. I will yield to them. However, I want my entire speech to be printed in the Record as if given intact.

Mr. President, today I will continue my series of the four pillars of climate alarmism. This is the third pillar speech. In my first speech, I outlined how the media and some of the environmental extremists distorted, exaggerated, and mischaracterized a major climate change report from the National Academy of Sciences.

I showed how the left and the media exaggerated a document that contained numerous caveats about the uncertainties of current knowledge and the caution that its conclusions were tentative, proclaiming the report showed conclusively that global warming due to man is occurring.

In my second speech, I described some of the more serious and, indeed, fatal flaws in the 2001 Third Assessment Report from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, known also as the IPCC, which I will refer to from time to time. In that speech, I exposed how Michael Mann's now infamous ``hockey stick,'' the flagship of the IPCC's claims that global warming is real, has been thoroughly discredited in scientific circles, and that the IPCC's projections of future carbon emissions, which drive temperature model conclusions, have been proven to be based on political decisions that, by the end of the century, countries such as Libya will be as wealthy or wealthier than the United States.

Now, I would like to examine the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report, which received considerable attention on its release late last year. Last November, the Arctic Council, described as a ``high-level information forum'' that includes the United States, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, and Sweden, released its 140-page arctic synthesis report, entitled, ``Impacts of a Warming Arctic.'' It details the major findings from the Arctic Council's 1,200-page scientific report, which will be released in the coming weeks.

The essence of the synthesis report is this: The Arctic is experiencing unprecedented climate change, caused, in large part, if not entirely, by manmade greenhouse gas emissions, while projections show dramatic Arctic warming accompanied by even more pronounced changes that will have serious repercussions for the entire planet.

At first blush, the report appears to be quite impressive. It contains glossy photos, charts, and graphs, and was produced by some 300 scientists from several nations. But it lacks virtually any scientific documentation, which casts doubt on the report's page after page of unqualified, matter-of-fact claims about Arctic warming. That documentation, we are told, is forthcoming in the more lengthy scientific report. So it is unclear if the 140-page document accurately reflects the contents of the scientific report.

If it does, then the scientific report simply ignores or dismisses reams of peer-reviewed scientific work contradicting the Arctic Council's conclusions. If it does not, then the synthesis report would appear to be an exercise in global warming propaganda.

The release of the report created a media sensation with nearly every major news outlet declaring, once again, that the scientific consensus on global warming had been reaffirmed.

Here is the Chicago Tribune's report from November 24, 2004:

The council's 140-page report, four years in the making,

warns of immense ice melts, a dramatic rise in ocean levels,

the depletion of the Gulf Stream and other sea currents, wild

fluctuations in weather patterns, increased ultraviolet

radiation and wrenching dislocations in the food chain and

habitat.

In equally dramatic fashion, the Associated Press described the report this way. It said:

This most comprehensive study of Arctic warming to date

adds yet more impetus to the projections by many of the

world's climate scientists that there will be a steady rise

in global temperature as the result of greenhouse gases

released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels

and other sources.

Such descriptions of the report are really not far off the mark, and for good reason. In this case, the media and extremist groups got exactly what they wished for--140 pages detailing a daunting list of projected environmental catastrophes: permafrost melting, infrastructure collapsing, glaciers vanishing, sea levels rising, coastal communities flooding, polar bears facing extinction.

Worse, the authors left the impression that these scenarios were all but assured, despite the fact that the assumptions on which they are based are highly uncertain--a point I will examine later in this speech. Thus, no spin, distortion, or exaggeration on the media's part was necessary.

The synthesis report constructs a deceptive picture of climate changes that have occurred in the Arctic over the last 30 years, particularly with respect to temperature change. A major piece of evidence supporting the Arctic Council's alarmist conclusions is the Arctic's ``unprecedented'' temperature increase over the last several decades. The report's authors make the following statement on page 23. I am quoting now. It says:

Examining the record of past climatic conditions indicates

that the amount, speed, and pattern of warming experienced in

recent decades are indeed unusual and are characteristic of

the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases.

Specifically, according to the Council, annual average temperature in the Arctic has increased at almost twice the rate of the rest of the world, while winter temperatures in Alaska and western Canada have increased about 3 to 4 degrees Celsius over the past half century, with larger increases projected in the next 100 years.

Surely, this is proof of unprecedented, human-induced warming, and of worrisome warming trends for the future? Not quite. Let's take a closer look at the peer-reviewed literature on the temperature history of the Arctic, which the Arctic Council's synthesis report totally ignored.

First, in the November 2002 issue of the Journal Holocene, researchers examined proxy temperature data in northern Russia spanning over 2,000 years. They found that ``the warmest periods over the last two millennia in this region were clearly in the third, tenth to twelfth, and during the twentieth centuries.'' The earlier periods, they claim, were warmer than those of the 20th century, while 20th century temperatures appeared to peak at around 1940.

For a much broader perspective on Arctic temperatures, one can read the 2003 paper by researcher Igor Polyakov in the journal EOS, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. In the paper titled ``Trends and Variations in Arctic Climate Systems,'' Polyakov studied land and ocean data from northward of latitude 62.5 degrees north, dating back to 1870.

As is obvious from this chart, one can see that current temperature over the entire region is similar to that measured 70 years ago. According to Polyakov:

Two distinct warming periods from 1920 to 1945, and from

1975 to the present, are clearly evident.

He goes on to note that ``compared with the global and hemispheric temperature rise, the high-latitude temperature increase was stronger in the late 1930s to the early 1940s than in recent decades.''

Strangely there is no mention of this in the Arctic report, but alarmists don't seem to care. They would probably respond that: 300 scientists from all over the world believe such warming is occurring. You, sir, have merely identified two whose research presents a contrary view.

To answer that charge I will submit for the Record an impressive list of scientists from several countries, including the United States, whose peer-reviewed work shows current Arctic temperatures are no higher than temperatures recorded in the 1930s and the 1940s.

Let me quote from a few salient examples. In a 2003 issue of the Journal of Climate, seven researchers concluded the following:

In contrast to the global and hemispheric temperature, the

maritime Arctic temperature was higher in the late 1930s

through the early 1940s than in the 1990s.

Here is another excerpt from the 2000 International Journal of Climatology, Dr. Rajmund Przybylak of Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. It reads:

The highest temperatures since the beginning of

instrumental observation occurred clearly in the 1930s and

can be attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation.

Finally, in 2001, researchers examined a 10,000-year span of sea core sediment in the Chukchi Sea and concluded that ``in the recent past, the western Arctic Ocean was much warmer than it is today.'' They also found that ``during the middle Holocene [approximately 6,000 years ago] the August sea surface temperature fluctuated by 5 degrees Celsius and was 3-7 degrees Celsius warmer than it is today.'' Obviously, the middle Holocene period was not known for SUVs and coal-fired powerplants.

To get a fuller sense of the report's bias, consider the Arctic Council's geographical definition of ``the Arctic.'' This is important because the temperature record differs depending on one's definition. The Arctic report's temperature record includes data from northward of latitude 60 degrees North. Why the Arctic Council chose this point is not explained. In fact, the report's authors responsible for defining the Arctic admitted last November that their choice was arbitrary.

The Arctic Council's starting point is problematic for two reasons. First, Dr. George Taylor, Oregon's State climatologist and a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, recently examined Arctic temperature trends using different starting points. As Dr. Taylor found, ``[u]sing 60 degrees North introduced a lot of . . . questionable Siberian stations.'' In other words, measurements at that point are based in part on bad data.

Second, other researchers see the Arctic differently, and probably more accurately when describing long-term temperature trends. Polyakov, for example, defined Arctic as northward of 62.5 degrees North. This 2.5-degree difference is not trivial. Temperatures can change significantly between 62.5 degrees North and 60 degrees North. In fact, pushing the geographical boundaries southward, as the Arctic Council did, contributes to a substantial upward bias in temperature measurements.

Not only was the Arctic region arbitrarily defined, it appears that marine and coastal-based data were arbitrarily excluded from the report's temperature record. This is strange, considering two-thirds of the Arctic is covered by the Arctic Ocean. So it seems unreasonable to use only land-based stations, as the Arctic Council did, and not to include coastal stations, Russian drifting stations in the Arctic Ocean, and drifting buoys from the International Buoy Programme, as Polyakov and his colleagues did.

Using such data reveals a less dramatic temperature picture than the Arctic Council's. In 1993, University of Wisconsin climatologist Jonathan Kahal examined declassified data collected over the Arctic Ocean during the Cold War. In a paper in the journal Nature, Kahl found an ``absence of evidence for greenhouse warming over the Arctic Ocean in the past 40 years'' and a net decline in Arctic temperature. Admittedly, Kahl's temperature history stretches only from 1958 to 1986. But more importantly, it relies on marine and coastal-based data.

Dr. Taylor was among many mystified by these omissions. For him, there is only one possible explanation: ``The [Arctic Climate Impact Assessment] appears to be guilty of selective use of data.'' He further explained, ``Many of the trends described in the document begin in the 1960s or 1970s--cool decades in much of the world--and end in the warmer 1990s and early 2000s. So, for example, temperatures have warmed in the last 40 years, and the implication, `if present trends continue,' is that massive warming will occur in the next century. Yet data are readily available for the 1930s and early 1940s, when temperatures were comparable to (and probably higher than) those observed today. Why not start the trend there? Because there is no net warming over the last 65 years?

This is kind of interesting because I can remember also giving a speech where I showed the cover of ``Newsweek'' magazine and the cover of ``U.S. News and World Report.'' This was back in the 1970s. And the headlines were: Cooling period is coming; a new ice age is coming. We are all going to die. It is the same thing people are saying about a warming climate. If your starting point is at the end of that cold period, it gives a distortion, if there has been no net warming over the last 65 years.

In the pop culture version of global warming, there is no greater attraction than melting glaciers and sea ice. Press accounts appear daily of new studies purporting to show a widespread glacial retreat stemming from man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Warnings abound that this melting will cause a calamitous rise in sea levels. True to form, the Arctic Council follows the same story line, asserting that, ``glaciers throughout the Arctic are melting.'' ``This process is already under way,'' the report states, ``with the widespread retreat of glaciers, snow cover, and sea ice. This is one reason why climate change is more rapid in the Arctic than elsewhere.'' but is this really the case?

Interestingly, the IPCC Third Assessment Report references peer- reviewed studies that contradict the Arctic Council's assessments. The IPCC, an organization convinced of the validity of the global warming consensus, noted that, ``Glaciers and ice caps in the Arctic also have shown retreat in low-lying areas since about 1920,'' but also stated, `'However, no increasing melting trend has been observed during the past 40 years.''

Sonar data on sea ice collected in the 1990s also tell a different story. As the BBC wrote in 2001. ``The latest and most comprehensive analysis yet of the sonar data collected in the 1990s shows little if any thinning--at least towards the end of that decade. Indeed, at the North Pole, there are indications in the data that the ice even got a little thicker.''

What they are saying is, there are some areas that you can visibly go to and say yes, glaciers are melting, but in other areas it is getting thicker.

Among other omissions, the Arctic Council gave little weight to the observed variability of Arctic sea ice thickness. The term ``observed variability'' of sea ice thickness has specific meaning in the Arctic: Scientists estimate that sea ice mass there can vary by as much as 16 percent in a single year. As Dr. Seymour Laxon, a lecturer in the Department of Space and Climate Physics at the University College London, explained, ``The observed variability of Arctic sea ice thickness contrasts with the concept of a slowly dwindling ice pack, produced by global warming.''

So what causes these variations in sea ice mass? In 2002, Dr. Greg Holloway, of the Institute for Ocean Sciences in Sidney, Canada, and his colleagues Dr. Tessa Sou, showed that decadal wind pattern changes caused a shifting of Arctic sea ice, creating thinner ice in some regions and thicker ice in others. As Dr. Holloway explained, ``It's a circumstance where the ice tends to leave the central Arctic and then mostly pile up against the Canadian side, before moving back into the central Arctic again.'' Based on this research, Dr. Holloway believes that ``we have been a little bit overly stampeded into the idea that here is a terribly alarming melting taking place.''

Holloway is not alone in his assessment. In 2003, German researchers Cornelia Koeberle and Ruediger Gerdes found evidence of natural ``wind stress'' strongly affecting variability in Arctic sea ice. ``The results make connecting `global warming' to Arctic ice thinning very difficult for two reasons,'' the researchers wrote. ``First, the large decadal and longer-term variability masks any trend . . . Second, the wind stress strongly affects the long-term development of ice volume. A long-term change in wind stress over the Arctic, possibly by an increase in the number of atmospheric circulation states that favor ice export, would affect the ice volume in a similar manner as a temperature increase.''

In addition to questionable claims about Arctic sea ice, the Arctic report includes dubious projections about the Greenland Ice Sheet. Climate models, the Arctic Council reports, ``project that local warming in Greenland will exceed 3 degrees Celsius during this century.'' The result? ``Ice sheet models project that a warming of that magnitude would initiate the long-term

melting of Greenland Ice Sheet.'' And furthermore, ``Even if climactic conditions then stabilized, an increase of this magnitude is projected to lead eventually (over centuries) to a virtually complete melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, resulting in a global sea level rise of about seven meters.''

This sounds ominous, but again, peer-reviewed literature on the subject, excluded from the Arctic report, tells a countervailing story. For example, a team of experts at Los Alamos National Laboratory recently examined Greenland's instrumental surface temperatures. Here's what they found: ``Since 1940, however, the Greenland coastal stations data have undergone predominately a cooling trend. At the summit of the Greenland ice sheet, the summer average temperature has decreased at the rate of 2.2 [degrees Celsius] per decade since the beginning of the measures in 1987.'' We are talking about a reduction in temperature, of an increase.

Finally, the report's projections for the Greenland ice sheet, glaciers, and sea ice were based on data obtained from global climate models. Those projections assume anthropogenic warming, and proceed to show a gradual but persistent melting of glaciers and ice, leading to a dangerous rise in sea levels. However, as climate scientists have repeatedly pointed out, climate models are highly imperfect. In fact, they are notoriously inaccurate in how they simulate the complexities of the climate system.

This is especially true of Arctic climate. According to a letter signed by 11 climate scientists, sent to the Senate Commerce Committee last fall, ``Arctic climate varies dramatically from one region to another, and over time in ways that cannot be accurately reproduced by climate models. The quantitative impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors remain highly uncertain, especially for a region as complex as the Arctic.''

Researchers associated with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks wholeheartedly endorsed this view. They recently wrote, ``Unfortunately, most global climate models are not capable of sufficiently reproducing the climatological state of the Arctic Ocean, sea ice and atmosphere . . . as [an] example, the simulated sea ice thickness is overestimated, and its overall pattern is in error, with the thickest ice located in the Siberian instead of the Canadian sector of the Arctic Ocean.''

Based on these well-documented technological constraints, how can one take seriously the Arctic Council's claim that ``While the models differ in their projections of some of the features of climate change, they are all in agreement that the world will warm significantly as a result of human activities and that the Arctic is likely to experience noticeable warming particularly early and intensely''?

The alarmist nature of the Arctic report is to be expected. How else can they justify its enormous costs of regulating carbon dioxide? We know the costs of this would be enormous. Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates--this is from the Wharton School of Economics, not from Senator Jim Inhofe--estimates that implementing Kyoto would cost the average American family of four $2,715 a year. Acknowledging the holes in the science underlying claims of catastrophic global warming would undermine their agenda. What is the agenda? Two international leaders have said it best.

Margot Walstrom, the EU's environmental commissioner, said that Kyoto is ``about leveling the playing field for big business worldwide.'' French President Jacques Chirac said during a speech at The Hague in November 2000 that Kyoto represents ``the first component of an authentic global governance.'' That is what they want to do, level the playing field for big business worldwide, bring the United States down to Third World status eventually, and have an authentic global governance.

Based on these and other major deficiencies, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment hardly serves as compelling proof that greenhouse gas emissions are causing unprecedented changes in Arctic climate, or that trends point to a future marred by widespread damage to Arctic ecosystems. To be sure, the report fails to provide a thorough, balanced, comprehensive overview of the most compelling research on Arctic climate.

Instead, the so-called ``synthesis report'' is a biased, selective examination of climate trends in the Arctic. It completely ignores well-known, established facts. For instance, it is firmly established that Arctic temperatures in the late 1930s and early 1940s were higher than in the 1990s and that Greenland's temperatures in recent decades have undergone a cooling trend, not a warming trend. It is also well known that sea ice mass can vary by as much as 16 percent in a single year. Moreover, this report fails the test of transparency and openness and lacks virtually any documentation. It reads more like an ideological tome. Extremist groups are using it as a legal brief to sue energy producers on behalf of Arctic peoples. Hardly surprising.

Dr. George Taylor, Oregon's State climatologist, succinctly described the report when he said: ``Nice graphics, but bad science.''

This is what we have been hearing. The extremists have to make us believe that something catastrophic will happen. The same people who are talking about global warming today were the ones who, in the 1970s, were talking about global cooling, saying another ice age is coming. It is interesting.

I recommend reading a book by Michael Creighton called, ``The State of Fear.'' Michael Creighton is one of the best-known authors in America. He writes fiction; these are novels, but he is a scientist and also a medical doctor. He was going to write a novel on global warming and the terrible things that could happen. Instead of that, after he did research, he wrote another novel. While it is fiction, its footnotes are all scientific. I recommend that book. As any thoughtful person who has a scientific background will tell you, the idea of global warming very well may be the greatest single hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.

With that, I made the comment before speaking that I am anxious for Members to come down and talk about our bill. We are now under debate on the motion to proceed to the consideration of the highway bill, H.R. 3. We will have a vote on that motion to proceed tomorrow morning. The vote is set for sometime around 11 o'clock tomorrow morning. I have been told there are some Members who wish to speak in morning business. I would like to inquire, if there are any real long speeches, if at some point someone comes down to speak on the highway bill, or on the motion to proceed to that bill--I would not want a commitment, but I would request they defer to them when they should arrive on the floor.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I want to make a couple comments in response to my good friend from North Dakota.

First, I encourage Members to come down to the Chamber. The current order of business is the motion to proceed to the highway bill. It is very important. It is critical. There is nothing we are dealing with right now that is more important. There is so much at stake, as I already outlined. We need to have more Members come down. Certainly, if I am talking, I will defer to them if they do come to the floor.

Partnership for Fish and Wildlife

Mr. President, I wish to share with you an experience from last Friday. We had a field hearing in Oklahoma on the Partnership for Fish and Wildlife. This is a program not many people know about. It is one that has

not ever been authorized, but it is one that has gone year to year with an appropriation, whereby a landowner who is trying to do something for the environment, trying to do something for conservation, trying to do something for habitat will put up $3 for every $1 the Fish and Wildlife Service puts up to join a partnership with them. They have come up with some incredible results, and it shows that those areas of Government where you work with Government and not have Government dictating mandates to individuals or to communities works so much better. This is a model for other programs. Consequently, I thought Earth Day was a good day for me, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, to introduce the bill, which I have introduced, to authorize this Partnership for Fish and Wildlife Program.

Also, there is a vacancy that has occurred with the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We have a Southwest regional director by the name of H. Dale Hall. He came up for our hearing on Friday in Oklahoma. He is one of the incredible, dedicated Federal workers. It seems to me he would be an excellent Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. I would like to nominate this man for that purpose.

He is a wildlife biologist. Mr. Hall meets the qualifications for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director as established by 16 United States Code 742B, being knowledgeable in the principles of fisheries and wildlife management by reason of education and experience. Mr. Hall received a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Cumberland College in Williamsburg, KY, and a master's degree in fisheries science from Louisiana State University.

He had military experience prior to joining the Service in 1978. Mr. Hall served 4 years in the U.S. Air Force beginning in 1968 with overseas assignments in Italy and the Philippines.

He has private sector experience. After returning to civilian life in 1972, Mr. Hall managed catfish farms in the Mississippi Delta region for Eden Fisheries and Farm, Inc.

He has experienced all kinds of awards. He joined the Service in 1978 and has worked in the Mississippi Valley, Houston field office, the Washington, DC, office, the Pacific regional office, the Southwest regional office, and now serves as regional director for the Southwest region. That is Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

He was honored as one of the Service's 10 most outstanding merit pay employees for 1986. In February of 1996, he was presented with the Department of Interior's Meritorious Service Award by then-Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

I nominate this man for this position. I think he would make an excellent Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

I again reiterate that the order of business now is on a motion to proceed to the highway bill. Cloture has already been filed. We will be voting on cloture tomorrow morning. I cannot think of one thing we are doing now that is more important than getting a highway bill. We have been operating on extensions for a long period of time. When we do extensions, we do not get any of the benefits of streamlining, we do not get any of the safety benefits, we do not get any of the school-to- work programs, or any of the other programs. These are things that need to be done.

All an extension does is extend what is currently out there. Therefore, the States and communities do not know what to expect. They do not know how to anticipate how much money is going to be there or whether any of these programs to protect the environment are going to be there, or any streamlining programs.

I cannot tell you how important it is we not operate on extensions but instead that we do pass this highway bill. We should have done it last year. Last year, we had the bill that came up. The President of the United States felt it should be a smaller number. We felt if the bill is paid for--and at that time the Finance Committee, under the chairmanship of Chuck Grassley and the ranking member, Max Baucus, came up with money that could be raised for that purpose so it would not add to the deficit. Consequently, we passed a bill out of the Senate that was $318 billion for a 6-year reauthorization. That would have been fine. It went to conference and got hung up in conference. One or two people stopped us from having this bill. Now all of America is suffering for it.

This is our second run at it. We are almost out of time. The current extension expires on May 31. If we do not have a bill by May 31, then we are going to have to operate on an extension. This is something that would certainly be to the detriment of all States.

Obviously, we are all prejudiced for our own States. My State is Oklahoma. Oklahoma has very severe problems with bridges. We need to correct those problems. Border States have problems with NAFTA traffic coming up, south to north, and back down. That adds a lot.

We are trying to do something with the Borders and Corridors Program. If we do not have a bill, we will not have that program. We have a lot of things that are very significant and need to be addressed.

I encourage my fellow Members to come to the floor and talk about the motion to proceed to the highway bill, talk about the highway conditions in their States, and help us to get this bill passed.

I will say this, the bill we had last year, even though it was $318 billion over a 6-year period, we enjoyed a 76-to-21 majority in this body. I know the distinguished Presiding Officer was not here at the time, but I had an opportunity to talk to all the Members who were not here to vote last time about how they would vote, and virtually all of them are supporting this highway bill.

It is essentially the same bill. We have been working on it, my friend from Vermont, the ranking Democrat of the committee I chair, we have been working on this now for 2\1/2\, almost 3 years. We can never make up what happened. We understand that. When you get into a complicated formula and consider all the things I outlined a few minutes ago, there are going to be some people who do not want to have a bill. There are procedural steps that can be taken to stop us from having a bill. All we want is to have a vote.

Speaking of a vote, I do not have a better friend than the Senator from North Dakota. We disagree on issues politically. He made some comments to which I would like to respond. First on judges.

I do not think my State of Oklahoma is that different from other States. I do not think it is different from North Carolina. I do not think it is different from North Dakota or most States. When I walk around and visit people in my State of Oklahoma--for 19 years I have gone back on a weekly basis, so I am there talking to normal people, because there are not that many here in Washington--I find out what concerns them. They are concerned about a lot of the issues with which we deal.

Certainly, they are concerned about the war in Iraq. They are concerned about the fact that we are finally winning the war against terrorism. We are doing a good job over there. I was there a few days ago and made a point, since I am on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to spend some time in the Sunni Triangle where they are supposed to dislike us the most. I have never seen anything like it. In Fallujah, there is a guy who was the brigade commander for Saddam Hussein who hated Americans before. Then he got the title of brigade commander for the Iraqi security forces, and he started working with our Marines over there. He started loving them so much, he said when they rotated out--and this includes embedded training where his troops were training with our Marines; our Marines were helping to train these individuals--when our Marines rotated and left, he said they actually cried. He has renamed the Fallujah Iraqi security forces. They are now called the Fallujah Marines, named after our marines. That is what is happening in the Sunni Triangle.

I went to Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein. During the training process in Tikrit, outside one of the stations they were training in was a car bomb that killed 10 Iraqis and severely injured 30 more. In Tikrit, the 40 families who either lost through death or severe injuries people who are being trained to fight for the Iraqi security forces substituted other members of their families. It is incredible because they have this great love.

We got in a Blackhawk helicopter and flew all over the Sunni Triangle at less than 100 feet. It is the safest way to fly. There are terrorists out there who can hit the helicopter.

As we went across, we saw little kids come up on villages waving American flags. There are many people, I am sure, right now who send care packages to our troops over there. What these troops are doing with the care packages is taking the candy and cookies and repackaging them. Then we go 100 feet over the Sunni Triangle, when the kids are waving, and they throw the candy out to the kids. There is a love that is indescribable. We never hear that from the media back here. The media is very biased. The networks are biased, and we do not hear the success stories. Good things are happening.

I was there a few weeks before that after the January 30 election. Everyone was saying the election was not going to go off. People risked their life to vote, and they told me they could not see the ballot because of the tears in their eyes. Another one told me it occurred to her when she voted that it was not only ending a 35-year bloody regime of Saddam Hussein, but it was the first time in 7,000 years she and the Iraqi people were having a right, an opportunity for self- determination. It is a huge thing happening over there.

We all know about the weapons of mass destruction and trying to discredit the President. We knew there were terrorist training camps. We have gotten rid of them. We are seeing a new democracy emerge and totally change the Middle East. It has been successful.

I only say that because there are a lot of important things going on, and one is, of course, dealing with the current deficit. We are going to have deficits. My good friend from North Dakota was critical of the deficit that is taking place right now. I think it has been pretty well established--in fact, even the Democrats have agreed--that this recession actually started in March of 2000, which was under the Clinton administration. When you go into recession, for every 1-percent decrease in economic activity, that translates to $46 billion in revenues.

We had the revenue going down at the same time we had 9/11. We are in a war and we cannot come out of a deficit while we are in a war. We had a reduction in the military. I do not criticize the Clinton administration for what happened to the military after the first gulf war, but when the military is downsized, some of our modernization programs are stopped and it is expensive.

Right now I do not know how many American people realize that we are actually sending our kids out to battle with equipment that is not as good as our potential adversaries. Our best artillery piece, for example, is the Paladin. The Paladin is World War II technology. After each shot, you have to get out and swab the breach, like you used to have to do during World War II. Yet there are five countries right now, including South Africa, that are making a better non-line-of-sight cannon than our Paladin. Our kids do not have as good equipment, and that is because our modernization program came to somewhat of a screeching halt.

I was very proud of GEN John Jumper back in I think it was 1998 when out of his frustration he was trying to say we have to do something about our modernization programs; that our best strike vehicle is currently the F-15 and the F-16 and the Russians are making the SU-30s and 31s, as they were at the time, and selling them to potential adversaries, and they are better than our F-15s and F-16s. When we have our F-22s online, and our Joint Strike Fighter, we will change that, but we have to progressively do this, and it is expensive. That is why we will continue to have deficits for a while until we get this thing done.

In all fairness, we have to realize that, No. 1, the administration inherited a deficit; No. 2, we are at war; and, No. 3, we are rebuilding a military operation.

Getting back to the judges, as I said, I do not think Oklahoma is a lot different from other States. When I go down the street and I talk to people, they are much more concerned about what is happening with the judicial decisions and liberal judges trying to make law from the benches. They are concerned about school prayer, gay marriage, and the Pledge of Allegiance with ``one Nation under God'' coming out. These things bother people back in Oklahoma. Maybe they do not bother people in other States but they do in Oklahoma. All we want are circuit judges to be nominated and then given a simple majority vote on the floor, so that we can determine whether that nomination by the President can be confirmed.

I do appreciate what the Senator from North Dakota was saying. However, I have to say to my knowledge never in the history--sometimes people say, well, how about Judge Bork back several years ago? That was a different situation altogether. Never in history has there been a filibuster of circuit judge nominees. It should not be 60 people to confirm a judge; it should be 51 people. All we want is a vote. We do not care how it comes out. That is going to be the will of the Senate, but the Constitution specifically says ``Advice and Consent of the Senate.'' That is a majority, and that is all we really want.

I know there are liberals who have a liberal agenda who do not want to have conservatives or constructionists confirmed on the various circuit courts and Federal benches, and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court. But I can assure my colleagues that the vast majority of people in Oklahoma do.

Lastly, I do agree with the Senator from North Dakota when he talked about the need for an energy policy. I became aware of this and concerned with this way back in the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan was President of the United States. I believed that he should have had an energy policy for America. Quite frankly, even though he was my favorite guy in contemporary history, he did not do it. There were so many other things facing his two terms that he was not able to come up with an energy policy.

I can remember when Secretary Hodel and I would go around the country, we would make speeches about how our dependence on foreign countries for our ability to fight a war for our energy supply was not an energy issue, it was a national security issue. We tried to convince people of that, and we were not successful.

Then, of course, along came other administrations and they did not do it, either. I thought certainly the first Bush administration, since he had an oil background, would be more concerned about it. But this President does. He says we should have a comprehensive energy policy for America, and one of the cornerstones should be a limit as to how much we should be dependent upon foreign countries for our energy supply--or I will put it a different way, for our ability to fight a war.

So here we have a situation where back when I started making speeches about our dependency on foreign countries for our oil was when we were dependent for about 34 percent. Now it is up to 65 percent. We are dependent upon foreign countries for our ability to fight a war twice as much as we were back in the 1980s. So it is going in the wrong direction.

What we need is an energy bill. I was very glad to see the vote on ANWR. It is kind of interesting, the Arctic National Wildlife, that tiny little part of the wildlife reservation that people are concerned about, all of the Natives in Alaska want it, all the Alaskans want it, the House wants it up in Alaska, the Senate wants it, everybody else wants it, but we refused to give it to them to allow them to explore and produce on ANWR. Now they can do that.

A comprehensive energy bill should have an oil and a gas component to it. It should have fossil fuels, coal, nuclear energy, and renewable energy. If we can have that, we can have an energy bill. I think we are going to have one. I am particularly concerned about it because I chair the Environment and Public Works Committee and about one-third of the Energy bill is in the jurisdiction of my committee. We are going to do what we can to work with the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Domenici, to try to make that happen.

I encourage Members to come to the floor, and in the event they do I would certainly relinquish the floor to anyone who wants to talk about the highway bill.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, the regular order is the cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the highway bill. This is one we are very much concerned about. I have said several times I am hoping Members will come to the floor and speak on the highway bill. I know the distinguished Senator from

Illinois wants to be heard right now. Let me only make one comment.

Earlier on I talked a little bit about the Energy bill. The distinguished junior Senator from Massachusetts started off with a quote by the President that was not quite complete. What the President said was the Energy bill would have no immediate impact on gas prices but long-term gas prices will be affected by an energy bill. I made that very clear a few minutes ago when I talked about the fact we have been trying to get an energy bill since the 1980s.

I don't say this in a partisan way because we tried to get an energy bill during the Reagan administration and the Carter administration before that, the first Bush administration, and the Clinton administration. We were unable to do it. It was not until this President came along and offered an energy bill or an energy policy for America. It is long in waiting. Obviously, supply and demand tells us that portion of energy that is generated by oil and gas is going to be cheaper if we are able to do it locally and do it in this country without depending upon foreign sources of oil.

We know what happened in OPEC days back in the 1970s. We know we can be held hostage again. It is a very serious problem. But an energy bill should include all forms of energy. I agree with the Senator from Massachusetts, we should be concentrating also on technology, on renewables. Certainly I disagree with the Senator from Massachusetts when he says he wants clean coal technology and he wants to be able to utilize coal. It was the Democrats in the committee I chair who killed the Clear Skies--didn't kill it, but delayed it--Initiative of the President which would have the most dramatic reduction on pollutants, on NOx, SOx, and mercury pollution than any President has ever advocated in the history of America, a 70-percent reduction. To do this we had to continue to have clean coal technology. That is part of the bill, as are oil and gas and nuclear and renewables.

We made an effort to do that and were unable to do it on a partisan line. If the Senator from Massachusetts is interested in having a bipartisan approach to the use of clean coal technology and to expand the use of coal, we need to look at all of the above, all of the forms of energy. I will join him in that program.

The Senator from Illinois wants to be recognized as in morning business. Since I do want to get back to the highway bill, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Illinois be recognized for 30 minutes as in morning business and then immediately following his 30 minutes, I be recognized for 30 minutes as in morning business, and then we would go back to the regular order. I encourage Members who are interested in the motion to proceed to the highway bill to come to the floor, to be heard, and so we can recognize them for that purpose.

I yield the floor.

Yes, for the Senator from Illinois, unless he desires more.

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

Mr. President, right now, the regular order is the motion to proceed to the highway bill. It is one of the most significant bills we will be addressing this year. It is one that we are very hopeful will pass. Last year, the highway bill passed with a vote of 76 to 21. Having received that very strong majority, we believe that this bill is so much like it that we should be able to do the same thing.

I understand that tomorrow morning at 11:45 there will be a vote. Again, as I have said since 2 this afternoon, I encourage Members to come to the floor to be heard on the motion to proceed to the highway bill, and I am hoping that will happen. I will only make a couple of comments.

I do not want to sound redundant, but I will respond to the distinguished Senator from Illinois. A couple of hours ago I commented that the people from Oklahoma maybe are different from the rest of the country. When I go down the street, people are concerned about the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. They are concerned about liberal judges legislating from the bench, and this President has been concerned about that. I am talking about things like school prayer, gay marriages, and ``one nation under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance. These things are very important. These things are probably important to people all over the country.

It can be talked about hour after hour. Threats can be made about what one would do, but it is not a nuclear option, it is a constitutional option. This has been true for 214 years now, where there has not been a filibustering of circuit court judges. This is something that should not require a supermajority of 60 votes. If there is one thing my people in Oklahoma want changed, it is to be able to select judges who will interpret the Constitution and not use the bench for legislation purposes.

As far as the Energy bill is concerned, I do agree with the Senator from Illinois that we need to do something about our dependence on foreign oils for our energy supply. It is going to be absolutely necessary to have this Energy bill, and I believe we will have it. We need to address drilling. We need to do something about fossil fuels. We need to do something about nuclear and renewables. Just one example: In the House bill that was passed, there is a tax provision that will encourage people to go after marginal production. My State of Oklahoma happens to be a very large marginal producer. For those who are not familiar with this, a marginal well produces 15 barrels or fewer a day. We have the largest number of marginal wells in our State of Oklahoma. If we had every marginal well producing today that has been shut down or plugged up in the last 10 years, it would be more than we are currently importing from Saudi Arabia. These are little things that can be in an energy bill.

The President was misquoted on the Senate floor a few minutes ago, but certainly everyone realizes it is just a supply and demand issue. If we are able to produce more here, it is going to be cheaper. That is what we need to do. Those individuals who are somehow living in this mythical world that we can run the greatest machine in the history of the world on windmills are wrong. By the way, speaking of windmills, I find even some of the environmentalist extremists now do not want windmills because they are killing the birds. We have to realize we have the most powerful, largest machine ever in the history of the world, and we need to have an energy bill to run that machine.

china's threat to national security

Mr. President, over the past 3 weeks I have given three speeches calling our attention to the rising threat that China is becoming to our national security. Today I will highlight the areas that most directly affect our national security: weapons proliferation and military modernization. These two aspects are interrelated and add an alarming dynamic to our complex relationship with China.

It is a difficult situation, one in which information is our best resource. Five years ago, Congress created the bipartisan U.S.-China Commission to study the significance of recent events and the impact these events have on our national security. The Commission has held hearings and enlisted the services of experts across the world to gain clarity about what is happening with China. The conclusions are compiled in the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission's 2004 report to Congress, a document that reveals an alarming picture of where we are heading.

China has made commitments to stop proliferating illegal technology over and over since 1992. However, its actual practice has been markedly different. Just this past January, the Bush administration sanctioned eight Chinese companies for aiding Iran's missile development. Two of these companies, China Great Wall Industry Corporation and China North Industry Corporation, have been repeatedly sanctioned for over a decade. Another penalized company, China Aero- Technology Import and Export Corporation, is suspected of transferring technology from McDonnell-Douglas to China's military. The fact is that China has been unable to control its own companies. According to State Department testimony, China has a ``serial proliferation problem,'' and while the official line is to crack down on the weapons trade, ``reality has been quite different.''

Over recent years, these transfers have become even more problematic, as the Commission details in its report:

. . . Chinese transfers have evolved from sales of complete

missile systems, to exports of largely dual-use nuclear,

chemical, and missile components and technologies . . .

Recent activities ``have aggravated trends that result in

ambiguous technical aid, more indigenous capabilities, longer

range missiles, and secondary proliferation.'' Continuing

intelligence reports indicate that Chinese cooperation with

Pakistan and Iran remains an integral element of China's

foreign policy . . . Beijing's failure to control such

transfers gives the appearance that these are allowed in

accordance with an unstated national policy. China has

generally tried to avoid making fundamental changes in its

transfer policies by offering the United States carefully

worded commitments or exploiting differences between

agreements.

In mid-2003, the CIA reported to Congress that ``firms in China provided dual-use missile-related items, raw materials, and/or assistance to . . . countries of proliferation concern such as Iran, Libya, and North Korea.'' With these recently sanctioned companies, we see that China is fully willing to proliferate regardless of the consequences. Why? Well, perhaps we need to consider that something else is going on here besides profits.

China seems to proliferate with countries that have been terrorist sponsors, countries such as Iran, Iraq and Libya. These countries in turn offer China something they desperately need: oil. In my last speech I discussed China's search for oil sources and the implications this has on economic and national security. But the connection here is beyond energy. The Commission report describes what it looks like:

This need for energy security may help explain Beijing's

history of assistance to terrorist-sponsoring states, with

various forms of WMD-related items and technical assistance,

even in the face of U.S. sanctions . . . But, this pursuit of

oil diplomacy may support objectives beyond just energy

supply. Beijing's bilateral arrangements with oil-rich Middle

Eastern states also helped create diplomatic and strategic

alliances with countries that were hostile to the United

States. For example, with U.S. interests precluded from

entering Iran, China may hope to achieve a long-term

competitive advantage relative to the United States. Over

time, Beijing's relationship-building may counter U.S. power

and enhance Beijing's ability to influence political and

military outcomes. One of Beijing's stated goals is to reduce

what it considers U.S. superpower dominance in favor of a

multipolar global power structure in which China attains

superpower status on par with the United States.

I cannot say it stronger than that. China is exploiting our timidity. The Commission recommends that we pressure the administration to develop and

publish a coordinated, comprehensive strategy. I think that is very sound advice and I will be introducing a resolution shortly to that effect.

Another major area of concern is China's military modernization. The weapons China is investing in include cruise missiles, amphibious assault ships, submarines, long-range target acquisition systems, and advanced SU-30 and SU-31 fighter aircraft it has been purchasing from Russia.

I have always been very proud of GEN John Jumper, who had the courage back in 1998 to stand up publicly to say right now we have other countries that are producing better equipment than we have, such as our strike vehicles. The very best we have is the F-15 and F-16. The SU- 30s, according to General Jumper, are in many ways superior to ones we make in this country. We have to correct that situation and we are going to with the advent of the FA-22 and joint strike fighters that will be coming on line, but in the meantime China is buying these vehicles. We have always known they have a nuclear capability, but what is more concerning now is they have developed a conventional capability that is equal to or greater than ours in many respects.

The commission believes that this force is being shaped to fit a Taiwan conflict scenario:

[China's] military advancements have resulted in a dramatic

shift in the cross-Strait balance toward China, with serious

implications for Taiwan, for the United States, and for

cross-Strait relations.

The commission states that there are two ways we can prevent a military escalation over Taiwan. The first is to pressure the EU to maintain its arms embargo on China. This is a group of bipartisan experts saying this. Second, we should have harsher punishments for contractors who sell sensitive technology to China. We need a comprehensive annual report on who is selling what to China because, quite frankly, right now we simply don't know exactly how deep this problem goes.

Opting to ignore the situation with China is not a choice that we as representatives of the American people can afford to make. I urge this body to listen closely to the commission's conclusion:

We need to use our substantial leverage to develop an

architecture that will help avoid conflict, attempt to build

cooperative practices and institutions, and advance both

countries' long-term interests. The United States has the

leverage now and perhaps for the next decade, but this may

not always be the case . . . If we falter in the use of our

economic and political influence now to effect positive

change in China, we will have squandered an historic

opportunity . . . China will likely not initiate the decisive

measures toward more meaningful economic and political reform

without substantial, sustained, and increased pressure from

the United States.

In the resolution I introduce, I will be asking you to stand behind the US-China Commission's recommendations. These recommendations are listed in the Commission's 2004 Report to Congress. I have highlighted a few of these in my recent speeches, but there are many more. We need to send a message of urgency to the administration to adopt what our own commission recommends. This is not a partisan move. This is a real and legitimate need to respond to the facts before us. We have a clear picture of where the trends are heading--economically, militarily and in ideology--and the security of the United States demands our response.

In my last speech that will accompany the resolution I will be introducing, I will summarize all the recommendations from the commission. I hope it will be the first--but not final--step in the development of a more proactive and comprehensive policy toward China. It needs to be a policy that adequately addresses our national security, especially the proliferation of military technology. It also needs to address free trade, human rights and, of course, Taiwan. I fear the track we are on does not adequately address any of these.

This is very distressing. In some of the previous talks we quoted some of the Chinese colonels when they said we can do this to America, we can compete not only militarily but economically. This is something we have to be concerned about. I cannot think of anything that would be more important to address from a national security objective than that.

However, there is something that is most important to address right now and that is the subject we are on, which is the reauthorization of the highway bill.

I will make a couple of comments about that. I know there are some other people who want to come down. I will yield to them at that time. But when you look at the way the Senate has historically approached the reauthorization of the highway bill, it is different than has been done on the other side. It is the more difficult way because there are so many things that are in a formula. Formulas address problems in low- income States, in low-population States, in low-population density States, in States with high fatality rates, with guaranteed minimum growth and guaranteed minimum rate of return from donor States. We have donee States. All of these things are part of a very complex formula.

We will tomorrow be talking about this for an hour, from 10:45 to 11:45. There will be 1 hour equally divided between both sides. I will be controlling the time on this side. I hope at that time we have Members come down who are concerned about this bill, who have problems with this bill, so we can respond to those problems but, most importantly, so we can have cloture on a motion to proceed and have a vote. That vote will take place at 11:45 tomorrow morning. I look forward to coming down and debating the merits of the highway bill.

The bill passed last year--and this is substantially the same as last year's bill--passed this body by a margin of 76 to 21. I anticipate the same thing will happen, but it will not happen until we get to the bill. We will not get on the bill until the cloture on the motion to proceed is voted on, which will be at 11:45 tomorrow morning.

With that, 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 ask unanimous consent there now be a period of morning business with Senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I take this opportunity to congratulate the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, AMSA, on the occasion of its 35th anniversary and on its name change to the National Association of Clean Water Agencies or NACWA. NACWA is the only association that exclusively represents the Nation's municipal wastewater treatment agencies. Its 35-year record of advocacy and leadership in fully meeting the goals of the Clean Water Act has helped guarantee the chemical, biological and physical health of our Nation's rivers, lakes, streams, bays, and coasts.

NACWA's members serve the majority of the sewered population in the country and treat and reclaim over 18 billion gallons of wastewater a day. Simply stated, NACWA and its members deserve to be celebrated for their ongoing role in the remarkable revitalization of America's waterways.

Despite the improvements made so far to the Nation's waters, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and NACWA understand that significant work remains to be done to achieve the lofty goals of the Clean Water Act. From the committee's close working relationship with the association, we know NACWA is well-positioned to continue to build on this Nation's water quality gains.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has looked to AMSA and will continue to look to NACWA as a valued informational resource. The association has always been willing to share its expertise and to provide leadership in challenging times. For example, in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001, the association responded immediately with creative ideas and vital leadership in developing tools and resources to help further secure the Nation's critical water infrastructure. In fact, the association has been a vital resource on a host of clean water issues from wet weather control and the critical need for a Federal-State-local partnership to meet the Nation's clean water challenges.

As chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I have worked closely with the association and know that NACWA will build on its tradition as a trusted resource for Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. I am also confident that NACWA will meet its strategic objectives and the goals of AMSA's original founders. Most importantly, NACWA's success is a direct result of its unparalleled membership. NACWA, then AMSA, was established in 1970 by representatives of 22 municipal wastewater treatment agencies. Since then, AMSA has grown into an organization of nearly 300 municipal agency members, including Oklahoma City, Stillwater and Tulsa, and a total membership of nearly 400 organizations poised to ensure that the 21st century will enjoy continued water quality progress.

The association's public agency members not only represent what is best about public service, they exemplify what it means to be environmental practitioners. Their daily work enables us to enjoy our Nation's rivers, lakes, streams and bays--somethng we as a National must never take for granted.

Once again, I congratulate NACWA on this important milestone as an organization and applaud its members for their outstanding service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Perspectives on Patents'' on Monday, April 25, 2005, at 1:30 p.m. in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list

Panel I: Hon. Jon W. Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Department of Commerce, Alexandria, VA.

Panel II: Dr. Richard C. Levin, President of Yale University, New Haven, CT, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, National Research Council; Dr. Mark B. Myers, Visiting Executive Professor, Management Department at the Wharton Business School, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, and Co-Chair of the Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge-Based Economy, Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, National Research Council.

Panel III: William Parker, Diffraction, Ltd., Waitsfield, VT; Dean Kamen, President, DEKA Research & Development Corp., Manchester, NH; David Simon, Chief Patent Counsel, Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA; Robert A. Armitage, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN; Joel Poppen, Deputy General Counsel, Micron Technologies, Inc., Boise, ID; and Michael K. Kirk, Executive Director, American Intellectual Property Law Association, Washington, DC.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of the consideration of the transportation bill: Heideh Sahmoradi, Greg Murrill, Mitch Surrett, Rudy Kapichak, John Stoody, Kent Van Landuyt, James Gentry, and Elissa Konove.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent H.R. 1268 be printed as passed by the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent when the Senate completes its business today, it stand in adjournment until 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, April 26. I further ask that following the prayer and the pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved, and the Senate then proceed to a period of morning business for up to 60 minutes with the first 30 minutes under the control of the Democratic leader or his designee and the final 30 minutes under the control of the majority leader or his designee; provided that following morning business the Senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to H.R. 3, the highway bill, and there be 60 minutes of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; provided further that upon the use or yielding back of that time the Senate proceed to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to the bill.

I further ask consent that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. for the weekly party lunches.