Floor Statements

Mr. President, we have had 2 weeks of a lot of discussion. We haven't had a chance to vote on amendments mostly because there are some Members who have been objecting to moving forward to consideration of amendments. I think that is regrettable.

We are now to the point where we are going to have a vote on cloture. It is absolutely necessary. The alternative to this would be an extension. Probably 20, 30 different times Members have come in and said we should have an extension. If we have an extension, we will not have streamlining provisions, and we cannot move on with IPAM. We cannot immediately start constructing these roads and bridges.

It doesn't make any sense to stall and stall and wait around and do nothing. We want to get this bill on the road. That is what we are going to do, and we are going to do it today.

I regret a lot of people who wanted to have amendments considered during the last 2 weeks have not been able to do so. I regret that some people just blocked them from having that opportunity.

There have been a lot of objections that have come up on this bill. Members keep talking about the 40-percent increase--40-percent increase. That is 40 percent over 6 years. If you said 6.2 percent for the infrastructure of America that is lagging so far behind, no one could complain about that. They are making it appear this is 40 percent in one year. It is not.

They are talking about the amount of money in this bill. We have to understand we have two things we are looking at. One is capital outlay and one is obligation limitation. This is a perfectly reasonable bill. We have done something that has not been done before. It was not done in 1991, and it was not done in 1998. We have stayed with the formula. The alternative is to stay with the formula, like we failed in TEA-21 and failed in ISTEA, and we will have to put in a minimum guarantee where all you do is pacify some 60 voters by giving them whatever they want in the percentage of the overall, and as to the rest, who cares; we have our 60 votes and we run.

That is not the way we did it this time. For that we have been punished. We have had people assail this bill when this is the first time it has been done right.

The formulas took into consideration many factors. I know others want to be heard. I don't want to use a lot of time. At an appropriate time, I am going to go over what went into these formulas. Fast-growing States, slow-growing States, donor States, donee States--all these factors were considered, and then we came up with a formula.

Sure, I heard the two Senators from Arizona were complaining they didn't think their State had enough and, at the same time, they were complaining we were spending too much on the bill. When we look at the formula, their State still gets $40 million more than my State of Oklahoma over 6 years. Any State can complain about how the formula comes out. The bottom line is every State gets a minimum of a 10- percent increase. The average is 35.6 percent.

It is a good bill. We are going to get cloture. We are going to move ahead. If there are germane amendments everyone agrees should be considered, we will consider them. I look forward to doing that. Cloture is important. We are going to get cloture and bring this step to a halt.

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 know we have a couple of minutes remaining. This morning we have covered some of the arguments that have been made over the last 2 weeks. There are some aspects that have not been talked about. I do think we should compliment the Finance Committee. They have taken a lot of heat. They have taken a lot of criticism--unjustly, I might add. We made a request of them when we came up with this bill, at the figures we had in both capital outlay and obligation limitation. We asked Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley if they could come up with the amount of money to do this so it will comply with what the President outlined when he said he did not want a tax increase, he did not want to go into deficit or have it come out of the general fund, and they have done that. They have been criticized on this floor.

I do know this, that the highway trust fund has been raided for years, and we are now in a position where we can correct and rectify that problem. I think this is one of the good things that has come out of this bill, and I applaud the Finance Committee for the work they have done.

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 raise a point of order that amendment No. 2311 is not germane.

Mr. President, I send a second-degree amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

I will yield for 1 minute.

Madam President, I am going to withhold commenting on this amendment because I have made notes. I know it was not deliberately misrepresented, but the information is not accurate that we have heard on this amendment. It is very important that everyone know that, but I would rather have everyone vent everything they want to vent.

I wish to make one comment, first, though. The Senator from Nevada pointed out what we could have done with the six fastest growing States, the largest States. We could have lost six votes and never even looked back. That is exactly what happened 6 years ago. They went into a minimum guarantee program where they were counting votes. It was totally political and that is what we are getting away from. We have a good formula. I will defend that momentarily after we hear from everyone who is speaking in support of this flawed amendment.

Madam President, I ask the Senator from Texas, do you have others who want to speak on behalf of your amendment?

All right.

First of all, I recognize we are not objecting to a rollcall vote like some have been doing all week long.

I make a couple of comments about this because it has been inadvertently misrepresented. Let me talk a little bit about the States of Texas and Arizona. We have talked about this before. Arizona has a 40 percent growth rate, dramatically greater than the average, which is 35.6 percent. Arizona is comparable to Oklahoma in many ways. But Arizona actually gets $40 million more than my State of Oklahoma.

If we average that amount over TEA-21, it averaged $463 million. It goes up to $800 million at the end of this time and it reaches the donor status that is desired. In the State of Texas, the average over the 6-year period of TEA-21 was $2.1 million. It is the third highest growth rate in the Nation. It is the second highest amount of money, second only to California. It is part of the formula.

Let me say something about the formula. Everyone is deriding this formula. We went through the same thing 6 years ago. They did not like the formula because everyone wants to get something more than perhaps they are entitled to under any formula. That is human nature. We made a commitment, working on this formula for over a year, that we would stay with the formula. I am talking about a bipartisan bill, Democrats and Republicans on our committee.

When we looked at the factors--this is not just some States: let's see the big States and the little States and things like that--we covered a number of things: total lane miles on the interstate; the VMT, that is the vehicle miles traveled; the annual contributions to the highway trust fund attributed to commercial vehicles; the diesel fuel used on highways; the relative share of total cost to repair and replace deficient highway bridges--like in my State of Oklahoma, we are dead last in the Nation--weighted nonattainment and maintenance areas; rate of return of donor States, donee States, fast-growing States.

We have ceilings. We have floors. It is a very complicated formula. You don't come along at the eleventh hour and say, oh, we are going to change one thing and everyone is going to be happy because if you did that, then you are going to affect some other States in a way that is certainly not fair.

Now, let's just look at some of the arguments that have been made. The NAFTA corridor: Because of the insistence of one of the members of our committee, the junior Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, we added $280 million--this goes to Texas--under the Borders Program. The IPAM Program, that has been ridiculed on the floor, is a program that takes projects that are ready for construction. These projects can start jobs immediately. You don't have to sit around and wait. That is why I am personally offended when people come along and say, well, let's have another extension. If we have another extension, none of this stuff gets done, none of the streamlining elements in this bill happen, which means we will not be able to do nearly as many roads per dollar as we can under this bill. That is why we are going to have, at the end of this thing, a 6-year bill. It is going to go to conference, and we are going to end up with a good bill. But we are not going to operate any longer on the extensions.

Now, I know there is politics involved in these things. We have tried to keep this at a minimum. If you look at TEA-21, it was dominated by the Northeastern States. You had several very important people on the committees.

Certainly, Congressman Shuster, over there from Pennsylvania--I served for 8 years with him on that House committee--and, yes, they got up to a very large amount in TEA-21: $1.21 return for every $1 they paid in.

Senator Moynihan--we all loved Senator Moynihan--he had a lot of influence on the committee. New York, as a result of that influence, I believe, got $1.25 back for every $1 they paid in.

Certainly, our beloved John Chafee from Rhode Island did his best work. They ended up with $2.16 for every $1 they paid in.

Montana--Senator Baucus was actually the ranking member of both the committee and the Subcommittee on Transportation and Infrastructure-- $2.18. Now, there are reasons for this, of course, because they do not have a lot of people paying up there. But you have to have roads. You have to get through Montana. You have to get through the Western States.

My State of Oklahoma--and I was on the committee, and I was on the conference committee--90.5 cents.

We have done a job here in really helping people out. But I want to point out the most important part of this program. Everyone who stood up and talked about this new formula has talked about how everyone is going to get a little bit more. Let's stop and think about that. That is going to cost money, isn't it? I do not think there is a person who is supporting this bill who did not first come down to the floor and complain that we are spending too much money in this bill, that $255 billion is too much--and you add the transit on there--it is too much money.

This amendment will increase the cost of this bill by $7.25 billion. If you want to increase the cost, if you want to go tell the White House, ``No, we didn't like the $255 billion so we are going to raise it up to $262.25 billion,'' go ahead and do it. I don't think you would be very well received. The

money has to come from someplace. It is coming from IPAM. Quite frankly, I am not going to stand here and accept and support a change in the formula that increases the cost by $7.25 billion. It is totally unreasonable, and after a year we are not going to do it.

I say to the Senator, do you want me to yield for a question?

I am through, Madam President.

I want to reemphasize this amendment costs $7.25 billion more, and people have to understand that.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.

Madam President, we have discussed the formula, which is what the Senator from Texas has been discussing in the last couple minutes. I want everybody to know, this is 7.25 billion new dollars, new spending under this formula. If you vote for this, you are voting to increase the authorized level by $7.25 billion.

If you look at the pending bill, it says: Under the IPAM Program, under section 139 of that title, $2 billion for fiscal year 2004 and nothing thereafter. If you look at the amendment, it says:

$2,000,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2004 and 2005. . .

.

That is $4 billion, plus:

$1,750,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2006, 2007, and

2008.

You add it up, and that is $9.25 billion, $7.25 billion more than the pending bill. Everyone has to understand that. When you vote for this, you are voting to increase the spending under this bill.

First of all, the pending substitute has been available for 2\1/2\ days now. Everything is in there. We dropped IPAM down to $2 billion. You want to increase it to $9.25 billion. That is an increase of $7.25 billion. It has been down there. We all looked at the pending substitute. We read it. We have been debating it now for 2 days. It is an increase of 2.5.

Madam President, I withdraw my pending amendment so the Senator may have her up-or-down vote.

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 was gone during part of the discussion on this issue. I would like to reemphasize a couple points. First of all, when we talk about 40 percent or 43 percent, we are talking about over a 6-year period. Generally we are in the mindset of talking about from year to year down here, and there are people walking around thinking we are talking about a 40-percent increase. We are talking about, if you would amortize it and put it the way we normally discuss things, 6.2 percent a year. This is in infrastructure, things you see out there. I think people need to understand that.

Secondly, those of us who were in the business of putting together this bill over the last year, along with its formula and everything else that is being criticized, considered all these things. Then we went, as we should, to the Finance Committee and said: All right, how are we going to pay for this? And, yes, we can do it. I do not want to get inside the minds of Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus as to what considerations they were making during this time, but I will say this, they are the guys who are running the Finance Committee.

They have said this bill is going to be paid for. They have said the three criterion the administration sent down some time ago--that, No. 1, it would not increase gas taxes; No. 2, it would not have any fun- and-games type of bonding fixes; and, No. 3, it would not add to the deficit--is met.

There are 100 people in this Chamber, and I know there can be any number of them who are going to disagree. But I believe if we take this to the committees that have the jurisdiction, have the expertise, have the resources, have the personnel, have the staffers who can put these things together, that is the place it should be, and they have given us the assurance this bill will be paid for.

We just had a vote today. We defeated an amendment that would have increased the amount of money by $7.25 billion in this bill. In other words, the transportation portion of this, the highway portion of this, would go up from $255 billion to $262.25 billion. I think a lot of people who voted in favor of that amendment are the same ones who are talking now about the fact this is too much.

I know we have the genuine division of interpretations as to what the Finance Committee did and how this thing is really going to be paid for. But I have often said--in fact, I said to the administration that, to me, instead of coming down and saying this bill is going to have to be $50 billion less, I would think they would be better off to say: So long as the bill is paid for, does not add to the deficit, does not increase taxes, then we would support it, we would not veto it. I am hoping before this thing is over that is where we will be.

Let's keep in mind one other thing, too. We are sending a bill to conference. In conference all kinds of things happen. I had occasion to speak with the Speaker of the House at length yesterday. We understand when it gets into conference we are going to be able to look at this and take everything into consideration. At that point, we will be able to really evaluate this finance package and see where we are. There is no one out there who is going to say: I want deficit spending. I do not. That has never been my philosophy. I think the senior Senator from Oklahoma has known me well for many years, and he has heard me say for many years that we, who are fiscal conservatives, are big spenders in two particular areas: One is in national defense and the other is in infrastructure.

As I have heard different individuals such as from Arizona and Texas, I am reminded of what happened during the Thanksgiving holidays and the Christmas holidays. We are used to this in Oklahoma. I can remember someone saying: Well, I came from California. As I came across Arizona, they had such great roads. I came across Texas and everything was great. I sure could tell when I got to Oklahoma. They had lousy roads. That is what we have been plagued with for a long time. Our bridges in the State of Oklahoma are dead last of the 50 States.

This is a spending bill that is paid for. It does not increase the deficit, in the opinion of the Finance Committee. I take their word for it, and I know others may not. For that reason I know this discussion is good, but we need to move along.

We are going to be moving along. There is much more cooperation on the floor now. I have to say, this has not been a partisan fight. This has been something where there are honest philosophic disagreements.

I yield the floor.

I didn't hear the figures the Senator mentioned that were tied to lost productivity and maintenance. What were the figures?

The other figure on maintenance was what?

Mr. President, this will be brief because I think we are getting redundant in some of the things we are saying. I do find it a little bit puzzling that the people who are promoting this type of an approach--whether it is temporary extension or a narrowed-down version and spending less--are the same ones who were willing to spend $7.25 billion more just a few minutes ago.

On the issue of amount, the 40 percent we keep battering around, we have to remind ourselves that when we look at Government programs that are worthwhile Government programs, it is not unusual to have an increase of 6 percent a year. I draw a distinction between this and a lot of programs we have--I have a long list I could read about foolish things we do around here wasting money.

As a fiscal conservative, I believe in spending more in certain areas. One area is national defense and another area is infrastructure. I know that is what we are supposed to be doing here. In fact, the Senator from Missouri has access to a survey that shows that 69 percent of the people in America, as opposed to 22 percent against it, favor spending more money right now in this climate on infrastructure--roads and bridges. That is what we are here for.

I do want to say again--and I am sorry about being redundant, but it is very important--the President sent over three criteria. I think the first two we can't even argue about. We are not talking about raising gas taxes. He wasn't talking about plugging corporate tax loopholes. He was talking about increasing gas taxes. We don't do that.

Secondly, some of the things he considered to be gimmicks, we are not doing. I know the Senator from Missouri would like to approach the more creative types of financing.

In the third area where he talks about taking out of the general fund, that is one that could be debated. I am fully willing to take money out of the general fund if it got to the general fund from the highway trust fund. And it never should have.

One sentence out of the Finance Committee says:

In the view of the tax committee, these tax policy benefits

have nothing to do with highway use and should not burden the

trust fund.

In other words, if you are going to pass something having to do with vehicles that use less fuel, or something similar to that, that is policy and has nothing to do with traveling on roads. Because those vehicles travel on the same roads as other vehicles, why have the highway trust fund pay for that? I think that is absurd.

I was here in 1997 when we had a balance of $16 billion in the trust fund. The previous administration wanted $8 billion. We said let's take half out of the $16 billion. So they took that out of the highway trust fund and put it in the general fund. That ought to go back. That is a policy of being honest with the people. I think it is a moral issue, in a way, because 99.9 percent of the people who pay their taxes are willing to do that, assuming that goes to building roads and repairing bridges, and it is not because we have been raiding the trust fund over and over for the 18 years I have been here.

That is what this is all about. The Senator from Missouri is exactly right. We can't continue to do nothing. We are going to have to rebuild our bridges and roads.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate the choices, but it is going to be none of the above. I know the Senator is very passionate about this issue. I also know that currently in title 23 there is this 1.5 percent that is taken out of the programs it is designed to be used for and put into other programs, such as the section 402--the alcohol- impaired driver countermeasures and all that. Now, this is different in that it takes money away--well, look at it this way. The States pay the taxes that go into the Federal Government, and then we take those and go back to the individuals and say: Unless you do something in the wisdom of us here in Washington, even though your State does not agree with it, we are going to withhold your money.

Let me share a short story with my friend from North Dakota. Many years ago, I was elected to the State legislature. My first trip to Washington was 1967. Do you know what it was for? To testify before the Environment and Public Works Committee protesting Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act of 1965 because of this very reason: philosophically using money that comes from the State to blackmail them to do something, however good the cause.

I was sympathetic with Senator Warner on his seatbelt amendment, but I had the same objections. I think the Senator is going to find some philosophical objections to his amendment. Yet I assure everyone within earshot, the Senator from North Dakota is very passionate about this issue, he believes in it, but I will respectfully vote against it.

Reserving the right to object.

I have no objection.

If the Senator will yield, we should emphasize we will not have more 38-minute votes. It could help the situation to be prepared for perhaps two more votes, if that is necessary.

Will the Senator yield?

It is my understanding Senator Dorgan is here and will speak. If he could confine his remarks to less than 10 minutes, we would have no objection to accepting his amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we have the managers' amendments that we have talked about for a long period. I ask unanimous consent that they be agreed to.

Mr. President, we would like to at this point yield for a unanimous consent request of the Senator from Ohio.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the cloture motion on the bill and then ask the bill be read for a third time.

I withdraw the previous unanimous consent request and now send the managers' amendment to the desk. We have no further debate on the managers' amendment.

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

Mr. President, I now ask unanimous consent to vitiate cloture on the bill and then ask that the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to a vote on passage of the measure.

I would like to engage the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich, on the intent of his amendment regarding the preservation of parks, recreation areas, wildlife and waterfowl refuges, and historic sites. The amendment would require the Secretary, when making a finding of de minimis impact, to consider all ``avoidance, minimization, mitigation, and enhancement measures'' that have been incorporated into the project. Could you explain how this provision would be implemented?

I also agree with my colleagues from California and Nevada that the Golden Gate Bridge is very important for the State. I also support working with the Senator from California in conference to provide funding for the Golden Gate Bridge District.

Yes, I am familiar with the proposal and am pleased to be a sponsor of the bill of the senator from New Mexico to designate U.S. 54 as a high priority corridor.

Yes, the Senator is correct. I am aware of the amendment and will do my best to consider including the SPIRIT corridor designation in the conference report on the highway bill.

I would also like to assure the Senator from Virginia that I concur with the explanation provided by the Senator from Ohio that it is our intent to retain the Overton Park standards as the fundamental legal standards to be applied in determining prudent and feasible alternatives.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I am going to make this very brief, but I do want to make a comment. This bill that we passed is a good bill. We heard all kinds of criticism. It is always difficult when you are dealing with formulas, but this is the first time in the history of this process that we have done it without going into something such as a minimum guarantee program that is purely political. I would like to have had all the States get up to 95 percent sooner. We just could not make it happen.

We have a safety portion of this bill that we never had before. We have environmental streamlining. I would have liked to have gone a lot further on that issue. Hopefully, we will be able to do it. Maybe we can do some good in conference. Nonetheless, we will get a lot more miles, literally, for the dollar than we ever have before.

I thank, one more time, Senator Reid, Senator Jeffords, and Senator Bond. We worked very closely together. This certainly was not a partisan effort.

I thank our staffs, too. I am going to name my staff: staff director, Andy Wheeler; Ruth Van Mark; Marty Hall; James O'Keeffe; Nathan Richmond; Greg Murrill; Mitch Surrett; Laura Berry; Genevieve Erny; Frank Fannon, Angie Giancarlo; Loyed Gill; Ryan Jackson; Michele Nellenbach; John Shanahan; Jonathan Tolman; Brydon Ross; and Cori Lucero.

I say this very sincerely. I know it sounds mundane, but the public should know the hours people work up here on something like this. I am talking about all night long, several nights, and I just applaud them for doing it. I know other staff and Members have worked equally hard, so let me thank all of them for their dedication and the effort. I think we made history in terms of the length of time in which we were able to get a bill of this magnitude passed.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, may I make a parliamentary inquiry.

Which of the two distinguished Senators from Virginia has the floor?

I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. President, as always, the Senator from Virginia was very courteous yesterday to modify his amendment to give States more time to comply with the requirements of his amendment. I sincerely appreciate his willingness to do so. Unfortunately, my underlying concern with imposing sanctions still requires that I oppose the amendment.

Two days ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a statement on sanctions and withholding Federal funds from States which do not have a primary seatbelt law. The statement reads as follows, and I quote:

The Bush Administration's continuing efforts to increase

local enforcement and education have boosted safety belt use

to the highest level in U.S. history. The Administration

opposes sanctions and withholding state funds, both of which

would jeopardize important state-level safety programs and

infrastructure maintenance programs already in place.

The Administration is working hard to help pass primary

safety belt laws throughout the country, and we're seeing

results. Twenty states and the District of Columbia already

have primary laws. And many other states, including Florida,

South Carolina, Ohio, Arizona and Virginia are currently

considering primary laws--with our help, not with mandates.

The Administration calls on Senator Warner to join us in

helping Virginia state legislators understand the need for a

primary safety belt use law.

As I said yesterday, I support the use of seatbelts, and I would suggest that instead of threatening the states with a stick the better approach would be to

induce them to achieve better performance in this area with some kind of incentive. Title IV, Surface Transportation Safety, of the pending substitute, contains an incentive grant program. As proposed by the Commerce Committee, this $100 million per year incentive grant provision would go a long way to achieving the goals that I believe my colleague from Virginia is trying to accomplish in his amendment.

Offering incentive grants to States that pass a primary seatbelt law or increase their seatbelt use rate is a much better approach to this problem than combination of mandates and penalties. History has also shown that so far, no State has been able to achieve the benchmark level of a 90 percent seatbelt use rate without enacting a primary law. Ultimately we all know that the decision to pass a primary law is up to each state individually. Although neither a sanction, nor an incentive approach is guaranteed to prod every State to produce results, the incentive method is the much better option. In a bill where money is tight, I am grateful that the Commerce Committee saw fit to apply some of those limited funds to this purpose. With that in mind, I question what the benefit would be of having both an incentive and a penalty, where just an incentive would do.

Currently, only 20 of the 50 States meet the requirements laid out in the mandate offered by the good senator from Virginia. I can't get over the fact that 30 States would be immediately thrust into noncompliance and subject to a possible cut in Federal funding under this plan.

As I have said before, my home State of Oklahoma is already in compliance with the requirements proposed in this new sanction, but I fundamentally oppose any imposition of new sections. As much as I personally agree with using seatbelts, I have to recognize that the only proper place for this decision to be made is in each State legislature, not in Washington, DC.

Mr. President, I move to table the Warner amendment No. 2286, as modified, and ask for the yeas and nays.

Reserving the right to object, could you repeat this unanimous consent request?

I object.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I think we are in a highly charged political season right now. Everyone is talking about this, and the subliminal picture that is trying to be painted here is that somehow this President may have not known something he should have known or knew something and he didn't act appropriately.

Let us remember what David Kay said. He said, when he came in, we all thought there were weapons of mass destruction. We acted accordingly. And, quite frankly, I contend there were weapons of mass destruction. I asked him that question. I don't think either one of the two Senators in the Chamber--I am about to finish my question--were at that hearing.

I asked him this question: I said, If in January, 13 months ago, they found 11 chemical rockets with a capacity of a warhead of 140 liters, and they had enough VX on hand to do that, and that one chemical rocket with 140 liters of VX could kill a million people, and subsequent to that, 3 months later, they found 36 more--that is 47 weapons of mass destruction that were found--I asked him: Aren't they truly weapons of mass destruction? He said: Well, yes, if they put the chemicals in the warheads.

The other thing people keep talking about, What did they know or what did they not know about a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. That should have been put to rest about a month ago when there was a leak to the Weekly Standard. They specifically drew that connection and said, yes, in fact, there is a connection. In fact, two of the passports of the pilots were gotten by Saddam Hussein and his people.

Just this morning in the New York Times there is an article stating the connection is there. This is the New York Times, not a Republican operation. It says: ``Found, Smoking Gun.'' That is the name of this article.

We are enjoying this very much, but the political season is on us. I hope we will keep cool heads and do the best we can to improve our intelligence.

Right after September 11 we had the bicameral commission look at this. We came a long way. I ask the assistant leader if that is not correct.

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

Mr. President, yesterday when we were discussing the seatbelt law, quite frankly, I was opposed to it. I am opposed to any kind of mandate. I cannot find anyone in this body who has either been a former Governor or mayor of a major city that won't oppose mandates. Of course, that would have been a great one, with three penalties. That is behind us now.

During that time, the assistant minority leader had a suggestion that we might want to consider what they have done in Nevada. They had this requirement just for the babies and small children, which was interesting. I commented that I am very familiar with that, having 11 grandchildren. I know all about the seatbelts and all these little requirements they have and how expensive they are. In an attempt to outdo me, as sometimes happens on the floor of the Senate, the Senator from Nevada commented that, yes, you have 11 grandchildren, but I have 14. I got a phone call after that and found out that I in fact have 12 now. So I want to get the record straight that we are still working on it and we are going to catch the Senator from Nevada. A new Swan will be born; that happens to be my daughter's name.

Reclaiming my time, I observe we are both still working on that, and when they are conceived they are babies.

I did get that permission. I made that mistake once. I was commenting back when a little boy was born to my older son and his wife. My older son is James Mountain Inhofe II. He kept having baby girls. The years went by and they kept cranking the girls out. I always wanted to have a boy, selfishly, James Mountain Inhofe III. So we found out--and this happened a couple years ago--that in fact my daughter-in- law was unexpectedly pregnant--Jimmy's wife. I respond to the Senator that what we did is for 8 months we prayed every day it would be a boy. I figured if Abraham could do it, I could do it. Sure enough, we were up in the waiting room and the nurse came in while I was doing a 30- minute talk show with Ollie North. Right in the middle of that, she came in and said, ``Senator, how did you know? You are the only one who knew it was going to be a boy.'' I said, ``Ollie, James Mountain Inhofe III has been born.'' On the way back it occurred to me they had not yet named that child, and I announced the name on the radio. So I learned that lesson.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, is the Senator aware that 13 months ago they found 11 chemical rockets with warheads that would hold 140 liters of any kind of chemical? They found with that VX gas enough to load these 11 rockets. Subsequent to that they found 36 more. That is 47. Each rocket, with 140 liters of VX gas, can kill a million people; is the Senator aware of that? Would the Senator call that a weapon of mass destruction?

Will the Senator yield further?

If they found 47 chemical rockets, rockets that would hold 140 liters of chemicals, why would they have them if they didn't intend on using them against somebody? Would you inform the Senator?

Why did they have them if they weren't wanting to use them at some point?

First of all, there is no one I have a higher regard for than the man who was elected with me to the other body in 1986, Senator Kyl, the junior Senator from Arizona, and they elected him then to come over to this body in 1984. We are both conservatives.

He has heard me say many times when I was first elected to the other body, I got on the Transportation Committee and the reason I did it was because I always felt the conservatives were pretty big spenders in two areas. One is national defense and the other is infrastructure. That is what we are sent here for. Apparently, the most recent poll I saw shows the vast majority of the people, 69 percent, are willing to spend more money if it will be spent on highways, roads, and bridges. I see that as what we are here for.

I have to address the fact that there are a lot of amendments that have come up. I have stood here for 2 weeks trying to get people to propose amendments, to discuss their amendments. We sit down here and we talk about everything there is to talk about until now at last there is hysteria that we do not have time to bring up our amendments. There has been plenty of time.

I have to say, too, to my good friend, the junior Senator from Arizona, it is because of the senior Senator from Arizona that we have not been able to bring up the amendments because they are objecting to any motions to bring them down to vote. That means the only thing we can vote on that does not require that particular permission is a tabling motion which we have done only once because no one else has had anything else to table.

So that is the reason.

I regret that we wasted a lot of time when we were inviting people to come down. Those who were opposed to this for any number of reasons-- some legitimate reasons, some not so legitimate--were the ones who were stopping us from moving forward with the bill.

First, I think as far as the cloture motion, the Senator from Arizona is exactly right. In fact, I appreciate the letter he was citing from the administration that came down today. It says: ``The Administration supports enactment of a six-year highway [bill],'' and so forth, and they are in support of the cloture motion.

So this is the administration that is in support of the cloture motion. I think if you look at the letter--and I will give you a different slant than my friend from Arizona--they have three criteria. There is nothing new about this. I saw this 2 months ago. I saw it on the 4th of this month when they sent a letter from the administration. It says these three criteria are:

[T]ransportation infrastructure spending should not rely on

an increase in the gas tax or other Federal taxes. . . .

I believe this meets that guideline.

(2) transportation infrastructure spending should not be

funded through bonding or other mechanisms that conceal the

true cost to Federal taxpayers. . . .

I agree with that. In fact, I have been the one who has rejected the suggestion of any type of a bonding that might just be deficit spending in disguise, something we are going to pay back in the future, some increased debt.

This is the big one. This is the one the Senator, with his vast knowledge, has gone through and who is in a better position to do that than I; and that is the criterion that says:

[H]ighway spending should be financed from the Highway

Trust Fund, not the General Fund of the Treasury.

Now, perhaps it is hard. There could be an honest disagreement here. If some money is going to the general fund and is being paid at the pumps by people who are paying for the gas tax, that should be going into the highway trust fund. It is user paid. We all agree with that concept.

For those of us who feel strongly about this, I can remember I was outraged back in the middle 1990s when the previous administration came through and they wanted $8 billion so they could do something other than roads, and it came out of the trust fund and went into the general fund. Frankly, this takes it back. This rectifies a problem that should not have existed in the first place and keeps us honest with the American people.

Look at the moral issue part of this. The people drive up to the pump. There is not a Senator who does not have constituents who drive up to the pump. They don't mind paying that tax--some say they would go ahead and pay more taxes--and they assume that money is going to go for the repair and construction of roads and infrastructure. In fact, that is not the case. There have been raids on that for a long period of time.

I am not going to go over the list of the Finance Committee. I talked to the chairman and the ranking member of the Finance Committee back when we were working on this bill well over a year ago. It said when we come up with what we believe is necessary to just stay even--there is one report out that says even with this spending level that does not even keep us repairing what we have today, but if this comes up, you guys in the Finance Committee are going to be the ones who have to come up with this.

I have never been on the Finance Committee. I have never attended one of their meetings. I don't know how it works. But I do know the chairman and ranking member said: We have come up with a way to come up with this money. Sure, a lot of it, as the Senator mentioned, is spending down the trust fund. Yes, we can do that probably to $6.5 billion without hurting ourselves. That is an assumption we make here. The interest? Yes, it should go to the

trust fund. There are some fixes in there in terms of ethanol that are all part of it. This going after people who avoided paying taxes is something we would all agree is something that should happen.

The one area the Senator mentions, frankly, I can't address is having to do with the WTO. I am just going to trust the Finance Committee that they have come up with this and have done what I asked them to do a long period of time ago.

Oh, yes, in response to that, I was underlining something. This came out in the Finance Committee, I say to my friend from Arizona. It said: In the view of the Finance Committee, these tax policy benefits--we are talking about benefits deductions, whether they are ethanol or maybe a car that is fuel efficient--nonetheless, to encourage them to do that, they are exempt from certain taxes. But those cars and those trucks still drive on our roads, still cause damage to the roads, and because they want to have a tax policy that has nothing to do with infrastructure, has nothing to do with roads and highways, fine, if we all agree on that, it should come out of the general fund, it should not come out of the highway trust fund. We are rectifying that and getting it back to the highway trust fund.

Now, on formulas, this is the most complicated part of the bill. I say to the Senator, your senior Senator came down and said he would like to trade formulas with Oklahoma. I have to say, as I have said several times down here in the last 2 weeks, everyone has the same formula. You have the same formula. North Carolina has the same formula. Maine has the same formula; Oklahoma does.

Now, the results come out differently because in that formula we are taking care of problems that are real problems. Arizona is a fast- growing State, the State of Texas, the State of California, the State of Florida. So in order to make all of this happen, there are caps, there are ceilings. If you bump the ceiling, we are not going to go above that. You may not like it because you are a fast-growing State. But if you don't, then that is going to be paid for in the formula with a change, maybe a change that is going to be coming in the form of an amendment tomorrow, by getting into some of the States such as Pennsylvania and New York.

So here is what we have in the formula: No. 1, total lane miles on the interstate, on principal arterial routes; No. 2, VMT--that is, vehicle miles traveled--on the Interstate System, on principal arterial routes, excluding the interstate, and on the Federal aid system; No. 3, annual contributions to the highway trust fund attributed to commercial vehicles; No. 4, diesel fuel used on highways; No. 5, relative share of total cost to repair or replace deficient highway bridges--I am very sensitive to that; my State of Oklahoma is dead last in terms of the condition of bridges--next, weighted nonattainment and maintenance areas and, lastly, rate of return of donor States.

We all know that the Senator from Arizona and I both know all about being a donor State. If we accelerated the point within those 6 years to raise that amount, then, obviously, there would not be enough money to ultimately get to the 95 percent we want to ultimately get to. So if you change one thing in the formula, it changes everything. You cannot do it in a vacuum.

There will be amendments, I am sure, tomorrow that are going to be addressing this and wanting to change the formula. But if you do it, it is going to change other States.

Now, if you will remember, the reason I am proud of this formula is that we have tried to do it. We tried to do it in 1991 with ISTEA. We tried to do it in TEA-21 in 1998. We failed during that time because right about at this point in the process they said: Well, we can't do it. There are too many people who don't like the way the formula has come out. So instead of that, we need 60 votes. How do we get 60 votes?

So they had a minimum guarantee. They said: All right. We are going to offer 60 of these votes what they want in terms of a percentage of the overall, and then, once we get to 60 votes, who cares? We have our 60 votes and we are going to pass it.

Well, I refused to do that back when the temptation was great to do it about 3 months ago. So the formula is going to be the first pure formula that we have had. But are there frailties in it? Yes, there are. There are corrections to be made because if you look in previous years at States where they have had an undue political influence, they have gotten more than their share.

Let's look at Pennsylvania. They had a good friend of the Senator from Arizona and myself who served in the other body, Bud Shuster, a Congressman from Pennsylvania. He, for a number of years, was the chairman of the committee, and Pennsylvania did disproportionately well.

I would say the same thing of our beloved Daniel Patrick Moynihan of the State of New York; certainly John Chafee, one we all loved, from Rhode Island. So the Northeast got kind of a benefit to which they were not entitled.

In fact, to be specific, under TEA-21--let's keep in mind I was a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee in 1998 when we put this together. And so at that time, in terms of a percentage of taxes paid in, New York got $1.25 back; Pennsylvania, $1.20 back; Rhode Island, $2.16 back; Montana--Senator Baucus, who is a very hard worker for his State--$2.18 back; Oklahoma, 90.5 cents, the minimum, the bare minimum.

I am the guy who should be out here complaining. When your senior Senator said, we ought to swap, if we swapped, I would end up with $40 million more. I will stand here right now and swap with you, and it will not affect any of the rest of the formula.

The formulas are not an easy thing to deal with.

Insofar as the State of Arizona is concerned, if you take an average of the 6 years of TEA-21, $463 million, and then you watch as it goes up here to finally reach $800 million, the total amount of increase is $1.11 billion in the State of Arizona. For my State of Oklahoma, the chart looks almost the same, but the difference is we end up at $1.07 billion. So there is $40 million more going to the State of Arizona. I don't like that. If I were to try to do something as chairman, I probably could have. I could probably have looked at the first run and said, no, Oklahoma needs to have more. But I didn't do it because we wanted the formulas to work. So the formulas are something that you can't mess with because if you do, you get right back to the minimum guarantee policy we have had in the past. I don't think that is good for anyone.

Since we have committed some time to two other Members, including the Senator from North Carolina, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the summary of the Finance Committee's highway trust fund proposal.

The State of Oklahoma does not. It goes up to 95 cents. The first year, it is 90.5; next year, 91.75; and it gradually goes up. Yours does not because for the State of Arizona, it hits the ceiling. So you have 90.5 each of the first 4 years, then 90.84, then 95.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, first, before the Senator from North Carolina leaves, I want to say we are very fortunate to have her expertise having served as Secretary of Transportation and in other capacities where she provided leadership. She has an understanding of transportation needs probably greater than any other single person in this Chamber. I thank her for her contributions here.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, we had a number of presentations made yesterday. There is a great deal of confusion as to what this bill is all about. I would like to go over a couple points.

First, I invite all Members with amendments to bring them to the floor and discuss them. We are rapidly approaching the point where we are going to be considering amendments. I am very proud of the staff, Democrats and Republicans, who staffed an office over the weekend to get information from Members who had amendments to offer.

For those who have not had a chance to become familiar with what we are doing, an injustice has been done to some of the members of the Finance Committee, particularly the chairman and the ranking member. They have worked long and hard. They have come up with something that meets the criteria originally put forward by the administration, such as not including a gas tax. It does not include going into the general fund. I do believe there are some areas where we have rectified problems with treatments that had been taken previously to the highway trust fund. Of course, I consider that something that should have been done anyway.

We are now in position to consider the bill. It is going to be a huge jobs bill. It is going to accomplish great work for the country.

A lot of people do not understand the formula aspect. One Member came down yesterday and talked about how one State is doing better under the formula. There are a lot of considerations to the formula, considerations such as the total lane miles of interstate, the vehicle miles traveled, the annual contributions to the highway trust fund attributed to commercial vehicles, the diesel fuel used on highways, relative share of total cost of repair and replacement of deficient highway bridges--I can identify with that, as in Oklahoma we have the worst bridges in the country--weighted nonattainment in maintenance areas, rate of return of donor States. That is one of the problems people have failed to understand, that we are getting all donor States up to 95 percent.

To do this, there have to be some who have been actually in a better position than they should have been by any formula because let's keep in mind that in TEA-21, 6 years ago, we had the minimum guarantee. The minimum guarantee was a political document. Let's look at who was in charge at that time. We had quite a disproportionate number of leaders from the Northeast. We had Senator Moynihan, Congressman Shuster over in the House who was driving the boat, Senator Chafee, Senator Baucus from Montana. As a result, there are some States that got up to a larger share than they would have achieved under any type of formula.

What they did was start with the same formula, using the factors I just outlined, and then, halfway through the process, went to the minimum guarantee. The minimum guarantee is the easy way out. All you have to do is count up 60 people, give them what they want, and you have 60 votes. That is not the right way to do it. We are doing it the right way.

I haven't seen anyone who really understands the formula, and everything that went into the last year we spent working on it, who is not supportive. They may not like how their State fared. Their State may have been in a position where they were getting more than they were entitled to for a period of time. That might be rectified by this. But we have the best intentions of going ahead. I am quite sure, in the final analysis, we will have a bill that is far greater and better and more equitable than ISTEA was--I was here during the ISTEA debate--and TEA-21 in 1998. I believe we have done a good job.

I refer again to the cooperation we have had on both sides of the aisle. We have had an opportunity to work with the leadership, and Senators Jeffords and Reid have been great to work with. They have set partisanship aside. Historically, this has been a nonpartisan bill. It should be that way. A lot of the actions of the Environment and Public Works Committee are nonpartisan. Certainly at the top of that list is this bill. I don't think anyone would accuse us of being at all partisan in this legislation.

There are winners and losers--no question about that--when compared to TEA-21. But let's go back to see what happened in TEA-21 before we are critical of where we are today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I propound that as a unanimous consent request, that we have debate only until after the conclusion of our conferences.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from New York, Mrs. Clinton, be recognized for up to 5 minutes as in morning business and then for me to reclaim the floor at the conclusion of her remarks.

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

Mr. President, with the approval of the committee, I now withdraw the committee substitute amendment.

Mr. President, I now send a substitute amendment to the desk and ask for its consideration.

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

Since this process started, we have been encouraging people to come to discuss their amendments. We are now in a position where they can actually offer their amendments. We had quite a few Members who worked over the weekend, who also had their staff working. They brought amendments down, and I thank all of those Members.

We visited with them. As the managers, we accepted some. I think now we are at the point where we do encourage our Members to bring their amendments. While we are in this stage right now, let me share a couple of points that I think are very significant.

There has been a lot of discussion that the formulas are unfair to some States. I suggest that in almost every case where there is a donee State that becomes a donor State, it is by a very small amount. On the average, the disparity between donee and donor is far less.

In approaching this, we actually took the average donor and put 4 cents on it and then from the donee took 4 cents off. I think it is a very fair way of doing it. But when people talk about the formulas, let's keep in mind the formulas are real. They have not been real in the past. They were not real in TEA-21. They tried to do it but they ended up with a minimum guarantee, which is a political document.

The formulas include such things as total lane miles on the interstate, on principal arterial routes; vehicle miles traveled; annual contributions to the highway trust fund attributed to commercial vehicles; diesel fuel used on highways; relative share of total cost to repair or replace deficient highway bridges. That is one I am particularly interested in since, as I have said many times, my State of Oklahoma is dead last in terms of the conditions of bridges; weighted nonattainment and maintenance areas; rate of return of donor States. All of those are in the formula.

This is the first time, since we started this process--at least since I have been here in 1991 when ISTEA came out--that we actually are using the formula and staying with it. It has not been easy, because people who do not like the way their State was treated come down and say all kinds of detrimental things about the formula, about our motives, about the bill in general.

The bottom line is, we have been honest with the Senate and honest with all of the States.

I do not think it will shock anyone to hear that there were political considerations in the past. We know that from the other body. The House Member from Pennsylvania was always very aggressive in getting the most he could for his State. I think a lot of them are like that, and we have corrected a lot of those.

I would say this: Of all of the ones who are the big players in TEA- 21, and that was 1998, there was Senator Moynihan, whom we loved so much. His State was 1.25. We had Pennsylvania, which was Congressman Shuster, 1.21; Rhode Island, of course, Chairman Chafee, 2.17; the Senator from Montana was not only the ranking on the committee but also on the subcommittee, 2.18. At the same time all of that happened, my State was .9050, so we are way down there.

With SAFETEA, our percentages really do not change that much. We do ultimately bring everybody up to 95 percent and that is what this will do. Some are dissatisfied because they do not get up to 95 percent until the sixth year. It is unfortunate we could not come up with any other way, but it would cost so much money that if we did that, the ones who would be paying for it would be the donee States, and that would not be fair to them.

So I feel very good about where we are today. I think we have a fair bill. Very few people in this Chamber know the hours, the months, and the years that have been involved in this bill. Certainly the managers of the bill do because we have been working on this bill for such a long period of time.

Now that we have cloture filed, after it expires, it is our intention to go ahead and have a vote on cloture and get the bill completed. I believe it can be done this week.

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 for up to 7 minutes as if in morning business and then we return immediately to the bill, S. 1072.

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

Mr. President, it is appropriate that the occupant of the Chair at the present time is the Senator from Rhode Island because the amendment being offered by the Senator from Virginia is one that was a favorite of one of my favorite people, his father. I can remember many times he would be talking about this amendment. In fact, I can recall some disagreements.

I would say: John, your son is a mayor of a significant city. I am sure if you call him up he will tell you, if there is one thing they don't want, it is unfunded mandates. I was the mayor of a city for four terms. The biggest, greatest plague we had was unfunded mandates.

I will reluctantly oppose the Warner-Clinton-DeWine-Murray seatbelt sanction amendment at the appropriate time. This amendment makes a significant and damaging change to the core safety program established in the highway reauthorization bill.

The amendment imposes a new sanction on States that fail to achieve a 90-percent seatbelt rate or enact a primary seatbelt law. Currently, only 20 of the 50 States meet the requirements of this proposed new Federal mandate. As a result, if this amendment were to pass, 30 States would be immediately thrust into a status of noncompliance with this mandate and the clock would start ticking against them, threatening a significant penalty through the loss of funding. My State of Oklahoma is already in compliance. Actually it wouldn't affect us. We are in compliance with the requirements proposed by this new sanction. But I fundamentally oppose imposition of new sanctions on the States.

While most agree that seatbelts represent the single greatest factor in saving lives on our Nation's highways, the decision to pass a primary seatbelt law is best made at the State level.

The penalties proposed by Senator Warner's seatbelt sanction are twofold. The first penalty takes effect in calculating apportionments for fiscal year 2005. This is especially disconcerting because that gives States who do not already have primary seatbelt laws on the books only 8 months from now to enact a primary law. It doesn't affect me. Our State of Oklahoma already has them. This first penalty would require States in noncompliance to spend 10 percent of the funds apportioned to them under the new core safety programs on safety behavioral projects. Under section 405 of title 23, any funds subject to this transfer cannot be recovered in future years by a State's subsequent compliance with the seatbelt sanction.

A second penalty would be imposed if States had still not enacted a primary seatbelt law or brought their seatbelt rate up to 90 percent by the beginning of fiscal year 2007. States still in noncompliance by this time would lose up to 4 percent of their apportionments under each of the National Highway System programs: The Surface Transportation Program, Interstate Maintenance Program, and the Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program. That one is significant to me. These funds would be completely lost to the States in noncompliance and redistributed among other States.

You could argue that my position in Oklahoma could be enhanced by the passage of this amendment because we know there will be some States that are not in compliance. Certainly our bridges in Oklahoma need as much help as they can get.

The amendment proposes instituting a huge penalty for States without a primary seatbelt law. Although I support the increased use of seatbelts across the United States and would encourage States to enact primary seatbelt laws to reach this objective, I believe threatening States with the loss of needed Federal dollars for surface transportation is not the right approach.

I admire so much the Senator from Virginia and his dedication. I never appreciated what he had to go through 6 years ago as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee during the last reauthorization until I became the chairman and am going through it. I am sure he did a far better job than I. But I disagree with this particular amendment.

I am happy to yield.

That is correct.

I know there are similar steps. If you say they are identical, I am sure they are.

I agree with the Senator from Virginia. I only say, if your State were to devise a way to get to the 90-percent mark that they have to get to to keep from being penalized, it would have to take some reasonable period of time. They would have to establish some criteria and then try to get there.

I cannot imagine it could be done within 8 months, and these people would already be subjected to the penalties imposed in the year 2005. That would be a concern.

Mr. President, I look forward to working with the Senator from Virginia, as I always do. I think many of us who came to serve in the Senate who were either Governors or mayors in major cities somehow have this obstacle or obstruction in our minds on any kind of mandates. I plead guilty to that. I think other Members might oppose the amendment, such as the Senator from Missouri who was a Governor. That is primarily the reason.

I would be happy to work with the Senator from Virginia, and I think he has an excellent point. I know his heart is right and he is trying to save lives. That is why we all love him so much.

Mr. President, while we are waiting for people to come with their amendments, I will make a few comments relative to statements that were made on the Senate floor yesterday concerning the bill.

Comments were made by one Senator who said he would just suggest that we swap formulas between Oklahoma and Arizona. That was the senior Senator from Arizona, a very distinguished Senator. I only say that Arizona and Oklahoma and all other 48 States have exactly the same formula. You don't have to swap formulas. They are the same.

I also suggest in the case of Arizona, it gets more money than Oklahoma does under this bill--by about $60 million. So if a swap were taking place, I think I would go along with that.

I am concerned a little about the statements made that more States will become donor States. That is true under this bill. Right now, the disparity between donor and donee is far greater than it will be after this bill is passed. So if you have a State that goes from a $1.01 down to 99 cents, that is a small amount, but because it goes below the threshold of a dollar, then it is now in donor status. So the way we try to accomplish this is, if you take the average, the average donor State increased by 4 cents; the average donee State decreased by 4 cents. I don't see that anything could be more fair than that.

Third, I think if you look at the individuals who were driving this legislation 6 years ago--TEA-21--you found that there were some parts of the State that were perhaps treated better than other parts. Certainly, we had three of the most powerful people from the northeastern seaboard--Senators Moynihan, Congressman Shuster, and Senator Chafee. When you look at the amounts that they, under TEA-21, achieved, New York was $1.25; Pennsylvania, $1.21; Rhode Island, $1.26; and Oklahoma, 90.5 cents, which was the minimum. A critic of this bill said we should do what we did 6 years ago and immediately go to 90.5 cents as a floor instead of waiting until the sixth year.

The problem with that is there is not enough money. And if we did that, that would have to come out of the donee State. The other problem is we are actually much more ambitious in this bill in reaching that point.

If you look at this State by State--and several times on this Senate floor we have been challenged by Members from States who felt their State was not getting a fair shake--keep in mind that every State is going to increase by at least 10 percent under this bill, and every State is going to have a donor status of nothing less than 95 percent at the conclusion of this bill, at the sixth year.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, I say to my friend from Nevada, the argument I recall against the amendment was that the driver himself or herself would be in a position where they could lose control of a vehicle by not having a seatbelt on and, obviously, the children would be safer than if nobody had on a seatbelt.

The Senator makes a very good point. It is one at which I would certainly like to look.

I can assure the Senator from Nevada, I learned the hard way what our law was in Oklahoma when we started cranking out grandbabies. We have 11 of them now. I did not realize the seriousness of this bill and I did not have

one of the young ones in a seatbelt, and I had to pay the penalties. I learned the hard way they really meant business.

Our law has teeth. I would certainly like to look and see what kind of results the State of Nevada has had.

Of course.

We haven't quit.

We haven't quit.

In terms of population of the State of Nevada and the percentage my grandchildren constitute in my State, the Senator from Nevada is way ahead of me.

Mr. President, there are other points about which I could be talking that were brought up, but I don't think it serves any useful purpose. We made great progress on this bill. People have said nothing happened last week. Something did happen last week. We had a chance to bring up the bill, go over the bill, talk to people, and line up votes, quite frankly.

We have the vast majority of people believing this is the right bill. I only regret there are those who try to say it is not fair for one reason or another. There is no question, if you take this and the last two 6-year reauthorizations, that this bill is far more fair than any other authorization we have done.

All these points were kept in mind as to donee States and donor States. Now that we get up to 95 percent, we are going to forget about what it was like to be a 70-percent donor State, but I can remember. This will be an issue that will go away because you figure you are high enough. This bill got us there.

At the same time, we have donee States, States that have done very well in the past. I mentioned a minute ago, partially because the former chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Congressman Bud Shuster--and I served with him for 8 years in the House on that committee--perhaps his State got a little higher than it should have through his anxious approach. However, when you compare that to the State of Oklahoma--this is an interesting comparison--you can look at a chart and see you are not getting as much as last year and, therefore, it is unfair.

That is just not true. My State has roughly the same road miles as the State of Pennsylvania. If you look at the next 6 years, the State of Pennsylvania is getting three times as much money as we are getting in our State of Oklahoma. It doesn't sound like I did a very good job for Oklahoma.

There are other factors involved. It was called to my attention by one of the Senators from that State that it is a pass-through State. Everyone goes through Pennsylvania to get someplace. How do you put that into an equation? How do you put down how many people stop to buy products or services in your State? Some of these factors can't be done.

I will say this: The old bill turned out to be a minimum guarantee. That was wrong. That was a political document that merely said we will make 60 percent of the people in this Chamber happy, and we don't care what happens to the other 40 percent. That was not an appropriate way to approach that bill.

With the factors of donee, donor, total lane miles, vehicle miles traveled, annual contributions to the highway trust fund from commercial vehicles, diesel fuel just on highways, relative share of the total cost of repair and replacement of deficient highways and bridges, weighted nonattainment in maintenance areas, and rate of return for donor States, this formula has worked, and I am very proud of it.

We have gone through the last 2 weeks complimenting each other and the leadership. I certainly compliment my friend from Vermont, the ranking member, Senator Jeffords, as well as Senator Reid, the ranking member on the subcommittee, and, of course, Kit Bond, the chairman of the subcommittee under my committee. But I also compliment the staff.

I can promise you, Mr. President, that the staff worked many more hours than we did. They were down there all this last weekend. All I was doing was sitting on the phone calling for votes. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication. I want all the staff members of the majority and the minority to know how much I personally appreciate them.

I think it is necessary to have this bill. I can't think of anything worse than going on these short extensions and no one can plan in advance. With the bill we have today, we have it set up so we can plan in advance.

The IPAM part of this bill will allow those projects which are ready to go to start working, to start those projects going, to hire the people.

We had a chart a while ago as to the number of people this bill puts to work. We are talking about almost 3 million people, 3 million jobs that will be filled as a result of having this bill pass.

I look forward to talking about the amendments, working toward cloture, and getting this bill passed in the Senate and sent to conference so we can all go to work in conference and come up with a good solution to our Nation's highways, roads, and infrastructure problems, as well as jobs in America.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

In fairness to the Senator's cosponsors and in fairness to others who may not be easily retrievable at this time, I believe it would be a good idea to defer the vote. I will move to table and ask for the yeas and nays but ask the leadership to maybe put it tomorrow morning sometime. That will give the Senator ample time and provide time for them to be heard on the bill. Is that acceptable?

I do not have a problem with that and 40 minutes on this side at all. Why not plan to do that?

Now I have been told we cannot lock in time agreements on a tabling motion, so I will withhold.

Let me be sure we all understand: In my State of Oklahoma, it perhaps makes no difference. We are one of the 20 States that has mandatory seatbelt laws. In fact, it could be argued we could be benefited by this because if other States do not comply and are punished, then that amount of money could go to the States that already comply. So I could actually benefit.

My problem has always been, as the distinguished Senator from Virginia knows, it is a mandate. I would prefer not to do it this way.

I know the Senator's heart is right. I know there is another great person who served in here by the name of John Chafee who felt as strongly about this as the distinguished Senator from Virginia.

Yes.

I have read the AASHTO letter to Senator Murkowski and agree with her that the task force proposed by AASHTO will indeed accomplish what she seeks to achieve.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from AASHTO dated February 3, 2004 to Senator Murkowski be printed in the Record.

I understand that the Senator has also proposed creating a new program to encourage improvements in the States' motorcycle safety programs. I believe this amendment would be very valuable. I also believe it would be most appropriate offered as part of the Commerce Committee title, and would like to be added as an original cosponsor of the amendment when that happens.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the memory of a brave young American who gave his life defending our Nation. I went to the ceremony out at Arlington this morning for this young man. It was one of the most moving experiences I have ever had. This man felt a call to serve his country, to be a part of something bigger than himself. For that call, he paid the highest price.

2LT Luke James of Hooker, OK, was a platoon leader in the 82nd Airborne's B Company, 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, stationed at Fort Bragg, NC. He is survived by his wife Molly and their little son Bradley who was born just 6 months ago. His parents Brad and Arleen James live in Hooker, OK, where Luke played football at Hooker High School and graduated near the top of his class. Luke later attended and graduated from Oklahoma State University where he participated in the ROTC program and earned a degree in animal science.

While on a dismounted patrol, Luke was killed by a roadside bomb during an ambush on January 27. He gave his life for the freedom of millions of Americans and for the peace and future of the Iraqi people.

Lieutenant James had long imagined a life of service in the Army. He was going to be career. These aspirations were realized culminating with his commissioning into the airborne infantry on December of 2002. His parents have described how Luke embodied the selfless attitude toward service to country that is so evident in all of our military men and women.

On February 10, I had the opportunity to attend Lieutenant James' funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. The ceremony honored Luke, and deservedly so. In the words of Lieutenant James's mother, speaking of her son, she said:

We are very proud as his parents that he had the attitude

he had, and wanted to serve. . . . It wouldn't have been this

mother's choice, but you have to have young men and women

willing to preserve the freedom we have. We are glad he was

willing.

He was willing. We as a nation are grateful. The loss of 2LT Luke S. James is grievous to all of us. Our thoughts are with his wife and son, as well as his family in Oklahoma.

Today we recognize his valor and commitment. It is for men like Luke James I am proud to be a part of this great Nation. He was a special soldier, a real Oklahoman, and a true American.

As we tour over there, and see these young warriors and their attitude and commitment and patriotism, it is so heartwarming. I am sure at one time or another I saw Luke, but I don't remember when that was. But he is certainly typical, and his family, recognizing that he made the supreme sacrifice, but he made it for us. He knew that risk was there when he took on the position he held.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on February 10, 2004, at 9:30 a.m., in open session to receive testimony on the defense authorization request for fiscal year 2005 and the Future Years Defense Program.

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 Tuesday, February 10, 2004, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the ``Proposals for Improving the Regulatory Regime of Government Sponsored Enterprises.''

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, February 10 at 10 a.m. to consider the President's proposed fiscal year 2005 budget for the Department of Energy.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session on Tuesday, February 10, 2004, at 10 a.m., to consider the nomination of Samuel W. Bodman, to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, U.S. Department of Treasury.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, February 10, 2004, for a hearing on the Administration's proposed Fiscal Year 2005 Department of Veterans Affairs budget. The hearing will take place in room 418 of the Russell Senate Office Building at 3 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet Tuesday, February 10, 2004 from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. in Dirksen 628 for the purpose of conducting a hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Economic Committee be authorized to conduct a hearing in room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Tuesday, February 10, 2004, from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

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

Mr. President, let me thank all the Members who had their staff come down, and some Members came down over the weekend, brought their amendments, and met with my staff and met with Senator Jeffords' staff and I believe with Senator Reid's staff. We got into a good discussion on the various amendments. We discussed with them our amendments. I am pleased with the response of those Members who understand how important it is to pass this legislation and have come to us in the week that this bill has been on the floor.

To date, I believe we have met with about 30 Member offices. We are all looking forward to working hard to accommodate the needs of these offices with as many amendments as possible. I encourage anyone out there who has amendments to bring them down, talk about them, and let's get some of this debate started.

The chairman, ranking member of the full committee of the Transportation Subcommittee--we are all ready to work with those Members.

I wish to take a moment to congratulate Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their work on the finance portion of this legislation. They have done a tremendous job in meeting the financial needs of this bill without increasing taxes or deficit spending. They have also brought integrity back to the highway trust fund and to the commitment we made to the American people.

The trust fund is, in essence, a user-fee-based program. You pay a gas tax and that money is then used for transportation purposes. Unfortunately, the trust fund has been used for many years for other purposes, including shifting the burden of tax policies from the general revenue to the trust fund. These tax policy benefits have nothing to do with highway use and should not burden the trust fund.

I look at this, and I have said it many time before, as a moral issue. We tell people when they pay--and they don't mind paying new taxes, even higher taxes. They are willing to pay the taxes because they want to have better roads and they assume that money is going to go into building roads. But it is not. They have been raiding the highway trust fund now for as long as I can remember.

So the Finance Committee sought to fix this unfairness to the taxpayer and has come up with a proposal to right this wrong.

Included in these proposals is a repeal of the partial exemption for ethanol-blended fuels. The tax benefit for ethanol, like nearly all energy production incentives, is transferred to the general fund through a tax credit. The same effect is applied to refunds for special categories of users such as State and local governments. These are changes that never should have been necessary. We should no more raid the highway trust fund than we should raid the Social Security trust fund. These are commitments made to the American people.

However, by bringing integrity back to the trust fund, the general fund lost a source of revenue, albeit a source that never should have been used in the first place. So in order to avoid deficit spending, Chairman Grassley closed a number of loopholes in the Tax Code and kept the general fund whole--in other words, no deficit spending.

There are those who have questioned the manner in which this was done, but I trust the chairman and the ranking member of the Finance Committee and take them at their word. They should be congratulated. I am here to thank both of them.

Because of the work of the Finance Committee, we have a bill before us that will provide over 2 million new jobs to repair our Nation's infrastructure and do so without deficit spending.

I think it is very important to keep talking about this. There is not a Member in here who cannot remember at

one time or another raiding the trust fund, to take some of this money to put it in toward reducing the deficit. That was done in the 1990s.

This is an opportunity we have, not just to pass a very aggressive highway bill and provide the jobs that go with that but also correct this wrong that has been out there for a long period of time.

Let me emphasize, we invite Members to come down and bring their amendments. While we cannot be introducing them and voting on them right now, we can still get a lot of the discussion out of the way. I think it is very important we do so, now.

Let me defend the formula. There have been a lot of people coming down and objecting to the way it was put together. I remind my colleagues what happened in TEA-21. I was here for TEA-21, here in the Senate, here in the committee working with my good friend, Senator Jeffords. We watched the way that formula worked.

In that, they had a minimum guarantee program. A minimum guarantee program is nothing but a chart; it is called section 1104. It took all the States and put a percentage down. As soon as they got 60 people happy, they figured: there is our 60 votes--and this is no way to do it.

Instead of that, we looked at donor status. We have several States such as my State of Oklahoma that have been in a donor status for many years. We looked at States that are fast growing States. We put a ceiling in there, so they could not get so much of the money there would not be anything remaining for other States. We have a floor in there. I think we have done something that is very good.

I guess you could say there are four goals that interest a lot of people, one being the donor States, those of us who have been donor States for so long we can remember when we were 70, 75 percent donors. ISTEA came along and brought the floor up to 80. Then TEA-21 brought it to 90.5. This is going to bring every State, all 50 States, at the end of this 6-year period, or by the end of that period, up to 95 percent. That is very reasonable. It is a very ambitious goal but one with which I think most of us, I am absolutely convinced, agree.

We have introduced streamlining measures in this bill that will allow us to use the dollars we have and use them to build more roads, to do more in a shorter period of time.

We are concentrating on safety. We have not concentrated on safety as much as we should have in the past. I know the senior Senator from Virginia is one who has been concerned about safety for a long period of time and is very pleased with a lot of the provisions that we have in this bill.

We haven't really focused on freight movement until this bill came along. So we are getting into all of these areas.

I just hope our colleagues understand that Senator Jeffords, Senator Reid, Senator Bond, and I have been working on this bill for over a year. That is a long time. Obviously, you will never have a formula that makes everybody happy but you can certainly have one that is fair. And we have achieved for the first time in the history of this process what I consider to be a very fair formula.

I would like to ask if Senator Jeffords has any comments he would like to make at this time.

Mr. President, first let me thank the ranking member of the committee for all the hard work and effort he has been put into this bill.

I remind Members that we spent the weekend working on amendments. We actually had an office in the Hart Building that was open and staffed by both the majority and the minority. They waded through a lot of amendments.

To move this bill along, I again encourage Members to bring their amendments down. I will not mention the names of the Senators because it may not be appropriate. I encourage Members to come down to speak on the amendments which are going to require some discussion.

We have an amendment to clarify the travel reimbursement for troops retroactive to September 25. We have an amendment on seatbelts which imposes sanctions on States that don't have primary seatbelt laws. We have amendments such as one on sanctions relating to drunk drivers, an amendment on changes to the Indian roads program, an amendment to clarify the new highway safety core program dollars which can be used for additional lanes or two-lane roads, and one to grant exemptions for 90,000 pounds on Federal aid highways--to a higher level to allow for lumber trucks and garbage trucks going to landfills.

We have a lot of amendments. I think there are about 35 amendments because staff came down and worked over the weekend on those amendments. I think it would be appropriate for them to come down right now, and not to offer their amendment but to discuss their amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

First of all, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for yielding. He will have ample time to come back and do that. I appreciate him allowing us to get back to the bill.

The Senator from Ohio has an amendment to talk about, but I encourage all Members to come down to the floor. We have time now. Later on, time is going to become very precious. As I said last Friday, come to the floor. We stayed open all weekend to work with Members on their amendments. We are doing that as we speak. We would encourage Members to come down and talk about their amendments--now that we have worked out amendments--so when the appropriate time comes, if they wish to file those amendments and to debate them and get votes on them, they will be light-years ahead if they come down now.

I want to issue that as a very strong suggestion to those members who have amendments. I thank some 30 Members who brought their amendments down over Saturday. A lot of those have been accepted in the managers' amendment.

I will be glad to yield.

Senator DeWine is waiting to speak now on his amendment, although I think the Senator is making a very good point. We have been talking about this since Friday, and we encourage people to come down.

I can assure the Senator he always does.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, that was a great statement by the Senator from Mississippi. I appreciate it very much. It is a recognition that a lot of people will think all of a sudden we came up, last week, with a bill and a formula. They don't realize we have spent a year--a year of our lives--working on a formula, looking into the same things the Senator is talking about.

I am from a donor State. We have been a donor State as long as I have been up here. The Senator talked about working on TEA-21. You also worked on ISTEA in the beginning because I was there with you. Those formulas were not as good because they were based on minimum guarantees. A minimum guarantee is you figure, how do I get 60 votes, and then we don't care what happens to the rest of you. We did not do that.

We considered the donee States, donor States, the fast-growing States, because there is a ceiling in there for them, and then there is a floor for some of the States that have either a low population or are low-yield States. All these things were taken into consideration.

So anything that is as complicated and long as this is, you can pick it apart. But I can tell you right now, we spent a lot of time on it. There are people who are interested in the transit part of it. There are some, such as the Senator from Ohio, who have been very much concerned about and made great contributions to safety. Some of them are concerned about freight and the obstacles that are out there. But we have it all in this one.

I feel good about this bill. It has taken a year to get where we are today. Frankly, you just cannot start

readjusting a formula of which you took every consideration in putting together. You have something that is fair. You cannot then start readjusting it. If you change one State, it changes all the other States, and then you have to go back and start all over.

I think there are those who would prefer we would have to do that because they don't want to have a bill. But we are not going to operate on extensions, and I have every expectation we will get a bill this week.

People say: What about the House? They are going to want an extension. They are not where we are. Well, you are not going to get them to do anything until we do something, in my opinion.

I appreciate very much the Senator from Mississippi making his comments about this bill.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I believe it is always very difficult when we get a complicated formula. We have been talking about how complicated the formula is when you take into consideration the growth of States. We are dealing with low-population States. We have a floor. We have donor States and donee States. But the Senator from Arizona is right when he said we actually have more donor States than we had under TEA-21. The disparity amount is far less between the donor and donee States. We are calculating that now. I think the point needs to be answered, and I think we are going to be prepared to do it.

A State such as New York, for example, has gone from $1.25--in other words, $1.25 for every dollar that has been put in--down to 99.75. That is down to getting back everything they have put in, but it is dropping down substantially from the amount in the previous bill.

I have looked at States to try to defend myself in being fair on this. If you look at TEA-21--that was Senator Moynihan, Representative Schuster, and Senator Chafee--Moynihan's State went up to $1.25; Schuster, $1.20; Chafee, $2.16, and mine--and I am chairman of the committee--is only going to go up to $.95. And we are still going to be a donor State. I think that should demonstrate we are being fair on this.

To suggest that Colorado is getting a raw deal, they have the highest rate of return of any State. But formulas are complicated. I am not critical of the Senator from Arizona. There will be others down here who do not want this bill to pass, and it might not have anything to do with the formula. No one can argue that this formula is the only fair formula we have.

How many times on the floor of the Senate in previous years have Members waited until they got 60 votes and took care of 60 Members and then turned around and not cared what happens to the rest? We don't do that. It would be easy if we did that. We talk about countervotes, and go back and get it passed.

As far as the Finance Committee, I think they have done a good job. They don't have their final product out. But I know the criteria on which they are working, and I am very proud of Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for the work they have done. It might be that there is some money being taken out of the general fund which is being put back into the highway trust fund. But that is replacing money that came out of the highway trust fund which went into the general trust fund. In one fell swoop, $8 billion went out of the general fund. These are raids on the highway trust fund.

I believe this is a moral issue. If a State pays the money, they anticipate that money being paid because they use their roads. It is going to go into road maintenance and road construction and bridge construction.

Our State of Oklahoma is still number 50 in condition of bridges. There is a lot to be done all around the country. There will be some people who do not like this bill for reasons having nothing to do with formula. But you can always take a formula and pick it apart and make it sound unfair. This is not unfair. This is a fair way to approach it. I believe it is real equity.

As I say, we are now calculating this. The States that went from a donee status to a donor status are a very small amount. But it is closing that disparity between the donee and donor States. This is precisely what we have been trying to do.

If the Senator from Nevada and the Senator from Vermont were talking about job values in this bill--look at any State and you can see the job opportunities. There is not one piece of legislation we are going to be dealing with during this entire year which is going to have the effect on jobs this is going to have. Pick out any State. You can see the total amount of new jobs. It is close to 3 million jobs--and job opportunities. We have a jobs chart, and then we have a jobs opportunity chart. We know there will be construction jobs. We know that is going to happen. But keep in mind every time you hire someone to do more construction, that person is also going to go out and buy more goods and services. They will have to manufacture more, and that is going to employ more people. We have calculated that. That is a very accurate figure.

I know there are a lot of Members who are going to be opposing this because they may not like some of the freight provisions. Perhaps their States are not treated in a way that other States are treated because they do not happen to be a poor city or they do not happen to be a terminal city. Nonetheless, I think Senator Reid made a good statement when he said this is not just one State but it is the United States of America.

Again, on the particular State of Arizona, that is a 40-percent increase, which I think is very fair. In fact, that is a greater increase than the average increase States have.

Let me say to the Senator from North Dakota that he has been very kind in working into our schedule at times when we were not working on the highway bill. I do appreciate it very much.

I object.

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

Mr. President, it has been our intention to get as many of the obstacles out of the way and as many amendments here as possible relating to the highway bill. The leader told us he wants to have the highway bill completed by late next week. I think we can do that. If Members have amendments they would like to have considered by the managers, our staff will be available this afternoon and Saturday afternoon from noon until 5 p.m. in Hart-415.

If you have any amendments you would like to work out, I strongly advise you to bring them down today or tomorrow instead of waiting until next week. Again, that will be in Hart, room 415, and anytime today or tomorrow, Saturday, between noon and 5 p.m.

I also note we have been inviting people to come and speak on the bill. No one has come down yet. It is now 11:15. In the event that no one wants to speak on the bill by noon, we will probably shut down.

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

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

We will be shutting down here shortly, so I will repeat the announcement I made earlier. We are going to try to have this highway bill completed by the end of the week. To do that, there are several things that need to happen. One is that we get these amendments in. We have announced before, and we want to make sure the offices know, if Members have amendments they would like to have considered by the managers, our staff will be available this afternoon and Saturday-- this afternoon, all afternoon and Saturday from noon to 5 o'clock--in Hart room 415. We would like to have amendments looked at. I strongly urge you to come down. We are going to stay on our timetable to try to have this completed.

I appreciate the comments by the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from New Jersey. It is very important we get this done.

We are beyond the point of turning back and changing things. We have spent a year working out all the elements--the environmental portion of the bill, the safety portion of the bill, the formula portion--and we have probably the best bill we have had during my time, and I go back to ISTEA when I was in the other body and TEA-21 here.

We have considered more than the other formulas and we have now abandoned the idea of percentages that will get 60 votes and then walking. That is not the way we should be doing it. I think we are doing it a lot better.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I might be a little more specific. In Hart-415 they are going to be open today and from noon until 5 o'clock on Saturday to work on amendments.

Madam President, we are prepared to go back to the bill at this time.