Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside, and I call up amendment No. 5077 for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 5078 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak against this foreign aid bill and in favor of a couple of amendments that will restore some integrity to it.

I wish to make it clear that I believe this legislation aims to do something very important. A lot of people are suffering in Africa with AIDS, and the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief--or PEPFAR, as we call it--is designed to provide treatment and prevention assistance to those in need. This is a program I voted for in 2003, and it is something I think every American would consider a worthy cause. But the simple fact is, we cannot afford every worthy cause around the world. Our budget is broken and our Nation is headed toward financial collapse. Yet this bill spends $50 billion, which is more than a 300- percent increase over the original $15 billion authorization. None of this money is paid for. Instead, it is all borrowed money. It passes the bill on to our children and grandchildren. This is not generosity; I am afraid it is thievery.

So we have conflicting goals. On one hand, we want to help people suffering in Africa. On the other hand, we want to balance our budget and prevent people from suffering in America. As Ronald Reagan said, ``America is a great Nation because America is a good Nation.'' Americans have always prided themselves on reaching out to people in need, and we should do so. However, if we bankrupt our own country, we will no longer be able to extend a helping hand to others. That is why I am offering an amendment--this first amendment, No. 5077--to reduce the spending in this bill from $50 billion to $35 billion. This would still provide a more than 100 percent increase over the original program while maintaining some integrity to our budget process.

The Senator from Kentucky, Mr. Bunning, has an amendment that would reauthorize the program at current levels with no increase in spending. That is something I support because at a time when we need to be dramatically reducing the size and scope of government, just keeping the program at its current spending levels is generous.

My amendment would allow for the program to actually grow from $15 billion to $35 billion. This is still way too much money, in my opinion, but it would save American taxpayers $15 billion over the next 5 years, which is no small amount of money. Besides saving Americans money, this amendment would not actually take a thing away from people in Africa who benefit from this program.

The fact is, this foreign aid program cannot spend $50 billion on its intended purposes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, PEPFAR can only spend $35 billion over the next 5 years to meet the needs of those who are suffering. Our aid workers in many African nations have said as much, and their statements are backed up by the Congressional Budget Office's own estimate of this budget.

In reality, the money that cannot be spent to directly treat and prevent the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria will be siphoned off for other things authorized in this bill, none of which are directly related to the prevention or treatment of these three diseases. For example, the bill authorizes the expenditure of funds to provide legal services, empower women, ensure safe drinking water and sanitation, provide treatment for alcohol abuse, and address the inheritance rights of women and girls, and study transportation patterns, just to name a few. In addition, some of this $35 billion would be siphoned off to build an even larger bureaucracy here in the United States.

One U.S. aid worker in Africa said:

We spend 4 months writing our Country Operation Plan only

to send it to Washington and have it rewritten without our

input.

Four months of effort for no reason certainly sounds like a waste of effort, and it diminishes our success.

Unfortunately, as we have all seen around here, the bigger the pot of money gets, the more waste and fraud we have, and accountability completely disappears. If we really care about those suffering from AIDS, we need to ensure that as many dollars as possible reach the people who are truly in need. The measure of America's greatness is not found in the amount of money we provide but in the effectiveness of our efforts.

I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment. It saves $15 billion without taking anything away from people who are hurting in Africa. Most importantly, it restores some honesty and integrity to this bill.

Another problem with this bill is that it expands the scope of this program to new countries that were not part of the original program. The bill explicitly adds central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America to the list of PEPFAR's focused countries. The bill also contains vague language expanding the program to other nations.

This is yet another example of the dishonesty of Congress. We say this bill is about addressing AIDS in Africa, but really it is about foreign aid all over the globe. The original program focused on countries that had widespread, generalized epidemics, but this bill allows the program to expand to a number of new countries that have problems only in limited areas. We can fix this problem with the bill by limiting the list of focused countries to those included in the original 2003 authorization.

That is what my amendment does, amendment No. 5078, and this is what it says:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, funds

authorized under this Act shall be targeted only toward those

countries authorized for funding under the United States

Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of

2003.

So we keep the program focused on its original intent.

Last week, the majority leader pointed out that the purpose of this bill is to specifically help people in Africa. According to the Washington Times, he told reporters:

While we're fiddling around here on this in Washington,

people are dying. This is big-time stuff, this is very

important to one whole continent.

I agree with him, but the bill he has brought up spreads money to more than three continents beyond Africa. If we are going to spend this kind of money, we need to be honest about what we are spending it on. This bill is supposed to be about the treatment of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in Africa. The cost of this program will only continue to increase dramatically if we continue to allow funds to go to other countries.

I have also offered a second-degree amendment to prevent American taxpayers from having to support forced abortions around the world. My amendment simply says that none of the funds in this bill may be awarded to any organization or program which supports or participates in the management of a program of coerced abortion or involuntary sterilization.

In addition to the things I described before that fall outside the stated purpose of the bill, the provision of funds to organizations that perform and/or support coercive abortion in China is perhaps the worst. This not only kills innocent unborn children, it violates the human rights of women in China.

This bill authorizes $2 billion to the United Nations Global Fund in 2009 and designates such funds in the following 4 years. This means that over the 5-year life of the bill, the United States will likely provide at least $10 billion to the United Nations Global Fund.

Restrictions against funding forced abortions are in the current PEPFAR bill, but they do not apply to the Global Fund. We know that the Global Fund has provided at least two large grants in 2004 and 2006 to the various agencies within the Chinese Government, including the National Population and Family Planning Commission, which runs China's one-child-per-family program. In fact, we have here--and I wish to submit them for the record--the grants themselves which explicitly state that they were made to the various agencies within the Chinese Government, including the National Population and Family Planning Commission. I have the number, which I would like to have printed in the Record. One of these grants spent almost $59 million in 2004 and the second was over $11 million in 2006.

It is quite clear that my concerns about how funds can be used in the Global Fund are real and serious. It is very obvious that unless we pass this amendment to clearly prohibit funds, they can and likely will be used by the Chinese agency that carries out coercive abortions.

Instead of working to ensure that the United Nations Global Fund does not provide grants to Chinese Government agencies that force women to have

abortions, the sponsors of the bill doubled the U.S. contributions to the Global Fund to $2 billion.

The Bush administration has fought to prohibit funding to organizations that perform or support coercive abortions. In testimony before Congress on February 17, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said:

We have been outspoken with the Chinese about this terrible

practice, and of course, as Secretary of State, I will

enforce Kemp-Kasten to make certain that we are not funding

anything that remotely as related to these policies.

I just do not believe that either the administration or any Member of the Congress could ever argue that we should not do everything we can to ensure that American taxpayers' money does not go to the Chinese National Population and Family Planning Commission.

Now, many of my colleagues may not believe this because it is so outrageous, but it is true. Many outside groups supporting this bill don't want anyone to know about it because they don't believe we should do anything that restricts abortions--even those performed against the will of the mother. Even some people who oppose spending money on coercive abortions have been convinced to look the other way because they want this bill to pass. We cannot turn a blind eye to this problem with the bill.

My amendment is germane, it is allowable under the unanimous consent agreement, and I encourage all of my colleagues to support it. We need to make absolutely certain that American families are not giving their hard-earned tax dollars to organizations that force women in China and around the world to have abortions.

I encourage my colleagues to support these amendments.

I yield the floor.

Thank you, Madam President.

Legend has it that as Rome burned many years ago, the Emperor Nero stood on his balcony and fiddled. Now, we know he wasn't exactly fiddling because the fiddle was not invented until over 1,000 years later, but we do know that he became synonymous with people who don't get it, who don't get the urgency and the seriousness of the issues they are dealing with. If there has ever been an organization that fit that metaphor better than Nero himself, it is this Congress, because clearly Congress is fiddling while America is burning.

Americans are hurting. It is no exaggeration. We hear it talked about here on the floor, but all we do is talk about it. Gas prices are literally tearing families apart. Electric utilities have announced they will raise their rates by over 30 percent because of the increase in the cost of fuels. The speeches here on the floor of the Senate have tried to blame everyone but the people who are responsible. We try to blame big oil or speculators or Bush, when anyone--any thinking American who looks in--can conclude immediately that over the last 20 years this Congress has stopped the development of American energy and allowed us to be held hostage by other countries and has allowed prices to go up to the point that Americans are now being badly hurt.

What do we do when it becomes obvious that our lack of energy and our dependence on foreign oil is raising the prices to the point that Americans can no longer live; that $700 billion a year is leaving our country, devaluing our dollars, and causing us to borrow more and more money as a nation? At a time of war, at a time of debt and economic downturn, what do we do? Well, I can hear the fiddling coming from the majority leader's office and the Democratic cloakroom. The fiddling is filling this place up because all we are doing is fiddling.

We are talking about climate change legislation that would add huge taxes to energy in America and run more jobs offshore. We have spent this week talking about how we are going to bail out the mortgage industry which made loans that they shouldn't have made for people buying homes that were more expensive than they could afford. We want to bail them out. We want to borrow over $300 million from the future-- from our kids and grandkids. We are doing this while people at home are hurting because of the cost of energy and gas prices.

Now, incredibly enough, the fiddling noise gets louder, because the majority leader wants to go to a foreign aid package. He wants to borrow $50 billion more and send it to different parts of the world-- with good reason, for good causes. Certainly HIV and AIDS in Africa and other parts of the world is a

distressing problem that we would love to help with as Americans if we could. However, at a time when Americans are hurting, when we are at war, when the economy is in downturn and our country is facing debts we have never seen before, should we borrow another $50 billion and spend another week debating while we fiddle instead of doing something to increase the energy supply here in America?

It is time for us to act as a Congress. Americans expect us to act as a Congress to open up America's energy, to develop more supply as we develop alternatives and learn to use less. We cannot allow ourselves to be brought to our knees as a nation because we are so unwilling to do what anyone with common sense would tell us we need to do, and that is open our own energy supplies.

It is incredible, if you look at the last 20 years, that we have cut off nuclear generation and natural gas development, oil and gasoline, and now we are trying to blame someone else. Congress does not get it. Congress does not recognize the seriousness of what is going on. We want to change the subject, and that is what the majority leader is trying to do now--go to another subject and spend another week doing something else, giving away more American resources, selling off and borrowing on our future. It is time that we do something. I agree with the Senator from Louisiana and his unanimous consent request.

I advise the majority that I will make a unanimous consent request at this time. I am not sure if the Chair is ready to deal with this. Would the Parliamentarian advise me if I can make that request now?

Well, before we start fiddling, I have not made the request yet.

I ask unanimous consent that upon disposition of H.R. 3221, the housing legislation, the Senate immediately proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 854, which is S. 3202, the Gas Price Reduction Act, a bill to address record-high gas prices at the pump.

I further ask unanimous consent that there be 4 hours of general debate, equally divided; that upon the use or yielding back of time the Senate then proceed to consider amendments to the bill in a full and open amendment process, as is the tradition of the Senate.

Obviously, I am disappointed that we are still unwilling to address a very basic energy bill that would open deep sea exploration in our country and would allow us to access oil shale in the middle of the United States to help create incentives for electric cars.

These are simple things that Americans know we need to do. We need to proceed to it immediately, and we need to stop fiddling. We don't need to spend another week talking about foreign aid when we have yet to help Americans who have elected us to support them in our own country.

I yield the floor.

Reserving the right to object.

I am very supportive of the aviation bill. I do think it is inappropriate to add $8 billion of unrelated spending without debate or amendment, so I regretfully have to object.

Mr. President, I appreciate the question from the leader. I think again it is inappropriate to make a decision on whether it is $6 billion or whatever the figure is. Only a couple of months ago we were all here on a technical correction bill. We had the opportunity to take a lot of money that was saved from projects that were not needed. We talked at the time on this floor about the fact that the trust fund was short. But instead of taking that savings and putting it back in the trust fund, we used it to add additional earmarks and to put more money into projects that were there. So there has been no intent by this body to try to look at the problem with the trust fund. Certainly it is something we need to deal with but not as part of the aviation bill.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object. I appreciate the leader's sensitivity to some concerns we expressed yesterday on the length of this bill and the fact that probably very few, if any, of us have had a chance to read it, as well as his sensitivities to a slew of credible media reports that question some of the intents in the bill.

We all know the housing crisis is an issue in this country, and we do need to look at what we can do as a Senate to relieve the foreclosures and to help Americans stay in their homes. But we need to do it in a way the American people trust. We are trying to get through this bill. We know it has been changed since the committee has considered it.

I ask the leader if he would consider a modification of his agreement that we be assured that before this bill is finished, we will have an opportunity in the minority to offer an amendment that would refer the bill to the committee with instructions to report what direct benefits Countrywide or other financial institutions would receive from this legislation. Would the leader be willing to modify his agreement to include that?

I do not feel qualified as an individual member to make the

judgments that I think the committee could. Our hope was to have an up- or-down vote at one point to allow this body to at least decide if we should refer this back to the committee to look at that specific area, to make sure there is complete transparency, and to address what benefits some of these companies have.

All we want is an up-or-down vote, not necessarily a determination of how the bill should be changed. I certainly cannot determine. We have had one media source say it is $25 billion to Countrywide. We thought the committee had indicated $2.5 billion. Certainly, because of the media promotion of this, this has become a national issue. So our hope is that, again, before the bill is over--not today; it is certainly a reasonable request to deal with housing amendments today--but that the leader would assure us that before this bill is finished, we would have an up-or-down vote on referring it back to committee.

Mr. President, I appreciate the leader's reasonableness. I would like to work with him. Again, the goal is not to pacify me but to make sure the American people can look on us and know we have had an open and transparent process. I trust the leader and respect him and how he will approach that. For that reason, I will not object to the unanimous consent request.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Kentucky. I appreciate his willingness to offer this motion and bring some of our concerns to the attention of the Senate. I would like to make clear that it is not our intent to question the integrity of any Member of the Senate. But I believe every American has the right, given the situation surrounding this bill, to question the judgment of any Senator who votes for it at this time.

I know Senator Shelby, the ranking member, has worked for years on part of this bill that is very important, and that we all support, GSE reform, getting a Federal regulator who can help keep some accountability in a system that has gotten out of control. I know if that was the only part of this bill that was being offered, he would be proud to support it. But we also know politics is the art of compromise, and we had to put a package together, I assume, that was needed in order to get the real reform through.

I think the package that came together is clearly problematic. A cloud

surrounds this bill. We have seen it in the media all over the country, questioning the amount of money we spend, who benefits from it, and the fact that we are potentially unloading hundreds of billions of dollars of bad loans on to the American taxpayers' shoulders.

I appreciate Senator Shelby and his work, but I have to object to this bill. The purpose of referring it back to the committee is not to stop the bill indefinitely but to get a careful review of who benefits from this bill. I have received different reports since it began.

First, I heard that Countrywide, one of the lenders involved that has had so many allegations against it, could potentially get $2.5 billion. Then the Wall Street Journal says it is $25 billion. As we look at this, the bill is designed to essentially encourage a lot of these mortgage companies to unload their riskiest loans on to the taxpayer. We are told, because they have to accept some reduction in the value of that loan, that they are going to be discouraged from doing it. In fact, we know if you take the riskiest loans, the Congressional Budget Office has already told us that 35 percent of these loans will default again. In other words, we basically know that 35 percent of these loans are going to fall back on the shoulders of the American taxpayer because this bill includes a guarantee.

We also know some of the voluntary programs, such as the Hope Now Program facilitated by the administration, are working. They have prevented over 1.5 million foreclosures. We need to do things like that that would help avoid foreclosures, help people stay in their homes. But this bill has come together in such a way as to raise questions all over the country that we need to answer before we move ahead.

Again, I thank the Senator from Kentucky for his willingness to stand for this. I encourage those who even support the bill to accept that we need to say: Wait a minute; let's look at this again. Let's look at the concerns that are being expressed all over the country. Then, let's take up the bill again at the right time.

I thank the Senator from Kentucky and yield the floor.

Madam President, in a few minutes the Senate will once again vote on a farm bill that expands the Federal Government's management of farm and food programs while spending over $600 billion during the next 10 years. I do not want to diminish in any way all the hard work of my Republican and Democratic colleagues and their very capable staff, but I rise today to ask my fellow Senators to stop and think about what we are doing to our country--not go just with this bill but what we have done as a Congress and as a Federal Government over the last few decades.

The farm bill is a symptom of a bigger problem. We are often so focused on specific problems and issues and legislation that we fail to see the cumulative effect of our work over many years. We can start with what we have done to our culture and the character of our people. For several decades, this Congress and our courts have turned right and wrong upside down and encouraged all kinds of costly and destructive behavior. Our welfare programs have encouraged an epidemic of unwed births that cost our country over $150 billion a year and is the major contributor to child abuse, crime, poverty, and school dropouts.

Our courts have ruled that pornography, abortion, and gay marriage are constitutional rights. The Federal Government has expanded casino gambling by legalizing it on Indian reservations, even in States where gambling is illegal. All these decisions and policies have proved destructive and costly to our country.

The Federal Government's attempts to manage America's institutional services and economy have been equally devastating. Over the past 10 years, while I have been in the House and the

Senate, I have seen this Congress attempt to manage many aspects of our lives and our economy.

I will start with education. The quality of American education has declined since the 1970s, when the Federal Department of Education was established. By the year 2000, when President Bush took office, our Government-run education system was clearly not preparing our children to compete in the global economy.

No Child Left Behind expanded the Federal role and Federal spending even more. But there has been little discernible progress. We see some progress in charter schools and specialty schools and other types of schools that break away from the Federal mold.

But this Congress continues to restrict the flexibility of States and the freedom of parents to choose a school that works for their children.

We should also talk about what this Congress and the Federal Government has done to our health care system. Medicare and the Government fixed-rate system control virtually all the health care in America today. A few years ago, this Congress decided to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare, even though the program was already going broke.

Now, the program is hopelessly underfunded, and we continue to cut what Medicare pays doctors and hospitals to see our senior citizens. The problem is fewer and fewer doctors want to see Medicare patients because they lose money when they treat them. So they charge their patients with private insurance more so fewer Americans can afford private insurance.

And fewer and fewer students are going into medicine because it is clear they are not going to be paid enough to make a decent living. So we now expect and predict a physician shortage crisis as millions of baby boomers are retiring. The solution for us is to make sure every American has an insurance plan they can afford and keep, not to try to manage health care from Washington.

Social Security is another example of Government mismanagement. Instead of saving the taxes we take from workers for Social Security, Congress has spent every dime, trillions of dollars. Now, in less than 10 years, Social Security taxes will not be enough to pay benefits to seniors. Congress refuses to even talk about it.

Let's not forget what the Federal Government has done to our energy situation in this country. Congressional attempts to manage America's energy industry have been disastrous. To supposedly protect the environment, the Democrats shut down the development of new nuclear powerplants back in the 1970s. So America burns a lot more coal, while other countries expanded nuclear and reduced their coal consumption.

Now, the Democrats want to add huge taxes on coal to protect the environment, while still stalling development of nuclear generation. Go figure. Two years ago, in the name of the environment, this Congress mandated a massive increase in the use of ethanol and gasoline. Since then, the price of gasoline has nearly doubled and food prices have increased dramatically around the world.

Why do I mention all these things that do not appear to relate to the farm bill? I do it to remind my colleagues and all Americans that this Congress cannot manage any aspect of our country, and it is not intended to. Our job is to create a framework of law where freedom can prevail.

Instead, we attempt to manage where we cannot, and there is no evidence we have ever created any program that effectively or efficiently managed any aspect of the American economy or any aspect of our lives. Why do we continue to produce these massive Government programs and spend trillions of dollars with the pretense that they will actually work and make America better?

This Congress reminds me of Steve Urkel from the 1990 sitcom series ``Family Matters.'' Steve and his clumsiness regularly created a disaster wherever he went. He would always turn around and look at the destruction he caused and ask innocently: Did I do that?

Well, colleagues, when you look at the price of gasoline, the condition of our economy and our culture, the answer is: Yes, you did do that.

America is the greatest Nation in the world. We have been blessed in ways other nations can only dream of. Yet our future is uncertain. We face deficits as far as the eye can see. We are staring down the barrel of a looming financial crisis that threatens to bankrupt our country. Yet we continue to spend money like there is no tomorrow.

If action is not taken soon, we will reach a tipping point in our two major entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare, in which the programs will pay out more money than they take in.

Our national debt is over $9 trillion today. And still, Washington will spend over $25,000 per household this year. We are hopelessly addicted to spending. It is no wonder Congressional approval numbers continue on a downward spiral. Nobody trusts us anymore, and, frankly, we do not deserve the trust of the American people because we continue to blindly spend their hard-earned tax dollars while racking up hedge debts for our children and grandchildren that they will be forced to repay.

Now, here we are again, taking a brief break from the climate tax bill that would cost the American people trillions of dollars to reconsider another big-spending boondoggle. The farm bill which weighs in at over $600 billion over the next 10 years, is chock-full of pork and excessive subsidies for favored and special interests groups.

The bill has numerous wasteful spending provisions. I will name a few: New programs for Kentucky horse breeders, Pacific Coast salmon fishermen, and spending to help finance the dairy industry's ``Got Milk?'' campaign, so we should see more commercials soon.

It increases the price supports for the sugar industry and guarantees 85 percent of the domestic sugar market at these guaranteed prices. There is a $257 million tax earmark for the Plum Creek Timber Company, which is the Nation's largest private landowner, and a multibillion dollar company with a market capitalization in excess of $7 billion. They are better off than we are as a government.

The language requires the U.S. Forest Service to sell portions of the Green Mountain National Forest exclusively to the Bromley Ski Resort. There is $1 million for the National Sheep and Goat Industry Improvement Center; politically targeted research earmarks for agricultural policy research centers at specific universities instead of allowing all universities and colleges to fairly compete for funding based on merit.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, this farm bill includes $5.2 billion annually in direct payments to individuals, many of whom are no longer farming, without any regard to prices or income, 60 percent of which go to the wealthiest 10 percent of recipients.

From where I stand, this bill looks like another big-spending Washington, DC, giveaway to special interests. Do we not understand the mess we are in?

Total Government spending has now reached more than one- third of America's economy. U.S. tax rates keep getting more burdensome. Our top corporate tax rate and income tax rate is 35 percent, while Europeans are undercutting American companies by lowering their rates significantly.

Recently, a front-page article in USA Today found that American taxpayers are on the hook for a record $57.3 trillion in Federal liabilities to cover the lifetime benefits of everyone eligible for Medicare, Social Security, and other Government programs.

USA Today's analysis went on to point out that this is nearly $500,000, $\1/2\ million, for every American household. When obligations of State and local governments are added, the total rises to $61.7 trillion, or $531,000 per household. That is more than four times what Americans owe in personal debt such as mortgages.

While we are spending and taxing our way to reelection, many of our global competitors are lowering their tax rates and streamlining their economies. Countries such as Ireland are lowering their tax rates and encouraging economic growth within their borders.

As a result, they are growing their economies and creating jobs. And we wonder why we are falling behind? We are falling behind because of political mismanagement. This is what happens

when politicians think more about their next election than they do about the next generation. When this happens, it becomes all about us and not about the American people.

This big-spending farm bill is a perfect example of this kind of political mismanagement. The leadership of this Congress was in such a hurry to pass a big-spending giveaway to special interests that they actually violated the Constitution to do it. Even a schoolchild knows the Constitution requires the House and the Senate to pass the same bill and then present it to the President for his signature.

But, apparently, the Constitution is not as important to some as passing a $600 billion spending bill. The farm bill that was presented to the President for his signature or veto was not the bill passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The bill Congress voted on differed materially from the version that was presented to the President. It contained a whole additional title, spanning 35 pages, dealing with international aid shipments and foreign trade. Quite simply, what the President vetoed and what the House and the Senate held a veto override vote on was not the bill Congress passed. It, therefore, failed the requirements of the Constitution and could not be treated as law. That is why we have this new bill on the floor today.

Regardless of the reasons for this constitutional, I will not say crisis, but mess, the fact is an officer of the House and an officer of the Senate usurped the will of the two bodies and materially changed the content of legislation.

Even worse, by holding a veto override, Congress attempted to make a bill it never passed the law of the land. This is why I voted ``present'' on the farm bill. Once we were aware of the mistake, we should have stopped and passed a temporary extension. This abuse of power or sloppiness may only be the consequence of incompetence, but if we do not draw the line in the sand and demand that our bills meet constitutional requirements, what will stop even greater, and possibly even more malicious, abuses of power?

The Senate needs to reject this bill, pass a year-long extension of the farm bill, and go back to the drawing board so the policy and the process are something we can be proud of and that will truly strengthen our Nation.

We must come to grips with the fact that our actions are hurting the American people. We cannot continue to spend and spend and expect our economy to remain strong and free. Already our spending is catching up to us. I hope we will think long and hard about our actions. What we are doing will hurt future generations.

I urge my colleagues to vote against the bill. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record some information regarding enrollment and the problems we have been having with getting our bills sent to the President in the correct order.

Mr. President, the Constitution requires Congress to observe certain processes to make statutory law. Contrary to the apparent assumption of some in this body, Congress does not possess the power to intentionally ignore requirements provided in the Constitution's text. Article I, Section 7, prescribes a bicameral requirement to present a bill to the President. H.R. 2419, as enrolled, did not pass both chambers of Congress.

The House and Senate passed Farm Bill included Title III. A clerical error omitted the entirety of Title III in the enrolled bill presented to the President. The bill sent to the President, no matter the significance of the error, did not receive the consent of both chambers of Congress, and therefore fails to fulfill the necessary predicate to presentment contained in the Presentment Clauses of Article I. In fact, the measure sent to the President does not qualify as a ``bill'' at all under Article I, Section 7. I implore the President to disregard H.R. 2419 as an unconstitutional measure, without the status of law.

Despite the dubious status of the Farm Bill, the Majority Leader assured the Senate that:

We have a good legal precedent going back to a case . . .

in 1892, when something like this happened before. It is

totally constitutional to do what we are planning to do. So

no one should be concerned about that.

The Majority Leader alluded to Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, in which the Supreme Court announced the ``enrolled bill rule,'' to assuage any constitutional consternation held by Senators. However the Senator from Nevada mischaracterizes the Supreme Court's ruling in Marshall Field, as the decision relates only to the:

. . . nature of evidence upon which a court may act when the

issue is made as to whether a bill, originating in the house

of representatives or the senate, and asserted to have become

a law, was or was not passed by congress.

The Marshall Field Court did not adjudicate the constitutionality of an improperly enrolled bill, but rather only reached the question of justiciability. The Court did not find the issue of constitutionality justiciable. Marshall Field merely expressed the Supreme Court's deference to a ``coequal and independent'' department's internal authentication processes. A bill signed by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, ``in open session . . . is an official attestation by the two houses'' that a bill received the consent of both chambers for the purpose of justiciability.

Marshall Field received renewed attention in recent years as courts grappled with circumstances similar to those presented by the Farm Bill. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 generated litigation that challenged the Act's constitutionality because ``it did not pass the House in the form in which it was passed by the Senate, signed by the President, and enrolled as a Public Law.'' The litigation did not provide any ruling on the merits; the ``enrolled bill rule'' promulgated in Marshall Field precluded the district courts from any examination of ``congressional documents . . . to ascertain whether the language in the enrolled bill comport[ed] with versions that appear in legislative sources which precede[d] enrollment.'' The ``claim of unconstitutionality for a violation of Article I, Section 7, `is not legally cognizable where an enrolled bill has been signed by the presiding officers of the House and Senate as well as the President.' ''

The judiciary's reluctance to entertain the merits of claims under Article I, Section 7 does not bar members of the House and Senate from consideration thereof. President Jackson explicated the authority of each branch to interpret the Constitution independently:

The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for

itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution . . .

It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of

the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the

constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be

presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the

supreme judges when it may be brought before them for

judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more

authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over

the judges, and on that point the President is independent of

both.

Upon election and in cases of subsequent reelection, every Member of Congress swears allegiance to the Constitution of the United States in an Oath. Members ``solemnly swear . . . [to] support and defend the Constitution . . . [to] bear true faith and allegiance to the same . . . and . . . [to] well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office'' to which elected. The Oath of Office imposes an obligation on Members of Congress to interpret the Constitution and act within its framework.

The Presentment Clauses of the Constitution require the assent of both chambers for each bill presented to the President. Article I, Section 7, Clause 2 provides:

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of

Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a

Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If

he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it,

with his Objections to that House in which it shall have

originated . . .

Article I, Section 7, Clause 3 elaborates:

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence

of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary

(except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to

the President of the United States . . .

The two clauses stipulate ``the exclusive method for passing federal statutes.'' Bills enrolled and presented to the President must have received the assent of both the House and Senate, irrespective of authentication by the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate.

So we've had bicameralism without presentment for the engrossed bill. And we've had presentment without bicameralism for the enrolled bill. Neither is sufficient. Contrary to the position of the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader, authentication of an invalid bill does not displace the bill's nugatory status; the signatures of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate do not represent the will of the House and Senate and fall short of the bicameral requirement in the Presentment Clause. Congress may not jettison or suspend disagreeable parts of the Constitution. The Bill, as presented to the President, did not receive the consent of both chambers. As such, the bill is null and void, for it does not meet the requirements set forth in the Constitution. Shall this Congress crucify the Constitution on the cross of agribusiness?

Mr. President, I rise to speak on a resolution I have submitted today that declares June 6 a national day of prayer and rededication for the men and women of the U. S. Armed Forces and their mission.

As my colleagues know, when 73,000 Americans stormed the beaches at Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt went on national radio to lead the Nation in prayer for their success.

With over 300,000 men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces deployed worldwide today, and many of these troops directly engaged in armed combat in Iraq and Afghanistan against determined and ruthless enemies, President Roosevelt's words calling on all Americans to ``devote themselves to a continuance of prayer'' for American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in harm's way are as appropriate today as they were in June of 1944.

It is appropriate to make every anniversary of D-day, June 6, a national day of prayer for the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Now I will read President Roosevelt's D-day radio prayer:

My Fellow Americans:

Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I

knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our

Allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater

operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in

prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have

set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our

Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free

a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms,

stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and

hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces.

Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return

again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the

righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without

rest--until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by

noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the

violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They

fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end

conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice

arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They

yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the

haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive

them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home-- fathers, mothers, children, wives,

sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts

and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to

rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of

great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single

day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the

desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a

continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again

when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips,

invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too--strength in our daily tasks, to

redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the

material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail,

to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our

sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in Thee; faith in

our sons; faith in each other; faith in our united crusade.

Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not

the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but

fleeting moment--let not these deter us in our unconquerable

purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces

of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and

racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and

with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a

sure peace--a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy

men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom,

reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

Mr. President, I hope the Senate will take up this resolution and make June 6 a national day of prayer for our Nation.

Mr. President, I do not like to be the one to rain on a parade, but I am rising today to speak against the farm bill. I wish to do it in the context of thanking the chairman and the ranking member for their work. I think if we assume it is our job to manage the farming industry in this country, they had very little choice but to do what they have done and try to go through all aspects of farming and include it in this bill. That took over 2 hours to print out. It came out less than 2 days ago. We are getting ready to vote on it. Not one Member of the Senate has read probably even part of it--certainly not the whole bill. Yet I think everyone, or at least a large number of Senators, want to leave here today saying they voted for the farm bill.

I realize nothing I can say that is wrong with the bill--whether it violates budgets or even our own Senate rules, as far as what we are supposed to do in conference--is going to make that much difference. I wish to express some concerns--maybe, before I talk specifically about the farm bill, some broader concerns.

I heard one of my colleagues yesterday say it in a pretty good way: The Congress is comfortably sitting on a raft floating down a slow, deep river. But some of us hear the waterfall around the corner, and it is the waterfall I wish to talk a little bit about today.

We all need to remember our oath of office. I don't want to be preaching to my more veteran colleagues, but our oath of office is simply to protect and defend the Constitution. The whole point of that is the Constitution limits the scope of what we are supposed to do at the Federal level. It keeps us from getting involved in all aspects of American business and social life. It limits us so that we can, in effect, keep America free. But as we all know, we have continued to expand the scope of the Federal Government, essentially making a mockery of our oath of office now to the point where we are trying to manage the education system in America and we are trying to manage the health care system in America.

This week, we are trying to tell local and State governments how they are to deal with their public safety officers. We are trying to manage the farming industry in this country, which is very complex. I cannot pretend to understand it or to tell any other Member of the Senate how we are to manage it. But the fact is, we no longer limit the scope of what we do at the Federal level. There is no concern in this country or around the world that this body would not take up, and we seldom even talk about any restrictions the Constitution might have on what we do.

We also do not limit how much we can spend. We have no requirement that we balance our budget year to year. So we don't have to select priorities and cut programs when we add programs. So we continue to grow our budget, approaching now $10 trillion in debt as a Nation and adding to that every year. Here we are at a time of war and economic downturn, and there is nothing that is too much for us to spend. The President has proposed $50 billion of AIDS support to Africa. That is wonderful, but there is enough human need around the world to bankrupt this country 100 times.

This farm bill expands spending. It does not modernize the program in any way that does more to make the free and private market work. It takes us deeper and deeper into managing an aspect of the private economy, as we have done with health care and education, and every year we get deeper into trying to manage the private sector. Our role as a government should be to make the private sector work better, to make freedom work for everyone and not to use problems as an excuse to replace freedom and the private market with more Government. That is essentially what we are doing.

I am not just jumping on the farm bill and those who have worked on it. We know we continue to subsidize some millionaires, and we eliminate some key payment limits. I can go through the list my staff has given me of what is wrong with the bill. As I said before, I realize there are provisions that solve problems throughout, that there are constituencies for little aspects of this bill throughout. We pulled it together, and we are going to present it now to our country. What is wrong with the bill, frankly, has very little relevance today.

I appeal to my colleagues, I know we are not going to stop this bill, but we do need to hear the waterfall around the corner. We do need to accept there are some restrictions, some limits on what we are supposed to do as a Federal Government, some need to balance our budget or to begin to cut our debt and look at, if we are going to expand spending in one area, where can we cut it and pay for it in another area. We are stretched out as a country. We are on an unsustainable fiscal course. We at least need to bring that into our debate. That is what I would like to bring to everyone's attention today.

Again, I appreciate the chairman, the ranking member, and all those staff members who worked so hard on this bill. But, frankly, as a group, as a Senate, our direction to the committee and those working on it should be to reform a system and try to figure out how we can pull the Federal Government out of some aspects of American business. We did not do it with this bill. We have not read it. It is crazy for us as a Senate to pass a bill that we have not had for 2 days and have not read that spends the hundreds of billions of dollars that this bill does. But I do want to say I appreciate the work, but I recommend to any of my colleagues who are thinking about the future of America to please vote against this bill.

I yield back the remainder of my time to the ranking member from Georgia.

Yes.

I just have one. Thirty minutes equally divided?

Yes.

Madam President, I send a motion to the desk.

Madam President, I want to take a few moments to explain this motion. I hope we can all agree on it. If there is one thing that we hear from both sides when we are talking about trade around the world, and trade agreements, it is there needs to be a level playing field; that trade needs to be fair; that the terms should be the same on both sides.

This motion to instruct the conferees addresses that one issue. It would prevent Congress from passing any law with new mandates on greenhouse gas emissions that would harm the U.S. economy or result in job loss unless both China and India had the same mandates--in other words, if we had a level playing field. It is not going to help the environment in the United States or the world if we pass mandates that raise the cost of doing business in our country, particularly those companies that are energy intensive, especially manufacturing, if we create mandates that do not exist in India or China. Our companies will simply relocate to other countries, taking American jobs with them.

The point of this motion is to put in front of all of the conferees the idea that it is important for us to reduce greenhouse emissions, to reduce CO2 emissions all over the world. But it is also important for us to keep in mind that if we do something that is isolated to the United States, that hurts our economy and costs us jobs. It makes no sense if we don't require the major industrial countries, such as China and India, to do the same.

So we have seen over the last 15 years that CO2 emissions in the United States have actually grown less than the economy has grown. So our productivity is increasing, and our use per capita, as far as CO2, is actually declining. We see at the same time a 100-percent increase in emissions from China and India. Anybody who watched the prelude to the Olympics in China can see the results of that in the air.

So I ask my colleagues--particularly the conferees--to support the idea that we will not do anything that puts new emissions standards on our companies in this country, if we know it is going to hurt the economy or jobs, and that we need to insist the same standards apply in China and India.

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

Madam President, I appreciate the comments by my colleague from California. Certainly, it should be our highest priority as a nation to continue to remove CO2 emissions throughout our country. We don't need to wait for any other country to act, only our own.

We do need to recognize that if we put such a burden on our industries in America, they will move production to China, and they will do their polluting somewhere else rather than here. If that is what our legislation does, then we do nothing for the environment, and the only thing we do for our country is send jobs overseas. We need to be smarter in how we deal with this matter.

The side-by-side motion by my colleague from California would add insult to injury. She wants to leave us open to lose jobs in America by putting mandates on our companies that hurt our economy and cost us jobs. Then she wants to add taxes on products that are coming from other countries that don't abide by our mandates so that products cost more for the people who live here, many of whom would not have jobs.

We cannot solve our environmental problems with this kind of convoluted logic. The motion I have put forward simply says if--and only if--a mandate is known to hurt our economy and costs our jobs, then we need to figure out a different way to deal with it than to put a mandate on a U.S. company in competition with businesses that don't have the same mandate in other countries we trade with.

It is only common sense, and it doesn't make sense, again, to send jobs overseas and then try to add taxes to products that we buy from around the world. I encourage my colleagues to think this through. Let me provide a few more facts about what we are trying to do.

We need to work to reduce greenhouse gases, and there are many things we can do that do not hurt our economy and don't drive jobs out of our country. In fact, if we look at it closely, good economics is usually good for the environment. We see that if we move with all compassion but just knee-jerk reactions, we end up with programs, such as an ethanol mandate, that do not help the environment, raise the price of food, and hurt people all over the world. I am afraid that same type of thinking is going on right now.

It is a laudable goal, one with which I agree, that we should continue to work in all reasonable ways to reduce CO2 emissions in our country.

One recent study from the University of California found that China passed the United States in carbon emissions in 2006 and is now the largest pollution-producing country in the world. This has just been in a few short years, and they are growing much faster than we are.

We do need to keep in mind that carbon in the air that comes from China does as much to hurt the worldwide environment, if, in fact, it does affect global warming--it doesn't matter if it is coming from the United States or China. If we ignore what other countries are doing, we do it at our own peril.

My motion is very similar to bipartisan agreements that we had in the Congress when discussing the Kyoto agreement. It makes no sense to bind our own companies with expensive mandates if we do not have cooperation from countries in other parts of the world. We simply move our production and our jobs somewhere else. So we need to be logical about it.

I mentioned before, according to a World Bank study, both China and India have increased CO2 emissions by nearly 100 percent from 1990 to 2004, while the United States emissions in that same period only increased by 25 percent, which is less than the growth of our economy during that period.

This emissions scheme we have talked about would export American manufacturing jobs to China and India. With the solution that is being presented by my colleague from California, she is basically saying: OK, let's hurt the economy and lose jobs in this country, but we can make up for it by raising prices of goods that come to us from China and India. That is not going to help anyone in this country, and it is not going to do anything to reduce emissions in the world. It is playing musical chairs with American jobs and basically encouraging the environment to be spoiled in other parts of the world.

In order to truly address greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that China, India, and other countries that are emitting need to work together. So if we take this on simply as one country, we will hurt ourselves, we would not help the environment and we will send jobs overseas and actually encourage pollution, magnified, in effect, by not acting in a way that tries to seek cooperation around the world.

I certainly encourage my colleagues to respond to the need to reduce CO2 emissions and to look at ways we are doing it already that actually create jobs and don't take them from our country. But let's not solve the problem by making it worse and shipping our jobs and pollution overseas and expect to do any good with our legislation.

Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor.

Mr. President, my motion has been mischaracterized, I am afraid. I am opposed to the Boxer motion because it would clearly, from the language, add tariffs or some kind of penalties to imports from around the world, unless emissions standards in other countries match ours, I guess, exactly.

This would add to the cost of products that are purchased by Americans. My motion is one that tries to keep jobs in this country. Unfortunately, my colleague is suggesting, I am afraid, as many have over the years, that we have two false choices. We either have a good economy or we have a good environment. Those are not the choices.

In fact, my motion would allow us to continue to develop nuclear generation, which is good for the environment and the economy, or hydrogen cars or electric cars or hybrid cars. Most of what we can do is good for the environment and improves the economy. My motion simply says: We cannot pass legislation unless other countries go along, otherwise we are exporting jobs and pollution.

Mr. President, during the last vote, some of my Republican and Democratic colleagues asked me if it didn't make sense to vote for both these motions. Both understand we need to be careful in mandates that hurt our economy and jobs, unless we recognize what other countries are doing when they are polluting.

My motion focuses on here at home. I want to make sure folks understand what it is about.

Most of the things we can do to improve our environment and to stop CO2 emissions can actually improve our economy. We know, as we try to build dozens, if not hundreds, of nuclear plants, it will create new jobs all over the country and improve our economy, just as Europe has done. Solar panels and wind, as well as hybrid cars and hydrogen fuel--all of these things are good for the economy and energy. My motion--

Could I get another minute?

I thank the Chair.

My motion does not affect any of the attempts to reduce CO2 emissions except when we know it is hurting the economy and hurting jobs. In that case, we cannot move ahead with penalties and mandates unless China and India--the two largest polluting countries-- have similar emissions standards. So it is just a ``hold on,'' let's not hurt our economy and ourselves. There are many ways we can reduce CO2 emissions without hurting jobs in this country.

I encourage my colleagues to support this motion.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, I wish to talk about my amendment that will be voted on in about 15 or 20 minutes. It is amendment No. 4710. It is an amendment to the National Flood Insurance Program bill we are considering today.

The whole purpose of the flood insurance bill is to improve the program, make it more actuarially sound, make it more financially sustainable over many years. Obviously, we have had huge problems with the program. Yet it is very important to people all around the country, particularly those in coastal areas.

One of the goals of this reform bill is to make the rates fairer and to phase out a number of the subsidies that we have allowed under the current program.

The current program allows up to a 65-percent subsidy on properties that were purchased before we developed these flood maps. In other words, there were many properties purchased years ago when people did not know they were purchasing a home in a flood area. For that reason, we basically grandfathered these homes in and allowed them lower rates in the flood insurance program than those who bought homes after we had designated those flood areas.

The bill addresses some of those properties by phasing out the subsidies of nonprimary residences--those that are rental properties, second homes, and even those with severe repetitive losses. We take about 475,000 properties that were pre-FIRM, as we call it, or preflood map, and phase those out. There are 700,000 permanent residences we do not address in the bill.

The purpose of my amendment is to bring all the properties, basically, into the same plan, and not to force some to pay higher premiums so we can give subsidies to these 700,000 homes. My bill doesn't affect the rates or the subsidies of any current property owner. My amendment does address new owners, if those properties are sold after this bill passes. In other words, we continue the subsidies of current property owners, except for those already addressed in the bill. But if those properties are sold, clearly, the new owner would know they are buying in a flood zone, so the rationale to continue subsidies up to 65 percent does not exist.

I remind my colleagues that if we allow inequities to continue, where some are getting subsidies and some are not, then some residents--and one might be sitting next to another--are going to have a higher property value because it will get lower flood insurance rates indefinitely, no matter how many times it is sold.

My amendment, again, I think would improve the sustainability of the program. I encourage the ranking member to consider this. I know there have been agreements not to add or support any amendments. But I think this captures a lot of the intent of the whole bill to make the program sustainable and fairer, and actually my amendment would return about $550 million in additional premium revenues to the plan over the next 10 years. So this is, again, designed to make the program fairer.

I encourage my colleagues to look at this amendment. It is not a partisan amendment in any way. It will make the program better and fairer and it will bring everybody into the same status once properties are sold.

With that, I will reserve the remainder of my time and 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, in a moment I will ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment, but I wish to have a little discussion on the floor with the chairman and ranking member because for the most part, we agree on a lot of the principles in the bill, and they would like the latitude to work some of this out in conference.

My goal is to have a more sustainable, fairer program. The idea is not to raise the price of current premium payers or to raise the price of real estate. I want to ask my colleagues if they would consider some of the principles of bringing all policies eventually into some actuarial equity.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman and the ranking member. I trust their judgment to work this issue out in conference. I think the bill has made a lot of progress.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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

Mr. President, we have many important issues in front of us. We have been talking a lot about energy this week, including the high cost of gasoline and problems with ethanol mandates and potential problems with the cost of electricity. As we look at ways to reduce pollution, certainly energy is important. We have also been dealing with flood insurance. There is no shortage of issues. But we know as we talk to our constituents around the country that at the top of their list of priorities is health insurance and health care and the ability to afford the policies that are out there.

We have differences of opinion in the Senate as to how to deal with the uninsured in our country today. There is one philosophy that believes the government needs to be more involved; we need to expand government control of health care. There is another philosophy of which I am a part which believes that our job in the Senate and in the Congress and in the Federal Government is to make freedom work for everyone, and that includes people having the freedom to own their own health insurance. We believe when people do not work for a company that offers health insurance, they should have guaranteed access to affordable health insurance policies that they can take from job to job. I am encouraged that Senator McCain is on the side of freedom of choice and individual ownership of plans.

We know if we are going to make individual plans work, we need to address the high cost of insurance. We know that is the biggest impediment to getting coverage when that coverage is not offered through an employer. In fact, nearly two-thirds of the uninsured are the working poor, and they cite the high cost of insurance as the primary barrier to accessing health coverage. We can talk about the uninsured, and we can talk about the high cost of insurance, but we need to address the real causes of the high cost of insurance. We know if we look at the policies, if we talk to those who offer the policies--the insurance companies--we know that mandates, government mandates on those policies have a lot to do with the high cost of insurance.

States have passed more than 1,900 benefit mandates requiring insurance companies to cover everything from wigs to infertility treatments to acupuncturists to massage therapists. These may all be legitimate needs, but they are not legitimate mandates on insurance policies. When people are looking for a policy that meets their needs that they can afford, we cannot continue as governments--both State and Federal--to mandate that every policy cover every possible problem when individuals do not need those mandates to buy the policies they want. These mandates increase the cost of health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office, for every 1 percent increase in the cost of health insurance, 300,000 people lose their coverage.

A few States are getting the message that mandates make health insurance more expensive. There are at least 10 States that provide for mandate-lite policies which allow individuals to purchase a policy with fewer mandates and so are more tailored to their individual needs and financial situation. There are now at least 30 States that require a mandate's cost to be assessed before it is implemented. These States are getting the message. Mandates are pricing individuals out of the insurance market.

I have introduced legislation that addresses these growing problems. In December, Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona joined me in introducing the Health Care Choice Act. This legislation is important because it will allow consumers to shop for health insurance the same way they do for other insurance products. They can shop on line, by mail, over the phone, or in consultation with an insurance agent in their hometown.

Specifically, the bill would let insurers licensed in one State sell to individuals in the other 49 States. Most people are surprised that you can't do that now because in every other product category we can buy products not only in every State but all over the world. But with health insurance, we have taken a different tact, a tact that has made health insurance much more expensive because we allow a few insurance companies to monopolize the market in 50 individual States.

What we need is a national market for health insurance. Consumers will no longer be limited to picking only those policies that meet their State regulations and mandated benefits. Instead, they can examine the wide array of insurance policies qualified in one State and offered for sale in multiple States. This way, consumers can choose a policy that best suits their needs and their budget without regard to State boundaries. It makes a lot of common sense. Individuals looking for basic health insurance coverage can opt for a policy with a few benefits they need, and such a policy will be more affordable.

On the other hand, consumers who have an interest in a particular benefit such as infertility treatments will be able to purchase a policy that includes that benefit. Equally important, it creates incentives for insurance companies to offer innovative and customized insurance products, and it will reduce the number of Americans who have sought but have been unable to afford insurance coverage.

I am thrilled that Senator John McCain has made this legislation one of the cornerstones of his health insurance platform because health insurance coverage should not be dictated by State or Federal legislators. Families sitting around their kitchen tables should decide what their health insurance plan should cover. I believe Senator McCain's plan to address the gross health care inequity in the Tax Code and to harness the power of the marketplace through the interstate competition of insurance products, through that, Americans will be able to find affordable health insurance that offers more choice and better coverage. We know this is true.

As we talk to insurance companies, if they were allowed to offer products for all 50 States under one set of regulations, or under 50 if they choose, if they are able to have a larger pool of members, they can spread the risk and lower the rates.

The Health Care Choice Act is a commonsense way to let freedom work for every American, to let the free enterprise system work in health insurance as it does in almost every other area of our lives. I encourage my colleagues to consider the Health Care Choice Act and to move away from this idea that more government control, more government mandates is actually going to help us get more Americans insured.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to call up two amendments and then make some brief comments about them. The first amendment is amendment No. 4711, which I believe is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, my next amendment is actually a modification which I need to send to the desk. It is amendment No. 4710.

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

Mr. President, if I could take a couple of minutes to explain these, my hope is that I can even get the chairman's support of this.

Amendment No. 4711 is actually a study that I hope we can all agree on. It is a study that would try to determine the feasibility of using incentives of lower flood insurance rates when consumers or businesses have their homes or business locations comply with nationally recognized building codes. A number of codes are out there. If we could encourage better construction of buildings, to make them more resistant to storms, it is likely we could save the flood insurance program a lot of money. So this amendment would simply study the feasibility of those incentives and what it might do to insurance rates, as well as to saving Government money.

My second amendment, No. 4710, ends the practice of permanently subsidizing premiums for older homes in flood zones, which can be as large as 65-percent. The bill does a good job phasing out these subsidies for just about every other property: businesses, vacation rentals, and primary residences that have been renovated since the flood zone mapping was determined. But there are a number of homes that

are grandfathered into subsidies up to 65 percent. These are homes that were built before 1975 or when their area's flood mapping was actually done. These primary residences enjoy this subsidy, and will continue to under the current bill.

What my amendment does not do is change the insurance rates or the subsidy for those who are grandfathered into the current rate that we call pre-firm, or before flood insurance rate maps were completed; in other words, these are folks who could legitimately have said they did not know they were in a flood plain when they bought their home. I think their rates and subsidies should stay the same.

What my amendment does is make the premiums for pre-firm properties sold after this bill's enactment the same actuarial rates of homes that were built after the new mapping was complete, or post-firm. So it is a relatively simple amendment, and I think it gives more equity to the total bill by making sure all properties are eventually treated equally.

So I will provide more detail tomorrow, but I hope the chairman will consider both of those amendments because I would love to have his support.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on behalf of several of my colleagues, I object.

Mr. President, on behalf of several of my colleagues, I object.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator.

Mr. President, I need to start by expressing my disappointment at the misleading and distorted information that was just presented on the floor. Actually, I was amazed at what was just said.

The Commerce Committee had come up with an aviation modernization bill with strong bipartisan support. But, like many other bills we have faced with our Democratic colleagues in the majority, some of my Democratic colleagues chose to add special provisions for some interest groups and very wasteful and questionable earmarks, tax earmarks, using unprecedented methods to fund things through changing our Tax Code, things that there is a lot of consternation about: changing a pension plan.

The reason this bill has been held up is the majority decided to add things to it that had nothing to do with aviation. We want this bill to come through, and it has strong support.

Mr. President, no, I will not. I have been down here several times today, and I will continue my remarks. But I will be glad to have the Senator say anything after I complete my remarks.

The Senator mentioned the technical corrections bill for transportation. He said this was just typos. This bill added hundreds of millions of dollars of new earmarks to our transportation budget. It was not a technical correction bill. It was an opportunity for the majority and some others to add things that did not need to be a part of this bill. The Senator even knows, on bills such as consumer product safety where special provisions were added for manufacturers in that bill, we had to slow the bill down in order to get those things taken out.

So there is a reason the majority has not been able to move any significant legislation. It is because they tend to clutter it up with wasteful special interest earmarks that need to be taken out. Hopefully, we can come to an agreement to take out these unnecessary and unprecedented tax provisions in our aviation modernization bill so we can get this thing done.

Health Care

Mr. President, I did not come down to talk about aviation modernization, as I hope the majority will clean this bill up so we can get it through. But I want to talk a little bit about health care.

Health care is a priority for the Nation. Americans deserve access to affordable health insurance. Yet we are wasting time here and not doing anything to help with the health care crisis in this country today.

Fortunately, one of our colleagues, John McCain, has come out this week strongly for a health care plan that would help every American to be insured. He talks about guaranteed access to health insurance--plans people can own and can afford and keep, plans they choose for themselves and that are not chosen by the Government. This is the direction we need to move.

Unfortunately, my Democratic colleagues--at least many of them--do not want everyone to be insured with personal health insurance policies. They would much rather the Government take over the whole health insurance industry and decide for us what type of health plans we are going to have. The evidence of this is abundant.

There are a number of efforts Republicans have made to try to improve access to private health insurance. One is to allow people in this country to buy health insurance from anywhere in the country. Right now, they are restricted to buying it in the State where they live. So a few insurance companies have a monopoly on the business. We have had a Health Care Choice Act that would give Americans a chance to shop anywhere in the country. Yet the Democrats have blocked this bill.

Only a couple weeks ago, we had an amendment to the budget bill that would allow individuals to deduct the cost of health insurance, just as businesses do. But I believe every Democrat in the Senate voted against that, to give some kind of fair tax treatment to individuals who are buying health care. They blocked it. Yet they complain about individuals being uninsured. They do everything they can to keep individuals from owning health insurance.

Now the Democrats are trying to destroy health savings accounts. It started in the House with a bill that will change the way health savings accounts are set up. The fastest growing way for the uninsured to get insurance is new types of health plans that have health savings accounts and insurance, where people can buy most of their health care with their own dollars or in dollars their employers put in this health savings account that is tax free. It gives them a lot more choices and flexibility, and it takes out, importantly, the cost of third-party administration.

Health savings accounts are a way to restructure health insurance plans so that every time you go to the doctor or the hospital, there is not a third-party insurance company filing claims or dealing with billing and running up the cost of administration. We know today there are more administrative people in a doctor's office or a hospital than there are health care providers. The reason for that is, every time we use the health care system, there is a third party involved, whether it is private health insurance or Medicaid or Medicare, and there are a lot of administrative costs.

Health savings accounts not only give people more flexibility, but they begin to take the cost of administration out of health care. It allows an individual to make their own decisions with their doctors or with their pharmacists as to their health care, and they do not need approval from some health insurance company or from some Government bureaucrat whether they are going to spend this money. Certainly, the way health savings account dollars are spent is restricted to real health care, and that is the way it is working.

But, unfortunately, a company that provides this service of substantiating the way health care dollars are spent has come to Washington and convinced Democrats that we need a third party to determine whether a health savings account spending event can be substantiated. This is definitely a special interest provision that the Democrats have bought into. But what it does is it adds the administrative costs back to health savings accounts and takes away the flexibility we are giving to individuals.

Keep in mind, people who are uninsured and people who did not have insurance before and a number of people who are switching from traditional plans--and we have gone from 1 million people covered by health savings account-type plans to over 6 million in the last few years. It is the fastest growing type of health care plan because that is the kind of plan people want.

Let me just read some statistics. The reason for all this is the Democrats have inserted, on the House side, in the bill they call the Taxpayer Assistance and Simplification Act, provisions that would put an administrative burden on health savings accounts. They are trying to kill health savings accounts so we will all end up with Government health care.

I already mentioned that we have gone from 1 million people covered by health savings account plans in 2005 to over 6 million today. Thirty-one percent of the people who have these health savings account plans plus insurance were previously uninsured. Eighty-four percent of health savings account policies in the group and individual market provide first-dollar coverage for preventative care. So this claim that health savings accounts keep people from seeking preventative care is totally bogus because the plans are designed that when someone seeks preventative care, diagnostic care, the insurance pays for it and it does not come out of the health savings account.

Health savings accounts give people better access to the type of health care they want. We found that it even helps with chronic-disease management. If people have access to $1,000 or $2,000 more per year to use the way they need to for their own health, then they can manage their diabetes or congestive heart failure or other types of illnesses that are often restricted by traditional health insurance.

I want to encourage my colleagues--my colleagues who really believe Americans should have the freedom to own their own health insurance and not have to go to the Government for their health care--to help us preserve and promote and expand health savings accounts for those who want them.

I want to make it clear, health savings accounts are health insurance. They are just health insurance plans that have savings and insurance with them, so that most of health care can be accessed with dollars of patients doing direct business with their physician, with their pharmacist, with the hospital. It will save millions--even billions--as a nation in administrative costs. Already, Americans have well over $3 billion saved in health savings accounts for future health care needs.

This is an idea we need to expand across the country, not to destroy. I would ask particularly my Democratic colleagues on the Senate side not to take up this provision that the House included that will hurt and probably destroy the whole idea of health savings accounts.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for allowing me to speak, and I yield back the time.

I object.

I object.

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