Floor Statements

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

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize James Reid of St. Charles, MI, who earned the distinct honor of reaching the rank of Eagle Scout. James has earned such an honor through his outstanding dedication to his community and his commitment to citizenship.

James's rise to the rank of Eagle Scout is an achievement that is truly worthy of recognition. With this achievement, he joins a prestigious group of individuals, including U.S. Presidents, Members of Congress, astronauts, entertainers, businessmen, and clergymen.

James's dedication to community is evident in and around the St. Charles area. At a young age, he brought his community together through the fundraising and construction of the flagpole that now completes the city's monument to Lewis and Clark. In addition, he serves as an advocate for the homeless, working countless hours building

houses throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. In recognition of his dedication, James earned the President's Gold Volunteer Service Award. As for many Eagle Scouts, this honor is merely the beginning of success, and I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

The honor of achieving the rank of Eagle Scout is truly a momentous occasion for James Reid and his family and has come as a result of his diligence and hard work. I thank James for representing St. Charles and the State of Missouri in such an exemplary manner.

Mr. President, I rise today to congratulate the Agriculture Future of America, AFA, on its 10-year anniversary. AFA was founded by R. Crosby Kemper, Jr., to encourage and support college students who are preparing for careers in agriculture.

AFA is forming the future of agriculture by preparing the industry's future leaders today. This organization more than any other I know of gives young professionals access to industry leaders and training from professional corporate consultants while they are still in college. In just 10 years, the organization and its members have established an outstanding reputation in the agriculture industry. AFA members can be found in respected positions throughout agriculture and the business world. They are recognized by companies as reliable, effective leaders who can meet the challenges posed by an ever-changing economy.

R. Crosby Kemper, Jr., recognizes the potential of college students coming from rural America especially when coupled with opportunity they otherwise might not have. Mr. Kemper founded AFA with the vision to create an organization that would catalyze further development of these young adults on a professional level. As I travel around Missouri and to other areas, I see that our farmers are aging. We need effective young professionals to be prepared to take over the reins. AFA creates a professional network that respects individuals and promotes lifelong learning as well as building of lifelong alliances.

As I have said so many times before, Americans enjoy the safest, most affordable and most abundant food supply of any country in the world. That is due to the efforts of farmers in Missouri and across the Midwest. AFA is producing leaders who will help us maintain this position as a world leader in production agriculture.

I want to thank the leaders of AFA and its members for their commitment to agriculture. They understand why it is important we continue to support this vital industry. The U.S. food system is the largest industry in the U.S. and is the leading export sector of our economy. Few things are as important to America's future as the health and safety of our food system.

Agriculture is also one of the leading industries in Missouri; more than 14,000 jobs are directly created by agriculture. This number doesn't even include the thousands of jobs supporting this industry. Thankfully, AFA is there to help men and women who are interested in agriculture realize their potential in an exciting and vital industry.

Congratulations to AFA members and leadership on this landmark occasion. I look forward to working with you as an organization and as agriculture leaders in the future.

Mr. President, I rise today in recognition of a remarkable Missourian. The First Baptist Church of Arnold, MO, has announced the retirement of its longtime and much beloved pastor, R. Gerald Davidson. Dr. Davidson has served as a pastor for the last 50 years, the last thirty of which, he has dedicated to the First Baptist Church of Arnold.

Dr. Gerald Davidson is a visionary leader and has been instrumental in furthering and directing the ministry of the church. Today, the First Baptist Church of Arnold is the third largest church in the Missouri Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Davidson's personal dedication to the gospel has never faltered, and his own personal example has set the standard for both his church members and Baptist leadership throughout the Nation.

In fact, Dr. Davidson's vision and his good works have reached throughout the world. On numerous mission trips he has preached the gospel in Mexico, Haiti, Jamaica, South Africa, Taiwan, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, Romania, Belarus, Slovenia, Croatia, Bolivia, India, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Kenya.

However, Dr. Davidson's dedication starts at home. He has been married to his wife Verlena Stone Davidson for 51 years. She has been an equal partner in the ministry, serving side by side with her husband. The Davidson's have three children, Doug, Debbie, Darla, and are blessed with 10 grandchildren.

Dr. Davidson's many accomplishments throughout his distinguished career are a result of hard work and dedication. The Arnold community joins me in appreciating Dr. Davidson's dedicated service.

Madam President, is it in order for our side to speak now?

Madam President, I wish to speak a few minutes today about the repeal of the death tax and why we ought to do it and, the very least, why we ought to vote on it. I do this with a background of somebody who chaired the Small Business Committee in the House for two terms and had occasion to have hearings on this proposal and on the death tax. And more than that, I have spoken over the years with scores and scores of small business people and farmers who are penalized by this tax in a particularly demoralizing way. I think it is time to get rid of it or at least to vote on getting rid of it. We owe that to them.

These are the people who drive America's economy. These are the people who create the jobs, who create the technical innovations on which we depend. They are particularly hard hit by our death tax, which is the most onerous estate tax or death tax in the world.

Keep in mind that death taxes work on estates that have already been taxed. There isn't anything in an estate that hasn't already been taxed as a lot of it has already been taxed several times, and our death tax allows the Government to come in on the demise of a person and collect up to 55 percent of what they have worked for, what they have earned, and what they saved in the hope they could benefit their children.

The death tax is punitive. It costs the economy. It is directed precisely at the kind of activity that we need for economic growth and at precisely the kind of people who drive economic growth. Repeal of the death tax would increase nonresidential investment capital by $25 billion, an average of 100,000 to 200,000 jobs a year, greater disposable income for American workers, and stronger economic growth. That is what the economists say when they study it.

I believe the impact of the death tax is far greater than just what the economists have been able to estimate and monetize because it is a particularly demoralizing tax. It says to the small businesspeople and the farmers, indeed, to everybody who saves and invests, that you can do everything you can to build up your business, you can do everything you can to build up your farm, you can do all that with a view toward benefiting your community, your employees, and making the kind of success we want you to make out of your life, you can be successful at the American dream, and then the Government comes in and takes more than half of it and often takes more than half of it under circumstances which have the impact of destroying the whole enterprise. This is not speculation; this is what small businesspeople are saying and what they have said year after year after year. I know because I have had them before my committee.

Many in Missouri are affected by this tax. Renee Kerchoff is the second-generation owner of Rudroff Heating and Air-Conditioning, started in Belton, MO. Because her family worked hard, because they were willing to take risks, because they reinvested what the business earned instead of keeping it for themselves, the business has done well. Her father is no longer living. Renee's mother is living. She is going through the dilemma thousands and thousands of family businesspeople go through in this country every day: she is trying to figure out how to save the business when her mother passes away because she will owe a huge financial liability to the Federal Government.

When I was chairing a committee in the House, I had one woman--not Ms. Kerchoff but a different woman--break down in front of the committee trying to explain how she and her brother were unable to save the family business. ``Mr. Chairman,'' she said, ``if we have to sell the business, what is going to happen to the employees?'' What happens to employees when you have to liquidate a business? What happens to employees when you have to sell out to a big company? They get laid off.

Farmers, in the view of this tax, are often considered to be wealthy because they have farmland maybe near a suburban area that has gone up in value. There are farms in Missouri where the land is valued at $1 million or more. Those farmers would be surprised to hear that the Federal Government believes they are wealthy. A lot of that land is near St. Louis or Kansas City. It has gone up in value, but they don't

have the cash to pay the tax. They are going to have to sell the farm to pay the tax instead of passing it on to their heirs.

This is a common story all over the United States. What are these family businesspeople and farmers trying to do? They are reacting to this. They don't want to sell the business. They don't want to sell the farm. They are spending enormous amounts of time and effort and money on lawyers and accountants trying to figure out how to preserve what they have built up for their whole lives. Do we want them meeting with their brothers and sisters and other family members and spending hours and hours on an estate plan, or do we want these innovative and hard- working people spending hours and hours figuring out how to grow their business and create jobs and grow the economy so that the rest of us will benefit?

To me, the answer is clear. We can unleash this layer of people around this country by telling them: Look, when you earn money, yes, you are going to pay a substantial amount to the Federal and State government--and many of them pay 50 percent or more of their income in Federal and State taxes--but once you have paid that, what is left is yours. It is yours and your family's. You can reinvest it in the business, you can build up the farm, and you don't have to have this hanging over your head year after year. We are not going to penalize you for succeeding at the American dream.

Heaven knows, enough small businesspeople and farmers fail. They try their best, but they don't succeed. And here we have a tax which dates back decades and decades, an out-of-date tax which punishes people for doing what we want them to do. That is what is wrong with this tax. It is economically wrong. It has bad impacts. The think tanks can study it and monetize all that and figure out all the bad, negative impacts of this tax, but it is just wrong. It is wrong, when a person has spent their whole life trying to build something up so they can leave something to their kids and their grandkids, for the Government to come in and take it all, and that is what it amounts to, especially when they have paid taxes on it already.

We have a weird tax system. We have a tax system that says to people: If you spend everything you earn, if you are a small businessperson and you take the money out of the business and you consume, if you go out and you draw the biggest salary you can draw, you don't expand the business, you don't build it up, you don't try to help your employees by creating more opportunity for them, you don't try to do anything for your community by expanding the economic base of the community, if you spend it all, the Tax Code favors that, we think that is OK. But if you try to do what my parents and the people of my parents' generation routinely did, which is live up to your responsibilities of the next generation, you try to save it and invest it and grow it because you believe in America, you believe in the future of the country, and you want to help your kids or your grandkids or somebody else's kids or grandkids, the Government doesn't like that. The Government is going to come in and take all of that. Why? Because we are afraid we are going to lose revenue.

I am a believer that if you trust in the American people, in the hard work, the decency, the foresight of the American people, we are going to do OK with revenue. If we grow this economy, the Government will have plenty of revenue.

At the very least, we ought to vote on this. I believe it is time for us to ask, as a body, are we going to filibuster everything? I mean, is there no bill we can just allow to come to a vote? If you don't like this, vote against it. Now we are filibustering the motion to go to the bill. I hope everybody in the country understands that this is a filibuster of an attempt just to debate the bill. We are not even going to allow that. Despite the expressed wishes of small business organizations and farm organizations, despite the trend in the rest of the world, we are not even going to debate it. We don't trust the American people with their money. We don't trust the small businesses and the farmers to expand the economy and to create jobs, and we don't even trust ourselves to vote on something. No wonder people are frustrated.

There is still time to do the right thing here. Let's vote on the motion to proceed, pass the motion to proceed, debate the bill, and then I hope pass the bill--if not a permanent repeal, at least a substantial permanent reform that lowers this tax substantially, creates simplification, and says to our entrepreneurs, our small businesspeople, our investors, our farmers: We trust you, and we believe in you. Go out and do what you want to do because we think that is good for America.

We still have the chance to do that. I hope we will.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to take a few moments today to speak in favor of the Marriage Protection Amendment. This is an important measure, and the people are entitled to see who in this body is for protecting traditional marriage and who is not, because nothing less than that is at stake.

Some courts in this country are engaged in a process by which they are going to force the people, whether they like it or not, to accept a fundamental change in the basic building block of our society. I think that is wrong; under our constitutional process the people shouldn't accept that and don't have to and that's why this amendment is here before us.

Marriage is our oldest social institution. It is older than our system of property. It is older than our system of justice. It certainly predates our political institutions and our Constitution. And marriage may be the most important of all these institutions because it represents the accumulated wisdom of literally hundreds of generations over thousands of years about how best to lay the foundation of a home in which we can raise and socialize our children.

Now it isn't always possible to raise children through marriage, and certainly single parents around this country do heroic jobs nurturing children in difficult circumstances. We should give them credit and certainly we should give them as much help as we can. One of the ways we can do that is by affirming the social standard in favor of traditional marriage, which helps create a climate within our culture of stability and order for our children.

The social scientists have figured this out too. As a result of decades of accumulated data, family scientists from the fields of sociology, psychology and economics, have concluded children and adults on average experience the highest level of overall well-being in the context of healthy marital relationships.

We know what happens when societies abandon the model of traditional marriage. The Scandinavian countries legalized same-sex marriage years ago, and the result is that fewer and fewer people in those countries get married at all, and more and more children are born out of wedlock. That is not a good thing for their children. In short, the minimum we can say is that the evidence is not even close to showing that we can feel comfortable making a fundamental change in how we define marriage so as to include same-sex marriage within the definition.

The other issue at stake is who should decide these questions. The first and most basic right which our people possess is the right to govern themselves.

The Framers thought that right was self-evident. It means that the only just government is the one that derives its powers from the consent of the governed. That means that every act of any governmental body has to be the result of a process in which the people have, at some time, consented.

Despite this right, some judges have decided to attempt to change the definition of marriage without reference to the will of the people.

Right now, nine States face lawsuits challenging traditional marriage laws--California, Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington. In four of those States-- California, Maryland, New York, and Washington--trial courts have found a right to same-sex marriage in State constitutional provisions--in each case relying in part on the Massachusetts decision. State supreme courts are expected to decide appeals of those decisions in 2006 or 2007.

And in Nebraska, a Federal district court in 2005 found unconstitutional a State constitutional amendment passed by 70 percent of Nebraska voters.

In short, it is clear that there is a well organized and deliberate movement in this country to redefine marriage--to change our most fundamental social institution--without regard to the right of our people to govern themselves.

Unless we pass a constitutional amendment, we will allow the courts of this country to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans on an issue that is of greater importance to them on a day-to-day basis because it involves the way in which their children and other people's children are going to be raised than most of the legislation we debate here.

If we cannot agree in this Senate on anything else, we should be able to agree on this: Everyone should have the right to advance their point of view in the legislative process on this issue; and we can trust the good sense of the American people to produce the right result in the end.

The only way we can do that is by passing a constitutional amendment. That is what this debate is about. That is why I will be supporting the amendment before the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of S. 3061, 3062, and 3063 be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of S. 3061, 3062, and 3063 be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I understand we are speaking in morning business; is that correct?

Mr. President, I rise to speak against the bill. I want to begin by saying that America has a proud history of immigration. When we say that America is a nation of immigrants, we mean that deep in our national consciousness is the image of America as a haven and a place of opportunity for people from all over the world.

Our policies have reflected that image. America has always had more open immigration policies than any other country. But those policies have been the result of choices the American people have made.

We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. Like all sovereign nations, America has the right to determine who may enter our country and who may not. The American people have chosen to strike a legal balance between their desire to provide opportunities to new residents of diverse backgrounds and the economic reality that too much immigration too fast will depress the wages and diminish the hopes of millions of our own citizens.

I say with the utmost respect that the bill before us completely abandons that traditional balance. It provides an amnesty to those who, however understandable their motives, have chosen to trespass on our hospitality and violate our laws and does so under conditions that history has shown will increase rather than decrease illegal immigration in the future. It allows a vast new immigration for decades to come, with no regard whatsoever for the impact on the lives and hopes of our own citizens who have the first claim to the American dream, and it does little or nothing to repair the existing system of legal immigration which regularly confounds the expectations of millions around the world who claim a legal right to enter the United States.

Moreover, the Senate has regrettably and inexplicably rejected commonsense amendments which were designed to restore the balance Americans want and have the right to expect. For those reasons, I could not support voting to end debate on the bill, and I will not now support its final passage.

I should say at the outset that I do support the border security provisions in the bill. Border security is a national security issue rather than an immigration issue. For that reason, I recently sponsored bipartisan legislation, the Border Security and Modernization Act, in order to help secure America's border with additional manpower, new barriers, and high-tech surveillance equipment.

The bill I cosponsored authorizes new funds for technology to assist our Border Patrol, to construct roads, fences, and barriers along the border and to purchase air assets such as helicopters. In addition, the Border Security and Modernization Act will increase resources for border detention centers and enact stricter criminal penalties for human smuggling, falsifying work entry documents, and drug trafficking.

The immigration bill before the Senate contains many provisions similar to those in the bill which I cosponsored, and I am pleased the Senate approved an amendment which I also cosponsored to strengthen those provisions providing for the construction of at least 370 miles of triple-layered fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers at strategic locations along the southwest border. But the good done in the immigration bill by these provisions could largely be accomplished by the President without new statutory authorization and is, in any case, far outweighed by the negatives in the bill.

I oppose the bill first because it grants a broad-based amnesty--the right to legal residence and even citizenship--to 10 to 12 million people who violated our laws. Permanent residence in the United States, not to mention American citizenship, is a valuable and important privilege.

Granting these privileges under these circumstances rewards and therefore encourages unlawful immigration. It demoralizes and punishes the millions of people around the world who have respected our rules and who are trying patiently to immigrate legally into the United States, and it makes a mockery of the policy that is supposed to form our immigration laws--the desire to balance our need for workers and vision of America as a place of opportunity against the importance of protecting jobs and wages at home.

If Congress grants an amnesty under these circumstances, what will be the argument against granting another amnesty 5, 10, or 20 years from now if millions more people, in response to the incentives created by this bill, manage to enter the United States illegally?

To those who say this will not happen, I say that it has already happened. Congress granted an amnesty 20 years ago for largely the same reasons under the same conditions and with the same assurances being offered in support of this bill before us today. Far from preventing illegal immigration, that amnesty has magnified the problem by four- or fivefold. What reason do we have to believe the same thing will not happen if we pass this bill, especially since the amnesty procedure in this bill is certain and takes effect immediately, while the border security provisions may not work at all and will, in any event, take years to implement? I suspect the pressure on our borders is increasing even now simply because the Senate is seriously debating an amnesty.

I also oppose the bill because it authorizes a vast and unvalidated increase in immigration. The bill allows 70 to 90 million immigrants to enter the country over the next 20 years--not, by and large, scientists, doctors, or engineers, but people who will compete directly against Americans for

jobs in the hospitality industry or for craft work in construction or manufacturing.

I begrudge no one the desire to come to the United States to make a better life for themselves. My grandparents did that, and so did my wife's mother. I certainly hope the economy will grow fast enough that we will need additional workers, but our first responsibility is to our own people. We cannot sustain the American dream if we do not provide opportunity for all Americans, including those who do not or cannot go to college. I can think of nothing more likely to cause conflict and division, and raise the ugly specter of ethnic prejudice than making millions of Americans compete against foreign workers, sometimes in economic recessions, for the jobs their families need to make ends meet.

Congress should be willing to increase legal immigration where our employers have proven needs that our own workers cannot meet. I believe such shortage exists today in certain parts of the economy, such as agriculture, and I would be willing to consider increases in the current limits in those areas. But that decision should be made on the basis of evidence, not speculation, and Congress should make it carefully and for short periods of time rather than guessing what the labor situation will be 10 or 20 years from now.

These decisions we are considering today matter. They affect the lives of millions of our people who rightly expect that we will look out for their interests, not make them feel guilty about their legitimate concerns for themselves and their loved ones. Moreover, the legal immigration provisions in the bill will cost our taxpayers $54 billion over the next 10 years. That fact is not disputed, even by the sponsors of the bill. Because of the deficit, our health care programs are under pressure. Congress is begrudging disaster relief to our farmers. The Nation's transportation infrastructure is underfunded, and some are proposing to reduce the defense budget or increase taxes. I simply cannot understand why, at a time like this, Congress would undertake an additional budgetary commitment of this magnitude to foreign workers our economy may not even need.

Finally, I oppose the bill because it does very little to fix the current legal immigration system. The great irony of this whole debate is that it has focused largely on the wrong problem. If we want to help the economy and provide justice to immigrants, we should concentrate first on making our current programs at least minimally workable.

As Senators are probably aware, there are significant backlogs in our current system due to the sheer volume of aliens eligible to legally immigrate to the United States. As of December 31, 2003, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service, that is the USCIS, reported 5.3 million immigrant petitions pending. USCIS decreased the number of immigrant petitions by 24 percent by the end of fiscal year 2004--that is a pretty good job--but they still had 4.1 million petitions pending. Every new applicant who is not an immediate relative of a U.S. citizen must go to the end of lines that vary in length according to country, the prospective immigrant's relationship to their American sponsor, and profession.

According to the State Department, experienced laborers from India face a 5-year wait for a visa, while Filipino siblings of Americans wait more than 22 years.

In my office, we live with this problem with the current immigration system every day. I have five caseworkers who spend parts of each day in response to constituent requests, assisting those who actually claim a legal right to enter our country. These prospective immigrants have respected our laws. They and their Missouri sponsors spend large amounts of time and money trying to navigate the existing system. We have almost 200 pending cases in our office alone.

They include Missourians who want to adopt children from abroad, foreign doctors who want to work in rural areas where they are desperately needed, and world renowned researchers who want to bring their knowledge to the United States. These people have a right to immigrate under the current laws. Yet the bill does nothing for them. In fact, the bill makes their situation worse because it puts them at the back of the line. The bill inevitably means that the time and attention of the Immigration Service will be spent processing the applications of undocumented workers and administering a vague new guest worker program for 70 million to 90 million people, rather than on the cases of legal immigrants which, in some cases, have been pending for years.

What I have just said is the answer to those who claim this bill is necessary because it is the only practical solution to our current situation. Mr. President, anybody even marginally familiar with our current legal immigration system knows that it is in disarray. I honor the work of our border agents, but the reality is that our existing border security system is in every respect inadequate. I recognize that many diligent government workers are trying to process the claims of legal immigrants, but here again, they and the system are overwhelmed, even in trying to administer the current complicated visa system. The idea that our current immigration infrastructure can take on the real job of border security, process a multitiered amnesty program for 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens, and administer the claims of 70 million to 90 million new immigrants, in addition to its current responsibilities, is sheer fantasy. And to argue in favor of this bill on the grounds that it is a practical solution to anything shows how far from reality the proponents of this legislation have really traveled.

Mr. President, I suppose there are many in Missouri who support this bill, and I know many Senators have worked hard to come up with this legislation. But in the last month, I have received over 4,000 calls, e-mails, and letters urgently in opposition to this measure before us, and I think a word should be spoken on behalf of the concerns of those constituents. They are not paranoid because, in a world of terrorism, they want the border under control. They are not ungenerous because they worry about jobs for themselves and their children. And they are not less progressive than Washington opinionmakers because they believe in the sovereign right of a democratic people who decide who and who shouldn't become a resident of this country.

The Senate had a chance to pass a good bill, a bill that secured the border, that fixed the system of legal immigration, that developed the biometrics our border security and immigration agents need to enforce the law that stops the coyotes and the fly-by-night employers from circumventing the law and paying cash to unlawful workers. The Senate has fumbled that chance. I suppose this bill will pass, based on the votes we have had in the last week or so. My hope is that in conference with the House, the Senate will agree to a commonsense bill that I can support, one that respects the balance which the American people want, are waiting for, and have the right to expect.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his kind words and his great work and his comments regarding my involvement with the idea of small business health plans. What he said is true regarding my involvement. I am not the father of this idea, but I think I probably ``midwifed'' it years and years ago when I served in the House in 1997. It has passed the House on a regular basis ever since then and, as the chairman knows, on a very strong bipartisan basis because the idea of small business health plans is fully within the mainstream of both parties' thinking which is one of the very powerful arguments in favor of it.

The No. 1 issue facing small business today as a whole is not energy costs, although certainly they are too high. It is not immigration, although that is definitely an issue. It is not taxes, although we all hear our share of complaints from small business people about that. It is the rising cost of health insurance and the number of

people who do not have health insurance. That is largely a small business problem.

There are 45.8 million Americans who are uninsured today, 4 million more than 2001. That number has grown every year, in years of prosperity or recession. The vast majority of those uninsured people are working people. And most of those working people are people who work for a small business. They work for a small business, they own a small business, or they are dependents of someone who works for or who owns a small business.

The smaller the business is, the worse the problem gets. Only 40 percent of businesses with 3 to 6 employees today have health insurance for their employees and that number is down from 52 percent in 2004 and 58 percent in 2002.

We are entitled to ask ourselves, Why? I have heard a lot of explanations over the years. Why does small business have a problem providing health insurance for its employees whereas bigger companies don't? You would be surprised at the explanations offered. I had one witness from the Government Accountability Office tell me that he did not think employees of small business wanted health insurance. I have other people speculate that small employers did not care as much about their people who work for them as big companies do. That certainly will come as a revelation to Senators that big corporate employers care more about their employees than the small business owners and managers do-- the small business people who work on a daily basis with their employees, the small business people who would like to get health insurance themselves from the small business if they could figure out a way for the small business to provide that health care to the employees.

It is not a question of the small business people caring enough. The problem is, the cost and complexity of getting health insurance for a small business is greater than it is for a big business. It will surprise no one who has common sense that it is harder to insure a small market, a small group, than a big group. The cost of insurance is less if you can spread it across a bigger pool of people. This has been studied extensively, and that very commonsense conclusion has been validated.

I will go over some of the figures for the Senate. Health insurance premiums for small business people increased by 10.9 percent in 2001, 12.9 in 2002, 13.9 in 2003, 11.2 percent in 2004, and 9.2 percent in 2005.

The smallest firms have always seen bigger increases in premiums. Why? Well, the SBA's Office of Advocacy has found that small businesses typically spend much more than large businesses for the same benefits. Not that the benefit packages are different, not that small businesses are trying to buy more expensive benefit packages; they have to spend more to get the same benefits because the administrative costs of some benefits are almost 14 times more for the smallest firms than for their largest counterparts.

According to the Government Accountability Office, from 20 to 25 percent of small employer premiums typically go toward expenses other than benefits compared with about 10 percent for large employers. The small business people are paying more to get the same benefits because they have higher overhead costs and higher administrative costs. They do not enjoy the same economies of scale the big companies enjoy.

The American people know this. I have a lot of stories from Missouri I could tell. I do not have the time. But the American people are living with this every day.

Jim Henderson is the president of Dynamic Sales in St. Louis. It is a third-generation family business that sells welding accessories and other products. It is a small business. He has eight employees. Health insurance has been a problem for 16 years for Jim. He spoke with his insurance agent, who suggested raising the deductible to keep the premium the same, so he has raised the deductible. It has gone from zero to a $1,000 deductible in the last 10 years. So despite that huge increase in the deductible, to this day, he experiences huge increases each time he tries to renew the policy. When he asked his carrier about the enormous increases and why they are raising his premiums so much, the carrier responded: Well, because we can.

Tammy Herbert is a certified optician from Farmington, MO. She is a cancer survivor. She had breast cancer. She is a single, working mom. She is an inspiration when you talk to her. She told me because of her history of breast cancer, 2 years ago her employer's insurer canceled all the individual policies for her and her colleagues.

People talk about small business health plans resulting in cherry- picking. They ought to see what is happening today in the small group market.

Renee Kerckhoff is the second generation owner of Rudroff Heating & Air Conditioning, in Belton, MO. She can only afford to cover a small portion of employee insurance premiums--about $150 a person per month. As a result, and despite her best efforts, her employees are having to drop their health insurance because they cannot afford the copays and the premiums they have to make and are going on public assistance.

These stories are happening all over Missouri and all over the country. Sometimes I will get with a group of people and ask them: Look, if you had a history of medical illness, and you had the choice of working for a big company or a small company, and all you cared about was health insurance, and all you knew about the companies was that one was a big Fortune 500 company and the other was a small company, which one would you work for? I have never had anybody raise their hand and say: I would work for the small company because the assumption is I am going to get better health insurance from the small business.

They know, because it is a matter of common sense, insuring a large pool of people is more efficient, more economical and, therefore, less expensive than insuring a small group of people.

Just look at the people who are insured in the country. Virtually everybody who has health insurance, except for the employees of small business people, have it as part of a big national pool. It may be public, it may be private, but it is a big national pool. They work for a big company. They are in a labor union. They are on Medicare or Medicaid or they are a Federal employee or a retired Federal employee or in the VA.

All these other organizations could insure on a small group basis if they wanted to. The Federal Government could go out and take each section of Federal employees in different cities and divide them all up and insure them in a small group. There is no law against that. Microsoft could do the same thing. Hallmark in Missouri could. Anheuser-Busch in Missouri could. They could insure each little section if they wanted to. Well, they do not because it does not make any sense. It would cost them more money to do it. Yet small business people have to do that every day.

So what is the answer? Well, there is a simple answer that is out there. Everybody tries to make it more complicated than it is, but it is simple: Empower the small business people to do what the big business people can already do. Allow them to pool together through their trade associations and get health insurance as part of a big, national, voluntary, efficient, economical pool.

I give an example: I think it is the best way to describe it. Take a restaurant owner such as my brother, who owns a little restaurant. It is kind of a tavern restaurant. It is a great place. It has great chicken sandwiches. And I highly recommend it to you if you get to Missouri. He does not have health insurance for his people. It is too expensive. It is complex and foreboding for him. He and my sister-in- law run the business. They do not want to have to wrestle with big insurance companies. They are afraid if something goes wrong, they could get sued. He would like to have health insurance. Then he could get it through the business, too.

Now, what if the National Restaurant Association could contract with big insurance companies? They could be his employee benefits section, just like big companies have an employee benefits section. By joining the National Restaurant Association, he automatically would have the right to join the big pool. They would send him the papers. They would show him the options he

has, and he could decide how much he wants to pay. He could let his employees pay the rest and join the pool. He could have health insurance as part of a big pool. It would be must-offer, must-carry. They would have to let him join the National Restaurant Association and would have to offer the health insurance to him.

When I chaired the Small Business Committee in the House, we studied this issue. And I have seen a lot of other studies since then. The best estimates I saw were that it would reduce premiums for small employers by 10 to 20 percent; a recent study came out and said 12 percent. There would be a million fewer people uninsured.

It costs the taxpayers nothing. It is not a Government program. It is empowering small business people to do what big business people already can do. I think the impact would be much greater than the studies have shown because right now the psychology of health insurance, if you are a small business, is so negative. I think you would see whole segments of the economy, which traditionally have not provided health insurance to their employees, begin to provide health insurance. And the restaurant business is one of them. It is one of the reasons the National Restaurant Association is so strongly in favor of this concept.

Now I have talked about this for almost 10 years. I lay it out for people, and they say to me: Well, who would oppose this? I actually get that question a lot: Who is opposed to it? And that is a good question. It is fully within the mainstream of both parties' philosophy. It is empowering the little guy, just like farm co-ops. It passes the House with a strong, bipartisan majority every year. And why shouldn't it?

What is the downside of it? The downside is: It does not work as well as we hope it is going to work. Not as many people go into it as we hope and believe will go into it.

It is not as though the taxpayers are going out on a limb. So who is opposed to it? Well, nobody will be surprised to hear that the big insurance companies have opposed it, and they have come up with all sorts of excuses over the years. I am not going to go heavily into it because the chairman has worked very hard to get as much consensus as he can get. But I will say this. I think they oppose it not because they are afraid it will not work but because they believe it will work. And they control most of the small group market now. I do not have time to go through those figures. But the concentration of the small group market within the five largest carriers has grown and grown and grown. And small business health plans would be a powerful, new competitive force in that market.

The State insurance commissioners have been concerned because these small business health plans would be national and they felt the State would not be able to regulate it. In fairness, I have to say, I have never agreed with that. Remember, the big companies already operate free of State regulation. That has been the law for 30 years. And we have not had any disasters as a result of that. I do not believe anything that has happened in the last 10 years or so is proof that we can trust the big companies more than we can trust the small companies.

If I had to decide who was going to be free of State regulation, I think I would rather have the small businesses free of that. And it is not as though the market the States have regulated never has any problems. There are a lot of insurance companies that go bankrupt, and the States have to take them over.

But the good news is that the chairman has squared this circle. He has worked out an arrangement for the regulation of small business health plans where many of the State regulations and much of the State regulatory authority will still apply. I am not saying the State insurance commissioners are standing up for his bill, but I think it is safe to say that many of their objections have been ameliorated, and the chairman has made much progress on that front.

Folks who tend to be sincerely on the ideological extreme on health care issues--and maybe ``extreme'' is the wrong word, but they want to go one way or the other--have been lukewarm about small business health plans. There are some who wish to eliminate the employer system and take the Federal tax deduction and pass it through to individuals and let them go out and buy health insurance on their own, and there are others who want a total Government solution. And this is not any one of those things.

It is a substantial and important and meaningful but incremental change in the world we are in. It makes things better for people on a day-to-day basis who are out struggling in the real world. Maybe it is not the reform that any of the think tanks on the right or left would come up with, but it makes a difference. It will help. There is little or no downside to it. We need to help the real people who are really hurting.

Finally--and this I understand entirely; I struggled with this myself in the years I had this bill--the groups that have worked to get various disease mandates in the States have been concerned. Because if you worked hard to get a mandate so that mammogram screening is covered in your State as a matter of right, and small business health plans go into a national pool, just like the big companies, if we do not do something, they would not be subject to those State mandates.

I have made a point in talking with these groups over the years saying that, look, the big company plans, the big pools that exist out there--the labor unions, the company plans, the Federal employee plans; all those sorts of things--they usually cover all those mandated coverages, anyway, because most of them are pretty common sense.

Again, remember, if you have been sick, and you have a choice of working for a big company that is not covered by the State mandates or a little company that is, which do you think has the better health insurance? The folks I have talked to over the years say: Well, we would go with the big company.

But I think we are going to be able to square that circle as well. Senator Snowe is going to offer an amendment which will represent progress in this area. It will provide that if 26 States cover a mandate, that mandate applies to small business health plans, and it is protected in the States that have it. So this is progress. It is not just net progress; it is absolute progress for these various groups that have sought these protections because they are going to have, if that amendment passes--and, certainly, I am going to support it--they will have protections on the Federal level for the first time for these various coverages.

So I am very hopeful they will take a look at this. I believe with the amendment Senator Snowe is going to offer, the concerns they had not only do not apply anymore, but actually they are going to be better off because for the first time we are going to have national pools set up under Federal law with certain basic patient protections and coverages that are guaranteed. As I said, I do not think those would be necessary because I think the pools would cover them, anyway. Most of those are pretty common sense. But we can put them in the law and reassure everybody. And I think we can make the bill better if we do that.

I see my time is running out, Mr. President.

So what is left? Why should we oppose this? I do not want to be presumptuous. I have lived with this bill for so long that maybe there are weaknesses I do not see. But this is something we can do for people. It passes the House regularly. They like it over there. It has a strong measure of bipartisanship, anyway. There is no real downside to it.

Let's debate the bill, and let's resolve that we are going to debate it with a view toward actually voting on it.

I hope nobody filibusters this bill. We can work out agreements about debate, work out agreements about amendments, and have a chance to help people. This is a problem. This is a case where people are hurting. I know politics is important here; I know this is an election year; I know all of that. But we can make a difference for real people on the ground every day who are worried about losing their health insurance or who do not have health insurance and are worried about getting sick. We ought to do it.

I thank the Senator for yielding. It looks as though my time has expired. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, America has the safest, most abundant, best tasting, and least expensive food supply not only in the world, but in the history of the world. There are a lot of good people in the food and fiber production industry who deserve credit for that. But the heart of food production in the United States and the world and the center of the rural communities that produce our food and fiber, is none other than the American family farmer and rancher.

I want to assure everyone here of this. There are a lot of us in Congress and in the country that believe in agriculture; we intend to continue supporting policies that help farmers; and we're not going to apologize to anyone for doing it, especially foreign countries that are not negotiating in good faith with the United States through the WTO.

When I am in Missouri, I hear strong support for the current farm bill. Producers all over the State tell me that they like the programs created in the farm bill and they want to see it extended, especially when we have the uncertainty of the current WTO negotiations hanging over the head of our domestic agriculture industry.

It would be unfair to our nation's agriculture producers to write a new farm bill in the midst of ongoing international trade negotiations. Today, Senator Lincoln, and I, with a number of other members, filed legislation to extend the current farm bill until the Doha round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is complete.

Our Nation's farmers and their lenders should not be asked to operate under rules that keep changing. We must have fair global trading rules in place before we write the next farm bill. A farm bill extension is a reasonable and sound approach.

Everyone knows that safe food is abundant in the United States. Farmers and farm workers constitute 2 percent of the total workforce in the United States, yet they help feed the entire world. Unfortunately, some people in Washington believe that we spend too much in securing that safe and abundant food supply.

What does this safe and inexpensive food supply cost the Federal taxpayer? In the United States, domestic support programs amount to \3/ 4\ of one per cent of the total Federal budget. For \3/4\ of one per cent our farmers are able to sustain an agriculture industry that produces 25 million jobs and 3.5 trillion dollars in economic activity.

For three quarters of one per cent of the Federal budget, Americans have a hedge against ever being held hostage to food imports the way we are now held hostage to energy imports. Where would our security be without the American family farm? What would it mean for the United States if our family farmers went out of business, and foreign powers could threaten our food as they now threaten our energy? Do we want to rely on Brazil for food the way we rely on Venezuela for oil?

I believe the best way to continue support for this strong sector of our economy is to extend the farm bill until we have a WTO agreement that is good for American agriculture. I do not believe that we should negotiate with our trading partners and against ourselves.

As George Washington wrote in 1796, ``Agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage.''

America will be more than ever what George Washington predicted in 1788 it would be: the ``storehouse and granary for the whole world.''

Mr. President, America has the safest, most abundant, best tasting, and least expensive food supply not only in the world, but in the history of the world. There are a lot of good people in the food and fiber production industry who deserve credit for that. But the heart of food production in the United States and the world and the center of the rural communities that produce our food and fiber, is none other than the American family farmer and rancher.

I want to assure everyone here of this. There are a lot of us in Congress and in the country that believe in agriculture; we intend to continue supporting policies that help farmers; and we're not going to apologize to anyone for doing it, especially foreign countries that are not negotiating in good faith with the United States through the WTO.

When I am in Missouri, I hear strong support for the current farm bill. Producers all over the State tell me that they like the programs created in the farm bill and they want to see it extended, especially when we have the uncertainty of the current WTO negotiations hanging over the head of our domestic agriculture industry.

It would be unfair to our nation's agriculture producers to write a new farm bill in the midst of ongoing international trade negotiations. Today, Senator Lincoln, and I, with a number of other members, filed legislation to extend the current farm bill until the Doha round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations is complete.

Our Nation's farmers and their lenders should not be asked to operate under rules that keep changing. We must have fair global trading rules in place before we write the next farm bill. A farm bill extension is a reasonable and sound approach.

Everyone knows that safe food is abundant in the United States. Farmers and farm workers constitute 2 percent of the total workforce in the United States, yet they help feed the entire world. Unfortunately, some people in Washington believe that we spend too much in securing that safe and abundant food supply.

What does this safe and inexpensive food supply cost the Federal taxpayer? In the United States, domestic support programs amount to \3/ 4\ of one per cent of the total Federal budget. For \3/4\ of one per cent our farmers are able to sustain an agriculture industry that produces 25 million jobs and 3.5 trillion dollars in economic activity.

For three quarters of one per cent of the Federal budget, Americans have a hedge against ever being held hostage to food imports the way we are now held hostage to energy imports. Where would our security be without the American family farm? What would it mean for the United States if our family farmers went out of business, and foreign powers could threaten our food as they now threaten our energy? Do we want to rely on Brazil for food the way we rely on Venezuela for oil?

I believe the best way to continue support for this strong sector of our economy is to extend the farm bill until we have a WTO agreement that is good for American agriculture. I do not believe that we should negotiate with our trading partners and against ourselves.

As George Washington wrote in 1796, ``Agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage.''

America will be more than ever what George Washington predicted in 1788 it would be: the ``storehouse and granary for the whole world.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for a few moments.

The PRESIDING OFFICE. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about last night's passage of S. Con. Res. 60, a resolution that designates the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO, as America's National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I can't think of a more appropriate time of the year to have passed this landmark legislation than this week--opening week of the 2006 baseball season. The passage of this historic resolution will allow an already fantastic museum to grow and become even better.

That would be reason enough to pass a resolution here were the museum on any other subject. But on this subject, which is so significant to the history of America, it made the resolution, I think, even more important. I am grateful to the Senate for passing it last night.

Many of baseball's most noted stars of the past century got their beginnings in the Negro Leagues. Greats such as Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Willie Mays, Satchel Paige, and of course, Jackie Robinson eventually brought their fast-paced and highly competitive brand of Negro Leagues baseball to the Major Leagues. In fact, much of the fast-paced style of baseball today is owing to the influence of the Negro League's brand of ball.

Unfortunately, before the color bar was broken, many skilled African- American ballplayers were never allowed to share the same field as their White counterparts. Instead, such players played from the 1920s to the 1960s in over 30 communities located throughout the United States on teams in one of six Negro Baseball Leagues, including teams in Kansas City and St. Louis in my home State of Missouri.

The history of these leagues is an interesting one. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, African Americans began to play baseball on military teams, college teams, and company teams. The teams in those days were integrated. Many African Americans eventually found their way onto minor league teams with White players during this time. However, racism and Jim Crow laws drove African-American players from their integrated teams in the early 1900s, forcing them to form their own ``barnstorming'' teams which traveled around the country playing anyone willing to challenge them.

In 1920, the Negro National League, which was the first of the Negro Baseball Leagues, was formed under the guidance of Andrew ``Rube'' Foster--a former player, manager, and owner of the Chicago American Giants--at a meeting held at the Paseo YMCA in Kansas City, MO. Soon after the Negro National League was formed, rival leagues formed in Eastern and Southern States and brought the thrills and the innovative play of the Negro Leagues to major urban centers and

rural countrysides throughout the United States, Canada, and Latin America.

For more than 40 years, the Negro Leagues maintained the highest level of professional skill and became centerpieces for economic development in their communities. The Negro Leagues constituted the third largest African American owned and run business in the country in those days. They brought jobs and economic activity to many of the cities around the United States and played in front of crowds of ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty thousand people. These crowds were integrated. White and Black fans came to watch the Negro Leagues, and they sat together.

In 1945, Branch Rickey of Major League Baseball's Brooklyn Dodgers recruited Jackie Robinson from the Kansas City Monarchs, which made Jackie the first African American in the modern era to play on a Major League roster. That historic event led to the integration of the Major Leagues and ironically prompted the decline of the Negro Leagues because, of course, Major League teams began to recruit and sign the best African-American ballplayers.

If you stop and think about it, the integration of baseball was the first of the major events in the civil rights movement in this country--well, not the first, because that movement, of course, had begun early in the last century. But it was the first significant widely known event. Baseball was even more than it is today America's game. The effect of this on the national consciousness, the progress that made toward equality and justice for all people, cannot be underestimated. That event occurred because of the Negro Baseball Leagues. Without those leagues, we would not have the pool of ability and excellent baseball players from which Branch Rickey was able to draw when he came to an agreement with Jackie Robinson. Ironically, though, that event, which led to the integration of the Major Leagues, prompted the decline of the Negro Leagues, because Major League teams began to recruit and sign the best African-American players.

The last Negro Leagues teams folded in the late 1960s. Much of the storied history of these leagues was packed away and forgotten until 1990 when the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum was founded in Kansas City, MO, to honor the players, coaches and owners who competed in Negro Leagues Baseball. This museum is the only public museum in the Nation that exists for the exclusive purpose of interpreting the experiences of the participants of the Negro Leagues from the 1920s through the 1960s.

It is not a hall of fame, Mr. President. We don't want it to be a hall of fame. The Negro Leagues' baseball players belong in the Major League Hall of Fame. They were segregated long enough. It is a museum that exists in order to educate and enlighten people, and to allow them to enjoy the experience of the Negro leagues in the United States.

Today the museum educates a diverse audience through its comprehensive collection of historical materials, important artifacts, and oral histories of the participants of the leagues. The museum uses onsite visits, traveling exhibits, classroom curriculum, distance learning, and other initiatives to teach the Nation about the honor, the skill, the courage, the sacrifice, the humanity, and the triumph of the Negro Leagues and their players.

This resolution designates the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City as America's National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. This designation will assist the museum in its efforts to continue the collection, preservation, and interpretation of the historical memorabilia associated with the Negro Leagues. This effort is a must if we hope to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the experience of African Americans and the African-American ballplayer during the trials and tribulations of legal segregations.

The full story of the Negro Leagues should be preserved for generations to come and the passage of this legislation gives the museum another tool to do just that.

I highly recommend a visit to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for anybody who is in Kansas City. Whether you are a baseball fan or not, you will be moved by what you see and the stories you are told at the museum. You will be encouraged and inspired in every way by seeing how these players confronted the injustices of their times, and with great spirit and energy overcame all obstacles placed in front of them.

This museum is a first-class operation of 10,000 square feet in the historic 18th and Vine neighborhood in Kansas City. It entertains 60,000 visitors a year. There is a number of key features to the museum, but I think the passage through which you can walk and see a timeline of the Negro Leagues' development, and then next to it a timeline of important events in American history and the civil rights movement, is very enlightening and very moving. You will learn about these leagues and the players as people, and through that and through their experiences, you will learn about the times. These were not downtrodden men who played in this game, nor were the owners or the fans.

They were joyous. They played a game they loved, and they played it extremely well. Yet in the context of everything they did was the legal and social situation in the United States they were battling, over which they eventually triumphed.

Those who visit will be encouraged and inspired by seeing how those players confronted the injustices and other difficulties of their time with great spirit and energy and overcame the obstacles in front of them.

I congratulate everybody at the museum who continues to work so very hard to make sure the story of the Negro Leagues is a piece of history that is preserved for future generations. The passage of this legislation is an important way to honor the museum, its employees, all its volunteers and supporters for their years of tireless advocacy on behalf of the baseball legends of the Negro Leagues.

I especially thank and congratulate Don Motley, Bob Kendrick, Annie Pressley, and Buck O'Neil of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for their dedication and assistance in passing this resolution.

I also thank Senator Durbin for cosponsoring this resolution with me and others who cosponsored it as well.

I am not going to take up much more time of the Senate. I know we are taking a little break from the important immigration debate, but I can't pass up the opportunity to put in a good word about my friend Buck O'Neil and the tremendous work he continues to do for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Buck is a true American treasure whose illustrious baseball career spans seven decades. It has made him one of the game's foremost authorities and certainly one of its greatest ambassadors.

I am not going to go through all of Buck's statistics as a player, as a manager in the Negro Leagues, or as the first African American who became a coach in the Major Leagues. He did so with the Cubs. In that capacity, he discovered superstars such as Lou Brock, for which I am very grateful. If he had been in control of the Cubs' front office, they would not have traded Lou Brock to the Cardinals for Ernie Broglio in 1964, and they might have won a couple pennants themselves. So I am grateful Buck was not the Cubs' general manager at the time. I don't think he would have made that mistake.

In 1988, after more than 30 years with the Cubs, he returned home to Kansas City to scout for the Kansas City Royals.

Today Buck serves as chairman of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum he helped to found. The work he has done after he retired from the game may be even more significant to the history of baseball than his exploits as a player or manager. Nobody has done more to build this museum and to call the rest of us to remember the significance of Negro Leagues Baseball than Buck O'Neil.

He has reminded us that the leagues are significant in so many ways on so many different levels. They represent a triumph of the human spirit, tremendous sportsmanship, high quality of play, and were of vital importance to the African-American community of the time, and they led directly to the integration of the Major Leagues.

The work of Buck O'Neil and the museum led the Hall of Fame to hold special elections earlier this year to elect a class of Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues ballplayers into the 2006 Hall of Fame induction class. On February 27, 2006, the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown announced that 17 former Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues players and executives would be inducted into the Hall of Fame in July 2006. That was largely because of the efforts pushed by Buck and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and concurred in by Major League Baseball. It was a bittersweet day for me and many of us in Missouri because the one name missing from that list of 17 players and executives was Buck O'Neil.

I certainly think there is nobody who meets the criteria for induction into the Hall of Fame more than Buck. If you look at his statistics on the field as a player, his years as a scout, his years as a manager and a coach, even more than that, his years as an ambassador for baseball, a happy warrior for the Negro Leagues and the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, it more than qualifies him for admission into the Hall of Fame. I hope we can find some way to correct this oversight quickly.

In closing, I thank the Senate for its patience. I thank my friend and colleague from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, for his assistance and support in moving this legislation swiftly through the Energy Committee.

I thank the colleagues who supported the legislation and allowed it to pass by unanimous consent last night. The story of the Negro Leagues is a story of true American heroes who contributed to this Nation on and off the field and confronted life with courage, with sacrifice, and eventually with triumph in the face of injustice. I hope the Members of the Senate will take an opportunity when they are in the area to learn more about these heroes by visiting what I hope and believe will soon become known as America's National Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, MO.

I thank the Senate, and I yield the floor.

Yes; he has a big place in the museum.

I thank the Senator for his comments.