Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to honor Reverend and Mrs. Charles Chatman, who are the founders of the Charles Chatman Evangelistic Association. Reverend Chatman accepted the call into ministry at the age of 16 in 1958. He and Jean were married in 1960 and have ministered together for the last 44 years. Reverend Chatman served as the senior pastor in churches throughout Missouri until he and Jean entered into full time evangelistic work in 1975.

Since that time, the Chatmans have traveled to many countries leading mission teams and crusades. They have ministered in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Trinidad and India.

In over 29 years of work in Haiti, the Chatmans' ministry has built 30 churches, one medical clinic and a children's orphanage. Immanuel Orphanage, in the village of Bombardopolis, is home to 250 children. The Chatmans have led over 3,000 people from across the United States on mission trips overseas. The Chatmans are committed to bringing hope to all those they encounter. Reverend Chatman and his wife Jean are dedicated to the glorious service of their Lord and Savior.

Charles and Jean Chatman are proud parents of Darla, husband Brian, Cindy, husband Dan, and Bryan. They have five wonderful grandchildren: James, Ashley, Brandy, Jessica, and Wilna.

I commend Reverend Chatman and his wife Jean for their outstanding years of service. Their message of hope is an inspiration and blessing to all of us. I am honored to share their successes with my colleagues, and I wish them the best for the future.

Madam President, the hour is getting late. I am going to take a few minutes of the Senate's time to talk a little bit about welfare reform. It is a subject that has been close to my heart for a long time. I was a freshman in the House when I introduced, along with then-Congressman Tim Hutchinson who subsequently served in this body, what we called the real welfare reform act.

The idea behind that bill was to stop talking about welfare reform in terms of whether we could save money or whether we could stop fraud in the welfare system and start talking about what was really at stake, which was replacing a system that had punished work, that had discouraged marriage, that had torn down neighborhoods, and had mired people in despair and replaced it with a system that encouraged work for able-bodied people, required it in some cases, that supported community-based solutions, and built up neighborhoods.

We talked about that bill for several years. Welfare reform gained steam. There were some who opposed it the whole time, who fought a last ditch effort on behalf of the status quo; a pretty lousy status quo it was, too. But eventually we passed the bill by very large majorities in both Houses. President Clinton signed it. There were predictions of doom. It has turned out to be--I guess now by consensus--the most successful legislation of the 1990s, and the most significant social reform passed in the last generation in this Congress. Now the extension of that bill, the new welfare reform bill, the attempt to extend the benefits of work and marriage to more and more people around this country, is being filibustered.

That is not a new thing in this Senate. I made a quick list. We can't approve nominations for judges; that is being filibustered. The Energy bill was filibustered. The liability relief bill was filibustered. The tax break for manufacturers to try and keep manufacturing jobs in the United States was filibustered. Now welfare reform is being filibustered in the name of passing a minimum wage increase.

Of course, there are varying opinions in the Senate and around the country about the minimum wage. I have supported it in the past, when it was linked to tax benefits or other kinds of support for small business because whatever you think of it, it is a mandate on small business. We ought to support small businesspeople, the ones who are creating the jobs in the country, if we are asking them to increase their payments.

Whether you do or you do not support the minimum wage, though, it is a terrible mistake to filibuster the welfare reform bill in the name of passing the minimum wage bill. As a matter of fact, my understanding is the leadership has offered to take votes on that and several other measures that Senators on the other side want to offer, if

we can have some assurance the bill will pass, some assurance that going through these amendments that are not germane to the bill will allow us to pass the bill and then get to conference and finally pass the bill and send it to the President. That does not seem to me to be an unreasonable request.

Why is it so important that we pass welfare reform? What has happened since 1996? Mr. President, 3.6 million fewer Americans live in poverty now; 2.9 million fewer children live in poverty. Child poverty is at its lowest rate. Kids are not as poor as they were. In June 2002, there were 5 million welfare recipients, which was a 65-percent decrease from the 1994 level. The poverty rate of single moms is the lowest rate in U.S. history. Even the out-of-wedlock birth rate has stabilized and gone down slightly since 1996.

I was at a press conference earlier today when a lady talked about the effect of this on her life. Because of welfare reform, she is now working and supporting her family. She talked about what it meant to her kids. The first day she came home from work with a paycheck, they waited for her, and they wanted to go to the store and pay cash at the grocery store instead of having to use food stamps. They were proud of their mother. There are stories such as this all over the country.

Now in the name of helping the poor, some Members are holding up the welfare reform bill. There is an irony in that.

Let me talk a little bit about history. Poverty in the United States in the immediate postwar era was about 30 percent. It declined steadily for 20 years until 1965; reached about 15 percent in 1965. And that is when the Federal Government declared war on poverty, which was a good thing. One of the frustrations about this whole experience is there is a consensus. If we look beyond the politics of the 24-hour news cycle and look where the two great parties in this country have come from, what their mainstream beliefs are, there should be a consensus about welfare reform. There is on final votes.

Liberals, in 1965, got the Federal Government aggressively in the business of trying to do something about poverty. That was a good impulse. What went wrong with it was that they did it in such a way that showed a disrespect for the basic values that have always gotten people out of poverty. The two best antipoverty programs, historically, in the United States, the way people get out of poverty have been work and marriage, family. They work and they marry somebody who works. They get out of poverty.

Poverty is not that unusual an experience for Americans. Most Americans either grew up in poverty or they have a parent who grew up in poverty or at least a grandparent who grew up in poverty. That is how they got out of poverty.

For 30 years, from 1965 to 1995, in the name of fighting poverty, the Federal Government conditioned assistance to poor people on them not doing the two things that get people out of poverty. They offered a package of benefits that, to somebody coming from a low-income background, looked like a lot of money--cash benefits, Medicaid, housing subsidies, food stamps--but only on the condition they not get a job, they not get married, and they have children anyway. That is how we ran the welfare system for 30 years.

The poverty rate, which was 15 percent in 1965, 30 years later was 15 percent. But it was intractable poverty because if you are 18 or 19 years old, you have a child without being married, you don't have your education yet, a couple years later you realize it is hard now to climb the ladder. It is hard now to realize the American dream.

Well, we fixed that in 1996. We introduced a system where if you are able bodied, we are going to help you work. There is a constellation of benefits and supports in the bill to enable you to work. The other day, we passed an amendment increasing daycare in this bill. I supported that to enable people to work.

The bill extends the benefits of work to more people and makes sure that the States around this country have to keep trying to help people get off welfare and into self-sufficiency. We should define success not by how many people we get on the welfare rolls, but by how many we get off. We can open opportunities for millions of people who currently don't have it.

The bill contains a provision I strongly support. It was in a measure I had introduced, establishing a promarriage program. In 1996, we talked a lot about reducing the out-of-wedlock birth rate. That was a good thing to do. We wanted kids to have dads. I am glad we introduced that subject. In a sense, we were fighting the darkness by talking about what we were against. The bill we are debating today lights a candle. You cannot just fight the darkness; you have to let in the light.

There is a $300 million grant program here, encouraging the States to go to people when they apply for welfare and talk to them about the benefits of healthy marriage. The surveys show that a majority of folks applying for welfare--or many of them--are living with the partner with whom they are having a child. Many of them, if not most, are thinking about marriage. There may be many reasons in their minds why they don't want to do it. Maybe their parents had bad experiences. Maybe they are not certain about the partner. Maybe they have fights and they don't know how to resolve that. What an opportunity we have at that point-- and often through community-based organizations that have grown up in the last 10 years--to approach them and say, here are the benefits to your children of being married, if you can do it in a healthy way. Here is how you can do it that way. We can help you learn how to resolve disputes, help you learn how to build healthy relationships. That is in this bill.

There are a lot of things in this bill we know will make a difference for people because they have made a difference for the last 7 or 8 years. It is being filibustered in the name of helping the poor.

Well, I don't really know what to say. It seems to me we ought to be able to come to some kind of an agreement here. I have been in meetings of Senators on this side of the aisle, when the Republican leaders have said, we are willing to give votes on some of these message amendments, but we want some assurance that we are going to have an opportunity to vote on the bill in final passage after a reasonable period of debate, and then go to conference.

I know the Senate is different than other legislative bodies. I am new here and it is an honor to be here. I have had the privilege of meeting and working with people on both sides of the aisle that I read about and saw on television for years, and they are an extremely able group of people. But most legislative bodies are about actually doing something. We have measures before us that I know, if we can get to final passage, would have substantial majorities--bipartisan majorities. This is one of them. How come we cannot get there?

It is hard not to reach the conclusion that politics is being played--not politics in the broadest sense because actually that is part of what democracy is about, not laying forward an agenda, presenting it to people, and driving distinctions between you and the people who disagree with you and getting support from the public so you can move an agenda that makes a difference, but the politics of controlling or shifting the discussion from an issue focus groups say doesn't help you on an issue, but the focus group says does help. I don't think that politics works. Here we are holding up legislation on behalf of--I am afraid to say it, but I think of politics that is not even very good politics and certainly will end up hurting a lot of people.

I have worked on this subject for a long time. I have an underlying faith that we are going to get our act together at some point and get this done. I know too many people of good will in this body. I emphasize again how important this is to real people. I have been all over this country, all over my State of Missouri, and I have talked to so many people, recipients, people who work with welfare recipients, who are excited about what has happened in the last 7 or 8 years as a result of the passage of the 1996 bill. We did something good.

Work and marriage can make a difference for people. We can have a Federal Government that is aggressive in helping people in a way that is consistent with the great values upon

which we built this country. That is at stake with this bill.

I hope we can reach some kind of conclusion. I am certainly willing to vote on these other issues. I might have a few extraneous amendments I would not mind offering myself. But at the end of the day, we need to get this bill done, send it to the House, conference on it, and get it to the President. We can all be certain that when we do that, the bill we produce is not going to be perfect in anybody's eyes, but it will be a step down the road we took in 1996, which made a difference in the country to those who are the most powerless.

I yield the floor.

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

Two or three minutes?

Madam President, I very much appreciate the Senator yielding and also the courtesy of the Senator from South Carolina who, I know, was expecting to go next. For that reason, I am going to be very brief.

I want to say a few words about what I understand us to be doing today and the importance of it. As I understand it, what we are doing today is conforming Federal law to the common understanding of people around the country, and certainly in the heartland where Missouri is and, indeed, the practice of most of the States.

If a man takes a woman across State lines--let's say she is his girlfriend, and she has gotten pregnant, and he does not like that fact--and he assaults her, hits her in the stomach or something, with the intention of getting rid of the baby, and his act of violence has the intended effect and the baby dies, what we are saying is he has claimed

two victims. He has hurt mom, or maybe done worse to her, and he has killed the baby, which is what his intention was to do.

I think all of us recognize the seriousness of that kind of offense and acknowledge that an offense like that against a pregnant woman, and directed at the baby, is more serious because of the status of pregnancy and because of the existence of that child than it would otherwise be.

So far I think we are agreed. My friend, the Senator from California, wants to call that second offense the ``interruption'' of a pregnancy rather than the claiming of the life of a child.

I appeal to the Senate, and to the country, through the Chair, and ask what our understanding is, what our instinctual reaction is to that kind of a crime.

When a woman loses a child in that kind of instance, she has not lost a pregnancy, she has lost a child.

Earlier in our marriage, my wife had several miscarriages. She did not think of it as losing a pregnancy. She lost children. That is why people have memorial services sometimes--often--in cases like that. That is why they go through a grieving process. That is why they may get counseling.

I do not see why, with the greatest respect to the substitute amendment and to the Senator from California, why we cannot conform Federal law to that common understanding. I think we should.

I understand the sensitivity on the issue of abortion. I really do. I think the Senator from Ohio and the Senator from South Carolina have tried to structure this bill to avoid those sensitivities. It is hard to do.

But just because--for overriding reasons of public policy that some here adhere to very strongly--we cannot recognize the status of this child when mom, for reasons that she thinks are justified, believes she must end the pregnancy, it seems to me, it does not mean we cannot accord the child the dignity of the status of a human being when the child has been the victim of a vicious act of violence against both mom and the child.

I thank my friend again for allowing me to intervene for a moment. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I commend Staff Sergeant Ronald W. Hoskins of Fort Leonard Wood, MO, for over 20 years of service in the U.S. Army. He began his service in March of 1983, when he attended Military Police training and subsequently moved to Dugway Proving grounds, Utah to act as a military police desk sergeant.

In 1984 he was reassigned to Germany where he graduated from Military Police Investigations School at the Combined Arms Training Center. In 1987 he was promoted to Sergeant.

In late 1987 Sergeant Hoskins moved back to the United States where he served in both Texas and Alabama, until he was assigned to the 142nd Military Police Company in Yongstan, Korea, in 1990.

In 1991 Sergeant Hoskins began working as an investigator and evidence custodian at Fort Bliss, Texas. He served in this position until 1995 when he returned to Yongstan.

In 1996 He was assigned to the 978th Military Police Company, and during this tour was promoted to staff sergeant while he served as a military police patrol supervisor.

Staff Sergeant Hoskins was next assigned to Stuttgart, Germany. He developed an emergency vehicles operator's course that was adapted throughout the United States Army in Europe.

Over his long career Staff Sergeant Ronald Hoskins has received many awards and decorations, including the meritorious Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal with four oak leaf clusters, Army Achievement Medal with four oak leaf clusters, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal with Bronze Star. Noncommissioned Officer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon with numeral two device, Overseas Service Ribbon with numeral four device and Drivers Badge.

I congratulate Staff Sergeant Hoskins on his lengthy and dedicated career in the United States Army. I also want to recognize the efforts of his wife Susan without whom none of these accomplishments would be possible. Moreover, I extend to Staff Sergeant Haskins my profound appreciation for his service to the nation. I am honored to share his success with my colleagues and I wish him and his family all the best for the future.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from North Dakota for accommodating me and allowing me to speak for a few minutes about the amendment we all know is going to be offered in a few minutes by our friend and colleague, Mr. Warner from Virginia.

I do thank and congratulate Chairman Warner and also Chairman Stevens, not just for producing this amendment I think is so important, but also for their work over the years in sustaining America and keeping faith with the men and women who keep faith with us every day and serve us on the front lines and on the back lines and throughout the world to keep our country safe.

I want to suggest to the Senate there is no more serious amendment we will consider in this debate on the budget than the one Senator Warner is about to offer.

America is deeply engaged in the world in all respects, and it should be, it needs to be. It is a difficult task, but it is one we bear every day as a nation in a lot of different ways.

Yet despite all our other efforts, despite our diplomatic efforts, despite our participation in international organizations, despite the coalitions we have built around the world, despite our foreign aid, despite our exhortations based on our philosophy, despite the power of our ideas, as important as all of that is, America's security and the security of our allies and our friends around the world depends and continues to depend on the reality and the perception of our military power.

That is what is at stake in this amendment today. The President of the United States has submitted a defense budget which states a requirement of $421 billion for the national defense. In my judgment, that is quite probably too low. I have argued for 10 years, first in the House and now in the Senate, that we are not adequately funding our defense establishment.

I simply offer very briefly as evidence of that the fact the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently submitted, in response to a question from Congressman Ike Skelton, my old and dear friend from the other body, about what their unfunded requirements were. In other words, what are their requirements they were not able to get into the President's budget.

They submitted $12 billion in unfunded requirements, and that is just their top priorities: $6 billion for the Army; $2.5 billion, roughly, for the Navy; $2.5 billion for the Air Force. I think it is more than that, based on my years of experience. I believe we could add $15 billion to $20 billion to the budget for procurement alone without overfunding America's military. I will explain in a minute why we are in this position.

The Army needs to be bigger. I supported an amendment that was offered by the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, last year to increase the size of the Army. I think it needs to be another 30,000 to 40,000 men and women. I am pleased to say the administration is moving in that direction now, at least on a temporary basis, but that requirement was not included in the President's budget. Half of military housing is inadequate. That was not provided for in the President's budget. There are other quality-of-life needs we would like to meet.

Many of us here would like to resolve the issue of concurrent receipt, for example, so we can allow our military retirees who also have a military disability pension to keep both their retirement they earned and the disability benefits they deserve. That is not included in the budget. I could go on on behalf of my belief that the $421 billion the President has asked for is probably too low.

Now, I am sure it will be said by some in the debate on this amendment that the President's budget increases defense from last year by 7 percent and that is too great. That is above the rate of inflation.

Our spending on defense as a percentage of gross domestic product is less than it was prior to World War II. We spent 47 percent of our discretionary funds on defense in 2002 compared to 60 percent in 1990, and we are at war. It is time for us to get as serious as the men and women in America's military are about winning this war.

I went into the Congress in 1993. It was just after the outgoing first Bush administration had, in response to the cold war, cut the size of America's military establishment by about a quarter to establish what they called the Bush base force, which, by the way, is probably about what we need today, in my judgment.

The incoming Clinton administration then cut the size of the force an additional 25 percent, to about a third, depending on which branch of the service we are talking about. I argued all throughout the 1990s that we were not funding even that undersized force adequately.

All throughout those years, we were tacitly engaging in the assumption in this Congress that there was not any real threat to the United States; that with the end of the cold war in some sense history had ended as well.

Well, history had not ended. It had not ended all those years. It was just frozen and it thawed out with a vengeance on September 11. All the ethnic and regional rivalries of the world--fanaticism, nationalism, extremism--have risen up now to threaten us and once again we rediscover we do, indeed, need America's military and we do, indeed, need to fund it.

The question today is whether we are going to be serious on behalf of that responsibility. The force is too old. The reason it is too old is that all throughout the 1990s we were not buying enough new, what they call in the military, platforms, trucks, and planes.

When the capital stock is not replenished, it gets old. The average age of an aircraft in the U.S. Air Force is 22 years; the bombers, over 40 years; Navy and Marine aircraft, 18 years. We do not have enough ships in the Navy. We have 294 ships in the Navy. The Chief of Naval Operations, the Chief of Staff of the Navy, says we need 20 more today. His vision for the future is 375 ships, and we are not buying enough to get us there. We are not buying enough to maintain a 300-ship Navy.

I could go on. I have done it before, at least when I served in the other body. Some evening I will probably have occasion to spend 45 minutes or an hour discussing this.

To his credit, and in the face of the threat presented by the terrorist war, President Bush has regularly submitted substantial increases in the defense budget to this Congress. To its credit, this Congress has supported those increases. Along with the tremendous dedication of America's military and the vision and leadership of those who are running it, it is helping. We need to stay at least on that course.

It would be almost a historical abdication of our responsibilities were we not to provide for at least the amount of money the President of the United States has asked for America's military while America's military is fighting a war for us.

The only argument against it is that the deficit is a problem. Well, yes, the deficit is a problem. We are in a war. Members who do not believe that should read about it. It is in the papers every day. We are in a war. We are also in a recession.

I have not gone back and checked the Almanacs but I cannot imagine a time when the United States has been in a war and a recession and has not run a deficit. If my colleagues are worried about the deficit, let me suggest what will increase the deficit: If we lose the war, I guarantee that will increase the deficit. We do not have to lose it; we just have to suffer another significant attack on our homeland, and it can happen. That will increase the deficit. In fact, all we have to do is encourage America's enemies--and we have enemies around the world-- to believe that we will not see this through, that we will retreat. I guarantee that will increase the deficit a lot more than the amendment of the Senator from Virginia proposes to do.

Let's not be shortsighted. I have confidence that this Senate will not be. I do not want to sound like a scold; I really do not. I am proud of what the Congress has done the last few years in supporting our military.

I serve on the Armed Services Committee. I am proud to be on that committee. An hour ago I left a hearing, which I had the honor of chairing, of the Seapower Subcommittee, where Senator Kennedy is the ranking member. We had several hours in which we considered the capacity of our military to move goods around the world. One of the areas of jurisdiction of the subcommittee is on airlift and the capacity of our marine resources, civilian and military, to move goods around the world. I was astounded, amazed, and encouraged by how much we have improved the efficiency of that part of the service. We are all in debt to the men and women who work there and who run that, both civilian and military. I am pleased this Congress has sustained their efforts, and I know we will sustain the efforts of our men and women in America's military today.

They are doing their job. The question is whether we are going to do ours. They are watching. Our enemies are watching to see what the Senate does today. I am not sure exactly the form in which the Warner amendment will be offered. I do know it will restore the approximately $7 billion that the committee reduced and cut from the President's submission. We need to pass that amendment. We need to do our job in winning this war and protecting the American people.

I yield the floor.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I honor Reverend Michael Jones, who is the senior pastor of Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis. I was moved to do this after recently attending a wonderful service at the church in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Reverend Jones becoming pastor.

Reverend Jones accepted a call into ministry at Friendly Temple in 1979, and he worked for several years under the tutelage of his grandfather, Reverend R.F. Davis. After his grandfather's passing, he was commissioned to serve as senior pastor in 1994. During Reverend Jones' 9 years as senior pastor, the church has been very active in meeting the needs of the community around it, helping to feed the hungry, house the homeless and educate the unskilled to prepare them for jobs.

Friendly Temple also has a jail ministry, an alcohol and drug ministry and a youth ministry, among others, which seek to provide a hand up to many of society's most troubled members. In all its efforts, the church reaches out to people with a message of rebirth, renewal, restoration, revival and resurrection based on the teachings of the Gospels. That is because Pastor Jones and the leaders of the church are committed to the glory service of their Lord and Savior.

Reverend Jones and his wife Phyllis are proud parents of three children, Kawonza, Mike and Joshua. In addition, Reverend Jones has a bachelor's degree in business management and marketing management and a master's degree from Covenant Theological Seminary in General Theological Studies.

I commend Reverend Jones and the congregation of Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church for their outstanding service to the community. His message of hope and strong moral values is an inspiration and a blessing to all of us. I am honored to share his successes with my colleagues, and I wish him and his congregation all the best for the future.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to honor Black History Month by supporting the Sickle Cell Treatment Act, which is S. 874, and inviting my colleagues to join me and my chief cosponsor, Senator Schumer, in doing the same. I am very pleased we now have over 40 bipartisan cosponsors in the Senate for this bill. We certainly would welcome more. I invite our colleagues to look carefully at this act and to support it. It is an important measure. It deals with a disease that afflicts many hundreds of thousands of Americans and a disease that really has not received enough attention and enough visibility in the last few years.

This bipartisan, bicameral legislation is designed to treat and find a comprehensive cure for sickle cell disease which is a genetic disease which primarily affects but not exclusively African Americans. About 1 in 300 newborn African-American infants is born with this disease, but the disease also affects people of Hispanic, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern ancestry, as well as Caucasians.

More than 2.5 million Americans, mostly but again not exclusively African Americans, have the sickle cell trait, which is not the same as having the disease.

Why focus on sickle cell disease? Because it is the most common genetic disease that is screened in American newborns. People with the disease have red blood cells that contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin. These cells have a sickle shape, hence the name of the disease, that makes it difficult for the cells to pass through small blood vessels or carry the appropriate amount of oxygen or nutrients or antibiotics, if that has been prescribed. The tissue that does not receive normal blood flow because of the disease eventually becomes damaged and can and often does cause potentially life-threatening complications.

Stroke in particular is the most feared complication for children with sickle cell disease. It may affect infants as young as 18 months. I have personally talked with a number of parents whose children have had strokes as toddlers. One of the difficulties with this disease is recognizing it--and I will talk about that in just a minute-- recognizing its symptoms. Young children can have strokes without the parents even realizing it for some time.

While some patients live without symptoms for years, many others do not survive infancy or early childhood.

I became involved with this effort because of an African-American doctor from St. Louis, Dr. Michael DeBaun, who treats children with sickle cell disease. When you meet the practitioners who specialize in treating people who have this disease, you meet a series of American heroes. Dr. DeBaun is one of them. After meeting and visiting with him about a year ago, I realized the hardship this disease puts on families and especially on the children, who often have to receive blood transfusion after blood transfusion in order to avoid strokes. And, yes, in order to stay alive.

About one-third of children with sickle cell disease suffer a stroke before age 18. These children require frequent blood transfusions, sometimes 15 to 25 units of blood a year, to prevent subsequent strokes.

If you study the disease, you will also learn firsthand how it can affect the daily lives of children. I will just use one example, 9- year-old Isaac Cornell, whom I also had the privilege of meeting. He is one of Dr. DeBaun's patients and attends fourth grade at Gateway Elementary School in St. Louis. About four times a year, Isaac misses school because of severe episodes of pain, with each episode lasting about 5 to 7 days. Every 4 weeks Isaac has to go for a blood transfusion at St. Louis Children's Hospital where he's treated by Dr. DeBaun. Isaac has a permanent port installed in his upper chest to allow for the transfusions. That is one of the reasons he cannot play contact sports or join the wrestling team.

Sickle cell disease affects Isaac's decisions every day. He has to drink plenty of water to lubricate his cells, he has to be careful not to overexert himself--and that is certainly difficult for a 9-year-old boy--and he has to be careful to get plenty of rest. Because so

many patients like Isaac are struggling with this disease, in April of 2003, Senator Schumer and I introduced the Sickle Cell Treatment Act. Our friends, Representatives Danny Davis and Richard Burr, introduced a companion bill, H.R. 1736, in the House, which now has 39 bipartisan cosponsors.

S. 874, which is the bill Senator Schumer and I introduced, has 41 bipartisan cosponsors as well as the support of dozens of prominent African-American children's and health advocates, as well as union and church groups including--I am going to read the list. This is not a complete list, but it includes the Congressional Black Caucus, the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, the American Medical Association, the National Association of Children's Hospitals, the National Association of Community Health Centers, the NAACP, the Children's Defense Fund, the Health Care Leadership Council, United Food & Commercial Workers Union--Minority Coalition, the UFCW Faces of Our Children, United Church of Christ, and National Baptist U.S.A. These advocates, as well as the others who support this legislation, know the bill will make a difference in the lives of kids and families who are struggling with sickle cell disease.

I want to outline four key ways in which the bill makes a difference. First, it increases access to affordable, quality health care. The provision provides funding to currently eligible Medicaid recipients for physician and laboratory services targeted to sickle cell disease that are not currently reimbursed or are underreimbursed by Medicaid. Importantly, however, the bill does not increase the number of Medicaid eligibles and the Federal Medicaid match will stay the same. We have structured this bill so it is very affordable.

The bill also enhances services available to sickle cell disease patients. This is a crucial aspect of the bill. When you have this disease, you have to stay on top of it. You have to manage this disease. I mentioned Isaac Cornell before, how he drinks water and gets adequate rest and is careful not to overexert himself. You also have to know the various respects in which the symptoms of the disease can show up. This is a tricky, sneaky disease.

I was talking with another parent whose son was having considerable dental problems. This is something people with this disease struggle with, because when they get periodontal disease and some form of antibiotic is prescribed by their dentist, they can't be certain the red blood cells will carry the antibiotic to the infected point, so indeed any infections they have are particularly dangerous.

Obviously there is a whole medical side to this we have to be aware of, but in addition, people need to know about the disease. They need to receive counseling and education as well as screening, genetic counseling, community outreach. Education and other services are crucial. Currently, those kinds of services are not reimbursed under Medicaid unless they are performed by the physicians such as Dr. DeBaun. Dr. DeBaun simply does not have the time, certainly not as much as he would want to spend, the hours and hours he would need to spend with each set of parents, with each patient, in order to go over all the various ways in which this disease can affect their lives.

So it is important that Medicaid reimburse these services, even if they are done by counselors or outreach personnel who are not physicians. They are perfectly appropriate and able to do it. The bill would allow nonmedical personnel such as counselors to spend time with sickle cell disease families to discuss how they can manage the disease. That, by the way, will end up saving the Government money because it will prevent strokes and other serious episodes that then Medicaid does appropriately reimburse.

The bill creates 40 sickle cell disease treatment centers. This provision of the bill authorizes the Department of Health and Human Services to distribute grants to up to 40 eligible community health centers nationwide for $10 million for the next 5 fiscal years for a total of $50 million. That is subject to appropriation. That could mean a health center grant in almost every State. Grant money may be used for purposes including the education, treatment, and continuity of care for sickle cell disease patients and for training health professionals.

Finally, the bill establishes a sickle cell disease research headquarters. This provision of the bill creates a national coordinating center, which also would be operated by the Department of Health and Human Services, to coordinate and oversee sickle cell disease funding and research conducted at hospitals, universities, and community-based organizations. This will help ensure efficiency so we can share information about the disease, accountability to make sure the taxpayers' dollars are being used well, and also help us get best practices and monitor outcomes for the disease so we can improve services to people who have it around the country.

I cannot overemphasize the outpouring of support Senator Schumer and I have received for this bill. I am sure if he were here he would relate the stories he has had. I have myself received personal handwritten letters from sickle cell disease patients who expressed their gratitude for this legislation and who asked what they can do to help pass the bill since they know how many families it will help.

For example, Allyce Renee Ford of Blue Springs, MO, wrote, and I will paraphrase: I was pleased to read of your bill to increase funding for treatment of sickle cell disease. My twin sons were born with sickle sell in 1973 and suffered from this debilitating disease all their lives. They both lost the battle to painful complications in 2002. Please believe me, it is a painful life-constricting disease both for the victims and their families. Even though I do not have any other children to lose to the disease, I mourn for all the other parents who will lose their children in the future--today, tomorrow, someday they will lose them. Thank God there will be help for sickle cell disease victims--help not just in the form of additional funding--and the bill is very affordable--but help in the form of greater visibility, community support. This bill is lifting the profile of this disease which has remained in the corner for too long. The business exclusively in the past has been the business of those struggling and the small community helping them. We need to show these people that the country is with them.

In conclusion, it is critical to help this historically underserved population. Many of these people do not even know they carry the trait or they have the disease until consequences have been visited upon them that they could have lessened or mitigated in some respect had they had prior knowledge.

I ask my colleagues to join me and Senator Schumer to honor Black History Month by cosponsoring this Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Act. I cannot think of a better way to honor this month than to help all of the families, most of whom are African-American families, who are living and struggling with this disease.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that one of my staffers, Telly Lovelace, be permitted the privilege of the floor for the rest of the afternoon.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to offer a few observations about my friend's amendment. He has spoken with his usual eloquence. I listened with care to the three points he raised. I say this with entire sincerity, even though I confess that I didn't agree with a word he said.

I was in the Chamber yesterday and had with me the survey of the Department of Transportation on the needs of the United States of America for transportation. It was about the size of this volume I have in my hand. It was an exhaustive survey that concluded we needed a transportation infrastructure bill of around $375 billion to take care of our crumbling transportation infrastructure.

It is a fact that I have not heard contested, much less contested successfully, on this floor, that 32 percent of the roads in the United States are in poor or mediocre condition; 36 percent of the urban roads are in that condition; 28 percent of the bridges are substandard; we lose $65 billion a year in productivity and man-hours because people are trapped on congested roads; there is $50 billion a year in extra maintenance costs that we have to pay because our automobiles have maintenance problems due to the fact that the roads are no good.

Who hasn't been in a situation where they have rolled over a pothole--and not always on some subdivision road but on a highway--and blown out a shock or their tires have gone out of balance? It is because of the road, and you have to pay for that. It is not going to get better if we don't do something to make it better.

This is what I don't understand from the critics of the bill. What do they want to do? Are these roads just magically going to fix themselves? Is there something defective about this survey? That is what the Department says in terms of its academic study, if you will. We all know it is true. We encounter it every day here on the east coast, and we encounter it when we are in our States. My friend from Arizona talked about the bill conceals something. It doesn't conceal something. It is an attempt to meet the problems of transportation infrastructure.

What is concealing things is to pretend that the problem doesn't exist, to set an arbitrary limit for how much we are going to spend and say, based on what we are willing to spend, that is what we need to spend, instead of honestly assessing where we are in terms of transportation infrastructure in this country and coming up with the money one way or another to meet the needs.

The critics are concealing the fact they don't intend to do anything about the problem. This is what they say: Well, OK, you cannot raise taxes to raise money to deal with the problem. You cannot use bonding because we have never done that before. Everybody else in the country does it. I spoke at some length about this yesterday. I will not inflict it anymore on the Senate. Everybody else in the country bonds for roads and highways and bridges, but we cannot do it here. Now we cannot use general revenue either. So go ahead and fix the roads, but you cannot raise taxes, use bonds, or use general revenue. Go ahead and get the $375 billion.

That is concealing the fact that they are not going to do anything about the problem. We are going to continue losing the $65 billion a year in lost productivity, $50 billion in increased maintenance--and what about the people who die because the roads are no good? What about those people? Tell them we don't need to do any more? Tell their families we don't need to do any more for transportation infrastructure?

I hear my friends say it is not fair to use general revenue, not fair to the taxpayers. There are a lot of people in Missouri who get up every day, and they have worked hard and been fortunate enough that their lives are going pretty good. Maybe they are single or they have families. They work and get taxes deducted from their paycheck every week. They pay the taxes at the pump. They pay all the other taxes they have to pay. On April 15, they write another big check. Because their lives are going good and they don't need a lot of extra help, they don't participate in a lot of Federal programs

that we have here. They support them. They want people with needs to have access to help. They don't participate in it because they don't need it. If you stopped and asked them, what is it you get directly out of the taxes you send to Washington, and they stop and think about what it is that Washington does that makes a difference for them day to day, about the only thing they would say is the roads. They would say: It would help if I could get to work in the morning.

Sure, we have a problem with the fiscal future of the country. That is not even considering what we have to do with Medicare and Social Security when the baby boomers begin to retire.

It is around $65 billion a year in lost productivity because people are trapped in traffic jams.

I say to my friend from Oklahoma, it certainly makes sense. We have the workers of the country every morning going to work--and I see it in Missouri--and they are trapped in traffic jams. That is time they are not spending on the job producing goods and services and wealth for the United States.

It is about $49 billion in extra maintenance costs because the roads are not good.

Yes.

I appreciate the question of the Senator from Nevada, also.

If you went to that taxpayer and said, what do you get for the money you send to Washington, and they thought about it, they would say, well, the roads.

I have people say to me: We don't really want anything, but it would be nice if you would fix the roads. It would be nice if you had an extra lane on that bridge or it would be nice if I didn't have to, when my kid went out on a date at night, wait up at night, not worrying because I thought the kid would get into trouble but whether my kid was going to get home on those roads.

So I think the people who are paying the income taxes of the country into the general revenue of the United States of America would appreciate it if we used a little bit of that to fix their roads. I don't know whether that fits whatever rules of accounting we have been following in the past. I think it would make a difference for the people of the country.

You know what I don't think is fair--what is not fair is to pass the bill for the Nation's infrastructure on to the next generation, knowing we have not done our part to pay it.

Yes, this highway bill is bigger than the last highway bill. As everybody said, it is about 30 percent bigger. The gap between where it is and where it should be is bigger, too, and what that tells us is with each highway bill, we are failing more and more to get to where we need to be, and it is going to have to get bigger and bigger as time goes on if we are going to make up for this transportation deficit.

I used this example yesterday. You are a homeowner, and you have a hole in the roof. You have to consider what options you are going to use to pay for fixing it. But what isn't an option is not fixing it because if you don't fix it, it doesn't get any better; it just gets worse and eventually the roof collapses. I think we should do our part and face honestly what we need.

I appreciate the managers of the bill getting this bill up to the level they have. I ask them to hang tough. We need a highway bill at that level. I made a point of saying yesterday that we need it more than that. I am hopeful, as this process goes on, that we can persuade those who, with the sincerest of intentions, are concerned about the fiscal state of the country, that we don't improve the fiscal state of the country by undermining the economy that produces the wealth on which this Government depends.

We are going to meet these needs in the future. We are going to meet it through growth. America is going to go out and produce and create jobs and grow and make enough for everybody. America will rescue us from this fiscal situation if America can get to work in the morning, and that is what this bill is about.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, yesterday, I filed an amendment with Senator Allen and Senator Burns to the Household Goods Moving portion of SAFE-TEA. Under the circumstances, I will not call it up. The amendment's purpose is to enact meaningful consumer protections that also safeguard small businesses and their employees.

Each year 1.5 million households hire commercial moving companies to move their household goods to another state. There are almost 3,000 federally registered motor carriers who transport household goods across state lines. Most of these moving companies are small businesses--Mom and Pop family-owned businesses.

In addition to the thousands of licensed small business movers, there are countless unlicensed and unregistered movers. Everyone agrees that the vast majority of movers provide quality service in an ethical manner, but there are some ``bad apples'' that don't follow the rules to the detriment of consumers and other reputable small businesses. These ``bad apples'' take advantage of consumers with misleading estimates, baiting them with deals that are ``too good to be true.'' They're also known to hold customers' household goods hostage while they demand higher fees.

The predatory tactics of these ``bad apples'' give the entire moving industry a bad name. They hurt consumers and they threaten thousands of legitimate small business moving companies, endangering the jobs of the tens of thousands of employees and the families that depend on them. Congress needs to commit itself to enacting reforms that will help stop unscrupulous movers and their predatory tactics and protect consumers and the small business jobs in the moving industry.

I appreciate Senator McCain and his staff's efforts in this area. Many of the reforms in the Household Goods Moving portion of SAFE-TEA accomplish these goals. I believe that Congress can enact legislation that will protect consumers, small businesses and the thousands of jobs in the household good moving industry. My amendment works to punish ``bad apples,'' protect consumers, safeguard the thousands of legitimate small businesses, and sustain the good jobs in the moving industry.

When I was Chairman of the Small Business Committee in the House, I learned that sometimes regulation offered even with the greatest of intentions could unfortunately have an opposite and devastating impact on the people it intended to protect. It is clear that some of the provisions in the underlying bill will not hinder unscrupulous ``bad apples,'' but instead seriously harm legitimate small businesses and endanger American jobs and the families that depend on them.

I have some concerns about the consumer protections that were attached, because some of them operate in a way where they burden the honest businesses and do not stop the dishonest ones. That is always the nightmare with regulation when we do it. Sometimes they end up making it difficult for the people who are trying to comply with the law, and the corner cutters still cut corners and we end up with the worst of both worlds.

There is a provision in the bill that was added in the Commerce Committee, for example, that would allow lawsuits against movers who don't use the absolute shortest route to get the household goods from one place to another. That is very understandable because some of the bad apples will drive around town in order to build up the price and get a higher fee for the moving.

At the same time, they are very legitimate reasons why a business may not take the shortest route--safety reasons, for example. What I am saying is we need to look at the provisions that were enacted in committee in conference to make certain that we do the best job we can do of protecting consumers while partnering with the legitimate small businesses, because they want the bad apples out of the business as well. All of us have had an experience or we know of friends who

had experience with these businesses that want to hurt everybody.

We want to protect consumers. We have to do it in a way that partners with the good companies. We don't want to drive their costs up, which will then be passed along to consumers. Worst case, some of these legitimate small businesses will have to go out of business. These issues deserve further consideration in the conference.

Our amendment offers commonsense solutions.

My amendment protects a legitimate small business mover's right to collect for additional work requested by the customer at the time when his or her goods are delivered.

My amendment enhances consumer protections. State enforcement laws should strictly protect consumers by prohibiting movers from holding a customer's goods hostage.

My amendment defends legitimate small businesses' right to recoup attorneys fees if they are determined to be ``in the right'' by a court.

My amendment also addresses provisions in the underlying bill that have little to do with consumer protection.

For example, if the underlying bill is passed as written, attorneys could legislate through prosecution the route a legitimate small business mover must take when delivering household goods.

Admittedly, this provision was designed to protect consumers from ``bad apples'' that literally take their customers for a ride, using longer routes and charging higher fees.

But, unfortunately, the way the provision is written, mom and pop small business moving companies would also suffer and be exposed to lawsuits and fines that will threaten their business and the jobs of their employees. Attorneys should not determine the fate of legitimate small business movers.

Small business movers are experienced and they know which highways to take in traffic and in bad weather. In St. Louis, Missouri, we have two central highways: highway 40 and 44. It's clear to anybody who travels on those highways that 44 is often the quicker route in rush-hour traffic. But, this provision would take away an experienced drivers right to choose. It could be mandated that he use only highway 40.

Legitimate movers don't make their money scamming customers; they make their money getting shipments on and off, on-time.

Despite the fact that this provision is intended to protect consumers, it could have the opposite effect, requiring movers to take less efficient routes; routes they knew were slower because they drive on those roads everyday; and all because an attorney decided it was quickest.

As a result, the longer shipment times would translate into higher costs for consumers since carriers would be forced to petition for higher fuel tax surcharges, a cost born by consumers.

I believe that it's important in situations like these to reach out to the stakeholders in the community of legitimate small business movers those who are affected by these provisions and partner with them to determine the proper solution. Everybody wants to stop the ``bad apples.''

This list goes on and on. Many of the provisions do not protect consumers and force unnecessary and burdensome regulations on mom and pop small businesses across all 50 States; possibly causing an increase in carrier rates across the country; harming legitimate small businesses--and not the ``bad apples''; and threatening the jobs and livelihoods of the thousands of employees in the moving industry. These issues deserve further consideration in conference and I urge my colleagues to continue their good work; and to partner with the small business moving community to punish the ``bad apples'' and enact meaningful consumer protections, safeguard small businesses and protect the jobs of the tens of thousands of employees and families that depend on them.

I yield the floor.

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

I have an amendment filed at the desk on behalf of Mr. Wyden and myself. I think we have had it cleared, and I was going to ask unanimous consent that it be adopted. It is amendment No. 2482.

There is an amendment pending?

I will wait until that amendment has been resolved.

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside while I offer this amendment.

Mr. President, will the Senator from Nevada withhold?

Mr. President, I send amendment No. 2482 to the desk.

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

Mr. President, the time is short. This amendment would allow private activity bonds. It has been cleared on both sides. The President supports it. It has been fully offset and I ask that it be adopted.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 9:30 a.m. on Protecting Children From Violent and Indecent Programming.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on Wednesday, February 11 at 10:00 a.m. to consider pending calendar business.

Agenda Item 2: S. 213--A bill to clear title to certain real property in New Mexico associated with the Middle Rio Grande Project, and for other purposes with an amendment.

Agenda Item 3: S. 524--A bill to expand the boundaries of the Fort Donelson National Battlefield to authorize the acquisition and interpretation of lands associated with the campaign that resulted in the capture of the fort in 1862, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 5: S. 943--A bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to enter into one or more contracts with the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming, for the storage of water in the Kendrick Project, Wyoming with an amendment.

Agenda Item 6: S. 960--To amend the Reclamation Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act and the Hawaii Water Resources Act of 2000 with an amendment.

Agenda Item 9: S. 1107--A bill to enhance the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program for the National Park Service, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 13: S. 1516--Salt Cedar Control Demonstration Act with an amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Agenda Item 14: S. 1576--A bill to revise the boundary of Harper's Ferry National Historical Park, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 15: S. 1577--A bill to extend the deadline for commencement of construction of hydroelectric project in the State of Wyoming.

Agenda Item 16: S. 1582--A bill to amend the Valles Preservation Act to improve the preservation of the Valles Caldera, and for other purposes with an amendment.

Agenda Item 17: S. 1848--A bill to amend the Bend Pine Nursery Land Conveyance Act to direct the Secretary of Agriculture to sell the Bend Pine Nursery Administration Site in the State of Oregon with an amendment.

Agenda Item 18: H.R. 408--To provide for expansion of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Agenda Item 19: H.R. 417--To revoke a Public Land Order with respect to certain lands erroneously included in the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, California with report language.

Agenda Item 20: H.R. 620--To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to provide supplemental funding and other services that are necessary to assist the State of California or local educational agencies in California in providing educational services for students attending schools located within the Park with an amendment.

Agenda Item 21: H.R. 708--To require the conveyance of certain National Forest System lands in Mendocino National Forest, California, to provide for the use of the proceeds from such conveyance for National Forest purposes, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 23: H.R. 856--To authorize the Secretary of the Interior to revise a repayment contract with the Tom Green County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1, San Angelo project, Texas, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 26: H.R. 1598--To amend the Reclamation Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in projects within the San Diego Creek Watershed, California, and for other purposes.

Agenda Item 27: S. 1167--A bill to resolve the boundary conflicts in Barry and Stone Counties in the State of Missouri.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 at 10 a.m. to hold a Business Meeting.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 at 9:30 a.m. in Room 485 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing on the President's Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 at 2 p.m. on ``Judicial Nominations,'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 226.

Panel I: Senators.

Panel II: Diane S. Sykes, to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; James L. Robart, to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington; Juan R. Sanchez, to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on ``Cable Competition--Increasing Price; Increasing Value?'' on Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 10:30 a.m., in Room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. Michael Willner, Vice-Chairman, President and CEO, Insight Communications Company, Inc.;

Mr. Rodger Johnson, CEO, Knology;

Mr. Robert Sachs, President and CEO, National Cable and Telecommunications Association;

Ms. Coralie Wilson, President, National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors;

Mr. Scott Cleland, CEO, Precursor; and

Dr. Mark Cooper, Director of Research, Consumer Federation of America.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on International Trade and Finance of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the Session of the Senate on Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 1:00 p.m. to conduct a hearing on ``Economic and Financial Reconstruction in Iraq.''

Will the Senator yield? I hope the Senator's child and in-law have already announced this expected occasion and you have not revealed it to the Senate and the world.

Mr. President, I am sure sons and daughters-in-law have been forgiving proud grandparents of a lot worse things than that. I congratulate the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Nevada on the additions to their families.

We are really talking about a subject today that is important to all of our families. That is why we are here. That is why those who have worked so hard for transportation, including my friend from Oklahoma, have done what they have done. I am here to rise in support of the bill, and also in support of an amendment I am now offering at this time with my friend from Oregon, Mr. Wyden, and also on behalf of Mr. Corzine and Mr. Coleman.

This is an amendment that has broad support within the community of those who are particularly interested in transportation, including the support of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Associated General Contractors of America, Chamber of Commerce, National Heavy and Highway Alliance, which represents the labor unions, operating engineers, carpenters union, iron workers union, cement masons, the teamsters, and bricklayers, and many others. We call it the Build America Bond Act of 2003.

We think it is one of the most important things we can do on behalf of the Nation's transportation infrastructure. I am here to explain the amendment and the idea and argue on behalf of it.

First, however, I want to say thank you to my friend from Oklahoma, Senator Bond, Senator Reid, and Senator Jeffords for their efforts on behalf of the underlying bill. Those efforts have been heroic. They have done a great job to get the level of spending in the bill up to where they got it. I am going to

make the point in a couple minutes that it needs to be a lot higher than that. In making that point, I don't wish to be understood as criticizing them for their work. They have done the best they can do with the traditional methods of funding.

I would also like, before I begin discussing the amendment, to thank my friend from Oregon, who may or may not make it to the floor this afternoon to talk about this amendment. I know he wants to. We have had the pleasure of working together for almost a year now on the Build America Bond Act. For me, it has been a personal as well as professional pleasure to renew an acquaintance and working relationship we had together in the House during our years when we were there together.

I thank our friends who are handling this bill, especially my senior Senator, Kit Bond, for his great work on behalf of the underlying bill. I am pleased they have gotten the measure to where it is right now. Yet I have to tell the Senate the measure is not big enough. I say that because it bothers me when critics of this bill say it spends too much. The truth is it does not invest enough. It bothers me when critics of the bill say spending on transportation infrastructure is irresponsible, when actually the opposite is the truth. Not spending enough on transportation infrastructure is what is irresponsible, because we have a transportation deficit in this country. It is growing every day we fail to take the necessary steps in the Congress.

The Department of Transportation studied the Nation's highways, bridges, and transit systems, and reported back to Congress. They filed a long report and concluded we needed a highway bill that was about $375 billion. This is the report of the expert agencies on behalf of the Federal Government. It says $375 billion, not $311 billion. I am glad we got it to that point, but it will not take $311 billion, not $300 billion, not $280 billion, not $250 billion, but $375 billion--or something close to it--if we are going to begin paying back the transportation deficit we have.

I don't believe what I am saying about the status of our Nation's transportation system is seriously contested by anybody. A lot of people don't want to remedy it and pay what we need to pay to do something about it, but they are not contesting that there is a serious problem.

Thirty-two percent of the Nation's roads are poor or mediocre; 36 percent of our urban roads are poor; 37 percent of our bridges are obsolete. We lose $67 billion a year in wasted time and wasted fuel costs because of congestion caused by inadequate roads. We lose 4.5 billion man-hours from people around this country who are stuck in traffic. Those are hours they are not at the office or the factory producing things. Those are hours they are not at home with their families.

We spend $49 billion a year on extra vehicle repair costs because maintenance costs are higher than they should be because the roads are no good. Those are the overall statistics. And everybody has their own anecdotal stories about the shocks they had to replace because of the potholes, the time they lose getting to work in the morning.

There are so many examples of poor infrastructure that my friend Senator Bond and I could give. I called back to Missouri and asked for a picture of the bridge over the Missouri River leading into Hermann, MO. Don Kruse, who is the editor of the Advertiser-Courier in Hermann, did me a favor and went out and took a picture of it. This is a bridge not over some small river or not over the Missouri River where the river begins where it is narrow. This is over the Missouri River in east central Missouri. This is the bridge you take to get into Hermann, MO, which, by the way, is a great town. It is a bustling town, a town with a future if we can get the proper infrastructure.

I don't know if most Members of the Senate can see this picture or if the people in the Galleries can see it that well, but the rails are rusted. We can see how narrow the bridge is. That is a Mack truck coming one way, and that is a car trying to go the other way. You don't have to be a transportation expert, you don't have to work for the Department of Transportation to say: I don't think that bridge is adequate. It isn't.

You have to either laugh or cry over it. When I drive over it, I say: We ought to tell Hollywood if they ever want a crumbling bridge or a poor bridge to use in a movie, they don't have to build one; come here and use this one outside Hermann.

We have blood alleys all over Missouri. I have driven on them--roads that are so dangerous people regularly die because the roads are no good. We also have interchanges in our growing communities, such as Springfield, the I-44 and I-64 interchange that are inadequate.

There are many opportunities around Missouri for economic growth of which we cannot avail ourselves because the transportation system isn't what it should be.

North Missouri has been in economic trouble for a long time, long before the existing recession. It is not because of the people there. They are productive people with a vision. A big part of the reason is the roads are not good enough.

If we could turn Highway 36 in north Missouri into a four-lane road, it would link up Hannibal to St. Joseph, which links up Chicago to Kansas City, and the jobs would follow that corridor. We don't have the money.

There are too many first-tier, urgent projects in the State of Missouri and in States all over this country that are not being done, not because they shouldn't have a priority, but because there isn't enough money. So they get pushed further and further behind, and we are all familiar with that situation.

We are all familiar with the departments of transportation saying: We are going to do that; we are going to widen that road; we are going to do the system maintenance; it is on the books for 2020. Everybody in the communities knows what that means. It is never going to be done.

If that isn't enough--and it should be enough--in Missouri, we lost 1,028 people to highway fatalities in 2002 alone. The statistics show that one out of three accidents are related to the fact that the roads are no good.

When you travel around Missouri, one of the things you notice--and I wonder if they have this in other States. I should ask some of my colleagues; I never have. But the highway department allows people, grieving families to put little white crosses on the side of the road where they lost a loved one, and they will write the names of those loved ones on the crosses, sometimes the age. You might see ``Jennifer, age 7'' as you whiz by and see that little white cross.

Every one of those people who died on one of those roads has a family who loved them. Tell those families that this highway bill is too big. Tell them we don't need to spend more on transportation infrastructure. Tell them that.

What can we do about it? We can do something. We have a mechanism available that is used in States and localities all over this country, a mechanism that will produce dollars immediately to help us remedy this transportation deficit. We can do it responsibly. It has the support of groups involved in transportation from all over the country. It is bonding, and that is why the Senator from Oregon and I in the spring of last year sponsored the Build America Bonds Act.

We argue that it is the only way we can address this issue quickly, in combination, of course, with the traditional methods of funding that we also support. This is a way to jump-start this effort. This is a way to make up for this deficit in transportation, for this work that we should have done in the past and did not.

Basically, the amendment, if and when we get a chance to offer it, would create a federally chartered nonprofit corporation that would raise $56 billion in tax credit bonds that could be immediately invested in transportation infrastructure. According to our amendment, $40 billion could go to highways, $10 billion to public transit, and $6 billion to rail. It could be invested right away, not even over the life of the bill, the 6 years, but as fast as we can raise it and get it out to the States, and the work could be done in the course of the next year or two.

It is a great job creator. Every billion dollars in transportation investment creates about 47,000 jobs. Build America Bonds have the potential to create over 2 million jobs. It is one of the reasons the trade unions are so strongly in support of it, because their members

have to drive on these roads and use this transportation system, too. Our amendment also has the potential to generate over $300 million in economic activity.

There is a feature to it that my friend from Oregon and I particularly like. The amendment would require that a percentage of the bonds be issued in small denominations, $25, $50, so that moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas could go out and buy a Build America bond and give it to their kids or their grandkids for their birthdays and know that they were investing their moneys in American roads and creating American jobs and protecting the future of their kids as they grow up in this country.

The bill has the potential to save us up to $67 billion that we now spend or waste in traffic congestion and the $50 billion spent in extra vehicle repair.

This kind of financing is done all over this country. The funny thing is, there is a certain irony to it. This Government will borrow--and everybody here is going to vote for this highway bill or has voted for one at one time or another--hundreds of billions of dollars in long- term debt to pay for operating expenses. Nobody else in the country does that. Yet unless this amendment passes, we will not borrow money for long-term capital expenses, which routinely happens all over the country in public and private life. We will not borrow the money for the items we should finance--investments in capital goods that pay off over time.

What is the cost? The way we have set this mechanism up and given the international bond markets and their sophistication, we estimate that under current market conditions, the total cost to the taxpayers would be $2.5 billion a year, for 30-year bonds. It would be $2.5 billion a year. For that we get about 2 million jobs. We actually get this bill up to the level which the Department of Transportation says we need to really begin remedying this transportation deficit. It is, quite simply, the cheapest way of addressing the problem.

What is the most expensive way?

I will be happy to yield to my friend.

I thank the Senator for his question. He is absolutely correct. I have been to ribbon cuttings and ceremonies in Missouri, and I bet the Senator has been to them in Oregon, where localities have financed local bond issues in order to do transportation infrastructure, because there is not enough money coming from the State and Federal Government. States also do this.

The Senator and I are not talking about shifting over to bonding as a way of replacing other highway dollars, or taking over the job of financing transportation, because we do not want that. But bonding should be part of a package that will give us the ability to do the big projects, the one-time projects. We are not suggesting the States should build this into their regular maintenance budgets because this money is going to come in and is going to be invested. It is not a regular stream. It is part of an overall financing package absolutely, and it is done all over this country. Given the deficit transportation situation we are in, the fact that we have this terrible problem with transportation, I think it is foolish of us not to consider it.

It is one of the reasons I have appreciated so much working with my friend. I say to my friend, through the Chair, what is the most expensive way of dealing with this? If we were looking for the most expensive and risky way to pay for the transportation problem we have to fix the roads, rail, and transit that we need in this country, what would we do? We would wait. I submit that is what we are proposing to do with this bill, as heroically as the sponsors have worked to get it up to the level where they have gotten it up to.

If one were a homeowner and had a hole in their roof, they would consider how to fix it. They might try to do it out of their current income. They might take another job to fix it, which would raise their income. They might decide that the best thing to do would be to take out a home equity loan and pay for it that way.

What they would not do is say: ``Well, this is optional. I am going to let this go because it would be irresponsible for me to spend on this. I would be mortgaging my kids' future if I took out a home equity loan to fix the hole in the roof.'' They would know eventually they were going to have to fix this hole, because if they waited, what would happen? Was the problem going to get better? No. Holes in roofs do not get smaller if they are not fixed, they get bigger, and if one waits long enough, the roof collapses, and then they do have to spend some money, don't they?

My wife called me the other day about this cold weather we have been having in Missouri, as well as in Washington. We have had ice storms and the driveway has been under ice because I did not get out quickly enough to scrape it off when the snow and the ice started, which she and I had a little discussion about. But she is noticing now that some of it is melting, that part of the driveway is beginning to chip. She is upset about it, and so we are going to fix that and seal that driveway. What would happen if we waited and we did not do that? The cracks in that driveway are not going to get any better. They are going to get worse.

This highway bill is a lot bigger than the last highway bill--if we can get the number my friends from Oklahoma and Missouri have worked so hard to get. It is a lot bigger. It is 30 percent higher than the last highway bill we passed. It is a lot bigger because the problems have gotten a lot worse.

One thing I will guarantee is, if we do not do something decisively to fix this problem now, we are going to have a highway bill 6 years from now and it will be even bigger. It will be much bigger. The gap between the size of the bill and what we will need to do then to fix the problem is going to be a lot bigger, too. We are trying to bail out a boat and we do not have a big enough bucket. Bonding will fix that. We have a chance to do that in this Congress. We have strong bipartisan support.

This is one of the few things we may be able to do on a real bipartisan basis. We have support from the transportation community. We have support from the bonding community. There is precedent for this all over the country. The cost is extremely small relative to the gain and relative to the risk of doing nothing, because if we do not do this now, we are going to pass the bill for our poor transportation system on to the next generation. Let's not kid ourselves that we are doing them any favors by not investing. We are passing it on to them and we are guaranteeing that their bill is going to be a lot bigger than it needs to be. The economic growth they are going to need to be able to pay that bill when we give it to them is going to be undermined if we do not act now.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am not going to inflict myself much more on the subject, but my friend spoke so eloquently on it, and I wanted to add a little bit to what he was saying, particularly with regard to cost.

The thing he and I emphasized that I believe is so important is that these problems we have in transportation are problems that are not going to go away if we don't do anything. If the Federal Government were a private company and its capital infrastructure were in the condition that America's capital infrastructure is in, you would have to list that somehow on the books as affecting the valuation of the company. I am no expert on these things, but that inadequate capital infrastructure of that company would be an ongoing obligation of the company. It would be a debt that the company has to pay because everybody in the commonsense world, if I can say that, understands that eventually you have to deal with this issue.

It is also common knowledge, uncontested, that in particular with regard to transportation, when you delay, costs go up a lot because there are so many inputs to transportation costs: Material costs; wages, of course, go up, one hopes, periodically; costs of right-of-way can go up. There are a lot of things affecting those costs. Everybody knows it is dangerous to put off projects because costs can escalate far beyond the rate of inflation, far beyond what you are earning on the money you are not spending because you didn't want to pay for the transportation.

Under current market conditions we estimate this proposal of ours would cost about $2.5 billion a year, which is about, not 1 percent, but one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire Federal budget. It is considerably less than other proposals which have been made for new kinds of spending, and which I have generally supported, but which were not paid for by any other new stream of revenue. For example, the global AIDS bill, which received wide support in the Senate and which I certainly supported, costs more every year than this costs.

This kind of spending empowers us. This kind of spending gives us the opportunity to create jobs. The Senator from Oregon and I have not even talked about the dynamic impact of transportation investment. But if you Members

don't believe that investment in roads and highways and rail and transit has a dynamic impact, go and talk to the economic development people in your State--in the urban areas, in the smaller towns. They are all for this.

I remember when I was traveling around Missouri in support of Build America Bonds and I went to Springfield, one of our dynamic cities in Missouri. I had a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce. The head of the chamber came rushing up to me and he said: ``You know, I like the tax cut. But this,'' he was waving the one page we had for Build America Bonds, ``is a jobs stimulus.''

He understands that.

This is a proposal whose time has more than come. I want to reiterate what the Senator from Oregon said. I know the problems the bill faces. We certainly do not want to imperil the underlying bill for this. I would not do that. I don't want to suggest that those supporting this bill have not done great work. I am looking forward to supporting this highway bill. But at some point in this process we need to be able to confront this because this is not a problem that is going to get any better if we don't do anything about it.

I yield the floor.

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

I am pleased that the Senate unanimously approved a resolution to recognize the importance of Ralph Bunche as one of the great leaders of the United States. Mr. Bunche was the first African- American Nobel Peace Prize winner, an accomplished scholar, a distinguished diplomat, and a tireless campaigner for civil rights for people throughout the world.

He was of that generation of African-American leaders whose life and character broke the back of generations of prejudice, awoke the American conscience, and opened up opportunity for millions of people. This measure is an appropriate and fitting celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak about this landmark piece of legislation that is so necessary and has been so necessary for too long and of which we have deprived America's seniors for too long. If I may say with great respect, I had a chance to listen to the last two speakers, my friend from Oklahoma and my friend from Massachusetts. Listening to those speakers just summed up for me why we have not passed this bill in the years and years it has been necessary and that seniors have been demanding it. The last two speakers represented pretty well and eloquently, with their usual vigor, the opposite ends of the political spectrum on this bill.

For the first speaker, the bill represented too much government, too much money. For the second speaker, it represented too little government, too little money. Both speakers are terribly disappointed with President Bush. Both want more time to consider this bill and, if necessary, go back to the drawing board; if necessary, wait years more before we provide a prescription drug benefit that millions of seniors around the country need and have needed for many years.

I rise to speak in favor of the bipartisan Medicare conference agreement. I think it is necessary. Medicare is a great program. My dad passed away last October. He was 91 years old. My mom had passed away about 15 years before then in her early seventies. They both used Medicare and stayed alive as long as they did and as healthy and as happy as long as they did in part because of Medicare. It has covered tens and tens of millions of seniors, not only with good medical care but with the security of knowing that they had medical care if they got sick.

Medicare was a great program and is a great program in 1965 terms. That is when it was developed. It covers the kinds of things that good health care covered in 1965, and it doesn't cover the kinds of things that were not covered in 1965. It doesn't have very many preventive health care benefits, catastrophic coverage for long-term acute

illnesses. And it does not have coverage for outpatient prescription drugs because in 1965 you didn't use prescription drugs very often, unless you had an infection or some kind of pain killer. Now they are a part of almost every ongoing medical care treatment plan. Everybody who has health insurance--and not enough do--just about everybody who does has some kind of prescription drug coverage because it helps keep you healthy.

In providing insurance to somebody, you want them to stay healthy because if they get sick, it ends up costing more money for everybody. That is the reason we haven't had this coverage in Medicare, and it has hurt people.

There was a parade I used to be in every year when I was in the House. I like parades. You get a lot of exercise, and they are fun. It is in Hazelwood, MO. I would go down the same street. I always walk parades. I remember running up this driveway and these two seniors would be sitting at the top of their driveway watching the parade every year. Every year I would stop there for 60 seconds, and they would ask me when we were going to cover prescription drugs in Medicare.

I would say: Well, we haven't done it yet.

And they would say: We know that.

Then the issue finally moved on the front burner here at the end of late 1990s and the House began passing bills, 3 or 4 years in a row. We never passed one until this year here. The sentiments we have heard today--I respect so much the Senators who uttered them--are the reasons why.

I just do not want to wait until we get a bill that satisfies every extreme in politics and the political exigencies for everybody because we will wait forever. We will never get a bill then. I would rather go ahead with this bill, which is a good bill, and take what is good about it and then see what is working and what isn't working and then go back and fix it.

That is the reason the AARP supports this. They are tired of waiting, too. I had a hearing on this. I have the honor of sitting on the Special Committee on Aging, a great committee, with a great chairman, Senator Larry Craig. The hearing was in St. Louis. One of the witnesses was Audrey Vallely, a delightful lady, who attended the Route 66 Senior Center in Eureka, MO, regularly. I have been out there for lunch a couple of times. She testified about her experiences over the last 12 years. Audrey suffers from osteoarthritis, a degenerative bone disease, and she also has a sinus disease. She ought to be taking two different types of prescription drugs for these conditions, but it costs $100 a month for 15 pills. So she often cannot take the drugs. She gets some pain relief over-the-counter pills; sometimes it makes her feel better and sometimes it doesn't. She does the best she can. She has to choose between paying for those drugs or paying her rent. Having an air conditioner working in the summer is hard for her. All of these statements about the problems in this bill mean nothing to Audrey, who struggles month after month because of this gap in Medicare.

What would the bipartisan agreement mean for Missouri? We have over 888,000 beneficiaries in Missouri. They all have the opportunity to get a discount card--a 15- to 25-percent discount immediately. Better than that, low-income seniors get, in addition to that, $600 a month in annual assistance to help them afford their medicines, along with discount cards. That is a total of over $200 million in assistance for over 170,000 Missouri residents over the next 2 years, if we pass this bill--not otherwise.

Beginning in 2006, every Missouri senior in Missouri would be eligible for coverage in this bill for approximately $35 a month. They get at least 50 percent off--or approximately 50 percent off their prescription drug costs. Of the approximately 270,000 beneficiaries in Missouri who have limited savings and low income, they will qualify for even more generous coverage. Additionally, the Government will help the State pick up the cost of the Medicaid-eligible seniors. That will help Missouri, which is in a cash-strapped situation with regard to its budget.

This bill meets the conditions that I thought was important for a Medicare prescription drug bill. It has an immediate benefit, reasonable monthly premiums, strong catastrophic coverage, targeted help for low-income seniors, quality benefits for rural areas, protections for local pharmacies, choice and access to all medicine, and participation in it is voluntary. If you like what you have, you don't have to participate.

That is the reason I am supporting this. I will be pleased to vote for it on final passage. I hope a majority of the Senate does. I hope we are allowed to vote. You never know these days. This is the most important Medicare bill in a generation and maybe we will be able to vote on it and maybe we will not. I know most of the people want to have an opportunity to vote on this bill. I think most will vote for it if they get that opportunity.

I am going to close by saying what I have said on the fairly rare occasions when I have spoken on this issue on the Senate floor. In this body, everything always gets said but not everybody says it. Once in a while, I feel maybe I should deprive the Senate of my comments on something in the service of expedition. But I have said, look, if the bill is reasonable, I am going to move ahead with it. I am tired of waiting. I would like to help these people, such as the folks I saw in that parade, and like Audrey Vallely, and others, get access to prescription drugs. I think most of the people who have worked on this on both sides have done their best. As far as I can tell, they are not motivated by all the lobbyists or the special interests. I have been in a lot of meetings on this, and that hasn't come up once. They are trying to do the best they can for seniors, in a way that will work and be affordable for everybody. That is what this bill does. I am going to vote for it on that basis. I hope it passes.

I congratulate the chairman, who is presiding now, for his fine work.

How much time remains?

I am pleased to yield that time to my friend from Colorado.