Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the chairman for yielding. I am the chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee, which is kind of strange given that I am from Missouri. It is not as though we have ports or shipyards in Missouri, although we do build the planes that go on these carriers.

I want to endorse this amendment, which I have cosponsored, and endorse what other Senators have said in support of it and briefly give the Senate the broader picture. Several years ago the Chief of Naval Operations opined that we needed about 375 ships in the U.S. Navy to meet the national military strategy, basically to protect our security. We now have around 288.

A Quadrennial Defense Review is underway. It is going to be completed next year. We are looking very carefully in the Armed Services Committee

at how many ships we need and what we need to do to the shipbuilding budget and what we need to do to demand more efficiency from our shipyards and our shipbuilders.

I am very hopeful in the next year or so we will move forward with a major package in this area. I know the chairman of the full committee feels the same way.

In the meantime, especially given the rising tensions in the western Pacific, I think allowing the Navy to go from 12 to 11 carriers would send exactly the wrong statement. We need to make the point to everyone around the world that we are going to sustain naval strength at the level necessary to protect the security of the United States. So we as a Congress need to begin resolving now that we are going to do what is necessary to accomplish that, which means in part, yes, not allowing the number of carriers to shrink, at least not before the Quadrennial Defense Review is finished, but also it means sustaining the shipbuilding and conversion account at a funding level that is necessary to buy the ships we need to sustain a 300-ship or more Navy.

There is going to be more on this next year. We have to stand by on that. I am sympathetic with the concerns of the Senator from Alaska, but I sponsored the amendment and I support it now. Passing it would be the prudent thing to do.

I yield back.

Mr. President, I rise today just for a few moments to offer a few words in honor of the life of Pope John Paul II. Much has been said this week, and will be said this week, about his life. I want to pay tribute to him on behalf of all the Missourians who are mourning his passing this week.

The Pope left an indelible mark on the history of mankind and, indeed, of the world. I think the title of George Weigel's biography captured the Pope's work the best. He called him ``A Witness To Hope.'' The moral clarity his leadership provided helped spread democracy and justice around a world that desperately needed it. But even more than that, he brought faith and hope to the empty, to the hopeless, to the last and the least among us.

He was a faithful servant of God, an inspiration to Missourians, to countries and cultures around the world. Certainly he was an inspiration to me. One of the greatest honors I have had in all my years in public life was the opportunity to meet him when he visited Missouri 6 years ago.

As we mourn the Pope's passing, we celebrate his spiritual leadership. I want to say, also, we should celebrate his qualities which most impressed me in the brief moment I had to meet him at that time--I mean his humanness, his courage, his works. Those works for years to come will continue giving people hope for the next world and better lives in this one.

Mr. President, I believe in the dignity and value of life at all stages and I strongly supported the legislation to help Terri Schiavo. Doctors have said that Terri is not in a persistent vegetative state and there is a lot of evidence that she would improve if she can get the care her family wants to give her.

It is not uncommon in cases where there has been a miscarriage of justice for the Congress to pass private bills. Our actions are consistent with the will of the people of Florida who have been repeatedly frustrated by the State courts. We have a chance to allow this young woman to live under the nurturing of her parents and to improve her condition.

On Sunday, March 20, the Senate passed the Terri Schiavo bill. The House passed the bill early on Monday, March 21, by a vote of 203-58 and President Bush signed the bill into law less than an hour later.

The legislation will allow Federal courts to hear a claim on behalf of Terri Schiavo by her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, alleging a violation of their daughter's rights under the Constitution or Federal law relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life.

Madam President, I thank my friend, the chairman. I would like to speak briefly on a separate amendment that I am going to offer and ask for a vote on it during the vote-arama today.

I am pleased to be joined in this effort by Senators Thune, Stabenow, and Wyden.

This amendment is endorsed by all the major transportation groups-- including ASSHTO, Associated General Contractors, the Road Builders, the American Public Transportation Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Heavy Highway Alliance, representing major trade unions. These groups understand the importance of this amendment and many will be scoring it as one of their key transportation votes of this session.

As has been the case in past resolutions, the current budget resolution in the Reserve Fund section allows the budget chairman to make adjustments to the allocation for surface transportation.

However, the Senate language as written significantly restricts the transportation reauthorization funding options available to the Finance Committee.

In the fiscal year 2004 budget resolution, last year's resolution, we agreed to reserve fund language that allowed new transportation funding so long as it was offset by an increase in receipts of any kind to the highway trust fund. That is as it should be. We ought to allow the Finance Committee to have the full range of funding options.

As written in this year's resolution, the resolution takes away the flexibility of the Finance Committee, the EPW Committee, the Banking and Commerce Committees, to consider all available funding mechanisms for the reauthorization bill. It precludes the use of resolutions used in past authorization bills, some of which the administration has agreed to and which passed last year by 74 bipartisan votes. Among the funding options that would be blocked are interest on the highway trust fund's unexpended balances; the motor fuels refund reform for over-the- road and lend-lease vehicles; and drawdown of the highway trust fund balance.

My amendment simply changes the language to be consistent with the language in the House budget resolution and the fiscal year 2005 conference report. The amendment is narrowly targeted and does not affect the budget neutrality of the final transportation bill. The amendment simply ensures we have that debate at the right time on the highway bill with all the funding options on the table. I urge my colleagues who support transportation funding to vote for this amendment. It restores the flexibility to use revenue sources approved in the past and gets us out of the box that the current language traps us in and makes it easier to adequately fund our transportation needs within the limits of a revenue-neutral bill.

I will be asking for a vote at the appropriate time on the amendment. I thank my cosponsors, including the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 225.

Mr. President, I will just take 30 seconds.

This amendment is endorsed by all the major transportation groups. The budget resolution restricts the transportation funding available to the Finance Committee. Our amendment changes the language to be consistent with past conference reports and budget resolutions. It ensures that transportation funding options are on the table when we consider the highway bill. It doesn't affect the budget neutrality.

Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Arkansas, is the Senator from Minnesota, Mr. Coleman, listed as a cosponsor?

Yes, I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to recognize today the distinguished accomplishments of the Mules, the Poplar Bluff High School Boys Basketball Team of Poplar Bluff, MO, and congratulate them on winning the 2005 Missouri Class 5 State Championship for Boys Basketball.

The team had a truly remarkable season, and their accomplishment was hard fought and well deserved.

Working as a team, these talented young men pulled together to defeat the previously unbeaten No. 1 ranked team in the Nation.

The Mules finished with a record of 27 wins and only 4 losses, with 2 of those losses against teams that were, at the time, ranked in the top 10 in the Nation. The State title win was the

second consecutive Missouri Class 5 Boys Basketball Championship for the Poplar Bluff Mules.

Anchored by an aggressive defense and a balanced offense, the Mules turned back many deserving opponents in their march to the championship.

I also congratulate their coach, John David Pattillo, and the excellent leadership he has provided. With a staff of dedicated assistant coaches and a great deal of support from students and parents, he created a program for which all of us can be proud.

I congratulate the students and coaches of Poplar Bluff High School on their exceptional championship season.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Will the Senator yield for a second? Does the Senator want to ask unanimous consent to have 4 minutes at once here, which we talked about before?

So it is 4 minutes equally divided.

I thank the Senator from Utah.

Very briefly, we should not allow criminals to hide their assets and avoid paying their bills. This amendment makes certain that dishonest people can't hide their assets, especially if they have caused others to lose their jobs, retirement pensions, health care benefits and, in some cases, their life savings.

One of the reasons the economy plunged into a recession a few years back was because of corporate fraud. And those crimes caused companies to fail, eliminating thousands of jobs. It is fundamentally unfair to allow these crooks to abuse the trust laws of certain States to hide their wealth.

My amendment is simple. It closes the asset protection trust loophole by empowering bankruptcy courts to go back 10 years to take away fraudulent transfers that criminals have sheltered away in an attempt to avoid paying back their debts.

Here is a little background on the problem. Asset protection trusts are trusts that a person forms to shield assets for his or her own benefit.

Although the law has historically allowed property owners to create trusts

for others, courts have historically refused to permit someone to tie up his or her own property in such a way that he or she can still enjoy it but prevent his or her creditors from ever reaching it.

My amendment states clearly that these trusts cannot be used in bankruptcy to allow a person to shelter their assets to avoid repaying their debts because of a judgment in criminal, civil, or bankruptcy court.

In addition, my amendment closes the loophole that the New York Times wrote a good article about. That article noted how difficult it is to determine how much money these crooks have sheltered into these asset protection trusts. Some estimate that criminals have stashed away billions of dollars in these types of trusts.

This amendment allows victims to go after any resource transferred into the trust by a corporate criminal over the previous 10 years. Current laws says that if a corporate executive is convicted of a crime, victims can only go after resources transferred into these trusts over the last year. The bankruptcy bill, without my amendment, would have made it only 2 years.

But, that is still not enough time to go after the criminals who set up these asset protection trusts.

There is a gap of several years where criminals could have put billions in assets into these trusts and the Federal and State bankruptcy courts might not be able to touch them. My amendment closes the loophole for criminals.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment--it simply cracks down on criminals.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set side and my amendment No. 121 be called up, the reading be dispensed with, and it then be set aside.

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the workers at Harley-Davidson's Kansas City Assembly Plant for their hard work and to salute Harley-Davidson for all of the great things they have done for the State of Missouri since locating the plant here just a few years ago.

Harley-Davidson is the oldest and largest motorcycle manufacturer in the U.S. The Kansas City plant, one of only two Harley-Davidson final assembly plants in the country, produces the Sportster, the Dyna Glide, and the V-Rod, and ships those motorcycles all over the world. The plant, which employs over 900 people, opened in 1998, and has achieved its intended goal of significantly increasing Harley-Davidson's production capacity and productivity.

Every September, the plant hosts an open house for Platte County residents and Harley enthusiasts from across the country to tour the plant and learn about how motorcycles are built. Best of all, anyone with a motorcycle license can take the opportunity to test ride a brand new Harley.

Harley-Davidson's contributions to the Kansas City area are important to job creation and sustaining economic growth, and Missourians are proud to have such an iconic symbol of the American spirit located in our State. I am honored to share their accomplishments with you today, and I wish the workers at the Kansas City Plant success in their future endeavors.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I am hopeful that later in the day the Senate will be able to take up the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act. It is a bill I sponsored in the past. I know discussions are going on right now about getting it done, and hopefully we will be able to get it done. If that happens, it will be in no small measure because of the leadership of Senator Enzi, who has already shown in the brief period that we have been in session a great ability to work with Senator Kennedy and others on the HELP Committee to pass legislation.

I was moved by that to come down and to discuss another piece of legislation that a number of us are discussing with Chairman Enzi. I am grateful to him for his openmindedness to it and the discussions that have been going on. I am talking about the Small Business Health Fairness Act which the chairman of the Small Business Committee, Senator Snowe, will introduce today for herself and a number of others who have sponsored this bill in the past.

I congratulate Senator Snowe on her great work on behalf of this bill. I am hopeful that we will be able to pass it this year in the Senate. It may be the most significant thing we can do to reduce the number of people in this country who do not have health insurance.

I want to talk about that for a few minutes. There really is no problem in confronting small business and the economy greater than that problem. It is everybody's problem, even if you have health insurance.

There are 44 million people in the country who do not have health insurance. We have about 500,000 people in Missouri--about 10 percent of our State's population, a little less than that, including 70,000 children who get up and go to school without any health insurance coverage.

Sixty percent of the people in the State of Missouri and around the United States who do not have health insurance are working people. It is a mistake to assume that most of these folks are people who are not employed. They are not classically the disadvantaged people as we normally think of that. Most of those folks we have made eligible for Medicaid, which certainly has a problem, but it is at least health insurance coverage.

Health insurance costs have been increasing for small business employers and their employees on average about 20 percent per year, which means this is not just a health access problem but a huge economic growth problem as well.

Those small businesses that are providing health insurance are having to deal with these enormous costs every year. They will have to take money out of wages or out of investments in the business to try to keep their heads above water in terms of providing health insurance.

Over the years of my experience in the House and the Senate, I have encountered many such small employers. I have talked to hundreds of their employees. We have all done that. All of us, when we get around our States, hear about this problem. It is everywhere. It may be the biggest day-to-day problem the average person in our State confronts, at least if they work for a small business.

Let me just tell you one story of a fine lady named Janet Hoppin from

Missouri. Janet owns a small business in the St. Louis area. She wants to do right by her five employees by providing them with health insurance. Over the past few years, one of her employees became ill. She contracted breast cancer. As a result of that, the insurance costs for Janet's company have increased by $431 per employee per month, or a total increase over the last 2 years of 35 percent. Actually, it could have been a lot more than that.

I have talked to people whose insurance costs have doubled or tripled over the course of several years, particularly if an employee actually gets sick and has the temerity to file a major health insurance claim.

Like most small business owners, health insurance costs for Janet affect the rest of her business. There is downward pressure on the wages and salaries of her other employees and her own salary. She has resolved this by taking it out of her own salary so she can continue to provide health insurance for herself and for her employees.

There are many small businesspeople around the country who are doing exactly the same.

One of the bad things about this situation is because so many people who work for small businesses do not have health insurance, it is easy to assume that small businesspeople just do not care about their employees and that is why they don't provide health insurance. It is terribly unfair. They do care about their people. They work with them every day. Most small business owners are employees of their own company. If they can provide health insurance to the company and the other employees, they will be able to get health insurance under a group policy rather than having to try to go out and buy it on the individual market. It affects their ability to compete for employees.

For a while, when I was chairman of the Small Business Committee in the House, I would meet with groups of small businesspeople and I would ask them to raise their hand if they had lost an employee or had been unable to hire an employee because the employee wanted to work for a big business that had health insurance. Whenever I asked that question, at least half of the people there would raise their hand. They have a disadvantage of getting good employees because of their competitive disadvantage in buying health insurance.

What do we do about it? Fortunately, there is a solution. The legislation has passed the House I think 4 or 5 years running by large bipartisan votes. It passed the House by 100 votes the last time it passed. It is a solution that the President strongly supports. It is a solution that had bipartisan sponsorship in this body last year. What I am about to say is not unimportant at the same time when we are all suffering under a tight budget. It is a solution that doesn't cost the taxpayers any money. It is not a Government program as such. It is not the Government deciding to buy health insurance for somebody, or expanding Medicaid. Those may be good things to do.

We do not have to do it here. We need to empower small business people to do what the big companies already do. We need to allow them to buy health insurance as part of big national pools which will save money because the overhead costs, the administrative costs of buying health insurance, are a lot greater per employee for small businesses than for big businesses. The reason for that is there are economies of scale in insuring large pools.

That is what the small business health plan would do. It would take advantage of the same national structure currently used by 275,000 plans which already cover over 72 million people, including union members, people who work for Fortune 500 companies. The irony is that everyone else in the country, except the employees of small business, everyone else who has health insurance, has it now as part of a big national pool, either private or public. Either you work for a big company--in Missouri at Anheuser-Busch or Sprint or Hallmark--and you are part of a big national pool or maybe you are a labor union member and you get it through one of their health and welfare plans or you are on a public plan, in Medicare, a big national pool, or Medicaid or you are a Federal employee or a retired Federal employee.

There is a reason everyone else gets their health insurance as part of a big national pool. It is cheaper that way. It is administratively easier. The overhead costs are less. It is common sense to believe it costs less to set up and administer a plan where you can spread the costs over a pool of hundreds of thousands of people, rather than a pool of 5 or 10 employees or fewer, which is what people such as Janet Poppin have to face every day today.

All we want to do is allow the trade associations, in which small businesses currently organize for other purposes, to sponsor national health insurance pools. The National Restaurant Association, as an example, could go out, contract with insurance companies nationally, and then you join the restaurant association if you own a small restaurant, as my brother does, and you become part of this big pool. The easiest way to think of it is a small company would get health insurance on the same terms and conditions as if you had been acquired by a Fortune 500 company. You become like a little division of that company. It would be exactly the same thing.

What would it mean for this country if at no cost to the taxpayers every working person has access to health insurance as if they worked for a Fortune 500 company? When I chaired the Committee on Small Business, we had a number of hearings on this. Senator Snowe has had a number of hearings. We estimate a reduction in the cost of health insurance to small business of 10 to 20 percent, and for very small businesses it would be much less than that. For every percent you decrease the cost of health insurance, many people become insured. Small businesses, such as my brother's, who runs this little restaurant, are in a position now to afford health insurance for their employees and, by the way, for themselves because the owners of the companies are almost always employees of the company themselves and they will go out and get health insurance this way.

Think of the savings from their perspective, not just in money but time and effort. I use my brother as a example. He and my sister-in-law run the place. Getting health insurance for their business means spending hours and hours soliciting bids, trying to work their way through it, making sure they are not cheated, dealing with all the legal risks today of making a contract like that. They do not know whether they might get sued for something if they contract with an HMO and there is a screwup. If you can join the restaurant association, they send him the papers, the papers describe what options are available for the employees, and he says I will pay this much for you, you choose what you want.

It is easier, it is cheaper, it is safer. It will mean millions of people who currently do not have health insurance coverage will get it and millions of others will get better, more secure, lower cost, higher quality health insurance--again, at no cost to the taxpayer.

There isn't any reason not to do this. We have been working with those who have had concerns about solvency. How do we make sure these association health plans are solvent? That is a legitimate concern. We already have in the bill tough standards to try and guarantee that. We want to work with people to try and make certain that everybody is satisfied on those points.

We can work our way through this and produce a bill that will make a big difference for America. I am not the only one who thinks so. In addition to Senator Snowe and her great leadership, nine other Members of the Senate who cosponsored this bill last year, Association Health Plans, or the Small Business Health Fairness Act, strongly supported by the administration, 170 organizations representing over 12 million employers, and 80 million American workers support it. The coalition is as broad as the U.S. Chamber, National Federation of Independent Business, the American Farm Bureau, the Associated Builders and Contractors, the Latino Coalition, the National Black Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Women Business Owners. They all support it.

I mention the Farm Bureau. The Presiding Officer and I have a number of farmers in our States. One of the big problems they have is getting health insurance for themselves and their families. This is a classic example of

people trapped in a small group for individual markets situation. What if they could join the American Farm Bureau and become part of a pool of tens and tens of thousands of people?

In recessions, when people get laid off from big businesses--and I have talked to many people in this situation--one of the biggest and most immediate problems when you are laid off is what do you do about health insurance, particularly if you have kids. Many people are able to get another job pretty quickly, maybe with a small business, or they want to start their own spinoff firm when they get laid off from a big company. This is increasingly common today, and a big problem they have is health insurance. What do they do about health insurance? A sole proprietor can join the Chamber of Commerce and the National Chamber of Commerce would be able to start an association health plan under this bill. You would be part of a pool of tens and tens of thousands of people. You would not be at the mercy of a big company deciding it is going to cut your job.

I could go on and on on the subject. I am sure the Senate has become convinced of that, if I have convinced Senators of nothing else. I am very enthusiastic about it. I cannot compliment enough the work of Senator Snowe. Her leadership on this is crucial. Her credibility in this Senate is great. She has taken the whole Small Business Committee in the Senate in the direction of supporting this. I am very pleased to be helping her in this and grateful again to Senator Enzi for his open- mindedness. I cannot speak for him and do not want to, but I remember I was presiding and the Senator from Wyoming was speaking about what he intended to do with the HELP Committee. He said his door was open; he wanted to hear ideas from Senators. He wanted to work with them. He has been as good as his word. I am grateful to him for that.

Let's do this. Members have concerns and we want to address them. I believe we can address them. This is too good an idea to pass up. There is no reason to. I have said for several years, what is the downside? Suppose we allow these associations, however they are constructed, to set up these association health plans, and it doesn't work as well as we think it will work; they do not lower costs quite as much as we hope, and not as many people take advantage of them. What is the downside? Not so many people use the plans as we hope will use the plans. There is no cost to the taxpayers. It is not as though we are spending billions and billions of dollars for something and if it does not work, there is an enormous loss. We are giving people another option, the same option big companies already have. There is no reason not to do it.

Let's work out whatever concerns we have, pass this on a bipartisan basis as they have in the House, and empower our small business people and their employees to have health insurance and to have protection against these rising costs.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.