Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce legislation with my friend and colleague Senator Murray, as well as the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee Senator Inouye, that provides an equitable settlement to the Spokane Tribe of Indians. This bill addresses the decision of the Federal Government to take lands belonging to the tribe in order to construct the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River.

For more than half a century, the Grand Coulee Project has made an extraordinary contribution to this Nation. It helped pull the economy out of the Great Depression. It provided the electricity that produced aluminum required for airplanes and weapons that ensured our national security. The project continues to produce enormous revenues for the United States, it is a key component of the agricultural economy in eastern Washington, and plays a pivotal role in the electric systems serving the entire western United States.

However, these benefits have come at a direct cost to tribal property that became inundated when the U.S. Government built the Grand Coulee Dam. Before dam construction, the free flowing Columbia River supported robust and plentiful salmon runs and provided for virtually all of the subsistence needs of the Spokane Tribe. After construction, the Columbia and its Spokane river tributary flooded tribal communities, schools, and roads, and the remaining stagnant water continues to erode reservation lands today.

The legislation Senators Inouye, Murray, and I are introducing today is similar to P.L. 103-436, which was enacted in 1994 to provide the neighboring Confederated Colville Tribes. This bill would provide the Spokane Tribe of Indians' with compensation that is directly proportional to the settlement afforded the Colville Tribes. Specifically, the Spokane Tribe would receive 39.4 percent of the past and future compensation awarded the Colville Tribes pursuant to the 1994 legislation. This percentage is based on the proportion of tribal lands impacted after the Federal Government built the Grand Coulee Project.

The United States has a trust responsibility to maintain and protect the integrity of all tribal lands within its borders. When Federal actions physically or economically impact harm, our Nation has a legal responsibility to address and compensate the damaged parties. Unfortunately, despite countless efforts, half a century has passed without justice to the Spokane people.

The time has come for the Federal Government to finally meet is fiduciary responsibility for converting the Spokane tribe's resources to its own benefit. Senators Inouye, Murray, and I believe that the legislation we are proposing today will finally bring a fair and honorable closure to these matters. We are pleased to see similar bipartisan legislation was introduced earlier this year in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I look forward to working with the Indian Affairs Committee and my Senate colleagues as this legislation proceeds through the Congress.

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

There being no obligation, the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

Mr. President, I am very pleased that the Senate will be acting today to confirm Lonny Suko as a District Court Judge for Eastern Washington.

Lonny Suko is extremely well qualified. He has been a full-time Federal

magistrate judge in Yakima, WA, since 1995. And before that he was a part-time magistrate judge from 1971 until 1991. With 28 years of experience on the Federal bench, elevating him to be a Federal district court judge is a natural step.

Lonny Suko's nomination is the result of the hard work of an eastern Washington-based judicial selection committee. The selection committee process was negotiated between the White House, Senator Murray, and myself. Six qualified members of the legal community in Eastern Washington selected by our local Members of Congress and by Senator Murray and myself put in long hours interviewing and selecting three qualified candidates to send to the President. The White House agreed with my judgment that Lonny Suko was the most qualified candidate for this position.

Prior to his full-time work as a U.S. magistrate judge, Lonny Suko was also a partner in the firm of Lyon, Weigand & Suko, where his career in private practice involved extensive representation of plaintiffs and defendants in civil litigation as well as extensive mediation experience. Though he has lived in Yakima for the past 30 years, Mr. Suko has connections throughout eastern Washington. He is originally from Spokane, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Washington State University in Pullman, and started his legal career as a clerk to Judge Charles L. Powell, who was then the Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Washington in Spokane.

We wish Judge Suko well in his new position and have confidence that he will be an excellent addition to our distinguished Federal bench.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 942 be the pending business.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified with the changes I send to the desk.

Madam President, I rise today to offer the Cantwell- Lincoln Prescription drug transparency amendment to S. 1, the medicare prescription drug bill. I thank my cosponsor, Senator Lincoln, for working with me on this important amendment that will help protect consumers against high prescription drug prices.

This amendment does three things.

First, it requires any PBM contracting with Medicare to disclose to the Department of Justice how much of the rebates and discounts negotiated for Medicare are being passed back.

Second, the disclosure of these financial arrangements to the Department of Justice provides an incentive for PBMs to return as much of that savings as possible to Medicare, which will in turn, help reduce the high cost of prescription drugs.

Finally, it prohibits a pharmaceutical company from owning a pharmacy benefit manager, an inherent conflict of interest.

By requiring transparency, the Cantwell-Lincoln amendment works to prevent collusion on pricing and helps ensure seniors are not paying unnecessarily high prices for their medications.

PBMs have been the target of numerous lawsuits filed in recent years by health plans, employers and governments. The allegations in these lawsuits are always the same: overinflated drug prices, price collusion between PBMs and manufacturers, failure of PBMs to share discounts and rebates, and switching patients to more expensive drugs without the consent of the patient or the doctor.

The PBMs have denied wrongdoing and have settled in many cases.

Last year, Merck agreed to pay $42.5 million to settle lawsuits over allegations that Medco improperly promoted higher priced Merck drugs when less expensive options from other pharmaceutical companies were available.

In 1998, Merck signed a settlement agreement with the Federal Trade Commission stating that, ``Medco has given favorable treatment to Merck drugs.''

This admission is proof that pharmaceutical companies and PBMs have engaged in collusion on drug pricing in the past, extracting excessive profits from people who rely on these drug services. The Cantwell- Lincoln amendment is needed to help prevent price gouging in the future.

Other governments have struggled to keep a close watch on PBM practices.

In 2000, one of the big four PBMs, Advance PCS, was hired by the state of Arkansas to provide coverage for the state's 135,000 employees. A recent audit found that the PBM was over charging the state for numerous drugs. During one 4-month period, the PBM overcharged the state $479,000 on generic drugs alone.

PBM executives say that my amendment makes turning a profit impossible. It is true that PBMs are not charities but private companies with a duty to their shareholders to earn a profit.

Let's not forget, however, that these are also private companies charged with providing a Government-funded benefit in the best interests of 40 million senior citizens. These private companies also are duty bound to get the most for the Government's $400 billion investment.

Traveling in my home State of Washington, I hear regularly from senior citizens about the high cost of prescription drugs. While seniors in my State, like elsewhere in the country, want a Medicare prescription drug benefit, they also desperately want some relief from high prescription drug prices. They say, ``Stop the price gouging. Do something to make sure that prescription drugs are reasonably affordable for everyone.''

PBMs have come to dominate the prescription drug benefit market. Nearly 210 million Americans are served by one of the four largest PBMs.

According to the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, national prescription drug spending increased by 15.7 percent in 2001. Despite promises from pharmacy benefit managers to lower costs, prescription drugs continue to be the fastest growing sector of health care spending in this country.

Soaring in tandem with prescription drugs prices are PBM profits. St. Louis-based Express Scripts--one of the four largest PBMs--provides coverage to 40 million people. The company reported that its net income grew 63 percent last year to $202.8 million.

Another one of the big four, Advance PCS, which covers 75 million people, was ranked by Fortune Magazine as the ninth fastest growing company in the nation based on its profits over the past 5 years.

Unfortunately, it has been near impossible to find out whether PBMs are fairly sharing rebates and other savings with patients or simply using it to boost the bottom line.

Even the General Accounting Office has been unable to find out how rebates are being divided between PBMs and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. A GAO requested by Senator Dorgan last year failed to discover if the PBMs were passing along the savings because none of the PBMs financial documents were available for review.

Several private companies and employee groups that contract with PBMs have resorted to lawsuits to get access to this information.

The Cantwell-Lincoln amendment requires the PBM to disclose to the Department of Justice the financial arrangements that dictate what percentage of rebates and other savings are being passed back to the client.

This disclosure creates a major incentive for PBMs to return as much as possible of the rebates and spread back to the Medicare program. This incentive also will help reduce prescription drug prices.

The PBMs have argued that reporting this financial information would kill their ability to continue to negotiate low drug prices. I am a businesswoman, and I understand the need to keep financial agreements confidential. That is why my amendment mandates the information be handed over to the Department of Justice, where it remains confidential.

Department of Justice oversight also allows for regular review of these financial arrangements to weed out any potential collusion on pricing. This added protection also will help lower drug costs for seniors.

The Cantwell-Lincoln amendment also prohibits PBMs from being owned by pharmaceutical manufacturers. This cross-ownership is problematic because it could allow for pharmaceutical companies to collude with PBMs to favor the manufacturers more expensive drugs over less expensive alternatives.

A report on PBMs by the National Health Policy Forum points out the concerns raised by close relationships between PBMs and drug manufacturers. Close ties between the two could lead to a lack of drug choice for consumers, with one manufacturer's drugs getting preferential treatment by the PBM.

Actions taken this week by the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia reinforce the

need for greater PBM oversight as outlined in the Cantwell-Lincoln amendment.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that articles from the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal be printed in the Record.

Madam President, it was reported this week that U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan plans to join a pair of lawsuits filed by three former Medco Health employees. The employees--two pharmacists and a doctor--allege that Medco provided misleading information to the Government related to a contract to provide drug coverage for Federal employees. The lawsuits accuse Medco of switching patients to more expensive drugs and fabricating records to make it look as if the prescription changes were made by doctors and not by Medco.

These are serious allegations resulting from an investigation that began in 1999. This is the first such action taken by a U.S. attorney against a PBM and is a strong signal that all is not right with this industry.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Meehan told the Newark Star Ledger:

The kind of conduct alleged in the complaints threatens not

only the integrity of the system as a whole, but also the

well being of the very patients it is designed to benefit.

These allegations suggest that, somewhere along the line, the

focus became the profit instead of the patient.

The possibility of profitability trumping patient care has promoted a number of consumer groups to favor the accountability system outlined in my amendment. Consumers Union, Public Citizen, Families USA, AFSCME, the National Community Pharmacy Association and the Washington State Pharmacy Association all support my amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that letters of support be printed in the Record.

Madam President, these groups and others have been trying to call attention to problematic PBM practices. These groups rightly point out that strong consumer protections are needed in any Medicare drug benefit.

The American Association of State, County and Municipal Employees agrees that these protections provide ``a critical means of controlling costs.''

A national coalition of workers representing more than 20 states also are supportive of efforts to monitor PBMs. Many in this coalition currently use PBMs to provide benefits and many of them are wondering why drug costs continue to rise.

There is a balance to be had here, and the Cantwell-Lincoln amendment makes sure the scale is not tipped too far one way. It is a good amendment that will lower prescription drug prices, provide much needed consumer protections and ensure strong government oversight. I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss a topic that I believe is critical to our Nation's economic growth and future competitiveness--the training of our workforce.

We are living in tough economic times. The economy of the State of Washington and the Nation at large are suffering through a recession where jobs are scarce and workers are scrambling to pay the bills. The most recent employment data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics have offered little comfort in Washington where the unemployment rate is 7.3 percent. Washington, along with the other Pacific Northwest States of Oregon and Alaska, continues to have among the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Just a month ago, the Senate moved quickly to extend the temporary extension of unemployment compensation program, so that approximately four million workers across this country will not lose their Federal extended unemployment benefits. I am proud that the Senate acted quickly to extend this important program. This means that over 100,000 unemployed workers in Washington State will receive 26 weeks of Federal extended benefits. I am disappointed, however, that we were not able to pass coverage for the estimated 1.1 million unemployed workers who have entirely exhausted their State and Federal benefits. Therefore, I am fighting to pass a bill that would extend coverage to the long-term unemployed, so that help is available to the hardest hit workers in this weak economy.

Nonetheless, our efforts should not stop with an unemployment insurance extension. We must continue to pursue long-term strategies for a sustained economic recovery. The fundamental strength of our economy lies in the working men and women of this Nation whose innovation and hard work propelled the massive economic expansion of the past decade.

The competitive edge that will keep our workers ahead in this changing global economy is their skills. Our economy is global, linked by international markets and communications networks. The sustained success of U.S. companies depends on adaptability and innovation, which means that workers themselves need to remain flexible and continually update job skills.

Even in this time of high unemployment, businesses throughout the country cannot find workers with the skills they need. According to a study completed by Heldrich Work Trends Survey, American employers are finding it difficult to hire qualified workers. Nearly half, 46 percent, of American businesses say they have had trouble finding workers with the necessary skills. At the same time, over three million workers are laid off each year, but well under 500,000 receive any sort of training to learn the skills demanded by those businesses that face worker shortages. Job training is an answer to meeting those skill demands and bridging the skills gaps that persist. However, it will not occur widely without a strong financial commitment from the Federal Government to ensure access to job training programs, and ongoing efforts to maximize the effectiveness of those funds that we already invest.

Investment in job training must be our first priority not our last-- the decisions we make today to invest in our workers will pay off many times over in the form of stronger local economies, healthier communities, and improved quality of life.

But the reality is that we are delivering a trickle of funding while faced with a tidal wave of need. I have traveled across my state, from Olympia to Kelso, Vancouver to Bellingham, the Tri-cities to Spokane and received a great deal of feedback from Washingtonians who are seeking training, are providing it, or are serving as employers who need to hire skilled workers. And I heard similar concerns repeated in each of these areas: first, as our economy continues to evolve, the demand for new skills has grown; second, the enormous increase in demand for skills training by individual workers who are upgrading skills or changing jobs is a trend that appears to be widespread throughout the Nation; but third, far too many of those workers seeking access to training cannot get the training they need due to limited space at training institutions and the limited tuition assistance.

Last year, my office released a study of this apparent shortfall in capacity of training systems in my State, and the results of that study were staggering to me. There are over 110,000 dislocated workers in my state, the majority of whom want to upgrade their skills but cannot do so because of budgetary limitations that prevent institutions from offering enough courses, and the limited numbers of available training vouchers.

To make things worse, this year, the State of Washington received approximately 40 percent less in Workforce Investment Act, WIA, formula funding compared to last year. This drastic cut in WIA funding means that services will be cut back at a time when the demand is at an all time high. It is imperative that during this time of State deficits, States receive additional help from the Federal Government for important services such as education and job training.

As my colleagues know, the Workforce Investment Act is up for reauthorization this year. The WIA system is clearly the centerpiece of the Federal job training programs. It provides a one-stop delivery system designed to meet a broad range of worker needs, and it emerged from years of bipartisan work by Congress to consolidate over 33 Federal programs into one system for delivering employment and training services.

Today, I am introducing three bills that are designed to build upon the existing workforce structure to expand opportunities for training and improve its effectiveness.

The first piece of legislation would change the Pell Grant program to make certain that student financial aid is available to recently laid off workers. Under current law, the standard practice in the determination of Pell Grant eligibility for student aid is to base grant awards upon the applicant's income during the previous year. The use of tax forms for this purpose, in many cases, is the most appropriate and easiest administrative method of obtaining a clear and official statement of financial need. But, as a result, many recently laid-off workers are not eligible for critical financial assistance at a time when the workers' families are experiencing a dramatic decrease in income. My legislation would explicitly provide the authority for educational institutions, after taking sufficient precautions to prevent fraud, to consider current-year income levels for applicants seeking training through Pell Grant-eligible programs. It does this in a very narrow way, by only allowing institutions in States with high unemployment rates to consider current year financial circumstances rather than previous year income.

The second bill addresses issues of distance-learning and delivery of training to hard to reach areas in a comprehensive manner. While many distance-learning technologies have been developed in recent years, those technologies have not necessarily reached many of those who are most in need of training. Many workers in need of

training may not be aware of online distance learning opportunities and may not be able to take advantage of them even if they do know about them. I believe, it is not enough to create a distance learning curriculum and passively provide it through an educational institution website. Rather, comprehensive solutions need to be developed that integrate curriculum innovations, technological access, and the promotion and linkage of workers in need of training with such opportunities, especially to help workers in rural areas. That's why my bill encourages the local workforce development boards to plan a comprehensive approach to improve access to and delivery of employment training services by using technology and online resources to connect workers with the information and tools they need to upgrade their skills.

The third bill that I am introducing today is designed to help local workforce development boards better understand regional labor market dynamics and improve system performance by identifying emerging sectors and industries with chronic worker shortages. My legislation encourages local workforce development boards to target employment and training resources so that workers can get training in occupations where employers need workers.

My legislation provides new resources to the state level so that states can direct funding down to the local workforce development boards to form partnerships with employers, unions, service providers and other key players in order to develop a strategic plan for addressing regional industry and workforce needs.

I want to make clear that this legislation is not intended to reinvent the wheel for areas that are already developing sectoral approaches within existing workforce development systems. In fact, Washington State is a leader in sector approaches: in 2000, the Washington State Legislature enacted legislation to support industry skills panels known as the ``Skills Initiative.'' The Skills Initiative provides grants to local workforce development councils to engage business and industry in strategies to close the skill gaps in my State. My legislation emphasizes this work by providing funding to support these partnerships.

This is a first step on a long journey as we work to improve Federal job training systems, and it is critical, now more than ever, that Congress increase funding for the job training programs under the Workforce Investment Act. By providing the necessary resources, we send a strong message to the American public that our government must invest in our greatest resource--the American worker. Each of these bills is an important component of that broader strategy, and I look forward to working with my colleagues as we begin to look at the reauthorization of WIA and the Higher Education Act this year and next.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to discuss a topic that I believe is critical to our Nation's economic growth and future competitiveness--the training of our workforce.

We are living in tough economic times. The economy of the State of Washington and the Nation at large are suffering through a recession where jobs are scarce and workers are scrambling to pay the bills. The most recent employment data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics have offered little comfort in Washington where the unemployment rate is 7.3 percent. Washington, along with the other Pacific Northwest States of Oregon and Alaska, continues to have among the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Just a month ago, the Senate moved quickly to extend the temporary extension of unemployment compensation program, so that approximately four million workers across this country will not lose their Federal extended unemployment benefits. I am proud that the Senate acted quickly to extend this important program. This means that over 100,000 unemployed workers in Washington State will receive 26 weeks of Federal extended benefits. I am disappointed, however, that we were not able to pass coverage for the estimated 1.1 million unemployed workers who have entirely exhausted their State and Federal benefits. Therefore, I am fighting to pass a bill that would extend coverage to the long-term unemployed, so that help is available to the hardest hit workers in this weak economy.

Nonetheless, our efforts should not stop with an unemployment insurance extension. We must continue to pursue long-term strategies for a sustained economic recovery. The fundamental strength of our economy lies in the working men and women of this Nation whose innovation and hard work propelled the massive economic expansion of the past decade.

The competitive edge that will keep our workers ahead in this changing global economy is their skills. Our economy is global, linked by international markets and communications networks. The sustained success of U.S. companies depends on adaptability and innovation, which means that workers themselves need to remain flexible and continually update job skills.

Even in this time of high unemployment, businesses throughout the country cannot find workers with the skills they need. According to a study completed by Heldrich Work Trends Survey, American employers are finding it difficult to hire qualified workers. Nearly half, 46 percent, of American businesses say they have had trouble finding workers with the necessary skills. At the same time, over three million workers are laid off each year, but well under 500,000 receive any sort of training to learn the skills demanded by those businesses that face worker shortages. Job training is an answer to meeting those skill demands and bridging the skills gaps that persist. However, it will not occur widely without a strong financial commitment from the Federal Government to ensure access to job training programs, and ongoing efforts to maximize the effectiveness of those funds that we already invest.

Investment in job training must be our first priority not our last-- the decisions we make today to invest in our workers will pay off many times over in the form of stronger local economies, healthier communities, and improved quality of life.

But the reality is that we are delivering a trickle of funding while faced with a tidal wave of need. I have traveled across my state, from Olympia to Kelso, Vancouver to Bellingham, the Tri-cities to Spokane and received a great deal of feedback from Washingtonians who are seeking training, are providing it, or are serving as employers who need to hire skilled workers. And I heard similar concerns repeated in each of these areas: first, as our economy continues to evolve, the demand for new skills has grown; second, the enormous increase in demand for skills training by individual workers who are upgrading skills or changing jobs is a trend that appears to be widespread throughout the Nation; but third, far too many of those workers seeking access to training cannot get the training they need due to limited space at training institutions and the limited tuition assistance.

Last year, my office released a study of this apparent shortfall in capacity of training systems in my State, and the results of that study were staggering to me. There are over 110,000 dislocated workers in my state, the majority of whom want to upgrade their skills but cannot do so because of budgetary limitations that prevent institutions from offering enough courses, and the limited numbers of available training vouchers.

To make things worse, this year, the State of Washington received approximately 40 percent less in Workforce Investment Act, WIA, formula funding compared to last year. This drastic cut in WIA funding means that services will be cut back at a time when the demand is at an all time high. It is imperative that during this time of State deficits, States receive additional help from the Federal Government for important services such as education and job training.

As my colleagues know, the Workforce Investment Act is up for reauthorization this year. The WIA system is clearly the centerpiece of the Federal job training programs. It provides a one-stop delivery system designed to meet a broad range of worker needs, and it emerged from years of bipartisan work by Congress to consolidate over 33 Federal programs into one system for delivering employment and training services.

Today, I am introducing three bills that are designed to build upon the existing workforce structure to expand opportunities for training and improve its effectiveness.

The first piece of legislation would change the Pell Grant program to make certain that student financial aid is available to recently laid off workers. Under current law, the standard practice in the determination of Pell Grant eligibility for student aid is to base grant awards upon the applicant's income during the previous year. The use of tax forms for this purpose, in many cases, is the most appropriate and easiest administrative method of obtaining a clear and official statement of financial need. But, as a result, many recently laid-off workers are not eligible for critical financial assistance at a time when the workers' families are experiencing a dramatic decrease in income. My legislation would explicitly provide the authority for educational institutions, after taking sufficient precautions to prevent fraud, to consider current-year income levels for applicants seeking training through Pell Grant-eligible programs. It does this in a very narrow way, by only allowing institutions in States with high unemployment rates to consider current year financial circumstances rather than previous year income.

The second bill addresses issues of distance-learning and delivery of training to hard to reach areas in a comprehensive manner. While many distance-learning technologies have been developed in recent years, those technologies have not necessarily reached many of those who are most in need of training. Many workers in need of

training may not be aware of online distance learning opportunities and may not be able to take advantage of them even if they do know about them. I believe, it is not enough to create a distance learning curriculum and passively provide it through an educational institution website. Rather, comprehensive solutions need to be developed that integrate curriculum innovations, technological access, and the promotion and linkage of workers in need of training with such opportunities, especially to help workers in rural areas. That's why my bill encourages the local workforce development boards to plan a comprehensive approach to improve access to and delivery of employment training services by using technology and online resources to connect workers with the information and tools they need to upgrade their skills.

The third bill that I am introducing today is designed to help local workforce development boards better understand regional labor market dynamics and improve system performance by identifying emerging sectors and industries with chronic worker shortages. My legislation encourages local workforce development boards to target employment and training resources so that workers can get training in occupations where employers need workers.

My legislation provides new resources to the state level so that states can direct funding down to the local workforce development boards to form partnerships with employers, unions, service providers and other key players in order to develop a strategic plan for addressing regional industry and workforce needs.

I want to make clear that this legislation is not intended to reinvent the wheel for areas that are already developing sectoral approaches within existing workforce development systems. In fact, Washington State is a leader in sector approaches: in 2000, the Washington State Legislature enacted legislation to support industry skills panels known as the ``Skills Initiative.'' The Skills Initiative provides grants to local workforce development councils to engage business and industry in strategies to close the skill gaps in my State. My legislation emphasizes this work by providing funding to support these partnerships.

This is a first step on a long journey as we work to improve Federal job training systems, and it is critical, now more than ever, that Congress increase funding for the job training programs under the Workforce Investment Act. By providing the necessary resources, we send a strong message to the American public that our government must invest in our greatest resource--the American worker. Each of these bills is an important component of that broader strategy, and I look forward to working with my colleagues as we begin to look at the reauthorization of WIA and the Higher Education Act this year and next.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to offer the Prescription Drug Consumer Information Act. I believe this legislation will dramatically improve the way in which prescription drug benefits are provided to our Nation's 40 million senior citizens through the Medicare program.

The Prescription Drug Consumer Information Act is intended to provide some assurances that the billions of dollars being spent on this new prescription drug benefit for Medicare is going as far as possible. The Act is focused primarily on the practices of pharmacy benefit managers, the private companies that would most likely administer the new prescription drug benefit called for under the Prescription Drug Benefits Bill.

PBMs have come to dominate the prescription drug benefit market and subsequently, have been the target of criticism by the employers and health plans that contract with them. The source of the controversy has been the cost cutting practices of PBMs, which have allowed them to make prescription drug coverage more affordable. However, the fact that drug prices continue to rise in the face of these cost-cutting efforts, has led some to question PBM practices in the private sector. As we move forward in providing prescription drug coverage within a government-operated program as large as Medicare it is critical that there be adequate safeguards in place. My bill would provide greater scrutiny and auditing of PBMs contracting with the government and also provide some consumer protections for all Americans who purchase prescription drugs.

The market share of prescription drug benefits managed by PBMs has grown enormously in recent years. Currently, 90 percent of Americans with prescription drug coverage have their benefits administered by a PMB. Of that 90 percent, nearly 70 percent of those people are served by one of the four major PBM companies. PBMs provide benefits to nearly 200 million Americans, including 65 percent of the Nation's senior population. PBMs have become as powerful in the delivery of prescription drug services as the manufacturers which produce medications.

As PBMs have come to dominate the market, they are increasingly drawing the attention of State lawmakers struggling with skyrocketing prescription drug costs for state workers and large programs like Medicaid. As States focus on reducing pharmaceutical costs, suspicions are growing among state lawmakers and health department officials that the ``behind-closed-doors'' practices of PBMs are responsible for some of the escalating costs of prescription drugs. In 2002, Georgia become the first State to regulate PBMs by requiring they be licensed as pharmacies. This year, 19 States have introduced legislation to regulate or license PBMs.

At issue are the rebates, discounts and other savings that PBMs negotiate with drug manufacturers in exchange for giving their medications ``preferred'' status on the PBMs list of available drugs. Those contracts are a primary source of revenue for the PBMs and for the drug manufacturers who see use of their products increase as the PBM steers its massive consumer base toward the preferred drug. However, because PBMs are so secretive about their arrangements with manufacturers, it is difficult for PBM clients to know if a significant portion of the rebates are being passed back to them as the PBM promises.

PBMs also negotiate lower prices with pharmacies but fail to share those savings with consumers, particularly on generic drugs. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that for one drug fluoxetine, a generic of Prozac, PBMs were buying the drug from the pharmacy for about 30 cents a pill. However, most of the PBMs clients were paying $1.06 a pill based on the average markup formula. The PBM was pocketing the difference, which was 76 cents per pill. Multiply that by the number of fluoxetine pills dispensed by the PBMs and it is clear that these private companies are getting rich while consumers continue to pay unnecessarily high drug prices. This may be in the best interests of the PBMs shareholders, but it is a disservice to its customers, which turn to PBMs in an attempt to save money and lower drug costs.

Efforts to better understand the PBM industry have reinforced this attitude of secrecy and backroom deals. Last year, Senator Dorgan requested a General Accounting Office study of whether PBMs were sharing the savings achieved through rebates and discounts with the members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. Unfortunately, the study provided us with little understanding of how the PBM industry operates because GAO was denied access to the financial documents of the PBM companies. GAO had no way of fulfilling its obligation of reporting to Congress because the PBMs refused to disclose any information about rebates, discounts and other savings generated by

Mr. President, I rise today to offer the Prescription Drug Consumer Information Act. I believe this legislation will dramatically improve the way in which prescription drug benefits are provided to our Nation's 40 million senior citizens through the Medicare program.

The Prescription Drug Consumer Information Act is intended to provide some assurances that the billions of dollars being spent on this new prescription drug benefit for Medicare is going as far as possible. The Act is focused primarily on the practices of pharmacy benefit managers, the private companies that would most likely administer the new prescription drug benefit called for under the Prescription Drug Benefits Bill.

PBMs have come to dominate the prescription drug benefit market and subsequently, have been the target of criticism by the employers and health plans that contract with them. The source of the controversy has been the cost cutting practices of PBMs, which have allowed them to make prescription drug coverage more affordable. However, the fact that drug prices continue to rise in the face of these cost-cutting efforts, has led some to question PBM practices in the private sector. As we move forward in providing prescription drug coverage within a government-operated program as large as Medicare it is critical that there be adequate safeguards in place. My bill would provide greater scrutiny and auditing of PBMs contracting with the government and also provide some consumer protections for all Americans who purchase prescription drugs.

The market share of prescription drug benefits managed by PBMs has grown enormously in recent years. Currently, 90 percent of Americans with prescription drug coverage have their benefits administered by a PMB. Of that 90 percent, nearly 70 percent of those people are served by one of the four major PBM companies. PBMs provide benefits to nearly 200 million Americans, including 65 percent of the Nation's senior population. PBMs have become as powerful in the delivery of prescription drug services as the manufacturers which produce medications.

As PBMs have come to dominate the market, they are increasingly drawing the attention of State lawmakers struggling with skyrocketing prescription drug costs for state workers and large programs like Medicaid. As States focus on reducing pharmaceutical costs, suspicions are growing among state lawmakers and health department officials that the ``behind-closed-doors'' practices of PBMs are responsible for some of the escalating costs of prescription drugs. In 2002, Georgia become the first State to regulate PBMs by requiring they be licensed as pharmacies. This year, 19 States have introduced legislation to regulate or license PBMs.

At issue are the rebates, discounts and other savings that PBMs negotiate with drug manufacturers in exchange for giving their medications ``preferred'' status on the PBMs list of available drugs. Those contracts are a primary source of revenue for the PBMs and for the drug manufacturers who see use of their products increase as the PBM steers its massive consumer base toward the preferred drug. However, because PBMs are so secretive about their arrangements with manufacturers, it is difficult for PBM clients to know if a significant portion of the rebates are being passed back to them as the PBM promises.

PBMs also negotiate lower prices with pharmacies but fail to share those savings with consumers, particularly on generic drugs. A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that for one drug fluoxetine, a generic of Prozac, PBMs were buying the drug from the pharmacy for about 30 cents a pill. However, most of the PBMs clients were paying $1.06 a pill based on the average markup formula. The PBM was pocketing the difference, which was 76 cents per pill. Multiply that by the number of fluoxetine pills dispensed by the PBMs and it is clear that these private companies are getting rich while consumers continue to pay unnecessarily high drug prices. This may be in the best interests of the PBMs shareholders, but it is a disservice to its customers, which turn to PBMs in an attempt to save money and lower drug costs.

Efforts to better understand the PBM industry have reinforced this attitude of secrecy and backroom deals. Last year, Senator Dorgan requested a General Accounting Office study of whether PBMs were sharing the savings achieved through rebates and discounts with the members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. Unfortunately, the study provided us with little understanding of how the PBM industry operates because GAO was denied access to the financial documents of the PBM companies. GAO had no way of fulfilling its obligation of reporting to Congress because the PBMs refused to disclose any information about rebates, discounts and other savings generated by

Madam President, I rise to support the Graham amendment. I thank my colleague from California for speaking so eloquently about how important it is for the entire west coast of the United States. I know Senator Graham is articulating those same concerns in Florida. I am sure we will hear from Members of other parts of the country. I find this debate almost amazing--amazing in the sense that Congress has enacted moratoria on drilling since 1982. In every instance since 1982, Congress has responded and said we don't want to explore for natural gas or oil off of our pristine coasts. So we go over this time and time again. Yes. We are going to go over it again today. People have raised these economic arguments. I can tell you what the people in Washington State think.

We have a 7.4-percent unemployment rate. We want jobs. But I guarantee this is not where we think we are going to get jobs. In fact, we want protection from our high energy costs. My ratepayers have had a 50-percent rate increase. Why? Because we were gouged by Enron contracts.

To say to the people of the Northwest that somehow your economy and your future are going be taken care of because we are going to let you drill off the coast of Washington is ludicrous. We want economic relief. We want statutory relief from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to do their job. We want them to basically say that the fat boys and these Enron schemes have been illegal and we are going to help you get out of your high energy prices.

The fact that we are out here talking about this isn't really going to lead to drilling. Then why spend the taxpayers' dollars trying to study something we don't want to do. I don't want to drill off the coast of Washington. I don't want to spend the taxpayers' money assessing that situation. I don't think we ought to spend the taxpayers' money looking in the Great Lakes for oil. I don't know that we want to go and say let us valuate putting a nuclear powerplant in North Dakota because it might be close to the Missouri River and a water source.

There are a lot of issues we can explore. The question is, do we want to follow through on those policies? I believe the answer is absolutely no, as to our pristine coastline. That coastline has already been a key part of our economy on the west coast. We have many fishing industries, shellfishing industries, and tourism dollars that all rely on that pristine coastline.

The Federal Government has entered into treaties with the tribes on shellfish and harvesting rights. Are we going to abrogate those Federal obligations that we have signed onto?

We also, as the Federal Government, implemented the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary which encompasses most of the waters off the Northwest coast. It is a sanctuary for hundreds of species, including marine mammals. These mammals include the majestic orca whale, whose 20 percent population decline over the past decade recently triggered a ``depleted'' listing under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Now are going to say to the country that we think we should look at putting oil rigs and transportation of oil in an area that we, as a country, have already designated as a pristine national monument?

If you want to know whether the people of my State are watching, they are watching. Guess what. They have a memory. They do remember. They remember thick carpets of oil, hundreds of dead birds and great shards of oil-blackened timber that followed the 1989 oil spill off of Grays Harbor. That disaster stained over 300 miles of coastline. An oil well blowout could be many times worse.

While some argue that simply studying this just gives us information, my response is that we should not spend millions of taxpayer dollars that could be put towards something else. My constituents won't accept drilling rigs off the vibrant coastline of Willapa Bay, Neah Bay, or the mouth of the Columbia River. Rigs are unsightly and the risk of an ecologically disastrous oil spill is just too high.

Instead of looking for oil and gas on the Outer Continental Shelf, my State is willing to do a variety of things.

We are still the home to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and we are spending billions of taxpayer dollars to clean up the nuclear waste. We are progressing on that in an aggressive fashion.

We have one of the largest wind farms in the West. We are trying to be a leader in new energy technology. We are even willing to look at wave energy technology off the coast of Washington and in other areas where it might be more appropriate.

I am a big advocate of moving forward on natural gas in Alaska to make sure we get a natural gas pipeline to give more natural gas resources to the lower 48 States. That is something which I think is critically important. The Pew Ocean Commission has recently highlighted the fragile nature of our oceans and coastal resources and recommended we look at our oceans in a holistic manner.

I think that report, which came out less than 10 days ago, basically says that we don't have our act together as it relates to our oceans and the health of our oceans.

I find it very frustrating being from a State that has high unemployment and a State that has high energy costs. Those energy costs have been costing us and no one is trying to help give us relief from those contracts.

Public documents say there has been market manipulation. Now somebody thinks they are proposing to us some panacea of studying drilling off the coast of Washington and you are going to have a great economy. It is a bunch of bunk.

What we need to do is what Congress has done since 1982, enact a moratorium on drilling. Stand up and say it is not appropriate. Follow the Bush administration, follow the Clinton administration, and follow the previous Bush administration. I am not sure where this Bush administration is, but basically say we don't want drilling off of our pristine coastline.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to strongly support the Aviation Investment and Revitalization Vision Act.

I want to first applaud the tremendous leadership on this bill from my chairman on the Commerce Committee, Senator McCain, and Senator Hollings, the ranking member.

This legislation reaffirms our Government's critical commitment to a safe, efficient, and state-of-the-art airline system for the 21st century--a commitment that is crucially important to my home State.

The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is the principal airport for the Northwest region, making it the Nation's 16th largest passenger airport, with over 26.5 million passengers annually on almost 40 different airlines going in and out of the Seattle-Tacoma airport.

Washington State is also the home to the ninth largest airline in the country, Alaska Airlines, which employs over 10,000 people and is one of the few airlines in the country actually posting growth rates over the last few years. In addition, Alaska is nationally recognized for its leadership to incorporate technology into its business model.

As the proud home of Boeing's commercial aviation division, Washington State leads the Nation in large civil aircraft manufacturing.

With Boeing and hundreds of smaller businesses in aerospace and aviation, we have over 75,000 workers designing and manufacturing the present and future of U.S. aircraft industry.

Obviously, a solid, well functioning, state-of-the-art national air traffic system and a strong domestic aircraft manufacturing capability are critical to my State and our Nation.

I am proud to say that this bipartisan legislation takes tremendous steps towards this goal in several ways.

First, this bill increases funding for airport infrastructure investments that will help our Nation's airports make the improvements, upgrades and expansions necessary to meet our Nation's airline demands in the 21st century.

The bill also increases the funding that will be used to upgrade the FAA air traffic control system, to ensure that our traffic controllers are given the resources they need to continue getting planes where they need to go--in the safest and most efficient manner.

In addition, this bill addresses a critical resource need facing our Nation's airports since 9/11 increased security updates. The legislation not only provides $500 million in funding for security enhancements, but it ensures that this funding is not taken from the airport trust fund money that is already committed to make important structural upgrades and airport improvements.

Last, in what I think is one of the most important contributions of this bill, the legislation includes a dramatic expansion in our Nation's commitment to aviation research and safety.

Mr. President, a renewed commitment to research and development in the aerospace industry is absolutely necessary--and we need it now.

The Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry argued that current Federal aerospace R&D is ``insufficient and unfocused'' and recommended in the Federal Government significantly increase its investment in aerospace research to foster an efficient, secure, and safe aerospace transportation system.

We must clearly recognize that if we are not willing to make the commitments to retain leadership in this realm, our allies on the other side of the Atlantic certainly are willing to take our place--in fact, this effort has become European policy.

Indeed, the European Commission has declared in its ``STAR-21'' report that it is willing to explore ``all available means'' to ensure the competitiveness of the European aerospace sector--including Airbus.

This support to the European aerospace sector comes in the form of substantial research and development, but also in direct product development grants, concessionary financing, and other direct subsidies.

While we have chosen, as a matter of Government policy, not to pursue such direct subsidies or provide assistance for product development, we have been able to help the research and development effort through a variety of research programs that both of your agencies have pursued.

It is time for the United States to reinforce our Nation's place as a leader in the aerospace sector--an industry is an absolutely crucial component of our domestic industrial base.

For this reason, I am very proud that this bill includes provisions originally introduced by Senator Hollings, that would establish an Office of Aerospace and Aviation Liaison in the Department of Transportation that will draw upon staff from FAA, NASA, DHS, DOD, DOC, and other appropriate agencies to coordinate Federal research programs, as well as establish goals and priorities for research.

Such an office will be well equipped to meet the challenge of the Aerospace Commission and bring direction and coordination to our Federal support for long-term research and innovation.

In addition, this bill authorizes almost $3 billion over the next 3 years for FAA and NASA research priorities. This is a dramatic expansion of the research agenda, almost five times more than previously authorized funding--previous authorization was approximately $600 million over 3 years.

As part of these research provisions, I am particularly proud to have worked with the committee to include funding and authority for future work on the durability and maintainability of advanced materials, such as composites.

These next generation materials have been called the aluminum of the future. Indeed, given their strength, durability, lightweight and unique properties, composites are currently used in most major defense aircraft.

Composites not only make for stronger, safer materials but also lighter and more efficient aircraft.

Already, the Boeing Company has increased its use of composites in the production of the 777 and Airbus is also using composites in its planes. Additionally, Boeing has plans for even greater use in the production of the next generation of commercial airplanes.

In addition to authorizing funds for general research in advanced materials, this legislation would direct the FAA Administrator to establish a ``Center for Excellence'' that would harness the great engineering research in materials science at path-breaking institutions like the University of Washington, which has taken great strides in pursuing work on how to advance the maintainability and durability of advanced materials and composites in large civilian aircraft.

While we know that these materials hold tremendous potential, we need to be absolutely sure that they are safe and that we have the technologies and processes necessary to maintain the materials and ensure their durability.

Such a center, which I have drafted in partnership with the University of Washington's Department of Engineering, would address these issues by facilitating close, working collaboration among industry, the FAA's Transportation Division, and academic institutions, to ensure that research matches the practical manufacturing needs.

This center will advance efforts to capitalize on the potential of this field.

In closing, Mr. President, as a government, we need to step up to the plate to ensure that our aerospace industry remains competitive and capable of leading the world toward the future for aerospace.

This bill takes an important step in affirming our Nation's leadership in the areas of safety, research, infrastructure, and security, and I am proud to support it.

Thank you, Madam President.

I am here to support the Feinstein amendment, which I am pleased to cosponsor. It is a very important piece of legislation. I thank my colleague for her hard work on this very important issue. We have all heard about the dysfunctions in our western regional power market and how it has cost our western economy more than $35 billion.

Madam President, it was more than a year ago that the Senator from California and I stood on the floor to have this debate with many of my colleagues. During the Omnibus Appropriations bill in 2000, Congress granted an exemption from regulatory scrutiny for businesses such as EnronOnline and electronic trading platforms. Unsurprisingly, Enron was chief among its boosters in lobbying for this language. Even though Congress listened to Enron and not the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, which opposed this exemption.

Now we have history. What has happened? We know that the Enron loophole has caused quite a bit of a problem. In fact, in light of evidence which during last year's debate was just beginning to emerge, we have found that the markets for energy derivatives and the physical energy prices and supplies have caused a problem. In the West, we had huge spikes. We have had a long and vigorous floor debate about this amendment.

There were many detractors who basically said at the time there was no conclusive evidence that Enron manipulated western energy markets and there was no need to proceed. This year, we have heard a lot about how Enron in fact has manipulated markets.

Less than a month after the Senate passed this comprehensive Energy bill with this language in it, Enron's ``smoking gun'' memos were released detailing a number of the company's schemes for driving up the prices. My colleagues are aware that Enron has continued to release various amounts of information about this unbelievable scandal and manipulation of prices.

Just last week, another Enron trader was arrested. And the complaint of Federal prosecutors said they are uncovering even more details of ploys to manipulate energy prices. We wanted evidence. We got it. In a long-awaited report, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded this spring that manipulation was ``epidemic'' in the western market during the crisis of 2000-2001.

But more specifically, in a staff report the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission detailed the manner in which EnronOnline helped Enron to game the California markets. The Commission concluded that ``the relationship between the financial and physical energy products . . . provides the opportunity to manipulate the

physical markets and profit in the financial markets.''

Further, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission estimated that EnronOnline allowed the company to reap more than $500 million in additional profits. There it is, right from the Federal Commission: EnronOnline allowed them to reap those additional profits.

As we approach this very important issue in a vote here in a few minutes, my colleagues need to step up and close this loophole that the President's Working Group on Financial Markets first argued against because it said we didn't have real credibility on manipulation. Now we have the credibility, and we have a Federal Commission pointing to the fact that EnronOnline was responsible for part of this market manipulation.

I urge my colleagues to support the Feinstein amendment.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from California for her hard work on this amendment. I am glad to join Senator Lugar and Senator Boxer as a cosponsor of this amendment. Senator Boxer has spent an invaluable amount of time on the whole ethanol debate, but I think the amendment she offers this morning goes a long way in adding diversity and efficiency to our ethanol plan. It seems my colleagues are enthusiastic about supporting this in the overall energy package.

I rise to support the Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment. As we have heard, this amendment would increase from 1.5 gallons to 2.5 gallons the credit available to refiners who choose to use ethanol derived from certain types of biomass to meet the requirement of our renewable fuels standard. Senator Boxer did an excellent job, giving us all a lesson in biomass 101 as it relates to ethanol and the products that could be used as part of this biomass requirement.

This amendment ensures that as we strive to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, displacing it with home-grown products that provide both environmental benefits and economic stimulus to our nation's rural communities, we also develop the renewable fuels diversity that is the hallmark of what I think is a good energy policy.

My colleagues may have been told this, or they may learn it now for the first time, but it was in 1925 that Henry Ford told the New York Times that ethanol was ``the fuel of the future.'' But while 90 percent of the ethanol produced in this Nation today was derived from corn, Henry Ford's vision was much broader. He said:

The fuel of the future is going to come from apples, weeds

and sawdust--almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of

vegetable matter that can be fermented.

That is what he told the Times back in that period.

This amendment attempts to move forward on that vision. I believe it is logical, and I believe Senator Boxer and Senator Lugar are right on target in providing leadership on this issue.

While today the ethanol that is derived from corn more or less dominates the renewable fuels market, this is not the circumstance for every State in our country. The State of Washington, for example, is much more a producer of wheat, which would hold significant promise as a potential source for the biomass ethanol.

Despite the promise of these alternatives, the technology for producing ethanol from these sources such as wheat and straw and other agricultural products has lagged behind for a number of reasons. Yet by providing appropriate incentives today with this amendment, and promoting research and development, we can move this forward on a cost- competitive basis.

The Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment would increase the renewable fuels standard credit for one specific type of material, the agricultural residues such as wheat or rice or straw, from that 1.5 to 2.5, reflecting what is really a recent DOE analysis on what we should achieve.

So moving forward on these incentives for development of ethanol production is simply a matter of good public policy. I say this for four or five reasons.

We get the environmental benefits from this, we get the potential energy gains, we get the long-term cost impacts of having fuel diversity, and, of course, we get the spread of economic benefits to all of our Nation's agricultural communities.

In our State of Washington, there is much going on in this area. There are many farmers who have come together in a variety of ways to join in thinking about ethanol production. With the construction of one 40-million-gallon plant, the State of Washington could become entirely ethanol self-sufficient. According to a study conducted by our State university, such a plan would have a significant economic impact, particularly in our rural communities in the eastern part of Washington.

A single 40-million-gallon production plant could create 104 direct jobs and about 300 indirect jobs. Local communities could see an economic benefit, according to the study, of about $19 million per year with a statewide benefit of somewhere between $20 million and $30 million per year. With the construction of these various plants, Washington State could reach self-sufficiency and could, under the fuels standard proposal here today, become a supplier to other Western States.

The State of Washington and agricultural communities want to help meet the renewable fuels standard. They want to join with Senators Frist and Daschle in their proposal. But we don't have the corn or the abundance to make that happen. So we want to see this diversity. In fact, a recent Washington State University extension program concluded that we could produce 200 million gallons per year in ethanol if we had improvement in technologies and diversification of resources.

In conclusion, to help this become reality, a broad coalition of Washington agricultural and environmentalist interests have banded together. They helped pass this package in our State legislature with a variety of tax incentives and broad production of biofuels. These bills were signed by our Governor last month and they have our State moving forward on this agenda.

The Boxer-Lugar-Cantwell amendment adds a Federal dimension to these efforts. This provision reflects good public policy from the Federal Government and good energy policy, and helps those States that are further away from ethanol diversity to participate in our national energy goal.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished Chairman and Ranking Member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I am pleased, colleagues, that we have been able to reach consensus on the need to include in this bill an increase in the authorization level for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) program from $2 billion to $3.4 billion. With power costs on the rise around this nation, it is imperative that the Senate act now to respond to the needs of the 85 percent of eligible families that today do not receive the help they so desperately need, due to the perennially under-funded nature of the LIHEAP program.

There is another issue relevant to the LIHEAP program, however, that I hope the Senate will soon consider. I believe that we must address the manner in which the Department of Health and Human Services--and, of course, the Office of Management and Budget--have traditionally administered the ``contingency'' portion of the LIHEAP program. While the bulk of LIHEAP dollars are distributed to states via block grants and in accordance with a statutory formula, Congress has also authorized--and appropriated funds to--a contingency fund, designed to ``meet the additional home energy assistance needs of one or more States arising from a natural disaster or other emergency.'' This money is not released according to formula--but solely at the discretion of the HHS Secretary.

Unfortunately, recent history suggests that there are problems with the way the ``contingency'' portion of LIHEAP is administered. In essence, there seem to be widely varying eligibility rules applied to the release of these contingency funds--leading to instances in which HHS has overlooked very real energy emergencies, including the recent power crisis in my home state of Washington.

I believe that clear rules for the release of these dollars will ensure that, in the unfortunate event of an energy emergency, low- income families will receive much-needed assistance in keeping the lights and the heat turned on--which is precisely what Congress intends when it appropriates money to the LIHEAP contingency fund. During mark- up on this bill in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Smith and I added language--adopted unanimously-seeking to put guidelines around the release of these emergency LIHEAP funds.

However, I understand that the distinguished Chairman, Senator Gregg, and Ranking Member, Senator Kennedy, intend to reauthorize the LIHEAP program in their Committee this year and examine very closely the administration of these contingency funds. I believe the language that Senator Smith and I authored would go a long way toward adding clarity to the process, and I would be exceptionally pleased to work with the Chairman on this and other proposals to reform the LIHEAP emergency program to ensure it is as responsive as possible to the very real needs of low-income Americans.

Mr. President, I am proud to join with Senator DeWine and Senator Patrick Leahy along with Senators Grassley and Domenici in cosponsoring this important legislation. This bill will take steps to reduce the prevalence of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system by providing more effective treatment. Forty percent of the mentally ill in this country come in contact with the criminal justice system, many for minor but repeated offenses. This wastes tremendous law enforcement resources that can be better focused on more urgent responsibilities and results in many of the mentally ill sitting in jail cells where little treatment is available to them. My State has already taken some forward looking action in this area, and this legislation is an important next step.

The Mentally Ill Crime Reduction Act of 2003 funds new grants that will give States the tools they need to work collaboratively to break the cycle of mentally ill people repeatedly moving through the corrections system. This legislation will allow more jurisdictions to follow Seattle's lead in creating mental health courts that monitor individuals to keep them in treatment and out of jail. It will provide much needed funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, and it will provide critical dollars for treatment of those incarcerated in or released from prisons. The legislation has the support of Washington State Corrections Director Joe Lehman and the Washington Department of Social and Health Services as well as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Council of State Governments. I'd like to especially thank the Bazelon Center for its work in this area.

Last year, the Council on State Governments Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project issued a report that detailed the imbalance of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system. The Project found that, while those suffering from serious mental illness represent approximately five percent of the population of this country, they represent over 16 percent of the prison population. Of that 16 percent, nearly three-quarters also have a substance abuse problem, and nearly half were incarcerated for committing a nonviolent crime. In some jurisdictions recidivism rates for mentally ill inmates can reach over 70 percent. Police, judges and prosecutors are usually without options of what to do with mentally ill patients, given the lack of health services, and thus many end up in jail for minor crimes. The Los Angeles County Jail alone holds as many as 3,300 individuals with mental illness, more than any state hospital or mental health institution in the United States.

Each time a mentally ill individual is incarcerated, his or her mental condition will likely worsen. Once incarcerated, people with mental illness are particularly susceptible to harming themselves or others. This environment exacerbates their mental illness, yet access to effective counseling or medication is severely limited. This in turn brings on depression or delusions that immobilize them; many have spent years trying to mask torments or hallucinations with alcohol or drugs and on average spend more time in prisons.

This problem is particularly acute in the area of juvenile offenders. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reports that over 20 percent of children in the juvenile justice system, over 155,000, have serious mental health problems. This bill creates specialized training programs for juvenile and criminal justice agency personnel in identifying symptoms of mentally ill individuals that will help identify and treat juveniles at an earlier stage.

The prevalence of people with mentally illness in the criminal justice system comes at a high price to taxpayers. In King County, WA, officials identified 20 people who had been repeatedly hospitalized, jailed or admitted to detoxification centers. These emergency services cost the county approximately $1.1 million in a single year. In contrast, an Illinois Cooperative Program which brought criminal justice and mental health service personnel together to provide services to those mentally ill patients released from jail calculated that the 30 individuals in the study spend approximately 2,200 days less in jail, and 2,100 fewer days, in hospitals than they had the previous year, for a savings of $1.2 million dollars.

In 1997, Seattle Fire Department Captain Stanley Stevenson was murdered by an individual who had been found incompetent by the local municipal court but was released because of the lack of alternative options. This murder was the impetus for the creation of a Task Force that led directly to the formation of the King County Mental Health Court in 1999. The primary reason why this Court has been growing more effective in dealing with mentally ill offenders is that it has increased cooperation between the mental health and criminal justice systems, institutions that have traditionally not worked closely together. Building on the model of the drug court, the mental health court closely monitors compliance with treatment regimens by assembling a team proficient in dealing with the mentally ill and at using the stick of the criminal justice system to make that treatment work. The vast majority of these mentally ill individuals are responsive to treatment.

This program has progressed well and is becoming an effective means of helping mentally ill offenders, assuring public safety, and running a more cost efficient system. Yet to allow this system to continue to expand in Seattle and other communities in Washington State, as well as to allow other States to begin using these types of programs, federal grant funding is critical. That is what this bill provides.

Collaboration between mental health, substance abuse, law enforcement, judicial, and other criminal justice personnel is also critical to the success of our mental health court program in Seattle. It is only through full coordination between the criminal justice and the mental health treatment community at the Federal and the local level that these efforts will be successful.

Similarly, only through full coordination at the Federal and local level will this bill be able to make a critical difference. I believe that some additional improvements can be made to strengthen that critical coordination and I look forward to working with Senator DeWine and Senator Leahy to accomplish that goal. I welcome the introduction of this legislation and look forward to working with my cosponsors to make this bill law in the next Congress.

Mr. President, I am proud to join with Senator DeWine and Senator Patrick Leahy along with Senators Grassley and Domenici in cosponsoring this important legislation. This bill will take steps to reduce the prevalence of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system by providing more effective treatment. Forty percent of the mentally ill in this country come in contact with the criminal justice system, many for minor but repeated offenses. This wastes tremendous law enforcement resources that can be better focused on more urgent responsibilities and results in many of the mentally ill sitting in jail cells where little treatment is available to them. My State has already taken some forward looking action in this area, and this legislation is an important next step.

The Mentally Ill Crime Reduction Act of 2003 funds new grants that will give States the tools they need to work collaboratively to break the cycle of mentally ill people repeatedly moving through the corrections system. This legislation will allow more jurisdictions to follow Seattle's lead in creating mental health courts that monitor individuals to keep them in treatment and out of jail. It will provide much needed funding to mental health and substance abuse programs, and it will provide critical dollars for treatment of those incarcerated in or released from prisons. The legislation has the support of Washington State Corrections Director Joe Lehman and the Washington Department of Social and Health Services as well as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Council of State Governments. I'd like to especially thank the Bazelon Center for its work in this area.

Last year, the Council on State Governments Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project issued a report that detailed the imbalance of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system. The Project found that, while those suffering from serious mental illness represent approximately five percent of the population of this country, they represent over 16 percent of the prison population. Of that 16 percent, nearly three-quarters also have a substance abuse problem, and nearly half were incarcerated for committing a nonviolent crime. In some jurisdictions recidivism rates for mentally ill inmates can reach over 70 percent. Police, judges and prosecutors are usually without options of what to do with mentally ill patients, given the lack of health services, and thus many end up in jail for minor crimes. The Los Angeles County Jail alone holds as many as 3,300 individuals with mental illness, more than any state hospital or mental health institution in the United States.

Each time a mentally ill individual is incarcerated, his or her mental condition will likely worsen. Once incarcerated, people with mental illness are particularly susceptible to harming themselves or others. This environment exacerbates their mental illness, yet access to effective counseling or medication is severely limited. This in turn brings on depression or delusions that immobilize them; many have spent years trying to mask torments or hallucinations with alcohol or drugs and on average spend more time in prisons.

This problem is particularly acute in the area of juvenile offenders. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reports that over 20 percent of children in the juvenile justice system, over 155,000, have serious mental health problems. This bill creates specialized training programs for juvenile and criminal justice agency personnel in identifying symptoms of mentally ill individuals that will help identify and treat juveniles at an earlier stage.

The prevalence of people with mentally illness in the criminal justice system comes at a high price to taxpayers. In King County, WA, officials identified 20 people who had been repeatedly hospitalized, jailed or admitted to detoxification centers. These emergency services cost the county approximately $1.1 million in a single year. In contrast, an Illinois Cooperative Program which brought criminal justice and mental health service personnel together to provide services to those mentally ill patients released from jail calculated that the 30 individuals in the study spend approximately 2,200 days less in jail, and 2,100 fewer days, in hospitals than they had the previous year, for a savings of $1.2 million dollars.

In 1997, Seattle Fire Department Captain Stanley Stevenson was murdered by an individual who had been found incompetent by the local municipal court but was released because of the lack of alternative options. This murder was the impetus for the creation of a Task Force that led directly to the formation of the King County Mental Health Court in 1999. The primary reason why this Court has been growing more effective in dealing with mentally ill offenders is that it has increased cooperation between the mental health and criminal justice systems, institutions that have traditionally not worked closely together. Building on the model of the drug court, the mental health court closely monitors compliance with treatment regimens by assembling a team proficient in dealing with the mentally ill and at using the stick of the criminal justice system to make that treatment work. The vast majority of these mentally ill individuals are responsive to treatment.

This program has progressed well and is becoming an effective means of helping mentally ill offenders, assuring public safety, and running a more cost efficient system. Yet to allow this system to continue to expand in Seattle and other communities in Washington State, as well as to allow other States to begin using these types of programs, federal grant funding is critical. That is what this bill provides.

Collaboration between mental health, substance abuse, law enforcement, judicial, and other criminal justice personnel is also critical to the success of our mental health court program in Seattle. It is only through full coordination between the criminal justice and the mental health treatment community at the Federal and the local level that these efforts will be successful.

Similarly, only through full coordination at the Federal and local level will this bill be able to make a critical difference. I believe that some additional improvements can be made to strengthen that critical coordination and I look forward to working with Senator DeWine and Senator Leahy to accomplish that goal. I welcome the introduction of this legislation and look forward to working with my cosponsors to make this bill law in the next Congress.

Mr. President, 2003 is the officially designated Year of the Blues. As we now look to music and the arts to guide us through trying times, it is an honor to pay tribute to an international monument to music: Quincy Delight Jones, Jr. and his passion for music education.

He is a veritable Renaissance Man, an orchestrator, arranger, conductor, composer, magazine publisher, executive, writer--and music, film and television producer. In his far-flung enterprises, he is the very modern model of a major music mogul. It will take another artist decades to approach his record 27 Grammy Awards and Kennedy Center Honors. And it can be said without exaggeration that the music of Quincy Jones is otherworldly: Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin chose the Quincy Jones-Frank Sinatra rendition of ``Fly Me to the Moon'' as the first song to be played on lunar soil.

Quincy Jones's own musical odyssey began earnest in Seattle, where his family had moved to seek better job opportunities in the industrial boom of World War II America. Still trapped in poverty, Quincy and his brother broke into a Seattle recreation hall in search of free meal, but stumbled upon an upright piano. Merely riffing on the ivory keys summoned pleasure in an instant. Playing the piano, he wrote later, enabled him to ``hope and cope.''

Early on Quincy Jones could straddle styles of music--and the egos of musicians. In Seattle, as a student in integrated schools and a band member with Ray Charles playing gigs at black and white venues, he learned to gracefully balance the cusp between commerce and art. He is, as Duke Ellington would say, ``beyond category.''

Quincy, says arranger Bill Mathieu, is ``a culminator . . . his music contains nearly everything of value that has been done before.'' He was--and is--an innovator, able as Washington University Professor Gerald Early wrote, to shape the world artistically, breaking down barriers and moving across boundaries. ``Jones has become a virtual epoch in American popular cultural history, a person of such importance and achievement that is difficult to imagine the era without him.''

His greatest contribution to our times may be as a passionate proselytizer for music education in the classroom. Half a century ago, in his first forays abroad, Quincy made the startling discovery that people around the globe knew and cherished American music--sometimes more than American themselves did. So in his early twenties, even as he was inventing new music, he made it his mission to teach and preserve the legacy of our musical heritage.

Music consists of only 12 notes, yet in its infinite varieties it beguiles, bewitches and beckons us. It can, as Leonard Bernstein observed, name the unnamble and communicate the unknowable. Music not only entertains and uplifts--it edifies and empowers. To know the history of American music is to grasp the history of America.

Duke Ellington divided the entire musical opus into two categories: Good and Bad. Thomas Jefferson, perhaps the most lyrical of the founding fathers and himself a composer, believed not only in public education, but that music and musical training was an essential component of good citizenship.

President John F. Kennedy knew that arts were good for the nation, good for the soul. ``The life of the arts far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is close to the center of a nation's purpose--and is a test of the quality of a nation's civilization.''

Widely lauded children's television programming such as Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood have long discovered that the lessons of learning and of life are best realized when music is attached to them. As the late, beloved Fred Rogers often claimed about his early piano playing, ``By the time I was five-years-old, I could laugh or be very angry through the ends of my fingers.''

``If you don't get kids in kindergarten'' cautions Fred Anton, the CEO of Warner Bros. Publications, ``you won't get them later in high school. If you can reach children when they are young, music will stay with them forever.'' To that end, Warner Bros. has spent four years bringing together pioneers in music, linguistics, the sciences and fine arts and asked them to reinvigorate music education. Music education, from pre-K through high school, benefits everyone, says Anton, not just future virtuosos: ``You are going to develop critical thinking skills and better team players. And this won't be the dreary music programs of 20 or 40 years ago. This is for today's kids.''

A classic musical piece such as ``Follow the Drinking Gourd'' incorporates the new thinking. Children learn that in the Civil War era slaves sang code songs to each other, passing along messages of where to escape and find safe houses. The Drinking Gourd was the North Star. By teaching the kids the story--the ``Behind the Music'' vignette--it brings them into the song, while at the same time teaches impart lessons in history, social studies, and even astronomy.

Whether a genius such as Quincy Jones or an enthusiastic student embracing early violin lessons, artists at all levels savor the undiluted joy of the musical mind. It is the flow experience, where passion and precision unite, and one loses track of time and space. In a musical mode, dreamers dream and the impossible seems possible.

Music stirs our creative impulses--and it invariably contributes to our math, linguistic and science learning. The most ardent champion of music education today would indubitably be Albert Einstein. When asked about the theory of relativity, he explained, ``It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.''

Harvard University's Dr. Howard Gardner, whose landmark research in Mind Intelligences was first published 20 years ago, asserts that all of us are gifted with music in the brain, an intelligence that when tapped--especially when we are young--generates bountiful lifetime rewards in all of our other academic and social endeavors.

We have empirical data linking music education to higher test scores, lower school dropout rates, higher cognitive skills and an increased ability for students to analyze and evaluate information. A University of California School for Medicine San Francisco paper concluded that learning to play an instrument ``refines the development of the brain and entire neuromuscular system.''

Other brain research contends that music and arts activities develop the intellect, lead to higher test results in mathematics, science and history and strengthens synapses and spatial reasoning in all brain systems.

Students exposed to music education are more disciplined, dexterous, coordinated, creative and self-assured. They

listen better, learn better, write better and speak better. Or as Charlie Parker would have succinctly put it, ``They get in the groove.''

Yet despite the overwhelming scientific and anecdotal evidence showcasting the benefits of music, music education programs throughout the country are in peril. Some fine arts education budgets have been drastically cut; others have been eliminated entirely. The consequences will harm both our music industry and concert halls, but even more seriously our nation's youth.

As Dr. Jean Houston implored 15 years ago, long before the latest rounds in budget cuts, ``Children without access to an arts program are actually damaging their brain. They are not being exposed to non-verbal modalities which help them learn skills like reading, writing and math much more easily.''

Which is why Quincy Jones, Warner Bros. Publications, and other titans of the music world are joining the battle. The fight to initiate and restore arts and music education to our schools needs a volunteer army of teachers, researchers, parents, elected officials, school boards and legislators in formation with the arts industries and artists themselves.

For the Year of the Blues, Seattle's Experience Music Project is partnering with the Blues Foundation in Memphis and PBS for a multi- media project that will include a television series, The Blues, executive produced by Martin Scorsese, a public radio series, a comprehensive Web site and education program, a companion book, DVDS and boxed CD set, and a traveling interactive exhibit.

Today's advanced multimedia technology will seek to capture the spirit and times of the blues, an era when at myriad clubs jazz greats would come in after working hours and fold into jam sessions. Guests, and the musicians themselves, were treated to wild flights of fantasy and improvisation. On any given night the likes of Sydney Bechet, Jack Teagarden, Louis and Lil Armstrong, and Bud Freeman would sit together and play the music they felt. It was the dawn of great female artists: Dinah Washington, Billie Holliday and Bessie Smith.

Music in all its incarnations is one of the most eloquent and memorable reflections of our loud and boisterous democracy. Jazz and the blues represented the vibrant merger of African music, plantation songs, ragtime and the plaintive yearnings of what was then known as hillbilly music. It follows that from jazz, the rivers of rock and roll, hip-hop and rap flowed.

The genuis of Quincy Jones is his ability to siphon off music from all eras and seemingly reinvent it. It is as if he were a scientist, extrapolating findings from all disciplines and effortlessly merging them into brand new medical breakthroughs. The challenge for educators is to build upon existing layers of history, knowledge and research to structure a new paradigm, deftly blending the elements to produce the finest school system in the world.

Artists such as Quincy Jones have a gift for revering music's past, while keenly anticipating its future. For as Nadia Boulanger, possibly the greatest music teacher of the 20th century said, ``A person's music can be no more or less than they are as a human being.''

Will the Senator from Maryland yield for a question?

I am interested in your----

Mr. THOMAS addressed the Chair.

The Senator's understanding of Senator Kennedy's amendment. I am concerned with the point you are making because just today the Boeing Company has announced it is sending warrant notices to another 1,150 employees. We have already had thousands--5,000--bringing the total to 3,000 employees laid off, and now we are hearing about another 1,100 today who will receive layoff notices probably in June or July.

This amendment would cover both employees--those who have already exhausted their benefits and employees who, in the next several months, will run out of benefits; is that your understanding?

I thank the Senator for that clarification because that is the point.

We have to take care of those who have lost their benefits. The reason we should do that is your very point in your clarification that it is not getting better. I thank you for your clarification.

Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for the Feingold amendment reinstating the Senate's pay-go rule. The premise underlying this amendment is that we as a body must return to using the budget enforcement measures that have helped us be fiscally responsible in the past.

We have responsibilities to live up to and commitments to fulfill, but we also must have fiscal discipline as we make budget decisions. We must have a framework and strict budget enforcement rules to guide through this difficult, and as we have seen this week, contentious and politically charged process.

This amendment helps us at a time when we have seen a multitrillion- dollar surplus turn into a multitrillion-dollar deficit. Perhaps now more than ever, it is critical that we exercise fiscal restraint. Reinstating the pay-go rule by approving this amendment is a good first step.

This amendment would extend the ``pay as you go'' budget rule that expired on April 15. The pay-go would subject any tax cuts or new mandatory spending to a 60-vote point of order unless those cuts or spending increases are fully offset. Pay-go had been in effect from 1990 until just a few weeks ago when our colleagues across the aisle allowed it to expire, choosing to replace it with a far weaker provision. The pay-go provision proposed in Senator Feingold's amendment would restore the stronger rule, which in the past decade has proven an important tool for the Senate to maintain fiscal discipline and keep Federal spending within reasonable limits.

The actions of the Senate today made clear the absence of fiscal discipline in our Government under this administration. I hope the American people see this morning's tax vote and this subsequent effort to increase the debt limit by nearly $1 trillion--the largest increase in our Nation's history--for what it is: A poor decision that will burden taxpayers with an outrageous debt load for years to come.

We know the current and ever-growing deficit is a direct result of the 2001 tax cut, the ongoing recession, and the tragic events of September 11, 2001. For us to enact another poorly targeted tax cut is a mistake. And it is outrageous that minutes after the tax cuts were approved, the Senate began the debate to raise the Government debt limit by more than $900 billion. This is proof that fiscal discipline is not the guiding principle when making decisions about the country's future financial health. This is the second time in 2 years we have been faced with this issue, a clear indication that current fiscal policies are not improving the economic reality.

One of the most important actions we can take for the Nation's future economic stability is to pay down the National debt. According to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan, paying down the National debt lowers interest rates and keeps the capital markets and investment going.

I want to make it clear that I do support efforts to provide hardworking Washingtonians and all Americans with tax relief such as eliminating the marriage penalty, making college tuition tax deductible, allowing States with no State income tax to deduct their sales taxes from their Federal income tax return, and assisting workers in savings for their retirement. But we must look at all budget issues--taxes and spending alike--from a total and comprehensive view.

Our total budget must be crafted within a framework that maintains fiscal discipline, and stimulates economic growth through continued Federal investment in education and job training, while also protecting the environment. Furthermore, we need to invest in our Nation's economic future by making a commitment to public research and development in science and technology--maintaining our status as a global leader.

It is a balance. We need to make these investments, but within a framework that ensures we don't spend beyond our means. If we want our economy to be strong, if we want revenues, and if we want to make the right decisions, we need to keep paying down the debt.

We must have fiscal discipline in the budget and appropriations process. We cannot focus solely on the individual items and programs in our budget but must look at the whole picture. The budget enforcement procedures such as pay-go help us do this, and help us keep our spending under a reasonable amount of control.

Budget enforcement rules like pay-go worked successfully as we struggled to get out of the deficit spending in the 1990s, and it will work as we struggle to get out of the recession and deficit financing we face today. I urge my colleagues to support the Feingold amendment and reinstate the Senate's pay-go rule.