Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am pleased to introduce with Senator Smith a bill that would provide for the establishment of voluntary, ``health-based'' remediation guidelines for former methamphetamine laboratories, an issue of great importance to Montana, Oregon, and all of rural America.

The material and chemical byproducts of methamphetamine production pose novel risks to the environment and public health. These risks are compounded by the sheer number of meth labs and the vulnerability of police, social service workers, and children exposed to meth production. The DEA estimated that there were as many as 16,000 meth labs in operation in 2004. Additionally, thousands of meth labs have been busted over the years but never properly remediated. Producing one pound of meth leaves behind six pounds of hazardous waste. In addition to bulk waste, cooking meth infuses toxic chemicals into the walls, carpeting, and ventilation systems of the homes, apartments, motel rooms, and parks where meth is produced.

Unremediated methamphetamine labs pose significant public health risks. The Department of Health and Human Services has reported that law enforcement officials and social service workers exposed to meth labs, or even just individuals removed from meth labs, have complained of severe headaches, eye and respiratory irritations, nausea, and burns. The need for remediation guidelines is clear.

Currently, eight States, including Montana, have ``feasibility- based'' remediation standards. ``Feasibility-based'' standards consider cost as a key factor in determining what level of remediation is desirable. While such standards are a start, we need greater certainty that our public servants and children are adequately protected.

Our bill provides a remedy. It directs the Assistant Administrator for Research and Development of the EPA to establish voluntary remediation guidelines, based on the best available scientific knowledge. To further this effort, our bill provides for a program of research to identify methamphetamine laboratory-related chemicals of concern, assess the types and levels of exposure to chemicals of concern--including routine and accidental exposures--that may present a significant risk of adverse biological effects, and evaluate the performance of various methamphetamine laboratory cleanup and remediation techniques. Our bill does not regulate States. The remediation guidelines are purely voluntary, meant to put States, remediation consultants, homeowners, and realtors on the same page.

Methamphetamine production poisons not only users but also spouses, children, public servants, and any future owners of properties exposed to meth production. To protect the public we need consistent, scientifically-based remediation guidelines.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Stuart Sirkin, a detailee with the Finance Committee, be granted the privilege of the floor during consideration of the pension bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following fellows and interns of the staff of the Finance Committee be allowed floor privileges for the duration of the debate on the tax reconciliation bill: Brian Townsend, Mary Baker, Stuart Sirkin, Richard Litsey, Jorlie Cruz, James Reavis, Jennifer Alwood, Ray Campbell, Will Larson, Andreas Datsopoulos, Mandy Cisneros, and David Hain.

Mr. President, I am not going to spend much time, frankly.

(Several Senators addressed the Chair.)

Mr. President, I ask the Senator from Pennsylvania if I may have 5 minutes. I have to leave very quickly.

Mr. President, I am not going to spend a lot of time on this because this is just ``kabuki'' tonight. Everyone knows this is not a serious effort. Everyone knows that this is an attempt, frankly, to make a statement to the press and the people back home. It is very disingenuous, in this Senator's view, because it is not serious, and it is playing with the lives of a lot of senior citizens who wonder what is going on.

This consent asks the Finance Committee to be discharged of the legislation. I do not understand that at all. If this is such an important issue, why doesn't the Finance Committee deal with that? I think the answer to that is because there are not the votes in the Finance Committee. The majority of Republicans would not support this in the Finance Committee. They know privatization of Social Security is one of the worst ideas that has come out of this body by any group of Senators in a long time. Why? The DeMint bill increases the Federal debt held by the public by $1 trillion in current dollars in the first 10 years. It increases the Federal debt by $1.7 trillion the first 20 years. By 2080, the debt will be higher under current law by more than $800 billion. So it is a massive increase in the Federal debt.

Secondly, it will cause a huge increase in the annual budget deficits for the same reasons.

Third, what does it do? It means a reduction in benefits that would otherwise go to Social Security recipients. Why is that? Because the money taken out of Social Security would not be available to pay for Social Security benefits. That will reduce the benefit payments out of Social Security.

The argument is private accounts would offset that. All studies show, at best, that is barely a wash, probably worse than that because the private accounts would be subject to the vagaries of the markets. Over the long haul, seniors would not be doing very well at all.

Add to that, it usually creates a huge risk. More than that, it creates a very large administrative cost not recognized by the authors.

Jason Furman, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, estimates the plan would have administrative costs of at least $25 billion over the first 10 years. That is above what is paid now in the current Social Security system.

Also, the DeMint proposal would treat individuals with different years of birth in different ways. It would cause an inequity among benefits of Social Security recipients.

So I am not going to say much more about this. It is flawed. Frankly, it is a phony gimmick. One has to call a spade a spade around here sometimes and not be too deferential, not be too nice, too courteous, but to call it a spade. This is a fraudulent effort to play with people's lives, and at the appropriate time, it will be appropriately objected to.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Trade Adjustment Assistance Improvement Act of 2005.

I want to begin with some simple facts about international trade. The benefits of trade are vast in absolute terms, but so diffuse that individuals are generally unaware of how much they personally gain from trade. By contrast, the harms from trade, while small in absolute terms, are localized and intense.

Research shows that, on average, a worker who loses his job due to trade will make 17 percent less in his new job. The older the worker and the lower his level of education, the larger the lifetime wage cut he is likely to experience.

With statistics like these, is it any wonder that workers who believe their jobs are at risk from international competition are skeptical about trade? With increasing numbers of Americans feeling vulnerable in the global economy--even though many of them will never lose their jobs because of trade--the potential pool of trade skeptics is growing.

There is a solution.

In a June 2002 poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and Harris Interactive, respondents were asked which of three positions most closely reflects their views on international trade. Nearly three quarters of those surveyed, 73 percent, agreed with this statement: ``I favor free trade, and I believe that it is necessary for the government to have programs to help workers who lose their jobs.'' Sixteen percent said they favored free trade and did not think it necessary for the government to help those who lose their jobs. Nine percent said they do not favor free trade.

The results were even more striking in a 1999 poll conducted by the Program on International Policy and Attitudes at the University of Maryland. In that poll, 87 percent of participants agreed with this statement: ``I would favor more free trade, if I was confident that we were making major efforts to educate and retrain Americans to be competitive in the global economy.'' Only 11 percent disagreed.

If there is a more compelling case to be made for Trade Adjustment Assistance, I do not know what it is.

For more than 40 years, TAA has been providing retraining, income support, and other benefits to workers who lose their jobs due to trade. Montana workers tell me that TAA has been a lifeline, making it possible for them to gain new skills and start new careers rather than merely survive a layoff.

In the Trade Act of 2002, I spearheaded the most comprehensive expansion and overhaul of the TAA program since 1974. We expanded the kinds of workers who are eligible for TAA benefits. We added new benefits like wage insurance and the health coverage tax credit. We also streamlined the application deadlines to get workers enrolled and retraining sooner.

I am proud of this landmark legislation. It unified a splintered TAA program to create a single, comprehensive set of benefits.

Like most successful legislation, however, it was the product of compromise. While TAA was expanded to cover secondary workers, it was not expanded to cover service workers. While we added new benefits, we also added eligibility tests for those new benefits that have proven burdensome and unduly restrictive in practice. While we made more workers eligible for training, we did not provide training funds adequate to serve those workers.

In order for TAA to truly meet the needs of displaced workers, it needs to be a lot more user-friendly. This bill

accomplishes that goal by eliminating barriers to entry that, in practice, defeat the purpose of TAA. The bill's goal is simple: to get every trade-displaced worker who needs a new start into meaningful training and back into the workforce at comparable wages.

The TAA Improvements Act makes the following changes to TAA:

First, it provides that all deadlines and time limits for applying for benefits are suspended when workers are appealing the Department of Labor's denial of a TAA eligibility petition. According to DOL statistics, in 2004 DOL denied approximately 35 percent of the TAA petitions on which it ruled. Among the TAA petition denials appealed to the Court of International Trade in the past several years, the vast majority have been reversed. Numerous judges on the Court have expressed growing impatience with the Labor Department's propensity to stick by denials for years until workers--ultimately vindicated through protracted litigation--lose the ability to receive full benefits. This bill rectifies the problem by allowing workers who successfully appeal denials of their TAA petitions to receive the benefits to which they are entitled regardless of intervening deadlines.

Second, the bill creates a TAA Petition Adviser within the Department of Labor to assist workers and those who prepare TAA petitions on their behalf. Most workers and employers who prepare TAA petitions have no experience with the program and seldom have access to experienced counsel. The petition form itself, while improved over prior versions, provides little guidance on the kinds of factual information upon which DOL bases eligibility determinations. As the Court of International Trade has found on numerous occasions, the Department's practice is to do little, if any, investigation beyond the facts presented on the petition. Accordingly, if an inexperienced group of workers fails to say ``the magic words'', their petition is likely to be turned down. The new Petition Adviser would be responsible for assisting workers to prepare petitions by advising them on the kinds of information that are necessary to demonstrate TAA eligibility--eliminating much of the guesswork that can turn applying for TAA into a game of roulette.

Sadly, not all employers make their best efforts to help their displaced workers qualify for TAA. Employers who prepare TAA applications for their workers may assign the task to Human Resources staff, who may lack sufficient knowledge to provide the appropriate information to the Labor Department. They sometimes provide inaccurate or incomplete evidence that prevents DOL from certifying the workers. The bill addresses this problem by requiring that all information provided to DOL by the petitioning workers' employer be certified as to its completeness and accuracy by counsel or by an officer of the company. This requirement assures that petitions will receive high- level management attention and, in the case of counsel, imposes an external ethical check.

In the Trade Act of 2002, Congress had the wisdom to create a program of wage insurance, called Alternative TAA. Unlike traditional TAA, which requires a worker to remain unemployed until training is completed, wage insurance creates an incentive for workers to return to work sooner and train on the job. It does so by assuring the worker that, if the new job pays less than the old one, he can receive a subsidy equal up to half the wage differential up to $10,000 over two years. This innovative program has the potential to facilitate the most effective kind of training, reduce worker transition time, and reduce the per-worker cost of adjustment assistance.

Experience under the Trade Act of 2002 indicates low participation in this program, both because it is limited to workers over 50 and because the steps a worker needs to take to choose wage insurance have proved difficult to satisfy. This bill streamlines the application process for alternative TAA and lowers the minimum age for participating workers from 50 to 40--the average age of TAA participants.

The Trade Act of 2002 expanded TAA eligibility to include so-called ``shifts in production''--when a plant in the United States closes and moves overseas. The law makes eligibility automatic when production shifts to a country with which the United States has a free trade agreement or a unilateral preference program. But when production shifts to another country--such as China or India--workers must satisfy additional criteria before they are eligible.

This limitation is one of the compromises that shaped the Trade Act of 2002. But I have never thought it fair or equitable. A worker whose plant moves overseas has the same adjustment needs no matter where the plant relocated. The TAA Improvement Act eliminates this distinction, making eligibility for TAA automatic for shifts in production to any country. It also eliminates a similar provision that limits coverage of certain secondary workers to trade with Canada and Mexico.

In a recent review of the TAA program, the Government Accountability Office noted that inflexible training enrollment deadlines have made it difficult for workers to make timely and informed decisions about their training plans and career options. Experience has shown that the deadlines we set may be too short in some cases. Community colleges, the principal providers of TAA training services, often enroll students only twice a year, making it difficult for some workers to enroll in the courses they need within the applicable deadlines. Even the most motivated among laid-off workers find it difficult to do the research and soul-searching necessary to make informed and sensible choices about retraining in the time provided. For these reasons, this bill extends the training enrollment deadline by several weeks.

Perhaps the single most important problem facing the TAA program today is the chronic shortage in training funds. Every year, there are states that run out of training funds and are forced to ration training. In some cases, states have even stopped workers from enrolling, which can reduce the total TAA benefits the worker can receive even if funds later become available. The Department of Labor has wisely issued guidelines to states to help them better manage their training resources. But the truth of the matter is that Congress has failed to provide states with enough training funds to adequately serve the number of people who qualify for retraining. Rather than cap training spending each year at an arbitrary amount arrived at through political negotiations, this bill sets the training budget with reference to program enrollment and average per person training costs.

The bill also gives the Department of Labor flexibility to steer workers into some less traditional but practical training options. Many workers who go through the TAA program ultimately end up self-employed. Under the Workforce Investment Act, a general retraining program for dislocated workers, workers can participate in entrepreneurial training that prepares them for self-employment. This bill extends the same option to workers in the TAA program. More than 10 percent of TAA participants are not native English speakers. Because English proficiency is a prerequisite for most occupational training courses, these workers are generally steered into English language classes and tend to use up their training benefits before receiving occupational training. Under WIA, the Department of Labor has recently begun promoting ``integrated workforce training,'' which combines occupational training with job-related English proficiency. My bill allows the same kind of training to be provided under TAA.

For workers entering the TAA program, the most important service they receive is guidance from case workers provided by the state. These case workers help displaced workers learn about local career options, make informed choices about training programs, prepare necessary paperwork and meet deadlines for TAA income support and other benefits. They keep workers from being taken advantage of by unscrupulous training providers who prey on confused dislocated workers and make sure workers know about all the benefits to which they are entitled.

Because TAA is a federal program delegated to the states, the federal government provides the states with funding to meet the program's administrative costs. According to a survey by the GAO, however, the cost of providing case worker services far exceeds

the amount that the federal government provides. States must either divert money from other training programs or skimp on the services they provide to workers under TAA. The goal of TAA is to have workers make sensible choices about training that will lead to successful new careers. My bill makes that possible by requiring the federal government to provide the states with adequate funds to meet these critical administrative costs.

This legislation requires the Department of Labor to improve its data collection and to disseminate more information about the operation of the TAA program. Better and more accessible data will permit Congress and the public to more accurately assess the program's successes and failures and make it easier for workers to prepare successful petitions.

Finally, this legislation makes some needed changes to the TAA for Farmers program. For many years, Congress and the Labor Department tried--unsuccessfully to shoehorn farmers into the traditional TAA program. But the adjustment issues facing American farmers from global competition are fundamentally different than those facing manufacturing workers. In the Trade Act of 2002, we created TAA for Farmers by modifying the eligibility criteria and benefits package to more closely meet the needs of agricultural producers.

Congress dedicated $90 million annually to this program, with the intention of helping farmers to become more competitive before losing their farms. After several years in operation, however, much of the money provided by Congress has not been spent. The legislation I am introducing today fine tunes the eligibility criteria, based on experience, to eliminate some of the pitfalls that have excluded some crops from the program.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance Improvement Act is the fourth in a series of bills I have recently introduced to improve and reform TAA. The Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms Reorganization Act, S. 1308, makes needed changes to the management structure of TAA for Firms at the Department of Commerce. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Equity for Service Workers Act, S. 1309, extends TAA to the 80 percent of American workers in the service sector. The Trade Adjustment Assistance for Industries Act, S. 1444, simplifies the TAA petition process and ties TAA more closely to displacements caused by specific trade agreements.

In the future, I plan to introduce additional legislation addressing the TAA health coverage tax credit. HCTC is a critical new benefit added to the TAA package in 2002. As with many new programs, the implementation process for HCTC has been bumpy. Armed with several years of experience and several objective studies of the program, the time has come to start smoothing out those bumps by revisiting the structure and operation of the HCTC. This further legislation should be ready for introduction in the coming months.

Whenever I speak about the need to expand and improve TAA, the first question I usually get is: how much will it cost? Clearly, my proposals will add to the cost of the program and I will ask CBO to provide a score. But the strong implication of this common question is that we cannot afford to add to the cost of the TAA program. I think that is the wrong starting point.

First, we need to put the cost of TAA in perspective. At present, TAA costs around one billion dollars per year to operate. That is a cost of less than $10 per American household per year. By contrast, a study by the Institute for International Economics recently concluded that the American economy is roughly $1 trillion per year better off thanks to global integration, which comes to about $9,000 in extra income every year for each American household. Looking at these figures, we should be embarrassed at the paltry fraction of the economic gains from trade that we are plowing back into adjusting and retraining our workforce.

The truth is, the United States as a country cannot afford not to make these changes. We need to be putting more resources into worker retraining. We need to make sure we do not marginalize an entire generation of manufacturing workers.

Now more than ever, we have to prepare workers for the challenges of the global market. The domestic auto industry faces unprecedented challenges to remain competitive in today's world. In October alone, a major auto parts supplier filed for bankruptcy, General Motors slashed wages and legacy benefits, and the Ford Motor Company announced substantial layoffs. Thousands of specialized workers will be displaced and have to start over.

At the same time, I continue to read warnings of an impending labor shortage--even in the manufacturing sector. Baby boomers will soon begin retiring in large numbers. Our educational system is not turning out enough new workers with the skills our employers need to succeed in global competition. I have seen estimates of a shortage of 20 million workers by 2020--with the most severe shortages in the most skilled jobs.

Economists estimate that increasing the education level of American workers by one year would increase productivity by 8.5 percent in manufacturing and 12.7 percent in nonmanufacturing industries. Is expanding TAA too high a price to pay to address the coming labor shortage and to achieve productivity gains on this order? I certainly do not think so.

Experts with a wide range of views on issues surrounding trade and competitiveness agree that, if our nation is to thrive in the global economy of the 21st century, we must expand our worker adjustment program. From Jagdish Bagwati to Tom Friedman, from Alan Greenspan to the AFL-CIO--there is near universal agreement on this point. I believe the legislation I have introduced today and over the past weeks creates a strong platform to build on and I will work to see these bills enacted into law.

But trade adjustment for workers alone cannot prepare America for the competitive challenges ahead. We must aggressively pursue our interests through the trade agreements we negotiate with other countries, and we must enforce them just as aggressively. Recently I laid out my vision for closer congressional oversight of trade enforcement by the United States Trade Representative. I intend to introdue legislation to address the need for better, more aggressive enforcement of our trade agreements. Finally, I believe that our global competitiveness strategy must go beyond trade negotiations. Over the course of several months, I have highlighted many opportunities to enhance our global competitiveness in areas such as healthcare, energy, education, and savings. We must prepare the American people to take full advantage of these opportunities and many more.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Trade Adjustment Assistance Improvement Act of 2005.

I want to begin with some simple facts about international trade. The benefits of trade are vast in absolute terms, but so diffuse that individuals are generally unaware of how much they personally gain from trade. By contrast, the harms from trade, while small in absolute terms, are localized and intense.

Research shows that, on average, a worker who loses his job due to trade will make 17 percent less in his new job. The older the worker and the lower his level of education, the larger the lifetime wage cut he is likely to experience.

With statistics like these, is it any wonder that workers who believe their jobs are at risk from international competition are skeptical about trade? With increasing numbers of Americans feeling vulnerable in the global economy--even though many of them will never lose their jobs because of trade--the potential pool of trade skeptics is growing.

There is a solution.

In a June 2002 poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and Harris Interactive, respondents were asked which of three positions most closely reflects their views on international trade. Nearly three quarters of those surveyed, 73 percent, agreed with this statement: ``I favor free trade, and I believe that it is necessary for the government to have programs to help workers who lose their jobs.'' Sixteen percent said they favored free trade and did not think it necessary for the government to help those who lose their jobs. Nine percent said they do not favor free trade.

The results were even more striking in a 1999 poll conducted by the Program on International Policy and Attitudes at the University of Maryland. In that poll, 87 percent of participants agreed with this statement: ``I would favor more free trade, if I was confident that we were making major efforts to educate and retrain Americans to be competitive in the global economy.'' Only 11 percent disagreed.

If there is a more compelling case to be made for Trade Adjustment Assistance, I do not know what it is.

For more than 40 years, TAA has been providing retraining, income support, and other benefits to workers who lose their jobs due to trade. Montana workers tell me that TAA has been a lifeline, making it possible for them to gain new skills and start new careers rather than merely survive a layoff.

In the Trade Act of 2002, I spearheaded the most comprehensive expansion and overhaul of the TAA program since 1974. We expanded the kinds of workers who are eligible for TAA benefits. We added new benefits like wage insurance and the health coverage tax credit. We also streamlined the application deadlines to get workers enrolled and retraining sooner.

I am proud of this landmark legislation. It unified a splintered TAA program to create a single, comprehensive set of benefits.

Like most successful legislation, however, it was the product of compromise. While TAA was expanded to cover secondary workers, it was not expanded to cover service workers. While we added new benefits, we also added eligibility tests for those new benefits that have proven burdensome and unduly restrictive in practice. While we made more workers eligible for training, we did not provide training funds adequate to serve those workers.

In order for TAA to truly meet the needs of displaced workers, it needs to be a lot more user-friendly. This bill

accomplishes that goal by eliminating barriers to entry that, in practice, defeat the purpose of TAA. The bill's goal is simple: to get every trade-displaced worker who needs a new start into meaningful training and back into the workforce at comparable wages.

The TAA Improvements Act makes the following changes to TAA:

First, it provides that all deadlines and time limits for applying for benefits are suspended when workers are appealing the Department of Labor's denial of a TAA eligibility petition. According to DOL statistics, in 2004 DOL denied approximately 35 percent of the TAA petitions on which it ruled. Among the TAA petition denials appealed to the Court of International Trade in the past several years, the vast majority have been reversed. Numerous judges on the Court have expressed growing impatience with the Labor Department's propensity to stick by denials for years until workers--ultimately vindicated through protracted litigation--lose the ability to receive full benefits. This bill rectifies the problem by allowing workers who successfully appeal denials of their TAA petitions to receive the benefits to which they are entitled regardless of intervening deadlines.

Second, the bill creates a TAA Petition Adviser within the Department of Labor to assist workers and those who prepare TAA petitions on their behalf. Most workers and employers who prepare TAA petitions have no experience with the program and seldom have access to experienced counsel. The petition form itself, while improved over prior versions, provides little guidance on the kinds of factual information upon which DOL bases eligibility determinations. As the Court of International Trade has found on numerous occasions, the Department's practice is to do little, if any, investigation beyond the facts presented on the petition. Accordingly, if an inexperienced group of workers fails to say ``the magic words'', their petition is likely to be turned down. The new Petition Adviser would be responsible for assisting workers to prepare petitions by advising them on the kinds of information that are necessary to demonstrate TAA eligibility--eliminating much of the guesswork that can turn applying for TAA into a game of roulette.

Sadly, not all employers make their best efforts to help their displaced workers qualify for TAA. Employers who prepare TAA applications for their workers may assign the task to Human Resources staff, who may lack sufficient knowledge to provide the appropriate information to the Labor Department. They sometimes provide inaccurate or incomplete evidence that prevents DOL from certifying the workers. The bill addresses this problem by requiring that all information provided to DOL by the petitioning workers' employer be certified as to its completeness and accuracy by counsel or by an officer of the company. This requirement assures that petitions will receive high- level management attention and, in the case of counsel, imposes an external ethical check.

In the Trade Act of 2002, Congress had the wisdom to create a program of wage insurance, called Alternative TAA. Unlike traditional TAA, which requires a worker to remain unemployed until training is completed, wage insurance creates an incentive for workers to return to work sooner and train on the job. It does so by assuring the worker that, if the new job pays less than the old one, he can receive a subsidy equal up to half the wage differential up to $10,000 over two years. This innovative program has the potential to facilitate the most effective kind of training, reduce worker transition time, and reduce the per-worker cost of adjustment assistance.

Experience under the Trade Act of 2002 indicates low participation in this program, both because it is limited to workers over 50 and because the steps a worker needs to take to choose wage insurance have proved difficult to satisfy. This bill streamlines the application process for alternative TAA and lowers the minimum age for participating workers from 50 to 40--the average age of TAA participants.

The Trade Act of 2002 expanded TAA eligibility to include so-called ``shifts in production''--when a plant in the United States closes and moves overseas. The law makes eligibility automatic when production shifts to a country with which the United States has a free trade agreement or a unilateral preference program. But when production shifts to another country--such as China or India--workers must satisfy additional criteria before they are eligible.

This limitation is one of the compromises that shaped the Trade Act of 2002. But I have never thought it fair or equitable. A worker whose plant moves overseas has the same adjustment needs no matter where the plant relocated. The TAA Improvement Act eliminates this distinction, making eligibility for TAA automatic for shifts in production to any country. It also eliminates a similar provision that limits coverage of certain secondary workers to trade with Canada and Mexico.

In a recent review of the TAA program, the Government Accountability Office noted that inflexible training enrollment deadlines have made it difficult for workers to make timely and informed decisions about their training plans and career options. Experience has shown that the deadlines we set may be too short in some cases. Community colleges, the principal providers of TAA training services, often enroll students only twice a year, making it difficult for some workers to enroll in the courses they need within the applicable deadlines. Even the most motivated among laid-off workers find it difficult to do the research and soul-searching necessary to make informed and sensible choices about retraining in the time provided. For these reasons, this bill extends the training enrollment deadline by several weeks.

Perhaps the single most important problem facing the TAA program today is the chronic shortage in training funds. Every year, there are states that run out of training funds and are forced to ration training. In some cases, states have even stopped workers from enrolling, which can reduce the total TAA benefits the worker can receive even if funds later become available. The Department of Labor has wisely issued guidelines to states to help them better manage their training resources. But the truth of the matter is that Congress has failed to provide states with enough training funds to adequately serve the number of people who qualify for retraining. Rather than cap training spending each year at an arbitrary amount arrived at through political negotiations, this bill sets the training budget with reference to program enrollment and average per person training costs.

The bill also gives the Department of Labor flexibility to steer workers into some less traditional but practical training options. Many workers who go through the TAA program ultimately end up self-employed. Under the Workforce Investment Act, a general retraining program for dislocated workers, workers can participate in entrepreneurial training that prepares them for self-employment. This bill extends the same option to workers in the TAA program. More than 10 percent of TAA participants are not native English speakers. Because English proficiency is a prerequisite for most occupational training courses, these workers are generally steered into English language classes and tend to use up their training benefits before receiving occupational training. Under WIA, the Department of Labor has recently begun promoting ``integrated workforce training,'' which combines occupational training with job-related English proficiency. My bill allows the same kind of training to be provided under TAA.

For workers entering the TAA program, the most important service they receive is guidance from case workers provided by the state. These case workers help displaced workers learn about local career options, make informed choices about training programs, prepare necessary paperwork and meet deadlines for TAA income support and other benefits. They keep workers from being taken advantage of by unscrupulous training providers who prey on confused dislocated workers and make sure workers know about all the benefits to which they are entitled.

Because TAA is a federal program delegated to the states, the federal government provides the states with funding to meet the program's administrative costs. According to a survey by the GAO, however, the cost of providing case worker services far exceeds

the amount that the federal government provides. States must either divert money from other training programs or skimp on the services they provide to workers under TAA. The goal of TAA is to have workers make sensible choices about training that will lead to successful new careers. My bill makes that possible by requiring the federal government to provide the states with adequate funds to meet these critical administrative costs.

This legislation requires the Department of Labor to improve its data collection and to disseminate more information about the operation of the TAA program. Better and more accessible data will permit Congress and the public to more accurately assess the program's successes and failures and make it easier for workers to prepare successful petitions.

Finally, this legislation makes some needed changes to the TAA for Farmers program. For many years, Congress and the Labor Department tried--unsuccessfully to shoehorn farmers into the traditional TAA program. But the adjustment issues facing American farmers from global competition are fundamentally different than those facing manufacturing workers. In the Trade Act of 2002, we created TAA for Farmers by modifying the eligibility criteria and benefits package to more closely meet the needs of agricultural producers.

Congress dedicated $90 million annually to this program, with the intention of helping farmers to become more competitive before losing their farms. After several years in operation, however, much of the money provided by Congress has not been spent. The legislation I am introducing today fine tunes the eligibility criteria, based on experience, to eliminate some of the pitfalls that have excluded some crops from the program.

The Trade Adjustment Assistance Improvement Act is the fourth in a series of bills I have recently introduced to improve and reform TAA. The Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms Reorganization Act, S. 1308, makes needed changes to the management structure of TAA for Firms at the Department of Commerce. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Equity for Service Workers Act, S. 1309, extends TAA to the 80 percent of American workers in the service sector. The Trade Adjustment Assistance for Industries Act, S. 1444, simplifies the TAA petition process and ties TAA more closely to displacements caused by specific trade agreements.

In the future, I plan to introduce additional legislation addressing the TAA health coverage tax credit. HCTC is a critical new benefit added to the TAA package in 2002. As with many new programs, the implementation process for HCTC has been bumpy. Armed with several years of experience and several objective studies of the program, the time has come to start smoothing out those bumps by revisiting the structure and operation of the HCTC. This further legislation should be ready for introduction in the coming months.

Whenever I speak about the need to expand and improve TAA, the first question I usually get is: how much will it cost? Clearly, my proposals will add to the cost of the program and I will ask CBO to provide a score. But the strong implication of this common question is that we cannot afford to add to the cost of the TAA program. I think that is the wrong starting point.

First, we need to put the cost of TAA in perspective. At present, TAA costs around one billion dollars per year to operate. That is a cost of less than $10 per American household per year. By contrast, a study by the Institute for International Economics recently concluded that the American economy is roughly $1 trillion per year better off thanks to global integration, which comes to about $9,000 in extra income every year for each American household. Looking at these figures, we should be embarrassed at the paltry fraction of the economic gains from trade that we are plowing back into adjusting and retraining our workforce.

The truth is, the United States as a country cannot afford not to make these changes. We need to be putting more resources into worker retraining. We need to make sure we do not marginalize an entire generation of manufacturing workers.

Now more than ever, we have to prepare workers for the challenges of the global market. The domestic auto industry faces unprecedented challenges to remain competitive in today's world. In October alone, a major auto parts supplier filed for bankruptcy, General Motors slashed wages and legacy benefits, and the Ford Motor Company announced substantial layoffs. Thousands of specialized workers will be displaced and have to start over.

At the same time, I continue to read warnings of an impending labor shortage--even in the manufacturing sector. Baby boomers will soon begin retiring in large numbers. Our educational system is not turning out enough new workers with the skills our employers need to succeed in global competition. I have seen estimates of a shortage of 20 million workers by 2020--with the most severe shortages in the most skilled jobs.

Economists estimate that increasing the education level of American workers by one year would increase productivity by 8.5 percent in manufacturing and 12.7 percent in nonmanufacturing industries. Is expanding TAA too high a price to pay to address the coming labor shortage and to achieve productivity gains on this order? I certainly do not think so.

Experts with a wide range of views on issues surrounding trade and competitiveness agree that, if our nation is to thrive in the global economy of the 21st century, we must expand our worker adjustment program. From Jagdish Bagwati to Tom Friedman, from Alan Greenspan to the AFL-CIO--there is near universal agreement on this point. I believe the legislation I have introduced today and over the past weeks creates a strong platform to build on and I will work to see these bills enacted into law.

But trade adjustment for workers alone cannot prepare America for the competitive challenges ahead. We must aggressively pursue our interests through the trade agreements we negotiate with other countries, and we must enforce them just as aggressively. Recently I laid out my vision for closer congressional oversight of trade enforcement by the United States Trade Representative. I intend to introdue legislation to address the need for better, more aggressive enforcement of our trade agreements. Finally, I believe that our global competitiveness strategy must go beyond trade negotiations. Over the course of several months, I have highlighted many opportunities to enhance our global competitiveness in areas such as healthcare, energy, education, and savings. We must prepare the American people to take full advantage of these opportunities and many more.

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

I call up amendment 2383 and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this amendment modifies the way retail pharmacies are paid for brand-name generic drugs under Medicaid. The underlying bill makes some important, positive changes but has the unintended consequence of forcing the independents--that is, the independent drugstores and the chains--in a disadvantaged position compared with mail-order drug companies and long-term care drug companies, the point being that the last category, because they are large-sized, have greater purchasing power to be able to acquire drugs on a discount basis, whereas the earlier category, the independent pharmacist and the chains themselves who do not have the same purchasing power, will be forced to pay higher prices compared to the larger. It is a complicated subject.

This is an amendment designed to even the playing field so the smaller guys get a break. It will not be to the disadvantage of the larger guys, because with their larger size, they will be able to get discounts that will more than offset the amendment provided for the smaller guys.

Senator Grassley, I think it is more than just a question of transparency. It is also a question of legality. In many cases, the content of the waivers that CMS is negotiating fundamentally alters the Federal guarantee of Medicaid benefits. This is not the intended purpose of Medicaid demonstration authority. Section 1115 waiver authority allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to waive certain provisions of the Medicaid program if the changes are determined to ``promote the objectives'' of Medicaid. I am concerned that the current waivers being approved by CMS go well beyond CMS' authority and that Congress should be more vigilant in its oversight.

I do not know who is yielding the time.

Not yet. I plan to speak now.

Mr. President, 9 weeks ago yesterday, Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf, killing over 1,000 people, displacing over 1 million people, leaving the region with a cleanup bill that might reach $200 billion. Katrina left a gaping need in health care in the affected States and those that are hosting States. I do not know how to say it any other way but that the devastation is biblical.

I visited the area 5 or 6 weeks ago. Other Senators did, too. I do not think there is any Senator who actually visited who would come up with any other feeling or belief that it is biblical. Unfortunately, very few Members of this body have actually been there. Unfortunately, very few Members of this body have actually seen the area, seen what is left, and it is not much, whether it is in Louisiana, New Orleans or the Gulf States. It is incredible how much the area has been destroyed. People who are alive do not have jobs, do not have homes, do not have schools, do not have their lives. It is absolutely incredible, and it is devastating. It is biblical. I do believe firmly, if every Senator in this institution were to see the areas affected, see the people, see what is happening, there would be a different result.

We have become too academic around here. We read too many memos. We talk too much among ourselves. There is too much sort of theory, not enough actual on the ground, what really is going on. If Senators were to see it, feel it, taste it, smell it, there is no doubt in my mind that this amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas would pass, it would pass unanimously, and we would not be debating it. We would be probably asking how could we help some more.

So in the meantime, how has this Congress responded? To be fair, it has not. Incredibly, it has not. In the hurricane's wake, the chairman of the Finance Committee and I drafted a bill to cover evacuees under Medicaid for a short period of time, 5 months, to help provide health care to low-income people who do not have their jobs anymore, who do not have health insurance anymore, who do not have a place to put their kids in school, do not have homes--just temporary health care, 5 months. That was the bill we offered, a bill that Senator Grassley and I put together.

Who supported it? Everybody in the affected States, Republicans, Democrats, Senators, Governors, supported it. Did we get it passed? No. We cover evacuees below the poverty level of $9,500. Think of that. People who earn that low income need help, particularly in the circumstances faced by the people in the aftermath of this destruction of the hurricane.

Our amendment also would cover pregnant women and kids at twice that income level. That is not a lot of money. That is about $19,000 a year. That is all. Pregnant women and kids with incomes above that much would not get covered by our amendment but up to that level, $19,000 a year, that is all, pregnant women who only earn $19,000 a year. We say let's help them out for 5 months but at least help them out. That bill did not pass.

What else did Senator Grassley and I provide for? Well, an $800 million fund for health care providers' uncompensated care cost. What is that all about, uncompensated care? What does that mean? That means help to those hospitals, those doctors, who gave free medical care out of the goodness of their hearts. Free medical care to people, regardless of what it cost, they just gave it; it is uncompensated care. Because those folks did not have insurance coverage, they did not have ways to pay the bills. It was free care. So we are saying, those hospitals are Good Samaritans, those doctors are Good Samaritans. They were not compensated at all for their care, so let us give them a little bit, $800 million--that is all. I know that the true uncompensated care cost is many times that. We are saying, let's help those Good Samaritans and show them that we care.

And who is ``we''? We are the American people who pay taxes. We are Members of the Senate saying, OK, we represent our people back home. Those of us offering this amendment say we believe that our people in our States want to help out. They want to help these people who do not have health care, who have lost their jobs, lost their health insurance, help people who are in desperate need of help.

Indefinitely? No, for 5 months. For a long time? No. For a huge amount? No, a little bit. We think the American people want to help give some care to those people who need it and who are good Samaritans. But this body so far has said we are not going to help those good Samaritans. We are going to leave them out in the cold.

Senator Grassley and I also suggested giving 16 months of full Federal funding to the beleaguered Federal programs of the affected States. What does that mean? That means for 16 months

we, as Americans, are going to help those States meet their Medicaid bills--for 16 months. But our bill has been blocked. It has been blocked by a small group of Senators on the other side of the aisle.

What do these Senators on the other side of the aisle say? What is their reason for blocking this bill, this little, small bill that helps some people for a short period of time? What do they say? That our bill provides an open-ended expansion of Medicaid. It is the camel's nose under the tent. It is a theoretical, ideological argument.

They argue also that the Government, that is HHS, Department of Health and Human Services, can take care of this crisis without congressional action. They say you don't need that, Congress. We, the administration, can take care of this. That is what they say. They also argue that our legislation is unnecessary spending. They keep those same arguments in effect today.

Let me take those points on one by one. On the first, the amendment before us provides, as did the bill Senator Grassley and I offered, temporary 5-month Medicaid coverage. It is not indefinite; it is temporary, 5 months. We also suggest the President can renew that coverage for an additional 5 months, but that is it. It is not an open- ended Medicaid expansion. It is getting help to those who need it; not down the road, not forever, but now, because people need health care now. That is not something they can postpone. When you need health care, you need it right now. What about the argument that the administration, HHS, can take care of this problem without congressional action, that the administration can take care of Katrina health needs through something called Medicaid waivers?

Simply put, that is not true. It is simply not true. They cannot do that under the law. They need a change in the law to do that. They cannot do that on their own. Last week in the Finance Committee, HHS testified they do need legislation to provide additional funds for the States to meet Katrina health needs. They admitted it before the Finance Committee. They also said the plan to provide only $100 million for new funds for uncompensated care costs--that $100 million is a paltry pittance compared to what is needed in the State of Louisiana alone.

I might say, too, legislation is needed to address these needs, but the President still has not asked Congress to pass the legislation to make that happen. We provide it in this amendment, but they do not.

Finally, Senators on the other side of the aisle argue that this bill constitutes wasteful spending; since we have already appropriated $60 billion through FEMA, two-thirds unspent, we should use those funds first. These same Senators argue we should scale back the bill's pricetag.

I have listened to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Senator Lincoln has listened to them. Senator Landrieu has listened to them. We want to get legislation passed. We want to help people in some way.

Guess what. In the spirit of compromise we scaled back our bill, offsetting it with unspent FEMA funds. That is, we are doing what the Senators wanted us to do. The amendment before us reduces the cost of the Katrina health package by giving 12 months of State Medicaid relief instead of 16 months; it removes the reductions in 29 State Medicaid programs--that bothered them, we removed that part--and by using unspent FEMA funds to offset its costs, the amendment does what the White House advocated last week.

As you know, last week the White House proposed redirecting $17 billion in unspent FEMA funds to help rebuild the gulf coast. Let's look at that $17 billion. Of that $17 billion, $3.3 billion would go to reconstruct military bases--not health care needs but military bases-- and $2.3 will be spent on highways and bridge construction.

I am speaking perhaps out of place here, but I visited the military bases that have been the subject of this amendment here. Yes, there is damage there, but it does not begin to compare with the other damage, the damage to the homes and the roads and the bridges, the lost jobs and health care needs. There is no comparison. I don't know why we are spending $3.3 billion to reconstruct a military base but not spending the money to help people with their health care needs.

Mr. President, $410 million would help farmers remove debris and rehabilitate the land. Those are good causes. But the President's request doesn't ask for increased health care funding. It does not help those hospitals or doctors who were Good Samaritans by providing uncompensated care relief. It does not help States care for evacuees through their overburdened health care programs, and it doesn't help patients now.

As I say, this amendment, to remind my colleagues what one of the opponents on the other side argued for a moment ago--it does it. What is that? When trying to move this bill through the Senate, a Senator on the other side, on September 30, said, and I quote him:

The question is not whether we should or want to provide

assistance. But we want to make sure we do it in a way that

ensures that resources get where they are most needed and in

a way that takes advantage of the $45 billion or so that has

already been appropriated but has not been committed yet.

Guess what. That is what this amendment does. It uses unspent funds to meet the urgent health care needs of Katrina victims. More than 9 weeks after this major national disaster hit our shores, we are still waiting for this Congress and the President to act on Katrina health care needs. The reconciliation bill we are considering provides some help for victims, but the $1.8 billion in the bill is not enough. It has been called a downpayment. It is not a downpayment; it is an end payment in the minds of the administration and those on the other side of the aisle. It is a last payment; it is not a downpayment. Why is it not a downpayment? Because they are saying no to extra funds being suggested here. So it is not a downpayment. That is flat inaccurate. It sounds nice, but it is inaccurate.

We need to provide more Federal funds to help the affected States. Louisiana is in very dire financial straits. It will have to cut its Medicaid program by an estimated 40 percent if that State doesn't get funds by the end of this year. Think of that. It has to cut Medicaid by huge amounts if it does not get the needed funds.

We also need to provide the funds for uncompensated health care costs to ensure providers--doctors, hospitals, health centers, the Good Samaritans--are recognized. And we need to ensure that low-income survivors get the health care they need, whether or not they meet Medicaid's rigid eligibility rules.

In Louisiana alone, half of those who have applied for Medicaid have been turned away because they don't meet those standards. Think of that. Half the people in Louisiana have been turned away. They have health care needs. It is diabetics, cancer patients, people with dire needs who are turned away. We are not talking about high-income levels. Currently, a single mom who makes more than $2,500 a year would not get covered. Think of that. We are raising that to $9,500 a year. Right now, in the view taken by the other side of the aisle, a single mom who makes more than $2,500 a year would not get coverage. She would not get any help.

What are we saying? Let's raise it up to $9,500 at least. That is not a lot of money; $9,500 a year. That is not a lot of money. If she makes more than that, she doesn't get help, but if she makes up to that level, she does get some help.

This is not right, that this amendment is not being passed. It will not be agreed to. It is clear by the tone of this debate here. The Senator from Louisiana said we are going to keep working until we get something passed. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.

I see the chairman of the Budget Committee is sitting there, deeply pondering, his chin on his hand there. I am saying to the chairman: There is a way to do this. The way to do it is to pay for it out of unspent Katrina appropriated dollars. There is a way to do this.

I know the chairman is very concerned about total costs. He should be concerned about total costs. That is his job. But there is a way to do this and that is through this amendment. It is through the already appropriated dollars that are unspent. It does not add

to the deficit, does not add to the budget woes the chairman is worrying about. There is a way of doing this.

I am calling upon all of us as Senators to find a way to do this. We all know it is the right thing to do. We all know it is the right thing to give temporary health care assistance to people in the affected areas. We all know that. We all know it is the right thing to do to help some of those hospitals and doctors who have been Good Samaritans get a little bit of help because all America wants to help. We all know that. All America wants to help those doctors and those hospitals a little bit.

I say to my good friend from New Hampshire, find it in his head and in his heart to help make this thing work because it is so important to so many people who are counting on us to recognize them, give them a little bit of hope--that is the very least we can do--and support the amendment offered by the Senator from Arkansas.

I yield the floor.

Objection.

Objection.

Mr. President, I rise today to express deep frustration over Japan's unwillingness to lift its ban on U.S. beef. My patience-- and the patience of many of colleagues in this chamber--has run out. The time for talk and empty promises is over.

I have long been, and remain, a friend of Japan. I first visited that country many years ago as a student and was deeply touched by the kindness extended to me by the people of Japan. In over 30 years in Congress, I have worked hard to strengthen our trade and economic ties. I have watched proudly as the U.S.-Japan economic relationship has grown and prospered.

Times have not always been easy. I have engaged closely on U.S.-Japan issues through good times and through periods of great strain. But even in the most difficult times, I have made every effort to roll up my sleeves and work through problems in order to ensure that our trade relationship with Japan works for the people of Montana and the United States.

By and large, that relationship works, and it works well. In trade, one of our crowning achievements together has been the construction of a rules-based multilateral trading system--first through the General Agreement

on Tariffs and Trade, and now through the World Trade Organization. Without Japan's leadership and cooperation during the Tokyo Round, the Uruguay Round, and now in the Doha Round, it would have been difficult--if not impossible--to craft the important rules that govern world trade.

It is therefore with bitter disappointment that I stand here today on the Senate floor to draw attention to Japan's failure to play by the rules that it helped to create. Japan has banned U.S. beef from its market since December 2003. That ban--almost 2 years old--costs the U.S. cattle and beef industries hundreds of millions of dollars each month. That ban puts at risk jobs in American ranches. And that ban-- with absolutely no basis in science--is unsustainable under international trade law.

In the 2 years since the ban was put in place, I have traveled to Japan to meet personally with Japan's trade and agriculture ministers to argue for lifting the ban on U.S. beef. I have met with the Japanese ambassador to press Japan to lift its ban. I have taken senior officials from Japan and other countries that ban U.S. beef to Montana, and fed them Montana beef on a Montana ranch, to encourage them to lift the ban. And I have urged President Bush, Agriculture Secretary Johanns, U.S. Trade Representative Portman, and other senior administration officials to make lifting the Japanese ban on U.S. beef a top priority.

At first, I was encouraged by what appeared to be steps that Japan was taking to lift this ban. The United States and Japan even signed an agreement in October 2004 to remove the ban. At that time and since, I was repeatedly assured by Japanese officials that, under this agreement, the Japanese government would set up a ``scientific'' process to determine when and how to resume imports of U.S. beef products.

It is now one year later, and still nothing. Instead, it now looks to me like that Japan's administrative process has become an exercise of smoke and mirrors. Japan says the right things. But its action--or actually inaction--has been far more telling.

Let me assure my Japanese counterparts, there is no higher quality, safer, or better tasting beef in the world. I eat it. My family eats it. Japanese visitors to the United States eat it. Japanese students living in the United States eat it. Many beef eaters around the world prefer and consume U.S. beef. Yet, despite scientific proof of the safety of U.S. beef, there has been no quality Montanan or other American beef imported into Japan in almost 2 years.

I can no longer accept assurances from the Japanese government that it will lift the ban. Montana's ranchers have heard enough vague promises during the last two years. We're fed up. The time for idle promises is over. It is now time for action.

I therefore call upon the United States Trade Representative to sanction Japan for maintaining its ban on U.S. beef. The United States should impose sanctions on Japanese products imported into the United States in an amount equal to the losses suffered by the U.S. beef and cattle industries.

This is a blunt instrument. But it appears to be the only recourse left. I will no longer sit by and watch Japan flout its international trade obligations behind the smokescreen that it is engaged in a lengthy ``process'' to lift the ban.

Sanctioning Japan without resort to WTO dispute settlement is not ideal. It's not how the WTO is supposed to work. But U.S. beef producers should not be forced to wait the years it would take to complete a WTO case. They have waited long enough. I will not wring my hands over legal niceties when the livelihoods of ranchers in Montana and across the United States are at stake.

In my experience, the only thing that will get the Japanese to act is leverage. And sanctions are leverage.

We have been here before. In the late 1980s, Japan kept its market almost entirely closed to U.S. beef. U.S. beef producers were permitted to export only six ounces per Japanese citizen per year, a piddling amount. The excuse then was that Japanese intestines were somehow ``different'' and therefore unsuitable to digesting American beef.

I didn't accept that ridiculous excuse. Instead, I pushed hard for legislation that would penalize Japanese imports. Soon thereafter, the Japanese opened their market to U.S. beef.

And I don't accept this excuse.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor an outstanding Montanan. Today in the city of Butte, MT, citizens are taking to the streets in honor of Levi Leipheimer. In fact, October 20 is officially Levi Leipheimer Appreciation Day in Montana.

To say that Levi Leipheimer is a competitive cyclist is an understatement. Levi is an established leader in the world of cycling. Under his belt, he has three top ten finishes in the world's biggest cycling race, the Tour de France. This year, he placed sixth in the Tour, and also won the Tour de Germany. This is an incredible accomplishment. I am proud that Levi grew up riding on the hills of Montana.

Today, Levi is returning to Butte for the first time in roughly 4 years. The people of Butte are honoring him with a bike parade and street festival.

Levi is an inspiration to the next generation of Montanans, and today by riding alongside in the streets of Butte, he will show them that through dedication and hard work, anything is possible.

I am very proud of Levi Leipheimer and all that he has achieved. He has made both myself and the State of Montana very proud. We look forward to watching him compete in the years to come.

I expect maybe 4 or 5 or 6 minutes.

Madam President, it has been more than 7 weeks since Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast--7 weeks. Nearly 1.5 million Americans have been displaced. Tens of thousands of these survivors have no health care coverage and no money to pay for care. It is high time for passage of the Grassley-Baucus Emergency Health Care Relief Act, S. 1716.

On Monday, the Los Angeles Times ran a story on a 52-year-old schoolbus driver from New Orleans, Emanuel Wilson. Mr. Wilson survived Katrina, but his life is still at risk. Why? Because he has intestinal cancer and he has no health insurance.

Mr. Wilson was getting monthly chemotherapy injections before the storm, but now he cannot get any health care.

He lost his job and his health coverage because of Katrina, and he is ineligible to receive Medicaid.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, more than half of all hurricane evacuees still in Louisiana who sought Medicaid coverage since Katrina have been turned away. More than half were turned away. These are poor people. They aren't people with a lot of money. They are poor people. They can't get coverage because they do not meet the rigid eligibility guidelines under Federal Medicaid law.

We need to relax those guidelines on a temporary basis, on an emergency basis, to help those survivors desperately in need.

This morning, my staff met with Secretary Cerise, secretary of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals.

And Dr. Cerise reported that Louisiana's Medicaid Program has enrolled 60,000 new individuals because of Katrina, which would cost the State about $83 million if they were to pay for the care.

Louisiana has just lost about one-seventh of its total expected State revenue this year, and they cannot bear these additional costs. They are likely to need to make dramatic cuts to the Medicaid Program if they don't get help soon.

Dr. Cerise reports that Louisiana will have to cut all optional services to beneficiaries if they do not get help.

What does that mean? That means ending their hospice programs, ending their pharmacy benefits, ending their institutional care for the mentally retarded, ending their dialysis and other benefits, cutting off care for their medically needy, breast and cervical cancer patients, as well as thousands of low-income children.

We have spent far too long talking about this bill. Far too many times have we been asking unanimous consent to get this bill passed-- far too long. These are temporary provisions.

America can do better. America can help its people in need in times of emergency.

Where is America? Where is the Senate?

My colleagues, Senator Grassley, Senator Landrieu, Senator Lincoln, and Senator Reid have all spoken passionately supporting moving this bill forward and moving it forward immediately.

I hope we can get this bill passed and enacted into law without delay. We owe at least this much to our fellow Americans hit by Katrina and its aftermath.

It ties in very much with the latest dialog on the floor with the Senator from Rhode Island about the need for LIHEAP money. Energy costs are going up around the country. They are going up so quickly, so high, and it is the kind of problem facing the people down on the gulf coast.

I urgently ask our colleagues to support this bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 214, S. 1716, a bill to provide emergency health care relief for survivors of Hurricane Katrina; that the bill be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Madam President, with all due respect, we have heard these lamentations before. We have heard it all, with due respect, before.

Let me just clear the record a little bit. The Senator mentioned waivers. The Secretary has admitted that he does not have authority under the waiver system to do what needs to be done. He does not have authority to make these hospitals--not whole but to get some uncompensated care for these hospitals. He does not have authority to do so. He does not have authority to make other provisions that are necessary in this bill.

I must say this is a temporary bill. It is only on an emergency basis.

I am willing to--and I think a lot of my colleagues are willing and concerned about the costs--take it out of the unspent FEMA money. We appropriated in this body about $60 billion for FEMA. I understand that maybe roughly $40 billion of that has not been spent.

If the Senator is concerned about the costs, we could take it out of FEMA and help people who really need help. The Secretary does not have the authority to do what needs to be done. And, second, the administration has not come up with any real plan to say where the money is going to come from. It is all just talk, words.

If the Senator from New Hampshire is willing to take the money out of FEMA, or if he is willing to say trim back a little bit to come up with a deal with 29 States to immediately pass a bill that may be trimmed down a little bit and paid for out of FEMA, then we would be doing the country a great deal of service.

But to stand here day in and day out for 27 weeks, for a Senator to stand on the floor and say we can't help people in Louisiana and the Gulf States, we could sure help New Yorkers after 9/11. We can help them, but we can't help the people on the gulf coast.

These are the same Medicaid provisions that we gave the people in New York City as a consequence of 9/11--the same eligibility standards, the same.

In other words, let us do it for the gulf coast people, if we can do it for New Yorkers. It is great for New Yorkers. We are all for it. Let us figure out a way to help the people in the Gulf States--help them a little bit. This administration does not want to do so, and the other side doesn't want to do so. I cannot believe it when the big rush right now is to cut Medicaid--cut Medicaid, cut Medicaid. We want to help the people.

I would love to yield to the Senator.

In answer to the question of my colleague, it is absolutely true. We came to the aid of people who needed aid in New York within a couple of weeks. That was the right thing to do. We are a passionate people, a country willing to help people in need, particularly when it is an emergency need.

The Senator is correct. That is the intent of the amendment. I thank the Senator for raising that point.

This is not a partisan effort at all. This is just a compassionate effort on the part of both Republicans and Democrats. I might say that all Senators--Republicans and Democrats--in the States affected would like to see this bill passed. All the Governors in the States affected--Republicans and Democrats--would like to see this bill passed. The House delegations from the States affected would like to see this bill passed. It is very much bipartisan.

The second point the Senator made is a very good one. A lot of evacuees have gone to a lot of States across the country--many in Illinois. Some have come to my State in Montana from New Orleans. We are very gracious and want to do all we can to help the people who are so dislocated.

If we stop and think for a moment, the Senators lead pretty comfortable lives. For these people, it is incredible hardships they are going through. We forget all they have to go through. They don't have houses, anyplace to live, no way to pay bills, no job, their kids are out of school, or where they can go to school, health care needs-- they are incredibly affected.

I do not know how many Members have gone down to the gulf coast. Raise your hand if you have gone down to the gulf coast and have seen it all. There are two. We have seen it. It is Biblical. There is not a word for it. It is a tragedy that is affecting people on the gulf coast. It is Biblical. My Lord, my God, why can't the Senate do something about it?

Why are we here, Senators? To say no? That is not why we are here. We are here to do the right thing. We are not asking for the Moon. We are just asking for a little bit of help.

The Senator is correct. That is the situation we are in.

I appreciate the Senator's question. People are not going to get health care. The diabetics will be scrambling wondering where they are going to get their insulin shots. People getting chemotherapy will be wondering where in the world they are going to get their chemotherapy. For mentally affected people, where are they going to get their assistance? Particularly those who have lost their jobs and don't have any insurance anymore, where are they going to get their insurance? If they lost their jobs and they do not have money to even pay for basics, let alone health care, how are they going to pay for food? Where are they going to live? It is incredible.

I wish all Members in this Senate would go to the gulf coast and walk around New Orleans, walk around the gulf coast of Mississippi, and feel, see, smell, taste how devastating this tragedy is. We would be rushing to pass this legislation if Senators would go down there to see what is going on.

Madam President, I might also add, the primary sponsor of this legislation is the chairman of the Committee on Finance, Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. Senator Grassley is known in this Senate, probably more than any Member for doing the right thing. He is not a partisan. He is not political. He does what he thinks is right. It is clear to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance that this is right. I join with him to do something that is right.

We have talked this out with all members of the committee, both sides, how to tailor this, modify it, make it work or not work, and I am quite confidence it would be agreed to unanimously by all members of the committee.

I mentioned the States affected. The Senators of the States affected all want this. The Governors all want this--and there are more Republican than Democrat. And the mayors want it because they know it is the right thing to do.

Again I make the request.

If the Senator is willing to take it out of FEMA, we are willing to do that.

Mr. President, today my good friends Senators Grassley and McCain and I are introducing the ``Government Settlement Transparency Act of 2005'', a bill that will put a stop to tax deductions for fines and penalties paid by companies to government agencies in connection with civil settlements. Over the past several years, we have become increasingly concerned about the approval of various settlements that allow penalty payments made to the government in settlement of a violation or potential violation of the law to be tax deductible. Our concerns were heightened this week upon the release of a Government Accountability Office Report that confirmed many companies deduct these settlements notwithstanding the tax code's prohibition against deducting fines and penalties. This abuse shifts the tax burden from the wrongdoer onto the backs of the American people. This is unacceptable.

Many government agencies enter into these settlement agreements after investigating companies for violations of the law. Every year thousands of violations are resolved with settlements totaling tens of billions of dollars paid to the Federal Government. Civil settlements serve to punish past wrongdoing and to deter future wrongdoing without protracted court proceedings. For example, in the past several years settlements of various SEC investigations into violations or potential violations of the securities laws have been front and center in the news. Through civil investigations, Federal and State regulators are working hard to hold these firms responsible for their actions. With these efforts to achieve greater accountability in the business community and ensure the integrity of our financial markets, it is important that the rules governing the appropriate tax treatment of settlements be clear and adhered to by taxpayers.

Section 162(f) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that no deduction is allowed as a trade or business expense under section 162(a) for the payment of a fine or penalty to a government for violation of any law. The enactment of section 162(f) in 1969 codified existing case law that denied the deductibility of fines and penalties as ordinary and necessary business expenses on the grounds that ``allowance of the deduction would frustrate sharply defined national or state policies proscribing the particular types of conduct evidenced by some governmental declaration thereof.'' Treasury regulations provide that a fine or penalty includes an amount paid in settlement of the taxpayer's actual or potential liability for a fine or penalty.

The legislation introduced today modifies the rules regarding the determination of whether payments are nondeductible payments of fines or penalties under section 162(f). In particular, the bill generally provides that amounts paid or incurred whether by suit, agreement, or otherwise, to, or at the direction of, a government in relation to the violation of any law or the investigation or inquiry in the potential violation of any law are nondeductible. The bill applies to deny a deduction for any such payments, including those where there is no admission of guilt or liability and those made for the purpose of avoiding further investigation or litigation.

An exception applies to payments that the taxpayer establishes are either restitution, including remediation of property, or amounts required to come into compliance with any law that was violated, and that are so identified in the settlement agreement. It is intended that a payment will be treated as restitution only if the payment is required to be paid to the specific persons, or in relation to the specific property, actually harmed by the conduct of the taxpayer that resulted in the payment. Restitution does not include reimbursement of government investigative or litigation costs, or payments to whistleblowers. It is intended that a payment will be treated as an amount required to come into compliance only if it directly corrects a violation with respect to a particular requirement of law that was under investigation. Amounts paid to educate consumers or customers about the risks of doing business with the taxpayer or about the field in which the taxpayer generally does business, and which are not specifically required under the law, are not deductible if required under a settlement agreement.

To ensure that companies do not take unallowable tax deductions for settlement payments, the bill requires government agencies to report to the IRS and to the taxpayer within thirty days of the settlement the amount of each settlement agreement, and to identify whether the payment is for fines, restitution, remediation or compliance, where the aggregate amount of the settlement is at least six hundred dollars, the Secretary of the Treasury will have the authority to adjust the amount and deadline for filing. Further, the IRS is encouraged to require taxpayers to separately identify such settlements on their tax returns.

The bill would be effective for amounts paid or incurred on or after the date of enactment unless the amounts were under binding order or agreement before such date.

I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Committee on Taxation Technical Description and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today my good friends Senators Grassley and McCain and I are introducing the ``Government Settlement Transparency Act of 2005'', a bill that will put a stop to tax deductions for fines and penalties paid by companies to government agencies in connection with civil settlements. Over the past several years, we have become increasingly concerned about the approval of various settlements that allow penalty payments made to the government in settlement of a violation or potential violation of the law to be tax deductible. Our concerns were heightened this week upon the release of a Government Accountability Office Report that confirmed many companies deduct these settlements notwithstanding the tax code's prohibition against deducting fines and penalties. This abuse shifts the tax burden from the wrongdoer onto the backs of the American people. This is unacceptable.

Many government agencies enter into these settlement agreements after investigating companies for violations of the law. Every year thousands of violations are resolved with settlements totaling tens of billions of dollars paid to the Federal Government. Civil settlements serve to punish past wrongdoing and to deter future wrongdoing without protracted court proceedings. For example, in the past several years settlements of various SEC investigations into violations or potential violations of the securities laws have been front and center in the news. Through civil investigations, Federal and State regulators are working hard to hold these firms responsible for their actions. With these efforts to achieve greater accountability in the business community and ensure the integrity of our financial markets, it is important that the rules governing the appropriate tax treatment of settlements be clear and adhered to by taxpayers.

Section 162(f) of the Internal Revenue Code provides that no deduction is allowed as a trade or business expense under section 162(a) for the payment of a fine or penalty to a government for violation of any law. The enactment of section 162(f) in 1969 codified existing case law that denied the deductibility of fines and penalties as ordinary and necessary business expenses on the grounds that ``allowance of the deduction would frustrate sharply defined national or state policies proscribing the particular types of conduct evidenced by some governmental declaration thereof.'' Treasury regulations provide that a fine or penalty includes an amount paid in settlement of the taxpayer's actual or potential liability for a fine or penalty.

The legislation introduced today modifies the rules regarding the determination of whether payments are nondeductible payments of fines or penalties under section 162(f). In particular, the bill generally provides that amounts paid or incurred whether by suit, agreement, or otherwise, to, or at the direction of, a government in relation to the violation of any law or the investigation or inquiry in the potential violation of any law are nondeductible. The bill applies to deny a deduction for any such payments, including those where there is no admission of guilt or liability and those made for the purpose of avoiding further investigation or litigation.

An exception applies to payments that the taxpayer establishes are either restitution, including remediation of property, or amounts required to come into compliance with any law that was violated, and that are so identified in the settlement agreement. It is intended that a payment will be treated as restitution only if the payment is required to be paid to the specific persons, or in relation to the specific property, actually harmed by the conduct of the taxpayer that resulted in the payment. Restitution does not include reimbursement of government investigative or litigation costs, or payments to whistleblowers. It is intended that a payment will be treated as an amount required to come into compliance only if it directly corrects a violation with respect to a particular requirement of law that was under investigation. Amounts paid to educate consumers or customers about the risks of doing business with the taxpayer or about the field in which the taxpayer generally does business, and which are not specifically required under the law, are not deductible if required under a settlement agreement.

To ensure that companies do not take unallowable tax deductions for settlement payments, the bill requires government agencies to report to the IRS and to the taxpayer within thirty days of the settlement the amount of each settlement agreement, and to identify whether the payment is for fines, restitution, remediation or compliance, where the aggregate amount of the settlement is at least six hundred dollars, the Secretary of the Treasury will have the authority to adjust the amount and deadline for filing. Further, the IRS is encouraged to require taxpayers to separately identify such settlements on their tax returns.

The bill would be effective for amounts paid or incurred on or after the date of enactment unless the amounts were under binding order or agreement before such date.

I ask unanimous consent that the Joint Committee on Taxation Technical Description and the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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