Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise for the purpose of introducing a bill on health care reform. I know the Presiding Officer has immense interest in it, as do a number of other Senators. I have read his bill and incorporated many parts of that.

Health care reform is one of the biggest needs in this country. It is the fastest escalating price in this country. It is the biggest cost to companies and individuals in this country. We need to have a solution.

I have been working with Senator Kennedy, who is the chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. He has a very full plate with the Higher Education Act, the higher education reconciliation, information technology, and I could go on to mention about 53 bills we are working on in that committee. So I have had some latitude as ranking member to try to pull together some information-- some legislation that would deal with health care for this Nation. This is a work in progress. This is not a finished document.

I wish to thank Senator Kennedy for working with me and his staff and my staff to come up with some health care principles we wanted to follow. Of course, I appreciate the work Senator Nelson did with me in previous times and currently on small business health plans. I appreciate Senator Baucus's efforts on health care and how the tax

package goes together with that. We can see there are a lot of moving parts to anything we do with health. Senator Coburn has an outstanding and very comprehensive package on how we can solve many of the health care and health insurance problems in this Nation. Senator Lott, Senator DeMint, Senator McConnell; as I mentioned, the Presiding Officer, Senator Whitehouse; Senator Lincoln, Senator Carper, Senator Salazar, and Senator Durbin--these are all people who have come up with either a comprehensive plan or a piece of a plan that would work to make an important difference in health care in this country.

Congressman McCreary on the House side has been a real leader on this and, of course, the President and the administration have made contributions as well. The President, in his State of the Union speech, made some comments about how taxes would fit in with solving some of the uninsured problems in the country, and some of those provisions are in here as well.

Without the work of everyone on this, it can't be done. If it gets polarized, it can't be done. This is something which has to be done in a very bipartisan way. I hope we have a framework from which we can all operate, making changes, finding third ways.

I work on an 80-percent rule. I anticipate and from experience have found that usually everybody can agree on 80 percent of the issues, and among the 80 percent of the issues on which they agree, they can agree on 80 percent of any one of those issues. You never get a perfect bill around here. If you can get 80 percent, you can get a lot done. That is what we are trying to do on health care--make an 80-percent change for the people of America. Eighty percent would be a huge difference and will help out a lot of people.

So I rise today to talk about an issue that is literally a heartbeat away from devastating the lives of every American; that is, our current health care crisis. Undeniably, we have a problem. There are 46.1 million Americans, according to the last tabulation, who are uninsured. Now, we always talk about that figure and change it slightly differently because there are 7 million of those people who make over $80,000 a year and don't have insurance, so they must choose not to have insurance, but they are uninsured. People who are on Medicaid, they don't have to sign up for anything before they have an emergency. When they go to the hospital, they can sign up then. That is a significant number of the 46.1 million people as well. So I don't know whether to really say they don't have insurance, but at any rate, let's just use that figure of 46.1 million Americans who are uninsured and figure out a way to solve that, as well as to help people who also have insurance to perhaps be able to handle the situation even better.

Health care costs are outstripping inflation. They are increasing annually at three times the rate of the Consumer Price Index. It is little surprise that three out of every four Americans are concerned about health care--three out of four. I think probably, if you are talking to people, you would think the percentage was even higher than that.

Employer-provided health insurance is voluntary and in critical condition. Sixty percent of the country's employers offer insurance today, but that is down 9 percent from a few years ago. It is partly due to the fact that the cost of health insurance for companies has nearly doubled in the same amount of time. With employers expected to pay over $8,000 per employee versus $4,000 5 years ago, we have no choice but to stabilize the system and provide more options for businesses so they can continue to provide health care for their employees.

We must also provide real options--real options for those without employer-based health care. My own home State of Wyoming is hard-hit. On average, one in five Wyoming residents is uninsured, and more and more residents are losing the coverage they do have as the costs go up. It is largely due to the fact that much of Wyoming's economy is small business. Nearly 70 percent of Wyoming employers are small business. Actually, if you use the Federal definition of small business and you talk about companies headquartered in Wyoming, 100 percent of the companies are small business. We don't have a single one, according to the Federal definition, that is based in Wyoming. But nearly 70 percent of the employers find that it is nearly impossible to afford health care coverage for their employees.

Thankfully, I am not here today to talk about these problems; I am here to provide real solutions. Americans need and deserve real solutions to this crisis now, and they are counting on this body to work together to get that. The time has come to move beyond the rhetoric and principles to true comprehensive health care reform.

Congress could enact 10 major steps for health care reform. These 10 steps are the basis of the legislation I am introducing today, the Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America, or simply ``Ten Steps.''

In putting together these 10 steps, I first wanted to understand the problem, and all the proposals others have been discussing help with that. I have studied those other proposals very carefully, and my colleagues will find that I have included many of the concepts of those other proposals in the 10 steps. I particularly wish to recognize again and thank Senator Baucus, Senator Kennedy, Senator Nelson, Senator Coburn, Senator Lott, Senator DeMint, Senator McConnell, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Lincoln, Senator Carper, Senator Salazar, Senator Durbin, Congressman McCreary, the President, the administration--all of them for their contributions, for their patience, and for their willingness to share their ideas.

However, to truly do this right, we have to move beyond the usual jurisdictional issues, beyond the usual reauthorizations of a single program at a time. We have to examine the whole health care system and together--together, we have to put forward a bold and comprehensive solution that addresses our health care crisis. That is what Ten Steps does. It is a comprehensive solution to a very big problem. It can be done in parts. It doesn't have to be done as one structure.

It needs to go through the committee process. I have pointed out several times that bills that don't go through the committee process usually don't make it through the process at all. They are good for making rhetoric, they are good for making points, they are sometimes good for advancing a principle, but they seldom ever make it to the President's desk for signature. So I know this will have to go through more than one committee. I know the jurisdictional issues between Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the Finance Committees. I have no problem. We did the pensions bill last year, going through those same kinds of multiple committees and getting agreement from everybody, and that can be done on this issue as well--of course, as long as we don't polarize it.

So I want to reiterate again that this is not a final bill. One of the things we have done in the HELP Committee which has helped to move things along is to consider every bill a work in progress. At a lot of the committee meetings, when you have a markup, different amendments are presented and they are voted up or down, just like on the floor. Well, that doesn't result in a lot of compromise. So what we have done on the HELP Committee is use the markup process as an indication of problems and the level of intensity of those problems, and we have agreed to work through those problems even after the bill makes it through committee. As a result, it seldom makes it through committee unanimously, but it makes it through committee in a bipartisan way, and that encourages people to work together to find solutions. Sometimes it is one way or the other, but usually it is finding a third way to come up with a mechanism to do what we are trying to do. Once we can put away some of the old ``diving into the weeds'' things that have happened year after year, we are able to come up with something new and different that actually reaches the goal we have been trying to reach as we jumped into the weeds through the whole process.

So I want to remind everybody that it is a work in progress. We want more ideas. We want some of those third ways. But primarily, we want everybody to take a look at what is in here because it is a compilation of a number of people who have really taken a look at the situation.

So what does it do? These 10 steps--I will break them down into the actual 10 steps and go through each of them.

First, we eliminate unfair tax treatment of health insurance, which expands choices and coverage and gives all Americans more control over their health care.

Our current health insurance system is biased toward employer-based coverage--kind of due to a historical accident. The wage controls of World War II increased competition among employers for recruiting the best employees and incentivized employers to offer health benefits instead of what they couldn't do, which was increase wages. In 1954, Congress codified a provision declaring that such a contribution would not count as taxable income. This tax policy made it very favorable for individuals to get their health benefits through their employers and consequently has penalized individuals who get coverage through the individual market. So if you work for a big company--a tax break. If you don't--penalized.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that moving this tax bias and a few related health care tax policies will save the Government $3.6 trillion over the next 10 years. Even around here, that is a lot of money. That is a lot of money which can and should be used to expand choices and access and give individuals more control over their health care. Ten Steps ensures that every American can benefit from this savings--whether they get their health care from their employer, from the individual insurance market or they decide they want to get off Medicaid and switch to private insurance.

Let me be clear. My goal is not to erode employer-based health insurance, given that the Ten Steps does not alter the way employers treat health insurance. Rather, I wish to provide more options for individuals who don't currently have insurance through their employer. Everyone should be treated equally.

Once the employee exclusion for health care insurance is eliminated, we must provide additional tax incentives for the purchase of health care insurance. Ten Steps is a hybrid approach, combining the standard deduction for health insurance with a tax subsidy for those who need it the most. That way, no particular population is adversely affected.

The second step of Ten Steps would increase affordable options for working families to purchase health insurance through a standard tax deduction. The national above-the-line standard deduction for health insurance will equal $15,000 for a family and $7,500 for an individual. I wish to also note the earned-income tax credit for taxpayers with qualifying children is held harmless--that is very important--so those receiving the earned-income tax credit will not be affected by these changes. Actually, they will be affected in a positive way.

For example, say Bob from Gillette, WY, has total compensation of $38,000, made up of $34,000 in wages and $4,000 in health insurance premiums paid by his employer. Because of the current unfair tax treatment of premiums, Bob's current taxable income is reduced to $34,000, which means he paid about $5,000 in taxes. To an accountant, this is all fascinating; for other people, I am not so sure.

Under the Ten Steps, which eliminates the exclusion of premiums from tax, Bob's total compensation and thus taxable income would be $38,000. By providing Bob with a $7,500 standard deduction for health insurance, his taxable income under this bill would be lowered to $30,500, which means he would pay about $4,000 in taxes. So Bob's total savings under this proposal is $1,000 a year.

The third step of Ten Steps is what makes this a hybrid approach. I couple the standard deduction with a refundable, advanceable, assignable tax-based subsidy. That is a mouthful, but it ensures that Americans receive this credit in a meaningful way that allows them to purchase real insurance coverage.

Given that everybody is not familiar with these terms, I will explain them. As a refundable credit, it benefits folks even if they don't have tax liability. They don't have to owe taxes in order to get it. This helps low-income individuals. Advanceable means the subsidy would be paid at the beginning of the year so individuals can use the funds to immediately purchase health insurance. If it wasn't advanceable, individuals would need to first pay for their health insurance and then get the money back at the end of the year to pay them back for that purchase. To encourage everyone to obtain health insurance right away, we should provide those funds upfront. Further, to ensure that the subsidy goes toward the purchase of health care insurance, it is also assignable--paid directly from the IRS to the insurance carrier that the individual chooses.

Ten Steps includes the tax subsidy equal to $5,000 for a family or $2,500 for an individual. The full subsidy amount is available to individuals at or below 100 percent of the Federal poverty level, which is $20,650 right now for a family of four. The subsidy is phased out between up to 300 percent of Federal poverty level, with individuals at 200 percent receiving half the subsidy and individuals at 301 percent receiving the standard deduction instead of the subsidy. I am sure everybody got that.

The fourth key step for health care reform is to provide market-based pooling to reduce growing health care costs and increase access not only for small businesses, unions and other kinds of organizations and their workers, members, and families. That is a change from anything I have done on pooling before, but it is a change that was requested by the other organizations and unions, as well as small business. Those of you who know me well recognize how central this would be to any health care reform proposal of mine.

While I have not yet introduced the small business health plan legislation from last year, I have not abandoned those key principles. Every day, emergency rooms treat more than 30,000 uninsured Americans who work for or depend on small businesses. That is at least 30,000 reasons why I will not abandon the concept. However, in the proposal I am introducing, I have addressed some of the criticisms of the bill, and I have offered what I believe are appropriate solutions.

For instance, while the earlier bill focused heavily on small businesses--and this one still does--it simply became clear that other organizations, including unions and churches, can benefit from better pooling options too. Therefore, under this bill, the umbrella of the pooling option has been expanded to include more kinds of organizations but with the same strong focus on consumer protections and State-based oversight.

Of course, a big elephant in the room was dealing with those who were misled to fear how the initial proposal dealt with insurance mandates. I hope those who were so vocal before will pause this time around. By incorporating what many have described as the Snowe amendment--which I am sure we would have passed at the time we were talking about that before--the legislation would require benefit mandate categories if a majority of the States required them. While I still have some concerns, I am comfortable with this compromise because the mandate requirement is coupled with something it needs to encourage pooling and that is a common definition of what that mandate means. We do it with the Federal insurance plan because definitions in all the States run a little bit different. If you are trying to do something comprehensively, it is pretty hard to figure out what each definition means, so there needs to be a way of streamlining it and coming up with a common definition for that mandate. I don't think people have a problem with that, especially since we do it with the Federal plan.

As I learned with the previous debate, mandates for many different services and items are not consistent from State to State. Thus, if we are to discuss requiring those, we should at least have a consistent definition of what those mandates require. We should not further complicate the pooling option with a multitude of definitions. We want to make insurance as simple as possible. I know that is kind of an oxymoron, I am sure, because I know nobody in America relishes having their insurance agent come over and spend an evening explaining the bill to them. But we want to have this little bit of streamlining so it is simpler and people will be able to understand it, to the degree that is possible with insurance.

While the next step is probably one of the most obvious ones, it is also one many have not yet discussed. Currently, HIPAA portability protections

are provided to group health plans. The protections provide assurances to consumers that insurers will deal with preexisting conditions fairly and provide coverage, even to small groups.

These protections have been a great help for individuals purchasing health care coverage in the group market. However, those consumer protections are not provided nearly as well to individuals who are purchasing in the individual market. Ten Steps blends the individual and group market to extend important HIPAA portability protections to the individual market so the insurance security can better move with you from job to job. It allows people to take that new opportunity and still be sure they will be covered, even if they have had some preexisting conditions.

The sixth step emphasizes preventive benefits and helps individuals with chronic diseases better manage their health. America should have health care, not sick care. Prevention, prevention, prevention. That makes a big difference in the cost.

We have all been discussing the need to do more to prevent disease, not just treat its symptoms. Even though I leave much to the markets to define some health insurance components, the one thing we must emphasize is the need for prevention. Any plan purchased with the tax subsidy must include basic preventive services and a medical self- management component.

This concept is modeled after a very successful program in Wyoming. In 2005, Wyoming EqualityCare, our Medicaid Program, began providing one-on-one case management for Medicaid participants with chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, asthma, depression or heart disease, to encourage better self-management of these conditions. The program provides educational information on self-management, as well as a nurse health coach who follows up with each patient to ensure they have what they need to take care of themselves.

In addition, EqualityCare provides a nursing hotline so all patients have a direct line to a health care provider when they are concerned about an illness. These programs targeting those with chronic illnesses were estimated to save nearly $13 million for the EqualityCare program in 2006. In a lot of States, that would not sound like a lot, but Wyoming is the least-populated of all of the States. We are hoping to get 500,000 people in the next census. When you talk about $13 million being saved in this EqualityCare Program dealing with Medicaid participants, it is a lot of money, proportionately, particularly because it cut down on inappropriate use of emergency room services.

Now, another key step of the Ten Steps for health care reform is to give individuals the choice to convert the value of their Medicaid and SCHIP program benefits into private health insurance, putting them in control of their health care, not the Federal Government. The rationale for this step is simple. If the market can provide better coverage at a lower price, why not allow Americans to access that care?

This gives low-income individuals more options about where they can receive their care and what care is available to them. Some providers don't see Medicaid and SCHIP patients. This provision will change that by letting the market forces work and give all patients more choices. It is time for people to start making decisions about their care. Let's get the Government out of the doctors office.

About 6,000 kids are enrolled in the Wyoming SCHIP program. An additional 6,000 kids are eligible for the program but are not enrolled. I wonder why that is. Maybe it is because folks in Wyoming are wary about accepting Government help, and they think there is a negative stigma associated with SCHIP and Medicaid. Well, under Ten Steps, they can use that money to purchase health care insurance through the private sector so that their family can attain the high quality care they need and deserve. This will cover more people.

The eighth step in Ten Steps is a bipartisan proposal which the HELP Committee approved last month--the ``Wired for Health Care Quality Act,'' which encouraged the adoption of cutting-edge information technologies in health care to improve patient care, reduce medical errors, and cut health care costs. Some of the most serious challenges facing health care today--medical errors, inconsistent quality, and rising costs--can be addressed through the effective application of available health information technology linking all elements of the health care system.

The widespread use of health IT can save lives. If somebody is traveling and gets in a car wreck or gets hurt in some other way, the emergency room doctor would be able to find out everything he or she needs to know to make the right treatment decisions, without the person having to fill out one of those little papers at the doctors office, which they may not be capable of doing if they have been in a requiem or have some other problem.

Better use of health IT would also allow medical data to move with people when they go to other locations. When someone goes to the doctor's office, they won't have to take the clipboard and a pencil and write down everything they can remember about their history. It will already be recorded and go with them. It will make a huge difference.

Beyond saving lives and saving time, more effective use of health information technology would save us a lot of money. A RAND study suggested that health IT has the potential to save--listen to this-- $162 billion a year. Even around here that is real money. In order for these savings to be realized, we have to create an infrastructure for interoperability.

All the different health providers and insurers and doctors have to be able to get the information electronically, but doctors, hospitals, health care advocates, the business community, including small businesses, are clamoring for Congress to take action and establish uniform health IT standards. That will cut down on the cost of the software.

Time is of the essence. If Congress does not act, our health care system will move forward in a highly inefficient, fragmented, and disjointed way. Among other things, this bill will eliminate duplicative tests and reduce medical errors. That is a lot of where that $162 billion a year in savings comes from.

Health care reform cannot simply expand health insurance coverage. It must also expand access to actual providers of care. There are growing shortages of health care providers nationally, with a shortage of up to 200,000 primary care physicians and 1 million nurses expected by 2020. Who is going to take care of us at the hospital if we don't have nurses? Who is going to help make a diagnosis if we don't have doctors?

That is why the ninth step of Ten Steps helps future providers and nurses pay for their education while encouraging them to serve in areas with great need with five key reforms.

This legislation provides competitive matching grants for States to encourage nurses to return to the profession after having left the workforce for 3 years or more while reaffirming the commitment to current programs targeting nurse educators and nurse education. So this will encourage people to come back into providing that excellent service. To deal with the shortage right now, this legislation will expand the number of nonimmigrant skilled workers visa slots for nurses serving in medically underserved areas.

To expand access to those most vulnerable, Ten Steps reaffirms the commitment to current programs that are working, such as the Community Health Centers program and the loan repayment programs at the National Health Service Corps. Working together, these two programs provide key support in underserved areas.

To allow for greater access to health care services, clarification will be made that convenient care clinics may accept and receive reimbursement from Medicaid and SCHIP patients. These convenient care clinics are small health care facilities located in retail outlets providing affordable and accessible nonemergency health care from nurses, physician assistants, and physicians. Often open 7 days a week, these clinics provide an option for those seeking routine and preventive care services in a more convenient setting--at the retail outlets--and with patients seen typically within 15 minutes.

Finally, building upon the successes of current rural health programs, Ten Steps will ensure appropriate development of rural health systems and access to care for residents in rural areas.

In providing access to health care, I believe it is important to envision where we want to provide that care. Community and home-based care is often much preferred, less costly, and proven to increase quality of life. To encourage innovative approaches to keeping long- term care in residential settings, competitive grants will be available to give seniors more options for receiving care in home or community- based settings. We just had a hearing on that subject in the HELP Committee. It was both very helpful and very convincing.

The final step to Ten Steps decreases the skyrocketing cost of health care by restoring reliability in our medical justice system through State-based solutions. The bill I have been discussing today includes the Fair and Reliable Medical Justice Act, which I just introduced with Senator Baucus, for States to encourage early disclosure of preventable health care errors, prompt and fair compensation for injured patients, and careful analysis on patterns of health care errors to prevent future injuries. By funding demonstration projects, States are enabled to experiment with and learn from ideas leading to long-term solutions tailored to the unique circumstances of each State.

No one--not patients or health care providers--is appropriately served by our current medical litigation procedures. Right now, many patients who are hurt by negligent actions receive no compensation for their loss. Those who do receive merely 40 cents of every premium dollar, given the high cost of legal fees and administrative costs. That is simply a waste of medical resources.

Furthermore, the likelihood and the outcomes of lawsuits and settlements bear little relation to whether the health care provider was at fault. Consequently, we are not learning from our mistakes. Rather, we are simply diverting our doctors. When someone has a medical emergency, they want to see a doctor in an operating room, not a courtroom.

The medical liability system is losing information that could be used to improve the practice of medicine. Although zero medical errors is an unattainable goal, the reduction of medical errors should be the ultimate goal in medical reform. The Institute of Medicine, in its landmark study called ``To Err is Human,'' estimated that preventable medical errors kill somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans each year. That study further emphasized that to improve our health care outcomes, we should no longer focus on individual situations but on the whole system of care that is failing American patients.

In the 8 years since that study, little progress has been made. Instead, the practice of medicine has become more specialized and complex while the tort system is more focused on individual blame than on a system safety.

I realize I have talked for quite a bit about Ten Steps, and given the current crisis, we should be talking a lot more about real solutions, not just problems. I also want everyone to know I believe the introduction of this bill today is simply the first step forward. I look forward to talking with others about their thoughts on how to improve this proposal, how to better refine it so it can better serve all Americans.

With all of that talk, I also want action, real action, to provide real coverage for Americans, not a large expansion of a government program with a huge pricetag that does little to impact those who are uninsured.

We have an opportunity, we have an obligation to take care of the people of this country, and they are demanding it. Let's work from a basis of some information and see where we can take it so that we get a solution and we get action now.

Mr. President, I opposed S. 1639, the immigration reform bill, and the motion to invoke cloture on this flawed piece of legislation.

Our immigration system is complicated. Our borders remain open. We cannot have immigration reform without strengthening the security of our borders. This unsound bill circumvented our Senate process and attempted to buy off support by throwing in carrots for Senators in exchange for their support.

The American people understand what is going on here in the Senate debate and they understand what cloture means. They are flooding our offices in Washington, DC, and our offices in our home States with calls and e-mails so much so that our phone system cannot keep up. The people of Wyoming have made it clear to me that they do not support this legislation. They want something to be done to address our borders, but do not support the blanket amnesty of this bill.

The current situation of an open border and an overly complex hiring process encourages illegal immigration and the hiring of illegal workers. Once we improve these situations, we can determine what steps may be necessary for addressing the illegal immigrant population.

We should not, however, even be considering amnesty. Amnesty encourages illegal immigration. In 1986, 7 million immigrants were granted amnesty. Today we are facing an illegal population of over 12 million. The 1986 amnesty did not stop illegal immigration. We should not repeat this policy without ensuring that we are not making the same mistake.

This is a complicated issue that will directly impact businesses across the United States. Improvements are needed in employer verification processes, but those improvements cannot be made in legislation forced through the Senate by vote trading. People who break laws should be held accountable for their actions. This means better enforcement of our current laws, both on the border and by employers. Employers must be given the tools to verify legal workers and be held accountable when they knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

We in the U.S. Senate still have the opportunity to do some good. We can go back to our committee process and draft legislation that could help our Border Patrol do their jobs. We can put together an employee verification system that actually works and does not run small businesses out of business through fines. There could be a lot of solutions for securing our border and making sure that people who are hired are legal immigrants. We can improve the way that temporary seasonal worker visas and agricultural worker visas are processed.

Rewarding bad behavior only encourages more bad behavior. We will not encourage more bad legislative behavior by going forward with this legislation.

Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Tennessee.

Madam President, we are debating two things this morning, the card check and immigration. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Madam President, as I allocate the time, I do want people to know that the next sentence I say is tongue in cheek. I had no idea that taking the secret ballot away from America's workers could solve all the problems of the world.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Tennessee.

Madam President, we are hearing two debates today, and that was intentional. We will shift gears and go to immigration.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Alabama.

Madam President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Iowa.

Mr. President, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

We are actually debating two things here this morning because we are going to have two cloture votes right in a row. And there are some similarities between the two bills. The similarities are that neither has been through the committee process. Neither bill has been to committee. And I will tell you, when you don't send bills to committee around here, at least in my 11 years here, I don't think I have seen one bill pass that didn't go to committee. Why? Because people don't feel as if they had any input into it.

Just imagine. A coalition gets together and puts bills together and leaves everybody out and then tries to limit the amount of amendments that can be offered on them. The way the coalition works is that one person has this piece of a bill which they are really enamored with but hardly anybody likes it. Another person has this piece of a bill which he is really enamored with but hardly anybody likes it. And you get enough of those people together, throwing their bad parts of the bill in and agreeing to support it to the bitter end in order to pass the bill, but it is a conglomeration, sometimes, of bad things. So it shouldn't be a surprise when cloture isn't invoked on these bills that don't go through the committee process. The only chance for the person who is not in the coalition to have any kind of a voice is at the time of cloture.

Both of these bills, both the immigration bill and the card check bill, have not been through committee. The main bill I am talking about is the Employee Free Choice Act--I have to give them a lot of credit for picking a good name. Ironically, however, it is not about free choice; it is about taking away free choice. It should be called the ``Employee Intimidation Act'' or the ``Take Away the Secret Ballot Act.'' It should not be called the Employee Free Choice Act, and I urge my colleagues to vote no on cloture on the motion to proceed.

For generations, this body has faithfully protected and continually expanded the rights of working men and women. This legislation does exactly the opposite and would strip away from working men and women their fundamental democratic right. Should cloture be invoked, we will get to talk about this for 30 hours, and I am going to go through each and every one of the charts the other side has used to show that statistics aren't always the truth. But everybody knew that already.

We see some charts that show how much people made during one 25-year period and which group, which 20 percent, made the most. Then we switch to another chart, and we show how that changed in the next 25 years. But the third chart is the fascinating one. If you count the spaces on that chart, we have gone from five slots of 20 percent to six slots because the emphasis is on what the top 1 percent in the country made. If you are going to have honest charts, you have to show what the top 1 percent made on the first two charts as well. Statistics--yes, you can get them to say what you want.

Another chart claimed that 30,000 people got backpay because they were fired for organizing. That isn't 30,000 people who got backpay because of organizing efforts; that is 30,000 people whom the National Labor Relations Board--through all of their proceedings has awarded backpay. They do a whole lot of cases that don't have anything to do with union organizing, such as contract interpretation, and those can result in settlements that award backpay. For example, in 200, two thirds of the recipients of ``backpay'' were involved in a single case involving contract interpretation, it had nothing to do with organizing.

But I don't want to go into all that now. I will have plenty of time if we do invoke cloture. I suspect there are plenty of people around here who can see the flaw in something called the Free Choice Act which takes away the right of people to vote, so I won't dwell on that.

For generations, we have guaranteed all workers in our country the right to choose whether they do or do not wish to be represented by a union. We have secured that right through the most basic means of a free people--the use of the secret ballot election. Now, however, proponents of this legislation would cast that right aside. One can almost feel the discomfort from our colleagues across the aisle as they grasp

at straws to ultimately prevent a futile effort to justify the shameful assault on workers' rights.

We have had related to us that it would solve fair trade, it would solve executive pay, and untold issues in the world would just be solved if we just took away the right to vote from people who are being organized.

We have been told the system is broken and the bill is needed to fix it. Simply untrue. Unions that participate in the democratic election process have never in history enjoyed as much success as in the last decade, a record of 10 straight years of an increasing winning rate, the last 2 years at record rates of 62 percent. I guess they are upset that in 38 percent of the votes, they lost.

Employer unfair labor practice allegations are down dramatically, more than 40 percent over prior decades. Most importantly, the National Labor Relations Board has only found it necessary to invalidate less than 1 percent of the elections it held last year. In fact, we took a look at 2,300 elections, and there were only 19 that were rerun, and those were because of union violations as well as employer violations.

We are told, secondly, that something must be wrong with the system because there are fewer unionized employees in the workforce. That is true, but I would suggest unions need to look elsewhere to explain this phenomenon. Many observers believe the problem for unions is that today's employees see them as out of step, too political. They talk about not having enough money to take on management. If they took some of the money they put into political campaigns and went after management, they would probably win more of the elections. Their members see them as being too political and too concerned with their own agenda rather than the workers. I don't know if that is true, but I do know that when unions push an undemocratic bill such as this, which takes rights away from workers, it does little to dispel that view.

I also note that the level of union membership has absolutely nothing to do with the law this bill seeks to radically alter. The law governing unionization and the law providing for a secret ballot has not changed for over 60 years. It is the same today as generations ago when union membership was at 35 percent. The law is plainly not the problem.

Third, we have been told increased unionization is necessary to boost worker pay and benefits. Increased benefits and pay cost money, and unions do not contribute a penny to such costs. Thus, the notion that these two are causally linked is simply smoke and mirrors.

But even if that were the case, the promise of higher wages and benefits is exactly the kind of appeal a union is free to make to employees in a free election process with a secret ballot. It is not an excuse to strip them of the right to vote. This bill is nothing more than a transparent payoff to union bosses to help them artificially and unfairly boost their membership numbers, to increase their bank accounts through more union dues, and increase the political leverage that such money buys. Pandering to special interests is a bad enough problem, but when the cost of such pandering is the most basic of American rights for American workers, it is disgraceful.

I urge my colleagues to reject this effort and to vote no on cloture.

I ask how much time I have remaining?

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about my commitment to improve the quality and reduce the cost of health care in this Nation.

Some of the most serious challenges facing health care today, medical errors, inconsistent quality, and rising costs, can be addressed through the effective application of available health information technology linking all elements of the health care system. Information sharing networks have the potential to enable decision support anywhere at any time, thus improving the quality of health care and reducing costs.

But what does this mean for patients? Well, first of all, the widespread use of health IT would allow medical data to move with people as they move. When someone goes to the doctor's office, he or she won't have to take the clipboard and write down everything they can remember about themselves. Better use of health IT also would cut down on medical errors with prescriptions, instead of trying to decipher the doctor's handwriting, a pharmacist could access the prescription information electronically.

The widespread use of health IT could also save lives. If someone is traveling and gets in a car wreck or gets hurt in some other way, the emergency room doctor would be able to find out everything he or she needs to know to make the right treatment decisions. If someone falls into a coma and can't tell a doctor or nurse about their medications, being able to access an electronic medical record could prevent dangerous drug reactions.

Beyond saving lives and saving time, more effective use of health IT also could save us a lot of money. A Rand study suggested that health IT has the potential to save the health care system $162 billion a year. In order for these savings to be realized, we must create an infrastructure for interoperability. The bill I am introducing today is the first step toward building that infrastructure.

Last Congress, the Senate unanimously passed the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, which I wrote with Senator Kennedy. We have worked with Senator Hatch and Senator Clinton and are introducing an updated bill today. We plan to bring this revised bill before our committee this Wednesday.

This legislation addresses one of the primary barriers to widespread adoption of interoperable health IT, which is the lack of agreed-upon standards, common implementation guides, and a certification process. The bill directs the Secretary to establish and chair the public- private American Health Information Collaborative, which is composed of representatives of the public and private sectors. The greatest improvements in quality of health care and cost savings will be realized when all elements of the health care system are electronically connected and speak a common technical language; that is, they are interoperable.

In order to address the health information technology ``adoption gap'' in the U.S., the bill authorizes three grant programs that will carefully target financial support to health care providers and consortia for the purpose

of facilitating the adoption of interoperable health information technology.

Another barrier to greater adoption is cultural. I recognize that many physicians and hospitals are hesitant to move from paper-based systems to electronic systems. Some physicians have been writing prescriptions by hand for many years and may resist changing to electronic prescribing. One way to address this cultural barrier is to support teaching hospitals that integrate health information technology in the clinical education of health care professionals. Exposing students and residents to effective everyday uses of health IT will lead to a greater adoption by these students and residents when they graduate and begin practicing on their own.

The wise deployment of health IT is also critical for effective response in public health emergencies. Interoperable health IT systems will help to track infectious disease outbreaks and increase the Federal Government's rapid response in emergency situations.

I am eager to work with members of the Finance Committee to ensure we produce a bill that will pass the Senate unanimously once again this Congress. This bill ensures that avenues to measure and report the quality of care are available through health information technology. Improving the quality of care provided in this country is one of my top legislative priorities.

I look forward to passing this important legislation, which will help facilitate the widespread adoption of electronic health records to ultimately result in fewer mistakes, lower costs, better care, and greater patient participation in their health and well being. This is a great stride forward in the journey to improve our Nation's health care system. I look forward to seeing meaningful health information technology legislation signed into law this Congress.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about my commitment to improve the quality and reduce the cost of health care in this Nation.

Some of the most serious challenges facing health care today, medical errors, inconsistent quality, and rising costs, can be addressed through the effective application of available health information technology linking all elements of the health care system. Information sharing networks have the potential to enable decision support anywhere at any time, thus improving the quality of health care and reducing costs.

But what does this mean for patients? Well, first of all, the widespread use of health IT would allow medical data to move with people as they move. When someone goes to the doctor's office, he or she won't have to take the clipboard and write down everything they can remember about themselves. Better use of health IT also would cut down on medical errors with prescriptions, instead of trying to decipher the doctor's handwriting, a pharmacist could access the prescription information electronically.

The widespread use of health IT could also save lives. If someone is traveling and gets in a car wreck or gets hurt in some other way, the emergency room doctor would be able to find out everything he or she needs to know to make the right treatment decisions. If someone falls into a coma and can't tell a doctor or nurse about their medications, being able to access an electronic medical record could prevent dangerous drug reactions.

Beyond saving lives and saving time, more effective use of health IT also could save us a lot of money. A Rand study suggested that health IT has the potential to save the health care system $162 billion a year. In order for these savings to be realized, we must create an infrastructure for interoperability. The bill I am introducing today is the first step toward building that infrastructure.

Last Congress, the Senate unanimously passed the Wired for Health Care Quality Act, which I wrote with Senator Kennedy. We have worked with Senator Hatch and Senator Clinton and are introducing an updated bill today. We plan to bring this revised bill before our committee this Wednesday.

This legislation addresses one of the primary barriers to widespread adoption of interoperable health IT, which is the lack of agreed-upon standards, common implementation guides, and a certification process. The bill directs the Secretary to establish and chair the public- private American Health Information Collaborative, which is composed of representatives of the public and private sectors. The greatest improvements in quality of health care and cost savings will be realized when all elements of the health care system are electronically connected and speak a common technical language; that is, they are interoperable.

In order to address the health information technology ``adoption gap'' in the U.S., the bill authorizes three grant programs that will carefully target financial support to health care providers and consortia for the purpose

of facilitating the adoption of interoperable health information technology.

Another barrier to greater adoption is cultural. I recognize that many physicians and hospitals are hesitant to move from paper-based systems to electronic systems. Some physicians have been writing prescriptions by hand for many years and may resist changing to electronic prescribing. One way to address this cultural barrier is to support teaching hospitals that integrate health information technology in the clinical education of health care professionals. Exposing students and residents to effective everyday uses of health IT will lead to a greater adoption by these students and residents when they graduate and begin practicing on their own.

The wise deployment of health IT is also critical for effective response in public health emergencies. Interoperable health IT systems will help to track infectious disease outbreaks and increase the Federal Government's rapid response in emergency situations.

I am eager to work with members of the Finance Committee to ensure we produce a bill that will pass the Senate unanimously once again this Congress. This bill ensures that avenues to measure and report the quality of care are available through health information technology. Improving the quality of care provided in this country is one of my top legislative priorities.

I look forward to passing this important legislation, which will help facilitate the widespread adoption of electronic health records to ultimately result in fewer mistakes, lower costs, better care, and greater patient participation in their health and well being. This is a great stride forward in the journey to improve our Nation's health care system. I look forward to seeing meaningful health information technology legislation signed into law this Congress.

Mr. President, I yield myself such time as may be necessary.

I have been looking at a lot of the charts the other side of the aisle has presented. We are going to have a vote on cloture to proceed to H.R. 800, which is the so-called Employee Free Choice Act. It would be better named the ``lose your secret ballot by intimidation act.''

This legislation attempts the most radical, unacceptable, and unwarranted change in our system of labor-management relations in over 60 years, since Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act. We have watched the other side of the aisle grasping for ways that this might be justified. We heard about the minimum wage, health insurance, pensions, costs going up, gas, food, and that it is all related to people having a secret ballot. The secret ballot is causing that? That is a stretch-- saying that unions cannot organize because they are required to have secret ballot elections. I grant you it is going to be much easier for them if they don't have to have secret ballot elections, and can rely on intimidation.

I was fascinated by the chart on voting that was shown earlier, and the things that are supposedly not available in a union election as opposed to the things that are available to the American public in federal elections. Most of them just are not accurate.

One was ``equal access to media.'' If one side is buying ads, the other can do it, too. You cannot tell me unions don't have money or don't know how to run ads because I have seen them run ads against politicians. They are both free to run ads under current law. Another was ``Freedom of speech.'' I don't know where they allege the National Labor Relations Act takes that away. We have freedom of speech under current law. My favorite category on the chart is ``equal access to voters.'' Under current law, the union gets a list of the home addresses of every single person who works in that business. Now, the employer cannot go to their home, but the union can go to their home, and we've heard some examples of how that works. That is why I call it ``lose your secret ballot by intimidation act.'' If you have half a dozen people show up at your door, some of whom you know and some of whom you

don't know, and they are going to try to persuade you to sign a check card, is that equal access to voters? If you don't let them have a secret ballot afterwards to see if they meant to sign that check card or if they only did so because the intimidators were there, it is simply not fair to the employee.

You have to agree this card checking system is kind of a joke and that it isn't a real election where rights are protected. The National Labor Relations Board watches those very carefully. In fact, they run the election and guarantee a secret ballot to every potential union person who votes.

Despite its cynical and deceptive title, this legislation is not about employees, nor is it about enhancing employee rights. This legislation certainly has nothing to do with free choice either. It is plain and simple; this bill is about unfairly and artificially boosting organized labor's steadily declining membership at the expense of essential employee democratic rights. We need to begin by understanding just how radical a departure this objective is from our longstanding national labor-management policy.

Under our system, the Government's role has never been to guarantee a level of membership for unions, or to change the rules in order to boost a union's membership numbers. The role of Government has been-- and should be--to remain neutral with respect to the positions of both organized labor and management. Its most important rule is to guarantee that employees have the maximum freedom possible to make their own choice as to whether they do or do not wish to be represented by a union in their workplace. In short, our system of labor-management relations is based on employee rights, not organized labor rights, and not employer rights, and certainly not on some supposed right to a certain level of membership among private sector employees.

This legislation would turn that national labor policy on its head. It would sacrifice the fundamental democratic rights of working men and women in order to artificially boost union membership levels, increase union bank accounts with employees' dues, and enhance the political leverage of organized labor. That is what such money buys. We saw the results of that last week at some of the rallies put on by this bill's supporters. The speeches given at those rallies offer a real appreciation for that kind of political leverage. They implied that now is the time to pay up. This is a totally unacceptable perversion of our longstanding national labor policy. More important, it is outrageous to even suggest we should sacrifice the democratic rights and freedoms of working men and women to further such an effort.

Despite the radical nature of what is proposed in this legislation, and despite the fact that it would constitute the largest attempt to change basic Federal labor law in more than 60 years, it is telling how the proponents of this legislation have sought to move this bill. In the House, those who opposed this legislation were effectively cut out of the process. Leadership in the House brought this bill to the floor and allowed little opportunity for amendment or debate. Indeed, it was on the floor in that Chamber for only a few hours. Here in the Senate, the proponents now seek to move this legislation outside the regular order. It hasn't been to committee. Even though this bill falls squarely in the jurisdiction of the HELP Committee--Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions--of which I am the ranking member, the proponents of this legislation bypassed the normal committee process and brought this measure directly to the floor. With the committee process comes increased scrutiny and a decreased prospect that legislation would ever move based on rhetoric rather than sound facts and reasoned policy.

There may be those who believe that by short circuiting the committee process, it would be less likely that the public would see the legislation for what it is--that the true dimensions of this devil's bargain would be hidden behind a wall of rhetoric. We cannot and will not let that happen.

Let's briefly look at what the legislation does. For nearly seven decades, millions of employees have decided for themselves, and for their individual workplaces, whether they want a union to become their exclusive legal representative. In the vast majority of instances, this critical decision has been made through the use of the most fundamental institution of our democracy, the private ballot. In a democratic society, nothing is more sacred than the right to vote, and nothing ensures truly free choice more than the use of a private ballot.

The current system provides that the question of union representation in the workplace is determined by a Government-supervised secret ballot process overseen by the NLRB. For over 60 years, the NLRB has conducted tens of thousands of elections involving millions of workers, and has developed and refined complex rules and procedures designed to guarantee that the entire process is fair and regular and free from threats, intimidation, and coercion. It carefully monitors the conduct of all parties to the election process and acts quickly and effectively to remedy any misconduct that interferes with the free choice of employees. Those who understand the National Labor Relations Board's processes know that it conducts union elections in a free and fair manner, as evidenced by the fact that only around 1 percent of all elections are rerun due to misconduct on either side. More recently, in 2005, over 2,300 certification elections were conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Yet the National Labor Relations Board conducted rerun elections because of misconduct by either the employer or the union in only 19 cases. Yes, that is what they do, they force rerun elections because of misconduct by either the employer or the union. So in 2,300 certification elections in 2005, misconduct by either the employer or union, there were only 19 cases.

The current private ballot election system is not only fair, it actually favors unionization. The win rate by unions in the National Labor Relations Board elections has increased for the last 10 years in a row. This is an unmatched run of electoral success. The win rate for unions in 2005 and 2006 was over 61 percent, again an unmatched record. Contrast this with the fact that during the entire 1980s, the average win rate was below 50 percent. For example, in 1982, unions won less than 45 percent of the time. The same is true for the decade of the 1970s, where unions again averaged losing more than they won. But they didn't ask the heavily Democratic Congress at that time to change the laws. In light of unions' increasing electoral success, and the fact that the legal rules have not changed in 60 years, there is absolutely no basis to claim that a change is warranted, particularly where that change is to strip workers of their rights.

Unions want to now change this carefully developed democratic system into one that is totally one sided, unsupervised, and an invitation to undue pressure, coercion, and even outright intimidation.

Imagine you are a worker at a nonunion facility and you are approached at work by people with whom you must interact day after day, or visited at home by union organizers. Remember, they have all the addresses. Imagine you are repeatedly asked to ``sign up'' for the union and that you are given a sales pitch that may or may not be true. Do you think you might sign just to avoid the hassle, just to get people off your back, just so you don't offend a coworker, or just because you haven't heard both sides? Do you think you might sign up even though your truly free choice would be not to have a union? Think about it: visitors to your own house. Most people would sign for any one of those reasons, and that is exactly why we have private ballot elections.

Beyond assaulting free choice and the right to vote, this bill would gravely damage the freedom of contract that has been a hallmark of our private sector labor-management relations. Our system recognizes the reality that in the workplace, as in other contractual situations, the parties who must live by the contract are the parties who must make the contract. Instead, under this bill, if an agreement was not reached within a mere 90 days, the contract would be placed in the hands of a Government arbitrator who would have the power to determine every detail of the employee-employer relationship. They could determine hours, pay, conditions, benefits, insurance, pensions,

everything. Neither the employees nor the employer could contest this contract, and both would be bound to the terms for 2 years. There would not even be a right for the union members to even vote to approve or disapprove the contract agreement, none at all. That right, which they have under current law, would be taken away, too.

Can you imagine either buying or selling a house and being told that someone from the Government would decide the terms of the sale? And even if you didn't agree, you would be forced to go through with the deal? Whether it is buying a house or negotiating a labor contract, this notion is simply untenable.

Lastly, the bill would substitute a tort-like remedy system for the make-whole remedy system that has served so well since the inception of the National Labor Relations Act. The vast majority of labor-management disputes are voluntarily resolved. A tort-type system, while it would certainly keep the trial lawyers busy, will clog the system with litigation and simply delay the resolution of claims.

The bill seriously infringes on due process and the right to manage a private business through its mandatory injunction provision. This is how that works. If an individual claimed he was terminated because of his union sentiments, the Government would require that he return to work before the merits of his claim are determined. The law already provides that this extraordinary step can be taken in appropriate cases, but it doesn't require it in every case. We should not require that the Government take action based on the presumption that a party is guilty unless proven innocent, except in the rarest of circumstances. We certainly should never make that practice the norm. In a host of other statutes, we quite rightly outlaw all types of employment discrimination. However, in none of those statutes do we presume guilt and require the individuals who merely claim to have been discharged be returned to work before the merits of their claims are determined, and we shouldn't do so here. The law provides for them to be reinstated, but it doesn't require it in every instance.

I am not alone in the view that this legislation is fundamentally flawed, unnecessary, and destructive to employee rights. That view is widely shared with others, as shown by some of the poll numbers that were mentioned earlier. Even union members oppose this bill by a wide majority--80 percent. I suspect that doesn't include union bosses, but it includes union members.

These views were, at one point, shared by my colleagues across the aisle. In 2001, the lead sponsor of this misguided legislation in the House, along with the current House and Senate Members, wrote a letter to the Mexican Government regarding its labor laws in which they noted:

The secret ballot election is absolutely necessary in order

to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a

union they might not otherwise choose.

Incidentally, that was the chairman of the Labor Committee on the House side. It is simply incomprehensible that my colleagues would lecture foreign governments about the importance of industrial democracy while simultaneously advocating we strip American workers of the same rights.

The signatories of this letter are not the only Members supporting this bill who, previously, consistently upheld the importance of the secret ballot. My colleagues have rightly noted:

One of the most fundamental of all rights that make us

uniquely American [is] the right of the secret ballot.

Yes, that was Senator Harkin. Another colleague said:

The sanctity of a private ballot is so fundamental to our

system of elections.

That was Senator Dodd.

Second, not only have my Democratic colleagues previously insisted on the necessity of a Government-supervised private ballot, so, too, has organized labor when it has suited their purpose.

In 1998, two of the AFL-CIO's most prominent unions argued to the National Labor Relations Board that the National Labor Relations Board supervised election process ``is a solemn . . . occasion, conducted under safeguards to voluntary choice . . . '' Other means of decisionmaking are ``not comparable to the privacy and independence of the voting booth,'' and the secret ballot election system provides the surest means of avoiding decisions which are ``the result of group pressures and not individual decision.''

I remind both my colleagues and organized labor that such statements are ones of principle that are not to be twisted or abandoned for political expediency. Advocating these positions and supporting this legislation are so inconsistent as to be the height of hypocrisy.

At least some labor organizations are willing to stand for the true preservation of employee rights by directly opposing this legislation. Last Thursday, the Fraternal Order of Police, an organization of over 300,000 law enforcement professionals, sent an open letter to Senator Reid advising of its strong opposition to H.R. 800. In its letter, the Fraternal Order of Police noted:

The National Labor Relations Board provides detailed

procedures that ensure a fair election, free of fraud, where

employees may cast their vote confidentially, without peer

pressure or coercion from unions, employers or fellow

employees.

The letter concludes by noting:

The only way to guarantee worker protection from coercion

and intimidation is through the continued use of a federally

supervised private ballot election so that personal decisions

about whether or not to join a union remain private.

Third, not only do my colleagues and labor unions agree that the private ballot is the most fair, the most accurate, and the most democratic way to determine employee free choice, and that all other methods are seriously flawed, so, too, do the Federal courts.

I have a chart from the U.S. Supreme Court which, along with every Federal circuit court of appeals, has uniformly and over the course of decades held that the private ballot is the best, most reliable, and most democratic means of determining employees' free choice in the matter of unionization, and that all other methods, most particularly card signing, are inherently flawed and unreliable.

With respect to signed cards, the Supreme Court noted that cards are not only unreliable because of the possibility of threats surrounding their signing, but because they are inherently untrustworthy since they are signed ``in the absence of secrecy and in the natural inclination of most people to avoid stands that appear to be nonconformist and antagonistic to friends and fellow employees.''

With respect to the importance of the private ballot, one Federal court of appeals put it best when it observed that its preservation mattered ``simply because the integrity and confidentiality of secret voting is at the heart of a democratic society, and this includes industrial democracy as well.''

The long line of those who oppose this legislation and its outrageous assault on the democratic rights of American workers does not end here. I received a letter from a half dozen former members of the National Labor Relations Board regarding this legislation. The National Labor Relations Board is the Federal agency that overseas private sector labor-management relations, and enforces this very statute that this legislation would alter so radically. It supervises the entire secret ballot process under which workers currently make their free choice for or against union representation.

These are the experts in this area of the law who were nominated by both Democratic and Republican Presidents. Here is what they have to say about this grossly misnamed legislation:

We, the undersigned are all former Members of the National

Labor Relations Board, and were nominated to serve by both

Republican and Democrat Presidents and confirmed by the

Senate. In addition, each of us has devoted our respective

professional careers to work in the field of labor/management

relations. Each of us has carefully reviewed H.R. 800,

legislation entitled ``The Employee Free Choice Act''; and,

based on that review believe that the legislation is

fundamentally flawed and should be rejected by the Senate. We

fully agree with the position consistently expressed by the

Federal courts and by virtually all experienced practitioners

that authorization cards are inherently unreliable indicators

of true employee choice. There simply is no more fair,

accurate or democratic way to determine an individual's free

choice on any matter than through the use of secret ballot

election. We are also deeply disturbed by the legislation's

binding arbitration provision. This provision would radically

change the process of private sector collective-bargaining in

the United States and such change is neither required nor

beneficial. The success of private sector

collective-bargaining in the United States has long been

premised on the traditional precept of contract law that the

parties that must live up to a contract are the ones that

must make the contract. The legislation would, in our view,

do grave damage to the process of collective bargaining in

the United States.

Again, I mention that these are both Republican- and Democratic- nominated people to the National Labor Relations Board who were approved by the Senate.

They go on to say:

Lastly, we believe that the remedial provisions contained

in the legislation are unnecessary and counter-productive.

Since its inception the National Labor Relations Act has

provided that individuals who have suffered a loss because of

violation of the act be made whole. The act has never made a

provision for punitive sanctions. Because of this, the vast

majority of claims before the National Labor Relations Board

are voluntarily adjusted and fully resolved in a very short

amount of time. Were the remedial provisions of H.R. 800

enacted, board litigation would increase dramatically, and

the voluntary adjustment of claims that has been a hallmark

of the board process would inevitably become a thing of the

past. While this might be a boon to trial lawyers, it would

result to no benefit to employees whose rights have been

violated. Indeed, the sole effect on such employees would be

to substantially delay the receipt of compensation to which

they may be entitled.

For the reason noted, we would respectfully urge the Senate

to reject H.R. 800 or, any other legislation, containing like

or similar provisions.

That is signed by Marshall B. Babson, J. Robert Brame, Charles I. Cohen, Dennis M. Devaney, Peter J. Hurtgen, and John N. Raudabaugh.

Let's listen to what our Democratic colleagues have said in their more candid moments, which I quoted earlier. Let's listen to what the Federal courts have consistently told us. Let's listen to what the labor unions honestly believe, and to labor law experts who enforce the NLRA and were nominated by both Democratic and Republican Presidents and confirmed by a bipartisan Senate. Let's hear what they say. Let's listen to what they say. Most of all, let's listen to common sense. Only in a totalitarian country or a society imagined by George Orwell could anyone assert that the Government was going to afford free choice by stripping them of the right to vote by secret ballot.

It is plain to anyone who takes a moment to look that this legislation is not about employee rights, it is not about enhancing free choice, it is a transparent payback to organized labor at the expense of employee rights and employee choice.

I urge my colleagues to flatly reject the notion that we should even further consider this unwarranted and destructive legislation. The Senate, quite frankly, has too many matters of genuine substance and importance to be spending time on legislation that is plainly designed to profit the special interests at the cost of fundamental employee rights. Help me to be sure we do not take away the right to a secret ballot.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I yield such time as he desires to the Senator from Arizona.

I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Mr. President, I listened to the Senator from Maryland, and I need to clear up some misunderstandings. I hope they are just misunderstandings. He said we should vote for cloture and let us debate. That really was not the intention of the other side of the aisle. If they really wanted us to have a debate, it would have gone through the regular process. This would have gone through the committee on which I am the ranking member, and we would have had a debate in committee. We would have had an opportunity for some amendments, maybe amendments that make the bill actually do what that side of the aisle is saying this bill would do.

I am most upset that they keep saying that under this bill, employees can still get a vote. This bill does not say the employees can get a vote if they want a vote. It simply does not. That is not just me saying it. We had the Congressional Research Service take a look at the bill and see if it requires the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union without any vote--and it does. Not vote. Only if the union sends in cards for only 30 percent of the employees will a vote occur as it does under current law. But the union organizers don't bother trying when they only have 30 percent of the people signed up. It is my understanding they seldom go for a vote unless they have

75 percent of the people signed up, and with 75 percent of the people signed up, in a secret ballot election they still lose 39 percent of the time.

This bill does not guarantee a vote. An employee who prefers to make his choice in a secret ballot election is not entitled to one under this bill. It does not guarantee a vote. That is not just my opinion. The Congressional Research Service, the Library of Congress folks who are dedicated to being impartial when they review bills, agree with me that there is no guarantee for a vote--unless there is only 30 percent of the people who sign up. That has been the rule for a long time.

I wish to point out one more inconsistency--maybe more than one. I really am kind of floored at the list of civil rights groups the other side presented--that those people put their name down as wanting to do away with a secret ballot. I would be no more surprised if they suddenly were for a poll tax.

Here is another little inconsistency in the debate here. There was a comment that there were 30,000 backpay orders for terminations during organizing drives. That is a misstatement. There were 30,000 backpay orders, but the vast majority of these claims have nothing to do with employee terminations during organizing drives. The vast majority of them have to do with bargaining claims and they are with members of already-established unions. For example, in 200, two thirds of the recipients of backpay orders were involved in a single contract interpretation dispute.

Union studies we've heard cited claim that half the employees who are offered reinstatement were illegally terminated during an organizing drive. There is not any basis for that estimate, but even assuming it is true, the number of discharges is very low. For example, in 2000, using the unions' own estimate, there were 600 unlawful terminations. In that same year, over a quarter of a million employees were involved in National Labor Relations secret ballot elections--hardly the 1 in 5 they are claiming; 600 out of a quarter of a million. That is about 1 discharge for every 416 employees. And that figure includes a huge percentage of settled cases in which there was never any finding that the termination was unlawful to begin with.

I have been fascinated by the charts we have seen, many of which--I am not sure what the sources were. We will be checking those and questioning them. But they really didn't have anything to do with taking the right to a secret ballot away from employees.

We have forgotten to mention that I have passed the Workforce Investment Act through this body unanimously on two occasions and then been blocked from having a conference committee with the other end of the building. The Workforce Investment Act would have provided training for 900,000 jobs in this country--900,000 people who could have had a higher wage. How come we are not watching out for those folks? A lot of them would have gone through union apprenticeships. But, no, we are not going to do the Workforce Investment Act. Instead, let's concentrate on taking away the secret ballot.

I have a lot more people coming over to speak on our side, people who really do think there needs to be debate on this issue. I am told that if we want to debate, we ought to vote for the cloture motion. That is interesting because we have already agreed to a unanimous consent request that will keep us from debating that after we vote for it--yes, there is an agreement that we will go to immigration after this vote no matter what the outcome. So there is no intention to debate this bill.

It is very unusual. To me it is a realization by the other side that this bill to take away an employee's right to a secret ballot is not going anywhere.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I yield the Senator from Texas such time as he may require.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Alabama for his steadfast effort to inform the Senate and other people about the flaws of the immigration bill. It is a bill that was put together by a coalition. It didn't go through committee. I have never seen a bill that passed this body that didn't go through a committee. That is because people put together the bill by bringing together their own pet projects and one saying to the other: I don't like your part, but if you will put my part in there, I will vote for your part and we will stick together to the bitter end. And that is usually what happens to a bill like that, it is a bitter end.

I don't think people are paying attention to their phone calls, their e-mails, and other things they are getting if they stick steadfast with that bill. But that is not what I am here to talk about today.

I am here to voice my strong opposition to the grossly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. It should be called the Union Intimidation Act.

For generations, this body has faithfully protected and continually expanded the rights of working men and women. Today, however, the proponents of this legislation would do exactly the opposite and would strip away from working men and women their most fundamental democratic right--the right to a secret ballot. That is right. This bill would strip away the right to a secret ballot.

If the Democratic Party stands behind that principle, they should have to change their name. You can't strip away the right to a secret ballot from people of the United States or, hopefully, anywhere in the world. For generations now we have guaranteed to all workers in our country the right to choose whether they do or do not wish to be represented by a union. That is very often a critical decision for most employees, one that entails significant legal and practical consequence. It is a fundamental matter of individual choice and an essential right in the workplace.

Given its importance, we have secured that right through the use of the most basic and essential tool of the free and democratic people-- the private ballot. The private ballot is the way those of us who live in a free society select all of those we would ask to represent us. Everyone in this Congress was selected by a private ballot, and American citizens wouldn't have it any other way. That is why it is so astonishing to me the majority is trying to take us to this bill, this Union Intimidation Act.

Under this bill, the rights and safeguards for a private ballot would no longer apply when employees decide whether they want the union to be their exclusive representative in the workplace. It is a very disturbing development when this body, which has no greater purpose than the preservation of our democratic rights, would choose to tell the working men and women of this country that democracy will stop at the factory gate.

To make it even more astonishing, some of the very people now pushing

this antidemocratic agenda are on record previously recognizing both the importance of the private ballot and the fallibility of just signing cards with the intimidator over your shoulder. In 2001, the lead sponsor of this misguided legislation in the House, along with 15 of his then-colleagues, wrote a letter to the Mexican Government regarding its labor laws in which they noted:

The secret ballot election is absolutely necessary in order

to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a

union they might not otherwise choose.

Now, what would prompt legislators in both Houses of Congress to lecture foreign governments on the necessity of private ballot union elections in their respective countries while simultaneously voting to deprive workers in this country of the same right?

In 1998, two of the AFL-CIO's most prominent unions argued to the National Labor Relations Board that:

The National Labor Relations Board supervised election

process is a solemn occasion conducted under safeguards to

voluntary choice. Other means of decision-making are not

comparable to the privacy and independence of the voting

booth. The secret ballot election system provides the surest

means of avoiding decisions which are the result of group

pressures and not individual decisions.

What could possibly convince us to become partners in hypocrisy by joining these same unions and their surrogates when they now claim that we would strip workers of the right to decide the question of unionization in their own workplace by private ballot?

The view that the private ballot is the best way to determine employee choice and that alternatives such as card check are fatally flawed is not only shared by our colleagues across the aisle and labor unions, it is consistent with the views of the Federal Judiciary. The U.S. Supreme Court, along with the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has uniformly, and over the course of decades, held that the private ballot is the best, most reliable, most democratic means of determining employees' free choice in the matter of unionization, and that all other methods, most particularly--most particularly--card signing are inherently flawed and unreliable.

With regard to signed cards, the Supreme Court noted that:

Cards are not only unreliable because of the possibility of

threats surrounding their signing, but because they are

inherently untrustworthy since they are signed in the absence

of secrecy and the natural inclination of most people to

avoid stands which appear to be nonconformist and

antagonistic to friends and fellow employees.

I wonder how many people here and how many people who might be listening have had somebody, a friend or somebody they are a little afraid of, bring them a petition to sign. How many people turned down that opportunity to sign that petition? I will bet not many.

With respect to the importance of the private ballot, one Federal Court of Appeals put it best when it observed that its preservation mattered simply because ``the integrity and confidentiality of secret voting is at the heart of democratic society, and this includes industrial democracy as well.''

That is what the judges say. So then what would make us reject the consistent--consistent--reasoning of the Federal Judiciary compiled in a host of rulings authored by scores of judges and accumulated over decades of time?

Finally, we should remember the cynicism of those who seek this legislation when they imperiously claim, ``We don't do elections,'' as if the democratic process was somehow beneath them. The source on that is Michael Fishman, the president of the Service Employees International Union, the largest property services local. Or when they arbitrarily dismiss fundamental employee rights by claiming, ``There's no need to subject the workers to an election.'' The source on that is Bruce Raynor, the general president of UNITE HERE. When labor leaders act like despots and tyrants, why would we conceivably make common cause with them?

There is no end to the fundamentally disturbing questions this legislation raises. Since this legislation was introduced, a host of claims have been made in an ultimately futile attempt to answer these questions. We need to stop and ask ourselves: What could possibly be the justification for this radical departure from our democratic tradition?

First, we have been told the current law is broken and that the system of private ballot elections is somehow rigged against labor unions. As proof positive of this claim, we have cited the fact that labor unions currently represent only 7\1/2\ percent of the private sector workforce, where at one time they represented 30 percent of the workforce.

At least in this instance the proponents of this legislation have gotten their facts and their statistics right, a notable departure from the avalanche of misinformation and completely inaccurate data that has characterized their side of this debate. However, what they have gotten entirely wrong is the notion that the decline in union representation levels has anything whatsoever to do with some infirmity in the law. Those who make this claim conveniently forget to mention that the law which they complain about today is identical to the law in effect when unions enjoyed their greatest organizing success and their highest levels of private sector membership.

The National Labor Relations Act, the statute which governs private sector unionization and which this legislation would radically change, has been substantially amended only twice in over 70 years--in 1947 and in 1959. The process of deciding the question of unionization by the use of a government-supervised private ballot election among all eligible employees has been unchanged for over six decades. This was the law and this was the process when union membership levels were at 25 or even 35 percent of the workforce. No one complained then that the law or the private ballot process was broken. No one ever claimed that either was so unfair or one-sided that we should change them by stripping away the employees' democratic rights.

As this chart shows, over the course of the last six decades, private sector union membership has declined steadily, but the law has remained the same. There is no doubt that the decline has been real, but organized labor and the supporters of this legislation need to look elsewhere for the cause of that decline since there is no connection between the law that has remained the same for 60 years and the steady decrease in union membership levels that have happened over that same time.

Second, we are told even if there is no infirmity in the law, employers now violate it with impunity and, therefore, unions cannot possibly win elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board like they used to.

That claim is entirely erroneous. The reality is, when unions choose to participate in a fair, private ballot process, they are more than able to secure the support of eligible employees.

In fact, the success rate for unions in secret ballot organizing elections is at historically high levels. The union win rate in initial organizing elections has been over 50 percent for 10 straight years. That is an unprecedented run. Even more unprecedented is the fact that the union win has increased each and every year for the past 10 years in a row. That is what this chart shows. Unions have never before enjoyed such a run of increasing electoral success as they have over the last 10 years. In the last 2 years unions have won a record of nearly 62 percent of initial organizing elections. This, too, is historically unprecedented.

Before anyone buys the phony claim about how the election process has suddenly become unfair, they need to not only realize that union electoral success is at record highs, they also need to compare the past. For example, the unions won organizing elections over 62 percent of the time in the last 2 years, and averaged winning nearly 56 percent of the time over the last ten years. During the decade of the 1980s, the average union win rate was less than 50 percent. So it is going up. For example, in 1982, unions won less than 45 percent of the time. The same is true for the decade of the 1970s, when unions again averaged losing more often than they won.

Yet, despite union election win rates that were dramatically lower than the record highs of the past 10 years, and despite the fact that for many of those years the Democratic Party held the majority vote in one or both Houses of Congress, no one had the audacity to even propose that we should strip away from American workers the most fundamental guarantee of a free society--the right to a secret ballot. When

Democrats were in charge before, they didn't even suggest that.

Now, the truth is, where unions choose to participate in a democratic process and make their case to the workers in an atmosphere of open debate, the system is fair and they are more than capable of success. Their unprecedented level of recent success plainly makes this point. Moreover, it does not remotely justify changing a process that has worked for more than 60 years. It certainly does not justify any change that strips workers of their democratic rights. In light of organized labor's unprecedented electoral success over the last 10 years, this bill is like a baseball hitter who is on a decade-long hot streak and batting .620, insisting that the game is unfair and that the pitcher's mound has to be moved back.

The claim that the employers are violating the law with increased frequency and making fair elections impossible is equally incorrect. In fact, the incidents of even alleged but unproven employer misconduct have actually dropped steadily and dramatically over the last 10 years.

That is what this chart shows. The current rate of alleged employer unfair labor practices represents a drop of nearly 24 percent compared to 1990; a staggering 42 percent when compared to 1980.

I see there is another Senator left to speak here. I have a lot left to say. This is a very important issue. A lot more needs to be said when we are faced with a proposal to take away away the right to a secret ballot in a bill deceptively called the Free Choice Act. It should correctly be called the Union Intimidation Act.

I will reserve the remainder of my remarks and speak again a little later. When I speak later, I will ask the Record not show an interruption.

Madam President, I am fascinated to listen to some of these discussions to find out we can change the balance of trade if we took away the right of employees to decide by secret ballot if they do or do not wish to be represented by a union.

I also heard the argument, that pay and benefits would go up if we took away the Democratic right to a secret ballot. Fascinating. Fascinating. But, also, not true. You cannot take away rights from people in America and expect them to be happy about what is happening to them.

Now, I did see the Senator from Ohio in some national news broadcasts thanking one of the major unions for putting the Democrats in power; and, as a result, saying that they were willing to bring up this bill that would take away the right to a secret ballot. I don't think that is how things are supposed to work in America.

I began earlier and talked about several of the problems with taking away this right to a secret ballot under the Employee Free Choice Act-- legislation that I believe should properly be called the Union Intimidation Act because that is exactly how it is going to work.

Previously I was discussing this myth rampant employer misconduct; and noted that contrary to these claims even allegations of misconduct have dropped significantly.

The truth is that the National Labor Relations Board scrupulously monitors the behavior of all parties during the entire period of a union-organizing campaign. Any misconduct by an employer that interferes with the employees' free choice in the election process is automatic grounds, automatic grounds, to set aside and rerun an election.

Now such misconduct not only includes any employer unfair labor practice, but it also includes even less serious transgressions, such as an employer's inadvertent failure to provide the union with the names and home addresses of all of its eligible employees in a timely manner.

Every word that is uttered and every act that takes place during a union organizing campaign is subject to National Labor Relations Board review and scrutiny. If a party's words or conduct, clearly including the commission of any unfair labor practice, in any way disturbs the ``laboratory conditions'' required for an election, the NLRB is empowered to set aside the election and require it to be rerun.

However, the fact is only about 1 percent of the National Labor Relations Board elections are rerun each year because of the misconduct of either employers or unions. So you notice I am not saying this is all one-sided, that there are two sides to it. There are some that are set aside because of union misconduct.

Now, just like the number of unfair labor practice charges, this figure, has been steadily declining as well. The secret ballot election and entire union election process is remarkably fair, heavily scrutinized and monitored and tightly regulated.

Where an employer acts improperly over the course of a union campaign and adversely affects the outcome of the election, the National Labor Relations Board has full authority to set aside that election and order it to be rerun.

In addition, in those instances where an employer engages in misconduct that has the effect of dissipating a union's card majority, the law already allows the National Labor Relations Board to certify the union and require the employer to recognize and bargain with that union. This has been the law for nearly 40 years. The claim that employers are increasing violating the law is totally inaccurate.

What unions and their supporters would like--indeed, what they hope-- to accomplish by this legislation is to characterize any expression of opposition to unionization as misconduct and choke it off. Fortunately, however, we do not live in a totalitarian country. We live in a country that protects free speech and fosters the open debate of ideas. It is for those reasons, rooted in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights,

that current law does permit employers and employees that oppose unionization certain limited free speech rights. Even these, however, are strictly limited and closely monitored. The supporters of this bill, however, would seek to strip away even these limited democratic rights and to kill off any opportunity for free speech and open debate in the workplace. We cannot oppose totalitarian behavior abroad while sanctioning it in America's factories.

Thirdly, we are told that even if the law is not broken, even if fair elections are the norm, and even if employers do not violate the law as erroneously claimed, that union membership levels have been steadily declining and therefore the law must be changed. That is why they are trying to offer this early Christmas gift to union bosses. This is the only argument which proponents of this legislation have made that is at least based on fact. However, its fundamental premise is shockingly and radically wrong and represents a complete reversal of Federal labor policy.

It has never been and it should never be the role of the Federal Government to maintain or increase the level of unionization. That is a matter of free choice for individual employees, not a matter of Government mandate. The role of the Federal Government in private sector labor-management relations has wisely and for generations been one of neutrality. Our appropriate role has not been to guarantee unionization; it has been to guarantee free choice by employees. Our appropriate concern must always be the process, not the outcome.

When it comes to guaranteeing free choice and providing fair decisional processes, the history of government and society tell us unmistakably that the best means to achieve that end is through the use of a private, secret ballot. The proponents of this bill are not concerned about employee free choice at all. They are concerned solely with giving organized labor a way to stop their decades-long membership decline, the loss of membership dues money, and the loss of the political leverage such money buys.

This legislation is a transparent payback to organized labor--maybe not too transparent. I have been watching television, and that is exactly what has been said to the union leaders who came to DC. Catering to special interests is a disturbing enough phenomenon in Washington, but when the cost of such catering is the loss of employees' fundamental democratic right, the practice is just shameful.

I want to be sure all my colleagues know that the consequences of this bill's enactment would be far greater than merely increasing union membership. The bill the majority is asking us to consider today does more than take away Americans' right to vote on whether they want to join a union; it also upends the enforcement balance of the National Labor Relations Act and can destroy the ability of employers to control their workplace. In some cases, it also eliminates the ability of unionized employees to have a vote on accepting an employment contract.

The balance struck by the National Labor Relations Act drafters so many decades ago included a remedial system that is intended to make whole or repair any damage done by violations of the act. Instead, this bill will inject a tort-like system into workplace relations, and we all know how well the tort system works. Instead of encouraging speedy resolution of disputes before the National Labor Relations Board, this bill will drag them into the Federal court. The result will be a Federal court system even more clogged with litigation and delayed resolution of workplace disputes.

The bill also applies a stronger set of penalties, but only against employers. Even though unions face an annual average of almost 6,000 claims of harassment, intimidation, and coercion, it should come as no surprise that the bill's drafters see unfair labor practices as a one- sided affair.

The last part of the bill I would like to discuss is perhaps the part which worries me the most, and that is the imposition of mandatory binding interest arbitration. When employees decide to unionize, the first order of business is to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the employer. This agreement can cover every aspect of the workplace, including pay, hours, time off, working conditions, health and retirement benefits. Typically, a committee of union leaders negotiates with the employer, and once an agreement is reached, all of the unionized employees have the right to ratify the agreement. If they reject it, the union and employer go back to the negotiating table. Under this bill, these negotiations will be halted after a mere 90 days and a Government arbitrator will be called in to impose a contract on all parties. The workers would lose their right to ratify that agreement, the employer would have to comply with the terms of the contract even if it crippled the business plan, and the contract would be binding for 2 years.

This is a radical departure from the tradition of private sector collective bargaining in which parties to the contract, not some third party, make the terms of their own labor agreement. If this becomes the law of the land, we can expect the parties in labor negotiations to take radical positions to set themselves up for arbitration. This is because usually, the arbitration decision comes down in the middle of however far the parties are separated. So you have both parties taking radical stands, delaying until there is an arbitrator, and nobody having a part in the final say except the arbitrator. Again, while the current system encourages cooperation, this bill imposes conflict.

There is another side effect of this provision. Because a 2-year contract would be imposed on the parties, employees would lose the right to decertify or vote out the union for a period of at least 2 years. This would be the case even when they did not approve of the contract or where they originally signed union cards not knowing what they meant or even under pressure. I have no way of knowing whether this consequence was intended by the bill's drafters, but I can certainly guess.

Another little hidden gift to organized labor in this bill is that under this legislation, there would be no private ballot vote when a union was attempting to get into the workplace; however, a private ballot vote would be required to let the employees get out of the union. Seems like you ought to be able to just get 51 percent to sign the card, and it could be done the other way too. But no. That alone should make it clear that the only intended beneficiary of this bill is organized labor bosses and that its proponents could care less about a worker's democratic rights.

To put it simply, this bill is an attempt to rig the system, deny employers any opportunity to present their views on unionization, and prevent employees who may oppose unionization from speaking to coworkers. It would impose a union on employees based on unverifiable evidence of a majority, severely limit employees' ability to get out of a union once they are in, and stack the penalties against the employer. This may be the perfect recipe to end labor's decades-long losing streak, but the only winners will be union bosses and their political allies. Not American workers.

I have listened to the speeches over the last couple of days as this bill has been promoted as something essential. Again, I am fascinated that the Democratic Party wants to take away the democratic principle of the secret ballot. One mythical reason they mentioned is that a private ballot election supposedly stalls the process. The fact is, according to 2006 NLRB statistics, once a certification petition is filed, there is a median of 39 days to an election, and 94.2 percent of all elections are conducted within 56 days.

Another myth out there is that the private ballot election silences prounion workers. Here are the facts: All employees have a guaranteed right to discuss their support of unionization and to persuade coworkers to do likewise while at work. The only restriction is the reasonable one that they not neglect their own work or interfere with the work of others when doing so. Employees have the unlimited right to campaign in favor of unionization away from the workplace. For example, they, along with union organizers, can visit employees at their homes. In fact, the law requires that employers provide unions with a list of employee names and home addresses for just such a purpose.

Employee speech is virtually unregulated. In an effort to gain support for unionization of employees and unions, for that matter, they can promise, can

pressure, can provide financial incentives such as waiving union fees, and can spread false claims, distortions, and misrepresentations, all with no consequence. By contrast, the employer speech is strictly limited, closely monitored, and regulated. Employers cannot lawfully visit employees at their homes. Employers can't even invite an employee into certain areas of the workplace to talk about unionization. Employers cannot promise and cannot make any statement that could be construed as threatening, intimidating, or coercive. Such behavior is strictly unlawful for the employer.

The other side says the Employee Free Choice Act, which I call the Union Intimidation Act, allows workers to have an election if they want one. We just heard that argument. The fact is, we have a body around here--a couple hundred researchers at the Library of Congress--that does research in a nonpartisan manner. They look at the facts and pass them on to us. They were asked about employees being able to have an election if they want one under this bill. The Congressional Research Service disagrees with their supposition. They read the bill's words that say ``the board shall not direct an election'' the way most reasonable people would read them. In a memo to me which was entered into the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing record, CRS wrote:

An election would be unavailable once the board concludes

that a majority of the employees in an appropriate unit has

signed valid authorizations designating an individual or

labor organization as its bargaining representative.

The Democrats' own witness at the HELP Committee hearing in March admits that it is not true that any one employee who prefers to vote by secret ballot election can secure such an election. That is their own witness saying: Not true. It was Professor Estlund who said that in response to a question for the record.

Essentially, private ballot elections will only take place under H.R. 800 if the union chooses to have one by submitting authorization cards from less than 50 percent of the workers. As a practical matter, that will never happen. If union organizers cannot get enough cards in a public, coercive, intimidating signing campaign, they just don't bother with an election.

Another myth: The Employee Free Choice Act, which I call the Union Intimidation Act, would increase health care and pension benefits. We heard that a few minutes ago. Wishing or asking doesn't make it so. Health insurance, like higher wages and benefits, cost money. Unions don't have to contribute a single penny toward those costs. In fact, since unionized operations are less efficient, they make paying for those things more difficult. They don't take into consideration the business plan and how to continue the business.

Comparing union wages versus nonunion wages nationwide is also inherently misleading since union workers are concentrated in geographic areas and industries where the wages and benefits of all workers are generally higher.

Another myth: Workers seeking to form unions are routinely fired; one in five is fired; one in five is fired every 20 minutes.

OK. Let's look at the facts on that. To begin with, under current law, it is illegal to terminate or discriminate in any way against an employee for their union activities. If this occurs during an organizing campaign, the National Labor Relations Board not only remedies the violation, it is also empowered to set aside and rerun the election since the necessary ``laboratory conditions'' for a valid NLRB election have not been met. However, that occurs in less than 1 percent of all elections, and that number has been steadily decreasing.

That is not the end of the NLRB's authority under current law. If the National Labor Relations Board finds a fair election is not possible, they can certify the union regardless of the vote and order the employer to bargain.

Yesterday, we heard this same myth repeated, and it is based on three phony analyses by stridently prounion researchers, who often make a series of wholly unfounded assumptions and routinely misuse statistical data.

The first analysis arrives at its conclusions by taking the number of National Labor Relations Board reinstatements offered each year, assuming that half occur in the context of an organizing campaign, and then dividing that number into some completely mythical and arbitrary number of ``union supporters''. Now, even if the first assumption was right, it is the number of supporters that matters. The lower the number, the more dramatic it looks. This number, however, is completely made up. There is no factual basis for determining this number.

Here are the facts. In 2004, for example, nearly 150,000 employees were eligible voters in National Labor Relations Board elections. Using their assumptions, there were only about 1,000 reinstatement offers that year. That is not 1 in 5; that is 1 in 150. Even that is likely very high since the vast majority of these offers are settlements which do not account for the fact that many of these terminations may have been perfectly lawful. Moreover, since unions won over 61 percent of these elections, their supporters amounted to at least 90,000.

Now, the second ``analysis'' uses the National Labor Relations Board's backpay figures as the basis for this claim. Here is the problem. The vast majority of those backpay claims do not arise in the context of an organizing campaign. They do not involve union employee terminations. And they do not single out union supporters. Most involve bargaining violations with already-established unions. In 2000, for example, two-thirds of the backpay number involved a single case that had absolutely nothing to do with an organizing campaign.

The third study consisted of stridently prounion researchers calling union organizers about campaigns they conducted over a short period of time in an isolated geographic area. The ``statistics'' relied on were nothing more than untested anecdotes.

So as this discussion continues, we are not going to allow incorrect and distorted numbers, and misused and misinterpreted data to obscure what is really at issue here. This is about taking away the right for people to have a secret ballot. Again, I want to reiterate that while this bill may be grossly misnamed as the Employee Free Choice Act, it has absolutely nothing to do with preserving free choice. In fact, it's just the opposite. How would you like to have someone come into your house with two or three people--one of them being very big--and pressuring you to sign a union card? Would you feel a little intimidated? Most people certainly would. Would you sign because you felt pressured, because you just wanted to have people stop bothering you, or because you didn't want to offend a co-worker or friend? Most people would. However, under this bill all a union would have to do is obtain 51 percent this way and it is automatic.

Once the total reaches 50 percent, there is no latitude. These claims that employees could still have an election under this bill are simply not true. Oh, yes, there is this extraordinarily deceptive claim that a union could stop at 49 percent and ask for an election. That is simply nonsense. Why would a union ever do that. More importantly, how could employees make the union stop under 50 percent. They can't. And the unions certainly won't stop--with one percent more they have guaranteed members, and guaranteed dues. Do you really think they'd risk that in a secret ballot where someone who signed under pressure would have the right to change their mind and vote their real beliefs? Why would a union ever do that? Guaranteed union members and guaranteed dues. Do you really think union organizers would actually risk that by giving employees a truly free choice? I do not think so.

It is a fundamental democratic principle to have a secret ballot. The proponents of this legislation would do exactly the opposite and strip away from working men and women this most fundamental democratic right. The proponents of this bill ought to change the name of their party if they continue to advocate this legislation.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, minutes ago a new Senator for the State of Wyoming was officially appointed by the Governor of Wyoming, and I want to welcome Dr. John Barrasso, now Senator Barrasso, and introduce him to the Senate.

John is an extremely capable person who has gone through a selection process that involved 30 people who were interested in serving as Senator. He went through an interview process and a selection process and was one of three people given to the Governor from whom to select. The Governor gave each of the people a list of 42 issues of critical interest to the State of Wyoming and interviewed each of them and made a selection on that basis. Dr. John Barrasso was the selection.

I am very excited about this. I am excited about having a full roster from Wyoming. I have known John for many years. I was pleased that he ran for the State Senate. He worked on a lot of conservative issues there. He was a

hard worker, and he was extremely efficient. In fact, one of the amazing things to me was that he was able to answer every e-mail almost immediately and to keep his desk clean. It is different from the way I worked when I was in the Wyoming legislature and it is much different than the way my desk looks here. So his efficiency is unmatched, and he has great knowledge of Wyoming and the issues that are important in Wyoming, which include energy, and of course health. He is an orthopedic surgeon and will make a big difference in our health care debate back here.

He is quiet but efficient and has worked across the aisle in Wyoming, and I am sure he will continue to do that here, much the way Senator Thomas and I have done. We have always worked as a team, the Wyoming delegation, and he will become a very strong team member.

I want to congratulate the Wyoming Republican Party on the process they went through. I want to particularly congratulate Fred Parady, who is the State chairman, for the way he walked into some fairly uncharted waters, particularly for that many people who were interested. He did an excellent and fair job, and one that was timely so we would be able to get to this point. He did an outstanding job.

I congratulate the Governor for the care and concern he gave and the way he went about his job and the comments he made as he did that job and as he introduced the new Senator. I think Wyoming can be a good example for the rest of the Nation to follow.

Of course, no one is going to be able to replace Craig Thomas, but working with John, we can ensure the representation of Wyoming in the Senate will remain second to none.

John has had some interesting things he has worked on in Wyoming. He is extremely well known across the State because he has been doing virtually a nightly television spot helping people to help their own health and has given tips for a number of years doing that. I have no idea how many years he has also been the host for the Jerry Lewis telethon for Wyoming and has raised innumerable dollars for that great cause, and he does it so easily and so naturally and is such a great speaker.

Of course, he is very pleased that both of his children, Pete and Emma, have graduated from high school. Emma graduated this year. So he has gotten to watch them grow up in a very involved way through the years, and now that they are going to college, he can come to Washington, and I know he and his family are very excited about it and are great participants.

So I welcome the newest member of the Senate and let everyone know we are looking forward to a great team and his extreme capability.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to take this opportunity to discuss my opposition to a few of the provisions in the Finance Committee-passed energy tax package. Before I begin, I would like to take a moment to thank Chairman Baucus and Ranking Member Grassley for their work on this amendment. I know they have exerted an incredible amount of energy to get this legislation to the floor so that we can debate it as part of this Energy bill.

The package we are debating includes a number of important provisions. It includes additional funding for clean renewable energy bonds, which are important to rural electric cooperatives who seek to build clean generation. It includes accelerated depreciation for carbon dioxide pipelines, which will encourage more carbon sequestration. It also includes a carbon capture credit that will make it more economical for some carbon dioxide to be used in enhanced oil recovery and for some carbon dioxide to be sequestered. These are important provisions, and I am pleased to see them included in this package.

Although that is the case, I have grave concerns about the impact of this tax package. I am specifically concerned about its impact on consumers. When taken as a whole, I believe that the package will lead to increased gas prices and will have a detrimental impact on our country's quest to become energy independent by discouraging domestic energy production.

The amendment contains approximately $28.6 billion in ``revenue raisers'' over the next 10 years. The phrase ``revenue raisers'' is Washington speak for tax increases, and I find it hard to believe that we can increase taxes by $28.6 billion and have no impact on the price of gasoline at the pump for the average American. Businesses are in business to make money, and when we increase their taxes, they pass that increase along to the consumer.

It is not ExxonMobil or Shell or BP that will pay for these tax increases. It is the senior citizen on a fixed income who fills up her station wagon. It is the soccer mom who drives her children to school. This tax title is not punishing the companies. It is punishing the American people who rely on energy to fuel their daily lives.

Specifically, I am concerned that three provisions of this bill will increase gas prices and will discourage energy production at a time when our Nation's supply does not meet our Nation's demand. Last week, I joined a number of my colleagues in a letter to the Senate Finance Committee that urged the committee not to repeal the section 199 manufacturing deduction, and I am disappointed to note that this was included. The Joint Tax Committee estimates that the repeal of the section 199 deduction will raise $9.43 billion over a 10-year period. That is $9.43 billion that will be passed along to the American people.

I am also disappointed that the legislation includes a new 13-percent severance tax for oil produced in the Outer Continental Shelf, OCS. The OCS represents one of America's greatest energy sources, and raising taxes on those who hope to produce in the OCS will most certainly not encourage the domestic energy production that we all believe is so important.

Finally, I am concerned that this legislation changes what is known as the foreign tax credit. This change, which amounts to double taxation, will increase taxes by $3.2 billion over the next 10 years. Someone has to pay for that tax increase, and I am concerned that it will be the American people.

While I appreciate the work of my colleagues, at the end of the day, I am extremely concerned that this legislation will slow domestic energy production and increase the prices paid by consumers. There are a number of good provisions in this bill that I do support. However, at the end of the day, raising taxes is not the way to increase energy production and decrease energy prices. I would urge my colleagues to oppose cloture on this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007. This legislation is a bipartisan effort by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to reauthorize the Head Start Act.

The Head Start Program was established in 1965 as part of the war on poverty by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The purpose of the program was, and remains, to provide educational and other developmental services to children in very low-income families. Since its creation, Head Start has been a comprehensive early childhood development program that provides educational, health, nutritional, social, and other services to low-income preschool-aged children and their families. Head Start currently provides services to over 900,000 children and their families through a network of over 1,600 public and private agencies.

The legislation before us today builds on work started last Congress by the HELP Committee under my leadership. The Head Start for School Readiness Act ensures that low-income children receive the educational and developmental services they need to be ready to learn and be successful in school.

I want to thank Senator Kennedy for his ongoing commitment to working on a bipartisan basis, which has resulted in legislation that meets the needs of children and families who participate in the Head Start Program throughout our Nation. I would also like to thank our colleagues, Senators Alexander and Dodd, for their fine work and dedication to this important program.

Head Start was created to level the playing field for low-income children by providing them with education and development activities. This program recognizes that children do not start school with the same set of experiences and knowledge and helps provide low-income children with some of the experiences and knowledge their more affluent peers have as they start their elementary school experience. The Head Start Program also recognizes the important role that families play in a child's development and encourages their regular participation in the program.

This legislation helps ensure that children in the Head Start Program will be better prepared to enter school with the skills necessary to succeed. It is well documented in early childhood education research that students who are not reading at grade level by the third grade will struggle with reading the rest of their lives. Head Start provides early education for over 900,000 children each year, most of whom would not have the opportunity to attend preschool programs elsewhere. The future of these children is why we have all worked so hard to improve and strengthen this act. The legislation before us today will help Head Start Programs provide children with the early learning skills and early childhood development activities they need to be successful. Head Start introduces many of these children to books, the alphabet, numbers, as well as how to play and share with their classmates. Head Start provides the building blocks children need for success later in life.

The Head Start for School Readiness Act builds on what many great Head Start providers are already doing. Working from recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, this bill adds educational standards related to language skills, literacy and numeracy skills, as well as cognitive, emotional, and physical development. Steps are also taken to ensure that limited English proficient children are provided assistance in acquiring the English language.

I am particularly pleased with the accountability provisions put forth in this legislation. The legislation before us today includes important changes to the Head Start Program related to the evaluation and review of grantees. The timeframe for Head Start grantees to appeal decisions made by the Secretary to terminate grants is now limited. In some instances, Head Start grantees have been found to be operating programs that are unsafe or misusing Federal funds--and are often continuing those bad practices for months--as long as 600 days in some cases--during the termination process. This equates to children not receiving quality services, and instead of being prepared for success, they fall further behind.

Additional steps have been taken in this legislation to increase the quality of Head Start Programs, including providing the Secretary the authority to terminate a grantee that has multiple and recurring deficiencies that has not made significant and substantial progress toward correcting those deficiencies. This legislation provides greater clarity for grantees as to what constitutes a program deficiency. Many of us have heard from grantees across the country who expressed frustration with the lack of consistency with which the provisions of the Head Start Program is enforced. For that reason this legislation includes provisions related to interrator reliability--this will help ensure consistency in the review of Head Start Programs across the country.

Changes were made to the distribution of grant funds to ensure that programs maintain their funded levels of enrollment. We understand that families served by the Head Start Program tend to be more migratory and that full enrollment at Centers is often difficult to maintain. However, we also know that many programs have waiting lists and that thousands of eligible children are not currently being served. This legislation balances those needs by providing flexibility in meeting full enrollment, but also requiring funds to be moved from chronically under-enrolled programs.

Senator Dodd has provided valuable leadership as we worked to develop a clear policy on the roles and responsibilities of the governing bodies and policy councils. We have worked together to clarify and strengthen the roles of the governing body and policy councils while preserving the important role of parents. After careful review, the committee found that many of the important fiscal and legal responsibilities of Head Start grantees were not explicitly assigned.

Unfortunately there have been too many examples of programs that have failed the children, families, and community they were funded to serve due to appalling financial mismanagement. Cases were brought to the committee that detailed excessive and inappropriate expenditures, lost funds, and reduced services to children because proper financial management techniques were not in place. Too often the truth was hidden from governing bodies and policy councils alike.

The bill clarifies those responsibilities leading to more consistent, high-quality fiscal and legal management, which will ensure these programs are serving children in the best possible way. Changes in this legislation address the concerning situations mentioned earlier by placing fiscal responsibility with the governing body. It is absolutely necessary and vital that one entity maintain fiscal and legal control of the Federal grant dollars. That

said, we maintain the equally vital and necessary role of the policy councils in setting program priorities, classroom activities, and personnel changes. We believe this careful balance will help ensure the continued integrity of the Head Start Program for years to come.

We recognize that a vast majority of the Head Start agencies provide high quality, comprehensive services for children in the Head Start Programs. However, the provisions in this bill will create an important incentive for programs to operate at their best and in the best interest of the children they serve.

I want to particularly note emphasis we have placed on the role of parents in Head Start Programs. It is vital to remember that this program provides services to children and their families. Parents provide valuable insight and experience as to what a Head Start Program should do for children. In fact, this legislation increases the presence of parents in Head Start Programs, strengthens services for families, and provides training and development opportunities for parents that do serve on the policy councils and governing bodies.

This legislation also increases the coordination, collaboration, and excellence of early childhood education and care programs. It enhances the role of the State director of Head Start collaboration to ensure that Head Start Programs are maximizing their potential by stretching dollars, promoting partnerships to meet State and local needs, and developing strategic plans to meet future and current goals. This legislation also allows each State to apply for funds to support a State advisory council on early care and education to conduct a statewide needs assessment, identify collaboration opportunities, and support additional data collection. Additional encouragement of coordination and collaboration will stretch Federal, State and local resources to provide additional resources to disadvantaged children across the country.

Finally, this legislation requires the Department of Health and Human Services to cease any further development or implementation of the National Reporting System. While I believe that the assessment of children in the Head Start Program is important, I believe that the assessment must be both age and developmentally appropriate. This legislation requires a review and update of the assessments, standards, and measures used in Head Start Programs by the Panel on Developmental Outcomes and Assessments for Young Children of the National Academy of Sciences. Once the panel completes its recommendations, the Secretary is then allowed to revisit the issue of assessment in Head Start Programs.

The members of the HELP Committee, and in particular Senators Alexander, Kennedy, and Dodd, have worked tirelessly on this legislation. The final product before us today is a comprehensive and bipartisan reauthorization of the Head Start Program. I wish to thank Senators Kennedy, Alexander, and Dodd and the other members of the committee for their assistance in moving this legislation to the floor. Passage of this legislation will ensure that low-income children are prepared not only for success in school but for later success in life.

Finally, I would like to thank the staff of members of the HELP Committee who have spent countless hours preparing this legislation for passage by the Senate. In particular I would like to thank Roberto Rodriguez with Senator Kennedy, Catherine Hildum and Sharon Lewis with Senator Dodd, David Cleary and Sarah Rittling with Senator Alexander, and Beth Buehlmann and Lindsay Hunsicker of my staff.

It is my hope that our bipartisan efforts will continue to produce results as we move to final passage of this legislation and on to a conference committee with the House of Representatives. We must all work together to get a bipartisan product to President Bush for his signature as soon as possible.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the two amendments before us. I have some grave concerns. I am afraid this Energy bill could easily turn into an antienergy bill. If it does, we will have decreasing supplies of fuel and ever-increasing prices. I don't think that is where we intend to go.

I rise to give strong support to amendment No. 1628 offered by my colleagues, Senator Jim Bunning and ranking member Pete Domenici. The amendment establishes a fuel mandate

program for coal-to-liquid fuel that is identical to the renewable fuel standard we are implementing with this legislation. I know originally the two amendments had some similarities and were being worked on as one with a bipartisan group. That is what we ought to do. But somehow it got polarized and shifted into two separate amendments. One could have phased into the other and wound up with much stronger requirements. That was where I was hoping it would go, on a phased-in basis, so that we could actually have coal-to-liquid technology and that infant industry could then grow into one that would meet the strict standards that technologically cannot be met at the present time.

If we discourage all development of coal to liquids, we will not have clean coal to liquids. We will not have an adequate fuel supply or we will have a fuel supply that is very expensive, and that will curtail the economy.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the Governor of my State, Dave Freudenthal, who talks about a glidepath we need to get the infant industry started and into place.

I have listened for the past week as my colleagues have discussed the importance of domestic fuels. They argue that it is essential for us to reduce our dependence on foreign energy barons and that the mandate that this bill lays out for 36 billion gallons of biofuels is an important step in being energy independent. I agree with my colleagues and their assessment that we need to produce more domestic fuel, and the amendment I am speaking in support of does just that. By mandating that we use 6 billion gallons of fuel derived from coal, we will use our Nation's most abundant energy source to help break America's addiction to oil.

Coal to liquids technologies are not new. The technology has been around since the 1940s. There is no question that it can be used today in transportation markets that currently exist. It can be transported in pipelines that currently exist. Because it comes from coal, our Nation's most abundant energy source, it can be produced at home by American workers without some of the international interference. Coal to liquid plants are being developed in China. They understand the need for the economy to have the fuel to operate on. They are buying up resources. In Canada, they tried to buy resources in the United States. They know the future of their country depends on having sufficient fuel, particularly for transportation.

Coal to liquid plants are already being developed in China. They are being developed in other major industrialized nations. But they are not being developed in the United States. I am concerned that as we sit on the sidelines, other nations will take advantage of our inaction, and our economy will suffer. That is why I am speaking in support of the amendment offered by my colleagues from Kentucky and New Mexico. The amendment they have introduced is the right approach to moving this issue forward in a way that will truly help the coal to liquids industry. In doing so, it will truly benefit the American people.

There is a competing proposal from my colleague from Montana that I will discuss in a moment, but I first want to discuss why this is the right approach, if we are to spur investment in the coal to liquids industry. Simply put, if our goal is to create a market for a new energy source, mandates work. We have seen it with other current renewable standards. Since passage of the RFS as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, we have seen a dramatic rise in the number of ethanol plants that exist, and there is no sign that industry is slowing down. That was the mandate we placed. It is being met. We have an opportunity to do so today for coal to liquids. However, we will do so on a smaller scale, requiring just 6 billion gallons of coal-derived fuel as opposed to 36 billion gallons mandated for biofuels in the bill. We will do so with additional environmental standards.

Like the underlying legislation, we require the 20-percent life cycle greenhouse gas reduction language. However, unlike the underlying bill, the amendment requires coal to liquid plants to operate with technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions. In general, I am not a fan of mandates. I have struggled with this issue. However, if our goal is to reduce our Nation's dependence on foreign energy sources and to produce more fuel domestically, the current renewable fuels mandate has proven that it is an approach that works. In direct contrast to the success of a mandate is the failure of the loan guarantee programs which have issued exactly zero loans almost 2 years after the program was created in the Energy Policy Act. The approach of the Senator from Montana of a direct loan program is different than the approach taken in the Energy Policy Act. Although that is the case, I am concerned that his legislation will simply create another loan program that never happens. A direct loan program requires that the Federal Government loan taxpayer money to private companies to move forward. In the very tight appropriations climate we are currently experiencing, my colleagues are kidding themselves if they think we will spend the kind of money it takes to build one of these plants through a direct loan.

How do I know about that? There is one proposed in southern Wyoming. The company is a coalition of companies to put the money together for one of these plants. It is a huge refinery. That is what a coal to liquids plant is. It changes our low-sulfur coal into diesel, and that is what we are requiring trucks to use now, diesel without coal. It is going to be between the little town of Hannah and Medicine Bow. Hannah was a coal mining town. The coal was deeper so it wasn't useful or economical for them to mine it anymore. It shut down. People are there with houses they can't sell and jobs they don't have. They are retired. But this plant is coming into that area.

The reason it is coming to that area is, first, there is the coal resource but, more importantly, there is a pipeline there. This is one of the fuels, unlike ethanol, that can be put into a pipeline and transported. They have already sold all of the fuel they can build. They put $2 or $3 billion worth of money together to build what will be the first refinery built in the United States in 30 years. It will solve a huge economic problem in that part of the State. I have to say, the requirements in the amendment of the Senator from Montana will probably stop this because the technology isn't there. People

aren't going to venture $2.3 billion on the possibility that the technology might be there. I would hope we would put some research money into technology on carbon sequestration and carbon capture. I have encouraged the University of Wyoming to do that with some of the abandoned mine land money. But that is down the road and should be phased in so that plants like this can be built.

In addition to my concerns about the loan program, I am also concerned that the amendment of the Senator from Montana sets forth environmental standards that are technologically unachievable. We have devoted an entire title of this bill--title III--to the research and development of carbon sequestration technologies. I have faith that this research will help us to advance carbon sequestration efforts, but I don't believe we are there yet. As such, the Tester amendment's requirement for 75 percent sequestration--and it is not phased in-- seems unreasonable. I am not a technical expert. I have spoken to the people who are planning the coal to liquids facilities. None of the developers I have questioned have suggested they can achieve the 75 percent mandated by the Tester amendment. Both of the Democratic and Republican proposals will reduce greenhouse gases in a major way. Both of these amendments require a 20-percent improvement, but the Democratic proposal goes too far and sets standards that aren't technologically achievable.

My colleagues are faced with a choice. The amendment offered by Senators Bunning and Domenici takes a proven approach of mandating that we use a domestic fuel. It adds responsible and reasonable environmental standards, and it will work to spur development of a domestic coal to liquids industry. I wish the bipartisan group could have gotten together and actually worked out something, but there are some other things playing in this whole process. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in making a political point that we wipe out progress for the United States. I hope that something can be done on that yet, but we will vote on two different amendments. The Bunning-Domenici one has the potential for actually providing some facilities and additional fuels. If we truly want to see coal to liquids plants built in the United States, only one of the approaches before the Senate works. That approach is the one offered by Senators Bunning and Domenici. I hope all of us will support that amendment and see that coal to liquids and fuel independence happens.

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

Six to eight minutes.

I object.

Mr. President, I think the objection was on the basis that we just got the file. We haven't looked at it at all.

I have no objection to someone talking on it, but I would like to take a look at it, whatever it is.

Apparently, there are objections on our side. I have no objection to you going ahead and speaking to it, but they want to look at the amendment.

Mr. President, it was just a few days ago when we heard the news that we had lost our dear friend and colleague, Senator Craig Thomas. We lowered our flags and joined together as a family to say goodbye to someone who fought for what he believed in and worked to the end to make Wyoming and the West better places to live.

Craig is now gone, but the work he began lives on. That is why I am pleased to offer an amendment to S. 277, the Grand Teton National Park Extension Act of 2007. My amendment builds on the work begun by Craig and the efforts of Chairman Bingaman and Ranking Member Domenici who worked so hard to shepherd this bill through the legislative process. In addition, I also thank Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell for bringing this bill to the floor so we can make one of Craig's legislative goals a reality.

It is no surprise that Craig worked so hard to develop, draft, and introduce this legislation. No one understood the needs of Wyoming and the West better than he did. Craig was a cowboy from the top of his hat to the tip of his boots. There was nothing he enjoyed more than riding a horse through our national forests and spending time in the great outdoors.

Craig's love for the wide open spaces of our State led him to introduce the Grand Teton National Park Extension Act of 2007. When it is signed into law, it will allow the Secretary of the Interior to accept the donation of approximately 50 acres of private land that will be added to Grand Teton National Park. In addition to Craig, we have the Halpin family to thank for their generosity. It will truly be a gift enjoyed by the people of Wyoming and the West, and the whole country, by all who come to visit our national parks every year.

When that land is added to Grand Teton National Park, it will have another little addition to it. That addition is to rename the visitors center the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center. It will provide the people with a place to stop and visit during their trips to Grand Teton where they can learn about the history of the park and the life of Craig Thomas. I cannot think of a better way to remember Craig's life than to share it with all who benefitted from his many years of hard work and public service.

Craig dedicated his life to protecting and preserving our State's natural resources, especially our parks. He was a tireless and true advocate for those important and precious facilities, and he fought for their protection when he served as chairman and later as ranking member of the National Park Subcommittee of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

Craig had a proud history on the committee and in the Senate as he constantly and consistently advocated for the best administration and management of our park system. He authored legislation that provided critical funding and mandated management reforms that were necessary to keep our parks pristine and ensure they would be available for future generations to enjoy. He worked with all of his colleagues, regardless of their party affiliation, to increase funding for our parks so they could better deal with the maintenance backlog that exists. Now that he is gone, our parks have lost one of their best friends.

Renaming the visitors center will ensure Craig's legacy will continue and never be forgotten. As noted in a letter by the Grand Teton National Park Foundation:

Senator Thomas championed this project since 1997. His

leadership in securing an $8 million appropriation inspired

the Foundation to raise $13.6 million in private funds for

the project.

For his efforts on this and so many issues of importance to our national park system, the Grand Teton National Park Foundation supports the naming of the center after Senator Thomas.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of their letter of support be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newly constructed Grand Teton Visitors Center is August 11, 2007. It will be a day that will be long remembered by all who come to honor the memory of one of the park's greatest champions. By passing this legislation, we are making that day possible and ensuring that those who attend that special ceremony will be the first to enjoy all the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center will have to offer. This is an honor which I know would have pleased Craig and made him very proud. I can also see him riding tall in the saddle of a horse, taking it all in under the brim of his favorite cowboy hat.

Naming the visitors center for Craig Thomas will also mean a great deal to everyone who knew and loved him. It will be a tribute to a special American that will last for a long time to come. Many years from today, when people come to the park and stop by the visitors center that bears his name, they will know that Craig Thomas was so many things in life--a marine, a Senator, a rancher, and a dedicated father and husband. But most of all, they will know Craig loved Wyoming and the West and fought with everything he had to maintain our precious resources.

I always said God saved some of his best handiwork for Wyoming. We are fortunate that he also gave us the best champion to fight to protect and preserve it all.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration Calendar No. 41, S. 277.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Enzi amendment at the desk be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

I yield the floor.