Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise to introduce the Consumer Assurance of Radiologic Excellence Act of 2006. This bill would improve the quality and value of diagnostic medicine. If the RadCARE Act is enacted, patients and providers alike will benefit from more efficient and accurate diagnoses and safer, more appropriate therapies, all afforded at a substantially decreased cost to the taxpayer.

Most of us feel anxious when we see the doctor, regardless of whether the evaluation reveals a problem. That is particularly true when we are concerned about cancer. How reassuring it is for us to believe that our physicians have available to them the full range of diagnostic tests and therapeutic procedures necessary to manage our care in the best way possible. We expect, too, that everyone who participates in our care is highly qualified to perform the services they provide. It is an expectation that each of us deserves to have but, all too often, is unrealistic.

Effective treatments are predicated on accurate diagnoses, and every treatment has the potential to cause harm. Missed, inaccurate, or delayed diagnoses can lead to unnecessary or dangerous therapies, with avoidable medical costs the least of the consequences. Physicians and patients should be able to trust that the technical providers such as the radiologic technologists, ultrasonography technologists, and medical radiation technologists who actually perform these tests are well qualified to do their jobs and have the appropriate credentials help to provide this assurance.

Cancer of many different types has become much more common; indeed, cancer is the second leading cause of death in America, behind only heart disease. Medical imaging tests play an increasingly important role in diagnosing a wide variety of malignant diseases and in determining the results of treatment. Radiation therapy is a common form of cancer therapy and used in more than half of all cancer cases. As our population ages, we should anticipate that such procedures and therapies will be performed with greater frequency on older Americans, with the cost borne more and more often by federally financed health care programs. For example, in 2004, Medicare paid over $1 billion for radiation therapy.

Improvements in health care often occur through technological innovations. For example, today's providers depend much more on diagnostic medical imaging than they did in the past, which has led to a rapid increase in the number of procedures performed, procedures that are not limited just to patients with cancer. Over 300 million radiologic procedures are performed annually in the United States, with 70 percent of Americans undergoing some type of medical imaging exam or radiation therapy treatment annually.

These innovations, while of undeniable potential benefit, come with substantial costs. Radiology costs are reaching over $100 billion annually; diagnostic imaging is one of the fastest growing cost areas in American health care. These costs are not limited to charges alone. Sedation, administered to facilitate a diagnostic imaging study, may compromise breathing or heart function. Therapeutic interventions based, in part, on these studies are fraught with potential complications, and the risk increases if the diagnostic information is incomplete or inaccurate. Similarly, a decision not to intervene carries its own risks, especially if the facts on which the decision is made are in error.

Congress has already taken some steps to assure the public that those who provide these services meet sufficient standards of technical proficiency. The Mammography Quality Standards Act of 1992 established standards for technologists performing one crucial diagnostic test; substantial quality improvement has been the result. The Consumer- Patient Radiation Health and Safety Act of 1981 encouraged the States to set standards for the technical competence of those who provide diagnostic imaging or radiation therapy services to patients but left compliance with those standards optional. Unfortunately, to date, nine States and the District of Columbia have enacted no regulatory statutes at all while, in a further six States, those regulations remain incomplete. Some provider disciplines have no specified standards of education, training, and experience at all. In fact, a provider with only a few hours of course work or a couple of weeks of on-the-job training may be responsible for obtaining the image a physician uses to diagnose your cancer or to deliver the radiation that is crucial to the treatment of your tumor. One doesn't have to be a doctor to recognize that this is not good medicine to rely solely on the good intentions of those who employ these providers.

In its report to Congress this March, MedPAC--the Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission--recognized that, while the issue is complex, technical excellence in diagnostic imaging and radiation therapy plays a central role in improving the public health and lowering costs of care. The RadCARE Act seeks to implement those recommendations that speak to credentialing of technical providers and brings to completion work begun with the Consumer-Patient Radiation Health and Safety Act.

Many will benefit if we pass the RadCARE Act. Better diagnostic images will help physicians to make faster, more accurate diagnoses or, alternatively, to exclude problems from further consideration. Risks such as sedation-related complications and radiation exposure will decrease. Patients will receive therapies that are more considered, precise, and safe. Provider and consumer confidence in the health care process will rise. Qualified technologists will be recognized for their professional achievements and motivated to improve their practice. Taxpayers, even if they are fortunate enough not to require diagnostic or therapeutic radiologic services, will appreciate that their tax dollars are not being wasted on poor quality, repetitive diagnostic examinations or unsafe therapies.

Could the RadCARE Act have unintended, adverse consequences? Some argue that meaningful credentialing of these technical providers will decrease access to care--that it is better to have non-credentialed providers than none at all. Certainly, establishing and maintaining a health care workforce that is adequate in size is an important goal for us to achieve. I would make the case, though, for quality--that bad information is worse than no information at all. It is reassuring to note that, in those States that do regulate this type of technical practice, the number of practitioners has remained stable. To further address this concern, the RadCARE Act gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the flexibility necessary to modify regulations promulgated under this legislation, so that access to services is not compromised but standards are preserved.

Some fear that credentialing technical providers will increase health care expenses by inflating personnel costs. Again, in those jurisdictions that regulate this type of technical practice, wage inflation has not occurred. Regardless, while I believe that workers should be compensated, fairly and proportionately, for the work that they do, the cost savings from delivering care correctly far outweigh any potential cost increase that might result from higher salaries.

Others are concerned that the RadCARE Act could infringe on the States' right to regulate health care practice or that Congress lacks the capacity to define the standards of practice that should apply. The Act does not codify any particular State action; rather, it provides a substantial economic incentive to the States to establish, at least, minimum standards, an action for which there is precedent in the Mammography Quality Standards Act and one that is consistent with current public and private sector initiatives, such as ``pay for performance,'' that tie reimbursement to recognized best practices. Similarly, the RadCARE Act does not specify what standards should be followed but gives the Secretary the opportunity to derive those standards from those most qualified to provide them: the professional community. Indeed, the Act is supported by the Alliance for Quality Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy, a consortium of over 275,000 technical professionals.

I invite my colleagues to join me and Senator Kennedy as sponsors of this bill to increase the quality and value of these important diagnostic procedures and lessen the possibility of life-threatening medical mistakes.

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

Mr. President, I am privileged to introduce a bill today that provides a national designation to the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY. As it should, a national designation signifies something unique that belongs to all the people of our Nation. Just as President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the uniqueness of Devils Tower in Wyoming when he proclaimed it to be the first national monument, my bill recognizes the uniqueness of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY. Wildlife museums are not unusual in the United States. Art museums are not unusual in the United States. This museum, however, sets itself apart from all the others as it focuses on wildlife art. This interdisciplinary approach fosters education as the museum uses art to teach people about wildlife and encourages wildlife lovers to explore art. The museum's educational focus is clear in their motto ``bringing people, wildlife and fine art together.''

The person responsible for bringing National Museum of Wildlife Art to my attention is Margaret, Maggie, Webster Scarlett. Given her involvement and accomplishments in the museum world, Maggie knows a worthy museum when she sees it. In 2002, the Senate confirmed Maggie as a member of the National Museum and Library Services

Board. This 24-member advisory body includes 20 Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed members of the general public who have demonstrated expertise in, or commitment to, library or museum services. She also is currently a member and past president of the board of trustees of the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

The National Museum of Wildlife Art was founded in 1987 with a private gift of a collection of art and is accredited with the American Association of Museums. The National Museum of Wildlife Art features a collection of over 2,000 pieces of art portraying wildlife. Dating from 2000 B.C. to the present, the collection chronicles much of the history of wildlife in art, focusing primarily on European and American painting and sculpture. The collection of American art from the 19th and 20th centuries is particularly strong, recording European exploration of the American West. Many of these works predate photography, making them vital representations of the frontier era in the history of the United States.

Using the collection as a base, the central themes to the museum's programming are connections between people, wildlife, and fine art. Even before this designation, people from across the United States had discovered the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Since its inception, it has become an American West destination attraction with an annual attendance of 92,000 visitors from all over the world and an award- winning Web site that receives more than 10,000 visits per week.

These visitors find wildlife on the walls of the museum but also outside of its doors. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is housed in an architecturally significant and award-winning 51,000 square foot facility that overlooks the 28,000 acre National Elk Refuge and is adjacent to the Grand Teton National Park. The museum displays and interprets this wildlife art in one of the few remaining areas of the United States where native wildlife roams abundantly.

The works in the museum are united by their subject and their quality. The permanent collection of the National Museum of Wildlife Art has grown to more than 3,000 works by important historic American artists including Edward Hicks, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Charles M. Russell, William Merritt Chase, and Alexander Calder, as well as contemporary American artists Steve Kestrel, Bart Walter, Nancy Howe, John Nieto, Jamie Wyeth, and others.

The National Museum of Wildlife Art seeks to educate a diverse audience through collecting fine art focused on wildlife, presenting exceptional exhibitions, providing community, regional, national, and international outreach, and presenting extensive educational programming for adults and children. A national designation presents a great opportunity to use the invaluable resources of the National Museum of Wildlife Art to teach the Nation's school children, through on-site visits, traveling exhibits, classroom curriculum, on-line distance learning, and other educational initiatives.

I look forward to officially recognizing the renown of the National Museum of Wildlife Art through this bill.

Mr. President, I am privileged to introduce a bill today that provides a national designation to the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY. As it should, a national designation signifies something unique that belongs to all the people of our Nation. Just as President Theodore Roosevelt recognized the uniqueness of Devils Tower in Wyoming when he proclaimed it to be the first national monument, my bill recognizes the uniqueness of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY. Wildlife museums are not unusual in the United States. Art museums are not unusual in the United States. This museum, however, sets itself apart from all the others as it focuses on wildlife art. This interdisciplinary approach fosters education as the museum uses art to teach people about wildlife and encourages wildlife lovers to explore art. The museum's educational focus is clear in their motto ``bringing people, wildlife and fine art together.''

The person responsible for bringing National Museum of Wildlife Art to my attention is Margaret, Maggie, Webster Scarlett. Given her involvement and accomplishments in the museum world, Maggie knows a worthy museum when she sees it. In 2002, the Senate confirmed Maggie as a member of the National Museum and Library Services

Board. This 24-member advisory body includes 20 Presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed members of the general public who have demonstrated expertise in, or commitment to, library or museum services. She also is currently a member and past president of the board of trustees of the National Museum of Wildlife Art.

The National Museum of Wildlife Art was founded in 1987 with a private gift of a collection of art and is accredited with the American Association of Museums. The National Museum of Wildlife Art features a collection of over 2,000 pieces of art portraying wildlife. Dating from 2000 B.C. to the present, the collection chronicles much of the history of wildlife in art, focusing primarily on European and American painting and sculpture. The collection of American art from the 19th and 20th centuries is particularly strong, recording European exploration of the American West. Many of these works predate photography, making them vital representations of the frontier era in the history of the United States.

Using the collection as a base, the central themes to the museum's programming are connections between people, wildlife, and fine art. Even before this designation, people from across the United States had discovered the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Since its inception, it has become an American West destination attraction with an annual attendance of 92,000 visitors from all over the world and an award- winning Web site that receives more than 10,000 visits per week.

These visitors find wildlife on the walls of the museum but also outside of its doors. The National Museum of Wildlife Art is housed in an architecturally significant and award-winning 51,000 square foot facility that overlooks the 28,000 acre National Elk Refuge and is adjacent to the Grand Teton National Park. The museum displays and interprets this wildlife art in one of the few remaining areas of the United States where native wildlife roams abundantly.

The works in the museum are united by their subject and their quality. The permanent collection of the National Museum of Wildlife Art has grown to more than 3,000 works by important historic American artists including Edward Hicks, Anna Hyatt Huntington, Charles M. Russell, William Merritt Chase, and Alexander Calder, as well as contemporary American artists Steve Kestrel, Bart Walter, Nancy Howe, John Nieto, Jamie Wyeth, and others.

The National Museum of Wildlife Art seeks to educate a diverse audience through collecting fine art focused on wildlife, presenting exceptional exhibitions, providing community, regional, national, and international outreach, and presenting extensive educational programming for adults and children. A national designation presents a great opportunity to use the invaluable resources of the National Museum of Wildlife Art to teach the Nation's school children, through on-site visits, traveling exhibits, classroom curriculum, on-line distance learning, and other educational initiatives.

I look forward to officially recognizing the renown of the National Museum of Wildlife Art through this bill.

Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today in support of the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr., to be an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. As a Senator, I have enjoyed the rare privilege of serving while the Senate considered two nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court in a short period. However, I am saddened to lose the knowledge and expertise of two experienced jurists from the Nation's High Court.

The nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Judge Alito have given us an opportunity to reevaluate the current relationship between the three branches of Government in comparison with the intentions of the Constitution. The evaluation shows that we have shifted into an era of judges who legislate. We must return to the elementary doctrines that recognize the important and distinct roles of each branch. Congress is elected by the public to represent them as legislators. Through voting, the public may reaffirm or replace office holders. There is no such check on federal judges. They are not elected by the public and they

should not use their positions to legislate.

In Judge Alito, President Bush has nominated a judge who recognizes the difference between his role and the congressional role. During his nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Alito shared his thoughts on the judicial role:

``The judiciary has to protect rights, and it should be vigorous in doing that, and it should be vigorous in enforcing the law and in interpreting the law . . . in accordance with what it really means and enforcing the law even if that's unpopular. But although the judiciary has a very important role to play, it's a limited role. . . . It should always be asking itself whether it is straying over the bounds, whether it's invading the authority of the legislature, for example, whether it is making policy judgments rather than interpreting the law. And that has to be a constant process of re-examination on the part of the judges.''

I have carefully reviewed Judge Alito's qualifications and watched the recently completed Senate confirmation hearing. The testimony provided by Judge Alito and the other witnesses underscore his commitment to the rule of law and a fair and impartial judiciary that interprets the law rather than legislates from the bench.

Judge Alito has an excellent judicial reputation as being highly intelligent and fairminded. He was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. In that capacity, Judge Alito argued 12 Supreme Court cases and at least 2 dozen court of appeals cases and handled at least 50 others. In 1990, President George H. Bush nominated Judge Alito to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and he was again confirmed unanimously by the U.S. Senate.

I believe Judge Alito knows the difference between benches and bills, Courts and Congress. His appointment will move the Court back closer to the brand of justice the Framers of our Constitution intended, and I intend to support him.

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Deficit Reduction and Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005.

The purpose of this bill is deficit reduction. We did it without taking anything away from students. In fact, we gave new money and a new program to college students. Let me summarize some of the things we did.

Academic Competitiveness and SMART grants: Creates new grant programs that award academic competitiveness grants and SMART grants to Pell- eligible students in an undergraduate program of study. Students in their first and second years may receive awards of $750 and $1300 respectively, provided they have completed a rigorous program of study at the secondary level. Undergraduate students in their third and fourth year may receive up to $4,000 in grant aid if they major in math, science, technology, engineering or critical foreign languages and make progress toward a degree. Students at both 2-year and 4-year academic colleges will be eligible for the academic competitiveness grants.

Increase loan limits: Increases loan limits for first- and second- year students to $3,500 and $4,500 respectively and increases graduate borrowing limits to $12,000 per year for unsubsidized loans. In addition, the bill permits graduate students to borrow PLUS loans.

Interest rates: Reduces the cap on student loan interest rates from where they are currently capped at 8.25 percent and stabilizes them at 6.8 percent. The interest rate on parent loans, currently capped at 9.0 percent, would be fixed at 8.5 percent.

Lender payment cap: Requires lenders to rebate to the Federal Government the difference between the borrower rate and the lender rate when the borrower rate exceeds the lender rate.

Reduction of work penalty: Reduces the work penalty by increasing the income protection allowance for students and encourages saving for college by reducing the percent of savings that are assessed.

Simplified needs analysis: Simplifies the application process for student aid by permitting students and families who are receiving means-tested assistance to file a shorter form and raises the ``auto- zero'' amount to $20,000 so that families with income levels below that amount are automatically determined to have zero expected family contribution.

Reduction of origination fees: Reduces origination fees charged to borrowers by 1 percentage point immediately and by half of a percentage point for each year beginning July 1, 2007, and continuing through July 1, 2010.

Distance learning: Eliminates the ``50 percent'' rules for institutions offering distance education programs. One 50 percent rule limits the percentage of courses offered through distance learning and the other rule limits the percent of an institution's students that may be enrolled in distance education courses.

School as Lender Program: Imposes a moratorium on the School as Lender Program effective April 1, 2006. To be grandfathered, schools must be making loans prior to or on April 1. In addition, the bill requires that the proceeds of the sale of loans, in addition to any interest and special allowance payments, must be used for need-based student assistance programs at the school. Limits expenses to reasonable administrative expenses.

Extension of loan foregiveness: Permanently extends teacher loan forgiveness up to $17,500 to math, science, and special education teachers in low-income schools. Private school teachers become eligible for loan foregiveness.

9.5 percent loans: Eliminates the recycling of 9.5 loans and extends the limitations already in effect under the Taxpayer-Teacher Protection Act. Provides a 5-year extension for the smallest of the non profit lenders.

Over the past year, I have worked to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. I worked closely with my colleague and good friend from Massachusetts to develop legislation that would provide students with access to postsecondary education, make it more affordable for students to get to college, and provide them with new opportunities.

In March of this year, the Senate adopted a budget resolution that included reconciliation instructions for several committees, including mine. The Senate HELP Committee was given a target that represented 40 percent of the total deficit reduction package. In conference, the Senate HELP Committee again was given the heaviest lift. We were given a target that made up an even higher percentage, saving $16.1 billion of the $39 billion total.

One of the principles that guided the committee's efforts to achieve the savings was ensuring that a significant portion of the savings would be used to provide student benefits. In September, the committee approved bipartisan legislation unanimously that included several provisions designed to help students, including $8 billion in need- based grant aid. Of that $8 billion, over $2 billion was targeted to encourage students in their junior and senior year to major in math, science, and critical foreign languages. In November, the Senate approved this program as part of the larger reconciliation bill.

While the conference report is less generous to students than what the Senate had agreed to, the reconciliation bill we are considering provides $10 billion in spending on student benefits. First among these, the bill creates a new academic competitiveness program that provides grant aid to low-income students. Students eligible for Pell grants are able to receive up to $700 in additional grant aid their first year of college, and $1,300 in their second year. Students majoring in math, science, and critical foreign language programs in their third and fourth years are eligible for up to $4,000 in additional grant aid.

This report dedicates $3.75 billion to grant aid for the next 5 years. This is an extraordinary commitment and a larger increase in grant aid than we have seen in the last 5 years under Pell or any other Federal student aid source. This is real money that will help today's students enter and succeed in college. It will also help support students in programs of study critical to our national security and economy and create a strong incentive for more students to enter these fields.

The $3.75 billion grant program is smaller than this body approved in November. This is a first step, and the first step is a critical step to take, but it is often the most difficult and misunderstood. I believe this is a good start, but we must continue to work toward what it takes to ensure this Nation's competitiveness. Access to postsecondary education is critical to this effort, and we cannot lose sight of the goal of a strong and competitive American economy.

The reconciliation conference report also includes provisions to reduce borrower origination fees in both major Federal student loan programs. Borrowers currently pay origination fees of up to 3 percent when they take out their loans. The conference report provides for the reduction of these fees, so that students will not pay more than 1 percent in either program.

These fees cost students millions of dollars every year, and they don't provide any benefit. They make college more expensive, and students typically end up paying interest on these fees for 10 years or longer. The reduction of these fees will save individual students hundreds of dollars over the life of their loans.

The bill allows current law to take effect on schedule, setting borrower interest rates at 6.8 percent. Many people have suggested that the 6.8 percent rate will cost students more over the life of their loans. They don't realize that this provision is already part of current law. Four years ago, when Congress approved the fixed interest rate for borrowers, students supported this change because they had paid interest rates of up to 8.25 percent for years. Now, after 4 years of historically low interest rates, the 6.8-percent fixed rate doesn't seem as attractive.

I want to point out, however, that current trends and projections don't support the conclusion that the 6.8 percent interest rate will cost students more in the long run. At each of the last 13 meetings, the Federal Reserve Board has voted to increase interest rates. The historic lows that interest rates have been set will not continue and will likely to continue to go up. The rate increases accounted for a nearly 2 percent increase in borrower interest rates in 1 year. By setting the student loan interest rate at a set rate

we will save future interest rate increases from effecting student lending. This is the same interest rate policy that passed the Senate HELP Committee unanimously.

Only 5 years ago, borrower interest rates exceeded 8 percent. At the current rate of increases, students would be paying more than 6.8 percent by July 1, 2006. That is before the next school year. In fact, they would be paying more than 7.3 percent if we had kept the current interest rate structure. The same can be said of the parent loan provisions. Parent loans are currently capped at 9 percent. At the current rate of increase, parent borrowers would be paying more than 8.5 percent by July 1, 2006. This is the same rate that passed the HELP Committee unanimously.

The bill that initially established the 6.8-percent fixed interest rate was passed by unanimous consent over 4 years ago. In September, the HELP Committee voted unanimously in support of these provisions. In October, the HELP Committee, with the support of five Democrats, voted again to allow the scheduled interest rate change to take effect.

The conference report also provides for increased loan limits for students. This has been criticized as a provision that will only encourage more students to take out increased loans. However, since 1994, many students have been taking out significantly more private loans to meet their education expenses. Many of these loans have interest rates of up to 18 percent or more. The difference between a $10,000 private loan at the 18-percent rate and a federally guaranteed loan at a rate of 6.8 percent would save a student almost $8,000 over the life of the loan. As the cost of college across the country has skyrocketed, this provision will help more students afford the increased cost of tuition and subsidize their interest, so they don't have to take out private high-interest student loans.

As I said earlier, this bill provides almost $10 billion in student benefits over 5 years and significantly more over the long term. At the same time, we have been able to additionally net more than $12 billion from Federal loan programs to make them operate more efficiently, which contributes to reducing the deficit.

While I am very disappointed that the conference report does not include broader-based grant aid to improve access to and persistence in postsecondary education, I am pleased that the report includes the grant funding that it does. These are funds that will benefit low- income students and will help our country and its economy to remain competitive by ensuring that tomorrow's workforce has the skills necessary to compete in the global economy. I will continue to work next year and in the coming years on legislation to further our goal to provide the opportunity for all Americans to go to college if they choose.

There were a number of provisions important to students included in the conference report provided to the Budget Committee that were stripped from the final language due to Senate procedural rules. Among these provisions was one that would have clarified the purpose of the new grant program. That section used to read: ``The purpose of this section is to increase the number of postsecondary students from low- income backgrounds who are enrolled in studies leading to baccalaureate degrees in physical, life, and computer sciences, mathematics, technology, engineering, and foreign languages critical to national security.'' This language was removed from the conference report because of potential conflicts with the ``Byrd rule.'' It is my hope that the Department of Education will consider this language when they promulgate the appropriate regulations on the administration of this program.

Another important provision that was stripped from the report was language to repeal the so-called single holder rule, which limits the ability of students to consolidate their loans with the lender of their choice. I hope the Senate will take action on this important issue quickly and permit students to take advantage of this additional flexibility.

I will continue to work toward the goals we held for the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. I hope that this process can continue in a bipartisan way, because ultimately, it is about students, it is about the economy, and it is about our national security.

With respect to pensions, the conference report also adjusted premiums payable to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, PBGC, and will save a total of $3.6 billion. These savings will be achieved by a series of increases to pension insurance premiums.

The per-person premium for single employer plans will rise from $19 to $30 and will be indexed; the per-person premium payable for multiemployer plans will rise from $2.60 to $8 and will be indexed; and a new premium will be charged against underfunded, terminated plans of $1,250 per person and will be payable for the first 3 years after the sponsor emerges from bankruptcy. This ``termination premium'' will apply to plans of sponsors whose parent company filed for protection under Chapter 11 after October 18, 2005. This increase in premiums payable by plan sponsors to the PBGC is long overdue. Single-employer premiums have not been increased since the early 1990s. This conference report marks the first instance in which multiemployer plan premiums have been increased since 1980. Now, all of the language in the pension part of this bill will be superceded when the full pension bills passed by the House and by the Senate are conferenced to one bill to provide full pension reform to protect the pensions of all hard-working Americans who were promised a defined benefit plan.

This bill meets the goal of deficit reduction, and it does so by taking the money from corporate windfalls, not students. It protects current student programs. It adds a new student grant program to the tune of $3.75 billion. Much of what is in the education part passed the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously. That means that Republicans and Democrats voted for it. We did not get all the money we wanted for students. We got more than they had before. We had to settle for some limitations--but limitations that will improve America's competitiveness. In legislation you seldom get all that you would like to have. We can be proud of what we have done for students--and for people on pensions.

Overall, the bill provides significant saving measures while at the same time providing billions of dollars in new student grant aid. In addition, this bill will help to stabilize our Nation's defined benefit pension system.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act, a bill that will level the playing field for all retailers--in-store, catalog, and online--so each retailer has the same sales tax collection responsibility. All retail sales should be treated equally. The bill will also help States begin to recover from years of budgetary shortfalls.

This bill is not a disguised attempt to increase taxes or put a new tax on the Internet. Consumers are already supposed to pay sales and use taxes in most States for purchases made over the phone, by mail, or via the Internet. Unfortunately, most consumers are unaware they are required to pay this use tax on purchases the retailer does not choose to collect sales tax on at the time of purchase.

That means consumers who buy products online are required to keep track of their purchases and then pay the outstanding use tax obligation on their State tax forms. This has proven to be unrealistic, but what is real is most people do not know this or do not comply with the requirement. As such, States are losing billions of dollars in annual revenue. This legislation will help both consumers and States by reducing the burden on consumers and providing a mechanism that will allow States to systematically and fairly collect the taxes already owed to them.

This bill is not about new taxes. Simply put, if Congress continues to allow remote sales taxes to go uncollected and electronic commerce continues to grow as predicted, other taxes--such as income or property taxes--will have to be increased to offset the lost revenue. I want to avoid that. That is why we need to implement a plan that will allow States to generate revenue using mechanisms already approved by their local leaders.

This bill is about economic growth. Sales and use taxes provide critical revenue to pay for our schools, our police officers, firefighters, road construction, and more. It will bring more money-- money that is already owed--into rural areas that are struggling economically. It will also help businesses comply with the complicated State sales tax systems. That means the business resources that have historically been spent on tax compliance could be used, among other things, to hire new people and buy new equipment.

This bill is about tax simplification. As the Supreme Court identified in the Quill versus North Dakota decision in 1992, the complicated State and local sales tax systems across this country have created an undue burden on sellers. The Quill decision stated that a multitude of complicated and diverse State sales tax rules made it too onerous to require retailers to collect sales taxes unless they had a physical presence in the State of the buyer. Local brick-and-mortar retailers collect sales taxes, while many online and catalog retailers are exempt from collecting the same taxes. This is not only fundamentally unfair to Main Street retailers, but it is costing States and localities billions in lost revenue.

The bill will help relieve this burden by requiring States to meet the simplification standards outlined in the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. Working with the business community, the States developed the Agreement to harmonize State sales tax rules, bring uniformity to definitions of items in the sales tax base, significantly reduce the paperwork burden

on retailers, and incorporate new technology to modernize many administrative procedures. This unprecedented Agreement will increase our Nation's economic efficiency and facilitate the growth of commerce by dramatically reducing red-tape and administrative burdens on all businesses and consumers. However, most importantly, the Agreement removes the liability for collection errors from the retailer and places it with the State. This historic Agreement was approved by 34 States and the District of Columbia on November 12, 2002.

The States have made tremendous progress in changing their State tax laws to become compliant with the Agreement. Already, 19 States have enacted legislation to change their tax laws and implement the requirements of the Agreement. On October 3, 2005, the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement became effective.

This bill requires States to implement and maintain these simplification measures before they can require any seller to collect and remit sales tax. The Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement includes dramatic simplification in almost every aspect of sales and use tax collection and administration, especially for the sellers who sell their products in more than one State. Areas of simplification include exemption processing, uniform definitions, State level administration of local taxes, a reduced number of sales tax rates, determining the appropriate tax rate, and reduced audit burdens for sellers using the State-certified technology.

While the States have made great progress, the Quill decision held that allowing States to require collection is an issue that, ``Congress may be better qualified to resolve, and one that it has the ultimate power to resolve.'' The States have acted. It is now time for Congress to provide States that enact the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement with the authority to require remote retailers to collect sales taxes just as Main Street retailers do today.

Congress needs to ``level the playing field'' for all retailers--in- store, catalog, and online--so each has the same sales tax collection responsibility. All retail sales should be treated equally. I believe Congressional action is needed to provide States that implement the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement with the authority to collect sales and use taxes from remote retailers. Adoption of the Agreement and Congressional authorization will provide a level playing field for brick and mortar and remote retailers.

Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and I have worked tirelessly to assist sellers and State and local governments to find true simplification in almost every aspect of sales and use tax collection and administration. I want to thank Senator Dorgan for working with me on this policy issue for so many years. We have been successful in moving this issue forward from discussing it at the Federal level with Members of Congress to the drafting of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement to approving the Governing Board this year to push forward with implementation.

For the past eleven months, Senator Dorgan and I have worked with all interested parties to try to find a mutually agreeable legislative package to introduce this year. Many hours have been dedicated in trying to find the right solution to address all concerns. I appreciate everyone's hard work on this piece of legislation and believe it is time to introduce the bill before the end of the year.

Senator Dorgan and I will be introducing two separate bills this year, but will continue to work with each other and all interested parties to find compromise on the outstanding policy issues of concern to the stakeholders. Some of the issues that will be further discussed include, but are not limited to, modifications to the small business exception language, inclusion of tribal governments language, and modifications to the language about transactional taxes on telecommunications services. Bill introduction does not stop us from negotiating and working together to improve the final product that should be enacted into public law. I look forward to working with Senator Dorgan and all interested parties to produce a compromise bill in 2006 that addresses all concerns raised over the past year.

The Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act provides States that implement the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement with the authority to collect sales or use taxes equally from all retailers. Adoption of the Agreement and Congressional authorization will provide a level playing field for brick and mortar and remote retailers.

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

Mr. President, I concur with what the Senator from Massachusetts just said. As the body will remember, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee had the heaviest lifting in the savings bill, and we met that requirement. We met that requirement while we provided for some grants for both low-income and people who would major in math and science and some special languages.

I would appreciate the support of this body on this instruction. I have been negotiating with the House for 5 full days, and this is one of the issues that is still up. This instruction would help us in that negotiation. I would appreciate the support.

Mr. President, I echo the disappointment of the leader and will make a couple comments on the debate we have already had. I know it is not in the leader's power to bring up a bill that is unamendable. It is possible for the leader--and the leader has made speeches in support of having the embryonic stem cell--to bring up a bill, but when it comes before the body, it can be amended any number of ways. So it is not possible for any leader to be able to give the guarantee that has been asked for today.

Another important part of this debate is that we don't just have the 100 Senators in this body agreeing that this is important, necessary, and immediate legislation; we also have the House agreeing that this is important, necessary, and immediate legislation. This is something for saving lives now. This isn't a big thing to go into the research area. This is treatment that is readily available.

We have preconferenced this bill already with the House, so it is not a matter of debate or discord between the House and the Senate. I am noticing at this time of the year that there is quite bit of that. There are more fights between the House and Senate than between the Republicans and Democrats. I hope we can get all of the debate resolved that we have before us. This is one that ought to only take a few minutes, and it could be done yet today and to the President for signature tomorrow because of the preconferencing we have done. That is unusual for a bill. If any one of the stem cell bills were able to be even unanimous consented within this body, we would be able to take it up as we have a number of bills, such as the pension bill, which was not easy. To have one come up with absolutely an up-or-down vote isn't going to happen around here.

I know we were looking forward to the debate. We expected it. Then a little thing called Katrina happened. The time we would have been debating that, we were debating lives in a little different manner, trying to come up with solutions. We still have some of those outstanding. Time for debate here is a very precious thing, particularly as we are winding up a session. I appreciate the leader saying he would definitely bring it up early next year. I know that is about as strong a commitment as anybody can make around this body.

While we are on this bill, I want to express my support for its passage, and I want to particularly commend Senator Hatch for his work on it. In fact, the base bill we worked with was Senator Hatch's bill. He brought a lot of us along with him on getting an understanding of what this does and what it could do, and he not only had the experience with the bill he submitted, but has been working on this in various stages for years. He has a tremendous body of knowledge he was willing to share and able to share. That is what brought everybody into the picture. He worked with Senators Burr, Ensign, Dodd, and Reed to develop the HELP Committee product that now also the House can support. I appreciate his efforts, as well as the others within the HELP Committee, to reach this delicate compromise.

I also thank my colleagues who were critical to legislation, which would be Senators Kennedy, Brownback, Kyl, and others. They played a significant role. Given that this is a preconference agreement with the House, I appreciate the work of Representative C.W. Bill Young and Chris John, Chairman Joe Barton, and others in the House who have worked with us to help develop this language, to take the contentiousness out, to get it to the point where it is now. One of the unfortunate things with preconferencing and unanimous consent is that without the wild debate on things, the media normally doesn't pick up when something significant happens around here.

This is one of those issues that is so critical, and we need to get it to the people who need it now. We ought not have a contentious debate just for the sake of getting the word out that we have done it. This is something the media ought to latch onto, if it gets completed, and help us get the word out that it has been done and get it into place.

The compromise we passed out of the HELP Committee in June recognizes the valuable contributions made by stem cells from both bone marrow and cord blood. This legislation establishes a sibling cord blood program in which qualified cord blood banks have the option of providing free collection and storage of cord blood units for families with an ill child or parent who could be treated with a cord blood transplant. In this way, we can ensure that sick children have the best possible chance to receive a closely matched transplant while still emphasizing the availability of private cord blood bank donations.

To make it easier for patients to have access to cord blood and bone marrow, this legislation also requires cord blood and bone marrow programs to collaborate in providing patient advocacy and case management services to patients. In this manner, patients can have access to single point of access to determine the best option for their transplant.

Additionally, this critical bill requires the Food and Drug Administration to provide a report on its progress in developing licensure requirements for cord blood units, given that such requirements will help improve the quality of units provided to patients nationwide.

Finally, I wish to mention a new outcomes database included within the legislation which provides the opportunity for the Health Resources and Services Administration and other researchers to examine the clinical benefit of a variety of these therapeutic products, including bone marrow and cord blood.

All of these critical changes will help improve the quality of care patients receive each day.

This week, I read about a little boy who benefited from a cord blood transplant. This little boy was born in December 1999.

Mr. President, thank you for the opportunity to continue. I know there are others who want to speak on this briefly, too.

I read about this boy who was born in December 1999. At age 1, he was diagnosed with a disease causing progressive damage to the brain and adrenal glands. Left untreated, it would lead to his eventual death. For this little boy, an unrelated cord blood or bone marrow transplant was the only known cure for his disease.

When he was just 2 years old, because of the disease progression, he received a cord blood transplant. Two years post-transplant, he is doing extremely well. He is a healthy, normal little boy. If you met him, you never would guess what he had been through and what awaited him without this transplant.

It is for this little boy and others that we are focusing on this critical legislation right now. Like others, I do think that it is important for us to discuss the broader issues of stem cells on the Senate floor. However, it is neither the time nor the place for such a debate. But we can help people now by passing this legislation which has broad bipartisan support. You can't get more bipartisan than 100 percent. So I urge my colleagues not to hold up this critical legislation until that other debate occurs. I urge my colleagues to think of this little boy and other little boys and adults and people in between who would benefit from cord blood or bone marrow transplants.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am pleased today to announce the introduction of legislation designed to improve our workplace health and safety. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, that I Chair, has a broad range of responsibilities. None of them is more important than the oversight of our occupational safety and health laws.

In the past decade or so we have witnessed steady progress toward safer and healthier workplaces. For example, in 1992, approximately 9 out of every 100 American workers suffered a workplace injury. By 2003, that injury rate had been cut nearly in half. Over the same period we have seen more than a 20 percent decline in the annual rate of fatalities from workplace injuries.

As encouraging as this progress is, however, it should not be cause for anyone to become complacent. The number of work-related deaths and injuries remains unacceptably high. For example, last year, despite the efforts of all concerned, some 4.4 million workers suffered work- related injuries, with 1.3 million of those injuries involving lost work days. Such workplace injuries continue to bring hardship to employees and their families and to impose significant burdens on our economy. We need to continue our efforts to improve workplace safety.

If we are to be successful in our efforts we must be prepared to cast aside old assumptions, be willing to embrace new ideas, and be candid enough to agree on some fundamental realities. First among these realities is that the overwhelming number of employers are concerned about the welfare of their employees and are fully prepared to comply with laws aimed at enhancing their safety on the job. The notion that employers care little about worker safety, or are prepared to sacrifice worker health in the pursuit of higher profits is a dangerously inaccurate myth. It is dangerous because it promotes and perpetuates an adversarial relationship between employers and government safety agencies at the very time that we need precisely the opposite. Cooperation, not confrontation is essential in making our workplaces safer.

It is fortunate that most employers want to do the right thing since without the cooperation of the employer community there is little realistic hope of continuing to improve workplace safety. That is the second fundamental reality we must accept. Where the vast majority of employers are committed to establishing and maintaining a safe workplace, it makes little sense to perpetuate a system built largely on a system of inspections and sanctions. Any system aimed at fostering workplace safety that relies principally on such measures is not only improperly focused; it cannot, as a practical matter, even hope to achieve its intended goal.

Simple mathematics makes it clear that we cannot inspect or sanction our way to greater job safety. Today, the total number of OSHA inspectors, including those employed by the states, as well as those employed by the Federal Government, is less than 2,400. Each of these individuals conducts an average of about 40 inspections a year. In other words, there will be less than 100,000 work sites inspected by State and Federal OSHA combined in any given year. At the present time, there are well over seven million worksites in the United States. At current inspection rates, we would need nearly 170,000 OSHA inspectors in order to inspect all U.S. work sites just once a year. In addition, since most industrial accidents occur in a split second, and since many are caused by unsafe acts rather than unsafe conditions, even an army of inspectors could not adequately address the issue.

It is my view that any practical approach to addressing the issue of workplace safety must recognize these realities and be designed to encourage and assist employers in achieving this end--not merely punish them for failing to do so. For these reasons, the legislation that I have introduced today contains a number of provisions designed to enhance voluntary compliance, and to provide technical assistance to the vast majority of employers that strive every day to ensure the health and safety of their employees. Thus, these bills contain provisions that encourage employers to engage the services of highly qualified third-party safety consultants to assist them in creating safer workplaces. The legislation also seeks to extend the benefits of such worthwhile initiatives as the current Voluntary Protection Plan to smaller employers; and it increases the level of government outreach and technical help to employers seeking assistance in making their workplaces safer. It also provides for increased training of OSHA personnel and fosters a greater understanding of specific workplace

safety issues through a unique cross- training and exchange program between OSHA and the business community. These last two initiatives are predicated on the common sense notion that the more we know and the more we collaborate toward a common goal, the more likely it is that we will achieve the desired result.

While I believe that the interests of workplace safety compel us to dramatically increase our efforts at encouraging voluntary compliance, we cannot be unmindful that the Occupational Safety and Health Act is a regulatory statute; and that, like all regulation, there are points at which the process becomes adversarial. I certainly believe there should be a less adversarial process, however, when it does occur I believe it needs to be fair and regular. In the regulatory context, the power and resources of the Federal Government can be overwhelming, particularly to small businesses. We need to make sure that the adversarial playing field is a level one, and that the legitimate expectations of fairness and regularity of process are adequately met. For this reason, the bills which I have introduced today contain a number of provisions aimed at ensuring this result. Thus, the bill provides for the recovery of attorney's fees by small businesses that prevail in litigation against the government in an OSHA claim, and codifies procedural flexibility and fairness in the issuance and processing of disputed claims. The legislation also recognizes that no one, least of all employees, are well served by lengthy delays in the resolution of contested claims by increasing the size of the Review Commission and making additional changes designed to insure the issuance of more timely decisions. The legislation also returns the Review Commission to the status of a fully independent adjudicatory body as envisioned in the original OSHA legislation by insuring that its decisions are accorded appropriate legal deference. The legislation also injects some much needed flexibility into the administration and enforcement of the statute by permitting the use of alternative, site-specific compliance methods, giving inspectors a degree of compliance discretion, and encouraging the prompt correction of certain non-serious violations.

In addition to these changes that are based upon procedural and regulatory fairness, the legislation also contains provisions designed to address the root cause of many industrial injuries, and others aimed at bringing a much-needed measure of simplicity and uniformity to our workplace safety laws.

In the first instance, for too long we have held the one-dimensional view that work conditions and employer practices are the principal, if not exclusive, factors in workplace safety. The reality is that unsafe individual behavior also has an extraordinary impact. For example, it is estimated that 47 percent of all serious workplace accidents, and 40 percent of all workplace fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. Some 38 to 50 percent of all workers' compensation claims are related to drug or alcohol abuse in the workplace. An industrial accident typically takes only a split second to occur. The safest conceivable conditions and systems can be rendered useless in that instant by an employee whose judgment or reactions are impaired.

Apart from substance abuse, we also cannot ignore the fact that any employer's safety policies and procedures can be rendered useless whenever someone breaks the rules.

If we are serious about workplace safety we have to understand that the employer is not the only factor in the equation. And, if we propose to achieve workplace safety solely by regulating employer conduct, then we fail to adequately address the entire issue. At a minimum, we need to provide employers some tools and encouragement to control the safety-related behavior of others. We cannot mandate that employers take disciplinary action against their employees who violate safety rules, but we can encourage them to enforce such rules appropriately and consistently. We likewise cannot compel employers to institute drug and alcohol testing programs, but we can remove the legal barriers to their doing so. Today's legislation, by codifying the third party misconduct defense, and authorizing the establishment of substance testing, provides exactly the type of tools and encouragement that are necessary.

It may be the employer's workplace, but workplace safety is everybody's job. We need laws that reflect the fact that a safer workplace is everybody's responsibility. For this reason today's legislation also contains a provision that allows OSHA to issue citations and impose limited fines on employees that violate rules and procedures regarding the use of company-supplied personal protective equipment. As noted, the authority here, although limited, is nonetheless intended to make clear the notion that safety is everybody's responsibility.

Lastly, our current law provides that employers must communicate workplace hazards to their employees. This is an important, and appropriate goal. ``Communication,'' however, requires the delivery of clear, and meaningful information to the recipient. Unfortunately, in many respects our hazard communication efforts have become so complicated that the complexity stands in the way of the original notion that employees need plain information about workplace hazards so that they can take adequate precautions to protect themselves. This process has become even more complicated by the globalization of our economy, and the fact that many hazardous substances routinely in use in our workplaces originate outside our borders. These are likewise realities that we must address, and that the legislation offered today does. Thus, the HazCom Simplification and Modernization Act that is a part of the legislative package introduced today provides for the simplification of current hazard communication standards and it creates a commission designed to review and make recommendations regarding the implementation of the global harmonization of chemical labeling, hazard communication and a variety of related issues. I am particularly proud of the fact that this bill is the product of considerable bi-partisan effort, and I am particularly pleased to have Senator Murray as its cosponsor. I am deeply grateful for all her efforts in bringing this legislation to this point.

It is my belief that the three bills introduced today reflect the correct and balanced approach to the goal of increased work place safety that all of us want to achieve.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased today to announce the introduction of legislation designed to improve our workplace health and safety. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, that I Chair, has a broad range of responsibilities. None of them is more important than the oversight of our occupational safety and health laws.

In the past decade or so we have witnessed steady progress toward safer and healthier workplaces. For example, in 1992, approximately 9 out of every 100 American workers suffered a workplace injury. By 2003, that injury rate had been cut nearly in half. Over the same period we have seen more than a 20 percent decline in the annual rate of fatalities from workplace injuries.

As encouraging as this progress is, however, it should not be cause for anyone to become complacent. The number of work-related deaths and injuries remains unacceptably high. For example, last year, despite the efforts of all concerned, some 4.4 million workers suffered work- related injuries, with 1.3 million of those injuries involving lost work days. Such workplace injuries continue to bring hardship to employees and their families and to impose significant burdens on our economy. We need to continue our efforts to improve workplace safety.

If we are to be successful in our efforts we must be prepared to cast aside old assumptions, be willing to embrace new ideas, and be candid enough to agree on some fundamental realities. First among these realities is that the overwhelming number of employers are concerned about the welfare of their employees and are fully prepared to comply with laws aimed at enhancing their safety on the job. The notion that employers care little about worker safety, or are prepared to sacrifice worker health in the pursuit of higher profits is a dangerously inaccurate myth. It is dangerous because it promotes and perpetuates an adversarial relationship between employers and government safety agencies at the very time that we need precisely the opposite. Cooperation, not confrontation is essential in making our workplaces safer.

It is fortunate that most employers want to do the right thing since without the cooperation of the employer community there is little realistic hope of continuing to improve workplace safety. That is the second fundamental reality we must accept. Where the vast majority of employers are committed to establishing and maintaining a safe workplace, it makes little sense to perpetuate a system built largely on a system of inspections and sanctions. Any system aimed at fostering workplace safety that relies principally on such measures is not only improperly focused; it cannot, as a practical matter, even hope to achieve its intended goal.

Simple mathematics makes it clear that we cannot inspect or sanction our way to greater job safety. Today, the total number of OSHA inspectors, including those employed by the states, as well as those employed by the Federal Government, is less than 2,400. Each of these individuals conducts an average of about 40 inspections a year. In other words, there will be less than 100,000 work sites inspected by State and Federal OSHA combined in any given year. At the present time, there are well over seven million worksites in the United States. At current inspection rates, we would need nearly 170,000 OSHA inspectors in order to inspect all U.S. work sites just once a year. In addition, since most industrial accidents occur in a split second, and since many are caused by unsafe acts rather than unsafe conditions, even an army of inspectors could not adequately address the issue.

It is my view that any practical approach to addressing the issue of workplace safety must recognize these realities and be designed to encourage and assist employers in achieving this end--not merely punish them for failing to do so. For these reasons, the legislation that I have introduced today contains a number of provisions designed to enhance voluntary compliance, and to provide technical assistance to the vast majority of employers that strive every day to ensure the health and safety of their employees. Thus, these bills contain provisions that encourage employers to engage the services of highly qualified third-party safety consultants to assist them in creating safer workplaces. The legislation also seeks to extend the benefits of such worthwhile initiatives as the current Voluntary Protection Plan to smaller employers; and it increases the level of government outreach and technical help to employers seeking assistance in making their workplaces safer. It also provides for increased training of OSHA personnel and fosters a greater understanding of specific workplace

safety issues through a unique cross- training and exchange program between OSHA and the business community. These last two initiatives are predicated on the common sense notion that the more we know and the more we collaborate toward a common goal, the more likely it is that we will achieve the desired result.

While I believe that the interests of workplace safety compel us to dramatically increase our efforts at encouraging voluntary compliance, we cannot be unmindful that the Occupational Safety and Health Act is a regulatory statute; and that, like all regulation, there are points at which the process becomes adversarial. I certainly believe there should be a less adversarial process, however, when it does occur I believe it needs to be fair and regular. In the regulatory context, the power and resources of the Federal Government can be overwhelming, particularly to small businesses. We need to make sure that the adversarial playing field is a level one, and that the legitimate expectations of fairness and regularity of process are adequately met. For this reason, the bills which I have introduced today contain a number of provisions aimed at ensuring this result. Thus, the bill provides for the recovery of attorney's fees by small businesses that prevail in litigation against the government in an OSHA claim, and codifies procedural flexibility and fairness in the issuance and processing of disputed claims. The legislation also recognizes that no one, least of all employees, are well served by lengthy delays in the resolution of contested claims by increasing the size of the Review Commission and making additional changes designed to insure the issuance of more timely decisions. The legislation also returns the Review Commission to the status of a fully independent adjudicatory body as envisioned in the original OSHA legislation by insuring that its decisions are accorded appropriate legal deference. The legislation also injects some much needed flexibility into the administration and enforcement of the statute by permitting the use of alternative, site-specific compliance methods, giving inspectors a degree of compliance discretion, and encouraging the prompt correction of certain non-serious violations.

In addition to these changes that are based upon procedural and regulatory fairness, the legislation also contains provisions designed to address the root cause of many industrial injuries, and others aimed at bringing a much-needed measure of simplicity and uniformity to our workplace safety laws.

In the first instance, for too long we have held the one-dimensional view that work conditions and employer practices are the principal, if not exclusive, factors in workplace safety. The reality is that unsafe individual behavior also has an extraordinary impact. For example, it is estimated that 47 percent of all serious workplace accidents, and 40 percent of all workplace fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. Some 38 to 50 percent of all workers' compensation claims are related to drug or alcohol abuse in the workplace. An industrial accident typically takes only a split second to occur. The safest conceivable conditions and systems can be rendered useless in that instant by an employee whose judgment or reactions are impaired.

Apart from substance abuse, we also cannot ignore the fact that any employer's safety policies and procedures can be rendered useless whenever someone breaks the rules.

If we are serious about workplace safety we have to understand that the employer is not the only factor in the equation. And, if we propose to achieve workplace safety solely by regulating employer conduct, then we fail to adequately address the entire issue. At a minimum, we need to provide employers some tools and encouragement to control the safety-related behavior of others. We cannot mandate that employers take disciplinary action against their employees who violate safety rules, but we can encourage them to enforce such rules appropriately and consistently. We likewise cannot compel employers to institute drug and alcohol testing programs, but we can remove the legal barriers to their doing so. Today's legislation, by codifying the third party misconduct defense, and authorizing the establishment of substance testing, provides exactly the type of tools and encouragement that are necessary.

It may be the employer's workplace, but workplace safety is everybody's job. We need laws that reflect the fact that a safer workplace is everybody's responsibility. For this reason today's legislation also contains a provision that allows OSHA to issue citations and impose limited fines on employees that violate rules and procedures regarding the use of company-supplied personal protective equipment. As noted, the authority here, although limited, is nonetheless intended to make clear the notion that safety is everybody's responsibility.

Lastly, our current law provides that employers must communicate workplace hazards to their employees. This is an important, and appropriate goal. ``Communication,'' however, requires the delivery of clear, and meaningful information to the recipient. Unfortunately, in many respects our hazard communication efforts have become so complicated that the complexity stands in the way of the original notion that employees need plain information about workplace hazards so that they can take adequate precautions to protect themselves. This process has become even more complicated by the globalization of our economy, and the fact that many hazardous substances routinely in use in our workplaces originate outside our borders. These are likewise realities that we must address, and that the legislation offered today does. Thus, the HazCom Simplification and Modernization Act that is a part of the legislative package introduced today provides for the simplification of current hazard communication standards and it creates a commission designed to review and make recommendations regarding the implementation of the global harmonization of chemical labeling, hazard communication and a variety of related issues. I am particularly proud of the fact that this bill is the product of considerable bi-partisan effort, and I am particularly pleased to have Senator Murray as its cosponsor. I am deeply grateful for all her efforts in bringing this legislation to this point.

It is my belief that the three bills introduced today reflect the correct and balanced approach to the goal of increased work place safety that all of us want to achieve.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a resolution that recognizes the 30th anniversary of the enactment of the predecessor to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, to commemorate its passage, commend its many authors, and suggest some actions we should take to protect, preserve, and advance its legacy as a vital component of our laws on education and civil rights.

On November 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, a landmark piece of legislation that reflected America's fundamental and continuing concern for education and human rights. This legislation reaffirmed the most basic values of our democracy by extending education and civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities. As we celebrate the anniversary of the IDEA's enactment, it is, like all anniversaries, an appropriate time to both recount the past and contemplate the future.

Before 1700, there was little toleration for anyone who was different. Persons with disabilities were often abused, condemned as incapable of being able to participate in social activities, and simply forgotten. In 1817, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, a teacher of individuals who are deaf, opened a school for people who are deaf in Connecticut. This was the first school in America designed to serve individuals with disabilities. In 1850, at a time when most caregivers believed that persons with disabilities needed to live in institutions apart from their families, a school for youth with cognitive disabilities was opened in Massachusetts.

In the late 1800s, the number of children with disabilities attending public schools increased dramatically due to education and child labor laws. Many public schools developed special education for children with disabilities, however, this usually involved creating separate classes. In 1899, Michigan was the first State to introduce these classes statewide, and by the 1920s, special education had become well established throughout the Nation.

For the next 50 years, special education took place mostly in isolated classrooms where children with disabilities seldom mixed with their nondisabled peers. It is against this backdrop that advocates in the disability community worked tirelessly to affect the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It is also against this backdrop that this Congress had the wisdom and understanding to fully comprehend the nature of the problem and the resolve and determination to act. Similar to May 17, 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court announced the Brown v. the Board of Education decision that ``separate educational facilities are inherently unequal'' with the signing of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, families, Congress, and the President believed that a segregated form of education for students with disabilities was inappropriate and narrowed what children with disabilities could learn and become in society.

As President Ford noted when he signed the Education for the Handicapped Act into law: ``Everyone can agree with the objective stated in the title of this bill--educating all handicapped children in our Nation.'' IDEA was advanced on the equally simple and equally compelling notion that segregation was not the answer and all people should have the opportunity to receive a free and appropriate public education. It is therefore fitting that we take a moment to remember all those men and women who worked with such purposefulness and passion to ensure that such a simple yet enduring value of our culture was properly reflected in our education laws.

Since the passage of the IDEA, we have seen significant improvements in the educational employment and economic well-being of citizens with disabilities. According to the Department of Education, IDEA currently serves almost 7 million schoolchildren, preschoolers, and infants and toddlers with disabilities along side their counterparts without disabilities. What was unheard of 30 years ago is now a reality for millions of students with disabilities across the Nation: a right to receiving a free and appropriate education in their neighborhood school. Because of IDEA and other similar laws, the education that students with disabilities are receiving is providing such individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in postsecondary environments, work, pay taxes, live independently, and pursue the American dream.

However, anniversaries are not just for looking back, and celebrating the achievements of the past. They must also be an occasion for looking forward in anticipation of the challenges that still lie before us. All involved should be proud of the accomplishments embodied in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, but no one should believe our work is done. Indeed, there is still more to do.

A report issued by the Institute for Higher Education Policy in 2004 focusing on the education level of students with disabilities in the United States contains some disturbing data. It notes that while 91 percent of the general adult population has a high school diploma, only 78 percent of adults with disabilities do. Even more disturbing is the fact that only 57 percent of youths with disabilities received standard high school diplomas. Although the 78 percent graduation rate represents a significantly higher rate than 15 years ago, it remains inadequate, and significantly behind the rate for individuals without disabilities.

The National Educational Longitudinal Study reported in 2000 that 73 percent of high school graduates with disabilities enrolled in some form of postsecondary education compared to 84 percent of their peers without disabilities. However, students with disabilities who were highly qualified academically enrolled in 4-year colleges at the same rate, 79 percent, as their peers without disabilities.

The lesson here is a simple one. When we believe in and have high expectations for all Americans, Americans with disabilities can compete at the same level as Americans without disabilities. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and possibilities available within the soon to be reauthorized Higher Education Act, we have the opportunity to make significant strides and further level the playing field. As elected officials, it is our responsibility to ensure that students, teachers, school systems, and teacher education programs are all held to high standards, improving the education levels, graduation rates, and postsecondary achievements of all students, including students with disabilities.

It is fitting that today, in this place, we recognize and celebrate the anniversary of legislation that says so much about who we are as a people and what we stand for as a nation when it comes to educating all of our citizens. It is the responsibility of those of us who follow to ensure that the brightness never fades, the promise of opportunity never wanes, and our rights to education, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness apply equally and fully to all Americans, including those with disabilities.

I move to reconsider the vote and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

Mr. President, I thank the leader for his kind comments but much more so for his diligent work and leadership on this issue. As the heart doctor of the Senate, and the doctor with a lot of heart, he understands the need for health information technology and worked in a very bipartisan way with Senator Clinton to come up with some of the precepts we have in this bill. Senator Kennedy and I were working on some other aspects of it. And we merged those two to come up with a much more comprehensive health IT bill.

This will make a huge difference in the country. A RAND study that was recently released said this will save about $162 billion a year in medical costs. In my opinion, that is not even going to be the biggest benefit. The biggest benefit is that it is going to allow medical data to move with the people as they move.

When they go to the doctor's office, they will not have to take that little clipboard and fill out whatever it is they can remember about their health. And it will not matter because a lot more information will be available to the doctor so he can make the right kinds of decisions and choices.

It will also benefit travelers. If a tourist is out on the road and has a wreck and has to see a doctor, they will have their information with them. They will have access to it so the doctor will know what medications they are on, even if they are in a coma, and can make sure they are taken care of properly. And yes, it will reduce medical errors and eliminate some adverse reactions from medications or even missed medications.

So this will make a huge difference to the people of this country. The difficulty with doing something by unanimous consent is that a lot of times people think there is not much to it, or if there wasn't much controversy, that nothing really happened. But there has been controversy that has been taken care of behind the scenes, where people got together and actually realized how important this was. So they worked together to come up with solutions, and came up with a truly bipartisan solution in this instance.

So it is almost too bad that it has to go through unanimous consent, that we cannot have some very heated debates on the floor so people will realize the intensity and the interest in the bill.

But there is not anything bad about the bill. This was a teamwork effort from both sides of the aisle. I appreciate the leader mentioning a number of the people who were involved in this bill. This is a truly monumental piece of legislation we just passed, and I add the encouragement to have the House act on it quickly.

Mr. President, I rise today to applaud the Senate passage of S. 1418, the Wired for Health Care Quality Act. As chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, I have been working 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.

Health IT allows medical data to move with people as they move. When they go to the doctor's office they won't have to take the clipboard and write down everything they can remember about themselves. This system also benefits travelers. If a tourist were to get in a car wreck or hurt in some other way, the doctor would be able to find out everything he or she needs to know. If in a coma this technology could save a person's life and if they happen to be on medications, it could prevent adverse drug reactions. This system could also cut down on medical errors with prescriptions--instead of deciphering the doctor's handwriting, the information could be given to the pharmacist electronically.

A RAND study recently released suggested that health IT has the potential to save $162 billion a year. In order for these savings to be realized, we must create an infrastructure for interoperability. S. 1418 is the first step in building that infrastructure.

Most folks agree that there are significant barriers to widespread adoption of interoperable health information technology. One of the primary barriers is the current lack of agreed-upon standards and common implementation guides and a certification process. This bill addresses those factors in a way that appropriately incorporates involvement of both the public and private sectors.

This legislation brings the government and the private sector together to make health care better, safer and more efficient by accelerating the widespread adoption of interoperable health information technology and quality measurement across our health care system. The legislation formalizes involvement of private entities in the standards and policy-setting process by directing the Secretary to establish and chair the public-private American Health Information Collaborative, which shall be composed of representatives of the public and private sectors. S. 1418 also codifies the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. President Bush, Secretary Leavitt, and Dr. Brailer have done a lot to advance the health IT infrastructure, and I am glad that Congress is finally stepping up to the plate.

In order to address the health information technology ``adoption gap'' in the United States, S. 1418 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. To maximize the Secretary of Health and Human Service's flexibility, the bill leaves to the discretion of the Secretary the allocation of the authorization among the three programs.

In addition, 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. For this reason, each grant program requires that each grant recipient acquire only qualified health information technology systems that are capable of supporting common technical standards adopted by the Federal Government.

Another barrier to widespread adoption of interoperable health information 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 to the widespread adoption of health information technology is to support teaching hospitals and continuing education programs 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 bill authorizes the Secretary to award demonstration grants to health professions centers and academic health centers to integrate health IT into clinical education in community settings.

The issue 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 thank all of my Senate colleagues for their support of this very 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.

I would like to commend various staff for the hard work they did in bringing this bill to fruition. First, I want to recognize my fine staff from the Senate HELP Committee, who have doggedly worked with many interested parties over many months--Stephen Northrup and Katy Barr. I would also like to recognize David Bowen from Senator Kennedy's office for his dedication to this legislation. Elizabeth Hall of Senator Frist's office did a good job providing leadership support throughout the process. I should also mention Andrea Palm from Senator Clinton's office and Michelle Spence with Senator Ensign's office for ensuring that the health care quality provisions stayed strong. Secondly, I want to recognize the work of the Senate Finance Committee and the complementary bill supporting improvements in health care quality in the Medicaid and Medicare programs that has contributed to our success today. Mark Hayes and Ted Totman from the Senate Finance Committee were very dedicated to seeing this bill pass. And finally, without the dedication and patience of Bill Baird of Senate Legislative Counsel, we would not have the bill that will pass here today.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the passage of 1418, the Wired for Health Care Quality Act. As chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, I have been working to improve the quality and reduce the cost of health care in this Nation. I commend the ranking member of my committee for his dedication to this great cause.

I want to commend my colleague from Maine, Senator Snowe, and my colleague from Michigan, Senator Stabenow, for their leadership on the issue of health information technology. They have made a major contribution to the debate, and I look forward to working with them as we continue to consider this important issue.

I see the legislation we consider today as the first step toward more effective use of information technology in health care. This proposal will provide the framework to improve the use of health IT. Senator Snowe and Senator Stabenow have several thoughtful proposals on providing additional financial incentives through Medicare for the use of health information technology.

Providing adequate funding for health IT is a critically important issue, and I believe that it should be carefully considered in our committee and by the Senate. I look forward to working with my colleagues on the committee and with Senator Snowe and Senator Stabenow to see that health IT receives an appropriate level of funding.

I also believe it is important to examine carefully the privacy protections that apply to individually identifiable health information maintained in electronic databases. The manager's amendment to S. 1418 contains several important provisions relating to privacy, including a GAO investigation on methods to enhance privacy protections for electronically stored and transmitted health information.

I believe it is important to examine the issues surrounding implementation and adoption of health IT systems carefully. To that end, I intend to hold a hearing by the Memorial Day recess next year on the essential issue of funding to promote wide adoption of health information technology. We will also examine the report of the GAO to address the critical issue of protections for the privacy of health information that must be part of health IT systems and practices. I will work closely with my colleagues, Senator Snowe and Senator Stabenow, as well as with the ranking member on this hearing.

I will also work with the Finance Committee, the committee with jurisdiction over Medicare, and with Senators Stabenow and Snowe on legislation to spur the widespread adoption of interoperable health information technology through such innovative financing mechanisms, and we will work to achieve passage of that legislation before the end of this Congress.

I happen to be an original sponsor of legislation in the Finance Committee to reward high-quality health care through value based purchasing under Medicare. By rewarding doctors and hospitals for the quality of care they provide, not just the quantity of care, we can improve health care quality in a fiscally responsible way.

I look forward to working with Senators Kennedy, Grassley, Baucus, Snowe, Stabenow, Frist, and Clinton on these important proposals, and I commend them for their leadership on this important field of health IT.

I see this bill as the first step of many in improving the health care in the United States. I look forward to working with my friends on the Finance Committee as well as

working with Senators Snowe and Stabenow to look at creative financing mechanisms to help doctors and hospitals go on line.

I object. We have the pension bill scheduled on a very tight time schedule.

OK.

Mr. President, this is a very exciting day. We are here to the debate on the pensions bill. Every day hard-working Americans go to their jobs, they are confident we here in Washington are looking out for them and doing everything we can to assure that they will be able to retire some day and live the life they have always dreamed about. For our Nation's older workers and those who have already retired, there are few things more important to them than the health of their pension plan and the protection it provides. It involves younger workers, too.

I am glad we are at this point. This may be one of the biggest bills that has ever been covered with as little debate as we will have today. Part of the reason for that is how detailed it is and how many moving parts there are. I congratulate all of the people who have worked on this bill and worked cooperatively, both sides of the aisle. We have even had some conversations with the other end of the building in order to be able to get it to this point at this time.

I particularly have to commend Senator Kennedy and his staff and my staff. August is normally a time when we are at recess and traveling our States, as I was and Senator Kennedy was. It is normally a time our staff can catch up on things. It was not. It was a time they were heavily involved in negotiations to come up with the best possible package for protecting the retirement of the people of this country, and they worked virtually around the clock during the entire month of August. Senator Kennedy and I were on the phone several times working out some of the big issues and trying to keep the focus on the direction it needed to go.

I also have to specifically congratulate Senator Isakson. He has been our coordinator with airlines on this whole thing, and had the airlines not had a crisis, I am not sure we would be here today debating pensions. It was enough of a focal point, enough of an impetus that it got us on the track of solving all of the pension issues, in all of the aspects, and I think we have a very complete reform package here.

Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention Senator Lott and Senator Coleman, who also were strong advocates on getting a solution for airlines so we would stop seeing the airlines go into bankruptcy over their pension problem. We have a team of them here today to add one more amendment that will make sure we will have airlines and to make sure that airline employees will have a solvent retirement package.

I also have to thank Senator DeWine and Senator Mikulski, the chairman and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Pensions on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. They held a number of hearings that set up the data so we would actually have information on which to base this pension reform. They have done a tremendous job, not just with the committee but also representing particularly people in manufacturing across this country who also have some very special problems at this point in time.

I would also mention Senators Stabenow and Senator Levin, who have a majority of those manufacturing workers. In fact, they probably represent more manufacturing workers than there are people in the whole State of Wyoming. But the team of people worked together and put together a bill for the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Senator Grassley and I, and the members of the Budget Committee, had an amendment in the budget bill that required that the HELP Committee and the Finance Committee merge a bill. I have to congratulate Senator Grassley and Senator Baucus for their tremendous work with the Finance Committee to put together a separate bill that covered all the jurisdictional areas of the Finance Committee, and then their effort with us to merge a bill, which is the bill that is here today.

I have to tell you there were a lot of people betting that, first, neither committee would be able to report a bill out of committee and, secondly, that we would never be able to merge the two bills. It has a lot to do with Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley and their staffs being extremely involved and working again in this detailed, ``many moving parts'' bill. That is the reason we are here today and have a rather comprehensive bill, and it is one that people have been scrutinizing and working on through all of the months of this year.

I think it is a tribute to all of the people who have worked on it that we have limited debate on S. 1783. Only two amendments are being offered, and then we will have a final vote. That is a lot of agreement for this body of 100 people who usually have a lot of disagreement.

I have some other comments, but I will make them later and allow people to get on with describing the actual workings of this bill to the point where we can do a final vote.

I yield to my neighbor from Montana.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland, Ms. Mikulski, for her tremendous work. She showed such tremendous concern for the workers and the companies, both of which are multiple in her State, and she did a great job of brokering for both to make sure the businesses would continue and the employees would get their pensions.

The Senator showed the depth of understanding that she already had and that she got from the hearings which were conducted. We appreciate the bipartisan way she has worked on this to get us to this point.

I yield to the Senator from Iowa.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Madam President, I yield to the Senator from Ohio.

I understand this has been cleared on both sides. I ask unanimous consent when all time is used or yielded back on the amendments and the underlying bill, the measure be temporarily set aside; provided further that at 2:30 today the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Akaka amendment, to be followed by a vote on passage of the bill, as amended, to be followed by a vote on the adoption of the conference report to accompany the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his comments and the outstanding way he summarized the principles we have been working on. It is a very good job, considering that this is a 730-page bill. He got into significant details. It has been the details that have been holding it up for literally years. You notice that nobody is speaking in opposition to this bill, so that means the bipartisan effort has paid off.

I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania for his diligent effort, particularly in the multiemployer area. He checked with us and gave suggestions several times a month during the process when we were putting together the HELP bill. That was extremely helpful, particularly since he was also on the Finance Committee which had some jurisdiction in this area. His coordination between the two committees was invaluable. His tenaciousness and base of knowledge on that issue were particularly helpful. I thank him for his efforts.

Reserving the right to object, we still have some time remaining on the bill, and there is a vote at 2:30. I guess I did not understand exactly the time being requested. It sounded like 35 minutes.

Then I would ask the remainder of the time until 2:30 go to this side of the aisle.

I was reserving in that time time for the Senator from Alaska to speak.

Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Texas.

I yield myself such time as I might consume. I thank the Senator from Texas for coming to the Chamber and making the comments on pensions, and I appreciate all the work she has done, particularly in the airline area. I don't think there is a single airline that doesn't fly into Texas. I appreciate all the concern she has shown over all the various issues. There are certainly a lot of them in this 730-page bill.

I also thank her for the comments on the other topics because, while the time today was supposed to be for debating the pension bill, I guess the disadvantage of having one that is as bipartisan as this and as much concern to all the employees and businesses of this country is that we didn't have that much opposition today. So people came in with other topics.

I want to address one of those that came up that disturbs me a little bit, and that is the comments about a Katrina Commission.

The Katrina disaster and the others that followed it were bigger than anything we had ever had in this country. I have to tell you that I think there is enough blame to go around on it. If people want to point fingers, it goes the whole circle. The biggest problem with it was we had never seen that many displaced people in one single disaster. There were a million people displaced in that disaster, and 200,000 was the previous record--not that those are the kinds of records we like to keep.

A couple of weeks before Katrina, there was a tornado in Wright, WY, 38 miles south of my hometown. I happened to be there at the time. I spent a lot of time in Wright seeing how the recovery went and seeing what FEMA did. I didn't have much of an idea what FEMA is supposed to do. It was kind of astounding to me. They are the group who comes in after the disaster. They are not the prevention group. They are the after-disaster folks. They come in and register all of the victims of the disaster. Then they help those victims get coordination to find every source of help they possibly can.

This disaster was a lot different than any of the ones before. A lot of times, when there is a disaster in one town and people are displaced from that town, they can move to their friends and relatives in the next town. But in this one, not only did their town get wiped out but the towns of their friends and neighbors and relations got wiped out as well; and so did the next town and the next town. They wound up moving to completely different States.

You can't see those boundaries of States when you drive down the road. There is usually a sign that says ``Welcome to Wyoming'' or Louisiana, whatever State it is. There isn't any physical line that is drawn, but in everybody's mind there is a tremendous mental barrier of crossing a State line and being in unfamiliar territory.

That happened in this instance, and States are saying those are residents of another State that we are supposed to take care of; people from another State are saying, I am not real comfortable being here, but I am here. What can you do to help me? It was even hard to locate people.

The size of the disaster was tremendous. I think I am in a position to complain about anybody complaining about how it all went because I am from the committee that proposed legislation and actually moved it through the Senate floor. I think the only legislation that has dealt with the Katrina disaster is student displacement, which we had in the deficit reduction bill. We have a health package we are working on, and we hope to be able to move it as well.

There are unprecedented problems with this. We have the opportunity for some unprecedented solutions. They are not the best solutions, but they are the best we can come up with on short notice.

Rather than trying to figure out whose fault it was, I think the whole country has a big problem with this ``whose fault it is.'' We have gotten to the point where, if we fall down, we wonder who caused that and who should pay. We want some kind of retribution for it. What we are doing with that is eliminating some personal responsibility. Everybody has to watch out for themselves and their neighbor and help get ready particularly for events they can see coming. I think people are going to be a lot more responsible on that in the future because of some of the things that happened. But to try to place blame doesn't do much except build divides. We are trying to bring people together.

That is what the pension bill is working to do--bring people together so they can have a secure future, so they can know what is going to happen with their savings and their pensions and how it all comes together. This bill does do that.

It is extremely complicated, with many moving parts. It is hard to have unanimous agreement on anything, but this is pretty close to that. It is because it solves a huge problem. Here again we could talk about what the blame is for the problem.

I actually want to talk a little bit about how we got to the point where there was a problem with pensions. I am not going to go into some of the

things mentioned before about how the negotiations went and drove up the amount of benefits people were receiving. Instead, I want to talk a little bit more about the core problem we have; that is, after September 11, 2001, the economy went in a little different direction than we had anticipated--in fact, drastically different than anticipated.

Two things happened at the same time: Both the interest rates and the stock market went down. Usually, when interest rates go down, the stock market goes up and people take their money out of the low-interest mechanisms and put it into the stock market which grows faster because there is more money coming in there, which is driving up the price of the stock. But after 2001, both the interest rates and stocks went down. There was no possibility of taking the money from the pension and hedging it anywhere, of moving it so they would have more income. So the income dropped drastically and investments dropped drastically. That put the companies in a position where those who had fully funded plans no longer had fully funded plans. It wasn't because they stopped putting money in or taking money out. It was because it didn't grow at the rate that had been anticipated before. That created a lot of problems. That is not to say there weren't some problems, but primarily the problem came from the stock market and the interest rates dropping at the same time. The good news is that interest rates, as far as pension plans--and some senior citizens' savings and other people's savings--the good news is the interest rate has been going up. That has not been a help to the stock market, but that has been a help to those people who have money in savings accounts. It has been a help to pensions because the annual statement that just came out by the PBGC for their fiscal year 2005 financial results show they actually had a net gain of almost $.5 billion for last year. That isn't because the PBGC was better. That is because firms were able to generate more revenue for their pension funds. There are a lot of things at work in this.

Another thing that was mentioned this morning that I want to clear up a little was a relationship people draw--the relationship between the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the savings-and-loan debacle. We have two different ways of paying out here. They are dramatically different. For one thing, when people have money that is ensured by the FDIC and a bank fails, people take their money now. It is an immediate crisis--to the total value of their ensured deposits. With the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, they are guaranteeing that people will get a portion with a cap of what they have coming in pension at the time they would have received it. It is long term. It isn't an immediate disbursal of whatever money they have in that account. It is a disbursal over time at the rate at which they would have received the pension, which would be the rest of their lifetime, as opposed to an immediate withdrawal like savings and loans.

We have another problem that is coming up here shortly. That is when the stock market and the interest rates both went down, they created a crisis. It was not a crisis of bad management as much as this difficulty with the stock market. Recognizing that crisis, we passed some legislation. But it was temporary legislation to allow for some recovery of the economy and the market and that sort of thing, to get things back in balance. That temporary piece of legislation runs out December 31 of this year. We need to have in place something that will continue to encourage the companies to put more into their pension funds, to add to the solvency of their pension funds, to bring them up to the level they are supposed to be, without putting them out of business. We need something that will fill in for these temporary rules that are running out, something that does the job, I hope, better.

We have had some time to review the whole situation and come up with this bipartisan solution.

One of the difficulties during this discussion was over an item called ``credit rating.'' There is a provision in the bill that calls for companies to have to put in considerably more money once they get a bad credit rating. I am counting on that being something we work on in conference committee. We all operated on a principle, and the principle we operated on was we want to know when a company is having difficulty, and we want to know it early. We want to have them make sure their pension for their employees is protected at the time the business starts to go bad.

That was the principle from the White House, that was the principle of the HELP Committee, that was the principle of the Finance Committee, and we tried to arrange a way to do that.

One of the things on the surface that looked like a good idea was credit rating. When they get a bad credit rating, it forces them to bring more solvency into their fund. The idea is once they get a bad credit rating, they cannot put more money in the fund. They are in a very bad situation when they are listed as a junk bond situation already. In fact, one of the difficulties with the credit rating is it is not done by people in the company or people in the Government. It is done by some other experts who look at what they have access to and make decisions about the company. Sometimes they probably get it extremely right, and sometimes they can get it wrong. But that doesn't matter. What matters is if a company gets rated at a junk bond status, they can virtually never get out of that. Why can't they get out of it? One reason is the person who analyzed the thing and who may have replaced a new employee is a little bit reluctant to sign his name to say this company is OK. It is the ``protect yourself'' kind of attitude. So you don't let them out of the junk bond status, which forces them to make the payments perhaps longer than they ought to have to at that rate, and in fact keeps them in junk bond status. It is a kind of cart-and-the-horse sort of situation--they keep getting one in front of the other and impeding the progress toward what we don't want.

What I am hoping we can do in the conference committee is to find another way that is not the credit rating way but a way that the company will realize and start to correct on this point where they were starting to go downhill, and then also be able to know when they have recovered so we don't force them into bankruptcy. We are asking people for solutions, and we have had a number of them suggested.

Again, I thank Senator DeWine for his efforts in this area. Senator DeWine and some of the folks--particularly some manufacturing companies that are involved in this kind of a situation, where some of them even have 100-percent funded plans, but they are in junk bond status. Consequently, even though their funds have a lot of funds, they get different requirements that will escalate the problem and not provide a solution.

That is one of the things particularly I am expecting we will take a look at when we get in conference committee. I think there is a way for all of us to come up with a solution that will work and meet that basic principle of locating companies when they begin to have trouble and make sure that as much solvency is put into the pension plans as possible.

I also will mention that in the deficit reduction bill we passed last week, there was a section that dealt with pensions. I want to reassure everybody that there is the clause in the deficit reduction bill that says if we pass the full pension bill--that means the House and the Senate actually conferring and coming to an agreement and getting a full pension bill signed--that what is in there will modify the pension.

Under deficit reduction, our hands were kind of tied on the options we have to meet the requirements of reconciliation. Under those requirements, all we could do was raise rates to the company. We had to do that considerably higher than we would have had to, had we some of the tools which we have under the full pension bill.

Now, there may still have to be some numbers tweaked on that to meet the requirement that we set for ourselves. We set in the budget a requirement we need to have a $6.6 billion deficit reduction on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. We needed to reduce potential outlays by the corporation so that it would be solvent or moved toward solvency.

I mentioned this tale that there is on pensions so there was not a need to

come up with $22 billion this year. It can be done over a period of years. In that deficit reduction bill, there is a paragraph that says if we pass a full bill, the full bill takes precedence over the deficit reduction package, so it will not be nearly as much of an increase for the company using that as if we went with the deficit reduction.

I thank everyone for the cooperation we had on the deficit reduction part and in coming up with that.

I want to add my words to Senators Kennedy and Mikulski as they challenge the House to get their bill done. Getting our bill done by itself does not complete the process. It requires that the Senate and the House pass a bill that is the same which means they have to hurry and pass one; we have to conference it and, hopefully, have this done when we come back shortly in December. If not, very quickly after the first of the year. As I mentioned, December 31st is the expiration of the previous formulas.

I need to thank and commend a few people. This has been a lot more complicated and a lot more difficult than the discussion today might seem to indicate. The reason we have had as little discussion and as little opposition today is because people put in a lot of hours to understand what was going on and focusing on principles so we could arrive at a solution for pensions. I commend the work of the staff on this bill. Particularly, I commend my HELP Committee staff. Katherine McGuire is the director of the committee and did an outstanding job of juggling multiple interests and bills. Somebody suggested that we were not a committee, we were a bill factory. If you look at the work that has come out of the committee under Katherine's direction and the cooperation of both sides--near unanimous consent on almost every bill--we have had a very productive year. This bill is one of those indications.

When the President listed his top 10 priorities, my committee had 21 of them. That is largely because in the HELP area he listed one priority, and that turned out to be 16 bills in my committee. We are progressing through those, as well. We are hoping to be able to come up with lower cost health care but with better quality and access. That is a major challenge of this country. We have had double-digit inflation on health care for years. I have a lot of faith in the committee and in staff in what we have been able to do so far.

I also commend Diann Howland and David Thompson. These are my two experts in this area of pensions. I mention that one of them had a lot of experience on the Committee on Finance staff and one of them had a lot of experience on the HELP Committee staff. It was fortuitous we brought these people together with this expertise and have them on the same side working to both come up with the ideas and merge the bill. They probably have, combined, about 20 years' worth of experience on this bill alone.

I congratulate Gregg Dean, who brings the banking knowledge to the debate, and Amy Angelier, who brings the budget expertise to it. Ilyse Schuman does an outstanding job with the legal work we have to do on the bill. I also commend Portia Wu, Holly Fechner, and Terry Holloway of Senator Kennedy's staff; John O'Neill of Senator Grassley's Committee on Finance staff; Judy Miller and Stuart Sirkin from Senator Baucus's staff. We all owe our thanks to Jim Fransen and Stacy Kern of the Legislative Counsel's Office, who drafted numerous versions of this bill and all of its predecessors. A very special thank you is owed to the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation for their advice and guidance. The staff of the Joint Tax includes Carolyn Smith, Patricia McDermott, Nikole Flax, and Allison Wielobob. Last, but not least, I thank Karla Carpenter of Senator DeWine's subcommittee for her diligence and Ellen-Marie Whelan and Ben Olinsky of Senator Mikulski's staff for all of their hard work. That subcommittee did an absolutely marvelous job.

The way we have our subcommittees set up is pretty much along the lines of the title of our bill. We have some spectacular subcommittee chairmen and ranking members who are out there working on projects. That is the only reason we are able to produce as many bills with as much bipartisanship as we have done.

I also thank Glee Smith, Mike Quiello, and Ed Egee of Senator Isakson's staff for their fine work on this airline amendment.

We are about at the point where we will vote on the amendment. I express my opposition to the amendment because I don't think it is fair to the other people who would be getting pensions. I appreciate Senator Akaka's tremendous effort to try and find a solution for pilots. But as we find the solution, we have to be sure we are finding the solution for everyone. I ask Members to vote against that amendment and for the pension bill as a whole.

I have some remaining time, and I am happy to yield some to the Senator from Massachusetts, who has been absolutely wonderful to work with on this issue. He has tremendous institutional memory on this and has worked on parts of this problem for years. There were numerous times I went to him and asked: What would you do in this situation? And he told me. I think we found that the shortest distance between two points is a straight answer. We have been able to come up with some answers together and I appreciate that cooperation.

I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

I yield myself a couple of minutes. I thank Senator Kennedy for his outstanding charts and summary of what we are about to do. I thank Senator Baucus for the outstanding work he has done in dealing with this issue this morning and on the Committee on Finance. I thank Senator Grassley. It has been great teamwork to get to this point. I am looking forward to the vote we have in about 2 minutes.

I yield a minute to Senator Baucus and then a minute to Senator Akaka so he can summarize his amendment.

Mr. President, I allot myself some time in opposition to the amendment. I appreciate Senator Akaka proposing the amendment, but I have to rise in opposition to it for a number of reasons. The biggest reason is the amendment changes how the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation calculates benefits for any one class of workers, which would be airline pilots. It is unfortunate that so many airlines have gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy and so many pilots have seen reductions in their pensions. Flight attendants and ground workers also deserve our attention, not just pilots. This carveout for pilots, who are some of the most highly paid professionals in our country, is unfair to other workers who also retire early but happen to have devoted their work lives to other positions in the industry.

Pilots are not the only workers who have expectations of subsidized early retirements. Many machinists, steelworkers, and autoworkers have early retirement benefits which are reduced under the ERISA guarantees. A retiree from any one of these industries has the same complaint as a pilot when his or her company goes bankrupt and dumps its pension plan on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The steelworker or the auto parts maker has less notice that a problem could arise if the company went broke. Pilots know, when they start their careers, that they will not work past age 60 and pilots can plan accordingly.

The shortfall confronting pilots of bankrupt companies is not the result of a change in law. The limit on the PBGC guarantee has been on the books for years. Commercial airline pilots who are universally unionized have negotiated over these benefits with their airlines. The fact they retire at age 60 is factored into the structure of their plans. Pilots know they will likely stop flying before reaching normal retirement age of 65. That is why they negotiate rich retirement benefits on top of their high salaries.

It is too harsh to suggest that they in any way assumed the risk that their plans would fail, but it is well known that pilots are some of the most cautious and savvy investors. Risk is something they always anticipate.

On the merits, therefore, the Akaka amendment is unfair to other similarly situated workers and overlooks the fact that they have been before the parties for many years.

But, more important, this amendment at this time is kind of the ultimate non sequitur. This amendment on this legislation just does not follow. It does not fit. The Akaka amendment actually increases the deficit of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation on a bill designed to save the agency from insolvency.

The PBGC estimates that if this provision were applied just to the United Airlines pilots plan, the unfunded guaranteed benefits in the plan would increase by more than $400 million. Additionally, if United pilots would cost $400 million, the cost to the PBGC for all pilots plans would probably exceed $1 billion. Ultimately, the cost is not borne by the PBGC, nor is it borne by the U.S. taxpayers. I hope my colleagues are well aware by now that the full faith and credit of the United States does not stand behind the PBGC. The additional $1 billion in new debt that the Akaka amendment would impose on the PBGC would be borne by all the other companies that sponsor and fund defined benefit pension plans. In this bill, we are already increasing the burden on those companies by about $4 billion through new premiums. Adding another $1 billion in debt is unfair and irresponsible, so I urge my colleagues to oppose the Akaka amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds.

Mr. President, I made a grave error. I mentioned the tremendous juggling job that Katherine McGuire, my committee director, has done, but I failed to mention Michael Myers, who is the staff director for Senator Kennedy, who has been part of the juggling act on all of these bills as well, and has done a fantastic job. I apologize for that grave oversight and do want to thank him for his efforts.

I yield the floor and yield back any time.

Mr. President, the calculation of lump sum distributions has been hotly debated. Some have been worried that the bill would shortchange participants in their lump-sum distributions. That is not the case. In fact, this bill has been very careful to avoid the problems that occurred after the enactment of the pension reforms on the GATT in 1994.

Under S. 1783, it is intended that plans may use different assumptions--that is, interest rates and or mortality tables--to determine lump sum distribution amounts so long as the plan provides that a participant's lump sum distribution amount is no less than the present value determined in accordance with the requirements of the bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the next two votes be limited to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.