Floor Statements

Mr. President, first, I wish to concentrate a little bit on some of the comments I heard during the 3\1/2\ hours I chaired last night.

A lot has been made of this number, 168 to 4. But you cannot compare district court judges with circuit court nominations. Instead, you should look at the situation for what it is, an attempt to obstruct the confirmation of circuit court judges.

Since January 2003, President Bush has nominated a total of 29 circuit court judges. Of those judges, only 12, or 41 percent, have been confirmed. Of the remaining 17, my colleagues across the aisle have obstructed or threatened to obstruct 11 qualified and talented judges. In other words, almost 50 percent of the circuit judges ready to come to the floor for confirmation have been held up by the Democratic side for political purposes.

Last night I heard this 98-percent factor, and I heard it said that if my child came home with a test and he got 98 percent, I should congratulate him and work hard to get the other 2 percent.

I will tell you what ought to happen if your kid comes home with only 50 percent, and that is what we are talking about when we are talking about circuit court judges, we are talking about failure of the system, a total breakdown of the system.

You have to look at the concentration that there is on the circuit court. That is because those circuit court folks could become Supreme Court Justices. And Lordy, we don't want to pass any who might make it to that.

Every day the Senate is in session we begin with a prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance. I know my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are firmly committed to this country, and that as we say the words of the pledge, like me, they mean every word of it and they honestly pledge their alliance to the flag and to this Nation. But I have to wonder if they haven't forgotten the meaning of all of the words in the pledge, especially when I hear them put forward the argument that we do not need to vote on all the judicial nominees because we have already voted on most of them.

The last six words in the Pledge of Allegiance, ``with liberty and justice for all,'' mean we do not preserve justice or liberty for just a few people or for most of the people and leave a few or even an individual behind. It means we have justice for all, for everyone. That is 100 percent. We pledge that and we don't make exceptions because we have a high percentage of success.

In fact, this is one of the situations that the courts were created to protect: the rights of the individual. I think it is a little ironic that there are those in the Senate who would be willing to withhold justice and rights from some, in this case four highly qualified individuals, and the cases they could be hearing, if they were confirmed.

That is justice being denied as well. That is justice only for a few, or maybe most, but not all--just because the individuals don't have the same political philosophy as those across the aisle.

While it may be true--the percentage of judges we have voted on--when you are the one who is left out and are not allowed justice, that is 100 percent of your life--the one who is being affected, and 100 percent of justice that is being denied as an individual.

I think this is wrong. I sincerely hope we move off this obstructionism and have an up-or-down vote on the highly qualified individuals with talent, experience, and integrity, and who could be considered as the ideal we want in all judges.

I think everybody knows about the qualifications.

The comments made last night are what we are seeing here for the first time--a change in the way we do judges. The problem with it is it probably will continue and at some point there will be a reversal of roles. We will spiral down and down until we are not approving judges. It won't be 2 percent counting all of the district judges and not doing the true statistics on just the circuit court judges. It will not be approving a majority of them.

I have to tell you, I have been through that spiral once before. When I first got here, there was a judge nominated. She would only sentence a person to 90 days in jail who had raped a minor because she didn't like the rehabilitation system of the prisons in her State. I was appalled by it. In our State, there are a lot of people who would think that maybe he should have been shot. He raped a minor.

I put a hold on that person so we could have a debate instead of a unanimous consent. I eventually got the debate.

I had an unrelated piece of property that some people had been paying taxes on for 70 years which they had bought from the BLM but the title had never changed. It took an act of Congress to change the title. Because I put that hold on, it took me 3 years to get that piece of property transferred to the people. Do you know what those people said? They appreciated what I had done on that judge.

But I have to tell you that unless an up-or-down vote happens on that judge, that is the way it is supposed to be.

It was exactly 200 years ago, in 1803, that the Supreme Court and our Nation's judicial system went through its first and most dramatic change since it was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. This change occurred when then Chief Justice John Marshall issued his decision in the landmark case, Marbury vs. Madison. In that decision

Marshall established the responsibility of the Federal court to review the constitutionality of congressional actions. His action brought the courts out of almost obscurity, seen as the weakest and most timid of the three branches of government, and gave it a prominence and power that is not equaled by any other court system in the history of the world.

Before Justice Marshall was appointed to the court in 1801 the court seemed to lack direction. There was no clear idea of purpose or vision about whether or not the court could consider itself to be an important entity. The very first Supreme Court Session was held in New York City in 1790. It was almost postponed when only three of the original six justices arrived for the court's opening session. The court had to wait and put off doing business until a fourth justice arrived and they had enough judges to constitute a quorum.

Justice Marshall himself did not initially consider the court to be a prominent institution. At the time of his appointment to the court, he was also serving as Secretary of State for President John Adams and he had turned down an earlier appointment to the court in order to run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. After President Adams finally talked him into serving as Chief Justice of the court, Justice Marshall served as both Chief Justice and Secretary of State for 2 months because he felt it wasn't worth giving up the position of Secretary of State to serve on the Supreme Court.

Over the next 34 years Justice Marshall reinvented the court and provided the leadership it needed to assume the prominent role it plays in our court system today.

One has to wonder what Justice Marshall would think about what is going on in the Senate today. Would he agree with my colleagues across the aisle that it is all right to put partisan politics and partisan bickering ahead of the rights of judicial nominees if those impacted are just a small fraction of society. Would he agree with them that justice denied for a few was acceptable? Or would he hold true to the basic tenets of the Constitution that all men are created equal and that everyone has the right to their day in court?

A lot has been made about the numbers 168 to 4. You really can't compare district court judges with circuit court nominations. Instead we should look at this situation for what it really is, an attempt to obstruct the confirmation of circuit court judges. Since January 2003 President Bush has nominated a total of 29 circuit court judges. Of those judges only 12 or 41 percent have been confirmed. Of the remaining 17, my colleagues across the aisle have obstructed or threatened to obstruct 11 qualified and talented judges, or in other words, almost 50 percent of the circuit court judges ready to come to the floor for confirmation have been held up by the Democrats for political purposes.

Every day that the Senate is in session we begin with a word of prayer and with the Pledge of Allegiance. I know that my colleagues, on both sides of the aisle, are firmly committed to this country and that, as they say the words of the Pledge, like me, they mean every word of it and that they honestly pledge their allegiance to the flag and to this Nation. But I have to wonder if they haven't forgotten the meaning of all the words in the pledge, especially when I hear them put forward the argument that we do not need to vote on all of our judicial nominees because we have already voted on some or most of them. The last six words in the Pledge of Allegiance, ``with liberty and justice for all,'' mean that we do not preserve justice or liberty for a few people, or for most of the people, and leave a few, or even an individual, behind. It means we have justice for all, for everyone, 100 percent and that we don't make exceptions because we have a high percentage of success.

In fact, this is one of the situations that the courts were created to protect, the rights of the individual. I think it is a little ironic that there are those here in the Senate that would be willing to withhold justice and rights from some, in this case four highly qualified individuals, and would not extend justice to all, just because those individuals don't have the same political philosophy.

While it may be true that the percentages of judges that have been voted on is high, when you are the one that is left out and are not allowed justice, that is 100 percent of your life that is being affected and 100 percent of justice that is being denied you as an individual.

I think this is wrong, and I sincerely hope we move off this obstructionism and have an up or down vote on these highly qualified individuals, whose talents, experience and integrity can easily be considered the ideal for what we want in judges.

We often talk about the ideal in our debates in the Senate. We hold up a picture of what things should look like and how things should be done in the hopes that someday, we can move our Nation forward to the point where the ideal is, more often than not, reality. One of those ideals that has been presented is a world where our judges and our courts are more representative of America. Our courts have often been accused of being elitist. The Bush Administration has been working hard to change that image by making sure our judges are more diverse. By nominating people like Miguel Estrada, Carolyn Kuhl, Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, William Pryor, and Charles Pickering, President Bush has set an example of the ideal by selecting people from different backgrounds, with different styles, who share the same passion and enthusiasm for the law.

The list of judges that is before the Senate represents a group of candidates who are well educated, fully talented, and well qualified for the posts for which they have been nominated. Unfortunately, for some, this list also represents the unfairness of the system--a system which, in theory, guarantees each nominee a vote--but--in practice, can be used to deny a nominee a vote.

So here we are, well down the road, holding a list of candidates that still haven't received a vote. In spite of all their qualifications and the personal integrity they have shown throughout the process, these judges have been forced to wait as the Senate decides whether or not we can simply hold an up or down vote on them. Why? It's pretty clear to just about everyone. Because these are good nominees and in a fair and just world, they'd win the vote hands down. Therefore, the only way to avoid having these candidates confirmed is to deny them their constitutional right to an up or down vote.

What is most tragic about this situation is that these delays have not come without cost. These nominees aren't the only ones who are being denied their rights. Let's not forget the other victims in this situation who have been denied their right to a fair and impartial judicial process because there are not enough judges to hear all their cases. The real victims of these delays are not the nominees, or the Bush administration, or even the Republican Party. No, the real victims are the people whose rights have been denied to accommodate some increased partisan bickering.

There is a saying ``Justice delayed is justice denied.'' We make people with very real needs and very real issues wait while we try to score a few points in the game of politics. We drag out their court costs, their attorney's fees, and delay their restitution and damage payments all because we want to get one up on the other party.

We have a crisis in our courts that we can solve today. I urge my colleagues to step up to the plate and become a part of the solution. I urge them not to accept the belief that justice for some is sufficient. I urge them to allow the Senate to conduct its constitutional duty and hold an up or down vote on these judges. If you don't agree with them, or feel they are not qualified, then vote against them. That is your prerogative and duty as a Senator. But do not continue to deny justice for the nominees or the courts any longer.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Joe Laird from my staff be allowed on the floor for the duration of this hour of debate.

Mr. President, the signs are all around us. They can be seen in the economic reports in the papers, in the economic forecasts that are discussed on the weekend talk shows, and in reports on the job market. It all adds up to some good news for the people of this Nation--the economy is getting stronger.

It hasn't happened overnight, of course. By taking action to lay the groundwork for our economic recovery, we have ensured the presence of more capital in our economy which has already started to lead to the creation of more jobs. There are telling signs that the labor market is on the mend. The economy gained 126,000 jobs in October--almost twice the market forecast of 65,000.

Now we will take the next step. With the passage of the Workforce Investment Act Amendments of 2003, we lay the groundwork for helping millions of Americans get back to work or find new or better jobs through training and employment assistance.

It is very clear that the face of our Nation's economy is changing. The kind of jobs that are available now--and will be in the future--are different from those that were highly valued a few years, or even months, ago. Last month, for instance, there was significant job growth in the professional, educational and health related services sectors. The manufacturing sector, however, continued to lose jobs. To keep the American dream within the grasp of all Americans, we will have to deal with the changing face of our economy. To do that we must ensure that job seekers have the skills they need for the new economy. We must also bring together workforce supply and demand to ensure that our businesses have the skilled employees they need to compete in a more global economy.

That is why this legislation is so very important. Workforce development is a powerful economic development tool. This legislation builds upon the successes of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 while addressing its shortcomings. In so doing, this bill will improve the lives of millions of our workers, and increase the strength of our businesses and communities.

This legislation that I introduced along with Senators Kennedy, Gregg, and Murray is the product of an extensive bipartisan effort. It reflects significant input from the Department of Labor and Department of Education, as well as major stakeholders in job training, adult education, and vocational rehabilitation.

The workforce investment system may be fairly new, but we've already learned a great deal about its strengths and weaknesses. These lessons reinforce what I learned as a small business owner in Wyoming:

Real opportunity in America comes from the small business

sector; economic development and workforce development go

hand in hand; rural areas face unique workforce development

challenges; Washington cannot--and should not--determine

state, local and individual workforce needs; and, overly

burdensome administrative requirements divert resources from

serving customers.

Our bill improves upon the existing One-Stop Career Center delivery system to ensure that it can respond quickly and effectively to the changing needs of employers and workers in the new economy. Doing so will provide the 21st century workforce with the skills they will need for career opportunities in high-growth sectors. Our bill removes barriers in the law that have discouraged business involvement in workforce training, particularly small businesses. Our bill also removes barriers to access to services created by distance in many rural and frontier areas like Wyoming. This legislation will leverage technology to improve access to employment and training services in all areas of the country.

This legislation will also help keep the American dream within the grasp of men and women alike by ensuring that men and women have access to jobs, education, and training that will lead to comparable pay.

Some States and localities have found creative ways to overcome the challenges imposed by current law. Wyoming has done a magnificent job with the resources they have been allotted, and I commend their ingenuity. With this legislation, we will give Wyoming and the other States and localities the tools they need to help the unemployed or underemployed find new or better jobs.

I want to thank Senator Kennedy, Senator Gregg, Senator Murray and the rest of my colleagues on the committee for all their work on this bipartisan bill. I also want to thank the Department of Labor and Department of Education for their assistance. I look forward to getting this bill into conference and quickly enacting this vital legislation.

I would also like to thank the staff on both sides of the aisle who worked on this bill--Ilyse Schuman, Scott Fleming, Annie White, Lindsay Loulien, Tracy Locklin, Jane Oates, Bill Kamela, Sherry Kaiman and all the other HELP Committee staff who worked so hard to make this possible. I would also like to extend a special thank you to Denise Dendy, the Committee's Editor.

This legislation builds a bridge between the jobs of yesterday and the jobs of tomorrow. The bridge is a workforce investment system that is flexible, innovative, and responsive to the needs of employers--both large and small. At the other end of the bridge is the American dream, and good, solid careers for our Nation's workers.

Mr. President, I thank the leadership on both sides of the aisle for bringing this bill to fruition at this point in time. I thank Senator Gregg for allowing me to work this issue through to this point. I thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Murray for their

tremendous effort and willingness to work toward the goal of getting more people in the workforce and eliminating some of the disparity between men's and women's wages. It has been a tremendous effort. This is normally a very controversial bill, but through some very steady effort over many months, we have come to this point. I thank everybody. I will have additional comments.

Mr. President, I rise to join the chorus of support for this amendment and to thank Senator Daschle for all his efforts on its behalf. Since I got to the Senate, Senator Daschle and I have been working on something I call the packer concentration. It is big business in this country that takes on the small producers of this country and beats them to a pulp.

When I first got here, I was a little leery about whether that happened. I am now firmly convinced and know it happens because of the way the lobbyists come in and grind on any of these bills we pass.

We did pass in the Senate country-of-origin labeling. It is part of the law right now. The USDA is supposed to be working toward putting that into place. But the packer concentration has worked on their friends in the USDA and said we have to make this so tough that nobody will want to do it. It will run up the costs so much that nobody will want to pay for it. That is kind of the status we were in for a while.

We have been making a little progress on it as it got closer to having a rule published. Now we have the chance to send the instructions, it is a sense of the Senate, to send the instructions to the conference committee to say that what we did before ought to move on. We are not changing the law. We are suggesting that it ought to continue so we can get a clearer definition of what is really happening so we can make sure that country-of-origin labeling happens for our producers and our consumers and to make sure it does not run up high costs.

At present, the Senate bill on appropriations is silent on country- of-origin labeling, effectively allowing it to be implemented as the law intended by September 2004.

The position of the House on this issue is much different, however. The House has stripped funding for the implementation of country-of- origin labeling for meat and meat products in their version of this legislation. The action of the House cannot go unchallenged by the Senate, which is why Senators Daschle and Thomas and Johnson and I are introducing this amendment today.

I have discussed this matter with my colleagues and it has become clear that there is need for education regarding country-of-origin labeling. Many of them were not here for the farm bill debate. For those who were, the issue

of country-of-origin labeling may not be familiar because it was not debated on the Senate floor. Country-of-origin labeling was included in the bill by way of an Agriculture Committee vote, and the final details of the law were worked out during a conference with the House.

Country of origin labeling is relevant for agricultural producers and consumers alike. In fact, the country of origin labeling law is based on the Consumer Right-to-Know Act of 2001, which I cosponsored. The law requires the U.S. Department of Agriculture to put in place a system for U.S. retailers to inform their customers when they buy beef, lamb, pork or other perishable agricultural commodities as to what country that product originated.

Food labeling can help increase consumer confidence by assuring consumers they are making informed and knowledgeable decisions about the products they buy. Consumers should know if the meat they are bringing home to feed their families has been produced here, or if it was imported from a country that may have fewer environmental, health and safety regulations on livestock production. The Consumer Federation of America and the National Consumers League advocate country of origin labeling and demonstrate consumer support for the program.

Producers support country of origin labeling too. On October 9, 132 producer and consumer groups from across the nation sent a letter to Senators indicating their support for country of origin labeling funding and my amendment. The letter was signed by groups such as the National Farmers Union, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Counties, and the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association. They know that country of origin labeling will be a shot in the arm for agricultural producers because it will add value to American-grown food.

In the case of meat, the law intends for retailers to designate a product as having a U.S. country of origin only if the meat is from an animal that was born, raised and slaughtered in the United States. For beef alone, a recent study by the University of Florida indicated that a consumer's willingness to pay additional money for labeled beef is estimated to be worth $3.5 billion.

That is $3.5 billion of additional sales. Right now a lot of people think that a USDA stamp means the beef was grown in the United States-- not true. Opponents claim that today's beef prices are higher than they have been in recent memory. True. They claim the country-of-origin labeling is unnecessary. Wrong. I hate to break it to them, but prices are high because the Canadian border is closed. Packers have been forced to rely more heavily on U.S. products. Without country-of-origin labeling, the packers will switch to the flood of Canadian beef that will pass through our border as soon as it opens. If country-of-origin labeling is implemented, consumers will know if packers have chosen to pass up U.S. beef for Canadian beef.

Opponents refuse to recognize the benefits country-of-origin labeling has for both producers and consumers. That is how we have reached our current position and seen funding for the implementation of country-of- origin labeling stripped from the House bill.

Those who perpetrated this action in the House claim that they need more time to consider the ramifications of country-of-origin labeling. Time is one thing that the debate surrounding country-of-origin labeling has had. This issue was debated in the years before its inclusion in the farm bill. Since the law was passed, 2 years were granted for rulemaking to ensure its thorough implementation. During that time, opponents of country-of-origin labeling have waged a campaign to frighten and bully those who stand to benefit from its proper implementation. Livestock producers have been told that they will be saddled with tremendous burdens that aren't even mandated by the law.

The move to strip funding in the House bill did not arise as a noble gesture to protect producers by giving more time and thought to implementation, it is a covert attempt to gut and rescind country of origin labeling. Removing funding for implementation did not improve the process, it stopped the process cold. For those who have genuine concerns regarding the implementation of country of origin labeling, the answer is not to put off implementing the law, but to implement it properly.

Our conferees should not accept the House position. Instead, we should continue to fund the program. As we continue to receive genuine concerns, we should fund implementation and allow those concerns to be brought to the USDA where they will be addressed. We have a process for stopping the whole thing if it is not addressed. This is the legitimate way to solve problems, as opposed to avoiding them. In fact, this approach has already been successful.

On Monday, the USDA released their proposed rule for the mandatory country-of-origin label program. The process is working. The rule is not what it should be. It is time for people of this country to comment on that rule. I am sure you will hear comments about how difficult the rule is. But that is why we have a rulemaking process--so people can give their input. Then we can see if the Department of Agriculture follows that input. If they don't, we, in oversight, can stop the process. We shouldn't stop the process before it gets started. The process is working.

Since coming out with the voluntary rule, the USDA has responded to the concerns of industry and produced a better product than they were talking about originally. It is important to keep the regulations simple for producers and retailers. In the case of livestock producers, they do not even produce a product that is covered by the law.

Muscle cuts and ground meat products are covered but live animals are not. In addition, regulations should be simple for the retailer because they are the only recipient of information from the supplier. They don't produce the information.

The proposed rule addresses some of the liability concerns raised by retailers by clarifying that retailers will not be liable for the accuracy of information provided to them by suppliers. That is where they get their meat. In addition, rather than requiring stores to maintain the records they used to establish country of origin for 2 years, local grocery stores only have to maintain those records for 7 days after the product's sale. There are still areas of concern that need to be addressed, but the 60 day comment period before the final rule gives everyone an opportunity to improve it. That is what we ought to be doing.

The USDA included a cost benefit analysis in the proposed rule. Within that analysis is a breakdown their expected impacts to specific portions of the production chain. I was encouraged to see that the relative impact for producers was minimal. Even the USDA acknowledged that the cost for producers will be modest and primarily for recordkeeping. The USDA estimates that the cost per producer will be between $180 and $443. Unfortunately, the information is meaningless because it is based on an average per producer. Producers range largely in the size of their operations. The information that will assist producers understand the potential impact of the rule is the cost per product, or per head in my State. It is clear that the cost would be lower than $180 for someone with only a few head of cattle. The USDA did indicate that the rule should not have a disproportionate or larger impact on smaller producers.

I was pleased to see that the USDA had shifted down from their original $2 billion estimate for record keeping costs to $582 million. Although still high, this shift agrees with what I have been saying all along. The USDA's original cost estimate for record keeping was inflated and unsupported. The outrageous cost was based on an assumption that the an hour of recordkeeping for the producer was worth $25. My producers would love to have that cost for their recordkeeping time. It also assumed that an hour spent by retailers on recordkeeping was worth $50. Again, retailers would like to get $50 on that. I am sure that some ranchers and grocery store owners in Wyoming would love to be paid what the USDA thought 1 hour of recordkeeping was worth. In their proposed rule, the USDA admits that these are unsupported numbers and significantly scaled down the total recordkeeping costs. I think they will be scaled down considerably.

However, the USDA indicates that the total cost for implementation could range from $582 million to $3.9 billion. I am concerned with the $3.3 billion gap in these numbers. I think that takes away from the credibility. This is a proposed rule and the ultimate cost will depend entirely on its implementation. If the USDA takes comments of industry and producer into account, the implementation costs will be on the lower end of the estimate, or lower than the estimate, just like the case of the recordkeeping costs.

Finally, the USDA reports a potential for staggering costs but fails to recognize the benefits and potential for increased sales in their analysis. As I said earlier, a study has indicated that labeling beef as to its country of origin will increase consumer eagerness to pay for a product they prefer by a total of as much as $3.5 billion. The USDA did not accept this and other studies on the benefits of country-of- origin labeling and they did not conduct their own benefit analysis. They were unable to quantify the benefit using their own information so they did not include any benefit in their study. However, failure to study something does not mean it does not exist.

Even allowing for no benefit, the USDA stated a 1 to 5 percent increase in consumer demand would offset the costs to the economy of country-of-origin labeling. That is a powerful statement. Even a minimal increase in market share will cover the cost of the program.

Again, the key to the success of this program is how it is implemented. We are at the stage of the rules being published, the 60 days of comment. We still have a chance to make a difference on the rules and bring the costs down and simplify them for the producer and retailer. It is for this reason my colleagues and I are proposing the amendment today.

The Senate supports country-of-origin labeling. For those Senators who have concern with country-of-origin labeling, defunding the program is not an effective way to deal with those concerns. Our amendment states it is the sense of the Senate that conferees on the part of the Senate on this bill shall insist that no limits on the use of funds to enforce country-of-origin labeling for meat or meat products be included in the conference report. If my colleagues support country-of- origin labeling, they should vote for this amendment. If some of my colleagues have concerns about the implementation of country-of-origin labeling, they should vote for my amendment and ensure that USDA has the funding available to improve the rule. We passed the law and now we must remain vigilant to be sure it is implemented properly.

As I mentioned, even if your State is not a producer of meat and meat products, worry about your consumers so that they know from where their meat product came. I urge my colleagues to help me do that by passing this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Utah, the distinguished chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, for his leadership in bringing this important spending bill to the floor. Wyoming is greatly impacted by this bill, and Senator Bennett's leadership is very much appreciated. Because of this tremendous impact on Wyoming, I would like to ask my colleague if he would join me in a colloquy to discuss one of the programs that is funded in his bill. Specifically, I would like to discuss the Department of Agriculture's Conservation Technical Assistance Program that is administered through the Natural Resources Conservation Service and its potential impact on land management planning on private lands within the U.S. Forest Service's Thunder Basin National Grasslands.

I would like to share one example of an effort in Wyoming that has already benefited from this program and which I feel could greatly benefit in the future from its continued participation. Three years ago I met with officials from the Thunder Basin Prairie Ecosystem Association, the Department of Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to discuss the role that private landowners could play in developing land management plans on Western National Grasslands. The Landowners Association presented a revolutionary proposal to combine the talent and resources of all local landowners to develop an Ecosystem Assessment and to enter into a series of Ecosystem Management Strategy and Conservation Agreements with the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that would integrate a comprehensive, multispecies land management proposal for more than 260,000 acres of Federal and private lands within the U.S. Forest Service's Thunder Basin National Grasslands.

Their proposal was to first establish a scientific baseline where they cataloged what was on the land and what species existed. Then they proposed to use that baseline to make ecosystem-wide management decisions that would make the land as a whole more vibrant and more sustainable for a number of species, including the black-tailed prairie dog, the black footed ferret and the sage grouse. What they would not do was make management plans based on the presence or absence of any one specific species or to pit different species' habitat requirements against each other. Their goal was to make the land healthier as a whole so that all species would be better off.

As a result of their efforts the Department of Interior was able to provide an initial grant to the Association through the Landowner's Incentive Program of $150,000 that allowed them to assemble an advisory committee made up of national grasslands experts that has helped them develop scientific research and monitoring protocols that are now being used to establish baseline information on area wildlife and ecosystem concerns. In fiscal year 2003, we funded this program at $175,000 which allowed the association to continue its monitoring efforts and to host a symposium in Wyoming on cooperative land use efforts. These funds, however, fell short of what the association was hoping to accomplish and their 5-year goals have been pushed back due to this lack of funding.

I would like to see this group funded again in fiscal year 2004 to ensure that their efforts have not been wasted. It would be most effective, however, if the association was funded at $582,000 out of the Conservation Technical Assistance at NRCS so the group could get back on track and complete its planning process on schedule.

I ask my colleague if he has any thoughts on whether or not we could recommend funding this program through the NRCS?

I thank my colleague for his thoughts and once again express my appreciation for his leadership in these important issues. I thank the chair for the opportunity to discuss this program.

control of geese in the state of new york

Madam President, I rise to oppose this issue.

I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Wall Street Journal that explains how small firms are potentially affected by this amendment, a way that small firms have had for hedging so they could stay in business in markets that fluctuate dramatically so they could keep a level price for consumers and still make a profit, be printed in the Record.

I know this is a glaze-the-eyes-over issue. It is hard for me to understand. It is probably hard for me to be able to spell derivatives, let alone understand paragraphs A, B, C, D, G, or whatever they were.

This amendment has come up twice before. We voted it down twice before. There have been some changes to pick up a little bit more of a majority. As the letter read by the Senator from Idaho pointed out, the industries that were excluded in this have not bit into it yet. They understand it is a slippery slope and they will come back up and pick them up.

The SEC has brought action against these companies. If Sarbanes-Oxley had been in place a year before the time that it was, we would not have had any problem. There are protections out there. So let's not take this advantage away from the small businesses.

The proponents of the amendment believe that the trading of derivatives, especially in the energy area, were the cause of the energy problems faced by western States in recent years. Specifically, the proponents believe that energy trading of derivatives by Enron contributed significantly to the energy problems.

Unfortunately, the problems that caused Enron to fail were based upon failures in corporate governance and outright fraud. Ironically, we are addressing this amendment after we celebrated the 1-year anniversary of the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley act in July. If that act had been in place earlier, the problems of Enron, and companies like Enron, would have been discovered by the independent directors and effective auditors required by the law.

Proponents of the amendment also would have us believe that Federal regulators do not have enough power and authority to seek out and punish the wrong doers. That is simply not true. Three Federal agencies have brought enforcement actions as a result of the activities of Enron and companies like Enron and the Department of Justice has instituted investigations into the matter.

Two weeks after we defeated the amendment in June, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued two ``broad show cause'' orders to over 60 power trading companies that are alleged to have engaged in manipulative practices that disrupted the western energy markets in 2000 and 2001.

In addition, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission documented administrative and criminal actions of the energy trading industry in the agency's, ``Report on Energy Investigations'' that was released on April 9 of this year.

Finally, in late July, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled enforcement proceedings in the amount of $255 million against two investment banks that conspired with Enron to commit fraud. This is not the first action by the Securities and Exchange Commission in this area. In total, the Securities and Exchange Commission has brought six separate actions in connection with the Enron matter.

In addition, the Federal agencies are not sitting idle. In particular, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has regulatory initiatives to provide greater clarity and transparency to the energy markets.

It is abundantly clear that the Federal agencies are acting where appropriate and are using their full authority to pursue those who commit fraud on the energy and securities markets.

During the debates on the June 11 amendment, the President's working group, which is comprised of the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, the Chairman of the SEC, and the Chairman of the CFTC, sent a letter to opposed the amendment. In the letter, the working group stated that the June 11 amendment ``could have significant unintended consequences for an extremely important risk management market--serving businesses, financial institutions, and investors throughout the U.S. economy.''

On July 16, Chairman Greenspan testified before the Senate Banking Committee on the state of monetary policy. In response to question posed at the hearing, he reiterated his opposition to the amendment.

As I stated on June 11, as we debated this amendment before, I believe that the amendment is overly broad and if adopted will likely decrease market liquidity because of increased legal and transactional uncertainties. In addition, I am suspect of this amendment as it includes a carve-out for the metals industries. Congress should be very cautious about carve-outs as it may start out to be a slippery slope where the initial carve-out is for the metals industry. The next move will be to exempt other industries until there are enough votes to pass an amendment--then the process well reverse to pick up the exemptions.

Instead of cutting the throats of particularly small companies, this will be the death by a thousand small slices. Derivatives are protecting hedging for small companies and it works. Evidence of small business use of energy financial products on energy issues can be seen in the November 3 article of the Wall Street Journal entitled, ``Small Firms are turning to Financial Futures for Fuel.'' I also would like to acknowledge the financial services industries opposition to this amendment.

For every reaction Congress tends to have an overreaction. I believe that this is the case here. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission already oversees market manipulation concerns with the energy trading markets. The pursuit of a new broad-based regulatory scheme for the oversight of energy trading may be an unnecessary addition to the market.

Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to vote against this particular amendment as they have voted it down twice before.

Mr. President, the bill we have before the Senate, the National Consumer Credit Reporting System Improvement Act of 2003, is clearly a bipartisan effort recognizing that our credit system has truly developed into a national market. The bill will provide consumers with greater tools to improve the accuracy and correctness of information contained in their credit reports as well as to provide important tools for consumers in combating identity theft. This bill is a very proconsumer bill and goes a long way towards enhancing consumer protections in our credit markets.

When the Fair Credit Reporting Act was first adopted in 1970, consumers spending had reached 566 billion dollars. At the time, that was quite an outstanding figure. By 2002, that figure had risen to over $7 trillion.

In just this past decade alone, we have seen tremendous growth in the availability of credit. Much of this can be attributed to the technological advances in the way consumers can apply for credit, the review of credit applications by financial institutions, and the development of new and unique financial products. The incredible growth in the availability of credit in the housing, consumer, and small business markets is a testament to our financial markets. Accordingly, it also is a symbol of the national structure of our credit markets. I believe that this bill will further enhance the credit markets and provide significant consumer protections.

Two areas that I would like to focus on are financial literacy and identity theft.

With respect to financial literacy, I have witnessed how financial literacy programs can make a difference for individuals who wish to, but never thought they could, purchase a home. In Wyoming, I have worked with a consortium of financial institutions, real estate professionals, colleges and universities, and non-profits to provide compressed video classes on how to buy a home. These classes have proven to be vital in reaching home-buyers and families in the rural areas of the State. To date, more than 4,000 families and individuals have taken part in the classes. The great success of this program has demonstrated to me the power that we can give to individuals and families over their finances if we gave them the tools.

In addition, I also worked with consumer credit counseling services that helped over-extended individuals and families to rearrange their life and breakout of debt. Credible advice makes a difference for financial power.

The Federal Government has a vast variety of financial literacy and education programs for Americans of all ages. Unfortunately, consumers have to struggle through the many Federal agencies' programs and initiatives to find the right financial literacy material for their needs. Title V of this bill will provide a one-stop-shop for consumers to reach the many, various financial literacy programs that the Federal Government provides. In addition, the Title will help bring consistency and focus to the Federal Government's overall financial literacy goals--something that does not appear apparent at this time.

Title V is built upon the successful model of the Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee in that it would being the appropriate Federal agencies together to review and evaluate current financial literacy programs by the Federal Government. The Financial Literacy and Education Commission will make recommendations on how to coordinate and improve existing programs as well as how to reduce redundant and duplicative programs. I believe that the long-term cost savings to the Federal Government as a result of this review will be great. In addition, the commission will set forth a national strategy recommending changes to the President and Congress on how the Federal agencies can improve their financial literacy efforts.

I thank Chairman Shelby for incorporating the bipartisan effort to promote financial literacy as Title V of the bill. In addition, I thank Senators Sarbanes and Stabenow as well as the other members who supported this effort.

With respect to identity theft, the FTC recently released a study showing that more than 27.3 million consumers have been a victim of identity theft in the past five years and that the number is growing quickly. A little more than a month ago, one of my own staff became a victim of this crime. As you know, Senator Cantwell and I have introduced identity theft legislation to

help victims to recover their identities, that legislation passed the Senate last Congress.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is the fastest growing crime facing consumers today. Victims are faced with potential financial ruin when their identities, bank accounts, and credit histories are taken away from them by unscrupulous criminals.

Unfortunately, many victims face an uphill battle to restore their identities. In addition, Federal and local law enforcement officials are placed at a disadvantage by not having all of the available information to discover identity theft rings or patterns of id theft criminals.

I believe that the provisions in the bill before us take a great step in helping the victims of this crime recover as well as providing proactive tools to help consumers prevent their identities from being stolen. In addition, the bill will give greater significant to the Identity Theft Affidavit and to the collection of information to combat identity theft crimes.

The National Consumer Credit Reporting System Improvement Act of 2003 is one of the most important pieces of consumer legislation that we have seen in years. It is truly a bipartisan bill that will enhance the fundamental structure of our credit markets as well as providing consumers with the necessary tools to use the credit markets and to protect against identity theft. I urge my colleagues to pass quickly this very important piece of legislation.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Shelby and Senator Sarbanes for their work. They have put in a lot of time working through different changes in this to make it not only more acceptable but more useful. We appreciate that.

I also want to give special mention to Senator Cantwell, the Senator from Washington, for her perseverance, for her tenaciousness, for her innovation, and for her flexibility. She did a marvelous job of working on this bill. It is extremely important to the Nation.

This is an extremely critical part of fair credit.

In today's world of digital transactions and online living, nobody is safe from the fastest growing crime in America known as identity theft. Last year alone, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that nearly 10 million Americans were victims of this crime, and each paid an average of $500 in order to repair the damage done by fraudsters and credit abusers. To these millions of American families, $500 means mortgages, car payments, student loans, child support, groceries. In the larger context, $500 per victim means American families and businesses lost more than $50 billion in recovery costs in 2003 alone. That is a $50 billion drag on our economy--an economy that is just starting to bounce back. With the number of identity theft cases increasing at an alarming rate, the economic costs will be even higher next year.

As such, I rise today in support of an amendment that will make it easier for victims of identity theft to recover both economically and emotionally from this devastating crime. This amendment is based on a bill my colleague from Washington and I introduced in both 2002 and 2003. Even though the bill passed unanimously last Congress, we have made a number of changes that I believe greatly improve the legislation. I firmly believe this amendment will provide consumers with the right information and businesses with the right safeguards to facilitate quick and cost effective recovery from identity theft.

This amendment will allow victims to work with businesses to obtain information related to cases of identity theft so they can start reversing the lasting and damaging effects of this crime. In drafting this legislation we have worked with all of the stakeholders to ensure that the needs of both consumers and the needs of small businesses, banks and other credit agencies were addressed.

Our amendment provides consumers with the right to ask businesses for records relating to a transaction evidencing identity theft. Businesses, in return, have the right to ask for specific kinds of identity verification and clear proof that the individual asking for the information is, in fact, a victim and not another fraudster. Also important to note, our amendment does not require businesses, to keep new records or seek out information not in their control. It simply requires businesses to share current records with consumers who can prove they have been victims of identity theft.

I am confident that we have drafted careful legislation that will truly help victims of identity theft recover from this terrible and expensive crime. I commend my colleagues on the Banking Committee who have worked closely with us to make the numerous improvements to this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support it.

In summary, the Federal Trade Commission estimated that nearly 10 million Americans were victims of identification crime and that each paid an average of $500 in order to repair the damage done by the fraudsters and credit abusers. That is $50 billion that is taken out of our economy each year.

This amendment is based on a bill my colleague from Washington and I introduced in 2002 and in 2003. Even though the bill passed unanimously the last time, we have made a number of changes that I believe greatly improve the legislation.

I firmly believe this amendment will provide consumers with the right information and businesses with the right safeguards to facilitate quick and cost-effective recovery from identity theft.

This amendment allows the victims to work with businesses to obtain information related to cases of identity theft so they can start reversing the damaging effect of the crime.

In drafting this legislation, we worked with all of the stakeholders. Our amendment provides consumers with the right to ask businesses for records relating to the transaction. Businesses, in return, have the right to ask for specific kinds of identity verification and clear proof that the individual asking for the information is in fact the victim and not another fraudster.

It is also important to note our amendment does not require businesses to keep records or seek out information not in their control. It simply requires businesses to share current records with consumers who can prove they have been victims of identity theft. I think this will help consumers in a tremendous way.

I appreciate the work Senator Cantwell has put in on this amendment. This $50 billion drag on the economy can be solved and will be appreciated by consumers.

I thank my colleagues for supporting it and Senators Sarbanes and Shelby for statements on the bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, anyone who has picked up a copy of this legislation and read it has to be forgiven if he or she was soon reminded of the words of Yogi Berra, ``It's deja vu all over again.''

After all, it is not as if this topic is unfamiliar to us. When the debate first began on the Kyoto talks, the U.S. Senate made a clear and direct statement of principle on the subject. We drew a line that was not to be crossed by the president and his negotiators in their effort to reach an international climate change agreement. By a vote of 95 to 0 the Senate passed Senate Resolution 98, also known as the Byrd-Hagel resolution, that sent a clear message to the world that the Senate would not support any climate change agreement that did not include all nations equally. We also said we would not support an agreement that would cause serious harm to our economy.

We crafted our message to the administration to counter the concerns that had been raised that a global climate change policy could be imposed on the United States that would ``result in serious harm to the United States economy, including significant job loss, trade disadvantages, and increased energy and consumer costs.'' The Senate was also concerned that efforts to reduce global emissions would be imposed only on developed nations, where the best emissions controls and most advances in emissions reductions already exist, and not on underdeveloped nations where emissions would continue without any effective controls.

What has changed since then?

Nothing.

We still need the benefits of a strong economy. We still need to protect American jobs. And we still need to avoid trade deficits and ensure consumers are not forced to choose between paying their energy bills and buying food.

We still need to protect American jobs, and global climate change is still a global issue.

Unfortunately, this reality contradicts the language of the proposal we are debating today just as surely as it contradicts the message we sent the administration with the Byrd-Hagel language.

The proposal before us, which is clearly an energy tax, would force the United States to unilaterally disarm its economy and force American jobs overseas without providing any environmental benefit. An energy tax, like the one proposed by Senators Lieberman and McCain would, in fact, be an environmental nightmare. Any loss of jobs in the United States would shift production to other parts of the world where there are no controls over the manufacturing process.

The best way to help the environment around the world is to ensure we have a strong economy here at home.

If we, as a Senate, really want to stand for improving global conditions then we should stand behind the principles of Byrd-Hagel and insist our global climate change policy does not harm America's workers. If we want to improve global conditions we must insist that all nations responsible for emitting greenhouse gasses participate and reduce their own emissions.

Just in case anyone is not clear about what is going on and what this legislation really does, I want to take a moment and explain how it would slow down our economy and force jobs out of the country.

To begin with, the bill establishes a requirement for registering all industrial emissions, and it requires the officials in charge to make assumptions about the level of total emissions that are due to transportation.

We can only assume that these assumptions are made for one of two reasons.

We want to know the transportation emissions level so we can blame the rest on industry, or, we want to know the transportation emissions level so we can start to apply limits and regulate family cars. I have had the opportunity to visit California and noticed a remarkable thing about this State that has done so much on its own to regulate and control private vehicles. While the rest of the highway was packed with cars, the HOV lanes were wide open and very poorly utilized. And yet this bill does nothing to account for private vehicles which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. I wonder, if this bill was so serious about

improving the environment, why would it leave out such a major source of emissions?

Don't be fooled. If this program is passed then that will be the next step. Why would we put in place such an ineffective control if we didn't intend to take it to the next step and regulate private transportation? We don't want to, they do.

This proposal would hold industry responsible for all other, nonindustrial or transportation emissions, emissions including human beings, who breathe out CO2 on a regular basis, animals, plants, volcanoes, forest fires, and private homes that burn natural gas, fuel, coal or wood. Keep in mind that one natural cataclysmic event, such as a volcanic eruption or a catastrophic wildfire eclipses anything, by way of emissions, that all of mankind can produce together on an annual basis.

We also have a situation where our trees that once could have served as sponges to soak up greenhouse gasses, are now older and absorb less CO2. In fact, because of the age of many of our forests they are now CO2 emitters.

The bill also completely neglects the most common and prevalent greenhouse gas of all. Of all the gasses found in our atmosphere, this particular gas is the most insidious. It contributes to more fluctuations in temperature than any other gas. It has the greatest impact on local and global climate, and it too is emitted by industry and by numerous natural sources and yet it is not included anywhere in this bill.

What is this gas? It is water vapor, of course. Why, if we are really serious about using this legislation to control temperatures and climate, don't we include water? Because this effort is not about environmental protection. It is about imposing an energy tax and controlling the economy.

The next thing the bill does is impose a cap or limit on otherwise unregulated emissions by industry. Once again, this cap does not take into account the emissions generated by other sources. The result is that we would force industry to assume all responsibility and pay for all emissions, regardless of where they come from. Whether the emissions came from individuals or nature, we would still hold industry responsible. There is a new discovery that was recently made in Wyoming that illustrates the lunacy of holding man responsible for something that nature releases on its own in an abundance that man never has.

I will read from an AP article that ran in a Wyoming newspaper on October 27 of this year. ``Scientists measuring mercury levels made a startling discovery at the base of Roaring Mountain [in Yellowstone National Park]: possibly the highest levels of mercury ever recorded at an undisturbed natural area.'' According to their measurements, the scientists found that Yellowstone is a potentially big source of our nation's mercury. ``It is conceivable . . . that Yellowstone could emit as much mercury as all the coal-fired power plants in Wyoming. . . . `That's not a real estimate but something based on just a few measurements,' [one of the scientists said] `It could be even bigger than that, we just don't know.' ''

It would be intellectually dishonest, for us to assume that, given all of the uncertainty in these issues, that industry will sit back and quietly assume the cost and burden of emissions reductions without either passing them on to consumers or finding a way to excuse itself from the limits altogether. The cost of the tax will either be paid by consumers who can barely afford their own energy costs today, or we will force jobs offshore and into areas where there are no limits on energy consumption and pollution.

There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that this bill is all about economics, particularly because that's what the entire global warming debate is about. Kyoto was an economic conference disguised as an environmental conference.

EU Commissioner for the Environment Margot Wallstrom once said, ``This is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where the scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious.''

I had the opportunity to attend the meetings at Kyoto, and while I was there I met with the Chinese and discussed the role that they thought they should play in meeting the demands of global climate change. They, and all other developing nations have no obligation to participate in any climate change agreement. They don't even agree to voluntary participation at a future unspecified date. You can't be more open ended than that. Incidentally, they intend to be a developing nation forever, even after 2010 when they will be the world's biggest polluter.

Should we just sell out to the Chinese?

If we were to adjust global emissions and measure them on a per gross domestic product basis, or in other words, measure the efficiencies and end product gained for each energy unit consumed, the United States would come out, once again, as the most efficient and most productive nation on earth. Europe, on the other hand, come out on the other end of the spectrum.

Why?

There are a number of factors that contribute to this imbalance but the biggest reason has to do with the efficiency of the American worker. We produce more goods using less energy than any other nation in the history of the world. We are already milking our industrial output to a point where any additional efficiencies will result in dramatic increases in costs. We have already made the easy adjustments and reduced those emissions that are easiest and cheapest to reduce. The rest of the world is still catching up to us on those respects and it would be easy and cheap for Europe then to reach some of its targets and reduce emissions. All they have to do is use some of the technology we have already invented.

For the United States, however, to make the incremental gains it needs to make to comply with the limits that this bill would impose would require us to either assume costs that would be exponentially greater than those assumed by an other nation, or to push those gains off onto another sector, more specifically the transportation sector, and require us to impose costs on consumers and taxpayers that they clearly cannot afford.

It is a matter of economies of scale and Europe knows it.

The United States is much physically larger than any other nation that we compete against economically. Europe, as a whole, is much smaller, much more densely populated and uses much more efficient transportation. In the United States, we use our trains primarily to carry manufactured goods, as well as clean burning, low sulfur Wyoming coal, while Europe's trains, on the other hand, are used almost exclusively to carry people. It is much more practical for us to fly from Washington, DC to Los Angeles, CA and arrive in a matter of hours instead of wasting days on a train. But airplanes burn fuel in great amounts and with much less efficiency than other forms of transportation. The logical and most cost efficient controls then are not to limit emissions on industry but to convert those controls into limitations on transportation.

I was at the first Kyoto conference, and incidentally, the US was the only country that thought that conference was an environmental conference. Everyone else saw it as an economic conference.

You can understand why I am greatly disturbed when I see a cap proposal like the one put forward in this bill, especially when it includes calculations on transportation emissions. There is no reason to pass a bill like this, to create the kinds of agencies and offices that the bill creates and not expect it to lead to the next step where its controls over industry emissions-i.e., an energy tax, are converted into controls over transportation in other words a transportation tax.

Our Nation's massive transportation needs will never go away. Nor will Europe ever get bigger. As a result of size, then, the energy, or rather transportation, taxes required by this bill will put the United States at a tremendous economic disadvantage with regard to its competitors.

Fortunately, we are not the only ones to recognize this imbalance. Russia recently joined the United States in rejecting a proposal that would limit its emissions and put a similar damper

on its economy. In making a basic cost/benefit analysis, President Putin's chief economic advisor, Andrei Illarinov declared, ``If we are to double GDP within the next ten years, this will require an average economic growth rate of 7.2 percent. No country in the world can double its GDP with a lower increase in carbon dioxide omissions or with no increase at all.''

The great baseball philosopher, Yogi Berra, was right. It is deja vu all over again. These are issues we have considered before and we already have a clear statement of policy in place in the Byrd-Hagel resolution that says, in responding to global climate change concerns, we cannot agree to any proposal that would result in serious harm to the United States economy. It already says we must work to avoid significant job loss, trade disadvantages, and increased energy and consumer costs. It also makes it clear that this is a global issue, one we can't tackle alone. If we, as a Senate, really want to stand for improving global conditions then we should stand behind the principles of Byrd-Hagel and insist our global climate change policy does not harm America's workers and that all nations responsible for emitting greenhouse gasses participate in emissions reductions.

This proposal would clearly cause serious harm to our Nation's economy, cost us American jobs, and result in a tax on our nation's energy and transportation systems. These taxes would put our nation at a serious disadvantage with our competitors and do nothing to improve our environment.

Mr. President, we have all heard the expression many times--``A picture is worth a thousand words.'' If that is so, I don't think there is any question that the pictures of the wildfires in California are speaking volumes and they have had a dramatic impact on all of the us in the Congress and around the country .The fires continue to burn out West, and the toll continues to mount. The amount of forest land up in flames, the homes destroyed, the lives lost and the people forever changed by what they have experienced will never be known. One thing that is very clear, however, is the importance of taking every possible step to ensure that we minimize this kind of frightening destruction in the future.

It is bad enough that we have had to witness the devastation in California--and I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to express our appreciation and our gratitude to the brave people who are fighting the fires there without regard for their own safety. They are true American heroes, and we will be keeping them in our prayers.

Take that feeling that comes from seeing all that destruction and despair in California and imagine that you were seeing the reality of a threat that faces you every day of your life. Imagine you wake up every day filled with the fear of knowing that your home, your job, your family, your heritage, and your community could be wiped out in a heartbeat. Imagine the commitment you would have to protecting your family and your cherished possessions, only to be told that you can't do much about it because somebody, far away, whose home is not facing the same kind of threat has decided you aren't worth the effort.

You might think I am exaggerating the problem, but the fact is there are more than 100 million acres of Federal forests lands that now exist under an unnaturally high risk of catastrophic wildfires and large scale insect and disease outbreaks because of unhealthy forest conditions.

For years now, we have been trying everything we can to reduce the risk and make our forests safer and more fire resilient. Every time we have tried, we have had the same response: more environmental reviews, more litigation, and more trees that increase instead of reduce the threat to the land around them.

We now have the images to confirm that our concerns were not fairy tales. We were not just speaking as alarmists, but as people faced with a very real threat.

This situation is particularly acute in western forests where more than 60 years of aggressive fire suppression programs have removed fire as a mitigating factor in maintaining forest health. As a result of these well-meaning efforts, many of our forests suffer from an unnatural accumulation of vegetation on the forest floors. Dense undergrowth, combined with increasingly taller layers of intermediate vegetation have turned western forests into deadly time bombs.

Unlike healthy fires of the past that thinned out the underbrush and left the large trees to grow larger, modern wildfires quickly climb the dense vegetation like a ladder until they top out at the uppermost, or crown, level of the forest and race out of control as catastrophic fires. Because of their high speed and intense heat, these ``crown fires'' leave an almost sterile environment in their wake. After a crown fire, nothing is left behind; no trees, no wildlife, and no habitat to speak of--with few microorganisms left to rebuild the soil.

Vegetation manipulation, including timber harvest, is therefore necessary to restore our forests, particularly in the West, to conditions that are more resistant to catastrophic disturbances and that are within acceptable ranges of variability. Scientific studies, including the Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, SNEP, report, state that timber harvest is a tool that can be used to enhance overall forest resilience to disturbance. The SNEP report states, for example, that ``logging can serve as a tool to help reduce fire hazard when slash is treated and treatments are maintained.'' If conducted on a large enough scale and in a controlled manner, timber harvests can restore our national forests to a point where fire can be returned as a healthy part of the environment.

However, any proposal that prohibits all forms of commercial timber harvest, regardless of the objective, indiscriminately removes an efficient and valuable tool from land managers for restoring forest conditions to a more resilient and sustainable state.

I am tired of sawmills and timber harvesting being seen as ogres. I had a brainstorming session with employees of Wyoming Sawmills and talked about healthy forests. I found them all to be concerned people who can increase the amount of expertise that is used in forest management and can do it in a way that helps our forest managers save money. These employees showed me what can be done with scrub trees in making innovative composite construction housing materials. I am talking about using small trees and stems that were once considered junk trees and were stacked in the forests and burned.

Using the innovative approach developed by Wyoming Sawmills employees is good stewardship. It would be wrong to accuse them of wanting to clear cut the forests. They know what healthy thinning is, and they know what a forest should look like. They know that their livelihood relies on good practices.

So far we have been lucky in that some of our most dangerous areas in Wyoming have not yet caught fire. One area I am particularly concerned about is just east of Cody on Wyoming's Shoshone National Forest. It lies just next to Yellowstone National Park. It provides crucial habitat to wolves, grizzlies, whooping cranes, elk, bison, mule deer and other animals that spend part of their lives in Yellowstone National Park. The area is also home to a very severe pine beetle infestation that threatens to ignite and cause extreme damage to the park, the forest and surrounding communities.

Other areas in Wyoming have not been as fortunate. I heard a report just a few weeks ago that a number of significant Native American archeological sites no longer exist in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains. When a fire swept through them earlier this year, it didn't just destroy habitat, but it also took some of the last remaining examples of wikiups and wooden sheep traps that were built by Wyoming's Sheepeater Indians. Their handiwork that reflected their place in our history is now gone and only exists in a few pictures that were fortunately taken before the fires swept it all away.

For me, this is an issue that has its roots back in the days when I was a Boy Scout. At the time, I was working on one of the requirements for the rank of First Class that had to be reached if I were to earn my Eagle Scout Award. To be successful, I had to start a campfire with no more than two matches. I got to be very good at starting campfires and was well known for winning

water boiling contests at scout camporees. There are a number of tricks people develop in starting campfires, and I had my own system that helped me win, but no matter who you are or what your trick might be, there are three basic elements to every fire: oxygen, fuel, and heat.

Oxygen comes from the air and is readily available. Fuel is found in the wood, particularly dry wood that burns easily when enough heat is applied. Heat comes from a spark, a match, or possibly just friction. The best way to apply enough heat to start a successful campfire is to properly organize the wood in a way that allows the flames to climb up from the bottom of the firepit where you put the smaller, quick-burning sticks and tinder--to the larger, longer burning logs in much the same way as someone would climb a ladder, one rung at a time.

To start a successful fire, I began by carefully putting my wood shavings at the bottom of the fire--this would be my light tinder or first rung of the fire ladder. I then built a small tee-pee of sticks over my tinder as my second rung, and then added larger and larger sticks until I had my largest pieces of wood on top where they could draw the heat from the flames of the intermediate sticks below them. If I did everything correctly, I could start my fire and get a can of water to boil before anyone else did.

You might wonder what this little story of mine has to do with the current state of our national forests.

If we were to head out into the forest right now, and we took a good look around at the density of the ground all around us, we would see that they are laid out just like the campfires I was trained to build and start when I was a Boy Scout. At the bottom of every forest lies a collection of small, dried-out bushes, leaves and fallen bark. Over this pile of tinder is the next rung of the forest fuels ladder which is made up of small to intermediate trees. These intermediate trees are then crowded in below the larger and older trees that make up the top rung or crown of the forest fuels ladder.

This problem wasn't always as bad as it is now. There was a time when Mother Nature and the Native Americans took care of thinning our forests by regularly starting wildfires. Because the fuel loads weren't allowed to grow as dense as they are today, the fuel ladder didn't reach all the way up to the big trees. Fires would burn up the tinder and thin out the intermediate and dead and dying trees. This promoted biodiversity, kept the intensity of the forests down and, in times of drought the competition for limited water resources was dramatically less than it is today. We now have forests that historically have had 40 or 50 tree stems per acre that are now over 200 stems per acre. This is a 300-percent increase. We aren't able to use widespread fire anymore because of the danger it presents to homes, as you are seeing right now in California.

When a fire starts in forests this dense, it quickly climbs the fuel ladder and races out of control. These crown fires are all but impossible to stop. The heat generated from all rungs burning at once sterilizes the soil and leaves nothing but desolation in its wake. This is only made worse with the added factor of drought. By adding to the mix stands of dead trees that are as dry and volatile as the tinder on the forest floor you can just imagine the threat this kind of fire could have on the forests and their surrounding communities.

It is a much better conservation practice, therefore, to step in and duplicate the effect historic, healthy fires had on our forests by using what is called mechanical thinning. This is a practice where our land management agencies can hire experienced timber companies to remove the dense underbrush and carry out the smaller and intermediate trees, thereby leaving a forest that is healthier, more biodiverse, more fire resilient and with a better mix of older and younger trees.

The alternative is to allow Mother Nature to step in and conduct one of her catastrophic clear cuts, and when Mother Nature does a clear cut, she doesn't respect riparian zones or raptor nesting sites, or homes.

Clearly that is a scenario we must make every effort to prevent.

As we do, just imagine how you would feel if you were here today while your family was back home, living in a house that stood in the shadow of one of those forests that is ready to explode in a blaze of flames.

Unfortunately, you don't have to imagine what that would be like anymore. We have seen what it would be like in the pictures of the fires that continue to threaten southern California.

What we have to do now is work toward a goal we should all support-- ensuring no one else has to face another wildfire blazing out of control through their homes and neighborhoods because of a policy we could have but did not change.

Mr. President, this Friday, October 31, families all over America will be celebrating a special holiday that has become a family tradition. On that day, our children will be dressing up as their favorite characters and clowns and heading down the street to scour the neighborhood in search of their favorite candies and sweets. As each group of witches, goblins and ghouls patrols the neighborhood, the cries of ``Trick or Treat'' will be heard everywhere along with the shouts of joy and excitement from each participant as they bring home a bag full of all sorts of candy to share with the whole family.

Although it is a great holiday, there has always been one great concern about it--the safety of our children. It is a concern that stems from the time change that occurs the weekend before Halloween. Unfortunately, when Congress passed legislation authorizing the use of daylight saving time, we drew the lines one week short of Halloween. Instead of including it in the time change boundaries, Congress drew the finish line for daylight saving time one week short, so that it ended the weekend before, instead of after the night so many of our children will be out walking the streets of their neighborhood in pursuit of their favorite holiday treats.

That is why I am pleased to introduce the Halloween Safety Act of 2003. Its purpose is to extend the end date of daylight saving time from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. This simple, but important, change will ensure that the protections of daylight saving time extend through Halloween.

The idea of extending daylight saving time was introduced to me by Sharon Rasmussen, a second grade teacher from Sheridan, WY and her students. Twelve years ago Mrs. Rasmussen's class began writing to Wyoming's representatives expressing their wish to have an extra hour of daylight on Halloween to ensure the safety of small children. Each year since then I have received a packet of letters from Mrs. Rasmussen's class encouraging my support for this reasonable proposal.

Legislation has been introduced in the past to extend daylight saving time. Although many of the bills sought to change both the starting date and the ending date, the legislation I introduced today would simply extend it for one week.

The reason why such a change needs to be made is readily apparent. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, over four thousand eight hundred people died in 2001, that is an average of 13 deaths per day. Fatal pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions occur most often between 6 and 9 p.m. Unfortunately, these general trends are highly magnified on Halloween given the considerable increase in pedestrians, most of whom are children. A study by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control concluded that the occurrence of pedestrian deaths for children ages 5 to 14 is four times higher on Halloween than any other night of the year. School and communities encourage children and parents to use safety measures when children venture out on Halloween and the Halloween Safety Act can further help protect our nation's youth.

When students take an interest in improving our Nation's laws, especially when it would serve to protect other children, I believe it is our duty to pay close attention to their needs and respond if possible. If children concerned about their own safety suggest a reasonable approach to making their world a little bit safer, I believe that accommodating their request is not too much to ask. The fact that second and third grade students in Sheridan, WY have been working on this legislation for years shows that protecting the children of our country is a primary concern of theirs, and it should be for all of us as lawmakers. If one life can be saved or one accident avoided by extending Daylight Saving Time, it would be worthwhile.

I encourage all my colleagues to support this act for the important benefits the Halloween Safety Act of 2003 would have for children and their parents.

Mr. President, this Friday, October 31, families all over America will be celebrating a special holiday that has become a family tradition. On that day, our children will be dressing up as their favorite characters and clowns and heading down the street to scour the neighborhood in search of their favorite candies and sweets. As each group of witches, goblins and ghouls patrols the neighborhood, the cries of ``Trick or Treat'' will be heard everywhere along with the shouts of joy and excitement from each participant as they bring home a bag full of all sorts of candy to share with the whole family.

Although it is a great holiday, there has always been one great concern about it--the safety of our children. It is a concern that stems from the time change that occurs the weekend before Halloween. Unfortunately, when Congress passed legislation authorizing the use of daylight saving time, we drew the lines one week short of Halloween. Instead of including it in the time change boundaries, Congress drew the finish line for daylight saving time one week short, so that it ended the weekend before, instead of after the night so many of our children will be out walking the streets of their neighborhood in pursuit of their favorite holiday treats.

That is why I am pleased to introduce the Halloween Safety Act of 2003. Its purpose is to extend the end date of daylight saving time from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November. This simple, but important, change will ensure that the protections of daylight saving time extend through Halloween.

The idea of extending daylight saving time was introduced to me by Sharon Rasmussen, a second grade teacher from Sheridan, WY and her students. Twelve years ago Mrs. Rasmussen's class began writing to Wyoming's representatives expressing their wish to have an extra hour of daylight on Halloween to ensure the safety of small children. Each year since then I have received a packet of letters from Mrs. Rasmussen's class encouraging my support for this reasonable proposal.

Legislation has been introduced in the past to extend daylight saving time. Although many of the bills sought to change both the starting date and the ending date, the legislation I introduced today would simply extend it for one week.

The reason why such a change needs to be made is readily apparent. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, over four thousand eight hundred people died in 2001, that is an average of 13 deaths per day. Fatal pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions occur most often between 6 and 9 p.m. Unfortunately, these general trends are highly magnified on Halloween given the considerable increase in pedestrians, most of whom are children. A study by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control concluded that the occurrence of pedestrian deaths for children ages 5 to 14 is four times higher on Halloween than any other night of the year. School and communities encourage children and parents to use safety measures when children venture out on Halloween and the Halloween Safety Act can further help protect our nation's youth.

When students take an interest in improving our Nation's laws, especially when it would serve to protect other children, I believe it is our duty to pay close attention to their needs and respond if possible. If children concerned about their own safety suggest a reasonable approach to making their world a little bit safer, I believe that accommodating their request is not too much to ask. The fact that second and third grade students in Sheridan, WY have been working on this legislation for years shows that protecting the children of our country is a primary concern of theirs, and it should be for all of us as lawmakers. If one life can be saved or one accident avoided by extending Daylight Saving Time, it would be worthwhile.

I encourage all my colleagues to support this act for the important benefits the Halloween Safety Act of 2003 would have for children and their parents.

Mr. President, I am fortunate in that I represent the least populous State in the United States; the advantage allows me the opportunity to meet almost everybody in the State. It has given me an opportunity to talk to the entire Cuban community in my State. As a result, since I first got here, I have been working to try and make a difference in our Cuban policy.

The first difficulty I knew of this policy concerned a constituent who had been visiting his family in Cuba on the one trip allowed per year. While he and his family were on the plane returning to the States, his father died in Cuba. He was not allowed to go back for another year.

Now, we have made some changes and I hope we can keep making incremental changes. That is all we are talking about--small, incremental changes, ones that make some common sense.

I am appalled at how Cubans are being treated by their government. We have seen this kind of treatment in other countries at other times. It brings to mind some of the escapes we saw from East Germany before the wall came down.

I just finished reading a book called ``The Secret Empire'' by Mr. Taubman. It goes into how Eisenhower established the CIA, had the U2 program and then the satellite program. It brings back a lot of memories of events that happened during our life, part of which is Cuba, with the Cuban missile crisis and some of the other events that happened after that.

We have had a policy in place now for 40 years. For 40 years we have said: Sanctions. And for 40 years it has not worked.

When I was growing up, my dad often said, ``If you keep on doing what you have already been doing, you will wind up with what you already got.'' That is kind of where we are on the Cuban situation. We keep on doing what we have always been doing and we wind up with exactly what we have always had.

Fidel Castro is not interested in helping the side I am working on. He does not really want United States participation there. He keeps throwing out little roadblocks to keep it from happening. Fidel Castro does not like the amendments we have offered even though he may appear sometimes to be on that same side.

For instance, with visas, he is now offering open visas. Of course, he knows we are not going to give visas, so that really does not allow any people into the country.

He keeps violating human rights. All of that is to keep his people in contact with a free democracy, the United States, to keep our people from talking to the people in Cuba.

The people in Cuba can already get everything they need. They get it from other countries. Unilateral actions have not worked. That is what we are talking about here, a unilateral action: The United States, standing by itself, saying, Don't do anything with Cuba. Meanwhile, all the other countries provide everything that is needed there. They are about to learn something about providing it on credit, which we are not doing. We are requiring cash on the few inroads we have made.

But we keep going in the wrong direction. The Transportation bill funds an organization that takes it in that wrong direction. We have had people-to-people trips to Cuba. There is a fellow in Wyoming who had conducted some of these people-to-people trips to Cuba. The word is, they are limited on where they can stay and who they can talk to, so they are getting a very biased view.

I visited with him. I asked: How limited are you? He said: We aren't limited; we cannot stay in the homes of individuals, but there is some selection on hotels. What we do during the daytime we have freedom to do. The only freedom we are lacking is that people are afraid to talk to us because of the regime. That does add a degree of difficulty.

I thank Senator Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, for holding a hearing on the Cuba situation. That is another one of those firsts that is allowing us to make a little bit of progress. I think incrementally we will keep making progress.

The amendment before us is just incremental progress. It is not a drastic change in policy. It is something the House has already approved. I hope my colleagues will join us in approving the second- degree amendment and the amendment.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Madam President, today I introduce an amendment to the CAN- SPAM Act. As some of my colleagues have already expressed, unsolicited commercial e-mail, also known as

spam, aggravates many computer users. Not only can it be a nuisance, but its cost may be passed on to consumers in the form of wasted time, energy and money spent to handle and filter out unwanted spam e-mails. Also, e-mail service providers incur substantial costs when they are forced to upgrade their equipment to process the millions of spam e- mails that they receive every day. Spam e-mail is a time and money vacuum. I support the CAN-SPAM Act because it empowers us to stop these unwanted and unwelcome e-mails.

A recent study conducted by the Federal Trade Commission found that 66 percent of spam contains false or misleading claims. Another 18 percent contains pornographic or adult content. My amendment mandates stronger restrictions that would prevent the increasing amount of spam e-mail containing explicit content from reaching unintended recipients. There is clearly a need to address this in the CAN-SPAM Act because it is potentially the most offensive type of spam on the Internet today. There are sorely misguided individuals--spamers--whose sole mission is to e-mail as many people as possible, regardless of age, indecent material. Internet users, especially minors, should not be involuntarily exposed to explicit content by simply checking their e- mail inbox. My amendment would protect these people in two ways:

First, it would place a notice, approved by the FTC, in the subject header of spam e-mail that contains explicit content. Usually, a subject header is a title line noting the content of the message that has arrived in your inbox. However, in a virtual world already saturated with millions of pieces of spam e-mail, spammers often title e-mails with catchy phrases and whatever they think will get the most people to open the message and read their advertisements. Now spam e- mail with explicit and offensive material is often camouflaged by an inviting and completely misleading subject heading. This is a common way that many e-mail users end up being involuntarily exposed to offensive sexual content. Adding a notice in the subject heading would immediately alert the computer user that the message contained within has explicit and possibly offensive content and should not be viewed by minors. This notice would alert the e-mail recipient and allow him or her to organize and filter their mail for any unwanted material.

Second, my amendment would require that all spam e-mail with explicit content add an opening page to all copies of their e-mail being sent to unknown recipients. This opening page would not contain any explicit images or text, but instead have a link that would link users to that content if they wished. This valuable provision would protect minors and other e-mail users by requiring that the recipient purposefully act and ``click'' in order to get to the explicit images or text. Adding this firewall allows users to opt out of spam e-mail lists and delete offensive e-mails from their inbox without ever being exposed to their content.

As a Senator from the rural State of Wyoming, I fully appreciate the value that the Internet holds for electronic communication and business across long distances. This amendment would allow both communication and business to continue and prosper. However, it also takes an important step in protecting Internet and e-mails users, especially minors, from receiving sexually explicit, offensive and unwanted content in their e-mails. Most people check their inboxes without an idea of what might have landed there or who might have sent it. This amendment makes that process more transparent and gives control back to the Internet user who doesn't want to be exposed to indecent, offensive or explicit content.

Mr. President, this is a very curious amendment. It tries to take a stealth approach to the matter, but in fact, its real purpose is pretty obvious. I don't think anyone will be fooled by it because we all know who it is directed against.

Back in my home State of Wyoming, a lot of people who know Dick Cheney will be surprised to see the Senate using its valuable time in what some might see as a witch hunt against the

President and Vice President. It's a curious time for such an activity--even if Halloween is rapidly approaching.

Now, I'm not standing here to defend the Vice President because he is from Wyoming. I'm not even defending him because he's a fisherman either--though to accept this amendment at face value you have to swallow hook, line and sinker some pretty misleading information.

In fact, I can tell you, because I've fished with him, that although fishermen sometimes have an unjust and unfair reputation for telling stories, the only thing fishy about this whole affair is the text of this amendment.

First of all, the amendment should be withdrawn because the vice President has gone out of his way to explain his ties to his old company and what they mean to him financially. No matter what happens in the months to come, nothing will benefit him personally. Still, we have some Members who aren't quite satisfied.

Right now a couple of us Senators have blind trusts. It's an interesting thing that this amendment takes such a strong stand against a Vice President who took the same ethical approach to this issue that I did.

This whole situation points out the need for a national energy policy. Halliburton has come under attack because there were fluctuations in oil and gas prices that forced some mega mergers to occur to keep the energy companies competitive. As a result, there were only a few companies that could provide the service that was needed on such short notice. Still, that isn't a good enough explanation for some.

Even if we ignore that piece of the puzzle, however, the important thing to note is the Vice President's decision to donate to charity the after-tax proceeds he would receive from the exercise of his Hallliburton stock options. In other words, even if his options were to increase in value as a result of anything that happened during this time, he still wouldn't receive anything from it.

Who would? you might ask.

According to the Vice President's signed agreement from January 28, 2001, there are three charities named. They are the Capital Partners for Education, the George Washington University Medical Facility Associates and the University of Wyoming.

I believe it is clear that there is no basis for the allegations or concerns that led to the production of this amendment and it clearly should be withdrawn. It goes against the grain of fairness, it can only be defended by misrepresenting the facts on the Vice President's financial interests, and it can't be seen as anything but an unfair commentary on the Vice President's and the President's commitment to ethics.

No serious-minded individual who belongs to any political party, really believes this amendment is necessary or needed. It must be withdrawn and an apology extended to both the Vice President and the President for its promotion.