Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to honor Dr. Maria Alicia Garza, associate professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Boise State University. Dr. Garza has been chosen as the Idaho Professor of the Year by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This prestigious honor is a tribute to Dr. Garza's outstanding teaching, which touches, motivates, and inspires.

Dr. Garza has been with Boise State since 1996 and has received excellent reviews from Day One. She is recognized by both faculty and students for her knowledge of the subject matter, her infectious enthusiasm, and her thorough preparation. As a result of this dedication, Dr. Garza's students have been motivated to succeed, as they have graduated from BSU and moved into the workforce.

Not surprisingly, this is not the first time Dr. Garza has been recognized for her outstanding efforts. She has also received the Associated Students of Boise State University Faculty Recognition Award, as well as the College of Arts Distinguished Teaching Award during her time at Boise State. The Idaho Professor of the Year award is another example of Dr. Garza's commitment to high quality education in Idaho. I offer my congratulations and highest praise to Dr. Garza, Idaho's Professor of the Year.

Madam President, I rise to speak about the Healthy Forests legislation which we recently passed on the Senate floor. Since we passed it--I remind everyone it was a strong bipartisan effort which resulted in 80 votes out of 100 votes in the Senate supporting this effort--we have now run into further procedural snags. As I was sitting here listening to the Senator from Nevada talk about the snag we have run into with regard to trying to get votes on judges, I was reminded of the similarity.

It took us a long time to get this bill to the Senate floor, the Healthy Forests legislation. The process we went through was one in which I believe we showed America how we should be working together in a bipartisan fashion to cross party lines, cross regional lines, and build broad support for meaningful legislation to solve a serious problem.

We did that. We had a bipartisan coalition that came forward with a strong bill. I will talk a little bit about what the bill would mean to America. We passed it in the Senate with 80 votes. Yet today we are stalled in being able to move forward and appoint conferees to get together with the House and work out the differences between the two bills and come forward with strong legislation.

Unfortunately, this procedural maneuver of stopping us from being able to move forward into a conference with the House is simply another mechanism similar to a filibuster. In fact, it might ultimately be backed up by a filibuster to stop us from procedurally being able to move forward on important legislation. In effect, it allows anybody who wants to to vote for the bill, knowing it is going to be stalled and that we will not allow it to then go to conference and keep moving forward.

The Healthy Forests legislation is critically needed. I just received the most recent analysis of the statistics. When we debated the bill, we talked a lot about the damage going on in California with the wildfires then burning there. Just to remind everybody about what those fires meant, a study I have in front of me evaluates just 4 of the 13 fires that were burning in California last week as we considered the legislation.

The estimated cost to date--which is not finished--of fighting just those 4 fires is $65.8 million. That is 4 of the 13 fires in California. When you look at the rest of the country, as I discussed in the debate last week, we have burned 3.8 million acres in America this year. Last year it was nearly 7 million acres. The year before, it was over 3 million, and the year before that, it was over 7 million acres. The running 9-year average for the number of acres we have burned in our forests is 4.9 million acres per year.

The Forest Service estimates over 100 million acres of forest lands are at unnaturally high risk of catastrophic wildfires and large insect-disease outbreaks because of unhealthy forest conditions. Again, just looking at those 4 fires in California, $65.8 million worth of cost to fight them so far, 1,622 structures lost. We all know there were many lives lost in those fires. There were lives lost in Idaho this year fighting fires, my State. I am sure if other Senators from the States in which these fires are burning could be here right now, they would point out the damage in their States, not only from the cost of fighting the fires but in terms of the loss of life and the loss of property.

It is important we move ahead with this legislation. I am here to call on my colleagues from the Democratic side of the aisle to work with us again, as we worked in bringing forward the bill, to go into conference and work to achieve the objectives of this legislation.

Some have said: Let's just send our bill to the House and tell the House it must accept our bill. It is our bill or no bill.

Frankly, our constitutional Framers set up a system of government in which there are two Houses of Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. I don't think it is realistic for the Senate to simply say to the House you have to take our bill, and not only do you have to take our bill, but we are not going to conference with you if you won't take our bill as is.

I understand the desire by those who negotiated with us to reach the compromise, to build a bipartisan solution, to try to keep the bill we negotiated here intact to the maximum extent possible. In fact, in our negotiations, I committed to them that is what my objective would be if I am able to be on the conference committee. I believe each one of our Senate conferees will fight to the best of their ability to make sure we keep intact the Senate version of this bill. It was a good bill. It had a strong vote. But we must recognize the reality that in order to achieve legislation in this country, both Houses of Congress are entitled to work on the final product.

The refusal to go into conference until there is an agreement in advance that the House will take the Senate bill is a position which could be taken on every bill. If you think about it, every piece of legislation that goes through the Senate, one would think the Senators would prefer over the House. People in the Senate could simply take the position we will not go into conference with the House unless they will take our version of the bill.

If you think about it a little further, it becomes immediately apparent the House could do the same thing. The House could say to the Senate: We are not going to go into conference with you unless you take our bill.

The reality of the way our constitutional system operates is, we have a conference committee between the House and Senate. We work out our differences. We try to come forward with a bill that brings forward the maximum strengths of both systems. Then we come back to both bodies. The Senators in the Senate, the Congressmen in the House, will each then have another chance to register their opinion. If they believe they didn't get a sufficient amount of what they were hoping to see in the legislation, they, again, in the Senate, have the opportunity for a filibuster or to simply vote no on the legislation if they don't want to support it. But to stop us from even being able to take the next procedural step to go to the House and go into conference and try to see what kind of legislation we can come up with to address these critical issues is, in my opinion, inappropriate.

Again, I call on all my colleagues to step forward and allow us to move to the next procedural step to go into conference with the House and work on this critical legislation.

What does it do? This legislation reflects a comprehensive effort to focus on forest health. As I indicated, we have over 100 million acres in America today that are at an unnaturally high level of risk for fire or insect infestation.

The average loss of acres to fires alone is 5.4 million acres per year. In this bill, we put together a comprehensive effort to improve the health of our forests in terms of both the risk of fire and insect infestation. We will lower the number of catastrophic fires. We will establish new conservation programs to improve water quality and regenerate declining forest ecosystems. We will protect the health of the forests by establishing an accelerated plan to promote information on forest-damaging insects and related diseases. Endangered species, community and homes of Americans will be safeguarded through the stewardship of these forest lands.

We are going to establish a new predecisional administrative review process and allow for additional analysis under NEPA. We are going to improve the management tools available to our forest managers so they can get scientifically supported management practices implemented on our forest lands.

We will direct the Secretary of Agriculture to give priority to communities and watersheds in hazardous fuel reduction projects. We are going to have language in there for the first time ever in this country that specifically protects old-growth forests. We have language to expedite the judicial review process so that we end the litigation paralysis that is probably the most significant thing that is stopping us from effective forest management implementation.

Finally, we are going to significantly increase the resources we are putting into healthy forest management. I just told the number of dollars we are spending on fighting fires--on the fires in California. That was approximately $66 million. We are going to put in $760 million annually to help us manage our forests nationwide and preserve these incredible environmental gems for our future while maintaining our ability to have the kind of natural-resource-based economies that grow up around our forests.

Madam President, this is a critical issue; it is critical whether one is concerned about environmental aspects, health and safety aspects, loss of life, loss of property, or simply the loss of our incredibly wonderful Federal forests.

Again, I call on my colleagues to stop the procedural maneuvers that are prohibiting us from proceeding to a conference with the House. At this point, I will conclude my remarks and yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Missouri.

Mr. President, I appreciate what my colleagues are trying to do. Clearly there is a problem.

When we passed the farm bill, we made an unprecedented investment in conservation.

First as chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee with jurisdiction over conservation, then as the ranking member of the subcommittee, I worked closely with my colleagues on both sides to increase funding for EQIP and WHIP and the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program and to create the Grasslands Reserve Program and increase the acreage for CRP and WRP.

Unfortunately, I am unable to support this amendment, because while it attempts to correct an injustice, it does not fix the problem.

This amendment, if enacted into law, would stop the CRP program in its tracks.

The Conservation Reserve Program is one of the most successful conservation programs in agriculture. It is a win-win for agriculture and the environment. It benefits landowners and wildlife. In fact, it has been proved to be the most effective federal program for production of waterfowl in the United States.

In Idaho, we had more than 55,000 acres recently accepted into the program. If this amendment were enacted, those acres could not be enrolled because of lack of technical assistance funding.

Likewise, I have been a strong proponent for the Continuous CRP program. This important program provides tremendous benefits for the environment and maintains working lands. I have continually encouraged USDA to enroll more CRP acreage in this important part of the CRP program. However, this program would come to a screeching halt without technical assistance funding.

I share my colleagues' concerns and interest in finding a solution, but this is not a full solution. I cannot support an amendment that would have such a disastrous effect on the CRP program.

As chairman of the subcommittee, I am committed to working with Agriculture Committee Chairman Cochran and Ranking Member Harkin and other interested members to find a solution.

I urge my colleagues to seek a workable solution that protects all of our conservation programs.

Mr. President, today I honor Benjamin Richard Williams and Alec David Williams for receiving the Eagle Scout Award. As an Eagle Scout myself, I know first hand the dedication and hard work involved in attaining this prestigious award. These two brothers, from my home State of Idaho, are exceptional individuals who have accomplished much in their young lives. Allow me a moment to tell you about them.

In addition to his rank of Eagle Scout, Ben has served diligently in the Boy Scout organization, most recently as Senior Patrol Leader. He has also been heavily involved in extra-curricular activities at Boise High School. Ben is a cross-country runner and is involved in his school's jazz and marching bands. All of this while keeping a very impressive 3.95 GPA.

Alec is here with us in the Senate today, serving our country as a congressional page. We appreciate his valuable service in this capacity. Alec has served in several capacities in the Boy Scouts, most recently as the assistant senior patrol leader. Alec is also an exceptional student with a 4.0 GPA. Attaining the rank of Eagle Scout is one more accomplishment to add to his already impressive list.

I commend Benjamin and Alec on receiving their Eagle Scout Awards. Through the leadership and service opportunities provided in the Scouting program, Ben and Alec are better prepared to serve their families and America's communities. I wish them continued success in all of their endeavors.

Mr. President, I rise to address the Feinstein amendment, as the Senator from Mississippi has indicated, for the third occasion that we have debated this issue in this Congress. It is important to note that each time this amendment has been raised, it has been defeated. Each time the amendment has been raised, it has been opposed by those in the regulatory community--again as has been indicated by the Senator from Mississippi--whether it be the CFTC, the Department of the Treasury, the Board

of Governors of the Federal Reserve, or others. The fact is that consistently those who are in charge of regulating, overseeing, and managing our economy and our financial markets have been opposed to this amendment. The question that we must ask ourselves is, Why?

To do so it is important to go back over the history of this act. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act that we are debating is one with which we have had a long history of dealing in this Congress. In fact, before 2000, when President Clinton was in office, a President's working group was established which brought together experts from across the industry, not only those who were in the financial industries, but those who were regulating the financial industries, those we have already mentioned. The Secretary of the Treasury, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Board of the Federal Reserve, and others were a part of this Presidential working group. Those who were involved in this Presidential working group looked at all the different commodities that we deal with, the different types of manners in which we deal with these commodities, and came up with an approach to how we should reform and modernize our law to best take advantage of the types of trading contexts or trading ideas that were utilized in the management and trading of commodities.

It is a difficult subject to talk about because it is so complicated. The bottom line is that this act was then put forward. It was brought forward on a bipartisan basis in Congress, studied extensively by congressional committees after the Presidential committee brought forward its recommendations. And in the year 2000, reforms of the act were implemented.

The amendment seeks to change the structure of regulation that this act established. The first time this challenge to the act was brought forward, we had occasion to have Mr. Greenspan before the Banking Committee. Mr. Greenspan was asked in his testimony what the proposed amendment would mean and what this concept of derivatives, that most people in America don't really get very engaged with, meant to our economy. I was the one who asked the question at that time.

Mr. Greenspan's answer is very illuminating. He said, in his opinion, increasing the regulation and changing the scheme for regulating the management and the trading in derivatives from that which had been put together by the President's working group and approved by Congress would actually increase the threat to our economy. In fact, he pointed out that a very simple way to understand derivatives is that they are a tool by which sophisticated participants in the market are able to allocate risk so that those who are better able to bear it can pick it up, and that by being an instrument or a tool through which we allocate risk in our economy, the American economy actually was able to respond more quickly, more resiliently, and more effectively to the threats that have faced it over the last few years.

Had we not had the capacity for derivatives transactions between sophisticated buyers, had that been regulated and diminished or pushed offshore because the United States chose to regulate it so aggressively, we would not have had the resilience and the response in our economy that we had.

We would have had a deeper trough and a more difficult recovery. Again, this amendment seeks to change that regulatory system Congress and the President and his working group so carefully put together.

How did that act work? Well, the act created three different categories of derivatives transactions. The first category that was fully covered and is on an exchange--regulated exchange--where the first category was the category of agricultural transactions. Those transactions are fully regulated and fully covered under the act.

The act identified certain types of transactions that should not be covered at all and should have no regulatory impact. Those were called financial derivatives. They include things such as treasury bonds, foreign exchange, or interest rates--those types of transactions that occur in the financial markets, and it was concluded they should not have any regulation. They were simply excluded from the act.

A middle category was created for all other kinds of transactions. We have, on the one hand, agricultural transactions, which are fully covered. On the other hand, we have financial transactions, which are fully excluded and, in the middle, all other types of commodities, where the energy transactions fall. It has been argued today that these energy transactions simply are not covered. In fact, the phrase that has been used is one that would imply those engaged in energy derivatives transactions simply don't have any regulatory coverage at all. The phrase ``let anything go'' has been used, or it has been said there is literally no antifraud or antimanipulation provision or protection in the law regarding these types of transactions. That simply is not the case. This middle type of transaction was not put on an exchange because these are not the kinds of transactions that general investors in the market get involved with. These are highly sophisticated transactions, detailed negotiations between very sophisticated buyers and sellers, accomplishing this result which I talked about earlier of trading and exchanging risk. It is done in such a way that it doesn't effectively work on an exchange. That is why in this middle category the exchange was not included, but regulation for price reporting, antiprice manipulation, antimarket manipulation, and antifraud protection was included. So it is simply not correct to say those engaged in energy transactions--derivatives transactions--are not subjected to antifraud, antimanipulation, or price-reporting requirements. They are, which brings to bear the question of why we need to change this system of regulation.

Again, on the floor today, as has been the case in the past each time we have debated it, the argument has been made that the Enron transaction or the Enron problem would not have been a problem had we had the aggressive kind of antifraud and antimanipulation this amendment proposes to create. Well, again, when we have had experts before us, and as has been said on the floor already by others, the Agriculture Committee and other committees have studied this very carefully. The experts have said to us there is no indication the lack of regulatory authority, if such exists, was any cause for what happened with Enron, and the lack of having regulated derivatives transactions, in terms of putting them on an exchange, or failure to have further fraud or antiprice manipulation and enforcement authority, was the cause of what happened with regard to the Enron transaction.

As a matter of fact, I asked that same question, when this issue first came up, to Alan Greenspan. He, among many others, has indicated there is no evidence the failure to have more rigorous regulatory schemes in place on derivatives transactions would have stopped Enron from doing exactly what it did.

Nobody is saying Enron did not violate the market, that Enron did not engage in price manipulation, that Enron did not engage in these wash transactions, that Enron did not engage in fraudulent behavior. The fact is, Enron did engage in these types of activities. The fact is the CFTC is currently investigating and enforcing its antifraud and antimanipulation enforcement authority against Enron and others in the market who might engage in these types of activities.

The point is, as we proceed, we must understand whether what happened in terms of the Enron circumstance was as a result of the law not being strong enough or was simply the result of the fact that Enron violated the law. The fact is Enron did violate the law, those violations are being identified, and something over $90 million in fines and penalties against Enron and other market violators have already been enforced.

Again, the point is enforcement is occurring. Why should we be concerned about adding a further regulatory scheme on top of that which is already in place? It gets back to the point Alan Greenspan made in that first hearing, where I first asked him about the issue; that is, we have a need in this country for resilience in our marketplace, in terms of allocation of risk.

Our management of derivatives is critical in terms of how well we

achieve that objective. If we want to increase the regulatory burden and increase the potential of diminishing our ability in the market to have the benefit of these very important types of transactions, then we better have a very good reason for doing so. If we want to have the benefit of a resilient marketplace, where derivatives transactions can occur between sophisticated buyers and sellers, then we want to be very careful about how we regulate it or overregulate it.

I agree with anybody who says we want to make sure there should be antiprice manipulation or antifraud provisions in place. We should have those kinds of protections in place. But we should be very careful that, as we implement this type of regulatory scheme, we don't drive offshore derivatives transactions or cause a loss of resilience in our marketplace because we overregulate these important transactions.

I note the chairman is looking to perhaps intervene here to conduct other business. I will reserve the remainder of my time.

Order of Procedure

I do. I will need 3 or 4 or 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I want to conclude by once again going over the material that has already been put into the record by Senator Cochran from Mississippi.

As I indicated, as we have gone through this battle--now the third time--and the debate over whether we should change the manner in which we address derivatives transactions in this country, each time those who are charged with regulating and overseeing these types of concerns have weighed in in opposition to this amendment. I simply want to go through some of the points they have made from the materials. Again, they are already a part of the record.

The first time we debated this amendment, back in September, a letter was submitted by Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Paul O'Neill from the Department of Treasury, Mr. Harvey Pitt, Chairman of the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission, and James E. Newsome, Chairman of the CFTC.

In their letter at that time, they pointed out that this proposal would subject market participants to disclosure of proprietary trading information and new capital requirements.

The capital requirements, I understand, have been dropped in this amendment. But as they go forward, they explain they don't believe a case exists in public policy to justify this increased level of Government intervention.

The OTC markets, they state, trade a wide variety of instruments. Many of them are idiosyncratic in nature. They are customized markets and do not generally serve a significant price discovery function for nonparticipants, nor do they permit retail investors to participate.

Again, this is not a market in which general investors participate. Highly sophisticated investors engage in these transactions. There has been some debate they have actually created the market through wash transactions and other activity. My point is that type of manipulation, either through manipulating a price or through other activities, such as wash trades, is already regulatable and being addressed by the CFTC.

They go on to make the point: The trading of these instruments arbitrages away the inefficiencies that exist in all financial and commodities markets, and that we should not cause increased regulatory burdens on those important functions in our economy.

Then again in June, when we addressed this issue last, the same group responded again to the same proposal. They wanted to point out then that with regard to the argument there was all of this bad activity taking place and we needed to pass new laws to stop this bad activity, the same group of regulators--the Treasury, the Federal Reserve System, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the CFTC--stated they have brought formal actions against Enron, Dynegy, and El Paso for market manipulation, wash or roundtrip trades, false reporting of prices, and operation of illegal markets, and these actions have already resulted in substantial monetary penalties and other sanctions.

Again, the point there is, as I made earlier, that we are enforcing the existing regime.

Lastly, if there is still concern that we don't have enough protection in the law, our current chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Pete Domenici, and those who are working with him from the Agriculture Committee, and others are beefing up those protections in the current law.

A letter which, again, the Senator from Mississippi has already put in the Record, coming from Senator Cochran, myself, Senator Domenici, and Senator Miller, explains that the Energy Policy Act, which we are now working through in conference, will contain increased protection against fraud and price manipulation which addresses the EnronOnline problems that have been raised by the Senator from California.

Even if the current situation in the law was not already satisfactory, we are increasing the antifraud and antimanipulation provisions to make certain that any concerns about this possibility occurring again are addressed as we focus the regulation without trying to do something to our derivatives markets that would cause a reduction in the resiliency of U.S. markets.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I would like to respond to some of the points my colleague from California has made and try to further clarify some of these issues. It appears there may be a difference of understanding between us as to just what the CFTC actually has jurisdictional authority over. My colleague from California has indicated that the antifraud and antimanipulation provisions in the Commodities Futures Modernization Act do not apply to over-the-counter trades. My understanding is very different from that. In fact, it is my understanding that the CFTC has antimanipulation authority that allows the Commission to obtain books and records from any market participant when the CFTC believes the prices are being manipulated. In fact, as I had indicated in my previous comments, enforcement authority with regard to market manipulation and price manipulation is being undertaken with regard to Enron.

The question here is whether there is a standardized set of books and records that are required of each participant. In that case, that is correct; the act does not put the full level of regulation onto those in the energy derivatives markets, only on agricultural commodities. So that might be the difference we are talking about. But the fact is, the distinction here is whether there is an exchange type of document disclosure as opposed to simply the type of document disclosure that the CFTC can ask for if it is investigating alleged price manipulation.

Second, the Senator from California indicated that she believed the penalties were too soft, and her legislation addressed that issue. I suppose there is not a lot of disagreement. I have not really talked with other Members of the Senate about it. I don't know if there is a lot of disagreement in strengthening the penalties, but that is not really all this amendment does. In fact, it is not really the focus of this amendment. What this amendment does, as I said before, is it increases and creates an entirely new regulatory regime for the management of derivatives transactions in energy.

I think this next point is a very critical point that we need to address. The Senator from California said in 1999 the working group said that energy transactions should not be excluded from the act. I am not familiar with the exact quotation or document that is being referred to there. But if the word ``excluded'' is the word the President's working group used, then that makes sense because, as I said earlier in my remarks, the act that we established after the President's working group went through its analysis created three different categories: Those that were included, those that were excluded, and those that were exempted. Why they use the word ``exempted'' as opposed to some other category, I don't know. But there is a real distinction in this law between the word ``excluded,'' which means they are not covered, and the word ``exempted,'' which means they are not required to be registered on an exchange.

Those that are in the exempted category are not excluded, which is what the 1999 working group apparently recommended for energy. Energy transactions in derivatives are not excluded, they are exempted, which means they, along with every other commodity transaction except for agricultural and financial transactions, are required to be subject to the reporting and investigatory antifraud and antimanipulation provisions of the act. That is what we are debating here.

Finally, the Senator from California mentioned a case where the court did say there was a sufficient lack of clarity in the act that it could not be enforced against knowing and willful conduct. That is correct. That case, to my knowledge, is one of the only, if not the only, case in the country where there has ever been a court ruling that did not give the CFTC the authority it needs to go after this type of conduct.

As I indicated in my earlier remarks, the Energy bill, which we are now putting together in the Energy conference, is correcting the problem that came up with that case. I actually have the language in front of me that is being changed in the law to address the concern raised by that case.

So because there is a case where the court said the language needs to be tightened up a little bit, that does not mean we then need to create a whole new regulatory regime for the management of derivatives. What it means is we need to correct that problem that the case law pointed out in the statute to be sure that the antifraud and antimanipulation language is able to be enforced as we intended it to be. That is exactly what the chairman of the Energy Committee and the others of us who submitted this letter have stated is being corrected in the Energy bill.

Then just one final comment. There was some question as to whether Mr. Greenspan or those of us on this side were making a distinction between financial derivatives or energy derivatives. I can assure those who were involved in the debate on all sides that Chairman Greenspan, as well as the rest of us, understand that we are talking about different types of derivatives when we talk about financial derivatives or energy derivatives or agricultural derivatives or other types of transactions in these commodities. The fact is, whether it is agriculture or energy or financial or other types of commodities, the manner in which we regulate them has incredible impacts on the way in which the markets operate.

I will conclude my remarks at this time by asking unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter which was delivered to me today, again by Alan Greenspan, responding this third time to the issue, and discussing the reasons our market needs to retain its resilience as we deal with the management of different types of very sophisticated transactions like these derivatives transactions.

I ask unanimous consent this letter be printed in the Record.

With that, I withhold my further remarks. I suspect we may need to get into a little bit of debate on these issues, and that may help us to bring focus on what the differences and concerns we have are. But I withhold further remarks at this time.

Thank you very much, Madam President. I will try to be brief.

I wish to respond to what really has become the one focal point in the discussion we have been having over the last few minutes; that is, whether the Commodity Futures Trading Act applies and provides tools to protect against over-the-counter trades and derivatives. There isn't any difference between us in regard to that.

The Senator from California said: Would we want to protect people who would do all of these bad things? She indicated from the letter she read from the attorney general of New York that we were shielding large over-the-counter trades from oversight. I will simply say again that this is not the way the laws have been interpreted by the authorities of the government who administer this act, and it is not the way the law has been interpreted by those who were involved in writing the act. Frankly, with the exception of one case of a word change correction in the energy conference bill to address the issue--with the exception of that one case, to my knowledge, there is no indication that the CFTC does not have authority to regulate these trades.

Let me go on. I will go back to the letter of June 11. This is a letter from the Department of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in which they state they were aware that one of the arguments was they do not have the authority or that adequate regulation is not taking place.

This is a letter written to me and to Senator Zell Miller, whom I commend for his efforts in this matter. They state in the letter:

As you know, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has

brought formal actions against Enron, Dynegy, and El Paso for

market manipulation, wash--roundtrip--trades, false reporting

of prices, and operation of illegal markets.

If they don't have the authority under the act to regulate price manipulation or other market manipulations, then how could they have brought formal actions to enforce it? Not only do they bring formal actions but the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Department of Justice have also initiated formal actions in the energy sector.

At the time of this letter, which was last June, they indicated:

Some of these actions have already resulted in substantial

monetary penalties and other sanctions. These initial actions

alone make clear that wrongdoers in the energy markets are

fully subject to the existing enforcement authority of

Federal regulators.

We can debate about whether we should increase the penalties or add more regulations on top of this, but the fact is that under the Commodity Futures Trading Act, anti-price-manipulation and other antifraud provisions are enforceable.

I wish to go back also to one other comment the Senator from California made. She read to us out of the 1999 report of the President's working group. I listened very carefully to the words she was reading because it is important to understand the usage of words by the President's working group.

I will go back again to when the President's working group recommended how to create this statutory system. When Congress adopted that recommendation and made it law, we created three categories-- included, exempted, and excluded. What this working group language which was read to us said was that due to the characteristics of nonfinancial commodities, exclusion was not intended or not recommended.

That is exactly, in fact, what we did in the law. We did not exclude the energy sector. We put it in the middle category, which is exactly where their working report said it should go. It said they should have authority to be exempted. It was put in the ``exempted'' category which, again, although that exempted word makes it sound as if they are excluded, is not the way the wording of the statute works. The exempted category is fully subject to antifraud and antiprice manipulation protections and to record-reporting requirements imposed by the CFTC.

Again, we may have a difference of opinion on where the reach of the law is, but the bottom line is the agencies involved in administering these and other laws are fully enforcing the law.

I conclude by reading one further letter sent to the Honorable Bill Frist and Tom Daschle yesterday by a number of associations. I will read the names of the associations. These are not just energy companies but companies, associations, and groups involved with the management of our economy from many different perspectives. They point out that the President's working group's approach, which we have been debating today, has been applied and that enforcement actions are taking place. In their words:

These actions make it clear that wrongdoers in the energy

markets are fully subject to the significant authority of

federal and state authorities.

Again, in their words:

Led by the CFTC, federal and state authorities are

currently investigating 32 companies and since last year the

Commission has entered into six settlements collecting a

total of $96 million in civil penalties from energy companies

and power merchants for attempting to manipulate energy

prices.

Again, if they do not have the authority to regulate, they are certainly doing a good job of regulating. They have collected over $96 million in civil penalties and continue to enforce the act.

Signers of this letter are: the American Bankers Association, the ABA Securities Association, the Association for Financial Professionals, the Bond Market Association, EMTA, the Financial Services Roundtable, the Foreign Exchange Committee, the Futures Industry Association, the International Swap and Derivatives Association, the Managed Funds Association, the National Mining Association, and the Securities Industry Association.

I bring that up simply to point out that not only are those agencies in our Government--such as the Department of the Treasury and the CFTC and the Federal Reserve and others--concerned about this, but those in the industry, those operating in our financial industries are concerned about what this will do to our economy and the resilience of our ability to manage risk in our economy.

One of the factors that gives us the ability to have the strongest economy in the world is our ability to utilize these types of transactional authorities to allocate risk in a way that gives us the resiliency to defend against the kinds of threats against our economy we faced over the last few years.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I submit the following notice in writing: ``In accordance with rule V of the Standing Rules of the Senate, I hereby give notice in writing that it is my intention to move to suspend paragraph 4 of rule XVI for the purpose of proposing to the Committee Amendment to the bill (H.R. 2673), Making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes, with respect to amendment No. 2068.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I object.

As we move forward on the Healthy Forests legislation, it is my understanding we have worked with all those interested here.

I will not object.

Mr. President, we have reviewed this amendment. We don't find it objectionable. We are prepared to accept it.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose the proposed amendment from the Senator from California, not because I disagree with her point that we need to make sure we adequately protect the wildland/urban interface, but because the bill, as it is currently drafted, not only adequately provides for that but provides even broader flexibility so we can, in addition, protect the watersheds, the water quality for communities. It will actually allow communities to have a greater input into the management decisions relating to the forests that surround them.

The amendment would require that 70 percent of all of the money that is provided in this bill for fuels reduction be expended in the wildland/urban interface. The bill, as drafted, provides that not less than 50 percent of the funds will be allocated for projects in the wildland/urban interface.

Nothing in the bill, as drafted, would prohibit our forest managers from doing exactly what the Senator from California says she thinks they ought to do, if that is the right decision. On the other hand, our bill follows the recommendations of the Western Governors' Association, which allows communities to make proposals to the Forest Service about how the forests in their communities should be managed.

Frankly, the opportunity for communities to say they would like to see management reach out a little further than just a quarter of a mile around their homes, into the forest in general, or into the watershed, so they can protect their watershed as well as their homes, is an opportunity that we believe is one that should be maintained for our communities and for the flexibility of our forest managers.

Now, let me repeat. Nothing in the bill, as drafted, would stop the Forest Service from expending not only 70 percent but even more than 70 percent on the wildland/urban interface if it is determined that is the best place for the allocation of these resources.

What the bill says is, no less than 50 percent must be allocated, but it does not prohibit any allocation above 50 percent if the Forest Service and the affected communities can reach an agreement.

The issue here is one of flexibility. Very often, in Washington, as we put together legislation--whether it be over forests or any other issue--one of the tendencies is for us to try to determine every situation around the country and how best to manage it.

The problem here is, not every circumstance is the same around the country. The need is not the same throughout every forest that will need to be treated. In some forests, I am confident that far more than 70 percent of the resources would go to the wildland/urban interface. In other forests, for example, the one I talked about yesterday, which surrounds Elk City, the residents there are very concerned that the entire watershed is threatening to them, and their one route of exit from their community is threatened along an entire corridor. They would need to seek protection along the entire exit corridor to literally safely protect their lives if they needed to evacuate.

It is because the situation in Elk City is very different from the situation in Los Angeles and different from the situation in other communities which have forest environments that our bill seeks to preserve the flexibility that we need to be able to manage these funds adequately.

I encourage all Senators to reject this amendment and to move forward with the provisions as we have provided them, which, again, gives the Forest Service the flexibility to not have to be bound by the cookie- cutter solutions that we often want to put in place in Washington and have the flexibility to be able to manage as the communities and the fire and forest experts know would be the best way to approach it.

Mr. President, I intend to move to table, so if anybody wants to debate before I do that, I will look around and see if someone wants to speak. I wish to make two quick comments about the debate before I move to table the amendment.

First, it has been suggested the intent of those who want to keep the bill the way it is is to allow cutting of old-growth forests. That is simply not the case. First of all, as everyone who has focused on this bill knows, we have provisions in the bill that protect old growth in the forests.

Second, the fact is, as I will say again, the bill gives communities and the Forest Service managers the flexibility to make the decisions about where the fuel reduction will be most effective to preserve and protect our forests and the people who live near the forests. Certainly, our focus on the Western Governors' proposal and the protection of communities is what we ought to be doing in this legislation.

Mr. President, I move to table the amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, before I make a motion to table, I thank my colleague, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, for her efforts in protecting our forests in this bill against insect infestation. She has been working very hard and very closely with us in building this compromise.

This legislation does a tremendous job of making sure we can address insect infestations throughout our forests. It is a well-crafted compromise. And the legislation will be a significant benefit to our national forests.

With that, Mr. President, I move to table this amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I join with my colleague from Oregon in opposing this amendment. Let me make a couple of quick points.

First of all, if the Senator from Washington is concerned about the issue of funding, we increase by 80 percent the funding provided for fuel load induction.

With regard to process, the process in this bipartisan amendment will require the agencies work together in collaboration with the public to develop proposed projects.

It will allow the communities to develop community protection fire plans to help land management agencies better understand their individual needs.

It requires the agency to publish a notice of each proposed hazardous fuel reduction project authorized under the act.

It requires the agency to hold public meetings to describe the project and take the public comments on the project.

It requires a NEPA analysis of two action alternatives and one no- action alternative.

It requires the agency to facilitate a predecisional protest process once the project analysis has been completed, and then the publication of a final decision notice.

Finally, it allows the public to pursue a case in the courts if, after all of that, they still do not support the outcome of the decisionmaking process.

Because of this, I believe it is very important that we do not continue to increase the cost and the bureaucracy surrounding the management of these decisions. Therefore, I oppose the proposed amendment.

Mr. President, I move to table this amendment. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I will be very brief. I know Members are here waiting for a vote. I also have to rise in opposition to the amendment. When we first began crafting the legislation in the Agriculture Committee, of which I chaired the Forestry Subcommittee, our first thought was to have no limit on time and no limit on acreage because, frankly, this is a good bill and it provides good management techniques we ought to utilize until we can devise better ones for our forests.

However, in the compromise through the negotiation process, as we were working to make this a strong bipartisan bill and bring it together, we agreed to a 20 million acre cap. I believe that 20 million acre limit is very modest compared to the risk we face. We need to put a perspective on this. The fact is the estimates are that there are 100 million acres at risk in America today, and this bill has a 20 million acre limit.

If anything, we need to be talking about how to consider whether we need to expand the application of this bill rather than to retract it or put more limits on it because we have worked in a bipartisan fashion to put together a good compromise that is going to be good for our forests and good for the people who live near the forests.

I conclude by also thanking those who worked with us to make this truly a bipartisan effort: The chairmen of the two committees, the Agriculture Committee, Senator Cochran, and the Energy Committee, Senator Domenici; my colleague from Idaho, who is the chairman of the Forestry Subcommittee on the Energy Committee, and Senator Lincoln, who is the ranking member on my subcommittee who worked so closely with me to draft the first piece that became the underlying language from which we then built this compromise. She has worked very hard and very effectively to make this all happen; Senator Feinstein and Senator Wyden, who came in and worked with us, with a true and sincere interest to make this a true and strong bipartisan effort; Senator McCain and Senator Kyl from Arizona, who became involved; Senator Baucus and Senator Burns from Montana; and Senator Thomas from Wyoming--all of whom were very integral in working to help make this a broad, successful, bipartisan effort. I am sure I have left some out.

The reason I go through this is to, once again, reiterate how this is the way people in America want the political process to work. They want us to find common ground and build good commonsense solutions to issues that cross party lines and get to the issue on principle rather than on partisanship or personal attacks. That is what this bill is about.

As I move to table this last amendment, I will announce that we will then be going forward after that with a managers' amendment and to final passage. I think tonight we are going to have a very big victory for America.

Yes, I yield.

I believe we could.

I move to table the Harkin amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Madam President, it is an honor for me to participate in this debate, not only because of the importance of this legislation, which I will talk about in a minute, but because of the process which has brought us here and what the public is now observing.

As for the last little while, they have observed leaders on both sides of the aisle talk in support of a highly contentious issue that we have been trying to bring to resolution in this country for years. Today, we have before the Senate a bipartisan solution, one that is the result of literally years of effort by a number of Senators who I will mention, and the result of a collaborative effort to bring together the Senators from various perspectives and negotiate an outcome that would have the common ground to build positive solutions for the future and much more benefit to all sides than the conflict which has been so much a part of this issue over the last few years.

I hope as this debate proceeds that the public will notice what is happening in the Senate today, as we see strong leadership from both sides of the aisle stepping forward, reaching a compromise that probably none of us would have crafted ourselves but which moves the issue much more further forward than anything we have seen in the past.

I will speak for a minute about how this came about. We have already heard several comments today about those who have worked on this from the past. It just so happens that Idaho--Senator Craig was on the floor and will be back in a moment--has two Senators who happen, just by circumstance, to be the chairmen of the two forestry committees in the Senate. Senator Craig chairs the forestry subcommittee of the Energy Committee. Senator Wyden from Oregon, who just spoke, is his ranking member. I chair the forestry subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee. My ranking member is Blanche Lambert Lincoln, who is a cosponsor of the base legislation, which was initially put forward in the Agriculture Committee and which became the vehicle around which these negotiations centered.

Senator Craig, Senator Wyden, Senator Smith from Oregon, myself, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, Senator Domenici, the chairman of the Energy Committee, Senator Cochran, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, both of the Senators from Arizona, Mr. Kyl and Mr. McCain, along with Senator Feinstein from California, Senator Baucus from Montana, and other Senators came together and said: We must find a way to get past the intense battles that always bring this legislation down and find a way to build a path forward, one that protects the environment, protects the natural resource-based economy, protects our urban and rural communities, and protects the world from the environmental impacts of the devastation of these forest fires. It is that which we have before us today.

I thank my chairman, Senator Cochran in particular, for the strong leadership he has provided; and Senator Domenici and Senator Craig from the Energy Committee who have provided such strong and consistent leadership on this issue.

Why is it that I say this is such an important and critical issue to America? Everybody in America who is looking at the news right now is watching what is happening in California. In California, fires are raging. The death toll is mounting. The devastation to the environment is obvious. What is happening there now is an example of what has been happening across America for years, as we have fallen into an inability to implement forest management decisions in America on our public lands. I do not have the exact statistic in front of me, but I believe the 10-year average is that we have seen something in the neighborhood of 4

million acres of forest ground burn a year. For the last 4 years the numbers were approximately 3.3 million acres this year, 7 million acres last year, 3.3 or 3.7 million acres the year before, and then another 7-plus million acres the year before that.

These acres burn in devastating ways, destroying wildlife and habitat, destroying our forests, and causing other significant damage to rural and urban communities, to natural resource-based economies in States such as Idaho, where we rely on a timber economy.

Another aspect that is not often noticed is it is delivering to the atmosphere immense amounts of carbon dioxide. In fact, I am looking for some of the statistics on this, but the amount of gas that is put into the atmosphere, in terms of the kinds of debates we are having over greenhouse gases and global warming, is phenomenal. To give one example, the Hayman fire in Colorado recently was analyzed and it was determined that in 1 day of that fire's burning, it put enough CO2 in the atmosphere to equal the amount of CO2 that all of the cars in the United States put into the atmosphere on that day.

If we multiply that times the number of fires we have been having over the years, the load of CO2 or greenhouse gases into the environment that is caused by the forest fires becomes a monumentally large issue in relationship to our efforts to control global warming.

Forest fires go from the broad issues of global warming to the narrow issues of a small community such as the community in Idaho that I recently visited, Elk City, which I at that time said was ground zero for this debate, a little community that is literally at the end of the road, in the middle of a tremendously beautiful forest in which the fuel load has been building year after year and now has a higher fuel load by several factors than the fuel load in Yellowstone when the Yellowstone fire started a few years ago.

This community has only one road in and one road out. They have been crying for support from the Federal system, to have some kind of protection of their community in terms of just what the threat is to loss of life, let alone the threat of the loss to their economy that would be caused by a forest fire. This little city, Elk City, ID, is as much involved and interested in this issue as are those who are battling over global warming issues. It is for that reason this legislation is so critical to our Nation.

I want to go over a little bit about the compromise, because the compromise we have reached today is a very broad-based critical compromise. It brings together a number of important pieces of the debate that have been counterpoints in conflict in the past and have now come together as part of a commonsense solution.

First, resources are provided in this bill for forest management at a significant level and in a significant way. One of the things we know is that prevention is critical. Madam President, $760 million in annual funding for fuels reduction on Federal lands has been provided in this legislation and that can be used also in related grants for State and private forestry programs. Fifty percent of these resources are required to be used in the wildland/urban interface, one of the critical areas we are now watching as the fires burn in California.

This critical wildland/urban interface is defined by local communities. We implement and follow the recommendations of the Western Governors Association as they talk about the collaborative process that needs to be put into place so citizen involvement can be enhanced in defining and implementing the protection plans for protecting our forests and the related communities, both rural and urban.

Second, this legislation for the first time in legislation proposes specific protection for old growth in the forests. Where there are old- growth stands in the forest, this legislation provides those who are implementing fuel reduction programs must protect those old-growth stands to the maximum extent they can. Conversely, it also provides that hazardous fuel reduction projects are intended to focus on small- diameter trees, thinning, and strategic fuel breaks, and should retain the large trees as appropriate for resilient stands. The point is the focus on small-diameter timber in these fuel reduction programs is going to provide opportunities for some of the communities that have been hit so hard by the reduction of logging and timber activities to find alternative sources for their economy to grow.

In Cascade, ID, we have a company that is trying to get started now, which is providing unique new ways of utilizing small-diameter timber to help in restoring and protecting our environment after fires have gone through, using the very small-diameter timber we are talking about in these forest fire prevention plans.

I should make clear, the focus on small-diameter timber is not to turn our back on the need to reform and solve the problems with regard to timber activity and logging activity. We can and should have a strong, healthy, natural-resource-based environment as well as strong, healthy forests. We can achieve those objectives. This bill is going to help us implement a number of the important provisions that will achieve those objectives.

Next, as the Senator from Oregon has already indicated, it protects public involvement. One of the things it does is it limits the number of alternatives the Forest Service must consider. Our minority leader, Senator Daschle, already indicated the expense and the time delay that is caused by the drive, under our current system, to force endless analysis but delaying getting to the implementation part of forest management decisions. This bill requires that in addition to the proposed fuel reduction program that is adopted by the Forest Service, the Forest Service must also consider the ``no action'' alternative, and at least one other alternative, if it becomes appropriate under the collaborative process that is moving forward, allowing for citizens to propose alternatives and have the Forest Service consider those alternatives as the process moves forward, but providing some relief so the Forest Service can get on with the decisionmaking.

In addition, what I have called litigation paralysis is addressed. One of the problems we face in forest management decisions today, possibly the biggest one, is that under our current system, no matter how much evaluation and study is put in, no matter how many alternatives are considered, at the end of the day the proposal that is adopted is litigated and we end up in paralysis through continuous litigation that simply stops the process from moving forward.

Let me give an example. A couple of years ago I went to a forest in Idaho. I was taken there by the Forest Service employees who had proposed a thinning project to address an insect infestation problem. They explained to me why this forest, both in terms of forest fire and in terms of its health and safety against insect infestation, needed to have this thinning project proceed.

I was impressed with what they taught me. I went away thinking this forest is going to have some improvement. I went back to the same forest several years later. No thinning activity had taken place. I was there with the same people. I asked them what had happened. They advised me they had their decision challenged in court and, although they had ultimately prevailed in the litigation, it was now 2 years later and it was too late. The insect infestation had gone too far; there was no point in doing the thinning project. The forest for that purpose had been lost. It is now a fire hazard, not to mention the fact the health of the forest itself has been sacrificed.

The Forest Service won the litigation, but the delay of the litigation stopped the ability to implement the management decision. That is just one example of the kind of thing we are talking about.

By the way, in that case I said, What was the issue? They explained to me the issue that was litigated.

I said, Why didn't you just concede that. It was not that big of an issue.

They said, The way we won the litigation is to basically concede that point and then ask permission from the court to go on because it really wasn't central to our efforts.

The response they gave me was: This issue was never raised as we were putting together the alternatives, going through the NEPA project. We didn't know we were going to get challenged on this or we could have accommodated it as we were moving along.

My point is that an entity, a group that wanted to stop this thinning project, sat back and let the entire process proceed without ever raising their concerns in the citizen involvement process. They waited until that entire process had come to a conclusion and then filed a lawsuit. The first time the Forest Service found out about this issue was then.

These kinds of issues are addressed in this bill. For example, we are requiring the Forest Service to develop a new appeals process that is similar to the predecisional appeals process the Department of Interior now uses. This is important, because it gives those who are concerned about good decisionmaking at the Forest Service, and who are already involved in the public process, the ability to challenge that through an appeal before the final decision is made, a predecisional appeal process. Then if they still do not like the outcome, nothing stops them from filing a lawsuit at the end of the process. We are expanding and enhancing the ability of involvement here by the public.

However, we are saying to individuals and groups who want to challenge these decisions you must get involved at the beginning. Those who want to challenge these decisions must show they have been involved in the process and participated in the public involvement process from the beginning. They also must show they have exhausted their administrative efforts, their administrative remedies. If they have a remedy with the Forest Service, they should go to the Forest Service through its appeals process, and exhaust that process first before simply filing a lawsuit and moving the whole process into litigation paralysis. With the enhanced citizen involvement we have provided, once a decision gets made, if there are those who are still unhappy, they have a right to file a lawsuit under this legislation.

What the courts must do at that point is expeditiously move the litigation. In the legislation the courts are encouraged to expedite these cases.

Second, this legislation limits the injunction that the court can issue to 60 days and allows continuous unlimited 60-day renewals but requires those who would come into court to simply stop anything from happening to show the court at 60-day intervals updated information that the grounds for stopping the action still exist and they haven't been resolved in some way.

Finally, it requires the court to balance the harms of what would happen if we don't do the thinning project or the proposed fuel reduction project, future harms that could come as a result of that against the current harm of what the injunction is proposed to stop. It simply requires a court to balance those harms as they evaluate whether to issue an injunction.

There are those who say the injunction should be issued no matter what because once a tree is thinned or cut it can never be put back. The response to that is, as true as that is, if you look to the future and to the future harms, once the insects take the forest, you can't bring it back easily, and those trees are dead, too. Once the forest burns, you can't then rebuild a healthy forest that you would have been able to do had you implemented these decisions.

All we are saying in this legislation is that the court must balance the harms from inaction against the harms of the proposed action in terms of issuing the injunction.

These are important factors that will help us break the litigation paralysis but still provide significant public input and significant public support and the rights of the public to challenge the decisions made by the Forest Service.

There are a number of other important parts of this legislation. There are critics of this legislation, and I assume that at some point throughout the debate today and tomorrow--as long as it goes--there will be an opportunity and a need to respond to some of the charges about this legislation. I will not go into all of that now.

I will simply conclude by saying again what we have before us today is a bill that is probably different than any one of the Senators who came together from both sides of the aisle would have drafted if they had drafted it on their own. But it represents a bill that goes to every issue that has been the cause for stalling which has stopped us from being able to get the legislation through, and it has resulted in compromising to move us forward in every one of those areas. We provide the resources. We provide protection for old growth. We provide protection for public and citizen involvement. We assure that the process for litigation is streamlined but is still meaningful. And, most importantly, we make it so that once our forest managers--those who have studied, the scientists who know what our forests need--have come up with a plan and have made it through the public process and through litigation they will actually have a real meaningful opportunity to implement forest management decisions.

This legislation is critical for Americans. It is unfortunate that we have to be debating it while we are watching California burn. But nevertheless the pressure from the forest fires over the last few years has shown us across America that it is time for us to come together as we have on this legislation and take this important step to protect our forests, to protect our natural resource base economy, to protect our communities, and to protect the world.

Madam President, we are on a very critical bill right now and I must object.

Madam President, I would be glad to respond.

As the Senator from Washington knows, all of us have very critical issues that are very important to us, that we are trying to get time on this floor to consider. The way we handle that is we work with our respective leadership in scheduling these matters. I am not in a position right now to speak for either the leadership on the other side or my own leadership with regard to what kind of an agenda they intend to put forward with regard to the floor. What I do know is we have waited our time for this Healthy Forests legislation to come forward. We now have been given floor time, and we cannot relinquish it. Therefore, I will just encourage the Senator from Washington to work with her leadership and our leadership to see when the scheduling issue she wants to address can be brought forward.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I ask permission to utilize the 10 minutes which I have been allocated under the unanimous consent agreement.

Madam President, we are getting close to a vote on this amendment. I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to a couple of the issues that have been raised by those in opposition to it.

First, it is notable that very little in opposition to this amendment has been said. There are a few things I will get into, but the fact is, as we said at the outset, a broad group of bipartisan Senators have come together to address the issues from all perspectives and build a common ground forward. I believe the relative lack of attack and concern that has been raised with regard to this amendment is indicative of the success which those Senators have achieved.

There have been a few criticisms made though. I want to respond to some of them.

First, with regard to the allocation of the resources, it has been argued that only 50 percent of the resources have been allocated to the wildland/urban interface. Remember, we have $760 million worth of resources allocated in this bill. The point, however, needs to be made that in addition to the fact that our wildland/urban interface needs to be addressed, much of the problem exists out in the forests away from that wildland/urban interface. In fact, when the forests get hot and get burning, when you get winds such as we are seeing in California right now, it is very important to have protection more than just 100 yards or a couple hundred yards away from the wildland/urban interface.

We are seeing in California right now what high winds and geography can mean with regard to a forest fire, and we must have the flexibility in our forest managers to make the decisions about where the best management should occur.

We also have heard that there is apparently a disagreement between the proponents and opponents of this legislation with regard to what the real problem is. Those who oppose this amendment say that the real problem is that we are not putting enough resources into fuel management and fuel reduction issues. Those of us who are proposing the legislation are said to be focused more on trying to reduce litigation.

The fact is, this is an indication of the fact that there are different points of view as to what we ought to be doing. It is what this bipartisan group of Senators did to address the issue. There are some who believe we need to solve the problem by putting more resources on the ground and getting those resources out there in forest management. That is why this bill authorizes $760 million of resources to go into the management of our forests.

We do, however, recognize that there is a large problem in the litigation arena. It is that litigation problem that the bill also addresses.

There have been arguments made that as a result of our efforts to address the litigation paralysis, public involvement has been limited. That is simply not true. No public involvement under NEPA has been eliminated. In fact, the predecisional appeals process we are proposing to create in this legislation will create a new avenue of public involvement. What we are saying, however, is that the litigation has to be brought in the State or the district where the fire is, where the proposed project is. Those who want to get involved have to exhaust their remedies, a very standard legal procedure that is required in many areas. Before you are going to file a lawsuit, go through the administrative procedures that are provided to try to achieve your objectives. And then, finally, if that doesn't work, there still is the route of litigation allowed. We simply encourage the courts to act expeditiously and require the courts to look at it every 60 days to see if the circumstances have changed.

I believe these are reasonable and fair protections that are built into place.

There has been discussion that even though we have $760 million allocated for forest fuel reduction projects and management in this bill, that the bill doesn't guarantee that that money will go there because it is not an appropriations bill. That is the same thing that is true about every authorization bill. The fact is, when we authorize these moneys, under the way the Congress works, it is still necessary for the Appropriations Committee to then appropriate the moneys. We will be working with the Appropriations Committee to take that next step. But to criticize this amendment because it is not an appropriations bill is simply to put up a false attack and to create a false impression that this is not a meaningful authorization of $760 million, subject, as all bills are except for entitlement programs, to the appropriations process.

One final point: There has been an argument that litigation really isn't the problem because a recent GAO report showed that the vast number of forest management decisions were not appealed. That study and the way people use it shows how you can use numbers to achieve different results depending on the outcome you want to address. The fact is, categorical exclusions represented a significant number of the actions of the agency. These are actions which the current law--not this law, but current NEPA law--does not require or allow to be appealed.

The reason is because they are basically the kinds of actions that have negligible or have no impact on the environment. It is things such as cutting firewood and mowing lawns and other types of categorical exclusion activities. There is more than that that is in that category. But the point is, these are categorical exclusions for things that have no significant environmental impact.

That is a current part of the existing law. When you look at the proposed treatments that have been more than a categorical exclusion, that require further NEPA analysis, then the level of appeals goes up dramatically. In fact, 59 percent of them are actually appealed. Of those that were appealed, it is interesting to note that most are found to be without merit; 19 out of 180 were reversed.

My point is, as I said earlier today, even though these appeals may be lost, what they do is cost the time, sometimes a full year or more, for the implementation of the management decision, which in many cases makes it moot at that point because the insect infestation has gone beyond the proposal, or because a fire has occurred or something else has made it so that the Forest Service simply can't proceed.

We are facing litigation paralysis. We do need additional resources on the forests. This is the first legislation in the history of the country that has provided statutory protection for old growth. This is a bipartisan compromise that will help us move significantly forward in these efforts to address this critical problem in our country.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at 9:30 a.m. on future of NASA.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at 9:30 a.m. to hold a Nomination hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a hearing on Challenges for U.S. Policy Toward Colombia: Is Plan Colombia Working?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet for a hearing on Is Intellectual Diversity an Endangered Species on America's College Campuses? during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 29, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. in SD-430.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet in Executive Session during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 29, 2003. The following agenda will be considered:

Agenda

S. , Head Start Improvement and School Readiness Act.

S. , The Poverty Reduction and Prevention Act of 2003.

S. , Pension Stability Act.

S. , Health Care Safety Net Amendments Technical Corrections Act of 2003.

S. 423, Health Care Parity for Legal Transportation and Recreational Activities Act.

S. 1172, Improved Nutrition and Physical Activity Act.

Nominations: Robert Lerner, of Maryland, to be Commissioner of Education Statistics; Leslie Silverman, of Virginia, to be a Member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Stuart J. Ishimaru, of the District of Columbia, to be a Member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and any other nominees that have been cleared for action.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet on Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 10 a.m., in room 106 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a business meeting to consider pending committee business; to be followed immediately by a hearing on S. 1770, the ``Indian Money Account Claims Satisfaction Act of 2003.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 10 a.m., on ``BCS or Bust: Competitive and Economic Effects of the Bowl Championship Series On and Off the Field,'' in

the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226.

Witness List: LaVell Edwards, Former Head Football Coach, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT; Harvey Perlman, Chancellor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE; Dr. Scott S. Cowen, President, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Dr. Myles Brand, President, National Collegiate Athletic Association, Indianapolis, IN; and Keith Tribble, Chief Executive Officer, Orange Bowl Committee, Miami, FL.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet to conduct a hearing on Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 2 p.m., on ``Nominations,'' in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 226.

Agenda

Panel I: Senators.

Panel II: James B. Comey to be Deputy Attorney General.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space be authorized to meet on Wednesday, October 29, 2003, at 2:30 p.m. concerning the International Space Station.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Trish Aspland, congressional assistant from the U.S. Forest Service, for the remainder of the debate relating to H.R. 1904, the Healthy Forest Restoration Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Doug MacCleery, an employee of the Department of Agriculture, who has been detailed to the Agriculture Committee, and Fred Zepponi, an intern on the committee's staff, be granted the privilege of the floor during debate on H.R. 1904.

Mr. President, I rise to speak for a moment on the Healthy Forests bill which, as we just heard from previous discussion, will not be brought up. I understand the points made by the Senator from Nevada with regard to the importance of the appropriations bills. None of us deny the fact that we have important work to do with regard to our budget and the appropriations process. However, there are other critical pieces of legislation this Senate must consider. Among the most critical of those is the Healthy Forests bill. I serve as chairman of the subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee which handles forestry issues. It was that committee to which this legislation was referred when it came to the Senate. Our distinguished chairman of the Agriculture Committee, Senator Cochran, has worked closely with me as we have crafted bipartisan legislation to bring before the Senate. We have also worked closely with the Energy Committee, Senator Domenici, and Senator Craig, my colleague from

Idaho, who happens by coincidence to chair the forestry subcommittee of the Energy Committee, and other Senators on the Republican side of the aisle as we worked to craft a meaningful piece of legislation.

We also reached out and worked closely in a bipartisan fashion with Senators from the Democratic side of the aisle because we knew this important legislation should not be stalled as a result of partisan politics. The result of those efforts, the initial effort in committee and subcommittee, was bipartisan legislation which Democratic Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln from Arkansas and I cosponsored to bring before the full Committee on Agriculture. The Agriculture Committee then made several amendments to the legislation, working in a bipartisan fashion with other Senators on the committee, and brought that legislation out to the floor. At that time there were still concerns being raised and, therefore, our leader, Senator Cochran, brought together a group of Republican and Democratic Senators with concerns about our forests and the conditions they face, and for several months we negotiated--again, on a bipartisan basis--to address the needs of our forests and the concerns raised by those who wanted to be sure we had a bipartisan, balanced bill.

We achieved that support. We came forward in a group of bipartisan Senators, Republicans and Democrats, with legislation that expanded the number of Democrats who would join with us on the legislation, including our minority leader and other leaders in the west from areas where serious forest fire problems are facing us.

Now after that long period and working in a bipartisan fashion, as we are prepared to bring the legislation forward, we are told it cannot be brought forward because there is objection to the unanimous consent request. We don't want to have a filibuster fight. We don't want to have a cloture vote. We have been working to build a balanced approach which can achieve support in the Senate.

It is my concern that what we see now is further delay, coming at a late time in the session, when we will jeopardize the ability of the Senate to meet its time considerations to address critical issues.

Our forests need support and help now. All anyone has to do with regard to the threat of fire danger is look back at the last 3 or 4 or 5 months to see the kind of threat our forests face. In addition, we expanded the legislation to deal not simply with fire threats but also threats from insect infestation--some of the most critical needs facing our forests in America today.

This legislation, as Senator Cochran indicated, is balanced. It is fair. It protects old-growth forests. It makes certain that public participation in the process of decisionmaking is preserved. It assures that the implementation of management plans by experts on the forests has a meaningful chance to proceed so we aren't tied up in litigation paralysis, and it gives us an opportunity to move forward and develop a plan that will help us achieve our objective, which is healthy forests.

I commend all Senators who have been working together on this issue, Republicans and Democrats. I particularly thank my colleague from Idaho, Senator Craig, and our colleague from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, as they have worked so closely with us at the Energy Committee level; and especially my chairman, Senator Cochran, who also worked closely with us; Senator Lincoln, who has worked with us from the start, Senators Wyden, Feinstein, Baucus, and others; Senator Kyl, Senator McCain. Many Senators have come together to work with us.

I am hopeful this critical, bipartisan, balanced legislation will not fall prey to the loss of time we face on the Senate floor at these late days in the session as we are moving forward. I urge Senators to come forward and help us find a path by which we can bring this legislation before the Senate and achieve its early consideration.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a quiet patriot from Idaho. Our National Guard and Reserve troops who have been called up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq have left behind not only families, but in many cases, full-time jobs. Many employers go the extra mile to provide support to their deployed employees, their families, and communities. One such employer-patriot is Albertson's Incorporated, headquartered in Boise, ID.

Albertson's Incorporated recently received recognition from the Department of Defense for its extraordinary ongoing efforts in support of deployed employees, and those employees' families. The National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, ESGR, has chosen Albertson's Incorporated as one of only four companies nationwide to receive the 2003 ESGR Home Front Award. The Department of Defense recognizes the efforts of these companies to take steps such as providing pay differential, the continuation of benefits when their employees are mobilized, and a willingness to advocate Guard and Reserve service among their industry peers. With many employees currently stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Albertson's has shown dedication to the values of freedom and democracy, and perseverance in light of limited personnel resources. Albertson's has translated patriotic words into action, and shown that corporations as well as individuals can lend a helping hand to the men and women of the Armed Forces, their families, and our Nation as a whole.

Mr. President, I give a well-deserved ``thank you'' to a member of my staff who recently left the U.S. Senate. Ted Koch was with me a short time as a congressional fellow on leave from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and has since returned to Idaho. During this experience here, I benefited from his expertise and abilities, and wanted to let him know how much I have appreciated his contributions.

Ted stepped into the breach upon the departure of my staff director at the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Water. He filled the role expertly and with great enthusiasm. I appreciate that Ted aspires to principles embodied by another ``Ted,'' President Theodore Roosevelt. He deeply enjoys and understands the ecology of hunting and fishing. He strives to make progress. Ted and I both believe that the best hope for people and wildlife in Idaho is to defend property rights. With greater certainty about the inherent value of property, landowners have the confidence and freedom to advance their own ideas for conservation. These qualities and beliefs make Ted a valuable spokesman for intelligent conversation in Idaho. He has made himself a friend of Idaho through his friendships in the State and here in Washington. I appreciate his invaluable participation on my staff, and wish him well in future endeavors. I have no doubt about his continued success.

Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge the recently announced decision of Dr. Bill Shipp to retire as president and laboratory director of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, INEEL. After over 4 years as laboratory director and 3 years as president of Bechtel BWXT Idaho, the company that manages and operates the INEEL for the U.S. Department of Energy, Dr. Shipp is retiring to pursue other endeavors. Knowing him as I do, hunting and fishing will be high on the list of ``other endeavors.''

Dr. Shipp came to Idaho as part of the Bechtel team that won the contract to manage the INEEL in 1999. He had previously served with distinction as an associate lab director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

His years at the INEEL have been filled with accomplishment, leadership, and an ability to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. Under his leadership, the INEEL met critical cleanup milestones to cleanup the site and ship waste out of Idaho. The leadership he has provided at the INEEL has resulted in the growth of both the funding and respect for the INEEL's research and development capabilities. Within the Department of Energy's National Laboratory network he is respected by his peers.

In 1999, Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne named Dr. Shipp as Idaho's first Science and Technology Advisor to the Governor. In that capacity, he made important recommendations to the State and the Governor regarding the Idaho education system.

Dr. Shipp's record of leadership and accomplishment was recognized by Purdue University when it named him one of the institution's distinguished alumni in 2002. He returned to West Lafayette, IN, to receive that award, and I know that was a special moment for Dr. Shipp, his wife Linda and their children, Jennifer and John.

I enjoyed meeting with Dr. Shipp when he has come by my office to update me on how things are going at the INEEL. During these meetings, one of us would ask if the other had been hunting. As I think back, I realize lab directors get to hunt more than Senators, but what I remember most is Dr. Shipp and I always made plans to hunt

quail together at a mutual friend's ranch. One season, our plans were cancelled because he broke his leg while hunting. I am sorry we never did go quail hunting together, but I want him to know the offer still stands.

Within the DOE system, laboratory directors serve as stewards of national assets. These are difficult jobs where mistakes are not tolerated and success is expected. Within these demanding constraints, Dr. Shipp set the standard for performance and accomplishment with a commitment to safety and people. More than that, Bill Shipp is a man who others look to for guidance and support. I am pleased to call Bill Shipp a friend and I want to say thank you for your service to Idaho, the DOE and the Nation.

Mr. President, I would like to honor William Howard Taft Elementary School in Boise, ID, on receiving the prestigious No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Schools Award. The Blue Ribbon Schools Award is highly sought after and is awarded to schools that demonstrate dramatic gains in student achievement. Taft reflects our Nation's commitment to high academic standards and accountability. Taft teachers, parents, and students have demonstrated they are ``deeply committed to establishing and upholding high standards of learning.'' This is reflected in the success of their students.

Of course, improvement and achievement do not happen in a vacuum. Behind this award lie days, weeks, and months of hard work by dedicated individuals who have been actively involved in the teaching and learning process. Dr. Susan Williamson, Taft's Principal, and her staff have reaffirmed our commitment to high-quality education in Idaho. I am pleased to commend Dr. Williamson, as well as the teachers, parents, administrators, community members and all 353 students who have helped make Taft Elementary such a great place to learn. As a recipient of The Blue Ribbon Schools Award, William Howard Taft Elementary, you do Idaho proud.