Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley for, as a key member of the Finance Committee, acknowledging the fact that it is time we treat all Americans the same; that if you give a tax break on one side, you should give a tax break on the other side; that you should treat everybody alike. I think we approach this in a bipartisan way with Senator Wyden and Senator Bennett, and though we disagree about exactly how to implement it, this is tremendous progress.

As the chairman described the difficulty we have today and the challenge in front of us, I think all of us say: When are we going to fix it? Today, we are on the floor talking about an expansion for uninsured children. What we are attempting to do is

to take care of the whole uninsured population. Through refundable tax credits, which I believe reach all Americans--not some and not just those with incomes that have tax deductibility at the end of a calendar year but all Americans--I think we accomplish that commitment to say we want to go out and make sure every American has coverage. We want to make sure they have the resources to go in the private marketplace and negotiate coverage that reflects their age, their income, their health condition. We want health care to be portable so you are no longer locked to an employer because of health care. We want individuals to have the capacity to take it with them, regardless of where they work.

We propose that once we reach tax equity, every individual in this country would receive annually a $2,160 refundable flat tax credit, and every family would receive a $5,400 annual refundable flat tax credit, more than enough money to cover the tax consequences of a benefit that is not treated as wages, and for any extra money that is left over if you are on employer plans, it would be deposited in a health savings account where those additional funds could only be used for health care.

For individuals in the market today who don't have coverage, all of a sudden we have provided the money for them to go into the marketplace and to negotiate coverage for themselves or for their families. That check would go directly from the U.S. Treasury to the insurer that is providing that coverage. If there is something left over from their tax credit after they have negotiated for coverage, it would go into their health savings account.

We are maximizing the amount of dollars just by treating Americans the same--not by giving one special favors and others being deprived of that but saying we are going to treat all Americans the same. Then, an amazing thing happens: We no longer have a debate on uninsured Americans because every American has the opportunity through that--it is not under the Government plan--to receive that refundable flat tax credit.

Some may be at home saying: This really doesn't apply to me. But it does because when you eliminate the uninsured in this country, you eliminate the cost shift each one of us who has health insurance today pays for. I tell my colleagues that the cost of every American's health insurance will come down if, in fact, we solve this problem once and for all.

I think the commitment from the ranking member of the Finance Committee is an important first step for us treating the tax side of this in an equitable fashion, and I look forward to working with our other colleagues on exactly what the solution is.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to honor the life of George Edward ``Skip'' Prosser, head coach of the Wake Forest University basketball team.

As a Demon Deacon alumni myself, I join the entire Wake Forest University community in mourning his untimely passing.

I knew Skip personally. Skip was a friend of mine. And before I mention many of his accomplishments as a basketball coach, perhaps Skip's most admirable achievement in life was that he was a good husband and good dad.

When I first heard the news of Skip's passing, my first thoughts were not of basketball but of his wife Nancy and his sons, Scott and Mark. My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to Skip's family and to the Wake Forest community that adored him.

Coach Prosser had countless basketball accomplishments, and as I stand here today, I can only scratch the surface of what he has achieved.

When he joined Wake Forest University for the 2001 to 2002 season, after successful coaching at Loyola, Maryland, and Xavier, he added a much needed spark to our basketball program that yielded immediate success.

Coach Prosser is the only coach in NCAA history to take three different schools to the NCAA Tournament in his first season at each of those schools.

In his first four seasons coaching at Wake Forest, Coach Prosser led the Demon Deacons to the NCAA tournament, and in 2003 he led the team to its first outright regular season ACC title in over 40 years.

In the 2004 to 2005 season, Coach Prosser's Demon Deacons rose to No. 1 in the national rankings for the first time in school history.

One of his most impressive statistics was his career wins percentage of .666 that is among the highest winning percentages of active coaches.

More impressive, however, is the statement Coach Prosser often made about his personal coaching record. It personified the kind of man Skip was. When his record was applauded, he often responded by saying, ``I don't have a career record. The players won those games.''

In addition to the honor and praise Coach Prosser got for his achievements on the court, his work off the court also deserved high marks.

Coach Prosser always emphasized that academic success was the first priority for his athletes. In fact, every senior on Coach Prosser's team graduated with a diploma in 4 years.

The Wake Forest student body embraced him as one of their own because he took every opportunity to spend time with them--frequently walking through the Wake Forest Quad, talking with students, and game after game filling our home basketball coliseum with Demon Deacon pride.

Skip Prosser will be missed. He was an outstanding man who brought a community together through the game he so loved.

Again, I send my deepest condolences to Skip's family, his athletes, his fans, and his friends.

Madam President, can I ask the Senator to change the unanimous consent request to add myself after Senator Dorgan.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on the SCHIP bill. I have an amendment to the SCHIP bill, but I do not intend to call it up at this time. I wish to speak on SCHIP, as well as on my amendment.

I also take this opportunity to ask unanimous consent to add Senator Dole as a cosponsor to the amendment.

Mr. President, I think it is safe to say that health care is probably one of the most important things this body can debate. I think you have to look at our overall health care system today to understand why it is so important. It is because we have the best health care delivery system in the world, bar none.

We have seen other countries try to develop a system that fit within a budget framework that, over time, as the dollars got tight, constricted the level of care delivered, creating waiting lines for individuals who had certain health conditions. But the United States has always been considered the innovative health care delivery system of the world. It was accessible for most, regardless of region. I think it is safe to say for a long period of time it was very affordable. But that has all changed.

The U.S. system still provides a level of security if, in fact, you are insured. If you are not insured, I am not sure the sense of security--just knowing there is a hospital or doctors--necessarily provides you with a tremendous amount of security.

With every day that continues on, the level of choice that exists within the United States health care system begins to get less and less. Most of us have been here for the debates of the creation of HMOs and PPOs, and all the products that employers, insurers, and individuals desperately try to create to address this rising cost of health care, while maintaining some degree of benefit for the individual and for their family. But over time, we have continued to see changes to those products, to where there is very little difference between the products now except for what we call them. Clearly, that has eliminated many of the choices.

What has happened to the U.S. system, over a very slow period of time, maybe the last two decades? Over 50 percent of the American people are now on a Government health care plan. It is no longer private-sector driven. We are here with this big question mark about why market conditions do not affect the cost of health care or the cost of premiums or that they do not create choice. In fact, over half of the American people are now in a Government-run system, one that mirrors more what others in the country have tried, only to find out that unless you have an unlimited pool of money, they do not work.

Well, what do Government systems eventually create? They create a system that has less doctors, less nurses, less hospitals, which means less care for those in the country.

I know the ranking member represents a State that is considered to be rural. North Carolina is a State considered to be rural. If you have a contraction of doctors, if you have a contraction of specialists, if you have less nurses in the pool, it means there is not enough to go around all the facilities. There are many regional areas of my State today where we cannot find OB/GYNs to deliver babies.

Now, sure, I can look at a pregnant woman and say: Within a 30 or 45- mile radius, you will be able to get delivery care. But try to explain to a mother, when her water breaks and she goes into labor, that the person who is going to deliver that baby is 45 miles away. In fact, the prenatal care, for that individual who needs it, is now 45 miles away because that is where her OB/GYN is, and we are not going to be able to get the level of prenatal care in rural America that we want.

What has the Government controlling more of health care produced? Less choices, fewer providers, and less services, and especially for those limited amounts of services that are preventive.

Let me state from the beginning of this debate, I am for reauthorizing the SCHIP bill. I will support the substitute that Senator McConnell will offer which provides $38.9 billion over 5 years, which is an increase of $13.9 billion.

I also was in the House, on the Energy and Commerce Committee, in 1997, when we enacted the first SCHIP bill, which was a $40 billion Federal commitment over 10 years to those children at 200 percent of poverty or less. Many States expanded that SCHIP program to cover parents of SCHIP kids and childless adults.

The McConnell reauthorization protects the original SCHIP program by making sure that low-income children are the focus of our effort.

Now, I will say, North Carolina has one of the best SCHIP programs in the United States. I am pleased that Senator McConnell's reauthorization will give North Carolina the additional funds it needs to continue serving low-income children. But I am, sadly, here today to tell you I am not for expanding the rolls of SCHIP. The Finance Committee bill adds more than $30 billion to the current SCHIP base budget--$25 billion--to, roughly, cover 3.3 million additional children.

Now, CBO scored what the State and Federal Government spending will be per child. Let me put that up for everybody: $3,930 per child. Yet, today, the average private health care plan in the private sector is $1,130. My question is, if we are going to spend $3,900 per child in a Government plan, but we can insure them fully in the private sector today for $1,130, where is the choice? As a colleague of ours in the House used to say: Beam me up, Scotty. Something is wrong here. This seems like a no-brainer. This is not an investment that one can make on the part of American taxpayers and feel good about.

In 1997, we spent $40 billion. It was an honorable goal. Quite frankly, the program has been very popular. The Baucus reauthorization plan, though, would spend $60 billion over the next 5 years.

Now, people will talk about budget gimmicks. I am not here to talk about that. I think they are here. I think it hides millions of dollars that I think are extra spending--and maybe they are going to insure this 3.3 million, and $3,900 per child is incorrect, or maybe there are more people who are going to be covered, and many of them outside of the ranks of low-income children--but there is no question the Baucus- Grassley bill expands SCHIP so much that I feel children who need it the most will get lost in a new, larger Government-run program.

As a matter of fact, if SCHIP works as well as I think it does, why would we change it? I think some would tell us we are not here changing the SCHIP program. But I would only point to section 606 of the Grassley-Baucus bill, where they remove the word ``State'' from the name of SCHIP. See, SCHIP is the State Children's Health Insurance Program. It was always designed as us being an enhanced share for the States, and the States running the program. Now, SCHIP is going to be called the Children's Health Insurance Program. It sounds like a big, one-size-fits-all Government program to me.

The solution to our health care crisis is not to put every child in America in a Government program. Today, one out of every two children in America is in a Government program. They are either enrolled in Medicaid or SCHIP.

The Baucus plan puts more children into Government health care. A recent CBO analysis concluded that for every 1 million additional children covered under SCHIP, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 will be switched from private insurance to the new public SCHIP coverage.

Now, let me say that again. CBO estimates--this is not me--CBO estimates that for every 1 million new kids we put into SCHIP, somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000 will switch from their parents' insurance to the new Government plan.

Now, that is 3.3 million kids, which means 1.65 million could be switched from private insurance to Government insurance, at 3,900 and some dollars, estimated by CBO. Again, where is the sanity and the obligation and fiduciary responsibility we have to the taxpayers? Why in the world would we create an avenue for people to go off their family's plan and come on a Government plan, where we are committed, as CBO said, to spend $3,900, roughly, per child?

Now, before people think we are all insane--they know I am now--what

should we be discussing? I believe we should be discussing how do we reform the health care system? I do not think I would find much opposition except on how we do that because there are 45 million uninsured Americans today. If they are sitting at home listening to this debate about covering 3 million low-income children, or wherever they are on the income scale, for a person sitting at home, who is an adult today, they are saying: What about me? What about the fact that I do not have insurance?

If they have no job, and they have no income, we know they are on Medicaid. If they have a job, and they do not qualify financially for Medicaid, then where do they go? Well, there are 45 million of them out there somewhere who are in this classification. Some of them are kids and some of them are adults. Every time they access health care, and they cannot pay for it, an incredibly predictable thing happens: The cost that is unrecovered is shifted to everybody else in the system.

In North Carolina, there are 1.3 million who are uninsured. Seventeen percent of the North Carolina population is uninsured, and 16 percent of the American population is uninsured. Yet our debate is limited to 3.3 million children.

It is not about how we insure America. It is not about the rising cost of health care. It is not about the fact that health care premiums have, in fact, doubled in the country since the year 2000. If compared with the growth of inflation since 2000--at 18 percent--and the growth of wages--at 20 percent--health insurance premiums for family coverage have increased 73 percent over the last 5 years. Health care costs are rising three times the rate of inflation, and with no corresponding rise in quality.

Now, there is the red flag. We have seen a 73-percent increase in the premium. If you could turn to something tangible in the system to say that quality has gotten that much better, then one could maybe rationalize this increase. But the fact is, there has been no corresponding rise in quality. As a matter of fact, today there are no health care plans that are focused primarily on wellness and prevention.

I remember when we tried to get mammographies and PSAs covered in Medicare, and we tried to get an array of preventive health care, it was the hardest thing I have ever worked on in health care to try to get added to a system. I guess it is because Medicare beneficiaries are old to start with, and why would we do anything preventive. Yet if we look at the research that goes on every day, and that we pay for, we find the earlier we can detect cancer, the earlier we can detect diabetes, the more we can monitor disease management, the better the outcome is but, more importantly, from a taxpayer's standpoint, the less it costs the system.

We know that happens in the Government system. We don't implement wellness and prevention like we should. If we did, we would require it in Medicaid. But we have an opportunity--as we talk about redesigning the American health care system, we have an opportunity to build wellness and prevention as the main piece of this broken system.

Today we have a system that only triggers when you get sick. It doesn't trigger when you want to stay well. It triggers when you get sick. But if you look at companies that have said: There is no way I will ever be competitive if, in fact, the health care system doesn't change in America--they made a decision that they are going to go outside of the insurance products that are available today, and they are going to do things that are creative out of the box. And they are self-insured and they have gone out and partnered with somebody to administer their plan. What do you find? It is Dell Computers, which now has about 4 years of experience with disease management and how to bring down the overall costs of health care for their employees--not just corporately but for their individual costs to their employees--all the way to Safeway, that has a model that I know every Member on the Hill has probably been briefed on--what Safeway is doing, which is giving people control of their care but, more importantly, stressing to them that prevention and wellness is something for which they will actually receive an incentive.

People without access to employer-sponsored coverage are severely disadvantaged under the current system. I know both of the Senators who are in charge of the tax committee probably would agree that we have inequities. Ninety-one percent of workers in large firms have health insurance. Sixty-six percent of workers in small firms--10 employees or less--have health insurance. Twenty-nine percent of the uninsured work in small business. The percentage of employers offering coverage has dropped 8 percent since the year 2000.

Whoa. Global economy. That is what has happened since 2000. There is a global economy where it doesn't matter where you manufacture. All that matters is where are your customers. Most U.S. businesses have changed from a model that was predominantly for domestic consumption to a model today where 60 or 70 percent of their business is international, and 30 or 40 percent of it is domestic--in the United States. We ought to look at some of the decisions they have made and wonder: why didn't we have this challenge before this point with those employers, looking at their business model and saying: How can I continue to pay a health care cost that rises in double-digit ways each year with inflation and remain competitive with my global competition which doesn't have that cost?

Well, I am going to put the Senate on notice: This is happening at an alarming rate. If U.S. businesses determine that they are not competitive in the marketplace they are selling to, which is global, and health care cost is the No. 1 issue that makes them noncompetitive, in the absence of us reforming the system and creating a way for them to provide health care--not that seeks double-digit inflation every year but begins a downward pressure on the cost of health care--I will assure you they have two choices: they eliminate the benefit or they leave the country, and both of them are devastating to the United States.

If we don't reform health care, what happens? Health care becomes unaffordable for people. U.S. businesses become uncompetitive. Government will have its normal reaction. It will ratchet down the reimbursements that we pay through Medicare and Medicaid and the effect of that is that private insurance sees that as an opportunity to ratchet down the provider reimbursements. Doctors and nurses get paid less. More people go on Government health care. Doctors and nurses will become Government employees. Hospitals will become Government property. Insurance companies will become paper pushers. We must all agree that the outcome has to be better for us.

By the way, taxes will rise too. I am not sure whether it is individual or corporate, but let me assure my colleagues, though some believe that health care is free, somebody pays for it. Look at the systems around the world where the government is in control of their health care, and the beneficiaries may think it is free, but one of the problems--one of the reasons they are ratcheting back the scope of coverage they have is the fact that as the government runs out of money and can't find ways to raise revenues, they have a choice. They can tax individuals, they can tax corporations, or they can reduce benefits. When you look at the prevailing tax rate they have now, you understand why their only choice is to cut benefits. The likelihood is that we will be faced with the same thing as socialized medicine is just around the corner, and I think time is actually running out.

The current tax structure for health care benefits exists for employer-focused plans. Employers get a tax deduction for the amount of the health care benefit provided for their employees, but the deduction unfortunately doesn't exist for individuals who shop in the marketplace. We spend 50 percent more of our GDP--16 percent--on health care than the next three spenders--Germany, Japan, and France--but we aren't any healthier. It is time we begin to focus on how our system becomes more efficient, healthier, and more affordable.

One out of every four dollars in health care spent in this country does nothing to help patients. It is actually wasted on defensive medicine, unnecessary paperwork, and outright fraud. When you put individuals in charge of

their health care--not just constructing it or negotiating it, but responsible for whether the system is efficient and effective--you would be amazed at how you wring out that 25 percent, that one out of four. The source of the problem is runaway health care costs which is caused by a lack of choice and a lack of government control.

Now, let me assure you that in Sweden today, heart patients wait 25 weeks to be seen. In England today, Heritage said cancer patients sometimes wait a year between their diagnosis and their chemotherapy treatment. Canada's Supreme Court Justice, Beverly McLachlin, said it best in a 2005 ruling:

Access to a waiting list is not access to health care.

We have a roadmap as to where we are going, and we have an opportunity to change that today.

What happens if the Senate, if the Congress of the United States, becomes the visionary body that it needs to be and the reform body that it has to be if, in fact, you want to protect the delivery system in this country? Americans have to have three things: They have to have choice, they have to have ownership, and they have to have control. They have to have the ability to construct their insurance policies to meet their age, their income, and their health condition. Health care needs to be portable, just like a 401(k).

When you give an individual ownership of a 401(k), they are no longer strapped to an employer about their pension or retirement; they have the ability to take that money with them to the next job. Well, we have reached the point now that health care should be the same thing. It should be ownership, and we should have the ability to take that health care from employer to employer where we are not locked in, and for the first time Americans would have the freedom to make decisions about their future and about the future of their families.

Innovation works. We all know it. A year ago, a 46-inch plasma TV cost as much as $11,000, but today you can buy the same TV for $2,839. In 1908, Henry Ford made a car for $850. Eight years later, Henry Ford produced the same car for $360.

Innovation also works in health care--don't fool yourself. Between 1999 and 2004, the cost of LASIK surgery, which is set by the market forces and outside the current system, went down 20 percent while health care expenditures per person increased by more than 44 percent. LASIK surgery is this new surgery that individuals have on their eyes. If they have a certain condition, they can have LASIK and throw their glasses away. A controversial thing, and innovation brought it. It went through and FDA approved it. The cost was very high to begin with, and as more people have sought LASIK surgery, the price has come down and down and down and down and down. I am sure Dr. Coburn will talk more about it as we go through this debate.

Duke University set up a program to manage congestive heart failure. Half of all of the congestive heart failure patients typically have a 5-year life expectancy, and costs are a total of $22.5 billion for congestive heart failure annually in the United States. Duke developed a program that integrated the care to develop best practice models for congestive heart failure patients. The approach resulted in better patient outcomes, increased patient compliance with their doctor's recommendations and, most importantly, a 32-percent drop in the cost per patient of treating congestive heart failure. Innovation allows incredible things to happen but only when we have a marketplace that rewards innovation.

I said when I stood up I had an amendment that I didn't intend to call up, and I am not going to call it up. That amendment is the Every American Insured Health Act. I want to just briefly talk about it.

Hopefully, this accomplishes everything I have spent the last 20 minutes talking about. It provides the resources for every American not on a government plan to access the coverage they need. Let me say that again. It provides the resources for all the uninsured in America to negotiate the coverage they need in the private marketplace.

No. 2, it eliminates cost shifting. It eliminates that bill we get through our premium costs or through the cost of a service delivered that we can't figure out who used it, but somebody didn't pay because they weren't insured and it got shifted to everybody else. We eliminate that by providing the resources for every American to negotiate coverage. We estimate that it may be $200 billion a year that we eliminate in cost shifting.

Now, how do we accomplish it? Because one might say: I know how expensive SCHIP expansion for 3.3 million children is going to be. Can we afford what it is going to cost us to insure everybody who is uninsured in America? Well, here is what we do. We address the tax inequity. Through that we treat those who get insurance provided by an employer the same way we do individuals. Then we turn around to every American who is not on a government plan and we do this: We give them a refundable, advanced, flat tax credit. For an individual, it is $2,160 a year. If it is a family, it is $5,400 a year.

Now, if, in fact, you had tax consequences from this new equality in treating individuals and employer plans the same, the likelihood is that if your health benefit from your employer doesn't exceed $15,000 from the employer on a family plan, then $5,400 is more than enough to cover the tax consequences.

If, in fact, you are an individual who is uninsured and you get a refundable tax credit on an annual basis of $2,160, then you can go out and negotiate in the private sector for health care coverage that on average today is between $1,500 and $1,700 nationally for an individual plan and about $4,500 to $4,600 for a family plan. You could insure yourself as an individual or as a family, and you could do that all within the confines of the refundable tax credit we have allowed.

Now, people have questioned whether there is a little bit of a shift in wealth. Yes, there is. We are taking people who have rich health care plans, more health care than they need, plans that are priced because there are no out-of-pocket costs--there are a lot of things that we know we need to do from the standpoint of making sure Americans know they have skin in the game every time they go to the doctor's office for the facts of utilization--and we are shifting it down to where we give people refundable tax credits that are barely over the Medicaid qualifications, and we are going to give them a soup-to-nuts plan--$2,160 for an individual or $5,400 for a family annually, a refundable tax credit that is only good for health care.

When they sign up with an insurer, the money will go directly from the U.S. Government to the insurer. If money is left over, it would automatically transfer over into a health savings account for that individual to use for other health care benefits, whether it be for copayments, deductibles, whatever the structure of the plan is, and they are allowed to design a plan that meets their age, their income, and their health conditions.

We give States incentives to make sure that in every marketplace there is an affordable plan. It is absolutely crucial that you begin to have insurance reform at the same time you are creating a marketplace that is driven by individuals.

Our goals are to give Americans the resources and the right to purchase health care in the private marketplace, to end the tax discrimination, to encourage individuals to take control, to eliminate the current cost shift, so that every American's health care begins to come down because of this new benefit, and to ensure the accessibility and affordability of high-quality health care.

By the way, this plan I have just described that did this for the first time--insured everybody who is uninsured, provided annually a $2,160 refundable tax credit for individuals and $5,400 for a family--I still didn't tell you how much it costs. I am like the guy on the infomercials who waits until the end to spring on you how great of a bargain it is.

Well, this is budget neutral. It doesn't cost the American taxpayer one new dollar. That doesn't take into account that there may be $200 billion worth of cost-shifting going on in the system. We get no scoring for the fact that we could potentially drive $200 billion of costs out of the health care for everyone else in the system by making sure everybody is insured. We get absolutely no credit for being able to put

together plans that promote prevention and wellness, that begin to drive down utilization and make Americans healthier, that begin to create data for us so we know exactly what the right reimbursements are for doctors, nurses, hospitals, and community health centers. We pull that out of the sky today, and they complain. And they should because there is no relation to that in reality.

This, by creating a real marketplace, real competition from the insurer all the way through to the service delivered will begin to build the database of information we need to know what reimbursements the marketplace says are fair to the people who provide it. Then they can make a decision. I believe we will find that every doctor, nurse, hospital, and community health center will receive this in a warm way because now they believe that this is a system which will evaluate what they deliver and what cost they are reimbursed for.

Mr. President, I am sure the chairman of the committee and the ranking member would have preferred to have this solely focused on SCHIP tonight. I know that. I think it is also rational to understand that when you are talking about expanding the rolls of Government insurance coverage to 3.3 million kids, somebody ought to stand up and ask: What about the other 45 million Americans? If, in fact, Members find there is value to the reform for the entire system, then why would we put the 3.3 million kids in a program that CBO already told us would cost $3,930 per child, which we can buy in the private marketplace for $1,130 worth of coverage today? Why don't we integrate them into the last system, which is reform our health care system.

Let's bring equity to the tax side and provide every American who is uninsured with the resources they need to go out and negotiate their coverage, whether they are individuals or families. Let's give the health care delivery system the confidence of knowing we are willing to create a market. This is not an unusual thing for us. We did it with Part D Medicare. The chairman of the committee was very instrumental in its passage. Today, 1 year after enactment of Part D Medicare, we created transparency and competition on what was one of the most price- sensitive areas: prescription drugs. What has the net result been? Premiums reduced 28 percent the first year, and drugs were reduced 33 percent. It was because we created competition and transparency. We made people show their prices and made sure there were multiple plans that people could choose from. The net result of that is exactly what we are trying to mirror here, but do it in a way that treats health care in its entirety. You cannot do that without prevention and wellness being the main pieces of it.

I thank the chairman for the fact that he listened. I appreciate that. I plan to be on the floor probably several times this week. I will try to do it when it doesn't interrupt the SCHIP debate. I think it is an important time to begin to educate our Members, to begin to educate America about the need for health care reform and how health care reform can actually enhance the future of the very special delivery system we have in this country.

I yield the floor.

I thank my colleague and friend, Senator Nelson. I take the opportunity to thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, who have played the leadership in trying to find the balance of what our policies should look like--the policies of competition, the policies of access, the policies of direct Government loans.

It is not easy when there is so much we want to do, but we are confined by how much money we have to do that. It is my hope, as Senator Enzi said earlier, that we do not stop with this reconciliation bill, that we quickly reauthorize Higher Education. I believe that is absolutely essential, and many things we have in that make a tremendous difference.

Senator Nelson has done a beautiful job of laying out for everybody what is at stake. I suggest to you that what we need to focus on, more than does the loan come from the private sector or from the Federal Government or this or that, is students. This debate is about students. It is about are we going

to provide an opportunity for every child in this country who wants to seek higher education, as part of the tools they possess for their competitiveness in the future, are we going to provide that for them regardless of where they come from, regardless of the income of their family, regardless of the school they choose?

Senator Nelson stated very clearly, 80 percent of the schools in the country chose FFELP loans as their No. 1 tool to provide the financing students need to get their education.

Why? Well, one, because they are more competitive in most cases. Those that provide FFELP eliminate the origination fee. They discount the loans. In many cases they are a point or more under what the Government direct loan is.

Now, I would expect some would say since Senator Nelson and I are suggesting that since nonprofits we're reducing by 35 basis points in their spread, and for-profits 50, that 50 they can live with. They may be right. But the fact is that none of us knows. If one lender drops out of the marketplace, we have now constrained the choices and the options every student has.

I think what Senator Nelson and I suggest is, let's do 35 and 35. Let's treat the for-profit and not-for-profit in the same way. In the case of North Carolina, I should be fine with where nonprofits are, because 65 percent of all student loans written in North Carolina are done by the College Fund of North Carolina, a not-for-profit institution.

When you look at added services over and above the discount rate and the ease of doing business with the College Fund of North Carolina, and with the for-profits in comparison to the Government Direct Loan, which is Washington driven, it is bureaucratic, it is not consumer friendly, it is not responsive to the families or the students, you realize why eight out of 10 schools choose it; but, more importantly, why parents and students choose that as the No. 1 option.

FFELP has a history. It is a history that shows tremendous benefits to students and to their parents. In most areas of the U.S. economy, we find that when we encourage competition, the beneficiary is the individual who reaches a lower price point. We are saying: Let's not risk it. Let's go to where we know nobody is harmed, but let's not go further than that. Let's make sure we have incorporated into the package for those low-income families the grant proposals Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi have incorporated in their bill, but let's not be too punitive to the system, going into the unknown, that we actually eliminate clients who exist in the marketplace.

Very simply, our amendment focuses on students. It uses the strength of the FFELP program to say we are going to make sure the competition that existed up to this point exists well into the future.

As Senator Nelson says, our amendment cuts for all lenders $15.65 billion over 5 years at a time when it is not just a domestic economy, it is a global economy. I believe every Member of the Senate--more importantly, every parent in America--understands, regardless of their education level, that for their kids to have an unlimited future they have to have an opportunity to get the best education they want to pursue so their opportunities in life are unlimited.

I think we can safely say with a reduction of $15.65 billion, we feel fairly confident we can make that promise to parents across this country, that we have not diminished the opportunity for unlimited opportunities for their children. But I think it is safe to say Senator Nelson and I and others believe if you cut further and you diminish the competition in the marketplace, you have now diminished the opportunity, not just the educational opportunity but the economic opportunity, of the next generation.

I don't necessarily agree with the philosophy that if we get it wrong, there is a Government Direct Loan program to service them regardless, and they will access loans; they will access it through a program that does not eliminate the origination fee; that does not discount the product; is at least a percentage point or higher, because they have no competition; it is not user friendly; it is not responsive; its application process is not predictable. It sounds a lot like the visa process for people in the United States, for people on the outside looking in.

But the reality today is we need a system that every student and every parent understands. I have two children in higher education. I can tell you the most difficult thing is for a parent to sit down and try to figure out the application process, how to fill it out, how to qualify, and whether, in fact, you do qualify.

Senator Enzi alluded earlier to the need for additional reforms. I think we agree, in a very bipartisan way, that there are other things we need to do. But the wrong thing to do would be to hurt students, to hurt parents right from the beginning with their access to affordable education.

The spirit of where we are going is right; it has just gone a little too far. And rather than to go into the unknown and not know what the reactions will be in the for-profit market, I believe the responsible thing is to roll back the change slightly, to treat for-profits and not-for-profits the same way, to assure every family that the educational opportunities we continue to see expand for all Americans; in fact, continue in the future, and they are not limited or constrained in a way that families look at it and try to find financing.

Senator Kennedy has proposed in this bill a number of ways to create incentives for specific individuals, and I think in most cases this approach is embraced; as Senator Harkin very passionately displayed, probably long overdue in a lot of cases. As we focus on how to expand it, as we focus on how to be a little more attuned to what the needs are, it strikes me we would cut in a way that might--I stress the word ``might''--constrain the choices parents and students have.

It is simple: If we want to eliminate the word ``might,'' and say it does not, all we have to do is roll back slightly the cut we propose. In doing that, we still make the investment in low-income subsidies through FFELP and other programs, we still give the assurance to every family that there is a way to finance college education, we still assure students that once they get that diploma, that diploma is the answer to the payback of that student loan, because they now have the tools for an unlimited future which brings with it an unlimited earnings opportunity.

The answer is easy. I hope my colleagues will support what I think is a very responsible amendment to a very well-intended bill. I believe not to do it is to accept the responsibility that some kids will win and some kids will lose; that the possibility exists that when you diminish competition, you actually raise the cost of education, not lower the cost; that for some who might have access today but might not have access tomorrow to anything other than the Direct Loan from the Government student loan program; that that option may be too expensive; it may be too cumbersome; it may be too difficult to understand; it may not be predictable enough; and that period of decision, as one completes a senior year in high school and potentially makes a decision about not just where they go but whether they go, that one change may influence them to say: Well, you know what, 12 years is enough.

I come from a State that has had, I think, the largest transformation in our economy of practically any State in the country. Twenty years ago traditional manufacturing drove every job that was in North Carolina, and that was in textiles and furniture. Through the changes in trade and through the creation of a global economy, I do not need to tell my colleagues where textile and furniture jobs are today, but they are not in North Carolina.

If it were not for higher education in North Carolina, we would not have reeducated and retrained an older workforce, but we also would not have the capabilities, without higher education today, to take the next generation that is coming through to give them the educational skills they need to compete in the 21st century jobs we are creating today.

You see, for a State that I felt got kicked when we were already knocked down, we moved from what was the norm in 1950 to today jobs that are being created that are in the next sectors of the economy we are just now

creating. They demand and require a different level of educational proficiency. Sure, if they do not have it, they can fill out the application, but if they do not have the educational qualifications, they will never get invited for the interview. It does them no good.

We are encouraging our colleagues today: make sure every student who fills out the application for that job has the educational qualifications to be invited for the interview because we have not diminished the tools they can use to pay for the education.

There is a lot at stake. Clearly, this Congress, this body, under the leadership of the chairman and the ranking member, have moved the ball well down the road in the right direction--Senator Nelson and I might say a little bit too far as it relates to the for-profit lenders.

I hope my colleagues will recognize that. I hope they will keep focused on the students and the parents, and if in the future we see that the spread can be rolled even further, I am sure at that point in time we will find a worthy investment we can make in students and in parents and in education.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, one has to look a little further at what you get for the money. If you look at the nonprofit world and the for- profit world, they market student loans. They educate parents about what is available to them. For any parent who has gone through the process, one of the most difficult things is, when you look at the pot of savings you have as you have seen college cost escalate, when you realize what the cost is, you realize you don't have enough. When the likelihood is between grants and loans, you are going to have to do both. Where do you go? Part of the beauty of the system of a competitive private sector is they are competing, which means they are marketing. They are sending out information. They are educating parents and students. By the way, marketing is extremely expensive.

There is another piece to it, and it is called financial literacy, the challenge every parent and student goes through about what their responsibilities are. What is the choice we are going to leave? Are we going to take away so much money that marketing and financial literacy are no longer a benefit, a service, a tool that lenders provide? I guess some would suggest we do.

In one second.

The solution, then, is that you let the Government entity, the direct to the student loan from the Government, be the education source. We have a long history. We don't do that well. As a matter of fact, we don't do it at all. So our expectations that financial literacy would exist or would improve would not be the reality.

I am happy to yield to my colleague.

Let me respond to my colleague that what Senator Kennedy displayed was a simple mathematical calculation. We raise $4 billion and a few in change less money out of the system, and we believe that that is a prudent thing to do based upon the unknown as to whether that would reduce competition. So we have $4 billion less to work with. We have the same challenge, and that is, how do you invest that in a way that families and students feel the beneficial effects. I believe as you look at it and you say that money is now in the system, I can also point to the fact that the competition that exists in the FFELP program savings, the entire program, is $6 billion a year. So if you eliminated it, the $4 billion savings, if it were to knock out all the for- profits, you have lost it on the competition that exists in that system and the lower prices, the elimination of origination fees, the discounts, set aside the fact that we do marketing and we do financial literacy programs that only the private sector seems to be able to do.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I don't know the calculations that Senator Kennedy went through, but I have never found his charts to be incorrect.

Mr. President, I will not use the full time yielded back. I want to once again thank Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi for the leadership they have shown on not just the reconciliation but hopefully on passage of a reauthorization of higher education.

Let me make this point: The fact that 80 percent of the students in this country choose the FFELP program for their student loan is a great indication of the value of this program, of the competition it provides but, more importantly, the savings that is apparent that this program provides to parents and students. If the Government Direct Loan program, which is the default, a bureaucratic, Washington-driven, loan program is the default because we have calculated incorrectly, then only 20 percent of the students are going to be happy because that is all they are choosing today. Eighty percent are going to be unhappy.

The question is, how do you influence their decision in their senior year in high school about the need, the desire, and the ability to go on to higher education?

As I look at the pages sitting in front of us, I understand it is them we are talking about. For most of us in the room, it is not about our kids because we have now aged out of that. The reality is, we have a next generation for which we are responsible to make sure they have equal to, if not better, opportunities than we as parents had. This is a time I am not willing to risk who is right. I am willing to say: Let's be cautious. Let's stand on firm ground. In this institution we have the ability to use CBO for or against us. When it is advantageous, we mention it; when it is not, we don't. I realize that. But I hope Members will use what they know and what they see. What you see with this program is, 80 percent of the students and the parents choose it. They have confidence in it. It brings real value. By the way, it saves a student $3,000 over the life of the loan because FFELP brings that level of competition. That is worth saving, and it is worth preserving.

I yield back the remainder of my time. I don't believe we have asked for the yeas and nays, so I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act of 2007, which I introduced today along with the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins. This bill will help the Nation better prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from an agro-terror attack or deliberate food contamination. I thank my distinguished colleague from Maine for her leadership on homeland security issues and for her support of this important legislation.

Our agriculture and food system is an important part of our Nation's economy and our national security. As we increase our dependence on agriculture not only to provide our food supply but to also produce energy, we must ensure we can identify security vulnerabilities, fix those vulnerabilities, respond to and recover from a deliberate attack or catastrophic accidental or natural contamination.

The Nation's agriculture and food system remains vulnerable. The system is open, complex, interconnected, and diverse, which makes it a target. Many farms are geographically isolated with few biosecurity measures in place. And livestock is frequently concentrated in confined spaces. For example, 80 to 90 percent of U.S. cattle production is concentrated in less than 5 percent of the nation's feedlots. An attack on just one part of the production process could set off a devastating domino effect felt through our entire food system, causing economic loss and effects on human health.

Biological weapons and poisons in food and animals have been used in attacks in the past. During World War I, German operatives allegedly infected horses with anthrax before they were shipped to Europe. In 1984, a cult in Oregon spread salmonella in salad bars at restaurants to influence a local election. More recently, documents found in al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan described how to make animal and plant poisons, evidence that agriculture and food continue to be prospective targets for terrorist organizations.

We have two main concerns when contemplating a deliberate attack on our agriculture and food system, the potentially devastating economic impacts, and the possible human health effects.

For example, studies show a single agro-terrorist attack on our livestock industry could cost the U.S. economy $10 to $33 billion. The United Kingdom's Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001 caused approximately $5 billion in losses to the agriculture and food sector, and U.S. beef exports plunged when 119 countries instituted bans on American beef after ``mad

cow'' disease was found in a U.S. herd in 2003. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the annual cost to the country from premature deaths caused by just one common food-borne illness, salmonella, is over $2 billion.

Many infectious diseases affect both humans and animals, and a significant number of those diseases cross over between the two different populations. In fact, 75 percent of emerging diseases affect both animals and humans, and 5 out of 6 agents of greatest concern for bioterrorism are ``zoonotic''. We are all aware of the global threat of H5Nl bird flu, a zoonotic disease that to date has infected 317 people, and killed 191. In order to protect the human and animal health of the United States, we must develop a unified human and veterinary approach against infectious disease that anticipates disease evolution and acts quickly.

In addition to transmissible diseases carried by animals, the health of U.S. citizens is vulnerable to an attack because food systems can become delivery mechanisms for diseases and poisonous agents, and a highly contagious animal disease could seriously disrupt the food supply. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 million Americans get sick each year, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 die from naturally occurring foodborne illnesses. A deliberate attack could be catastrophic.

In the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act of 2007, we take five key actions to better prepare the nation for an attack on our agriculture and food system.

First, the bill puts someone in charge. Consistent with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, the Defense of the United States Agriculture and Food, issued by President Bush in January 2004, the bill identifies the Secretary of Homeland Security as the lead coordinator of Federal Government efforts to protect critical infrastructure and key resources, including the agriculture and food system in case of a national emergency. The Secretary of Agriculture remains responsible for agriculture, as well as meat, poultry, and egg food products; and the Secretary of Health and Human Services is responsible for food products other than meat, poultry, and egg products. The bill also establishes an Under Secretary for Protection, Preparedness, and Response position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lead and coordinate USDA activities relating to agriculture and food defense.

Second, the bill requires a coordinated national strategy for protecting our agriculture and food system. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services are required to work together to develop a coordinated national strategy for agriculture and food emergency preparedness, detection, response and recovery. This will ensure the Federal Government identifies specific achievable goals and constantly strives to improve our preparedness.

Third, this legislation provides guidance, assistance, and financial support from the Federal Government to States by improving regional agriculture and food defense continuity of business planning; by training State personnel on food defense; and by improving communication and coordination between States and the Federal Government by hiring State agriculture and food defense liaison officers.

Being from a large agriculture State, I know my State and many others are potential targets for a deliberate attack on our agriculture and food system. At $68 billion in revenues each year, agriculture is North Carolina's largest industry. North Carolina is the second highest producer of hogs and turkeys in the nation, and number five in broilers. States, such as North Carolina, will benefit greatly from additional resources, coordination and planning.

Federal, State, local governments and the private sector together have a responsibility to defend and protect the agriculture and food system through a layered defense established at each level of government. States are the first responders in the event of a suspected food contamination, animal disease or plant pest outbreak, and the Federal Government must help States build the capabilities to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from a catastrophic animal disease outbreak or food contamination. It is important to note that this legislation maintains the authority of States to oversee food and agriculture within their jurisdiction and to implement food safety standards. The bill does not affect USDA or the Food and Drug Administration's ability or authority to establish and enforce food safety standards.

Fourth, the bill enhances public-private partnerships. The majority of our agriculture and food system is privately owned and operated. This legislation authorizes Government and private sector coordinating councils to improve information sharing between Government and private sector partners.

Finally, the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act implements early detection of, and rapid response to animal disease outbreaks and food-related emergencies. The bill authorizes and integrates Nation- wide animal, plant, and food diagnostic laboratory networks, and develops onsite rapid diagnostic tools, to speed up the detection of animal and food-related emergencies. To rapidly respond to infectious diseases, the bill authorizes a stockpile of animal vaccines and drugs that can be deployed to an outbreak within 24 hours.

In closing, I thank Senator Collins for sponsoring the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act with me. We Are taking a decisive step forward today towards improving and protecting the Nation's agriculture and food system. I would also like to thank all the experts from across the country who worked with my staff to develop this legislation, particularly the individuals in North Carolina who have dedicated their lives to this mission. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and I look forward to working with them on this important national security issue.

Mr. President, I rise today in support of the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act of 2007, which I introduced today along with the Senator from Maine, Senator Collins. This bill will help the Nation better prepare for, detect, respond to, and recover from an agro-terror attack or deliberate food contamination. I thank my distinguished colleague from Maine for her leadership on homeland security issues and for her support of this important legislation.

Our agriculture and food system is an important part of our Nation's economy and our national security. As we increase our dependence on agriculture not only to provide our food supply but to also produce energy, we must ensure we can identify security vulnerabilities, fix those vulnerabilities, respond to and recover from a deliberate attack or catastrophic accidental or natural contamination.

The Nation's agriculture and food system remains vulnerable. The system is open, complex, interconnected, and diverse, which makes it a target. Many farms are geographically isolated with few biosecurity measures in place. And livestock is frequently concentrated in confined spaces. For example, 80 to 90 percent of U.S. cattle production is concentrated in less than 5 percent of the nation's feedlots. An attack on just one part of the production process could set off a devastating domino effect felt through our entire food system, causing economic loss and effects on human health.

Biological weapons and poisons in food and animals have been used in attacks in the past. During World War I, German operatives allegedly infected horses with anthrax before they were shipped to Europe. In 1984, a cult in Oregon spread salmonella in salad bars at restaurants to influence a local election. More recently, documents found in al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan described how to make animal and plant poisons, evidence that agriculture and food continue to be prospective targets for terrorist organizations.

We have two main concerns when contemplating a deliberate attack on our agriculture and food system, the potentially devastating economic impacts, and the possible human health effects.

For example, studies show a single agro-terrorist attack on our livestock industry could cost the U.S. economy $10 to $33 billion. The United Kingdom's Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in 2001 caused approximately $5 billion in losses to the agriculture and food sector, and U.S. beef exports plunged when 119 countries instituted bans on American beef after ``mad

cow'' disease was found in a U.S. herd in 2003. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates the annual cost to the country from premature deaths caused by just one common food-borne illness, salmonella, is over $2 billion.

Many infectious diseases affect both humans and animals, and a significant number of those diseases cross over between the two different populations. In fact, 75 percent of emerging diseases affect both animals and humans, and 5 out of 6 agents of greatest concern for bioterrorism are ``zoonotic''. We are all aware of the global threat of H5Nl bird flu, a zoonotic disease that to date has infected 317 people, and killed 191. In order to protect the human and animal health of the United States, we must develop a unified human and veterinary approach against infectious disease that anticipates disease evolution and acts quickly.

In addition to transmissible diseases carried by animals, the health of U.S. citizens is vulnerable to an attack because food systems can become delivery mechanisms for diseases and poisonous agents, and a highly contagious animal disease could seriously disrupt the food supply. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 76 million Americans get sick each year, more than 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 die from naturally occurring foodborne illnesses. A deliberate attack could be catastrophic.

In the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act of 2007, we take five key actions to better prepare the nation for an attack on our agriculture and food system.

First, the bill puts someone in charge. Consistent with Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9, the Defense of the United States Agriculture and Food, issued by President Bush in January 2004, the bill identifies the Secretary of Homeland Security as the lead coordinator of Federal Government efforts to protect critical infrastructure and key resources, including the agriculture and food system in case of a national emergency. The Secretary of Agriculture remains responsible for agriculture, as well as meat, poultry, and egg food products; and the Secretary of Health and Human Services is responsible for food products other than meat, poultry, and egg products. The bill also establishes an Under Secretary for Protection, Preparedness, and Response position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to lead and coordinate USDA activities relating to agriculture and food defense.

Second, the bill requires a coordinated national strategy for protecting our agriculture and food system. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services are required to work together to develop a coordinated national strategy for agriculture and food emergency preparedness, detection, response and recovery. This will ensure the Federal Government identifies specific achievable goals and constantly strives to improve our preparedness.

Third, this legislation provides guidance, assistance, and financial support from the Federal Government to States by improving regional agriculture and food defense continuity of business planning; by training State personnel on food defense; and by improving communication and coordination between States and the Federal Government by hiring State agriculture and food defense liaison officers.

Being from a large agriculture State, I know my State and many others are potential targets for a deliberate attack on our agriculture and food system. At $68 billion in revenues each year, agriculture is North Carolina's largest industry. North Carolina is the second highest producer of hogs and turkeys in the nation, and number five in broilers. States, such as North Carolina, will benefit greatly from additional resources, coordination and planning.

Federal, State, local governments and the private sector together have a responsibility to defend and protect the agriculture and food system through a layered defense established at each level of government. States are the first responders in the event of a suspected food contamination, animal disease or plant pest outbreak, and the Federal Government must help States build the capabilities to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from a catastrophic animal disease outbreak or food contamination. It is important to note that this legislation maintains the authority of States to oversee food and agriculture within their jurisdiction and to implement food safety standards. The bill does not affect USDA or the Food and Drug Administration's ability or authority to establish and enforce food safety standards.

Fourth, the bill enhances public-private partnerships. The majority of our agriculture and food system is privately owned and operated. This legislation authorizes Government and private sector coordinating councils to improve information sharing between Government and private sector partners.

Finally, the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act implements early detection of, and rapid response to animal disease outbreaks and food-related emergencies. The bill authorizes and integrates Nation- wide animal, plant, and food diagnostic laboratory networks, and develops onsite rapid diagnostic tools, to speed up the detection of animal and food-related emergencies. To rapidly respond to infectious diseases, the bill authorizes a stockpile of animal vaccines and drugs that can be deployed to an outbreak within 24 hours.

In closing, I thank Senator Collins for sponsoring the National Agriculture and Food Defense Act with me. We Are taking a decisive step forward today towards improving and protecting the Nation's agriculture and food system. I would also like to thank all the experts from across the country who worked with my staff to develop this legislation, particularly the individuals in North Carolina who have dedicated their lives to this mission. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and I look forward to working with them on this important national security issue.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007, which I am pleased to introduce with my colleague Senator Gregg of New Hampshire. It has been an honor for my office to work with Senator Gregg, one of the ``Big 4'' architects of the original No Child Left Behind legislation that passed Congress with overwhelmingly bipartisan support and that was signed into law by President Bush in January 2002.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 is the first comprehensive reauthorization legislation to be introduced in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. I hope our introduction today will kick- start the legislative process and get the Senate and the House on the path to a swift reauthorization of NCLB, the most sweeping and important federal K-12 education legislation passed since the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965.

If ever there were a Federal law that needed to be reauthorized on time, it is No Child Left Behind. As the headline to Ron Brownstein's article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times read: ``Don't leave this law behind: Progress is slow

under Bush's 2001 education reform, but No Child Left Behind is worth improving.'' To be sure there has been lots of gnashing of teeth and grimacing in the K-12 field since NCLB was passed. But as many of us in Congress and across the country recognized when NCLB was passed in 2001, the point of No Child Left Behind wasn't, in the words of Kati Haycock of the Education Trust, ``to make people happy.''

If we had wanted to make the adult stakeholders in K-12 happy, we could have done nothing and just kept the status quo. However, in 2001 this Congress and a number of dedicated individuals and groups across this Nation decided the status quo for our children was not acceptable and that the time had come to eradicate, as President Bush called it, the ``soft bigotry of low expectations.'' Together with strong bipartisanship, this Congress with the passage of No Child Left Behind stated to all the adult stakeholders that we can and will close the achievement gap and to all of America's children that, regardless of background, socio-economics, race, ethnicity, or disability, you can and will learn and you can and will achieve.

We must not turn away from what we began when we passed the original No Child Left Behind legislation. The stakes are too high both for our children and the Nation as a whole. In the ever competitive global economy, all our children, not just some and not just the lucky or the fortunate, must be equipped with the academic skills to succeed. We cannot afford to return to the status quo of days past. The time is now to reauthorize No Child Left Behind and to reassert to all of America's children that this Congress will not give up on them and will not stop this endeavor until the too-long-standing achievement gap is closed once and for all and until all children have the academic skills they need to succeed in both postsecondary education and the workforce.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 that Senator Gregg and I are introducing today does not abandon the basic tenets of No Child Left Behind. To be sure there is still a great deal of work to do to reach our Nation's goal of having all children proficient in reading and math by 2013-2014. Nevertheless, we are seeing historic increases in student achievement. Since the passage of NCLB, the United States has witnessed a greater increase in student achievement in the last five years than in the 30 previous years combined, as well as a significant narrowing in the achievement gap between African-American and Hispanic students and their Caucasian peers. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 builds on the original cornerstone laid by Congress in 2001 of holding schools accountable for the academic achievement of all their students and of empowering parents to make better choices for their child's education.

In particular, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 preserves the foundational principles of NCLB. It maintains the goal that all children will reach grade-level proficiency in reading in math by 2013- 2014; keeps in place annual testing in grades 3-8 and at the high school level; and keeps in place an accountability system rooted in State standards and State assessments. Further, our bill does not water down accountability with the addition of multiple measures; rather, it keeps a laser-like focus on grade-level achievement in math and reading.

While maintaining the fundamentals of NCLB, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 rightly responds to legitimate concerns parents, teachers, and principals, have raised regarding the original legislation. In response to concerns raised about impracticable accountability timeframes, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 streamlines the accountability timeline to make it easier for schools to develop and implement plans to improve student achievement and to focus on what matters most teaching and learning. Additionally, recognizing that schools and their needs vary, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 allows for differentiated interventions for schools in restructuring to allow districts and schools to target resources to students and schools most in need of assistance. Further, in response to calls for the use of a growth model to measure individual student progress and to positively recognize schools and educators who are making tremendous strides in improving the achievement of all children, the bill expands the Department's seven State growth model demonstration to all 50 States.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 also responds to legitimate concerns regarding the special populations of limited English proficient, LEP, students and students with disabilities, by providing greater flexibility, focus, and resources to help schools educate these students to high standards. Notably, the bill grants new flexibility for LEP students who are new to the country and codifies in statute recent flexibility granted by the Department of Education for special education students, which permits the use of alternate academic achievement standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities and modified academic achievement standards for students who have disabilities that preclude them from achieving grade-level proficiency. Finally, the bill targets Federal assessment dollars to develop and administer valid and reliable assessments for special education and LEP students and targets professional development dollars to empower teachers with better tools and information for teaching LEP and special education children.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 reasserts that high-quality teachers are the most important factor to improved student academic achievement. The bill authorizes programs to ensure that all students are taught by a highly qualified teacher and to ensure that low-income and minority students are not taught by unqualified and inexperienced teachers at higher rates than their more affluent peers. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 maintains the current definition of highly qualified teacher; emphasizes alternative certification, incentive, differential, and performance and merit pay; and has States and districts conduct needs assessments to determine which districts and schools have the most acute teacher quality and staffing needs in order to better target resources to those schools and districts. Further, the bill gives greater authority to local school districts to renegotiate restrictions in collective bargaining agreements that contribute to the least experienced and qualified teachers teaching in the schools with students most in need of a highly qualified teacher.

Finally, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 focuses on improving the Nation's high school graduation rate. Included in the legislation is the Graduate for a Better Future Act, which I introduced earlier this year in response to the high school dropout crisis in the United States. The high school graduation rate for the class of 2003 was only 70 percent nationwide. Thus, almost one-third of American students who enter high school in ninth grade drop out of school and never receive a high school diploma. Large disparities exist in the high school graduation rates among various subgroups of students. Although the high school graduation rate for white students was 78 percent in 2003, the rate for African American students was only 55 percent, and the rate for Hispanic students was only 53 percent.

To remain competitive in the world economy, it is critical for America's youth to graduate from high school and to have access to the postsecondary education needed to succeed in the 21st century job market. Funds under the Graduate for a Better Future Act will be used to create models of excellence for academically rigorous high schools to prepare all students for college and the 21st century workplace; to implement accelerated academic catch-up programs for students who enter high school behind; to implement an early warning system to quickly identify students at risk of dropping out of high school; to implement comprehensive college guidance programs; and to implement programs that offer students opportunities for job-shadowing, internships, and community service so that students are able to make the connection between what they are learning in school and how that applies and is used in the workplace.

Additionally, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 requires states to get serious and to get accurate in their calculation of graduation rates. The Nation's dropout crisis will not go away

by fudging on the numbers. The graduation rate in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 builds on the work of all 50 states through the National Governors Association, which has signed the Graduation Counts Compact, an effort started in 2005 to find a common method for calculating each state's high school graduation rate.

As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, continuing our endeavor begun in 2001, the time is now to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. For the future of our Nation, our children, we must not turn back. Once again let us stand together and State to the American public that we can and will close the achievement gap. And once again let us say to every child, regardless of background, you can achieve.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007, which I am pleased to introduce with my colleague Senator Gregg of New Hampshire. It has been an honor for my office to work with Senator Gregg, one of the ``Big 4'' architects of the original No Child Left Behind legislation that passed Congress with overwhelmingly bipartisan support and that was signed into law by President Bush in January 2002.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 is the first comprehensive reauthorization legislation to be introduced in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. I hope our introduction today will kick- start the legislative process and get the Senate and the House on the path to a swift reauthorization of NCLB, the most sweeping and important federal K-12 education legislation passed since the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1965.

If ever there were a Federal law that needed to be reauthorized on time, it is No Child Left Behind. As the headline to Ron Brownstein's article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times read: ``Don't leave this law behind: Progress is slow

under Bush's 2001 education reform, but No Child Left Behind is worth improving.'' To be sure there has been lots of gnashing of teeth and grimacing in the K-12 field since NCLB was passed. But as many of us in Congress and across the country recognized when NCLB was passed in 2001, the point of No Child Left Behind wasn't, in the words of Kati Haycock of the Education Trust, ``to make people happy.''

If we had wanted to make the adult stakeholders in K-12 happy, we could have done nothing and just kept the status quo. However, in 2001 this Congress and a number of dedicated individuals and groups across this Nation decided the status quo for our children was not acceptable and that the time had come to eradicate, as President Bush called it, the ``soft bigotry of low expectations.'' Together with strong bipartisanship, this Congress with the passage of No Child Left Behind stated to all the adult stakeholders that we can and will close the achievement gap and to all of America's children that, regardless of background, socio-economics, race, ethnicity, or disability, you can and will learn and you can and will achieve.

We must not turn away from what we began when we passed the original No Child Left Behind legislation. The stakes are too high both for our children and the Nation as a whole. In the ever competitive global economy, all our children, not just some and not just the lucky or the fortunate, must be equipped with the academic skills to succeed. We cannot afford to return to the status quo of days past. The time is now to reauthorize No Child Left Behind and to reassert to all of America's children that this Congress will not give up on them and will not stop this endeavor until the too-long-standing achievement gap is closed once and for all and until all children have the academic skills they need to succeed in both postsecondary education and the workforce.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 that Senator Gregg and I are introducing today does not abandon the basic tenets of No Child Left Behind. To be sure there is still a great deal of work to do to reach our Nation's goal of having all children proficient in reading and math by 2013-2014. Nevertheless, we are seeing historic increases in student achievement. Since the passage of NCLB, the United States has witnessed a greater increase in student achievement in the last five years than in the 30 previous years combined, as well as a significant narrowing in the achievement gap between African-American and Hispanic students and their Caucasian peers. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 builds on the original cornerstone laid by Congress in 2001 of holding schools accountable for the academic achievement of all their students and of empowering parents to make better choices for their child's education.

In particular, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 preserves the foundational principles of NCLB. It maintains the goal that all children will reach grade-level proficiency in reading in math by 2013- 2014; keeps in place annual testing in grades 3-8 and at the high school level; and keeps in place an accountability system rooted in State standards and State assessments. Further, our bill does not water down accountability with the addition of multiple measures; rather, it keeps a laser-like focus on grade-level achievement in math and reading.

While maintaining the fundamentals of NCLB, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 rightly responds to legitimate concerns parents, teachers, and principals, have raised regarding the original legislation. In response to concerns raised about impracticable accountability timeframes, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 streamlines the accountability timeline to make it easier for schools to develop and implement plans to improve student achievement and to focus on what matters most teaching and learning. Additionally, recognizing that schools and their needs vary, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 allows for differentiated interventions for schools in restructuring to allow districts and schools to target resources to students and schools most in need of assistance. Further, in response to calls for the use of a growth model to measure individual student progress and to positively recognize schools and educators who are making tremendous strides in improving the achievement of all children, the bill expands the Department's seven State growth model demonstration to all 50 States.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 also responds to legitimate concerns regarding the special populations of limited English proficient, LEP, students and students with disabilities, by providing greater flexibility, focus, and resources to help schools educate these students to high standards. Notably, the bill grants new flexibility for LEP students who are new to the country and codifies in statute recent flexibility granted by the Department of Education for special education students, which permits the use of alternate academic achievement standards for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities and modified academic achievement standards for students who have disabilities that preclude them from achieving grade-level proficiency. Finally, the bill targets Federal assessment dollars to develop and administer valid and reliable assessments for special education and LEP students and targets professional development dollars to empower teachers with better tools and information for teaching LEP and special education children.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 reasserts that high-quality teachers are the most important factor to improved student academic achievement. The bill authorizes programs to ensure that all students are taught by a highly qualified teacher and to ensure that low-income and minority students are not taught by unqualified and inexperienced teachers at higher rates than their more affluent peers. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 maintains the current definition of highly qualified teacher; emphasizes alternative certification, incentive, differential, and performance and merit pay; and has States and districts conduct needs assessments to determine which districts and schools have the most acute teacher quality and staffing needs in order to better target resources to those schools and districts. Further, the bill gives greater authority to local school districts to renegotiate restrictions in collective bargaining agreements that contribute to the least experienced and qualified teachers teaching in the schools with students most in need of a highly qualified teacher.

Finally, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 focuses on improving the Nation's high school graduation rate. Included in the legislation is the Graduate for a Better Future Act, which I introduced earlier this year in response to the high school dropout crisis in the United States. The high school graduation rate for the class of 2003 was only 70 percent nationwide. Thus, almost one-third of American students who enter high school in ninth grade drop out of school and never receive a high school diploma. Large disparities exist in the high school graduation rates among various subgroups of students. Although the high school graduation rate for white students was 78 percent in 2003, the rate for African American students was only 55 percent, and the rate for Hispanic students was only 53 percent.

To remain competitive in the world economy, it is critical for America's youth to graduate from high school and to have access to the postsecondary education needed to succeed in the 21st century job market. Funds under the Graduate for a Better Future Act will be used to create models of excellence for academically rigorous high schools to prepare all students for college and the 21st century workplace; to implement accelerated academic catch-up programs for students who enter high school behind; to implement an early warning system to quickly identify students at risk of dropping out of high school; to implement comprehensive college guidance programs; and to implement programs that offer students opportunities for job-shadowing, internships, and community service so that students are able to make the connection between what they are learning in school and how that applies and is used in the workplace.

Additionally, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 requires states to get serious and to get accurate in their calculation of graduation rates. The Nation's dropout crisis will not go away

by fudging on the numbers. The graduation rate in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2007 builds on the work of all 50 states through the National Governors Association, which has signed the Graduation Counts Compact, an effort started in 2005 to find a common method for calculating each state's high school graduation rate.

As I stated at the beginning of my remarks, continuing our endeavor begun in 2001, the time is now to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. For the future of our Nation, our children, we must not turn back. Once again let us stand together and State to the American public that we can and will close the achievement gap. And once again let us say to every child, regardless of background, you can achieve.

Mr. President, I have the deepest respect for the Senator from Massachusetts, and this is one Senator who makes no accusations that this is payback. I proudly say the Senator from Massachusetts believed before that this is the right thing, he believes it today, and he will believe it tomorrow; and no one could convince me he could change his mind. It is refreshing in this institution to find somebody who is so entrenched that the press, public opinion, or anything cannot move him.

But acknowledging that about Senator Kennedy, I have to express my strong disagreement from the standpoint that he says this is easy to do. I hope it is not easy to do. I hope it is not easy in America, in a democracy, to do away with the private ballot. I believe it is something we cherish, something we protect, something we understand is part of the tenets of democracy.

I think it is important that we look back. We have heard a lot about where we are. But how did we get to the point that we have a system where if 30 percent of the employees sign a sheet to have an election-- 30 percent, not 50 percent--in fact, they get that right. It

was in 1947 when they changed the National Labor Relations Act. Why did they change it? Because through the 1930s and 1940s, there was widespread intimidation by the labor unions on workers and on employers. Rather than to have that intimidation that mobilized one's commitment to unionize a business, they rewrote the law and they provided the right of a private ballot in this infant democracy--what we did for elections we adopted for employees, a secret way for every employee not to be bullied or intimidated as to how they wanted to be represented by their employer or by a union.

Employee Free Choice Act. That sounds easy, and I think that is why he suggested it is. The reality is Americans will give up the private ballot. But the Employee Free Choice Act violates that tenet of our democracy because it would prevent every worker's vote from counting. I will say that again. It would prevent every worker's vote from counting. We have had battles over the last 10 years in this country about every vote counting. Not only would it prevent every vote from being counted, it would deny the right to vote to some employees, because now just with 50 percent plus one additional worker there would be no need for a vote. He is right. You would enter into a 10-day process that would accelerate, in all likelihood, to mediation because you have a union that shot for the stars and an employer that can only pay X. The history of the country is that we split the difference and the employer decides if they can even stay in business.

Under current law, the most frequent form of union organizing is a private ballot, with 30 percent of the employees signing their name on a dotted line, which initiates an election process where employees will decide by private ballot as to whether the union represents them. I cannot think of anything more fair than 30 percent initiating and 50 plus 1 making the final decision. In Winston-Salem in the past year and a half, I had a good friend whose company was forced to have a ballot-- or at least they pushed it as far as they could. You see, at the end of the day, I am not sure they had 30 percent of the employees sign. But if you had seen what happened in that community, if you had seen the posters that were put on telephone poles about the owner of this business, the fliers mailed to his neighbors--it had nothing to do with his business or employees. It was a character assassination on the individual who owned the business because the labor unions thought if they could break his character, he would give in to a vote and they would have a chance of organizing his business.

The great news out of that story is he didn't break; he fought them and he won. In fact, they didn't have 30 percent who signed. They didn't have an election because the employees decided they didn't want to be represented by the union. I can tell you that in the town I live in, they make pretty good money. They may not make as much as they would like to, but they make as much as the industry they represent can bear and that the town they live in can afford to pay.

When we talk about intimidation, I assure you that there is intimidation against the employer. It is happening every day in communities across this country. If there are any examples of what I saw as to what would happen if we did away with the private ballot, I would hate to see what would happen to employees in this country if unions had the ability to bully and intimidate them into agreeing to sign on because there was no longer the secrecy of a private ballot.

In the last 10 years, we have seen increased effort by unions to seek union recognition outside of the secret ballot process already--the so- called use of card check. It has become a critical component of big labor's organizing strategy. Card check circumvents workers' rights to private ballot to union certification elections. The legislation would instead force workers into a union once union organizers have obtained those 50 percent plus 1 signature.

This invites worker intimidation and character assassination by the union. I believe all votes should be counted. Under card check, that would not happen. Many individuals will be denied access to vote. Many votes will go uncounted because no votes would take place.

Do you find it odd that in 2001, the authors of this bill demanded private ballots in Mexico? As recently as 2001, the cosponsors of card check legislation urged Mexico to guarantee secret ballots to their workers voting in union-recognized campaigns. So they will propose private ballots in Mexico, but they won't support their continued existence in the United States. Unions know private ballots prevent coercion when it comes to making a choice about unions. Even the AFL- CIO has called the secret ballot the surest means for avoiding decisions that are the result of group pressure and not individual decisions. That statement was made in a legal brief regarding union decertification elections.

The Employee Free Choice Act is, quite frankly, antiworker legislation. Unions should not be enhancing their power by weakening workers' rights. I cannot think of a more important right than the right to vote, the right to a secret ballot, the right to make sure that your vote is cast, that it is counted, and that it counts. The authors of this bill suggest that we throw that away.

I will end with this story. We all had the opportunity--``all'' meaning the entire world--to see the first free elections in Iraq in a number of decades. We saw people with purple fingers acknowledging the fact that they had risked their lives to travel to a polling place to cast a private ballot for a slate of candidates to elect their representatives.

In my office today is a ballot from one of those polling places in Iraq. It is framed next to a flag that a pilot, who patrolled over that polling site protecting those Iraqi people, brought back and was told by the Iraqis: Give this to a Member of the U.S. Senate who represents you and tell them how much it means to us.

If this is, in fact, how we see democracies emerge and the importance of an individual's right to vote, to elect their representatives, to decide their future, and yet we, the strongest democracy in the world, throw out private ballots, disregard this important piece of democracy because it is easy, if we neglect history and we forget what happened in 1930 and 1940 and why we changed it in 1947, and we fall prey to what seems easy, then what example do we set for the rest of the world? How hard will people fight in the future for democracy and freedom? Will people be willing to risk their lives when they see the ability to weigh in on who represents them? I seriously doubt it.

I think the worst example we can send to the world is that there is a piece of American democracy where private ballots are no longer needed, where we just disregard that part of the rights of the American people.

I am hopeful that tomorrow we will vote not to proceed, that this legislation will not be considered, and we can assure the American people we have protected their rights with the private ballots and not accept what is easy, and that is to throw it away.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by Senator McCain that requires the collection of back taxes from those who have worked in our country illegally and seek future adjusted status.

As one of the Founders of our Nation, Benjamin Franklin, wisely acknowledged long ago, ``In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.'' All individuals enjoying the American lifestyle have to pay taxes. As burdensome, painful, and onerous as the process may be, anyone who lives and works in the United States has the responsibility to pay Uncle Sam. The people whose legal status is affected by this bill should be no different. If they have worked in our country illegally, they should not get a free-ride when it comes to paying the tax obligations they have avoided for the time that they have been here.

Undocumented aliens who seek to assimilate into our society and want to become American citizens have high hurdles to overcome--and that is the way it should be. Those who want to become a part of our great country must come out of the shadows, tell us who they are, pay heavy fines, return to their country, learn English, consistently hold a job, follow the law, and they should also have to pay their tax obligations. There is no doubt that these requirements will be difficult to achieve for those seeking adjusted status--both practically and financially. However, this additional requirement is absolutely necessary. Payment of back taxes for unauthorized work is not only financially critical, it is morally right.

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize the fifth anniversary of the Wachovia Championship golf tournament and its contribution to charitable causes in North Carolina.

Several years ago, a group of North Carolinians gathered to begin the planning for this first-class event. Under their leadership, the Wachovia Championship has quickly risen to the top echelon of sporting events in the country. In only 5 short years, the Wachovia Championship has become known as one of the preeminent golf tournaments in the country--second only to the major championships.

The organizers desired to create a premier sporting event that would provide a first-class experience for patrons, PGA tour players, and volunteers that at the same time would have a significant economic impact for the Carolinas, showcase our State and region to a national and international television audience, and most importantly, raise significant funds for charitable causes in the State.

On all accounts, the Wachovia Championship has been a resounding success story. This year alone, the Wachovia Championship will have an economic impact of over $45 million in the state of North Carolina.

The primary beneficiary of the success of the Wachovia Championship is Teach for America. Funds generated from the tournament are used to support the national efforts of this organization. Teach for America is the national corps of outstanding college graduates who commit 2 years to teach in low-income communities and become advocates for expanding educational opportunity. Since 1990 nearly 17,000 college graduates have joined Teach for America, impacting the lives of over 2.5 million students.

In North Carolina, Teach for America has over 250 corps members teaching in Charlotte, Durham and communities across the eastern half of the State.

Since the inception of the tournament, over $4 million has been generated for Teach for America from the success of the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte.

As you can see, this is much more than just a golf tournament. The Wachovia Championship is a community and economic success story.

I congratulate the organizers and the thousands of volunteers that make the Wachovia Championship one of the special events that makes our state of North Carolina proud.

Mr. President, if I could ask the ranking member for a few minutes to speak about reimportation.

Mr. President, I thank the ranking member.

I find it somewhat ironic that we are on the floor to discuss an amendment to a drug safety bill which would allow drugs to be imported freely from any country around the world. Maybe I am the only one who finds some irony in that. We are constructing a mechanism in this country to set up a system of surveillance, to recognize red flags that may suggest to us we need to look deeper into the unintended consequences of drugs that have already been proven safe and effective; and we go even further than that and codify into law a very regimented process for the Food and Drug Administration to go through if, in fact, it is triggered that there might be a problem. Then, in the same bill, because of the outrage over the concerns we have for prescription drugs, now we are going to say to the Chinese: continue to manufacture, continue to ship in, and these products may not even have an active ingredient.

We adopted Senator Durbin's amendment that related to pet food safety standards. Well, what this suggests to me is that for us to consider the importation or reimportation of drugs is to say we put pet food above the drug chain for the American people, that we are willing to put more standards on pet food today than we are on the importation of these drugs.

Passage of the Medicare prescription Part D plan, which was a year ago, lowered significantly the pressure that was felt to obtain drugs over the Internet or drugs from other countries. Why? Because in the first year, we have seen a 33-percent reduction in the price of those pharmaceuticals for our Medicare-eligible population. It is not that all the pressure is off, but I am not sure the remaining pressure is going to be alleviated by providing a drug supply that has no active ingredient or that denies consumers the security of knowing they are going home and they are taking their drugs but then they suffer the consequences of ending up in an emergency room because they didn't get the active ingredient they needed.

Last year, 1.7 million tablets of counterfeit Viagra were uncovered; 1 million tablets of Lipitor that were, in fact, counterfeit; and a half a million tablets of Norvasc were seized in China.

What is unfortunate is China is not the only country in the world where we have created a cottage industry of producing drugs that look just like the ones we sell in a pharmacy but that we regulate at a gold standard that many on this floor have tried to protect every time we debate legislation that is about the Food and Drug Administration. We are here today to assure the American people that we are raising the gold standard--that it is not just the bar of where we determine safety and efficacy but we are raising the standard when the population at large is exposed to that medication to make sure that, in fact, unintended consequences are fully investigated. To accept the importation of foreign drugs is to open the door for a cottage industry today to become a mega industry tomorrow by supplying counterfeit drugs with no active ingredient, with the potential that there are ingredients in it that are adulterated, that will not only not solve the health problems but, as has been proven in the pet food supply, could kill. Now, when people die, we put the standards higher than we do the standards of reimportation or importation of drugs. I urge my colleagues to at least accept the Cochran amendment which puts a safety standard in, but do not pass this importation legislation.

Mr. President, I agree with my colleague that this issue has been around for a long time. One of the reasons we continue to debate it is because we continue to have real-life examples of a product that comes in that is adulterated. I am not sure we have done anything to eliminate the ability to counterfeit, other than to confuse it even more, because, in fact, today we basically say it is almost impossible, unless you are an individual crossing the border, to bring in drugs from another country.

We are challenged at Customs today with immigration. Oh, we are just as challenged at Customs today on the shipment of pharmaceutical products that come into this country from abroad. It is not held to a single country.

I do not believe the reason we embrace this bill is because the Europeans do it. There are a lot of things the Europeans do today that I would not necessarily suggest are right for America. As a matter of fact, we have some international treaties that suggest we should harmonize our drug standards with the European Union. What we found was, for the European Union, with 22 members, they accept whichever country the application was applied for. If that country approves it, then it is good for the EU. If you look at some of the standards throughout the 22 countries, it would be dismantling the gold standard of the FDA.

So for those who suggest what we would do in this amendment maintains our gold standard, it would not happen. The reality is, as you accept what they do--which does not come close to the gold standard of the FDA for safety and efficacy--over time it would bring further deterioration to the confidence of our drug supply. When every American goes to their local pharmacy and they have their prescription that is written by a doctor, they go in with 100 percent confidence of knowing there is an active ingredient in it, that it is not adulterated, that their health is not going to be affected adversely when they take it.

We are on the floor today. This is part of the drug safety bill. Why? Because in some cases when products are approved and given to a much larger population, that larger population experiences different side effects because every person is genetically different. There are no two alike, unless we change the cloning laws in this country. The reality is, I do not think we are going to do that, so we do not have it to worry about. But we are here trying to strengthen the safety of the product. We currently can maintain the chain of custody because it is manufactured, it is distributed, and every product has a case lot number.

What have we experienced with counterfeit drugs? They have been able to make a pill look identical to the pills we go to the pharmacy and buy--identical in not just the pill but the packaging. As we shift packaging, so do those who are trying to game the system. The reality is, the person who is on the receiving end--and I sympathize with exactly what the Senator from North Dakota has claimed; that in many cases, pharmaceuticals are not affordable for some people. That is why we created Part D Medicare. That is why over 30 million Americans who are Medicare eligible now have coverage--coverage that has brought down the price of pharmaceuticals 33 percent in the first year.

For any other area for which we would propose legislation, if we saw a trend like this, we would be embracing the fix we put in. But no, we are going to delude it even further and confuse seniors across the country and say: Now just go on the Internet and buy it because we have said it can only come in if it is an FDA-approved product. Well, FDA- approved products are the only things we write prescriptions for in the country. The reality is, the only counterfeit product that counterfeiters are making are FDA look-alikes.

There is nothing in the Dorgan bill that says somebody cannot counterfeit anymore. There is nothing in the bill that says if we do not catch it at Dulles Airport when it flies in and test it immediately to find there is no active ingredient, we have not put somebody's life in danger. There is no assurance in this bill that if there is an adulteration of some kind that affects somebody's health--in the host of millions of pills that come in, if we do not catch it, there is somebody on the receiving end who is going to be adversely affected health-wise.

So I appreciate the fact that everybody wants cheaper drugs. We all do. But there is a reality about the United States of America: We protect intellectual property; therefore, we attract companies. And it is not just limited to pharmaceuticals. I guess the next thing we are going to do is claim Microsoft software is too expensive, so we are now going to allow that to come in from somewhere else. Well, we protect handbags. We protect clothing. We protect the copyrights, the intellectual property. There is even more of a reason to do it in pharmaceuticals. It is because there is a safety component.

I think when many people think they might be buying a counterfeit handbag--if they buy it on the streets of this town or some other town--they probably think: Well, if I get a year's use out of it, based on the price, that is OK. I do not think you can apply the same standard to pharmaceuticals. If it does not have the active ingredient, somebody might die. In fact, we beefed up, in the drug safety bill, dog food higher than what this importation provides for our pharmaceutical supply in this country.

We are going to have plenty of time to talk about it. And just as the Senator from North Dakota brings a lot of facts and figures to the floor, there are a lot of facts and figures from the 8 years--maybe more--we have debated this issue. It has not been Congress that has turned it down, it has been the American people. At the end of the day, they send us here to make decisions that are positive in relation to their health and their future. I do not think Americans want to take a pig in a poke on pharmaceuticals. But that is what this amendment will allow to happen.

This will probably change America being the innovator of drugs and medical devices because we will ignore patents and copyrights. We are advantaged by that. There are many countries in the world where you do not have access to the drugs and biologics and devices we have in this country. Yes, they are expensive because they are expensive to develop, but we put more value on quality of life, the ability for us in this country to treat what others are not able to treat because we believe that, in the overall scheme of our system, we save more money in health care if, in fact, we give somebody a pill. If that was not the case, we would not have programs for HIV/AIDS. But every time we supply that

therapeutic for an HIV/AIDS patient, we know they are not going to have one case a year with some type of retinal infection. We know they are not going to be admitted to the hospital for a week because of pneumonia. We know the savings over that incident is probably going to be $15,000 or $20,000, and that is before we put any cost on the quality of life of the patient who is affected by the disease.

Well, I would imagine we will see counterfeit HIV products because they are expensive. It is one of those diseases that does not stay in the same place. It is smart. It changes itself within somebody's body, and it means that over a period of time, you can take a drug that is very effective or a combination of drugs that is very effective, and after 2 or 2\1/2\ or 3 years, the disease has now changed, and if you do not change with new therapies, the reality is there is going to be a deterioration of that person's quality of life and a further advance of the disease.

Right now, we have companies that are excited about working on the next product that will continue to take a disease we cannot cure today but for which we can stop the progression right in its tracks. What we are going to say to those companies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, is: Well, the United States does not put any value on that anymore. Say that to the population that is affected by the disease. Say that to the population of any group of Americans that is affected by a disease, that we are not going to have the policies in place that advance the development of drugs, biologics, and devices. When we do this, that is what we are saying.

Again, I appreciate the authors' attempts to try to assure us that safety is at the forefront. But that is only there if we are smart enough to catch it. If we were that smart, we would not have an illegal immigration problem in this country. If we were that smart, we would know that we caught 100 percent of what was coming in the country. But I do not think there is anybody who is going to take this floor and suggest to the American people that we catch 100 percent of the adulterated or counterfeit drugs. There is certainly nobody who can come to the floor, even with our food safety standards where they are-- where the FDA is in charge and USDA is in charge and DHS now has some responsibility for it--and suggest to the American people that we catch 100 percent of the contaminated food before it finds its way to the shelf or to a plate in our house.

The reality is, we have had 12 examples just in the last year where we are just not that good. We are not perfect. I would suggest to you, to try the system, by setting up a program that cannot be policed--and I think that is what my colleague from Mississippi was saying. Time and time again, we have had the debate. We have pulled in the experts. They have said this is just something which is undoable for us. We cannot do it.

My hope is that as this debate goes on, more and more Members will realize it sounds good, but it is not a risk we should take in this country. It is a risk that affects people's lives.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, we are at a lull in the movement of the drug safety bill, a bill to assure American consumers, American patients, that there is more than just the acknowledgment by the Food and Drug Administration that a drug is safe and effective; that there is a mechanism post-approval as Americans across the country begin to take those medications; that we are watching for potentially any adverse reactions to a drug that a new population, an increased number of Americans that may be taking the drug. It is in an effort to make sure that if we see the signals of that unintended consequence, that we look more thoroughly at the benefits of that drug being on the market.

When I left the floor earlier today, the sponsor of the importation amendment suggested that Vioxx was not beneficial to anybody. The fact is, I do not think it is the role of Members of the Senate--unless you are Dr. Coburn--to suggest that you practice medicine. There are physicians who found the advantages of Vioxx, while it was on the market, they found it was advantageous to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of patients.

I am sure those patients are back on ibuprofen, Naprosyn, or other products that might cause significant gastro challenges for them, and that is why their doctors switched them originally. They needed relief from pain.

Well, a lot of things have been said, and the Senator from North Dakota said we should stay focused on the facts. I have come to the floor for a few minutes just to talk about some of the facts.

Many of us have suggested that, two years ago, when we created Medicare Part D--which is a prescription drug benefit for individuals in this country who are Medicare eligible--we lessened the problem that many seniors had expressed; and that is, their inability to buy pharmaceutical products.

Just recently, an analysis published by AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, showed the new Medicare drug benefit saves seniors more money than buying pharmaceuticals from Canada. Now there is a new one. For those who are on border States, the AARP--the authority because they certainly had a loud voice before Part D was created--said drugs from Canada are actually more expensive than what Part D has been able to negotiate.

Let me say in every State we have multiple choices. Seniors make their choice. They participate in a plan. It is a private sector plan. But there are basically four large benefit managers, and they negotiate prices. What they have done is, they have been able to negotiate a price that has even exceeded what Canada could sell drugs for at retail.

This AARP bulletin found that many who choose the least expensive plan that meets their prescription drug needs--this is under Part D-- will still pay less for those drugs than they would purchasing them from Canada. So it is not the ``Cadillac'' plan that seniors would have to choose to get less expensive drugs in the United States than from Canada. In fact, with the least expensive plan, AARP evaluated they would get a cheaper price on their pharmaceuticals by having Part D, accessing it at a U.S. pharmacy where they can feel fairly confident, if not totally confident, the product is, in fact, what they thought it was.

Just recently, in Detroit, MI, an indictment charging 19 individuals with operating a global racketeering conspiracy, was unsealed. The Federal court announced--the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan--the indictment alleges that portions of the profits made from illegal enterprises were, in fact, funding Hezbollah. This is a foreign terrorist organization, by the way. Nine of the individuals were arrested. The indictment charged that between 1996 and 2004, this group worked together in a criminal enterprise to traffic in contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig-Zag rolling papers, and counterfeit Viagra.

So as to the claims we have made on the Senate floor--I believe the Senator from North Dakota when he says: We have done everything we can in this bill to assure the public of the safety and integrity of the product--though there is nothing in the bill that forbids anybody who wants to circumvent the law, in other words, make counterfeit drugs, make drugs that have no active ingredient, make drugs that look just like those drugs that are approved by the FDA, whether they are Viagra or Zocor, and to find a way for those to come to the marketplace.

It is not something the FDA today, or any FDA prior, has said they can police. For those Members who have been intricately involved since September 11, 2001, at understanding what our ability is to have a full knowledge of what comes into this country, some of us have actually gone to Washington Dulles Airport. We have seen the Customs officials go through the bags and bags of pharmaceutical products that come into this country. It is impossible, without a chemical test, to determine whether one tablet is authentic or the next one is counterfeit, whether one has an active ingredient or whether one is minus all active ingredients.

There have been several operations conducted in this country that deal with the cyber-trafficking of pharmaceutical products.

Fictitious pharmacies: These are companies that prey on individuals who are solely looking for low-priced pharmaceuticals. They think they are dealing with reputable pharmacies around the world. Yet there is no pharmacy. At the other end of the Internet are crooks. They prey on people who look for pricing. In fact, as some of those groups have been rolled up by our law enforcement, what we find is the products that were coming in had substantial deficiencies in things such as active ingredients.

What happens when a patient takes a product where the active ingredient does not exist? The illness they have is not affected. For an individual who might have high cholesterol who has been put on a drug that will lower that cholesterol because they are susceptible to heart problems, to have no active ingredient means they have a cholesterol buildup in their veins, and without intervention the likelihood is they might have a heart attack. They might die. Unfortunately, when they take a drug they think is real, but it has no active ingredient, unfortunately, they do not know until they have a medical incident.

So let me make this point to all my colleagues: If the purpose is to lower the cost of health care, then we are taking a mighty big risk because, in fact, what we may be doing is we may be raising the cost of health care in America, and with a disregard for the lives of the individuals who might be affected.

When I came to the floor earlier today, I mentioned that last year alone 1.7 million tablets of counterfeit Viagra were uncovered, 1 million tablets of Lipitor. This is according to the Wall Street Journal. I think that is surpassed, though, by the fact that last year--as we were in the heat of this new potential pandemic flu, H5N1, the bird flu; and we aggressively in this country then and still today are trying to come up with a vaccine and with

other countermeasures that might be able to defeat or minimize the impact of the bird flu--companies around the world started to look for Tamiflu as a successful countermeasure.

Individuals in this country searched outside of the country

because the supply was so limited. Well, Customs agents have

intercepted more than 50 shipments of counterfeit Tamiflu. It

is an antiviral drug that is specifically designed to be

stockpiled for the pandemic flu.

You see, my point is this: Counterfeiting, the trafficking of pharmaceuticals exists today. Anything that loosens the regulations on access to these pharmaceuticals invites more people to participate in gaming the U.S. consumer and, for that matter, the global patient. This is not something that is limited to the United States.

Clearly, the adulterated product is usually a product that

is manufactured somewhere outside of this country. Not only

can they make a handbag look like a designer bag, they can

make a ``Viagra'' pill look like Viagra. Now, unfortunately,

you will know real quick whether there is an active

ingredient in that. But you will not know if it is, in fact,

a cholesterol-lowering drug or one of the things that really

does affect the long-term health of the American people.

A study published in the medical journal Science found when a cholesterol-lowering drug manufactured in the United States was compared just to generic copies bought over the Internet from Mexico, Thailand, India, and Brazil, there were differences in the blend, the uniformity of the blend--an error that could dilute their effect on patients. The authors concluded that clinically this would have significance for a patient who was prescribed a half a tablet per day, which is not an uncommon practice.

So for that senior at home, who has suggested an increase in the amount of milligrams of active ingredients so they can cut their pills--take half one day and half the next day because there are ways to maximize--what this report found, published in the medical journal Science, was that an adulterated product that does not reach the correct consistency throughout the pill might on one side provide the active ingredient and might on the other side not provide any active ingredient whatsoever. It could affect the dissolving rate, which could affect the onset of effect, or bioavailability.

These are stories that come right out of medical journals. This is not about pharmaceutical companies and how powerful they are in Washington. This is about whether the focus of the Senate is on the safety and the well-being of the American people. This is about whether, in fact, we are going to maintain the gold standard of the Food and Drug Administration or whether we are going to accept the standards of other countries in the world where their bar is not quite as high, where they are willing to accept less in innovation, just to receive less in price.

I am not sure that is a good tradeoff for the country. Clearly, the Senator from North Dakota has the votes potentially to win this. I do not find that too comforting, myself. I spent 2 years of my life actively involved in the 1997 modernization of the Food and Drug Administration. I worked with people on the right, the left, and the middle. I worked with people who wanted to do things at the FDA that today we still have not done, thank goodness, but there are still people who want to do it. But we all came together to uphold one thing in that process--not to lower the bar, not to lower the standard that we asked companies to reach with their products for us to put that FDA stamp of approval, ``safe and effective,'' on it.

There are products sold outside the United States that could never pass the application process in this country. I know the Senator from North Dakota does not, in his bill, allow those products to come in. He limits it to FDA-approved products. So my focus is solely on the product that is FDA-approved in this country, but that has been manufactured in a way that either provides little active ingredient or no active ingredient, and with potentially harmful components found in that pill, or whatever the dosage might be.

It is my hope we will continue to talk about this issue. But when I left the floor I thought it was important to go look at some of the articles to see if this is still a real problem. It is a problem today. It will be a problem tomorrow, and if we pass this, I think it will be a bigger problem in the future. It is a problem that is involved in funding terrorism around the world. It is a problem that will not go away, but at least today, we are able to control it. We are able to control it in a way that has a smaller effect on the quality of life of the people in this country. I think that is why they have us here. But we will continue the debate and we will see where we end. I think it is important enough that we spend days, if it takes days, to debate this legislation and to make sure everybody in this country understands what is at stake.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me say, as Senator Dodd finishes, that nobody has worked more tirelessly than he on behalf of children's health and specifically as it relates to prescription drugs. He did list a long list of people, including taxpayers and so forth.

This is about children, plain and simple. It is one group. It is our children, this country's kids. In 1997, I authored what became the Food and Drug Cosmetic Modernization Act. Prior to that, there weren't any clinical studies done for pediatric purposes. It was on the heels of that that Senator Dodd and others created the exclusivity--exclusivity that Senator Allard is not changing. What we are changing is in the base bill and going from 6 to 3 months.

The reality is that, prior to the enactment, we didn't have companies that were studying the right dosages, what side effects there were, and whether it was effective in children. Sure, we had it for adults but not for kids. We have made tremendous progress. Under this pediatric exclusivity, though, we would cap it at 3 months. Companies that exceeded a dollar value--we pulled this out of the sky. Why $1 billion and not $2 billion? If it was $2 billion, why not $4 billion? Why not $100,000? The reality is that none of us knows. There is no expert

who can tell us what is the right amount of incentive needed for a company to go through the types of trials to get these indications for kids. Why? Because every drug is different, and, more importantly, every child is different. So if we are going to err, I suggest that we err on the side of what has worked. Eighty-seven percent of all pediatric drugs have pediatric indications. It has been the carrot of 6 months.

Members will come to the floor and vote for or against the Allard amendment. I believe it is crucial that if we err, we err on the side of what already has worked and what continues to work. If Senator Dodd prevails, I hope he is right. I hope he is right because we won't know, until this bill sunsets, whether in fact the incentive wasn't great enough for companies to go through this process to find out the indications for children.

The people who will suffer because of our willingness to arbitrarily change will be the kids. That is the same group I started with--the ones we should be solely focused on. It was the kids when this was created 10 years ago; it should be the kids today. If we are going to err, let's err on the side of the kids and not use this as a way to potentially alter the profitability of an industry or a given company. Let's make sure that the true beneficiary of the work of this body is in fact the children of this country.

I thank the Senator from Colorado for yielding me the time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I would ask that the Chair alert me when I have 3 minutes remaining on my 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I want to make two points right up front. The first point is that I support the Wyden bill. I think if you listen to the debate, you would think I am urging my colleagues not to extend this program. North Carolina is 25 percent national land. We benefit from it.

The second point is that I have tremendous respect for Senator Wyden and for Senator Craig, and the realities are that if you take everything that was said at face value, one of two things exists: either we are stretching the truth or we haven't read my amendment because there is no way for my amendment, which deals only with title I of Forest Service payments, to affect law enforcement. Title I of the Forest Service payments specifically says, since 1908, when it was created, that it can be used for schools or roads.

What does my amendment do? It is very simple. There are three payments the Wyden bill addresses: Forest Service payments, BLM land, and payments in lieu of taxes. Within the framework of the Forest Service payment there are three titles: title I, which is schools and roads; title II, which is forestry programs and others; and title III, which is sheriff's search and rescue, law enforcement.

What does my amendment do? My amendment says simply all the new money that goes to title I, schools and roads, which is an increase of approximately $177 million since it was reauthorized in 2000--title I had $300 million in 2000; fiscal year 2007 is projected to be $477 million--so $177 million of new money shall be devoted, 80 to 85 percent, to schools.

My good friend from Oregon said the issue is survival. I would say he is correct. I agree with him. More than 40 percent of America's schools are in rural areas, and approximately 30 percent of all students attend those rural schools. The Senator from Idaho said 8 million kids. To be sure, our rural schools face unique challenges. Often their geographic isolation makes it difficult for teachers to access professional development opportunities. It is often difficult for rural schools to recruit and retain high-quality, gifted teachers.

Additionally, it is also often difficult for high school students in rural areas to access the advanced placement programs that students in urban areas have access to, which sets them on a course ahead of other students for higher education. Nationally, one-third of our students who enter high school in the ninth grade drop out before they receive a high school diploma. If this were a disease in America, it would be called an epidemic. If there were a disease in America, we would take Federal funds, State funds, local funds, and we would focus them to try to solve the problem.

Here we have an opportunity. We are not stealing any money. We are not changing the 1908 agreement. But as we plus up the money, all I am saying to my colleagues is, shouldn't we take the $177 million of new money and shouldn't we devote it to education? Shouldn't we say to these 8 million kids and their families, in 40 percent of America's schools: You know what. We are going to give you extra funds to address the geographical challenges you are faced with because you happen to be located in rural America. It affects North Carolina just as it does Idaho and just as it does Oregon.

As I said, in 1908, Congress first passed this bill and required that 25 percent of the revenues derived from national forest lands be paid to States. I am not trying to change that. I want to make sure that all of these payments--BLM payments, payments in lieu of taxes, Forest Service payments--go. I don't want to get into title III, where law enforcement is affected. I don't want to get into title II, where forestry programs and forestry management are affected. I do believe, however, that we can look at the challenges that we are faced with and say: If we are going to put new money into it, why don't we put 80 percent of it in education, the No. 1 challenge we have in America today.

I don't have any statements in support of my amendment. As a matter of fact, yesterday, the National Education Association sent out an e- mail alert to Senators warning them of this amendment. It basically said that a potential amendment would be offered by an unnamed Senator--they knew exactly who I was--that would divert funds away from the Secure Rural Schools Community Self-Determination Act. We urge you to oppose any such amendment.

I am beginning to figure out what is wrong with education. We are letting other people influence what we do, people who do not care whether we get our kids educated. Here is the National Education Association, the labor union of teachers, the ones who are supposed to be most concerned about our kids. Here is an amendment that puts $177 million into rural schools in America, and they are telling everybody to vote against it. Aren't they the ones who are supposed to stand up for our kids?

The ones who need to stand up for our kids are Members of this institution. They need to listen to the parents or these kids back at home and not listen to the organization that says they represent teachers and children that, frankly, when offered more money--it doesn't disrupt anything--they say oppose it.

The information contained in the NEA's e-mail is blatantly false. I am not trying to do anything to ensure anything other than 80 percent of new money, $177 million, goes, 80 percent, to schools. As a matter of fact, if you do the math, it means there is more money in 2007-- where the other 20 percent is dedicated to roads--than there was under the 2000 reauthorization of this program. So, in fact, communities that are affected are going to have more money to put into roads. But, you know, an amazing thing is going to exist. They are also going to have more money to put into schools, exactly where I think we need to go.

One can look at the history of how this money has been spent. It might give you an indication as to why there is opposition and concern. Oregon, which will receive over $300 million, spends almost all of its money on roads. In 2004, Oregon spent $433 per student, compared to $7,388 per mile of road, out of title I, the Rural Schools Act. Let me say that again: $433 per student, compared to $7,388 per mile of roads.

Idaho spends almost 10 times the amount it spends on roads to what it spends on education, out of this program. Maine will see its share of funding increase from $40,000 per year to almost $1 million when this is reauthorized, and I support its reauthorization.

But in 2004, Maine spent only $4.12 out of this program, per student, compared to almost $700 per mile of road.

There are some successes, though. Alaska dedicates all its title I money to public schools, about $10 million in 2006. If this bill is reauthorized, Alaska will receive almost $20 million. That will double the amount that Alaska invests in its rural schools through the same program that the National Education Association says would be devastating to the education of our children in this country.

As a matter of fact, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia commit 100 percent of their money to education.

I am not here amending the legislation to say you have to spend the 100 percent. I am not here taking title I in total and saying let's change the formula for the entire thing. All I am saying is, if we are going to put new money in it--and we are putting new money in--why not take the bump-up of money and say, with what we are faced in this country, with only 70 percent of our kids graduating with a high school diploma, on time, maybe we ought to try to address that. It certainly is higher in rural America than it is in urban America.

I am happy to yield.

That is correct.

No, it has no effect.

That is correct.

The Senator is correct. The Senator's point is I am taking power away from the decisions of the local community. The Senator is right. I make no bones about it. I plead guilty. I wish they were as concerned about their children's education as I am.

I have a school system where the graduation rate this year was 46 percent. The amazing thing is nobody has been fired. As a matter of fact, nobody is outraged at it. Today's jobs that we create in the 21st century require a different level of education for our children. If you are not competitive--you will not be invited for an interview if, in fact, you do not have a high school diploma.

The reality is, here is one little way we can have an impact on it, a little way that doesn't cost anybody anything because, as I said, this is all new money, from 2000 when it was at its peak. That is because, I remind everybody, in 2000 this was a 7-year program that was set to sunset, to go away. It was going to be no more. This was the adjustment period for all the States, including North Carolina, that received Federal money.

It is not going away. We are going to reauthorize it until 2012, and in 2012 it will be reauthorized until 2020, and the likelihood is the money will go up every year.

Our responsibility is, is the taxpayer money being used in a way that has a positive effect on the communities with Federal money? All I am saying is, as we put new money in, maybe we ought to have some Federal hand in saying let's focus it where we have a cancer. That cancer is in education. If we can't raise the graduation rate from 70 percent to 100 percent, we have individuals who come into our system incapable of competing for a job.

This is a very simple decision for Members of the Senate. I am sad today to tell you I do not expect to win on my amendment. Some will say I have tried to undo 100 years of public policy. I have changed the next 100 years, possibly.

They say I have trampled on States' rights by choosing how they pay for it. I am guilty. I admit it. Why? Because of our children. Our children's future is important. If it were not, we wouldn't be good parents. I am convinced this can have a small but a positive impact on rural schools and the education of our kids in rural communities. I urge my colleagues to consider supporting my amendment, which will, in fact, alter in a very small way the impact of the total Wyden amendment.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

Does the Senator agree with the letter from the commissioners that I affect the PILT payments in my amendment?

Does or does not?

So the letter and the accusation the Senator received from, I think, the counties, is, in fact, inaccurate?

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for a spirited debate, and before my colleague from New Mexico leaves, I want to make sure I have the opportunity to share with him, because he did not hear the first part, that there are three funding pieces to this bill. I am supportive of all three of them. It is the Forest Service payment, the BLM lands payment, and the payment in lieu of taxes.

My amendment affects one piece of one section, the Forest Service payment that is broken down into three titles: title 1, which is designated schools and roads; title 2, which goes to forestry programs and other management programs; and title 3, which goes to law enforcement search and rescue.

I do not affect title 2; I do not affect title 3. I only affect the new funding in title 1. There is no county that will be affected on what they have received up until that point. But of the $177 million of new money in title 1 of the Forest Service payment section only, he is exactly right. I would say 80 to no more than 85 percent has to go to the schools. And if, in fact, New Mexico is structured in a way that when a county ups its investment the State decreases its investment in education, he is exactly right, he would end up with no net gain.

That is where our problem is across the country, our students have no net gain. We have been stuck in this rut and we will not do what it takes to get out of it. Five years ago we passed No Child Left Behind. Nationally we are making progress. We actually see the trend going up. We see K-8 performing at math and science levels that, quite frankly, 5 years ago we did not know if we could reach. It is not a plateau they have gotten to; they are on the climb. We have challenged our elementary school students and they have responded, because we have made a commitment we are going to put highly qualified teachers in classrooms. We have made a commitment to them that we are going to provide the flexibility of Federal money so they can decide how best to use that so kids can learn.

In return, we are going to measure their progress. For the first time, America now knows the progress our students make. Parents are no longer reliant on the arbitrary A, B, C, D or, in some cases, pass- fail. Why is that important? It is important because we have got a 21st century economy. We are creating jobs that, quite frankly, without a high school diploma you are not competitive for.

My kids are still in college. I am fortunate in the fact that at least the tools are available to them. But it is their choice now as to whether they absorb it and use it. What about those kids who are still in K-8? Could this have an impact? Yes, it could have a real impact. It is not a whole lot of money. But when you move from, in Oregon I think, $433 per student, compared to $7,388 per mile, if you were to increase that investment locally, I think it would affect the outcome.

What you would be looking at is the outcome. That is the whole spirit behind No Child Left Behind. What is the result of K-8 not working? It is a 70-percent graduation rate, on time, of our high school students 9-12 today.

As I said earlier, if this were a disease, we would call it an epidemic. We would send every Federal, State, and local resource to try to cure the problem. Well, here is one of those ways: We can say, with the increased money, the $177 million worth of new money these counties have never had, let's use 80 to 85 percent for schools.

I yield.

Reclaiming my time. I will say to the Senator, if for some reason it is not perfectly clear--and we have had the best legislative folks in the Senate who wrote the amendment; I do not think they got it wrong, but if they did, it will change.

But the reality is, it is not going to pass and the Senator from Oregon knows it is not going to pass, not because there are questions on whether it is all title 1; it is not going to pass because they are not willing to let the $177 million worth of new money be devoted to education. It is not because of some technical problem we have with

my amendment. The Senator's bill was awfully large, and there were still changes being made to the bill yesterday. It was a moving target to try to figure out exactly how to do an amendment. The Senator may remember, yesterday it was a second-degree amendment, but to accommodate the majority leader, we decided to do it as a side-by-side, which meant I had to incorporate now my amendment into the Wyden bill. So we have got a Wyden bill by itself, and a Wyden bill with this change. What my colleagues are going to be asked to do is not to vote against Wyden; either way they vote, they get the Wyden bill. But if they vote for the Wyden bill with the Burr amendment, they have now made a commitment to education. They have now made a commitment to the children. They have now made a commitment to 40 percent of America's schools that are located in rural areas, 8 million kids. That is the decision. It is very simple.

So it is not do we understand where it fits. Clearly since the Senator thought it applied to more, since the county letters he got thought it applied to payments in lieu of taxes, since Senator Bingaman, when he came to the floor, was concerned about payments in lieu of taxes, we do not affect those. All we affect is title 1 of the Forest Service payments that are already designated in roads or schools, and we do not affect what we have spent in the past, up to that level. We only affect new dollars.

Of those new dollars, 80 to 85 percent has to go to education. So it means for your State, where it predominately goes for roads, they are not disadvantaged. They are actually going to get 20 percent more for roads. They are just going to have to take 80 percent of the new money and make more of an investment than $433 per student.

It is simple for our colleagues. We are going to vote on this, I think now the order calls for about 11:45 or 12 o'clock. I am not sure if it is going to be a series of three votes. I would encourage my colleagues to vote for the Wyden amendment, but vote for the Wyden amendment that has the Burr language in it, so that, in fact, we have a commitment to our kids, their future, and their education.

I yield the floor.

Since the other side does not get any additional time, I will yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, let me ask my colleagues to listen because I think there are some misconceptions about what I am trying to do.

In 1908, we created this program. We reauthorized it in 2000. It was supposed to sunset a year ago. We have decided to continue the program. I supported the Wyden amendment.

There are three areas that receive funds from this amendment: Forest Service payments, BLM land, and the third fund is payments in lieu of taxes. I am only affecting one title of the first item, which is Forest Service payments. It is not doing anything to payments in lieu of taxes or BLM land.

Title 1, since 1908, has said the money could be used for schools or roads. That one title has 177 million new dollars in it. My amendment says 80 percent of the new dollars will go to education, to educate our children. It does not affect title 2, which is forest programs; it does not affect title 3, which is law enforcement, search and rescue. It is basically saying: At this time, our investment is going to go to our children.

I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. President, the Senator from North Carolina is not intending to manage this side. Our manager is not here right now. I would ask the Senator from Oregon if he would withhold setting the current amendment aside. If he wishes to talk on an amendment, feel free to, but at this time I would have to object to setting aside the pending amendment.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to resume consideration of the Wyden amendment.

Madam President, I have deep respect for my colleague, Senator Wyden. We worked together in the House. We will work together in the Senate. As he said, this is a small disagreement we have because I believe when you have a bill that says this money is going to be used for schools and communities, we should make a commitment that this money in fact does go to our Nation's schools. Today, through my amendment, we have an opportunity to make an obligation to education.

Seventy percent of our children in high school today graduate on time. In North Carolina it is 68 percent. That is 32 percent of students who don't graduate on time. We hear on the floor of this institution state all the time that there's a need to make a commitment to education. And I believe we need to make a commitment to it.

I believe we need to make a commitment on this bill. This program was set to sunset this year. That means the Congress, in the past, set this program to expire, to go away; that the Federal Government had met its obligation. I don't disagree with the Senators from Oregon, Senator Wyden and Senator Smith, who have both been instrumental on this. North Carolina is a beneficiary. We have a tremendous amount of public land. I think it should continue. But at a time that we are required to prioritize where we make our investment, I believe we would help every community by saying 80 percent of the new money--not the money we were using up until this point but the almost $500 million of additional money per year we are going to pump into this program, all new money, that 80 percent of it ought to be used for our schools. It ought to be used for public education and ought to be there to support school construction, K through 12, No Child Left Behind. It ought to focus on high school graduation.

We should take America's high school children from 70 percent graduation and drive it to 100 percent graduation. I heard the argument this was about economic development, about communities, about law enforcement. If you solve education, you lessen the need for law enforcement. The reason we need so many cops on the beat today, that we need more schools, is because our children don't have the skills to compete in the job market. So, yes, we can add policemen and make all Federal dollars open for every community to decide how they use them, but let me assure you, if we don't educate our children, no matter how much money is pumped into those communities, they will have cancer in them.

What am I doing? It is very simple. I am going to offer an amendment that requires 80 to 85 percent of the new dollars to be devoted solely to education. That way every community that is the beneficiary of this money--Oregon, with millions of dollars, and North Carolina, with the several million dollars it gets. It is not enough to solve the education problem, but it shows a commitment on our part to make sure we are willing to contribute the Federal dollars that are available to begin to address this cancer our kids have succumbed to.

Amendment No. 716 to Amendment No. 709

At this time, Madam President, I send to the desk a second-degree amendment to the Wyden amendment.

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

Madam President, it is very simple. The question before us, whether it is a side-by-side we decide on or a second-degree amendment, is: Are we going to commit to using part of these Federal dollars that States deserve--because it is in many cases in lieu of Federal payments for a tax--are we going to commit those to local school systems to educate our children? That is the decision we will have.

At the end of the day, I am going to support Wyden-Reid-Baucus- Bingaman, and however many more people go on the chart before we actually have a vote, but before that vote we will have a decision as to whether we are going to make a commitment to education in this country, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of that.