Floor Statements

Mr. President, Oregon's coastal forests contain many hidden gems. Within the lush rainforests of the Siskiyou-Rogue River National Forest, we find one of these gems--the headwaters of the North Fork of the Elk River, known as the Copper Salmon area. Today I introduce a bill to protect this natural treasure, which lies adjacent to the existing Grassy Knob Wilderness.

During the last decade, a dedicated group of local conservationists has been working hard to protect Copper Salmon. It is one of the last intact watersheds on the southwest Oregon coast. Copper Salmon is renowned among fishermen. For anglers seeking to catch a trophy chinook salmon or winter steelhead for the barbeque or smoker in Oregon, this is the place. Few watersheds in Oregon can match the Elk River drainage. Even after torrential rainstorms, anglers are still able to fish the Elk. When 25 inches of rain fell over 18 straight days last December, the Elk was still fishable while the other rivers in southwest Oregon, Rogue, Umpqua, Coquille, were clouded with debris and mud. Copper Salmon also supports healthy populations of blacktail deer, elk, black bear and mountain lion. This beautiful gem on the southwestern Oregon coast provides great and challenging opportunities here to hunt in freedom and solitude.

Mr. President, 80 percent of the watershed in this region is still intact. The Elk has healthy wild runs of winter steelhead and chinook. It also has some coho salmon and sea-run cutthroat trout, as well as resident cutthroats and rainbow trout. Oregon State University researchers believe it is one of the healthiest anadromous fish streams in the lower 48. There is a reason why: intact habitat.

My bill would provide permanent protections to 13,700 acres of new wilderness. It would also designate 9.3 miles of wild and scenic rivers. Wilderness and wild and scenic designations will protect this watershed and ensure that hunting and fishing opportunities are protected in the Copper Salmon area. Wilderness designation is popular in the local area, as evidenced by resolutions in favor of it from the Port Orford Chamber of Commerce, the mayor of Port Orford, and the Curry County Commissioners. Additionally, a majority of the guides, lodges and local citizens have supported this proposal. It is time now that we all come together and permanently protect this special place.

As Oregon's population grows, I believe that we must match this growth and the corresponding development with protection of our natural heritage. Protection of these areas will ensure that Oregonians and visitors will continue to enjoy opportunities to hike in the wilderness, hunt healthy populations of elk, blacktail deer, black bear, mountain lion and to catch trophy-sized chinook and steelhead.

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

Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, we have seen with Chairman Kennedy over the last 2 minutes why he is so admired by Senators on both sides of the aisle. We have seen how he has engineered critically important bipartisan legislation that helps our working families in the education area. We have heard him speak eloquently about fallen firefighters. We admire them so tremendously in Boston and across the country. Of course,

once again, when we think of Senator Warner--I will have more to say about him in the days ahead--Senator Kennedy has spoken for all of us this morning as he talked about how much we value Senator Warner's counseled insight. I want him to know how much I appreciate his leadership and how much I value his counsel in the Senate.

Mr. President, I know we are in morning business. I ask unanimous consent to speak on the health care issue for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, Senator Bennett of Utah and I have brought to the Senate the first bipartisan universal health care coverage legislation in more than 13 years. I thought today I would open my remarks on health care in something of a light fashion. There is a brand new study that has recently found Americans are no longer the tallest people in the world. Over the past 50 or so years, the U.S. population has lost that status and now ranks among the shortest among industrialized countries. The Netherlands now holds the honor for the tallest nation. The authors of this new study speculate this change may stem from the fact that most other affluent countries have health care systems that cover their entire population and that particularly healthy lifestyles and healthy diets are also significant factors.

Senator Bennett is 6 foot 6. I am 6 foot 4. We would like our country to get its rightful position back as the leader among nations in the height department. We think part of what is going to be necessary to do that, in all seriousness, to make our health policies more health focused rather than just spending on health care, is to adopt some fresh policies. We have been particularly interested this week because the Wall Street Journal, which colleagues know displays a preference for private health care sector solutions, has written a fascinating front page article this week on the special accomplishments in Holland with respect to health care. I have long been of the view that as we look finally to accomplishing what this country has not been able to do for 70 years, which is to get all Americans good quality, affordable health care, we are going to have to devise our own system. It is not going to be possible to import some other country's system of health care to our Nation and pretty much plop it down on the United States and say: This is the way to go.

But as the Wall Street Journal said in their article this week, there are some important lessons to learn as it relates to the experience of other countries.

I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record this front page article from the Wall Street Journal with respect to health care.

I am going to read one paragraph at the outset of the article:

Since a new system took effect here last year, cost growth

is projected to fall this year to about 3 [percent] after

inflation from 4.5 [percent] in 2006. Waiting lists are

shrinking, and private health insurers are coming up with

innovative ways to care for the sick.

What struck Senator Bennett and I is, there is an awful lot of comparison between our bipartisan legislation and the experience of the Dutch. For example, both in Holland and in the United States under our proposal, there would be a requirement that individuals would have to purchase their own health insurance. Insurers under our proposal, as in Holland, would not be able to discriminate against individuals who have had illnesses. We saw in the movie ``Sicko'' that wonderful scene with the ``Star Wars'' music describing all the various conditions that individuals might have that would exclude them from insurance coverage. That would be illegal under what Senator Bennett and I are advocating. It is illegal, according to the Wall Street Journal, in the Netherlands.

Finally, in the Netherlands and under our legislation, there is a sharp and specific focus on prevention and wellness. The tragedy in our country is, we don't have health care at all. What we largely have is sick care. Medicare shows this probably more clearly than anything else. Medicare Part A will pay huge expenses for senior citizens' hospital bills. The check goes from the Government to the hospital. But Medicare Part B, on the other hand, will pay for virtually nothing for prevention and keeping people well. Senator Bennett and I seek to change that. For the first time under our legislation, Medicare would be authorized to discount the premiums for seniors who lower their blood pressure, lower their cholesterol, practice good health in their individual lives. I am struck by this Wall Street Journal article, where insurers in Holland are adopting much the same kind of approach. The article states on the front page that insurers now are offering discounts to customers who buy low cholesterol versions of yogurt, butter, and milk.

The point is, worldwide the message is getting out. Prevention works. Wellness, a new focus on personal responsibility, and keeping our citizens healthy makes sense. They are doing it in Holland. The Wall Street Journal describes the positive benefits there. I and Senator Bennett, along with our cosponsors, Senators Bill Nelson, Lamar Alexander, and Judd Gregg, are trying to build a bipartisan coalition in the Senate to do exactly the same.

Our legislation, the Healthy Americans Act, would require that everyone not on Medicare or in the military would have to purchase private health insurance. But to make sure that is doable, we fix the broken marketplace. Under our legislation, private insurance companies wouldn't be able to cherry-pick. They wouldn't be able to take just healthy people and send sick people over to Government programs more fragile than they are. They couldn't discriminate against those with illnesses. They would have to spread risks through large groups of people. Right now essentially much of the private insurance business is about

filtering out those people who have illnesses and finding a way to cover just those who are healthy. Our legislation would change that.

We also take critical steps to make sure that if you are going to require that people purchase coverage, you have generous subsidies for folks with modest incomes. What Senator Bennett and I propose--and apparently they are doing something along these lines in Holland--is to subsidize those up to 100 percent of poverty completely and for those between 100 percent of poverty and 400 percent of poverty, there would be a partial subsidy. The most generous subsidies of any program anywhere in our country would be offered under this legislation that we are offering, with Senators Alexander, Gregg, and Nelson of Florida.

How do we pay for it? The Lewin Group, which is kind of the gold standard for looking at health policies, scored the administration's approaches, many of the States and ours and said we can find a lot of the savings under our legislation through an administrative process that establishes that once you sign up in Ohio, once you sign up in Oregon or anywhere else in the country, you are in for life. You don't have to sign up again and again and again. In my State, my guess is it is very similar to the situation in Ohio, if you are on Medicaid, there is something like 31 or 32 categories of coverage. A poor person has to try to squeeze themselves into one of those boxes in order to get coverage. It is degrading to the poor and a big waste of money.

What Senator Bennett and I have offered is a one-stop process so you sign up once, and everything else from that point on is essentially accomplished through the magical world of electronic transfers. An individual's contribution would be taken out of their paycheck while they are working. Ours is fully funded.

There is an opportunity for bipartisan cooperation, particularly should the Bush administration want to assist in this effort. For example, every single economist who has come before the Finance Committee, before the Budget Committee, has talked about the Tax Code as it relates to health care disproportionately favoring the most affluent and rewarding inefficiency at the same time. To put it another way, if you are a high-flying CEO in the United States, if you want to go out and get a designer smile put on your face, you can write off the cost of that service on your taxes. But if you are a hard-working woman without any health plan and a local furniture store, you get nothing. So I and Senator Bennett redirect the current tax expenditures. They are the biggest part of private health care spending.

The Lewin Group establishes in their analysis of our report that would ensure we could expand coverage over the next few years without any additional cost to taxpayers. The Lewin Group has said the proposal now being sponsored by five Members of the Senate would slow the rate of growth in health care spending by $1.5 trillion.

I know the distinguished Presiding Officer has a great interest in health. We are so pleased he is here because we have worked together on these issues often. It is clear this is the premier domestic issue of our time. A combination of today's demographics with a rapidly aging population, escalating costs, the huge increase in chronic illness, our current health care system is not sustainable. It is not one we can put on automatic pilot and say: Let us run it this way for years and years in the future.

The tragedy is with all the wonderful doctors and hospitals and nurses in Ohio and Oregon, all across the country, we are spending enough money on health care to do this job. We are simply not spending it in the right places.

To give an idea of how out of whack American health care spending is, for the amount of money we are spending today, $2.3 trillion, 300 million of us in the country, you divide 300 million into $2.3 trillion, and you could go out and hire a doctor for every seven families in the United States and say: Doctor, your job will be for this year to take care of seven families, and we will pay you $200,000 a year.

My experience, I say to the Acting President pro tempore, is that when I bring this up to physicians at home in Oregon, they say: Ron, where do I go to get my seven families? It sounds pretty good to be able to get back into the business of practicing medicine again and advocating for my patients rather than going through all this paperwork and bureaucracy and redtape.

So we are spending enough on health care today. We are not spending it in the right places. That is what they have begun to change in Holland, according to the Wall Street Journal this week. That is what I and Senator Bennett and our colleagues on both sides of the aisle are seeking to do in the Senate.

One last comment, Mr. President. I know there is a hectic schedule for all Senators, and certainly the Senator from Ohio.

The question is whether there should be action now or the Congress should simply wait for another Presidential election. Here are the consequences of waiting for several more years. The Census Bureau reported last week that 2.2 million additional Americans were without health insurance between 2005 and 2006. If this Congress waits a couple of years more, we can expect that number to increase and the number without coverage in this country to hemorrhage further.

That is a moral abomination, No. 1; and it is going to be costly to taxpayers, No. 2, because those people very often will have to go to hospital emergency rooms to get their coverage. Of course, those bills will be passed on to businesses in Ohio and Oregon and across the country and to our taxpayers. So the costs of delay are very direct and immediate.

Second, with respect to employer-based coverage, the new numbers indicate the number of employers offering coverage has now fallen below 60 percent. It is pretty easy to see why, with these double-digit premium hikes, Price Waterhouse says health costs are going to average, this year, a little over 11 percent. A lot of our employers want to do the right thing by their workers and simply cannot offer coverage.

If this Congress decides to stand down on the question of overhauling health care and say, ``Let's just wait until 2009,'' you are going to see more businesses in Ohio, in Oregon, and across this country lose coverage. I do not think we ought to sit by and just let our coverage continue to melt away along the lines of these statistics that I mentioned.

Finally, on the question of prevention and what Holland is doing, and what we are seeking to do in the Healthy Americans Act, there is a very significant cost with respect to chronic illness as it relates to doing nothing to change our policies. The new numbers with respect to chronic illness indicate that in 31 States over the last year obesity has risen once again; of course, there is a direct link here between heart and stroke and diabetes and so many illnesses. Not one State--not one-- experienced a decline.

So if the Congress says: Well, we will pass on overhauling American health care until 2009, we can expect to have missed another opportunity--yet another opportunity--for doing something about enacting health care policies that put a new focus on prevention and wellness.

So this question of waiting for 2 more years and saying: Let's just spend our time looking at what the various candidates for President from both political parties are saying about health care--certainly it is getting a lot of attention in terms of debates on TV and all of us trying to look at the various merits of the candidates' proposals; and they are good people; and they have good suggestions--but I want to make it clear to the Senate there are very real costs of waiting to fix health care.

I think the question of fixing health care is so urgent we ought to get on with it, and we ought to get on with it in a bipartisan way, which is what I and Senator Bennett are trying to do. We are very proud to have been able to get the support of business and labor leaders.

When we offered the initial proposal, Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, stood on one side of me, and Steve Burd, the CEO of the Safeway company, a very large Fortune 500 company, stood on the other side. We had individuals such as Ron Pollack, of

Families USA, and advocates for compassionate end-of-life health care with us as well.

The last time Congress looked at this--and the Acting President pro tempore, I think, remembers this--during a period in the early 1990s, the people who stood with me for the kickoff of the Healthy Americans Act were spending millions to pretty much beat each other's brains out. That was the last time the Congress and the President, during the Clinton years, debated health care.

So this is a different climate, certainly a different climate for businesses in Ohio and Oregon. What I hear from businesses at home-- unlike in 1993, the Clinton years, when they said: We cannot afford fixing health care--they are now saying: We cannot afford the status quo. That is why they are joining Senator Bennett and I and others on these proposals.

My hope is as Congress looks at the evidence, whether it is the Wall Street Journal reporting on promising developments--very often people think of Europe and socialized countries--the Wall Street Journal is putting on the front page of the paper--a publication that clearly favors private health care coverage--an example of a country in Europe where they seem to be making great progress.

So as we devise our own system, one that is uniquely American, I and Senator Bennett want to work with every Member of the Senate--I think I can speak for Senators Bill Nelson, Lamar Alexander, Judd Gregg, and the others we have been talking to--that we think this is the premier domestic issue of our time. Certainly, the conflict in Iraq is the premier national security issue. But the premier domestic issue at home is fixing American health care.

I think based on the evidence that comes in every day, we know what needs to be done. Now the question is making sure there is the political will to go forward. I look forward to working with the Acting President pro tempore, who has a great interest in these matters, and all our colleagues.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, despite the record transportation funding that Congress provided in the 2005 Transportation Reauthorization bill, SAFETEA-LU, our Nation's infrastructure is being stressed to the breaking point. Our ports and rail lines are at or near capacity. Our highways are clogged. The tragedy in Minneapolis last month showed the entire country that our bridges are in desperate need of repair.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has noted that over the next 5 years $1.6 trillion in investment is needed from all levels of government to keep our Nation's current transportation system up to date. To put that into perspective, our Nation's infrastructure needs roughly six times as much funding as was included in SAFETEA-LU.

The question is ``Where do we find the transportation funding that our country needs to meet our transportation and our economic needs?''

Senator Thune's and my answer is to invest in America.

Everyone agrees that our country's infrastructure needs are tremendous. Everyone agrees that our country needs to invest more in transportation. What Congress hasn't been able to agree on is where to find the money. Gas taxes just don't generate enough revenues to even begin to satisfy highway and transit needs.

In this budget climate, pots of extra Federal money are not just sitting around waiting to be used, and States surely don't have any extra money either. Most have budget deficits. All the conventional funding sources are coming up short, so Senator Thune and I think it is time to think outside the box and outside the trust funds. The Federal Government is about the only entity in the country that does not borrow money for capital projects, but in this climate it should and it must.

Senator Thune and I have come up with a creative approach to provide $50 billion of additional new funding for transportation projects our country desperately needs by issuing Build America Bonds. Our country's needs are so great that we think funding should be made available that is in addition to SAFETEA-LU.

Our legislation is not a substitute for fixing the transportation trust fund. We still must address that problem, and next year we must start on a new transportation bill. Our legislation is meant to provide extra money on top of regular transportation funding.

This money could not be earmarked by Congress. This will not fund any Senator's pet project. This money will be controlled by the States, and used for the projects they think are most critical.

An annual amount of approximately $500 million from trade fees will be placed in an Infrastructure Finance Account and invested for the life of the bonds, which will generate more than enough to repay the entire $50 billion principal amount.

That means the only cost to the Government is the ``interest portion'' on the bonds, which is in the form of tax credits. With this funding mechanism, as little as $2 billion a year could generate the $50 billion in funding for transportation infrastructure. I call that a very smart investment in our country's infrastructure.

This investment is badly needed.

Citizens stuck in traffic choking on exhaust need relief. Truckers who need to detour miles out of their way to avoid weight-limited bridges need relief. As our economy struggles with stagnating wages, the loss of even basic health benefits for many, and a mortgage market that is spiraling downward, the American worker needs relief.

The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that each $1 billion of funding for transportation directly produces nearly 50,000 jobs. So under the Wyden/Thune proposal the $50 billion of new transportation funding will provide critical economic stimulus that will create up to 2.5 million family wage jobs.

This is an economic stimulus idea that will generate more funding for the economy now. It will create jobs. It is a chance for the Federal Government to hold up its end of the bargain with our States.

Mr. President, despite the record transportation funding that Congress provided in the 2005 Transportation Reauthorization bill, SAFETEA-LU, our Nation's infrastructure is being stressed to the breaking point. Our ports and rail lines are at or near capacity. Our highways are clogged. The tragedy in Minneapolis last month showed the entire country that our bridges are in desperate need of repair.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has noted that over the next 5 years $1.6 trillion in investment is needed from all levels of government to keep our Nation's current transportation system up to date. To put that into perspective, our Nation's infrastructure needs roughly six times as much funding as was included in SAFETEA-LU.

The question is ``Where do we find the transportation funding that our country needs to meet our transportation and our economic needs?''

Senator Thune's and my answer is to invest in America.

Everyone agrees that our country's infrastructure needs are tremendous. Everyone agrees that our country needs to invest more in transportation. What Congress hasn't been able to agree on is where to find the money. Gas taxes just don't generate enough revenues to even begin to satisfy highway and transit needs.

In this budget climate, pots of extra Federal money are not just sitting around waiting to be used, and States surely don't have any extra money either. Most have budget deficits. All the conventional funding sources are coming up short, so Senator Thune and I think it is time to think outside the box and outside the trust funds. The Federal Government is about the only entity in the country that does not borrow money for capital projects, but in this climate it should and it must.

Senator Thune and I have come up with a creative approach to provide $50 billion of additional new funding for transportation projects our country desperately needs by issuing Build America Bonds. Our country's needs are so great that we think funding should be made available that is in addition to SAFETEA-LU.

Our legislation is not a substitute for fixing the transportation trust fund. We still must address that problem, and next year we must start on a new transportation bill. Our legislation is meant to provide extra money on top of regular transportation funding.

This money could not be earmarked by Congress. This will not fund any Senator's pet project. This money will be controlled by the States, and used for the projects they think are most critical.

An annual amount of approximately $500 million from trade fees will be placed in an Infrastructure Finance Account and invested for the life of the bonds, which will generate more than enough to repay the entire $50 billion principal amount.

That means the only cost to the Government is the ``interest portion'' on the bonds, which is in the form of tax credits. With this funding mechanism, as little as $2 billion a year could generate the $50 billion in funding for transportation infrastructure. I call that a very smart investment in our country's infrastructure.

This investment is badly needed.

Citizens stuck in traffic choking on exhaust need relief. Truckers who need to detour miles out of their way to avoid weight-limited bridges need relief. As our economy struggles with stagnating wages, the loss of even basic health benefits for many, and a mortgage market that is spiraling downward, the American worker needs relief.

The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates that each $1 billion of funding for transportation directly produces nearly 50,000 jobs. So under the Wyden/Thune proposal the $50 billion of new transportation funding will provide critical economic stimulus that will create up to 2.5 million family wage jobs.

This is an economic stimulus idea that will generate more funding for the economy now. It will create jobs. It is a chance for the Federal Government to hold up its end of the bargain with our States.

Mr. President, most of my colleagues are well aware that I have been pushing for a ban on the practice of anonymous holds for several years. I believe that holds are an acceptable parliamentary tactic, but I firmly believe that it is inappropriate for Senators to use them secretly. If Senators wish to object to the consideration of a particular bill or executive nominee, they should be required to do so publicly, so that their objections can be discussed and debated in full view of the American people. Today, I am announcing my objection to any unanimous consent request to bring the nomination of John Rizzo to the Senate floor for approval.

The President has nominated Mr. Rizzo to be General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. When Mr. Rizzo appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence a few weeks ago, I asked him about a now-infamous legal opinion that was prepared by the Department of Justice in 2002. This opinion, commonly known as the ``Bybee memo'' includes shocking interpretations of U.S. torture laws, and essentially concludes that inflicting any physical pain short of organ failure is not torture. Most Americans would agree that this conclusion is over the line, and this is why the Administration revoked the memo as soon as it became public.

John Rizzo was the acting general counsel of the CIA at that time, and I asked him if, in hindsight, he wished that he had objected to this memo. I was disappointed to hear him say, even with the benefit of five years' hindsight, that he did not.

Much more recently, about 2 weeks ago the President issued an Executive order interpreting Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions and how it applies to CIA detentions and interrogations. This Executive order refers to classified CIA guidelines. I have read these guidelines, and I believe that they have suffered from a clear lack of effective legal oversight. Since John Rizzo is once again acting general counsel of the CIA, I believe that he bears significant responsibility for this situation. I am not at all convinced that the techniques outlined in these guidelines are effective, nor am I convinced that they stay within the law.

The last thing that I want to see is hard-working, well-intentioned CIA officers breaking the law because they have been given shaky legal guidance. These men and women dedicate their lives to serving their country, and they deserve better than that. They deserve to know that they are on firm legal ground when they are doing their jobs, and that they can rely on the legal advice of their general counsel.

I should also note that I disagree with the President's decision to interpret the Geneva Conventions as broadly as he did, although this does not excuse Mr. Rizzo from responsibility. The Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, discussed these techniques on television recently and stated that he wouldn't want any Americans to undergo them. I don't think it would be acceptable to use these techniques on Americans either, but the President's new interpretation of the Geneva Conventions says that it is okay for other countries to use them on Americans when they are captured. This is also unacceptable.

I believe that you can fight terrorism ferociously without tossing aside American laws and American values, and I worry that the administration and CIA lawyers may be losing sight of this. I was disappointed to hear John Rizzo say that he did not wish he had objected to the 2002 torture memo, and I was even more disappointed when I read these guidelines. Our intelligence agencies cannot fight terrorism effectively unless programs like this one are on a solid legal footing. Mr. Rizzo's record demonstrates that he is prepared to let major programs go forward without a firm legal foundation in place.

This is why I have come to the conclusion that John Rizzo is not qualified to be the general counsel of the CIA. I plan to vote against Mr. Rizzo's confirmation in committee, and when it comes to the floor I will object to any unanimous consent agreement to consider his nomination until I am satisfied that our national counterterrorism programs, and particularly the CIA detention program, have the solid legal foundation that they need.

I thank the chairman from the Senate Finance Committee.

I ask unanimous consent to call up my amendment No. 2570, and I send it to the desk with a modification.

Mr. President, I will be very brief. The amendment has been accepted by the leadership on the Senate Finance Committee. We have been talking a lot about health care. We have a lot of health care in our country, but, unfortunately, not enough prevention or wellness.

This amendment is designed to deal with epidemic juvenile diabetes. We can effect it by encouraging people to change behavior through personal responsibility with a bipartisan agreement to promote that.

I urge its adoption.

Mr. President, on June 18, I announced my intention to object to any unanimous consent request for the Senate to take up the nomination of Dennis Schrader to be Deputy Administrator for National Preparedness in the Department of Homeland Security. I did so because, prior to his confirmation as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff told me in my office that if confirmed, he would move expeditiously to implement the National Emergency Technology Guard--NET Guard program. Unfortunately, Secretary Chertoff had failed to honor that pledge.

Today, I received a letter from Secretary Chertoff describing how the Department is moving forward with 12-month NET Guard pilots beginning in September 2007, and how the DHS will be requesting funds to continue the program in its 2009 budget request to the Office of Management and Budget.

The Secretary also communicated to me that the Department of Homeland Security will be publicizing NET Guard and seeking involvement from the private sector, a step critical to the success of this vital program.

The Department has also set aside funds to run the pilots for the year and convened a working group of subject matter experts to guide the design of NET Guard. These activities and Secretary Chertoff's letter indicate that he is making a good-faith effort to get NET Guard off the ground.

In light of these actions, I will no longer object to any unanimous- consent request for the Senate to take up Mr. Schrader's nomination. I will, however, continue to closely monitor DHS's actions on NET Guard.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of Secretary Chertoff's letter be printed in the Congressional Record.

Mr. President, about a year ago, a group of hardwood plywood

manufacturers came to me with a problem, Chinese hardwood plywood imports were threatening their businesses. They raised a whole host of issues, from tariff misclassification to subsidies to fraudulent labeling to illegal logging. These unfair and illegal practices were lowering the costs of the Chinese hardwood plywood imports, giving them an unfair advantage over U.S. hardwood plywood and putting American companies in jeopardy of going out of business and the folks that they employ out of work.

Since that time, I have been working to level the playing field for Oregon hardwood plywood manufacturers and protect the jobs of the workers that they employ. I have met with the Department of Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Customs and Border Patrol, and the International Trade Commission and urged them to investigate these issues and, where appropriate, act to address them. They have, raising these troubling practices in diplomatic negotiations, opening investigations, and even filing a case before the World Trade Organization targeting Chinese subsidies that benefit the hardwood plywood industry, among others.

Today, with the support of industry, labor, and the environmental community, I am proud to introduce the Combat Illegal Logging Act of 2007 to halt the trade in illegal timber and timber products. This act will help to level the playing field, not just for Oregon hardwood plywood manufacturers affected by Chinese imports, but for all American manufacturers across the country struggling to compete against imported, low-priced wood and wood products harvested from illegal sources.

Equally important, the act helps address an illegal logging crisis. From the Amazon to the Congo Basin, from Sulawesi to Siberia, illegal logging is destroying ecosystems. It is gutting local economies. It is annihilating ways of life. Because of the speed and violence with which illegal logging is occurring, failing to curb its effects now may result in irreversible damage.

The bill that I am introducing today can help curb illegal logging and thwart its devastating consequences.

The Lacey Act currently regulates trade in fish, wildlife, and a limited subset of plants by making it unlawful to ``import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase'' any that are taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of any State law or, with respect to fish and wildlife only, any foreign law. The Combat Illegal Logging Act of 2007 would expand the Lacey Act so that violations of foreign law that apply to plants and plant products fall within its protections. It would also specify the types of foreign law violations that trigger Lacey Act liability, laws intended to prevent theft or ensure the legal right to harvest the plants. Finally, the act would create a declaration requirement to facilitate the Lacey Act's enforcement for timber without placing an undue burden upon law-abiding businesses.

The declaration requirements provide basic transparency for wood shipments. The declaration will have critical value for combating illegal logging by 1. encouraging importers to ask basic questions regarding the origin of their timber and timber products; 2. providing information at the point of import that will allow authorities with limited resources to do efficient, targeted inspections and enforcement; and 3. helping enforcement agents to immediately identify ``low-hanging fruit,'' such as timber expressly prohibited to be exported.

The act will definitely change the way that folks who are importing illegally harvested timber and wood products do business, this is its intended purpose. But for the many companies who already play by the rules, the act's requirements should result in minimal changes to the way they operate. Moreover, when the act's impact from a competitiveness standpoint is factored in, the effect is a net positive for these companies. This act changes the incentives to reward due diligence, a sound long-term business strategy from any perspective.

This bill is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by stakeholders that many might view as strange bedfellows. The principal negotiators of the compromise, the American Forest & Paper Association, the Hardwood Federation, and the Environmental Investigation Agency, deserve a tremendous amount of credit for sticking with this and finding a solution that everyone could support. I applaud them for their hard work, the maturity with which they approached the issue, and the respect that they showed each other throughout the process. Their conduct is a model for how things should work in Washington.

I would also like to applaud the work of several of my colleagues in the House, Congressman Blumenauer, Congressman Wexler, and Congressman Weller, who introduced their own illegal logging bill, the Legal Timber Protection Act, earlier this year. I understand that their bill may be taken up by the House Natural Resources Committee this fall and I am hopeful that they will substitute the broadly supported text of the Combat Illegal Logging Act for their bill, paving the way for the enactment of this important piece of legislation.

I would like to thank Senator Alexander, Senator Kerry, Senator Snowe, and Senator Feingold for agreeing to be original cosponsors of the bill. I would also like to thank the following organizations, in addition to the American Forest & Paper Association, the Hardwood Federation, and the Environmental Investigation Agency for endorsing the bill: Center for International Environmental Law, Conservation International, Defenders of Wildlife, Dogwood Alliance, ForestEthics, Friends of the Earth, Global Witness, Greenpeace, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, National Hardwood Lumber Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Action Network, Rainforest Alliance, Sierra Club, Society of American Foresters, Sustainable Furniture Council, The Nature Conservancy, Tropical Forest Trust, United Steelworkers, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund.

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

Madam President, before she leaves the floor, let me thank my seatmate on the Senate Finance Committee for a passionate and eloquent address on behalf of this country's children. I commend her for it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time between now and 12:30 be divided equally between the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman, and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg.

Mr. President, since the Senator from Iowa has been talking about the efforts of Senator Bennett and I and how it relates to the children's health program, I wish to take a few minutes to discuss that relationship.

First, I think Senator Baucus, Senator Rockefeller, Senator Grassley, and Senator Hatch--through the hours and hours of effort they have put into making the children's health proposal ready for floor action--have done a great service. They have done a great service, first and foremost, to the country's kids.

It seems to me every single Member of the Senate can say today we cannot afford, in a country as good and strong and rich as ours, to have so many kids go to bed at night without decent health care. As a result of the bipartisan work of four Members of the Senate--two Democrats and two Republicans--we have laid the foundation to take steps immediately to help youngsters who are falling between the cracks.

I have long felt the challenge with respect to health care today is twofold. First, you act immediately to help those who are the most vulnerable in our society. That is, in fact, what four members of the Senate Finance Committee have helped the Senate to promote today. Second, we ought to be taking steps on a broader basis to fix health care in our country.

We are spending enough money on health care today. We are not spending it in the right places. We are spending enough money today on American health care to be able to go out and hire a doctor for every seven families in the United States. That doctor would do nothing except take care of seven families. Pay the doctor $200,000 a year, and my guess is, the distinguished Presiding Officer would probably have physicians in the State of Delaware come to him and say, ``Where do you go to get your seven families?'' because they would all like to be practicing physicians again. So we are spending enough money on health care today. We are not spending it in the right places.

At a time when our population is growing so rapidly, when costs are skyrocketing out of control, we need to fix American health care. But in order to get to the broader health reform effort--an effort that is bipartisan, with Senator Bennett joining me in the first bipartisan health reform bill in 13 years--you have to take steps to meet the needs of youngsters today.

The Senate has already said that on multiple occasions. We said it first by passing the children's health program, and now, through the reauthorization effort, we say kids will come first. We also said it, in fact, through the budget resolution, where there was an effort to look at the relationship between broader health reform and care for kids, and the Senate, again, said children will come first.

So I am very hopeful. I believe consideration of the children's health program is, essentially, the opening bell of round one in the fight to fix health care. If we can tackle the issue of children's health in a bipartisan way--the way the Senate Finance Committee has done--it ought to be possible, even in this session of Congress, to move on to broader health reform.

Now, I am very hopeful the Administration will join in this bipartisan effort. We have all read about discussions about a possible veto message. I am very hopeful the Administration will join discussions in the Senate, join discussions in the other body, and help us to move quickly on the issue of children's health.

If we do that, it ought to be possible, as the distinguished Senator from Iowa has indicated, to move on to something the Administration feels strongly about, where I happen to think, by and large, they are correct. The Federal tax

rules, as it relates to health care, are a mess. Essentially, they reward inefficiency. They disproportionately favor the most affluent. If you are a ``high flier'' in our country, you can go out and get every manner of deluxe kind of health service and write it off on your taxes; but if you are a hard-working woman in Delaware or Oregon or around the country and your company does not have a health plan, you get virtually nothing.

So I come to the floor today to say what Democratic economists have said, what Republican economists have said, what the administration officials have said: There ought to be an effort to fix the Tax Code as it relates to health care, and I and Senator Bennett and others want to; and we want to fix it in this session of the Congress. But to get at that issue you are going to, first, have to meet the needs of children.

I was asked today what the implications of the children's health program are for bipartisanship. I think if this body can pick up on the bipartisan work of the Senate Finance Committee, there are extraordinary opportunities for broader health reform in this session of Congress. I do not think the country wants to wait 3 or 4 or 5 more years to fix American health care.

I have heard the discussion about how there is a Presidential campaign coming up, and let's wait another 2, 3, 4 years to talk about a more comprehensive effort to fix American health care. I do not think any of us got sent here to tell businesses that are trying to compete in tough global markets, to tell those who cannot afford the skyrocketing premiums: Well, we are not going to work on broader health care reform for another 3 or 4 years. I think they want to hear how we are going to deal, in a bipartisan way, with the premier domestic issue of our time. Senators Baucus and Grassley and Hatch and Rockefeller have given us an initial dose of bipartisanship, an initial dose of bipartisanship in an area the country cares about, and cares about strongly, and that is meeting the needs of our children. But in the spirit that Senate Finance Committee quartet has worked, I and Senator Bennett and others would like to pick up on that kind of bipartisan theme and move aggressively to looking at the health care system as a whole and taking steps to transform it.

I will say, I am struck again by how every single day it seems to me opportunities for bipartisanship on health care abound. I was very pleased that the nominee to head CMS, the agency that deals with Medicare and Medicaid, reacted very positively to our ideas on preventive health care. The fact is, in this country, we really don't have health care at all. We have sick care. We wait until somebody is flat on their back in a hospital--and the Medicare Program shows this clearly by paying those bills under Part A of Medicare. Part B of Medicare, on the other hand, the outpatient part of Medicare, pays virtually nothing for prevention, virtually nothing to keep people well.

We have known about the value of prevention for quite some time. The distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. Harkin, has been talking about the value of health care prevention for years and years. What I and Senator Bennett have proposed for the first time under Federal law is that Medicare would be given the legal authority to go out and lower premiums for seniors who reduce their blood pressure and reduce their cholesterol and take the kind of preventive steps that everyone understands makes sense and helps to prolong an individual's good health and also saves money for the Medicare Program. We were very pleased that the nominee to head the agency that deals with Medicare and Medicaid was supportive of those changes and indicated he wanted to work, if confirmed, in a bipartisan way.

So the fact is, there are great opportunities for bipartisanship on health care in this Congress if we can get past this initial effort at addressing American health care. The Senate has indicated, through the initial authorization of the children's health program and through the budget resolution, that this is the program with which it wants to begin the debate on health care.

In the discussions in the Finance Committee, I followed very closely all of the different alternatives. It was a big bipartisan lift to get a 17-to-4 vote in the Senate Finance Committee. A lot of colleagues wanted to spend more. A lot of colleagues thought the program ought to be available to other groups of citizens. Some felt there wasn't much of a role for Government at all and that even the existing children's health program was too expansive. But the committee came together on a 17-to-4 basis.

I see the distinguished Senator from Iowa has returned. If we can pass this legislation with the kind of bipartisan support that was initially demonstrated in the Senate Finance Committee, I think it is very possible, in spite of all of the popular wisdom to the contrary, this Senate can achieve broader health care reform in this session of Congress. I see one poll after another which indicates that health care is the premier domestic issue of our time; that it is the most important issue to our citizens--in many polls by something like a 2- to-1 margin. So I think in addressing this issue today--health care for children--the Senate can lay a bipartisan foundation for broader reforms.

I think Senator Bennett and I have provided some direction for the Senate to go from here, but we would be the first to acknowledge there are many Senators with ideas on these issues, and many of them are good. I have already indicated I think the Administration has a valid point with respect to these tax rules on health care. The distinguished chairman of the Finance Committee is back, and he and I have listened to one economist after another testify before the Finance Committee-- Democrats and Republicans--talking about how the Tax Code on health care makes no sense and largely comes out of the 1940s.

So we have Senators of both political parties who would like to work on broader health care reform, but first we have to pass this legislation. I hope we will pass it with a resounding bipartisan majority vote so that we could truly lay the foundation for significant and comprehensive health reform to be considered by this body.

I yield the floor.

Amendment No. 2538 to Amendment No. 2530

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 31, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., in open session (and possibly closed session) to consider the following nominations:

Admiral Michael G. Mullen, USN for reappointment to the grade of Admiral and to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and General James E. Cartwright, USMC for reappointment to the grade of General and to be Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 31, 2007, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The State of the Securities Markets.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The hearing is on the nominations of Vice Admiral Thomas J. Barrett, USCG (Ret.), to be Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Transportation, Mr. Ronald Spoehel, to be Chief Financial Officer, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Rear Admiral William G. Sutton, Jr., USN (Ret.), to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Mr. Paul R. Brubaker, to be Administrator of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The purpose of this hearing is to examine three major consumer protection and fraud prevention issues under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission: 1. The effectiveness of the national Do-Not- Call registry and current legislative proposals to improve the Do-Not- Call Implementation Act of 2003; 2. The effectiveness of CROA and possible legislative initiatives to clarify the language of the act; and 3. Telemarketing fraud, particularly against older Americans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The purpose of this hearing is to receive testimony on renewable fuels infrastructure.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a business meeting.

The meeting will consider the following agenda:

Bill to reauthorize the provision of technical assistance to small public water systems, S. 1429; Ban Asbestos in America Act, S. 742; Toxic Right to Know Protection Act, S. 595; California waiver decision deadline bill, S. 1785; National Infrastructure Improvement Act, S. 775; The Multinational Species Conservation Funds reauthorizations, HR 5O and HR 465; The Captive Primate Safety Act, S. 1498; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Resolutions; Nomination of Robert Lyle Laverty to be Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, U.S. Department of the Interior; Nomination of Robert Lance Boldrey nominee for reappointment to the Board of Trustees for the Morris K. Udall Scholarship and Excellence in National Environmental Policy Foundation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to hear testimony on ``Carried Interest, Part II.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in order to hold a hearing on nuclear energy and nonproliferation challenges.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Evaluating the Propriety and Adequacy of the Oxycontin Criminal Settlement'' on Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. in the Dirksen Senate Office Building room 226.

Witness list:

Panel I: John L. Brownlee, United States Attorney, Western District of Virginia, Roanoke, VA;

Panel II: Marianne Skolek, LPN, Myrtle Beach, SC; Vikramaditya Khanna, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School, Ann Arbor, MI; Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D., Director, Public Citizen's Health Research Group, Washington, DC; Virginia Pagano, Police Officer, Philadelphia Police Department, Narcotics Bureau, Philadelphia, PA; Jay P. McCloskey, Former U.S. Attorney, Maine, McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff & Dilworth, LLC, Portland, ME; James Campbell, M.D., Professor of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 31, to conduct a hearing on DoD/VA collaboration and cooperation and the education needs of returning service members. The committee will meet in Dirksen 562, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on July 31, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights be authorized to meet on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``The Leegin Decision: the end of the consumer discounts or good antitrust policy'' in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list: Pamela Jones Harbour, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission Washington, DC; Robert Pitofsky, Sheehy Professor of Antitrust Law and Regulation, Georgetown University Law School, Washington, DC; Marcy Syms, Chief Executive Officer, SYMS, Secaucus, NJ; Stephan Bolerjack, Attorney at Law, Dykema Gossett PLLC, Representing the National Association of Manufacturers, Detroit, MI; and Janet L. McDavid, Attorney at Law, Hogan & Hartson, Washington, DC.

Mr. President, I don't want to turn this into a bouquet- tossing contest, but I do want to single out the bipartisan quartet: Chairman Baucus, Senator Rockefeller, who is here, Senator Grassley, and Senator Hatch. To carve out hours and hours, as the four of them have day after day, is evidence of their commitment. I just want them to know I am very much aware we would not be here today advocating for America's kids without their work and their effort to find common ground. I wish to start the day by praising the four of them.

I thank you and all four of you for your efforts.

Mr. President, it seems to me this is the opening bell of round one in the fight to fix health care in America. Fixing health care is the premier domestic issue of our time.

Suffice it to say we heard in the Senate Finance Committee and we hear on the floor of the Senate every day that the current health care system cannot be sustained. The costs are going up too dramatically. The rapid growth of the elderly population is, of course, relentless, and the disadvantage our employers face every day competing in tough global markets cannot be sustained.

My sense is the challenge for the United States is twofold. One--and this is embodied by what Senator Rockefeller, Senator Baucus, Senator Hatch, and Senator Grassley are doing--is to meet the immediate needs of the most vulnerable Americans, immediately. It is obscene that millions of youngsters, in a country as rich and strong and prosperous as ours, go to bed at night without decent health care. The bipartisan effort of these four Senators is moving to erase this moral blot on our country. I am proud to be supporting the four of them in this effort.

But as we move to tackle these immediate needs of the most vulnerable Americans, let us also set about the task of trying to transform American health care. Senator Bennett, a member of the Republican leadership, has joined me in this effort. We brought to the floor of the Senate the first bipartisan health reform bill in more than 13 years. As Senator Rockefeller knows, as we are both admirers of the late John Chafee, his was the last, and Senator Bennett and I want to work with colleagues to pick up on this effort. Senator Bennett and I have tried to build on the bipartisanship embodied by Senator Rockefeller, Senator Hatch, Senator Baucus, and Senator Grassley.

What we are saying is that you need something of an ideological truce on health care in our country. I think my party has been right in saying you have to get everybody covered. It is the moral thing to do. If you don't do it, the people who are uninsured shift their bills to the insured. But I think colleagues on the other side of the aisle have had a point as well in saying that you just can't turn everything over to Government, that there is a role for the private sector. So Senator Bennett and I are trying to pick up on the prospect of an ideological truce, just as Senators Rockefeller, Baucus, Grassley and Hatch have tried to do on the children's health program.

I can tell my colleagues, having served on the Senate Finance Committee through the markup, and through those weeks and weeks of discussion, that what Senator Rockefeller and the other leaders of the Finance Committee had to do was a heavy lift. There are a lot of colleagues on our side of the aisle who wanted to spend more. They were interested in covering other groups of citizens. That was unacceptable to colleagues on the other side. So Senator Rockefeller and Senator Baucus had to swallow hard; they had to make concessions on points that were important to them. That is what Senator Bennett and I are trying to do in terms of transforming American health care. So I am glad Senator Rockefeller and the group on the Finance Committee have brought us a bipartisan piece of legislation because it lays the groundwork, in my view, for going further.

I have a word for the administration on this point in particular: I am very hopeful they will join the bipartisan effort here in the Senate to find common ground. We know this bill has a long way to go. It will be considered by this body. The other body has other ideas with respect to how to tackle this issue.

I would say to the administration that there are a number of us on both sides of the aisle who want to work with them on a broader piece of health legislation. But to get to that broader piece of health legislation, you first have to deal with the needs of the children. In fact, in the budget resolution--and this has not been widely noticed-- it specifically stipulates that the children's health program would come first, before there was an effort to deal with heath issues in a broader way.

Now, I share the view of the administration with respect to the Tax Code in health care. It is a mess. It is regressive. It disproportionately rewards the most affluent in our society and promotes inefficiency at the same time. If you are a high-flying CEO, with today's Tax Code, you can go out and get a designer smile put on your face and write off the cost of every dime of that operation on your taxes. But if you are a hard-working woman in West Virginia or Oregon or elsewhere and your company doesn't have a health plan, you don't get anything out of the Tax Code.

So I am supportive of working with the administration in a bipartisan way to fix the Tax Code as it relates to health care and to fix the private marketplace. But you don't get there until you first deal with the needs of our children. So I want to be conciliatory, both with respect to the administration and with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. We have a big opportunity with this issue.

With respect to domestic issues, one of the biggest ones--the immigration legislation--obviously reached something of a standstill. If we can sustain this bipartisan effort for the country's most vulnerable--and I know of no one in the Senate--no one--who doesn't care about the well-being of our kids--if this effort can be sustained, there will be a broad berth for another effort to move significantly to transform American health care.

Seven members of the Senate Finance Committee, during our discussion of the children's health program, specifically talked about the need to fix American health care. Senator Conrad, the distinguished chairman of the Budget Committee, pointed out that over the next 5 years--the life of this program--there will be plenty of opportunities to transform American health care. Senator Bennett and I are saying we want to do it in this session. We don't think we got elected to wait around for another 2, 3, 4 years to fix health care; we want to do it in this session.

We had a very promising hearing in the Senate Budget Committee where support for our efforts was demonstrated by both the chairman of the committee and the ranking minority member. I wish to underscore that even the Senate budget resolution makes clear that this program for children will be done first. As Senator Baucus and Senator Rockefeller pointed out earlier, this is a question of reauthorizing existing Federal law. The country has already made the judgment that the needs of children are going to come first. But a lot of us are not going to say the job is done by passing one extremely important bill; that there will be more to do, there will be an opportunity to do it in a bipartisan way.

While he is on the floor, I want to thank Senator Rockefeller, Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, and Senator Hatch.

I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

I just want to use it to thank our colleagues who are the principal architects of the children's health program. Because of those of us who would like to go further in this Congress, the bipartisanship the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee have shown is going to give us that kind of opportunity, if the administration will join this bipartisan effort as it goes through this body and the other body.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on a matter of personal privilege, I associate myself with the remarks of Senator Conrad. I will be very brief.

We were in the middle of critical issues. I was asking about a program that is a lifeline to the rural West, the county payments program where the administration is trying to change 100 years of history, and on a bipartisan basis the Senate indicated it wants to oppose that program.

Had I been here, I would have, as Senator Conrad, voted for that measure, strongly supporting efforts to strengthen border security.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts and the Senator from Wyoming for their thoughtfulness.

This is especially appropriate, since Chairman Kennedy and the distinguished ranking minority member are on the floor. Both of them have great interest and involvement in health care. I thought it would be appropriate to talk for a few minutes about the upcoming CHIP legislation, the legislation that deals with the Children's Health Insurance Program, which is so important to America's youngsters.

There was a markup in the Senate Finance Committee last week and it passed out overwhelmingly, to a great extent because of the very important and laborious work done by Chairman Baucus, Senator Rockefeller, and also the senior Republicans on the committee, Senators Grassley and Hatch. I commend them greatly for their toil.

I wish to take a couple of minutes today to talk about the issue because the administration has indicated that at this point they would veto the legislation, which came from the Senate Finance Committee by a 17-to-4 vote. I

am very hopeful they will choose not to veto this legislation because I felt it was striking in the Finance Committee last week that Senator after Senator on both sides of the aisle, including Senator Conrad and Senator Lott, for example--leaders of their respective parties on economic issues--they concurred that the system in this country is broken. The health care system cannot control the costs. Millions fall between the cracks. Administrative expenses are soaring. We have largely sick care rather than health care. This is something Democrats and Republicans alike agree on.

The administration has the view that one of the key changes that needs to be made is the Federal tax rules as they relate to health care. I share their view that these rules are a mess. But it is not going to be possible to get to the question of broader reform until you first get bipartisan cooperation on the urgent and immediate needs of this country's youngsters.

Frankly, I came out of the markup last week very encouraged about the Senate's interest and desire, on a bipartisan basis, to move ahead to fix health care. I think the clear feeling in the Senate Finance Committee is that this country cannot afford to wait to fix health care. I know there are a lot of people, particularly in the media, think tanks, and others who think: Let's wait a couple of years for another Presidential election. Let's wait 2, 3 more years.

That is sort of the way it goes for the political class. But for people who are hurting in this country and businesses that are struggling to meet the health needs of their workers and are dying to offer them coverage and cannot afford it, I don't think it is acceptable to say let's wait around a couple more years. It strikes me as pretty callous to say let's wait for another election, when we have all those needs of workers and businesses in parts of the country where there have been tremendous layoffs. They say: Well, they can wait a couple more years before anybody talks about fixing health care.

That is not what I heard in the Senate Finance Committee last week. I heard Senator after Senator--not just Senators Conrad and Lott but Senators Crapo, Salazar, and other colleagues on both sides of the aisle--making it clear they share my view that the health care system is broken. Now, for the first time in more than 13 years, the Senate has an opportunity to work in a bipartisan way to fix health care.

Senator Bennett, a member of the Republican leadership, has joined me in legislation--the Healthy Americans Act--that has been able to pick up support of labor and business. We have structured it so all our citizens can get health care coverage, such as their Member of Congress does, through the private sector, at no greater cost than we are spending as a nation today. The bill has been put together so workers and employers win with the very first paychecks that are offered. I don't see why America should wait any longer to fix health care. What we should be doing is building on the important work of Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley, Senators Hatch and Rockefeller and move to get CHIP passed in a bipartisan way and meet the immediate needs of this country's youngsters and then move on to do what I have heard members on both sides of the aisle on the Finance Committee call for last week and that is to fix American health care.

The reality is--and you and I have had a chance to talk a bit about it, Mr. President--the system we have today was largely designed more than 70 years ago. It was set up after World War II. There were wage and price controls. Our troops were coming home. We wanted them to get good benefits. So we put it off essentially on the employer, and the Tax Code would change to make that possible. Well, a system designed for the 1940s surely doesn't make sense for 2007, when the typical worker changes jobs seven times by the time they are age 35.

The current Tax Code is regressive and it promotes inefficiency. If you are a high-flying CEO, you can get a designer smile put on your face and write off the cost of that operation on your taxes. But if you are a hard-working woman in a furniture store and your company has no health plan, you get practically nothing.

Now, my sense is, when the administration talks about changing the tax rules for health care and you look at what Senators were saying in the Senate Finance Committee about the system being broken, there is a pretty good opportunity to work in a cooperative way--not 2 or 3 years from now but to move forward in this session of Congress. To make that possible, it is going to be essential for the Bush administration to back off from this threat of vetoing the children's health program and to work with Members on both sides of the aisle so that this legislation can get passed, and it would be possible, on a bipartisan basis, to move on to fix our health care system.

We have a lot to work with. Certainly, we have seen great interest at the State level. A number of States are already moving forward with innovative programs. Mr. President, as you and I have discussed, no State can fix problems they didn't cause. No State can deal with the regressivity and inefficiency of the Federal tax rules on health care. No State can deal with Medicare. No State can deal with what is called the ERISA Program, the Employee Retirement Income and Security Act, with respect to large employers and multiemployer programs. No State can deal with that. We are going to have to have bipartisan action at the Federal level.

I have been very pleased that Senator Bennett has joined me in this bipartisan effort. My sense is there is something of an ideological truce coming on health care. We see a lot of bipartisan cooperation. Today, in fact, the distinguished Senator from Wyoming, Senator Enzi, and Chairman Kennedy are cooperating on issue after issue.

Senator Bennett and I have said on health care that Republicans have moved a long way on coverage. We recognized that to fix health care, the people who are uninsured cannot just keep passing the bills on to people who are insured. We have to cover everybody, and Republicans have acknowledged that fact.

Democrats, on the other hand, have been making it clear that they do not think we can just turn it all over to Government. We cannot turn everything in health care over to Government and expect everything to come out well. We have to have some private choices, choices in a fixed market, where insurance companies cannot cherry-pick and just take healthy people and send sick people over to Government programs more fragile than they are.

We have to fix the private marketplace, but there ought to be choices in the private sector. That, too, is an opportunity for Democrats and Republicans in the Senate to work with the Bush administration once we get beyond the question of the children's health program.

I am convinced that we are right on the cusp of being able to move forward on health care in a bipartisan way. In the other body, the Healthy Americans Act that Senator Bennett and I have been working for in the Senate will be introduced this week on a bipartisan basis. So that would then mean the Healthy Americans Act would be the first bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation to fix American health care in more than 13 years.

Colleagues are going home every time there is a recess and talking with folks at home about health care. People are saying we know the system is broken and it is not enough to try to just take one small part. We really need to step back and make changes, for example, in the employer-based system which is hurting the competitiveness of so many of our companies. We need to have some health care rather than sick care because the system is biased against prevention. We clearly need to help those who are falling between the cracks.

Above all, we have to contain the costs. The costs are rising, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, at far in excess of inflation, estimated to be about 12 percent this year. There is no way that is sustainable. It is not sustainable when we look at today's population trends and costs and the disadvantages our employers face.

I was very pleased last week that not only was the Senate Finance Committee able to pass the CHIP legislation on a 17-to-4 basis through the hard work of our bipartisan leadership, but I was impressed because so many Senators on both sides of the aisle said

they want to go further and to fix a broken health care system. To do that, we are going to have to work in a bipartisan way. We are interested in working with the Bush administration on that issue.

I and others have said we can have differences of opinion with respect to how we straighten out this mess of a Tax Code as it relates to health care, but by and large, the administration is onto the key issue. To do this, we are going to have to recognize, first, that America cannot afford to wait any longer to fix health care. It is not enough to say let's just deal with it after the next election. That is not enough for people who are hurting in Virginia and Oregon and Wyoming. They want to see action in this session. That is what they give us an election certificate to do, to act on big issues and not just put them off for another 2 or 3 years.

So let us work together, Democrats and Republicans, in this body with the administration to pass the children's health program and then to continue that spirit of bipartisanship and fix American health care in this Congress.

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