Floor Statements

Madam President, the cost of medicine is a matter of concern to every Senator. Today, Senator Sununu and I have introduced legislation to take a fresh approach to holding down the cost of medicines in our country. Under our bipartisan legislation, the Federal Government would pay less for pharmaceuticals that are advertise when the Federal Government buys those medicines for Medicaid, the Veterans' Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Public Health Service.

One can barely turn on the television or open a magazine these days without getting the hard sale on a hot new medicine. There is no doubt that medical science is making miracles for our citizens who need help with their health. For that, we are, of course, grateful. But the advent of advertising for prescription drugs presents pitfalls as well, not just for patients but for every American taxpayer.

Senator Sununu and I introduced our legislation today because as the marketing gets savvier, the Federal Government needs to get smarter and contain costs wherever possible for these popular and expensive drugs. The fresh approach that Senator Sununu and I unveil today will amp up the Government's purchasing power on prescription drugs that are advertised directly to consumers. The Pharmaceutical Advertising and Prudent Purchasing Act will reduce drug costs for the beneficiaries of Medicaid and other Federal programs. It will ease the burden on States struggling to stretch their health care dollars through Medicaid, and it will lower the overall costs for taxpayers footing the bill for these advertised drugs.

When a drug company figures the price of a pill, it passes along the advertising costs to consumers. Right now, Medicare and Medicaid pay that cost like any other consumer. But it is time to take the advertising costs out of the equation for taxpayer funded programs. The Federal Government, of course, gives drug companies a tax break for advertising which, of course, every other American company gets for its business expenses. There is no need for a double subsidy. There is a need for more prudent purchasing of prescription drugs by the Federal Government. If that is going to happen, the changes in the pharmaceutical market that have been caused by the explosion of advertising cannot be ignored any longer.

I do not have to tell our colleagues that drug advertising in the United States is an immense and growing industry. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $4.5 billion on advertising to consumers. The penetration of this advertising may be more than most people realize. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 90 percent of Americans had seen or heard an advertisement for prescription drugs. Today, more and more Americans can go to their doctor and ask to have a medication they have seen advertised on TV, in a magazine, on the radio or on the Internet. Of course, that is what is happening.

There is a proven direct connection between the advertising of drugs and a big uptick in the rate of prescriptions written for them. Take a look at the 10 most advertised drugs in the United States. That is 2003, and I would guess that few Americans would say they have not heard of any of these drugs.

On each of these drugs, at least $100 million was spent in 2003 alone on direct consumer advertising. The advertising works. A study published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrates the link. Researchers sent actors to doctors' offices to complain of mild depression. Those who mentioned seeing an ad were five times more likely to get a prescription for an antidepressant as those who simply described their supposed symptoms without talking about a drug ad they had seen. It is no wonder the heavily advertised drugs make up most of the top 10 medicines prescribed under Federal health programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and others. Take a look.

These are the 10 drugs on which Medicare spends the most total money for outpatient care. Nine are advised directly to consumers.

Here are the 10 drugs on which Medicaid spends the most money. Four of the ten are advised directly to consumers. The next 4 drugs, Nos. 11 through 14, are advertised as well. It is the view of Senator Sununu and I that the Federal Government is one consumer that does not need to receive advertising from the drug companies.

The Federal Government is buying medicine for a lot of people with a limited pool of funds. It is vital to get a handle now on the connection between advertising and increased sales and to insist on more prudent purchasing.

Our legislation does just that. It makes the Government a more prudent purchaser in a straightforward way. It will require Medicaid and other vital programs under Health and Human Services and the Veterans' Administration to get a discount that cuts out the advertising costs figured in each pill. In Medicaid, this would be done by adjustments in the Medicaid rebate program. That is an existing program that requires a pricing agreement between drug manufacturers and the Federal Government for any drug to be sold through the Medicaid program.

The Health and Human Services Secretary and the VA Secretary will also

be able to negotiate reduced prices for other Federal programs such as the Public Health Service, programs administered by the Indian Health Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and the Defense Health Program.

This is smart and effective spending. It ends the spending of taxpayer dollars to fund advertising that has already received a tax break. It is a commonsense step, the kind of common sense that is all too uncommon when the Federal Government buys drugs.

Our legislation will address another issue that speaks both to the taxpayers' interests and the health of patients in these programs. When advertised drugs are purchased, it is not enough to make sure the price is right, although that is important. It is vital the drug is right for the patient's particular problem. Taxpayer dollars should buy drugs that will work best for patients by a doctor's best judgment. Just because a patient recognizes a drug's name enough to request it from their provider does not mean it is the best medicine.

More and more drug companies are treating doctors as a middleman they wish to skip. They make a lot more money if patients, without medical degrees, are encouraged to start writing their own prescriptions, whether the drug is the right one or not. Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal programs have a charge to keep for their patients and a trust to maintain with American taxpayers. They should not be exploited financially by the pharmaceutical ``flavor of the month.''

I close by expressing my thanks to the Senator from New Hampshire. This is a bipartisan approach that is going to hold down the cost of medicine for taxpayers in our country. It will be a benefit to beneficiaries certainly at a time when the Medicaid Commission is trying to find responsible savings. We ensure that we take the time to study how this approach would work for other programs such as Medicare. And because I see my friend in the Chamber, I will wrap up simply by saying that it is time to take out a sharp pencil and eliminate the hidden costs for taxpayers from advertised drugs.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, the cost of medicine is a matter of concern to every Senator. Today, Senator Sununu and I have introduced legislation to take a fresh approach to holding down the cost of medicines in our country. Under our bipartisan legislation, the Federal Government would pay less for pharmaceuticals that are advertise when the Federal Government buys those medicines for Medicaid, the Veterans' Administration, the Department of Defense, and the Public Health Service.

One can barely turn on the television or open a magazine these days without getting the hard sale on a hot new medicine. There is no doubt that medical science is making miracles for our citizens who need help with their health. For that, we are, of course, grateful. But the advent of advertising for prescription drugs presents pitfalls as well, not just for patients but for every American taxpayer.

Senator Sununu and I introduced our legislation today because as the marketing gets savvier, the Federal Government needs to get smarter and contain costs wherever possible for these popular and expensive drugs. The fresh approach that Senator Sununu and I unveil today will amp up the Government's purchasing power on prescription drugs that are advertised directly to consumers. The Pharmaceutical Advertising and Prudent Purchasing Act will reduce drug costs for the beneficiaries of Medicaid and other Federal programs. It will ease the burden on States struggling to stretch their health care dollars through Medicaid, and it will lower the overall costs for taxpayers footing the bill for these advertised drugs.

When a drug company figures the price of a pill, it passes along the advertising costs to consumers. Right now, Medicare and Medicaid pay that cost like any other consumer. But it is time to take the advertising costs out of the equation for taxpayer funded programs. The Federal Government, of course, gives drug companies a tax break for advertising which, of course, every other American company gets for its business expenses. There is no need for a double subsidy. There is a need for more prudent purchasing of prescription drugs by the Federal Government. If that is going to happen, the changes in the pharmaceutical market that have been caused by the explosion of advertising cannot be ignored any longer.

I do not have to tell our colleagues that drug advertising in the United States is an immense and growing industry. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $4.5 billion on advertising to consumers. The penetration of this advertising may be more than most people realize. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 90 percent of Americans had seen or heard an advertisement for prescription drugs. Today, more and more Americans can go to their doctor and ask to have a medication they have seen advertised on TV, in a magazine, on the radio or on the Internet. Of course, that is what is happening.

There is a proven direct connection between the advertising of drugs and a big uptick in the rate of prescriptions written for them. Take a look at the 10 most advertised drugs in the United States. That is 2003, and I would guess that few Americans would say they have not heard of any of these drugs.

On each of these drugs, at least $100 million was spent in 2003 alone on direct consumer advertising. The advertising works. A study published in the April issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association demonstrates the link. Researchers sent actors to doctors' offices to complain of mild depression. Those who mentioned seeing an ad were five times more likely to get a prescription for an antidepressant as those who simply described their supposed symptoms without talking about a drug ad they had seen. It is no wonder the heavily advertised drugs make up most of the top 10 medicines prescribed under Federal health programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and others. Take a look.

These are the 10 drugs on which Medicare spends the most total money for outpatient care. Nine are advised directly to consumers.

Here are the 10 drugs on which Medicaid spends the most money. Four of the ten are advised directly to consumers. The next 4 drugs, Nos. 11 through 14, are advertised as well. It is the view of Senator Sununu and I that the Federal Government is one consumer that does not need to receive advertising from the drug companies.

The Federal Government is buying medicine for a lot of people with a limited pool of funds. It is vital to get a handle now on the connection between advertising and increased sales and to insist on more prudent purchasing.

Our legislation does just that. It makes the Government a more prudent purchaser in a straightforward way. It will require Medicaid and other vital programs under Health and Human Services and the Veterans' Administration to get a discount that cuts out the advertising costs figured in each pill. In Medicaid, this would be done by adjustments in the Medicaid rebate program. That is an existing program that requires a pricing agreement between drug manufacturers and the Federal Government for any drug to be sold through the Medicaid program.

The Health and Human Services Secretary and the VA Secretary will also

be able to negotiate reduced prices for other Federal programs such as the Public Health Service, programs administered by the Indian Health Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and the Defense Health Program.

This is smart and effective spending. It ends the spending of taxpayer dollars to fund advertising that has already received a tax break. It is a commonsense step, the kind of common sense that is all too uncommon when the Federal Government buys drugs.

Our legislation will address another issue that speaks both to the taxpayers' interests and the health of patients in these programs. When advertised drugs are purchased, it is not enough to make sure the price is right, although that is important. It is vital the drug is right for the patient's particular problem. Taxpayer dollars should buy drugs that will work best for patients by a doctor's best judgment. Just because a patient recognizes a drug's name enough to request it from their provider does not mean it is the best medicine.

More and more drug companies are treating doctors as a middleman they wish to skip. They make a lot more money if patients, without medical degrees, are encouraged to start writing their own prescriptions, whether the drug is the right one or not. Medicare, Medicaid, and other Federal programs have a charge to keep for their patients and a trust to maintain with American taxpayers. They should not be exploited financially by the pharmaceutical ``flavor of the month.''

I close by expressing my thanks to the Senator from New Hampshire. This is a bipartisan approach that is going to hold down the cost of medicine for taxpayers in our country. It will be a benefit to beneficiaries certainly at a time when the Medicaid Commission is trying to find responsible savings. We ensure that we take the time to study how this approach would work for other programs such as Medicare. And because I see my friend in the Chamber, I will wrap up simply by saying that it is time to take out a sharp pencil and eliminate the hidden costs for taxpayers from advertised drugs.

I yield the floor.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 10 minutes.

I very much appreciate the work of the Senators from Vermont and Oklahoma, and if we have a Senator, I will wrap up within a couple minutes of time at that point.

Mr. President, this is a time when millions of our families are walking on an economic tightrope. I will talk for a couple of minutes about the double standard that applies with respect to the pension rights of our workers. When we look at what is happening today in America with the workers--for example, at United Airlines, we saw it at Enron, as well--the pensions of our workers are in a free fall, but the pensions of the executives, the CEOs, are safe and secure in a tidy lockbox. I don't think that is right.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I will do everything I can to change it. I have been trying to figure out exactly how much money the CEO of any major company is receiving in this country in his or her pension package. This is a very difficult exercise. It is sort of like trying to find a needle in multiple haystacks.

To begin the effort to try to figure out what these executives are paid, I was first instructed to call the Department of Labor to obtain a copy of a company's annual report of employee benefit plans. This is what is called the form 5500. After I did that, I was told to contact the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to get hold of the company's 10(k) filing for the year in question.

Armed with these two documents, you then have to figure out the amount of unfunded liability for all of the groups the company pays, and then subtract that number from a line item in the 10(k) form. Even when you go this route, what you have is, at best, a rough estimate that requires a background in pension legislation, an intimate knowledge of SEC requirements, and a degree in calculus.

It seems to me that American workers, at a time when they are seeing their pensions shellacked--we saw it at Enron in Oregon where we had workers who used to have close to $1 million, and their private pension funds now have $3,000 or $4,000. They deserve better than to have to try to figure out, through a bevy of forms and stock options, deferred accounts, years of service calculations, equations--one form of paper after another--they deserve better than to try to have to sort all that out to see what the executives are making in their pensions while they are seeing their pensions evaporate in front of their eyes.

Senator Kennedy has done very good work in terms of trying to sort this out so as to determine when a company tries to unload their responsibilities at a time of crisis.

The Senate Finance Committee, on a bipartisan basis, should do more. What the Senate ought to be doing at a time when we are seeing our workers suffer and their pensions disappear, the Senate ought to make sure that shareholders and the public can find out exactly and conveniently what these executives will be getting upon their retirement.

I am proposing a bit of sunshine come into these executive pension lockboxes. Let's do for the workers whose pensions are being offered up for the CEOs, a bit of justice. Let's also do it for taxpayers because with every company that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation steps in to rescue, the agency's deficit grows. From an estimated $23 billion today, it is anticipated to grow to an expected $40 billion with the takeover of additional airlines.

We are seeing our workers sacrifice. The question is, What are they sacrificing for? Apparently, on the basis of the news in the last couple of weeks, some of these workers are sacrificing in order to fund the retirement packages for the CEOs. That is not my view of making tough decisions together. That is not my view of coming together and dealing with a tough problem in an equitable way. It is a double standard.

If you ask the average person on the street if they knew, for example, that the worker was going to be at risk with their pensions while the enormous pension of the CEO was protected, those workers wouldn't have any idea that was the case. They would say the same rules apply to everyone.

We are seeing they don't. Look particularly at the pension arrangement for the CEO at United. Three months before United Airlines filed for bankruptcy in 2002, the company placed $4.5 million in a special bankruptcy protected trust for the CEO. So right now we are seeing the workers of United Airlines face the devastation of their pensions literally disappearing. They look at this double standard. The people at the top do not have to sweat it. That is not right. We ought to have one set of pension rules for everyone in this country. It ought to be based on disclosure and transparency.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee I am going to do everything I can in this session, on a bipartisan basis, to get this passed.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am very pleased to report that the Senate transportation bill not only continues but also greatly expands a program I authored in the TEA-21 law to promote smart growth initiatives. When TEA-21 became law in 1998, this pilot program was the first Federal program ever created to provide incentives to help States and local governments pursue smart growth policies.

The good news is that the Senate transportation bill recognizes the value of this groundbreaking program by providing a substantial funding increase.

The original smart growth pilot program I authored, the Transportation and Community and System Preservation Program, TCSP, provided $25 million per year to investigate and address the relationships between transportation projects, communities and the environment. Under the SAFETEA bill now before the Senate, funding for this program would nearly double to about $47 million per year.

The not so good news is that 7 years after Congress enacted the TCSP program it remains the only Federal program to provide incentives for smart growth. In the last 7 years, the problems of urban sprawl have only gotten worse. Clearly more needs to be done.

Sprawl development not only hurts our citizens where they live and breathe, it also hits them in their wallets. A number of studies have come out that show the costs of sprawling growth are significantly higher than more compact, managed growth patterns. These studies show that taxpayers can save billions of dollars in public facility construction and operation and maintenance costs by opting for growth management.

Because of the major impacts federally funded transportation projects can have, there is an appropriate role for the Federal Government in ensuring these projects and the development they spawn are both economically and environmentally sound.

That role should not be to embroil the Federal Government in land use decisions that have historically been State and local issues. We do not want Federal zoning.

Instead, the proper role for the Federal Government is to create incentives to encourage and build on the State and local efforts to address transportation and growth that are already underway. I am very pleased that the Senate SAFETEA bill extends and expands the TCSP program to help local communities grow in environmentally sustainable ways by creating incentives for smart growth management.

The additional funding for TCSP in the Senate transportation bill is a good start. But if we are going to improve both our Nation's infrastructure and our quality of life, we need to do more at the Federal level to provide incentives to support smart growth policies.

My home State of Oregon leads the Nation in developing innovative approaches to manage our growth and to tie transportation policies in to growth management. Our statewide land conservation and development program requires each municipality to establish an urban growth boundary to define both the areas where growth and development should occur and those areas that should be protected from development. This system keeps agricultural and forest lands in productive use and preserves ``green corridors'' for hiking, biking and other recreational uses that are located in or close to urban areas. Our transportation planning and construction efforts reinforce these policies by not only avoiding developing in environmentally sensitive areas but also by helping make the areas where we want development to occur more accessible.

Oregon recognizes that it is not enough to tell people where they can not build. For our system to work, we have to make it easier to develop the areas where we want growth to occur. And we do not just give lip service to this principle. We actually put our money where our mouth is to make sure the development we want occurs.

These policies make the State of Oregon, Metro, the city of Portland, and other localities in our State ideal candidates to apply for funding under the Transportation and Community and System Preservation Program.

I greatly appreciate the support of Chairman Inhofe, Chairman Bond and Senators Jeffords and Baucus in working with me to increase funding substantially for this important program in the bill. Thanks to their efforts the bill now before the Senate will enable State and local smart growth policies to merge more smoothly with our transportation policies.

As Congress considers other Federal infrastructure programs, I will be looking for ways to build on the success of TCSP. The TCSP model can also be adapted for water, sewer and other federally funded infrastructure to help save taxpayers money and support State and local governments smart growth efforts. By following that approach, Congress can provide our citizens with both better infrastructure and better quality of life.

Mr. President, with all due respect to my friend from Oklahoma, several days ago Senator Hatch and I were told that we could speak on the floor at 2:15. So I ask unanimous consent that I can speak as in morning business, that I will be followed by Senator Hatch, and in deference to our friend from Oklahoma, who makes a very good point, that this time be charged postcloture.

As I said or touched on in my earlier comment, Senator Hatch and I had talked several days ago with the cloakrooms on both sides. We do want to be sensitive to our colleague. His point is valid. I think both of us could finish our remarks in about 10 minutes each, or thereabouts.

Yes.

Mr. President, Senator Hatch and I are taking this time to prepare our colleagues in the Senate and the public for a health care revolution that is long overdue. Right now, just over the river in Arlington, a group of dedicated citizens from every corner of the country is preparing to do something that has never been done before, and that is to tell the American people the hard truths about where nearly $2 trillion in health care goes each year and then to walk the public through the tough choices that must be made to create a health care system that works for all Americans.

The Citizens' Health Care Working Group was created by a law that I wrote with Senator Hatch. That law is just now beginning to be implemented. Beginning this week, the American people will have a place to go to find out more about the working group. I encourage them to take the opportunity to go to this Web site and learn about a very fresh approach to delivering health care for all of our citizens.

For 60 years, our country has tried the same thing. Literally from Harry Truman in 1945, in the 81st Congress, through 1993 and 1994 in the Clinton administration, the effort was to write legislation in Washington, DC. Then the American people would find it hard to understand, various interest groups would attack the legislation and each other, and everything would die.

Under the law I have written with Senator Hatch, this approach is turned on its head. Instead of starting in Washington, DC, the Health Care That Works for All Americans law begins outside the beltway. I would say to the Senate, I think health care reform has been like getting dressed in the dark for both the public and for policymakers. The American people have never been told where the money is going, so how can they, in a thoughtful way, offer suggestions on what needs to be done to improve the system? Without this essential information from the American public, how then can policymakers write legislation that thoughtfully addresses the public's concerns and garners the public's support?

This time, beginning in the fall, that is going to change. In senior centers and libraries, at business organizations, online and offline, a Health Care Report to the American People will lay out the facts for the first time. The public is going to be told in understandable language the facts as to where the $1.8 trillion spent each year on health care goes. Then the American people will have the opportunity-- again offline and online--to give their ideas about how to create a health care system that works for everyone. For the first time, public involvement will be followed by political accountability.

Under the law, once Americans learn where the health care dollar is going and they have the chance to talk about how they would rather spend those dollars, Congress must follow up. All the committees of jurisdiction have to hold hearings within 60 days of the recommendations coming from the citizens of our country.

Once there is a clear citizens' roadmap to health care that works for all Americans, it will be hard for Congress to reject the citizens' health care needs. Congress can continue to ignore what the citizens are calling for, but with genuine public momentum behind this effort, Congress will ignore the citizens at its peril.

For the first time, with this approach, there is the potential to create a true juggernaut to get a bill a President of either political party can sign. It is about time.

If Americans do not have their health, we all understand nothing else matters. Before I had the honor of coming to the Congress, I served as director of the Oregon Gray Panthers. I saw then how important it was that a fresh, innovative approach be taken in this area.

Two weeks ago, the chairman of Starbucks sat in my office. This is a company that gets it when it comes to health care. They are doing something that is hard for any company to do, providing health insurance not only to their full-time employees but to their part-time workers. They have done this because their founder, Howard Schultz, remembers what it was like to grow up in a family at risk because they did not have health care. He believes a secure, covered workforce contributes to his company's great business success. But Howard Schultz will tell us, just as other concerned business leaders will tell us, they may not be able to keep that commitment if costs continue to grow exponentially.

What I appreciate about what Starbucks is saying is they are not

waiting for the bottom to fall out. Mr. Schultz has come to Washington to ask that the Congress and the executive branch partner with businesses that want to do the right thing and to cover their employees. He does not have all the answers, but he told me and Senator Hatch as part of this bipartisan law that makes a break with 60 years of failure in this area, he wants to try fresh approaches. Since millions of Americans come in contact with Starbucks each week, that is a pretty darned big contribution and an indication of what the business community is willing to do as we take a fresh look at coming up with health care that works for all Americans.

Frankly, what we have heard from Starbucks and others is exactly the kind of teamwork we wanted when we wrote the law. We are talking about a unique approach where the public has the facts, where the public gets a chance to weigh in, where Congress then has to act. This kind of approach, where you rewrite the book with respect to health care reform, is long overdue. There are going to be tough choices. Senator Hatch and I have acknowledged that at the very beginning. Certainly end-of-life issues present us with some very difficult, gut-wrenching concerns but establishing this kind of process is, in the view of myself and Senator Hatch, absolutely critical if our country is to move and to move quickly to deal with the health care challenge in the days ahead.

This health care wrecking ball is not going to hit in 2040 or 2050, colleagues. We are going to get clobbered on New Year's Day 2007 when 70 million baby boomers start retiring.

I see my friend Senator Hatch is here and Senator Inhofe has been so kind to give this time so I will wrap up. I encourage each Senator to urge their citizens at home to get involved with the Citizens' Health Care Working Group. They are going to be getting out into the communities across the country, making their information available online. This is their Web site. I encourage Senators to have folks at home ready to pitch in.

I thank my partner in this effort, Senator Hatch. If we look at the important health care legislation in the last few years, Senator Hatch's name is virtually always on it, whether it is programs for kids or how to address issues relating to pharmaceuticals. I could not have a better partner in the Senate as we try to break new ground in health care.

I yield now so Senator Hatch can have the time. I do it with my thanks.

Mr. President, several weeks ago, I outlined what I believed this country needs to do in order to address the true issues related to how we care for those who are dying. Today, I am introducing 3 bills to improve access to pain management, increase the number of providers trained to care for those with life-threatening illness, and improve the Medicare hospice benefit.

Our medical system is geared towards curing patients, and gives short shrift to those we cannot cure. Modern advances in technology allow us to live longer, but that also means that many of us will live longer with chronic diseases including pain.

The Conquering Pain Act will help those patients living and dying in pain, support their families and assist providers in getting information and guidance. This legislation will provide an opportunity for the country to develop and test different ways of providing pain management to patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It would create and fund regional networks to assist patients so they would not have to wait until normal business hours to get relief and help providers receive timely information and guidance as they treat difficult cases. This bill would create a website and require access to it in health care settings so families, patients and providers can have instant information. In addition, the bill requires several studies so we can better understand the other roadblocks for patients seeking pain management. These roadblocks include the lack of health insurance coverage for pain management and the interaction of the enforcement of laws concerning controlled substances and the delivery of appropriate pain management. I am pleased that my colleague from Oregon is cosponsoring the Conquering Pain Act.

Another aspect of our health care system that needs strengthening, is in assuring that we have providers who know how to provide support and comfort care to the dying. The Palliative Care Training Act will increase the number of providers trained in palliative care. Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness. It does so through the prevention and relief of suffering by early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other problems. Palliative care affirms life and regards dying as a normal process. It neither hastens nor postpones death and is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death.

My legislation provides grants to individuals with appointments as junior faculty at accredited medical schools so they will teach other providers palliative care. This is modeled after existing awards for the training of other specialties. When it comes down to it, assuring there is faculty in schools to teach this area of medicine, is an inexpensive way of strengthening the health care system in providing this needed care. I am pleased to note that when the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association recently testified before the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, they identified this legislation as addressing an important need.

As we look at how to better care for those at the end of life, Medicare's hospice benefit bears examination. When the benefit was added to Medicare, it was hailed as a cost effective benefit that would assist many. In truth, few Americans know what hospice really is and the benefits it can provide. Too often seniors are advised of the benefits too late to get the full effect of the medical, social and spiritual support this benefit can provide. Part of the reason for this is Medicare requires the patient to choose between continuing to seek ``curative'' care or hospice and palliative care. This means that literally the patient must choose between the hope of a cure and accepting that they are dying. Not many of us would want to give up seeking a cure or want to give up hope. However, that is what the Medicare program requires now. The Medicare Hospice Demonstration Act tests the idea that patients would not have to give up seeking ``curative'' care, to get hospice. It is my belief that as people experience what hospice can do for them and for their families, they will find they can accept living the end of their lives with hospice and palliative care instead of seeking less effective care that will not cure them or enhance the quality of their life.

It the U.S. Senate is going to examine end of life issues, we should not just look at legal issues. I believe these proposals are essential elements of the health care system that need to be supported and strengthened.

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

Mr. President, several weeks ago, I outlined what I believed this country needs to do in order to address the true issues related to how we care for those who are dying. Today, I am introducing 3 bills to improve access to pain management, increase the number of providers trained to care for those with life-threatening illness, and improve the Medicare hospice benefit.

Our medical system is geared towards curing patients, and gives short shrift to those we cannot cure. Modern advances in technology allow us to live longer, but that also means that many of us will live longer with chronic diseases including pain.

The Conquering Pain Act will help those patients living and dying in pain, support their families and assist providers in getting information and guidance. This legislation will provide an opportunity for the country to develop and test different ways of providing pain management to patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It would create and fund regional networks to assist patients so they would not have to wait until normal business hours to get relief and help providers receive timely information and guidance as they treat difficult cases. This bill would create a website and require access to it in health care settings so families, patients and providers can have instant information. In addition, the bill requires several studies so we can better understand the other roadblocks for patients seeking pain management. These roadblocks include the lack of health insurance coverage for pain management and the interaction of the enforcement of laws concerning controlled substances and the delivery of appropriate pain management. I am pleased that my colleague from Oregon is cosponsoring the Conquering Pain Act.

Another aspect of our health care system that needs strengthening, is in assuring that we have providers who know how to provide support and comfort care to the dying. The Palliative Care Training Act will increase the number of providers trained in palliative care. Palliative care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness. It does so through the prevention and relief of suffering by early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other problems. Palliative care affirms life and regards dying as a normal process. It neither hastens nor postpones death and is applicable early in the course of illness, in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and offers a support system to help patients live as actively as possible until death.

My legislation provides grants to individuals with appointments as junior faculty at accredited medical schools so they will teach other providers palliative care. This is modeled after existing awards for the training of other specialties. When it comes down to it, assuring there is faculty in schools to teach this area of medicine, is an inexpensive way of strengthening the health care system in providing this needed care. I am pleased to note that when the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association recently testified before the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, they identified this legislation as addressing an important need.

As we look at how to better care for those at the end of life, Medicare's hospice benefit bears examination. When the benefit was added to Medicare, it was hailed as a cost effective benefit that would assist many. In truth, few Americans know what hospice really is and the benefits it can provide. Too often seniors are advised of the benefits too late to get the full effect of the medical, social and spiritual support this benefit can provide. Part of the reason for this is Medicare requires the patient to choose between continuing to seek ``curative'' care or hospice and palliative care. This means that literally the patient must choose between the hope of a cure and accepting that they are dying. Not many of us would want to give up seeking a cure or want to give up hope. However, that is what the Medicare program requires now. The Medicare Hospice Demonstration Act tests the idea that patients would not have to give up seeking ``curative'' care, to get hospice. It is my belief that as people experience what hospice can do for them and for their families, they will find they can accept living the end of their lives with hospice and palliative care instead of seeking less effective care that will not cure them or enhance the quality of their life.

It the U.S. Senate is going to examine end of life issues, we should not just look at legal issues. I believe these proposals are essential elements of the health care system that need to be supported and strengthened.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business after the distinguished Senator from Vermont has completed his remarks.

I would modify my request, Mr. President, that after the distinguished Senator from Vermont has completed his remarks, I would be next for 20 minutes, and the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Lott, would come after me.

Mr. President, as the Senate resumes debating the nuclear option for resolving the debate about judges, I would like to ask that the Senate pursue a conventional option, the disappearing art of bipartisanship. Rather than calling for breaking out the nuclear weapons, I believe the Senate should call for breaking out some bipartisanship, and I want to give an example this afternoon of what the possibilities could be for real bipartisanship in this area of judicial nominations.

When President Clinton was elected, even though I was a Member of the House, I was the senior Democrat in my State. So I was faced with the challenge then as a Member of the other body of working with two Senators with close to 60 years of experience in the Senate--Mark Hatfield and Bob Packwood. Both of them were extremely gracious in their efforts to work with me.

I created a formal judicial selection committee. I gave Senators Hatfield and Packwood representation on that committee. We worked together in a bipartisan way and my first selection was confirmed without controversy.

I continued that bipartisan selection committee when I was elected to serve in the Senate. Three of my recommendations are now serving on the Federal bench thanks, in great measure, to the bipartisan cooperation of my friend and colleague Senator Gordon Smith.

After President Bush was elected in 2000, Senator Smith retained a similar bipartisan judicial selection process, and I was pleased to be able to assist him and the Bush administration in moving their nominee through the process.

Now our bipartisanship has been put to the test. In fact, twice, both with respect to myself and with respect to Senator Smith, we had nominees who proved to be controversial to some Senators. In each case, the Senator in the minority party upheld his commitments and shepherded these individuals through the Senate. Doing tough bipartisan work at the front end of the judicial selection process, neither Senator Smith nor I were pulled into a partisan squabble later on as the process went forward.

This is precisely the sort of bipartisan cooperation that is now missing between the White House and the Senate, and what is needed is more bipartisan conventional options for resolving this judicial debate and fewer nuclear threats.

It seems to me, going nuclear will change the Senate in a very dramatic way. I think it will make it harder, for example, to have breakthroughs in health care such as Senator Hatch helped me achieve when we passed the Health Care That Works for All Americans law. I think it is going to make it

harder to have a bipartisan breakthrough to producing a new energy policy. If ever there was a red, white and blue issue for our country, it is getting a new bipartisan energy policy that would shake us free of our dependence on foreign oil.

As I held open community meetings last week at home in Pendleton, Irrigon, Monroe, Fossil, Tillamook, and throughout my home State, there were no rallies and citizens calling for the use of a nuclear option. There were an awful lot of people asking: What are you going to do about health care costs that are going through the stratosphere? And I talked to them about the efforts that I and Senator Hatch have put in place.

They wanted to know about what is going to be done to deal with crumbling roads. I see our friend from Oklahoma who would like to pull together a bipartisan bill to deal with our country's infrastructure.

So folks were talking about health care, creating jobs and a fresh energy policy. They know the only way the Senate is going to achieve any of that is through bipartisanship.

I also see the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, my friend Senator Specter. Today the Senate has a choice. Tomorrow or the next day there may not be a choice. I hope my colleagues will choose the conventional option we have been using in Oregon that Senator Hatfield and Senator Packwood assisted me with and that Senator Gordon Smith has assisted me with. I hope we will choose what I call the Oregon conventional option and seek a renewed bipartisan commitment to resolving this matter.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes as in morning business.

If I could engage my colleague in a colloquy, I assume the leader is going to speak relatively briefly as well. If that is the case, I certainly want to be courteous. I ask unanimous consent, then, that I have up to 10 minutes to speak after the majority leader has spoken and that my colleague from Rhode Island, Senator Reed, have the opportunity to speak for up to 10 minutes after me.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

(The remarks of Mr. Wyden pertaining to the introduction of S. 946 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I strongly believe that parents in our country should have more wholesome entertainment choices for their children. To make that possible, I am today introducing legislation to require that cable and satellite owners allow parents to purchase a child-friendly tier of television programming.

For years, the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have labored, to little avail, to turn off offensive programming with a variety of technologies. My legislation would ensure that America's families, 24/7, could turn on programming that is reliably friendly to our children.

While the legislation ensures that parents have more choices, the entertainment industry is assured that it has choices as well. Under the bill, Congress does not direct how the law is to be implemented. The Congress does not set prices. And the Congress does not take any step that is inconsistent with the first amendment.

About the only part of the legislation that is nonnegotiable is my belief that Congress should not dawdle any longer when the volume of degrading, violent, and antisocial entertainment our children are exposed to continues to grow.

Here is what America's parents deal with now. A recent study found that the average child in America has seen 8,000 murders depicted on television by the time they graduate from elementary school. Kids see about 10,000 television rapes, assaults, and murders each year. And in 2004, Americans filed more than 1 million complaints with the Federal Communications Commission about indecent programming.

Yesterday the National Cable and Telecommunications Association launched a new public service campaign to alert subscribers to parental control features that are already available and to introduce new larger TV rating icons. I haven't studied their proposal, but it certainly sounds constructive and I look forward to hearing more about their efforts.

The legislation I am introducing today is a truly new approach that has teeth. It is going to give parents more kid-friendly entertainment choices that are easy to understand. The legislation would require that all cable and satellite operators within 1 year of enactment offer a kid-friendly tier of programming. It would require monthly billing statements to include information about how customers can use blocking technology to stop offensive programming. And it would impose big- league fines of $500,000 a day on any cable or satellite operator who doesn't comply with the requirement that they give parents the chance to purchase kid-friendly programming. In this tier parents will know that there will be no content and no advertisements of a violent or sexual nature. Parents and adults who are not concerned about the current level of violence and sex on television would, of course, have access to those options with respect to current law.

This proposal is the first to tell cable and satellite operators they must offer a kid-friendly television tier so parents have more choices. The legislation does not dictate how it must be accomplished. It only says this tier of kid-friendly programming must carry a number of channels.

The legislation leaves it up to the operator whether to offer the kids tier as part of a basic or expanded basic package or as a completely separate package.

Certainly there is going to be some opposition. But I believe good quality programming and an option for families could translate to pretty good profits for those cable and satellite providers. Parents are going to find this option very attractive. If children are watching TV 4 hours a day, you can bet mom and dad are not able to stand there the whole time. A kids tier is going to take the guesswork out of TV time for America's parents.

Now there is an awful lot of guesswork. Time magazine found last month 53 percent of respondents said they thought the Federal Communications Commission ought to place stricter controls on broadcast channel shows depicting sex and violence. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said the entertainment industry has lost touch with viewers' moral standards. Sixty-six percent said there is too much violence on open air TV. Fifty-eight percent said there is too much cursing. Fifty percent said there is too much sexual content.

I have worked to make sure that this legislation strikes an appropriate balance, offering choices to parents, not taking them away. A recent Pew Research survey found although 60 percent of Americans are very concerned about what kids see and hear on television, about half of those surveyed were more worried about the Government imposing undue restrictions and thought this was essentially the responsibility of the audience.

So what we are doing here shows a balanced kind of approach in line with the kinds of values Americans are expressing. Don't make choices for parents, but help parents make good choices for their children. With 8 out of 10 American households getting their television through cable or satellite programmers, it is time that parents be given the chance to sign up for programming that works for their family.

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

Mr. President, I strongly believe that parents in our country should have more wholesome entertainment choices for their children. To make that possible, I am today introducing legislation to require that cable and satellite owners allow parents to purchase a child-friendly tier of television programming.

For years, the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have labored, to little avail, to turn off offensive programming with a variety of technologies. My legislation would ensure that America's families, 24/7, could turn on programming that is reliably friendly to our children.

While the legislation ensures that parents have more choices, the entertainment industry is assured that it has choices as well. Under the bill, Congress does not direct how the law is to be implemented. The Congress does not set prices. And the Congress does not take any step that is inconsistent with the first amendment.

About the only part of the legislation that is nonnegotiable is my belief that Congress should not dawdle any longer when the volume of degrading, violent, and antisocial entertainment our children are exposed to continues to grow.

Here is what America's parents deal with now. A recent study found that the average child in America has seen 8,000 murders depicted on television by the time they graduate from elementary school. Kids see about 10,000 television rapes, assaults, and murders each year. And in 2004, Americans filed more than 1 million complaints with the Federal Communications Commission about indecent programming.

Yesterday the National Cable and Telecommunications Association launched a new public service campaign to alert subscribers to parental control features that are already available and to introduce new larger TV rating icons. I haven't studied their proposal, but it certainly sounds constructive and I look forward to hearing more about their efforts.

The legislation I am introducing today is a truly new approach that has teeth. It is going to give parents more kid-friendly entertainment choices that are easy to understand. The legislation would require that all cable and satellite operators within 1 year of enactment offer a kid-friendly tier of programming. It would require monthly billing statements to include information about how customers can use blocking technology to stop offensive programming. And it would impose big- league fines of $500,000 a day on any cable or satellite operator who doesn't comply with the requirement that they give parents the chance to purchase kid-friendly programming. In this tier parents will know that there will be no content and no advertisements of a violent or sexual nature. Parents and adults who are not concerned about the current level of violence and sex on television would, of course, have access to those options with respect to current law.

This proposal is the first to tell cable and satellite operators they must offer a kid-friendly television tier so parents have more choices. The legislation does not dictate how it must be accomplished. It only says this tier of kid-friendly programming must carry a number of channels.

The legislation leaves it up to the operator whether to offer the kids tier as part of a basic or expanded basic package or as a completely separate package.

Certainly there is going to be some opposition. But I believe good quality programming and an option for families could translate to pretty good profits for those cable and satellite providers. Parents are going to find this option very attractive. If children are watching TV 4 hours a day, you can bet mom and dad are not able to stand there the whole time. A kids tier is going to take the guesswork out of TV time for America's parents.

Now there is an awful lot of guesswork. Time magazine found last month 53 percent of respondents said they thought the Federal Communications Commission ought to place stricter controls on broadcast channel shows depicting sex and violence. Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed said the entertainment industry has lost touch with viewers' moral standards. Sixty-six percent said there is too much violence on open air TV. Fifty-eight percent said there is too much cursing. Fifty percent said there is too much sexual content.

I have worked to make sure that this legislation strikes an appropriate balance, offering choices to parents, not taking them away. A recent Pew Research survey found although 60 percent of Americans are very concerned about what kids see and hear on television, about half of those surveyed were more worried about the Government imposing undue restrictions and thought this was essentially the responsibility of the audience.

So what we are doing here shows a balanced kind of approach in line with the kinds of values Americans are expressing. Don't make choices for parents, but help parents make good choices for their children. With 8 out of 10 American households getting their television through cable or satellite programmers, it is time that parents be given the chance to sign up for programming that works for their family.

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

Mr. President, 40 years ago, when having a computer in your home was inconceivable and being able to hold a miniature computer in the palm of your hand was the stuff of science fiction, Gordon Moore, then a young engineer with Fairchild Semiconductor, had a revolutionary idea.

In the April 19, 1965, issue of Electronics Magazine, Moore first articulated what would come to be known as Moore's law: that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double in power approximately every 18 months but the price would actually decrease. Moore's law was revolutionary because it said that computer power improves essentially for free. Not only did this mean technology could be accessible and affordable for all Americans, it set the stage for increases in productivity unheard of since the Industrial Revolution.

Today, Moore's 40-year-old prediction is not just the thought of a dreamer, written for the benefit of a few early high-tech pioneers; it is the metronome of the technology industry. The drive to keep up with the drumbeat of Moore's law has meant unparalleled innovation in the high-tech industry. It has resulted in quality, high-paying jobs and contributed to our Nation's economic stability. The growth of computer technology in the U.S. has brought countless benefits to consumers and businesses throughout this country.

We are proud in my home State of Oregon to be part of the high-tech engine that helped build the digital economy. We are happy to be home to companies like Intel Corporation, which Moore helped found in 1974. Intel, which employs 15,500 people and has invested approximately $11 billion in Oregon, is an important contributor to our economy and an example of the impact that leadership in technology can have at the local level.

Oregon's high-tech industry continues to be a vital and growing part of the State's economy, creating jobs, fueling the growth of small and large businesses, and driving the innovation necessary to keep pace with Moore's law today.

The fulfillment of Moore's 40-year-old prediction will continue to lead to advances in virtually every aspect of our lives. It means smaller and more affordable computers, and cameras the size of pills that can be swallowed to explore our insides without surgery. It also means family and friends can overcome great distances, connecting in an instant over the digital airwaves.

Though his prediction has held true, Gordon Moore could not have foreseen the power and influence of his observation. I'm proud today to pay tribute to his contributions and recognize the impact Moore's law has had on our economy and our world.

Mr. President, it is not easy for a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to oppose Ambassador Negroponte's nomination on the floor of this Senate. I am well aware that many do not share the concerns, and the views I will express this afternoon have not been arrived at casually.

The Ambassador is the consummate diplomat, a dedicated public servant, a well-liked person who is popular with Members of the Senate of both political parties. He has been confirmed by the Senate for a variety of posts. I have voted twice for those confirmations, but I am not convinced that Ambassador Negroponte is the right man for this job. I have reached this judgment based on my strong belief that a prerequisite for this position should be a willingness to be direct and forthcoming with policymakers even when the truth is difficult. Unfortunately, directness was nowhere in sight in the Ambassador's responses at his confirmation hearing last week.

At that hearing, the Ambassador was not even as direct and forthcoming in discussing controversial matters as he has been in the past. For example, at the hearing I discussed with the Ambassador his service in Honduras. I made it clear at the outset that I understand it makes no sense to relitigate a war that took place in Central America more than 20 years ago. In spite of the lengthy news accounts printed that morning, the morning of his confirmation hearing, providing new information documenting the Ambassador's continued backing of the Contras after the House had voted to halt U.S. support, I chose not to focus on those issues. I raised the Honduras issue last week and return to it this afternoon because I believe the record of the Ambassador's service there is particularly telling in terms of his judgment and his willingness to confront difficult facts, which I believe are two key requirements for the Director of National Intelligence.

For example, I find it especially troubling that the Ambassador's perception of the human rights situation in Honduras differs so dramatically from that expressed by the Central Intelligence Agency, the InterAmerican Court, the Honduras Human Rights Commission, and others. The Central Intelligence Agency released a report entitled ``Selected Issues Relating to CIA Activities in Honduras in the 1980s'' which found:

Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses

since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and

officially sanctioned.

The CIA report linked the Honduran military personnel to death squad activities.

Mr. Negroponte, on the other hand, said in a September 12, 1982, letter that was printed in the New York Times Magazine that:

Honduras's increasingly professional armed forces are

dedicated to defending the sovereignty and territorial

integrity of the country, and they are publicly committed to

civilian constitutional rule.

The InterAmerican Court for Human Rights heard cases concerning human rights abuses in Honduras. In 1989, the Court found:

A practice of disappearances carried out or tolerated by

Honduran officials existed between 1981 and 1984; and

The Government of Honduras failed to guarantee the human

rights affected by that practice.

In an October 23, 1982, letter printed in the Economist, Ambassador Negroponte wrote:

Honduras's increasingly professional armed forces are fully

supportive of this country's constitutional system.

The Honduran Human Rights Commissioner released a report on forced disappearances that occurred in Honduras during Ambassador Negroponte's tenure. The report states:

[t]here existed within the Armed Forces a deliberate policy

of kidnapping and forcibly disappearing persons.

Yet the introductory passage of the 1983 State Department Country Report issued while Mr. Negroponte was Ambassador stated:

The Honduran military, which ruled the country for almost

20 years before 1982, supports the present civilian

government and is publicly committed to national and local

elections, which are scheduled in 1985, as well as the

observance of human rights.

The fact is, when you read what the Ambassador has said about Honduras, and what the CIA and others have said about the same time period, it is as if John Negroponte was an ambassador to a different country.

Given these sharp differences, I asked the Ambassador last week to reconcile this very large gap between what he saw and what others reported. I expected an answer that would have at least acknowledged these very substantial differences and indicated that in hindsight the Ambassador would have been more outspoken about human rights practices.

Instead, the Ambassador tried to dismiss the issue altogether by simply saying the differences were not so great, something I thought was pretty hard to fathom, given the accounts I had provided to him.

The fact is, in trying to brush off this issue of Honduras, the Ambassador actually showed less candor last week than he has in the past. For instance, at his 2003 hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee when he was being considered for Ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Negroponte stated the following about Honduran human rights abuses:

Maybe it was a mixed picture, Senator. I am more than

willing to acknowledge that.

At the same hearing he said:

Could I have been more vocal? Well, you know, in

retrospect, perhaps I could have been.

So you have to ask, as I have done, Why would the Ambassador be less direct last week than he had been previously? Certainly there was no national security reason for him to duck questions about events that are decades old. Perhaps the newspaper articles that morning made him fear Congress would get into issues he might find uncomfortable. That is certainly understandable, but it is absolutely unacceptable for a nominee tapped to head our Nation's intelligence community at a time when directness and forthrightness is more important than ever before. Throughout his confirmation hearing, on issue after issue, the Ambassador ducked and avoided giving anything resembling a straightforward answer.

I asked the Ambassador whether he foresaw his office involving itself in decisions relating to the implementation of the PATRIOT Act's surveillance powers, and in particular whether his office might weigh in on whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation should seek a FISC warrant.

His answer?

Senator, I am not entirely certain what my authorities

would be under FISC.

I asked the Ambassador whether he would be willing to take a fresh look at the United States rendition policy, possibly the most controversial weapon being used in fighting terrorism today. Rendition involves sending a suspected terrorist from one country to another without court proceedings. Republican and Democratic administrations have used renditions in the past, but their use has increased significantly since 9/11, and the policy has certainly changed. Previously, most suspects were rendered to the United States. Now it works the opposite way. More and more often the United States is rendering suspects to foreign countries. News reports indicate that suspects are frequently being rendered to countries known to torture suspected terrorists, such as Syria, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia. While the United States gets assurances from foreign governments they will not use torture, U.S.

officials have little control over the situation once a suspect is in the hands of the foreign country.

Rendition is the practice used to address a very difficult dilemma. America may lack the evidence to bring a suspected terrorist into court; there is some proof of wrongdoing, but not enough for a court of law. If the suspect is not an American citizen, it is possible to send them elsewhere to be dealt with, but that can be a dicey prospect. Renditions get suspects off the streets, something which makes Americans safer. But the tactic has raised serious concerns for many of our citizens and for many people in other countries as well. I have heard those concerns, but I also recognize that renditions can serve a legitimate and valuable purpose. It is a question of how this policy is carried out. Our country needs to have a frank and candid and direct discussion about this policy of rendition. But, before that can happen, there needs to be some answers to some tough questions:

Have any suspects been rendered based on faulty intelligence and, if so, what amount of intelligence should be necessary before a rendition takes place?

Are there certain countries to which the United States should not render suspects?

Are the assurances the United States gets in the rendition area sufficient with regard to the use of torture?

Does the United States need to retain more control of suspects it renders, especially to countries that have weak human rights records?

How good is the intelligence the United States is getting from rendered suspects?

What is the effect of a rendition policy on America's diplomatic relations with other countries?

These are some of the important questions that need to be answered. So in an effort to examine Ambassador Negroponte's openness and to try to determine his judgment in a difficult area such as this, I asked the Ambassador whether he would be willing to take a fresh look at our rendition policy; not a point-by-point description of what he would do, but simply would he be willing to take a fresh look, a new inspection of this country's approach in rendition.

The Los Angeles Times summed up the Ambassador's response to my question about rendition with four words. They said: ``Negroponte avoided the question.''

The Ambassador, I would point out, ducked other important questions asked by members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. For example, our colleague from Michigan, Senator Levin, asked the Ambassador to explain what action he would take if the Ambassador concluded policymakers were making public statements that differed from the classified intelligence. There was no direct answer to that important question asked by Senator Levin.

Senator Feinstein sought detailed information on how, with regard to countries such as Iran and North Korea, the Ambassador intended to assure the United States developed much needed credible intelligence. Ambassador Negroponte responded:

Well, Senator, the law prescribes a number of approaches to

this.

Then I asked the Ambassador about the issue of overclassification of material in the area of national security. This is an issue that has concerned many in the Senate, of both political parties. I have been interested in this matter for some time.

I was, frankly, flabbergasted when 9/11 Commissioner Tom Kean, who did such a superb job in his work, with Lee Hamilton, former Member of the other body--Tom Kean said 75 percent of everything he saw when he chaired the 9/11 Commission that was classified should not have been classified. This is what Tom Kean said in the extraordinarily important inquiry he conducted.

The Central Intelligence Agency initially blacked out over 50 percent of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Iraq's WMD programs and links to terrorist groups.

I will tell colleagues I thought Chairman Roberts and Senator Rockefeller did a superb job in guiding our committee to a unanimous judgment with respect to Iraq and that important report. But if the CIA had had its way, page after page after page would have been blacked out.

The National Archives Information Security Office reported 14.2 million classification actions in 2003, twice the number recorded 10 years earlier. The agencies are becoming more creative in terms of how they overclassify. In addition to the traditional ``limited official use,'' ``secret'' and ``top secret,'' some agencies now have ``sensitive security information,'' ``sensitive Homeland Security information,'' ``sensitive but unclassified'' and ``for official use only'' classifications, as well.

Secrecy has become so pervasive it makes you wonder whether facts are being classified for legitimate reasons or to protect the individuals and agencies involved.

As I mentioned, this has been a bipartisan concern. I am particularly grateful for the work Senator Lott has been willing to do with me. We took some modest steps in the intelligence reform bill to open this process and try to bring some balance back into the area of classification. But given this history, given the huge explosion in terms of overclassification of Government documents, I was interested in what the Ambassador had to say with respect to this.

When I first asked, he said:

Senator, I don't know about classification or

overclassification.

But then he went on to make the mind-boggling claim that ``Certainly the trend in my lifetime has been to reduce levels of classification wherever possible. And I've seen that happen before my own eyes.''

Troubling as that answer was and the nonanswers that I received to the other important questions I asked with respect to the PATRIOT Act and relating to rendition and other topics, as troubling as what I was told and wasn't told, is it is not only what the Director of National Intelligence will know that is so important but what he is willing to say that is vital.

In spite of the Ambassador's responses to these questions, I have no question in my mind of Ambassador Negroponte's ability to master the facts. What I am not confident of is his steadfast commitment to speaking those facts to ears that do not want to hear them. And history tells us the consequences of an inability or an unwillingness to speak truth to power can be disastrous.

This country saw what happened in the Bay of Pigs, an unsuccessful attempt by United States-backed Cuban exiles to overthrow the Government of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. It is a classic example of what can happen when America's intelligence community is unwilling or unable to be candid. In his review of the Bay of Pigs invasion release to the public in 1998, CIA Inspector General Lyman Kirkpatrick identified numerous failures. These include:

[The f]ailure to subject the president, especially in its

latter frenzied stages, to a cold and objective appraisal by

the best operating talent available, particularly by those

not involved in the operation, such as the Chief of

Operations and the chiefs of the Senior Staffs;

[The f]ailure to advise the president, at an appropriate

time, that success has become dubious and to recommend the

operation be, therefore, canceled and that the problem of

unseating Castro be restudied;

The failure to maintain the covert nature of the project--

``[f]or more than three months before the invasion the

American press was reporting, often with some accuracy, on

the recruiting and training of Cubans. Such massive

preparations could only be laid to the U.S. The agency's name

was freely linked with these activities. Plausible denial was

a pathetic illusion.''

This is what the inspector general said. This is not what a partisan said. Yet the CIA unrealistically plowed ahead, unwilling or unable to face the reality of the situation that the operation was doomed to fail, and as a result the CIA was humiliated, many died, our prestige was damaged.

Throughout the entire time our country was in Vietnam the intelligence community also failed to be forthright and was plagued by overoptimism. One example was particularly worth noting.

In 1963, the Board of National Estimate's draft Nation Intelligence Estimate concluded that ``The struggle in South Vietnam at best will be protracted and costly [because] very great weaknesses remain and will be difficult to surmount.''

Unhappy with the pessimistic conclusion, the Director of Central Intelligence John McCone rejected the draft

and instructed the board to seek the views of senior policymakers in revising the Nation's Intelligence Estimate.

So the final version of the 1963 stated:

We believe that Communist progress has been blunted and

that the situation is improving . . .

As those who put together the Pentagon papers later observed:

The intelligence and reporting problems occurring during

this period cannot be explained away . . . In retrospect [the

estimators] were not only wrong, but more importantly, they

were influential. As a result, a generation paid the price

for the unwillingness or the inability of the intelligence

community's inability to be forthright.

Now our country deals with those consequences.

Many in the Senate will remember George Tenet told the President of the United States that the weapons of mass destruction case against Iraq was a ``slam dunk.'' Now America knows what George Tenet knew and what he was unwilling or unable to tell the President of the United States, that it wasn't a slam dunk at all.

The Niger yellowcake, the high-strength aluminum, the mobile weapons lab, the aerial vehicles, the intelligence provided by Curveball and the Iraqi National Congress witnesses, all of this intelligence was questionable and was being questioned by at least some members of the intelligence community.

However, George Tenet was not direct. He was not forthcoming. He told the President of the United States what the President wanted to hear. Whether he was unwilling or unable to be straight with the President, I cannot possibly determine. What I do know is that as a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence I want to do everything I can. I know every Member of the Senate wants to make sure these mistakes are not repeated. The stakes are simply too high.

The Intelligence Reorganization Act gave the Director of National Intelligence a whole lot of responsibility but very little enforcement power. As the Director works to make 15 intelligence agencies pull together, his credibility will be his currency. Critical to his success will be the understanding of all concerned that this person is going to be direct, that the person will be forthcoming, that the person will make sure that no matter who the truth hurts, no matter what policymakers think, they are going to get the facts.

Here is what I think the country needs. The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who is going to speak truth to power, somebody who has, in Hamilton's words, the ``gumption'' to tell the President and other senior policymakers what they don't want to hear.

The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who has the knowledge and the experience to step in and begin fixing the problems facing the intelligence sector immediately.

The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who will break down existing walls inhibiting analysts throughout the intelligence community and, when appropriate, officials and citizens outside that realm from getting access to the information they need to keep Americans safe. The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence willing to, when necessary, go head to head with the agencies under his control, especially the Department of Defense. If the Director lets them push him around, he is doomed.

The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence to take control over the intelligence budget. Before Congress created the position, the intelligence community lacked a leader willing to make tough budget priority and tradeoff decisions. Each agency asked for funds. It was, in effect, a matter of passing the request along. This has to stop. There are not limitless resources. A strategic view, not a parochial lens, ought to be guiding budget decisions.

The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence to shape the intelligence agencies he oversees into a true community because, at this point, the phrase ``intelligence community'' is pretty much a misnomer. While coordination and cooperation have improved, the individual intelligence agencies persist in maintaining their own culture and collection practices. As the military services have learned to fight jointly, our intelligence collection agencies need to learn how to act together to gather critical information our policymakers and warfighters need to protect our country.

The United States needs a Director of National Intelligence who recognizes he cannot do this alone. This position is new and its authority, while substantial, is unclear. His fights with the administration over matters of significant national policy need not, and should not, always be kept quiet. If the Director of National Intelligence is to succeed, he will need to look to allies in the executive branch and here in the Congress to help.

While Ambassador Negroponte is surely a skilled diplomat and has many allies in the Senate, Senators of both parties I admire greatly, I am not confident the administration's nominee will meet these expectations.

For that reason, I will be voting no on the nomination of Ambassador John Negroponte to be Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. President, I want to wrap up with one additional point. I am pleased to be in strong support of General Hayden, who will, when the nominee is confirmed, be the deputy. I thought General Hayden's directness and openness at his confirmation hearing was particularly welcome.

For example, I asked him, on the matter of privacy rights, which is pretty important, given his past background at the NSA, how he would handle that issue. I think there was a sense it is possible to fight terrorism ferociously while still protecting civil liberties. General Hayden, in contrast to what we heard at the earlier confirmation hearing, was refreshingly direct in his responses, where he talked about pushing right up to the line--I believe those were his exact words--but being sensitive to civil liberties.

So I am pleased to be able to say, on the floor of the Senate, I am looking forward to the support General Hayden will be receiving from the Senate shortly. I expect Ambassador Negroponte and General Hayden to be approved. My door will be open to both of them. As a member of the Intelligence Committee, it is my hope that both of these individuals will not hesitate to ask me and ask colleagues for help. The safety of our country depends on the performance of these two individuals in this key post.

Mr. President, with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining under the agreement that was entered into earlier?

Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. President, I will speak very briefly on this matter because I would like to support Senator Rockefeller's call for an inquiry into this area, particularly as it relates to rendition.

Let me begin by saying that I strongly agree with my friend and chairman, the distinguished Senator from Kansas, with respect to how important a time this is with our people in harm's way. Chairman Roberts is absolutely right that the fight against terrorists certainly is not a nice business. We understand that.

I want to take a minute and support Senator Rockefeller in the hopes we can work this out and do it in a bipartisan way along the route we took with respect to Iraq, where we got a unanimous agreement in our committee and showed a difficult area could be tackled in a bipartisan way.

The reason I support Senator Rockefeller and want this matter addressed is I think this inquiry could especially provide another useful tool in our fight against al-Qaida. I say that because the longer the war against al-Qaida and its associates goes on, the more we realize what a sophisticated enemy we are facing.

Bin Laden and his followers understand the modern media, both here and abroad. They know that allegations of torture and mistreatment undercut our efforts amongst our allies and influences world opinion against the United States. It seems to me we cannot allow ourselves to be defamed by deceitful and murderous madmen who have learned how to manipulate public perception.

What Senator Rockefeller is talking about would provide us, through an inquiry, the opportunity to discredit information collected from al- Qaida and other terrorists in custody. Torture is not an effective way of getting valuable, credible intelligence. A suspect in extreme pain or psychological stress will lie about anything and everything necessary to stop what that suspect is enduring, and if the possibility of torture is removed, those analyzing the information will have greater faith in the reporting.

If, however, an investigation proves that torture was used by anyone, we will have an additional reason to question the information and better ability to determine the truth from fabrication. So I come to the floor today to say I support Senator Rockefeller in terms of his request. I think Senator Roberts, the chairman of our committee, makes a very valid point about the sensitivity of this time, our people being in harm's way, terrorists will stop at nothing, and I think what Senator Rockefeller is talking about could provide an additional tool, an additional opportunity, to strengthen the fight against al-Qaida by publicly correcting their lies and to give us an opportunity to expose the al-Qaida spin machine.

I have spoken at some length on the floor this afternoon, but I want to make clear that I hope the distinguished chairman and the ranking member can work this out. I support Senator Rockefeller.

I yield the floor.

I may be the only one with time remaining and I yield back the remainder of my time as well.

Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the proposal offered by Senators Craig and Kennedy. I see Senator Kennedy on the floor and Senator Craig on the floor. Their work is a testament to their persistence and the staying power of a handful of agricultural workers and employers who have been willing to set aside ideology and partisanship to hammer out a major overhaul of our law in this area.

Yes.

Mr. President, a remarkable coalition of agricultural employers and farm workers has come together behind the Craig-Kennedy amendment. I commend them for all of their efforts. I simply wanted to spend a few minutes and talk about a bit of lineage behind this whole effort.

To some extent, this began on the afternoon of July 23, 1998, when I had the opportunity to join with my friend and colleague Senator Gordon Smith and we offered an amendment to overhaul this program. It was, in fact, entitled the AgJOBS amendment. It had the strong support of Senator Craig at that time. We received 68 votes for that legislation. I think it was an indication then, as we see today, how the system works for no one.

To a great extent, we see so many who feel we have lost control of our borders. The system surely does not work for the honest agricultural employer, and the vast majority certainly meet that test, and for many farm workers who work hard and contribute every single day. The system simply does not work for anyone. So what Senator Smith and I tried to do that July day in 1998 was to begin to address the foundation of a sensible immigration policy based on the proposition that what we have been doing does not work for anybody. It does not work for our country.

We live under a contradiction every day with respect to immigration. We say we are against illegal immigration. One can hear that in every coffee shop in the United States. Then we look the other way so as to deal with agriculture or perhaps motels, hotels, restaurants, and a variety of other establishments. We have to resolve that contradiction. We ought to resolve it by making the kind of start the Craig-Kennedy legislation does by saying we

are going to put our focus on legal workers who are here in compliance with the law. That is what we sought to do that July day in 1998, requiring the growers to hire U.S. farmworkers first before they could seek alien workers. Then we took steps to try to ensure a measure of justice that would be required in our legislation for the migrant farmworkers by providing employment, housing, transportation, and other benefits, access to Head Start. I think Senator Kennedy remembers this well from 1998. One would have thought Western civilization was going to end when that amendment offered by Oregon's two Senators got 68 votes in the Senate. I think it was an indication of how the animosity and fear that has surrounded this issue has enveloped the whole debate over the last few years, and that is why I commend Senator Craig and Senator Kennedy for the thoughtful way they have worked since 1998 in order to build a coalition for this idea and to refine what the Senate voted for in 1998.

For example, in 1999, the National Council of Agricultural Employers, the employer group that helped start the process that led to the first AgJOBS bill of 1998, started reaching out directly to the Hispanic community representing agricultural workers, as well as churches and community groups. A dialog was begun then about how reform could benefit everyone.

In 2000, people from the agricultural employer community and those representing the farmworkers started talking more publicly about some of the issues that were particularly contentious. All of a sudden, there was an extended and thoughtful debate among people who were avowed enemies with respect to the topic of H-2A reform. Those people who had fought each other so bitterly began to come together and form a coalition that is behind the Craig-Kennedy amendment today.

In 1996, I formulated certain beliefs with respect to this issue that still hold true today. First, I believe willing and able American workers always should be given a chance to fulfill the needs of employers seeking agricultural labor. This was addressed in 1998 and it remains in the language before the Senate today. The amendment offered by Senator Craig and Senator Kennedy requires employers seeking to use the H-2A program to first offer the job to any eligible U.S. worker who applies and who is equally or better qualified for the job, and then issue notice to local and State employment agencies, farmworkers organizations, and also through advertising.

We also said back then we wanted to have recommendations for a more straightforward, less cumbersome, less unwieldy process to address the shortage of primary foreign workers.

I commend Senator Craig and Senator Kennedy because what we had been concerned about then--the need for simplicity and certainty--is now embodied in a number of aspects in this amendment. Employers are required to provide actual employment to the worker, a living wage and proof of that employment so the worker can move freely between jobs. The employee is required to show proof of legal temporary worker status in the United States to the employer before becoming employed. Each party shoulders the burden of ensuring their documentation is legal. That is the way we said it ought to be in 1998. That is the way it is in the Craig-Kennedy proposal.

Third, I have always maintained and still maintain that a farmer using the H-2A program should not be able to misuse it to displace U.S. agricultural workers or make U.S. workers worse off. The language before us today meets that test by ensuring that H-2A workers must be paid the same wage as the American worker. There is no incentive to seek a guest worker because there is no opportunity to indenture that worker by paying lower wages or not providing enough work.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, we said then and it is clear in this amendment as well that any program must not encourage the illegal immigration of workers. This bill addresses that by requiring agricultural workers to show they are legally in the United States in order to collect the benefits available under this program, such as housing, transportation, and the civil right to sue their employers for back wages or for wrongful dismissal.

So the goal of this legislation is to take out some of the uncertainty and the lack of predictability that has been in this program, and that uncertainty would be removed for both growers and workers.

Certainly my State has a great interest in agriculture. There are certainly billions of dollars of direct economic output in this sector and there is a need to enact H-2A programs for my State, where we feel we do a lot of things well, but what we do best is we grow things, and the need for enacting this program is as great today as it was in 1998. Both sides in this debate are going to continue to have their differences, and my guess is, as the Senator from Idaho knows, there are probably some residual and historical grudges. This Craig-Kennedy proposal shows that in a very contentious area that has been gridlocked in the Senate since a July date in 1998, we can still find a creative process that brings people together to solve mutual problems.

I hope my colleagues will support this historic effort. I look forward to working with Senators on both sides of the aisle on this matter.

I yield the floor.

That is fine with me. I am waiting for Senator Smith. Madam President, if I could, I ask unanimous consent that after Senator Alexander completes his remarks, Senator Smith, my colleague from Oregon, and I may speak for up to 30 minutes. We may not consume all of that time.