Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Graham, in introducing legislation that requires Congress to act on what may be the most pressing domestic policy issue of our time, namely health care reform.

I believe we can find a way to make universal coverage work in this country. Universal coverage doesn't have to be defined by what's in place in other countries or by what's been attempted in the past. What universal coverage does mean is ending a system where more than 46 million Americans are uninsured, and where too many of those who are insured are struggling to pay their premiums, struggling to pay for prescription drugs, and struggling to find long term care.

Over the years I have heard many different proposals for how we should change the health care system in this country. Some propose using tax incentives as a way to expand access to health care. Others think the best approach is to expand public programs. Some feel a national single payer health care system is the only way to go.

I favor an American-style health care reform, where we encourage creative solutions to the health care problems facing our country, without using a one-size-fits-all approach. I believe that States have a better idea about what the health care needs of their residents are, and that they understand what types of reform will work best for their State. So I am in favor of a State-based universal health care system, where States, with the Federal Government's help, come up with a plan to make sure that all of their residents have health care coverage, and I am working with Senator Graham to develop a bipartisan bill that will help States do just that. If we are finally going to fix our broken health care system, we need to be open to good, new ideas.

And this brings us to the legislation Senator Graham and I are introducing today, because, the reason we haven't reformed our health care system isn't because of a lack of good ideas. The problem is that Congress and the White House refuse to take this issue up. Despite the outcry from businesses, from health care providers, and from the tens of millions who are uninsured or underinsured or struggling to pay their premiums, the Federal Government refuses to address the problem in a comprehensive way.

That is why we are introducing this bill. Our legislation will force Congress to finally address this issue. It requires the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, as well as the Chairs of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the Finance Committee, to each introduce a health care reform bill in the first 30 days of the session of Congress following enactment of the bill. This bill provides an expedited process for considering reform legislation. Similar procedures are established for House consideration.

I want to emphasize that my bill does not prejudge what particular health care reform measure should be debated. There are many worthy proposals that would qualify for consideration, and this bill does not dictate which proposal, or combination of proposals, should be considered.

But what my bill does do is require Congress to act.

It has been over 10 years since the last serious debate over health care reform was killed by special interests. I am disappointed that Congress still has not acted to reform our health care system, and businesses and workers are crying out as never before for Congress to address the country's health care crisis.

It has been over 10 years since we've had any debate on comprehensive health care reform. We cannot afford any further delay. The cost of inaction is too great. I urge my colleagues to support the Reform Health Care Now Act of 2007.

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

Mr. President, today I am pleased to be joined by the Senator from South Carolina, Mr. Graham, in introducing legislation that requires Congress to act on what may be the most pressing domestic policy issue of our time, namely health care reform.

I believe we can find a way to make universal coverage work in this country. Universal coverage doesn't have to be defined by what's in place in other countries or by what's been attempted in the past. What universal coverage does mean is ending a system where more than 46 million Americans are uninsured, and where too many of those who are insured are struggling to pay their premiums, struggling to pay for prescription drugs, and struggling to find long term care.

Over the years I have heard many different proposals for how we should change the health care system in this country. Some propose using tax incentives as a way to expand access to health care. Others think the best approach is to expand public programs. Some feel a national single payer health care system is the only way to go.

I favor an American-style health care reform, where we encourage creative solutions to the health care problems facing our country, without using a one-size-fits-all approach. I believe that States have a better idea about what the health care needs of their residents are, and that they understand what types of reform will work best for their State. So I am in favor of a State-based universal health care system, where States, with the Federal Government's help, come up with a plan to make sure that all of their residents have health care coverage, and I am working with Senator Graham to develop a bipartisan bill that will help States do just that. If we are finally going to fix our broken health care system, we need to be open to good, new ideas.

And this brings us to the legislation Senator Graham and I are introducing today, because, the reason we haven't reformed our health care system isn't because of a lack of good ideas. The problem is that Congress and the White House refuse to take this issue up. Despite the outcry from businesses, from health care providers, and from the tens of millions who are uninsured or underinsured or struggling to pay their premiums, the Federal Government refuses to address the problem in a comprehensive way.

That is why we are introducing this bill. Our legislation will force Congress to finally address this issue. It requires the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, as well as the Chairs of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and the Finance Committee, to each introduce a health care reform bill in the first 30 days of the session of Congress following enactment of the bill. This bill provides an expedited process for considering reform legislation. Similar procedures are established for House consideration.

I want to emphasize that my bill does not prejudge what particular health care reform measure should be debated. There are many worthy proposals that would qualify for consideration, and this bill does not dictate which proposal, or combination of proposals, should be considered.

But what my bill does do is require Congress to act.

It has been over 10 years since the last serious debate over health care reform was killed by special interests. I am disappointed that Congress still has not acted to reform our health care system, and businesses and workers are crying out as never before for Congress to address the country's health care crisis.

It has been over 10 years since we've had any debate on comprehensive health care reform. We cannot afford any further delay. The cost of inaction is too great. I urge my colleagues to support the Reform Health Care Now Act of 2007.

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

Mr. President, first let me thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his moving and sobering words but even more importantly for his leadership and tremendous clarity on this issue over these last few critical years.

Mr. President, we are approaching the 4-year anniversary of one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in our country's history. In March 2003, with the prior authorization of Congress, the President took this country to war in Iraq. Almost 4 years later, virtually every objective observer and, more importantly, the American people as a whole agree that the President's policy has failed. Even the President acknowledges that his plan has not worked, though his solution is not a new plan but a troop escalation. Of course, sending more troops to implement what is essentially the same flawed strategy makes no sense. The American people agree that it makes no sense, and most of my colleagues agree that it makes no sense.

So the question becomes, with a President unable or unwilling to fix a flawed policy that is jeopardizing our national security and our military readiness, what should we in Congress do about our country's involvement in this disastrous war? Do we do nothing and hope the President will put things right, when he has shown time and time again that he is incapable of doing so? Do we simply tell the President that we are unhappy with the way the war is going and that we hope he will change course or do we take strong, decisive action to fix the President's mistaken, self-defeating policies?

It is pretty clear which course of action I support. I think it is a course of action the American people called for in the November elections. It is the course of action our national security needs, so we do not continue to neglect global threats and challenges while we focus so much of our resources and our efforts on Iraq. It is the course of action that will support--that will actually support--our brave troops and their families.

We must end our involvement in this tragic and misguided war. The President will not do so; therefore, Congress must act. So far, Congress has not lived up to that responsibility. Instead of taking strong action in the Senate, instead of considering binding legislation that fixes the President's flawed Iraq strategy, we tied ourselves into knots last week in a convoluted and misguided effort to achieve a consensus that would have essentially reaffirmed congressional authorization for continuing our military involvement in Iraq. Of course, here I am referring to the resolution proposed by the senior Senator from Virginia. This resolution was portrayed, at least at first, by members of both parties as an important symbolic rebuke of the President's Iraq policy. In fact, it really was not a rebuke at all. In parts, it reads like a reauthorization of the war, rejecting troop redeployment and specifically authorizing ``vigorous operations'' in a critical region in Iraq.

Now, when debate on the Warner resolution was blocked, we had a chance

to get things right. And I am glad our majority leader, Senator Reid, has chosen to bring up the resolution being debated in the House today expressing support for the troops and, simply, opposition to the so- called surge. Now, this body--the Senate--should go on record in opposition to, or support of, the President's plan.

I will vote to allow the debate on the resolution to take place. And I hope I will have the opportunity to actually vote for the resolution.

I have yet to hear any convincing argument that sending 21,500 more troops to Iraq will bring about the political solution that is needed to end violence in that country.

The President's decision to send more troops is based on two flawed assumptions. It assumes, first, that the presence of even more of our servicemembers will help Iraqi troops improve security in Baghdad and, second, that with improved security, Iraqi politicians can then achieve national reconciliation. The recent declassified NIE, or National Intelligence Estimate, shot holes in both of those assumptions. It said that Iraqi security forces ``will be hard pressed in the next 12-18 months to execute significantly increased security responsibilities'' and ``even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.''

Obviously, those were direct quotes, not me characterizing the NIE. In other words, in the best case scenario, U.S. forces provide a little security that Iraqi forces can't sustain on their own and that Iraqi politicians won't use to settle their entrenched differences. That doesn't sound to me like a plan for success.

Some of my colleagues, even those who don't support sending more troops to Baghdad, have spoken in favor of continued and even increased U.S. military operations in Al Anbar Province. Some of them even suggest that our troops should be directly combating an insurgency there. This, apart from everything else, is a recipe for disaster. Al Anbar Province is where a majority of U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. The insurgency there, as well as general opposition to the U.S. presence and to the Shiite-dominated Government in Baghdad, is fueled by the Sunnis' political and economic grievances. Conducting targeted missions to take out terrorists makes sense, but using U.S. troops to put down an insurgency doesn't. Maintaining or, worse yet, increasing a substantial U.S. presence in a primarily Sunni area without a political solution means nothing less than a continuation of unending and self- defeating policies in Iraq. Clearly, the President's decision to send more troops makes no sense. But I have to say that simply passing a nonbinding resolution criticizing it makes no sense, either, if we just stop there. So we need to go further, and we need to do it soon.

Let me remind my colleagues, when the voters rejected the President's Iraq policy in November, they weren't rejecting an escalation. That option wasn't even on the table then. Who was talking about an escalation during that campaign? Certainly, the Presiding Officer knows well what was being discussed. They were rejecting the President's policy of trying to achieve a political solution in Iraq with a massive and unlimited military presence. After delaying action for a couple of months, the President just plain ignored overwhelming public sentiment, the advice of Members of both parties, and the views of the military and foreign policy experts when he proposed an escalation. The administration turned its back on the American people.

We in Congress should not follow suit. We have a responsibility to our constituents and to our men and women in uniform. If no one will listen to and act on the will of the American people, then there is something seriously wrong with our political system. After almost 4 years of a disastrous policy, we must bring our troops out of Iraq. To do otherwise is to ignore public outrage over the war and to ignore the many other pressing national security priorities we are neglecting in favor of a myopic focus on Iraq. The American people recognize there is no U.S. military solution to Iraq's civil war. And as long as we focus disproportionate attention and resources on Iraq, we will not be able to counter the full range of threats we face in places such as Afghanistan and Somalia and many other places around the world. So Congress must use its power. It must use its power of the purse to safely redeploy our troops from Iraq.

Let's not be intimidated by the intentionally misleading rhetoric of the White House and its allies when they try to prevent any discussion at all of real action by the Congress to end the war. This isn't about cutting off funds for troops; it is about cutting off funds for the war. Every Member of Congress agrees that we must continue to support our troops and give them the resources and the support they need. By setting a date after which funding for the war will be terminated, as I have proposed, Congress can safely bring our troops out of harm's way. That is how you get them out of harm's way, by getting them out of there.

There is plenty of precedent for Congress exercising its constitutional authority to stop U.S. involvement in armed conflict. Last month, I chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing entitled ``Exercising Congress's Constitutional Power to End the War.'' Without exception, every witness, those called by the majority and the minority, those who have had a career more focused on the executive branch than the legislative branch--all of them did not challenge the constitutionality of Congress's authority to end the war.

Lou Fisher of the Library of Congress is acclaimed as one of the foremost experts on the President's war powers. In fact, he literally wrote the book on this topic. He testified that Congress does not simply have the power, he said it has the responsibility to exercise it, when needed.

He said:

. . . is the continued use of military force and a military

commitment in the Nation's interest? That is the core

question. Once you decide that, if you decide it is not in

the national interest, you certainly do not want to continue

putting U.S. troops in harm's way.

The argument that cutting off funding for a flawed policy would hurt the troops and that continuing to put U.S. troops in harm's way supports the troops makes no sense. By ending funding for the war, we can bring our troops safely out of Iraq.

Walter Dellinger of Duke Law School made this point when he testified about my proposal. He said:

There would not be one penny less for the salary of the

troops. There would not be one penny less for the benefit of

the troops. There would not be one penny less for weapons or

ammunition. There would not be one penny less for supplies or

support. Those troops would simply be redeployed to other

areas where the armed forces are utilized.

Instead of allowing the President's failed policy to continue, Congress can and should use its power of the purse to end our involvement in the Iraq war, safely redeploying the troops while ensuring, as do I in my bill, that important counterterrorism and training missions are still carried out. We should be coming up with a strategy for a postredeployment Iraq and the region that is squarely within the context of the global fight against al-Qaida. That means replacing a massive and unsustainable and unlimited military mission with a long-term strategy for mitigating the mess left behind by this war. With such a strategy, we can redirect substantially more resources and attention to the fight against al-Qaida and other affiliated or sympathetic international terrorist organizations.

As long as this President goes unchecked by Congress, our troops will remain needlessly at risk and our national security will be compromised.

Let me tell my colleagues, regardless of what happens with this resolution, this is just a first step--worthwhile but just a first step. And the first step must be followed by stronger steps, and it must be done quickly. I intend to keep pushing until the Senate votes to end our involvement in the Iraq war, and eventually this will happen because this is what a strong majority of the American people want. Congress may be able to put off its day of reckoning temporarily, the administration can continue down the same failed path a while longer, but all of us ignore the will of the American people at our peril. So let's have this debate. Let's do it openly and honestly. Let's not pretend anyone wants to deny our troops

the equipment and resources they need. Let's not suggest that opposing the President's strategy is unpatriotic and that it would give aid and comfort to the enemy, that it would somehow weaken the resolve of our troops. Those claims are outrageous. They are offensive, and they are untrue. Do my colleagues believe the American people gave aid and comfort to the enemy when they rejected the President's Iraq policy in November? Are the overwhelming majority of our constituents who oppose this war trying to undermine our troops? Of course not. So how could anyone suggest that Congress actually acting on the will of the American people undermines the troops or emboldens the enemy?

Our troops are undermined by a policy that places them in harm's way unnecessarily. And our enemy, our true enemy, al-Qaida and its allies, is emboldened by a U.S. strategy that neglects global challenges and instead focuses on a single country. It is unfortunate that those who wish to defend this strategy would resort to these kinds of charges.

Let's do the job of the Senate and have full, open debate and votes on fixing our Iraq policy. Let's not pretend that such a debate would harm our national security. Let's not tell ourselves that it is up to just the President to fix the horrible situation his failed policies have created. It is our responsibility to act, too. Congress made the tragic mistake of authorizing this war over 4 years ago. Now Congress also has the job of bringing it to a close so we can refocus on the terrorists and other global threats that have been neglected way too much over the past 4 years.

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

Mr. President, today I honor the memory of one of the great jurists in the history of my State and someone I was honored to call a friend and mentor: Judge Thomas Fairchild.

Judge Fairchild earned the respect of all who knew him for his keen mind, his kind manner, and his humility. His long and distinguished career in public service included serving as Wisconsin's attorney general, as a State supreme court justice, and as Federal appeals court judge on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he rose to become chief judge. He held that position from 1975 to 1981 when he became a senior judge on the appeals court.

Judge Fairchild stood for justice and equality in his work on the bench, and his work in politics as he made a courageous run for Senate against Joe McCarthy in 1952. Through that and other efforts, he played a critical role in efforts to revitalize the State's Democratic Party.

Judge Fairchild was a brilliant legal mind and a man of exceptional character. He was also an extremely special person in my family and a great friend of my father's. As is the case with anyone who has known me for more than 40 years, he called me Rusty.

Whenever my father, Leon Feingold, or my mother, Sylvia Feingold, referred to Judge Fairchild, it was always with reverence. Some of the biggest decisions of his career were made, at least in part, in our living room. I have always been deeply proud of that fact.

The Thomas E. Fairchild lecture at University of Wisconsin Law School, established in 1988 as a tribute to Judge Fairchild, is just one reflection of his tremendous stature in Wisconsin. When I delivered the Fairchild lecture in 2005, with Judge Fairchild listening in the audience, it was a great honor for me, and a wonderful experience.

I am deeply saddened by the passing of Judge Fairchild, for the loss this means for his family, and for all those who knew him. He was one of our State's great legal minds, and one of our most dedicated public servants. I feel so fortunate to have known him, and so grateful for the many things he taught me and the many kindnesses he showed me over the years. The work he did, and the life he lived, will continue to enrich Wisconsin and the Nation for many years to come.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the third in a series of bills intended to support American companies and American workers. Earlier this week, I introduced a resolution which would set some minimum standards for future trade agreements into which our country enters, and legislation which would strengthen the Buy American Act. Today I am introducing legislation that would help workers who have lost their manufacturing or service sector jobs to be retrained for jobs in high-demand health care fields. I am pleased that my colleague, Senator Mikulski, is cosponsoring this important legislation and I look forward to working with her to advance it during the 110th Congress.

According to statistics from the Department of Labor, Wisconsin has lost over 90,000 manufacturing jobs between January 2000 and November 2006. Nationally, the country has lost around 3 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001, yet the administration has continued to support policies that lead to the outsourcing of American jobs. I continue to be deeply troubled by the Bush Administration's contention that the outsourcing of American service sector and other jobs is good for the economy. I am concerned about the message that this policy sends to Wisconsinites and all Americans who are currently employed in these sectors.

There is something of a silver lining to the looming cloud of manufacturing and other jobs loss: the country's workforce development system.

In spite of stretched resources and long waiting lists for services, our workforce development boards are making a tremendous effort to retrain laid-off workers and other job seekers for new jobs. And this effort is clearly evident in Wisconsin, where my State's workforce development boards--despite shoestring budgets--are leading the way in finding innovative solutions to retraining workers for new careers.

I strongly support the work of these agencies, and have urged the Administration and Senate appropriators to provide adequate funding for the job training programs authorized by the Workforce Investment Act. I look forward to the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act this year and I will continue to work to ensure that the workforce development boards in my state and across our country receive the resources that they need to help job seekers get the training they need to be successful.

I am committed to finding resources to retrain those who have been laid off from the manufacturing and service sectors and who wish to find new jobs in high-demand fields such as health care.

As most of my colleagues know all too well, we are facing a significant shortage of health care workers. Congress has made some progress in addressing the nursing shortage, but we need to expand our efforts. Shortages of health professionals pose a real threat to the health of our communities by impacting access to timely, high-quality health care. Studies have shown that shortages of nurses in our hospitals and health facilities increase medical errors, which directly affects patient health.

As our population ages, and the baby-boomers need more health care, our need for all types of health professionals is only going to increase. This is particularly true for the field of long-term care. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we are going to need an additional 1.4 million nursing aides, home health aides, and other health professionals in long-term care before the year 2014. In total, there will be almost 1.7 million job openings in health care support occupations through 2012.

As our demand for health care workers grows, so does the number of jobs available within this sector. According to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the surging job growth in health care will translate into a real need for workers, and real opportunity. In Wisconsin alone, there will be an additional 61,910 health care positions by 2014. This represents a 27 percent increase in jobs in health care by 2014.

Workforce development agencies in my home State of Wisconsin are already working to support displaced workers in their communities by training them for health care jobs, since there is a real need for workers in these fields. These agencies are helping communities get and maintain access to high-quality health care by ensuring that there are enough health care workers to care for their communities.

As the executive director of one of the workforce development boards in my State put it, ``[t]here are simply not many good quality jobs to replace manufacturing jobs lost to rural communities. The medical professions, by offering a `living wage' and good benefits, provide an excellent alternative to manufacturing for sustaining a higher, family- oriented standard of living.''

I believe we should support our communities in these efforts by providing them with the resources they need to establish, sustain, or expand these important programs. For that reason, today I am introducing the Community-Based Health Care Retraining Act. This bill would amend the Workforce Investment Act to authorize a demonstration project to provide grants to community-based coalitions, led by local workforce development boards, to create programs to retrain unemployed workers who wish to obtain new jobs in the health care professions. My bill would authorize a total of $25 million for grants between $100,000 and $500,000, and, in the interest of fiscal responsibility, my legislation is fully offset.

This bill will help provide communities with the resources they need to run retraining programs for the health professions. The funds could be used for a variety of purposes, from increasing the capacity of our schools and training facilities, to providing financial and social support for workers who are in retraining programs. This bill allows for flexibility in the use of grant funds because I believe that communities know best about the resources they need to run an efficient program.

This bill represents a nexus in my efforts to support workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas and to ensure that all Americans have access to the high-quality health care that they deserve. By providing targeted assistance to train laid-off workers who wish to obtain new jobs in the health care sector, we can both help unemployed Americans and improve the availability and quality of health care that is available in our communities.

I am pleased that this bill is supported by a variety of organizations that are committed to providing high-quality job training and health care services, including: the Wisconsin Association of Job Training Executives, the Wisconsin Hospital Association, Madison Area Technical College, the Northwest Wisconsin Concentrated Employment Program, the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin, the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, the Healthcare Workforce Network, the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board, Sauk County Development Corporation, the American Osteopathic Society, Umos, the Fox Valley Workforce Development Board, and the West Central Wisconsin Workforce Development Board.

In order to ensure that our workers are able to compete in the new economy, we must ensure that they have the tools they need to be trained or retrained for high-demand jobs such as those in the health care field. My bill is a small step toward providing the resources necessary to achieve this goal. I will continue to work to strengthen the American manufacturing sector and to support those workers who have been displaced due to bad trade agreements and other policies that have led to the loss of American jobs.

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

Mr. President, today I introduce the Wartime Treatment Study Act. This bill would create two fact-finding commissions: one commission to review the U.S. government's treatment of German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans during World War II, and another commission to review the U.S. government's treatment of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II. This bill is long overdue.

I am very pleased that my colleagues Senators Grassley, Kennedy, Lieberman and Inouye have joined me as cosponsors of this important bill. I thank them for their support. And I thank Congressman Wexler, who has been the unflagging champion of this legislation in the House of Representatives.

The victory of America and its allies in the Second World War was a triumph for freedom, justice, and human rights. The courage displayed by so many Americans, of all ethnic origins, should be a source of great pride for all Americans.

But, at the same time that so many brave Americans fought for freedom in

Europe and the Pacific, the U.S. government was curtailing the freedom of people here at home. While, it is, of course, the right of every nation to protect itself during wartime, the U.S. Government must respect the basic freedoms for which so many Americans have given their lives to defend. War tests our principles and our values. And as our Nation's recent experience has shown, it is during times of war and conflict, when our fears are high and our principles are tested most, that we must be even more vigilant to guard against violations of the basic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Many Americans are aware that during World War II, under the authority of Executive Order 9066, our government forced more than 100,000 ethnic Japanese from their homes and ultimately into internment camps. Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes, their livelihoods, and their communities and were held behind barbed wire and military guard by their own government. Through the work of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, created by Congress in 1980, this shameful event finally received the official acknowledgement and condemnation it deserved. Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, people of Japanese ancestry who were subjected to relocation or internment later received an apology and reparations on behalf of the people of the United States.

February 19, 2007, is the ``Day of Remembrance,'' the 65th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. On this day, we should remember the freedoms all of these individuals were forced to give up, and resolve never to make these mistakes again.

While I commend our government for finally recognizing and apologizing for the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, I believe that it is time that the government also acknowledge the mistreatment experienced by many German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans, as well as Jewish refugees.

The Wartime Treatment Study Act would create two independent, fact- finding commissions to review this unfortunate history, so that Americans can understand why it happened and work to ensure that it never happens again. One commission will review the treatment by the U.S. government of German Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans, as well as European Latin Americans, during World War II.

I believe that most Americans are unaware that, as was the case with Japanese Americans, approximately 11,000 ethnic Germans, 3,200 ethnic Italians, and scores of Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians or other European Americans living in America were taken from their homes and placed in internment camps during World War II. We must learn from this history and explore why we turned on our fellow Americans and failed to protect their basic freedoms.

A second commission created by this bill will review the treatment by the U.S. government of Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution and genocide. We must review the facts here as well and determine how restrictive immigration policies failed to provide adequate safe harbor to Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of Nazi Germany. It is a horrible truth that the United States turned away thousands of refugees, delivering many refugees to their deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime.

As I mentioned earlier, there has been a measure of justice for Japanese Americans who were denied their liberty and property. It is now time for the U.S. government to complete the accounting of this period in our nation's history. It is time to create independent, fact- finding commissions to conduct a full and through review of the treatment of all European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees during World War II.

Up to this point, there has been no justice for the thousands of German Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans who were branded ``enemy aliens'' and then taken from their homes, subjected to curfews, limited in their travel, deprived of their personal property, and, in the worst cases, placed in internment camps.

There has been no justice for Latin Americans of European descent who were shipped to the United States and sometimes repatriated or deported to hostile, war-torn European Axis powers, often in exchange for Americans being held in those countries.

Finally, there has been no justice for the thousands of Jews, like those aboard the German vessel the St. Louis, who sought refuge from hostile Nazi treatment but were callously turned away at America's shores.

The injustices to European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees occurred more than fifty years ago. Americans can learn from these tragedies now, while the people who survived these injustices are still with us, and are still here to teach us. We cannot put this off any longer. If we wait, the people who were affected will no longer be here to know that Congress has at last recognized their sacrifice and resolved to learn from the mistakes of the past.

We should never allow this part of our Nation's history to repeat itself. And, while we should be proud of our Nation's triumph in World War II, we should not let that justifiable pride blind us to the treatment of some Americans by their own government.

As the Day of Remembrance approaches, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Wartime Treatment Study Act, and to allow this bill to become law as soon as possible. I have been seeking to enact this legislation for six years. It is time for a full accounting of this tragic chapter in our Nation's history.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Wartime Treatment Study Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the third in a series of bills intended to support American companies and American workers. Earlier this week, I introduced a resolution which would set some minimum standards for future trade agreements into which our country enters, and legislation which would strengthen the Buy American Act. Today I am introducing legislation that would help workers who have lost their manufacturing or service sector jobs to be retrained for jobs in high-demand health care fields. I am pleased that my colleague, Senator Mikulski, is cosponsoring this important legislation and I look forward to working with her to advance it during the 110th Congress.

According to statistics from the Department of Labor, Wisconsin has lost over 90,000 manufacturing jobs between January 2000 and November 2006. Nationally, the country has lost around 3 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001, yet the administration has continued to support policies that lead to the outsourcing of American jobs. I continue to be deeply troubled by the Bush Administration's contention that the outsourcing of American service sector and other jobs is good for the economy. I am concerned about the message that this policy sends to Wisconsinites and all Americans who are currently employed in these sectors.

There is something of a silver lining to the looming cloud of manufacturing and other jobs loss: the country's workforce development system.

In spite of stretched resources and long waiting lists for services, our workforce development boards are making a tremendous effort to retrain laid-off workers and other job seekers for new jobs. And this effort is clearly evident in Wisconsin, where my State's workforce development boards--despite shoestring budgets--are leading the way in finding innovative solutions to retraining workers for new careers.

I strongly support the work of these agencies, and have urged the Administration and Senate appropriators to provide adequate funding for the job training programs authorized by the Workforce Investment Act. I look forward to the reauthorization of the Workforce Investment Act this year and I will continue to work to ensure that the workforce development boards in my state and across our country receive the resources that they need to help job seekers get the training they need to be successful.

I am committed to finding resources to retrain those who have been laid off from the manufacturing and service sectors and who wish to find new jobs in high-demand fields such as health care.

As most of my colleagues know all too well, we are facing a significant shortage of health care workers. Congress has made some progress in addressing the nursing shortage, but we need to expand our efforts. Shortages of health professionals pose a real threat to the health of our communities by impacting access to timely, high-quality health care. Studies have shown that shortages of nurses in our hospitals and health facilities increase medical errors, which directly affects patient health.

As our population ages, and the baby-boomers need more health care, our need for all types of health professionals is only going to increase. This is particularly true for the field of long-term care. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we are going to need an additional 1.4 million nursing aides, home health aides, and other health professionals in long-term care before the year 2014. In total, there will be almost 1.7 million job openings in health care support occupations through 2012.

As our demand for health care workers grows, so does the number of jobs available within this sector. According to the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, the surging job growth in health care will translate into a real need for workers, and real opportunity. In Wisconsin alone, there will be an additional 61,910 health care positions by 2014. This represents a 27 percent increase in jobs in health care by 2014.

Workforce development agencies in my home State of Wisconsin are already working to support displaced workers in their communities by training them for health care jobs, since there is a real need for workers in these fields. These agencies are helping communities get and maintain access to high-quality health care by ensuring that there are enough health care workers to care for their communities.

As the executive director of one of the workforce development boards in my State put it, ``[t]here are simply not many good quality jobs to replace manufacturing jobs lost to rural communities. The medical professions, by offering a `living wage' and good benefits, provide an excellent alternative to manufacturing for sustaining a higher, family- oriented standard of living.''

I believe we should support our communities in these efforts by providing them with the resources they need to establish, sustain, or expand these important programs. For that reason, today I am introducing the Community-Based Health Care Retraining Act. This bill would amend the Workforce Investment Act to authorize a demonstration project to provide grants to community-based coalitions, led by local workforce development boards, to create programs to retrain unemployed workers who wish to obtain new jobs in the health care professions. My bill would authorize a total of $25 million for grants between $100,000 and $500,000, and, in the interest of fiscal responsibility, my legislation is fully offset.

This bill will help provide communities with the resources they need to run retraining programs for the health professions. The funds could be used for a variety of purposes, from increasing the capacity of our schools and training facilities, to providing financial and social support for workers who are in retraining programs. This bill allows for flexibility in the use of grant funds because I believe that communities know best about the resources they need to run an efficient program.

This bill represents a nexus in my efforts to support workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas and to ensure that all Americans have access to the high-quality health care that they deserve. By providing targeted assistance to train laid-off workers who wish to obtain new jobs in the health care sector, we can both help unemployed Americans and improve the availability and quality of health care that is available in our communities.

I am pleased that this bill is supported by a variety of organizations that are committed to providing high-quality job training and health care services, including: the Wisconsin Association of Job Training Executives, the Wisconsin Hospital Association, Madison Area Technical College, the Northwest Wisconsin Concentrated Employment Program, the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin, the Bay Area Workforce Development Board, the Healthcare Workforce Network, the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board, Sauk County Development Corporation, the American Osteopathic Society, Umos, the Fox Valley Workforce Development Board, and the West Central Wisconsin Workforce Development Board.

In order to ensure that our workers are able to compete in the new economy, we must ensure that they have the tools they need to be trained or retrained for high-demand jobs such as those in the health care field. My bill is a small step toward providing the resources necessary to achieve this goal. I will continue to work to strengthen the American manufacturing sector and to support those workers who have been displaced due to bad trade agreements and other policies that have led to the loss of American jobs.

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

Mr. President, today I introduce the Wartime Treatment Study Act. This bill would create two fact-finding commissions: one commission to review the U.S. government's treatment of German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans during World War II, and another commission to review the U.S. government's treatment of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution during World War II. This bill is long overdue.

I am very pleased that my colleagues Senators Grassley, Kennedy, Lieberman and Inouye have joined me as cosponsors of this important bill. I thank them for their support. And I thank Congressman Wexler, who has been the unflagging champion of this legislation in the House of Representatives.

The victory of America and its allies in the Second World War was a triumph for freedom, justice, and human rights. The courage displayed by so many Americans, of all ethnic origins, should be a source of great pride for all Americans.

But, at the same time that so many brave Americans fought for freedom in

Europe and the Pacific, the U.S. government was curtailing the freedom of people here at home. While, it is, of course, the right of every nation to protect itself during wartime, the U.S. Government must respect the basic freedoms for which so many Americans have given their lives to defend. War tests our principles and our values. And as our Nation's recent experience has shown, it is during times of war and conflict, when our fears are high and our principles are tested most, that we must be even more vigilant to guard against violations of the basic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.

Many Americans are aware that during World War II, under the authority of Executive Order 9066, our government forced more than 100,000 ethnic Japanese from their homes and ultimately into internment camps. Japanese Americans were forced to leave their homes, their livelihoods, and their communities and were held behind barbed wire and military guard by their own government. Through the work of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, created by Congress in 1980, this shameful event finally received the official acknowledgement and condemnation it deserved. Under the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, people of Japanese ancestry who were subjected to relocation or internment later received an apology and reparations on behalf of the people of the United States.

February 19, 2007, is the ``Day of Remembrance,'' the 65th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. On this day, we should remember the freedoms all of these individuals were forced to give up, and resolve never to make these mistakes again.

While I commend our government for finally recognizing and apologizing for the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during World War II, I believe that it is time that the government also acknowledge the mistreatment experienced by many German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans, as well as Jewish refugees.

The Wartime Treatment Study Act would create two independent, fact- finding commissions to review this unfortunate history, so that Americans can understand why it happened and work to ensure that it never happens again. One commission will review the treatment by the U.S. government of German Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans, as well as European Latin Americans, during World War II.

I believe that most Americans are unaware that, as was the case with Japanese Americans, approximately 11,000 ethnic Germans, 3,200 ethnic Italians, and scores of Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians or other European Americans living in America were taken from their homes and placed in internment camps during World War II. We must learn from this history and explore why we turned on our fellow Americans and failed to protect their basic freedoms.

A second commission created by this bill will review the treatment by the U.S. government of Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi persecution and genocide. We must review the facts here as well and determine how restrictive immigration policies failed to provide adequate safe harbor to Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of Nazi Germany. It is a horrible truth that the United States turned away thousands of refugees, delivering many refugees to their deaths at the hands of the Nazi regime.

As I mentioned earlier, there has been a measure of justice for Japanese Americans who were denied their liberty and property. It is now time for the U.S. government to complete the accounting of this period in our nation's history. It is time to create independent, fact- finding commissions to conduct a full and through review of the treatment of all European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees during World War II.

Up to this point, there has been no justice for the thousands of German Americans, Italian Americans, and other European Americans who were branded ``enemy aliens'' and then taken from their homes, subjected to curfews, limited in their travel, deprived of their personal property, and, in the worst cases, placed in internment camps.

There has been no justice for Latin Americans of European descent who were shipped to the United States and sometimes repatriated or deported to hostile, war-torn European Axis powers, often in exchange for Americans being held in those countries.

Finally, there has been no justice for the thousands of Jews, like those aboard the German vessel the St. Louis, who sought refuge from hostile Nazi treatment but were callously turned away at America's shores.

The injustices to European Americans, European Latin Americans, and Jewish refugees occurred more than fifty years ago. Americans can learn from these tragedies now, while the people who survived these injustices are still with us, and are still here to teach us. We cannot put this off any longer. If we wait, the people who were affected will no longer be here to know that Congress has at last recognized their sacrifice and resolved to learn from the mistakes of the past.

We should never allow this part of our Nation's history to repeat itself. And, while we should be proud of our Nation's triumph in World War II, we should not let that justifiable pride blind us to the treatment of some Americans by their own government.

As the Day of Remembrance approaches, I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Wartime Treatment Study Act, and to allow this bill to become law as soon as possible. I have been seeking to enact this legislation for six years. It is time for a full accounting of this tragic chapter in our Nation's history.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Wartime Treatment Study Act be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation to help American workers and companies.

The bill that I am introducing, the Buy American Improvement Act, focuses on the Federal Government's responsibility to support domestic manufacturers and workers and on the role of Federal procurement policy in achieving this goal. The reintroduction of this bill, which I first introduced in 2003, is part of my ongoing efforts to stem the flow of manufacturing jobs abroad.

The Buy American Act of 1933 is the primary statute that governs Federal procurement. The name of this law accurately describes its purpose: to ensure that the Federal Government supports domestic companies and domestic workers by buying American-made goods. Regrettably, this law contains a number of loopholes that make it too easy for government agencies to buy foreign-made goods.

My bill, the Buy American Improvement Act, would strengthen the existing law by tightening its waiver provisions. Currently, the heads of Federal departments and agencies are given broad discretion to waive the Act and buy foreign goods with little or no accountability. We should ensure that the Federal Government makes every effort to give Federal contracts to companies that will perform the work domestically. We should also ensure that certain types of industries do not leave the United States completely, thus making the Federal Government dependent on foreign sources for goods, such as plane or ship parts, that our military may need to acquire on short notice.

I have often heard my colleagues say on this floor that American-made goods are the best in the world. I could not agree more. Regrettably, nearly 90,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs have left my State since 2000. And the country has lost around 3 million manufacturing jobs since January 2001. This hemorrhaging of jobs shows that Congress needs to do more to support domestic manufacturers and their employees. One way to do this is to ensure that the Federal Government makes every effort to buy American-made goods.

There are five primary waivers to the Buy American Act, and my bill addresses four of them. The first of these waivers allows an agency head to buy foreign goods if complying with the Act would be ``inconsistent with the public interest.'' I am concerned that this waiver, which includes no definition for what is ``inconsistent with the public interest,'' is actually a gaping loophole that gives too much discretion to department secretaries and agency heads. My bill would modify this waiver provision to prohibit it from being invoked by an agency or department head after a request for proposals, or RFP, has been published in the Federal Register. Once the bidding process has begun, the Federal Government should not be able to pull an RFP by saying that it is in the ``public interest'' to do so. This determination, sometimes referred to as the Buy American Act's national security waiver, should be made well in advance of placing a contract up for bid. To do otherwise pulls the rug out from under companies that are spending valuable time and resources to prepare a bid for a Federal contract.

The Buy American Act may also be waived if the head of the agency determines that the cost of the lowestpriced domestic product is ``unreasonable,'' and a system of price differentials is used to assist in making this determination. My bill would modify this waiver to require that preference be given to the American company if that company's bid is substantially similar to the lowest foreign bid or if the American company is the only domestic source for the item to be procured.

I have a long record of supporting efforts to help taxpayers get the most bang for their buck and opposing wasteful Federal spending. I don't think anyone can argue that supporting American jobs is ``wasteful.'' We owe it to American manufacturers and their employees to make sure they get a fair shake. I would not support awarding a contract to an American company that is price gouging, but we should make every effort to ensure that domestic sources for goods needed by the Federal Government do not dry up because American companies have been slightly underbid by foreign competitors.

The Buy American Act also includes a waiver for goods bought by the Federal Government that will be used outside of the United States. There is no question that there are occasions when the Federal Government needs to procure items quickly for use outside the United States. However, there may be items that are bought on a regular basis and used at foreign military bases or United States embassies, for example, that could reasonably be procured from domestic sources and shipped to the location where they will be used. My bill would require Federal agencies to compare the difference in cost for obtaining articles that are used on a regular basis outside the U.S., or that are not needed immediately, between an overseas versus a domestic source-- including the cost of shipping--before awarding the contract to the company that will do the work overseas.

The Buy American Act's domestic source requirements may also be waived if the articles to be procured are not available from domestic sources ``in sufficient and reasonably available commercial quantities and of

a satisfactory quality.'' My bill would require that an agency or department head, prior to issuing such as waiver, determine whether domestic production can be initiated to meet the procurement needs and whether a comparable article, material, or supply is available domestically.

My bill would also strengthen the Buy American Act in four other ways. It would, for the first time, make the Buy American requirement applicable to the United States Congress. The current definition of a Federal agency in the Act specifically exempts the Senate, the House, and the Architect of the Capitol, and activities under the direction of the Architect. I believe that Congress should lead by example and comply with the Buy American Act, a requirement that we have imposed on executive agencies.

Secondly, my bill would increase the minimum American content standard for qualification under the Act from the current 50 percent to 75 percent. The definition of what qualifies as an American-made product has been a source of much debate. To me, it seems clear that ``American-made'' means manufactured in this country. This classification is a source of pride for manufacturing workers around our country. The current 50 percent standard should be raised to a minimum of 75 percent.

In addition, my bill would put in place for the next five years the expanded reporting requirement that I authored which was first enacted as part of the fiscal year 2004 omnibus spending bill and was included again by this body as an amendment to the recent minimum wage bill. Prior to the enactment of these provisions, only the Department of Defense was required to report to Congress on its use of Buy American waivers and purchases of foreign goods. It is virtually impossible to get hard numbers on the Federal Government's purchases of foreign--and domestic--made goods and to ensure that there is disclosure and accountability in the waiver process. This reporting requirement seeks to hold agencies accountable by requiring agencies to report on their foreign-made purchases and make that information available to Congress and the American public.

The annual report to be submitted by agency heads will be required to include the following information: the dollar value of any items purchased that were manufactured outside of the United States; an itemized list of all applicable waivers granted with respect to such items under the Buy American Act, including the type of waiver used; and a summary of the total procurement funds spent by the Federal agency on goods manufactured in the United States versus on goods manufactured overseas. In addition, my bill also requires that the heads of all Federal agencies make these annual reports publicly available on the Internet.

Finally, my bill would require the Government Accountability Office to report to Congress with recommendations for defining the terms ``inconsistent with the public interest'' and ``unreasonable cost'' for purposes of invoking the corresponding waivers in the Act. I am concerned that both of these terms lack definitions, and that they can be very broadly interpreted by agency or department heads. GAO would be required to make recommendations for statutory definitions of both of these terms, as well as for establishing a consistent waiver process that can be used by all Federal agencies.

The gaping loopholes in the Buy American Act and the trade agreements and defense procurement agreements that contain additional waivers of domestic source restrictions have combined to weaken our domestic manufacturing base by allowing--and sometimes actually encouraging--the Federal Government to buy foreign-made goods. Congress can and should do more to support American companies and American workers. We must strengthen the Buy American Act and we must stop entering into bad trade agreements that send our jobs overseas and undermine our own domestic preference laws.

By strengthening Federal procurement policy, we can help to bolster our domestic manufacturers during these difficult times. As I have repeatedly noted, Congress cannot simply stand on the sidelines while tens of thousands of American manufacturing jobs have been and continue to be shipped overseas. While there may be no single solution to this problem one way in which Congress should act is by strengthening the Buy American Act.

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

Mr. President, today I introduce the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007. I am pleased to be joined in introducing this legislation by the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain. We have worked together for some time to modernize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and I thank Senator McCain for his continued commitment to this issue.

I was pleased that the Senate made significant progress last Congress and included many key reforms in the Senate-passed Water Resources Development Act. I again thank my colleagues who cosponsored a successful independent peer review amendment: the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper; the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman; the former Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords; and the Senators from Maine, Ms. Collins and Ms. Snowe. I also want to acknowledge the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, for her support for this amendment. In addition, I appreciate the efforts to include reform provisions in the underlying bill by the then-Environment and Public Works Committee Chairs and Ranking Members: the former Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords; the Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus; the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Inhofe; and the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Bond. After six years of efforts on this issue, we made significant progress. However, negotiations between the House and Senate stalled and no conference report was agreed to.

By introducing this bill today, I am renewing my efforts to ensure that the Corps of Engineers' water resources planning is brought into the 21st century. As we all know, Hurricane Katrina produced one of the most tragic and costly natural disasters in our Nation's history. Water resources projects authorized by Congress and planned by the Corps of Engineers contributed to the loss of vital coastal wetlands (which can provide natural buffers from storm surge), intensified the storm surge into New Orleans, and encouraged development in flood-prone areas.

The flawed project planning, however, did not end there. Floodwalls and levees that the Corps built to protect New Orleans failed catastrophically during Hurricane Katrina. It is now well recognized and indeed, the Corps has acknowledged--that flawed engineering and construction led to those failures and the flooding of much of New Orleans.

Over the past decade, dozens of governmental and scientific studies have documented other flaws in Corps of Engineers' project planning. Most recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified that recent Corps studies ``did not provide a reasonable basis for decision-making'' because they were ``were fraught with errors, mistakes, and miscalculations, and used invalid assumptions and outdated data.'' The GAO found that the recurring problems at the agency were ``systemic in nature and therefore prevalent throughout the Corps' Civil Works portfolio.''

We can, and must, do better.

Congress should not authorize additional Army Corps projects until it has considered and passed the reforms included in the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act. From ensuring large projects are sound to using natural resources to protect our communities, modernizing water resources policy is a national priority.

The Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007 represents a sensible effort to increase our environmental stewardship and significantly reduce the government waste inherent in poorly designed or low priority U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects. It represents a way to both protect the environment and save taxpayer dollars. With support from Taxpayers for Common Sense Action, National Taxpayers Union, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, American Rivers, Association of State Wetland Managers, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, National Wildlife Federation, Republicans for Environmental Protection, Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, and the World Wildlife Fund, the bill has the backing of a committed and diverse coalition.

The Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007 can be broadly divided into five parts: ensuring sound projects and responsible spending, valuing our natural resources, focusing our resources, identifying vulnerabilities, and updating the Army Corps of Engineer's planning guidelines.

To ensure that Corps water resources projects are sound, the bill requires independent review of those projects estimated to cost over $40 million, those requested by a Governor of an affected state, those which the head of a federal agency has determined may lead to a significant adverse impact, or those that the Secretary of the Army has found to be controversial. As crafted in the bill, independent review should not increase the length of time required for project planning but would protect the public--both those in the vicinity of massive projects and those whose tax dollars are funding projects. The Director of Independent Review can also require independent review of the technical designs and construction of flood damage reduction projects to ensure public safety and welfare. The independent review provision is identical to that supported by a majority of my colleagues last Congress and included in the Senate-passed WRDA.

We must do a better job of valuing our natural resources, such as wetlands, that provide important services. These resources can help buffer communities from storms, filter contaminants out of our water, support vibrant economies, and provide vital fish and wildlife habitat. Recognizing the role

of these natural systems, the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007 brings the Corps' 1986 mitigation standards into line with their regulatory program by requiring Corps water resources projects to meet the same mitigation standard that is required of all private citizens and other entities under the Clean Water Act. Where States have adopted stronger mitigation standards, the Corps must meet those standards. I feel very strongly that the Federal government should be able to live up to this requirement. Unfortunately, all too often, the Corps has not completed required mitigation. This legislation will make sure that mitigation is completed, that the true costs of mitigation are accounted for in Corps projects, and that the public is able to track the progress of mitigation projects.

Our current prioritization process is not serving the public good. To address this problem, the bill reinvigorates the Water Resources Council, originally established in 1965, and charges it with providing Congress a prioritized list of authorized water resource projects within one year of enactment and then every two years following. The prioritized list would also be printed in the Federal Register for the public to see. The Water Resources Council described in the bill, comprised of cabinet-level officials, would bring together varied perspectives to shape a list of national needs. In short, the prioritization process would be improved to make sure Congress has the tools to more wisely invest limited resources while also increasing public transparency in decision making--both needed and reasonable improvements to the status quo.

Taking stock of our vulnerabilities to natural disasters must also be a priority. For this reason, the bill also directs the Water Resources Council to identify and report to Congress on the nation's vulnerability to flood and related storm damage, including the risk to human life and property, and relative risks to different regions of the country. The Water Resources Council would also recommend improvements to the nation's various flood damage reduction programs to better address those risks. Many of these improvements were discussed in a government report following the 1993 floods so the building blocks are available; we just need to update the assessment. Then, of course, we must actually take action based on the assessment. To help speed such action, the legislation specifies that the Administration will submit a response to Congress, including legislative proposals to implement the recommendations, on the Water Resources Council report no later than 90 days after the report has been made public. We cannot afford to have this report, which will outline improvements to our flood damage reduction programs, languish like others before it.

The process by which the Army Corps of Engineers analyzes water projects should undergo periodic revision. Unfortunately, the Corps' principles and guidelines, which bind the planning process, have not been updated since 1983. This is why the bill requires that the Water Resources Council work in coordination with the National Academy of Sciences to propose periodic revisions to the Corps' planning principles and guidelines, regulations, and circulars. Updating the project planning process should involve consideration of a variety of issues, including the use of modern economic analysis and the same discount rates as used by all other Federal agencies. Simple steps such as these will lead to more precise estimates of project costs and benefits, a first step to considering whether a project should move forward.

Modernizing all aspects of our water resources policy will help restore credibility to a Federal agency historically rocked by scandal and currently plagued by public skepticism. Congress has long used the Army Corps of Engineers to facilitate favored pork-barrel projects, while periodically expressing a desire to change its ways. Back in 1836, a House Ways and Means Committee report referred to Congress ensuring that the Corps sought ``actual reform, in the further prosecution of public works.'' Over 150 years later, the need for actual reform is stronger than ever.

My office has strong working relationships with the Detroit, Rock Island, and St. Paul District Offices that service Wisconsin, and I do not want this bill to be misconstrued as reflecting on the work of those district offices. What I do want is the fiscal and management cloud over the entire Army Corps to dissipate so that the Corps can better contribute to our environment and our economy--without wasting taxpayer dollars or endangering public safety.

I wish the changes we are proposing today were not needed, but unfortunately that is not the case. In fact, if there were ever a need for the bill, it is now. We must make sure that future Corps projects produce predicted benefits, are in furtherance of national priorities, and do not have negative environmental impacts. This bill gives the Corps the tools it needs to do a better job and focuses the attention of Congress on national needs, which is what the American taxpayers and the environment deserve.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, which was introduced today by Senator Dodd. It amends the deeply flawed Military Commissions Act of 2006 to restore basic due process rights and to ensure that no person is subject to indefinite detention without charge based on the sole discretion of the President.

Let me be clear: I welcome efforts to bring terrorists to justice. This administration has for too long been distracted by the war in Iraq from the fight against al Qaeda. We need a renewed focus on the terrorist networks that present the greatest threat to this country.

Last year, the President agreed to consult with Congress on the makeup of military commissions only because he was essentially ordered to do so by the Supreme Court in the Hamdan decision. Congress should have taken that opportunity to pass legislation that would allow these trials to proceed in accordance with our laws and our values. That is what separates America from our enemies. These trials, conducted appropriately, would have had the potential to demonstrate to the world that our democratic, constitutional system of government is not a hindrance but a source of strength in fighting those who attacked us.

Instead, we passed the Military Commissions Act, legislation that violates the basic principles and values of our constitutional system of government. It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no opportunity for them to challenge their detention in court. And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death.

The checks and balances of our system of government and the fundamental fairness of the American people and legal system are among our greatest strengths in the fight against terrorism. I was deeply disappointed that Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act. The day that bill became law was a stain on our Nation's history.

It is time to undo the harm caused by that legislation.

The Restoring the Constitution Act amends the Military Commissions Act to remedy its most serious flaws, and I am pleased to support it.

First of all, this legislation would restore the great writ of habeas corpus, to ensure that detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere-- people who have been held for years but have not

been tried or even charged with any crime--have the ability to challenge their detention in court. Senator Dodd's bill would repeal the habeas stripping provisions of both the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act.

Habeas corpus is a fundamental recognition that in America, the government does not have the power to detain people indefinitely and arbitrarily. And that in America, the courts must have the power to review the legality of executive detention decisions.

Habeas corpus is a longstanding vital part of our American tradition, and is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

As a group of retired judges wrote to Congress last year, habeas corpus ``safeguards the most hallowed judicial role in our constitutional democracy--ensuring that no man is imprisoned unlawfully.''

The Military Commissions Act fundamentally altered that historical equation. Faced with an executive branch that has detained hundreds of people without trial for years now, it eliminated the right of habeas corpus.

Under the Military Commissions Act, some individuals, at the designation of the executive branch alone, could be picked up, even in the United States, and held indefinitely without trial, without due process, without any access whatsoever to the courts. They would not be able to call upon the laws of our great nation to challenge their detention because they would have been put outside the reach of the law.

That is unacceptable, and it almost surely violates our Constitution. But that determination will take years of protracted litigation. Under the Dodd bill, we would not have to wait. We would restore the right to habeas corpus now. We can provide a lawful system of military commissions so that those who have committed war crimes can be brought to justice, without denying one of the most basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution to those held in custody by our government.

Some have suggested that terrorists who take up arms against this country should not be allowed to challenge their detention in court. But that argument is circular--the writ of habeas allows those who might be mistakenly detained to challenge their detention in court, before a neutral decision-maker. The alternative is to allow people to be detained indefinitely with no ability to argue that they are not, in fact, enemy combatants. Unless it can be said with absolute certainty that every person detained as an enemy combatant was correctly detained--and there is ample evidence to suggest that is not the case-- then we should make sure that people can't simply be locked up forever, without court review, based on someone slapping a ``terrorist'' label on them.

We must return to the great writ. We must be true to our Nation's proud traditions and principles by restoring the writ of habeas corpus, by making clear that we do not permit our government to pick people up off the street, even in U.S. cities, and detain them indefinitely without court review. That is not what America is about.

But the Restoring the Constitution Act does far more than restore habeas corpus. It also addresses who can be subject to trial by military commission.

The Military Commissions Act was justified as necessary to allow our government to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other dangerous men transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. Yet if you look at the fine print of that legislation, it becomes clear that it is much, much broader than that. It would permit trial by military commission not just for those accused of planning the September 11 attacks, but also individuals, including legal permanent residents of this country, who are alleged to have ``purposefully and materially supported hostilities'' against the United States or its allies.

This is extremely broad. And by including hostilities not only against the United States but also against its allies, the Military Commissions Act allows the U.S. to hold and try by military commission individuals who have never engaged, directly or indirectly, in any action against the United States.

Not only that, but the Military Commissions Act would also define as an unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by military commission, anyone who ``has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.'' This essentially grants a blank check to the executive branch to decide entirely on its own who can be tried by military commission.

Senator Dodd's bill makes clear that the President cannot unilaterally decide who is eligible for trial by military commission. Under the Dodd bill, in order to be tried by military commission, an individual must have directly participated in hostilities against the United States in a zone of active combat, or have been involved in the September 11 attacks, and cannot be a lawful enemy combatant.

Senator Dodd's bill also addresses the structure and process of the military commissions themselves. It ensures that these military commission procedures hew closely to the long-established military system of justice, as recommended by countless witnesses at congressional hearings last summer.

Some examples of the ways in which the Dodd bill improves the military commission procedures include: It prevents the use of evidence in court gained through torture or coercion. It ensures that any evidence seized within the United States without a search warrant cannot be introduced as evidence. It empowers military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable. It authorizes the existing U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to review decisions by military commissions, rather than the newly created ``Court of Military Commission Review,'' whose members would be appointed by the Secretary of Defense. And it provides for expedited judicial review of the Military Commissions Act to determine the constitutionally of its provisions before anyone is tried by military commission, so that we will not face even more delays in the future.

Many of these provisions were included in the bill passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2006, but then stripped out or altered in backroom negotiations with the Administration. The bill also improves changes to the War Crimes Act and emphasizes the importance of compliance with the Geneva Conventions.

In sum, Senator Dodd's legislation addresses many of the most troubling and legally suspect provisions of the Military Commissions Act. Congress would be wise to make these changes now, rather than wait around while the Military Commissions Act is subject to further legal challenge, and another 4 or 5 years are squandered while cases work their way through the courts again.

In closing let me quote John Ashcroft. According to the New York Times, at a private meeting of high-level officials in 2003 about the military commission structure, then-Attorney General Ashcroft said: ``Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history. But at least we had fair procedures for him.'' How sad that Congress passed legislation about which the same cannot be said. We can and must undo this mistake.

Mr. President, today I introduce the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007. I am pleased to be joined in introducing this legislation by the senior Senator from Arizona, Mr. McCain. We have worked together for some time to modernize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and I thank Senator McCain for his continued commitment to this issue.

I was pleased that the Senate made significant progress last Congress and included many key reforms in the Senate-passed Water Resources Development Act. I again thank my colleagues who cosponsored a successful independent peer review amendment: the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper; the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Lieberman; the former Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords; and the Senators from Maine, Ms. Collins and Ms. Snowe. I also want to acknowledge the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, for her support for this amendment. In addition, I appreciate the efforts to include reform provisions in the underlying bill by the then-Environment and Public Works Committee Chairs and Ranking Members: the former Senator from Vermont, Mr. Jeffords; the Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus; the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Inhofe; and the Senator from Missouri, Mr. Bond. After six years of efforts on this issue, we made significant progress. However, negotiations between the House and Senate stalled and no conference report was agreed to.

By introducing this bill today, I am renewing my efforts to ensure that the Corps of Engineers' water resources planning is brought into the 21st century. As we all know, Hurricane Katrina produced one of the most tragic and costly natural disasters in our Nation's history. Water resources projects authorized by Congress and planned by the Corps of Engineers contributed to the loss of vital coastal wetlands (which can provide natural buffers from storm surge), intensified the storm surge into New Orleans, and encouraged development in flood-prone areas.

The flawed project planning, however, did not end there. Floodwalls and levees that the Corps built to protect New Orleans failed catastrophically during Hurricane Katrina. It is now well recognized and indeed, the Corps has acknowledged--that flawed engineering and construction led to those failures and the flooding of much of New Orleans.

Over the past decade, dozens of governmental and scientific studies have documented other flaws in Corps of Engineers' project planning. Most recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified that recent Corps studies ``did not provide a reasonable basis for decision-making'' because they were ``were fraught with errors, mistakes, and miscalculations, and used invalid assumptions and outdated data.'' The GAO found that the recurring problems at the agency were ``systemic in nature and therefore prevalent throughout the Corps' Civil Works portfolio.''

We can, and must, do better.

Congress should not authorize additional Army Corps projects until it has considered and passed the reforms included in the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act. From ensuring large projects are sound to using natural resources to protect our communities, modernizing water resources policy is a national priority.

The Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007 represents a sensible effort to increase our environmental stewardship and significantly reduce the government waste inherent in poorly designed or low priority U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects. It represents a way to both protect the environment and save taxpayer dollars. With support from Taxpayers for Common Sense Action, National Taxpayers Union, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, American Rivers, Association of State Wetland Managers, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Earth, National Wildlife Federation, Republicans for Environmental Protection, Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, and the World Wildlife Fund, the bill has the backing of a committed and diverse coalition.

The Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007 can be broadly divided into five parts: ensuring sound projects and responsible spending, valuing our natural resources, focusing our resources, identifying vulnerabilities, and updating the Army Corps of Engineer's planning guidelines.

To ensure that Corps water resources projects are sound, the bill requires independent review of those projects estimated to cost over $40 million, those requested by a Governor of an affected state, those which the head of a federal agency has determined may lead to a significant adverse impact, or those that the Secretary of the Army has found to be controversial. As crafted in the bill, independent review should not increase the length of time required for project planning but would protect the public--both those in the vicinity of massive projects and those whose tax dollars are funding projects. The Director of Independent Review can also require independent review of the technical designs and construction of flood damage reduction projects to ensure public safety and welfare. The independent review provision is identical to that supported by a majority of my colleagues last Congress and included in the Senate-passed WRDA.

We must do a better job of valuing our natural resources, such as wetlands, that provide important services. These resources can help buffer communities from storms, filter contaminants out of our water, support vibrant economies, and provide vital fish and wildlife habitat. Recognizing the role

of these natural systems, the Water Resources Planning and Modernization Act of 2007 brings the Corps' 1986 mitigation standards into line with their regulatory program by requiring Corps water resources projects to meet the same mitigation standard that is required of all private citizens and other entities under the Clean Water Act. Where States have adopted stronger mitigation standards, the Corps must meet those standards. I feel very strongly that the Federal government should be able to live up to this requirement. Unfortunately, all too often, the Corps has not completed required mitigation. This legislation will make sure that mitigation is completed, that the true costs of mitigation are accounted for in Corps projects, and that the public is able to track the progress of mitigation projects.

Our current prioritization process is not serving the public good. To address this problem, the bill reinvigorates the Water Resources Council, originally established in 1965, and charges it with providing Congress a prioritized list of authorized water resource projects within one year of enactment and then every two years following. The prioritized list would also be printed in the Federal Register for the public to see. The Water Resources Council described in the bill, comprised of cabinet-level officials, would bring together varied perspectives to shape a list of national needs. In short, the prioritization process would be improved to make sure Congress has the tools to more wisely invest limited resources while also increasing public transparency in decision making--both needed and reasonable improvements to the status quo.

Taking stock of our vulnerabilities to natural disasters must also be a priority. For this reason, the bill also directs the Water Resources Council to identify and report to Congress on the nation's vulnerability to flood and related storm damage, including the risk to human life and property, and relative risks to different regions of the country. The Water Resources Council would also recommend improvements to the nation's various flood damage reduction programs to better address those risks. Many of these improvements were discussed in a government report following the 1993 floods so the building blocks are available; we just need to update the assessment. Then, of course, we must actually take action based on the assessment. To help speed such action, the legislation specifies that the Administration will submit a response to Congress, including legislative proposals to implement the recommendations, on the Water Resources Council report no later than 90 days after the report has been made public. We cannot afford to have this report, which will outline improvements to our flood damage reduction programs, languish like others before it.

The process by which the Army Corps of Engineers analyzes water projects should undergo periodic revision. Unfortunately, the Corps' principles and guidelines, which bind the planning process, have not been updated since 1983. This is why the bill requires that the Water Resources Council work in coordination with the National Academy of Sciences to propose periodic revisions to the Corps' planning principles and guidelines, regulations, and circulars. Updating the project planning process should involve consideration of a variety of issues, including the use of modern economic analysis and the same discount rates as used by all other Federal agencies. Simple steps such as these will lead to more precise estimates of project costs and benefits, a first step to considering whether a project should move forward.

Modernizing all aspects of our water resources policy will help restore credibility to a Federal agency historically rocked by scandal and currently plagued by public skepticism. Congress has long used the Army Corps of Engineers to facilitate favored pork-barrel projects, while periodically expressing a desire to change its ways. Back in 1836, a House Ways and Means Committee report referred to Congress ensuring that the Corps sought ``actual reform, in the further prosecution of public works.'' Over 150 years later, the need for actual reform is stronger than ever.

My office has strong working relationships with the Detroit, Rock Island, and St. Paul District Offices that service Wisconsin, and I do not want this bill to be misconstrued as reflecting on the work of those district offices. What I do want is the fiscal and management cloud over the entire Army Corps to dissipate so that the Corps can better contribute to our environment and our economy--without wasting taxpayer dollars or endangering public safety.

I wish the changes we are proposing today were not needed, but unfortunately that is not the case. In fact, if there were ever a need for the bill, it is now. We must make sure that future Corps projects produce predicted benefits, are in furtherance of national priorities, and do not have negative environmental impacts. This bill gives the Corps the tools it needs to do a better job and focuses the attention of Congress on national needs, which is what the American taxpayers and the environment deserve.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to cosponsor the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, which was introduced today by Senator Dodd. It amends the deeply flawed Military Commissions Act of 2006 to restore basic due process rights and to ensure that no person is subject to indefinite detention without charge based on the sole discretion of the President.

Let me be clear: I welcome efforts to bring terrorists to justice. This administration has for too long been distracted by the war in Iraq from the fight against al Qaeda. We need a renewed focus on the terrorist networks that present the greatest threat to this country.

Last year, the President agreed to consult with Congress on the makeup of military commissions only because he was essentially ordered to do so by the Supreme Court in the Hamdan decision. Congress should have taken that opportunity to pass legislation that would allow these trials to proceed in accordance with our laws and our values. That is what separates America from our enemies. These trials, conducted appropriately, would have had the potential to demonstrate to the world that our democratic, constitutional system of government is not a hindrance but a source of strength in fighting those who attacked us.

Instead, we passed the Military Commissions Act, legislation that violates the basic principles and values of our constitutional system of government. It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no opportunity for them to challenge their detention in court. And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death.

The checks and balances of our system of government and the fundamental fairness of the American people and legal system are among our greatest strengths in the fight against terrorism. I was deeply disappointed that Congress enacted the Military Commissions Act. The day that bill became law was a stain on our Nation's history.

It is time to undo the harm caused by that legislation.

The Restoring the Constitution Act amends the Military Commissions Act to remedy its most serious flaws, and I am pleased to support it.

First of all, this legislation would restore the great writ of habeas corpus, to ensure that detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere-- people who have been held for years but have not

been tried or even charged with any crime--have the ability to challenge their detention in court. Senator Dodd's bill would repeal the habeas stripping provisions of both the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act.

Habeas corpus is a fundamental recognition that in America, the government does not have the power to detain people indefinitely and arbitrarily. And that in America, the courts must have the power to review the legality of executive detention decisions.

Habeas corpus is a longstanding vital part of our American tradition, and is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

As a group of retired judges wrote to Congress last year, habeas corpus ``safeguards the most hallowed judicial role in our constitutional democracy--ensuring that no man is imprisoned unlawfully.''

The Military Commissions Act fundamentally altered that historical equation. Faced with an executive branch that has detained hundreds of people without trial for years now, it eliminated the right of habeas corpus.

Under the Military Commissions Act, some individuals, at the designation of the executive branch alone, could be picked up, even in the United States, and held indefinitely without trial, without due process, without any access whatsoever to the courts. They would not be able to call upon the laws of our great nation to challenge their detention because they would have been put outside the reach of the law.

That is unacceptable, and it almost surely violates our Constitution. But that determination will take years of protracted litigation. Under the Dodd bill, we would not have to wait. We would restore the right to habeas corpus now. We can provide a lawful system of military commissions so that those who have committed war crimes can be brought to justice, without denying one of the most basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution to those held in custody by our government.

Some have suggested that terrorists who take up arms against this country should not be allowed to challenge their detention in court. But that argument is circular--the writ of habeas allows those who might be mistakenly detained to challenge their detention in court, before a neutral decision-maker. The alternative is to allow people to be detained indefinitely with no ability to argue that they are not, in fact, enemy combatants. Unless it can be said with absolute certainty that every person detained as an enemy combatant was correctly detained--and there is ample evidence to suggest that is not the case-- then we should make sure that people can't simply be locked up forever, without court review, based on someone slapping a ``terrorist'' label on them.

We must return to the great writ. We must be true to our Nation's proud traditions and principles by restoring the writ of habeas corpus, by making clear that we do not permit our government to pick people up off the street, even in U.S. cities, and detain them indefinitely without court review. That is not what America is about.

But the Restoring the Constitution Act does far more than restore habeas corpus. It also addresses who can be subject to trial by military commission.

The Military Commissions Act was justified as necessary to allow our government to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other dangerous men transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. Yet if you look at the fine print of that legislation, it becomes clear that it is much, much broader than that. It would permit trial by military commission not just for those accused of planning the September 11 attacks, but also individuals, including legal permanent residents of this country, who are alleged to have ``purposefully and materially supported hostilities'' against the United States or its allies.

This is extremely broad. And by including hostilities not only against the United States but also against its allies, the Military Commissions Act allows the U.S. to hold and try by military commission individuals who have never engaged, directly or indirectly, in any action against the United States.

Not only that, but the Military Commissions Act would also define as an unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by military commission, anyone who ``has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense.'' This essentially grants a blank check to the executive branch to decide entirely on its own who can be tried by military commission.

Senator Dodd's bill makes clear that the President cannot unilaterally decide who is eligible for trial by military commission. Under the Dodd bill, in order to be tried by military commission, an individual must have directly participated in hostilities against the United States in a zone of active combat, or have been involved in the September 11 attacks, and cannot be a lawful enemy combatant.

Senator Dodd's bill also addresses the structure and process of the military commissions themselves. It ensures that these military commission procedures hew closely to the long-established military system of justice, as recommended by countless witnesses at congressional hearings last summer.

Some examples of the ways in which the Dodd bill improves the military commission procedures include: It prevents the use of evidence in court gained through torture or coercion. It ensures that any evidence seized within the United States without a search warrant cannot be introduced as evidence. It empowers military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable. It authorizes the existing U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to review decisions by military commissions, rather than the newly created ``Court of Military Commission Review,'' whose members would be appointed by the Secretary of Defense. And it provides for expedited judicial review of the Military Commissions Act to determine the constitutionally of its provisions before anyone is tried by military commission, so that we will not face even more delays in the future.

Many of these provisions were included in the bill passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 2006, but then stripped out or altered in backroom negotiations with the Administration. The bill also improves changes to the War Crimes Act and emphasizes the importance of compliance with the Geneva Conventions.

In sum, Senator Dodd's legislation addresses many of the most troubling and legally suspect provisions of the Military Commissions Act. Congress would be wise to make these changes now, rather than wait around while the Military Commissions Act is subject to further legal challenge, and another 4 or 5 years are squandered while cases work their way through the courts again.

In closing let me quote John Ashcroft. According to the New York Times, at a private meeting of high-level officials in 2003 about the military commission structure, then-Attorney General Ashcroft said: ``Timothy McVeigh was one of the worst killers in U.S. history. But at least we had fair procedures for him.'' How sad that Congress passed legislation about which the same cannot be said. We can and must undo this mistake.

Mr. President, I am pleased to again submit a measure to begin to address one of the central problems our Nation faces, namely the loss of family-supporting jobs because of our flawed trade policies.

Today's announcement that the U.S. trade deficit for 2006 rose to $764 billion, setting a record for the fifth consecutive year, is a stark reminder of just how seriously flawed our trade policies are. Those policies have far reaching consequences, and they require a multifaceted response.

One response must be to take on the trade deficit directly, and I have been pleased to join the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan, to do just that.

But we also must change the agreements into which we enter with our trading partners.

The record of the major trade agreements into which our Nation has entered over the past few years has been dismal. Thanks in great part to the flawed fast track rules that govern consideration of legislation implementing trade agreements, the United States has entered into a number of trade agreements that have contributed to the significant job loss we have seen in recent years, and have laid open to assault various laws and regulations established to protect workers, the environment, and our health and safety. Indeed, those agreements undermine the very democratic institutions through which we govern ourselves.

The loss of jobs, especially manufacturing jobs, to other countries has been devastating to Wisconsin, and to the entire country. When I opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade,

Permanent Normal Trade Relations for China, and other flawed trade measures, I did so in great part because I believed they would lead to a significant loss of jobs. But even as an opponent of those agreements, I don't think I could have imagined just how bad things would get in so short a time.

The trade policy of this country over the past several years has been appalling. The trade agreements into which we have entered have contributed to the loss of key employers, ravaging entire communities. But despite that clear evidence, we continue to see trade agreements being reached that will only aggravate this problem.

This has to stop. We cannot afford to pursue trade policies that gut our manufacturing sector and send good jobs overseas. We cannot afford to undermine the safeguards we have established for workers, the environment, and our public health and safety. And we cannot afford to chip way at our democratic heritage by entering into trade agreements that supercede our right to govern ourselves through open, democratic institutions.

The legislation I am introducing today addresses this problem, at least in part. It establishes some minimum standards for the trade agreements into which our Nation enters. It sets forth principles for future trade agreements. It is a break with the so-called NAFTA model, and instead advocates the kinds of sound trade policies that will spur economic growth and sustainable development.

The principles set forth in this resolution are not complex. They are straightforward and achievable. The resolution calls for enforceable worker protections, including the core International Labor Organization standards.

It preserves the ability of the United States to enact and enforce its own trade laws.

It protects foreign investors, but states that foreign investors should not be provided with greater rights than those provided under U.S. law, and it protects public interest laws from challenge by foreign investors in secret tribunals.

It ensures that food entering into our country meets domestic food safety standards.

It preserves the ability of Federal, State, and local governments to maintain essential public services and to regulate private sector services in the public interest.

It requires that trade agreements contain environmental provisions subject to the same enforcement as commercial provisions.

It preserves the right of Federal, State, and local governments to use procurement as a policy tool, including through Buy American laws, environmental laws such as recycled content, and purchasing preferences for small, minority, or women-owned businesses.

It requires that trade negotiations and the implementation of trade agreements be conducted openly.

These are sensible policies, and will advance the goal of increased international commerce.

The outgrowth of the major trade agreements into which we have entered has been a race to the bottom in labor standards, environmental standards, health and safety standards, in nearly every aspect of our economy. A race to the bottom is a race in which even the winners lose.

For any who doubt this, I invite you to ask the families in Wisconsin who have watched their jobs move to China.

We can't let this continue to happen. We need to turn our trade policies around. We need to pursue trade agreements that will promote sustainable economic growth for our Nation and for our trading partners. This resolution will begin to put us on that path, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. President, I voted for GEN George W. Casey, Jr., to be U.S. Army Chief of Staff. While questions have been raised about General Casey's performance as U.S. commander in Iraq, I do not believe the general can be held responsible for the failures of a policy devised at the highest levels of this administration.

But my vote to confirm General Casey does not change my opposition to the President's policies in Iraq. The President has made the wrong judgment about Iraq time and again, first by taking us into war on a fraudulent basis, then by keeping our brave troops in Iraq, and now by sending 21,500 more American troops into harm's way.

The indefinite presence of U.S. military personnel in Iraq will not fix that country's political problems. And as we have seen over the last few years, sending more troops will not provide the stability in Iraq that can only come from a political agreement. Congress must develop the courage to confront this President on what has become one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in our history.

Mr. President, today I am offering a measure which could serve as a first step towards eliminating the inequities borne by the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest under the Federal Milk Marketing Order system.

The Federal Milk Marketing Order system, created nearly 60 years ago, establishes minimum prices for milk paid to producers throughout various marketing areas in the U.S. For 60 years, this system has discriminated against producers in the Upper Midwest by awarding a higher price to dairy farmers in proportion to the distance of their farms from areas of high milk production, which historically have been the region around Eau Claire, WI.

My legislation is very simple. It identifies the single most harmful and unjust feature of the current system, and corrects it. Under the current archaic law, the price farmers receive for fluid milk is higher the further they are from the Eau Claire region of the Upper Midwest. This provision originally was intended to guarantee the supply of fresh milk from the high production areas to distant markets in an age of difficult transportation and limited refrigeration. But the situation has long since changed and the provision persists to the detriment of the Wisconsin farmers even though most local milk markets do not receive any milk from Wisconsin.

The bill I introduce today would prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from using distance or transportation costs from any location as the basis for pricing milk, unless significant quantities of milk are actually transported from that location into the recipient market. The Secretary will have to comply with the statutory requirement that supply and demand factors be considered as specified in the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act when setting milk prices in marketing orders. The fact remains that single-basing-point pricing simply cannot be justified based on supply and demand for milk both in local and national markets and the changing pattern of U.S. milk production.

This bill also requires the Secretary to report to Congress on specifically which criteria are used to set milk prices. Finally, the Secretary will have to certify to Congress that the criteria used by the Department do not in any way attempt to circumvent the prohibition on using distance or transportation cost as basis for pricing milk.

This one change is vitally important to Upper Midwest producers, because the current system has penalized them for many years. The current system is a double whammy to Upper Midwest dairy farmers--it both provides disparate profits for producers in other parts of the country and creates artificial economic incentives for milk production. As a result, Wisconsin producers have seen national surpluses rise, and milk prices fall. Rather than providing adequate supplies of fluid milk, the prices often lead to excess production.

The prices have provided production incentives beyond those needed to ensure a local supply of fluid milk in some regions, leading to an increase in manufactured products in those marketing orders. Those manufactured products directly compete with Wisconsin's processed products, eroding our markets and driving national prices down.

The perverse nature of this system is further illustrated by the fact that since 1995, some regions of the U.S., notably the central States and the Southwest, are producing so much milk that they are actually shipping fluid milk north to the Upper Midwest. The high fluid milk prices have generated so much excess production that these markets distant from Eau Claire are now encroaching upon not only our manufactured markets, but also our markets for fluid milk, further eroding prices in Wisconsin.

The market-distorting effects of the fluid price differentials in Federal orders are shown by a previous Congressional Budget Office analysis that estimated that the elimination of orders would save $669 million over five years. Government outlays would fall, CBO concluded, because production would fall in response to lower milk prices and there would be fewer government purchases of surplus milk. The regions that would gain and lose in this scenario illustrate the discrimination inherent to the current system. Economic analyses showed that farm revenues in a market undisturbed by Federal orders would actually increase in the Upper Midwest and fall in most other milk-producing regions.

While this system has been around since 1937, the practice of basing fluid milk price differentials on the distance from Eau Claire was formalized in the 1960's, when the Upper Midwest arguably was the primary reserve for additional supplies of milk. The idea was to encourage local supplies of fluid milk in areas of the country that did not traditionally produce enough fluid milk to meet their own needs.

That is no longer the case. The Upper Midwest is no longer the primary source of reserve supplies of milk. Unfortunately, the prices didn't adjust with changing economic conditions, most notably the shift of the dairy industry away from the Upper Midwest and towards the Southwest, and specifically California, which now leads the Nation in milk production.

The result of this antiquated system has been a decline in the Upper Midwest dairy industry, not because it can't produce a product that can compete in the marketplace, but because the system discriminates against it. Over the past few years Wisconsin has lost dairy farmers at a rate of more than 5 per day. The Upper Midwest, with the lowest fluid milk prices, is shrinking as a dairy region despite the dairy-friendly climate of the region. Some other regions with higher fluid milk prices are growing rapidly.

While the distance provision is a longstanding inequity, a recent proposal threatens to heap additional inequities on top of the current distance provision. A new proposal has been made asking the USDA to change the pricing formulas by decoupling fluid milk, Class I and II, price and the price for milk used in dairy products, Class III and IV, along with increasing the support for fluid milk. This would advantage areas with high fluid milk utilization by providing them a relatively higher price and disadvantage areas like Wisconsin where cheese-making is also a major use for milk. This price signal would likely then cause over-production in these regions, eventually driving down the price for milk used in dairy products and the price received by Wisconsin's dairy farmers.

On top of this double-threat is a third negative impact. Decoupling the fluid milk price will undercut the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) safety net in Wisconsin because the trigger price for counter-cyclical support is based on Class I price in Boston. A higher fluid milk price will mean the MILC safety net is less effective, especially for regions that depend on the now decoupled class II and IV price like Wisconsin. It is very conceivable that this new proposal would allow the Class III and IV price to plummet while the Class I price remains above the trigger, eliminating the MILC safety net's usefulness for Wisconsin family dairy farmers.

I joined with Senator Kohl and Representative Obey in sending a letter expressing these concerns to Secretary Johanns last month. In this letter we urge the USDA to reject this proposal which would amount to further unfair treatment in the federal regulations for Wisconsin's hard-working dairy farmers.

In a free market with a level playing field, these shifts in production might be acceptable. But in a market where the government is setting the prices and providing that artificial advantage to regions outside the Upper Midwest, the current system is unconscionable.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and bring reform to this outdated

system, eliminate the inequities in the current milk marketing order pricing system and reject proposals to add further inequity into the system.

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

Mr. President, today I am re-introducing a measure that will begin to restore democracy for dairy farmers throughout the Nation.

When dairy farmers across the country supposedly voted on a referendum eight years ago to consolidate and modernize the order system, perhaps the most significant change in dairy policy in sixty years, they didn't actually get to vote. Instead, their dairy marketing cooperatives cast their votes for them.

This procedure is called ``bloc voting'' and it is used all the time. Basically, a Cooperative's Board of Directors decides that, in the interest of time, bloc voting will be implemented for that particular vote. It may serve the interest of time, but it doesn't always serve the interests of their producer owner-members.

While I think that bloc voting can be a useful tool in some circumstances, I have serious concerns about its use in every circumstance. Farmers in Wisconsin and in other States tell me that they do not agree with their cooperative's view on every vote. Yet, they have no way to preserve their right to make their single vote count.

I have learned from farmers and officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that if a cooperative bloc votes, individual members have no opportunity to voice opinions separately. That seems unfair when you consider what significant issues may be at stake. Coops and their individual members do not always have identical interests. Considering our Nation's longstanding commitment to freedom of expression, our Federal rules should allow farmers to express a differing opinion from their coops, if they choose to.

The Democracy for Dairy Producers Act of 2007 is simple and fair. It provides that a cooperative cannot deny any of its members a ballot to opt to vote separately from the coop.

This will in no way slow down the process at USDA; implementation of any rule or regulation would proceed on schedule. Also, I do not expect that this would often change the final outcome of any given vote. Coops could still cast votes for their members who do not exercise their right to vote individually. And to the extent that coops represent farmers' interests, in the majority of cases farmers are likely to vote the same as their coops. But whether they join the coops or not in voting for or against a measure, farmers deserve the right to vote according to their own views.

I urge my colleagues to return the democratic process to America's farmers, by supporting the Democracy for Dairy Producers Act.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to reintroduce the Quality Cheese Act of 2005. This legislation will protect the consumer, save taxpayer dollars and provide support to America's dairy farmers, who have experienced a roller-coaster in prices over the past few years.

When Wisconsin consumers have the choice, they will choose natural Wisconsin cheese. But in the past some in the food industry have pushed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to change current law, which would leave consumers not knowing whether cheese is really all natural or not.

If the Federal Government creates a loophole for imitation cheese ingredients to be used in U.S. cheese vats, some cheese labels saying ``domestic'' and ``natural'' will no longer be truly accurate.

If USDA and FDA allow a change in Federal rules, milk substitutes such as milk protein concentrate, casein, or dry ultra filtered milk could be used to make cheese in place of the wholesome natural milk produced by cows in Wisconsin or other parts of the U.S.

I was deeply concerned by these efforts a few years ago to change America's natural cheese standard. Efforts to allow milk protein concentrate and casein into natural cheese products fly in the face of logic and could create a loophole that would allow unlimited amounts of imported milk proteins of unknown quality to enter U.S. cheese vats.

While the industry proposal was withdrawn, my legislation would permanently prevent a similar back-door attempt to allow imitation milk as a cheese ingredient and ensure that consumers could be confident that they were buying natural cheese when they saw the natural label.

Over the past decade, cheese consumption has risen at a strong pace due in part to promotional and marketing efforts and investments by

dairy farmers across the country. Year after year, per capita cheese consumption has risen at a steady rate.

These proposals to change our natural cheese standards, however, could decrease consumption of natural cheese by raising concerns about the origin of casein and milk protein concentrate. Use of such products could significantly tarnish the wholesome reputation of natural cheese in the eyes of the consumer and have unknown effects on quality and flavor.

This change could seriously compromise decades of work by America's dairy farmers to build up domestic cheese consumption levels. It is simply not fair to America's farmers or to consumers. After all, consumers have a right to know if the cheese that they buy is unnatural. And by allowing milk protein concentrate milk into supposedly natural cheese, we would be denying consumers the entire picture.

The proposed change to our natural cheese standard would also harm the American taxpayer. If we allow MPCs to be used in cheese, we will effectively permit unrestricted importation of these ingredients into the United States. Because there are no tariffs and quotas on these ingredients, these heavily subsidized products would quickly displace natural domestic dairy ingredients.

These unnatural foreign dairy products would enter our domestic cheese market and could depress dairy prices paid to American dairy producers. Low dairy prices, in turn, could result in increased costs to the dairy price support program as the federal government is forced to buy domestic milk products when they are displaced in the market by cheap imports. So, at the same time that U.S. dairy farmers would receive lower prices, the U.S. taxpayer would pay more for the dairy price support program--and in effect be subsidizing foreign dairy farmers and processors.

This change does not benefit dairy farmers, consumers or taxpayers. Who then is it good for?

It would benefit only the subsidized foreign MPC producers out to make a fast buck by exploiting a system put in place to support our dairy farmers.

This legislation addresses the concerns of farmers, consumers and taxpayers by prohibiting dry ultra-filtered milk, casein, and MPCs from being included in America's natural cheese standard.

Congress must shut the door on any backdoor efforts to undermine America's dairy farmers. I urge my colleagues to pass my legislation and prevent a loophole that would allow changes that hurt the consumer, taxpayer, and dairy farmer.

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

Mr. President, I laid out my vision for the legislation I introduce today, the Rural Opportunities Act of 2007, in an opinion piece that was published in the La Crosse Tribune at the end of last year. I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record after my statement.

My bill is a four part plan to increase opportunities for rural America. Despite its breadth, the bill is not meant to address all of the challenges facing farms, other working lands and rural communities. I know from the listening sessions that I hold across Wisconsin about the many challenges facing those communities, such as lack of access to affordable healthcare, threats from unfair competition abroad and at home and even misguided Federal policies such as the dairy pricing system that provides higher prices based on how far your farm is from Wisconsin. I will continue working to address these and other challenges. My current bill focuses on the future, by identifying and encouraging potential benefits for rural areas.

The first section of the Rural Opportunities Act of 2007 tries to fulfill the potential of bioenergy and the broader bioeconomy to be a value-added enterprise for farmers and communities by encouraging sustainable development with an emphasis on local, farmer and cooperative ownership. The second theme supports both the development of the next generation of farmers and other rural professionals and the areas of agricultural growth such as organic production that provide viable long-term models for family farms. In an exciting win/win situation, the third main section of my bill strives to improve both farmers' income and access to healthy foods by supporting local food systems. The final section, while less focused directly on working lands, would establish the goal of providing affordable broadband access to rural and other underserved areas. Moreover, my proposal doesn't pass any extra costs on to the next generation, but is offset by reducing the payment limits for the largest corporate farms and transferring funds from other unobligated balances within USDA. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting these common sense goals.

I will now explain both the details of my proposal and how I have modeled the proposal after programs that I have seen working in Wisconsin. My goal is to both boost resources for these programs and, where appropriate, establish partnerships to fulfill common goals and direction--ultimately encouraging similar opportunities across all of rural America.

Most of the incentives and support for the development of bioenergy and other bioproducts, or the bioeconomy, has been at the macro scale. I have supported these efforts, including the renewable fuels standard and broad goals such as providing 25 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2025 and increasing our long-term security by becoming more energy independent. But I saw a gap in the amount of support at the local and regional level, especially with regard to making sure the bioeconomy develops properly.

There is a lot of excitement in rural America about the bioeconomy and potential for renewable fuel production especially to be the driver of a rural renaissance. But there is also concern, because while this potential is definitely there, it is still unclear how it will develop and whether the potential benefits to farmers, rural communities and even the environment will be fulfilled. This concern seems well founded, as these macro level incentives may fall short, perhaps opening up a new market for corn and driving more farms toward intensive corn production, but doing little to add value at the local or regional level especially if large agribusinesses take over.

From an environmental standpoint there is also this combination of risk and opportunity. Cellulosic ethanol produced from biomass has the potential to allow for the development of less intensive perennial systems especially on environmentally sensitive land, where the continuous cover would benefit the soil and water quality. But if the only incentive is to maximize bushels and dollars or remove too much biomass, environmental damage could clearly occur. For example, land that is not well suited for corn production such as that on steep slopes could be returned to production or taken out of pasture and put in corn production. Or where farmers have shifted to no-till corn production, the corn plant residue that now feeds the soil could be diverted to biomass for cellulosic ethanol. While these risks exist, there are also abundant win-win opportunities for farmers in following a sustainable approach. For example, the Wisconsin Farmers Union is leading efforts to establish a carbon credit program so the improved soil qualities also mean a return to the farmer.

Taking these risks and opportunities into account, it seemed that more needed to be done to make sure that the development of the bioeconomy occurred in the best way to maximize the value to the public through an emphasis on sustainable local and regional research, extension and development. This emphasis isn't to say that conventional grain production and large agribusinesses don't belong, just that there needs to be balance. While many individuals have begun working to fulfill this potential in Wisconsin, there seems to be a gap at the Federal level. This is the gap my proposal aims to close both through some new initiatives and boosting and better focusing existing Federal programs.

My sustainable local bioeconomy proposal has six main parts, starting with $30 million per year in matching funds to support implementation of collaborative State-based plans. States would be required to prepare a comprehensive energy plan and support the implementation of the plan through matching funds for research, extension, energy conservation, technical assistance and direct support. When developing the plan, a State would need to consider ways to encourage the development so as to best support the local communities and protect or even enhance the environment, with an emphasis in local, farmer and cooperative ownership of the new enterprises. Wisconsin has already taken significant steps in this regard, starting with the Governor's Consortium on Biobased Industry and Biobased Industry Opportunity (BIO) grant program. In the Governor's recent State of the State address, he has proposed to go even further building on these initial efforts. My proposal would allow the Federal Government to be a partner with him and every other State.

While charting the course of development of the bioeconomy should occur at a State and local level, research questions are often of regional or even national importance. That is why my bill provides $20 million per year for regional research, extension and education. These multi-state partnerships would follow the existing USDA research and extension divisions. Specific projects would be determined by a regional board with broad representation from each State, the region's extension service, agriculture experiment stations, agriculture secretaries, farmers, foresters, businesses, cooperatives and non- profits. This cooperative regional effort will bring together the resources to make sure these new agricultural and forestry systems can be evaluated holistically at a landscape scale. Independent of my proposal, I understand there is a discussion ongoing to develop a similar partnership within the north central region which includes Wisconsin. My bill is specifically designed to allow existing or future consortiums

to coordinate or even become the regional body supporting these research and extension activities.

While there has been significant focus on agriculture as the means of developing the bioeconomy and biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel especially, our forestlands can contribute significantly as well. While States and regions will likely include forestry components in their state energy and regional research and extension, my bill also provides $10 million per year to support a pair of specific agroforestry pilot programs. The first would evaluate whether there needs to be a support mechanism for landowners during the establishment phase of a woody biomass system which can often take up to a decade to develop, though it may be the best long-term use of the land both for biofuel production and for the environment. The second project would assist in the development of at least one commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production facility using woody biomass as a feedstock. While I expect other regions with significant forestry resources to participate as well, with the Forest Products Lab in Wisconsin and the Governor recently proposing support for forestry-based cellulosic ethanol, Wisconsin is well positioned to be a leader in this area.

The Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements program, also known as Section 9006 of the 2002 Farm Bill, provides grants to farmers and ranchers to establish a wide range of wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and conservation technologies on their farms. This direct support is important, which is why I propose a significant increase in funding to $40m per year so farmers can do their part in this larger effort for energy independence farm by farm.

Another existing federal program that has been beneficial is the Value-added Production Grant (VAPG) program. These grants broadly assist farmers and ranchers in developing projects that help them retain more value from their crops and products, including many bioenergy projects. I propose providing an increase to $60m per year and shifting the funding to mandatory spending because this program is so important in allowing farmers to be entrepreneurs and plan their own future. Specifically for the bioeconomy, I require that at least 10% of these funds be directed toward projects relating to bioenergy or biobased products.

Without the fundamental knowledge on how to convert biomass into other products such as fuel and the applied research on how to best implement this technology, the development of the bioeconomy may be limited. For this reason, I propose to double the spending within the USDA's National Research Initiative that is dedicated toward the development of the next generation of technology, including cellulosic ethanol. The institutions of higher education in Wisconsin are ready to assist in this task and often work together or regionally toward this goal. For example, The University of Wisconsin--Madison and Michigan State University have recently submitted a proposal to establish a Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center supported by the Department of Energy. It will take this type of collaboration and involvement of multiple Federal, State and local entities to fulfill the potential of the bioeconomy for increasing-our national security and hopefully at the same time spurring a rural renaissance.

Finally, but still very important, we need to assess whether our current incentives for bioenergy production and utilization are performing as intended and having no negative side-effects. There is some concern that the current incentives may not be adequately reaching consumers and farmers. My bill requires the Government Accountability Office, GAO, to evaluate whether the current incentives are the most effective ways to encourage the production and use of bioenergy. I especially ask them to assess whether there are better ways to support local ownership and the local and regional benefits to communities, while preventing excessive payments.

There are many very positive efforts ongoing in Wisconsin to support the development of the next generation of farmers and ranchers and to provide viable models such as organic production for these new producers, which also benefit existing small and medium-sized farmers who are looking for other options. Like the sustainable local bioeconomy highlighted in the first section of my bill, I have designed my proposal so these positive projects in Wisconsin are supported and become the models for other states that may not be as far along.

There is a very strong Federal, State, university and non-profit involvement in supporting the future of farming in Wisconsin. It is heartening to see so many different groups and interests coming together to work together to support this common goal. I just wanted to highlight a few examples of many that make me proud.

From the Federal side, Wisconsin's State office of the USDA's Farm Service Agency leads the Nation or is the top five States for various loans provided to beginning farmers. Fully 37 percent of the loans in Wisconsin go to beginning farmers, a testament to the dedication of the State's FSA office.

The University of Wisconsin's Center of Integrated Agricultural Systems, (CIAS), continues to be both a leader in innovative ideas and research, but also in putting that knowledge to work for Wisconsin. To pick just one of many great projects, the School for Beginning Livestock and Dairy Farmers provides both the knowledge and the mentoring and support network to help beginning farmers get off the ground. I have followed CIAS' development and actions since my time in the Wisconsin State Senate, and always appreciate their approach.

The future of Wisconsin's agriculture and rural communities has even been the focus of a project at the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. The Future of Farming and Rural Life project has been going around the state holding forums on this important topic and I look forward to their recommendations. I think they have been hearing a lot of the same sort of comments I hear at listening sessions in rural areas.

Organic production, especially dairy production in southwest Wisconsin, has been a bright light in that comer of the State. The growth of this production and--potential for more growth shows a need for more significant Federal support in the Farm Bill. But in the meantime, the farmer-owned Organic Valley cooperative and groups such as the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service, MOSES, are providing invaluable support for the revitalization of small dairy farming in the area.

The concept of cooperatives is very important in Wisconsin and often provides support for these developing models of agriculture. For example, the Edelweiss Graziers Cooperative in Dane and Green Counties was recently established with technical assistance of the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives. This effort combines managed grazing and cheese making from this grass-fed milk to support both the cooperative's members and the local economy.

In addition to supporting important projects, my proposal also improves on existing Federal programs. The first element of this section is $30 million per year in funding for State-based collaborations to plan for and support beginning farmers, ranchers and other rural professionals. Specifically these State plans and projects should support, encourage the development of and reduce barriers for the next generation of farmers, ranchers and other important rural professions such as foresters. States would have flexibility to determine where to spend the funds, but required to take a broad approach that incorporates extension, public colleges, State agriculture agencies, non-profits, private-public partnerships and direct aid to support the farmers with tuition and capital.

The second main portion of the future of farming section of my bill would fund an important Federal effort from the 2002 Farm bill, which unfortunately has never been funded. My bill provides $20 million per year in competitive grants for the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program, BFRDP. These funds would be mandatory to make it more likely the program was funded. The BFRDP funds initiatives directed at new farming opportunities in the areas of education, extension, outreach, and technical assistance. The program is targeted especially to collaborative local, State, and regionally based networks and partnerships.

The third main element of my future of farming proposal seeks to evaluate and improve existing Federal programs. This includes directing the USDA to provide additional support for the Advisory Committee on Beginning Farmers and Ranchers to allow for increased meetings and outreach activities. It also proposes that this committee work with the USDA Secretary to oversee a series of pilot projects, which would use $10 million per year to find ways to better support the credit and capital needs of beginning farmers and ranchers. Also along these lines, the GAO would conduct a study to evaluate the effectiveness of tax incentives, contract guarantees and other measures that could be used to support and encourage the transfer of land from retiring farmers to beginning farmers. Finally, my bill supports the bonus cost- share provided in conservation programs and highlights the importance of stewardship through the Conservation Security Program for beginning farmers as part of a broader review to ensure that all USDA farm assistance and conservation activities are accessible and useful for beginning farmers and ranchers.

Two exciting growth areas in agriculture have been the development of more sustainable agricultural systems and organic production, often driven by consumers' desire to be more responsible. This increased support includes more than doubling the authorized funding for Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas, ATTRA, to $5 million per year and for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, SARE, program to $120 million per year. The boost for SARE would also include a dedicated mandatory fund of $20 million per-year for the Federal-State matching grant program.

Organic agriculture has had the greatest growth in the past decade of any segment of agriculture. The funding for research, extension, technical assistance and direct aid to organic producers has not kept up. So my bill would provide significant increases for several existing organic programs and propose one new program. More specifically, existing research, extension and education programs would receive $15 million per year and $25 million in additional certification cost-share funds would be made available. A new $50 million per year program to assist with the conversion to organic production and encourage conservation practices on the farms is also included. Since the integrity of the organic label is critical to the success of these efforts and there have been recent concerns about problems in this area, an annual report would also be required on USDA's activities to enforce proper use of the organic label and protect the integrity of the program.

Finally, no proposal on the future of farming would be complete without recognizing the need to foster more diversity within the farm community. My proposal would quadruple the current funding for outreach to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers by providing $25 million per year in mandatory funds. This also includes an added emphasis on encouraging the development of new farmers from these communities by requiring the USDA to periodically report to Congress on their efforts.

Local markets and especially food systems benefit farmers economically and consumers through access to food that is often fresher, riper, better tasting and more nutritious. Farmers benefit both by cutting out the middlemen and through differentiating their products to often get a premium price. My bill supports these local opportunities in several ways including giving local institutions more flexibility to preferentially select local products, providing additional funding and areas of emphasis for existing farmers markets, farm-to-cafeteria and value-added grants. A special emphasis of many of the programs my bill supports is to provide healthier food to schools and low-income populations that might not otherwise have access to local fresh produce.

More specifically, my bill allows local preference in procurement of fruits and vegetables by federally supported programs. The current procurement rules are often interpreted to prevent this local geographic preference, so I would clarify the food procurement rules for USDA and Department of Defense programs that support schools nutrition programs and other produce procurement, e.g., commissaries, to allow agencies to give a preference to locally produced products. This change would allow these institutions to select local produce which is often better tasting and more nutritious. In order to provide oversight of this modified rule, my proposal would also require any local agency that selects a bid that is more than 10 percent higher than the lowest bid to report this to the Federal agency for possible further review to help ensure the integrity of the system.

The Farm-to-Cafeteria program or, as it is also known, the Access to Local Food and School Gardens, was part of the Child Nutrition reauthorization. Unfortunately it has never been funded, but it would support projects like Madison's Homegrown Lunch that link local farmers to the cafeteria and often classroom as the students learn more about where their food comes from. My proposal dedicates $10 million per year in mandatory funding toward this important program.

There are two important programs that let low-income individuals access healthy local fruit and vegetables at farmers markets which my proposal supports. The Seniors Farmers Market Nutrition Program would be increased to $25 million per year to provide more vouchers to low- income seniors. Hunger Task Force in Milwaukee helps distribute these voucher and reports that it is extremely popular and could be expanded. A similar program, the WIC Farmers Market Supplemental Nutrition Program, provides similar vouchers to low-income mothers, infants and children and would be increased to $30 million per year.

The proposal also supports farmers markets directly as well and increases the funding for the Farmers Market Promotion Program to $20 million per year. This program provides grants to assist with the development of new farmers markets and also helps farmers markets improve their services by doing things like installing EBT readers to accept Food Stamps.

The Value-Added Producer Grants, VAPG, program supports a variety of farmer-based enterprises including support for local food systems. My bill already increased the funding for this program to $60 million per year and would also require that 30 percent of the VAPGs go to support local food, bioenergy and bioproducts. In addition, half of these funds would be dedicated to supporting mid-sized value-added chains, which establish ways for mid-sized farmers to differentiate their products and work with distributors and retailers along a supply chain. Many believe these mid-sized value-added chains are the key to accessing regional markets and expanding local food systems. There are several examples in Wisconsin of farmers and cheesemakers working together to establish this sort of relationship and value chain in producing specialty cheeses.

My proposal builds on the recommendations from the Community Food Security Coalition to expand the current Community Food Projects Competitive Grants by providing $60.5 million per year. Community food projects fight food insecurity by increasing the access of low-income people to fresher, more nutritious food supplies along with projects that increase the self-reliance of communities in providing for their own food needs.

Numerous studies have shown that rural areas lag behind their urban and suburban counterparts in access to broadband Internet services. The United States is losing ground to other nations in broadband availability. For example in 2001, the United States ranked 4th out of nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD. The United States now ranks 12th.

From my trips to rural areas of Wisconsin, I can attest that broadband availability is spotty and a concern for local officials and residents. They tell me that the lack of broadband access can limit their opportunities for employment, entertainment, education and communication. There have been several different ways proposed to increase availability of affordable rural broadband. In this legislation, I do not take a specific stand on which solution is best, but I require efforts to better assess the problem and I set forth a

goal for the Senate in solving this problem.

More specifically, the Sense of the Senate finds that given the growing number of opportunities provided by broadband access, the digital divide affecting rural households and other underserved groups should be eliminated within a decade. The ultimate goal should be to provide affordable access to broadband nationwide.

The FCC data on rural broadband availability and affordability is limited in several regards, most importantly by not collecting detailed enough information. The zip-code level data now available does not have a fine enough resolution to fully understand which specific areas lack any affordable access to broadband.

Even several of the FCC Commissioners agree on that point. My proposal requires the FCC to improve this situation to get a better picture of the extent of the problem.

As technology improves and faster data transfer rates become the norm, the FCC should make sure their definition of broadband keeps up. My proposal requires a periodic review of what is standard in the marketplace and an update of the definition as warranted. Without this requirement, the government could potentially end up subsidizing an obsolete service.

The USDA Inspector General found a number of deficiencies within the Rural Utilities Service Broadband Grant and Loan Programs and set forth a series of recommendations in a report in 2005. My bill would require the USDA to update Congress on the progress of these changes so these important programs work efficiently and provide the increased access they are designed to support.

The Universal Service Fund helps ensure that rural areas have affordable access to telecommunications services such as telephone and 911. The program allows for the coverage to be extended to other services such as broadband Internet based on a review of a Federal- State Joint Board. My bill requires a new review by the Joint Board after receiving the updated and improved FCC data since they previously had limited data and have not done such a review in several years.

My proposal is fully offset by reducing payments to the largest farmers, transferring funds from unobligated balances within USDA and reallocating authorized funds that were replaced by mandatory funding in my legislation. This offset, especially the reduced payment limits, is consistent with my longstanding feeling that Federal aid should be directed toward the farmers and communities that need it instead of the largest producers who don't. In fact, I estimate that my proposal could even return a couple hundred million dollars to the treasury over 10 years.

All too often in agriculture we are filling breaches in the safety nets, combating unfair trade, seeking equity in the programs such as the dairy marketing orders, or ensuring the large don't take undue advantage of the small. So it was a welcome change to propose ways to open doors and encourage development for family farmers and rural communities.

I worked with many Wisconsin-based groups and individuals along with others nationally and regionally in developing this legislation. I will work to include my proposals in the upcoming Farm Bill or other legislation.

I would especially like to thank the following groups and individuals who have supported my legislation: Wisconsin Farmers Union; Sustainable Agriculture Coalition; Stan Gruszynski, Director, Rural Leadership and Community Development Program, UW Stevens Point; the Community Food Security Coalition; and the Land Stewardship Project. The National Organic Coalition has also sent me a letter expressing support for the organic sections of my proposal.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and the letters from the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the Land Stewardship Project and the National Organic Coalition be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am offering a measure which could serve as a first step towards eliminating the inequities borne by the dairy farmers of Wisconsin and the upper Midwest under the Federal Milk Marketing Order system.

The Federal Milk Marketing Order system, created nearly 60 years ago, establishes minimum prices for milk paid to producers throughout various marketing areas in the U.S. For 60 years, this system has discriminated against producers in the Upper Midwest by awarding a higher price to dairy farmers in proportion to the distance of their farms from areas of high milk production, which historically have been the region around Eau Claire, WI.

My legislation is very simple. It identifies the single most harmful and unjust feature of the current system, and corrects it. Under the current archaic law, the price farmers receive for fluid milk is higher the further they are from the Eau Claire region of the Upper Midwest. This provision originally was intended to guarantee the supply of fresh milk from the high production areas to distant markets in an age of difficult transportation and limited refrigeration. But the situation has long since changed and the provision persists to the detriment of the Wisconsin farmers even though most local milk markets do not receive any milk from Wisconsin.

The bill I introduce today would prohibit the Secretary of Agriculture from using distance or transportation costs from any location as the basis for pricing milk, unless significant quantities of milk are actually transported from that location into the recipient market. The Secretary will have to comply with the statutory requirement that supply and demand factors be considered as specified in the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act when setting milk prices in marketing orders. The fact remains that single-basing-point pricing simply cannot be justified based on supply and demand for milk both in local and national markets and the changing pattern of U.S. milk production.

This bill also requires the Secretary to report to Congress on specifically which criteria are used to set milk prices. Finally, the Secretary will have to certify to Congress that the criteria used by the Department do not in any way attempt to circumvent the prohibition on using distance or transportation cost as basis for pricing milk.

This one change is vitally important to Upper Midwest producers, because the current system has penalized them for many years. The current system is a double whammy to Upper Midwest dairy farmers--it both provides disparate profits for producers in other parts of the country and creates artificial economic incentives for milk production. As a result, Wisconsin producers have seen national surpluses rise, and milk prices fall. Rather than providing adequate supplies of fluid milk, the prices often lead to excess production.

The prices have provided production incentives beyond those needed to ensure a local supply of fluid milk in some regions, leading to an increase in manufactured products in those marketing orders. Those manufactured products directly compete with Wisconsin's processed products, eroding our markets and driving national prices down.

The perverse nature of this system is further illustrated by the fact that since 1995, some regions of the U.S., notably the central States and the Southwest, are producing so much milk that they are actually shipping fluid milk north to the Upper Midwest. The high fluid milk prices have generated so much excess production that these markets distant from Eau Claire are now encroaching upon not only our manufactured markets, but also our markets for fluid milk, further eroding prices in Wisconsin.

The market-distorting effects of the fluid price differentials in Federal orders are shown by a previous Congressional Budget Office analysis that estimated that the elimination of orders would save $669 million over five years. Government outlays would fall, CBO concluded, because production would fall in response to lower milk prices and there would be fewer government purchases of surplus milk. The regions that would gain and lose in this scenario illustrate the discrimination inherent to the current system. Economic analyses showed that farm revenues in a market undisturbed by Federal orders would actually increase in the Upper Midwest and fall in most other milk-producing regions.

While this system has been around since 1937, the practice of basing fluid milk price differentials on the distance from Eau Claire was formalized in the 1960's, when the Upper Midwest arguably was the primary reserve for additional supplies of milk. The idea was to encourage local supplies of fluid milk in areas of the country that did not traditionally produce enough fluid milk to meet their own needs.

That is no longer the case. The Upper Midwest is no longer the primary source of reserve supplies of milk. Unfortunately, the prices didn't adjust with changing economic conditions, most notably the shift of the dairy industry away from the Upper Midwest and towards the Southwest, and specifically California, which now leads the Nation in milk production.

The result of this antiquated system has been a decline in the Upper Midwest dairy industry, not because it can't produce a product that can compete in the marketplace, but because the system discriminates against it. Over the past few years Wisconsin has lost dairy farmers at a rate of more than 5 per day. The Upper Midwest, with the lowest fluid milk prices, is shrinking as a dairy region despite the dairy-friendly climate of the region. Some other regions with higher fluid milk prices are growing rapidly.

While the distance provision is a longstanding inequity, a recent proposal threatens to heap additional inequities on top of the current distance provision. A new proposal has been made asking the USDA to change the pricing formulas by decoupling fluid milk, Class I and II, price and the price for milk used in dairy products, Class III and IV, along with increasing the support for fluid milk. This would advantage areas with high fluid milk utilization by providing them a relatively higher price and disadvantage areas like Wisconsin where cheese-making is also a major use for milk. This price signal would likely then cause over-production in these regions, eventually driving down the price for milk used in dairy products and the price received by Wisconsin's dairy farmers.

On top of this double-threat is a third negative impact. Decoupling the fluid milk price will undercut the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) safety net in Wisconsin because the trigger price for counter-cyclical support is based on Class I price in Boston. A higher fluid milk price will mean the MILC safety net is less effective, especially for regions that depend on the now decoupled class II and IV price like Wisconsin. It is very conceivable that this new proposal would allow the Class III and IV price to plummet while the Class I price remains above the trigger, eliminating the MILC safety net's usefulness for Wisconsin family dairy farmers.

I joined with Senator Kohl and Representative Obey in sending a letter expressing these concerns to Secretary Johanns last month. In this letter we urge the USDA to reject this proposal which would amount to further unfair treatment in the federal regulations for Wisconsin's hard-working dairy farmers.

In a free market with a level playing field, these shifts in production might be acceptable. But in a market where the government is setting the prices and providing that artificial advantage to regions outside the Upper Midwest, the current system is unconscionable.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and bring reform to this outdated

system, eliminate the inequities in the current milk marketing order pricing system and reject proposals to add further inequity into the system.

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