Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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

Mr. President, as I travel my State, I have held close to 100 roundtables of 15, 20 people gathered together as a cross section of the community in some 65 or 70 Ohio counties.

I hear more and more people talking about how difficult it is for middle-class kids, for kids from working families, especially for first-generation and potential first-generation students being able to go to college.

We have made some progress in the Senate in the 15, 16, 17 months since the Presiding Officer and I and others have been in this body. One was the College Cost Reduction Act, an investment in America's students. It was a promise that I and my other freshman colleagues campaigned on 2 years ago. We have delivered.

The increases in student aid that are beginning to go into effect next week are a downpayment of America's future prosperity, on its future competitiveness. This investment could not have come at a better time. With college costs at an alltime high, neither student aid nor family incomes have been able to keep up.

In my home State of Ohio, between 2001 and 2006, the cost of attending college increased 53 percent at 4-year public colleges and universities, and almost 30 percent at 4-year private colleges, 53 percent at public universities, close to 30 percent at 4-year private schools.

During this same period, the median household income in Ohio increased only 3 percent. In the 2004-2005 school year, 66 percent of students graduating from 4-year institutions in my State graduated with student loan debt. The average debt was $20,000.

This bill will help students manage the debt they are incurring and give them more options after they leave school. One of the most important provisions of the bill is a new income-based repayment program that will allow students to pay their debt as a percentage of their income. This initiative, along with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, will help students manage their debt and allow them to pursue careers in public service without fear of student loan payments they simply cannot afford.

In April, I held a Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions Committee public hearing at Ohio State University to discuss student debt issues. One of the witnesses we heard from was a young woman from Cincinnati whose distraught mother wrote me about the crippling debt her daughter had accrued trying to pay for college.

She testified she never believed an education could cost so much and how she worried about how she was going to help her family and advance her career now that she was saddled with so much student loan debt.

As I said, as I travel the State, I hear stories such as these from students and parents who tell me it is becoming harder and harder to afford a college education for those Ohioans, for millions of others across this country. This bill will finally provide some much-needed relief. I would add that as Governor Strickland, the new Governor of the State who has been in office some 17 months or so, has frozen tuition at public universities, which has made a big difference, obviously, in the affordability of college. And coupled with what the State is trying to do now in Ohio, after the State did very little to rein in college costs, coupled with what we are doing here, it will make a big difference, particularly for first-generation students, but for all people who want to go to college whose parents do not make quite enough for them to be able to afford it. This is a major step, a positive step, in changing the direction of our country.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the birth of Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

It was the African-American poet Maya Angelou who made the verse ``I know why the caged bird sings'' widely famous, but it was Paul Laurence Dunbar from Dayton, OH, who penned that powerful poem more than a century ago. That seems to be the true story of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, as a trailblazer who paved the way for later generations of African- American poets and writers.

While academics continue to debate Dunbar's stature in the pantheon of American poets, there is wide agreement that he is a seminal figure in African-American literature, the first to achieve national--and some would argue international--recognition among African Americans.

Paul Lawrence Dunbar was born into meager circumstances in Dayton, OH. His birthday we honor tomorrow on June 27, 1872. He was the son of former slaves who escaped to freedom. He was raised by his mother Matilda, who had little to give him in terms of material wealth. Her job as a washer woman provided little more than food and clothing for Paul and his four brothers and sisters. Instead, she instilled in him something much greater. Paul's mother taught him the arts of song and storytelling and instilled in her son a lasting love of poetry and literature. Because of his mother, the poet fell in love with the power of words at a very early age, some accounts having him reciting and writing poetry as early as age 6. This love for literature grew over the years as his mother encouraged him to read and reinforced the importance of school.

By the time young Paul reached high school, he was the only African American in his class at Dayton Central High. While he faced so many difficulties because of his race, he achieved so much during this time in his life. In the face of prejudice, he became a member of the debating society, editor of the school paper, and president of the school's literary society. Working with his classmates and his friends in Dayton, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Paul Laurence Dunbar published an African-American newsletter. All the while, he helped support himself by working as an elevator operator in Dayton's Callahan Building.

Dunbar's birthday, June 27, came to be a very important day for the poet, as it was on that day when his abilities to write were first showcased in his hometown and then many years later again on his birthday when he received national recognition--it was June 27, 1892, when giving the opening welcome before the Western Writers Conference at the Dayton Opera House.

As the story goes, Paul was asked by his teacher Helen Truesdell only days before to give the opening remarks. He was nervous not only about writing the remarks but also about enough time away from his job as an elevator operator to give them.

As Jean Gould describes in her book, ``That Dunbar Boy":

Speaking to the Western Writers Conference afforded Paul

his first opportunity to be heard by writers beyond the

Dayton region, a special birthday gift that began the

launching and the cementing of his writing career. His

welcoming address received a burst of eager applause as he

bowed and made a dash for the backstage exit of the Opera

House--he was due back at the Callahan Building as the

elevator operator in just 10 minutes!

This experience for Paul underscored his love of writing and his desire to make it his career. Soon after, he published his first book of poems, ``Oak and Ivy.''

It was on June 27, 1896, that William Dean Howells, a prominent literary critic of the times, published a column in Harper's Weekly enthusiastically praising Dunbar's second book, ``Majors and Minors.''

Howell stated:

There has come to me from the hand of a friend, very

unofficially, a little book of verses, dateless, placeless,

without a publisher, which has greatly interested me.

So that established Dunbar as a national literary figure. From there, he went on to write four collected volumes of short stories, four novels, three published plays, lyrics for 12 songs, 15 books of poetry, 400 published poems, 200 unpublished poems, uncounted essays on social and racial topics in periodicals and newspapers in a career of less than 13 years.

Literary critics to this day continue to debate Paul Lawrence Dunbar. It has been argued that the author should be considered one of the earliest crusaders for equal rights and that his work belongs in the long tradition of protest writing. Other critics argue against this sort of designation--a controversy that speaks to the complexity and richness of his writing.

There is no debate that Paul Lawrence Dunbar and his works have enriched the history and character of his hometown, Dayton; his State-- my State--Ohio; and our great country. Paul Lawrence Dunbar is known throughout the world for his literary genius. He is recognized as a man of humanity and integrity and determination, thus becoming the first African American to be accepted by the discipline of American literature.

Tomorrow, actually, is the date of his birth, but I stand today to honor this Ohioan and his work.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, 70 years ago today President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act into law. After two decades of devastating Supreme Court opposition, a Supreme Court in those days with a similar bias against workers that our Supreme Court has today-- think of Ledbetter and so many other cases they have made. But after two decades of devastating Supreme Court opposition, and 3 years after that Supreme Court declared the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional, Americans finally were assured of a minimum wage, reasonable work hours, and an end to child exploitation.

Senator Hugo Black, who sat at this desk in the Senate in the 1920s and 1930s, was fundamental in this historic achievement. Black, in the early 1930s, prior to Roosevelt becoming President, had introduced legislation calling for a 6-hour workday. It was considered so radical and so controversial that the 8-hour workday signed into law by President Roosevelt was considered more reasonable and more palatable, and the Congress went along.

Black, by this time, by the time the minimum wage actually went into effect, was a member of the Supreme Court appointed by President Roosevelt. Black, in those years leading up, joined with President Roosevelt, Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and labor leader Sidney Hillman to craft legislation that would withstand judicial challenge. It was not an easy fight, but progressives stood firm for social justice and for economic justice. They said ``no'' to worker exploitation and they created a path to the American dream for millions. As the minimum wage floor was established, other wages went up also, and more and more workers joined the middle class and as a result came out of poverty and joined the middle class. For the first time in our Nation's history, people who worked hard were assured of a reasonable standard of living and decent labor conditions.

Where is that commitment today? Today's low- and middle-income men and women have been hit hard by the failed economic policies of the last 7 years, bad trade policy, bad tax policy, all up and down. We see what has happened to our economy in the Presiding Officer's home State of Pennsylvania, my State of Ohio, from Lima to Zanesville, and everywhere in between.

With gas at $4 a gallon, rising health care costs, skyrocketing food prices, it is more and more difficult for hard-working Americans to keep pace. Now 70 years of progress is eroding. Income inequality is the worst it has been in this country since before Roosevelt, since the Depression and the New Deal gave birth to the minimum wage.

Tim, from Cleveland Heights, OH, a suburb southeast of Cleveland, used to donate to food banks, soup kitchens, and charities before his family fell on hard times. He never thought he would need that help from others. But as the cost of living went up, Tim, who has a full- time job--his wages did not keep

pace. It took 3 months of financial strain before Tim and his family realized they needed to use the food bank he had been contributing to in the past.

Tim used to consider himself middle class. He does not picture himself that way anymore. But there is reason for hope. In 2007, this Congress, the House and the Senate, passed the first minimum wage increase in 10 years. Workers now earn $5.85 an hour, and will get a raise of 70 cents next month. This is a positive step but just the first. We must continue to push for a living wage for all of Ohio and America's hard-working men and women.

Today someone earning a minimum wage and working full time makes only $10,700 a year. That is $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. That, put mildly, is unacceptable. Congress must work to index the minimum wage to inflation to give workers relief in these hard times.

Under current policy, wages stay low as prices go up. Wages in real dollars are far below the minimum wage, and in real dollars are far below what it was 40 years ago. Hard-working Americans are at the mercy of politics and business lobbies for an increase in pay, while CEOs of corporations such as Exxon are reporting record paydays. This is unconscionable.

Franklin Roosevelt said:

A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead

no justification for the existence of child labor, no

economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching

workers' hours.

Like Roosevelt, we must stand for social and economic justice. If social justice and economic justice works for hard-working Ohio families, hard-working American families, and social and economic justice builds a better society, we must do our part to ensure that those who want to work can make a living wage.

We must fight in this Chamber for families who are struggling to stay above the poverty line, families who work full time and play by the rules, pay their taxes, are involved in their communities, raising their kids. We must ask ourselves what kind of country we want this great country to be.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am pleased the Senate has turned to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which in large part was the responsibility of three of my colleagues, Senator Dodd, Senator Reed from Rhode Island, and Senator Shelby, which will provide much needed relief to our country's homeowners and the communities they live in.

Ohio has been at the center of this storm for a number of years, and after years of neglect from the Federal Government, I am pleased that we are finally about to act. Congress needs to help and it needs to act quickly.

I understand we have an agreement that limited amendments today to those that are relevant. This agreement I hope remains in effect through the consideration of the legislation.

Ohio set a record for foreclosures last year, some 83,000 foreclosures. That is more than 1,000 a week. That is close to 200 a day. More precisely, every week about 1,500 families have lost their homes. The end is nowhere in sight. These families need our help now. They do not need political posturing on unrelated issues. We have seen too much of that. That can wait until we are done with this bill.

This fall, by some estimates, we will see the peak of the subprime mortgage resets. One research firm predicts half the subprime loans made in the fourth quarter of 2006 will fail. That is not lending; that is gambling with someone else's house.

The people who were sold these loans, and the neighborhoods they live in, must be among our highest priorities. The needs of communities are critical because this crisis has an impact far beyond the people who lose their homes. Whenever a home goes in foreclosure, the value of neighboring homes drops by about 1 percent. Crime goes up. Just when property tax revenues are plunging and the resources of a city or town are stretched to the limit, more resources are needed, and there is less ability to deliver to help people.

The Foreclosure Prevention Act which we passed in April has been incorporated in this legislation before us. It will provide close to $4 billion in aid to communities so they can rehabilitate or in some cases knock down abandoned homes in neighborhoods.

The bill will fund more counseling to help people rework unfair loans. Yesterday in Columbus I visited a neighborhood on East 21st Street where the Columbus Housing Partnership has been so helpful in counseling many people. More than 100 people, they say, have had their homes saved because of this counseling. Two of them were with me on East 21st Street yesterday.

This is no easy task. Once upon a time you took out a loan with your local bank to buy a home, you knew people at the bank, they knew you, and the bank had a stake, as much stake in your success as you did.

Today, especially for subprime loans, that is seldom the case. The voice on the phone and the owner of the loan could be anywhere in the world. Help in navigating the mortgage maze is essential. But the problem is too big for one-by-one approaches. No matter how hard counselors and servicers work--and they are doing yeoman work all over the country, Toledo, Cleveland, Dayton, and Springfield, all over my State and all over the country. No matter how hard they work, we need a more comprehensive approach to help homeowners who could afford to stay in their homes if they had a fair mortgage.

The bill before us establishes a temporary program within the Federal Housing Administration that, on a voluntary basis, would allow lenders and borrowers to refinance their mortgages into a more affordable and stable product.

The HOPE for Homeowners Act would help perhaps half a million families. But the impact is far wider, as their neighbors and communities will be helped as well if we can avoid foreclosure for these homes in the neighborhoods.

These provisions are not a bailout for borrowers or lenders. Borrowers get no subsidy from the Federal Government. They will have to pay a mortgage on their property like everybody else. The difference is they will now have a standard 30-year fixed rate loan based on the true value of the property, rather than an exploding adjustable rate mortgage based on an inflated appraisal. Lenders, meanwhile, will have to take a loss by writing down the mortgage below the actual value of the property if they choose to participate.

In many cases it will be in their interest to do so. With bank-owned homes selling at a fraction of the outstanding mortgages on them, many will want to accept a smaller loss. If the program works as we hope, it should provide liquidity to the mortgage market so that lenders will be able to again make prudent loans.

The legislation also creates an affordable housing fund. With our stock of affordable housing both aging and shrinking, this fund will be vital to the many families who are struggling to keep a roof over their children's heads.

Families who are ready to buy a home will be helped in several ways by this legislation. First, it includes a modernization of the FHA program. What we saw over the past several years was an incredible shrinking of the market share for FHA loans as borrowers opted for riskier loans instead. The legislation would update the FHA program, increasing limits for high-cost areas and streamlining its operation. Second, home buyers will be eligible for a credit of $8,000 in the form of a 15-year interest-free loan. This credit is phased out for higher income taxpayers, and it will last 1 year. But it should provide help not only to home buyers but help to stabilize markets around the country.

The bill includes several other noticeable tax provisions. It provides an additional $11 billion of mortgage revenue bonds, so that State housing agencies can respond to the housing crisis in a way that best suits their situation. It provides a measure of property tax relief to people who do not itemize on their taxes, an estimated 28 million taxpayers.

This legislation provides a needed overhaul to the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks. This is an issue that has been debated for years. We have now reached a point where we can move forward. The bill creates a new independent regulator with broad authority equivalent to that of other Federal financial regulators. The new regulator will be able to establish capital standards, management standards, and review and approve new products. It will have teeth too, as it will be able to enforce its orders through various means.

This new regulator will draw from various agencies already in place, and it will be required to undertake rulemaking in several areas. I hope my colleagues will give some attention to the transition from the current regulatory regime to the new one. It has taken us years to get to this point in the legislative process. It is unlikely that a new regulator can be created to do a competent job overnight.

Let me conclude by commending Chairman Dodd and Ranking Member Shelby for bringing us to this point today, and especially to the majority leader for his work in getting there. No one in the Senate wants to help people who engaged in fraud or speculation. But hundreds of thousands of people were sold mortgages designed to fail. These people can stay in their homes with a fair mortgage but will be on the street without our assistance. They deserve our help. They deserve it now.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, on Sunday, June 22, we marked an anniversary. On June 22, 1944, President Roosevelt signed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act into law. I come to the floor today to commemorate the 64th anniversary of the passage of this profoundly important bill, better known as the GI bill of rights.

World War II was the largest, most deadly, most terrible war in world history. Before it was over, Americans fought on the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Over 16 million American men and women, including my father, answered the call to serve. Since joining this body, I have held about 100 roundtables across my home State of Ohio, and through these discussions I have had the opportunity and privilege to meet with a number of Ohio veterans from World War II. Getting to know those remarkable men and women has reaffirmed my profound respect for their decision to serve our country. Their service and their sacrifice produced both a stronger nation and a safer world. The ``greatest generation'' earned this Nation's enduring gratitude.

They earned the benefits the GI bill provided and used them to propel this country into a time of unprecedented prosperity. The GI bill was more than a payment to the veterans for their service to our country; it was also a very smart, very pragmatic investment in the social fabric and economic potential of our Nation. The GI bill was designed to help smooth the transition from military service into civilian life. And it did that for millions of men and women who served. It paid for veterans' tuition, books, fees, a monthly stipend, and other training costs. It also provided veterans low-interest mortgages and unemployment insurance.

The GI bill provided veterans in Ohio and the rest of the country the opportunity to realize the American dream. The number of degrees awarded by colleges and universities more than doubled between 1940, the last full year before the war, and 1950.

Veterans were responsible for buying 20 percent of all new homes after the war. The investment in the middle class drove the development and economic expansion of an entire generation.

I yield to the Senator from Montana.

When you think about what happened to the GI bill, it was not only providing opportunity individually to millions of men and women who served, and in that sense a payment they earned; it also created a huge, unprecedented, and unsurpassed sense of prosperity for the country. When all of these men and women came home and were given the opportunity to go to college, regardless of their income or their family status or their wealth or their positions, they were given that opportunity which they earned from World War II.

In recognition of that important anniversary honoring the service men and women, giving them the opportunity and creating the prosperity of millions of newly educated men and women in our country, I call on Congress to renew its commitment to our veterans to recognize this anniversary.

It is our responsibility, our privilege, to uphold the promises our Nation has made to veterans. It is our responsibility and our privilege to advance our Nation's economic goals. Passing the updated GI bill into law is the right way to fulfill both responsibilities. I urge every Member of this body to support that.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to address the Senate as in morning business.

Mr. President, the apologists for the oil industry tell us a lot of things in the Chamber. I hear people in the White House, I hear elected officials, I hear people who have been particularly friendly to the oil industry, campaign contributions, commentators in the media, who tell us a lot of things about why the price of gas has gone up, triple, basically, since President Bush has taken office; triple since the Iraq war began.

The apologists for the oil industry have ascribed no blame to Wall Street speculators. They say the oil industry itself is blameless. They say it is all about the environment, it is all about something most people do not understand.

What they say specifically when they ask a few questions, is: Wouldn't increasing offshore drilling lower gas prices? Wouldn't drilling in the Arctic Refuge lower gas prices? They say: Why can't we build more refineries in the United States? Let's for a moment talk about some of those questions they raise.

First, President Bush's own Energy Department has said that increased drilling offshore would have, in its words, ``no significant impact on gas prices until the year 2030.'' So if we began to drill offshore all the places that some of my friends across the aisle say we should drill, it would make no appreciable difference in the price of gas until 2030, if even then.

Since President Bush has been in office, the Federal Government has nearly tripled the number of permits given to big oil companies to drill for more oil. They have tripled the number of permits. Yet what has happened to gas prices? It has gone from $1.50 to over $4, from $30 a barrel at the beginning of the Iraq war to $130, $140 a barrel now. Big oil companies are not drilling for oil in 75 percent of the land the Federal Government has leased to them, both onshore and offshore.

Then they say: Wouldn't drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge lower gas prices? The President's own Energy Department, again a President of the United States who came out of the oil industry, a Vice President of the United States whose office is across the aisle here, who came out of the oil industry, the President's own Energy Department, full of oil company executives and allies and friends, said a couple of years ago: Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would only reduce gasoline prices by a penny per gallon, and only 20 years from now when drilling is at its peak.

Again, it is one of those arguments they make because they do not want to blame the oil industry, they do not want to blame the speculators on Wall Street who have way more to do with this price jump than anything else.

They say: Why can't we build more refineries in the United States? Well, big oil companies are reducing refinery capacity not because of the Federal Government, they are doing it to increase their profits. An internal memo from Chevron in 1995 said: If the United States petroleum industry does not reduce its refining capacity, does not cut down its refining capacity, it will never see any substantial increase in profits.

In other words, it is in the oil companies' interests to not increase refining capacity. They have the permits to do it. There are no environmental rules stopping them from doing it. They have the permits to do it. It is in their interest to keep refining capacity to refine less so with supply and demand the price goes up. Don't think they haven't thought through that.

The largest five oil refineries in the United States now control over half of domestic oil refinery capacity up from one-third only 10 years ago. This consolidation makes it easier for them to lessen supply, to withhold supplies in order to drive up prices.

If you have looked at oil prices in the last 10 or 20 years, a spike in oil prices always comes as a result of some other incident. It comes from perhaps a fire at a refinery, an outage of a pipeline, Hurricane Katrina, some international incident that causes a disruption in oil supply. That is normally over the years when we have seen a spike in oil prices, of gasoline prices at the pump when something such as that has happened.

None of that has happened in the last couple of years. But it is not one spike, it is not two, it is spike after spike after spike, prices going again from about $30 a barrel when the President took office, the oil company President, to $130, $140 today; $1.30, $1.40 at the gas pump, now up to over $5, as we know.

Pointing fingers in the end gets us nowhere, and saying someone is right, somebody is wrong. The issue is what are we going to do about this. One of the things we should do is to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies to stop them from gouging consumers at the pump. The Bush Justice Department ought to begin looking at price-fixing issues much more aggressively than they ever have.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission needs to be more involved in rooting out the speculators who may very well be doing Enron-type speculating to push up the price of oil.

The last time a windfall profits tax was in effect in 1981 to 1988, gas prices were reduced by 45 cents a gallon, oil prices declined by $20 a barrel, and it generated $89 billion in revenue.

Most importantly, longer term we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. That is clearly the wave of the future. We need to get started sooner rather than later. We on this side of the aisle have tried to take money from the Bush energy bill, some of the subsidies and tax breaks, and use that money to go into alternative energy research and development and do all of the things we need to do.

In closing, over the past 7 years, Enron, BP, and Amaranth were caught redhanded manipulating the price of electricity, propane, and natural gas. Each time they said supply and demand was to blame. Each team the pundits were proven wrong. Excessive speculation, manipulation, and greed were the cause.

The head of OPEC said: The price has nothing to do with a shortage of oil. There is a lot of oil on the market. It is because of speculation. Bart Chilton, one of the Commissioners at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said speculation is driving up oil prices as much as 30 percent. We have work to do. It is clear that rather than defending the oil industry and defending Wall Street speculation, it is time this Congress took action, that the President finally decided to be on the side of the driving public and of businesses that are hurt, truckers and others who are hurt so badly by this, as food prices go up, and all of the other things that happen from high energy prices. It is time the President and the Justice Department and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission came down on the side of the public interest and began to do the right thing.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, today the administration is concluding its much-heralded fourth session of the strategic economic dialog with officials from the Chinese Government. Obviously, there have been three of these previous to this, when Secretary Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, the brain of the Bush administration's economic policy, a very successful Wall Street banker who came to Washington amid all kinds of plaudits from at least Wall Street and many of the newspaper publishers and editors who side with Wall Street on most issues-- Secretary Paulson is an honorable, decent man. He went to China again to engage in these strategic economic dialogs.

The big announcement today from these strategic economic dialogs, SEDs, is an agreement to begin negotiations for a bilateral investment treaty. That is all he has agreed to do with the Chinese, is to talk about how we can help American investors in China get a fair shake from the Chinese Government. Of all the pressing issues we are currently facing in our bilateral relationship with China, Secretary Paulson chose to emphasize issues, frankly, that only stand to benefit the largest investors, the largest mutual funds, the largest hedge funds, the people on Wall Street who have benefitted the most from this global economy, the largest corporations that are outsourcing jobs to China. That is who benefits from these four strategic economic dialogs.

The focus on improving the Chinese stock market and increasing opportunities for foreign investors in China only stands to benefit major U.S. investors and large American companies that are considering moving offshore to China.

Secretary Paulson should have focused on issues that hurt American workers, the impact of the undervalued Chinese currency--part of the work of the junior Senator from Michigan in the Finance Committee--and Secretary Paulson should have been working to fix the lack of effective intellectual property rights enforcement in China, should have worked to correct the soaring bilateral trade deficit of $57 billion--$57 billion just for the first quarter of this year, up 20 percent over last year and on pace to set another record high, $57 billion. That means--doing the math quickly--$600 million or $700 million. Every single day, we buy $600 million or $700 million of imports from China more than we sell to China--every single day. You do not think that is a big reason plants close in Tiffin and Fostoria and Zanesville and Cleveland, and in Lansing, Kalamazoo, and Detroit, MI?

Instead, Secretary Paulson is looking out for investors rather than workers, rather than communities--communities such as Mansfield and Portsmouth and Chillicothe. When a plant closes, firefighters are laid off, police officers are laid off, teachers are laid off. Quality of life diminishes every time we lose these jobs to China.

I would hope Secretary Paulson would consider the needs of the vast majority of Americans who would be better served by a different set of priorities, a different trade relation with China, not trying to fix the Chinese stock market and help U.S. investors and large corporations in the United States that are only looking for more offshoring opportunities. Yet, as the administration concludes its fourth Strategic Economic Dialogue, it has become clear that the SED has been an exercise in talking with no action.

Since the first SED in December 2006--he has done a couple of these every year--the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown $25 billion per year. We have lost 581,000 manufacturing jobs. There have been at least 457--think about this--457 ``Made in China'' recalls by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. That is not counting what happened with heparin, the contaminated ingredients that went into a drug that killed several people in Toledo, OH. It is not even counting that. That is 457 ``Made in China'' products recalled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

New Government reports, from various agencies, have given us new information that poses challenges to our relationship with China. The EPA--get this--it does not affect my part of the country quite as much--estimates that 25 percent of California's air pollution comes directly from China.

The State Department, meanwhile, released its annual ``Trafficking in Persons Report,'' which found significant problems with forced labor, including forced child labor, in the People's Republic of China. This is the fourth year in a row that China was put on a ``watch list'' of countries that could face sanctions if they do not improve their record on trafficking in persons. So where does it talk about this in the Strategic Economic Dialogue? Secretary Paulson wants to help American investors, wants to help U.S. companies that are going to go offshore, wants to help strengthen and repair the Chinese stock market. There is nothing about consumer product safety recalls, nothing about currency devaluation costing us jobs, nothing about trafficking in people and what that means to children and what that means to families.

In December 2006, when the Bush administration announced the Strategic Economic Dialogue with China, nearly 2 years ago, Treasury Secretary Paulson said the SED would focus on five specific areas. These were his own promises. These are not my opinions. These are not my advice or my counsel or my suggestions. These are what Secretary Paulson said he would focus on:

No. 1, the first was ``Managing financial and macroeconomic cycles.''

China utilizes numerous questionable subsidies to artificially boost production, including $27 billion in energy subsidies since 2000 for steel producers. Think about how uncompetitive that is and what it does to our steel industry and what it does to global warming because they do not have the same environmental rules and regulations on their steel industry as we rightly--rightly--have on our steel industry. Chinese steel production has increased more than 50 percent in the last 4 years. Steel exports to the United States are 129 percent higher than they were 3 years ago. That is more than twice as much steel imports from China to the United States.

The second was ``Developing human capital.''

As I just mentioned, China's human rights abuses are notorious, as are their woefully inadequate labor conditions in many factories--not to mention child labor and all they do that way.

Third--one of Secretary Paulson's focuses of his five specific areas--``the benefits of trade and open markets.''

Beijing continues to undervalue its currency--as the Presiding Officer has said in the Finance Committee--by as much as 40 percent. Yet just last week, China's Ambassador to the World Trade Organization chastised the United States--chastised us, with whom they have a $200 billion-plus trade surplus on their end--a deficit on ours--chastised the United States for the dollar's depreciation. In some ways, it is hard to argue with that, that our economic policies have caused this weaker dollar because of the Bush administration's wrong actions in some cases and inaction in others.

USTR has called China's counterfeit and piracy problems rampant, yet has done little to ensure compliance for American companies.

The fourth promise Secretary Paulson made in December 2006 about its focus on the Strategic Economic Dialogue was--his term--``Enhancing investment.''

This is one area the administration perhaps is addressing with the Bilateral Investment Treaty. I will give him one out of the first four.

Fifth, and finally, Secretary Paulson said, ``Advancing joint opportunities for cooperation in energy and the environment.''

This Congress is weighing the merits of different climate change proposals, but one thing is certain: This Congress will pass legislation curbing carbon emissions. We need to do it in a way that ensures we do not just rely on Chinese imports that arrive in the United States without a carbon cost.

So, in other words, on four of the five, Secretary Paulson fell far short or simply did not even address it. Think what happens with our passing climate change if the Chinese do not pass any climate change and the Chinese do not strengthen their regulations on carbon emissions and other pollutants.

That means our factories--which have difficulty competing because of the cost of labor and all of that--our factories will have even more difficulty competing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and California and in all of the country because we will strengthen our environmental rules, as we should, we will reduce carbon emissions, as we should. The Chinese will benefit from that because they do not absorb the cost, they do not bear the cost of these kinds of environmental rules and regulations. So they get even more of a competitive advantage. What happens if a plant shuts down in Youngstown or shuts down in Steubenville or shuts down in Dayton and moves to China? Plants that were following decent emission standards move to China, and their carbon emissions are hardly regulated. So it means lost jobs for us. It means more pollution, more carbon emissions for the world from the People's Republic of China. It is another example of Secretary Paulson simply not addressing the issues that matter to our families, to our communities, to our workers, and to our country.

It is clear the Strategic Economic Dialogue has been lots of talk and no action. It is time for actions from the administration that benefit American workers, benefit American manufacturers, benefit American businesses, and protect consumers. It is time for a new direction in our trade policy with the People's Republic of China.

I thank the Presiding Officer and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I yield to the Senator.

Mr. BROWNBACK: I want to express my support for our provision included in the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007, FDAAA, signed into law this Congress, to award an FDA priority review voucher to encourage the development of treatments for tropical diseases. According to the World Health Organization, roughly one billion people, or nearly one of every six people worldwide, are affected by at least one tropical disease. However, less than 1% of the roughly 1,400 drugs registered between 1975 and 1999 treated such diseases. These diseases are often referred to as the ``neglected diseases'' because of the lack of modern treatments available to address them and their disproportionate impact on very low income populations.

Since the purpose of the priority review voucher is to encourage research and development for diseases for which there is currently little or no market, our intent is that the priority review voucher creates a strong incentive for investment in the often financially risky business of drug and biologic procurement for neglected diseases. Basic economics dictate that the voucher will create the strongest incentive by being freely transferable among private businesses, with each voucher having the capacity for transfer multiple times, without restriction. This interpretation is the intent of Congress. Any imposition of restriction by the Food and Drug Administration on the number of times and manner of transfer of the voucher will have the effect of negating its value, which is contrary to Congressional intent. I yield to my distinguished colleague to elaborate on this point.

I concur with my colleague on the importance of creating a strong incentive for development of treatments for neglected, tropical diseases through a freely transferable priority review voucher. Accordingly, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleague from the State of Kansas, a bill that would codify the authors' intent of two parts of the priority review voucher law. First, any priority review voucher awarded under the provision is freely transferable without restriction on the number of times it can be transferred. Second, the priority review voucher can be redeemed only for a human drug application that is not already pending with the Food and Drug Administration. I encourage my colleagues in Congress to join us in ensuring that this legislation moves quickly through the legislative process.

I yield to the Senator.

Mr. BROWNBACK: I want to express my support for our provision included in the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007, FDAAA, signed into law this Congress, to award an FDA priority review voucher to encourage the development of treatments for tropical diseases. According to the World Health Organization, roughly one billion people, or nearly one of every six people worldwide, are affected by at least one tropical disease. However, less than 1% of the roughly 1,400 drugs registered between 1975 and 1999 treated such diseases. These diseases are often referred to as the ``neglected diseases'' because of the lack of modern treatments available to address them and their disproportionate impact on very low income populations.

Since the purpose of the priority review voucher is to encourage research and development for diseases for which there is currently little or no market, our intent is that the priority review voucher creates a strong incentive for investment in the often financially risky business of drug and biologic procurement for neglected diseases. Basic economics dictate that the voucher will create the strongest incentive by being freely transferable among private businesses, with each voucher having the capacity for transfer multiple times, without restriction. This interpretation is the intent of Congress. Any imposition of restriction by the Food and Drug Administration on the number of times and manner of transfer of the voucher will have the effect of negating its value, which is contrary to Congressional intent. I yield to my distinguished colleague to elaborate on this point.

I concur with my colleague on the importance of creating a strong incentive for development of treatments for neglected, tropical diseases through a freely transferable priority review voucher. Accordingly, I rise today to introduce, along with my colleague from the State of Kansas, a bill that would codify the authors' intent of two parts of the priority review voucher law. First, any priority review voucher awarded under the provision is freely transferable without restriction on the number of times it can be transferred. Second, the priority review voucher can be redeemed only for a human drug application that is not already pending with the Food and Drug Administration. I encourage my colleagues in Congress to join us in ensuring that this legislation moves quickly through the legislative process.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Madam President, in the last 16 months, I have held some 100 roundtables across my State where I invited some 65 Ohio counties of the 88. I invited a cross section of people, 15 to 20 people from a community, to sit down and talk about their hopes, dreams, and ideas for working together, the Federal Government with local government, businesses, labor organizations, schools, and others.

I have met with a number of workers and small business owners, community leaders, and teachers. I heard over and over, as the Presiding Officer has, about the economic anxiety facing families in the State. I have done these roundtables from Bryan to Steubenville, from Ashtabula to Hamilton. Nowhere is this anxiety felt more acutely than among displaced workers and Ohio families struggling to make ends meet.

Fundamentally flawed trade agreements and Bush economic policies have crippled communities in too many cases and devastated far too many families. Since January 2001, Ohio State has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs. Since that time, the Nation has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs. When one loses a manufacturing job, especially if it is a plant shutdown in a relatively small community--this is not happening only in Cleveland and Dayton and Youngstown and Toledo; it is happening in Tiffin, Defiance, Portsmouth, and Chillicothe--if it has 300 workers, it means fewer police officers because of what happens to taxes. There aren't as many people working and businesses and individuals who are paying city income tax or county tax. It means teacher layoffs, police, and fire layoffs. It means services from the community to support families are not what they were prior to the plant closings.

Clearly, a big reason is our trade policy, the NAFTA-CAFTA model,

Mr. President, the goal of trade policy is to lift up workers at home and abroad. Americans support trade, plenty of it, but trade that allows small businesses and manufacturers to thrive. Wrong- headed trade pacts following the failed NAFTA model have too often betrayed middle-class families from Lima to Zaynesville, from New York to California, and destroyed communities in rural and urban areas. In my State, more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 2001. Many of them, most of them, have gone overseas. Across the country, more than 3 million manufacturing jobs since President Bush took the oath of office have been eliminated. Trade policy hurts communities such as Ashtebula and Middletown, Toledo and Findlay, and Mansfield and Tiffin. That is why voters in Ohio have sent a message loudly and clearly demanding a new direction, a very different direction for our Nation's trade policy.

Over the last 8 years, we have had, at best, a fractured approach to trade. In the last 2 years, since voters elected candidates who support smart, fair trade--not this orthodox free trade which clearly has not worked--Congress has reasserted itself in trade policymaking with some--I underscore ``some''--improvements to proposed deals with Peru, Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. We have also chosen on behalf of workers not to grant President Bush a renewal of fast track, of trade promotion authority so the President can continue his failed trade policy.

The American public said no in 2006. This Congress--the Senate and across the building in the House--said no to this continued failed trade policy. Yet these improvements we have made have not rebuilt a consensus on good trade policy. We have opposed bad trade policy. We need to build a consensus on a different direction.

Now more than ever Americans reject the current model. It is time to learn from our mistakes, to make plans to fix them in future agreements. The Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and Employment Act--the TRADE Act--which Senator Dorgan, Senator Feingold, Senator Casey, Senator Whitehouse, and I introduced this month--is a step toward that change.

This legislation serves as a template for how to craft a trade agreement that works for workers, for business owners, for our neighborhoods, for our communities, and for our country.

This legislation mandates a Government Accountability Office review of existing trade agreements and will require the President to submit renegotiation plans for those agreements before negotiating any new agreements--basically a timeout before we pass more of these NAFTA- style, NAFTA-modeled trade agreements.

The TRADE Act will create a committee comprised of House and Senate leaders who will review the President's plan for renegotiation. The bill spells out standards for future trade agreements and will protect developing nations from exploitation by drug companies, energy companies, and financial institutions.

The TRADE Act also sets out criteria for a new negotiating process-- one that would do away with the fundamentally flawed fast-track trade promotion process and return power to Congress, which is what our Constitution says, when considering our Nation's trade pacts.

No more charging the President, if you will, with negotiating these trade agreements behind closed doors, with lobbyists for financial interests and banks and insurance companies and oil companies and pharmaceutical companies standing outside the door, passing notes to these trade negotiators.

We take for granted our clean air, safe food, and safe drinking water. But these blessings are not by chance. They result from rules and laws about wages, about health, about the environment. Flawed trade policy, as we now know, accelerates the importation of toxic toys, contaminated toothpaste, and poisonous pet food--ingredients that kill people in drugs such as heparin.

It does not have to be this way. We have a choice. We can continue a race to the bottom in wages, worker safety, and environmental and health standards. We know what that race to the bottom means. It means lost manufacturing jobs. It means the stagnation of wages. It means importing toxic toys from China. It means importing the ingredients that come to us in heparin and other drugs that have literally killed Americans. Or we can use trade agreements to lift up standards abroad and in this country--not threaten workers and consumers.

We can continue down the path of the failed NAFTA model or we can negotiate trade agreements that result in the creation of manufacturing jobs, increased wages, and a reduction of the trade deficit by providing fair and transparent market access.

We can use our trade laws as a chit in negotiations or we can preserve the ability of the United States to enforce domestic trade laws to address the negative impacts of currency manipulation, financial instability, and high debt burdens on U.S. trade relationships.

We can continue to use trade deals to lock in--to lock in-- protections for Wall Street, the drug companies, and the oil companies or we can create a predictable structure for international trade without providing corporations with overreaching privileges and rights of private enforcement that undermine our laws.

Middle-class families, American manufacturers, farmers, and community leaders across this country know we need a very different direction in trade. The TRADE Act is supported by more than a dozen labor unions, both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. It is supported by the Sierra Club, the National Farmers Union, and the National Family Farm Coalition.

We know a different direction in trade policy in this country is supported by a coalition of religious leaders, human rights activists, advocates for children and families, environmental groups, family farm groups, and labor groups.

I am going to ask my leadership and my caucus to work with me on this legislation. I look forward to working with my allies on the other side of the aisle to work with me in restoring our trade policy--fair trade, smart trade, a very different direction for our country.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the order for the remaining debate time.

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

I so appreciate the Senator from North Dakota and his comments about the just-say-no philosophy around here. I have been in this institution only 15 months. I have seen his leadership on a whole host of issues, and I have also seen the disappointment that it is one filibuster after another--74, 75 filibusters, more than anytime in Senate history--on such commonsense legislation as the Energy bill yesterday and the Medicare bill today.

I am happy to see that Senator Baucus and Senator Reid have brought the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act to the Senate floor today. It is crucial not just immediately for physicians and hospitals, not just immediately for patients, most importantly, but it is also crucial to the future of Medicare.

The bill not only prevents a 10.6-percent cut to payments for physicians

and other health care professionals, it gives these providers a small payment increase. The cost of providing health care has increased; payments to health care professionals should increase too.

Our history with Medicaid should teach us about the importance of preserving Medicare by keeping payment rates viable for providers. Inadequate Medicaid payment rates have compromised access to dentists and other health professionals. I visited with the dental unit at Children's Hospital in Columbus and talked to dentists all over the State, talked to hygienists and others. It is pretty clear that we do not have enough dental care, we do not have adequate dental care, especially for low-income young patients. The reason is we do not have adequate reimbursement for dentists to provide Medicaid dental care, particularly for those children. We need to fix that Medicaid problem, not recreate that same problem in Medicare.

This bill is about so much more than provider payment, as Senator Dorgan said. It contains important measures to improve Medicare for beneficiaries. It increases subsidies for low-income patients. It invests in preventative health care. It reduces out-of-pocket costs for mental health treatment.

Senator Durbin spoke of Senator Wellstone's work and Senator Domenici's work on mental health treatment; to treat it like a disease not a stigma, and how important that is. This makes some downpayment on that solution.

This bill eliminates late enrollment penalties for Part D and modernizes Medigap policies. It bolsters rural health care, something I have discussed in my roundtables around Ohio. I have done some 90-plus roundtables in 65 counties and seen how inadequate rural health care is in rural areas of my State, as it is in the Presiding officer's State of Montana. The bill authorizes a special diabetes program.

This morning in my every-Thursday-morning coffee, which I have for Ohio residents in Washington, I met with Ohioans from Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo, and Cleveland. Ohio's children are suffering from type 1 diabetes. They told devastating stories. One man told about his teenage daughter going blind. Another told me that by the time a young child with diabetes turns 18, she will have endured more than 30,000 shots.

Diabetes is one of the most prevalent and pressing health threats we face as a nation. The cost to the health care system is more than any other single disease. Reauthorizing the cost-effective Medicare diabetes program serves patients and taxpayers.

The bill has other crucial provisions. It exempts the value of life insurance from counting against seniors attempting to qualify for the low-income subsidy in Part D. Constituents have written to me telling me they are afraid of saving for the future, of all things, because they might lose their eligibility for subsidized drugs. What kind of system is that? This bill will help fix that.

One of the most common stories I have heard in my 90-plus roundtables, where I convene meetings of 15, 20, 25 people and ask them questions for an hour and a half, 2 hours, and we talk about their hopes, dreams, and problems, and where we, as a Senate, might be able to work with them and make their lives better, one of the most common stories I hear from Defiance and Gallipolis, from Middletown and Ashtabula, whether I am meeting with providers or patients, is about Medicare. My office receives thousands of constituent letters about Medicare. I recently heard from an infectious disease doctor in Lima, who explained how he is squeezed by current Medicare rates. He said:

As health care costs have escalated and reimbursement has

fallen, we have had to make some hard decisions.

He told me he has had to let go of employees, cut office hours, and that the financial stress is at the breaking point. He said:

Last year, a doctor would call me [about a patient] with an

infected abscess. Commonly, I had the patient sent to my

office, lance the boil, pack the wound, and give IV

antibiotics daily in my office until transitioned to pills.

The patient was never admitted to the hospital.

Since his office is less and less able to provide outpatient services--remember, I said he had laid people off--similar patients are now admitted to the hospital. What happens?

``The admission day alone,'' he says, ``costs more than the entire course of therapy in my office.''

It is obvious how inefficient and expensive this is. We need to fix the current payment system, and we will. But we should not grossly underpay those professionals while we work on a better system. Until that day, we should pass this bill. Medicare is one of the great accomplishments of our Government and of our country. Senators Dorgan and Durbin both talked about in 1965, half of America's seniors didn't have any health insurance. Today that number is less than 1 percent. Because Medicare is one of the great accomplishments of our Government and our country, we have to preserve it. This bill takes major strides to do so.

In addition to voting yes at 3 o'clock on cloture, there has been another piece of related legislation I want to speak on for a moment. It is the alternative bill offered by Senator Grassley, who I think is one of the single best legislators in this body. The bill he wrote as an alternative to our bill, to the Baucus legislation, perpetuates a shameful politically motivated subsidy program that overpays private insurance health maintenance organizations to the tune of $10 billion a year. What this does is it overpays private insurance companies, undercutting fee-for-service traditional Medicare, causing taxpayers-- requiring taxpayers--to give huge, frankly, unearned dollars to these insurance companies as they try to privatize Medicare. The Baucus bill redirects these taxpayer-funded windfall payments from HMOs to concrete improvements in the Medicare Program.

In the beginning of my speech, the first 6 or 7 minutes, I talked about improvements we are making in the Medicare Program. We are able to do so by taking money away from the private for-profit Medicare HMOs that have reaped a windfall in the last 10 years as this Congress, particularly the Republican House and Senate for most of the last decade, shoveled more and more public dollars into these private insurance programs, these private HMOs, and private HMO executives have had grossly inflated salaries and benefits and retirements, all of that. Ending those gratuitous overpayments to HMOs should not be an option for this Congress; it should be an imperative that we finally do that.

Taxpayers can't afford to coddle private, for-profit health maintenance organizations, and we can't continue to do it. I encourage my colleagues to vote for the very crucial Baucus Medicare legislation.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, this morning we had two more opportunities to address rising gas prices and do something immediately as the price of gas per gallon goes over $4 in Steubenville and almost $4 in Dayton and even higher in some places in my State and in the Presiding Officer's State of New Jersey. We had two more opportunities to address rising gas prices immediately and longer term.

We need to start immediately to invest in renewable energy rather than the other choice of continuing to line the pockets of big oil. We could have helped to begin to create tens of thousands of good-paying, green-collar jobs right here at home. Once again, the Bush administration opposed our efforts and Republican Senators joined the Bush administration and refused to put middle-class families first.

The Consumer-First Energy Act is a good first step in providing immediate relief to drivers in Ohio and across the land who are faced with soaring gasoline and diesel prices.

The other night I had a conference call with 20 truckers. Think about what this has done to them. Many of them have had to sell their trucks. They are simply not able to afford the $4.50 and up per gallon price of diesel. Oil prices are setting record highs, it seems, every week, and yesterday closed at over $136 a barrel.

This legislation will help in the short term and allow us to get through and offer some assistance to motorists to get through the summer driving season. The policies that created this gas price crisis didn't happen overnight. Before we attack the long-term problems, Ohioans need help now to get through the summer to keep trucks running, to keep the economy moving, to keep food prices in check as the cost of energy ripples through the whole economy and causes prices to go up generally.

Cities throughout Ohio are struggling to pay gas bills for the police cars, for EMS, for fire department vehicles, school buses, garbage trucks, and mass transit services.

We need to roll back the massive tax breaks for oil companies which would generate more than $17 billion to be used for green energy, for renewable energy, and for energy efficiency. We will impose a 25- percent windfall profits tax on companies that fail to invest in increased capacity and renewable energy sources. We will ensure purchases for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve do not resume, especially when we are paying $120, $130, $140, $150 a barrel to put oil in the reserve. We will provide protection for consumers from price gouging. We call on the Justice Department again to be active and take on the oil companies as they seem to price gouge. We will work to stop market speculation, prevent traders of U.S. crude oil from routing transmissions through offshore markets to evade speculative limits.

Ohioans play by the rules. Americans play by the rules. So should the oil industry. So should the speculator. So should Wall Street.

There is so much we need to do. I call on my friends on that side of the aisle to join with majority Democrats: no more filibusters and let's get to work. Let's do the right thing short term to help American motorists deal with these outrageously high prices, long term to, in fact, after 30 years become energy independent and create the kinds of green jobs a good energy policy can create.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.