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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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 as in morning business for up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, today the Joint Economic Committee released a report highlighting the impact of subprime foreclosures on local economies. It confirmed what many of us know: When homes go into foreclosure, it is not just the homeowner and the tragedy to that family; whole communities suffer. When entire neighborhoods fall victim to foreclosures, communities are often devastated.

Today's report shows that in Ohio, there are more than 293,000 outstanding sub-prime loans--293,000 in a State of 11 million people, perhaps 3 million-plus households; 293,000 outstanding subprime loans. Every outstanding loan represents a family, an Ohio family, that is so close to losing their home.

The estimated loss of property value this year in Ohio is more than $3.7 billion. The estimated local tax loss, that is local government revenue all over the State, this year is more than $31 million. That is lost revenue needed to pay for firefighters, for schoolteachers, for police officers, and for rescue squad vehicles and their workers. That lost revenue means poorer service and less service for those communities already suffering from poverty and suffering from the foreclosures themselves.

Two years ago, when Hurricane Katrina's storm surge left thousands homeless, Congress and the American people leapt to respond. We were moved and ashamed by the images we saw in our newspapers and on television. We were moved by the images, and ashamed, frankly, by our Government's lack of response. Most of us could not believe this could happen in our country. Today, we are witnessing the economic equivalent of Katrina in the housing market--a slow moving storm surge that is leaving hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people in this country without a home. They have lost their homes, they have lost their American dream. It started on Lake Erie rather than on Lake Pontchartrain, but it has spread to all corners of our country--from New York to the Presiding Officer's Florida, from California to Minnesota. As today's report shows, subprime lending doesn't just hurt families, it hurts entire communities.

Unfortunately, the response to date in some ways has been worse than Katrina. Regulators have been slow to use their authority to act, Congress has done next to nothing, and the President, as before with Katrina, made a speech and then moved on. The Treasury Department sprang into action when Wall Street was looking at losses, but it has not applied the same energy or commitment to the thousands upon thousands of families in Slavic Village, near Cleveland, in Columbus and Lima, in Mansfield and Marion, or Zanesville. Thousands and thousands of families in those communities are losing their homes.

Whole neighborhoods in Cleveland and Dayton and cities throughout the State are drowning in foreclosures. Things are going to get worse before they get better. We know that, because the adjustable rate mortgages are about to reset day after day, week after week, month after month in our communities. Almost every day the news brings more evidence of how widespread this problem has become for banks--losses in Merrill Lynch, layoffs at Bank of America, and huge layoffs at National City Bank in my State.

Even as National City announces the layoff of 1,000 people in Ohio, in the first 9 months of this year, since January, 100,000 foreclosure filings have already stacked up, with every county in our State contributing to that stack.

Home sales are down, prices are down, and problems are showing up in prime markets. But we have yet to see the worst of it. Resets of subprime adjustable rate mortgages will peak this fall, ease up a bit, and then skyrocket next fall. Throughout the time these mortgages were being made, underwriting standards fell further and further. So on top of the enormous volume of loans resetting over the next 12 to 15 months, the likelihood of all those 2-28 loans made in 2006 defaulting in 2008 is likely to get worse.

We are already in record territory when it comes to this year's loans, but we have made a start in addressing this crisis. The $200 million contained in the housing appropriations bill passed by the Senate must be maintained or increased in the bill sent to the President. And he must sign it. He must do something about this. That would be a major first step to helping those neighborhood organizations, those not-for-profits. There is a terrific one in Toledo, and several in my State and in the State of Florida too. It will matter to those people who are about to lose their homes. They are delinquent in their payments, perhaps because of the reset and a higher mortgage, or because their taxes and insurance were added when they didn't know they weren't included, or when they were simply deceived or betrayed by fraudulent mortgage brokers.

This $200 million is not a bailout. It is only to help them renegotiate their loans so their delinquencies won't turn into foreclosures. And the President, as I said, must sign this bill.

The regulators need to act and act quickly with strong protections for consumers, and Congress must act to codify and build on those protections. Mortgage bankers must be held accountable for their actions. They can no longer sell loans without regard to whether a borrower can afford to pay them back. And banks have to be responsible as well. Underwriting standards have to ensure that borrowers qualify at the real rate rather than the teaser rate. No more of that. Escrows have to be set up for subprime loans, as they are for prime loans, and put money aside for insurance and for taxes. No-document loans need to become a thing of the past.

Just because the subprime crisis is less visible than the destruction of a hurricane, it is no less damaging. All of us need to respond. Our response must be comprehensive and our response needs to happen now.

I yield the floor, and 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 order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I appreciate seeing the Senator from Pennsylvania in the chair. We were both in the Agriculture Committee today. I thank him for his leadership for dairy farmers and for nutrition and feeding kids and all that he did that way.

The 2007 farm bill is a chance for Congress to make historic strides in agriculture, alternative energy, and to literally help improve the lives of millions of families across the country--families struggling from Harrisburg to Erie, from Ashtabula to Gallipolis, from Lima to Toledo.

In a State such as Ohio, with a long and rich agricultural history, this means a bright future for our agriculture industry, for our family farmers, and for our families.

I applaud the leadership of Senator Harkin. I am proud, as Ohio's first Senator to sit on the Agriculture Committee in four decades, to be part of this process.

This bill could mean that low-income families will have more access to better nutrition by increasing Food Stamp Programs and access to affordable healthy foods. That means more fruits and vegetables into the schools in Hamilton, Middletown, and Akron, and more fruits and vegetables available, grown by local farmers, to go into farmers markets in Columbus and Zanesville and all over our State.

Earlier this year, as the occupant of the chair and I and others gathered in the committee, we heard from Rhonda Stewart of Hamilton, OH. Rhonda is perhaps in her early thirties and has, I believe, a 9- year-old son. She is a single mother, struggling and working full-time and making about $8, $9, or $10 an hour, with no health insurance. She was president of the local PTA and her son is involved in the Cub Scouts and she is a food stamp beneficiary. She struggled every month. At the beginning of the month, she told the committee back in February, she would serve her son pork chops that first week, which is his favorite meal. By the middle of the month, they went to McDonald's or another fast-food place maybe twice. But by the end of the month, as times got tough and she struggled financially, she would almost invariably sit at the dinner table, at the kitchen table with her son, he would be eating and she would not. He would say: What's wrong, Mom? Aren't you hungry? She would say: No, I don't feel well. She simply ran out of money at the end of the month.

In the farm bill, we are helping people like her and her family who work hard and play by the rules and do everything in the workplace and in their homes that we ask them to do as citizen of their communities and our country. This bill could mean new investment and a new direction for farmers in Ohio.

The 2007 farm bill reflects the values of farmers across Ohio: forward-thinking, responsible, and working to protect our natural resources and our rural communities.

This bill will help family farmers in my State and in Pennsylvania and across the country by strengthening the farm safety net, one that will provide better protection for farmers against disasters, such as either low yield or low prices. Either one can be obviously devastating to farmers.

The Average Crop Revenue Program, which Senator Durbin and I introduced a bill to create as part of the farm bill--amended by Chairman Harkin into the farm bill--offers a much needed choice to farmers. It represents significant reform for farmers and huge savings--literally $3.5 billion--for taxpayers.

Farmers can stay in the current or old program that does little to protect against drops in revenue or, for the first time ever, farmers will be able to switch to a forward-looking policy that better protects against volatile crop prices, natural disasters, and rising production costs. If farmers are doing well and prices and yields are good, farmers would not get tax dollars. If times are bad--the yield is low or there are floods or tornadoes that cause major crop yield drops or if the price is low--then the farmer will get help. That is the way that agriculture should be. That is the way most farmers I find in northwest Ohio and all over my State want to do it too. I traveled throughout Ohio this Spring--to Chillicothe, where we did roundtables with fruit and vegetable farmers, and in Montgomery County, not too far from Troy, and Piqua, near Dayton. We talked to farmers there, and near Wooster, OH. We talked to dairy farmers. In Lake County we talked to specialty farmers, especially those who do landscaping and greenhouses. In northwest Ohio we talked to farmers who grow corn and soybeans.

I met with a corn farmer in Henry County who will be supplying corn to one of the first ethanol plants in Ohio. I met with a hog farmer in Montgomery County who uses wind turbines to provide on-farm energy.

This farm bill makes a commitment to move beyond antiquated energy sources and wean ourselves from Middle Eastern oil and prepare American agriculture to lead the world in renewable energy production.

With the right resources and the right incentives, farmers can help decrease our dependence on foreign oil and produce clean, sustainable, renewable energy.

In a State such as Ohio, with a talented labor force and a proud lead-the-nation manufacturing history, that doesn't just mean stronger farms and more prosperous farmers; it means a stronger economy.

Rural communities across the Nation will benefit from additional Federal assistance in the farm bill and small towns not far from where I grew up in Lexington, OH, places like Butler and Belleville, will benefit from funding for infrastructure and hospitals, while expanding access to broadband for all of my State, especially southeast Ohio, which doesn't have the access it needs.

This bill will also provide more than $4 billion in additional funding for conservation programs to help farmers protect our water quality, expand wildlife habitat, and preserve endangered farmland.

While I am pleased with the bill overall, it can be improved. The public is perfectly willing to help family farmers when they need it, but taxpayers will not support massive payments to farms that have substantial net incomes.

We should not be sending tax dollars to Florida real estate developers, to city farmers who live in New York, to NBA players, or to media personalities. Those are not the people who should benefit from the farm bill.

I regret that we have not funded the McGovern-Dole international feeding program. I hope as this legislation progresses, we will do so.

The agricultural industry in Ohio has experienced unprecedented change in recent years, but the values of Ohio farmers--hard work, stewardship of the

land, caring for their families--remains steadfast.

We, too, must be steadfast in our support for farmers, but we must also change how we go about providing that support.

I applaud the proposal put before us in the Agriculture Committee today. I hope we can even improve upon it in the weeks ahead.

I yield the floor.

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

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

I call up amendment No. 3361, which I am offering with my colleague, Senator Webb of Virginia.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, our amendment does not create a new government program or require new spending. It is a modest amendment designed to achieve a major goal, to reduce school violence.

On October 10, a 14-year-old boy brought two guns to a Cleveland public school. He shot four people before turning the gun on himself.

On April 16, a student at Virginia Tech shot 49 people, 32 of them fatally, before turning the gun on himself.

The next act of school-based violence may already be taking shape in the mind of another deeply troubled child, adolescent, or adult.

Parents send their children to school every day trusting that they will be safe. It is a crucial premise. And school-based violence shatters it. It doesn't matter that violent incidents are rare. The fact that a school, any school, could become a killing field is unthinkable to a parent, to any of us. Yet we must think about it. We must think about school-based violence so we can minimize it.

There are no easy answers for a school faced with a potentially violent student who has not yet acted on that potential. Schools should and must respect the rights of each student while ensuring the safety of all students. There are no easy answers, but there are answers.

In 2002, the Department of Education and the U.S. Secret Service put together a comprehensive guidance document to help schools respond appropriately when faced with a potentially dangerous student, as well as how to prepare for and respond to acts of violence on school campuses. School administrators have confirmed that this document is very useful. Unfortunately, it is also out of date.

Following the Virginia Tech tragedy, the President asked three Members of his Cabinet: Secretary Leavitt of Health and Human Services, Secretary Spellings of the Department of Education, and Attorney General of the Department of Justice, to review the events surrounding the tragedy and recommend ways of preventing such tragedies in the future. This report, which was released June 13, gives us new information, and we should use it.

We don't have the luxury of time. It doesn't make sense to wait a minute longer than necessary to get the right information into the hands of every school administrator in this country. The Brown-Webb amendment instructs the Department of Education to use its existing authority and funding under the Safe and Drug-Free School and Communities Program, to update the 2002 guidance based on what was learned from Virginia Tech, and to distribute the updated guidance to schools within a 3-month timeframe. That is a fast turnaround, and it is completely appropriate. Updating the document will take staff time; distributing the document will take computers and some legwork. Getting this done quickly is most important because it can prevent an act of school-based violence. It is what we should do.

I ask my colleagues for their support.

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

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

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for no more than 10 minutes.

Madam President, this was a good week in this body for changing the direction of U.S. trade policy. My fellow Senators--and I think we are seeing the same in the House of Representatives--are beginning to listen to the elections of last fall, beginning to listen to what voters are saying, beginning to listen to what workers and small businesses are telling them about a failed U.S. trade policy and how we need a new direction in trade policy.

On Monday this week I offered a modest amendment, a reminder to the Bush administration that we need to vigorously enforce our trade laws. That amendment passed overwhelmingly, with fewer than a half dozen negative votes.

Few in this Chamber can disagree with that, especially when we see what the unfair trade and the absence of a vigorous trade enforcement team can do to American manufacturing. In our country, there are rules to protect the free market from anticompetitive schemes, such as monopolies and collusion and price gouging. In the global economy, there are similar rules to protect the free market from anticompetitive schemes such as Government subsidies and the dumping of underpriced foreign products on domestic markets.

Once you put domestic markets out of business, then foreign prices are free to rise unchecked. Lax labor and environmental laws also undercut the free market by creating insurmountable price differences. But when our country does not combat the anticompetitive behavior in the global marketplace, our economy suffers for it. That is why the amendment this week was important, to instruct the administration to be more aggressive, as the Justice Department needs to be more aggressive in our country, to protect the free market from anticompetitive schemes such as monopolies and collusion and price gouging; our trade representative, our trade negotiators, our trade policy enforcers need to be more aggressive in enforcing international trade laws against anticompetitive schemes such as Government subsidies and the dumping of underpriced foreign products on domestic markets.

American manufacturing fuels our economy, whether it is in Minneapolis or whether it is in Cleveland, and it supplies our national defense infrastructure. In my home State of Ohio, well over 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the last 7 years.

We know American industry can compete with anyone in the world when it is actually a fair fight. But some foreign governments have unfairly and illegally doled out massive subsidies to their own companies. Some are encouraged through our tax system to reestablish offshore, contributing to the outmigration of manufacturing jobs from our country overseas.

As reported today in the Hill, the Bush administration is using steel from China to build a fence on the Mexican border: ``[The Department of Homeland Security] criticized for Chinese steel in U.S.-Mexico fence.'' We are using taxpayer dollars to build a fence on the U.S.-Mexican border, and much of the steel comes from China. We know what NAFTA did to Mexico's middle class. We know it has run more than 1\1/3\ million farmers off their land into the cities to compete for dwindling manufacturing jobs, jobs where wages continue to drop despite increased foreign investment from NAFTA.

We know that many make the dangerous trek to our country, trying to get through security, go over the desert, across the river--all they do to find work and money for their families. Yet here we are building a wall made of Chinese steel. How will history judge this Congress when we see more of the same failed trade policies that contribute to this migration and then build a wall of Chinese steel? I wish President Bush would talk to Ohioans about that. I wish he would talk to a steelworker in Lorain or a machine shop owner in Mansfield or a tool-and-die worker in Youngstown, people who are hard-working men and women who have made America the strongest Nation in the world, workers who, frankly, feel betrayed by America's trade policies.

Presidents from both parties have entered into trade agreements like

NAFTA, promising they would create millions of jobs and enrich communities. Instead, too many of these agreements have cost millions of jobs and devastated communities. It is not just the worker who suffers. It is the family, people down the street, as the valuation of houses contributes to delinquency and foreclosures. It means fewer police, fewer teachers, and fewer firefighters, as communities are devastated from layoffs and workers losing their jobs. In the cities, workers lose their jobs too. Yet the Bush administration and proponents of deals with Peru, Colombia, Panama, and South Korea want more of the same. They want the current system to keep going, to be expanded, despite evidence that the NAFTA model and the CAFTA model have not been working for Mexican workers, Central American workers, American workers, or small businesses in those countries and is not working for small manufacturers.

The number of workers filing for unemployment benefits jumped last week to its highest level since late August. Last week, 2,000 more Ohioans were seeking unemployment benefits, thousands more in Michigan, in Minnesota, in Indiana, North Carolina, all over the country--hardly the sign of a good economy, hardly the time for another trade agreement.

History will be on the side of those who want a different trade policy. The Founders gave Congress the responsibility to set the terms of trade policy. To vote up or down on a flawed agreement is in no one's best interest. It is not smart policy or politics. We need to begin by evaluating agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, as Senator Dorgan proposed this week. We need to pause. Let's say no more trade agreements for a while until we fix our trade policy and learn what those agreements and our trade commitments have accomplished for workers. If I am wrong and they are working for workers, communities, consumers, and our small business owners, then let's proceed. But let's stop and look, figure this out.

We need a new model for trade agreements that requires negotiators to not just ensure better labor and environmental rules are enforced--we made some progress in the Peru trade agreement on that, and that is a small step but not enough--but also raises safety standards, doesn't allow backdoor challenges to public interest laws, doesn't give corporations the power, as NAFTA did for the first time ever in a trade agreement, to sue foreign governments, including foreign corporations to sue our Government to weaken our environmental laws, to weaken our food safety laws, to weaken our worker protection laws, to undercut our ``Buy American'' laws. That is when we end up doing stupid things like building a wall between Mexico and the United States and using Chinese steel.

Finally, we need to reward corporations. We have introduced the Patriot Corporations Act. Those corporations that play by the rules, hire Americans, provide health care, provide a pension, and take care of their communities should be rewarded with tax advantages instead of penalizing those companies and rewarding those companies that go offshore.

Ultimately, our commitment is to protect our country. That means to protect our children from foreign products that have lead. It means to protect workers, our small businesses, and our communities. That is how we provide opportunity to build a thriving middle class. That is why it is time to take a breath, stop. Before we move forward in Peru and Panama, before we move forward in Colombia and South America, we need to examine how this trade policy is working.

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

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

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. President, I rise to oppose amendment No. 3324, the Sessions amendment. As far as I know, there is no Member of this body who opposes rigorous oversight of labor unions. Members of this body who care about the well-being of American workers don't want them harmed, period. It doesn't matter if it is an employer or a union leader or the U.S. Trade Representative who is doing the harming.

Unions are already subject, as they should be, to stringent reporting requirements, and unions overwhelmingly comply with whatever requirements are mandated. In its budget justification, the Department of Labor stated that the acceptability rate for unions in meeting their financial requirements is 96 percent. There is not a serious problem. We don't have a problem with monitoring unions. What we do have a problem with is attacking workers, which is what this amendment will do.

The offset of this amendment should offend any Member of this body who respects the hard-fought progress our Nation has made in the workplace, whether it is protecting the health and safety of workers or preventing the exploitation of children.

Look at what this amendment does. It increases funding 37 percent for ``labor-management standards.'' It does nothing for wage and hour enforcement. The Presiding Officer from Iowa has fought so hard for more wages to build the middle class.

Look what it does here--and one of the reasons we have had stagnant wages in this country--it cuts funding for occupational safety and health. We know what has happened with workers in the workplace. We have seen an increase in incidents because of the Bush administration's lax enforcement of OSHA standards to begin with. Look what it does to the International Labor Affairs Bureau.

This offset would undercut our investment in fighting the worst forms of child labor and human trafficking. It would undercut our ability to ensure that labor laws in developing nations are being enforced. When those laws are not enforced, not only are there gross human rights abuses, there are insurmountable obstacles to fair competition in the global trading arena.

In other words, when we do not enforce labor standards in the developing world, it is only costing us jobs because they are undercutting our wages because they are violating labor law and they are basically not playing fair.

This administration now seeks more of the same, asking Congress to approve trade agreements with Peru, Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. This amendment is more of the same. The Sessions amendment cuts from the small contribution--the small contribution--this Government makes toward eliminating the worst forms of labor abuse.

Many countries still permit deplorable practices such as child labor and forced labor. The Sessions amendment cuts funding of the International Labor Affairs Bureau by $5 million. That undercuts its core mission: investigating and combating these violations of human dignity.

Look at these children shown in this picture I have in the Chamber, and look at the work they are doing, hour

after hour, day after day, in all too many places around the world. This is economic globalization on the cheap, and our Nation cannot afford it.

Many in this Chamber may remember a report released last year by the National Labor Committee which exposed disgraceful working conditions in Jordan--a country with which we have a free trade agreement. The report documented workers who were trafficked--their passports confiscated when they arrived in Jordan. They used materials made in China to make finished projects eligible for duty-free entry into the United States, passing through Jordan. We see too many workers in places such as Jordan. And our administration, what does it do? It looks the other way.

International Labor Affairs funding--the funding this amendment would cut--goes toward the implementation of ILO Convention 182 on the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labor. It has been ratified by 165 nations. The funding provides foreign governments with technical assistance on meeting their responsibilities so this does not happen.

A more recent ILO report, ``The End of Child Labor: Within Reach,'' showed that the number of children working around the world dropped 11 percent, from 246 million children--like these--in 2000, to 218 million in 2004. That is not good enough, but that is progress, and the Sessions amendment would pull the rug out from under that progress.

Members of this body who vote ``yes'' on this Sessions amendment will be simultaneously launching a gratuitous attack on labor unions in this country and abandoning workers, including these children, and others, who are being abused and exploited. It is doubly wrong. Vote ``no.''

Amendment No. 3348 To Amendment No. 3325

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and to call up amendment No. 3348 at the desk.

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

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

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 3349, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to offer this amendment with Senators Lincoln, Obama, Feingold, Collins, Wyden, Menendez, and Kerry.

This amendment would halt the implementation of an invalid and unethical Department of Education evaluation of Upward Bound programs. Across the country, Upward Bound serves low-income, first-generation students who are at risk of not completing high school or pursuing higher education. The evaluation requires that Upward Bound programs aggressively recruit twice as many students as they can serve simply to provide enough students for a control group that will never actually receive Upward Bound services. It forces program directors to engage in a sort of bait and switch that contradicts their mission as educators. It places in danger longstanding trust relationships between Upward Bound directors and school administrators, between students and their families, and, most critically, it dashes the hopes of vulnerable teens who lack the academic or the financial or the emotional support necessary to successfully pursue higher education.

Not only will students be given false hope under this evaluation and this process, but there remain serious questions about the adequacy of research designs based on randomly assigned control groups in educational research. These concerns are based on the difficulty-- perhaps even the impossibility--of imposing laboratory conditions in nonlaboratory environments.

Unless we take action, the evaluations will proceed on about 100 campuses across the country, 10 percent of those--10 of those--in my State of Ohio.

Upward Bound programs are critically important. We know how effective they are to our Nation's youth, and we should evaluate their effectiveness. But we should do it the right way, in a fair, ethical, and valid way.

I will continue to work with my colleagues, including the Presiding Officer, on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and in the Senate to develop an evaluation methodology that will truly let us know how our Upward Bound programs are performing.

I urge adoption of this amendment.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I would like to be notified when a half minute is gone so I can yield the other 30 seconds to Senator Voinovich.

I ask unanimous consent that Senators Lieberman and Whitehouse be added as cosponsors of the amendment.

This important bipartisan amendment, offered by Senators Voinovich, Lieberman, and Whitehouse, would provide $2 million in paid- for funding for the Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural Program. It is administered by the Department of Education to research, display, interpret, and collect artifacts relating to the history of the Underground Railroad. Senators Alexander, Cochran, Isakson, Levin, and I offered a similar reauthorization bill that this amendment is taken from. I ask for the support of my colleagues for the amendment.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 10 a.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

The hearing will provide general oversight on current regulatory and programmatic activities at the U.S. Department of Transportation. The Commerce Committee has general oversight jurisdiction over the entire Department and specific authority over the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, Federal Maritime Administration, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, amongst other entities within the Department.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to hold a hearing during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

At this hearing, the committee will explore the effects science parks can have on innovation and competitiveness including encouraging partnerships with academia, and spurring regional economic development. The committee also will examine public policy involvement in science park development.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 10:30 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Lead and Children's Health.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Growing Trade, Growing Vigilance: Import Health and Safety Today and Tomorrow.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 3 p.m. in order to consider the nomination of the Honorable Ellen C. Williams to be Governor, U.S. Postal Service.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet in order to continue the hearing on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States, on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 10 a.m. in the Hart Senate Office Building Room 216.

Witness list:

Panel I: The Honorable Charles E. Schumer, United States Senator [D- NY]. The Honorable Joseph Lieberman, United States Senator [ID-CT].

Panel II: Michael B. Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States.

Panel III: Dick Thornburgh, Of Counsel, K&LGates, Washington, DC. Chuck Canterbury, National President, Fraternal Order of Police, Washington, DC. Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, JAGC, USN (Ret.), President and Dean, Franklin Pierce Law Center, Concord, NH. Dawn Johnsen, Professor, Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington, IN. Theodore M. Shaw, Director-Counsel and President, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., New York, NY. Mary Jo White, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP New York, NY.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 18, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. to hold a closed hearing.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs' Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, October 18, 2007, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled, ``The Perils of Politics in Government: A Review of the Scope and Enforcement of the Hatch Act.''

Madam President, I rise to support the Dorgan amendment offered earlier this evening. I thank him for his amendment. I am a proud cosponsor.

The Dorgan amendment makes sense for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, we need updated and current information on what NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which passed in November of 1993, means for our country today and, most importantly, because the North American Free Trade Agreement has become

the model, for good or bad, for trade policy since. The Central American Free Trade Agreement was built on the NAFTA model. Trade agreements Presidents asked this Congress to pass, negotiated with Peru and Colombia, Panama and South Korea, while tweaked, while having some improvements, perhaps, in the case of Peru and Panama, some significant improvements, nonetheless are based on the same failed trade model that NAFTA was based on, a trade model that entertains investor-state relations giving more authority to corporations to undercut environmental laws in our country, to undercut labor law, and to undercut the values of our society.

I wish President Bush would sit down with the steel worker in Steubenville or the machinist in Toledo or the tool and die shop owner in Lorain and talk about what these trade policies, this NAFTA model the Dorgan amendment addresses, in fact means for American workers, what they mean for American small manufacturers, what they mean for our communities, what they mean in Hamilton and Middletown and Ashtabula and Maineville, what impact that has on communities. These trade policies, which are set in Washington and negotiated across the globe, have a direct impact on Toledo, on Wauseon, on Findlay, on Bowling Green, all across our State. That is why the voters in my State and across the country sent a message loudly and clearly in November demanding a very different direction in trade policy, a trade policy that serves workers, consumers, families, and communities rather than one that serves investors, especially the wealthy in other countries and the wealthy in this country.

Working men and women in Ohio, including the machine shop owner in Akron and the factory worker in Columbus, know that job loss doesn't just affect the worker or the worker's family or the business owner. Job loss in the thousands affects communities and police, the number of police and firefighters and teachers and workers in a community and the economic vitality of that community.

What we have seen in the last few years in this country is disturbing especially in this sense. American workers all across the board, whether they are in the State of the Presiding Officer, Washington, or in Lima, OH, are more productive; whether they work with their hands or minds or whether they are a retailer or whether they are a factory owner, workers are more productive, provably, quantifiably, quantitatively way more productive than they were 5 years ago. That is a testament to our Nation's hard-working and skilled labor force. It is a testament to our job training and education system. The problem is, those workers' productivity is no longer parallel to their wages. It used to be in this country, after the war, since the 1940s, that as productivity went up, workers' wages and profits went up roughly at the same pace. But we have seen a disconnect. As productivity goes up and up because workers with their capital investments are more and more productive, we have not seen wages keep up. In a nutshell, that is because ultimately what has happened is, our Nation's workers don't share in the wealth they have created for their employers. If you are a worker and you create more wealth for your employer, you should share in the wealth. But that is not what is happening. That disconnect is more and more obvious in this country, especially in a State such as Ohio.

Some years after NAFTA passed the House and Senate and was signed into law, took effect, the agreement among Mexico and the United States and Canada, some 5 years later, at my own expense, I flew to McAllen, TX, rented a car with a couple friends, went across the border into Reynosa, Mexico. I wanted to see how NAFTA was working on the other side of the border. I knew how it was working in Lorain and Akron and Sandusky and Findlay, but I wanted to see how it worked on the other side of the border. I went to the home of two General Electric workers. They worked for GE Mexico. They lived in a 20-by-20-foot shack, dirt floors, no running water or electricity. When it rained hard, the dirt floors turned to mud. These were full-time workers, 3 miles from the United States of America, just south of the Rio Grande. These workers were working every bit as hard as any workers in the United States. But they weren't sharing in the wealth they created for their employers.

As you walked around their home, in the community behind their shack was a ditch maybe 4 feet wide, 2 by 4 across the ditch. This ditch was filled with I am not sure what, human/industrial effluent waste running through the neighborhood. The American Medical Association says along the Rio Grande River is one of most toxic places in the western hemisphere. There were children playing in the ditch contracting who knows what kind of diseases that they might pick up along this very polluted little waterway, if you could call it that. But as you walked around this neighborhood and you looked at these shacks, you could tell where the workers worked because the workers' shacks were constructed from the packing materials of the companies for which they worked. The roofs, the walls were made of cardboard boxes and other kinds of packing materials, crates where these workers worked.

Not far away from these shacks I visited an auto plant. This plant looked just like an auto plant in the United States. It was modern, maybe more modern, more up to date, the best technology. The workers were working hard. The floors were clean, all that you would want in a modern industrial plant. But there was one difference between the Mexican auto plant and an auto plant in Norwood or Toledo. The auto plant in Mexico had no parking lot because the workers there weren't paid enough to buy the cars they made. They weren't sharing in the wealth they created. You could go halfway around the world to a Motorola plant in Malaysia, and workers weren't paid enough to buy the cell phones they make. You could come back to Costa Rica and go to a Disney plant, and the workers weren't making enough to buy toys for their children. You could go halfway around the world to China and go to a Nike plant or a bicycle plant, and the workers were not making enough to buy the Nikes or the bicycles they were making, that they were building. That is the key.

In our trade policy, which has become international in this globalized economy, because of what is happening around the world and because of the way we write trade policy, workers are simply not sharing in the wealth they create. Whether it is a Mexican auto plant, a Malaysian cell phone plant, a toy plant in Costa Rica, or a shoe plant in China, the workers are not making enough to share in the wealth. The workers are not sharing in the wealth they create. That is what has happened in our country, this disconnect between productivity and wages. More than anything, that is why the middle class is shrinking. That is why the Dorgan amendment is so important to show the world, to show the country, to show us in this body what we need to do to fix our trade policy.

This trade policy hurts local business owners, not just the plant that might lay off or close, but it hurts the drugstore, the grocery store, the neighborhood restaurant. It hurts teachers and firefighters and police. It hurts the people whom the police and the firefighters and the teachers serve. When I first ran for Congress, our trade deficit was $38 billion. Today, after NAFTA and NAFTA clones, like the Central American Free Trade agreement, the WTO and PNTR with China, our trade deficit has topped $800 billion, from $38 billion in 1992 to $800 billion today. Our trade deficit with China in 1992 was barely double digits, barely $10 billion. Now it probably--for 2007, we don't know for sure--is going to exceed $250 billion. The first President Bush said a $1 billion trade surplus or deficit translates into 13,000 jobs. Whether he is right, he is close enough to be right. When you do the math, a $1 billion trade surplus or trade deficit translates into 13,000 jobs. When you do the math, you can see the kind of effect our trade policy has on us, not just with lost jobs but with what it has done to break that connection between productivity and workers' wages.

That is the story of our trade policy and why the Dorgan amendment is so important. The current system is not sustainable. We want trade. We want plenty of trade but not under this NAFTA model. We want trade under a whole new set of rules. Now is not the time for more bad trade deals.

We need to adopt the Dorgan amendment, look at what has happened with our trade policy, pause, and have a national conversation about a new direction for trade in the 21st century.

Let's wait on the passage of Peru and Panama. Let's wait on the passage of South Korea and Colombia. We need a conversation that includes all parties involved. That means investors. It means workers. It means small business owners. It means communities with people who are so affected by trade. The Dorgan amendment is a significant first step in doing that.

We should adopt the Dorgan amendment. We should pause and look at where our trade policy is going, and then we should embark in a new direction on trade in this country.

family forum earmark

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, a few weeks ago, in this Chamber, we passed the Children's Health Insurance Program and passed it by a big majority, passed it bipartisanly, when almost two dozen Republicans joined, I believe, all the Senate Democrats in passing a program that has worked for 10 years.

I was in the House of Representatives when we initially wrote the Children's Health Insurance Program. It was written by a Democratic President, with a Republican House and a Republican Senate. It has worked splendidly for the last 10 years. It has, in fact, provided health insurance for literally millions and millions of American middle-class families--families making a little bit too much to qualify for Medicaid but families either not earning quite enough to buy insurance or not working in a place that offers insurance at a decent, reasonable rate. We know the children who are in the Children's Health Insurance Program are sons and daughters of working parents--again, working parents overwhelmingly making between about $20,000 and $50,000 a year.

The Senate passed the Children's Health Insurance Program expansion, which would have meant, in addition to the 6.6 million children in our country receiving health insurance under the Children's Health Insurance Program today, it would have added about another 4 million American children. About 200,000 children in my State--from Ashtabula to Hamilton, from Wauseon to Marietta--now receive coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program. This would have added tens of thousands more to the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago, the President of the United States decided to veto this legislation even though it passed with more than four dozen Republican votes in the House joining almost every Democrat and passed with almost two dozen Republican votes in the Senate.

I wish the President, before he vetoed this legislation, had done what a lot of us did. I know the Presiding Officer from Missouri has done this. So many of us have talked to families in our States. I have talked to families in Lima and in Canfield and in Columbus and in Dublin and in Springfield about what the Children's Health Insurance Program means to them.

Eleven-year-old Tanner Stainbrook of Toledo has cystic fibrosis. Both of his parents work. They are playing by the rules, working hard, and paying their taxes. But without CHIP, without the Children's Health Insurance Program, Tanner cannot get the care he needs.

Seth Novak is a 3-year-old boy who lives in Lebanon, OH, down in the southwest corner of the State near Cincinnati. Seth has Down's syndrome and needs the Children's Health Insurance Program to help him stay healthy. Again, his parents are working, but they simply cannot get the insurance, in part, as with many of these children, because of a preexisting condition and also because of the finances the family faces and the lack of health coverage.

Emily Danko of Columbus also has Down's syndrome. Without CHIP, Emily has no health insurance.

I wish the President had talked to the Stainbrook family and the Novak family and the Danko family and talked to them about their situations. I am not sure he would have vetoed this bill if he had done that.

Unfortunately, the President made the decision to veto this bill. When he did, he mentioned several things. I would like to briefly touch on what he said and what the truth really is.

The President of the United States said this will result in all kinds of families shifting their children from private health insurance to Government health insurance. Were it so that all those families he talks about had private health insurance--if they all had private health insurance--we would not be concerned about this Children's Health Insurance Program. But the fact is, most of these families--the overwhelming majority of these families--who will be on this Children's Health Insurance Program expansion are not getting private insurance or they are getting very inadequate private insurance.

The President said families making up to $80,000 a year could get this insurance. That is patently untrue. If a State wants to do that, they have to apply to the Federal Government, and the President has already said no to the State of New York. He could say no to other States. So that is clearly, simply not true.

The President also said the Children's Health Insurance Program is just too expensive--a $7 billion-a-year increase over the next 5 years; $7 billion a year to insure 4 million children a year; $7 billion a year contrasted with what we spend on the war in Iraq: $2.5 billion a week; $7 billion a year for 4 million children versus $2.5 billion and climbing per week for a war we never should have been in, a civil war the President continues to immerse our Nation in, with no plan to end.

The last thing the President said is this program is socialized medicine, that we are going down the path of socialized medicine. The President forgets to say he and many Members of Congress get health care from Bethesda--go out to Bethesda and get their health care, with Government doctors taking care of Members of Congress and the President.

The President also forgets to mention that when he calls it socialized medicine, that, in fact, this legislation was supported bipartisanly 10 years ago in a Republican House, Republican Senate, and with a Democratic President--hardly socialized medicine supported by that many conservative Republicans back then and today. This legislation is supported by 68 Senators, including 18 Republicans; is supported by 43 Governors, including 16 Republicans; is supported by more than 270 organizations, representing millions of Americans.

The beauty of this legislation is for 10 years it has worked for America's children. And 6.6 million children have insurance today because of the Children Health Insurance Program. We can expand this program at the cost of about $3.50 a day to cover a child through the Children's Health Insurance Program, and do that for 4 million children. It makes sense for our children, it makes sense for our communities, and it makes sense for our country.

Madam President, I begin my thanking Senator Mikulski and Senator Shelby, as well as Senators Baucus and Grassley, for their support of this amendment. The amendment is cosponsored by Senators Stabenow, Byrd, Rockefeller, and Levin. I should note that the Finance Committee chair has drafted a bill to boost trade enforcement. I look forward to working on that very important piece of legislation.

This amendment will help America's manufacturers compete on even terms with foreign manufacturers. For generations American manufacturing has been a tremendous source of pride and work for our whole country. Especially for working families, it has been a ladder to the middle class. American manufacturing fuels our economy and supplies our national defense infrastructure. It would be dangerous on many levels for our country to ignore the anticompetitive forces that are buffeting every day our manufacturing sector. In the State of Michigan, in Ohio, across the Midwest, throughout the country, it would be and is dangerous to ignore that.

Over the last several years, U.S. manufacturing has faltered. Millions of good jobs have been lost. In my State of Ohio, from Toledo to Gallipolis, from Ashtabula to Middletown, well over 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the last 6 years.

American industry, we know, can compete with anyone in the world when it is a fair fight. Our international trade laws are intended to secure a level playing field. Unfortunately, some of our trading partners have repeatedly found ways to circumvent these laws to gain an unfair advantage against our workers and our companies. This has led to record-breaking trade deficits--some $800 billion in 2006--which threaten the long-term health of our economy and massive job losses which have wreaked havoc on the middle class. Foreign governments have unfairly and illegally doled out massive subsidies to their own companies and others willing to reestablish offshore, contributing to the migration of manufacturing jobs overseas and artificial price advantages for imported products. Despite ample evidence that something is very wrong--when I first ran for Congress in 1992, the U.S. multilateral trade deficit was $38 billion. Last year it was literally more than 20 times that, and we can look at job loss figures, the trade deficit, outsourcing figures, offshoring figures--the Bush administration needs to aggressively enforce American trade law.

Recent WTO decisions threaten to create enormous loopholes in trade law enforcement. This affects industries and local economies throughout the country. We know about steel. We know about paper. But it affects all American manufacturing. That is why we need to be more aggressive in enforcement of the trade laws. If the WTO continues to target U.S. trade remedy laws, we in this Chamber need to fight back. This amendment is a modest reminder to the administration that we need to vigorously enforce our trade laws.

I thank the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee for their support. I ask my colleagues for their support.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I thank the senior Senator from Maryland.

Amendment No. 3260

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 3260.

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

Mr. President, first of all, I thank the senior Senator from Maryland for her work, especially today, on much of what she has done, but especially for what she did on NASA earlier today that will matter to northern Ohio, my whole State, and to much of the rest of this country.

I rise, quickly, to offer an amendment that will help America's manufacturers compete on even terms with foreign manufacturers.

American manufacturing, for generations, has been a tremendous source of pride for our country and a ladder to the middle class for our working families.

American manufacturing fuels our economy and supplies our national defense infrastructure. It would be dangerous, on many levels, for our country to ignore the anticompetitive forces that are buffeting our manufacturing sector. It would be, and it is.

Over the last several years, American manufacturing has faltered and millions of jobs have been lost. In my home State of Ohio, well over 200,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the last half decade or so--from Steubenville to Lima and from Cleveland to Dayton.

Workers and manufacturers in all our States find it increasingly difficult to compete in today's global markets, where the odds are stacked against them because of unfair trade practices.

American industry can compete with anyone in the world when it is a fair fight.

Our international trade laws are intended to secure a level playing field, but, unfortunately, some of our trading partners have repeatedly found ways to circumvent these laws to gain an unfair advantage against workers in the United States. This has led to recordbreaking trade deficits, which threaten the long-term health of our economy, and massive job losses, which have wreaked havoc on the middle class.

Some foreign governments, for example, have unfairly and illegally doled out massive subsidies to their own companies and others willing to reestablish offshore, contributing to the migration of manufacturing jobs overseas and artificial price advantages for imported products.

Despite evidence that something is very wrong, you can look at job loss figures, deficit figures, outsourcing figures or offshoring figures. Our Government has chosen not to aggressively enforce U.S. trade remedy laws. It has also failed to successfully advocate for U.S. interests in the multilateral dispute settlement setting.

The WTO has issued a series of decisions striking down the practice known as zeroing in U.S. antidumping proceedings. Zeroing is a methodology employed for measuring and remedying unfair foreign dumping--the practice of selling products in the United States at below ``fair value,'' which corrupts free market competition and undermines U.S. industries.

Zeroing, a practice our Government has used for more than 80 years, has been upheld by U.S. courts and the GATT and is recognized as good policy because it combats unfair dumping.

The WTO's decisions threaten to create an enormous loophole in trade law enforcement. This affects industries and local economies throughout our country--not just steel, not just paper, so many things. The WTO decisions on issues such as zeroing is an overreach.

The USTR must work harder to overturn the recent European and Japanese zeroing decisions in negotiations and delay full implementation of the Japanese decision until, at a minimum, other methodologies are in place to capture 100 percent of dumping.

If the WTO continues to target U.S. trade remedy laws, we need to fight back. The administration's lack of backbone is unacceptable. This amendment is a modest reminder to the administration that we need to vigorously enforce our trade laws.

I urge my colleagues to give it their support.

Aeronautics Research

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.

Mr. President, our Nation's haphazard trade policy has done plenty of damage to Ohio's economy, to our manufacturers, to our small businesses.

Recent news reports of tainted foods and toxic toys reveal another hazard of ill-conceived and unenforced trade rules. They subject American families, American children, to products that can harm them, that, in some cases, can actually kill them.

Ohio's Ashland University Chemistry Professor Jeff Weidenhamer recently tested 22 Halloween products for lead. Three products tested were found to contain high lead levels.

Acceptable levels of lead, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, are 600 parts per million. A Halloween Frankenstein cup, presumably a cup that ends up in a child's hand, contained 39,000--not 600--39,000 parts per million.

Both Professor Weidenhamer and I have sent letters to the CPSC demanding action. Exposure to lead can affect almost every organ in the body, especially the central nervous system. Lead is especially toxic to the brains of developing young children.

In the last century, we made gains in combating health and safety issues. Whether it was the FDA banning red dye No. 2 or chloroform in medicines or it was banning lead in paint, the Government created a structure, a safety net that makes it harder for unsafe products to reach consumers.

That safety net is unraveling before our eyes. The safety net secured to keep our families safe from lead is being systematically dismantled by our Nation's failed trade policies. Our trade rules encourage unsafe imports, our gap-ridden food and product inspection system lets those imports into the country, our lax requirements for importers let those products stay on the shelves, and our foot dragging on requiring country-of-origin labeling leaves consumers in the dark.

It is a lethal combination. From pet food to toothpaste, from auto tires to kids toys, the daily news highlights the consequences of lacksidasical import rules and ``less is less'' import oversight.

Countries such as China lack the basic protections we take for granted. Given the well-known dangers of lead, particularly for young children, we banned it from products such as gasoline and paint decades ago. With the total lack of protections in our trade policy, we are importing not just the goods from those countries, but we are importing the lax safety standards of those countries.

If we relax basic health and safety rules to accommodate Bush-style, NAFTA-modeled trade deals, then we should not be surprised to find lead paint in our toys and contaminants and toxins in our toothpaste and our dog food.

Due to trade agreements, there are now more than 230 countries and more than 200,000 foreign manufacturers exporting FDA-regulated goods into the United States, to our child's bedrooms and our kitchen tables.

Unfortunately, trade deals put limits on the safety standards we can require for imports and how much we can even inspect imports. Our trade policy should prevent these problems, not invite them.

Now the President wants new trade agreements with Peru, Panama, with Colombia, and South Korea, all based on the same failed trade model. FDA inspectors have rejected seafood imports from Peru and Panama, major seafood suppliers to the United States.

Yet the current trade agreements, as written, limit food safety standards and border inspections. Adding insult to injury, the agreements would force the United States to rely on foreign inspectors to ensure our safety. We have seen how well that worked with China.

More of the same in our trade policy will mean exactly that, more contaminated imports and more recalls. We need a new approach to trade policy and to import safety. We need to write trade laws that encourage quality imports not dangerous ones. We need to empower consumers with full information about the projects they are purchasing.

It is time for a new direction in our trade policy. It is time for a trade policy that ensures the safety of food on our kitchen tables and toys in our children's bedrooms. Everyone agrees on one thing: We want more trade, we want more trade with countries around the world. But first we must protect the safety of our children and the health of our families.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the time remaining be equally charged.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, earlier today, I left a Banking Committee hearing to go out to Arlington National Cemetery to meet with a group of World War II veterans. A woman by the name of Ms. Best, who had served in World War II, was laying the wreath on behalf of Miami County, OH, veterans--some 35 or so veterans from Ohio who took a bus under the sponsorship of Glenn Devers, who raises money so veterans can come to Washington and lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then proceed to see the World War II monument.

I was struck, first, by all the stories of Mr. and Mrs. Whited, for instance. Mr. Whited was called off to the service and went overseas. His child was born a few months after he left, and when he returned, he saw his son for the first time, who was the age of 2. He is now more than 60 years old. I was taken by the stories of so many of these World War II veterans, their courage and heroism, their love of country, their duty, their commitment, and their patriotism. They surely-- without overusing the phrase--were part of ``the greatest generation.''

Few veterans have asked for credit or recognition, but it was such a pleasure to go there and talk to them today. I

had one request of them. Of course, I thanked them over and over. I had one request, and that was that these veterans, both men and women, tell their stories to their children and grandchildren. My father, a World War II veteran who enlisted about a year after Pearl Harbor, sometime during 1942, and went overseas, he didn't talk about it much. He passed away 6 years ago at the age of 89. He didn't talk about it much. I encouraged these men and women who served our country valiantly in World War II--or any veteran since then--to share the stories with their children and grandchildren because it will enrich their lives. They don't need to brag, but they ought to tell friends and families about their accomplishments and feats. These are stories that their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will treasure for the rest of their lives.

I thought of that visit yesterday before I made the visit, as I was planning it. I thought yesterday, when the Senate passed the Defense reauthorization bill, of an amendment that Congressman Bart Stupak of Michigan and I have been working on. Currently, the Department of Defense--prior to this amendment--is allowed to use any combination of air, rail or road transportation to bring the body of a fallen soldier home. But what has been done, because the rule is so broad, the law is so broad, the Department of Defense in many cases has brought the body of a soldier killed in action to the nearest big city airport, which could be 50, 100, 200 or 300 miles away. Congressman Stupak represents an area in northern Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, and often bodies are brought back to Green Bay, which is too far from many of these families who have to go to an airport that is 2 or 3 hours away with the funeral home, paying the expenses and accompanying the body back to the hometown. That has happened in southern Ohio, where there is no airport. Maybe they would go to Charleston, Columbus or Pittsburgh. It is outrageous that the Department of Defense doesn't bring the bodies to the communities where the families live, when they are already so distraught from losing a loved one.

We were able to get the fallen servicemember respectful return amendment included in the Department of Defense bill. This means that when our soldiers make the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country, the least the Government and the DOD can do--and for reasons I don't even understand they had failed to do. We talk so much about honoring our soldiers, but they failed to do this. All of the money we are spending--hundreds of billions of dollars--and they didn't get these bodies back to the funeral home in the local communities. It is incumbent upon us to do that.

Congressman Stupak in the House and my amendment in the Senate finally has done that. The least we can do is ease the path for these families as they confront their loss.

Mr. President, the Children's Health Insurance Plan legislation was delivered to the White House this afternoon for, I hope, the President's signature, but unfortunately, I fear the President's veto. It is unbelievable that the President would veto legislation that means so much to many working families in Ohio, in the great State of Colorado, and any of the other 48 States in our great Nation.

The Children's Health Insurance Program was conceived in 1996 and took effect in 1997, with a Democratic President and a Republican House and Senate. It now insures some 6 million children in our country. These are the sons and daughters of working families, parents who are working hard, playing by the rules, paying their taxes, but they make too much to be on Medicaid but make too little to be able to afford insurance, especially if one of their children has a preexisting condition of any serious nature. They are making $20,000, $30,000, and $40,000 a year.

The President--as Senator Grassley has pointed out in criticism--has said we don't want to give help to these rich children. These are families making $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, and as much as $50,000 or $60,000 a year but mostly families making less. They are struggling, and it is not easy to pay the bills when you make $30,000 or $40,000 a year, let alone pay for health care bills and health insurance.

The President also said he doesn't want this big Government program. He talked about socialism, or something I don't understand. The President of the United States and most Members of Congress go out to Bethesda. That is a Government health care system. They get great health care at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The VA has terrific facilities, not just the CBOCs, community-based outreach clinics, such as in Mansfield, Youngstown, Lorraine, Springfield, Marion, Lima, and all over the State and all over this country; but the big VA hospitals in places such as Brecksville, Columbus, and Chillicothe, and what all that means.

The President says these are kids who should be covered by private insurance. Sure, they should. I wish these children did have private insurance. But the fact is that millions of children in our country don't have private insurance. At relatively little cost--because most children don't cost much to insure--we can put them in the Children's Health Insurance Program.

If the President vetoes this bill, it will immediately mean that some number of children--several hundred thousand--will lose their health insurance immediately, and it will mean a lost opportunity for 4 million other children in Colorado, Ohio, and all over this country, to get health insurance. Again, these are children of working parents-- parents who are struggling and doing the best they can to make a go of it. All they want is health insurance for their children.

The President is critical of the cost of the bill. This bill will cost about $7 billion a year, the Children's Health Insurance Plan. The Presiding Officer voted for it and I voted for it and it passed this Senate with 68 votes, with almost 20 Republicans--almost 40 percent of the Republicans voted for this bill in the Senate and all of the Democrats. This is a bipartisan bill. The House is the same way, where dozens of Republicans in the House voted for it.

So it is clearly a bipartisan bill, and the President says it costs too much. It costs $7 billion a year in the next 5 years. What does that mean? In contrast, we spend in 1 week in Iraq close to $3 billion. So we are spending $3 billion a week in Iraq, and we want to spend $7 billion a year to cover 4 million children--some 60 or 70 or 80 in Ohio would take advantage of this--and the President says no to that. He wants more than $3 billion additional per week in Iraq. Something is wrong with those priorities.

The President has had the legislation delivered to him at the White House. I hope the President will reconsider some of his public comments and listen to middle-class families. This is one of those times when Government can directly help the middle class and make a difference in the lives of so many middle-class families who are struggling, such as the Demko family in Columbus.

I just wish the President would open his mind and his ears and his eyes for the next few days and let's send some children, some families we have met, whom you have met, Mr. President, in Boulder or Denver, whom you met in Colorado Springs, whom I have met in Columbus, Cincinnati, or Dayton, or Zanesville, or Steubenville--let's invite some of those families to the White House, sit down with the President and say: Mr. President, here is what the Children's Health Insurance Program means to me and my family and to a lot of my neighbors. Please, Mr. President, sign this bill.

I believe, because I think he is a decent person, if the President would open his ears, eyes, and mind to that conversation of those families, it would be a very different outcome. I am hopeful in the next couple of days that the President will sign the Children's Health Insurance Program. If he does not, I am confident we will override his veto in the Senate, and I am hopeful that enough Republicans will get on this bipartisan bandwagon and join the Democrats in overriding that veto because it will mean a stronger, more vibrant, more humane policy and a stronger middle class for our country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and 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 for the transaction of morning business.