Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Stephanie Trifone of my staff be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of today's session.

Mr. President, we are now back on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies appropriations bill.

I thought I might recap for Senators where we are. We started yesterday. I thought we had a fairly productive afternoon. We, right now, have five pending amendments that we are working on in terms of offsets. We have the Vitter amendment on drug reimportation. That language we are just working on. There is no offset needed.

We have the amendment by Senator Dorgan on heart disease. We are again looking at an offset there. We are working on that.

We have an amendment by Senator Thune on telehealth. Again, we are working on trying to find the proper offsets.

We have another amendment by Senator Dorgan on a NAFTA study. That has not been totally agreed to yet on the other side of the aisle.

We have an amendment by Senator Menendez on patient navigators. Again, I think it is broadly supported. But, again, we are working on trying to find an offset.

We adopted three amendments yesterday: the amendment by Senator Feinstein which was to set up a child abuse registry; the second amendment was by Senator Smith which was a technical fix to the Garrett Lee Smith suicide prevention bill; and then yesterday we accepted an amendment by Senator McCaskill which provides for a link on the Web sites of all of the departments under our jurisdiction to the IG.

I am told we have about 30 amendments filed. We have 10 that we now have worked on, so we are down to about 20 amendments. I hope we can again move rapidly today and have people come over. I see people are here waiting to offer amendments. I appreciate that very much.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these three Members be recognized to call up amendments and that the pending amendments all be set aside for this purpose. In this order it would be: Senator DeMint, Senator Dole, and Senator Brown.

I yield the floor.

Parliamentary inquiry: Would the Chair state the question before the Senate right now?

Mr. President, we have not disposed of amendment No. 3340, if I am correct.

We have looked at 3340. I don't know that it needs an up- or-down vote. We can accept it. I understand Senator Specter will accept it, also, so it is accepted on both sides.

Mr. President, I will probably have more to say about this later, but on the amendment the Senator offered regarding the Rangel Center, I object to this amendment. It is an attack on an institution that is not in the Senate amendment before us. It is a House provision that provides funding for a center at the City College of New York. As I understand it, the center was set up basically to offer interdisciplinary programs for bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, midcareer programs, to get more minority population into management positions. Right now, non-Whites make up nearly 30 percent of our population, yet only 13.8 percent of the men and women who occupy top management and policy positions in the Federal Government are members of minority groups. We need to do more to bring minority Americans into public service. A center for public service at the City College of New York was set up to do this. It was the City College of New York that decided the name of it. As far as I know, we didn't decide that. We didn't do anything to decide the name of it. In this bill, we have funds for the Howard Baker Center in Tennessee. We have funds for a Robert Dole Center. These are centers set up at universities, and they name them. We do not. They decide to put a name on it.

I believe we ought to be in the position of saying, yes, there is a need for course work to help minorities get into midmanagement and senior positions in the Federal Government. That is laudable. But what the university names it ought to be up to the university. It is not up to us.

Surely.

Mr. President, we have in our bill a provision for a Howard Baker Center at the University of Tennessee. I haven't heard the Senator from South Carolina want to go strike the Howard Baker Center. That is in this bill. A couple years ago, we had the provision for the Dole Center at the University of Kansas. I don't remember the Senator objecting to that. This is nothing unusual. This happens all the time. It is up to the university to decide whether they want to name them; it is not up to us.

Mr. President, I believe we are ready for the Dole amendment.

I thank the Senator from North Carolina for her interest in and support of the National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank. This is a program Senator Specter and I created in the 2004 bill when he was chairman. Our bill includes $12 million for this program, enough to sustain the banks that exist and start a new round of grants to startup operations. The Dole amendment codifies this $12 million for the cord blood stem cell banking program. I fully support it. I believe I can speak for Senator Specter. On both sides, we are more than happy to accept the amendment.

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

Would the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request? I hate to interrupt the Senator.

Mr. President, I think this has been cleared on the other side.

I ask unanimous consent that at 12:30 today, the Senate proceed to vote in relation to the DeMint amendment No. 3338, with no amendment in order to the amendment prior to the vote, and that there be 2 minutes of debate prior to the vote with the time equally divided and controlled between Senators DeMint and Schumer or their designees; that upon disposition of the DeMint amendment, Senator Byrd be recognized to call up an amendment on the subject of mine safety.

If the Senator will yield, is there any chance that we could finish the debate after the vote? We are trying to get the vote in prior to some noon things that are happening around here.

Mr. President, I modify my unanimous consent request to say that if the pending debate is not finished at 12:30, that after the vote on amendment No. 3338, we would return to the debate on the Coburn amendment.

Mr. President, I wish to thank the Senator from Michigan for her very eloquent and very timely statement on what just happened in the House. I guess it just transpired a little while ago. I think probably all of us were hoping that somehow the Members of the other body would come to realize this had broad support across the country-- the SCHIP bill--and the fact that the $35 billion we had in there over 5 years was something that is sorely needed. I think we were all hoping this would pass. So when I just heard the Senator from Michigan say it failed by only getting 273 votes--we need 290 in the House to override a veto--that is a shame because it is obvious that we here in the Senate have the votes to override a veto.

So what can I say? Seventeen people prevented this from becoming law and from providing the health care our children need in this country-- children of working parents. Mostly these are people who are a working parent or parents, they are contributing to society, they are taxpaying individuals, but they simply don't have enough money to buy the kind of health insurance they need to cover their kids. So this really is a slap in the face to the middle class in America, the middle-class people who are struggling to make ends meet and trying to provide a good education for their kids, maybe trying to put something away for a rainy day or for retirement, and they just don't have the money for health insurance. The Senator from Michigan is so right.

I don't mind if the President is opposed to this, but I think he has an obligation to speak truthfully to the American people. When he came out yesterday--I think it was just yesterday I heard this--he said: Well, it would cover kids with families earning up to $83,000 a year. Well, that is just simply not factually true. It would be if he signed it--I mean, it is up to the

President to approve or not approve those. So is he saying that if the bill went through, he would approve it? That doesn't make sense. So that was disingenuous on his part. Also, as the Senator from Michigan pointed out, that somehow this would cover immigrant children, that is absolutely forbidden in the bill.

So I thank the Senator from Michigan for her long efforts in this regard as a member of the Finance Committee, as well as the occupant of the chair, who I know is a member of the Finance Committee and who also has worked very hard to reach a compromise, a bipartisan agreement on this bill to send it to the President. All I can say is, when people ask me now what are we going to do, well, what we are going to do is we are going to try to do something to move this forward. We can't just sit back and say that because of 17 people we can't move ahead.

So I think most of us who feel very strongly about the Children's Health Insurance Program are going to do everything we can between now and the time we adjourn to get this back up and try to get it to the President, and hopefully by then there will be enough momentum behind it that he will sign it. But I don't think we should just sit back and let it linger.

So I thank the Senator from Michigan for all of her strong support for the SCHIP bill.

Amendment No. 3362

Mr. President, turning back now to this bill in front of us, the chairman of the full Appropriations Committee, the President pro tempore of the Senate, Senator Byrd, had offered an amendment on MSHA, the Mine Safety Health Administration, to provide an additional $10 million for that. It was fully offset by a reduction of $10 million in travel expenses for the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Education. I am proud to be a cosponsor of that amendment.

Our subcommittee held two hearings on MSHA this year. What we learned is they still don't have two-way communication and tracking technology that would operate after an accident in an underground coal mine. Other countries seem to do quite well in that--Poland, Australia--other countries seem to be able to do that, but we can't. MSHA has been dragging its feet on this for a long time.

Our inspector force has been growing over the last couple of years, again thanks to Senator Byrd, who in the 2006 supplemental put in $25 million to train and to equip the inspectors. But even with that, MSHA still is not capable of conducting 100 percent of the inspections in our Nation's coal mines. That 100 percent is required. That is a requirement. Yet they still can't do it.

This is something I think is sorely needed. I support it, and I hope the Senate will adopt the Byrd amendment to the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Amendment No. 3368

Mr. President, at this time, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and I send an amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself, Senator Specter, and Senator Kennedy. We have seen, in the last 24 hours or so, horrific stories come out about this new bacteria that is invulnerable to our first line of antibiotics. It is a dangerous germ and it is spreading all over the country.

There was a story in the paper this morning about cases nearby here. A teenager died recently in Bedford County, VA, because of methicillin- resistant staphylococcus, or MRSA. As of yesterday, Montgomery County schools had 14 cases, Anne Arundel County had 1 reported MRSA infection. They have received 57 reports from parents about other possible cases. Two cases have been confirmed at Wild Lake High School in Howard County. So something is going on.

Some of these schools are trying to clean up. We have one here, where the Rappahannock County School System finished a comprehensive cleaning of its two campuses, and the cost was more than $10,000. That is one cost. The cost in human life and suffering is growing.

We all are very concerned--and rightfully so--about the number of people losing their lives to the AIDS virus every year. But the fact is more people are dying because of this staphylococcus than they are of AIDS. MRSA was calculated with striking 31.8 out of 100,000 Americans, which translates into 94,360 cases and 18,650 deaths nationwide a year. In comparison, complications from the AIDS virus killed about 12,500 Americans last year.

So what is happening is that this microbe is spreading. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have calculated about 19,000 deaths a year. So, again, it seems to me we need to pay some attention to this and we need to respond to it as rapidly as possible.

This amendment basically says they shall spend a minimum of $5 million--take $5 million out now to focus on identifying and containing and trying to hold down the spread of this terrible bacteria. It is not a virus, it is a bacteria. So, again, Senator Specter, Kennedy, and I wanted to introduce this to let the public know we are trying to get on top of it. Hopefully, we will have hearings with the CDC soon to find out what they are doing.

This amendment would increase activities in hospitals and other health care settings, aimed at preventing the spread of this deadly bacteria. So I will leave it there.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point an article that appeared today on Washingtonpost.com regarding this MRSA.

Mr. President, for the knowledge of other Senators, we are trying to reach an agreement to get to a series of votes. We don't quite have it yet, but hopefully in the next few minutes we will agree to have a series of votes starting fairly soon.

With that, I see my friend, the distinguished Senator from New Jersey on the floor.

I yield the floor at this time.

Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from New Jersey for his amendment. Senator Specter and I had put into the bill a prohibition on abstinence-only programs providing information that is medically inaccurate. Again, this is the beauty of having issues such as this come to the floor. Senator Lautenberg and Senator Snowe have offered a suggestion to tighten down on that provision and actually make it more meaningful.

This is what the amendment says:

For purposes of this section, the term ``medically

inaccurate'' means information that is unsupported or

contradicted by peer-reviewed research by leading medical,

psychological, psychiatric, and public health publications,

organizations and agencies.

That clarifies the intent of the amendment. I thank Senator Lautenberg for the amendment, and I intend to support it.

Hopefully, we are going to have clearance soon to begin a series of votes. We do not have that agreement yet, but we hope in the next 15 minutes we will begin a series of four votes. We don't have that agreement yet. Hopefully, we will have that cleared pretty soon. In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President we now have clearance for a series of votes.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote in relation to Senator Byrd's amendment No. 3362 at 2:30 p.m.; that upon disposition of that amendment, the Senate vote in relation to Senator Harkin's amendment No. 3368; that upon the disposition of that amendment, the Senate vote in relation to the Brown amendment No. 3348; that upon the disposition of that amendment, the Senate vote in relation to the Kyl amendment No. 3321; that there be 2 minutes for debate equally divided in the usual form prior to each vote and that no other amendments be in order prior to these votes.

Mr. President, Senators should be alerted that beginning at 2:30 p.m., there will be a series of four votes. I do not ask for consent now, but I will after the first vote, that the other three votes be 10-minute votes. So there will be four votes starting at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I have a slight change in that unanimous consent agreement. It has been cleared. That the first vote at 2:30 p.m. will be my amendment No. 3368; that following that amendment, it will be Senator Byrd's amendment No. 3362, and the rest as stated earlier.

Mr. President, I ask that Senator Snowe and Senator Rockefeller be added as cosponsors of the amendment I offered on MRSA.

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, the first amendment will be my amendment, and I have not asked for the yeas and nays as yet, so I now ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Madam President, I would like to respond to some of the points made by the Senator from Alabama. First of all, I want to make it clear that I do not know of any Senator on either side of the aisle who is not in favor of going after either fraud, waste and abuse, or any kind of criminal activities--whether it is done in the business community, by corporations, or whether it is done in labor unions. Really, the question is, how do you do it? What is the best way of doing it? Are we getting a good return on the dollar, so to speak, for what we are investing in?

I thought we might take a look and see what has been happening in this whole area in the Department of Labor over the past few years, where their focus has been and where it has not been, and what the priorities are. You can tell a lot about someone's priorities by how they spend their money. The bill before us provides some modest increase in work protections agencies--OSHA, MSHA, Wage and Hour Division. We also provide for the OLMS--that is the office the Senator from Alabama has been talking about, Office of Labor Management Standards--$45.7 million. That is not chicken feed. I will talk more about that in a bit.

But I want to point to some charts to show where we are, to put it in better perspective. Right now at the Department of Labor, for OSHA-- that is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These are the people who go out and make sure your workplaces are safe, that you are not exposed to toxic chemicals, things that cause cancer, or unsafe workplaces where you wind up losing a limb, an arm, a hand, or where you are exposed to different things that may injure your lungs, whether it is asbestos inhalation or any kind of toxic chemicals that may have long-term profound effects. This is OSHA.

What does the administration spend on OSHA? They spend $26 per workplace.

The Wage and Hour Division is the people who go out and make sure you are actually being paid what you say you should be paid, that you are getting overtime pay, that the company is abiding by the wage and hour provisions of the contract, for example, that the union may have signed. So in Wage and Hour, they are spending $26 per workplace. Under Occupational Safety and Health, the Department of Labor is spending about $26 per workplace--about the same.

What are they spending at the Office of Labor Management Standards? It is $2,707 per union; $26 per workplace for OSHA, 100 times more for OLMS than they are spending on OSHA investigating where people get injured, damaged, maimed for life due to unsafe working conditions.

There it is, 100 times more for OLMS. Yet they say it is not enough money. They need more. Let's see what that means. OLMS--more staff. More staff and fewer results.

I was listening to the Senator from Alabama. It would be one thing if, over these years they were spending more money and hiring more staff, they actually got more convictions and that

stuff. That is not so. In 2003, there were 297 people working for OLMS. In 2006, that had increased to 384, almost a 40-percent increase, maybe, or 50-percent increase? Anyway, almost 100 people more, 297 to 384. What happened to the number of indictments? The number of indictments in 2003 was 132; the number in 2006 was 118. They have 100 more people, but the number of indictments goes down.

Look at the convictions. We saw the chart. In 2003, we had 152 convictions; in 2006, 129. So we have a lot more people working there. We are spending more money on personnel, and we are getting fewer indictments and fewer convictions. The budget, at that same time, went from $34.3 million to $45.7 million, which is where we are. They put on more people, but they got fewer indictments and fewer convictions.

Now with the Sessions amendment, they want to go to $50.7 million--I guess to hire more people so we can get fewer indictments and fewer convictions.

This really tells the story. What is happening is, they are loading up OLMS with featherbedding. That is classic. They put more and more people on, and they are doing less and less work. When I see a trendline like that, I say: You don't chase bad money with good. We put all that money in there, and it looks as though what we are doing is hiring a bunch of people who are sitting around, not doing very much.

Let's look at labor staffing. I mentioned before--this is the same figure you saw in the previous chart, OLMS went from 297 to 384, a 29- percent increase. How about OSHA? What happened to Occupational Safety and Health? It went from 1,683 down to 1,542. They got rid of people to do inspections. And MSHA, coal mine safety, went down from 2,299 to 2,136. So while OLMS went up, OSHA and MSHA, Mine Safety Health Administration, actually cut personnel.

What does that mean? This next chart shows what it means. Unlike OLMS, where more staff means fewer results, the cutbacks of OSHA and MSHA means less work gets done. This chart demonstrates what has happened over the last several years in President Bush's budget. OSHA inspections, right here, from 2003 to 2006, dropped from 39,884 to 38,589, so we get fewer OSHA inspections and fewer workers are being protected as a result.

Then, the number of employees benefiting from OSHA inspections fell from 1.6 million to 1.2 million. I don't have that number on this chart.

Look at mine safety. Right now, MSHA is unable to do all the inspections that they are required to do by law. What has happened here? Under mine safety, the staff went from 2,299 to 2,136.

The number of inspections they were able to complete went from 98.8 percent to 95.1 percent, which is where we are today. They cannot even inspect all of the mines. Need I remind anyone here of the recent mine disaster in Utah, the mine disasters in West Virginia and Virginia, Pennsylvania.

Miners continue to lose their lives every year in coal mines and other mine disasters, and yet in MSHA, we do not even have enough people there to do the inspections. I think these charts show you what is happening over there.

I think that $45.7 million is more than enough for them to do their job. There it is. It went from 297 to 384 people. Yet the number of indictments and convictions went down. The budget went from $34 to $45 million. Now they want to go to $50 million. Well, something is not right here. Something is not right. It sounds as if they are hiring more and more people, but I do not know what they are doing.

There is one other thing I want to respond to that Senator Sessions brought up. I think if I remember it right--I will have to check the Record, but I thought he said something about 26 percent of the reports were not standard, were not acceptable, did not meet standards of acceptability.

Well, you can go right to the White House, online, go to the Office of Labor Management Standards. It has got program performance measures. It says here: Measure. Increasing union transparency. Increase the percentage of union reports meeting standards of acceptability for public disclosure.

Here is what it says: Explanation. The principle objective of this performance goal is to increase the percentage of union reports meeting standards of acceptability for public disclosure.

Prior to implementation of electronic reporting formats, only 73 percent of union reports filed met standards of the acceptability. Expanded use of electronic report formats is significantly improving the sufficiency of reports for public disclosure.

Here it is. In 2003, 73 percent, that is what I mentioned. I think that is where Senator Sessions got the 26 percent that were not acceptable. Well, that was 2003. In 2004, it went to 94 percent. It is now at 93 percent, 93, 94 percent. So there are only about 6 to 7 percent that are not meeting the standards; again, not 26 percent. It is more like about--well, it is either 6 or 7 percent right now. The goal is 97 percent. Obviously they are getting there with this new electronic reporting.

Now the other thing has to do with financial integrity. I talked about fraud, and I saw the picture of somebody getting money and all of that kind of stuff. Well, again, on the same Web site--you can look it up yourself--the measure: increasing union financial integrity. The percentage of unions with fraud will decrease. That is the outcome. Right here it says that: OLMS conducts audits to monitor compliance, uncover embezzlement, and other criminal and civil violations of the law, using streamlined investigative audit procedures.

In fiscal year 2004, OLMS conducted a union audit study that identified fraud in 9 percent of the unions. That was in 2004. The last reporting period was 2006. It went down to 8 percent. What is the goal? Seven and one-half percent. So it is only half a percent of what the goal is as stated by OLMS. Again, the indicators are there that the electronic reporting and other things are having their effect. So you wonder, why do they need so many personnel if, in fact, they have gone to electronic reporting and they are getting better results and better transparency from that? This sounds to me like a classic case of featherbedding, padding it with people and spending more money for not getting much for results; in fact, getting less results than we have gotten in the past with less money.

Again, I think we have met our obligation with $45.7 million for OLMS. By the way, that should be more than enough for them to do their audits and to do their indictments and convictions. I think this shows that more personnel and more money have not translated into more convictions and more indictments.

There is a balance that has got to be held here. I think our committee did a good job of balancing OLMS, which has a job to do. They should do it. They should investigate, they should audit, they should indict, and they should convict people who are absconding with union money. Absolutely. No one denies that. They should.

The question is, how do we balance that with making sure we have more inspections of workplace safety, or mine safety, the other things that the Department of Labor is supposed to be doing to protect our workers? That is the balance we have struck here in the bill. I think it is a good balance, something that was worked out in a bipartisan fashion with Senator Specter, myself, and other Republicans and Democrats on the committee. As I pointed out, this passed the committee 26 to 3. This was not even an issue. I think everyone figured there was a pretty good balance for what we set up. I hope we can maintain that balance.

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

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

Madam President, among the amendments that are pending, one is 3349. I ask unanimous consent to have it called up and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam President, this was the amendment offered by Senator

Brown earlier. It had to do with Upward Bound evaluations. It was cleared on both sides of the aisle. We are ready to vote on it.

Madam President, I say to Senators, we are working our way through the amendments. It is now 5:15. I know people do not want to work late tonight, but we are going to be in very late tonight unless Senators who have amendments pending come over and offer their amendments.

As people can tell, there is nothing happening here right now. We hope to get a couple more votes here very shortly. Right now, there is not an amendment pending for which we can have a vote except the Sessions amendment. We had a pretty good debate on that yesterday and just now. I think pretty much all of the debate regarding the amendment offered by Senator Sessions is over. We are prepared to vote on that, but we will hold off until we can get clearance on the other side to have a vote.

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Madam President, I have an amendment I offer on behalf of Senator Reid. I send it to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam President, I am going to propound a unanimous consent request. I ask the Senator's attention to this request so we get it right.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set this pending amendment aside, then to turn to an amendment to be offered by the Senator from Louisiana, at which time we will have a time agreement of 10 minutes for Senator Vitter and 10 minutes for Senator Boxer on the Vitter amendment, at the end of which time the Senate will proceed to a vote on or in relation to, first, the Reid amendment; upon disposal of the Reid amendment, the Senate will then proceed to vote on or in relation to the amendment offered by the Senator from Louisiana; at the conclusion of that vote, that the Senate then proceed to a vote on the amendment offered by the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions; and that no other amendments or intervening matter occur prior to these votes.

I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the remaining two votes in the sequence be limited to 10 minutes each.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Just briefly. The Senator has called up an amendment. I wish to get a consent for Senator Allard and for Senator Landrieu. How much time is the Senator intending to take?

Does the Senator from New Jersey also have an amendment?

On the bill?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Reed be recognized to offer his amendment, and then Senator Allard, and upon the disposition of that amendment, that Senator Landrieu be recognized, in that sequence, and then after Senator Landrieu, Senator Menendez be recognized.

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

Mr. President, we have four amendments that have been agreed to on both sides, cleared. I ask unanimous consent that they be considered and agreed to en bloc. They are amendments Nos. 3323, 3337, 3355, and 3375.

Thank you, Mr. President.

We just disposed of four more amendments. Obviously, there will be no more business tonight. The leader already said there would be no more votes. Our staffs and I will continue to work through these amendments. But we will be in tomorrow, and we will be disposing of amendments tomorrow. So if Senators have amendments to this bill, and they want them offered, I suggest that tomorrow would be a good time to do it.

We will not be in Monday until about 5:30. And then we will have votes on Monday night on pending amendments. So if amendments are offered tomorrow, and votes are needed, we can stack those votes for Monday night.

I will just say the door will start closing after tomorrow because Monday night we will be voting. We will be in Tuesday morning probably at the usual hour--that is up to the leadership to decide--but then the final passage of this bill will be at noon on Tuesday. So I say to Senators, if they have amendments they want to have considered, I would say tomorrow would be an excellent time; otherwise, the door is going to close very rapidly, and they will not be able to offer those amendments and to get any debate or a vote on them prior to noon on Tuesday.

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

I agree. Strong math and science education is critical if we, as a nation, are going to continue to have a skilled and educated workforce that can compete in the global economy.

I am aware of that provision, and point out that America Competes also recognizes that other highly rigorous, evidence-based, postsecondary preparatory programs can also qualify for funding under this authorization.

I think that is a good idea, and will work with the ranking member and my colleagues in the House to try to achieve that goal.

I thank both of my colleagues from Michigan for their concern and support of WIA. I agree that the Workforce Investment Act should be provided the adequate level of funding needed to ensure that workers can get the training and services they need to compete for 21st century jobs.

The Workforce Investment Act statutorily provides States 3 years to spend the funds allocated to them. This flexibility allows States to assess their unique needs, the needs of their unemployed workers, and to adequately plan innovative initiatives, training programs, and services for the workforce. I believe the rescission of funds proposed by the House of Representatives would be unfair to those programs that have appropriately obligated funds at the State and local levels to serve workers in need.

The committee expects to provide sufficient funds for this program and will work towards securing the funding in the final bill. I thank the distinguished Senators from Michigan, and I will be happy to work with them in conference on this important matter.

Yes. I think this is a great program. Because the vast majority of our seniors are aging in place, the Community Innovations for Aging in Place program will help leverage new, human, financial, and neighborhood resources for the benefit of our seniors' health, independence, and quality of life.

I do support implementation of this innovative program. I assure the senator from Maryland that I will do my best to find funding for the Community Innovations for Aging in Place program during the conference process.

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

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

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

Mr. President, today I am proud to join Senators Schumer, Specter and Cochran in introducing a constitutional amendment to overturn the 1976 Supreme Court decision in the case of Buckley v. Valeo and restore Congress's power to regulate campaign finances.

This constitutional amendment is a necessary first step in restoring confidence in our system of government. The Court's decision in Buckley, which equated money with speech, was fundamentally flawed. Unfortunately, since that decision, our democracy has been perverted. Costs of elections have spiraled out of control, office seekers are required to spend more time than ever raising money, and special interests correspondingly have greater access than ever before. As a result, the integrity of our democracy continues to wane.

Make no mistake, I am extremely reluctant to amend the Constitution. Amending the Constitution rightly is an extraordinary step that has seldom been done in our history. But, when it has been truly needed, we have done so. Reluctantly, I have reached the conclusion that it is needed now. Without this amendment, our nation is simply too limited in its ability to deal with corruption and to restore confidence in our electoral system. The integrity of our democratic system not only deems it appropriate for us to approve a constitutional amendment, it requires it.

Until we have the ability to truly create a system of campaign finance, we will continue to have an escalation of spending on campaigns, and an escalation of continued distrust by the American people in their political system. This amendment is a necessary first step and I encourage my colleagues to support this vital measure.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the joint resolution be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that David Heckman and Kassie Hobbs of my staff be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

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

Mr. President, I have an amendment at the desk, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, we are now on the appropriations bill for Education, Labor, Health and Human Services, and related agencies. Before we get into the bill, I want to explain a couple of things. I will be yielding to my partner, Senator Specter, for his opening statement. Then I will follow with mine. It is not the usual order. Usually, the chairman goes first. But Senator Specter is very much involved in Judiciary Committee hearings today, and he has to return to that. I will respect that and yield to him in a moment.

I wished to make it clear to our fellow Senators there is a change in the bill they will now notice, the substitute at the desk. The amendment Senator Specter and I offered basically strikes the language in the bill dealing with stem cells. Again, I do this with regret. Senator Specter and I have worked together for many years to advance the cause of embryonic stem cell research. In fact, we worked together on the first bill President Bush vetoed in his first 4 years. That was our stem cell bill, the only bill he vetoed in 4 years. We then came back with another stem cell bill this year, and he vetoed that also. That veto override has not taken place yet.

So together we put some additional language in this bill to further the cause of trying to break through and get embryonic stem cell research covered. However, we received a statement of administration policy from the administration yesterday saying they opposed our bill for two reasons. It says it includes ``an irresponsible and excessive level of spending,'' and then it says, ``The administration strongly opposes provisions in this bill that overturn the President's policy regarding human embryonic stem cell research.''

I guess in the spirit of compromise, we wanted to show we are willing to compromise. We are willing to try to meet the President halfway. We know the President's strong feelings against this; they are misguided, nonetheless. Plus, the fact that, although not yet before the Senate, we will have a veto override vote on a stem cell bill he vetoed earlier this year. I don't know if we will have the votes to override. We may. With that, we thought we will show our good faith in saying to the President: OK, we are willing to compromise. We will take that language out. That is what we have done with the amendment that is at the desk. We have taken that language out of the bill.

However, on another aspect in terms of the administration saying it is an irresponsible and excessive level of spending, I will say more about that in my opening statement, but the fact is, in the last 5 years, under the leadership of Senator Specter, when I was ranking member, this appropriations bill exceeded the President's budget request every single year. I thank Senator Specter for that. He provided great leadership. But the President never once threatened to veto one of those bills and never did, even though we exceeded his budget. This year, however, the President has said he is going to veto it because we exceeded his budget. What is the difference? Because the Congress changed hands? I don't think Senator Specter or I give a hoot about that. What we care about is investing in education and health, job training, biomedical research, all the other good things this bill does.

I respectfully disagree with the President that it is irresponsible. I believe it is responsible. We met our budget allocations. We are within our pay-go limitations. We do not exceed our budget allocation in this bill whatsoever.

I wished to make that clear for other Senators. We are on this bill. We have dropped the stem cell language. I did this in consultation with Senator Specter as a good faith reaching out to the White House to say: We are willing to compromise. So we will take it out, but we are going to stand firm on our funding levels because they are reasonable. They are within our budget allocation. They don't bust the budget.

I yield the floor to my partner in this for many years, Senator Specter, for his opening statement. I know he has to get back to the Judiciary Committee. I will return and make my opening statement at that time.

I yield the floor.

I appreciate that.

That is right.

Mr. President, I thank my good friend, Senator Specter, for his very kind words, his generosity of spirit, and respond in kind that I have said many times to people that during the interregnum when the Republicans controlled the Senate--I say that jocularly--I was very fortunate and blessed to have Senator Specter as the chairman of this committee. He is right, we have worked together very closely over the years, and I thank him for that very close partnership and working relationship. He is a great leader in areas of health and education and medical research and so many other items. So I thank Senator Specter for that very close working relationship.

I am pleased to bring to the floor the fiscal year 2008 appropriations bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and related agencies.

It has been said many times that the Defense appropriations bill is the bill that defends America. But this appropriations bill, the bill we have before us--the bill that funds Education and Health and Human Services and biomedical research and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention--is the bill that defines America.

This bill funds the most basic, essential, life-sustaining, and lifesaving services for millions of people in this country, including the most needy among us. It provides for the education of our children. It provides health care for many of our poorest citizens. It helps students from low- and middle-income families afford college. It funds medical research to help ease human suffering. It gives displaced workers a chance to get back on their feet.

This bill does define us and says who we are as Americans. Despite extreme budget constraints, I believe we have produced a good bill. I wish we could have done more for these programs because we have some catching up to do. But we also have to be fiscally responsible. This bill fits within the budget resolution. It conforms to pay-go. It reflects the priorities of Senators on both sides of the aisle, and it reflects the values, ideals, and priorities of the American people.

Again, I commend our ranking member, Senator Specter, for his leadership in helping to craft this bill. As Senator Specter said, we have had an amazingly productive partnership for

the last, as I count it, about 17, almost 18 years. As control of the Senate has switched between the two parties, we have passed the gavel back and forth, but there has been one constant and that is our shared commitment to investing in job training, in essential human services, in education, and cutting-edge biomedical research.

One notable accomplishment of our bipartisan partnership was the doubling of funding at the National Institutes of Health over a 5-year period between 1998 and 2003. It started under a Democratic President, finished under a Republican President. But today, sadly, that achievement seems like ancient history. Today, it is an achievement in this bill simply to prevent a cut at the National Institutes of Health because that is what the President proposed in his budget. The President proposed a $279 million cut in funding for NIH, in things such as cancer research, Alzheimer's research, ALS research, and other lifesaving research being done through NIH.

The National Institutes of Health is just one of the critical programs in this bill that the President's budget underfunds. Head Start, special education, job training all would face cuts if the President had his way.

Overall, for all the programs in this appropriations bill, his budget request was $3.5 billion below last year's level. Let me repeat that. The President's budget was $3.5 billion below last year's level--not below an inflationary increase, below last year's level. So not only did his budget fail to keep up with inflation, it would take us back. That is unacceptable.

President John Kennedy once said that ``to govern is to choose''--a famous line. Well, I tend to agree. Governing is also about setting priorities. The President has set his priorities. He is just days away from sending up a supplemental budget request for the war in Iraq. We hear it to be as much as $190 billion, and he will insist that we appropriate every single penny. Meanwhile, 2 weeks ago, rejecting pleas from many members of his own party, he vetoed the SCHIP bill, which would preserve health coverage for 6 million children nationwide and cover millions more who are currently uninsured. Now, the President, with his statement of policy that he sent up yesterday, is threatening to veto this bill.

So think about it. The President is demanding that we continue to spend more than $12 billion a month in Iraq on the war, yet he is threatening to veto this appropriations bill because it spends $11 billion a year more than what he wanted, for 1 year. The President says he wants $12 billion a month for the war in Iraq, but we shouldn't spend $11 billion over his budget for 1 full year for all of the other things we do in education and in health care and in human services.

Under the Constitution, we know that the President proposes, the Congress disposes. So we in Congress get to set our priorities too. We also get to choose about governing. Rather than cut the essential programs and services in this bill, we have chosen in a bipartisan fashion to provide a very modest increase. So we respectfully disagree with the President. We believe it is time to make investments in this country. It is time for the President to put our own needs here at home first. For 5 years we have poured untold billions of U.S. taxpayers' dollars into schools, job programs, hospitals, and human services in Iraq. It is time we looked after those same needs here in America. That is exactly what we propose to do in this bill.

This bill provides a modest increase of $1 billion for the National Institutes of Health. That is 3.5 percent. That is less than biomedical inflation. But the President's budget would slash investments in NIH, cutting 800 research grants that could lead to cures or treatments for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or other diseases ravaging our people. This is a very exciting time in biomedical research. We are reaping the benefits of the Human Genome Project. It would be unconscionable and I think totally irresponsible to short-circuit this progress by cutting the funding for NIH. So we have, as I said, provided a modest increase of $1 billion for NIH in this bill.

In this bill, we increase funding for Head Start by $200 million. I wish it were more. It should be more. We are just beginning to make up for the tens of thousands of children who have been lost to the program because of stagnant funding over the last several years. The President's budget would cut Head Start funding by $100 million. So the President's budget cuts it by $100 million; we increase it by $200 million. The President's budget would cut thousands more children from the rolls of Head Start; ours would add to it. That is the difference. We believe the President's approach is unacceptable.

In this bill, we provide an additional $457 million for special education. Again, it really ought to be more, and I will explain what I mean by that. If we accepted the President's budget, it would cut special education by $291 million.

When IDEA passed--the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act-- when it passed the Congress--I guess it was about 30 years ago; yes, it has been about 30 years--when we passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we committed ourselves, we committed the Federal Government to paying up to 40 percent of the additional cost of educating kids with disabilities in our schools. Now, consider this: Prior to that time, most kids with disabilities were shunned aside. They were sent to State institutions, warehoused, and many of them never even went to school. But because of a decision--and I say to the Senator sitting in the chair, it was a Pennsylvania case, PARC, Pennsylvania Association of Retarded Citizens v. Pennsylvania, a landmark case.

From that case, it was decided that if a State decided to provide a free public education for all its children, if it decided to do that, it could not then discriminate against kids with disabilities in providing that free, appropriate public education. Well, that then led, of course, to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act that passed the Congress. In that, we said: We are going to help. We think States should do this. States are mandated to do this under the Constitution, but we are going to help. So we are going to try over the years to build this up to where we provide at least 40 percent of the additional funding to mainstream kids with disabilities in our public schools.

Where are we? Under President Bush, we are going backward. Two years ago, the Federal Government got up to 18 percent of this additional funding for kids with disabilities. We got up to 18 percent 2 years ago. In the last fiscal year, the Federal share dropped to 17 percent. If the President gets his way with his budget in 2008, we will be down to 16 percent. We have had a number of amendments on this floor, sense- of-the-Senate resolutions, to get this up to 40 percent. Republicans and Democrats have voted for this. Yet the President's budget is taking us in the opposite direction, and that, of course, again is unacceptable. When we don't pick up the tab, when we don't do our share and our part in providing for special education, who gets stuck with the bill? Local property taxpayers. The States have to increase and keep increasing the share of local property taxes to pay for this. Again, that is unacceptable.

Turning now to college education, we all know the cost of a college education is rising. It hits all of us pretty hard. It hits all middle- class families and anyone who wants to get a college education. Obviously, it hits the poorest families the hardest. This bill provides an increase of more than $800 million for Pell grants over last year-- Pell grants, so that our poorest students have a chance to get a higher education. Building on that increase we put in the bill earlier, Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi, the chair and ranking member of the authorizing committee on education, wrote a budget reconciliation bill that raises the maximum Pell grant award from $4,310 to $4,800. That is a boost of almost $500 a year for the neediest students--the largest increase in more than 30 years. But under the President's budget, the increase would be less than half that--about $230 a year. So again, our bill would increase that and provide for $800 million more for Pell grants over last year.

One other item which is something of importance to every Senator is this bill increases funding for administering Social Security by $125 million above the President's request. Now, why is that important? I will bet my colleagues

every Senator here and their State offices have been getting all kinds of cases coming in from people who have disability claims, but they are backlogged, backlogged, backlogged. They wait months and months, sometimes years, to get their disability claims administered. Well, this increase would allow us to make a dent in that backlog of disability claims. Again, we ought to be even more aggressive in reducing the backlog. But make no mistake, if we accept the President's budget, the Social Security Administration would have to institute a hiring freeze and the backlog of claims would skyrocket. It is bad enough the way it is right now, but under the President's budget, it would be unacceptable. So our bill would provide $125 million more for Social Security to begin to reduce the disability claims backlog.

I think one of the most disturbing problems with the President's budget is it is kind of a total disregard, I would say, for the needs of our poorest people, the poorest citizens of our country. Just consider three programs that serve low-income children and families in this country. The three programs are the LIHEAP program, which is the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the Community Services Block Grant Program, and the Social Services Block Grant Program. Let's look at those three. These all serve the lowest income people in our country.

The President's budget would cut LIHEAP by $379 million despite predictions of record energy prices this winter. This cut would force States to lower their benefits or serve fewer low-income individuals, many of whom are elderly and poor, many who are going without medical care, some cutting down on their food and other necessities in order to pay their heating bills.

Then, the two block grants I mentioned, the community services block grant and the social services block grant, many of the States tie these together to provide essential services for our most disadvantaged people in this country.

The community services block grant is a key safety net, providing assistance in areas such as job training, housing, and emergency food aid. This bill increases funding for the community services block grant by just a modest $40 million. The President's budget eliminated--the President's budget didn't just cut community services block grants, they zeroed it out--all $630 million zeroed out.

The other block grant, the social services block grant, addresses some of our country's most vital human services needs, such as protecting children from abuse and neglect, caring for homeless seniors, providing services to children and families with severe disabilities, to mention just a few. The President's budget slashed the social services block grant by 30 percent. Our bill says no.

The President has already cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans. We are not going to decimate programs for the poor at the same time. Enough is enough.

So the bill we have before us invests in job training and employment services programs to help Americans develop the skills they need to find work. The President's budget cut job-training programs by $1 billion; that is, from $3.6 billion last year, he would cut it to $2.6 billion. This bill rejects that. This bill also provides $483 million for community services jobs for older Americans. The President's request was $350 million, which would have actually cut a lot of seniors from the program, seniors who are already working in that program.

America's working families also count on the Labor Department to ensure that their workplaces are safe and that employers comply with labor laws. Unfortunately, the President has consistently underfunded the agencies that enforce these laws. Since 2001, OSHA--that is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration--has lost almost 10 percent of its enforcement staff because of the President's budgets. This bill charts a new course. We invest $12 million over last year to rebuild OSHA staffing.

When I describe the funding choices in this bill as ``investments,'' I choose my word carefully. It is a simple fact that when we invest in these programs, we save money in the long run and our country saves money in the long run. When the Minneapolis bridge collapsed this summer, we all talked about the large costs of failing to invest in our infrastructure, our physical infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our highways, our rails.

Well, what about failing to invest in our human infrastructure, our people? What can be more important than that investment? We know some things. We know that early childhood education pays many dividends later on in life and saves us money. We know that quality K-12 education pays big dividends. We know that enabling kids to go to college and not be burdened with a lot of debt pays off with big dividends. We know that adding community health centers pays off, pays dividends by preventing emergency care and disability down the road. We know that job training pays big dividends by getting workers who are laid off of jobs--maybe they have gone overseas--retrained and equipped for new kinds of jobs so they can be productive, taxpaying citizens. All of what I mention pays huge future dividends.

I said earlier that this bill defines America. It is important that this bill defines America as a compassionate nation, a nation that invests in its future, a nation, as the late Senator Hubert Humphrey used to say, that meets the needs of those at the beginning of life, those in the twilight of life, and those in the shadows of life.

Again, I ask, how can we continue to pour endless billions of dollars into Iraq--more than $12 billion a month now, and counting--and yet we cut funding for the basic essential services here at home for our most needy citizens? This is a case of seriously misplaced priorities. We are doing our best to correct it in the bill before us today. Obviously, we have not been able to do everything we want or need to do, but this bill reflects the priorities of Senators on both sides of the aisle, and, as I said, we stayed within our budget allocation.

Again, given all of this, I am genuinely saddened that the President has already pledged to veto the bill. I really cannot believe the President wants us to cut funding for cancer research and other lifesaving research through the NIH. I cannot believe the President wants to cut children from the rolls of Head Start. I cannot believe the President wants to eliminate the community services block grant, which is a basic life support for many of our neediest citizens. I cannot believe the President wants to cut funding for home heating assistance for poor elderly. Yet the President's budget would require all of these cuts to essential programs and services. It would be unconscionable.

So all I can assume is that the President is getting very bad advice. Perhaps his advisers have told him to veto this bill to score some political points--whatever that might be. If so, it is bad advice because there is not an ounce of extravagance in the bill. It meets the essential needs of the American people in terms of education, health and human services, and job training. It passed out of committee 26 to 3. You cannot get much more bipartisan than that.

I might again point out, as I did earlier, that over the last 5 years, this appropriations bill--again, it was under the leadership of Senator Specter, and I was ranking member--every year was above the President's request. Not once did the President threaten to veto it. Well, this year, some games are being played. The President's budget slashes all these programs. We come in to replenish the money and put it in and to give modest increases, all within our budget allocation, but for the first time in 6 years the President says he is going to veto it. What is the difference? Is the only difference now that the Democrats are now in charge? Because, as I said, every year, Senator Specter's bill was higher than the President's request, but he never threatened to veto one of those bills and he never did. This year, he says he will. It sounds to me like the last Karl Rove tactic before he left town. This sounds like a Rove tactic.

I say to the President that he is gone, he is history--bad history, but he is history. Now, Mr. President, do the right thing. Do what we have for the last 5 years and work with Congress. We are willing to meet you halfway, as I said earlier.

One of the objections in the President's veto threat, which he sent down

here yesterday and I have here, was that he opposes overturning the President's policy regarding human embryonic stem cell research. All right. We took it out, even though Senator Specter and I and our committee feel very strongly about this. We have had hearings and hearings on this since 1998. Under Senator Specter's leadership, we have passed legislation to overturn the President's policy. I think we got, if I am not mistaken, about 66 votes in the Senate to do that. I think I am right on that. So, again, we feel strongly about that, as strongly as the President may feel about it, but in the spirit of compromise and getting our bill done and moving it ahead, we decided to take it out, and we did.

So I hope that in the next 24 hours the White House will listen to the debate and they know what is going on and they have their people up here; this is no secret--I hope the President will revisit this, and I would like to see a new Statement of Administration Policy coming down saying: You did, in good will, take out the stem cell thing, and that was half of our objection. We will meet you halfway and accept the bill as you have it.

Mr. President, that would be the good thing to do. I still am hopeful that the President will do that. There is really no justification now for vetoing this bill. If we are over what he wanted, we have been over what he wanted for the last 5 years and he never vetoed the bill. So I hope the President will send down a new statement of policy and that they will support this bill because I think the bill is going to have big support here. It passed committee 26 to 3. If I am not mistaken, those three votes were opposed to the stem cell provisions we had in the bill. Had they not been there, we would have had a unanimous vote in committee.

I think this bill will get a big vote here on the Senate floor. It would be helpful and would ease things and would, I believe, lift a lot of the contentiousness that goes on around town here if the President would come out and say: OK, we will meet you halfway; you took that out, so we will take the bill as it is. That would make things go very smoothly.

Again, we look forward to the consideration of the bill on the floor this week. We want to use our time productively. I encourage Senators, if they have amendments, to bring them to the floor in a timely fashion today so we can complete our work and get the bill to conference as soon as possible.

Senator Reid said on Monday that we would stay in this week--and Saturday, if necessary--to finish this important bill. Well, I have placed all my plans on hold. I intend to be here, if necessary, Friday and Saturday--or Sunday, if necessary--to finish this vitally important bill. I take the leader at his word that we will be here Friday and Saturday if we need to be. However, if Senators come over today and offer amendments today and tomorrow, hopefully, we can finish this bill in a timely manner. Again, Mr. President, we are on the bill, and I hope Senators will come over and offer their amendments.

Mr. President, on August 2, 2007, by a vote of 83 to 14 this Senate approved S. 1, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. The President signed the legislation on September 14, 2007. This ethics reform legislation will significantly improve the transparency and accountability of the legislative process.

Pursuant to the new rule XLIV, it is required that the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction certify that certain information related to congressionally directed spending be identified and that the required information be available on a publicly accessible congressional Web site in a searchable format at least 48 hours before a vote on the pending bill. In addition, Members who request such items are required to certify in writing that neither they nor their immediate family have a pecuniary interest in the items they requested, and the committee is required to make those certification letters available on the Internet. The information provided includes identification of the congressionally directed spending and the name of the Senator who requested such spending. This information is contained in the committee report numbered 110-107, dated June 29, 2007, and has been available on the Internet for 8 weeks. The Member letters concerning pecuniary interests are also available on the Internet.

I am submitting for the Record the certification by the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, Senator Byrd. I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his longstanding effort to give our consumers a better shake when it comes to drug prices in this country. I also thank him for all of his help and support over the years for funding for NIH. I know of his intense interest, of course, in heart disease. The amendment is a good amendment. It is one I can support. We are trying to work it out now, of course, in terms of the offset. Our staffs will be working on it and hopefully we will be able to have that worked out.

Hopefully we can set this amendment aside for right now and move on to other amendments, but I assure my friend from North Dakota we will get this worked out one way or the other.

Also, on the Vitter amendment, I understand we don't have a clearance on that either at this time, so I ask to set that aside also so we can move on with other amendments.

Amendment No. 3336 to Amendment No. 3325

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California again for her championing this issue for a long time. This amendment from Senator Feinstein will provide funds for a feasibility study so no offset is needed since funds are set aside within the existing total for HHS general departmental management. The Adam Walsh Child Protection Safety Act of 2006 required the Secretary of HHS to create an electronic national registry of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect. They have not yet created that registry. There have been some problems that have been raised about this, and the feasibility study amendment Senator Feinstein has offered will address several implementation concerns regarding the establishment of the registry.

So again, I support the amendment. We can accept it. I believe it has been cleared on both sides, so we will accept the amendment.

Yes, the $500,000 will get the job done.

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

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 have an amendment I am offering on behalf of Senator Smith of Oregon. I send it to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, this is a 1-year technical fix requested by Senator Smith. These are the State suicide prevention grants authorized under the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act. It is a simple technical correction to enable HHS to issue youth suicide grants to States this year. It has no cost. It has been cleared by the authorizers on both sides of the aisle, and we are prepared to accept the amendment.

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

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

Mr. President, I thought I might take this bit of lag time on the floor while we are waiting for Senators to offer amendments--which I hope will happen, if there are amendments; I am not trying to encourage any. I am saying if there are

amendments, Members should come and offer them because now is a good time--to talk about the bill and what this debate is all about, why this bill is so important. I say that because the President yesterday sent down his policy statement and said he was going to veto the bill because it spends too much money, that it has to stay within his constraints.

I want to make it clear, we stay within our budget, the budget we have, and we have a pay-go budget. We are not adding anything new this year. We are severely constraining spending to get out of the deficit hole. I want to compare this bill, what we have done on a bipartisan basis--this appropriations bill passed our committee 26 to 3, strong bipartisan support in the subcommittee and full committee--with the President's budget so that Senators who are thinking of how they are going to vote on this appropriations bill might have a clearer picture. What would happen if we did what the President asked, if we just approved the President's budget instead of the bill before us? What I want to do is go through it.

You can tell a lot about a person's priorities on how they spend their money. This bill provides a modest increase in programs that help people, especially Americans at the bottom rungs of the ladder. It helps them to lead meaningful, safe, and productive lives. The President wants to cut those programs. He says we are spending too much for education, for medical research, for job training. Again, look at the amount of money we are talking about. The Senate bill is about $11 billion higher than the President's budget. That is about 1 month in Iraq; we are talking about a full year--1 month in Iraq versus 1 full year for education, health, job retraining, all the other items.

Compared to last year, our Senate bill invests $7.3 billion more than last year on education, health, and labor programs. Again, as part of our balanced budget plan, we are within our budget constraints. The President's budget would cut $3.5 billion from these programs from last year. At the same time, he wants to spend up to almost $10 billion a month in Iraq.

Again, let's look at some of the programs we are talking about; for example, helping the poor. Two of the most important programs in the bill are the community services block grants and the social services block grants. States get to use these funds in a wide variety of ways to help some of our most disadvantaged citizens. The Senate bill provides $2.4 billion for these two block grants. The President's budget requested a 50-percent cut in these two programs, a 50-percent cut from last year to $1.2 billion. So again, when we are talking about programs that help lift people up, we are at $2.4 billion; the President says he wants to cut it in half to $1.2 billion. That is one clear difference in the President's budget and in what we offer.

Let's look at medical research. The Senate bill provides another $1 billion for the National Institutes of Health. That is about a 3.5- percent increase, and that does not even keep up with biomedical inflation. Our bill would increase the number of new research grants by about 400. What does the President's budget do? It would cut NIH by $279 million. That would slash the budget by 12 percent below where we were in 2003--going backward. It would cut the number of new research grants by 800. So the President's budget would cut the number of research grants by 800; our bill would increase it by 400. Members may choose which one they would rather have--the President's budget or the Senate bill.

Let's look at special education. Three decades ago, when we passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, we said to the States: Our goal is for the Federal Government to provide up to 40 percent of the additional cost of mainstreaming kids, getting kids into school rather than warehousing them in State institutions or not even giving them an education. We opened the door for kids with disabilities to go to school. But we said our goal was to get up to 40 percent of this additional cost. That was 30 years ago. What has happened? I can say that time after time we have had a number of votes on the Senate floor, usually a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying that we have to put more money for special education, we have to get up to that 40 percent. The Senate bill increases the State grants by $450 million to help them meet the needs of the additional cost of educating kids with disabilities. The President's budget slashes $291 million from special education.

What is not on this chart is that is going backward. The high point we had was in 2006. In 2006, the Federal Government's percentage of the additional cost was about 18 percent. Last year, it went down to 17 percent. Under the President's budget, it would go to 16 percent. This means a lot to our local schools because if we don't put the money in, there is only one way they can get it, and that is usually through local property taxes which are unfair in most cases.

Again, what we are trying to do is to meet our goal, our obligation, what we said 30 years ago. We put in $450 million, and the President wants to cut it by $291 million.

Let's look at another program, Head Start, a popular program, one of the great society programs started by Lyndon Johnson. We always hear about how the Great Society failed. No, it didn't. I am sorry. It did not. Here is one of the great examples of the successes of the Great Society; that is, the Head Start Program. We have a lot of data over the years to show that kids who went through Head Start do better in elementary school, high school. They go on to lead healthier and more productive lives.

In our bill, we expand Head Start services with an increase of $200 million. The President's budget cuts Head Start by $100 million, which would leave thousands of children behind. The President's budget would result in a cut of over 30,000 slots for children in Head Start Programs. Again, the President's budget goes backward. We are moving ahead.

Let's look at community health centers. One of the things I had always said is that I agreed with President Bush about his goal of having more community health centers built and having at least one community health center in every poor district. I thought that was a laudable goal. I have been supportive of that. Again, the Senate bill increases the Community Health Centers Program by $250 million. The President neglects the uninsured, people with limited health care access. He just says: Keep it where it is, no increase whatsoever. Yet we know we need to not only open new community health centers--a lot of them are backed up. People want to open new ones, plus the ones that are open, because of the increased cost of health services. Medical devices, equipment, and all that have higher expenditures as well. We need to make sure we keep up with funding of community health centers that are open.

We are also expanding dental services. One of the most important parts of community health centers we have found in the last several years--maybe decade, decade and a half--is the importance of dental care for kids. We have begun to add more and more dental services to our community health centers, which has helped a lot of families who otherwise cannot afford dental care for their children. That requires some extra money as well. We have responded to that by putting in $250 million. The President keeps it exactly where it is.

Ours would increase the Community Health Centers Program from $1.99 billion to $2.2 billion. The President says: Leave it where it is and leave a lot of low-income Americans who are uninsured without any access to community health centers.

Another provision in our bill is the home energy assistance program, otherwise known as LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It is a very successful program. The Senate bill maintains funding. We should have had an increase, but we are in a budget crunch. We couldn't get an increase for it, but at least we held the line. We know energy costs are higher now than they have ever been. What does the President's budget do? It cuts LIHEAP by $379 billion despite record-high energy prices. The President's budget would reduce the number of families receiving this assistance by 1.1 million. Again, these are the very low income, in many cases low-income elderly who we know are cutting back on their food, on medicine, and other things to be able to pay heating bills in the wintertime.

Another issue that is of importance to all of us is Social Security.

As I said earlier, we know--every Senator knows; and you can check with your State offices, and they will tell you--the caseload for people whose disability claims have not been acted on has a backlog of several months, a year, a year and a half, in trying to get their disability claims approved. Right now, it takes 1\1/2\ years--1\1/2\ years--to process a hearing request. In the year 2000, it was 200 days. It was 200 days, and now it is a year and a half. The disability claims backlog is about 660,000. That is about a 100,000 increase since 2006.

Recognizing this, we have put a $426 million increase into Social Security for hiring more people, to accelerate the hearings decisions, and to try to reduce that disability backlog we have now of 660,000.

The President's budget only put in enough money--$300 million--that would allow no hiring, despite the lowest staffing level since 1972. With the baby boom generation hitting the disability-prone years and closing in on retirement, the President's budget would add almost 100,000 disability claims to the backlog, so we have put in $426 million to reduce that backlog.

Student aid, which is another big part of our bill: The gap between the cost of a 4-year public college and the maximum Pell grant has increased by over $3,000 since 2002. We increased the amount of money for Pell grants to $4,800 to help alleviate that problem. The President's budget falls short of that by almost $300, bringing it to $4,540--again, very short of the amount needed to offset the cost of higher tuition.

On competitiveness, there are 7 million unemployed and millions more not working and not looking, as employers move jobs overseas. They hire foreign workers to fill jobs. Well, the Senate bill provides $4.8 billion for job training, and career and technical education programs to enhance the competitiveness of our workforce.

What does the President's budget do? It undermines U.S. competitiveness with a $1 billion cut--a $1 billion cut--in job training, a 50-percent cut in career and technical education programs. Almost 8 million high school and college students could see career and technical education courses disappear because of the President's cuts.

That is not all that is in our bill. There is more, but I thought this kind of highlights the difference between the President's budget and what we are trying to do in this bill, keeping in mind, again, that our bill is a little over $7 billion more than last year--hardly an inflationary increase. We have kept within our budget, within our pay- go budget. Yet we have been able to get necessary increases, as I have outlined.

The President's budget basically says: No. Give me more money to spend in Iraq, to the tune of about $12 billion a month. We are saying we only need $11 billion for the entire year, for all the things I outlined.

I think the choice is clear. I think the choice was clear when we were in subcommittee. It passed our subcommittee unanimously. It passed the full Appropriations Committee, as I said, by a vote of 26 to 3. I think it is a good, bipartisan bill. I hope we can bring it to a close here in the next day or so.

I say to my fellow Senators, the floor is open if anyone has any amendments. As I said, I am not encouraging them, but I know there are some people who do have amendments, and I would hope they might come over and offer those amendments.

With that, 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 thank my colleague from South Dakota for bringing up this important program. As a neighboring State Senator, telehealth is a very important part of our State. We have seen the savings, as the Senator talked about, that can accrue from this, not only in terms of money but in saving the lives of people who live in our small towns and communities.

I have seen firsthand the benefit of telehealth by using the fiberoptic network system we have in the State of Iowa. I know of many cases where someone was in a car wreck in a small town and they didn't know whether they could leave them there in the small clinic or if they needed to be air-lifted, and with telehealth and with the fiberoptic system, they were able to do some diagnoses and make the decision that, yes, the person needed to be removed immediately or, no, they didn't. So it does save a lot of money, but it also saves a lot of lives.

Again, I say to my friend from South Dakota, this program is a perfect example of how starved we have been in our account over the last few years--how starved we are in this bill. Ten years ago, telehealth received $15.8 million in this bill. Over the last 5 years, the funding has hovered between $4 million and $6.8 million. So again, I have no problems with the amendment. I hope our staffs can work together and we can work together to find an appropriate offset. I think there may be some things we can work out that will be acceptable to both sides on the offset.

So I thank the Senator from South Dakota for his interest and for offering this amendment.

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

Mr. President, I thank Senator Dorgan for his many years

championing the cause of our skilled workers in this country, championing the cause of manufacturing in this country. He warned us a long time ago about what NAFTA was going to do. Frankly, his dire predictions have turned out, unfortunately, to be true. When Senator Dorgan speaks about NAFTA, or any trade agreement, and the impact on jobs in this country, it would do us well to pay attention.

There is no one I know who knows more about this area than Senator Dorgan. His amendment, I say to him, is one I can fully support. I hope all Members of the Senate could support it. As he said, it requires the Department of Labor to provide Congress with a fuller picture of the impact of the NAFTA agreement.

Frankly, this is key information we ought to have anyway so we can understand the changes to our economy that have occurred since NAFTA has passed. Again, I thank him for it. This has been a key issue in my State of Iowa.

I say to my friend from North Dakota, I remember all the speeches he used to give about Huffy bicycles and now talking about Levis. What could be more American than that?

I might say something equally as American as that is the Maytag washing machine. The Maytag washing machine, what could be more American than that Maytag repairman who never had anything to do because the Maytag washers and dryers were so good?

We have always taken great pride in Iowa that Iowa was the home of the Maytag, has been since the beginning, since Fred Maytag started his business in Newton, IA. I hate to tell you, but your Maytag washers are now coming from Mexico. All these great jobs we had, and these were good-paying jobs. A lot of people in the past worked at Maytag. It was part of their community. They built good schools, educated their kids, the kids went on. Some of the kids grew up and they then went to work at Maytag. It was a wonderful community, a wonderful business. They had great relations with organized labor there.

To make a long story short, Whirlpool came in, bought out Maytag, shipped all the jobs to Mexico. Now all those jobs are missing in Iowa. What do we do? We scramble to get some retraining, some job retraining and things such as that. But the jobs the people are getting are much lower paid jobs. They are not as good, and all the manufacturing jobs are now in Mexico.

Of course, maybe I am being a little chauvinistic because it was such an Iowa institution, Maytag, and to think they are not making them there anymore, they are gone.

I did myself when I was a kid.

We represent agricultural States, but we always had a good blend of manufacturing and agriculture. One of the well-kept secrets is that Iowa at one time had more foundries than any other State in the Nation, small foundries. People made things in these foundries. Those jobs have left now. Now with Maytag leaving, it is eroding our manufacturing base.

We need a good industrial policy. We need a manufacturing policy for this country. We don't have one. We need a good industrial policy for this country. We don't have one. If we do not have some kind of an industrial policy and some policy that says here is the kind of manufacturing base we are going to keep, we are going to protect-- protect? I don't mind using the word ``protect.'' We are protecting our people. If we are going to have a manufacturing base that protects us in the area of national security, so we have the manufacturing wherewithal to take the raw materials and make them into items that our people need but which will provide us with that bulwark for the future against the possibility of other countries cutting us off or making trade sanctions against us--we need to have that policy.

We don't have it. If we don't have it pretty soon, we are not going to be making anything in this country. We are not going to be making anything. We are going to be shuffling money around, that is all we are going to be doing. That is not what makes a great country, and it is not what is going to sustain us, if all we are going to do is shuffle money around.

I thank the Senator. He has been a great leader in this area. We are going to do something. We don't have an agreement yet to accept it. I can tell the Senator I am going to work hard to make sure we get an acceptance of his amendment. I thank him for it.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Missouri for offering this amendment. It is a good amendment. I have checked with Senator Specter on our side, and it is OK on that side. It is OK with us. We will accept the amendment.

Before doing so, I will again say to my friend from Missouri that in this bill we have increased funding above the President's budget for all the inspector generals in all the departments this bill covers. Basically opening it up, as her amendment does, allows more people access to what the inspector generals are doing. Hopefully we can continue to try to maintain the integrity and independence of the inspector generals. Some of them are perhaps being pressured by the administration to do certain things. But we want to maintain that integrity and the independence of the inspector generals. This amendment will help to do that.

Madam President, I appreciate the sentiments by the Senator from Louisiana and accept this proposal to move the funding for this project to other priority projects for the State of Louisiana in the bill when it goes to conference committee.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the FIT Kids Act. That first word, FIT, is an acronym for ``Fitness Integrated with Teaching''. The FIT Kids Act encourages schools to provide children with quality physical education that can help them lead healthier lives.

Since the 1970s, the incidence of obesity has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and for young people aged 12-19 years, and has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. There are many reasons of this public health crisis, and addressing this crisis will require multiple solutions as well. One critical place to start is in our schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that fewer than 10 percent of our public schools at all levels offer daily physical education or its equivalent for the entire school year for all students.

The FIT Kids Act would amend the No Child Left Behind Act to support quality physical education for all public school children through grade 12, and ensure they receive important health and nutritional information. As a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I have been working with Chairman Kennedy and my other colleagues to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that improves on existing law, and gives schools and educators the resources they need to succeed.

It is truly alarming to see the discrepancies in achievement between children in the United States and children abroad. Here in the U.S., we have a wide and persistent achievement gap that is leaving behind children of color, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and children with disabilities. I believe that the No Child Left Behind Act gives us a framework to reduce, and hopefully close, this achievement gap to ensure that children from all walks of life are achieving at high levels. I believe that we can and will reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that preserves its essential reforms and continues the progress we have made over the nearly 6 years since the act became law.

Unfortunately, despite the law's lofty goals, many educators have come to see it as a burden and a hindrance to effective classroom practices. I admit I share many of their concerns. I am particularly concerned about reports of imbalances and distortions that have come about as various States and the Federal Government have pushed for higher standards and greater accountability. Earlier this year, the Center on Education Policy, here in Washington,

released a study showing that, as a result of NCLB, many school districts have cut back on the time spent teaching subjects other than math and reading.

I am especially concerned by the finding that time spent on physical education has dropped by 9 percent, and recess by 6 percent. A new elementary school in Atlanta was actually built without a playground! This is just plain wrong-headed and short-sighted for two big reasons: one, we are fighting a childhood obesity epidemic of frightening proportions. Two, as any teacher or parent knows, kids have got to have time to play and burn off energy if they are going to be in a proper frame of mind to learn.

This legislation will provide parents with information on the time and resources devoted to giving their children a quality physical education. Specifically, the bill will amend the State, local education agency, and school report cards to include measures of physical education tied to nationally recognized guidelines and standards. It is important to note, however, that this legislation will not amend the school accountability process to include measures of physical education. However, by including this new information on report cards we will give parents the data they need in order to assess whether their children are receiving an appropriate physical education.

In addition, the bill promotes teacher professionalism in the field of physical education in order to promote healthy lifestyles and physical activity, and thereby to boost students' readiness to learn. The bill promotes physical activity in after-school programs. It amends the school counseling program to take into account students' emotional and physical wellbeing. It supports efforts to train parents to encourage healthy behaviors and physical activity.

Finally, this legislation authorizes research into the ways physical activity can be incorporated into all aspects of the school day, as well as research into the impact of physical activity on students' ability to learn, and into the best ways to measure student progress in increasing physical activity.

I am pleased that this bill is strongly supported by the American Heart Association, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American School Counselor Association, YMCA of the USA, National Association for Sport and Physical Education, the Campaign to End Obesity, and many other leading organizations in the fields of education and health.

The FIT Kids Act shines a spotlight on children's heath and how our schools can play a greater role in teaching our children healthy behaviors. As we move forward in reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, we cannot neglect the importance of proper physical education. Students should be learning healthy behaviors and the importance of physical activity, and why these lessons will be important throughout their lives. The FIT Kids Act provides the framework to accomplish this. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the FIT Kids Act. That first word, FIT, is an acronym for ``Fitness Integrated with Teaching''. The FIT Kids Act encourages schools to provide children with quality physical education that can help them lead healthier lives.

Since the 1970s, the incidence of obesity has more than doubled for preschool children aged 2-5 years and for young people aged 12-19 years, and has more than tripled for children aged 6-11 years. There are many reasons of this public health crisis, and addressing this crisis will require multiple solutions as well. One critical place to start is in our schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that fewer than 10 percent of our public schools at all levels offer daily physical education or its equivalent for the entire school year for all students.

The FIT Kids Act would amend the No Child Left Behind Act to support quality physical education for all public school children through grade 12, and ensure they receive important health and nutritional information. As a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I have been working with Chairman Kennedy and my other colleagues to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that improves on existing law, and gives schools and educators the resources they need to succeed.

It is truly alarming to see the discrepancies in achievement between children in the United States and children abroad. Here in the U.S., we have a wide and persistent achievement gap that is leaving behind children of color, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and children with disabilities. I believe that the No Child Left Behind Act gives us a framework to reduce, and hopefully close, this achievement gap to ensure that children from all walks of life are achieving at high levels. I believe that we can and will reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act in a way that preserves its essential reforms and continues the progress we have made over the nearly 6 years since the act became law.

Unfortunately, despite the law's lofty goals, many educators have come to see it as a burden and a hindrance to effective classroom practices. I admit I share many of their concerns. I am particularly concerned about reports of imbalances and distortions that have come about as various States and the Federal Government have pushed for higher standards and greater accountability. Earlier this year, the Center on Education Policy, here in Washington,

released a study showing that, as a result of NCLB, many school districts have cut back on the time spent teaching subjects other than math and reading.

I am especially concerned by the finding that time spent on physical education has dropped by 9 percent, and recess by 6 percent. A new elementary school in Atlanta was actually built without a playground! This is just plain wrong-headed and short-sighted for two big reasons: one, we are fighting a childhood obesity epidemic of frightening proportions. Two, as any teacher or parent knows, kids have got to have time to play and burn off energy if they are going to be in a proper frame of mind to learn.

This legislation will provide parents with information on the time and resources devoted to giving their children a quality physical education. Specifically, the bill will amend the State, local education agency, and school report cards to include measures of physical education tied to nationally recognized guidelines and standards. It is important to note, however, that this legislation will not amend the school accountability process to include measures of physical education. However, by including this new information on report cards we will give parents the data they need in order to assess whether their children are receiving an appropriate physical education.

In addition, the bill promotes teacher professionalism in the field of physical education in order to promote healthy lifestyles and physical activity, and thereby to boost students' readiness to learn. The bill promotes physical activity in after-school programs. It amends the school counseling program to take into account students' emotional and physical wellbeing. It supports efforts to train parents to encourage healthy behaviors and physical activity.

Finally, this legislation authorizes research into the ways physical activity can be incorporated into all aspects of the school day, as well as research into the impact of physical activity on students' ability to learn, and into the best ways to measure student progress in increasing physical activity.

I am pleased that this bill is strongly supported by the American Heart Association, the National Parent Teacher Association, the American School Counselor Association, YMCA of the USA, National Association for Sport and Physical Education, the Campaign to End Obesity, and many other leading organizations in the fields of education and health.

The FIT Kids Act shines a spotlight on children's heath and how our schools can play a greater role in teaching our children healthy behaviors. As we move forward in reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, we cannot neglect the importance of proper physical education. Students should be learning healthy behaviors and the importance of physical activity, and why these lessons will be important throughout their lives. The FIT Kids Act provides the framework to accomplish this. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m., in order to conduct a markup on an original bill entitled the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007; an original bill entitled the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007; and an original bill entitled the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2007.

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 Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

At this hearing, the Committee will hear testimony regarding consumer practices of the wireless industry.

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 Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

At this hearing, the Committee will explore the status of the digital television transition including consumer education efforts, the operation and implementation of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration converter box program, and other issues related to a smooth and effective transition from analog to digital television.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 2:30 p.m. to hold a nomination hearing.

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 Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m. in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Is DHS Too Dependent on Contractors to Do the Government's Work?''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized during the session of the Senate in order to meet to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Michael B. Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States, on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 10 a.m. in the Hart Senate Office Building room 216.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, in order to conduct an oversight hearing on VA and DOD collaboration, the hearing will focus on the report of the President's Commission on Care For America's Returning Wounded Warriors, the report of the Veterans Disability Benefit Commission and other related reports.

The Committee will meet in 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in order to hold a hearing entitled, ``Oversight Hearing on the Federal Superfund Program's Activities to Protect Public Health.''

I ask unanimous consent that Alexander Torres and Young- Min Cho of my staff be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of today's session.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Bingaman, I ask unanimous consent that Jeffry Phan, a fellow in his office, be granted the privileges of the floor for the pendency of H.R. 3043.

Mr. President, I am hear to speak in opposition to the amendment offered by the Senator from South Dakota. The amendment he offered would reduce the vital legal assistance to our most vulnerable citizens, low-income Americans who need help with their most critical legal needs.

First of all, I wish to say I am a strong supporter of the bill before us. The President proposed drastic cuts in funding for State and local law enforcement, but the bill provides a total of $2.6 billion for State and local law enforcement which is about $1.5 billion above the President's request. The President's budget also proposed to reduce the number of Federal law enforcement agents working to combat violent crime, but this bill rejects that cut, as well as lifting the hiring freeze on DEA agents.

I wish to point out something else. The bill further provides $1.7 billion for U.S. attorneys, $92 million more than last year, and it directly addresses Native American needs. The bill provides $35 million for tribal law enforcement efforts. The bill further provides $1 million in research on violence against Native American women.

I know Senators Mikulski and Shelby did their best to provide additional resources, especially given the severe budget constraints we face, but the answer to the problems that Native

Americans have with domestic violence and violent crime is not to deprive them and other poor citizens of our country of basic legal services. That is what the Thune amendment does. Senator Thune is putting more money into the U.S. attorneys to combat violent crime, but he is taking it out of Legal Services. That tradeoff is wrong and I encourage my colleagues to reject the Thune amendment and support the level of funding provided in the bill.

Let me take a minute to explain why the increase in funding for Legal Services is so important. In 1996, Legal Services took a drastic cut in funding by the Congress. It went from $415 million to $278 million. It was almost cut in half. We have been trying to get the funding back up since that time. I point out if at that time, from 1995 to now, we had kept pace with inflation, Legal Services would currently be funded at about $566 million. This bill gets it up to $390 million, so we are not even back up to where we were in 1995. As I said, the Thune amendment cuts $20 million out of the increase provided in this bill and gives it to U.S. attorneys. But I also pointed out, the U.S. attorneys already got a $92 million increase in the bill, for $1.7 billion in total funding.

Of course, it is not just Native Americans but a wide range of low- income Americans including, in recent years, victims of Hurricane Katrina and even victims of 9/11, who utilize legal services. We have all read in recent months about the vast increase in the number of people losing their homes because of foreclosures and the scandal in the subprime lending market. Many of these people are low income, and they are going to need help from Legal Services because they will not be able to afford an attorney.

Again, make no mistake, even under this bill as it is, Legal Services is not able to serve the legal needs of all low-income Americans. For example, 50 percent of eligible applicants requesting legal assistance from the Legal Services Corporation grantees are turned away because of lack of funding. Keep in mind that, in order to be eligible for Legal Services, you have to be at or below 125 percent of poverty level. That is an income of $25,000 a year for a family of four. That means right now we are turning away half of the families earning less than $25,000 a year who need legal help. In some parts of the country, it is even higher. In Wisconsin, 80 percent of poor households who face legal problems do so without an attorney.

In California, 66 percent; in Nebraska, 86 percent; in Utah, 87 percent; in New Mexico, 80 percent. On and on. Those are the percentage of low-income people in those States who face a legal problem yet do not get any help.

With so many people going unserved, every cent is crucial. The adoption of the Thune amendment would only result in furthering the justice gap in this country and in many cases hurt the very people the Senator from South Dakota wishes to help, Native Americans.

The clients of Legal Services Corporation funded programs are the most vulnerable among us, and many of them are Native Americans. Since 2001, 2.8 percent of all of the appropriations going to Legal Services has gone to meet the legal needs of disadvantaged Native Americans in this country. That means that under this bill about $10.4 million would go to Native American legal services. That includes South Dakota. In many of these States like South Dakota, a majority of legal services goes to serve Native American populations. In fact, in 2006, fully 67 percent of the clients served by civil legal services in South Dakota were Native Americans--67 percent. By taking money from Legal Services, you are hurting the very people who need legal help, including many of our Native Americans.

Mr. President, I would be happy to yield.

I also appreciate the efforts of the Senator from South Dakota. Again, if you are asking whether I have any problems with where the Senator from South Dakota wants to provide additional funding, no, I do not. I have problems with where we are taking it from. That is my basic problem, because all of the data and all of the testimony tells us that Legal Services are helping the very people we are talking about, especially women who are victims of domestic violence.

Because, a lot of times, Legal Services attorneys are handling family law matters. But before they get to the prosecutorial level, for example, there are things that can be worked out. Individuals have a lawyer--for example, domestic violence restraining orders, separation agreements, or child custody arrangements, those types of things, which are civil matters. U.S. attorneys do not handle that. That is what Legal Services does.

The incidence of violence toward Native American women is tragic. As the Senator from South Dakota pointed out in his presentation earlier, he said Native American women are seven times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than other women. That is what the Senator from North Dakota also just told us.

But, again, it is precisely these citizens whom Legal Services Corporation-funded programs assist. Three out of four clients of Legal Services are women--three out of four.

Legal aid programs identify domestic violence as one of the top priorities in their caseloads. Recent studies have shown that the only public service that reduces domestic abuse in the long term is women's access to legal aid, the very assistance this amendment would drastically curtail. So legal services does make a big difference.

As I said, it is not just Native Americans I am talking about. Legal Services is still helping victims of 9/11, flood victims, Katrina victims. Now we have a whole new group of people accessing Legal Services. I am almost embarrassed to say this. There is another group we now see accessing Legal Services in a big way. Do you know who they are? Our soldiers and their families. Our soldiers and their families, because some of these enlistees who are privates and below do not get enough money. They may have problems, separations. They have been gone a long time. There are family problems. They do not have enough money to hire an attorney. Their spouses might not. So they are accessing Legal Services. This amendment would say: No, we are going to cut back on that. So, again, I think it is important for us to keep this in mind.

I know the Senator from South Dakota had mentioned the recent management problems at Legal Services headquarters. Believe me, no one was more upset than this Senator when the reports came out a year ago, first with the IG investigation and then GAO report. I say that because I started my life after law school as a Legal Services attorney. That is what I did. I know that every cent in the field counts. So if they are wasting money up here in Washington with chauffeured limousines and fancy hotels and all of that kind of stuff, it makes my blood boil, because I know what the Legal Services attorneys in the field are living with, and they are pinching pennies. They are not paid a lot.

That is why I was glad, in the education bill that passed earlier, we included Legal Services lawyers as those who would have their loans repaid if they stayed and became Legal Services attorneys.

Again, I share with the Senator from South Dakota and others my total abhorrence of what was going on in the hierarchy. I will say this: The GAO recommended a number of things for Legal Services to do to address these problems that are now being implemented, in terms of the board structure and other important oversight protections. Why it was not done before, I do not know. There is no excuse for it. There is absolutely no excuse for it. But I can say that the board is now implementing the suggestions and the recommendations of the GAO. I made it very clear as a long-time supporter of the Legal Services Corporation, I made it very clear to management that they needed to act immediately to address the GAO recommendations. I know both Senator Shelby and Senator Mikulski have said the same thing to LSC. So LSC management knows that people here are watching. I know they are acting to address it. Their board of directors has publicly accepted all of GAO's recommendations. They have begun their implementation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the Legal Services Corporation's response to GAO which outlines the steps they are taking to ensure better management at headquarters.

Regardless of what we may think about the management of Legal Services, and what the board was or was not doing, asleep at the switch, it is important to note that this amendment would not impact management. Only $13 million of the $390 million appropriated in the bill goes for management and administration. That account has not received a single penny increase in the funding, thanks to Senator Shelby and thanks to Senator Mikulski. I know this because I worked with them and I championed the increase included in the bill, but to ensure that the money went where it was needed, to the programs in the field and not to management here in Washington.

Senator Thune's amendment, in taking this money out of Legal Services, may talk about the management, but none of the increase we put in here goes to management. It all goes to the field operations. Those are the people who need it the most.

Again, I echo what my friend from North Dakota said. I think the thrust of what Senator Thune is trying to do is laudable. Obviously we do have a problem with domestic violence and abuse of Native American women. Obviously this needs to be prosecuted. I would say before that step, though, we need to make sure we have legal services available to them, so that we cut down on the incidence of domestic abuse and domestic violence. For that reason I would oppose the amendment.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to respond. Again, I want to read from the bill so it is clear in everyone's mind that none of the money the Senator from South Dakota is taking out of Legal Services will come from administration. The bill itself says, page 81: $372 million is for basic field programs, $13.8 million for management and administration-- exactly what they had last year.

Again, we are not rewarding LSC management for being bad actors, nor are we rewarding the board for the poor oversight they provided. We are keeping the management and administration account to the same level it was funded at last year. So the money Senator Thune is proposing to cut will come from field operations.

Secondly, there is a glass half full/half empty story about the increase in this bill for Legal Services. Over 11 years ago, this Congress cut Legal Services in half. Since that time, the number of people in poverty has grown. We have more poor people. Yet we still are not even at the level we were in 1995 for Legal Services. Imagine that. If we had kept pace with inflation from 1995 to now, Legal Services would be funded at the level of about $566 million. This bill only gets it back to $390 million. So we are not even where we were in 1995.

Lastly, while I understand what the Senator from South Dakota is saying about violent crime in Indian country and on reservations, we are cognizant of that, but why take the money away from the very services helping our Native Americans. As I said, 67 percent of Legal Services money spent in South Dakota goes to Native Americans. I would submit that a lot of that goes to help prevent the kind of domestic violence that results in prosecutorial action later on. Think of it like preventive medicine. Better to have Legal Services there, access for poor Indians who want to come in who may have domestic problems, landlord-tenant problems, child custody problems, whatever, that may lead to some kind of domestic violence. Better to let them have access to Legal Services and take care of it that way before it blows up into a violent situation.

I, again, hope Senators will reject the amendment of the Senator from South Dakota.

Mr. President, each October, the eyes of the world appropriately turn to Des Moines for the presentation of the World Food Prize, called by the former President of Mexico, ``the Nobel Prize for Food.''

Created by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, each year on or around October 16-- World Food Day--representatives from more than 60 countries gather in the magnificent Iowa State Capitol to honor the newest laureate for his or her exceptional breakthrough achievements in increasing the quality, quantity or availability of food in the world. In past years, this honor has gone to individuals from India, Denmark, Brazil, China, and Sierra Leone. This year the winner is an American from Indiana. But no matter where they are from, all of these laureates have in common that they have reduced hunger and human suffering around the globe.

It is most fitting that this weeklong celebration begins today, October 16 with the first ever Iowa Hunger Summit.

There are people flying today from the east coast and the west coast to Des Moines. No, they are not Presidential candidates--although there are already plenty of them in the State. Rather, they are national leaders of the Alliance to End Hunger and representatives of the U.N. Foundation, and ambassadors from the United Nations and leaders of the OneVote08 campaign. They are all coming to join hundreds of Iowans to listen to the leaders of Bread for the World and MAZON, the Jewish Response to Hunger offer an inspiring vision about how to diminish hunger at home and abroad in this inaugural Iowa Hunger Summit.

At the center of this endeavor will be Dr. Norman E. Borlaug, Iowa's and America's greatest hero in the struggle against hunger. Today is U.N. World Food Day all around the globe. But I would argue, that perhaps the most significant observance of this special day will be taking place in Des Moines, where it is also Dr. Norman E. Borlaug/ World Food Prize Day.

I want to commend Iowa's three former Governors, Tom Vilsack, Terry Branstad, and Robert Ray for their bipartisan leadership in making this first ever Iowa Hunger Summit possible. I also express my appreciation to the World Food Prize Foundation for its initiative in starting this new program. Iowa has a rich legacy of coming together above partisan differences when human suffering is involved. Governor Ray has exhibited exemplary leadership of Iowa SHARES to feed emaciated Cambodians, who had suffered under the genocidal Khmer Rouge. Similarly, Governor Branstad has led Iowa CARES to send food to starving populations in Ethiopia. And here at home, Governor Vilsack has worked in Iowa to greatly expand the number of hungry people receiving assistance.

I am pleased to add my name to the list of those in support of this marvelous new focus on hunger--the Iowa Hunger Summit. It is most fitting that we in the Congress would also join together in a bipartisan fashion to further commit ourselves to efforts to alleviate malnutrition and human suffering wherever it is found, at home or abroad.

Mr. President, one of the great joys of my job as a Senator is the opportunity to recognize exceptional people. I would like to take this opportunity to recognize seven exceptional people: Ivana Hong, Nastia Liukin, Samanthat Peszek, Alicia Sacramone, Bridget Sloan, Shayla Worley, and Shawn Johnson. These young ladies make up the U.S. women's gymnastics team.

In September of this year at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championship in Stuttgart, Germany, the U.S. women's team won a total of four gold, two silver, and one bronze medal, placing them first overall in the women's team competition. I congratulate the members of this team, their coaches, and families on their success and for their exemplary representation of our country.

As an Iowan, I would like to recognize a particular member of the U.S. women's team, Ms. Shawn Johnson of West Des Moines, IA. Ms. Johnson won the all-around women's gymnastics title at the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championship. With this great achievement, she became just the fourth U.S. woman ever to win a world all-around title.

Receiving such a title takes incredible talent and athletic ability. But, without a doubt, it also takes a lot of hard work. At the age of 3, Ms. Johnson began her gymnastic training at Chow's Gymnastics in West Des Moines, IA, where she continues to train today. As a result of years of hard work and training, she has competed and won at progressively higher levels of competition. In 2006, she won the U.S. Junior National Championship; in 2007, the Visa National Championships and the Pan American Games, where she won four gold and one silver medal. Next, Ms. Johnson will be competing for a spot on the U.S. women's gymnastic team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

I extend my sincere congratulations to the U.S. women's gymnastics team on their success and I wish them luck on their future endeavors.