Floor Statements

Mr. President, I understand the ranking member was going to yield me 30 minutes of time.

Mr. President, last week this story, ``Prayers Made to Protest Budget Cuts,'' appeared in the Quad-City Times in my State of Iowa. Ollie Finn of Bettendorf said:

We're concerned about the budget cuts and that's why we're

having the prayer vigil. We wanted to bring awareness to the

community about how horrible these budget cuts are. . . .

The Rev. Roger Butts, pastor of the Unitarian Church of

Davenport, asked people to determine whether the Fiscal Year

2006 budget serves the common good. ``I've come simply to

pray with you and to stand with you for those whose voices

are easy to ignore,'' he said.

I ask unanimous consent that this article from the Quad-City Times be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I know that people of faith held many events in Iowa, Washington, and many other places around the country last week on this very topic. Unfortunately, their prayers were not enough. Their prayers were not enough because yesterday we awakened to the flurry of late-night activities in the House of Representatives. House Republicans waited until the middle of the night Sunday, less than a week before Christmas, to order deep cuts to health care initiatives and farm programs and to sneak through blanket protections for the pharmaceutical industry.

It is not an accident these House votes occurred in the dead of night. There are now only 5 days until Christmas. Throughout much of the world, it is the season of giving, but here in Congress, it is the season of taking away--taking away education programs, taking away job training, taking away health care from low-income families, taking away money for needed medical research, taking away from farmers and rural communities and, worst of all, taking away hope from so many. This is a cruel holiday surprise for many American families.

Why are we doing this? Not for deficit reduction, but to provide tens of billions of dollars in tax giveaways for the wealthiest in our society. Forty percent of the benefits in the House tax bill go to those making more than $1 million a year.

Seventy-eight percent go to those making over $100,000 a year. Only 8 percent go to those making under $50,000 a year. So, again, those in the bottom of the ladder get some crumbs from the table. So while the wealthiest in our society unwrap Christmas presents, while the wealthiest in our society are hanging their Christmas stockings and getting thousands of dollars of tax giveaways stuffed in their stockings, for the poor and low income, Congress has come with a couple of lumps of coal for their stockings.

Take a look at some of the provisions I am talking about. Take the provision of the child support enforcement. This is essential to helping families achieve self-sufficiency. For families in poverty who receive child support, those payments account for an average of about 30 percent of their income. Next to a mother's earnings, child support is the largest income source for poor families receiving assistance. Child support payments are used to pay for food, child care, shelter, and the most basic essentials of life. The bill slashes funding for these child support enforcement efforts.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as a result of the cuts, more than $8.4 billion in delinquent payments will go uncollected in the coming 10 years. The biggest negative impact will be by children living in poverty and low-income households. One hundred seventy-six thousand children benefit from child support payments in my State of Iowa alone. In the past, President Bush himself praised the program, calling it one of our highest performing social services programs, and he is right. For every dollar in Government spending, $4.38 is recovered for families in child support payments.

Since 1996, there has been an 82-percent increase in collections, from $12 billion to $22 billion. If we were smart, if we were compassionate, if we were looking at ways to get the most bang for the taxpayers' dollar, we would be increasing funding for the child support enforcement program. The bill before us cuts this program in order to make way for more tax cuts for the wealthiest. It is simply unconscionable.

Let us take a look at Medicaid. I am very concerned about the cuts to Medicaid in this bill. I have said all along, if one wants to do something about Medicaid we ought to have a fair, honest, open debate about reforming Medicaid. We should do so in a way that does no harm to the beneficiaries because who are the beneficiaries of Medicaid? The poorest among us, poor women and children, the disabled, low-income elderly who need access to long-term care.

This bill before us today makes two changes that are permanent changes. One, under this bill, States can now alter or eliminate services to individuals. They can do it on their own. Secondly, the bill allows States to charge fees--sometimes it could be exorbitant fees--on many services where there were no fees before. Again, this could limit access to care for so many.

For example, States may provide any child, even those whose families have the lowest incomes, with a smaller benefit package than they have today. That means that low-income children, no matter how poor, are no longer guaranteed, as they are now, vision screening; no longer guaranteed coverage for eyeglasses; no longer guaranteed therapy services, medical equipment or any other benefit.

This bill would allow States to charge up to 20 percent of the cost of each medication that an individual gets in Medicaid. For individuals who take multiple drugs, this is 20 percent for each medication, so an individual who has multiple drugs or maybe an individual who needs expensive medication, these provisions could, in effect, eliminate access to needed medicines.

Keep in mind these are people who qualify for Medicaid. That means they are poor, by definition. They do not have money. So now we are going to ask them to pay more for services? Now we may ask them to pay for eyeglasses for their kids. Well, their kid needs eyeglasses, they do not have any money, they cannot pay for it, tough. That is the way it was 50 years ago in our country.

I suppose they can go get charity, can they not? I forget about that. That is right. I suppose they could go to their local church or their local synagogue maybe, local mosque, and maybe they will pay for all the eyeglasses for all the poor kids in our country now.

Under the bill, medical care providers can deny medical care if the patient has no ability to pay the charges at the time the care is needed. States can terminate coverage if the family cannot pay the monthly premiums. Again, these changes were made despite a large body of evidence, research, and studies that determined that such cost- sharing increases are likely to lead many low-income Medicaid patients to forgo various health care services and medications or not to enroll in Medicaid.

Guess what. When they do not take their needed medications, when they forgo needed health services, when they do not sign up for Medicaid, guess where they are seen. They are in the emergency room, and we are paying three, four, five times as much to help them. So much for the health care safety net that we have worked so many years to provide for low-income Americans.

Let us look at education, student loans. The reconciliation bill increases the interest rates paid by the parents of students who are taking out loans to help their kids. Merry Christmas; you are going to get higher interest payments.

It also creates a potential problem for the federally operated direct loan program. This is a direct loan program utilized by many schools. The University of Iowa, UNI, Iowa State University in my State all use it. This bill before us says the accounting of the administrative costs for the direct loan program now goes to Labor and Health and Human Services rather than being automatic. That means it is subject to a cut. This year's Labor-HHS-Education bill has been cut this year. And, I expect next year could be very difficult.

Let's look at agriculture and rural development, so important in my State and so many other States. I have long believed that there was really no justification for making budget cuts in the area of agriculture and rural development programs. Commodity prices are down. Prices for energy and fertilizer and other goods and services

that farmers buy are sharply higher. Rural communities are struggling to hold onto jobs, to survive.

Keep in mind, when we wrote the 2002 farm bill--I happened to be chairman at that time--we stayed within the budget allocation we were given. In fact, the commodity programs in that bill have cost us $14 billion less than what we were allocated. That is $14 billion that we saved the taxpayers of this country.

There were commitments made in the farm bill, but this reconciliation bill reneges on those commitments. In agriculture and rural programs, again, the sacrifice is being imposed on those least able to bear it. It is hard to understand what they have in mind for our farmers or rural communities.

Secretary Johanns and the President and others have been going around the country saying the future of farm policy lies in less emphasis on the traditional commodity programs and greater focus on conservation, renewable energy, agricultural development, and agricultural research. You cannot argue with that. It all sounds good. That is what we did in the 2002 farm bill because these types of assistance are all allowed under the WTO trade agreements. We put those in the farm bill. We put a tremendous focus on conservation in the farm bill.

President Bush, when he signed it, touted it and said oh, this is wonderful. There is a lot of good conservation. We put in for the first time ever an energy title in the farm bill. It came out of the Senate, not the House, with an energy title to get farmers--to get us all focused on energy.

Rural economic development and new rural investment-type programs for rural development, we put in money for broadband extension to small communities all over America. Guess what they are cutting in the reconciliation bill: conservation, renewable energy, rural economic development, agricultural research--all being cut. Conservation suffers the largest funding cuts of all, and the Conservation Security Program is hit the worst. The Conservation Security Program is a voluntary program of incentive payments for farm and ranch conservation practices, exactly the kind of program that Secretary Johannes and the administration are talking about as they go around the country. Yet the Conservation Security Program is virtually demolished in the bill before us. It is cut back so far that there will probably be few enrollments next year. The damage to the CSP is only a part of the serious cuts to a number of farm conservation programs in this bill.

Some argue that in the Defense appropriations bill there will be some money to make up for cuts in conservation. Don't be misled. Defense appropriations funds are not even available until 2008, and then only if Congress doesn't take them out later on, as they have done year after year. What is going on here? Why are drastic cuts conservation being made in one bill and then we have a restoration a few years later in another bill?

The DOD bill is going to come before us, and you will hear some talk about: ``There is money in there. We have some money for conservation.'' There is money in there for 2008 but, guess what, next year they may come and say we need that money, we will make up for it in 2009. They may keep doing this every year to us, the old shell game.

The bill takes away rural development funding to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities. President Bush set a goal. He set it in Des Moines, IA. We are going to have broadband in all rural communities by 2007. Yet they are cutting the funding in the reconciliation bill for that very purpose. Do I hear anything from the President about it? Not a peep.

The bill takes away $20 million of $23 million for an innovative program to help farmers and rural businesses adopt renewable energy systems and energy efficiencies and improvements. When you take $20 million out of a $23 million fund, that kills it. Let's face it. I guess the $3 million they are leaving is for some bureaucrats so they can sit at their desks and twiddle their thumbs because and little else.

The bill cuts $760 million, almost three-quarters of a billion dollars, out of funding that we had in the farm bill that goes to agricultural research.

Again, the administration has just been in Hong Kong saying we have to push for cuts to farm income and commodity programs to make them combined with WTO. But at the same time they are in Hong Kong, they are here in the House and Senate cutting the very programs to sustain farmers, to sustain rural communities, and provide for rural economic development that will be consistent with WTO provisions.

I said all along the reason they are doing this is not to cut the deficit. The deficit actually goes up under this bill. I think of the word, ``reconciliation.'' We have before us the reconciliation bill. ``Reconciliation''--nice word; to reconcile, to make things even. To reconcile things. To make them fit.

When we passed the Budget Act 30 years ago we put in this reconciliation process so that the budget would come out, the Appropriations Committee would do their work, and then after they did all their work they would reconcile the spending with the budget, so as to keep the deficit under control. That is the way it is supposed to work.

We had a budget. We did all of our appropriations work. We have the reconciliation bills. Does the reconciliation bills make the deficit come down? Not on your life. This reconciliation bill actually is the first in a pair of reconciliation bills that increases the deficit so it has the reverse effect of what reconciliation bills were supposed to be. They may use that word, but this is a deficit-increasing process. This is one of a pair of bills to provide tax giveaways to the wealthy and increase the deficit. It sure cannot properly be called a reconciliation bill.

So they cut child support enforcement, foster care benefits, cut Medicaid, make students pay more interest on their loans for going to college. But we get to ram through $70 billion in more tax giveaways mostly for the most privileged. Not only is this fiscally irresponsible, it is the wrong priorities. It is the wrong values for America.

The two main tax provisions we are considering in this process are, No. 1, the extension of the dividends and capital gains cuts and No, 2, the alternative minimum tax. The extension of the dividends and capital gains tax cuts for just 2 years will cost the Treasury $50 billion. Because of it, 40 percent of the benefits of the House Reconciliation Tax bill will go to individuals making over $1 million a year.

Back in 2001, when they rammed through the first year's tax giveaway bill, they purposely doubled the number of taxpayers who would pay higher taxes because of the alternative minimum tax, but then they delayed the impact for the first few years. Now we have to pay the Piper to the tune of $30 billion just to fix it for 2006.

This chart is a little hard to read. It is from the official Congressional Joint Tax Committee explaining the bill written at the time. Basically, under the old law before the tax cuts of 2001, by 2010 there would be 17.5 million Americans paying the alternative minimum tax. When they passed the tax giveaway program of 2001, it doubled it to 35.5 million. Many of these are basically middle-income people. Now we all want to fix it. To fix it costs $30 billion for just 2006.

Again, the Republicans will argue that everyone benefits from the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. I guess that is true. Everyone benefits. Even when you get crumbs from the table, you get food. Even when some crumbs fall off the table, you can say: Well, the people on the floor got some food. The same with tax cuts.

Look at the chart. The bottom fifth of taxpayers, individuals and families making under $13,500 a year, gain an average of $23 a year. This is the bottom 20 percent. These are the one out of every five Americans.

I know it is almost hard to believe that for people around here when you are making $157,000 a year, and out of 100 Senators you have some who are megamillionaires. It is hard to imagine one out of five people outside this building, outside of these hallowed halls, one out of five making less than $13,478 a year. They got 23 bucks. You can say: Well, they got a break--23 bucks. Will that buy 8 gallons of gasoline? Well, maybe--7 or 8 gallons of gasoline. It will not even fill up your tank. That is for 1 year.

People in the middle 20 percent who make between $25,847 and $44,451, they

got $618 a year. It is not bad. But you spread that over a year's time, that is a tax cut of about $26 a paycheck.

That is why, when you ask your typical middle-income American, Did you see any gain from this tax cut, they will say, Are you kidding? They might have gotten $26 a paycheck. Guess what. It went out in higher taxes for their property taxes. Why? Because we have cut back funding for No Child Left Behind and for education and for special education which means that middle-income families have to pay more on their property taxes for education and that chewed up more than $26 a paycheck which they got back. Again, a good old Republican tax shell game.

Where did the money go? The top one-tenth of 1 percent of income earners, people making over $1,589,000 a year--yes, there are people in America who make that kind of money. I don't hold that against them. That is fine. It is part of the American dream--to make money. But it is not the whole American dream. Over the last 4 years, $1.7 billion in tax cuts, 145,000 people with incomes over $1.59 million a year got $195,762 a year. I will bet they noticed that.

Again, the old trickle-down capitalism. All you have to do is give more money to the top and it all kind of trickles down. The best way to help the poor at the bottom is set a lavish table with all the finest foods and let the people at top eat the best, drink the best and the crumbs will fall off and the poor will get help. Trickle-down economics, trickle-down capitalism.

There is another form of capitalism. It is called percolate-up capitalism. It is where you invest in education, it is where you get people decent jobs and job training. It is where you provide decent housing and health care so people are able to work and keep their families together. It is a kind of a capitalism that understands you don't eat your seed corn. You invest in people, and these people then became better educated, healthier, more productive citizens, and they make the pot grow.

Other examples of the difference between trickle-down capitalism and percolate-up capitalism. Sure. Look at the 1981 tax cut when Reagan came in, big, massive tax cuts, again, mostly for the wealthy. We lost 3.5 million jobs in the 18 months after it passed. Guess what. Later, we saw employment rise. But, that followed several tax increases.

The Democratic administration came in, in 1993. Yes. We had a responsible tax increase in large part on the wealthy to help eliminate the huge deficits. Many on the other side predicted economic disaster. Look at what happened. We got 4.4 million new jobs in the following 18 months. That is percolate up. That is giving people hope, giving people jobs. Guess what. Everybody did better. The rising tide lifted all the boats.

Then we come back in 2001. Again, similar to 1981, we had not learned our lesson, massive tax giveaways for the wealthiest, large increases the deficit, we lost 2.7 million jobs.

We keep doing trickle-down economics. We tried it under Reagan. We tried it under Bush. The same thing happened: less new jobs. But there is something about a belief system and trickle-down economics. I will tell you what that belief is. Their wealthy friends made out like bandits. That is exactly what happened.

Simply put, what we have before us is not a reconciliation bill. What we have before us is a bill that turns topsy-turvy what we are supposed to be about, in terms of providing for justice in our society, a fair shot at the American dream to ensure that people have a decent safety net when things happen beyond their control; when they become disabled, when they get sick, when families split up, and the father deserts and isn't paying child support any longer.

We need to pay attention.

In terms of topsy-turvy, what we are supposed to do at this time of the year--we all remember Charles Dickens' classic tale of ``A Christmas Carol,'' the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. He learns the true meaning of Christmas at the end and opens his heart to those less fortunate than he.

Unfortunately, in the Congress, life does not imitate art.

Less than a week before Christmas, Congress is poised to deliver a cruel blow to the most underprivileged and disadvantaged in our society. Unlike Dickens' tale, no remorse at the end, no nagging conscience, no change of heart at the end of the day. In this Congress, in this Senate, Scrooge would feel right at home. This is Scrooge's domicile. Scrooge lives in the Senate and in the House.

That is why we need to reject this proposal. We need to reject it. We need to have the spirit of Christmas to understand that there are less fortunate in our society. They need hope. They need a hand up. They need the Government to make sure that their kids can get a decent education and housing and health care, that they will get their child support payment, that they will invest in medical research.

That is what we ought to be doing. That is why we have to defeat this conference report under the so-called reconciliation process. We do need to extend some tax provisions, but they should be progressively paid for.

Send this bill back. Let us be similar to Scrooge at the end, when we look upon the poor family and we have a change of heart and we realize that what we have done before we can't keep doing. Let us have the change of heart and defeat this so-called reconciliation bill. Let us have a continuing resolution, let us come back after the first of the year and do the right thing for the American people.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Dr. Marlene Watson and Dr. Gordon Day, fellows in the office of Senator Rockefeller, be granted the privilege of the floor during the Senate's proceedings today.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, today I am here to congratulate the University of Northern Iowa Panthers football team and wish them the best of luck as they prepare to take on the Appalachian State Mountaineers today at 8 p.m. in Chattanooga, TN, for the 1-AA national championship. This is truly a historic occasion, as this marks UNI's first appearance in the national championship contest. In addition, UNI has the opportunity to be only the second Iowa NCAA school to win a national title in football. Central College in Iowa won the 1974 division III championship.

This has been a season full of highs and lows for the Panthers. Starting the season at 4 and 3, the outlook looked kind of bleak, but the team did not get discouraged. They did not give up. Instead, they rattled off seven straight wins. As a result of their tenacity and determination, the Panthers find themselves tonight in the championship game.

In 5 years, head coach Mark Farley has won 44 games, at least a share of three conference championships, and he has led the Panthers to three playoff appearances. Under his leadership, the Panthers have again become a national power in 1-AA football. And Coach Farley is a graduate of UNI. He was a member of the first UNI football team to play in the national semifinals. Twenty years later, after 10 playoff appearances and 5 semifinal appearances, he has led his alma mater to their first championship game.

Yesterday, the Des Moines Register ran a story titled ``Panther Football A to Z.'' The article tells the story of the team's season, beginning with the letter A for adversity. As I mentioned, the Panthers record stood at 4 to 3, but after seven consecutive wins, which included five late-game comebacks, they have earned the trip to Chattanooga and the adoration of their fans. Much as linebacker John Herman stated in the article:

Text messages, e-mails, phone calls--it's crazy to see how

many people are excited for us to get here.

The article concludes with the letter Z for zenith by quoting athletic director Rick Hartzell, who said:

There's never been a better time to be a Panther.

I congratulate the young men, their coaches, and the University of Northern Iowa for their tremendous season and wish them the best of luck tonight. I will be watching on ESPN2.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the Des Moines Register article be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I see my friend, Richard Burr, the outstanding Senator from North Carolina, on the floor. North Carolina, of course, is the home State of that great school, Appalachian State. I know that after their defeat tonight under the paws of the Panthers, it will continue to be a great school and a great football team.

My good friend and I have made a little wager on the game tonight: six North Carolina pork chops versus six Iowa pork chops. You see, I say to my friend, just as Iowa is No. 1 in pork production, and North Carolina is No. 2 in pork production, after tonight, Iowa will be No. 1 in 1-AA football, and North Carolina will be No. 2 in 1-AA football.

So, again, I look forward to dining on those great North Carolina pork chops.

I ask my friend, please, would you throw in some of that North Carolina barbecue sauce with them?

I yield the floor.

Exhibit 1

[From the Des Moines Register, Dec. 14, 2005]

Panther Football A to Z

(By Rob Gray)

Chattanooga, TN.--It's hard to describe, let alone explain.

Northern Iowa's stunning run from NCAA Division I-AA

football playoff longshot to championship game participant

ends Friday with a first-ever title hanging in the balance.

Only Appalachian State stands in the way.

``I'm sure after the season's over I'm really going to be

kind of in awe, but right now we're trying to get focused on

the game, trying not to get caught up in the moment,'' said

Panther quarterback Eric Sanders. ``But in the offseason, I

know I'm going to reflect and be pretty proud and go like,

`Wow. This really did happen.' ''

The No. 7 Panthers' transcendence of high-profile injuries,

daunting fourth-quarter deficits and taxing road trips may

defy logic, but it can be loosely quantified, or

encapsulated, within a quick spin through the alphabet. So

it's on to Chattanooga, via the ABCs:

A is for Adversity. The Panthers (11-3) once stood 4-3, but

seven consecutive wins followed, including five late-game

comebacks, and overcoming obstacles has kindled adulation.

``Text messages, e-mails, phone calls--it's crazy to see

how many people are excited for us to get here,'' linebacker

John Hermann said.

B is for Balance. Northern Iowa running back David Horne

has rushed for 1,039 yards and 16 touchdowns. Quarterback

Eric Sanders has thrown for 2,748 yards and 23 touchdowns.

C is for Coaching. Mark Farley suffered along with

teammates and fellow coaches in five Panther losses in the

semifinals. This season, he helped orchestrate a

breakthrough. ``We've got the opportunity to represent our

school, but also our state,'' Farley said.

D is for Defensive ends. Appalachian State (11-3) features

two standouts at the position. Jason Hunter and Marques

Murrell have combined for 22 sacks.

E is for Extra credit. Northern Iowa kicker Brian Wingert

has drilled three consecutive game-winners.

F is for Finish. The Panthers have outscored foes, 63-14,

in the fourth quarter over their seven-game win streak.

G is for Grounded. Northern Iowa's defense has allowed big

games from highly rated quarterbacks Erik Meyer, Ricky Santos

and Barrick Nealy in the postseason, but kept them from

winning.

H is for History. Both Northern Iowa and Appalachian State

make their first title-game appearances.

I is for Interception. Matt Tharp's pick of Nealy preserved

Friday's 40-37 overtime win at Texas State.

``(He) made a good play with a cast on his hand,'' fellow

defensive back Tanner Varner said. ``It was just amazing.''

J is for Jeff Bates. The Indianola senior center eased into

the starting role when offensive line anchor John Schabilion

suffered a season-ending injury.

K is for Krystal. Fans traveling to Chattanooga will

encounter this southern version of White Castle.

L is for Linebackers. Northern Iowa's Darin Heideman and

Brett Koebcke highlight a defense that gets stingy at

precisely the right moment. Koebcke is questionable for

Friday, though, with a high ankle sprain.

M is for Mountaineers. As in Appalachian State's nickname.

The team has lost just once to a I-AA opponent this season.

N is for National. ESPN2 will broadcast a Panthers football

game to a coast-to-coast audience for the second consecutive

week.

0 is for Overtime. The Panthers stand 2-0 in overtime

games, beating Western Kentucky, 23-20, in double overtime

and Texas State. ``We've definitely caught some breaks to be

at this point, but you kind of have to to get this far,''

Sanders said.

P is for Pecan Bowl. Way back in 1964, the Panthers won

this Division II bowl game, 19-17, over Lamar Tech at

Abilene, Texas.

Q is for Quarterback(s). As usual, the Panthers will face a

good one--whether it be Richie Williams, who could be out

with a ruptured ligament, or backup Trey Elder, who led the

Mountaineers to last week's 29-23 win over Furman.

R is for Receivers. Justin Surrency leads the Panthers with

seven touchdown catches--including an end-zone grab in four

consecutive games. Patrick Hunter and Jamie Goodwin furnish

downfield speed. Brian Cutright excels at tight end.

``There's no doubt in this team at any time,'' Cutright

said. (see item ``A'')

S is for Kevin Stensrud. The defensive lineman form Lake

Mills has battled countless injuries to reach his final game.

T is for Two-point conversion. Surrency's leaping catch to

tie the game at Texas State came amid three defenders. ``I

had just enough height on it, and not just enough height on

it to get it over the first guy and in between the other two

guys,'' Sanders said of the pass.

U is for Upsets. Northern Iowa has topped three teams this

season ranked No. 1 at some point--with two wins on the road.

V is for Variety. Sanders has hit nine or more receivers in

five of the past seven wins.

W is for Waffle House. This franchise dots the Tennessee

landscape like Casey's General Stores in Iowa.

X is for X-Factor. Jason Breeland provides a spark in the

Panther backfield and at wideout.

Y is for Yards. Expect plenty. The Panthers average 444

yards in the playoffs; the Mountaineers average 437.

Z is for Zenith. As athletic director Rick Hartzell said,

there's never been a better time to be a Panther.

``For our type of institution, we've got the best athletic

program in the country,'' he said.

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, yesterday afternoon, the majority leader offered a unanimous consent request to take up and pass, without any amendments or any further action, H.R. 2520, a bill to collect cord blood for use in therapies for various kinds of blood diseases. I objected to that unanimous consent request after quite a bit of talk on the floor.

As I explained yesterday, I support this bill. I am a cosponsor of this bill. In fact, I joined with Senator Specter 2 years ago to create the National Cord Blood Stem Cell Banking Program by including $10 million for that purpose in the fiscal year 2004 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill, of which I am ranking member. We have been funding that program ever since. So I have been in the lead in championing cord blood therapies by getting the program funded and keeping it funded.

Nevertheless, I objected to the unanimous consent request because I believe the Senate should take up the cord blood bill at the same time we take up H.R. 810, which is the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.

That is what the House did, and that is what the House passed. The House approved both these bills on May 24 of this year, and we have been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting in the Senate to do the same thing. We keep hearing from the majority leader that he wants to bring up H.R. 810. In fact, in what I thought was a very courageous speech the majority leader gave on July 29, he said he would vote for H.R. 810. But we can't seem to bring it up on the Senate floor.

Members on the Republican side keep coming up with new bills to try to confuse things. They want to vote on five or six or seven bills, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with stem cell research.

So a number of us on both sides of the aisle formed a bipartisan group to do what we could to try to bring both these bills, the same two the House passed, H.R. 810 and H.R. 2520, and do what the House did--bring them up, debate them, and pass them.

When this unanimous consent request was then offered by the majority leader yesterday, I was on the floor. I had not checked with all the other people who had been involved in that effort, so I objected because I felt strongly that the two ought to be together.

I said to the majority leader last night that I would take a look at it today and go over it with my staff. I have decided, after going over it and looking at it, to lift my hold--I can only speak for myself--but I have decided to lift my hold on H.R. 2520.

One of the reasons I am doing so is because, quite frankly, the bill doesn't accomplish anything that we are not already doing or about to do. In 2002, under the direction of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, of which I am ranking member and Senator Specter is the chair, the registry on bone marrow units had to start including cord blood units as well.

Last year, there was a 24-percent increase in the number of cord blood units in the registry. This is because Senator Specter and I put this in the bill in 2003. Then, in fiscal year 2004, I helped secure $10 million to create the National Cord Blood Stem Cell Banking Program. Our subcommittee has appropriated $19.8 million in the last 2 years for that effort. That is for the banking of cord blood.

Yesterday, my colleague from Kansas, Senator Brownback, said that ``more kids will die if we don't take up the cord blood bill.'' That is simply not true. Cord blood units are being collected and saving lives as we speak today because of the funding that we appropriated through the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education appropriations subcommittee. Let's be clear, that money is there. We appropriated it. It is doing its job right now.

What will help save lives and help with cord blood is if Republican conservatives would stop cutting funding for the National Cord Blood Stem Cell Banking Program that we put in a couple of years ago.

In the Senate version of the fiscal year 2006 Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill, under the leadership of Senator Specter, we included $9.9 million for cord blood banking. To hear the talk last night, one would think we didn't have any money. We put $9.9 million in the bill. Guess what. The House had zero. The conference committee cut our $9.9 million down to $4 million. That means 3,900 fewer units of cord blood will be collected under the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill than in last year's bill.

I would hope my good friend from Kansas will come to the floor and implore his colleagues not to go along with the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill and get that money back in there, but I didn't hear anything said about that.

The cuts to cord blood banking do not stop at the $4 million level. We are told that when the DOD appropriations bill comes back, there will be a 1-percent, across-the-board cut for every Federal program. First, the cord blood funding is cut from $9.9 million to $4 million. Now, it is going to get another 1-percent cut for good measure.

As I said, if Senators want to do more for cord blood banking, they ought to increase the funding, at least not cut it in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill. But it is being cut. It shouldn't be cut. We put the money in there. So if my colleagues feel strongly about banking cord blood and using that cord blood to save lives, they ought to be out here demanding that we not cut it from what we put in the Senate bill. But I have not heard one person come on the floor and take that up and say: No, we are not going to agree to those cuts.

If Senators want to do more for cord blood banking, they should increase the funding, not cut it. But if Senators want to go ahead and pass H.R. 2520, fine, I have no problem with that. There is no harm in passing language that authorizes work that is already being done by the Appropriations Committee. At least Senators who come out and talk at least ought to thank Senator Specter for taking the lead on this.

There is another reason why I am lifting my hold. When we debate H.R. 810 next year--let me put it this way. The majority leader has kept saying he wants to make sure we bring up H.R. 810.

Senator Hatch from Utah said we are going to bring up H.R. 810. We are going to have that debate; we are going to vote on it. Well, when we bring it up next year and debate it, it will be crystal clear who supports medical research and who does not. The question will be very simple: Are my colleagues for stem cell research or are they not?

Cord blood transplants, while enormously beneficial to people with certain blood diseases, are no substitute for embryonic stem cell research. Cord blood cannot do a thing for people with Parkinson's, ALS, juvenile diabetes, Alzheimer's. These are the things we can address with embryonic stem cell research.

So I wanted to make it very clear today, No. 1, that I have taken off my hold on the unanimous consent. They want to bring it out again. Secondly, Senator Specter and I have taken steps in the Appropriations Committee both to put the money in there but also to set up the registry. We have already set up the registry. There was some talk yesterday that maybe there is not a registry out there. Of course there is a registry. As I said, it went up 24 percent last year.

H.R. 2520 basically authorizes what we are already doing, anyway. That is fine. But I implore my colleagues who are interested in this, as I am, come out and talk about the funding. Talk about the 3,900 fewer babies, young people, who will not get cord blood because of the cut in funding from $9.9 million now to less than $4 million. Let us hear some talk about that rather than being here and passing an authorizing bill, which does not do one single

thing more than what we are doing already.

What it does is make sure the funding is there for the registry and to collect the cord blood and to bank it so that people and young people who have these terrible diseases can get the cord blood to help them.

I hope we do not make these cuts in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. It is there, but we should not cut it. And if they do, I will have more to say about it next year when we return in January and February. I hope we can bring up H.R. 810, have a good debate on it, and let us vote it up or down, as the House did, and send it on to the President so we can get on with the vital research that is needed on embryonic stem cell research.

I conclude with this: There are some stories in the paper today-- there were a few yesterday--a front-page story today about a South Korean research doctor and the fact that he may have--I do not know all the facts--falsified some stem cell lines. There are indications, at least in my reading of the medical journal, there is some reason to believe he actually did do that, that it was falsified. Then I heard some comments such as, well, see, there is the problem with stem cell research.

That points out the necessity for us to authorize it, to have the National Institutes of Health supervise it, have jurisdiction over it, so that it is done in an ethical way, where we can monitor it and make sure we do not have rogue elements riding off doing their own thing, so we have standards by which we can measure stem cell research, so we can have legitimate, ethical, moral guidelines which researchers can follow, and we can know who is doing the legitimate good work and know who the outliers are.

The fact that this story has come out today makes it even more imperative that we pass H.R. 810 and we have National Institutes of Health jurisdiction oversight over this kind of research.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, under the rule, I have 90 minutes--some of it has already been used up in the quorum call--to speak on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that is now before the Senate.

I again ask any Senator who wants to come over and speak on this time to try to be here before 10:30. I would be glad to yield time to Senators who want to come over and talk about this bill and why this bill should not be passed.

At this time of the year when we are seeing all the festive holiday decorations, Christmas trees, all the lights around, there is a certain mood about Christmas. It is a mood of being generous and understanding that it is the season for giving. It is the season for thinking about those who may be less fortunate than ourselves. It is also the time of the year when most families of means get together and think about their giving, how they are going to support charities or charitable giving toward the end of the year. It is true in churches all over the country and many nonprofit organizations. This is the time of year when people decide to give money to the churches, to everything, the Salvation Army, to all kinds of nonprofits. It is the time of the year when we remember ``A Christmas Carol'' by Charles Dickens, the wonderful stories about ``A Christmas Carol'' played in high school plays and theaters all over the country every year at this time.

Charles Dickens ``A Christmas Carol,'' the story of Ebenezer Scrooge. ``Bah humbug,'' remember that? That is his familiar saying about Christmas, ``bah humbug''--this tight man, ungenerous, miserly, stingy, with no feelings of compassion whatsoever to those less fortunate.

We all know what happened in ``A Christmas Carol.'' He is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past and the Christmas future. He then begins to see clearly that who he has been and what he has stood for is wrong.

The wonderful thing about Charles Dickens and ``A Christmas Carol'' is, at the end, Scrooge becomes compassionate and generous and changes his ways.

It is a wonderful story for this time of the year. If only life in Congress imitated that, if only Congress could follow the example of Ebenezer Scrooge in the final act of the play. I am sorry to say, in terms of the appropriations bill before us, the bill that funds those things that lift people up, that help the poorest in our society these days, to reach down, to give everyone hope, and try to make our society a little bit more fair and more just--that is what is in this bill. That is what this bill is about. But, sad to say, in this bill, as it is before us, Ebenezer Scrooge--the first Ebenezer Scrooge, the one before he changed in the final act--is in this bill. Scrooge reigns in this bill.

My friend and distinguished senior member of the Appropriations Committee, the Senator from Hawaii, Dan Inouye, once said of the Defense appropriations bill that it defends America. The Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill, he said, is the bill that defines America. I have thought about that over the years. He said that a long time ago. I have thought about that over the years, as I have been chairman of the subcommittee and ranking member, and chairman and ranking member. Both Senator Specter and I have changed places on this subcommittee now I think going back over 15 years. I have thought about that, that this is really the bill that defines America.

So how do we want to define America? As the haves with the beautiful Christmas tree, with all the lights, nice cars, warm clothes, good food, who send their kids to the best schools, live in the best neighborhoods? That is America? That is it, that is America? And then down below we have people barely scraping to get by, who don't know how they are going to pay the heating bills in the winter, the elderly, disabled, the poor, those who want to get job training, they have lost their job, but they want to work and are looking for job training assistance; families with meager means who want their kids to get a head start in life so they want to send their kids to a Head Start Program so that their kids, too, will have a decent shot at the American dream; or families who are low income and have poor schools to go to and so they want to at least have good teachers and good facilities and good programs and textbooks and things for their kids so that their kids, too, can get up on that ladder of success; or families who live in low-income areas who have no health care insurance, have no health care, and the only thing they have to go to is the community health center for their health needs, and that is there for them.

I don't know. What kind of America do we want? Do we want an America where at least at this time of the year we think generously? In this beautiful country that we have, all of the riches that we have, can we not find it in our hearts to pass an appropriations bill that at least, at least, does not back down from where we were before? You would think that would sort of be the minimum. You would think at least at this time of the year we would say, well, we are not going to do any more for low-income people, but we are not going to cut them back any more either. You would sort of think that would be the bottom line.

Sad to say, of all of the appropriations bills that this Congress has passed this year, this is the only appropriations bill that is cut below last year's level. This bill, the one that funds education and health, the one that reaches down to help low-income people, this is the one that is cut, the only one, the only one that is cut.

Please, someone explain this to me. Interior appropriations, Transportation appropriations, Agriculture appropriations, Military Construction and Veterans, Foreign Operations, Commerce-State-Justice appropriations, Homeland Security, Energy and

Water appropriations, Legislative Branch appropriations--all above last year's level. Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education? Cut below last year's level.

Ten days before Christmas, Congress is poised to deliver a cruel blow to the most disadvantaged members of our society. Sadly, unlike in the Dickens tale, there is no sign of remorse, no nagging conscience, no change of heart at the end of the day.

This bill that we passed--and here I want to just, again, pay my respects and my esteem for our distinguished chairman, Senator Specter. He had a tough job. We worked it out. We passed a good bill, a decent bill in the Senate. I think it was unanimous, if I am not mistaken--I am sorry, it was 97 to 3. Well, that is almost unanimous, 97 votes. Both sides voted for the bill that Senator Specter crafted and that we worked together on. But then it went to conference, and the House came in and insisted on their position. Again, I just remind Senators and others that what happened is that it came out of conference--I didn't sign the conference report. Many of us would not sign the conference report because of these massive cuts. The bill went to the House last month, and the House rejected it. Then they reappointed conferees, as we did, and we met in conference on Monday evening, this last Monday evening, 3 days ago, for 44 minutes--44 minutes, with very little debate. The gavel was pounded, and we adjourned subject to the call of the Chair. Of course, the Chair never called us back, the Chair being the House Member. The House ran the conference this year. So they never called us back.

Now they jiggled a few things around, I guess, dealing with rural health--I will have more to say about that in a second--to get the votes in the House. Well, the House passed this bill yesterday by two votes. I think it was 215 to 213, if I am not mistaken. Two votes. A very contentious bill, two votes. Now we have it before the Senate. That is sort of the history.

Now it is up to us whether we are going to step back and say: No, we will not accept this bill. We will not accept cuts to these vital programs that I am about to go through here. But we will at least go on a continuing resolution until January. In January, when we come back, maybe there will be a little bit of change of heart and we can do a little better on this bill.

This appropriations bill, as I said, funds things such as the Head Start Program, community health centers, special education, job training, programs that help the neediest in our communities. As I said, most people who are watching today would probably expect these programs to get an increase this year because we know the poverty rate has gone up in this country, or at least you would expect that we would not cut it below last year's level. As I said, this is the only appropriations bill cut below last year's level, and that is about $1.4 billion less than last year. This bill cuts education for the first time in a decade, the first time since 1996 has education been cut. No Child Left Behind, all of us here, I am sure, hear a lot about that when we go back to our States, the comments about No Child Left Behind. The biggest complaint about No Child Left Behind is that they are not getting the money by which to meet the mandate. In other words, it is like an unfunded mandate on our schools.

Now, I voted for No Child Left Behind. I was at the table when we met with President Bush in 2001 to get this bill through. At that time, it was agreed upon--at least I thought it was agreed upon--that we would have a funding stream to meet the mandate.

The President agreed to that. His people agreed to it. The President himself agreed to that. Yet we are now $13 billion less than what we said we were going to be at 3, 4 years ago. So it is no surprise that people in our communities are upset about No Child Left Behind. They are being told to do certain things, but they are not being funded to do them.

Well, here we are. We are cutting it again in this bill with a 3- percent cut, so there will be $780 million this year less than last year. That now puts us at $13.1 billion below the authorized level. It leaves 120,000 children behind.

Now, what do I say about that? That is title I. In my opening comments, I mentioned the fact that people who live in low-income areas and go to schools that do not have a lot of money need help. They need what we call title I services, the low-income children. It is $9.9 billion below the authorized level. That means that title I services to 120,000 children, who are currently eligible to receive them, will not receive them next year. Think about that: 120,000 children who are now eligible for title I services in our public schools will no longer receive those services next year.

What is the American dream for those kids? What about it? What about the American dream for them? And because of the programs we had in the past--Head Start, title I, all the other programs--we have been able to get kids of low income through secondary school. Now they want to go to college. Well, back in the 1960s we passed a program called the Pell grants, after our distinguished Senator, Claiborne Pell. It was grants to low-income students so they, too, could go to college.

Under this bill, the maximum Pell grant award is frozen for the fourth year in a row. For the fourth year in a row, we have frozen Pell grants. That means the purchasing power of a Pell grant today is about one-fifth of what it was 20 years ago. So if you are low income, and you want to go to college, it would be better if you had gotten it 20 years ago because your Pell grant would have gotten you a lot further then. Today it is worth about one-fifth of what it was then.

And special education: 28 years ago, this Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to meet a constitutional requirement that we had to provide equal and appropriate education for children with disabilities--a constitutional mandate. At the time we passed that, we said our goal was to have the Federal Government provide at least 40 percent of the additional cost of educating kids with disabilities. That was our goal: We would provide 40 percent of that additional cost to our local school districts. That was 27 years ago.

Last year, we had reached 18 percent. In other words, by last year, the Federal Government was providing 18 percent of the additional cost of special education. Under this bill, you would think we would be going forward to 40 percent. This bill goes backward. We are now at 17 percent. We are going in the wrong direction.

How many times have we voted on this floor to fully fund special education? We keep voting to have special education fully funded. We have all these meaningless votes. When it comes down to paying for it, we are going in the wrong direction. We are going in the wrong direction, down to 17 percent this year.

Well, that is the story in education. The story in education is very simple. If you come from a well-to-do family, and you live in a good neighborhood, and you have great schools and high property taxes, don't worry, the American dream is there for you. But if you live in a low- income area, with low property values, low property taxes, you have poor schools, tough luck, you were not born to the right parents. Tough luck. That is what this bill is saying to you. That is education.

Look at health. Look at the health programs. What do we do about health? Again, if you are a Member of the Senate or the Congress, work for the Federal Government, you have a nice Federal Employees Health Benefits plan--like all of us do--and you do not worry about it. We have great coverage. I often think many times those of us who serve in the Senate and the House probably think: Well, probably everybody lives like we do. Everybody makes $150,000 a year. You have a couple of houses, drive nice cars, wear nice clothes. We send our kids to great schools.

Well, I don't know, if I am not mistaken, as to the population of the Senate, out of 100 Senators, I think--what is it--80 now are multimillionaires? There is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with having money and achieving the American dream and having nicer clothes, a nicer car, a nicer house. There is nothing wrong with that. That is a big part of the American dream. But it seems to me that those of us who have been blessed with good health and good fortune, and who have sort of made it to the top of that ladder, it is incumbent of us that we leave the ladder down for

others to climb, too, not pull it up behind us. And there are Senators and Congressmen in this body and in the House who are well to do, who have been blessed with good fortune, who understand the necessity of leaving the ladder down, and who fight constantly to make sure we meet our obligations as a Congress to reach down and help those less fortunate than ourselves.

Nowhere is this more true than in health. Nowhere is this more true than in health. We have tried over the years, since we cannot get a national health insurance program passed, to at least sort of block and tackle, if you will, to fill in the gaps, to help make sure people of low income can get at least some access to decent health care.

One of the most important of those is the community health centers. President Bush himself said at one time that his goal was to have a community health center--it was a State of the Union Message. I was there. President Bush said his goal was to have a community health center in every poor community by 2008, and we all rose and applauded. I believe in community health centers. Obviously, the President does, too. But where is the President? Where is he? Because in this bill not one new community health center will be authorized for next year--not one. Not one will be built in the United States.

Health professions. We want to recruit qualified health professionals to serve in parts of the country. It is slashed by $185 million.

National Institutes of Health: 355 new research grants will be cut. It is the smallest percentage increase in NIH. Actually, it is level funded. It is less than 1 percent, so you might as well say NIH has been level funded. This is the first time since 1970--35 years--that NIH has not received an increase.

Rural health programs: cut by $137 million. Now, you know there was some talk when this bill came back out of conference that they ``fixed'' the rural health problem. Not true. Not true. Not true. Rural health programs are cut by $137 million and nine vital health programs--trauma care, rural emergency medical services, health education training centers, healthy community access programs, geriatric education centers--are closed.

This one I think deserves a little bit more discussion, the geriatric education centers. We know our society is aging. We know geriatric care is a kind of a specialty. We want health professionals trained in geriatric care so the elderly among us will be healthier, will have better diets and nutrition, will have better exercise, and will have more sociability.

We know when you do those modest things, you keep the elderly out of nursing homes, you keep them out of the doctors' offices, you cut down on Medicare and Medicaid.

Well, here is a map that shows States that will lose geriatric centers. All the stars are geriatric care centers that are going to be closed. Two weeks before the 78 million baby boomers in this country begin to turn 60--that is next month, January--we are going to close all these centers. In Iowa, we have a center at the University of Iowa School of Medicine that trains doctors, osteopaths, nurses, dentists, chiropractors. There is a big need. Iowa has the highest percentage of citizens over the age of 85--the highest of any State in the Nation. This bill eliminates the geriatric center at the University of Iowa. So that is education.

Let's look at labor. We know that people are unemployed and they want to be retrained. The Department of Labor is cut in this bill by $430 million, the biggest cut ever made to the Department of Labor--the biggest ever, at a time when we keep hearing stories about how China is training all these engineers and scientists and doing all this stuff. We need to get people retrained, and this bill cuts adult job training and youth job training. Adult job training is cut and youth job training is cut. I guess we are telling people that you may have had a job and that job has ended, but you may want to get into the new economy. Do it on your own. You are not going to get any help.

People cannot do that. They are broke and out of work, and they have kids and families. Rather than advancing, they will go out and find some job that will at least put bread on the table, when they could be getting job training that would allow a better job and higher income in the future. This slashes employment services by $89 million--an 11- percent cut in employment services.

What are employment services? They are to help people get employed, to get a job. Yet we are cutting it, even though we know the rate of unemployment has gone up. I don't know how anybody can justify this, especially at this time of the year.

Let's take one more look at LIHEAP, the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program. This bill provides no additional funding for LIHEAP. We know that fuel costs are skyrocketing. In Iowa, natural gas prices are up 40 percent from last year. Hawkeye Area Community Assistance in southeast Iowa reports that LIHEAP funds are likely to run out in mid January, one of the coldest months of the year in my State. This bill fails to keep up with this overwhelming need.

I was in Iowa a couple weeks ago and I met with some people who applied for and are eligible for LIHEAP. I remember one individual who is disabled and lives by herself. Her monthly cost for fuel has gone up about 50 percent for what she pays every month. I think she qualifies for $232 in LIHEAP funding. I mentioned that to somebody after I met with these people. I mentioned I had this meeting and this one woman who was disabled lived by herself and she qualified for $232 in energy assistance to pay her heating bills. One of the individuals in the group I talked to said, ``That ought to pay her monthly bill.'' I said, ``Wait a second, that $232 is for the year.'' They thought it was for the month. I said that is for the year--October, November, December, January, February, March, and probably April. That is $232 for 6 or 7 months. ``I didn't realize that,'' she said, ``I thought it was for the month.'' I said, ``No, that is for the whole year.''

Yet we are cutting back on that. We are not providing enough money to take into account the increased price of propane and heating oil and natural gas prices. I have heard: Don't worry, Harkin, we will come back in January and, if we need to, we will pass a supplemental or something at that time.

Don't hold your breath. What about the people who are out there who don't know how to pay their heating bills, who need to get propane delivered, especially in rural communities such as where I live? We have propane tanks. I have a propane tank outside of my house. You call up the company to come fill it. Well, all right, you have to pay the bill. If you have not paid the previous month's bill, you are not going to get it delivered. Unlike natural gas where they cannot cut you off, they can cut you off of propane.

So we are going to come back and do this in January or February. Yet we will let anxiety rise, let people worry about it. I can tell you right now, in my State of Iowa, there are people living on the edge. They have food stamps, they are getting LIHEAP, many are disabled, and many are elderly. They are thinking, I know that next month is going to be cold--in January and February. Maybe I should not buy the drugs I need now because I will need that money next month. Maybe I will cut back a little bit on some of the food I have been buying or I will cut back on some of the things I want to do in order to have the money for the heating bills. That is what is happening now. There is anxiety out there. We are saying: That is okay, be anxious; we will come back in January or February and fix it.

Is that any way to treat people? Put yourself in that position. What if you didn't know whether you could pay your heating bill next month? What if you didn't know whether you were going to be able to pay? They say don't worry about it, we will come back in January and February and we will fix it.

When we passed a continuing resolution at the end of September, I took the floor to beg my colleagues to reject this part of the continuing resolution that would cut the community services block grants by 50 percent. Well, we didn't get that done. Then it was put on the DOD bill, and they told us we will take care of that. The funding for community services block grants goes out to help programs such as Head Start and LIHEAP. In other words, if you are going to apply for LIHEAP, you usually go to some agency--an

area agency on aging or you go through one of these community action agencies. They help you with the paperwork and do the necessary things to show that you qualify. If you don't have that, chances are you probably would not qualify.

In our continuing resolution, we cut that by 50 percent. We are told we will take care of it, we will fix it. But that was in September. We have gone through October, November, and December--3 months--and the community services block grant is still cut by 50 percent. They say we will take care of LIHEAP, too. When? In March, April or May?

So whether it is health, human services, education, medical research at NIH--no matter what it is in this bill--what can I say; it is awful. This bill is awful. It is not something we ought to hold our heads up and be proud about. We ought to be ashamed of this, ashamed that we cannot find it in ourselves to meet the needs of the poorest people in our country, the neediest.

This bill ought to be rejected, and we should go to an honest continuing resolution, not one that cuts programs but one that at least keeps last year's level. If we want to, then we will come back and fix it again next year. But this bill is not deserving of our support. It sends the wrong--I don't want to say it sends the wrong message, that is not it; it doesn't do the right thing. It doesn't do what a generous, compassionate nation ought to do for its neediest citizens.

Mr. President, I see my distinguished colleague, Senator Kennedy, is on the floor. Again, I yield the floor to him. There has been no one who has fought harder for these programs in education and health and human services for all of his adult life, no one who has spoken more passionately and forthrightly about the obligation we have as public servants to meet the needs of our neediest citizens than Senator Kennedy.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield on that?

I appreciate the Senator pointing this out because yesterday a big story broke in the newspapers from NIH. A lot of times people ask what happened with the human genome project, what is it leading to, mapping of the entire human genome. A couple of years ago, I paid my first visit to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, Long Island. It is run by James Watson, who is one of the codiscoverers of the structure of DNA. What they had embarked upon at that time was the beginning of mapping the genes of all of the cancers known to humans. It was a small project. It was funded and it went along. Yesterday, a story broke that Dr. Zerhouni, the distinguished and very capable head of the National Institutes of Health, announced that the National Institutes of Health was embarking upon a program to map and sequence the genome of every known cancer. They are going to go out and take cells of every cancer, take the DNA out, and map it. They think that it is going to take about 10 years to do. It will cost about $1 billion to $1.5 billion.

Is it worthy? Of course. These are the bullets we will have to really get at cancer. It is phenomenal in its concept and what it is going to do.

Here is the problem, as the Senator from Massachusetts pointed out. We do not give them any extra money to do it. That means if they are going to embark on this, they are going to have to take money out of other research on Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, and everything else.

Yesterday, I asked Dr. Zerhouni: Where is this money coming from? Already we are cutting down and cutting back on the number of grants that are being awarded, and now with this appropriations bill that we have, it is going to get even worse.

I say to my friend from Massachusetts, when we embarked on mapping and sequencing the human genome back in 1991 when I was chairman, we did not take money from some other place. We came to the Congress and said this is important, let us do it, let us fund it and we did it, and we paid for it.

Now, with this tremendous news yesterday that came out about mapping, sequencing the genomes of all known cancers, we are now cutting the funding basically for NIH. So I say to my friend from Massachusetts, what he pointed out, that is what we are confronting. We are confronting cutting back in other needed research to do this or maybe we will not do this after all. That is the dilemma we face. That is the position that this appropriations bill puts us in. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for pointing that out.

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

Madam President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time do I have remaining?

Madam President, I don't know if any others want to come over. That is why I asked for 90 minutes to point out how bad the bill is.

Looking at all the various programs that were cut, Senator Kennedy did an outstanding job of going over how devastating some of these cuts are going to be in terms of health, education, and medical research. Going through a big bill like this, sometimes your eyes kind of glaze over some of the important aspects that people do not bring to the forefront.

But there is one other cut in this bill that people ought to know about. All the staff who are watching, the Senators who are watching, you ought to know about this cut. It is the maternal and child health block grant being cut by 3 percent. The real per-capita purchasing power is now 20 percent below what it was in 2002. What is the maternal and child health block grant? It helps low-income mothers get preventive health services and medical treatment for children who have disabilities and other special needs.

One of the best things we have ever done here to help low-income families have healthy babies and to make sure those babies get the best start in life is the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant Program, which goes out to the States, and it is cut by 3 percent.

Please justify that. When you vote later today on whether to accept this appropriations bill, please justify just that one thing: how you are going to justify cutting the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant Program.

As bad as this bill is, every time I look at it, I ask: Can it get any worse? The answer to that is, yes. It is going to get worse. Here is why.

This bill had a $1.4 billion cut. We have just gone over all of the things that are cut in this bill--the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant Program, to education, to medical research--all vital in defining the kind of country we are. Can it get worse? Yes. Here is what is going to happen. Hang on.

Tomorrow or Saturday or sometime, we will be voting on a Department of Defense appropriations bill. That Department of Defense appropriations bill will have a bunch of things in it that do not deal with the Department of Defense. By the way, it will also have in it a 1-percent across-the-board cut. We are already told it is in there--a 1-percent across-the-board cut.

All of the cuts we have talked about--Maternal and Child Health Care Block Grant Programs, title I funding, special education, geriatric training centers, and NIH--all of that is going to get an additional 1- percent cut.

The way that works out is, the $1.4 billion cut in this bill is going to be a $2.8 billion cut. It will double it.

As bad as this bill is now with the $1.4 billion cut, by the time we are through here tomorrow and voting on a 1-percent across-the-board cut, it will be twice as bad--a $2.8 billion cut in this bill.

That is because this bill is about $140 billion. You take a 1-percent across-the-board cut, that is $1.4 billion. So get ready. That is why this bill should not be passed in its present form because there is going to be that 1-percent across-the-board cut. It is going to double.

The Senator from Massachusetts mentioned the avian flu bill. We put money in here for the avian flu. I offered an amendment on DOD appropriations back in September. In December, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee said that is not the proper place for it, that it ought to be on the Labor-Health and Human Services bill. I agreed with him. But we didn't know if we were going to have a bill. So it was put on the DOD bill.

Later on when we got this bill before us, we added $8 billion to get us prepared to fight perhaps the biggest flu pandemic the world has ever seen, one that could kill hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens, one that could hospitalize up to 90 million people in this country. We put $8 billion in this bill. Guess what. Look at the bill. It is not in there. It is all gone, all taken out.

They say they are going to put some more in the Department of Defense bill. We haven't seen it yet. But they took it out of this bill.

It is going to get worse. Today is December 15. By the way, it is also the anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights to our Constitution. I hope it is not too much of a leap to ask on this anniversary of the Bill of Rights: What about the rights of poor people? What about the rights of low-income people? What about the rights of our people to be protected from the pandemic flu? What about the rights of our citizens to decent health care, the rights of our citizens to a decent education, no matter where they live or the circumstances of their birth? Should the quality of your education be decided by geography, where you live? What about our rights? This bill before us speaks to rights, human rights, the basic rights of an American citizen to decent health, housing, education, a shot at the American dream. So on this December 15, 10 days before Christmas, the anniversary of the adoption of our Bill of Rights, throughout much of the world it is a season of giving, but here in Congress with this bill it is a season of taking away education programs, taking away job training, taking away home heating assistance, taking away rural health programs, taking away maternal and child health care.

But what it really takes away is hope. It takes away hope from people, hope for a better life, hope for a better shot at the American dream, hope that their children will have it a little bit better than what they have had.

I remember when then-Governor Bush was running for President in 2000. He had a saying at that time--I haven't heard it lately, but he had a saying that the Government can't give hope to people. Well, I beg to differ. Government can give hope to people. It depends on who is running the Government as to who is getting the hope. As the Senator from Massachusetts just pointed out, we have a huge tax bill, more tax breaks for the wealthiest in our society. If you are making over $1 million a year, you have a lot of hope. You are going to get about $32,000 in your Christmas stocking. Thirty-two thousand, you are just going to get it, a nice tax giveaway for the most affluent in our society. A lot of hope has been given to them by this Government.

But if you are low income, if you live in small rural America, if you are elderly, if you are disabled, if you need the help of the Government to lift you up and to give you some hope for a better life, you don't get hope. It is taken away from you.

So what we are saying to low-income families who are working, trying to pay their bills, trying to scrape by, trying to keep their families together, trying to raise their kids, I guess what we are saying is, Merry Christmas, hang your stocking, and Congress is going to put a lump of coal in that stocking for you. That is what you get.

I don't understand how anyone can vote for this bill, especially at this time of the year. I hope our conscience would come to the fore. We all know the wonderful story from Dr. Seuss. We recall reading it to our kids, ``The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.'' This bill is a bill only the Grinch could love. No funding for avian flu, lowest increase in NIH funding in 35 years, cuts education funding as No Child Left Behind requirements are going up, no increase in college aid, cuts job training. I could have added a lot more--as I said, cuts in maternal and child health care, cuts in geriatric training, cuts in Head Start.

Well, if you like the Grinch, I suggest you might want to vote for this bill. But we need to reject it and insist that the leadership provide enough funding to write an acceptable bill. They have the power to do it. We did it in the Senate. I repeat, under the leadership of Senator Specter, on a bipartisan basis, we passed a bill here 97 to 3. We can do it. If only the President of the United States just said to the House leadership, We want the Senate bill, we want what the Senate did to be fair and just to all our citizens, we would have this. We would have it. That House of Representatives, they will do whatever the President tells them to do. And if he had waded in there and said, Look, we don't accept this, we will have the Senate-passed version, that is what we would have. We would all vote for it and hold our heads up high and say we did the right thing for the citizens of our country. Yes, leadership has the power to do it. They have the White House, the House, and the Senate.

What is stopping them from giving us a decent bill? As I said, we did it here. We did it on a bipartisan basis in the Senate. But if we pass this bill now, this conference report, and give this very cruel rush-- well, we have to get out of here. We have to go home for Christmas. We have to pass the bill. No, we don't. No, we don't. What we need to do is to say no, go back to the drawing board, get us a bill that is acceptable, and if we have to go on a continuing resolution for a month until we come back, or 2 months, until February, we have done that before. We would be better off going on a real continuing resolution, I say to my friends in the Senate. We would be better off than accepting this bill and putting the pressure on the White House and the House to come back with a better bill.

That is really the essence of it, Madam President. We need a better bill. We should not vote for this one.

I yield the floor.

I just said so, yes.

First, I say to my friend, and he is a dear friend of mine--we have exchanged chairmanships on this committee going back over 15 years--as I said earlier in the Chamber, and I say again, the bill that our chairman, Senator Specter, put together and that we brought out on the Senate floor, we worked it. Our staff worked it. We got a 97-to-3 vote, I say to my friend. The bill that the Chairman brought to the floor we passed 97 to 3. It was a good bill. We always want to do more, but given the restrictions, that was a good bill. That is the bill we ought to have before us now. The problem is that the House wouldn't go along with it. But that doesn't mean that we have to go along with it.

I appreciate the position the chairman is in. I have been in that position, too, in the past. I appreciate the difficult position he is in. But I want the record to be clear that this chairman brought out a good bill, a bill that was passed 97 to 3 by the Senate. I point out that this chairman fought very hard for our priorities and for health funding. I don't want anyone to mistake what I am saying. But I am just saying that the House and I have to say the White House, maybe through inaction or not being involved, let it happen and are now confronting us with this conference report that is totally inadequate. That is totally inadequate.

I might add to my friend from Pennsylvania that what we are facing now is the result of a bad budget. That is what it is. We have a bad budget forced on us. This is sort of the end result of that. But even with that bad budget, we came out with a decent bill. I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I only wish the White House had been actively involved in this conference and came down and told the House leadership: We want nothing less than what the Senate did.

If we had that, we would have had a bill out here that would pass 97 to 3 again. It might even pass unanimously.

So I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, we can do better than this. I say to my friend, I do not enjoy voting against this bill. I do not enjoy it. I do not enjoy not signing the conference report. But we can do better. We do not have to accept this. We can go on a continuing resolution, a real continuing resolution, and say to the White House and the House: No, we need to do better than this.

That is why I say to my friend from Pennsylvania--I have the greatest respect and admiration for him, as he knows, and he has fought hard for us--sometimes at the end of the day you have to say no, we are not going to accept it. So that is our position and that is my position on this bill.

I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, I know he has other things he has to work on today on different legislation and everything, but we have to send a signal to the House and the White House that this is unacceptable. I say to my friend, I thank him for his leadership and for bringing out a good bill here in the Senate, something we were proud of and voted for. I was proud to work with Senator Specter on that bill. I am sorry the House and, yes, I say the White House--they should have been involved in this--are now confronting us with a bill that is unacceptable.

I thank my chairman.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to first pay my respects to Senator Frist and his leadership. He has been a leader in this area. He knows it well. We served on the same committee together when our leader came here to the Senate. I also commend Senator Frist for his leadership on the stem cell issue, a very courageous stand.

I want to make it very clear that I support the cord blood bill. I am a cosponsor of it. What's more, I joined with Senator Specter 2 years ago to create the National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Program, and as our leader said, we included $10 million for that purpose in the fiscal year 2004 Labor-Health and Human Services appropriations bill. We have been funding that program ever since. When I say I want this bill to pass, I have a record to back that up.

But I have said for months that we should consider the cord blood bill at the same time that we take up H.R. 810, the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. That is what the House of Representatives did. On May 24, the House approved both bills. We have been waiting in the Senate to do the same thing. Senator Specter and I, along with Senators Hatch, Feinstein, Kennedy, and Smith all agree. Let's have up-or-down votes on cord blood and H.R. 810, as the House did. The House did them together. Then we can send them to the President.

We keep hearing that we want to bring up H.R. 810. In fact, I pay my respects to the leader for his very courageous speech. On July 29, our leader said he would vote for the bill. But we just can't seem to bring it up on the Senate floor. Members keep coming up with new bills to try to confuse things. They want to vote on 5 or 6 or 7 bills, some of which have nothing to do with stem cells or cord blood. I understand there is a lot of pressure on Senators to take up the cord blood bill before the end of the year. I have no problem with that, but under one condition--that we also take up H.R. 810.

I reserve the right to object. I ask the leader if he would modify his request to include H.R. 810 in his amendment at the desk.

Further reserving the right to object, and I will object, with all due deference to my friend from Kansas, and he is my friend, these two need to be together as they were in the House. I keep hearing about we will bring this up and debate stem cells. I didn't come prepared with pictures. I can show you pictures of people dying today because they could use stem cell transplants right now. My friend from Kansas says decades. No. It will be decades if we keep diddling around and not doing anything. I hear that we will bring it up and debate it. I have heard that for half a year.

Unless the majority leader can give us a date certain--give us a date--hopefully before May 24, 2006--if the majority leader can give us a date before then when we will bring up H.R. 810--if they want to bring up these other bills, fine, as separate bills, not as amendments to H.R. 810; bring them up separately and we will debate and vote on them, fine. I have no problem with that. But unless the majority leader can give us a date certain and not more of this ``maybe we will debate it sometime in the future,'' I will object. I reserve the right to object and I ask the majority leader, can he give us a date certain by which the Senate will take up H.R. 810 as a freestanding bill without amendments? If they want to bring up other bills, the cloning bill, that is fine, too--not as an amendment to H.R. 810, but as a separate bill. I ask the majority leader, can he give us a date certain by which this Senate will set aside time to bring up H.R. 810 as a freestanding bill without amendment, debate it, and vote it up or down?

Mr. President, regular order.

Mr. President, I object.

Madam President, on behalf of myself and Senator Smith of Oregon, I call up the motion at the desk to instruct conferees regarding cuts to Federal food assistance programs.

Madam President, I understand that under the order, I have a couple minutes to speak about this.

I was told I had 2 minutes and then 1 minute before the vote.

I apologize. Then is there another minute before the vote?

Madam President, the Senate has considered cuts to food assistance programs this year on a bipartisan basis. It rejected such cuts. I commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, especially Chairman Chambliss for his leadership. This motion is simple. It instructs the Senate conferees to insist upon the underlying Senate position of no cuts to Federal food assistance.

First, we are at a time when hunger and food insecurity in the United States is increasing rapidly. The number of Americans experiencing food insecurity has increased by approximately 7 million people. This is no time to cut the food stamp program.

Secondly, with all of the emergencies this year with the hurricanes, we have been reminded again of how the food stamp program works in emergencies. There were 2.2 million individuals affected by these hurricanes who got critical food assistance within days.

Finally, again, this has nothing to do with waste, fraud, and abuse. The error rate is at an all-time low in the food stamp program. We have worked on this for over 20 some years to bring it that low. It is working very effectively. The fact is, the House reconciliation bill does not go after fraud, waste, and abuse, but they cut 250,000 people off the food stamp program. That is the wrong way to go.

I thank my colleagues for standing up for hungry families earlier this year. Especially at this Christmas season, let's stand up for them once again and say we are not going to take the food out of the children's mouths.

I urge my colleagues to agree to the motion, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, we are now going to vote on a motion to instruct conferees. Stick with the Senate's position dealing with cuts in the Food Stamp Program. I know arguments have been made about waste, fraud, and abuse. What the House does does not cut waste, fraud, and abuse but cuts 200,000 people off the food stamp rolls. They are working poor. They work every day. They have children. This sends them back on welfare rolls.

I point out there was a letter sent to Senator Chambliss on December 8 from 15 Republican Senators saying, please stick with the Senate position. I compliment those Senators. I publicly thank Senator Chambliss for his great leadership both on the Agriculture Committee and in the full Senate on this issue.

This is not the time to cut food stamps from people who are working and struggling with their children.

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

Mr. President, if I might inquire of my friend and colleague from Louisiana, I know she is preparing to speak. Might I ask about how long she may speak? I have a speech. I ask unanimous consent, after the Senator from Louisiana finishes speaking, that I be recognized for up to half an hour.

Mr. President, over the last several years, we have repeatedly heard alarming reports about the rising tide of overweight and obesity in the United States, particularly among young children. Over the past two decades, the rate of obesity has doubled in children and tripled in adolescents. Fifteen percent of the children in this country are now overweight. In fact, the United States has a higher percentage of overweight teens than any other industrialized country.

This comes at a high price for our country, both in terms of the long-term physical health of our citizens and the enormous health care costs our Nation faces. Just last week, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences released a new report: ``Food Marketing to Children and Youth; Threat or Opportunity?''

The report focused on one big factor that contributes to the childhood obesity epidemic: the relentless multibillion-dollar marketing of junk food to our children. This landmark report is the most comprehensive and systematic review to date of the impact of food marketing on the diets of American youth. Its conclusions are troubling, but they hardly come as a surprise to parents who know well the effects of food marketing on their children.

In a nutshell, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is strong scientific evidence that food marketing influences food preferences, the purchases and diets of children age 12 and below. Even more important, the Institute of Medicine confirms what many had suspected before, that ``television advertising influences children to prefer and request high-calorie and low-nutrient food and beverages.''

Let me just read two sentences from the executive summary. I am quoting directly from the Institute of Medicine's finding:

It can be concluded that television advertising influences

children to prefer and request high-calorie and low-nutrient

foods and beverages.

That is a key finding. Next, on the broad conclusions: Food and beverage marketing practices geared to children and youth are out of balance with healthful diets and contribute to an environment that puts their health at risk.

There you have it. Now, 2 years ago, I requested this study to be done. We put money in the appropriations bill for the CDC to do the study. They contracted with the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine to do the study. This is an unbiased landmark study. It proves conclusively that our kids are being inundated nonstop with advertising that puts their health at risk.

The food industry is a $900 billion-a-year business. It spends billions of dollars promoting food products, much of it targeted at kids. The IOM report is important because it outlines in great detail how over the past decade advertising directed at our children has grown to a point where they are bombarded nonstop with ads. Indeed, food marketing has expanded in both intensity and variety into nearly all areas of kids' lives.

The food industry spends more than $11 billion a year targeting kids with marketing campaigns through television, movies, magazines, Internet, in-school marketing, kids clubs, toys, coupons, and product placement in movies and books. Marketing to kids has become so pervasive and sophisticated that over the past several years marketing firms have even begun to employ child psychologists who specialize in this field to help devise their strategies.

On the advice of these psychologists, advertisers make use of media fantasy figures, celebrities, and cartoon characters. They use messages crafted to imply that products will give kids power, make them popular. The aim is simply to exploit kids' imaginations and their vulnerabilities and to sell them products or to get them to nag their parents to buy certain products.

What kind of foods are they marketing to our kids? We are not talking about apples and pears and peaches and broccoli and carrots. We are talking about high-fat, high-sugar, high-sodium foods with little or no nutritional value.

The food industry contends it is concerned about the health and nutrition of our children, and that it is taking active steps to change its marketing practices to introduce new products that are healthier for our children. But is that really the case?

In limited instances, the industry has taken some positive steps. For example, in the past year, both Kraft Foods and Pepsico have announced they will take steps to curb the marketing of unhealthy food products to children, and instead focus on the promotion of healthier products. I have commended publicly, and I do so again today on the floor of the Senate--both Kraft and Pepsico for taking a leadership position in this area.

But here is the problem. This Institute of Medicine report is clear that such responsible actions are far from the industry norm. As you can see from this chart, the number of new products that the food industry has targeted to kids have gone up tenfold over the past 10 years, from around 50 to just under 500 in 2004--500 new products per year--not apples, not salad bars. According to the Institute of Medicine, these 500 products are high in calories and sugar and low in nutrients. This is what dominated those products.

Let's take a look at some of the examples of what is happening to our kids. Many advertisements for junk food snacks use characters popular with children. Here is one. They range from Spiderman to Sponge Bob Square Pants. Kids know these characters. They admire these characters. Quite frankly, when I saw ``Shrek 1'' and ``Shrek 2,'' I kind of liked Shrek. He became a loveable, nice guy who wanted to do good. Now what do we see? Here is Shrek advertising Twinkies, green Twinkies with a green filling.

Now Shrek has a powerful appeal to kids' minds. Kids see the movie Shrek and they like Shrek. And Shrek, why, he likes Twinkies, so Twinkies must be OK to eat. That is what that message says.

What do we know about Twinkies? The nutritional value is zero, harmful to kids' health.

Shrek now becomes a bad guy trying to get our kids to eat unhealthy food. Shame on the advertisers who take a likable, loveable character when he was first introduced to kids in the movies and now using Shrek to poison our kids. I use the word ``poison'' because that is what this food does, it poisons our kids by making them obese and unhealthy.

Then what you can do when you see this ad, you can visit twinkies.com. I will show that a little bit later in my presentation.

It is not just limited to television. Food marketing has gone on in numerous ways that we are just beginning to explore. The Institute of Medicine report was shocking. One thing--I didn't know this--only 20 percent of all food and beverage marketing in 2004 was devoted to the traditional methods of television, radio, and print. Only 20 percent. Eighty percent is going to new forms of marketing--product promotions, character licensing, school marketing.

At one time, our schools were considered safe havens for our kids, places of learning that insulated our kids from crass commercial influences. No longer is that the case. Our schools have been inundated with commercial messages that are now a major advertising medium that these food companies are using to establish brand loyalty and to get kids to eat junk food.

Here is a photograph of a hallway in a high school. You have the Coke machine, you have a POWERade machine. You have a vending machine with potato chips, Fritos, cookies, candy bars, M&M's. Nothing in this entire display is of any nutritional value. That is what is happening in schools.

Let's not forget that a lot of these food marketing companies have exclusive contracts with schools and school districts to link the sale of soda pop to cash payments or equipment assistance to schools. These are the very foods that are making our kids obese, contributing to their unhealthy lifestyles.

I often ask parents, What would you think of a parent who sat down with his or her child before they went to school in the morning and measured out 15 teaspoons of sugar, put it in a little plastic bag and told the kid: Here, you can take this to school and eat it. Or, on second thought, measure out 30 teaspoons of sugar, give it to the kid and say: Here, take this to school and eat it. You would think no parent would ever do that. But some children to buy two soda pops every day and two of those 20-ounce soda pops will have 15 teaspoons of sugar each. One 20-ounce soda pop equals 15 teaspoons of sugar. That is why others call this liquid candy. A 20-ounce Coke, liquid candy, that is all it is, 15 teaspoons of sugar.

Why do we allow this? Why do we allow this in our schools? It is sending a message to our kids that this is OK? It is in school, it is promoted by the schools, so it must be OK. That is a new marketing technique they have.

Now we have other techniques such as branded toys and new marketing techniques aimed at babies? Hang on, wait until you see this one: A baby with a 7-Up bottle. Here is a baby being nursed on a bottle that has a 7-Up logo on it. One might say, well, that baby can't buy 7-Up. No, but that baby's eyes are picking up things. When that baby gets older, that is going to be stuck in that baby's mind somewhere in the deep recesses, that was good because what that baby got out of that bottle was good healthy milk, formula probably. And now they are going to associate that with 7-Up. Imagine that, that early in life.

You think that is bad, hang on, you haven't seen anything yet. Look, before I put this picture up here, let's agree on one thing. We all agree--I know the occupant of the Chair and I bet he agrees with this, being a doctor--that the most beneficial, nutritious food for a newborn baby is a mother's milk, breastfeeding. We all know that breastfeeding is the best, and any doctor will tell you if you are capable, you ought to breastfeed your child.

Now look what we have here: A billboard with a baby breastfeeding on a McDonald's Burger. That just about borders on the obscene. It can't get any worse. I understand this did not run in the United States, but it ran on billboards in Europe. Here is a baby, obviously less than a year old supposedly breastfeeding on a McDonald's hamburger bun. Not only does this ad imply that fast food is a developmentally appropriate product for infants, it suggests that fast food is an appropriate replacement for the nutrition of breastfeeding, which is the perfect form of nutrition for babies.

Equating a McDonald's hamburger with breastfeeding, while it might be intended to be humorous, is no laughing matter. It sends very subtle messages that breastfeeding is nutritious and so are McDonald's hamburgers.

Now we have other ways of marketing. I tell you, these are psychologists who devise these ads. They know what they are doing. How about the candy counting books? Here we have ``Reese's Pieces Count by 5,'' ``Hershey's Subtraction'' book, the

``Skittles Riddles Math'' book, the ``Twizzlers Percentage'' book, the ``Hershey's Fraction'' book, and the ``Hershey's Kisses Addition'' book.

Here is where I am going to pay tribute again to Kraft Foods. On this floor periodically in the past I have shown the Oreo counting book. Kraft Foods discontinued that practice. Kraft Foods does not allow that any longer. God bless them; good for Kraft Foods.

But here is the problem: You get one company who actually acts responsibly, and look what the rest of them do. They move into the marketplace and take market share away with their counting books.

Again, 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds learn with counting books--Hershey's, M&M's, and Reese's Pieces. I don't have it here, but I saw one counting book where you lay it out and you actually put the M&M pieces on there, and when you count one, you get to eat that one piece, and when you count two, you get to take the two pieces of M&M's off and eat those two, until you get to 10 M&M pieces. Junk food, building brand loyalty early.

Then we have toys. How about the toys? It is an emerging trend that puts the food on the toy so you don't just get it for 30 seconds, you get it all the time you play with your toys.

Here we have a Coca Cola princess, whatever, a cheerleader. We have a Jell-O Barbie. We have a McDonald's Barbie.

So little kids play with these and they build that brand loyalty. They play with a Barbie wearing a McDonald's logo or a Jell-O or a Little Debbie brand. That is what we have come to, where kids are inundated day after day not with just 30-second ads but with everything they play with, everything they see. Now they go to school, and they see the same thing in school. This is a recent innovation. It was not like this 20 years ago.

Now we have the Internet, which is becoming a growing segment of the food marketing industry. Remember, I said earlier that Shrek urges children to visit twinkies.com, well, here you go. If one goes to twinkies.com, they go to Planet Twinkie. At Planet Twinkie, there are all of these little interactive things, visit the Twinkie shop, the Hostess Hall of Fame, the chocolate and cupcakes and snowballs. That is Planet Twinkie.

So a kid sees Shrek, Shrek says: Visit my Web site, visit twinkie.com.

Well, again, what are they saying to kids? They are saying: Eat junk food. It is fun and it is an adventure just to eat junk food and eat Twinkies and to eat candy and stuff, and it is good for you. And guess what, it will make you smart because we do it in school; you go there to school to learn, so since we do it all in school it makes you smart, too.

So when one looks at all of these marketing techniques together, television, schools, product tie-ins, promotions, the Internet, branded baby products, what we are seeing is that the food marketers seek to do nothing less than envelop our children every day during all of their waking hours in a commercial environment that encourages them to eat unhealthy food.

For years the food marketers have been saying: One cannot really prove that food marketing influences children's diets. Not anymore. With this study, food marketers can no longer say that food marketing does not influence children's diets. The evidence is quite clear that marketing has a negative influence on children's food preferences and on their diets.

Some might say: Well, that is obvious. The food industry does not spend $11 billion a year on marketing to kids because it does not work, because they want to throw that money away. They spend it because it works brilliantly, inducing children to purchase it themselves or to beg, whine, and cajole their parents into buying it for them.

Some might say: What about the parents' responsibility? Parents should be responsible, but parents' control is being eroded. Food marketers are inserting themselves between parents and their kids. Their control is being eroded in the face of a highly sophisticated billion-dollar industry. This is not a level playing field.

Again, what can we do? Someone who has been listening to me might say: Well, OK, Harkin, what can you do? That is the way business works. What can we do about it?

There is plenty we can do about it. The IOM report makes recommendations on what we ought to do. First, they say the industry needs to exhibit a greater level of corporate responsibility. Amen. Some of them have. But here is the problem: If it is not industrywide, one food company may do something good such as Kraft did, got rid of the Oreo cookie counting book. So what happens, their competitor moves in with other counting books. So it has to be industrywide.

IOM calls for sweeping change in the way the food industry, the beverage industry, the fast food restaurant industry, the media, and the entertainment industries do business. They call on all of those industries to use the same creativity, resources and marketing practices that they currently use to sell junk food to instead promote healthier diets for kids. They call on the food companies to change the products they advertise as well as the products they produce. They say that business as usual has to change and has to change now.

I hope corporate America is listening because if they do not change, then we in Congress will make them change. Almost 25 years ago, the Federal Trade Commission warned Congress about the dangers of advertising aimed at children. What did Congress do? We attacked the FTC and took away its regulatory authority as it pertains to children's ads.

In 1978, the FTC undertook an investigation and found that TV advertising directed at young children was both unfair and deceptive. They found that the advertising of high sugar foods to children is unfair and deceptive. They suggested that restrictions on ads directed at the young and vulnerable minds might be appropriate. But the broadcast industry went nuts. The food industries went nuts. The advertisers went nuts, and they got Congress to kill the messenger.

In 1981, this Congress stripped the Federal Trade Commission of its regulatory authority as it pertained to children's advertising. It expressly prohibited the Federal Trade Commission from following through on its proposals to ban or restrict advertising directed at children. This new law made it next to impossible to regulate advertising directed at kids. It is a little known fact that right now the FTC has more authority to regulate advertising at me and you and adults than it does to our kids, and here is how it does that.

There are two ways the Federal Trade Commission can regulate advertising: If it is unfair or deceptive.

In 1981, this Congress cut off one arm of the FTC in regulating advertising to kids. The FTC can only regulate advertising to kids if it is deceptive, not if it is unfair. Interesting point. One might say: Well, an advertisement of junk food is not deceptive, but is it unfair? It is, according to the Institute of Medicine because the Institute of Medicine said that kids lack the cognitive ability to discern between advertising, persuasive intent advertising and a program.

It stands to reason, if one is a young kid, they do not understand what advertising is all about. They get inundated with all of this, and it makes an impression on them, sticks with them, but they do not understand this is advertising. That is what the Institute of Medicine says. This is a medical report.

So I submit that any advertising that advertises high-calorie, high- in-fat junk food to kids that has no nutritional value, that is inherently unfair because kids do not understand the intent. Forget about deceptive. It is unfair. It may not be unfair to adults, since we understand what advertising is about--we should have that ability--but it is to kids. That is why we need to give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to regulate advertising to children both on unfairness and deceptiveness, as it does to adults. I want to point out, in closing, that I have introduced legislation to give FTC that authority.

In addition, the IOM talks about Government responsibility. It says that:

Government at all levels should marshal the full range of

public policy approaches (e.g., subsidies, legislation,

regulation, federal nutrition programs), to foster the

development and promotion of healthful diets for children and

youth.

It says, ``Government and industry should work together to set higher standards for marketing to children.''

They called for changes in the school environment, to get rid of the junk food and the vending machines.

When we come back next session, Senator Specter and I will introduce the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act. This legislation will, per the recommendation of the IOM, require the Department of Agriculture to update its nutritional guidelines for school food sales and ensure that the foods available to kids during the school day promote, rather than undermine, their health and learning.

We in this Congress have a responsibility to protect America's children from the sophisticated, aggressive, relentless marketing of junk food to our children. We have a responsibility to stick up for our parents. Our parents don't have a chance when our kids are inundated, day after day, hour after hour, even in places where parents don't have control--in our schools, when they watch a movie, when they pick up a book, a counting book.

I was in a school not too long ago, looking at some renovations in a school, an elementary school. Do you know what the kids had to sit on? Coca-Cola chairs; little chairs with the Coca-Cola legend, red and white, with Coca-Cola written on it. I assume that they donated the chairs to the school. But this is the idea, to get it into the kid's head early, that education and having a high sugar soft drink go hand in hand.

Late in her life, Jackie Kennedy said a very wise thing. She said, ``If you botch raising your children, nothing else you do in your life matters very much.''

With what we now know, thanks to the IOM report, what we know about the destructive impacts of junk food marketing to the kids, with the new insights thanks to the Institute of Medicine, it is clear by allowing the food industry to market junk foods to our kids we are botching the raising of all of our children.

Again, this is enough. This report makes it clear that it is time to say to those who are enveloping our kids in this sort of 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week nonstop advertising, that it is enough. Foods that are high in fat, sugar, and salt have their place. We all like to have a cookie. I enjoy a piece of candy as much as anybody else. They have their place. But they ought to be kept in their place--not in schools, not in advertising. They ought to be kept in their place and the place to start is with sensible, long overdue regulation of the advertising and marketing of junk food to children.

I yield the floor.

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

Will the Senator yield for a second before he does yield the floor?

I thank the Chair. I commend my colleague from Minnesota for taking the time to speak about an old friend, a remarkable politician, a remarkable Senator, Gene McCarthy.

In my younger days in Iowa, when they still had a bounty on Democrats in my State and Republicans ran everything, we always had the Democrats from Minnesota come down--McCarthy and Mondale and Humphrey, people such as that. But Gene McCarthy was a very rare, a unique individual. I was listening in the cloakroom to what the Senator from Minnesota was saying about Gene McCarthy. He had a way about him that was like Mark Twain. He had a great sense of humor. He could, like Mark Twain, say very succinctly what it might take others a paragraph to say. That was one of the qualities I always envied about McCarthy. I always thought, Gosh, why can't I say it like that? He had a great way with words.

Like Mark Twain, Gene McCarthy had the ability, with very few words, to puncture the inflated egos of puffed-up politicians. If you were on the other

end of it, you didn't feel good about it. He had a way of doing it without being mean, but when you heard him--and he never attacked anyone but he did it in terms of what they stood for, what they were saying--you heard it and you realized McCarthy was right. He had a refreshing and disarming way about him in his approach to politics. He made his point and he made it well.

I do not know if my friend from Minnesota repeated the quote that was attributed to him in the newspaper that I read the other day, which I thought was McCarthy at his best. He said one time that being a politician is sometimes like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to know how to play the game but dumb enough to think it's important.

Those of us who think all the things we do here are so grandiose should realize we pass on and others take our place. A lot of the things we do here, we may think are important and they are not that important.

So that was Gene McCarthy. He would say things that made you smile, made you think about things.

I say to my friend from Minnesota, I got out of the Navy in November of 1967 and I returned home to Iowa in 1968. At that point I was not active in politics. But like so many of my colleagues and friends in the Navy, I lost a lot of my friends in Vietnam. Slowly but surely over the 5 years that I was on active duty, I became convinced that the war in Vietnam should not go on, that it was wrong, that we ought to get out of there.

But, of course, I was in the Navy at the time. I couldn't say anything about it. I was a Navy person. So I thought, well, now that I am out maybe I can do something. I was looking for someone to give me advice. I was looking for someone out there who would stand up and take the lead on this--Gene McCarthy. Gene McCarthy was the first politician I ever met who wasn't afraid to say the ``emperor has no clothes.'' And once he did that, people realized, you are right; that this war in Vietnam was nonsensical, that we ought to bring an end to it. He encouraged a lot of young people. And I can still remember, and I will bet the Senator from Minnesota has the same memory. I had one of those daisies on the trunk of my car, a blue and white daisy with ``McCarthy'' on it. That was in 1968.

I think he brought a lot of young people in and gave a lot of young people encouragement that they could change the system and that they could make a difference.

Through his later years I became a friend of Gene McCarthy. In fact, when I ran for President in 1991, he was running again. So we found ourselves running against each other.

As we were both fading and Bill Clinton was winning everything, he drew me aside one time and said: Do you ever wonder why we are still here and what we are doing?

I said: Yes; I do wonder that sometimes.

He said: Well, we are here because the liberal position needs to be enunciated and fought for regardless of who the nominee is.

I am paraphrasing, but that is the way I remember him saying that.

I just wanted to take the time to commiserate with my good friend, Senator Dayton, about a wonderful human being, a truly remarkable U.S. Senator, one of the most intelligent individuals to ever grace the floor of the U.S. Senate, and to remember his legacy, the legacy of having the courage of your convictions, of standing up for what you think is right, and once in a while don't take ourselves too seriously.

That was the Gene McCarthy I knew and loved. We will remember him always.

I thank my colleague from Minnesota for taking the time today to remember our good friend and departed colleague.

He would have taken me to task for talking so long. He would have said: You could have said that in 2 minutes.

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 know that a motion to appoint conferees has not happened yet on the reconciliation bill, but I understand that the majority leader will sometime today be making that motion. It is a debatable motion, and obviously an amendable motion. I think there are maybe four or five different motions to instruct our conferees regarding the reconciliation bill.

I want to take the time now to talk about it, even though I have an amendment, but it is not timely to send the amendment to the desk. But I do want to talk about what that amendment will do and why I am going to be offering it.

Basically, it has to do with funding cuts for food assistance programs.

It has been a challenging year for all of us, especially here in the Senate. There have been many things upon which this Chamber disagreed. We have had some spirited debates and disagreements. The budget debate and ensuing reconciliation bill has been one of the most challenging of these debates.

But there are also times when agreement rather than discord characterize our proceedings.

While I disagreed with the underlying reconciliation bill passed by the Senate, I was pleased and proud of one of the sources of bipartisan agreement that we had both in committee and on the floor. It was the decision by the Senate not to cut food assistance programs for working Americans, for low-income working Americans.

The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry considered such cuts. In fact, the President's budget included a proposal to cut the Food Stamp Program by nearly $600 million. But after careful examination of the Food Stamp Program, after deliberation in the committee, both Republicans and Democrats decided against any cuts to the Food Stamp Program.

I commend today, as I did at that time, our chairman, Senator Chambliss, for listening carefully to committee members' concerns by looking at this and for his conscientious decision not to include any such cuts in the committee-passed measure.

I commend as well many members of both parties who have objected to cutting food assistance programs through the reconciliation process.

There are many reasons food stamp cuts should not be enacted.

First, the Food Stamp Program is the first line of defense in the United States against hunger and food insecurity, providing food assistance to nearly 25 million Americans. It is also one of our largest child nutrition programs. Eighty percent of food stamp benefits--over $23 billion in 2005--go to families with children.

Another reason cutting food assistance is not appropriate is because the need is growing and not diminishing.

Just recently, a U.S. Agriculture Department study found that 38.2 million people lived in households that were food insecure in 2004, and that the number increased by nearly 2 million between 2003 and 2004.

Since 1999, the number of individuals classified by USDA as food insecure rose by 7 million people. These are significant numbers.

That any American should live in the shadow of hunger at the dawn of the 21st century is shocking and embarrassing. That the number has increased dramatically in the past 5 years is unacceptable.

We have also been reminded of another reason we shouldn't have food stamp cuts. We have been reminded by the numerous hurricanes and disasters this fall of the tremendous role that the Food Stamp Program plays in times of emergency. The Food Stamp Program rapidly provided emergency food assistance to approximately 2.2 million individuals affected by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, allowing victims to obtain food assistance within days.

Finally, the Senate Agriculture Committee chose not to cut the Food

Stamp Program because there is not much to cut. It operates efficiently and effectively.

For 5 years in a row, the error rate in the Food Stamp Program has declined to consecutive all-time lows.

Frankly, if there were fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, I would be the first in line to do so.

I say that because I have been on this Agriculture Committee in both the House and the Senate--this marks my 30th year. We have gone through a lot in the Food Stamp Program in that time. We have cut and trimmed. We have gone from food stamps to an electronic benefits card to cut down on fraud, waste, and abuse. It has worked well.

We have a program that by any measurement operates efficiently.

The farm bill we passed in 2002 included a major reform to the quality control system. Just last year, Congress made improvements to Federal child nutrition programs. Again, because of this bipartisan approach, which I believe kind of goes back to the Dole-McGovern years when they forged an alliance to ensure we had a bipartisan agreement on the Food Stamp Program, we have a sound, efficiently, effectively run program. There just is not any--I would not say there isn't any, but to go after what little abuse there may be would cost more than what is happening. We have tightened down on this program over the last 30 years. There is not much fraud, waste, and abuse to go after, so if Congress wants to make any cuts in the Food Stamp Program, they have to go after benefits.

I am pleased to say that was not an option either in the Senate Agriculture Committee or that the Senate wanted to consider.

However, not so across the Capitol. The House of Representatives passed a reconciliation bill that makes significant cuts to the Food Stamp Program of approximately $700 million. According to CBO, the Food Stamp Program cuts contained in the House reconciliation bill would eliminate food stamp benefits for at least 250,000 individuals. These are mainly working families with children and legal immigrants.

Right now in the Food Stamp Program, if you are a legal immigrant-- forget about illegal immigrants; illegal immigrants have no access to the Food Stamp Program. I hear that all the time, but they have no access to it and they cannot get an electronic benefit card. But a legal immigrant must be here 5 years before that person can qualify for food stamps. That is the law right now. Now, they still have to meet standards. In other words, they still have to meet the standards of anyone else to be eligible, such as income standards, asset standards, and work requirements. They still have to meet these standards. Even if they meet these standards, they still have to wait 5 years.

The House extended it to 7 years. These are legal immigrants. These are people we want here. What does the sign on the Statue of Liberty say? Give me your tired, your poor. A lot of these people are tired, they are poor, but they are here to build a better life. They are working, they are legal, and their kids are in school here. Yet we want to make it even tougher.

The second thing they did is they changed the system whereby States have said, Okay, if you qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, then you automatically qualify for food stamps. It makes sense. In the 1990s we made a change to allow the States to align their programs. If you qualified for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, then you used to have to go to another office to qualify for food stamps. It was twice the paperwork, twice the administrative burdens. We said, Why go through all of that? So we made a change that streamlined the program.

The House takes that out. The House bill takes a step backward from welfare reform. We put this in there for welfare reform back in the 1990s; they take a step backward. We tried to change it so we would move low-income families from welfare to work.

One of the provisions was to provide allow TANF recipients to automatically qualify for food stamps. The House now takes that away. It makes no sense. In fact, it will increase the burden on States. They will have to spend more money, and we will probably have to take people that now qualify off the food stamp rolls. These are low-income people who work and make money who now qualify because they qualify for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Yet these are the very people for whom we want to build a bridge. We want to get them off welfare and get them to work. A lot of times, part of that bridge is food stamps and making sure families have enough food to eat.

So all of the cuts the House made retreat from the bipartisan agreements Congress made in recent years to streamline and make the Food Stamp Program more effective and to make welfare reform work.

When the majority leader makes his motion to instruct conferees, I will be back in the Senate to offer a motion to instruct conferees on the reconciliation conference committee to reject cuts to Federal food assistance programs. I might add that we should have a lot of bipartisan support. Senator Smith of Oregon and I are joining together to offer this amendment to instruct.

There was also a letter written by a number of Republican Senators recently asking that we not make cuts in the Food Stamp Program. I hope we can have a strong vote on this. We should have a recorded vote. I will ask for a recorded vote to send a strong signal to the House of Representatives that the Senate will not accept their food stamp cuts. By voting for this motion to instruct, the Senate can show that it stands side by side with working families, that we do not want to retreat from welfare reform. We do not want to retreat from the changes we have made to make this program meaningful and effective.

I will offer that motion at some point, I hope today--whenever the majority leader makes a motion to instruct the conferees.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment, which is at the desk.

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

Mr. President, I understand that under the order, I will be recognized for 20 minutes.

I might reserve a little bit of time. I may have other colleagues who will come over to speak.

Just to refresh memories, when this continuing resolution was passed at the end of September, I came on the floor and offered an amendment that would have kept whole the Community Services Block Grant program. That is a program that administers the LIHEAP program, administers a lot of Head Start programs, Even Start programs, Older Americans Act programs, elderly transportation programs, emergency shelter programs, weatherization assistance--you get the idea. Most of the programs really help a lot of poor people in this country. Last year's level was $636.8 million.

The amendment I offered in September would have kept the funding of the Community Services Block Grant program at that level. You might say that was a continuing resolution. A continuing resolution keeps things at last year's level. Therein lies the problem.

The House sent us a continuing resolution that said: We will continue programs at last year's level or at the level of the House budget, whichever is less. The House budget cut the Community Services Block Grants Program down to less than $320 million. They cut it in half. That is the level it was in 1986.

I said in September that it was unfair for poor people to have to have theirs cut right away down to that level because winter was coming and you need the heating energy assistance and things like that.

At that time, at the end of September, there was a lot of talk. We couldn't accept this amendment because the House had gone out. As long as the House was out and if we changed the continuing resolution, that meant the entire House of Representatives would have to come back to Washington, DC, and do something about this. I said at the time on the floor, big deal. They came back for a lot of other things; they could come back for this, too.

Obviously, my arguments did not prevail. The amendment was defeated; whereupon, however, the chairman of the Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, the Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens, said that he was going to take my amendment that continues the community services block grants at last year's level and put it on the Defense appropriations bill, which he did and for which I commended him. We all thought that the Defense appropriations bill would zing through here right away. Fine.

Here we are. It is November 18, and the Defense appropriations bill has not been passed--and we don't know when; probably next month, I suppose, before the end of the year.

We have another continuing resolution. The continuing resolution expires today at midnight. We know that. The continuing resolution is the same. It is at either last year's level or the House budget level, whichever is less. That means the Community Services Block Grant program is still cut down to the level it was in 1986.

The amendment I am offering today basically says--it is the same amendment, basically--for the purposes of this continuing resolution, the community services block grant shall be based on the rate that it was last year, which is $636.6 million.

On November 8, barely a week and a half ago, 58 Senators from both sides of the aisle cosigned a letter saying we want to keep the Community Services Block Grant Program at the Senate level, at last year's level. That is what we did in our bill, and 58 Senators a week and a half ago signed this letter to keep it at the same level. Yet today we are going to pass a continuing resolution that cuts it in half. This continuing resolution is until December 18.

There is another unique feature about the Community Services Block Grant Program that I wish to bring to the Senate's attention. Unlike a lot of programs, such as education, for example, wherein the money goes out basically next summer, if we use that language--the lower of the House level--it doesn't mean a lot because the money is not going to go out until next summer, and we probably will fix this prior to going home for Christmas. I think. I don't know. We have had CRs going into January and into February. That is not unusual around here.

So we have a continuing resolution before us today that says until December 18, and we think it will be done by then. It may not be. I don't know how many people around here would like to bet a dollar to a dime on that one. Maybe yes; maybe no; get it done by December 18. It could go into next year.

Here we have a situation, unlike education, where the money goes out next summer, and we will fix it before then, certainly. The Community Services Block Grant program goes out quarterly. Every quarter, the money goes out and is used. That means right now we are about 7 weeks into this quarter, and the entire nationwide Community Services Block Grant program has been operating at the level of $320 million. That is bad enough. If we extend that another month, it could be disastrous, or another 2 months, because it is not like they can draw down some money somewhere and say: We are going to get it next year, we will make up for it. They can't just go to the bank and borrow the money. They do not have it. If they don't have the money for weatherization or for Head Start programs or for low-income energy assistance programs, they just do not do it.

We have had vote after vote here when Members supported the Low- Income Energy Heating Assistance Program. It is vitally needed. But if you do not have the people to administer the program and get the goods and hire the people to administer it, what good does it do? That is what the Community Services Block Grant program does.

You may hear talk that the Community Services Block Grant program is just one part of the picture because there are State and local governments that help. That is true. There are private charities that help. That is true. That is the good thing about this program--it brings a lot of different stakeholders into play. But there is the anchor, there is the anchor of the money. If that is not there, they do not even have the people to go out and do anything.

I ask Senators to think about this. Here is a program that is widely supported; 58 Senators signed a letter a week and a half ago. We passed it in our Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee when it was on the floor at last year's level, $636.8 million. No one talked against that. It just passed. We all supported it. As a matter of fact, if I am not mistaken, I think it was later supported by the House, even though their numbers were less. The conference report

that was rejected by the House at least had this high figure in it.

So we find ourselves in an odd situation with another continuing resolution in the dead of winter when the homeless need a lot of help, when poor people are put to the extreme in terms of buying enough food, energy to heat their homes, get clothes for their kids, finding enough money for rent, going to food banks when the food stamps run out.

Any Senator here who has been to the food banks in their State knows that the food bank demand is up over what it has been in the past because food stamps are running out about the third week of the month, and poor families are going to the food banks to get food. I say to any Senator, go to your food bank--any State, I don't care which State it is--go to your food banks, food pantries, and ask them whether the demand for food is up over what it was last year or just a few months ago. That is the program administered by the Community Services Block Grant program.

The argument that was made in September is we could not do this because the House would have to come back, and they cannot do it, la- de-da, and all that stuff. Well, the House is in session today--they may be in session tomorrow, I don't know. But they are in session today. We could pass this amendment; say, no, the one program we are going to exempt from the 50-percent cut of the House of Representatives is Community Services Block Grant program. Send it back to the House, let them bring it up and pass it and send it to the President. The argument that we could not do it because of the time pressures does not hold any longer.

This is just a matter of simple justice. If this were a program that could make up the money later on next year, it would be different. This is now. People need help now for housing, for rental assistance, food banks, heating energy assistance, Head Start, foster grandparents, rental assistance.

One of the things the Community Services Block Grant program does for people includes if they are evicted and they need someplace to stay. Think of the single mother with two or three children. The husband has left her and gone off someplace. They have been in an apartment, maybe there has been an illness in the family for which they are not covered--who knows what kind of calamities could have hit--and they find themselves evicted. They can go to the local community action agency in their area. One of the things they will do is they will find them a place to live. They will give them rental assistance to get them established and a place to live. That is what this program does. What I just described happens 10 times a day in 1,000 cities across America-- 100,000 times a day.

I hope we can pass this amendment. It is very simple and straightforward. Leave the Community Services Block Grant program at last year's level. We have all said that is where we want it. We need to get that money out there. The House is in session. They can pass it and send it to the President.

How much time remains?

I reserve the remainder of my time.

How much time total?

How much time on the other side?

Parliamentary inquiry: I understand I had 20 minutes to speak and there is no time on the other side to speak on this amendment?

There are a couple of other points.

The amendment is a straight failure. Senators understand it. But I will point out, because of a quirk in the law, there are some States that are cut more than others.

Here is what that means. This gets a little complicated, but I think the States that are going to be voting need to know this. If the total funding for a fiscal year is less than $345 million, then no State shall receive less than one-fourth of 1 percent. Now, last year, since we cut it back to $320.6 million, that means there are 13 States-- Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming--that are not cut by 50 percent; they are cut by 75 percent. Because of a quirk in the law, 13 of our smallest States have a 75-percent cut. That is what they are operating at right now in those States.

I say to the Senators from those States, this may not be knowledge to a lot of Members. I happen to know about this program because I am on both the committees that administer it, but this is a program that helps the poorest in our country.

I anticipate there may be some other reasons people do not want to vote for this, but as long as 58 Senators signed the letter a week and a half ago, as long as the House is in session, it seems to me we could vote on this and let the House do it.

As I said, this is the dead of winter. We were told at the end of September that the Defense appropriations bill would be acted upon. This amendment was included. But it has not been acted on. We are now told we have a continuing resolution until December 18, but will we really act on it by December 18? As I said, who can bet on that around here?

These are the poorest of our poor people. Can't we at least say we are going to hold them a little bit harmless in this? It is not that we are holding them harmless, we are holding them at last year's level, which means it is cut a little bit simply because of the cost-of-living increase. But to be cut 50 percent, and in 13 States to be cut by 75 percent, is grossly unfair.

Let's do the moral thing. Let's do the right thing. This is a very small matter, a small thing to do, to pass this amendment and send it to the House and have them pass it on.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter I discussed.

I yield back the remainder of my time and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from Rhode Island for pointing this out. I cannot find anything about which I disagree with him. I think he is right. This is not the way to do business, normally.

These are not normal times, however. We have a small space in which we might be able to get something done, and we have to take advantage of it. I say to my friend from Rhode Island, I think it is instructive for all of us that there is only one appropriations bill cut from last year's level--one. Not Commerce, State, Justice, not Transportation, not the Housing and Urban Development, not all of the rest--only one appropriations was cut. Guess what it deals with: health; human services; education; labor. That has been cut. What kind of message are we sending to Americans?

We had a vote on whether to continue the Community Services Block Grant program at last year's level. I pointed out a week and a half ago, 58 Senators signed a letter--please keep it at last year's levels. A week and a half ago they vote to cut it, in some cases 75 percent. That is why I put the letter in the Record right after the vote. I want people to see the vote and read the letter and see how people signed the letter and then how they voted. It is one thing to sign the letter around here and I guess another thing to vote.

I guess what I am expressing is this is a terrible appropriations bill that we have for the needs of the American people, for education, basic structure of health care and public health, for NIH, for basic medical research. This is the first time since 1970 that we have flat- lined funding for the National Institutes of Health--35 years. That is the bill that Senator Specter and I are faced with.

What we are trying to do is find some way of getting some money for health,

trauma care, rural emergencies--rural emergency medical services was completely eliminated--health community access program, community health centers--we will not be able to open one new community health center next year under the bill that we go to conference with. No Child Left Behind is underfunded; Pell grants are kept at the same level for the fourth year in a row. For kids with disabilities, IDEA, we are going backward. How many times have we heard, on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats get out here and say we have to fully fund IDEA. This bill actually goes backward, from 18.6 percent to 18 percent.

That is why Senator Specter and I decided to take this step of having a motion to instruct the conferees to take the slightly less than $2.1 billion in LIHEAP and designate it as an emergency for this one time only in order for us to get to conference, to put pressure on the House to come up with some more money.

I am not saying this will stay as an emergency in the final bill. My hope is we will be able to find the money and come up with something so it does not. But if it does, it is only for 1 year. I tell my friend from Rhode Island, I will do everything I can, everything humanly possible in the Senate to ensure that when it comes up next year, we do not have it as an emergency, that we get a better budget allocation.

But again I have to say I do not want anybody around here hiding behind the skirts of the Budget Committee. They say the reason we got a bad bill, the reason our bill, the one that funds Health and Human Services and Education and Labor--the reason it is cut is because the Budget Committee gave us a bad budget.

Fine. But did you vote for it? Did you vote for the budget? If you voted for the budget, you own this bill. Don't hide behind the skirts of the Budget Committee. If you voted for the budget, you own it. You bought it. So anyone who voted for the budget, this is what you got.

I share a little frustration on this, also, as you can probably tell. But I think in this one case we desperately, drastically need to meet the human needs of the people of our country. We are up against almost an intransigent House and an administration I think, quite frankly, that does not care. If they cared, they wouldn't be treating us like this. To them, this is nothing. Community action agencies, LIHEAP? That is just poor people. They don't count because they probably don't vote anyway, and they certainly don't contribute any money, so therefore why even pay attention to them.

I share the frustration of my friend from Rhode Island. Normally, this would not be the way to do it, but as I said, this is an abnormal situation in which we find ourselves. If we have to, as a one-shot deal, push this into the emergency column so we can help kids with disabilities, if we can help getting more health care up for rural emergency medical services, if we can help with Head Start, if we can help with community health centers--then, for one time, I think we ought to do it. That is why I support the Specter motion to instruct the conferees to put LIHEAP on an emergency basis for this one time only.

With that, I yield the floor. I think I had 7 minutes, if I am not mistaken?

I yield the floor then.

About 15 minutes.

Yes.

Madam President, it has been nearly 6 weeks since Pakistan was devastated by one of the most powerful and deadly earthquakes in modern times. More than 140,000 people were killed or injured in the disaster. The earthquake left 3 million people homeless; hundreds of thousands of children were left without schools. More than a million jobs were wiped out.

I have come to the floor this afternoon to remind my colleagues that as we are prepared to leave town to spend the holidays with our families, to enjoy a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with turkey and all the trimmings, as we sit around our dining tables and warm houses with family and friends close by, and we give thanks for all our blessings, let's also pause and remember those halfway around the world who will not even have enough to eat that day, will not have a warm house, and who are facing a winter ahead of cold and deprivation. These are the people of Pakistan, one of our most important strategic allies in Asia, especially in the war against terrorism.

There are many difficult months and years ahead for the Pakistani people and the immediate danger is that the winter snows will now soon make relief efforts in Kashmir difficult and in some places all but impossible, even by helicopter. Americans can be very proud of the role our Armed Forces have played in relief operations in the earthquake zone. Immediately after the disaster struck, the United States offered Pakistan $156 million in aid. We deployed 950 soldiers as well as 24 helicopters. As I speak, a U.S. Army mobile surgical hospital is operating in Muzzafarabad, providing medical care to thousands of quake victims.

To give our colleagues and viewers watching on C-SPAN a better idea of the devastation in Pakistan, I share several photographs taken by a former member of my staff, Mr. Sam Afridi, who now works for the International Labor Organization in Geneva. Earlier this month he visited some of the most hard-hit areas, including Muzzafarabad, and Balakot. These pictures speak for themselves.

Here is Balakot police station with hardly a stone standing on top of another stone.

Here is another--devastation in the local neighborhood. As you can see, the resilience of the people--they are already setting up their fruit and vegetable stands to help out one another.

This is another indication of the devastation. Here you can see the U.S. Army Chinooks flying overhead in this picture.

Here is a picture of the Hizwan public high school. The earthquake killed 50 students, including the principal's son. You see all the clothes and the backpacks still left there.

Here is a project Mr. Afridi was involved in, the International Labor Organization Emergency Employment. They are hiring people to clean up the debris and move the debris out of the roads. They are working to clean up the devastation.

Here is a young child caught in the rubble in a full body cast. We hope he is going to be all right, but the child may be disabled for the rest of his life.

Here is a young boy, showing the crutches and the fact that, while we hope he can walk again, we don't know if he will ever walk again.

These are some of the images from a country that has been a great friend of ours and a great ally of ours for a long time. Even back during all of the years of the Cold War, Pakistan we could always reply on--always. They have fought beside us, side by side, in every war we have had, from the Korean war on.

We have done some things, as I mentioned, but we must do more. The Washington Post editorial pointed out this morning that, after the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 200,000 people, the United States sent nearly $1 billion in government aid, 16,000 soldiers, 57 helicopters, 42 aircraft, and 25 ships--$1 billion. Thus far we have offered Pakistan $156 million.

We sent 16,000 soldiers after the tsunami. In Pakistan we deployed 950. After the tsunami, 57 helicopters, Pakistan 24.

While I am sure that aid is welcomed, what I am trying to point out is the devastation here was every bit as devastating; there were 140,000 Pakistanis killed in the earthquake.

Half that many are now homeless and facing a desperate winter without even as much as a tent.

The assistance we have offered Pakistan--one of our best friends and long-time allies, a crucial ally in our war on terror has been way too modest.

I ask unanimous consent to have the editorial from this morning's Washington Post printed in the Record.

Madam President, as the editorial points out, we have a big stake in delivering much more generous relief to Pakistan. Largely because of the war in Iraq, America's standing in the Muslim world has fallen dramatically in recent years.

According to a recent Pew Center poll, only 22 percent of Pakistanis expressed a favorable view of the American people.

So clearly the aftermath of the earthquake is a chance for us to put our best foot forward, demonstrating our compassion, generosity, our friendship for the Pakistani people.

By reaching out to them in their hour of need, we can show the people of Pakistan that we see their country as more than a base for operations against terrorists.

To that end, I urge President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, and the Government to take a more assertive leadership role in rallying the international community to assist Pakistan. We can begin tomorrow at the International Donors' Conference in Islamabad. To date, the international community has only provided a quarter of the emergency relief that the United Nations requested for earthquake assistance in Pakistan.

Let me repeat that. The United Nations has appealed for $550 million in assistance for Pakistan, but donor nations have pledged only one- fourth of that amount.

In contrast, 1 month after the Indian Ocean tsunami, the U.N.'s emergency appeal was 99 percent filled. Now it is only a quarter filled.

Some good things are happening. For example, as I pointed out, the International Labor Organization has set up an emergency cash-for-work program in the earthquake region. People are being put to work making infrastructure repairs, removing debris, improving sanitation.

This is a picture of the International Labor Organization and their emergency employment and what they are doing.

The aim of this program is to inject cash back into the local economy, while helping people get back to work to support themselves.

According to my former staff member, Mr. Afribi, one of the participants in this program said to him, ``For every rupee we get for this work, it feels like 10 because we have earned it.''

So clearly these are people of pride and dignity and they are willing to work hard. They are looking for a handup, not a handout. It behooves us to be more generous and forthcoming than we have been to date. We need to continue to provide immediate emergency humanitarian relief. But we also need to tend to the longer term needs of the survivors.

Many children, as I have shown, have had amputations. They need to be cared for. Safeguards need to be put in place to ensure that their disabilities do not get in the way of their education. Past experience tells us that such children are vulnerable to being exploited in the workplace. In closing, we have an important mission here--to come to the aid of the Pakistani people in their moment of maximum need.

I have many good friends in the Pakistani-American communities. I have many good friends in Pakistan. I was privileged to visit there this September, the third time I have been to Pakistan. I traveled quite extensively in the country. The Pakistani people are wonderful. They are highly educated and skilled. The Pakistanis in America, who have come to make a better life for themselves, are doctors, surgeons, engineers, and so on. Many of them have called me, eager to get involved in the relief in Pakistan.

We ought to be looking for ways for the USAID to provide a way for these people to go to Pakistan, under the American flag, for a period of weeks or months so they can put their talents to use in assisting the earthquake victims.

This would send a powerful message of friendship and good will of the American people to the Pakistani people.

I urge my colleagues to remember the pictures I have shown and to remember, this Thanksgiving week coming up, the millions of poor people in Pakistan whose lives were shattered in only a few minutes, one of the most devastating earthquakes to ever hit our planet. They are struggling to put their lives back together. We need to do more--again, both in terms of short-term relief and long-term reconstruction. Time and again, Pakistan has been there for us. Time and time again, from the beginning of the Cold War, when they allowed our U-2 flights to fly from Peshawar over the Soviet Union, all through the Cold War, the Korean war, the Vietnam war, Haiti, everywhere we have been, the Pakistanis have been by our side. Now it is our turn to be there for the people of Pakistan in their hour of need. During this Thanksgiving week, let us resolve to do better than we have done in the past.

I urge the President and the Secretary of State at the Donors' Conference tomorrow in Islamabad to step forward to lead the international community to do better than they have done in the past.

I yield the floor.