Floor Statements

Mr. President, my amendment is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that the Senate go on record opposing the House's $9 billion cut to child support enforcement programs. It is not reasonable to cut a program that last year served 17,300,000 children. This is money that goes out to States for child support enforcement to go after deadbeat dads to get them to pay the money for child support. As a matter of fact, this is one of the best things that has happened out of welfare reform. For every $1 we spend, we are getting back $4.38, not to the Government but to the families and the kids who need it. This is just a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that says we do not agree with the House 40-percent cut in this program and we won't hold up to it when it goes to the conference. It is a sense-of-the-Senate resolution.

The bill approved by Ways and Means would slash funding for child support enforcement efforts by 40 percent over the next 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, as a result of these cuts, more than $24 billion in delinquent payments will go uncollected. And the biggest negative impacts will be felt by children living in poverty and children in low-income households.

And let's be clear: Why is the House doing this? Why is it cutting this essential program that benefits some of the most vulnerable, disadvantaged, neglected children in our society? They are doing this in order to make room for another $70 billion in tax cuts--tax cuts overwhelmingly benefiting our wealthiest citizens.

Indeed, that is what this entire reconciliation process is all about. For 25 years, the budget reconciliation process was used to reduce the deficit. But, today, the majority party has a different idea. They are using reconciliation to increase the deficit. They are cutting child support enforcement, food assistance for the poor, foster care benefits, Medicaid, and other programs for the most disadvantaged Americans. At the same time they are ramming through another $70 billion in tax cuts for the most privileged.

There is no other word for it: This is simply immoral. Last year, more than 17 million children received financial support through the Child Enforcement System, including nearly two-thirds of all children in single-parent households with incomes below twice the poverty line.

Child support helped to lift more than 1 million Americans out of poverty in 2002. As a result of cuts passed by the House, many of those people--mostly children--would be plunged back into poverty. Not only is this cruel, it is also counterproductive. It is penny wise and pound foolish, because those families that are shoved into poverty by the House's action will end up on food stamps, Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and other forms of public assistance.

This chart shows the State-by-State impact of the cut in child support collection. In my State of Iowa, alone, children would lose some $239 million over the next 10 years. This is a proven program, an effective program. It reduces poverty. It gets resources to children who desperately need them. It is cost effective. Research has shown that the decline in families relying on TANF in recent years is directly linked to improvements in the Child Support Enforcement Program. For all these reasons, this program has enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

In the past, President Bush himself has praised this program, calling it one of our highest performing social services programs. And he is right because for every Government dollar spent, $4.38 is recovered for families in child support payments. With good reason. Reforms over the last decade have made this program even more effective. Since 1996, there has been an 82-percent increase in collections, from $12 billion to $22 billion.

Child Support Enforcement is essential to helping families to achieve self-sufficiency. For families in poverty who receive child support, those payments account for an average of 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.

If we were smart, if we were compassionate, if we were looking at ways to get maximum bang for the buck, we would be increasing funding for this essential program. But the action of the other body, slashing Child Support Enforcement by 40 percent to make way for more tax cuts, is just unconscionable. It is bad public policy, bad values, and bad priorities.

A strong bipartisan vote for this resolution will send a strong message to the House conferees that this cut is unacceptable to the Senate and that this body will not accept a slash-and-burn attack on a program that lifts more than 1 million people out of poverty every year. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. President, I want to be clear about how much time I have.

Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to cosponsor this amendment offered by Senator Grassley and Senator Dorgan.

Again, let's be clear why we are here debating this amendment. It is because the President's budget proposal called for taking away substantial funding that had previously been dedicated to agriculture and nutrition assistance. Accordingly, the congressional budget resolution requires cutting $3 billion out of programs in the jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry over the next 5 years. These cuts could come from farm income assistance, conservation, Federal nutrition assistance, or several other mandatory programs.

Fortunately--and I commend the chairman of our committee, Senator Chambliss, for this--his mark did not cut Federal nutrition assistance, and neither does the committee-reported measure, although such cuts are probably almost certain after we go to conference with the House.

Along with many of my colleagues, I opposed the cuts to agriculture from the time President Bush proposed them because I do not think they are justified. Three years ago we crafted a new, bipartisan farm bill, which the President praised and signed into law. We were given a budget allocation to deal with it. We stayed within it. The farm bill has in general been working as intended. In fact, in for fiscal 2002 through 2005, since the bill was signed, our Federal commodity programs are estimated to have saved the taxpayers of this country $14 billion compared to the cost estimates right after the bill was enacted. We have spent $14 billion less in those 4 years than we were entitled to spend in the farm bill.

So now we have the budget reconciliation bill before us. I don't believe there is any justification for cutting any funds out of agriculture, but the fact is, the budget resolution requires it. Congress is going to cut funds. The question is, how are we going to do it? How are we going to do it? Well, I am supporting the Grassley- Dorgan amendment because it contains a much more equitable and sound way to achieve the $3 billion in cuts over the next 5 years.

Basically, the amendment says there will be a more reasonable set of limits on the amount of Federal farm program payments that any one individual is able to draw from the Federal Treasury. By obtaining the savings in this way, the burden of budget cuts on the vast majority of America's farmers and ranchers will be lessened.

Now, my colleagues--Senator Grassley, Senator Dorgan, and others-- have described very well how farm commodity program payments are heavily concentrated on a relatively small percentage of Americans who control our Nation's largest farm operations. They have described how these operations can be reorganized, manipulated, using various partnerships, corporations, and entities, to skirt the payment limitations that are supposedly in the law now.

Again, let me remind my colleagues, the Grassley-Dorgan amendment we have before us is basically what the Senate adopted in the debate on the 2002 farm bill, by a vote of 66 to 31. This amendment was adopted in the farm bill. Of course, it was rejected in conference, because of strong opposition from the House don't you know, but we adopted it here. The Grassley-Dorgan amendment tracks the proposal in the President's budget.

Again, this amendment Senator Grassley and Senator Dorgan have offered is not onerous. It provides for a basic overall payment limit on all benefits of $125,000 an individual. If you have a spouse, that could be $250,000 for the couple. That is a pretty generous amount of money from the Federal Government to support a farming operation in anybody's book. So this is a modest proposal.

The other thing this amendment does is it cuts through all the confusion and murkiness about the ``three-entity rule.'' This amendment would track payments through to the actual individuals who receive the benefits, and then apply the payment limitations directly and straightforwardly. Now we will know exactly who is getting what. This amendment will establish a stronger requirement of active personal management of a farm or ranch before an individual is eligible to receive farm program payments.

The reasonable payment limitations in the Grassley-Dorgan amendment are a better, fairer way to obtain the budget savings. Those savings are then applied in this amendment to mitigate the most damaging aspects of the measure reported by the committee and which is in the bill before us.

The Grassley-Dorgan amendment delays for 1 year the 2.5 percent across-the-board reduction in commodity program payments and benefits which applies to all recipients.

One other thing this amendment does is it lets us go back and lessen the cuts to the farm bill's conservation title. What it does is it restores conservation funds that the bill before us would take out of the Conservation Reserve Program. It gets us back up to 38.45 million acres, close to the farm bill's 39.2 million acres. So this amendment supports conservation.

It also puts money back into the Conservation Security Program, which was cut by some 30 percent in the measure reported by the committee. That is on top of cuts already imposed on the Conservation Security Program in previous legislation.

So again, the Grassley-Dorgan amendment is fairer--more fair--than the bill before us. It is straightforward, and it responds to the real needs we have in rural America today. I commend Senator Grassley and Senator Dorgan for their amendment.

Mr. President, how much time do I have?

I hope not to use all time because others want to speak, also.

I want to take a few minutes to lay out my reasons for my vote on this conference report tomorrow.

First of all, there are many aspects of the bill that I do support and which I believe should become law. I believe Senator Bennett and Senator Kohl worked very hard to get this bill through.

I supported the bill as it was reported from committee and as it passed the Senate. I believe it was a good bill given the subcommittee's allocation when it passed the Senate, and I said so on the Senate floor. But, unfortunately, the conference process with the House was seriously flawed and resulted in a seriously flawed report as a result.

In some instances, it is as if the House were negotiating with the administration rather than allowing the Senate any meaningful role.

My greatest concern is the continued assault on the farm bill's mandatory conservation programs, particularly the Conservation Security Program. As passed by the Senate, this bill included no annual cap on CSP spending. That is as it is in the 6-year farm bill which was passed in 2002 and signed by the President: no annual cap on CSP funds. So the Congressional Budget Office's baseline estimate for CSP spending in fiscal 2006 was $331 million based upon the program's mandatory funding and no set annual spending cap, as was passed in the farm bill.

While the other body included an extremely low cap of $245 million for CSP in 2006, traditionally, we usually attempt to kind of split the difference on matters such as this. But in this instance, rather than splitting the difference between the House and Senate--the conferees evidently chose to split the difference between the President's budget proposal to cap CSP at $274 million and the $245 million cap in the House bill for a conference level of $259 million. That is far below the $288 million that would have resulted from splitting the difference between the House and Senate figures.

In effect, the will of the Senate as expressed in the bill that we passed by a vote of 97 to 2 was totally thwarted.

Since the farm bill was enacted in 2002, the USDA conservation programs have taken a real beating year after year. They have been used repeatedly as a source offsets to fund other needs.

Including this conference report, the annual appropriations measures from fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2006 have cut $1.13 billion in mandatory funds that we dedicated to conservation in the farm bill.

In addition to that, last fall, a further $3 billion was taken out of the Conservation Security Program to pay for disaster assistance. And in the Senate budget reconciliation measure now pending a further $1.78 billion would be taken away from conservation over the next 10 fiscal years--over $1.2 billion of that from the Conservation Security Program alone.

Again, here is a chart that illustrates what we are talking about.

If you look at Agriculture appropriations, those bills have cut, from fiscal year 2003 through 2006, $1.13 billion. Here on the chart is $3 billion which was an offset taken out of the Conservation Security Program to pay for disaster assistance.

Mind you, prior to the past few years, when we have had disasters in this country that require extraordinary amounts of disaster assistance we have paid for the assistance out of the general fund. When there is a tornado, a hurricane, or a flood--whatever it might be--we don't rob programs that are particularly important to one group of Americans in order to pay for the disaster assistance. We paid for the disaster assistance out of the general fund.

Yet when we had a drought disaster in this country that affected many States in the West and Midwest, the money to pay for disaster assistance was taken from the Conservation Security Program to pay for it. That was strongly pushed by the administration and the House. Many times on the floor I said that was wrong. I objected to it. But that is what happened. They took the money out of agriculture conservation to pay for disaster assistance. It was wrong then; it is wrong now to do that.

Then on top of those cuts, in the Senate budget reconciliation measure, another $1.78 billion would be taken out of conservation.

So what we have here is cumulative, $5.9 billion taken out of conservation programs in measures before us just since fiscal year 2003.

Again, I might add that conservation is part of the bill that was loudly praised by President Bush when he signed the farm bill. I was there at the signing. The President said this is a great bill, especially the conservation provisions. The Department of Agriculture put out publications on the farm bill highlighting conservation. Yet since the farm bill as passed, in measures passed or now before the Senate $5.9 billion will be taken out of conservation programs.

Again, I want to emphasize this conservation funding taken away is mandatory spending in the farm bill as to which we met all of the budget requirements when we passed the farm bill. We met all of the budget requirements. It was within the budget allocation provided to us when we passed the farm bill.

In earlier debate today on the reconciliation bill, I heard a lot of talk about the importance of not reopening the farm bill. That was the debate on the amendment offered by Senator Grassley and Senator Dorgan on payment limitations. I heard a lot of talk about not reopening the farm bill. Sorry folks. The farm bill has already been reopened many times regarding on conservation, and other programs for that matter.

To complain about an amendment limiting payments to those getting hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from farm programs, to complain that this is reopening the farm bill is a bogus argument.

Where were their voices last year, the year before, and the year before when all of this money was being taken out of the farm bill, out of mandatory spending? Why didn't I hear their voices on the Senate floor saying we can't reopen the farm bill? There was not a peep from them.

But now when it is proposed to limit payments to the largest farmers in America to meet some of our budget reconciliation requirements, they don't want to reopen the farm bill. We should never have reopened it to take money out of it to pay for disasters.

I have a number of other concerns. I joined with those who are upset about the country-of-origin labeling provision. During the debate on the 2002 farm bill--I was chairman at the time--there was a bipartisan effort. We included country-of-origin labeling for meats, fruits, vegetables, peanuts, and fish. I supported it then, and I support it now. It makes sense. Producers in our country ought to be able to add value by differentiating the origin of their products. Consumers ought to have the power of information of

choice. Unfortunately, the will of producers and consumers has been ignored, behind closed doors, without debate, without a hearing, without votes. Country-of-origin labeling for meats, fruits, vegetables, and peanuts has now been delayed until September 30, 2008, after this farm bill expires.

They just want to kill country-of-origin labeling altogether, in the next farm bill--and in the meantime by rewriting the farm bill in the appropriations process. It has gotten out of hand. It is making a mockery of the both the authorization and the appropriations process.

I happen to serve on both authorizing committees and the appropriations committee. They both have a legitimate role to play. To have the authorization committee usurp the power of the appropriations committee is just as wrong as to have the appropriations committee undercut and make a mockery of the authorization process. But that is what the House did.

I don't mind losing if you have fair debate and if you have fair votes. If you lose, you lose. To me, that is democracy. I don't mind that. What I object to is when the House of Representatives, the chairman of the House subcommittee, bangs the gavel and says we will meet subject to the call of the Chair, and we never meet. They go behind closed doors and they do this. They take away country-of-origin labeling, they put limits on conservation, and I don't even get a chance to vote on it. No one gets a chance to vote on it. They say, take it or leave it. That is what I object to.

I am also concerned that the same back-door process I am describing was used to amend the Organic Foods Production Act. Earlier this year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals struck down three final rules for the National Organic Program. I urged the organic community to come together and reach a consensus on what was needed to respond to the court decision. That didn't happen. Some people were left out of the process.

Last month, Senator Leahy offered an amendment to our Agriculture appropriations bill as a placeholder in the hope that the organic community would have more time to discuss these proposed changes in the law, and reach a consensus which we could then put into the conference report. Unfortunately, this conference report complicates what was already a complicated and sticky issue.

Again, behind closed doors, without a single vote or debate, the Organic Foods Production Act was amended at the behest of large food processors without the benefit of the organic community reaching a compromise.

To rush provisions into the law that have not been properly vetted, that fail to close loopholes, and that do not reflect a consensus undermines the integrity of the National Organic Program.

The Agriculture appropriations conference report also strikes a provision adopted by the full Senate that would limit contracting out to private companies to carry out the Food Stamp Program.

Again, this amendment was adopted without objection by the full Senate. It was reaffirmed by Senate conferees. We did have a vote. The Senate conferees voted to uphold the Senate side. The issue went to the House conferees, and that was the end of it. Usually you work these things out in conference. Again, the chairman gaveled the conference shut, went behind closed doors, and threw out the provision.

Here is the hypocrisy of that. In the Agriculture appropriations bill, there is a limit, a prohibition against any money being used to contract out to private companies for the operation of the rural development programs or farm loan programs. So those programs can't be privatized. But already the Department of Agriculture is approving private contracting for Federal food assistance applications.

Again, I guess the needs of the poor don't warrant the same kind of protection other clients of USDA receive.

There are other problems with this bill. I am disappointed that the measure eliminates or reduces funding for a variety of programs in the farm bill's rural development title. For example, there is a major reduction in the value added development grants.

Fortunately, the bill does call for revamping the rural broadband loan program. Clearly this is a technology that needs to be available. We need to have rural broadband access for economic development.

I am thankful to the chairman and others for the inclusion of numerous projects that help promote biofuels and bioproducts, which have a lot of promise for this country. I also commend them for including funding for the national animal disease facilities at Ames,

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

Mr. President, this October marks the 60th anniversary of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, and gives us an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the contributions that employees with disabilities have made to the American workforce.

The effort to help our fellow Americans understand these important contributions began in 1945, when Congress designated the first week in October each year as National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. In 1962, the name was changed to include all employees with disabilities. And, in 1988, Congress expanded the designated week to a full month, and changed the name to National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

National Disability Employment Awareness Month is a time to celebrate the progress we have made in opening the doors of opportunity for individuals with disabilities. People with disabilities--as all people--have unique abilities, talents, and aptitudes. And there is no question that our nation is better, fairer, and richer when we make full use of those gifts.

This July, our Nation celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act--the landmark civil rights law securing the rights of people with disabilities. As the chief sponsor of the ADA in Congress, I remember the day it was signed into law--June 26, 1990-- as one of the proudest in my entire legislative career. And, just as many predicted, the ADA has taken its place among the great civil rights laws in our Nation's history. Today, the impact of the ADA is all around us, in countless facets of our daily lives.

Yet we still have much work to do to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Long-term employment, career advancement, and equal pay continue to be challenging for many workers with disabilities. Most importantly, we need to improve the employment rate of persons with disabilities. The gap between the employment rates of working-age people with and without disabilities was more than 40 percentage points in 2004.

There are many factors that contribute to this gap, including disincentives, transportation issues, and outdated stereotypes about people with disabilities. But the end result is unfortunate and unacceptable. Most people with disabilities want to work; they want to be self-supporting and independent. As a government and as a society, we need to encourage employers to hire people with disabilities. We need to support creative job accommodations so we expand employment opportunities.

Misconceptions and apprehensions about hiring people with physical or mental disabilities continue to exist as a barrier to progress. We need to get out the truth, which is that most workers with disabilities require no special accommodations, while the cost for those who do is often minimal. Moreover, research amply shows that employees with disabilities have above-average records in attendance, job dependability, performance, and safety.

Breaking down these persistent attitudinal barriers requires a cooperative, sustained, and consistent effort. A new generation of young people with disabilities is growing up in America today-- graduating from high school, going to college, and preparing to participate fully in the workplace. These young people have a right to make the most of their potential. Likewise, America must make the most of their intellect, talents, and abilities.

So this month, as we celebrate the 60th anniversary of National Disability Employment Month, let us rededicate ourselves to breaking down the workplace barriers--physical and psychological--that continue to stand in the way of people with disabilities. Our goal must be to make the American dream accessible to all Americans.

We have no objections on this side.

Mr. President, what is the pending amendment or business before the Senate?

I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside and return to amendment No. 2283.

Mr. President, before I talk about this amendment that has to do with avian flu, I add my congratulations to the Chicago White Sox for a sterling performance--four straight games in the World Series--to congratulate the team, and to congratulate their owner, Jerry Reinsdorf. The last time the Chicago White Sox won

the World Series was 1917. Of course, they were the Black Sox at that time. And the outstanding performer during that 1917 classic was a guy by the name of Joseph Jefferson Jackson from Greenville, SC. Baseball fans and aficionados perhaps may not recognize his real name, but they will recognize the name Shoeless Joe Jackson.

In 1999, along with Senator Thurmond and Senator Hollings, we introduced a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It was accepted by the Senate. Commissioner Selig agreed to review the Shoeless Joe Jackson case to reinstate him to baseball. However, 6 years have passed and Mr. Selig has done nothing.

With the winning of the World Series by the Chicago White Sox, it is time to revisit this issue. In that regard, Senator DeMint from South Carolina and I have submitted a resolution. We will be talking about it later today at an appropriate time when Senator DeMint and I can both be on the Senate floor. I want Senators to know we have a sense-of-the- Senate resolution that Senator DeMint and I will be submitting similar to the one we offered in 1999 once again trying to honor one of baseball's all-time great players who suffered a great injustice at the hands of the then Commissioner Landis, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was a commissioner of baseball for almost 40 years. It was Commissioner Landis who banned Shoeless Joe Jackson from baseball, and robbed him of his rightful place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. We will have more to say about that later today.

I congratulate the Chicago White Sox on a great victory and thank my colleague and my friend from South Carolina for working to get this new resolution. Hopefully, we will take it up in the Senate this afternoon and pass it sometime this afternoon.

Mr. President, we have an amendment before the Senate that is crucial to maybe even our most basic survival as a nation, perhaps crucial to the survival of our economy and the future. I know that sounds like overblown rhetoric, but everyone has probably been reading lately about the threat of an avian flu pandemic. It has been on all the news magazines and all the news shows. Newsweek magazine last week had a very comprehensive expose or at least a delineation of the flu, how it is spread, how virulent it is, and what it can do to us. So I don't think it is overblown to say this perhaps could be the biggest threat our country has faced in the last 100 years.

As has been pointed out in numerous articles and I think elsewhere in the Newsweek article I referred to earlier, what this pandemic could do to us as a people is even more threatening than what a few terrorists could do and, as they point out, even a few terrorists with a nuclear- type device. This pandemic could literally--estimated by the experts, not by me--cause the death of anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million Americans, with tens of millions of Americans hospitalized without any capacity to take care of them. This would cause a disruption in our economy the likes of which we have probably never seen.

I have been involved in looking at avian flu for the last several years, tracking it and keeping in close contact with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. I always try to be careful we do not unduly alarm people. I don't want to put myself nor do I think we should put ourselves in the position of unduly alarming or generating a phobia that paralyzes our country, but alarm bells must be rung. The warning signs are there. We have to start preparing. The time for planning and thinking about it has passed. We have to do something immediately.

The amendment we are debating allows the United States to dramatically step up emergency preparations for an avian flu pandemic. Last month, I offered on the Defense appropriations bill a similar amendment that provided $3.9 billion to prepare for such a pandemic. At that time, we did not know when or if the Labor-HHS bill would ever come to the Senate. Obviously, this is the appropriate place for it since this appropriations subcommittee under the leadership of Senator Specter has jurisdiction over both the Department of Health and Human Services and also the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and also the National Institutes of Health.

Between last month when this amendment was adopted on the Defense appropriations bill and now, I have gone back to NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a number of drug companies involved in either vaccine production or the production of antivirals to get a better handle on what it is we need to do. Just what is it?

I will admit that in the first amendment, which I offered on the Defense appropriations bill, we were missing some information. But now we have that information. So the amendment we have before us today is a more robust version of that earlier amendment we had on the Defense appropriations bill which was adopted by the Senate. This version is based on more and better information.

There is a broad consensus in the scientific community as to the steps we need to take to get ready for a potential pandemic. Reflecting that scientific consensus, this amendment will do four broad things.

One, as our first line of defense, it will dramatically step up international surveillance of avian flu outbreaks overseas.

Two, it will ramp up our vaccine production infrastructure here in the United States.

Three, it will give us resources to build up both stockpiles of vaccines currently believed to be effective against avian flu as well as stockpiling antiviral medications that you take if, in fact, you get infected.

Fourth, this amendment will strengthen our public health infrastructure at the Federal, State, and local levels, which today is simply not equipped to cope with a major pandemic.

Some have suggested that we be patient and we wait for the administration to put forward a plan to fight avian flu. We have already waited too long. I am not saying we don't need a plan. We do need an action plan. But we have been warned for years. The first warning came in 1997 that an avian flu pandemic was not just possible but likely, just as we were warned for years that the levees in New Orleans would fail in the case of a major hurricane. Yet the Federal Government did not come forward with any plan of action. I am not saying this Government under President Bush. It was previous Federal Governments. We did not heed the warnings. As I might even say, we were warned in 1997 about a coming avian flu pandemic. Well, nothing was done then either. There is a lot of blame to go around. I am not blaming anyone. I am saying, look, we have turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to our warnings. Now we have to take action.

Within the last year, the threat of a pandemic has become even more urgent and immediate. The alarm bells are ringing at full volume, and we in Congress cannot in good conscience wait any longer. We need to act. If the administration offers a plan at a later date, that is fine. It will almost certainly have to include the elements we have in our amendment. We are all talking to the same people, after all.

But here is the thing. I do not know when they are going to come up with their plan. I do know at least there is talk around here that we are going to adjourn by Thanksgiving, finish our business, be out of here by Thanksgiving. Well, if the administration comes up with a plan next week, or the week after, and we are out of here, what happens in terms of needing the resources, the money? That is what we have.

Our responsibility as appropriators is to come up with the money. That is what this amendment does, so that if the administration does come up with a good action plan, we will not have lost any time. The money will be there, and we can move ahead as rapidly as possible.

There is no question the United States is woefully unprepared for a major outbreak of human-to-human transmitted avian flu. We have had clear warnings, as we did prior to 9/11, prior to Katrina, but, again, the Federal Government did not do anything. Now we have been warned in no uncertain terms about avian flu, but, again, under two administrations, nothing has happened.

As many of my colleagues know, avian flu--or H5N1, as it is called in the scientific community--has passed from

bird to bird and from birds to humans. We know of one specific case--we know of one specific case--where it went from human to human. Now, there may be others, but we do know of them. And we do know that 50 percent of the humans who have been infected with avian flu have died-- 50 percent. It has a 50-percent mortality rate. We also know another thing: Every chicken, every member of the poultry family that has been infected with avian flu dies--100 percent. This is a very virulent strain.

Experts in virology at the Department of Health and Human Services say it is only a matter of time before the virus mutates and human-to- human transmission becomes both widespread and sustained. That has not happened yet. We have had some cases of the avian flu jumping from a bird to a human. As I said, we have had one known case of it going from one human to another; and, I might add, both died. We have had no cases where the transmission is both sustained and pervasive, widespread, but the virologists say it is only a matter of time before that happens.

An outbreak in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, or anywhere such as that, could trigger within weeks a worldwide outbreak, facilitated by air travel, the mass movement of people across borders. As I said, 50 percent of the individuals who have been infected have died. You can envision a nightmare scenario, a kind of 21st century ``Black Death'' that is not difficult to picture. Indeed, most experts say it is not a matter of if but when.

Let me quote from an article that was in the recent Newsweek magazine of October 31, an article by Fareed Zakaria, entitled ``A Threat Worse Than Terror":

``A flu pandemic is the most dangerous threat the United

States faces today,'' says Richard Falkenrath, who until

recently served in the Bush administration as deputy Homeland

Security adviser. ``It's a bigger threat than terrorism. In

fact it's bigger than anything I dealt with when I was in

government.''

One makes a threat assessment on the basis of two factors:

the probability of the event, and the loss of life if it

happened. On both counts, a pandemic ranks higher than a

major terror attack, even one involving weapons of mass

destruction. A crude nuclear device would probably kill

hundreds of thousands. A flu pandemic could easily kill

millions.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Newsweek article be printed in the Record.

We have to ask some very tough questions now. Where do our preparedness efforts stand? What can we do better? We are facing a threat, a huge threat. We are doing nothing. We can do better. We must do better for the American people to prepare for an avian flu pandemic.

First, let's look at the issue of global surveillance, which is No. 1 in terms of the first part of our amendment that we have addressed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is doing a great job working in cooperation with the World Health Organization and governments in affected regions to detect the disease and to help stop its spread. Dr. Gerberding, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta--I don't know if she is getting any sleep now because this is topmost on their agenda. They are on the case.

Surveillance can alert us to an outbreak, and governments can then take measures to isolate the disease. This is our first line of defense. The sooner we identify and contain an outbreak of human-to- human transmitted avian flu virus, the better off we will be. To coin a well-worn phrase: It is better to fight them over there than to fight them here. It is better to stop H5N1, isolate it, contain it where it might break out, rather than having it transmitted and brought to other countries and brought to America.

Again, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention know how to do this. We had success with surveillance during the SARS outbreak a couple years ago. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention managed to control its spread. It never got to America. I think the closest it got, if I am not mistaken, was Toronto. But we also learned some invaluable lessons from the SARS episode. We learned we have to be prepared, that our surveillance efforts have to be more than they have been in the past.

Secretary Leavitt, who I know has also been on top of this, recently took a tour of Southeast Asia. He took Dr. Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Gerberding, and others. I

know they met with people in various parts of the governments of several countries in Southeast Asia.

What I heard back from that is, while the governments are willing to work with us, and to report and survey, a lot of times they do not have the capacity, they do not have the knowledge, they do not have the wherewithal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They could use our help. Many of these outbreaks of avian flu in those countries are in remote locations, and the central government may not have a lot of control over that.

If you take a small village where they have a lot of poultry, and maybe that is one of their major sources of livelihood, and where they do not understand the dimensions of avian flu and what it means, well, maybe they do not report it, or it may be reported in a minor way. We need people there on the ground who can move rapidly to the sites to see whether a case of avian flu has broken out.

As I understand it, the governments of these countries are willing to work with us to allow us to do that, but we do not have the resources to do that right now because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention simply does not have the money. That is what is in our amendment: to give the Secretary of Health and Human Services the money to be able to respond and get CDCP action prone, right now, in those countries.

Secondly, what is the status of our capacity to produce vaccines here in the United States? Unfortunately, the news is almost all bad. It is astonishing that the United States has one plant--one plant--capable of manufacturing flu vaccines. That plant happens to be in the State of our distinguished chairman, Pennsylvania. It is a great company. They do great work. I have met with them. They use one technology. It is egg-based technology. That is basically the technology we have been using for a long time in which to grow vaccines from a virus strain.

So since we only have that one plant right now, in the event of a worldwide pandemic, the U.S. would have to rely on imported vaccines, vaccines other countries may not be willing to ship to us. In other words, the first responsibility of any government is to protect its own people. If this pandemic ever breaks out, I doubt any other government is going to be willing to ship us vaccines. They are going to want it for their own people.

We are very vulnerable. We need to play some catch-up ball. The Federal Government needs to help private industry develop more vaccine manufacturing capacity. These should be next-generation cell-based facilities, which would then be capable of producing vaccines at twice the rate of egg-based facilities.

This is the only way we are going to be able to produce enough vaccine rapidly enough to deal with a major outbreak. Right now it is all egg-based. As I understand it, the manufacturing plant I mentioned is in the process of enlarging its capacity for egg-based vaccines. That is all well and good, but that still will not be enough to protect us in the future. It will not be sufficient to take a strain of the virus and develop a vaccine specifically for that virus in a short period of time. Some say it would take 2 to 3 years to produce a nonegg-based production capacity. I don't accept that. This is a matter of incredible urgency. We have already given one grant to a company--it is public, I can mention it--Sanofi Pasteur, which is the company based in Pennsylvania that already has a cell-based vaccine manufacturing plant which they are increasing. The Government has already given them a grant--it was under a competitive bid situation--to build a cell- based plant. That is all well and good. But we have to do a lot more than that. We need two or three on line being built now, not just one.

Our goal should be to have the research and production capacity to isolate a virus, convert it to a vaccine, produce enough vaccine for the American populace, all within a timeframe of 3 to 6, maybe 9 months at the most. We can do that. That can be done. We don't have the capacity to do it right now, and we are a long way from reaching that goal.

Again, keep in mind that H5N1, the strain of the virus that is there now, we have a vaccine for that. The National Institutes of Health, under the great leadership of Dr. Zerhouni and Dr. Fauci at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases--Dr. Fauci got a strain of the virus earlier this year. They then began a crash program to develop a vaccine. They have. That vaccine is now in clinical trials. It looks as though it is going to be pretty good against H5N1. But we have been warned by experts that H5N1 may not be the strain that comes here. It could be H5N2, N3, N4, N5, something else just as virulent. Experts believe the vaccine being developed will have some effect, perhaps, on different strains, but they can't be sure.

What we need is a vaccine manufacturing capacity, cell-based, so you can manufacture a vaccine in a hurry, so if a different strain were to hit here, we could again isolate the virus, develop the vaccine, and have a vaccine within 6 to 9 months, not just developed but also manufactured in sufficient capacity to vaccinate our people. That is also in our amendment.

I hasten to add that in our amendment, we don't specify exactly how this is to be done. We will leave that up to the Secretary--hopefully, working with us in a collaborative effort--to figure out the best way of doing it. The point is to get the money out there now, to know it is there, that we can move ahead with contractual relationships, cost- share agreements, guaranteed purchases, whatever it takes to get these facilities constructed in the shortest possible timeframe.

The third part of our amendment, we need an aggressive program of purchasing and stockpiling vaccines and antivirals. I just talked about vaccines. Vaccines are what you take to prevent getting the illness. Antivirals are what would you take if you get the illness so you don't get very sick. The World Health Organization a few years ago recommended that nations stockpile enough antiviral medication to cover at least 25 percent of the population. Guess where we are right now. One percent. We have enough antiviral medication to cover 1 percent of our people. Again, we have to play catch-up ball. Antivirals are the medications one would take if they get sick. It will prevent a lot of people from dying, help them get through the illness.

I had Senator Kennedy prepare this chart, which illustrates how unprepared we are. These are the stockpiles of antiviral medicine. Australia has enough for 20 percent of the population; Great Britain has enough for 25 percent, the World Health Organization recommendation; France has 25 percent; Japan is rapidly building up, they are at 17 percent. The U.S.A. is at 1 percent stockpile of medications. Again, if the pandemic hits here, are we going to go to Britain and say: Send us some of yours, or Japan or France or some other place? No. They are going to keep their antivirals for their own people. That is why we need to put the money out right now to begin the purchase of antivirals and to stockpile them. It has a long shelf life so we don't have to worry about it. That is the antivirals.

As for vaccines, we are facing a catch-22 situation. We won't be able to produce a vaccine until we actually see what the variant is, H5N1, H5N3, whatever it might be that causes the outbreak. Scientists at NIH have developed a vaccine for H5N1. They believe it will be effective against some of the future variants, but we don't know exactly how effective. It is the best we have. It will at least provide some protection. We should be stockpiling it now.

The fourth part of our amendment is the public health infrastructure. Right now our public health infrastructure is simply not capable of dealing either with an avian flu pandemic or even a major act of bioterrorism. Let's assume we build up adequate stocks of the vaccine. Let's say we are able to get a crash course and we can get up to 25 percent, like Great Britain, in our antivirals. Let's say we can do that in a short period of time. I believe we can, if we put the funds out there. Let's say we have all that. It is going to go for naught if we don't have a public health infrastructure to deliver it, to identify the people who need it, to make sure these drugs and antivirals and vaccines get out there.

One thing I am upset about--the President's budget for fiscal year 2006 proposed to cut $120 million from State public health agencies. That is the

wrong way to go. Our amendment doesn't just restore that; it goes a lot further. It is not enough just to restore the funding. That funding would basically take care of ``normal'' illnesses people get around the country. It wouldn't even come close if we had an outbreak of avian flu. We need to hire more public health professionals, epidemiologists, physicians, lab technicians, others. We need people who are trained and educated to recognize, to know how to isolate, to know how to put the rings around populations if avian flu breaks out, and how to distribute it, who gets these, who is the first line of individuals.

Someone is detected having avian flu; let's say they do get H5N1. How do we find out who that person came in contact with in the last 48 hours, track them down, get them the vaccines immediately, or the antivirals? Did the person work in a building that had central air- conditioning that could have taken the virus and spread it around? Who works there? Get them the antivirals and the vaccines immediately. This takes expertise. This takes people. This takes a knowledge base and education.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention know how to do it. They can do it for minor outbreaks now. But something this big, we need to do more to build up that public health infrastructure. In consonance with the public health infrastructure, we need to dramatically increase the surge capacity of hospitals all across the country. Most hospitals right now have trouble coping if we have a bad flu season with what we call ordinary flu. They would be overwhelmed by an avian flu pandemic.

Dr. Rick Blum, president of the American College of Emergency Room Physicians, recently said:

We have pumped billions of dollars into preparedness since

9/11, but virtually none of that has gone to the one place

where we know 80 percent of patients go first, [the emergency

room].

For example, most victims of avian flu would need ventilators to help them breathe. Right now there are only 105,000 ventilators in the entire United States, three-quarters of them in use on any given typical day. So we have to prepare for surge capacity. Where do the tens of millions of Americans go? Don't take my word. Ask the experts. That is what they are saying: a million to as high as maybe 10 million hospitalizations.

We have our work cut out for us. We face enormous technical and logistical challenges. We have no time to waste. This amendment would provide for nearly $8 billion for a comprehensive national effort to prepare in the ways I have outlined. More specifically, the total is divided up as follows: $3.080 billion would be allocated for stockpiling antivirals and the necessary medical supplies to deal with a pandemic once it has broken out; $3.3 billion would go to stockpiling flu vaccines, expanding the U.S. flu vaccine manufacturing capacity and for vaccine-related research; $600 million in additional grants to State and public health agencies for their own emergency preparedness; $750 million to improve hospital preparedness and surge capacity--where is the overflow going to go--and for health technology information networks; $60 million for stepped-up global surveillance--this would quadruple the current level of surveillance we have right now, our first line of defense--$75 million allocated for communication and outreach to the public in case of an avian flu pandemic.

Again, this is where you have to tread lightly. You want to get people informed. People should be understanding of this. If a case of avian flu were to break out in this country, we don't want panic to ensue. People need to be adequately informed and advised. This has to do with communications and outreach.

Lastly, $100 million will be channeled into research and CDC lab capacity related to an avian flu pandemic.

Now, this is about double what we had in the Defense appropriations bill almost a month ago. And the reason for that is simply because in the meetings we have had with Government officials, with drug companies, and others, it has become clear that the big gap in the amendment we offered earlier was the $3.3 billion in stockpiling flu vaccine and getting money out there to rapidly build cell-based technology through vaccine-manufacturing plants. We have to do that right away.

I know the analogy may not be correct, but when people say you can't do that in a big hurry, I say just think about the Pentagon over here, how big it is. Have you ever seen the Pentagon? We built the Pentagon in 9 months during World War II, by the way. Now, I know that vaccine manufacturing is not the same but, come on, we can do it. We can build the facilities. A lot of it is in equipment. But if the money is there, we know we can get the equipment built. Maybe we can't do it in 9 months, but don't tell me we can't do it within a year and a half, or at least have a couple on line within a year. That is really the big difference between this amendment and the one that was offered a month ago on the Defense appropriations bill.

Let me again sum up by saying this is the proper bill for it to be on. If we had had Labor-HHS earlier, we would have offered the amendment to that. This is the proper place for it. We do have the jurisdiction. It ought to be here. And, again, we are not tying the hands of the Secretary or anyone else. We are not being absolutely specific on how you do things in the amendment. We want the money to be there. When the administration comes up with their plan and they want to move ahead, it is there. We have 3 more weeks--I don't know how many weeks. Everybody tells us 3 more weeks. Let's face it, there are a lot of things happening in the administration--Supreme Court Justices, other things that are bouncing around here that divert attention. We cannot divert our attention. We cannot. We have to get this money out there and get it appropriated.

I will have more to say perhaps later on. I know there are other Senators who wish to speak on this amendment and about the threat of an avian flu pandemic. So I will yield the floor at this time and just say I hope we can have a strong vote or have this amendment accepted as we did under the Defense appropriations bill that was taken up earlier. And, again, this is emergency funding--emergency funding. It ought to be emergency funding. It is something we have to do. We just cannot wait any longer.

So I will yield the floor and ask any Senators who want to speak on this amendment to come over and speak.

Will the Senator just yield for a minute?

I want to respond by thanking the chairman and my good friend from Pennsylvania for his great leadership on this issue. You said it about me, but you have been the chairman. You have led this subcommittee. You know what is needed. You have been first and foremost in insisting that we get the funds necessary for both CDC and for NIH for this research.

I might just say again for public knowledge, obviously our chairman, the Senator from Pennsylvania, has to wear other hats. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee he has been tied up a lot on Supreme Court nominees, and I recognize he has had to deal with that on his side, in chairing that committee. It is an awesome responsibility, and I commend him for the work he has done, by the way. I thought the hearings on Judge Roberts were superb, and I commend my friend for his leadership in chairing that committee.

So we find ourselves in the situation now where we have asked for information in the past, but things happen around here and we move on and our focus gets diverted a little bit on this and that. That is human nature. I understand that. I hope we can hear back from the administration.

I say to my friend from Pennsylvania that I have no problem in modifying the amendment or whatever it might be that would say that the money is there. In fact, the amendment does not say how they would spend it. It would be there for them. If there is any way we can modify that, if they have some other ways on what to do, that is fine with me. I do not mind that at all. I am just concerned that we have it there so that we don't have to come back at some point and they can't say, well, we would do it, but Congress didn't appropriate the money.

I sure do not want to have that sitting on our plate, I say to chairman.

I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I ask consent to withdraw amendment numbered 2244.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 2283.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to send to the desk a modification of that amendment.

I ask that the amendment be so modified.

Mr. President, I also would ask that Senator Specter be made a cosponsor of this amendment.

Mr. President, this is the amendment that a lot of us talked about earlier that provides funding for a possible avian flu pandemic. We have worked a lot on both sides of the aisle. I especially thank our chairman, Senator Specter, for his guidance and leadership on this amendment, for working this out and, again, ensuring that we can move ahead to make sure this country is ready with the funds we need to provide for better global surveillance, to provide for stockpiling of antivirals and vaccines, for money that is going to be needed for building flu vaccine manufacturing plants and for making sure our public health infrastructure is adequate and that we have the surge capacity in hospitals. That is all in this amendment.

Again, I thank Senator Specter for his leadership on this amendment in working it out so that we can move to a voice vote on this amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, if my colleagues will withhold for just a second, I do not seem to have that amendment in front of me.

I do not have any objection to this amendment.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Is that on amendment No. 2262?

I believe in my conversations with both Senator Bingaman and Senator Hutchison that they agreed to a voice vote on this amendment. So I ask unanimous consent to vitiate the yeas and nays on this amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to bring up amendment No. 2259.

Mr. President, amendment No. 2259 is an amendment that was offered by Senator Bingaman and Senator Smith. This amendment funds money for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. It was mentioned earlier. I know that Senator Bingaman and others wanted a rollcall vote on amendment No. 2259. I believe all debate has transpired. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, pursuant to section 904 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, I move to waive the applicable sections of that act for purposes of the pending amendment and ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, again we are very close to finishing up this appropriations bill. There may be one or two other amendments. I am hopeful. Please come. I have been deceived by people saying they have a plane to catch, they have this or that. But those who have any amendments, if they haven't been over here--otherwise, I defer to my distinguished chairman.

I will.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California for offering this amendment and for being, if she doesn't mind my term, the watchdog. We all get wrapped up in a lot of things here. But I can't think of anything more important than what Senator Boxer is talking about right now. We know what is happening in this country. We know more and more people are being squeezed by the fact that we can't raise the minimum wage. They are being squeezed by the lack of adequate housing. They are being squeezed by entry-level jobs that they cannot get. There are all kinds of pressures on families.

We passed a law 10 years ago, Welfare to Work, to get people off of welfare to

go to work. We always knew that the one big component we never answered was, what do you do with the kids? It is both daycare and afterschool funding because these parents get home right away--usually single parents. We need the funding for the afterschool programs. If we want to cut down on teen crime and teen drugs, teen pregnancies, this is the way to do it. Senator Boxer is absolutely right. It is a shame we do not have the money for it. We should have.

I thank the Senator for offering this amendment. I hope, with the concurrence of our chairman, we can somehow find the money for this. I don't know where. It is tight. I know we have a tight situation. I cannot think of anything more worthy than this program.

I thank the Senator from California.

Parliamentary inquiry. The amendment is No. 2282 or No. 2280?

Mr. President, I have a modification to 2280, which I send to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following Senators be added as cosponsors to amendment No. 2283: Senator Reed, Senator Corzine, and Senator Conrad.

I want to thank my friends, the distinguished Senator from Georgia and the chairman, for their words and just take a moment to add my endorsement for this important program I am very proud of the role this subcommittee has played in the reduction of the arthritic pain and suffering experienced by so many Americans.

I am aware of this issue.

What does the Senator propose?

Yes, I also agree we need to make progress through a study on this issue. It certainly is not going away.

I too will work hard to make this happen since this is an issue important to the Senator and the Nation.

Mr. President, I know the distinguished Senator Byrd wants to speak for a while. I want to take a couple of minutes again to thank the staff, both Senator Specter's staff and my staff. They have worked together. I know Senator Specter mentioned them earlier, but I will mention them by name again because they should be mentioned: Bettilou Taylor, Jim Sourwine, Sudip Parikh, Mark Laiseh, Lisa Bernhardt, Candice Rogers, and Rachel Jones on the minority side. On the majority side: Ellen Murray, Erik Fatemi, and Adrienne Hallett.

They do a wonderful job, and they have done so this year, putting this bill together, I know staying up long nights and weekends, working this out.

Someone once remarked that Senators were a constitutional impediment to the smooth functioning of staff. Our staffs function very smoothly. They do a great job, and I hope we have not impeded them too much.

Last, I want, again, to pay my respects to our chairman, Senator Specter, who has done a magnificent job of putting a lot of competing interests together. This is a big bill. This covers the Department of Labor, the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, and a lot of independent agencies--the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health.

By the way, I especially want to thank Senator Specter for bringing us up on the National Institutes of Health by $1 billion more than what was in the President's budget. I think we met our obligations there.

I say to my friend and my chairman, it has been an honor and privilege to work with him all these years. We go back, I think, about 15 years now, working together. I could not ask for a better chairman of this committee. I could not ask for a better working relationship. Senator Specter has always been open and aboveboard to make sure we all know what is going on. It has been a real pleasure, a real joy to work with Senator Specter. I thank him for that and look forward to many more fruitful years of working together on issues that really matter.

Someone once said the Defense Appropriations Committee is the committee that defends America. The committee that funds Health and Human Services and Education and Labor is the committee that defines America. I happen to believe that this committee does define America, defines who we are, and what we are about as a people.

Under the able chairmanship of the Senator from Pennsylvania, we have defined, once again, that we are going to meet our obligations in those areas that make us a caring and compassionate and decent people. That is what is in this bill. Again, I thank Senator Specter for his great leadership.

Mr. President, I concur with my chairman in that regard. The only other observation I make, we are not encouraging a lot of amendments. We are just saying if you have amendments come over and do them this morning or this afternoon so we can finish up the bill, hopefully, by tomorrow. I know there are some important amendments-- Senator Byrd certainly has one coming up on title I--that we need to address in this bill.

Again, I am hopeful, if people do have amendments, that they will come over. And, again, Members need to know amendments have to be filed by 1 p.m. today to be considered under the cloture motion.

Mr. President, I understand that the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Reed, needs to make a modification to his amendment, and I know, also, the Senator from Washington, Mrs. Murray, wants to offer an amendment before we begin Senator Byrd's amendment. Senator Byrd has been kind enough to yield to them a few minutes so we can get that done before he proceeds on his amendment.

Mr. President, as always, it is a joy and interesting to listen to my friend and colleague, my chairman, talk about the past and what we have done together. He is

right, we have worked together closely. I followed his lead on a lot of things, such as when Arlen Specter, back in the mid-1990s, wanted to do double funding for NIH. He took the lead on that. I did what I could to help. And we got the job done under his great leadership.

So we have worked together on a lot of different things. And where we have had differences, we have had differences, but we have always been, I think, upfront and open about those differences. While I love Arlen Specter dearly, and respect him greatly, he is not my twin, he is not my clone, so we do have different ways of approaching things once in a while. And that is the way it ought to be around here. There should not be, as he said, this big gulf between us, but there ought to be an honest airing of differences of views on how we ought to approach things.

Take the Byrd amendment, for example. I stated earlier, when we first brought the bill to the floor, that Senator Specter had done a superb job, and he was always open with my staff and me in crafting and putting together this bill. I said when you are dealt a bad hand, you have to do the best you can. And Senator Specter did. So in terms of the bill itself and how it is crafted, I do not have problems.

What I have problems with is our allocation. That is where I have problems. Since I did not support the budget, I said at the time we laid the bill down the other day: Look, if people are going to come here with amendments that offset and jiggle things around in the bill, I will not support it because we worked very hard, Senator Specter worked very hard, to craft a bill that was fair in terms of what we had to deal with. So I would not support amendments which jiggle things around. But if someone has an amendment they want to offer which would not jiggle things around, but add money--which I understand takes 60 votes to waive the Budget Act--I am going to be for that because I don't agree with the Budget Act. I don't agree with what the budget calls for.

So I will support the Byrd amendment because he is not trying to take money from one pot and move it to another; he is saying the budget was wrong. We ought to waive it and put the money in.

Now, with all due respect, again, to my friend from Pennsylvania, in going back over the history of this, I wish to point out that the Byrd amendment only closes 50 percent of the gap between the authorization level and what is in the Senate bill.

I have here a chart that shows the authorization and the appropriations levels going back to fiscal year 2002. Senator Specter made mention there was an interim period there when our party was in charge for about a year, so we were in charge of the budget and the appropriations at that time.

I point out that at that point our appropriations were a little over 70 percent, maybe about 75 percent of the authorization level. Today, we are less than 40 percent of the authorization level. So what Senator Byrd has said is the authorization level is going up, our appropriations are staying flat. We now have this huge gap. We are trying to close this gap. It is not 100 percent. It is about 50 percent of closing that gap, and that would tend to bring us back to about where we were 3 or 4 years ago, in terms of the difference between the authorization level and the appropriations level.

Now, there is one other thing that happened during this period of time. The Congress passed something called No Child Left Behind, a new mandate on the States, a new mandate that States had to do in education. Now, I am on the authorizing committee for education. At that time, Senator Kennedy was our chairman. I can remember sitting at the White House, and I can remember sitting up here in meetings discussing No Child Left Behind, I say to my friend from West Virginia, and about what it was going to cost.

The White House, through their representatives, agreed on what level we would fund No Child Left Behind. Now, that was only authorization because it was an authorization bill. But we were told by the White House that they would meet these authorization levels. One of the reasons I voted for the bill, not that I was enamored with it, but I felt the White House had made a commitment they would fund No Child Left Behind at the levels we agreed to. We agreed with the White House: These levels? OK, yes, we agree at these levels.

Here they are. This level, right here, $22.75 billion for fiscal year 2006. That is what we agreed upon. Yet our appropriation for this year is $12.8 billion. That is why I said it is about--well, I said 40 percent. I made a mistake. It is a little over 50 percent. But in fiscal year 2002, we were at about 75 percent of funding, and that was at the beginning of No Child Left Behind.

So what Senator Byrd is trying to do is make us live up to what we had agreed to do, with both the White House and the States. I dare say, any Senator here who goes home and talks to their State government, talks to their school districts--go out and talk to your school districts and find out what they are saying about No Child Left Behind. They are saying: Wait a minute. You put all of these mandates on us. You said you were going to fund it. Now you are not, and now we are being penalized because we can't meet the goals of No Child Left Behind.

We have put them in kind of what they call a catch-22 situation: Darned if you do; darned if you don't. Either way, you lose.

So that is why I am supporting Senator Byrd's amendment. The budget needs to be waived. We need to meet our commitments on this.

Mr. President, I will yield to the Senator from Connecticut.

That is right.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Connecticut. He was also on the education committee and was involved in those discussions during No Child Left Behind. The Senator from Connecticut chaired the education subcommittee there, so he knows full well the commitments that were made at that time by the White

House and the Congress to fund it. Senator Kennedy was absolutely right, we are not doing what we agreed to do in this regard.

Mr. President, prior to yielding the floor, might I ask, what is the pending business before the Senate?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Byrd amendment be temporarily set aside. I have an amendment I send to the desk and ask for its consideration.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that we now return to the Byrd amendment and that it be the pending business of the Senate.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the vote on the Byrd amendment, Senator Dodd be recognized to offer his amendment, after which point there would be a vote on the Dodd amendment, after which point if there is a Republican amendment that is to be brought up and disposed of; if there is not, the Senator from New York be recognized at that point to offer her amendment, followed by a vote.

Madam President, before we proceed to the Dodd amendment, I believe the pending amendment is my amendment. I have a modification at the desk. I ask for its consideration.

I further ask unanimous consent that no second-degree amendments be in order on the Dodd amendment prior to the vote.

Mr. President, I join my chairman and support his views on this amendment. He correctly stated a lot of the history of how this has come about. Between the two of us, as we have alternated as chairmen of this subcommittee, it has been a strong bipartisan effort, not just between the two of us but on both sides of the aisle for a long time, to bring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta's facilities up to the 21st century.

I remember having gone down in the 1990s. I had seen this movie ``Outbreak'' starring Dustin Hoffman. It supposedly had taken place at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. I was quite taken by all of the containment facilities and how

modern it was in this movie, and I wanted to go down and see all this. Imagine my surprise when I went down to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and I asked to see these wonderful facilities that were in this movie and I was told the movie producers had come down to film the movie there, saw the facilities, and said no one would ever believe these ramshackle buildings are our Centers for Disease Control, so they went out and built their own movie set to make the movie.

I went around and looked at their buildings, some predating World War II, in which the most virulent specimens of viruses and other things were being dealt with. There was a tremendous concern about safety. We perhaps didn't think about it in terms we are thinking about it now, but in terms of terrorist activity, about someone being able to abscond with some of those very lethal strains, plus the environment for scientists to be able to work down there.

After looking at this and consulting with one another, and others, and with probably three administrations, Republican and Democratic, it was decided we needed to bring these buildings up to the 21st century. We embarked on that and we are about through bringing them up. They are state of the art, as they should be.

We have always prided ourselves in America of being on the leading edge--not on the edge, being way out in front of everyone in our medical research, but also in terms of the Centers for Disease Control. I don't know that there is any institution in America dealing with health and safety that is called upon more around the globe to do something than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whether it was SARS a few years ago--think about it. We prevented SARS from coming to America. We did. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did. They are called upon all over the globe, whether it is for Ebola, swine flu, of course now the avian flu, a pandemic that may be confronting us shortly.

These buildings need to be finished. We have the plan. We have gone through. We have had our oversight hearings and we found they came through on time and under budget, so I think we ought to finish it.

I would say the AIDS Drug Assistance Program the Senator is talking about is a good program. I have no problems putting money into those programs if they are good programs. But to take it from the Centers for Disease Control for that is--talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul, you are invading one entity that goes to control and prevent diseases and illnesses in America and putting it into another one. It doesn't make much sense. I think we ought to finish our projects, be proud of the buildings that are built there, be proud of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and what they do for America and for the world.

I am opposed to this amendment. We ought to finish the job we started on. I don't know about Japanese gardens. I don't know that much about gardens and stuff such as that. But, you know, if I might make a minor observation, I remember traveling through the Soviet Union years ago and looking at all the government buildings built in Moscow and places such as that, East Germany. They were stark, sterile, concrete block buildings. Who would ever want to work there? They were ugly; depressing. Is that what we want to build here?

As I said, I don't know much about Japanese gardens, but this is the premier facility in the world regarding health and disease prevention.

I understand that the building in question where this garden is--in fact, I went down and saw it. It is designed to emphasize healthy living. The stairs are located on exterior walls to increase daylight and to encourage daily physical activity. We talked about that with Dr. Gerberding. The green space around the building includes a stream fed by water runoff collected from the building to make the area inviting for exercise. I remember seeing that. I didn't think it was a Japanese garden; I thought it was a green space. But it is to get people out, exercise, walk more. As far as I am concerned, the more green space and the more daylight and the more exercise people get there, the better off we are. That is what they are preaching, right? They are preaching to us to do more exercise to stay healthy. I guess they are going to start doing that more on their own at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I understand what the Senator from Oklahoma wants to do here. If he wants to increase money for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, that is all well and good, but not at the expense of taking it away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

I have no objection.

Mr. President, this is the first time I have seen this amendment. This is setting up a congressional commission on expanding social service delivery options. I have no problem with that.

But the way it is spelled out and everything, I would ask the Senator from Pennsylvania, the author of the amendment, has this been brought up before the authorizing committee? Has there been any hearing on this? Has there ever been a hearing on this, or has the authorizing committee acted on this at all? This is authorization on an appropriations bill.

Again, I thank the Senator. I personally do not have any problem with it, but this is something I think--I always have a little question when any Senator, on this side of the aisle or that side, anywhere, has a pretty thick amendment that involves commissions and how you select commissions and what they do.

I have not even had a chance to read this amendment. I don't even know what is in it.

Again, I ask my friend from Pennsylvania, has this amendment, in its present form, been submitted to either the Finance Committee or the HELP Committee? They probably share jurisdiction there. Have they looked at it to see if there are any objections to this?

Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Pennsylvania--well, you have offered the amendment. That is fine. The amendment is at the desk. I wonder if we might put off voting on this amendment.

I would like to have the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee, and perhaps the HELP Committee because it perhaps crosses both--to have them at least take a look at it. If it is fine, then I do not care.

Mr. SANTORUM addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, am I correct, has the Senator from Pennsylvania laid down the amendment? Is the amendment at the desk?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be temporarily laid aside.

Mr. President, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania, if this can be given to the chairs and ranking members of those committees, to have them look at it, and if it is fine, then I have no objection. As I said, I have not had a chance to look at it, and it is not in my jurisdiction at all.

Well, I understand. I just hope the appropriate committee of jurisdiction has looked at it, too.

I have no objection.

It is my intention now that I would speak for 15 minutes, at which time I ask unanimous consent that I be able to yield the floor and Senator Kennedy be recognized for 15 minutes.

Mr. President, earlier today, on behalf of myself, Senators Kennedy, Reid, Durbin, Obama, Bayh, Kohl, Mikulski, Clinton, Johnson, Dayton, and Byrd, I laid down an amendment dealing with preparing this country for an avian flu pandemic. The amendment that we laid down today and that we will be voting on tomorrow will allow the United States to dramatically step up preparation for an avian flu pandemic.

Last month, I offered and the Senate approved an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill that provided $3.9 billion for preparation for such a pandemic. At that time, there was some discussion as to why we were putting it on the Defense bill; it should go on the Labor- Health and Human Services bill. At that time, we didn't even know if we would have this bill up.

Well, the bill is in the Chamber, and this amendment appropriately belongs on this legislative vehicle in our jurisdiction. So the amendment that was laid down that I offered earlier today is essentially a more robust version of that earlier amendment again based on more and better information we have obtained since that time.

There is a broad consensus in the scientific community as to the steps we need to take to get ready for a potential pandemic. Reflecting that scientific consensus, the amendment we have laid down will do four broad things.

First, as our first line of defense, it will dramatically step up international surveillance of avian flu outbreaks overseas.

Second, it will ramp up our vaccine production infrastructure here in the United States.

Third, it will give us the resources to build up stockpiles of vaccines that are currently believed to be effective against the flu as well as building up stockpiles of antiviral medications.

Fourth, it will strengthen our public health infrastructure at the Federal, State, and local level, which today is simply not equipped to cope with a major pandemic.

Some have suggested that we be patient, that we wait for the administration to put forward a plan to fight avian flu, but we have already waited

too long as a nation. We have been warned now for almost 8 years to get ready.

We had been warned about a lot of other things. We were warned for years that the levees in New Orleans would fail in the case of a major hurricane. Yet the Federal Government did not do anything. And the Federal Government has not come forward with any action plan now regarding the avian flu pandemic possibility. Even within the last year, as the threat of this pandemic becomes more urgent and immediate, there still is no plan.

So today, with the alarm bells ringing at full volume, we in Congress cannot in good conscience wait any longer. We need to act. If the administration offers a plan at a later date, that is fine. We will almost certainly include the basic elements encompassed here. We are all talking to the same people, whether it is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or NIH or the major drug companies. We know what we have to do. So if we take action now in this appropriations bill with the amendment we have offered, then we will have already passed an appropriation, we will not have lost any time, and we will be able to go forward as rapidly as possible.

There is no question the United States right now is woefully unprepared for a major outbreak of human-to-human transmitted avian flu. We have already had two disasters. We had 9/11, we had Katrina, we were unprepared for both despite clear warnings that we had.

Similarly, we have been warned in no uncertain terms about avian flu, but our preparations are inadequate. As many of my colleagues know, avian flu, or H5N1 as it is called in the scientific community, has passed from bird to bird. What started in a small area of Southeast Asia has now extended we know to as far away as Greece, Turkey, and Romania. Recently, one bird in Great Britain died and was examined and found to have H5N1. We know that the avian flu has been detected in Indonesia and in Japan and in the Philippines, in China, in Russia. It is only a matter of time before these migratory birds cross paths and the avian flu is now in Canada and the United States and South and Central America.

This is a virulent form of flu. One hundred percent of the birds, the chickens and the birds that have gotten this have died, 100 percent. Fifty percent of the humans who have come down with avian flu have died. Now, thus far we only know of one case, one certified case where the flu virus has gone from a human to a human. Only one case. But that has warned us that it is capable of doing so.

Now, it is not sustained, it is not widespread, but scientists tell us it is only a matter of time. And we do not know how much time we have. We know as we say it has killed 50 percent of the individuals it infected. A nightmare scenario, a kind of 21st century Black Death is not difficult to picture. Indeed, most experts say it is not a matter of if but when. So we have to ask some tough questions now: Where do our preparedness efforts stand? Can we do better?

First, look at global surveillance. The Centers for Disease Control is doing a great job working in concert with the World Health Organization and governments in affected regions to detect the disease and help stop its spread. This is our first line of defense-- surveillance and quarantine in the area in which it occurs. The sooner we can identify it and quarantine it, the better off we will be. To put it in other terms, better to find H5N1 over there than home.

The good news is we have experience. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention kept SARS from coming to the United States with this procedure. But we do not have adequate personnel, we do not have the resources in place in other countries to make sure that we detect as rapidly as possible an outbreak of avian flu. We can and we must do better to protect our people.

Second, the status of our capacity to produce vaccines in the United States, unfortunately, is all bad news. It is astonishing when we tell people we only have one plant in America capable of producing flu vaccines. And that plant uses an egg-based technology. Right now, in the event of a worldwide pandemic, the United States would have to rely on imported vaccines, vaccines that other countries might not be willing to send to us. After all, the first responsibility of any government is to protect its own people, and if this pandemic starts, every government is going to want to protect its own people first. So we are vulnerable. We are playing catchup ball. We need to help private industry develop more vaccine manufacturing capacity, and we need to do it in a way in which we can produce enough vaccine rapidly to deal with a major outbreak.

Some say it would take many years to produce a non-egg-based, cell- based production capacity. I don't accept that. This is a matter of incredible urgency. We have to do better, and we can do better. Our goal should be to have research and production capacity to isolate a virus, convert it to a vaccine, produce enough vaccine for nearly 300 million Americans, and do it within 6 to 9 months. Right now we are a long way from reaching that goal. This amendment we have offered will put the money forward to get that process moving rapidly to develop cell-based technology for the production--the rapid production--of vaccines in this country.

Third, as I mentioned, we need an aggressive program of purchasing and stockpiling vaccines and antivirals. Unfortunately, the United States is way behind. I am indebted to Senator Kennedy for producing this chart. I want to show it here. The World Health Organization a few years ago suggested that countries stockpile at least 25 percent antivirals to cover their population. Look what some other countries did: Australia, 20 percent; Britain, 25 percent; France, 25 percent; Japan, 17 percent; the United States, 1 percent. We only have enough antivirals to cover 1 percent of our people. It is unconscionable. So we need to play catchup ball here also. We need to stockpile--and that is what this amendment will do--to provide the funds to begin to ramp up the production of these antivirals.

Roche is a drug company. I met with them. They publicly announced-- they hold the patent; they produce most of it overseas--they are willing now to let other generic companies produce this under license to them.

We need to get the money out there right now to buy them from those companies so they can start producing the antivirals now. Not next year; now. That is what this amendment provides.

Fourth, and last, public health infrastructure. Right now our public health infrastructure is simply not capable of dealing with either a bird flu pandemic or even an act of bioterrorism. Even if we had an adequate stock of vaccines or antivirals, what good does it do if we don't have the public health infrastructure to identify, isolate, and deliver the antivirals and the vaccines?

Again, the President's budget this year cut $120 million from State public health agencies. This amendment does not just restore that. We need to do a lot more than that. We need to make major new investments. We need to hire more public health professionals--epidemiologists, physicians, lab technicians, and others.

We also need to dramatically increase the surge capacity of hospitals. As Dr. Rick Blum, the president of the American College of Emergency Room Physicians, recently said:

We've pumped billions of dollars into preparedness since 9/

11, but virtually none of that has gone to the one place

where we know 80 percent of patients go first.

The emergency room--if we have an avian flu pandemic, that is where people will go. And most victims of avian flu might need ventilators to help them breathe. Right now there are only 105,000 ventilators in the entire United States, and three-quarters of them are in use on any given day.

We have our work cut out for us. We face enormous technical and logistical challenges, and there is no time to waste. The time for planning and planning and planning and planning is over. It is now time to act. This amendment would provide, as I said, nearly $8 billion for a comprehensive national effort to prepare our people for an avian flu pandemic. I know that sounds like a lot of money, but keep in mind, it is less than 2 months of our expenditures on the war in Iraq. When this avian flu pandemic--I don't say if; when. Scientists tell us it is not a question of if, it is a question of when. When it hits, we have to be ready to protect our people. That is what this amendment does.

Again, I hope as we move forward we can get this amendment adopted and get the money out there. It does not have to be spent now. It is at the Secretary's discretion, but at least it is there and they can move on it rapidly to do what we all know is necessary to protect our people in this country.

I have used my 15 minutes. I want to reserve 15 minutes for Senator Kennedy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate my chairman's remarks. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for yielding a couple of minutes.

Here they go again. Every year, Senators on that side of the aisle say they want to increase funding for LIHEAP and other things, but they want to take it out of other programs. These amendments are phony. These across-the-board cuts will never get passed into law.

My good friend from New Hampshire says: Well, it is just 1 percent or just 2 percent or whatever it might be. Let's take a look at what the Senator from New Hampshire's cuts really mean. He said it will not affect anybody. Well, it is a .98-percent cut. That does not sound like much, but in terms of No Child Left Behind, it means that 39,400 kids will not be served by title I. I guess they do not count. It means that we will cut special education by $105 million. It means that 9,300 Head Start kids will not get Head Start programs. That is why this amendment is phony. That is why we have to adopt the Reed amendment.

Again, the Senator from New Hampshire always said he wanted to increase funding for special education. Right now the Federal Government is paying 18.6 percent of the excess costs of special education. We are supposed to go to 40 percent. Under Senator Gregg's amendment, the share will drop to 17.8 percent. We will go in the wrong direction. So we will never reach the goal of full funding for special education if we adopt the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire. So do not be fooled by these across-the-board cuts. It hurts people. It hurts poor kids. It hurts special education. And it hurts title I kids. We do not want to hurt them in order to give money for low-income elderly so they can buy heating oil and pay their gas bills this winter. That is unfair. It is unconscionable. The best way to go is to adopt the Reed amendment.

I thank the Senator for yielding.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 2232

Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Georgia.

Parliamentary inquiry: How much time remains?

I ask for 5 seconds.

To my colleague, we will be calling up amendment No. 2259 later on to add $74 million to the ADAP program, but we will not take it out of CDC. That is the amendment we ought to vote for.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment now be laid aside.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 2228

Mr. President, I now call up an amendment by the Senator from Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy, on women's employment data. I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent on behalf of Senator Kennedy to send a modification to the amendment to the desk. It changes the date, it looks like, from August to June.

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 2244

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

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Jacob Cilek of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of today's session.

I ask unanimous consent that Matt Ryno of my staff be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of today's session.

If the distinguished chairman would yield, I am sorry I was off the floor momentarily, but did the Senator from Pennsylvania do anything about the amendment that is pending?

Mr. President, I rise today to recognize National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and call for quick passage of the Breast Cancer Environmental Research Act. Breast Cancer is a disease that has impacted virtually every American's life, including my own. My two sisters both had breast cancer and died of the disease. Sadly, they contracted breast cancer at a time when regular mammograms and improved treatment methods were not widely available. More than 3 million women are currently living with breast cancer, and each year, tens of thousands of women die from this disease.

In 1992, I offered an amendment to dedicate $210 million in the Defense Department budget to begin the Breast Cancer Research Program, a partnership between the military, medical, and breast cancer survivor communities to develop and implement innovative research towards the goal of curing and eliminating breast cancer. This funding was in addition to the funding for breast cancer research conducted at the National Institutes of Health. My amendment passed and overnight it doubled Federal funding for breast cancer. Since then, funding for breast cancer research has been included in the Defense Department budget every year.

Almost a decade ago, when I looked into the issue of breast cancer research, I discovered that barely $90 million was spent on breast cancer research. Today, I am proud to say that between the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly a billion dollars annually is being spent on finding a cure for breast cancer. Scientific researchers are making exciting discoveries about the causes of breast cancer and its prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment and control, leading to real progress in our war against this devastating disease. We know better than ever before how a healthy cell can become cancerous, how breast cancer spreads, why some tumors are more aggressive than others and why some women suffer more severely and are more likely to die of the disease.

However, our work is not done. While important advances have been made, we still do not know what causes this disease, or how to prevent it. Today, I call upon my Senate colleagues to cosponsor the Breast Cancer Environmental Research Act, legislation modeled after the Defense Department's Breast Cancer Research Program. The Breast Cancer Environmental Research Act would establish eight centers to conduct research on environmental factors that may contribute to breast cancer and, importantly, would require collaboration with community organizations in the areas where the centers are established. I strongly believe any breast cancer research must include the perspectives of breast cancer survivors, and this legislation does so by including consumer advocates in the peer review and programmatic review process. In addition, the legislation is structured to ensure the kind of efficiency and public accountability that has made an overwhelming number of Senate colleagues, as well as scientists and consumers, so supportive of the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. I urge my colleagues to support the Breast Cancer Environmental Research Act.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that William Viner be granted the privilege of the floor during the duration of today's session.

Yes.

Mr. President, if the distinguished chairman will yield to allow me to respond to that, I say to my friend from Pennsylvania that I think it may be a bit early. I think there are Senators still coming back from their travels in their home States. We want to give them time to get back here.

Someone told me there was a vote on a couple of judges at 5:30. I think after that we have to take a look and see how many amendments there are, if I am not mistaken.

I thought the chairman was going to offer a cloture motion tomorrow. If we have third reading, the chairman can't file a cloture motion.

There may be a point in time when I would agree with the chairman on this. It is Monday, and I know people are working diligently in their States, and they are headed back. There may be a couple of amendments that Members want to offer. I think perhaps 4:15 might be a little early for third reading.

But if the chairman will yield further, I believe the chairman is right. It is Monday. We are in business. Senator Frist, the majority leader, said that

we are going to be doing business today. If Members have amendments, they should come over and offer them. I agree with the chairman. It is ridiculous to sit here in quorum calls when we have an important bill like this and Members have amendments.

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

Mr. President, are we under a time limit right now?

Mr. President, I am going to speak on the Reed amendment, and I ask to be recognized to speak at this time.

Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the amendment offered by Senators Collins and Reed to add $3.1 billion in emergency funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. I emphasize this is, indeed, emergency funding, not to come out of something else but emergency funding because it really is a crisis.

During the cold winter months, LIHEAP is indispensable for low-income families, people with disabilities, and seniors on fixed incomes. Last Friday, I held a roundtable discussion in Hiawatha, IA, to hear firsthand from some of these citizens. They are not just concerned about high home heating costs this winter, they are right now almost in a state of panic. They told me they face a choice between staying warm and cutting back on necessities, such as medical care and prescription drugs.

Their testimony is backed up by hard data. According to a statewide Iowa survey, more than 20 percent of households receiving LIHEAP report going without medical care or prescription drugs. More than 10 percent reported going without food in order to pay their heating bills, and those numbers are going to skyrocket this winter.

Last winter, about 86,000 Iowa households received an average of $317 in LIHEAP assistance. Most years, everyone who applies gets some level of assistance, but this year we are headed for big problems. As I learned in Hiawatha, the applications for home heating assistance have jumped by 50 to 70 percent this year. The director of the local Community Assistance Program that administers LIHEAP in that part of Iowa told me that LIHEAP funds are likely to be exhausted by mid- January, right in the dead of winter. Community services agencies all across America are being deluged with calls from panicked senior citizens and others who don't know how they are going to pay their bills or heating bills. Many have had their utilities cut off and cannot make past-due payments to get them turned back on. Others are being threatened with cutoffs just as we head into winter. This is something I learned in Hiawatha, but not too many people here know. The Catch-22 situation is this: If your gas or electricity has been cut off, then you do not qualify for LIHEAP. Let's say you are someone who has a past bill that you have not paid; they say, We are not going to deliver your home heating oil, you cannot qualify for LIHEAP.

So we are facing a real crisis. We know what the price of fuel oil has done and what the price of natural gas has done. In Iowa, I heard that heating oil has doubled since last year, and natural gas has gone up by almost 50 percent. It will not be unusual to have a $400 or $500 increase in an average heating bill this winter. For an elderly person, a low-income family, and people with disabilities, that is not a problem, it is a catastrophe. It boggles my mind that in the face of this overwhelming need, President Bush's budget proposed to cut LIHEAP funding by nearly 10 percent.

We have been given abundant warning that local LIHEAP funding will be running out, as I said, as early as the middle of January. But earlier this month, we voted down an amendment to provide a boost in emergency funding. Last week, a reporter asked the Secretary of Energy, Mr. Bodman, if the administration plans to ask Congress for more funding for LIHEAP, given the big runup in energy costs. Secretary Bodman answered:

At least at this point in time, that's not on the agenda.

LIHEAP may not be on Secretary Bodman's agenda, and it may not be on the President's agenda, but it is on the Senate's agenda. We have an obligation to do the right thing, to make sure our senior citizens and those with disabilities are not left out in the cold.

Again, we have to do the right thing. We have to do what is fair. We know what has happened to the price of heating oil and natural gas and electricity. We know from the past how many people use LIHEAP and depend on it. It does not take a genius to calculate that we have to come up with more money this year or people are going to get cut off. What are we going to do? Are we going to wait until January when all of a sudden we get reports about people being cut off? And we will not even be here; we will be out of session. I suppose we will come back the third week of January.

We can do better than this. We have to do better. America can do better than this. We are a better people than that. We need to support this amendment to provide this emergency funding so those who need the help the most are not left out in the cold. People are concerned. They are worried. They don't know what they are going to do. The least we can do today is say: Don't worry, we are going to put the money in for LIHEAP; you are going to be able to buy your gas, pay your electricity bills, and stay warm this winter.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the ranking member for his leadership on this issue and so many issues that affect working families in America. Senator Kennedy has been trying for years to get some measure of justice for the working poor in this country, trying to get the minimum wage raised. Senator Kennedy has been out here each of the last 7 or 8 years trying to get this done. Every year the other side turns him back. But this year we cannot turn him back. We have to adopt this increase, this modest increase in the minimum wage.

We debated this amendment by Senator Kennedy last March on the bankruptcy bill, to raise the minimum wage. It failed on a largely party-line vote 46 to 49.

We are back at it again. You would think after what we saw with Hurricane Katrina, where the mask was ripped off of George Bush's America, an America where the poor are out of sight and out of mind, you would think that Katrina brought home to us that they are very much present all over this country. By the poor, we don't mean those who are just not working, who are loafing or sloughing off; these are people who work. They go to work every day. They work hard. They try to raise their families. Yet, our minimum wage law says they are only worth $5.15

an hour, the same wage it was over 8 years ago. We have not raised it in 8 years.

Thirteen percent of our people are living in poverty. I say to my friend from Massachusetts, there is always this talk about all the people who got off of welfare in the last decade. They may have gotten off of welfare but they didn't get out of poverty. They are the working poor. They are working every day but they are not out of poverty. They may be off of welfare but they are not out of poverty.

You would think those of us here in the Senate who have had our pay increased several times over the last 8 years to adjust for the increased cost of living would at least raise theirs. Right now minimum wage workers are earning $10,712 a year. I don't know if any of you have ever read the book by Barbara Ehrenreich called ``Nickel and Dimed,'' where she went out and tried to live on minimum wage jobs and what it was like. I commend it for your reading. It will give you an idea of what people go through as they try to work and raise their families.

We keep hearing the age-old argument. I have heard it every time in the last 30 years I have served in both the House and Senate every time the minimum wage comes up: These are teenagers flipping hamburgers; nobody else makes that.

But we know what the facts are. Facts are stubborn things. We have a lot of doubt--don't trust me, trust your own Department of Labor. Trust the one that is run downtown right now. Here is what they will tell you: 35 percent of those earning the minimum wage are their family's sole breadwinner--35 percent. It doesn't sound like a teenager flipping burgers to me.

Sixty-one percent are women and one-third of those are raising children--61 percent of those are women. This is a women's issue, too, when you think about it. Most of them are stuck. Many of them are single parents. Many of them are not receiving child support, and they are doing their darnedest to raise their kids. They are working and they are making $5.15 an hour.

Last March, when we voted on the Kennedy minimum wage increase, there was talk that the Senate Finance Committee would move a markup of a welfare reauthorization bill. I heard the words on the other side of the aisle--let's not do it now; we will wait for welfare reauthorization. We have been waiting. There is no welfare reauthorization bill. There is none.

So now is the time to do it. We cannot wait any longer and neither can the working poor. The minimum wage needs to be raised to a level that is not just a subsistence wage but a wage that respects work, honors work, and rewards work at a reasonable level.

Listen to this: Franklin Roosevelt, when we passed the first minimum wage law in the 1930s and Republicans were opposed to it--I assume that comes as no surprise to anyone here--President Franklin Roosevelt said:

No business which depends for existence on paying less than

the living wages to its workers has any right to continue in

this country.

He went on to say:

By living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level.

I mean the wages of a decent living.

President Franklin Roosevelt had it right. America can do better than what we are doing right now, a poverty wage of $5.15 an hour.

Senator Kennedy went over some things I think bear repeating when you look at what is happening.

I was in Iowa this weekend. What I am hearing more than anything else is the cost of natural gas prices, heating oil prices double. I heard testimony from a man that his heating oil prices have doubled.

Low-income people have to go pay their heating bills.

There is another little quirk in the law. The Senator from Massachusetts mentioned the LIHEAP program. We need to put money in the LIHEAP program. There is a little quirk in the law that even I didn't know about, and I have been working and supporting LIHEAP for all these years. If you are cut off of your supply, you are then ineligible for LIHEAP. Imagine that.

Let us say you get heating oil. It is a deliverable commodity. It is not like a natural gas pipeline. Let us say you can't pay your bills. You have some bills left over, you can't pay them, and they refuse to deliver heating oil to your home. You are not now eligible for LIHEAP. That is right. You have to get the money upfront.

That is what we are trying to get, more money for LIHEAP. Yet the other side will not allow us to do so. I had testimony from a young mother who got LIHEAP in this past year. You hear these stories. They tear your heart out. She is a single mother with a small baby. She said because they ran out of money, she put her baby in the bathtub in the small bathroom with a space heater during the day. Then at night, she puts her baby in two snowsuits and covers her up hoping that they would be warm all night as she put her in bed next to her.

Real people live this way. It is hard for some of us to imagine. Real people live that way. They are making the minimum wage. That is what she was making, minimum wage.

If you look at the price of gas, up 74 percent; health insurance, up 59 percent; housing, up 44 percent; college tuition, up 35 percent, yet the minimum wage is stuck where it was 8 years ago. Who can afford to pay all of these increases? Obviously, if you are one of these big corporate CEOs, here is where you are, up here. Here is where workers' wages and benefits are, down here.

Listen to this. I don't mean to pick on any one person. Mark Hurd took over as CEO of Hewlett-Packard in March of this year. He may be a fine, decent person. I do not know. I am casting no aspersions on him. I am just talking about what he got: an employment agreement worth $20 million in cash, stock, and perks. Included in his pay package was a $2 million signing bonus, a $2.7 million cash relocation allowance, free housing for a year, and a 4-year mortgage interest subsidy.

With housing costs up 44 percent in the last 4 years, imagine what it would mean to a low-income family to have a year's worth of rent or mortgage-free housing. Imagine that. But Mr. Hurd, who got $20 million, got that.

In 1999, Mercer Human Resources Consulting began tracking the proxy statements of 100 major U.S. corporations. In 2004, according to Mercer's survey, CEO bonuses rose 46.4 percent to a median of $1.14 million, the largest percentage gain and the highest level in the last 5 years. CEOs in this study enjoyed median total direct compensation of $4,419,300 per year. That CEO compensation figure in excess of $4 million is 160 times the income of the average U.S. production worker last year.

All we are asking for is a paltry $1.10 increase in the minimum wage. You would think this would be adopted unanimously in the Senate.

So you can see the ``suits'' are taking care of themselves in our society. But the working poor, forget about it. They are left on the side of the road in the shadows.

President Bush in New Orleans after Katrina said: ``We should confront poverty with bold action.''

Where is the bold action? Where is the strong voice in the White House asking this Congress to step up to the plate to increase the minimum wage and do what is right. You have just the opposite. We have the White House supporting the Republicans in the Senate saying no to this small increase in the minimum wage.

I think it is unconscionable. Have we in the Senate finally joined the Neiman Marcus crowd? Have we become so totally insulated from real families who shop at Wal-Mart and Kmart? Have we become so insulated from families who struggle to get by day after day that we can't even see the necessity of raising the minimum wage $1.10 an hour? Is that what we have become? I certainly hope not.

I am sorry that somehow it becomes a partisan issue. It should not be a partisan issue. I would have thought the other side would join and say, yes, we have to do this together. We wouldn't be standing here having this debate.

I urge my colleagues to support the Kennedy amendment. It is the right thing to do. It is long overdue. I hope when people come to vote they think of those families out there who have nowhere else to turn.

If we don't increase the minimum wage, they are going to be colder this winter, they are going to be sicker, they are going to go to the emergency

rooms, and we will pick up that tab, too. Their kids are going to be less healthy. They will not learn as well in school. Anxiety levels will rise and families will disintegrate.

To me, raising the minimum wage is a small price to pay for domestic tranquility, to say to those 37 million Americans out there--as I said, most of whom are women, many of whom raise families on the minimum wage--we can do better, and we have to do better.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I thank my leader and my colleague from Massachusetts, not only for today but for all of the battles he has waged for so many years on behalf of basic justice and fairness for America's working families.

I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for yielding me this time. I thank him for his great leadership on this and many other issues of basic justice.

Mr. President, I have about 5 minutes at the most.

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill. I have an amendment to send to the desk.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, in June of 2004, an article appeared in the Des Moines Register outlining serious systemic abuses of the section 8 program by a number of wealthy athletes at the University of Iowa. For example, Brian Ferentz, a Hawkeye football player, was found to be living in subsidized housing despite the fact that his father, Kirk Ferentz, lives in a million- dollar mansion in the same town and is paid $2 million a year to coach his team. To add insult to injury, Brian's scholarship actually included a $700-per-month stipend for housing, yet he was living in section 8 housing.

After reading about this abuse, I immediately wrote to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, urging him to close this loophole, which was the unintended consequence of a 1995 regulation allowing students to qualify for section 8, in order to help people of modest means have a chance at an education and to better themselves. Unfortunately, HUD's response was far from adequate. HUD's solution allowed students who live away from home for just a year into the program, if their parents stopped claiming them on their taxes. It is a pretty easy calculation to see that a simple deduction is worth less than a year's rent, so it is easy for parents to decide to stop claiming their otherwise dependant children in order to save money.

Fortunately, language was included in the final omnibus appropriations bill last year closing a little more of this loophole. It said that if you get an athletic scholarship, anything above tuition should be counted as income. Unfortunately, this doesn't go far enough. This doesn't address people who are getting housing stipends from other kinds of scholarships, and doesn't address students whose millionaire parents decided not to claim them on their taxes, but have those kinds of resources available to them.

Recently, the Des Moines Register took another look at who is living in the notorious housing project that has housed so many student athletes in the past. The problem is still there, in full force, well over a year after my first letter to HUD. The Register's Lee Rood reported the following:

While other students foraged this month for new apartments,

at least three dozen Hawkeye athletes--many of whom receive

$6,560 annually for room and board as well as free tuition--

returned to one of the best low-rent housing deals in this

notoriously high-rent city: Pheasant Ridge Apartments.

It is time to solve this problem once and for all. These students are taking up housing that is meant for truly needy people--people who typically have to wait 2 years for housing assistance, despite the fact that they may have the means to pay rent.

My amendment would simply require students' parental income to be considered in determining their eligibility unless they are independent students under the same qualifications that the Department of Education uses in their Free Application for Student Financial Aid. That is to say, students' parental income would count against them unless they are over age 24, married, have kids, or are veterans. Further, it would require a student's scholarship above the cost of tuition to be counted as income.

Clearly, students who are truly needy should have access to section 8. Help with housing often makes the difference between being able to get an education and not being able to make ends meet. However, kids whose parents have the means to help them should not be living in this housing. And if they are getting a housing stipend, some of it should actually be spent on housing. That's all I ask.

We cannot allow our system to be abused by people who take taxpayer dollars inappropriately, and then go off to sign multimillion-dollar NFL contracts. People who do need the help--including our most frail elderly, people with disabilities, and genuinely disadvantaged folks-- are getting displaced. This has been going on for well over a year, and despite pleas to HUD to fix this, the abuse has not stopped. There is no other way to put a quick end to this fraud. My amendment will end it with the stroke of the President's pen.

This amendment will finally close all those loopholes.

I thank the manager of the bill and the ranking member for their consideration. I urge acceptance of this amendment.