Floor Statements

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the Department of Defense authorization bill, Senators Warner and Levin, for their assistance earlier this week in adopting an important amendment. I offered the amendment, now a provision of this bill, to express the sense of the Senate concerning programming on American Forces Radio and Television Service, AFRTS.

As my colleagues know, for American service members and their families stationed in more than 177 countries and U.S. territories around the world, as well as for DOD civilians and their families, AFRTS is intended to broadcast a ``touch of home'' by providing programming that reflects a cross section of what is widely available to stateside audiences. According to the AFRTS website, its programming is meant to ``represent what is seen and heard in the United States.''

I support AFRTS in its mission. Making U.S. entertainment and news programming available to American service members wherever they are located is important for their morale and to keep them informed. I believe the fiscal year 2004 funding level of $47 million for AFRTS is justified.

Several weeks ago, however, it came to my attention that the programming on one AFRTS service--its ``uninterrupted voice,'' or talk radio, service--has what I consider to be a political bias in its social and political commentary.

For the information of my colleagues, the radio broadcast component of AFRTS, which is American Forces Radio, consists of 13 channels, or ``services.'' Seven of these radio services focus on music, with news briefs at the top of every hour. Two are continuous news information services. One service broadcasts National Public Radio 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Two services are continuous sports talk. The final service is what the network calls uninterrupted voice service, or talk radio service.

Based on conversations between my staff and personnel at AFRTS, I believe the bias that exists in the social and political commentary portions of this talk radio service is not intentional. I commend the openness of American Forces Radio officials in the dialogue we have now begun on this topic. But in my view the bias in this programming is real.

Public criticism of American Forces Radio content has focused on the fact that Rush Limbaugh's commentary is carried daily on the talk radio service. I generally do not agree with Rush Limbaugh's commentaries. But I do not object to the fact that they are run on a daily basis on this service. Some people do object. However, what I do take issue with is the fact that there is no commentary on the service that would even begin to balance the extreme right-wing views that Rush Limbaugh routinely expresses on his program.

Critics have specifically cited Rush Limbaugh's use of his show to condone and trivialize the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. As many of my colleagues know, and as has been pointed out previously here on the Senate floor, Mr. Limbaugh reportedly likened the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib to a fraternity initiation. He called some of the abusive tactics a ``brilliant maneuver.'' I think the critics are right. Limbaugh's remarks--and there are many more offensive remarks by Mr. Limbaugh on this topic than I have mentioned here--are repugnant. They do damage to the American image when they are heard around the world. I would guess that Limbaugh's comments on Abu Ghraib also probably offend a large majority of American service members.

Still, I am not calling for American Forces Radio to pull Rush Limbaugh's commentaries from their talk radio service. I am asking, and I am pleased that the Senate is now on record asking, that AFRTS meet its own mandate, as generally articulated in Department of Defense Regulation 5120.20R. That regulation calls for AFRTS political programming that is ``characterized by its fairness and balance,'' as well as news programming guided by a ``principle of fairness'' that requires ``reasonable opportunities for the presentation of conflicting views on important controversial public issues.''

Liberals, moderates and independents contribute to funding for American Forces Radio through payment of their taxes, just like conservatives do. There is no reason that American service members should receive lengthy right-wing commentaries with regularity on American Forces Radio's talk service, without some balance from competing views as part of that same service. For the good of its listeners, and to meet its own mandate, American Forces Radio needs to make a greater effort to give a balanced, fair representation of varying political viewpoints on its talk radio service.

In conversations with my staff, individuals at AFRTS have said that their programming of Rush Limbaugh on the talk service is driven strictly by national ratings here in the States. That was not the position taken by a DOD official on CNN earlier this month, however. According to news coverage posted on CNN.com, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber has said that the appropriateness of content is a factor in deciding what commentaries are broadcast on American Forces Radio.

I agree with the Deputy Assistant Secretary's statement. Content is a factor in deciding which commentaries to run on American Forces Radio. At the same time, I also agree with stated AFRTS policy. There should be fairness and balance in political programming on American Forces Radio.

My amendment in no way prescribes specific content or programming at AFRTS. That is not the role of the Senate. What my amendment does do, appropriately, is state that it is the sense of the Senate that the Secretary of Defense should ensure that AFRTS policies of fairness and balance are being fully implemented. The amendment calls on the Secretary to develop appropriate methods of oversight in this regard. I look forward to working with the Department and others to see that AFRTS meets these proper goals.

Mr. President, it is with a sense of sorrow that I rise today to speak about the practice of abusive and exploitative child labor, as well as to recognize World Day against Child Labor, which occurred on June 12. Unfortunately, hundreds of millions of children are still forced to work illegally for little or no pay. The International Labor Organization has set aside this day to give a voice to these helpless children who toil away in hazardous conditions.

We should not only think about these children on June 12. We should think about this last vestige of slavery every day. I have remained steadfast in my commitment to eliminate abusive and exploitative child labor. It was in 1992 that I first introduced a bill to ban all products made by abusive and exploitative child labor from entering the

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privilege of the floor be granted to Roberto Alvarez from my office during consideration of this legislation.

Mr. President, earlier this month, Sioux City, IA, lost one of its most passionate and beloved community leaders, Betty Strong.

Betty was an adopted daughter of Iowa--she was born and raised in Missouri--but she became a true Iowan, through and through. She moved to Sioux City in 1953, and for the next half century she worked tirelessly for her community and as an activist in the Democratic Party. She was one of those people who always strove to make a positive difference in the lives of those around her, and Betty succeeded magnificently.

Betty's understanding and passion for politics made her an invaluable participant in countless State, local, and national campaigns. She was a delegate for Vice President Walter Mondale at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, and participated in Senator Joseph Biden's 1988 Presidential campaign in Iowa. In 2000, she coordinated Iowans for Gore.

I met Betty more than 20 years ago and she quickly became a very dear friend and trusted political counselor. She was my chief supporter and organizer in Sioux City during my first campaign for the Senate.

In 1976, Betty became the first woman to be elected chairperson of the Woodbury County Democratic Party, and she also served on a variety of other local Democratic and women's organizations.

Betty's tireless organizing and campaigning in the late 1980s helped to win the vote to build four new high schools and a juvenile detention center in Sioux City. From 1989 until her death, Betty served as the president of the Missouri River Historical Development Inc., a nonprofit group that built the $4 million Sioux City Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. Betty was very proud of that center, which, she said, ``brings history alive for people of all ages.''

The list of Betty's accomplishments runs long, and is a testament to all she has done to better the lives of the people around her. She was involved in politics for all the right reasons. She wasn't seeking fame. She simply wanted a government that worked for all people. Betty Strong embodied the qualities and spirit that people in my State cherish.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Betty's husband Darrell, their children Sharon, Jackie, and Marvin, and their spouses. Iowans are deeply indebted to Betty for her devotion to public service. We will miss her greatly.

Madam President, our Nation has come together this week to mourn the passing of former President Ronald Reagan. However anticipated his death may have been, it is still a profound loss for the Reagan family. Our thoughts and prayers are with them all and especially with former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

However, knowing the kind of man Ronald Reagan was, knowing his relentless optimism and his sunny disposition, something tells me he would

prefer that Americans spend this week remembering and celebrating his unique character and quality. ``America in mourning'' just does not seem Reaganesque because Ronald Reagan was always about ``morning in America.'' He always looked at the bright side of every situation or circumstance. I remember the story he told about the little boy who walked into a barn and encountered a huge pile of manure. The boy, who was not the least bit disappointed, broke into a big smile and said: I just know there is a pony in here somewhere. That was the Ronald Reagan we remember and admire.

Iowans relate strongly to Ronald Reagan because his roots were our roots. He grew up next door in smalltown Illinois and spent 5 formative years in Iowa. In fact, this was where the young Ronald Reagan found his voice as the Great Communicator--first as a radio announcer at WOC Radio in Davenport and later at WHO Radio in Des Moines where he became one of the most popular sports broadcasters in the region. That was at the height of the Great Depression.

He remembered this period with obvious fondness. In his autobiography, ``An American Life,'' he wrote:

I spent four years at station WHO in Des Moines and they

were among the most pleasant of my life. At 22, I'd

achieved my dream; I was a sports announcer. If I had

stopped there, I believe I would have been happy the rest

of my life.

During his two terms in the White House, I met President Reagan on many occasions, and just about every time he would eagerly tell me he had been an announcer at WHO Radio. He regaled me with stories of how, sitting in his studio in Des Moines, he faked the play by play of the Chicago Cubs baseball game based upon wire reports as they came through. He seemed to have this fixed in his mind, that when he would see me, it was Tom Harkin and WHO. If this is Harkin, I am going to tell him about my time at WHO. It sort of became a thing that every time we met, he, again, would tell me some story about his time at WHO Radio. So that was my experience with the Reagan charm.

We disagreed on many important issues, but you could not come into contact with this man and not feel his personal warmth and charm. In fact, I have been struck this week by the bipartisan affection for this former President. He was the genuine article, a man who embodied so many of the traits we hold dear as Americans. We remember his conviction, his courage, his lack of pretentiousness, and, yes, his optimism.

On a personal note, I will always be grateful to President Reagan for signing into law my bill to establish the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health in 1988. Quite frankly, his advisers urged him to veto the bill, but the President, who himself suffered from hearing loss, vetoed his advisers. He signed the bill into law. As a result, we have had a series of medical breakthroughs that are helping millions of Americans cope with hearing loss and communication disorders.

Lastly, he and Nancy fought a heroic battle with Alzheimer's disease, and they did a great deal to raise the level of awareness and understanding of this terrible disease. I am especially proud of the courageous leadership Nancy Reagan has displayed in our efforts to find a cure for this deadly disease by her advocating a more expanded stem cell research program in America.

As I said, the most fitting way to pay tribute to President Reagan is not so much to mourn his death as to celebrate his life and to honor his service to our country. As he lies in state at the Capitol this week, a thankful American nation will say farewell to a truly unique American.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I regret that I was necessarily absent for the vote on the nomination of Dennis Saylor to the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea'' to confirm Mr. Saylor.

Mr. President, the National World War II Memorial will be dedicated here in Washington on the Saturday before Memorial Day. It is a stunningly beautiful monument, located midway between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. It is a long-overdue salute, an expression of profound gratitude, to the millions of Americans who served their country with courage, sacrifice, and selflessness in that war.

I would like to share with my Senate colleagues a remarkable story about how the small community of Walnut, IA, has expressed its gratitude to a local veteran of the Second World War, Erwin Arndt.

Mr. Arndt returned from the war to serve his community as an electrician, a volunteer firefighter, a city council member, and commander of the local AMVETS unit. Just about everybody in Walnut knows and respects Mr. Arndt. And there was much concern when he suffered a series of strokes over the past year.

All too typically, a man in Mr. Arndt's condition would have no choice but to become a dependent in a nursing home. But friends and neighbors in Walnut came to his rescue in a truly remarkable and inspiring way. They joined hands to give him the wherewithal and assistance he needed to continue living independently in his apartment.

A local restaurant helped to provide daily meals. Several citizens helped Mr. Arndt to keep his apartment clean and orderly, and take him to medical appointments. Still others organized shifts to keep him company in his apartment. Several especially kind citizens got together to purchase a motorized chair to help Mr. Arndt get around.

It was truly a community effort, an act of collective kindness that I find truly inspiring. Mr. Arndt's daughter, Karen DeWinter, is overwhelmed with gratitude for what the people of Walnut did for her father. She told me that she was especially touched that on her father's birthday, the local AMVET auxiliary held a party at a cafe, where they brought cards from local elementary and preschool children.

I want to acknowledge the people of Walnut, IA, for their extraordinary caring and kindness toward Erwin Arndt. Like millions of Americans of what Tom Brokaw has labeled ``the Greatest Generation,'' Mr. Arndt served our Nation with dedication in both war and peace.

In their own special way, the people of Walnut have said thank you to this veteran and beloved member of the community. I would like to add my own gratitude, not just to Mr. Arndt but also to the good citizens of Walnut.

Mr. President, the National World War II Memorial will be dedicated here in Washington on the Saturday before Memorial Day. It is a stunningly beautiful monument, located midway between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. It is a long-overdue salute-- an expression of profound gratitude--to the millions of Americans who served their country with courage, sacrifice, and selflessness in that war.

I would like to share with my Senate colleagues a remarkable story about how the small community of Walnut, IA, has expressed its gratitude to a local veteran of the Second World War, Erwin Arndt.

Mr. Arndt returned from the war to serve his community as an electrician, a volunteer firefighter, a city council member, and commander of the local AMVETS unit. Just about everybody in Walnut knows and respects Mr. Arndt. And there was much concern when he suffered a series of strokes over the past year.

All too typically, a man in Mr. Arndt's condition would have no choice but to become a dependent in a nursing home. But friends and neighbors in Walnut came to his rescue in a truly remarkable and inspiring way. They joined hands to give him the wherewithal and assistance he needed to continue living independently in his apartment.

A local restaurant helped to provide daily meals. Several citizens helped Mr. Arndt to keep his apartment clean and orderly, and take him to medical appointments. Still others organized shifts to keep him company in his apartment. Several especially kind citizens got together to purchase a motorized chair to help Mr. Arndt get around.

It was truly a community effort--an act of collective kindness that I find truly inspiring. As you can imagine, Mr. Arndt's daughter, Karen Dewinter, is overwhelmed with gratitude for what the people of Walnut did for her father. She told me that she was especially touched that on her father's birthday, the local AMVET auxiliary held a party at a cafe, where they brought cards from local elementary and preschool children.

I express my own gratitude to the people of Walnut, IA, for their extraordinary caring and kindness toward Erwin Arndt. Like millions of Americans of what Tom Brokaw has labeled ``the Greatest Generation,'' Mr. Arndt served our Nation with dedication in both war and peace.

In their own special way, the people of Walnut have said thank you to this veteran and beloved member of the community. I would like to add my own gratitude, not just to Mr. Arndt but also to the good citizens of Walnut.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss a bipartisan measure on which I have worked closely with my colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond. The purpose of this bill is to expand the transportation infrastructure and improve the ecosystem of the upper Mississippi River.

I have been deeply involved with Mississippi navigation issues because of their enormous importance to farmers in Iowa. Efficient river transportation is critical to keeping Iowa commodity costs competitive with foreign and domestic alternatives. When shipping on the river is constrained, costs rise. That, in turn, leads to price increases for moving bulk farm commodities by alternative means, mainly rail. These price differentials seem relatively small compared to the total price, but they make a huge difference in farm income.

Clearly, river traffic on the Mississippi is incredibly important to producers in my State. As a result of traffic congestion on the Mississippi, producers in the upper Midwest face longer shipping times, higher costs, and lost revenue. In the short run, enhanced traffic management can improve the situation. And it is important to have helper boats to push long barges through crowded locks. This bill addresses these two matters. But we need a longer-term solution, too. It is incredibly important that we modernize a number of the locks on the upper Mississippi--and we need to get started as soon as possible.

Existing law requires exhaustive analysis of river-use levels looking decades into the future. The studies required for such predictions are, by their very nature, highly speculative at best. There is no shortage of critics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its methods. But we can all agree that, to remain competitive, America needs to keep the arteries and veins of America's river transportation system in smooth running order. Last year, I visited Brazil and saw first-hand their remarkable efforts to modernize and improve their river transportation system. We need to keep up with countries like Brazil, if we are going to remain competitive. We simply cannot wait any longer to authorize construction of 1,200-foot locks so barge tows can move through the upper Mississippi and Illinois without being split.

However, this is not an easy issue. Over the years, I have heard time and time again from constituents and national leaders who are concerned about the environment, as I am. People correctly insist that we maintain a balance between navigation, flood control, and environmental protection. Habitat for many species, and the Mississippi river ecosystem as a whole, has deteriorated since the construction of the original lock system in the 1930's.

The Mississippi River is home to a wide variety of fish and birds, as well as other wildlife. All of this wildlife, and the abundant plant life, too, are important to the character and life of the Mississippi River. Approximately 40 percent of North America's waterfowl and shorebirds use the Mississippi Flyway. Parts of the Upper Mississippi River serve could well be the most important area for migrating diving ducks in the United States. The Mississippi River also serves as habitat for breeding and wintering birds, including the bald eagle.

We are all aware of the problems that have plagued the Corps' past work on the Mississippi River. But the Corps has pledged to dramatically step up its emphasis on environmental protection. We need to work with the Corps to ensure that all updates and renovations of locks and dams are done with keen concern for the environment and for the fish and wildlife that depend on the Mississippi River habitat. At the same time, we need to give the Corps the authorization and funding it needs to accomplish real ecosystem restoration, and not just make up for the lost habitat of specific identified species. The legislation we are proposing accomplishes this.

We understand that this bill is going to be a challenge in these difficult budget times. But to not act would be penny wise and pound foolish. We need to be thinking of the long-term economic health of our agricultural producers and shippers, hand in hand with the long-term health of the diverse ecosystems in the river. I believe the legislation we are proposing strikes a careful balance. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues to achieve those goals.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss a bipartisan measure on which I have worked closely with my colleague from Missouri, Senator Bond. The purpose of this bill is to expand the transportation infrastructure and improve the ecosystem of the upper Mississippi River.

I have been deeply involved with Mississippi navigation issues because of their enormous importance to farmers in Iowa. Efficient river transportation is critical to keeping Iowa commodity costs competitive with foreign and domestic alternatives. When shipping on the river is constrained, costs rise. That, in turn, leads to price increases for moving bulk farm commodities by alternative means, mainly rail. These price differentials seem relatively small compared to the total price, but they make a huge difference in farm income.

Clearly, river traffic on the Mississippi is incredibly important to producers in my State. As a result of traffic congestion on the Mississippi, producers in the upper Midwest face longer shipping times, higher costs, and lost revenue. In the short run, enhanced traffic management can improve the situation. And it is important to have helper boats to push long barges through crowded locks. This bill addresses these two matters. But we need a longer-term solution, too. It is incredibly important that we modernize a number of the locks on the upper Mississippi--and we need to get started as soon as possible.

Existing law requires exhaustive analysis of river-use levels looking decades into the future. The studies required for such predictions are, by their very nature, highly speculative at best. There is no shortage of critics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its methods. But we can all agree that, to remain competitive, America needs to keep the arteries and veins of America's river transportation system in smooth running order. Last year, I visited Brazil and saw first-hand their remarkable efforts to modernize and improve their river transportation system. We need to keep up with countries like Brazil, if we are going to remain competitive. We simply cannot wait any longer to authorize construction of 1,200-foot locks so barge tows can move through the upper Mississippi and Illinois without being split.

However, this is not an easy issue. Over the years, I have heard time and time again from constituents and national leaders who are concerned about the environment, as I am. People correctly insist that we maintain a balance between navigation, flood control, and environmental protection. Habitat for many species, and the Mississippi river ecosystem as a whole, has deteriorated since the construction of the original lock system in the 1930's.

The Mississippi River is home to a wide variety of fish and birds, as well as other wildlife. All of this wildlife, and the abundant plant life, too, are important to the character and life of the Mississippi River. Approximately 40 percent of North America's waterfowl and shorebirds use the Mississippi Flyway. Parts of the Upper Mississippi River serve could well be the most important area for migrating diving ducks in the United States. The Mississippi River also serves as habitat for breeding and wintering birds, including the bald eagle.

We are all aware of the problems that have plagued the Corps' past work on the Mississippi River. But the Corps has pledged to dramatically step up its emphasis on environmental protection. We need to work with the Corps to ensure that all updates and renovations of locks and dams are done with keen concern for the environment and for the fish and wildlife that depend on the Mississippi River habitat. At the same time, we need to give the Corps the authorization and funding it needs to accomplish real ecosystem restoration, and not just make up for the lost habitat of specific identified species. The legislation we are proposing accomplishes this.

We understand that this bill is going to be a challenge in these difficult budget times. But to not act would be penny wise and pound foolish. We need to be thinking of the long-term economic health of our agricultural producers and shippers, hand in hand with the long-term health of the diverse ecosystems in the river. I believe the legislation we are proposing strikes a careful balance. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues to achieve those goals.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator Hagel and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I am joined by my colleague from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, and many others to offer an amendment that will ensure at long last the Congress meets its commitment it made almost 30 years ago. At that time, we told children with disabilities, their families, schools, and States that the Federal Government would pay 40 percent of the extra cost of special education. We have never lived up to that commitment. In fact, we are not even halfway there.

This is really about the credibility of the Congress. It is about the credibility of each and every one of us. We tell our children all the time to keep your promises, do what you say you are going to do. We teach them if they do not follow through, other people will be hurt. Yet the Congress has not kept its word. We have not done what we have told children, parents, schools, and States we would do, and people have been hurt as a result.

People are harmed every time parents of children with disabilities are pitted against parents with children without disabilities for a limited pot of funds. They are harmed every time a family opts not to ask for what their child truly needs because they have been told it costs too much and other children will suffer. They are harmed every time a school district struggles to provide educational opportunities for all its students.

Congress had two purposes when it passed the predecessor to IDEA in 1975. First, we wanted to codify the constitutional obligation to provide education to all children, including those with disabilities. There had been several Federal court cases, including the PARC case in Pennsylvania and the Mills case in DC, that challenged the exclusion of kids with disabilities from public schools. These cases held that if schools do provide for public education of their kids, then they must educate all children. So Congress passed a law, and we spelled out what schools have to do to meet these constitutional obligations.

The other purpose of the law was to provide financial support for the education of children with disabilities. Congress recognized that serving additional students would cost substantially more money, and it committed to paying 40 percent of the excess costs of special education, which is known as the full funding amount.

Almost 30 years later, we are reauthorizing this bill, and I say to my friends and colleagues that we need to think about what we originally wanted to do and promised to do. We wanted to show Federal support for the principle that all children deserve a quality education, and we wanted to help State and local governments meet the costs involved. The amendment of Senator Hagel and I will help us at long last to achieve these goals.

Recent history leaves no doubt that discretionary increases will not get us to full funding. The charade is over. Educators, parents, children, and State and local government officials all know that we need mandatory increases. Promised increases on the discretionary side will not get us to full funding. They have not worked for 29 years; they will not work now.

If Members of this body are still not convinced that we need mandatory full funding, they only have to look at the past 2 years. This chart shows that, in 2003, President Bush proposed a $1 billion increase for IDEA. The Senate increased it to $2.3 billion. And the final tally was $1.3 billion.

Last year, it was the same story. President Bush wanted a $650 million increase. The Senate went up to $2.2 billion, and we came down to $1.2 billion, actually less of an increase than we had the year before.

Again this year President Bush asked for $1 billion, and we do not know how it will come out next year. We can look at the last 2 years and say probably the same thing will happen again.

The reason is simple, there are a lot of other important education programs that also need money. The President has consistently shortchanged the No Child Left Behind Act, especially title I. There simply has not been enough discretionary money to meet our obligations on IDEA while also funding programs to help schools meet the mandate of the No Child Left Behind Act. So special education funding gets squeezed.

Again, we are on track for a similar situation this year. The President, as I said, has proposed $1 billion for IDEA. The Senate budget resolution includes the same amount. So, according to the Congressional Research Service, we will never reach full funding if we increase IDEA at the rate of $1 billion a year under current law.

Under the revised funding formula in S. 1248, we will not reach full funding until fiscal year 2028, nearly a quarter century from now, 53 years after Congress first committed to that goal and made that promise. A child born today would not see full funding of IDEA during his or her entire education. That is unacceptable.

Fully funding IDEA within 6 years, as we do in our amendment, takes $2.2 billion a year, not $1 billion as the President has proposed.

Where is the additional money from IDEA going to come from this year if we do not use mandatory funding? Do my colleagues want to cut title 1? Do we want to cut afterschool centers? Do we want to cut teacher training? The money simply is not there in the President's budget to find $2.2 billion a year for special education unless we use mandatory funding.

My colleague from Nebraska, Senator Hagel, and I have been trying to meet this goal for a long time now. We came close once before.

When the No Child Left Behind Act passed the Senate, this body agreed unanimously to mandate increases for IDEA until we reached full funding in 6 years. But strong opposition from the President and the House leadership thwarted the will of the Senate. At that time, we were told in conference to wait until reauthorization of IDEA took place. Well, here we are. We are reauthorizing IDEA.

So again I want to make this point very clear. Two years ago, this Senate unanimously approved mandatory funding for IDEA. It was only taken out in conference. It was taken out saying we have to wait until the reauthorization of IDEA. Well, as I said, we are on the reauthorization of IDEA right now and that is why Senator Hagel and I and others are proposing this amendment.

We have waited long enough; children with disabilities and their parents have waited long enough; schools have waited long enough and, quite frankly, our property taxpayers have waited long enough.

Back home, I have heard from parents, school administrators, teachers, State legislators, chambers of commerce, taxpayers' associations, and others about the need to fully fund IDEA. I am sure every Senator in this body has heard the same thing from his or her own constituents. These voices are unanimous in support of mandatory full funding because they know that is the only way we are ever going to reach that.

Mandatory funding is also widely supported by all of the national disability and education groups. During this reauthorization, the education and disability communities disagreed on a

lot of issues, but they are unanimous and united on mandatory funding.

This chart shows a list of all of those who are in support. There are 36 organizations that are members of the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities Education Task Force, plus 38 organizations that are part of the IDEA Funding Coalition.

The National Governors Association also has a clear position supporting mandatory full funding. To quote the joint policy of the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers:

Mandatory full funding of the Federal share of IDEA is

essential.

They further state:

Congress should do the following: Provide mandatory full

funding at the federally committed level of 40 percent of the

average per pupil expenditure.

The Governors support mandatory full funding because they know how much it will mean to each of their States. I have a chart that shows how much more each State will get under the amendment Senator Hagel and I are proposing as compared to what they would get if it is not supported. Again, I am not going to run through every State, but it is here for Senators to look at it if they would like. I urge each of my colleagues to look up their own State.

My own State of Iowa stands to gain $2 billion over 10 years under this amendment, an increase of $460 million over what they would get with the annual $1 billion increases.

I will talk for a minute about the investments IDEA funding pays for. It pays for the teachers who help children learn. It pays for occupational and physical therapy to help children grow stronger. It pays for interpreters and captioning for deaf and hard-of- hearing students, and Braille materials that allow blind children to read their textbooks. It pays for the behavioral health services that allow children with mental health needs to succeed. It pays for assistive technology, for example, software that helps a blind child use the classroom materials, or augmentative communication devices that help kids with cerebral palsy communicate with their teachers and their peers.

IDEA is an investment in children's lives and in their future. We are investing money at the front end with early intervention, with interpreters, with behavioral health and other related services. The return on that investment is productive, independent, taxpaying citizens. We get individuals who are prepared to go on to higher education, to gainful employment, and to independent living in their communities.

The unemployment rate for people with disabilities right now is about 70 percent. That is right, 70 percent. IDEA is critical to ensuring that we bring that rate down and increase the number of individuals with disabilities who are working.

Our House colleague, former Congressman Tony Coelho, always liked to say people with disabilities are the one group that really wants to pay taxes. They want to work. They want to have the opportunity to contribute to our society and economy.

IDEA has also cut down on the number of children who have to live in institutions. Dr. Charlie Lakin of the University of Minnesota estimates $6.5 billion a year is saved on institutional costs by making it possible for children with disabilities to live in their own homes and communities. The true value of this is impossible to measure in dollars. How does one measure the value of keeping a family together?

In closing, when Congress first passed this law in 1975, we created a beacon of hope for children who previously had none. We said to children with disabilities and their parents that all children deserve educational opportunity, all children deserve to take part in the American dream, all children deserve to look forward to having a home and a job when they grow up. To that end, we made a pledge to these children and their parents. We promised the Federal Government would pay its fair share of the costs, up to 40 percent on average per-pupil expense, to ensure this dream becomes a reality.

Today, nearly three decades later, it is time for Congress to make good on that commitment. So I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the amendment offered by Senator Hagel, this Senator from Iowa, and so many others.

I see my colleague and cosponsor of the amendment, Senator Hagel. He is a great leader on this issue. I yield to him at this time.

Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I respond by saying to my friend from Vermont that I appreciate his question. I want to assure him that, as he knows, I am committed to fully funding IDEA. This amendment--I know I can speak for my colleague from Nebraska also--presumes that the discretionary rates will remain dedicated to special education, and I am fully confident that will be the case.

I have been on the Appropriations Committee now for 20 years and on the subcommittee that funds IDEA. My experience in 20 years is that it has never been cut. Maybe it has not been added to much, but I have never known anyone to try to cut it. Right now, Senator Specter is the chair of that subcommittee. I want to assure the Senator that no one has any intention of cutting IDEA. Those of us on committee would resist that. Again, Senator Gregg is also on the subcommittee, and I assume he doesn't want to cut IDEA either. There has not been a cut in IDEA funding in 25 years. There will not be any now on the discretionary account.

Mr. President, I did not hear that. The Senator from Massachusetts yielded me?

I thank the Presiding Officer. I did not hear that.

Mr. President, first, I would like to respond to my friend from New Hampshire who was in the Chamber earlier, and maybe some others, who talked about the GOP record. He had a chart that said Republicans have done more any way you slice it, and then went on to say that President Bush is attacked for increasing spending by $1 billion a year.

I want to address that with my friend from New Hampshire in the Chamber. I never attacked President Bush for this. I have not heard anyone on this side attack Republicans or President Bush for this. In the 30 years we have been discussing, amending, and fashioning disability policy in the Senate and the Congress, it has never been a partisan issue. It was not when we first did IDEA. It was not when we did the Americans with Disabilities Act. We may disagree on funding and stuff and how we do it, but I have never known it to be a partisan issue. I have purposely not attacked the President, the Republicans, or anyone else for this. No one on our side has on this point, and we are not attacking anyone.

So I refuse to look upon this as any kind of partisan issue. You can go back and look at who did what when, and all that, but what I want to focus on is the here and now. Where are we now? What did Congress promise? What kind of situation are we in? Let's look at the future.

I am sorry somebody is trying to put this in a partisan framework. It has never been that way. It has always been a bipartisan issue. We ought to continue on that approach. Yes, we can disagree on whether or not it would be discretionary or mandatory, but not on a partisan basis.

I want to talk also about the mix of mandatory and discretionary. There has been some talk that this is some kind of--I heard it said-- ``weird mix'' of mandatory and discretionary money. We have done that before. We have the childcare block grant. We have safe and stable families. We have some NIH funding. I have come up with this right now. There are probably a lot more programs for which we have both mandatory and discretionary funding.

Also, my friend from New Hampshire said there is some kind of budget rule--I did not get this clear--that means our amendment would result in a reduction in discretionary spending. That is absolutely not so. It is only so if you move money from discretionary to mandatory.

That is not what we are doing. We are adding money over and above discretionary. So there is no cut in any discretionary funding. So what the Senator from New Hampshire says is just not so.

I responded earlier to a question from Senator Jeffords that on the discretionary side we have never cut funding for IDEA, and we are not going to do so in the future.

Now, the Gregg amendment before us simply authorizes more money. But we have been doing that for 30 years--30 years--and we are still only at 19 percent of the 40 percent we had promised. The Gregg amendment does not change one thing. It does not change a thing--nothing. Kids, families, and schools will still be sold short.

Now, if anyone wants to know what authorizations mean around here, I would just use a statement from the Senator from New Hampshire that he made last September on a Byrd amendment. The Senator from New Hampshire himself said:

Now, let's go to another issue, this concept that the

authorized level has to be funded. This is a very unusual

concept for Congress because for all intents and purposes

Congress does not fund anything to the authorized level.

The Senator then went on to say: Authorizations simply are statements of intent, purpose, and good will.

Well, that is exactly what the Gregg amendment is. It is a statement of intent and good will, but it does not do anything. The Senator from New Hampshire himself said we do not fund to authorized levels. And that is all he has done, just raised the authorized level. It does not do one thing. If we want to meet our obligations and fulfill our promise, we have to adopt the Hagel and Harkin amendment to provide for mandatory funding.

Mr. President, let's get off all this talking about money and stuff and shifting it around. Listen to what Julie Reynolds said. She runs the Parent Training and Information Center in Iowa. She said to me that families and kids with disabilities are unfairly blamed for the shortfalls in schools. Parents are told not to ask for what the child needs because it costs too much. Parents are told their children with disabilities take away resources from other kids.

Families with kids with disabilities are not to blame. If there is anyone to blame, it is us in Congress for shirking our responsibilities for 30 years and not meeting that 40-percent level.

I am hopeful the Senate will step to the plate. I repeat, 2 years ago, this Senate unanimously--unanimously--adopted the same amendment that the Senator from Nebraska and I are offering today to provide for full mandatory funding up to that 40-percent level. Unanimously we adopted it. It was cut out in conference, and we were told we should come back when IDEA is reauthorized. Well, reauthorization is here. I hope the Senate will speak again with that same forceful voice.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and reserve the time I may have.

Yes.

I thank Senator Gregg for his generosity in letting me close the debate. I also thank the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Massachusetts for putting together a good bill. This is a good bill, except for the funding. There is a lot of good in this bill, and the Senator from New Hampshire and the Senator from Massachusetts have worked together, as we all have, to come together with a nonpartisan approach.

As I have said, this is the way we ought to deal with disability issues. We have in our long history, and we have continued that again in this bill, too.

When this Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act 14 years ago, we stated four goals. For people with disabilities we wanted equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. Those were basically the same goals of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We now see people working more in our society, people with disabilities being employed on jobs, but the basis of it all is education. That is where it starts.

If families with kids with disabilities are not getting the supportive services and the kind of teacher training that is needed to be able to teach kids with disabilities, if they do not have the materials, say, in Braille for kids who are blind, or interpreters for kids who are deaf, or if they do not have some mental health providers who can help kids who have perhaps mental problems in school, then all of the promises of the Americans with Disabilities Act is for naught because these kids will not get the education they need that will give them equal opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency.

The occupant of the Chair, my colleague and cosponsor of this amendment, Senator Hagel, stated in his comments earlier about this being an unfunded mandate. This is one of the largest unfunded mandates that we have in our country. We hear about it all the time from the schools, from the parents, from the school boards. We have mandated that they must provide these services and then we said we are going to provide up to 40 percent. That was 30 years ago, and we are only at 19 percent.

So we have to ask ourselves about our priorities. This is an unfunded mandate. We made a promise; we have not kept the promise. Some say but the Harkin-Hagel amendment will add to the deficit. Well, it will add $2 billion on a budget next year of $2.3 trillion--less than one-tenth of 1 percent. When one looks at the whole national debt of $8 trillion, we are talking about a minuscule amount. For that minuscule amount, it means kids will get the services they need.

It means we will have more Danny Pfiffers, the young man I knew in Iowa who went to school, who was mainstreamed, the manager of his football team, acted in a school play. Danny suffered from Downs Syndrome. He got out of school. He got a job. He lived by himself. He was a taxpayer. This is what we want. It saves our society countless dollars in the long run, but even more important than that it enriches Danny Pfiffer's life, and it will enrich more kids' lives.

We have waited too long to make good on our promise. Now is the time to do it. It has to do with priorities. It has to do with integration. It has to do with all of us living together, sharing and caring about one another. We are all better off as a society when kids with disabilities are educated and mainstreamed in our public schools.

Lastly, the Gregg amendment will be the first vote. I do not see anything wrong with the Gregg amendment. It is authorization as a statement of intent, purpose, and goodwill. To quote my friend from New Hampshire who used the words to describe authorization last year, there is nothing wrong with it.

The Senator from New Hampshire is authorizing more money. That is fine, but it does not add one nickel to this unfunded mandate.

So the Gregg amendment is fine as a statement of purpose and good will and intention, but statements of purpose and intention and good will do not get the funds out to meet our obligation.

We said 30 years ago we would provide up to 40 percent. We are at 19 percent. This is the vote that will say to the families of kids with disabilities, we are going to meet our commitments and fund this unfunded mandate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Pryor as a cosponsor.

Mr. President, we just voted--I did, and so many of us-- to say

we want to get more money into special education. That is what the Gregg amendment says, that we want to increase authorizations.

Right now, under present law, we can do whatever we want because it authorizes such sums as necessary. The Senator from New Hampshire put in there specific amounts, but it does not add one nickel to special education.

The next amendment, the Hagel and Harkin amendment, does that. It adds real money in mandatory spending, $2.2 billion a year for 6 years to get to that 40-percent level we promised 30 years ago.

This is one of the biggest unfunded mandates we have in our country. It is time that Congress lives up to the promise we made 30 years ago to help fund special education.

I ask for an aye vote on the Harkin-Hagel amendment.

Mr. President, I move to waive the relevant portions of the Budget Act to permit the consideration of my amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: Does the Senator from Iowa have a certain amount of time? And if so, what is that?

I appreciate that.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of John D. Negroponte to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. I understand and agree America needs a representative there, more so now than ever. We need someone in Iraq who has a sterling record, an unassailable record in terms of his or her support for fundamental human rights and for the rule of law, someone who has no blot on their career record of having been involved in the kind of abuses that have come to light recently in Iraq under our military jurisdiction.

After the terrible revelations of the abuses under our watch at the prison at Abu Ghraib--more is coming to light in Afghanistan, and we do not know what is happening in Guantanamo--I believe nominating Ambassador Negroponte to this vital post would send entirely the wrong message. He is not the right person for this job at this time.

Why do I say that? Ambassador Negroponte served as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from October 1981 through May of 1985. During this time, Mr. Negroponte showed a callous disregard for human rights abuses through his tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Honduras. I speak of this from firsthand knowledge. I traveled to Honduras during this period and I visited one of the Contra camps along the border of Honduras and Nicaragua with then Ambassador Negroponte. At that time, there were many allegations that a so-called Battalion 316--which was supervised and trained by our CIA and by some of our military personnel--had been involved in some very egregious human rights abuses, including the disappearances of people, including the disappearance and alleged torture and murder of a Catholic priest.

At the time of my visit to the camp with Mr. Negroponte, I asked a number of questions about Battalion 316 and the alleged human rights abuses. I was told there were no such human rights abuses committed by the Honduran military. It became clear to me I was misled, and quite frankly I was not given answers to my questions about the human rights abuses being committed by Battalion 316. I believe Ambassador Negroponte knowingly misinformed me and knowingly misinformed the U.S. State Department about gross violations of human rights in Honduras during his tenure.

I refer to a series of articles written in the Baltimore Sun in 1995. A June 19, 1995 article was talking about Ambassador Negroponte.

An ambassador, someone cynically once said, is sent abroad

to lie for his country. U.S. career diplomat John D.

Negroponte confused that with lying to his country. As U.S.

ambassador to Honduras during the early '80s, Mr. Negroponte

systematically suppressed reports to Washington describing

kidnappings and murders of political dissidents by a secret

unit of the Honduran army. Instead he was responsible for

false reports to Washington that portrayed the Honduran

regime as committed to democracy and the rule of law.

I will read further from this article:

Why should an experienced U.S. diplomat send false reports

to the State Department concealing damaging information about

the nation he was assigned to? Simple. For one thing, some of

his superiors wanted it that way. They weren't fooled. They

were part of a conspiracy to mislead Congress and the U.S.

public. The Reagan administration, which dispatched Mr.

Negroponte to replace an ambassador who was reporting

unwelcome facts, had an overriding policy objective in

Central America: to stop what it perceived as a threatened

communist takeover. Nothing else mattered.

Mr. Negroponte later told a Senate panel he never saw any

``convincing substantiation'' that the notorious unit was

``involved in death squad type activities.'' If so,

he outdid the three monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil

and spoke no evil. The evidence was all around him, including

in his own embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful

human rights report was ordered to remove the damaging

information. More than 300 articles about military abuses

appeared in the Honduran newspapers that year alone. Hundreds

marched through the capital in protests. A dissident Honduran

legislator personally appealed to Mr. Negroponte.

I ask unanimous consent to have the articles from June 19, 1995, printed in the Record.

Ambassador Negroponte's reports to his superiors in the State Department resulted in the Congress being misled as to the scope and nature of gross human rights violations that were committed by Battalion 316, an elite U.S trained unit of the Honduran military involved in some of the worst human rights abuses in Central America.

In a letter to The Economist in 1982, Ambassador Negroponte wrote, it is simply untrue that death squads have made appearances in Honduras.

This is from our Ambassador to Honduras at the very time death squads were openly operating in Honduras under Battalion 316. Yet he said it is untrue that they have made an appearance in Honduras.

We now have history. We now know Mr. Negroponte was not telling us the truth.

From 1981 to 1984, over 150 people disappeared in Honduras, including an American priest, Father James Carney. His body has never been recovered. All indications at that time pointed to Battalion 316. There had been reports that they interrogated him and he was severely tortured and killed. I am not suggesting Ambassador Negroponte was responsible for Father Carney's disappearance. What I am saying, however, is Ambassador Negroponte turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the human rights abuses in Honduras during his watch. During that period, Ambassador Negroponte was in very close contact, perhaps almost on a daily basis, with GEN Gustavo Alvarez, the Commander in Chief of the Honduran military, and the architect of Battalion 316.

For Ambassador Negroponte in 1982 to say it is simply untrue that death squads have made appearances in Honduras--this is going to be our Ambassador to Iraq at this time?

In 1989, during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on his nomination to be Ambassador to Mexico, Ambassador Negroponte was questioned about the human rights violations by this elite battalion which became known as Battalion 316. His response was that he had ``never seen any convincing substantiation they were involved in death-squad type activities.'' Yet, as a Baltimore Sun article pointed out, the evidence was all around him, including in his own embassy. A diplomat who tried to write a truthful human rights report was ordered to remove the damaging information, and Mr. Negroponte was the Ambassador at that time.

Mr. President, the Baltimore Sun, in 1995, devoted a series of articles on what happened in Honduras and what happened in terms of Mr. Negroponte's involvement at that time. For the benefit of those who might want to read the Record and catch up on Mr. Negroponte's past and what he did while he was Ambassador to Honduras, I commend these articles to them.

Mr. President, I think it should be clear to all of us why human rights questions and concerns should be at the forefront of today's debate and why someone with the background of Mr. Negroponte is not the right person to send to Iraq, because it is going to come out, it will come out about Mr. Negroponte's involvement with Battalion 316. It will come out about Mr. Negroponte's efforts in Honduras to suppress information Congress needed at that time. It will come out that Mr. Negroponte was untruthful to his superiors at the State Department. It should be clear to us why he should not go there at this time.

We are shocked and shaken by the pictures of abuse against Iraqis at the hands of U.S. personnel. Our image as a country is at stake. But it is not just our image, it is the very essence of our Nation, our fundamental respect for human rights, our fundamental respect for the dignity and worth of each individual, the essence of what we are trying to tell the world, that we are for freedom, that we are for individual liberties, that we oppose torture in all its forms. There is no reason why people should be tortured in prisons, and we should not be involved in it.

The photographs we have seen also have a personal association for me. When I first saw these pictures, I was taken back in time--34 years to be exact--to 1970, July of 1970, when I was a staff person in the House of Representatives, and I was sent with a commission to Vietnam.

We had heard all these reports about these tiger cages in which people were brutally tortured, killed. Our State Department denied their existence, our military denied the existence of them; these were all just Communist conspiracy stories.

Well, I had heard enough about them and others had heard enough about them that I began to look into it, and because of some luck, because of the courage of Congressman William Anderson of Tennessee, and Congressman Augustus Hawkins of California, a young man by the name of Don Luce, and the bravery of a young Vietnamese man who gave us the maps on how to find this prison, we were able to uncover the notorious tiger cages on Con Son Island.

Fortunately, I had a camera. Fortunately, I had a hidden tape recorder. Because when I came back and we reported on this, we were told they were not that bad. Well, then LIFE magazine published my pictures and the world saw how bad they really were. North Vietnamese, Vietcong, and civilian opponents of the war in South Vietnam were all bunched into these tiger cages, in clear violation of human rights, fundamental human rights, and in clear violation of the Geneva Convention. We had been asking the North

Vietnamese to abide by the Geneva Convention in terms of their treatment of our prisoners in North Vietnam. Yet, here we were condoning, supervising, the very same kind of abuses of people, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention.

Well, then I was told, well, as to what these people were telling me--because the interpreter was pro-Communist--that he was telling me the wrong things, because I did not speak Vietnamese, you see. I did not speak Vietnamese, and they said the person interpreting for me had a bias toward the Communists, so I could not believe what I was being told. So they sent another group over to hear all these glowing reports. What they did not know at the time is that I had a hidden tape recorder. No one knew that except me. I tape recorded everything that was said.

I was fired from my job. I was told I would never again work in the U.S. Congress because of my actions in letting these pictures out and telling the truth about what was happening on Con Son Island. I was brought before a congressional committee and was charged that what I was reporting was false because I did not speak Vietnamese, and that my interpreter was a well-known ``Communist sympathizer.'' But I had my tape recorder and I taped everything that was said.

I turned it over to the Library of Congress to transcribe, and they transcribed every single word. Not only what I had been saying was confirmed, but there was even more on the recording that was not interpreted for me, more evidence of the cruel, torturous conditions in these tiger cages, how people had been tortured and killed, and how we, the U.S. Government, had provided not only the funding but the supervision for these prisons.

So when I saw these pictures from Iraq, it brought back Con Son Island and the tiger cages. I thought we had learned our lesson. Yes, war is not a nice thing. War is terrible. But that is why we have Geneva Conventions. That is why we have these international treaties. I thought we learned after Con Son and the tiger cages that we ought not to be involved in those things, that we ought to make sure whoever runs these prisons, whoever has charge of prisoners of war, treats the prisoners according to the Geneva Convention. Yet here we are back again--34 years later--and we see the same kinds of things happening in this prison.

I do not know who took those pictures. I read in the paper today it was a young man and that he may be in some serious trouble. Well, whoever took those pictures, I want them to know they have a friend and an ally in this Senator from Iowa. I will do whatever I can to ensure that no harm in any way comes to them, that they are able to speak out without fear of any reprisal about what they saw and what went on in those prisons.

We have to let the sunlight in--the best disinfectant. Let's show it for what it was. Let's show what happened there. And let's tell the world, once again, that we are going to make sure we have in place policies, programs, things that will never let this happen again.

The lead editorial in this morning's Washington Post made it very clear when they said:

Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to

overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in

its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon

ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the

Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the

interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that

many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any

independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in

any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create

a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and

Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured, and

murdered--and in which, until recently, no one has been held

accountable.

I agree with those who want a full investigation. I believe we should investigate. But I don't want to see this just pinned on a few soldiers at the bottom. Yes, they have to be held responsible, too. No military person has to follow an illegitimate order of anyone placed in authority above him or her. These were illegitimate orders. If they were ordered to do such things, who gave those orders? Who supervised it? How far up the chain of command did it go?

The bottom line is, the Constitution of the United States puts a civilian in charge of our military. It is that civilian, by his or her actions, statements, policies, programs, that filter down to that private, that sergeant out in the field. Mr. Rumsfeld, because of his actions and his statements and his policies during his tenure as Secretary of Defense, is ultimately responsible. That is why I have called today for his resignation. If he doesn't resign, the President of the United States should dismiss him forthwith.

Seeing no one else asking for time on the floor, I ask unanimous consent that I have an additional 5 minutes.

Because of what has happened, and for our country, we speak of patriotism a lot, patriotism of our brave soldiers and airmen and seamen in Iraq and around the world, the patriotism of those in our country who fight for justice, fight for those less fortunate. Patriotism takes on a lot of different forms. I think Mr. Rumsfeld has to show some patriotism. He has to put the good of his country above his own self-interest and his own self-esteem. It is time for him to recognize that we need a new Secretary of Defense to change the policies and the programs that Mr. Rumsfeld instituted, that, as the Washington Post editorial said, led to this kind of a situation.

I ask unanimous consent that the editorial in the Washington Post this morning, May 6, be printed in the Record.

We are all upset about what happened. Our country was founded on the principles of democracy, the inalienable rights of individuals. We were right to condemn Saddam Hussein for his state- sponsored torture in Iraq. We are right to condemn anyone, whether it is in Uganda or those who led the Rwandan massacre, the generals who now run Burma, or those who set up the Soviet gulags during that long cold war where so many were tortured and killed by the Soviets. We have always been right to speak out against those and to do what we can to uphold the inalienable rights of individuals. We are not perfect. No country is; no individual is. But our obligation is to make sure that when this country makes a mistake, we right it. We don't try to cover it up. We don't try to excuse it. We bring it out, show it for what it is, and then institute policies, programs, procedures to make sure that human rights abuses under our watch will never happen again.

The bravery of our men and women in Iraq, under intolerable conditions, is a source of pride to all of us. As Senator Kennedy said, what has happened with these pictures, these terrible human rights abuses, I believe, has to pain our wonderful young men and women in uniform more than it pains us. Most of them, I am sure, are as abhorred by this as we are. I know they are wondering how something like this could have happened. It has to be demoralizing for our military as it is demoralizing for us. That is why 34 years ago, when the pictures of the tiger cages came out, it led to reforms. I believe it helped lead to the end of that terrible conflict in Vietnam and brought our troops home.

I hope these pictures, as awful as they are, about what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, will now provoke us to act, to straighten out the system, to make sure this does not happen again.

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.

I believe that our President has to apologize to the Iraqi people. He went on television yesterday. As I understand from all the articles I read, he gave a slight slap on the wrist to Secretary Rumsfeld and said he still supported him. I am sorry. Sometimes it takes a big person to admit wrong and to apologize. I believe that is what we need to do for the Iraqi people, to let them know, not by words but by deeds, that this does not reflect who we are as a people. We are better than that. We are bigger than that.

Because of what has happened, because of the pall this has cast over our involvement in Iraq, for those reasons and for the history of John Negroponte and what he did during his tenure in Honduras during a time of gross violations of human rights, he should not be the highest ranking diplomat in Iraq. I suppose the skids are greased for him to get this appointment. But I don't think there are too many here who remember Mr. Negroponte and what he did in Honduras, but I don't forget. I don't forget what happened there. I don't forget that Mr. Negroponte was one of those individuals closely aligned with General Gustavo Alvarez and Battalion 316. I don't forget that it was Mr. Negroponte who turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the human rights abuses in Honduras at that time.

So to send Mr. Negroponte to Iraq would send entirely the wrong message at this time.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time under the quorum call be charged equally to both sides.

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

Mr. President, I understand I have 8 minutes.

Mr. President, first of all, in my 8 minutes let me try to clear up some points. A couple of Senators talked about my amendment. I listened to them and wondered what they were talking about, that somehow this is convoluted and problematic.

Let's be clear. The amendment pending, which I have offered, does what the Department of Labor says they want to do. First, there will be two steps in my amendment. You check the old regulations. If the employee is required to be given overtime under the old regulations, that employee will continue to get overtime under the new regulations because the Department of Labor says they do not want to take overtime away from anyone now making it. My amendment clarifies it.

Secondly, if the employee is not getting overtime under the present regulations, but the new regulations allow the employee to get overtime, the employee gets overtime. So we expand it. They want to protect and expand overtime, and that is exactly what my amendment does. It is very clear and very concise.

Senator Specter is right, the new rule, at least what we heard about in the hearing this morning, is not a clarification. What we heard in the hearing is more ambiguous, and it is going to lead to much more litigation.

Let me also talk about the pending Gregg amendment. First of all, I note that the pending Gregg amendment is an acknowledgment, a real acknowledgment, that there is a long list of occupations and people who are in danger of losing their overtime. Obviously, why else would he have listed those 55. So there is an acknowledgment that a lot of people will lose their overtime. I thank him for that acknowledgment. But he lists in his amendment 55 occupations.

Senator Dodd said there are 889 occupations listed by the Department of Labor. Senator Gregg has picked out 55 and said they will get overtime. What about the other 800-some occupations? The Gregg amendment sets up a two-tier system: The 55 who are in and the 834 who are out. That is a big problem with the Gregg amendment.

Secondly, it is definitional. For example, the Gregg amendment puts in team leaders, but we do not know what a team leader is because it has never been defined. What is a team leader?

The Gregg amendment puts in refinery workers. Does that mean oil refinery or does that cover ethanol plants in Iowa? That is a refinery. Who is covered by that? We do not know.

Technicians, what is a technician? There is no definition of a technician. The Gregg amendment covers funeral directors, but how about embalmers? We don't know. It looks as though the Gregg amendment was hastily put together. What they did was list 55 people we have talked about on the floor, but they exclude 834 others. That is a real problem.

The other point is what is missing. I just sat down and started drawing up a list of people not in the Gregg amendment: Sheriffs deputies--how about juvenile justice officers? How about correctional officers? How about reporters, bookkeepers, retail clerks, police lieutenants, computer services employees? None of these are covered under the Gregg amendment. I guess they are just out.

That is the problem with the Gregg amendment. It is a drastic change in the Fair Labor Standards Act. We have for 50 years said whether or not you get overtime is based upon the job you do, not upon what you are called. Senator Gregg now wants to say you will get overtime or not depending upon what you are called, not upon what you do. That is a big change.

These 55 that have been listed, I don't mind listing them. That is all right. But it does not go far enough. It does not cover all of the people who are out there. It narrowly excludes from exemption of overtime 55 occupations, some of which are not even well defined and not defined at all in the Gregg amendment.

I would say it like this: If you have a building and you have 10 entrances to that building and none of them are protected, but you want to protect the 10 entrances into that building, say, from terrorist activities--let's say someone comes along and says: I can't protect all 10 of them; I can protect 4. Fine, protect four, but I still have six others I have to protect. That is how I see the Gregg amendment. He protects 55, but there are 834 out there that are not listed.

My point is, you can vote for the Gregg amendment--in fact, I will vote for the Gregg amendment. I don't see it is that big a deal. It is kind of ridiculous to list 55, but I will vote for it and move the process along. But if you vote for the Gregg amendment, you can vote for the Harkin amendment, too, because we come in and cover all 10 doors in that building. We make sure all workers are covered, not just 55, not a narrowly construed list of 55 workers. We cover them all.

I hope my colleagues will support the Harkin amendment because it does, in fact, ensure that those who get overtime now will continue to get overtime, and it ensures if you don't get overtime now but the new rules allow you to get overtime, you will get overtime. The Harkin amendment covers all workers, not just the narrow list of 55.

Mr. President, I reserve whatever time I may have remaining.

Mr. President, I think I have about 50 seconds.

Senator Gregg has it all wrong. To respond, my amendment says ``duties''--if your duties remain the same, you get overtime. But if your duties change, there is no glass ceiling. If you are a secretary today but you become CEO next year, of course you won't get overtime. That is what my friend from New Hampshire is missing. That is what is wrong with this amendment. He does it job by job. What I say is, if your duties are the same, you ought to get overtime. But there is no glass ceiling. If you go up a ladder, become manager, owner, or CEO of the company, of course you don't get overtime. That is a bogus argument.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Madam President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Madam President, I return to the Senate floor this afternoon to address an issue of utmost importance to working Americans and their families, and that is time-and-a-half overtime pay and the seemingly relentless campaign by the Bush administration to take away the overtime rights of many American workers. This effort to take away time-and-a-half overtime, to jiggle the rules, cloud it all up, is one of the most anti-worker, anti-family proposals to come along in my tenure in the Congress.

As most Senators know by now, my amendment serves the simplest of purposes. It lets stand the new threshold of $23,660 below that which all workers are automatically eligible for overtime. My amendment lets that part of the proposal stand. My amendment also guarantees that no worker who currently is eligible to receive overtime pay will lose that right to overtime pay under the new rule.

Again, my amendment does two things. It lets stand that part of the final rule that raises the threshold to $23,660. The other part of my amendment also guarantees that no worker who is currently getting overtime pay will lose that right under any new rule. It is very simple, very straightforward.

Madam President, this is a subject I feel very deeply about, and I am not alone. Wherever I travel in the United States and in Iowa, people talk to me about what overtime pay means to them and their families. Many become quite emotional about it. They know what the administration is trying to do and they are angry. They want action to be taken to stop these new overtime rules.

One of the reasons they are angry is because they know what this chart shows: The average annual working hours of the American worker in the

United States is more than any worker anywhere in the industrialized world. It is more than in Canada, Japan, Australia, France, and Germany. Our average annual work hours are more than anyone, anywhere in the world. American workers know that because they are the ones doing the work.

Since passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, overtime rights and the 40-hour work week have been sacrosanct, respected by Presidents of both parties. Last year, the Bush administration launched a frontal assault on this time-honored principle. The Department of Labor proposes changes to the overtime rules that, according to the best analysis we could muster, would have taken overtime pay eligibility away from up to 8 million American workers. That proposal really was breathtaking. The administration proposed this without consulting Congress, without holding public hearings. It actually took several weeks for many of us to realize the magnitude of what the administration was proposing. In fact, some of the most harmful provisions of the proposed rule were not discovered until months later.

Finally, we were shocked to discover that the administration was proposing to strip overtime pay from police officers, firefighters, veterans, nurses, and many others. The radicalism and audacity of this proposal is without parallel in modern day labor legislation. Of course, once the true intent and extent of the proposed rule became known, many of those affected were in open rebellion.

As this issue spilled over into this election year, frankly, this became a huge political liability for the administration. Late last year, during consideration of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education appropriations bill, I offered a similar amendment in the Senate--it passed by a margin of 54-45--to block the worst aspects of the administration's overtime proposal. Following that, the House of Representatives, by a margin of 221-203, voted to instruct its conferees to support the Senate's position in conference. Unfortunately, White House officials instructed the conferees to delete my amendment from the Omnibus appropriations bill, and that is why we are back here today.

It must be pointed out that since we last debated this amendment, the Department of Labor has issued its final rule on overtime. In this final rule, the Department appears to have had something of an election year conversion. Under extreme pressure from working Americans, as well as critics in Congress, the administration has backed off its attempt to strip overtime from certain high-profile groups, such as rank-and- file police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians.

I salute the efforts of many individuals and groups and labor unions who have fought hard and forced the administration to abandon several of its offensive and egregious proposals. Let's be under no illusion about this final rule. We have progressed--if that is the right term-- from a proposed rule that was profoundly terrible to a final rule that is just plain terrible.

The administration's model seems to be that if at first you don't succeed in limiting the overtime pay of American workers, try, try again and spin like crazy. Again, Madam President, I ask that those who look at this final rule not just compare it to the proposed rule. As I said, we went from profoundly terrible to just plain terrible. So I suppose if you compared the final rule with the proposed rule, you would say it is better. I think the proper yardstick of measurement is to measure the final rule compared to what we have today. Who loses? What happens to our right to overtime in that regard?

Make no mistake: Even with the changes from the proposed rule, this final rule is a radical rewrite of the rules governing eligibility for overtime. It would deny time-and-a-half overtime pay to millions of workers earning as little as $23,660 per year. By and large, these are low- to middle-income workers who don't have a strong organized voice, so the administration may feel it can run roughshod over their rights. That is why we in Congress must be their voice and their vote on this matter.

Of course, the administration denies this. Its public posture is all smiles and happy talk, including the audacious claim that no workers earning less than $100,000 a year will lose their right to overtime. Frankly, at this point, the administration has zero credibility on this issue.

As I said, when the proposed rule was issued a year ago, it took months of reading the fine print before one realized how destructive it was, and only belatedly do we discover that the administration was giving tips and advice to employers as to how they could avoid paying overtime to employees under the new rule.

Here we go again. Once again, the administration is all smiles and happy talk. Once again, the administration is assuring workers they will not lose their overtime rights. When the Bush administration smiles and says it is here to fix overtime, I have five words of advice for American workers: hold on to your wallets.

Why exactly is the administration so eager to ``fix'' overtime? Now I know why many corporations and employer groups want to fix overtime. They want to pay fewer workers overtime. It is very clear. But is anyone clamoring for this?

I frequently visit manufacturing plants, and never, ever has a factory worker come up to me and said: You know, Senator Harkin, too many of us are getting overtime pay. It is broken and you need to fix it.

I frequently visit hospitals. Never has a nurse come up to me and said: Senator Harkin, it is not right that I am receiving overtime pay when I work 50 hours a week. You need to go back to Washington and fix this overtime mess.

Back home in Iowa, I love to go to Dairy Queens. It is something my colleague and I share when we go back to Iowa, Dairy Queen, but no one ever, in a Dairy Queen making hamburgers or Blizzards, or a working supervisor, has come up to me and said: Senator Harkin, I don't deserve time and a half overtime pay. You need to fix it immediately.

I will go one step further. Not one employer in my State of Iowa has come up to me and complained about paying overtime pay under existing rules. Not one.

Now the Department of Labor is saying to the American workers: Hi, we are from Washington, and we are here to improve your overtime rights.

Is there anybody at this point in America who believes that? Working families are not buying it. They have a simple message for the Department of Labor: Keep your hands off our right to overtime pay.

Let me repeat the administration's central claim. No workers earning less than $100,000 a year will lose their right to overtime. This claim is demonstrably false.

This chart shows in simplest terms the impact of the new rule. It is clear that employees earning less than $23,660 a year, automatically will be paid overtime regardless of what they do. The new rule will make it very easy to exempt most workers making over $100,000. It will not totally, but most will be exempt.

We just learned that some of the oil rig workers, for example, in Alaska and off the coast of Louisiana who work under hazardous conditions and are away from their families a lot--some of them may make a little over $100,000. I guess I can't blame them. These are hard-working people and they are away from their families. It is a hazardous occupation. They, too, may be stripped of their overtime rights simply because they make $100,000 a year. I don't think it is correct we should do that.

It has come to my attention in the last few hours that oil rig workers would also have their right to overtime stripped.

The real gray area is from $100,000 to $23,000. People in that area are saying people will not lose their right to overtime. A careful analysis of the new rule makes it abundantly clear that certain jobs and professional categories in this gray area will be ineligible for overtime.

To cite one glaring example, under the new rule, a worker who leads a team of other workers loses his or her right to overtime. Under the old rule, there was no provision concerning so-called ``team leaders.'' There is no such term in present rules. But the new rule, under section 541.203(c) states:

An employee who leads a team of other employees assigned to

complete other

projects for the employer meets the requirements for

exemption--

Listen to the following words--

even if the employee does not have direct supervisory

responsibility over the employees on the team.

Talk about a loophole. This team leader loophole is big enough to drive an Amtrak train through. Team leaders are commonplace throughout the manufacturing and services sectors. They are especially common in factories, refineries, chemical plants, and other places. MIT professor of management Thomas Kochan estimates that this team leader loophole alone could deny overtime rights to as many as 2.3 million workers making above $23,660 a year and less than $100,000 a year--a team leader.

Again, I point out that the term ``team leader'' exists nowhere in the present rules. It is now put in the final rule, ``team leader.'' But guess what. There is no definition of a team leader. There is no definition. It is up to the employer to define it. So any employer can define a team leader as they wish. And that team leader, as I pointed out in the rule, does not have to have direct supervisory responsibility over employees on the team. That team leader could be a team leader for, say, 5 minutes a week. Maybe it is a Friday afternoon get-together to discuss what went on the week before, and all of a sudden you are a team leader for that 1 hour of discussion. You are not exempt. Your employer can now exempt you from overtime simply by calling you a team leader. So in the rules there is no definitional structure of what a team leader is. It is a huge loophole.

Section 541.303(b) strips overtime rights from nursery school teachers earning more than $23,660. Under section 541.604, registered nurses who are salaried could be denied overtime. Large parts of the financial services industry are no longer eligible for overtime under the new rule.

According to an analysis by the Houston Chronicle, labor relations, public relations, human relations, and government relations employees will be ineligible for overtime under the new rule. Funeral directors and embalmers will be ineligible. Insurance claim adjustors will be ineligible. Many outside sales representatives will be ineligible.

In addition, many computer services employees will lose their right to overtime, including programmers, network, and database administrators.

I would also point out that the new rule includes loopholes and artful language that will strip overtime from several broad occupational categories. For example, the new rule will make it much easier for management to reclassify workers earning as little as $23,660 a year as professional employees. So you could be making $24,000 a year and your employer could reclassify you as professional, and you will be ineligible for overtime.

Employees will no longer need college degrees to be considered professionals exempt from overtime. Work experience will be enough. Under the present rules that have existed for many years, it pointed out to get an exemption under the professional status one had to have a 4-year degree. That was sort of the minimum. That was the minimum one needed to be exempt.

Now a person does not need that. All they have to have is work experience. For example, section 541-301(d) strips overtime rights from cooks and chefs who have ``substantially the same knowledge'' and perform the same work as cooks or chefs with 4-year culinary arts degrees. In addition, the new rule will make it much easier for management to reclassify workers earning as little as $23,660 as executive employees who will be ineligible for overtime pay. Under the present rule, employees that spend the majority of their time, 50 percent or more, doing administrative, management, or professional work lose their right to overtime under the executive category. Under the new rule, employees who do even a small amount of administrative, management, or professional work can lose their overtime rights.

For example, a McDonald's franchise assistant manager who spends most of her time making hamburgers or filling orders, making french fries, but spends 10 percent of her time performing supervisory duties, could be reclassified as executive and be ineligible for overtime. Think about that. In the past, the threshold was 50 percent. One had to spend at least 50 percent of one's time in an executive or an administrative capacity to be exempt from overtime pay. Now there is no threshold. It can be as little as 5 percent, 10 percent; nobody knows. It does not make any difference. It is whatever an employer says.

So guess what. A person is now working at a McDonald's franchise. They are making hamburgers and french fries and filling orders, which is pretty tough work. They move pretty fast. They are making $24,000 a year. All of a sudden the owner comes in and says: You are now an executive. Do you not feel good? I am going to put a little name up there, Susan Smith, executive. Now you are an executive. You feel great. There is a certificate. You are now an executive. You can hang that on your wall at home. By the way, you do not get anymore overtime pay.

I wonder how many American workers would feel good about that, that now they are an executive but they lose their right to overtime pay.

I can go on at great length naming others who will be denied overtime under the new rule, but I have made my point. The administration claims no workers earning between $23,660 and $100,000 a year will be denied overtime. That statement is false. All of these people, veterans, police, nurses--I talked about the team leaders--journalists, I have talked about that, cooks, financial services, computer workers, working foremen, and many others, because they can be reclassified as executive, administrative, or professional, under very ambiguous and clouded procedures or definitions, could lose their right to overtime pay.

My second chart is very revealing again as to what is going on. There are 152 pages in the new rule. As the chart goes, only 15 pages are devoted to the highly compensated employees test, which is $100,000 or more, and the minimum salary test, which is $23,660 or less. Fifteen pages are devoted to those two categories, and 137 pages are devoted to those who make between $23,660 and $100,000.

I have to tell my colleagues something. If the administration were sincere in its assertion that no worker earning between $23,660 and $100,000 a year would lose their overtime rights, believe me, it would not take 137 pages to say so. The administration could have said it in one or two sentences. Instead, the new rule spends 137 pages spinning a web of artful language, calculated ambiguity, and outright loopholes such as the team leader loophole, a complex web designed to catch workers and strip them of their overtime.

It is ironic that one of the administration's main justifications for proposing a new rule on overtime was to bring clarity and reduce litigation. They said this is one of the reasons they are doing it, to bring clarity and reduce litigation.

This final rule is shot through with artful, ambiguous language that clearly favors employers. This is guaranteed to lead to scores of lawsuits and years of litigation as workers fight to retain their overtime rights. If increasingly conservative courts rule in favor of employers, countless additional workers will lose their right to overtime.

For example, in several places, the final rule broadens what used to be a narrow test. By definition, this will mean less position, less clarity, not more. The final rule is far from clear. As I said, who can be classified as team leaders? It is not defined. The employer defines that.

What is a working foreman? It is up to the employer to decide what is a working foreman. Once they decide, a person is ineligible for overtime.

When Congress enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, it anticipated there would be a number of less than honorable employers who would try to cheat workers out of overtime, so Congress included a penalty provision that would act as a strong deterrent. Under the present rule, if an employer is cheating employees out of overtime, the penalty can be massive. If found guilty, all employees in the enterprise, including salaried employees who are exempt from overtime, must be paid time and a half overtime for the period the improper practices were taking place. That is a tough deterrent.

In other words, if an unscrupulous employer was cheating an employee out of overtime and they were taken to court and found guilty of doing that, they did not have to pay only that employee back, they had to pay everyone in the enterprise time and a half overtime for the entire periods in question. They even had to pay time and a half to exempt employees who were exempt from overtime. As I said, a very tough deterrent.

What does the new rule do? Under the new rule, the penalty is limited to the work unit where the violation was detected. This ignores the fact that in nearly all instances, overtime violations are not limited to a renegade supervisor. They are almost always a result of some companywide practice.

So again, if an unscrupulous employer cheats an employee out of overtime and is caught and convicted, the company has to pay that employee back, and whoever is in that little work area, maybe two or three people. Before, they had to pay the entire enterprise. So we can see they have really watered this down. We have gone from kind of a nuclear deterrent under the old rule to kind of a pussycat deterrent under the new rule.

Let me summarize. Under the new rule, many workers will legally lose their right to overtime and employers who cheat their workers out of overtime illegally will receive a penalty that amounts to less than a slap on the wrist. No wonder the Wall Street Journal has called the new rule a victory for business groups.

It is time for Washington to listen to Main Street and not just Wall Street. Listen to ordinary working Americans. They are telling us loudly and clearly their number one issue is economic security. They are telling us they fear losing their jobs. They fear losing their health care. They fear losing their retirement. Now they fear losing their right to time-and-a-half compensation for overtime. They fear, with good reason, that under the Department of Labor's new rule they will be obliged to work 45, 50, 60 hours a week with zero additional compensation. For millions of working Americans, this is unacceptable, and the last straw.

For 65 years, the 40-hour week has allowed workers to spend time with their families instead of toiling past dark and on weekends. At a time when the family dinner is becoming an oxymoron, this standard is more important than ever. As I said earlier, this final rule on overtime is anti-worker and anti-family.

Given the fact that we are stuck in a jobless recovery, the timing could not be worse. It is yet another instance of the economic malpractice of this administration. Bear in mind that time-and-a-half pay accounts for some 25 percent of the total income of Americans who work overtime. With average U.S. income declining, the proposed changes would slash the paychecks of countless workers. Moreover, the proposed new rule is all but guaranteed to hurt job creation in the United States. This is just basic logic. If employers can more easily deny overtime pay, they will push their current employees to work longer hours without compensation. Workers without overtime rights are twice as likely to work more than 40 hours a week, according to the current statistics. They are three times as likely to work more than 50 hours a week. With 9 million Americans currently out of work, why in the world do we want to give employers yet another disincentive to hire new workers?

It is bad enough to deny American workers their overtime rights, but what is striking is the approach taken by the Department of Labor and the administration on this issue. As I already mentioned, no public hearings were held. There was no consultation with Congress. I have looked back and have done research. Every time I have been able to find in the past when we made changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act, Congress always had hearings, consulted with business, consulted with labor, and there was a process by which the public believed they had an input. That is not so this time.

Also, something I think that is beyond comprehension, the Department has offered employers what amounts to a cheat sheet. It has offered employers helpful tips on how to avoid paying overtime to the lowest paid workers. I mean these, the ones who make less than $23,600 a year, down here. The administration has basically put out information. They say they want to help these people. They raise it to $23,660 from about $8,000 a year--a good step. I compliment the administration for doing this. But they turn right around and tell employers how they can get by without paying them overtime.

They recommend raising a worker's salary slightly to meet the threshold. If you are an employee who is near this $23,660 level, they might want to raise your wages to $23,661. Guess what. Then you are no longer exempt.

They also suggest cutting a worker's hourly wage so any new overtime payments will not result in a net gain to the employee. Think about that. You say we are going to raise the threshold. Now, here is what you can do: cut the hourly wages so if you do have to pay them overtime it will all be the same. The employee will get the same amount of money, but the employee would be working 42, 43, 45, 48 hours a week. This is from the Department of Labor. They have actually put this out in print. It is disgraceful.

There is one group that is disproportionately harmed by the new overtime rules--women. The fact is, women tend to dominate in retail, services, and sales positions, which would be particularly affected by the new rule. Married women increased their working hours by nearly 40 percent from 1979 to 2000. As women have increased their time in the paid labor market, their contribution to the family income has also risen. These contributions are especially important to lower and middle-income families. Yet now the administration's new rule will take away overtime protections from millions of American women.

Women in the paid workforce will be forced to work longer hours for less pay. And, of course, this means more time away from families and more childcare expenses, with no additional compensation. Not surprisingly, prominent women's groups are adamantly opposed to the new overtime rules. The American Association of University Women, the National Organization of Women, the National Partnership of Women and Families, the YWCA, 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women-- among others, are all strongly supporting my amendment.

Listen to what Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA, says. She is a single parent working hard to support her family. When she leaves work after a difficult 8-hour shift, she says:

My second shift begins. There is dinner to cook, dishes to

wash, laundry, and all the other housework that must be done,

which adds another three or four hours to my workday.

Ms. Perez said something also very powerful. She said:

My time at home with my kids and family is truly my premium

time . . . it is personal time. . . . it is the most valuable

time of my day. So if I am required to work longer than eight

hours . . . if I have to sacrifice that premium time with my

family . . . then I ought to receive premium pay, that is,

overtime pay.

I agree wholeheartedly with Sheila Perez. If she is sacrificing personal time, her premium time with her family and her kids, it is only fair she be compensated on a premium basis with time-and-a-half overtime pay.

I think there is a broader context for this discussion of overtime. It is sort of a bigger picture. As I said, the No. 1 issue for Americans today is economic security, and with good reason, because it is abundantly clear that America is stuck in a largely jobless recovery. Since the administration took office, nearly 3 million private sector jobs have been lost, including one in every seven jobs in manufacturing. President Bush--George W. Bush--has presided over the greatest job loss of any President since the Great Depression. Yet he remains wedded to policies that make it worse.

His administration has praised the outsourcing of jobs as something good for our economy. He has opposed any increase in the minimum wage. He has opposed extending unemployment benefits. Now, this administration wants to destroy the overtime rights of many hard- working Americans.

There is no question, I suppose, that those policies have been good for wealthy investors. Corporate profits are rising, the stock market is up, CEO pay is up, and once again the rich are getting richer. But something is missing. Ordinary Americans are not participating in this so-called recovery. In

fact, more and more Americans live in fear of losing their jobs, their health benefits, their retirement, and now their right to overtime pay.

The truth is, we cannot build a sustainable recovery by exporting jobs, driving down wages, and making Americans work longer hours without compensation. Moreover, such a recovery is not desirable. A true recovery must include all Americans. It can only be built on a foundation of good jobs with good wages in America, not overseas. It can only be built on a foundation that includes a minimum wage that is a living wage and not a poverty wage. And it can only be built on a foundation that reserves Americans' rights to time-and-a-half overtime pay over 40 hours.

So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to protect the overtime rights of American workers. Again, I repeat, my amendment will let stand the positive provision of the rule which raises the low- income threshold to $23,660 and makes more workers automatically eligible for overtime.

Now the administration again says it does not want to take away the overtime rights of anyone earning less than $100,000. If that is the case, then the administration should have no problem embracing my amendment because this amendment has a simple purpose: to guarantee that workers who are entitled to overtime pay now, today, will not lose their right under the new rule.

I think the new rule is disingenuous. The administration is being disingenuous about it and knows full well this new rule will strip overtime eligibility for many workers earning less than $100,000. That is the reason it is being pushed aggressively. That is exactly why many corporations and groups are so keen to see this new rule adopted. But it is unfair. It is an attack on a basic right American workers have enjoyed for over 65 years, and it is bad economic policy. It will hurt job creation and reduce disposable income.

I want to point out a few statements from others in support of my amendment.

The Effect of Final Rules Silence on Police Sergeants.

This is an April 28 press release from the International Union of Police Associations, the National Association of Police Organizations, and the International Brotherhood of Police Organizations.

The DOL has done nothing to define the line between

management and police duties for those above line-level

officers. Once the final complex rules go into effect, their

very ambiguity regarding the line between supervisory duties

and traditional policing duties will undoubtedly shift the

ball from the legislature to the courts.

That is why they support my amendment.

Here is a press release from the United American Nurses.

The Effect of Final Rules Silence on Registered Nurses.

In the midst of a registered nursing shortage that is

projected to reach 808,000 RNs by 2020, it is

incomprehensible why this President wouldn't do everything in

his power to make sure that RNs are fairly compensated for

the life-saving work we do.

I mentioned earlier the professional loophole. This is from the code itself. This is the current regulation on learning professionals.

As is well known, there are still a few practitioners who

have gained their knowledge by home study and experience.

Characteristically, the members of the profession are

graduates of law schools, but some few of their fellow

professionals whose status is equal to theirs, whose

attainments are the same and whose word is the same did not

enjoy that opportunity. Such persons are not barred from the

exemption. The word ``customarily'' implies that in the vast

majority of cases, the specific academic training is a

prerequisite for transfer into the profession.

This is what we have been operating under for years.

. . . in the vast majority of cases, the specific academic

training is a prerequisite . . .

Under the proposed rule, work experience--even the experience you might have gotten in the military--would disqualify you from overtime.

I want to make a point on this. I want to make a point on the veterans. When we debated this last year, we pointed out in the proposed rules it specifically mentioned those who were not learned professionals because they had a 4-year college degree but who had learned on-the-job training, including training in the military--those were the words: ``including training in the armed forces.'' We pointed out here on the floor this means someone going into the military and who received training in the Army and came out, because they received training in the military, they would be exempt from the right to get overtime.

Guess what the administration did. In the final rule, they took those words out--``training in the armed forces.''

But what they didn't do was change the underlying language which says basically you don't have to have a 4-year college degree; you can have on-the-job training or work experience. It doesn't say they couldn't be in the military. They didn't specifically exempt the military; they took out those four words.

Under this final rule, veterans in the future will be different than veterans in the past if they receive training while in the military which they then use on the job later on. They may have their right to overtime pay taken away from them.

This is sort of an example of the learned professional exemption. Let's take a look at chefs. It basically says: Chefs, such as executive chefs who have attained a 4-year specialized degree in the culinary arts program, generally meet the duty requirement of the learned professional exemption. The learned professional exemption is not available to cooks who perform predominantly routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work.

In other words, an executive chef who has fewer years is automatically exempt, but also if you, for example, at some point in time supervised someone at a McDonald's, or whatever, then you would be exempt.

That is the ambiguity of these rules.

I could point out more and more. There are all kinds of different workers who are caught up in this kind of web of ambiguity. But I close by saying again the new rule is unfair. This kind of a process should have been done in Congress. It should have been done with the appropriate committees, with appropriate hearings and consultation and being very careful about how we are going to address this.

I see nothing wrong--in fact, I see everything right--in what the administration is proposing in raising the threshold to $23,660. It should have been done a long time ago. But most of the rules do not pertain to them. The 137 pages out of 152 pages pertain to those making over $23,660 a year, and it provides one loophole after another to deny the right to overtime pay for employees.

I am hopeful we can have a strong bipartisan vote in support of this amendment. We can save the administration from making a terrible mistake. We can protect American workers' right to overtime compensation and we can support an economic recovery that includes all Americans--a recovery that respects and preserves the American dream. Our workers deserve an ironclad guarantee that their overtime rights will be safe and nurtured as they have been in the past and are today.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, after 2\1/2\ years of a largely jobless recovery, the current administration is on track to be the first in over six decades actually

to lose jobs during its 4-year term. It is particularly alarming that this country has lost more than one in seven of its manufacturing jobs since this administration took office. More than one in seven.

One reason is outsourcing. We have been seeing good, high-wage manufacturing jobs transferred overseas for a number of years. But outsourcing now has accelerated. It has spread to ``knowledge-based jobs''--programming, auditing, accounting, engineering, design, telemarketing, animation, editing, transcription, legal assistance, call centers and even core research.

Some economists have argued over the years that free trade helps the United States to concentrate on creating high-wage, high-value-added jobs here in America. But now those jobs are being exported, too. The old rules of comparative advantage have been exploded.

As we all know by now, the President's annual economic report, signed by Mr. Bush, explained why we should be celebrating the outsourcing and off-shoring of American jobs. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, summed up the report. He said that ``outsourcing is a growing phenomenon, but it's something that we should realize is . . . a plus for the economy.''

Yes, you heard that right: Outsourcing is ``a plus for the economy.''

Outsourcing of U.S. jobs, however, is just one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is U.S. jobs that are lost because this administration refuses to enforce our existing trade laws--for example, existing laws that protect against sudden surges of imports from abroad which harm particular businesses or sectors here in our country. This refusal threatens U.S. manufacturers and destroys American jobs.

Let me offer one vivid example:

Clow Valve Company has operated in the town of Oskaloosa, Iowa, since 1878. It manufactures iron pipes, water hydrants and other foundry products. If there's a fire hydrant on your block--and there should be one under most city codes--chances are excellent that it was made by Clow Valve Company.

The company was acquired by McWane, Inc., of Birmingham, Alabama in 1985. McWane owns similar facilities in several other states, including Alabama, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Tennessee, employing some 7,000 workers.

Last year, McWane, Inc., faced a near tripling of Chinese imports of waterwork pipes compared to the previous year, with Chinese product being sold at prices that severely undercut American producers. Obviously, continued expansion of sales by Chinese companies at this rate could cause serious market disruption. It could threaten all 7,000 jobs in these plants, including the 358 in the Clow facilities in Oskaloosa, IA.

Nonetheless, President Bush has steadfastly refused to use his authority under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974 to restrain this surge of imports, even though such a step was unanimously recommended by the International Trade Commission (ITC) last December. I wrote to the administration on two occasions, once to the ITC and once to the President himself, urging that our trade officials utilize existing laws that were enacted for the very purpose of temporarily protecting American jobs from sudden surges of imported products.

The President's refusal to enforce our trade laws has profound consequences. In Oskaloosa, it could mean the loss of some or all of the 358 good-quality, high-paying jobs at the Clow Valve Company. In turn, that would have a devastating impact all across Mahaska County. Bear in mind that Clow Valve is now the single largest employer located in the county. It is an employer with deep roots in the community. I imagine there might be some bewilderment among people there about the refusal of the Bush Administration to stand up and defend those jobs.

Let me summarize the basic facts:

We have a clear case of harmful trade practices on the part of the Chinese--flooding the U.S. market with cut-rate waterwork pipes.

In December, the United States International Trade Commission ruled that a surge in imports of Chinese waterwork pipes had caused market disruption and material injury to domestic manufacturers such as Clow Valve Company.

The Commission was unanimous in its conclusion that imports from China should be restrained pursuant to section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974.

The Commission was unanimous in its prediction that, without implementation of an effective relief program, the U.S. waterwork pipes industry may have to close plants and lay off workers.

And yet, the White House refused to act. Which leads me to ask: Whose side are they on?

Mr. President, it is clear to me that the jobless recovery here in the U.S. is not an accident. It is the result of a productivity surge that has benefited corporate profits, not workers' paychecks. It is the result of corporate America's enthusiastic embrace of outsourcing and off-shoring jobs, with the blessing and encouragement of the Bush administration. And it is the result of the refusal of this administration to enforce our trade laws--its refusal to stand up for American workers, including in the face of seriously harmful trading practices from abroad.

We cannot build a sustainable recovery by exporting jobs, driving down U.S. wages to match foreign wages, and allowing nations like China to flood our market with cheap imports.

No, a true recovery must include all Americans. It can only be built on a foundation of good jobs and good wages--here in America, not overseas. And it can only be sustained if the administration, at long last, is willing to enforce our trade laws and stand up for American workers.