Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I understand the vote is to take place at 3:45.

I ask between now and the time the vote is called, if we are in a quorum call, the time be charged equally to both sides.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we have some good news. The House of Representatives just a little while ago passed, by a substantial margin, a motion to instruct their conferees to adhere to the Senate's position saying that the administration cannot go ahead to implement the rules on overtime which would take away overtime pay protection for over 8 million Americans. The vote in the House was 221 to 203.

This is a great victory for American workers today. It sends a very clear message to the administration: Don't mess with overtime pay protection. Don't take away from American workers the overtime pay protection that we have had in the law since 1938. This is a clear and unequivocal message from both the House and the Senate.

I hope the administration has the message. I now call upon the Secretary of Labor to forthwith, today, by sundown tomorrow, go ahead and extend overtime pay protections to hundreds of thousands of Americans on the low-income side of the scale.

Right now, the low-income threshold is $8,060 a year. Part of the proposal the administration sent down would have raised that level to $21,100 a year. This is an issue on which we all agree. This is something the Secretary of Labor can do today, tomorrow, before the week is out. This can be done with a stroke of a pen.

I call upon the Secretary of Labor to immediately issue a new regulation that would raise the low-income threshold from $8,060 to $21,100 a year and thus cover many more Americans with overtime pay protection.

What the House has spoken so loudly today is what we did in the Senate a few weeks ago. We want to extend overtime pay protection to more Americans. We do not want to talk it away.

Let us move forward together, call upon the Secretary of Labor to issue these regulations to raise that threshold. Now the administration can take those proposed rules they came out with this spring and put them in the fireplace. Get rid of them. Then, if we want to move ahead, we can do it in two stages. Raise the threshold right now, and then if we need to modify and change some of the overtime regulations to reflect more accurately the modern day workplace, let's do it together, do it with open public hearings, have our witnesses, and do it in a deliberate manner that reflects the will of the American people, not under the cover of night, putting out proposed regulations without any hearings whatever.

I stand ready as a member of the Labor Committee, and on both the authorizing and appropriations side, to work with the Secretary of Labor and others to set up a route by which we can, if we need to, change and modify some of the regulations to more accurately meet today's workforce. But in no case should we diminish the overtime pay protections in the law today for people, in no way. We need to extend and raise that threshold immediately. That is what I call upon the Secretary of Labor to do.

It would be a great victory today for American workers who are lacking in a lot of good news coming out of Washington these days for working families. This is one bit of good news for American working families today.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

I thank the Senator from Massachusetts and our assistant minority leader, the Senator from Nevada, Senator Reid, for bringing up this issue today.

Again, more disturbing news has come out this week, I say to the Senator from Massachusetts. He has covered the increase in poverty in this country. More and more people are being left behind and unemployment continues to go up. At that very time, this administration wants to pull the rug out from underneath people who work hard, to take away their overtime protection. That is coming to a head this week, I say to the Senator from Massachusetts, because the House of Representatives, the other body, is going to be appointing conferees to go to conference with us. I understand the motion will be made to instruct the conferees to yield to the Senate position which, as you know, is to deny the administration the funds necessary to carry out these proposed changes in overtime. So I am hopeful the House will again vote right on this and make sure we keep the Senate provisions and deny the administration the ability to go ahead and just yank away the overtime protections for millions of Americans.

Again, I ask the Senator from Massachusetts why is it--I don't know if there is any real answer. Why is it this administration is so intent on keeping the minimum wage as low as it is? Why are they so intent on that? What do they gain by doing that, by denying hard-working Americans an increase in the minimum wage? What does the administration gain for themselves or for this country by taking away the overtime protections for our workers which have been there since 1938? Why would the administration be doing this if we are facing at this time higher rates of unemployment, poverty going up?

I don't know what the Senator's response to that will be, but in my view, this is so ideologically driven. This administration, I think, if it had its way, would take away all overtime protections, take away the minimum wage. They don't even believe in a minimum wage. They wouldn't even have a minimum wage. They would have our

workers compete at the lowest possible level with workers from the Third World countries. It is not enough they are shipping our manufacturing jobs out of this country, they are now shipping into this country labor standards from Third World countries.

Again, I don't know. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for pointing this out this morning. I think we need to discuss this more.

We are going to be discussing a supplemental appropriations bill on the floor today and for the next few days of $87 billion. That is for rebuilding Iraq. Some of that is for the military, but with $21 billion we are going to build sewer and water systems, we are going to build new schools, we are going to rebuild some swampland--there is everything in there to rebuild the economy of Iraq. At the same time this administration wants to keep minimum wages low. They will not help us get the minimum wage up. And they want to take away overtime protection. What kind of fairness is there in that?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his kind remarks, but he has been the leader in terms of workers' rights for all of his time in the Senate. I am honored to be able to work with him to make sure we continue to support our working families.

I say to my friend from Massachusetts that the Secretary of Labor just wrote a recent editorial which ran in the Omaha World Herald, which is across the river from Iowa. It is interesting that she wrote my amendment ``if enacted, would be a huge setback for U.S. workers from getting overtime pay for the first time.''

What she is talking about there is part of this proposal would increase the threshold for guaranteed overtime pay from $8,060 a year to $22,100 a year. My amendment does not affect that. What we passed here in the Senate protecting overtime pay does not even remotely affect it. If the Secretary of Labor wants to increase the threshold from $8,060 a year to $22,100 a year, what is she waiting for? She can do that tomorrow. She could have done that this spring in the rules and regulations. It is because certain friends of this administration and industries say they wouldn't support it unless we made other changes to take away overtime protection from other workers.

It is true the proposed regulation does increase the threshold. That is fine. Our amendment doesn't touch that. With the other hand they take away overtime pay protection for over 8 million Americans. Then they say they want to simplify the rules. The proposal is far from simple. It is as complex as ever.

The Society for Human Resource Management was quoted in the Chicago Tribune:

It looks like they're just moving from one ambiguity to the

next.

These rules and regulations can be simplified and updated without taking away workers' overtime pay protection. Again, don't take my word for it. Here is what industry says from a May 2003 analysis by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources outsourcing and consulting firm, to its clients on their Web site.

They said:

These proposed changes--

by the Secretary of Labor--

--likely will open the door for employers to reclassify a

large number of previously nonexempt employees as exempt.

Exempt from overtime pay protection.

The resulting effect on compensation and morale could be

detrimental, as employees previously accustomed to earning,

in some cases, significant amounts of overtime would suddenly

lose that opportunity.

That is not me saying that. That is a May 2003 analysis by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources outsourcing and consulting firm, to their clients which include more than half of the Fortune 500 companies.

There you have it. This is industry driven to take away the overtime pay protection so they can work people longer and not pay them any more.

As I pointed out on the floor previously, and as the Senator from Massachusetts did, this is antiworker and it is antifamily. Many of these people are women. They are already paying for child care. Now they are going to have to work longer and pay more for child care, and they don't get a nickel more for overtime. It is not fair. It is not right.

I hope the House of Representatives will vote strongly to instruct their conferees to adopt the Senate provision. Let us have the administration go back and let us have a fair and reasonable updating of overtime regulations.

Yesterday, on Tuesday, September 30, there was a lead editorial in the Washington Post entitled ``Fighting Over Overtime.''

It said:

Despite a veto threat from President Bush, the House should

vote to block the rules. While the overtime regulations need

updating--

We all agree with that.

--the administration proposal tilts too far in the direction

of employers. It ought to be redrawn in a more balanced way.

I ask unanimous consent that the article be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask to be recognized on my own time.

I appreciate that. I will not take that much time.

Mr. President, I also wanted to again comment on the stories appearing in the media about the leaked information regarding an undercover CIA agent. As we all know by now, a law was broken. It is a Federal crime under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act of 1982 to intentionally disclose information identifying a covert agent by anyone not authorized to receive classified information. Conviction under this crime is punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $50,000.

What do we know so far? We know a columnist, Mr. Robert Novak, received this information. He printed it in his column in the newspaper.

It is interesting that we now find there were other journalists given that information, but they did not write this. They did not print it. That raises questions in itself as to why Mr. Novak went ahead and wrote this.

We know this was put out into the public. We know--at least it has been alleged--that Mr. Novak said he got the information from a ``high administration official.'' The other journalists, I guess, who got this information said the same thing. We don't know whether it is in the White House or where it is. But there are all kinds of rumors and allegations floating around.

Now I see the Justice Department is starting to investigate. Isn't that a sweetheart deal? Attorney General John Ashcroft, appointed by this President, investigating the President. If a situation ever cried out for a special counsel, this is it.

Yet yesterday when the Senator from New York, Senator Schumer, wanted to just have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution that a special counsel should be appointed, the other side raised a nongermane objection to this. We will continue to bring up this sense-of-the-Senate resolution. In fact, when we have the opportunity, we will ask to have a vote on whether a special counsel ought to be appointed, someone more independent than Mr. Ashcroft.

There is a piece missing from the puzzle. We know a law was broken. We know Mr. Novak, a journalist, printed in his column that it came from somewhere in the administration. But here is the missing part of the puzzle that no one is writing about. Whoever gave that information to Mr. Novak got that information somewhere. This is classified information. The question is, Did someone in the CIA voluntarily give that information to this individual? If that is the case, we have a real problem in the CIA. If, however, someone in the administration is saying the National Security Council, which has access to this kind of classified information, then gave this information to another individual in the administration, then we have a real problem in the National Security Council of someone deliberately leaking this classified information.

It is not enough just to find out who gave the information to Mr. Novak. We have to find out how that individual got the information in the first place.

Let me finish this.

Did that individual have that information given by the CIA? Was it given to him by the National Security Council? How did that individual come by this classified information? That is the missing part of this puzzle.

I yield to my friend.

Again, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his question.

Why was this name leaked to this columnist? It was to somehow discredit her husband. What had her husband done? He told the truth about the lack of any evidence showing Iraq had gone to Niger to obtain basically uranium or yellow cake. He had gone there to investigate, said there was nothing to it. So he told the truth. And now the administration, because a truth did not comport with their imagination about what was going on in Iraq, obviously put Mr. Wilson on their enemies list.

I say to the Senator from Illinois, this really does bring back memories of enemies lists. The administration will go to any length, to the length of breaking a law, to try to discredit anyone who tries to point out the truth about what went on in Iraq.

I say to my friend from Illinois, I am not serving on the Intelligence Committee. I had heard and been aware, and now the Senator has validated that fact, the FBI did ask members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to take polygraphs. Again, it is a fair question the Senator asks: Will the FBI ask all senior members of this administration to sit down and take a polygraph test? If they asked Senators, why would they not ask the White House? I don't know. Will they?

Absolutely. The Senator from Illinois is correct. This points to the need for a special counsel, someone independent of the Justice Department. This is serious stuff.

I notice that the columnist, Mr. Novak, said, well, this woman is just an analyst for the CIA.

I don't know. I never met these people. But now I understand she was indeed an undercover agent overseas. She may be doing something at the CIA right now, but prior to that she was. Again, I have no knowledge of this. I only know what I have been reading in the papers.

It seems to me, in our war on terrorism, our best asset is not a missile; it is not a nuclear device; it is the information we get. And if there is a chilling effect out there--that is what this is, a chilling effect--on getting information, it is a serious blow to our fight against terrorism.

I thank my friend from New York for yielding for a question. I am proud to be a cosponsor of the amendment that the Senator is trying to offer. I came over to the floor from the Appropriations Committee meeting to speak on this amendment. Evidently, I now find out, I understand--am I correct, I ask my friend from New York, that the majority, Republican side, has extended this period of morning business which will keep you from offering this amendment? Is that correct?

Again, I am proud to cosponsor the amendment. I think it gets to the heart of the matter, and that is to try to get a special counsel to look into these serious allegations.

I noted earlier the Senator from New York had quoted from former President George Herbert Walker Bush on leaks. I think there is another quote from a former Senator, John Ashcroft, now Attorney General, in which he said:

You know, a single allegation can be most worthy of a

special prosecutor. If you are abusing government property,

if you are abusing your status in office, it can be a single

fact that makes the difference on this.

John Ashcroft, October 4, 1997, on CNN, Evans and Novak, ``A single allegation can be most worthy of a special prosecutor.''

As I understand it, the allegation here is not someone has abused government property, not that someone has engaged in some murky real estate deal in timberland someplace, this is an allegation that someone high up in this Government--we don't know where, but someplace high up in the Government, having access to classified information, leaked to one or more reporters, columnists, news people, the name of a CIA agent. That is the allegation, is it not?

It would seem to this Senator that allegation is of such import that everyone here ought to support the Senator's sense-of-the- Senate resolution. I say to the Senator, I view it with nothing short of amazement that the other side would want to stop this. I would think everyone here would want to get to the bottom of this.

I ask the Senator, again, is it the Senator's judgment that somehow we

are not being allowed to bring this up for a vote? Does the Senator intend to pursue this, to make sure we do speak as a Senate on this?

I thank my colleague for responding. I have a couple more questions.

I appreciate what the Senator just said. There have been some allegations made. I don't know whether or not this is some partisan effort or something like that. We know that a law has been broken. There is a clear law against leaking the names of our intelligence agents, and it is punishable by 5 years--or 10?

Ten years or a $50,000 fine. A crime has been committed.

I say to the Senator, here we are going on day after day, and there is a lot of stuff going around the White House and the Attorney General's office. Is it the judgment of the Senator that this could really be brought to the forefront rapidly? I say because of a statement that was made on ABC News--The Note. They had an interesting question. They asked: Has he [has the President] insisted that every senior staff member sign a statement with legal authority that they are not the leaker and that they will identify to the White House legal counsel who is?

It seems to me the President of the United States can say: Sign this. Are you the one who called or not? And this will be over with by 4 o'clock this afternoon.

I thank the Senator. One wonders. The President, it seems to me, would want to get this over with in a hurry by finding out who the person is who leaked this and let the legal recourse then follow. But at least expedite this right away and get rid of that person.

Mr. President, I know other Senators want to engage the Senator from New York. I thank him for his leadership on this. I know of the Senator's longstanding support for our law enforcement and for making sure that those who violate the trust of public office are brought to justice. That is what this is about. This is a gross violation. This is not some little real estate deal someplace.

I ask the Senator: Maybe it is not so much that the wife of Mr. Wilson is identified, and she may be safe here in the United States. I don't know about her travels abroad. That may be restricting her freedom in the future. But what about the contacts she made and her sources around the world? What is going to happen then? What will happen to our intelligence agents around the world today if they think they are going to be ``outed'' sometime by this administration or some other administration? What happens to our war on terrorism?

They should be.

Madam President, I remember when I was a young boy, right towards the end of World War II, and there was a famous sign I saw at the American Legion club in my small town in Iowa. The sign said, ``Loose Lips Sink Ships.''

Later on when I went into the military and served in the military, I always remembered that, especially when it came to dealing with sensitive information, that we had to be very careful, very cautious about how we dealt with information which, if it got into the wrong hands, could be injurious to the United States of America.

I mention that because if what I have been hearing and reading about in the news media is anywhere near the truth, then we have a very serious breach of national security emanating from the administration. This is no small matter, about the disclosure of the identity of a CIA agent, an undercover agent, the identity of whom could not only be harmful to that individual herself but to persons with whom she had contact and dealings in other countries.

This July a noted columnist, Robert D. Novak, on July 14, disclosed a covert operative's identity. That is a violation of Federal law. I am not certain Mr. Novak knew that was a violation of Federal law. He should have. He has been in this business a long time. But he printed this disclosure. Where did he get the information? Mr. Novak said he got the information from two senior administration officials. The story goes on to say that:

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that

before Novak's column ran, ``two top White House officials

called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the

occupation of Wilson's wife [who is the undercover agent who

was disclosed by Mr. Novak]. ``Clearly it was meant purely

and simply for revenge,'' the senior official said of the

alleged leak.

What happens when a disclosure like this goes out is that if agents in the field are on pins and needles about whether they are going to be disclosed at some time, it is going to threaten our intelligence capabilities around the globe. And in fighting international terrorism, the most important thing we need is not the U.S. military, it is not bombers and missiles or a nuclear arsenal or nuclear submarines--in order to combat and beat international terrorism, what we need is good information. Intelligence--intelligence sharing with our allies. If our agents in the field--working undercover with the contacts, the kind of sources they need--if they believe their identity is going to be disclosed in a newspaper column, what does that say to them about how they can do their business? This threatens our intelligence-gathering capabilities.

In fact, I can think of no single action that probably has done more to hurt our ability to fight international terrorism than this disclosure of this undercover agent's name. I say that because it is going to cast a cloud over those who risk their lives daily who are already out there gathering information to protect our country.

You might ask: What precipitated this? Why was this leaked? Evidently it was leaked because this person's husband had revealed the truth about President Bush's deception in his State of the Union Message about Iraq trying to get uranium from Niger.

This individual, Joseph C. Wilson, IV, former U.S. Ambassador, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq tried to buy ``Yellow Cake'' uranium from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Because Mr. Wilson had such good credibility when he put this out, it raised questions about whether the President was being forthright in his State of the Union Message. That is why one senior official said that clearly it was meant purely and simply for revenge.

We have the leaking of an undercover individual's name because her husband had revealed the truth about the deception in the State of the Union Message.

I don't know who these two individuals are in the administration, nor how high up they are. Mr. Novak said they were two senior administration officials. Another senior administration official said two top White House officials. Who are they? I guess I would have to ask if President Bush is really serious about cooperating and finding out who it was that violated Federal law--a criminal activity punishable by up to 10 years, a felony. If the President is really serious, and he said he was here--Mr. McClellan, the President's press secretary, said it is a serious matter and it should be looked into.

If the President is serious about cooperating and getting the truth out, ABC News ``The Note'' today posed these questions which I agree should be answered:

Has President Bush made clear to White House staff that only total cooperation with the investigation will be tolerated? If the President has not done this, why hasn't he?

Has the President insisted that every senior staff member sign a statement with legal authority that they are not the leaker and that they will identify to the White House legal counsel who is? If the President hasn't asked his staff to do that, why hasn't he?

Has President Bush required that all of his staff sign a letter relinquishing journalists from protecting those two sources? If he hasn't, why hasn't he?

Has President Bush said that those involved in this crime will be immediately fired? If he hasn't, why not?

Has Mr. Albert Gonzalez distributed a letter to White House employees requiring them to preserve documents, logs, and records? It is very important. Has Albert Gonzalez distributed a letter to White House employees telling them to preserve documents, logs, and records? If he hasn't, why hasn't he?

Has Mr. Andrew Card named someone on his staff to organize compliance with these? If he hasn't, why hasn't he?

These are things the President has to do if he really and truly wants to cooperate, if he truly wants to get these two individuals identified, and if he truly wants to have them prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which they ought to be.

This is not some obscure real estate deal out in the middle of nowhere. I repeat this is not some obscure real estate deal out in the middle of some wilderness area. This has to do with our fight against international terrorism and whether or not those who are charged with the responsibility of collecting and gathering intelligence for us will be protected and their identities protected. Or will we send a signal that they are fair game, that someone in the White House can leak their name, that some columnist will print it in the paper and identify them as an undercover agent for the CIA?

This is serious business. The sooner the President of the United States gets

to the bottom of it and complies--and, yes, as soon as we have a special counsel, an independent counsel, not from the Justice Department but a special independent counsel needs to be appointed immediately to make sure that logs, records, and phone logs are not destroyed, that computer files are not erased, and to make sure that we find out who it was who did this to our intelligence communities. Nothing less than a special counsel with full investigative powers, with the full powers of subpoena, nothing less than that will suffice to clear this up and to assure the American people that the President and those close around him had nothing to do with this.

I yield to my friend from Nevada.

I thank my friend from Nevada. I am glad to hear that those individuals have sent a letter to the President and to the Attorney General. I hope our friends on the other side of the aisle will do the same. I hope the majority leader and the chairmen of those respective committees will do the same and ask for a special independent counsel.

The word ``traitor'' is not misleading. It is not trying to blow this out of proportion. I think the Senator is absolutely right. Whoever leaked this and put not only this agent at risk--think about all of the contacts this agent had in other countries. Think about the chilling effect this puts on our intelligence gathering to combat international terrorism. The word ``traitor'' is certainly not going beyond the bounds.

I think the Senator is right. This is not some obscure little thing. This is not some obscure real estate deal out in the middle of nowhere. This affects the security and safety of our country.

I don't know who did this. But they have to be punished.

I thank my friend.

Mr. President, today I come to the floor to pay tribute to Dr. Todd Risley of Palmer, AR on the occasion of his retirement.

I recall meeting with him a number of years ago regarding his book ``Meaningful Differences'' which taught us profound lessons about the processes by which children learn language. This seminal effort is a part of his lifetime of work that has improved knowledge and practice across a broad spectrum of issues in human development, especially for individuals with developmental disabilities.

Whether by developing innovative educational methods such as incidental teaching and correspondence training, or by designing major paradigm shifts and system changes in strategies for delivering services, his remarkable vision and prodigious research and writing have literally revolutionized the process and outcome of supporting people who challenge our knowledge and resources.

As a pioneer in the field of applied behavior analysis and through his decades of contributions since, he will always be remembered as a scientist with a soul.

Mr. President, I am pleased to honor Dr. Montrose Wolf of Lawrence, KS.

I share in the celebration of his remarkable career, one that has been singularly dedicated to the betterment of others, particularly children who have challenged our educational and clinical knowledge and services.

Dr. Wolf is universally acknowledged as a founder of the field of applied behavior analysis, its principles and its practices. As the creator of its premier journal and author of its most definitive articles, he disseminated this burgeoning science to professionals who theretofore were resigned to study human behavior in laboratory settings only. Of equal importance, his demonstrations of the power of these principles and methods in effecting significant positive outcomes in people with real challenges set the stage for all that followed in the educational and clinical practices in widespread use today.

Among many other notable contributions, Dr. Wolf's Teaching Family model revolutionized systems and supports for disabled, troubled and at-risk boys and girls, and enhancing the lives of well over a million youth through the Boys Town program and Teaching Family homes around the Nation.

Dr. Wolf's life and career have truly embodied the belief that the meaning of a good and worthwhile life is to give rather than receive. No one has given more of their talents and time. To his colleagues, consumers, and champions of children everywhere, he is a true hero.

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

Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes to join with my colleague from California and talk about this important measure pending before the Senate.

First, I applaud the Senator from California, Mrs. Boxer, for insisting on a vote on this motion to disagree with the House. She has been a long-time leader in the Senate and the House in protecting a woman's constitutional right to privacy and her right to choose.

The motion before us is a motion to disagree with the House version of the late-term abortion bill. What is the reason we would want to disagree with the House bill? The House bill is exactly the same as the Senate bill except for one key difference: It failed to include the resolution which I offered on the Senate floor, adopted in the Senate regarding the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade.

This is the exact language that is in the Senate bill that the House disagrees with:

It is the sense of the Senate that--

(1) the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade 410

USC113(1973) was appropriate and secures an important right;

and (2) such decisions should not be overturned.

That is all it says. That is what the Senate adopted. That was my amendment that I offered to the bill, and the Senate adopted it. This is what the Senator from Pennsylvania said was extreme. It is just a sense-of-the-Senate that Roe v. Wade was appropriate and secures an important right and should not be overturned. The Senator from Pennsylvania says that is extreme.

The Senator from Pennsylvania may think that. From listening just a little bit to him--and I have heard him talk at length on this issue on the Senate floor in the past--I am sure the Senator from Pennsylvania believes Roe v. Wade was an extreme decision. It is his right to think that. I do not say he cannot think that if he wants to, but that is not what the majority of people in this country believe. It certainly is not the way the vast majority of women in our society feel.

Again, this passed the Senate 52 to 47. It passed the Senate before in the same version. About 4 or 5 years ago, we passed the same thing, a sense of the Senate that Roe v. Wade should not be overturned. So, again, the only difference between the House and the Senate bills is simply this: The House does not have this language in it, so, again, to go to conference with the House we have a vote to disagree with what the House did.

If we agreed with what the House did, we would have no need for the conference. We would send the bill to the President. For example, if the House had included this language in their bill, we would not be here tonight talking about this. It would already have gone to the President and he would have signed it into law. So that is what we are talking about. We are going to have a record vote on a motion to disagree with the House version. It is my belief that if one votes to disagree with the House version, then they are disagreeing with the fact that they did not put this language in their bill. That is the only difference.

Therefore, if my colleagues vote to disagree with the House, then they are voting to agree with the Senate. If they vote to agree with the Senate, they agree that this language should stay.

The Senator from Pennsylvania may try to explain it one way or another, a procedural vote, blah, blah, blah--all that kind of stuff-- but the truth is, if my colleagues vote to disagree, the only thing on which they disagree is this language supporting Roe v. Wade. That is why I think it is important to have this vote.

The Senator from Pennsylvania says he is going to vote to disagree with the House, and then try to explain it some way. I mean, a vote is a vote. One can try to explain it any way they want, but the fact is this is the only difference.

I believe most people in this country believe that Roe v. Wade is a mainstream, moderate decision by the Supreme Court. It is one that American women have come to rely on, and I believe we owe it to them to insist that it remains in this bill.

The Senator from Pennsylvania has already said they will drop it in conference. Well, that is kind of interesting, is it not? The Senator from Pennsylvania has already preordained that no matter what we vote on in the Senate, they are going to drop it in conference.

I think every woman in America ought to know this. Every woman in America ought to know that the Republican leadership--and the Senator from Pennsylvania is in the Republican leadership--has said: We do not care what the Senate said, we are going to drop this language.

Can there be any doubt in any American woman's mind that their right to privacy, their right to choose, hangs by a thin thread?

The vote in the Senate was 52 to 47. Someone was missing. But a few votes here, a few votes there in the coming election, and I can guarantee that the right to choose for every young woman in America will be taken away. This Congress and this President will see to it that Roe v. Wade is overturned. They will see to it.

Every woman ought to know that whether they think abortion may be right or not, that is not the point. The point is whether a woman should have control over her own reproductive system or should some man have control over it? Or should a Supreme Court have control over it? Or should a legislative body such as a Senate or a House--comprised mostly of men, I might say--tell a woman what her reproductive rights are?

I have often wondered, if we could have randomly picked a Senate of 100 women or randomly picked a House of 435 women--I am sure there would be some women who would probably vote to do away with Roe v. Wade--but I would wager that the vast majority of any vote held in a Chamber of 100 women would be overwhelmingly: Keep your hands and keep your laws off my body. Keep your hands and your laws away from my right of privacy and my right to choose.

Does anybody have any doubt that a Senate of 100 women or a House of 435 women would vote differently than that? We would only be fooling ourselves if we thought they would vote the same as the men in the Senate and the men in the House. And I say pick them randomly.

On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Roe v. Wade. Again, for the record, it was a challenge to a Texas statute that made it a crime to perform an abortion unless a woman's life was at stake. That is what some in this Chamber want us to go back to.

Siding with Jane Roe, the Court struck down the Texas law. In its ruling, the Court recognized for the first time that a constitutional right to privacy is ``broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.''

It also set some rules. The Court recognized that the right to privacy is not absolute and that a State has a valid interest in safeguarding maternal health, maintaining medical standards, and protecting potential life.

A State's interest in potential life is not compelling until viability, the point in pregnancy at which there is a reasonable possibility for the sustained survival of the fetus outside the womb. A State may, but is not required to, prohibit abortion after viability. Let me repeat that. A State may--it is not required--prohibit abortion after viability, except when it is necessary to protect a woman's life or health, and that is the difference.

This is what the Supreme Court said:

The stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting

its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it

chooses, regulate, and even proscribe--

Prohibit--

abortion except where it is necessary in appropriate medical

judgment--

Interesting, the Court said medical judgment; they did not say legislative judgment--

for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

Very important words.

Some people, when they get all ``rhetoricked'' about this issue, say that a woman can choose at any point, even up to minutes before the child is born, to terminate her pregnancy. That is not what the Supreme Court said. The Supreme Court said the State may even proscribe-- prohibit--after viability ``except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the

preservation of the life or the health of the mother.''

So we see what the Senator from Pennsylvania and those who want to do away with Roe v. Wade are saying. They are saying: Look, we do not trust medical judgment, we do not trust a woman, and we do not believe that the health of the mother should be in here. ``Life,'' maybe, but not ``health of the mother.'' That is the difference. That is the key. Again, is that really extreme?

Oh, I hear the arguments. They say, ``Health of the mother? Why, the woman can say anything. Why, a woman can say, `I may break out in a hot sweat if I don't end this pregnancy. Maybe my big toe hurts; therefore, I have to have an abortion.' ''

Again, what this gets back to is a mistrust of women, that somehow a woman cannot make that decision as to how it affects her health; that somehow a man, a legislator, a legislative body, has to then intervene because, you see, you can't trust women to make that decision.

I trust women to make that decision. I have never in all my years ever talked to a woman who has had an abortion who took it lightly, willy-nilly, just a little procedure and move on. This is one of the most profound, traumatic, life-changing decisions a woman will ever have to make. It is not made lightly. It is made under great anguish, with great thought and contemplation.

So I guess when it comes down to that, I say I put my trust in women to make that decision. Not me. It is not going to happen to me. I will trust the woman, with her husband, her family, her doctor, her priest, rabbi, minister--whatever religious faith she may be--but ultimately it is up to the woman to make that decision.

That is what this is all about, isn't it? When you cut down through all of it, get rid of all the rhetoric, it gets down to whether women can be trusted to make these decisions. That is what my resolution said. It said Roe v. Wade was an appropriate decision and should not be overturned.

Before the 1973 landmark ruling of Roe v. Wade, it was estimated that each year about 1.2 million women resorted to illegal abortion, despite the known hazards of frightening trips to dangerous locations in strange parts of the city, of whiskey used as an anesthetic, of ``doctors'' who were often marginal or unlicensed practitioners, sometimes alcoholic, sometimes sexually abusive, under unsanitary conditions, with incompetent treatment. Many times there were infections, hemorrhages, disfigurement, and death.

By invalidating the laws that forced women to resort to back-alley abortions, Roe was directly responsible for saving women's lives. It is estimated at least 5,000 women died yearly from illegal abortions before Roe v Wade.

Who were these women? They were not the well-to-do. We all know from our youth that the well-to-do, the people who were well situated, had access. They always had a friend, they had a doctor who would perform it and not say anything. They would pay him and that would be the end of it. To say otherwise, to say that never happened, stretches credulity. We know that. And we all know cases of it happening.

No, it was not the well-to-do. They had their own special doctors who could keep things quiet. It was poor women, women without connections, women who lived in small towns in rural Tennessee and rural Iowa who didn't have that kind of access, poor women who lived in cities and urban areas who resorted to these back-alley abortions because they didn't have the ``connections.''

Sometimes I feel there are many who want to overturn Roe v. Wade because, you know, deep down inside they know if it ever came to them or their families and they were confronted with a situation where their loved one--a wife, a spouse, a mother, a daughter, a sister--for health reasons had to terminate a pregnancy, for health reasons wanted to terminate a pregnancy, they could get it done because they have connections. Don't you see? We all kind of have these kinds of connections, if you are well connected like a Senator or a Congressman, people with financial resources.

We can do away with Roe v. Wade, but if it ever happened to my sister, my daughter, and it was health, and I knew it was going to affect her health for the rest of her life--well, we would find somebody to take care of it, don't you know.

Again, it is back to poor women. Unfortunately, what is lost in this rhetoric is the real significance of the Roe decisions. Here is what the Supreme Court said, again, just 3 years ago in Stenberg v. Carhart. This was the Nebraska law. Nebraska had passed a law banning abortions except to save the life of the mother.

Here is what the Supreme Court said 3 years ago. The governing standard requires an exception:

. . . where it is necessary in appropriate medical judgment

for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.

That is what the Court said 23 years prior to that in Roe v. Wade. That is exactly what it said. So the Supreme Court in 2000, in the Nebraska case, said here is the governing standard.

Then they said:

Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that, in the

process of regulating the methods of abortion, imposed

significant health risks.

Once again the Supreme Court has said:

Our cases have repeatedly invalidated statutes that, in the

process of regulating the methods of abortion, impose

significant health risks.

That is why this late-term abortion bill before us I am sure will go to the Supreme Court and it is going to strike it down. Why? Because there is no exception for the health of the mother: Zero, no exception.

The whole concept of late-term abortions obviously is not something anyone relishes. I do not. It is not something that conjures up pretty thoughts. But neither does conjuring up the thought of a woman for whom, in the judgment of medical experts, this is the safest procedure to protect her health, and the woman can't have this procedure done and may lose her ability to ever have a child again.

A few years ago I met from my neighboring State of Illinois a woman who came to Iowa to speak to me when this issue came on the floor. She went public. In other words, she came out in the public. She is happily married. She had this late-term abortion procedure, this D-and-X procedure it is called, performed because she had a serious health problem.

Whether or not it is true, the doctor told her this was the safest procedure for her; that if, in fact, she did not have this procedure, the other two procedures that were left--one of them being a hysterectomy, and I don't remember what the other one was--would obviously leave her incapable of every having children again. She told me what a painful decision this was for her to give up this fetus that she had carried for several months. She spoke to me in heart- wrenching detail about how painful this was for her. But they made that decision. She made that decision with her husband, with her religious counsel, and she had this late-term abortion procedure done by a qualified doctor in a hospital in sanitary conditions with good medical personnel around her. And her and her husband went on to have more children-- beautiful children.

Who am I as a Senator to have gone to that woman and said: You can't do that. I don't care what your doctor says. It makes no difference. It makes no difference how your health is going to be affected. It makes no difference whether you can ever have a child again. You cannot have that procedure done.

That is what we are saying here, folks. That is what we are saying to this woman. We don't care what the doctor says. We don't care what the medical judgment is. We don't care how badly your health may be affected. You can't have that done.

As a Senator, I am going to tell a woman that? Some people around here may want to play God. Some people around here may want to play dictator and dictate to women what they can and cannot do. That is not my role. That is why the longer we look at Roe v. Wade, and the decision that was made by the Supreme Court--and when we read the Nebraska case--it becomes clearer and clearer that the Supreme Court made a very wise decision in 1973. They set up a trimester system. When they set up the viability, the State does not have an interest. But after viability, States may even prohibit an abortion except to save the life

or the health of the mother. The longer that we have to look at what has happened with Roe v. Wade the more clear it becomes to this Senator that that really was a very wise decision.

This decision is profoundly private. As I said, it is life altering. As the Court understood, without the right to make autonomous decisions about a pregnancy, a woman cannot participate freely and equally in society because Roe v. Wade not only establishes a woman's reproductive freedom, it was also central to women's continued progress toward full and equal participation in American life.

In the 30 years since Roe v. Wade, the variety and level of women's achievements have reached higher levels. Now the Supreme Court in 1992 observed this. They said:

The ability of women to participate equally in the economic

and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their

ability to control their reproductive lives.

That is why I believe the freedom to choose is no more negotiable or should be no more subject to the whims of the Senate or the House than the freedom to speak or the freedom to worship. It is a matter of trusting women to make the right decision.

I strongly urge my colleagues to vote to disagree with the House version of the bill but not to do it in some phony sense; that somehow we are going to vote but that is not what I mean. I think votes around here have consequences. They have meaning. That is the language. The sense of the Senate that the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade is appropriate and secures an important right, and such decisions should not be overturned. That is all it says. The House would not adopt that. The House wouldn't adopt that.

It is my hope that the conferees will preserve the Roe v. Wade resolution. But again, it is the Republican leadership that runs the Senate and runs the House. It is the Republican leadership that repeatedly wanted to restrict a woman's right to choose. It is the Republican leadership that says the language of Roe v. Wade is extreme, and that every woman in America ought to understand that--especially young women whose lives are ahead of them, who have grown up with more freedom, more avenues open to them to fulfill their choices in life as to who they want to be and what they want to do than was ever available to women in my generation.

I think many young women in America today just take it for granted that if they should ever find themselves in a situation where they might seek an abortion, they will be able to do so.

I talk with young women. I recently came off a political campaign last year. I had many young women talk about this time after time after time--college-age women, young women who say to me: There is no way that they are ever going to take away my right to choose; it just won't happen.

They don't believe it could happen. I hate to disappoint these young women.

The vote here was 52 to 47. It was that close. It could be overturned. This Senate, this House, and this President could overturn that and take it away and turn the clock back. And that is what some want to do.

I have no doubt that the Senator from Pennsylvania is sincere in his beliefs. I don't doubt that for a minute. And he is certainly entitled to his beliefs. He is not entitled to force the women of America to believe as he does. The women of America ought to make their own choices and not have us make them for them.

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

Mr. President, we mark the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks with sadness, as well as resolve.

I am further saddened today, and I believe the world is further saddened, by the death of Anna Lindh. Anna Lindh, the Foreign Minister of Sweden, was attacked with a knife by an unknown person in a Stockholm department store, and she died early this morning.

Anna Lindh was an extraordinarily accomplished and dedicated public servant. Among her many achievements and distinctions, I would like to point out that she has been in the past a member of Parliamentarians for Global Action--a group which will send members from around the world here to Capitol Hill next week. As a co-host

of next week's activities here on the Hill, I know that we will honor and seek to carry on Anna Lindh's work.

I am sure that I speak for all Senators when I say that we all feel deep sorrow for Anna Lindh's family, as well as for the people of Sweden. The world has lost a great light.

Mr. President, I understand we are going to start the vote at 9:45 a.m.

Mr. President, first, I thank the leadership on the other side. I thank my colleague and the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, Senator Specter, for working out this arrangement. It is one that reasonable minds and reasonable cool heads have agreed now we are going to proceed ahead on a series of votes this morning.

I know there are some other amendments today. I see no reason why we can't wrap up this bill this evening sometime, hopefully at a decent hour anyway. I know there are a lot of other important amendments. I wish to take a little bit of time to speak about the first amendment that we will be voting on at 9:45.

Without losing my right to the floor.

I inquire of the Chair.

But there is no time set for dividing the time.

That sounds fair.

Thank you, Mr. President. The first vote will be on overtime. I think it has been thoroughly debated. I think Senators know what we are voting on in this amendment. I wish to make a few comments to bring us up to the point of voting on this amendment.

Again, I do not see this in any way as any kind of a partisan vote. It should not be. This affects workers no matter whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, or whatever. It does not make any difference. This crosses all party lines.

What has happened, through the Department of Labor, is they came out with these proposed changes in overtime rules and regulations. No hearings were held, and now they say they do not have to have hearings. The law does not mandate that they have to have hearings, but one would think on a major issue such as this they would have gone out to the public and they would have worked with Congress to reach some reasonable agreement on modifying and updating Fair Labor Standards Act regulations. But, no, they came out with these changes in a very heavyhanded manner.

If one reads the proposed rules and regulations, they really do wipe away the overtime pay protections for I don't know--the figures are all over--8 million, 10 million, 6 million. I don't know what the proper number is, but I can tell you it wipes out overtime pay protection for millions of Americans who have it right now.

My amendment basically says no money can be expended to further promulgate, publish, or enact these rules and regulations.

That does not mean the Department of Labor cannot come back at some point and say we need to modify these. Maybe we need to throw out some old terms.

As I pointed out, the Fair Labor Standards Act has been modified a dozen times since 1938, but it has always been done sort of in consultation with Congress, in an open fashion. That is the way it ought to be done again, especially with something so sensitive as overtime pay.

So this is our vote in which we can basically say no, we are not going to move ahead with these; we are going to go back to the drawing board. If they want to come up to the Congress, to the appropriate authorizing committees in the House and the Senate, and try to work something out, that is fine and we can do that.

In closing, last week the Senate unanimously passed this resolution by Senator Hatch, expressing the sense of the Senate that October would be National Work and Family Month. The resolution expressed the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. We passed this last Friday unanimously. Are we today going to vote to say we do not care about what we said; what we are going to do is allow these rules and regulations to go into effect which will take away the overtime pay protection for millions of Americans?

Let's back up what we said last Friday with our votes this morning.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

I ask unanimous consent to add the following as cosponsors of the amendment just voted on: Senators Landrieu, Rockefeller, Levin, Bingaman, Cantwell, and Biden.

Madam President, I move to reconsider the vote.

Regular order.

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

Regular order, Mr. President.

Does the Senator yield the floor?

Mr. President, again I commend Senator Specter for his many years of hard work, his efforts, and his success in increasing the funding for the crown jewel of the Federal Government, and that is the National Institutes of Health. Certainly, no one has fought harder and longer to ensure that our National Institutes of Health get the funding they need for the cutting-edge research that is saving so many lives.

It was under Senator Specter's leadership that we embarked upon a program to double the NIH funding over 5 years. People said it could not be done, but we did it.

Now we are up there and there seems to be some idea that somehow since we did that--the reason we did that was that NIH had fallen so far behind in the number of peer-reviewed grants that were being approved and funded. So we got them back up to where they were at least 20 years ago. Some think now we have them up there, we do not have to fund them anymore and we can start falling back again. The purpose of the Specter amendment is to bring the NIH up and keep them on a track that will not allow them to fall back again.

The Senate bill will increase funding for NIH by $1 billion; that is 3.7 percent. It will be the smallest percentage increase for NIH since 1995. This is the wrong time to put the squeeze on NIH funding. Doing so will severely impact NIH's ability to award new research grants at the very time when scientists should be taking full advantage of everything they have learned over the past 5 years to translate that research into treatments and cures.

Under the Senate bill, the number of new and competing nonbiodefense research grants would actually drop from 9,902 in fiscal year 2003 to 9,827 in fiscal year 2004. That is why Senator Specter, Senator Feinstein, Senator Collins, and I are offering an amendment to add $1.5 billion more for NIH.

This additional funding is critical to ensuring that researchers can continue the remarkable pace of medical advances during the past 5 years, as I said, when we doubled the funding for NIH. Perhaps most importantly, the doubling of the funding helped result in the completion of the final DNA sequence of the human genome. That was done during that period of time.

In the past 5 years, NIH research has led directly to new knowledge about the dangers of hormone replacement therapy for millions of American women, contradicting commonly accepted medical practice.

NIH research supported the development of new techniques for bone marrow transplantation.

NIH research demonstrated that intense therapy of type 1 diabetes can reduce long-term diabetes complications by at least 75 percent.

NIH research has now enabled scientists to identify several genes that increase vulnerability to schizophrenia.

I guess what I am saying is we are truly on the brink of a golden age in medical research with the mapping and sequencing of the human genes and other measures funded by NIH. But those opportunities are threatened if we don't maintain NIH funding at a reasonable level.

The impact of the bill's dramatic slowing in the growth of the NIH budget will be particularly devastating in the areas of clinical research where, again, the fruits of our investment in medical research are applied to improving the health of the American people.

A crash landing in NIH funding sends a chilling message to young scientists in training and those just entering the research field. Scientific competition will always be fierce, but young scientists must be sure that sufficient funding will be available or exceptionally talented young people will begin to pursue other careers.

So again I rise in strong support of Senator Specter's amendment, along with Senator Feinstein, and I hope the Senate will adopt this very modest but very meaningful increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health.

We have no objections on this side.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

I thank the chairman for yielding and I, too, thank Senator Stevens for his kind and generous remarks regarding the subcommittee and especially applaud him for all the glowing terms he used about our staff on both sides of the aisle. They are just outstanding staff. They work very hard on this bill every year. But they have not worked any harder in any year than this year because, as Chairman Stevens said, this is a very large bill and a very complicated bill. It covers just about everything from soup to nuts in our society.

They have done a great job. I, too, compliment our respective staffs and thank them for all their hard work. I want to repay in kind the kind words Senator Specter just said. We have had a back and forth chairmanship/ranking member now going back 13 years. It has been a seamless transfer of the gavel. We worked very closely together all these years to increase funding for NIH, to meet our commitments in education, to meet our commitments in health care.

This bill, I have often said, is the bill that really defines America. I have often said that we always have a Defense Appropriations Committee bill. The Defense Appropriations Committee bill is the bill that defends America. This bill that funds the Department of Education that our colleague from Tennessee headed--I remember when he was Secretary of Education--and the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, NIH, libraries--everything, I always said this is the bill that defines America. It defines who we are as a people and how much we are going to invest in our human resources in this country.

So I thank Senator Specter for his dynamic leadership of this subcommittee, for his vision, for his hard work in making sure we have a bill that is--not perfect. Obviously, I don't think anyone here has gotten everything they want out of this bill; that is true. But it is a true compromise, and that is what should define what we do here in the Senate, is compromise between the various interests we represent and the various States. I think that is truly what this bill does this year, and I thank Senator Specter for his great leadership getting this bill together.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, emergency, like beauty, sometimes is in the eye of the beholder. Quite frankly, to this Senator, every single penny we put into NIH is an emergency. If you do not believe me, go out and talk to a family with a child that just came down with juvenile diabetes and see if you do not think what we spend at NIH is an emergency.

Talk to a woman who has just discovered she has breast cancer and is facing an uncertain future. Tell her that funding of NIH is not an emergency. Talk to someone who has suffered an injury who is now quadriplegic. They are looking for help to once again be whole again through some of the great research being done through NIH. Tell them this is not an emergency. Go out and talk to a family who has a loved one who has just come down with Alzheimer's disease not knowing what the future is going to be. A mother, father, grandparents, looking forward to the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's disease. Tell them that funding for NIH is not an emergency.

Whether or not this is an emergency is in the eye of the beholder. Think of the millions of Americans who have been afflicted with illness, disease, and injury who look to NIH for the treatments and cures; think about whether or not every single penny we spend on NIH is an emergency.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask the indulgence of the Senate for a brief statement I am going to make.

As we all know, Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife Sheila, and his daughter Marcia, three staff members, and two pilots perished in a tragic plane accident nearly a year ago near Eveleth, MN. The Senate lost an honest, passionate public servant, and we all lost a friend.

Senator Wellstone's life was a testament to his compassion and commitment to serve the less advantaged. He was a tireless advocate for people in need. That was never more true than when he began working with children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and their families.

In 2001, Senator Wellstone introduced the Muscular Dystrophy Community Assistance, Research, and Education Amendments of 2001 to intensify Federal investment in Duchenne and other forms of muscular dystrophy. The MD CARE Act asked the Director of the National Institutes of Health to create centers of excellence to conduct basic and clinical research into Duchenne and other muscular dystrophies. That bill was signed into law in December of 2001. About a year later, Senator Wellstone was tragically killed.

While we cannot replace the colleague and friend who served with us in this Chamber, we can commemorate his work on behalf of Jacob Gunvalson and others who inspired the late Senator to see this law enacted. In September of this year, the National Institutes of Health will announce the first grantees of its newly created Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers Program.

In addition, three NIH institutes--the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development--also set aside $1 million in the MDCRC program as the ``Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers.''

I have an amendment that would rename the NIH Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center program in honor of the late Senator Paul D. Wellstone of Minnesota. I will not read all of it. In part, it says that the designation of the NIH Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers program shall be known and designated as the ``Senator Paul D. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Centers'' in honor of Paul D. Wellstone, who was deceased on October 25, 2002. There is no cost involved.

I send the amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

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

Mr. President, I have no objection to this amendment. In fact, I am supportive of it. I want to make it clear for the record that the offset on this amendment is not an across-the-board cut. It comes only from the administrative account of the--is it all the Departments, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education--or is it just from the Department of Health and Human Services? I am a little unclear as to from what administrative account it is taken. I want it clear for the record. I just want to get an answer to my question as to which administrative account the offset is taken.

I understand it is not an across-the-board cut. Is it from the administrative account of all three Departments or only Health and Human Services?

Pardon?

So it comes from all three accounts. Again, I just wanted to make that clear for the record, that it is not from one account; it is all three, and it is not an across-the-board cut.

With that, there is certainly no objection to this amendment.

I thank my good friend and colleague from Louisiana for bringing up this important issue. I know my partner in this process, Senator Specter, worked hard to fund many priorities within a tight allocation. I look forward to working with him on this and other important programs in conference.

pediatric graduate medical education

I agree with my colleague about the valuable role of children's hospitals in providing pediatric care and research.

I concur with the chairman, and will strongly support the GME program.

centers for children's environmental health and disease prevention

research

I am glad to join my colleagues in support of the important work that the Centers for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research perform. The research and outreach that these centers initiate is unparalleled. The centers have not only begun important studies into the potential impact of our environment on children's health, but have also cultivated invaluable relationships with their surrounding communities. Continued funding for these 12 centers will allow high-quality research involving local communities in a collaborative process to continue and result in the most effective translation of research into methods of prevention.

national institute of general medical sciences charge to conduct basic

behavioral research

Will the Chairman yield for a comment?

I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I echo the sentiments of the Senator from Hawaii and the chairman of this subcommittee. The significance of behavioral health research has never been as important as it is now. The interrelationship between behavioral health research and the health of the people of this Nation is clear. I stand behind with our Chairman, the Senator from Pennsylvania, and the Senator from Hawaii to work with NIH to address the requests of this subcommittee.

Exhibit 1

Senate Report--Labor, Health and Human Services and Education

Appropriations

national institute of general medical sciences

Fiscal year 1999 (S. Rept. 105-300)

Behavioral science research and training.--The Committee

encourages NIGMS to support basic research training as part

of its mandate to support basic research training in all

areas of health-related research.

Fiscal year 2000 (S. Rept. 106-166)

Behavioral science research and training.--The Committee is

concerned that NIGMS does not support behavioral science

research or training. As the only national institute

specifically mandated to support research not targeted to

specific diseases or disorders, there is a range of basic

behavioral research and training that NIGMS could be

supporting. The Committee urges NIGMS, in consultation with

the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences, to behavioral

science research community and other national institutes and

offices, to identify basic behavioral science research and

training priorities and to develop a plan for implementing

those priorities. (p. 134-5)

Fiscal year 2001 (S. Rept. 106-293)

Behavioral science research and training.--The Committee is

concerned that NIGMS does not support behavioral science

research training. As the only Institute mandated to support

research not targeted to specific diseases or disorders,

there is a range of basic behavioral research and training

that NIGMS could be supporting. The Committee urges NIGMS, in

consultation with the Office of Behavioral and Social

Sciences, to develop a plan for pursuing the most promising

research topics in this area.

Fiscal year 2002 (S. Rept. 107-84)

Behavioral science research and training.--The Committee is

concerned that NIGMS does not support behavioral science

research training. As the only Institute mandated to support

research not targeted to specific diseases or disorders,

there is a range of basic behavioral research and training

that NIGMS could be supporting. The Committee urges NIGMS, in

consultation with the Office of Behavioral and Social

Sciences, to develop a plan for pursuing the most promising

research topics in this area.

Fiscal year 2003 (S. Rept. 107-216)

Behavioral science research and training.--As the NIH

institute most concerned with basic research, the NIGMS has

provided leadership in basic research on physiological and

biological structures and functions that may play roles in

numerous health conditions. The Committee encourages the

NIGMS to develop collaborations with other Institutes, such

as the NCI and the NIMH, and the Office of Behavioral and

Social Sciences Research to fund basic research to integrate

physiological knowledge of pre-disease pathways with

behavioral studies.

Exhibit 2

Public Law 87-838--Oct. 17, 1962

AN ACT To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for the establishment of an Institute of Child Health and Human Development, to extend for three additional years the authorization for grants for the

construction of facilities for research in the sciences related to

health, and for other purposes

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of

the United States of America in Congress assembled, That

title IV of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C., ch. 6A,

subch. III) is amended by adding at the end thereof the

following new part:

``Part E--Institutes of Child Health and Human Development and of

General Medical Sciences

``establishment of institute of child health and human Development

``Sec. 441. The Surgeon General is authorized, with the

approval of the Secretary, to establish in the Public Health

Service an institute for the conduct and support of research

and training relating to maternal health, child health, and

human development, including research and training in the

special health problems and requirements of mothers and

children and in the basic sciences relating to the processes

of human growth and development, including prenatal

development.

``establishment of institute of general medical sciences

``Sec. 442. The Surgeon General is authorized, with the

approval of the Secretary, to establish in the Public Health

Service an institute for the conduct and support of research

and research training in the general or basic medical

sciences and related natural or behavioral sciences which

have significance for two or more other institutes, or are

outside the general area of responsibility of any other

institute, established under or by this Act.

``establishment of advisory councils

``Sec. 443. (a) The Surgeon General is authorized, with the

approval of the Secretary, to establish an advisory council

to advise, consult with, and make recommendations to the

Surgeon General on matters relating to the activities of the

institute established under section 441. He may also, with

such approval, establish such a council with respect to the

activities of the institute established under section 442.

``(b) The provisions relating to the composition, terms of

office of members, and reappointment of members of advisory

councils under section 432(a) shall be applicable to any

council established under this section, except that, in lieu

of the requirements in such sections that six of the members

be outstanding in the study, diagnosis, or treatment of a

disease or diseases, six of such members shall be selected

from leading medical or scientific authorities who are

outstanding in the field of research or training with respect

to which the council is being established, and except that

the Surgeon General, with the approval of the Secretary, may

include on any such council established under this section

such additional ex officio members as he deems necessary in

the light of the functions of the institute with respect to

which it is established.

``(c) Upon appointment of any such council, it shall assume

all or such part as the Surgeon General may, with the

approval of the Secretary, specify of the duties, functions,

and powers of the National Advisory Health Council relating

to the research or training projects with which such council

established under this part is concerned and such portion as

the Surgeon General may specify (with such approval) of the

duties, functions, and powers of any other advisory council

established under this Act relating to such projects.

``functions

``Sec. 444. The Surgeon General shall, through an institute

established under this part, carry out the purposes of

section 301 with respect to the conduct and support of

research which is a function of such institute, except that

the Surgeon General shall, with the approval of the

Secretary, determine the areas in which and the extent to

which he will carry out such purposes of section 301 through

such institute or an institute established by or under other

provisions of this Act, or both of them, when both such

institutes have functions with respect to the same subject

matter. The Surgeon General is also authorized to provide

training and instruction and establish and maintain

traineeships and fellowships, in the institute established

under section 441 and elsewhere in matters relating to

diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of a disease or diseases

or in other aspects of maternal health, child health, and

human development, with such stipends and allowances

(including travel and subsistence expenses) for trainees and

fellows as he deems necessary, and, in addition, provide for

such training, instruction, and traineeships and for such

fellowships through grants to public or other nonprofit

institutions.

``PRESERVATION OF EXISTING AUTHORITY

``Sec. 445. Nothing in this part shall be construed as

affecting the authority of the Secretary under section 2 of

the Act of April 9, 1912 (42 U.S.C. 192), or title V of the

Social Security Act (42 U.S.C., ch. 7, subch. V), or as

affecting the authority of the Surgeon General to utilize

institutes established under other provisions of this Act for

research or training activities relating to maternal health,

child health, and human development or to the general medical

sciences and related sciences.''

Sec. 2. Section 301(d) of the Public Health Service Act is

amended by striking out the words ``research projects''

wherever they appear therein and inserting in lieu thereof

``research or research training projects''.

Sec. 3. Title II of the Public Health Service Act is

amended by adding after section 221 the following new

section:

``Advisory Committees

``Sec. 222. (a) The Surgeon General may, without regard to

the civil service laws, and subject to the Secretary's

approval in such cases as the Secretary may prescribe, from

time to time appoint such advisory committees (in addition to

those authorized to be established under other provisions of

law), for such periods of time, as he deems desirable for the

purpose of advising him in connection with any of his

functions.

``(b) Members of any advisory committee appointed under

this section who are not regular full-time employees of the

United States shall, while attending meetings or conferences

of such committee or otherwise engaged in business of such

committee receive compensation and allowances as provided in

section 208(c) for members of national advisory councils

established under this Act.

``(c) Upon appointment of any such committee, the Surgeon

General, with the approval of the Secretary, may transfer

such of the functions of the National Advisory Health Council

relating to grants-in-aid for research or training projects

in the areas or fields with which such committee is concerned

as he determines to be appropriate.''

Sec. 4. (a) Section 704 of the Public Health Service Act is

amended by striking out ``six'' and inserting in lieu thereof

``nine''.

(b) Section 705(a) of such Act is amended by striking out

``1962'' and inserting in lieu thereof ``1965''.

Approved October 17, 1962.

Public Law 87-839--Oct. 18, 1962

AN ACT To amend the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, to develop American flag carriers and promote the foreign commerce of the United States through

the use of mobile trade fairs.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House or Representatives of

the United States of America in Congress assembled, That

title II of the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, as amended (46

U.S.C. 1101 et seq.), is amended by adding immediately after

section 212(A) thereof (46 U.S.C. 1122a) the following new

section:

``Sec. 212. (B) (a) The Secretary of Commerce shall

encourage and promote the development and use of mobile trade

fairs which are designed to show and sell the products of

United States business and agriculture at foreign ports and

at other commercial centers throughout the world where the

operator or operators of the mobile trade fairs exclusively

use United States flag vessels and aircraft in the

transportation of their exhibits.

``(b) The Secretary of Commerce is authorized to provide to

the operator or operators of such mobile trade fairs

technical assistance and support as well as financial

assistance for the purpose of defray certain expenses

incurred abroad, when the Secretary determines that such

operations provide an economical and effective means of

promoting export sales.

``(c) There is authorized to be appropriated not to exceed

$500,000 per fiscal year for each of the three fiscal years

during the period beginning July 1, 1962, and ending June 30,

1965. In addition to such appropriated sums, the President

shall make maximum use of foreign currencies owned by or owed

to the United States to carry out the purposes of this

section.

``(d) The Secretary of Commerce shall submit annually to

the Congress a report on his activities under this Act.''

Sec. 2. Section 104(m) of the Agricultural Trade

Development and Assistance Act of 1954, as amended, is

amended by inserting immediately before ``, and (B)'' the

following: ``or section 212(B) of the Merchant Marine Act,

1936''.

Approved October 18, 1962.

funding for unaccompanied alien children

As ranking member of the subcommittee I agree with my friend from Pennsylvania and will work to ensure that the funding the senior Senator of California is requesting for the Office of Refugee Resettlement will be reflected in the final conference agreement.

I want to echo the comments of my good friend from Pennsylvania and thank Senator Murray for bringing up this important issue. I, too, am very concerned by the President's elimination of this successful program. I look forward to working with Chairman Specter to restore funding in conference.

I agree with the Senator from Washington that there is a great need for additional funds for dislocated workers, I will work with my colleagues to retain this increase of $25 million for dislocated worker formula funds in the conference committee bill.

ymca and the healthy steps initiative

Mr. President, I want to thank both of my distinguished colleagues, and I want to add my concern over the growing problem that obesity poses on the health of our Nation. Specifically the emphasis that it has had in the lives of our youth. Together we need to seek and work toward a solution.

Nonprofit organizations play a significant role in this battle to keep our Nation healthy. I look forward to working with my good friend and chairman of this subcommittee, Senator Specter, and my chairman on the authorizing committee on which I serve, Senator Gregg.

vaccine stockpile

During the crisis, the HELP Committee met on multiple occasions to study this important issue. I want to thank my friend from Pennsylvania and join him in affirming that it

was our intent to use funding in this bill to stockpile a 6-month supply of childhood vaccines. Despite the efforts of the committee and the collaborative effort by many others on this important public health issue, I understand that my home State of Iowa, like the rest of the Nation, only has a one-to-two month stockpile for some of the routinely recommended childhood vaccines. Senator Reed, is it accurate to state that these shortages, temporarily alleviated, could return at any time?

Mr. President, I echo the comments of my colleague from Pennsylvania. It has been proven time and again that kids act out the behaviors that are role modeled for them. That's why caring adult mentors can truly help transform the lives of young people. A substantial increase in federal funds for mentoring would provide a much-needed infusion of grant funding into the mentoring community in Iowa and across the nation. This funding is a wise investment in the future success of young people across this country.

Mr. President, I want to commend both my chairman, Mr. Specter, and the majority leader for their support of the Health Professions programs. My home State of Iowa is suffering from a severe shortage of health professionals. In a rural State, getting well- trained doctors, nurses, and health technicians is always a challenge. One of the biggest obstacles facing health professionals who want to come to rural areas is loan debt. Many of these professionals cannot afford to work in small town America. And that is truly a shame. That is why I am a long-standing supporter of the Health Professions training programs. These programs help to train American workers for good paying, steady jobs, while giving them the economic freedom to work in medically underserved areas--many times the most rewarding settings in which a health professional can work. I thank my colleagues for their commitment to these programs, and I look forward to working with Mr. Specter to try to restore this funding in conference.

Mr. President, I share Senator Reid's support for the CDC's Chronic Disease Comprehensive Cancer program. As someone who has dedicated a good deal of my career to advancing treatment and services for people with cancer, I especially appreciate the importance of this program. Having lost my two sisters and my brother to cancer, I consider myself a cancer survivor and know too well the toll this disease takes on everyone. We are under very tight budget constraints this year, but we need to support the highest possible funding level for comprehensive cancer in conference so we can ensure every cancer survivor has access to the necessary and appropriate care before, during, and after cancer touches their life.

I appreciate my friend from South Carolina's remarks and I, too, share your concerns. I'd like to point out that the Medicare Integrity Program has had a significant impact on reducing waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. In fact, for every $1 spent fighting fraud and abuse through MIP activities, Medicare contractors save the government $14. I understand that MIP is now capped at $720 million despite continuing projected increases in claims volume. Therefore Congress must authorize an increase in this permanent funding authority. I'd like us to work with the authorizing committee to increase MIP funding beyond FY 2003 to ensure it meets the demands of rising workloads and to appropriately safeguard the Medicare trust fund.

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

Mr. President, last week I offered an amendment to the pending appropriations bill that would prevent the administration from implementing a new regulation that could result in millions of American workers losing their overtime pay protection.

My amendment is very straightforward. It would allow the administration to increase overtime pay protection for working Americans but not take it away from those who currently have that protection.

I was quite surprised, as a matter of fact, to come to work yesterday and find that on Friday, after we had debated this appropriations bill--we adopted a couple of amendments on the appropriations bill last Friday, and, we all know, at the end of the day, the leader always has unanimous consent requests agreed to that have been worked out on both sides. I was quite surprised to see that last Friday, the Senate passed unanimously, by consent, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution supporting a balance between work and personal life being in the best interest of national worker productivity and families.

S. Res. 210 was adopted last Friday. It is sponsored by Mr. Hatch, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Dodd, Mr. Alexander, and I assume others. It expresses the sense of the Senate that supporting a balance between work and personal life is in the best interest of national worker productivity and that the President should issue a proclamation designating October as ``National Work and Family Month.''

I will read a few of the clauses that we all voted for last Friday:

Whereas the quality of workers' jobs and the supportiveness

of their workplaces are key predictors of job

productivity, job satisfaction, commitment to employers

and retention. . . .

Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less

successful in their relationships with their spouses,

children, and friends, and tend to neglect themselves, feel

less healthy, and feel more stress;

Whereas 85 percent of U.S. wage and salaried workers have

immediate, day-to-day family responsibilities off the job;

Whereas 46 percent of wage and salaried workers are parents

with children under the age of 18 who live with them at least

half-time;

Whereas job flexibility allows parents to be more involved

in their children's lives, and parental involvement is

associated with children's higher achievement in language and

mathematics, improved behavior, greater academic persistence,

and lower dropout rates. . . .

Whereas nearly all working adults are concerned about

spending more time with their immediate family. . . .

Resolved, That--

(1) it is the sense of the Senate that--

(A) reducing the conflict between work and family life

should be a national priority; and

(B) the month of October should be designated as ``National

Work and Family Month'';

(2) the Senate requests that the President issue a

proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to

observe ``National Work and Family Month'' with appropriate

ceremonies and activities.

We adopted this resolution last Friday, unanimously. Maybe some did not know about it. I did not know about it either, but I support it. It sounds very

good: It is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority.

We have this resolution, and now we have the proposal by the administration, rolled out this spring under cover of darkness--there was not one public hearing anywhere in the Nation--which changes rules and regulations that will affect overtime protection for over 8 million American workers and their families.

It is interesting that the administration did not ask us to change the law. No, they just want to do it by rules and regulations.

We cannot have it both ways. We cannot have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying--we all say--we have to reduce the conflict between work and family life, and it ought to be a national priority; that people need to spend more time with their families, and then let the administration implement these changes in rules and regulations which mean that people will have to work longer hours with less pay. That is exactly what it means: longer hours with less pay.

I found it so interesting that we have been debating my amendment--it came up last week. I guess we talked about it a couple of times during the week. We talked about it at length on Thursday. We spoke about it on Friday, and yet on the very same day we adopt a sense-of-the-Senate resolution unanimously saying we want to reduce stress on families. We want to recognize that workers need more time with their families. Well, OK, here is a chance to not just have a sense-of-the-Senate resolution but to take concrete action to make sure that happens by telling the administration that we are not going to permit these changes in rules and regulations that would take away overtime protection for up to 8 million people.

Again, a quick summary of the Bush administration's proposal is simply this: Eliminate the 40-hour workweek by allowing employers to deny millions of workers overtime pay, workers who are currently guaranteed overtime pay protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938. This proposal is antiworker. It is antifamily. It is the antithesis, the total opposite, of what we passed on Friday as a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It is an attack on America's middle and lower income workers. It will not create one job. In fact, just the opposite; it will kill a lot of jobs.

Why do I say that? Because employers right now know that if workers work more than 40 hours a week, they have to pay time and a half overtime. So in many cases, they might find it better to go ahead and hire someone new, hire another person, rather than paying that kind of overtime pay.

Let's say one changes the rules of the game. No longer is one protected by time and a half. That means their employer can say they need them to work 43 hours this week, 44 hours, 45, but guess what. They do not get any more money. They get the same salary they had before. They just do not get any more money.

Now, what is an employer going to do? Why, here is a new pool of labor that is not going to cost him a cent. So why would they go hire someone new to work when they can take an existing person and say work longer at no extra pay?

Employers will have a financial disincentive to hire new workers if they can force current workers to work these longer hours without pay.

Who are we talking about? We are talking about nurses--again, we have a nursing shortage right now and we are trying to get more nurses-- police officers, firefighters, retail managers, insurance claim adjustors, journalists, medical technicians, paralegals, surveyors, secretaries, and so on. For most of those men and women, the overtime pay they earn is not spare change. It is not for frivolous spending. Sometimes it is essential to help pay the mortgage, feed the children, pay for college, and save for retirement.

In fact, I have a recent letter from the National Association of Police Organizations which represents thousands of law enforcement officers from across the country. They oppose the administration's proposal because, as they said:

Under such regulations, America's State and local law

enforcement officers, already strained by countless overtime

hours ensuring community safety from terrorist threats, could

lose their basic benefit accorded to them for their efforts.

A few days ago President Bush was asked a question about my amendment. He said that basically I was wrong. He said that the proposal would increase overtime coverage for low-income workers.

Interestingly enough, part of the proposal does raise the income threshold, and I will get into that in a minute. So he says it is going to cover more people. The other part of the proposal, though, in changing the rules, would result in up to 8 million people losing overtime pay protection.

By raising this income threshold, most of the people who are already getting overtime pay are already over that threshold so they are going to be covered anyway. They are covered now. They are going to be covered then. So it is really not going to increase the number of people paid overtime pay because they are already getting it. But do not take my word for it. This is what industry and their consultants had to say about it from Hewitt Associates. On their Web they say their clients include half of the companies on the Fortune 500 list. This is what Hewitt Associates said:

These proposed changes likely will open the door for

employers to reclassify a large number of previously

nonexempt employees as exempt--

Meaning exempt from overtime pay.

The resulting effect on compensation and morale could be

detrimental, as employees previously accustomed to earning,

in some cases, significant amounts of overtime would suddenly

lose that opportunity.

The administration argues the proposal they are putting out is simply to update and clarify current regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Again, the Society for Human Resource Management, which touts itself on its Web site as the world's largest association devoted to human resource management, said the following:

This is going to affect every workplace, every employee and

every professional.

I will explain a little bit about how some of these rules work right now. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, hourly workers are generally guaranteed overtime pay when they work more than 40 hours a week. Many salaried workers are also eligible for overtime pay under this law. The administration's proposal will make it much easier for employers to deny salaried workers overtime pay protection. The result: Millions of salaried workers earning more than $22,100 a year would be denied overtime under the proposed changes. This proposal would keep workers from spending time with their families without compensation.

Now, we said last week we want workers to spend more time with their families. One of the ways to do that is if they have guaranteed overtime.

Maybe the employer says, well, I do not need an employee to work overtime because I have to pay time and a half. Well, now if I do not have to pay them time and a half, they can work 44, 48 hours a week and I do not have to pay anything extra.

I have always thought at least--and I think it has sort of been generally accepted as a kind of a social contract in this country--that we wanted people to spend more time with their families, but if an employer needed someone to work overtime, that they would be compensated for that at more than just their regular pay because we were taking away the time they could spend with their family that would be beyond their normal workweek, and therefore we paid time and a half, or on Sundays sometimes double time, for that kind of overtime.

Right now, American workers already work longer hours than any industrialized country and nearly all Third World countries. This is a chart that shows that. U.S. work hours increase, over the years, while those in other industrialized nations decrease. Here is the change in annual average hours worked from 1979 to 2000. We see in the United States it went up 32 hours. In Japan, it has fallen 386 hours; Germany, fallen 489 hours; France, fallen 244 hours; Italy, 88; United Kingdom, 107 hours; Canada, minus 31 hours; Australia, minus 44 hours. This is from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001.

Already, our workers are working more than their counterparts in all of

these countries, from Japan to Australia to the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. They have made a decision in those countries that one can still have high productivity and still give workers time off to be with their families, and they have a better social system and stronger families because of it, and because workers are not working so much they are more productive in the time they do work. In America we just keep on working people more and more, longer hours all the time. So already American workers are working longer hours.

Under this proposal put out by the Bush administration to take away overtime protection, in a few years this number is going to be skyrocketing. As I said before, it is not enough that we export all of our manufacturing jobs out of this country to Third World countries; now we are importing Third World labor standards into this country: No labor protections and no overtime protection, just work however long your employer wants you to work without overtime pay protection.

Major women's organizations, including the National Partnership for Women and Families and the American Association of University Women, oppose the administration's proposal because they fear an increase in mandatory overtime would take time away from families and disrupt the schedules of working parents as well as impose additional childcare and other expenses.

I said last week that the first wave of people who will be hit, if this proposed change goes through, will be women. This charts show what I mean and why it will be women who will be hit first and hardest. I am not saying men won't be hit; they will be. But I am saying the first wave of people hit the hardest by taking away overtime pay protection will be women.

If we look at the labor force participation rate for men and women from 1948 until today, we see participation of women has climbed dramatically. Women's participation in the labor force climbed from slightly over 30 percent to over 60 percent, and participation rates for men consequently have declined from about 88 percent to about 74 or 75 percent. So it is women who have come into the workforce in the last 30 or 40 years.

We see some other statistics here. We find that 61.3 percent of married couples with children were dual earners in 2002.

In 1975, 47.3 percent of women with children were in the labor force. In 2002, it was 71.8 percent.

Women with children under 3--in 1975, only 34 percent of women with children under age 3 were in the workforce. Now it is over 60 percent of women with children under 3 who are in the workforce. And 66 percent of women with children worked 40 hours or more in 2002.

Who are these women? Bookkeepers, paralegals, clerks, nurses, physical therapists, social workers, et cetera, those who are really doing the nitty-gritty hard work to keep our society together. These are the facts right here. Now we are going to tell these women: Sorry, we know you have children in daycare, we know you have to pay a lot for childcare, but we need you to work longer hours per week.

Maybe in the past, if these women had worked longer hours, they got time and a half for overtime, but now they will not; they will get the same salary rate. Now they will have to continue to pay for more childcare. Yet they will not get 1 cent more for their labors.

This chart also shows what is happening with middle-income families. Remember last week we passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution saying it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority? We recognized:

Whereas nearly all working adults are concerned

about spending more time with their immediate family;

Whereas 85 percent of U.S. wage and salaried workers have

immediate day-to-day family responsibilities off the job;

Whereas employees who feel overworked tend to feel less

successful in their relationships with their spouses,

children, and friends. . . .

That is what we said last week on the Senate floor.

Here is what is happening with our middle-income families. Average weeks worked per year by middle-income families with children: In 1969, the number of average weeks worked per year by middle-income families with children was 78.2. Look at it now, 97.9 weeks per year, average, for a middle-income family in America with children. That is why I showed this first chart, where you see the United States is going up in hours worked and all the other countries are going down. And you wonder why American workers and their families are stressed out, why we are having family strife in this country, why families are breaking up, why the divorce rate gets higher, why our kids don't have parents around after school to help nurture them. We wonder why we are having such trouble in our society. Because we are not letting our working parents spend more time with their families.

Columnist Bob Herbert recently wrote in the New York Times:

You would think that an administration that has presided

over the loss of millions of jobs might want to strengthen

the protections of workers fortunate enough to still be

employed. But that's not what the Administration is about.

Since the Senate overwhelmingly supported the Hatch resolution last Friday, which I just quoted from--passed unanimously--I would think it would be a no-brainer to support my amendment saying the administration cannot take away overtime pay protection for millions of Americans. But I don't know what the situation is right now with the leadership. We wanted to vote on it today. We wanted to vote on it today, but I guess the leadership on that side, on the majority side--I don't know what they are deciding right now, whether or not we can vote on it today or not.

But we are all here.

The Senator from Pennsylvania earlier mentioned something about Democratic Presidential candidates being gone. That is true. They are running for President. The Senator from Pennsylvania sought the Presidency himself once. So did this Senator from Iowa. You know what it is like when you have to be out there on the campaign trail and attend to your duties here. But it just so happens everyone seems to be here today. So why don't we vote today? Why is there an empty Chamber? Why don't we move ahead and vote--now, later, I don't care when--and we can wrap up this bill by tonight.

Again, I don't know why we would want to make it easier to deny American workers overtime pay. Why would we want to make it easier? It seems to me we would want to make it tougher. If we want people to spend more time with their families, reduce that kind of stress, you would think we would want to make it tougher, harder to deny American workers overtime pay. But the proposed regulations of the Bush administration would make it easier. I don't know. Why would we want to do that? How would this help the economy? How does it strengthen families? How does it help people who need to work overtime for extra pay?

I read into the Record last Friday a statement by a worker--I forget what State she was from--who had a disabled child, and she was saying she needed the overtime pay for her upkeep and to keep her child home and she relied on her overtime pay.

Here it is. Michael Farrar, from Jacksonville, FL. He and his wife need overtime pay to support their 21-year-old disabled son Andy who lives with them. Michael Farrar said:

When I took this job, it was clear that I was expected to

work more than 40 hours per week. And I agreed to it because

I knew I'd need the money. We'd be devastated without the

overtime now--we have no more corners to cut.

When I took this job it was clear that I was expected to

work more than 40 hours a week. And I agreed to it because I

knew I would need the money.

Michael Farrar of Jacksonville, FL.

Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA said:

I began my career as a supply clerk earning $3.10 an hour

in 1976.

I entered an upward mobility program and received training

to become an engineer technician with a career ladder that

gave me a yearly boost of income. It seemed though that even

with a decent raise each year I really relied on overtime

income to help make ends meet. There are many more single

parents today with the same problem. How does one pay for the

car that broke down or the braces for the children's teeth?

When I as a working mother leave my 8-hour day job and go

home, my second shift begins. There is dinner to cook, dishes

to wash, laundry, and all the other house work

that must be done which adds another 3 to 4 hours to your

workday. When one has to put in extra hours at work, it takes

away from the time needed to take care of our personal needs.

It seems only fair that one should be compensated for that

extra effort.

These are not my words. These are the words of Sheila Perez of Bremerton, WA.

It seems only fair that one should be compensated for that

extra effort. Overtime is a sacrifice of one's time, energy

and physical and mental well-being. Compensation should be

commensurate in the form of premium pay as it is a premium of

one's personal time, energy and expertise that is being used.

It has been a crime that many engineers and technicians were

paid less than even their straight time for overtime worked.

It has never made sense to me that the hours I work past my

normal 8 are of a lesser value when those additional hours

are a cost of my personal time.

What do we say to Sheila Perez? What do we say to Michael Farrar? I think what we say to them is that we understand. We passed a sense-of- the-Senate resolution last Friday. That is what we did. We passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that workers are over-stressed and overworked. They are concerned about spending more time with their families. We said it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. Yes, Michael Farrar, that is what we said. Yes, Sheila Perez, we said that on your behalf last Friday. But, Michael Farrar; but, Sheila Perez, today, on Tuesday, the week after, we are not going to do one single thing to stop the Bush administration from changing rules and regulations that will take away your overtime pay protection.

It is not what we do, Ms. Perez or Mr. Farrar, that is important around here. It is what we say that is important. We said: We are on your side. We understand your problems. Gosh, we think it should be a national priority. But don't count on our votes to make it happen. Listen to what we say but don't watch what we do around this place.

It is time for us to stand and be counted and to put into form what we said last week the facts are. These are all nice words on a piece of paper. This is what we believe without actions to back up our beliefs.

What I am asking is the Senate now back up those nice words that we said last Friday in this sense-of-the-Senate resolution--back them up with a strong vote saying that we are going to protect overtime pay protection. We are not going to permit overtime pay protection to be taken away. If you do not to strengthen it, or if you want to extend overtime pay protection for more workers, that is fine. But don't take it away from the workers who now have it.

That is what this amendment that I have offered is all about. I am hopeful we can get to a vote on it today. We are here to vote. It is Tuesday. It is already 11:30. We haven't had one vote today. Why not? Why don't we vote on this? It is the pending amendment. I don't know why we can't vote on it. But evidently, for some reason, the Republican majority doesn't want to vote on my amendment. The majority, for some reason, doesn't want to bring it up for a vote. Why, I don't know. After all, Republicans, as well as Democrats, voted unanimously last Friday saying that it is the sense of the Senate that reducing the conflict between work and family life should be a national priority. Why we don't want to vote on this today, for the life of me, I can't understand.

I end my comments now, but I will be back to talk more about this overtime issue because it is a national issue. It is one that strikes at the very heart of the middle-income and middle-class families in this country. It is an issue that strikes at the very heart of our productivity as a country. It is an issue that strikes at the very heart of what kind of society we want to be and to become. It strikes at the very heart of working women who have children and who want some time, as Ms. Sheila Perez said, to attend to personal needs and to a second shift at home with their kids and family. That is what it strikes.

It is time for us to do our duty, to do our job, to stand up for working families and to stand up for the men and women of this country who are now being overworked and underpaid. If this proposed change in regulations goes through, it will mean more overwork and more underpay. That is the wrong direction for our country. It is time for the Senate to say no to these changes in regulations that would take away overtime pay protection for millions of middle-income Americans.

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

Will the Senator yield?

I thank the Senator from South Dakota for his strong support of working families not only on this issue but on every issue that comes up in the Senate. The Senator from South Dakota has always been there for working men and women and their families, as he is today. I thank the Senator from South Dakota, our Democratic leader, for his stalwart, strong support to make sure we have fairness and justice for our working families. I thank the Senator for his strong support for making sure these workers who are asked to work overtime get paid justly for that.

The Senator mentioned a number of the people to be affected, first responders and others. It has been said, and I ask the Senator to respond, that perhaps the first wave of people to be hit by the changes in rules and regulations would be women because so many women have come into the workforce in the last few years. Many of them are salaried and now they would be exempt, they would not get paid for overtime.

One of the first waves to be hit is nurses. Right now, we are facing a nursing shortage in our country. I know in South Dakota and Iowa and the Midwest we have a terrible nursing shortage. Nurses under the age of 30 represent only 10 percent of the nursing workforce. By 2010, 40 percent of the nationwide nursing workforce will be over the age of 50, nearing retirement. Right now, nurses are already forced to work mandatory overtime. Go to a hospital anywhere and you will find nurses being told to work overtime. The only good thing is they are paid time and a half now.

With these proposed changes, if they were to go into effect, I ask the Senator from South Dakota, since nurses are on salary, if they could be reclassified and they would then have to work mandatory overtime but they would not be paid for it; is that the Senator's understanding?

If the Senator will yield further for one more question, I thank him for his kind words on my behalf. I respond by saying I am fortunate to have good leadership, the leadership of the Senator from South Dakota and the Senator from Nevada, in carrying this fight forward. I thank both for their great leadership.

As I pursue this issue about women being affected, face it, most nurses are women. That is the way it is. They will be greatly affected.

Another figure we ought to look at--and I ask the Senator for his thoughts on this--in 1975, women who had children under the age of 3 made up only 34 percent of our workforce; today that is 60.2 percent. Over 60 percent of women with children under the age of 3 are now in the workforce.

I ask the Senator, is it true that these women--maybe not all but most of them--have to have daycare, some childcare, for their children? So now, these women who are paying a lot for childcare, if they do not have to be paid overtime under the proposed changes the Bush administration wants to make, would be forced to work overtime. Does that not mean they would have to pay even more for childcare than what they are paying now, yet they would not get one nickel more in their income to help pay for it? Is this not also what would happen to women under the proposed changes in the overtime proposal?

If the Senator will yield for one last question, last week I was talking to one of my colleagues on the Senate floor about my amendment, about this amendment, and about the impact on overtime pay. My colleague said: One of the strange things about this is that I have heard no big movement in my State. There is no uprising in my State about changing the overtime laws. I have not heard from business. I have not heard from workers. I got to thinking: You know, neither have I. I have not had any businesses in my State coming to me saying: Senator, we have to change these overtime laws. They are a terrible burden on us. We have to get rid of them. We have to change them. I have not heard them say that. Where does this come from?

I ask my fellow Senators, I ask the Senator from South Dakota, has anyone here been really lobbied hard by anyone in their States to change these overtime laws? Where is it coming from?

The one we adopted last Friday.

Will the leader yield?

I thank the leader for yielding. I wish to express my thanks to the majority leader, the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, and, of course, my appropriations leader, Senator Specter, for helping to work this out. In good faith, we are going to move ahead on this bill.

I concur with everything our majority leader has said. I believe we can move ahead. I believe we can get these votes in tonight. We can have debate on a number of amendments, and we can stack them for votes in the morning. I see no reason why we cannot finish this bill tomorrow night. I will make every effort to make sure that is accomplished.

Again, I want to make it clear, that after Senator Durbin offers his amendment and makes his speech, we could then move to four amendments we can vote on quite rapidly. That will be Senator Byrd's amendment on title I, Senator Kennedy's amendment on Pell grants, Senator Dodd's amendment on Head Start, and Senator Durbin's amendment on global AIDS.

For those Senators who may be watching in their offices right now and their staffs, we are going to move ahead very aggressively on this bill. We have a number of amendments people have contacted me about, stating they want to offer them and on which they want a vote. If Senators want to offer an amendment and get a vote on it, be here this evening and offer that amendment and debate it. We will stack it in the morning because after tomorrow morning, things are going to move pretty rapidly. We know how things go.

I am saying: A word to the wise. If any Senator has an amendment and wants to offer it and wants an up-or-down vote, I respectfully suggest and hope they will come over this evening and offer that amendment so we can vote on it in the morning.

Mr. President, I am sorry. I don't know who has the floor?

Will the Senator yield?

First, I thank the Senator for his amendment on issues at NIH. I very seldom disagree with my esteemed friend and chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Specter. I may have a slight disagreement here.

A couple of questions: First, I noticed on the chart that the deduction for my State of Iowa was 57 percent. That looked to be one of the highest of all the States, if I am not mistaken. Is a 57-percent reduction correct?

Would the Senator state what that would mean? Give me some idea what that might mean for a family in Iowa that applied for student aid, has been getting student aid, a son or daughter going to a private college--Simpson College or Graceland or Clarke or a number of colleges in Iowa. They have been applying for student aid and all of a sudden they get hit with this change. Give me some idea what that means for that family that is eligible for student aid with a couple of kids in high school and maybe they have a couple of kids in college.

Is the Senator saying there could be young men and women in Iowa who are in college who are getting Pell grants, eligible for Pell grants today, who, because of this change in this Department of Education regulation--not a law, but a regulation--will be denied access to Pell grants next year?

Would the Senator say further that this change in this regulation not only affects the families that need this student aid, the young people going to college who need the student aid but, again, when they get the student aid, they use it usually to pay their tuition at school, so not only does it hurt the families--it is a double hit-- it also hits the schools, too?

If the Senator will yield for my last question, I want to make sure I am correct that the Senator in his amendment is not taking any money away from NIH; is that correct?

I know the Senator has been supportive of our efforts to increase funding of NIH.

As I understand the amendment of the Senator from New Jersey, it delays until September 30, the last day of the fiscal year, by $200 million, NIH obligations. It is my information that NIH estimates that it will obligate $8 billion next September. In September of next year it will obligate during September, 1 month, $8 billion.

I assume they work on a 5-day workweek. I assume that. I know NIH does research 7 days a week, but in terms of this, that is 20 days out of the month, so $8 billion for 20 days. If we could figure out how much that is a day, that is $400 million a day.

What the Senator is basically saying, we are just asking for one-half day, to delay until September 30.

Now, if, in fact, they do $8 billion in September and do it evenly, which they do not normally do, but if they do, they will be obligating $400 million on September 30 anyway, so the Senator is saying that for purposes of getting the funding we need for this, we are simply going to ask to officially delay $200 million until the last day of the month. They can still obligate it. This gets us the money we need to pay for the Senator's amendment. Am I correct in what I said?

One last observation. If it is $200 million, we take no money away. They will obligate $8 billion in September anyway. That $200 million is one dollar out of every 40. That is all you are saying they will obligate on September 30. I have to believe it. I have been around NIH now for the 19 years I have been privileged to serve on this committee, and I watched how they obligate money and how they spend money. Quite frankly, it is in this Senator's judgment that asking NIH to obligate $200 million the last day of the month is nothing. That is a no-brainer. They will do that anyway, but it gets us the money needed to make sure we do not shortchange the kids and their families needing help for Pell grants and help meet the needs of our higher education, our institutions so they can get the young people in and pay the tuition.

In that regard, I ask unanimous consent to add my name as a cosponsor, and I ask unanimous consent, also, that Senator Reid of Nevada be added as a cosponsor.

Four hundred million dollars a day.

See, Mr. President, that is why we need a hearing. I thank the Senator from Iowa for proving my point. This is not something that you can roll off the back of your hand going into the 15th hour of the day, a little before 9 o'clock Eastern Standard Time.

But whatever the calculation comes out to be, I would strenuously object to tampering with any of the NIH money. And I say that after having put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, along with my colleague from Iowa, on getting the funding up.

When the Senator from New Jersey says he is not changing the law, I think he is categorically wrong. If you are stopping the funding so that the change in the formula cannot be worked out, it is conclusively changing the law.

This amendment to this appropriations bill is a specific effort to change the law. When you talk about a swing of billions of dollars--and I don't know whether that is right, wrong, or indifferent, but that is the representation made by the Senator from New Jersey--the impact on looking for an offset can hardly be de minimis, can hardly be minuscule, can hardly be irrelevant.

You are talking about a swing of billions of dollars. I don't know that is so, but I would like to know a lot more about this amendment and what its impact is. And I would like to know a lot more about this whole idea of reducing student aid based upon some formula. I am not familiar with it. And this is something which I think the Department of Education and the Department of the Treasury would like to comment about.

In an effort to peruse this Congressional Research Service document just a bit, I have some bedtime reading. In fact, I have quite a bit-- U.S. News & World Report. But I note a paragraph in this CRS document. It is CRS-8, and it says this:

Quantifying the impact of the May 30th revisions to the

state and other tax allowance tables will require

identification of which students will have their eligibility

for federal aid affected by changes in their [expected family

contributions] and to what extent. Although it would appear

that the levels of federal aid awarded to many students will

be affected by these revisions, without substantial and

complex modeling, the size of that student population and the

financial effect on federal aid programs remain largely

undetermined.

So to repeat, it says: ``It would appear that the levels of federal aid awarded to many students will be affected by these revisions. . . .'' It does not know it for sure. It says ``without substantial and complex modeling''--which supports what I am talking about, that you need to know what this is really all about, which you should have a hearing on--``the size of that student population and the financial effect on federal aid programs remain largely undetermined.''

I would ask the Senator from New Jersey, since he cites this as his authority, How does he explain this authority saying that it is largely undetermined on the basis of the existing record?