Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2003, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Grassley, Kennedy, Cochran, Lincoln, Kerry, Bingaman, Dodd, and Baucus. The 1996 Telecom Act required that all television broadcasts were to be captioned by 2006. This was a much needed reform that has helped millions of deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to be able to take full advantage of television programing. As of today, it is estimated that 3,000 captioners will be needed to fulfill this requirement, and that number continues to increase as more and more broadband stations come online. Unfortunately, the United States only has 300 captioners. If our country expects to have media fully captioned by 2006, something must be done.

This is an issue that I feel very strongly about because my late brother, Frank, was deaf. I know personally that access to culture, news, and other media was important to him and to others in achieving a better quality of life. More than 28 million Americans, or 8 percent of the population, are considered deaf or hard of hearing and many requires captioning services to participate in mainstream activities. In 1990, I authored legislation that required all television sets to be equipped with a computer chip to decode closed captioning. This bill completes the promise of that technology, affording deaf and hard of hearing Americans the same equality and access that captioning provides.

Though we don't necessarily think about it, on the morning of September 11 was a perfect example of the need for captioners. Holli Miller of Ankeny, IA, was captioning for Fox News. She was supposed to do her three and a half hour shift ending at 8:00 a.m. but as we all know, disaster struck. Despite the fact that she had already worked most of her shift and had two small children to care for, Holli Miller stayed right where she was and for nearly five more hours and continued to caption. Without even the ability to take bathroom breaks, Holli Miller made sure that deaf and hard of hearing people got the same news the rest of us got on September 11. I want to personnally say thank you to Holli Miller and all the many captioners and other people across the country that made sure all Americans were alert and informed on that tragic day.

But let me emphasize that the deaf and hard of hearing population is only one of a number of groups that will benefit from the legislation. The audience for captioning also includes individuals seeking to acquire or improve literacy skills, including approximately 27 million functionally illiterate adults, 3 to 4 million immigrants learning English as a second language, and 18 million children learning to read in grades kindergarten through 3. In addition, I see people using closed captioning to stay informed everywhere--from the gym to the airport. Captioning helps people educate themselves and helps all of us stay informed and entertained when audio isn't the most appropriate medium.

Although we have a few years to go until the deadline given by the 1996 Telecom Act, our nation is facing a serious shortage of captioners. Over the past five years, student enrollment in programs that train court reporters to become realtime writers has decreased significantly, causing such programs to close on many campuses. Yet the need for these skills continues to rise. That is why my colleagues and I are introducing this vital piece of legislation. The Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2003 would establish competitive grants to be used toward training real time captioners. This is necessary to ensure that we meet our goal set by the 1996 Telecom Act.

I urge my colleagues to review this legislation and I hope they will join us in support and join us in our effort to win its passage. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation, the Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2003, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, Senators Grassley, Kennedy, Cochran, Lincoln, Kerry, Bingaman, Dodd, and Baucus. The 1996 Telecom Act required that all television broadcasts were to be captioned by 2006. This was a much needed reform that has helped millions of deaf and hard-of-hearing Americans to be able to take full advantage of television programing. As of today, it is estimated that 3,000 captioners will be needed to fulfill this requirement, and that number continues to increase as more and more broadband stations come online. Unfortunately, the United States only has 300 captioners. If our country expects to have media fully captioned by 2006, something must be done.

This is an issue that I feel very strongly about because my late brother, Frank, was deaf. I know personally that access to culture, news, and other media was important to him and to others in achieving a better quality of life. More than 28 million Americans, or 8 percent of the population, are considered deaf or hard of hearing and many requires captioning services to participate in mainstream activities. In 1990, I authored legislation that required all television sets to be equipped with a computer chip to decode closed captioning. This bill completes the promise of that technology, affording deaf and hard of hearing Americans the same equality and access that captioning provides.

Though we don't necessarily think about it, on the morning of September 11 was a perfect example of the need for captioners. Holli Miller of Ankeny, IA, was captioning for Fox News. She was supposed to do her three and a half hour shift ending at 8:00 a.m. but as we all know, disaster struck. Despite the fact that she had already worked most of her shift and had two small children to care for, Holli Miller stayed right where she was and for nearly five more hours and continued to caption. Without even the ability to take bathroom breaks, Holli Miller made sure that deaf and hard of hearing people got the same news the rest of us got on September 11. I want to personnally say thank you to Holli Miller and all the many captioners and other people across the country that made sure all Americans were alert and informed on that tragic day.

But let me emphasize that the deaf and hard of hearing population is only one of a number of groups that will benefit from the legislation. The audience for captioning also includes individuals seeking to acquire or improve literacy skills, including approximately 27 million functionally illiterate adults, 3 to 4 million immigrants learning English as a second language, and 18 million children learning to read in grades kindergarten through 3. In addition, I see people using closed captioning to stay informed everywhere--from the gym to the airport. Captioning helps people educate themselves and helps all of us stay informed and entertained when audio isn't the most appropriate medium.

Although we have a few years to go until the deadline given by the 1996 Telecom Act, our nation is facing a serious shortage of captioners. Over the past five years, student enrollment in programs that train court reporters to become realtime writers has decreased significantly, causing such programs to close on many campuses. Yet the need for these skills continues to rise. That is why my colleagues and I are introducing this vital piece of legislation. The Training for Realtime Writers Act of 2003 would establish competitive grants to be used toward training real time captioners. This is necessary to ensure that we meet our goal set by the 1996 Telecom Act.

I urge my colleagues to review this legislation and I hope they will join us in support and join us in our effort to win its passage. I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I haven't had the opportunity in the last couple of days to have my say on Mr. Estrada. I thought I would take the time now to talk a little bit about the nomination of Miguel Estrada for the D.C. circuit court.

I have to say that there has been a lot of nonsense bandied about in the Chamber on the nomination and the idea of whether we are holding something up. Facts are bothersome things, as they say. What some people say in the past may come back to haunt them in the future.

It was Mo Udall, former Congressman, who coined the wonderful phrase. He always said: O Lord, let me always utter kind and humble words for tomorrow morning I may have to eat them.

I was looking back through the record. The current chairman of the Judiciary Committee in 1997 addressed the Utah chapter of the Federalist Society. This is what the current chairman of the Judiciary Committee said:

The Senate can and should do what it can to ascertain the

jurisprudential views a nominee will bring to the bench in

order to prevent the confirmation of those who are likely to

be judicial activists. Determining who will become activist

is not easy since many of President Clinton's nominees tend

to have limited paper trails. Determining which of President

Clinton's nominees would become activist is complicated and

would require the Senate to be more diligent and extensive in

its questioning of nominees' jurisprudential views.

That is interesting because when Mr. Estrada refused to answer even the most simple, straightforward questions, that sure doesn't help us in questioning his jurisprudential views. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Mr. Estrada is a movement person. He will be a movement judge, one who will try to move the court in a certain ideological direction.

What also concerned me was something my colleague Senator Hatch from Utah said the other day. He said:

An up or down vote, that is all we ask. If the Democrats

have enough votes to defeat Miguel Estrada, I will not

complain about it. I might feel badly about it and I might

say it was the wrong thing to do, but they have

a right to do it. If my colleagues who disagree do not like

this, they can speak out. They can give their reason. They

can vote no. Politics ought to be left out of it.

That is what the Senator from Utah said last night. Unfortunately, I am sorry that his sentiments didn't exist when President Clinton's nominees came up for confirmation. I recall saying just about the same thing over and over again on the nomination of Bonnie Campbell to serve on the Eighth Circuit. She received her hearing in May of 2000 and then her nomination was stopped cold. Despite the fact she had the ABA stamp of approval, a long and distinguished history in the field of law, including her work as Iowa's attorney general. Members on both sides of the aisle supported her nomination. On September 21 and October 3, I tried to bring it up. Then during the month of October I brought up Bonnie Campbell's nomination seven times and seven times the Republican majority objected.

The Senator from Utah kept talking last night about the Democrats' double standard. My first instinct is to call that claim laughable. But in reality, it is outrageous and duplicitous to us because so many extremely well-qualified nominees never got an up-or-down vote on the floor, never got a vote in committee, and many never even got a hearing.

Bonnie Campbell had a hearing, but then they stopped her cold. Senator Hatch suggested Bonnie Campbell's nomination came too late in the last year of the last administration. I know for a fact that two of Senator Kyl's district court judges were nominated after Bonnie Campbell was, and they were confirmed on October 3, 2000.

And now back to Mr. Estrada. We're not holding Mr. Estrada up because we feel like spending all of our time through the wee hours of the night talking about him. We're holding up because he hasn't told us anything. He hasn't answered the soft ball questions that nearly all judicial nominees have more than willingly answered. What's he got to hide?

I don't know Mr. Estrada. To the best of my knowledge, I never met him. But I do know we have heard from people who do know him, who have associated with him, some of whom have termed him ``scary'' in his outlook, scary in what he might do as a judge. I don't know if he is or not, but I know the people who have associated with him have called him that. They think he is some kind of a rightwing kook. I don't know if he is or not. How do we know? Well, the stealth candidate hasn't helped when he won't even answer the most simple, straightforward questions. So we have no way of knowing one way or the other.

It is our job as Senators to examine nominees, their background, their way of thinking to determine what kind of judges they would be and whether or not they can fairly and impartially administer the law. And as far as this Senator is concerned, I keep coming back to the same conclusion: we don't know enough about him to make an informed decision on his nomination to a lifelong appointment to the second most important and influential court of the land.

Even after I find out more about him, I may vote against him, but I don't think we even have to bring him up for a vote until we know more about Mr. Estrada. Is he a rightwing kook? I don't know. Some people say he is. Some people say he is scary. We have no way of knowing at this point in time. That is why we should not bring his name up. We should not move forward on this until we find out more--unlike Bonnie Campbell, who answered all the questions and gave all the documents they ever asked of her. Yet, they would not even bring her name to the floor.

So to my friend from Utah who says there is a double standard, I say look in the mirror.

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

Mr. President, I object.

One of the key provisions of the bipartisan Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 signed into law by President Bush last year was a significant new conservation initiative called the Conservation Security Program (CSP) which will, if properly implemented, significantly improve conservation practices and result in cleaner air and water.

I want to clarify the intent of provisions related to this program included in this conference report and actions that will be taken to preserve current law provisions. First, it is my understanding that it was the intention of the conferees that the CSP be implemented and operated according to the terms of the 2002 farm bill. Second, it is my understanding that the provisions in this conference report were only intended to apply to years following expiration of this measure and were not intended in any way to modify operation of the program prior to the beginning of fiscal year 2008. Third, it is my understanding that as soon as possible this year a conference report that is expected to become law will be brought before the Senate that contains provisions that assure that the CSP will operate as established and intended in the 2002 farm bill for the duration of that bill.

Mr. President, I came to Congress in 1975 and served in the House until 1984, when I was elected to the Senate. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee and later the Senate Agriculture Committee I have always known the importance of agriculture conservation. My home State of Iowa is rich in agriculture and also rich in the tradition of conservation.

But even in Iowa, we recognize the need for more conservation. For decades we had cost-share money available for producers through the Agriculture Conservation Program. But, it was not

until 1990 that a farm bill took the next critical step toward conservation by including my Water Quality Incentives Program. This program, for the first time in agriculture history, included incentive payments for producers. The basic concepts and principles of WQIP were the foundation for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, EQIP, included in the 1996 farm bill. EQIP, which expanded beyond water quality to all natural resources, was a fundamental advancement for conservation on working lands.

However, even with these advances we were still spending over 90 percent of conservation dollars on land retirement programs, namely CRP and WRP. While these two programs are critically important, it became abundantly clear that conservation on working lands needed to be addressed. EQIP was hugely popular among farmers and ranchers, but the dollars were limited and many, many, many producers were left stranded--unable to access this program.

Moreover, a growing resentment from good conservationists was brewing over the EQIP funding. Too many good stewards of their lands were left out of the conservation programs. Those who worked hard, using their own resources and ingenuity, were not recognized by USDA agriculture conservation programs.

As I traveled the countryside, it became abundantly clear that change was necessary. I heard from many producers that we finally needed a good strong conservation program open to all producers, not just a few select producers. And, they told me that we needed a conservation program that rewarded those committed stewards of the land, instead of excluding them.

During the development of the farm bill, I continued to press for an expanded conservation title. To expand and improve the existing conservation programs and to finally add a new conservation program which I called the Conservation Security Program--a program to secure the right of all American farmers and ranchers to access conservation dollars to adopt and maintain conservation practices on their lands. We did not put a cap on the CSP so that all producers who would carry out conservation and meet the requirements could enroll in it. The CSP was a novel approach to conservation--it adopted the well- accepted full participation principle in our commodity programs. That is the most unique factor of CSP. I first proposed CSP in 1999 and over the next three years CSP evolved into the groundbreaking program that was included in the 2002 farm bill. Prior to the final product, the CSP was introduced in a bipartisan manner on both the House and the Senate in 2001.

Senator Smith of Oregon and I worked hard on developing this important program. It took long hours of negotiation involving staff together with major commodity groups, like the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association, Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club and many others. Moreover, we worked extensively with the USDA. Eventually, we developed a program embraced by both commodity and conservation groups alike.

But, the evolution of CSP continued through the development of the farm bill. As the Senate worked on the farm bill, Senator Lugar, Senator Smith and I continued to modify the CSP to ensure that the environmental benefits were maximized and that farmer access was paramount. Senator Lugar and I developed joint principles on the farm bill, including for the conservation title. While both Senator Lugar and I vocally supported a strong conservation title, we took time to refine the CSP. As a result of our bipartisan work, the conservation title, including a CSP without an arbitrary funding limit of the Senate Agriculture Committee unanimously.

But, our work on the CSP was far from over. As we moved into conference with the House, we again worked to improve CSP. We worked tirelessly and carefully to refine the CSP and make sure that it was acceptable to all members of conference. This was not a simple process. The Farm bill conference took months, and the conservation title was debated during the entire process. I personally engaged in weeks of negotiations on the CSP. Because I understood the critical importance of including a CSP without a funding cap in the final bill, I made many concessions on the farm bill.

Finally, after months of debate, the conference agreed to include CSP as an uncapped program--one open to all producers who meet requirements of the program and one that would have a budget baseline in the future as the program grew. The farm bill was a carefully negotiated bill that required a delicate balancing of all concerns.

When President Bush signed the 2002 farm bill last May, we all celebrated the historic increase in conservation spending for existing and new programs. For the first time ever, the farm bill took a monumental step forward toward truly addressing conservation of natural resources on our farms and ranches in the form of the CSP.

The CSP, by its uncapped nature, ensured for the first time that all farmers and ranchers who meet the requirements may participate in an agriculture conservation program. Again, it was uncapped nature of this program that provided for this program that provided for this giant step for conservation--for both our farmers and ranchers and the environment.

I must restate that the CSP will generate real environment benefits. The design of CSP mandate these benefits. Producers are required to maintain or adopt conservation practices at the highest level of all conservation programs.

Why else is CSP so important? For many reasons--It is the first program that provides a comprehensive approach covering the full range of conservation and environmental issues related to working lands, and enables participation based on one unified, site-specific conservation plan.

CSP helps rebalance conservation funding in support of incentives for land in production so that producers don't have to retireland and stop farming in order to benefit. CSP is open to producers of all types of crops and all parts of the country. CSP, for the first time, pays producers in recognition of the public nature resource and environmental benefits provided on working farms and ranches, including maintenance payments for active management of already adopted practices. And, CSP is compatible with our trade obligations under WTO.

That is why major commodity and conservation groups support CSP. Groups including, Cotton Council, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union, National Milk Producers Federation, United Fresh Fruits & Vegetables, U.S. Rice Producers, American Farmland Trust, Defenders of Wildlife, National Association of Conservation Districts, National Audubon Society, Pheasants Forever, Sierra Club, Trout Unlimited, Union of Concerned Scientists and many more. Despite the Administration's contention that it supports voluntary conservation programs in the farm bill, we have found that their words are not matched by their actions. In fact, the Administration has actively worked to undermine conservation programs.

Just recently, the Administration described CSP as having ``a unique role among USDA conservation programs. It identifies and rewards those farmers and ranchers who meet the highest standards of conservation and environmental management on their operations, creates powerful incentives for other producers to meet those same standards of conservation performance on their operations, and provides public benefits for generations to come.''

Despite this glowing endorsement, the Administration has attacked CSP--by proposing to cut back CSP to a strict $2 billion for 10 years in the FY04 budget and by pushing to cap CSP to only $3.77 billion in this omnibus appropriations bill. The manner in which the CSP was capped was unfair. It began with a small provision in the House agriculture appropriations bill by limiting CSP as a pilot program in FY03 in my home state of Iowa.

But as time went on and the majority developed an inadequate disaster bill--one that doesn't provide the necessary support farmers need, they decided they needed an offset for the program. So, for the first time, we have

now created a horrible precedent of requiring an offset for disaster payments. And, where did the Administration go for this offset? The farm bill which was just passed nine months ago. And, more importantly, what did the Administration attack first--the conservation title.

During the farm bill, the CSP was scored by CBO for $2 billion, but as the popularity and producer support and excitement for this program grew, CBO rescored this program for significantly more. In fact, the most recent score for CSP is $6.8 billion. Instead of seeing a wonderful vehicle to accomplish conservation on the ground, the Bush Administration viewed CSP as a cash cow--one to attack to pay for disaster payments. So, without any ability for debate, in the quiet of the night behind closed doors the Administration undermined the most important conservation program ever authorized--a conservation program open to all producers and capped the CSP. This cap fundamentally changes the CSP.

No longer can all producers have the security of knowing they can participate in a conservation program, no longer can the promised environmental benefits of the conservation title of the farm bill guaranteed. By capping this program--unintended restrictions on participation will follow and the baseline we worked so hard to develop and so carefully negotiated in the farm bill is gone. And, we have greatly hindered the most promising program we had for meeting our WTO obligations in the future.

It is clear today that the Administration is bent on undermining conservation practices and the CSP. It is clear that its words of praise for conservation cannot be reconciled with its destructive measures.

The colloquy between Senator Stevens, Senator Cochran, Senator Daschle, Senator Frist and me entered into on passage of the Omnibus Appropriations bill on February 13, will hopefully lead to correcting this mistake on the next supplemental appropriations bill.

I ask unanimous consent that a statement by Congressman Goodlatte be printed in the Record.

Madam President, this month, Iowa Wesleyan College is marking an important milestone--1 million hours of service by their students to the community. As we celebrate National Volunteer Month, I would like to take a few moments to recognize this extraordinary achievement.

Iowa Wesleyan is a 161 year old liberal arts college located in Mount Pleasant, IA. The college is affiliated with the Methodist Church and ``Learning in Community'' has been the central mission since its inception in 1842. This mission was formally integrated in 1968 with the establishment of the Responsible Social Involvement, RSI, program. Initially begun as a way to channel the strong desire of students to become socially active, RSI was adopted as a requirement for graduation in 1971.

Students must contribute a minimum of 160 hours of service to a non- profit organization. They record their experiences in a journal, write a paper reflecting on the experience and make an oral presentation to a faculty committee. Students receive 6 hours of college credit for their service.

For 35 years, Iowa Wesleyan students have served in all types of jobs and all kinds of communities. Students have served as mentors with Big Brother/Big Sister and volunteered for organizations including the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity and Special Olympics. Students have served in schools, orphanages and hospitals around the world. They have contributed their time and talent in communities from Mount Pleasant, IA to Jakarta, Indonesia.

Since 1968, Wesleyan students have provided companionship to nursing home residents, tutored children on Indian reservations, coached athletic teams and the list goes on. Over the years, 5000 Wesleyan students have logged 1 million hours of service--or

more than 114 years of service. The RSI program has been a life changing experience for many and has prompted many alumni to continue their volunteer efforts after graduation. It is impossible to calculate the total impact of the program around the State, Nation and world.

In the first of its kind survey of U.S. households, the National Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 59 million Americans over the age of 16 volunteered between September 2001 and September 2002. Although nearly 30 percent of our citizens are currently serving their communities, the need for more volunteers is vast and I encourage every person to get involved. Volunteer work is the most rewarding experience you will ever find.

I am reminded of this fact every week as a volunteer for the Everybody Wins! Program where I spend the lunch hour reading with a student at Brent Elementary. This is one of the most enjoyable parts of my week and I wouldn't miss it for the world. Unfortunately, there are too many children and not enough volunteers, so please get involved.

You can check your local newspaper, contact nonprofit organizations in your areas or log on to the Internet to find out about volunteer opportunities in your community. There are millions of volunteer jobs that need you. The best way to recognize this milestone of 1 million hours of service by the students of Iowa Wesleyan College is to join them.

Congratulations to the students, alumni and staff of Iowa Wesleyan College for reaching this milestone. You have made a real difference to your communities bullet.

He loses the right to the floor on the motion.

He lost the right to the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

Mr. President, I ask my friend from Utah, please explain why the difference in substance rather than form of what happened 2 years ago, now almost 2\1/2\ years ago, in the year 2000. The Judiciary Committee held a hearing in May 2000 on the nomination of one Bonnie Campbell, former attorney general of the State of Iowa to be a justice for the Eighth Circuit--and then, nothing.

Then the Republican leadership would not bring her name on the floor for a vote. Seven times that fall I came to the floor, I say to the Senator, to ask that her name be brought up to vote, up or down or that at least she get a vote in committee. The Republican leadership would not bring her name up for a vote. I ask the Senator from Utah, other than form, what is the difference in substance between that and today?

Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from across the Mississippi River in Illinois, Senator Durbin, for the very kind and overly generous words. More than that, I thank him for his diligence and for his hard work on this issue which means so much to the average working person in America.

I will just say at the outset that Senator Durbin has, I believe, correctly laid out the meeting we had with Mr. Snow earlier this evening, and has also correctly portrayed the assurances we got from Mr. Snow regarding this issue and how he would approach it as the new Secretary of the Treasury.

Again, I want to make it clear that the actions of this Senator earlier today and yesterday in wanting to have a bit of time here to talk about this before we voted on this nomination had nothing to do with Mr. Snow. I said that earlier this evening. This is nothing personal at all. He has a very distinguished career in the business community. He was head of the CSX Railroad, I guess for well over 20- some years, if I am not mistaken, and has served well on boards of schools, universities, John Hopkins, and others. In other words, he has been both a business leader and a community leader.

Again, I want to compliment him and commend him for his distinguished career and for his service both to his company and to our country.

I congratulate Mr. Snow on his nomination for Secretary of the Treasury and will join with my colleagues in supporting that nomination.

I feel, as Senator Durbin said, that he gave us assurances on this issue--and I will talk more about this issue in a minute--dealing with pensions and workers' rights; that he will assure the fairness and equity as the rule. In fact, I wrote down exactly what Mr. Snow said. He said:

I believe we should protect the basic rights of workers.

And, if a rule doesn't meet that test, it won't move forward.

Fundamental fairness will be at the center of any policy.

I compliment Mr. Snow for that. As Senator Durbin pointed out, as the CEO of the CSX Railroad, when they changed their plan over from a defined-benefit plan to a cash-balance plan, they left in place for older workers the defined-benefit plan. In other words, they could stay with that plan. Newer, younger workers could go with cash balance plans. To me, that really makes sense. That is really the way we ought to be going in this country when we talk about our pensions and protecting our pensions.

So my actions here yesterday and today have not been about Mr. Snow. They have been about this issue. It is an issue of fundamental fairness for people who work hard, play by the rules, and then find out--after working

20 or 30 years--that what they thought they were going to get has been taken away. So that is what this is about.

Over the last several days, I have been reading a book that was given to me last year. I had not gotten to it. I have now been reading it. I am almost finished with it. I recommend it highly. It is a book by Kevin Phillips called ``Wealth and Democracy.''

I remember in one part of the book he pointed out that over the last 30 years--I think from 1970 to about the year 2000--the difference in the compensation for our CEOs and the people who work on the shop floor, so to speak, has been that in 1972, the average CEO salary was about 42 times that of the average worker in that corporation. That was 1970--42 times; by the year 2000, that gap had widened to 417 times. In other words, today, the average CEO is getting 417 times the compensation of the average worker in that corporation. So that gap has widened tremendously.

Also what has happened is that we see, time and time and time again, that when CEOs of these large corporations hit a rough spot--the company maybe has a rough spot, the CEOs leave the corporation--they get wonderful golden parachutes. They get wonderful retirement programs. We have to have that same kind of fairness for the average workers.

In 2001, we passed numerous pension provisions that had wide support. Many provisions favored those making more than $200,000 a year. I am not saying those provisions are bad, but we need some balance.

In the early 1990s, U.S. companies began a process of switching from defined benefit pension plans to cash balance plans. I am not going to get into the esoteric descriptions of defined benefits plans and cash balance plans, but only to say that many workers who affected by these changes had no idea what was happening to their pensions.

You might ask: Why has this all of a sudden come to the forefront in the year 2003? Well, it did not. I first drafted legislation in 1999, because by that time workers whose pensions had been changed in the early and mid-1990s, and who were now really facing retirement, all of a sudden woke up and found out that they did not have what they thought they would, and they had no recourse.

So, in 1999, I introduced a bill to make it illegal for corporations wear away the benefits of older workers during cash balance conversions. We had a vote on that bill in the Senate. I offered it as an amendment to the reconciliation bill, and a point of order was raised, so we had to vote to waive the point of order. 48 Senators, including 3 Republicans, voted to waive the budget point of order so we could consider this amendment. Obviously, we did not have enough votes.

After that, more and more stories came out about how many workers were losing their pensions. In April of 2000, I offered a sense-of-the- Senate resolution to stop this practice, and it passed the Senate unanimously. The Secretary of the Treasury put a moratorium on conversions from defined benefit plans to a cash balance plans. That moratorium has been in effect now for over three years.

Last month, a rule was proposed by the Treasury Department--a rule that would turn the clock back, undo the moratorium, and allow companies to once again engage in the practice of switching from defined benefit plans to cash balance plans and wear away the benefits of older workers.

So that is why I wanted to utilize this time and this nomination of Mr. Snow to be Secretary of the Treasury, to raise this issue once again and to talk with Mr. Snow about it as the incoming Secretary of the Treasury. We cannot permit this rule to just go forward. I think it was clear here in the Senate, in 2000, that we did not want that practice to continue. So I wanted to take this time to bring this issue to the forefront.

What are we talking about when we talk about how much people are losing in this? This morning, we had a press conference. We had a man there by the name of Larry Cutrone. He was one of thousands robbed of the full value of their earned pensions. He said that before AT&T converted his pension, it was valued at $350,000. After the conversion, in July 1997, the value dropped to $138,000. The calculation period for his pension was frozen at 1994-1996 salaries, so no value to his retirement account was added for any years he worked after the conversion.

So he said:

In September 2001, I was ``downsized'' out of AT&T and

decided to take my pension. I discovered that it translated

into an annual income of just $23,444 instead of the $47,303

income under the old plan.

When these plans were changed over, workers were not

informed that this could happen. They woke up one day and

found out: they have less than 50 percent of what they

thought they were going to get in their retirement.

Is that fair? Is that equitable?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this statement of Larry Cutrone that he gave this morning be printed in its entirety in the Record.

Mr. President, 189 Members of the House of Representatives and 25 Senators signed a letter that was sent today to President Bush, asking that we do not reopen the floodgates, that we withdraw this rule and promulgate a rule that is fair and equitable. As we said in our letter:

We are writing to strongly urge you to withdraw proposed

Treasury Department regulations regarding cash balance

pension plans and to issue new regulations that will prohibit

profitable companies from reducing the pension benefits of

existing employees or retirees by converting to age-

discriminatory cash balance plans.

The recently proposed regulations would create an incentive

for thousands of companies to convert to cash balance plans

by providing legal protection against claims of age bias by

older employees.

Often when companies switch from defined benefit plans to cash balance plans, a worker can work for 20 or 25 years, but the employer may not pay anything into your pension plan for several years. But they will contribute to a younger worker who has only been there for 2 years.

So let's understand this. You have two workers work for the same company, doing the same job. One gets extra wages in the form of a benefit of money put into a cash balance account. The other worker, who has been there 20 or 25 years, does not get it. That is age discrimination, pure and simple, in violation of Federal law. The only reason the one person is not getting it is because they have been there longer.

The younger worker gets the money; the older worker does not. That is age discrimination, pure and simple.

As we said in our letter:

[The proposed] regulations [from Treasury] would result in

millions of older employees losing a significant portion of

the annual pension they had been promised by their employer

and had come to rely upon as part of their retirement

planning.

That is what happened to Larry Cutrone.

We write:

We urge you to direct the Treasury Department to

immediately withdraw these proposed regulations and instead

issue regulations that provide for the protection of older

employees pensions.

At a time when millions of employees are still reeling from

significant losses to their 401(k) retirement plans because

of corporate scandals and the ongoing weakness in the stock

market, we believe these regulations represent another

serious blow to the retirement security of hard working

Americans who have played by the rules in their companies

only to see the rules of the game . . . change midway through

their careers.

I ask unanimous consent this letter, signed by 189 Members of the House and 25 Senators, be printed in the Record.

We have right now over 1,000 cases pending before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, over 1,000 cases regarding age discrimination. These are cases of people who have had their retirement pensions, what they were promised, reduced like Larry Cutrone; 1,000 cases filed under age discrimination. I believe these cases have merit. They are going to go forward. They are going to go into Federal courts.

I want to make it very clear: I am not opposed to cash balance plans. Some cash balance plans can be very good. What I am opposed to is the unilateral decision of a company being able to change their plans and stop contributing to an employee's pension without their knowledge. That is what I am opposed to.

That is what this issue is all about. It is fairness. It is equity. I know sometimes when you get into pension laws, things like that, it sounds very convoluted. In essence, what some of these companies have been doing to these workers is nothing less than sheer thievery. They are able to save millions, in some cases hundreds of millions of dollars, by converting these

plans over, robbing--yes, I use the word ``robbing''--their workers who have been loyal and hard working, robbing them of their rightful claims on future benefits, taking that money and giving it in higher benefits to the CEOs and the corporate executives, golden parachutes. It is not right. It is not fair.

There is one thing that has distinguished the American workplace from others around the world. We have valued loyalty. If you are hard working and loyal, companies value that. At least they used to. That is one of the reasons we had pension plans--the longer you worked there, the more benefit you had in your pension program. Obviously, the longer you work someplace, the better you do your job, the more you learn about it, the more productive you are. We valued that loyalty.

If companies are able to just change these plans, what kind of a signal does that send to the workers? It sends this signal: Don't be loyal. You are a fool if you are loyal because if you work here for 20 or 25 years, we can just change the rules of the game, and break our promise.

What it says to younger workers is: It would be crazy to work for this company for a long time. I will work here a couple years; I will move on.

It destroys the kind of work ethic we have come to value and that we know built this country. I also thought we valued fairness when it comes to workers. A deal is a deal. Let's say I wanted to hire you. I said: I will hire you for 5 years, pay you $50,000 a year. But if you stay with me for 5 years, I will give you a $50,000 bonus.

You say, OK, that is good. So now you work for me 3 years and you are thinking you have 2 more years to go and you will get that $50,000 bonus. But at the end of the third year I come to you and say: Do you remember the deal we made where I said if you work for me for 5 years you will get that $50,000 bonus? Well, the deal is off.

Well, now you have 3 years invested there. If you had known that the deal was going to be off, maybe you would not have gone to work for me. Maybe you would have gone to work someplace else. Is that the way we want to treat workers in this country, where I have all the cards and you have none, and I can make whatever deal I want, but I can change the rules any time I want to and take away your pension? That is what this is about.

Well, as Senator Durbin said, I thought we had a good meeting with Mr. Snow. I am encouraged by the fact that, as a CEO of his corporation, when they changed their plans over, they left a choice for workers. That is the right and honorable way to do things. I compliment Mr. Snow for having done that. I am also assured that the rules of the game won't be changed in the middle. In other words, there is a moratorium on right now, and I am assured that the moratorium will stay on at least until a final rule is promulgated.

Mr. Snow has said he would agree to meet with people--employers, representatives of labor groups, representatives of elderly groups--to get their input on this approach and, hopefully, on perhaps having a new rule.

I want to make it clear this Senator will continue to press for the Treasury Department--when Mr. Snow gets confirmed and sworn in--to withdraw that rule. He has the power to do it as Secretary of the Treasury--withdraw the proposed rule and come out with a new one that more closely reflects what he had done as a CEO of a corporation earlier on when they changed their plans over. That is the fair way to do it. This is an issue that is not going to go away. Again, I think more and more working Americans are beginning to find out their hard work and loyalty is being taken away and they have no voice. Well, that is what we are here for, to help protect these people, and to make sure their voice is heard and to make sure the pensions they have built up over a long period of time over their working years is not unilaterally taken away by the companies for whom they worked.

Again, I have no intention of holding up Mr. Snow's nomination at all. As I said, my only intention in doing this was to raise this issue up, to make sure Mr. Snow understood the depth of our feelings about it, the history in the Senate that we had passed a sense-of-the-Senate resolution unanimously in 2000, and that there are a lot of strong feelings nationally--just witness the 1,000 cases now pending before the EEOC, plus the fact that there are now about 300 filings right now before the IRS, Internal Revenue Service, by companies wanting to engage in this practice--change from defined benefit plans, to cash balance plans, without protecting the rights of the workers. I have estimated, roughly, that this represents several hundred thousand workers in this country who would be affected by this.

We need to send a clear and strong signal that we are not going to allow this to happen. If companies want to change plans, fine; but give the workers the choice to stick with the plan they have had or to take the new one. That is all we are asking for.

Mr. President, again, I congratulate Mr. Snow on his selection to be Secretary of the Treasury. I look forward to working with him. I thank him for his distinguished career, and I hope he is able to bring to the position that he will assume shortly the philosophy he had when he was the CEO of CSX Rail, and the kind of implementation of the change in their pension plans will be the kind of philosophy that we will have now at the Department of the Treasury.

Every worker in this country ought to have the right to choose just like the workers at CSX had under Mr. Snow. Again, I look forward to working with Mr. Snow on this issue. I hope we can get a fair resolution of this in the days and weeks to come.

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

Mr. President, Senator Stabenow and I are introducing legislation similar to the measure we proposed in the last Congress to effectively prevent very rich individuals from reducing their taxes by renouncing the U.S. citizenship. It is a companion to a measure introduced by Congressman Charles Rangel in 2002. The Joint Tax Committee estimated that it will raise $656 million over 10 years from a very few people who I call Benedict Arnolds. These people turn their back on their country which provided so well for then, in order to avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes.

Under current law, there are special rules that apply to these former citizens that appear to recover funds lost to the Treasury. However, they are full of holes. Under the current regime, for 10 years after a U.S. citizen renounces his or her citizenship with a principal purpose of avoiding U.S. taxes, the person is taxed at the rates that would have applied had he or she remained a citizen. In reality, the tax is nominally on a broader base of income and on more types of transactions. In addition, if the expatriate dies within 10 years of the expatriation, more types of assets are included in his or her estate. Unfortunately, the reality is that taxes are very often not paid.

The reality is that once a person has expatriated and removed U.S. assets from U.S. jurisdiction, it is extremely difficult to enforce the current rules, particularly for an entire decade after the citizenship is renounced. The measure I introduced simply provides that the very act of renouncing one's citizenship triggers the recognition of tax. So, rather than collecting tax every time an asset is sold over the next decade, my bill treats all of the assets of an expatriate as having been sold the day prior to when the person renounces their citizenship. The taxes are due up front rather than over time. In regard to estate taxes, rather than attempting to collect the tax from the estate of an expatriate not in the U.S. jurisdiction, my measure taxes the inheritance of an heir who remain in the United States in such a way as to remove any tax benefit from the renouncement of citizenship.

$656 million in revenue from these very few former citizens is a lot of revenue that must be made up by loyal Americans in the form of higher debt or taxes that Americans will face. Last year, the Senate passed the measure as a part of the Armed Services Tax Fairness Act but, unfortunately, the House opposed this provision. I am hopeful that it can become law this year. People should not be able to reduce their taxes by renouncing their citizenship.

Mr. President, Senator Stabenow and I are introducing legislation similar to the measure we proposed in the last Congress to effectively prevent very rich individuals from reducing their taxes by renouncing the U.S. citizenship. It is a companion to a measure introduced by Congressman Charles Rangel in 2002. The Joint Tax Committee estimated that it will raise $656 million over 10 years from a very few people who I call Benedict Arnolds. These people turn their back on their country which provided so well for then, in order to avoid paying their fair share of U.S. taxes.

Under current law, there are special rules that apply to these former citizens that appear to recover funds lost to the Treasury. However, they are full of holes. Under the current regime, for 10 years after a U.S. citizen renounces his or her citizenship with a principal purpose of avoiding U.S. taxes, the person is taxed at the rates that would have applied had he or she remained a citizen. In reality, the tax is nominally on a broader base of income and on more types of transactions. In addition, if the expatriate dies within 10 years of the expatriation, more types of assets are included in his or her estate. Unfortunately, the reality is that taxes are very often not paid.

The reality is that once a person has expatriated and removed U.S. assets from U.S. jurisdiction, it is extremely difficult to enforce the current rules, particularly for an entire decade after the citizenship is renounced. The measure I introduced simply provides that the very act of renouncing one's citizenship triggers the recognition of tax. So, rather than collecting tax every time an asset is sold over the next decade, my bill treats all of the assets of an expatriate as having been sold the day prior to when the person renounces their citizenship. The taxes are due up front rather than over time. In regard to estate taxes, rather than attempting to collect the tax from the estate of an expatriate not in the U.S. jurisdiction, my measure taxes the inheritance of an heir who remain in the United States in such a way as to remove any tax benefit from the renouncement of citizenship.

$656 million in revenue from these very few former citizens is a lot of revenue that must be made up by loyal Americans in the form of higher debt or taxes that Americans will face. Last year, the Senate passed the measure as a part of the Armed Services Tax Fairness Act but, unfortunately, the House opposed this provision. I am hopeful that it can become law this year. People should not be able to reduce their taxes by renouncing their citizenship.

I would like to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Leahy regarding the restoration of Section 32 funds that were depleted to finance the Administration's ad-hoc program to provide emergency aid to livestock producers.

On two separate occasions last year, the Senate passed provisions on strongly bipartisan votes to provide disaster assistance for our Nation's farmers and ranchers. Rather than acknowledging the need for this emergency disaster assistance legislation, the Administration devised a program of limited help to livestock producers and thereby put in jeopardy Federal assistance for the school lunch and other domestic nutrition and hunger relief programs this fiscal year and possibly next.

The Administration funded the Livestock Compensation Program through the use of Section 32 funds. Section 32 provides funds for school lunch and other domestic nutrition and hunger relief programs. Further, through Section 32 purchases of surplus commodities--such as fruits, vegetables and portk--USDA is able to support producers and provide food to child nutrition programs, soup kitchens and food banks, and Indian reservations.

When the LCP was announced, the Administration estimated the program would use $752 million from Section 32. However, due to the ``open ended'' nature of the LCP and an under-estimate of its projected cost, as of December 3 the program had drained an additional $185 million-- for a total of $937 million--from Section 32. Even at the $752 million level, it was apparent that the Administration had over-committed the resources of the Section 32 account by several hundred million dollars.

Use of such a large amount of Section 32 funds diverted resources away from other agricultural producers who benefit from use of Section 32 for the traditional purpose of removing surpluses from the market. The shortfall in Section 32 funds also jeopardizes child nutrition programs that depend on bonus commodities as well as The Emergency Food Assistance Program which relies on surplus commodities to supply soup kitchens and food banks and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.

As a result of the current economic downturn, State, local and private contributions to food banks and other emergency nutrition facilities are declining while demand for emergency food assistance is on the rise. In fact, a recent U.S. Conference of Mayors report shows that the need for emergency food assistance has increased by a sharp 19 percent this year. Pulling back on the Federal commitment to domestic food assistance programs run by faith-based and other institutions at this time would be unjustified and irresponsible.

I therefore commend Senator Cochran for including an additional $250 million in Section 32 funds in his disaster assistance amendment. If used carefully, this amount should be sufficient, although a larger amount would have been justified. It is essential that Senate and House conferees protect the intended use of these funds. I join my

colleague, Senator Leahy, in requesting that the Administration be directed to use these funds for surplus removals and restoration of funds in the Section 32 account that were diverted to other purposes this fiscal year.

the importance of assisting Fox Islands Electric Cooperative in providing affordable and reliable electricity to the residents of north

haven and vinalhaven

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. Will the Presiding Officer state what is before the body right now?

Mr. President, the omnibus bill that is before us virtually eliminates the Byrne law enforcement grant program. This amendment restores the funding to $500 million to the fiscal year 2002 level. There is no increase, but this at least holds it harmless.

On each Senator's desk is a table of how much each State's law enforcement would lose without the Byrne grant. These grants go directly to State and local law enforcement. It pays for regional drug task forces, technology, forensics, prevention, and other valuable antidrug efforts in local communities.

I have heard from the National Sheriffs Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Association of Police Organizations, and the National Governors' Association, who have voiced strong support for this amendment.

At this crucial time in our history, we cannot afford to reduce the effectiveness of our Nation's law enforcement agencies.

I received a letter this morning from the head of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Larry Welch. I do not know him personally. He said:

Elimination of Byrne funding would be absolutely

devastating to Kansas law enforcement.

Mr. President, this amendment is needed by local law enforcement all over the United States, and I hope we adopt it overwhelmingly.

I yield to the Senator from Delaware.

I ask unanimous consent that Senators Jeffords, Murray, Edwards, Clinton, Graham, and Schumer be added as cosponsors.

Is there any time remaining on our side?

I only need 30 seconds.

I want to add Senator Dorgan as a cosponsor.

On the $2 billion that is in the bill, that is for first responders. That does not go to the same entities we are talking about in the Byrne amendment. That is the only point I want to make.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

If the Senator will yield----

I will be brief. I just want to buttress what the Senator is saying about real cuts. Listen to this.

The cut to NIH. We have worked hard here on a bipartisan basis to double the funding in 5 years. This is the last installment this year. The cuts we now have before us will cut $778 million out of the NIH. That is more than the entire budget for research on Alzheimer's disease.

It is more than the NIH's entire budget for research on breast cancer.

It is more than the NIH's entire budget, now get this, for research on prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, Parkinson's disease, and muscular dystrophy all combined.

That is a real cut. The Senator from West Virginia is right, that is big.

Senator Specter.

Precisely.

If the Senator will yield----

Mr. President, I thank the leader for his kindness in letting me speak for up to 15 minutes before the Senate goes out for the long weekend before we come back in on Tuesday. I take this time to draw attention to the provision in the pending bill regarding disaster aid to our farmers.

We have been fighting here for almost 3 years to get disaster relief for farmers all over America. We had it basically in our budget a couple years ago. We had it in the farm bill, but it was taken out. We had assurances from the administration that it would come later. It never did. We have farmers who were promised disaster aid over 2 years ago, and they still have not received it.

A number of us on both sides of the aisle have been trying for some time now to fill in that hole and get aid to the farmers who have really suffered a lot from disasters. In the Presiding Officer's home State, livestock producers and grain farmers have had disasters in the last couple of years for which they have not been adequately compensated. That is true in the Midwest--some in my State, and much of it further west, and a lot along the eastern seaboard. But we have had some serious crop disasters.

Now the bill before us has some money in there for, as they say, disaster assistance. But upon reading the fine print, it turns out that it is not really disaster assistance, it is just putting money in a bushel basket and throwing it out to farmers. It just doesn't make any sense. In the Des Moines Register this morning, Philip Brasher had an article about it. Here is the headline: Bountiful Crop Could Still Draw Disaster Aid. My quote is this:

``This is just nonsense,'' said Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

Basically, the article shows that a grain farmer in Iowa--we had really great crops in Iowa--the soybean and corn crops this year. In one part of Iowa, we had a drought. In many parts of the State, we had bumper crops and we had significantly higher prices. Under the provision in the bill before us, those farmers will get disaster assistance. What sense does that make?

Please, someone explain to me why we are taking an across-the-board cut--we are cutting education, veterans, medical research, and all this other stuff; and we are going to take some of this money and give it to farmers who have had no losses. In fact, some farmers made a lot of money because they had good crops. God bless them. I wish every farmer could have a good crop and have high prices to go with it. But this doesn't make sense in

this bill. Basically, it is using the old Freedom to Farm payments.

Mr. Brasher points out in the article:

A farmer who received $40,000 last year would get a special

payment of as much as $16,700.

That could be a farmer who had a great crop and made money. They don't have to have a disaster. All you have to do is be eligible for crop payments, and then you can get part of this payment.

``This is not a disaster relief package,'' said Republican

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, which has been hard hit by a

long drought.

Harkin said, ``Let's face it, there are a lot of farmers in

my State and there are a lot of farmers in other States who

made pretty good money this past year. Why should they get

some more money from the government?''

Senator Charles Grassley agreed that the aid should be

directed to farmers with crop losses.

``The farmers who didn't get hurt weren't asking for more

money from the Federal Treasury,'' he said.

He is right. Why is there money in this bill for farmers who didn't have a disaster and are not asking for it?

I understand Senator Daschle will be offering an amendment to correct this anomaly in the bill. The provision being offered by Senator Daschle, whether it is next week, or whenever it is going to be offered, is already known to the Senate. In September of last year, we essentially passed the same measure by a vote of 79 to 16. So it is nothing new.

The provisions in the appropriations bill before us totally miss the mark. It is not directed toward those who actually lost crops due to natural disaster; the funding is offset by reducing funding for other important Federal programs, and it is inadequate.

We know from our experience, we know from having investigated it, from hearings we have had both in the House and the Senate, that we need somewhere in the neighborhood of $6 billion to address the needs of those who suffered a drought.

As Senator Conrad said earlier today--and I was watching his speech-- the Department already, because of the new farm bill and because the new farm bill directs payments in a more targeted fashion, we have already saved $5 billion to $6 billion, maybe a little bit more than that. So the savings have come in from the new farm bill.

We think those savings, rather than going back to the General Treasury, ought to be used to help those farmers who had a loss, who had a drought, who did not have anything because of a natural disaster.

If an argument is made that $6 billion has to be offset by cuts somewhere else, it is already offset because we have already saved the money that was previously budgeted for agricultural commodity programs. That money was budgeted, and yet we saved it. That money ought to go out to help farmers hit by this drought and hit by disaster.

To repeat for emphasis sake, this appropriations bill would simply provide a supplemental direct payment for all producers of all covered commodities and peanuts. It means that all producers of these crops who were eligible to receive a direct payment for 2002 will receive the supplemental payment regardless of whether they had an actual disaster loss in 2001, 2002, or any other time.

I repeat, why should Congress be taking money away from education, medical research, veterans, law enforcement--all these other domestic programs--for the purpose of making payments to farmers who did not even have a disaster and sometimes making a payment to a farmer who had a record yield and good prices this last year? It makes no sense to me.

I have to believe that farmers all over America, when they find this out--and they will be reading about it in their local papers; they will read about it in their farm journals; they will hear about it on their farm radio shows--they are going to laugh. They are going to say: What are those people in Washington thinking about?

Mr. President, if you are a farmer and you have had a record yield, you have had a good crop, and all of a sudden the Government comes along and wants to give you several thousand more dollars, well, hey, open the mailbox and take it out, but still they are going to think we are goofy around here for doing something like that.

Talk to farmers. Most say if farmers are hit by a disaster, whether it is a flood, a hurricane, a drought, insects--whatever it might be-- or it could be in the livestock sector where they lost feed grains for the livestock, yes, they deserve to have disaster payments, but not those who are doing well.

Lastly, I notice the bill adopts the Livestock Compensation Program that was put together last summer. That program had a lot of problems. The help it provides is inadequate for those who qualify. The Livestock Compensation Program provided less than half of the funding that would be provided to livestock producers under section 3 of the Daschle amendment that will be offered.

I was told last fall that the payment offered to cattle producers who lacked forage would cover only about 2 weeks of feed cost for the herds, and that was not enough.

I note another curious feature about this bill in the drought section. The provisions of the Livestock Compensation Program are extended to catfish farming, but not to pork producers. That is very curious. We extend the Livestock Compensation Program to catfish farmers, but not to hog farmers. I am waiting to hear the explanation for that one.

I am saying livestock producers of all categories experienced significant increases in their feed costs due to higher grain and oilseed prices, not just catfish, but pork producers, cattle, sheep, and goats.

I have no problem--I want to say it right here and now--I have no problem in providing disaster assistance to catfish farmers if, in fact, they have suffered a disaster, but we cannot single out catfish farmers and say not pork producers, because pork producers have to pay higher grain prices also. Both use feed grains.

This so-called drought relief package that is in the bill before us is, No. 1, inadequate. It is about $3 billion. We need about $6 billion.

No. 2, it is totally misdirected because it takes the $3 billion and gives it to everybody. It just throws the money out there. This is Freedom to Farm revisited. We do not care whether you had a drought or not, but you are going to get money. It is misdirected.

And, No. 3, it should not be coming out of across-the-board cuts in veterans compensation, education, medical research at NIH, the Byrne grant program, and programs like those, because let the record show that we have already saved in agriculture more than enough money to pay for disaster assistance to farmers who need it nationwide. We have saved that much money. No one can deny it. So we do not need an offset. We have the offset. We have saved the money with the new farm bill.

I hope when this issue comes up next week, or whenever it comes up, that Senators will, again, call their farmers. Do not talk to staff. They can talk to their staff, but get on the phone and call the farm organization back in their States. Call the Farm Bureau, the Farmers Union, call your cattlemen's association, pork producers, catfish producers, whatever, and ask them if they believe this is the right way to proceed.

I will give you a dollar to a dime they will not find one in ten to say yes, and the one who says yes made a lot of money and wants more. Call your farmers. They will tell you what to do: Target it; get it to the farmers who had a disaster, and make sure they are compensated adequately and not just throw it out there for everybody.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter from numerous farm organizations.

Mr. President, I thank the leader again for giving me this time. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his great leadership on this specific item, but also his great leadership on all issues concerning education, both in this Congress and in Congresses of the last 25 or 30 years.

This amendment is one that is needed to meet the barest of needs of this country in terms of educating our children and making sure we live up to the commitments we made a year ago when the President signed into law the Leave No Child Behind Act.

It is time to stop talking about a commitment to education and start proving it. All across my State of Iowa, all over the Nation, teachers, principals, and parents are deeply worried about this new education law. They are on edge not because they are afraid of accountability-- teachers and parents want their schools to be held accountable--but they are on edge because they are afraid the Government is going to come in and label their schools a failure without giving them the resources they need to succeed.

People all over this country are now beginning to see this law for what it is: an unfunded Federal mandate. President Bush keeps saying that schools do not need more money. His attitude is more tests are needed, more unfunded mandates; the schools do not need more money.

Well, it is a funny thing about money. It sure comes in handy when tax cuts are being given to the rich. When it comes to tax breaks for millionaires, why, money seems like a pretty nice thing to have, according to this White House. But when it comes to education, President Bush's education plan sounds more like that old beer ad, the Miller Lite ad: Great tests, less funding. In essence, what it is all about is priorities, President Bush's priority, as we have seen now, is leave no millionaire behind.

Instead of focusing on dividends for millionaires, we should be focusing on making sure our kids can multiply and divide. If we really want to do something that will pay dividends for our country, we need to invest in our children.

No one in this Chamber thinks money is the only answer to improving schools. We all can come up with examples and instances of chasing bad money with good in education. But it takes money to hire a highly qualified teacher. In fact, I submit that what we are seeing happening in education in America today is what I call ``finally the education system is meeting the marketplace.'' More and more of our teachers are finding they can make a better living doing something else than what they went to school for and were trained for. That is why we have so many teachers leaving education after two or three years, because the market in the private sector will pay them more for their skills and their learning than they can get in education.

In my time, when I was in elementary school and high school, perhaps even college, there were not that many opportunities for a lot of the people who were teachers. Most of the teachers in those days were women. Women did not have access openings. You could be a teacher or a nurse and that was about it. Thankfully this country, through various Civil Rights Acts, now has a society where an American woman can become anything she wants. So we have women who are lawyers, doctors, Senators and Congresspeople, truck drivers and welders, and everything else. Therefore, we do not get the teacher on the cheap anymore like we did when I was younger. If you want a good, qualified teacher, you have to pay the money. There is no way around it.

If we want to reduce class sizes so kids can learn better and have a better learning environment, that takes some money. If we want to send a poor middle-class kid to college, that also takes some money. If we want to fix up our broken-down school buildings--the average age is almost 50 years old--and get the new technologies in the classroom, that is not free. That costs some money.

President Bush does not want to face that fact. As soon as he signed the No Child Left Behind Act, he walked away from the job of improving our schools. Take a look at this chart. There seem to be mistakes made on the Senate floor a week ago by my friend from New Hampshire. I thought I might correct the Record. About a week ago, I was on the floor talking about how the President actually cut funding for Leave No Child Behind. Secretary Paige said that was not true, and the Senator from New Hampshire, in the Record of January 10, also said Senator Kennedy and Senator Harkin had it wrong and that it was not cut. Just get the executive branch budget book, what he requested in funding for this year. In fiscal year 2002 we put $22.195 billion into the programs authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act. The President's request in the budget for this year was $22.105, a $90 million cut. One might say that is not much. All right, it is not, but my point is that right after signing the Leave No Child Behind Act the President submits his budget to this Congress and actually cuts the programs authorized by No Child Left Behind Act.

The Senator from New Hampshire last week was talking about $90 million from earmarked programs, which he says is not working to begin with, which has virtually no purpose other than to fund special interest activities which is worth $90 million. The fact is there were 25 programs authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act.

For instance, rural education in fiscal year 2003 was $162 million. This is part of No Child Left Behind. We do not want to leave rural kids behind. It is part of the bill. For this year, President Bush zeroed it out. He requested zero dollars for rural education. School counselors, $32 million in the previous year--this is the previous year before we had No Child Left Behind. These were specifically authorized by No Child Left Behind. These are not earmarked programs, not in the least. These are authorized under the heading of No Child Left Behind Act. Dropout prevention; $11 million to zero for gifted and talented. Zeroed it out. The national writing project, of which I know the Senator from Mississippi has been supportive, $14 million before, is zeroed out. This is just a partial list of the 25 that were cut--either zeroed out or cut--under the President's budget.

Again, we in Congress in both the Senate and the House did not follow President Bush's lead. We put money back into these programs. The fact is the money we put in is now cut out by the appropriations bill we have before us in the Senate. The amendment offered by Senator Kennedy puts that money back in. President Bush requested this $22.105 billion for all of the programs under No Child Left Behind, less than what we had the year before. Our Appropriations Committee last year bumped that up to $24.512 billion. Every Republican on the Appropriations Committee voted for that. It passed unanimously. The bill before the Senate today cuts that back down to $22.65 billion. The amendment offered by Senator Kennedy, of which I am a cosponsor and many others are, brings that back up to over $27 billion, to meet the minimal requirements of what we need around the country to support No Child Left Behind.

The real question is, Are we going to do it? The President, we know, says, no, we do not have to. Now we are fighting to make sure we live up to our promise we made just 1 year ago when the President signed No Child Left Behind. As this chart demonstrates, President Bush's request for this year for education was the lowest, 2.8 percent, of the last 7 years. One might say you could live with that but for the fact a year ago the President signed into law No Child Left Behind, touted it widely, said it is a new era in education, and we are not going to leave kids behind, and then sends Congress a bill that gives us the lowest increase in education in 7 years.

I suppose maybe the President and others might say we will leave it up to the States and local schools. They just got hit with the biggest Federal mandate in education in over 30 years at

the same time they are facing the worst fiscal crisis they have had since World War II.

Again, why am I spending so much time talking about funding? I suppose I will be accused of saying money is the answer to education. That is not it at all. I support accountability. I support making sure parents of all kids, including poor kids, get a report card and know how their kids are doing so they can hold their schools accountable. I support the law. I voted for it. But I voted for it because there were representations made to us by this administration that they were going to back it. In fact, they walked away from it.

I read this weekend that schools in Portland, or may have to cut 24 days from the school year because they have run out of money. More than 100 school districts in 7 States have switched to a 4-day week during this school year because they are out of money.

If students are not in class, they are not going to reach the standards we set for them in No Child Left Behind. Right now, the Federal Government is leaving behind 6.2 million students who are not being fully served by the title I program, the main Federal program for educating disadvantaged students. That is what the Kennedy amendment will do, get these title I students back to where we make sure we meet the needs of these title I students. Only 4.1 million out of the 10.3 million needy students are getting the services for which they are eligible.

I am glad to yield to the Senator.

That's right.

I respond to the Senator, it is a promise delayed. We promise these kids and their families we are not going to leave them behind, that they are going to have good teachers, good education--but not these kids, not this year, maybe not even next year but sometime in the distant future. But in the distant future these kids will be out of school and they will be ill-educated. They will not be fully productive members of our society. A day lost in education today is a day you cannot make up. A year lost to these students is a year that cannot be made up. That is why we have to put this money back, to make sure we meet our commitments.

The bill before us would add just 289,000 students. We have 4.1 million out of 10.3 million needy students. The Republican bill would only add 289,000 students to that total. That does not even keep pace with the growing number of needy students in this country. They are falling backwards.

This amendment would make it possible to serve another 2 million students--not 289,000 students, 2 million students--by funding title I at $16 billion. That is the level we committed to, if I am not mistaken, in the bill last year.

I ask the Senator from Massachusetts, is that not the level to which we committed?

That's right.

I thank the Senator. Last year this Senate voted, 79 Senators voted to increase title I by even more than what Senator Kennedy has proposed in his amendment. We will see how they vote today.

There is one other aspect of this amendment, too, to which I just want to address myself. It addresses the needs of students who cannot afford to go to college. This amendment would add $1.35 billion to the Pell Grant Program, which would make it possible to increase the maximum grant award from $4,000 to $4,500. Pell grants are the key program for making sure that poor and middle class students have the same opportunity to attend college as our wealthy students. Pell grants buy a lot less than they used to. In 1976 the maximum Pell grant award paid for 84 percent of the average 4-year public college tuition. Last year it paid for half of that, just 42 percent. So we have fallen far behind in Pell grants.

With the economy still in a rut, more people laid off, more unemployment, two things are going to happen. More students would like to go to college, to fine-tune their job skills and enhance their careers. Second, more and more families will fall below the eligibility line. So kids who may not have qualified for Pell grants in the past will now qualify because their parents are unemployed, or not employed full time. So the demand in the Pell grant program will go up as the economy continues to slow down. The Kennedy amendment would provide 4.5 million college students an average increase of $300 a year.

Think about this, think about $300 a year for the neediest students in this country to go to college, that juxtaposed against the President's proposed tax plan to give more and more tax breaks to the richest people in this country.

Again, as I said, it is really a matter of priorities. This amendment is one that ought to have strong support in the Senate from both sides of the aisle. It is the right thing to do for our kids. It is the right thing to do for our country. Frankly, in the end, what it does is it just makes us live up to the commitment we made 1 year ago, to actually leave no child behind.

I commend the Senator from Massachusetts for his leadership. I hope we have an overwhelming vote in support of education, making sure we do not leave any kids behind.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I wasn't hearing so well back here. As I understand it, because I have an amendment involved in this agreement, there are 60 minutes equally divided but we will not be voting on it tonight; we will vote tomorrow.

With 5 minutes of debate before each vote?

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

Mr. President, this is a very simple amendment which I send to the desk on behalf of myself and Senators Feinstein, Biden, Leahy, Murray, Rockefeller, Johnson, Nelson of Florida, Kohl, and Lautenberg.

This amendment will restore the funding for the Edward Byrne Memorial Grant Program at the fiscal year 2002 level. The bill before us virtually eliminates this grant program which provides a critical resource directly toward our State and local law enforcement communities.

The bottom line is if you eliminate the Byrne grant program, you eliminate most of the local counterdrug task forces in rural America. Our amendment would restore those cuts to fully fund Byrne at $500 million at the fiscal year 2002 level.

I am sure every Senator on this floor on both sides of the aisle has on more than one occasion talked to their local police departments, their State sheriffs, or narcotics enforcement agencies in their States about the vital necessity of having this Byrne grant program for local law enforcement to battle drugs throughout this country.

To give you an example of how critically needed this funding is, in my State of Iowa, 25 of the multicounty task forces are funded through the Byrne grant program. Without the Byrne grant, those task forces are gone. Iowa receives about $5.4 million a year from Byrne. Believe me, we use every cent of it well and wisely.

It is a formula grant program that goes out to States, and basically it is based on population. As I said, Iowa gets about $5.5 million, Texas gets about $32 million, Alaska gets $2.1 million, Massachusetts gets $11.5 million, and California gets $50.9 million, and on and on.

I ask unanimous consent that the State-by-State breakdown of the amount of money for the Byrne grant program listed by State as of January 14 of last year be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the Byrne program is one of the most successful Federal anticrime programs ever. It pays for drug enforcement task forces, more cops on the street, improved technology, and countless other valuable antidrug and anticrime efforts in local communities. Restoring the Byrne funds is a top priority of law enforcement groups who know the impact the program has had on crime and drugs.

The National Association of Police Organizations, the National Sheriffs Association, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police have contacted me urging full funding of this program.

For example, Iowa and the Midwest have made great strides in reducing methamphetamine production and supply over the last few years. These cuts will only set them back in their uphill battle. Without Byrne, most of the small agencies in that region would lack the manpower, funding, and technology necessary to combat this methamphetamine problem.

I have heard this story over and over again from my contacts in Iowa. These drug task forces are funded primarily by the Byrne grant, and they are desperately needed to fight our State's uphill battle against methamphetamine. I know that is the case in States across the country.

I also want to make one more point. At this crucial time in our history, we cannot afford to reduce the effectiveness of our Nation's State and local law enforcement agencies. It makes no sense to cut this successful program that directly benefits our local communities.

Today, I received various letters from various organizations I just mentioned in support of putting the funding back in for the Byrne program.

I have a letter dated today from the National Association of Police Organizations.

Dear Senator Harkin:

On behalf of the National Association of Police

Organizations representing 220,000 rank-and-file police

officers from across the United States, I would like to bring

to your attention our wholehearted support for your amendment

to the Omnibus Appropriations bill currently before the

Senate.

Under the proposed Omnibus bill, funding of the Byrne Grant

Program would be virtually eliminated. In a time when our

country is focused on the varied aspects of homeland

security, the loss of a key source of Federal funding to

State and local law enforcement initiatives would be

unacceptable. Your amendment will rightly restore to Fiscal

Year 2002 levels this necessary funding.

NAPO is proud to stand in support of your efforts and we

thank you for your hard work on this important issue.

Sincerely,

William Johnson,

Executive Director.

I have another letter from the International Association of Chiefs of Police:

I am writing to express our strong support for your efforts

to ensure that the Edward Byrne Memorial Grant Program is

fully funded in FY 2003. As you know, the IACP is the world's

oldest and largest association of police executives

representing more than 19,000 members in over 90 countries.

Since its inception, the Byrne Grant Program has proven

itself an invaluable resource for cooperative Federal, State,

and local anti-crime policing strategies, such as multi-

jurisdictional drug task forces and DARE training. In

addition, the close working relationship--

I want to make this point very clear--

between law enforcement agencies that is fostered by the

Byrne program is invaluable in law enforcement's efforts to

secure our communities and to combat terrorism.

That letter is signed by Joseph Samuels, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Now I have a letter here from the National Governors Association to both Senator Frist, the majority leader, and Senator Daschle, the minority leader. Basically, they say they would like to express their support for the following amendments. They mention the Harkin amendment. The Governors urge support for restoring current funding levels to the Edward Byrne block grant program for State and local law enforcement activities.

It is signed by Gov. Paul Patton and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, vice chairman, Governor Kempthorne having been a member of this Senate just a few years ago.

I ask unanimous consent to have those letters printed in the Record.

Mr. President, the Byrne grant program has been a great success in rural America. In Iowa, in 2000, we found over 641 methamphetamine laboratories. In 2002, we found over 800. Without the 25 task forces that I talked about, these laboratories wouldn't be found by law enforcement. But they could have been found by children playing in rural areas around abandoned sheds, barns, and farms.

Again, that is the Byrne Grant Program that does this. It goes to the States. It is for law enforcement and also for prevention activities.

This program was started under President Reagan, named for Edward Byrne, who was a police officer, I am told, in New York City, who was gunned down and killed while he was actively pursuing drug traffickers in the city of New York.

At a time when our States are having serious budget problems, at a time when we are making great inroads and strides in the fight against especially methamphetamine, at a time when we need our local law enforcement agencies--the sheriffs, the police departments, our DEAs, our narcotics law enforcement officers--we need them all working together, both for combating the scourge of drugs but also, as was mentioned in the letter, I believe, from the Police Chiefs Association, for making our communities safe from the threats of terrorism. And to combat terrorism we need coordination and communication among small towns and communities in rural areas. It is vital for tracking and for surveillance.

I find it kind of odd that our national drug czar, Mr. John Walters, with Federal money, with taxpayer money, is running ads all over America--and those ads are tying drug traffickers and the drug trade to the funneling of money to terrorists; making the point, in these ads, that we have to go after the drug traffickers to keep them from funneling money to terrorists--I find it odd they are running those ads and, at the same time, the omnibus bill before us would cut out all funding for the Byrne program, which is the basic funding for local law enforcement for combating drug trafficking.

I have made this a battle of mine now for going on almost 10 years, to make sure we fund the Byrne Grant Program, and, I might add, both through Democratic administrations and Republican administrations.

As I have traveled around the country, I have found local law enforcement so grateful for the fact that they are able to get this money. And it goes down without strings attached. It is not a mandate. What they have used that money for, as I said, is to combat drug trafficking, with coordination, surveillance, and now for counterterrorism activities.

It has been a long battle. We have been successful in keeping the funding up on both sides of the aisle. I might say, this has not been a partisan battle at all. We have had great support from both sides of the aisle in continuing the Byrne Grant Program. I am hopeful we will find that same kind of support now. As I said, it is $500 million to put back in, just to get it up to the fiscal year 2002 level. At least if we have that, we can continue the program. So I hope we will have a successful vote on both sides of the aisle.

I might just add that if we are not successful on this amendment, it will not go away. I will be back again and again and again because I am not going to let this issue drop. It is too important in a matter of minutes, or in a late evening or 1-day rush to judgment on an appropriations bill, to just throw out. It is one of the most important law enforcement programs we have had over the last nearly 20 years in this country.

So, again, I guess the vote will be in the morning at 9:30. I will sum up my arguments again at that time. But I am hopeful we can have a good, strong vote to reassure our local law enforcement officials around the United States that the Senate stands behind them, that we are not going to pull the rug out from underneath them, and we are going to make sure the Byrne Grant Program is fully funded.

Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time. If anybody wants to engage in a colloquy or debate, I am prepared to do so. If not, I will yield back the remainder of my time.

That is fine.

I yield back the remainder of my time.