[Senate Document 108-16]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




 
            MAIDEN SPEECHES OF SENATORS IN THE 108TH CONGRESS



                                   Maiden Speeches

                            OF U.S. SENATORS

                        IN THE 108TH CONGRESS OF

                           THE UNITED STATES








                                   Maiden Speeches

                            OF U.S. SENATORS

                        IN THE 108TH CONGRESS OF

                           THE UNITED STATES


[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#15

                                           


                                           


                            Compiled under the direction

                                       of the

                             Joint Committee on Printing

                                Trent Lott, Chairman
                                           
                                      CONTENTS
             Order for Printing....................................
                                                                     iv
             Senate Historical Minute..............................
                                                                      v
             Introduction..........................................
                                                                    vii
             Proceedings in the Senate:
                Alexander, Lamar, of Tennessee.....................
                                                                      3
                Chambliss, Saxby, of Georgia.......................
                                                                     25
                Coleman, Norm, of Minnesota........................
                                                                     29
                Cornyn, John, of Texas.............................
                                                                     31
                Dole, Elizabeth, of North Carolina.................
                                                                     33
                Graham, Lindsey O., of South Carolina..............
                                                                     43
                Lautenberg, Frank, of New Jersey...................
                                                                     61
                Murkowski, Lisa, of Alaska.........................
                                                                     67
                Pryor, Mark, of Arkansas...........................
                                                                     83
                Sununu, John E., of New Hampshire..................
                                                                     91
                Talent, James M., of Missouri......................
                                                                     93
                         Order for Printing Maiden Speeches

               Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent 
             that all maiden speeches by new Senators from the 108th 
             Congress be printed as a Senate document, provided further 
             that Senators have until the close of business tomorrow, 
             Friday, November 19, to submit such statements.
               The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so 
             ordered.
                      Senate Historical Minute--April 19, 1906

               Benjamin Disraeli never forgot his first attempt to 
             deliver a speech as a brand new member of the British 
             House of Commons. It was, perhaps, a legislator's worst 
             nightmare. As he began to speak, other members started 
             laughing. The more he spoke, the harder they laughed. 
             Finally, humiliated, he gave up and sat down. As his 
             parting shot, this future two-time Prime Minister pledged, 
             ``The time will come when you shall hear me.''
               From the Senate's earliest days, new members have 
             observed a ritual of remaining silent during floor debates 
             for a period of time--depending on the era and the 
             Senator--that ranged from several months to several years. 
             Some believed that by waiting a respectful amount of time 
             before giving their so-called maiden speech, their more 
             senior colleagues would respect them for their humility.
               In 1906, Wisconsin Senator Robert La Follette was 
             anything but humble. A 20-year veteran of public office, 
             with service in the House and as his State's Governor, he 
             believed he had been elected to present a message that 
             none of his more seasoned colleagues was inclined to 
             deliver. La Follette waited just 3 months, an astoundingly 
             brief period by the standards of that day, before 
             launching his first major address. He spoke for 8 hours 
             over 3 days; his remarks in the Congressional Record 
             consumed 148 pages. As he began to speak, most of the 
             Senators present in the Chamber pointedly rose from their 
             desks and departed. La Follette's wife, observing from the 
             gallery, wrote, ``There was no mistaking that this was a 
             polite form of hazing.''
               A year later, in 1907, Arkansas Senator Jeff Davis 
             shocked Capitol Hill by waiting only 9 days. The local 
             press corps, keeping a count of such upstart behavior, 
             jokingly noted that Davis was the fourth new Senator in 
             recent years who ``refused to wait until his hair turned 
             gray before taking up his work actively.''
               Today, of course, this ancient Senate tradition survives 
             only in part--that part being the special attention given 
             to a Member's first major address.
               Although new members of the British House of Commons, 
             perhaps recalling the Disraeli precedent, may still 
             withhold their oratorical debut, that practice has long 
             since vanished here. As one seasoned observer of Senate 
             customs notes, ``the electorate simply wouldn't stand for 
             it.''

                                               Richard A. Baker        
                                      U.S. Senate Historical Office    
                                    Introduction

                   [From the Congressional Record, March 4, 2003]

               Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, first of all, I thank the new 
             Senators who are here. I heard my distinguished colleague 
             from Nevada talk a little bit about what we are about to 
             embark upon. It is a rich tradition of this body. In the 
             last few years, we have gotten away from having what we 
             call a ``maiden speech.'' It is not the first time we have 
             heard from our freshmen Senators on both sides of the 
             aisle, but it does give Members an opportunity to focus, 
             as we just heard, on issues that are important to 
             individual Senators, but also are important to the 
             American people in the broadest sense.
               In this body, because we are always on a particular 
             piece of legislation or in Executive Session, this gives 
             us an opportunity to pause for a moment and shine that 
             spotlight and that focus on an initial speech or 
             discussion.
               I am delighted we are reaching to the past--not the 
             distant past--to something we have gotten away from in the 
             last several Congresses, and as an initiative by our new 
             Senators, are embarking upon what I know will be a great 
             and very meaningful and powerful experience for all of us.


                                           

                                   MAIDEN SPEECHES
                                   Lamar Alexander
                                                 Tuesday, March 4, 2003
               Mr. President, I first thank the majority leader (Mr. 
             Frist) for his comments and his friendship and his 
             encouragement of the new Senators in these first 
             addresses. I thank the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Reid) for 
             his encouragement and his willingness to join me in co-
             sponsoring the legislation that I hope to talk about. I 
             thank my colleagues for taking the time to be here today.
               From the Senate's earliest days, new Members have 
             observed, as we just heard, the ritual of remaining silent 
             for a period of time, ranging from several weeks to 2 
             years. By waiting a respectful amount of time before 
             giving their so-called ``maiden speeches,'' freshmen 
             Senators hoped their senior colleagues would respect them 
             for their humility.
               This information comes from our Senate historian, 
             Richard Baker, who told me that in 1906 the former 
             Governor of Wisconsin--I am sensitive to this as a former 
             Governor--Robert La Follette, arrived here, in Mr. Baker's 
             words, ``anything but humble.'' He waited just 3 months, a 
             brief period by the standards of those days, before 
             launching his first major address. . . .
               From our first day here, as the majority leader said, we 
             new Members of the 108th Congress have been encouraged to 
             speak up, and most of us have. But, with the encouragement 
             of the majority leader and the assistant minority leader, 
             several of us intend also to try to revive the tradition 
             of the maiden address by a signature speech on an issue 
             that is important both to the country and to each of us. I 
             thank my colleagues who are here, and I assure all of you 
             that I will not do what the former Governor of Wisconsin 
             did and speak for 3 days.
               Mr. President, I rise today to address the intersection 
             of two urgent concerns that will determine our country's 
             future, and these are also the two topics I care about the 
             most: the education of our children and the principles 
             that unite us as Americans. It is time we put the teaching 
             of American history and civics back in its rightful place 
             in our schools so our children can grow up learning what 
             it means to be an American. Especially during such serious 
             times when our values and ways of life are being attacked, 
             we need to understand just what those values are.
               In this, most Americans would agree. For example, in 
             Thanksgiving remarks in 2001, President Bush praised our 
             Nation's response to September 11. ``I call it,'' he said, 
             ``the American character.'' At about the same time, 
             speaking at Harvard, former Vice President Al Gore said, 
             ``We should fight for the values that bind us together as 
             a country.''
               Both men were invoking a creed of ideas and values in 
             which most Americans believe. ``It has been our fate as a 
             nation,'' the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote, ``not to 
             have ideologies but to be one.'' This value-based identity 
             has inspired both patriotism and division at home as well 
             as emulation and hatred abroad. For terrorists, as well as 
             those who admire America, at issue is the United States 
             itself--not what we do but who we are.
               Yet our children do not know what makes America 
             exceptional. National exams show that three-quarters of 
             the Nation's 4th, 8th, and 12th graders are not proficient 
             in civics knowledge and one-third do not even have basic 
             knowledge, making them ``civic illiterates.''
               Children are not learning about American history and 
             civics because they are not being taught them. American 
             history has been watered down, and civics is too often 
             dropped from the curriculum entirely.
               Until the 1960s, civics education, which teaches the 
             duties of citizenship, was a regular part of the high 
             school curriculum. But today's college graduates probably 
             have less civic knowledge than high school graduates of 50 
             years ago. Reforms, so-called, in the 1960s and 1970s, 
             resulted in widespread elimination of required classes and 
             curriculum in civics education. Today, more than half the 
             States have no requirement for students to take a course--
             even for one semester--in American Government.
               To help put the teaching of American history and civics 
             in its rightful place, today I introduce legislation on 
             behalf of myself and co-sponsors Senator Reid of Nevada, 
             Senator Gregg, Senator Santorum, Senator Inhofe, and 
             Senator Nickles. We call it the American History and 
             Civics Education Act. The purpose of the act is to create 
             Presidential academies for teachers of American history 
             and civics, and congressional academies for students of 
             American history and civics. These residential academies 
             would operate for 2 weeks, in the case of teachers, and 4 
             weeks in the case of students, during the summertime. 
             Their purpose would be to inspire better teaching and more 
             learning of the key events, the key persons, and the key 
             ideas that shape the institutions and democratic heritage 
             of the United States.
               I had some experience with such residential summer 
             academies when I was Governor of Tennessee. It was a good 
             experience. In 1984, we began creating Governor's schools 
             for students and for teachers. We had a Governor's School 
             for the Arts. We had a Governor's School for International 
             Studies at the University of Memphis, a Governor's School 
             for Teachers of Writing at the University of Tennessee at 
             Knoxville, which was very successful. Eventually there 
             were eight Governor's schools in our State, and they 
             helped thousands of Tennessee teachers improve their 
             skills and inspired outstanding students in the same way. 
             When those teachers and students went back to their own 
             schools during the regular school year, their enthusiasm 
             for teaching and learning the subject they had been a part 
             of in the summer infected their peers and improved 
             education across the board. Dollar for dollar, I believe 
             the Governor's schools in our State were the most 
             effective popular education initiatives in our State's 
             history.
               We weren't the only State to try it; many did. The first 
             State Governor's school I heard about was in North 
             Carolina, started by Terry Sanford when he was Governor in 
             1963, and then other States have done the same--Georgia, 
             South Carolina, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In 
             1973, Pennsylvania established the Governor's Schools of 
             Excellence, with 14 different programs of study. 
             Mississippi has done the same. Virginia's Governor's 
             School is a summer residential program for 7,500 of the 
             Commonwealth's most gifted students. Mississippi and West 
             Virginia also have similar programs. They are just a few 
             of the more than 100 Governor's schools in 28 States. 
             Clearly, the model has proved to be a good one.
               The legislation I propose today applies that successful 
             model to American history and civics by establishing 
             Presidential and congressional academies for students and 
             teachers of those subjects.
               The legislation would do one more thing. It would 
             authorize the creation of a national alliance of American 
             history and civics teachers to be connected by the 
             Internet. The alliance would facilitate the sharing of the 
             best practices in the teaching of American history and 
             civics. It is modeled after an alliance I helped the 
             National Geographic Society start in the 1980s. Their 
             purpose was to help put geography back into the school 
             curriculum.
               This legislation creates a pilot program, up to 12 
             Presidential academies for teachers, 12 congressional 
             academies for students, sponsored by educational 
             institutions. The National Endowment for the Humanities 
             would award 2-year renewable grants to those institutions 
             after a peer review process. Each grant would be subject 
             to rigorous review after 3 years to determine whether the 
             overall program should continue or expand or be stopped. 
             The legislation authorizes $25 million annually for the 4-
             year pilot program.
               There is a broad new basis of support for and interest 
             in American history and civics in our country. As David 
             Gordon noted in a recent issue of the Harvard Education 
             Letter:

               A 1998 survey by the nonpartisan research organization 
             Public Agenda showed that 84 percent of parents with 
             school age children say they believe the United States is 
             a special country and they want our schools to convey that 
             belief to our children by teaching about its heroes and 
             its traditions. Similar numbers identified the American 
             ideal as including equal opportunity, individual freedom, 
             and tolerance and respect for others. Those findings were 
             consistent across racial and ethnic groups.

               Our national leadership has responded to this renewed 
             interest. In 2000, at the initiative of my distinguished 
             colleague Senator Byrd, Congress created grants for 
             schools that teach American history as a separate subject 
             within the school curriculum. We appropriated $100 million 
             for those grants in the recent omnibus appropriations 
             bill, and rightfully so. They encourage schools and 
             teachers to focus on the teaching of traditional American 
             history and provide important financial support.
               Then, last September, with historian David McCullough at 
             his side, President Bush announced a new initiative to 
             encourage the teaching of American history and civics. He 
             established the ``We The People'' program at the National 
             Endowment for the Humanities, which will develop curricula 
             and sponsor lectures on American history and civics. He 
             announced the ``Our Documents'' project, run by the 
             National Archives. This will take 100 of America's most 
             prominent and important documents from the National 
             Archives to classrooms everywhere in the country. This 
             year, the President will convene a White House forum on 
             American history, civics, and service. There we can 
             discuss new policies to improve the teaching and learning 
             of those subjects.
               This proposed legislation takes the next step by 
             training teachers and encouraging outstanding students. I 
             am pleased today that one of the leading Members of the 
             House of Representatives, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, 
             along with a number of his colleagues, is introducing the 
             same legislation in the House of Representatives. I thank 
             Senator Gregg, the chairman of the Committee on Health, 
             Education, Labor, and Pensions, for being here and also 
             for agreeing that the committee will hold hearings on this 
             legislation so we can determine how it might supplement 
             and work with the legislation enacted last year in this 
             Congress and the President's various initiatives.
               In 1988, I was at a meeting of educators in Rochester 
             when the President of Notre Dame University asked this 
             question: ``What is the rationale for the public school?'' 
             There was an unexpected silence around the room until Al 
             Shanker, the president of the American Federation of 
             Teachers, answered in this way: ``The public school was 
             created to teach immigrant children the three R's and what 
             it means to be an American with the hope that they would 
             then go home and teach their parents.''
               From the founding of America, we have always understood 
             how important it is for citizens to understand the 
             principles that unite us as a country. Other countries are 
             united by their ethnicity. If you move to Japan, you can't 
             become Japanese. Americans, on the other hand, are united 
             by a few principles in which we believe. To become an 
             American citizen, you subscribe to those principles. If 
             there were no agreement on those principles, Samuel 
             Huntington has noted, we would be the United Nations 
             instead of the United States of America.
               There has therefore been a continuous education process 
             to remind Americans just what those principles are. In his 
             retirement at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson would spend 
             evenings explaining to overnight guests what he had in 
             mind when he helped create what we call America. By the 
             mid-19th century it was just assumed that most Americans 
             knew what it meant to be an American. In his letter from 
             the Alamo, Col. William Barrett Travis pleaded for help 
             simply ``in the name of liberty, patriotism and everything 
             dear to the American character.''
               New waves of immigration in the late 19th century 
             brought to our country a record number of new people from 
             other lands whose view of what it means to be an American 
             was indistinct--and Americans responded by teaching them. 
             In Wisconsin, for example, the Kohler Company housed 
             German immigrants together so that they might be 
             Americanized during non-working hours.
               But the most important Americanizing institution, as Mr. 
             Shanker reminded us in Rochester in 1988, was the new 
             common school. McGuffey's Reader, which was used in many 
             classrooms, sold more than 120 million copies introducing 
             a common culture of literature, patriotic speeches and 
             historical references.
               The wars of the 20th century made Americans stop and 
             think about what we were defending. President Roosevelt 
             made certain that those who charged the beaches of 
             Normandy knew they were defending freedoms.
               But after World War II, the emphasis on teaching and 
             defining the principles that unite us waned. Unpleasant 
             experiences with McCarthyism in the 1950s, discouragement 
             after the Vietnam war, and history books that left out or 
             distorted the history of African-Americans made some 
             skittish about discussing ``Americanism.'' The end of the 
             cold war removed a preoccupation with who we were not, 
             making it less important to consider who we are. The 
             immigration law changes in 1965 brought to our shores many 
             new Americans and many cultural changes. As a result, the 
             American way became much more often praised than defined.
               Changes in community attitudes, as they always are, were 
             reflected in our schools. According to historian Diane 
             Ravitch, the public school virtually abandoned its role as 
             the chief Americanizing institution. We have gone, she 
             explains, from one extreme--simplistic patriotism and 
             incomplete history--to the other--``public schools with an 
             adversary culture that emphasizes the Nation's warts and 
             diminishes its genuine accomplishments. There is no 
             literary canon, no common reading, no agreed-upon lists of 
             books, poems and stories from which students and parents 
             might be taught a common culture and be reminded of what 
             it means to be an American.''
               During this time many of our national leaders 
             contributed to this drift toward agnostic Americanism. 
             These leaders celebrated multiculturalism and bilingualism 
             and diversity at a time when there should have been more 
             emphasis on a common culture and learning English and 
             unity.
               America's variety and diversity is a great strength, but 
             it is not our greatest strength. Jerusalem is diverse. The 
             Balkans are diverse. America's greatest accomplishment is 
             not its variety and diversity but that we have found a way 
             to take all that variety and diversity and unite as one 
             country. E pluribus unum: out of many, one. That is what 
             makes America truly exceptional.
               Since 9/11 things have been different. The terrorists 
             focused their cross-hairs on the creed that unites 
             Americans as one country--forcing us to remind ourselves 
             of those principles, to examine and define them, and to 
             celebrate them. The President has been the lead teacher. 
             President Bush has literally taken us back to school on 
             what it means to be an American. When he took the country 
             to church on television after the attacks he reminded us 
             that no country is more religious than we are. When he 
             walked across the street to the mosque he reminded the 
             world that we separate church and state and that there is 
             freedom here to believe in whatever one wants to believe. 
             When he attacked and defeated the Taliban, he honored 
             life. When we put planes back in the air and opened 
             financial markets and began going to football games again 
             we honored liberty. The President called on us to make 
             those magnificent images of courage and charity and 
             leadership and selflessness after 9/11 more permanent in 
             our everyday lives. And with his optimism, he warded off 
             doomsayers who tried to diminish the real gift of 
             Americans to civilization, our cockeyed optimism that 
             anything is possible.
               Just after 9/11, I proposed an idea I called ``Pledge 
             Plus Three.'' Why not start each school day with the 
             Pledge of Allegiance--as we did this morning here in the 
             Senate--followed by a faculty member or student sharing 
             for 3 minutes ``what it means to be an American.'' The 
             Pledge embodies many of the ideals of our National Creed: 
             ``one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and 
             justice for all.'' It speaks to our unity, to our faith, 
             to our value of freedom, and to our belief in the fair 
             treatment of all Americans. If more future Federal judges 
             took more classes in American history and civics and 
             learned about those values, we might have fewer mind-
             boggling decisions like the one issued by the Ninth 
             Circuit.
               Before I was elected to the Senate, I taught some of our 
             future judges and legislators a course at Harvard's John 
             F. Kennedy School of Government entitled ``The American 
             Character and America's Government.'' The purpose of the 
             course was to help policymakers, civil servants and 
             journalists analyze the American creed and character and 
             apply it in the solving of public policy problems. We 
             tried to figure out, if you will, what would be ``the 
             American way'' to solve a given problem, if such a thing 
             were to exist.
               The students and I did not have much trouble deciding 
             that America is truly exceptional--not always better, but 
             truly exceptional--or in identifying the major principles 
             of an American creed or the distinct characteristics of 
             our country; such principles as: liberty, equal 
             opportunity, rule of law, laissez faire, individualism, e 
             pluribus unum, the separation of church and state.
               But what we also found was that applying those 
             principles to today's issues was hard work. This was 
             because the principles of the creed often conflicted. For 
             example, when discussing President Bush's faith-based 
             charity legislation, we knew that ``In God We Trust'' but 
             we also knew that we didn't trust government with God.
               When considering whether the Federal Government should 
             pay for scholarships which middle- and low-income families 
             might use at any accredited school--public, private or 
             religious--we found that the principle of equal 
             opportunity conflicted with the separation of church and 
             state.
               And we found there are great disappointments when we try 
             to live up to our greatest dreams. For example, President 
             Kennedy's pledge that we will ``pay any price or bear any 
             burden'' to defend freedom, or Thomas Jefferson's 
             assertion that ``all men are created equal,'' or the 
             American dream that for anyone who works hard, tomorrow 
             will always be better than today.
               We often are disappointed when we try to live up to 
             those truths.
               We learned that, as Samuel Huntington has written, 
             balancing these conflicts and disappointments is what most 
             of American politics and government is about.
               If most of our politics and government is about applying 
             to our most urgent problems the principles and 
             characteristics that make the United States of America an 
             exceptional country, then we had better get on with the 
             teaching and learning of those principles and 
             characteristics.
               The legislation I propose today, with several co-
             sponsors, will help our schools do what they were 
             established to do in the first place. At a time when there 
             are record numbers of new Americans, at a time when our 
             values are under attack, at a time when we are considering 
             going to war to defend those values, there can be no more 
             urgent task than putting the teaching of American history 
             and civics back in its rightful place in our schools so 
             our children can grow up learning what it means to be an 
             American.
               Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed 
             in the Record several items: A syllabus from the course 
             that I taught, an article from the National Association of 
             Scholars, and memoranda outlining the various Governors' 
             schools in our State and other States.
               I also highly commend to my colleagues a report from the 
             Carnegie Corporation and CIRCLE titled ``The Civic Mission 
             of Schools.''
               There being no objection, the material was ordered to be 
             printed in the Record, as follows:
             The American Character and America's Government: Using the 
                          American Creed To Make Decisions
               (Professor Lamar Alexander, John F. Kennedy School of 
                    Government, Harvard University, Spring 2002)
                               Objective of the Course
               To help future decision-makers use the principles of the 
             American Creed to solve difficult, contemporary public 
             policy problems. Students will first explore America's 
             ``exceptionalism'': how an idea-based national ideology 
             makes the United States different from other countries--
             including other Western democracies. Then, each session 
             will analyze one value of the ``American Creed''--and how 
             it conflicts with other values and/or creates unrealized 
             expectations--in the solving of a specific problem. 
             Students will simulate realistic policy-making situations 
             and produce professional products as assignments: concise 
             memos, outlines and briefings.
                              Rationale for the Course
               In Thanksgiving remarks President Bush praised the 
             nation's response to September 11. ``I call it,'' he said, 
             ``the American Character.'' At KSG Al Gore said, ``We 
             should [fight] for the values that bind us together as a 
             country.'' Both men were invoking a creed of ideas and 
             values in which most Americans believe. ``It has been our 
             fate as a nation,'' Richard Hofstadter wrote, ``not to 
             have ideologies but to be one.'' This value-based national 
             identity has inspired both patriotism and division at 
             home, both emulation and hatred abroad. For terrorists as 
             well as for those who admire America, at issue is the 
             United States itself--not what we do, but who we are.
               Yet Americans who unite on principle divide and suffer 
             disappointment when using their creed to solve policy 
             problems. This is because the values of the creed conflict 
             (e.g., liberty vs. equality, individualism vs. community) 
             and because American dreams are loftier than American 
             reality (e.g., ``all men are created equal,'' ``tomorrow 
             will be better than today''). Samuel Huntington has said 
             that balancing these conflicts and disappointments is what 
             most of American politics and government is about. That is 
             also what this course is about.
                                      Audience
               The Course is designed for future policy makers, civil 
             servants, and journalists. A general knowledge of American 
             politics is helpful but not required. It should be useful 
             for both U.S. and international students seeking to learn 
             more about the American system of government and how it 
             differs from that of other countries.
                                     Instructor
               Lamar Alexander, The Roy M. and Barbara Goodman Family 
             Visiting Professor of Practice in Public Service, has been 
             Governor of Tennessee, President of the University of 
             Tennessee, and U.S. Education Secretary. He co-founded 
             Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Inc., now the nation's 
             largest provider of worksite day care. His seven books 
             include Six Months Off, the story of his family's trip to 
             Australia after eight years in the Governor's residence. 
             In 1996 and 2000 he was a candidate for the Republican 
             nomination for President of the United States. For more 
             see www.lamaralexander.com. Office: Littauer 101; 
             Telephone: (617) 384-7354; E-mail: lamar_ 
             [email protected].
                                    Office Hours
               Office hours will generally be on Tuesdays and 
             Wednesdays. A sign up sheet will be posted outside 
             Professor Alexander's door. Appointments may also be made 
             by e-mailing [email protected]
                                  Course Assistant
               Matt Sonnesyn will be course assistant for PAL 223 and 
             may be reached by e-mail at 
             [email protected].
                                    Expectations
               This is a graduate level professional course and will 
             have the corresponding standards and assignments: 
             attendance at all scheduled classes, assignments completed 
             on time, and evaluation according to students' preparation 
             of professional products--crisp and realistic decision 
             memos, memo outlines, and policy briefings. All briefings 
             are conducted in class and all decision memos and weekly 
             outlines are due at the beginning of the corresponding 
             class session. There is no final exam, but there will be a 
             final paper.
                                       Grading
               Briefings (2): team exercise 20 percent. Two times 
             during the course each student will participate in a team 
             briefing on that week's subject.
               Memos (2): team exercise 20 percent. Two other times 
             during the course each student will participate in a team 
             preparing a three-page decision memo on that week's 
             subject. The student may select these from among the class 
             topics.
               Weekly Outlines (6): 20 percent. Six other times during 
             the course each student will prepare a one-page analysis 
             of the week's problem. (This will be during those weeks 
             when the student is not involved in preparing a team 
             briefing or team memo.) As a result, for ten of the twelve 
             class sessions, each student will have an assignment 
             (other than reading) that requires preparation outside of 
             class--either a team briefing, a team memo, or an 
             individual weekly memo outline.
               Class participation and attendance: 15 percent.
               Final Paper: 25 percent.
               Final grades will be determined by students' overall 
             position in the class as measured by performance on each 
             of the assignments and will conform to the Kennedy School 
             of Government's recommended range of grading distribution.
                                      Materials
               The course relies primarily on course packets to be made 
             available for sale at the Course Materials Office. There 
             will be 125-150 pages of reading each week. There are 
             three required textbooks:
               (1) Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 
             translated and edited by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba 
             Winthrop, The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
               (2) Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism, W.W. 
             Norton & Co., 1997 (paperback).
               (3) Samuel P. Huntington, ``American Politics: The 
             Promise of Disharmony,'' The Belknap Press of Harvard 
             University, 1981.
               All three books are available for purchase at the 
             Harvard Coop. Copies of all three books are on reserve in 
             the KSG library.
               Note: Readings from the three required textbooks or 
             readings which are readily available online are not 
             included in the course packet. (Hypertext links to the 
             online readings may be found within the syllabus that is 
             posted on the KSG website.)
                                     Enrollment
               The course has a limited enrollment. Auditors are 
             permitted with permission of the instructor.
                        Course Outline and Required Readings
               2/5: My ``ism'' is Americanism--American Exceptionalism. 
             One hundred and one ways Americans are different. So what?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, edited by 
             Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, University of 
             Chicago Press, Chicago, 2000, pp. 3-15, 90, 585-587, 225-
             226.
               G.K. Chesterson, What I Saw in America, Dodd, Mead & 
             Co., 1922, pp. 6-12.
               Daniel J. Boorstin, ``Why a Theory Seems Needless,'' The 
             Genius of American Politics, 1953, The University of 
             Chicago Press, pp. 8-35.
               Samuel P. Huntington, ``The American Creed and National 
             Identity,'' American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, 
             1981, pp. 13-30.
               Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, 1991, The 
             Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, pp. 
             46-58.
               Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, Simon 
             and Schuster, 1996, pp. 40-55, 68-78, 301-308.
               Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism, pp. 17-
             34.

               2/12: `` . . . where at least I know I'm free . . . ''--
             Liberty. Should Congress repeal President Bush's executive 
             order allowing non-citizens suspected of international 
             terrorism to be detained and tried in special military 
             tribunals?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 239-242, 246-249, 301, 
             639-640.
               U.S. Constitution and amendments, 1787. http://
             memory.loc.gov/const/constquery.html.
               John Stuart Mill, ``The Authority of Society and the 
             Individual,'' On Liberty, 1859, Hackett Publishing Co. 
             edition, 1978, pp. 73-91.
               Carl Brent Swisher, American Constitutional Development, 
             Greenwood Press, Connecticut, 1954, pp. 276-292, 1017-
             1025.
               Samuel P. Huntington, ``The American Creed vs. Political 
             Authority,'' American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony, 
             1981, pp. 31-60.
               Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, Thinking in Time, 
             The Free Press, pp. 232-246, 1988.
               An Executive Order of President George W. Bush, 
             ``Detention, Treatment and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens 
             in the War against Terrorism,'' November 13, 2001.
               Jeffrey Rosen, ``Testing the Resilience of American 
             Values,'' The New York Times Week in Review, Sunday, Nov. 
             18, 2001, pp. 1 and 4.
               Laurence H. Tribe, Statement before U.S. Senate 
             Judiciary Committee, December 4, 2001.
               ``American Attitudes Toward Civil Liberties,'' public 
             opinion survey, by Kaiser Foundation, National Public 
             Radio and Kennedy School of Government, December 2001. 
             http://www.npr.org/news/specials/civillibertiespoll/
             011130.poll.html.

               2/19: In God We Trust . . . but we don't trust 
             government with God--Christianity, pluralism and the 
             state. Should Congress enact President Bush's faith-based 
             charity legislation?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 278-288.
               John Locke, ``A Letter Concerning Toleration,'' Diane 
             Ravitch and Abigail Thernstrom, The Democracy Reader, NY: 
             HarperCollins, 1992., ibid., pp. 31-37.
               Thomas Jefferson, ``Notes on the State of Virginia,'' 
             Ravitch and Thernstrom, ibid., pp. 108-109.
               James Madison, ``Memorial and Remonstrance against 
             Religious Assessments,'' 1785, The Writings of James 
             Madison, NY: Putnam, 1908.
               ``Separation of Church and State in America Brought 
             about by the Scotch-Irish of Virginia,'' Charles. A. 
             Hanna, The Scotch Irish, Vol. II, 1985, Genealogical 
             Publishing Co., Baltimore, pp. 157-162.
               Philip Schaff, America: A Sketch of its Political, 
             Social and Religious Character, 1961, The Belknap Press of 
             Harvard University, pp. 72-83.
               Engel vs. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).
               Marvin Olasky, ``The Early American Model of 
             Compassion,'' The Tragedy of American Compassion, Regnery 
             Publishing, Washington, D.C., 1992, pp. 6-23.
               Lamar Alexander, ``Homeless, not hopeless,'' We Know 
             What to Do, William Morrow, New York, 1995, pp. 35-51.
               Two Executive Orders of President George W. Bush, 
             ``Establishment of White House Office of Faith-Based and 
             Community Initiatives'' and ``Agency Responsibilities with 
             Respect to Faith-based Community Initiatives.'' January 
             29, 2001.

               2/26: ``Leave no child behind''--Equal Opportunity. 
             Should the federal government pay for scholarships that 
             middle- and low-income families may use at any accredited 
             school--public, private or religious?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 41-42.
               Horace Mann, ``Report of the Massachusetts Board of 
             Education, 1848'' in Daniel J. Boorstin, An American 
             Primer, Meridian, 1995, pp. 361-375.
               Charles Leslie Glenn, Jr. The Myth of the Common School, 
             The University of Massachusetts Press, 1988, pp. 146-158.
               Lamar Alexander, ``The GI Bill for Kids,'' The John 
             Ashbrook Lecture, presented at Ashland (O.) University, 9/
             12/92. http://www.lamaralexander.com/articles.htm.
               Thomas J. Kane, ``Lessons from the Largest School 
             Voucher Program,'' Who Chooses? Who Loses?, edited by 
             Bruce Fuller and Richard F. Elmore, Teachers College 
             Press, 1996, pp. 173-183.
               Michael W. McConnell, ``Legal and Constitutional Issues 
             of Vouchers,'' Vouchers and the Provision of Public 
             Schools, The Brookings Institution, 2000, pp. 368-391.
               Eliot M. Mincberg and Judith E. Schaeffer, ``Grades K-
             12: The Legal Problems with Public Funding of Religious 
             Schools,'' Vouchers and the Provision of Public Schools, 
             pp. 394-403.
               Diane Ravitch, ``American Traditions of Education,'' 
             Terry M. Moe, A Primer on America's Schools, Hoover 
             Institution Press, 2001, pp. 1-14.
               Paul Peterson, ``Choice in American Education,'' A 
             Primer on America's Schools, pp. 249-283.
               Diane Ravitch, ``Ex Uno Plures,'' Education Next, Fall 
             2001, pp. 27-29.

               3/5: Equal at the starting line . . . but what about 
             those with shackles?--Individualism. Should the federal 
             government pay for race-based college scholarships?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 326-334, 347-348; 482-
             488.
               The Declaration of Independence, 1776. http://
             memory.loc.gov/const/declar.html.
               Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address (1865). http:/
             /www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html
               Frederick Douglass, ``What to the Slave is the Fourth of 
             July?'' http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/doug_a10.htm.
               Martin Luther King, Jr., address at the Lincoln Memorial 
             in Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963. http://
             douglass.speech.nwu.edu/king_b12.htm
               Excerpts from University of California Regents v. Bakke, 
             438 U.S. 265 (1978).
               Testimony of Lamar Alexander, U.S. Education Secretary, 
             Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on 
             Appropriations, House of Representatives, 102nd Congress, 
             2nd session, Feb. 20, 1992, pp. 39-46, 82-89, 99-102.
               Seymour Martin Lipset, ``Two Americas,'' American 
             Exceptionalism, pp. 113-150.
               Abigail Thernstrom and Stephen Thernstrom, America in 
             Black and White, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1997. pp. 
             530-545.
               Cornel West, ``Malcolm X and Black Rage,'' Race Matters, 
             Random House, Vintage Books, New York, 2001, pp. 135-151.

               3/12: A nation of immigrants . . . but all Americans--E 
             Pluribus Unum. Should illegal aliens have Illinois 
             driver's licenses? discounted tuition at state colleges? 
             free medical care? should their children attend public 
             schools?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 29-30, 32, 34-37, 268.
               J. Hector St. John de Crevecouer, ``What is an 
             American,'' Letters from an American Farmer, 1782, Penguin 
             Books edition 1986, pp. 67-90.
               Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America, 
             W.W. Norton, New York, 1991, pp. 9-43.
               Carlos E. Cortes, ``Limits to pluribus, limits to 
             unum,'' National Forum, Baton Rouge, Winter, 1992. pp. 6-
             10.
               Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, Simon 
             and Schuster, 1996, pp. 198-206.
               J. Harvie Wilkinson, ``The Medley of America,'' One 
             Nation Indivisible, Addison Wesley, 1997, pp. 3-21.
               Griffin Bell, ``The Changing Role of Migrants in the 
             United States,'' Address to the International Leadership 
             Issues Conference of State Legislative Leaders Foundation, 
             Budapest, October 4, 2001.
               David Cohen, Chasing the Red, White and Blue, New York, 
             2001. St. Martin's Press, pp. 218-236, 250-260.
               Morris P. Fiorina and Paul E. Peterson, The New American 
             Democracy, Longman, 2002, pp. 99-108.

               3/19: Suspending the constitution in order to save it--
             Rule of Law. Should the governor-elect seize office three 
             days early to prevent the incumbent governor from selling 
             pardons for cash?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 229-231.
               US Constitution, 25th Amendment. http://memory.loc.gov/
             const/constquery.html.
               Tennessee Constitution Article 3, Section 12. http://
             www.state.tn.us/sos/bluebook/online/section6/tnconst.pdf 
             (p. 12).
               Tennessee Acts Section 8-1-107.
               Lon Fuller, ``The Morality that Makes Law Possible,'' 
             The Morality of Law. Yale Law School Press, 1964. pp. 33-
             44.
               John D. Feerick, The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: Its 
             Complete History and Earliest Applications. Fordham 
             University Press, 1976. pp. 3-23, 193-206.
               Bush v. Gore, 2000. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/
             florida.html.
               Al Gore, address to the nation, December 13, 2000. 
             http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/transcripts/121300/
             t651213.html.
               Paul F. Boller, Jr., ``Picking the Day,'' Presidential 
             Inaugurations, Harcourt, Inc., 2001, pp. 23-31.
               James W. Torke, ``What Is This Thing Called the Rule of 
             Law?'' Indiana Law Review. Volume 34, 2001. pp. 1445-1456.
               Dotty Lynch, ``Back to Abnormal,'' Sept. 28, 2001, from 
             CBS News Site. http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/
             0,1597,312915-412,00.shtml.
               Tim McGirk, ``Wahid's In, Megawati's Out,'' Dec. 8, 
             2001, from Time Asia. http://www.time.com/time/asia/news/
             interview/0,9754,168569,00.html.
               Gordon Silverstein, ``Globalization and the Rule of 
             Law,'' mimeo, The University of Minnesota, 2001.

               3/26: Harvard break.

               4/2: ``Ask not what your country can do for you . . 
             .''--Community. Should all high school graduates perform 
             one mandatory year of community service?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 56-58, 577-578, 489-
             492.
               Robert N. Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart, 
             University of California Press, 1985, pp. vii-xxxv, 275-
             296.
               Daniel Boorstin, ``From Charity to Philanthropy,'' 
             Hidden History, Vintage, New York, 1989, pp. 193-209.
               Barry Alan Shain, The Myth of American Individualism, 
             Princeton University Press, 1994, pp. xiii-xix.
               Lamar Alexander, ``What's Wrong With American Giving and 
             How to Fix It,'' Philanthropy, Summer 1997. http://
             www.lamaralexander.com/articles_03.htm.
               Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone, Simon & Schuster, 2000, 
             pp. 15-28, 48-64, 116-133, 402-414.

               4/9: Why Americans don't trust Washington, D.C.--A 
             government of, by and for the people. Should the U.S. 
             create a citizen congress: cut their pay and send them 
             home six months a year, adopt term limits and two-year 
             federal budgets?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 53-55.
               Aristotle, ``Politics,'' from Ravitch and Thernstrom, 
             pp. 9-12.
               Edmund Burke, ``On Election to Parliament,'' Ravitch and 
             Thernstrom, ibid., pp. 50-51.
               Samuel P. Huntington, ``The American Creed and National 
             Identity,'' American Politics: the Promise of Disharmony, 
             1981, pp. 36-41.
               E.J. Dionne, ``The Politics of the Restive Majority,'' 
             Why Americans Hate Politics, Touchstone, New York, 1991, 
             pp. 329-355.
               Lamar Alexander, ``Cut Their Pay and Send Them Home,'' 
             1994, address to The Heritage Foundation.
               Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism, pp. 35-
             46.
               Joseph S. Nye, et al., Why People Don't Trust 
             Government, Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 253-281.
               Mark Kim, David King, Richard Zechhauser, ``Why State 
             Governments Succeed,'' mimeo, John F. Kennedy School of 
             Government, Harvard University, 2001.

               4/16: ``Work! For the night is coming . . . ''--Laissez 
             Faire. Should the federal government pay all working 
             Americans ``a living wage''?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 506-508, 555-557, 606-
             608.
               Herbert Croly, The Promise of American Life, 1909, 
             Northeastern University Press, pp. 1-26.
               Kevin Phillips, ``The Triumph of Upper America,'' The 
             Politics of Rich and Poor, Harper, 1991, pp. xvii-xxiii.
               C. Vann Woodward, ``The Pursuit of Happiness,'' The Old 
             World's New World, Oxford University Press, 1991, pp. 40-
             62.
               Seymour Martin Lipset, ``Economy, Religion and 
             Welfare,'' American Exceptionalism, pp. 53-76.
               David Neumark and William Washer, ``Using the EITC to 
             Help Poor Families: New Evidence and a Comparison with the 
             Minimum Wage,'' NBER Working Paper #7599 March 2000, pp. 
             1-4, 24-27. http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7599.
               Charles Handy, ``DeTocqueville Revisited: The Meaning of 
             American Prosperity,'' Harvard Business Journal, January 
             2001, pp. 5-11.
               David Neumark, ``Living Wages: Protection For or 
             Protection From Low-Wage Workers,'' NBER Working Paper 
             #8393, July 2001, pp. 1-7, 25-27. http://papers.nber.org/
             papers/W8393.
               David Cohen, Chasing the Red, White and Blue, New York, 
             2001. St. Martin's Press, pp. 52-80.
               Harvard Living Wage Statements. http://
             www.hcecp.harvard.edu/report.htm and http://
             www.hcs.harvard.edu/pslm/livingwage/portal.html.

               4/23: ``Pay any price, bear any burden . . . ''--
             Exporting American Values. Putin shuts down last remaining 
             independent Russian TV station (owned 25% by Ted Turner), 
             expels 100 foreign journalists for ``inaccurate 
             reporting'' including all Fox News personnel. What does 
             U.S. do?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 217-220.
               George Washington's Farewell Address, 1795. http://
             www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm.
               John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, 1961. http://
             www.bartleby.com/124/pres56.html.
               Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: the Promise of 
             Disharmony, pp. 240-262.
               Graham T. Allison, Jr. and Robert P. Beschel, Jr., ``Can 
             the United States Promote Democracy,'' Political Science 
             Quarterly, Volume 107, No. 1, 1992, pp. 81-89.
               Henry Kissinger, ``The Hinge: Theodore Roosevelt or 
             Woodrow Wilson,'' Diplomacy, New York Simon & Schuster, 
             1994, pp. 29-55.
               Lamar Alexander, ``In War and Peace,'' We Know What to 
             Do, pp. 95-107.
               Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, pp. 
             309-321.
               Samantha Power, ``Bystanders to Genocide,'' The Atlantic 
             Monthly, September 2000, pp. 84-108.
               Walter Russell Mead, Special Providence: American 
             Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World, Alfred A 
             Knopf, New York, 2001, pp. xv-xviii, 3-29.

               4/30: Anything is possible--Unbridled optimism. Should 
             there be a $1,000 limit on individual federal campaign 
             contributions?
               Alexis de Tocqueville, ibid., pp. 187-189.
               Larry J. Sabato, ``PACs and Parties,'' Money, Elections 
             and Democracy: Reforming Congressional Campaign Finance, 
             1990, Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press.
               Todd Eardensohn, A Review of the Alexander for President 
             Campaign Budget (1995-1996).
               Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, Simon 
             & Schuster, 1996, pp. 308-321.
               Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism, pp. 51-
             52, 267-292.
               Lamar Alexander, ``Should Tom Paine Have Filed with the 
             FEC?,'' January 21, 1998, address to The Cato Institute.
               Andrew Del Banco, The Real American Dream, 1999, Harvard 
             University Press, pp. 103-118.
               Lamar Alexander, ``Put More Money Into Politics,'' 
             August 27, 1999, The Wall Street Journal. http://
             www.lamaralexander.com/articles_01.htm.
               Alexander, ``Keeping the Dream Alive,'' We Know What to 
             Do, ibid., pp. 165-180.

                                 ------------------

                     [From the National Association of Scholars]
              Today's College Students Barely More Knowledgeable Than 
                  High School Students of 50 Years Ago, Poll Shows
               Princeton, NJ, Dec. 18, 2002.--Contemporary college 
             seniors scored on average little or no higher than the 
             high-school graduates of a half-century ago on a battery 
             of 15 questions assessing general cultural knowledge. The 
             questions, drawn from a survey originally done by the 
             Gallup Organization in 1955, covered literature, music, 
             science, geography, and history. They were asked again of 
             a random sample of American college and university 
             students by Zogby International in April 2002. The Zogby 
             survey was commissioned by the National Association of 
             Scholars.
               There were variations in the pattern of responses. The 
             contemporary sample of seniors did better than the 1950s 
             high school graduates on four questions relating to music, 
             literature, and science, about the same on seven questions 
             pertaining to geography, and worse on four questions about 
             history.
               The answers given by today's seniors were also compared 
             to those provided to the Gallup questions by college 
             graduates in 1955. Although the relatively small number of 
             college graduates in the latter sample limits the degree 
             of confidence one can have in the comparisons, the 
             consistency and size of the knowledge superiority 
             displayed by the 1950s college graduates strongly suggests 
             that it is real.
               The overall average of correct responses for the entire 
             general knowledge survey was 53.5% for today's college 
             seniors, 54.5% for the 1955 high school graduates, and 
             77.3% for the 1955 college graduates.
               (Removing three questions about which, for reasons 
             indicated in the full report, the earlier respondents may 
             have had more ``extracurricular'' sources of knowledge, 
             the figures become 50.3% for the 2002 seniors, 46.4% for 
             the 1955 high school graduates, and 67.8% for the 1955 
             college graduates.)
               In addition, the 2002 college seniors were asked two 
             questions dealing with the reading and musical interests 
             that were asked of national samples of the American 
             population in 1946 and 1957. With respect to interest in 
             high literate and musical culture, the answers fail to 
             show impressive or consistent differences between the two 
             groups.
               On a question inquiring whether or not they had a 
             favorite author, 56% of 2002 college seniors, as opposed 
             to 32% of the general population in 1946--the great 
             majority of whom had only an elementary or secondary 
             school education--answered affirmatively. For both groups, 
             however, most of the authors specifically mentioned were 
             writers of popular fiction. When only responses naming 
             ``high-brow'' and canonical writers were tabulated, the 
             differences between the two groups shrank considerably: 
             17% of the national sample falling into a ``high-brow'' 
             classification in 1946, as opposed to 24% of the 2002 
             college senior sample. Not a particularly large difference 
             given the college senior's great advantage in formal 
             education.
               Asked whether or not they would like to collect a fairly 
             complete library of classical music on LPs or CDs, the 
             1957 sample of owners 33 rpm-capable phonographs (37% of a 
             national survey sample) provided a more affirmative 
             response than did the 2002 college seniors, 39% of the 
             former, and only 30% of the latter, responding ``Yes''.
               On the other hand, the contemporary college seniors were 
             more likely (69%) to have studied a musical instrument 
             than were the members of the population as a whole (44%) 
             in 1957. The type of instrument studied also differed, the 
             1957 national sample more heavily favoring the violin and 
             piano than did the 2002 college seniors.
               ``The results,'' said NAS president Stephen H. Balch, 
             ``though somewhat mixed and based on a limited number of 
             questions, are hardly reassuring. America has poured 
             enormous amounts of tax dollars into expanding access to 
             higher learning. Students spend, and pay for, many more 
             years in the classroom than was formerly the case. Our 
             evidence suggests that this time and treasure may not have 
             substantially raised student cultural knowledge above the 
             high school levels of a half-century ago.''
               ``Worst yet,'' he continued, ``the high cultural 
             interest and aspirations of today's college seniors are 
             neither consistently nor substantially more elevated than 
             yesteryear's secondary school graduates. Creating such 
             interests and aspirations has traditionally been 
             considered a core element of the collegiate experience. If 
             the last fifty years have in fact witnessed few gains in 
             this respect, it represents a real disappointment of once 
             widespread hopes.''

                                 ------------------

                             Governor's Schools Appendix
               Virginia Governor's Schools for Humanities and Visual & 
             Performing Arts:
               Established in 1973;
               Takes place in more than 40 sites throughout Virginia;
               ``The Governor's Schools presently include summer 
             residential, summer regional, and academic-year programs 
             serving more than 7,500 gifted students from all parts of 
             the commonwealth'';
               Funded by way of the Virginia Board of Education and the 
             General Assembly (no specific figures readily available).

               Pennsylvania Governor's Schools of Excellence:
               Established in 1973;
               Program is broken up into 8 schools (Agricultural 
             Sciences-Penn State University, Global Entrepreneurship-
             Lehigh University, Health Care-University of Pittsburgh, 
             Information Technology-Drexel University/Penn State 
             University, International Studies-University of 
             Pittsburgh, Teaching-Millersville University, the Arts-
             Mercyhurst College, the Sciences-Carnegie Mellon 
             University);
               Funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

               Mississippi Governor's School:
               Established in 1981;
               Program is hosted by the Mississippi University for 
             Women;
               Major academic courses change yearly, however, all 
             courses are designed to provide ``academic, creative 
             leadership experiences.''

               West Virginia Governor's School for the Arts:
               ``Brings 80 of West Virginia's most talented high school 
             actors, dancers, musicians, singers and visual artists to 
             the West Liberty State College campus for a three-week 
             residential program.''

               Arkansas Governor's School:
               Established in 1980;
               Program is hosted by Hendrix College and attended by 
             approximately 400 students yearly;
               Areas of focus include ``art, music, literature, film, 
             dance, and thought in the sciences, social sciences, and 
             humanities'';
               This 6-week program is funded by the Arkansas General 
             Assembly.

               Governor's schools for Montana, Massachusetts, and 
             Connecticut not found.

               Alabama Governor's School:
               Established in 1987;
               Program is hosted by Samford University;
               Academic courses stress fieldwork and problem-solving; 
             the arts, humanities and sciences are also explored;
               Major and minor areas of study include, ``The Legal 
             Process, American Healthcare, and Urban Geography.''

               Delaware Governor's School for Excellence:
               One-week summer program;
               Open to academically and artistically talented 
             sophomores from Delaware high schools;
               Students attend either the academic program or the 
             visual and performing arts program.

               Kentucky Governor's Scholars Program:
               Established in 1983;
               Held on the campuses (2003) of Centre College in 
             Danville, Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, and 
             Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights;
               Five-week long summer program;
               Students may choose from over 20 subjects, including 
             engineering and cultural anthropology;
               Students selected attend the program free of cost.

               Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts:
               Provides hands-on instruction for Kentucky's dancers, 
             actors, and musicians;
               No charge to students because it is paid for by the 
             State;
               Open to sophomores and juniors in high school.

               Missouri Scholars Academy:
               Three-week academic program for Missouri's gifted 
             students;
               330 students attend each year;
               Held on the campus of University of Missouri-Columbia;
               Administered by the Department of Elementary and 
             Secondary Education, in cooperation with University of 
             Missouri officials;
               Funds to support the Academy are appropriated by the 
             Missouri Legislature following state Board of Education 
             recommendations;
               Academy focuses on liberal arts and numerous extra-
             curricular activities.

                                 ------------------

                      A Glance at Tennessee Governor's Schools
                                 Governor's Schools
                                     Background
               The Governor's School concept and practice began in 
             North Carolina in 1963 when Governor Terry Sanford 
             established the first one at Salem College, Winston-Salem, 
             North Carolina. The first school was initially funded 
             through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. Later it 
             came under the auspices of the North Carolina Board of 
             Education of the North Carolina Department of Education.
               Upon the establishment of the first school, several 
             states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, 
             Kentucky, and Tennessee established similar schools. As of 
             1996, there were approximately 100 schools in 28 states.
                            Tennessee Governor's Schools
                                     Background
               The 1984 Extraordinary Session of the Tennessee General 
             Assembly mandated the Governor's School program as a way 
             of meeting the needs of Tennessee's top students. For many 
             years this program has been included in the Appropriation 
             Bill of the General Assembly.
               The Governor's Schools started with 3 schools (100 
             students each) in 1985:
               1. Humanities at U.T. Martin increased to 150 (2000 = 
             123; 2001 = 113).
               2. Sciences at U.T. increased to 150 (2000 = 119; 2002 = 
             107).
               3. Arts at M.T.S.U. increased to 300 (2000 = 226; 2001 = 
             226).
               Added in 1986 International Studies at U. of Memphis 
             originally served 150 (2000 = 115; 2001 = 106).
               Added in 1987 Tennessee Heritage at E.T.S.U. originally 
             served 80 (2000 = 57; 2001 = 51).
               Added in 1991 Prospective Teachers at U.T. Chattanooga 
             originally served 30 (2000 = 25; 2001 = 22).
               Added in 1996 Manufacturing at U.T. originally served 30 
             (2000 = 26; 2001 = 21).
               Added in 1998 Hospitality and Tourism at TSU originally 
             served 60 (2000 = 60; 2001 = 0).
               Added in 1999 Health Sciences at Vanderbilt originally 
             served 25 (2000 = 20; 2001 = 0).
               Discontinued in 2001 Hospitality and Tourism (per 
             legislature).
               Discontinued in 2001 Health Sciences (per legislature).
               Added (but not held) in 2002 Information Technology 
             Leadership at T.T.U. originally served 30.
               Suspended for 2002 All Governor's School Programs.
               During the 2001 Governor's Schools session 646 students 
             attended.
               2001 total amount allotted to the Governor's Schools: 
             $1,411,000.00 (1999 = $1,981.08 per student; 2000 = 
             $2,037.61 per student; 2001 = $2,180.83 per student)
                              Governor's Schools today
               Today, there are 8 Governor's Schools across the state, 
             serving several hundred students and teachers each year. 
             Although funding for the schools was cut last year during 
             a budget crisis, support has been restored this year.
               As stated earlier, there are currently 8 Governor's 
             Schools across the state. Each school is held on a college 
             campus during the summer months. Listed below is a table 
             of all of the schools, including subject area that is 
             taught, the location, and the dates for the 2003 session.
               The School for the Arts--June 15-July 12, 2003--held on 
             the Middle Tennessee State University campus in 
             Murfreesboro, and located only 30 miles from Nashville and 
             the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
               The School for the Sciences--June 15-July 12, 2003--held 
             on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, 
             near the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Tremont 
             Environmental Center, and in the heart of TVA.
               The School for the Humanities--June 15-July 12, 2003--
             held on the campus of the University of Tennessee at 
             Martin, in the center of Shiloh Battleground and the 
             sociological cultures of the Mississippi and Tennessee 
             Rivers.
               The School for International Studies--June 15-July 12, 
             2003--held on the campus of the University of Memphis, in 
             the heart of Tennessee's growing international corporate 
             center, home to Federal Express, Holiday Inns, and 
             Schering-Plough.
               The School for Tennessee Heritage--June 15-July 12, 
             2003--held on the campus of East Tennessee State 
             University--in Johnson City--surrounded by the area where 
             Tennessee's history began and only a few miles from 
             Jonesborough, the state's oldest existing city.
               The School for Prospective Teachers--June 15-July 12, 
             2003--held on the campus of the University of Tennessee at 
             Chattanooga--with access to many schools throughout the 
             area.
               The School for Manufacturing--June 15-July 12, 2003--
             held on the campus of the University of Tennessee in 
             Knoxville--focuses on the importance of manufacturing as 
             an integral part of the culture and economy of Tennessee.
               President's School for Information Technology and 
             Leadership--June 15-July 12, 2003--this self-funded school 
             will be held on the campus of Tennessee Technological 
             University in Cookeville. It focuses on developing a 
             complete business plan for an information technology-based 
             business and enhancing student's knowledge of information 
             technology and business leadership.
               The Tennessee Governor's Schools offer selected gifted 
             and talented high school students intensive learning 
             experiences in the Humanities, Math and Science, Arts, 
             International Studies, Tennessee Heritage, Prospective 
             Teaching, Manufacturing and Information Technology 
             Leadership. Admission to the various programs are highly 
             competitive, as 1,250 applications have been received thus 
             far for the 2003 year for The School for the Arts, and 
             only 300 spots are available. Additionally, The School for 
             the Sciences has received 800 applications thus far, for 
             125 spots.
               Students in the 10th and 11th grades who are interested 
             in participating in the programs receive information from 
             their school's guidance counselor and then proceed with 
             the application process.
               Students selected to attend these highly competitive 
             schools are provided housing and meals for the duration of 
             the program, which is about a month long. Students 
             participate in a variety of courses that are offered. For 
             example, there were 14 academic courses offered to the 115 
             scholars at the Governor's School for the Humanities in 
             2001. All of the scholars were enrolled in courses at 9 
             a.m. and 10:15 a.m. This particular curriculum was 
             designed to expose the scholars to a rich selection of 
             humanities courses including literature, philosophy, 
             religion, ethics, poetry, history and media studies. In 
             addition to the required morning classes, the scholars 
             were given the opportunity to participate in afternoon 
             electives, such as the yearbook staff and the student 
             newspaper. In the evening hours at the Governors School 
             for the Humanities, students were offered a broad-range of 
             humanities-related speakers and activities.
                        Governor's Schools make a difference
               The scholars' satisfaction with the 2001 Governor's 
             School for the Humanities program is reflected in the 
             overall rating of the program, with 94% of the scholars 
             rating the program as either ``excellent'' or ``very 
             good.''
               This satisfaction is also evident from the feedback the 
             students were asked to write upon completion of the 2001 
             Governor's School for the Humanities program. Some 
             examples of the feedback from the program are as follows:
               ``I had the fortunate chance of coming here, and I am 
             glad I came. The cool thing about the people here is that 
             I got along with everyone, and I especially got along very 
             well with my roommate. My favorite class was Lord 
             Chamberlain's Men. I better developed my acting skills and 
             overall understanding of what goes on in a play 
             production. This campus is so beautiful. The people, 
             activities, and atmosphere are unbelievable. I have had 
             the time of my life here, and I would especially come to 
             this campus again for a future GS, but I doubt that is 
             possible. I love the freedom I get from being here. The 
             classes were challenging for me and I believe I am 
             prepared for my classroom experience now. There are some 
             very strange people that came here who I wouldn't even 
             think would be accepted to Governor's School. I have 
             learned to accept all different types of people and their 
             views and lifestyles since coming to GS. I love the fact 
             that Tennessee is rewarding me and everyone here that is 
             smart with the opportunity to become a better person. This 
             experience was wonderful. I speak for a lot of people when 
             I say that I don't want to leave!''
               ``I honestly would have to say that Governor's School 
             has been one of the best experiences I have ever had. By 
             coming here, I have met so many people from different 
             backgrounds, and I learned to grow as a person. I learned 
             so much in and out of class, both from the staff and 
             students. I really enjoyed all the activities because I 
             had fun and because I was able to be myself. The 
             atmosphere was so receptive and nurturing, and the 
             teachers showed that they wanted us to learn and grow. I 
             feel that the variety of electives offered allowed each 
             person to pick what he/she was interested in and enabled 
             each person to show their talents and abilities. The time 
             in which I was here flew by, but so many wonderful things 
             happened. It sounds funny, but every time I would write or 
             call home, I couldn't help but smile as I told my parents 
             about the fun I was having. This may or may not seem 
             relevant to the Governor's School experience, but it 
             helped me to see that I can go off to college in a year 
             and I will be fine. Overall, I feel that this was a 
             positive growing experience, and I can't wait to take back 
             home all that I have learned. Thank you all so much!''
                     Other Governor's Schools around the country
               The Arkansas Governor's School is a 6-week summer 
             residential program for gifted students who are upcoming 
             high school seniors and residents of Arkansas. State funds 
             provide tuition, room, board, and instructional materials 
             for each student who attends the six-week program on the 
             site of a residential college campus, leased by the State. 
             The Arkansas Governor's School is a non-credit program. 
             Students are selected on the basis of their special 
             aptitudes in one of eight fields: choral music, drama, 
             English/language arts, instrumental music, mathematics, 
             natural science, social science, or visual arts.
               The Virginia Governor's School Program provides some of 
             the state's most able students academically and 
             artistically challenging programs beyond those offered in 
             their home schools. With the support of the Virginia Board 
             of Education and the General Assembly, the Governor's 
             Schools presently include summer residential, summer 
             regional, and academic-year programs serving more than 
             7,500 gifted students from all parts of the commonwealth. 
             There are three types of Governor's Schools that provide 
             appropriate learning endeavors for gifted students 
             throughout the commonwealth: Academic-Year Governor's 
             Schools, Summer Residential Governor's Schools, and the 
             Summer Regional Governor's Schools. The Virginia 
             Department of Education and the participating school 
             divisions fund the Governor's School Program.
               The Georgia Governor's Honors Program is a six-week 
             summer instructional program designed to provide 
             intellectually gifted and artistically talented high 
             school juniors and seniors challenging and enriching 
             educational opportunities. Activities are designed to 
             provide each participant with opportunities to acquire the 
             skills, knowledge, and attitudes to become life-long 
             learners. The program is held on the campus of Valdosta 
             State University, in Valdosta, Georgia. The GHP teacher-
             to-student ratio is usually 1:15.

               Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I thank the majority 
             leader for this time. I yield the floor.
                                   Saxby Chambliss
                                            Wednesday, February 5, 2003
               Mr. President, today I rise in support of Miguel 
             Estrada, the nominee for the 12th Circuit Court of 
             Appeals.
               It is an honor to serve my State of Georgia in this 
             great institution, and I am pleased that the work we are 
             undertaking today pertains to such an important issue for 
             our country--filling the vacancies in our courts with good 
             and honorable judges.
               One of the most important burdens that has been placed 
             on the shoulders of the Senate is the sanction of Federal 
             judges. I relish this task because it grants us an 
             opportunity to have a hand in the future of the laws that 
             govern this great land. And there is no better way to help 
             craft the America of the next generation, the America to 
             be served by our children and our grandchildren.
               Before I came to Congress, I practiced law for 26 years 
             and I can say that it is rare to meet someone as qualified 
             for the bench as Miguel Estrada. The American Bar 
             Association unanimously rated Mr. Estrada as ``well 
             qualified.'' I understand that some of my colleagues in 
             the past have referred to this rating as the ``gold 
             standard'' for judicial nominees. It seems then that a 
             unanimous ``well qualified'' rating should speak volumes 
             about Mr. Estrada's merit.
               Some critics have said that Mr. Estrada should not be 
             confirmed because he lacks judicial experience. I would 
             simply highlight the examples of Justice White and Chief 
             Justice Rehnquist. Both men had no prior judicial 
             experience when they were appointed to the Supreme Court. 
             Also on the same court that Mr. Estrada would join, five 
             of the eight sitting judges had no prior judicial 
             experience, two of which were nominated by President 
             Clinton.
               Mr. Estrada, however, has had exceptional experience 
             both in the government and in private practice. From 1992 
             to 1997, he served in the Clinton administration as 
             Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of 
             Justice. He has argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court 
             and is widely regarded as one of America's leading 
             appellate advocates. He is currently a partner for a 
             leading law firm with their appellate and constitutional 
             law practice group. I believe that this represents 
             sufficient experience for his nomination.
               Another argument made by some is that Mr. Estrada has 
             refused to produce confidential memoranda that he wrote 
             when he was with the Solicitor General's Office. I would 
             argue that this request, if met, would have a debilitating 
             effect on the ability of the Department of Justice to 
             represent the United States before the Supreme Court and I 
             have a letter signed by every living former Solicitor 
             General--Democrat and Republican alike--saying the same. I 
             would ask unanimous consent to print this letter in the 
             Record.
               There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be 
             printed in the Record, as follows:

                                    Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering,
                                      Washington, DC, June 24, 2002.
             Hon. Patrick J. Leahy,
             Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary,
             U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
               Dear Chairman Leahy: We write to express our concern 
             about your recent request that the Department of Justice 
             turn over ``appeal recommendations, certiorari 
             recommendations, and amicus recommendations'' that Miguel 
             Estrada worked on while in the Office of the Solicitor 
             General.
               As former heads of the Office of the Solicitor General--
             under Presidents of both parties--we can attest to the 
             vital importance of candor and confidentiality in the 
             Solicitor General's decisionmaking process. The Solicitor 
             General is charged with the weighty responsibility of 
             deciding whether to appeal adverse decisions in cases 
             where the United States is a party, whether to seek 
             Supreme Court review of adverse appellate decisions, and 
             whether to participate as amicus curiae in other high-
             profile cases that implicate an important federal 
             interest. The Solicitor General has the responsibility of 
             representing the interests not just of the Justice 
             Department, nor just of the Executive Branch, but of the 
             entire federal government, including Congress.
               It goes without saying that, when we made these and 
             other critical decisions, we relied on frank, honest, and 
             thorough advice from our staff attorneys, like Mr. 
             Estrada. Our decisionmaking process required the 
             unbridled, open exchange of ideas--an exchange that simply 
             cannot take place if attorneys have reason to fear that 
             their private recommendations are not private at all, but 
             vulnerable to public disclosure. Attorneys inevitably will 
             hesitate before giving their honest, independent analysis 
             if their opinions are not safeguarded from future 
             disclosure. High-level decisionmaking requires candor, and 
             candor in turn requires confidentiality.
               Any attempt to intrude into the Office's highly 
             privileged deliberations would come at the cost of the 
             Solicitor General's ability to defend vigorously the 
             United States' litigation interests--a cost that also 
             would be borne by Congress itself.
               Although we profoundly respect the Senate's duty to 
             evaluate Mr. Estrada's fitness for the federal judiciary, 
             we do not think that the confidentiality and integrity of 
             internal deliberations should be sacrificed in the 
             process.
                Sincerely,
               On behalf of: Seth P. Waxman, Walter Dellinger, Drew S. 
             Days, III, Kenneth W. Starr, Charles Fried, Robert H. 
             Bork, Archibald Cox.

               Mr. CHAMBLISS. Also, as we have heard, Mr. Estrada has a 
             great story; he is accomplished, competent, and 
             experienced. This man came to America to seek the American 
             dream and he is now living that dream. He came to the 
             United States from Honduras when he was 17 years old and 
             has spent his life gaining credibility as a Hispanic man 
             of distinction. If confirmed, Mr. Estrada would break a 
             glass ceiling by being the first Latino judge to serve on 
             the DC Court of Appeals. However, if he is not confirmed, 
             it would not just be terrible for the District of 
             Columbia, but it would send the wrong message to Hispanic 
             communities in my home State of Georgia and across the 
             Nation. But I would say to my colleagues that you should 
             not vote for Miguel Estrada because he is Hispanic, you 
             should vote to confirm him because he is a world-class 
             lawyer and he will make a world-class judge.
               He has the qualifications, the capacity, the integrity, 
             and the temperament to serve on the Federal bench. I was 
             happy to support his nomination last week in the Judiciary 
             Committee and I urge my colleagues to join me in 
             supporting the President's nominee for this important 
             position.
                                    Norm Coleman
                                            Wednesday, January 22, 2003
               Madam President, I thank the Senator for yielding the 
             time.
               I rise in support of the Cochran amendment. Last year 
             when I was running for the U.S. Senate, I promised to get 
             something done in the way of relief for Minnesota farmers. 
             The picture the distinguished Senator from North Dakota 
             showed is a picture that is close to the heart of 
             Minnesotans who suffered disasters. They have suffered 
             flooding. They have been hurt. They have suffered losses.
               Last year, the House and the Senate attempted to pass 
             the Daschle legislation, but it never became law. Those 
             two bills looked good on paper, but they never became law. 
             They never lightened the load of one farmer. They never 
             comforted one farm family. They never provided a single 
             auction.
               I never promised to vote for something that everyone 
             knows is going nowhere, and then shrug my shoulders and 
             say: Gee whiz, I tried. I promised to shoot straight for 
             the people back home and to be honest about what I think 
             can be done and then help it become law. No one believes 
             the alternative disaster package now scored by the 
             Congressional Budget Office at nearly $7 billion has 
             support to become law. I think it is irresponsible to 
             raise hopes and expectations to that level.
               I was elected to get something done. I have some serious 
             concerns about the $3.1 billion disaster package in the 
             Cochran amendment. In my view, the help provided in this 
             bill needs to be better targeted to farmers hit by 
             disaster. I was among a number of Senators who expressed 
             concerns to the chairman of the Agriculture Committee. He 
             went back to the drawing board. He made some changes to 
             better target the help. Although he didn't go as far as I 
             would like, we are going to get something done for 
             Minnesota farmers. Farmers can't produce cashflow on 
             promises alone. They need help now. I am told this $3.1 
             billion relief package can get help to our farm families 
             within weeks. I am going to support this $3.1 billion 
             package. I was elected to get things done. The Cochran 
             amendment gets things done. Let's pass it and let us move 
             on.
               I yield the floor.
                                     John Cornyn
                                            Wednesday, February 5, 2003
               Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the seven 
             men and women of the Space Shuttle Columbia who dedicated 
             their lives to the future of this Nation and our Nation's 
             space program. In particular, seven men and women who knew 
             the risk of strapping themselves on top of a rocket, 
             leaving the Earth behind and exploring the heavens. Seven 
             men and women who knew what they were doing but, 
             nevertheless, volunteered for an extremely dangerous but 
             critically important mission: Shuttle Commander Rick 
             Husband, Pilot William McCool, Payload Commander Michael 
             Anderson, Mission Specialist Kalpana Chawla, Mission 
             Specialist David Brown, Mission Specialist Laurel Blair 
             Salton Clark, and Payload Specialist Ilan Ramon.
               These brave seven showed the Nation, indeed they showed 
             the entire world, that our thirst for knowledge and 
             exploration is not yet quenched and, God willing, will 
             never be. These brave seven are shining examples of the 
             courage, enthusiasm, and awe that runs through the veins 
             of all of the men and women associated with our space 
             program, as well as the eager children across this Nation 
             who look to the stars and see the beginning, not the end, 
             of their dreams.
               These brave seven and their colleagues throughout the 
             space program inspire not only our Nation and our 
             children, they inspire the entire world. Their actions, 
             bravery, and achievements are a challenge to all 
             humankind, a challenge to dream more, to achieve more, and 
             to reach farther than ever thought possible.
               As we know and as the President observed yesterday, high 
             achievement is inseparable from great risk. These seven 
             proved that in a terrible and tragic way.
               I would also like to take a moment to honor the men and 
             women in my State of Texas--the police, fire, and 
             emergency services, as well as thousands of local 
             volunteers who have worked so hard on the ground in the 
             aftermath of this terrible disaster to prevent further 
             tragedy. In addition, they are in the process of 
             collecting important evidence that will ultimately, we 
             trust, lead to the determination of what caused this 
             terrible tragedy so it will never ever happen again.
               Literally within minutes of the tragedy, ordinary Texans 
             did extraordinary things. By working together, they helped 
             to ensure the safety of their neighbors, and they helped 
             speed the investigation so that heroic astronauts on 
             future space missions will return home safely. These 
             volunteers are still onsite working together with law 
             enforcement personnel. I want to express my gratitude, as 
             I know the Nation does, for their efforts.
               The fact that America and the world delight in every 
             takeoff and hold their collective breath at every landing 
             is a testament to the power and hope embodied in our 
             Nation's space program. The heroes who create, maintain, 
             and fly these amazing machines are a testament to the fact 
             that dreams are the beginning and not the end of the 
             possible.
               I would also like to remind my colleagues that more than 
             one nation mourns this tragedy. The nations of Israel and 
             India and the rest of the world share in our grief as they 
             share in our hope for the future.
               Our space program inspired a young girl in the small 
             town of Karnal, India, to look to the heavens and see her 
             future. Kalpana Chawla came to the United States, studied 
             hard, worked hard, and became part of the greatest 
             exploration force in the history of the world. Her efforts 
             have inspired thousands of schoolchildren, and her example 
             will inspire countless more in the future. She, in 
             particular, has inspired schoolchildren in her hometown to 
             watch in awe as she achieved what they only dreamed.
               In Israel, Ilan Ramon was the hope of a nation and the 
             inspiration for the next generation of scientists, fliers, 
             and adventurers in the nation of Israel. And he no doubt 
             inspired many young people in that country to reach beyond 
             what now seems impossible--to dream beyond the unrest in 
             that troubled area of our world and to dream about 
             achieving the impossible. He is a hero, there and here, 
             and an inspiration to all who dream of the stars.
               As we mourn these fallen heroes, let us also take the 
             opportunity to look forward to the future when shuttle 
             flights are as common as air travel and the marvels of the 
             space program are missions the mind has yet to imagine.
               I yield the floor.
                                   Elizabeth Dole
                                                 Thursday, June 5, 2003
               Mr. President, I first thank the majority whip, Senator 
             McConnell, and the Democrat whip, Senator Reid, for their 
             very kind comments this morning. Then I thank you, Mr. 
             President, and other members of the leadership, for your 
             unwavering support of this freshman class.
               I also recognize Senator Frist for the traditional 
             courtesies of a maiden speech to be extended to the new 
             Senator and express my appreciation for his commitment to 
             the rich history of this great tradition.
               Tradition is held that, by waiting a respectful length 
             of time, senior colleagues would appreciate the humility 
             shown by a new Member of the Senate who would use the 
             occasion to address an issue of concern.
               I come in that sense today to share my thoughts on a 
             matter that weighs heavily on my mind. Hunger is the 
             silent enemy lurking within too many American homes. It is 
             a tragedy I have seen first-hand and far too many times 
             throughout my life in public service. This is not a new 
             issue.
               In 1969, while I was serving as Deputy Assistant to the 
             President for Consumer Affairs, I was privileged to assist 
             in planning the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, 
             and Health. In opening the conference, President Nixon 
             said:

               Malnutrition is a national concern because we are a 
             nation that cares about its people, how they feel, how 
             they live. We care whether they are well and whether they 
             are happy.

               This still rings true today.
               On National Hunger Awareness Day, I want to highlight 
             what has become a serious problem for too many families, 
             particularly in North Carolina.
               My home State is going through a painful economic 
             transition. Once thriving textile mills have been 
             shuttered. Family farms are going out of business. Tens of 
             thousands of workers have been laid off from their jobs. 
             Entire areas of textile and furniture manufacturing are 
             slowly phasing out as high-tech manufacturing and service 
             companies become the dominant industry of the State. Many 
             of these traditional manufacturing jobs have been in rural 
             areas where there are fewer jobs and residents who are 
             already struggling to make ends meet.
               In 1999, North Carolina had the 12th lowest unemployment 
             rate in the United States. By December 2001, the State had 
             fallen to 46--from 12 to 46. That same year, according to 
             the Rural Center, North Carolina companies announced 
             63,222 layoffs. Our State lost more manufacturing jobs 
             between 1997 and 2000 than any State except New York.
               Entire communities have been uprooted by this crisis. In 
             the town of Spruce Pine in Mitchell County, 30 percent--30 
             percent--of the town's residents lost their jobs in 2001. 
             Ninety percent of those layoffs were in textile and 
             furniture manufacturing. These are real numbers and real 
             lives from a State that is hurting.
               Our families are struggling to find jobs, to pay their 
             bills, and, as we hear more and more often, to even put 
             food on the table. In fact, the unemployment trend that 
             started in 1999 resulted in 11.1 percent of North Carolina 
             families not always having enough food to meet their basic 
             needs. That is according to the U.S. Department of 
             Agriculture. And North Carolina's rate is higher than the 
             national average. This means that among North Carolina's 
             8.2 million residents, nearly 900,000 are dealing with 
             hunger. Some are hungry, others are on the verge.
               My office was blessed recently to meet a young veteran, 
             Michael Williams, and his family. Michael served his 
             country for 8 years in the U.S. Army before leaving to 
             work in private industry and use the computer skills he 
             had gained while serving in the military. He was earning a 
             good living, but after September 11 and the terrorist 
             attacks, he and his wife Gloria felt it was time to move 
             their two children closer to family back home in North 
             Carolina. As he said, ``It was time to bring the 
             grandbabies home.''
               But Michael has found a shortage of jobs since his 
             return. He worked with a temp agency but that job ended. 
             It has been so hard to make ends meet that the family goes 
             to a food bank near their Clayton, NC, home twice a month 
             because with rent, utilities, and other bills, there is 
             little left to buy food.
               Their story is not unlike so many others. Hard-working 
             families are worrying each day about how to feed their 
             children. As if this were not enough, our food banks are 
             having a hard time finding food to feed these families. In 
             some instances, financial donations have dropped off or 
             corporations have scaled back on food donations. In other 
             cases, there are just too many people, and there is not 
             enough food.
               At the Food Bank of the Albemarle in northeast North 
             Carolina, executive director Gus Smith says more people 
             are visiting this food bank even as donations are off by 
             25 percent. Thus Gus says, ``We just can't help everybody 
             at this point in time.'' To try to cope, they recently 
             moved to a 4-day workweek, meaning the entire staff had to 
             take a 20-percent pay cut just to keep the doors open.
               America's Second Harvest, a network of 216 food banks 
             across the country, reports it saw the number of people 
             seeking emergency hunger relief rise by 9 percent in 2001 
             to 23.3 million people. In any given week, it is estimated 
             that 7 million people are served at emergency feeding 
             sites around the country.
               These numbers are troubling indeed. No family--in North 
             Carolina or anywhere in America--should have to worry 
             about where they will find food to eat. No parent should 
             have to tell their child there is no money left for 
             groceries. This is simply unacceptable.
               I spent most of the congressional Easter recess going to 
             different sites in North Carolina: homeless and hunger 
             shelters, food distribution sites, soup kitchens, farms, 
             even an office where I went through the process of 
             applying for government assistance through the WIC 
             Program, the Women, Infants, and Children Program.
               I was also able to meet, on several occasions, with a 
             group known as the Society of Saint Andrew. This 
             organization, like some others across the country, is 
             doing impressive work in the area of gleaning. That is 
             when excess crops that would otherwise be thrown out, are 
             taken from farms, packing houses, and warehouses, and 
             distributed to the needy.
               Gleaning immediately brings to my mind the Book of Ruth 
             in the Old Testament. She gleaned in the fields so that 
             her family could eat. You see, Mr. President, in Biblical 
             times farmers were encouraged to leave crops in their 
             fields for the poor and the travelers. Even as far back as 
             in Leviticus, chapter 19, in the Old Testament, we read 
             the words:

               And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt 
             thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave 
             them for the poor and the stranger.

               So gleaning was long a custom in Biblical days, a 
             command by God to help those in need. It is a practice we 
             should utilize much more extensively today. It is 
             astounding that the most recent figures available indicate 
             that approximately 96 billion pounds of good, nutritious 
             food, including that at the farm and retail levels, is 
             left over or thrown away in this country.
               It is estimated that only 6 percent of crops are 
             actually gleaned in North Carolina. A tomato farmer in 
             North Carolina sends 20,000 pounds of tomatoes to 
             landfills each day during harvest season.
               Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to present an 
             example of produce on the Senate floor.

               The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
             ordered.

               Mrs. DOLE. Sometimes the produce cannot be sold. 
             Sometimes it is underweight or not a perfect shape, like 
             this sweet potato I show you in my hand. This would be 
             rejected because it is not the exact specification. Other 
             times it is simply surplus food, more than the grocery 
             stores can handle, but it is still perfectly good to eat.
               Imagine the expense to that farmer in dumping 20,000 
             pounds of tomatoes each day during his harvest season. And 
             this cannot be good for the environment. In fact, food is 
             the single largest component of our solid waste stream--
             more than yard trimmings or even newspapers. Some of it 
             does decompose, but it often takes several years. Other 
             food just sits in landfills, literally mummified. Putting 
             this food to good use, through gleaning, will reduce the 
             amount of waste going to our already overburdened 
             landfills.
               I am so appreciative of my friends at the Environmental 
             Defense Fund for working closely with me on this issue. 
             Gleaning also helps the farmer because he does not have to 
             haul off and plow under crops that do not meet exact 
             specifications of grocery chains, and it certainly helps 
             the hungry, by giving them not just any food but food that 
             is both nutritious and fresh.
               The Society of Saint Andrew is the only comprehensive 
             program in North Carolina that gleans available produce 
             and then sorts, packages, processes, transports, and 
             delivers excess food to feed the hungry.
               In the year 2001, the organization gleaned 9.7 million 
             pounds--almost 10 million pounds--or 29.1 million servings 
             of food. It only costs a penny--1 penny--a serving to 
             glean and deliver this food to those in need. Even more 
             amazing, the Society of Saint Andrew does all this with a 
             tiny staff and an amazing 9,200 volunteers.
               These are the types of innovative ideas we should be 
             exploring. I have been told by the Society of Saint Andrew 
             that $100,000 would provide at least 10 million servings 
             of food for hungry North Carolinians.
               I set out to raise that money for the Society in the 
             last few weeks, and thanks to the compassion of a number 
             of caring individuals, companies, and organizations, we 
             were able to surpass our goal and raise $180,000--enough 
             for over 18 million servings of food. More than ever, I 
             believe this is a worthy effort that can be used as a 
             model nationwide.
               I am passionate about leading an effort to increase 
             gleaning in North Carolina and across America. The 
             gleaning system works because of the cooperative efforts 
             of so many groups, from the Society of Saint Andrew and 
             its volunteers who gather and deliver the food, to the 
             dozens of churches and humanitarian organizations that 
             help distribute this food to the hungry. Indeed, gleaning 
             is, at its best, a public-private partnership.
               Private organizations are doing a great job with limited 
             resources. But we must make some changes on the public 
             side to help them leverage their scarce dollars to feed 
             the hungry. I have heard repeatedly that the single 
             biggest concern for gleaners is transportation. The food 
             is there. The issue is how to transport it in larger 
             volume.
               I want to change the Tax Code to give transportation 
             companies that volunteer trucks for gleaned food a tax 
             incentive. And there are other needed tax changes. 
             Currently, only large publicly traded corporations can 
             take tax credits for giving food to these gleaning 
             programs. But it is not just large corporations that 
             provide this food; it is the family farmers and the small 
             businesses. Why should a farmer who gives up his perfectly 
             good produce or the small restaurant owner who gives food 
             to the hungry not receive the same tax benefits? The 
             Senate has already passed legislation as part of the CARE 
             Act that would fix this inequity. Now the House of 
             Representatives needs to complete work on this bill.
               However, the answer to the hunger problem does not stop 
             with gleaning. That is just part of the overall effort. 
             There are other ways we can help, too.
               This year we will be renewing the National School Lunch 
             Program and other important child nutrition programs, and 
             there are some areas I am interested in reviewing.
               Under School Lunch, children from families with incomes 
             at or below 130 percent of poverty are eligible for free 
             meals. Children from families with incomes between 130 and 
             185 percent of poverty can be charged no more than 40 
             cents. This may seem to be a nominal amount, but for a 
             struggling family with several children the costs add up. 
             School administrators in North Carolina tell me that they 
             hear from parents in tears because they don't know how to 
             pay for their child's school meals.
               The Federal Government now considers incomes up to 185 
             percent of poverty when deciding if a family is eligible 
             for benefits under the WIC Program. Should we not use the 
             same standard for School Lunch? Standardizing the 
             guidelines would even allow us to immediately certify 
             children from WIC families for the School Lunch Program. 
             It is time to clarify this bureaucratic situation and 
             harmonize our Federal income assistance guidelines so we 
             can help those most in need.
               The School Lunch Program is the final component of our 
             commitment to child nutrition, and we must do everything 
             to maintain and strengthen its integrity so that it works 
             for those who need it and isn't viewed as a government 
             giveaway.
               There are a lot of interesting ideas being discussed 
             such as adjusting area eligibility guidelines in the 
             Summer Food Program. But these need to be looked at 
             carefully, and we need to ask important questions such as 
             how many people would be affected and what is the cost. I 
             have discussed many of these ideas with groups such as 
             America's Second Harvest, Bread for the World, the Food 
             Research and Action Center, and the American School Food 
             Service Association. I look forward to the opportunity of 
             exploring them further during reauthorization of these 
             important programs in the Agriculture Committee, on which 
             I am honored to serve.
               Our work cannot stop within our own borders. The Food 
             and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations says 
             hunger affects millions worldwide. During my 8 years as 
             president of the American Red Cross, I visited Somalia 
             during the heart-wrenching famine. In Mojada, I came 
             across a little boy under a sack. I thought he was dead. 
             His brother pulled back that sack and sat him up and he 
             was severely malnourished. He couldn't eat the rice and 
             beans in the bowl beside him; he was too malnourished. I 
             asked for camel's milk to feed him.
               As I put my arm around his back and lifted that cup to 
             his mouth, it was almost as if little bones were piercing 
             through his flesh. I will never forget that. That is when 
             the horror of starvation becomes real, when you can touch 
             it.
               There are many things that will haunt me the rest of my 
             life. When I visited Goma, Zaire, which is now Congo--this 
             was a place where millions of Rwandans had fled the 
             bloodshed in their own country but they stopped at the 
             worst possible place, on volcanic rock. You couldn't drill 
             for latrines so cholera and dysentery were rampant. You 
             couldn't dig for graves, so I was literally stepping over 
             dead bodies as I tried to help those refugees. Those 
             bodies were carried to the roadside twice a day. They were 
             hauled off to mass graves.
               Former Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern are the 
             architects of the Global Food Program, which has a goal of 
             ensuring that 300 million schoolchildren overseas get at 
             least 1 nutritious meal a day. The Department of 
             Agriculture estimates that 120 million school-age children 
             around the world are not enrolled in school in part 
             because of hunger or malnutrition. The majority of these 
             children are girls. The Global Food for Education Program 
             is now operating in 38 countries and feeding 9 million 
             schoolchildren.
               I want to see this program expanded. I plan to work on 
             appropriations to advance that goal. Just helping a child 
             get a good meal can make such a difference in developing 
             countries. Feeding children entices them to come to school 
             which allows them to learn, to have some hope, some 
             future. And improved literacy certainly helps the 
             productivity, thereby boosting the economy.
               This problem deserves national discussion. Hunger 
             affects so many aspects of our society. In the spirit of 
             that landmark conference held by the White House in 1969, 
             I am asking President Bush to convene a second White House 
             conference so that the best and brightest minds can review 
             these problems together.
               I am honored to work with leaders of the battle to 
             eradicate hunger: Former Congressman Tony Hall, now the 
             U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. food and agricultural 
             programs, and former Congresswoman Eva Clayton from my own 
             State of North Carolina, now an assistant director general 
             for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. 
             Both were champions on hunger while in Congress. And there 
             are many others. Former Agriculture Secretary Dan 
             Glickman, a leader on gleaning; Catherine Bertini, Under 
             Secretary General of the United Nations who was praised 
             for her leadership to get food aid to those in need 
             throughout the world; Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson, 
             cochair of the Congressional Hunger Center who carries on 
             the legacy of her late husband Bill who was a dear friend 
             and leader on this issue.
               Here in this body, my chairman on the Agriculture 
             Committee, Thad Cochran, and ranking member Tom Harkin, 
             Dick Lugar, Patrick Leahy, Pat Roberts, and Gordon Smith 
             are leaders in addressing hunger issues.
               Partisan politics has no role in this fight. Hunger does 
             not differentiate between Democrats and Republicans. Just 
             as it stretches across so many ethnicities, so many areas, 
             so must we.
               As Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote 
             yesterday: America has some problems that defy solution. 
             This one does not. It just needs caring people and a 
             caring government working together.
               I get inspiration from the Bible and John, chapter 21, 
             when Jesus asked Peter: Do you love me? Peter, astounded 
             that Jesus was asking him this question again, says: Lord, 
             you know everything. You know that I love you. And Jesus 
             replies: Then feed my sheep.
               One of North Carolina's heroes, the Reverend Billy 
             Graham, has often said that we are not cisterns made for 
             hoarding; we are vessels made for sharing. I look forward 
             to working with Billy Graham in this effort. Indeed every 
             religion, not just Christianity, calls on us to feed the 
             hungry. Jewish tradition promises that feeding the hungry 
             will not go unrewarded. Fasting is one of the pillars of 
             faith of Islam and is a way to share the conditions of the 
             hungry poor while purifying the spirit and humbling the 
             flesh. Compassion or karuna is one of the key virtues of 
             Buddhism. This issue cuts across religious lines, too.
               I speak today on behalf of the millions of families who 
             are vulnerable, who have no voice, for this little 
             Sudanese girl in this picture, stumbling toward a feeding 
             station and so many like her. I saw this picture some 
             years ago in a newspaper. It broke my heart. I went back 
             to find that picture today because, as I recall the story, 
             she had been walking for a long, long way and she had not 
             yet reached that feeding station. That has been emblazoned 
             on my mind since that time.
               Anthropologist Margaret Meade said: Never doubt that a 
             small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change 
             the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
               One of my heroes is William Wilberforce, a true man of 
             God. An old friend John Newton persuaded him that his 
             political life could be used in the service of God. He 
             worked with a dedicated group. They were committed people 
             of faith. His life and career were centered on two goals: 
             abolishing slavery in England and improving moral values. 
             He knew that his commitment might cost him friends and 
             influence but he was determined to stand for what he 
             believed was right. It took 21 years and Wilberforce 
             sacrificed his opportunity to serve as Prime Minister. But 
             he was the moving force in abolishing slavery and changing 
             the moral values of England.
               In my lifetime, I have seen Americans split the atom, 
             abolish Jim Crow, eliminate the scourge of polio, win the 
             cold war, plant our flag on the surface of the Moon, map 
             the human genetic code, and belatedly recognize the 
             talents of women, minorities, the disabled, and others 
             once relegated to the shadows. Already a large group of 
             citizens has joined what I believe will become an army of 
             volunteers and advocates.
               Today I invite all of my colleagues to join me in this 
             endeavor. Let us recommit ourselves to the goal of 
             eradicating hunger. Committed individuals can make a world 
             of difference, even, I might say, a different world.
               Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my letter to 
             President Bush be printed in the Record.
               There being no objection, the material was ordered to be 
             printed in the Record, as follows:

                                                   U.S. Senate,
                                       Washington, DC, June 4, 2003.
             President George W. Bush,
             The White House, Washington, DC.
               Dear Mr. President: The White House Conference on Food, 
             Nutrition and Health, convened by President Richard Nixon 
             on December 2, 1969, may well have been one of the 
             country's most productive and far-reaching White House 
             conferences. At the time, President Nixon said that the 
             conference was ``intended to focus national attention and 
             resources on our country's remaining--and changing--
             nutrition problems.'' In hindsight, it achieved that and 
             more.
               So much has been accomplished since that historic White 
             House conference. With bipartisan support in Congress, the 
             food stamp program has been reformed and expanded, school 
             nutrition programs have been improved and now reach over 
             27 million children each school day, WIC was created, and 
             nutrition labels now appear on most food items.
               At the same time, however, the mission is not complete. 
             There are children who qualify for reduced price meals in 
             North Carolina, and throughout the country, but their 
             families cannot afford even this nominal fee. And while 16 
             million children participate in the free and reduced 
             school lunch program, in the summer many children go 
             without. America's Second Harvest, an extraordinary 
             organization, reports that demand often exceeds the supply 
             of food in local communities. Further, the country is 
             challenged by the paradox of hunger and obesity.
               Mr. President, it is time, I believe, for another White 
             House conference to assess the progress we have made in 
             the fight against hunger and to recommit the country to 
             the remaining challenges. I was pleased to work with 
             President Nixon on the 1969 conference; I would be honored 
             to work with you on a second historic conference.
               There is a very special tradition in America when it 
             comes to fighting hunger. Perhaps it is a function of our 
             agricultural bounty, the famines in Europe that led to 
             early migration, or the teachings of all major religions, 
             but Americans are intolerant of hunger in our land of 
             plenty.
               Mr. President, I hope you will convene a second White 
             House conference with the business, civic and charitable 
             organizations, educators and advocates who continue to 
             work tirelessly to address hunger in America and around 
             the world. Hunger is not a partisan issue and I know that 
             we can work together, with our colleagues on both sides of 
             the political aisle, to address the problems and needs 
             that still exist. Thank you very much for your 
             consideration.
                Sincerely,
                                                     Elizabeth Dole.

               Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
                                  Lindsey O. Graham
                                              Wednesday, March 19, 2003
               Madam President, I have a housekeeping chore. I would 
             like to submit to the clerk a modification to my amendment 
             and ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified.
               No modification is needed, I am told. Thank you.
               Madam President, Social Security is not only hard to 
             solve, it is also hard to get before the Senate. So I 
             apologize for the confusion.
               I understand the concern of my colleague from North 
             Dakota, but having a bit of time to talk about Social 
             Security I think is very appropriate.
               The budget resolution process is a roadmap to make sure 
             we can understand what we are doing as the year progresses 
             in terms of spending and taxes and what provisions to take 
             up and when. I applaud both the Senator from North Dakota 
             and the Senator from Oklahoma for working together to try 
             to make this as painless on the body as possible. But this 
             amendment, hopefully, can be accepted in some form, either 
             voted on or accepted by the body.
               If you are going to have a roadmap for America this year 
             or any other year, it is time we start putting Social 
             Security on that roadmap. Social Security is a system that 
             Democrats and Republicans embrace as being vital to the 
             Nation. It is a system that working Americans pay into 
             every year. Millions of Americans receive a substantial 
             part, if not all, of their retirement income from Social 
             Security, after years of paying into the system.
               This amendment is part of this roadmap for America that 
             we are talking about. It lays out some findings and some 
             facts that are not Republican spin, not Democratic spin, 
             but come from the Social Security trustees themselves, the 
             people in charge of telling us, in managing the program--
             ``us'' being the House and the Senate--the state of 
             affairs with Social Security.
               We are on the verge of a war. Only God knows what will 
             happen here shortly. But it is my belief, unless there is 
             some major miracle, we will be involved in hostilities 
             with young men and women in harm's way protecting our 
             freedom. I know one thing every Member of the body can 
             agree on is that these young men and women deserve our 
             support and our prayers if ordered into battle. And they 
             will get that support and those prayers in a bipartisan 
             way because what they are doing is very noble, in my 
             opinion, trying to preserve our freedom and bringing about 
             more stability in the Middle East.
               We can argue about the nuances of the diplomacy and lack 
             thereof in some people's opinion that got us to being on 
             the brink of war, but once hostilities begin, I am sure 
             everybody will come together and say a prayer for our 
             troops and support our President the best they can.
               That same dynamic needs to exist with Social Security, 
             because there is a big, gaping hole in America's domestic 
             agenda. You can talk about the size of the tax cuts, 
             whether we should have one, whether it should be $750 
             billion or $350 billion or 30 cents or $2 trillion. 
             Whatever opinion you have, I respect, and I have my own 
             about that; and that is a point of debate.
               One thing we need to understand and come together on 
             quickly, in my opinion, is certain facts surrounding 
             Social Security.
               In 75 years--I know that seems forever. But my 
             predecessor, Senator Thurmond, turned 100 a few months 
             ago. He is going to be a first-time grandfather. Our 
             State's former junior Senator, now senior Senator, is 81. 
             So in South Carolina, 75 years is not long in politics. It 
             seems forever, but it is not, really.
               In 75 years, our trustees, the people in charge of the 
             Social Security Trust Fund, tell us we will be $25.3 
             trillion short of the money necessary to pay benefits. I 
             want to repeat that. I know there are a lot of important 
             votes to come on ANWR and tax cuts, and this roadmap is 
             about this year; and we are trying get through this day to 
             make sure we can get on with the business of the Senate. 
             And that is the way politics is, probably to a fault 
             sometimes: getting through this day, getting through this 
             amendment, so we can get on with the next event of the 
             next day. We are in the middle of an international crisis, 
             and our hope is we can get through the coming days as 
             quickly as possible and resolve it.
               Time is not on our side in solving Social Security 
             structural problems. You could say: Well, 75 years is a 
             long time. But between now and 75 years from now, for the 
             obligations of the trust fund, and the money to pay those 
             obligations, there will be a $25 trillion gap. And I ask, 
             simply, the following question: Where does the money come 
             from?
               People want to know how much the war is going to cost--
             and the occupation. The truth is, it is going to be 
             billions of dollars over several years. As we try to find 
             out where the money comes from to get us through this day 
             and this year, I hope we will start focusing on, in a 
             bipartisan fashion, where does the money come from to keep 
             Social Security solvent?
               Seventy-five years from now, if nothing changes--if all 
             we do is run ads against each other and belittle 
             opportunities to fix it in a partisan way; if the 
             Democratic and the Republican parties stay on track, based 
             on the last campaign cycle, of trying to use the Social 
             Security issue as a way to capture power for the moment--
             then we are going to allow one of the best programs in the 
             history of the Nation not only to become insolvent but 
             create a financial crisis in this country that we have not 
             experienced, ever.
               Another date I would like to point out: In 2042, which 
             seems forever, but it is not, a problem occurs with Social 
             Security. Seventy-five years from now, the unfunded 
             liability in obligation will be $25.3 trillion. But before 
             you get to that point in time, the next major event, 
             according to the trustee report released yesterday, is 
             2042.
               What happens in 2042? In 2042, the amount of money 
             available to pay benefits will be such that benefits will 
             be reduced for the average recipient by 28 percent. I want 
             to say that again. If we do nothing different, if we just 
             collect the same amount of money, and get the same growth 
             rates, in 2042 you are going to reduce benefits for 
             everybody on Social Security by 28 percent. The other 
             option is, according to the trustees, raise payroll taxes 
             of the workforce in existence then by 50 percent. These 
             are two very dramatic and unacceptable options, in my 
             opinion.
               Now, in 2042, I doubt if I will be here. But if the 
             history of my State stands the test of time, I will be 
             here because I will turn 100 in 2055. If I can do what my 
             predecessor has done, which I very seriously doubt, I will 
             have another term left. I doubt if that will happen in my 
             case, but somebody is going to be here in 2042 from South 
             Carolina and every other State represented here today.
               My hope is that during my time in the Senate, I can join 
             with my colleagues of like mind on both sides of the aisle 
             to make life a little better for the American public, the 
             taxpayer, and those who will be doing the job we are 
             engaged in today a little better than the trustees tell us 
             of what is going to happen in 2042.
               I would like to recognize certain Members of this body: 
             Senator Gregg, Senator Breaux, and many others, Senator 
             Moynihan, a former Member of the Senate, who have brought 
             ideas to the table, have worked in a bipartisan manner, 
             along with President Bush. I compliment President Clinton 
             for putting the issue of Social Security on the table. I 
             didn't particularly like his solution to better growth 
             rates, but he acknowledged that growth rates were a 
             problem. So there is the foundation being laid in the last 
             couple years to do something constructive.
               I compliment everybody in this body who has been part of 
             that process. As a Member of the House for four terms, I 
             tried to be a constructive Member dealing with Social 
             Security over there.
               The temptation to achieve political power is great when 
             the Senate and the House are so closely divided. Every 
             issue is looked upon as the issue that can get you back in 
             the majority or the issue that may cost you the majority. 
             My concern is that if we have that approach to reforming 
             and solving Social Security--I know the Senator from North 
             Dakota who is managing the minority side of the bill is a 
             fine Member who loves his country as much as I do--if we 
             keep this partisan atmosphere going that has existed in 
             the past and has been bipartisan in the demagoguery, we 
             will run into a problem. So in 2042, I would like us to 
             avoid what is coming our way. The only way to do is to 
             start now.
               Another date the Social Security trustees tell us is a 
             very important date is 2018. I have gone from 75 years now 
             to 2042 to 2018. What happens in 2018? In 2018, for the 
             first time in the history of the program, we will pay more 
             in benefits than we collect in taxes. What is going on 
             here? There are a lot of young folks working in the 
             Senate--pages, interns. We are really talking about their 
             future more than anything else.
               In 2018, we pay out more in benefits than we collect in 
             taxes. What is wrong with Social Security? Why is it 
             mounting up this unfunded obligation? Why are we beginning 
             to pay more in benefits than we collect in taxes? Why do 
             we have to cut benefits in 2042, and why are we $25 
             trillion short in the money to pay everybody 75 years from 
             now?
               Well, it is not a Republican or a Democratic problem in 
             terms of politics. It is just the way the country has 
             changed. I was born in 1955. In 1950, a few years before I 
             was born, there were 16.5 workers to every retiree. 
             According to the trustees, in 1950, there were 16.5 people 
             working paying Social Security taxes for every retiree. 
             Today there are 3.3 workers to every retiree. Twenty years 
             from now, there are going to be two workers for every 
             retiree. That is not a Republican problem. It is not a 
             Democratic caused problem. That is not because we can't 
             get along up here. That is because the ratios have 
             changed. There is no reason to believe they will go back 
             the other way.
               My father and mother are deceased now, but I think in my 
             mother's family there were nine members of her family, and 
             my father had eight. I am not married. I don't have any 
             kids. My sister has one. I sort of reflect what is going 
             on in the world. I hope to help solve the problem later 
             down the road. If I do what Senator Thurmond has done, 23 
             years from now, I would have my first child. I doubt if 
             that will happen, either.
               But as we kind of mark these points in time and make it 
             personal, the problem is that the demographic changes in 
             America have put Social Security at risk. It is nobody's 
             fault, but it is everyone's problem. You cannot keep the 
             program solvent when the ratio has gone from 16.5 workers 
             to 1 in 1950 to 20 years from now being 2 to 1. There is 
             just not enough money coming into the system.
               Now, when you talk about Social Security spending and 
             what to do and the idea that we are spending Social 
             Security surpluses to run the government, you get 
             everybody upset. And they should be. I came to the House 
             in 1995. One of the first things we tried to do was 
             isolate Social Security money surpluses and make sure we 
             did not use the Social Security dollars paid into the 
             system to run the government. That has been a practice 
             that has been going on for 30 or 40 years. Both parties 
             have engaged in that practice.
               Every year we collect more in Social Security taxes than 
             we pay in benefits. That extra money is called surplus. We 
             have borrowed that extra cash, given the trust fund IOUs 
             that have to be redeemed in the future. That has allowed 
             us to grow this government without a direct tax on people.
               That is a bad practice. It is not good government. It is 
             not good business. For several years we have been able to 
             avoid doing that in a bipartisan way.
               You remember in the last debate there was the lockbox. 
             Let's put everything related to Social Security in this 
             lockbox. In my last campaign for the Senate, I constantly 
             heard it: If you just left Social Security money alone and 
             you didn't take it out to run the government, if you kept 
             it in a lockbox and left it alone, most of these problems 
             would go away.
               That is not true. As much as you would like to believe 
             that, that is not true. If you took every penny collected 
             from Social Security and you dedicated it totally to the 
             trust fund and totally to the benefits to be paid, you are 
             still $25 trillion short in 75 years. It still runs out of 
             money in 2042. The problem is that two workers paying into 
             the system will not be able to support the massive number 
             of baby boomers coming into the system.
               Having said that, I would like to work with my 
             colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do a better job 
             of protecting Social Security. I don't believe there is 
             any party that has been in power for the last 40 years 
             that could look the American public in the eye and say 
             that they have not been guilty of using the surpluses in 
             some fashion for other than Social Security.
               In September of last year, I wrote a letter to the 
             Social Security Administration asking 17 questions. Here 
             is one of the questions I asked: Some have proposed a 
             Social Security lockbox; would a lockbox, by itself, 
             extend the solvency of Social Security beyond the year 
             Social Security is expected to become insolvent? In a 
             nutshell they said, the implementation of a Social 
             Security lockbox would not alter this commitment and thus 
             would have no direct effect on the future solvency of 
             Social Security.
               Having said that, I do believe we should isolate Social 
             Security dollars and dedicate those dollars to the payment 
             of Social Security Trust Fund obligations. That is just 
             good government. But please do not tell your constituents 
             back home that will fix this problem because it most 
             certainly will not.
               After having heard my rendition, there is probably not 
             much good news you have heard yet. The good news: there is 
             a way, in my opinion, to make up the $25 trillion 
             shortfall over 75 years, to change the fact that you will 
             have to reduce benefits by 2042 by 28 percent--that is all 
             the money you will have to pay benefits by then--and to 
             even change the dynamic of paying more out in benefits 
             than you collect in taxes by 2018.
               The good news--just like everything else in Washington, 
             there is a bad news/good news part of what I am about to 
             say--is that the growth rates for Social Security, the 
             amount of return you get on your FICA tax dollars or 
             Social Security tax dollars taken out of your paycheck for 
             younger workers, people born in the 1980s, it is less than 
             2 percent. If you happen to be a minority in this country, 
             born in the 1980s, it is less than 1 percent.
               Let me say that again. This is not Lindsey Graham saying 
             that. The Social Security trustees have reported back to 
             me in this letter.
               I ask unanimous consent to print the letter in the 
             Record.
               There being no objection, the material was ordered to be 
             printed in the Record, as follows:

                                           Social Security,    
                                   Office of the Chief Actuary,
                                  Baltimore, MD, September 26, 2002.
             Hon. Lindsey O. Graham,
             House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
               Dear Mr. Graham: Thank you very much for the opportunity 
             to answer the questions you have posed in your letter of 
             September 6, 2002. The answers below are based on the 
             intermediate assumptions and projections presented in the 
             2002 Annual Social Security Trustees Report and estimates 
             that we have provided for a number of reform proposals 
             over the past several years.
               Many of the questions that you raise are very complex 
             and the answers are subject to considerable uncertainty 
             and even debate. I am providing brief answers reflecting 
             my understanding of these issues based largely on the work 
             done in the Office of the Chief Actuary for the Trustees, 
             the Administration, and the Congress. I hope these 
             responses will be helpful. I look forward to working with 
             you, and Aleix Jarvis and Jessica Efird of your staff in 
             the effort to develop proposals to reform Social Security 
             and restore long-term solvency for the program.

               (1) Based on the Social Security Administration's 
             projections, in what year does Social Security begin to 
             pay more out than it takes in?
               Answer. Under the current intermediate assumptions of 
             the 2002 Annual Report of the Social Security Board of 
             Trustees to the Congress, and assuming that current law is 
             not changed, we project that annual cash flow for the 
             Social Security program will remain positive through 2016 
             and will turn negative for calendar year 2017 and later. 
             Annual cash flow is defined here as the excess of income 
             (excluding interest) over expenditures.

               (2) Based on the Social Security Administration's 
             projections, in what year is Social Security expected to 
             become insolvent?
               Answer. Under the intermediate assumptions, full 
             benefits would continue to be payable after 2016 and part 
             of the way through 2041 by augmenting current revenue from 
             taxes with revenue from redeeming special United States 
             Treasury obligations held by the Trust Funds. During 2041, 
             the theoretical combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance 
             (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Funds are 
             projected to become exhausted and full scheduled benefits 
             would no longer be payable on a timely basis. This 
             condition is referred to as insolvency of the Trust Funds, 
             because available tax revenue would then be sufficient to 
             cover only about 73 percent of the cost of scheduled 
             benefits. In fact, the OASI and DI Trust Funds operate 
             separately and the projected dates of insolvency are 2043 
             for the OASI Trust Fund and 2028 for the DI Trust Fund. 
             For simplicity of analysis, the date for theoretical 
             combined Trust Funds is usually considered.

               (3) Assuming current growth rates remain the same would 
             benefits have to be reduced or taxes increased to keep 
             Social Security from insolvency? If so, how much?
               Answer. The intermediate assumptions for the Annual 
             Trustees Reports reflect the Trustees' best judgment about 
             the continuation of current trends in demographic and 
             economic variables like birth rates, death rates, average 
             wage increases and price increases. Assuming the 
             intermediate assumptions of the 2002 Trustees Report are 
             realized, Social Security will require either a reduction 
             in benefit levels or an increase in revenue starting in 
             2041 for the combined OASDI program (and in 2043 for the 
             OASI program and 2028 for the DI program). If benefits 
             were reduced to meet the shortfall in revenue for the 
             combined program, the reduction would need to be 27 
             percent starting with the exhaustion of the Trust Fund in 
             2041 and would rise to 34 percent for 2076. Alternatively, 
             if additional revenue were provided beginning in 2041, 
             revenue equivalent to a payroll tax rate increase of about 
             3.3 percent (from 12.4 percent under current law to about 
             15.7 percent) would be needed for the year. The additional 
             revenue needed for 2042 would be equivalent to a payroll 
             tax rate increase of about 4.5 percent. Thereafter the 
             amount of additional revenue needed would gradually rise, 
             reaching an amount equivalent to an increase in the 
             payroll tax rate of about 6.4 percent for 2076. There is, 
             of course, a great variety of ways in which benefits could 
             be reduced or revenue increased for the Social Security 
             program. Many different combinations of provisions to 
             reduce benefits and or provide increased revenue from 
             taxes could be developed to avoid insolvency of the OASDI 
             Trust Funds throughout the 75-year projection period, and 
             beyond.

               (4) If Social Security surpluses were not diverted from 
             the general budget, how would that affect the system? 
             Would it avert a future insolvency?
               Answer. I assume you are referring to the fact that for 
             most years in which Social Security has taken in more tax 
             revenue than it has paid out in benefits and other 
             expenses, the rest of the Federal budget has operated in 
             deficit. In these years, the Social Security tax revenue 
             not currently needed for benefit payments has, by law, 
             been invested in securities backed by the full faith and 
             credit of the United States Government. In practice, this 
             revenue has been invested in special issue United States 
             Treasury securities. These securities represent a 
             commitment to redeem these investments, with interest at 
             the market rate, when the Social Security Trust Funds are 
             in need of revenue. Such commitments to the Social 
             Security and Medicare Trust Funds have always been met in 
             the past and should be expected to be met in the future 
             regardless of the fiscal operations of the rest of the 
             Federal Government. Therefore, the trust funds are in no 
             way compromised in their role of maintaining solvency as a 
             result of being invested in special Treasury securities. 
             However, redemption of these Treasury securities held by 
             the Trust Funds does require the Treasury to allocate 
             General Revenue for this purpose, and this allocation must 
             be met by increasing taxes, reducing other federal 
             spending, or increasing borrowing from the public.

               (5) Some have proposed a Social Security ``lock box.'' 
             Would a ``lock box'' by itself extend the solvency of 
             Social Security beyond the year Social Security is 
             expected to become insolvent?
               Answer. As suggested above, the Social Security Trust 
             Fund investments represent commitments of the United 
             States Treasury that should be expected to be met when the 
             Trust Funds need to redeem these investments. The 
             implementation of a Social Security ``lock box'' would not 
             alter this commitment and thus would have no direct effect 
             on the future solvency of Social Security.
               However, if the effect of a ``lock box'' were to require 
             that the non-Social-Security Federal budget be in balance 
             or surplus for the years in which Social Security makes 
             investments, then the amount of borrowing from the public 
             might be reduced. In this case the difficulty of 
             generating General Revenue for the redemption of Trust 
             Fund investments in the future would likely be diminished.

               (6) How many South Carolinians do you project will be 
             receiving Social Security benefits when the program 
             becomes insolvent? How many South Carolinians currently 
             receive benefits?
               Answer: In December of 2001, about 704 thousand South 
             Carolinians were receiving Social Security benefits. This 
             represented about 1.5 percent of all Social Security 
             beneficiaries at that time. If this percentage remains the 
             same in 2041, when the combined Social Security Trust 
             Funds are projected to become exhausted, we estimate that 
             about 1.4 million South Carolinians will be receiving 
             Social Security benefits at that time.

               (7) What is the ratio of workers per retiree when the 
             program began, in 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 
             today, 2010, 2020, 2030, 2040?
               Answer: The table below provides the historical and 
             projected numbers of Social Security covered workers and 
             beneficiaries. Ratios of covered workers to beneficiaries 
             are shown both where beneficiaries include all 
             beneficiaries and where beneficiaries are limited to 
             retired workers. The number of beneficiaries was extremely 
             small in 1940, the first year that monthly benefits were 
             payable, because only workers with some work in 1937 
             through 1939 could qualify. This resulted in a very high 
             ratio of covered workers to beneficiaries at the start of 
             the program, which required several decades to mature.
              SOCIAL SECURITY (OASDI) COVERED WORKERS, BENEFICIARIES, 
                                AND RATIOS--1940-2080
                                   [In thousands]
             ----------------------------------------------------------
             --------------



                                                              Beneficiaries             Ratio of Covered Workers
                                                  ------------------------------------            to--
                                                                                      --------------------------
                                                     Covered     Retired      Total                     All
                                                     workers     workers                Retirees   beneficiaries
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


             ----------------------------------------------------------
             --------------


                          1940.................      35,390          112          222        316.0        159.4
                          1950.................      48,280        1,771        2,930         27.3         16.5
                          1960.................      72,530        8,061       14,262          9.0          5.1
                          1970.................      93,090       13,349       25,186          7.0          3.7
                          1980.................     113,649       19,564       35,118          5.8          3.2
                          1990.................     133,672       24,841       39,470          5.4          3.4
                          2002.................     152,461       29,123       46,239          5.2          3.3
                          2010.................     165,443       34,126       52,865          4.8          3.1
                          2020.................     172,848       48,324       68,699          3.6          2.5
                          2030.................     178,131       61,740       84,070          2.9          2.1
                          2040.................     184,433       66,895       90,068          2.8          2.0
                          2050.................     189,845       69,692       94,109          2.7          2.0
                          2060.................     194,568       74,937      100,177          2.6          1.9
                          2070.................     198,687       80,635      106,723          2.5          1.9
                          2080.................     202,238       85,939      112,895          2.4          1.8


             ----------------------------------------------------------
             --------------
               Note.--Projections are based on the intermediate 
             assumptions of the 2002 Trustees Report.

               (8) What is the sum of the total cash shortfalls that 
             Social Security is projected to experience from now 
             through 2075, from 2025-2050, and from 2050-2075? (in 
             constant and in present-value dollars)?
               Answer. Combining financial values over substantial 
             periods of time is generally done taking into account the 
             ``time value of money.'' This is accomplished by 
             accumulating or discounting the separate annual values 
             with interest to a common date. Values combined in this 
             way are referred to as present values as of the date to 
             which they are accumulated or discounted.
               In present-value dollars (discounted at the OASDI Trust 
             Fund interest rate to January 1, 2002) the total net OASDI 
             cash flow for years 2002 through 2076 is projected to be 
             nearly -$4.6 trillion. When the Trust Fund balances of 
             over $1.2 trillion at the beginning of 2002 are added to 
             this value, we get a financial shortfall (or unfunded 
             obligation) for the 75-year period of $3.3 trillion. This 
             unfunded obligation indicates that if an additional $3.3 
             trillion had been added to the Trust Funds at the 
             beginning of 2002, the program would have had adequate 
             financing to meet the projected cost of benefits scheduled 
             in current law over the next 75 years. It should be noted 
             that if the dollar amount of this unfunded obligation is 
             accumulated with interest to the end of 2076, and then 
             expressed in constant (CPI-indexed) 2002 dollars we get 
             $33 trillion.
               The present-value net cash-flow of almost -$4.6 trillion 
             for the period 2002 through 2076 can be separated into the 
             three 25-year sub-periods: +$0.4 trillion for the period 
             2002 through 2026, -$2.7 trillion for the period 2027 
             through 2051, and -$2.3 trillion for the period 2052 
             through 2076. If only years of negative cash flow are 
             included then the value for the first 25-year sub-period 
             is -$0.5 trillion and the total for the 72-year period is 
             -$5.5 trillion.
               Summing constant 2002-dollar values from several 
             different years is equivalent to taking their present 
             value and assuming that the operative real interest rate 
             is zero. This may result in values that are difficult to 
             interpret. Constant-dollar values are generally used for 
             comparing separate values over time rather than for 
             combining them. A comparison of constant-dollar values for 
             a series covering many years is helpful in illustrating 
             the extent of real growth in the series over time. There 
             is no meaningful interpretation of the result from summing 
             constant dollar values from many different years.
               Expressing the combined values discussed above in terms 
             of simple sums of constant 2002 dollars (CPI discounted 
             dollars) results in quite different results from present 
             value because much greater weight is placed on more 
             distant future years than would be indicated by current 
             market interest rates. Using this approach produces 
             constant-dollar cash-flow sums of +$0.1 trillion for 2002 
             through 2026, -$8.6 trillion for 2027 through 2051, -$15.3 
             trillion for 2052 through 2076, and -$23.8 trillion for 
             the entire 75-year period. The sum for the first 25-year 
             period with only negative values included is -$1.1 
             trillion. The sum for the 75-year period including only 
             negative annual values is -$24.9 trillion.

               (9) As a demographic group, do African-American males 
             receive the same proportional return from the retirement 
             portion of Social Security as other demographic groups?
               Answer. Due to the nature of the Social Security program 
             it is difficult to look at retirement benefits in 
             isolation. The payroll tax rate is specified in two 
             components, one for retirement and survivor benefits and 
             the other for disability benefits. In addition, a 
             significant portion of the benefits payable from the 
             retirement and survivor tax, for years after reaching 
             normal retirement age (NRA), is actually attributable to 
             the fact that many become eligible for disability benefits 
             before reaching retirement age. However, there are some 
             observations that we can make.
               To understand the tradeoffs, first consider the 
             comparison of returns on retirement and survivors taxes 
             for men and women. Men tend to die younger and have higher 
             career-average earnings than women. These factors tend to 
             make the return on contributions for retired worker 
             benefits alone lower for men than for women. However, most 
             men marry, and many have spouses with lower career 
             earnings who receive spouse or widow benefits based on the 
             earnings and contributions of their husbands. This tends 
             to raise the relative return for contributions made by 
             men. Finally, men have higher disability rates than women 
             and thus are more likely to have a shortened career, 
             lessening their lifetime payroll tax contributions without 
             materially affecting their monthly benefit level when 
             retirement and survivors benefits become payable. Thus, 
             with all these factors taken into account it is less clear 
             whether men get a lower return on their retirement and 
             survivor taxes than do women.
               For African-American males the situation is even less 
             clear. Life expectancy for African-American males is lower 
             than for white males. But average career earnings are also 
             lower. These factors have at least partly offsetting 
             effects. Because African-American males have higher death 
             rates, they are also more likely to leave a widow 
             beneficiary if married. Importantly, African-American 
             males are also more likely to become disabled than are 
             white males.
               Some recent studies have suggested that African-American 
             males get a lower return from Social Security retirement 
             benefits. But these studies have not sorted out many of 
             the complicating factors mentioned above. In particular, 
             many of these studies consider actual case histories of 
             individuals who work successfully without becoming 
             disabled up to retirement. For such individuals, life 
             expectancy at retirement is clearly greater than for those 
             who have been disabled prior to that time, but these 
             studies use overall population death rates. Because 
             African-American males are relatively more likely to 
             become disabled, this distortion of overstating death 
             rates for those who do not become disabled is relatively 
             large for them. This is a significant shortcoming that 
             causes a disproportionately large understatement in 
             retirement returns for African-American males. We are 
             working on a more complete model that we hope will address 
             these concerns and will inform you of our progress in the 
             future. But for now, the evidence on this question appears 
             to be inconclusive.

               (10) What is the average current return on investment 
             for FICA tax contributions for someone born before and 
             after 1948?
               Answer. Actuarial Note Number 144 ``Internal Real Rates 
             of Return Under the OASDI Program for Hypothetical 
             Workers'' authored by Orlo Nichols, Michael Clingman, and 
             Milton Glanz in June 2001 addressed this issue. This note 
             provides extensive estimates of real internal rates of 
             return for a wide variety of cases.
               The most representative of these hypothetical cases 
             presented may be the married couple with a husband and a 
             wife, each having medium career earnings. For this case, 
             assuming a realistic earnings scale through the working 
             lifetime, the real internal rate of return was computed to 
             be 3.50 percent for those born in 1920, declining to 2.33 
             percent for those born in 1943. Assuming that present-law 
             scheduled benefits would be payable in the future with no 
             change in the payroll tax rate, this real rate of return 
             is projected to decline gradually, reaching 2.20 percent 
             for those born in 1964, and then rising gradually as life 
             expectancy rises. However, the current payroll-tax rate is 
             projected to be inadequate to finance scheduled benefits 
             in the long run. Under the hypothetical assumption that 
             payroll tax rates would be increased as needed to finance 
             scheduled benefits in the future, future real rates of 
             return are projected to decline more rapidly, reaching 
             1.95 percent for those born in 1985 and 1.63 percent for 
             those born in 2004.
               In general, real rates of return are higher for married 
             couples with one earner and for workers with low earnings. 
             Rates are generally lower for single workers and for high 
             earners.

               (11) Have policy proposals been introduced that keep 
             Social Security from insolvency, allow for personal 
             accounts, and do not change benefits for those already 
             receiving Social Security benefits?
               Answer. Absolutely. A number of Congressional proposals 
             would accomplish these goals. At a hearing before the 
             House Ways and Means Committee in June 1999, ten plans 
             were presented by Congressional sponsors. The sponsors of 
             these plans were, Archer/Shaw, Kolbe/Stenholm, Nadler, 
             Moynihan/BKerrey, Gregg/Breaux, PGramm, NSmith, Stark, 
             MSanford, and DeFazio. We estimated that all ten of these 
             proposals would restore solvency for the Social Security 
             program for at least the full 75-year projection period. 
             None of these proposals would reduce benefits for current 
             beneficiaries, but three of them would slow growth in 
             benefits for current recipients by reducing the size of 
             the automatic cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) either 
             directly, or indirectly (through modifying the CPI). Seven 
             of these proposals provided for individual accounts on a 
             voluntary or mandatory basis.
               Since 1999 additional proposals have been developed that 
             would meet these criteria, including the Armey/DeMint plan 
             and Models 2 and 3 of the President's Commission to 
             Strengthen Social Security.

               (12) Have there been any proposals introduced that would 
             create personal accounts, to avert a future insolvency of 
             Social Security, without reducing benefits or increasing 
             taxes? Have there been any proposals without personal 
             accounts introduced that would avert a future insolvency 
             of Social Security without reducing benefits or increasing 
             taxes?
               Answer. The financial shortfalls projected for the 
             Social Security program can only be eliminated by reducing 
             the growth in benefit levels from what is scheduled in 
             current law, or by increasing revenue to the program. In 
             the long-run, additional revenue can be generated by 
             expanding the amount of advance funding either in 
             individual accounts or in the Social Security Trust Funds. 
             All of the proposals mentioned above pursue this approach 
             to some degree. However, creating additional advance 
             funding requires additional revenue for a period of time. 
             This additional revenue may be generated by (1) reducing 
             Social Security benefits paid from the Trust Funds, (2) 
             directly increasing the amount of payroll tax or some 
             other tax, or (3) providing transfers or loans from the 
             General Fund of the Treasury. Whether General Revenue 
             transfers or loans represent an indirect increase in taxes 
             depends on a number of complex factors many of which are 
             generally unknown in the context of Social Security 
             reform, so no definitive answer can be given.
               All of the plans that we have analyzed in recent years 
             provide for one or more of the three measures to generate 
             additional revenue both to restore solvency for the Social 
             Security Trust Funds and to provide for additional advance 
             funding. This is true for plans that include individual 
             accounts as well as for those that do not.
                Sincerely,
                                               Stephen C. Goss,
                                                      Chief Actuary.

               Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. They have laid out the 
             rates of return for people born after 1980.
               As I have told you, they are less than 2 percent. Over 
             time, they go down because the problem, over time, gets 
             worse. As you pay into the system as a young worker, the 
             obligations of the system get greater, and there really 
             will be no rate of return. As a matter of fact, by 2042, 
             not only does your money not work for you, it is not 
             enough to pay benefits to people who are already in the 
             system.
               Here is the good news. If we could, in a bipartisan 
             fashion, work together, I am confident we could construct 
             a program for younger workers--voluntary in nature--that 
             would allow them to take part of the money they pay into 
             Social Security, invest it in a different system--equity 
             and nonequity, depending on what they want to do--that 
             will dramatically outpace a 1.8 percent return.
               Here is what I suggest to you as reality. If you had a 
             business and you wanted to sell an annuity to young people 
             in America, and you laid out the program of that annuity 
             and it mirrored Social Security, nobody in the country 
             would invest in it simply because they can get a better 
             rate of return leaving it in a checking account.
               Now, everything about Social Security is not total 
             retirement. There is a component of Social Security that 
             pays for people who have been disabled and injured. That 
             aspect of the program is extremely important also.
               But a better business view of Social Security is 
             necessary. If we could achieve better growth rates--and 
             the trustees tell us that if you achieve better growth 
             rates, every dollar in additional growth, every time the 
             fund beats that 1.8 or 1.6 rate of return, that extra 
             dollar allows benefits to be paid without raising taxes.
               We are going to argue about the tax cut and how to 
             stimulate the economy. I remember in my last campaign, 
             when I presented this idea, the ad was that ``Lindsey 
             Graham is going to take your Social Security tax dollars 
             and put them in Enron stock.'' Well, I didn't wake up one 
             day and think investing in Enron with Social Security was 
             a good idea. That is not what this program is designed to 
             do.
               There is bipartisan support for personal accounts, 
             allowing individual Americans the opportunity, if they 
             choose, to invest in plans to get better growth rates. 
             There are visitors here from all over the country, most 
             likely, and I welcome them here. One thing about being a 
             Member of the Senate, or the House, or a Federal employee 
             in any fashion, is that you have the opportunity, if you 
             choose, to invest in the Thrift Savings Plan. It is a 
             pretty good deal. I, as a Senator, can invest up to about 
             $10,000 of my salary into a thrift plan. It is a 
             government-sponsored plan, administered by the private 
             sector, where I can choose between three or four different 
             investment options, based on the risk I want to take. 
             There are stock funds, mutual funds, bond stock funds, 
             Treasury notes, which I can choose based on the risk I 
             want to take.
               All of these funds are supported by the government in 
             the sense that we are going to stand behind them and not 
             let them collapse. It is even better than that. The 
             government puts in 50 cents on the dollar up to the 
             $10,000 I put in, and they do the same for every Federal 
             employee.
               I suggest something like that should exist for the 
             average working person in this country because under the 
             current tax system, the average American will pay more in 
             Social Security taxes than in any other form of tax, 
             because this comes out of our paycheck--6.5 percent--no 
             matter what our income is, up to a certain level.
               For middle- and low-income workers struggling to get by, 
             6.5 percent--I think that is the correct number--comes out 
             of your paycheck to go into the Social Security Trust 
             Fund. For younger workers, we are taking that money from 
             you. We are giving you no options to invest it. We are 
             controlling it for you, and you are going to get that 2 
             percent--eventually less than 1 percent--over time.
               I think that is wrong for the people paying taxes. But 
             here is the big crime of it all: That system locks in 
             failure for Social Security. Some Senate, somehow, 
             someday--if we don't do something relatively soon--is 
             going to be dealing with a trust fund that is $25 trillion 
             short of the money necessary to pay the obligation, and it 
             is going to be dealing with a trust fund from which 
             somebody gets a letter one day saying: That check you got 
             last month will be reduced by 28 percent, and I am sorry 
             we don't have the money to pay you.
               I don't know who will be occupying this seat then--I 
             doubt if it will be me--but I would like to take some of 
             that burden off their shoulders and off the working 
             families and the working people in this country, in terms 
             of taking their money and getting a better rate of return 
             for it.
               So the hope and purpose of this amendment is to put into 
             the record this year, 2003, let it be said--if there is a 
             record that stands the test of time, let it be said that 
             in 2003 the Senate will soon adopt facts that I think are 
             irrefutable, nonpartisan in nature, that lay out the 
             future of Social Security solvency in a very honest, 
             dramatic, and chilling way.
               I congratulate my colleagues who are willing to accept 
             this amendment as part of the roadmap for the budget this 
             year. The facts are real. They are not going to go away 
             unless we make things happen differently.
               One thing I remember from President Clinton--and it was 
             a good line--is that the definition of insanity is doing 
             an event the same way and expecting different results. So 
             I think it is insane politically for us to keep this 
             system in place expecting different results to fall out of 
             the sky. They will not fall out of the sky.
               Our freedom is about to be strengthened because some 
             young man and woman chose to volunteer to serve their 
             country and risk their life for our freedom. You can 
             debate all you would like whether this is an appropriate 
             thing to do. But they have taken on that sacrifice, and 
             they will accept the order, if given, to go forward. That 
             model is the model that has kept us free for over 200 
             years--average, everyday Americans who are willing to do 
             their part, willing to risk their sons and daughters, 
             their own lives, to make sure the next generation can have 
             the blessings of liberty that we have enjoyed.
               There was an interview I heard today of a family with 
             twin sons serving in the same Marine unit, both of them 
             ready to go tomorrow, if that is the day chosen. The mom 
             and the dad were very worried but bursting with pride 
             about the fact that both of their sons have chosen to 
             serve in the Marine Corps and both of them are on the tip 
             of the spear. What they were trying to tell the 
             commentator was that they are proud of them because they 
             are willing to serve their country and protect their way 
             of life. The parents mentioned the fact that their hope is 
             that life will be better for their kids than it was for 
             them, and that truly is the American dream. That is what 
             keeps us all going, trying to make sure that we pass on to 
             the next generation a future with a possibility, with hard 
             work, to be better than the one we have experienced.
               I can say with all the confidence in the world that if 
             we don't act soon, and act decisively, and if we are not 
             willing to sacrifice politically and make some structural 
             reforms to Social Security, we are committing political 
             malpractice, and the future of Social Security is dismal 
             and the ability to maintain the system is going to be 
             unbelievably costly, and you can wind up with a Social 
             Security pension plan and the military, and no money to do 
             anything else. That is what awaits us as a nation.
               But I am just as confident that we will rise to the 
             occasion, and I cannot see how right now--it is beyond my 
             ability as a political person to see how all this is going 
             to come together. I am telling you that, based on faith, I 
             know it will. The problems facing our troops--there are so 
             many scenarios that face them in the aftermath of Iraq. 
             There are thousands of different scenarios of ``what if 
             that.'' I can only tell you I have the same faith that at 
             the end of the day we will be successful and the 
             sacrifices will be made.
               Unfortunately, some people, most likely, will lose their 
             lives or be injured. We are going to get through this 
             thing at the end of the day stronger rather than weaker. 
             We are doing the right thing.
               I have faith in our troops and in our President that the 
             dictator, Saddam Hussein, will be gone soon. I have faith 
             that this body, starting this year--I hope it is this 
             year--will come together to address the looming problems 
             that face Social Security. This amendment lays out those 
             problems. It puts it as part of the road map for this 
             year's budget and, at the end, it encourages all to work 
             together with the President to come up with solutions to 
             avoid raising taxes and cutting benefits. It is a small 
             step that will hopefully get us to the right place one 
             day.
               I am standing on the shoulders of people who have gone 
             before me who have addressed problems of Social Security, 
             such as Senator Moynihan and other Senators in this body 
             from both parties. I do not know how long I will be here. 
             Only the Good Lord and the voters know that. I can tell my 
             colleagues one thing for certain: While I am here--I 
             consider it to be an honor to be here--I want to do as 
             many constructive activities for my country as possible. I 
             think one of the best things I can do is to come up with 
             an approach my colleagues from the other side can buy 
             into, which means a give and take, to put in place a plan 
             that begins to turn around the dynamics that are facing 
             Social Security.
               The good news is if we work together, if we start now, 
             we can beat this problem, we can solve this problem. The 
             bad news is if we continue to do what we have done for the 
             past decade, we are going to pass on to the next 
             generation of political leaders and taxpayers a dismal 
             picture. I would argue that would be the first time in the 
             history of the country that political leaders passed on a 
             country that was diminished, not enhanced. I am confident 
             we will not be the first ones to make that mistake.
               I reserve the remainder of my time.
                                  Frank Lautenberg
                                              Tuesday, June 7, 1983 \1\
               Mr. President, I rise today to make my first speech on 
             the Senate floor and I do so with gratitude and awe.
               I am deeply grateful to my fellow citizens in the State 
             of New Jersey for entrusting me to serve them in this 
             great center of debate and decision.
               I am in awe of the brilliance of our forefathers who 
             wrote the Constitution for a Nation that welcomed those 
             seeking freedom and a new way of life. Their wisdom 
             enabled my parents to be brought here by their families 
             searching for refuge and opportunity.
               It was their pattern of sacrifice that served as my 
             critical learning experience. All that followed whether at 
             university, business, or life in general was molded by the 
             framework provided by these new citizens.
               I am grateful also to those who preceded me in this 
             Chamber for their contribution to this beloved democracy, 
             and to those colleagues with whom I presently share this 
             honor for the advice and encouragement they regularly 
             impart to me.
               In particular, I am deeply indebted to the senior 
             Senator from the State of New Jersey, Senator Bradley, 
             with whom I share common interest and goals, and to the 
             Democratic leader, Senator Byrd, who has extended to me 
             every courtesy and whose respect for the history and 
             traditions of this institution set a high standard for a 
             new Member like myself.
               Mr. President, not very long ago, our Nation entered 
             what many call the information age: a period during which 
             information-serviced industries have become predominant in 
             our economy. They have eclipsed manufacturing, just as 
             manufacturing surpassed farming decades ago. The change 
             has been gradual, but undeniable. Some 60 percent of our 
             work






                          --------------

                            \1\ Senator Lautenberg served from the 98th
                          Congress through the 106th Congress, retired,
                          then returned in the 108th Congress. Although
                          he is a member of the class of the 108th
                          Congress, his maiden speech was delivered in
                          the 98th Congress on June 7, 1983.


             force is employed in creating, storing, processing, or 
             distributing information. Who does that include? Office 
             workers, salespeople, secretaries, people at work in 
             telecommunications, computers, in education, research and 
             science, financial services and insurance, to name a few. 
             People applying information technology to make the 
             production of goods more efficient.
               Technological innovation has brought vast changes in our 
             society, in our workplaces, in our homes and schools.
               Innovation and change are accelerating. This will drive 
             the future growth of our economy and alter the character 
             of our society. Mr. President, this Nation can ride the 
             wave of the information age, or be swamped by it. Great 
             challenges accompany the promises of change. In responding 
             to those challenges, we must draw on the best of our 
             values and ideals. In a Nation that is plugged into 
             computers, questions of success and failure may become 
             questions of who is on-line and who is off-line. In an 
             economy where technology will dominate our future, how do 
             we cope with businesses, people, and places still tied to 
             the past?
               Mr. President, these are issues I hope to address in the 
             Senate. They are issues of equity and opportunity in the 
             1980s and the 1990s and beyond. They are issues that 
             trouble my State. I am proud that New Jersey has been the 
             home of many of the inventions that are the foundation of 
             this new age. But New Jersey was also the birthplace of 
             American manufacturing--and many of its factories and 
             plants are in decline. New Jersey was third in the Nation 
             in new patents last year. But it lost 46,000 jobs in 
             manufacturing. For those workers there is no end to the 
             recession.
               The suburbs of my State are enjoying great growth, tied 
             to service- and research-based industries on the rise. But 
             New Jersey's cities are being stripped of the industry 
             around which they were built. The unemployment in some of 
             our cities is about the highest in the Nation.
               In reflecting on these contrasts, I feel compelled to 
             offer a personal note. I myself am the son of a 
             millworker. My father worked in textile mills that have 
             long since shut down. But I made my mark in a computer-
             based company, a company that advanced in tandem with 
             technology. I crossed into that future because my country 
             gave me the chance. It gave me an education. It afforded 
             me opportunity.
               I pledged to the people of my State that one of my main 
             missions would be to work to provide employment and 
             economic opportunity. We must work to ensure that everyone 
             shares in what is to come. Already, we can see the kinds 
             of challenges we face. Already, we can identify the tasks 
             that lie ahead, to ensure that the promises of the future 
             are promises for all of us.
               There is a broad consensus that we must place increased 
             emphasis on training in math and science. There are 
             proposals to enhance the quality of teaching, to enrich 
             the opportunities for students at all levels. Most of our 
             new jobs will be information related. They will require 
             new skills, constantly upgraded over a worker's lifetime. 
             New demands will be placed on our educational and training 
             systems and on our people. The capacity to use and work 
             with computers is becoming essential, almost as essential 
             as being able to read and write clearly.
               The concept of computer literacy in turn defines a new 
             type of illiteracy, and the potential for new and 
             distressing divisions in our society. From fall 1980 to 
             spring 1982, the number of microcomputers and computers 
             available to public school students tripled. Growth in the 
             use of computers in the schools is accelerating. By 
             January 1983, more than half of all schools in the United 
             States were using microcomputers in instruction. But where 
             is the growth occurring?
               According to one study, Title I schools--schools with 
             programs for the economically and socially disadvantaged--
             average 25 percent fewer computers than non-Title I 
             schools. Almost 70 percent of wealthy schools have 
             microcomputers; almost 60 percent of poor schools do not. 
             These statistics are ominous.
               Numbers raise other questions as well. The same schools 
             that lack the resources to buy computers very likely lack 
             the resources to enrich the skills of their teachers, to 
             buy the software, and design the programs and provide the 
             faculty necessary for effective teaching. In an age that 
             demands computer literacy, a school without a computer is 
             like a school without a library. And the same patterns 
             extend to the home. The Office of Technology Assessment 
             says that the number of computers in homes has doubled 
             from 1982 to 1983. Those computers are being acquired by 
             the affluent, reinforcing disparities in opportunity.
               As we address the issue of education in an information 
             age, we must address the question of equal opportunity. 
             There will continue to be debate over what is the 
             appropriate Federal role when it comes to education. I 
             believe that a major responsibility is to even out the 
             inequities, to ensure equal opportunity. The Congress is 
             considering various proposals to ensure an education 
             appropriate to our times. We have to make sure that all 
             students have an equal chance to get the education they 
             need to grow and succeed in America today.
               Mr. President, we face other issues of equity. 
             Telecommunications networks will be the new 
             infrastructure: Satellite networks to conquer the physical 
             isolation of rural communities; networks that link 
             computers and businesses in a national web; networks that 
             channel more information, at faster speeds than ever 
             before. Who will be connected, and who will not?
               The American Telephone & Telegraph Co., our national 
             phone system, is being broken up. Local telephone 
             companies will be spun off and will provide basic 
             telephone service.
               For years, profits from long distance and equipment 
             charges have held down the cost of local telephone rates. 
             But that day is ending. We are fast approaching a time 
             when local telephone users will have to pay the full cost 
             of local service. Local rates may double or triple. In my 
             State, regulatory officials predict that basic telephone 
             rates could rise as much as 150 percent by early 1984.
               The effect could be devastating. For every 10 percent 
             rise in price, we can expect that 1 percent of telephone 
             users will drop their service. Projected price increases 
             could lead to a fall off of telephone service to more than 
             10 percent of the population. Further increases will cut 
             millions more from the most basic of our information 
             networks--the telephone system.
               Cut off will be the poor, the sick, and the elderly, in 
             need of telephone service for emergencies, for contact 
             with the outside world.
               Cut off will be the unemployed, who will become further 
             isolated from job opportunities.
               Cut off will be whole areas of our poorest cities, 
             adding another impediment to their revival.
               Our concern for equity in the information age must also 
             extend to heavy industry and industrial workers. While we 
             should encourage the growth of service opportunities, we 
             cannot turn our backs on basic industries or the people 
             and places affected by job loss. Monumental changes occur 
             in the life of an individual and his or her family when 
             unemployment hits, when new skills must be acquired, when 
             a new job must be found and a new life made, perhaps far 
             from a person's home. And substantial distress is 
             experienced by old cities with so-called sunset 
             industries--when the tax base and infrastructure built 
             around declining industries erode.
               Advance notice, information about job markets, and 
             opportunities for retraining help workers adjust more 
             easily to change. Targeted incentives and appropriate 
             planning help many cities attract the makings of new 
             industry--information-based service industry and new jobs. 
             As a matter of responsibility, we must ease the process of 
             adjustment.
               We cannot stand back and permit our industrial base to 
             disappear. We cannot concede these jobs to our foreign 
             competitors. We must encourage change in our manufacturing 
             and industrial plants to make them competitive. This can 
             be done through changes in tax policy, in trade policy, 
             and other incentives--and by promoting partnership among 
             management, workers, and government. The Democratic 
             industrial policy task force, on which I serve, is 
             studying these questions to shape a legislative agenda to 
             address them.
               Mr. President, in my own State, there is growth and 
             prosperity directly tied to the coming of the information 
             age--jobs in research, science, and financial services. 
             But at the same time there are areas in deep decline, 
             cities where unemployment is pervasive, and industry on 
             the wane.
               In welcoming the information age, we must not leave 
             these people and communities behind.
               Mr. President, our Nation has long stood for 
             opportunity, equality, and fairness. I would not be here 
             today, were it not for the opportunities granted me. A 
             child of the Depression, I was given the chance to get an 
             education, to go forth, and make a mark. We are in the 
             midst of substantial changes in our economy and our 
             society. Industries are transforming. Tasks are changing. 
             Demands are shifting. In our efforts to seize the best the 
             new age has to offer, we must not ignore the call of our 
             conscience, to ensure that we go forward together, as a 
             united people sharing the potential of this new age.
                                   Lisa Murkowski
                                                Tuesday, March 18, 2003
               Mr. President, it is actually quite fortuitous I am 
             standing before you tonight. I have not spoken on the 
             floor but once since I have been here in my new role as 
             the junior Senator from Alaska. But I stand before you 
             tonight to do the one thing I have been asked by the 
             residents, the people of Alaska to do, and that is to work 
             for jobs, for a sustainable economy for my State and for 
             my constituents. So to stand tonight to talk about ANWR 
             [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] and what ANWR means not 
             only to my State but to all of America is, as I say, 
             significant because ANWR is about jobs, it is about the 
             economy, it is about economic security, domestic energy 
             production. It is also about Native rights in my home 
             State, and it is about common sense.
               I have been listening very closely to the comments that 
             have been made tonight, some by my fellow colleague from 
             Alaska, quite passionately arguing the facts. We have seen 
             some beautiful pictures, and we have seen some numbers 
             thrown around. I think it is so important that we put into 
             perspective what ANWR really is, what it means. To do 
             that, we have to go back a bit in history. We have to look 
             to the history of ANWR.
               We have known about ANWR's oil potential since the early 
             1900s. It was in 1913, 1914, that the U.S. Geological 
             Survey found strong indications of oil. So we have known 
             that oil reserves, strong oil reserves, are on the North 
             Slope.
               This area now known as the Arctic National Wildlife 
             Refuge was originally created in 1960 by Executive order 
             under the Eisenhower administration. This Executive order 
             has been pointed to a couple times tonight. It seems that 
             it has been construed that it was recognized by this order 
             that somehow ANWR, the Coastal Plain, should be reserved 
             as some wilderness or should be put off limits. It is 
             important to go back to the language of that Executive 
             order so we understand clearly what President Eisenhower 
             recognized in 1960.
               The order states:

               For the purposes of preserving the wildlife, the 
             wilderness, and the recreational values described in 
             northeastern Alaska containing approximately 8.9 million 
             acres, is hereby subject to valid existing withdrawals, 
             withdrawn from all forms of appropriations under the 
             public land laws, including mining, but not the mineral 
             leasing laws.

               This is where people are failing to read the rest of 
             that order: ``but not the mineral leasing laws.''
               In 1960, through Executive order, was the first time it 
             was recognized that the potential for mineral and oil was 
             significant on the Coastal Plain.
               I have a chart that details exactly what is in the 
             refuge. The Coastal Plain, which is 1.5 million acres, was 
             created in 1980 under ANILCA. The wilderness area in 
             yellow was also set out in ANILCA. When the initial refuge 
             was set up, it was this portion, additional refuge land, 
             which is not wilderness, which was created under section 
             303 of ANILCA. It added this section.
               When we talk about ANWR, the refuge, and the wilderness 
             and the 1002 area, it is important to keep in mind that we 
             are talking about different animals, if you will. The 
             Coastal Plain, the 1002 area, is separate and distinct 
             from the wilderness area that has been created and 
             separate from that refuge.
               In 1959, Alaska had become a State with certain rights 
             guaranteed to it under the Statehood Act. Within that act 
             was a recognition by President Eisenhower--again through 
             the Executive order--that the North Slope had vast oil and 
             gas potential and that it should remain available at all 
             times for domestic use.
               There was a recognition in 1960 that something was 
             different about the Coastal Plain--a Federal recognition 
             that the oil and gas potential along the plain is too 
             important to lock it up.
               Go forward 13 years when Congress authorized through the 
             Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline Authorization Act the 
             construction of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. This pipeline 
             was to carry up to 2.1 million barrels of oil from the 
             North Slope to the tidewater in Valdez for export to the 
             lower 48. This was the next recognition, if you will, of 
             the potential for reserves in the North Slope.
               Our pipeline spans 800 miles from the north of the State 
             all the way down to the southern terminus in Valdez. It 
             goes through some of the most rugged and beautiful country 
             one is ever going to see, and this pipeline carries the 
             oil safely and efficiently without harm to the environment 
             or the wildlife. It survived the biggest earthquakes the 
             designers could have foreseen. We had a 7.1 earthquake in 
             November. It was a construction marvel that pipeline 
             worked the way the designers had envisioned it would.
               Our pipeline is an amazing wonder of American ingenuity 
             and spirit. This pipeline has been around for three 
             decades now, and it has been doing a good job. As Senator 
             Stevens pointed out earlier this evening, our pipeline is 
             half full. We need additional oil deposits to maintain 
             operations.
               I have said this is an 800-mile pipeline, but again I 
             think it helps to put things in perspective if one is not 
             from the State of Alaska. This pipeline covers a span of 
             country equal to the distance between Duluth, MN, and New 
             Orleans, LA. To date, it has carried over 14 billion 
             barrels of Alaska oil to the lower 48--day in, day out.
               This pipeline was constructed in 1973. We have been 
             transporting oil in it ever since. In 1980, Congress 
             enacted the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation 
             Act, which is commonly known as ANILCA. This bill was a 
             culmination of 5 years' worth of legislative negotiations 
             spanning three separate Congresses. There was an agreement 
             reached, which Senator Stevens mentioned earlier, between 
             Senator Scoop Jackson of Washington and Senator Paul 
             Tsongas of Massachusetts, two Democrats and two protectors 
             of the environment. The bill included language which was 
             agreed to by Alaska to ensure access to the Coastal Plain 
             for oil and gas exploration.
               This is where we get the phrase or why we keep referring 
             to this parcel as the 1002, because it came from section 
             1002 of ANILCA. It specifically set forth the requirements 
             for exploration and development of oil and gas reserves in 
             this small portion of ANWR, consistent with the 
             protections for wildlife.
               With ANILCA, we doubled the size of President 
             Eisenhower's Arctic National Wildlife Range. This was the 
             range initially. We doubled the size by adding the refuge 
             and changed the name to the Arctic National Wildlife 
             Refuge.
               Through ANILCA, we put half of the land in refuge, 8 
             million in wilderness and 1.5 million reserved as an 
             energy bank for the United States. Again, I point out, it 
             is important to mention that the 1002 area is technically 
             not part of the refuge. It lies within the outer 
             boundaries of the refuge, but it is technically not part 
             of it. It is essentially an area in legal limbo waiting 
             for Congress to fulfill the statutory requirements that 
             were set out in section 1002 of ANILCA, and to fulfill the 
             promises that were made to Alaska on statehood.
               It is not really in the refuge, but it is definitely not 
             a part of the wilderness, and it is not part of the 
             wilderness by definition or in just the everyday sense of 
             the word.
               If one looks up ``wilderness'' in Webster's, it is 
             defined as an unsettled and uncultivated region. The 
             Coastal Plain does not meet this definition of wilderness, 
             because for years we have had military installations that 
             have been involved in monitoring Soviet and cross polar 
             activity. We have a community. We have the village of 
             Kaktovik which sits right within the 1002 area. These 
             people call the area home. They have their homes there. 
             They have a school there. They have community centers 
             there. They have hospitals. They have a community. This is 
             not a wilderness.
               Some of the pictures we have seen lead one to believe 
             there is nothing up there, but when you take your camera, 
             you can look in whatever direction you want to prove your 
             point. So I think we need to keep in mind, let's envision 
             what we have up there. We have made offers to people. If 
             they have not seen ANWR, come up and see what we are 
             talking about. See what the Coastal Plain is. See what 
             drilling looks like in Alaska.
               At the outset, I mentioned this also had to do with 
             Native rights issues. Under the Alaska Native Claims 
             Settlement Act, some Alaska Natives were given the right 
             to select lands on the North Slope. A group of Alaska 
             Natives from the North Slope region selected 92,000 acres 
             within the boundaries of the 1002 area specifically for 
             its oil and gas potential. Those Natives who have selected 
             those lands are denied any opportunity to develop. Through 
             the 1971 act of Congress, they were given the right to 
             select those lands. They selected them, but there is 
             nothing further they can do with them. They are being 
             denied the right to do with the land what they feel should 
             be done. If they need jobs and opportunities, we are 
             denying them that opportunity.
               This refusal to allow the Natives to use their land is 
             another example of the hand of government falling upon 
             Natives and Indians in America, because government knows 
             how to do it best. So that is kind of our preliminary 
             history lesson about ANWR.
               Let's get to some of the facts, though, that have been 
             mentioned this evening. We are importing nearly 11 million 
             barrels of oil every day from other countries. Most of 
             them are from countries that are not so very friendly or 
             not so very stable. Alaska is producing 1 million barrels 
             of oil per day, when the pipeline can carry twice that 
             amount. We are wasting this national asset. We have a 
             pipeline that is half full.
               Prior to the last gulf war, Alaska produced nearly 2.1 
             million barrels of oil per day, all of it destined for 
             West Coast ports in the lower 48. Now, rather than move to 
             open a small portion of the Coastal Plain to responsible 
             oil and natural gas development, our opponents are 
             suggesting we can basically conserve our way out of the 
             reduced dependency in an economically responsible manner.
               I will be the first to tell my colleagues we must work 
             on our conservation efforts, but we must be realistic 
             about what it is we can and cannot do. I have heard those 
             who state that ANWR is a false choice when compared with 
             higher CAFE standards, that that is the way we need to go. 
             But desiring tougher standards at the expense of more 
             domestic production is the real false choice. It is a 
             false choice because we have to do both. We have to pursue 
             conservation, but we have to pursue increased domestic 
             production if we are going to get our energy situation 
             back on track.
               To suggest we do not do any more, that we cut it off, 
             that there is no need for any more oil, that we are going 
             to go to this wonderful hydrogen-based society and we are 
             all going to be able to power our vehicles on something 
             other than gasoline, it is not today, it is not tomorrow, 
             it is probably not 10 years. Having said that, should we 
             not work toward it? Sure, that is fine, but let's keep in 
             mind that we use gasoline for more than powering our 
             vehicles. We use gasoline in a whole host of ways.
               I was talking to a group of students this morning. They 
             said, gasoline is used for cars, and if we change the way 
             our vehicles are fueled, surely we will not need to rely 
             on gasoline.
               But it is used for home fuel oil, jet fuel, 
             petrochemicals, asphalt, kerosene, lubricants, maritime 
             fuel, other products. If we look at this chart, of the 
             gasoline that we consume, one barrel of oil makes 44.2 
             gallons of economic essentials. So 44 percent of a barrel 
             of oil is going into the gasoline component. The 
             remainder, 56 percent, is going into all of these other 
             things.
               So the kids wanted to know, what are all of these other 
             things? They are plastics, CDs, crayons, contact lenses, 
             panty hose, photographs, roofing material, dentures, 
             shaving cream, perfumes, umbrellas, golf balls, aspirin, 
             bandages, deodorant, tents, footballs.
               To suggest we need to cut back on oil because we do not 
             want to have a society that is dependent on oil for our 
             vehicles is one thing. We can look to alternatives for how 
             we might power our vehicles. But we have to recognize we 
             are oil-dependent: 56 percent, 58 percent of the oil we 
             consume in the United States is imported oil. That is not 
             a good place to be, particularly when we can do better 
             domestically. We want to be able to do that.
               Alaska has been a proud supplier of 20 percent of this 
             country's oil production for the past 25 years. We produce 
             this oil in the harshest environment imaginable. We do it 
             better and we do it safer and we do it in a more 
             environmentally sound and scientific manner than anywhere 
             on Earth. Every spill on the North Slope is reported. 
             Every drop. If a can of soda pop is dropped, it is 
             reported. We are conscious. We know what is going on. We 
             are being careful and cautious.
               The National Academy of Sciences 2 weeks ago released a 
             report on the cumulative impact of North Slope oil 
             development. What did they find about oil spills on the 
             North Slope? No major oil spills had occurred. There was 
             no cumulative effect. The discussion about how to drill 
             and where to drill is moot because we are in a situation 
             where we have essentially a professional environmental 
             community that says no development at all anywhere. They 
             are using ANWR as their rallying cry.
               What they are doing by stopping development in ANWR and 
             by saying you cannot go there, is shutting down not only 
             oil development but human progress. There is a community 
             in Kaktovik, a community on the North Slope in Barrow, 
             existing because of oil. Their school, their hospital, 
             their community exists because they have jobs and a 
             resource base. That is human progress that most would see 
             as positive.
               There was an interesting article in the Washington Post 
             a few days back. Phillip Clapp, president of the National 
             Environmental Trust, summed up what today's modern 
             professional environmental movement is about, talking 
             about drilling in ANWR and talking about the technology 
             and whether cumulative impact had been good or bad. He 
             noted, even if new technology has lessened the environment 
             damage, it is not the drilling itself but the other 
             activities, such as road building, housing for workers, 
             the infrastructure needed to support them, that cause 
             damage.
               If you think that through, if it is the school, if it is 
             the house, if it is the road that causes the damage, it is 
             not necessarily the drilling. They are doing the drilling 
             fine. The road is that way or the house is blocking the 
             wind and causing snow to drift and that will accumulate 
             and then melt and puddle in the spring; that is a negative 
             change. We are going to have all kinds of problems. By Mr. 
             Clapp's standard, the elementary school in Fayetteville, 
             AR, causes a negative impact.
               We have to be realistic. We deal with this not-in-my-
             backyard syndrome and it seems this NIMBY is now morphing 
             into BANANA, build almost nothing anywhere near anyone. If 
             you carry it further to a little more ludicrous level, you 
             have the term NOPE: not on planet Earth.
               We in Alaska are starting to feel cut off from the rest 
             of the world, that the rest of the world or the rest of 
             the country would just as soon lock us up and say nothing, 
             nada, zip, you cannot do anything. You are not responsible 
             enough to carry on development because we are concerned 
             about the environment.
               Again, I challenge Members to come up, see the oil 
             development, how we bring oil out of the ground safely 
             every single day and deliver it to the rest of the lower 
             48. We do a good job. Give us credit.
               We had a bit of an example about the technology used on 
             the North Slope now. The comment was made earlier when we 
             first began producing in Prudhoe Bay, the size of the oil 
             fields, the pads, the footprint was bigger, but the 
             technology in the past 30 years has brought us to a 
             remarkable place where we can drill, and for all intents 
             and purposes you do not know we are there. We have a 
             picture that shows when the drill is complete there is a 
             stump put in the ground. That is what you look at at the 
             end. You do not have a huge infrastructure.
               I had a meeting this afternoon with an independent oil 
             company working in Alaska, explaining to us some 
             incredible new technology that allows for construction of 
             modules on the tundra, elevated so the tundra is not 
             affected by any warmth or heat coming off the building. 
             These modules are supported on beams not made from ice but 
             inserted in an ice sleeve so when drilling is complete, 
             when the project is complete, they melt the ice, pick 
             everything up, and they are out of there. The technology 
             we have today is so remarkable, so incredible, we can go 
             in, we can do the job, and we can do it in a manner that 
             does not disturb the environment.
               The point was made earlier about the size we are talking 
             about. The maps of Alaska do not do justice to the size or 
             the expanse. The development of the Coastal Plain would 
             use an area of land smaller than the Little Rock airport. 
             It was mentioned that in the area of drilling we are 
             looking to do in the 1002 area, six drills would fit 
             within Dulles Airport. Conceptualize this: An area 290 
             times smaller than Ted Turner's private ranch in New 
             Mexico. I have not been there, but I can visualize it. Or 
             an area the size of George Washington's Mount Vernon when 
             he first inherited the property in 1761.
               This is what we are talking about, a tiny sliver on the 
             Arctic Coastal Plain. Yes, we did see lovely pictures 
             taken during the summer when the tundra is abloom. Those 
             flowers do exist. I have seen the purple flowers. But most 
             of the time it looks like the moon. It is white, it is 
             deserted. Most days you cannot tell the sky from the land. 
             This is the world that we are talking about. It is frozen 
             9 months out of the year. It is windswept. It is bitter 
             cold. It is not hospitable country. Yet small groups of 
             Alaskan Eskimos have chosen to call this home and want to 
             be able to stay there, have decent jobs there. This is 
             what we are talking about when we talk about ANWR.
               I was going on about the size of ANWR. It was pointed 
             out to me that the amount of land we need is the same size 
             as the world famous Pinehurst Golf Resort in North 
             Carolina, home to eight world-class golf courses. In fact, 
             a new golf course opens every day in the United States, 
             which means that the amount of land that we need to 
             produce billions of barrels of oil for the American 
             consumer is gobbled up in just 8 days by golf courses 
             nationwide.
               It seems kind of silly to be comparing ANWR and the 
             incredible contribution you are going to be getting from 
             ANWR and its resources to a golf course, but I think it 
             helps to put it in perspective. First, think about the 
             size we are talking about and think about our land use. 
             This is not an area where you would want to go and have a 
             round of golf.
               Also tonight there has been discussion about the 
             wildlife up in the 1002 area. Since Alaska oil production 
             began nearly three decades ago, the caribou herds have 
             increased an average of 450 percent; duck, geese, and 
             other migratory birds are flourishing. As has been 
             mentioned, there are more caribou in Alaska than there are 
             people. The caribou are doing fine. They hope it is not 
             going to be another bad bug year, but the caribou are 
             thriving.
               When we get right down to what ANWR is about to the 
             Alaskan people, it is about economic opportunity; it is 
             about real jobs for them. But I don't suggest that only my 
             State is going to benefit, that the only reason we should 
             open ANWR is so people in the State of Alaska can have 
             jobs. This is jobs for the Nation. This is jobs for 
             America.
               By opening the Coastal Plain as intended by President 
             Eisenhower, we would create hundreds of thousands of jobs 
             nationwide, employ thousands of union and nonunion members 
             in many States, and produce $2.1 billion in the first few 
             years alone for the Federal Treasury.
               Going back to the jobs I mentioned, it is not just 
             Alaska. There was a study done in Alaska by probably the 
             most reputable analyst in the State, the McDowell Group. 
             They did an assessment of ANWR-developed-related 
             employment throughout the United States. They base their 
             numbers on $36-a-barrel oil. But given that price range 
             throughout the 50 States, it is estimated that a total of 
             575,000 jobs would be created across the country.
               We are talking today, tomorrow, and the following day 
             about the President's economic stimulus plan, the economic 
             growth plan. I am here to tell you, if we want economic 
             growth, if we want economic stimulus, we need jobs. And 
             575,000 jobs across the country is nothing to shake a 
             stick at.
               It is not just jobs on the west coast. Just pick a 
             number here. Pennsylvania: 27,000 jobs; Tennessee--the 
             good Senator was here speaking earlier: 11,000 jobs are 
             estimated to be available in Tennessee.
               The sponsor of this amendment from California--
             California will see 63,000 jobs. The Senator from 
             Washington was here earlier: 10,000 jobs in Washington.
               You can go down the list. There is no State that somehow 
             or other does not stand to gain if we are able to open 
             ANWR.
               You say, how are we really getting 10,000 jobs in 
             Washington or 63,000 jobs in California? We are going to 
             need the pipes, the valves, the drill bits, the trucks--
             everything else that goes along with drilling and opening 
             a new field and connecting these pipes. So these are real.
               It is not an accident that this is included in this 
             budget resolution. It is part of the President's priority 
             and agenda because this is about jobs.
               Many of the unions across the country have truly 
             identified this as a jobs issue and are working very hard 
             on this issue. To many of the families who are struggling, 
             this is a family issue.
               We talk about the caribou and we are concerned about the 
             caribou and we care for the wildlife. But the fact is, you 
             have to have money to buy your kids shoes and put food on 
             the table, and only the jobs can provide that.
               The jobs that will come will be real jobs with real 
             wages for people in my State. To hear the opponents of 
             ANWR talk, you would think that they want Alaska to be 
             locked up and to be just this big, beautiful tourist 
             attraction so they can come and visit. That is nice. We 
             want to have visitors to our State. We want people to come 
             up and see Prudhoe Bay. We want them to come and see the 
             good job that we do.
               But this thought process implies that they want 
             California or Massachusetts or New York or other States to 
             produce tangible items for our economy. The jobs Alaskan 
             residents, my constituents, will get are carrying bags for 
             these people when they come to visit as a tourist. Those 
             are not the kinds of jobs that I want for my constituents. 
             Those are not the kinds of jobs that Alaskans want. We 
             want real jobs. We want the ability to create real jobs.
               It is demeaning and it is unfair to say that 
             Massachusetts can keep its 20,000 petroleum-based jobs; 
             that New Jersey can keep its 27,000 petroleum-industry 
             jobs; and New York can keep its 36,000 petroleum-industry 
             jobs, while Alaska supposedly looks to other alternatives. 
             Why is it OK for everybody else to do it, and yet in 
             Alaska for some reason we are not responsible, we can't 
             handle it, we don't do it right, we need to lock it up and 
             preserve it because it is the last Serengeti?
               By opening ANWR, we are trying to save the 11,000 
             petroleum-industry jobs that we have in Alaska. We want to 
             provide other States with similar opportunities.
               When it comes to resource development in Alaska, we are 
             not looking to spoil the environment. We want the 
             environmental safeguards. We want to make sure we do it 
             right. We want to make sure that we, those of us who 
             choose to live there, are going to continue to want to 
             stay there because it is the quality of life that attracts 
             us. We don't want to circumvent any environmental 
             requirements or processes. We want to use the most safe 
             and most clean and most expensive technology available to 
             get this oil out of the ground.
               I have lived my whole life in Alaska. I was born there. 
             I am third generation. In fact I am the first person to 
             represent Alaska in the Congress who was actually born in 
             the State. I was born during territorial days. I have no 
             desire to see the environment of my State ruined.
               My husband came to Alaska because he was attracted by 
             the beauty of the State, by the fishing, by the wildlife. 
             My husband and I are raising two sons who live for hunting 
             and fishing and camping. This is why we are in Alaska. I 
             would be the last person to suggest that we should do 
             anything to ruin our environment.
               But I have seen what we can do. I know we can do it 
             right. And we can balance the development with the 
             environment. They are not contradictory terms.
               It is difficult to stand here as a new Senator and go 
             over these arguments, but I cannot imagine what it must be 
             like to stand in the senior Senator's shoes, and having 
             had this argument and this discussion and this debate 
             about opening ANWR for the past 20, 25 years, and to hear 
             the same concerns and the same argument and the same 
             discussion, and still our oil is locked up. It is a long 
             time to be talking about this. It is a long time.
               If we had been successful--actually, they were 
             successful in 1995, when ANWR passed the Congress, but 
             President Clinton vetoed that ANWR legislation in 1995. If 
             he had not vetoed that, the oil from ANWR would soon be on 
             its way down the existing Alaska oil pipeline in time for 
             who knows what lies ahead.
               I have mentioned we have a lot to look forward to in the 
             years ahead, and it is not necessarily an oil-based 
             economy. We have mentioned that the President's 
             initiative, the hydrogen initiative to power our cars, is 
             out there. We are looking forward to that. But we have 
             also talked about the need to continue with our oil 
             reserves for all those other resources and products that 
             we have out there.
               I have not touched on the desire, the concern, the 
             request from Alaskans. Alaskans are looking at ANWR and 
             saying: Well, wait a minute. Why is it so difficult? If we 
             are willing to accept the development in our State, why 
             can't we move forward with this?
               We listen very well and very closely to the arguments 
             and concerns in other locales. In the Midwest, right now, 
             they are saying: No, don't drill in the Great Lakes. We 
             don't want to do that. And I would say: If you don't want 
             drilling in the Great Lakes, and you are the people who 
             live there, and you say, no, we don't want it in our area, 
             then, no, there is no need to go there.
               But in Alaska, we have said: We accept it. We want it. 
             We are here to help. Yet we are being turned down. We are 
             being refused. We are being blocked by outside interests 
             that seem to think they know better than Alaskans about 
             what we need to do.
               In Alaska, we do not have this NIMBY syndrome. We are 
             saying: Put it in our backyard. We will accept it. We will 
             be responsible stewards for this environment and for this 
             resource. Let us help you.
               We respect and defer to the opinions of those in other 
             parts of the country who do not want drilling near them. 
             All that we ask is that same deference be afforded to us.
               I agree with many of my colleagues that we need to 
             increase our use of renewable fuel sources. We have had 
             some good discussions with several Senators about 
             biodiesel, ethanol. But the Senators from those States 
             also need to recognize that in order to grow the crops 
             necessary to make these renewable fuels, they are going to 
             need fertilizers.
               Fertilizers come from natural gas. I have been talking, 
             for most of the evening, about oil. But we need to also 
             keep in mind that ANWR has vast deposits of natural gas, 
             as much as 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that 
             could be used to mitigate the unusually high natural gas 
             prices we are seeing.
               Yesterday we received a letter from the American Farm 
             Bureau Federation. In it the Farm Bureau requests support 
             of environmentally sound energy development in ANWR and 
             supports its inclusion in the Senate budget resolution. 
             They recognize it is critical, it is important, for the 
             farmers of America. If they are going to get the 
             fertilizer they need, they are going to need that natural 
             gas from somewhere. They are projecting ahead; they are 
             anticipating that demand, and asking that we assist with 
             the supply. And ANWR can assist with the supply.
               Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter 
             from the American Farm Bureau be printed in the Record.
               There being no objection, the material was ordered to be 
             printed in the Record, as follows:

                               American Farm Bureau Federation,
                                     Washington, DC, March 17, 2003.
             Hon. Lisa A. Murkowski,
             U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
               Dear Senator Murkowski: The American Farm Bureau 
             Federation requests that you support environmentally sound 
             energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 
             (ANWR) and support its inclusion in the Senate Budget 
             Resolution.
               America's farmers and ranchers utilize numerous energy 
             sources in the most efficient ways possible to grow the 
             products that help feed and clothe the world. Current 
             world circumstances have clearly pointed out this nation's 
             over-reliance of foreign sources to meet our energy needs. 
             American agriculture will spend from $1-2 billion more 
             this year than last and that is just to complete the 
             planting season and to get a crop in the ground. The 
             instability of current energy prices negatively affects 
             each and every aspect of agricultural production. From the 
             fuel we use directly to the natural gas that is turned 
             into fertilizer for crops to the diesel used in the 
             locomotives and barges to transport agricultural 
             commodities to processors and consumers; we are all 
             reliant on affordable energy.
               A balanced national energy agenda, complete with new 
             technology advancements, renewable energy allowances and a 
             significant increase in the domestic production of oil and 
             gas supplies will help meet the energy needs of America's 
             growing economy and population while providing a more 
             reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible 
             energy supply.
               AFBF supports the environmentally sound energy 
             development in ANWR and urges you to oppose any attempt to 
             remove this language from the budget resolution.
                Sincerely,
                                                  Bob Stallman,
                                                          President.

               Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I was commenting a moment 
             ago about the desire or the willingness of Alaskans to 
             take on ANWR development, that we are receptive to it. 
             Earlier, on the floor this evening, the good Senator from 
             California mentioned, and I believe had printed in the 
             Record, a statement of opposition to drilling from a 
             tribal entity. I have not seen that. I am not certain from 
             where it came.
               But I would like to also have in the Record that the 
             Alaska Federation of Natives, which is the federation of 
             all the Natives in the State of Alaska, has passed a 
             resolution in support of the opening of ANWR and urging 
             the Congress ``to adopt legislation to open the Coastal 
             Plain area of ANWR to an environmentally responsible 
             program of oil and gas leasing and development.'' I ask 
             unanimous consent that this resolution be printed in the 
             Record.
               There being no objection, the material was ordered to be 
             printed in the Record, as follows:
              Alaska Federation of Natives, Inc., Board of Directors, 
                                  Resolution 95-05
               Whereas, the members of the Alaska Congressional 
             Delegation, as representatives of the people and in their 
             capacity as newly elected Chairmen of the Senate and House 
             Committees having jurisdiction over matters related to 
             Alaska Native people and the management of the energy and 
             natural resources on public lands, have requested the 
             Alaska Federation of Natives' Board of Directors to adopt 
             a resolution in support of the opening of the Coastal 
             Plain; and
               Whereas, the Governor of the State of Alaska has 
             requested the Alaska Federation of Natives' Board of 
             Directors to adopt a resolution in support of the opening 
             of the Coastal Plain of ANWR, with a proviso for the 
             protection of the Porcupine Caribou Herd and the 
             subsistence needs for the Native people of Alaska; and
               Whereas, the Alaska State Legislature has adopted a 
             resolution calling upon the U.S. Congress to adopt 
             legislation that would open the Coastal Plain of the 
             Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to responsible oil and gas 
             leasing and development, with protection for the Porcupine 
             Caribou Herd and the subsistence needs for the Native 
             people of Alaska; and
               Whereas, North Slope oil production has declined from 
             more than two million BD in 1990, to less than 1.6 million 
             BD today; and
               Whereas, revenues from oil production have been 
             providing about 85 percent of the State's revenues to fund 
             programs to meet the educational, social welfare, and 
             other needs of Alaska's people; and
               Whereas, the small 1.5 million acre Coastal Plain study 
             area of ANWR, adjacent of Prudhoe Bay and other producing 
             fields is the nation's best prospect for major new oil and 
             gas discoveries; and
               Whereas, opening the Coastal Plain area to an 
             environmentally responsible and carefully regulated 
             program of environmental oil and gas leasing would provide 
             important revenue benefits to the U.S. and to the State of 
             Alaska; and
               Whereas, opening the Coastal Plain will create new jobs 
             for Alaska Native people, new contracting opportunities 
             for Native-owned companies, and stimulate the State's 
             local and regional economies: Now, therefore, be it
               Resolved, That the members of the Board of Directors of 
             the Alaska Federation of Natives calls upon the Congress 
             of the United States to adopt legislation to open the 
             Coastal Plain area of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge 
             to an environmentally responsible program of oil and gas 
             leasing and development.

               Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, this is, obviously, an 
             issue that generates a lot of passion. We have seen that 
             on the floor this evening. It has generated a lot of facts 
             and figures. I would caution people to look critically at 
             the facts. Make sure they add up.
               We have heard discussion from a couple of different 
             individuals tonight about the amount of oil that is out 
             there. And is it a 6-month supply? And, if so, we surely 
             should not open up ANWR.
               As was pointed out by my fellow Senator from Alaska, 
             that is assuming there is no other source produced 
             domestically or used domestically. It is an overt effort 
             to skew the facts to one side's advantage.
               In a debate such as this, it is critical that we know 
             that our facts are sound, that our science is sound. So I 
             ask people not to be swayed by the emotion. Caribou are 
             beautiful animals, but I can tell you, we are caring for 
             the caribou, our caribou are doing fine, our caribou are 
             multiplying at a wondrous rate, and they are doing it 
             around the areas of development.
               So it is important to try to show the rest of the 
             country what ANWR is. But keep in mind, these little, tiny 
             brief snapshots of a flowered field, with beautiful 
             mountains in the background, are not where the 1002 area 
             is that we are intending to drill. We are intending to 
             drill an area that is the size of the Pinehurst Golf 
             Resort in North Carolina, in an area that looks like the 
             Moon.
               I appreciate the hour. I appreciate the attention to 
             this issue because in my State there is nothing more 
             important that is happening. I would certainly encourage 
             my colleagues tomorrow to listen intently to the debate.
               I hope we move forward on oil and gas exploration along 
             Alaska's Coastal Plain and oppose the Boxer amendment.
                                     Mark Pryor
                                            Thursday, February 27, 2003
               Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that is 
             important to many people throughout the State of Arkansas 
             and indeed throughout this country. I rise to express my 
             disappointment with the budget as it pertains to law 
             enforcement programs and, in particular, community 
             policing.
               I believe the budget shortchanges smaller communities 
             and grossly underfunds programs that have put more police 
             officers on the street, reduced crime in rural areas, 
             curbed drug abuse, and put at-risk youth back on the right 
             track.
               Mr. President, this budget cuts funding to the Community 
             Oriented Policing Services--known by its acronym COPS--by 
             85 percent. That is 85 percent. This program was funded at 
             $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2002. President Bush proposes 
             only $164 million for the COPS Program in fiscal year 
             2004. The administration's budget request for COPS 
             represents a 100-percent cut to the COPS Universal Hiring 
             Program, and a 100-percent cut to the ``COPS in School'' 
             Program. In fact, the only program that is funded under 
             this budget is the COPS technology program, and even that 
             has been cut by 66 percent.
               From its inception, COPS has awarded just over $8 
             billion to local and State law enforcement agencies across 
             the country. With grant money, departments have hired over 
             110,000 community police officers, in addition to 
             purchasing technological upgrades and equipment.
               The COPS Program was established to focus on crime 
             prevention and community engagement. This breaks with 
             traditional notions of law enforcement by moving from 
             reactive responses to proactive problem solving, focusing 
             on the causes of crime and disorder. Community-oriented 
             policing requires much more interaction on the 
             neighborhood and community level than previous policing 
             efforts.
               In Arkansas, we have been able to hire over 1,300 
             additional officers with the $83 million we have received. 
             We have also used that money to combat methamphetamine use 
             and to implement the COPS Program in schools.
               A February 3 article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 
             my State's largest newspaper, stated the reason given by 
             this administration for cutting funding is that COPS has 
             ``not produced conclusive results in lowering crime.''
               I speak today not only as a Senator, but also as the 
             former chief law enforcement officer of Arkansas, and I 
             wholeheartedly disagree with this administration's 
             assessment of these very important programs.
               I have worked closely with law enforcement officers of 
             my State to make Arkansas a safer place and a better place 
             to raise a family. They are strong leaders in their 
             communities and demonstrate the character and the courage 
             that define us as a nation. Together, we are able to keep 
             over 1,000 criminals off the street due to their work on 
             the front lines.
               Oftentimes, these police officers work in smaller rural 
             communities. They operate under tighter budgets with 
             smaller staffs than most of their urban counterparts. 
             Nonetheless, they put their lives on the line every single 
             day. They make real differences in people's lives, and 
             they do it with professionalism and an attitude of public 
             service. They do it because it is the right thing to do. 
             They do not do it because it is easy or because it is 
             pleasant, and, Lord knows, they do not do it for the 
             money. They are not asking for much in return.
               I wish to take this time to thank all law enforcement 
             officials for the work they do. I especially thank Sheriff 
             Marty Montgomery of Faulkner County, Sheriff Ron Ball of 
             Hot Spring County, and Sheriff Chuck Lange of the Arkansas 
             Sheriffs' Association. They are in Washington today as 
             part of their national association's meeting. I thank them 
             not only for their commitment to public service and to 
             keeping our communities safer--combined they have 87 years 
             of law enforcement experience--but I also thank them for 
             sharing with me their insights into the COPS Program and 
             helping to demonstrate just how important the program is 
             to them and other local law enforcement.
               You see, Mr. President, to them, this funding could mean 
             the difference between life and death. This past Saturday 
             at 7:30 p.m., Faulkner County sheriff's deputy, Brad 
             Brocker, was called to investigate a suspicious person 
             call in a high drug-use area. When Deputy Brocker arrived 
             on the scene, he was met with three bullets to the heart 
             in the upper chest. Luckily, he was wearing his 
             bulletproof vest, but he risked his life to make his 
             community and, yes, even his Nation, safer and better. But 
             there is more to the story.
               The Kevlar vest he was wearing was paid for by Federal 
             grant money, and Deputy Brocker was originally hired as a 
             deputy under the COPS Program. Putting this Federal money 
             back into our communities works. In fact, Faulkner County, 
             with its 90,000 citizens and spanning 700 square miles, 
             has used COPS funding to hire 12 officers in the past few 
             years. Twelve may not sound like a lot, but it constitutes 
             half of the Faulkner County sheriff's police force. It has 
             made a difference.
               In the last 7 years, the arrest rates for burglary, 
             robbery, and methamphetamine production have all gone up. 
             Any one of my colleagues who lives in a rural State can 
             surely tell you about their problems with the use and the 
             production of methamphetamine. It has become an epidemic 
             throughout rural America.
               Last year alone, the Faulkner County Sheriff's Office 
             seized 44 labs and shut them down for good. Sheriff 
             Montgomery is proud of that accomplishment, as he should 
             be, but he warns that by cutting law enforcement programs, 
             such as COPS, the steps they have taken forward will be 
             lost, and they cannot sustain the manpower and law 
             enforcement presence in their county.
               I believe we have a duty to support legislation, 
             programs, and budgets to address the challenges facing law 
             enforcement agencies in rural areas in Arkansas and all 
             across the country, in communities such as Malvern, a 
             small city in southwest Arkansas. Richard Taft is the 
             police chief of the Malvern Police Department. Mr. Taft 
             has 32 years of experience in law enforcement and 10 years 
             as Malvern's police chief. When Chief Taft took over in 
             1993, the Malvern police force consisted of 14 people 
             responsible for protecting a city of over 10,000 citizens. 
             As Chief Taft put it to me one day: I didn't have enough 
             officers to protect my officers, much less the citizens of 
             Malvern.
               In 1993, according to Chief Taft, crime was rampant. 
             Robberies, drive-by shootings, and burglaries occurred on 
             a weekly basis. Since instituting the COPS Program and 
             utilizing its grant funding, crime is down. The Malvern 
             police force today is 22 people strong. With the 
             additional manpower, Malvern has assembled a special crime 
             team with the ability to respond to critical incidents, 
             including chemical spills and missing persons. They did 
             not have that ability before. COPS funding has allowed the 
             Malvern Police Department to free up some of their money 
             for other necessities, such as computers and radios.
               Chief Taft says: ``Without the COPS Program, I wouldn't 
             have a police force.''
               Yet this administration says there is no conclusive 
             evidence that the COPS Program works? I disagree with 
             that. More important, there are scores of law enforcement 
             officials who would also stand up to dispute that claim.
               In 1993, Little Rock, AR, had the highest violent crime 
             rate per capita in the country. By working with the 
             Federal Government, using the COPS Program, and their own 
             additional hires, the Little Rock Police Department 
             bolstered their force and violent crime has dropped by 60 
             percent.
               Chuck Lange, the head of the Arkansas Sheriffs' 
             Association, knows the significant impact the COPS Program 
             has had statewide--and I am sure sheriffs in other States 
             can tell you the same thing--by putting more police 
             officers on the street. He knows that more officers have 
             helped shorten response time. That is especially important 
             in sprawling rural communities. He knows that time is not 
             a luxury afforded to crime victims. I know it as well. It 
             may be because my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and 
             my great-great-grandfather were all sheriffs of Ouachita 
             County.
               Hot Spring Sheriff Ron Ball told me that in his county 
             the COPS Program has enabled him to direct more time and 
             resources to curbing domestic violence.
               He knows that if his department doesn't do a better job 
             of protecting the abused, they have nowhere else to turn.
               And these law enforcement officers all know and have all 
             told me that if we let these drastic COPS funding cuts 
             stand, rural America will suffer.
               The list of law enforcement officials opposed to these 
             cuts is long, but the opposition is not only limited to 
             law enforcement. There are many mayors, community 
             activists, and school administrators who also realize the 
             importance of this program; school administrators like Dr. 
             Benny Gooden.
               Dr. Gooden is the superintendent of schools in Fort 
             Smith, AR. He oversees 26 schools with 12,500 students. 
             Dr. Gooden knows how successful the COPS in Schools 
             Program has been. He knows that COPS is an asset to this 
             community and to his schools. The presence of friendly, 
             approachable police officers, known as school resource 
             officers, on their campuses and in their neighborhoods has 
             had a calming effect on Fort Smith schools.
               Since the implementation of the COPS Program in Fort 
             Smith schools, Dr. Gooden has witnessed a decline in 
             violent incidents. Over the past few years suspensions 
             have decreased by 65 percent. Expulsions have been reduced 
             by 80 percent. The drop-out rate has been cut in half.
               When talking about the positive effect of the COPS in 
             Schools Program, Dr. Gooden calls it a powerful 
             relationship; a win-win for both the schools and the 
             community. Because the police officers are in the 
             community and in the schools and are connected to the 
             students and their families, officers can better identify 
             and proactively defuse any potential problems there may 
             be.
               Oftentimes problems that are found in schools begin in 
             the neighborhood and in the home. Police officers in Fort 
             Smith recognize this and are in a better position to 
             resolve such problems.
               Dr. Gooden has also witnessed, first-hand, the 
             affirmative impact of this program on a child's 
             educational experience. The officers interact with 
             students. Some officers have offices in the schools. They 
             are invited to school activities. These officers do not 
             just show up when there is trouble, they are positive role 
             models for Fort Smith's children and are involved in their 
             lives. They spend time with students and in the community 
             when there is no trouble and that presence can make all 
             the difference.
               These positive results are not limited to Fort Smith nor 
             are they only appreciated by the administrators. As 
             Arkansas Attorney General, I spent a lot of time in 
             schools talking to our young people, and more importantly, 
             listening. Over and over the students told me how much 
             they liked having school resource officers on campus. It 
             made them feel safer, it provided a needed role model and 
             it oftentimes provided an adult they could talk to. It 
             showed our children that their community cared about them 
             and gave them a much better perspective on law 
             enforcement.
               We must also not forget the importance of these police 
             officers as an integral part of our homeland defense and 
             as first responders in the case of terrorist attacks. 
             September 11 changed a lot of things for our country. It 
             woke us to the need of genuine partnerships that involve 
             all segments of our communities, and all levels of 
             government. We all have a role in keeping our community 
             safe, and overall when we talk about homeland security, we 
             need to give serious thought to our law enforcement needs.
               Unfortunately, we saw how September 11 strained the 
             resources, and the budgets, of many towns and cities. The 
             administration's law enforcement budget does not help that 
             problem. Our civilian authorities must be able to respond 
             to whatever may confront them in the future, but how can 
             they properly respond, when they are given a budget that 
             cuts deep into their existence? The irony is that I have 
             heard Secretary Ridge speak many times about how important 
             local law enforcement agencies are to homeland security, 
             but at the very moment when our Nation needs them most, we 
             are drastically cutting assistance to them.
               The Federal Government must ensure that local 
             governments are given the resources to complete their task 
             and that we share the responsibilities for homeland 
             security wisely and fairly. I know that Democrats and 
             Republicans alike agree with this. I know Secretary Ridge 
             agrees with this. I know that President Bush agrees with 
             this.
               President Bush said on February 20 regarding the 2003 
             omnibus appropriations that he was concerned that the 
             Congress had failed to provide over $1 billion in funds 
             for State and local law enforcement and emergency 
             personnel. He went on to lament that the shortfall for 
             homeland security first responder programs was more than 
             $2.2 billion.
               For the record, I share President Bush's concern, but 
             shortchanging our local law enforcement efforts by 
             underfunding the critical, popular and effective COPS 
             Program is not the answer. I take a line from Chief Taft 
             of the Malvern Police Department, who put it best when he 
             said: ``Doing away with the COPS Program, when we are so 
             concerned with homeland security, is the wrong thing to 
             do.'' I could not agree more.
               Much is made of the word ``hero.'' Before September 11, 
             to pick up a magazine or to put on the television, hero 
             was synonymous with professional athletes, movie stars, or 
             musicians. But September 11 reminded us that real heroes 
             are right in our own backyard. While everyone was rushing 
             out of the World Trade Center, EMT, firefighters and 
             police officers were rushing in. That is the definition of 
             ``hero.''
               Local law enforcement officers protect our communities, 
             our homes and our families from the threat of violent 
             crime. Simply put, they stand up for justice. I believe we 
             must do more to stand up for them. They need funding to do 
             their jobs properly and deliver the same quality service 
             that our citizens expect and deserve, whether they live in 
             New York City, or Des Arc, AR.
               During the upcoming budget debate, I will support 
             increasing funding for the COPS Program and other law 
             enforcement programs. I would urge my colleagues to do the 
             same. I also plan to be a proud co-sponsor of Senator Joe 
             Biden's legislation to reauthorize the COPS Program.
               We need to build on what we know works and develop 
             initiatives that respond to the law enforcement needs of 
             our communities. The COPS Program works and deserves 
             adequate funding. These communities who benefit from this 
             program deserve it as well.
               I yield the floor.
                                   John E. Sununu
                                            Wednesday, February 5, 2003
               Mr. President, today I join my colleagues and millions 
             around the world to express our enormous sorrow at the 
             loss of the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia and to 
             extend sympathy to the crews' families and friends.
               This tragedy, like the loss of the Space Shuttle 
             Challenger 17 years ago, has left an empty space in our 
             hearts. We struggle for the words that might help to make 
             sense of the events we witnessed last Saturday.
               A return to Earth that we have come to view as 
             ``routine,'' instead has reminded us of the fragility of 
             life. We are all subject to the flaws of man and the 
             vagaries of nature. Yet these seven brave men and women 
             accepted great risk as they strove to expand the 
             intellectual capital of all mankind.
               For thousands of years, the heavens have inspired, 
             intrigued, and called us to explore their boundaries. This 
             unending quest for knowledge is the very essence of what 
             makes us human. It is a flame that burns so bright. It 
             burns so bright that not even the depth of this tragedy or 
             the shock of our loss can quench the desire to learn, to 
             seek and to explore.
               There is no doubt in my mind that we will move forward 
             to expand and strengthen America's space program. And 
             through the investigation that has just begun, we will 
             find out what caused this accident and then we will fix 
             it. But today, we mourn for those whom we have lost and 
             offer comfort to those who have been left behind.
               The astronauts who fly the space shuttle are a unique 
             and unparalleled breed of men and women. They inspire us 
             with courage and intellect, and they sacrifice in service 
             to their country and profession. But perhaps their 
             greatest service of all is rendered when they reach out to 
             future generations and plant the seeds of curiosity in a 
             young student's mind.
               I have visited classrooms in the company of astronauts 
             to see faces of children alive with wonder and awe. Like 
             any one of us, our children want to know what it is like 
             in space, what it is like to be a scientist, what it is 
             like to be an explorer.
               Seventeen years ago when the Challenger was lost, among 
             the seven astronauts was a teacher from New Hampshire, 
             Christa McAuliffe, who was dedicated to nurturing and 
             inspiring students not just in New Hampshire but all 
             across the country. Her spirit and enthusiasm has been 
             captured for future generations in the Christa McAuliffe 
             Planetarium in Concord, NH.
               Each time I visit the planetarium, I am reminded that a 
             child's curiosity grows into a lifetime search for answers 
             to the great questions of our age. As long as we have 
             astronauts to engage this curiosity, the quest for 
             knowledge will endure and our space program will thrive.
               Generations of Americans have been inspired by their 
             courage and vision, but today, thoughts and prayers of 
             millions are with the families and friends of Columbia's 
             crew. The sadness of this moment may well one day fade, 
             but the memory of these seven heroic figures will remain 
             forever strong.
               I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
                                   James M. Talent
                                                 Friday, August 1, 2003
               Mr. President, it is my pleasure to speak to the Senate 
             today about a subject on which I have risen to speak 
             before, a very important piece of legislation that I think 
             has the potential to solve what is probably the No. 1 
             problem that small business people and their employees 
             confront today. I am talking about the bill which I have 
             co-sponsored along with Senator Snowe, who is the chairman 
             of the Small Business Committee, and others. It is a bill 
             to allow small business people to create association 
             health plans.
               This bill is not a government program. In a time of 
             great deficits, it does not require us to spend any money. 
             It is going to take a long step toward solving the 
             problems of the uninsured, reducing the number of the 
             uninsured, and getting working people better health 
             insurance at less cost. It does not cost the taxpayers 
             anything because all it does is allow people to work 
             together and do for themselves, as small business people 
             and employees of small businesses, what big companies and 
             employees of big companies can already do.
               Most people in the United States who have health 
             insurance are a part of a big national pool--almost 
             everybody is. You are either in Medicaid or Medicare or 
             the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan or covered by a 
             labor union plan or a multi-employer plan with a labor 
             union or you work for a big company. If you are in any of 
             those situations, you are covered by health insurance, and 
             it is health insurance where you are a part of a big 
             national pool.
               The only people who are not in that situation are people 
             who work for small businesses. I define that very broadly. 
             That includes farmers. It includes people who are self-
             employed consultants operating out of their own home. They 
             are in the small group market. They have to buy insurance. 
             If they own or run a small business or a farm, they are 
             buying insurance for small groups of people, 5 people or 
             10 people or 20 people or 25 people.
               Insurance works better when you spread the risk across 
             as large a pool as possible. It doesn't take an advanced 
             degree to understand that. All association health plans 
             do--and it is very important what they do--is simply allow 
             the employees of small businesses to get the same 
             efficiencies and economies of scale that employees of big 
             business already enjoy. All I would do is allow trade 
             associations--the Farm Bureau, the NFIB, the Chamber of 
             Commerce, the National Restaurant Association--to sponsor 
             health insurance coverage nationally the same way the 
             human resources side of a big company would do.
               Let's take a big company such as Emerson Electric, a 
             great company in Missouri, or Sprint, or Anheuser Busch, 
             all headquartered there. They have a human resources side, 
             an employee benefits side. They contract with insurance 
             companies nationally; they may have a self-insured side. 
             Then their employees all over the country can enjoy an 
             option in different plans as part of pools of 5 or 10 or 
             20 or 30,000 people. The administrative costs of such 
             plans are much lower because they are spread across a much 
             wider base of employees. They have much greater purchasing 
             power and negotiating power when dealing with the big 
             insurance companies. They have the competitive 
             possibilities of self-insurance. So insurance is better in 
             that situation and it costs less.
               It doesn't mean they don't have problems, but you are a 
             lot better off there than you would be and are right now 
             if you are struggling as a small business owner or the 
             employee of a small business.
               Of the 44 million people uninsured in the country, about 
             two-thirds either own a small business or work for a small 
             business or are dependents of somebody who owns or works 
             for a small business. I am including farmers. Then there 
             are tens of millions of other people who may have health 
             insurance through a small business, but it is barebones 
             health insurance. It is not what it should be because the 
             costs are so high, and they are going up every year.
               There is a human side to this. Senators who have not 
             done this--I imagine most Senators have--go out and talk 
             to people who work in small businesses or run small 
             businesses. I guarantee you, they will tell you the No. 1 
             problem they are confronting, short and long term, is the 
             rising cost of health insurance and increasing 
             unavailability. This hits people where they live.
               We have had too many layoffs in Missouri. We have lost 
             more jobs in Missouri in a 1-year period than any other 
             State. There are a lot of bad results connected with the 
             layoff, obviously. But I think maybe the first that hits a 
             family when they lose a job or are concerned about losing 
             a job, particularly if it is a family with kids, is: What 
             about my health insurance? What do I do for that? It is as 
             important as people's wages.
               Folks in the small business sector, employees of people 
             in the small business sector have labored too long in a 
             market that does not work. It is dominated by a few 
             companies, and they are acting more and more like 
             monopolists, raising prices higher and higher, providing 
             fewer and fewer services, less and less quality insurance. 
             We need to do something about it. We can do it, if this 
             Senate will pass association health plans. It passed in 
             the House by 100 votes last month--strong bipartisan 
             support. It has passed several years in a row in the 
             House. The President supports it. We in the Senate ought 
             to pass it.
               I fought on the floor of the Senate for it. I will 
             continue to do so. It is a great bill. We have great 
             sponsors. We will take up the debate again in the fall. I 
             am very hopeful we can pass it.
               It is no secret--and Senators know this because I have 
             been talking to them and I know how strongly they are 
             being lobbied on both sides, lobbied in opposition to 
             association health plans. Who is at the core of the 
             lobbying effort against association health plans? It is 
             the Blue Cross Insurance Company. It is no secret why. 
             Blue Cross is dominant in many States. It is one of the 
             few big insurance companies in almost every State that 
             currently provides health insurance to small businesses. 
             They have a big stake in not having association health 
             plans enter the market to compete. It would be a huge 
             competitive force. It would take business away from them 
             or cause them to lower their prices in order to keep the 
             business.
               I don't begrudge them or anybody else their 
             opportunities or rights to lobby on legislation that comes 
             before this Senate. They have lobbied. They spent $4.3 
             million last year on lobbyists. I don't know how much of 
             that was spent on association health plans. We do know 
             this is the No. 1 priority for that company--to stop this 
             bill. We can all infer why. I don't begrudge them that. 
             But the debate ought to be done honestly, and it ought to 
             be done within the limits of fair play. That is not 
             happening. I want the Senate to know about it.
               First, I said it is not being done within the limits of 
             honesty. The No. 1 charge being brought against 
             association health plans is not only not true, it is 
             exactly the inversion of the truth. It is exactly the 
             opposite of the truth. If you want to fool somebody, tell 
             them something that not only isn't true but is the 
             opposite of the truth. Try and sell them on that.
               The No. 1 charge against association health plans is 
             that they would result in cherry picking; that is, that 
             small businesses that are healthy would want to go into 
             the association health plans; small businesses with 
             employees who are sick would not want to go into 
             association health plans. That is the exact opposite of 
             the truth. I think everybody who currently is trapped in 
             the small group market is going to want to be a part of an 
             association health plan. Who would not want to get 
             insurance through a big national pool as opposed to a 
             small group of 5 or 10 people, if you could do it? It is 
             simply economics--more efficient operation, better 
             operation, lower costs for everybody. By our estimates, it 
             will lower costs for small business, on average, 10 to 20 
             percent and reduce the number of uninsured by millions. It 
             will provide good quality health insurance to others who 
             right now are laboring with bare-bones insurance because 
             the market is so difficult. Everybody is going to benefit. 
             The people who will benefit especially are people who are 
             trapped in small groups where somebody has become sick.
               I have talked about this subject and toured scores and 
             scores of small businesses. I have brought up this charge 
             of cherry picking. I say to people: If you had a history 
             of medical problems and you had a choice of working for a 
             big company which provides health insurance the way an 
             association health plan would or, on the other hand, 
             working for a small company which is trapped in this small 
             group market and that was all you knew about the two 
             opportunities--big company, national pool; small company, 
             small group market--and you were sick, for which one would 
             you want to work? I have never had a single person say: I 
             want to work for the small business; I think I am going to 
             get better health insurance there.
               One of the big competitive advantages big businesses 
             have over small businesses is that generally they offer 
             better health insurance. Everybody in the job market knows 
             it. I have had a lot of small business people tell me: We 
             have lost employees to big companies on the health 
             insurance issue. We have not been able to hire people we 
             want because they went to work for a big company because 
             they thought they would get better health insurance.
               I don't begrudge the larger companies. But why should 
             small businesses and their employees not have the same 
             opportunities? This will benefit everybody in the small 
             business market, but it is going to benefit most the 
             people who are ill, or employers who are struggling along 
             with people who are ill and are doing the best they can to 
             provide good health insurance.
               Here is another reason it is not association health 
             plans that will cherry pick. The legislation requires that 
             they take everybody, all comers. Must offer/must carry. 
             Join the association and you get the health insurance. 
             They cannot screen you out because you have somebody who 
             has cancer or heart disease or something like that.
               Mr. President, it is the big interest companies now who 
             are cherry picking. Just talk to people who run small 
             businesses. When somebody in their business gets sick and 
             files a claim, their rates get jacked up or they get 
             canceled. Everybody knows it. I could give a lot of 
             examples. One example is Janet Poppen, a small business 
             owner from St. Louis. Like many small business owners, she 
             wants to do right by her five employees, so she tries to 
             provide them health insurance. How many hours and hours 
             does Janet and people like her spend just on the 
             administrative details? It is hours they need to spend 
             running their small business.
               If we had an association health plan, they would join 
             the trade association, and the trade association has done 
             all that work. It just sends them the papers and they sign 
             up their employees. She had health insurance through Blue 
             Cross/Blue Shield, and one of her employees had the 
             temerity to get sick with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. As soon 
             as she started getting treatment for the cancer, Janet's 
             premiums increased by 16 percent. That is on top of the 
             substantial premium increases that had occurred the year 
             before. Her premiums had gone up 35 percent over 2 years.
               This is not an uncommon story. Everywhere I go, small 
             businesses say that premiums are going up 15, 20, 25 
             percent a year, doubling over 3 years, going up by a third 
             over 2 years. That happened to Janet Poppen, and she is 
             insured by Blue Cross. They are the ones cherry picking. 
             Association health plans are the remedy, and to say 
             otherwise is the exact opposite of the truth.
               One other point, and then I will close. I have 
             trespassed on the Senate's time enough. We ought not to 
             turn this debate, which is one of the most important ones 
             we are going to have in the Senate, into a sweepstakes. 
             Blue Cross is doing that. They have sponsored a Web site. 
             There are other problems as well, but on that Web site 
             they have a sweepstakes. You can enter the sweepstakes to 
             win a trip to Washington for four people, and they will 
             give you $300 cash on top of it. Do you know what you have 
             to do to enter the sweepstakes? You have to click on the 
             place where you can send an e-mail to your Congressman and 
             Senator opposing association health plans. Then you get in 
             the sweepstakes. Then you get a chance to win a trip to 
             Washington--if you will just click on the e-mail and send 
             a letter to Washington opposing association health plans. 
             You don't get anything if you send in a letter supporting 
             association health plans. I will show the Senate where it 
             says enter to win.
               Here is a chart, and this is the Web site now. It says 
             that you can make your voice heard by sending a free fax 
             to Congress. That is what they tell people. They don't 
             tell you what the fax is about, that the fax has to oppose 
             association health plans and support their business 
             interests. Then they have some misrepresentations about 
             association health plans.
               Go to the third chart. This is what you get if you do 
             it. At least you have a chance at this. It is a drawing. 
             The grand prize is a trip for four to Washington, DC, 
             including round-trip coach class air transportation at the 
             U.S. airport nearest the winner's home, double occupancy, 
             standard hotel accommodations, two rooms, a 4-hour 
             Washington, DC, bus tour, shuttle bus airport transfers, 
             and a total of $300 in spending money. It has an 
             approximate retail value of $4,000.
               All you have to do is join Blue Cross, sending in an e-
             mail opposing the association health plans. You don't get 
             to join if you decide you want to support them. You don't 
             get a chance at the sweepstakes then.
               I always encourage people to contact their Congressmen 
             and Senators. I like it when people contact me, even if 
             they disagree with me on something. That gives me a chance 
             to write back and explain my position. I have had great 
             exchanges with constituents that way. But we ought not to 
             give people a monetary incentive one way or another 
             because that means the opinions we are getting are not 
             unnecessarily unbiased, are they?
               I don't blame anybody who wants a shot at a $4,000 trip 
             and participates in a sweepstakes in order to get it. But 
             I sure blame the people who have sponsored that Web site 
             and are distorting the debate on this serious issue before 
             the Senate. And this is a serious issue.
               There are millions and millions of people in this 
             country who don't have health insurance and who need it. 
             Most of them are stuck in a market that isn't working and 
             is dominated by a few competitors, and we have a chance to 
             change that. It doesn't even cost the taxpayers anything. 
             I hope we can do it. They have done it in the House with a 
             bipartisan vote. I hope we can do it in the Senate. At the 
             very least, we need a debate that is conducted honestly, 
             conducted fairly, and that doesn't turn health care into a 
             sweepstakes. I hope after this we will have it.
               I yield the floor.
